felled, which lay on a combination of wood-chairs straight across the road. It had been brought down a narrow side-road through a wheat-field, and one end occupied this road, while the other was jammed against the wall on the opposite side of the main road; and half-a-dozen men, with as many draught oxen, were mainly endeavouring to turn it in the right direction. M. Paget knew how much was required to turn his own carriage, and he calculated that the road would not be free for two or three hours, which involved a rest for his black horse, a pipe for himself, and, possibly, a short sleep. The oxen were lazy, and their hides impervious; the whips were cracked in vain, and in vain were brought more directly to bear upon the senses of the recusants; the men howled, and rattled the chains, and re-arranged the clumsy head-gear, but all to no purpose. The man who did most of the howling was a black Burgundian dwarf, in a long blouse and moustaches; and he did it in so frightful a patois, that the oxen were right in their refusal to understand. We represented to M. Paget that it would be possible to make our way through the wheat; but he declared himself perfectly happy where he was, and declined to take any steps in the matter; whereupon I assumed the command of the expedition, and led the horse through the corn, thus turning the flank of the _sapin_ and its attendants. Our driver submitted to this act of violence much as a member of the Society of Friends allows a chamberlain to remove his hat from behind when he is favoured with an audience of the sovereign; and when we regained the high road, he meekly took up the reins and drove us at a good pace to Arc.