as effectually despoiled as if she had
been waylaid by so many brigands on a public highway."

"Just so," resumed Emery quietly after de Marmont's violent storm of
wrath had subsided. "But I don't know if you also recollect that when
the various cases containing the Emperor's belongings were opened at the
Tuileries, there was just as much disappointment as gloating. Some of
those fatuous Bourbons--as you so rightly call them--expected to find
some forty or fifty millions of the Emperor's personal savings
there--bank-notes and drafts on the banks of France, of England and of
Amsterdam, which they were looking forward to distributing among
themselves and their friends. Your friend the Comte de Cambray would no
doubt have come in too for his share in this distribution. But M. de
Talleyrand is a very wise man! always far-seeing, he knows the
improvidence, the prodigality, the ostentation of these new masters whom
he is so ready to serve. Ere Dudon reached Paris with his booty, M. de
Talleyrand had very carefully eliminated therefrom some five and twenty
million francs in bank-notes and bankers' drafts, which he felt would
come in very usefully once for a rainy day."

"But M. de Talleyrand is immensely rich himself," protested de Marmont.

"Ah! he did not eliminate those five and twenty millions for his own
benefit," said Emery. "I would not so boldly accuse him of theft. The
money has been carefully put away by M. de Talleyrand for the use of His
Corpulent Majesty Louis de Bourbon, XVIIIth of that name."

Then as Emery here made a dramatic pause and looked triumphantly across
at his companion, de Marmont rejoined somewhat bewildered:

"But . . . I don't understand . . ."

"Why I am telling you this?" retorted Emery, still with that triumphant
air. "You shall understand in a moment, my friend, when I tell you that
those five and twenty millions were never taken north to Paris, they
were conveyed in strict secrecy south to Grenoble!"

"To Grenoble?" exclaimed de Marmont.

"To Grenoble," reasserted Emery.

"But why? . . . why such a long way?--why Grenoble?" queried the young
man in obvious puzzlement.

"For several reasons," replied Emery. "Firstly both the prefet of the
department and the military commandant are hot royalists, whilst the
province of Dauphine is not. In case of any army corps being sent down
there to quell possible and probable revolt, the money would have been
there to hand: also, if you remember,