In the Rue Monge by Emma Orczy

It was some three of four days later that the guard at the north-west gate challenged a carrier who, in addition to two passengers, had three large crates under the hood of his cart. The crates were labelled "candles" and the bill of lading which the carrier presented declared the goods to have been manufactured by the firm of Turandot, of Paris. The passports and identity of the three men appeared to be in perfect order, signed and countersigned by the Commissary of the section and the chief commissary of the district, but as Citizen Lebrun had been specially warned--along with the guard of every gate in Paris--to be on the look-out for three fugitives of enemy nationality and an escaped prisoner named Rollin, all of whom would presumably be armed with forged passports, he had for the past three days been more than usually careful in examining all identity papers presented to him. Although the carrier and his two companions appeared harmless enough, he was none the less careful this time. He took their papers from them and ordered the three men to alight. Moreover, the ordered the three crates to be taken down from the cart and opened so that he might satisfy himself that no escaped prisoner was hidden among the candles.

The carrier protested as vigorously as he dared. He and his two sons, he declared, were honest citizens and would know how to avenge this insult that was being put upon them. As for the candles, they were a consignment which he had to deliver to a grocer at Meaux.