both men of letters, who write excellent books in
collaboration.

I find the house with difficulty. My driver
does not seem to know the town, and this is
outside it. Is he one of the strangers arrived to
replace the runaway population? M. Margollé
is absent, M. Zurcher not. A tall handsome
man, but evidently suffering from illness,
receives me with kind and charming courtesy. He
knows Fourrier and his story well, and has been
instrumental in procuring the partial remission
of his sentence. He himself has been tormented
lately with neuralgic pains, but is better to-day.
He will take me to the admiral and accompany
me to the Bagne, calling for me at the hotel at
two in the afternoon.

Charming! Capital! It rolls on castors. The
thing is done. The influential and well-known
Frenchman taking the Englishman under his
wing, the latter will have only to walk over the
course and fulfil his promise as easily as if it
were a call on an ordinary acquaintance.
Meanwhile, shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?
I do take it.

Nevertheless, as two o'clock draws near, I
begin to grow a little fidgety, and occupy a seat
outside the hotel, awaiting my benevolent visitor.
Soon after two, instead of M. Zurcher, an
employé from the Mairie, in natty uniform, draws
near; and, ascertaining who I am, delivers a
letter. It was not exactly that which I wanted,
although it is infinitely better than nothing.
M. Zurcher writes that his pains have returned,
and compel him to keep house; he encloses a
letter to the commissaire of the Bagne. With
that, and what I have besides, I shall make my
way easily, he says.

Shall I? There is no help for it, if I shall
not. To the admiral at once. I shall find him,
they tell me, at the Majorité, or État-Major de la
Marine. I do not find him. He is not there,
but at the Préfecture. There, I am introduced
into an ante-chamber occupied by an aide-de-
camp and some naval officers pacing to and fro,
as if they were on a quarter-deck. Great politeness.
My letter is sent in, and before many
minutes I am admitted to the presence.

"You are recommended by one of my oldest
comrades," said the admiral, with unaffected
good nature; " what can I do for you?"

I explain that I wish to see the interior of the
Bagne, and especially to speak to the forçat
Fourrier.

"Certainly." Addressing the aide-de-camp,
"Write a request to the commissaire that
Monsieur may see the Bagne and Fourrier. Only,
you know, if he is under lock and key, he will
not be visible to anybody."

The dungeons at the Bagne for refractory
subjects (indociles) are said to be something
terrible. It is stated that, if they were shown,
their continuauce would not be tolerated by
public opinion. And yet there must be some
means of preventing criminals from having
their own way in further criminality. In any
case, neither those cells nor their occupants are
open to public inspection.

"I do not think that probable," I interposed.
"He has never incurred a single day's punishment."

"So much the better; you will be able to see
him, then. I remember hearing him mentioned
before. He seems to have friends who take
interest in him."

At that moment, I noticed the direction of the
admiral's eye. It glanced at the wound on my
hat, which I had clean forgotten. Not being a
diplomatist, I fear my face betrayed some slight
symptom of mortification.

Smiling, he added that I was to take to the
État-Major an order to visit the arsenal, which
contains the Bagne within its walls. There, they
would give me a "planton," or sailor attendant,
to conduct me to the commissaire of the
Bagne.

The audience is at an end. Thanks to the
admiral's frank and simple manners, it has passed
off much more agreeably than I anticipated. I
retire with the aide-de-camp, who writes the
necessary orders, and dismisses me with perfect
courtesy. I go to the Majorité. They give me
my planton, and we enter the gates of the arsenal
together.

Within the arsenal is a busy scene, resembling
other dockyards and arsenals, except for the
presence of the forçats performing various slavish
work. It is, after all, a cheerful spot to
labour in. There are trees and water, air and
sunshine, glimpses of the town through the
arsenal gates, with the mountains beyond all
towering in the distance. It is a labyrinth of long
ranges of buildings and naval stores, through
which a stranger trying to thread his way would
find himself incessantly cut off by water. For
necessary daily communication, there are slight
wooden bridges and ferry-boats worked by
forçats. But for the shame and the public
exposure, I should say that a convict would greatly
prefer this place to penitentiaries, or any other
form of isolated confinement.

Nor do the forçats all look wretched. They
crowd their carts over bridges with a run and a
laugh. They wear their irons "with a difference."
The ordinary set of culprits are riveted
two and two, never separating, day nor night.
"Eprouvés," tried, well-conducted prisoners,
carry their irons singly, with no human clog
attached to them. The costume is hideous: red
cap, red vest, and trousers of a frightfully ugly
yellow. Of the three primitive colours, yellow
is the least pleasing to many eyes. Yellow
flowers (except in species, as the rose, where
that hue is a rarity) are less sought for, I think,
than blue and red. But then also there are good
yellows and bad yellows. The forçat's yellow has
a bright, staring, glaring, vulgar tinge, which
catches the eye like a sign-post or a personal
deformity, and is suggestive of pestilence, poisonous
plants, moral jaundice, and everything else
that is corrupt and offensive. A prisoner, who,