Jean Nicholas Barras began life as a sub-lieutenant in the regiment of Languedoc, served a short time in India, became a determined revolutionist, and was one of those who voted for the death of the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth. His power and arbitrary will are well known, and he exercised them to enrich himself, caring little, so he kept up his boundless extravagance and gratified his inordinate vanity, whether he served the Republic or not. He kept his place till Bonaparte dispersed the existing government. Jean Plessis had in truth sacrificed a very large sum to Barras, besides the twenty thousand francs. He had also confessed that Madame Coulancourt’s daughter had arrived from England to remain with her mother. “Showed she was a dutiful child,” said the director, “a couple of women cannot overturn the Republic. We do not war with the fair sex. Let them come up to Paris, and they shall have every protection. Monsieur Gramont has found a mare’s nest; that Englishman he spoke of, domiciled at Coulancourt, I dare say is a lover of Mademoiselle Arden. Fool enough to run the chance of a few years’ captivity for a smile from his ladye love, n’est ce pas?” Monsieur Plessis assented, but gave no further explanation; and having obtained the passport expressly revoking the order of arrest given six or seven days previously by Fouché to Monsieur Gramont, he returned to Coulancourt, thus completely baffling Monsieur le Maire. Bertram Gramont, on reaching his château, proceeded to the chamber of Augustine Vadier. That worthy had contrived to get up and dress himself, and was reclining back in a chair, with a bandage across his head, concealing the contusion and loss of his eye. “Here’s a cursed botched piece of business from beginning to end!” said Bertram Gramont passionately, pacing the chamber backwards and forwards. “Why, what has occurred now?” asked Vadier, anxiously. “I think I may say I am a sufferer.” “Your own doings,” returned his accomplice, almost savagely; “you precipitated events. That cursed Jean Plessis has outwitted me; he has paid an immense sum to Barras and Fouché, and has come back from Paris with a most stringent passport. There is no disputing the purport, for it actually ensures the safety of mother and daughter to Paris, and they leave this to-morrow or the next day.” “Diable!” muttered Vadier; “how do they go?” “In a chasse-mare, I understand, to Rouen, or as far as they can by water.” “And do you believe they will go to Paris?” said Vadier, looking with his remaining sinister optic into the flushed features of Bertram Gramont. “And where else would you have them go?” returned the maire, pausing in his walk. “Why, escape to England, after that cursed lieutenant in the English navy. They intended to go before he made his escape on board the corvette. Where’s the son, Julian?” Bertram Gramont looked at his accomplice with a startled expression.