The voice belonged to one of my friends who lived at Soissons, the one who, fifteen years previously, when a child like myself, came, an hour before me, to make a suggestion to General Lallemand when a prisoner, similar to the one I put to him an hour later. "Ah! is that you, Hutin?" I exclaimed. "What shall I do to get in?" "You will get in because I shall go with you and insist on it.... I belong to Soissons and know the gatekeeper." "Bravo! What time shall we have?" "The whole night; but it would be best to arrive before one o'clock." "Good! then we shall have time for supper?" "Where are you going to have it?" Ten voices shouted-- "With me! With me! With us!" and they began to drag me from front, from behind, by the lappets of my coat and the cord of my powder horn and the strap of my gun and the ends of my cravat. "Excuse me," said another voice, "but he has been previously engaged." "Ah! Paillet!..." It was my old head-clerk. I turned towards my many hosts. "It is quite true. I promised Paillet the last time he visited Paris to come and dine with him." "So much the better," said Paillet, "since the dining-room is large and those who wish to come and take supper with us will find room enough.... Come, those who are his friends can follow me!" A score of young fellows followed us--my old comrades, Saunier, Fontaine, Arpin, Labarre, Rajade and many more. We went along the rue de Soissons and stopped at Paillet's house. In a moment almost, thanks to old Cartier, who lived nearly opposite, an excellent supper was improvised. Cartier senior, Paillet, Hutin, and Bard sat down to table. The others sat round, and I had to relate the history of that marvellous epoch-making three days while I was eating, not a single detail of it having penetrated so far as Villers-Cotterets. There were many exclamations of admiration. I next passed to the story of my own mission. And here enthusiasm cooled down. When I announced that I counted on taking alone, by myself, all the powder in a military town of eight thousand inhabitants and eight hundred soldiers, my poor friends looked at one another and said, as General La Fayette had done-- "Why! you must be mad!" But more serious still than this unanimous opinion of the inhabitants of Villers-Cotterets was that Hutin, a native of Soissons, agreed with their opinion. "However," he added, "as I said I would attempt the thing with you, I will do so; only it is a hundred to one that before this time to-morrow we shall have been shot." I turned towards Bard. "What did I say to you when I proposed you should accompany me, Seigneur Raphaël?" I said. "You said to me, 'Will you come and get yourself shot with me?'" "And your reply?" "I replied I should be only too happy." "And now?" "I am still of the same opinion." "Bless me! my dear fellow, you can see, you can hear. Reflect in time." "I have reflected." "And you mean to come?" "Certainly." I turned to Hutin again, "So you are coming?"