d, I already knew,
yielded little or nothing. The commerce of France was naturally
paralysed by the declaration of war, and no one wanted a vast old
house in the Faubourg St. Germain--a hotbed of Legitimism where no
good Buonapartist cared to own a friend or show his face.

I disguised nothing from Madame de Clericy, whom indeed it was hard to
deceive.

"Then," she said, "there is no money."

We were in my study, where I was seated at the table, while Madame
moved from table to mantelpiece with a woman's keen sight for the
blemishes to be found in a bachelor's apartment.

"For the moment you are in need of ready money--that is all. If the
war is brought to a speedy termination, all will be set right."

"And if the war is not brought to a speedy termination--you are a
second-rate optimist, _mon ami_--what then?"

"Then I shall have to find some expedient."

She looked at me probingly. The windows were open, and we heard the
cries of the newsboys in the streets.

"Hear!" she said; "they are shouting of victories."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You mean," said the Vicomtesse slowly, "that they will shout of
victories until the Prussians are in sight of Paris."

"The Parisians will pay two sous for good news, and nothing at all for
evil tidings," I answered.

Thus we lived for some weeks, through the heat of July--and I could
neither leave Paris nor give thought to Charles Miste. That scoundrel
was, however, singularly quiet. No cheque had been cashed, and we
knew, at all events, that he had realised none of his stolen wealth.
On the tenth of July the Ollivier Ministry fell. Things were going
from bad to worse. At the end of the month the Emperor quitted St.
Cloud to take command of the army. He never came to France again.

Chapter XV

Flight

"Repousser sa croix, c'est l'appesantir."

During the first week of August the excitement in Paris reached its
greatest height, and culminated on the Saturday after the battle of
Weissenburg. Of this defeat John Turner had, as I believe, the news
before any other in Paris. Indeed, the evil tidings came to the city
from the English _Times_. The stout banker, whose astuteness I had
never doubted, displayed at this time a number of those
qualities--such as courage, cool-headedness and foresight--to which we
undoubtedly owe our greatness in the world. We are, as our neighbours
say, a nation of shopkeepers, but we keep a rifle under the counter. A
man may p