in, I should be pleased to give
both to the latter. But he would not be satisfied. "Where is the box you
had in your hand? what did it contain? and what have you done with it?"
he insisted. I knew that it would be useless to try and enlighten him,
so I stuck to my text. Meanwhile the crowd had become very excited, so I
simply repeated my request to be taken to the post.

The crowd would have willingly judged me there and then; that is, strung
me up to the nearest lamp-post. If they had, not a single one among them
would have been prosecuted for murder, and by the end of the siege the
British Government would have considered it too late to move in the
matter; besides, a great many of my countrymen would have opined that
"it served me right" for remaining in Paris, when I might have made
myself so comfortable in London or elsewhere. So I felt very thankful
when the corporal, though very ungraciously, ordered his men to close
around me and "to march." I have, since then, been twice to the Avenue
de Clichy on pleasure bent; that is, to breakfast at the celebrated
establishment of "le pere Lathuille," and the sight of the lamp-posts
there sent a cold shudder down my back.

The journey to the military post did not take long. It had been
established in a former ball-room or music-hall, for at the far end of
the room there was a stage, representing, as far as I can remember, an
antique palace. The floor of it was littered with straw, on which a
score or so of civic warriors were lazily stretched out; while others
were sitting at the small wooden tables, that had, not long ago, borne
the festive "saladier de petit bleu." Some of the ladles with which that
decoction had been stirred were still hanging from the walls; for in
those neighbourhoods the love of portable property on the part of the
patrons is quite Wemmickian, and the proprietors made and make it a rule
to throw as little temptation as possible in the way of the former. The
place looked quite sombre, though the gas was alight. There was an
intolerable smell of damp straw and stale tobacco smoke.

Part of the crowd succeeded in making their way inside, notwithstanding
the efforts of the National Guards. My appearance caused a certain stir
among the occupants of the room; but in a few moments the captain,
summoned from an apartment at the back, came upon the scene, and my
preliminary trial was proceeded with at once.

The indictment of the corporal who had arrested me