Unpopular from the excess of
his devotion to his royal master, Aubriot was the first prisoner in his
own prison.
Perhaps the most celebrated of the long list of after captives were the
Connetable de St. Pol and Jacques d'Armagnac, Due de Nemours, taken thence
for execution to the Place de Greve under Louis XI., Charles de Gontaut,
Due de Biron, executed within the walls of the fortress under Henri IV.,
and the "Man with the Iron Mask," brought hither mysteriously, September
18, 1698, and who died in the Bastille, November 19, 1703.
A thousand engravings show us the Bastille as it was--as a "fort-bastide"
--built on the line of the city walls just to the south of the Porte St.
Antoine, surrounded by its own moat. It consisted of eight round towers,
each bearing a characteristic name, connected by massive walls, ten feet
thick, pierced with narrow slits by which the cells were lighted. In the
early times it had entrances on three sides, but after 1580 only one, with
a drawbridge over the moat on the side toward the river, which led to
outer courts and a second drawbridge, and wound by a defended passage to
an outer entrance opposite the Rue des Tournelles.
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