“The prince closed the door noiselessly, and descended the stairs, full of a solemn wonder at what he had beheld. He grasped the urn with a nervous energy beneath his mantle, and with a trembling dread did he pause beneath the first lamp which hung suspended above the causeway, to examine it more closely, inspired by a far different interest from that with which he had hitherto beheld it. He turned it again and again to the light, but could discern no inscription whereby to gain a clue to guess at its former destination; the same sickening odour of scented oils and aromatic spices greeted him from the unclosed aperture, and it was still heated almost to burning by the careless manner in which the chevalier had held it to the fire, when shaking out its mysterious contents.
“He was about to abandon the search, when, by accident having turned it to replace it in his bosom, a few letters, traced beneath the pedestal, met his eye; he lifted it to the light of the lantern, and read them more distinctly. A few particles of the same dark dust which Fénélon had shaken forth, dropped from the vase upon his hand, and he blew them off with hasty impatience, nor heeded where they fell. The letters traced upon the silver were in relief. To a stranger they would have indicated nothing, but to M. de Talleyrand they were pregnant with a deep and frightful meaning.
“In an instant, he remembered the story which had been afloat some time before, and which he had treated as an old wife’s tale. The beautiful young Countess H——; her husband’s jealousy—his violent death by the hand of the chevalier—the wife’s despair and retirement to the convent at Louvaine—her subsequent death and legacy to Fénélon, which had caused such condemnation and astonishment. ‘Let my body be opened after death,’ said she, in her will, ‘and let the heart which has beat but for him be reduced to ashes, and let it be thus conveyed to him, so that, when he dies, it may repose within his coffin, for it is his own.’ She it was who had designed the vase—she who had chosen the inscription.
“The memory of this event had passed away, and the salons of Paris had been occupied with other subjects of more stirring import; but the whole story burst at once, with all its attendant circumstances of horror, upon the stricken memory of the prince. The dark stream of ashes and the aromatic odour—the coincidence of the initials and the date—and then the tears which had been wrung even from those eyes burning and bloodshot with riot and debauchery—it was evident that the story which had been told, and which he had doubted when every one else believed, was too true. He replaced the vase within the folds of his mantle with a feeling of disgust and hatred towards the cold-blooded _roué_ whose rage for gaming and excitement had led him to commit this sacrilegious deed. He inwardly resolved that no temptation should induce him ever again to associate with the reckless libertine—a promise, however, which he was not very long called upon to keep; for, soon after this adventure, the chevalier was found one morning dead in his bed, having swallowed a strong dose of corrosive acid: fit termination to his wild, unprincipled career.”