rom every
eye, she must have had her reasons for avoiding recognition.

"Sir," said the young man, addressing the officer with a haughty air, "I
presume, till I find myself mistaken, that your business is with me
alone; so I will ask you to inform me what powers you may have for thus
stopping my coach; also, since I have alighted, I desire you to give your
men orders to let the vehicle go on."

"First of all," replied the man, by no means intimidated by these lordly
airs, but signing to his men that they must not release the coach or the
horses, "be so good as to answer my questions."

"I am attending," said the young man, controlling his agitation by a
visible effort.

"Are you the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix?"

"I am he."

"Captain of the Tracy, regiment?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I arrest you in the king's name."

"What powers have you?"

"This warrant."

Sainte-Croix cast a rapid glance at the paper, and instantly recognised
the signature of the minister of police: he then apparently confined his
attention to the woman who was still in the carriage; then he returned to
his first question.

"This is all very well, sir," he said to the officer, "but this warrant
contains no other name than mine, and so you have no right to expose thus
to the public gaze the lady with whom I was travelling when you arrested
me. I must beg of you to order your assistants to allow this carriage to
drive on; then take me where you please, for I am ready to go with you."

To the officer this request seemed a just one: he signed to his men to
let the driver and the horses go on; and, they, who had waited only for
this, lost no time in breaking through the crowd, which melted away
before them; thus the woman escaped for whose safety the prisoner seemed
so much concerned.

Sainte-Croix kept his promise and offered no resistance; for some moments
he followed the officer, surrounded by a crowd which seemed to have
transferred all its curiosity to his account; then, at the corner of the
Quai de d'Horloge, a man called up a carriage that had not been observed
before, and Sainte-Croix took his place with the same haughty and
disdainful air that he had shown throughout the scene we have just
described. The officer sat beside him, two of his men got up behind, and
the other two, obeying no doubt their master's orders, retired with a
parting direction to the driver,

"The Bastille!"

Our readers will now permit us to make them