leaders of the Royalist army--names which
nothing but the deepest national ingratitude will ever suffer France to
forget; and it gave a glance at the succession of those gallant exploits
by which the heroic peasantry and gentlemen of Anjou and Poitou had
gained their imperishable distinction.

But the streets of a capital, itself almost in a state of siege, were
not the scene for indulging in romance by starlight; and one of the
patrols of soldiery, then going its rounds, suddenly ordered the group
to disperse. The Frenchman, unluckily, attempted to apologise for his
own appearance on the spot; and the attempt perplexed the matter still
more. The times were suspicious, and a foreigner, and of all foreigners
a Gaul, caught under cover of night singing songs of which the sergeant
could not comprehend a syllable, was a personage in every way formed for
the guard-house. The startled Frenchman's exclamations and wrath at
discovering this purpose, only made the sergeant more positive; and he
was marched off as a traitor convicted of guitar-playing and other
traitorous qualities.

I interposed, but my interposition was in vain. My person was unknown to
the man in authority; and I was evidently, from the frown of the
sergeant, regarded as little better than an accomplice. My only resource
was to follow the party to the guard-house, and see the officer of the
night. But he was absent; and half-laughing at the singular effect of
the report in the morning, that I had been arrested as the
fellow-conspirator of a French mendicant, I called for pen, ink, and
paper, to explain my position by a message to the next magistrate. But
this request only thickened the perplexity. As I approached the desk to
write, the prisoner bounded towards me with a wild outcry, flung his
arms round my neck, and plunging his hand into the deepest recesses of
his very wayworn costume, at length drew out a large letter, which he
held forth to me with a gesture of triumph. The sergeant looked graver
still; his responsibility was more heavily involved by the despatch,
which he intercepted on the spot, and proceeded to examine, at least so
far as the envelope was concerned. He and his guard pored over it in
succession. Still it was unintelligible. It was a mysterious affair
altogether. The Frenchman and I begged equally in vain to be allowed to
interpret. Impossible. At length the subaltern on duty was found; and on
his arrival I was released, with all due ap