he was accused. We Parisians, Monsieur, are subject to the most
startling reactions of feeling. The men we adore one day we execrate the
next. The Vicomte passed at once from the popular admiration one bestows
on a hero to the popular contempt with which one regards a petty
larcener. Society wondered how it had ever condescended to receive into
its bosom the gambler, the duellist, the Don Juan. However, one
compensation in the way of amusement he might still afford to society for
the grave injuries he had done it. Society would attend his trial,
witness his demeanour at the bar, and watch the expression of his face
when he was sentenced to the, galleys. But, Monsieur, this wretch
completed the measure of his iniquities. He was not tried at all. The
Duc and Duchesse quitted Paris for Spain, and the Duc instructed his
lawyer to withdraw his charge, stating his conviction of the Vicomte's
complete innocence of any other offence than that which he himself had
confessed."

"What did the Vicomte confess? You omitted to state that."

"The Vicomte, when apprehended, confessed that, smitten by an insane
passion for the Duchesse, which she had, on his presuming to declare it,
met with indignant scorn, he had taken advantage of his lodgment in the
same house to admit himself into the cabinet adjoining her dressing-room
by means of a key which he had procured, made from an impression of the
key-hole taken in wax.

"No evidence in support of any other charge against the Vicomte was
forthcoming,--nothing, in short, beyond the _infraction du domicile_
caused by the madness of youthful love, and for which there was no
prosecution. The law, therefore, could have little to say against him.
But society was more rigid; and exceedingly angry to find that a man who