Chapter 24

GENERAL BREA'S MURDERERS.

March, 1849.

The men condemned to death in the Bréa affair are
confined in the fort at Vanves. There are five of them:
Nourry, a poor child of seventeen whose father and mother
died insane, type of the gamin of Paris that revolutions
make a hero and riots a murderer; Daix, blind of one eye,
lame, and with only one arm, a ~bon pauvre~ of the Bicetre
Hospital, who underwent the operation of trepanning three
years ago, and who has a little daughter eight years old
whom he adores; Lahr, nicknamed the Fireman, whose
wife was confined the day after his condemnation, giving
life at the moment she received death; Chopart, a
bookseller's assistant, who has been mixed up in some rather
discreditable pranks of youth; and finally Vappreaux
junior, who pleaded an alibi and who, if the four others
are to be believed, was not at the Barrière de Fontainebleau
at all during the three days of June.

These hapless wights are confined in a big casemate of
the fort. Their condemnation has crushed them and turned
them towards God. In the casemate are five camp beds
and five rush-bottomed chairs; to this lugubrious furniture
of the dungeon an altar has been added. It was erected at
the end of the casemate opposite the door and below the
venthole through which daylight penetrates. On the altar
is only a plaster statue of the Virgin enveloped in lace.
There are no tapers, it being feared that the prisoners
might set fire to the door with the straw of their mattresses.
They pray and work. As Nourry has not been confirmed
and wishes to be before he dies, Chopart is teaching him
the catechism.

Beside the altar is a board laid upon two trestles. This
board, which is full of bullet holes, was the target of the
fort. It has been turned into a dining-table, a cruel,
thoughtless act, for it is a continual reminder to the
prisoners of their approaching death.

A few days ago an anonymous letter reached them. This
letter advised them to stamp upon the flagstone in the centre
of the casemate, which, it was affirmed, covered the orifice
of a well communicating with old subterranean passages
of the Abbey of Vanves that extended to Châtillon. All
they had to do was to raise the flagstone and they could
escape that very night.

They did as the letter directed. The stone, it was found,
did emit a hollow sound as though it covered an opening.
But either because the police had been informed of the
letter, or for some other reason, a stricter watch than ever
has been kept upon them from that moment and they have
been unable to profit by the advice.

The gaolers and priests do not leave them for a minute
either by day