"'Mon Dieu!' I exclaimed, as a brilliant thought occurred to me; 'do not speak so loud, monsieur.' "'Diable; may we not raise our voices in the streets of Paris?' he asked. "'Not if you knew the mischief an alarm would do me.' "'Tête Dieu! 'tis an odd fellow, this!' "'Monsieur, pity me!' said I, in a voice full of entreaty. 'I throw myself upon your generosity--I perceive that I melt your heart. I have not my card; it is with my wife----' "'Morbleu! you are very young to have a wife, my friend, with a chin like an apple,' said the grim old sergeant, as he passed his lantern across my face again; 'I hope she is fully grown; but to the point, my fine fellow, or we shall have to march you to the Conciergerie, and they have an unpleasant mode of pressing questions there.' "'Where is this wife of yours, my little friend?' "'In her house, M. le Commissaire, where you see that light above the lamp with the scarlet bottle. Ah, the perfidious! There she awaits a lover for whom I am watching.' "I acted my part to the life, though jealousy is not a peculiarity of French husbands. "'And this lover?' said the commissaire, becoming suddenly interested, perhaps from some fellow-feeling. "'He is a young brother student of mine.' "'His name?' said the commissaire, producing a note-book. "'Eugene de Ribeaupierre.' "'We know him,' said the other, 'for the greatest young rascal in all Paris. He destroyed a tree of liberty in the Palais Royal, and painted the nose of Equality red in the Jardin des Plantes.' "'The same, monsieur,' said I, in a whining voice; 'he will come here disguised in a grey wig and spectacles to delude you, M. le Commissaire, and me too, unhappy that I am. Ah, mon Dieu, there he is! there he is! Seize him, in the name of morality and justice, of the République Démocratique et Sociale!' "The patrol instantly laid violent hands on the person of Doctor Thiebault, who, to do him justice, made a violent resistance, and broke the sergeant's lantern, to the tune of twenty francs, before he was borne off to the Conciergerie, where he passed three days and nights in a horrid vault among thieves and malefactors, before he was brought up for examination, when it was discovered that it was not a young student, but an old professor of the healing art, standing high in the estimation of all Paris, who had been maltreated and carried off by the watch. "So the whole story came out, and on the fourth day I found myself off _en route_ to join my father's corps of Chasseurs à Cheval, then serving against the Austrians. My good mother shed abundance of tears at my departure; the Abbé Lebrun gave me abundance of good advice and a handful of louis d'or, which I considered of more value, and in a month after I found myself face to face with the white coats in the forest of Frisenheim, on the left bank of the Rhine.