t you have bills of exchange to the
amount of a hundred thousand crowns payable to yourself."

"Certainly, but that money has no connection with my mission, as I can
prove to you by referring you to M. d'Afri. I have in my head an
infallible project for increasing the revenue by twenty millions, in a
manner which will cause no irritation."

"You don't say so! Communicate your plan, and I promise to get you a
pension of a hundred thousand francs, and letters of nobility as well, if
you like to become a Frenchman."

"I will think it over."

On leaving M. de Boulogne I went to the Palace, where a ballet was going
on before the Marquise de Pompadour.

She bowed to me as soon as she saw me, and on my approaching her she told
me that I was an able financier, and that the "gentlemen below" could not
appreciate my merits. She had not forgotten what I had said to her eight
years before in the theatre at Fontainebleau. I replied that all good
gifts were from above, whither, with her help, I hoped to attain.

On my return to Paris I went to the "Hotel Bourbon" to inform my patron
of the result of my journey. His advice to me was to continue to serve
the Government well, as its good fortune would come to be mine. On my
telling him of my meeting with the X. C. V.'s, he said that M. de la
Popeliniere was going to marry the elder daughter.

When I got to my house my son was nowhere to be found. My landlady told
me that a great lady had come to call on my lord, and that she had taken
him away with her. Guessing that this was Madame d'Urfe, I went to bed
without troubling myself any further. Early next morning my clerk brought
me a letter. It came from the old attorney, uncle to Gaetan's wife, whom
I had helped to escape from the jealous fury of her brutal husband. The
attorney begged me to come and speak to him at the courts, or to make an
appointment at some place where he could see me. I went to the courts and
found him there.

"My niece," he began, "found herself obliged to go into a convent; and
from this vantage ground she is pleading against her husband, with the
aid of a barrister, who will be responsible for the costs. However, to
win our case, we require the evidence of yourself, Count Tiretta, and
other servants who witnessed the scene at the inn."

I did all I could, and four months afterwards Gaetan simplified matters
by a fraudulent bankruptcy, which obliged him to leave France: in due
time and place, I shall hav