chocolate, which Madame Lardot made for him every morning. Suzanne
then slipped away to her new victim, whose biography must here be
given.

Born of an old Alencon family, du Bousquier was a cross between the
bourgeois and the country squire. Finding himself without means on the
death of his father, he went, like other ruined provincials, to Paris.
On the breaking out of the Revolution he took part in public affairs.
In spite of revolutionary principles, which made a hobby of republican
honesty, the management of public business in those days was by no
means clean. A political spy, a stock-jobber, a contractor, a man who
confiscated in collusion with the syndic of a commune the property of
emigres in order to sell them and buy them in, a minister, and a
general were all equally engaged in public business. From 1793 to 1799
du Bousquier was commissary of provisions to the French armies. He
lived in a magnificent hotel and was one of the matadors of finance,
did business with Ouvrard, kept open house, and led the scandalous
life of the period,--the life of a Cincinnatus, on sacks of corn
harvested without trouble, stolen rations, "little houses" full of
mistresses, in which were given splendid fetes to the Directors of the
Republic.

The citizen du Bousquier was one of Barras' familiars; he was on the
best of terms with Fouche, stood very well with Bernadotte, and fully
expected to become a minister by throwing himself into the party which
secretly caballed against Bonaparte until Marengo. If it had not been
for Kellermann's charge and Desaix's death, du Bousquier would
probably have become a minister. He was one of the chief assistances
of that secret government whom Napoleon's luck send behind the scenes
in 1793. (See "An Historical Mystery.") The unexpected victory of