"It is a prison in the open air, with a red cap instead of a brown one,
and, besides, I have always been curious to see the ocean. What a starer I
am!"

"But the pillory! To be exposed there to the contempt of all the world, oh!
my brother." And the unfortunate woman began again to weep.

"Come, come, Jeanne, be reasonable. It is a bad quarter of an hour to pass,
but I believe one is seated. And, besides, am I not accustomed to a crowd?
When I played juggler I always had people around me; I will imagine that I
am at my old trade, and if it has too much effect upon me I will close my
eyes; it will absolutely be the same as if they did not see me."

Speaking with so much stoicism, this unfortunate man wished less to appear
insensible of his criminal actions than to console and satisfy his sister
by this apparent indifference. For a man accustomed to prison
_manners_, and with whom all shame is necessarily dead--even the
galleys were only a change of condition, a "change of caps," as
Pique-Vinaigre said, with frightful truth.

Many of the prisoners of the central prisons even prefer the galleys on
account of the lively, animated life which is led there, committing often
attempts at murder to be sent to Brest or Toulon. This can be imagined
before they enter the galleys they have almost as much work, according to
their declaration. The condition of the most honest workman of the forts is
not less rude than that of the convicts. They enter the workshop, and leave
it, at the same hour, and the beds on which they repose their limbs,
exhausted by fatigue, are often no better than those of the galleys.