since, once again, having returned to the right road, we are not allowed to pursue it."
I have heard a thousand complaints of this kind, and all generally but too well founded. "I have been four years out of Sainte-Pelagie," said one of these prisoners to me. "Since my liberation, I have always worked at the same shop, which proves how steady I must have been, and yet they are not satisfied with me. Well! they have sent me to Bicêtre, although I have done no wrong, and only because I have undergone two years' imprisonment."
This infamous tyranny was doubtless unknown to the préfet, at least I would fain believe so, and yet it was done in his name. Open or secret, the agents were certainly very redoubtable personages, for their reports were received as true: if they arrested a popular man, and described him as a dangerous and incorrigible robber, which was the constant formula, all was settled; the man was convicted to a certainty. It was the golden age for the spies, since every one of these infringements on individual liberty was a prize to them: although this prize was not very extensive. They had a crown for each capture; but what will not a spy do for a crown piece, if there be no danger in the doing? Again, if the sum was small, they looked at the number, and endeavoured to repeat it. On the other hand, those thieves who desired to purchase liberty by their services, denounced equally, whether right or wrong, all those they had known. This was the condition on which they were allowed to remain at Paris; but the prisoners recriminating, they were in their turn compelled to bear them company.
No idea can be formed of the number of individuals whom these detentions have driven into lapses from honesty, which they would have avoided if this abominable system of persecution had been sooner renounced. If they had been left unmolested, they would never have done wrong; but whatever might have been their intentions, they were compulsorily placed in situations
