their charge with tearful respect. Grief, privation, and fatigue,
greatly aggravated by the shackles which bound them in pairs, had
exhausted body and mind at the end of the journey. From the city of
Brunn, the capital of Moravia, their wan looks sought the mountain
prison above, where frowned the bastions of Spielberg, once a mediaeval
castle, then a fortress, built by the Emperor Charles, and, just before
the battle of Austerlitz, dismantled by Napoleon, and now the place of
confinement for the most degraded criminals of Austria, nearly a
thousand of whom there expiate their offences. Into this herd of
malefactors were thrust gentlemen, scholars, citizens, for the crime of
patriotism. To each was assigned a cell, twelve feet in length and
eight in breadth, with a small iron-barred window, a plank with, a
mattress and blanket, an iron chair secured to the wall, and an earthen
jug for water. Arrayed in convict uniform, here the brave youths were
immured. Sentinels were continually on guard in the corridors and court
and around the bastions; the food was inadequate and often loathsome;
an hour's walk in the yard daily, between two soldiers with loaded
muskets, was the only respite from solitude and inaction; "Lives of the
Saints" were the only books allowed; intercourse with the outward world
was entirely cut off; surveillance was incessant; on Sunday they were
guarded to the chapel, but kept apart; every quarter appeared a priest,
who strove, by rigid examination, to elicit political secrets; the
agents and officials maintained an unmitigated reserve; what transpired
in the world, how it fared with their country and their loved ones, was
unknown; existence so near to death itself, in passivity, "cold
obstruction," alienation from all the interests, the hopes, and the
very impressions of human life, it is impossible to imagine.
Subsequently reforms were introduced, and the rigors of this system
somewhat modified; but the era of Foresti's confinement at Spielberg
was that which has become accursed in political history as the reign of