id Corentin.

"The gendarmes--took it--away from me," said Gothard.

"Where were you going?" said one of them.

"I was--following--my mistress to the farm," sobbed the boy.

The gendarme looked towards Corentin as if expecting an order. But
Gothard's speech was evidently so true and yet so false, so perfectly
innocent and so artful that the two Parisians again looked at each other
as if to echo Peyrade's former words: "They are not ninnies."

Monsieur d'Hauteserre seemed incapable of a word; the mayor was
bewildered; the mother, imbecile from maternal fears, was putting
questions to the police agents that were idiotically innocent; the
servants had been roused from their sleep. Judging by these trifling
signs, and these diverse characters, Corentin came to the conclusion
that his only real adversary was Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne. Shrewd
and dexterous as the police may be, they are always under certain
disadvantages. Not only are they forced to discover all that is known
to a conspirator, but they must also suppose and test a great number
of things before they hit upon the right one. The conspirator is always
thinking of his own safety, whereas the police is only on duty at
certain hours. Were it not for treachery and betrayals, nothing would
be easier than to conspire successfully. The conspirator has more mind
concentrated upon himself than the police can bring to bear with all its
vast facilities of action. Finding themselves stopped short morally,
as they might be physically by a door which they expected to find open
being shut in their faces, Corentin and Peyrade saw they were tricked
and misled, without knowing by whom.

"I assert," said the corporal of Arcis, in their ear, "that if the four
young men slept here last night it must have been in the beds of their
father and mother, and Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, or those of the
servants; or they must have spent the night in the park. There is not a
trace of their presence."

"Who could have warned them?" said Corentin, to Peyrade. "No one but the
First Consul, Fouche, the ministers, the prefect of police, and Malin
knew anything about it."

"We must set spies in the neighborhood," whispered Peyrade.

"And watch the spies," said the abbe, who smiled as he overheard the
word and guessed all.

"Good God!" thought Corentin, replying to the abbe's smile with one of
his own; "there is but one intelligent being here,--he's the one to come
to an understanding w