drive on; then take me where you please, for I am ready to go with you."

To the officer this request seemed a just one: he signed to his men to
let the driver and the horses go on; and, they, who had waited only for
this, lost no time in breaking through the crowd, which melted away
before them; thus the woman escaped for whose safety the prisoner seemed
so much concerned.

Sainte-Croix kept his promise and offered no resistance; for some moments
he followed the officer, surrounded by a crowd which seemed to have
transferred all its curiosity to his account; then, at the corner of the
Quai de d'Horloge, a man called up a carriage that had not been observed
before, and Sainte-Croix took his place with the same haughty and
disdainful air that he had shown throughout the scene we have just
described. The officer sat beside him, two of his men got up behind, and
the other two, obeying no doubt their master's orders, retired with a
parting direction to the driver,

"The Bastille!"

Our readers will now permit us to make them more fully acquainted with
the man who is to take the first place in the story. The origin of
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was not known: according to one tale, he was the
natural son of a great lord; another account declared that he was the
offspring of poor people, but that, disgusted with his obscure birth, he
preferred a splendid disgrace, and therefore chose to pass for what he
was not. The only certainty is that he was born at Montauban, and in
actual rank and position he was captain of the Tracy regiment. At the
time when this narrative opens, towards the end of 1665, Sainte-Croix was
about twenty-eight or thirty, a fine young man of cheerful and lively