The King dictated this without consulting any notes, without hesitating about a figure and without stopping to choose words. I would never have believed that an old man of his age could have possessed so remarkable a memory. He appended his seal to the three letters; it was his way of signing. He read easily, but he had never found time to learn to write. Charlemagne and Alfred the Great were, it is said, in the same predicament. While the Under-Secretaries of State were transcribing the letters for the day in order to place them in the archives, he gave audience to subaltern officers who had returned with their detachments, from the day's duty. Each man seated himself in front of him, saluted him by laying his right hand on his heart and making his report in a few words. I swear to you that Saint-Louis, under his oak, inspired no greater reverence among the people of Vincennes. The first who presented himself was a small man, with a bad face; a fine sample for the Court of Assizes. It was an islander from Corfu, persecuted as an incendiary: he had been well brought up, and his talents had advanced him. But his chief and his soldiers held him in no great esteem. He was suspected of keeping for his own profit a part of the spoils. Now the King was unreasonable on the subject of probity. When he found a man in fault, he ignominiously thrust him out and ironically said to him: "Go and make a magistrate of thyself!" Hadgi-Stavros asked the man from Corfu: "What hast thou done?" "I have just come, with my fifteen men, from the ravine of Cirondelles, upon the road to Thebes. I met a detachment of soldiers; twenty-five men." "Where are their guns?" "I left them. They were percussion muskets, which would not serve us on account of lack of caps." "Good! Then?" "It was market-day; I stopped the passers-by." "How many?" "One hundred and forty-two persons." "And thou hast brought----?" "About a thousand francs," naming the sum. "Seven francs per head! It is small!" "It is good. They were peasants." "They had not, then, sold their goods?" "Some had sold, others bought." The man opened a heavy sack which he carried under his arm; he spread out the contents before the secretaries, who began to count the amount. The receipts were from thirty to forty Mexican piastres, some handfuls of Austrian zwanzigs and an enormous quantity of copper coins. Some crumpled papers were among the money. They were bank notes of ten francs each. "Thou hast no jewels?" asked the King. "No!" "Were there no women, then?" "I found nothing worth bringing away." "What is that on thy finger?" "A ring." "Gold?" "Or copper; I do not know which." "Where didst thou get it?" "I bought it two months ago." "If thou hadst bought it, thou wouldst know whether it was gold or copper. Give it to me." The man took it off with bad grace. The ring was immediately locked up in a small coffer full of jewels.