ing facts. The day of the burning of
Hardy 's factory, Marshal Simon had come to consult with his father on a
question of the highest importance, and to communicate to him his painful
apprehensions on the subject of the growing sadness of his twin
daughters, which he was unable to explain.

Marshal Simon held in religious reverence the memory of the Great
Emperor. His gratitude to the hero was boundless, his devotion blind, his
enthusiasm founded upon reason, his affection warm as the most sincere
and passionate friendship. But this was not all.

One day the emperor, in a burst of joy and paternal tenderness, had led
the marshal to the cradle of the sleeping King of Rome, and said to him,
as he proudly pointed to the beautiful child: "My old friend, swear to me
that you will serve the son as you have served the father!"

Marshal Simon took and kept that vow. During the Restoration, the chief
of a military conspiracy in favor of Napoleon II., he had attempted in
vain to secure a regiment of cavalry, at that time commanded by the
Marquis d'Aigrigny. Betrayed and denounced, the marshal, after a
desperate duel with the future Jesuit, had succeeded in reaching Poland,
and thus escaping a sentence of death. It is useless to repeat the series
of events which led the marshal from Poland to India, and then brought
him back to Paris after the Revolution of July--an epoch at which a
number of his old comrades in arms had solicited and obtained from the
government, without his knowledge, the confirmation of the rank and title
which the emperor had bestowed upon him just before Waterloo.

On his return to Paris, after his long exile, in spite of all the
happiness he felt in at length embracing his children, Marshal Simon was
deeply affected on learning the death of their mother, whom he adored.
Till the last moment, he had hoped to find her in Paris. The
disappointment was dreadful, and he felt it cruelly, though he sought
consolation in his children's affection.

But soon new causes of trouble and anxiety were interwoven with his life
by the machinations of Rodin. Thanks to the secret intrigues of the
reverend father at the Courts of Rome and Vienna, one of his emissaries,
in a condition to inspire full confidence, and provided with undeniable
evidence to support his words, went to Marshal Simon, and said to him:
"The son of the emperor is dying, the victim of the fears with which the
name of Napoleon still inspires Europe.