To those who had known him in former days, M. Lacheneur had become unrecognizable.  He had adapted himself to his lofty station.  Blushing at his own ignorance; he had found the courage—­wonderful in one of his age—­to acquire the education which he lacked.

Then, all his undertakings were successful to such a degree that his good fortune had become proverbial.  That he took any part in an enterprise, sufficed to make it turn out well.

His wife had given him two lovely children, a son and a daughter.

His property, managed with a shrewdness and sagacity which the former owners had not possessed, yielded him an income of at least sixty thousand francs.

How many, under similar circumstances, would have lost their heads!  But he, M. Lacheneur, had been wise enough to retain his sang-froid.

In spite of the princely luxury that surrounded him, his own habits were simple and frugal.  He had never had an attendant for his own person.  His large income he consecrated almost entirely to the improvement of his estate or to the purchase of more land.  And yet, he was not avaricious.  In all that concerned his wife or children, he did not count the cost.  His son, Jean, had been educated in Paris; he wished him to be fitted for any position.  Unwilling to consent to a separation from his daughter, he had procured a governess to take charge of her education.

Sometimes his friends accused him of an inordinate ambition for his children; but he always shook his head sadly, as he replied: 

“If I can only insure them a modest and comfortable future!  But what folly it is to count upon the future.  Thirty years ago, who could have foreseen that the Sairmeuse family would be deprived of their estates?”

With such opinions he should have been a good master; he was, but no one thought the better of him on that account.  His former comrades could not forgive him for his sudden elevation.

They seldom spoke of him without wishing his ruin in ambiguous words.

Alas! the evil days came.  Toward the close of the year 1812, he lost his wife, the disasters of the year 1813 swept away a large portion of his personal fortune, which had been invested in a manufacturing enterprise.

Compromised by the first Restoration, he was obliged to conceal himself for a time; and to cap the climax, the conduct of his son, who was still in Paris, caused him serious disquietude.

Only the evening before, he had thought himself the most unfortunate of men.

But here was another misfortune menacing him; a misfortune so terrible that all the others were forgotten.

From the day on which he had purchased Sairmeuse to this fatal Sunday in August, 1815, was an interval of twenty years.

Twenty years!  And it seemed to him only yesterday that, blushing and trembling, he had laid those piles of louis d’or upon the desk of the receiver of the district.