Yet, with all these restrictions, extortions,
and occasional severities, most of the
détenus led a gay and thoughtless life for the
dreary eleven years. They had clubs and
messes. The Café Caron Club was a quiet
whist club; the Orange Club was notorious
for its high play; the Club at the bishop's
palace was famous for its weekly balls and
suppers. The greedy commandant also
encouraged a bank for rouge et noir, which
paid him eighteen hundred a year for the
permission. The détenus' races, too, were
very popular at Verdun, and the annual
gold cup cost eighty louis-d'ors. Few of
the French families were either able or
willing to show the English civility, but
they met with a polite reception at the
houses of M. Chardon, M. de Larminan,
and M. Godart; and the Chevalier de la
Lance, the Comtesse d'Astier and Madame
de la Roche, were always hospitable and
friendly. The most distinguished of the
English families for their receptions were
the Clive, Clarke, Fitzgerald, and Watson
families, while Lady Cadogan was
renowned for her agreeable soirées. A few
of the richer détenus were allowed to have
villas in the neighbourhood.

General Wirion, the rapacious governor
of Verdun, was the son of a pork butcher
in Picardy, and had begun life in a lawyer's
office. Entering the gendarmerie, he had
soon risen by his energy and shrewdness.
It was said that one of his men being
murdered in a disturbed district, he had shot
a hundred peasants in retaliation. When
the Duke de Feltre (General Clarke)
superseded Berthier as minister of war,
complaints reached Paris of Wirion's
extortions. In 1809, Wirion was sent for to
Paris, and in spite of his friend Bernadotte's
interest, the emperor with regret
ordered a trial. It is reported that the
minister of war, on showing Wirion a list
of the accusations, said, "If these things
are true, my advice is that you go and
shoot yourself immediately." The miserable
man at once dressed himself in full
uniform, went to a retired part of the Bois
de Boulogne, and blew out his brains.

The next governor was Courcelles, a severe
and miserly man. No exemptions were
allowed by him, but he was greedier for
money than Wirion had been. His rule
reminded the détenus of the old story of the
wounded soldier who begged that no one
would disturb the sand-flies that tormented
him, "for if you do," he moaned, "the next
set will be twice as hungry." He shut two
hundred détenus (including one hundred
and forty wild midshipmen) in the monastery
of St. Vannes—now a barrack—and
charged them for the privilege, as he called
it. The Duke de Feltre ordering an inquiry,
Courcelles threw the whole blame
on one of his gendarmes, who in despair
shot himself. In 1811, Courcelles was, however,
broken and dismissed from the army,
after a service of forty-six years. A colonel
at Montmédy and a lieutenant at Saarlouis
were also at the same time sent to the
galleys. In Courcelles's two years, ninety-six
prisoners escaped, in spite of Napoleon's
cruel decree condemning every prisoner
taken in the act of breaking parole to the
galleys. Colonel Baron de Beauchene, an
officer who had served in Spain, and had
there seen our generosity to enemies, was
the next who took command of the depôt.
He was just and merciful, abolished all
imprisonment in the citadel, and at one blow
swept away the whole infamous system of
extortion, secret police, spies, and police
agents.

The prisoners of war, when imprisoned
in the old monastery in the citadel, led a
miserable life. There were twenty-seven
beds in the corridor, with two prisoners in
each. Lamps were kept burning all night,
"and what," says a prisoner who printed
his experiences, "with the shouting, the
singing, the bewailing, the smoke of the
lamps, the smell of cigars, and the
consequent stench of the place, it was almost
unbearable. Bitche, 'the place of tears,'
was with all its horrors preferable to a
great degree, for my mental sufferings were
greater here than at any other time or
place during my captivity."

The Jew money-lenders from Strasbourg
were the curse of Verdun. They haunted
the gambling-rooms, and drew all the idle
young players into their toils. For the first
year or two no prisoner of war could be
arrested for debt. It was considered that, as
a prisoner was not permitted to exert
himself to his own advantage, he should be
prevented from acting to his own detriment.
As the détenus were not allowed to prosecute
their debtors, it was reasonable they should
not be prosecuted by their creditors. But
in 1805, Lippman, a Jew money-lender at
Verdun, and a contractor for the French
army, being owed forty-two thousand
pounds by the government, declared he
could not undertake to supply the cavalry
with horses (the Austrian war was just
breaking out) unless he was either paid the
money or had a permission to arrest
English prisoners for debt. Berthier granted