s to render escape impossible, while he addressed her.

"By what authority do you arrest me?--by what order?"

"By virtue of this _lettre-de-cachet_; you see, madame, signed by the
minister of police."

"I cannot read it; there is not light sufficient."

"_Ma foi_, madame, there is little sunshine at half-past eleven o'clock
at night. I can't help that. Madame will please to come with us."

Two men by this time had appeared close at hand; and Madame Le Prun, who
much preferred one of the King's prisons to that in which her husband
was absolute, accompanied her captors with a far better grace than under
other circumstances she would have done.

Distant a few score steps, upon a sort of grass-grown road, which
traversed the park, stood the equipage which we have already described;
and in a few seconds Lucille found herself seated beside the red cloak
and mighty moustache, that held her in durance, jolting and rolling at a
rapid pace along the moonlit scenery of the park.

"Where am I going?--to the Bastile?" asked Lucille, when a few minutes
had a little recovered her from the stun and confusion of this
adventure.

"Hum!--why, no, madame--not the Bastile; you are going to a convent."

"A convent!--how strange! What convent?"

"That of the Sisters of Love and Our Lady of the Sparkling Eyes--an
ancient foundation of royalty in the city."

"I dare say; I never heard of it before;" and Lucille sank into profound
silence.

After a considerable interval, she asked, with a tremulousness she in
vain tried to conceal--

"There were some friends who were to have arranged my departure from the
place where you arrested me to-night--did you see them?"

"Oh, yes; there was the atribilious Marquis de Secqville and the
handsome Conte de Blassemare. St. Imay arrested them about half-an-hour
ago; _they_ are gone to the Bastile."

Lucille sighed profoundly. She did not observe that the farouche officer
in the corner of the coach was shaking with suppressed laughter. After a
time he ejaculated, in a sepulchral tone--

"I strongly suspect their punishment will be dreadful. It is bad enough
to conspire to steal away the wife of a respectable curmudgeon, madame,
but to draw one's sword on the king's police!--_ma foi_, madame, that is
another affair. If his majesty's clemency be enlisted, notwithstanding,
in their behoof, they may chance to get off with the galleys. It will be
a dreadful sight to see that solemn De Secqville a