EMMUSKA ORCZY. _Paris, 1921_.






CASTLES IN THE AIR



CHAPTER I

A ROLAND FOR HIS OLIVER



1.

My name is Ratichon--Hector Ratichon, at your service, and I make so
bold as to say that not even my worst enemy would think of minimizing
the value of my services to the State. For twenty years now have I
placed my powers at the disposal of my country: I have served the
Republic, and was confidential agent to Citizen Robespierre; I have
served the Empire, and was secret factotum to our great Napoléon; I
have served King Louis--with a brief interval of one hundred days--
for the past two years, and I can only repeat that no one, in the
whole of France, has been so useful or so zealous in tracking
criminals, nosing out conspiracies, or denouncing traitors as I have