entlemen 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 have something more to say about him. As for his
wife, who was young and pretty, she paid her counsel in love's money, and
was very happy with him, and may be happy still for all I know, but I
have entirely lost sight of her.

After my interview with the old attorney I went to Madame---- to see
Tiretta, who was out. Madame was still in love with him, and he continued
to make a virtue of necessity. I left my address, and went to the "Hotel
de Bretagne" to pay my first call on Madame X. C. V. The lady, though she
was not over fond of me, received me with great politeness. I possibly
cut a better figure in her eyes when rich, and at Paris, then when we
were in Venice. We all know that diamonds have the strange power of
fascination, and that they form an excellent substitute for v