Paris. Imagining this to mean some good fortune for him, with a light
heart she sent him off in charge of Jean Touzel, who took him to St. Malo
in the Hardi Biaou, and saw him safely into the hands of an escort from
Detricand.




CHAPTER XLII

Three days later there was opened in one of the chambers of the Emperor's
palace at Vienna a Congress of four nations--Prussia, Russia, Austria,
and Sardinia. Detricand's labours had achieved this result at last.
Grandjon-Larisse, his old enemy in battle, now his personal friend and
colleague in this business, had influenced Napoleon, and the Directory
through him, to respect the neutrality of the duchy of Bercy, for which
the four nations of this Congress declared. Philip himself little knew
whose hand had secured the neutrality until summoned to appear at the
Congress, to defend his rights to the title and the duchy against those
of Detricand Prince of Vaufontaine. Had he known that Detricand was
behind it all he would have fought on to the last gasp of power and died
on the battle-field. He realised now that such a fate was not for him--
that he must fight, not on the field of battle like a prince, but in a
Court of Nations like a doubtful claimant of sovereign honours.

His whole story had become known in the duchy, and though it begot no
feeling against him in war-time, now that Bercy was in a neutral zone of
peace there was much talk of the wrongs of Guida and the Countess
Chantavoine. He became moody and saturnine, and saw few of his subjects
save the old Governor-General and his whilom enemy, now his friend, Count