“In telling you most of this, I have simply repeated Pierre’s account, which I wrote down at the time.  But here what he had to say came to a sudden break; for, the next morning, when Madame Babette rose, Virginie was missing, and it was some time before either she, or Pierre, or Morin, could get the slightest clue to the missing girl.

“And now I must take up the story as it was told to the Intendant Flechier by the old gardener Jacques, with whom Clement had been lodging on his first arrival in Paris.  The old man could not, I dare say, remember half as much of what had happened as Pierre did; the former had the dulled memory of age, while Pierre had evidently thought over the whole series of events as a story—­as a play, if one may call it so—­during the solitary hours in his after-life, wherever they were passed, whether in lonely camp watches, or in the foreign prison, where he had to drag out many years.  Clement had, as I said, returned to the gardener’s garret after he had been dismissed from the Hotel Duguesclin.  There were several reasons for his thus doubling back.  One was, that he put nearly the whole breadth of Paris between him and an enemy; though why Morin was an enemy, and to what extent he carried his dislike or hatred, Clement could not tell, of course.  The next reason for returning to Jacques was, no doubt, the conviction that, in multiplying his residences, he multiplied the chances against his being suspected and recognized.  And then, again, the old man was in his secret, and his ally, although perhaps but a feeble kind of one.  It was through Jacques that the plan of communication, by means of a nosegay of pinks, had been devised; and it was Jacques who procured him the last disguise that Clement was to use in Paris—­as he hoped and trusted.  It was that of a respectable shopkeeper of no particular class; a dress that would have seemed perfectly suitable to the young man who would naturally have worn it; and yet, as Clement put it on, and adjusted it—­giving it a sort of finish and elegance which I always noticed about his appearance and which I believed was innate in the wearer—­I have no doubt it seemed like the usual apparel of a gentleman.  No coarseness of texture, nor clumsiness of cut could disguise the nobleman of thirty descents, it appeared; for immediately on arriving at the place of rendezvous, he was recognized by the men placed there on Morin’s information to seize him.  Jacques, following at a little distance, with a bundle under his arm containing articles of feminine disguise for Virginie, saw four men attempt Clement’s arrest—­saw him, quick as lightning, draw a sword hitherto concealed in a clumsy stick—­saw his agile figure spring to his guard,—­and saw him defend himself with the rapidity and art of a man skilled in arms.  But what good did it do? as Jacques piteously used to ask, Monsieur Flechier told me.  A great blow from a heavy club on the sword-arm of Monsieur de Crequy laid it helpless and immovable by his side.