“Come, sit down,” said Monsieur Alain, sitting down himself. Then he made a pause as if to gather up his ideas. “I don’t know,” he went on, “if I have the talent to worthily relate a life so cruelly tried. You must excuse me if the words of so poor a speaker as I are beneath the level of its actions and catastrophes. Remember that it is long since I left school, and that I am the child of a century in which men cared more for thought than for effect,--a prosaic century which knew only how to call things by their right names.” Godefroid made an acquiescing gesture, with an expression of sincere admiration, and said simply, “I am listening.” “You have just had a proof, my young friend,” resumed the old man, “that it is impossible you should remain among us without knowing at least some of the terrible facts in the life of that saintly woman. There are ideas and illusions and fatal words which are completely interdicted in this house, lest they reopen wounds in Madame’s heart, and cause a suffering which, if again renewed, might kill her.” “Good God!” cried Godefroid, “what have I done?” “If Monsieur Joseph had not stopped the words on your lips, you were about to speak of that fatal instrument of death, and that would have stricken down Madame de la Chanterie like a thunderbolt. It is time you should know all, for you will really belong to us before long,--we all think so. Here, then, is the history of her life:-- “Madame de la Chanterie,” he went on, after a pause, “comes from one of the first families of Lower Normandy. Her maiden name was Mademoiselle Barbe-Philiberte de Champignelles, of the younger branch of that house. She was destined to take the veil unless she could make a marriage which renounced on the husband’s side the dowry her family could not give her. This was frequently the case in the families of poor nobles. “A Sieur de la Chanterie, whose family had fallen into obscurity, though it dates from the Crusade of Philip Augustus, was anxious to recover the rank and position which this ancient lineage properly gave him in the province of Normandy. This gentleman had doubly derogated from his rightful station; for he had amassed a fortune of nearly a million of francs as purveyor to the armies of the king at the time of the war in Hanover. The old man had a son; and this son, presuming on his father’s wealth (greatly exaggerated by rumor), was leading a life in Paris that greatly disquieted his father.