“Since seven o’clock this morning I have been searching from door to door and from street to street for his honour the superintendent, whom I have at last been fortunate enough to find here, for I know perfectly well that he is present, and that if he have ears he hears me now.  I am come to request him to order his scoundrelly myrmidons who have seized my carriage to give it up, so that I may continue my journey.  If the laws bid me pay twelve hundred francs for seven ounces of snuff for my own private use, I renounce those laws and declare that I will not pay a farthing.  I shall stay here and send a messenger to my ambassador, who will complain that the ‘jus gentium’ has been violated in the Ile-de-France in my person, and I will have reparation.  Louis XV. is great enough to refuse to become an accomplice in this strange onslaught.  And if that satisfaction which is my lawful right is not granted me, I will make the thing an affair of state, and my Republic will not revenge itself by assaulting Frenchmen for a few pinches of snuff, but will expel them all root and branch.  If you want to know whom I am, read this.”

Foaming with rage, I threw my passport on the table.

A man picked it up and read it, and I knew him to be the superintendent.  While my papers were being handed round I saw expressed on every face surprise and indignation, but the superintendent replied haughtily that he was at Amiens to administer justice, and that I could not leave the town unless I paid the fine or gave surety.

“If you are here to do justice, you will look upon my passport as a positive command to speed me on my way, and I bid you yourself be my surety if you are a gentleman.”

“Does high birth go bail for breaches of the law in your country?”

“In my country men of high birth do not condescend to take dishonourable employments.”

“No service under the king can be dishonourable.”

“The hangman would say the same thing.”

“Take care what you say.”

“Take care what you do.  Know, sir, that I am a free man who has been grievously outraged, and know, too, that I fear no one.  Throw me out of the window, if you dare.”

“Sir,” said a lady to me in the voice of the mistress of the house, “in my house there is no throwing out of windows.”

“Madam, an angry man makes use of terms which his better reason disowns.  I am wronged by a most cruel act of injustice, and I humbly crave your pardon for having offended you.  Please to reflect that for the first time in my life I have been oppressed and insulted, and that in a kingdom where I thought myself safe from all but highway robbers.  For them I have my pistols, and for the worthy superintendents I have a passport, but I find the latter useless.  For the sake of seven ounces of snuff which I bought at St. Omer three weeks ago, this gentleman robs me and interrupts my journey, though the king’s majesty is my surety that no one shall interfere with