“Thus, while earnestly wishing to give up this struggle with the law, I could find no place for myself under the sun.  One course alone is open to me, that is to become the servant of the power that crushes us; and as soon as this idea dawned on me, the Power of which I spoke was shown in the clearest light.  Three great families are at my mercy.  Do not suppose I am thinking of blackmail—­blackmail is the meanest form of murder.  In my eyes it is baser villainy than murder.  The murderer needs, at any rate, atrocious courage.  And I practise what I preach; for the letters which are my safe-conduct, which allow me to address you thus, and for the moment place me on an equality with you —­I, Crime, and you, Justice—­those letters are in your power.  Your messenger may fetch them, and they will be given up to him.

“I ask no price for them; I do not sell them.  Alas!  Monsieur le Comte, I was not thinking of myself when I preserved them; I thought that Lucien might some day be in danger!  If you cannot agree to my request, my courage is out; I hate life more than enough to make me blow out my own brains and rid you of me!—­Or, with a passport, I can go to America and live in the wilderness.  I have all the characteristics of a savage.

“These are the thoughts that came to me in the night.—­Your clerk, no doubt, carried you a message I sent by him.  When I saw what precautions you took to save Lucien’s memory from any stain, I dedicated my life to you—­a poor offering, for I no longer cared for it; it seemed to me impossible without the star that gave it light, the happiness that glorified it, the thought that gave it meaning, the prosperity of the young poet who was its sun—­and I determined to give you the three packets of letters——­”

Monsieur de Granville bowed his head.

“I went down into the prison-yard, and there I found the persons guilty of the Nanterre crime, as well as my little chain companion within an inch of the chopper as an involuntary accessory after the fact,” Jacques Collin went on.  “I discovered that Bibi-Lupin is cheating the authorities, that one of his men murdered the Crottats.  Was not this providential, as you say?—­So I perceived a remote possibility of doing good, of turning my gifts and the dismal experience I have gained to account for the benefit of society, of being useful instead of mischievous, and I ventured to confide in your judgment, your generosity.”

The man’s air of candor, of artlessness, of childlike simplicity, as he made his confession, without bitterness, or that philosophy of vice which had hitherto made him so terrible to hear, was like an absolute transformation.  He was no longer himself.