His business was soon disposed of. The commissary who received him was the same one who had spoken to him the previous evening at the opera. A doctor was called, and gave the best verdict of monomania that ever sent a man to Charenton. All this was done politely and pleasantly, without a word which could put the Colonel on his guard or give him a suspicion of the fate held in reserve for him. He merely found the ceremonial rather long and peculiar, and prepared on the spot several well-sounding sentences, which he promised himself the honor of repeating to the Emperor. At last he was permitted to resume his route. The hack had been kept waiting; the gentleman-usher relit his pipe, said three words to the driver, and seated himself at the left of the Colonel. The carriage set off at a trot, reached the _Boulevards_, and took the direction of the Bastille. It had gotten opposite the _Porte Saint-Martin_, and Fougas, with his head at the window, was continuing the composition of his impromptu speech, when an open carriage drawn by a pair of superb chestnuts passed, so to speak, under his very nose. A portly man with a gray moustache turned his head, and cried, "Fougas!" Robinson Crusoe, discovering the human footprint on his island, was not more astonished and delighted than our hero on hearing that cry of "Fougas!" To open the door, jump out into the road, run to the carriage, which had been stopped, fling himself into it at a single bound, without the help of the step, and fall into the arms of the portly gentleman with the gray moustache, was all the work of a second. The barouche had long disappeared, when the detective at a gallop, followed by his hack at a trot, traversed the line of the _Boulevards_, asking all the policemen if they had not seen a crazy man pass that way. CHAPTER XVI. THE MEMORABLE INTERVIEW BETWEEN COLONEL FOUGAS AND HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. In falling upon the neck of the big man with the gray moustache, Fougas supposed he was embracing Massena. He naturally intimated as much to him, whereupon the owner of the barouche burst into a great peal of laughter. "Ah, my poor old boy," said he, "it's a long time since we buried the 'Child of Victory!' Look me square in the face: I am Leblanc, of the Russian campaign." "Impossible! You little Leblanc?" "Lieutenant in the 3d Artillery, who shared with you a million of dangers and that famous piece of roast horse which you salted with your tears." "Well, upon my soul! It _is_ you! You cut me out a pair of boots from the skin of the unfortunate Zephyr! And we needn't speak of the number of times you saved my life! Oh, my brave and faithful friend, thank God that I embrace you once more! Yes, I recognize you now; but I needn't say that you are changed!" "Gad! _I_ haven't been preserved in a jug of spirits of wine. I've _lived_, for my part!" "You know my history, then?"