Godefroid left him, took a cab, and went back as fast as he could to the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, filled with horror as he remembered that indictment signed with Bourlac’s name, the bloody drama ending on the scaffold, and Madame de la Chanterie’s imprisonment at Bicetre.  He understood now the abandonment in which this former attorney-general, another Fourquier-Tinville in the public mind, was ending his days, and the true reasons for the concealment of his name.

“May Monsieur Joseph avenge her terribly!” he thought.  As he uttered the wish in his own mind, he saw Auguste.

“What do you want of me?” he asked.

“My good friend, such a dreadful misfortune has overtaken us that I am almost mad.  Wretches have come here and seized all my mother’s property, and they are going to put my grandfather in prison.  But it is not on account of those misfortunes that I come to implore you,” said the lad, with Roman pride; “it is to ask you to do me a service such as people do to those who are condemned to die.”

“Go on, what is it?” said Godefroid.

“They came here to seize my grandfather’s manuscript; and as I think he gave you the book itself I want you to take the notes, for Madame Vauthier will not let me carry anything out of the house.  Put them with the volumes and—­”

“Yes, yes,” said Godefroid, “go and get them at once.”

While the lad went back to his own rooms, returning immediately, Godefroid reflected that the poor child was guilty of no crime, and that he ought not to put despair into that young heart by speaking of his grandfather and of the punishment for his savage political actions that had overtaken his old age.  He therefore took the little package with a good grace.

“What is your mother’s name?” he asked.

“My mother is the Baronne de Mergi; my father was the son of the president of the Royal Court at Rouen.”

“Ah!” said Godefroid; “then your grandfather married his daughter to the son of the famous president Mergi.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Now, my little friend, leave me,” said Godefroid.  He went with young Mergi to the landing, and called to Madame Vauthier.

“Mere Vauthier,” he said, “you can let my rooms.  I shall not come back any more.”

He gathered his things together, went downstairs, and got into the cab.

“Have you given anything to that gentleman?” said the Vauthier to Auguste.

“Yes,” said the young man.

“You’re a pretty fellow! that’s the agent of your grandfather’s enemies.  He managed this whole business, and the proof is that, now that the trick is played, he goes off and isn’t coming back any more.  He has just told me I can let his lodgings.”

Auguste flew to the boulevard and ran after the cab shouting so loudly that he finally stopped it.

“What do you want?” asked Godefroid.

“My grandfather’s manuscripts.”