increased his distress.

Next day the gaoler who brought the food promised Brotteaux, if he could
afford the cost, to give him the privileges of a prisoner who pays for
his accommodation, so soon as there should be room, and it was not
likely to be long first. And so it turned out; two days later he invited
the old financier to leave his dungeon. At every step he took upwards,
Brotteaux felt life and vigour coming back to him, and when he saw a
room with a red-tiled floor and in it a bed of sacking covered with a
dingy woollen counterpane, he wept for joy. The gilded bed carved with
doves billing and cooing that he had once had made for the prettiest of
the dancers at the Opera had not seemed so desirable or promised him
such delights.

This bed of sacking was in a large hall, very fairly clean, which held
seventeen others like it, separated by high partitions of planks. The
company that occupied these quarters, composed of ex-nobles, tradesmen,
bankers, working-men, hit the old publican's taste well enough, for he
could accommodate himself to persons of all qualities. He noticed that
these, cut off like himself from every opportunity of pleasure and
foredoomed to perish at the hand of the executioner, were of a very
merry humour and showed a marked taste for wit and raillery. His bent
was to think lightly of mankind, so he attributed the high spirits of
his companions to the frivolity of their minds, which prevented them
from looking seriously at their situation. Moreover, he was strengthened
in his opinion by observing how the more intelligent among them were
profoundly sad. He remarked before long, that, for the most part, wine
and brandy supplied the inspiration of a gaiety that betrayed its source
by its violent and sometimes almost insane character. They did not all
possess courage; but all made a display of it. This caused Brotteaux no
surprise; he was well aware how men will readily enough avow cruelty,
passion, even avarice, but never cowardice, because such an admission
would bring them, among savages and even in civilized society, into
mortal danger. That is the reason, he reflected, why all nations are
nations of heroes and all armies are made up of brave men only.

More potent, even, than wine and brandy were the rattle of weapons and
keys, the clash of locks and bolts, the cry of sentries, the stamping of
feet at the door of the Tribunal, to intoxicate the prisoners and fill
their minds with melancholy,