"
Though but a girl of fourteen, Victoire showed at this time all the sense
and prudence of a woman of thirty. Gratitude seemed at once to develop
all the powers of her mind. It was she and Maurice who had prevailed
upon the smith to effect Madame de Fleury's escape from her own house.
She had invented, she had foreseen, she had arranged everything; she had
scarcely rested night or day since the imprisonment of her benefactress,
and now that her exertions had fully succeeded, her joy seemed to raise
her above all feeling of fatigue; she looked as fresh and moved as
briskly, her mother said, as if she were preparing to go to a ball.
"Ah! my child," said she, "your cousin Manon, who goes to those balls
every night, was never so happy as you are this minute."
But Victoire's happiness was not of long continuance; for the next day
they were alarmed by intelligence that Tracassier was enraged beyond
measure at Madame de Fleury's escape, that all his emissaries were at
work to discover her present hiding-place, that the houses of all the
parents and relations of her pupils were to be searched, and that the
most severe denunciations were issued against all by whom she should be
harboured. Manon was the person who gave this intelligence, but not with
any benevolent design; she first came to Victoire, to display her own
consequence; and to terrify her, she related all she knew from a
soldier's wife, who was M.
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