white trace of his freshly-cut beard, gave him his own passport, and

only left him at the railway station.[34]

De Flotte disguised himself as a servant, and in this manner succeeded

in crossing the frontier at Mouscron. From there he reached Ghent, and

thence Brussels.

On the night of December 26th, I had returned to the little room,

without a fire, which I occupied (No. 9) on the second story of the

Hôtel de la Porte-Verte; it was midnight; I had just gone to bed and was

falling asleep, when a knock sounded at my door. I awoke. I always left

the key outside. "Come in," I said. A chambermaid entered with a light,

and brought two men whom I did not know. One was a lawyer, of Ghent,

M. ----; the other was De Flotte. He took my two hands and pressed them

tenderly. "What," I said to him, "is it you?"

At the Assembly De Flotte, with his prominent and thoughtful brow, his

deep-set eyes, his close-shorn head, and his long beard, slightly turned

back, looked like a creation of Sebastian del Piombo wandering out of

his picture of the "Raising of Lazarus;" and I had before my eyes a

short young man, thin and pallid, with spectacles. But what he had not

been able to change, and what I recognized immediately, was the great

heart, the lofty mind, the energetic character, the dauntless courage;

and if I did not recognize him by his features, I recognized him by the

grasp of his hand.

Edgar Quinet was brought away on the 10th by a noble-hearted Wallachian

woman, Princess Cantacuzène, who undertook to conduct him to the

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The History of a Crime