Miss have the goodness to render herself to the
office even of passports to retire her own;"
which meant that a personal attendance
was necessary.

I have known some who—but, without
instituting disadvantageous companions, I shall
merely remark that Mademoiselle Bellarosa
behaved admirably, and walked with her
dame de compagnie and the
commissionaire to the bureau. The individual who
presided there was magnificently attired—
perhaps for the occasion. Without describing
his toilette, it may be enough to say
that he had on a pair of very tight-fitting
white kid gloves, so closely buttoned at the
wrists, that how he managed to write in them
seemed a miracle. It was he who had
officiated at the Custom-house, and had
taken down the address of Mademoiselle
Bellarosa. He was profuse in expressions
of courtesy and regret. It desolated him
to be compelled to demand the presence of so
charming a person, but the rigour of the
law (he was telling stories all the time) left
him no alternative. A million times would
he have preferred to die under the most
fearful tortures rather than—of his own free
will—have caused the slightest inconvenience
to Mademoiselle; but a Frenchman's duty to
his country was paramount over every other
consideration. His duties did not, however,
appear to be very pressing; for, he
immediately opened a conversation which, from
the variety of its topics, and the energy
bestowed on them, would have occupied
until the hour for shutting up the office,
if Mademoiselle Bellarosa had not brought
him to the point by asking for her passport.
Recalled to this frail world, the magnificent
young clerk dipped his pen in the ink and
proceeded to put a series of official questions,
making pretence the while of writing
down the answers; which, if they had been
literally entered, would not have occupied
him two minutes had he not frequently left
off to look at Mademoiselle. The lady's
patience was at last exhausted, and she urged
him, rather angrily, to make an end of
his task. Like everything else, therefore,
it was brought to a close, Mademoiselle
signed it, and, tendering the accustomed fee,
demanded her passport.

"Such a thing had never been heard of!
The bare thought of it was enough to drive
him to distraction! To treat Mademoiselle,
a person so distinguished, so——" Here he
checked himself. "No, he would rather die
a thousand deaths (the old story) than not
himself carry the passport to the lady's hotel
the moment the office was closed."

"But," exclaimed Mademoiselle Bellarosa,
in a state of mind divided between vexation
and amusement, "I want immediately to
leave Boulogne. The horses are already in
the carriage; I wait for nothing but my
passport."

"It is not yet stamped, mademoiselle,"
returned her official persecutor, driven to his
last resource; "that formality accomplished
at another bureau, I hasten to deposit the
paper at your feet." There was nothing to
be done. Mademoiselle Bellarosa cast an
angry glance at the infatuated young clerk,
and left the place. When she was gone,
he (as he afterwards mentioned to a
friend) seized the pen with which she had
signed her name, and kissed it "a thousand
million times." Then he got the document
stamped, and sought Mademoiselle Bellarosa
at her hotel. I must make short work of
a scene which was much longer in acting
than was agreeable to one of the parties.
Undismayed by the presence of the dame
de compagnie, the young clerk threw himself
on his knees before Mademoiselle
Bellarosa, and poured forth a passionate
declaration of love! Suddenly a commissaire
de police, whom some inkling of the
affair had reached, entered the apartment.
"Madame," said the commissary with a low
bow, taking possession at the same time of
the clerk and the troublesome passport,
and handing her the latter, "I wish you
a pleasant journey, and have the honour
to salute you. Venez donc, gr-r-r-redin!!!"
You would hardly think it possible even
for a commissary of police to have had such
different tones in his voice.

The paper obtained with so much difficulty
was subsequently examined, to see if it were
perfectly regular. To her infinite surprise,
instead of the usual description—hair, teeth,
eyes, height, &c.—Mademoiselle Bellarosa
read the following words: "C'est une ange!"

It must be acknowledged that, when the
time came for exchanging the paper in Paris,
she gave up her provisional passport with
regret.

Generous to a fault,, and confiding, too,
beyond measure, the French are often
unnecessarily suspicious. The thorough-going
swindler—such a one as lately closed, at the
Conciergerie, a career of some five and twenty
years' fraud after using up half the names in
the English peerage—has only to call himself
Milord, order anything, pay for nothing, put
on a bold front, and all the world (in France)
are at his feet; but the timid traveller,
whose honesty is his misfortune, finds it difficult
sometimes, with money in his pocket, to
obtain credit for a breakfast.

An Englishman generally supposes that a
Bank of England note will frank him to its
full amount wherever he goes; but it has
happened to me on several occasions to
discover the fallacy of this notion; for
instance, at Vire, that charming little town
in the heart of the Roman bocage so famous
for its poets, the chief among whom, Olivier
Basselin, originated the songs called Vaux-
de-Vire, which were afterwards altered into
Vaux-de-Ville, and finally gave their name to
the popular Vaudeville of the French stage.
But however poetically inclined, the prosaic