cted from the gaze of the curious by high walls that surrounded it
on every side. Served by an old woman whom he had brought from Arras, he
apparently lived the life of a recluse who desires to remain a stranger
to the changes and emotions of the moment, and to end his days in peace
and quietness. He received no visitors; and the people in the
neighborhood thought him a poor man who had lost his family and
squandered his money in unfortunate speculations. He never left the
house until evening and always returned very late at night. A
sans-culotte, who lived near by and whose suspicions had been aroused,
followed him one evening. He fancied him a conspirator, he saw him enter
the Palais Egalite, speak to several persons who seemed to listen to him
with extreme deference, and afterwards repair to the house of one of the
most influential members of the Committee of Public Safety, where he
remained until two o'clock in the morning, and then returned home. The
self-constituted spy concluded that he had to deal with one of the
Committee's secret agents; and he was inspired with such wholesome awe
that he decided to push his investigations no further.

In reality, Vauquelas was nothing more nor less than a man tormented by
an unappeasable thirst for wealth. He had only one passion: a passion
for gold. It was this that urged him--in spite of a fortune that would
have satisfied his modest wants ten times over--into all kinds of
financial ventures. It was this that had suggested to him the idea of
ingratiating himself with the men who were in power, and thus gain their
friendship, their influences and protection. In all the acts of the
government, in the great events that succeeded one another day after
day, he saw only an opportunity for speculation. Whether peace or war
prevailed; whether the people obeyed the Commune or Convention; whether
they worshipped the Supreme Being or the Goddess of Reason; whether the
men condemned to death were innocent or guilty mattered little to him.
These things interested him only by the effect they might produce on the
money-market. So he had allied himself in turn with the Girondists and
with the Jacobins. He had loaned money to Mirabeau; he had speculated
with Barras and with Tallien, always placing himself at the service of
those who held the power or seemed likely to hold it in the future.

Such was the man whose confidence Coursegol had won by his honesty and
sagacity. He appeared in the p