it is good-bye; for I am going where all our brave men are for
whom we have mourned--"

Just then Claude Vignon was shown in. The two relics of the Napoleonic
phalanx bowed gravely to each other, effacing every trace of emotion.

"You have, I hope, been satisfied by the papers," said the Master of
Appeals-elect. "I contrived to let the Opposition papers believe that
they were letting out our secrets."

"Unfortunately, it is all in vain," replied the Minister, watching Hulot
as he left the room. "I have just gone through a leave-taking that has
been a great grief to me. For, indeed, Marshal Hulot has not three days
to live; I saw that plainly enough yesterday. That man, one of those
honest souls that are above proof, a soldier respected by the bullets
in spite of his valor, received his death-blow--there, in that
armchair--and dealt by my hand, in a letter!--Ring and order my
carriage. I must go to Neuilly," said he, putting the two hundred
thousand francs into his official portfolio.

Notwithstanding Lisbeth's nursing, Marshal Hulot three days later was
a dead man. Such men are the glory of the party they support. To
Republicans, the Marshal was the ideal of patriotism; and they all
attended his funeral, which was followed by an immense crowd. The army,
the State officials, the Court, and the populace all came to do homage
to this lofty virtue, this spotless honesty, this immaculate glory. Such
a last tribute of the people is not a thing to be had for the asking.

This funeral was distinguished by one of those tributes of delicate
feeling, of good taste, and sincere respect which from time to time
remind us of the virtues and dignity of the old French nobility.
Following the Marshal's bier came the old Marquis de Montauran, the
brother of him who, in the great rising of the Chouans in 1799, had been
the foe, the luckless foe, of Hulot. That Marquis, killed by the balls
of the "Blues," had confided the interests of his young brother to the
Republican soldier. (See _Les Chouans_.) Hulot had so faithfully acted
on the noble Royalist's verbal will, that he succeeded in saving the
young man's estates, though he himself was at the time an emigre. And so
the homage of the old French nobility was not wanting to the leader who,
nine years since, had conquered MADAME.

This death, happening just four days before the banns were cried for
the last time, came upon Lisbeth like the thunderbolt that burns the
garnered harves