Previous  - next

bombarded and taken by the French after the celebrated battle of
Austerlitz, a village at a little distance from it. It was not
generally repaired, with the exception of a portion of the outworks,
which had been wholly demolished. Within it are imprisoned some
three hundred wretches, for the most part robbers and assassins,
some condemned to the carcere dare, others to that called durissimo,
the severest of all. This HARD IMPRISONMENT comprehends compulsory,
daily labour, to wear chains on the legs, to sleep upon bare boards,
and to eat the worst imaginable food. The durissimo, or hardest,
signifies being chained in a more horrible manner, one part of the
iron being fixed in the wall, united to a hoop round the body of the
prisoner, so as to prevent his moving further than the board which
serves for his couch. We, as state prisoners, were condemned to the
carcere duro. The food, however, is the same, though in the words
of the law it is prescribed to be bread and water.

While mounting the acclivity we turned our eyes as if to take a last
look of the world we were leaving, doubting if ever the portals of
that living grave would be again unclosed to us. I was calm, but
rage and indignation consumed my heart. It was in vain I had
recourse to philosophy; it had no arguments to quiet or to support
me.

I was in poor health on leaving Venice, and the journey had fatigued
me exceedingly. I had a fever, and felt severe pains, both in my
head and my limbs. Illness increased my irritation, and very
probably the last had an equally ill effect upon my frame.

We were consigned over to the superintendent of Spielberg, and our
names were registered in the same list as that of the robbers. The
imperial commissary shook our hands upon taking leave, and was
evidently affected. "Farewell," he said, "and let me recommend to
you calmness and submission: for I assure you the least infraction
of discipline will be punished by the governor in the severest
manner."

The consignment being made out, my friend and myself were conducted
into a subterranean gallery, where two dismal-looking dungeons were
unlocked, at a distance from each other. In one of these I was
entombed alive, and poor Maroncelli in the other.



CHAPTER LVIII.



How bitter is it, after having bid adieu to so many beloved objects,
and there remains only a single one between yourself and utter
solitude, the solitude of chains and a living death, to be separated
even from that one! Maroncelli, on leaving me, ill and dejected,
shed tears over me as one whom, it was most probable, he would never
more behold. In him, too, I lamented a noble-minded man, cut off in
the splendour of his intellect, and the vigour of his days, snatched
from society, all its duties and its pleasures, and even from "the
common air, the earth, the sky." Yet he survived the unheard of

Previous  - next