Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/401

There was a problem when proofreading this page.
370
The Green Bag.

street ceases. Near to it is the aneienne eour de la Coneiergerie. From the high walls, of a dead, dirty white, the heavilybarred windows of two upper storeys of dun geons look into the court. Here are the windows of the cells of Marie Antoinette, of Robespierre, of Madame Roland, of Andre Chenicr, of Madame du Barry, and of other famous prisoners. The cells of the old Conciergerie were occupied by female prisoners; males being incarcerated in the part called

used for the last night of the Girondins — is the chapel. It is a large vaulted room, with square columns and iron gratings above the columns at one end, gratings which veil windows and suggest dungeons. This chapel {Salie des Girondins) has a sacristy, and this is a small, hard, bare cell, which stands next to that of the queen. This cell is note worthy, because within its walls were passed the last hours of the monster Robespierre. Close to this little cell is another and larger

CELL OF MARIE ANTOINETTK IN THE

Veneeinte eellnlaire, which is not now shown. The Conciergerie was then the ante-chamber of the tribunal, and then the storehouse for the guillotine. It is to-day a modern prison for vulgar crime, and visitors are not allowed to enter any cell in which criminals are con fined. A part of the prison which retains many of its old features is the yard, in which the fountain still exists at which so many ladies washed their linen and their dresses. One of the memorable sites of the Con ciergerie — an apartment which, if furniture and fittings be excepted, remains to-day in the same condition as it was when it was

JNCIl.RGERIE.

one, which is both a dungeon and a shrine. This is le eaehot de Marie Antoinette, the cell in which the unhappy queen passed the latest and the longest time of her stay in the Con ciergerie. When she arrived, General Custine, the soldier-martyr of the Revolution, was turned out of a cell to make room for VAutriehienne and the position of this cell, near the wicket at which prisoners saw their friends, was very disagreeable, since it was mostly surrounded by a noisy crowd, whose filthy language disturbed the ear by day and night. M. Eugene Pottet, assisted by M. Tixier, the director of the Maison de Justice,