m the Directory and the king's return to it; and that if
Citizen Gohier as president doesn't give it up of his own accord he will
take it by force."

"Pooh!" exclaimed the young officer with an incredulous air bordering on
irony. But Father Courtois insisted on his news with an affirmative nod.

"Possibly," said the young man; "but as for that, it's news for me. And
now that you know me, will you open the gate?"

"Of course I will. I should think so. What the devil am I about?"
and the jailer opened the gate with an eagerness equalling his former
reluctance. The young man entered, and Sir John followed him. The jailer
locked the gate carefully, then he turned, followed by Roland and the
Englishman in turn. The latter was beginning to get accustomed to
his young friend's erratic character. The spleen he saw in Roland was
misanthropy, without the sulkiness of Timon or the wit of Alceste.

The jailer crossed the yard, which was separated from the law courts
by a wall fifteen feet high, with an opening let into the middle of
the receding wall, closed by a massive oaken door, to admit prisoners
without taking them round by the street. The jailer, we say, crossed the
yard to a winding stairway in the left angle of the courtyard which led
to the interior of the prison.

If we insist upon these details, it is because we shall be obliged to
return to this spot later, and we do not wish it to be wholly unfamiliar
to our readers when that time comes.

These steps led first to the ante-chamber of the prison, that is to say
to the porter's hall of the lower court-room. From that hall ten steps
led down into an inner court, separated from a third, which was that of
the prisoners, by a wall similar to the one we have described, only this
one had three doors. At the further end of the courtyard a passage led
to the jailer's own room, which gave into a second passage, on which
were the cells which were picturesquely styled cages. The jailer paused
before the first of these cages and said, striking the door:

"This is where I put madame, your mother, and your sister, so that if
the dear ladies wanted either Charlotte or myself, they need but knock."

"Is there any one in the cell?"

"No one"

"Then please open the door. My friend, Lord Tanlay, is a philanthropic
Englishman who is travelling about to see if the French prisons are more
comfortable than the English ones. Enter, Sir John."

Pere Courtois having opened the door, R