Four buttons of my pelisse were open, and it did not need me to put my hand up to know that my precious papers were gone.  Oh! the depth of cunning that lurks in a woman’s heart.  She had robbed me, this creature, robbed me as she clung to my breast.  Even while I smoothed her hair, and whispered kind words into her ear, her hands had been at work beneath my dolman.  And here I was, at the very last step of my journey, without the power of carrying out this mission which had already deprived one good man of his life, and was likely to rob another one of his credit.  What would the Emperor say when he heard that I had lost his despatches?  Would the army believe it of Etienne Gerard?  And when they heard that a woman’s hand had coaxed them from me, what laughter there would be at mess-table and at camp-fire!  I could have rolled upon the ground in my despair.

But one thing was certain—­all this affair of the fracas in the hall and the persecution of the so-called Countess was a piece of acting from the beginning.  This villainous innkeeper must be in the plot.  From him I might learn who she was and where my papers had gone.  I snatched my sabre from the table and rushed out in search of him.  But the scoundrel had guessed what I would do, and had made his preparations for me.  It was in the corner of the yard that I found him, a blunderbuss in his hands and a mastiff held upon a leash by his son.  The two stable-hands, with pitchforks, stood upon either side, and the wife held a great lantern behind him, so as to guide his aim.

‘Ride away, sir, ride away!’ he cried, with a crackling voice.  ’Your horse is at the door, and no one will meddle with you if you go your way; but if you come against us, you are alone against three brave men.’

I had only the dog to fear, for the two forks and the blunderbuss were shaking about like branches in a wind.  Still, I considered that, though I might force an answer with my sword-point at the throat of this fat rascal, still I should have no means of knowing whether that answer was the truth.  It would be a struggle, then, with much to lose and nothing certain to gain.  I looked them up and down, therefore, in a way that set their foolish weapons shaking worse than ever, and then, throwing myself upon my mare, I galloped away with the shrill laughter of the landlady jarring upon my ears.

I had already formed my resolution.  Although I had lost my papers, I could make a very good guess as to what their contents would be, and this I would say from my own lips to the Prince of Saxe-Felstein, as though the Emperor had commissioned me to convey it in that way.  It was a bold stroke and a dangerous one, but if I went too far I could afterwards be disavowed.  It was that or nothing, and when all Germany hung on the balance the game should not be lost if the nerve of one man could save it.