In that ancient habitation of heroes and brigands, the Baron
Nathan Cahorn now lived; or Baron Satan as he was formerly called
on the Bourse, where he had acquired a fortune with incredible
rapidity. The lords of Malaquis, absolutely ruined, had been
obliged to sell the ancient castle at a great sacrifice. It
contained an admirable collection of furniture, pictures, wood
carvings, and faience. The Baron lived there alone, attended by
three old servants. No one ever enters the place. No one had
ever beheld the three Rubens that he possessed, his two Watteau,
his Jean Goujon pulpit, and the many other treasures that he had
acquired by a vast expenditure of money at public sales.
Baron Satan lived in constant fear, not for himself, but for the
treasures that he had accumulated with such an earnest devotion
and with so much perspicacity that the shrewdest merchant could
not say that the Baron had ever erred in his taste or judgment.
He loved them--his bibelots. He loved them intensely, like a
miser; jealously, like a lover. Every day, at sunset, the iron
gates at either end of the bridge and at the entrance to the court
of honor are closed and barred.
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