“‘In your place,’ he added, ’I would change my domicile.  You might, perhaps, thus make them lose your track.  And, above all, do not fail to give me your new address.  Whatever I can do to protect you, and insure your safety, I shall do.’

“That excellent man has kept his word; and once again I owed my safety to him.  ’Tis he who is now commissary of police in this district, and who protected me against Mme. Fortin.  I hastened to follow his advice, and two days later I had hired the room in this house in which I am still living.  In order to avoid every chance of discovery, I left my employer, and requested her to say, if any one came to inquire after me, that I had gone to America.

“I soon found work again in a very fashionable dress-making establishment, the name of which you must have heard,—­Van Klopen’s.  Unfortunately, war had just been declared.  Every day announced a new defeat.  The Prussians were coming; then the siege began.  Van Klopen had closed his shop, and left Paris.  I had a few savings, thank heaven; and I husbanded them as carefully as shipwrecked mariners do their last ration of food, when I unexpectedly found some work.

“It was one Sunday, and I had gone out to see some battalions of National Guards passing along the Boulevard, when suddenly I saw one of the vivandieres, who was marching behind the band, stop, and run towards me with open arms.  It was my old friend from the Batignolles, who had recognized me.  She threw her arms around my neck, and, as we had at once become the centre of a group of at least five hundred idlers,

“‘I must speak to you,’ she said.  ’If you live in the neighborhood, let’s go to your room.  The service can wait.’

“I brought her here, and at once she commenced to excuse herself for her past conduct, begging me to restore her my friendship.  As I expected, she had long since forgotten the young man, cause of our rupture.  But she was now in love, and seriously this time, she declared, with a furniture-maker, who was a captain in the National Guards.  It was through him that she had become a vivandiere; and she offered me a similar position, if I wished it.  But I did not wish it; and, as I was complaining that I could find no work, she swore that she would get me some through her captain, who was a very influential man.

“Through him, I did in fact obtain a few dozen jackets to make.  This work was very poorly paid; but the little I earned was that much less to take from my humble resources.  In that way I managed to get through the siege without suffering too much.