The King’s cortége was recruited at the door by a party of men-at-arms ponderous with steel, and slim pages carrying torches. It proceeded for some time through the interior of the grim donjon-keep, perforated by flights of stairs and corridors even to the thickness of the walls. The captain of the Bastille walked at its head, and directed the opening of the successive narrow doors before the bent and decrepit King, who coughed as he walked along.

At each door every head was obliged to stoop, except that of the old man already bent with age. “Hum!” said he between his gums, for he had no teeth; “we are in excellent trim for the gate of the sepulchre. A low door needs a stooping passenger.”

At length, after passing through the last door of all, so encumbered with complicated locks that it took a quarter of an hour to get them all open, they entered a lofty and spacious Gothic hall, in the centre of which they could discern by the light of the torches a great square mass of masonry, iron, and wood- work. The interior was hollow. It was one of those famous cages for state prisoners familiarly known as “Fillettes du roi” —little daughters of the King. There were two or three small windows in its walls, but so closely grated with massive iron bars that no glass was visible. The door consisted of a huge single slab of stone, like that of a tomb —one of those doors that serve for entrance alone. Only here, the dead was alive.

The King began pacing slowly. round this small edifice, examining it with care, while Maître Olivier, who followed him, read aloud the items of the account:

“For making a great wooden cage of heavy beams, joists, and rafters, measuring nine feet in length and eight in breadth, and seven feet high between roof and floor, mortised and bolted with great iron bolts; which has been placed in a certain chamber situated in one of the towers of the Bastille Saint- Antoine; in the which said cage is put and kept by command of our lord the King a prisoner, who before inhabited an old, decayed, and unserviceable cage. Used in the building of the said new cage, ninety- six horizontal beams and fifty-two perpendicular, ten joists, each three toises long. Employed in squaring, planing, and fitting the same wood-work in the yard of the Bastille, nineteen carpenters for twenty days—”

“Fine solid timber, that!” remarked the King, rapping his knuckles on the wood.

“Used in this cage,” continued the other, “two hundred and twenty great iron bolts nine feet and eight feet long, the rest of medium length, together with the plates and nuts for fastening the said bolts; the said iron weighing in all three thousand seven hundred and thirty-five pounds; besides eight heavy iron clamps for fixing the said cage in its place, altogether two hundred and eighteen pounds; without reckoning the iron of the grating to the windows of the chamber and other items—”

“Here’s a deal of iron to restrain the levity of a spirit!”

“—The whole amounts to three hundred and seventeen livres, five sols, seven deniers.”

“Pasque-Dieu!” exclaimed the King. This oath, which was the favourite one of Louis XI, apparently aroused some one inside the cage: there was sound of clanking chains being dragged across its floor, and a feeble voice that seemed to issue from the tomb, wailed: “Sire! Sire, mercy!” The speaker was not visible.

“Three hundred and seventeen livres, five sols, seven deniers!” repeated Louis XI.

The voice of lamentation which had issued from the cage chilled the blood of all present, even Maître Oliver. The King alone gave no evidence of having heard it. At his command Olivier resumed his reading, and his Majesty coolly continued his inspection of the cage.