Walter Benjamin - Radio Benjamin

As harshly as the prisoners were treated, nobody wished to see an inmate die in the Bastille. It was very seldom that people incarcerated there had been condemned to death at their trial, and if this were the case, they were transferred to an ordinary prison shortly beforehand. For the Bastille was held to be a house of the king, in which there should be no scandal. Therefore, in the famous discharge book, which I have already mentioned, even those who had been executed were recorded as having died of some disease. However, if one of the inmates actually became sick, unless he were an especially noble prisoner he was taken to the barber for bloodletting; only if he grew much worse was a doctor called. The doctor never hurried to the Bastille, as he lived very far away, and furthermore, wasn’t paid for the visit — he merely received a general stipend for his duties at the prison. If, however, the prisoner eventually became so sick that his life was in danger, he was either set free or taken elsewhere. As I said before, the ministry did not like to see well-known people die in the Bastille. There was much to consider. Everyone knew that many of the prisoners confined to the Bastille were innocent, sent there, for example, because they were owed money by an aristocrat who wanted them out of the way. But sometimes an enemy was so powerful that locking him in the Bastille was not enough; one day he might be released. So there were prisoners in the Bastille who lived in constant fear for their lives, not knowing whether their enemy might one day bribe a kitchen boy to mix some lethal powder into their food. The ministry was sufficiently aware of this potential crime that it ordered a sentry to be posted in the kitchen, to prevent anyone from coming too close to the kitchen boys and the pots.

One of the most astounding things for us today is how the prison meals depended on the prisoner’s class. Fifty francs a day were allotted for a prince — then the sums became drastically smaller: twenty-six francs were budgeted for the meal of a French marshal; for a judge or a priest, ten francs; the food for the common people — workers, servants, peddlers, etc. — cost no more than three francs. If I were to read you the whole list, you would see how the Bastille was equipped for visitors of all classes. As with other matters, however, here too the differences were often greater on paper than in reality. But there was one way in which all prisoners of the Bastille were equal: from the governor down to the lowliest prison guard, everyone wanted to make money off of them. There was never a chance that the money paid by the king for the nourishment of his prisoners would actually be used for its intended purpose. And it was no secret. Everyone knew exactly how much could be earned from administering the Bastille, and that the sums one governor had to pay to another to assume his post or to be named by him as his successor could be raised only by rich people.

The injustice committed during the arrests and interrogations of the prisoners of the Bastille was not alone in embittering the people to the point that the destruction of this fortress became the slogan of the first day of the Revolution. Even more galling was the singular brazenness with which, behind the walls of the Bastille, rampant excess stood side by side with the deepest misery. The chief of the Paris police conducted an inspection of the prison two or three times a year to be sure that everything was in order. In reality, however, this inspection consisted of a grand formal dinner, hosted by the governor of the Bastille for the chief of police. Only once all the finest wines, coffee, and the best liqueurs had been washed down, and enough time had been spent at the banquet table, did the chief get up from his chair and amble leisurely over to the towers and along the cells, peeking into one here and there; before long he was back in the governor’s reception rooms.

All of these things show how much the Bastille was a tool of power and how little a means of justice. Even cruelty and hardship can be tolerated if people feel that there’s an idea behind it, that the severity is not merely a matter of the rulers’ convenience. The storming of the Bastille is a turning point not only in the history of the French state, but also in the history of life under the law. People have not always been of one mind about inflicting punishment upon their fellow human beings. The oldest view, from the Middle Ages, was that every wrong should be expiated, not for the sake of human beings but to establish divine justice. The idea of reforming the guilty through punishment had caught on among bright minds long before the French Revolution. Later, in the nineteenth century, this doctrine competed with the so-called doctrine of deterrence, according to which punishments should above all serve a preventive purpose: punishments exist to dissuade those with bad intentions from carrying them out. The people in charge of the Bastille did not trouble themselves with such questions. Whether they were right or wrong was of no consequence to them, and for this reason they were swept aside by the French Revolution.

“Die Bastille, das alte französische Staatsgefängnis,” GS, 7.1, 165–73. Translated by Diana K. Reese.

Broadcast on Southwest German Radio, Frankfurt, April 29, 1931. The Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk-Zeitung announced for April 29, 1931, from 3:20–3:50 pm, “Youth Hour, ‘The Bastille, the Old French State Prison,’ presented by Dr. Walter Benjamin, Berlin (for children ten years old and above).”

1See Frantz Funck-Brentano, La Bastille et ses secrets (Paris: Jules Tallandier, 1979), 126.

2Ibid., 127.

3See Constantin de Renneville, L’i nquisition françoise ou L’h istoire de la Bastille (Amsterdam: Étienne Roger, 1715), 120–2, 131–3.

Today, for a change, I’m simply going to tell you a story. But before we start there are three things you should know. First, every word of it is true. Second, it’s just as exciting for adults as it is for children, and children will understand it just as well as adults. Third, although it concludes with the death of the main character, this story has no real ending, so it has the advantage that it continues on, and that perhaps someday we’ll learn its ending.

Once I begin the story, try not to think: but it starts like some kind of story for adolescents, with pictures. I’m not the one starting the story in such a roundabout and slow-paced way, after all; it’s the chief court of appeals judge Anselm von Feuerbach, who, God knows, did not write for adolescents; he intended his book about Kaspar Hauser to be for adults. It was read all over Europe, and just as people breathlessly followed this tale for five years, from 1828 to 1833, you will listen to this story for twenty minutes, or so I hope. It begins:

The second day of Pentecost is one of Nuremberg’s most festive holidays. The greater part of its residents retreat to the countryside and neighboring villages, particularly in fine Spring weather, leaving the city, already sparsely populated for its considerable size, so quiet and free of people that it looks more like an enchanted city in the Sahara than the bustling center of commerce and trade that it is. On such a day, especially in those areas just outside the center of town, secret things can happen right out in the open while remaining secret nevertheless. And so it occurred on the second day of Pentecost, the 26th of May, 1828, between four and five in the evening: a townsman, who lived along Unschlitt Square, was lingering for a moment in front of his house before heading to the so-called New Gate when he turned around and caught sight of a young man nearby. He was dressed like a farmhand, and with a most awkward posture, not unlike a drunkard, he struggled to move forward, unable to stand upright and lacking proper control of his feet. The townsman approached the stranger, who reached out to him with a letter bearing the address: “To the noble cavalry captain of the 4th Squadron of the 6th Regiment of Chevaux-Légers Nuremberg.” 1