I made the ladies go to bed, and, sitting at their door, tried to sleep as well as I could, a pistol in each hand.

But at every instant the noise of a false alarm sounded through the town, and when day dawned my only consolation was that no one else in Orgon had slept any better than I.
"The next day we continued our journey to Tarascon, where new excitements awaited us.

As we got near the town we heard the tocsin clanging and drums beating the generale.

We were getting so accustomed to the uproar that we were not very much astonished.

However, when we got in we asked what was going on, and we were told that twelve thousand troops from Nimes had marched on Beaucaire and laid it waste with fire and sword.