"_A la Salpetrière_." There again disappointment met us. The great man had been there "but a few minutes before," and we dragged our slow way through mire and ruts that would have been formidable to an artillery waggon with all its team. My heart, buoyant as it had been, sank within me as I looked up at the frowning battlements, the huge towers, more resembling those of a fortress than of even a prison, the gloomy gates, and the general grim aspect of the whole vast circumference, giving so emphatic a resemblance of the dreariness and the despair within. "_Aux Carmes_!" was now the direction; for my conductor's resolve to earn his reward before daybreak, was rendered more pungent by this interview with the _gens de bureau_ at the Abbaye. He was sure that they would be instantly on the scent; and if they once took me out of his hands, adieu to dreams, of which Alnaschar, the glassman's, were only a type. He grew nervous with the thought, and poured out his whole vision of hopes and fears with a volubility which I should have set down for frenzy, if in any man but a wretch in the fever of a time when gold and blood were the universal and combined idolatries of the land. "You may think yourself fortunate," he exclaimed, "in having been in my charge! That brute of a country gendarme could have shown you nothing. Now, _I_ know every jail in Paris. I have studied them. They form the true knowledge of a citizen. To crush tyrants, to extinguish nobles, to avenge the cause of reason on priests, and to raise the people to a knowledge of their rights--these are the triumphs of a patriot. Yet, what teacher is equal to the jail for them all? _Mais voilà les Carmes_!" I saw a low range of blank wall, beyond which rose an ancient tower. "Here," said he, "liberty had a splendid triumph. A hundred and fifty tonsured apostles of incivism here fell in one day beneath the two-handed sword of freedom. A cardinal, two archbishops, dignitaries, monks, hoary with prejudices, antiquated with abuses, extinguishers of the new light of liberty, here were offered on the national shrine! _Chantons la Carmagnole_." But he was destined to be disappointed once more. Danton had been there, but was suddenly called away by a messenger from the Jacobins. Our direction was now changed again. "Now we shall be disappointed no longer. Once engaged in debate, he will be fixed for the night. _Allons_, you shall see the 'grand patriote,' 'the regenerator,' 'the first man in the world.' _Aux Jacobins_!"