A FEW days after, and just as evening was falling, a travelling-carriage halted at the park gate of the Cardinal’s villa. Some slight injury to the harness occasioned a brief delay, and the travellers descended and proceeded leisurely at a walk towards the house. One was a very large, heavily-built man, far advanced in life, with immense bushy eyebrows of a brindled grey, giving to his face a darksome and almost forbidding expression, though the mouth was well rounded, and of a character that bespoke gentleness. He was much bent in the shoulders, and moved with considerable difficulty; but there was yet in his whole figure and air a certain dignity that announced the man of condition. Such, indeed, was Sir Capel Crosbie, once a beau and ornament of the French court in the days of the Regency. The other was a spare, thin, but yet wiry-looking man of about sixty-five or six, deeply pitted with small-pox, and disfigured by a strong squint, which, as the motions of his face were quick, imparted a character of restless activity and impatience to his appearance, that his nature, indeed, could not contradict. He was known as—that is, his passport called him—Mr. Simon Purcell; but he had many passports, and was frequently a grandee of Spain, a French abbÉ, a cabinet courier of Russia, and a travelling monk, these travesties being all easy to one who spoke fluently every dialect of every continental language and seemed to enjoy the necessity of a deception. You could mark at once in his gestures and his tone as he came forward the stamp of one who talked much and well. There was ready self-possession, that jaunty cheerfulness dashed with a certain earnest force, that bespoke the man who had achieved conversational success, and felt his influence in it.

The accident to the harness had seemingly interrupted an earnest conversation, for no sooner was he on the ground than Purcell resumed: ‘Take my word for it, baronet; it is always a bad game that does not admit of being played in two ways—-the towns to which only one road leads are never worth visiting.’

The other shook his head; but it was difficult to say whether in doubt of the meaning or dissent from the doctrine.

‘Yes,’ resumed the other, ‘the great question is what will you do with your Prince if you fail to make him a king? He will always be a puissance; it remains to be seen in whose hands and for what objects.’

The baronet sighed, and looked a picture of hopeless dullness.

‘Come, I will tell you a story, not for the sake of the incident, but for the illustration; though even as a story it has its point. You knew Gustave de Marsay, I think?’

‘Le beau Gustave? to be sure I did. Ah! it was upwards of forty years ago,’ sighed he sorrowfully.

‘It could not be less. He has been living in a little Styrian village about that long, seeing and being seen by none. His adventure was this: He was violently enamoured of a very pretty woman whom he met by chance in the street, and discovered afterward to be the wife of a “dyer,” in the Rue de Marais. Whether she was disposed to favour his addresses or acted in concert with her husband to punish him, is not very easy to say; the result would recline to the latter supposition. At all events, she gave him a rendezvous at which he was surprised by the dyer himself—a fellow strong as a Hercules and of an ungovernable temper. He rushed wildly on De Marsay, who defended himself for some time with his rapier; a false thrust, however, broke the weapon at the hilt, and the dyer springing forward, caught poor Gustave round the body, and actually carried him off over his head, and plunged him neck and heels into an enormous tank filled with dye-stuff. How he escaped drowning—how he issued from the house and ever reached his home he never was able to tell. It is more than probable the consequences of the calamity absorbed and obliterated all else; for when he awoke next day he discovered that he was totally changed—his skin from head to foot being dyed a deep blue! It was in vain that he washed and washed, boiled himself in hot baths, or essayed a hundred cleansing remedies, nothing availed in the least—in fact, many thought that he came out only bluer than before. The most learned of the faculty were consulted, the most distinguished chemists—all in vain. At last a dyer was sent for, who in an instant recognised the peculiar tint, and said, “Ah! there is but one man in Paris has the secret of this colour, and he lives in the Rue de Marais.”

‘Here was a terrible blow to all hope, and in the discouragement it inflicted three long months were passed, De Marsay growing thin and wretched from fretting, and by his despondency occasioning his friends the deepest solicitude. At length, one of his relatives resolved on a bold step. He went direct to the Rue de Marais and demanded to speak with the dyer. It is not very easy to say how he opened a negotiation of such delicacy; that he did so with consummate tact and skill there can be no doubt, for he so worked oh the dyer’s compassion by the picture of a poor young fellow utterly ruined in his career, unable to face the world, to meet his regiment, even to appear before the enemy, being blue! that the dyer at last confessed his pity, but at the same time cried out, “What can I do? there is no getting it off again!”

‘"No getting it off again! do you really tell me that?” exclaimed the wretched negotiator.

‘"Impossible! that’s the patent,” said the other with an ill-dissembled pride. “I have spent seven years in the invention. I only hit upon it last October. Its grand merit is that it resists all attempts to efface it.”

‘"And do you tell me,” cries the friend, in terror, “that this poor fellow must go down to his grave in that odious—well, I mean no offence—in that unholy tint?”

‘"There is but one thing in my power, sir.”

‘"Well, what is it, in the name of mercy? Out with it, and name your price.”

‘"I can make him a very charming green! un beau vert, monsieur.”’

When the baronet had ceased to laugh at the anecdote, Purcell resumed: ‘And now for the application. It is always a good thing in life to be able to become un beau vert, even though the colour should not quite suit you. I say this, because for the present project I can augur no success. The world has lived wonderfully fast, Sir Capel, since you and I were boys. That same Revolution in France that has cut off so many heads, has left those that still remain on men’s shoulders very much wiser than they used to be. Now nobody in Europe wants this family again; they have done their part; and they are as much bygones as chain-armour or a battle-axe.’

‘The rightful and the legitimate are never bygone—never obsolete,’ said the other resolutely.

‘A’n’t they, faith! The guillotine and the lantern are the answers to that. I do not mean to say it must be always this way. There may, though I see no signs of it, come a reaction yet; but for the present men have taken a practical turn, and they accept nothing, esteem nothing, employ nothing that is not practical. Mirabeau’s last effort was to give this colour to the Bourbons, and he failed. Do not tell me, then, that where Gabriel Riquetti broke down, a Jesuit father will succeed!’

The other shook his head in dissent, but without speaking.

‘Remember, baronet, these convictions of mine are all opposed to my interest. I should be delighted to see your fairy palace made habitable, and valued for the municipal taxes. Nothing could better please me than to behold your Excellency Master of the Horse except to see myself Chancellor of the Exchequer. But here we are, and a fine princely-looking pile it is!’

They both stopped suddenly, and gazed with wondering admiration at one noble faÇade of the palace right in front of them. A wide terrace of white marble, ornamented with groups or single figures in statuary, stretched the entire length of the building, beneath which a vast orangery extended, the trees loaded with fruit or blossom, gave but slight glimpses of the rockwork grottoes and quaint fountains within.

‘This is not the Cardinal’s property,’ said Purcell. ‘Nay, I know well what I am saying; this belongs, with the entire estate, down to San Remo, yonder, to the young Countess Ridolfi. Nay more, she is at this very moment in bargain with CÆsare Piombino for the sale of it. Her price is five hundred thousand Roman scudi, which she means to invest in this bold scheme.’

‘She, at least, has faith in a Stuart,’ exclaimed the baronet eagerly.

‘What would you have? The girl’s in love with your Prince. She has paid seventy thousand piastres of Albizzi’s debts that have hung around his neck these ten or twelve years back, all to win him over to the cause, just because his brother-in-law is Spanish Envoy here. She destined some eight thousand more as a present to Our Lady of Ravenna, who, it would seem, has a sort of taste for bold enterprises; but Massoni stopped her zeal, and suggested that instead of candles she should lay it out in muskets.’

‘You scoff unseasonably, sir,’ said the baronet, indignant at the tone he spoke in.

‘Nor is that all,’ continued Purcell, totally heedless of the rebuke; ‘her very jewels, the famous Ridolfi gems, the rubies that once were among the show objects of Rome, are all packed up and ready to be sent to Venice, where a company of Jews have contracted to buy them. Is not this girl’s devotion enough to put all your patriotism to the blush?’

A slight stir now moved the leaves of the orange-trees near where they were standing. The evening was perfectly still and calm: Purcell, however, did not notice this, but went on—

‘And she is right. If there were a means of success, that means would be money. But it is growing late, and this, I take it, is the chief entrance. Let us present ourselves, if so be that we are to be honoured with an audience.’

Though the baronet had not failed to remark the sarcastic tone of this speech, he made no reply but slowly ascended the steps toward the terrace.

Already the night was closing in, and as the strangers reached the door they did not perceive that a figure had issued from the orangery beneath, and mounted the steps after them. This was the Chevalier, who usually passed the last few moments of each day wandering among the orange-trees. He had thus, without intending it, heard more than was meant for his ears.

The travellers had but to appear to receive the most courteous reception from a household already prepared to do them honour. They were conducted to apartments specially made ready for them; and being told that the Countess hoped to have their company at nine o’clock, when she supped, were left to repose after their journey.