The prison of Bicetre is a neat quadrangular building, enclosing many other structures and many courts, which have each a different name; there is the grande cour (great court) where the prisoners walk; the cour de cuisine (or kitchen court;) the cour des chiens (or dog’s court;) the cour de correction (or court of punishment;) and the cour des fers (or iron court.) In this last is a new building five stories high; each story contains forty cells, capable of holding four prisoners.  On the platform, which supplies the place of a roof, was night and day a dog named Dragon, who passed in the prison for the most watchful and incorruptible of his kind; but some prisoners managed at a subsequent period to corrupt him through the medium of a roasted leg of mutton, which he had the culpable weakness to accept.  The Amphytrions escaped whilst Dragon was swallowing the mutton; he was beaten and taken into the cour des chiens, where, chained up and deprived of the free air which he breathed on the platform, he was inconsolable for his fault, and perished piecemeal, a victim of remorse at his weakness in yielding to a moment of gluttony and error.

Near the erection I speak of is the old building, nearly arranged in the same way, and under which were dungeons of safety, in which were enclosed the troublesome and condemned prisoners.  It was in one of these dungeons that for forty-three years lived the accomplice of Cartouche, who betrayed him to procure this commutation!  To obtain a moment’s sunshine, he frequently counterfeited death so well, that when he had actually breathed his last sigh, two days passed before they took off his iron collar.  A third part of the building, called La Force, comprised various rooms, in which the prisoners were placed who arrived from the provinces, and were destined to the chain.

At this period, the prison of Bicetre, which is only strong from the strict guard kept up there, could contain twelve hundred prisoners; but they were piled on each other, and the conduct of the jailors in no way assuaged the inconvenience of the place.

If any man arrived from the country well clad, who, condemned for a first offence, was not as yet initiated into the customs and usages of prisons, in a twinkling he was stripped of his clothes, which were sold in his presence to the highest bidder.  If he had jewels or money, they were alike confiscated to the profit of the society, and if he were too long in taking out his ear-rings, they snatched them out without the sufferer daring to complain.  He was previously warned, that if he spoke of it, they would hang him in the night to the bars of his cell, and afterwards say that he had committed suicide.  If a prisoner, out of precaution, when going to sleep, placed his clothes under his head, they waited until he was in his first sleep, and then they tied to his foot a stone, which they balanced at the side of his bed; at the least motion the stone fell, and aroused by