This interview, which lasted nearly an hour, literally transformed Dolores. For the first time in many years she allowed herself to contemplate the possibility of happiness here below; and the grave and solemn thoughts that had been occupying her mind gave place to bright anticipations of a blissful future with Philip.
For the first time since her arrival at the Conciergerie, she went down into the public hall. This hall was separated only by an iron grating from the long and narrow corridor upon which the cells assigned to the men opened, and in which they spent most of their time. It was against this grating that they leaned when they wished to converse with their lady friends; and, during the day, it not unfrequently happened that the doors were left open, and prisoners of both sexes were allowed to mingle together. Then, ladies and gentlemen promenaded gayly to and fro; acquaintances exchanged greetings; and handsome men and beautiful women chatted as blithely as if they were in their elegant drawing-rooms.
The ancient nobility of France thus entered its protest against the persecutions of which it was the victim, and convinced even its bitterest enemies that it was not lacking in spirit and in courage in the very jaws of death. All the historians who have attempted a description of the prison life of that time unite in declaring that contempt of death was never evinced more forcibly than by the victims of that bloody epoch.
The ladies displayed habits of luxury that were worthy of the days of the Regency. In the morning they generally appeared in bewitching négligés; in the afternoon they made more careful and elegant toilettes, and when evening came they donned the costly, trailing robes which they had worn at Court, only a few short weeks before. Those who, by the circumstances attendant upon their arrest, had been prevented from bringing a varied assortment of dresses with them, expended any amount of energy and ingenuity in their attempts to rival their more fortunate companions in the splendor of their costumes. Hence, the prison resembled a ball-room rather than an antechamber of death. The ladies were coquettish and bewitching; the men were gallant and impassioned; and more than one love was born in those days of alternate hope and terror--more than one love whose ardor was not impaired by fears for the morrow, and whose delights sweetened the last hours of those who shared it. There was, of course, little real enjoyment or happiness in those clays which were constantly disturbed by the arrival of new victims. One came mourning for her children; another, for her husband. At intervals, the jailer appeared to summon those condemned to die. Heart-rending shrieks and despairing farewells attended these separations; the executioner led away his victims, and all was over. Those who remained filled up the ranks, and, looking at one another with an anguish that deprived them of none of their courage, whispered: