us speak no longer of the woman who must be, for all her life,
the victim of a brutal and depraved husband, and speak of Jeanne
Duport's brother. This freed prisoner leaves a den of corruption to
re-enter the world; he had submitted to his punishment, payed his debt by
expiation. What precaution has society taken to prevent him from falling
again into crime? None! If the freed convict has the courage to resist
evil temptations, he will give himself up to one of those homicidal
trades of which we have spoken.

Then the condition of the freed convict is much more terrible, painful,
and difficult than it was before he committed his first fault. He is
surrounded by perils and rocks,--he must have refusal, disdain, and
often even the deepest misery. And if he relapses and commits a second
crime, you are more severe towards him than for his first fault a
thousand times. This is unjust, for it is always the necessity you
impose on him that makes him commit the second crime. Yes, for it is
demonstrated that, instead of correcting, your penitentiary system
depraves; instead of ameliorating, it renders worse; instead of curing
slight moral defects, it renders them incurable.

The severe punishment inflicted on offenders for the second time would
be just and logical if your prisons, rendered moral, purified the
prisoners, and if, at the termination of their punishment, good conduct
was, if not easy, at least possible for them. If we are astonished at
the contradictions of the law, what is it when we compare certain
offences with certain crimes, either from the inevitable consequences,
or from the immense disproportions which exist between the punishments,
awarded to each?

The conversation of the prisoner who came to see the bailiff will
present one of these overwhelming contrasts.

CHAPTER VII.

MAITRE BOULARD.

The prisoner who entered the reception-room at the moment when
Pique-Vinaigre left it was a man about thirty, with reddish brown hair,
a jovial countenance, florid and full; and his short stature made his
excessive fatness still more conspicuous. This prisoner, so rosy and
plump, was attired in a long and warm dressing-gown of gray kersey, with
pantaloons of the same down to his feet. A kind of cap of red velvet,
called _Perinet-Leclerc_, completed this personage's costume, when we
add that his feet were thrust into comfortable furred slippers. His gold
chain supported a number of handsome seals with valua