[Illustration:  REFRACTAIRES ESCAPING FROM PARIS]

“You are on duty, Tuesday, at the Porte de la Chapelle?”—­“Why, yes.”—­“So that you might very easily let a comrade out who wants to go and pay a visit at Saint-Denis?”—­“Quite out of the question; the others would prevent me, or denounce me to the captain.”—­“You think there is nothing to be done with the captain?”—­“Oh! no; he is a staunch patriot, he is!”—­“How very tiresome; and I wanted most particularly to go to Saint-Denis on Tuesday evening.  I would gladly give twenty francs out of my own pocket for the sake of a little walk outside the fortifications.”—­“There is only one way.”—­“And how is that?”—­“You don’t care much about going out by the door, do you?”—­“Well, no; what I want is to get outside.”—­“Oh! then listen to me; come to La-Chapelle early on Tuesday evening, and walk up and down the rampart.  I will try and be on duty at eight o’clock, and look out for you.  When I see you I will take care not to say qui vive.”—­“That’s easy enough; and what then?”—­“Why, then I will secure around you a thick rope which of course you will have with you!”—­“The devil!”—­“And I will throw you into the trench.”—­“By Jove!  That will be a leap.”—­“Oh!  I will do it very carefully, without hurting you.  I will let you slip softly down the wall.”—­“Humph!”—­“When you reach the ground below, in an instant you can be up and off into the darkness.  Do you accept?  Yes or no?”—­“I should certainly prefer to drive out of the city in a coach and six, but nevertheless I accept.”

Generally, this plan answers admirably.  They say that the Federals of Belleville and Montmartre make a nice little income with this kind of business.  Sometimes, however, the plan only half succeeds, and either the rope breaks, or the Federal considers, he may manage capitally to reconcile his interest with his duty, by sending a ball after the escaped refractaire.

Disguises are also the order of the day.  A poet, whose verses were received at the Comedie Francaise with enthusiasm during the siege, managed to get away, thanks to an official on the Northern Railway, who lent him his coat and cap.  Another poet—­they are an ingenious race—­conceived a plan of greater boldness.  One day on the Boulevard he called a fiacre, having first taken care to choose a coachman of respectable age, “Cocher, drive to the Rue Montorgueil, to the best restaurant you can find.”  On the way the poet reasoned thus to himself:  “This coachman has in his pocket, as they all have, a Communal passport, which allows him to go out and come into Paris as he pleases; let me remember the fourth act of my last melodrama, and I am saved.”

The cab stopped in front of a restaurant of decent exterior not far from Philippe’s.  The young man went in, asked for a private room, and told the waiter to send up the coachman, as he had something to say to him, and to procure a boy to hold the horse.  The coachman walked into the room, where the breakfast was ready served.