“’My grandfather, terrified at the secret of which he had become the unwilling depositary, and which was to be fully explained by the death of the best of kings, not only broke with the Society, but, as if Catholicism itself had been answerable for the crimes of its members, he abandoned the Romish religion, in which he had hitherto lived, and became a Protestant.

“’Undeniable proofs, attesting the connivance of two members of the Company with Ravaillac, a connivance also proved in the case of Jean Chatel, the regicide, were in my grandfather’s possession.

“’This was the first cause of the violent hatred of the Society for our family.  Thank Heaven, these papers have been placed in safety, and if my last will is executed, will be found marked A. M.C.  D. G., in the ebony casket in the Hall of Mourning, in the house in the Rue Saint-Francois.

“’My father was also exposed to these secret persecutions.  His ruin, and perhaps his death, would have been the consequence, had it not been for the intervention of an angelic woman, towards whom he felt an almost religious veneration.

“’The portrait of this woman, whom I saw a few years ago, as well as that of the man whom I hold in the greatest reverence, were painted by me from memory, and have been placed in the Red Room in the Rue Saint-Francois—­to be gratefully valued, I hope, by the descendants of my family.’”

For some moments Gabriel had become more and more attentive to the reading of this testament.  He thought within himself by how strange a coincidence one of his ancestors had, two centuries before, broken with the Society of Jesus, as he himself had just done; and that from this rupture, two centuries old, dated also that species of hatred with which the Society of Jesus had always pursued his family.  Nor did the young priest find it less strange that this inheritance, transmitted to him after a lapse of a hundred and fifty years, from one of his kindred (the victim of the Society of Jesus), should return by a voluntary act to the coffers of this same society.  When the notary read the passage relative to the two portraits, Gabriel, who, like Father d’Aigrigny, sat with his back towards the pictures, turned round to look at them.  Hardly had the missionary cast his eyes on the portrait of the woman, than he uttered a loud cry of surprise, and almost terror.  The notary paused in his reading, and looked uneasily at the young priest.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The last stroke of noon.

At the cry uttered by Gabriel, the notary had stopped reading the testament, and Father d’Aigrigny hastily drew near the young priest.  The latter rose trembling from his seat and gazed with increasing stupor at the female portrait.

Then he said in a low voice, as if speaking to himself.  “Good Heaven! is it possible that nature can produce such resemblances?  Those eyes—­so proud and yet so sad—­that forehead—­that pale complexion—­yes, all her features, are the same—­all of them!”