incarcerated a month before he found succour. The
Hummelhausens, who were worthy people, would
gladly have " executed" themselves— that is to
say, would have sold their hotel stock, cock
and barrel— to help their suffering kinsman, but
there was no need for this. An uncle of the
Constants happened to die at Ticino, leaving
an inheritance of two hundred thousand francs.
The use of this, for her life, he left to his
wife, who was eighty-two years of age, and
bedridden. At her death, a hundred thousand
francs were to come to Jean Baptiste, and fifty
thousand to the Hummelhausens. The prisoner
found no difficulty in selling his reversion for a
hundred and twenty thousand francs. He paid
the usurers in full, and left the whitewashed
walls, comparatively a rich man.

On the day of his enlargement, and while he
was treating to a vin d'honneur some of the
gentleman captives in the establishment, one of
the turnkeys brought him a copy of the National,
asking him if he would like to look at it. The
ex-innkeeper's eye fell on a paragraph, in which
it was stated among the Faits Divers that one of
the "illustrations dramatiques," or theatrical
celebrities of the day, "la belle Mademoiselle
Valérie," had suddenly broken her engagement
with the direction of the Porte St. Martin, and
winged her way to the " brumous" land of Albion,
where she was "incessantly" to be united in
marriage to the Honourable Sir Francis Blunt,
Baronet, and member of the Upper Chamber.

Jean Baptiste Constant rushed out of prison to
his sister. He had written to Valérie half a dozen
times since his arrest, not asking for money, but
craving a word of sympathy. She had not sent
him one. His devotion to her was so servile,
so houndlike, that he had never murmured.
Madame Hummelhausen had no good news to
tell him. The paragraph in the National was
true. At least she had Valérie's word for its
genuineness. The girl had written her a cool
letter from Dover, saying that she had been
married there, and that she was now Miladi Blunt.
"As to Constant," she went on, "you will say
to him that I am very sorry for him, but that he
bored me." This was his dismissal: this his
recompense for all he had done to train and
nurture this beautiful devil. She had married
another man. She was sorry for Constant; but
he bored her; he made her yawn; she needed
amusement, and the other man could amuse her.
There was an end of the idyll.

Constant said nothing, but asked Madame
Hummelhausen to give him the letter. "I shall
go to England," he said.

"To kill Sir Blunt?" asked his sister, terrified.

"We are not in the middle ages. Lucrèce
Borgia is all very well on the stage, but will
not do in private life. I have been in England
before. I have served in noble families. I have
the most flattering testimonials. I will serve in
noble families again. Good-by, my good sister.
Perhaps some day I shall have the high honour
to stand behind Miladi Blunt's chair."

Miladi Blunt's honeymoon was soon over.
The honeymoon was very speedily followed by the
beeswax-moon, and that, by the gall-and-
wormwood-moon. Valérie discovered that she had
wedded a gentleman with no money, and who
was over head and ears in debt. Blunt told her
so plainly, and that it was useless to think of
going to London. They crossed from Dover to
Ostend, and thence went to Brussels, where,
Valérie's Paris prestige being thick upon her,
she easily obtained an engagement. This was
in the spring of 1832. By December in the
same year, they had separated. Her accusations
against her husband were no fictions. He had
insulted, outraged, beaten, her. He had lived
in luxury upon her earnings. She gave birth in
Brussels, and at Christmas-time in this same year
'32, to a child, a girl, who was christened Lily
by the English chaplain resident in the Belgian
capital. The day after the performance of the
ceremony, Blunt deserted his wife, but took his
child and his child's nurse with him. He had
made an acquaintance in Brussels at this time,
who lent him money, and talked to him of brilliant
prospects, but whose name he kept secret from
Miladi. The acquaintance accompanied him to
England, and there became his valet de chambre.
And this valet's name was Jean Baptiste
Constant, Swiss by birth.

After her abandonment by her legitimate
protector, the career of Madame Valérie Blunt was
rather more varied than reputable. She did not
bewail the loss of her infant much. She was
more in a rage with the infant's papa. She
went back to Paris, and purged her contempt
towards the direction of the Porte St. Martin
by payment of a round sum of money which
somebody paid for her. Somebody had become
necessary now; and when she grew tired of
somebody, she changed somebody. But,
although her beauty was now in its zenith, her
prestige as an actress was gone. Some other
''illustration dramatique," who showed more of
her legs, wore a grass-green tunic, and had more
diamonds than she, was convulsing Paris with
admiration. "I will never sink to the secondrate,"
said Valérie. "I am tired of men and
women. Let us see what can be made out of
horses."

Madame Humrnelhausen and her husband,
going, one summer night, in 1834, to Franconi's
Circus, saw Valérie, in a riding-habit and a man's
hat, caracoling on a beautiful brown mare in the
midst of the tan-carpeted ring. Stout Monsieur
Adolphe Franconi followed her obsequiously, not
so much as venturing to crack his whip.
Monsieur Auriol, the clown, suspended his jokes during
her performance. She was doing the haute école.
Valérie of the Circus, had become a greater
celebrity than Valérie of the Porte St. Martin. She
was the rage. When she came to England in the
summer of '35, and to Astley's Theatre, Mr.
Ducrow gladly paid her thirty guineas a week
salary. She came again in '37 at higher terms;
but she always wanted money, and more money.