ses was heard;
it stopped very suggestively at the gate of the Conciergerie on the
quay. The door was opened, and the step let down in such haste, that
every one supposed that some great personage had arrived. Presently a
lady waving a sheet of blue paper came forward to the outer gate of the
prison, followed by a footman and a chasseur. Dressed very handsomely,
and all in black, with a veil over her bonnet, she was wiping her eyes
with a floridly embroidered handkerchief.

Jacques Collin at once recognized Asie, or, to give the woman her true
name, Jacqueline Collin, his aunt. This horrible old woman--worthy of
her nephew--whose thoughts were all centered in the prisoner, and who
was defending him with intelligence and mother-wit that were a match for
the powers of the law, had a permit made out the evening before in the
name of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse's waiting-maid by the request of
Monsieur de Serizy, allowing her to see Lucien de Rubempre, and the Abbe
Carlos Herrera so soon as he should be brought out of the secret cells.
On this the Colonel, who was the Governor-in-Chief of all the prisons
had written a few words, and the mere color of the paper revealed
powerful influences; for these permits, like theatre-tickets, differ in
shape and appearance.

So the turnkey hastened to open the gate, especially when he saw the
chasseur with his plumes and an uniform of green and gold as dazzling as
a Russian General's, proclaiming a lady of aristocratic rank and almost
royal birth.

"Oh, my dear Abbe!" exclaimed this fine lady, shedding a torrent of
tears at the sight of the priest, "how could any one ever think of
putting such a saintly man in here, even by mistake?"

The Governor took the permit and read, "Introduced by His Excellency the
Comte de Serizy."

"Ah! Madame de San-Esteban, Madame la Marquise," cried Carlos Herrera,
"what admirable devotion!"

"But, madame, such interviews are against the rules," said the good
old Governor. And he intercepted the advance of this bale of black
watered-silk and lace.

"But at such a distance!" said Jacques Collin, "and in your
presence----" and he looked round at the group.

His aunt, whose dress might well dazzle the clerk, the Governor,
the warders, and the gendarmes, stank of musk. She had on, besides
a thousand crowns of lace, a black India cashmere shawl, worth six
thousand francs. And her chasseur was marching up and down outside with
the insolence of a lacke