ers, they gather round this
stone table, which displays such dainties as jail-birds desire--brandy,
rum, and the like.

The first two archways on that side of the yard, facing the fine
Byzantine corridor--the only vestige now of Saint-Louis' elegant
palace--form a parlor, where the prisoners and their counsel may meet,
to which the prisoners have access through a formidable gateway--a
double passage, railed off by enormous bars, within the width of the
third archway. This double way is like the temporary passages arranged
at the door of a theatre to keep a line on occasions when a great
success brings a crowd. This parlor, at the very end of the vast
entrance-hall of the Conciergerie, and lighted by loop-holes on the
yard side, has lately been opened out towards the back, and the opening
filled with glass, so that the interviews of the lawyers with their
clients are under supervision. This innovation was made necessary by the
too great fascinations brought to bear by pretty women on their counsel.
Where will morality stop short? Such precautions are like the ready-made
sets of questions for self-examination, where pure imaginations are
defiled by meditating on unknown and monstrous depravity. In this
parlor, too, parents and friends may be allowed by the authorities to
meet the prisoners, whether on remand or awaiting their sentence.

The reader may now understand what the prison-yard is to the two hundred
prisoners in the Conciergerie: their garden--a garden without trees,
beds, or flowers--in short, a prison-yard. The parlor, and the stone of
Saint-Louis, where such food and liquor as are allowed are dispensed,
are the only possible means of communication with the outer world.

The hour spent in the yard is the only time when the prisoner is in
the open air or the society of his kind; in other prisons those who
are sentenced for a term are brought together in workshops; but in
the Conciergerie no occupation is allowed, excepting in the privileged
cells. There the absorbing idea in every mind is the drama of the Assize
Court, since the culprit comes only to be examined or to be sentenced.

This yard is indeed terrible to behold; it cannot be imagined, it must
be seen.

In the first place, the assemblage, in a space forty metres long by
thirty wide, of a hundred condemned or suspected criminals, does not
constitute the cream of society. These creatures, belonging for the most
part to the lowest ranks, are poorly cl