and which it was impossible to meet.  The lawyer Lefebre, a fat and sensual free-liver, was equally low in funds, and laid on the government the blame of the confusion into which his affairs had fallen, though it had been entirely his own fault.  As for Le Chevalier himself, he attributed his ruin, not without justice, to his disinterestedness and devotion to the royal cause, which was his excuse for the past and the future.  Mme. Acquet, who loved him blindly, had given her last louis to provide for his costly liberality.  Touching letters from her are extant, proving how attached she was to him: 

“I am herewith sending you a letter from Mme. Blins” (a creditor).  “My only regret is that I have not the sum.  It would have given me great pleasure to pay it for you, and then you would never have known....  I love you with all my heart.  I am entirely yours, and there is nothing I would not do for you....  Love me as I love you.  I embrace you tenderly.”

“There is nothing I would not do for you,”—­and the poor woman was wretched in the knowledge that the hero whom she idolised was hampered for want of small sums of money.  She could not ward off the trouble, since her demand for a separation had recently been refused.  Acquet was triumphant.  She was reduced to living on a modest pension of 2,000 francs, and not able to sell what she had inherited from her father.  One evening, when she and Lanoe were alone in the Hotel de Combray, in the Rue du Tripot at Falaise, one part of which was rented to the collector of taxes, she heard through the wall the chinking of the money, which they were packing into bags.  On hearing it she fell into a sort of delirium, thinking that here was the wherewithal to satisfy her lover’s fancies....

“Lanoe,” she said suddenly, “I must have some money; I only want 10,000 francs.”

The terrified Lanoe gave her no answer then, but a few days later, when he was driving her back in her cabriolet to Falaise from La Bijude, she returned to the charge, and gave him a piece of yellow wax wrapped up in cotton telling him to go and take an impression of the tax collector’s lock as soon as they arrived at the Rue du Tripot.  Lanoe excused himself, saying that the house belonged to M. Timoleon, and that disagreeable consequences might arise.  But she insisted.  “I must have the impression,” she said.  “I do not tell you why I want it, but I will have it.”  Lanoe, to get out of a task he did not like, went away and secretly took an impression of the lock of the hayloft.  A key was made by this pattern, and when night came the Marquise de Combray’s daughter stole down—­holding her breath and walking noiselessly—­to the tax collector’s office, and vainly tried to open the door.

* * * * *