“I have just come from your house, my dear fellow,” said the Provencal; “they told me I should find you here.”

“You have come, doubtless, for the purpose of explaining to me the strange article you allowed yourself to insert in my name.”

“Precisely,” said la Peyrade.  “The remarkable man whom you know, and whose powerful influence you have already felt, confided to me yesterday, in your interests, the plans of the government, and I saw at once that your defeat was inevitable.  I wished therefore to secure to you an honorable and dignified retreat.  There was no time to lose; you were absent from Paris, and therefore—­”

“Very good, monsieur,” said Thuillier; “but you will take notice that from the present moment you are no longer the editor of this paper.”

“That is what I came to tell you.”

“Perhaps you also came to settle the little account we have together.”

“Messieurs,” said Minard, “I see that this is a business interview; I shall therefore take leave of you.”

As soon as Minard had left the room, la Peyrade pulled out his pocket-book.

“Here are ten thousand francs,” he said, “which I will beg you to remit to Mademoiselle Brigitte; and here, also, is the bond by which you secured the payment of twenty-five thousand francs to Madame Lambert; that sum I have now paid in full, and here is the receipt.”

“Very good, monsieur,” said Thuillier.

La Peyrade bowed and went away.

“Serpent!” said Thuillier as he watched him go.

“Cerizet said the right thing,” thought la Peyrade,—­“a pompous imbecile!”

The blow struck at Thuillier’s candidacy was mortal, but Minard did not profit by it.  While the pair were contending for votes, a government man, an aide-de-camp to the king, arrived with his hands full of tobacco licenses and other electoral small change, and, like the third thief, he slipped between the two who were thumping each other, and carried off the booty.

It is needless to say that Brigitte did not get her farm in Beauce.  That was only a mirage, by help of which Thuillier was enticed out of Paris long enough for la Peyrade to deal his blow,—­a service rendered to the government on the one hand, but also a precious vengeance for the many humiliations he had undergone.

Thuillier had certainly some suspicions as to the complicity of Cerizet, but that worthy managed to justify himself; and by manoeuvring the sale of the “Echo de la Bievre,” now become a nightmare to the luckless owner, he ended by appearing as white as snow.

The paper was secretly bought up by Corentin, and the late opposition sheet became a “canard” sold on Sundays in the wine-shops and concocted in the dens of the police.

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS FUNCTIONS