He will track out this mysterious guardian.
In a week or so, a normal condition is re-established in conquered Paris. Though the yellowstone houses are pitted with the scourge of ball and mitraille, the streets are safe. Humanity's wrecks are cleared away. Huge, smoking ruins tell of the mad barbarity of the floods of released criminals. The gashed and torn beauties of the Bois de Boulogne; battered fortifications, ruined temples of Justice, Art, and Commerce, and the blood-splashed corridors of the Madeleine are still eloquent of anarchy.
The reign of blood is over at last, for, in heaps of shattered humanity, the corses of the last Communists are lying in awful silence in the desecrated marble wilderness of PŠre la Chaise.
The heights of Montmartre area Golgotha. Trade slowly opens its doors. The curious foreigner pokes, a human raven, over the scenes of carnage. Disjointed household organizations rearrange themselves. The railway trains once more run regularly. Laughter, clinking of glasses, and smirking loiterers on the boulevards testify that thoughtless, heartless Paris is itself once more. "Vive la bagatelle."
Fran‡ois Ribaut at last regains his home of religious seclusion. Louise is convalescent, and needs rest and quiet. There is no want of money in the Dauvray household. The liberal douceurs of Louise Moreau's mysterious guardian, furnish all present needs.
"Thank God!" cries Pere Francois, when he remembers that he has the fund intact, which he received from the haughty Hardin.
He can follow the quest of justice. He has the means to trace the clouded history of this child of mystery. A nameless girl who speaks only French, yet in her wandering dreams recalls the Spanish cradle-hymns of lost Isabel.
Already the energy of the vivacious French is applied to the care of what is left, and the repair of the damages of the reign of demons. The rebuilding of their loved "altars of Mammon" begins. The foreign colony, disturbed like a flock of gulls on a lonely rock, flutters back as soon as the battle blast is over. Aristide Dauvray finds instant promotion in his calling. The hiding Communists are hunted down and swell the vast crowd of wretches in the Orangery.
Already, all tribunals are busy. Deportation or death awaits the leaders of the revolt.
Raoul Dauvray, whose regiment is returned from its fortnight's guard duty at Versailles, is permitted to revisit his family. Peace now signed—the peace of disgrace—enables the decimated Garde Mobile to be disbanded. In a few weeks, he will be a sculptor again. A soldier no more. France needs him no longer in the field.