One day in July 1902, M. Antoine d'Hergemont, the author of a series of well-known studies on the megalithic monuments of Brittany, was walking in the Bois with his daughter Véronique, when he was assaulted by four men, receiving a blow in the face with a walking-stick which felled him to the ground.

 

After a short struggle and in spite of his desperate efforts, Véronique, the beautiful Véronique, as she was called by her friends, was dragged away and bundled into a motor-car which the spectators of this very brief scene saw making off in the direction of Saint-Cloud.

 

It was a plain case of kidnapping. The truth became known next morning. Count Alexis Vorski, a young Polish nobleman of dubious² reputation but of some social prominence³ and, by his own account, of royal blood, was in love with Véronique d'Hergemont and Véronique with him. Repelled⁴ and more than once insulted by the father, he had planned the incident entirely⁵ without Véronique's knowledge or complicity.

 

Antoine d'Hergemont, who, as certain published letters showed, was a man of violent and morose⁶ disposition⁷ and who, thanks to his capricious temper, his ferocious⁸ egoism and his sordid⁹ avarice¹⁰, had made his daughter exceedingly unhappy, swore openly that he would take the most ruthless revenge.

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