Page:Narrative of a captivity and adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803 and 1809.djvu/76

 hopeless, if there should prove no relaxation in the system they had adopted. In the evening, we arrived at Stenay, having travelled about twenty miles. Upon halting, we were mustered in two divisions, and shut up in two public-houses; one division, in the lower part of the town, to which the younger and least suspicious were conducted; the other, in a building by itself on the road-side; particular care was taken to surround both houses, besides placing sentinels at the doors, and in the rooms, so that nothing could be done without considerable danger of discovery. Moyses and myself, nevertheless, continued to make several preparations; by pretending fatigue, we obtained leave to go to bed, and were alone for some time, although repeatedly visited by the gendarmes, who, when dinner was announced, were kept in good humour, by being invited to partake of it. We endeavoured to tempt them to a free use of the bottle, but French soldiers are not generally addicted to the destructive vice of drunkenness. Towards nine P.M. the party lay down on the floor