When attacked they ingeniously defended themselves, took needful precautions, and trusted nothing to hazard. Lichtenbach was very powerful and dangerous. Left a widower, with one daughter, whom he had sent to the Sacre-Coeur, there to be brought up according to the principles of the most rigid devotion, Elias was a type of the renegade who had become more Christian than the Pope himself. Still, if Lichtenbach was dreaded, he was received everywhere, and his influence in society was as secret as it was sure. He rendered priceless help to ruined families. Instead of aiming his financial batteries against the established Government, he divided his attempts, placed his hands on all the syndicates of Europe, and by means of the capital he collected caused diverse speculations not only to benefit himself, but all his friends in addition. The simplicity of his life was extreme. He lived in a gloomy mansion in the Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, attended by servants from Lorraine, who spoke German better than French. He never received visitors, whilst a game of whist seemed to form his only distraction. It was at his office, right in front of the Bourse, that he received his clients. Although only forty-five years of age, he seemed to have lost all interest in the fair sex, as though all women were an object of terror for him. The little Duchess de Bernay, who, thanks to speculations conducted by Elias, had been able to pay her debts, one day said to her friend, the Marchioness de Premeur— “I must find out what Lichtenbach really thinks. After all, the manner in which he treats us is almost humiliating.” For some evenings, in the presence of all her friends, she flirted with Elias, without succeeding in thawing him. Then suddenly she ceased paying attention to him. To her companions’ ironical questions she replied, evasively— “I have lost my time. It is no use.” But it was noticed that her style of living changed; that she spent large sums of money, and that, according as she ceased joking with the financier, she became more and more settled in money matters. Elias, distant and silent as ever, continued to speculate in the four corners of the globe, to advise the Prince, manage his journal, and prove to the-firm of Baradier and Graff, as well as to those in any way connected with him, that the enmity he was nourishing would be with him as long as he lived. CHAPTER III ON reaching the Rue de Provènce, the Minister of War descended from his brougham with the eagerness of a young man, crossed the court-yard, entered the offices, and, in loud tones, asked the office boy— “Is M. Baradier in?” The office-boy instinctively stood at attention, and replied—“Yes, General; I will announce you at once.”