ore
severe;--there was not space in the workroom for all, or there was not
work for all, and the greater part of the unhappy prisoners wandered
round and round all day in the dreary court-yard, in all the weariness
of utter idleness. They were even obliged to eat in this court-yard,
having no refectory. This prison, constructed in 1836, was taken
possession of by the Commune in 1871, and in May was the scene of a
series of massacres. The cell occupied by the most illustrious of these
victims, the Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Darboy, has not since been
occupied by any inmate, and has been preserved in the condition in which
he left it at half-past seven on the morning of the 24th of May.

Directly opposite the Grande-Roquette, facing on the same street, is the
_Prison des Jeunes Detenus_, the Petite-Roquette, which was devoted to
three classes of youthful offenders, those placed here _en correction
paternelle_; youths of not less than sixteen, prevenus, and those
condemned to various terms of imprisonment and from sixteen to
twenty-one years of age. The first class, imprisoned in cells in a
separate quarter, were known only by their numbers, their names and
stations in life were carefully concealed, and the guards themselves
were kept in ignorance concerning them. All the inmates of this prison
were isolated in their cells; in them they worked alone, and were
visited by the instructor; they took solitary exercise in the preau
cellulaire; and in the chapel-school, which occupies the central
rotunda, each was imprisoned in a high stall from which he could see and
hear but was invisible to all his fellow-prisoners. As he shut himself
in his stall, he opened the door of that of his neighbor, who followed
him at a distance of twenty paces. In this school he passed two hours a
day, and in his _promenoir cellulaire_, one hour. A modification of this
system was recently introduced;--the good-behavior inmates, those who
were soon to be liberated, were brought together in a common workroom
where they were employed in the manufacture of artificial violets. A new
annex was recently added to this establishment, the _Infirmerie Centrale
des Prisons de la Seine_, formerly installed in the Prison de la Sante.
This hospital included three wards which could receive each thirty
patients, an operating-room, and extensive bathing-rooms. This portion
of the institution was entirely separated from the rest of the prison.

The Petite-Roque