Brigaut left Provins after watching the filling up of the grave where Pierrette lay, and went on foot to Paris.  He wrote a petition to the Dauphiness asking, in the name of his father, that he might enter the Royal guard, to which he was at once admitted.  When the expedition to Algiers was undertaken he wrote to her again, to obtain employment in it.  He was then a sergeant; Marshal Bourmont gave him an appointment as sub-lieutenant in a line regiment.  The major’s son behaved like a man who wished to die.  Death has, however, respected Jacques Brigaut up to the present time; although he has distinguished himself in all the recent expeditions he has never yet been wounded.  He is now major in a regiment of infantry.  No officer is more taciturn or more trustworthy.  Outside of his duty he is almost mute; he walks alone and lives mechanically.  Every one divines and respects a hidden sorrow.  He possesses forty-six thousand francs, which old Madame Lorrain, who died in Paris in 1829, bequeathed to him.

At the elections of 1830 Vinet was made a deputy.  The services he rendered the new government have now earned him the position of procureur-general.  His influence is such that he will always remain a deputy.  Rogron is receiver-general in the same town where Vinet fulfils his legal functions; and by one of those curious tricks of chance which do so often occur, Monsieur Tiphaine is president of the Royal court in the same town,—­for the worthy man gave in his adhesion to the dynasty of July without the slightest hesitation.  The ex-beautiful Madame Tiphaine lives on excellent terms with the beautiful Madame Rogron.  Vinet is hand in glove with Madame Tiphaine.

As to the imbecile Rogron, he makes such remarks as, “Louis-Philippe will never be really king till he is able to make nobles.”

The speech is evidently not his own.  His health is failing, which allows Madame Rogron to hope she may soon marry the General Marquis de Montriveau, peer of France, who commands the department, and is paying her attentions.  Vinet is in his element, seeking victims; he never believes in the innocence of an accused person.  This thoroughbred prosecutor is held to be one of the most amiable men on the circuit; and he is no less liked in Paris and in the Chamber; at court he is a charming courtier.

According to a certain promise made by Vinet, General Baron Gouraud, that noble relic of our glorious armies, married a Mademoiselle Matifat, twenty-five years old, daughter of a druggist in the rue des Lombards, whose dowry was a hundred thousand francs.  He commands (as Vinet prophesied) a department in the neighborhood of Paris.  He was named peer of France for his conduct in the riots which occurred during the ministry of Casimir Perier.  Baron Gouraud was one of the generals who took the church of Saint-Merry, delighted to rap those rascally civilians who had vexed him for years over the knuckles; for which service he was rewarded with the grand cordon of the Legion of honor.