ad is trodden by the prisoners committed for
trial on their way to and from the Conciergerie and the Assize Court.

In the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_, between the door into the first court of
the inferior class and the steps leading to the sixth, the visitor must
observe the first time he goes there a doorway without a door or any
architectural adornment, a square hole of the meanest type. Through this
the judges and barristers find their way into the passages, into the
guardhouse, down into the prison cells, and to the entrance to the
Conciergerie.

The private chambers of all the examining judges are on different floors
in this part of the building. They are reached by squalid staircases,
a maze in which those to whom the place is unfamiliar inevitably lose
themselves. The windows of some look out on the quay, others on the yard
of the Conciergerie. In 1830 a few of these rooms commanded the Rue de
la Barillerie.

Thus, when a prison van turns to the left in this yard, it has brought
prisoners to be examined to the "mousetrap"; when it turns to the right,
it conveys prisoners committed for trial, to the Conciergerie. Now it
was to the right that the vehicle turned which conveyed Jacques Collin
to set him down at the prison gate. Nothing can be more sinister.
Prisoners and visitors see two barred gates of wrought iron, with a
space between them of about six feet. These are never both opened at
once, and through them everything is so cautiously scrutinized that
persons who have a visiting ticket pass the permit through the bars
before the key grinds in the lock. The examining judges, or even the
supreme judges, are not admitted without being identified. Imagine,
then, the chances of communications or escape!--The governor of the
Conciergerie would smile with an expression on his lips that would
freeze the mere suggestion in the most daring of romancers who defy
probability.

In all the annals of the Conciergerie no escape has been known but
that of Lavalette; but the certain fact of august connivance, now amply
proven, if it does not detract from the wife's devotion, certainly
diminished the risk of failure.

The most ardent lover of the marvelous, judging on the spot of the
nature of the difficulties, must admit that at all times the obstacles
must have been, as they still are, insurmountable. No words can do
justice to the strength of the walls and vaulting; they must be seen.

Though the pavement of the yard is on