“It was probably a plot, about to be discovered,” said his friend. “Paris, in my opinion, is full of plots—which had better soon be dashed to pieces.” He made an emphatic motion with the sheathed sabre on his left arm, and glanced firmly along the street, from face to face. “My dear Armand!” ejaculated the other, stopping for an instant till their eyes met, and the cheek of the garde-du-corps seemed to redden—“this is”—but the remainder was lost to Sir Godfrey, as he held round towards the outskirts of the Faubourg St Honoré. Crossing by a shorter way, however, they still preceded him at the next corner. “On the contrary,” continued the younger, “had there been anything to discover”—“—stupidly acute as the police are”—“—but believe me, my friend,” he added with animation, “there was nothing—nothing—it was merely _ennui_. And what police, were it the very espionage of old De Sartines himself, his apprentice and friend Lenoir, or even my fine cousin De Breteuil, with your thrice-humble servitor here, can guard against ennui? ’Tis the only spectre I dread, for the philosophers, the Encyclopédie, have still left it us!” Sir Godfrey had passed them, indeed, hardly heeding their detached words so much as the young soldier’s chivalrous air; a little on, he checked his horse at sight of a gendarme’s blue and red livery, to inquire for the police-bureau of the quarter; at which the man turned sharply, struck no doubt by the accent or the form of the question, and surveyed him before attempting to give an answer. “Ennui!” repeated the officer energetically, as they came on; “my faith, we shall soon have little enough of that luxury, I think! I had imagined it the disease of England!” “But without her suspecting it,” rejoined his livelier companion; “while France alone endeavours to expel, to define the malady! What is Versailles, Fontainebleau, Marly, Luciennes, but a vast sigh, a drowsy effort, a yawn (_baillement_)? Those parterres of Lenotre, those fountains, those statues, which are like the crimes of Paris! But we awake—and assure yourself, my friend, it is at the root of one half—” Colonel Willoughby had repeated his question rather impatiently, for the speaker, as he passed on, was turning a glance of attention that way: the gendarme, too, with a sudden motion of his hand to his huge cocked hat, seemed less careful to reply than to leave full room for the two gentlemen. The younger of them stopped, turned, and addressed a word of sharp reproof to the official. “Permit me, monsieur,” he added, coming forward with a slight bow, and speaking tolerably good English; “it is probably rather to the commissary of your quarter you would address yourself, and his residence is not far; at —— the number which I forget, in the Place Montaigne, Champs Elysées.” The Englishman thanked him briefly; bowing in return the more profoundly, as he felt the usual unwillingness of his race to receive a favour he had no claim to.