“We were speaking of the Tuileries.  You should have seen the place when it was sacked after the flight of the royal family.  No, you should not have seen it!  I am glad you were gone.  Mirrors were shattered, and lusters, vases, china, gold candlesticks, rolled about and were trampled on the floor.  The paintings were stabbed with pikes; tables, screens, gilt stools, chairs crushed, and carpets cut to pieces; garments of all kinds strewn and torn; all that was not carried off by pillagers being thus destroyed.  It was yet a horrible sight days after the mob had done their work, and slaughtered bodies of guards had been carried away, and commissioners with their clerks and assistants began to restore order.”

“Did you see the Tuileries at that time, monsieur?”

“I did.  I put on the clothes of one of my peasants, slumped in Jacquot’s wooden shoes, and kept my mouth open as well as I could for the dust.  The fantastic was yet in my blood.  Exile takes that out of everybody except your royal uncle of Provence.  But I knew in my heart what I would help do with that mob, if our turn ever came again!”

His dark eyes rested on the red wine as on a pool of blood.

“Sick of the ruin, I leaned out to look in the garden, from a window in the queen’s own apartment.  I stepped on a shelf, which appeared fixed under the window; but it moved, and I found that it could be pushed on grooves into the wall.  There was a cavity made to hold it.  It had concealed two armchairs placed opposite each other, so cunningly that their paneled sides yet looked a part of the thick wall.  I sat down in one of them, and though the cushion was stiff, I felt something hard under it.”

Monsieur du Plessy glanced around in every direction to satisfy himself that no ears lurked within hearing.

“Eh, bien!  Under the cushion I found the queen’s jewel-case!  Diamonds—­bags of gold coin—­a half circlet of gems!—­since the great necklace was lost such an array had not seen the light in France.  The value must be far above a million francs.”

The marquis fixed his eyes on me and said: 

“What should I have done with it, Lazarre?”

“It belonged to the royal family,” I answered.

“But everything which belonged to the royal family had been confiscated to the state.  I had just seen the belongings of the royal family trampled as by cattle.  First one tyrant and then another rose up to tell us what we should do, to batten himself off the wretched commonwealth, and then go to the guillotine before his successor.  As a good citizen I should have turned these jewels and stones and coins over to the state.  But I was acting the part of Jacquot, and as an honest peasant I whipped them under my blouse and carried them away.  In my straits of exile I never decreased them.  And you may take inventory of your property and claim it when we rise from the table.”

My heart came up in my throat.  I reached across and caught his hands.