l-des-Preux, standing about a mile from the chateau, he had turned
into a dwelling that was almost as splendid as Gondreville; in it his
wife and he were now living like rats in a cathedral. "Ah! Goulard, you
have been greedy," Mademoiselle had said to him with a laugh the first
time she received him at Cinq-Cygne. Though greatly attached to the
Revolution and coldly received by the countess, the mayor always felt
himself bound by ties of respect to the Cinq-Cygne and Simeuse families.
He therefore shut his eyes to what went on at the chateau. He called
shutting his eyes not seeing the portraits of Louis XVI., Marie
Antoinette, and the royal children, and those of Monsieur, the Comte
d'Artois, Cazales and Charlotte Corday, which filled the various panels
of the salon; not resenting either the wishes freely expressed in his
presence for the ruin of the Republic, or the ridicule flung at the five
directors and all the other governmental combinations of that time.
The position of this man, who, like many parvenus, having once made his
fortune, reverted to his early faith in the old families, and sought to
attach himself to them, was now being made use of by the two members of
the Paris police whose profession had been so quickly guessed by Michu,
and who, before going to Gondreville had reconnoitred the neighborhood.

The worthy described as the depositary of the best traditions of the old
police, and Corentin phoenix of spies, were in fact employed on a secret
mission. Malin was not mistaken in attributing a double purpose to those
stars of tragic farces. But, before seeing them at work, it is advisable
to show the head of which they were the arms. When Bonaparte became
First Consul he found Fouche at the head of the police. The Revolution
had frankly and with good reason made the management of the police into
a special ministry. But after his return from Marengo, Bonaparte created
the prefecture of police, placed Dubois in charge of it, and called
Fouche to the Council of State, naming as his successor in the ministry
a conventional named Cochon, since known as Comte de Lapparent. Fouche,
who considered the ministry of police as by far the most important in a
government of broad ideas and fixed policy, saw disgrace or at any
rate distrust in the change. After Napoleon became aware of the immense
superiority of this great statesman, as evidenced in the affair of the
infernal machine and in the conspiracy with which we are n