t they would leave me time to bring you the news."

"Were you nearly arrested then, Valef?" asked D'Harmental.

"I only escaped by a hair's breadth."

"How did it happen, baron?"

"You remember, abbe, that I left you to go to the Prince de Cellamare?"

"Yes."

"Well, I was there when they came to seize his papers."

"Have they seized the prince's papers?"

"All except what we burned, which unfortunately were the smaller
number."

"Then we are all lost," said the abbe.

"Why, my dear abbe, how you throw the helve after the hatchet!"

"But, Valef, you have not told us how it happened," said D'Harmental.

"My dear chevalier, imagine the most ridiculous thing in the world. I
wish you had been there: we should have laughed fit to kill ourselves.
It would have enraged that fellow Dubois."

"What! was Dubois himself at the ambassador's?"

"In person, abbe. Imagine the Prince de Cellamare and I quietly sitting
by the corner of the fire, taking out letters from a little casket, and
burning those which seemed to deserve the honors of an auto-da-fe, when
all at once his valet-de-chambre enters, and announces that the hotel of
the embassy is invested by a body of musketeers, and that Dubois and
Leblanc wish to speak to him. The object of this visit is not difficult
to guess. The prince--without taking the trouble to choose--empties the
caskets into the fire, pushes me into a dressing closet, and orders that
they shall be admitted. The order was useless. Dubois and Leblanc were
at the door. Fortunately, neither one nor the other had seen me."

"Well, I see nothing droll as yet," said Brigaud.

"This is just where it begins," replied Valef. "Remember that I was in
the closet, seeing and hearing everything. Dubois entered, and
stretching out his weasel's head to watch the Prince de Cellamare, who,
wrapped in his dressing-gown, stood before the fire to give the papers
time to burn.

"'Monsieur,' said the prince, in that phlegmatic manner you know he has,
'may I know to what event I owe the honor of this visit?'

"'Oh, mon Dieu, monseigneur!' said Dubois, 'to a very simple thing--a
desire which Monsieur Leblanc and I had to learn a little of your
papers, of which,' added he, showing the letters of Philip V., 'these
two patterns have given us a foretaste.'"

"How!" said Brigaud, "these letters seized at ten o'clock at Versailles
are in Dubois's hands at one o'clock!"

"As you say, abbe. You see that they traveled