ed for depravity; but
dissipation, bad example, perverse education, and, above all, want,
which lead so many unfortunates to infamy; and it is the poor classes
alone who pay to civilisation this impost on soul and body.

* * * * *

When the prisoners came into the yard, running and crying out, it was
easy to discern that it was not alone the pleasure of leaving their work
that made them so noisy. After having hurried forth by the only gate
which led to this yard, the crowd spread out and made a ring around a
misshapen being, whom they assailed with shouts. She was a small woman,
from thirty-six to forty years of age; short, round-shouldered,
deformed, and with her neck buried between shoulders of unequal height.
They had snatched off her black cap, and her hair, which was flaxen, or
rather a pale yellow, coarse, matted, and mingled with gray, fell over
her low and stupid features. She was clad in a blue loose gown, like the
other prisoners, and had under her right arm a small bundle, wrapped up
in a miserable, ragged, checked pocket-handkerchief. With her left elbow
she endeavoured to ward off the blows aimed at her. Nothing could be
more lamentably ludicrous than the visage of this unhappy woman. She was
hideous and distorted in figure, with projecting features, wrinkled,
tanned, and dirty, which were pierced with two holes for nostrils, and
two small, red, bloodshot eyes. By turns wrathful and imploring, she
scolded and entreated; but they laughed even more at her complaints than
her threats. This woman was the plaything of the prisoners. One thing
ought, however, to have protected her from such ill-usage,--she was
evidently about to become a mother; but her ugliness, her imbecility,
and the custom they had of considering her as a victim intended for
common sport, rendered her persecutors implacable, in spite of their
usual respect for maternity.

Amongst the fiercest enemies of Mont Saint-Jean (that was the unhappy
wretch's name), La Louve was conspicuous. La Louve was a strapping girl
of twenty, active, and powerfully grown, with regular features. Her
coarse black hair was varied by reddish shades, whilst her blood
suffused her skin with its hue; a brown down shaded her thin lips; her
chestnut eyebrows, thick and projecting, were united over her large and
fierce eyes. There was something violent, savage, and brutal in the
expression of this woman's physiognomy,--a sort of habitual sn