a fac-simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I had carefully
prepared at my lodgings--imitating the D-- cipher, very readily, by
means of a seal formed of bread.

"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of women
and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the
fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When
he had gone, D-- came from the window, whither I had followed him
immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade him
farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."

"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a
fac-simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have
seized it openly, and departed?"

"D--," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. His
hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had
I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the
Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard
of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations. You
know my political prepossessions. In this matter, I act as a partisan of
the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had her in his
power. She has now him in hers--since, being unaware that the letter is
not in his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it
was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political
destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than
awkward. It is all very well to talk about the facilis descensus Averni;
but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far
more easy to get up than to come down. In the present instance I have
no sympathy--at least no pity--for him who descends. He is that monstrum
horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, that I
should like very well to know the precise character of his thoughts,
when, being defied by her whom the Prefect terms 'a certain personage'
he is reduced to opening the letter which I left for him in the
card-rack."

"How? did you put any thing particular in it?"

"Why--it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank--that
would have been insulting. D--, at Vienna once, did me an evil turn,
which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember. So, as
I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to