I directed my manuscript to his care, and lay down with a lighter heart than I had known for many a day. I will not weary my reader with the tormenting vacillations of hope and fear which followed. Day after day went over, and no answer came to me. I addressed two notes respectful, but urgent, begging for some information as to my demand--none came. A month passed thus, when, one morning, the governor of the Temple entered my room with an open letter in his hand. "This is an order for your liberation, Monsieur de Tiernay," said he; "you are free." "Am I reinstated in my grade?" asked I, eagerly. He shook his head, and said nothing. "Is there no mention of my restoration to the service?" "None, sir." "Then, what is to become of me--to what end am I liberated?" cried I, passionately. "Paris is a great city, there is a wide world beyond it, and a man so young as you are must have few resources, or he will carve out a good career for himself." "Say, rather, he must have few resentments, sir," cried I, bitterly, "or he will easily hit upon a bad one;" and with this, I packed up the few articles I possessed, and prepared to depart. I remember it well; it was between two and three o'clock of the afternoon, on a bright day in spring, that I stood on the Quai Voltaire, a very small packet of clothes in a bundle in one hand, and a cane in the other, something short of three louis in my purse, and as much depression in my heart as ever settled down in that of a youth not full nineteen. Liberty is a glorious thing, and mine had been periled often enough, to give me a hearty appreciation of its blessing; but at that moment, as I stood friendless and companionless in a great thoroughfare of a great city, I almost wished myself back again within the dreary walls of the Temple, for somehow it felt like home! It is true one must have had a lonely lot in life before he could surround the cell of a prison with such attributes as these! Perhaps I have more of the cat-like affection for a particular spot than most men; but I do find that I attach myself to the walls with a tenacity that strengthens as I grow older, and like my brother parasite, the ivy, my grasp becomes more rigid the longer I cling. If I know of few merely sensual gratifications higher than a lounge through Paris, at the flood-tide of its population, watching the varied hues and complexions of its strange inhabitants, displaying, as they do in feature, air, and gesture, so much more of character and purpose than other people, so also do I feel that there is something indescribably miserable in being alone, unknown, and unnoticed in that vast throng, destitute of means for the present, and devoid of hope for the future.