ose to travel to Paris alone on horseback, instead of
journeying as most honest citizens did, I must expect to be shot at.
Then I was ordered into the _conciergerie_ while my passport and papers
were examined.

It was lucky for me I had put on the dead man's clothes, and that the
description chiefly related to these. As regards personal appearance I
was described as young, beardless, with blue eyes, brown hair, and
"nothing remarkable," which equally well described me as it did poor
John Cassidy.

"Who is your master?" demanded the officer.

"Citoyen Lestrange," said I boldly, "an Irishman resident in Paris."

"Where have you been?"

"To Dublin, to see my master's agent, Mr Patten."

"Is this Monsieur Patten's letter?"

"That to my master is his. That to the Citoyen Duport is from a French
gentleman in Dublin whose name I do not know."

It hurt me to tell so many lies in one breath. But I must needs have
some story to tell, and prayed Heaven to forgive me for this.

To my relief the officer seemed satisfied, and I gathered that the
Citoyen Duport must be a man of consequence in Paris.

"Pass, John Cassidy," said he, handing me back my papers.

The same ceremony awaited me at each halting-place, and I realised
before I was half-way to Paris that it was no easy matter for a stranger
to travel in France in those days. What would have become of me but for
the accident in the wood near Morlaix it were hard to say.

But though I had much to congratulate myself on, I confess that as I
drew near to the capital I had much to perturb me. At every halting-
place on the way there were some who shrugged their shoulders when they
heard I was going to Paris. Paris, I heard it whispered, was no safe
place just then even for a Frenchman, still less for a stranger. The
streets were flowing with the blood of those whose only crime was that
they were suspected of not being the friends of the people. As to my
passport, it would be of little use to me unless I could give a fit
account of myself and my masters. As for Citoyen Duport, if I once put
my head in his jaws I need not expect to see it on again. And as for my
letter to Citoyen Lestrange, I had better carry it in the sole of my
stocking, and let no one know I bore a missive to any Englishman or
Irishman in Paris. My wisest course, so one frank official at Alencon
told me, was to know no French, to have no errand but my letter to
Citoyen Duport; that delivered,