Before the mirth caused by this blunder had subsided, the door had opened, and we were ushered into the bureau of the commissaire, accompanied by the anxious crowd, all curious to know the particulars of our crime.

The maire soon appeared, his night-cap being replaced by a small black velvet skull-cap, and his lanky figure enveloped in a tarnished silk dressing-gown; he permitted us to be seated, while the gen-d’arme recounted the suspicious circumstances of our travelling, and produced the order to arrest an Englishman and his wife who had arrived in one of the late Boulogne packets, and who had carried off from some banking-house money and bills for a large amount.

“I have no doubt these are the people,” said the gen-d’arme; “and here is the ‘carte descriptive.’  Let us compare it—­’Forty-two or forty-three years of age.’”

“I trust, M. le Maire,” said I, overhearing this, “that ladies do not recognize me as so much.”

“Of a pale and cadaverous aspect,” continued the gen-d’arme.

Upon this the old functionary, wiping his spectacles with a snuffy handkerchief, as if preparing them to examine an eclipse of the sun, regarded me fixedly for several minutes, and said—­“Oh, yes, I perceive it plainly; continue the description.”

“Five feet three inches,” said the gen-d’arme.

“Six feet one in England, whatever this climate may have done since.”

“Speaks broken and bad French.”

“Like a native,” said I; “at least so said my friends in the chaussee D’Antin, in the year fifteen.”

Here the catalogue ended, and a short conference between the maire and the gen-d’arme ensued, which ended in our being committed for examination on the morrow; meanwhile we were to remain at the inn, under the surveillance of the gen-d’arme.

On reaching the inn my poor friend was so completely exhausted that she at once retired to her room, and I proceeded to fulfil a promise I had made her to despatch a note to Mrs. Bingham at Amiens by a special messenger, acquainting her with all our mishaps, and requesting her to come or send to our assistance.  This done, and a good supper smoking before me, of which with difficulty I persuaded Isabella to partake in her own room, I again regained my equanimity, and felt once more at ease.

The gen-d’arme in whose guardianship I had been left was a fine specimen of his caste; a large and powerfully built man of about fifty, with an enormous beard of grizzly brown and grey hair, meeting above and beneath his nether lip; his eyebrows were heavy and beetling, and nearly concealed his sharp grey eyes, while a deep sabre-wound had left upon his cheek a long white scar, giving a most warlike and ferocious look to his features.