Before five days had elapsed the rumor of them ran from one end of Normandy to the other like a train of gunpowder touched by fire.
"Monsieur Mignon has come back from China with millions," some one said in Rouen; "and it seems he was made a count in mid-ocean." "But he was the Comte de La Bastie before the Revolution," answered another.
"So they call him a liberal just because he was plain Charles Mignon for twenty-five years! What are we coming to ?" said a third.
Modeste was considered, therefore, notwithstanding the silence of her parents and friends, as the richest heiress in Normandy, and all eyes began once more to see her merits.

The aunt and sister of the Duc d'Herouville confirmed in the aristocratic salons of Bayeux Monsieur Charles Mignon's right to the title and arms of count, derived from Cardinal Mignon, for whom the Cardinal's hat and tassels were added as a crest.

They had seen Mademoiselle de La Bastie when they were staying at the Vilquins, and their solicitude for the impoverished head of their house now became active.
"If Mademoiselle de La Bastie is really as rich as she is beautiful," said the aunt of the young duke, "she is the best match in the province.
_She_ at least is noble." The last words were aimed at the Vilquins, with whom they had not been able to come to terms, after incurring the humiliation of staying in that bourgeois household.
Such were the little events which, contrary to the rules of Aristotle and of Horace, precede the introduction of another person into our story; but the portrait and the biography of this personage, this late arrival, shall not be long, taking into consideration his own diminutiveness.

The grand equerry shall not take more space here than he will take in history.

Monsieur le Duc d'Herouville, offspring of the matrimonial autumn of the last governor of Normandy, was born during the emigration in 1799, at Vienna.