In reply to all my questions in regard to the authority by which I was there detained, the gaoler merely told me that I was considered as a deserter from the army of the Prince de Condé, found fighting against him, and that I might think myself very well off that I had not been shot immediately. Although this was evidently a pretext, and I very well understood that both Gaspard de Belleville and good Captain Hubert might greatly approve of my detention, yet I could not bring myself to believe that this state of things could continue long; and for the first two or three days of my imprisonment I consoled myself with the expectation of its speedy termination. My health, also, I must confess, improved greatly under the severe regimen to which I was subjected, and the healing of my wounds proceeded more rapidly than I could have at all anticipated. Nevertheless, as day went by after day, and no relief came, my spirits fell, and my heart, hitherto so buoyant under all the adversities and changes which I had met with, sunk oppressed beneath that most horrible of all inflictions, solitary confinement. No language can describe in the slightest degree the state of my feelings in that prison, by the time that ten days had passed over my head within its walls. The lingering weariness of the moments, the faint chillness of apprehension, the utter vacuity of each heavy day, the changeless, unceasing poring of thought upon one subject, the want of every event, however small, the burning thirst for freedom, and activity, and change, and the fresh air, and the fair face of nature--all combined to make a state of existence which was the very essence of "hope delayed that maketh the heart sick."