After vainly waiting at Gravesend for some hours after the time at which the prince was due, Count Orsi took a post-chaise and hastened to Ramsgate, where General Montholon, Colonel Voisin, and Colonel Laborde had been sent on by the prince in anticipation of his arrival. Colonel Voisin was the only one of the three who understood the real purport of the expedition. The count reached Ramsgate late on the night of the 4th of August, and put up at the hotel where the prince’s friends were staying. With Colonel Voisin, after General Montholon and Colonel Laborde had gone to bed, Orsi had a secret conference. Voisin was in the greatest state of concern at the delay in the prince’s arrival, because the whole success of the expedition depended on his reaching Boulogne early next morning. “Colonel Voisin,” we are assured, “was in utter despair at the non-appearance of the steamer, and almost out of his mind.” He declared to Orsi that the expedition would be a disastrous failure unless the _Edinburgh Castle_ were at Boulogne by four o’clock the next morning. The only man, he said, whom the prince had to dread was Lieutenant-Colonel Puygellier, commanding the battalion at Boulogne--a man unflinching in the discharge of his duty and a staunch Republican, whom nothing could tempt to join an Imperial pretender. Orsi replied to the distracted Voisin that the hour of the ship’s arrival at Boulogne could not make much difference, since the hostility of Puygellier must at one time or another be faced. “You are mistaken,” said the colonel. “Puygellier will not be at Boulogne all day to-morrow. The prince has purposely fixed the 5th for presenting himself before the battalion, because he knows that Puygellier has been invited to a shooting-party at some distance from Boulogne, and in all probability not be back until late at night. If we miss being there to-morrow we are doomed to perish.” [Illustration: THE CENTRAL FOUNTAIN, LUXEMBURG GARDENS.]