to prove a very
good husband.

The young duchess was contemplating a separation when she died,
in giving birth to a boy, who was baptized under the names of
Anne-Marie-Martial.

The loss of his wife did not render the Duc de Sairmeuse inconsolable.

He was free and richer than he had ever been.

As soon as _les convenances_ permitted, he confided his son to the care
of a relative of his wife, and began his roving life again.

Rumor had told the truth. He had fought, and that furiously, against
France in the Austrian, and then in the Russian ranks.

And he took no pains to conceal the fact; convinced that he had only
performed his duty. He considered that he had honestly and loyally
gained the rank of general which the Emperor of all the Russias had
bestowed upon him.

He had not returned to France during the first Restoration; but his
absence had been involuntary. His father-in-law, Lord Holland, had just
died, and the duke was detained in London by business connected with his
son's immense inheritance.

Then followed the "Hundred Days." They exasperated him.

But "the good cause," as he styled it, having triumphed anew, he
hastened to France.

Alas! Lacheneur judged the character of his former master correctly,
when he resisted the entreaties of his daughter.

This man, who had been compelled to conceal himself during the first
Restoration, knew only too well, that the returned _emigres_ had learned
nothing and forgotten nothing.

The Duc de Sairmeuse was no exception to the rule.

He thought, and nothing could be more sadly absurd, that a mere act
of authority would suffice to suppress forever all the events of the
Revolution and of the empire.

When he said: "I do not admit that!" he firmly believed that there was
nothing more to be said; that controversy was ended; and that what _had_
been was as if it had never been.

If some, who had seen Louis XVII. at the helm in 1814, assured the duke
that France had changed in many respects since 1789, he responded with a
shrug of the shoulders:

"Nonsense! As soon as we assert ourselves, all these rascals, whose
rebellion alarms you, will quietly sink out of sight."

Such was really his opinion.

On the way from Montaignac to Sairmeuse, the duke, comfortably ensconced
in his berlin, unfolded his theories for the benefit of his son.

"The King has been poorly advised," he said, in conclusion. "Besides,
I am disposed to believe that he inclines too much