Why, he left Marseilles, and was taken, on the
recommendation of M. Morrel, who did not know his crime, as cashier
into a Spanish bank. During the war with Spain he was employed in the
commissariat of the French army, and made a fortune; then with that
money he speculated in the funds, and trebled or quadrupled his capital;
and, having first married his banker's daughter, who left him a widower,
he has married a second time, a widow, a Madame de Nargonne, daughter of
M. de Servieux, the king's chamberlain, who is in high favor at court.
He is a millionaire, and they have made him a baron, and now he is the
Baron Danglars, with a fine residence in the Rue de Mont-Blanc, with ten
horses in his stables, six footmen in his ante-chamber, and I know not
how many millions in his strongbox."

"Ah!" said the abbe, in a peculiar tone, "he is happy."

"Happy? Who can answer for that? Happiness or unhappiness is the secret
known but to one's self and the walls--walls have ears but no tongue;
but if a large fortune produces happiness, Danglars is happy."

"And Fernand?"

"Fernand? Why, much the same story."

"But how could a poor Catalan fisher-boy, without education or
resources, make a fortune? I confess this staggers me."

"And it has staggered everybody. There must have been in his life some
strange secret that no one knows."

"But, then, by what visible steps has he attained this high fortune or
high position?"

"Both, sir--he has both fortune and position--both."

"This must be impossible!"

"It would seem so; but listen, and you will understand. Some days before
the return of the emperor, Fernand was drafted. The Bourbons left him
quietly enough at the Catalans, but Napoleon returned, a special levy
was made, and Fernand was compelled to join. I went too; but as I was
older than Fernand, and had just married my poor wife, I was only sent
to the coast. Fernand was enrolled in the active troop, went to the
frontier with his regiment, and was at the battle of Ligny. The night
after that battle he was sentry at the door of a general who carried on
a secret correspondence with the enemy. That same night the general
was to go over to the English. He proposed to Fernand to accompany him;
Fernand agreed to do so, deserted his post, and followed the general.
Fernand would have been court-martialed if Napoleon had remained on
the throne, but his action was rewarded by the Bourbons. He returned to
France with the epaulet of