"You are very bad to please, madame," replied her brutal jailer, mimicking her defective French. "You are in the palace of Madame Capet."
And shutting behind him the massive door, barricaded with plates of iron and secured by three or four rusty bolts, he left her, to repeat his joke to his companion, and enjoy with them the consternation of Madame Rosbif.
Meanwhile the prisoner fell upon her knees, and gazed around her with a species of pious emotion.
"What right have I," she cried, "to complain of being cast into this dungeon, once inhabited by the Queen of France—the beautiful, the noble Marie Antoinette? I sought food for my imagination; I undertook a journey to France to visit the most celebrated sojourns of the most celebrated individuals. Fortune has come to my aid. Here is what is better than the château of the Sieur de Fayel, and the terrible history of the bleeding heart. Never did a grander inspiration overflow my spirits. I will to work."
She drew from her pocket a small roll of paper, that had escaped the scrutiny of the jailers; and, passing her hand across her forehead, approached the horizontal opening, in order to make the most of the little remainder of daylight; then, taking out a pencil, she rapidly covered ten or twelve pages with microscopic characters in close lines. The increasing darkness at length compelled her to pause, and she was refolding the MS. to replace it in her pocket, when a rude hand snatched it from her grasp.
"Ah! ah! Madame Rosbif," cried the jailer, triumphantly, "so you believe yourself at liberty to scribble away here, hatching plots against the Republic, and holding intelligence with the enemies of the nation. ous verrons cela! These papers shall be remitted this very day to Monsieur Tallien, and we will know all about this new attack upon liberty. Entendez-vouz? miserable agent of Pitt and Cobourg."
The same evening Tallien received the stranger's manuscript. Being unacquainted with the English language, he rang for his secretary; but the latter was nowhere at hand, so the puzzled minister took the papers and proceeded to his wife's apartments.
Madame Tallien was just completing her toilet for a fancy ball. Leaning forward in a graceful attitude, she was in the act of twining round her slender ankle the fastenings of a purple buskin. Her Grecian tunic, simply clasped upon the shoulder with diamonds, and her hair, knotted like that of the Polyhymnia of the Louvre, harmonized admirably with the classical contour of her features. Monsieur Tallien, as he gazed upon her, half forgot his errand.
The lady uttered a little cry of surprise.
"Upon what grave errand has monsieur deigned to favor me with a visit at this unaccustomed hour?"