Part 7 (1/2)

THE DONJON, OR CASTLE OF VINCENNES.

This ancient fortress is situate at the entrance of the forest of Vincennes, (now reduced to a wood of small trees, the large timber having been cut down during the revolution) and surrounded by a deep ditch of great width, about two miles from the Barriere du Trone.

During many ages, it had been the casual residence of the sovereigns of France. Philip de Valois added considerably to its dimensions in 1337. John continued the works, and during his captivity in England, Charles his son, then regent of the kingdom, finished it.

During the reign of Charles VII. in 1422, Henry VI. of England died in this castle. From this time Vincennes became a royal residence, until the reign of Louis XIV. when that monarch fixed himself at Versailles, from which period it has never been used but as a prison[13].

[Footnote 13: Monstrelet relates a curious anecdote, during the residence at the Castle of Vincennes of Isabeau de Baviere, strongly ill.u.s.trative of the barbarous manners of those times. ”Lewis de Bourbon, who was handsome and well made, and had signalized himself upon various occasions, and amongst others at the battle of Agincourt, going one night, as was customary, to visit the Queen, Isabeau de Baviere, at the Castle of Vincennes, met the King (Charles VI.); he saluted him, without either stopping or alighting from his horse, but continued galloping on. The King having recollected him, ordered Tangui du Chatel, prevost of Paris, to pursue, and to confine him in prison. At night the _question_ was applied, and he was afterwards tied up in a sack and cast into the Seine, with this inscription upon the sack, 'Let the King's justice take place.'”]

Dulaure, a French writer, in speaking of the persons who were confined here, observes, it would be difficult to enumerate the number of individuals that have been shut up in this prison within these few years. ”We will merely notice,” he says, ”the celebrated Count Mirabeau, who was confined from 1777 to 1780; here it was that he translated his Tibulle, and Joannes Secundus, and wrote his 'Lettres originales' to his mistress, Madame Lemonnier, which abound with pa.s.sages as affecting as the letters of Helose”.

This prison was thrown open during the reign of the unfortunate Louis XVI. by the Baron de Breteuil, Minister of the Department of Paris in 1784. In going over it, every one was penetrated with horror; and feelings of the most melancholy interest were excited by reading the various inscriptions on the walls, indicative of the hopeless misery that had been experienced within them! Many were expressive of piety and resignation at the approach of death!--others complaining of the cruel oppression which had immured them! On one wall was written, ”Il faut mourir, mon frere; mon frere il faut mourir, quand il plaira a Dieu”. On the door of another prison were, ”Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter just.i.tiam, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum”. On the same spot were, ”Carcer Socratis, templum honoris”.

This Donjon remained unoccupied until 1791. At this period, the prisons of the capital being filled with criminals, Government ordered it to be prepared for the reception of that cla.s.s of prisoners; but on the ma.s.sacres that followed, the mob either murdered or released them all, after a b.l.o.o.d.y contest, and it remained again without prisoners until the Imperial Government under Buonaparte. It was then garrisoned by a detachment of the Imperial Guard, and mult.i.tudes of victims were transferred there whose fate remains, and probably ever will remain, unknown.

It was to this place that the Duke D'Enghien, who was arrested the 15th March, 1804, at Ettenheim, in the Electorate of Baden, was conducted the 20th of the same month, at five in the evening, and condemned to death the night following, by a military commission, at which Murat presided. He was accordingly shot on the 21st, at half past four in the evening, in the ditch of the castle which looks towards the forest, on the north side, and his body thrown into a grave, ready dug to receive it, where he fell. The details of this cruel and wanton act of barbarity are too well known to need any repet.i.tion here.

This spot is now marked by a wooden cross, enclosed by an iron railing. The remains of the Prince were dug out on the 20th March, 1816, by order of Louis XVIII. and deposited with solemn funeral ceremony in a coffin which is placed in the same apartment where the council of war condemned him to suffer! since transformed info a chapel. Under a cenotaph, covered with a cloth of gold, is placed the coffin, with a prodigious large stone lying on it, the same that was found lying on his head, and which from its weight had crushed his skull!

The apartment is hung with black cloth, and remains continually lighted, with a guard placed over it. Ma.s.s is daily performed for the repose of his soul, agreeable to the Catholic religion.

On the lid of the coffin is the following inscription:

Ici est Le Corps De Tres-Haut, Tres-Puissant Prince Louis-Antoine-Henri De Bourbon Duc D'Enghien, Prince du Sang Pair de France Mort A Vincennes, Le 21 Mars 1804 A L'age de x.x.xI Ans VII mois XVIII Jours.

A marble bust of the Prince, by Bosio, is placed at the entrance.

During the periods of 1814 and 1815, when Paris was in possession of the Allies, Vincennes continued under the command of General Daumesnil, who declared that he held it for his country until the Government was settled, and would not open its gates to a foreign army. It was not attacked either of the times.

It is approached by two gates, with drawbridges, and defended by cannon on all sides. The fosse is of great depth, and dry, extending, I should suppose, nearly a quarter of a mile. It has nine towers, of prodigious height and solidity: the largest, at the south western angle, called the Donjon, is considerably more elevated than the others. The princ.i.p.al entrance is fronting the forest, on the north side, in the form of a triumphal arch, with six pillars, ornamented in bas-reliefs, and was decorated with marble statues, which were destroyed when it was seized by the mob.

The Donjon is surrounded by a separate ditch, within the other, of forty feet depth, and is approached by two draw-bridges; one for carriages, the other for foot pa.s.sengers; and the main tower is flanked by four other angular ones, each having a high turret. The windows are treble barred within and without, so as to admit but a faint glimmering light! Three gates of great solidity are to be pa.s.sed at the entrance; that which communicates with the draw-bridge of the castle is secured both within and without. After pa.s.sing 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 encompa.s.sed 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 the bosom of his family, to perish unheard of and unknown!

The French Government have, I understand, issued an order to prevent any one from entering this place from motives of curiosity; and let us hope that the humane and enlightened policy of the restored Monarch will close its cells for ever!

The following beautiful lines, with which I close an account of the most horribly interesting spot I ever visited, are from the pen of Delille:

Voyez gemir en proie a sa longue torture, Ce mortel confine dans sa noire cloture.

Pour unique plaisir et pour seul pa.s.se-temps, De sa lente journee il compte les instans, Ou de son noir cachot mesure l'etendue, Ou medite en secret sa fuite inattendue; Ou, de ceux qu'avant lui renferma la prison, Lit, sur ces tristes murs, la complainte et le nom: Et lui-meme y tracant sa douloureuse histoire, A ceux qui le suivront en transmet la memoire.