ragments of which still remain to attest its former greatness,
there may still be traced the outline of the room where Bigot walked
restlessly up and down the morning after the Council of War. The
disturbing letters he had received from France on both public and
private affairs irritated him, while it set his fertile brain at work
to devise means at once to satisfy the Marquise de Pompadour and to have
his own way still.

The walls of his cabinet--now bare, shattered, and roofless with the
blasts of six score winters--were hung with portraits of ladies and
statesmen of the day; conspicuous among which was a fine picture from
the pencil of Vanloo of the handsome, voluptuous Marquise de Pompadour.

With a world of faults, that celebrated dame, who ruled France in the
name of Louis XV., made some amends by her persistent good nature and
her love for art. The painter, the architect, the sculptor, and above
all, the men of literature in France, were objects of her sincere
admiration, and her patronage of them was generous to profusion. The
picture of her in the cabinet of the Intendant had been a work of
gratitude by the great artist who painted it, and was presented by her
to Bigot as a mark of her friendship and demi-royal favor. The cabinet
itself was furnished in a style of regal magnificence, which the
Intendant carried into all details of his living.

The Chevalier de Pean, the Secretary and confidential friend of the
Intendant, was writing at a table. He looked up now and then with a
curious glance as the figure of his chief moved to and fro with quick
turns across the room. But neither of them spoke.

Bigot would have been quite content with enriching himself and his
friends, and turning out of doors the crowd of courtly sycophants who
clamored for the plunder of the Colony. He had sense to see that the
course of policy in which he was embarked might eventually ruin New
France,--nay, having its origin in the Court, might undermine the
whole fabric of the monarchy. He consoled himself, however, with the
reflection that it could not be helped. He formed but one link in the
great chain of corruption, and one link could not stand alone: it could
only move by following those which went before and dragging after it
those that came behind. Without debating a useless point of morals,
Bigot quietly resigned himself to the service of his masters, or rather
mistresses, after he had first served himself.

If the enormous pl