In the first place he bent his steps to a lonely corner of the Place de Grève. There he took out his tablets, and wrote these words to his nurse:-- MY GOOD ALOYSE,--Do not expect me, for I shall not return to-day. I must be alone for a time, to move about, and think, and wait. But have no anxiety about me; I shall surely see you again. This evening arrange matters so that everything will be quiet in the house at an early hour. You alone must sit up, and open the door to four men who will knock at the great door a little before midnight, when the street is deserted. I ask you personally to conduct these men, laden as they will be with a sorrowful but priceless burden, to the family burial-vault; point out to them the open tomb in which they must place him whom they will have in charge, and watch carefully the preparations for the interment; then, when they are at an end, give each of the men four golden crowns, guide them back to the door without noise, and return at once to the tomb to kneel and pray as you would for your master and your father. I will pray also at the same hour, but far away from the spot. It must be so. I feel that the sight of that tomb might excite me to reckless and violent deeds, and I must ask counsel rather from God in solitude. _Au revoir_, dear Aloyse, _au revoir_. Remind André of his commission to Madame de Castro, and do not yourself forget my guests, Jean and Babette Peuquoy. _Au revoir_, and God be with you! GABRIEL DE M. Having written this letter, Gabriel sought and found four men of the people,--laborers, that is to say. He gave each of them four crowns in advance, and promised them as many more. In order to earn their wages, one of them was to take a letter to its address immediately; then, all four were to present themselves at the Châtelet a little before ten that same evening, to receive at the governor's hands a coffin, and convey it secretly and silently to the Rue des Jardins St. Paul, to the same house to which the letter was addressed. The poor workmen overwhelmed Gabriel with their gratitude, and as they left him, in high glee over the windfall, they promised to fulfil his orders to the letter. "Well, I have at least made four honest fellows happy," said Gabriel, with sorrowful pleasure, if we may be allowed the expression. Then he pursued a course which led him out of the city, and on his way he passed the Louvre. Wrapped in his cloak, and with arms folded upon his breast, he stood for some moments gazing at the royal abode. "Now it is for us two to settle our account," he muttered, with a glance of defiance. He resumed his journey, and as he went along there recurred to his memory the horoscope which Master Nostradamus had written long ago for the Comte de Montgommery, and which, in the master's own words, he had found by a remarkable coincidence to be exactly appropriate for his son, according to the laws of astrology,--