If there be any other way---- Monsieur is recently from prison--perhaps the state of his finances--if he would permit me----" continued the Marquis, who was not without generous impulses, it seemed.
"Sir," interrupted Marteau, "I thank you, but I came here to confer, not to receive, benefits." "To confer, monsieur ?" "We Marteaux have been accustomed to render service, as the Marquis will recollect," he said proudly.
He drew forth a soiled, worn packet of papers.

Because they had represented nothing of value to his captors they had not been taken.
They had never left his person except during his long period of illness, when they had been preserved by a faithful official of the hospital and returned to him afterward.
"Allow me to return these to the Marquis," he said, tendering them.
"And what are these ?" asked the old man.
"The title deeds to the Aumenier estates, monsieur." "The grant is waste paper," said the Marquis contemptuously.
"Not so," was the quick answer.

"I have learned that the acts of the late--of--those which were duly and properly registered before the--present king ascended the throne are valid.

The estates are legally mine.

You reject them.