66 relations would tell me what had become | Louise, too, of the age you mention of Louise Duval quite as readily as they though she does her best to look younger, would tell a police agent." and is still very handsome. You said your Duval was handsome. It was only last evening that I met this lady at a soirée given by Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin, coryphée distinguée, in love with young Rameau." Quite true, Monsieur. It would really be picking your pockets if I did not at once retire from your service. Nay, Monsieur, pardon me, no further payments; I have already accepted too much. Your most obedient servant." Graham, left alone, fell into a very gloomy reverie. He could not but be sensible of the difficulties in the way of the object which had brought him to Paris, with somewhat sanguine expectations of success founded on a belief in the omniscience of the Parisian police, which is only to be justified when they have to deal with a murderess or a political incendiary. But the name of Louise Duval is about as common in France as that of Mary Smith in England; and the English reader may judge what would be the likely result of inquiring through the ablest of our detectives after some Mary Smith of whom you could give little more information than that she was the daughter of a drawing-master who had died twenty years ago, that it was about fifteen years since anything had been heard of her, and that you could not say if, through marriage or for other reasons, she had changed her name or not, and you had reasons for declining recourse to public advertisements. In the course of inquiry so instituted, the probability would be that you might hear of a great many Mary Smiths, in the pursuit of whom your employé would lose all sight and scent of the one Mary Smith for whom the chase was instituted. In the midst of Graham's despairing reflections his laquais announced M. Frederic Lemercier. "Cher Grarm-Varn. A thousand pardons if I disturb you at this late hour of the evening; but you remember the request you made me when you first arrived in Paris this season?" "In love with young Rameau? I am very glad to hear it. He returns the love? "I suppose so. He seems very proud of it. But à propos of Madame Duval, she has been long absent from Paris just returned — and looking out for conquests. She says she has a great penchant for the English; promises me to be at this ball - come." "Hearty thanks, my dear Lemercier. I am at your service." CHAPTER IX. THE bal champêtre was gay and brilliant, as such festal scenes are at Paris. A lovely night in the midst of May lamps below and stars above: the society mixed, of course. Evidently, when Graham had singled out Frederic Lemercier from all his acquaintance at Paris, to conjoin with the official aid of M Renard in search of the mysterious lady, he had conjectured the probability that she might be found in the Bohemian world so familiar to Frederic; if not as an inhab itant, at least as an explorer. Bohemia was largely represented at the bal champêtre, but not without a fair sprinkling of what we call the "respectable classes," especially English and Americans, who brought their wives there to take care of them. Frenchmen, not needing such care, prudently left their wives at home. Among the Frenchmen of station were the Comte de Passy and the Vicomte de Brézé. On first entering the gardens, Graham's eye was attracted and dazzled by a bril "Of course I do in case you should liant form. It was standing under a fesever chance in your wide round of ac-toon of flowers extended from tree to tree, quaintance to fall in with a Madame or and a gas jet opposite shone full upon the Mademoiselle Duval of about the age of face- the face of a girl in all the freshforty, or a year or so less, to let me ness of youth. If the freshness owed know and you did fall in with two ladies anything to art, the art was so well disof that name, but they were not the right guised that it seemed nature. The beauty one -not the person whom my friend of the countenance was Hebe-like, joybegged me to discover both much too ous, and radiant, and yet one could not young." look at the girl without a sentiment of deep mournfulness. She was surrounded by a group of young men, and the ring of her laugh jarred upon Graham's ear. He pressed Frederic's arm, and direct "Eh bien, mon cher. If you will come with me to le bal champêtre in the Champs Elysées to-night, I can show you a third Madame Duval; her Christian name is ing his attention to the girl, asked who she was. "Who? Don't you know? That is Julie Caumartin. A little while ago her equipage was the most admired in the Bois, and great ladies condescended to copy her dress or her coiffure. But she has lost her splendour, and dismissed the rich admirer who supplied the fuel for its blaze, since she fell in love with Gustave Rameau. Doubtless she is expecting him to-night. You ought to know her; shall I present you?" "No," answered Graham, with a compassionate expression in his manly face. "So young; seemingly so gay. How I pity her!?? Madame Duval looked puzzled, and replied in French with a laugh, "Is it that you were told that I spoke English by your countryman, Milord Sare Boulby? Petit scélérat, I hope he is well. He sends you a commission for me - so he ought: he behaved to me like a monster." "Alas! I know nothing of my lord Sir Boulby. Were you never in England yourself?" "What! for throwing herself away on Rameau? True. There is a great deal of good in her girl's nature, if she had "Never". with a coquettish sidebeen properly trained. Rameau wrote a glance-"I should like so much to go. pretty poem on her which turned her I have a foible for the English in spite of head and won her heart, in which she is that vilain petit Boulby. Who is it gave styled the Ondine of Paris,' - a nymph-you the commission for me? Ha! I guess like type of Paris itself." "Vanishing type, like her namesake ; born of the spray, and vanishing soon into the deep," said Graham. "Pray go and look for the Duval; you will find me seated yonder." Graham passed into a retired alley, and threw himself on a solitary bench, while Lemercier went in search of Madame Duval. In a few minutes the Frenchman reappeared. By his side was a lady well dressed, and as she passed under the lamps Graham perceived that, though of a certain age, she was undeniably handsome. His heart beat more quickly. Surely this was the Louise Duval he sought. He rose from his seat, and was presented in due form to the lady, with whom Frederick then discreetly left him. "Monsieur Lemercier tells me that you think that we were once acquainted with each other." "Nay, Madame; I should not fail to recognize you were that the case. A friend of mine had the honour of knowing a lady of your name; and should I be fortunate enough to meet that lady, I am charged with a commission that may not be unwelcome to her. M. Lemercier tells me your nom de baptême is Louise." "Louise Corinne, Monsieur." "And I presume that Duval is the name you take from your parents." "No; my father's name was Bernard. I married, when I was a mere child, M. Duval, in the wine trade at Bordeaux." "Ah, indeed!" said Graham, much le Capitaine Nelton." "No. What year, Madame, if not impertinent, were you at Aix-la-Chapelle ?" "You mean Baden? I was there seven years ago, when I met le Capitaine Nelton-bel homme aux cheveux rouges." "But you have been at Aix?" "Never." "I have, then, been mistaken, Madame, and have only to offer my most humble apologies." "But perhaps you will favour me with a visit, and we may on further conversation find that you are not mistaken. I can't stay now, for I am engaged to dance with the Belgian of whom, no doubt, M. Lemercier has told you." "No, Madame, he has not." "Well, then, he will tell you. The Belgian is very jealous. But I am always at home between three and four; this is my card.” Graham eagerly took the card, and exclaimed, "Is this your own handwriting, Madame?" "What! is she not the right Louise on his handsome Victor. Ah! you are Duval ?" 66 Certainly not." The Count de Passy overheard the name, and turned. "Louise Duval," he said; "does Mons. Vane know a Louise Duval ?" "No; but a friend asked me to inquire after a lady of that name whom he had met many years ago at Paris." The Count mused a moment, and said, "Is it possible that your friend knew the family De Mauléon ?" "I really can't say. What then?" "The old Vicomte de Mauléon was one of my most intimate associates. In fact, our houses are connected. And he was extremely grieved, poor man, when his daughter Louise married her drawingmaster, Auguste Duval." "Her drawing-master, Auguste Duval? Pray say on. I think the Louise Duval my friend knew must have been her daughter. She was the only child of a drawing-master or artist named Auguste Duval, and probably enough her Christian name would have been derived from her mother. A Mademoiselle de Mauléon, then, married M. Auguste Duval ?" 'Yes; the old Vicomte had espoused en premières noces Mademoiselle Camille de Chavigny, a lady of birth equal to his own, had by her one daughter, Louise. I recollect her well, a plain girl, with a high nose and a sour expression. She was just of age when the first Vicomtesse died, and by the marriage settlement she succeeded at once to her mother's fortune, which was not large. The Vicomte was, however, so poor that the loss of that income was no trifle to him. Though past fifty, he was still very handsome. Men of that generation did not age soon, Monsieur," said the Count, expanding his fine chest and laughing exultingly. "He married, en secondes noces, a lady of still higher birth than the first, and with a much better dot. Louise was indignant at this, hated her stepmother; and when a son was born by the second marriage she left the paternal roof, went to reside with an old female relative near the Luxembourg, and there married this drawing-master. Her father and the family did all they could to prevent it; but in these democratic days a woman who has attained her majority can, if she persist in her determination, marry to please herself and disgrace her ancestors. After that mésalliance her father never would see her again. I tried in vain to soften him. All his parental affection settled too young to have known Victor de Mauléon during his short reign at Paris-as roi des viveurs." "Yes, he was before my time; but I have heard of him as a young man of great fashion-said to be very clever, a duellist, and a sort of Don Juan." Exactly." 66 66 "And then I remember vaguely to have heard that he committed, or was said to have committed some villanous action connected with a great lady's jewels, and to have left Paris in consequence." Ah, yes a sad scrape. At that time there was a political crisis; we were under a Republic; anything against a noble was believed. But I am sure Victor de Mauléon was not the man to commit a larceny. However, it is quite true that he left Paris, and I don't know what has become of him since." Here he touched De Brézé, who, though still near, had not been listening to this conversation, but interchanging jest and laughter with Lemercier on the motley scene of the dance. "De Brézé, have you ever heard what became of poor dear Victor de Mauléon? -you knew him.” "Knew him? I should think so. Who could be in the great world and not know le beau Victor? No; after he vanished I never heard more of him, doubtless long since dead. A good-hearted fellow in spite of all his sins." 66 My dear M. de Brézé, did you know his half-sister?" asked Graham, — “ a Madame Duval?" "No; I never heard he had a half-sister. Halt there I recollect that I met Victor once, in the garden of Versailles, walking arm-in-arm with the most beautiful girl I ever saw; and when I complimented him afterwards at the Jockey Club on his new conquest, he replied very gravely that the young lady was his niece. 'Niece!' said I; why, there can't be more than five or six years between you.' 'About that, I suppose,' said he; 'my half-sister, her mother, was more than twenty years older than I at the time of my birth.' I doubted the truth of his story at the time; but since you say he really had a sister, my doubt wronged him." Have you never seen that same young lady since?" "Never." could learn no further particulars. He turned to quit the gardens just as the band was striking up for a fresh dance, a wild German waltz air, and mingled with that German music his ear caught the sprightly sounds of the French laugh, one laugh distinguished from the rest by a more genuine ring of light-hearted joy the laugh that he had heard on entering the gardens, and the sound of which had then saddened him. Looking toward the quarter from which it came, he again saw the Ondine of Paris.' She was not now the centre of a group. She had just found Gustave Rameau; and was clinging to his arm with a look of happiness in her face, frank and innocent as a child's. And so they passed amid the dancers down a solitary lamplit alley, till lost to the Englishman's lingering gaze. CHAPTER X. THE next morning Graham sent again for M. Renard. "Well," he cried, when that dignitary appeared and took a seat beside him; "chance has favoured me." "I always counted on chance, Monsieur. Chance has more wit in its little finger than the Paris police in its whole body." "I have ascertained the relations, on the mother's side, of Louise Duval, and the only question is how to get at them." Here Graham related what he had heard, and ended by saying, "This Victor de Mauléon is therefore my Louise Duval's uncle. He was, no doubt, taking charge of her in the year that the persons interested in her discovery lost sight of her in Paris; and surely he must know what became of her afterwards." "Very probably; and chance may befriend us yet in the discovery of Victor de Mauléon. You seem not to know the particulars of that story about the jewels which brought him into some connection with the police, and resulted in his disappearance from Paris." "No; tell me the particulars." "Victor de Mauléon was heir to some 60,000 or 70,000 francs a-year, chiefly on the mother's side; for his father, though the representative of one of the most ancient houses in France, was very poor, having little of his own except the emoluments of an appointment in the Court of Louis Philippe. he "But before, by the death of his parents, Victor came into that inheritance, very largely forestalled it. His tastes were magnificent. He took to 'sport'VOL. II. 67 LIVING AGE. kept a famous stud, was a great favourite with the English, and spoke their language fluently. Indeed he was considered very accomplished, and of considerable intellectual powers. It was generally said that some day or other, when he had sown his wild oats, he would, if he took to politics, be an eminent man. together he was a very strong creature. That was a very strong age under Louis Philippe. The viveurs of Paris were fine types for the heroes of Dumas and Sue Al full of animal life and spirits. Victor de Mauléon was a romance of Dumas — incarnated.” "M. Renard, forgive me that I did not before do justice to your taste in polite literature." "Monsieur, a man in my profession does not attain even to my humble eminence if he be not something else than a professional. He must study mankind wherever they are described — even in les romans. To return to Victor de Mauléon. Though he was a 'sportman,' a gambler, a Don Juan, a duellist, nothing was ever said against his honour. On the contrary, on matters of honour he was a received oracle; and even though he had fought several duels (that was the age of duels), and was reported without a superior, almost without an equal, in either weapon — the sword or the pistol - he is said never to have wantonly provoked an encounter, and to have so used his skill that he contrived never to slay, nor even gravely to wound, an antagonist. "I remember one instance of his generosity in this respect, for it was much talked of at the time. One of your countrymen, who had never handled a fencingfoil nor fired a pistol, took offence at something M. de Mauléon had said in disparagement of the Duke of Wellington, and called him out. Victor de Mauléon accepted the challenge, discharged his pistol, not in the air-that might have been an affront - but so as to be wide of the mark, walked up to the lines to be shot at, and when missed, said, 'Excuse the susceptibility of a Frenchman - loath to believe that his countrymen can be beaten save by accident, and accept every apology one gentleman can make to another for having forgotten the respect due to one of the most renowned of your national heroes.' The Englishman's name was Vane. Could it have been your father?" "Very probably; just like my father to call out any man who insulted the honour of his country, as represented by its men. I hope the two combatants be- actions of feeling. The men we adore came friends? "That I never heard; the duel was over- there my story ends.” 66 Pray go on." fessed." "What did the Vicomte confess? you omitted to state that." "The Vicomte, when apprehended, con one day we execrate the next. The Vicomte passed at once from the popular admiration one bestows on a hero, to the popular contempt with which one regards "One day it was in the midst of po- a petty larcener. Society wondered how litical events which would have silenced it had ever condescended to receive into most subjects of private gossip- the its bosom the gambler, the duellist, the beau monde was startled by the news that Don Juan. However, one compensation the Vicomte (he was then by his father's in the way of amusement he might still death, Vicomte) de Mauléon had been afford to society for the grave injuries he given into the custody of the police on had done it. Society would attend his the charge of stealing the jewels of the trial, witness his demeanour at the bar, Duchesse de (the wife of a distin- and watch the expression of his face when guished foreigner). It seems that some he was sentenced to the galleys. But, days before this event the Duc, wishing Monsieur, this wretch completed the to make Madame his spouse an agreeable measure of his iniquities. He was not surprise, had resolved to have a diamond tried at all. The Duc and Duchesse quitnecklace belonging to her, and which was ted Paris for Spain, and the Duc instructof setting so old-fashioned that she had ed his lawyer to withdraw his charge, not lately worn it, reset for her birthday. stating his conviction of the Vicomte's He therefore secretly possessed himself complete innocence of any other offence of the key to an iron safe in a cabinet than that which he himself had conadjoining her dressing-room (in which safe her more valuable jewels were kept), and took from it the necklace. Imagine his dismay when the jeweller in the Rue Vivienne to whom he carried it, recog-fessed that, smitten by an insane passion nized the pretended diamonds as imita- for the Duchesse, which she had, on his tion paste which he himself had some days presuming to declare it, met with indigpreviously inserted into an empty setting nant scorn, he had taken advantage of his brought to him by a Monsieur with whose lodgment in the same house to admit himname he was unacquainted. The Du- self into the cabinet adjoining her dresschesse was at that time in delicate health; ing-room by means of a key which he had and as the Duc's suspicions naturally fell procured, made from an impression of the on the servants, especially on the femme key-hole taken in wax. de chambre, who was in great favour with his wife, he did not like to alarm Madame, nor through her to put the servants on their guard. He resolved, therefore, | to place the matter in the hands of the famous who was then the pride and ornament of the Parisian police. And the very night afterwards the Vicomte de Mauléon was caught and apprehended in the cabinet where the jewels were kept, and to which he had got access by a false key, or at least a duplicate key, found in his possession. I should observe that M. de Mauléon occupied the entresol in the same hotel in which the upper rooms were devoted to the Duc and Duchesse and their suite. As soon as this charge against the Vicomte was made known (and it was known the next morning), the extent of his debts and the utterness of his ruin (before scarcely conjectured or wholly unheeded), became public through the medium of the journals, and furnished an obvious motive for the crime of which he was accused. We Parisians, Monsieur, are subject to the most startling re But No evidence in support of any other charge against the Vicomte was forthcoming-nothing, in short, beyond the infraction du domicile caused by the madness of youthful love, and for which there was no prosecution. The law, therefore, could have little to say against him. society was more rigid; and, exceedingly angry to find that a man who had been so conspicuous for luxury should prove to be a pauper, insisted on believing that M. de Mauléon was guilty of the meaner, though not perhaps, in the eyes of husbands and fathers, the more heinous, of the two offences. I presume that the Vicomte felt that he had got into a dilemma from which no pistol-shot or sword-thrust could free him, for he left Paris abruptly, and has not since reappeared. The sale of his stud and effects sufficed, I believe, to pay his debts, for I will do him the justice to say that they were paid." "But though the Vicomte de Mauléon has disappeared, he must have left relations at Paris, who would perhaps know what had become of him and of his niece." |