"Do you know what this affair shows?" cried Monsieur de Grandville.
"It shows what women have lost by the Revolution, which has levelled
all social ranks. Passions of this kind are no longer met with except
in men who still feel an enormous distance between themselves and
their mistresses."

"You saddle love with many vanities," remarked the Abbe Dutheil.

"What does Madame Graslin think?" asked the prefect.

"What do you expect her to think?" said Monsieur de Grandville. "Her
child was born, as she predicted to me, on the morning of the
execution; she has not seen any one since then, for she is dangerously
ill."

A scene took place in another salon in Limoges which was almost
comical. The friends of the des Vanneaulx came to congratulate them on
the recovery of their property.

"Yes, but they ought to have pardoned that poor man," said Madame des
Vanneaulx. "Love, and not greed, made him steal the money; he was
neither vicious nor wicked."

"He was full of consideration for us," said Monsieur des Vanneaulx;
"and if I knew where his family had gone I would do something for
them. They are very worthy people, those Tascherons."