ppy, like other men.
We are to be found in drawing-rooms and at home, as ordinary citizens,
moved by our passions; and we seem, perhaps, more grotesque than
terrible."

This bitter cry, broken by pauses and interjections, and emphasized by
gestures which gave it an eloquence impossible to reduce to writing,
made Camusot's blood run chill.

"And I, monsieur," said he, "began yesterday my apprenticeship to the
sufferings of our calling.--I could have died of that young fellow's
death. He misunderstood my wish to be lenient, and the poor wretch
committed himself."

"Ah, you ought never to have examined him!" cried Monsieur de Granville;
"it is so easy to oblige by doing nothing."

"And the law, monsieur?" replied Camusot. "He had been in custody two
days."

"The mischief is done," said the public prosecutor. "I have done my
best to remedy what is indeed irremediable. My carriage and servants are
following the poor weak poet to the grave. Serizy has sent his too; nay,
more, he accepts the duty imposed on him by the unfortunate boy, and
will act as his executor. By promising this to his wife he won from her
a gleam of returning sanity. And Count Octave is attending the funeral
in person."

"Well, then, Monsieur le Comte," said Camusot, "let us complete
our work. We have a very dangerous man on our hands. He is Jacques
Collin--and you know it as well as I do. The ruffian will be
recognized----"

"Then we are lost!" cried Monsieur de Granville.

"He is at this moment shut up with your condemned murderer, who, on the
hulks, was to him what Lucien has been in Paris--a favorite protege.
Bibi-Lupin, disguised as a gendarme, is watching the interview."

"What business has the superior police to interfere?" said the public
prosecutor. "He has no business to act without my orders!"

"All the Conciergerie must know that we have caught Jacques
Collin.--Well, I have come on purpose to tell you that this daring
felon has in his possession the most compromising letters of Lucien's
correspondence with Madame de Serizy, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and
Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu."

"Are you sure of that?" asked Monsieur de Granville, his face full of
pained surprise.

"You shall hear, Monsieur le Comte, what reason I have to fear such a
misfortune. When I untied the papers found in the young man's rooms,
Jacques Collin gave a keen look at the parcel, and smiled with
satisfaction in a way that no examining judge cou