Pagina 583 di 896

This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway

twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times

in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before

him and stopping him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping

him in charge. He had been days upon his journey in France alone,

when he went to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road,

still a long way from Paris.

Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from

his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His

difficulty at the guard-house in this small place had been such,

that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And he was,

therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find himself

awakened at the small inn to which he had been remitted until

morning, in the middle of the night.

Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in

rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on

the bed.