A Terrible Chamber

"This chaniber occupies tho ground floor of the crenulatod towcr, the smallest of the tliroe round towers on the quay. In the center was an oniinons and sinirular-lookiug object. It was a sort of lona; and narro w table of lias-stone, joined with moulten lead poured into the crevices, very heavy and suppovted on thrce stone lf:gs. This table was about two and a half fcet high, eight feet long and twenty inches wide. On looking up I saw a great rusty iron hook fastened in the round stone which forins tho keystone of the arch. This object is the rack. A feathor covering nsed to bu put over :t upon which the victim was stretchcd. Ravaillac reraaincd for six weeks upon this table with his hands and feet tied, bound at the walst by a strap attached to a long ohain hanging from tho ceiling. The last ring of th s ohain was sllpped on to the hook, which I saw fixed above my head. Six gentlemen guards and six guards of the provost department watehcd him nlght and day. Damiens was guarded like Ravaillac in this ohamber, and tied down upon this table during tho whole trial of his case. Desrues and Cartouche were tortnrod upon it. Tlio Marohióncss do Brinvlllier.?. was slrctehed upon it stark naked, faslened down, and, so to speak, qnartorod by fonr chains attacbed to the four ümbs, and thero suffered the frightful 'extraordinary torture by water,' which caused her to ask: "How are you going to continuo to put that great barrel of water in this littlo body?" "A wholo dark history fs there, having filtered. so to speak, drop by drop into the porés of theso stones. these wiills, this vault, this bench. this table, this pavement, this door. There it all is; it has never quitted the place. It bas been sluit up there; it has been bolted up. Nothing has escape d from it, nothing has evaporated; no ono has ever spoken, relatod, betrayed, revealed anvlhing of it. Tbis crypt, which is like the mouth of a funnel turned upside dowu, this case made by the hands ot man, this stono box, has kept the secret of all the blood it has drank, of all the shricks it has stifled. The frighiful occurrences which have taken place in this judge's don still palpítate and live, and exhale all sorts of miasms. What a strange abomination is this tower placed in the very middle of the quay, without any moat or wall to separate it from the passerbyt Inside the saws, the boots, the wooden horsos, the wht-els, the pincers, the hammers which knock in tho wedges, the hissing of flesh touched with the red-hot iron, the sphittering of blood upon the live embers, the cold interrogator es of tho magistrates, tho despairing shrieks of tortured man; outsido, within four paces, cilizens coming and going, women chattering, children playing. trades-people selling their wares, vehicles rolling along, boats upon the river, tho roar of tho