"My position? colonel; my rank? colonel; my fortune? the pay of a colonel. And the millions at Dantzic--I mustn't forget them!--Here we are at home; let me have the will of that good old gentleman who wore the lilac wig. Give me some books on history, too--a big pile of them--all that have anything to say about Napoleon." Young Renault sadly obeyed the master he had given himself. He conducted Fougas to a fine chamber, brought him Herr Meiser's will and a whole shelf of books, and bid his mortal enemy "Good night." The Colonel embraced him impetuously, and said to him, "I will never forget that to you I owe life and Clementine. Farewell till to-morrow, noble and generous child of my native land! farewell!" Leon went back to the ground floor, passed the dining-room, where Gothon was wiping the glasses and putting the silver in order, and rejoined his father and mother, who were waiting for him in the parlor. The guests were gone, the candles extinguished. A single lamp lit up the solitude. The two mandarins on the etagere were motionless in their obscure corner, and seemed to meditate gravely on the caprices of fortune. "Well?" demanded Mme. Renault. "I left him in his room, crazier and more obstinate than ever. However, I've got an idea." "So much the better," said the father, "for we have none left. Sadness has made us stupid. But, above all things, no quarrelling. These soldiers of the empire used to be terrible swordsmen." "Oh, I'm not afraid of him! It's Clementine that makes me anxious. With what sweetness and submission she listened to the confounded babbler!" "The heart of woman is an unfathomable abyss. Well, what do you think of doing?" Leon developed in detail the project he had conceived in the street, during his conversation with Fougas. "The most urgent thing," said he, "is to relieve Clementine from this influence. If we could get him out of the way to-morrow, reason would resume its empire, and we would be married the day after to-morrow. That being done, I'll answer for the rest." "But how is such a madman to be gotten rid of?"