f the danger the Consul's party anticipated, could only mourn over the
unhappy fate of a gallant prince whose daring had cost him his life,
and never dreamed for a moment of calling in question the honor or good
faith of Bonaparte in an affair of which I could have easily believed
him totally ignorant. Such, indeed, was the representation of the
"Moniteur;" and whatever doubts the hints about me might have excited,
were speedily allayed by the accounts I read of the Consul's indignation
at the haste and informality of the trial, and his deep anger at the
catastrophe that followed it.

"Savary will be disgraced for this," said I to the Abbe, who leaned over
my shoulder while I read the paper; "Bonaparte can never forgive him."

"You mistake, my dear sir," replied he, with a strange expression I
could not fathom. "The Consul is the most forgiving of men; he never
bears malice."

"But here was a dreadful event,--a crime, perhaps."

"Only a fault," resumed he. "By the bye, Colonel, this order about
closing the barriers will be excessively inconvenient to the good people
of Paris."

"I have been thinking over that, too," said an overdressed,
affected-looking youth, whose perfumed curls and studied costume formed
a strange contrast with the habits of his fellow-prisoners. "If
they shut up the Barriere de de l'Etoile, what are they to do for
Longchamps?"

"_Parbleu!_ that did not strike me," interposed the colonel, tapping his
forehead with his finger. "I 'll wager a crown that they haven't thought
of that themselves."

"The Champs Ellyses are surely long enough for such tomfoolery," said
the quartermaster, in a gruff, savage tone.

"Not one half," was the imperturbable reply of the youth;
"and Longchamps promised admirably this year. I had ordered a
_caleche_,--light blue, with gilt circles on the wheels, and a bronze
carving to the pole,--like an antique chariot."

"_Parbleu!_ you are more likely to take your next airing in a simpler
conveyance," said the quartermaster with a grin.

"I was to have driven la Comtesse de Beauflers to the Bois de Boulogne."

"You must content yourself with the Comte de la Marque" (the prison name
of the executioner) "instead," growled out the other.

I turned away, no less disgusted at the frivolity that could only see in
the dreadful event that took place the temporary interruption to a vain
and silly promenade, than at the savage coarseness that could revel in
the pain common m