Théophraste did not know what had become of him. He sought him in vain; he examined himself; he searched his very soul.
Before this adventure Théophraste had no curiosity about the beginning or ending of things, he had not wasted time in wondering over philosophical mysteries; in his vanity he had always shrugged his shoulders at such things. However, now things were different; here was a quiet citizen, with little scientific knowledge, who had to prove that a manufacturer of India rubber in the year 1899 had been shut up in a dungeon after having buried treasures in 1721. But the revelation of this extraordinary fact had come to him spontaneously and remained so fixed in his mind that he resolved to probe the matter to the bottom.
His instinct abandoned him momentarily and he would search books and discover who this powerful, rich person was who had been betrayed on April 1st; which April 1st? This remained to be determined. He haunted the libraries from that time on. He marshaled before him the Premiers of the Kingdom. He found nothing to give him a clue. Some dukes and peers, some illustrious generals, some great financiers, a few princes of the blood. He stopped an instant at Law, but he was too dissipated; at Maurice de Saxe, who ought to have won the Battle of Fontenoy; at the Count du Barry, who had had the most beautiful mistress in Paris. He feared that perhaps he had been the Count de Charolais, who distinguished himself by his debauches, and killed the thatchers on the roofs by shooting at them. He was forty-eight hours the Cardinal of Palegria, but was disgusted when he learned that his Eminence had been a farm hand for the Duchess of Maine. It was refreshing to find in some corner of history a sympathetic count or lord that the writers of the epoch had adorned in engaging colors and on whom they had bestowed some virtues. But Théophraste soon saw that all these would have to be abandoned. For none of them had the principal qualifications of having been shut up in the Conciergerie in 1721, or having been betrayed on an April 1st.
However, in the Journal of the Barber, he discovered a bastard of the Regent, about whom were some startling facts which precipitated him into a state of great excitement.
Before entering into the details, however, of this discovery, we will return to the doings of Marceline and M. Adolphe Lecamus.
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