authority sternly forbade.

"The prisoner," said he, in a dictatorial tone, "is now in my charge.
He is a prisoner of state--an Englishman--an agent of the monster
Pitt"--(he paused, and was answered with a general shudder;) "and,
above all, has actually been in arms with the fiend Brunswick, (a
general groan,) and with those worse than fiends, those parricides,
those emigrant nobles, who have come to burn our harvests, slay our
wives and children, and destroy the proudest monument of human wisdom,
the grandest triumph of human success, and the most illustrious
monument of the age of regeneration--the Republic of France." Loud
acclamations followed this popular rhetoric; and the panegyrist,
firmly grasping me by the arm, walked with me rapidly out of court.
All made way for him, and, before another word could be uttered by the
astounded bench, we were in one of the covered carriages reserved for
prisoners of the higher rank, and on our way, at full gallop, through
the intricate streets of Paris.

All this was done with such hurried action, that I had scarcely time
to know what my own emotions were; but the relief from immediate
death, or rather from those depressing and overwhelming sensations
which perhaps make its worst bitterness, was something, and hope
dawned in me once more. Still, it was wholly in vain that I attempted
to make my man of mystery utter a word. Nothing could extort a
syllable from him, and he was evidently unwilling that I should even
see his face, imperfect as the chance was among the few lamps which
Paris then exhibited to enlighten the dismal darkness of her
thoroughfares. Yet the idea that my rescue was not without a purpose
predominated; and I was beginning even to imagine that I already felt
the fresh air of the fields, and that our journey would terminate