m eagerly welcomed. The splendors of the Imperial Court, which at
that time surpassed all the pomp of the time of Louis XIV., had no
attractions for her.

Grace, beauty, youth and accomplishments--she reserved them all for the
adornment of her home.

Her husband was her God. She lived in him and through him. She had not a
thought which did not belong to him.

The short time that he could spare from his arduous labors to devote to
her were her happiest hours.

And when, in the evening, they sat beside the fire in their modest
drawing-room, with their son Maurice playing on the rug at their feet,
it seemed to them that they had nothing to wish for here below.

The overthrow of the empire surprised them in the heydey of their
happiness.

Surprised them? No. For a long time M. d'Escorval had seen the
prodigious edifice erected by the genius whom he had made his idol
totter as if about to fall.

Certainly, he felt intense chagrin at this fall, but he was heart-broken
at the sight of all the treason and cowardice which followed it. He was
indignant and horrified at the rising _en masse_ of the avaricious, who
hastened to gorge themselves with the spoil.

Under these circumstances, exile from Paris seemed an actual blessing.

"Besides," as he remarked to the baroness, "we shall soon be forgotten
here."

But even while he said this he felt many misgivings. Still, by his side,
his noble wife presented a tranquil face, even while she trembled for
the safety of her adored husband.

On this first Sunday in August, M. d'Escorval and his wife had been
unusually sad. A vague presentiment of approaching misfortune weighed
heavily upon their hearts.

At the same hour that Lacheneur presented himself at the house of the
Abbe Midon, they were seated upon the terrace in front of the house,
gazing anxiously at the two roads leading from Escorval to the chateau,
and to the village of Sairmeuse.

Warned, that same morning, by his friends in Montaignac of the arrival
of the duke, the baron had sent his son to inform M. Lacheneur.

He had requested him to be absent as short a time as possible; but
in spite of this fact, the hours were rolling by, and Maurice had not
returned.

"What if something has happened to him!" both father and mother were
thinking.

No; nothing had happened to him. Only a word from Mlle. Lacheneur had
sufficed to make him forget his usual deference to his father's wishes.

"This evening," she had sa