indomitable advocate has battled with all sorts of
obstacles, and withstood all sorts of evil
influences. His first good deed was to obtain,
through M de Villèle, the restoration of two
hundred and twenty-four thousand francs—
about nine thousand pounds—which, though
utterly insufficient according to the amount of
property confiscated, was yet a pleasant addition
to people whose income was of the meagrest
and most inadequate. But this grant had no
sooner been made, than suddenly a claimant
appeared in the person of the rich old Marquise
de Folleville, who gave herself out as creditor
for sixty-two thousand francs; and here was her
notary, the sieur Coute, who would vouch for
the same, holding as he did the deed of transfer
and acknowledgment. The matter came to a
trial, and the family was cast. Two appeals
and two decrees completed their ruin. All their
money went, their furniture was sold by
auction, and once more the star which had shone
so palely and for such a brief moment, sank
back into the abyss, with the dark clouds rushing
over it. This process lasted six years; and
when Madame de Folleville's advocate, M.
Mauguin, showed the deed of the 22nd May,
1792, by which Joseph Lesurques acknowledged
to have received twenty-one thousand
six hundred livres from Madame de Folleville
in part payment for an estate which he had
never purchased, he cried out in court, "Family
of assassins! family of thieves!" and no one felt
that he was more harsh than true. Seven years
after the beginning of this lawsuit, a very small
and unimportant business affair took M.
Méquillet to Valenciennes. The diligence stopped
on the way to dine the passengers at the Hotel
du Grand Saint Martin, at Péronne, and while
the rest of the seventeen travellers were placing
themselves at table, M. Méquillet went into the
"office" to wash his hands. When he returned,
only one place was vacant—the chair nearest
to the master of the hotel, M. Forget. The
traveller and the master began to talk. "Does
not the Marquise of Folleville live near here?"
asked M. Méquillet.

"Yes, she lives in the beautiful chateau of
Manancourt, and if you have any business with
her I pity you," said the master of the hotel;
going on to relate how, a fortnight before, she
had sued a certain family of the name of Devaux
for three hundred and fifty thousand francs, and
was on the point of gaining her cause, when
M. Coquart, the counsel for the defendants,
discovered a forgery in the deed—got the case
remanded to the next day—and received that
same evening a hundred thousand francs for his
clients on condition of stopping the affair at once.

On this hint, M. Méquillet put off his journey
to Valenciennes, and went at once to M. Coquart,
explaining who he was, and why any evidence of
villany in Madame la Marquise, though villany
connected with a family until now unheard of,
was of singular interest and importance to him,
the advocate, defender, and guardian of the
Lesurques. M. Coquart asked to see a copy of
the deed on which Madams de Folleville
founded her claim. He looked at it, examined
it attentively in all its bearings, then gravely
gave as his opinion that there was falsehood and
forgery somewhere; and advised M. Méquillet
to go immediately to the house of M. Allard,
notary at Amiens, in whose care would most
probably be found the original document.
M. Méquillet took his advice, and, provided
with a letter of introduction, went straight to
M. Allard, of whom he demanded to see and
examine the original deed, in re Lesurques. The
notary, doubting nothing, got down the box in
which it was kept, and put it into M. Méquillet' s
hands. He had no soon glanced at it, than he
uttered a cry of joy, and cried out, "A forgery!
I discover a forgery!" M. Allard looked to
where he pointed, and there, unnoticed hitherto,
were evident traces of some chemical agent—
and of writing effaced.

M. Méquillet returned at once to Paris, and
M. Mérilhou—the Lesurques' advocate in this
matter—beseeching him to lodge a charge of
forgery against the marquise and her agents;
but while the advocate hesitated, proposing a
new journey to Amiens, and a more critical
examination of the deed, in came M. Coquart,
impelled by curiosity and professional zeal
against his crafty old opponent; and both
together went back to Amiens, where they found
fourteen signs of falsification—enough to sink a
whole Chancery of causes.

The lawsuit of eight years' standing had now
entered into a new phase, and the several
advocates and attorneys began a duel for life or
death; but the age, wealth, and position of
the marquise bore her up triumphantly, while
the ill fortune of the Lesurques family and the
terrible accusation of the past, sank them with
scarce a hope of recovery. M. Haussmann, the
chemist, lounging into the court while the trial
was proceeding, heard the decision gravely
pronounced that matters must remain as they
were; the deed need not be reported on, for "it
would be impossible to revive writing effaced by
chemical agents." M. Haussmann knowing
this to be an error—but lawyers are never very
famous for scientific knowledge or accuracy—
got hold of Darcet and Baron Thénard, and both
agreed with him that effaced writing could be
restored. On the strength of this declaration
Gay-Lussac, Chevreul, and Chevallier were
called in, and the deed, on which hung so much
both of interest and importance, was submitted
to modes of trial which seemed as though they
would destroy not only all proofs of forgery but
of everything else. Plunged into a jar of acid,
it was rubbed and pulled and tested and tried—
the representatives of the Lesurques standing
there breathless and in agony, expecting every
moment to see the only link between them and
penury fade away altogether, writing, forgery,
parchment, and all. But the experts knew their
work. At first came faint lines of black; then
odd broken-backed, interrupted letters; then
whole words; and soon all the lost writing was
restored. The old marquise was again
unmasked and repulsed. But the plaintiffs did