nother period she could have
listened to and admired the singular talent of this man, his great
learning, his fancy, and wit; but her mind was bent upon other things,
and the poor girl firmly thought that her last day was come.

In the meantime, by a blessed chance, I had not ridden three leagues
from Strasburg, when the officer of a passing troop of a cavalry
regiment, looking at the beast on which I was mounted, was pleased
to take a fancy to it, and ordered me, in an authoritative tone, to
descend, and to give up my steed for the benefit of the Republic. I
represented to him, in vain, that I was a soldier, like himself, and the
bearer of despatches to Paris. "Fool!" he said; "do you think they would
send despatches by a man who can ride at best but ten leagues a day?"
And the honest soldier was so wroth at my supposed duplicity, that he
not only confiscated my horse, but my saddle, and the little portmanteau
which contained the chief part of my worldly goods and treasure. I had
nothing for it but to dismount, and take my way on foot back again to
Strasburg. I arrived there in the evening, determining the next morning
to make my case known to the citizen St. Just; and though I made my
entry without a sou, I don't know what secret exultation I felt at again
being able to return.

The ante-chamber of such a great man as St. Just was, in those days,
too crowded for an unprotected boy to obtain an early audience; two days
passed before I could obtain a sight of the friend of Robespierre. On
the third day, as I was still waiting for the interview, I heard a great
bustle in the courtyard of the house, and looked out with many others at
the spectacle.

A number of men and women, singing epithalamiums, and dressed in some
absurd imitation of Roman costume, a troop of soldiers and gendarmerie,
and an immense crowd of the badauds of Strasburg, were surrounding
a carriage which then entered the court of the mayoralty. In this
carriage, great God! I saw my dear Mary, and Schneider by her side. The
truth instantly came upon me: the reason for Schneider's keen inquiries
and my abrupt dismissal; but I could not believe that Mary was false to
me. I had only to look in her face, white and rigid as marble, to see
that this proposed marriage was not with her consent.

I fell back in the crowd as the procession entered the great room in
which I was, and hid my face in my hands: I could not look upon her as
the wife of another,--upon