"Where the devil will Fortune make herself at home next!"

At this moment Asie had come to the dark hall looking out on the yard of
the Conciergerie, where the ushers wait. On seeing the gate through the
window, she exclaimed:

"What are those high walls?"

"That is the Conciergerie."

"Oh! so that is the Conciergerie where our poor queen----Oh! I should so
like to see her cell!"

"Impossible, Madame la Baronne," replied the young lawyer, on whose
arm the dowager was now leaning. "A permit is indispensable, and very
difficult to procure."

"I have been told," she went on, "that Louis XVIII. himself composed the
inscription that is to be seen in Marie-Antoinette's cell."

"Yes, Madame la Baronne."

"How much I should like to know Latin that I might study the words of
that inscription!" said she. "Do you think that Monsieur Camusot could
give me a permit?"

"That is not in his power; but he could take you there."

"But his business----" objected she.

"Oh!" said Massol, "prisoners under suspicion can wait."

"To be sure," said she artlessly, "they are under suspicion.--But I know
Monsieur de Granville, your public prosecutor----"

This hint had a magical effect on the ushers and the young lawyer.

"Ah, you know Monsieur de Granville?" said Massol, who was inclined to
ask the client thus sent to him by chance her name and address.

"I often see him at my friend Monsieur de Serizy's house. Madame de
Serizy is a connection of mine through the Ronquerolles."

"Well, if Madame wishes to go down to the Conciergerie," said an usher,
"she----"

"Yes," said Massol.

So the Baroness and the lawyer were allowed to pass, and they presently
found themselves in the little guard-room at the top of the stairs
leading to the "mousetrap," a spot well known to Asie, forming, as has
been said, a post of observation between those cells and the Court of
the Sixth Chamber, through which everybody is obliged to pass.

"Will you ask if Monsieur Camusot is come yet?" said she, seeing some
gendarmes playing cards.

"Yes, madame, he has just come up from the 'mousetrap.'"

"The mousetrap!" said she. "What is that?--Oh! how stupid of me not to
have gone straight to the Comte de Granville.--But I have not time
now. Pray take me to speak to Monsieur Camusot before he is otherwise
engaged."

"Oh, you have plenty of time for seeing Monsieur Camusot," said Massol.
"If you send him in your card, he will spare you the discomfor