ng them to have been admitted, the
place where they were found was not a fit dwelling-place for a dog. A
key was discovered among her papers, labelled "key of the great vault;"
but where this great vault may be has not yet been found out. The
Superior and her nuns keep a uniform and persistent silence upon the
point; excavations have been made at different points in the garden, and
under the high altar of the chapel, but hitherto without effect. At one
end of the nuns' garden stands an isolated building, in which were found
mattresses furnished with straps and buckles, also two iron corsets, an
iron skull-cap, and a species of rack turned by a cog-wheel, evidently
intended for bending back the body with force. The Superior explained
that these were orthopaedic instruments--a superficial falsehood. The
mattresses and straps struck me as being easily accounted for; I have
seen such things used in French midwifery, and in cases of violent
delirium; but the rack and its adjuncts are justly objects of grave
suspicion, for they imply a use of brutal force which no disease at
present known would justify. On our way back through the gardens our
guide made a _detour_ in order to show us a great subterranean
warehouse, where an enormous quantity of potatoes was stored, as well as
barrels full of salt pork, while in a yard hard by lay grunting a fat
pig. "Look at this!" cried our National Guard indignantly. "Look at
these stores, which might have helped to feed the starving poor of the
arrondissement during our six months' siege, and think that these people
were begging from door to door the whole time for money to buy broken
victuals for their pensioners!" Arrived at the entrance gate our guide
nudged me, telling me in whispers to look at the old woman who was
wandering about, followed by a younger one, stooping from time to time
to pick up a leaf or rub her hands with sand and gravel. "That is Soeur
Bernadine," he said, "one of the three prisoners of the wooden cages.
She is the most sane in mind of the three, and we keep her here under
the care of one of our wives to cheer her up. She is only 50, though she
looks past 70. The other two have been removed, as they were rendered
violent by the crowd and change of scene." I passed close to her and she
looked up--a soft, pale face, with sunken eyes shaded by the frills of a
great cap. She looked at me dazedly, without taking any notice, and
stooping again, filled her hands with refuse