Chesnel and Mme. du Croisier, sounded sweet in his ears.
Mme. du Croisier shared Chesnel's views of the d'Esgrignons. She was a

deeply religious woman, a Royalist attached to the noblesse; the
interview had been in every way a cruel shock to her feelings. She, a

staunch Royalist, had heard the roaring of that Liberalism, which, in
her director's opinion, wished to crush the Church. The Left benches

for her meant the popular upheaval and the scaffolds of 1793.
"What would your uncle, that sainted man who hears us, say to this?"

exclaimed Chesnel. Mme. du Croisier made no reply, but the great tears
rolled down her checks.

"You have already been the cause of one poor boy's death; his mother
will go mourning all her days," continued Chesnel; he saw how his

words told, but he would have struck harder and even broken this
woman's heart to save Victurnien. "Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande,

for she would not survive the dishonor of the house for a week? Do you
wish to be the death of poor Chesnel, your old notary? For I shall

kill the Count in prison before they shall bring the charge against
him, and take my own life afterwards, before they shall try me for

murder in an Assize Court."
"That is enough! that is enough, my friend! I would do anything to put

a stop to such an affair; but I never knew M. du Croisier's real
character until a few minutes ago. To you I can make the admission:

there is nothing to be done."
"But what if there is?"

"I would give half the blood in my veins that it were so," said she,
finishing her sentence by a wistful shake of the head.

As the First Consul, beaten on the field of Marengo till five o'clock
in the evening, by six o'clock saw the tide of battle turned by

Desaix's desperate attack and Kellermann's terrificcharge, so Chesnel
in the midst of defeat saw the beginnings of victory. No one but a

Chesnel, an old notary, an ex-steward of the manor, old Maitre
Sorbier's junior clerk, in the sudden flash of lucidity which comes

with despair, could rise thus, high as a Napoleon, nay, higher. This
was not Marengo, it was Waterloo, and the Prussians had come up;

Chesnel saw this, and was determined to beat them off the field.
"Madame," he said, "remember that I have been your man of business for

twenty years; remember that if the d'Esgrignons mean the honor of the
province, you represent the honor of the bourgeoisie; it rests with

you, and you alone, to save the ancient house. Now, answer me; are you
going to allow dishonor to fall on the shade of your dead uncle, on

the d'Esgrignons, on poor Chesnel? Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande
weeping yonder? Or do you wish to expiate wrongs done to others by a

deed which will rejoice your ancestors, the intendants of the dukes of
Alencon, and bring comfort to the soul of our dear Abbe? If he could

rise from his grave, he would command you to do this thing that I beg
of you upon my knees."

"What is it?" asked Mme. du Croisier.
"Well. Here are the hundred thousand crowns," said Chesnel, drawing

the bundles of notes from his pocket. "Take them, and there will be an
end of it."

"If that is all," she began, "and if no harm can come of it to my
husband----"

"Nothing but good," Chesnel replied. "You are saving him from eternal
punishment in hell, at the cost of a slight disappointment here

below."
"He will not be compromised, will he?" she asked, looking into

Chesnel's face.
Then Chesnel read the depths of the poor wife's mind. Mme. du Croisier

was hesitating between her two creeds; between wifely obedience to her
husband as laid down by the Church, and obedience to the altar and the

throne. Her husband, in her eyes, was acting wrongly, but she dared
not blame him; she would fain save the d'Esgrignons, but she was loyal

to her husband's interests.
"Not in the least," Chesnel answered; "your old notary swears it by

the Holy Gospels----"
He had nothing left to lose for the d'Esgrignons but his soul; he

risked it now by this horrible perjury, but Mme. du Croisier must be
deceived, there was no other choice but death. Without losing a

moment, he dictated a form of receipt by which Mme. du Croisier
acknowledged payment of a hundred thousand crowns five days before the

fatal letter of exchange appeared; for he recollected that du Croisier
was away from home, superintending improvements on his wife's property

at the time.
"Now swear to me that you will declare before the examining magistrate

that you received the money on that date," he said, when Mme. du
Croisier had taken the notes and he held the receipt in his hand.

"It will be a lie, will it not?"
"Venial sin," said Chesnel.

"I could not do it without consulting my director, M. l'Abbe
Couturier."

"Very well," said Chesnel, "will you be guided entirely by his advice
in this affair?"

"I promise that."
"And you must not give the money to M. du Croisier until you have been

before the magistrate."
"No. Ah! God give me strength to appear in a Court of Justice and

maintain a lie before men!"
Chesnel kissed Mme. du Croisier's hand, then stood upright, and

majestic as one of the prophets that Raphael painted in the Vatican.
"You uncle's soul is thrilled with joy," he said; "you have wiped out

for ever the wrong that you did by marrying an enemy of altar and
throne"--words that made a livelyimpression on Mme. du Croisier's

timorous mind.
Then Chesnel all at once bethought himself that he must make sure of

the lady's director, the Abbe Couturier. He knew how obstinately
devout souls can work for the triumph of their views when once they

come forward for their side, and wished to secure the concurrence of
the Church as early as possible. So he went to the Hotel d'Esgrignon,

roused up Mlle. Armande, gave her an account of that night's work, and
sped her to fetch the Bishop himself into the forefront of the battle.

"Ah, God in heaven! Thou must save the house of d'Esgrignon!" he
exclaimed, as he went slowly home again. "The affair is developing now

into a fight in a Court of Law. We are face to face with men that have
passions and interests of their own; we can get anything out of them.

This du Croisier has taken advantage of the public prosecutor's
absence; the public prosecutor is devoted to us, but since the opening

of the Chambers he has gone to Paris. Now, what can they have done to
get round his deputy? They have induced him to take up the charge

without consulting his chief. This mystery must be looked into, and
the ground surveyed to-morrow; and then, perhaps, when I have

unraveled this web of theirs, I will go back to Paris to set great
powers at work through Mme. de Maufrigneuse."

So he reasoned, poor, aged, clear-sighted wrestler, before he lay down
half dead with bearing the weight of so much emotion and fatigue. And

yet, before he fell asleep he ran a searching eye over the list of
magistrates, taking all their secret ambitions into account, casting

about for ways of influencing them, calculating his chances in the
coming struggle. Chesnel's prolonged scrutiny of consciences, given in

a condensed form, will perhaps serve as a picture of the judicial
world in a country town.

Magistrates and officials generally are obliged to begin their career
in the provinces; judicialambition there ferments. At the outset

every man looks towards Paris; they all aspire to shine in the vast
theatre where great political causes come before the courts, and the

higher branches of the legal profession are closely connected with the
palpitating interests of society. But few are called to that paradise

of the man of law, and nine-tenths of the profession are bound sooner
or later to regard themselves as shelved for good in the provinces.

Wherefore, every Tribunal of First Instance and every Court-Royal is
sharply divided in two. The first section has given up hope, and is

either torpid or content; content with the excessive respect paid to