“Good Lord! In the first one handy, provided it is safe,” said the commissary, with an indifference which penetrated poor Bonacieux with horror.

Alas, alas! said he to himself, misfortune is over my head; my wife must have committed some frightful crime. They believe me her accomplice, and will punish me with her. She must have spoken; she must have confessed everything⁠—a woman is so weak! A dungeon! The first he comes to! That’s it! A night is soon passed; and tomorrow to the wheel, to the gallows! “Oh, my God, my God, have pity on me!”

Without listening the least in the world to the lamentations of M. Bonacieux⁠—lamentations to which, besides, they must have been pretty well accustomed⁠—the two guards took the prisoner each by an arm, and led him away, while the commissary wrote a letter in haste and dispatched it by an officer in waiting.