Silent as was the sentinel after the restoration of his musket, it was, nevertheless, unanimously voted that our enterprise was a failure. Accordingly, the bar was replaced, the window closed, our implements stowed in the mattresses, and ourselves packed beneath the blankets, in momentary expectation of a visit from the jailer and military commander. We passed the night in feverish expectation, but our bolts remained undrawn.

Bright and early, with a plenteous breakfast, appeared our spirited Spaniards, and, as the turnkey admitted and locked them in, they burst into a fit of uproarious laughter at our maladroit adventure. The poor sentinel, they said, was found, at the end of his watch, stretched on the ground in a sort of fainting fit and half frozen. He swore, in accounting for a bleeding skull, that an invisible hand from the store-room beneath us, had dealt him a blow that felled him to the earth! His story was so silly and maudlin, that the captain of the guard, who remembered the festival and knew the tipsiness of the entire watch, gave no heed to the tale, but charged it to the account of New Year and eau de vie. We were sadly jeered by the lasses for our want of pluck, in forsaking the advantage fortune had thrown in our way, and I was specially charged to practise my hand more carefully with the lazo, when I next got a chance on the plantations of Cuba, or among the vaqueros of Mexico.

As we expected the daily visit from the punctual inspector, to try our bars with his iron rod, we hastened to secure our window, and stuffing all the fissures with straw and rags, so as almost to exclude light, we complained bitterly to the official of the cold wind to which the apertures exposed us, and thus prevented him from touching the sash. Besides this precaution, we thought it best to get rid of our tools and cord in the same way we received them; and thus terminated our project of escape.

Soon after, I heard from a relative in Paris, that my petition had been presented to Louis Philippe, whose reception of it encouraged a hope for my pardon. The news somewhat restored us to the good humor that used to prevail in our party, but which had been sadly dashed since our failure. Even Monsieur Germaine, saw in our anticipated liberation, a phantom of encouragement for himself, and began to talk confidentially of his plans. He fancied that I had been gradually schooled into a taste for misdemeanor, so that he favored me with innumerable anecdotes of swindling, and countless schemes of future robbery. By making me an incipient accomplice, he thought to secure my aid either for his escape or release.

I will take the liberty to record a single specimen of Germaine’s prolific fancy in regard to the higher grades of elegant felony, and will leave him to the tender mercy of the French government, which allows no bail for such chevaliers but chastises their crime with an iron hand.

We had scarcely recovered from our trepidation, when the forger got up one morning, with a radiant face, and whispered that the past night was fruitful to his brain, for he had planned an enterprise which would yield a fortune for any two who were wise and bold enough to undertake it.

Germaine was a philosophic felon. It was perhaps the trick of an intellect naturally astute, and of a spirit originally refined, to reject the vulgar baseness of common pilfering. Germaine never stole or defrauded; he only outwitted and outgeneralled. If he spoke of the world, either in politics or trade, he insisted that shams, forgeries, and counterfeits were quite as much played off in the language, address and dealings of statesmen, merchants, parsons, doctors, and lawyers, as they were by himself and his accomplices. The only difference between the felon and the jury, he alleged, existed in the fact that the jury was in the majority and the felon in the vocative. He advocated the worst forms of liberty and equality; he was decidedly in favor of a division of property, which he was sure would end what the law called crime, because all would be supplied on the basis of a common balance. Whenever he told his ancient exploits or suggested new ones, he glossed them invariably with a rhetorical varnish about the laws of nature, social contracts, human rights, meum and tuum; and concluded, to his perfect satisfaction, with a favorite axiom, that “he had quite as much right to the world’s goods as they who possessed them.”

A hypocritical farrago of this character always prefaced one of Germaine’s tales, so that I hardly ever interrupted the rogue when he became fluent about social theories, but waited patiently, in confidence that I was shortly to be entertained with an adventure or enterprise.

The forger began his story on this occasion with a most fantastical and exaggerated account of the celebrated Santissima Casa of Loretto, which he imagined was still endowed with all the treasures it possessed anterior to its losses during the pontificate of Pius VI. He asserted that it was the richest tabernacle in Europe, and that the adornments of the altar were valued at several millions of crowns, the votive offerings and legacies of devotees during a long period of time.

This holy and opulent shrine, the professor of politico-economico-equality proposed to rob at some convenient period; and, to effect it, he had “polished” the following plan during the watches of the night.

On some stormy day of winter, he proposed to leave Ancona, as a traveller from South America, and approaching the convent attached to the church of the Madonna of Loretto, demand hospitality for a penitent who had made the tiresome pilgrimage on a vow to the Virgin. There could be no doubt of his admission. For three days he would most devoutly attend matins and vespers, and crave permission to serve as an acolyte at the altar, the duties of which he perfectly understood. When the period of his departure arrived, he would be seized with sudden illness, and, in all likelihood, the brethren would lodge him in their infirmary. As his malady increased, he would call a confessor, and, pouring into the father’s credulous ear a tale of woes, sorrows, superstition and humbug, he would make the convent a donation of all his estates in South America, and pray for a remission of his sins!

When this comedy was over, convalescence should supervene; but he would adhere with conscientious obstinacy to his dying gift, and produce documents showing the immense value of the bequeathed property. Presently, he would be suddenly smitten with a love for monastic life; and, on his knees, the Prior was to be interceded for admission to the brotherhood. All this, probably, would require time, as well as playacting of the adroitest character; yet he felt confident he could perform the drama.

At last, when a vow had sealed his novitiate, no one of the fraternity should exceed him in fervent piety and bodily mortification. Every hour would find him at the altar before the Virgin, missal in hand, and eyes intent on the glittering image. This incessant and unwatched devotion, he calculated, would enable him in two months to take an impression of all the locks in the sacristy; and, as his confederate would call every market-day at the convent gate, in the guise of a pedler, he could easily cause the keys to be fabricated in different villages by common locksmiths.

Germaine considered it indispensable that his colleague in this enterprise should be a sailor; for the flight with booty was to be made over sea from Ancona. As soon, therefore, as the keys were perfected, and in the hands of the impostor, the mariner was to cause a felucca, to cruise off shore, in readiness for immediate departure. Then, at a fixed time, the pedler should lurk near the convent, with a couple of mules; and, in the dead of night, the sacrilege would be accomplished.

When he finished his story, the pleasant villain, rubbed his hands with glee, and skipping about the floor like a dancing-master, began to whistle “La Marsellaise.” That night, he retired earlier than usual, “to polish,” as he said; but before dawn he again aroused me, with a pull, and whispered a sudden fear that his “Loretto masterpiece” would prove an abortion!

“I have considered,” said he, “that the Virgin’s jewels are probably nothing but false stones and waxen pearls in pinchbeck gold! Surely, those cunning monks would never leave such an amount of property idle, simply to adorn a picture or statue! No, I am positive they must have sold the gems, substituted imitations, and bought property for their opulent convents!” As I felt convinced of this fact, and had some inkling of a recollection about losses during a former reign, I was happy to hear that the swindler’s fancy had “polished” the crime to absolute annihilation.

And now that I am about to leave this forging philosopher in prison, to mature, doubtless, some greater act of villany, I will merely add, that when I departed, he was constructing a new scheme, in which the Emperor of Russia was to be victim and paymaster. As my liberation occurred before the finishing touches were given by the artist, I am unable to say how it fared with Nicholas; but I doubt, exceedingly, whether the galleys of Brest contained a greater scoundrel, both in deeds and imaginings, than the metaphysical dandy Monsieur Germaine.

At length, my pardon and freedom came; but this was the sole reparation I received at the hands of Louis Philippe, for the unjust seizure and appropriation of my vessel in the neutral waters of Africa. When Sorret rushed in, followed by his wife, Babette, and the children, to announce the glorious news, the good fellow’s emotion was so great, that he stood staring at me like a booby, and for a long while could not articulate. Then came La Vivandière Dolores, and my pretty Concha. Next arrived Monsieur Randanne, with the rest of my pupils; so that, in an hour, I was overwhelmed with sunshine and tears. I can still feel the grasp of Sorret’s hand, as he led me beyond the bolts and bars, to read the act of royal grace. May we not feel a spasm of regret at leaving even a prison?

Next day, an affectionate crowd of friends and pupils followed the emancipated slaver to a vessel, which, by order of the king, was to bear me, a willing exile, from France for ever.