introduced himself into the house on that pretence,
attempted the robbery of the most valuable articles therein,--which,
indeed, he had succeeded in abstracting, and who, on my awaking and
contesting with him and his accomplice, had, in self-defence, inflicted
the wounds which had ended in my delirium and Isora's death. This part
of my tale Montreuil never contradicted, and Gerald believed it to
the present day. The affair of 1715 occurred; the government, aware of
Gerald's practices, had anticipated his design of joining the rebels;
he was imprisoned; no act of overt guilt on his part was proved, or at
least brought forward; and the government not being willing, perhaps, to
proceed to violent measures against a very young man, and the head of
a very powerful house, connected with more than thirty branches of the
English hereditary nobility, he received his acquittal just before Sir
William Wyndham and some other suspected Tories received their own.

Prior to the breaking out of that rebellion, and on the eve of
Montreuil's departure for Scotland, the priest summoned Desmarais, whom,
it will be remembered, I had previously dismissed, and whom Montreuil
had since employed in various errands, and informed him that he had
obtained for his services the same post under Gerald which the Fatalist
had filled under me. Soon after the failure of the rebellion, Devereux
Court was destroyed by accidental fire; and Montreuil, who had come
over in disguise, in order to renew his attacks on my brother's coffers
(attacks to which Gerald yielded very sullenly, and with many assurances
that he would no more incur the danger of political and seditious
projects), now advised Gerald to go up to London, and, in order to avoid
the suspicion of the government, to mix freely in the gayeties of the
court. Gerald readily consented; for, though internally convinced that
the charms of the metropolis were not equal to those of the country,
yet he liked change, and Devereux Court being destroyed, he shuddered a
little at the idea of rebuilding so enormous a pile. Before Gerald left
the old tower (_my tower_) which was alone spared by the flames, and at
which he had resided, though without his household, rather than quit
a place where there was such "excellent shooting," Montreuil said to
Desmarais, "This ungrateful _seigneur de village_ already shows himself
the niggard; he must know what _we_ know,--that is our only sure hold of
him,--but he must no