“Why,” said I--“I am not to be put out of conceit with myself because an ass brays at me.” “Or out of countenance, monsieur?” “Oh, M. de St Prest! That would be to lose my head on small provocation. Besides, one must admit the point of view. M. Malseigne there surveys the world over the edge of a great stock; you, monsieur, regard it with your chin propped upon a fine fichu. No doubt Sanson thinks a wooden cravat _comme il faut_; and I--_fichtre!_ I cry in my character of patriot, ‘There is nothing like the collar of a carmagnole to keep one’s neck in place!’ Truly, M. l’Amiral, I for one am not touchy about my appearance.” His old eyes blinked out a diluted irony. “And that is very natural,” he said; “but then, _mort de ma vie!_ you are a philosopher--like him there.” He pointed to the statue of Rousseau. The libellous block wrought in him, it seemed, a mood of piping retrospection. “I saw the rascal once,” he said--“a mean, common little man, in a round wig. He was without air or presence. It was at the theatre. The piece was one of M. de Sauvigny’s, and he sat in the author’s box, a _loge grillée_. That was a concession to his diffidence; but his diffidence had been too much consulted, it seemed. He would have the grate opened, and then the house recognised and applauded him, and finally forgot him for the _Persiffleur_. He was very angry at that, I believe. We heard it lost the author his friendship. He accused him of having made a show of him, and--_Mort de ma vie!_ that is to be a philosopher.” He ogled and bowed to a stout kindly-looking woman who, coming from the jailers’ quarters, passed us at the moment. It was Madame Beau, the keeper of La Force--the only one there in authority whose sense of humanity had not gone by the board. A ruffianly warder, leading a great wolf-hound, preceded her. She nodded to us brightly and stopped-- “Ah, M. Thibaut! but soon we shall call you the father of La Force.” “As you are its mother, madame.” “Poor children. But, after all, if one considers it as a club----” “True; where one may feast like Belshazzar. Yet, I find, one may have a surfeit of putrid herrings, even though one is to die on the morrow.” Madame shrugged her shoulders. “Ah, bah! the stuff is supplied by contract. I am not to blame, my little fellows. Yet some of you manage better.” (She pointed to the retreating hound.) “_Voilà le délinquent!_ He was caught red-handed--discussing the bribe of a sheep’s trotter; and his sentence is five hours in a cell.” She nodded again and jingled her keys. “But, yes,” she said, “consider it as a club----” and off she went across the yard. “A club? Oh, _mon Dieu_!” murmured St Prest. “Well,” said I, “I am inclined to fall in with the idea. What livelier places of sojourn are there, in these days of gravity and decorum, than the prisons?” He pursed his lips and wagged his old head like a mandarin.