“Your passports, Messieurs,” as a lantern was held up in succession across our faces, and we handed forth our crumpled and worn papers to the official.

The night was stormy and dark—­gusts of wind sweeping along, bearing with them the tail of some thunder cloud—­mingling their sounds with a falling tile from the roofs, or a broken chimney-pot.  The officer in vain endeavoured to hold open the passports while he inscribed his name; and just as the last scrawl was completed, the lantern went out.  Muttering a heavy curse upon the weather, he thrust them in upon us en masse, and, banging the door to, called out to the conducteur, “en route.”

Again we rumbled on, and, ere we cleared the last lamps of the town, the whole party were once more sunk in sleep, save myself.  Hour after hour rolled by, the rain pattering upon the roof, and the heavy plash of the horses’ feet contributing their mournful sounds to the melancholy that was stealing over me.  At length we drew up at the door of a little auberge; and, by the noise and bustle without, I perceived there was a change of horses.  Anxious to stretch my legs, and relieve, if even for a moment, the wearisome monotony of the night, I got out and strode into the little parlour of the inn.  There was a cheerful fire in an open stove, beside which stood a portly figure in a sheepskin bunta and a cloth travelling cap, with a gold band; his legs were cased in high Russia leather boots, all evident signs of the profession of the wearer, had even his haste at supper not bespoke the fact that he was a government courier.

“You had better make haste with the horses, Antoine, if you don’t wish the postmaster to hear of it,” said he, as I entered, his mouth filled with pie crust and vin de Beaune, as he spoke.

A lumbering peasant, with a blouse, sabots, and a striped nightcap, replied in some unknown patois; when the courier again said—­

“Well, then, take the diligence horses; I must get on at all events; they are not so presse, I’ll be bound; besides it will save the gens-d’armes some miles of a ride if they overtake them here.”

“Have we another vise of our passports here, then?” said I, addressing the courier, “for we have already been examined at Nancy?”

“Not exactly a vise,” said the courier, eyeing me most suspiciously as he spoke, and then continuing to eat with his former voracity.

“Then, what, may I ask, have we to do with the gens-d’armes?”

“It is a search,” said the courier, gruffly, and with the air of one who desired no further questioning.

I immediately ordered a bottle of Burgundy, and filling the large goblet before him, said, with much respect,

“A votre bonne voyage, Monsier le Courier.”

To this he at once replied, by taking off his cap and bowing politely as he drank off the wine.

“Have we any runaway felon or a stray galerien among us?” said I, laughingly, “that they are going to search us?”