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.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117