rn what it costs to aid in the escape
of a prisoner and to insult a man like me. Fortune, favor, position--he
shall lose all! I hope to see him ruined and dishonored at my feet.
You shall see that day! you shall see that day!" said the marquis,
vehemently.

But, unfortunately for him and his plans, he was extremely ill for three
days, after the scene at Sairmeuse; then he wasted three days more in
composing a report, which was intended to crush his former ally.

This delay ruined him, since it gave Martial time to perfect his plans
and to send the Duc de Sairmeuse to Paris skilfully indoctrinated.

And what did the duke say to the King, who accorded him such a gracious
reception?

He undoubtedly pronounced the first reports false, reduced the
Montaignac revolution to its proper proportions, represented Lacheneur
as a fool, and his followers as inoffensive idiots.

Perhaps he led the King to suppose that the Marquis de Courtornieu
might have provoked the outbreak by undue severity. He had served under
Napoleon, and possibly had thought it necessary to make a display of his
zeal. There have been such cases.

So far as he himself was concerned, he deeply deplored the mistakes into
which he had been led by the ambitious marquis, upon whom he cast most
of the responsibility for the blood which had been shed.

The result of all this was, that when the Marquis de Courtornieu's
report reached Paris, it was answered by a decree depriving him of the
office of _grand prevot_.

This unexpected blow crushed him.

To think that a man as shrewd, as subtle-minded, as quick-witted, and
adroit as himself--a man who had passed through so many troubled epochs,
who had served with the same obsequious countenance all the masters who
would accept his services--to think that such a man should have been
thus duped and betrayed!

"It must be that old imbecile, the Duc de Sairmeuse, who has manoeuvred
so skilfully, and with so much address," he said. "But who advised him?
I cannot imagine who it could have been."

Who it was Mme. Blanche knew only too well.

She recognized Martial's hand in all this, as Marie-Anne had done.

"Ah! I was not deceived in him," she thought; "he is the great
diplomatist I believed him to be. At his age to outwit my father, an old
politician of such experience and acknowledged astuteness! And he does
all this to please Marie-Anne," she continued, frantic with rage. "It
is the first step toward obtaining