“There were, however, other reasons for this catastrophe, which you will find later in a confidential paper written for the eyes of the Emperor.  Moreover, this man had long courted the good-will of the royalist families by his devotion to the royal cause during the Revolution.  He was one of Louis XVIII.’s most active emissaries, and had taken part after 1793 in all conspiracies,—­escaping their penalties, however, with such singular adroitness that he came, in the end, to be distrusted.  Thanked for his services by Louis XVIII., but completely set aside in the royalist affairs, he had returned to live on his property, now much encumbered with debt.

“These antecedents were then obscure (the persons initiated into the secrets of the royal closet kept silence about so dangerous a coadjutor), and he was therefore received with a species of reverence in a city devoted to the Bourbons, where the cruellest deeds of the Chouannerie were accepted as legitimate warfare.  The d’Esgrignons, Casterans, the Chevalier de Valois, in short, the whole aristocracy and the Church opened their arms to this royalist diplomat and drew him into their circle.  Their protection was encouraged by the desire of his creditors for the payment of his debts.  For three years this man, who was a villain at heart, a pendant to the late Baron de la Chanterie, contrived to restrain his vices and assume the appearance of morality and religion.

“During the first months of his marriage he exerted a sort of spell over his wife; he tried to corrupt her mind by his doctrines (if it can be said that atheism is a doctrine) and by the jesting tone in which he spoke of sacred principles.  From the time of his return to the provinces this political manoeuvrer had an intimacy with a young man, overwhelmed with debt like himself, but whose natural character was as frank and courageous as the baron’s was hypocritical and base.  This frequent guest, whose accomplishments, strong character, and adventurous life were calculated to influence a young girl’s mind, was an instrument in the hands of the husband to bring the wife to adopt his theories.  Never did she let her mother know the abyss into which her fate had cast her.

“We may well distrust all human prudence when we think of the infinite precautions taken by Madame de la Chanterie in marrying her only daughter.  The blow, when it came to a life so devoted, so pure, so truly religious as that of a woman already tested by many trials, gave Madame de la Chanterie a distrust of herself which served to isolate her from her daughter; and all the more because her daughter, in compensation for her misfortunes, exacted complete liberty, ruled her mother, and was even, at times, unkind to her.