“Beauvoir was a loyal gentleman, but, unfortunately, he was also a very handsome youth.  He had attractive features, a dashing air, a pleasing address, and extraordinary strength.  Well made, active, full of enterprise, and loving danger, he would have made an admirable leader of guerillas, and was the very man for the part.  The commandant gave his prisoner the most comfortable room, entertained him at his table, and at first had nothing but praise for the Vendean.  This officer was a Corsican and married; his wife was pretty and charming, and he thought her, perhaps, not to be trusted—­at any rate, he was as jealous as a Corsican and a rather ill-looking soldier may be.  The lady took a fancy to Beauvoir, and he found her very much to his taste; perhaps they loved!  Love in a prison is quick work.  Did they commit some imprudence?  Was the sentiment they entertained something warmer than the superficial gallantry which is almost a duty of men towards women?

“Beauvoir never fully explained this rather obscure episode of the story; it is at least certain that the commandant thought himself justified in treating his prisoner with excessive severity.  Beauvoir was placed in the dungeon, fed on black bread and cold water, and fettered in accordance with the time-honored traditions of the treatment lavished on captives.  His cell, under the fortress-yard, was vaulted with hard stone, the walls were of desperate thickness; the tower overlooked the precipice.

“When the luckless man had convinced himself of the impossibility of escape, he fell into those day-dreams which are at once the comfort and the crowning despair of prisoners.  He gave himself up to the trifles which in such cases seem so important; he counted the hours and the days; he studied the melancholy trade of being prisoner; he became absorbed in himself, and learned the value of air and sunshine; then, at the end of a fortnight, he was attacked by that terrible malady, that fever for liberty, which drives prisoners to those heroic efforts of which the prodigious achievements seem to us impossible, though true, and which my friend the doctor” (and he turned to Bianchon) “would perhaps ascribe to some unknown forces too recondite for his physiological analysis to detect, some mysteries of the human will of which the obscurity baffles science.”

Bianchon shook his head in negation.

“Beauvoir was eating his heart out, for death alone could set him free.  One morning the turnkey, whose duty it was to bring him his food, instead of leaving him when he had given him his meagre pittance, stood with his arms folded, looking at him with strange meaning.  Conversation between them was brief, and the warder never began it.  The Chevalier was therefore greatly surprised when the man said to him:  ’Of course, monsieur, you know your own business when you insist on being always called Monsieur Lebrun, or citizen Lebrun.  It is no concern of mine; ascertaining your name is no part of my duty.  It is all the same to me whether you call yourself Peter or Paul.  If every man minds his own business, the cows will not stray.  At the same time, I know,’ said he, with a wink, ’that you are Monsieur Charles-Felix-Theodore, Chevalier de Beauvoir, and cousin to Madame la Duchesse de Maille.—­Heh?’ he added after a short silence, during which he looked at his prisoner.