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Updated: June 27, 2025


On his return, circumstances were widely altered: Bellanger had been married some years, and no issue had blessed his nuptials. His nephews, draughted into the conscription, had perished in Egypt. Dalibard apparently became his nearest relative. To avarice or to worldly ambition there was undoubtedly something very dazzling in the prospect thus opened to the eyes of Olivier Dalibard.

Olivier Dalibard desires the friendship, the intimacy of the heir; but the heir is consigned to the guardianship of a merchant at Lyons, near of kin to his mother, and the guardian responds but coldly to Olivier's letters. Suddenly the defeated aspirant seems reconciled to his loss. The widow Bellanger has her own separate fortune, and it is large beyond expectation.

Such secrets belong to his public life, his political schemes; with those he will trust you. It is his private life, his private projects, you must know." "But what does he conceal from me? Apart from politics, his whole mind seems bent on the very natural object of securing intimacy with his rich cousin, M. Bellanger, from whom he has a right to expect so large an inheritance."

It is very difficult to convince an ignorant person. Having made up his mind to rescue Maît Pierre from his superstitions, Frank at once set to work. So, the day following his decision, he advanced to the attack. When they were both seated as usual having their after-dinner conversation, Frank began: "Do you really believe all you told me about the feu bellanger, Maît Pierre?"

As she moved the lamp, the reflection on the trees moved also. He began to laugh. "The feu bellanger, forsooth. How old Pierre would have smiled if he had beheld him taking off his coat. But the ghost, that was what puzzled him." The ghost came bounding over the wicket and passed by him. It was a white dog. This adventure had taught him a great lesson.

Under cover of an appearance of bonhomie and good humour, a frank laugh and an open countenance, Jean Bellanger had always retained general popularity and good-will, and was one of those whom the policy of the First Consul led him to conciliate. He had long since retired from the more vulgar departments of trade, but continued to flourish as an army contractor.

The officer appointed to such tasks by the French law has performed his visit, and made his notes, and expressed condolence with the widow, and promised justice and retribution, and placed his seal on the locks till the representatives of the heir-at-law shall arrive; and the heir-at-law is the very boy who had succeeded so unexpectedly to the wealth of Jean Bellanger the contractor!

Jean Bellanger is no more. He died, not suddenly, and yet of some quick disease, nervous exhaustion; his schemes, they said, had worn him out. But the state of Dalibard, though prosperous, is not that of the heir to the dead millionnaire. What mistake is this? The bulk of that wealth must go to the nearest kin, so runs the law.

This tallies to a great extent with what I was told by an officer this morning who had taken part in the engagement. The Gazette Officielle contains a decree cashiering M. Devienne, President of the Cour de Cassation, and sending him to be judged by his own court, for having been the intermediary between Badinguet and his mistress, Marguerite Bellanger.

The son had been reared at a distance, put to school at Lyons, and unavowed to the second wife, who had brought an ample dower, and whom that discovery might have deterred from the altar. Unacknowledged through life, in death at least the son's rights are proclaimed; and Olivier Dalibard feels that Jean Bellanger has died in vain!

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