At the close of the week, he locked up the chateau, with a vow never to cross its sill again, and left the keys in the keeping of St. Jean, who owned a little house near Clameran, and would continue to live in the neighborhood.

Poor St. Jean! little did he think that, in preventing Valentine from seeing Louis, he had ruined the prospects of his beloved Gaston.

On receiving the keys he asked one question: 

“Shall we not search for your brother’s body, M. the marquis?” he inquired in broken-hearted tones.  “And, if it is found, what must be done with it?”

“I shall leave instructions with my notary,” replied Louis.  And he hurried away from Clameran as if the ground burnt his feet.  He went to Tarascon, where he had already forwarded his baggage, and took the stage-coach which travelled between Marseilles and Paris, the railroad not yet being finished.

At last he was off.  The lumbering old stage rattled along, drawn by six horses; and the deep gullies made by the wheels seemed so many abysses between the past and the future.

Lying back in a corner of the stage, Louis de Clameran enjoyed in anticipation the fields of pleasure spread before his dazzled eyes.  At the end of the journey, Paris rose up before him, radiant, brilliantly dazzling as the sun.

Yes, he was going to Paris, the promised land, the city of wonders, where every Aladdin finds a lamp.  There all ambitions are crowned, all dreams realized, all passions, all desires, good and evil, can be satisfied.

There the fast-fleeting days are followed by nights of ever-varied pleasure and excitement.  In twenty theatres tragedy weeps, or comedy laughs; whilst at the opera the most beautiful women in the world, sparkling with diamonds, are ready to die with ecstasy at the sound of divine music; everywhere noise, excitement, luxury, and pleasure.

What a dream!  The heart of Louis de Clameran was swollen with desire, and he felt that he should go mad if the horses crawled with such torturing slowness:  he would like to spring from the old stage, and fly to his haven of delight.

He never once thought of the past with a pang of regret.  What mattered it to him how his father and brother had died?  All his energies were devoted to penetrating the mysterious future that now awaited him.

Was not every chance in his favor?  He was young, rich, handsome, and a marquis.  He had a constitution of iron; he carried twenty thousand francs in his pocket, and would soon have ten times as many more.

He, who had always been poor, regarded this sum as an exhaustless treasure.

And at nightfall, when he jumped from the stage upon the brilliantly lighted street of Paris, he seemed to be taking possession of the grand city, and felt as though he could buy everything in it.

His illusions were those natural to all young men who suddenly come into possession of a patrimony after years of privation.