de Mauleon
(which will be found in the Envoi) need be added for the satisfaction of
our sense of poetic justice and if on the mimic stage, from which they
now disappear, all these puppets have rightly played their parts in the
drama of an empire's fall, each will have helped to "point a moral" as
well as to "adorn a tale." Valete et plaudite!

CHAPTER THE LAST.

Among the refugees which the convoi from Versailles disgorged on the
Paris station were two men, who, in pushing through the crowd, came
suddenly face to face with each other.

"Aha! Bon jour, M. Duplessis," said a burly voice. "Bon jour, M.
Louvier," replied Duplessis.

"How long have you left Bretagne?"

"On the day that the news of the armistice reached it, in order to be
able to enter Paris the first day its gates were open. And you--where
have you been?"

"In London."

"Ah! in London!" said Duplessis, paling. "I knew I had an enemy there."

"Enemy! I? Bah! my dear Monsieur. What makes you think me your enemy?"

"I remember your threats."

"A propos of Rochebriant. By the way, when would it be convenient to you
and the dear Marquis to let me into prompt possession of that property?
You can no longer pretend to buy it as a dot for Mademoiselle Valerie."

"I know not that yet. It is true that all the financial operations
attempted by my agent in London have failed. But I may recover myself
yet, now that I re-enter Paris. In the mean time, we have still six
months before us; for, as you will find--if you know it not already--the
interest due to you has been lodged with Messrs. ---- of ------, and you
cannot foreclose, even if the law did not take into consideration the
national calamities as between debtor and creditor."

"Quite true. But if you cannot buy the property it must pass into my
hands in a very short time. And you and the Marquis had better come to
an amicable arrangement with me. Apropos, I read in the Times newspaper
that Alain was among the wounded in the sortie of December."

"Yes; we learnt that through a pigeon-post. We were afraid...."

L'ENVOI.

The intelligent reader will perceive that the story I relate is
virtually closed with the preceding chapter; though I rejoice to think
that what may be called its plot does not find its denouement amidst the
crimes and the frenzy of the Guerre des Communeaux. Fit subjects these,
indeed, for the social annalist in times to come. When crimes that
outrage humanity have the