ised himself as a servant, and in this manner succeeded
in crossing the frontier at Mouscron. From there he reached Ghent, and
thence Brussels.

On the night of December 26th, I had returned to the little room,
without a fire, which I occupied (No. 9) on the second story of the
Hotel de la Porte-Verte; it was midnight; I had just gone to bed and was
falling asleep, when a knock sounded at my door. I awoke. I always left
the key outside. "Come in," I said. A chambermaid entered with a light,
and brought two men whom I did not know. One was a lawyer, of Ghent,
M. ----; the other was De Flotte. He took my two hands and pressed them
tenderly. "What," I said to him, "is it you?"

At the Assembly De Flotte, with his prominent and thoughtful brow, his
deep-set eyes, his close-shorn head, and his long beard, slightly turned
back, looked like a creation of Sebastian del Piombo wandering out of
his picture of the "Raising of Lazarus;" and I had before my eyes a
short young man, thin and pallid, with spectacles. But what he had not
been able to change, and what I recognized immediately, was the great
heart, the lofty mind, the energetic character, the dauntless courage;
and if I did not recognize him by his features, I recognized him by the
grasp of his hand.

Edgar Quinet was brought away on the 10th by a noble-hearted Wallachian
woman, Princess Cantacuzene, who undertook to conduct him to the
frontier, and who kept her word. It was a troublesome task. Quinet had
a foreign passport in the name of Grubesko, he was to personate a
Wallachian, and it was arranged that he should not know how to speak
French, he who writes it as a master. The journey was perilous. They ask
for passports along all the line, beginning at the terminus. At Amiens
they were particularly suspicious. But at Lille the danger was great.
The gendarmes went from carriage to carriage; entered them lantern in
hand, and compared the written descriptions of the travellers with their
personal appearance. Several who appeared to be suspicious characters
were arrested, and were immediately thrown into prison. Edgar Quinet,
seated by the side of Madame Cantacuzene awaited the turn of his
carriage. At length it came. Madame Cantacuzene leaned quickly forward
towards the gendarmes, and hastened to present her passport, but the
corporal waved back Madame Cantacuzene's passport saying, "It is
useless, Madame. We have nothing to do with women's passports," and he
asked Qui