issued with a large sealed
envelope, which contained a handsome parchment in blank, signed "Louis."
It was a _lettre de cachet_, one of those warrants by which a man might,
without warning to his friends or any charge laid, be arrested and
imprisoned in one of those fortresses whose walls were so many living
graves. He took it to the lodgings of Repentigny.

"Pierre, I am on the campaign against your namesake!" exclaimed he.

"Then you have heard the latest news?"

"Not if it is fresh to-day."

"An hour old. There has been a second duel between our Louis and Lecour.
What a pity!"

"A pity? it is an infernal outrage! Another duel? Oh, my God!"

"Lecour became impatient----"

"_Impatient_, forsooth!"

"And exclaimed among his companions that _Lery_----"

"Curse his insolence!"

"That _Lery's_ family were skin-merchants."

"The pig and scoundrel! he shall sting for this. Why do you hold
yourself so calm, Repentigny, when your family is insulted?"

"Frankly, because it is not altogether untrue."

"_We_ in trade? Our nobles skin-merchants? Is it thus that you will
allow the King's permission to our order to engage in the fur trade to
be stigmatised?"

"I have, Michel, seen the ways of many peoples. I have learned to look
on the castes of our Canada with the same eyes as I look on those of
India, the eyes of amusement, for I find in mankind everywhere the same
tendencies and the same pretensions."

"But this beast of a Lecour is a liar and impostor."

"Both."

"Then I will show you your duty. Open this envelope. You have only to
fill Lecour's name into the warrant it contains, and he goes under lock
and key in the Bastille."

"I cannot."

"Why?"

"He is a brave man."

"Tut, you madden me, Pierre. The worst felons are bold."

"But not generous. Lecour saved Louis's life from the blade of a madman
at this duel. I know too well how that madman would have thrust. We are
both mad--he and I, pursuer and pursued--I have brought it down on both.
Poor Louis! have I pulled down the wrath of God also upon you? What is
this, Michel, that you have brought? Consider what you ask me to do? To
think that any man of our free colony would use a _lettre de cachet_,
and against a brother Canadian! The thing is damnable," and he flung the
parchment into the fire, where it curled up instantly as if sensitive to
the flame, and cracked loudly with bursting blisters.

"Pierre, you are a cursed fool!" de Lotbiniere retor