s, which, though
they were so recent, had already been relegated to the domain of the
legendary?

A charred ruin on the Reche.

A grave in the cemetery, upon which was inscribed:

"Marie-Anne Lacheneur, died at the age of twenty. Pray for her!"

Only a few, the oldest men and the politicians of the village, forgot
their solicitude in regard to the crops to remember this episode.

Sometimes, during the long winter evenings, when they had gathered
at the Boeuf Couronne, they laid down their greasy cards and gravely
discussed the events of the past years.

They never failed to remark that almost all the actors in that bloody
drama at Montaignac had, in common parlance, "come to a bad end."

Victors and vanquished seemed to be pursued by the same inexorable
fatality.

Look at the names already upon the fatal list!

Lacheneur, beheaded.

Chanlouineau, shot.

Marie-Anne, poisoned.

Chupin, the traitor, assassinated.

The Marquis de Courtornieu lived, or rather survived, but death would
have seemed a mercy in comparison with such total annihilation of
intelligence. He had fallen below the level of the brute, which is, at
least, endowed with instinct. Since the departure of his daughter he had
been cared for by two servants, who did not allow him to give them much
trouble, and when they desired to go out they shut him up, not in his
chamber, but in the cellar, to prevent his ravings and shrieks from
being heard from without.

If people supposed for awhile that the Sairmeuse would escape the fate
of the others, they were mistaken. It was not long before the curse fell
upon them.

One fine morning in the month of December, the duke left the chateau to
take part in a wolf-hunt in the neighborhood.

At nightfall, his horse returned, panting, covered with foam, and
riderless.

What had become of its master?

A search was instituted at once, and all night long twenty men, bearing
torches, wandered through the woods, shouting and calling at the top of
their voices.

Five days went by, and the search for the missing man was almost
abandoned, when a shepherd lad, pale with fear, came to the chateau one
morning to tell them that he had discovered, at the base of a precipice,
the bloody and mangled body of the Duc de Sairmeuse.

It seemed strange that such an excellent rider should have met with such
a fate. There might have been some doubt as to its being an accident,
had it not been for the explanation given