s garments which humiliate a man at
all hours, the comfortless sleep, the horrible rattling of eight hundred
chains in that resounding hall, the prospect of being shot or blown to
pieces by cannon if ten of those villains took a fancy to revolt, all
those dreadful things are nothing,--nothing, I tell you; that is the
bright side only. There's another side, madame, and a decent man, a
bourgeois, would die of horror in a week. A convict is forced to live
with another man; obliged to endure the company of five other men
at every meal, twenty-three in his bed at night, and to hear their
language! The great society of galley-slaves, madame, has its secret
laws; disobey them and you are tortured; obey them, and you become a
torturer. You must be either victim or executioner. If they would kill
you at once it would at least be the cure of life. But no, they are
wiser than that in doing evil. It is impossible to hold out against
the hatred of these men; their power is absolute over any prisoner who
displeases them, and they can make his life a torment far worse than
death. The man who repents and endeavors to behave well is their common
enemy; above all, they suspect him of informing; and an informer is put
to death, often on mere suspicion. Every hall and community of eight
hundred convicts has its tribunal, in which are judged the crimes
committed against that society. Not to obey the usages is criminal, and
a man is liable to punishment. For instance, every man must co-operate
in escapes; every convict has his time assigned him to escape, and all
his fellow-convicts must protect and aid him. To reveal what a comrade
is doing with a view to escape is criminal. I will not speak to you
of the horrible customs and morals of the galleys. No man belongs to
himself; the government, in order to neutralize the attempts at revolt
or escape, takes pains to chain two contrary natures and interests
together; and this makes the torture of the coupling unendurable; men
are linked together who hate or distrust each other."

"How was it with you?" asked Madame Graslin.

"Ah! there," replied Farrabesche, "I had luck; I never drew a lot to
kill a convict; I never had to vote the death of any one of them; I
never was punished; no man took a dislike to me; and I got on well with
the three different men I was chained to; they all feared me but liked
me. One reason was, my name was known and famous at the galleys before I
got there. A _chauffeur_