My servant returned with the necessary articles a couple of hours later. I carefully locked up gun and ammunition and went out to take a breath of air in the streets. It was ten o'clock in the morning, and the face of Paris looked as quiet as though the _Moniteur_ had announced the beginning of the shooting season, instead of having published the Ordinances. Comte laughed at my forebodings. I took him to breakfast on the third floor of No. 7 rue de l'Université. It was then occupied by a very pretty woman, who had taken such a warm interest in my intended departure for Algiers that she meant to accompany me as far as Marseilles. I went to tell her that, for the time being, at all events, I had given the journey up and that, consequently, if she had packed her trunks, she could unpack them. She had not been able to take in the fact that my real motive for my African trip was curiosity; she could not understand any more clearly my reasons for staying in France, which were entirely from curiosity. She considered I ought to have found more adequate reasons both for my going and for my staying. My readers who have been good enough to follow the different phases of my life in these Memoirs must have noticed that I have been careful to avoid details of the kind just hinted at above; but I shall have occasion to refer more than once to this friendship, which was to be the means, by God's providence, of bringing me much happiness, in dark days turning sadness to joy and tears to smiles. I owed the acquaintance to Firmin. He had been acting Saint-Mégrin in the provinces and, one day, he came to my rooms, bringing with him a magnificent "Duchesse de Guise," on whose behalf he solicited all the influence I could bring to bear in theatrical circles. I began by asking Firmin what amount of interest and what kind of interest he took in his protégée. I have ever been careful to respect the various protégées of my friends; and the question was of some importance with reference to this beautiful woman. Firmin replied that his interest in her was entirely artistic, and that my own might assume what form I pleased.