ment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte
Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le
Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill
his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon
becomes Master of Appeals."

Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition
newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists
may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the
cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like
Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only
be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a
line by Voltaire:

"The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe."

Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat,
respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his
senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal
was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength,
and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own
house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he
beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the
Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles
factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor
Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the
top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy."

Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the
carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to
the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back
Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother.

The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his
factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years.

"Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my
niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now
half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs
--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which
in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that
had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom
on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.)

"You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military
salute.

Still payin