Justice, thus informed with monarchical enthusiasm, atoned for the

errors of the ancient parliaments, and walked, perhaps, too

ostentatiously hand in hand with religion. There was more zeal than

discretion shown; but justice sinned not so much in the direction of

machiavelism as by giving the candid expression to its views, when

those views appeared to be opposed to the general interests of a

country which must be put safely out of reach of revolutions. But

taken as a whole, there was still too much of the bourgeois element in

the administration; it was too readily moved by petty liberal

agitation; and as a result, it was inevitable that it should incline

sooner or later to the Constitutional party, and join ranks with the

bourgeoisie in the day of battle. In the great body of legal

functionaries, as in other departments of the administration, there

was not wanting a certain hypocrisy, or rather that spirit of

imitation which always leads France to model herself on the Court,

and, quite unintentionally, to deceive the powers that be.

Officials of both complexions were to be found in the court in which

young d'Esgrignon's fate depended. M. le President du Ronceret and an

elderly judge, Blondet by name, represented the section of

functionaries shelved for good, and resigned to stay where they were;

while the young and ambitious party comprised the examining magistrate

M. Camusot, and his deputy M. Michu, appointed through the interests

of the Cinq-Cygnes, and certain of promotion to the Court of Appeal of

Paris at the first opportunity.

President du Ronceret held a permanent post; it was impossible to turn

him out. The aristocratic party declined to give him what he

considered to be his due, socially speaking; so he declared for the

bourgeoisie, glossed over his disappointment with the name of

independence, and failed to realize that his opinions condemned him to

remain a president of a court of the first instance for the rest of

his life. Once started in this track the sequence of events led du

Ronceret to place his hopes of advancement on the triumph of du

Croisier and the Left. He was in no better odor at the Prefecture than

at the Court-Royal. He was compelled to keep on good terms with the

authorities; the Liberals distrusted him, consequently he belonged to

neither party. He was obliged to resign his chances of election to du

Croisier, he exercised no influence, and played a secondary part. The

false position reacted on his character; he was soured and

discontented; he was tired of political ambiguity, and privately had

made up his mind to come forward openly as leader of the Liberal

party, and so to strike ahead of du Croisier. His behavior in the

d'Esgrignon affair was the first step in this direction. To begin

with, he was an admirable representative of that section of the middle

classes which allows its petty passions to obscure the wider interests

of the country; a class of crotchety politicians, upholding the

government one day and opposing it the next, compromising every cause

and helping none; helpless after they have done the mischief till they

set about brewing more; unwilling to face their own incompetence,

thwarting authority while professing to serve it. With a compound of

arrogance and humility they demand of the people more submission than

kings expect, and fret their souls because those above them are not

brought down to their level, as if greatness could be little, as if

power existed without force.

President du Ronceret was a tall, spare man with a receding forehead

and scanty, auburn hair. He was wall-eyed, his complexion was

blotched, his lips thin and hard, his scarcely audible voice came out

like the husky wheezings of asthma. He had for a wife a great, solemn,

clumsy creature, tricked out in the most ridiculous fashion, and

outrageously overdressed. Mme. la Presidente gave herself the airs of

a queen; she wore vivid colors, and always appeared at balls adorned

with the turban, dear to the British female, and lovingly cultivated

in out-of-the-way districts in France. Each of the pair had an income

of four or five thousand francs, which with the President's salary,

reached a total of some twelve thousand. In spite of a decided

tendency to parsimony, vanity required that they should receive one

evening in the week. Du Croisier might import modern luxury into the

town, M. and Mme. de Ronceret were faithful to the old traditions.

They had always lived in the old-fashioned house belonging to Mme. du

Ronceret, and had made no changes in it since their marriage. The

house stood between a garden and a courtyard. The gray old gable end,

with one window in each story, gave upon the road. High walls enclosed

the garden and the yard, but the space taken up beneath them in the

garden by a walk shaded with chestnut trees was filled in the yard by

a row of outbuildings. An old rust-devoured iron gate in the garden

wall balanced the yard gateway, a huge, double-leaved carriage

entrance with a buttress on either side, and a mighty shell on the

top. The same shell was repeated over the house-door.

The whole place was gloomy, close, and airless. The row of iron-gated

openings in the opposite wall, as you entered, reminded you of prison

windows. Every passer-by could look in through the railings to see how

the garden grew; the flowers in the little square borders never seemed

to thrive there.

The drawing-room on the ground floor was lighted by a single window on

the side of the street, and a French window above a flight of steps,

which gave upon the garden. The dining-room on the other side of the

great ante-chamber, with its windows also looking out into the garden,

was exactly the same size as the drawing-room, and all three

apartments were in harmony with the general air of gloom. It wearied

your eyes to look at the ceilings all divided up by huge painted

crossbeams and adorned with a feeble lozenge pattern or a rosette in

the middle. The paint was old, startling in tint, and begrimed with

smoke. The sun had faded the heavy silk curtains in the drawing-room;

the old-fashioned Beauvais tapestry which covered the white-painted

furniture had lost all its color with wear. A Louis Quinze clock on

the chimney-piece stood between two extravagant, branched sconces

filled with yellow wax candles, which the Presidente only lighted on

occasions when the old-fashioned rock-crystal chandelier emerged from

its green wrapper. Three card-tables, covered with threadbare baize,

and a backgammon box, sufficed for the recreations of the company; and

Mme. du Ronceret treated them to such refreshments as cider,

chestnuts, pastry puffs, glasses of eau sucree, and home-made orgeat.

For some time past she had made a practice of giving a party once a

fortnight, when tea and some pitiable attempts at pastry appeared to

grace the occasion.

Once a quarter the du Roncerets gave a grand three-course dinner,

which made a great sensation in the town, a dinner served up in

execrable ware, but prepared with the science for which the provincial

cook is remarkable. It was a Gargantuan repast, which lasted for six

whole hours, and by abundance the President tried to vie with du

Croisier's elegance.

And so du Ronceret's life and its accessories were just what might

have been expected from his character and his false position. He felt

dissatisfied at home without precisely knowing what was the matter;

but he dared not go to any expense to change existing conditions, and

was only too glad to put by seven or eight thousand francs every year,

so as to leave his son Fabien a handsome private fortune. Fabien du

Ronceret had no mind for the magistracy, the bar, or the civil

service, and his pronounced turn for doing nothing drove his parent to

despair.

On this head there was rivalry between the President and the

Vice-President, old M. Blondet. M. Blondet, for a long time past, had

been sedulously cultivating an acquaintance between his son and the

Blandureau family. The Blandureaus were well-to-do linen

manufacturers, with an only daughter, and it was on this daughter that

the President had fixed his choice of a wife for Fabien. Now, Joseph

Blondet's marriage with Mlle. Blandureau depended on his nomination to

the post which his father, old Blondet, hoped to obtain for him when

he himself should retire. But President du Ronceret, in underhand

ways, was thwarting the old man's plans, and working indirectly upon

the Blandureaus. Indeed, if it had not been for this affair of young

d'Esgrignon's, the astute President might have cut them out, father

and son, for their rivals were very much richer.

M. Blondet, the victim of the machiavelian President's intrigues, was

one of the curious figures which lie buried away in the provinces like

old coins in a crypt. He was at that time a man of sixty-seven or

thereabouts, but he carried his years well; he was very tall, and in

build reminded you of the canons of the good old times. The smallpox

had riddled his face with numberless dints, and spoilt the shape of

his nose by imparting to it a gimlet-like twist; it was a countenance

by no means lacking in character, very evenly tinted with a diffused

red, lighted up by a pair of bright little eyes, with a sardonic look

in them, while a certain sarcastic twitch of the purpled lips gave

expression to that feature.

Before the Revolution broke out, Blondet senior had been a barrister;

afterwards he became the public accuser, and one of the mildest of

those formidable functionaries. Goodman Blondet, as they used to call

him, deadened the force of the new doctrines by acquiescing in them

all, and putting none of them in practice. He had been obliged to send

one or two nobles to prison; but his further proceedings were marked

with such deliberation, that he brought them through to the 9th

Thermidor with a dexterity which won respect for him on all sides. As

a matter of fact, Goodman Blondet ought to have been President of the

Tribunal, but when the courts of law were reorganized he had been set

aside; Napoleon's aversion for Republicans was apt to reappear in the

smallest appointments under his government. The qualification of

ex-public accuser, written in the margin of the list against Blondet's

name, set the Emperor inquiring of Cambaceres whether there might not

be some scion of an ancient parliamentary stock to appoint instead.

The consequence was that du Ronceret, whose father had been a

councillor of parliament, was nominated to the presidency; but, the

Emperor's repugnance notwithstanding, Cambaceres allowed Blondet to

remain on the bench, saying that the old barrister was one of the best

jurisconsults in France.

Blondet's talents, his knowledge of the old law of the land and

subsequent legislation, should by rights have brought him far in his

profession; but he had this much in common with some few great

spirits: he entertained a prodigious contempt for his own special

knowledge, and reserved all his pretentions, leisure, and capacity for

a second pursuit unconnected with the law. To this pursuit he gave his

almost exclusive attention. The good man was passionately fond of

gardening. He was in correspondence with some of the most celebrated

amateurs; it was his ambition to create new species; he took an

interest in botanical discoveries, and lived, in short, in the world

of flowers. Like all florists, he had a predilection for one

particular plant; the pelargonium was his especial favorite. The

court, the cases that came before it, and his outward life were as

nothing to him compared with the inward life of fancies and abundant

emotions which the old man led. He fell more and more in love with his

flower-seraglio; and the pains which he bestowed on his garden, the

sweet round of the labors of the months, held Goodman Blondet fast in

his greenhouse. But for that hobby he would have been a deputy under

the Empire, and shone conspicuous beyond a doubt in the Corps

Legislatif.

His marriage was the second cause of his obscurity. As a man of forty,

he was rash enough to marry a girl of eighteen, by whom he had a son

named Joseph in the first year of their marriage. Three years

afterwards Mme. Blondet, then the prettiest woman in the town,

inspired in the prefect of the department a passion which ended only

with her death. The prefect was the father of her second son Emile;

the whole town knew this, old Blondet himself knew it. The wife who

might have roused her husband's ambition, who might have won him away

from his flowers, positively encouraged the judge in his botanical

tastes. She no more cared to leave the place than the prefect cared to

leave his prefecture so long as his mistress lived.

Blondet felt himself unequal at his age to a contest with a young

wife. He sought consolation in his greenhouse, and engaged a very

pretty servant-maid to assist him to tend his ever-changing bevy of

beauties. So while the judge potted, pricked out, watered, layered,

slipped, blended, and induced his flowers to break, Mme. Blondet spent

his substance on the dress and finery in which she shone at the

prefecture. One interest alone had power to draw her away from the

tender care of a romantic affection which the town came to admire in

the end; and this interest was Emile's education. The child of love

was a bright and pretty boy, while Joseph was no less heavy and

plain-featured. The old judge, blinded by paternal affection loved

Joseph as his wife loved Emile.

For a dozen years M. Blondet bore his lot with perfect resignation. He

shut his eyes to his wife's intrigue with a dignified, well-bred

composure, quite in the style of an eighteenth century grand seigneur;

but, like all men with a taste for a quiet life, he could cherish a

profound dislike, and he hated his younger son. When his wife died,

therefore, in 1818, he turned the intruder out of the house, and

packed him off to Paris to study law on an allowance of twelve hundred

francs for all resource, nor could any cry of distress extract another

penny from his purse. Emile Blondet would have gone under if it had

not been for his real father.

M. Blondet's house was one of the prettiest in the town. It stood

almost opposite the prefecture, with a neat little court in front. A

row of old-fashioned iron railings between two brick-work piers

enclosed it from the street; and a low wall, also of brick, with a

second row of railings along the top, connected the piers with the

neighboring house. The little court, a space about ten fathoms in

width by twenty in length, was cut in two by a brick pathway which ran

from the gate to the house door between a border on either side. Those

borders were always renewed; at every season of the year they

exhibited a successful show of blossom, to the admiration of the

public. All along the back of the gardenbeds a quantity of climbing

plants grew up and covered the walls of the neighboring houses with a

magnificent mantle; the brick-work piers were hidden in clusters of

honeysuckle; and, to crown all, in a couple of terra-cotta vases at

the summit, a pair of acclimatized cactuses displayed to the

astonished eyes of the ignorant those thick leaves bristling with

spiny defences which seem to be due to some plant disease.

It was a plain-looking house, built of brick, with brick-work arches

above the windows, and bright green Venetian shutters to make it gay.

Through the glass door you could look straight across the house to the

opposite glass door, at the end of a long passage, and down the

central alley in the garden beyond; while through the windows of the

dining-room and drawing-room, which extended, like the passage from

back to front of the house, you could often catch further glimpses of

the flower-beds in a garden of about two acres in extent. Seen from

the road, the brick-work harmonized with the fresh flowers and shrubs,

for two centuries had overlaid it with mosses and green and russet

tints. No one could pass through the town without falling in love with

a house with such charming surroundings, so covered with flowers and

mosses to the roof-ridge, where two pigeons of glazed crockery ware

were perched by way of ornament.

M. Blondet possessed an income of about four thousand livres derived

from land, besides the old house in the town. He meant to avenge his

wrongs legitimately enough. He would leave his house, his lands, his

seat on the bench to his son Joseph, and the whole town knew what he

meant to do. He had made a will in that son's favor; he had gone as

far as the Code will permit a man to go in the way of disinheriting

one child to benefit another; and what was more, he had been putting

by money for the past fifteen years to enable his lout of a son to buy

back from Emile that portion of his father's estate which could not

legally be taken away from him.

Emile Blondet thus turned adrift had contrived to gain distinction in

Paris, but so far it was rather a name than a practical result.

Emile's indolence, recklessness, and happy-go-lucky ways drove his

real father to despair; and when that father died, a half-ruined man,

turned out of office by one of the political reactions so frequent

under the Restoration, it was with a mind uneasy as to the future of a

man endowed with the most brilliant qualities.

Emile Blondet found support in a friendship with a Mlle. de

Troisville, whom he had known before her marriage with the Comte de

Montcornet. His mother was living when the Troisvilles came back after

the emigration; she was related to the family, distantly it is true,

but the connection was close enough to allow her to introduce Emile to

the house. She, poor woman, foresaw the future. She knew that when she

died her son would lose both mother and father, a thought which made

death doubly bitter, so she tried to interest others in him. She

encouraged the liking that sprang up between Emile and the eldest

daughter of the house of Troisville; but while the liking was

exceedingly strong on the young lady's part, a marriage was out of the

question. It was a romance on the pattern of Paul et Virginie. Mme.

Blondet did what she could to teach her son to look to the

Troisvilles, to found a lasting attachment on a children's game of

"make-believe" love, which was bound to end as boy-and-girl romances

usually do. When Mlle. de Troisville's marriage with General

Montcornet was announced, Mme. Blondet, a dying woman, went to the

bride and solemnly implored her never to abandon Emile, and to use her

influence for him in society in Paris, whither the General's fortune

summoned her to shine.

Luckily for Emile, he was able to make his own way. He made his

appearance, at the age of twenty, as one of the masters of modern

literature; and met with no less success in the society into which he

was launched by the father who at first could afford to bear the

expense of the young man's extravagance. Perhaps Emile's precocious

celebrity and the good figure that he made strengthened the bonds of

his friendship with the Countess. Perhaps Mme. de Montcornet, with the

Russian blood in her veins (her mother was the daughter of the

Princess Scherbelloff), might have cast off the friend of her

childhood if he had been a poor man struggling with all his might

among the difficulties which beset a man of letters in Paris; but by

the time that the real strain of Emile's adventurous life began, their

attachment was unalterable on either side. He was looked upon as one

of the leading lights of journalism when young d'Esgrignon met him at

his first supper party in Paris; his acknowledged position in the

world of letters was very high, and he towered above his reputation.

Goodman Blondet had not the faintest conception of the power which the

Constitutional Government had given to the press; nobody ventured to

talk in his presence of the son of whom he refused to hear. And so it

came to pass that he knew nothing of Emile whom he had cursed and

Emile's greatness.

Old Blondet's integrity was as deeply rooted in him as his passion for

flowers; he knew nothing but law and botany. He would have interviews

with litigants, listen to them, chat with them, and show them his

flowers; he would accept rare seeds from them; but once on the bench,

no judge on earth was more impartial. Indeed, his manner of proceeding

was so well known, that litigants never went near him except to hand

over some document which might enlighten him in the performance of his

duty, and nobody tried to throw dust in his eyes. With his learning,

his lights, and his way of holding his real talents cheap, he was so

indispensable to President du Ronceret, that, matrimonial schemes

apart, that functionary would have done all that he could, in an

underhand way, to prevent the vice-president from retiring in favor of

his son. If the learned old man left the bench, the President would be

utterly unable to do without him.

Goodman Blondet did not know that it was in Emile's power to fulfil

all his wishes in a few hours. The simplicity of his life was worthy

of one of Plutarch's men. In the evening he looked over his cases;

next morning he worked among his flowers; and all day long he gave

decisions on the bench. The pretty maid-servant, now of ripe age, and

wrinkled like an Easter pippin, looked after the house, and they lived

according to the established customs of the strictest parsimony. Mlle.

Cadot always carried the keys of her cupboards and fruit-loft about

with her. She was indefatigable. She went to market herself, she

cooked and dusted and swept, and never missed mass of a morning. To

give some idea of the domestic life of the household, it will be

enough to remark that the father and son never ate fruit till it was

beginning to spoil, because Mlle. Cadot always brought out anything

that would not keep. No one in the house ever tasted the luxury of new

bread, and all the fast days in the calendar were punctually observed.

The gardener was put on rations like a soldier; the elderly Valideh

always kept an eye upon him. And she, for her part, was so

deferentially treated, that she took her meals with the family, and in

consequence was continually trotting to and fro between the kitchen

and the parlor at breakfast and dinner time.

Mlle. Blandureau's parents had consented to her marriage with Joseph

Blondet upon one condition--the penniless and briefless barrister must

be an assistant judge. So, with the desire of fitting his son to fill

the position, old M. Blondet racked his brains to hammer the law into

his son's head by dint of lessons, so as to make a cut-and-dried

lawyer of him. As for Blondet junior, he spent almost every evening at

the Blandureaus' house, to which also young Fabien du Ronceret had

been admitted since his return, without raising the slightest

suspicion in the minds of father or son.

Everything in this life of theirs was measured with an accuracy worthy

of Gerard Dow's Money Changer; not a grain of salt too much, not a

single profit foregone; but the economical principles by which it was

regulated were relaxed in favor of the greenhouse and garden. "The

garden was the master's craze," Mlle. Cadot used to say. The master's

blind fondness for Joseph was not a craze in her eyes; she shared the

father's predilection; she pampered Joseph; she darned his stockings;

and would have been better pleased if the money spent on the garden

had been put by for Joseph's benefit.

That garden was kept in marvelous order by a single man; the paths,

covered with river-sand, continually turned over with the rake,

meandered among the borders full of the rarest flowers. Here were all

kinds of color and scent, here were lizards on the walls, legions of

little flower-pots standing out in the sun, regiments of forks and

hoes, and a host of innocent things, a combination of pleasant results

to justify the gardener's charming hobby.

At the end of the greenhouse the judge had set up a grandstand, an

amphitheatre of benches to hold some five or six thousand pelargoniums

in pots--a splendid and famous show. People came to see his geraniums

in flower, not only from the neighborhood, but even from the

departments round about. The Empress Marie Louise, passing through the

town, had honored the curiously kept greenhouse with a visit; so much

was she impressed with the sight, that she spoke of it to Napoleon,

and the old judge received the Cross of the Legion of Honor. But as

the learned gardener never mingled in society at all, and went nowhere

except to the Blandureaus, he had no suspicion of the President's

underhand manoeuvres; and others who could see the President's

intentions were far too much afraid of him to interfere or to warn the

inoffensive Blondets.

As for Michu, that young man with his powerful connections gave much

more thought to making himself agreeable to the women in the upper

social circles to which he was introduced by the Cinq-Cygnes, than to

the extremely simple business of a provincial Tribunal. With his

independent means (he had an income of twelve thousand livres), he was

courted by mothers of daughters, and led a frivolous life. He did just

enough at the Tribunal to satisfy his conscience, much as a schoolboy

does his exercises, saying ditto on all occasions, with a "Yes, dear

President." But underneath the appearance of indifference lurked the

unusual powers of the Paris law student who had distinguished himself

as one of the staff of prosecuting counsel before he came to the

provinces. He was accustomed to taking broad views of things; he could

do rapidly what the President and Blondet could only do after much

thinking, and very often solved knotty points for them. In delicate

conjunctures the President and Vice-President took counsel with their

junior, confided thorny questions to him, and never failed to wonder

at the readiness with which he brought back a task in which old

Blondet found nothing to criticise. Michu was sure of the influence of

the most crabbed aristocrats, and he was young and rich; he lived,

therefore, above the level of departmental intrigues and pettinesses.

He was an indispensable man at picnics, he frisked with young ladies

and paid court to their mothers, he danced at balls, he gambled like a

capitalist. In short, he played his part of young lawyer of fashion to

admiration; without, at the same time, compromising his dignity, which

he knew how to assert at the right moment like a man of spirit. He won

golden opinions by the manner in which he threw himself into

provincial ways, without criticising them; and for these reasons,

every one endeavored to make his time of exile endurable.

The public prosecutor was a lawyer of the highest ability; he had

taken the plunge into political life, and was one of the most

distinguished speakers on the ministerialist benches. The President

stood in awe of him; if he had not been away in Paris at the time, no

steps would have been taken against Victurnien; his dexterity, his

experience of business, would have prevented the whole affair. At that

moment, however, he was in the Chamber of Deputies, and the President

and du Croisier had taken advantage of his absence to weave their

plot, calculating, with a certain ingenuity, that if once the law

stepped in, and the matter was noised abroad, things would have gone

too far to be remedied.

As a matter of fact, no staff of prosecuting counsel in any Tribunal,

at that particular time, would have taken up a charge of forgery

against the eldest son of one of the noblest houses in France without

going into the case at great length, and a special reference, in all

probability, to the Attorney-General. In such a case as this, the

authorities and the Government would have tried endless ways of

compromising and hushing up an affair which might send an imprudent

young man to the hulks. They would very likely have done the same for

a Liberal family in a prominent position, so long as the Liberals were

not too openly hostile to the throne and the altar. So du Croisier's

charge and the young Count's arrest had not been very easy to manage.

The President and du Croisier had compassed their ends in the

following manner.

M. Sauvager, a young Royalist barrister, had reached the position of

deputy public prosecutor by dint of subservience to the Ministry. In

the absence of his chief he was head of the staff of counsel for

prosecution, and, consequently, it fell to him to take up the charge

made by du Croisier. Sauvager was a self-made man; he had nothing but

his stipend; and for that reason the authorities reckoned upon some

one who had everything to gain by devotion. The President now

exploited the position. No sooner was the document with the alleged

forgery in du Croisier's hands, than Mme. la Presidente du Ronceret,

prompted by her spouse, had a long conversation with M. Sauvager. In

the course of it she pointed out the uncertainties of a career in the

magistrature debout compared with the magistrature assise, and the

advantages of the bench over the bar; she showed how a freak on the

part of some official, or a single false step, might ruin a man's

career.

"If you are conscientious and give your conclusions against the powers

that be, you are lost," continued she. "Now, at this moment, you might

turn your position to account to make a fine match that would put you

above unlucky chances for the rest of your life; you may marry a wife

with fortune sufficient to land you on the bench, in the magistrature

assise. There is a fine chance for you. M. du Croisier will never have

any children; everybody knows why. His money, and his wife's as well,

will go to his niece, Mlle. Duval. M. Duval is an ironmaster, his

purse is tolerably filled, to begin with, and his father is still

alive, and has a little property besides. The father and son have a

million of francs between them; they will double it with du Croisier's

help, for du Croisier has business connections among great capitalists

and manufacturers in Paris. M. and Mme. Duval the younger would be

certain to give their daughter to a suitor brought forward by du

Croisier, for he is sure to leave two fortunes to his niece; and, in

all probability, he will settle the reversion of his wife's property

upon Mlle. Duval in the marriage contract, for Mme. du Croisier has no

kin. You know how du Croisier hates the d'Esgrignons. Do him a

service, be his man, take up this charge of forgery which he is going

to make against young d'Esgrignon, and follow up the proceedings at

once without consulting the public prosecutor at Paris. And, then,

pray Heaven that the Ministry dismisses you for doing your office

impartially, in spite of the powers that be; for if they do, your

fortune is made! You will have a charming wife and thirty thousand

francs a year with her, to say nothing of four millions expectations

in ten years' time."

In two evenings Sauvager was talked over. Both he and the President

kept the affair a secret from old Blondet, from Michu, and from the

second member of the staff of prosecuting counsel. Feeling sure of

Blondet's impartiality on a question of fact, the President made

certain of a majority without counting Camusot. And now Camusot's

unexpected defection had thrown everything out. What the President

wanted was a committal for trial before the public prosecutor got

warning. How if Camusot or the second counsel for the prosecution

should send word to Paris?

And here some portion of Camusot's private history may perhaps explain

how it came to pass that Chesnel took it for granted that the

examining magistrate would be on the d'Esgrignons' side, and how he

had the boldness to tamper in the open street with that representative

of justice.

Camusot's father, a well-known silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais,

was ambitious for the only son of his first marriage, and brought him

up to the law. When Camusot junior took a wife, he gained with her the

influence of an usher of the Royal cabinet, backstairs influence, it

is true, but still sufficient, since it had brought him his first

appointment as justice of the peace, and the second as examining

magistrate. At the time of his marriage, his father only settled an

income of six thousand francs upon him (the amount of his mother's

fortune, which he could legally claim), and as Mlle. Thirion brought

him no more than twenty thousand francs as her portion, the young

couple knew the hardships of hidden poverty. The salary of a

provincial justice of the peace does not exceed fifteen hundred

francs, while an examining magistrate's stipend is augmented by

something like a thousand francs, because his position entails

expenses and extra work. The post, therefore, is much coveted, though

it is not permanent, and the work is heavy, and that was why Mme.

Camusot had just scolded her husband for allowing the President to

read his thoughts.

Marie Cecile Amelie Thirion, after three years of marriage, perceived

the blessing of Heaven upon it in the regularity of two auspicious

events--the births of a girl and a boy; but she prayed to be less

blessed in the future. A few more of such blessings would turn

straitened means into distress. M. Camusot's father's money was not

likely to come to them for a long time; and, rich as he was, he would

scarcely leave more than eight or ten thousand francs a year to each

of his children, four in number, for he had been married twice. And

besides, by the time that all "expectations," as matchmakers call

them, were realized, would not the magistrate have children of his own

to settle in life? Any one can imagine the situation for a little

woman with plenty of sense and determination, and Mme. Camusot was

such a woman. She did not refrain from meddling in matters judicial.

She had far too strong a sense of the gravity of a false step in her

husband's career.

She was the only child of an old servant of Louis XVIII., a valet who

had followed his master in his wanderings in Italy, Courland, and

England, till after the Restoration the King awarded him with the one

place that he could fill at Court, and made him usher by rotation to

the royal cabinet. So in Amelie's home there had been, as it were, a

sort of reflection of the Court. Thirion used to tell her about the

lords, and ministers, and great men whom he announced and introduced

and saw passing to and fro. The girl, brought up at the gates of the

Tuileries, had caught some tincture of the maxims practised there, and

adopted the dogma of passive obedience to authority. She had sagely

judged that her husband, by ranging himself on the side of the

d'Esgrignons, would find favor with Mme. la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse,

and with two powerful families on whose influence with the King the

Sieur Thirion could depend at an opportune moment. Camusot might get

an appointment at the first opportunity within the jurisdiction of

Paris, and afterwards at Paris itself. That promotion, dreamed of and

longed for at every moment, was certain to have a salary of six

thousand francs attached to it, as well as the alleviation of living

in her own father's house, or under the Camusots' roof, and all the

advantages of a father's fortune on either side. If the adage, "Out of

sight is out of mind," holds good of most women, it is particularly

true where family feeling or royal or ministerial patronage is

concerned. The personal attendants of kings prosper at all times; you

take an interest in a man, be it only a man in livery, if you see him

every day.

Mme. Camusot, regarding herself as a bird of passage, had taken a

little house in the Rue du Cygne. Furnished lodgings there were none;

the town was not enough of a thoroughfare, and the Camusots could not

afford to live at an inn like M. Michu. So the fair Parisian had no

choice for it but to take such furniture as she could find; and as she

paid a very moderate rent, the house was remarkably ugly, albeit a

certain quaintness of detail was not wanting. It was built against a

neighboring house in such a fashion that the side with only one window

in each story, gave upon the street, and the front looked out upon a

yard where rose-bushes and buckhorn were growing along the wall on

either side. On the farther side, opposite the house, stood a shed, a

roof over two brick arches. A little wicket-gate gave entrance into

the gloomy place (made gloomier still by the great walnut-tree

which grew in the yard), but a double flight of steps, with an

elaborately-wrought but rust-eaten handrail, led to the house door.

Inside the house there were two rooms on each floor. The dining-room

occupied that part of the ground floor nearest the street, and the

kitchen lay on the other side of a narrow passage almost wholly taken

up by the wooden staircase. Of the two first-floor rooms, one did duty

as the magistrate's study, the other as a bedroom, while the nursery

and the servants' bedroom stood above in the attics. There were no

ceilings in the house; the cross-beams were simply white-washed and the

spaces plastered over. Both rooms on the first floor and the dining-room

below were wainscoted and adorned with the labyrinthine designs which

taxed the patience of the eighteenth century joiner; but the carving

had been painted a dingy gray most depressing to behold.

The magistrate's study looked as though it belonged to a provincial

lawyer; it contained a big bureau, a mahogany armchair, a law

student's books, and shabby belongings transported from Paris.

Mme. Camusot's room was more of a native product; it boasted a

blue-and-white scheme of decoration, a carpet, and that anomalous kind

of furniture which appears to be in the fashion, while it is simply some

style that has failed in Paris. As to the dining-room, it was nothing

but an ordinary provincial dining-room, bare and chilly, with a damp,

faded paper on the walls.

In this shabby room, with nothing to see but the walnut-tree, the dark

leaves growing against the walls, and the almost deserted road beyond

them, a somewhat lively and frivolous woman, accustomed to the

amusements and stir of Paris, used to sit all day long, day after day,

and for the most part of the time alone, though she received tiresome

and inane visits which led her to think her loneliness preferable to

empty tittle-tattle. If she permitted herself the slightest gleam of

intelligence, it gave rise to interminable comment and embittered her

condition. She occupied herself a great deal with her children, not so

much from taste as for the sake of an interest in her almost solitary

life, and exercised her mind on the only subjects which she could find

--to wit, the intrigues which went on around her, the ways of

provincials, and the ambitions shut in by their narrow horizons. So

she very soon fathomed mysteries of which her husband had no idea. As

she sat at her window with a piece of intermittent embroidery work in

her fingers, she did not see her woodshed full of faggots nor the

servant busy at the wash tub; she was looking out upon Paris, Paris

where everything is pleasure, everything is full of life. She dreamed

of Paris gaieties, and shed tears because she must abide in this dull

prison of a country town. She was disconsolate because she lived in a

peaceful district, where no conspiracy, no great affair would ever

occur. She saw herself doomed to sit under the shadow of the

walnut-tree for some time to come.

Mme. Camusot was a little, plump, fresh, fair-haired woman, with a

very prominent forehead, a mouth which receded, and a turned-up chin,

a type of countenance which is passable in youth, but looks old before

the time. Her bright, quick eyes expressed her innocent desire to get

on in the world, and the envy born of her present inferior position,

with rather too much candor; but still they lighted up her commonplace

face and set it off with a certain energy of feeling, which success

was certain to extinguish in later life. At that time she used to give

a good deal of time and thought to her dresses, inventing trimmings

and embroidering them; she planned out her costumes with the maid whom

she had brought with her from Paris, and so maintained the reputation

of Parisiennes in the provinces. Her caustic tongue was dreaded; she

was not loved. In that keen, investigating spirit peculiar to

unoccupied women who are driven to find some occupation for empty

days, she had pondered the President's private opinions, until at

length she discovered what he meant to do, and for some time past she

had advised Camusot to declare war. The young Count's affair was an

excellent opportunity. Was it not obviously Camusot's part to make a

stepping-stone of this criminal case by favoring the d'Esgrignons, a

family with power of a very different kind from the power of the du

Croisier party?

"Sauvager will never marry Mlle. Duval. They are dangling her before

him, but he will be the dupe of those Machiavels in the Val-Noble to

whom he is going to sacrifice his position. Camusot, this affair, so

unfortunate as it is for the d'Esgrignons, so insidiously brought on

by the President for du Croisier's benefit, will turn out well for

nobody but /you/," she had said, as they went in.

The shrewd Parisienne had likewise guessed the President's underhand

manoeuvres with the Blandureaus, and his object in baffling old

Blondet's efforts, but she saw nothing to be gained by opening the

eyes of father or son to the perils of the situation; she was enjoying

the beginning of the comedy; she knew about the proposals made by

Chesnel's successor on behalf of Fabien du Ronceret, but she did not

suspect how important that secret might be to her. If she or her

husband were threatened by the President, Mme. Camusot could threaten

too, in her turn, to call the amateur gardener's attention to a scheme

for carrying off the flower which he meant to transplant into his

house.

Chesnel had not penetrated, like Mme. Camusot, into the means by which

Sauvager had been won over; but by dint of looking into the various

lives and interests of the men grouped about the Lilies of the

Tribunal, he knew that he could count upon the public prosecutor, upon

Camusot, and M. Michu. Two judges for the d'Esgrignons would paralyze

the rest. And, finally, Chesnel knew old Blondet well enough to feel

sure that if he ever swerved from impartiality, it would be for the

sake of the work of his whole lifetime,--to secure his son's

appointment. So Chesnel slept, full of confidence, on the resolve to

go to M. Blondet and offer to realize his so long cherished hopes,

while he opened his eyes to President du Ronceret's treachery. Blondet

won over, he would take a peremptory tone with the examining

magistrate, to whom he hoped to prove that if Victurnien was not

blameless, he had been merely imprudent; the whole thing should be

shown in the light of a boy's thoughtless escapade.

But Chesnel slept neither soundly nor for long. Before dawn he was

awakened by his housekeeper. The most bewitching person in this

history, the most adorable youth on the face of the globe, Mme. la

Duchesse de Maufrigneuse herself, in man's attire, had driven alone

from Paris in a caleche, and was waiting to see him.

"I have come to save him or to die with him," said she, addressing the

notary, who thought that he was dreaming. "I have brought a hundred

thousand francs, given me by His Majesty out of his private purse, to

buy Victurnien's innocence, if his adversary can be bribed. If we fail

utterly, I have brought poison to snatch him away before anything

takes place, before even the indictment is drawn up. But we shall not

fail. I have sent word to the public prosecutor; he is on the road

behind me; he could not travel in my caleche, because he wished to

take the instructions of the Keeper of the Seals."

Chesnel rose to the occasion and played up to the Duchess; he wrapped

himself in his dressing-gown, fell at her feet, and kissed them, not

without asking her pardon for forgetting himself in his joy.

"We are saved!" cried he; and gave orders to Brigitte to see that Mme.

la Duchesse had all that she needed after traveling post all night. He

appealed to the fair Diane's spirit, by making her see that it was

absolutely necessary that she should visit the examining magistrate

before daylight, lest any one should discover the secret, or so much

as imagine that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had come.

"And have I not a passport in due form?" quoth she, displaying a sheet

of paper, wherein she was described as M. le Vicomte Felix de

Vandeness, Master of Requests, and His Majesty's private secretary.

"And do I not play my man's part well?" she added, running her fingers

through her wig a la Titus, and twirling her riding switch.

"O! Mme. la Duchesse, you are an angel!" cried Chesnel, with tears in

his eyes. (She was destined always to be an angel, even in man's

attire.) "Button up your greatcoat, muffle yourself up to the eyes in

your traveling cloak, take my arm, and let us go as quickly as

possible to Camusot's house before anybody can meet us."

"Then am I going to see a man called Camusot?" she asked.

"With a nose to match his name,"[*] assented Chesnel.

[*] Camus, flat-nosed

The old notary felt his heart dead within him, but he thought it none

the less necessary to humor the Duchess, to laugh when she laughed,

and shed tears when she wept; groaning in spirit, all the same, over

the feminine frivolity which could find matter for a jest while

setting about a matter so serious. What would he not have done to save

the Count? While Chesnel dressed; Mme. de Maufrigneuse sipped the cup

of coffee and cream which Brigitte brought her, and agreed with

herself that provincial women cooks are superior to Parisian chefs,

who despise the little details which make all the difference to an

epicure. Thanks to Chesnel's taste for delicate fare, Brigitte was

found prepared to set an excellent meal before the Duchess.

Chesnel and his charming companion set out for M. and Mme. Camusot's

house.

"Ah! so there is a Mme. Camusot?" said the Duchess. "Then the affair

may be managed."

"And so much the more readily, because the lady is visibly tired

enough of living among us provincials; she comes from Paris," said

Chesnel.

"Then we must have no secrets from her?"

"You will judge how much to tell or to conceal," Chesnel replied

humbly. "I am sure that she will be greatly flattered to be the

Duchesse de Maufrigneuse's hostess; you will be obliged to stay in her

house until nightfall, I expect, unless you find it inconvenient to

remain."

"Is this Mme. Camusot a good-looking woman?" asked the Duchess, with a

coxcomb's air.

"She is a bit of a queen in her own house."

"Then she is sure to meddle in court-house affairs," returned the

Duchess. "Nowhere but in France, my dear M. Chesnel, do you see women

so much wedded to their husbands that they are wedded to their

husband's professions, work, or business as well. In Italy, England,

and Germany, women make it a point of honor to leave men to fight

their own battles; they shut their eyes to their husbands' work as

perseveringly as our French citizens' wives do all that in them lies

to understand the position of their joint-stock partnership; is not

that what you call it in your legal language? Frenchwomen are so

incredibly jealous in the conduct of their married life, that they

insist on knowing everything; and that is how, in the least

difficulty, you feel the wife's hand in the business; the Frenchwoman

advises, guides, and warns her husband. And, truth to tell, the man is

none the worse off. In England, if a married man is put in prison for

debt for twenty-four hours, his wife will be jealous and make a scene

when he comes back."

"Here we are, without meeting a soul on the way," said Chesnel. "You

are the more sure of complete ascendency here, Mme. la Duchesse, since

Mme. Camusot's father is one Thirion, usher of the royal cabinet."

"And the King never thought of that!" exclaimed the Duchess. "He

thinks of nothing! Thirion introduced us, the Prince de Cadignan, M.

de Vandeness, and me! We shall have it all our own way in this house.

Settle everything with M. Camusot while I talk to his wife."

The maid, who was washing and dressing the children, showed the

visitors into the little fireless dining-room.

"Take that card to your mistress," said the Duchess, lowering her

voice for the woman's ear; "nobody else is to see it. If you are

discreet, child, you shall not lose by it."

At the sound of a woman's voice, and the sight of the handsome young

man's face, the maid looked thunderstruck.

"Wake M. Camusot," said Chesnel, "and tell him, that I am waiting to

see him on important business," and she departed upstairs forthwith.

A few minutes later Mme. Camusot, in her dressing-gown, sprang

downstairs and brought the handsome stranger into her room. She had

pushed Camusot out of bed and into his study with all his clothes,

bidding him dress himself at once and wait there. The transformation

scene had been brought about by a bit of pasteboard with the words

MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE MAUFRIGNEUSE engraved upon it. A daughter of the

usher of the royal cabinet took in the whole situation at once.

"Well!" exclaimed the maid-servant, left with Chesnel in the

dining-room, "Would not any one think that a thunderbolt had dropped

in among us? The master is dressing in his study; you can go upstairs."

"Not a word of all this, mind," said Chesnel.

Now that he was conscious of the support of a great lady who had the

King's consent (by word of mouth) to the measures about to be taken

for rescuing the Comte d'Esgrignon, he spoke with an air of authority,

which served his cause much better with Camusot than the humility with

which he would otherwise have approached him.

"Sir," said he, "the words let fall last evening may have surprised

you, but they are serious. The house of d'Esgrignon counts upon you

for the proper conduct of investigations from which it must issue

without a spot."

"I shall pass over anything in your remarks, sir, which must be

offensive to me personally, and obnoxious to justice; for your

position with regard to the d'Esgrignons excuses you up to a certain

point, but----"

"Pardon me, sir, if I interrupt you," said Chesnel. "I have just

spoken aloud the things which your superiors are thinking and dare not

avow; though what those things are any intelligent man can guess, and

you are an intelligent man.--Grant that the young man had acted

imprudently, can you suppose that the sight of a d'Esgrignon dragged

into an Assize Court can be gratifying to the King, the Court, or the

Ministry? Is it to the interest of the kingdom, or of the country,

that historic houses should fall? Is not the existence of a great

aristocracy, consecrated by time, a guarantee of that Equality which

is the catchword of the Opposition at this moment? Well and good; now

not only has there not been the slightest imprudence, but we are

innocent victims caught in a trap."

"I am curious to know how," said the examining magistrate.

"For the last two years, the Sieur du Croisier has regularly allowed

M. le Comte d'Esgrignon to draw upon him for very large sums," said

Chesnel. "We are going to produce drafts for more than a hundred

thousand crowns, which he continually met; the amounts being remitted

by me--bear that well in mind--either before or after the bills fell

due. M. le Comte d'Esgrignon is in a position to produce a receipt for

the sum paid by him, before this bill, this alleged forgery was drawn.

Can you fail to see in that case that this charge is a piece of spite

and party feeling? And a charge brought against the heir of a great

house by one of the most dangerous enemies of the Throne and Altar,

what is it but an odious slander? There has been no more forgery in

this affair than there has been in my office. Summon Mme. du Croisier,

who knows nothing as yet of the charge of forgery; she will declare to

you that I brought the money and paid it over to her, so that in her

husband's absence she might remit the amount for which he has not

asked her. Examine du Croisier on the point; he will tell you that he

knows nothing of my payment to Mme. du Croisier.

"You may make such assertions as these, sir, in M. d'Esgrignon's

salon, or in any other house where people know nothing of business,

and they may be believed; but no examining magistrate, unless he is a

driveling idiot, can imagine that a woman like Mme. du Croisier, so

submissive as she is to her husband, has a hundred thousand crowns

lying in her desk at this moment, without saying a word to him; nor

yet that an old notary would not have advised M. du Croisier of the

deposit on his return to town."

"The old notary, sir, had gone to Paris to put a stop to the young

man's extravagance."

"I have not yet examined the Comte d'Esgrignon," Camusot began; "his

answers will point out my duty."

"Is he in close custody?"

"Yes."

"Sir," said Chesnel, seeing danger ahead, "the examination can be made

in our interests or against them. But there are two courses open to

you: you can establish the fact on Mme. du Croisier's deposition that

the amount was deposited with her before the bill was drawn; or you

can examine the unfortunate young man implicated in this affair, and

he in his confusion may remember nothing and commit himself. You will

decide which is the more credible--a slip of memory on the part of a

woman in her ignorance of business, or a forgery committed by a

d'Esgrignon."

"All this is beside the point," began Camusot; "the question is,

whether M. le Comte d'Esgrignon has or has not used the lower half of

a letter addressed to him by du Croisier as a bill of exchange."

"Eh! and so he might," a voice cried suddenly, as Mme. Camusot broke

in, followed by the handsome stranger, "so he might when M. Chesnel

had advanced the money to meet the bill----"

She leant over her husband.

"You will have the first vacant appointment as assistant judge at

Paris, you are serving the King himself in this affair; I have proof

of it; you will not be forgotten," she said, lowering her voice in his

ear. "This young man that you see here is the Duchesse de

Maufrigneuse; you must never have seen her, and do all that you can

for the young Count boldly."

"Gentlemen," said Camusot, "even if the preliminary examination is

conducted to prove the young Count's innocence, can I answer for the

view the court may take? M. Chesnel, and you also, my sweet, know what

M. le President wants."

"Tut, tut, tut!" said Mme. Camusot, "go yourself to M. Michu this

morning, and tell him that the Count has been arrested; you will be

two against two in that case, I will be bound. /Michu/ comes from Paris,

and you know he is devoted to the noblesse. Good blood cannot lie."

At that very moment Mlle. Cadot's voice was heard in the doorway. She

had brought a note, and was waiting for an answer. Camusot went out,

and came back again to read the note aloud:

"M. le Vice-President begs M. Camusot to sit in audience to-day and

for the next few days, so that there may be a quorum during M. le

President's absence."

"Then there is an end of the preliminary examination!" cried Mme.

Camusot. "Did I not tell you, dear, that they would play you some ugly

trick? The President has gone off to slander you to the public

prosecutor and the President of the Court-Royal. You will be changed

before you can make the examination. Is that clear?"

"You will stay, monsieur," said the Duchess. "The public prosecutor is

coming, I hope, in time."

"When the public prosecutor arrives," little Mme. Camusot said, with

some heat, "he must find all over.--Yes, my dear, yes," she added,

looking full at her amazed husband.--"Ah! old hypocrite of a

President, you are setting your wits against us; you shall remember

it! You have a mind to help us to a dish of your own making, you shall

have two served up to you by your humble servant Cecile Amelie

Thirion!--Poor old Blondet! It is lucky for him that the President has

taken this journey to turn us out, for now that great oaf of a Joseph

Blondet will marry Mlle. Blandureau. I will let Father Blondet have

some seeds in return.--As for you, Camusot, go to M. Michu's, while

Mme. la Duchesse and I will go to find old Blondet. You must expect to

hear it said all over the town to-morrow that I took a walk with a

lover this morning."

Mme. Camusot took the Duchess' arm, and they went through the town by

deserted streets to avoid any unpleasant adventure on the way to the

old Vice-President's house. Chesnel meanwhile conferred with the young

Count in prison; Camusot had arranged a stolen interview. Cook-maids,

servants, and the other early risers of a country town, seeing Mme.

Camusot and the Duchess taking their way through the back streets,

took the young gentleman for an adorer from Paris. That evening, as

Cecile Amelie had said, the news of her behavior was circulated about

the town, and more than one scandalous rumor was occasioned thereby.

Mme. Camusot and her supposed lover found old Blondet in his

greenhouse. He greeted his colleague's wife and her companion, and

gave the charming young man a keen, uneasy glance.

"I have the honor to introduce one of my husband's cousins," said Mme.

Camusot, bringing forward the Duchess; "he is one of the most

distinguished horticulturists in Paris; and as he cannot spend more

than one day with us, on his way back from Brittany, and has heard of

your flowers and plants, I have taken the liberty of coming early."

"Oh, the gentleman is a horticulturist, is he?" said the old Blondet.

The Duchess bowed.

"This is my coffee-plant," said Blondet, "and here is a tea-plant."

"What can have taken M. le President away from home?" put in Mme.

Camusot. "I will wager that his absence concerns M. Camusot."

"Exactly.--This, monsieur, is the queerest of all cactuses," he

continued, producing a flower-pot which appeared to contain a piece of

mildewed rattan; "it comes from Australia. You are very young, sir, to

be a horticulturist."

"Dear M. Blondet, never mind your flowers," said Mme. Camusot. "/You/

are concerned, you and your hopes, and your son's marriage with Mlle.

Blandureau. You are duped by the President."

"Bah!" said old Blondet, with an incredulous air.

"Yes," retorted she. "If you cultivated people a little more and your

flowers a little less, you would know that the dowry and the hopes you

have sown, and watered, and tilled, and weeded are on the point of

being gathered now by cunning hands."

"Madame!----"

"Oh, nobody in the town will have the courage to fly in the

President's face and warn you. I, however, do not belong to the town,

and, thanks to this obliging young man, I shall soon be going back to

Paris; so I can inform you that Chesnel's successor has made formal

proposals for Mlle. Claire Blandureau's hand on behalf of young du

Ronceret, who is to have fifty thousand crowns from his parents. As

for Fabien, he has made up his mind to receive a call to the bar, so

as to gain an appointment as judge."

Old Blondet dropped the flower-pot which he had brought out for the

Duchess to see.

"Oh, my cactus! Oh, my son! and Mlle. Blandureau! . . . Look here! the

cactus flower is broken to pieces."

"No," Mme. Camusot answered, laughing; "everything can be put right.

If you have a mind to see your son a judge in another month, we will

tell you how you must set to work----"

"Step this way, sir, and you will see my pelargoniums, an enchanting

sight while they are in flower----" Then he added to Mme. Camusot,

"Why did you speak of these matters while your cousin was present."

"All depends upon him," riposted Mme. Camusot. "Your son's appointment

is lost for ever if you let fall a word about this young man."

"Bah!"

"The young man is a flower----"

"Ah!"

"He is the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, sent here by His Majesty to save

young d'Esgrignon, whom they arrested yesterday on a charge of forgery

brought against him by du Croisier. Mme. la Duchesse has authority

from the Keeper of the Seals; he will ratify any promises that she

makes to us----"

"My cactus is all right!" exclaimed Blondet, peering at his precious

plant.--"Go on, I am listening."

"Take counsel with Camusot and Michu to hush up the affair as soon as

possible, and your son will get the appointment. It will come in time

enough to baffle du Ronceret's underhand dealings with the

Blandureaus. Your son will be something better than assistant judge;

he will have M. Camusot's post within the year. The public prosecutor

will be here to-day. M. Sauvager will be obliged to resign, I expect,

after his conduct in this affair. At the court my husband will show

you documents which completely exonerate the Count and prove that the

forgery was a trap of du Croisier's own setting."

Old Blondet went into the Olympic circus where his six thousand

pelargoniums stood, and made his bow to the Duchess.

"Monsieur," said he, "if your wishes do not exceed the law, this thing

may be done."

"Monsieur," returned the Duchess, "send in your resignation to M.

Chesnel to-morrow, and I will promise you that your son shall be

appointed within the week; but you must not resign until you have had

confirmation of my promise from the public prosecutor. You men of law

will come to a better understanding among yourselves. Only let him

know that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had pledged her word to you.

And not a word as to my journey hither," she added.

The old judge kissed her hand and began recklessly to gather his best

flowers for her.

"Can you think of it? Give them to madame," said the Duchess. "A young

man should not have flowers about him when he has a pretty woman on

his arm."

"Before you go down to the court," added Mme. Camusot, "ask Chesnel's

successor about those proposals that he made in the name of M. and

Mme. du Ronceret."

Old Blondet, quite overcome by this revelation of the President's

duplicity, stood planted on his feet by the wicket gate, looking after

the two women as they hurried away through by-streets home again. The

edifice raised so painfully during ten years for his beloved son was

crumbling visibly before his eyes. Was it possible? He suspected some

trick, and hurried away to Chesnel's successor.

At half-past nine, before the court was sitting, Vice-President

Blondet, Camusot, and Michu met with remarkable punctuality in the

council chamber. Blondet locked the door with some precautions when

Camusot and Michu came in together.

"Well, Mr. Vice-President," began Michu, "M. Sauvager, without

consulting the public prosecutor, has issued a warrant for the

apprehension of one Comte d'Esgrignon, in order to serve a grudge

borne against him by one du Croisier, an enemy of the King's

government. It is a regular topsy-turvy affair. The President, for his

part, goes away, and thereby puts a stop to the preliminary

examination! And we know nothing of the matter. Do they, by any

chance, mean to force our hand?"

"This is the first word I have heard of it," said the Vice-President.

He was furious with the President for stealing a march on him with the

Blandureaus. Chesnel's successor, the du Roncerets' man, had just

fallen into a snare set by the old judge; the truth was out, he knew

the secret.

"It is lucky that we spoke to you about the matter, my dear master,"

said Camusot, "or you might have given up all hope of seating your son

on the bench or of marrying him to Mlle. Blandureau."

"But it is no question of my son, nor of his marriage," said the

Vice-President; "we are talking of young Comte d'Esgrignon. Is he or

is he not guilty?"

"It seems that Chesnel deposited the amount to meet the bill with Mme.

du Croisier," said Michu, "and a crime has been made of a mere

irregularity. According to the charge, the Count made use of the lower

half of a letter bearing du Croisier's signature as a draft which he

cashed at the Kellers'."

"An imprudent thing to do," was Camusot's comment.

"But why is du Croisier proceeding against him if the amount was paid

in beforehand?" asked Vice-President Blondet.

"He does not know that the money was deposited with his wife; or he

pretends that he does not know," said Camusot.

"It is a piece of provincial spite," said Michu.

"Still it looks like a forgery to me," said old Blondet. No passion

could obscure judicial clear-sightedness in him.

"Do you think so?" returned Camusot. "But, at the outset, supposing

that the Count had no business to draw upon du Croisier, there would

still be no forgery of the signature; and the Count believed that he

had a right to draw on Croisier when Chesnel advised him that the

money had been placed to his credit."

"Well, then, where is the forgery?" asked Blondet. "It is the intent

to defraud which constitutes forgery in a civil action."

"Oh, it is clear, if you take du Croisier's version for truth, that

the signature was diverted from its purpose to obtain a sum of money

in spite of du Croisier's contrary injunction to his bankers," Camusot

answered.

"Gentlemen," said Blondet, "this seems to me to be a mere triffle, a

quibble.--Suppose you had the money, I ought perhaps to have waited

until I had your authorization; but I, Comte d'Esgrignon, was pressed

for money, so I---- Come, come, your prosecution is a piece of

revengeful spite. Forgery is defined by the law as an attempt to

obtain any advantage which rightfully belongs to another. There is no

forgery here, according to the letter of the Roman law, nor according

to the spirit of modern jurisprudence (always from the point of a

civil action, for we are not here concerned with the falsification of

public or authentic documents). Between private individuals the

essence of a forgery is the intent to defraud; where is it in this

case? In what times are we living, gentlemen? Here is the President

going away to balk a preliminary examination which ought to be over by

this time! Until to-day I did not know M. le President, but he shall

have the benefit of arrears; from this time forth he shall draft his

decisions himself. You must set about this affair with all possible

speed, M. Camusot."

"Yes," said Michu. "In my opinion, instead of letting the young man

out on bail, we ought to pull him out of this mess at once. Everything

turns on the examination of du Croisier and his wife. You might

summons them to appear while the court is sitting, M. Camusot; take

down their depositions before four o'clock, send in your report

to-night, and we will give our decision in the morning before the court

sits."

"We will settle what course to pursue while the barristers are

pleading," said Vice-President Blondet, addressing Camusot.

And with that the three judges put on their robes and went into court.

At noon Mlle. Armande and the Bishop reached the Hotel d'Esgrignon;

Chesnel and M. Couturier were there to meet them. There was a

sufficiently short conference between the prelate and Mme. du

Croisier's director, and the latter set out at once to visit his

charge.

At eleven o'clock that morning du Croisier received a summons to

appear in the examining magistrate's office between one and two in the

afternoon. Thither he betook himself, consumed by well-founded

suspicions. It was impossible that the President should have foreseen

the arrival of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse upon the scene, the return

of the public prosecutor, and the hasty confabulation of his learned

brethren; so he had omitted to trace out a plan for du Croisier's

guidance in the event of the preliminary examination taking place.

Neither of the pair imagined that the proceedings would be hurried on

in this way. Du Croisier obeyed the summons at once; he wanted to know

how M. Camusot was disposed to act. So he was compelled to answer the

questions put to him. Camusot addressed him in summary fashion with

the six following inquiries:--

"Was the signature on the bill alleged to be a forgery in your

handwriting?--Had you previously done business with M. le Comte

d'Esgrignon?--Was not M. le Comte d'Esgrignon in the habit of drawing

upon you, with or without advice?--Did you not write a letter

authorizing M. d'Esgrignon to rely upon you at any time?-- Had not

Chesnel squared the account not once, but many times already?-- Were

you not away from home when this took place?"

All these questions the banker answered in the affirmative. In spite

of wordy explanations, the magistrate always brought him back to a

"Yes" or "No." When the questions and answers alike had been resumed

in the proces-verbal, the examining magistrate brought out a final

thunderbolt.

"Was du Croisier aware that the money destined to meet the bill had

been deposited with him, du Croisier, according to Chesnel's

declaration, and a letter of advice sent by the said Chesnel to the

Comte d'Esgrignon, five days before the date of the bill?"

That last question frightened du Croisier. He asked what was meant by

it, and whether he was supposed to be the defendant and M. le Comte

d'Esgrignon the plaintiff? He called the magistrate's attention to the

fact that if the money had been deposited with him, there was no

ground for the action.

"Justice is seeking information," said the magistrate, as he dismissed

the witness, but not before he had taken down du Croisier's last

observation.

"But the money, sir----"

"The money is at your house."

Chesnel, likewise summoned, came forward to explain the matter. The

truth of his assertions was borne out by Mme. du Croisier's

deposition. The Count had already been examined. Prompted by Chesnel,

he produced du Croisier's first letter, in which he begged the Count

to draw upon him without the insulting formality of depositing the

amount beforehand. The Comte d'Esgrignon next brought out a letter in

Chesnel's handwriting, by which the notary advised him of the deposit

of a hundred thousand crowns with M. du Croisier. With such primary

facts as these to bring forward as evidence, the young Count's

innocence was bound to emerge triumphantly from a court of law.

Du Croisier went home from the court, his face white with rage, and

the foam of repressed fury on his lips. His wife was sitting by the

fireside in the drawing-room at work upon a pair of slippers for him.

She trembled when she looked into his face, but her mind was made up.

"Madame," he stammered out, "what deposition is this that you made

before the magistrate? You have dishonored, ruined, and betrayed me!"

"I have saved you, monsieur," answered she. "If some day you will have

the honor of connecting yourself with the d'Esgrignons by marrying

your niece to the Count, it will be entirely owing to my conduct

to-day."

"A miracle!" cried he. "Balaam's ass has spoken. Nothing will astonish

me after this. And where are the hundred thousand crowns which (so M.

Camusot tells me) are here in my house?"

"Here they are," said she, pulling out a bundle of banknotes from

beneath the cushions of her settee. "I have not committed mortal sin

by declaring that M. Chesnel gave them into my keeping."

"While I was away?"

"You were not here."

"Will you swear that to me on your salvation?"

"I swear it," she said composedly.

"Then why did you say nothing to me about it?" demanded he.

"I was wrong there," said his wife, "but my mistake was all for your

good. Your niece will be Marquise d'Esgrignon some of these days, and

you will perhaps be a deputy, if you behave well in this deplorable

business. You have gone too far; you must find out how to get back

again."

Du Croisier, under stress of painful agitation, strode up and down his

drawing-room; while his wife, in no less agitation, awaited the result

of this exercise. Du Croisier at length rang the bell.

"I am not at home to any one to-night," he said, when the man

appeared; "shut the gates; and if any one calls, tell them that your

mistress and I have gone into the country. We shall start directly

after dinner, and dinner must be half an hour earlier than usual."

The great news was discussed that evening in every drawing-room;

little shopkeepers, working folk, beggars, the noblesse, the merchant

class--the whole town, in short, was talking of the Comte

d'Esgrignon's arrest on a charge of forgery. The Comte d'Esgrignon

would be tried in the Assize Court; he would be condemned and branded.

Most of those who cared for the honor of the family denied the fact.

At nightfall Chesnel went to Mme. Camusot and escorted the stranger to

the Hotel d'Esgrignon. Poor Mlle. Armande was expecting him; she led

the fair Duchess to her own room, which she had given up to her, for

his lordship the Bishop occupied Victurnien's chamber; and, left alone

with her guest, the noble woman glanced at the Duchess with most

piteous eyes.

"You owed help, indeed, madame, to the poor boy who ruined himself for

your sake," she said, "the boy to whom we are all of us sacrificing

ourselves."

The Duchess had already made a woman's survey of Mlle. d'Esgrignon's

room; the cold, bare, comfortless chamber, that might have been a

nun's cell, was like a picture of the life of the heroic woman before

her. The Duchess saw it all--past, present, and future--with rising

emotion, felt the incongruity of her presence, and could not keep back

the falling tears that made answer for her.

But in Mlle. Armande the Christian overcame Victurnien's aunt. "Ah, I

was wrong; forgive me, Mme. la Duchesse; you did not know how poor we

were, and my nephew was incapable of the admission. And besides, now

that I see you, I can understand all--even the crime!"

And Mlle. Armande, withered and thin and white, but beautiful as those

tall austere slender figures which German art alone can paint, had

tears too in her eyes.

"Do not fear, dear angel," the Duchess said at last; "he is safe."

"Yes, but honor?--and his career? Chesnel told me; the King knows the

truth."

"We will think of a way of repairing the evil," said the Duchess.

Mlle. Armande went downstairs to the salon, and found the Collection

of Antiquities complete to a man. Every one of them had come, partly

to do honor to the Bishop, partly to rally round the Marquis; but

Chesnel, posted in the antechamber, warned each new arrival to say no

word of the affair, that the aged Marquis might never know that such a

thing had been. The loyal Frank was quite capable of killing his son

or du Croisier; for either the one or the other must have been guilty

of death in his eyes. It chanced, strangely enough, that he talked

more of Victurnien than usual; he was glad that his son had gone back

to Paris. The King would give Victurnien a place before very long; the

King was interesting himself at last in the d'Esgrignons. And his

friends, their hearts dead within them, praised Victurnien's conduct

to the skies. Mlle. Armande prepared the way for her nephew's sudden

appearance among them by remarking to her brother that Victurnien

would be sure to come to see them, and that he must be even then on

his way.

"Bah!" said the Marquis, standing with his back to the hearth, "if he

is doing well where he is, he ought to stay there, and not be thinking

of the joy it would give his old father to see him again. The King's

service has the first claim."

Scarcely one of those present heard the words without a shudder.

Justice might give over a d'Esgrignon to the executioner's branding

iron. There was a dreadful pause. The old Marquise de Casteran could

not keep back a tear that stole down over her rouge, and turned her

head away to hide it.

Next day at noon, in the sunny weather, a whole excited population was

dispersed in groups along the high street, which ran through the heart

of the town, and nothing was talked of but the great affair. Was the

Count in prison or was he not?--All at once the Comte d'Esgrignon's

well-known tilbury was seen driving down the Rue Saint-Blaise; it had

evidently come from the Prefecture, the Count himself was on the box

seat, and by his side sat a charming young man, whom nobody

recognized. The pair were laughing and talking and in great spirits.

They wore Bengal roses in their button-holes. Altogether, it was a

theatrical surprise which words fail to describe.

At ten o'clock the court had decided to dismiss the charge, stating

their very sufficient reasons for setting the Count at liberty, in a

document which contained a thunderbolt for du Croisier, in the shape

of an /inasmuch/ that gave the Count the right to institute

proceedings for libel. Old Chesnel was walking up the Grand Rue, as if

by accident, telling all who cared to hear him that du Croisier had set

the most shameful of snares for the d'Esgrignons' honor, and that it

was entirely owing to the forbearance and magnanimity of the family

that he was not prosecuted for slander.

On the evening of that famous day, after the Marquis d'Esgrignon had

gone to bed, the Count, Mlle. Armande, and the Chevalier were left

with the handsome young page, now about to return to Paris. The

charming cavalier's sex could not be hidden from the Chevalier, and he

alone, besides the three officials and Mme. Camusot, knew that the

Duchess had been among them.

"The house is saved," began Chesnel, "but after this shock it will

take a hundred years to rise again. The debts must be paid now; you

must marry an heiress, M. le Comte, there is nothing left for you to

do."

"And take her where you may find her," said the Duchess.

"A second mesalliance!" exclaimed Mlle. Armande.

The Duchess began to laugh.

"It is better to marry than to die," she said. As she spoke she drew

from her waistcoat pocket a tiny crystal phial that came from the

court apothecary.

Mlle. Armande shrank away in horror. Old Chesnel took the fair

Maufrigneuse's hand, and kissed it without permission.

"Are you all out of your minds here?" continued the Duchess. "Do you

really expect to live in the fifteenth century when the rest of the

world has reached the nineteenth? My dear children, there is no

noblesse nowadays; there is no aristocracy left! Napoleon's Code Civil

made an end of the parchments, exactly as cannon made an end of feudal

castles. When you have some money, you will be very much more of

nobles than you are now. Marry anybody you please, Victurnien, you

will raise your wife to your rank; that is the most substantial

privilege left to the French noblesse. Did not M. de Talleyrand marry

Mme. Grandt without compromising his position? Remember that Louis

XIV. took the Widow Scarron for his wife."

"He did not marry her for her money," interposed Mlle. Armande.

"If the Comtesse d'Esgrignon were one du Croisier's niece, for

instance, would you receive her?" asked Chesnel.

"Perhaps," replied the Duchess; "but the King, beyond all doubt, would

be very glad to see her.--So you do not know what is going on in the

world?" continued she, seeing the amazement in their faces.

"Victurnien has been in Paris; he knows how things go there. We had

more influence under Napoleon. Marry Mlle. Duval, Victurnien; she will

be just as much Marquise d'Esgrignon as I am Duchesse de

Maufrigneuse."

"All is lost--even honor!" said the Chevalier, with a wave of the

hand.

"Good-bye, Victurnien," said the Duchess, kissing her lover on the

forehead; "we shall not see each other again. Live on your lands; that

is the best thing for you to do; the air of Paris is not at all good

for you."

"Diane!" the young Count cried despairingly.

"Monsieur, you forget yourself strangely," the Duchess retorted

coolly, as she laid aside her role of man and mistress, and became not

merely an angel again, but a duchess, and not only a duchess, but

Moliere's Celimene.

The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse made a stately bow to these four

personages, and drew from the Chevalier his last tear of admiration at

the service of le beau sexe.

"How like she is to the Princess Goritza!" he exclaimed in a low

voice.

Diane had disappeared. The crack of the postilion's whip told

Victurnien that the fair romance of his first love was over. While

peril lasted, Diane could still see her lover in the young Count; but

out of danger, she despised him for the weakling that he was.

Six months afterwards, Camusot received the appointment of assistant

judge at Paris, and later he became an examining magistrate. Goodman

Blondet was made a councillor to the Royal-Court; he held the post

just long enough to secure a retiring pension, and then went back to

live in his pretty little house. Joseph Blondet sat in his father's

seat at the court till the end of his days; there was not the faintest

chance of promotion for him, but he became Mlle. Blandereau's husband;

and she, no doubt, is leading to-day, in the little flower-covered

brick house, as dull a life as any carp in a marble basin. Michu and

Camusot also received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, while Blondet

became an Officer. As for M. Sauvager, deputy public prosecutor, he

was sent to Corsica, to du Croisier's great relief; he had decidedly

no mind to bestow his niece upon that functionary.

Du Croisier himself, urged by President du Ronceret, appealed from the

finding of the Tribunal to the Court-Royal, and lost his cause. The

Liberals throughout the department held that little d'Esgrignon was

guilty; while the Royalists, on the other hand, told frightful stories

of plots woven by "that abominable du Croisier" to compass his

revenge. A duel was fought indeed; the hazard of arms favored du

Croisier, the young Count was dangerously wounded, and his antagonist

maintained his words. This affair embittered the strife between the

two parties; the Liberals brought it forward on all occasions.

Meanwhile du Croisier never could carry his election, and saw no hope

of marrying his niece to the Count, especially after the duel.

A month after the decision of the Tribunal was confirmed in the

Court-Royal, Chesnel died, exhausted by the dreadful strain, which had

weakened and shaken him mentally and physically. He died in the hour

of victory, like some old faithful hound that has brought the boar to

bay, and gets his death on the tusks. He died as happily as might be,

seeing that he left the great House all but ruined, and the heir in

penury, bored to death by an idle life, and without a hope of

establishing himself. That bitter thought and his own exhaustion, no

doubt, hastened the old man's end. One great comfort came to him as he

lay amid the wreck of so many hopes, sinking under the burden of so

many cares--the old Marquis, at his sister's entreaty, gave him back

all the old friendship. The great lord came to the little house in the

Rue du Bercail, and sat by his old servant's bedside, all unaware how

much that servant had done and sacrificed for him. Chesnel sat

upright, and repeated Simeon's cry.--The Marquis allowed them to bury

Chesnel in the castle chapel; they laid him crosswise at the foot of

the tomb which was waiting for the Marquis himself, the last, in a

sense, of the d'Esgrignons.

And so died one of the last representatives of that great and

beautiful thing, Service; giving to that often discredited word its

original meaning, the relation between feudal lord and servitor. That

relation, only to be found in some out-of-the-way province, or among a

few old servants of the King, did honor alike to a noblesse that could

call forth such affection, and to a bourgeoisie that could conceive

it. Such noble and magnificent devotion is no longer possible among

us. Noble houses have no servitors left; even as France has no longer

a King, nor an hereditary peerage, nor lands that are bound

irrevocably to an historic house, that the glorious names of the

nation may be perpetuated. Chesnel was not merely one of the obscure

great men of private life; he was something more--he was a great fact.

In his sustained self-devotion is there not something indefinably

solemn and sublime, something that rises above the one beneficent

deed, or the heroic height which is reached by a moment's supreme

effort? Chesnel's virtues belong essentially to the classes which

stand between the poverty of the people on the one hand, and the

greatness of the aristocracy on the other; for these can combine

homely burgher virtues with the heroic ideals of the noble,

enlightening both by a solid education.

Victurnien was not well looked upon at Court; there was no more chance

of a great match for him, nor a place. His Majesty steadily refused to

raise the d'Esgrignons to the peerage, the one royal favor which could

rescue Victurnien from his wretched position. It was impossible that

he should marry a bourgeoise heiress in his father's lifetime, so he

was bound to live on shabbily under the paternal roof with memories of

his two years of splendor in Paris, and the lost love of a great lady

to bear him company. He grew moody and depressed, vegetating at home

with a careworn aunt and a half heart-broken father, who attributed

his son's condition to a wasting malady. Chesnel was no longer there.

The Marquis died in 1830. The great d'Esgrignon, with a following of

all the less infirm noblesse from the Collection of Antiquities, went

to wait upon Charles X. at Nonancourt; he paid his respects to his

sovereign, and swelled the meagre train of the fallen king. It was an

act of courage which seems simple enough to-day, but, in that time of

enthusiastic revolt, it was heroism.

"The Gaul has conquered!" These were the Marquis' last words.

By that time du Croisier's victory was complete. The new Marquis

d'Esgrignon accepted Mlle. Duval as his wife a week after his old

father's death. His bride brought him three millions of francs for du

Croisier and his wife settled the reversion of their fortunes upon her

in the marriage-contract. Du Croisier took occasion to say during the

ceremony that the d'Esgrignon family was the most honorable of all the

ancient houses in France.

Some day the present Marquis d'Esgrignon will have an income of more

than a hundred thousand crowns. You may see him in Paris, for he comes

to town every winter and leads a jolly bachelor life, while he treats

his wife with something more than the indifference of the grand

seigneur of olden times; he takes no thought whatever for her.

"As for Mlle. d'Esgrignon," said Emile Blondet, to whom all the detail

of the story is due, "if she is no longer like the divinely fair woman

whom I saw by glimpses in my childhood, she is decidedly, at the age

of sixty-seven, the most pathetic and interesting figure in the

Collection of Antiquities. She queens it among them still. I saw her

when I made my last journey to my native place in search of the

necessary papers for my marriage. When my father knew who it was that

I had married, he was struck dumb with amazement; he had not a word to

say until I told him that I was a prefect.

"'You were born to it,' he said, with a smile.

"As I took a walk around the town, I met Mlle. Armande. She looked

taller than ever. I looked at her, and thought of Marius among the

ruins of Carthage. Had she not outlived her creed, and the beliefs

that had been destroyed? She is a sad and silent woman, with nothing

of her old beauty left except the eyes, that shine with an unearthly

light. I watched her on her way to mass, with her book in her hand,

and could not help thinking that she prayed to God to take her out of

the world."

LES JARDIES, July 1837.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Note: The Old Maid is a companion piece to The Collection of

Antiquities. In other Addendum appearances they are combined under the

title of The Jealousies of a Country Town.

Blondet (Judge)

Beatrix

Blondet, Emile

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Modeste Mignon

Another Study of Woman

The Secrets of a Princess

A Daughter of Eve

The Firm of Nucingen

The Peasantry

Blondet, Virginie

The Secrets of a Princess

The Peasantry

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Another Study of Woman

The Member for Arcis

A Daughter of Eve

Bousquier, Du (or Du Croisier or Du Bourguier)

The Old Maid

The Middle Classes

Bousquier, Madame du (or du Croisier)

The Old Maid

Camusot de Marville

Cousin Pons

The Commission in Lunacy

Scenes from a Cuortesan's Life

Camusot de Marville, Madame

The Vendetta

Cesar Birotteau

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Cousin Pons

Cardot (Parisian notary)

The Muse of the Department

A Man of Business

Pierre Grassou

The Middle Classes

Cousin Pons

Casteran, De

The Chouans

The Seamy Side of History

The Old Maid

Beatrix

The Peasantry

Chesnel (or Choisnel)

The Seamy Side of History

The Old Maid

Coudrai, Du

The Old Maid

Esgrignon, Charles-Marie-Victor-Ange-Carol, Marquis d' (or Des Grignons)

The Chouans

The Old Maid

Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d')

Letters of Two Brides

A Man of Business

The Secrets of a Princess

Cousin Betty

Esgrignon, Marie-Armande-Claire d'

The Old Maid

Herouville, Duc d'

The Hated Son

Modeste Mignon

Cousin Betty

Lenoncourt, Duc de

The Lily of the Valley

Cesar Birotteau

The Old Maid

The Gondreville Mystery

Beatrix

Leroi, Pierre

The Chouans

The Seamy Side of History

Marsay, Henri de

The Thirteen

The Unconscious Humorists

Another Study of Woman

The Lily of the Valley

Father Goriot

Ursule Mirouet

A Marriage Settlement

Lost Illusions

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Letters of Two Brides

The Ball at Sceaux

Modest Mignon

The Secrets of a Princess

The Gondreville Mystery

A Daughter of Eve

Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de

The Secrets of a Princess

Modeste Mignon

The Muse of the Department

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Letters of Two Brides

Another Study of Woman

The Gondreville Mystery

The Member for Arcis

Michu, Francois

The Gondreville Mystery

The Member for Arcis

Pamiers, Vidame de

The Thirteen

Ronceret, Du

The Old Maid

Beatrix

Ronceret, Madame du

The Old Maid

Ronceret, Fabien-Felicien du (or Duronceret)

Beatrix

Gaudissart II

Scherbelloff, Princesse (or Scherbellof or Sherbelloff)

The Peasantry

Thirion

The Vendetta

Cesar Birotteau

Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de

The Seamy Side of History

The Chouans

The Old Maid

The Peasantry

Valois, Chevalier de

The Chouans

The Old Maid

Verneuil, Duc de

The Chouans

The Old Maid