“General,” he said, “this is the third time I have had you at the end of my barrel, and the third time that I give you your life.”

“Why do you want to kill me, Bonnebault?” said the general, without showing the least emotion.

“Faith, if I don’t, somebody else will; but I, you see, I like the men who served the Emperor, and I can’t make up my mind to shoot you like a partridge.  Don’t question me, for I’ll tell you nothing; but you’ve got enemies, powerful enemies, cleverer than you, and they’ll end by crushing you.  I am to have a thousand crowns if I kill you, and then I can marry Marie Tonsard.  Well, give me enough to buy a few acres of land and a bit of a cottage, and I’ll keep on saying, as I have done, that I’ve found no chances.  That will give you time to sell your property and get away; but make haste.  I’m an honest lad still, scamp as I am; but another fellow won’t spare you.”

“If I give you what you ask, will you tell me who offered you those three thousand francs?” said the general.

“I don’t know myself; and the person who is urging me to do the thing is some one I love too well to tell of.  Besides, even if you did know it was Marie Tonsard, that wouldn’t help you; Marie Tonsard would be as silent as that wall, and I should deny every word I’ve said.”

“Come and see me to-morrow,” said the general.

“Enough,” replied Bonnebault; “and if they begin to say I’m too dilatory, I’ll let you know in time.”

A week after that singular conversation the whole arrondissement, indeed the whole department, was covered with posters, advertising the sale of Les Aigues at the office of Maitre Corbineau, the notary of Soulanges.  All the lots were knocked down to Rigou, and the price paid amounted to two millions five hundred thousand francs.  The next day Rigou had the names changed; Monsieur Gaubertin took the woods, Rigou and Soudry the vineyards and the farms.  The chateau and the park were sold over again in small lots among the sons of the soil, the peasantry,—­excepting the pavilion, its dependencies, and fifty surrounding acres, which Monsieur Gaubertin retained as a gift to his poetic and sentimental spouse.

* * * * *

Many years after these events, during the year 1837, one of the most remarkable political writers of the day, Emile Blondet, reached the last stages of a poverty which he had so far hidden beneath an outward appearance of ease and elegance.  He was thinking of taking some desperate step, realizing, as he did, that his writings, his mind, his knowledge, his ability for the direction of affairs, had made him nothing better than a mere functionary, mechanically serving the ends of others; seeing that every avenue was closed to him and all places taken; feeling that he had reached middle-life without fame and without fortune; that fools and middle-class men of no training had taken the places of the courtiers and incapables of the Restoration,