Hyacinthe, called Chabert, Count of the Empire, grand officer of the
Legion of Honor. They had married without settlement; thus, they held
all the property in common. To the best of my recollections, the
personalty was about six hundred thousand francs. Before his marriage,
Colonel Chabert had made a will in favor of the hospitals of Paris, by
which he left them one-quarter of the fortune he might possess at the
time of his decease, the State to take the other quarter. The will was
contested, there was a forced sale, and then a division, for the
attorneys went at a pace. At the time of the settlement the monster
who was then governing France handed over to the widow, by special
decree, the portion bequeathed to the treasury."

"So that Comte Chabert's personal fortune was no more than three
hundred thousand francs?"

"Consequently so it was, old fellow!" said Crottat. "You lawyers
sometimes are very clear-headed, though you are accused of false
practices in pleading for one side or the other."

Colonel Chabert, whose address was written at the bottom of the first
receipt he had given the notary, was lodging in the Faubourg
Saint-Marceau, Rue du Petit-Banquier, with an old quartermaster of the
Imperial Guard, now a cowkeeper, named Vergniaud. Having reached the
spot, Derville was obliged to go on foot in search of his client, for
his coachman declined to drive along an unpaved street, where the ruts
were rather too deep for cab wheels. Looking about him on all sides,
the lawyer at last discovered at the end of the street nearest to the
boulevard, between two walls built of bones and mud, two shabby stone
gate-posts, much knocked about by carts, in spite of two wooden stumps
that served as blocks. These posts supported a cross beam with a