To this nobility of character he owed his domestic happiness, that rare and precious happiness which fills one’s existence with a celestial perfume. During the bloodiest epoch of the Reign of Terror, M. d’Escorval had wrested from the guillotine a young girl named Victoire-Laure d’Alleu, a distant cousin of the Rhetaus of Commarin, as beautiful as an angel, and only three years younger than himself. He loved her--and though she was an orphan, destitute of fortune, he married her, considering the treasure of her virgin heart of far greater value than the most magnificent dowry. She was an honest woman, as her husband was an honest man, in the most strict and vigorous sense of the word. She was seldom seen at the Tuileries, where M. d’Escorval’s worth made him eagerly welcomed. The splendors of the Imperial Court, which at that time surpassed all the pomp of the time of Louis XIV., had no attractions for her. Grace, beauty, youth and accomplishments--she reserved them all for the adornment of her home. Her husband was her God. She lived in him and through him. She had not a thought which did not belong to him. The short time that he could spare from his arduous labors to devote to her were her happiest hours. And when, in the evening, they sat beside the fire in their modest drawing-room, with their son Maurice playing on the rug at their feet, it seemed to them that they had nothing to wish for here below. The overthrow of the empire surprised them in the heydey of their happiness. Surprised them? No. For a long time M. d’Escorval had seen the prodigious edifice erected by the genius whom he had made his idol totter as if about to fall. Certainly, he felt intense chagrin at this fall, but he was heart-broken at the sight of all the treason and cowardice which followed it. He was indignant and horrified at the rising _en masse_ of the avaricious, who hastened to gorge themselves with the spoil. Under these circumstances, exile from Paris seemed an actual blessing. “Besides,” as he remarked to the baroness, “we shall soon be forgotten here.” But even while he said this he felt many misgivings. Still, by his side, his noble wife presented a tranquil face, even while she trembled for the safety of her adored husband. On this first Sunday in August, M. d’Escorval and his wife had been unusually sad. A vague presentiment of approaching misfortune weighed heavily upon their hearts. At the same hour that Lacheneur presented himself at the house of the Abbe Midon, they were seated upon the terrace in front of the house, gazing anxiously at the two roads leading from Escorval to the chateau, and to the village of Sairmeuse. Warned, that same morning, by his friends in Montaignac of the arrival of the duke, the baron had sent his son to inform M. Lacheneur. He had requested him to be absent as short a time as possible; but in spite of this fact, the hours were rolling by, and Maurice had not returned.