Javotte, when she left the Rue Picpus, took her way to the Rue de Valois. It will be remembered that Camille Fontrailles had slept at the Dubarrys’ house in the Rue de Valois, and as Javotte was now in her service, she had to follow her mistress. Immediately on Rochefort quitting her that morning, she had gone to the Rue de Valois, helped her mistress to dress, and then slipped out on her mission to Rochefort’s rooms, where she had first met Lavenne. Troubled in mind at not having made a clear breast of the affair about Choiseul’s letter, and feeling sure that Lavenne would be the best person to help Rochefort in that matter, she had slipped out again at half-past six. She was now returning to help her mistress to dress for the evening. An ordinary girl, knowing that the Dubarrys were the enemies of Choiseul, would have put the letter in their hands; but Javotte had a mind of her own, and a knowledge of Court life, and the Dubarrys in particular, which prevented her from putting the slightest trust in any person belonging to the Court, and more especially in the Dubarrys. She knew that were they to use the letter against Choiseul, they would do so in their own interests, not in the interests of Rochefort. How right she was in this, we shall presently see. When she arrived at the Hôtel Dubarry, she found the house _en fête_. The Countess was not there, she was still at Versailles, but Chon and Jean were in evidence, and they were receiving friends to supper; and amongst those friends, who should be first and foremost but Count Camus. The man who had engineered, or partly engineered, the plot against the presentation was among the first to call on Jean that day to congratulate him on the success of the Countess. Jean had received him with open arms. Nothing pleased Jean better now than to smooth things over, and make up to the Choiseul faction. The Countess had triumphed; she had beaten Choiseul, and she would break him. The duel was not over by any means, but she had scored the first hit, and it was politic to smile on Choiseul and his followers, just as Choiseul and his followers had found it politic to kiss her hand on the night of her triumph. “Come to supper this evening, my dear fellow,” said Jean. “I am expecting one or two people. Madame de Duras and a few others. Have I heard about Rochefort?—no, what about him?” Camus told, in a few words, of Rochefort’s crimes, and of how he had escaped the night before just as he, Camus, had laid his hand upon him in the name of Choiseul. “I always said he was a mad fool,” replied Jean; “and has he escaped for good?” “Oh, _mon Dieu_, no,” said Camus, “not whilst there is a frontier. Choiseul is scouring the roads, Paris is watched, and a reward of a thousand louis is offered for him, dead or alive.” “Well, if he is taken dead, we will be saved from his future _gasconades_,” said Jean.