"No," interposed the Minister peremptorily, "leave de Maurel alone. I will write to him myself."
Such in substance was the interview between the Minister of Police and the chief préfet. The secretary, among whose papers was found the above account, goes on to say that M. Dubois, having taken his leave, the great man was busy for the next half-hour writing a letter with his own hand. With his own hand also he folded it, sealed it and addressed it. Then he handed it to his secretary with the express order that it should be sent to its destination by the next ministerial courier.
The letter was addressed to M. le Comte Ronnay de Maurel, at his Château de la Vieuville, near Villemor, Département de l'Orne.
CHAPTER II THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES
I
"What devastation! What wanton devastation! Oh, those fiends! those cruel, callous fiends!"
Mme. la Marquise de Mortain, for once in her life, was thoroughly unnerved. She was ready to cry ... but tears had not come to her eyes for the past twenty years; their well-spring had run dry under the influence of an unconquerable energy and of a glowing enthusiasm for a cause which, at any rate, for the moment was doomed. Mme. la Marquise did not shed tears when she first arrived on a cold, showery night early in May to what had been the luxurious home of her childhood. She did not cry when she wandered half aimlessly through the salons and apartments of the Château de Courson—all that was left to her brother of his once splendid patrimony—a mere barrack now where most windows were cracked, where the paper hung in strips from the walls and the ceilings painted by Boucher were stained with smoke and damp.
It was just fourteen years now that the château had been standing empty and desolate—fourteen years during which snow, rain and tempest had worked their cruel way with shutters and window frames, with stucco, plaster and roofs. It was only the fabric itself—the fine solid stone walls of sixteenth century architecture which had remained intact—the monumental staircase, with its marble balustrade, the terraces and façades. True, the stone was stained by damp and mildew, and the ivy, which fourteen years ago had been a pretty and romantic feature of the copings, was now a danger to them through the vigour and rankness of its growth; but these were matters which could easily be remedied, and which in themselves enhanced rather than detracted from the picturesqueness of the stately pile.