shall be most happy to restore it to the owner, should that august
personage at any time feel disposed to claim it. Would that all the rest
of the many articles that were this day pilfered were held as sacred, and
ready to be as punctually surrendered!

"Tolerably tired at last of looking on the grim faces that surrounded us,
we agreed to make our retreat; and descended into the garden, intending to
pass out by the gate leading to the Quays. Here, however, we were met by a
figure, at the sight of which we found it almost impossible to restrain
our risibility. It was a man keeping watch at the gate as a sentinel,
dressed for the most part as we commonly see the masters of chimney-sweeps,
without a vestige of either shoes or shirt, and what were intended for
coat and trousers having very doubtful pretensions to those
designations--but, to make amends for this condition of his general
habiliments, having a highly polished musket in his hand, a most splendid
sword dangling by his side, and on his head a superb Marshal's hat! 'Où
allez vous?' was the imperious demand of this extraordinary looking
personage. 'Où nous voulons' was the instant and haughty reply of my
friend M. The fellow, not being accustomed to such insubordination,
ordered us to take off our hats to show whether we carried anything away
with us. M. at this would have struck him down but for the sudden
appearance of six men, whose looks and dress were not much better than
those of the sentinel. These men, on being informed of our _hauteur_ (as
it was termed), insisted on our helping them, by way of penalty for our
offence, to carry off the dead. This was more than I, with all my
disposition to forbearance, could submit to; so, addressing myself to the
ugliest of them, who seemed to be the commanding officer of the party, I
told him scornfully and in good French, that we were foreign gentlemen,
who had nothing to do either with the dead or the living of their
country--and that it was a very _despotic_ act to stop peaceable