Page:Narrative of a captivity and adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803 and 1809.djvu/70

 *cipline, of which the following fact, is an evidence:—

Four of us were rambling about the country, with a pointer and silken net, catching quails, when the gun was fired. On our return, in passing through the village of Tierville, we were surprised by two gendarmes, one of whom instantly dismounted, and seized me, uttering the most blasphemous epithets; he tied my elbows behind me, then slipping a noose round my bare neck, triced me up to the holsters of his saddle, remounted, and returned with his prize to town, exulting in his cowardly triumph, and pouring forth vollies of vulgar abuse, every now and then tightening the cord, so as to keep me trotting upon the very extremity of the toes, to obtain relief, then again loosening it, as occasional guttural symptoms of strangulation seemed to indicate necessity. Vain would be the attempt to convey an adequate idea of the impotent rage then boiling within me, at the insult offered to my juvenile dignity, whilst a determined haughtiness dis