men who can keep their own counsel for thirty days. Monsieur de
Maulincour literally lived only through Madame Jules. He was
perpetually absorbed in a sober examination into the means he ought to
employ to triumph in this mysterious struggle with these mysterious
persons. His secret passion for that woman grew by reason of all these
obstacles. Madame Jules was ever there, erect, in the midst of his
thoughts, in the centre of his heart, more seductive by her presumable
vices than by the positive virtues for which he had made her his idol.

At last, anxious to reconnoitre the position of the enemy, he thought
he might without danger initiate the vidame into the secrets of his
situation. The old commander loved Auguste as a father loves his
wife's children; he was shrewd, dexterous, and very diplomatic. He
listened to the baron, shook his head, and they both held counsel. The
worthy vidame did not share his young friend's confidence when Auguste
declared that in the time in which they now lived, the police and the
government were able to lay bare all mysteries, and that if it were
absolutely necessary to have recourse to those powers, he should find
them most powerful auxiliaries.

The old man replied, gravely: "The police, my dear boy, is the most
incompetent thing on this earth, and government the feeblest in all
matters concerning individuals. Neither the police nor the government
can read hearts. What we might reasonably ask of them is to search for
the causes of an act. But the police and the government are both
eminently unfitted for that; they lack, essentially, the personal
interest which reveals all to him who wants to know all. No human
power can prevent an assassin or a poisoner from reaching the heart of
a prince or the stomach of an honest man. Passions are the best
police."