My recollection of the miseries which his malice had caused roused me into wrath, and, rash as the act was, I grasped him by the collar, with the full intent of throwing the little writhing wretch out of the window; but, while I was lifting him from the seat to which he clung screaming for help, and had already forced him halfway outside, a shot whistled close by the head of the postilion, which brought him to a full stop. "Mon Dieu!--Brigands!" exclaimed Monsieur Gilet; and, dropping back into the carriage, attempted to make a screen of my body by slipping his adroitly behind me. Two or three more discharges rattled through the trees, followed by a rush of peasants, who unceremoniously knocked down the two officials in front, and began a general scuffle with the gendarmes. The night was so dark, that I could discover nothing of the _mêlée_ but by the blaze of the fusils. All, however, was quiet in a few moments, by the disappearance of the gendarmes, and the complete capture of the convoy--M. Gilet, mayors, and all. Whether we had fallen into the hands of highwaymen, or of stragglers from the French army, was doubtful for a while, as not a syllable was spoken, nor a sound uttered, except by the unhappy functionaries, who grumbled prodigiously as they were dragged along through "rough and smooth, moss and mire," and whose pace was evidently quickened by many a kick and blow of the fusil. This was a rude march for me, too, with my unhealed wound, and my week's sojourn in bed; but I was treated, if not with tenderness, without incivility, while my _compagnons de voyage_ were insulted with every contemptuous phrase in a vocabulary at least as rich in those matters as any other in Europe. At length, after about an hour's rapid movement, we reached an open ground, and the door of one of the wide, old, staring, yet not uncomfortable farmhouses which are to be found in the northern provinces of France. Signs of comfort within were visible even at a distance, and the light of a huge wood fire had been seen for the last quarter of an hour gleaming through the woods, and leaving us in doubt whether we were approaching a horde of gipsies, or about to realize the classic scenes of Gil Blas.