CHAPTER XII.
THE SEARCH.The Hôtel de Lucenay was one of those royal residences of the Faubourg St. Germain, which the space employed, and, as it were, lost, make so vast. A modern house might, with ease, be contained in the limits devoted to the staircase of one of these palaces, and a whole quarter might be built in the extent they occupy.
About nine o’clock in the evening of this day the two vast folding-doors of this hôtel opened on the arrival of a magnificent chariot, which, after having taken a dashing turn in the spacious courtyard, stopped before the large covered flight of steps which led to the first antechamber. Whilst the hoofs of two powerful and high-couraged horses sounded on the echoing pavement, a gigantic footman opened the door, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and a
