ess, foreseeing that that resource might fail her, the poor
young woman had taken up the hard and toilsome work of corset-making in
the service of a celebrated dressmaker. This precaution proved a wise
one. The father died, and his property was obtained by the son (the
old monarchical laws of entail being then overthrown) and speedily
dissipated by him. The former Master of petitions was now one of the
most ferocious presidents of the Revolutionary tribunals of that period;
he became the terror of Normandy, and was able to satisfy all his
passions. Imprisoned in his turn after the fall of Robespierre, the
hatred of his department doomed him to certain death.

"Madame de la Chanterie heard of this through a letter of farewell which
her husband wrote to her. Instantly, giving her little girl to the care
of a neighbor, she went to the town where that wretch was imprisoned,
taking with her the few louis which were all that she owned. These louis
enabled her to make her way into the prison. She succeeded in saving her
husband by dressing him in her own clothes, under circumstances almost
identical with those which, sometime later, were so serviceable to
Madame de la Valette. She was condemned to death, but the government was
ashamed to carry out the sentence; and the Revolutionary tribunal
(the one over which her husband had formerly presided) connived at her
escape. She returned to Paris on foot, without means, sleeping in farm
buildings and fed by charity."

"Good God!" cried Godefroid.

"Ah! wait," said Monsieur Alain; "that is nothing. In eight years
the poor woman saw her husband three times. The first time he stayed
twenty-four hours in the humble lodging of his wife, and carried away
with him all her money; having showered her with marks of tenderness and
made her believe in his complete conversion. 'I could not,' she
said, 'refuse a husband for whom I prayed daily and of whom I thought
exclusively.' On the second occasion, Monsieur de la Chanterie arrived
almost dying, and with what an illness! She nursed him and saved his
life. Then she tried to bring him to better sentiments and a decent
life. After promising all that angel asked, the jacobin plunged back
into frightful profligacy, and finally escaped the hands of justice only
by again taking refuge with his wife, in whose care he died in safety.

"Oh! but that is nothing!" cried the goodman, seeing the pain on
Godefroid's face. "No one, in the world in which he