, which
I found was inscribed Monsieur Bourrienne, Rue Lafitte, a name that
subsequently was to be well known to the world.

I directed my manuscript to his care, and lay down with a lighter heart
than I had known for many a day. I will not weary my reader with the
tormenting vacillations of hope and fear which followed. Day after day
went over, and no answer came to me. I addressed two notes, respectful,
but urgent, begging for some information as to my demand--none came. A
month passed thus, when, one morning, the governor of the Temple entered
my room, with an open letter in his hand.

'This is an order for your liberation, Monsieur de Tiernay,' said he;
'you are free.'

'Am I reinstated in my grade?' asked I eagerly.

He shook his head, and said nothing.

'Is there no mention of my restoration to the service?'

'None, sir.'

'Then what is to become of me--to what end am I liberated?' cried I
passionately.

'Paris is a great city--there is a wide world beyond it; and a man so
young as you are must have few resources, or he will carve out a good
career for himself.'

'Say, rather, he must have few resentments, sir,' cried I bitterly, 'or
he will easily hit upon a bad one'; and with this, I packed up the few
articles I possessed, and prepared to depart.

I remember it well: it was between two and three o'clock of the
afternoon, on a bright day in spring, that I stood on the Quai Voltaire,
a very small packet of clothes in a bundle in one hand, and a cane
in the other, something short of three louis in my purse, and as much
depression in my heart as ever settled down in that of a youth not full
nineteen. Liberty is a glorious thing, and mine had been perilled often
enough to give me a hearty appreciation of its blessing; but at that
moment, as I stood friendless and companionless in a great thoroughfare
of a great city, I almost wished myself back again within the dreary
walls of the Temple, for somehow it felt like home! It is true, one must
have had a lonely lot in life before he could surround the cell of a
prison with such attributes as these. Perhaps I have more of the catlike
affection for a particular spot than most men; but I do find that I
attach myself to walls with a tenacity that strengthens as I grow older,
and, like my brother parasite, the ivy, my grasp becomes more rigid the
longer I cling.

If I know of few merely sensual gratifications higher than a lounge
through Paris, at the flood-tid