uveterre. The town was full of him; nothing
was done without him; and yet he had not an enemy in the place.

The fact is, people were afraid of him, and dreaded his terrible tongue.
Not that he had ever injured anybody, he was too wise for that; but
they knew the harm he might do, if he chose, as he was master of every
important secret in Sauveterre, and the best informed man in town as
regarded all their little intrigues, their private foibles, and their
dark antecedents.

This gave him quite an exceptional position. As he was unmarried,
he lived with his sisters, the Misses Mechinet, who were the best
dressmakers in town, and, moreover, devout members of all kinds of
religious societies. Through them he heard all that was going on in
society, and was able to compare the current gossip with what he heard
in court, or at the newspaper office. Thus he could say pleasantly,--

"How could any thing escape me, when I have the church and the press,
the court and the theatre, to keep me informed?"

Such a man would have considered himself disgraced if he had not known
every detail of M. de Boiscoran's private affairs. He did not hesitate,
therefore, while the carriage was rolling along on an excellent road, in
the fresh spring morning, to explain to his companions the "case," as he
called it, of the accused nobleman.

M. de Boiscoran, called Jacques by his friends, was rarely on his
estate, and then only staid a month or so there. He was living in Paris,
where his family owned a comfortable house in University Street. His
parents were still alive.

His father, the Marquis de Boiscoran, the owner of a large landed
estate, a deputy under Louis Philippe, a representative in 1848, had
withdrawn from public life when the Second Empire was established,
and spent, since that time, all his money, and all his energies, in
collecting rare old books, and especially costly porcelain, on which he
had written a monograph.

His mother, a Chalusse by birth, had enjoyed the reputation of being one
of the most beautiful and most gifted ladies at the court of the Citizen
King. At a certain period in her life, unfortunately, slander had
attacked her; and about 1845 or 1846, it was reported that she had had
a remarkable affair with a young lawyer of distinction, who had since
become one of the austerest and most renowned judges. As she grew old,
the marchioness devoted herself more and more to politics, as other
women become pious. While