These unavailing regrets, the disappointment and sorrow that preyed upon his mind undoubtedly aggravated the bitterness and severity of Martial’s policy. At least he knew how to fall nobly. He passed, even without a change of countenance, from all but omnipotence to a position so compromising that his very life was endangered. On perceiving his ante-chambers, formerly thronged with flatterers and place-hunters, now empty and deserted, he laughed--naturally, sincerely, without the least affectation. “The ship is sinking,” said he: “the rats have deserted it.” He did not even turn pale when the mob gathered outside his house, hurling stones at his windows, and hooting and cursing the fallen statesman; and when Otto, his faithful valet de chambre, entreated him to assume a disguise, and make his escape through the gardens, he quietly replied, “By no means! I am simply odious; I don’t wish to become ridiculous!” They could not even dissuade him from going to a window and looking down on the rabble in the street below. A singular idea had just occurred to him. “If Jean Lacheneur is still alive,” he thought, “how much he would enjoy this! And if he is alive, no doubt he is there in the foremost rank, urging on the crowd.” And he wished to see. But Jean Lacheneur was in Russia at that epoch. The excitement eventually subsided; and the Hotel de Sairmeuse was not seriously threatened. However, Martial realized that it would be better for him to go away for awhile, and allow people to forget him. He did not ask the duchess to accompany him. “The fault has been mine entirely,” he said to her, “and it would be most unjust to make you suffer for it by condemning you to exile. Remain here; I think it will be much better for you to remain.” She did not offer to go with him, although she longed to do so, but then she dared not leave Paris. She knew that she must remain in order to secure her persecutor’s silence. On the two occasions when she had left Paris before, everything was near being discovered, and yet then she had had Aunt Medea to take her place. Martial went away, accompanied only by his servant, Otto. In intelligence, this man was decidedly superior to his position; he was indeed decently off, and he had a hundred reasons--one, by the way, was a very pretty one--for desiring to remain in Paris; but his master was in trouble, and so he did not hesitate. During four years the Duke de Sairmeuse wandered through Europe, always chafing beneath the burden of a life no longer animated by interest or sustained by hope. He remained for a time in London, then he went to Vienna, and afterwards to Venice. One day he was seized by an irresistible desire to see Paris again, and he returned. It was not a very prudent step, perhaps, for his bitterest enemies--personal enemies, whom he had mortally offended and persecuted--were in power; but still he did not hesitate. Besides, how could they injure him, since he had no favours to ask, no cravings of