The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 271: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

206 THE SPEAM PACKET, affecting scene, and claims a share in the old man’s embraces, and the younger one’s joy. Thus was it that Henri Alvimar met Pierre Michel and Albert once more ;—thus was it that the father and son suddenly found that they had languished for years in the same prison-house, without knowing that one was near the other ;—and thus, in a word, was it that the prophecy of the sorceress was fulfilled ! Oh! who shall describe the joy and delight which prevailed in the dwelling where the entire family were soon united once more? Pauline ran from father to brother to embrace them again and again ; and Henri was never wearied in demonstrating his affection towards the old man and his sincere friendship for his brother-in-law. But at length the fervour of awakened and renewed passions became mellowed down to tranquil happiness and ineffable contentment; and then com- menced questions and explanations on all sides. It appeared that on the day when Albert was to have returned with Henri Alvimar to Calais, he made the necessary preparations for his departure, and finding that he had a leisure half-hour still to dispose of, walked out to take a parting survey of the magnificent palace and the beauteous gardens of the Tuileries. While he was on his way thither, he was stopped by two men dressed in plain clothes, who in- quired if his name were Albert Michel, and whether he had not accosted a lady on several occasions in her barouche. He immediately replied in the affirmative: they stated that the lady in question desired an in- terview with him, and that they were to conduct him to the spot where she was waiting for him. He suffered himself to be persuaded to step into a carriage, although he at the moment could not help entertain- ing a distant suspicion that some treachery was intended; and in this manner was he conveyed to the Bastille. There he had languished until the day of its destruction in the year 1789—unaware that his father shortly afterwards became an inmate of the same horrible prison —ignorant of the crime for which he was incarcerated, unless, indeed, it were connected with the lady, whom he had known as Mademoiselle Tascher—and left in a most terrible state of incertitude with respect to his family and his own future fate. The narrative of the old man recorded the preliminary circumstances which led to his own incarceration, and with which it will be remem- bered Alvimar and his wife were hitherto unacquainted. The history of Father Pierre corroborated the idea that some motive connected with M. Tascher’s daughter had led to the confinement of father and son in the most horrible of prisons ; but in what way they could have com- mitted an offence calculated to draw down upon them such a dread penalty, they were at a loss to determine. The years of their captivity — % ae GComicbooks:G