Edgeworth was in bed with a cold when this summons came.

He writes to Miss Charlotte Sneyd:--'My being ill was not a sufficient excuse; I got up and dressed myself slowly, to gain time for thinking--drank one dish of chocolate, ordered my carriage, and went with my exempt to the Palais de Justice.

There I was shown into a parlour, or rather a guard-room, where a man like an under-officer was sitting at a desk.
In a few minutes I was desired to walk upstairs into a long narrow room, in different parts of which ten or twelve clerks were sitting at different tables.

To one of these I was directed--he asked my name, wrote it on a printed card, and demanding half a crown, presented the card to me, telling me it was a passport.

I told him I did not want a passport; but he pressed it upon me, assuring me that I had urgent necessity for it, as I must quit Paris immediately.
Then he pointed out to me another table, where another clerk was pleased to place me in the most advantageous point of view for taking my portrait, and he took my written portrait with great solemnity, and this he copied into my passport.