Chapter 30 - Page 2

he was placed amid his cannon; no more jewels, which the sea might rob him of; but he had three or four hundred thousand crowns in his coffers. And throughout the house there was a joyous movement of people who believed they were plundering Monseigneur.

The Prince possessed, in a supreme degree, the art of making happy the creditors the most to be pitied. Every distressed man, every empty purse, found with him patience and intelligence of his position. To some he said, “I wish I had what you have, I would give it to you”; and to others, “I have but this silver ewer,- it is worth at least five hundred livres, take it.” The effect of which was- so truly is courtesy a current payment- that the Prince constantly found means to renew his creditors.

This time he used no ceremony,- it might be called a general pillage. He gave up everything. The Oriental fable of the poor Arab, who carried away from the pillage of a palace a kettle at the bottom of which was concealed a bag of gold, and whom everybody allowed to pass without jealousy,- this fable had become a truth in the Prince’s mansion. Many contractors paid themselves from the several departments of the establishment. Thus, the food purveyors, who plundered the clothes-presses and the harness-rooms, attached very little value to things which tailors and saddlers set great store by. Anxious to carry home to their wives preserves given them by Monseigneur, many were seen bounding joyously along under the weight of earthen jars and bottles, gloriously stamped with the arms of the Prince. M. de Beaufort finished by giving away his horses and the hay from his lofts. He made more than thirty happy with kitchen utensils, and thirty more, with the contents of his cellar. Still further, all these people went away with the conviction that M. de Beaufort only acted in this manner to prepare for a new fortune concealed beneath the Arab tents. They repeated to one another, while devastating his mansion, that he was sent to Djidgelli by the King to reconstruct his lost fortunes; that the treasures of Africa would be equally divided between the Admiral and the King of France; that these treasures consisted in mines of diamonds, or other fabulous stones,- the gold and silver mines of Mount Atlas did not even obtain the honor of being named. In addition to the mines to be worked,- which could not be begun till after the campaign,- there would be the booty made by the army. M. de Beaufort would lay his hands upon all the riches pirates had robbed Christendom of since the battle of Lepanto. The number of millions from these sources defied calculation. Why, then, should he who was going in quest of such treasures set any store by the poor utensils of his past life? And, reciprocally, why should they spare the property of him who spared it so little himself?

Such was the position of affairs. Athos, with his searching glance, saw what was going on at