"Call upon the commissary or, if he be prevented, another to repair to the house of M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, or elsewhere if need be, he being accused of plotting against the safety of the State, in order there to seek for and seize all papers, correspondence and writings containing provocations to crimes and offenses against the public peace or liable to examination, as well as any seditious objects or arms which may be in his possession." While I perused the declaration of the great "plotting against the safety of the State," of which I, poor I was accused, the captain of the police-spies said to his subordinates: "Gentlemen, do your duty!" The duty of those gentlemen consisted in opening every cupboard, fumbling in every pocket, seizing all papers, letters and documents, reading the same, where possible, and discovering all arms, as appears from the warrant aforesaid. [Sidenote: I am arrested.] After reading over the document, addressing the worthy leader of those thieves of men and liberties: "You know, sir," I said, "that I do not recognise your Government and that I protest against the violence which you are doing me; but, as I am not the stronger and as I have no wish to come to blows with you, I will get up and accompany you: pray take the trouble to be seated." I dressed and, without taking anything with me, said to the venerable commissary: "Sir, I am at your orders: are we going on foot?" "No, sir, I took care to bring you a coach." "You are very good, sir; let us start; but allow me to go to take leave of Madame de Chateaubriand. Will you permit me to enter my wife's room alone?" "Sir, I will go with you to the door and wait for you." "Very well, sir," and we went down. Everywhere, on my road, I found sentries; a picket had been posted even on the boulevard, outside a little gate which opens at the bottom of my garden. I said to the leader: "Those precautions were very useless; I have not the smallest wish to run away from you and escape." The gentlemen had turned my papers topsy-turvy, but taken nothing. My big mameluke's sabre caught their attention; they whispered among themselves and ended by leaving the weapon under a heap of dusty folios, in the midst of which it lay beside a yellow-wood crucifix which I had brought from the Holy Land. This dumb-show would almost have made me inclined to laugh, but I was cruelly distressed for Madame de Chateaubriand. Every one who knows her knows also the affection which she bears me, her ready alarm, the quickness of her imagination and the pitiful state of her health: this descent of the police and my removal might do her a terrible harm. She had already heard some noise and I found her sitting up in bed, listening quite terrified, as I entered her room at so unusual an hour. "Ah, dear God!" she exclaimed. "Are you ill? Ah, dear God! What is happening? What is happening?"