Before the day was over, "Michel Angelo's Moses" addressed us in excellent English.
When the darkness gathered, when the night settled down, something of its gloom oppressed us. Once safely housed in Paris, we should be at rest; but there were still difficulties to be overcome. Our friends had telegraphed to Miss H. that we should arrive by this train; but the number of her house we did not know, nor did they. We were only sure that her apartments were over the Magasin au Printemps. Still that was tolerably exact; we would not be uneasy. At ten o'clock at night we stepped down from the train into a confusion of tongues and elbows which I cannot describe, and followed the crowd into the baggage-room. I say followed—we were literally lifted from our feet and borne along. There was no baggage in sight. We waited until an hour seemed to have passed, and still no trunks appeared.
"Suppose we leave them, and send a porter from the house in the morning to find them;" and acting upon this, we struggled out of the station into the great paved square at one side. The night was dark; but the gas-lights dimly lighted up a line of carriages at the farther side, towards which we hastened, and had seated ourselves in one, when a commissionaire came running across the square, and putting his head in at the carriage window, asked if we had any baggage.
"Yes," we replied; but the rattling words that followed brought only confusion to us. Our minds, already overtaxed, gave way at once. It is pleasant to recall the patience and good-nature of that official. It is pleasant, when old things have so entirely passed away, to remember the Paris of 1869 as, at least, a city into which women might come at midnight, alone, unprotected, and be not only free from insult and imposition, but actually cared for, and sent to their rightful destination, in spite of their own ignorance and incompetence.
"Stay here," said our friend in uniform; and he disappeared, to return in a moment with the stout French gentleman who had been our companion in the hotel omnibus at Basle. We met with mutual surprise, and pleasure on our side at least.
"Do any one look for your baggage?" he asked.
"No," we replied. "We thought we might leave it."
"You must go," he said.
The commissionaire took possession of our check and the driver's carte, and I followed the two back to the station, leaving Mrs. K. to guard our satchels, &c., in the carriage.
"Wait one leetle moment," said the kind French gentleman; "I bring madame." And in a moment he dragged the fussy little woman from the crowd, handing her over with the triumphant air of having now settled all difficulties.