So, the Duc d'Orléans stopped in front of me and said to me, "Dumas, you should know this: when a person is descended from Louis XIV. even if only through bastards, it is a sufficiently great honour to boast about!... Proceed." And he resumed: "Would not that likeness alone be sufficient to demonstrate the falseness of this adventuress's pretensions?..." I wrote this time without raising an eye, and I never looked up again throughout the remainder of the sitting. At four o'clock the Duc d'Orléans set me free, asking me if I could come to work in the evening. I replied that I was at His Highness's disposition. I picked up my hat, I bowed, I went out, I took the stairs four at a time and I ran to find Lassagne. He chanced to be still at his desk. "How can Louis XIV. be the grandfather of the Duc d'Orléans?" I asked as soon as I got in, without any preliminary explanation. "Good gracious!" he said, "it is plain enough: because the regent married Mademoiselle de Blois, who was Louis XIV.'s natural daughter by Madame de Montespan--a marriage that procured him a sound smack in the face when it was announced by him to the Princess Palatine, Monsieur's second wife, who thus expressed her feelings at the _mésalliance._ ... You will find all this in the memoirs of the Princess Palatine and in Saint-Simon." I felt extinguished by the ready and accurate answer given me. "Oh!" I said, with downcast head, "I shall never be as learned as that!" I finished the copy of the statement by eleven o'clock that same evening. It was sent next day to M. Dupin, who should have it still, written in my handwriting. We will now finish the story of Maria-Stella. When she had threatened the Duc d'Orléans, she returned to Italy, to hunt up evidence that would establish the authenticity of her birth, and the substitution of the daughter of the Comtesse de Joinville for the son of the gaoler Chiappini. She did, in fact, obtain the following decree from the Ecclesiastical Court of Faenza, on 29 May 1824: we will give it for what it is worth, or rather for what it was worth. This decree is followed by the official rectification of the birth certificate:-- JUDGMENT OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURT OF FAENZA