This piling bastions around Paris, is saying to the enemy that it is possible to conquer France." The train at last stopped at the Mazas station.

The Colonel, who had no baggage, marched out pompously, with his hands in his pockets, to look for the _hotel de Nantes_.

As he had spent three months in Paris about the year 1810, he considered himself acquainted with the city, and for that reason he did not fail to lose himself as soon as he got there.

But in the various quarters which he traversed at hazard, he admired the great changes which had been wrought during his absence.

Fougas' taste was for having streets very long, very wide, and bordered with very large houses all alike; he could not fail to notice that the Parisian style was rapidly approaching his ideal.