when he learnt that I had been nearly four days on the road. His astonishment redoubled when I related to him my unavailing endeavours to influence our consul — that official protector of the French—to take some step in favour of the prisoner.
The attention with which M. de Barante listened to me, the assurance which he gave me that he would neglect nothing to clear up this affair, the importance
282SEQUEL OF THE HISTORY
with which he appeared to invest the smallest facts that could interest the dignity of France and the safety of her citizens, put my conscience at ease, and dissipated the phantoms of my imagination. The fate of M. Pernet was in the hands of his natural protector, whose ability and character became better sureties for the safety of this unfortunate man than my zeal and powerless solicitations. I felt I had done all that I could for him and for the honour of my country. During the twelve or fourteen days that I remained at Petersburg, I purposely abstained from pronouncing the name of Pernet before the ambassador ; and I left Russia without knowing the end of a history which had so much absorbed and interested me.
But, while journeying rapidly towards France, my mind was often carried back to the dungeons of Moscow. If I had known all that was passing there, it would have been yet more painfully excited.
Not to leave the reader in the ignorance in -which I remained for nearly six months respecting the fate of the pi`isoner at Moscow, I insert here all that I have learnt since my return to France respecting the imprisonment of M. Pernet, and his deliverance.
One day, near the end of the winter of 1840, I was informed that a stranger was at my door, and wished to speak with me. I desired that he would give his name : he replied that he would give it to me only. I refused to see him ; he persisted ; I again refused. At last, renewing his entreaties, he sent up a line of writing without any signature, to say that I could not refuse listening to a man who owed to me his life, and who only wished to thank me.
This language appeared extraordinary. I ordered the stranger to be introduced. On entering the room he said —
0Г M. PERNET.
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' Sir, it was only yesterday I learnt your address : my name is Pernet; and I come to express to you my gratitude ; for I was told at Petersburg that it is to yon I owe my liberty, and consequently my life.'
After the first surprise which such an address caused me, I began to notiee the person of M. Pernet. He is one of that numerous class of young Frenchmen who have the appearance and the temperament of the men of southern lands; his eyes and hair are blaek, his cheeks hollow, his eountenanee every where equally pale ; he is short and slight in figure ; and he appeared to be suffering, though rather morally than physieally. He discovered that I knew some members of his family settled in Savoy, who are among the most respectable people of that land of honest men. He told me that he was an advocate; and he related that he had been detained in the prison of Moseow for three weeks, four days of which time he was placed in the eells. We shall see by his recital the way in whieh a prisoner is treated in this abode. My imagination had not approached the reality.
Tln>, two first days he was left
After having thus penetrated against his will into the profound mystery of a Russian prison, he believed, not without reason, that he was destined to end his days thei`e; for he said to himself, ' If there had been any intention to release me, it is not here that I should be confined by men who fear nothing so mueh as to have their seeret barbarity divulged.'
A slight partition alone separated his narrow eell from the inner court, where these executions were perpetrated.
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INTERIOR OF
The rod, which, since the amelioration of manners, usually replaces the knout of Mongolic memory, is formed of a cane split into three pieces, an instrument which fetches off the skin at every stroke; at the fifth, the victim loses nearly all power to cry, his weakened voice can then only utter a prolonged, sobbing groan. This horrible rattle in the throat of the tortured creatures pierced the heart of the prisoner, and presaged to him a fate which he dared not look in the face.
M. Pernet understands Eussian; he was therefore present, without seeing any thing, at many private tortures; among others, at those of two young girls, who worked under a fashionable milliner in Moscow. These unfortunate creatures were flogged before the eyes even of their mistress, who reproached them with having lovers, and with having so far forgotten themselves as to bring them into her house — the house of a milliner ! — what an enormity! Meanwhile this virago exhorted the executioners to strike harder : one of the girls begged for mercy: they said that she was nearly killed, that she was covered with blood. No matter ! She had carried her audacity so far as to say that she was less culpable than her mistress ; and the latter redoubled her severity. M. Pernet assured me, observing that he thought I might doubt his assertion, that each of the unhappy girls received, at different intervals, a hundred and eighty blows. ' I suffered too much in counting them,' he added, ' to be deceived in the number.'
A man feels the approach of insanity when present at such horrors, and yet unable to succour the victims.
Afterwards, serfs and servants were brought by stewards, or sent by their masters, with the request that they might be punished : there was nothing, in short, but scenes of atrocious vengeance and frightful despair, all hidden from the public eye.* The unhappy prisoner longed for the obscurity of night, because the darkness brought with it silence ; and though his thoughts then terrified him, he preferred the evils of imagination to those of reality. This is always the case with real sufferers. It is
* See, in Dickens's American Journey, extracts from the United States' papers, concerning the treatment of the slaves ; presenting a remarkable resemblance between the excesses of despotism and the abuses of democracy.
A MOSCOW PRISON.
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