e "Leave this house!" of Mademoiselle de
Cinq-Cygne. Therefore, when it was a question of selling the estates of
the Comte de Cinq-Cygne, Laurence's brother, as national property, the
sale was rigorously made. The agents left nothing for Laurence but the
chateau, the park and gardens, and one farm called that of Cinq-Cygne.
Malin instructed the appraisers that Laurence had no rights beyond her
legal share,--the nation taking possession of all that belonged to her
brother, who had emigrated and, above all, had borne arms against the
Republic.

The evening after this terrible tumult, Laurence so entreated her
cousins to leave the country, fearing treachery on the part of Malin,
or some trap into which they might fall, that they took horse that night
and gained the Prussian outposts. They had scarcely reached the forest
of Gondreville before the hotel Cinq-Cygne was surrounded; Malin came
himself to arrest the heirs of the house of Simeuse. He dared not lay
hands on the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne, who was in bed with a nervous
fever, nor on Laurence, a child of twelve. The servants, fearing the
severity of the Republic, had disappeared. The next day the news of the
resistance of the brothers and their flight to Prussia was known to the
neighborhood. A crowd of three thousand persons assembled before the
hotel de Cinq-Cygne, which was demolished with incredible rapidity.
Madame de Cinq-Cygne, carried to the hotel Simeuse, died there from the
effects of the fever aggravated by terror.

Michu did not appear in the political arena until after these events,
for the marquis and his wife remained in prison over five months. During
this time Malin was away on a mission. But when Monsieur Marion sold
Gondreville to the Councillor of State, Michu understood the latter's
game,--or rather, he thought he did; for Malin was, like Fouche, one of
those personages who are of such depth in all their different aspects
that they are impenetrable when they play a part, and are never
understood until long after their drama is ended.

In all the chief circumstances of Malin's life he had never failed to
consult his faithful friend Grevin, the notary of Arcis, whose judgment
on men and things was, at a distance, clear-cut and precise. This
faculty is the wisdom and makes the strength of second-rate men. Now, in
November, 1803, a combination of events (already related in the "Depute
d'Arcis") made matters so serious for the Councillor of State that