class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">363

29. The Prince de Listhnay's Accomplice 368 30. The Fox and Goose 372 31. A Chapter of Saint-Simon 376 32. A Snare 378 33. The Beginning of the End 382 34. Parliamentary Justice 387 35. Man Proposes 391 36. David and Goliath 395 37. The Savior of France 400 38. God Disposes 408 39. A Prime Minister's Memory 412 40. Boniface 416 41. The Three Visits 420 42. The Closet 424 43. The Marriage in Extremis 427   Postscriptum 429

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

7.—He attacked the captain with such fury that their swords engaged at the hilt.

8.—D'Harmental.

9.—He then returned to his work with all the eagerness of an artist.

10.—The chevalier set Mirza to eat sugar.

11.—Buvat found himself in a sort of laboratory, situated on the ground-floor.

12.—The body of the captain lay stretched on the floor, swimming in a sea of blood.

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THE CONSPIRATORS;
OR,
THE CHEVALIER D'HARMENTAL.

CHAPTER I.

CAPTAIN ROQUEFINETTE.

On the 22d of March, in the year of our Lord 1718, a young cavalier of high bearing, about twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age, mounted on a pure-bred Spanish charger, was waiting, toward eight o'clock in the morning, at that end of the Pont Neuf which abuts on the Quai de l'Ecole.

He was so upright and firm in his saddle, that one might have imagined him to be placed there as a sentinel by the Lieutenant-General of Police, Messire Voyer d'Argenson. After waiting about half an hour, during which time he impatiently examined the clock of the Samaritaine, his glance, wandering till then, appeared to rest with satisfaction on an individual who, coming from the Place Dauphine, turned to the right, and advanced toward him.

The man who thus attracted the attention of the young chevalier was a powerfully-built fellow of five feet ten, wearing, instead of a peruke, a forest of his own black hair, slightly grizzled, dressed in a manner half-bourgeois, half-military, ornamented with a shoulder-knot which had once been crimson, but from exposure to sun and rain had become a dirty orange. He was armed with a long sword slung in a belt, and which bumped ceaselessly against the calves of his legs. Finally, he wore a hat once furnished with a plume and lace, and which—in remembrance, no doubt, of its past splendor—its owner had stuck so much over his left ear, that it seemed as if only a miracle of equilibrium could keep it in its place. There was altogether in the countenance and in the carriage and bearing of the man (who seemed from forty to forty-five years of age, and who advanced swaggering and keeping the middle of the road, curling his mustache with one hand, and with the other signing to the carriages to give place), such a character of insolent carelessness, that the cavalier who watched him smiled involuntarily, as he murmured to himself, "I believe this is my man."