s to paint the whole of the
disaster at Valpinson in the sombrest colors, and with all the resources
of his well-known eloquence. He describes the Countess Claudieuse as
she kneels by the side of her dying husband, while the crowd is eagerly
pressing around the wounded man and struggling with the flames for the
charred remains of the unfortunate firemen. With increasing vehemence,
he says next,--

"And during all this time what becomes of the author of these fearful
misdeeds? When his hatred is gratified, he flees through the wood, and
returns to his home. Remorse, there is none. As soon as he reaches the
house, he eats, drinks, smokes his cigar. His position in the country is
such, and the precautionary measures he had taken appear to him so well
chosen, that he thinks he is above suspicion. He is calm. He feels so
perfectly safe, that he neglects the commonest precautions, and does not
even take the trouble of pouring out the water in which he has washed
his hands, blackened as they are by the fire he has just kindled.

"He forgets that Providence whose torch on great occasions illumines and
guides human justice.

"And how, indeed, could the law ever have expected to find the guilty
man in one of the most magnificent chateaux of the country but for a
direct intervention of Providence?

"For the incendiary, the assassin, was actually there, at the Chateau
Boiscoran.

"And let no one come and tell us that the past life of Jacques de
Boiscoran is such as to protect him against the formidable charges that
are brought against him. We know his past life.

"A perfect model of those idle young men who spend in riotous living a
fortune painfully amassed by their fathers, Jacques de Boiscoran had not
even a profession. Useless to society, a burden to himself, he passed
through life like a ship without rudder and without compass, indulging
in all kinds of unhealthy fashions in order to spend the hours that were
weighing heavily upon him.

"And yet he was ambitious; but his ambition lay in the direction of
those dangerous and wicked intrigues which inevitably lead men to crime.

"Hence we see him mixed up with all those sterile and wanton party
movements which discredit our days, uttering over and over again hollow
phrases in condemnation of all that is noble and sacred, appealing to
the most execrable passions of the multitude"--

M. MAGLOIRE.--If this is a political affair, we ought to be informed
beforehand.

ATTO