The would-be disciple passed many days in observing more carefully than
he had hitherto done the rare persons among whom fate had brought
him; and he became the subject of a moral phenomenon which modern
philosophers have despised,--possibly out of ignorance.
The sphere in which he lived had a positive action upon Godefroid.
The laws which regulate the physical nature under relation to the
atmospheric environment in which it is developed, rule also in the
moral nature. Hence it follows that the assembling together of condemned
prisoners is one of the greatest of social crimes; and also that their
isolation is an experiment of doubtful success. Condemned criminals
ought to be in religious institutions, surrounded by prodigies of Good,
instead of being cast as they are into sight and knowledge of Evil only.
The Church can be expected to show an absolute devotion in this matter.
If it sends missionaries to heathen or savage nations, with how much
greater joy would it welcome the mission of redeeming the heathen of
civilization? for all criminals are atheists, and often without knowing
they are so.
Godefroid found these five associated persons endowed with the qualities
they required in him. They were all without pride, without vanity, truly
humble and pious; also without any of the pretension which constitutes
_devotion_, using that word in its worst sense. These virtues were
contagious; he was filled with a desire to imitate these hidden
heroes, and he ended by passionately studying the book he had begun by
despising. Within two weeks he reduced his views of life to its simplest
lines,--to what it really _is_ when we consider it from the higher point
of view to which the Divine spirit leads us. His curiosity--worldly at
first, and excited by many vulgar and material motives--purified itself;
if he did not renounce it altogether, the fault was not his; any one
would have found it difficult to resign an interest in Madame de la
Chanterie; but Godefroid showed, without intending it, a discretion
which was appreciated by these persons, in whom the divine Spirit had
developed a marvellous power of the faculties,--as, indeed, it often
does among recluses. The concentration of the moral forces, no matter
under what system it may be effected, increases the compass of them
tenfold.
“Our friend is not yet converted,” said the good Abbe de Veze, “but he
is seeking to be.”
An unforeseen circumstance brought about the revelation of Madame de la
Chanterie’s history to Godefroid; and so fully was this made to him
that the overpowering interest she excited in his soul was completely
satisfied.
The public mind was at that time much occupied by one of those horrible
criminal trials which mark the annals of our police-courts. This trial
had gathered its chief interest from the character of the criminals
themselves, whose audacity, superior intelligence in evil, and cynical
replies, had horrified the community. It is a matter worthy of remark
that no newspaper ever found its way into the hotel de la Chanterie, and
Godefroid only heard of the rejection of the criminals’ appeal from his
master in book-keeping; for the trial itself had taken place some time
before he came to live in his new abode.
“Do you ever encounter,” he said to his new friends, “such atrocious
villains as those men? and if you do encounter them, how do you manage
them?”
“In the first place,” said Monsieur Nicolas, “there are no atrocious
villains. There are diseased natures, to be cared for in asylums;
but outside of those rare medical cases, we find only persons who are
without religion, or who reason ill; and the mission of charity is to
teach them the right use of reason, to encourage the weak, and guide
aright those who go astray.”
“And,” said the Abbe de Veze, “all is possible to such teachers, for God
is with them.”
“If they were to send you those criminals, you could do nothing with
them, could you?” asked Godefroid.
“The time would be too short,” remarked Monsieur Alain.
“In general,” said Monsieur Nicolas, “persons turn over to religion
souls which have reached the last stages of evil, and leave it no time
to do its work. The criminals of whom you speak were men of remarkable
vigor; could they have been within our hands in time they might have
become distinguished men; but as soon as they committed a murder, it was
no longer possible to interfere; they then belonged to human justice.”
“That must mean,” said Godefroid, “that you are against the penalty of
death?”
Monsieur Nicolas rose hastily and left the room.
“Do not ever mention the penalty of death again before Monsieur
Nicolas,” said Monsieur Alain. “He recognized in a criminal at whose
execution he was officially present his natural son.”
“And the son was innocent!” added Monsieur Joseph.
Madame de la Chanterie, who had been absent for a while, returned to the
salon at this moment.
“But you must admit,” said Godefroid, addressing Monsieur Joseph, “that
society cannot exist without the death penalty, and that those persons
who to-morrow morning will have their heads cut--”
Godefroid felt his mouth suddenly closed by a vigorous hand, and he
saw the abbe leading away Madame de la Chanterie in an almost fainting
condition.
“What have you done?” Monsieur Joseph said to him. “Take him away,
Alain!” he added, removing the hand with which he had gagged Godefroid.
Then he followed the Abbe de Veze into Madame de la Chanterie’s room.
“Come!” said Monsieur Alain to Godefroid; “you have made it essential
that I should tell you the secrets of Madame’s life.”
They were presently sitting in the old man’s room.
“Well?” said Godefroid, whose face showed plainly his regret for having
been the cause of something which, in that peaceful home, might be
called a catastrophe.
“I am waiting till Manon comes to reassure us,” replied the goodman,
listening to the steps of the maid upon the staircase.
“Madame is better,” said Manon. “Monsieur l’abbe has deceived her as to
what was said.” And she looked at Godefroid angrily.
“Good God!” cried the poor fellow, in distress, the tears coming into
his eyes.
“Come, sit down,” said Monsieur Alain, sitting down himself. Then he
made a pause as if to gather up his ideas. “I don’t know,” he went on,
“if I have the talent to worthily relate a life so cruelly tried. You
must excuse me if the words of so poor a speaker as I are beneath the
level of its actions and catastrophes. Remember that it is long since
I left school, and that I am the child of a century in which men cared
more for thought than for effect,--a prosaic century which knew only how
to call things by their right names.”
Godefroid made an acquiescing gesture, with an expression of sincere
admiration, and said simply, “I am listening.”
“You have just had a proof, my young friend,” resumed the old man, “that
it is impossible you should remain among us without knowing at least
some of the terrible facts in the life of that saintly woman. There are
ideas and illusions and fatal words which are completely interdicted
in this house, lest they reopen wounds in Madame’s heart, and cause a
suffering which, if again renewed, might kill her.”
“Good God!” cried Godefroid, “what have I done?”
“If Monsieur Joseph had not stopped the words on your lips, you were
about to speak of that fatal instrument of death, and that would have
stricken down Madame de la Chanterie like a thunderbolt. It is time you
should know all, for you will really belong to us before long,--we all
think so. Here, then, is the history of her life:--
“Madame de la Chanterie,” he went on, after a pause, “comes from one of
the first families of Lower Normandy. Her maiden name was Mademoiselle
Barbe-Philiberte de Champignelles, of the younger branch of that house.
She was destined to take the veil unless she could make a marriage which
renounced on the husband’s side the dowry her family could not give her.
This was frequently the case in the families of poor nobles.
“A Sieur de la Chanterie, whose family had fallen into obscurity, though
it dates from the Crusade of Philip Augustus, was anxious to recover the
rank and position which this ancient lineage properly gave him in the
province of Normandy. This gentleman had doubly derogated from his
rightful station; for he had amassed a fortune of nearly a million of
francs as purveyor to the armies of the king at the time of the war in
Hanover. The old man had a son; and this son, presuming on his father’s
wealth (greatly exaggerated by rumor), was leading a life in Paris that
greatly disquieted his father.
“The word of Mademoiselle de Champignelle’s character was well known in
the Bessin,--that beautiful region of Lower Normandy near Bayeux, where
the family lived. The old man, whose little estate of la Chanterie was
between Caen and Saint-Lo, often heard regrets expressed before him
that so perfect a young girl, and one so capable of rendering a husband
happy, should be condemned to pass her life in a convent. When, on
reflection, he expressed a desire to know more of the young lady,
the hope was held out to him of obtaining the hand of Mademoiselle
Philiberte for his son, provided he would take her without dowry. He
went to Bayeux, had several interviews with the Champignelles’s family,
and was completely won by the noble qualities of the young girl.
“At sixteen years of age, Mademoiselle de Champignelles gave promise
of what she would ultimately become. It was easy to see in her a living
piety, an unalterable good sense, an inflexible uprightness, and one of
those souls which never detach themselves from an affection under any
compulsion. The old father, enriched by his extortions in the army,
recognized in this charming girl a woman who could restrain his son by
the power of virtue, and by the ascendancy of a nature that was firm
without rigidity.
“You have seen her,” said Monsieur Alain, pausing in his narrative, “and
you know that no one can be gentler than Madame de la Chanterie; and
also, I may tell you, that no one is more confiding. She has kept, even
to her declining years, the candor and simplicity of innocence; she has
never been willing to believe in evil, and the little mistrust you may
have noticed in her is due only to her terrible misfortunes.
“The old man,” said Monsieur Alain, continuing, “agreed with the
Champignelles family to give a receipt for the legal dower of
Mademoiselle Philiberte (this was necessary in those days); but
in return, the Champignelles, who were allied to many of the great
families, promised to obtain the erection of the little fief of la
Chanterie into a barony; and they kept their word. The aunt of the
future husband, Madame de Boisfrelon, the widow of a parliamentary
councillor, promised to bequeath her whole fortune to her nephew.
“When these arrangements had been completed by the two families, the
father sent for the son. At this time the latter was Master of petitions
to the Grand Council. He was twenty-five years of age, and had already
lived a life of folly with all the young seigneurs of the period; in
fact, the old purveyor had been forced more than once to pay his debts.
The poor father, foreseeing further follies, was only too glad to make a
settlement on his daughter-in-law of a certain sum; and he entailed the
estate of la Chanterie on the heirs male of the marriage.
“But the Revolution,” said Monsieur Alain in a parenthesis, “made that
last precaution useless.
“Gifted with the beauty of an angel,” he continued, “and with wonderful
grace and agility in all exercises of the body, the young Master of
petitions possessed the gift of _charm_. Mademoiselle de Champignelles
became, as you can readily believe, very much in love with her husband.
The old man, delighted with the outset of the marriage, and believing in
the reform of his son, sent the young couple to Paris. All this happened
about the beginning of the year 1788.
“Nearly a whole year of happiness followed. Madame de la Chanterie
enjoyed during that time the tenderest care and the most delicate
attentions that a man deeply in love can bestow upon a loving woman.
However short it may have been, the honeymoon did shine into the heart
of that noble and most unfortunate woman. You know that in those days
women nursed their children. Madame de la Chanterie had a daughter. That
period during which a woman ought to be the object of redoubled care and
tenderness proved, in this case, the beginning of untold miseries. The
Master of petitions was obliged to sell all the property he could lay
his hands on to pay former debts (which he had not acknowledged to his
father) and fresh losses at play. Then the National Assembly decreed
the dissolution of the Grand Council, the parliament, and all the law
offices so dearly bought.
“The young household, increased by a daughter, was soon without
other means than those settled upon Madame de la Chanterie by her
father-in-law. In twenty months that charming woman, now only seventeen
and a half years old, was obliged to live--she and the child she was
nursing--in an obscure quarter, and by the labor of her hands. She was
then entirely abandoned by her husband, who fell by degrees lower
and lower, into the society of women of the worst kind. Never did she
reproach her husband, never has she allowed herself to blame him. She
has sometimes told us how, during those wretched days, she would pray
for her ‘dear Henri.’
“That scamp was named Henri,” said the worthy man interrupting himself.
“We never mention that name here, nor that of Henriette. I resume:
“Never leaving her little room in the rue de la Corderie du Temple,
except to buy provisions or to fetch her work, Madame de la Chanterie
contrived to get along, thanks to a hundred francs which her
father-in-law, touched by her goodness, sent to her once a month.
Nevertheless, foreseeing that that resource might fail her, the poor
young woman had taken up the hard and toilsome work of corset-making in
the service of a celebrated dressmaker. This precaution proved a wise
one. The father died, and his property was obtained by the son (the
old monarchical laws of entail being then overthrown) and speedily
dissipated by him. The former Master of petitions was now one of the
most ferocious presidents of the Revolutionary tribunals of that period;
he became the terror of Normandy, and was able to satisfy all his
passions. Imprisoned in his turn after the fall of Robespierre, the
hatred of his department doomed him to certain death.
“Madame de la Chanterie heard of this through a letter of farewell which
her husband wrote to her. Instantly, giving her little girl to the care
of a neighbor, she went to the town where that wretch was imprisoned,
taking with her the few louis which were all that she owned. These louis
enabled her to make her way into the prison. She succeeded in saving her
husband by dressing him in her own clothes, under circumstances almost
identical with those which, sometime later, were so serviceable to
Madame de la Valette. She was condemned to death, but the government was
ashamed to carry out the sentence; and the Revolutionary tribunal
(the one over which her husband had formerly presided) connived at her
escape. She returned to Paris on foot, without means, sleeping in farm
buildings and fed by charity.”
“Good God!” cried Godefroid.
“Ah! wait,” said Monsieur Alain; “that is nothing. In eight years
the poor woman saw her husband three times. The first time he stayed
twenty-four hours in the humble lodging of his wife, and carried away
with him all her money; having showered her with marks of tenderness and
made her believe in his complete conversion. ‘I could not,’ she
said, ‘refuse a husband for whom I prayed daily and of whom I thought
exclusively.’ On the second occasion, Monsieur de la Chanterie arrived
almost dying, and with what an illness! She nursed him and saved his
life. Then she tried to bring him to better sentiments and a decent
life. After promising all that angel asked, the jacobin plunged back
into frightful profligacy, and finally escaped the hands of justice only
by again taking refuge with his wife, in whose care he died in safety.
“Oh! but that is nothing!” cried the goodman, seeing the pain on
Godefroid’s face. “No one, in the world in which he lived, had known
he was a married man. Two years after his death Madame de la Chanterie
discovered that a second Madame de la Chanterie existed, widowed like
herself, and, like her, ruined. That bigamist had found two angels
incapable of discarding him.
“Towards 1803,” resumed Alain after a pause, “Monsieur de Boisfrelon,
uncle of Madame de la Chanterie, came to Paris, his name having been
erased from the list of _emigres_, and brought Madame the sum of two
hundred thousand francs which her father-in-law, the old purveyor, had
formerly entrusted to him for the benefit of his son’s children. He
persuaded the widow to return to Normandy; where she completed the
education of her daughter and purchased on excellent terms and still by
the advice of her uncle, a patrimonial estate.”
“Ah!” cried Godefroid.
“All that is still nothing,” said Monsieur Alain; “we have not yet
reached the period of storms and darkness. I resume:
“In 1807, after four years of rest and peace, Madame de la Chanterie
married her daughter to a gentleman of rank, whose piety, antecedents,
and fortune offered every guarantee that could be given,--a man who,
to use a popular saying, ‘was after every one’s own heart,’ in the best
society of the provincial city where Madame and her daughter passed
their winters. I should tell you that this society was composed of
seven or eight families belonging to the highest nobility in France:
d’Esgrignon, Troisville, Casteran, Nouatre, etc. At the end of eighteen
months the baron deserted his wife, and disappeared in Paris, where he
changed his name.
“Madame de la Chanterie never knew the causes of this desertion until
the lightning of a dreadful storm revealed them. Her daughter, brought
up with anxious care and trained in the purest religious sentiments,
kept total silence as to her troubles. This lack of confidence in her
mother was a painful blow to Madame de la Chanterie. Already she had
several times noticed in her daughter indications of the reckless
disposition of the father, increased in the daughter by an almost virile
strength of will.
“The husband, however, abandoned his home of his own free will, leaving
his affairs in a pitiable condition. Madame de la Chanterie is, even to
this day, amazed at the catastrophe, which no human foresight could have
prevented. The persons she prudently consulted before the marriage had
assured her that the suitor’s fortune was clear and sound, and that
no mortgages were on his estate. Nevertheless it appeared, after the
husband’s departure, that for ten years his debts had exceeded the
entire value of his property. Everything was therefore sold, and the
poor young wife, now reduced to her own means, came back to her mother.
Madame de la Chanterie knew later that the most honorable persons of the
province had vouched for her son-in-law in their own interests; for he
owed them all large sums of money, and they looked upon his marriage
with Mademoiselle de la Chanterie as a means to recover them.
“There were, however, other reasons for this catastrophe, which you will
find later in a confidential paper written for the eyes of the Emperor.
Moreover, this man had long courted the good-will of the royalist
families by his devotion to the royal cause during the Revolution. He
was one of Louis XVIII.’s most active emissaries, and had taken part
after 1793 in all conspiracies,--escaping their penalties, however, with
such singular adroitness that he came, in the end, to be distrusted.
Thanked for his services by Louis XVIII., but completely set aside in
the royalist affairs, he had returned to live on his property, now much
encumbered with debt.
“These antecedents were then obscure (the persons initiated into
the secrets of the royal closet kept silence about so dangerous a
coadjutor), and he was therefore received with a species of reverence
in a city devoted to the Bourbons, where the cruellest deeds of the
Chouannerie were accepted as legitimate warfare. The d’Esgrignons,
Casterans, the Chevalier de Valois, in short, the whole aristocracy and
the Church opened their arms to this royalist diplomat and drew him
into their circle. Their protection was encouraged by the desire of his
creditors for the payment of his debts. For three years this man, who
was a villain at heart, a pendant to the late Baron de la Chanterie,
contrived to restrain his vices and assume the appearance of morality
and religion.
“During the first months of his marriage he exerted a sort of spell over
his wife; he tried to corrupt her mind by his doctrines (if it can be
said that atheism is a doctrine) and by the jesting tone in which he
spoke of sacred principles. From the time of his return to the provinces
this political manoeuvrer had an intimacy with a young man, overwhelmed
with debt like himself, but whose natural character was as frank and
courageous as the baron’s was hypocritical and base. This frequent
guest, whose accomplishments, strong character, and adventurous life
were calculated to influence a young girl’s mind, was an instrument in
the hands of the husband to bring the wife to adopt his theories. Never
did she let her mother know the abyss into which her fate had cast her.
“We may well distrust all human prudence when we think of the infinite
precautions taken by Madame de la Chanterie in marrying her only
daughter. The blow, when it came to a life so devoted, so pure, so truly
religious as that of a woman already tested by many trials, gave Madame
de la Chanterie a distrust of herself which served to isolate her from
her daughter; and all the more because her daughter, in compensation
for her misfortunes, exacted complete liberty, ruled her mother, and was
even, at times, unkind to her.
“Wounded thus in all her affections, mistaken in her devotion and
love for her husband, to whom she had sacrificed without a word
her happiness, her fortune, and her life; mistaken in the education
exclusively religious which she had given to her daughter; mistaken in
the confidence she had placed in others in the affair of her daughter’s
marriage; and obtaining no justice from the heart in which she had sown
none but noble sentiments, she united herself still more closely to God
as the hand of trouble lay heavy upon her. She was indeed almost a nun;
going daily to church, performing cloistral penances, and practising
economy that she might have means to help the poor.
“Could there be, up to this point, a saintlier life or one more tried
than that of this noble woman, so gentle under misfortune, so brave
in danger, and always Christian?” said Monsieur Alain, appealing to
Godefroid. “You know Madame now,--you know if she is wanting in sense,
judgment, reflection; in fact, she has those qualities to the highest
degree. Well! the misfortunes I have now told you, which might be said
to make her life surpass all others in adversity, are as nothing to
those that were still in store for this poor woman. But now let us
concern ourselves exclusively with Madame de la Chanterie’s daughter,”
said the old man, resuming his narrative.
“At eighteen years of age, the period of her marriage, Mademoiselle de
la Chanterie was a young girl of delicate complexion, brown in tone with
a brilliant color, graceful in shape, and very pretty. Above a forehead
of great beauty was a mass of dark hair which harmonized with the brown
eyes and the general gaiety of her expression. A certain daintiness of
feature was misleading as to her true character and her almost virile
decision. She had small hands and small feet; in fact, there was
something fragile about her whole person which excluded the idea of
vigor and determination. Having always lived beside her mother, she had
a most perfect innocence of thought and behavior and a really remarkable
piety. This young girl, like her mother, was fanatically attached to
the Bourbons; she was therefore a bitter enemy to the Revolution, and
regarded the dominion of Napoleon as a curse inflicted by Providence
upon France in punishment of the crimes of 1793.
“The conformity of opinion on this subject between Madame de la
Chanterie and her daughter, and the daughter’s suitor, was one of the
determining reasons of the marriage.
“The friend of the husband had commanded a body of Chouans at the time
that hostilities were renewed in 1799; and it seems that the baron’s
object (Madame de la Chanterie’s son-in-law was a baron) in fostering
the intimacy between his wife and his friend was to obtain, through her
influence, certain succor from that friend.
“This requires a few words of explanation,” said Monsieur Alain,
interrupting his narrative, “about an association which in those days
made a great deal of noise. I mean the ‘Chauffeurs.’[*] Every province
in the west of France was at that time more or less overrun with these
‘brigands,’ whose object was far less pillage than a resurrection of the
royalist warfare. They profited, so it was said, by the great number of
‘refractories,’--the name applied to those who evaded the conscription,
which was at that time, as you probably know, enforced to actual abuse.
[*] _Chauffeurs_. This name applies to royalists who robbed
the mail-coaches conveying government funds, and levied
tribute on those who bought the confiscated property of
_emigres_ at the West. When the Thermidorian reaction began,
after the fall of Robespierre, other companies of royalists,
chiefly young nobles who had not emigrated, were formed at
the South and East under various names, such as “The
Avengers,” and “The Company of Jehu,” who stopped the
diligences containing government money, which they
transmitted to Brittany and La Vendee for the support of the
royalist troops. They regarded this as legitimate warfare,
and were scrupulous not to touch private property. When
captured, however, they were tried and executed as
highwaymen.--TR.
“Between Mortagne and Rennes, and even beyond, as far as the banks
of the Loire, nocturnal expeditions were organized, which attacked,
especially in Normandy, the holders of property bought from the National
domain.[*] These armed bands sent terror throughout those regions. I am
not misleading you when I ask you to observe that in certain departments
the action of the laws was for a long time paralyzed.
[*] The National domain was the name given to the
confiscated property of the _emigres_, which was sold from
time to time at auction to the highest bidder.--TR.
“These last echoes of the civil war made much less noise than you would
imagine, accustomed as we are now to the frightful publicity given by
the press to every trial, even the least important, whether political
or individual. The system of the Imperial government was that of all
absolute governments. The censor allowed nothing to be published in the
matter of politics except accomplished facts, and those were travestied.
If you will take the trouble to look through files of the ‘Moniteur’ and
the other newspapers of that time, even those of the West, you will not
find a word about the four or five criminal trials which cost the lives
of sixty or eighty ‘brigands.’ The term _brigands_, applied during the
revolutionary period to the Vendeans, Chouans, and all those who took up
arms for the house of Bourbon, was afterwards continued judicially under
the Empire against all royalists accused of plots. To some ardent and
loyal natures the emperor and his government were the enemy; any form of
warfare against them was legitimate. I am only explaining to you these
opinions, not justifying them.
“Now,” he said, after one of those pauses which are necessary in such
long narratives, “if you realize how these royalists, ruined by the
civil war of 1793, were dominated by violent passions, and how some
exceptional natures (like that of Madame de la Chanterie’s son-in-law
and his friend) were eaten up with desires of all kinds, you may be
able to understand how it was that the acts of brigandage which their
political views justified when employed against the government in the
service of the good cause, might in some cases be committed for personal
ends.
“The younger of the two men had been for some time employed in
collecting the scattered fragments of Chouannerie, and was holding them
ready to act at an opportune moment. There came a terrible crisis in the
Emperor’s career when, shut up in the island of Lobau, he seemed about
to give way under the combined and simultaneous attack of England and
Austria. This was the moment for the Chouan uprising; but just as it was
about to take place, the victory of Wagram rendered the conspiracy in
the provinces powerless.
“This expectation of exciting civil war in Brittany, La Vendee, and
part of Normandy, coincided in time with the final wreck of the baron’s
fortune; and this wreck, coming at this time, led him to undertake an
expedition to capture funds of the government which he might apply to
the liquidation of the claims upon his property. But his wife and friend
refused to take part in applying to private interests the money taken
by armed force from the Receiver’s offices and the couriers and
post-carriages of the government,--money taken, as they thought,
justifiably by the rules of war to pay the regiments of ‘refractories’
and Chouans, and purchase the arms and ammunition with which to equip
them. At last, after an angry discussion in which the young leader,
supported by the wife, positively refused to hand over to the husband a
portion of the large sum of money which the young leader had seized for
the benefit of the royal armies from the treasury of the West, the baron
suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, to avoid arrest for debt, having
no means left by which to ward it off. Poor Madame de la Chanterie was
wholly ignorant of these facts; but even they are nothing to the plot
still hidden behind these preliminary facts.
“It is too late to-night,” said Monsieur Alain, looking at his little
clock, “to go on with my narrative, which would take me, in any case,
a long time to finish in my own words. Old Bordin, my friend, whose
management of the famous Simeuse case had won him much credit in the
royalist party, and who pleaded in the well-known criminal affair called
that of the Chauffeurs de Mortagne, gave me, after I was installed in
this house, two legal papers relating to the terrible history of Madame
de la Chanterie and her daughter. I kept them because Bordin died soon
after, before I had a chance to return them. You shall read them. You
will find the facts much more succinctly stated than I could state
them. Those facts are so numerous that I should only lose myself in the
details and confuse them, whereas in those papers you have them in a
legal summary. To-morrow, if you come to me, I will finish telling you
all that relates to Madame de la Chanterie; for you will then know the
general facts so thoroughly that I can end the whole story in a few
words.”