; and it was
the dearest spot on earth to him.

He always hastened to this retreat when his work allowed him a few days
of rest.

But this time he had not come to Escorval of his own free will.

He had been compelled to leave Paris by the proscribed list of the 24th
of July--that fatal list which summoned the enthusiastic Labedoyere and
the honest and virtuous Drouot before a court-martial.

And even in this solitude, M. d'Escorval's situation was not without
danger.

He was one of those who, some days before the disaster of Waterloo, had
strongly urged the Emperor to order the execution of Fouche, the former
minister of police.

Now, Fouche knew this counsel; and he was powerful.

"Take care!" M. d'Escorval's friends wrote him from Paris.

But he put his trust in Providence, and faced the future, threatening
though it was, with the unalterable serenity of a pure conscience.

The baron was still young; he was not yet fifty, but anxiety, work, and
long nights passed in struggling with the most arduous difficulties of
the imperial policy, had made him old before his time.

He was tall, slightly inclined to _embonpoint_, and stooped a little.

His calm eyes, his serious mouth, his broad, furrowed forehead, and his
austere manners inspired respect.

"He must be stern and inflexible," said those who saw him for the first
time.

But they were mistaken.

If, in the exercise of his official duties, this truly great man had the
strength to resist all temptations to swerve from the path of right; if,
when duty was at stake, he was as rigid as iron, in private life he
was as unassuming as a child, and kind and gentle even to the verge of
weakness.

To this nobility of character he owed his domestic happiness, that rare
and precious happiness which fills one's existence with a celestial
perfume.

During the bloodiest epoch of the Reign of Terror, M. d'Escorval had
wrested from the guillotine a young girl named Victoire-Laure d'Alleu, a
distant cousin of the Rhetaus of Commarin, as beautiful as an angel, and
only three years younger than himself.

He loved her--and though she was an orphan, destitute of fortune, he
married her, considering the treasure of her virgin heart of far greater
value than the most magnificent dowry.

She was an honest woman, as her husband was an honest man, in the most
strict and vigorous sense of the word.

She was seldom seen at the Tuileries, where M. d'Escorval's worth made
hi