lights, according to order, they were pelted
with hats and shoes. At last the commandant
decided that the prisoners should
be allowed to fight, and drink, and govern
themselves. The prisoners henceforward
held their own court-martials, and sentenced
pilferers and other offenders to so many
lashes. When they refused to put out the
candles, the gendarmes trampled in the skylights,
and stopped the expense out of the
men's pay. Each prisoner was allowed as
much firewood as he could burn; a pound
of bread and half a pound of beef a day, six
sous every five days, and occasionally some
vegetables. In turn the prisoners had the
privilege of going to the town market,
accompanied by gendarmes, three times a
week. The men were mustered three times
a day, and counted down at night. In summer
they were unlocked at six in the morning,
and locked up at eight o'clock in the
evening; in winter they were shut in at four
in the afternoon, and unlocked at eight in
the morning. The noise all day was intolerable,
the men dancing on the benches, singing,
and carousing. Escapes were frequent,
in spite of all the precautions. In one
attempt a ship's carpenter and a sailor, while
cutting through a door, were bayoneted; in
another, a naval lieutenant was killed by
the breaking of a rope as he descended the
rock.

Verdun, a French fortress of the fourth
class, stands on the Meuse, where it begins
to be navigable, about one hundred and
fifty miles east of Paris, about one hundred
and twenty west of the Rhine, thirty miles
north-west of Bar-le-Duc, and forty miles
from Metz. This town of ten thousand
inhabitants, though partly fortified by Vauban,
is not strong, for it is commanded by
the adjacent hills, and the river is fordable
in several places near the works. Seen from
the north, Verdun rises in an amphitheatre
of trees and houses, crowned by the cathedral,
which towers above the citadel. From
the south, the citadel, the cathedral, the
bishop's palace, and the grand esplanade,
called La Roche, separating the town from
the fortress, form a splendid coup d'œil, and
command a sweeping view over the valley
of the Meuse. The river here divides into
two silver ribbons, and looping round a rich
meadow, reunites in the town, which is
divided into five distinct sections. Verdun
is surrounded by lofty hills, the sides of
which are covered thick with vines, which
yield a pleasant light wine. The retail price
used to be only four sous a bottle, and in
abundant vintages a full cask of it has
often been given for the loan of an empty
one.

Verdun was a place of some consequence
even at the time the Romans entered
Gaul. It is famous in early French history
for the treaty, called after the town, by
which the vast empire of Charlemagne was
divided between his three sons—Louis,
who took all Germany as far as the Rhine;
Charles, who ruled all Gaul south of the
Scheldt, Meuse, Saône, and Rhone; and
Lothaire, who kept Italy and the east of
France. Verdun's earliest historian, Bertraine,
who wrote in 992, considers it to
have been a bishopric as early as 338,
since which time to the Revolution there
had been ninety-five bishops, of whom
Saint Saintain was the first, and Henri
René Desuos, an emigré, who died in exile
in 1793, the last. Verdun had the honour to
be encompassed with walls first in 451. It
then became a free imperial city, and in 953,
the Emperor Otho the Third conferring on
the bishop the secular title of Count and
Prince of the Holy Empire, its prelates
henceforward turned their croziers into
sceptres. In 1255, Jean de Troyes, the
fifty-eighth bishop, becoming pope, Verdun
grew into a place of great importance. In
1552 Henri the Second took the place, and
held it against Austria. In 1569 the citadel
was built, and the place refortified in 1624.
In 1648 it became definitely a portion of
France. Verdun is said at one time to
have had thirty-two churches, but has now
only six. Several were destroyed during
the Revolution, when the cathedral itself
was doomed. Two towers out of the four
had been already destroyed, when the nave
was spared and turned into a cavalry
barrack; it has since, however, been
repaired, all but the towers.

The patron saint of this cathedral is
supposed to have saved the city from its
German besiegers in the time of Charles
the Fifth. The town was all but starved,
men's hearts were failing them for fear,
when, as a last resource, the saint's
image was brought out, with lights and
incense, and respectfully placed upon the
rampart over the Metz gate. Instantly,
say the Verdun people, such fiery wrath
darted from the statue's eyes, that the
Germans turned tail, left their camp and
cannon, and made off for the Rhine.
When the Redcaps were pulling down
the churches, during the Reign of Terror,
a brave old woman, in a back street, at
the risk of the guillotine, stole this sacred
image, and hid it in her own house. The