“That saves it, I think?” said Massol. “You are perfectly right.” “The public prosecutor will thank you for it to-morrow,” said Massol slyly. Now to the great majority, as to the more choice reader, it will perhaps seem that this Study is not completed by the death of Esther and of Lucien; Jacques Collin and Asie, Europe and Paccard, in spite of their villainous lives, may have been interesting enough to make their fate a matter of curiosity. The last act of the drama will also complete the picture of life which this Study is intended to present, and give the issue of various interests which Lucien’s career had strangely tangled by bringing some ignoble personages from the hulks into contact with those of the highest rank. Thus, as may be seen, the greatest events of life find their expression in the more or less veracious gossip of the Paris papers. And this is the case with many things of greater importance than are here recorded. VAUTRIN’S LAST AVATAR “What is it, Madeleine?” asked Madame Camusot, seeing her maid come into the room with the particular air that servants assume in critical moments. “Madame,” said Madeleine, “monsieur has just come in from Court; but he looks so upset, and is in such a state, that I think perhaps it would be well for you to go to his room.” “Did he say anything?” asked Madame Camusot. “No, madame; but we never have seen monsieur look like that; he looks as if he were going to be ill, his face is yellow--he seems all to pieces----” Madame Camusot waited for no more; she rushed out of her room and flew to her husband’s study. She found the lawyer sitting in an armchair, pale and dazed, his legs stretched out, his head against the back of it, his hands hanging limp, exactly as if he were sinking into idiotcy. “What is the matter, my dear?” said the young woman in alarm. “Oh! my poor Amelie, the most dreadful thing has happened--I am still trembling. Imagine, the public prosecutor--no, Madame de Serizy--that is--I do not know where to begin.” “Begin at the end,” said Madame Camusot. “Well, just as Monsieur Popinot, in the council room of the first Court, had put the last signature to the ruling of ‘insufficient cause’ for the apprehension of Lucien de Rubempre on the ground of my report, setting him at liberty--in fact, the whole thing was done, the clerk was going off with the minute book, and I was quit of the whole business--the President of the Court came in and took up the papers. ‘You are releasing a dead man,’ said he, with chilly irony; ‘the young man is gone, as Monsieur de Bonald says, to appear before his natural Judge. He died of apoplexy----’ “I breathed again, thinking it was sudden illness. “‘As I understand you, Monsieur le President,’ said Monsieur Popinot, ‘it is a case of apoplexy like Pichegru’s.’ “‘Gentlemen,’ said the President then, very gravely, ‘you must please to understand that for the outside world Lucien de Rubempre died of an aneurism.’