BOOK I.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 179, 29 July 1903, Page 3 (Supplement)

BOOK I.

THE SECRET FROM ITALY.

CHAPTER L

ID ENCOUNTER AT THE ATRH DTJ

PALAIS ROYAL.

Early in the spring of the year of our lord 1718, modern France had been enjoying a night of triumph at the Academic Royale de Musique in the grand theatre of that superb building, called l>7 Richelieu the Palate Cardinal, which tie younger generation now designate v the Palais Eoyal.

A French company singing Lulli a opera, "Persee," had been conquering ;fte Italian screechers at their own Iprne, which they call the Opera. Pari diea! how I hate Italians, that nation ♦f mountebanks, poisoners and bravos. Returning in the most weird state X»tuxe had ever given to man, from their detestable country, which reaches to dimax of wickedness in Naples, a town so close to hell that its fires break wt upon its inhabitants through the "Mt of the earth and overwhelm them the slojes of that burning moun&n, Vesuvius, I had experienced the °.% joy permitted to my unfortunate situation at seeing again the new Paris tfeeted by the magnificence of the Ke!»t, s Philippe d'Orleans, and its moneW grandeur and resources that were P*lually being brought upon it by that Prince of financiers, John Lauri3ton Law. *iom the people, for some reason that *>» never been explained, know as Honour Lass. Law and his system *°c yet in their infancy, but from ■jrmer business affairs of mine I guessed jfc Scotchman already aspired to conj the finances of France by means of l> Royal Bank. At present he was sim- | N head of the Banque Generate, where r y«ar before it had often been my J Pleasure to cash a cheque. & this Paris for three weeks I bad about as in a nigh-tmare, with *j almost empty pocket, struggling to !* the bread of life, sneaking through J gardens of the Tuileries, the Colonf °f the Lotm-e and the Rtie St. rj° r e> yet elbowing in my way quite Jtlwjly both the noblesee and the rab*»i« i n ? all the tim « to see ter face J'Mn until this evening. j, "minately, making a lucky specnla■n billets d<Etat, on the Rue Quinjj*. and gaining by it a beggarly ftjmi™ , ' * kad squandered some of the great theatre. Here, %» i* c richer burghers seated in i» iU £ eatre - the nob l eS3e lounging la j? and baignoires, I had stood Jaa, T» the whole evening, jostled by o r -p. n homme of the Boueherips. tw le petit-mercier. and all the cha n et J»ned\ by the extraordinary h a in fortnTie an(l in person. "** ftver a y.ea* ago I bad been!

tolerated in these boxes and baignoires and spoken to Monsieur le Baron, chatted with Monsieur le Comte, and addressed familiarly some of the fermiersgeneraux, whose money was beginning to get them tolerated by the noblesse, for the world was changing, and a long pocket was commencing have its humble effect on even a long pedigree— now I was worse than an outcast in my own city.

Though the melodies of the opera were inspiring, the nymphs on the stage lovely as fays plucked from enchantment, and the prima donna very beautiful in her silk fleshings as chained to the rock she represented Andromeda waiting to be rescued by Persee from the coming monster, the twanging of the fiddles, the low notes of the flutes and hautboys, and the strange croonir.g3 of the fpgottos all seemed a pandemonium of sound that sang to me but one distracting, horrifying, monotonous tune.

"Venture to say you are yourself, and the maison de saute, or the prison house for you, pauper who is rich, husband who has no wife, Monsieur iiertrand Eustace Boucher, man who dare not sign a cheque on your own account at the Banque Generale, or tell your wife she is no widow!"

My wife, Misericorde! All the accursed evening I was gazing into the third box to the right of the second tier at my wife, Madame Claire Etoille Boucher, who thought herself my widow, and who would never think herself my wife again; my wife who had been stolen from me by what be called hj a member of the Academy of Sciences the achievement of Nature.

In my misery I heard one butcher grunt to another that porkers are going up in the market, and that a drove of three thousand beeves had arrived from the pasture lands of the Upper Seine and Foret d'Othe. To my ears was whispered by a little barber who dared to jostle me that he has made a thousand livres on the stock of the IndesOccidentales. Even Quasimodo le Jeune, the hunchback, upon whose crooked shoulders stock contracts were written in the Rue Quincampaix, he being considered lucky to purchasers, had giggled to me, "Business is great!" But their ignoble ventures and lives seemed no more than a hideous refrain in my mind, as my eyes rested upon box three of the second tier.

In the dazzling circles -which rise tier upon tier are many beautiful women, bearing high names and great fortunes. The Marquise de Prie, whose vivacity has made her the talk of Paris, is in a baignoire, and in the Regent's loge sits the stately Locmaria, the exquisite De Sabran aDd the spirituelle Madame de Parabere, vice-regal mistresses, past, present, and future. Still my eyes are centred on my wife, made ethereal by a robe of most delicate tissue whose colours, the half mourning of heliotrope and lilac, add to the graces of a form as willowy as when I saw her" in a bride's robes. Beside her sits a vivacious girl burdened with that delicious modesty which indicates that she has just lately left the convent school for the world. She is my wife' 3 cousin, Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Vieuxpont. Behind them are those I hate, my mother-in-law, La Comtesse Brunehaut de Champsmieux, Achille Sancerre, my former partner, the rich stock-broker, and the Comte Philamon de Savigny, one of the petitroues of the Regent. I hate the woman, because though she gave her daughter in marriage to me, she always despised me! I hate Sancerre because I can see that he is anxious to step into the shoes left vacant by the demise of Bertrand Eustace Boucher, speculator and fermiergeneral, once his partner, the man of finance, worth five million livres and now supposed to be dead —and yet glaring at him. As to the Comte Philamon, his reputation is that he loves many women, yet never wants to marry any of them, and I hate this dandy as he glances on the loveliness of my wife, who, as she aits in front of him, half conceals his dapper figure by some five yards of brocade over-dress gathered at the back into an immense panier a la mode.

During my rhapsody of rage, despair and jealousy, the performance comes to an end. Persee rescues Andromeda, I believe. At all events, the curtain descends. The ushers are putting out the wax footlights, the valets are about to extinguish the candelabra in the boxes, and the audience is passing into the Rue dcs Bon Enfante that is now so magnificently lighted by oil lampa at every one hundred yards, the facade of the opera house being made even more brilliant by the flambeaux carried by valets attending the equipages of the nobility. I am at the vestibule myself when I look up and see her coming down the grand staircase. I must hear her voice, the voice I loved. I try to hold my place, though lackeys attempt to brush me aside. What have I to do with the grand monde coming down the superb staircase from the boxes?

Finally my wife is by my side. Glancing at me, she says carelessly to the girl tripping beside her: "That fellow h quite a passable creature." "Which one —the Vicomte d'Armeral or the Marquis de Provence?" laughs her cousin, Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Vieuxpont. "Neither. That underling who doesn't carry a sword; he is handsome." "Ma , f oi, he looks as uncanny as a magician,' , shudders Gabrielle. "Uncanny? You foolish conventchild," returns the elder. "He is the kind of fellow to make a woman's heart beat quick as fireworks at Versailles!" It is the first time my wife; has ever called me handsome. As a matter of record, in her nonchalant, high-bred manner, she has sometimes insinuated just the reverse; my mother-in-law, who is coming after her, has often said it in much plainer and terser language. In rapture I am pressing towards my wife; already my lips are forming the word "Claire!" when the lady's absolutely blank and unrecognising glance paralyses my tongue and makes me remember that I am not now as I was. The unknowing expression in her mother's hard eyes, as ehe walks itnmeSately behind her daughter, emphasises the weird transformation that hue come mon me I ?aze at the Comtesse Brune-

enough to expose a wealth of withered shoulders that under their poudre shine with ghastly, skeleton-like gleam. To my&elf I grin: "Sapristi, my mother-in-law doesn't know me well enough to give me her usual scowl and jibe."

Then I do the scowling as Brunehaut tape her daughter's white shoulder with her fan and whispers: "I shall keep you in half mourning, Claire, until you -Fed 'again. Monsieur Lass himself remarked that widowhood became you, and the Comte de Savigny has just suggested tv ■me that lilac and heliotrope are colours extremely becoming to your face." Following my mother-in-law's eyes, I agree with her. In my long months of azonj I had often longed to see my wife as widow. I find she makes a most seducing one. Claire is even prettier than when she became my bride. A sad softness lingers about her grand eyes— be that there are tears in them —as she replies: "Please, ma mere, -when 1 commence to grow a little happy, do not bring up a subject that has saddened me." "Pardi," laughs her mother. "The ugly Boucher had sense enough to take w.th him his small-pox pits and WTy neck and leave behind him the only thing we valued —his fortune." The crush of people prevents my hearin? the daughter's reply. Thank God her eyes are indignant as she glances at "ma mere." One of their lackeys announces their carriage. They pass out, attended by Sancerre a-nd the Comte Philamon de Savigny. Both gallants are dressed in the extreme mode, with high-heeled shoes, flashing diamond buckles, and wen Ith of brocade and silver and gold tinsel in their coats and waistcoats that makes them sparkle under the lamp-lights of the entrance, which are now commencing to bum low, oil not being provided for more, than four hours. "Both are also. I observe, intent upon winning the favour of the Widow Boucher as they assist her into her carriage, for they pay slight attention to Mademoiselle Gabrielle, though deferential to Madame la Comtesse.

Apparently the stockbroker, who is burly of build and tall of stature, and the "roue, who is slight in figure and languidly patrician in manner, are rivals for the love of Claire; though I now observe that the noble has the advantage with my wife's mother, who, after the ladies have entereu the equipage, suggests: "Monsieur le Comte, there is a vacant place in our carriage. Sup with us at my hotel this evening." My hotel! Diable, how easily she says* the woTd. It was my hotel but a little over a year ago, to which she is inviting the count to make love to my wife. Before Claire can remark, the little dandy takes advantage of the invitation and spring 3 into the coach co rapidly that the scabbard of his rapier slightly brushes S&ncerre's nose, that gentleman being at the door of the carriage and speaking earnestly to the Widow Boucher. "Be careful. Monsieur le Comte," cried the stockbroker angrily, "the scaibbard of your rapier has scratched my face." "Morbleu," sneered Savigny in the haughty manner of the noblesse, "my rapier, Monsieur Money-changer, is always dangerous to those who get in my way." Meantime I was having trou'Mes of my own. Monsieur le Due de Villiers was stepping into hie carriage. 'From very force of habit, that great Marechal having been affably condescending to me in the old days, I raised my ragged hat, and stepping to him, saluted him. Before it had been his custom to greet me with a good-natured yet careless nod. These great gentlemen of the army are very haughty. Now, Monsieur le Marechal tosses me a silver penny, and his lackeys shove me away from the door of his carriage. The sweat of rgnomy exudes from my forehead, though the night is cold, at being treated as a mendicant under the very eyes of my wife, as her equipage drives off, leaving Sancorre in apparently Lut little better humour than I. For he was swearing roundly. Some link boys and attendant lackeys are guffawing at the retort of the aristocrat to the man of trade, the rabble generally enjoying the rebuff of one of their kind if he aspires to lift himself from their ignoble ranks. An inspiration, born perhaps of some threatening gesture or movement of the head of the surly stockbroker, which I think indicates a desire for revenge upon the party who have so nonchalantly deserted him, prompts me to follow the footsteps of Monsieur Achille Sancerre through the streets of Paria. These soon lead me from the vicinity of the Palais Eoyal. Sancerre strides along the Hue St. Honore, and turning to Ms right, crosses the Seine by the "Pont Neuf, and continues by the Rue Dauphin into the Eae de Fosses Saint Germain, where the Cafe Procope, opposite the Theatre Francais, is full of loungers. Under its numerous candles upon its well-sanded floor and drinking its best Italian wine at the various tables are many of the different classes of ParisEich stock-brokers, money changers and speculators of the Eve Quincampoix dare to place their chairs beside those of the marquis and the duke, effronteries that a few years before would have got them run through their ignoble bodies by the insulted nobles, or perhaps sent by Monsieur the Lieutenant of Police, to I'Hopltal U-eneral aa truculent vagabonds. But the financier I am following is apparently of a more retiring disposition. He makes his way straight to a sequestered corner of the room, aa if he had a rendezvous. At a corner table sits a man skinny of face, yet of cutpurse eyes. I know him from old times. It is the broker Papillonj in money matters the greatest scoundrel in Paris. Apparently he has an appointment with this gentleman, for Papillon, look ing up, laughs: "Aha, my dear Sancerre, have you despoiled the widow yet?"' The only widow he can mean is my widow. I seat myself at a table near them and invest two more of my hardearned livres in a bottle of Chianti, which I sip carefully, and listen to the scraps of conversation that drift to me from these men, who develop into villains as their words reach me.

To anyone else, did they hear it, it would be but an unintelligible rigmarole of stocks, billets d'Etat, the tobacco tax, and shares in Law's Occidental Company, which is just then coming into prominence. To me, knowing how I have left my wife's estate, it .indicatee Sancerre, my former friend and trusted partner, who is now, by my own last will and testament, my executor, is ar* ranging with this vile stockbroker, who will do his dirty work by means of falaa sales and improper valuations, to oon«

fiscate by the arts of finance my widow's property. I soon discover that he is only postponing his attack upon her estate, hoping to win her for his wife, and so gain all I hare left behind me, even to Claire's patrician loveliness. For my widow's blood, that of the Comtes de Champsmieux, is very old and very azure. This had been one of the grievances of my motfior-in-law, who had frequently said, with biting woman's wit: "My son-in-law's name, Boucher, sounds of blood, but not the blood of the noblesse, the blood of the abattoir —beef's blood!" But I had been rich and she was poor, so la Coratesse Brunehaut de Champsmieux had given to me her daughter in wedlock in those days when the poor starred, soom after the death of the Grand Moaarque in 17io.

Into this half reverie Sancerre's voice breaks again. He is laughing with the man who is to do his dirty work. "I don't intend to go to extremes with Madame Boucher unless she refuses to marry me."

"Diable! you wish everything —stocks money and beauty," grins the senile Papillon. "You're the executor of her husband's will. You were once her husband's partner; now you design to confiscate everything he left behind him, even to his widow's charms."

"We will drink to that," laughed the burly financier, who over his cups has gTown somewhat more unguarded in his language.

"You will have to act soon," remarked the chief of the most thieving set of stock-brokers upon the Quincampoix, "for things are drawing to a climax. You will have to get on one side or the other. You must either be System or Anti-system, Law or the Brothers Paris and D'Argenson, for one will crush the other, and he who stands in between will have as much chance as an unfortunate criminal who meets Monsieur de Paris by appointment on a fine morning in the Place de Greve." (Monsieur de Paris was the name given to the executioner.) "Why?" asked Sancerre, eagerly. "Because Monsieur Law has now th» Abbe Dubois upon his «de, and the P.egent hae taken a new rnistre**, the state ly Locmaria. New mistresss cost a great lot of money, and I think tbe Scotch financier, he of the cool brain, grand forehead and deep ey es, whe doesn't believe in dealing in millions but in milliards, will beat the Brothers Paris, who are only accustomed to pick up pennies, though they do it quite rapidly." This doesn't seem to affect San«erre very greatly. He guffaws: "Papillon, it is said that you smoke opium." As for me, the words of the little broker have tremendous effect. Things that I, of my own personal knowledge, knew before I left Paris, to become a transmuted outcast, come back to my mind with startling effect. Then a shock goes through me! For the first time since a trick of NaVure placed me naked in the world, almost as helpless as a child taking its first breath of life, T, the beffjrar, the man ont r>t *\- bowß, the unfortunate whose stockings show the brownness of his legs, feel I have within my hands a weapon. I stagger out of the Cafe Procope. The laughter coming from within and the buzzing of excited conversation appeared to me quite merry. The oil lamps that had shone ut>on me, the haplees, the despairing, with that cold, cruel light with which they stimulate the unfortunate to suicide, seem to become mellow, warm and inspiring. To myself T say: "Knowledge is power! I will use that knowledge to save the woman T love. Though I may never be to her husband njrain, »t least from me mv widowed Claire shall have the "iroteetion of a spouso, who in his dp«;mir shall f?nre do m<rre than If hr<r soft arms soothed his miserable pillow. **

CHAPTER EL "EX PEUITE THE RFNDBSVOTJZ." My step, which had been slinking, chants to the stride of resolution. The Cafts Prceope is quite near what was once my hotel in Paris, where my wife now lives. Before Igo to my garret, I will stroll through the Rue de Bourbon and look up at her windows. Within five minutes I enter that street from the Saints Peres, and I am gazing at the mansion. Its salon windows are

still lighted. To my astonishment I see in front of it a court-equipage with the Dv Maine liveries and a private carriage whose lackeys seem to be Spanish. I loiter about upon the opposite side of the street, and note a few gentlemen whose bearing is that of the nobility pase out of its door; among them I recognise Monsieur le Marquis de Montbazan and the youthful Vkomte le Frontenac, both by report devoted to the fortunes of the aspiring Due dv Maine, illegitimate son aspiring Due dv Maine, illegitimate son of Louis the Fourteenth by Madame de Montespan, who has in the preceding August been reduced to a simple peer by decree of a Lit de Justice, and who is writhing under -what he considers the wrongs done unto him and his by the Regent, the Due d'Orleans.

Apparently, the supper after the opera was too high a fete for Sancerre, the stock-broker, to be allowpd to show his face at, or else Madame de Champsmipux did not care for his intrusion for other reasons.

As I meditate the door is thrown open again, and, striding from the entrance, comes a handsome youth, Eaoul d'Aubigne—the most li«rht-hearted, dating boy in Paris, a cadet of that grand old Huguenot family, a Mousquetaire Noir in that magnificent company hi which dukes serve as privates and prin-eee are not ashamed to shoulder the firelock. This boy I had once loved and love now. He has doubtless been to the house to see the pretty cwwin of my wife. As children they had been good comrades. Now I hope ho wishes to marry the pretty Gabrielle de Vieuxpor.t. From force of habit I go to him and am about to say "Raoul!" when he —he cheeks me, he shocks me, he abaeea me by crying: "Hola, besrgar, what do you want—a silver penny?" "No," I mumble, "only a kind word.* "Well, I have more kind words about me than failver pennies," laughs the young rtpendthrift, "However, here's for a bottle of wine for you. Take that and drink my health!" He tosses me a golden louis and cries: "I am the happiest man in Paris this evening. I marry the girl I love, who loves me. Drink my health often. You can do it well. You look the handsomest vagabond in Pane." The young fellow goes along the street humming an air of Mourit. The oil lamp at the corner flashes npon the gorgeous accoutrements of a mousquetaire, hie sword dangling by hie side, and I think of the time when D'Aubigne once offered to draw it for my aid. Rumour had said that he, the aristocrat, was friendly and complaisant to me, the

! man of commerce, because he wanted to borrow my gold. Raoul had never asked me for a livre. Even now I thank I God I had put him in my will and made him rich enough to espouse the pretty Gabrielle. He doesn't know what he owes to the poor wretch gazing after him and never looks back. And I, with another stab in my heart, cry out curees upon the gift of Nature, who from an ' ugly man has made me into an- Adonis. I am about to turn forlornly away when a movement of the curtains of one of the windows of my wife's salon attracts me. A white hand draws the draperies apart, and a fair face, that of my Claire, is garing into the street. Beside her stands a gallant. Fer a moment I presume it is the little dapper roue, the Comte Philamon de Savigny, but an instant after I give a start. The face is that of the accursed Cavaliere da Provenzo —Italia Provenzo! I remember his name very well. And the Neapolitan korror comes back to me. Then it changes to a terror for Claire. For now I know a matter I had left unsettled in Paris is still in progress. It is an additional and most awful menace, . not to her fortune, perhaps, but to much more—even her liberty or life. From it I must protect her. Oh, Heaven! How impotent I feel as, slouching in the shadow of some unoccupied buildings now in process of alteration, I gaze upon them. What their words are, of course, I cannot hear, but my wife's face is that of reflection upon some matter that greatly concerns and even agitates her. The attitude of the Italian is more than that of entreaty. It is command. Is she so in his toil 3 that he dares take that position with her? Claire turns to him with a nervous gesture of dissent and leaves him. The curtains fluttering down behind her out off my view of her beauty. As I think upon the loveliness of my wife, increased by some agitation of mind, some Badness, perchance of the past, I remember but two houre ago she had called me handsome and don't entirely curse the prank of nature that has transformed me from a scareface and wry-neck into what I am. Then suddenly I jeer myself: "Peste, outcast, how can you eren approach her, to have a word with her. That would require almost another miracle." I am about to turn away when the flicker of one of the new and extraordinarily brilliant oil lamp* of the street, | falling upon an inscription freeh from mason's chiael over the entrance to the buildings being altered, catches my eye. It strikes me euddenly as a flash of lightning , . It is a simple inscription: j "Hotel da Maine." These ar« the nous«« jof which report says the bastard son of Louis XIV. ia having turned into a Parisian residence; bo that he will be closer to his adherents in Paris and the Parisian Parliament. Then fliee up into my mind words I had heard im Naples, and reroemberinw fche attitude o< Da Provenro to my wife in the window but a minute ago, I shudder to myself: "The Spanish Conapiracy is approaching consummation, and I not able to aid her, to get near her, to advise her, to protect her; I, ncr husband, cot off from my wife by a trick erf Nature. It is tbe work not of God, but of the DevfL" I turn away and e*d3y trudge fco'wards the other side of the river. Crossing the Seine by the Ponte Marie and an Change, I get far from the fashionable quarters of tl>e town to an old house in the little Rtw de Venise, where I occupy a garret. There throughout the nisrbt I sit and etrfre to think out the problems of my new life. My old existence eeeme very dim to m«. Born of fcwe nobodies by the name of Boucher. I had been christened Euetaee" by the parish priest of Ohareuton. By the kinduees of that cure, who always said I bad a brisrht mind, I had ■been taught more completely the arts of! the pen and OTlcnlation than winy I n-obkw, who stiT! believed the sword was the too , ! with wnich to move the world. Early in the ccntnrv T b*d become the Rcrrvemer to one Benwrd Losps. a fermier-gwierai. In hie officw, I hvi STaduaTly worked my way up, learning , the arts of cheating the Government and grrndinsr fhe taxed, until one fine day, Imy chief being eiwpwted of defrauding the treasury, was seized by the order of : Monsieur MaTC "Rene d'Arsrenson, who hfi<\ but a few years before this snccpcdpd Monsieur de la Reynie an LaeutenantGeTwral of the Police of Paris. Losis not being of high birth. Trad only the influence of money. In addition he was also reported to have made some fh'eper&giug remarks about Madame de Maintenon. That doomed Mm. He was brwirht to trial at the Orand Chatelet and ereented by order of that court. My aceotmfcs had always been, straight, though my master's had been crooked. Besides I had suggested a new and bucceseful tax, that on shepherd dogs. And the shepherds of the Landes had paid it, though they, doubtless, would have liked to kick me to death with their long stilts for inventing the impost. To my astonishment, Monsieur Jacques Poeltier, Intendant ol Finance, sent for me and offered me the position made vacan-t by the death of my master, telling me I could pay him my douceur fewr it at my leisure as I accumulated funds. Thus the door of the Temple of Fortune opened to me, of ignoble birth. I took care to be very polite to the powers that be, especially Madame de Maintenon, and gradually grew in importance among the money-grubbers of France, a country whose finances at that time were in a very bad way. In 1716 I had accumulated sufficient to take considerable stock in the Banque Generale, just being formed by Law, and was in a condition to take advantage of the tremendous prosperity which began to come upon the country with the advent of the Scotch financier and his system of paper money of fixed values, "just before this, at the time of the death of the late King, when things were at their very lowest, and people were starving in the streets of Paris, I was approached by a widow, Madame Brunehaut Mathilde, la Comtease de Champsmieux, who was in extreme financial straits, her family, who had depended upoH rents from a email estate in Languidoc, having been entirely ruined by the exodus of Huguenote from that province. During my business negotiations with her she brought with her her daughter, Claire Etoille, who had juet been taken from a convent, designedly, I think; for her ehild'3 loveliness won me to give aid to the widow.

B« that as it may, my eyes once resting upon the beautiful girl my heart began to beat in a way that even asueceseful speculation had never caused it to thump before. In short, I offered myself with my poor name but great fortune; and not requiring a dot, which would hare been impossible, mademois-

elle was given to me in marriage and became my bride. At the ceremony, even her noble friends and relatives, relaxing their hautier sufficiently, filled the Church of Saint Louis on the Isle.

Then I found that, though as her husband I had won my wife's duty, I had not gained her heart. Thi3 was not extraordinary. Though scarcely 30, my face had been pitted by the smallpox; and some nervous affliction of childhood, badly treated by an ignorant leech, had twisted my neck. 'Tis youth and beauty for youth and beauty, I was lacking decidedly in the beauty.

But I believe my caxe, consideration and kindness to my wife was gradually winning her affection, when her mother, made independent by my wealth, I having foolishly rescued her family estate from her creditors, began to destroy my domestic happiness by the arts of a mother-in-law. She never failed to remind her daughter of the ignoble name I had given her—'Boucher —jibing me with having made Claire , one of the rabble by marrying her; which was, Tinfortunately, true, as the wife follows the status of her husband. In addition, she talked by th*c hour of the glory of the ancient family of Champsmieux, and fnally becoming attached to the faction of the Due dv Maine, who was attempting to draw all of ancient lineage to his court at Sceaux, grew in arrogance as that bastard Duke became more hopeful of deposing Philippe d'Orkans from the Regency a-nd taking his place as the director of France during the infancy of Louie XV.

During this time she frequently took Claire to fetes, routs and ballets given by Madame la Duchess dv Maine at her eemi-regal chateu, to which I, the humble man of trade, was not even bidden.

As to the conduct of my wife on these occasions, surrounded by gallants who would have thought no more of stealing the honour of a rich bourgeois than of running him through the body if he dared to object to thc-ir attempts upon his wife, I have naught but admiration and respect.

My mother-in-law's intimacy with the house of dv Maine had been somewhat facilitated by the fact that my valet, one Aleasandro Giovanni Cecina, a Neapolitan, had a sister in the employ of Madajr.e la Duchees.

In the course of time this girl, Sofia Giulia Cecina, became the confidential maid of 1r Comteese de Champemieux, J running about from my house on the Rue de Bourbon to the Chateau of Sceaux, but two leagues out of Paris, as if she were a courier rather than a eoubrette, though Madame la Duches3 Idu Maine, the grand-daughter of the j-great Conde, being a princess of the blood, was altogether too exalted to visit eh ordinary countess.

I had striven to prevent my wife's connection with Sceaux as much as possible, knowing it would not do me any good with the Regent.

(To be continued in Saturday's

Supplement.)