auty of
his character. The day after the indictment was found by the jury,
and the prisoners were finally committed for trial, the Marquis de
Chargeboeuf courageously appeared, still in the same old caleche, to
support and protect his young cousin. Foreseeing the haste with which
the law would be administered, this chief of a great family had already
gone to Paris and secured the services of the most able as well as the
most honest lawyer of the old school, named Bordin, who was for ten
years counsel of the nobility in Paris, and was ultimately succeeded by
the celebrated Derville. This excellent lawyer chose for his assistant
the grandson of a former president of the parliament of Normandy, whose
studies had been made under his tuition. This young lawyer, who was
destined to be appointed deputy-attorney-general in Paris after the
conclusion of the present trial, became eventually one of the most
celebrated of French magistrates. Monsieur de Grandville, for that was
his name, accepted the defence of the four young men, being glad of
an opportunity to make his first appearance as an advocate with
distinction.

The old marquis, alarmed at the ravages which troubles had wrought in
Laurence's appearance, was charmingly kind and considerate. He made no
allusion to his neglected advice; he presented Bordin as an oracle whose
counsel must be followed to the letter, and young de Grandville as a
defender in whom the utmost confidence might be placed.

Laurence held out her hand to the kind old man, and pressed his with an
eagerness which delighted him.

"You were right," she said.

"Will you now take my advice?" he asked.

The young countess bowed her head in assent, as did Monsieur and Madame
d'Hauteserre.

"Well, then, come to my house; it is in the middle of town, close to
the courthouse. You and your lawyers will be better off there than here,
where you are crowded and too far from the field of battle. Here, you
would have to cross the town twice a day."

Laurence, accepted, and the old man took her with Madame d'Hauteserre
to his house, which became the home of the Cinq-Cygne household and the
lawyers of the defence during the whole time the trial lasted. After
dinner, when the doors were closed, Bordin made Laurence relate every
circumstance of the affair, entreating her to omit nothing, not the most
trifling detail. Though many of the facts had already been told to him
and his young assistant by the marquis on th