so," replied M. de Mauleon, imperturbably--"better fitted
to establish a good government in lieu of the bad one he had fought
against, and the much worse governments that would seek to turn France
into a madhouse, and make the maddest of the inmates the mad doctor!" He
turned away, and here their conversation ended.

But it so impressed Isaura, that the same night she concluded her letter
to Madame de Grantmesnil, by giving a sketch of its substance, prefaced
by an ingenuous confession that she felt less sanguine confidence in
the importance of the applauses which had greeted the Emperor at the
Saturday's ceremonial, and ending thus: "I can but confusedly transcribe
the words of this singular man, and can give you no notion of the manner
and the voice which made them eloquent. Tell me, can there be any truth
in his gloomy predictions? I try not to think so, but they seem to rest
over that brilliant hall of the Louvre like an ominous thunder-cloud."

CHAPTER II.

The Marquis de Rochebriant was seated in his pleasant apartment,
glancing carelessly at the envelopes of many notes and letters lying yet
unopened on his breakfast-table. He had risen late at noon, for he had
not gone to bed till dawn. The night had been spent at his club--over
the card-table--by no means to the pecuniary advantage of the Marquis.
The reader will have learned, through the conversation recorded in a
former chapter between De Mauleon and Enguerrand de Vandemar, that the
austere Seigneur Breton had become a fast viveur of Paris. He had long
since spent the remnant of Louvier's premium of L10,000., and he owed
a year's interest. For this last there was an excuse. M. Collot, the
contractor to whom he had been advised to sell the yearly fall of his
forest-trees, had removed the trees, but had never paid a sou beyond
the preliminary deposit; so that the revenue, out of which the mortgagee
should be paid his interest, was not forthcoming. Alain had instructed
M. Hebert to press the contractor; the contractor had replied, that if
not pressed he could soon settle all claims--if pressed, he must declare
himself bankrupt. The Chevalier de Finisterre had laughed at the alarm
which Alain conceived when he first found himself in the condition
of debtor for a sum he could not pay--creditor for a sum he could not
recover.

"Bagatelle!" said the Chevalier. "Tschu! Collot, if you give him time,
is as safe as the Bank of France, and Louvier knows it. Louv