Seeing Peregrine come in, he started up in a sort of frantic ecstasy,
and, running towards him with open arms, no sooner perceived the
woeful appearance into which our hero had modelled his physiognomy,
than he stopped short all of a sudden, and the joy which had begun
to take possession of his heart was in a moment dispelled by the
most rueful presages; so that he stood in a most ludicrous posture
of dejection, like a malefactor at the Old Bailey, when sentence
is about to be pronounced. Pickle, taking him by the hand, heaved
a profound sigh; and after having protested that he was extremely
mortified at being pitched upon as the messenger of bad news, told
him, with an air of sympathy and infinite concern, that the French
court, having discovered his sex, had resolved, in consideration
of the outrageous indignity he offered in public to a prince of
the blood, to detain him in the Bastille a prisoner for life; and
that this sentence was a mitigation obtained by the importunities
of the British ambassador, the punishment ordained by law being no
other than breaking alive upon the wheel.
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