While the count tolerated, in any degree, Louison’s ambition or caprices, she put up with this, and smothered the resentment smouldering in her bad heart, for she knew well enough that all the power she had, and more that was adroitly, simulated, sprang entirely from the favor of this man, whose popularity with the people was unparalleled. But of late, even this frail hold had begun to slacken. While swerving warily round from intense radicalism to a limited monarchy, he had made few confidants, and among them Louison found herself completely ignored. But what he refrained from telling her, she had in many underhanded ways discovered for herself, and was weaving all her threads of information together, in hopes of meshing this lion in her own net. This girl _was_ in the Bastille, and _not_ of the people. Some one among the men who fell that day was near to her, I can swear! Did I not see her wring her hands and cry out when that guard fell, headlong, from the tower? I wish it were possible to get at the man’s name, then I might trace her; but old Doudel would lie her through anything, and swear that she was her own child, if one attempted to find her out. There is no use in quarreling with these market women, they cling together like bees of one hive. Why this morning they almost hooted me from the market—me, whom they would flock around, open-mouthed, when I came to them as a messenger from Mirabeau. When I denounced that girl, they protected her. Why? That scene in the street answers one. Louison went home with bitter jealousy in her heart that swept aside her wonderful patience. Mirabeau had avoided her pointedly of late. She would endure this no longer. Women of every grade and class were preferred to her, from the queen, whom it was rank treason to know, down to the fallen Du Berry; every one, any one, could claim consideration from Mirabeau rather than herself. Yes, yes, but she was not quite ready. Some tangible proof of Mirabeau’s treason to his party must be obtained before she might dare accuse him, even to his enemies. For days and nights Louison kept herself in-doors, brooding over these thoughts, afraid to trust herself at her usual haunts, lest she should again betray her cause, as she had done in the market-place. At last this restraint became irksome. Louison was a person who craved excitement of some kind so keenly that it was necessary to her life. CHAPTER LXXXVII. THE SEALED LETTER. One day just as Louison was about to break loose from her self-imposed solitude, Zamara, the dwarf, crept into her lodgings, and placed a letter in her hand. She knew the handwriting, and questioned the dwarf sharply. “I was told to watch for a flower girl who goes to Dame Doudel’s stall every morning for her flowers,” the little wretch said in reply to her eager questions.