Astier-Réhu, not understanding at first, looked at the Baron, who looked at the ceiling. But when he had picked up the meaning of the dealer’s outcry--that the three autograph letters of Charles V., sold by Madame Astier to Bos and by him transferred to Huchenard, were asserted not to be genuine--he said with a disdainful smile, that he would readily repurchase them, as he regarded them with a confidence not to be affected by any means whatsoever. ‘Allow me, Mr. Secretary, allow me. I would ask you,’ said Baron Huchenard, slowly unbuttoning his macintosh as he spoke, and drawing the three documents out of a large envelope, ‘to observe this.’ The parchments were so changed as scarcely to seem the same; their smoky brown was bleached to a perfect whiteness; and upon each, clear and legible in the middle of the page, below the signature of Charles V., was this mark, BB. Angoulême 1836. ‘It was Delpech, the Professor of Chemistry, our learned colleague of the Académie des Sciences, who--’ but of the Baron’s explanation nothing but a confused murmur reached poor Léonard. There was no colour in his face, nor a drop of blood left at the tips of the big heavy fingers, in whose hold the three autographs shook. ‘The 800L. shall be at your house this evening, M. Bos,’ he managed to say at last with what moisture was left in his mouth. Bos protested and appealed. The Baron had given him 900L. ‘900L., then,’ said Astier-Réhu, making a great effort to show them out. But in the dimly-lighted hall he kept back his colleague, and begged him humbly, as a Member of the Académie des Inscriptions, and for the honour of the whole Institute, to say nothing of this unlucky affair. ‘Certainly, my dear sir, certainly, on one condition.’ ‘Name it, name it.’ ‘You will shortly receive notice that I am a candidate for Loisillon’s chair.’ The Secretary’s answer was a firm clasp of hand in hand, which pledged the assistance of himself and his friends. Once alone, the unhappy man sank down before the table with its load of proofs, on which lay outspread the three forged letters to Rabelais. He gazed at them blankly, and mechanically read: ‘_Maître Rabelais, vous qu’avez l’esprit fin et subtil!_’ The characters seemed to go round and round in a mixture of ink, dissolved into broad blots of sulphate of iron, which to his imagination went on spreading, till they reached his whole collection of originals, ten or twelve thousand, all unhappily got from the same quarter. Since these three were forged, what of his ‘Galileo’?--what of his ‘House of Orleans’?--the letter of Catherine II. which he had presented to the Grand Duke?--the letter of Rotrou, which he had solemnly bestowed upon the Académie? What? What? A spasm of energy brought him to his legs. Fage! He must at once see Fage!