al
had attracted much suspicion, and the young man being no other than
Andrea, the commissary and gendarme, who was a brigadier, directed their
steps towards his room.

They found the door ajar. "Oh, ho," said the brigadier, who thoroughly
understood the trick; "a bad sign to find the door open! I would rather
find it triply bolted." And, indeed, the little note and pin upon the
table confirmed, or rather corroborated, the sad truth. Andrea had fled.
We say corroborated, because the brigadier was too experienced to be
convinced by a single proof. He glanced around, looked in the bed, shook
the curtains, opened the closets, and finally stopped at the chimney.
Andrea had taken the precaution to leave no traces of his feet in the
ashes, but still it was an outlet, and in this light was not to be
passed over without serious investigation.

The brigadier sent for some sticks and straw, and having filled the
chimney with them, set a light to it. The fire crackled, and the smoke
ascended like the dull vapor from a volcano; but still no prisoner fell
down, as they expected. The fact was, that Andrea, at war with society
ever since his youth, was quite as deep as a gendarme, even though he
were advanced to the rank of brigadier, and quite prepared for the
fire, he had climbed out on the roof and was crouching down against
the chimney-pots. At one time he thought he was saved, for he heard
the brigadier exclaim in a loud voice, to the two gendarmes, "He is not
here!" But venturing to peep, he perceived that the latter, instead of
retiring, as might have been reasonably expected upon this announcement,
were watching with increased attention.

It was now his turn to look about him; the Hotel de Ville, a massive
sixteenth century building, was on his right; any one could descend from
the openings in the tower, and examine every corner of the roof below,
and Andrea expected momentarily to see the head of a gendarme appear at
one of these openings. If once discovered, he knew he would be lost, for
the roof afforded no chance of escape; he therefore resolved to descend,
not through the same chimney by which he had come up, but by a similar
one conducting to another room. He looked around for a chimney from
which no smoke issued, and having reached it, he disappeared through the
orifice without being seen by any one. At the same minute, one of the
little windows of the Hotel de Ville was thrown open, and the head of a
gendarme appear