to hold it secretly in reserve against the day when
poverty should overtake her children. With much deliberation, and after
weighing every circumstance, the old Dominican approved the act as one
of prudence. He took his leave to prepare at once for the sale, which
he engaged to make secretly, so as not to injure Monsieur Claes in the
estimation of others.

The next day Monsieur de Solis despatched his nephew, armed with letters
of introduction, to Amsterdam, where Emmanuel, delighted to do a service
to the Claes family, succeeded in selling all the pictures in the
gallery to the noted bankers Happe and Duncker for the ostensible sum of
eighty-five thousand Dutch ducats and fifteen thousand more which were
paid over secretly to Madame Claes. The pictures were so well known that
nothing was needed to complete the sale but an answer from Balthazar to
the letter which Messieurs Happe and Duncker addressed to him. Emmanuel
de Solis was commissioned by Claes to receive the price of the pictures,
which were thereupon packed and sent away secretly, to conceal the sale
from the people of Douai.

Towards the end of September, Balthazar paid off all the sums that he
had borrowed, released his property from encumbrance, and resumed his
chemical researches; but the House of Claes was deprived of its noblest
ornament. Blinded by his passion, the master showed no regret; he felt
so sure of repairing the loss that in selling the pictures he reserved
the right of redemption. In Josephine's eyes a hundred pictures were
as nothing compared to domestic happiness and the satisfaction of her
husband's mind; moreover, she refilled the gallery with other paintings
taken from the reception-rooms, and to conceal the gaps which these left
in the front house, she changed the arrangement of the furniture.

When Balthazar's debts were all paid he had about two hundred thousand
francs with which to carry on his experiments. The Abbe de Solis and his
nephew took charge secretly of the fifteen thousand ducats reserved by
Madame Claes. To increase that sum, the abbe sold the Dutch ducats, to
which the events of the Continental war had given a commercial value.
One hundred and sixty-five thousand francs were buried in the cellar of
the house in which the abbe and his nephew resided.

Madame Claes had the melancholy happiness of seeing her husband
incessantly busy and satisfied for nearly eight months. But the shock
he had lately given her was too sev