countenance. According to custom, a host of inkeepers' domestics
boarded the vessel, each vaunting the superiority of his master's
accommodations. My old landlord Ducrocq presenting himself to
congratulate me on my arrival, soon freed me from their
importunities, and I, of course, decided in favour of the _Lion
d'Argent_.

Part of the _Boulogne_ flotilla was lying in the harbour.
Independently of the decks of the gunboats being full of soldiers,
with very few sailors intermixed, playing at different games of
chance, not a plank, not a log, or piece of timber, was there on the
quay but was also covered with similar parties. This then accounts
for that rage for gambling, which has carried to such desperate
lengths those among them whom the fate of war has lodged in our
prisons.

My attention was soon diverted from this scene, by a polite answer
from the commissary, inviting me to his house. I instantly
disembarked to wait on him; my letter containing nothing more than an
introduction, accompanied by a request that I might be furnished with
a passport to enable me to proceed to Paris without delay, Citizen
Mengaud dispatched a proper person to attend me to the town-hall,
where the passports are made out, and signed by the mayor; though
they are not delivered till they have also received the commissary's
signature. However, to lose no time, while one of the clerks was
drawing my picture, or, in other words, taking down a minute
description of my person, I sent my keys to the custom-house, in
order that my baggage might be examined.

By what conveyance I was to proceed to Paris was the next point to be