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Updated: June 11, 2025
What has happened?" the old man would ask, with a tremor in his voice. On great occasions Victurnien would sit down, assume a melancholy, pensive expression, and submit with little coquetries of voice and gesture to be questioned. Chesnel possessed a private income of some twelve thousand livres, but the fund was not inexhaustible.
So in a few days' time nothing remained to him but his practice, the sums that were due to him, and the house in which he lived. Chesnel, stripped of all his lands, paced to and fro in his private office, paneled with dark oak, his eyes fixed on the beveled edges of the chestnut cross-beams of the ceiling, or on the trellised vines in the garden outside.
Had you previously done business with M. le Comte d'Esgrignon? Was not M. le Comte d'Esgrignon in the habit of drawing upon you, with or without advice? Did you not write a letter authorizing M. d'Esgrignon to rely upon you at any time? Had not Chesnel squared the account not once, but many times already? Were you not away from home when this took place?"
Following out the excellent scheme suggested by the prodigal son, he was brought by night to the quiet house in the Rue du Bercail; but chance ordered it that by so doing he ran straight into the wolf's jaws, as the saying goes. That evening Chesnel had been making arrangements to sell his connection to M. Lepressoir's head-clerk.
Armande shrank away in horror. Old Chesnel took the fair Maufrigneuse's hand, and kissed it without permission. "Are you all out of your minds here?" continued the Duchess. "Do you really expect to live in the fifteenth century when the rest of the world has reached the nineteenth? My dear children, there is no noblesse nowadays; there is no aristocracy left!
Chesnel went straight to Josephin. Josephin unlocked the young Count's desk and writing-table. Very luckily, the notary found letters which might be useful, letters from du Croisier and the Kellers. Then he took a place in a diligence which was just about to start; and by dint of fees to the postilions, the lumbering vehicle went as quickly as the coach.
"Was du Croisier aware that the money destined to meet the bill had been deposited with him, du Croisier, according to Chesnel's declaration, and a letter of advice sent by the said Chesnel to the Comte d'Esgrignon, five days before the date of the bill?" That last question frightened du Croisier.
The Duchess believed in nothing but herself. By the end of the year 1823 the Kellers had supplied Victurnien with two hundred thousand francs, and neither Chesnel nor Mlle. Armande knew anything about it. He had had, besides, two thousand crowns from Chesnel at one time and another, the better to hide the sources on which he was drawing.
"You will judge how much to tell or to conceal," Chesnel replied humbly. "I am sure that she will be greatly flattered to be the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse's hostess; you will be obliged to stay in her house until nightfall, I expect, unless you find it inconvenient to remain." "Is this Mme. Camusot a good-looking woman?" asked the Duchess, with a coxcomb's air.
Here are the hundred thousand crowns," said Chesnel, drawing the bundles of notes from his pocket. "Take them, and there will be an end of it." "If that is all," she began, "and if no harm can come of it to my husband " "Nothing but good," Chesnel replied. "You are saving him from eternal punishment in hell, at the cost of a slight disappointment here below."
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