"Dermoncourt," said my father to a young aide-de-camp who slept in the next room to his, and who had been listening and looking on since the beginning of this scene with the greatest attention, not seeing what it was going to lead to. "Here I am, General." "You have heard?" "What, General?" "That this man has swallowed his despatches?" "Yes." "Two and a half hours ago?" "Two and a half hours ago." "Very well, go and find the chemist of the village and ask him whether it is a purgative or an emetic that should be given to a man to make him get rid of what he has taken two hours and a half ago; he is to tell you which will have the quickest result." Five minutes later Dermoncourt returned, his hand at the salute and, with wonderful command of his features, he replied: "A purgative, General." "You have brought one with you?" "Yes, General." They gave the purgative to the spy, who swallowed it with a grimace; then they took him to Dermoncourt's room, where two soldiers kept him in view, whilst Dermoncourt passed a very bad night, being waked up by the soldiers each time they thought the medicine was going to take effect. At last, towards three in the morning, he was delivered of a tabloid of wax, as large as a filbert. This little ball of wax was washed in one of those irrigating canals which are to be found in thousands in the meadows round Mantua, steeped in a liquid the spy carried for the purpose in a tiny flask hidden in his waistcoat pocket which the soldiers had not thought necessary to take from him, and handed to my father; he passed it on to be opened by Dermoncourt, who, in his capacity of secretarial aide-de-camp, had to open despatches. One fear alone remained to them--the despatch might be in German, and not a single man in the general's quarters could speak German. In the meantime, Dermoncourt was performing the Cæsarian operation on the wax pellet with his pen-knife; and he drew from it a letter written on vellum in such small characters that, when rolled between the fingers, the letter was not larger than a big pea. Great was the delight of the two operators when they perceived that the letter was written in French; one might almost have said the emperor and his commander-in-chief had foreseen the possibility of this letter falling into my father's hands. I give the tenor of the letter, which I take from a copy in my father's handwriting; the original, as we shall see presently, was sent to Bonaparte:-- "TRENT, _15th December 1796._ "I have the honour to transmit to your Excellency His Majesty's commands, dated 5th of the month, literally, and in the same language in which I received them.