a lower level than that of the
quay, in crossing this Barbican you go down several steps to enter an
immense vaulted hall, with solid walls graced with magnificent columns.
This hall abuts on the Tour de Montgomery--which is now part of the
governor's residence--and on the Tour d'Argent, serving as a dormitory
for the warders, or porters, or turnkeys, as you may prefer to call
them. The number of the officials is less than might be supposed; there
are but twenty; their sleeping quarters, like their beds, are in no
respect different from those of the _pistoles_ or private cells. The
name _pistole_ originated, no doubt, in the fact that the prisoners
formerly paid a pistole (about ten francs) a week for this
accommodation, its bareness resembling that of the empty garrets in
which great men in poverty begin their career in Paris.

To the left, in the vast entrance hall, sits the Governor of the
Conciergerie, in a sort of office constructed of glass panes, where
he and his clerk keep the prison-registers. Here the prisoners for
examination, or committed for trial, have their names entered with a
full description, and are then searched. The question of their lodging
is also settled, this depending on the prisoner's means.

Opposite the entrance to this hall there is a glass door. This opens
into a parlor where the prisoner's relations and his counsel may speak
with him across a double grating of wood. The parlor window opens on
to the prison yard, the inner court where prisoners committed for trial
take air and exercise at certain fixed hours.

This large hall, only lighted by the doubtful daylight that comes in
through the gates--for the single window to the front court is screened
by the glass office built out in front of it--has an atmosphere and
a gloom that strike the eye in perfect harmony with the pictures that
force themselves on the imagination. Its aspect is all the more sinister
because, parallel with the Tours d'Argent and de Montgomery, you
discover those mysterious vaulted and overwhelming crypts which lead to
the cells occupied by the Queen and Madame Elizabeth, and to those known
as the secret cells. This maze of masonry, after being of old the scene
of royal festivities, is now the basement of the Palais de Justice.

Between 1825 and 1832 the operation of the last toilet was performed in
this enormous hall, between a large stove which heats it and the inner
gate. It is impossible even now to tread witho