his person; and though it is with the utmost pain that I can bring myself to entertain such an opinion, and to implicate a gentleman of the character and name of Monsieur de Magny, I do submit that our duty is to have the Chevalier examined relative to the affair.  As Monsieur de Magny is in her Highness’s private service, and in her confidence I have heard, I would not venture to apprehend him without your Highness’s permission.”

’The Prince’s Master of the Horse, a friend of the old Baron de Magny, who was present at the interview, no sooner heard the strange intelligence than he hastened away to the old general with the dreadful news of his grandson’s supposed crime.  Perhaps his Highness himself was not unwilling that his old friend and tutor in arms should have the chance of saving his family from disgrace; at all events, Monsieur de Hengst, the Master of the Horse, was permitted to go off to the Baron undisturbed, and break to him the intelligence of the accusation pending over the unfortunate Chevalier.

’It is possible that he expected some such dreadful catastrophe, for, after hearing Hengst’s narrative (as the latter afterwards told me), he only said, “Heaven’s will be done!” for some time refused to stir a step in the matter, and then only by the solicitation of his friend was induced to write the letter which Maxime de Magny received at our play-table.

’Whilst he was there, squandering the Princess’s money, a police visit was paid to his apartments, and a hundred proofs, not of his guilt with respect to the robbery, but of his guilty connection with the Princess, were discovered there,—­tokens of her giving, passionate letters from her, copies of his own correspondence to his young friends at Paris,—­all of which the Police Minister perused, and carefully put together under seal for his Highness, Prince Victor.  I have no doubt he perused them, for, on delivering them to the Hereditary Prince, Geldern said that, in obedience to his highness’s orders, he had collected the Chevalier’s papers; but he need not say that, on his honour, he (Geldern) himself had never examined the documents.  His difference with Messieurs de Magny was known; he begged his Highness to employ any other official person in the judgment of the accusation brought against the young Chevalier.

’All these things were going on while the Chevalier was at play.  A run of luck—­you had great luck in those days, Monsieur de Balibari—­ was against him.  He stayed and lost his 4000 ducats.  He received his uncle’s note, and such was the infatuation of the wretched gambler, that, on receipt of it, he went down to the courtyard, where the horse was in waiting, absolutely took the money which the poor old gentleman had placed in the saddle-holsters, brought it upstairs, played it, and lost it; and when he issued from the room to fly, it was too late:  he was placed in arrest at the bottom of my staircase, as you were upon entering your own home.