"If you will disembark, sir," said the boatman, "and go round to the land-gate, they will soon let you in; for there are parties of fifty and sixty arriving every day; and Sedan will be too small to hold them before long. However, they refuse no one admittance, for they say the Count will soon take the field." "Take the field!" said I, "and what for, pray?" "Ah, that I don't know," answered the boatman; "folks say it is to dethrone the Cardinal, and make the King prime-minister." Whether this was a jest or a blunder, I did not well know; but bidding the man put me on shore, I led out my roan, and mounting on the bank, rode round to a little hamlet which had gathered on each side of the road, at about a hundred yards from the Luxembourg gate. As I was going to inquire at one of the houses, I saw a sentinel thrown out as far as the foot of the glacis, and riding up to him, I asked if admission was to be procured that night. He replied in the affirmative, and proceeding to the gate, I was soon permitted to enter, but immediately my bridle was seized on each side by a pikeman; and the same being performed upon Achilles, we were led on to a small guard-house, where we found a sleepy officer of the watch, who asked, with a true official drawl, "Whom seek you in the good town of Sedan, and what is your business here?" "I seek his Highness the Count de Soissons," replied I; "and my business with him is to speak on subjects that concern himself alone." "Your name and rank?" demanded the officer. "Louis de Bigorre, Count de l'Orme," replied I; "and this is my servant, Achilles Lefranc." "We shall soon have need of Achilles," said the officer, grinning. "I wish, Monsieur le Comte, that you had brought a score or two such, though he seems but a little one.--Mouchard, guide these two gentlemen up to the castle. There is a pass." There is almost always something sad and gloomy in the aspect of a strange town at night. We seem in a dark, melancholy world, where every step is amongst unknown objects, all wrapped up in a cold repulsive obscurity; and I felt like one of the spirits of the unburied, on the hopeless borders of Styx, as I walked on amidst the tall, dark houses of Sedan, which, as far as any interest that I had in them, were but so many ant-hills. Lighted by a torch that the soldier who guided us carried, and followed, as I soon perceived, by two other guards, we were conducted to the higher part of the town, where the citadel is situated; and there, after innumerable signs and countersigns, I was at last admitted within the walls, but not suffered to proceed a step in advance, till such time as my name had been sent in to the principal officer on guard.