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Updated: June 27, 2025
He mutters something, and the words fail him. Natalie interrupts, with scorn: "Curse you and your money, you cowardly thief. You have met your match at last. I trusted to your honor. Your hands were on my throat just now. I have but one word to say to you now. Go, face that man out there!" Hardin is in a blind rage. His legal vocabulary finds no ready phrase of adieu. His foot is on the top stair.
In an amusing letter to Hardin, hitherto unpublished, written in May, 1844, while the latter was in Congress, he tells him of one disgruntled constituent who must be pacified, giving him, at the same time, a hint as to the temper of the "Locofocos."
They left no humble sheaf unreaped in the clean-cut fields of their work. They took all in sight. Hardin recognizes the clean work of the Western money grabbers, as well and truly done. The railroad gang, bonanza barons, and banking clique, sweep the threshing floor. Nothing escapes them.
It was thought probable, and would Have been altogether fitting, that either Colonel Hardin, Colonel Baker, or Colonel Bissell, all of them men of intelligence and distinction, should be appointed general of the Illinois Brigade, but the Polk Administration was not inclined to waste so important a place upon men who might thereafter have views of their own in public affairs.
Defeated by Douglas in his candidacy for re-election to the office of Attorney General, Colonel Hardin at a later day achieved distinction as a Representative in Congress, and at the early age of thirty-seven fell while gallantly leading his regiment upon the bloody field of Buena Vista.
The delegates at Monterey hastened home to their exciting callings. Philip Hardin saw the wished-for victory of the South deferred. Gnashing his teeth in rage, he rode out of Monterey. Maxime Valois now is the ardent "Faust" to whom he plays "Mephisto." His following had fallen away. Hardin, cold, profound, and deep, was misunderstood at the Convention. He wished to gain local control.
And even "French Charlie" was avenged by the murderer's self-executed sentence. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay." The innocent and helpless have wandered past each dark pitfall dug by the wily Hardin, and enjoy their own. Pere Francois, with his eyes cast backward on his own life path, feels that he has not fought the good fight in vain.
Some schemers have imposed a strange girl on the other party. Hardin recalls Natalie's wild astonishment at the apparition of another "Isabel Valois." And the second girl did not even know who Natalie was. What devil's work is this? Hardin decides to "burn his ships." Alone in the home of the Peraltas, he prepares for a campaign "a l'outrance." That crafty priest might know too much.
If he had never trusted her. Ah, too late; too late! Secretly he had laid his well-devised mines. The judge in Mariposa is weighted down with a golden bribe. The court officials are under his orders. But who is the unknown foe counselling Natalie? He cannot fathom it. Blackmail! Yes, blackmail. In three days Hardin is at Sacramento. His satellites draw up their cohorts for the senatorial struggle.
"Do you threaten me, you she-devil?" snarls Hardin, alarmed at the settled, resolute face. "I have a little piece of news for you which will block your game, my lady. There is no proof of the legitimacy of the child, Isabel Valois. A claim has already been filed by a distant Mexican relative of the Peraltas. The suit will come up soon.
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