I could not help acknowledging that these were all potent reasons, and, as I saw that it would be in vain to combat their influence on his mind, I suffered myself to be rolled on towards Stenay, with no farther discussion than merely what was necessary to induce my conductors to give me as much repose as possible. My brief communication with the trooper had, however, established a sort of friendly intercourse between us, which rendered him extremely civil during the rest of the journey; and from him I learned that, although Condé had completely defeated the Maréchal d'Hocquincourt at Blenau, Turenne had, by the most splendid man[oe]uvres that it is possible to conceive, arrested the progress of the victorious army with a force of not one third its number. The Prince had himself turned his steps towards Paris, and Gaspard de Belleville, as well as several superior officers, had been left to bring up a number of scattered parties which had spread over a part of Champagne and the Orleanois, during the unsteady command of the Dukes of Beaufort and Nemours. He could tell me nothing, however, in regard to Monsieur de Villardin, his daughter, or Father Ferdinand, though he had been at no great distance, he said, from the château of Virmont at the time that it was fired, which was done, he declared by the command of the Duke of Nemours, in order to give notice to another division of the army that the Prince was on his march. Notwithstanding this assurance of my companion, I could not help thinking, that Gaspard de Belleville had fully as much to do with the conflagration as the Duke of Nemours. Five days' journey brought us to Stenay, and in spite of my wounds and my weakness, thanks to a constitution of iron, and an early hardening in the fiery furnace of the English civil wars, I was far better at the end of the time than on the day when we first set out. After being admitted within the walls of the town, which was not permitted without manifold challenges and investigations, the carriage drove direct to the prison, where I was delivered into the hands of a man whose countenance was certainly as rugged as the stone walls amidst which he dwelt. Nor can I boast of having found his heart much softer; for, though the trooper who had accompanied me had recommended me to his notice, in my hearing, as a _bon garçon_, no sooner were the doors closed upon me, than a course of ill usage began, which was not destined to terminate for some time. My purse, rendered meagre by the frequent demands of the road, was the first thing attacked, and from that moment vanished entirely. I was then thrust into one of the dungeons, with a pile of straw for a bed, and a little grated window of about nine inches square, looking out upon the ramparts, as my only source of light and air. Bread and water became my diet, and, as the floor of the dungeon was not particularly dry, it was with no small difficulty that I kept myself from the effects of the damp.