I Have Mentioned That My Obliging Friend The
_Amoureux-Fou_ Handed Me Over To The Door-Keeper Of
The Citadel.
I should add that I was at first committed
to the wife of this functionary, a stout peasant-woman,
who took a key down from a nail, conducted me to a
postern door, and ushered me into the presence of her
husband.
Having just begun his rounds with a party
of four persons, he was not many steps in advance. I
added myself perforce to this party, which was not
brilliantly composed, except that two of its members
were gendarmes in full toggery, who announced in the
course of our tour that they had been stationed for a
year at Carcassonne, and had never before had the
curiosity to come up to the Cite. There was something
brilliant, certainly, in that. The _gardien_ was an extra-
ordinarily typical little Frenchman, who struck me even
more forcibly than the wonders of the inner enceinte;
and as I am bound to assume, at whatever cost to my
literary vanity, that there is not the slightest danger
of his reading these remarks, I may treat him as public
property. With his diminutive stature and his per-
pendicular spirit, his flushed face, expressive protuber-
ant eyes, high peremptory voice, extreme volubility,
lucidity, and neatness of utterance, he reminded me of
the gentry who figure in the revolutions of his native
land. If he was not a fierce little Jacobin, he ought
to have been, for I am sure there were many men of
his pattern on the Committee of Public Safety.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 161 of 276
Words from 44171 to 44437
of 75796
