to her; if she should not, put them in the corner of your country-place,
note the exact location of the spot, which you will send to her by some
safe person. When one has served me well he should not be in want. Your
wife will build a farm, in which she will invest this money; she will
live with your mother and sister, and you will not have the fear of
leaving her in need." Even more moved by the provident kindness of the
Emperor, who thus deigned to consider the interests of my family affairs,
than delighted with the great value of the present he had made me, I
could hardly find words to express to him my gratitude; and such was,
besides, my carelessness of the future, so far from me had been the
thought that this great Empire could come to an end, that this was the
first time I had really considered the embarrassed condition in which I
would have left my family, if the Emperor had not thus generously
provided for them. I had, in fact, no fortune, and possessed in all the
world only my pillaged house, and the fifty thousand francs destined to
repair it.

Under these circumstances, not knowing when I should see my wife again, I
made arrangements to follow the advice his Majesty had been kind enough
to give me; converted my hundred thousand francs into gold, which I put
into five bags; and taking with me the wardrobe boy Denis, whose honesty
was above suspicion, we followed the road through the forest to avoid
being seen by any of the persons who occupied my house. We cautiously
entered a little inclosure belonging to me, the gate of which could not
be seen on account of the trees, although they were now without foliage;
and with the aid of Denis I succeeded in burying my treasure, after
taking an exact note of the place, and then returned to the palace, being
certainly very far from foreseeing how much chagrin and tribulation those
hundred thousand francs would cause me, as we shall see in the succeeding
chapters.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Here more than ever I must beg the indulgence of my readers as to the
order in which I relate the events I witnessed during the Emperor's stay
at Fontainebleau, and those connected with them which did not come to my
knowledge until later. I must also apologize for any inaccuracy in dates
of which I may be guilty, though I remember collectively, so to speak,
all that occurred during the unhappy twenty days which ensued between the
occupation of Paris and the departure of his Majesty fo