ges were on his estate. Nevertheless it appeared, after the
husband's departure, that for ten years his debts had exceeded the
entire value of his property. Everything was therefore sold, and the
poor young wife, now reduced to her own means, came back to her mother.
Madame de la Chanterie knew later that the most honorable persons of the
province had vouched for her son-in-law in their own interests; for he
owed them all large sums of money, and they looked upon his marriage
with Mademoiselle de la Chanterie as a means to recover them.

"There were, however, other reasons for this catastrophe, which you will
find later in a confidential paper written for the eyes of the Emperor.
Moreover, this man had long courted the good-will of the royalist
families by his devotion to the royal cause during the Revolution. He
was one of Louis XVIII.'s most active emissaries, and had taken part
after 1793 in all conspiracies,--escaping their penalties, however, with
such singular adroitness that he came, in the end, to be distrusted.
Thanked for his services by Louis XVIII., but completely set aside in
the royalist affairs, he had returned to live on his property, now much
encumbered with debt.

"These antecedents were then obscure (the persons initiated into
the secrets of the royal closet kept silence about so dangerous a
coadjutor), and he was therefore received with a species of reverence
in a city devoted to the Bourbons, where the cruellest deeds of the
Chouannerie were accepted as legitimate warfare. The d'Esgrignons,
Casterans, the Chevalier de Valois, in short, the whole aristocracy and
the Church opened their arms to this royalist diplomat and drew him
into their circle. Their protection was encouraged by the desire of his
creditors for the payment of his debts. For three years this man, who
was a villain at heart, a pendant to the late Baron de la Chanterie,
contrived to restrain his vices and assume the appearance of morality
and religion.

"During the first months of his marriage he exerted a sort of spell over
his wife; he tried to corrupt her mind by his doctrines (if it can be
said that atheism is a doctrine) and by the jesting tone in which he
spoke of sacred principles. From the time of his return to the provinces
this political manoeuvrer had an intimacy with a young man, overwhelmed
with debt like himself, but whose natural character was as frank and
courageous as the baron's was hypocritical and base. This freq