X

THIRD PHASE OF VERONIQUE'S LIFE

When Madame Graslin recovered from the long illness that followed the
birth of her child, which was not till the close of 1829, an illness
which forced her to keep her bed and remain in absolute retirement,
she heard her husband talking of an important piece of business he was
anxious to concede. The ducal house of Navarreins had offered for sale
the forest of Montegnac and the uncultivated lands around it.

Graslin had never yet executed the clause in his marriage contract
with his wife which obliged him to invest his wife's fortune in lands;
up to this time he had preferred to employ the money in his bank,
where he had fully doubled it. He now began to speak of this
investment. Hearing him discuss it Veronique appeared to remember the
name of Montegnac, and asked her husband to fulfil his engagement
about her property by purchasing these lands. Monsieur Graslin then
proposed to see the rector, Monsieur Bonnet, and inquire of him about
the estate, which the Duc de Navarreins was desirous of selling
because he foresaw the struggle which the Prince de Polignac was
forcing on between liberalism and the house of Bourbon, and he augured
ill of it; in fact, the duke was one of the boldest opposers of the
_coup-d'Etat_.

The duke had sent his agent to Limoges to negotiate the matter;
telling him to accept any good sum of money, for he remembered the
Revolution of 1789 too well not to profit by the lessons it had taught
the aristocracy. This agent had now been a month laying siege to
Graslin, the shrewdest and wariest business head in the Limousin,--the