From the courteous tone assumed in his initiatory address, and the professional attitude of the two commissaries by whom he was accompanied, Charney fancied that their sole business was to deliver to him a reprieve for his unhappy Picciola. But the commandant’s next sentence consisted in an inquiry, whether, upon any specific occasion, the prisoner had to complain of his want of courtesy or abuse of authority. The Count, still flattering himself that such a preamble augured well for the accomplishment of his hopes, certified all, and more than all, that civility seemed to require in reply to this leading question. “You cannot, I imagine, sir, have forgotten,” persisted the commandant, “the care and kindness lavished upon you during your illness? If it was not your pleasure to submit to the prescriptions of the physicians appointed to visit you, the fault was neither theirs nor mine, but your own. When it occurred to me that your convalescence might be accelerated by a greater facility for taking air and exercise, you were instantly allowed, at all times and seasons, access to the prison-court?” Charney inclined his head in token of grateful affirmation. But impatience of the good man’s circumlocution already caused him to compress his lips. “Nevertheless, sir,” resumed the commandant, in the tone of a man whose feelings have been wounded, and whose advances were repaid with ingratitude, “you have not scrupled to infringe the regulations of the fortress, of the tenor of which you could not have been ignorant; compromising me thereby in the eyes of General Menon, the governor of Piedmont; nay, perhaps, of his gracious majesty the Emperor himself. The memorial which you have contrived to place before him——” [Illustration] “Place before him!” interrupted Charney; “has he then received it?” “Of course he has received it.” “And the result—the result!” cried the Count, trembling with anxiety; “what has been decreed?” “That, as a punishment for your breach of discipline, you are to be confined a month in the dungeon of the northern bastion of the fortress of Fenestrella.” “But what said the Emperor to my application?” cried the Count, unable to resign at once all his cherished hopes of redress. “Do you suppose, sir, that the Emperor has leisure for the consideration of any such contemptible absurdities?” was the disdainful reply of the commandant; on which Charney, throwing himself in complete abstraction into the only chair the chamber happened to contain, became evidently unconscious of all that was passing around him. “This is not all!” resumed the commandant; “your communications with the exterior of the fortress, being thus ascertained, it is natural to suppose that your correspondence may have been more extensive than we know of, and I beg to inquire whether you have addressed letters to any person besides his majesty the Emperor?” To this address Charney vouchsafed no reply.