THE FJIENCH CONVULSIVES. 51 



This Master Cornelius is the object of very general execration to 

 the good people of Tours, from the circumstance of his having ac- 

 cused five successive subordinates in his office of robbery, all of 

 whom were tortured and executed, according to the summary justice 

 of the times. His infamous celebrity passed into a proverb ; and the 

 words, " You have passed before the Lombard," were used to signify 

 unexpected calamity, fits of low spirits, and sudden mishaps ; and 

 were it not that the awful power of Louis XI. was extended, like a 

 cloak, over his house, its demolition would have been inevitable. 

 Hence the misanthropic Cornelius dwelt alone with an aged sister, 

 who passed for a witch ; and their lonely existence was invested with 

 every thing problematical and mysterious. It is into the dread abode 

 of this hated being that the young D'Estonville determines to enter, 

 for the purpose of gaining access to the apartments of the Countess of 

 St.Valier. Nothing daunted at the terrific fatality that seems to await 

 all who pass its threshold, he boldly presents himself before the 

 usurer, and, after the fitting preliminaries, is admitted. He profits 

 by the night to procure an interview with his mistress, but on the 

 following morning is delivered into the hands of the officers of justice, 

 on the charge of robbery. The circumstances of his having forced 

 open his window and quitted his apartment are considered sufficient 

 grounds for a conviction, and he is led off to execution ; but the 

 Countess of St. Valier appears before her father, and while she ex- 

 culpates her lover, details the jealous cruelty of her husband. Louis 

 XI. undertakes himself to investigate the inexplicable mystery of the 

 repeated robbery of his protege Cornelius ; and the result of his per- 

 sonal scrutiny is the discovery, that the usurer has been in the habit of 

 visiting his treasure, and carrying off a part of it in his sleep. The 

 king offers to put this beyond a doubt, by watching his nightly per- 

 ambulations in person, on condition that he is to have the concealed 

 treasure which he shall discover by this means. This proposal the 

 old usurer attempts to evade, and proposes to his aged sister the task 

 of watching him. 



" ' Louis XI. and I/ said he, 'have just been giving each other the lie, like 

 two rag-merchants. You understand, my child, that if he follows me, he 

 alone will possess the secret of the treasure. None but the king can watch 

 my nocturnal visits. I know not whether the conscience of the king, close 

 as he is to death, could resist thirty millions of crowns. We must be before- 

 hand with him ; send all our treasures to Gand, and so you alone ' 



" Cornelius stopped suddenly, seemingly weighing the heart of that sove- 

 reign who had ruminated upon parricide at the age of twenty two. When 

 the usurer had judged Louis, he rose with the haste of a man who would 

 escape an imminent danger. 



" At this motion his sister, too weak or too strong for such a crisis, fell 

 she was dead ! 



" Cornelius seized his sister, shook her violently, saying, 'The business on 

 hands was not dying you would have had time enough for that afterwards. 

 Oh, there's an end on't ! The old baggage ! she never did any thing in 

 time !' 



" He closed her eyes and laid her on the bench ; but then he returned to 

 all the noble and good feelings which were at the bottom of his heart, and 

 half forgetting his concealed treasure, ' My poor companion/ said he, dole- 



