the immortal genius which pardoned
the Prince of Hatzfeldt and is able to divine the reasons of the
heart, will he not admit the fatal power of love, invincible in
youth, which extenuates this crime, great as it was?

Twenty-two heads have fallen under the blade of the law; only one
of the guilty persons is now left, and she is a young woman, a
minor, not twenty years of age. Will not the Emperor Napoleon the
Great grant her life, and give her time in which to repent? Is not
that to share the part of God?

For Henriette Lechantre, wife of Bryond des Tour-Minieres,--

Her defender, Bordin, Barrister of the Lower Court of the Department of
the Seine.

This dreadful drama disturbed the little sleep that Godefroid took. He
dreamed of that penalty of death such as the physician Guillotin
has made it with a philanthropic object. Through the hot vapors of a
nightmare he saw a young woman, beautiful, enthusiastic, enduring the
last preparations, drawn in that fatal tumbril, mounting the scaffold,
and crying out, "Vive le roi!"

Eager to know the whole, Godefroid rose at dawn, dressed, and paced his
room; then stood mechanically at his window gazing at the sky, while
his thoughts reconstructed this drama in many volumes. Ever, on that
darksome background of Chouans, peasants, country gentlemen, rebel
leaders, spies, and officers of justice, he saw the vivid figures of the
mother and the daughter detach themselves; the daughter misleading the
mother; the daughter victim of a monster; victim, too, of her passion
for one of those bold men whom, later, we have glorified as heroes, and
to whom even Godefroid's imagination lent a likeness to the Charettes
and the Georges Cadoudals,--those giants of the struggle between the
Republic and the Monarchy.

As soon as Godefroid heard the goodman Alain stirring in the room above
him, he went there; but he had no sooner opened the door than he closed
it and went back to his own apartment. The old man, kneeling by his
chair, was saying his morning prayer. The sight of that whitened head,
bowed in an attitude of humble reverence, reminded Godefroid of his own
forgotten duties, and he prayed fervently.

"I expected you," said the kind old man, when Godefroid entered his room
some fifteen minutes later. "I got up earlier than usual, for I felt
sure you would be impatient."

"Madame Henriette?" asked Godefroid, with visible anxiety.

"Was Madame's daughter!" re