"During the months of September and October, when your Wide-Awakes on the one hand, and your conservative Democracy on the other, were parading the streets with banners and music, as they or their predecessors had done in so many previous contests, and believing that nothing worse could be involved than a possible party defeat and some bad feelings, we, who lived where revolutions were common, thought that we discovered the smouldering spark which would be blown to revolution here. The disruption of the Charleston Convention and through it of the Democracy; the bold language and firm attitude of the Republicans; the well-understood energy of the uncompromising Abolitionists, and the less defined but rabid energy of the Southern fire-eaters: all these were known abroad and watched with gathering apprehension. American newspapers, and the extracts made from them by the leading journals of France and England, commanded more attention among the Americo-French and English than all other excitements of the time put together. "Then followed what you all know--the election, with its radical result and the threats which immediately succeeded, that 'Old Abe Lincoln' should never live to be inaugurated! 'He shall not!' cried the South. 'He shall!' replied the North. To us who knew something of the Spanish knife and the Italian stiletto, the probabilities seemed to be that he would never live to reach Washington. Then the mutterings of the thunder grew deeper and deeper, and some disruption seemed inevitable, evident to us far away, while you at home, it seemed, were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, holding gala-days and enjoying yourselves generally, on the brink of an arousing volcano from which the sulphurous smoke already began to ascend to the heavens! So time passed on; autumn became winter, and December was rolling away. "I was sitting with half-a-dozen friends in the chess-room at Very's, about eleven o'clock on the night of the twentieth of December, talking over some of the marvellous successes which had been won by Paul Morphy when in Paris, and the unenviable position in which Howard Staunton had placed himself by keeping out of the lists through evident fear of the New-Orleanian, when Adolph Von Berg came behind me and laid his hand on my shoulder. "'Come with me a moment,' he said, 'you are wanted!' "'Where?' I asked, getting up from my seat and following him to the door, before which stood a light _coupe_, with its red lights flashing, the horse smoking, and the driver in his seat. "'I have been to-night to the Rue la Reynie Ogniard!' he answered. "'And are you going there again?' I asked, my blood chilling a little with an indefinable sensation of terror, but a sense of satisfaction predominating at the opportunity of seeing something more of the mysterious woman. "'I am!' he answered, 'and so are _you_! She has sent for you! Come!'