rescue Victurnien from his wretched position. It was impossible that he
should marry a bourgeoise heiress in his father's lifetime, so he was
bound to live on shabbily under the paternal roof with memories of his
two years of splendor in Paris, and the lost love of a great lady to
bear him company. He grew moody and depressed, vegetating at home with
a careworn aunt and a half heart-broken father, who attributed his son's
condition to a wasting malady. Chesnel was no longer there.

The Marquis died in 1830. The great d'Esgrignon, with a following of
all the less infirm noblesse from the Collection of Antiquities, went
to wait upon Charles X. at Nonancourt; he paid his respects to his
sovereign, and swelled the meagre train of the fallen king. It was an
act of courage which seems simple enough to-day, but, in that time of
enthusiastic revolt, it was heroism.

"The Gaul has conquered!" These were the Marquis' last words.

By that time du Croisier's victory was complete. The new Marquis
d'Esgrignon accepted Mlle. Duval as his wife a week after his old
father's death. His bride brought him three millions of francs for du
Croisier and his wife settled the reversion of their fortunes upon her
in the marriage-contract. Du Croisier took occasion to say during the
ceremony that the d'Esgrignon family was the most honorable of all the
ancient houses in France.

Some day the present Marquis d'Esgrignon will have an income of more
than a hundred thousand crowns. You may see him in Paris, for he comes
to town every winter and leads a jolly bachelor life, while he treats
his wife with something more than the indifference of the grand seigneur
of olden times; he takes no thought whatever for her.

"As for Mlle. d'Esgrignon," said Emile Blondet, to whom all the detail
of the story is due, "if she is no longer like the divinely fair woman
whom I saw by glimpses in my childhood, she is decidedly, at the age of
sixty-seven, the most pathetic and interesting figure in the Collection
of Antiquities. She queens it among them still. I saw her when I made my
last journey to my native place in search of the necessary papers for
my marriage. When my father knew who it was that I had married, he was
struck dumb with amazement; he had not a word to say until I told him
that I was a prefect.

"'You were born to it,' he said, with a smile.

"As I took a walk around the town, I met Mlle. Armande. She looked
taller than ever. I looked at her, a