This house, in its pleasant garden, was, as every one knew, a private asylum and sanatorium conducted by Dr. Legrand.  He had come there half a dozen years ago, and for some time there had been only a few inmates, not dangerously insane, but unfit to be at large, and two or three others who had retired into this retreat to end their days in peace.  In the last few months, however, the number of residents had vastly increased.  Certainly every room in the house must be occupied, the larger rooms probably divided into two or three, the neighbors argued, and most of the inmates did not appear to be insane.  It was not a time to busy one’s self about other people’s affairs, it was much safer neither to gossip nor to listen to gossip; so to many persons the riddle of Monsieur Legrand’s sudden prosperity remained unsolved.

Yet many people understood the riddle, and were not slow to profit by it.  This house, although one of the best known, was not the only one of its kind to be found in Paris.  Legrand was a man of business as well as a doctor, a better man of business than he was a doctor, and perceived, almost by a stroke of genius, how he might profit by the Revolution.  To many a revolutionary leader gold was better than the head of an aristocrat, although by that curious twist of conscience which men can so easily contrive for themselves, direct bribery was not to be thought of.  Dr. Legrand seemed to thoroughly understand this twisted and diseased conscience, and had a remedy to offer.  What persuasion he used, what proportion of his exorbitant fees found its way into other pockets, cannot be said, it was a secret he locked up in his own soul, but it soon became known that aristocrats, fortunate enough to be prisoners in this house in the Rue Charonne, were safe so long as the fees were paid.

The agents of the Public Prosecutor never came there for food for the guillotine.  If the fees were not paid, it invariably meant that some ill turn of fortune, which Legrand was quite unable to explain, necessitated the speedy removal of the delinquent to the Abbaye, to Sainte Pelagie, or one of the other prisons where their days were almost certain to be few.

A round-faced man, with generosity beaming in his eyes, was Dr. Legrand.  His prisoners, or guests as he preferred to call them, were free to roam the house or the grounds at their will; if the table he kept was not liberal, a certain etiquette was indulged in which did something to cover the parsimony, and the insane inmates who remained in the house were pushed out of the way into odd corners as much as possible.

Into the doctor’s study one morning there had come a man and a woman.

“I have come as arranged,” said the man.  “This is the lady.”

Legrand bowed low, and appeared to overflow with benevolence.

“I am happy to welcome such a guest,” he said.  “There are certain formalities, and then you are as safe, mademoiselle, as you could be at Beauvais.”