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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

CHAPTER 10
AUDITING THE REVENUE PROCESS

Answers to Review Questions

10-1 FASB Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 5, "Recognition and

Measurement in Financial Statements of Business Enterprises" (CON5), requires that
before revenue is recognized (recorded) it must be realized or realizable and earned.
Revenues are realized when the products or services are exchanged for cash, a promise to
pay cash, or other assets that can be converted into cash. Revenues are earned when the
entity has substantially completed the earnings process, which generally means the
product has been delivered or the service has been provided.

10-2 The credit function has the responsibility for monitoring customer payments. An aged
trial balance of accounts receivable should be prepared and reviewed by the credit
function. Payment should be requested from customers who are delinquent in making
payments for goods or services. The credit function is usually responsible for preparing a
report of customer accounts that may require write-off as bad debts. However, the final
approval for writing off an account should come from an officer of the company who is
not responsible for credit or collections.

10-3 When the entity does not have adequate segregation of duties or if collusion is suspected,
the possibility of a defalcation is increased. An employee who has access to both the cash
receipts and the accounts receivable records has the ability to steal cash and manipulate
the accounting records to hide the misstatement. This is sometimes referred to as
lapping. When lapping is used, the perpetrator covers the cash shortage by applying cash
from one customer's account against another customer's account. If the auditor suspects
that this has occurred, the individual cash receipts have to be traced to the customers'
accounts receivable accounts to ensure that each cash receipt has been posted to the
correct account. If the cash receipt is posted to a different account, this may indicate that
someone is applying cash to different accounts to cover a cash shortage.

10-4 Industry-related factors such as the profitability and health of the industry in which the
entity operates, the level of competition within the industry, and the industry's rate of
technological change affect the potential for misstatements in the revenue process. The
level of governmental regulation (e.g., by the Food and Drug Administration) within the
industry may also affect sales activity. Finally, most states have consumer protection
legislation that may affect product warranties, returns, financing, and product liability.
Such industry-related factors directly impact the auditor's inherent risk assessment for the
authorization and valuation assertions.

The presence of misstatements in previous audits is a good indicator that misstatements

are likely to be present during the current audit. If material misstatements were present in
previous audits, the auditor should assess inherent risk to be high.

10-1
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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

10-5 The auditor needs to obtain the following knowledge for each major class of transactions
in the revenue process when performing a walkthrough:
 How sales, cash receipts, and sales returns and allowances transactions are initiated.
 The accounting records, supporting documents, and accounts that are involved in
processing sales, cash receipts, and sales returns and allowances transactions.
 The flow of each type of transaction from initiation to inclusion in the financial
statements, including computer processing of the data.
 The process used to prepare estimates for accounts such as the allowance for
uncollectible accounts and sales returns.

10-6 Two important controls for processing of credit memoranda for sales returns and
allowances transactions are: (1) each credit memorandum should be approved by
someone other than the individual who initiated it and (2) a credit for returned goods
should be supported by a receiving document indicating that the goods have been
returned.

10-7 The analytical procedures that can be used to test revenue-related accounts and the
possible misstatements that can be detected by each analytical procedure are (also see
Table 10-9):

Analytical Procedure Possible Misstatement Detected

Revenue:
Comparison of gross profit percentage by Unrecorded (understated) revenue
product line with previous years' and/or Fictitious (overstated) revenue
industry data. Changes in pricing policies
Product-pricing problems
Comparison of reported revenue to budgeted
revenue.

Accounts Receivable, Allowance for

Uncollectible Accounts, and Bad-Debt
Expense:
Comparison of receivables turnover and days Under- or overstatement of
outstanding in accounts receivable to allowance for uncollectible
previous years' and/or industry data. accounts and bad-debt
expense
Comparison of aging categories on aged trial
balance of accounts receivable to previous
years.

10-2
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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

Comparison of bad-debt expense as a percentage

of revenue to previous years' and/or industry
data.

Comparison of the allowance for uncollectible

accounts as a percentage of accounts
receivable or credit sales to previous years'
and/or industry data.

Examination of large customer accounts

individually and comparison to previous
year.

Sales Returns and Allowances and Sales

Commissions:
Comparison of sales returns as a percentage of Under- or overstatement of sales
revenue to previous years' and/or industry returns
data.

Comparison of sales discounts as a percentage of Under- or overstatement of sales

revenue to previous years' and/or industry discounts
data.

Estimation of sales commissions expense by Under- or overstatement of sales

multiplication of net revenue by the average commission expense and
commission rate and comparison to recorded related accrual
sales commission expense.

10-8 The auditor verifies the accuracy of the aged trial balance using the following steps. First,
a copy of the aged trial balance of accounts receivable is obtained from the entity and the
total balance is compared to the accounts receivable general ledger balance. Second, a
sample of customer accounts is selected from the aged trial balance. For each selected
customer account, the auditor traces the customer's balance back to the subsidiary ledger
detail and verifies the total amount and the amounts included in each column for proper
aging. These two steps mainly describe a manual approach to testing accuracy. A second
approach would involve the use of computer-assisted audit techniques. If the general
controls over IT are adequate, the auditor can use a generalized audit software package to
perform the steps described in the first approach to examine the accuracy of the aged trial
balance generated by the entity's accounting system.

10-3
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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

10-9 Three factors that affect the reliability of accounts receivable confirmations are:
 The type of confirmation request.
 Prior experience on the entity or similar engagements.
 The intended respondent.

The types of confirmations include positive and negative confirmations. Positive

confirmations are considered more reliable because the recipient is required to respond to
the auditor regardless of whether a misstatement exists or not. Prior experience with the
entity in terms of confirmation response rates, misstatements identified, and the accuracy
of returned confirmations should be considered when assessing the reliability of accounts
receivable confirmations. For example, if response rates were low in prior audits, the
auditor might consider obtaining evidence using alternative procedures. Finally, the
intended respondents to accounts receivable confirmations may vary from individuals
with little accounting knowledge to highly qualified accounting personnel in large
corporations. The auditor should consider the respondent's competence, knowledge,
ability, and objectivity when assessing the reliability of confirmation requests.

10-10 A positive accounts receivable confirmation requests that the customer indicate whether
or not it is in agreement with the amount due to the entity stated in the confirmation.
Thus, a response is required regardless of whether the customer believes that the amount
is correct or incorrect. A negative confirmation requests that the customer respond only
when it disagrees with the amount due to the entity.

Positive confirmations are generally used when an account contains large individual
balances or if errors are anticipated because control risk is assessed to be high. Negative
confirmation requests are used when there are a large number of accounts with small
balances, control risk is assessed to be low, and the auditor believes that the customers
will devote adequate attention to the confirmation.

10-11 Other types of receivables that the auditor should examine include:
 Receivables from officers and employees.
 Receivables from related parties.
 Notes receivable.

The auditor would confirm and evaluate each type of receivable for collectibility. The
transactions that result in receivables from related parties are examined to determine if
they were at "arm's length." Notes receivable would also be confirmed and examined for
repayment terms and whether interest income has been properly recognized.

10-4
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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

Answers to Multiple-Choice Questions

10-12 c 10-18 b
10-13 d 10-19 a
10-14 c 10-20 c
10-15 b 10-21 a
10-16 a 10-22 a
10-17 d 10-23 b

Solutions to Problems

10-24 1. The guidance provided by SAB No. 101 would preclude recognition of revenue on
this transaction in the current period. Thomson’s business practice of requiring a
written sales agreement for this class of customer, persuasive evidence of an
arrangement would require properly authorized personnel of the customer have
executed final agreement. Bayone’s execution of the sales agreement after the end of
the quarter causes the transaction to be considered a transaction of the subsequent
period. The auditor would need to obtain and review the final agreement.

2. Provided that other criteria for revenue recognition are met, Best Products should
recognize revenue from sales of its layaway program upon delivery of the
merchandise to the customer. Until then, the amount of cash received should be
recognized as a liability. Because Best Products retains the risk of ownership of the
merchandise, receives only a deposit from the customer, and does not have an
enforceable right to the remainder of the purchase price, SAB No. 101 would not
allow recognition of the revenue. The auditor would need to review Best Products’
policies for the layaway plan and review a sample of customer installment notes.

3. It would not be appropriate for Dave’s to recognize the membership fees as earned
revenue upon billing or receipt of initial fee with a corresponding accrual of
estimated costs to provide the membership services. This conclusion is based on
Dave’s remaining and unfulfilled contractual obligation to perform services
throughout the remaining period. Therefore, the earnings process, irrespective of
whether a cancellation clause exists, is not complete. Additionally, the ability of the
member to receive a partial refund of the membership fee up to the last day of the
membership term raises uncertainty as to whether the fee is fixed or determinable at
any point before the end of the term. The auditor would need to review Dave’s
membership fee policies and examine the company’s estimate of customer
cancellations.

10-5
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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

10-25 The following weaknesses were identified by Smith in the existing control system over
cash admission fees along with the related recommendation for improvement:
Weakness Recommendation
1. There is no segregation of 1. One clerk (the collection clerk) should
duties between persons collect admission fees and issue
responsible for collecting prenumbered tickets. The other clerk (the
admission fees and persons admission clerk) should authorize
responsible for authorizing admission upon receipt of the ticket or
admission. proof of membership.
2. An independent count of 2. The admission clerk should retain a portion
paying patrons is not made. of the prenumbered admission ticket
(admission ticket stub).
3. There is no proof of accuracy 3. Admission ticket stubs should be reconciled
of amounts collected by the with cash collected by the treasurer each
clerks. day.
4. Cash receipts records are not 4. The cash collections should be recorded by
promptly prepared. the collection clerk daily on a permanent
record that will serve as the first record of
accountability.
5. Cash receipts are not promptly 5. Cash should be deposited at least once each
deposited. Cash should not be day.
left undeposited for a week.
6. There is no proof of accuracy 6. Authenticated deposit slips should be
of the amounts deposited. compared with daily cash collection
records. Discrepancies should be promptly
investigated and resolved. In addition, the
treasurer should establish a policy that
includes an analytical review of cash
collections.
7. There is no record of the 7. The treasurer should issue a signed receipt
internal accountability for for all proceeds received from the
cash. collection clerk. These receipts should be
maintained and periodically checked
against cash collection and deposit records.

10-26 a. 1
b. 3
c. 4
d. 6
e. 5

10-6
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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

10-27 a. In addition to sending second requests, Signoff-On can perform the following audit
procedures:
 Examination of subsequent cash receipts.
 Examination of the customer orders, shipping documents, and duplicate sales
invoices.
 Examination of other entity documentation.
b. Of the three procedures listed, examination of subsequent cash receipts provides the
highest quality evidence. If the customer has paid the accounts receivable, it
provides strong evidence that the receivable was valid.

10-28 The working paper contains the following deficiencies:

 The working paper was not initialed and dated by the audit assistant.
 Negative confirmations not returned cannot be considered to be accounts "confirmed
without exception."
 The two positive confirmations that were sent but were unanswered are not accounted
for.
 There is no documentation of alternate procedures, possible scope limitation, or other
working paper reference for the six accounts selected for confirmation that the client
asked the auditor not to confirm.
 The dollar amount and percentage of the six accounts selected for confirmation that
the client asked the auditor not to confirm is omitted from the "Dollars" columns for
the "Total selected for testing."
 The "Dollars-Percent" for "Confirmation Requests-Negatives" is incorrectly calculated
at 10 percent.
 There is no indication of follow-up or cross-referencing of the account confirmed-
related-party transaction.
 The tick mark "‡" is used but is not explained in the tick mark legend.
 There is no explanation for proposed disposition of the ten differences aggregating
$12,000.
 The overall conclusion reached is not appropriate.
 There is no notation that a projection from the sample to the population was made.
 There is no reference to second requests.
 Cross-referencing is incomplete, such as the eighteen "Differences reported and
resolved, no adjustment" and "Confirmation Requests" to the confirmation control
schedule.

10-7
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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

10-29 In order to determine whether lapping exists, Stanley would test the aging of accounts
receivable and then:
 Mail positive accounts receivable confirmation requests directly to all customers with
old balances.
 Investigate all exceptions noted on confirmations.
 Obtain authenticated deposit slips directly from the bank.
 Compare individual customers' names, dates, and amounts shown on the customer's
remittance advices with the names, dates, and amounts recorded in the cash receipts
journal, individual customer ledger accounts, and deposit slips (if practicable).
 Verify the propriety of noncash credits to accounts receivable (e.g., sales discounts,
sales returns, bad-debt write-offs).
 Perform a surprise inspection of deposits.
 Foot the cash receipts journal, the customers' ledger accounts, and the accounts
receivable control account.
 Reconcile the total of the individual customers' accounts with the accounts receivable
control account.
 Compare information in copies of monthly customers' statements with information in
customers' ledger accounts.

10-30 In evaluating proper sales cutoff, three points should be noted: (1) The book-to-physical
adjustment has already been made by the client, (2) all sales are made FOB shipping (title
passes to the customer at the time the goods are shipped), and (3) goods on hand on
January 31 are included in the physical inventory.

a. Since the goods were shipped on December 31, they were included in the physical
inventory at the end of the fiscal year. Since the sale should be recognized in the
current fiscal year, the following adjustment is necessary:

Cost of merchandise sold 2,000

Inventory 2,000

b. This sale is properly recorded as a current-fiscal-year sale. However, the auditor

should inquire as to why there was such a delay in processing the sales invoice.

c. The sale is properly recorded in the current year.

d. Since the goods were not shipped until January 9, they would have been included in
the physical inventory. However, the sale was recorded as a current-fiscal-year sale.
Therefore, the sale should be reversed since title has not passed to the customer. The
following adjusting entry should be made:

Sales 4,000
Accounts receivable 4,000

10-8
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

e. Since this transaction is a shipment of merchandise to a consignee, no sale should be

recognized. Since the goods were not on hand on December 31, the following entry is
necessary:

Sales 10,000
Inventory 5,600
Accounts receivable 10,000
Cost of merchandise sold 5,600

f. This sale should be recorded in the current fiscal year. Since the merchandise was
shipped on December 30, it was not included in the physical inventory. Thus, the
following adjusting entry is necessary:

Accounts receivable 6,000

Sales 6,000

g. This transaction is correctly recorded as a sale in the next period.

h. Since the merchandise was shipped on December 31, it should be recorded as a sale in
the current fiscal year. It was also included in the physical inventory because it was on
hand on that date. Thus, the following adjusting entry is necessary:

Accounts receivable 8,000

Cost of merchandise sold 5,500
Sales 8,000
Inventory 5,500

Solutions to Discussion Cases

10-31 The listed conditions are the important conceptual criteria that should be used in
evaluating any purported bill and hold sale. In some circumstances, a transaction may
meet all the factors listed above but not meet the requirements for revenue recognition. In
applying the above criteria to a purported bill and hold sale, the auditor should also
consider the following factors and evidence related to each factor:

1. The date by which the seller expects payment, and whether it has modified its
normal billing and credit terms for this buyer;

2. The seller's past experiences with, and pattern of, bill and hold transactions;

3. Whether the buyer has the expected risk of loss in the event of a decline in the
market value of the goods;

10-9
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manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

4. Whether the seller's custodial risks are insurable and insured;

5. Whether APB Opinion 21, pertaining to the need for discounting the related
receivables, is applicable; and

6. Whether extended procedures are necessary in order to assure that there are no
exceptions to the buyer's commitment to accept and pay for the goods sold, i.e.,
that the business reasons for the bill and hold have not introduced a contingency to
the buyer's commitment.

10-32 a. Friendly Furniture carried insurance coverage for property loss at replacement value
and business interruption insurance for lost production. Because the property loss is
covered at replacement value, which exceeds carrying value, the recognition of both a
reimbursement for costs incurred and a gain contingency should be considered.
Before deciding on when to recognize proceeds from insurance coverage, it is
necessary to consider whether the amount of proceeds is a gain contingency, which
generally cannot be recognized under GAAP. The gain must be realized before
recognition is permitted. FASB ASC Topic 450, "Contingencies," reaffirms the
principle on the recognition of gain contingencies.
The first issue that needs to be considered is the timing of recognition for some or
all of the insurance proceeds that Friendly Furniture is entitled to and expects to
receive. There is no specific guidance in the authoritative literature on when it is
appropriate to recognize insurance proceeds. SFAC No. 5, "Recognition and
Measurement in Financial Statements of Business Enterprises," provides some
conceptual guidance. The companywill likely want to recognize the estimated
proceeds from insurance coverage at the earliest possible date to offset losses, if any,
from the destruction of fixed assets and inventory as well as from lost production.
There are a number of points in time when the insurance proceeds may be
recognized. The most conservative approach—the one likely to be least favored by the
company and the least likely to be a gain contingency—would be when the proceeds
are received. This would result in a cash basis of accounting and would not be
supported by SFAC No. 6, "Elements of Financial Statements." The other extreme
would be recognition of the insurance proceeds before verification of coverage or
admission of liability by the insurance carrier. This is the most aggressive approach
and the most likely to result in recognition of a gain contingency.
There are two other alternatives: (1) recognition when the company has been able
to determine that coverage exists and has been able to develop a minimum estimate of
the amount to be recovered or (2) when the insurance carrier has admitted liability. A
decision as to which of those alternatives should be used needs to be based on the
company's ability to estimate the proceeds as reliably as possible. If the insurance
company has admitted to a liability, Friendly Furniture would have a good basis for
recognizing the minimum amounts subject to an evaluation of the reliability of the
estimates and the probability of collection.

10-10
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Chapter 10 - Auditing the Revenue Process

One possible answer is to recognize insurance proceeds (a receivable from the

insurance company) in Friendly Furniture's financial statements at June 30 in the
following manner: credit a portion of business interruption insurance to cost of sales
and recognize in other income a gain that consists of the estimated minimum amount
that the replacement cost insurance proceeds exceed the net book value of equipment
and inventory destroyed and unallocated proceeds from business interruption
insurance.

b. The auditor can perform the following procedures to support the amount recorded for
the receivable:
 Examine the inventory records, including the perpetual and physical inventory, to
determine the cost of the inventory destroyed by the flood.
 Examine the appraisal reports to test the fair market value of the inventory
destroyed.
 Examine the property, plant, and equipment subsidiary records to determine the
cost (book value) of the equipment destroyed.
 Examine the appraisal reports to test the fair market value of the equipment
destroyed.
 Examine the entity's and insurance company's calculation of the amount of income
to be recognized as a result of the business interruption.

Solution to Internet Assignments

10-33 It is difficult to get information directly on some of EarthWear’s competitors. Lands’
End is now part of Sears. Eddie Bauer is part of The Spiegel Group. The Spiegel
Group’s annual report states that revenue from catalog and e-commerce sales is
recognized at time of shipment. Spiegel also states that it reserves for returns at the time
of sale based on projected returns. Timberland reports that it recognizes revenue at the
time of shipment, but there is no disclosure on returns. L.L. Bean and Patagonia are
privately held companies and there are no publicly available financial statements.

10-34 A search of the SEC’s website should identify a recent company that has been cited by
the SEC for revenue recognition issues.

10-11
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Other documents randomly have
different content
to the greenhouse, which was also the soldier’s destination. As neither
showed any hesitation about proceeding to this point, it was likely that this
was not the first appointment the pair had kept there.
“No, I can continue my road,” reasoned Gilbert; “Nicole would not be
receiving her sweetheart unless she were sure of some time before her, and I
may rely on finding Mdlle. Andrea alone. Andrea alone!”
No sound in the house was audible and only a faint light was to be seen.
Gilbert skirted the wall and reached the door left open by the maid.
Screened by an immense creeper festooning the doorway, he could peer into
an anteroom, with two doors; the open one he believed to be Nicole’s. He
groped his way into it, for it had no light.
At the end of a lobby, a glazed door, with muslin curtains on the other
side, showed a glimmer. On going up this passage, he heard a feeble voice.
It was Andrea’s.
All Gilbert’s blood flowed back to the heart.
 CHAPTER V.

SUSPICIONS.

THE voice which made answer to the girl’s was her brother Philip’s. He
was anxiously asking after her health.
Gilbert took a few steps guardedly and stood behind one of those half-
columns carrying a bust which were the ornaments in pairs to doorways of
the period. Thus in security, he looked and listened, so happy that his heart
melted with delight; yet so frightened that it seemed to shrink up to a pin’s
head.
He saw Andrea lounging on an invalid-chair, with her face turned
towards the glazed door, a little on the jar. A small lamp with a large
reflecting shade placed on a table heaped with books, showed the only
recreation allowed the fair patient, and illumined only the lower part of her
countenance.
Seated on the foot of the chair, Philip’s back was turned to the watcher;
his arm was still in a sling.
This was the first time the lady sat up and that her brother was allowed
out. They had not seen each other since the dreadful night; but both had
been informed of the respective convalescence. They were chatting freely
as they believed themselves alone and that Nicole would warn them if any
one came.
“Then you are breathing freely,” said Philip.
“Yes, but with some pain.”
“Strength come back, my poor sister?”
“Far from it, but I have been able to get to the window two or three
times. How nice the open air is—how sweet the flowers—with them it
seems that one cannot die. But I am so weak from the shock having been so
horrid. I can only walk by hanging on to the furniture; I should fall without
support.”
 “Cheer up, dear; the air and flowers will restore you. In a week you will
be able to pay a visit to the Dauphiness who has kindly asked after you, I
hear.”
“I hope so, for her Highness has been good to me; to you in promoting
you to be captain in her guards, and to father, who was induced by her
benevolence to leave our miserable country house.
“Speaking of your miraculous escape,” said Philip, “I should like to
know more about the rescue.”
Andrea blushed and seemed ill at ease. Either he did not remark it or
would not do so.
“I thought you knew all about it,” said she; “father was perfectly
satisfied.
“Of course, dear Andrea, and it seemed to me that the gentleman
behaved most delicately in the matter. But some points in the account
seemed obscure—I do not mean suspicious.”
“Pray explain,” said the girl with a virgin’s candor.
“One point is very out of the way—how you were saved. Kindly relate
it.”
“Oh, Philip,” she said with an effort, “I have almost forgotten—I was so
frightened.”
“Never mind—tell me what you do remember.”
“You know, brother, that we were separated within twenty paces of the
Royal Wardrobe Storehouse? I saw you dragged away towards the Tuileries
Gardens, while I was hurled into Royale Street. Only for an instant did I see
you, making desperate efforts to return to me. I held out my arms to you
and was screaming, ‘Philip!’ when I was suddenly wrapped in a whirlwind,
and whisked up towards the railings. I feared that the current would dash
me up against the wall and shatter me. I heard the yells of those crushed
against the iron palings; I foresaw my turn coming to be ground to rags. I
could reckon how few instants I had to live, when—half dead, half crazed,
as I lifted eyes and arms in a last prayer to heaven, I saw the eyes sparkle of
a man who towered over the multitude and it seemed to obey him.”
“You mean Baron Balsamo, I suppose?”
“Yes, the same I had seen at Taverney. There he struck me with
uncommon terror. The man seems supernatural. He fascinates my sight and
my hearing; with but the touch of his finger he would make me quiver all
over.”
“Continue, Andrea,” said the chevalier, with darkening brow and moody
voice.
“This man soared over the catastrophe like one whom human ills could
not attain. I read in his eyes that he wanted to save me and something
extraordinary went on within me: shaken, bruised, powerless and nearly
dead though I was, to that man I was attracted by an invincible, unknown
and mysterious force, which bore me thither. I felt arms enclasp me and
urge me out of this mass of welded flesh in which I was kneaded—where
others choked and gasped I was lifted up into air. Oh, Philip,” said she with
exaltation, “I am sure it was the gaze of that man. I grasped at his hand and
I was saved.”
“Alas,” thought Gilbert, “I was not seen by her though dying at her feet.”
“When I felt out of danger, my whole life having been centred in this
gigantic effort or else the terror surpassed my ability to contend—I fainted
away.”
“When do you think this faint came on?”
“Ten minutes after we were rent asunder, brother.”
“That would be close on Midnight,” remarked the Knight of Red Castle.
“How then was it you did not return home until three? You must forgive me
questions which may appear to you ridiculous but they have a reason to me,
dear Andrea.”
“Three days ago I could not have replied to you,” she said, pressing his
hand, “but, strange as it may be, I can see more clearly now. I remember as
though a superior will made me do so.”
“I am waiting with impatience. You were saying that the man took you
up in his arms?”
“I do not recall that clearly,” answered Andrea, blushing. “I only know
that he plucked me up out of the crowd. But the touch of his hand caused
me the same shock as at Taverney, and again I swooned or rather I slept, for
it was a sleep that was good.”
Gilbert devoured all the words, for he knew that so far all was true.
“On recovering my senses, I was in a richly furnished parlor. A lady and
her maid were by my side, but they did not seem uneasy. Their faces were
benevolently smiling. It was striking half-past twelve.”
“Good,” said the knight, breathing freely. “Continue, Andrea, continue.”
“I thanked the lady for the attentions she was giving, but, knowing in
what anxiety you must all be, I begged to be taken home at once. They told
me that the Count—for they knew our Baron Balsamo as Count Fenix, had
gone back to the scene of the accident, but would return with his carriage
and take me to our house. Indeed, about two o’clock, I heard carriage
wheels and felt the same warning shiver of his approach. I reeled and fell on
a sofa as the door opened; I barely could recognize my deliverer as the
giddiness seized me. During this unconsciousness I was put in the coach
and brought here. It is all I recall, brother.”
“Thank you, dear,” said Philip, in a joyful voice; “your calculations of
the time agree with mine. I will call on Marchioness Savigny and personally
thank her. A last word of secondary import. Did you notice any familiar face
in the excitement? Such as little Gilbert’s, for instance?”
“Yes, I fancy I did see him a few paces off, as you and I were driven
apart,” said Andrea, recollecting.
“She saw me,” muttered Gilbert.
“Because, when I was seeking you, I came across the boy.”
“Among the dead?” asked the lady with the shade of assumed interest
which the great take in their inferiors.
“No, only wounded, and I hope he will come round. His chest was
crushed in.”
“Ay, against hers,” thought Gilbert.
“But the odd part of it was that I found in his clenched hand a rag from
your dress, Andrea,” pursued Philip.
“Odd, indeed; but I saw in this Dance of Death such a series of faces,
that I can hardly say whether his figured truly there or not, poor little
fellow!”
“But how do you account for the scrap in his grip?” pressed the captain.
“Good gracious! nothing more easy,” rejoined the girl with tranquillity
greatly contrasting with the eavesdropper’s frightful throbbing of the heart.
“If he were near me and he saw me lifted up, as I stated, by the spell of that
man, he might have clutched at my skirts to be saved as the drowning
snatch at a straw.”
 “Ugh,” grumbled Gilbert, with gloomy contempt for this haughty
explanation, “what ignoble interpretation of my devotion! How wrongly
these aristocrats judge us people. Rousseau is right in saying that we are
worth more than they—our heart is purer and our arms stronger.”
At that he heard a sound behind him.
“What, is not that madcap Nicole here?” asked Baron Taverney, for it
was he who passed by Gilbert hiding and entered his daughter’s room.
“I dare say she is in the garden,” replied his daughter, the latter with a
quiet proving that she had no suspicion of the listener; “good evening,
papa.”
The old noble took an armchair.
“Ha, my children, it is a good step to Versailles when one travels in a
hackney coach instead of one of the royal carriages. I have seen the
Dauphiness, though, who sent for me to learn about your progress.”
“Andrea is much better, sir.”
“I knew that and told her Royal Highness so. She is good enough to
promise to call her to her side when she sets up her establishment in the
Little Trianon Palace which is being fitted up to her liking.”
“I at court?” said Andrea timidly.
“Not much of a court; the Dauphiness has quiet tastes and the Prince
Royal hates noise and bustle. They will live domestically at Trianon. But
judging what the Austrian princess’s humor is, I wager that as much will be
done in the family circle as at official assemblies. The princess has a temper
and the Dauphin is deep, I hear.”
“Make no mistake, sister, it will still be a court,” said Captain Philip,
sadly.
“The court,” thought Gilbert with intense rage and despair, “a hight I
cannot scale—an abyss into which I cannot hurl myself! Andrea will be lost
to me!”
“We have neither the wealth to allow us to inhabit that palace, nor the
training to fit us for it,” replied the girl to her father. “What would a poor
girl like me do among those most brilliant ladies of whom I have had a
glimpse? Their splendor dazzled me, while their wit seemed futile though
sparkling. Alas, brother, we are obscure to go amid so much light!”
 “What nonsense!” said the baron, frowning. “I cannot make out why my
family always try to bemean what affects me! obscure—you must be mad,
miss! A Taverney Redcastle, obscure! who should shine if not you, I want to
know? Wealth? we know what wealth at court is—the crown is a sun which
creates the gold—it does the gilding, and it is the tide of nature. I was
ruined—I become rich, and there you have it. Has not the King money to
offer his servitors? Am I to blush if he provides my son with a regiment and
gives my daughter a dowry? or an appanage for me, or a nice warrant on the
Treasury—when I am dining with the King and I find it under my plate?”
“No, no, only fools are squeamish—I have no prejudices. It is my due
and I shall take it. Don’t you have any scruples, either. The only matter to
debate is your training. You have the solid education of the middle class
with the more showy one of your own; you paint just such landscapes as the
Dauphiness doats upon. As for your beauty, the King will not fail to notice
it. As for conversation, which Count Artois and Count Provence like—you
will charm them. So you will not only be welcome but adored. That is the
word,” concluded the cynic, rubbing his hands and laughing so unnaturally
that Philip stared to see if it were a human being.
But, taking Andrea’s hand as she lowered her eyes, the young gentleman
said:
“Father is right; you are all he says, and nobody has more right to go to
Versailles Palace.”
“But I would be parted from you,” remonstrated Andrea.
“Not at all,” interrupted the baron; “Versailles is large enough to hold all
the Taverneys.”
“True, but the Trianon is small,” retorted Andrea, who could be proud
and willful.
“Trianon is large enough to find a room for Baron Taverney,” returned
the old nobleman, “a man like me always finds a place”—meaning “can
find a place. Any way, it is the Dauphiness’s order.”
“I will go,” said Andrea.
“That is good. Have you any money, Philip?” asked the old noble.
“Yes, if you want some; but if you want to offer me it, I should say that I
have enough as it is.”
 “Of course, I forgot you were a philosopher,” sneered the baron. “Are
you a philosopher, too, my girl, or do you need something?”
“I should not like to distress you, father.”
“Oh, luck has changed since we left Taverney. The King has given me
five hundred louis—on account, his Majesty said. Think of your wardrobe,
child.”
“Oh, thank you, papa,” said Andrea, joyously.
“Oho, going to the other extreme now! A while ago, you wanted for
nothing—now you would ruin the Emperor of China. Never mind, for fine
dresses become you, darling.”
With a tender kiss, he opened the door leading into his own room, and
disappeared, saying:
“Confound that Nicole for not being in to show me a light!”
“Shall I ring for her, father?”
“No, I shall knock against Labrie, dozing on a chair. Good night, my
dears.”
“Good night, brother,” said Andrea as Philip also stood up: “I am
overcome with fatigue. This is the first time, I have been up since my
accident.”
The gentleman kissed her hand with respect mixed with his affection
always entertained for his sister and he went through the corridor, almost
brushing against Gilbert.
“Never mind Nicole—I shall retire alone. Good bye, Philip.”
 CHAPTER VI.

WHAT GILBERT EXPECTED.

A SHIVER ran through the watcher as the girl rose from her chair. With
her alabaster hands she pulled out her hairpins one by one while the
wrapper, slipping down upon her shoulders, disclosed her pure and graceful
neck, and her arms, carelessly arched over her head, threw out the lower
curve of the body to the advantage of the exquisite throat, quivering under
the linen.
Gilbert felt a touch of madness and was on the verge of rushing forward,
yelling:
“You are lovely, but you must not be too proud of your beauty since you
owe it to me—it was I saved your life!”
Suddenly a knot in the corset string irritated Andrea who stamped her
foot and rang the bell.
This knell recalled the lover to reason. Nicole had left the door open so
as to run back. She would come.
He wanted to dart out of the house, but the baron had closed the other
doors as he came along. He was forced to take refuge in Nicole’s room.
From there he saw her hurry in to her mistress, assist her to bed and
retire, after a short chat, in which she displayed all the fawning of a maid
who wishes to win her forgiveness for delinquency.
Singing to make her peace of mind be believed, she was going through
on the way to the garden when Gilbert showed himself in a moonbeam.
She was going to scream but taking him for another, she said,
conquering her fright:
“Oh, it is you—what rashness!”
“Yes, it is I—but do not scream any louder for me than the other,” said
Gilbert.
“Why, whatever are you doing here?” she challenged, knowing her
fellow-dependent at Taverney. “But I guess—you are still after my mistress.
But though you love her, she does not care for you.”
“Really?”
“Mind that I do not expose you and have you thrown out,” she said in a
threatening tone.
“One may be thrown out, but it will be Nicole to whom stones are tossed
over the wall.”
“That is nothing to the piece of our mistress’s dress found in your hand
on Louis XV Square, as Master Philip told his father. He does not see far
into the matter yet, but I may help him.”
“Take care, Nicole, or they may learn that the stones thrown over the
wall are wrapped in love-letters.”
“It is not true!” Then recovering her coolness, she added: “It is no crime
to receive a love-letter—not like sneaking in to peep at poor young mistress
in her private room.”
“But it is a crime for a waiting-maid to slip keys under garden doors and
keep tryst with soldiers in the greenhouse!”
“Gilbert, Gilbert!”
“Such is the Nicole Virtue! Now, assert that I am in love with Mdlle.
Andrea and I will say I am in love with my playfellow Nicole and they will
believe that the sooner. Then you will be packed off. Instead of going to the
Trianon Palace with your mistress, and coqueting with the fine fops around
the Dauphiness, you will have to hang around the barracks to see your lover
the corporal of the Guards. A low fall, and Nicole’s ambition ought to have
carried her higher. Nicole, a dangler on a guardsman!”
And he began to hum a popular song:
“In the French Guards my sweetheart marches!”
“For pity’s sake, Gilbert, do not eye me thus—it alarms me.”
“Open the door and get that swashbuckler out of the way in ten minutes
when I may take my leave.”
Subjugated by his imperious air, Nicole obeyed. When she returned after
dismissing the corporal, her first lover was gone.
Alone in his attic, Gilbert cherished of his recollections solely the picture
of Andrea letting down her fine tresses.
 CHAPTER VII.

THE TRAP TO CATCH PHILOSOPHERS.

INDIFFERENT to everything since he had learnt of Andrea’s going soon to

the court, Gilbert had forgotten the excursion of Rousseau and his brother
botanist on Sunday. He would have preferred to pass the day at his garret
window, watching his idol.
Rousseau had not only taken special pains over his attire, but arrayed
Gilbert in the best, though Therese had thought overalls and a smockfrock
quite good enough to wander in the woods, picking up weeds.
He was not wrong for Dr. Jussieu came in his carriage, powdered,
pommaded and freshened up like springtime: Indian satin coat, lilac taffety
vest, extremely fine white silk stockings and polished gold buckled shoes
composed his botanist’s outfit.
“How gay you are!” exclaimed Rousseau.
“Not at all, I have dressed lightly to get over the ground better.”
“Your silk hose will never stand the wet.”
“We will pick our steps. Can one be too fine to court Mother Nature?”
The Genevan Philosopher said no more—an invocation to Nature
usually shutting him up. Gilbert looked at Jussieu with envy. If he were
arrayed like him, perhaps Andrea would look at him.
An hour after the start, the party reached Bougival, where they alighted
and took the Chestnut Walk. On coming in sight of the summerhouse of
Luciennes, where Gilbert had been conducted by Mdlle. Chon when he was
picked up by her, a poor boy on the highway, he trembled. For he had
repaid her succor by fleeing when she had wished to make a buffoon of him
as a peer to Countess Dubarry’s black boy, Zamore.
“It is nine o’clock,” observed Dr. Jussieu, “suppose we have breakfast?”
“Where? did you bring eatables in your carriage?”
“No, but I see a kiosk over there where a modest meal may be had. We
can herborize as we walk there.”
 “Very well, Gilbert may be hungry. What is the name of your inn?”
“The Trap.”
“How queer!”
“The country folks have droll ideas. But it is not an inn; only a shooting-
box where the gamekeepers offer hospitality to gentlemen.”
“Of course you know the owner’s name?” said Rousseau, suspicious.
“Not at all: Lady Mirepoix or Lady Egmont—or—it does not matter if
the butter and the bread are fresh.”
The good-humored way in which he spoke disarmed the philosopher
who besides had his appetite whetted by the early stroll. Jussieu led the
march, Rousseau followed, gleaning, and Gilbert guarded the rear, thinking
of Andrea and how to see her at Trianon Palace.
At the top of the hill, rather painfully climbed by the three botanists, rose
one of those imitation rustic cottages invented by the gardeners of England
and giving a stamp of originality to the scene. The walls were of brick and
the shelly stone found naturally in mosaic patterns on the riverside.
The single room was large enough to hold a table and half-a-dozen
chairs. The windows were glazed in different colors so that you could by
selection view the landscape in the red of sunset, the blue of a cloudy day or
the still colder slate hue of a December day.
This diverted Gilbert but a more attractive sight was the spread on the
board. It drew an outcry of admiration from Rousseau, a simple lover of
good cheer, though a philosopher, from his appetite being as hearty as his
taste was modest.
“My dear master,” said Jussieu, “if you blame me for this feast you are
wrong, for it is quite a mild set-out—— ”
“Do not depreciate your table, you gormand!”
“Do not call it mine!”
“Not yours? then whose—the brownies, the fairies?” demanded
Rousseau, with a smile testifying to his constraint and good nature at the
same time.
“You have hit it,” answered the doctor, glancing wistfully to the door.
Gilbert hesitated.
 “Bless the fays for their hospitality,” said Rousseau, “fall on! they will
be offended at your holding back and think you rate their bounty
incomplete.”
“Or unworthy you gentlemen,” interrupted a silvery voice at the
summerhouse door, where two pretty women presented themselves arm in
arm.
With smiles on their lips, they waved their plump hands for Jussieu to
moderate his salutations.
“Allow me to present the Author Rousseau to your ladyship, countess,”
said the latter. “Do you not know the lady?”
Gilbert did, if his teacher did not, for he stared and, pale as death, looked
for an exit.
“It is the first time we meet,” faltered the Citizen of Geneva.
“Countess Dubarry!” explained the other botanist.
His colleague started as though on a redhot plate of iron.
Jeanne Dubarry, favorite of King Louis X. was a lovely woman, just of
the right plumpness to be a material Venus; fair, with light hair but dark
eyes she was witching and delightful to all men who prefer truth to fancy in
feminine beauty.
“I am very happy,” she said “to see and welcome under my roof one of
the most illustrious thinkers of the era.”
“Lady Dubarry,” stammered Rousseau, without seeing that his
astonishment was an offense. “So it is she who gives the breakfast?”
“You guess right, my dear philosopher,” replied Jussieu, “she and her
sister, Mdlle. Chon, who at least is no stranger to Friend Gilbert.”
“Her sister knows Gilbert?”
“Intimately,” rejoined the impudent girl with the audacity which
respected neither royal ill-humor nor philosopher’s quips. “We are old boon
companions—are you already forgetful of the candy and cakes of Luciennes
and Versailles?”
This shot went home; Rousseau dropped his arms. Habituated in his
conceit to think the aristocratic party were always trying to seduce him
from the popular side, he saw traitors and spies in everybody.
 “Is this so, unhappy boy?” he asked of Gilbert, confounded. “Begone,
for I do not like those who blow hot and cold with the same breath.”
“But I ran away from Luciennes where I was locked up, and I must have
preferred your house, my guide, my friend, my philosopher!”
“Hypocrisy!”
“But, M. Rousseau, if I wanted the society of these ladies, I should go
with them now?”
“Go where you like! I may be deceived once but not twice. Go to this
lady, good and amiable—and with this gentleman,” he added pointing to
Jussieu, amazed at the philosopher’s rebuke to the royal pet, “he is a lover
of nature and your accomplice—he has promised you fortune and assistance
and he has power at court.”
He bowed to the women in a tragic manner, unable to contain himself,
and left the pavillion statelily, without glancing again at Gilbert.
“What an ugly creature a philosopher is,” tranquilly said Chon, watching
the Genevan stumble down the hill.
“You can have anything you like,” prompted Jussieu to Gilbert who kept
his face buried in his hands.
“Yes, anything, Gilly,” added the countess, smiling on the returned
prodigal.
Raising his pale face, and tossing back the hair matted on his forehead,
he said in a steady voice:
“I should be glad to be a gardener at Trianon Palace.”
Chon and the countess glanced at each other, and the former touched her
sister’s foot while she winked broadly. Jeanne nodded.
“If feasible, do it,” she said to Jussieu.
Gilbert bowed with his hand on his heart, overflowing with joy after
having been drowned with grief.
 CHAPTER VIII.

THE LITTLE TRIANON.

WHEN Louis XIV. built Versailles and perceived the discomfort of

grandeur, he granted it was the sojourneying-place for a demi-god but no
home for a man. So he had the Trianon constructed to be able to draw a free
breath at leisure moments.
But the sword of Achilles, if it tired him, was bound to be of
insupportable weight to a myrmidon. Trianon was so much too pompous for
the Fifteenth Louis that he had the Little Trianon built.
It was a house looking with its large eyes of windows over a park and
woods, with the wing of the servant’s lodgings and stables on the left,
where the windows were barred and the kitchens hidden by trellises of
vines and creepers.
A path over a wooden bridge led to the Grand Trianon through a kitchen
garden.
The King brought Prime Minister Choiseul into this garden to show him
the improvements introduced to make the place fit for his grandson the
Dauphin, and the Dauphiness.
Duke Choiseul admired everything and passed his comments with a
courtier’s sagacity. He let the monarch say the place would become more
pleasant daily and he added that it would be a family retreat for the
sovereign.
“The Dauphiness is still a little uncouth, like all young German girls,”
said Louis; “She speaks French nicely, but with an Austrian accent jarring
on our ears. Here she will speak among friends and it will not matter.”
“She will perfect herself,” said the duke. “I have remarked that the lady
is highly accomplished and accomplishes anything she undertakes.”
On the lawn they found the Dauphin taking the sun with a sextant. Louis
Aguste, duke of Berry, was a meek-eyed, rosy complexioned man of
seventeen, with a clumsy walk. He had a more prominent Bourbon nose
than any before him, without its being a caricature. In his nimble fingers
and able arms alone he showed the spirit of his race, so to express it.
“Louis,” said the King, loudly to be overheard by his grandson, “is a
learned man, and he is wrong to rack his brain with science, for his wife
will lose by it.”
“Oh, no,” corrected a feminine voice as the Dauphiness stepped out from
the shrubbery, where she was chatting with a man loaded with plans,
compass, pencil and notebook.
“Sire, this is my architect, Mique,” she said.
“Have you caught the family complaint of building?”
“I am going to turn this sprawling garden into a natural one!”
“Really? why, I thought that trees and grass and running water are
natural enough.”
“Sire, you have to walk along straight paths between shaped boxwood
trees, hewn at an angle of forty-five, to quote the Dauphin, and ponds
agreeing with the paths, and star centres, and terraces! I am going to have
arbors, rockeries, grottoes, cottages, hills, gorges, meadows—— ”
“For Dutch dolls to stand up in?” queried the King.
“Alas, Sire, for kings and princes like ourselves,” she replied, not seeing
him color up, and that she had spoken a cutting truth.
“I hope you will not lodge your servants in your woods and on your
rivers like Red Indians, in the natural life which Rousseau praises. If you
do, only the Encyclopædists will eulogise you.”
“Sire, they would be too cold in huts, so I shall keep the out-buildings
for them as they are.” She pointed to the windows of a corridor, over which
were the servant’ sleeping rooms and under which were the kitchens.
“What do I see there?” asked the King, shielding his eyes with his hand,
for he had short-sight.
“A woman, your Majesty,” said Choiseul.
“A young lady who is my reading-woman,” said the princess.
“It is Mdlle. de Taverney,” went on Choiseul.
“What, are you attaching the Taverneys to your house?”
“Only the girl.”
 “Very good,” said the King, without taking his eyes off the barred
window out of which innocently gazed Andrea, with no idea she was
watched.
“How pale she is!” remarked the Prime Minister.
“She was nearly killed in the dreadful accident of the 30th of May, my
lord.”
“For which we would have punished somebody severely,” said Louis,
“but Chancellor Seguier proved it was the work of Fate. Only that fellow
Bignon, Provost of the Merchants, was dismissed—and—poor girl! he
deserved it.”
“Has she recovered?” asked Choiseul quickly.
“Yes, thank heaven!”
“She goes away,” said the King.
“She recognized your Majesty, and fled. She is timid.”
“A cheerless dwelling for a girl!”
“Oh, no, not so bad.”
“Let us have a look round inside, Choiseul?”
“Your Majesty, Council of Parliament at Versailles at half-past two.”
“Well, go and give those lawyers a shaking!”
And the sovereign, delighted to look at buildings, followed the
Dauphiness who was delighted, also, to show her house. They passed
Mdlle. de Taverney under the eaves of the little kitchen yard.
“This is my reader’s room,” remarked the Dauphiness. “I will show you
it as a sample of how my ladies will fare.”
It was a suite of anteroom and two parlors. The furniture was placed;
books, a harpsichord, and particularly a bunch of flowers in a Japanese
Vase, attracted the King’s attention.
“What nice flowers! how can you talk of changing your garden? who the
mischief supplies your ladies with such beauties? do they save any for the
mistress?”
“It is very choice.”
“Who is the gardener here so sweet upon Mdlle. de Taverney?”
“I do not know—Dr. Jussieu found me somebody.”
 The King looked round with a curious eye, and elsewhere, before
departing. The Dauphin was still taking the sun.
 CHAPTER IX.

THE HUNT.

A LONG rank of carriages filled the Forest at Marly where the King was
carrying on what was called an afternoon hunt. The Master of the
Buckhounds had deer so selected that he could let the one out which would
run before the hounds just as long as suited the sovereign.
On this occasion, his Majesty had stated that he would hunt till four P.
M.
Countess Dubarry, who had her own game in view, promised herself that
she would hunt the King as steadfastly as he would the deer.
But huntsmen propose and chance disposes. Chance upset the favorite’s
project, and was almost as fickle as she was herself.
While talking politics with the Duke of Richelieu, who wanted by her
help or otherwise to be First Minister instead of Choiseul, the countess—
while chasing the King, who was chasing the roebuck—perceived all of a
sudden, fifty paces off the road, in a shady grove, a broken down carriage.
With its shattered wheels pointing to the sky, its horses were browsing on
the moss and beech bark.
Countess Dubarry’s magnificent team, a royal gift, had out-stripped all
the others and were first to reach the scene of the breakdown.
“Dear me, an accident,” said the lady, tranquilly.
“Just so, and pretty bad smash-up,” replied Richelieu, with the same
coolness, for sensitiveness is unknown at court.
“Is that somebody killed on the grass?” she went on.
“It makes a bow, so I guess it lives.”
And at a venture Richelieu raised his own three-cocked hat.
“Hold! it strikes me it is the Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan. What the
deuce is he doing there?”
“Better go and see. Champagne, drive up to the upset carriage.”
 The countess’s coachman quitted the road and drove to the grove. The
cardinal was a handsome gentleman of thirty years of age, of gracious
manners and elegant. He was waiting for help to come, with the utmost
unconcern.
“A thousand respects to your ladyship,” he said. “My brute of a
coachman whom I hired from England, for my punishment, has spilled me
in taking a short cut through the woods to join the hunt, and smashed my
best carriage.”
“Think yourself lucky—a French Jehu would have smashed the
passenger! be comforted.”
“Oh, I am philosophic, countess; but it is death to have to wait.”
“Who ever heard of a Rohan waiting?”
“The present representative of the family is compelled to do it; but
Prince Soubise will happen along soon to give me a lift.”
“Suppose he goes another way?
“You must step into my carriage; if you were to refuse, I should give it
up to you, and with a footman to carry my train, walk in the woods like a
tree nymph.”
The cardinal smiled, and seeing that longer resistance might be badly
interpreted by the lady, he took the place at the back which the old duke
gave up to him. The prince wanted to dispute for the lesser place but the
marshal was inflexible.
The countess’s team soon regained the lost time.
“May I ask your Eminence if you are fond of the chase again,” began the
lady, “for this is the first time I have seen you out with the hounds.”
“I have been out before; but this time I come to Versailles to see the
King on pressing business; and I went after him as he was in the woods, but
thanks to my confounded driver, I shall lose the royal audience as well as an
apartment in Paris.”
“The cardinal is pretty blunt—he means a love appointment,” remarked
Richelieu.
“Oh, no, it is with a man—but he is not an ordinary man—he is a
magician and works miracles.”
“The very one we are seeking, the duke and I,” said Jeanne Dubarry. “I
am glad we have a churchman here to ask him if he believes in miracles?”
 “Madam, I have seen things done by this wizard which may not be
miraculous though they are almost incredible.”
“The prince has the reputation of dealing with spirits.”
“What has your Eminence seen?”
“I have pledged myself to secresy.”
“This is growing dark. At least you can name the wizard?”
“Yes, the Count of Fenix—— ”
“That won’t do—all good magicians have names ending in the round O.”
“The cap fits—his other name is Joseph Balsamo.”
The countess clasped her hands while looking at Richelieu, who wore a
puzzled look.
“And was the devil very black? did he come up in green fire and stir a
saucepan with a horrid stench?”
“Why, no! my magician has excellent manners; he is quite a gentleman
and entertains one capitally.”
“Would you not like him to tell your fortune, countess?” inquired the
duke, well knowing that Lady Dubarry had asserted that when she was a
poor girl on the Paris streets, a man had prophesied she would be a queen.
This man she maintained was Balsamo. “Where does he dwell?”
“Saint Claude Street, I remember, in the Swamp.”
The countess repeated the clew so emphatically that the marshal, always
afraid his secrets would leak out, especially when he was conspiring to
obtain the government, interrupted the lady by these words:
“Hist, there is the King!”
“In the walnut copse, yes. Let us stay here while the prince goes to him.
You will have him all to yourself.”
“Your kindness overwhelms me,” said the prelate who gallantly kissed
the lady’s hand.
“But the King will be worried at not seeing you.”
“I want to tease him!”
The duke alighted with the countess, as light as a schoolgirl, and the
carriage rolled swiftly away to set down the cardinal on the knoll where the
King was looking all about him to see his darling.
But she, drawing the duke into the covert, said:
 “Heaven sent the cardinal to put us on the track of that magician who
told my fortune so true.”
“I met one—at Vienna, where I was run through the body by a jealous
husband. I was all but dead when my magician came up and cured my
wound with three drops of an elixir, and brought me to life with three more
imbibed.”
“Mine was a young man—— ”
“Mine old as Mathusaleh, and adorned with a sounding Greek name,
Althotas.”
The carriage was coming back.
“I should like to go, if only to vex the King who will not dismiss
Choiseul in your favor; but I shall be laughed at.”
“In good company, then, for I will go with you.”
At full speed the horses drew the carriage to Paris, containing the young
and the old plotter.
 CHAPTER X.

A SEANCE OF MESMERISM.

IT was six P. M.
Saint Claude Street was in the outskirts on the main road to the Bastile
Prison. The house of the Count Felix, alias Baron Balsamo, was a strong
building, like a castle; and besides a room used for a chemical laboratory,
another study, where the sage Althotas, to whom the duke alluded,
concocted his elixir of long life, and the reception rooms, an inner house, to
which secret passages led, was secluded from ordinary visitors.
In a richly furnished parlor of this secret annex, the mysterious man
who, with masonic signs and words, had collected his followers on Louis
XV. Place, and saved Andrea upon Gilbert’s appeal—he was seated by a
lovely Italian woman who seemed rebellious to his entreaties. She had no
voice but to reproach and her hand was raised to repulse though it was plain
that he adored her and perhaps for that reason.
Lorenza Feliciani was his wife, but she railed at him for keeping her a
prisoner, and a slave, and envied the fate of wild birds.
It was clear that this frail and irritable creature took a large place in his
bosom if not in his life.
“Lorenza,” he softly pleaded, “why do you, my darling, show this
hostility and resistance? Why will you not live with one who loves you
beyond expression as a sweet and devoted wife? Then would you have
nothing farther to long for, free to bloom in the sunshine like the flowers
and spread your wings like the birds you envy. We might go about in
company where the fictitious sun, artificial light, glows on the assemblies of
society. You would be happy according to your tastes and make me happy
in my own way. Why will you not partake of this pleasure, Lorenza, when
you have beauty to make all women jealous?”
“Because you horrify me—you are not religious, and you work your will
by the black art!” replied the woman haughtily.
 “Then live as you condemn yourself,” he replied with a look of anger
and pity; “and do not complain at what your pride earns you.”
“I should not complain if you would only leave me alone and not force
me to speak to you. Let me die in my cage, for I will not sing to you.”
“You are mad,” said Balsamo with an effort and trying to smile; “for you
know that you shall not die while I am at hand to guard and heal you.”
“You will not heal me on the day when you find me hanging at my
window bars,” she screamed.
He shuddered.
“Or stabbed to the heart by this dagger.”
Pale and perspiring icily, Balsamo looked at the exasperated female, and
replied in a threatening voice:
“You are right; I should not cure you, but I would revive you!”
The Italian woman uttered a shriek of terror for knowing there was no
bounds to the magician’s powers—she believed this—and he was saved.
A bell rang three times and at equal intervals.
“My man Fritz,” said Balsamo, “notifying me that a messenger is here—
in haste—— ”
“Good, at last you are going to leave me,” said Lorenza spitefully.
“Once again,” he responded, taking her cold hand, “but for the last time.
Let us dwell in pleasant union; for as fate has joined us, let us make fate our
friend, not an executioner.”
She answered not a word; her dead and fixed eyes seemed to seek in
vacancy some thought which constantly escaped her because she had too
long sought it, as the sun blinds those who wish to see the very origin of the
light. He kissed her hand without her giving any token of life. As then he
walked over to the fireplace, she awoke from her torper and let her gaze fall
greedily upon him.
“Ha, ha,” he said, “you want to know how I leave these issueless rooms
so that you may escape some day and do me harm, and my brothers of the
Masonic Order by revelations. That is why you are so wide awake.”
But extending his hands, with painful constraint on himself, he made a
pass while darting the magnetic fluid from palm and eye upon her eyes and
breast, saying imperatively:
 “Sleep!”
Scarcely was the word pronounced before Lorenza bent like a lily on its
stalk; her swinging head inclined and leaned on the sofa cushions; her dead
white hands slid down by her sides, rustling her silky dress.
Seeing how beautiful she was, Balsamo went up to her and placed a kiss
on her brow.
Thereupon her whole countenance brightened up, as if the breath from
Love’s own lips had dispelled the cloud; her mouth tremulously parted, her
eyes swam in voluptuous tears, and she sighed like those angels may have
sighed for the sons of man, when the world was young.
For an instant the mesmerist contemplated her as one unable to break off
his ecstasy but as the bell rang again, he sprang to the fireplace, touched a
spring to make the black plate swing aside like a door and so entered the
house in Saint Claude Street.
In a parlor was a German servant confronting a man in courier’s attire
and in horseman’s boots armed with large spurs. The vulgar visage
announced one lowly born and yet his eyes were kindled with a spark of the
holy fire which one superior’s mind may light.
His left hand leaned on a clubhandled whip while with his right he made
signs which Balsamo understood, for he tapped his forehead with his
forefinger to imply the same. The postilion’s hand then flew to his breast
where he made a new sign which the uninitiated would have taken for
undoing a button. To this the count responded by showing a ring on his
finger.
“The Grand Master,” muttered the envoy, bending the knee to this
redoubtable token.
“Whence come you?” asked Balsamo.
“From Rouen last. I am courier to the Duchess of Grammont, in whose
service the Great Copt placed me with the order to have no secrets from the
Master.”
“Whither go you?”
“To Versailles with a letter for the First Minister.”
“Hand it to me.”
The messenger gave Balsamo a letter from a leather bag strapped to his
back.
 “Wait, Fritz!” The German who had withdrawn, came to take
“Sebastian” to the servant’ hall, and he went away, amazed that the Chief
knew his name.
“He knows all,” remarked the servant.
Remaining alone Balsamo looked at the clear impression of the seal on
the wax which the courier’s glance had seemed to beg him to respect.
Slowly and thoughtfully, he went upstairs to the room where he had left
Lorenza in the mesmeric slumber. She had not stirred, but she was fatigued
and unnerved by the inaction. She grasped his hand convulsively when
offered. He took her by the hand which squeezed his convulsively and on
her heart laid the letter.
“Do you see—what do I hold in my hand—can you read this letter?”
With her eyes closed, her bosom heaving, Lorenza recited the following
words which the mesmerist wrote down by this wonderful dictation.
“DEAR BROTHER: As I foresaw, my exile has brought me some good. I
saw the President of the Parliament at Rouen who is on our side but timid. I
pressed him in your name and, deciding, he will send the remonstrances of
his friends before the week is out, to Versailles. I am off at once to Rennes,
to stir up Karadeuc and Lachalotais who have gone to sleep. Our Caudebec
agent was at Rouen, and I saw him. England will not pause on the road, but
is preparing a smart advice for the Versailles Cabinet. X asked me if it
should go and I authorized it. You will receive the very latest lampoons
against Dubarry’s squibs, but they will raise a town. An evil rumor has
reached me that you were in disgrace but I laugh at it since you have not
written me to that effect. Still do not leave me in doubt, but write me by
return of courier. Your next will find me at Caen, where I have some of our
adherents to warm up. Farewell, with kisses, Your loving
“DUCHESS DE GRAMMONT.”
Balsamo’s forehead had cleared as the clairvoyante proceeded. “A
curious document,” he commented, “which would be paid for dearly. How
can they write such damning things? It is always women who ruin superior
men. This Choiseul could not be overthrown by an army of enemies or a
multitude of intrigues, and lo! the breath of a woman crushes him while
caressing. If we have a heart, and a sensitive cord in that heart, we are lost.”
 So saying he looked tenderly towards Lorenza who palpitated under his
regard.
“Is what I think true?” he asked her.
“No,” she answered, ardently; “You see that I love you too well to
destroy you as a senseless and heartless woman would do.”
Alas! in her mesmeric trance she spoke and felt just the contrary to what
swayed her in her waking mood.
He let the arms of his enchantress interlace him till the warning bell of
Fritz sounded twice.
“Two visits,” he interpreted.
A violent peal finished the telegraphed phrase.
Disengaging himself from Lorenza’s clasp, Balsamo left the room, the
woman being still in the magnetic sleep. On the way he met the courier.
“Here is the letter. Bear it to the address. That is all.”
The adept of the Order looked at the envelope and the seal, and seeing
that both were intact, he manifested his joy, and disappeared in the
shadows.
“What a pity I could not keep such an autograph,” sighed the magician
“and what a pity it cannot be placed by sure hands before the King.”
“Who is there?” he asked of Fritz who appeared.
“A young and pretty lady with an old gentleman whom I do not know as
they have never called before.”
“Where are they?”
“In the parlor.”
Balsamo walked into the room where the countess had concealed her
face completely in her cloak hood; she looked like a woman of the lower
middle class. The marshal, more shrinking than she, was garbed in grey like
an upper servant in a good house.
“My lord count,” began Dubarry, “do you know me?”
“Perfectly, my lady the countess. Will you please take a seat, and also
your companion.”
“My steward,” said the lady.
“You are in error,” said the host bowing; “this is the Duke of Richelieu,
whom I readily recognize and who would be very ungrateful if he did not
recall one who saved his life—I might say drew him back from among the
dead.”
“Oh, do you hear that, duke?” exclaimed the lady laughing.
“You, saved my life, count?” questioned Richelieu, in consternation.
“Yes, in Vienna, in 1725, when your grace was Ambassador there.”
“You were not born at that date!”
“I must have been, my lord,” replied Balsamo smiling, “for I met you
dying, say dead, on a handbarrow with a fine swordthrust right through
your midriff. By the same token, I dropped a little of my elixir on the gash
—there, at the very place where you wear lace rather too rich for a
steward!”
“But you are scarce over thirty, count,” expostulated the duke.
“But you must see that you are facing a wizard,” said the countess
bursting into laughter.
“I am stupefied. In that case you would be—— ”
“Oh, we wizards change our names for every generation, my lord. In
1725, the fashion for us was to end in us, os or as, and there is no ground
for astonishment that I should have worn a name either in Greek or Latin.
But, Althotas or Balsamo, or Fenix, I am at your orders, countess—and at
yours, duke.”
“Count, the marshal and I have come to consult you.”
“It is doing me much honor, but it is natural that you should apply to
me.”
“Most naturally, for your prediction that I should become a queen is
always trotting in my brain: still I doubt its coming true.”
“Never doubt what science says, lady.”
“But the kingdom is in a sore way—it would want more than three drops
of the elixir which sets a duellist on his legs.”
“Ay, but three words may knock a minister off his!” retorted the
magician. “There, have I hit it? Speak!”
“Perfectly,” replied the fair visitress trembling. “Truly, my lord duke,
what do you say to all this?”
“Oh, do not be wonderstricken for so little,” observed Balsamo, who
could divine what troubled so the favorite and the court conspirator without
any witchcraft.
“The fact is I shall think highly of you if you suggest the remedy we
want,” went on the marshal.
“You wish to be cured of the attacks of Choiseul?”
“Yes, great soothsayer, yes.”
“Do not leave us in the plight, my lord; your honor is at stake,” added
the lovely woman.
“I am ready to serve you to my utmost; but I should like to hear if the
duke had not some settled plan in calling.”
“I grant it, my lord count—Faith! it is nice to have a man of title for
wizard, it does not take us out of our class.”
“Come, be frank,” said the host smiling. “You want to consult me?”
“But I can only whisper it in the strictest privacy to the count because
you would beat me if you overheard, countess.”
“The duke is not accustomed to being beaten,” remarked Balsamo,
which delighted the old warrior.
“The long and the short of it is that the King is dying of tedium.”
“He is no longer amusable, as Lady Maintenon used to say.”
“Nothing in that hurts my feelings, duke,” said Lady Dubarry.
“So much the better, which puts me at my ease. Well, we want an elixir
to make the King merry.”
“Pooh, any quack at the corner will provide such a philter.”
“But we want the virtue to be attributed to this lady,” resumed the duke.
“My lord, you are making the lady blush,” said Balsamo. “But as we
were saying just now, no philter will deliver you of Choiseul. Were the King
to love this lady ten times more than at present—which is impossible—the
minister would still preserve over his mind the hold which the lady has over
his heart?”
“That is true,” said the duke. “But it was our sole resource.”
“I could easily find another.”
“Easily? do you hear that, countess? These magicians doubt nothing.”
“Why should I doubt when the simple matter is to prove to the King that
the Duke of Choiseul betrays him—from the King’s point of view, for of
course the duke does not think he is betraying him, in what he does.”
 “And what is he doing?”
“You know as well as I, countess, that he is upholding Parliamentary
opposition against the royal authority.”
“Certainly, but by what means?”
“By agents who foster the movement while he warrants their impunity.”
“But we want to know these agents.”
“The King sees in the journey of Lady Grammont merely an exile but
you cannot believe that she went for any other errand than to fan the ardent
and fire the cool.”
“Certainly, but how to prove the hidden aim?”
“By accusing the lady.”
“But the difficulty is in proving the accusation,” said the countess.
“Were it clearly proved, would the duke remain Prime Minister?”
“Surely not!” exclaimed the countess.
“This necromancer is delightful,” said old Richelieu, laughing heartily as
he leaned back in his chair: “catch Choiseul redhanded in treason? that is
all, and quite enough, too, ha, ha, ha!”
“Would not a confidential letter do it?” said Balsamo impassibly. “Say
from Lady Grammont?”
“My good wizard, if you could conjure up one!” said the countess. “I
have been trying to get one for five years and spent a hundred thousand
francs a year and have never succeeded.”
“Because, madam, you did not apply to me. I should have lifted you out
of the quandary.”
“Oh, I hope it is not too late!”
“It is never too late,” said Count Fenix, smiling.
“Then you have such a letter?” said the lady, clasping her hands. “Which
would compromise Choiseul?”
“It would prove he sustains the Parliament in its bout with the King;
eggs on England to war with France; so as to keep him indispensable: and is
the enemy of your ladyship.”
“I would give one of my eyes to have it.”
“That would be too dear; particularly as I shall give you the letter for
nothing.” And he drew a piece of paper folded twice from his pocket.
 “The letter you want!” And in the deepest silence the letter was read by
him which he had transcribed from Lorenza’s thought reading.
The countess stared as he proceeded and lost countenance.
“This is a slanderous forgery—deuce take it, have a care!” said
Richelieu.
“It is the plain, literal copy of a letter from Lady Grammont on the way,
by a courier from Rouen this morning, to the Duke de Choiseul at
Versailles.”
“The duchess wrote such an imprudent letter?”
“It is incredible, but she has done it.”
The old courtier looked over to the countess who had no strength to say
anything.
“Excuse me, count,” she said, “but I am like the duke, hard to accept this
as written by the witty lady, and damaging herself and her brother; besides
to have knowledge of it one must have read it.”
“And the count would have kept the precious original as a treasure,”
suggested the marshal.
“Oh,” returned Balsamo, shaking his head gently; “that is the way with
those who break open seals to read letters but not for those who can read
through the envelopes. Fie, for shame! Besides, what interest have I in
destroying Lady Grammont and the Choiseuls? You come in a friendly way
to consult me and I answer in that manner. You want service done, and I do
it. I hardly suppose you came fee in hand, as to a juggler in the street?”
“Oh, my lord!” exclaimed Dubarry.
“But who advised you, count?” asked Richelieu.
“You want to know in a minute as much as I, the sage, the adept, who
has lived three thousand and seven hundred years.”
“Ah, you are spoiling the good opinion we had of you,” said the old
nobleman.
“I am not pressing you to believe me, and it was not I who asked you to
come away from the royal hunt.”
“He is right, duke,” said the lady visitor. “Do not be impatient with us,
my lord.”
“The man is never impatient who has time on his hands.”
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