Lajolais smiled dubiously, and added a unit to the left of the sum.
"What! a hundred and fifty thousand francs!" cried Fouché.
"And a cheap bargain, too," said the other; "for, after all, it is only the price of a ticket in the Lottery, of which the great prize is General Ney!"
"You say truly," said the Minister; "be it so."
"Write your name there, then," said Lajolais, "beneath those figures; that will be warranty sufficient for my negotiation, and leave the rest to me."
"Nature evidently meant you for a Chef-de-Police, Master Lajolais."
"Or a cardinal! Monsieur le Ministre," said the other, as he folded up the paper, a little insignificant slip, scrawled over with a few figures, and an almost illegible word; and yet pregnant with infamy to one, banishment to another, ruin and insanity to a third.
This sad record need not be carried further. It is far from a pleasant task to tell of baseness unredeemed by one trait of virtue—of treachery, unrepented even by regret. History records Moreau's unhappy destiny—the pages of private memoir tell of Ney's disastrous connection; our own humble reminiscences speak of poor Mahon's fate, the least known of all, but the most sorrowful victim of a woman's treachery!
(TO BE CONTINUED.)