is able to divine the reasons of the heart, will he not admit the fatal power of love, invincible in youth, which extenuates this crime, great as it was?

Twenty-two heads have fallen under the blade of the law; only one of the guilty persons is now left, and she is a young woman, a minor, not twenty years of age.  Will not the Emperor Napoleon the Great grant her life, and give her time in which to repent?  Is not that to share the part of God?

  For Henriette Lechantre, wife of Bryond des Tour-Minieres,—­

Her defender, Bordin,
Barrister of the Lower Court of the Department
of the Seine.

This dreadful drama disturbed the little sleep that Godefroid took.  He dreamed of that penalty of death such as the physician Guillotin has made it with a philanthropic object.  Through the hot vapors of a nightmare he saw a young woman, beautiful, enthusiastic, enduring the last preparations, drawn in that fatal tumbril, mounting the scaffold, and crying out, “Vive le roi!”

Eager to know the whole, Godefroid rose at dawn, dressed, and paced his room; then stood mechanically at his window gazing at the sky, while his thoughts reconstructed this drama in many volumes.  Ever, on that darksome background of Chouans, peasants, country gentlemen, rebel leaders, spies, and officers of justice, he saw the vivid figures of the mother and the daughter detach themselves; the daughter misleading the mother; the daughter victim of a monster; victim, too, of her passion for one of those bold men whom, later, we have glorified as heroes, and to whom even Godefroid’s imagination lent a likeness to the Charettes and the Georges Cadoudals,—­those giants of the struggle between the Republic and the Monarchy.

As soon as Godefroid heard the goodman Alain stirring in the room above him, he went there; but he had no sooner opened the door than he closed it and went back to his own apartment.  The old man, kneeling by his chair, was saying his morning prayer.  The sight of that whitened head, bowed in an attitude of humble reverence, reminded Godefroid of his own forgotten duties, and he prayed fervently.

“I expected you,” said the kind old man, when Godefroid entered his room some fifteen minutes later.  “I got up earlier than usual, for I felt sure you would be impatient.”

“Madame Henriette?” asked Godefroid, with visible anxiety.

“Was Madame’s daughter!” replied Monsieur Alain.  “Madame’s name is Lechantre de la Chanterie.  Under the Empire none of the nobiliary titles were allowed, nor any of the names added to the patronymic or original names.  Therefore, the Baronne des Tours-Minieres was called Madame Bryond.  The Marquis d’Esgrignon took his name of Carol (citizen Carol); later he was called the Sieur Carol.  The Troisvilles became the Sieurs Guibelin.”

“But what happened?  Did the Emperor pardon her?”