“Postscriptum.—­I open my letter.  I want to prove to you how much I desire to be just, and how far my impartiality goes.  You know that my neighbour, Abbe Miollens, lived a long time in Poland, and has correspondents there.  I begged him to get me information concerning the count—­of course, without explaining anything to him.  He reports that Count Abel Larinski is a true count.  His father, the confiscation of the property, the emigration to America, the Isthmus of Panama—­all is true; the history is authentic.  Countess Larinski was a saint.  Concerning the son, nothing is known; he must have been three or four years old when he landed in New York.  No one ever saw him; no one seems to know anything about his taking part in the insurrection of 1863.  Having spoken the truth about his parents, it is to be presumed that he told the truth about himself.  Very well, but one can fight for one’s country, and have a saint for one’s mother, and yet possess none of the qualities that go towards making a happy household.  I take back the word adventurer, but I still hold to all I have said about him.  Why did he take an inventory of my furniture with his eyes?  Why did he sleep so soundly in a bed where there were three peas?  This requires an explanation.

“Kiss Antoinette for me.  Give my regards to Mlle. Moiseney, without telling her that I think her a simpleton; it is a conviction in which I shall die.  Was it, indeed, very difficult to descend from that terrible rock of yours?”

Three days later, Mme. de Lorcy wrote a second letter: 

“August 19th.

“I have received this very moment, my dear monsieur, the reply from Vienna that I have been expecting, and which I hasten to share with you.  I had applied to our friend Baron B—–­, first secretary of the embassy from France to Vienna, in order to try to learn what reputation Count Larinski had left there.  He is esteemed there as a most worthy man; as an inventor who was more daring than wise; as a devoted patriot; as one of those Poles whose only thought is of Poland and of their Utopia, and who would set fire to the four corners of the earth without wincing, for the sole purpose of procuring embers at which to roast their chestnuts.  I will not return to the subject of the gun; you know all about it.  It seems that there was some good in this explosive gun, and that he who invented it united a sort of genius with ingenuousness, inexperience, and ignorance enough to make one weep.  Nothing can be said against the private character of the man.  He had a few debts, and his tradespeople felt considerable anxiety when he left Vienna one morning on foot.  He had no sooner reached Switzerland than he sent back money to settle everything.  Here we have an admirable trait.  However, his tastes were simple, and he led a steady life; it was the gun that brought his finances into disorder.  I will add that M. Larinski visited in Vienna at several of the