Children, in mortal terror, scampered past the hotel; at night sober men, when they neared it, crossed the street.  Few of the Rochellais could describe the interior; these were not envied of their knowledge.  It had been tenanted but twice in thirty years.  Of the present generation none could remember having seen it cheerful with lights.  The ignorant abhor darkness; it is the meat upon which their superstition feeds.  To them, deserted houses are always haunted, if not by spirits at least by the memory of evil deeds.

The master of this house of dread was held in awe by the citizens to whom he was a word, a name to be spoken lowly, even when respect tinctured the utterance.  Stories concerning the marquis had come from Paris and Perigny, and travel, the good gossip, had distorted acts of mere eccentricity into deeds of violence and wickedness.  The nobility, however, did not share the popular belief.  They beheld in the marquis a great noble whose right to his title ran back to the days when a marquisate meant the office of guarding the marshes and frontiers for the king.  Besides, the marquis had been the friend of two kings, the lover of a famous beauty, the husband of the daughter of a Savoy prince.  These three virtues balanced his moral delinquencies.  To the popular awe in which the burghers held him there was added a large particle of distrust; for during the great rebellion he had served neither the Catholics nor the Huguenots; neither Richelieu, his enemy, nor De Rohan, his friend.  Catholics proclaimed him a Huguenot, Huguenots declared him a Catholic; yet, no one had ever seen him attend mass, the custom of good Catholics, nor had any heard him pray in French, the custom of good Huguenots.  What then, being neither one nor the other?  An atheist, whispered the wise, a word which was then accepted in its narrowest cense:  that is to say, Monsieur le Marquis had sold his soul to the devil.

Perigny, it is not to be denied, was a sinister sound in the ears of a virtuous woman.  To the ultra-pious and the bigoted, it was a letter in the alphabet of hell.  Yet, there was in this grim chain of evil repute one link which did not conform with the whole.  The marquis never haggled with his tradesmen, never beat his servants or his animals, and opened his purse to the poor with more frequency than did his religious neighbors.  Those who believed in his total wickedness found it impossible to accept this incongruity.

For ten years the hotel had remained in darkness; then behold! but a month gone, a light was seen shining from one of the windows.  The watch, upon investigation, were informed that Monsieur le Marquis had returned to the city and would remain indefinitely.  After this, on several occasions the hotel was lighted cheerfully enough.  Monsieur le Marquis’s son entertained his noble friends and the officers from Fort Louis.  There was wine in plenty and play ran high.  The marquis, however, while he permitted these saturnalia,