Sallambier, who was in the dungeons below,
found a way to cut the hole, by working through the planking.
THE PRISON OF BICETRE AT PARIS.
The prison of Bicetre is a neat quadrangular building, enclosing many
other structures and many courts, which have each a different name;
there is the grande cour (great court) where the prisoners walk; the
cour de cuisine (or kitchen court;) the cour des chiens (or dog's
court;) the cour de correction (or court of punishment;) and the cour
des fers (or iron court.) In this last is a new building five stories
high; each story contains forty cells, capable of holding four
prisoners. On the platform, which supplies the place of a roof, was
night and day a dog named Dragon, who passed in the prison for the most
watchful and incorruptible of his kind; but some prisoners managed at a
subsequent period to corrupt him through the medium of a roasted leg of
mutton, which he had the culpable weakness to accept. The Amphytrions
escaped whilst Dragon was swallowing the mutton; he was beaten and taken
into the cour des chiens, where, chained up and deprived of the free air
which he breathed on the platform, he was inconsolable for his fault,
and perished piecemeal, a victim of remorse at his weakness in yielding
to a moment of gluttony and error.
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