They never failed to remark that almost all the actors in that bloody drama at Montaignac had, in common parlance, “come to a bad end.”
Victors and vanquished seemed to be pursued by the same inexorable fatality.
Look at the names already upon the fatal list!
Lacheneur, beheaded.
Chanlouineau, shot.
Marie-Anne, poisoned.
Chupin, the traitor, assassinated.
The Marquis de Courtornieu lived, or rather survived, but death would have seemed a mercy in comparison with such total annihilation of intelligence. He had fallen below the level of the brute, which is, at least, endowed with instinct. Since the departure of his daughter he had been cared for by two servants, who did not allow him to give them much trouble, and when they desired to go out they shut him up, not in his chamber, but in the cellar, to prevent his ravings and shrieks from being heard from without.
If people supposed for awhile that the Sairmeuse would escape the fate of the others, they were mistaken. It was not long before the curse fell upon them.
One fine morning in the month of December, the duke left the chateau to take part in a wolf-hunt in the neighborhood.