The coach had nearly reached the south end of the Pont au Change, when a number of youths ran by me, pelting one another with snowballs, and shouting so lustily that I was at a loss which to admire more--the silence of their feet or the loudness of their voices. Aware that lads of that age are small respecters of persons, I was not surprised to see two or three of them rush on to the bridge before us, and even continue their Parthian warfare under the very feet of the horses. The result was, however, that the latter presently took fright at that part of the bridge where the houses encroach most boldly on the roadway; and, but for the care of the running footman, who hastened to their heads, might have done some harm either to the coach or the passersby. As it was, we were brought to a stop while one of the wheels was extricated from the kennel, into which it had become wedged. Smiling to think what the King--for he, strangely warned by Providence, was all his life long timid in a coach--would have said to this, I went to open the curtains, and had just effected this to a certain extent, when one of a crowd of idlers who stood on the raised pavement beside us deliberately lifted up his arm and flung a snowball at me. The missile flew wide of its mark by an inch or two only. That I was amazed at such audacity goes without saying, but in my doubt of what it might be the prelude--for the breakdown of the coach in that narrow place, the haunt of the rufflers and vagrants of every kind, might be a part of a concerted plan--I fell back into my place. The coach, as it happened, moved on with a jerk at the same moment; and before I had well digested the matter, or had time to mark the demeanor of the crowd, we were clear of the bridge and rolling past the Chatelet. A smaller man might have stopped to revenge, and to cook a sprat have passed all Paris through the net. But remembering my own youthful days, when I attended the College of Burgundy, I set down the freak to the insolence of some young student, and, shrugging my shoulders, dismissed it from my thoughts. An instant later, however, observing that the fragments of the snowball were melting on the seat by my side and wetting the cushion, I raised my hand to brush them away. In the act I saw, to my surprise, a piece of paper lying among the _debris_. "Ho, ho!" said I to myself. "This is a strange snowball! I have heard that the apprentices put stones in theirs. But paper! Let me see what this means." The morsel, though moistened by contact with the snow, remained intact. Unfolding it with the greatest care--for already I began to discern that here was something out of the common--I found written on the inner side, in a clear, clerkly hand, the words, "_Beware of Nicholas!_"