“Well,” resumed the abbé, and without noticing my embarrassment, “this love affair, which I believe began long ago, and might have ended in marriage,--for there is no disparity of rank, no want of wealth, nor any other difficulty to prevent it,--has been interrupted by General Bonaparte, because, and for no other reason, mark ye, than that De Beauvais's family were Bourbonists. His father was a captain of the Garde du Corps, and his grandfather a grand falconer, or something or other, with Louis the Fifteenth. Now, the young marquis was well enough inclined to go with the current of events in France. The order of things once changed, he deemed it best to follow the crowd, and frequented the Tuileries like many others of his own politics,--I believe you met him there,--till one morning lately he resolved to try his fortune where the game was his all. And he waited on Madame Bonaparte to ask her consent to his marriage with his cousin; for I must tell you that she is an orphan, and in all such cases the parental right is exercised by the head of the Government. Madame referred him coldly to the General, who received him more coldly still; and instead of replying to his suit, as he expected, broke out into invectives against De Beauvais's friends; called them_Chouans_and assassins; said they never ceased to plot against his life with his most inveterate enemies, the English; that the exiled family maintained a corps of spies in Paris, of whom he half suspected him to be one; and, in a word, contrived to heap more insult on him in one quarter of an hour than, as he himself said, his whole family had endured from the days of Saint Louis to the present. De Beauvais from that hour absented himself from the Tuileries, and indeed almost entirely from Paris,--now living with his friends in Normandy, now spending a few weeks in the South. But at last he has determined on his course, and means to leave France forever. I believe the object of his coming here at this moment is to see his cousin for the last time. Perhaps his note to you has some reference to it.” I took the letter with a trembling hand,--a fear of something undefined was over me,--and tearing it open, read as follows:-- Dear Friend,--The Abbé, d'Ervan will deliver this into your hands, and if you wish it, explain the reason of the request it contains,--which is simply that you will afford me the shelter of your quarters for one day in the park at Versailles. I know the difficulty of your position; and if any other means under heaven presented itself, I should not ask the favor, which, although I pledge my honor not to abuse, I shall value as the dearest a whole life's gratitude can repay. My heart tells me that you will not refuse the last wish of one you will never see after this meeting. I shall wait at the gate below the Trianon at eleven o'clock on Friday night, when you can pass me through the sentries.