The weather was now mild and bright, the snow had disappeared, and our journey became a pleasure. But when travelling between Mantes and St. Germain, as I was getting out of the carriage to walk up a steep hill, I had the misfortune to lose out of my overcoat pocket all my passes, letters of identification and the other documents I carried with me. At the gates of the Forest of St. Germain, a Prussian non-commissioned officer stepped out, and demanded our papers. I was minus every document which would have accounted satisfactorily for my being there; and I should certainly have been arrested and sent off to the Commandant of Versailles under an escort, had not Capt. Brackenbury assured the officer on duty that he had seen the papers in question. I had, as it happened, shown them to him that very morning. This satisfied the guard, and I was allowed to pass; but I need hardly say that I was supremely uncomfortable at the case I was in, and thought my journeys along the valley of the Seine were always doomed to misfortune. Last time the Francs-Tireurs had arrested me; now it was the turn of the Prussians. When we reached St. Germain, we dined, in spite of my lost papers, and visited the Palace and the Bois, from the terrace of which there is such a glorious view, away to Mont Valérien and one or two other of the forts. As we were looking about us, there was quite a stir, bordering on excitement among the soldiers. King William, now the Emperor of Germany, and the Crown Prince, were expected every moment from Versailles, and the road was lined with infantry and cavalry to receive them. But we waited an hour, and his Imperial Majesty did not arrive, so we resumed our journey to Versailles. There I left Capt. Brackenbury at a private house, where he and Dr. Russell, the _Times_ correspondent, put up; and thanking him for his great kindness I bade him good-bye. This was the last time I saw him. It would be difficult to do justice to the character of this noble soldier; a more generous heart or more gracious disposition, I never had the privilege of knowing.