On entering the courtyard of La Roquette I noticed that fires were blazing in the kitchen on the left, and that the cooks were making coffee for the soldiers and policemen, who came in batches to sip the stimulating beverage. Pacing up and down the courtyard, apparently indifferent to the intense cold, was the Abbé Crozes, the ordinary of La Roquette, a venerable-looking little man, extremely thin, with long, wavy, white hair, a high forehead, bronzed complexion, and sparkling eyes. Attached to the top button-hole of his soutane was the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. In his young days the abbé had been chaplain to the Prince de Polignac, the ill-starred minister of Charles X., and the author of those memorable ordinances which brought about the “glorious revolution of July.” Afterwards, M. Crozes had become a vicaire at the fashionable church of St. Roch, but at the time of Troppmann's execution he had for many years held the post of ordinary of La Roquette, in which capacity he had done an immense amount of good among the prisoners generally, and had strengthened the courage of many a criminal whom he had accompanied to the guillotine by promising him the divine forgiveness in return for a sincere repentance.

The abbé was wonderfully popular among the criminal classes. Those whom their “trouble” brought to La Roquette found in him an earnest friend. He looked after their interests, assisted their families or realised their property for them, selling, for instance, their furniture and trinkets, and holding the proceeds until their release, to ensure their having some means before them when their time expired, and not infrequently assisting them from his own purse.