s, and might change once more, to the ruin of Bigot and all the
dependents of La Pompadour.

Bigot's letters by the Fleur-de-Lis were calculated to alarm him. A
rival was springing up at Court to challenge La Pompadour's supremacy:
the fair and fragile Lange Vaubernier had already attracted the King's
eye, and the courtiers versed in his ways read the incipient signs of a
future favorite.

Little did the laughing Vaubernier forsee the day when, as Madame
du Barry, she would reign as Dame du Palais, after the death of La
Pompadour. Still less could she imagine that in her old age, in the next
reign, she would be dragged to the guillotine, filling the streets
of Paris with her shrieks, heard above the howlings of the mob of the
Revolution: "Give me life! life! for my repentance! Life! to devote
it to the Republic! Life! for the surrender of all my wealth to the
nation!" And death, not life, was given in answer to her passionate
pleadings.

These dark days were yet in the womb of the future, however. The giddy
Vaubernier was at this time gaily catching at the heart of the King,
but her procedure filled the mind of Bigot with anxiety: the fall of La
Pompadour would entail swift ruin upon himself and associates. He knew
it was the intrigues of this girl which had caused La Pompadour suddenly
to declare for peace in order to watch the King more surely in his
palace. Therefore the word peace and the name of Vaubernier were equally
odious to Bigot, and he was perplexed in no small degree how to act.

Moreover, be it confessed that, although a bad man and a corrupt
statesman, Bigot was a Frenchman, proud of the national success and
glory. While robbing her treasures with one hand, he was ready with
his sword in the other to risk life and all in her defence. Bigot was
bitterly opposed to English supremacy in North America. The loss of
Louisbourg, though much his fault, stung him to the quick, as a triumph
of the national enemy; and in those final days of New France, after the
fall of Montcalm, Bigot was the last man to yield, and when all others
counselled retreat, he would not consent to the surrender of Quebec to
the English.

To-day, in the Council of War, Bigot stood up to respond to the appeal
of the Governor. He glanced his eye coolly, yet respectfully, over the
Council. His raised hand sparkled with gems, the gifts of courtiers and
favorites of the King. "Gentlemen of the Council of War!," said he, "I
approve with al