“’Thanks to him, these lines, written at this moment by a man who, in a few hours, will have ceased to live, may perhaps be the parents of great things a century and a half hence—­yes! great and noble things, if my last will is piously followed by my descendants, for it is to them that I here address myself.

“’That they may understand and appreciate this last will—­which I commend to the care of the unborn, who dwell in the future whither I am hastening—­they must know the persecutors of my family and avenge their ancestor, but by a noble vengeance.

“’My grandfather was a Catholic.  Induced by perfidious counsels rather than religious zeal, he attached himself, though a layman, to a Society whose power has always been terrible and mysterious—­the Society of Jesus—­’”

At these words of the testament, Father d’Aigrigny, Rodin, and Gabriel looked involuntarily at each other:  The notary, who had not perceived this action, continued to read: 

“’After some years, during which he had never ceased to profess the most absolute devotion to this Society, he was suddenly enlightened by fearful revelations as to the secret ends it pursued, and the means it employed.

“’This was in 1510, a month before the assassination of Henry IV.

“’My grandfather, terrified at the secret of which he had become the unwilling depositary, and which was to be fully explained by the death of the best of kings, not only broke with the Society, but, as if Catholicism itself had been answerable for the crimes of its members, he abandoned the Romish religion, in which he had hitherto lived, and became a Protestant.

“’Undeniable proofs, attesting the connivance of two members of the Company with Ravaillac, a connivance also proved in the case of Jean Chatel, the regicide, were in my grandfather’s possession.

“’This was the first cause of the violent hatred of the Society for our family.  Thank Heaven, these papers have been placed in safety, and if my last will is executed, will be found marked A. M.C.  D. G., in the ebony casket in the Hall of Mourning, in the house in the Rue Saint-Francois.

“’My father was also exposed to these secret persecutions.  His ruin, and perhaps his death, would have been the consequence, had it not been for the intervention of an angelic woman, towards whom he felt an almost religious veneration.

“’The portrait of this woman, whom I saw a few years ago, as well as that of the man whom I hold in the greatest reverence, were painted by me from memory, and have been placed in the Red Room in the Rue Saint-Francois—­to be gratefully valued, I hope, by the descendants of my family.’”