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The chief spy was a naire of Cochin, of the family or stock of the Lecros who had certain other naires attending upon him, who were strangers. On being brought before him, he ordered them to be all cruelly whipt and then to be hanged.

Every one wondered, however, for every one knew the sum ran into several thousand francs; and a thousand francs was a fortune; the rich man in the corner house, who owned so many vineyards, and was reputed to enjoy an income of ten thousand francs a year, was always referred to as 'le million naire. And so the story spread that Madame Jequier had inherited a fortune, none knew whence.

It is perhaps because things very ancient never, for some mysterious reason, appear vulgar. This fifteenth-century million- naire, with his palace, his egotistical sculptures, may have produced that impression on some critical spirits of his own day.

Merchant, million- naire, banker, ship-owner, royal favorite, and minister of finance, explorer of the East and monopolist of the glittering trade between that quarter of the globe and his own, great capitalist who had anticipated the brilliant operations of the present time, he expiated his prosperity by poverty, imprisonment, and torture.