ed at a table behind a
partition in the passport office.[87] When he asked you your age you had
only to answer "Seventy-eight," passing your hand through your sable
locks as you spoke--"Only that? I thought you looked older," the
accommodating individual would answer, at the same time putting into
your hand a paper on which was written some cabalistic sign. One day I
had taken it into my head to go and spend two hours at Bougival, and my
pass bore the strange word "Carnivolus" written on it. Provided with
this mysterious document, I was enabled to procure a first-class ticket
and jump into the next train that started. I was free, and nothing could
have prevented my going, if such had been my wish, to proclaim the
Commune at Mont Blanc or Monaco.

How the times are changed! The Committee of Public Safety and the
Central Committee now join together in making the lives of the poor
_refractaires_[88] a burthen to them. I do not speak of the
disarmaments, which have nothing particularly disagreeable about them,
for an unarmed man may clearly nourish the hope that he is not to be
sent to battle. But there are other things, and I really should not
object to be a little over eighty for a few days. Domiciliary visits
have become very frequent. Four National Guards walk into the house of
the first citizen they please, and politely or otherwise, explain to him
that it is his strict duty to go into the trenches at Vanves and kill as
many Frenchmen as he can. If the citizen resists he is carried off, and
told that on account of his resistance he will have the honour of being
put at the head of his battalion at the first engagement. These visits
often end in violence. I am told that in the Rue Oudinot a young man
received a savage bayonet thrust because he resisted the corporal's
order; and as these occurrences are not uncommon, the _refractaires_
cannot be said to live in peace and comfort. They are subject to
continual terror, the sour visage of their _concierge_ fills them with
misgivings, he may be one of the Commune. As to going to bed, it must
not be thought of; it is during the hours of night that the Communal
agents are particularly active. This necessity of changing domicile has
lead to certain Amelias and Rosalines and other ladies of that
description having the words "Hospitality to _Refractaires_" written in
pencil on their cards. Men who decline to take advantage of such
opportunities have to go about from hotel to hotel