“‘We must take counsel,’ papa murmured.  ’In my position, I ought to watch over your brother’s last moments.’

“Mamma continued:  ’I will send for Abbe Poivron and ask his advice, and then I will go to my brother with the abbe and Roger.  Remain here, Paul, for you must not compromise yourself; but a woman can, and ought to do these things.  For a politician in your position, it is another matter.  It would be a fine thing for one of your opponents to be able to bring one of your most laudable actions up against you.’  ‘You are right,’ my father said.  ‘Do as you think best, my dear wife.’

“A quarter of an hour, later, the Abbe Poivron came into the drawing-room, and the situation was explained to him, analyzed and discussed in all its bearings.  If the Marquis de Fumerol, one of the greatest names in France, were to die without the ministrations of religion, it would assuredly be a terrible blow to the nobility in general, and to the Count de Tourneville in particular, and the freethinkers would be triumphant.  The liberal newspapers would sing songs of victory for six months; my mother’s name would be dragged through the mire and brought into the prose of Socialistic journals, and my father’s name would be smirched.  It was impossible that such a thing should be.

“A crusade was therefore immediately decided upon, which was to be led by the Abbe Poivron, a little, fat, clean, priest with a faint perfume about him, a true vicar of a large church in a noble and rich quarter.

“The landau was ordered and we all three set out, my mother, the cure and I, to administer the last sacraments to my uncle.

“It had been decided first of all we should see Madame Melanie who had written the letter, and who was most likely the porter’s wife, or my uncle’s servant, and I dismounted, as an advance guard, in front of a seven-story house and went into a dark passage, where I had great difficulty in finding the porter’s den.  He looked at me distrustfully, and I said: 

“‘Madame Melanie, if you please.’  ‘Don’t know her!’ ’But I have received a letter from her.’  ’That may be, but I don’t know her.  Are you asking for a lodger?’ ‘No, a servant probably.  She wrote me about a place.’  ’A servant?—­a servant?  Perhaps it is the marquis’.  Go and see, the fifth story on the left.’

“As soon as he found I was not asking for a doubtful character he became more friendly and came as far as the corridor with me.  He was a tall, thin man with white whiskers, the manners of a beadle and majestic gestures.

“I climbed up a long spiral staircase, the railing of which I did not venture to touch, and I gave three discreet knocks at the left-hand door on the fifth story.  It opened immediately, and an enormous dirty woman appeared before me.  She barred the entrance with her extended arms which she placed against the two doorposts, and growled: 

“‘What do you want?’ ‘Are you Madame Melanie?’ ‘Yes.’  ’I am the Visconte de Tourneville.’  ‘Ah!  All right!  Come in.’  ’Well, the fact is, my mother is downstairs with a priest.’  ’Oh!  All right; go and bring them up; but be careful of the porter.’