"Why, because it appears that your former lawyer, M. Mennesson, has roused the town into a state of revolution, telling them you are carrying out the orders of the Duc d'Orléans, and they do not mean to let us go through." "I carry out orders for the Duc d'Orléans? My goodness! the man must be either mad or drunk!" "Mad he may be, but, meanwhile, he means to have the matter out with you." "Have it out! and by means of whom?" "By means of the foresters, in the first place." "The foresters? Let me think. How can we have it out with the foresters who belong to the Duc d'Orléans, if I am doing the business of the duke?" "Oh! I don't understand it at all--I only warn you. Now you know, let us proceed." I managed to rouse myself from sleep. We were at the foot of the mountain of Dampleux and one of my Villers-Cotterets friends had run out to warn us of the plot afoot against us. I called Moreau, who alone comprised all the cavalry we could muster. "Moreau," I said to him, "do me the favour of finishing off your horse by putting him to a gallop and going to inquire either at Cartier's or Paillet's house what amount of truth there is in the news they have just brought us. If you meet M. Mennesson, threaten him that I have two bullets in my rifle and that if he does not want to become acquainted with them, he must keep himself out of range." Moreau set off at a gallop: I placed myself and Hutin with six or eight men who seemed to me equal to any emergency, in the van, leaving Bard and twenty-five to thirty others as escort to the waggon; and then we continued on our journey. In ten minutes' time we saw Moreau on his way back. There was really an assembly of people before M. Mennesson's door and he was holding forth to them; but, when Moreau went up to him and whispered in his ear, he disappeared. There still remained the Guards, who, it was said, were commanded by an old officer called M. Boyer. This resistance of the Guards under M. Boyer was the more surprising to me, since the Guards, as I have mentioned, were attached to the House of Orléans, in league with which I was accused of raising a disturbance in the province; also M. Boyer, who had formerly been an officer but was deprived of his post by the Restoration, owed everything to the Duc d'Orléans. Well! we reached Paillet's door, where we were expected, as on our first entrance to the town; supper was ready and we consumed it rapidly. All our men were at supper in Cartier's back courtyard. We expected to be attacked at any moment, and we all ate with our guns held between our legs. Supper, however, passed off without hindrance. While we were at table, the horses of both the trap and the waggon were changed and, towards ten at night, we resumed our journey; this time, we were escorted by the whole of the National Guard of Villers-Cotterets.