rmes surrounded the little
party.

"What do you want?" said Lucien, with the arrogance of a dandy.

"Are you Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre?" asked the public prosecutor of
Fontainebleau.

"Yes, monsieur."

"You will spend to-night in La Force," said he. "I have a warrant for
the detention of your person."

"Who are these ladies?" asked the sergeant.

"To be sure.--Excuse me, ladies--your passports? For Monsieur Lucien,
as I am instructed, had acquaintances among the fair sex, who for him
would----"

"Do you take the Duchesse de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu for a prostitute?" said
Madeleine, with a magnificent flash at the public prosecutor.

"You are handsome enough to excuse the error," the magistrate very
cleverly retorted.

"Baptiste, produce the passports," said the young Duchess with a smile.

"And with what crime is Monsieur de Rubempre charged?" asked Clotilde,
whom the Duchess wished to see safe in the carriage.

"Of being accessory to a robbery and murder," replied the sergeant of
gendarmes.

Baptiste lifted Mademoiselle de Grandlieu into the chaise in a dead
faint.

By midnight Lucien was entering La Force, a prison situated between the
Rue Payenne and the Rue des Ballets, where he was placed in solitary
confinement.

The Abbe Carlos Herrera was also there, having been arrested that
evening.

THE END OF EVIL WAYS

At six o'clock next morning two vehicles with postilions, prison vans,
called in the vigorous language of the populace, _paniers a salade_,
came out of La Force to drive to the Conciergerie by the Palais de
Justice.

Few loafers in Paris can have failed to meet this prison cell on wheels;
still, though most stories are written for Parisian readers, strangers
will no doubt be satisfied to have a description of this formidable
machine. Who knows? A police of Russia, Germany, or Austria, the legal
body of countries to whom the "Salad-basket" is an unknown machine, may
profit by it; and in several foreign countries there can be no doubt
that an imitation of this vehicle would be a boon to prisoners.

This ignominious conveyance, yellow-bodied, on high wheels, and lined
with sheet-iron, is divided into two compartments. In front is a
box-seat, with leather cushions and an apron. This is the free seat of
the van, and accommodates a sheriff's officer and a gendarme. A strong
iron trellis, reaching to the top, separates this sort of cab-front from
the back divi