story!

Near by are the relics of the cell of a companion of Bonivard, who made
an ineffectual attempt to liberate him. On the wall are still seen
sketches of saints and inscriptions by his hand. This man one day
overcame his jailer, locked him in his cell, ran into the hall above,
and threw himself from a window into the lake, struck a rock, and was
killed instantly. One of the pillars in this vault is covered with
names. I think it is Bonivard's pillar. There are the names of Byron,
Hunt, Schiller, and many other celebrities.

After we left the dungeons we went up into the judgment hall, where
prisoners were tried, and then into the torture chamber. Here are the
pulleys by which limbs are broken; the beam, all scorched with the irons
by which feet were burned; the oven where the irons were heated; and
there was the stone where they were sometimes laid to be strangled,
after the torture. On that stone, our guide told us, two thousand Jews,
men, women, and children, had been put to death. There was also, high
up, a strong beam across, where criminals were hung; and a door, now
walled up, by which they were thrown into the lake. I shivered.
"'Twas cruel," she said; "'twas almost as cruel as your slavery in
America."[43]

Then she took us into a tower where was the "oubliette." Here the
unfortunate prisoner was made to kneel before an image of the Virgin,
while the treacherous floor, falling beneath him, precipitated him into
a well forty feet deep, where he was left to die of broken limbs and
starvation. Below this well was still another pit, filled with knives,
into which, when they were disposed to a merciful hastening of the
torture, they let him fall. The woman has been herself to the bottom of