Sainte-Croix was leading a fine and joyous life.  Although nobody supposed him to be wealthy, he had a steward called Martin, three lackeys called George, Lapierre, and Lachaussee, and besides his coach and other carriages he kept ordinary bearers for excursions at night.  As he was young and good-looking, nobody troubled about where all these luxuries came from.  It was quite the custom in those days that a well-set-up young gentleman should want for nothing, and Sainte-Croix was commonly said to have found the philosopher’s stone.  In his life in the world he had formed friendships with various persons, some noble, some rich:  among the latter was a man named Reich de Penautier, receiver-general of the clergy and treasurer of the States of Languedoc, a millionaire, and one of those men who are always successful, and who seem able by the help of their money to arrange matters that would appear to be in the province of God alone.  This Penautier was connected in business with a man called d’Alibert, his first clerk, who died all of a sudden of apoplexy.  The attack was known to Penautier sooner than to his own family:  then the papers about the conditions of partnership disappeared, no one knew how, and d’Alibert’s wife and child were ruined.  D’Alibert’s brother-in-law, who was Sieur de la Magdelaine, felt certain vague suspicions concerning this death, and wished to get to the bottom of it; he accordingly began investigations, which were suddenly brought to an end by his death.

In one way alone Fortune seemed to have abandoned her favourite:  Maitre Penautier had a great desire to succeed the Sieur of Mennevillette, who was receiver of the clergy, and this office was worth nearly 60,000 livres.  Penautier knew that Mennevillette was retiring in favour of his chief clerk, Messire Pierre Hannyvel, Sieur de Saint-Laurent, and he had taken all the necessary, steps for buying the place over his head:  the Sieur de Saint-Laurent, with the full support of the clergy, obtained the reversion for nothing—­a thing that never happened before.  Penautier then offered him 40,000 crowns to go halves, but Saint-Laurent refused.  Their relations, however, were not broken off, and they continued to meet.  Penautier was considered such a lucky fellow that it was generally expected he would somehow or other get some day the post he coveted so highly.  People who had no faith in the mysteries of alchemy declared that Sainte-Croix and Penautier did business together.

Now, when the period for mourning was over, the relations of the marquise and Sainte-Croix were as open and public as before:  the two brothers d’Aubray expostulated with her by the medium of an older sister who was in a Carmelite nunnery, and the marquise perceived that her father had on his death bequeathed the care and supervision of her to her brothers.  Thus her first crime had been all but in vain:  she had wanted to get rid of her father’s rebukes and to gain his fortune; as a fact the fortune was