Dagobert, and Rose and Blanche Simon, whom Gabriel had rescued. These
survivors had recovered, thanks to the care they had received in
Cardoville House, a country mansion which had sheltered them, and except
the prince and the Strangler chief, the others were speedily able to go
on to Paris.

The old grenadier and the orphans--until General Simon should be heard
from--dwelt in the former's house. His son had kept it, from his mother's
love for the life-long home. It was such a mean habitation as a workman
like Agricola Baudoin could afford to pay the rent of, and far from the
fit abode of the daughters of the Duke de Ligny and Marshal of France,
which Napoleon had created General Simon, though the rank had only
recently been approved by the restoration.

But in Paris the unknown hostile hand showed itself more malignant than
ever.

The young lady of high name and large fortune was Adrienne de Cardoville,
whose aunt, the Princess de Saint-Dizier, was a Jesuit. Through her and
her accomplices' machinations, the young lady's forward yet virtuous,
wildly aspiring but sensible, romantic but just, character was twisted
into a passable reason for her immurement in a mad-house.

This asylum adjoined St. Mary's Convent, into which Rose and Blanche
Simon were deceitfully conducted. To secure their removal, Dagobert had
been decoyed into the country, under pretence of showing some of General
Simon's document's to a lawyer; his son Agricola arrested for treason, on
account of some idle verses the blacksmith poet was guilty of, and his
wife rendered powerless, or, rather, a passive assistant, by the
influence of the confessional! When Dagobert hurried back from his wild