f that,' said the Prevot, 'and for the
present his place shall be "L'Opinion."'

By chance--a mere chance--a death on the day before had left a
vacancy in that section, and thither Gerald was now with due solemnity
conducted.

If his present associates were the 'best of the bad' around him, they
were still far from being to his taste. They were the lowest emissaries
of every party--the agents employed for all purposes of espionage and
corruption. They affected a sort of fidelity to the cause they served
while sober, but once filled with wine, avowed their utter indifference
to every party, as they avowed that they took bribes from each in turn.
Many, it is true, had moved in the better classes of society, were
well-mannered and educated; but even through these there ran the same
vein of profligacy, a tone of utter distrust, and a scepticism as to all
good here and hereafter.

One or two of these remembered to have seen Gerald in his days of Garde
du Corps, and were more than disposed to connect him with the scandals
circulated about the Queen; others inclined to regard him as a
revolutionist in the garb of the court party; none trusted him, and he
lived in a kind of haughty estrangement from all. The Prevot, indeed,
liked him, and would talk with him for hours long; and to the old man
himself the companionship seemed a boon. He now learned for the first
time a true account of the great changes 'without,' as he called the
world, and heard with an approach to accuracy the condition in which
France then stood.

The sense of indignation at a groundless charge, the cruelty of
an imprisonment upon mere suspicion, had long ceased to weigh upon
Fitzgerald, and a dreamy apathy, the true lethargy of the prison, stole
over him. To lie half sleeping on his hard bed, to sit crouched down,
gazing listlessly at the small patch of sky seen through the window, to
spell over the names scratched by former prisoners on the plaster, to
count for the thousandth time the fissures in the damp walls--these
filled his days. His nights were drearier still, tormented with
distressing dreams, to be dispelled only by the gloom of awaking in a
dungeon.

At intervals of a week or two, orders would come for this or that
prisoner to be delivered to the care of the Marshal of the Temple--none
knew for what, though all surmised the worst, since not one was seen to
return; and so time sped on, month after month, death and removal doing
their work, t