On the morning that followed the scene I have spoken of came the news of the arrest, the trial, and the death of the Duc d'Enghien. That terrible tragedy--which yet weighs, and will weigh forever, on the memory of the period--reached us in our prison with all the terrible force of circumstances to make it a day of sorrow and mourning. Such details as the journals afforded but little satisfied our curiosity. The youth, the virtues, the bravery of the prince had made him the idol of his party; and while his death was lamented for his own sake, his followers read in it the determination of the Government to stop at nothing in their resolve to exterminate that party. A gloomy silence sat upon the Chouans, who no longer moved about as before, regardless of their confinement to a prison. Their chief remained apart: he neither spoke to any one nor seemed to notice those who passed; he looked stunned and stupefied, rather than deeply affected, and when he lifted his eyes, their expression was cold and wandering. Even the other prisoners, who rarely gave way to feeling of any kind, seemed at first overwhelmed by these sad tidings; and doubtless many who before had trusted to rank and influence for their safety, saw how little dependence could be placed on such aid when the blow had fallen upon a “Condé” himself. I, who neither knew the political movements of the time nor the sources of the danger the Consul's party anticipated, could only mourn over the unhappy fate of a gallant prince whose daring had cost him his life, and never dreamed for a moment of calling in question the honor or good faith of Bonaparte in an affair of which I could have easily believed him totally ignorant. Such, indeed, was the representation of the “Moniteur;” and whatever doubts the hints about me might have excited, were speedily allayed by the accounts I read of the Consul's indignation at the haste and informality of the trial, and his deep anger at the catastrophe that followed it. “Savary will be disgraced for this,” said I to the Abbé, who leaned over my shoulder while I read the paper; “Bonaparte can never forgive him.” “You mistake, my dear sir,” replied he, with a strange expression I could not fathom. “The Consul is the most forgiving of men; he never bears malice.” “But here was a dreadful event,--a crime, perhaps.” “Only a fault,” resumed he. “By the bye, Colonel, this order about closing the barriers will be excessively inconvenient to the good people of Paris.” “I have been thinking over that, too,” said an overdressed, affected-looking youth, whose perfumed curls and studied costume formed a strange contrast with the habits of his fellow-prisoners. “If they shut up the Barriére de de l'Étoile, what are they to do for Longchamps?” “_Parbleu!_ that did not strike me,” interposed the colonel, tapping his forehead with his finger. “I 'll wager a crown that they haven't thought of that themselves.”