The intendant received him coldly but politely, asked him to sit down, and when he was seated begged to know the motive which had brought him.

"Sir," replied the baron, "you have given my family and me such cause of offence that I had come to the firm resolution never to ask a favour of you, and as perhaps you may have remarked during the journey we have taken with M.le marechal, I would rather have died of thirst than accept a glass of water from you.

But I have come here to-day not upon any private matter, to obtain my own ends, but upon a matter which concerns the welfare of the State.

I therefore beg you to put out of your mind the dislike which you have to me and mine, and I do this the more earnestly that your dislike can only have been caused by the fact that our religion is different from yours--a thing which could neither have been foreseen nor prevented.

My entreaty is that you do not try to set M.le marechal against the course which I have proposed to him, which I am convinced would bring the disorders in our province to an end, stop the occurrence of the many unfortunate events which I am sure you look on with regret, and spare you much trouble and embarrassment." The intendant was much touched by this calm speech, and above all by the confidence which M.d'Aygaliers had shown him, and replied that he had only offered opposition to the plan of pacification because he believed it to be impracticable.