atriots of 1830
contrived to annoy some of the cavalry who were fighting in the cause
of the legitimacy and the true liberties of France. Many a barricade
and many a skirmish has the Rue St Denis since witnessed!

All the churches have disappeared from the Rue St Denis except that of
St Leu and St Gilles, a small building of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries: all the convents have been rased to the ground
except that of St Lazare. To this a far different destination has been
given from what it formerly enjoyed: it is now the great female prison
of the capital; and within its walls all the bread required for the
prisons of Paris is baked, all the linen is made and mended. The
prison consists of three distinct portions: one allotted for carrying
on the bread and linen departments: a second for the detention of
female criminals before conviction, or for short terms of
imprisonment; and in this various light manufactures, such as the
making of baskets, straw-plait, and the red phosphorus-match boxes,
are carried on: the third is an hospital and house of detention for
the prostitutes of the capital. We were once taken all through this
immense establishment by the governor, who had the kindness to
accompany us, and to explain every thing in person--a favour not often
granted to foreigners--and a strong impression did the scenes we then
saw leave. In the first two departments every thing was gloomy,
orderly, and quiet: the prisoners were much fewer than we had
expected--not above two hundred--many of them, however, were mere
children; but the matrons were good kind of women and the work of
reformation was going on rapidly to counteract the effects of early
crime. In the third, though equal strictness of conduct on the part of
the superiors prevailed, the behaviour of the inmates subjected to
control was far different. The great majority had been confined there
as hospital patients, not as offenders against the law, and they were
divided into wards, according to their sanatory condition. Here they
were very numerous; and a melancholy thing it was to see hundreds of
wretched creatures wandering about their spacious rooms, or sitting up
in their beds, with haggard looks, dishevelled hair, hardly any
clothing, and a sort of reckless gaiety in their manner that spoke
volumes as to their real condition. The _regime_ of this
prison-hospital is found, however, to be on the whole most salutary:
the seeds of good are sown with a