As an innocent person I must protest against this shameful violence.

I shall appeal to the justice of his lordship the patriarch." My comrade in misery signed this protest with me; after which, addressing myself to all the pupils, I read it aloud, calling upon them to speak the truth if any one could say the contrary of what I had written.

They, with one voice, immediately declared that we had never been seen conversing together, and that no one knew who had put the lamp out.

The rector left the room in the midst of hisses and curses, but he sent us to prison all the same at the top of the house and in separate cells.

An hour afterwards, I had my bed, my trunk and all my things, and my meals were brought to me every day.