Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/316

 This note was signed: Your devoted CHAPERON.

When Savinien, almost beside himself, went to see the curé, the poor priest read the letter over and over, so horrified was he at the perfection with which his writing and signature had been copied; for he had not written at all, and, had he written, he would not have made use of the post to send his letter to Ursule. The deadly condition to which this last atrocity reduced Ursule drove Savinien to apply once more to the public prosecutor while taking him the curé’s forged letter.

“A murder is being committed through means for which the law has in no way provided, and upon an orphan whom the Code has entrusted to you as a ward,” said the nobleman to the magistrate.

“If you discover the means of repression,” replied the public prosecutor, “I will adopt them; but I do not know of any! The anonymous villain has given the best advice. Mademoiselle Mirouët must be sent here to the nuns of the Adoration du Saint-Sacrement. In the meanwhile, at my request, the superintendent of the police at Fontainebleau will authorize you to bear arms for your defence. I went myself to Le Rouvre, and Monsieur du Rouvre was very justly indignant at the suspicions hovering over him. Minoret, my deputy’s father, is bargaining with him for his château. Mademoiselle du Rouvre is to marry a rich Polish count. In fact, Monsieur du Rouvre was leaving the country the very day upon which I went there, in order to avoid the execution of an arrest.”