“When the luckless man had convinced himself of the impossibility of escape, he fell into those day-dreams which are at once the comfort and the crowning despair of prisoners. He gave himself up to the trifles which in such cases seem so important; he counted the hours and the days; he studied the melancholy trade of being prisoner; he became absorbed in himself, and learned the value of air and sunshine; then, at the end of a fortnight, he was attacked by that terrible malady, that fever for liberty, which drives prisoners to those heroic efforts of which the prodigious achievements seem to us impossible, though true, and which my friend the doctor” (and he turned to Bianchon) “would perhaps ascribe to some unknown forces too recondite for his physiological analysis to detect, some mysteries of the human will of which the obscurity baffles science.” Bianchon shook his head in negation. “Beauvoir was eating his heart out, for death alone could set him free. One morning the turnkey, whose duty it was to bring him his food, instead of leaving him when he had given him his meagre pittance, stood with his arms folded, looking at him with strange meaning. Conversation between them was brief, and the warder never began it. The Chevalier was therefore greatly surprised when the man said to him: ‘Of course, monsieur, you know your own business when you insist on being always called Monsieur Lebrun, or citizen Lebrun. It is no concern of mine; ascertaining your name is no part of my duty. It is all the same to me whether you call yourself Peter or Paul. If every man minds his own business, the cows will not stray. At the same time, _I_ know,’ said he, with a wink, ‘that you are Monsieur Charles-Felix-Theodore, Chevalier de Beauvoir, and cousin to Madame la Duchesse de Maille.--Heh?’ he added after a short silence, during which he looked at his prisoner. “Beauvoir, seeing that he was safe under lock and key, did not imagine that his position could be any the worse if his real name were known. “‘Well, and supposing I were the Chevalier de Beauvoir, what should I gain by that?’ said he. “‘Oh, there is everything to be gained by it,’ replied the jailer in an undertone. ‘I have been paid to help you to get away; but wait a minute! If I were suspected in the smallest degree, I should be shot out of hand. So I have said that I will do no more in the matter than will just earn the money.--Look here,’ said he, taking a small file out of his pocket, ‘this is your key; with this you can cut through one of your bars. By the Mass, but it will not be any easy job,’ he went on, glancing at the narrow loophole that let daylight into the dungeon. “It was in a splayed recess under the deep cornice that ran round the top of the tower, between the brackets that supported the embrasures. “‘Monsieur,’ said the man, ‘you must take care to saw through the iron low enough to get your body through.’ “‘I will get through, never fear,’ said the prisoner.