to England, returned to their own country. When war was
declared, some of them were actually sent back under the provisions of
the Aliens Bill.

But Desiree had stayed on.

Her old friends in Paris had managed to advise her that she would not
be very welcome there just now. The sans-culotte journalists of England,
the agents and spies of the Revolutionary Government, had taken their
revenge of the frequent snubs inflicted upon them by the young actress,
and in those days the fact of being unwelcome in France was apt to have
a more lurid and more dangerous significant.

Candeille did not dare return: at any rate not for the present.

She trusted to her own powers of intrigue, and her well-known
fascinations, to re-conquer the friendship of the Jacobin clique, and
she once more turned her attention to the affiliated Socialistic clubs
of England. But between the proverbial two stools, Demoiselle Candeille
soon came to the ground. Her machinations became known in official
quarters, her connection with all the seditious clubs of London was soon
bruited abroad, and one evening Desiree found herself confronted with
a document addressed to her: "From the Office of His Majesty's Privy
Seal," wherein it was set forth that, pursuant to the statute 33 George
III. cap. 5, she, Desiree Candeille, a French subject now resident in
England, was required to leave this kingdom by order of His Majesty
within seven days, and that in the event of the said Desiree Candeille
refusing to comply with this order, she would be liable to commitment,
brought to trial and sentenced to imprisonment for a month, and
afterwards to removal within a limited time under pain of transportation
for life.

This meant that Demoiselle Candeille had exactly seven days in which to
make complete her reconciliation with her former friends who now ruled
Paris and France with a relentless and perpetually bloodstained hand.
No wonder that during the night which followed the receipt of this
momentous document, Demoiselle Candeille suffered gravely from insomnia.

She dared not go back to France, she was ordered out of England! What
was to become of her?

This was just three days before the eventful afternoon of the Richmond
Gala, and twenty-four hours after ex-Ambassador Chauvelin had landed in
England. Candeille and Chauvelin had since then met at the "Cercle des
Jacobins Francais" in Soho Street, and now fair Desiree found herself in
lodgings in Richmond, the