a fellow covered with crimes, and
pronounced dead to all civil rights. Amid execrations and insults, with
threats of even worse, Baldassare stood on a chair in the street, in the
act of addressing the multitude, as Cutbill drew nigh. The imperturbable
self-possession, the cool courage of the man--who dared to brave public
opinion in this fashion, and demand a hearing for what in reality was
nothing but a deliberate insult to the people around him whose lives
he knew, and whose various social derelictions he was all familiar
with--was positively astounding. "I have often thought of you, good
people," said he, "while at the galleys; and I made a vow to myself that
the first act of my escape, if ever I should escape, should be to visit
this place and thank you for every great lesson I have learned in life.
It was here, in this place, I committed my first theft. It was yonder
in that church I first essayed sacrilege. It was you, amiable and gentle
people, who gave me four associates who betrayed each other, and who
died on the drop or by the guillotine, with the courage worthy of Aix;
and it was from you I received that pearl of wives who is now married
to a third husband, and denies the decent rights of hospitality to her
first."

This outrage was now unbearable; a rush was made at him, and he
fell amongst the crowd, who had torn him limb from limb but for the
intervention of the police, who were driven to defend him with fixed
bayonets.' "A warm reception, I must say," cried the fellow, as they led
him away, bleeding and bruised, to the jail.

It was not a difficult task for Cutbill to obtain from Marie Pracontal
the details he sought for. Smarting under the insults and scandal she
had been exposed to on the day before, she revealed everything, and
signed in due form a _proces verbal_ drawn up by a notary of the place,
of her marriage with Baldassare, the birth of her son Anatole with the
dates of his birth and baptism, and gave up, besides, some letters which
he had written while at the naval school of Genoa. What became of him
afterwards she knew not, nor, indeed, seemed to care. The cruelties
of the father had poisoned her mind against the son, and she showed no
interest in his fate, and wished not to hear of him.

Cutbill left Aix on the third day, and was slowly strolling up the
Mont Cenis pass in front of his horses, when he overtook the very
galley-slave he had seen addressing the crowd at Aix. "I thought they