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In this situation an ex-Republican of the Eve, who had become a member of
the majority, and on occasions sided somewhat with the Bonapartists, M.
Emile Leroux, who had, moreover, been thrown into Mazas by mistake,
having doubtless been taken for some other Leroux, began to weep with
rage. Three, four, five hours thus passed away. In the meanwhile they had
not eaten since the morning; some of them, in the excitement caused by
the coup d'état had not even breakfasted. Hunger came upon them. Were
they to be forgotten there? No; a bell rang in the prison, the grating of
the door opened, and an arm held out to the prisoner a pewter porringer
and a piece of bread.
The prisoner greedily seized the bread and the porringer. The bread was
black and sticky; the porringer contained a sort of thick water, warm and
reddish. Nothing can be compared to the smell of this "soup." As for the
bread, it only smelt of mouldiness.
However great their hunger, most of the prisoners during the first moment
threw down their bread on the floor, and emptied the porringer down the
hole with the iron bars.
Nevertheless the stomach craved, the hours passed by, they picked up the
bread, and ended by eating it. One prisoner went so far as to pick up the
porringer and to attempt to wipe out the bottom with his bread, which he
afterwards devoured. Subsequently, this prisoner, a Representative set at
liberty in exile, described to me this dietary, and said to me, "A hungry
stomach has no nose."
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