Parisians, the — Volume 10 by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873

Produced by David Widger

THE PARISIANS

BOOK X.

CHAPTER I.

Graham Vane had heard nothing for months from M. Renard, when one morning he received the letter I translate:

"MONSIEUR,--I am happy to inform you that I have at last obtained one piece of information which may lead to a more important discovery. When we parted after our fruitless research in Vienna, we had both concurred in the persuasion that, for some reason known only to the two ladies themselves, Madame Marigny and Madame Duval had exchanged names--that it was Madame Marigny who had deceased in the name of Madame Duval, and Madame Duval who had survived in that of Marigny.

"It was clear to me that the _beau Monsieur_ who had visited the false Duval must have been cognisant of this exchange of name, and that, if his name and whereabouts could be ascertained, he, in all probability, would know what had become of the lady who is the object of our research; and after the lapse of so many years he would probably have very slight motive to preserve the concealment of facts which might, no doubt, have been convenient at the time. The lover of the _soi-disant_ Mademoiselle Duval was by such accounts as we could gain a man of some rank--very possibly a married man; and the liaison, in short, was one of those which, while they last, necessitate precautions and secrecy.

"Therefore, dismissing all attempts at further trace of the missing lady, I resolved to return to Vienna as soon as the business that recalled me to Paris was concluded, and devote myself exclusively to the search after the amorous and mysterious Monsieur.

"I did not state this determination to you, because, possibly, I might be in error--or, if not in error, at least too sanguine in my expectations-- and it is best to avoid disappointing an honourable client.

"One thing was clear, that, at the time of the _soi-disant_ Duval's decease, the _beau Monsieur_ was at Vienna.

"It appeared also tolerably clear that when the lady friend of the deceased quitted Munich so privately, it was to Vienna she repaired, and from Vienna comes the letter demanding the certificates of Madame Duval's death. Pardon me, if I remind you of all these circumstances no doubt fresh in your recollection. I repeat them in order to justify the conclusions to which they led me.

"I could not, however, get permission to absent myself from Paris for the time I might require till the end of last April. I had meanwhile sought all private means of ascertaining what Frenchmen of rank and station were in that capital in the autumn of 1849. Among the list of the very few such Messieurs I fixed upon one as the most likely to be the mysterious Achille--Achille was, indeed, his _nom de bapteme_.