evidence was of great value in the proceeding: he
knew Jules de Polignac and Charles de la Riviere well; and but for him,
San Victor would have escaped."

"And what has become of him since?"

"He is gone back to the South; he has been promoted."

"Promoted! what do you mean?"

"_Parbleu!_ it is easy enough to understand. He was made chef de bureau
in the department of--"

"What! was he not a tailor then?"

"A tailor! No," said the little man, laughing heartily; "he was
a mouchard, a police spy, who knew all the Royalist party well at
Bordeaux; and Fouche brought him up here to Paris, and established him
in this house. Ah, mon Dieu!" said he, sighing, "he had a better and a
pleasanter occupation than cutting out pantaloons."

Without heeding the reiterated professions of the little tailor of his
desire for my patronage, I strolled out again, lost in reflection, and
sick to the heart of a system based on such duplicity and deception.

At last in Mayence! What a change of life was this to me! A large
fortress garrisoned by twelve thousand men, principally artillery,
awaited here the orders of the Consul; but whither the destination
before them, or what the hour when the word to march was to summon them,
none could tell. Meanwhile the activity of the troops was studiously
kept up; battering trains of field artillery were exercised day after
day; the men were practised in all the movements of the field; while
the foundries were unceasingly occupied in casting guns and the furnaces
rolled forth their myriads of shell and shot. Staff-officers came and
went; expresses arrived from Paris; and orderlies, travel-stained and
tired, galloped in from the other fortified places near; but still no
whisper came to say where the great game of war was to open, for what
quarter of the globe the terrible carnage was destined. From daylight
till dark no moment of our time was unoccupied; reports innumerable were
to be furnished on every possible subject; and frequently it was far in
the night ere I returned to rest.

To others this unbroken monotony may have been wearisome and
uninteresting; to me each incident bore upon the great cause I gloried
in,--the dull rumble of the caissons, the heavy clattering of the brass
guns, were music to my ear, and I never wearied of the din and clamor
that spoke of preparation. Such was indeed the preoccupation of my
thoughts that I scarcely marked the course of events which were even
then passin