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There were even no chains used in this state prison; of fetters and manacles we had indeed a plenitude, all of an antique pattern and covered with rust; but no irons such as are put upon their prisoners by vulgar gaolers in Newgate and elsewhere.
The short daily walk in the garden was also embittered by the rude behaviour of the military and municipal gaolers; sometimes, however, it afforded an opportunity for marks of sympathy to be shown.
If the Moniteur accused any one of robbing on the highway, no French, German, or Italian journal could admit his justification, It is almost impossible to represent to one's self what a man is, at the head of a million of soldiers, and possessed of ten millions of revenue, having all the prisons of Europe at his disposal, with the kings for his gaolers, and using the press as his mouth-piece, at a time when people have hardly the intimacy of friendship to make a reply; finally, with the ability of turning misfortune into ridicule: execrable power, whose ironical enjoyment is the last insult which the infernal genii can make the human race endure!
"Well it's good to know that, anyhow. But wait until the Pike's vamoosed again, and we'll make up such a column of smoke that it'll be seen for many a mile. In fact, I'll go and gather a lot of dried stuff now you two can drag those boxes and things up the beach and see what our gaolers have been good enough to send us."
The motion was rejected: but the gaolers, not knowing whom to obey in that time of anarchy, and desiring to conciliate a man who had once been, and might perhaps again be, a terrible enemy, allowed their prisoner to go freely about the town, His uneven legs and his hideous face, made more hideous by the shearing which his ears had undergone, were now again seen every day in Westminster Hall and the Court of Requests, He fastened himself on his old patrons, and, in that drawl which he affected as a mark of gentility, gave them the history of his wrongs and of his hopes.
My not answering was attributed to shame and confusion my glassy eye had not been noticed my tottering step when led in by the gaolers attributed to other causes; and the magistrates shook their heads as I was led out of their presence. The gaoler had asked me several times where I intended to go.
The short daily walk in the garden was also embittered by the rude behaviour of the military and municipal gaolers; sometimes, however, it afforded an opportunity for marks of sympathy to be shown.
We have all read how prisoners, outwitting their gaolers, have filed bars with their pocket nail-scissors, and cut the locks out of old oak doors with the small blade of a penknife. Betty's door was only of pine, but her knife broke off short; and the file on her little scissors wore itself smooth against the first unmoved bar. She paced the room like a caged lioness.
A few pages farther in the journal of Las Cases we find the Emperor in good health, and as soon as it was announced that Longwood was ready to receive him, then it was urged that the gaolers wished to compel him to go against his will, that they desired to push their authority to the utmost, that the smell of the paint at Longwood was very disagreeable, etc.
Even the gaolers also unpaid earn their living by extorting money from the prisoners. The whole system of government reacts upon itself; for the venality of the officials drives the tribes to redress their wrongs at intervals by raids and open rebellion, to punish whom there follows slaughter upon slaughter, and the country is laid waste.
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