When Girardet asked what had become
of the handsome and noble pleader, to whom he had been so much
attached, the clerk replied that no one knew but his master, and that
the notary had seemed greatly distressed by the contents of the last
letter he had received from Monsieur Albert de Savarus.
On hearing this, the Vicar-General wrote to Leopold. This was the
worthy notary's reply:--
"To Monsieur l'Abbe de Grancey,
Vicar-General of the Diocese of Besancon.
"PARIS.
"Alas, monsieur, it is in nobody's power to restore Albert to the
life of the world; he has renounced it. He is a novice in the
monastery of the Grand Chartreuse near Grenoble. You know, better
than I who have but just learned it, that on the threshold of that
cloister everything dies. Albert, foreseeing that I should go to
him, placed the General of the Order between my utmost efforts and
himself. I know his noble soul well enough to be sure that he is
the victim of some odious plot unknown to us; but everything is at
an end. The Duchesse d'Argaiolo, now Duchesse de Rhetore, seems to
me to have carried severity to an extreme. At Belgirate, which she
had left when Albert flew thither, she had left instructions
leading him to believe that she was living in London. From London
Albert went in search of her to Naples, and from Naples to Rome,
where she was now engaged to the Duc de Rhetore.
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