site clothing, which she
brought me in her muff. I immediately tried them on, and they suited me
exactly. Some of the prisoners who saw me thus attired assured me that
it was impossible to detect me. I was the same height as the officer
whose character I was about to assume, and I made myself appear
twenty-five years of age. At the end of a few days, he made his usual
round, and whilst one of my friends occupied his attention, under
pretext of examining his food, I disguised myself hastily, and presented
myself at the door, which the gaolkeeper, taking off his cap, opened,
and I went out into the street. I ran to a friend of Francine's, as
agreed on in case I should succeed, and she soon joined me there.

I was there perfectly safe, if I could resolve on keeping concealed; but
how could I submit to a slavery almost as severe as that of St. Peter's
Tower. As for three months I had been enclosed within four walls, I was
now desirous to exercise the activity so long repressed. I announced my
intention of going out; and, as with me an inflexible determination was
always the auxiliary of the most capricious fancy, I did go. My first
excursion was safely performed, but the next morning, as I was crossing
the Rue Ecremoise, a sergeant named Louis, who had seen me during my
imprisonment, met me, and asked if I was free. He was a severe practical
man, and by a motion of his hand could summon twenty persons. I said
that I would follow him; and begging him to allow me to bid adieu to my
mistress, who was in a house of Rue de l'Hopital, he consented, and we
really met Francine, who was much surprised to see me in such company;
and when I told her that having reflected, that my escape might injure
me in the estimation of my judges, I had decided on returning to St.
Peter's Tower, to wait the result of the process.

Francine did not at first comprehend why I had expended three hundred
francs, to return at the end of four months to prison. A sign put her
on her guard, and I found an opportunity of desiring her to put some
cinders in my pocket whilst Louis and I took a glass of rum, and then
set out for the prison. Having reached a deserted street, I blinded my
guide with a handful of cinders, and regained my asylum with all speed.

Louis having made his declaration, the gendarmes and police-officers
were on the full cry after me; and there was one Jacquard amongst them
who undertook to secure me if I were in the city. I was not unacq