of the innocent would be on his head. It is true there was yet time to
save the life of the prisoner; but to admit Jacques innocent was to take
the glory out of his own speech, and turn the sting of his argument
against himself. Besides, if he produced the witness who had secretly
given him the information, he should be self-condemned, for he could not
conceal that he had been aware of the circumstance before the trial.

Matters having gone so far, therefore, it was necessary that Jacques
Rollet should die; so the affair took its course; and early one morning
the guillotine was erected in the courtyard of the jail, three criminals
ascended the scaffold, and three heads fell into the basket which were
presently afterwards, with the trunks that had been attached to them,
buried in a corner of the cemetery.

Antoine de Chaulieu was now fairly started in his career, and his success
was as rapid as the first step towards it had been tardy. He took a
pretty apartment in the Hotel de Marboeuf Rue Grange-Bateliere, and in a
short time was looked upon as one of the most rising young advocates in
Paris. His success in one line brought him success in another; he was
soon a favorite in society, and an object of interest to speculating
mothers; but his affections still adhered to his old love, Natalie de
Bellefonds, whose family now gave their assent to the match,--at least,
prospectively,--a circumstance which furnished such an additional
incentive to his exertions, that in about two years from the date of his
first brilliant speech, he was in a sufficiently flourishing condition to
offer the young lady a suitable home. In anticipation of the happy event,
he engaged and furnished a suit of apartments in the Rue du Helder; and
as it was necessary that the bride should come to Paris to provide her
trousseau, it was agreed that the wedding should take place there,
instead of at Bellefonds, as had been first projected--an arrangement the
more desirable, that a press of business rendered M. de Chaulieu's
absence from Paris inconvenient.

Brides and bridegrooms in France, except of the very high classes, are
not much in the habit of making those honeymoon excursions so universal
in this country. A day spent in visiting Versailles, or St. Cloud, or
even the public places of the city, is generally all that precedes the
settling down into the habits of daily life. In the present instance, St.
Denis was selected, from the circumstance of N