“But that is not all,” continued the princess:  “there are still, without reckoning my niece, two persons, who, for our interests, ought not to be found in Paris on the 13th of February.”

“Yes, M. Hardy:  but his most dear and intimate friend has betrayed him; for, by means of that friend, we have drawn M. Hardy into the South, whence it is impossible for him to return before a month.  As for that miserable vagabond workman, surnamed ‘Sleepinbuff!’”

“Fie!” exclaimed the princess, with an expression of outraged modesty.

“That man,” resumed the marquis, “is no longer an object of inquietude.  Lastly, Gabriel, upon whom our vast and certain hope reposes, will not be left by himself for a single minute until the great day.  Everything seems, you see, to promise success; indeed, more so than ever; and it is necessary to obtain this success at any price.  It is for us a question of life or death; for, in returning, I stopped at Forli, and there saw the Duke d’Orbano.  His influence over the mind of the king is all powerful—­indeed, absolute; and he has completely prepossessed the royal mind.  It is with the duke alone, then, that it is possible to treat.”

“Well?”

“D’Orbano has gained strength; and he can, I know it, assure to us a legal existence, highly protected, in the dominions of his master, with full charge of popular education.  Thanks to such advantages, after two or three years in that country we shall become so deeply rooted, that this very Duke d’Orbano, in his turn, will have to solicit support and protection from us.  But at present he has everything in his power; and he puts an absolute condition upon his services.”

“What is the condition?”

“Five millions down; and an annual pension of a hundred thousand francs.”

“It is very much.”

“Nay, but little if it be considered that our foot once planted in that country, we shall promptly repossess ourselves of that sum, which, after all, is scarcely an eighth part of what the affair of the medals, if happily brought to an issue, ought to assure to the Order.”

“Yes, nearly forty millions,” said the princess, thoughtfully.

“And again:  these five millions that Orbano demands will be but an advance.  They will be returned to us in voluntary gifts, by reason even of the increase of influence that we shall acquire from the education of children; through whom we have their families.  And yet, the fools hesitate! those who govern see not, that in doing our own business, we do theirs also;—­that in abandoning education to us (which is what we wish for above all things) we mold the people into that mute and quiet obedience, that servile and brutal submission, which assures the repose of states by the immobility of the mind.  They don’t reflect that most of the upper and middle classes fear and hate us; don’t understand that (when we have persuaded the mass that their wretchedness