"Now I should be most happy could I claim any kindred with the noble family of Bagnols, but sorry I am to say, I was several years old when the young Count returned to the château from his campaigns with the army. Nor, indeed, should I have been much better off had fortune decreed me to be born afterwards; for though the worthy intendant was as liberal as Cato in many respects, and the most decided foe to all sorts of jealousy, and though my mother also was a complete prodigal in the dispensation of her smiles, the Count was as cold as ice. Indeed, as his marriage with the beautiful Henriette de Vergne was soon after brought on the carpet, I can hardly blame him for thinking of no one else. All went on well for two years, during which time my mother had twice occasion to call upon Lucina, and the intendant was gratified by finding himself the father of two other sturdy children. At the end of that time, however, the marriage of the Count was broken off with Mademoiselle de Vergne, and the young lady was promised to the Marquis de St. Brie. You have heard all that sad story, I dare say! The Marquis not liking a rival at liberty--for they began to whisper that the Count still privately saw Mademoiselle de Vergne, and some even said was married to her--had him arrested and thrown into prison, on an accusation of aiding the rebels at Rochelle. The count, however, found means to write to the intendant a letter from the Bastille, containing two orders: one was to send him instantly a certain packet of papers containing the proofs of his innocence; the other, to sell as speedily as possible all the alienable part of his property, and to transmit the amount to a commercial house at Saragossa. The worthy intendant set himself to consider his own interests, and finding that it would be best to keep his lord in prison, he could never discover the papers. At the same time, the buying and selling of a large property is never without its advantage to the steward, and therefore he punctually obeyed the Count's command in this particular, selling all that he could sell, and transmitting the money to Spain, at the end of which transaction he found himself very comfortably off in the world. One night, while he sat counting his gains, however, he was somewhat surprised by a visit from the count, who had made his escape from the Bastille, and came to make his intendant a call, much more disagreeable than interesting. "So much did the intendant wish his lord at the devil, that he was civil to him beyond all precedent; and having gone up in the dark to the château, they spent two hours in diligent search for the papers, which they unfortunately could not find, for this very good reason--the intendant had taken care to remove them three or four days before, and had given them in charge to his dear friend and co-labourer, the Count's apothecary, to keep them as a sacred deposit as much out of the Count's way as possible."