"La Bastille! où toute personne, quels que soient son rang, son âge, son sexe, peut entrer sans savoir pourquoi, rester sans savoir combien, en attendant d'en sortir sans savoir comment."--Servan. "On what charge is that letter issued?" asked Elphinston a moment later, when he had recovered somewhat from the stupefaction into which the exempt's last words had thrown him. "On what charge?" "Monsieur," the man replied, "how can I answer you? Nay! who could do so? Not even De Launey, the Governor, could tell you that. These _billets-doux_ are none too explicit. They order us, the exempts, in one letter to arrest; the Governor, in another, to receive. But that is all. It is from the examiners, the judges, from D'Argenson himself, wise child of a wise father! that you must seek an explanation." "But there is no possible reason for it, no earthly charge that can be brought against me. It must be a mistake!" "So all say," the exempt exclaimed, repressing a faint smile that rose to his features. "Yet, here is the name, very clearly written," and he took from his pocket the lettre de cachet, impressed with a great stamp, and read from it:--"'Elphinston. Scotch. Capitaine du Regiment de Picardy. Troop Fifth, at St. Denis.' That is you, monsieur?" "Yes," Bertie said with a gasp. "It is I. No doubt about that." There rose before his mind, as he spoke, every story, every legend he had ever heard in connection with the Bastille. And although it is true that, in the days when that fortress existed, it was not regarded in so terrible a light as time and fiction have since cast upon its memory, it still presented itself in a sufficiently appalling aspect. Men undoubtedly went in and came out after very short intervals of incarceration--some doing so two or three times a year--yet, if all reports were true, there were some sent there who never came out again. Moreover, few who were committed could ever learn the reason whereof until they were ultimately released, and no communication whatever, except by stealth and great good fortune could be made with the outer world. From the time the gates closed on them they were lost to that outer world for the period--long or short--which they passed there. This knowledge alone, without the aid of time and fiction, was, indeed, sufficient to make Elphinston gasp. "When," he asked, after another pause for reflection on the state in which he now found himself, "does that lettre de cachet come into operation--when do you propose to put it into force?" "Monsieur," replied Carvel, with a swift glance at him and another at the man standing behind, "it _has_ come into operation; it is already in force." "You mean----?" "I mean that you have surrendered yourself without having to be sought for--without having to be arrested. Please to consider it in that light, monsieur." "To consider it in the light that I am to be conveyed to the Bastille from here--at once?"