Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/208

196 "So much the better. In what way shall I have the money?"

"Either in gold, or in bills of the bank of Lyons, payable at Monsieur Colbert's."

"I agree," said the marquise eagerly; "return home and bring the sum in question in notes, as soon as possible."

"Yes, madame; but for Heaven's sake "

"Not a word, Monsieur Faucheux. By the bye, I was forgetting the silver plate. What is the value of that which I have?"

"Fifty thousand francs, madame."

"That makes a million," said the marquise to herself. "Monsieur Faucheux, you will take away with you both the gold and silver plate. I can assign, as a pretext, that I wish it remodeled for patterns more in accordance with my own taste. Melt it down, and return me its value in money, at once."

"It shall be done, your ladyship."

"You will be good enough to place the money in a chest, and direct one of your clerks to accompany the chest, and without my servants seeing him; and direct him also to wait for me in a carriage."

"In Madame de Faucheux's carriage?" said the jeweler.

"If you will allow it, and I will call for it at your house."

"Certainly, your ladyship."

"I will direct some of my servants to convey the plate to your house." The marquise rang. "Let the small van be placed at Monsieur Faucheux's disposal," she said. The jeweler bowed and left the house, directing that the van should follow him closely, saying aloud that the marquise was about to have her plate melted down in order to have other plate manufactured of a more modern style. Three hours afterward she went to M. Faucheux's house and received from him eight hundred thousand francs in gold inclosed in a chest, which one of the clerks could carry toward Mme. Faucheux's carriage — for Mme. Faucheux kept her carriage. As the daughter of a president of accounts, she had brought a marriage portion of thirty thousand crowns to her husband, who was syndic of the goldsmiths. These thirty thousand crowns had become very fruitful during twenty years. The jeweler, though a millionaire, was a modest man. He had purchased a venerable carriage, built in 1648, ten years after the king's birth. This carriage, or rather, house upon wheels, excited the admiration of the whole quarter in which he resided; it was covered