Alfred; or, The Adventures of a French Gentleman — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ALFRED; OR ADVENTURES | 53 ne was not there ; and Pierre dared not excite suspicion by mquir- ing of the gaoler if he had been liberated. The clanking chains were once more attached to the convicts as before ; and the squadron speedily resumed its march, under the escort of another detachment of Gendarmes. CHAPTER VIII. THE ARRIVAL. Iv would be encroaching on the reader’s time and patience, mi- nutely to detail every event that occurred during the march of the convicts. Suffice it to say, that Belle-Rose played his usual tricks in the various public-houses at which they stopped; that De Ro- sann kept up his spirits with sanguine hope; and that Champignon vaunted his gastronomical acquirements whenever an opportunity presented itself. The other convicts amused themselves with licen- fious conversation, and wiled away the tedious hours with ribald songs, or disgusting anecdotes of immorality and misdeed; and not unfrequently did they disguise their meaning in a certain slang, called argot, which is a common language at the bagne, but is alto- gether unintelligible to those who are not initiated in the mysteries of that school. We will not, however, inflict any of it upon the reader: on the contrary, we will pass over the remainder of the journey in silence, and resume our narrative at the moment when the massive gates of the prison at Brest closed upon the chain, which was now arrived at the place of its destination. It must not be thought, however, that the galleys of France re- semble the hulks at Portsmouth or Plymouth: years have passed away since the convicts dwelt in ships at Toulon, Brest, and Roche- fort; and spacious prisons, built near the harbours, have become the receptacles of those who still bear the name of galley-slaves. In courts of justice the words galeres and galeriens are now used but seldom; they are almost obsolete in the mouths of the Procu- reurs du Roi; and travaux forces and forcats have replaced them. The town clock had struck five in the afternoon of the 5th of May, when the chain entered the bagne of Brest; and a strict per- sonal examination instantly commenced. One by one the convicts were submitted to the scrutiny of an old man in a little office or cabinet. There they were stripped to the skin, and not a crevice of their garments escaped the most minute investigation. When this ceremony was accomplished, they were conducted to the baths, and thence each to a cachot for the night; and on the following morning they were supplied with new suits of clothes, their own being taken away to give place to garments made of cloth of two different colours. Belle-Rose entered the cabinet before De Rosann, and was in- stantly requested by the old man to divest himself of his apparel. ‘¢ Since you are determined to see me like Adam,” said the face- tious Pierre, ‘‘ I muste’en obey: there is my jacket.” ‘“¢ You have no files—no watch-springs—concealed herein?” en- one te COMIC DOCS. COM =.