with strange bedfellows, and a gaol makes a
man take up with strange boon companions.
These eyes have seen the son of an earl
hobnobbing at a prison tap with an insolvent
boot-closer. On his own quarter-deck, in
London, at St. James's, Sir Sidney Smith
would doubtless have been as dignified, not
to say haughty, as an Englishman and a
commodore has a right to be. In the state cabin
of his own flag-ship he would decidedly not
have hobnobbed with Bob Catskin, the
boatswain's mate. But a prisoner in the Temple,
far from home, almost solitary, any
companionship was welcome to him. This is why
he so often invited Citizen Lasne to dinner
and to supper. This is why that fat citizen
sat facing him at the table on the golden
autumn afternoon I treat of.

The citizen having eaten like an ox (he
approved of English cookery much), was now
drinking like a fish. He could stand a
prodigious quantity of drink,—all fat men can.
Only as he drank, his eyes, which were small
and round, appeared to diminish still further
in volume, for the little penthouses of his
eyelids began to droop somewhat, and his
round rosy cheeks to puff out upwards and
laterally, while the eyes themselves seemed
to recede into their orbits, as though they
were lazy with repletion, and were throwing
themselves back in their easy-chairs.

The table was covered with plates of fruit
and decanters of wine, from both of which
Citizen Lasne was helping himself largely,—
the others in moderation. The citizen drank
his old port out of a tumbler,—the starveling
and effeminate thimblefulls known as English
wine-glasses not having as yet penetrated into
the Temple. He persisted on calling the port
"a little wine,"—un petit vin délicieux,—
meanwhile taking hearty gulps of the libelled
liquor; for it is a mighty and generous wine,
—yea, that invigorateth the frame, and
maketh the hearts of men strong within
them. It hath cheered the vigils of great
scholars, and armed brave warriors for the
fray,—port wine. As the citizen drank,
however, it was evident that the fixed idea was
anything but dormant within him; for he
watched his host's countenance from time to
time narrowly, and in the midst of his hilarity
and talkativeness there would occasionally
flit across his fat face an expression almost of
alarm,— for Sir Sidney was taciturn, pensive,
evidently pre-occupied, drank little, and leant
his head on his hand.

"May I pass for a ' suspect,' " he cried
suddenly, laying down his glass, " if I drink
another drop."

"What's the matter, Father Latchkey?"
asked Mr. Sparkes in French, far too
ungrammatical to transcribe here. " Wine gone the
wrong way,— swallowed a fly? Why you
look as if you saw a file in the bottom of your
glass, and a bunch of skeleton keys in the
Commodore's face."

"May I sneeze in the sawdust" (when a
person is guillotined, his head falls into a
basketful of sawdust) "if the citizen prisoner
of war is not thinking of his Three Muses at
this very moment."

The "Three Muses" were three royalist
ladies, hiding their real names under the
fabulous sobriquets of Thalia, Melpomene, and
Clio, who had long and successfully evaded the
pursuit of the police, and who were
notoriously continually conspiring to effect the
deliverance of Sir Sidney Smith. It should be
known that at this period, notwithstanding
the sanguinary severity of the Republican
government against the Royalists, France
and Paris swarmed with secret emissaries
from foreign powers, known as "alarmists,"
"accapareurs; " but more under the generic
name of " agents de l'étranger," and by the
populace as " Pitt-et-Cobourgs." There were
agents from London, from Vienna, from Berlin,
and from Amsterdam. There were agents
in the army, the navy, the salons, the public
offices, the ante-chambers of the ministry;
among the box-openers at theatres, the
market-women in the Halle, the coachmen
on the stand,—all well supplied with
money, all indefatigable in obtaining information,
in fomenting re-actionary disturbances,
in promoting the escape of political prisoners.
I might fill a book with anecdotes of Conrad
Kock, the Dutch banker (guillotined);
Berthold Proly (guillotined); the two Moravian
brothers Frey, and their sister Léopoldine;
André-Marie Guzman, the Spaniard, who
actually so far ingratiated himself into the
confidence of Marat that the last letter the
famous terrorist ever wrote was to him;
Webber, the Englishman, whose mission it
was to obtain plans of French fortified towns,
and paid twelve thousand francs for one of
Douai; one Greenwood, who was specially
employed to give dinners to distressed
Royalists; Mrs. Knox; and especially the
two famous Pitt-et-Cobourgs, Dickson and
Winter, who braved the Terror, the Directory,
the Consulate and the Empire, and only
gave up business in eighteen hundred and
fifteen. It was pretty well known to the
police, when our fat friend alluded to the
Three Muses, that an intricate and elaborate
network of intrigues, plots and counterplots,
existed for the release of Sir Sidney Smith;
that neither money nor men were wanting to
effect this, should an opportunity occur; and
that persons secretly powerful were working
night and day to bring that opportunity about.
This is why the English Commodore had
been so particularly recommended to Citizen
Lasne, and why the fixed idea I have
mentioned was so prominent in that patriot's mind.

"You will pardon me, Citizen Commodore,"
the gaoler continued, rising, but casting
a loving look at the decanters, " but I
don't like to see you look thoughtful. Thinking
means running. I must go and examine
all the locks, and order the night-watch to be
doubled."