mplored her parents to institute inquiries, and General Montauban was
communicated with to that effect. He did all he could; the country was
at peace, and, after a few months, tidings came that there was a
Frenchman held prisoner in one of the villages on the Morocco frontier,
who for the last two or three years had entirely lost his reason, but
that, previous to that calamity, he had been converted to Islamism. His
mental derangement being altogether harmless, he was an attendant at the
Mosque. As a matter of course, the information had been greatly
embellished in having passed through so many channels, nor was it of so
definite a character as I have noted it down, but that was the gist of
it.

Meanwhile, Montauban had been transferred to another command, and for a
twelvemonth after his successor's arrival the inquiry was allowed to
fall in abeyance. When it was finally resumed, the French prisoner had
died, but, from a document written in his native language found upon him
and brought to Oran, there remained little doubt that he was Captain de
Gereaux.

To return for a moment to the Duc d'Aumale, who, curiously enough,
exercised a greater influence on the outside world in general than any
of his other brethren--an influence due probably to his enormous wealth
rather than to his personal qualities, though the latter may, to some
people, have seemed remarkable. I met him but seldom during his father's
lifetime. He was the beau-ideal of the preux chevalier, according to the
French notion of the modern Bayard--that is, handsome, brave to a
fault, irresistibly fascinating with women, good-natured in his way,
and, above all, very witty. It was he who, after the confiscation of the
d'Orleans' property by Napoleon III., replied to the French Ambassador
at Turin, who inquired after his health, "I am all right; health is one
of the things that cannot be confiscated." Nevertheless, upon closer
acquaintance, I failed to see the justifying cause for the preference
manifested by public opinion, and, upon more minute inquiry, I found
that a great many people shared my views. I am at this moment convinced
that, but for his having been the heir of that ill-fated Prince de
Conde, and consequently the real defender in the various suits resulting
from the assassination of that prince by Madame de Feucheres, he would
have been in no way distinguished socially from the rest of the
D'Orleans.

The popularity of his eldest brother, the Du