I asked him if he had any idea who the idiot was that we had seen in Bellenger's camp. He shook his head, replying that idiots were plentiful, and the people who had them were sometimes glad to get rid of them. "The dauphin clue has been very cleverly managed by--Bellenger, let us say," Louis Philippe remarked. "If you had not appeared, I should not now believe there is a dauphin." I wanted to tell him all the thoughts tossing in my mind; but silence is sometimes better than open speech. Facing adventure, I remembered that I had never known the want of food for any length of time during my conscious life. And I had a suspicion the soft life at De Chaumont's had unstrung me for what was before me. But it lasted scarce a year, and I was built for hardship. He turned to his table to write the ship-master's letter. Behold, there lay a book I knew so well that I exclaimed---- "Where did you get my missal?" "Your missal, Lazarre? This is mine." I turned the leaves, and looked at the back. It was a continuation of the prayers of the church. There were blank leaves for the inscribing of prayers, and one was written out in a good bold hand. "His Majesty Louis XVI composed and wrote that prayer himself," said Louis Philippe. "The comfort-loving priests had a fashion of dividing the missal into three or four parts, that a volume might not be so heavy to carry about in their pockets. This is the second volume. It was picked up in the Tuileries after that palace was sacked." I told him mine must be the preceding volume, because I did not know there was any continuation. The prayers of the church had not been my study. "Where did you get yours, Lazarre?" "Madame de Ferrier gave it to me. When I saw it I remembered, as if my head were split open to show the picture, that my mother had read from that very book to me. I cannot explain it, but so it was." "I am not surprised she believes, against Bellenger's evidence, that you are Louis of France." "I will bring my book and show it to you." We compared the volumes after supper, and one was the mate of the other. The inn dining-room had one long table stretched down its entire length, heaped with wild meats and honey and pastries and fish in abundance. General Jackson sat at one end, and at the other sat the landlord, explaining to all his guests what each dish was, and urging good appetite. I sat by Louis Philippe, whose quality was known only to myself, with Doctor Chantry on the other side fretting for the attendance to which Jean had used him. My master was so tired that I put him early to bed; and then sat talking nearly all night with the gracious gentleman to whom I felt bound by gratitude and by blood. III Dieppe, high and glaring white above the water, will always symbolize to me the gate of France. The nobility of that view remained in my thoughts when half the distance to Paris was traversed.