Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/317

 Désiré, questioned by his chief, did not dare to express his thoughts; he recognized Goupil! Goupil alone was capable of carrying on any action which skirted the penal code without falling over the precipice of any one article. Impunity, secrecy and success increased Goupil’s audacity. The terrible clerk compelled Massin, now his dupe, to persecute the Marquis du Rouvre, so as to force the nobleman to sell the remainder of his estate to Minoret. After having entered into negotiations with a notary at Sens, he resolved to attempt a final stroke to obtain Ursule. He meant to imitate two or three young men in Paris who owed their wives and their fortunes to abduction. The services rendered to Minoret, Massin and Crémière, and the protection of Dionis, Mayor of Nemours, would enable him to hush up the affair. He immediately decided to throw off the mask, believing Ursule to be incapable of resisting him in the state of weakness to which he had reduced her. Nevertheless, before risking the last stroke of his ignoble scheme, he deemed it necessary to have an explanation at Le Rouvre, where he accompanied Minoret, who was going there for the first time since the signing of the contract. Minoret had just received a confidential letter in which his son asked for information as to what was happening about Ursule, before coming himself with the public prosecutor to take her to a convent, in order to protect her from any fresh outrage. The deputy begged his father, in the event of this persecution being the work of one of their