communicates with the draw-bridge of the
castle is secured both within and without. After passing the three
gates, there is a court, in the middle of which stands the Donjon.
Three other immense gates guard its entrance!

The form of the Donjon is a square. The towers at the four angles are
divided into five floors, each having a separate stair-case, and
each floor is vaulted, with an apartment in the centre, sustained
by pillars, which are chimneys. At each of the four corners of the
apartment in the centre is a cell thirteen feet square. The towers are
encompassed on the third story by a large gallery on the outside, and
on the top of each there is a small circular terrace. Such is the
strength and prodigious solidity of this building, that it is said to
be capable of resisting the heaviest cannon, and is bomb proof. The
hand of time appears not to have made any impression on its outward
surface.

The first hall is called "La chambre de la question:" its name
indicates sufficiently the horrid purposes to which it was
appropriated! So late as the year 1790 were to be seen chairs formed
of stone, where the unhappy victims were seated, with iron collars
fixed to the wall by heavy chains, that confined them to the spot
while undergoing the torture! In these prisons, deprived of air and
light, were beds of timber, on which they were allowed to repose
during the interval of their sufferings.

The upper floor, named "La salle du conseil," from the Kings holding
their council there, while it was a royal residence, is secured by a
door of great solidity, and each prison at the angles had three doors
covered with iron plates, with double locks and treble bolts. The
doors were so contrived as to open crossways, each serving as a
security to the other. The first acted as a bar to the second, and
this to the third, so that it was necessary to close one before the
other could be opened.--Such was the mode of confinement in this
prison, the walls of which are sixteen feet thick, and the arches
thirty feet high.

The other eight towers were also prisons. The one called "La tour de
la surintendance" contains cells six feet square; the bed places are
of stone. There is a square hole to descend into the vaults beneath,
where, like a tomb, the miserable prisoner was immured for ever!!!
Often, alas! for imaginary crimes, or for causes which make us shudder
at their wantonness and barbarity, an unfortunate victim has been torn
from