I got down at No. 9 rue du Bouloy, at five in the morning. This time, I did not make the same mistake that I did when I left the Théâtre Français. I took my bearings, and, by certain landmarks, I thought I recognised the vicinity of the rue des Vieux-Augustins. I questioned the conductor, who confirmed my convictions, and handed me my small luggage. I disputed over it victoriously with several porters, and I reached the _Hôtel des Vieux-Augustins_ towards half-past five. There I felt at home. The waiter recognised me as the traveller with the hares and the partridges, and, in the absence of the landlord, who was still asleep, he took me to the room I had occupied on my last visit. My first desire was for sleep. Owing to the emotions of parting, and owing to wakeful dreams I had had in the diligence, I arrived tired out. I told the boy to wake me at nine, if I had not given any signs of life before. I knew Adolphe's habits by now, and I knew I need not hurry over going to his house. But when the landlord himself came into my room at nine o'clock, he found me up: sleep would have none of me. It was Sunday morning. Under the Bourbons Paris was very dreary on Sundays. Strict orders forbade the opening of shops, and it was considered not only a breach of religious order, but still worse, a crime of _lèse majesty_ to disobey these ordinances. I risked being arrested in Paris at nine in the morning nearly as much as I had risked it by being in the streets after midnight. I did not feel uneasy. Thanks to my sportsman's instincts, I found the rue du Mont-Blanc; then the rue Pigale; then, finally, No. 14 in the rue Pigale. M. de Leuven was, as usual, walking in his garden. It was early in May: he was amusing himself by giving a bit of sugar to a rose. He turned round and said-- "Ah! it is you. Why have you been so long without coming to see us?" "Why, because I returned to Villers-Cotterets." "And you have now come back?" "As you see. I have come to try my fortune for the last time.... This time, I must stop in Paris, whatever happens." "Well, as to that, you will always be welcome here, my dear boy. We have a kind of Platonic republic here, save in the matter of the community of women and the presence of poets: one mouth more or less makes no difference to our republic. There is even an empty attic to spare upstairs; you can dispute possession of it with the rats; but I believe you are capable of defending yourself. Go and arrange it all with Adolphe." M. de Leuven wrote on foreign politics at that time, for the _Courrier français._ Brought up on the knees of the kings and queens of the North, speaking all the Northern languages, knowing everything it is permitted man to know, the politics of foreign courts were almost his mother tongue. He rose at five o'clock every morning, received the papers by six, and by seven or eight his work for the _Courrier français_ was finished.