'Not a penny to bless herself with, though she has come to a better apartment!' muttered he, enraged at the disappointment to his curiosity—'and yet as proud as an aristocrat!'
The abbess approached the casement, broke the seal with trembling hand, and read as follows:—
'I have at length been able to treat with a merchant for the article in question, and have, after much difficulty, obtained a sum of 25,000 francs—far beyond anything I could have hoped. But the sum is to be paid in instalments, at long intervals. It may therefore be more convenient for you, under your peculiar circumstances, to accept the offer I now make of a pension of 1500 francs, to revert after your decease to the servant whom you mentioned as so devotedly attached to you. If you are willing to accept this offer, the bearer will hand you the necessary documents, by which you are to make over to me all further claim upon the property placed in my hands; and on your affixing your signature, he will pay you the first year in advance.
Simon.'
'What a worthy, excellent man!' joyfully exclaimed the abbess; for, in the noble integrity of her heart, she had no suspicion that he could take advantage of her circumstances.
However Simon settled the matter with his conscience, the abbess, trained in the school of adversity to be content with being preserved from absolute want, passed the remainder of her life quietly and happily with her good Margaret, both every day invoking blessings on the head of him whom they regarded as a generous benefactor. Madame de Vatteville lived to the age of one hundred, and her faithful Margaret survived only a few months the mistress to whom she had given such affecting proofs of attachment.
But Simon's detestable fraud proved of no use to him. After keeping his treasure for several years, he thought the Emperor's coronation presented a favourable opportunity for disposing of it. Unfortunately for him, his grasping avarice one morning suggested a thought which his ignorance prevented his rejecting: 'Since this ruby—old-fashioned and stained as it is—can be worth so much, what would be its value if freed from all defect, and in modern setting?' And he soon found a lapidary, who, for a sum of 3000 francs, modernised it, and effaced the spot, and with it the impress, the stamp of its antiquity—all that gave it value, beauty, worth! This wanting, no jeweller could recognise it: it was no longer worth a thousand crowns.
It was thus that the most splendid ruby in Europe lost its value and its fame; and its name is now only to be found in The Lapidaries' Guide, as that which had once been the most costly of gems. It seemed as if it could not survive the last of the illustrious house to which it owed its introduction into Europe, and its name.