With this assurance, and with a warm grasp of the hand, the Prince left old General de Magny that night; and the veteran retired to rest almost consoled, and confident in Maxime's eventual and immediate release.
'But in the morning, before daybreak, the Prince, who had been reading papers all night, wildly called to the page, who slept in the next room across the door, bade him get horses, which were always kept in readiness in the stables, and, flinging a parcel of letters into a box, told the page to follow him on horseback with these.

The young man (Monsieur de Weissenborn) told this to a young lady who was then of my household, and who is now Madame de Weissenborn, and a mother of a score of children.
'The page described that never was such a change seen as in his august master in the course of that single night.

His eyes were bloodshot, his face livid, his clothes were hanging loose about him, and he who had always made his appearance on parade as precisely dressed as any sergeant of his troops, might have been seen galloping through the lonely streets at early dawn without a hat, his unpowdered hair streaming behind him like a madman.
'The page, with the box of papers, clattered after his master,--it was no easy task to follow him; and they rode from the palace to the town, and through it to the General's quarter.

The sentinels at the door were scared at the strange figure that rushed up to the General's gate, and, not knowing him, crossed bayonets, and refused him admission.

"Fools," said Weissenborn, "it is the Prince!" And, jangling at the bell as if for an alarm of fire, the door was at length opened by the porter, and his Highness ran up to the Generals bedchamber, followed by the page with the box.
'"Magny--Magny," roared the Prince, thundering at the closed door, "get up!" And to the queries of the old man from within, answered, "It is I--Victor--the Prince!--get up!" And presently the door was opened by the General in his ROBE-DE-CHAMBRE, and the Prince entered.