"'We are none but Frenchmen--then, with pleasure, Colonel Hulot.
About six days since, I was quietly going home, at about eleven at
night, after leaving General Montcornet, whose hotel is but a few
yards from mine. We had come away together from the
Quartermaster-General's, where we had played rather high at
_bouillotte_. Suddenly, at the corner of a narrow high-street, two
strangers, or rather, two demons, rushed upon me and flung a large
cloak round my head and arms. I yelled out, as you may suppose, like a
dog that is thrashed, but the cloth smothered my voice, and I was
lifted into a chaise with dexterous rapidity. When my two companions
released me from the cloak, I heard these dreadful words spoken by a
woman, in bad French:

"'"If you cry out, or if you attempt to escape, if you make the very
least suspicious demonstration, the gentleman opposite to you will
stab you without hesitation. So you had better keep quiet.--Now, I
will tell you why you have been carried off. If you will take the
trouble to put your hand out in this direction, you will find your
case of instruments lying between us; we sent a messenger for them to
your rooms, in your name. You will need them. We are taking you to a
house that you may save the honor of a lady who is about to give birth
to a child that she wishes to place in this gentleman's keeping
without her husband's knowledge. Though monsieur rarely leaves his
wife, with whom he is still passionately in love, watching over her
with all the vigilance of Spanish jealousy, she had succeeded in
concealing her condition; he believes her to be ill. You must bring
the child into the world. The dangers of this enterprise do not
concern us: only, you must obey us, otherwise the lover, who is
sitting opposite to you in this carriage, and who does not understand