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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Complete Wandering Jew, by Eugene Sue
+#12 in our series by Eugene Sue
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+Title: The Complete Wandering Jew
+
+Author: Eugene Sue
+
+Release Date: July, 2002  [Etext #3350]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Complete Wandering Jew, by Eugene Sue
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+and Pat Castevens  <patcat@ctnet.net>
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+
+
+
+
+The Complete Wandering Jew
+
+by Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+
+                        A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR OF
+                           The Wandering Jew
+
+                               EUGENE SUE
+                              (1804-1857)
+
+
+
+Time and again physicians and seamen have made noteworthy reputations as
+novelists.  But it is rare in the annals of literature that a man trained
+in both professions should have gained his greatest fame as a writer of
+novels.  Eugene Sue began his career as a physician and surgeon, and then
+spent six years in the French Navy.  In 1830, when he returned to France,
+he inherited his father's rich estate and was free to follow his
+inclination to write.  His first novel, "Plick et Plock", met with an
+unexpected success, and he at once foreswore the arts of healing and
+navigation for the precarious life of a man of letters.  With varying
+success he produced books from his inexhaustible store of personal
+experiences as a doctor and sailor.  In 1837, he wrote an authoritative
+work on the French Navy, "Histoire de la marine Francaise".
+
+More and more the novel appealed to his imagination and suited his gifts.
+His themes ranged from the fabulous to the strictly historical, and he
+became popular as a writer of romance and fictionized fact.  His plays,
+however, were persistent failures.  When he published "The Mysteries of
+Paris", his national fame was assured, and with the writing of "The
+Wandering Jew" he achieved world-wide renown.  Then, at the height of his
+literary career, Eugene Sue was driven into exile after Louis Napoleon
+overthrew the Constitutional Government in a coup d'etat and had himself
+officially proclaimed Emperor Napoleon III.  The author of "The Wandering
+Jew" died in banishment five years later.
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+Book I.
+
+     Part First.--The Transgression.
+     Prologue.--The Lands End of the World.
+I.        Morok
+II.       The Travellers
+III.      The Arrival
+IV.       Morok and Dagobert
+V.        Rose and Blanche
+VI.       The Secret
+VII.      The Traveller
+VIII.     Extracts from General Simon's Diary
+IX.       The Cages
+X.        The Surprise
+XI.       Jovial and Death
+XII.      The Burgomaster
+XIII.     The Judgment
+XIV.      The Decision
+XV.       The Despatches
+XVI.      The Orders
+
+
+
+Book II.
+
+     Interval.--The Wandering Jew's Sentence.
+
+XVII.     The Ajoupa
+XVIII.    The Tattooing
+XIX.      The Smuggler
+XX.       M. Joshua Van Dael
+XXI.      The Ruins of Tchandi
+XXII.     The Ambuscade
+XXIII.    M. Rodin
+XXIV.     The Tempest
+XXV.      The Shipwreck
+XXVI.     The Departure for Paris
+XXVII.    Dagobert's Wife
+XXVIII.   The Sister of the Bacchanal Queen
+XXIX.     Agricola Baudoin
+XXX.      The Return
+XXXI.     Agricola and Mother Bunch
+XXXII.    The Awakening
+XXXIII.   The Pavilion
+XXXIV.    Adrienne at her Toilet
+XXXV.     The Interview
+
+
+
+Book III.
+
+XXXVI.    A Female Jesuit
+XXXVII.   The Plot
+XXXVIII.  Adrienne's  Enemies
+XXXIX.    The Skirmish
+XL.       The Revolt
+XLI.      Treachery
+XLII.     The Snare
+XLIII.    A False Friend
+XLIV.     The Minister's Cabinet
+XLV.      The Visit
+XLVI.     Presentiments
+XLVII.    The Letter
+XLVIII.   The Confessional
+XLIX.     My Lord and Spoil-sport
+L.        Appearances
+LI.       The Convent
+LII.      The Influence of a Confessor
+LIII.     The Examination
+
+
+
+Book IV.
+
+Part Second.--The Chastisement.
+Prologue.--The Bird's-Eye View of Two Worlds.
+
+I.        The Masquerade
+II.       The Contrast
+III.      The Carouse
+IV.       The Farewell
+V.        The Florine
+VI.       Mother Sainte-Perpetue
+VII.      The Temptation
+VIII.     Mother Bunch and Mdlle. De Cardoville
+IX.       The EncountersX.        The Meeting
+XI.       Discoveries
+XII.      The Penal Code
+XIII.     Burglary
+
+
+
+Book V.
+
+XIV.      The Eve of a Great Day
+XV.       The Thug
+XVI.      The Two Brothers of the Good Work
+XVII.     The House in the Rue Saint-Francois
+XVIII.    Debit and Credit
+XIX.      The Heir
+XX.       The Rupture
+XXI.      The Change
+XXII.     The Red Room
+XXIII.    The Testament
+XXIV.     The Last Stroke of Noon
+XXV.      The Deed of Gift
+
+
+Book VI.
+
+Part Second.--The Chastisement. (Concluded.)
+
+XXVI.     A Good Genius
+XXVII.    The First Last, And the Last First
+XXVIII.   The Stranger
+XXIX.     The Den
+XXX.      An Unexpected Visit
+XXXI.     Friendly Services
+XXXII.    The Advice
+XXXIII.   The Accuser
+XXXIV.    Father d'Aigrigny's Secretary
+XXXV.     Sympathy
+XXXVI.    Suspicions
+XXXVII.   Excuses
+XXXVIII.  Revelations
+XXXIX.    Pierre Simon
+
+
+
+Book VII.
+
+XL.       The East Indian in Paris
+XLI.      Rising
+XLII.     Doubts
+XLIII.    The Letter
+XLIV.     Adrienne and Djalma
+XLV.      The Consultation
+XLVI.     Mother Bunch's Diary
+XLVII.    The Diary Continued
+XLVIII.   The Discovery
+XLIX.     The Trysting-Place of the Wolves
+L.        The Common Dwelling-House
+LI.       The Secret
+LII.      Revelations
+
+Book VIII.
+
+Part Third.--The Redemption.
+
+I.        The Wandering Jew's Chastisement
+II.       The Descendants of the Wandering Jew
+III.      The Attack
+IV.       The Wolves and the Devourers
+V.        The Return
+VI.       The Go-Between
+VII.      Another Secret
+VIII.     The Confession
+IX.       Love
+X.        The Execution
+XI.       The Champs-Elysees
+XII.      Behind the Scenes
+XIII.     Up with the Curtain
+XIV.      Death
+
+
+
+Book IX.
+
+XV.       The Constant Wanderer
+XVI.      The Luncheon
+XVII.     Rendering the Account
+XVIII.    The Square of Notre Dame
+XIX.      The Cholera Masquerade
+XX.       The Defiance
+XXI.      Brandy to the Rescue
+XXII.     Memories
+XXIII.    The Poisoner
+XXIV.     In the Cathedral
+XXV.      The Murderers
+XXVI.     The Patient
+XXVII.    The Lure
+XXVIII.   Good News
+XXIX.     The Operation
+XXX.      The Torture
+XXXI.     Vice and Virtue
+XXXII.    Suicide
+
+
+
+Book X.
+
+XXXIII.   Confessions
+XXXIV.    More Confessions
+XXXV.     The Rivals
+XXXVI.    The Interview
+XXXVII.   Soothing Words
+XXXVIII.  The Two Carriages
+XXXIX.    The Appointment
+XL.       Anxiety
+XLI.      Adrienne and Djalma
+XLII.     "The Imitation"
+XLIII.    Prayer
+XLIV.     Remembrances
+XLV.      The Blockhead
+XLVI.     The Anonymous Letters
+XLVII.    The Golden City
+XLVIII.   The Stung Lion
+XLIX.     The Test
+
+
+
+Book XI.
+
+L.        The Ruins of the Abbey of St. John the Baptist
+LI.       The Calvary
+LII.      The Council
+LIII.     Happiness
+LIV.      Duty
+LV.       The Improvised Hospital
+LVI.      Hydrophobia
+LVII.     The Guardian Angel
+LVIII.    Ruin
+LIX.      Memories
+LX.       The Ordeal
+LXI.      Ambition
+LXII.     To a Socius, a Socius and a Half
+LXIII.    Faringhea's Affection
+LXIV.     An Evening at St. Colombe's
+LXV.      The Nuptial Bed
+LXVI.     A Duel to the Death
+LXVII.    A Message
+LXVIII.   The First of June
+
+
+Epilogue.
+
+I.        Four Years After
+II.       The Redemption
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           The Wandering Jew.
+
+                    First Part.--The Transgression.
+
+                               Prologue.
+
+                     The Land's End of Two Worlds.
+
+
+
+The Arctic Ocean encircles with a belt of eternal ice the desert confines
+of Siberia and North America--the uttermost limits of the Old and New
+worlds, separated by the narrow, channel, known as Behring's Straits.
+
+The last days of September have arrived.
+
+The equinox has brought with it darkness and Northern storms, and night
+will quickly close the short and dismal polar day.  The sky of a dull
+and leaden blue is faintly lighted by a sun without warmth, whose white
+disk, scarcely seen above the horizon, pales before the dazzling,
+brilliancy of the snow that covers, as far as the eyes can reach, the
+boundless steppes.
+
+To the North, this desert is bounded by a ragged coast, bristling with
+huge black rocks.
+
+At the base of this Titanic mass lied enchained the petrified ocean,
+whose spell-bound waves appear fired as vast ranges of ice mountains,
+their blue peaks fading away in the far-off frost smoke, or snow vapor.
+
+Between the twin-peaks of Cape East, the termination of Siberia, the
+sullen sea is seen to drive tall icebergs across a streak of dead green.
+There lies Behring's Straits.
+
+Opposite, and towering over the channel, rise the granite masses of Cape
+Prince of Wales, the headland of North America.
+
+These lonely latitudes do not belong to the habitable world; for the
+piercing cold shivers the stones, splits the trees, and causes the earth
+to burst asunder, which, throwing forth showers of icy spangles seems
+capable of enduring this solitude of frost and tempest, of famine and
+death.
+
+And yet, strange to say, footprints may be traced on the snow, covering
+these headlands on either side of Behring's Straits.
+
+On the American shore, the footprints are small and light, thus betraying
+the passage of a woman.
+
+She has been hastening up the rocky peak, whence the drifts of Siberia
+are visible.
+
+On the latter ground, footprints larger and deeper betoken the passing of
+a man.  He also was on his way to the Straits.
+
+It would seem that this man and woman had arrived here from opposite
+directions, in hope of catching a glimpse of one another, across the arm
+of the sea dividing the two worlds--the Old and the New.
+
+More strange still! the man and the woman have crossed the solitudes
+during a terrific storm!  Black pines, the growth of centuries, pointing
+their bent heads in different parts of the solitude like crosses in a
+churchyard, have been uprooted, rent, and hurled aside by the blasts!
+
+Yet the two travellers face this furious tempest, which has plucked up
+trees, and pounded the frozen masses into splinters, with the roar of
+thunder.
+
+They face it, without for one single instant deviating from the straight
+line hitherto followed by them.
+
+Who then are these two beings who advance thus calmly amidst the storms
+and convulsions of nature?
+
+Is it by chance, or design, or destiny, that the seven nails in the sole
+of the man's shoe form a cross--thus:
+
+                              *
+                             ***
+                              *
+                              *
+                              *
+
+
+Everywhere he leaves this impress behind him.
+
+On the smooth and polished snow, these footmarks seem imprinted by a foot
+of brass on a marble floor.
+
+Night without twilight has soon succeeded day--a night of foreboding
+gloom.
+
+The brilliant reflection of the snow renders the white steppes still
+visible beneath the azure darkness of the sky; and the pale stars glimmer
+on the obscure and frozen dome.
+
+Solemn silence reigns.
+
+But, towards the Straits, a faint light appears.
+
+At first, a gentle, bluish light, such as precedes moonrise; it increases
+in brightness, and assumes a ruddy hue.
+
+Darkness thickens in every other direction; the white wilds of the desert
+are now scarcely visible under the black vault of the firmament.
+
+Strange and confused noises are heard amidst this obscurity.
+
+They sound like the flight of large night--birds--now flapping now--
+heavily skimming over the steppes-now descending.
+
+But no cry is heard.
+
+This silent terror heralds the approach of one of those imposing
+phenomena that awe alike the most ferocious and the most harmless, of
+animated beings.  An Aurora Borealis (magnificent sight!) common in the
+polar regions, suddenly beams forth.
+
+A half circle of dazzling whiteness becomes visible in the horizon.
+Immense columns of light stream forth from this dazzling centre, rising
+to a great height, illuminating earth, sea, and sky.  Then a brilliant
+reflection, like the blaze of a conflagration, steals over the snow of
+the desert, purples the summits of the mountains of ice, and imparts a
+dark red hue to the black rocks of both continents.
+
+After attaining this magnificent brilliancy, the Northern Lights fade
+away gradually, and their vivid glow is lost in a luminous fog.
+
+Just then, by a wondrous mirage an effect very common in high latitudes,
+the American Coast, though separated from Siberia by a broad arm of the
+sea, loomed so close that a bridge might seemingly be thrown from one
+world to other.
+
+Then human forms appeared in the transparent azure haze overspreading
+both forelands.
+
+On the Siberian Cape, a man on his knees, stretched his arms towards
+America, with an expression of inconceivable despair.
+
+On the American promontory, a young and handsome woman replied to the
+man's despairing gesture by pointing to heaven.
+
+For some seconds, these two tall figures stood out, pale and shadowy, in
+the farewell gleams of the Aurora.
+
+But the fog thickens, and all is lost in the darkness.
+
+Whence came the two beings, who met thus amidst polar glaciers, at the
+extremities of the Old and New worlds?
+
+Who were the two creatures, brought near for a moment by a deceitful
+mirage, but who seemed eternally separated?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+MOROK.
+
+The month of October, 1831, draws to its close.
+
+Though it is still day, a brass lamp, with four burners, illumines the
+cracked walls of a large loft, whose solitary window is closed against
+outer light.  A ladder, with its top rungs coming up through an open trap
+leads to it.
+
+Here and there at random on the floor lie iron chains, spiked collars,
+saw-toothed snaffles, muzzles bristling with nails, and long iron rods
+set in wooden handles.  In one corner stands a portable furnace, such as
+tinkers use to melt their spelter; charcoal and dry chips fill it, so
+that a spark would suffice to kindle this furnace in a minute.
+
+Not far from this collection of ugly instruments, putting one in mind of
+a torturer's kit of tools, there are some articles of defence and offence
+of a bygone age.  A coat of mail, with links so flexible, close, and
+light, that it resembles steel tissue, hangs from a box beside iron
+cuishes and arm-pieces, in good condition, even to being properly fitted
+with straps.  A mace, and two long three-cornered-headed pikes, with ash
+handles, strong, and light at the same time; spotted with lately-shed
+blood, complete the armory, modernized somewhat by the presence of two
+Tyrolese rifles, loaded and primed.
+
+Along with this arsenal of murderous weapons and out-of-date instruments,
+is strangely mingled a collection of very different objects, being small
+glass-lidded boxes, full of rosaries, chaplets, medals, AGNUS DEI, holy-
+water bottles, framed pictures of saints, etc., not to forget a goodly
+number of those chapbooks, struck off in Friburg on coarse bluish paper,
+in which you can hear about miracles of our own time, or "Jesus Christ's
+Letter to a true believer," containing awful predictions, as for the
+years 1831 and '32, about impious revolutionary France.
+
+One of those canvas daubs, with which strolling showmen adorn their
+booths, hangs from a rafter, no doubt to prevent its being spoilt by too
+long rolling up.  It bore the following legend:
+
+ "THE DOWNRIGHT TRUE AND MOST MEMORABLE CONVERSION OF IGNATIUS MOROK,
+ KNOWN AS THE PROPHET, HAPPENING IN FRIBURG, 1828TH YEAR OF GRACE."
+
+This picture, of a size larger than natural, of gaudy color, and in bad
+taste, is divided into three parts, each presenting an important phase
+in the life of the convert, surnamed "The Prophet."  In the first,
+behold a long-bearded man, the hair almost white, with uncouth face, and
+clad in reindeer skin, like the Siberian savage.  His black foreskin cap
+is topped with a raven's head; his features express terror.  Bent
+forward in his sledge, which half-a-dozen huge tawny dogs draw over the
+snow, he is fleeing from the pursuit of a pack of foxes, wolves, and big
+bears, whose gaping jaws, and formidable teeth, seem quite capable of
+devouring man, sledge, and dogs, a hundred times over.  Beneath this
+section, reads:
+
+ "IN 1810, MOROK, THE IDOLATER, FLED FROM WILD BEASTS."
+
+In the second picture, Morok, decently clad in a catechumen's white gown
+kneels, with clasped hands, to a man who wears a white neckcloth, and
+flowing black robe.  In a corner, a tall angel, of repulsive aspect,
+holds a trumpet in one hand, and flourishes a flaming sword with the
+other, while the words which follow flow out of his mouth, in red
+letters on a black ground:
+
+ "MOROK, THE IDOLATER, FLED FROM WILD BEASTS; BUT WILD BEASTS WILL FLEE
+ FROM IGNATIUS MOROK, CONVERTED AND BAPTIZED IN FRIBURG."
+
+Thus, in the last compartment, the new convert proudly, boastfully, and
+triumphantly parades himself in a flowing robe of blue; head up, left
+arm akimbo, right hand outstretched, he seems to scare the wits out of a
+multitude of lions, tigers, hyenas, and bears, who, with sheathed claws,
+and masked teeth, crouch at his feet, awestricken, and submissive.
+
+Under this, is the concluding moral:
+
+ "IGNATIUS MOROK BEING CONVERTED, WILD BEASTS CROUCH BEFORE HIM."
+
+Not far from this canvas are several parcels of halfpenny books,
+likewise from the Friburg press, which relate by what an astounding
+miracle Morok, the Idolater, acquired a supernatural power almost
+divine, the moment he was converted--a power which the wildest animal
+could not resist, and which was testified to every day by the lion
+tamer's performances, "given less to display his courage than to show
+his praise unto the Lord."
+
+Through the trap-door which opens into the loft, reek up puffs of a
+rank, sour, penetrating odor.  From time to time are heard sonorous
+growls and deep breathings, followed by a dull sound, as of great bodies
+stretching themselves heavily along the floor.
+
+A man is alone in this loft.  It is Morok, the tamer of wild beasts,
+surnamed the Prophet.
+
+He is forty years old, of middle height, with lank limbs, and an
+exceedingly spare frame; he is wrapped in a long, blood-red pelisse,
+lined with black fur; his complexion, fair by nature is bronzed by the
+wandering life he has led from childhood; his hair, of that dead yellow
+peculiar to certain races of the Polar countries, falls straight and
+stiff down his shoulders; and his thin, sharp, hooked nose, and
+prominent cheek-bones, surmount a long beard, bleached almost to
+whiteness.  Peculiarly marking the physiognomy of this man is the wide-
+open eye, with its tawny pupil ever encircled by a rim of white.  This
+fixed, extraordinary look, exercises a real fascination over animals--
+which, however, does not prevent the Prophet from also employing, to
+tame them, the terrible arsenal around him.
+
+Seated at a table, he has just opened the false bottom of a box, filled
+with chaplets and other toys, for the use of the devout.  Beneath this
+false bottom, secured by a secret lock, are several sealed envelopes,
+with no other address than a number, combined with a letter of the
+alphabet.  The Prophet takes one of these packets, conceals it in the
+pocket of his pelisse, and, closing the secret fastening of the false
+bottom, replaces the box upon a shelf.
+
+This scene occurs about four o'clock in the afternoon, in the White
+Falcon, the only hostelry in the little village of Mockern, situated
+near Leipsic, as you come from the north towards France.
+
+After a few moments, the loft is shaken by a hoarse roaring from below.
+
+"Judas! be quiet!" exclaims the Prophet, in a menacing tone, as he turns
+his head towards the trap door.
+
+Another deep growl is heard, formidable as distant thunder.
+
+"Lie down, Cain!" cries Morok, starting from his seat.
+
+A third roar, of inexpressible ferocity, bursts suddenly on the ear.
+
+"Death! Will you have done," cries the Prophet, rushing towards the trap
+door, and addressing a third invisible animal, which bears this ghastly
+name.
+
+Notwithstanding the habitual authority of his voice--notwithstanding his
+reiterated threats--the brute-tamer cannot obtain silence: on the
+contrary, the barking of several dogs is soon added to the roaring of
+the wild beasts.  Morok seizes a pike, and approaches the ladder; he is
+about to descend, when he sees some one issuing from the aperture.
+
+The new-comer has a brown, sun-burnt face; he wears a gray hat, bell-
+crowned and broad-brimmed, with a short jacket, and wide trousers of
+green cloth; his dusty leathern gaiters show that he has walked some
+distance; a game-bag is fastened by straps to his back.
+
+"The devil take the brutes!" cried he, as he set foot on the floor; "one
+would think they'd forgotten me in three days.  Judas thrust his paw
+through the bars of his cage, and Death danced like a fury.  They don't
+know me any more, it seems?"
+
+This was said in German.  Morok answered in the same language, but with
+a slightly foreign accent.
+
+"Good or bad news, Karl?" he inquired, with some uneasiness.
+
+"Good news."
+
+"You've met them!"
+
+"Yesterday; two leagues from Wittenberg."
+
+"Heaven be praised!" cried Morok, clasping his hands with intense
+satisfaction.
+
+"Oh, of course, 'tis the direct road from Russia to France, 'twas a
+thousand to one that we should find them somewhere between Wittenberg
+and Leipsic."
+
+"And the description?"
+
+"Very close: two young girls in mourning; horse, white; the old man has
+long moustache, blue forage-cap; gray topcoat and a Siberian dog at his
+heels."
+
+"And where did you leave them?"
+
+"A league hence.  They will be here within the hour."
+
+"And in this inn--since it is the only one in the village," said Morok,
+with a pensive air.
+
+"And night drawing on," added Karl.
+
+"Did you get the old man to talk?"
+
+"Him!--you don't suppose it!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Go, and try yourself."
+
+"And for what reason?"
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Impossible--why?"
+
+"You shall know all about it.  Yesterday, as if I had fallen in with
+them by chance, I followed them to the place where they stopped for the
+night. I spoke in German to the tall old man, accosting him, as is usual
+with wayfarers, 'Good-day, and a pleasant journey, comrade!'  But, for
+an answer, he looked askant at me, and pointed with, the end of his
+stick to the other side of the road."
+
+"He is a Frenchman, and, perhaps, does not understand German."
+
+"He speaks it, at least as well as you; for at the inn I heard him ask
+the host for whatever he and the young girls wanted."
+
+"And did you not again attempt to engage him in conversation?"
+
+"Once only; but I met with such a rough reception, that for fear of
+making mischief, I did not try again.  Besides, between ourselves, I can
+tell you this man has a devilish ugly look; believe me, in spite of his
+gray moustache, he looks so vigorous and resolute, though with no more
+flesh on him than a carcass, that I don't know whether he or my mate
+Giant Goliath, would have the best of it in a struggle.  "I know not
+your plans: only take care, master--take care!"
+
+"My black panther of Java was also very vigorous and very vicious," said
+Morok, with a grim, disdainful, smile.
+
+"What, Death?  Yes; in truth; and she is vigorous and vicious as ever.
+Only to you she is almost mild."
+
+"And thus I will break this tall old man; notwithstanding his strength
+and surliness."
+
+"Humph! humph! be on your guard, master.  You are clever, you are as
+brave as any one; but, believe me, you will never make a lamb out of the
+old wolf that will be here presently."
+
+"Does not my lion, Cain--does not my tiger, Judas, crouch in terror
+before me?"
+
+"Yes, I believe you there--because you have means--"
+
+"Because I have faith: that is all--and it is all," said Morok,
+imperiously interrupting Karl, and accompanying these words with such a
+look, that the other hung his head and was silent.
+
+"Why should not he whom the Lord upholds in his struggle with wild
+beasts, be also upheld in his struggle with men, when those men are
+perverse and impious?" added the Prophet, with a triumphant, inspired
+air.
+
+Whether from belief in his master's conviction, or from inability to
+engage in a controversy with him on so delicate a subject, Karl answered
+the Prophet, humbly: "you are wiser than I am, master; what you do must
+be well done."
+
+"Did you follow this old man and these two young girls all day long?"
+resumed the Prophet, after a moment's silence.
+
+"Yes; but at a distance.  As I know the country well, I sometimes cut
+across a valley, sometimes over a hill, keeping my eye upon the road,
+where they were always to be seen.  The last time I saw them, I was hid
+behind the water-mill by the potteries.  As they were on the highway for
+this place, and night was drawing on, I quickened my pace to get here
+before them, and be the bearer of what you call good news."
+
+"Very good--yes -very good: and you shall be rewarded; for if these
+people had escaped me--"
+
+The Prophet started, and did not conclude the sentence.  The expression
+of his face, and the tones of his voice, indicated the importance of the
+intelligence which had just been brought him.
+
+"In truth," rejoined Karl, "it may be worth attending to; for that
+Russian courier, all plastered with lace, who came, without slacking
+bridle, from St. Petersburg to Leipsic, only to see you, rode so fast,
+perhaps, for the purpose--"
+
+Morok abruptly interrupted Karl, and said:
+
+"Who told you that the arrival of the courier had anything to do with
+these travellers?  You are mistaken; you should only know what I choose
+to tell you."
+
+"Well, master, forgive me, and let's say no more about it.  So!  I will
+get rid of my game-bag, and go help Goliath to feed the brutes, for
+their supper time draws near, if it is not already past.  Does our big
+giant grow lazy, master?"
+
+"Goliath is gone out; he must not know that you are returned; above all,
+the tall old man and the maidens must not see you here -it would make
+them suspect something."
+
+"Where do you wish me to go, then?"
+
+"Into the loft, at the end of the stable, and wait my orders; you may
+this night have to set out for Leipsic."
+
+"As you please; I have some provisions left in my pouch, and can sup in
+the loft whilst I rest myself."
+
+"Go."
+
+"Master, remember what I told you.  Beware of that old fellow with the
+gray moustache; I think he's devilish tough; I'm up to these things--
+he's an ugly customer--be on your guard!"
+
+"Be quite easy!  I am always on my guard," said Morok.
+
+"Then good luck to you, master!"--and Karl, having reached the ladder,
+suddenly disappeared.
+
+After making a friendly farewell gesture to his servant, the Prophet
+walked up and down for some time, with an air of deep meditation; then,
+approaching the box which contained the papers, he took out a pretty
+long letter, and read it over and over with profound attention.  From
+time to time he rose and went to the closed window, which looked upon
+the inner court of the inn, and appealed to listen anxiously; for he
+waited with impatience the arrival of the three persons whose approach
+had just been announced to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE TRAVELLERS.
+
+While the above scene was passing in the White Falcon at Mockern, the
+three persons whose arrival Morok was so anxiously expecting, travelled
+on leisurely in the midst of smiling meadows, bounded on one side by a
+river, the current of which turned a mill; and on the other by the
+highway leading to the village, which was situated on an eminence, at
+about a league's distance.
+
+The sky was beautifully serene; the bubbling of the river, beaten by the
+mill-wheel and sparkling with foam, alone broke upon the silence of an
+evening profoundly calm.  Thick willows, bending over the river, covered
+it with their green transparent shadow; whilst, further on, the stream
+reflected so splendidly the blue heavens and the glowing tints of the
+west, that, but for the hills which rose between it and the sky, the gold
+and azure of the water would have mingled in one dazzling sheet with the
+gold and azure of the firmament.  The tall reeds on the bank bent their
+black velvet heads beneath the light breath of the breeze that rises at
+the close of day--for the sun was gradually sinking behind a broad streak
+of purple clouds, fringed with fire.  The tinkling bells of a flock of
+sheep sounded from afar in the clear and sonorous air.
+
+Along a path trodden in the grass of the meadow, two girls, almost
+children--for they had but just completed their fifteenth year--were
+riding on a white horse of medium size, seated upon a large saddle with a
+back to it, which easily took them both in, for their figures were slight
+and delicate.
+
+A man of tall stature, with a sun-burnt face, and long gray moustache,
+was leading the horse by the bridle, and ever and anon turned towards the
+girls, with an air of solicitude at once respectful and paternal.  He
+leaned upon a long staff; his still robust shoulders carried a soldier's
+knapsack; his dusty shoes, and step that began to drag a little, showed
+that he had walked a long way.
+
+One of those dogs which the tribes of Northern Siberia harness to their
+sledges--a sturdy animal, nearly of the size, form, and hairy coat of the
+wolf--followed closely in the steps of the leader of this little caravan,
+never quitting, as it is commonly said, the heels of his master.
+
+Nothing could be more charming than the group formed by the girls.  One
+held with her left hand the flowing reins, and with her right encircled
+the waist of her sleeping sister, whose head reposed on her shoulder.
+Each step of the horse gave a graceful swaying to these pliant forms, and
+swung their little feet, which rested on a wooden ledge in lieu of a
+stirrup.
+
+These twin sisters, by a sweet maternal caprice, had been called Rose and
+Blanche; they were now orphans, as might be seen by their sad mourning
+vestments, already much worn.  Extremely, like in feature, and of the
+same size, it was necessary to be in the constant habit of seeing them,
+to distinguish one from the other.  The portrait of her who slept not,
+might serve them for both of them; the only difference at the moment
+being, that Rose was awake and discharging for that day the duties of
+elder sister--duties thus divided between then, according to the fancy of
+their guide, who, being an old soldier of the empire, and a martinet, had
+judged fit thus to alternate obedience and command between the orphans.
+
+Greuze would have been inspired by the sight of those sweet faces, coifed
+in close caps of black velvet, from beneath which strayed a profusion of
+thick ringlets of a light chestnut color, floating down their necks and
+shoulders, and setting, as in a frame, their round, firm, rosy, satin-
+like cheeks.  A carnation, bathed in dew, is of no richer softness than
+their blooming lips; the wood violet's tender blue would appear dark
+beside the limpid azure of their large eyes, in which are depicted the
+sweetness of their characters, and the innocence of their age; a pure and
+white forehead, small nose, dimpled chin, complete these graceful
+countenances, which present a delightful blending of candor and
+gentleness.
+
+You should have seen them too, when, on the threatening of rain or storm,
+the old soldier carefully wrapped them both in a large pelisse of
+reindeer fur, and pulled over their heads the ample hood of this
+impervious garment; then nothing could be more lovely than those fresh
+and smiling little faces, sheltered beneath the dark-colored cowl.
+
+But now the evening was fine and calm; the heavy cloak hung in folds
+about the knees of the sisters, and the hood rested on the back of their
+saddle.
+
+Rose, still encircling with her right arm the waist of her sleeping
+sister, contemplated her with an expression of ineffable tenderness, akin
+to maternal; for Rose was the eldest for the day, and an elder sister is
+almost a mother.
+
+Not only, did the orphans idolize each other; but, by a psychological
+phenomenon, frequent with twins, they were almost always simultaneously
+affected; the emotion of one was reflected instantly in the countenance
+of the other; the same cause would make both of them start or blush, so
+closely did their young hearts beat in unison; all ingenuous joys, all
+bitter griefs were mutually felt, and shared in a moment between them.
+
+In their infancy, simultaneously attacked by a severe illness, like two
+flowers on the same steam, they had drooped, grown pale, and languished
+together; but together also had they again found the pure, fresh hues of
+health.
+
+Need it be said, that those mysterious, indissoluble links which united
+the twins, could not have been broken without striking a mortal blow at
+the existence of the poor children?
+
+Thus the sweet birds called love-birds, only living in pairs, as if
+endowed with a common life, pine, despond, and die, when parted by a
+barbarous hand.
+
+The guide of the orphans, a man of about fifty-five, distinguished by
+his military air and gait, preserved the immortal type of the warriors of
+the republic and the empire--some heroic of the people, who became, in
+one campaign, the first soldiers in the world--to prove what the people
+can do, have done, and will renew, when the rulers of their choice place
+in them confidence, strength, and their hope.
+
+This soldier, guide of the sisters, and formerly a horse-grenadier of the
+Imperial Guard, had been nicknamed Dagobert.  His grave, stern
+countenance was strongly marked; his long, gray, and thick moustache
+completely concealed his upper lip, and united with a large imperial,
+which almost covered his chin; his meagre cheeks, brick-colored, and
+tanned as parchment, were carefully shaven; thick eyebrows, still black,
+overhung and shaded his light blue eyes; gold ear-rings reached down to
+his white-edged military stock; his topcoat, of coarse gray cloth, was
+confined at the waist by a leathern belt; and a blue foraging cap, with a
+red tuft falling on his left shoulder, covered his bald head.
+
+Once endowed with the strength of Hercules, and having still the heart of
+a lion--kind and patient, because he was courageous and strong--Dagobert,
+notwithstanding his rough exterior, evinced for his orphan charges an
+exquisite solicitude, a watchful kindness, and a tenderness almost
+maternal.  Yes, motherly; for the heroism of affection dwells alike in
+the mother's heart and the soldiers.
+
+Stoically calm, and repressing all emotion, the unchangeable coolness of
+Dagobert never failed him; and, though few were less given to drollery,
+he was now and then highly comic, by reason of the imperturbable gravity
+with which he did everything.
+
+From time to time, as they journeyed on, Dagobert would turn to bestow a
+caress or friendly word on the good white home upon which the orphans
+were mounted.  Its furrowed sides and long teeth betrayed a venerable
+age.  Two deep scars, one on the flank and the other on the chest, proved
+that his horse had been present in hot battles; nor was it without an act
+of pride that he sometimes shook his old military bridle, the brass stud
+of which was still adorned with an embossed eagle.  His pace was regular,
+careful, and steady; his coat sleek, and his bulk moderate; the abundant
+foam, which covered his bit, bore witness to that health which horses
+acquire by the constant, but not excessive, labor of a long journey,
+performed by short stages.  Although he had been more than six months on
+the road, this excellent animal carried the orphans, with a tolerably
+heavy portmanteau fastened to the saddle, as freely as on the day they
+started.
+
+If we have spoken of the excessive length of the horse's teeth--the
+unquestionable evidence of great age--it is chiefly because he often
+displayed them, for the sole purpose of acting up to his name (he was
+called Jovial), by playing a mischievous trick, of which the dog was the
+victim.
+
+This latter, who, doubtless for the sake of contrast, was called
+Spoil-sport (Rabat-joie), being always at his master's heels, found
+himself within the reach of Jovial, who from time to time nipped him
+delicately by the nape of the neck, lifted him from the ground, and
+carried him thus for a moment.  The dog, protected by his thick coat, and
+no doubt long accustomed to the practical jokes of his companion,
+submitted to all this with stoical complacency; save that, when he
+thought the jest had lasted long enough, he would turn his head and
+growl. Jovial understood him at the first hint, and hastened to set him
+down again.  At other times, just to avoid monotony, Jovial would gently
+bite the knapsack of the soldier, who seemed, as well as the dog, to be
+perfectly accustomed to his pleasantries.
+
+These details will give a notion of the excellent understanding that
+existed between the twin sisters, the old soldier, the horse, and the
+dog.
+
+The little caravan proceeded on its ways anxious to reach, before night,
+the village of Mockern, which was now visible on the summit of a hill.
+Ever and anon, Dagobert looked around him, and seemed to be gathering up
+old recollections; by degrees, his countenance became clouded, and when
+he was at a little distance from the mill, the noise of which had
+arrested his attention, he stopped, and drew his long moustache several
+times between his finger and thumb, the only sign which revealed in him
+any strong and concentrated feeling.
+
+Jovial, having stopped short behind his master, Blanche, awakened
+suddenly by the shock, raised her head; her first look sought her sister,
+on whom she smiled sweetly; then both exchanged glances of surprise, on
+seeing Dagobert motionless, with his hands clasped and resting on his
+long staff, apparently affected by some painful and deep emotion.
+
+The orphans just chanced to be at the foot of a little mound, the summit
+of which was buried in the thick foliage of a huge oak, planted half way
+down the slope.  Perceiving that Dagobert continued motionless and
+absorbed in thought, Rose leaned over her saddle, and, placing her little
+white hand on the shoulder of their guide, whose back was turned towards
+her, said to him, in a soft voice, "Whatever is the matter with you,
+Dagobert?"
+
+The veteran turned; to the great astonishment of the sisters, they
+perceived a large tear, which traced its humid furrow down his tanned
+cheek, and lost itself in his thick moustache.
+
+"You weeping--you!" cried Rose and Blanche together, deeply moved.
+"Tell us, we beseech, what is the matter?"
+
+After a moments hesitation, the soldier brushed his horny hand across his
+eyes, and said to the orphans in a faltering voice, whilst he pointed to
+the old oak beside them: "I shall make you sad, my poor children: and yet
+what I'm going to tell you has something sacred in it.  Well, eighteen
+years ago, on the eve of the great battle of Leipsic, I carried your
+father to this very tree.  He had two sabre-cuts on the head, a musket-
+ball in his shoulder; and it was here that he and I--who had got two
+thrust of a lance for my share--were taken prisoners; and by whom, worse
+luck?--why, a renegado!  By a Frenchman--an emigrant marquis, then
+colonel in the service of Russia--and who afterwards--but one day you
+shall know all."
+
+The veteran paused; then, pointing with his staff to the village of
+Mockern, he added: "Yes, yes, I can recognize the spot.  Yonder are the
+heights where your brave father--who commanded us, and the Poles of the
+Guard--overthrew the Russian Cuirassiers, after having carried the
+battery.  Ah, my children!" continued the soldier, with the utmost
+simplicity, "I wish you had, seen your brave father, at the head of our
+brigade of horse, rushing on in a desperate charge in the thick of a
+shower of shells!--There was nothing like it--not a soul so grand as he!"
+
+Whilst Dagobert thus expressed, in his own way, his regrets and
+recollections, the two orphans--by a spontaneous movement, glided gently
+from the horse, and holding each other by the hand, went together to
+kneel at the foot of the old oak.  And there, closely pressed in each
+other's arms, they began to weep; whilst the soldier, standing behind
+them, with his hands crossed on his long staff, rested his bald
+front upon it.
+
+"Come, come you must not fret," said he softly, when, after a pause of a
+few minutes, he saw tears run down the blooming cheeks of Rose and
+Blanche, still on their knees.  "Perhaps we may find General Simon in
+Paris," added he; "I will explain all that to you this evening at the
+inn.  I purposely waited for this day, to tell you many things about your
+father; it was an idea of mine, because this day is a sort of
+anniversary."
+
+"We weep because we think also of our mother," said Rose.
+
+"Of our mother, whom we shall only see again in heaven," added Blanche.
+
+The soldier raised the orphans, took each by the hand, and gazing from
+one to the other with ineffable affection, rendered still the more
+touching by the contrast of his rude features, "You must not give way
+thus, my children," said he; "it is true your mother was the best of
+women.  When she lived in Poland, they called her the Pearl of Warsaw--it
+ought to have been the Pearl of the Whole World--for in the whole world
+you could not have found her match.  No--no!"
+
+The voice of Dagobert faltered; he paused, and drew his long gray
+moustache between finger and thumb, as was his habit.  "Listen, my
+girls," he resumed, when he had mastered his emotion; "your mother could
+give you none but the best advice, eh?"
+
+"Yes Dagobert."
+
+"Well, what instructions did she give you before she died?  To think
+often of her, but without grieving?"
+
+"It is true; she told us than our Father in heaven, always good to poor
+mothers whose children are left on earth, would permit her to hear us
+from above," said Blanche.
+
+"And that her eyes would be ever fixed upon us," added Rose.
+
+And the two, by a spontaneous impulse, replete with the most touching
+grace, joined hands, raised their innocent looks to heaven, and
+exclaimed, with that beautiful faith natural to their age: "Is it not so,
+mother?--thou seest us?--thou hearest us?"
+
+"Since your mother sees and hears you," said Dagobert, much moved, "do
+not grieve her by fretting.  She forbade you to do so."
+
+"You are right, Dagobert.  We will not cry any more."--And the orphans
+dried their eyes.
+
+Dagobert, in the opinion of the devout, would have passed for a very
+heathen.  In Spain, he had found pleasure in cutting down those monks of
+all orders and colors, who, bearing crucifix in one hand, and poniard in
+the other, fought not for liberty--the Inquisition had strangled her
+centuries ago--but, for their monstrous privileges.  Yet, in forty years,
+Dagobert had witnessed so many sublime and awful scenes--he had been so
+many times face to face with death--that the instinct of natural
+religion, common to every simple, honest heart, had always remained
+uppermost in his soul.  Therefore, though he did not share in the
+consoling faith of the two sisters, he would have held as criminal any
+attempt to weaken its influence.
+
+Seeing them this downcast, he thus resumed: "That's right, my pretty
+ones: I prefer to hear you chat as you did this morning and yesterday--
+laughing at times, and answering me when I speak, instead of being so
+much engrossed with your own talk.  Yes, yes, my little ladies! you seem
+to have had famous secrets together these last two days--so, much the
+better, if it amuses you."
+
+The sisters colored, and exchanged a subdued smile, which contrasted with
+the tears that yet filled their eyes, and Rose said to the soldier, with
+a little embarrassment.  "No, I assure you, Dagobert, we talk of nothing
+in particular."
+
+"Well, well; I don't wish to know it.  Come, rest yourselves, a few
+moments more, and then we must start again; for it grows late, and we
+have to reach Mockern before night, so that we may be early on the road
+to-morrow."
+
+"Have we still a long, long way to go?" asked Rose.
+
+"What, to reach Paris?  Yes, my children; some hundred days' march.  We
+don't travel quick, but we get on; and we travel cheap, because we have a
+light purse.  A closet for you, a straw mattress and a blanket at your
+door for me, with Spoil-sport on my feet, and a clean litter for old
+Jovial, these are our whole traveling expenses.  I say nothing about
+food, because you two together don't eat more than a mouse, and I have
+learnt in Egypt and Spain to be hungry only when it suits."
+
+"Not forgetting that, to save still more, you do all the cooking for us,
+and will not even let us assist."
+
+"And to think, good Dagobert, that you wash almost every evening at our
+resting-place.  As if it were not for us to--"
+
+"You!" said the soldier, interrupting Blanche, "I, allow you to chap your
+pretty little hands in soap-suds!  Pooh! don't a soldier on a campaign
+always wash his own linen?  Clumsy as you see me, I was the best
+washerwoman in my squadron--and what a hand at ironing!  Not to make a
+brag of it."
+
+"Yes, yes--you can iron well--very well."
+
+"Only sometimes, there will be a little singe," said Rose, smiling.
+
+"Hah! when the iron is too hot.  Zounds!  I may bring it as near my cheek
+as I please; my skin is so tough that I don't feel the heat," said
+Dagobert, with imperturbable gravity.
+
+"We are only jesting, good Dagobert!"
+
+"Then, children, if you think that I know my trade as a washerwoman, let
+me continue to have your custom: it is cheaper; and, on a journey, poor
+people like us should save where we can, for we must, at all events, keep
+enough to reach Paris.  Once there, our papers and the medal you wear
+will do the rest--I hope so, at least."
+
+"This medal is sacred to us; mother gave it to us on her death-bed."
+
+"Therefore, take great care that you do not lose it: see, from time to
+time, that you have it safe."
+
+"Here it is," said Blanche, as she drew from her bosom a small bronze
+medal, which she wore suspended from her neck by a chain of the same
+material.  The medal bore on its faces the following inscriptions:
+
+                                 Victim
+                                   of
+                             L.  C.  D.  J.
+                              Pray for me!
+                                 -----
+                                 Paris
+                       February the, 13th, 1682.
+
+
+                               At Paris.
+                       Rue Saint Francois, No. 3,
+                        In a century and a half
+                              you will be.
+                        February the 13th, 1832.
+                                 -----
+                              PRAY FOR ME!
+
+
+"What does it mean, Dagobert?" resumed Blanche, as she examined the
+mournful inscriptions.  "Mother was not able to tell us."
+
+"We will discuss all that this evening; at the place where we sleep,"
+answered Dagobert.  "It grows late, let us be moving.  Put up the medal
+carefully, and away!--We have yet nearly an hour's march to arrive at
+quarters.  Come, my poor pets, once more look at the mound where your
+brave father fell--and then--to horse! to horse!"
+
+The orphans gave a last pious glance at the spot which had recalled to
+their guide such painful recollections, and, with his aid, remounted
+Jovial.
+
+This venerable animal had not for one moment dreamed of moving; but, with
+the consummate forethought of a veteran, he had made the best use of his
+time, by taking from that foreign soil a large contribution of green and
+tender grass, before the somewhat envious eyes of Spoil-sport, who had
+comfortably established himself in the meadow, with his snout protruding
+between his fore-paws.  On the signal of departure, the dog resumed his
+post behind his master, and Dagobert, trying the ground with the end of
+his long staff, led the horse carefully along by the bridle, for the
+meadow was growing more and more marshy; indeed, after advancing a few
+steps, he was obliged to turn off to the left, in order to regain the
+high-road.
+
+On reaching Mockern, Dagobert asked for the least expensive inn, and was
+told there was only one in the village--the White Falcon.
+
+"Let us go then to the White Falcon," observed the soldier.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE ARRIVAL.
+
+Already had Morok several times opened with impatience the window-
+shutters of the loft, to look out upon the inn-yard, watching for the
+arrival of the orphans and the soldier.  Not seeing them, he began once
+more to walk slowly up and down, with his head bent forward, and his arms
+folded on his bosom, meditating on the best means to carry out the plan
+he had conceived.  The ideas which possessed his mind, were, doubtless,
+of a painful character, for his countenance grew even more gloomy than
+usual.
+
+Notwithstanding his ferocious appearance, he was by no means deficient in
+intelligence.  The courage displayed in his taming exercises (which he
+gravely attributed to his recent conversion), a solemn and mystical style
+of speech, and a hypocritical affectation of austerity, had given him a
+species of influence over the people he visited in his travels.  Long
+before his conversion, as may well be supposed, Morok had been familiar
+with the habits of wild beasts.  In fact born in the north of Siberia, he
+had been, from his boyhood, one of the boldest hunters of bears and
+reindeer; later, in 1810, he had abandoned this profession, to serve as
+guide to a Russian engineer, who was charged with an exploring expedition
+to the Polar regions.  He afterwards followed him to St. Petersburg, and
+there, after some vicissitudes of fortune, Morok became one of the
+imperial couriers--these iron automata, that the least caprice of the
+despot hurls in a frail sledge through the immensity of the empire, from
+Persia to the Frozen Sea.  For these men, who travel night and day, with
+the rapidity of lightning there are neither seasons nor obstacles,
+fatigues nor danger; living projectiles, they must either be broken to
+pieces, or reach the intended mark.  One may conceive the boldness, the
+vigor, and the resignation, of men accustomed to such a life.
+
+It is useless to relate here, by what series of singular circumstances
+Morok was induced to exchange his rough pursuit for another profession,
+and at last to enter, as catechumen, a religious house at Friburg; after
+which, being duly and properly converted, he began his nomadic
+excursions, with his menagerie of unknown origin.
+
+Morok continued to walk up and down the loft.  Night had come.  The three
+persons whose arrival he so impatiently expected had not yet made their
+appearance.  His walk became more and more nervous and irregular.
+
+On a sudden he stopped abruptly; leaned his head towards the window; and
+listened.  His ear was quick as a savage's.
+
+"They are here!" he exclaimed and his fox like eye shone with diabolic
+joy.  He had caught the sound of footsteps--a man's and a horse's.
+Hastening to the window-shutter of the loft, he opened it cautiously, and
+saw the two young girls on horseback, and the old soldier who served them
+as a guide, enter the inn-yard together.
+
+The night had set in, dark and cloudy; a high wind made the lights
+flicker in the lanterns which were used to receive the new guests.  But
+the description given to Morok had been so exact, that it was impossible
+to mistake them.  Sure of his prey, he closed the window.  Having
+remained in meditation for another quarter of an hour--for the purpose,
+no doubt, of thoroughly digesting his projects--he leaned over the
+aperture, from which projected the ladder, and called, "Goliath!"
+
+"Master!" replied a hoarse voice.
+
+"Come up to me."
+
+"Here I am--just come from the slaughter-house with the meat."
+
+The steps of the ladder creaked as an enormous head appeared on a level
+with the floor.  The new-comer, who was more than six feet high, and
+gifted with herculean proportions, had been well-named Goliath.  He was
+hideous.  His squinting eyes were deep set beneath a low and projecting
+forehead; his reddish hair and beard, thick and coarse as horse-hair,
+gave his features a stamp of bestial ferocity; between his broad jaws,
+armed with teeth which resembled fangs, he held by one corner a piece of
+raw beef weighing ten or twelve pounds, finding it, no doubt, easier to
+carry in that fashion, whilst he used his hands to ascend the ladder,
+which bent beneath his weight.
+
+At length the whole of this tall and huge body issued from the aperture.
+Judging by his bull-neck, the astonishing breadth of his chest and
+shoulders, and the vast bulk of his arms and legs, this giant need not
+have feared to wrestle single-handed with a bear.  He wore an old pair
+of blue trousers with red stripes, faced with tanned sheep's-skin, and a
+vest, or rather cuirass, of thick leather, which was here and there
+slashed by the sharp claws of the animals.
+
+When he was fairly on the floor, Goliath unclasped his fangs, opened his
+mouth, and let fall the great piece of beef, licking his blood-stained
+lips with greediness.  Like many other mountebanks, this species of
+monster had began by eating raw meat at the fairs for the amusement of
+the public.  Thence having gradually acquired a taste for this barbarous
+food, and uniting pleasure with profit, he engaged himself to perform the
+prelude to the exercises of Morok, by devouring, in the presence of the
+crowd, several pounds of raw flesh.
+
+"My share and Death's are below stairs, and here are those of Cain and
+Judas," said Goliath, pointing to the chunk of beef.  "Where is the
+cleaver, that I may cut it in two?--No preference here--beast or man--
+every gullet must have it's own."
+
+Then, rolling up one of the sleeves of his vest, he exhibited a fore-arm
+hairy as skin of a wolf, and knotted with veins as large as one's thumb.
+
+"I say, master, where's the cleaver?"--He again began, as he cast round
+his eyes in search of that instrument.  But instead of replying to this
+inquiry, the Prophet put many questions to his disciple.
+
+"Were you below when just now some new travellers arrived at the inn?"
+
+"Yes, master; I was coming from the slaughter-house."
+
+"Who are these travellers?"
+
+"Two young lasses mounted on a white horse, and an old fellow with a big
+moustache.  But the cleaver?--my beasts are hungry and so am I--the
+cleaver!"
+
+"Do you know where they have lodged these travellers?"
+
+"The host took them to the far end of the court-yard."
+
+"The building, which overlooks the fields?"
+
+"Yes, master--but the cleaver--"
+
+A burst of frightful roaring shook the loft, and interrupted Goliath.
+
+"Hark to them!" he exclaimed; "hunger has driven the beasts wild.  If I
+could roar, I should do as they do.  I have never seen Judas and Cain as
+they are to-night; they leap in their cages as if they'd knock all to
+pieces.  As for Death, her eyes shine more than usual like candles--poor
+Death!"
+
+"So these girls are lodged in the building at the end of the court-yard,"
+resumed Morok, without attending to the observations of Goliath.
+
+"Yes, yes--but in the devil's name, where is the cleaver?  Since Karl
+went away I have to do all the work, and that makes our meals very late."
+
+"Did the old man remain with the young girls?" asked Morok.
+
+Goliath, amazed that, notwithstanding his importunities, his master
+should still appear to neglect the animals' supper, regarded the Prophet
+with an increase of stupid astonishment.
+
+"Answer, you brute!"
+
+"If I am a brute, I have a brute's strength," said Goliath, in a surly
+tone, "and brute against brute, I have not always come the worst off."
+
+"I ask if the old man remained with the girls," repeated Morok.
+
+"Well, then--no!"  returned the giant.  "The old man, after leading his
+horse to the stable, asked for a tub and some water, took his stand under
+the porch--and there--by the light of a lantern--he is washing out
+clothes.  A man with a gray moustache!--paddling in soap-suds like a
+washerwoman--it's as if I were to feed canaries!" added Goliath,
+shrugging his shoulders with disdain.  "But now I've answered you,
+master, let me attend to the beasts' supper,"--and, looking round for
+something, he added, "where is the cleaver?"
+
+After a moment of thoughtful silence, the Prophet said to Goliath, "You
+will give no food to the beasts this evening."
+
+At first the giant could not understand these words, the idea was so
+incomprehensible to him.
+
+"What is your pleasure, master?" said he.
+
+"I forbid you to give any food to the beasts this evening."
+
+Goliath did not answer, but he opened wide his squinting eyes, folded his
+hands, and drew back a couple of steps.
+
+"Well, dost hear me?" said Morok, with impatience.  "Is it plain enough?"
+
+"Not feed? when our meat is there, and supper is already three hours
+after time!" cried Goliath, with ever-increasing amazement.
+
+"Obey, and hold your tongue."
+
+"You must wish something bad to happen this evening.  Hunger makes the
+beasts furious--and me also."
+
+"So much the better!"
+
+"It'll drive 'em mad."
+
+"So much the better!"
+
+"How, so much the better?--But--"
+
+"It is enough!"
+
+"But, devil take me, I am as hungry as the beasts!"
+
+"Eat then--who prevents it?  Your supper is ready, as you devour it raw."
+
+"I never eat without my beasts, nor they without me."
+
+"I tell you again, that, if you dare give any food to the beasts--I will
+turn you away."
+
+Goliath uttered a low growl as hoarse as a bear's, and looked at the
+Prophet with a mixture of anger and stupefaction.
+
+Morok, having given his orders, walked up and down the loft, appearing to
+reflect.  Then, addressing himself to Goliath, who was still plunged in
+deep perplexity, he said to him.
+
+"Do you remember the burgomaster's, where I went to get my passport
+signed?--To-day his wife bought some books and a chaplet."
+
+"Yes," answered the giant shortly.
+
+"Go and ask his servant if I may be sure to find the burgomaster early
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I may, perhaps, have something important to communicate; at all events,
+say that I beg him not to leave home without seeing me."
+
+"Good! but may I feed the beasts before I go to the burgomaster's?--only
+the panther, who is most hungry?  Come, master; only poor Death? just a
+little morsel to satisfy her; Cain and I and Judas can wait."
+
+"It is the panther, above all, that I forbid you to feed.  Yes, her,
+above all the rest."
+
+"By the horns of the devil!" cried Goliath, "what is the matter with you
+to-day?  I can make nothing of it.  It is a pity that Karl's not here;
+he, being cunning, would help me to understand why you prevent the beasts
+from eating when they are hungry."
+
+"You have no need to understand it."
+
+"Will not Karl soon come back?"
+
+"He has already come back."
+
+"Where is he, then?"
+
+"Off again."
+
+"What can be going on here?  There is something in the wind.  Karl goes,
+and returns, and goes again, and--"
+
+"We are not talking of Karl, but of you; though hungry as a wolf you are
+cunning as a fox, and, when it suits you, as cunning as Karl."  And,
+changing on the sudden his tone and manner, Morok slapped the giant
+cordially on the shoulder.
+
+"What! am I cunning?"
+
+"The proof is, that there are ten florins to earn to-night--and you will
+be keen enough to earn them, I am sure."
+
+"Why, on those terms, yes--I am awake," said the giant, smiling with a
+stupid, self-satisfied air.  "What must I do for ten florins?"
+
+"You shall see."
+
+"Is it hard work?"
+
+"You shall see.  Begin by going to the burgomaster's--but first light the
+fire in that stove."  He pointed to it with his finger.
+
+"Yes, master," said Goliath, somewhat consoled for the delay of his
+supper by the hope of gaining ten florins.
+
+"Put that iron bar in the stove," added the Prophet, "to make it
+red-hot."
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"You will leave it there; go to the burgomaster's, and return here to
+wait for me."
+
+"Yes, master.
+
+"You will keep the fire up in the stove."
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+Morok took a step away, but recollecting himself, he resumed: "You say
+the old man is busy washing under the porch?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"Forget nothing: the iron bar in the fire--the burgomaster--and return
+here to wait my orders."  So saying, Morok descended by the trap-door and
+disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MOROK and DAGOBERT
+
+Goliath had not been mistaken, for Dagobert was washing with that
+imperturbable gravity with which he did everything else.
+
+When we remember the habits of a soldier a-field, we need not be
+astonished at this apparent eccentricity.  Dagobert only thought of
+sparing the scanty purse of the orphans, and of saving them all care and
+trouble; so every evening when they came to a halt he devoted himself to
+all sorts of feminine occupations.  But he was not now serving his
+apprenticeship in these matters; many times, during his campaigns, he had
+industriously repaired the damage and disorder which a day of battle
+always brings to the garments of the soldier; for it is not enough to
+receive a sabre-cut--the soldier has also to mend his uniform; for the
+stroke which grazes the skin makes likewise a corresponding fissure in
+the cloth.
+
+Therefore, in the evening or on the morrow of a hard-fought engagement,
+you will see the best soldiers (always distinguished by their fine
+military appearance) take from their cartridge-box or knapsack a
+housewife, furnished with needles, thread, scissors, buttons, and other
+such gear, and apply themselves to all kinds of mending and darning, with
+a zeal that the most industrious workwoman might envy.
+
+We could not find a better opportunity to explain the name of Dagobert,
+given to Francis Baudoin (the guide of the orphans) at a time when he was
+considered one of the handsomest and bravest horse-grenadiers of the
+Imperial Guard.
+
+They had been fighting hard all day, without any decisive advantage.  In
+the evening, the company to which our hero belonged was sent as outliers
+to occupy the ruins of a deserted village.  Videttes being posted, half
+the troopers remained in saddle, whilst the others, having picketed their
+horses, were able to take a little rest.  Our hero had charged valiantly
+that day without receiving any wound--for he counted as a mere memento
+the deep scratch on his thigh, which a kaiserlitz had inflicted in
+awkwardly attempting an upward thrust with the bayonet.
+
+"You donkey! my new breeches!" the grenadier had exclaimed, when he saw
+the wide yawning rent, which he instantly avenged by running the Austrian
+through, with a thrust scientifically administered.  For, if he showed a
+stoical indifference on the subject of injury to his skin, it was not so
+with regard to the ripping up of his best parade uniform.
+
+He undertook, therefore, the same evening, at the bivouac, to repair this
+accident.  Selecting his best needle and thread from the stores of his
+housewife, and arming his finger with a thimble, he began to play the
+tailor by the light of the watch-fire, having first drawn off his
+cavalry-boots, and also (if it must be confessed) the injured garment
+itself, which he turned the wrong side out the better to conceal the
+stitches.
+
+This partial undress was certainly a breach of discipline: but the
+captain, as he went his round, could not forbear laughing at the sight of
+the veteran soldier, who, gravely seated, in a squatting position, with
+his grenadier cap on, his regimental coat on his back, his boots by his
+side, and his galligaskins in his lap, was sewing with all the coolness
+of a tailor upon his own shop-board.
+
+Suddenly, a musket-shot is heard, and the videttes fall back upon the
+detachment, calling to arms.  "To horse!" cries the captain, in a voice
+of thunder.
+
+In a moment, the troopers are in their saddles, the unfortunate clothes-
+mender having to lead the first rank; there is no time to turn the
+unlucky garment, so he slips it on, as well as he can, wrong side out,
+and leaps upon his horse, without even stopping to put on his boots.
+
+A party of Cossacks, profiting by the cover of a neighboring wood, had
+attempted to surprise the detachment: the fight was bloody, and our hero
+foamed with rage, for he set much value on his equipments, and the day
+had been fatal to him.  Thinking of his torn clothes and lost boots, he
+hacked away with more fury than ever; a bright moon illumined the scene
+of action, and his comrades were able to appreciate the brilliant valor
+of our grenadier, who killed two Cossacks, and took an officer prisoner,
+with his own hand.
+
+After this skirmish, in which the detachment had maintained its position,
+the captain drew up his men to compliment them on their success, and
+ordered the clothes-mender to advance from the ranks, that he might thank
+him publicly for his gallant behavior.  Our hero could have dispensed
+with this ovation, but he was not the less obliged to obey.
+
+Judge of the surprise of both captain and troopers, when they saw this
+tall and stern-looking figure ride forward at a slow pace, with his naked
+feet in the stirrups, and naked legs pressing the sides of his charger.
+
+The captain drew near in astonishment; but recalling the occupation of
+the soldier at the moment when the alarm was given, he understood the
+whole mystery.  "Ha, my old comrade!" he exclaimed, "thou art like King
+Dagobert--wearing thy breeches inside out."
+
+In spite of discipline, this joke of the captain's was received with
+peals of ill-repressed laughter.  But our friend, sitting upright in his
+saddle, with his left thumb pressing the well adjusted reins, and his
+sword-hilt carried close to his right thigh, made a half-wheel, and
+returned to his place in the ranks without changing countenance, after he
+had duly received the congratulations of his captain.  From that day,
+Francis Baudoin received and kept the nickname of Dagobert.
+
+Now Dagobert was under the porch of the inn, occupied in washing, to the
+great amazement of sundry beer-drinkers, who observed him with curious
+eyes from the large common room in which they were assembled.
+
+In truth, it was a curious spectacle.  Dagobert had laid aside his gray
+top-coat, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt; with a vigorous hand,
+and good supply of soap, he was rubbing away at a wet handkerchief,
+spread out on the board, the end of which rested in a tub full of water.
+Upon his right arm, tattooed with warlike emblems in red and blue colors,
+two scars, deep enough to admit the finger, were distinctly visible.  No
+wonder then, that, while smoking their pipes, and emptying their pots of
+beer, the Germans should display some surprise at the singular occupation
+of this tall, moustached, bald-headed old man, with the forbidding
+countenance--for the features of Dagobert assumed a harsh and grim
+expression, when he was no longer in presence of the two girls.
+
+The sustained attention, of which he saw himself the object, began to put
+him out of patience, for his employment appeared to him quite natural.
+At this moment, the Prophet entered the porch, and, perceiving the
+soldier, eyed him attentively for several seconds; then approaching, he
+said to him in French, in a rather sly tone:  "It would seem, comrade,
+that you have not much confidence in the washerwomen of Mockern?"
+
+Dagobert, without discontinuing his work, half turned his head with a
+frown, looked askant at the Prophet, and made him no answer.
+
+Astonished at this silence, Morok resumed: "If I do not deceive myself,
+you are French, my fine fellow.  The words on your arm prove it, and your
+military air stamps you as an old soldier of the Empire.  Therefore I
+find, that, for a hero, you have taken rather late to wear petticoats."
+
+Dagobert remained mute, but he gnawed his moustache, and plied the soap,
+with which he was rubbing the linen, in a most hurried, not to say angry
+style; for the face and words of the beast-tamer displeased him more than
+he cared to show.  Far from being discouraged, the Prophet continued: "I
+am sure, my fine fellow, that you are neither deaf nor dumb; why, then,
+will you not answer me?"
+
+Losing all patience, Dagobert turned abruptly round, looked Morok full in
+the face, and said to him in a rough voice: "I don't know you: I don't
+wish to know you!  Chain up your curb!"  And he betook himself again to
+his washing.
+
+"But we may make acquaintance.  We can drink a glass of Rhine-wine
+together, and talk of our campaigns.  I also have seen some service, I
+assure you; and that, perhaps, will induce you to be more civil."
+
+The veins on the bald forehead of Dagobert swelled perceptibly; he saw in
+the look and accent of the man, who thus obstinately addressed him,
+something designedly provoking; still he contained himself.
+
+"I ask you, why should you not drink a glass of wine with me--we could
+talk about France.  I lived there a long time; it is a fine country; and
+when I meet Frenchmen abroad, I feel sociable--particularly when they
+know how to use the soap as well as you do.  If I had a housewife I'd
+send her to your school."
+
+The sarcastic meaning was no longer disguised; impudence and bravado were
+legible in the Prophet's looks.  Thinking that, with such an adversary,
+the dispute might become serious, Dagobert, who wished to avoid a quarrel
+at any price, carried off his tub to the other end of the porch, hoping
+thus to put an end to the scene which was a sore trial of his temper.
+A flash of joy lighted up the tawny eyes of the brute-tamer.  The white
+circle, which surrounded the pupil seemed to dilate.  He ran his crooked
+fingers two or three times through his yellow beard, in token of
+satisfaction; then he advanced slowly towards the soldier, accompanied by
+several idlers from the common-room.
+
+Notwithstanding his coolness, Dagobert, amazed and incensed at the
+impudent pertinacity of the Prophet, was at first disposed to break the
+washing-board on his head; but, remembering the orphans, he thought
+better of it.
+
+Folding his arms upon his breast, Morok said to him, in a dry and
+insolent tone: "It is very certain you are not civil, my man of suds!"
+Then, turning to the spectators, he continued in German: "I tell this
+Frenchman, with his long moustache, that he is not civil.  We shall see
+what answer he'll make.  Perhaps it will be necessary to give him a
+lesson.  Heaven preserve me from quarrels!" he added, with mock
+compunction; "but the Lord has enlightened me--I am his creature, and I
+ought to make his work respected."
+
+The mystical effrontery of this peroration was quite to the taste of the
+idlers; the fame of the Prophet had reached Mockern, and, as a
+performance was expected on the morrow, this prelude much amused the
+company.  On hearing the insults of his adversary, Dagobert could not
+help saying in the German language: "I know German.  Speak in German--
+the rest will understand you.'
+
+New spectators now arrived, and joined the first comers; the adventure
+had become exciting, and a ring was formed around the two persons most
+concerned.
+
+The Prophet resumed in German: "I said that you were not civil, and I now
+say you are grossly rude.  What do you answer to that?"
+
+"Nothing!" said Dagobert, coldly, as he proceeded to rinse out another
+piece of linen.
+
+"Nothing!" returned Morok; "that is very little.  I will be less brief,
+and tell you, that, when an honest man offers a glass of wine civilly to
+a stranger, that stranger has no right to answer with insolence, and
+deserves to be taught manners if he does so."
+
+Great drops of sweat ran down Dagobert's forehead and cheeks; his large
+imperial was incessantly agitated by nervous trembling--but he restrained
+himself.  Taking, by two of the corners, the handkerchief which he had
+just dipped in the water, he shook it, wrung it, and began to hum to
+himself the burden of the old camp ditty:
+
+         "Out of Tirlemont's flea-haunted den,
+          We ride forth next day of the sen,
+          With sabre in hand, ah!
+          Good-bye to Amanda," etc.
+
+The silence to which Dagobert had condemned himself, almost choked him;
+this song afforded him some relief.
+
+Morok, turning towards the spectators, said to them, with an air of
+hypocritical restraint: "We knew that the soldiers of Napoleon were
+pagans, who stabled their horses in churches, and offended the Lord a
+hundred times a day, and who, for their sins, were justly drowned in the
+Beresino, like so many Pharaohs; but we did not know that the Lord, to
+punish these miscreants, had deprived them of courage--their single gift.
+"Here is a man, who has insulted, in me, a creature favored by divine
+grace, and who affects not to understand that I require an apology; or
+else--"
+
+"What?" said Dagobert, without looking at the Prophet.
+
+"Or you must give me satisfaction!--I have already told you that I have
+seen service.  We shall easily find somewhere a couple of swords, and to-
+morrow morning, at peep of day, we can meet behind a wall, and show the
+color of our blood--that is, if you have any in your veins!"
+
+This challenge began to frighten the spectators, who were not prepared
+for so tragical a conclusion.
+
+"What, fight?--a very, fine idea!" said one.  "To get yourself both
+locked up in prison: the laws against duelling are strict."
+
+"Particularly with relation to strangers or nondescripts," added another.
+"If they were to find you with arms in your hands, the burgomaster would
+shut you up in jail, and keep you there two or three months before
+trial."
+
+"Would you be so mean as to denounce us?"  asked Morok.
+
+"No, certainly not," cried several; "do as you like.  We are only giving
+you a friendly piece of advice, by which you may profit, if you think
+fit."
+
+"What care I for prison?" exclaimed the Prophet.  "Only give me a couple
+of swords, and you shall see to-morrow morning if I heed what the
+burgomaster can do or say."
+
+"What would you do with two swords?" asked Dagobert, quietly.
+
+"When you have one in your grasp, and I one in mine, you'd see.  The Lord
+commands us to have a care of his honor!"
+
+Dagobert shrugged his shoulders, made a bundle of his linen in his
+handkerchief, dried his soap, and put it carefully into a little oil-silk
+bag--then, whistling his favorite air of Tirlemont, moved to depart.
+
+The Prophet frowned; he began to fear that his challenge would not be
+accepted.  He advanced a step or so to encounter Dagobert, placed himself
+before him, as if to intercept his passage, and, folding his arms, and
+scanning him from head to foot with bitter insolence, said to him: "So!
+an old soldier of that arch-robber, Napoleon, is only fit for a
+washerwoman, and refuses to fight!"
+
+"Yes, he refuses to fight," answered Dagobert, in a firm voice, but
+becoming fearfully pale.  Never, perhaps, had the soldier given to his
+orphan charge such a proof of tenderness and devotion.  For a man of his
+character to let himself be insulted with impunity, and refuse to fight
+--the sacrifice was immense.
+
+"So you are a coward--you are afraid of me--and you confess it?"
+
+At these words Dagobert made, as it were, a pull upon himself--as if a
+sudden thought had restrained him the moment he was about to rush on the
+Prophet.  Indeed, he had remembered the two maidens, and the fatal
+hindrance which a duel, whatever might be the result, would occasion to
+their journey.  But the impulse of anger, though rapid, had been so
+significant--the expression of the stern, pale face, bathed in sweat, was
+so daunting, that the Prophet and the spectators drew back a step.
+
+Profound silence reigned for some seconds, and then, by a sudden
+reaction, Dagobert seemed to have gained the general interest.  One of
+the company said to those near him;  "This man is clearly not a coward."
+
+"Oh, no! certainly not."
+
+"It sometimes requires more courage to refuse a challenge than to accept
+one."
+
+"After all the Prophet was wrong to pick a quarrel about nothing--and
+with a stranger, too."
+
+"Yes, for a stranger, if he fought and was taken up, would have a good
+long imprisonment."
+
+"And then, you see," added another, "he travels with two young girls.  In
+such a position, ought a man to fight about trifles?  If he should be
+killed or put in prison, what would become of them, poor children?"
+
+Dagobert turned towards the person who had pronounced these last words.
+He saw a stout fellow, with a frank and simple countenance; the soldier
+offered him his hand, and said with emotion:
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+The German shook cordially the hand, which Dagobert had proffered, and,
+holding it still in his own, he added: "Do one thing, sir--share a bowl
+of punch with us.  We will make that mischief-making Prophet acknowledge
+that he has been too touchy, and he shall drink to your health."
+
+Up to this moment the brute-tamer, enraged at the issue of this scene,
+for he had hoped that the soldier would accept his challenge, looked on
+with savage contempt at those who had thus sided against him.  But now
+his features gradually relaxed; and, believing it useful to his projects
+to hide his disappointment, he walked up to the soldier, and said to him,
+with a tolerably good grace: "Well, I give way to these gentlemen.  I own
+I was wrong.  Your frigid air had wounded me, and I was not master of
+myself.  I repeat, that I was wrong," he added, with suppressed vexation;
+"the Lord commands humility--and--I beg your pardon."
+
+This proof of moderation and regret was highly appreciated and loudly
+applauded by the spectators.  "He asks your pardon; you cannot expect
+more, my brave fellow?" said one of them, addressing Dagobert.  "Come,
+let us all drink together; we make you this offer frankly--accept it in
+the same spirit."
+
+"Yes, yes; accept it, we beg you, in the name of your pretty little
+girls," said the stout man, hoping to decide Dagobert by this argument.
+
+"Many thanks, gentlemen," replied he, touched by the hearty advances of
+the Germans; "you are very worthy people.  But, when one is treated, he
+must offer drink in return."
+
+"Well, we will accept it--that's understood.  Each his turn, and all
+fair.  We will pay for the first bowl, you for the second."
+
+"Poverty is no crime," answered Dagobert; "and I must tell you honestly
+that I cannot afford to pay for drink.  We have still a long journey to
+go, and I must not incur any useless expenses."
+
+The soldier spoke these words with such firm, but simple dignity, that
+the Germans did not venture to renew their offer, feeling that a man of
+Dagobert's character could not accept it without humiliation.
+
+"Well, so much the worse," said the stout man.  "I should have liked to
+clink glasses with you.  Good-night, my brave trooper!--Good-night--for
+it grows late, and mine host of the Falcon will soon turn us out of
+doors."
+
+"Good-night, gentlemen," replied Dagobert, as he directed his steps
+towards the stable, to give his horse a second allowance of provender.
+
+Morok approached him, and said in a voice even more humble than before:
+"I have acknowledged my error, and asked your pardon.  You have not
+answered me; do you still bear malice?"
+
+"If ever I meet you," said the veteran, in a suppressed and hollow tone,
+"when my children have no longer need of me, I will just say two words to
+you, and they will not be long ones."
+
+Then he turned his back abruptly on the Prophet, who walked slowly out of
+the yard.
+
+The inn of the White Falcon formed a parallelogram.  At one end rose the
+principal dwelling; at the other was a range of buildings, which
+contained sundry chambers, let at a low price to the poorer sort of
+travellers; a vaulted passage opened a way through this latter into the
+country; finally, on either side of the court-yard were sheds and
+stables, with lofts and garrets erected over them.
+
+Dagobert, entering one of these stables, took from off a chest the
+portion of oats destined for his horse, and, pouring it into a winnowing-
+basket, shook it as he approached Jovial.
+
+To his great astonishment, his old travelling companion did not respond
+with a joyous neigh to the rustle of the oats rattling on the wicker-
+work.  Alarmed, he called Jovial with a friendly voice; but the animal,
+instead of turning towards his master a look of intelligence, and
+impatiently striking the ground with his fore-feet, remained perfectly
+motionless.
+
+More and more surprised, the soldier went up to him.  By the dubious
+light of a stable-lantern, he saw the poor animal in an attitude which
+implied terror--his legs half bent, his head stretched forward, his ears
+down, his nostrils quivering; he had drawn tight his halter, as if he
+wished to break it, in order to get away from the partition that
+supported his rack and manger; abundant cold-sweat had speckled his hide
+with bluish stains, and his coat altogether looked dull and bristling,
+instead of standing out sleek and glossy from the dark background of the
+stable; lastly, from time to time, his body shook with convulsive starts.
+
+"Why, old Jovial!" said the soldier, as he put down the basket, in order
+to soothe his horse with more freedom, "you are like thy master--afraid!
+--Yes," he added with bitterness, as he thought of the offence he had
+himself endured, "you are afraid--though no coward in general."
+
+Notwithstanding the caresses and the voice of his master, the horse
+continued to give signs of terror; he pulled somewhat less violently at
+his halter, and approaching his nostrils to the hand of Dagobert, sniffed
+audibly, as if he doubted it were he.
+
+"You don't know me!" cried Dagobert.  "Something extraordinary must be
+passing here."
+
+The soldier looked around him with uneasiness.  It was a large stable,
+faintly lighted by the lantern suspended from the roof, which was covered
+with innumerable cobwebs; at the further end, separated from Jovial by
+some stalls with bars between, were the three strong, black, horses of
+the brute-tamer--as tranquil as Jovial was frightened.
+
+Dagobert, struck with this singular contrast, of which he was soon to
+have the explanation, again caressed his horse; and the animal, gradually
+reassured by his master's presence, licked his hands, rubbed his head
+against him, uttered a low neigh, and gave him his usual tokens of
+affection.
+
+"Come, come, this is how I like to see my old Jovial!" said Dagobert, as
+he took up the winnowing-basket, and poured its contents into the manger.
+"Now eat with a good appetite, for we have a long day's march tomorrow;
+and, above all, no more of these foolish fears about nothing!  If thy
+comrade, Spoil-sport, was here, he would keep you in heart; but he is
+along with the children, and takes care of them in my absence.  Come,
+eat!  Instead of staring at me in that way."
+
+But the horse, having just touched the oats with his mouth, as if in
+obedience to his master, returned to them no more, and began to nibble at
+the sleeve of Dagobert's coat.
+
+"Come, come, my poor Jovial! there is something the matter with you.  You
+have generally such a good appetite, and now you leave your corn.  'Tis
+the first time this has happened since our departure," said the soldier,
+who was now growing seriously uneasy, for the issue of his journey
+greatly depended on the health and vigor of his horse.
+
+Just then a frightful roaring, so near that it seemed to come from the
+stable in which they were, gave so violent a shock to Jovial, that with
+one effort he broke his halter, leaped over the bar that marked his
+place, and rushing at the open door, escaped into the court-yard.
+
+Dagobert had himself started at the suddenness of this wild and fearful
+sound, which at once explained to him the cause of his horse's terror.
+The adjoining stable was occupied by the itinerant menagerie of the
+brute-tamer, and was only separated by the partition, which supported the
+mangers.  The three horses of the Prophet, accustomed to these howlings,
+had remained perfectly quiet.
+
+"Good!" said the soldier, recovering himself; "I understand it now.
+Jovial has heard another such roar before, and he can scent the animals
+of that insolent scoundrel.  It is enough to frighten him," added he, as
+he carefully collected the oats from the manger; "once in another stable,
+and there must be others in this place, he will no longer leave his peck,
+and we shall be able to start early to-morrow morning!"
+
+The terrified horse, after running and galloping about the yard, returned
+at the voice of the soldier, who easily caught him by the broken halter;
+and a hostler, whom Dagobert asked if there was another vacant stable,
+having pointed out one that was only intended for a single animal, Jovial
+was comfortably installed there.
+
+When delivered from his ferocious neighbors, the horse became tranquil as
+before, and even amused himself much at the expense of Dagobert's top-
+coat, which, thanks to his tricks, might have afforded immediate
+occupation for his master's needle, if the latter had not been fully
+engaged in admiring the eagerness with which Jovial dispatched his
+provender.  Completely reassured on his account, the soldier shut the
+door of the stable, and proceeded to get his supper as quickly as
+possible, in order to rejoin the orphans, whom he reproached himself with
+having left so long.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ROSE AND BLANCHE.
+
+The orphans occupied a dilapidated chamber in one of the most remote
+wings of the inn, with a single window opening upon the country.  A bed
+without curtains, a table, and two chairs, composed the more than modest
+furniture of this retreat, which was now lighted by a lamp.  On the
+table, which stood near the window, was deposited the knapsack of the
+soldier.
+
+The great Siberian dog, who was lying close to the door, had already
+twice uttered a deep growl, and turned his head towards the window--but
+without giving any further affect to this hostile manifestation.
+
+The two sisters, half recumbent in their bed, were clad in long white
+wrappers, buttoned at the neck and wrists.  They wore no caps, but their
+beautiful chestnut hair was confined at the temples by a broad piece of
+tape, so that it might not get tangled during the night.  These white
+garments, and the white fillet that like a halo encircled their brows,
+gave to their fresh and blooming faces a still more candid expression.
+
+The orphans laughed and chatted, for, in spite of some early sorrows,
+they still retained the ingenuous gayety of their age.  The remembrance
+of their mother would sometimes make them sad, but this sorrow had in it
+nothing bitter; it was rather a sweet melancholy, to be sought instead of
+shunned.  For them, this adored mother was not dead--she was only absent.
+
+Almost as ignorant as Dagobert, with regard to devotional exercises, for
+in the desert where they had lived there was neither church nor priest,
+their faith, as was already said, consisted in this--that God, just and
+good, had so much pity for the poor mothers whose children were left on
+earth, that he allowed them to look down upon them from highest heaven--
+to see them always, to hear them always, and sometimes to send fair
+guardian angels to protect therein.  Thanks to this guileless illusion,
+the orphans, persuaded that their mother incessantly watched over them,
+felt, that to do wrong would be to afflict her, and to forfeit the
+protection of the good angels.--This was the entire theology of Rose and
+Blanche--a creed sufficient for such pure and loving souls.
+
+Now, on the evening in question, the two sisters chatted together whilst
+waiting for Dagobert.  Their theme interested them much, for, since some
+days, they had a secret, a great secret, which often quickened the
+beatings of their innocent hearts, often agitated their budding bosoms,
+changed to bright scarlet the roses on their cheeks, and infused a
+restless and dreamy langour into the soft blue of their large eyes.
+
+Rose, this evening, occupied the edge of the couch, with her rounded arms
+crossed behind her head, which was half turned towards her sister;
+Blanche, with her elbow resting on the bolster, looked at her smilingly,
+and said:  "Do you think he will come again to-night?"
+
+"Oh, yes! certainly.  He promised us yesterday."
+
+"He is so good, he would not break his promise."
+
+"And so handsome, with his long fair curls."
+
+"And his name--what a charming name!--How well it suits his face."
+
+"And what a sweet smile and soft voice, when he says to us, taking us by
+the hand: 'My children, bless God that he has given you one soul.  What
+others seek elsewhere, you will find in yourselves.'"
+
+"'Since your two hearts,' he added, 'only make one.'"
+
+"What pleasure to remember his words, sister!"
+
+"We are so attentive!  When I see you listening to him, it is as if I saw
+myself, my dear little mirror!"  said Rose, laughing, and kissing her
+sister's forehead.  "Well--when he speaks, your--or rather our eyes--are
+wide, wide open, our lips moving as if we repeated every word after him.
+It is no wonder we forget nothing that he says."
+
+"And what he says is so grand, so noble, and generous."
+
+"Then, my sister, as he goes on talking, what good thoughts rise within
+us!  If we could but always keep them in mind."
+
+"Do not be afraid! they will remain in our hearts, like little birds in
+their mother's nests."
+
+"And how lucky it is, Rose, that he loves us both at the same time!"
+
+"He could not do otherwise, since we have but one heart between us."
+
+"How could he love Rose, without loving Blanche?"
+
+"What would have become of the poor, neglected one?"
+
+"And then again he would have found it so difficult to choose."
+
+"We are so much like one another."
+
+"So, to save himself that trouble," said Rose, laughing, "he has chosen
+us both."
+
+"And is it not the best way?  He is alone to love us; we are two together
+to think of him."
+
+"Only he must not leave us till we reach Paris."
+
+"And in Paris, too--we must see him there also."
+
+"Oh, above all at Paris; it will be good to have him with us--and
+Dagobert, too--in that great city.  Only think, Blanche, how beautiful it
+must be."
+
+"Paris!--it must be like a city all of gold."
+
+"A city, where every one must be happy, since it is so beautiful."
+
+"But ought we, poor orphans, dare so much as to enter it?  How people
+will look at us!"
+
+"Yes--but every one there is happy, every one must be good also."
+
+"They will love us."
+
+"And, besides, we shall be with our friend with the fair hair and blue
+eyes."
+
+"He has yet told us nothing of Paris."
+
+"He has not thought of it; we must speak to him about it this very
+night."
+
+"If he is in the mood for talking.  Often you know, he likes best to gaze
+on us in silence--his eyes on our eyes."
+
+"Yes.  In those moments, his look recalls to me the gaze of our dear
+mother."
+
+"And, as she sees it all, how pleased she must be at what has happened to
+us!"
+
+"Because, when we are so much beloved, we must, I hope, deserve it."
+
+"See what a vain thing it is!" said Blanche, smoothing with her slender
+fingers the parting of the hair on her sister's forehead.
+
+After a moment's reflection, Rose said to her: "Don't you think we should
+relate all this to Dagobert?"
+
+"If you think so, let us do it."
+
+"We tell him everything, as we told everything to mother.  Why should we
+conceal this from him?"
+
+"Especially as it is something which gives us so much pleasure."
+
+"Do you not find that, since we have known our friend, our hearts beat
+quicker and stronger?"
+
+"Yes, they seem to be more full."
+
+"The reason why is plain enough; our friend fills up a good space in
+them."
+
+"Well, we will do best to tell Dagobert what a lucky star ours is."
+
+"You are right--"  At this moment the dog gave another deep growl.
+
+"Sister," said Rose, as she pressed closer to Blanche, "there is the dog
+growling again.  What can be the matter with him?"
+
+"Spoil-sport, do not growl!  Come hither," said Blanche, striking with
+her little hand on the side of the bed.
+
+The dog rose, again growled deeply, and came to lay his great,
+intelligent looking head on the counterpane, still obstinately casting a
+sidelong glance at the window; the sisters bent over him to pat his broad
+forehead, in the centre of which was a remarkable bump, the certain sign
+of extreme purity of race.
+
+"What makes you growl so, Spoil-sport?" said Blanche, pulling him gently
+by the ears--"eh, my good dog?"
+
+"Poor beast! he is always so uneasy when Dagobert is away."
+
+"It is true; one would think he knows that he then has a double charge
+over us."
+
+"Sister, it seems to me, Dagobert is late in coming to say good-night."
+
+"No doubt he is attending to Jovial."
+
+"That makes me think that we did not bid good-night to dear old Jovial.
+
+"I am sorry for it."
+
+"Poor beast! he seems so glad when he licks our hands.  One would think
+that he thanked us for our visit."
+
+"Luckily, Dagobert will have wished him good-night for us."
+
+"Good Dagobert! he is always thinking of us.  How he spoils us!  We
+remain idle, and he has all the trouble."
+
+"How can we prevent it?"
+
+"What a pity that we are not rich, to give him a little rest."
+
+"We rich!  Alas, my sister! we shall never be anything but poor orphans."
+
+"Oh, there's the medal!"
+
+"Doubtless, there is some hope attached to it, else we should not have
+made this long journey."
+
+"Dagobert has promised to tell us all, this evening."
+
+She was prevented from continuing, for two of the windowpanes flew to
+pieces with a loud crash.
+
+The orphans, with a cry of terror, threw themselves into each other's
+arms, whilst the dog rushed towards the window, barking furiously.
+
+Pale, trembling, motionless with affright, clasping each other in a close
+embrace, the two sisters held their breath; in their extreme fear, they
+durst not even cast their eyes in the direction of the window.  The dog,
+with his forepaws resting on the sill, continued to bark with violence.
+
+"Alas! what can it be?"  murmured the orphans.  "And Dagobert not here!"
+
+"Hark!" cried Rose, suddenly seizing Blanche by the arm; "hark!--some one
+coming up the stairs!"
+
+"Good heaven! it does not sound like the tread of Dagobert.  Do you not
+hear what heavy footsteps?"
+
+"Quick! come, Spoil-sport, and defend us!"  cried the two sisters at
+once, in an agony of alarm.
+
+The boards of the wooden staircase really creaked beneath the weight of
+unusually heavy footsteps, and a singular kind of rustling was heard
+along the thin partition that divided the chamber from the landing-place.
+Then a ponderous mass, falling against the door of the room, shook it
+violently; and the girls, at the very height of terror, looked at each
+other without the power of speech.
+
+The door opened.  It was Dagobert.
+
+At the sight of him Rose and Blanche joyfully exchanged a kiss, as if
+they had just escaped from a great danger.
+
+"What is the matter? why are you afraid?"  asked the soldier in surprise.
+
+"Oh, if you only knew!"  said Rose, panting as she spoke, for both her
+own heart and her sister's beat with violence.
+
+"If you knew what has just happened!  We did not recognize your
+footsteps--they seemed so heavy--and then that noise behind the
+partition!"
+
+"Little frightened doves that you are!  I could not run up the stairs
+like a boy of fifteen, seeing that I carried my bed upon my back--a straw
+mattress that I have just flung down before your door, to sleep there as
+usual."
+
+"Bless me! how foolish we must be, sister, not to have thought of that!"
+said Rose, looking at Blanche.  And their pretty faces, which had
+together grown pale, together resumed their natural color.
+
+During this scene the dog, still resting against the window, did not
+cease barking a moment.
+
+"What makes Spoil-sport bark in that direction, my children?"  said the
+soldier.
+
+"We do not know.  Two of our windowpanes have just been broken.  That is
+what first frightened us so much."
+
+Without answering a word Dagobert flew to the window, opened it quickly,
+pushed back the shutter, and leaned out.
+
+He saw nothing; it was a dark night.  He listened; but heard only the
+moaning of the wind.
+
+"Spoil-sport," said he to his dog, pointing to the open window, "leap
+out, old fellow, and search!"  The faithful animal took one mighty spring
+and disappeared by the window, raised only about eight feet above the
+ground.
+
+Dagobert, still leaning over, encouraged his dog with voice and gesture:
+"Search, old fellow, search!  If there is any one there, pin him--your
+fangs are strong--and hold him fast till I come."
+
+But Spoil-sport found no one.  They heard him go backwards and forwards,
+snuffing on every side, and now and then uttering a low cry like a hound
+at fault.
+
+"There is no one, my good dog, that's clear, or you would have had him by
+the throat ere this."  Then, turning to the maidens, who listened to his
+words and watched his movements with uneasiness: "My girls," said he,
+"how were these panes broken?  Did you not remark?"
+
+"No, Dagobert; we were talking together when we heard a great crash, and
+then the glass fell into the room."
+
+"It seemed to me," added Rose, "as if a shutter had struck suddenly
+against the window."
+
+Dagobert examined the shutter, and observed a long movable hook, designed
+to fasten it on the inside.
+
+"It blows hard," said he; "the wind must have swung round the shutter,
+and this hook broke the window.  Yes, yes; that is it.  What interest
+could anybody have to play such a sorry trick?"  Then, speaking to Spoil-
+sport, he asked, "Well, my good fellow, is there no one?"
+
+The dog answered by a bark, which the soldier no doubt understood as a
+negative, for he continued: "Well, then, come back!  Make the round--you
+will find some door open--you are never at a loss."
+
+The animal followed this advice.  After growling for a few seconds
+beneath the window, he set off at a gallop to make the circuit of the
+buildings, and come back by the court-yard.
+
+"Be quite easy, my children!" said the soldier, as he again drew near the
+orphans; "it was only the wind."
+
+"We were a good deal frightened," said Rose.
+
+"I believe you.  But now I think of it, this draught is likely to give
+you cold."  And seeking to remedy this inconvenience, he took from a
+chair the reindeer pelisse, and suspended it from the spring-catch of the
+curtainless window, using the skirts to stop up as closely as possible
+the two openings made by the breaking of the panes.
+
+"Thanks, Dagobert, how good you are!  We were very uneasy at not seeing
+you."
+
+"Yes, you were absent longer than usual.  But what is the matter with
+you?" added Rose, only just then perceiving that his countenance was
+disturbed and pallid, for he was still under the painful influence of the
+brawl with Morok; "how pale you are!"
+
+"Me, my pets?--Oh, nothing."
+
+"Yes, I assure you, your countenance is quite changed.  Rose is right."
+
+"I tell you there is nothing the matter," answered the soldier, not
+without some embarrassment, for he was little used to deceive; till,
+finding an excellent excuse for his emotion, he added: "If I do look at
+all uncomfortable, it is your fright that has made me so, for indeed it
+was my fault."
+
+"Your fault!"
+
+"Yes; for if I had not lost so much time at supper, I should have been
+here when the window was broken, and have spared you the fright."
+
+"Anyhow, you are here now, and we think no more of it."
+
+"Why don't you sit down?"
+
+"I will, my children, for we have to talk together," said Dagobert, as he
+drew a chair close to the head of the bed.
+
+"Now tell me, are you quite awake?" he added, trying to smile in order to
+reassure them.  "Are those large eyes properly open?"
+
+"Look, Dagobert!" cried the two girls, smiling in their turn, and opening
+their blue eyes to the utmost extent.
+
+"Well, well," said the soldier, "they are yet far enough, from shutting;
+besides, it is only nine o'clock."
+
+"We also have something to tell, Dagobert," resumed Rose, after
+exchanging glances with her sister.
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"A secret to tell you."
+
+"A secret?"
+
+"Yes, to be sure."
+
+"Ah, and a very great secret!" added Rose, quite seriously.
+
+"A secret which concerns us both," resumed Blanche.
+
+"Faith!  I should think so.  What concerns the one always concerns the
+other.  Are you not always, as the saying goes, 'two faces under one
+hood?'"
+
+"Truly, how can it be otherwise, when you put our heads under the great
+hood of your pelisse?" said Rose, laughing.
+
+"There they are again, mocking-birds!  One never has the last word with
+them.  Come, ladies, your secret, since a secret there is."
+
+"Speak, sister," said Rose.
+
+"No, miss, it is for you to speak.  You are to-day on duty, as eldest,
+and such an important thing as telling a secret like that you talk of
+belongs of right to the elder sister.  Come, I am listening to you,"
+added the soldier, as he forced a smile, the better to conceal from the
+maidens how much he still felt the unpunished affronts of the brute-
+tamer.
+
+It was Rose (who, as Dagobert said, was doing duty as eldest) that spoke
+for herself and for her sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE SECRET.
+
+"First of all, good Dagobert," said Rose, in a gracefully caressing
+manner, "as we are going to tell our secret--you must promise not to
+scold us."
+
+"You will not scold your darlings, will you?" added Blanche, in a no less
+coaxing voice.
+
+"Granted!" replied Dagobert gravely; "particularly as I should not well
+know how to set about it--but why should I scold you."
+
+"Because we ought perhaps to have told you sooner what we are going to
+tell you."
+
+"Listen, my children," said Dagobert sententiously, after reflecting a
+moment on this case of conscience; "one of two things must be.  Either
+you were right, or else you were wrong, to hide this from me.  If you
+were right, very well; if you were wrong, it is done: so let's say no
+more about it.  Go on--I am all attention."
+
+Completely reassured by this luminous decision, Rose resumed, while she
+exchanged a smile with her sister.
+
+"Only think, Dagobert; for two successive nights we have had a visitor."
+
+"A visitor!" cried the soldier, drawing himself up suddenly in his chair.
+
+"Yes, a charming visitor--he is so very fair."
+
+"Fair--the devil!" cried Dagobert, with a start.
+
+"Yes, fair--and with blue eyes," added Blanche.
+
+"Blue eyes--blue devils!" and Dagobert again bounded on his seat.
+
+"Yes, blue eyes--as long as that," resumed Rose, placing the tip of one
+forefinger about the middle of the other.
+
+"Zounds! they might be as long as that," said the veteran, indicating the
+whole length of his term from the elbow they might be as long as that,
+and it would have nothing to do with it.  Fair, and with blue eyes.  Pray
+what may this mean, young ladies?" and Dagobert rose from his seat with a
+severe and painfully unquiet look.
+
+"There now, Dagobert, you have begun to scold us already."
+
+"Just at the very commencement," added Blanche.
+
+"Commencement!--what, is there to be a sequel? a finish?"
+
+"A finish? we hope not," said Rose, laughing like mad.
+
+"All we ask is, that it should last forever," added Blanche, sharing in
+the hilarity of her sister.
+
+Dagobert looked gravely from one to the other of the two maidens, as if
+trying to guess this enigma; but when he saw their sweet, innocent faces
+gracefully animated by a frank, ingenuous laugh, he reflected that they
+would not be so gay if they had any serious matter for self-reproach, and
+he felt pleased at seeing them so merry in the midst of their precarious
+position.
+
+"Laugh on, my children!" he said.  "I like so much to see you laugh."
+
+Then, thinking that was not precisely the way in which he ought to treat
+the singular confession of the young girls, he added in a gruff voice:
+"Yes, I like to see you laugh--but not when you receive fair visitors
+with blue eyes, young ladies!--Come, acknowledge that I'm an old fool to
+listen to such nonsense--you are only making game of me."
+
+"Nay, what we tell you is quite true."
+
+"You know we never tell stories," added Rose.
+
+"They are right--they never fib," said the soldier, in renewed
+perplexity.
+
+"But how the devil is such a visit possible?  I sleep before your door--
+Spoil-sport sleeps under your window--and all the blue eyes and fair
+locks in the world must come in by one of those two ways--and, if they
+had tried it, the dog and I, who have both of us quick ears, would have
+received their visits after our fashion.  But come, children! pray, speak
+to the purpose.  Explain yourselves!"
+
+The two sisters, who saw, by the expression of Dagobert's countenance,
+that he felt really uneasy, determined no longer to trifle with his
+kindness.  They exchanged a glance, and Rose, taking in her little hand
+the coarse, broad palm of the veteran, said to him: "Come, do not plague
+yourself!  We will tell you all about the visits of our friend, Gabriel."
+
+"There you are again!--He has a name, then?"
+
+"Certainly, he has a name.  It is Gabriel."
+
+"Is it not a pretty name, Dagobert?  Oh, you will see and love, as we do,
+our beautiful Gabriel!"
+
+"I'll love your beautiful Gabriel, will I?" said the veteran, shaking his
+head--"Love your beautiful Gabriel?--that's as it may be.  I must first
+know--"Then, interrupting himself, he added: "It is queer.  That reminds
+me of something."
+
+"Of what, Dagobert?"
+
+"Fifteen years ago, in the last letter that your father, on his return
+from France, brought me from my wife: she told me that, poor as she was,
+and with our little growing Agricola on her hands, she had taken in a
+poor deserted child, with the face of a cherub, and the name of Gabriel--
+and only a short time since I heard of him again."
+
+"And from whom, then?"
+
+"You shall know that by and by."
+
+"Well, then--since you have a Gabriel of your own--there is the more
+reason that you should love ours."
+
+"Yours! but who is yours?  I am on thorns till you tell me."
+
+"You know, Dagobert," resumed Rose, "that Blanche and I are accustomed to
+fall asleep, holding each other by the hand."
+
+"Yes, yes, I have often seen you in your cradle.  I was never tired of
+looking at you; it was so pretty."
+
+"Well, then--two nights ago, we had just fallen asleep, when we beheld--"
+
+"Oh, it was in a dream!" cried Dagobert.  "Since you were asleep, it was
+in a dream!"
+
+"Certainly, in a dream- how else would you have it?"
+
+"Pray let my sister go on with her tale!"
+
+"All, well and good!" said the soldier with a sigh of satisfaction; "well
+and good!  To be sure, I was tranquil enough in any case--because--but
+still--I like it better to be a dream.  Continue, my little Rose."
+
+"Once asleep, we both dreamt the same thing."
+
+"What! both the same?"
+
+"Yes, Dagobert; for the next morning when we awoke we related our two
+dreams to each other."
+
+"And they were exactly alike."
+
+"That's odd enough, my children; and what was this dream all about?"
+
+"In our dream, Blanche and I were seated together, when we saw enter a
+beautiful angel, with a long white robe, fair locks, blue eyes, and so
+handsome and benign a countenance, that we elapsed our hands as if to
+pray to him.  Then he told us, in a soft voice, that he was called
+Gabriel; that our mother had sent him to be our guardian angel, and that
+he would never abandon us."
+
+"And, then," added Blanche, "he took us each by the hand, and, bending
+his fair face over us, looked at us for a long time in silence, with so
+much goodness--with so much goodness, that we could not withdraw our eyes
+from his."
+
+"Yes," resumed Rose, "and his look seemed, by turns, to attract us, or to
+go to our hearts.  At length, to our great sorrow, Gabriel quitted us,
+having told us that we should see him again the following night."
+
+"And did he make his appearance?"
+
+"Certainly.  Judge with what impatience we waited the moment of sleep, to
+see if our friend would return, and visit us in our slumbers."
+
+"Humph!" said Dagobert, scratching his forehead; "this reminds me, young
+ladies, that you kept on rubbing your eyes last evening, and pretending
+to be half asleep.  I wager, it was all to send me away the sooner, and
+to get to your dream as fast as possible."
+
+"Yes, Dagobert."
+
+"The reason being, you could not say to me, as you would to Spoil-sport:
+Lie down, Dagobert!  Well--so your friend Gabriel came back?"
+
+"Yes, and this time he talked to us a great deal, and gave us, in the
+name of our mother, such touching, such noble counsels, that the next
+day, Rose and I spent our whole time in recalling every word of our
+guardian angel--and his face, and his look--"
+
+"This reminds me again, young ladies, that you were whispering all along
+the road this morning; and that when I spoke of white, you answered
+black."
+
+"Yes, Dagobert, we were thinking of Gabriel."
+
+"And, ever since, we love him as well as he loves us."
+
+"But he is only one between both of you!"
+
+"Was not our mother one between us?"
+
+"And you, Dagobert--are you not also one for us both?"
+
+"True, true!  And yet, do you know, I shall finish by being jealous of
+that Gabriel?"
+
+"You are our friend by day--he is our friend by night."
+
+"Let's understand it clearly.  If you talk of him all day, and dream of
+him all night, what will there remain for me?"
+
+"There will remain for you your two orphans, whom you love so much," said
+Rose.
+
+"And who have only you left upon earth," added Blanche, in a caressing
+tongue.
+
+"Humph! humph! that's right, coax the old man over, Nay, believe me, my
+children," added the soldier, tenderly, "I am quite satisfied with my
+lot.  I can afford to let you have your Gabriel.  I felt sure that Spoil-
+sport and myself could take our rest in quiet.  After all, there is
+nothing so astonishing in what you tell me; your first dream struck your
+fancy, and you talked so much about it that you had a second; nor should
+I be surprised if you were to see this fine fellow a third time."
+
+"Oh, Dagobert! do not make a jest of it!  They are only dreams, but we
+think our mother sends them to us.  Did she not tell us that orphan
+children were watched over by guardian angels?  Well, Gabriel is our
+guardian angel; he will protect us, and he will protect you also."
+
+"Very kind of him to think of me; but you see, my dear children, for the
+matter of defence, I prefer the dog; he is less fair than your angel, but
+he has better teeth, and that is more to be depended on."
+
+"How provoking you are, Dagobert--always jesting!"
+
+"It is true; you can laugh at everything."
+
+"Yes, I am astonishingly gay; I laugh with my teeth shut, in the style of
+old Jovial.  Come, children, don't scold me: I know I am wrong.  The
+remembrance of your dear mother is mixed with this dream, and you do well
+to speak of it seriously.  Besides," added he, with a grave air, "dreams
+will sometimes come true.  In Spain, two of the Empress's dragoons,
+comrades of mine, dreamt, the night before their death, that they would
+be poisoned by the monks--and so it happened.  If you continue to dream
+of this fair angel Gabriel, it is--it is--why, it is, because you are
+amused by it; and, as you have none too many pleasures in the daytime,
+you may as well get an agreeable sleep at night.  But, now, my children,
+I have also much to tell you; it will concern your mother; promise me not
+to be sad."
+
+"Be satisfied! when we think of her we are not sad, though serious."
+
+"That is well.  For fear of grieving you, I have always delayed the
+moment of telling what your poor mother would have confided to you as
+soon as you were no longer children.  But she died before she had time to
+do so, and that which I have to tell broke her heart--as it nearly did
+mine.  I put off this communication as long as I could, taking for
+pretext that I would say nothing till we came to the field of battle
+where your father was made prisoner.  That gave me time; but the moment
+is now come; I can shuffle it off no longer."
+
+"We listen, Dagobert," responded the two maidens, with an attentive and
+melancholy air.
+
+After a moment's silence, during which he appeared to reflect, the
+veteran thus addressed the young girls:
+
+"Your father, General Simon, was the son of a workman, who remained a
+workman; for, notwithstanding all that the general could say or do, the
+old man was obstinate in not quitting his trade.  He had a heart of gold
+and a head of iron, just like his son.  You may suppose, my children,
+that when your father, who had enlisted as a private soldier, became a
+general and a count of the empire, it was not without toil or without
+glory."
+
+"A count of the Empire! what is that, Dagobert?"
+
+"Flummery--a title, which the Emperor gave over and above the promotion,
+just for the sake of saying to the people, whom he loved because he was
+one of them: Here, children!  You wish to play at nobility!  You shall be
+nobles.  You wish to play at royalty!  You shall be kings.  Take what you
+like--nothing is too good for you--enjoy yourselves!"
+
+"Kings!" said the two girls, joining their hands in admiration.
+
+"Kings of the first water.  Oh, he was no niggard of his crowns, our
+Emperor!  I had a bed-fellow of mine, a brave soldier, who was afterwards
+promoted to be king.  This flattered us; for, if it was not one, it was
+the other.  And so, at this game, your father became count; but, count or
+not, he was one of the best and bravest generals of the army."
+
+"He was handsome, was he not, Dagobert?--mother always said so."
+
+"Oh, yes! indeed he was--but quite another thing from your fair guardian
+angel.  Picture to yourself a fine, dark man, who looked splendid in his
+full uniform, and could put fire into the soldiers' hearts.  With him to
+lead, we would have charged up into Heaven itself--that is, if Heaven
+had, permitted it," added Dagobert, not wishing to wound in any way the
+religious beliefs of the orphans.
+
+"And father was as good as he was brave, Dagobert."
+
+"Good, my children?  Yes, I should say so!--He could bend a horse-shoe in
+his hand as you would bend a card, and the day he was taken prisoner he
+had cut down the Prussian artillerymen on their very cannon.  With
+strength and courage like that, how could he be otherwise than good?
+It is then about nineteen years ago, not far from this place--on the spot
+I showed you before we arrived at the village--that the general,
+dangerously wounded, fell from his horse.  I was following him at the
+time, and ran to his assistance.  Five minutes after we were made
+prisoners--and by whom think you?--by a Frenchman."
+
+"A Frenchman?"
+
+"Yes, an emigrant marquis, a colonel in the service of Russia," answered
+Dagobert, with bitterness.  "And so, when this marquis advanced towards
+us, and said to the general: 'Surrender, sir, to a countryman!'--'A
+Frenchman, who fights against France,' replied the general, 'is no longer
+my countryman; he is a traitor, and I'd never surrender to a traitor!'
+And, wounded though he was, he dragged himself up to a Russian grenadier,
+and delivered him his sabre, saying: 'I surrender to you my brave
+fellow!'  The marquis became pale with rage at it."
+
+The orphans looked at each other with pride, and a rich crimson mantled
+their cheeks, as they exclaimed: "Oh, our brave father!"
+
+"Ah, those children," said Dagobert, as he proudly twirled his moustache.
+"One sees they have soldier's blood in their veins!  Well," he continued,
+"we were now prisoners.  The general's last horse had been killed under
+him; and, to perform the journey, he mounted Jovial, who had not been
+wounded that day.  We arrived at Warsaw, and there it was that the
+general first saw your mother.  She was called the Pearl of Warsaw; that
+is saying everything.  Now he, who admired all that is good and
+beautiful, fell in love with her almost immediately; and she loved him in
+return; but her parents had promised her to another--and that other was
+the same--"
+
+Dagobert was unable to proceed.  Rose uttered a piercing cry, and pointed
+in terror to the window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE TRAVELER.
+
+Upon the cry of the young girl, Dagobert rose abruptly.
+
+"What is the matter, Rose?"
+
+"There--there!" she said, pointing to the window.  "I thought I saw a
+hand move the pelisse."
+
+She had not concluded these words before Dagobert rushed to the window
+and opened it, tearing down the mantle, which had been suspended from the
+fastening.
+
+It was still dark night, and the wind was blowing hard.  The soldier
+listened, but could hear nothing.
+
+Returning to fetch the lamp from the table, he shaded the flame with his
+hand, and strove to throw the light outside.  Still he saw nothing.
+Persuaded that a gust of wind had disturbed and shaken the pelisse: and
+that Rose had been deceived by her own fears he again shut the window.
+
+"Be satisfied, children!  The wind is very high; it is that which lifted
+the corner of the pelisse."
+
+"Yet methought I saw plainly the fingers which had hold of it," said
+Rose, still trembling.
+
+"I was looking at Dagobert," said Blanche, "and I saw nothing."
+
+"There was nothing to see, my children; the thing is clear enough.  The
+window is at least eight feet above the ground; none but a giant could
+reach it without a ladder.  Now, had any one used a ladder, there would
+not have been time to remove it; for, as soon as Rose cried out, I ran to
+the window, and, when I held out the light, I could see nothing."
+
+"I must have been deceived," said Rose.
+
+"You may be sure, sister, it was only the wind," added Blanche.
+
+"Then I beg pardon for having disturbed you, my good Dagobert."
+
+"Never mind!," replied the soldier musingly, "I am only sorry that Spoil-
+sport is not come back.  He would have watched the window, and that would
+have quite tranquillized you. But he no doubt scented the stable of his
+comrade, Jovial, and will have called in to bid him good-night on the
+road.  I have half a mind to go and fetch him."
+
+"Oh, no, Dagobert! do not leave us alone," cried the maidens; "we are too
+much afraid."
+
+"Well, the dog is not likely to remain away much longer, and I am sure we
+shall soon hear him scratching at the door, so we will continue our
+story," said Dagobert, as he again seated himself near the head of the
+bed, but this time with his face towards the window.
+
+"Now the general was prisoner at Warsaw," continued he, "and in love with
+your mother, whom they wished to marry to another.  In 1814, we learned
+the finish of the war, the banishment of the Emperor to the Isle of Elba,
+and the return of the Bourbons.  In concert with the Prussians and
+Russians, who had brought them back, they had exiled the Emperor.
+Learning all this, your mother said to the general: 'The war is finished;
+you are free, but your Emperor is in trouble.  You owe everything to him;
+go and join him in his misfortunes.  I know not when we shall meet again,
+but I shall never marry any one but you, I am yours till death!'--Before
+he set out the general called me to him, and said: 'Dagobert, remain
+here; Mademoiselle Eva may have need of you to fly from her family, if
+they should press too hard upon her; our correspondence will have to pass
+through your hands; at Paris, I shall see your wife and son; I will
+comfort them, and tell them you are my friend.'"
+
+"Always the same," said Rose, with emotion, as she looked affectionately
+at Dagobert.
+
+"As faithful to the father and mother as to their children," added
+Blanche.
+
+"To love one was to love them all," replied the soldier.  "Well, the
+general joined the Emperor at Elba; I remained at Warsaw, concealed in
+the neighborhood of your mother's house; I received the letters, and
+conveyed them to her clandestinely.  In one of those letters--I feel
+proud to tell you of it my children--the general informed me that the
+Emperor himself had remembered me."
+
+"What, did he know you?"
+
+"A little, I flatter myself--'Oh! Dagobert!' said he to your father, who
+was talking to him about me; 'a horse-grenadier of my old guard--a
+soldier of Egypt and Italy, battered with wounds--an old dare-devil, whom
+I decorated with my own hand at Wagram--I have not forgotten him!'--I
+vow, children, when your mother read that to me, I cried like a fool."
+
+"The Emperor--what a fine golden face he has on the silver cross with the
+red ribbon that you would sometimes show us when we behaved well."
+
+"That cross--given by him--is my relic.  It is there in my knapsack, with
+whatever we have of value--our little purse and papers.  But, to return
+to your mother; it was a great consolation to her, when I took her
+letters from the general, or talked with her about him--for she suffered
+much--oh, so much!  In vain her parents tormented and persecuted her; she
+always answered: 'I will never marry any one but General Simon.'  A
+spirited woman, I can tell you--resigned, but wonderfully courageous.
+One day she received a letter from the general; he had left the Isle of
+Elba with the Emperor; the war had again broken out, a short campaign,
+but as fierce as ever, and heightened by soldiers' devotion.  In that
+campaign of France; my children, especially at Montmirail, your father
+fought like a lion, and his division followed his example it was no
+longer valor--it was frenzy.  He told me that, in Champagne, the peasants
+killed so many of those Prussians, that their fields were manured with
+them for years.  Men, women, children, all rushed upon them.  Pitchforks,
+stones, mattocks, all served for the slaughter.  It was a true wolf-
+hunt!"
+
+The veins swelled on the soldier's forehead, and his cheeks flushed as he
+spoke, for this popular heroism recalled to his memory the sublime
+enthusiasm of the wars of the republic--those armed risings of a whole
+people, from which dated the first steps of his military career, as the
+triumphs of the Empire were the last days of his service.
+
+The orphans, too, daughters of a soldier and a brave woman, did not
+shrink from the rough energy of these words, but felt their cheeks glow,
+and their hearts beat tumultuously.
+
+"How happy we are to be the children of so brave a father!" cried
+Blanche.
+
+"It is a happiness and an honor too, my children--for the evening of the
+battle of Montmirail, the Emperor, to the joy of the whole army, made
+your father Duke of Ligny and Marshal of France."
+
+"Marshal of France!" said Rose in astonishment, without understanding the
+exact meaning of the words.
+
+"Duke of Ligny!" added Blanche with equal surprise.
+
+"Yes; Peter Simon, the son of a workman, became duke and marshal--there
+is nothing higher except a king!" resumed Dagobert, proudly.  "That's how
+the Emperor treated the sons of the people, and, therefore, the people
+were devoted to him.  It was all very fine to tell them 'Your Emperor
+makes you food for cannon.'  'Stuff!' replied the people, who are no
+fools, 'another would make us food for misery.  We prefer the cannon,
+with the chance of becoming captain or colonel, marshal, king--or
+invalid; that's better than to perish with hunger, cold, and age, on
+straw in a garret, after toiling forty years for others.'"
+
+"Even in France--even in Paris, that beautiful city--do you mean to say
+there are poor people who die of hunger and misery, Dagobert?"
+
+"Even in Paris?  Yes, my children; therefore, I come back to the point,
+the cannon is better.  With it, one has the chance of becoming, like your
+father, duke and marshal: when I say duke and marshal, I am partly right
+and partly wrong, for the title and the rank were not recognized in the
+end; because, after Montmirail, came a day of gloom, a day of great
+mourning, when, as the general has told me, old soldiers like myself
+wept--yes, wept!--on the evening of a battle.  That day, my children, was
+Waterloo!"
+
+There was in these simple words of Dagobert an expression of such deep
+sorrow, that it thrilled the hearts of the orphans.
+
+"Alas!" resumed the soldier, with a sigh, "there are days which seem to
+have a curse on them.  That same day, at Waterloo, the general fell,
+covered with wounds, at the head of a division of the Guards.  When he
+was nearly cured, which was not for a long time, he solicited permission
+to go to St. Helena--another island at the far end of the world, to which
+the English had carried the Emperor, to torture him at their leisure; for
+if he was very fortunate in the first instance, he had to go through a
+deal of hard rubs at last, my poor children."
+
+"If you talk in that way, you will make us cry, Dagobert."
+
+"There is cause enough for it -the Emperor suffered so much!  He bled
+cruelly at the heart believe me.  Unfortunately, the general was not with
+him at St. Helena; he would have been one more to console him; but they
+would not allow him to go.  Then, exasperated, like so many others,
+against the Bourbons, the general engaged in a conspiracy to recall the
+son of the Emperor.  He relied especially on one regiment, nearly all
+composed of his old soldiers, and he went down to a place in Picardy,
+where they were then in garrison; but the conspiracy had already been
+divulged.  Arrested the moment of his arrival, the general was taken
+before the colonel of the regiment.  And this colonel," said the soldier,
+after a brief pause, "who do you think it was again?  Bah! it would be
+too long to tell you all, and would only make you more sad; but it was a
+man whom your father had many reasons to hate.  When he found himself
+face to face with him, he said: 'if you are not a coward, you will give
+me one hour's liberty, and we will fight to the death; I hate you for
+this, I despise you for that'--and so on.  The colonel accepted the
+challenge, and gave your father his liberty till the morrow.  The duel
+was a desperate one; the colonel was left for dead on the spot."
+
+"Merciful heaven!"
+
+"The general was yet wiping his sword, when a faithful friend came to
+him, and told him he had only just time to save himself.  In fact, he
+happily succeeded in leaving France--yes, happily--for a fortnight after,
+he was condemned to death as a conspirator."
+
+"What misfortunes, good heaven!"
+
+"There was some luck, however, in the midst of his troubles.  Your mother
+had kept her promise bravely, and was still waiting for him.  She had
+written to him: 'The Emperor first, and me next!' both unable to do
+anything more for the Emperor, nor even for his son, the general,
+banished from France, set out for Warsaw.  Your mother had lost her
+parents, and was now free; they were married--and I am one of the
+witnesses to the marriage."
+
+"You are right, Dagobert; that was great happiness in the midst of great
+misfortunes!"
+
+"Yes, they were very happy; but, as it happened with all good hearts, the
+happier they were themselves, the more they felt for the sorrows of
+others--and there was quite enough to grieve them at Warsaw.  The
+Russians had again begun to treat the Poles as their slaves; your brave
+mother, though of French origin, was a Pole in heart and soul; she spoke
+out boldly what others did not dare speak in a whisper, and all the
+unfortunate called her their protecting angel.  That was enough to excite
+the suspicions of the Russian governor.  One day, a friend of the
+general's, formerly a colonel in the lancers, a brave and worthy man, was
+condemned to be exiled to Siberia for a military plot against the
+Russians.  He took refuge in your father's house, and lay hid there; but
+his retreat was discovered.  During the next night, a party of Cossacks,
+commanded by an officer, and followed by a travelling-carriage, arrive at
+our door; they rouse the general from his sleep and take him away with
+them."
+
+"Oh, heaven! what did they mean to do with him?"
+
+"Conduct him out of the Russian dominions, with a charge never to return,
+on pain of perpetual imprisonment.  His last words were: 'Dagobert, I
+entrust to thee my wife and child!'--for it wanted yet some months of the
+time when you were to be born.  Well, notwithstanding that, they exiled
+your mother to Siberia; it was an opportunity to get rid of her; she did
+too much good at Warsaw, and they feared her accordingly.  Not content
+with banishing her, they confiscated all her property; the only favor she
+could obtain was, that I should accompany her, and, had it not been for
+Jovial, whom the general had given to me, she would have had to make the
+journey on foot.  It was thus, with her on horseback, and I leading her
+as I lead you, my children, that we arrived at the poverty-stricken
+village, where, three months after, you poor little things were born!"
+
+"And our father?"
+
+"It was impossible for him to return to Russia; impossible for your
+mother to think of flight, with two children; impossible for the general
+to write to her, as he knew not where she was."
+
+"So, since that time, you have had no news of him?"
+
+"Yes, my children--once we had news."
+
+"And by whom?"
+
+After a moment's silence, Dagobert resumed with a singular expression of
+countenance: "By whom?--by one who is not like other men.  Yes--that you
+may understand me better, I will relate to you an extraordinary
+adventure, which happened to your father during his last French campaign.
+He had been ordered by the Emperor to carry a battery, which was playing
+heavily on our army; after several unsuccessful efforts, the general put
+himself at the head of a regiment of cuirassiers, and charged the
+battery, intending, as was his custom, to cut down the men at their guns.
+He was on horseback, just before the mouth of a cannon, where all the
+artillerymen had been either killed or wounded, when one of them still
+found strength to raise himself upon one knee, and to apply the lighted
+match to the touchhole--and that when your father was about ten paces in
+front of the loaded piece."
+
+"Oh! what a peril for our father!"
+
+"Never, he told me, had he run such imminent danger for he saw the
+artilleryman apply the match, and the gun go off--but, at the very nick,
+a man of tall stature, dressed as a peasant, and whom he had not before
+remarked, threw himself in front of the cannon."
+
+"Unfortunate creature! what a horrible death!"
+
+"Yes," said Dagobert, thoughtfully; "it should have been so.  He ought by
+rights to have been blown into a thousand pieces.  But no--nothing of the
+kind!"
+
+"What do you tell us?"
+
+"What the general told me.  'At the moment when the gun went off,' as he
+often repeated to me, 'I shut my eyes by an involuntary movement, that I
+might not see the mutilated body of the poor wretch who had sacrificed
+himself in my place.  When I again opened them, the first thing I saw in
+the midst of the smoke, was the tall figure of this man, standing erect
+and calm on the same spot, and casting a sad mild look on the
+artilleryman, who, with one knee on the ground, and his body thrown
+backward, gazed on him in as much terror as if he had been the devil.
+Afterwards, I lost sight of this man in the tumult,' added your father."
+
+"Bless me Dagobert! how can this be possible?"
+
+"That is just what I said to the general.  He answered me that he had
+never been able to explain to himself this event, which seemed as
+incredible as it was true.  Moreover, your father must have been greatly
+struck with the countenance of this man, who appeared, he said, about
+thirty years of age--for he remarked, that his extremely black eyebrows
+were joined together, and formed, as it were, one line from temple to
+temple, so that he seemed to have a black streak across his forehead.
+Remember this, my children; you will soon see why."
+
+"Oh, Dagobert! we shall not forget it," said the orphans, growing more
+and more astonished as he proceeded.
+
+"Is it not strange--this man with a black seam on his forehead?"
+
+"Well, you shall hear.  The general had, as I told you, been left for
+dead at Waterloo.  During the night which he passed on the field of
+battle, in a sort of delirium brought on by the fever of his wounds, he
+saw, or fancied he saw, this same man bending over him, with a look of
+great mildness and deep melancholy, stanching his wounds, and using every
+effort to revive him.  But as your father, whose senses were still
+wandering, repulsed his kindness saying, that after such a defeat, it
+only remained to die--it appeared as if this man replied to him; 'You
+must live for Eva!' meaning your mother, whom the general had left at
+Warsaw, to join the Emperor, and make this campaign of France."
+
+"How strange, Dagobert!--And since then, did our father never see this
+man?"
+
+"Yes, he saw him--for it was he who brought news of the general to your
+poor mother."
+
+"When was that?  We never heard of it."
+
+"You remember that, on the day your mother died, you went to the pine-
+forest with old Fedora?"
+
+"Yes," answered Rose, mournfully; "to fetch some heath, of which our
+mother was so fond."
+
+"Poor mother!" added Blanche; "she appeared so well that morning, that we
+could not dream of the calamity which awaited us before night."
+
+"True, my children; I sang and worked that morning in the garden,
+expecting, no more than you did, what was to happen.  Well, as I was
+singing at my work, on a sudden I heard a voice ask me in French: 'Is
+this the village of Milosk?'--I turned round, and saw before me a
+stranger; I looked at him attentively, and, instead of replying, fell
+back two steps, quite stupefied."
+
+"Ah, why?"
+
+"He was of tall stature, very pale, with a high and open forehead; but
+his eyebrows met, and seemed to form one black streak across it."
+
+"Then it was the same man who had twice been with our father in battle?"
+
+"Yes--it was he."
+
+"But, Dagobert," said Rose, thoughtfully, "is it not a long time since
+these battles?"
+
+"About sixteen years,"
+
+"And of what age was this stranger?"
+
+"Hardly more than thirty."
+
+"Then how can it be the same man, who sixteen years before, had been with
+our father in the wars?"
+
+"You are right," said Dagobert, after a moment's silence, and shrugging
+his shoulders: "I may have been deceived by a chance likeness--and yet--"
+
+"Or, if it were the same, he could not have got older all that while."
+
+"But did you ask him, if he had not formerly relieved our father?"
+
+"At first I was so surprised that I did not think of it; and afterwards,
+he remained so short a time, that I had no opportunity.  Well, he asked
+me for the village of Milosk.  'You are there, sir,' said I, `but how do
+you know that I am a Frenchman?' 'I heard you singing as I passed,'
+replied he; 'could you tell me the house of Madame Simon, the general's
+wife?' 'She lives here, sir.' Then looking at me for some seconds in
+silence, he took me by the hand and said:   'You are the friend of
+General Simon--his best friend?' Judge of my astonishment, as I answered:
+'But, sir, how do you know?' 'He has often spoken of you with gratitude.'
+'You have seen the general then?' 'Yes, some time ago, in India.  I am
+also his friend: I bring news of him to his wife, whom I knew to be
+exiled in Siberia.  At Tobolsk, whence I come, I learned that she
+inhabits this village.  Conduct me to her!'"
+
+"The good traveller--I love him already," said Rose.
+
+"Yes, being father's friend."
+
+"I begged him to wait an instant, whilst I went to inform your mother, so
+that the surprise might not do her harm; five minutes after, he was
+beside her."
+
+"And what kind of man was this traveller, Dagobert?"
+
+"He was very tall; he wore a dark pelisse, and a fur cap, and had long
+black hair."
+
+"Was he handsome?"
+
+"Yes, my children--very handsome; but with so mild and melancholy an air,
+that it pained my heart to see him."
+
+"Poor man! he had doubtless known some great sorrow."
+
+"Your mother had been closeted with him for some minutes, when she called
+me to her and said that she had just received good news of the general.
+She was in tears, and had before her a large packet of papers; it was a
+kind of journal, which your father had written every evening to console
+himself; not being able to speak to her, he told the paper all that he
+would have told her."
+
+"Oh! where are these papers, Dagobert?"
+
+"There, in the knapsack, with my cross and our purse.  One day I will
+give them to you: but I have picked out a few leaves here and there for
+you to read presently.  You will see why."
+
+"Had our father been long in India?"
+
+"I gathered from the few words which your mother said, that the general
+had gone to that country, after fighting for the Greeks against the
+Turks--for he always liked to side with the weak against the strong.  In
+India he made fierce war against the English, they had murdered our
+prisoners in pontoons, and tortured the Emperor at St. Helena, and the
+war was a doubly good one, for in harming them he served a just cause."
+
+"What cause did he serve then?"
+
+"That of one of the poor native princes, whose territories the English,
+lay waste, till the day when they can take possession of them against law
+and right.  You see, my children, it was once more the weak against the
+strong, and your father did not miss this opportunity.  In a few months
+he had so well-trained and disciplined the twelve or fifteen thousand men
+of the prince, that, in two encounters, they cut to pieces the English
+sent against them, and who, no doubt, had in their reckoning left out
+your brave father, my children.  But come, you shall read some pages of
+his journal, which will tell you more and better than I can.  Moreover,
+you will find in them a name which you ought always to remember; that's
+why I chose this passage."
+
+"Oh, what happiness!  To read the pages written by our father, is almost
+to hear him speak," said Rose.
+
+"It is as if he were close beside us," added Blanche.
+
+And the girls stretched out their hands with eagerness, to catch hold of
+the leaves that Dagobert had taken from his pocket.  Then, by a
+simultaneous movement, full of touching grace, they pressed the writing
+of their father in silence to their lips.
+
+"You will see also, my children, at the end of this letter, why I was
+surprised that your guardian angel, as you say, should be called Gabriel.
+Read, read," added the soldier, observing the puzzled air of the orphans.
+"Only I ought to tell you that, when he wrote this, the general had not
+yet fallen in with the traveller who brought the papers."
+
+Rose, sitting up in her bed, took the leaves, and began to read in a soft
+and trembling voice, Blanche, with her head resting on her sister's
+shoulder, followed attentively every word.  One could even see, by the
+slight motion of her lips, that she too was reading, but only to herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+EXTRACTS FROM GENERAL SIMON'S DIARY.
+
+Bivouac on the Mountains of Avers February the 20th, 1830.
+
+"Each time I add some pages to this journal, written now in the heart of
+India, where the fortune of my wandering and proscribed existence has
+thrown me--a journal which, alas! my beloved Eva, you may never read--I
+experience a sweet, yet painful emotion; for, although to converse thus
+with you is a consolation, it brings back the bitter thought that I am
+unable to see or speak to you.
+
+"Still, if these pages should ever meet your eyes, your generous heart
+will throb at the name of the intrepid being, to whom I am this day
+indebted for my life, and to whom I may thus perhaps owe the happiness of
+seeing you again--you and my child--for of course our child lives.  Yes,
+it must be--for else, poor wife, what an existence would be yours amid
+the horrors of exile!  Dear soul! he must now be fourteen.  Whom does he
+resemble?  Is he like you?  Has he your large and beautiful blue eyes?--
+Madman that I am! how many times, in this long day-book, have I already
+asked the same idle question, to which you can return no answer!--How
+many times shall I continue to ask it?--But you will teach our child to
+speak and love the somewhat savage name of Djalma."
+
+"Djalma!" said Rose, as with moist eyes she left off reading.
+
+"Djalma!" repeated Blanche, who shared the emotion of her sister.  "Oh,
+we shall never forget that name."
+
+"And you will do well, my children; for it seems to be the name of a
+famous soldier, though a very young one.  But go on, my little Rose!"
+
+"I have told you in the preceding pages, my dear Eva, of the two glorious
+days we had this month.  The troops of my old friend, the prince, which
+daily make fresh advances in European discipline, have performed wonders.
+We have beaten the English, and obliged them to abandon a portion of this
+unhappy country, which they had invaded in contempt of all the rights of
+justice, and which they continue to ravage without mercy, for, in these
+parts, warfare is another name for treachery, pillage, and massacre.
+This morning, after a toilsome march through a rocky and mountainous
+district, we received information from our scouts, that the enemy had
+been reinforced, and was preparing to act on the offensive; and, as we
+were separated from them by a distance of a few leagues only, an
+engagement became inevitable.  My old friend the prince, the father of my
+deliverer, was impatient to march to the attack.  The action began about
+three o'clock; it was very bloody and furious.  Seeing that our men
+wavered for a moment, for they were inferior in number, and the English
+reinforcements consisted of fresh troops, I charged at the head of our
+weak reserve of cavalry.  The old prince was in the centre, fighting, as
+he always fights, intrepidly; his son, Djalma, scarcely eighteen, as
+brave as his father, did not leave my side.  In the hottest part of the
+engagement, my horse was killed under me, and rolling over into a ravine,
+along the edge of which I was riding, I found myself so awkwardly
+entangled beneath him, that for an instant I thought my thigh was
+broken."
+
+"Poor father!" said Blanche.
+
+"This time, happily, nothing more dangerous ensued thanks to Djalma!  You
+see, Dagobert," added Rose, "that I remember the name."  And she
+continued to read,
+
+"The English thought--and a very flattering opinion it was--that, if they
+could kill me, they would make short work of the prince's army.  So a
+Sepoy officer, with five or six irregulars--cowardly, ferocious
+plunderers--seeing me roll down the ravine, threw themselves into it to
+despatch me.  Surrounded by fire and smoke, and carried away by their
+ardor, our mountaineers had not seen me fall; but Djalma never left me.
+He leaped into the ravine to my assistance, and his cool intrepidity
+saved my life.  He had held the fire of his double-barrelled carbine;
+with one load, he killed the officer on the spot; with the other he broke
+the arm of an irregular, who had already pierced my left hand with his
+bayonet.  But do not be alarmed, dear Eva; it is nothing--only a
+scratch."
+
+"Wounded--again wounded--alas!" cried Blanche, clasping her hands
+together, and interrupting her sister.
+
+"Take courage!" said Dagobert: "I dare say it was only a scratch, as the
+general calls it.  Formerly, he used to call wounds, which did not
+disable a man from fighting, blank wounds.  There was no one like him for
+such sayings."
+
+"Djalma, seeing me wounded," resumed Rose, wiping her eyes, "made use of
+his heavy carbine as a club, and drove back the soldiers.  At that
+instant, I perceived a new assailant, who, sheltered behind a clump of
+bamboos which commanded the ravine, slowly lowered his long gun, placed
+the barrel between two branches, and took deliberate aim at Djalma.
+Before my shouts could apprise him of his danger, the brave youth had
+received a ball in his breast.  Feeling himself hit, he fell bark
+involuntarily two paces, and dropped upon one knee: but he still remained
+firm, endeavoring to cover me with his body.  You may conceive my rage
+and despair, whilst all my efforts to disengage myself were paralyzed by
+the excruciating pain in my thigh.  Powerless and disarmed, I witnessed
+for some moments this unequal struggle.
+
+"Djalma was losing blood rapidly; his strength of arm began to fail him;
+already one of the irregulars, inciting his comrades with his voice, drew
+from his belt a huge, heavy kind of bill-hook, when a dozen of our
+mountaineers made their appearance, borne towards the spot by the
+irresistible current of the battle.  Djalma was rescued in his turn, I
+was released, and, in a quarter of an hour, I was able to mount a horse.
+The fortune of the day is ours, though with severe loss; but the fires of
+the English camp are still visible, and to-morrow the conflict will be
+decisive.  Thus, my beloved Eva, I owe my life to this youth.  Happily,
+his wound occasions us no uneasiness; the ball only glanced along the
+ribs in a slanting direction."
+
+"The brave boy might have said: "'A blank wound,' like the general,"
+observed Dagobert.
+
+"Now, my dear Eva," continued Rose, "you must become acquainted, by means
+of this narrative at least, with the intrepid Djalma.  He is but just
+eighteen.  With one word, I will paint for you his noble and valiant
+nature; it is a custom of this country to give surnames, and, when only
+fifteen, he was called 'The Generous'--by which was, of course, meant
+generous in heart and mind.  By another custom, no less touching than
+whimsical, this name was reverted to his parent, who is called 'The
+Father of the Generous,' and who might, with equal propriety, be called
+'The Just,' for this old Indian is a rare example of chivalrous honor and
+proud independence.  He might, like so many other poor princes of this
+country, have humbled himself before the execrable despotism of the
+English, bargained for the relinquishment of sovereign power, and
+submitted to brute force--but it was not in his nature.  'My whole
+rights, or a grave in my native mountains!'--such is his motto.  And this
+is no empty boast; it springs from the conviction of what is right and
+just.  'But you will be crushed in the struggle,' I have said to him--'My
+friend,' he answered, 'what if, to force you to a disgraceful act, you
+were told to yield or die?'--From that day I understood him, and have
+devoted myself, mind and body, to the ever sacred cause of the weak
+against the strong.  You see, my Eva, that Djalma shows himself worthy of
+such a father.  This young Indian is so proud, so heroic in his bravery,
+that, like a young Greek of Leonidas' age, he fights with his breast
+bare; while other warriors of his country (who, indeed, usually have
+arms, breast, and shoulders uncovered) wear, in time of battle, a thick,
+impenetrable vest.  The rash daring of this youth reminds me of Murat,
+King of Naples, who, I have so often told you, I have seen a hundred
+times leading the most desperate charges with nothing but a riding-whip
+in his hand."
+
+"That's another of those kings I was telling you of, whom the Emperor set
+up for his amusement," said Dagobert.  "I once saw a Prussian officer
+prisoner, whose face had been cut across by that mad-cap King of Naples'
+riding-whip; the mark was there, a black and blue stripe.  The Prussian
+swore he was dishonored, and that a sabre-cut would have been preferable.
+I should rather think so!  That devil of a king; he only had one idea:
+'Forward, on to the cannon!'  As soon as they began to cannonade, one
+would have thought the guns were calling him with all their might, for he
+was soon up to them with his 'Here I am!'  If I speak to you about him,
+my children, it's because he was fond of repeating,--'No one can break
+through a square of infantry, if General Simon or I can't do it.'"
+
+Rose continued:
+
+"I have observed with pain, that, notwithstanding his youth, Djalma is
+often subject to fits of deep melancholy.  At times, I have seen him
+exchange with his father looks of singular import.  In spite of our
+mutual attachment, I believe that both conceal from me some sad family
+secret, in so far as I can judge from expressions which have dropped from
+them by chance.
+
+"It relates to some strange event which their vivid imaginations have
+invested with a supernatural character.
+
+"And yet, my love, you and I have no longer the right to smile at the
+credulity of others.  I, since the French campaign, when I met with that
+extraordinary adventure, which, to this day, I am quite unable to
+understand--"
+
+"This refers to the man who threw himself before the mouth of the
+cannon," said Dagobert.
+
+"And you," continued the maiden, still reading, "you, my dear Eva, since
+the visits of that young and beautiful woman, whom, as your mother
+asserted, she had seen at her mother's house forty years before."
+
+The orphans, in amazement, looked at the soldier.
+
+"Your mother never spoke to me of that, nor the general either, my
+children; this is as strange to me as it is to you."
+
+With increasing excitement and curiosity, Rose continued:
+
+"After all, my dear Eva, things which appear very extraordinary, may
+often be explained by a chance resemblance or a freak of nature.  Marvels
+being always the result of optical illusion or heated fancy, a time must
+come, when that which appeared to be superhuman or supernatural, will
+prove to be the most simple and natural event in the world.  I doubt not,
+therefore, that the things, which we denominate our prodigies, will one
+day receive this commonplace solution."
+
+"You see, my children--things appear marvelous, which at bottom are quite
+simple--though for a long time we understand nothing about them."
+
+"As our father relates this, we must believe it, and not be astonished--
+eh, sister?"
+
+"Yes, truly--since it will all be explained one day."
+
+"For example," said Dagobert, after a moment's reflection, "you two are
+so much alike, that any one, who was not in the habit of seeing you
+daily, might easily take one for the other.  Well! if they did not know
+that you are, so to speak,'doubles,' they might think an imp was at work
+instead of such good little angels as you are."
+
+"You are right, Dagobert; in this way many things may be explained, even
+as our father says."  And Rose continued to read:
+
+"Not without pride, my gentle Eva, have I learned that Djalma has French
+blood in his veins.  His father married, some years ago, a young girl,
+whose family, of French origin, had long been settled at Batavia in the
+island of Java.  This similarity of circumstances between my old friend
+and myself--for your family also, my Eva, is of French origin, and long
+settled in a foreign land--has only served to augment my sympathy for
+him. Unfortunately, he has long had to mourn the loss of the wife whom he
+adored.
+
+"See, my beloved Eva! my hand trembles as I write these words.  I am
+weak--I am foolish--but, alas! my heart sinks within me.  If such a
+misfortune were to happen to me--Oh, my God!--what would become of our
+child without thee--without his father--in that barbarous country?  But
+no! the very fear is madness; and yet what a horrible torture is
+uncertainty!  Where may you now be?  What are you doing?  What has become
+of you?  Pardon these black thoughts, which are sometimes too much for
+me.  They are the cause of my worst moments--for, when free from them, I
+can at least say to myself: I am proscribed, I am every way unfortunate--
+but, at the other end of the world, two hearts still beat for me with
+affection--yours, my Eva, and our child's!"
+
+Rose could hardly finish this passage; for some seconds her voice was
+broken by sobs.  There was indeed a fatal coincidence between the fears
+of General Simon and the sad reality; and what could be more touching
+than these outpourings of the heart, written by the light of a watch-
+fire, on the eve of battle, by a soldier who thus sought to soothe the
+pangs of a separation, which he felt bitterly, but knew not would be
+eternal?
+
+"Poor general! he is unaware of our misfortune," said Dagobert, after a
+moment's silence; "but neither has he heard that he has two children,
+instead of one.  That will be at least some consolation.  But come,
+Blanche; do go on reading: I fear that this dwelling on grief fatigues
+your sister, and she is too much affected by it.  Besides, after all, it
+is only just, that you should take your share of its pleasure and its
+sorrow."
+
+Blanche took the letter, and Rose, having dried her eyes, laid in her
+turn her sweet head on the shoulder of her sister, who thus continued:
+
+"I am calmer now, my dear Eva; I left off writing for a moment, and
+strove to banish those black presentiments.  Let us resume our
+conversation!  After discoursing so long about India, I will talk to you
+a little of Europe.  Yesterday evening, one of our people (a trusty
+fellow) rejoined our outposts.  He brought me a letter, which had arrived
+from France at Calcutta; at length, I have news of my father, and am no
+longer anxious on his account.  This letter is dated in August of last
+year.  I see by its contents, that several other letters, to which he
+alludes, have either been delayed or lost; for I had not received any for
+two years before, and was extremely uneasy about him.  But my excellent
+father is the same as ever!  Age has not weakened him; his character is
+as energetic, his health as robust, as in times past--still a workman,
+still proud of his order, still faithful to his austere republican ideas,
+still hoping much.
+
+"For he says to me, 'the time is at hand,' and he underlines those words.
+He gives me also, as you will see, good news of the family of old
+Dagobert, our friend--for in truth, my dear Eva, it soothes my grief to
+think, that this excellent man is with you, that he will have accompanied
+you in your exile--for I know him--a kernel of gold beneath the rude rind
+of a soldier!  How he must love our child!"
+
+Here Dagobert coughed two or three times, stooped down, and appeared to
+be seeking on the ground the little red and blue check-handkerchief
+spread over his knees.  He remained thus bent for some seconds, and, when
+he raised himself, he drew his hand across his moustache.
+
+"How well father knows you!"
+
+"How rightly has he guessed that you would love us!"
+
+"Well, well, children; pass over that!--Let's come to the part where the
+general speaks of my little Agricola, and of Gabriel, my wife's adopted
+child.  Poor woman! when I think that in three months perhaps--but come,
+child, read, read," added the old soldier, wishing to conceal his
+emotion.
+
+"I still hope against hope, my dear Eva, that these pages will one day
+reach you, and therefore I wish to insert in them all that can be
+interesting to Dagobert.  It will be a consolation to him, to have some
+news of his family.  My father, who is still foreman at Mr. Hardy's,
+tells me that worthy man has also taken into his house the son of old
+Dagobert.  Agricola works under my father, who is enchanted with him.  He
+is, he tells me, a tall and vigorous lad, who wields the heavy forge-
+hammer as if it were a feather, and is light-spirited as he is
+intelligent and laborious.  He is the best workman on the establishment;
+and this does not prevent him in the evening, after his hard day's work,
+when he returns home to his mother, whom he truly loves, from making
+songs and writing excellent patriotic verses.  His poetry is full of fire
+and energy; his fellow-workmen sing nothing else, and his lays have the
+power to warm the coldest and the most timid hearts."
+
+"How proud you must be of your son, Dagobert," said Rose, in admiration;
+"he writes songs."
+
+"Certainly, it is all very fine--but what pleases me best is, that he is
+good to his mother, and that he handles the hammer with a will.  As for
+the songs, before he makes a 'Rising of the People,' or a 'Marseillaise,'
+he will have had to beat a good deal of iron; but where can this rascally
+sweet Agricola have learned to make songs at all?--No doubt, it was at
+school, where he went, as you will see, with his adopted brother
+Gabriel."
+
+At this name of Gabriel, which reminded them of the imaginary being whom
+they called their guardian angel, the curiosity of the young girls was
+greatly excited.  With redoubled attention, Blanche continued in these
+words:
+
+"The adopted brother of Agricola, the poor deserted child whom the wife
+of our good Dagobert so generously took in, forms, my father tells me, a
+great contrast with Agricola; not in heart, for they have both excellent
+hearts; but Gabriel is as thoughtful and melancholy as Agricola is
+lively, joyous, and active.  Moreover, adds my father, each of them, so
+to speak, has the aspect, which belongs to his character.  Agricola is
+dark, tall, and strong, with a gay and bold air; Gabriel, on the
+contrary, is weak, fair, timid as a girl, and his face wears an
+expression of angelic mildness."
+
+The orphans looked at each other in surprise; then, as they turned
+towards the soldier their ingenuous countenances, Rose said to him; "Have
+you heard, Dagobert?  Father says, that your Gabriel is fair, and has the
+face of an angel.  Why, 'tis exactly like ours!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I heard very well; it is that which surprised me, in your
+dream."
+
+"I should like to know, if he has also blue eyes," said Rose.
+
+"As for that, my children, though the general says nothing about it, I
+will answer for it: your fair boys have always blue eyes.  But, blue or
+black, he will not use them to stare at young ladies; go on, and you will
+see why."
+
+Blanche resumed:
+
+"His face wears an expression of angelic mildness.  One of the Brothers
+of the Christian Schools, where he went with Agricola and other children
+of his quarter, struck with his intelligence and good disposition, spoke
+of him to a person of consequence, who, becoming interested in the lad,
+placed him in a seminary for the clergy, and, since the last two years,
+Gabriel is a priest.  He intends devoting himself to foreign missions,
+and will soon set out for America."
+
+"Your Gabriel is a priest, it appears?" said Rose, looking at Dagobert.
+
+"While ours is an angel," added Blanche.
+
+"Which only proves that yours is a step higher than mine.  Well, every
+one to his taste; there are good people in all trades; but I prefer that
+it should be Gabriel who has chosen the black gown.  I'd rather see my
+boy with arms bare, hammer in hand, and a leathern apron round him,
+neither more nor less than your old grandfather, my children--the father
+of Marshal Simon, Duke of Ligny--for, after all, marshal and duke he is
+by the grace of the Emperor.  Now finish your letter."
+
+"Soon, alas, yes!" said Blanche; "there are only a few lines left."  And
+she proceeded:
+
+"Thus, my dear, loving Eva, if this journal should ever reach its
+destination, you will be able to satisfy Dagobert as to the position of
+his wife and son, whom he left for our sakes.  How can we ever repay such
+a sacrifice?  But I feel sure, that your good and generous heart will
+have found some means of compensation.
+
+"Adieu!--Again adieu, for to-day, my beloved Eva; I left off writing for
+a moment, to visit the tent of Djalma.  He slept peacefully, and his
+father watched beside him; with a smile, he banished my fears.  This
+intrepid young man is no longer in any danger.  May he still be spared in
+the combat of to-morrow!  Adieu, my gentle Eva! the night is silent and
+calm; the fires of the bivouac are slowly dying out, and our poor
+mountaineers repose after this bloody day; I can hear, from hour to hour,
+the distant all's well of our sentinels.  Those foreign words bring back
+my grief; they remind me of what I sometimes forget in writing--that I am
+faraway, separated from you and from my child!  Poor, beloved beings!
+what will be your destiny?  Ah! if I could only send you, in time, that
+medal, which, by a fatal accident, I carried away with me from Warsaw,
+you might, perhaps, obtain leave to visit France, or at least to send our
+child there with Dagobert; for you know of what importance--But why add
+this sorrow to all the rest?  Unfortunately, the years are passing away,
+the fatal day will arrive, and this last hope, in which I live for you,
+will also be taken from me: but I will not close the evening by so sad a
+thought.  Adieu, my beloved Eva!  Clasp our child to your bosom, and
+cover it with all the kisses which I send to both of you from the depths
+of exile!"
+
+"Till to-morrow--after the battle!"
+
+The reading of this touching letter was followed by long silence.  The
+tears of Rose and Blanche flowed together.  Dagobert, with his head
+resting on his hand, was absorbed in painful reflections.
+
+Without doors, the wind had now augmented in violence; a heavy rain began
+to beat on the sounding panes; the most profound silence reigned in the
+interior of the inn.  But, whilst the daughters of General Simon were
+reading with such deep emotion, these fragments of their father's
+journal, a strange and mysterious scene transpired in the menagerie of
+the brute-tamer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CAGES.
+
+Morok had prepared himself.  Over his deer-skin vest he had drawn the
+coat of mail--that steel tissue, as pliable as cloth, as hard as
+diamonds; next, clothing his arms and legs in their proper armor, and his
+feet in iron-bound buskins, and concealing all this defensive equipment
+under loose trousers and an ample pelisse carefully buttoned, he took in
+his hand a long bar of iron, white-hot, set in a wooden handle.
+
+Though long ago daunted by the skill and energy of the Prophet, his tiger
+Cain, his lion Judas, and his black panther Death, had sometimes
+attempted, in a moment of rebellion, to try their fangs and claws on his
+person; but, thanks to the armor concealed beneath his pelisse, they
+blunted their claws upon a skin of steel, and notched their fangs upon
+arms or legs of iron, whilst a slight touch of their master's metallic
+wand left a deep furrow in their smoking, shrivelled flesh.
+
+Finding the inutility of their efforts, and endowed with strong memory,
+the beasts soon learned that their teeth and claws were powerless when
+directed against this invulnerable being.  Hence, their terrified
+submission reached to such a point that, in his public representations,
+their master could make them crouch and cower at his feet by the least
+movement of a little wand covered with flame-colored paper.
+
+The Prophet, thus armed with care, and holding in his hand the iron made
+hot by Goliath, descended by the trapdoor of the loft into the large shed
+beneath, in which were deposited the cages of his animals.  A mere wooden
+partition separated this shed from the stable that contained his horses.
+
+A lantern, with a reflector, threw a vivid light on the cages.  They were
+four in number.  A wide iron grating formed their sides, turning at one
+end upon hinges like a door, so as to give ingress to the animal; the
+bottom of each den rested on two axle-trees and four small iron castors,
+so that they could easily be removed to the large covered wagon in which
+they were placed during a journey.  One of them was empty; the other
+three contained, as already intimated, a panther, a tiger, and a lion.
+
+The panther, originally from Java, seemed to merit the gloomy name of
+Death, by her grim, ferocious aspect.  Completely black, she lay
+crouching and rolled up in the bottom of her cage, and her dark hues
+mingling with the obscurity which surrounded her, nothing was distinctly
+visible but fixed and glaring eyes--yellow balls of phosphoric light,
+which only kindled, as it were, in the night-time; for it is the nature
+of all the animals of the feline species to enjoy entire clearness of
+vision but in darkness.
+
+The Prophet entered the stable in silence: the dark red of his long
+pelisse contrasted with the pale yellow of his straight hair and beard;
+the lantern, placed at some height above the ground, threw its rays full
+upon this man, and the strong light, opposed to the deep shadows around
+it, gave effect to the sharp proportions of his bony and savage looking
+figure.
+
+He approached the cage slowly.  The white rim, which encircled his
+eyeball, appeared to dilate, and his look rivaled in motionless
+brilliancy the steadily sparkling gaze of the panther.  Still crouching
+in the shade, she felt already the fascination of that glance; two or
+three times she dropped her eyelids, with a low, angry howl; then,
+reopening her eyes, as if in spite of herself, she kept them fastened
+immovably on those of the Prophet.  And now her rounded ears clung to her
+skull, which was flattened like a viper's; the skin of her forehead
+became convulsively wrinkled; she drew in her bristling, but silky
+muzzle, and twice silently opened her jaws, garnished with formidable
+fangs.  From that moment a kind of magnetic connection seemed to be
+established between the man and the beast.
+
+The Prophet extended his glowing bar towards the cage, and said, in a
+sharp, imperious tone: "Death! come here."
+
+The panther rose, but so dragged herself along that her belly and the
+bend of her legs touched the ground.  She was three feet high, and nearly
+five in length; her elastic and fleshy spine, the sinews of her thighs as
+well developed as those of a race-horse, her deep chest, her enormous
+jutting shoulders, the nerve and muscle in her short, thick paws--all
+announced that this terrible animal united vigor with suppleness, and
+strength with agility.
+
+Morok, with his iron wand still extended in the direction of the cage,
+made a step towards the panther.  The panther made a stride towards the
+Prophet.  Morok stopped; Death stopped also.
+
+At this moment the tiger, Judas, to whom Morok's back was turned, bounded
+violently in his cage, as if jealous of the attention, which his master
+paid to the panther.  He growled hoarsely, and, raising his head, showed
+the under-part of his redoubtable triangular jaw, and his broad chest of
+a dirty white, with which blended the copper color, streaked with black,
+of his sides; his tail, like a huge red serpent, with rings of ebony, now
+clung to his flanks, now lashed them with a slow and continuous movement:
+his eyes, of a transparent, brilliant green, were fixed upon the Prophet.
+
+Such was the influence of this man over his animals, that Judas almost
+immediately ceased growling, as if frightened at his own temerity; but
+his respiration continued loud and deep.  Morok turned his face towards
+him, and examined him very attentively during some seconds.  The panther,
+no longer subject to the influence of her master's look, slunk back to
+crouch in the shade.
+
+A sharp cracking, in sudden breaks, like that which great animals make in
+gnawing hard substances, was now heard from the cage of the lion.  It
+drew the attention of the Prophet, who, leaving the tiger, advanced
+towards the other den.
+
+Nothing could be seen of the lion but his monstrous croup of a reddish
+yellow.  His thighs were gathered under him, and his thick mane served
+entirely to conceal his head.  But by the tension and movement of the
+muscles of his loins, and the curving of his backbone, it was easy to
+perceive that he was making violent efforts with his throat and his
+forepaws.  The Prophet approached the cage with same uneasiness, fearing
+that, notwithstanding his orders, Goliath had given the lion some bones
+to gnaw.  To assure himself of it, he said in a quick and firm voice:
+"Cain!"
+
+The lion did not change his position.
+
+"Cain! come here!" repeated Morok in a louder tone.  The appeal was
+useless; the lion did not move, and the noise continued.
+
+"Cain! come here!" said the Prophet a third time; but, as he pronounced
+these words, he applied the end of the glowing bar to the haunch of the
+lion.
+
+Scarcely did the light track of smoke appear on the reddish hide of Cain,
+when, with a spring of incredible agility, he turned and threw himself
+against the grating, not crouching, but at a single bound--upright,
+superb, terrifying.  The Prophet being at the angle of the cage, Cain, in
+his fury, had raised himself sideways to face his master, and, leaning
+his huge flank against the bars, thrust between them his enormous fore-
+leg, which, with his swollen muscles, was as large as Goliath's thigh.
+
+"Cain! down!" said the Prophet, approaching briskly.
+
+The lion did not obey immediately.  His lips, curling with rage,
+displayed fangs as long, as large, and as pointed as the tusks of a wild
+boar.  But Morok touched those lips with the end of the burning metal;
+and, as he felt the smart, followed by an unexpected summons of his
+master, the lion, not daring to roar, uttered a hollow growl, and his
+great body sank down at once in an attitude of submission and fear.
+
+The Prophet took down the lantern to see what Cain had been gnawing.  It
+was one of the planks from the floor of his den, which he had succeeded
+in tearing up, and was crunching between his teeth in the extremity of
+his hunger.  For a few moments the most profound silence reigned in the
+menagerie.  The Prophet, with his hands behind his back, went from one
+cage to the other, observing the animals with a restless contemplative
+look, as if he hesitated to make between them an important and difficult
+choice.
+
+From time to time he listened at the great door of the shed, which opened
+on the court-yard of the inn.  At length this door turned on its hinges,
+and Goliath appeared, his clothes dripping with water.
+
+"Well! is it done?" said the Prophet.
+
+"Not without trouble.  Luckily, the night is dark, it blows hard, and it
+pours with rain."
+
+"Then there is no suspicion?"
+
+"None, master.  Your information was good.  The door of the cellar opens
+on the fields, just under the window of the lasses.  When you whistled to
+let me know it was time, I crept out with a stool I had provided; I put
+it up against the wall, and mounted upon it; with my six feet, that made
+nine, and I could lean my elbows on the window-ledge; I took the shutter
+in one hand, and the haft of my knife in the other, and, whilst I broke
+two of the panes, I pushed the shutter with all my might."
+
+"And they thought it was the wind?"
+
+"Yes, they thought it was the wind.  You see, the 'brute' is not such a
+brute, after all.  That done, I crept back into my cellar, carrying my
+stool with me.  In a little time, I heard the voice of the old man; it
+was well I had made haste."
+
+"Yes, when I whistled to you, he had just entered the supper-room.  I
+thought he would have been longer."
+
+"That man's not built to remain long at supper," said the giant,
+contemptuously.  "Some moments after the panes had been broken, the old
+man opened the window, and called his dog, saying: 'Jump out!'--I went
+and hid myself at the further end of the cellar, or that infernal dog
+would have scented me through the door."
+
+"The dog is now shut up in the stable with the old man's horse."
+"Go on!"
+
+"When I heard them close shutter and window, I came out of my cellar,
+replaced my stool, and again mounted upon it.  Unfastening the shutter, I
+opened it without noise, but the two broken panes were stopped up with
+the skirts of a pelisse.  I heard talking, but I could see nothing; so I
+moved the pelisse a little, and then I could see the two lasses in bed
+opposite to me, and the old man sitting down with his back to where I
+stood."
+
+"But the knapsack--the knapsack?--That is the most important."
+
+"The knapsack was near the window, on a table, by the side of a lamp; I
+could have reached it by stretching out my arm."
+
+"What did you hear said?"
+
+"As you told me to think only of the knapsack, I can only remember what
+concerns the knapsack.  The old man said he had some papers in it--the
+letter of a general--his money--his cross."
+
+"Good--what next?"
+
+"As it was difficult for me to keep the pelisse away from the hole, it
+slipped through my fingers.  In trying to get hold of it again, I put my
+hand too much forward.  One of the lasses saw it, and screamed out,
+pointing to the window."
+
+"Dolt!" exclaimed the Prophet, becoming pale with rage, "you have ruined
+all."
+
+"Stop a bit! there is nothing broken yet.  When I heard the scream, I
+jumped down from my stool, and got back into the cellar; as the dog was
+no longer about, I left the door ajar, so that I could hear them open the
+window, and see, by the light, that the old man was looking out with the
+lamp; but he could find no ladder, and the window was too high for any
+man of common size to reach it!"
+
+"He will have thought, like the first time, that it was the wind.  You
+are less awkward than I imagined."
+
+"The wolf has become a fox, as you said.  Knowing where the knapsack was
+to be found with the money and the papers, and not being able to do more
+for the moment, I came away--and here I am."
+
+"Go upstairs and fetch me the longest pike."
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"And the red blanket."
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"Go!"
+
+Goliath began to mount the ladder; half-way up he stopped.  "Master,"
+said he, "may I not bring down a bit of meat for Death?--you will see
+that she'll bear me malice; she puts it all down to my account; she never
+forgets, and on the first occasion--"
+
+"The pike and the cloth!" repeated the Prophet, in an imperious tone.
+And whilst Goliath, swearing to himself, proceeded to execute his
+instructions, Morok opened the great door of the shed, looked out into
+the yard, and listened.
+
+"Here's the pike and the cloth," said the giant, as he descended the
+ladder with the articles.  "Now what must I do next?"
+
+"Return to the cellar, mount once more by the window, and when the old
+man leaves the room--"
+
+"Who will make him leave the room?"
+
+"Never mind! he will leave it."
+
+"What next?"
+
+"You say the lamp is near the window?"
+
+"Quite near--on the table next to the knapsack."
+
+"Well, then, as soon as the old man leaves the room, push open the
+window, throw down the lamp, and if you accomplish cleverly what remains
+to do--the ten florins are yours--you remember it all?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"The girls will be so frightened by the noise and darkness, that they
+will remain dumb with terror."
+
+"Make yourself easy!  The wolf turned into a fox; why not a serpent?"
+
+"There is yet something."
+
+"Well, what now?"
+
+"The roof of this shed is not very high, the window of the loft is easy
+of access, the night is dark--instead of returning by the door--"
+
+"I will come in at the window."
+
+"Ay, and without noise."
+
+"Like a regular snake!" and the giant departed.
+
+"Yes!" said the Prophet to himself, after a long silence, "these means
+are sure.  It was not for me to hesitate.  A blind and obscure
+instrument, I know not the motives of the orders I have received: but
+from the recommendations which accompany them--but from the position of
+him who sends them--immense interests must be involved--interests
+connected with all that is highest and greatest upon earth! -And yet how
+can these two girls, almost beggars, how can this wretched soldier
+represent such interests?--No matter," added he, with humility; "I am the
+arm which acts--it is for the head, which thinks and orders, to answer
+for its work."
+
+Soon after the Prophet left the shed, carrying with him the red cloth,
+and directed his steps towards the little stable that contained Jovial.
+The crazy door, imperfectly secured by a latch, was easily opened.  At
+sight of a stranger Spoil-sport threw himself upon him; but his teeth
+encountered the iron leggings of the Prophet, who, in spite of the
+efforts of the dog took Jovial by his halter, threw the blanket over his
+head to prevent his either seeing or smelling, and led him from the
+stable into the interior of the menagerie, of which he closed the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE SURPRISE.
+
+The orphans, after reading the journal of their father, remained for some
+moments silent, sad, and pensive, contemplating the leaves yellowed by
+time.  Dagobert, also plunged in a reverie, thought of his wife and son,
+from whom he had been so long separated, and hoped soon to see again.
+
+The soldier was the first to break the silence, which had lasted for
+several minutes.  Taking the leaves from the hand of Blanche, he folded
+them carefully, put them into his pocket, and thus addressed the orphans:
+
+"Courage, my children! you see what a brave father you have.  Think only
+of the pleasure of greeting him, and remember always the name of the
+gallant youth, to whom you will owe that pleasure--for without him your
+father would have been killed in India."
+
+"Djalma! we shall never forget him," said Rose.
+
+"And if our guardian angel Gabriel should return," added Blanche, "we
+will ask him to watch over Djalma as over ourselves."
+
+"Very well, my children; I am sure that you will forget nothing that
+concerns good feeling.  But to return to the traveller, who came to visit
+your poor mother in Siberia, he had seen the general a month after the
+events of which you have read, and at a moment when he was about to enter
+on a new campaign against the English.  It was then that your father
+entrusted him with the papers and medal."
+
+"But of what use will this medal be to us, Dagobert?"
+
+"And what is the meaning of these words engraved upon it?" added Rose, as
+she drew it from her bosom.
+
+"Why it means, my children, that on the 13th of February, 1832, we must
+be at No. 3, Rue Saint Francois, Paris."
+
+"But what are we to do there?"
+
+"Your poor mother was seized so quickly with her last illness, that she
+was unable to tell me.  All I know is, that this medal came to her from
+her parents, and that it had been a relic preserved in her family for
+more than a century."
+
+"And how did our father get it?"
+
+"Among the articles which had been hastily thrown into the coach, when he
+was removed by force from Warsaw, was a dressing-case of your mother's,
+in which was contained this medal.  Since that time the general had been
+unable to send it back, having no means of communicating with us, and not
+even knowing where we were."
+
+"This medal is, then, of great importance to us?"
+
+"Unquestionably; for never, during fifteen years, had I seen your mother
+so happy, as on the day the traveller brought it back to her.  'Now,'
+said she to me, in the presence of the stranger, and with tears of joy in
+her eyes, 'now may my children's future be brilliant as their life has
+hitherto been miserable.  I will entreat of the governor of Siberia
+permission to go to France with my daughters; it will perhaps be thought
+I have been sufficiently punished, by fifteen years of exile, and the
+confiscation of my property.  Should they refuse, I will remain here; but
+they will at least allow me to send my children to France, and you must
+accompany them, Dagobert.  You shall set out immediately, for much time
+has been already lost; and, if you were not to arrive before the 13th of
+next February, this cruel separation and toilsome journey would have been
+all in vain.'"
+
+"Suppose we were one day after?"
+
+"Your mother told me that if we arrived the 14th instead of the 13th, it
+would be too late.  She also gave me a thick letter, to put into the post
+for France, in the first town we should pass through--which I have done."
+
+"And do you think we shall be at Paris in time?"
+
+"I hope so; still, if you are strong enough, we must sometimes make
+forced marches--for, if we only travel our five leagues a day, and that
+without accident, we shall scarcely reach Paris until the beginning of
+February, and it is better to be a little beforehand."
+
+"But as father is in--India, and condemned to death if he return to
+France, when shall we see him?"
+
+"And where shall we see him?"
+
+"Poor children! there are so many things you have yet to learn.  When the
+traveller quitted him, the general could not return to France, but now he
+can do so."
+
+"And why is that?"
+
+"Because the Bourbons, who had banished him, were themselves turned out
+last year.  The news must reach India, and your father will certainly
+come to meet you at Paris, because he expects that you and your mother
+will be there on the 13th of next February."
+
+"Ah! now I understand how we may hope to see him," said Rose with a sigh.
+
+"Do you know the name of this traveller, Dagobert?"
+
+"No, my children; but whether called Jack or John, he is a good sort.
+When he left your mother, she thanked him with tears for all his kindness
+and devotion to the general, herself, and the children; but he pressed
+her hands in his, and said to her, in so gentle a voice that I could not
+help being touched by it: "Why do you thank me?  Did He not Say--LOVE YE
+ONE ANOTHER!"
+
+"Who is that, Dagobert?"
+
+"Yes, of whom did the traveller speak?"
+
+"I know nothing about it; only the manner in which he pronounced those
+words struck me, and they were the last he spoke."
+
+"Love one another!" repeated Rose, thoughtfully.
+
+"How beautiful are those words!" added Blanche.
+
+"And whither was the traveller going?"
+
+"Far, very far into the North, as he told your mother.  When she saw him
+depart, she said to me: 'His mild, sad talk has affected me even to
+tears; whilst I listened to him, I seemed to be growing better--I seemed
+to love my husband and my children more--and yet, to judge by the
+expression of his countenance, one would think that this stranger had
+never either smiled or wept!' She and I watched him from the door as long
+as we could follow him with our eyes; he carried his head down, and his
+walk was slow, calm, and firm; one might fancy that he counted his steps.
+And, talking of steps, I remarked yet another thing."
+
+"What was it, Dagobert?"
+
+"You know that the road which led to our house way, always damp, because
+of the overflowing of the little spring."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then, the mark of the traveller's footsteps remained in the clay,
+and I saw that he had nails under his shoe in the form of a cross."
+
+"How in the form of a cross?"
+
+"Look!" said Dagobert, placing the tip of his finger seven times on the
+coverlet of the bed; "they were arrange: thus beneath his heel:
+
+                    *
+                   ***
+                    *
+                    *
+                    *
+
+You see it forms a cross.
+
+"What could it mean, Dagobert?"
+
+"Chance, perhaps--yes, chance--and yet, in spite of myself, this
+confounded cross left behind him struck me as a bad omen, for hardly was
+he gone when misfortune after misfortune fell upon us."
+
+"Alas! the death of our mother!"
+
+"Yes--but, before that, another piece of ill-luck.  You had not yet
+returned, and she was writing her petition to ask leave to go to France
+or to send you there, when I heard the gallop of a horse.  It was a
+courier from the governor general of Siberia.  He brought us orders to
+change our residence; within three days we were to join other condemned
+persons, and be removed with them four hundred leagues further north.
+Thus, after fifteen years of exile, they redoubled in cruelty towards
+your mother."
+
+"Why did they thus torment her?"
+
+"One would think that some evil genius was at work against her.  A few
+days later, the traveller would no longer have found us at Milosk; and if
+he had joined us further on, it would have been too far for the medal and
+papers to be of use--since, having set out almost immediately, we shall
+hardly arrive in time at Paris.  'If they had some interest to prevent me
+and my children from going to France,' said your mother, 'they would act
+just as they have done.  To banish us four hundred leagues further, is to
+render impossible this journey, of which the term is fixed.'  And the
+idea overwhelmed her with grief."
+
+"Perhaps it was this unexpected sorrow that was the cause of her sudden
+illness."
+
+"Alas! no, my children; it was that infernal cholera, who arrives without
+giving you notice--for he too is a great traveller--and strikes you down
+like a thunderbolt.  Three hours after the traveller had left us, when
+you returned quite pleased and gay from the forest, with your large
+bunches of wild-flowers for your mother, she was already in the last
+agony, and hardly to be recognized.  The cholera had broken out in the
+village, and that evening five persons died of it.  Your mother had only
+time to hang the medal about your neck, my dear little Rose, to recommend
+you both to my care, and to beg that we should set out immediately.  When
+she was gone, the new order of exile could not apply to you; and I
+obtained permission from the governor to take my departure with you for
+France, according to the last wishes--"
+
+The soldier could not finish the sentence; he covered his eyes with his
+hand, whilst the orphans embraced him sobbing.
+
+"Oh! but," resumed Dagobert, with pride, after a moment of painful
+silence, "it was then that you showed yourselves the brave daughters of
+the general.  Notwithstanding the danger, it was impossible to tear you
+from your mother's bedside; you remained with her to the last, you closed
+her eyes, you watched there all night, and you would not leave the
+village till you had seen me plant the little wooden cross over the grave
+I had dug for her."
+
+Dagobert paused abruptly.  A strange, wild neighing, mingled with
+ferocious roarings, made the soldier start from his seat.  He grew pale,
+and cried: "It is Jovial! my horse!  What are they doing to my horse?
+With that, opening the door he rushed down the stairs precipitately.
+
+The two sisters clung together, so terrified at the sudden departure of
+the soldier, that they saw not an enormous hand pass through the broken
+panes, unfasten the catch of the window, push it violently open, and
+throw down the lamp placed on the little table, on which was the
+soldiers's knapsack.  The orphans thus found themselves plunged into
+complete darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+JOVIAL and DEATH.
+
+Morok had led Jovial into the middle of the menagerie, and then removed
+the cloth which prevented him from seeing and smelling.  Scarcely had the
+tiger, lion, and panther caught a glimpse of him than they threw
+themselves, half famished, against the bars of their dens.
+
+The horse struck with stupor, his neck stretched out, his eye fixed, and
+trembling through all his limbs, appeared as if nailed to the ground; an
+abundant icy sweat rolled suddenly down his flanks.  The lion and the
+tiger uttered fearful roarings, and struggled violently in their dens.
+The panther did not roar, but her mute rage was terrific.
+
+With a tremendous bound, at the risk of breaking her skull, she sprang
+from the back of the cage against the bars; then, still mute, still
+furious, she crawled back to the extreme corner of the den, and with a
+new spring, as impetuous as it was blind, she again strove to force out
+the iron grating.  Three times had she thus bounded--silent, appalling--
+when the horse, passing from the immobility of stupor to the wild agony
+of fear, neighed long and loud, and rushed in desperation at the door by
+which he had entered.  Finding it closed he hung his head, bent his knees
+a little, and rubbed his nostrils against the opening left between the
+ground and the bottom of the door, as if he wished to inhale the air from
+the outside; then, more and more affrighted, he began to neigh with
+redoubled force, and struck out violently with his fore-feet.
+
+At the moment when Death was about once more to make her spring, the
+Prophet approached her cage.  The heavy bolt which secured the grating
+was pushed from its staple by the pike of the brute-tamer, and, in
+another second, Morok was half way up the ladder that communicated with
+the loft.
+
+The roaring of the lion and tiger, mingled with the neighing of Jovial,
+now resounded through all parts of the inn.  The panther had again thrown
+herself furiously on the grating, and this time yielding with one spring,
+she was in the middle of the shed.
+
+The light of the lantern was reflected from the glossy ebon of her hide,
+spotted with stains of a duller black.  For an instant she remained
+motionless, crouching upon her thick-set limbs, with her head close to
+the floor, as if calculating the distance of the leap by which she was to
+reach the horse; then suddenly she darted upon him.
+
+On seeing her break from her cage Jovial had thrown himself violently
+against the door, which was made to open inwards, and leaned against it
+with all his might, as though he would force it down.  Then, at the
+moment when Death took her leap, he reared up in almost an erect
+position; but she, rapid as lightning, had fastened upon his throat and
+hung there, whilst at the same time she buried the sharp claws of her
+fore-feet in his chest.  The jugular vein of the horse opened; a torrent
+of bright red blood spouted forth beneath the tooth of the panther, who,
+now supporting herself on her hind legs, squeezed her victim up against
+the door, whilst she dug into his flank with her claws, and laid bare the
+palpitating flesh.  Then his half-strangled neighing became awful.
+
+Suddenly these words resounded: "Courage, Jovial! -I am at hand!
+Courage!"
+
+It was the voice of Dagobert, who was exhausting himself in desperate
+exertions to force open the door that concealed this sanguinary struggle.
+"Jovial!" cried the soldier, "I am here.  Help!  Help!"
+
+At the sound of that friendly and well-known voice, the poor animal,
+almost at its last gasp, strove to turn its head in the direction whence
+came the accents of his master, answered him with a plaintive neigh, and,
+sinking beneath the efforts of the panther, fell prostrate, first on its
+knees, then upon its flank, so that its backbone lay right across the
+door, and still prevented its being opened.  And now all was finished.
+The panther, squatting down upon the horse, crushed him with all her
+paws, and, in spite of some last faint kicks, buried her bloody snout in
+his body.
+
+"Help! help! my horse!" cried Dagobert, as he vainly shook the door.
+"And no arms!" he added with rage; "no arms!"
+
+"Take care!" exclaimed the brute-tamer, who appeared at the window of the
+loft; "do not attempt to enter it might cost you your life.  My panther
+is furious."
+
+"But my horse! my horse!" cried Dagobert, in a voice of agony.
+
+"He must have strayed from his stable during the night, and pushed open
+the door of the shed.  At sight of him the panther must have broken out
+of her cage and seized him.  You are answerable for all the mischief that
+may ensue," added the brute-tamer, with a menacing air; "for I shall have
+to run the greatest danger, to make Death return to her den."
+
+"But my horse! only save my horse!" cried Dagobert, in a tone of hopeless
+supplication.
+
+The Prophet disappeared from the window.
+
+The roaring of the animals and the shouts of Dagobert, had roused from
+sleep every one in the White Falcon.  Here and there lights were seen
+moving and windows were thrown open hurriedly.  The servants of the inn
+soon appeared in the yard with lanterns, and surrounding Dagobert,
+inquired of him what had happened.
+
+"My horse is there," cried the soldier, continuing to shake the door,
+"and one of that scoundrel's animals has escaped from its cage."
+
+At these words the people of the inn, already terrified by the frightful
+roaring, fled from the spot and ran to inform the host.  The soldier's
+anguish may be conceived, as pale, breathless, with his ear close to the
+chink of the door, he stood listening.  By degrees the roaring had
+ceased, and nothing was heard but low growls, accompanied by the stern
+voice of the Prophet, repeating in harsh, abrupt accents:  "Death! come
+here! Death!"
+
+The night was profoundly dark, and Dagobert did not perceive Goliath,
+who, crawling carefully along the tiled roof entered the loft by the
+attic window.
+
+And now the gate of the court-yard was again opened, and the landlord of
+the inn appeared, followed by a number of men.  Armed with a carbine, he
+advanced with precaution; his people carried staves and pitchforks.
+
+"What is the row here?" said he, as he approached Dagobert.  "What a
+hubbub in my house!  The devil take wild beast showmen, and negligent
+fellows who don't know how to tie a horse to the manger!  If your beast
+is hurt, so much the worse for you; you should have taken more care of
+it."
+
+Instead of replying to these reproaches, the soldier, who still listened
+attentively to what was going on in the shed, made a sign to entreat
+silence.  Suddenly a ferocious roar was heard, followed by a loud scream
+from the Prophet; and, almost immediately after, the panther howled
+piteously.
+
+"You are no doubt the cause of some great accident," said the frightened
+host to the soldier; "did you not hear that cry?  Morok is, perhaps,
+dangerously wounded."
+
+Dagobert was about to answer, when the door opened, and Goliath appeared
+on the threshold.
+
+"You may enter now," said he; "the danger is over."
+
+The interior of the menagerie presented a singular spectacle.  The
+Prophet, pale, and scarcely able to conceal his agitation beneath an
+apparent air of calmness, was kneeling some paces from the cage of the
+panther, in the attitude of one absorbed in himself; the motion of his
+lips indicating that he was praying.  At sight of the host and the people
+of the inn, he rose, and said in a solemn voice: "I thank thee, my
+Preserver, that I have been able to conquer, by the strength which Thou
+hast given me."
+
+Then folding his arms, with haughty brow and imperious glance, he seemed
+to enjoy the triumph he had achieved over Death, who, stretched on the
+bottom of her den, continued to utter plaintive howlings.  The spectators
+of this scene, ignorant that the pelisse of the brute-tamer covered a
+complete suit of armor, and attributing the cries of the panther solely
+to fear, were struck with astonishment and admiration at the intrepidity
+and almost supernatural power of this man.  A few steps behind him stood
+Goliath, leaning upon the ashen pikestaff.  Finally, not far from the
+cage, in the midst of a pool of blood, lay the dead body of Jovial.
+
+At sight of the blood-stained and torn remains, Dagobert stood
+motionless, and his rough countenance assumed an expression of the
+deepest grief: then, throwing himself on his knees, he lifted the head of
+Jovial; and when he saw those dull, glassy, and half-closed eyes, once so
+bright and intelligent, as they turned towards a much-loved master, the
+soldier could not suppress an exclamation of bitter anguish.  Forgetting
+his anger, forgetting the deplorable consequences of this accident, so
+fatal to the interests of the two maidens, who would thus be prevented
+from continuing their journey--he thought only of the horrible death of
+his poor old horse, the ancient companion of his fatigues and wars, the
+faithful animal, twice wounded like himself, and from whom for so many
+years he had never been separated.  This poignant emotion was so cruelly,
+so affectingly visible in the soldier's countenance, that the landlord
+and his people felt themselves for a moment touched with pity, as they
+gazed on the tall veteran kneeling beside his dead horse.
+
+But, when following the course of his regrets, he thought how Jovial had
+also been the companion of his exile, how the mother of the orphans had
+formerly (like her daughters) undertaken a toilsome journey with the aid
+of this unfortunate animal, the fatal consequences of his loss presented
+themselves on a sudden to his mind.  Then, fury succeeding to grief, he
+rose, with anger flashing from his eyes, and threw himself on the
+Prophet; with one hand he seized him by the throat, and with the other
+administered five or six heavy blows, which fell harmlessly on the coat
+of mail.
+
+"Rascal! you shall answer to me for my horse's death!" said the soldier,
+as he continued his correction.  Morok, light and sinewy, could not
+struggle with advantage against Dagobert, who, aided by his tall stature,
+still displayed extraordinary vigor.  It needed the intervention of
+Goliath and the landlord to rescue the Prophet from the hands of the old
+grenadier.  After some moments, they succeeded in separating the two
+champions.  Morok was white with rage.  It needed new efforts to prevent
+his seizing the pike to attack Dagobert.
+
+"It is abominable!" cried the host, addressing the soldier, who pressed
+his clinched fists in despair against his bald forehead.  "You expose
+this good man to be devoured by his beasts, and then you wish to beat him
+into the bargain.  Is this fitting conduct for a graybeard?  Shall we
+have to fetch the police?  You showed yourself more reasonable in the
+early part of the evening."
+
+These words recalled the soldier to himself.  He regretted his
+impetuosity the more, as the fact of his being a stranger might augment
+the difficulty of his position.  It was necessary above all to obtain the
+price of his horse, so as to be enabled to continue his journey, the
+success of which might be compromised by a single day's delay.  With a
+violent effort, therefore, he succeeded in restraining his wrath.
+
+"You are right--I was too hasty," said he to the host, in an agitated
+voice, which he tried to make as calm as possible.  "I had not the same
+patience as before.  But ought not this man be responsible for the loss
+of my horse?  I make you judge in the matter."
+
+"Well, then, as judge, I am  not of your opinion.  All this has been your
+own fault.  You tied up your horse badly, and he strayed by chance into
+this shed, of which no doubt the door was half-open," said the host,
+evidently taking the part of the brute-tamer.
+
+"It was just as you say," answered Goliath.  "I can remember it.  I left
+the door ajar, that the beasts might have some air in the night.  The
+cages were well shut, and there was no danger."
+
+"Very true," said one of the standers-by.
+
+"It was only the sight of the horse," added another, "that made the
+panther furious, so as to break out of its cage."
+
+"It is the Prophet who has the most right to complain," observed a third.
+
+"No matter what this or that person says," returned Dagobert, whose
+patience was beginning to fail him, "I say, that I must have either money
+or a horse on the instant--yes, on the instant--for I wish to quit this
+unlucky house."
+
+"And I say, it is you that must indemnify me," cried Morok, who had kept
+this stage-trick for the last, and who now exhibited his left hand all
+bloody, having hitherto concealed it beneath the sleeve of his pelisse.
+"I shall perhaps be disabled for life," he added; "see what a wound the
+panther has made here!"
+
+Without having the serious character that the Prophet ascribed to it, the
+wound was a pretty deep one.  This last argument gained for him the
+general sympathy.  Reckoning no doubt upon this incident, to secure the
+winning of a cause that he now regarded as his own, the host said to the
+hostler:  "There is only one way to make a finish.  It is to call up the
+burgomaster, and beg him to step here.  He will decide who is right or
+wrong."
+
+"I was just going to propose it to you," said the soldier, "for, after
+all, I cannot take the law into my own hands."
+
+"Fritz, run to the burgomaster's!"--and the hustler started in all haste.
+His master, fearing to be compromised by the examination of the soldier,
+whose papers he had neglected to ask for on his arrival, said to him:
+"The burgomaster will be in a very bad humor, to be disturbed so late.  I
+have no wish to suffer by it, and I must therefore beg you to go and
+fetch me your papers, to see if they are in rule.  I ought to have made
+you show them, when you arrived here in the evening."
+
+"They are upstairs in my knapsack; you shall have them," answered the
+soldier--and turning away his head, and putting his hand before his eyes,
+as he passed the dead body of Jovial, he went out to rejoin the sisters.
+
+The Prophet followed him with a glance of triumph, and said to himself:
+"There he goes!--without horse, without money, without papers.  I could
+not do more--for I was forbidden to do more--I was to act with as much
+cunning as possible and preserve appearances.  Now every one will think
+this soldier in the wrong.  I can at least answer for it, that he will
+not continue his journey for some days--since such great interests appear
+to depend on his arrest, and that of the young girls."
+
+A quarter of an hour after this reflection of the brute-tamer, Karl,
+Goliath's comrade, left the hiding-place where his master had concealed
+him during the evening, and set out for Leipsic, with a letter which
+Morok had written in haste, and which Karl, on his arrival, was to put
+immediately into the post.
+
+The address of this letter was as follows:
+
+"A Monsieur Rodin, Rue du Milieu-des-Ursins, No, 11, A Paris, France."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE BURGOMASTER.
+
+Dagobert's anxiety increased every moment.  Certain that his horse had
+not entered the shed of its own accord, he attributed the event which had
+taken place to the spite of the brute-tamer; but he sought in vain for
+the motive of this wretch's animosity, and he reflected with dismay, that
+his cause, however just, would depend on the good or bad humor of a judge
+dragged from his slumbers and who might be ready to condemn upon
+fallacious appearances.
+
+Fully determined to conceal, as long as possible, from the orphans the
+fresh misfortunes, which had befallen them, he was proceeding to open the
+door of their chamber, when he stumbled over Spoil-sport--for the dog had
+run back to his post, after vainly trying to prevent the Prophet from
+leading away Jovial.  "Luckily the dog has returned; the poor little
+things have been well guarded," said the soldier, as he opened the door.
+To his great surprise, the room was in utter darkness.
+
+"My children," cried he, "why are you without a light?"  There was no
+answer.  In terror he groped his way to the bed, and took the hand of one
+of the sisters; the hand was cold as ice.
+
+"Rose, my children!" cried he.  "Blanche!  Give me some answer!  you
+frighten me."  Still the same silence continued; the hand which he held
+remained cold and powerless, and yielded passively to his touch.
+
+Just then, the moon emerged from the black clouds that surrounded her,
+and threw sufficient light into the little room, and upon the bed, which
+faced the window, for the soldier to see that the two sisters had
+fainted.  The bluish light of the moon added to the paleness of the
+orphans; they held each other in a half embrace, and Rose had buried her
+head on Blanche's bosom.
+
+"They must have fainted through fear," exclaimed Dagobert, running to
+fetch his gourd.  "Poor things! after a day of so much excitement, it is
+not surprising."  And moistening the corner of a handkerchief with a few
+drops of brandy, the soldier knelt beside the bed, gently chafed the
+temples of the two sisters, and held the linen, wet with the spirituous
+liquor, to their little pink nostrils.
+
+Still on his knees, and bending his dark, anxious face over the orphans,
+he waited some moments before again resorting to the only restorative in
+his power.  A slight shiver of Rose gave him renewed hope; the young girl
+turned her head on the pillow with a sigh; then she started, and opened
+her eyes with an expression of astonishment and alarm; but, not
+immediately recognizing Dagobert, she exclaimed: "Oh, sister!" and threw
+herself into the arms of Blanche.
+
+The latter also was beginning to experience the effect of the soldier's
+care.  The exclamation of Rose completely roused her from her lethargy,
+and she clung to her sister, again sharing the fright without knowing its
+cause.
+
+"They've come to--that's the chief point," said Dagobert, "now we shall
+soon get rid of these foolish fears."  Then softening his voice, he
+added: "Well, my children, courage?  You are better.  It is I who am
+here--me, Dagobert!"
+
+The orphans made a hasty movement, and, turning towards the soldier their
+sweet faces, which were still full of dismay and agitation, they both, by
+a graceful impulse, extended their arms to him and cried: "It is you,
+Dagobert--then we are safe!"
+
+"Yes, my children, it is I," said the veteran, taking their hands in his,
+and pressing them joyfully.  "So you have been much frightened during my
+absence?"
+
+"Oh, frightened to death!"
+
+"If you knew--oh, goodness! if you knew--"
+
+"But the lamp is extinguished--why is that?"
+
+"We did not do it."
+
+"Come--recover yourselves, poor children, and tell me all about it.  I
+have no good opinion of this inn; but, luckily, we shall soon leave it.
+It was an ill wind that blew me hither--though, to be sure, there was no
+other in the village.  But what has happened?"
+
+"You were hardly gone, when the window flew open violently, and the lamp
+and table fell together with a loud crash."
+
+"Then our courage failed--we screamed and clasped each other, for we
+thought we could hear some one moving in the room."
+
+"And we were so frightened, that we fainted away."
+
+Unfortunately, persuaded that it was the violence of the wind which had
+already broken the glass, and shaken the window, Dagobert attributed this
+second accident to the same cause as the first, thinking that he had not
+properly secured the fastening and that the orphans had been deceived by
+a false alarm.  "Well, well--it is over now," said he to them: "Calm
+yourselves, and don't think of it any more."
+
+"But why did you leave us so hastily, Dagobert?"
+
+"Yes, now I remember--did we not hear a great noise, sister, and see
+Dagobert run to the staircase, crying: 'My horse! what are they doing to
+my horse?'"
+
+"It was then Jovial who neighed?"
+
+These questions renewed the anguish of the soldier; he feared to answer
+them, and said, with a confused air: "Yes--Jovial neighed -but it was
+nothing.  By the by, we must have a light here.  Do you know where I put
+my flint and steel last evening?  Well, I have lost my senses; it is here
+in my pocket.  Luckily, too, we have a candle, which I am going to light;
+I want to look in my knapsack for some papers I require."
+
+Dagobert struck a few sparks, obtained a light, and saw that the window
+was indeed open, the table thrown down, and the lamp lying by the side of
+the knapsack.  He shut the window, set the little table on its feet
+again, placed the knapsack upon it, and began to unbuckle this last in
+order to take out his portfolio, which had been deposited along with his
+cross and purse, in a kind of pocket between the outside and the lining.
+The straps had been readjusted with so much care, that there was no
+appearance of the knapsack having been disturbed; but when the soldier
+plunged his hand into the pocket above-mentioned, he found it empty.
+Struck with consternation, he grew pale, and retreated a step, crying:
+"How is this?--Nothing!"
+
+"What is the matter?" said Blanche.  He made her no answer.  Motionless,
+he leaned against the table, with his hand still buried in the pocket.
+Then, yielding to a vague hope--for so cruel a reality did not appear
+possible--he hastily emptied the contents of the knapsack on the table--
+his poor half-worn clothes--his old uniform-coat of the horse-grenadiers
+of the Imperial Guard, a sacred relic for the soldiers--but, turn and
+return them as he would, he found neither his purse, nor the portfolio
+that contained his papers, the letters of General Simon, and his cross.
+
+In vain, with that serious childishness which always accompanies a
+hopeless search, he took the knapsack by the two ends, and shook it
+vigorously; nothing came out.  The orphans looked on with uneasiness, not
+understanding his silence or his movements, for his back was turned to
+them.  Blanche ventured to say to him in a timid voice: "What ails you--
+you don't answer us.--What is it you are looking for in your knapsack?"
+
+Still mute, Dagobert searched his own person, turned out all his pockets-
+-nothing!--For the first time in his life, perhaps, his two children, as
+he called them, had spoken to him without receiving a reply.  Blanche and
+Rose felt the big tears start into their eyes; thinking that the soldier
+was angry, they darst not again address him.
+
+"No, no! it is impossible--no!" said the veteran, pressing his hand to
+his forehead, and seeking in his memory where he might have put those
+precious objects, the loss of which he could not yet bring himself to
+believe.  A sudden beam of joy flashed from his eyes.  He ran to a chair,
+and took from it the portmanteau of the orphans; it contained a little
+linen, two black dresses, and a small box of white wood, in which were a
+silk handkerchief that had belonged to their mother, two locks of her
+hair, and a black ribbon she had worn round her neck.  The little she
+possessed had been seized by the Russian government, in pursuance of the
+confiscation.  Dagobert searched and researched every article--peeped
+into all the corners of the portmanteau--still nothing!
+
+This time, completely worn out, leaning against the table, the strong,
+energetic man felt himself giving way.  His face was burning, yet bathed
+in a cold sweat; his knees trembled under him.  It is a common saying,
+that drowning men will catch at straws; and so it is with the despair
+that still clings to some shred of hope.  Catching at a last chance--
+absurd, insane, impossible--he turned abruptly towards the orphans, and
+said to them, without considering the alteration in his voice and
+features: "I did not give them to you--to keep for me?--speak?"
+
+Instead of answering, Rose and Blanche, terrified at his paleness and the
+expression of his countenance, uttered a cry.  "Good heavens! what is the
+matter with you?" murmured Rose.
+
+"Have you got them--yes, or no?" cried in a voice of thunder the
+unfortunate, distracted man.  "If you have not--I'll take the first knife
+I meet with, and stick it into my body!"
+
+"Alas!  You are so good: pardon us if we have done anything to afflict
+you!  You love us so much, you would not do us any harm." The orphans
+began to weep, as they stretched forth their hands in supplication
+towards the soldier.
+
+He looked at them with haggard eye, without even seeing them; till, as
+the delusion passed away, the reality presented itself to his mind with
+all its terrible consequences.  Then he clasped his hands together, fell
+on his knees before the bed of the orphans, leaned his forehead upon it,
+and amid his convulsive sobs--for the man of iron sobbed like a child--
+these broken words were audible: "Forgive me--forgive!--I do not know how
+it can be! --Oh! what a misfortune!--what a misfortune!--Forgive me!"
+
+At this outbreak of grief, the cause of which they understood not, but
+which in such a man was heart-rending, the two sisters wound their arms
+about his old gray head, and exclaimed amid their tears: "Look at us!
+Only tell us what is the matter with you?--Is it our fault?"
+
+At this instant, the noise of footsteps resounded from the stairs,
+mingled with the barking of Spoil-sport, who had remained outside the
+door.  The nearer the steps approached, the more furious became the
+barking; it was no doubt accompanied with hostile demonstrations, for the
+host was heard to cry out in an angry tone: "Hollo! you there!  Call off
+your dog, or speak to him.  It is Mr. Burgomaster who is coming up."
+
+"Dagobert--do you hear?--it is the burgomaster," said Rose.
+
+"They are coming upstairs--a number of people," resumed Blanche.
+
+The word burgomaster recalled whatever had happened to the mind of
+Dagobert, and completed, so to express it, the picture of his terrible
+position.  His horse was dead, he had neither papers nor money, and a
+day, a single day's detention, might defeat the last hope of the sisters,
+and render useless this long and toilsome journey.
+
+Men of strong minds, and the veteran was of the number, prefer great
+perils, positions of danger accurately defined, to the vague anxieties
+which precede a settled misfortune.  Guided by his good sense and
+admirable devotion, Dagobert understood at once, that his only resource
+was now in the justice of the burgomaster, and that all his efforts
+should tend to conciliate the favor of that magistrate.  He therefore
+dried his eyes with the sheet, rose from the ground, erect, calm, and
+resolute, and said to the orphans: "Fear nothing, my children; it is our
+deliverer who is at hand."
+
+"Will you call off your dog or no?" cried the host, still detained on the
+stairs by Spoil-sport, who, as a vigilant sentinel, continued to dispute
+the passage.  "Is the animal mad, I say?  Why don't you tie him up?  Have
+you not caused trouble enough in my house?  I tell you, that Mr.
+Burgomaster is waiting to examine you in your turn, for he has finished
+with Morok."
+
+Dagobert drew his fingers through his gray locks and across his
+moustache, clasped the collar of his top-coat, and brushed the sleeves
+with his hand, in order to give himself the best appearance possible; for
+he felt that the fate of the orphans must depend on his interview with
+the magistrate.  It was not without a violent beating of the heart, that
+he laid his hand upon the door-knob, saying to the young girls, who were
+growing more and more frightened by such a succession of events: "Hide
+yourselves in your bed, my children; if any one must needs enter, it
+shall be the burgomaster alone."
+
+Thereupon, opening the door, the soldier stepped out on the
+landing place, and said: "Down, Spoil-sport!--Here!"
+
+The dog obeyed, but with manifest repugnance.  His master had to speak
+twice, before he would abstain from all hostile movements towards the
+host.  This latter, with a lantern in one hand and his cap in the other,
+respectfully preceded the burgomaster, whose magisterial proportions were
+lost in the half shadows of the staircase.  Behind the judge, and a few
+steps lower, the inquisitive faces of the people belonging to the inn
+were dimly visible by the light of another lantern.
+
+Dagobert, having turned the dog into the room, shut the door after him,
+and advanced two steps on the landing-place, which was sufficiently
+spacious to hold several persons, and had in one corner a wooden bench
+with a back to it.  The burgomaster, as he ascended the last stair, was
+surprised to see Dagobert close the door of the chamber, as though he
+wished to forbid his entrance.  "Why do you shut that door?" asked he in
+an abrupt tone.
+
+"First, because two girls, whom I have the charge of, are in bed in that
+room; secondly, because your examination would alarm them," replied
+Dagobert.  "Sit down upon this bench, Mr. Burgomaster, and examine me
+here; it will not make any difference, I should think."
+
+"And by what right," asked the judge, with a displeased air, "do you
+pretend to dictate to me the place of your examination?"
+
+"Oh, I have no such pretension, Mr. Burgomaster!" said the soldier
+hastily, fearing above all things to prejudice the judge against him:
+"only, as the girls are in bed, and already much frightened, it would be
+a proof of your good heart to examine me where I am."
+
+"Humph!" said the magistrate, with ill-humor; "a pretty state of things,
+truly!--It was much worth while to disturb me in the middle of the night.
+But, come, so be it; I will examine you here."  Then, turning to the
+landlord, he added:  "Put your lantern upon this bench, and leave us."
+
+The innkeeper obeyed, and went down, followed by his people, as
+dissatisfied as they were at being excluded from the examination.  The
+veteran was left alone with the magistrate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE JUDGEMENT.
+
+The worthy burgomaster of Mockern wore a cloth cap, and was enveloped in
+a cloak.  He sat down heavily on the bench.  He was a corpulent man,
+about sixty, with an arrogant, morose countenance; and he frequently
+rubbed with his red, fat fist, eyes that were still swollen and blood-
+shot, from his having been suddenly roused from sleep.
+
+Dagobert stood bareheaded before him, with a submissive, respectful air,
+holding his old foraging cap in his hands, and trying to read in the
+sullen physiognomy of his judge what chance there might be to interest
+him in his favor--that is, in favor of the orphans.
+
+In this critical juncture, the poor soldier summoned to his aid all his
+presence of mind, reason, eloquence and resolution.  He, who had twenty
+times braved death with the utmost coolness--who, calm and serene,
+because sincere and tried, had never quailed before the eagle-glance of
+the Emperor, his hero and idol--now felt himself disconcerted and
+trembling before the ill-humored face of a village burgomaster.  Even so,
+a few hours before, he had submitted, impassive and resigned, to the
+insults of the Prophet--that he might not compromise the sacred mission
+with which a dying mother had entrusted him--thus showing to what a
+height of heroic abnegation it is possible for a simple and honest heart
+to attain.
+
+"What have you to say in your justification?  Come, be quick!" said the
+judge roughly, with a yawn of impatience.
+
+"I have not got to justify myself--I have to make a complaint, Mr.
+Burgomaster," replied Dagobert in a firm voice.
+
+"Do you think you are to teach me in what terms I am to put my
+questions?" exclaimed the magistrate, in so sharp a tone that the soldier
+reproached himself with having begun the interview so badly.  Wishing to
+pacify his judge, he made haste to answer with submission:
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Burgomaster, I have ill-explained my meaning.  I only
+wished to say that I was not wrong in this affair."
+
+"The Prophet says the contrary."
+
+"The Prophet?" repeated the soldier, with an air of doubt.
+
+"The Prophet is a pious and honest man," resumed the judge, "incapable of
+falsehood."
+
+"I cannot say anything upon that subject; but you are too just, and have
+too good a heart, Mr. Burgomaster, to condemn without hearing me.  It is
+not a man like you that would do an injustice; oh, one can see that at a
+glance!"
+
+In resigning himself thus to play the part of a courtier, Dagobert
+softened as much as possible his gruff voice, and strove to give to his
+austere countenance a smiling, agreeable, and flattering expression.  "A
+man like you," he added, with redoubled suavity of manner, "a respectable
+judge like you, never shuts his ears to one side or the other."
+
+"Ears are not in question, but eyes; and, though mine smart as if I had
+rubbed them with nettles, I have seen the hand of the brute-tamer, with a
+frightful wound on it."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Burgomaster, it is very true; but consider, if he had shut his
+cages and his door, all this would not have happened."
+
+"Not so; it is your fault.  You should have fastened your horse securely
+to the manger."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Burgomaster, certainly, you are right," said the
+soldier, in a still more affable and conciliating voice.  "It is not for
+a poor devil like me to contradict you.  But supposing my horse was let
+loose out of pure malice, in order that he might stray into the
+menagerie--you will then acknowledge that it was not my fault.  That is,
+you will acknowledge it if you think fit," hastily added the soldier "I
+have no right to dictate to you in anything."
+
+"And why the devil should any one do you this ill-turn?"
+
+"I do not know, Mr. Burgomaster--but--"
+
+"You do not know--well, nor I either," said the burgomaster impatiently.
+"Zounds! what a many words about the carcass of an old horse!"
+
+The countenance of the soldier, losing on a sudden its expression of
+forced suavity, became once more severe; he answered in a grave voice,
+full of emotion: "My horse is dead--he is no more than a carcass--that is
+true; but an hour ago, though very old, he was full of life and
+intelligence.  He neighed joyously at my voice--and, every evening, he
+licked the hands of the two poor children, whom he had carried all the
+day--as formerly he had carried their mother.  Now he will never carry
+any one again; they will throw him to the dogs, and all will be finished.
+You need not have reminded me harshly of it, Mr. Burgomaster--for I loved
+my horse!"
+
+By these words, pronounced with noble and touching simplicity, the
+burgomaster was moved in spite of himself, and regretted his hasty
+speech.  "It is natural that you should be sorry for your horse," said
+he, in a less impatient tone; "but what is to be done?--It is a
+misfortune."
+
+"A misfortune?--Yes, Mr. Burgomaster, a very great misfortune.  The
+girls, who accompany me, were too weak to undertake a long journey on
+foot, too poor to travel in a carriage--and yet we have to arrive in
+Paris before the month of February.  When their mother died, I promised
+her to take them to France, for these children have only me to take care
+of them."
+
+"You are then their--"
+
+"I am their faithful servant, Mr. Burgomaster; and now that my horse has
+been killed, what can I do for them?  Come, you are good, you have
+perhaps children of your own; if, one day, they should find themselves in
+the position of my two little orphans--with no wealth, no resources in
+the world, but an old soldier who loves them, and an old horse to carry
+them along--if, after being very unfortunate from their birth--yes, very
+unfortunate, for my orphans are the daughters of exiles--they should see
+happiness before them at the end of a journey, and then, by the death of
+their horse, that journey become impossible--tell me, Mr. Burgomaster, if
+this would not touch your heart?  Would you not find, as I do, that the
+loss of my horse is irreparable?"
+
+"Certainly," answered the burgomaster, who was not ill natured at bottom,
+and who could not help taking part in Dagobert's emotion; "I now
+understand the importance of the loss you have suffered.  And then your
+orphans interest me: how old are they?"
+
+"Fifteen years and two months.  They are twins."
+
+"Fifteen years and two months--that is about the age of my Frederica."
+
+"You have a young lady of that age?" cried Dagobert, once more awaking to
+hope; "ah, Mr. Burgomaster!, I am really no longer uneasy about my poor
+children.  You will do us justice."
+
+"To do justice is my duty.  After all, in this affair, the faults are
+about equal on both sides.  You tied up your horse badly, and the brute-
+tamer left his door open.  He says: 'I am wounded in the hand.'  You
+answer: 'My horse has been killed--and, for a thousand reasons, the loss
+of my horse is irreparable.'"
+
+"You make me speak better than I could ever speak on my own account, Mr.
+Burgomaster," said the soldier, with a humble, insinuating smile; "but
+'tis what I meant to express--and, as you say yourself, Mr. Burgomaster,
+my horse being my whole fortune, it is only fair--"
+
+"Exactly so," resumed the magistrate, interrupting the soldier; "your
+reasons are excellent.  The Prophet--who is a good and pious man with all
+has related the facts to me in his own way; and then, you see, he is an
+old acquaintance.  We are nearly all zealous Catholics here, and he sells
+to our wives such cheap and edifying little books, with chaplets and
+amulets of the best manufacture, at less than the prime cost.  All this,
+you will say, has nothing to do with the affair; and you will be right in
+saying so: still I must needs confess that I came here with the
+intention--"
+
+"Of deciding against me, eh, Mr. Burgomaster?" said Dagobert, gaining
+more and more confidence.  "You see, you were not quite awake, and your
+justice had only one eye open."
+
+"Really, master soldier," answered the judge with good humor, "it is not
+unlikely; for I did not conceal from Morok that I gave it in his favor.
+Then he said to me (very generously, by the way): 'Since you condemn my
+adversary, I will not aggravate his position by telling you certain
+things--'"
+
+"What! against me?"
+
+"Apparently so; but, like a generous enemy, when I told him that I should
+most likely condemn you to pay him damages, he said no more about it.
+For I will not hide from you, that, before I heard your reasons, I fully
+intended that you should make compensation for the Prophet's wound."
+
+"See, Mr. Burgomaster, how the most just and able persons are subject to
+be deceived," said Dagobert, becoming once more the courtier; then,
+trying to assume a prodigiously knowing look, he added: "But such persons
+find out the truth at last, and are not to be made dupes of, whatever
+prophets may say."
+
+This poor attempt at a jest--the first and only one, perhaps, that
+Dagobert had ever been guilty of--will show the extremity to which he was
+reduced, and the desperate efforts of all kinds he was making to
+conciliate the good graces of his judge.  The burgomaster did not at
+first see the pleasantry; he was only led to perceive it by the self-
+satisfied mien of Dagobert, and by his inquiring glance, which seemed to
+say: "Is it not good, eh?--I am astonished at it myself."
+
+The magistrate began, therefore, to smile with a patronizing air, and,
+nodding his head, replied in the same jocular spirit: "Ha!  Ha!  Ha!  You
+are right; the Prophet is out in his prophecy.  You shall not pay him any
+damages.  The faults on both sides are equal, and the injuries balance
+one another.  He has been wounded, your horse has been killed; so you may
+cry quits, and have done with it."
+
+"But how much then, do you think he owes me?" asked the soldier, with
+singular simplicity.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Burgomaster, what sum will he have to pay me?  Yes--but, before
+you decide, I must tell you one thing, Mr. Burgomaster.  I think I shall
+be entitled to spend only part of the money in buying a horse.  I am
+sure, that, in the environs of Leipsic, I could get a beast very cheap
+from some of the peasants; and, between ourselves, I will own to you,
+that, if I could meet with only a nice little donkey--I should not be
+over particular--I should even like it just as well; for, after my poor
+Jovial, the company of another horse would be painful to me.  I must also
+tell you--"
+
+"Hey-day!" cried the burgomaster, interrupting Dagobert, "of what money,
+what donkey, and what other horse are you talking?  I tell you, that you
+owe nothing to the Prophet, and that he owes you nothing!"
+
+"He owes me nothing?"
+
+"You are very dull of comprehension, my good man.  I repeat, that, if the
+Prophet's animals have killed your horse, the Prophet himself has been
+badly wounded; so you may cry quits.  In other words, you owe him
+nothing, and he owes you nothing.  Now do you understand?"
+
+Dagobert, confounded, remained for some moments without answering, whilst
+he looked at the burgomaster with an expression of deep anguish.  He saw
+that his judgment would again destroy all his hopes.
+
+"But, Mr. Burgomaster," resumed he, in an agitated voice, "you are too
+just not to pay attention to one thing: the wound of the brute-tamer does
+not prevent him from continuing his trade; the death of my horse prevents
+me from continuing my journey; therefore, he ought to indemnify me."
+
+The judge considered he had already done a good deal for Dagobert, in not
+making him responsible for the wound of the Prophet, who, as we have
+already said, exercised a certain influence over the Catholics of the
+country by the sale of his devotional treasures, and also from its being
+known that he was supported by some persons of eminence.  The soldier's
+pertinacity, therefore, offended the magistrate, who, reassuming his
+lofty air, replied, in a chilling tone: "You will make me repent my
+impartiality.  How is this?  Instead of thanking me, you ask for more."
+
+"But, Mr. Burgomaster, I ask only for what is just.  I wish I were
+wounded in the hand, like the Prophet, so that I could but continue my
+journey."
+
+"We are not talking of what you wish.  I have pronounced sentence--there
+is no more to say."
+
+"But, Mr. Burgomaster--"
+
+"Enough, enough.  Let us go to the next subject.  Your papers?"
+
+"Yes, we will speak about my papers; but I beg of you, Mr. Burgomaster,
+to have pity on those two children.  Let us have the means to continue
+our journey, and--"
+
+"I have done all I could for you--perhaps, more than I ought.  Once
+again, your papers!"
+
+"I must first explain to you--"
+
+"No "No explanation--your papers!--Or would you like me to have you
+arrested as a vagabond?"
+
+"Me---arrested!"
+
+"I tell you that, if you refuse to show me your papers, it will be as if
+you had none.  Now, those people who have no papers we take into custody
+till the authorities can dispose of them.  Let me see your papers, and
+make haste!--I am in a hurry to get home."
+
+Dagobert's position was the more distressing, as for a moment he had
+indulged in sanguine hope.  The last blow was now added to all the
+veteran had suffered since the commencement of this scene, which was a
+cruel as well as dangerous trial, for a man of his character--upright,
+but obstinate--faithful, but rough and absolute--a man who, for a long
+time a soldier, and a victorious one, had acquired a certain despotic
+mariner of treating with civilians.
+
+At these words--"your papers," Dagobert became very pale; but he tried to
+conceal his anguish beneath an air of assurance, which he thought best
+calculated to gain the magistrate's good opinion.  "I will tell you all
+about it, Mr. Burgomaster," said he. "Nothing can be clearer.  Such a
+thing might happen to any one.  I do not look like a beggar and a
+vagabond, do I?  And yet--you will understand, that an honest man who
+travels with two young girls--"
+
+"No more words!  Your papers!"
+
+At this juncture two powerful auxiliaries arrived to the soldier's aid.
+The orphans, growing more and more uneasy, and hearing Dagobert still
+talking upon the landing-place, had risen and dressed themselves; so that
+just at the instant, when the magistrate said in a rough voice--"No more
+words!  Your papers!"--Rose and Blanche holding each other by the hand,
+came forth from the chamber.
+
+At sight of those charming faces, which their poor mourning vestments
+only rendered more interesting, the burgomaster rose from his seat,
+struck with surprise and admiration.  By a spontaneous movement, each
+sister took a hand of Dagobert, and pressed close to him, whilst they
+regarded the magistrate with looks of mingled anxiety and candor.
+
+It was so touching a picture, this of the old soldier presenting as it
+were to his judge the graceful children, with countenances full of
+innocence and beauty, that the burgomaster, by a sudden reaction, found
+himself once more disposed to sentiments of pity.  Dagobert perceived it;
+and, still holding the orphans by the hand, he advanced towards him, and
+said in a feeling voice: "Look at these poor children, Mr. Burgomaster!
+Could I show you a better passport?"  And, overcome by so many painful
+sensations--restrained, yet following each other in quick succession--
+Dagobert felt, in spite of himself, that the tears were starting to his
+eyes.
+
+Though naturally rough, and rendered still more testy by the interruption
+of his sleep, the burgomaster was not quite deficient in sense of
+feeling.  He perceived at once, that a man thus accompanied, ought not to
+inspire any great distrust.  "Poor dear children!" said he, as he
+examined them with growing interest; "orphans so young, and they come
+from far--"
+
+"From the heart of Siberia, Mr. Burgomaster, where their mother was an
+exile before their birth.  It is now more than five months that we have
+been travelling on by short stages--hard enough, you will say, for
+children of their age.  It is for them that I ask your favor and support
+for them against whom everything seems to combine to-day for, only just
+now, when I went to look for my papers, I could not find in my knapsack
+the portfolio in which they were, along with my purse and cross--for you
+must know, Mr. Burgomaster--pardon me, if I say it--'tis not from vain
+glory--but I was decorated by the hand of the Emperor; and a man whom he
+decorated with his own hand, you see, could not be so bad a fellow,
+though he may have had the misfortune to lose his papers--and his purse.
+That's what has happened to me, and made me so pressing about the
+damages."
+
+"How and where did you suffer this loss?"
+
+"I do not know, Mr. Burgomaster; I am sure that the evening before last,
+at bed-time, I took a little money out of the purse, and saw the
+portfolio in its place; yesterday I had small change sufficient, and did
+not undo the knapsack."
+
+"And where then has the knapsack been kept?"
+
+"In the room occupied by the children: but this night--"
+
+Dagobert was here interrupted by the tread of some one mounting the
+stairs: it was the Prophet.  Concealed in the shadow of the staircase, he
+had listened to this conversation, and he dreaded lest the weakness of
+the burgomaster should mar the complete success of his projects.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE DECISION.
+
+Morok, who wore his left arm in a sling, having slowly ascended the
+staircase, saluted the burgomaster respectfully.  At sight of the
+repulsive countenance of the lion-tamer, Rose and Blanche, affrighted,
+drew back a step nearer to the soldier.  The brow of the latter grew
+dark, for he felt his blood boil against Morok, the cause of all his
+difficulties--though he was yet ignorant that Goliath, at the instigation
+of the Prophet, had stolen his portfolio and papers.
+
+"What did you want, Morok?" said the burgomaster, with an air half
+friendly and half displeased.  "I told the landlord that I did not wish
+to be interrupted."
+
+"I have come to render you a service, Mr. Burgomaster."
+
+"A service?"
+
+"Yes, a great service; or I should not have ventured to disturb you.  My
+conscience reproaches me."
+
+"Your conscience."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Burgomaster, it reproaches me for not having told you all that
+I had to tell about this man; a false pity led me astray."
+
+"Yell, but what have you to tell?"
+
+Morok approached the judge, and spoke to him for sometime in a low voice.
+
+At first apparently much astonished, the burgomaster became by degrees
+deeply attentive and anxious; every now and then be allowed some
+exclamation of surprise or doubt to escape him, whilst he glanced
+covertly at the group formed by Dagobert and the two young girls.  By the
+expression of his countenance, which grew every moment more unquiet,
+severe, and searching, it was easy to perceive that the interest which
+the magistrate had felt for the orphans and for the soldier, was
+gradually changed, by the secret communications of the Prophet, into a
+sentiment of distrust and hostility.
+
+Dagobert saw this sudden revolution, and his fears, which had been
+appeased for an instant, returned with redoubled force; Rose and Blanche,
+confused, and not understanding the object of this mute scene, looked at
+the soldier with increased perplexity.
+
+"The devil!" said the burgomaster, rising abruptly; "all of this never
+occurred to me. What could I have been thinking of? -But you see, Morok,
+when one is roused up in the middle of the night, one has not always
+presence of mind. You said well: it is a great service you came to render
+me."
+
+"I assert nothing positively, but--"
+
+"No matter; 'tis a thousand to one that you are right."
+
+"It is only a suspicion founded upon divers circumstances; but even a
+suspicion--"
+
+"May give you scent of the truth.  And here was I, going like a gull into
+the snare!--Once more, what could I have been thinking of?"
+
+"It is so difficult to be on guard against certain appearances."
+
+"You need not tell me so, my dear Morok, you need not tell me so."
+
+During this mysterious conversation, Dagobert was on thorns; he saw
+vaguely that a violent storm was about to burst.  He thought only of how
+he should still keep his anger within bounds.
+
+Morok again approached the judge, and glancing at the orphans,
+recommenced speaking in a low voice.  "Oh" cried the burgomaster, with,
+indignation, "you go too far now."
+
+"I affirm nothing," said Morok, hastily; "it is a mere supposition
+founded on--" and he again brought his lips close to the ear of the
+judge.
+
+"After all, why not?" resumed the magistrate, lifting up his hands; "such
+people are capable of anything.  He says that he brings them from the
+heart of Siberia: why may not all this prove to be a tissue of impudent
+falsehoods?--But I am not to be made a dupe twice," cried the
+burgomaster, in an angry tone, for, like all persons of a weak and
+shifting character, he was without pity for those whom he thought capable
+of having beguiled his compassion.
+
+"Do not be in a hurry to decide--don't give to my words more weight than
+they deserve," resumed Morok with a hypocritical affectation of humility.
+"I am unhappily placed in so false a position with regard to this man,"--
+pointing to Dagober--"that I might be thought to have acted from private
+resentment for the injury he has done me; perhaps I may so act without
+knowing it, while I fancy that I am only influenced by love of justice,
+horror of falsehood, and respect for our holy religion.  Well--who lives
+long enough will know--and may heaven forgive me if I am deceived!--In
+any case, the law will pronounce upon it; and if they should prove
+innocent, they will be released in a month or two."
+
+"And, for that reason, I need not hesitate.  It is a mere measure of
+precaution; they will not die of it.  Besides, the more I think of it,
+the more it seems probable.  Yes this man is doubtless a French spy or
+agitator, especially when I compare these suspicions with the late
+demonstration of the students at Frankfort."
+
+"And, upon that theory, nothing is better fitted to excite and stir up
+those hot-headed youths than--" He glanced significantly at the two
+sisters; then, after a pause, he added with a sigh, "Satan does not care
+by what means he works out his ends!"
+
+"Certainly, it would be odious, but well-devised."
+
+"And then, Mr Burgomaster, look at him attentively: you will see that
+this man has a dangerous face.  You will see--"
+
+In continuing thus to speak in a low tone, Morok had evidently pointed to
+Dagobert.  The latter, notwithstanding his self-command, felt that the
+restraint he had imposed upon himself, since his arrival at this unlucky
+inn, and above all wince the commencement of the conversation between
+Morok and the burgomaster, was becoming no longer bearable; besides, he
+saw clearly that all his efforts to conciliate the favor of the judge
+were rendered completely null by the fatal influence of the brute-tamer;
+so, losing patience, he advanced towards him with his arms folded on his
+breast, and said to him in a subdued voice: "Was it of me that you were
+whispering to Mr. Burgomaster?"
+
+"Yes," said Morok, looking fixedly at him.
+
+"Why did you not speak out loud?"  Having said this, the almost
+convulsive movement of his thick moustache, as he stood looping Morok
+full in the face, gave evidence of a severe internal conflict.  Seeing
+that his adversary preserved a contemptuous silence, he repeated in a
+sterner voice: "I ask you, why you did not speak out loud to Mr.
+Burgomaster, when you were talking of me?"
+
+"Because there are some things so shameful, that one would blush to utter
+them aloud," answered Morok insolently.
+
+Till then Dagobert had kept his arms folded; he now extended them
+violently, clenching his fists.  This sudden movement was so expressive
+that the two sisters uttered a cry of terror, and drew closer to him.
+
+"Hark ye, Mr. Burgomaster!" said the soldier, grinding his teeth with
+rage: "bid that man go down, or I will not answer for myself!"
+
+"What!" said the burgomaster, haughtily; "do you dare to give orders to
+me?"
+
+"I tell you to make that man go down," resumed Dagobert, quite beside
+himself, "or there will be mischief!"
+
+"Dagobert!--good heaven!--be calm," cried the children, grasping his
+hands.
+
+"It becomes you, certainly--miserable vagabond that you are--not to say
+worse," returned the burgomaster, in a rage: "it becomes you to give
+orders to me!--Oh! you think to impose upon me, by telling me you have
+lost your papers!--It will not serve your turn, for which you carry about
+with you these two girls, who, in spite of their innocent looks, are
+perhaps after all--"
+
+"Wretch!" cried Dagobert, with so terrible a voice and gesture that the
+official did not dare to finish.  Taking the children by the arm before
+they could speak a word, the soldier pushed them back into the chamber;
+then, locking the door, and putting the key into his pocket, he returned
+precipitately towards the burgomaster, who, frightened at the menacing
+air and attitude of the veteran, retreated a couple of steps, and held by
+one hand to the rail of the staircase.
+
+"Listen to me!" said the soldier, seizing the judge by the arm.  "Just
+now, that scoundrel insulted me--I bore with it--for it only concerned
+myself.  I have heard patiently all your idle talk, because you seemed
+for a moment to interest yourself in those poor children.  But since you
+have neither soul, nor pity, nor justice--I tell you that, burgomaster
+though you are--I will spurn you as I would spurn that dog," pointing
+again to the Prophet, "if you have the misfortune to mention those two
+young girls, in any other way than you would speak of your own child!--
+Now, do you mark me?"
+
+"What!--you dare to say," cried the burgomaster, stammering with rage,
+"that if I happen to mention two adventuresses--"
+
+"Hats off!--when you speak of the daughters of the Duke of Ligny," cried
+the soldier, snatching the cap of the burgomaster and flinging it on the
+ground.  On this act of aggression, Morok could not restrain his joy.
+Exasperated and losing all hope, Dagobert had at length yielded to the
+violence of his anger, after struggling so painfully against it for some
+hours.
+
+When the burgomaster saw his cap at his feet, he looked at the brute-
+tamer with an air of stupefaction, as if he hesitated to believe so great
+an enormity.  Dagobert, regretting, his violence, and feeling that no
+means of conciliation note remained, threw a rapid glance around him,
+and, retreating several paces, gained the topmost steps of the staircase.
+The burgomaster stood near the bench, in a corner of the landing- place,
+whilst Morok, with his arm in the sling, to give the more serious
+appearance to his wound, was close beside him.  "So!" cried the
+magistrate, deceived by the backward movement of Dagobert, "you think to
+escape, after daring to lift hand against me!--Old villain!"
+
+"Forgive me, Mr. Burgomaster!  It was a burst of rashness that I was not
+able to control.  I am sorry for it," said Dagobert in a repentant voice,
+and hanging his head humbly.
+
+"No pity for thee, rascal!  You would begin again to smooth me over with
+your coaxing ways, but I have penetrated your secret designs.  You are
+not what you appear to be, and there is perhaps an affair of state at the
+bottom of all this," added the magistrate, in a very diplomatic tone.
+"All means are alike to those who wish to set Europe in flames."
+
+"I am only a poor devil, Mr. Burgomaster; you, that have a good heart,
+will show me some mercy."
+
+"What! when you have pulled off my cap?"
+
+"And you," added the soldier, turning towards Morok, "you, that have been
+the cause of all this--have same pity upon me--do not bear malice!--You,
+a holy man, speak a word in my favor to Mr. Burgomaster."
+
+"I have spoken to him what I was bound to speak," answered the Prophet
+ironically.
+
+"Oho! you can look foolish enough now, you old vagabond!  Did you think
+to impose on me with lamentations?" resumed the burgomaster, advancing
+towards Dagobert.  "Thanks be, I am no longer your dupe!--You shall see
+that we have good dungeons at Leipsic for French agitators and female
+vagrants, for your damsels are no better than you are.  Come," added he,
+puffing out his cheeks with an important air, "go down before me--and as
+for you, Morok--"
+
+The burgomaster was unable to finish.  For some minutes Dagobert had only
+sought to gain time, and had cast many a side-glance at a half-open door
+on the landing-place, just opposite to the chamber occupied by the
+orphans: finding the moment favorable, he now rushed quick as lightning
+on the burgomaster, seized him by the throat, and dashed him with such
+violence against the door in question, that the magistrate, stupefied by
+this sudden attack, and unable to speak a word or utter a cry, rolled
+over to the further end of the room, which was completely dark.  Then,
+turning towards Morok, who, with his arm encumbered by the sling, made a
+rush for the staircase, the soldier caught him by his long, streaming
+hair, pulled him back, clasped him with hands of iron, clapped his hand
+over his mouth to stifle his outcries, and notwithstanding his desperate
+resistance, dragged him into the chamber, on the floor of which the
+burgomaster lay bruised and stunned.
+
+Having double-locked the door, and put the key in his pocket, Dagobert
+descended the stairs at two bounds, and found himself in a passage, that
+opened on the court-yard.  The gate of the inn was shut, and there was no
+possibility of escape on that side.  The rain fell in torrents.  He could
+see through the window of a parlor, in which a fire was burning, the host
+and his people waiting for the decision of the burgomaster.  To bolt the
+door of the passage, and thus intercept all communication with the yard,
+was for the soldier the affair of an instant, and he hastened upstairs
+again to rejoin the orphans.
+
+Morok, recovering from his surprise, was calling for help with all his
+might; but, even if the distance had permitted him to be heard, the noise
+of the wind and rain would have drowned his outcries.  Dagobert had about
+an hour before him, for it would require some time to elapse before the
+length of his interview with the magistrate would excite astonishment;
+and, suspicion or fear once awakened, it would be necessary to break open
+two doors--that which separated the passage from the court-yard, and that
+of the room in which the burgomaster and the Prophet were confined.
+
+"My children, it is now time to prove that you have a soldier's blood in
+your veins," said Dagobert, as he entered abruptly the chamber of the
+young girls, who were terrified at the racket they had heard for some
+minutes.
+
+"Good heaven, Dagobert! what has happened?" cried Blanche.
+
+"What do you wish us to do?" added Rose.
+
+Without answering, the soldier ran to the bed, tore off the sheets, tied
+them strongly together, made a knot at one end, passed it over the top of
+the left half of the casement, and so shut it in.  Thus made fast by the
+size of the knot, which could not slip through, the sheets, floating on
+the outside, touched the ground.  The second half of the window was left
+open, to afford a passage to the fugitives.
+
+The veteran next took his knapsack, the children's portmanteau, and the
+reindeer pelisse, and threw them all out of the window, making a sign to
+Spoil-sport to follow, to watch over them.  The dog did not hesitate, but
+disappeared at a single bound.  Rose and Blanche looked at Dagobert in
+amazement, without uttering a word.
+
+"Now, children," said he to them, "the doors of the inn are shut, and it
+is by this way," pointing to the window, "that we must pass--if we would
+not be arrested, put in prison--you in one place, and I in the other--and
+have our journey altogether knocked on the head."
+
+"Arrested! put in prison!" cried Rose.
+
+"Separated from you!" exclaimed Blanche.
+
+"Yes, my poor children!--They have killed Jovial--we must make our escape
+on foot, and try to reach Leipsic--when you are tired, I will carry you,
+and, though I have to beg my way, we will go through with it.  But a
+quarter of an hour later, and all will be lost.  Come, children, have
+trust in me--show that the daughters of General Simon are no cowards--and
+there is yet hope."
+
+By a sympathetic movement, the sisters joined hands, as though they would
+meet the danger united.  Their sweet faces, pale from the effect of so
+many painful emotions, were now expressive of simple resolve, founded on
+the blind faith they reposed in the devotion of the soldier.
+
+"Be satisfied, Dagobert! we'll not be frightened," said Rose, in a firm
+voice.
+
+"We will do what must be done," added Blanche, in a no less resolute
+tone.
+
+"I was sure of it," cried Dagobert; "good blood is ever thicker than
+water.  Come! you are light as feathers, the sheet is strong, it is
+hardly eight feet to the ground, and the pup is waiting for you."
+
+"It is for me to go first--I am the eldest for to-day," cried Rose, when
+she had tenderly embraced Blanche; and she ran to the window, in order,
+if there were any danger, to expose herself to it before her sister.
+
+Dagobert easily guessed the cause of this eagerness.  "Dear children!"
+said he, "I understand you.  But fear nothing for one another--there is
+no danger.  I have myself fastened the sheet.  "Quick, my little Rose!"
+
+As light as a bird, the young girl mounted the ledge of the window, and
+assisted by Dagobert, took hold of the sheet, and slid gently down
+according to the recommendation of the soldier, who, leaning out his
+whole body, encouraged her with his voice.
+
+"Don't be afraid, sister!" said she, as soon as she touched the ground,
+"it is very easy to come down this way.  And Spoil-sport is here, licking
+my hands."  Blanche did not long keep her waiting; as courageous as her
+sister, she descended with the same success.
+
+"Dear little creatures! what have they done to be so unfortunate?--
+Thousand thunders! there must be a curse upon the family," cried
+Dagobert, as, with heavy heart, he saw the pale, sweet face of the young
+girl disappear amid the gloom of the dark night, which violent squalls of
+wind and torrents of rain rendered still more dismal.
+
+"Dagobert, we are waiting for you; come quickly!" said the orphans in a
+low voice, from beneath the window.  Thanks to his tall stature, the
+soldier rather leaped than glided to the ground.
+
+Dagobert and the two young girls had not fled from the inn of the White
+Falcon more than a quarter of an hour, when a long crash resounded
+through the house.  The door had yielded to the efforts of the
+burgomaster and Morok, who had made use of a heavy table as a battering-
+ram.  Guided by the light, they ran to the chamber of the orphans, now
+deserted.  Morok saw the sheets floating from the casement, and cried:
+"Mr. Burgomaster, they have escaped by the window--they are on foot--in
+this dark and stormy night, they cannot be far."
+
+"No doubt, we shall catch them, the miserable tramps! Oh, I will be
+revenged!  Quick, Morok; your honor is concerned as well as mine."
+
+"My honor?--Much more is concerned than that, Mr. Burgomaster," answered
+the Prophet, in a tone of great irritation.  Then, rapidly descending the
+stairs, he opened the door of the court-yard, and shouted in a voice of
+thunder:
+
+"Goliath! unchain the dogs!--and, landlord! bring us lanterns, torches--
+arm your people--open the doors!--We must pursue the fugitives; they
+cannot escape us; we must have them--alive or dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE DESPATCHES.
+
+When we read, in the rules of the order of the Jesuits, under the title
+De formula scribendi (Institut. 2, 11, p. 125, 129), the development of
+the 8th part of the constitutions, we are appalled by the number of
+letters, narratives, registers, and writings of all kinds, preserved in
+the archives of the society.
+
+It is a police infinitely more exact and better informed than has ever
+been that of any state.  Even the government of Venice found itself
+surpassed by the Jesuits: when it drove them out in 1606, it seized all
+their papers, and reproached them for their great and laborious
+curiosity.  This police, this secret inquisition, carried to such a
+degree of perfection, may give some idea of the strength of a government,
+so well-informed so persevering in its projects, so powerful by its
+unity, and, as the constitutions have it, by the union of its members.
+It is not hard to understand, what immense force must belong to the heads
+of this society, and how the general of the Jesuits could say to the Duke
+de Brissac: "From this room, your grace, I govern not only Paris, but
+China- not only China, but the whole world--and all without any one
+knowing how it is done:"
+(Constitution of the Jesuits, edited by Paulin, Paris, 1843.)
+
+Morok, the lion-tamer, seeing Dagobert deprived of his horse, and
+stripped of his money and papers, and thinking it was thus out of his
+power to continue his journey, had, previous to the arrival of the
+burgomaster, despatched Karl to Leipsic, as the bearer of a letter which
+he was to put immediately into the post.  The address of this letter was
+as follows: "A Monsieur Rodin, Rue du Milieu des Ursins, Paris."
+
+About the middle of this obscure and solitary street, situate below the
+level of the Quai Napoleon, which it joins not far from the Rue Saint
+Landry, there stood a house of unpretentious appearance, at the bottom of
+a dark and narrow court-yard, separated from the street by a low building
+in front, with arched doorway, and two windows protected by thick iron
+bars.  Nothing could be more simple than the interior of this quiet
+dwelling, as was sufficiently shown by the furniture of a pretty large
+room on the ground floor.  The walls of this apartment were lined with
+old gray wainscot; the tiled floor was painted red, and carefully
+polished; curtains of white calico shaded the windows.
+
+A sphere of about four feet in diameter, raised on a pedestal of massive
+oak, stood at one end of the room, opposite to the fireplace.  Upon this
+globe, which was painted on a large scale, a host of little red crosses
+appeared scattered over all parts of the world--from the North to the
+South, from the rising to the setting sun, from the most barbarous
+countries, from the most distant isles, to the centres of civilization,
+to France itself.  There was not a single country which did not present
+some spots marked with these red crosses, evidently indicative of
+stations, or serving as points of reference.
+
+Before a table of black wood, loaded with papers, and resting against the
+wall near the chimney, a chair stood empty.  Further on, between the two
+windows, was a large walnut-wood desk, surmounted by shelves full of
+pasteboard boxes.
+
+At the end of the month of October, 1831, about eight o'clock in the
+morning, a man sat writing at this desk.  This was M. Rodin, the
+correspondent of Morok, the brute-tamer.
+
+About fifty years of age, he wore an old, shabby, olive greatcoat, with a
+greasy collar, a snuff-powdered cotton handkerchief for a cravat, and
+waistcoat and trousers of threadbare black cloth.  His feet, buried in
+loose varnished shoes, rested on a petty piece of green baize upon the
+red, polished floor.  His gray hair lay flat on his temples, and
+encircled his bald forehead; his eyebrows were scarcely marked; his upper
+eyelid, flabby and overhanging, like the membrane which shades the eyes
+of reptiles, half concealed his small, sharp, black eye.  His thin lips,
+absolutely colorless, were hardly distinguishable from the wan hue of his
+lean visage, with its pointed nose and chin; and this livid mask
+(deprived as it were of lips) appeared only the more singular, from its
+maintaining a death-like immobility.  Had it not been for the rapid
+movement of his fingers, as, bending over the desk, he scratched along
+with his pen, M. Rodin might have been mistaken for a corpse.
+
+By the aid of a cipher (or secret alphabet) placed before him he was
+copying certain passages from a long sheet full of writing, in a manner
+quite unintelligible to those who did not possess the key to the system.
+Whilst the darkness of the day increased the gloom of the large, cold,
+naked-looking apartment, there was something awful in the chilling aspect
+of this man, tracing his mysterious characters in the midst of profound
+silence.
+
+The clock struck eight.  The dull sound of the knocker at the outer door
+was heard, then a bell tinkled twice, several doors opened and shut, and
+a new personage entered the chamber.  On seeing him, M. Rodin rose from
+the desk, stuck his pen between his teeth, bowed with a deeply submissive
+air, and sat down again to his work without uttering a word
+
+The two formed a striking contrast to one another.  The newcomer, though
+really older than he seemed, would have passed for thirty-six or thirty-
+eight years of age at most.  His figure was tall and shapely, and few
+could have encountered the brightness of his large gray eye, brilliant as
+polished steel.  His nose, broad at the commencement, formed a well-cut
+square at its termination; his chin was prominent, and the bluish tints
+of his close-shaved beard were contrasted with the bright carnation of
+his lips, and the whiteness of his fine teeth.  When he took off his hat
+to change it for a black velvet cap which he found on the small table, he
+displayed a quantity of light chestnut hair, not yet silvered by time.
+He was dressed in a long frock-coat, buttoned up to the neck in military
+fashion.
+
+The piercing glance and broad forehead of this man revealed a powerful
+intellect, even as the development of his chest and shoulders announced a
+vigorous physical organization; whilst his gentlemanly appearance, the
+perfection of his gloves and boots, the light perfume which hung about
+his hair and person, the grace and ease of his least movements, betrayed
+what is called the man of the world, and left the impression that he had
+sought or might still seek every kind of success, from the most frivolous
+to the most serious.  This rare combination of strength of mind, strength
+of body, and extreme elegance of manners, was in this instance rendered
+still more striking by the circumstance, that whatever there might be of
+haughtiness or command in the upper part of that energetic countenance,
+was softened down, and tempered by a constant but not uniform smile--for,
+as occasion served, this smile became either kind or sly, cordial or gay,
+discreet or prepossessing, and thus augmented the insinuating charm of
+this man, who, once seen, was never again forgotten. But, in yielding to
+this involuntary sympathy, the doubt occurred if the influence was for
+good--or for evil.
+
+M. Rodin, the secretary of the newcomer, continued to write.
+
+"Are there any letters from Dunkirk, Rodin?" inquired his master.
+
+"Post not yet in."
+
+"Without being positively uneasy as to my mother's health, since she was
+already convalescent," resumed the other, "I shall only be quite
+reassured by a letter from my excellent friend, the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier.  I shall have good news this morning, I hope."
+
+"It is to be desired," said the secretary, as humble and submissive as he
+was laconic and impassible.
+
+"Certainly it is to be desired," resumed his master; "for one of the
+brightest days of my life was when the Princess de Saint-Dizier announced
+to me that this sudden and dangerous illness had yielded to the care and
+attention with which she surrounds my mother.  Had it not been for that I
+must have gone down to her instantly, though my presence here is very
+necessary."
+
+Then, approaching the desk, he added: "Is the summary of the foreign
+correspondence complete?"
+
+"Here is the analysis."
+
+"The letters are still sent under envelope to the places named, and are
+then brought here as I directed?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"Read to me the notes of this correspondence; if there are any letters
+for me to answer, I will tell you."  And Rodin's master began to walk up
+and down the room, with his hands crossed behind his back, dictating
+observations of which Rodin took careful note.
+
+The secretary turned to a pretty large pile of papers, and thus began:
+
+"Don Raymond Olivarez acknowledges from Cadiz receipt of letter No.19; he
+will conform to it, and deny all share in the abduction."
+
+"Very well; file it."
+
+"Count Romanoff, of Riga, finds himself in a position of pecuniary
+embarrassment."
+
+"Let Duplessis send him fifty louis; I formerly served as captain in his
+regiment, and he has since given us good information."
+
+"They have received at Philadelphia the last cargo of Histories of
+France, expurgated for the use of the faithful they require some more of
+the same sort."
+
+"Take note of it, and write to Duplessis.  Go on."
+
+"M. Spindler sends from Namur the secret report on M. Ardouin."
+
+"To be examined."
+
+"M. Ardouin sends from the same town the secret report on M. Spindler."
+
+"To be examined."
+
+"Doctor Van Ostadt, of the same town, sends a confidential note on the
+subject of Messrs. Spindler and Ardouin."
+
+"To be compared.  Go on!"
+
+"Count Malipierri, of Turin, announces that the donation of 300,000
+francs is signed."
+
+"Inform Duplessis.  What next?"
+
+"Don Stanislaus has just quitted the waters of Baden with Queen Marie
+Ernestine.  He informs us that her majesty will receive with gratitude
+the promised advices, and will answer them with her own hand."
+
+"Make a note of it.  I will myself write to the queen."
+
+Whilst Rodin was inscribing a few remarks on the margin of the paper, his
+master, continuing to walk up and down the room, found himself opposite
+to the globe marked with little red crosses, and stood contemplating it
+for a moment with a pensive air.
+
+Rodin continued: "In consequence of the state of the public mind in
+certain parts of Italy, where sundry agitators have turned their eyes in
+the direction of France, Father Arsenio writes from Milan, that it would
+be of importance to distribute profusely in that country, some little
+book, in which the French would be represented as impious and debauched,
+rapacious and bloody."
+
+"The idea is excellent.  We might turn to good account the excesses
+committed by our troops in Italy during the wars of the Republic.  You
+must employ Jacques Dumoulin to write it.  He is full of gall, spite, and
+venom: the pamphlet will be scorching.  Besides, I may furnish a few
+notes; but you must not pay Dumoulin till after delivery of the
+manuscript."
+
+"That is well understood: for, if we were to pay him beforehand, he would
+be drunk for a week in some low den.  It was thus we had to pay him twice
+over for his virulent attack on the pantheistic tendencies of Professor
+Martin's philosophy."
+
+"Take note of it--and go on!"
+
+"The merchant announces that the clerk is about to send the banker to
+give in his accounts.  You understand?' added Rodin, after pronouncing
+these words with a marked emphasis.
+
+"Perfectly," said the other, with a start; "they are but the expressions
+agreed on.  What next?"
+
+"But the clerk," continued the secretary, "is restrained by a last
+scruple."
+
+After a moment's silence, during which the features of Rodin's master
+worked strongly, he thus resumed: "They most continue to act on the
+clerk's mind by silence and solitude; then, let him read once more the
+list of cases in which regicide is authorized and absolved.  "Go on!"
+
+"The woman Sydney writes from Dresden, that she waits for instructions.
+Violent scenes of jealousy on her account have again taken place between
+the father and son; but neither from these new bursts of mutual hatred,
+nor from the confidential communications which each has made to her
+against his rival, has she yet been able to glean the information
+required.  Hitherto, she has avoided giving the preference to one or the
+other; but, should this situation be prolonged, she fears it may rouse
+their suspicion.  Which ought she then to choose--the father or the son?"
+
+"The son--for jealous resentment will be much more violent and cruel in
+the old man, and, to revenge himself for the preference bestowed upon his
+son, he will perhaps tell what they have both such an interest to
+conceal.  The next?"
+
+"Within the last three years, two maid-servants of Ambrosius whom we
+placed in that little parish in the mountains of the Valais, have
+disappeared, without any one knowing what has become of them.  A third
+has just met with the same fate.  The Protestants of the country are
+roused--talk of murder with frightful attendant circumstances--"
+
+"Until there is proof positive and complete of the fact, Ambrosius must
+be defended against these infamous calumnies, the work of a party that
+never shrinks from; monstrous inventions.  Go on!"
+
+"Thompson, of Liverpool, has at length succeeded in procuring for Justin
+the place of agent or manager to Lord Stewart, a rich Irish Catholic,
+whose head grows daily weaker."
+
+"Let the fact be once verified, and Thompson shall have a premium of
+fifty louis.  Make a note of it for Duplessis.  Proceed."
+
+"Frantz Dichstein, of Vienna," resumed Rodin, "announces that his father
+has just died of the cholera, in a little village at some leagues from
+that city: for the epidemic continues to advance slowly, coming from the
+north of Russia by way of Poland."
+
+"It is true," said Rodin's master, interrupting him; "may its terrible
+march be stayed, and France be spared."
+
+"Frantz Dichstein," resumed Rodin, "says that his two brothers are
+determined to contest the donation made by his father, but that he is of
+an opposite opinion."
+
+"Consult the two persons that are charged with all matters of litigation.
+What next?"
+
+"The Cardinal Prince d'Amalfi will conform to the three first points of
+the proposal: he demands to make a reservation upon the fourth point."
+
+"No reserve!--Either full and absolute acceptance--or else war--and (mark
+me well) war without mercy--on him and his creatures.  Go on!"
+
+"Fra Paolo announces that the Prince Boccari, chief of a redoubtable
+secret society, in despair at seeing his friends accuse him of treachery,
+in consequence of suspicions excited in their minds by Fra Paolo himself,
+has committed suicide."
+
+"Boccari! is it possible?" cried Rodin's master.  "Boccari! the patriot
+Boccari! so dangerous a person!"
+
+"The patriot Boccari," repeated the impassible secretary.
+
+"Tell Duplessis to send an order for five-and-twenty louis to Fra Paolo.
+Make a note of it."
+
+"Hausman informs us that the French dancer, Albertine Ducornet, is the
+mistress of the reigning prince; she has the most complete influence over
+him, and it would be easy through her means to arrive at the end
+proposed, but that she is herself governed by her lover (condemned in
+France as a forger), and that she does nothing without consulting him."
+
+Let Hausman get hold of this man--if his claims are reasonable, accede to
+them--and learn if the girl has any relations in Paris."
+
+"The Duke d'Orbano announces, that the king his master will authorize the
+new establishment, but on the conditions previously stated."
+
+"No condition!--either a frank adhesion or a positive refusal.  Let us
+know our friends from our enemies.  The more unfavorable the
+circumstances, the more we must show firmness, and overbear opposition by
+confidence in ourselves."
+
+"The same also announces, that the whole of the corps diplomatique
+continues to support the claims of the father of that young Protestant
+girl, who refuses to quit the convent where she has taken refuge, unless
+it be to marry her lover against her father's will."
+
+"Ah! the corps diplomatique continues to remonstrate in the father's
+name?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, continue to answer, that the spiritual power has nothing to do
+with the temporal."
+
+At this moment, the bell of the outer door again sounded twice.  "See who
+it is," said Rodin's master; and the secretary rose and left the room.
+The other continued to walk thoughtfully up and down, till, coming near
+to the huge globe, he stopped short before it.
+
+For some time he contemplated, in profound silence, the innumerable
+little red crosses, which appeared to cover, as with an immense net, all
+the countries of the earth.  Reflecting doubtless on the invisible action
+of his power, which seemed to extend over the whole world, the features
+of this man became animated, his large gray eye sparkled, his nostrils
+swelled, and his manly countenance assumed an indescribable expression of
+pride, energy, and daring.  With haughty brow and scornful lip, he drew
+still nearer to the globe, and leaned his strong hand upon the pole.
+
+This powerful pressure, an imperious movement, as of one taking
+possession, seemed to indicate, that he felt sure of governing this
+globe, on which he looked down from the height of his tall figure, and on
+which he rested his hand with so lofty and audacious an air of
+sovereignty.
+
+But now he no longer smiled.  His eye threatened, and his large forehead
+was clad with a formidable scowl.  The artist, who had wished to paint
+the demon of craft and pride, the infernal genius of insatiable
+domination, could not have chosen a more suitable model.
+
+When Rodin returned, the face of his master had recovered its ordinary
+expression.  "It is the postman," said Rodin, showing the letters which
+he held in his hand; "there is nothing from Dunkirk."
+
+"Nothing?" cried his master--and his painful emotion formed a strange
+contrast to his late haughty and implacable expression of countenance--
+"nothing? no news of my mother?--Thirty-six hours more, then, of
+anxiety."
+
+"It seems to me, that, if the princess had bad news to give, she would
+have written.  Probably the improvement goes on."
+
+"You are doubtless right, Rodin--but no matter--I am far from easy.  If,
+to-morrow, the news should not be completely satisfactory, I set out for
+the estate of the princess.  Why would my mother pass the autumn in that
+part of the country?  The environs of Dunkirk do not, I fear, agree with
+her."
+
+After a few moments' silence, he added, as he continued to walk: "Well--
+these letters--whence are they?"
+
+Rodin looked at the post-marks, and replied: "Out of the four there are
+three relative to the great and important affairs of the medals."
+
+"Thank heaven!--provided the news be favorable," cried his master, with
+an expression of uneasiness, which showed how much importance he attached
+to this affair.
+
+"One is from Charlestown, and no doubt relative to Gabriel, the
+missionary," answered Rodin; "this other from Batavia, and no doubt
+concerns the Indian, Djalma.  The third is from Leipsic, and will
+probably confirm that received yesterday, in which the lion-tamer, Morok,
+informed us, that, in accordance with his orders, and without his being
+compromised in any way, the daughters of General Simon would not be able
+to continue their journey."
+
+At the name of General Simon, a cloud passed over the features of Rodin's
+master.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE ORDERS.
+
+The principal houses correspond with that in Paris; they are also in
+direct communication with the General, who resides at Rome.  The
+correspondence of the Jesuits so active, various, and organized in so
+wonderful a manner, has for its object to supply the heads with all the
+information they can require.  Every day, the General receives a host of
+reports, which serve to check one another.  In the central house, at
+Rome, are immense registers, in which are inscribed the names of all the
+Jesuits, of their adherents, and of all the considerable persons, whether
+friends or enemies, with whom they have any connection.  In these
+registers are reported, without alteration, hatred or passion the facts
+relating to the life of each individual.  It is the most gigantic
+biographical collection that has ever been formed.  The frailties of a
+woman, the secret errors of a statesman, are chronicled in this book with
+the same cold impartiality.  Drawn up for the purpose of being useful,
+these biographies are necessarily exact.  When the Jesuits wish to
+influence an individual, they have but to turn to this book, and they
+know immediately his life, his character, his parts, his faults, his
+projects, his family, his friends, his most sacred ties.  Conceive, what
+a superior facility of action this immense police-register, which
+includes the whole world, must give to any one society!  It is not
+lightly that I speak of these registers; I have my facts from a person
+who has seen this collection, and who is perfectly well acquainted with
+the Jesuits.  Here then, is matter to reflect on for all those families,
+who admit freely into their houses the members of a community that
+carries its biographical researches to such a point.
+(Libri, Member of the Institute.  Letters on the Clergy.)
+
+When he had conquered the involuntary emotion which the name or
+remembrance of General Simon had occasioned, Rodin's master said to the
+secretary: "Do not yet open the letters from Leipsic, Charlestown, and
+Batavia; the information they contain will doubtless find its place
+presently.  It will save our going over the same ground twice."
+
+The secretary looked inquiringly at his master.
+
+The latter continued--"Have you finished the note relating to the
+medals?"
+
+"Here it is," replied the secretary; "I was just finishing my
+interpretation of the cipher."
+
+"Read it to me, in the order of the facts.  You can append to it the news
+contained in those three letters."
+
+"True," said Rodin; "in that way the letters will find their right
+place."
+
+"I wish to see," rejoined the other, "whether this note is clear and
+fully explanatory; you did not forget that the person it is intended for
+ought not to know all?"
+
+"I bore it in mind, and drew up the paper accordingly."
+
+"Read," said the master.
+
+M. Rodin read as follows, slowly and deliberately:
+
+"`A hundred and fifty years ago, a French Protestant family, foreseeing
+the speedy--revocation of the edict of Nantes, went into voluntary exile,
+in order to avoid the just and rigorous decrees already issued against
+the members of the reformed church--those indomitable foes of our holy
+religion.
+
+"`Some members of this family sought refuge in Holland, and afterwards in
+the Dutch colonies; others in Poland, others in Germany; some in England,
+and some in America.
+
+"`It is supposed that only seven descendants remain of this family, which
+underwent strange vicissitudes since; its present representatives are
+found in all ranks of society, from the sovereign to the mechanic.
+
+"`These descendants, direct or indirect, are:
+
+"`On the mother's side,
+
+"`Rose and Blanche Simon--minors.
+
+"`General Simon married, at Warsaw, a descendant of the said family.
+
+"`Francois Hardy, manufacturer at Plessis, near Paris.
+
+"`Prince Djalma, son of Kadja-sing, King of Mondi.
+
+"`Kadja-sing, married, in 1802, a descendant of the said family, then
+settled at Batavia, in the Island of Java, a, Dutch colony.
+
+"`On the father's side--
+
+"`Jacques Rennepont, surnamed Sleepinbuff, mechanic.
+
+"`Adrienne de Cardoville, daughter of the Count of Rennepont, Duke of
+Cardoville.
+
+"`Gabriel Rennepont, priest of the foreign missions.
+
+"`All the members of this family possess, or should possess, a bronze
+medal bearing the following inscriptions:
+
+                                 Victim
+                                   of
+                             L.  C.  D.  J.
+                              Pray for me!
+                                 Paris
+                        February the 13th, 1682.
+
+
+                               At Paris,
+                       Rue Saint Francois, No. 3,
+                        In a century and a half
+                              you will be.
+                        February the 13th, 1832.
+                              Pray For Me!
+
+"`These words and dates show that all of them have a great interest to be
+at Paris on the 13th of February, 1832; and that, not by proxy, but in
+person, whether they are minors, married or single.
+
+"`But other persons have an immense interest that none of the descendants
+of this family be at Paris on the 13th February, except Gabriel
+Rennepont, priest of the foreign missions.
+
+"`At all hazards, therefore, Gabriel must be the only person present at
+the appointment made with the descendants of this family, a century and a
+half ago.
+
+"`To prevent the other six persons from reaching Paris on the said day,
+or to render their presence of no effect, much has been already done; but
+much remains to be done to ensure the success of this affair, which is
+considered as the most vital and most important of the age, on account of
+its probable results.'"
+
+"'Tis but too true," observed Rodin's master, interrupting him, and
+shaking his head pensively.  "And, moreover, that the consequences of
+success are incalculable, and there is no forseeing what may follow
+failure.  In a word, it almost involves a question of existence or non-
+existence during several years.  To succeed, therefore, `all possible
+means must be employed.  Nothing must be shunned,' except, however, that
+appearances must be skillfully maintained."
+
+"I have written it," said Rodin, having added the words his master had
+just dictated, who then said,
+
+"Continue."
+
+Rodin read on:
+
+"`To forward or secure the affair in question, it is necessary to give
+some private and secret particulars respecting the seven persons who
+represent this family.
+
+"`The truth of these particulars may be relied on.  In case of need they
+might be completed in the most minute degree for contradictory
+information having been given, very lengthened evidence has been
+obtained.  The order in which the names of the persons stand will be
+observed, and events that have happened up to the present time will only
+be mentioned.
+
+
+"`NOTE, No. I.
+
+"`Rose and Blanche Simon, twin sisters, about fifteen years of age; very
+pretty, so much alike, one might be taken for the other; mild and timid
+disposition, but capable of enthusiasm.  Brought up in Siberia by their
+mother, a woman of strong mind and deistical sentiments, they are wholly
+ignorant of our holy religion.
+
+"`General Simon, separated from his wife before they were born, is not
+aware, even now, that he has two daughters.
+
+"`It was hoped that their presence in Paris, on the 13th of February,
+would be prevented, by sending their mother to a place of exile, much
+more distant than the one first allotted her; but their mother dying, the
+Governor of Siberia, who is wholly ours, supposing, by a deplorable
+mistake, that the measure only affected the wife of General Simon
+personally, unfortunately allowed the girls to return to France, under
+the guidance of an old soldier.
+
+"`This man is enterprising, faithful, and determined.  He
+is noted down as dangerous.
+
+"`The Simon girls are inoffensive.  It is hoped, on fair
+grounds, that they are now detained in the neighborhood of
+Leipsic.'"
+
+Rodin's master interrupted him, saying:
+
+"Now, read the letter just received from Leipsic; it may complete the
+information."
+
+Rodin read it, and exclaimed:
+
+"Excellent news!  The maidens and their guide had succeeded in escaping
+during the night from the White Falcon Tavern, but all three were
+overtaken and seized about a league from Mockern.  They have been
+transferred to Leipsic, where they are imprisoned as vagabonds; their
+guide, the soldier, is accused and condemned of resisting the
+authorities, and using violence to a magistrate."
+
+"It is almost certain, then, considering the tedious mode of proceeding
+in Germany (otherwise we would see to it), that the girls will not be
+able to be here on the 13th February," added Rodin's master.  "Append
+this to the note on the back."
+
+The secretary obeyed, and endorsed "An abstract of Morok's letter."
+
+"It is written," he then added.
+
+"Go on," resumed his master.
+
+Rodin continued reading.
+
+
+"`NOTE, No. II.
+
+"`Francois Hardy, manufacturer at Plessis, near Paris, forty years old; a
+steady, rich, intelligent, active, honest, well-informed man, idolized by
+his workmen--thanks to numberless innovations to promote their welfare.
+Never attending to the duties of our holy religion.  Noted down as a very
+dangerous man: but the hatred and envy he excites among other
+manufacturers, especially in M. le Baron Tripeaud, his competitor, may
+easily be turned against him.  If other means of action on his account,
+and against him, are necessary, the evidence may be consulted; it is very
+voluminous.  This man has been marked and watched for a long time.
+
+"`He has been so effectually misguided with respect to the medal, that he
+is completely deceived as to the interests it represents.  He is,
+however, constantly watched, surrounded, and governed, without suspecting
+it; one of his dearest friends deceives him, and through his means we
+know his secret thoughts.
+
+
+"`NOTE, No. III.
+
+"`Prince Djalma; eighteen; energetic and generous, haughty, independent
+and wild; favorite of General Simon, who commanded the troops of his
+father, Kadja-sing, in the struggle maintained by the latter against the
+English in India.  Djalma is mentioned only by way of reminder, for his
+mother died young, while her parents were living.  They resided at
+Batavia.  On the death of the latter, neither Djalma nor the king, his
+father, claimed their little property.  It is, therefore, certain that
+they are ignorant of the grave interests connected with the possession of
+the medal in question, which formed part of the property of Djalma's
+mother."
+
+Rodin's master interrupted him.
+
+"Now read the letter from Batavia, and complete the information
+respecting Djalma."
+
+Rodin read, and then observed:
+
+"Good news again.  Joshua Van Dael, merchant at Batavia (he was educated
+in our Pondicherry establishment), learns from his correspondent at
+Calcutta that the old Indian king was killed in the last battle with the
+English.  His son, Djalma, deprived of the paternal throne, is
+provisionally detained as a prisoner of state in an Indian fortress."
+
+"We are at the end of October," said Rodin's master.  "If Prince Djalma
+were to leave India now, he could scarcely reach Paris by the month of
+February."
+
+"Van Dael," continued Rodin, "regrets that he has not been able to prove
+his zeal in this case.  Supposing Prince Djalma set at liberty, or having
+effected his escape, it is certain he would come to Batavia to claim his
+inheritance from his mother, since he has nothing else left him in the
+world.  In that case, you may rely on Van Dael's devotedness.  In return,
+he solicits very precise information, by the next post, respecting the
+fortune of M. le Baron Tripeaud, banker and manufacturer, with whom he
+has business transactions."
+
+"Answer that point evasively.  Van Dael as yet has only shown zeal;
+complete the information respecting Djalma from these new tidings."
+
+Rodin wrote.
+
+But in a few minutes his master said to him with a singular expression:
+
+"Does not Van Dael mention General Simon in connection with Djalma's
+imprisonment and his father's death?"
+
+"He does not allude to him," said the secretary, continuing his task.
+
+Rodin's master was silent, and paced the room.
+
+In a few moments Rodin said to him: "I have done it."
+
+"Go on, then."
+
+
+"`NOTE, No. IV.
+
+"'Jacques Rennepont, surnamed "Sleepinbuff," i.e.  Lie naked, workman in
+Baron Tripeaud's factory.  This artisan is drunken, idle, noisy, and
+prodigal; he is not without sense, but idleness and debauch have ruined
+him.  A clever agent, on whom we rely, has become acquainted with his
+mistress, Cephyse Soliveau, nicknamed the Bacchanal Queen.  Through her
+means, the agent has formed such ties with him that he may even now be
+considered beyond the reach of the interests that ought to insure his
+presence in Paris on the 13th of February.
+
+"`NOTE, No. V.
+
+"`Gabriel Rennepont, priest of foreign missions, distant relation of the
+above, but he is alike ignorant of the existence of his relative and the
+relationship.  An orphan foundling, he was adopted by Frances Baudoin,
+the wife of a soldier going by the name Dagobert.
+
+"`Should this soldier, contrary to expectation, reach Paris, his wife
+would be a powerful means of influencing him.  She is an excellent
+creature, ignorant and credulous, of exemplary piety, over whom we have
+long had unlimited control.  She prevailed on Gabriel to take orders,
+notwithstanding his repugnance.
+
+"'Gabriel is five-and-twenty; disposition as angelic as his countenance;
+rare and solid virtues; unfortunately he was brought up with his adopted
+brother, Agricola, Dagobert's son.  This Agricola is a poet and workman--
+but an excellent workman; he is employed by M. Hardy; has imbibed the
+most detestable doctrines; fond of his mother; honest, laborious, but
+without religious feeling.  Marked as very dangerous.  This causes his
+intimacy with Gabriel to be feared.
+
+"`The latter, notwithstanding his excellent qualities, sometimes causes
+uneasiness.  We have even delayed confiding in him fully.  A false step
+might make him, too, one of the most dangerous.  Much precaution must be
+used then, especially till the 13th of February; since, we repeat it, on
+him, on his presence in Paris at that time, depend immense hopes and
+equally important interests.
+
+"`Among other precautions, we have consented to his taking part in the
+American mission, for he unites with angelic sweetness of character a
+calm intrepidity and adventurous spirit which could only be satisfied by
+allowing him to engage in the perilous existence of the missionaries.
+Luckily, his superiors at Charlestown have received the strictest orders
+not to endanger, on any account, so precious a life.  They are to send
+him to Paris, at least a month or two before February 13th."'
+
+Rodin's master again interrupted him, and said: "Read the letter from
+Charlestown, and see what it tells you in order to complete the
+information upon this point also."
+
+When he had read the letter, Rodin went on: "Gabriel is expected every
+day from the Rocky Mountains, whither he had absolutely insisted on going
+alone upon a mission."
+
+"What imprudence!"
+
+"He has no doubt escaped all danger, as he himself announces his speedy
+return to Charlestown.  As soon as he arrives, which cannot (they write)
+be later than the middle of this month, he will be shipped off for
+France."
+
+"Add this to the note which concerns him," said Rodin's master.
+
+"It is written," replied the secretary, a few moments later.
+
+"Proceed, then," said his master.  Rodin continued
+
+
+"`NOTE, No. VI.
+
+"`ADRIENNE RENNEPONT DE CARDOVILLE.
+
+"`Distantly related (without knowing it) to Jacques Rennepont, alias
+Sleepinbuff, and Gabriel Rennepont, missionary priest.  She will soon be
+twenty-one years of age, the most attractive person in the world--
+extraordinary beauty, though red-haired--a mind remarkable for its
+originality--immense fortune--all the animal instincts.  The incredible
+independence of her character makes one tremble for the future fate of
+this young person.  Happily, her appointed guardian, Baron Tripeaud (a
+baron of 1829 creation, formerly agent to the late Count of Rennepont,
+Duke of Cardoville), is quite in the interest, and almost in the
+dependence, of the young lady's aunt.  We count, with reason, upon this
+worthy and respectable relative, and on the Baron Tripeaud, to oppose and
+repress the singular, unheard-of designs which this young person, as
+resolute as independent, does not fear to avow--and which, unfortunately,
+cannot be turned to account in the interest of the affair in question--
+for--"
+
+Rodin was here interrupted by two discreet taps at the door.  The
+secretary rose, went to see who knocked, remained a moment without, and
+then returned with two letters in his hand, saying: "The princess has
+profited by the departure of a courier to--"
+
+"Give me the letter!" cried his master, without leaving him time to
+finish.  "At length," he added, "I shall have news of my mother--"
+
+He had scarcely read the first few lines of the letter, when he grew
+deadly pale, and his features took an expression of painful astonishment
+and poignant grief.  "My mother!" he cried, "oh, heavens! my mother!"
+
+"What misfortune has happened!" asked Rodin, with a look of alarm, as he
+rose at the exclamation of his master.
+
+"The symptoms of improvement were fallacious," replied the other,
+dejectedly; "she has now relapsed into a nearly hopeless state.  And yet
+the doctor thinks my presence might save her, for she calls for me
+without ceasing.  She wishes to see me for the last time, that she may
+die in peace.  Oh, that wish is sacred!  Not to grant it would be
+matricide.  If I can but arrive in time!  Travelling day and night, it
+will take nearly two days."
+
+"Alas!  what a misfortune!" said Rodin, wringing his hands, and raising
+his eyes to heaven.
+
+His master rang the bell violently, and said to the old servant that
+opened tile door: "Just put what is indispensable into the portmanteau of
+my travelling-carriage.  Let the porter take a cab, and go for post-
+horses instantly.  Within an hour, I must be on the road.  Mother!
+mother!" cried he, as the servant departed in haste.  "Not to see her
+again--oh, it would be frightful!"   And sinking upon a chair,
+overwhelmed with sorrow, he covered his face with his hands.
+
+This great grief was sincere--he loved tenderly his mother that divine
+sentiment had accompanied him, unalterable and pure, through all the
+phases of a too often guilty life.
+
+After a few minutes, Rodin ventured to say to his master, as he showed
+him the second letter: "This, also, has just been brought from M.
+Duplessis.  It is very important--very pressing--"
+
+"See what it is, and answer it.  I have no head for business."
+
+"The letter is confidential," said Rodin, presenting it to his master.
+"I dare not open it, as you may see by the mark on the cover."
+
+At sight of this mark, the countenance of Rodin's master assumed an
+indefinable expression of respect and fear.  With a trembling hand he
+broke the seal.  The note contained only the following words: "Leave all
+business, and without losing a minute, set out and come.  M. Duplessis
+will replace you.  He has orders."
+
+"Great God!" cried this man in despair.  "Set out before I have seen my
+mother!  It is frightful, impossible--it would perhaps kill her--yes, it
+would be matricide!"
+
+Whilst he uttered these words, his eyes rested on the huge globe, marked
+with red crosses.  A sudden revolution seemed to take place within him;
+he appeared to repent of the violence of his regrets; his face, though
+still sad, became once more calm and grave.  He handed the fatal letter
+to his secretary, and said to him, whilst he stifled a sigh: "To be
+classed under its proper number."
+
+Rodin took the letter, wrote a number upon it, and placed it in a
+particular box.  After a moment's silence, his master resumed: "You will
+take orders from M. Duplessis, and work with him.  You will deliver to
+him the note on the affair of the medals; he knows to whom to address it.
+You will write to Batavia, Leipsic, and Charlestown, in the sense agreed.
+Prevent, at any price, the daughters of General Simon from quitting
+Leipsic; hasten the arrival of Gabriel in Paris; and should Prince Djalma
+come to Batavia, tell M. Joshua Van Dael, that we count on his zeal and
+obedience to keep him there."
+
+And this man, who, while his dying mother called to him in vain, could
+thus preserve his presence of mind, entered his own apartments; whilst
+Rodin busied himself with the answers he had been ordered to write, and
+transcribed them in cipher.
+
+In about three quarters of an hour, the bells of the post-horses were
+heard jingling without.  The old servant again entered, after discreetly
+knocking at the door, and said:
+
+"The carriage is ready."
+
+Rodin nodded, and the servant withdrew.  The secretary, in his turn, went
+to knock at the door of the inner room.  His master appeared, still grave
+and cold, but fearfully pale, and holding a letter in his hand.
+
+"This for my mother," said he to Rodin; "you will send a courier on the
+instant."
+
+"On the instant," replied the secretary.
+
+"Let the three letters for Leipsic, Batavia and Charlestown, leave to-day
+by the ordinary channel.  They are of the last importance.  You know it."
+
+Those were his last words.  Executing merciless orders with a merciless
+obedience, he departed without even attempting to see his mother.  His
+secretary accompanied him respectfully to his carriage.
+
+"What road, sir?" asked the postilion, turning round on his saddle.
+
+"The road to ITALY!" answered Rodin's master, with so deep a sigh that it
+almost resembled a sob.
+
+As the horses started at full gallop, Rodin made a low bow; then he
+returned to the large, cold, bare apartment.  The attitude, countenance,
+and gait of this personage seemed to have undergone a sudden change.  He
+appeared to have increased in dimensions.  He was no longer an automaton,
+moved by the mechanism of humble obedience.  His features, till now
+impassible, his glance, hitherto subdued, became suddenly animated with
+an expression of diabolical craft; a sardonic smile curled his thin, pale
+lips, and a look of grim satisfaction relaxed his cadaverous face.
+
+In turn, he stopped before the huge globe.  In turn, he contemplated it
+in silence, even as his master had done.  Then, bending over it, and
+embracing it, as it were, in his arms, he gloated with his reptile-eye on
+it for some moments, drew his coarse finger along its polished surface,
+and tapped his flat, dirty nail on three of the places dotted with red
+crosses.  And, whilst he thus pointed to three towns, in very different
+parts of the world, he named them aloud, with a sneer.  "Leipsic--
+Charlestown--Batavia."
+
+"In each of these three places," he added, "distant as they are from one
+another, there exist persons who little think that here, in this obscure
+street, from the recesses of this chamber, wakeful eyes are upon them--
+that all their movements are followed, all their actions known--and that
+hence will issue new instructions, which deeply concern them, and which
+will be inexorably executed; for an interest is at stake, which may have
+a powerful influence on Europe--on the world.  Luckily, we have friends
+at Leipsic, Charlestown, and Batavia."
+
+This funny, old, sordid, ill-dressed man, with his livid and death-like
+countenance, thus crawling over the sphere before him, appeared still
+more awful than his master, when the latter, erect and haughty, had
+imperiously laid his hand upon that globe, which he seemed desirous of
+subjecting by the strength of his pride and courage.  The one resembled
+the eagle, that hovers above his prey--the other the reptile, that
+envelops its victim in its inextricable folds.
+
+After some minutes, Rodin approached his desk, rubbing his hands briskly
+together, and wrote the following epistle in a cipher unknown even to his
+master:
+
+"Paris, 3/4 past 9 A.M.
+
+"He is gone--but he hesitated!
+
+'"When he received the order, his dying mother had just summoned him to
+her.  He might, they told him, save her by his presence; and he
+exclaimed: `Not to go to my mother would be matricide!'
+
+"Still, he is gone--but he hesitated.  I keep my eye upon him
+continually.  These lines will reach Rome at the same time as himself.
+
+"P.S.--Tell the Cardinal-Prince that he may rely on me, but I hope for
+his active aid in return."
+
+When he had folded and sealed this letter, Rodin put it into his pocket.
+The clock struck ten, M. Rodin's hour for breakfast.  He arranged and
+locked up his papers in a drawer, of which he carried away the key,
+brushed his old greasy hat with his sleeve, took a patched umbrella in
+his hand, and went out.[1]
+
+Whilst these two men, in the depths of their obscure retreat, were thus
+framing a plot, which was to involve the seven descendants of a race
+formerly proscribed--a strange mysterious defender was planning how to
+protect this family, which was also his own.
+
+[1] Having cited the excellent, courageous letters of M. Libri, and the
+curious work edited by M. Paulin, it is our duty likewise to mention many
+bold and conscientious writings on the subject of the "Society of Jesus,"
+recently published by the elder Dupin, Michelet, Quinet, Genin, and the
+Count de Saint Priest--works of high and impartial intellects, in which
+the fatal theories of the order are admirably exposed and condemned.  We
+esteem ourselves happy, if we can bring one stone towards the erection of
+the strong, and, we hope, durable embankment which these generous hearts
+and noble minds are raising against the encroachments of an impure and
+always menacing flood. -E. S.
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V1, by Eugene
+Sue
+       
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+BOOK II.
+
+INTERVAL.--THE WANDERING JEW'S SENTENCE.
+
+XVII.      The Ajoupa
+XVIII.     The Tattooing
+XIX.       The Smuggler
+XX.        M. Joshua Van Dael
+XXI.       The Ruins of Tchandi
+XXII.      The Ambuscade
+XXIII.     M. Rodin
+XXIV.      The Tempest
+XXV.       The Shipwrecked
+XXVI.      The Departure for Paris
+XXVII.     Dagobert's Wife
+XXVIII.    The Sister of the Bacchanal Queen
+XXIX.      Agricola Baudoin
+XXX.       The Return
+XXXI.      Agricola and Mother Bunch
+XXXII.     The Awakening
+XXXIII.    The Pavilion
+XXXIV.     Adrienne at her Toilet
+XXXV.      The Interview
+
+
+
+
+INTERVAL.
+
+THE WANDERING JEW'S SENTENCE.
+
+The site is wild and rugged.  It is a lofty eminence covered with huge
+boulders of sandstone, between which rise birch trees and oaks, their
+foliage already yellowed by autumn.  These tall trees stand out from the
+background of red light, which the sun has left in the west, resembling
+the reflection of a great fire.
+
+From this eminence the eye looks down into a deep valley, shady, fertile,
+and half-veiled in light vapor by the evening mist.  The rich meadows,
+the tufts of bushy trees the fields from which the ripe corn has been
+gathered in, all blend together in one dark, uniform tint, which
+contrasts with the limpid azure of the heavens.  Steeples of gray stone
+or slate lift their pointed spires, at intervals, from the midst of this
+valley; for many villages are spread about it, bordering a high-road
+which leads from the north to the west.
+
+It is the hour of repose--the hour when, for the most part, every cottage
+window brightens to the joyous crackling of the rustic hearth, and shines
+afar through shade and foliage, whilst clouds of smoke issue from the
+chimneys, and curl up slowly towards the sky.  But now, strange to say,
+every hearth in the country seems cold and deserted.  Stranger and more
+fatal still, every steeple rings out a funeral knell.  Whatever there is
+of activity, movement, or life, appears concentrated in that lugubrious
+and far-sounding vibration.
+
+Lights begin to show themselves in the dark villages, but they rise not
+from the cheerful and pleasant rustic hearth.  They are as red as the
+fires of the herdsmen, seen at night through the midst of the fog.  And
+then these lights do not remain motionless.  They creep slowly towards
+the churchyard of every village.  Louder sounds the death-knell, the air
+trembles beneath the strokes of so many bells, and, at rare intervals,
+the funeral chant rises faintly to the summit of the hill.
+
+Why so many interments?  What valley of desolation is this, where the
+peaceful songs which follow the hard labors of the day are replaced by
+the death dirge? where the repose of evening is exchanged for the repose
+of eternity?  What is this valley of the shadow, where every village
+mourns for its many dead, and buries them at the same hour of the same
+night?
+
+Alas! the deaths are so sudden and numerous and frightful that there is
+hardly time to bury the dead.  During day the survivors are chained to
+the earth by hard but necessary toil; and only in the evening, when they
+return from the fields, are they able, though sinking with fatigue, to
+dig those other furrows, in which their brethren are to lie heaped like
+grains of corn.
+
+And this valley is not the only one that has seen the desolation.  During
+a series of fatal years, many villages, many towns, many cities, many
+great countries, have seen, like this valley, their hearths deserted and
+cold--have seen, like this valley, mourning take the place of joy, and
+the death-knell substituted for the noise of festival--have wept in the
+same day for their many dead, and buried them at night by the lurid glare
+of torches.
+
+For, during those fatal years, an awful wayfarer had slowly journeyed
+over the earth, from one pole to the other--from the depths of India and
+Asia to the ice of Siberia--from the ice of Siberia to the borders of the
+seas of France.
+
+This traveller, mysterious as death, slow as eternity, implacable as
+fate, terrible as the hand of heaven, was the CHOLERA!
+
+The tolling of bells and the funeral chants still rose from the depths of
+the valley to the summit of the hill, like the complaining of a mighty
+voice; the glare of the funeral torches was still seen afar through the
+mist of evening; it was the hour of twilight--that strange hour, which
+gives to the most solid forms a vague, indefinite fantastic appearance--
+when the sound of firm and regular footsteps was heard on the stony soil
+of the rising ground, and, between the black trunks of the trees, a man
+passed slowly onward.
+
+His figure was tall, his head was bowed upon his breast; his countenance
+was noble, gentle, and sad; his eyebrows, uniting in the midst, extended
+from one temple to the other, like a fatal mark on his forehead.
+
+This man did not seem to hear the distant tolling of so many funeral
+bells--and yet, a few days before, repose and happiness, health and joy,
+had reigned in those villages through which he had slowly passed, and
+which he now left behind him, mourning and desolate.  But the traveller
+continued on his way, absorbed in his own reflections.
+
+"The 13th of February approaches," thought he; "the day approaches, in
+which the descendants of my beloved sister, the last scions of our race,
+should meet in Paris.  Alas! it is now a hundred and fifty years since,
+for the third time, persecution scattered this family over all the earth-
+-this family, that I have watched over with tenderness for eighteen
+centuries, through all its migrations and exiles, its changes of
+religion, fortune, and name!
+
+"Oh! for this family, descended from the sister of the poor shoemaker,[2]
+what grandeur and what abasement, what obscurity and what splendor, what
+misery and what glory!  By how many crimes has it been sullied, by how
+many virtues honored!  The history of this single family is the history
+of the human race!
+
+"Passing, in the course of so many generations, through the veins of the
+poor and the rich, of the sovereign and the bandit, of the wise man and
+the fool, of the coward and the brave, of the saint and the atheist, the
+blood of my sister has transmitted itself to this hour.
+
+"What scions of this family are now remaining?  Seven only.
+
+"Two orphans, the daughters of proscribed parents--a dethroned prince--a
+poor missionary priest--a man of the middle class--a young girl of a
+great name and large fortune--a mechanic.
+
+"Together, they comprise in themselves the virtues, the courage, the
+degradation, the splendor, the miseries of our species!
+
+"Siberia--India--America--France--behold the divers places where fate has
+thrown them!
+
+"My instinct teaches me when one of them is in peril.  Then, from the
+North to the South, from the East to the West, I go to seek them.
+Yesterday amid the polar frosts--to-day in the temperate zone--to-morrow
+beneath the fires of the tropics--but often, alas! at the moment when my
+presence might save them, the invisible hand impels me, the whirlwind
+carries me away, and the voice speaks in my ear: 'GO ON! GO ON!'
+
+"Oh, that I might only finish my task!--'GO ON!'--A single hour--only a
+single hour of repose!--'GO ON!'--Alas!  I leave those I love on the
+brink of the abyss!--'GO ON!  GO ON!'
+
+"Such is my punishment.  If it is great, my crime was greater still!  An
+artisan, devoted to privations and misery, my misfortunes had made me
+cruel.
+
+"Oh, cursed, cursed be the day, when, as I bent over my work, sullen with
+hate and despair, because, in spite of my incessant labor, I and mine
+wanted for everything, the Saviour passed before my door.
+
+"Reviled, insulted, covered with blows, hardly able to sustain the weight
+of his heavy cross, He asked me to let Him rest a moment on my stone
+bench.  The sweat poured from His forehead, His feet were bleeding, He
+was well-nigh sinking with fatigue, and He said to me, in a mild, heart-
+piercing voice: `I suffer!' `And I too suffer,' I replied, as with harsh
+anger I pushed Him from the place; `I suffer, and no one comes to help
+me!  I find no pity, and will give none.  Go on! go on!' Then, with a
+deep sigh of pain, He answered, and spake this sentence: `Verily, thou
+shalt go on till the day of thy redemption, for so wills the Father which
+art in heaven!'
+
+"And so my punishment began.  Too late I opened these eyes to the light,
+too late I learned repentance and charity, too late I understood those
+divine words of Him I had outraged, words which should be the law of the
+whole human race.  `LOVE YE ONE ANOTHER.'
+
+"In vain through successive ages, gathering strength and eloquence from
+those celestial words, have I labored to earn my pardon, by filling with
+commiseration and love hearts that were overflowing with envy and
+bitterness, by inspiring many a soul with a sacred horror of oppression
+and injustice.  For me the day of mercy has not yet dawned!
+
+"And even as the first man, by his fall, devoted his posterity to
+misfortune, it would seem as if I, the workman, had consigned the whole
+race of artisans to endless sorrows, and as if they were expiating my
+crime: for they alone, during these eighteen centuries, have not yet been
+delivered.
+
+"For eighteen centuries, the powerful and the happy of this world have
+said to the toiling people what I said to the imploring and suffering
+Saviour: `Go on! go on!'  And the people, sinking with fatigue, bearing
+their heavy cross, have answered in the bitterness of their grief: `Oh,
+for pity's sake! a few moments of repose; we are worn out with toil.'--
+Go on!'--'And if we perish in our pain, what will become of our little
+children and our aged mothers?'--'Go on! go on!' And, for eighteen
+centuries, they and I have continued to struggle forward and to suffer,
+and no charitable voice has yet pronounced the word 'Enough!'
+
+"Alas! such is my punishment.  It is immense, it is two-fold.  I suffer
+in the name of humanity, when I see these wretched multitudes consigned
+without respite to profitless and oppressive toil.  I suffer in the name
+of my family, when, poor and wandering, I am unable to bring aid to the
+descendants of my dear sister.  But, when the sorrow is above my
+strength, when I foresee some danger from which I cannot preserve my own,
+then my thoughts, travelling over the world, go in search of that woman
+like me accursed, that daughter of a queen, who, like me, the son of a
+laborer, wanders, and will wander on, till the day of her redemption.[3]
+
+"Once in a century, as two planets draw nigh to each other in their
+revolutions, I am permitted to meet this woman during the dread week of
+the Passion.  And after this interview, filled with terrible remembrances
+and boundless griefs, wandering stars of eternity, we pursue our infinite
+course.
+
+"And this woman, the only one upon earth who, like me, sees the end of
+every century, and exclaims: `What another?' this woman responds to my
+thought, from the furthest extremity of the world.  She, who alone shares
+my terrible destiny, has chosen to share also the only interest that has
+consoled me for so many ages.  Those descendants of my dear sister, she
+too loves, she too protects them.  For them she journeys likewise from
+East to West and from North to South.
+
+"But alas! the invisible hand impels her, the whirlwind carries her away,
+and the voice speaks in her ear: `Go on!'--Oh that I might finish my
+sentence!' repeats she also,--Go on!'--'A single hour--only a single hour
+of repose!'--Go on!'--'I leave those I love on the brink of the abyss.'--
+`Go on! Go on!--'
+
+Whilst this man thus went over the hill absorbed in his thoughts, the
+light evening breeze increased almost to a gale, a vivid flash streamed
+across the sky, and long, deep whistlings announced the coming of a
+tempest.
+
+On a sudden this doomed man, who could no longer weep or smile, started
+with a shudder.  No physical pain could reach him, and yet he pressed his
+hand hastily to his heart, as though he had experienced a cruel pang.
+"Oh!" cried he; "I feel it.  This hour, many of those whom I love--the
+descendants of my dear sister--suffer, and are in great peril.  Some in
+the centre of India--some in America--some here in Germany.  The struggle
+recommences, the detestable passions are again awake.  Oh, thou that
+hearest me--thou, like myself wandering and accursed--Herodias! help me
+to protect them!  May my invocation reach thee, in those American
+solitudes where thou now lingerest--and may we arrive in time!"
+
+Thereon an extraordinary event happened.  Night was come.  The man made a
+movement; precipitately, to retrace his steps--but an invisible force
+prevented him, and carried him forward in the opposite direction.
+
+At this moment, the storm burst forth in its murky majesty.  One of those
+whirlwinds, which tear up trees by the roots and shake the foundations of
+the rocks, rushed over the hill rapid and loud as thunder.
+
+In the midst of the roaring of the hurricane, by the glare of the fiery
+flashes, the man with the black mark on his brow was seen descending the
+hill, stalking with huge strides among the rocks, and between trees bent
+beneath the efforts of the storm.
+
+The tread of this man was no longer slow, firm, and steady--but painfully
+irregular, like that of one impelled by an irresistible power, or carried
+along by the whirl of a frightful wind.  In vain he extended his
+supplicating hands to heaven.  Soon he disappeared in the shades of
+night, and amid the roar of the tempest.
+
+[2]It is known that, according to the legend, the Wandering Jew was a
+shoemaker at Jerusalem.  The Saviour, carrying his cross, passed before
+the house of the artisan, and asked him to be allowed to rest an instant
+on the stone bench at his door.  "Go on! go on!" said the Jew harshly,
+pushing him away.  "Thou shalt go on till the end of time," answered the
+Saviour, in a stern though sorrowful tone.  For further details, see the
+eloquent and learned notice by Charles Magnin, appended to the
+magnificent poem "Ahasuerus," by Ed. Quinet. -E. S.
+
+[3]According to a legend very little known, for we are indebted to the
+kindness of M. Maury, the learned sub-librarian of the Institute,
+Herodias was condemned to wander till the day of judgement, for having
+asked for the death of John the Baptist, --E. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE AJOUPA.
+
+While Rodin despatched his cosmopolite correspondence, from his retreat
+in the Rue du Milieu des Ursins, in Paris--while the daughters of General
+Simon, after quitting as fugitives the White Falcon, were detained
+prisoners at Leipsic along with Dagobert--other scenes, deeply
+interesting to these different personages, were passing, almost as it
+were at the same moment, at the other extremity of the world, in the
+furthermost parts of Asia--that is to say, in the island of Java, not far
+from the city of Batavia, the residence of M. Joshua Van Dael, one of the
+correspondents of Rodin.
+
+Java! magnificent and fatal country, where the most admirable flowers
+conceal hideous reptiles, where the brightest fruits contain subtle
+poisons, where grow splendid trees, whose very shadow is death--where the
+gigantic vampire bat sucks the blood of its victims whilst it prolongs
+their sleep, by surrounding them with a fresh and balmy air, no fan
+moving so rapidly as the great perfumed wings of this monster!
+
+The month of October, 1831, draws near its close.  It is noon--an hour
+well nigh mortal to him who encounters the fiery heat of the sun, which
+spreads a sheet of dazzling light over the deep blue enamel of the sky.
+
+An ajoupa, or hut, made of cane mats, suspended from long bamboos, which
+are driven far into the ground, rises in the midst of the bluish shadows
+cast by a tuft of trees, whose glittering verdure resembles green
+porcelain.  These quaintly formed trees, rounded into arches, pointing
+like spires, overspreading like parasols, are so thick in foliage, so
+entangled one with the other, that their dome is impenetrable to the
+rain.
+
+The soil, ever marshy, notwithstanding the insupportable heat, disappears
+beneath an inextricable mass of creepers, ferns, and tufted reeds, of a
+freshness and vigor of vegetation almost incredible, reaching nearly to
+the top of the ajoupa, which lies hid like a nest among the grass.
+
+Nothing can be more suffocating than the atmosphere, heavily laden with
+moist exhalations like the steam of hot water, and impregnated with the
+strongest and sharpest scents; for the cinnamon-tree, ginger-plant,
+stephanotis and Cape jasmine, mixed with these trees and creepers, spread
+around in puffs their penetrating odors.  A roof, formed of large Indian
+fig-leaves, covers the cabin; at one end is a square opening, which
+serves for a window, shut in with a fine lattice-work of vegetable
+fibres, so as to prevent the reptiles and venomous insects from creeping
+into the ajoupa.  The huge trunk of a dead tree, still standing, but much
+bent, and with its summit reaching to the roof of the ajoupa, rises from
+the midst of the brushwood.  From every crevice in its black, rugged,
+mossy bark, springs a strange, almost fantastic flower; the wing of a
+butterfly is not of a finer tissue, of a more brilliant purple, of a more
+glossy black: those unknown birds we see in our dreams, have no more
+grotesque forms than these specimens of the orchis--winged flowers, that
+seem always ready to fly from their frail and leafless stalks.  The long,
+flexible stems of the cactus, which might be taken for reptiles, encircle
+also this trunk, and clothe it with their bunches of silvery white,
+shaded inside with bright orange.  These flowers emit a strong scent of
+vanilla.
+
+A serpent, of a brick-red, about the thickness of a large quill, and five
+or six inches long, half protrudes its flat head from one of those
+enormous, perfumed calyces, in which it lies closely curled up.
+
+Within the ajoupa, a young man is extended on a mat in a profound sleep.
+His complexion of a clear golden yellow, gives him the appearance of a
+statue of pale bronze, on which a ray of sun is playing.  His attitude is
+simple and graceful; his right arm sustains his head, a little raised and
+turned on one side; his ample robe of white muslin, with hanging sleeves,
+leaves uncovered his chest and arms worthy of the Antoinous.  Marble is
+not more firm, more polished than his skin, the golden hue of which
+contracts strongly with the whiteness of his garments.  Upon his broad
+manly chest a deep scar is visible--the mark of the musket-ball he
+received in defending the life of General Simon, the father of Rose and
+Blanche.
+
+Suspended from his neck, he wears a medal similar to that in the
+possession of the two sisters.  This Indian is Djalma.
+
+His features are at once very noble and very beautiful.  His hair of a
+blue black, parted upon his forehead, falls waving, but not curled over
+his shoulders; whilst his eyebrows, boldly and yet delicately defined,
+are of as deep a jet as the long eyelashes, that cast their shadow upon
+his beardless cheek.  His bright, red lips are slightly apart, and he
+breathes uneasily; his sleep is heavy and troubled, for the heat becomes
+every moment more and more suffocating.
+
+Without, the silence is profound.  Not a breath of air is stirring.  Yet
+now the tall ferns, which cover the soil, begin to move almost
+imperceptibly, as though their stems were shaken by the slow progress of
+some crawling body.  From time to time, this trifling oscillation
+suddenly ceases, and all is again motionless.  But, after several of
+these alternations of rustling and deep silence, a human head appears in
+the midst of the jungle, a little distance from the trunk of the dead
+tree.
+
+The man to whom it belonged was possessed of a grim countenance, with a
+complexion the color of greenish bronze, long black hair bound about his
+temples, eyes brilliant with savage fire, and an expression remarkable
+for its intelligence and ferocity.  Holding his breath, he remained quite
+still for a moment; then, advancing upon his hands and knees, pushing
+aside the leaves so gently, that not the slightest noise could be heard,
+he arrived cautiously and slowly at the trunk of the dead tree, the
+summit of which nearly touched the roof of the ajoupa.
+
+This man, of Malay origin, belonging to the sect of the Lughardars
+(Stranglers), after having again listened, rose almost entirely from
+amongst the brushwood.  With the exception of white cotton drawers,
+fastened around his middle by a parti-colored sash, he was completely
+naked.  His bronze, supple, and nervous limbs were overlaid with a thick
+coat of oil.  Stretching himself along the huge trunk on the side
+furthest from the cabin, and thus sheltered by the whole breadth of the
+tree with its surrounding creepers, he began to climb silently, with as
+much patience as caution.  In the undulations of his form, in the
+flexibility of his movements, in the restrained vigor, which fully put
+forth would have been alarming, there was some resemblance to the
+stealthy and treacherous advance of the tiger upon its prey.
+
+Having reached, completely unperceived, the inclined portion of the tree,
+which almost touched the roof of the cabin, he was only separated from
+the window by a distance of about a foot.  Cautiously advancing his head,
+he looked down into the interior, to see how he might best find an
+entrance.
+
+At sight of Djalma in his deep sleep, the Thug's bright eyes glittered
+with increased brilliancy; a nervous contraction, or rather a mute,
+ferocious laugh, curling the corners of his mouth, drew them up towards
+the cheekbones, and exposed rows of teeth, filed sharp like the points of
+a saw, and dyed of a shining black.
+
+Djalma was lying in such a manner and so near the door of the ajoupa,
+which opened inwards, that, were it moved in the least, he must be
+instantly awakened.  The Strangler, with his body still sheltered by the
+tree, wishing to examine more attentively the interior of the cabin,
+leaned very forward, and in order to maintain his balance, lightly rested
+his hand on the ledge of the opening that served for a window.  This
+movement shook the large cactus-flowers, within which the little serpent
+lay curled, and, darting forth it twisted itself rapidly round the wrist
+of the Strangler.  Whether from pain or surprise, the man uttered a low
+cry; and as he drew back swiftly, still holding by the trunk of the tree,
+he perceived that Djalma had moved.
+
+The young Indian, though retaining his supine posture, had half opened
+his eyes, and turned his head towards the window, whilst his breast
+heaved with a deep-drawn sigh, for, beneath that thick dome of moist
+verdure, the concentrated heat was intolerable.
+
+Hardly had he moved, when, from behind the tree, was heard the shrill,
+brief, sonorous note, which the bird of paradise titters when it takes
+its flight--a cry which resembles that of the pheasant.  This note was
+soon repeated, but more faintly, as though the brilliant bird were
+already at a distance.  Djalma, thinking he had discovered the cause of
+the noise which had aroused him for an instant, stretched out the arm
+upon which his head had rested, and went to sleep again, with scarcely
+any change of position.
+
+For some minutes, the most profound silence once more reigned in this
+solitude, and everything remained motionless.
+
+The Strangler, by his skillful imitation of the bird, had repaired the
+imprudence of that exclamation of surprise and pain, which the reptile
+bite had forced from him.  When he thought all was safe, he again
+advanced his head, and saw the young Indian once more plunged in sleep.
+Then he descended the tree with the same precautions, though his left
+hand was somewhat swollen from the sting of the serpent, and disappeared
+in the jungle.
+
+At that instant a song of monotonous and melancholy cadence was heard in
+the distance.  The Strangler raised himself, and listened attentively,
+and his face took an expression of surprise and deadly anger.  The song
+came nearer and nearer to the cabin, and, in a few seconds, an Indian,
+passing through an open space in the jungle, approached the spot where
+the Thug lay concealed.
+
+The latter unwound from his waist a long thin cord, to one of the ends of
+which was attached a leaden ball, of the form and size of an egg; having
+fastened the other end of this cord to his right wrist, the Strangler
+again listened, and then disappeared, crawling through the tall grass in
+the direction of the Indian, who still advanced slowly, without
+interrupting his soft and plaintive song.
+
+He was a young fellow scarcely twenty, with a bronzed complexion, the
+slave of Djalma, his vest of blue cotton was confined at the waist by a
+parti-colored sash; he wore a red turban, and silver rings in his ears
+and about his wrists.  He was bringing a message to his master, who,
+during the great heat of the day was reposing in the ajoupa, which stood
+at some distance from the house he inhabited.
+
+Arriving at a place where two paths separated, the slave, without
+hesitation took that which led to the cabin, from which he was now scarce
+forty paces distant.
+
+One of those enormous Java butterflies, whose wings extend six or eight
+inches in length, and offer to the eye two streaks of gold on a ground of
+ultramarine, fluttering from leaf to leaf, alighted on a bush of Cape
+jasmine, within the reach of the young Indian.  The slave stopped in his
+song, stood still, advanced first a foot, then a hand, and seized the
+butterfly.
+
+Suddenly he sees a dark figure rise before him; he hears a whizzing noise
+like that of a sling; he feels a cord, thrown with as much rapidity as
+force, encircle his neck with a triple band; and, almost in the same
+instant, the leaden ball strikes violently against the back of his head.
+
+This attack was so abrupt and unforseen, that Djalma's servant could not
+even utter a single cry, a single groan.  He tottered--the Strangler gave
+a vigorous pull at the cord--the bronzed countenance of the slave became
+purple, and he fell upon his knees, convulsively moving his arms.  Then
+the Strangler threw him quite down, and pulled the cord so violently,
+that the blood spurted from the skin.  The victim struggled for a moment
+--and all was over.
+
+During his short but intense agony, the murderer, kneeling before his
+victim, and watching with ardent eye his least convulsions, seemed
+plunged into an ecstasy of ferocious joy.  His nostrils dilated, the
+veins of his neck and temples were swollen, and the same savage laugh,
+which had curled his lips at the aspect of the sleeping Djalma, again
+displayed his pointed black teeth, which a nervous trembling of the jaws
+made to chatter.  But soon he crossed his arms upon his heaving breast,
+bowed his forehead, and murmured some mysterious words, which sounded
+like an invocation or a prayer.  Immediately after, he returned to the
+contemplation of the dead body.  The hyena and the tiger-cat, who, before
+devouring, crouch beside the prey that they have surprised or hunted
+down, have not a wilder or more sanguinary look than this man.
+
+But, remembering that his task was not yet accomplished tearing himself
+unwillingly from the hideous spectacle, he unbound the cord from the neck
+of his victim, fastened it round his own body, dragged the corpse out of
+the path, and, without attempting to rob it of its silver rings,
+concealed it in a thick part of the jungle.
+
+Then the Strangler again began to creep on his knees and belly, till he
+arrived at the cabin of Djalma--that cabin constructed of mats suspended
+from bamboos.  After listening attentively, he drew from his girdle a
+knife, the sharp-pointed blade of which was wrapped in a fig-leaf, and
+made in the matting an incision of three feet in length.  This was done
+with such quickness, and with so fine a blade, that the light touch of
+the diamond cutting glass would have made more noise.  Seeing, by means
+of this opening, which was to serve him for a passage, that Djalma was
+still fast asleep, the Thug, with incredible temerity, glided into the
+cabin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE TATTOOING
+
+The heavens, which had been till now of transparent blue, became
+gradually of a greenish tint, and the sun was veiled in red, lurid vapor.
+This strange light gave to every object a weird appearance, of which one
+might form an idea, by looking at a landscape through a piece of copper-
+colored glass.  In those climates, this phenomenon, when united with an
+increase of burning heat, always announces the approach of a storm.
+
+From time to time there was a passing odor of sulphur; then the leaves,
+slightly shaken by electric currents, would tremble upon their stalks;
+till again all would return to the former motionless silence.  The weight
+of the burning atmosphere, saturated with sharp perfumes, became almost
+intolerable.  Large drops of sweat stood in pearls on the forehead of
+Djalma, still plunged in enervating sleep--for it no longer resembled
+rest, but a painful stupor.
+
+The Strangler glided like a reptile along the sides of the ajoupa, and,
+crawling on his belly, arrived at the sleeping-mat of Djalma, beside
+which he squatted himself, so as to occupy as little space as possible.
+Then began a fearful scene, by reason of the mystery and silence which
+surrounded it.
+
+Djalma's life was at the mercy of the Strangler.  The latter, resting
+upon his hands and knees, with his neck stretched forward, his eye fixed
+and dilated, continued motionless as a wild beast about to spring.  Only
+a slight nervous trembling of the jaws agitated that mask of bronze.
+
+But soon his hideous features revealed a violent struggle that was
+passing within him--a struggle between the thirst, the craving for the
+enjoyment of murder, which the recent assassination of the slave had made
+still more active, and the orders he had received not to attempt the life
+of Djalma, though the design, which brought him to the ajoupa, might
+perhaps be as fatal to the young Indian as death itself.  Twice did the
+Strangler, with look of flame, resting only on his left hand, seize with
+his right the rope's end; and twice his hand fell--the instinct of murder
+yielding to a powerful will, of which the Malay acknowledged the
+irresistible empire.
+
+In him, the homicidal craving must have amounted to madness, for, in
+these hesitations, he lost much precious time: at any moment, Djalma,
+whose vigor, skill, and courage were known and feared, might awake from
+his sleep, and, though unarmed, he would prove a terrible adversary.  At
+length the Thug made up his mind; with a suppressed sigh of regret, he
+set about accomplishing his task.
+
+This task would have appeared impossible to any one else.  The reader may
+judge.
+
+Djalma, with his face turned towards the left, leaned his head upon his
+curved arm.  It was first necessary, without waking him, to oblige him to
+turn his face towards the right (that is, towards the door), so that, in
+case of his being half-roused, his first glance might not fall upon the
+Strangler.  The latter, to accomplish his projects, would have to remain
+many minutes in the cabin.
+
+The heavens became darker; the heat arrived at its last degree of
+intensity; everything combined to increase the torpor of the sleeper, and
+so favor the Strangler's designs.  Kneeling down close to Djalma, he
+began, with the tips of his supple, well-oiled fingers, to stroke the
+brow, temples, and eyelids of the young Indian, but with such extreme
+lightness, that the contact of the two skins was hardly sensible.  When
+this kind of magnetic incantation had lasted for some seconds, the sweat,
+which bathed the forehead of Djalma, became more abundant: he heaved a
+smothered sigh, and the muscles of his face gave several twitches, for
+the strokings, although too light to rouse him, yet caused in him a
+feeling of indefinable uneasiness.
+
+Watching him with his restless and burning eye, the Strangler continued
+his maneuvers with so much patience, that Djalma, still sleeping, but no
+longer able to bear this vague, annoying sensation, raised his right hand
+mechanically to his face, as if he would have brushed away an importunate
+insect.  But he had not strength to do it; almost immediately after, his
+hand, inert and heavy, fell back upon his chest.  The Strangler saw, by
+this symptom, that he was attaining his object, and continued to stroke,
+with the same address, the eyelids, brow, and temples.
+
+Whereupon Djalma, more and more oppressed by heavy sleep, and having
+neither strength nor will to raise his hand to his face, mechanically
+turned round his head, which fell languidly upon his right shoulder,
+seeking by this change of attitude, to escape from the disagreeable
+sensation which pursued him.  The first point gained, the Strangler could
+act more freely.
+
+To render as profound as possible the sleep he had half interrupted, he
+now strove to imitate the vampire, and, feigning the action of a fan, he
+rapidly moved his extended hands about the burning face of the young
+Indian.  Alive to a feeling of such sudden and delicious coolness, in the
+height of suffocating heat, the countenance of Djalma brightened, his
+bosom heaved, his half-opened lips drank in the grateful air, and he fell
+into a sleep only the more invincible, because it had been at first
+disturbed, and was now yielded to under the influence of a pleasing
+sensation.
+
+A sudden flash of lightning illumined the shady dome that sheltered the
+ajoupa: fearing that the first clap of thunder might rouse the young
+Indian, the Strangler hastened to complete his Task.  Djalma lay on his
+back, with his head resting on his right shoulder, and his left arm
+extended; the Thug, crouching at his left side, ceased by degrees the
+process of fanning; then, with incredible dexterity, he succeeded in
+rolling up, above the elbow, the long wide sleeve of white muslin that
+covered the left arm of the sleeper.
+
+He next drew from the pocket of his drawers a copper box, from which he
+took a very fine, sharp-pointed needle, and a piece of a black-looking
+root.  He pricked this root several times with the needle, and on each
+occasion there issued from it a white, glutinous liquid.
+
+When the Strangler thought the needle sufficiently impregnated with this
+juice, he bent down, and began to blow gently over the inner surface of
+Djalma's arm, so as to cause a fresh sensation of coolness; then, with
+the point of his needle, he traced almost imperceptibly on the skin of
+the sleeping youth some mysterious and symbolical signs.  All this was
+performed so cleverly and the point of the needle was so fine and keen,
+that Djalma did not feel the action of the acid upon the skin.
+
+The signs, which the Strangler had traced, soon appeared on the surface,
+at first in characters of a pale rose-color, as fine as a hair; but such
+was the slowly corrosive power of the juice, that, as it worked and
+spread beneath the skin, they would become in a few hours of a violet
+red, and as apparent as they were now almost invisible.
+
+The Strangler, having so perfectly succeeded in his project, threw a last
+look of ferocious longing on the slumbering Indian, and creeping away
+from the mat, regained the opening by which he had entered the cabin;
+next, closely uniting the edges of the incision, so as to obviate all
+suspicion, he disappeared just as the thunder began to rumble hoarsely in
+the distance.[4]
+
+[4] We read in the letters of the late Victor Jacquemont upon India, with
+regard to the incredible dexterity of these men: "They crawl on the
+ground, ditches, in the furrows of fields, imitate a hundred different
+voices, and dissipate the effect of any accidental noise by raising the
+yelp of the jackal or note of some bird--then are silent, and another
+imitates the call of the same animal in the distance.  They can molest a
+sleeper by all sorts of noises and slight touches, and make his body and
+limbs take any position which suits their purpose."  Count Edward de
+Warren, in his excellent work on English India, which we shall have again
+occasion to quote, expresses himself in the same manner as to the
+inconceivable address of the Indians: "They have the art," says he, "to
+rob you, without interrupting your sleep, of the very sheet in which you
+are enveloped.  This is not `a traveller's tale.' but a fact.  The
+movements of the bheel are those of the serpent.  If you sleep in your
+tent, with a servant lying across each entrance, the bheel will come and
+crouch on the outside, in some shady corner, where he can hear the
+breathing of those within.  As soon as the European sleeps, he feels sure
+of success, for the Asiatic will not long resist the attraction of
+repose.  At the proper moment, he makes a vertical incision in the cloth
+of the tent, on the spot where he happens to be, and just large enough to
+admit him.  He glides through like a phantom, without making the least
+grain of sand creak beneath his tread.  He is perfectly naked, and all
+his body is rubbed over with oil; a two-edged knife is suspended from his
+neck.  He will squat down close to your couch, and, with incredible
+coolness and dexterity, will gather up the sheet in very little folds, so
+as to occupy the least surface possible; then, passing to the other side,
+he will lightly tickle the sleeper, whom he seems to magnetize, till the
+latter shrinks back involuntarily, and ends by turning round, and leaving
+the sheet folded behind him.  Should he awake, and strive to seize the
+robber, he catches at a slippery form, which slides through his hands
+like an eel; should he even succeed in seizing him, it would be fatal--
+the dagger strikes him to the heart, he falls bathed in his blood, and
+the assassin disappears."--E. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE SMUGGLER
+
+The tempest of the morning has long been over.  The sun is verging
+towards the horizon.  Some hours have elapsed, since the Strangler
+introduced himself into Djalma's cabin, and tattooed him with a
+mysterious sign during his sleep.
+
+A horseman advances rapidly down a long avenue of spreading trees.
+Sheltered by the thick and verdant arch, a thousand birds salute the
+splendid evening with songs and circlings; red and green parrots climb,
+by help of their hooked beaks, to the top of pink-blossomed acacias;
+large Morea birds of the finest and richest blue, whose throats and long
+tails change in the light to a golden brown, are chasing the prince-
+oriels, clothed in their glossy feathers of black and orange; Kolo doves,
+of a changeable violet hue, are gently cooing by the side of the birds of
+paradise, in whose brilliant plumage are mingled the prismatic colors of
+the emerald and ruby, the topaz and sapphire.
+
+This avenue, a little raised, commanded a view of a small pond, which
+reflected at intervals the green shade of tamarind trees.  In the calm,
+limpid waters, many fish were visible, some with silver scales and purple
+fins, others gleaming with azure and vermilion; so still were they that
+they looked as if set in a mass of bluish crystal, and, as they dwelt
+motionless near the surface of the pool, on which played a dazzling ray
+of the sun, they revelled in the enjoyment of the light and heat.  A
+thousand insects--living gems, with wings of flame--glided, fluttered and
+buzzed over the transparent wave, in which, at an extraordinary depth,
+were mirrored the variegated tints of the aquatic plants on the bank.
+
+It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the exuberant nature of this
+scene, luxuriant in the sunlight, colors, and perfumes, which served, so
+to speak, as a frame to the young and brilliant rider, who was advancing
+along the avenue.  It was Djalma.  He had not yet perceived the indelible
+marks, which the Strangler had traced upon his left arm.
+
+His Japanese mare, of slender make, full of fire and vigor, is black as
+night.  A narrow red cloth serves instead of saddle.  To moderate the
+impetuous bounds of the animal, Djalma uses a small steel bit, with
+headstall and reins of twisted scarlet silk, fine as a thread.
+
+Not one of those admirable riders, sculptured so masterly on the frieze
+of the Parthenon, sits his horse more gracefully and proudly than this
+young Indian, whose fine face, illumined by the setting sun, is radiant
+with serene happiness; his eyes sparkle with joy, and his dilated
+nostrils and unclosed lips inhale with delight the balmy breeze, that
+brings to him the perfume of flowers and the scent of fresh leaves, for
+the trees are still moist from the abundant rain that fell after the
+storm.
+
+A red cap, similar to that worn by the Greeks, surmounting the black
+locks of Djalma, sets off to advantage the golden tint of his complexion;
+his throat is bare; he is clad in his robe of white muslin with large
+sleeves, confined at the waist by a scarlet sash; very full drawers, in
+white cotton stuff, leave half uncovered his tawny and polished legs;
+their classic curve stands out from the dark sides of the horse, which he
+presses tightly between his muscular calves.  He has no stirrups; his
+foot, small and narrow, is shod with a sandal of morocco leather.
+
+The rush of his thoughts, by turns impetuous and restrained, was
+expressed in some degree by the pace he imparted to his horse--now bold
+and precipitate, like the flight of unbridled imagination--now calm and
+measured, like the reflection which succeeds an idle dream.  But, in all
+this fantastic course, his least movements were distinguished by a proud,
+independent and somewhat savage grace.
+
+Dispossessed of his paternal territory by the English, and at first
+detained by them as a state-prisoner after the death of his father--who
+(as M. Joshua Van Dael had written to M. Rodin) had fallen sword in hand
+--Djalma had at length been restored to liberty.  Abandoning the
+continent
+of India, and still accompanied by General Simon, who had lingered hard
+by the prison of his old friend's son, the young Indian came next to
+Batavia, the birthplace of his mother, to collect the modest inheritance
+of his maternal ancestors.  And amongst this property, so long despised
+or forgotten by his father, he found some important papers, and a medal
+exactly similar to that worn by Rose and Blanche.
+
+General Simon was not more surprised than pleased at this discovery,
+which not only established a tie of kindred between his wife and Djalma's
+mother, but which also seemed to promise great advantages for the future.
+Leaving Djalma at Batavia, to terminate some business there, he had gone
+to the neighboring island of Sumatra, in the hope of finding a vessel
+that would make the passage to Europe directly and rapidly; for it was
+now necessary that, cost what it might, the young Indian also should be
+at Paris on the 13th February, 1832.  Should General Simon find a vessel
+ready to sail for Europe, he was to return immediately, to fetch Djalma;
+and the latter, expecting him daily, was now going to the pier of
+Batavia, hoping to see the father of Rose and Blanche arrive by the mail-
+boat from Sumatra.
+
+A few words are here necessary on the early life of the son of Kadja-
+sing.
+
+Having lost his mother very young, and brought up with rude simplicity,
+he had accompanied his father, whilst yet a child, to the great tiger
+hunts, as dangerous as battles; and, in the first dawn of youth, he had
+followed him to the stern bloody war, which he waged in defence of his
+country.  Thus living, from the time of his mother's death, in the midst
+of forests and mountains and continual combats, his vigorous and
+ingenuous nature had preserved itself pure, and he well merited the name
+of "The Generous" bestowed on him.  Born a prince, he was--which by no
+means follows--a prince indeed.  During the period of his captivity, the
+silent dignity of his bearing had overawed his jailers.  Never a
+reproach, never a complaint--a proud and melancholy calm was all that he
+opposed to a treatment as unjust as it was barbarous, until he was
+restored to freedom.
+
+Having thus been always accustomed to a patriarchal life, or to a war of
+mountaineers, which he had only quitted to pass a few months in prison,
+Djalma knew nothing, so to speak, of civilized society.  Without its
+exactly amounting to a defect, he certainly carried his good qualities to
+their extreme limits.  Obstinately faithful to his pledged word, devoted
+to the death, confiding to blindness, good almost to a complete
+forgetfulness of himself, he was inflexible towards ingratitude,
+falsehood, or perfidy.  He would have felt no compunction to sacrifice a
+traitor, because, could he himself have committed a treason, he would
+have thought it only just to expiate it with his life.
+
+He was, in a word, the man of natural feelings, absolute and entire.
+Such a man, brought into contact with the temperaments, calculations,
+falsehoods, deceptions, tricks, restrictions, and hollowness of a refined
+society, such as Paris, for example, would, without doubt, form a very
+curious subject for speculation.  We raise this hypothesis, because,
+since his journey to France had been determined on, Djalma had one fixed,
+ardent desire--to be in Paris.
+
+In Paris--that enchanted city--of which, even in Asia, the land of
+enchantment, so many marvelous tales were told.
+
+What chiefly inflamed the fresh, vivid imagination of the young Indian,
+was the thought of French women--those attractive Parisian beauties,
+miracles of elegance and grace, who eclipsed, he was informed, even the
+magnificence of the capitals of the civilized world.  And at this very
+moment, in the brightness of that warm and splendid evening, surrounded
+by the intoxication of flowers and perfumes, which accelerated the pulses
+of his young fiery heart, Djalma was dreaming of those exquisite
+creatures, whom his fancy loved to clothe in the most ideal garbs.
+
+It seemed to him as if, at the end of the avenue, in the midst of that
+sheet of golden light, which the trees encompassed with their full, green
+arch, he could see pass and repass, white and sylph-like, a host of
+adorable and voluptuous phantoms, that threw him kisses from the tips of
+their rosy fingers.  Unable to restrain his burning emotions, carried
+away by a strange enthusiasm, Djalma uttered exclamations of joy, deep,
+manly, and sonorous, and made his vigorous courser bound under him in the
+excitement of a mad delight.  Just then a sunbeam, piercing the dark
+vault of the avenue, shone full upon him.
+
+For several minutes, a man had been advancing rapidly along a path,
+which, at its termination, intersected the avenue diagonally.  He stopped
+a moment in the shade, looking at Djalma with astonishment.  It was
+indeed a charming sight, to behold, in the midst of a blaze of dazzling
+lustre, this youth, so handsome, joyous, and ardent, clad in his white
+and flowing vestments, gayly and lightly seated on his proud black mare,
+who covered her red bridle with her foam, and whose long tail and thick
+mane floated on the evening breeze.
+
+But, with that reaction which takes place in all human desires, Djalma
+soon felt stealing over him a sentiment of soft, undefinable melancholy.
+He raised his hand to his eyes, now dimmed with moisture, and allowed the
+reins to fall on the mane of his docile steed, which, instantly stopping,
+stretched out its long neck, and turned its head in the direction of the
+personage, whom it could see approaching through the coppice.
+
+This man, Mahal the Smuggler, was dressed nearly like European sailors.
+He wore jacket and trousers of white duck, a broad red sash, and a very
+low-crowned straw hat.  His face was brown, with strongly-marked
+features, and, though forty years of age, he was quite beardless.
+
+In another moment, Mahal was close to the young Indian.  "You are Prince
+Djalma?" said he, in not very good French, raising his hand respectfully
+to his hat.
+
+"What would you?" said the Indian.
+
+"You are the son of Kadja-sing?"
+
+"Once again, what would you?"
+
+"The friend of General Simon?"
+
+"General Simon?" cried Djalma.
+
+"You are going to meet him, as you have gone every evening, since you
+expect his return from Sumatra?"
+
+"Yes, but how do you know all this?" said the Indian looking at the
+Smuggler with as much surprise as curiosity.
+
+"Is he not to land at Batavia, to-day or to-morrow?"
+
+"Are you sent by him?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Mahal, with a distrustful air.  "But are you really the
+son of Kadja-sing?"
+
+"Yes, I tell you--but where have you seen General Simon?"
+
+"If you are the son of Kadja-sing," resumed Mahal, continuing to regard
+Djalma with a suspicious eye, "what is your surname?"
+
+"My sire was called the `Father of the Generous,'" answered the young
+Indian, as a shade of sorrow passed over his fine countenance.
+
+These words appeared in part to convince Mahal of the identity of Djalma;
+but, wishing doubtless to be still more certain, he resumed: "You must
+have received, two days ago, a letter from General Simon, written from
+Sumatra?"
+
+"Yes; but why so many questions?"
+
+"To assure myself that you are really the son of Kadja-sing, and to
+execute the orders I have received."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"From General Simon."
+
+"But where is he?"
+
+"When I have proof that you are Prince Djalma, I will tell you.  I was
+informed that you would be mounted on a black mare, with a red bridle.
+But--"
+
+"By the soul of my mother! speak what you have to say!"
+
+"I will tell you all--if you can tell me what was the printed paper,
+contained in the last letter that General Simon wrote you from Sumatra."
+
+"It was a cutting from a French newspaper."
+
+"Did it announce good or bad news for the general?"
+
+"Good news--for it related that, during his absence, they had
+acknowledged the last rank and title bestowed on him by the Emperor, as
+they had done for others of his brothers in arms, exiled like him."
+
+"You are indeed Prince Djalma," said the Smuggler, after a moment's
+reflection.  "I may speak.  General Simon landed last night in Java, but
+on a desert part of the coast."
+
+"On a desert part?"
+
+"Because he has to hide himself."
+
+"Hide himself!" exclaimed Djalma, in amazement; "why?"
+
+"That I don't know."
+
+"But where is he?" asked Djalma, growing pale with alarm.
+
+"He is three leagues hence--near the sea-shore--in the ruins of Tchandi."
+
+"Obliged to hide himself!" repeated Djalma, and his countenance expressed
+increasing surprise and anxiety.
+
+"Without being certain, I think it is because of a duel he fought in
+Sumatra," said the Smuggler, mysteriously.
+
+"A duel--with whom?"
+
+"I don't know--I am not at all certain on the subject.  But do you know
+the ruins of Tchandi?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The general expects you there; that is what he ordered me to tell you."
+
+"So you came with him from Sumatra?"
+
+"I was pilot of the little smuggling coaster, that landed him in the
+night on a lonely beach.  He knew that you went every day to the mole, to
+wait for him; I was almost sure that I should meet you.  He gave me
+details about the letter you received from him as a proof that he had
+sent me.  If he could have found the means of writing, he would have
+written."
+
+"But he did not tell you why he was obliged to hide himself?"
+
+"He told me nothing.  Certain words made me suspect what I told you--a
+duel."
+
+Knowing the mettle of General Simon, Djalma thought the suspicions of the
+Smuggler not unfounded.  After a moment's silence he said to him: "Can
+you undertake to lead home my horse?  My dwelling is without the town--
+there, in the midst of those trees--by the side of the new mosque.  In
+ascending the mountain of Tchandi, my horse would be in my way; I shall
+go much faster on foot."
+
+"I know where you live; General Simon told me.  I should have gone there
+if I had not met you.  Give me your horse."
+
+Djalma sprang lightly to the ground, threw the bridle to Mahal, unrolled
+one end of his sash, took out a silk purse, and gave it to the Smuggler,
+saying: "You have been faithful and obedient.  Here!--it is a trifle--but
+I have no more."
+
+"Kadja-sing was rightly called the `Father of the Generous,'" said the
+Smuggler, bowing with respect and gratitude.  He took the road to
+Batavia, leading Djalma's horse.  The young Indian, on the contrary,
+plunged into the coppice, and, walking with great strides, he directed
+his course towards the mountain, on which were the ruins of Tchandi,
+where he could not arrive before night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+M. JOSHUA VAN DAEL.
+
+M. Joshua Van Dael a Dutch merchant, and correspondent of M. Rodin, was
+born at Batavia, the capital of the island of Java; his parents had sent
+him to be educated at Pondicherry, in a celebrated religious house, long
+established in that place, and belonging to the "Society of Jesus."  It
+was there that he was initiated into the order as "professor of the three
+vows," or lay member, commonly called "temporal coadjutor."
+
+Joshua was a man of probity that passed for stainless; of strict accuracy
+in business, cold, careful, reserved, and remarkably skillful and
+sagacious; his financial operations were almost always successful, for a
+protecting power gave him ever in time, knowledge of events which might
+advantageously influence his commercial transactions.  The religious
+house of Pondicherry was interested in his affairs, having charged him
+with the exportation and exchange of the produce of its large possessions
+in this colony.
+
+Speaking little, hearing much, never disputing, polite in the extreme--
+giving seldom, but with choice and purpose--Joshua, without inspiring
+sympathy, commanded generally that cold respect, which is always paid to
+the rigid moralist; for instead of yielding to the influence of lax and
+dissolute colonial manners, he appeared to live with great regularity,
+and his exterior had something of austerity about it, which tended to
+overawe.
+
+The following scene took place at Batavia, while Djalma was on his way to
+the ruins of Tchandi in the hope of meeting General Simon.
+
+M. Joshua had just retired into his cabinet, in which were many shelves
+filled with paper boxes, and huge ledgers and cash boxes lying open upon
+desks.  The only window of this apartment, which was on the ground floor,
+looked out upon a narrow empty court, and was protected externally by
+strong iron bars; instead of glass, it was fitted with a Venetian blind,
+because of the extreme heat of the climate.
+
+M. Joshua, having placed upon his desk a taper in a glass globe, looked
+at the clock.  "Half-past nine," said he.  "Mahal ought soon to be here."
+
+Saying this, he went out, passing through an antechamber, opened a second
+thick door, studded with nail-heads, in the Dutch fashion, cautiously
+entered the court (so as not to be heard by the people in the house), and
+drew back the secret bolt of a gate six feet high, formidably garnished
+with iron spikes.  Leaving this gate unfastened, he regained his cabinet,
+after he had successively and carefully closed the two other doors behind
+him.
+
+M. Joshua next seated himself at his desk, and took from a drawer a long
+letter, or rather statement, commenced some time before, and continued
+day by day.  It is superfluous to observe, that the letter already
+mentioned, as addressed to M. Rodin, was anterior to the liberation of
+Djalma and his arrival at Batavia.
+
+The present statement was also addressed to M. Rodin, and Van Dael thus
+went on with it:
+
+"Fearing the return of General Simon, of which I had been informed by
+intercepting his letters--I have already told you, that I had succeeded
+in being employed by him as his agent here; having then read his letters,
+and sent them on as if untouched to Djalma, I felt myself obliged, from
+the pressure of the circumstances, to have recourse to extreme measures--
+taking care always to preserve appearances, and rendering at the same
+time a signal service to humanity, which last reason chiefly decided me.
+
+"A new danger imperiously commanded these measures.  The steamship
+`Ruyter' came in yesterday, and sails tomorrow in the course of the day.
+She is to make the voyage to Europe via the Arabian Gulf; her passengers
+will disembark at Suez, cross the Isthmus, and go on board another vessel
+at Alexandria, which will bring them to France.  This voyage, as rapid as
+it is direct, will not take more than seven or eight weeks.  We are now
+at the end of October; Prince Djalma might then be in France by the
+commencement of the month of January; and according to your instructions,
+of which I know not the motive, but which I execute with zeal and
+submission, his departure must be prevented at all hazards, because, you
+tell me, some of the gravest interests of the Society would be
+compromised, by the arrival of this young Indian in Paris before the 13th
+of February.  Now, if I succeed, as I hope, in making him miss this
+opportunity of the `Ruyter' it will be materially impossible for him to
+arrive in France before the month of April; for the `Ruyter' is the only
+vessel which makes the direct passage, the others taking at least four or
+five months to reach Europe.
+
+"Before telling you the means which I have thought right to employ, to
+detain Prince Djalma--of the success of which means I am yet uncertain--
+it is well that you should be acquainted with the following facts.
+
+"They have just discovered, in British India, a community whose members
+call themselves `Brothers of the Good Work,' or `Phansegars,' which
+signifies simply `Thugs' or 'Stranglers;' these murderers do not shed
+blood, but strangle their victims, less for the purpose of robbing them,
+than in obedience to a homicidal vocation, and to the laws of an infernal
+divinity named by them `Bowanee.'
+
+"I cannot better give you an idea of this horrible sect, than by
+transcribing here some lines from the introduction of a report by Colonel
+Sleeman, who has hunted out this dark association with indefatigable
+zeal.  The report in question was published about two months ago.  Here
+is the extract; it is the colonel who speaks:
+
+"`From 1822 to 1824, when I was charged with the magistracy and civil
+administration of the district of Nersingpore, not a murder, not the
+least robbery was committed by an ordinary criminal, without my being
+immediately informed of it; but if any one had come and told me at this
+period, that a band of hereditary assassins by profession lived in the
+village of Kundelie, within about four hundred yards of my court of
+justice--that the beautiful groves of the village of Mundesoor, within a
+day's march of my residence, formed one of the most frightful marts of
+assassination in all India--that numerous bands of `Brothers of the Good
+Work,' coming from Hindostan and the Deccan, met annually beneath these
+shades, as at a solemn festival, to exercise their dreadful vocation upon
+all the roads which cross each other in this locality--I should have
+taken such a person for a madman, or one who had been imposed upon by
+idle tales.  And yet nothing could be truer; hundreds of travellers had
+been buried every year in the groves of Mundesoor; a whole tribe of
+assassins lived close to my door, at the very time I was supreme
+magistrate of the province, and extended their devastations to the cities
+of Poonah and Hyderabad.  I shall never forget, when, to convince me of
+the fact, one of the chiefs of the Stranglers, who had turned informer
+against them, caused thirteen bodies to be dug up from the ground beneath
+my tent, and offered to produce any number from the soil in the immediate
+vicinity.'[5]
+
+"These few words of Colonel Sleeman will give some idea of this dread
+society, which has its laws, duties, customs, opposed to all other laws,
+human and divine.  Devoted to each other, even to heroism, blindly
+obedient to their chiefs, who profess themselves the immediate
+representatives of their dark divinity, regarding as enemies all who do
+not belong to them, gaining recruits everywhere by a frightful system of
+proselytisin--these apostles of a religion of murder go preaching their
+abominable doctrines in the shade, and spreading their immense net over
+the whole of India.
+
+"Three of their principal chiefs, and one of their adepts, flying from
+the determined pursuit of the English governor-general, having succeeded
+in making their escape, had arrived at the Straits of Malacca, at no
+great distance from our island; a smuggler, who is also something of a
+pirate, attached to their association, and by name Mahal, took them on
+board his coasting vessel, and brought them hither, where they think
+themselves for some time in safety--as, following the advice of the
+smuggler, they lie concealed in a thick forest, in which are many ruined
+temples and numerous subterranean retreats.
+
+"Amongst these chiefs, all three remarkably intelligent, there is one in
+particular, named Faringhea, whose extraordinary energy and eminent
+qualities make him every way redoubtable.  He is of the mixed race, half-
+white and Hindoo, has long inhabited towns in which are European
+factories and speaks English and French very well.  The other two chiefs
+are a Negro and a Hindoo; the adept is a Malay.
+
+"The smuggler, Mahal, considering that he could obtain a large reward by
+giving up these three chiefs and their adept, came to me, knowing, as all
+the world knows, my intimate relations with a person who has great
+influence with our governor.  Two days ago, he offered me, on certain
+conditions, to deliver up the Negro, the half-caste, the Hindoo, and the
+Malay.  These conditions are--a considerable sum of money, and a free
+passage on board a vessel sailing for Europe or America, in order to
+escape the implacable vengeance of the Thugs.
+
+"I joyfully seized the occasion to hand over three such murderers to
+human justice, and I promised Mahal to arrange matters for him with the
+governor, but also on certain conditions, innocent in themselves, and
+which concerned Djalma.  Should my project succeed, I will explain myself
+more at length; I shall soon know the result, for I expect Mahal every
+minute.
+
+"But before I close these despatches, which are to go tomorrow by the
+`Ruyter'--in which vessel I have also engaged a passage for Mahal the
+Smuggler, in the event of the success of my plans--I must include in
+parentheses a subject of some importance.
+
+"In my last letter, in which I announced to you the death of Djalma's
+father, and his own imprisonment by the English, I asked for some
+information as to the solvency of Baron Tripeaud, banker and manufacturer
+at Paris, who has also an agency at Calcutta.  This information will now
+be useless, if what I have just learned should, unfortunately, turn out
+to be correct, and it will be for you to act according to circumstances.
+
+"This house at Calcutta owes considerable sums both to me and our
+colleague at Pondicherry, and it is said that M. Tripeaud has involved
+himself to a dangerous extent in attempting to ruin, by opposition, a
+very flourishing establishment, founded some time ago by M. Francois
+Hardy, an eminent manufacturer.  I am assured that M. Tripeaud has
+already sunk and lost a large capital in this enterprise: he has no doubt
+done a great deal of harm to M. Francois Hardy; but he has also, they
+say, seriously compromised his own fortune--and, were he to fail, the
+effects of his disaster would be very fatal to us, seeing that he owes a
+large sum of money to me and to us.
+
+"In this state of things it would be very desirable if, by the employment
+of the powerful means of every kind at our disposal, we could completely
+discredit and break down the house of M. Francois Hardy, already shaken
+by M. Tripeaud's violent opposition.  In that case, the latter would soon
+regain all he has lost; the ruin of his rival would insure his
+prosperity, and our demands would be securely covered.
+
+"Doubtless, it is painful, it is sad, to be obliged to have recourse to
+these extreme measures, only to get back our own; but, in these days, are
+we not surely justified in sometimes using the arms that are incessantly
+turned against us?  If we are reduced to such steps by the injustice and
+wickedness of men, we may console ourselves with the reflection that we
+only seek to preserve our worldly possessions, in order to devote them to
+the greater glory of God; whilst, in the hands of our enemies, those very
+goods are the dangerous instruments of perdition and scandal.
+
+"After all it is merely a humble proposition that I submit to you.  Were
+it in my power to take an active part in the matter, I should do nothing
+of myself.  My will is not my own.  It belongs, with all I possess, to
+those whom I have sworn absolute obedience."
+
+Here a slight noise interrupted M. Joshua, and drew his attention from
+his work.  He rose abruptly, and went straight to the window.  Three
+gentle taps were given on the outside of one of the slats of the blind.
+
+"Is it you, Mahal?" asked M. Joshua, in a low voice.
+
+"It is I," was answered from without, also in a low tone.
+
+"And the Malay?"
+
+"He has succeeded."
+
+"Really!"  cried M. Joshua, with an expression of great satisfaction;
+"are you sure of it?"
+
+"Quite sure: there is no devil more clever and intrepid."
+
+"And Djalma?"
+
+"The parts of the letter, which I quoted, convinced him that I came from
+General Simon, and that he would find him at the ruins of Tchandi."
+
+"Therefore, at this moment--"
+
+"Djalma goes to the ruins, where he will encounter the black, the half-
+blood, and the Indian.  It is there they have appointed to meet the
+Malay, who tattooed the prince during his sleep."
+
+"Have you been to examine the subterraneous passage?"
+
+"I went there yesterday.  One of the stones of the pedestal of the statue
+turns upon itself; the stairs are large; it will do."
+
+"And the three chiefs have no suspicion?"
+
+"None--I saw them in the morning--and this evening the Malay came to tell
+me all, before he went to join them at the ruins of Tchandi--for he had
+remained hidden amongst the bushes, not daring to go there in the
+daytime."
+
+"Mahal--if you have told the truth, and if all succeed--your pardon and
+ample reward are assured to you.  Your berth has been taken on board the
+`Ruyter;' you will sail to-morrow; you will thus be safe from the malice
+of the Stranglers, who would follow you hither to revenge the death of
+their chiefs, Providence having chosen you to deliver those three great
+criminals to justice.  Heaven will bless you!--Go and wait for me at the
+door of the governor's house; I will introduce you.  The matter is so
+important that I do not hesitate to disturb him thus late in the night.
+Go quickly!--I will follow on my side."
+
+The steps of Mahal were distinctly audible, as he withdrew precipitately,
+and then silence reigned once more in the house.  Joshua returned to his
+desk, and hastily added these words to the despatch, which he had before
+commenced:
+
+"Whatever may now happen, it will be impossible for Djalma to leave
+Batavia at present.  You may rest quite satisfied; he will not be at
+Paris by the 13th of next February.  As I foresaw, I shall have to be up
+all night.--I am just going to the governor's.  To-morrow I will add a
+few lines to this long statement, which the steamship 'Ruyter' will
+convey to Europe."
+
+Having locked up his papers, Joshua rang the bell loudly, and, to the
+great astonishment of his servants, not accustomed to see him leave home
+in the middle of the night, went in all haste to the residence of the
+governor of the island.
+
+We now conduct the reader to the ruins of Tchandi.
+
+[5] This report is extracted from Count Edward de Warren's excellent
+work, "British India in 1831."--E. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE RUINS OF TCHANDI.
+
+To the storm in the middle of the day, the approach of which so well
+served the Strangler's designs upon Djalma, has succeeded a calm and
+serene night.  The disk of the moon rises slowly behind a mass of lofty
+ruins, situated on a hill, in the midst of a thick wood, about three
+leagues from Batavia.
+
+Long ranges of stone, high walls of brick, fretted away by time,
+porticoes covered with parasitical vegetation, stand out boldly from the
+sheet of silver light which blends the horizon with the limpid blue of
+the heavens.  Some rays of the moon, gliding through the opening on one
+of these porticoes, fall upon two colossal statues at the foot of an
+immense staircase, the loose stones of which are almost entirely
+concealed by grass, moss, and brambles.
+
+The fragments of one of these statues, broken in the middle, lie strewed
+upon the ground; the other, which remains whole and standing, is
+frightful to behold.  It represents a man of gigantic proportions, with a
+head three feet high; the expression of the countenance is ferocious,
+eyes of brilliant slaty black are set beneath gray brows, the large, deep
+mouth gapes immoderately, and reptiles have made their nest between the
+lips of stone; by the light of the moon, a hideous swarm is there dimly
+visible.  A broad girdle, adorned with symbolic ornaments, encircles the
+body of this statue, and fastens a long sword to its right side.  The
+giant has four extended arms, and, in his great hands, he bears an
+elephant's head, a twisted serpent, a human skull, and a bird resembling
+a heron.  The moon, shedding her light on the profile of this statue,
+serves to augment the weirdness of its aspect.
+
+Here and there, enclosed in the half-crumbling walls of brick, are
+fragments of stone bas-reliefs, very boldly cut; one of those in the best
+preservation represents a man with the head of an elephant, and the wings
+of a bat, devouring a child.  Nothing can be more gloomy than these
+ruins, buried among thick trees of a dark green, covered with frightful
+emblems, and seen by the moonlight, in the midst of the deep silence of
+night.
+
+Against one of the walls of this ancient temple, dedicated to some
+mysterious and bloody Javanese divinity, leans a kind of hut, rudely
+constructed of fragments of brick and stone; the door, made of woven
+rushes, is open, and a red light streams from it, which throws its rays
+on the tall grass that covers the ground.  Three men are assembled in
+this hovel, around a clay-lamp, with a wick of cocoanut fibre
+steeped in palm-oil.
+
+The first of these three, about forty years of age, is poorly clad in the
+European fashion; his pale, almost white, complexion, announces that he
+belongs to the mixed race, being offspring of a white father and Indian
+mother.
+
+The second is a robust African negro, with thick lips, vigorous
+shoulders, and lank legs; his woolly hair is beginning to turn gray; he
+is covered with rags, and stands close beside the Indian.  The third
+personage is asleep, and stretched on a mat in the corner of the hovel.
+
+These three men are the three Thuggee chiefs, who, obliged to fly from
+the continent of India, have taken refuge in Java, under the guidance of
+Mahal the Smuggler.
+
+"The Malay does not return," said the half-blood, named Faringhea, the
+most redoubtable chief of this homicidal sect: "in executing our orders,
+he has perhaps been killed by Djalma."
+
+"The storm of this morning brought every reptile out of the earth," said
+the negro; "the Malay must have been bitten, and his body ere now a nest
+of serpents."
+
+"To serve the good work," proceeded Faringhea, with a gloomy air, "one
+must know how to brave death."
+
+"And to inflict it," added the negro.
+
+A stifled cry, followed by some inarticulate words, here drew the
+attention of these two men, who hastily turned their heads in the
+direction of the sleeper.  This latter was thirty years old at most.  His
+beardless face, of a bright copper color, his robe of coarse stuff, his
+turban striped brown and yellow, showed that he belonged to the pure
+Hindoo race.  His sleep appeared agitated by some painful vision; an
+abundant sweat streamed over his countenance, contracted by terror; he
+spoke in his dream, but his words were brief and broken, and accompanied
+with convulsive starts.
+
+"Again that dream!" said Faringhea to the negro. "Always the remembrance
+of that man."
+
+"What man?"
+
+"Do you not remember, how, five years ago, that savage, Colonel Kennedy,
+butcher of the Indians, came to the banks of the Ganges, to hunt the
+tiger, with twenty horses, four elephants, and fifty servants?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the negro; "and we three, hunters of men, made a better
+day's sport than he did.  Kennedy, his horses, his elephants, and his
+numerous servants did not get their tiger--but we got ours," he added,
+with grim irony.  "Yes; Kennedy, that tiger with a human face, fell into
+our ambush, and the brothers of the good work offered up their fine prey
+to our goddess Bowanee."
+
+"If you remember, it was just at the moment when we gave the last tug to
+the cord round Kennedy's neck, that we perceived on a sudden a traveller
+close at hand.  He had seen us, and it was necessary to make away with
+him.  Now, since that time," added Faringhea, "the remembrance of the
+murder of that man pursues our brother in his dreams," and he pointed to
+the sleeping Indian.
+
+"And even when he is awake," said the negro, looking at Faringhea with a
+significant air.
+
+"Listen!" said the other, again pointing to the Indian, who, in the
+agitation of his dream, recommenced talking in abrupt sentences; "listen!
+he is repeating the answers of the traveller, when we told him he must
+die, or serve with us on Thuggee.  His mind is still impressed--deeply
+impressed--with those words."
+
+And, in fact, the Indian repeated aloud in his sleep, a sort of
+mysterious dialogue, of which he himself supplied both questions and
+answers.
+
+"`Traveller,' said he, in a voice broken by sudden pauses, `why that
+black mark on your forehead, stretching from one temple to the other?  It
+is a mark of doom and your look is sad as death.  Have you been a victim?
+Come with us; Kallee will avenge you.  You have suffered?'--'Yes, I have
+greatly suffered.'--'For a long time?'--'Yes, for a very long time.'--
+`You suffer even now?'--'Yes, even now.'--What do you reserve for those
+who injure you?'--'My pity.'--'Will you not render blow for blow?'--'I
+will return love for hate.'--'Who are you, then, that render good for
+evil?'--'I am one who loves, and suffers, and forgives.'"
+
+"Brother, do you hear?" said the negro to Faringhea; "he has not
+forgotten the words of the traveller before his death."
+
+"The vision follows him.  Listen! he will speak again.  How pale he is!"
+Still under the influence of his dream, the Indian continued:
+
+"`Traveller, we are three; we are brave; we have your life in our hands--
+you have seen us sacrifice to the good work.  Be one of us, or die--die--
+die!  Oh, that look!  Not thus--do not look at me thus!'"  As he uttered
+these last words, the Indian made a sudden movement, as if to keep off
+some approaching object, and awoke with a start.  Then, passing his hand
+over his moist forehead, he looked round him with a bewildered eye.
+
+"What! again this dream, brother?" said Faringhea.  "For a bold hunter of
+men, you have a weak head.  Luckily, you have a strong heart and arm."
+
+The other remained a moment silent, his face buried in his hands; then he
+replied: "It is long since I last dreamed of that traveller."
+
+"Is he not dead?" said Faringhea, shrugging his shoulders.  "Did you not
+yourself throw the cord around his neck?"
+
+"Yes," replied the Indian shuddering.
+
+"Did we not dig his grave by the side of Colonel Kennedy's?  Did we not
+bury him with the English butcher, under the sand and the rushes?" said
+the negro.
+
+"Yes, we dug his grave," said the Indian, trembling; "and yet, only a
+year ago, I was seated one evening at the gate of Bombay, waiting for one
+of our brothers--the sun was setting behind the pagoda, to the right of
+the little hill--the scene is all before me now--I was seated under a
+figtree--when I heard a slow, firm, even step, and, as I turned round my
+head--I saw him--coming out of the town."
+
+"A vision," said the negro; "always the same vision!"
+
+"A vision," added Faringhea, "or a vague resemblance."
+
+"I knew him by the black mark on his forehead; it was none but he.  I
+remained motionless with fear, gazing at him with eyes aghast.  He
+stopped, bending upon me his calm, sad look.  In spite of myself, I could
+not help exclaiming: `It is he!'--'Yes,' he replied, in his gentle voice,
+`it is I.  Since all whom thou killest must needs live again,' and he
+pointed to heaven as he spoke, `why shouldst thou kill?--Hear me!  I have
+just come from Java; I am going to the other end of the world, to a
+country of never-melting snow; but, here or there, on plains of fire or
+plains of ice, I shall still be the same.  Even so is it with the souls
+of those who fall beneath thy kalleepra; in this world or up above, in
+this garb or in another, the soul must still be a soul; thou canst not
+smite it.  Why then kill?'--and shaking his head sorrowfully, he went on
+his way, walking slowly, with downcast eyes; he ascended the hill of the
+pagoda; I watched him as he went, without being able to move: at the
+moment the sun set, he was standing on the summit of the hill, his tall
+figure thrown out against the sky--and so he disappeared.  Oh! it was
+he!" added the Indian with a shudder, after a long pause: "it was none
+but he."
+
+In this story the Indian had never varied, though he had often
+entertained his companions with the same mysterious adventure.  This
+persistency on his part had the effect of shaking their incredulity, or
+at least of inducing them to seek some natural cause for this apparently
+superhuman event.
+
+"Perhaps," said Faringhea, after a moment's reflection, "the knot round
+the traveller's neck got jammed, and some breath was left him, the air
+may have penetrated the rushes with which we covered his grave, and so
+life have returned to him."
+
+"No, no," said the Indian, shaking his head, "this man is not of our
+race."
+
+"Explain."
+
+"Now I know it!"
+
+"What do you know?"
+
+"Listen!" said the Indian, in a solemn voice; "the number of victims that
+the children of Bowanee have sacrificed since the commencement of ages,
+is nothing compared to the immense heap of dead and dying, whom this
+terrible traveller leaves behind him in his murderous march."
+
+"He?" cried the negro and Faringhea.
+
+"Yes, he!" repeated the Hindoo, with a convinced accent, that made its
+impression upon his companions.  "Hear me and tremble!--When I met this
+traveller at the gates of Bombay, he came from Java, and was going
+towards the north, he said.  The very next day, the town was a prey to
+the cholera, and we learned sometime after, that this plague had first
+broken out here, in Java."
+
+"That is true," said the negro.
+
+"Hear me still further!" resumed the other.  "`I am going towards the
+north, to a country of eternal snow,' said the traveller to me.  The
+cholera also went towards the north, passing through Muscat--Ispahan--
+Tauris--Tiflis--till it overwhelmed Siberia."
+
+"True," said Faringhea, becoming thoughtful:
+
+"And the cholera," resumed the Indian, "only travelled its five or six
+leagues a day--a man's tramp--never appeared in two places at once--but
+swept on slowly, steadily,--even as a man proceeds."
+
+At the mention of this strange coincidence, the Hindoo's companions
+looked at each other in amazement.  After a silence of some minutes, the
+awe-struck negro said to the last speaker: "So you think that this man--"
+
+"I think that this man, whom we killed, restored to life by some infernal
+divinity, has been commissioned to bear this terrible scourge over the
+earth, and to scatter round his steps that death, from which he is
+himself secure.  Remember!" added the Indian, with gloomy enthusiasm,
+"this awful wayfarer passed through Java--the cholera wasted Java.  He
+passed through Bombay--the cholera wasted Bombay.  He went towards the
+north--the cholera wasted the north."
+
+So saying, the Indian fell into a profound reverie.  The negro and
+Faringhea were seized with gloomy astonishment.
+
+The Indian spoke the truth as to the mysterious march (still unexplained)
+of that fearful malady, which has never been known to travel more than
+five or six leagues a day, or to appear simultaneously in two spots.
+Nothing can be more curious, than to trace out, on the maps prepared at
+the period in question, the slow, progressive course of this travelling
+pestilence, which offers to the astonished eye all the capricious
+incidents of a tourist's journey.  Passing this way rather than that--
+selecting provinces in a country--towns in a province--one quarter in a
+town--one street in a quarter--one house in a street--having its place of
+residence and repose, and then continuing its slow, mysterious, fear-
+inspiring march.
+
+The words of the Hindoo, by drawing attention to these dreadful
+eccentricities, made a strong impression upon the minds of the negro and
+Faringhea--wild natures, brought by horrible doctrines to the monomania
+of murder.
+
+Yes--for this also is an established fact--there have been in India
+members of an abominable community, who killed without motive, without
+passion--killed for the sake of killing--for the pleasure of murder--to
+substitute death for life--to make of a living man a corpse, as they have
+themselves declared in one of their examinations.
+
+The mind loses itself in the attempt to penetrate the causes of these
+monstrous phenomena.  By what incredible series of events, have men been
+induced to devote themselves to this priesthood of destruction?  Without
+doubt, such a religion could only flourish in countries given up, like
+India, to the most atrocious slavery, and to the most merciless iniquity
+of man to man.
+
+Such a creed!--is it not the hate of exasperated humanity, wound up to
+its highest pitch by oppression?--May not this homicidal sect, whose
+origin is lost in the night of ages, have been perpetuated in these
+regions, as the only possible protest of slavery against despotism?  May
+not an inscrutable wisdom have here made Phansegars, even as are made
+tigers and serpents?
+
+What is most remarkable in this awful sect, is the mysterious bond,
+which, uniting its members amongst themselves, separates them from all
+other men.  They have laws and customs of their own, they support and
+help each other, but for them there is neither country nor family; they
+owe no allegiance save to a dark, invisible power, whose decrees they
+obey with blind submission, and in whose name they spread themselves
+abroad, to make corpses, according to their own savage expression.[6]
+
+For some moments the three Stranglers had maintained a profound silence.
+
+Outside the hut, the moon continued to throw great masses of white
+radiance, and tall bluish shadows, over the imposing fabric of the ruins;
+the stars sparkled in the heavens; from time to time, a faint breeze
+rustled through the thick and varnished leaves of the bananas and the
+palms.
+
+The pedestal of the gigantic statue, which, still entire, stood on the
+left side of the portico, rested upon large flagstones, half hidden with
+brambles.  Suddenly, one of these stones appeared to fall in; and from
+the aperture, which thus formed itself without noise, a man, dressed in
+uniform, half protruded his body, looked carefully around him, and
+listened.
+
+Seeing the rays of the lamp, which lighted the interior of the hovel,
+tremble upon the tall grass, he turned round to make a signal, and soon,
+accompanied by two other soldiers, he ascended, with the greatest silence
+and precaution, the last steps of the subterranean staircase, and went
+gliding amongst the ruins.  For a few moments, their moving shadows were
+thrown upon the moonlit ground; then they disappeared behind some
+fragments of broken wall.
+
+At the instant when the large stone resumed its place and level, the
+heads of many other soldiers might have been seen lying close in the
+excavation.  The half-caste, the Indian, and the negro, still seated
+thoughtfully in the hut, did not perceive what was passing.
+
+
+[6] The following are some passages from the Count de Warren's very
+curious book, "British India in 1831:" "Besides the robbers, who kill for
+the sake of the booty they hope to find upon travellers, there is a class
+of assassins, forming an organized society, with chiefs of their own, a
+slang-language, a science, a free-masonry, and even a religion, which has
+its fanaticism and its devotion, its agents, emissaries, allies, its
+militant forces, and its passive adherents, who contribute their money to
+the good work.  This is the community of the Thugs or Phansegars
+(deceivers or stranglers, from thugna, to deceive, and phansna, to
+strangle), a religious and economical society, which speculates with the
+human race by exterminating men; its origin is lost in the night of ages.
+
+"Until 1810 their existence was unknown, not only to the European
+conquerors, but even to the native governments.  Between the years 1816
+and 1830, several of their bands were taken in the act, and punished: but
+until this last epoch, all the revelations made on the subject by
+officers of great experience, had appeared too monstrous to obtain the
+attention or belief of the public; they had been rejected and despised as
+the dreams of a heated imagination.  And yet for many years, at the very
+least for half a century, this social wound had been frightfully on the
+increase, devouring the population from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin and
+from Cutch to Assam.
+
+"It was in the year 1830 that the revelations of a celebrated chief,
+whose life was spared on condition of his denouncing his accomplices,
+laid bare the whole system.  The basis of the Thuggee Society is a
+religious belief--the worship of Bowanee, a gloomy divinity, who is only
+pleased with carnage, and detests above all things the human race.  Her
+most agreeable sacrifices are human victims, and the more of these her
+disciple may have offered up in this world the more he will be
+recompensed in the next by all the delights of soul and sense, by women
+always beautiful, and joys eternally renewed.  If the assassin meets the
+scaffold in his career, he dies with the enthusiasm of a martyr, because
+he expects his reward.  To obey his divine mistress, he murders, without
+anger and without remorse, the old man, woman and child; whilst, to his
+fellow-religionists, he may be charitable, humane, generous, devoted, and
+may share all in common with them, because, like himself, they are the
+ministers and adopted children of Bowanee.  The destruction of his
+fellow-creatures, not belonging to his community--the diminution of the
+human race--that is the primary object of his pursuit; it is not as a
+means of gain, for though plunder may be a frequent, and doubtless an
+agreeable accessory, it is only secondary in his estimation.  Destruction
+is his end, his celestial mission, his calling; it is also a delicious
+passion, the most captivating of all sports--this hunting of men!--'You
+find great pleasure,' said one of those that were condemned, `in tracking
+the wild beast to his den, in attacking the boar, the tiger, because
+there is danger to brave, energy and courage to display.  Think how this
+attraction must be redoubled, when the contest is with man, when it is
+man that is to be destroyed.  Instead of the single faculty of courage,
+all must be called into action--courage, cunning, foresight, eloquence,
+intrigue.  What springs to put in motion! what plans to develop!  To
+sport with all the passions, to touch the chords of love and friendship,
+and so draw the prey into one's net--that is a glorious chase--it is a
+delight, a rapture, I tell you!'
+
+"Whoever was in India in the years 1831 and 1832, must remember the
+stupor and affright, which the discovery of this vast infernal machine
+spread through all classes of society.  A great number of magistrates and
+administrators of provinces refused to believe in it, and could not be
+brought to comprehend that such a system had so long preyed on the body
+politic, under their eyes as it were, silently, and without betraying
+itself."--See "British India in 183," by Count Edward de Warren, 2 vols.
+in 8vo.  Paris, 1844.--E. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE AMBUSCADE
+
+The half-blood Faringhea, wishing doubtless to escape from the dark
+thoughts which the words of the Indian on the mysterious course of the
+Cholera had raised within him, abruptly changed the subject of
+conversation.  His eye shone with lurid fire, and his countenance took an
+expression of savage enthusiasm, as he cried: "Bowanee will always watch
+over us, intrepid hunters of men!  Courage, brothers, courage!  The world
+is large; our prey is everywhere.  The English may force us to quit
+India, three chiefs of the good work--but what matter?  We leave there
+our brethren, secret, numerous, and terrible, as black scorpions, whose
+presence is only known by their mortal sting.  Exiles will widen our
+domains.  Brother, you shall have America!"  said he to the Hindoo, with
+an inspired air.  "Brother, you shall have Africa!"  said he to the
+negro.  "Brothers, I will take Europe!  Wherever men are to be found,
+there must be oppressors and victims--wherever there are victims, there
+must be hearts swollen with hate--it is for us to inflame that hate with
+all the ardor of vengeance!  It is for us, servants of Bowanee, to draw
+towards us, by seducing wiles, all whose zeal, courage, and audacity may
+be useful to the cause.  Let us rival each other in devotion and
+sacrifices; let us lend each other strength, help, support!  That all who
+are not with us may be our prey, let us stand alone in the midst of all,
+against all, and in spite of all.  For us, there must be neither country
+nor family.  Our family is composed of our brethren; our country is the
+world."
+
+This kind of savage eloquence made a deep impression on the negro and the
+Indian, over whom Faringhea generally exercised considerable influence,
+his intellectual powers being very superior to theirs, though they were
+themselves two of the most eminent chiefs of this bloody association.
+"Yes, you are right, brother!" cried the Indian, sharing the enthusiasm
+of Faringhea; "the world is ours.  Even here, in Java, let us leave some
+trace of our passage.  Before we depart, let us establish the good work
+in this island; it will increase quickly, for here also is great misery,
+and the Dutch are rapacious as the English.  Brother, I have seen in the
+marshy rice-fields of this island, always fatal to those who cultivate
+them, men whom absolute want forced to the deadly task--they were livid
+as corpses--some of them worn out with sickness, fatigue, and hunger,
+fell--never to rise again.  Brothers, the good work will prosper in this
+country!"
+
+"The other evening," said the half-caste, "I was on the banks of the
+lake, behind a rock; a young woman came there--a few rags hardly covered
+her lean and sun-scorched body--in her arms she held a little child,
+which she pressed weeping to her milkless breast.  She kissed it three
+times, and said to it: `You, at least, shall not be so unhappy as your
+father'--and she threw it into the lake.  It uttered one wail, and
+disappeared.  On this cry, the alligators, hidden amongst the reeds,
+leaped joyfully into the water.  There are mothers here who kill their
+children out of pity.--Brothers, the good work will prosper in this
+country!"
+
+"This morning," said the negro, "whilst they tore the flesh of one of his
+black slaves with whips, a withered old merchant of Batavia left his
+country-house to come to the town.  Lolling in his palanquin, he
+received, with languid indolence, the sad caresses of two of those girls,
+whom he had bought, to people his harem, from parents too poor to give
+them food.  The palanquin, which held this little old man, and the girls,
+was carried by twelve young and robust men.  There are here, you see,
+mothers who in their misery sell their own daughters--slaves that are
+scourged--men that carry other men, like beasts of burden.--Brothers, the
+good work will prosper in this country!"
+
+"Yes, in this country--and in every land of oppression, distress,
+corruption, and slavery."
+
+"Could we but induce Djalma to join us, as Mahal the Smuggler advised,"
+said the Indian, "our voyage to Java would doubly profit us; for we
+should then number among our band this brave and enterprising youth, who
+has so many motives to hate mankind."
+
+"He will soon be here; let us envenom his resentments."
+
+"Remind him of his father's death!"
+
+"Of the massacre of his people!"
+
+"His own captivity!"
+
+"Only let hatred inflame his heart, and he will be ours."
+
+The negro, who had remained for some time lost in thought, said suddenly:
+"Brothers, suppose Mahal the Smuggler were to betray us?"
+
+"He" cried the Hindoo, almost with indignation; "he gave us an asylum on
+board his bark; he secured our flight from the Continent; he is again to
+take us with him to Bombay, where we shall find vessels for America,
+Europe, Africa."
+
+"What interest would Mahal have to betray us?" said Faringhea.  "Nothing
+could save him from the vengeance of the sons of Bowanee, and that he
+knows."
+
+"Well," said the black, "he promised to get Djalma to come hither this
+evening, and, once amongst us, he must needs be our own."
+
+"Was it not the Smuggler who told us to order the Malay to enter the
+ajoupa of Djalma, to surprise him during his sleep, and, instead of
+killing him as he might have done, to trace the name of Bowanee upon his
+arm?  Djalma will thus learn to judge of the resolution, the cunning and
+obedience of our brethren, and he will understand what he has to hope or
+fear from such men.  Be it through admiration or through terror, he must
+become one of us."
+
+"But if he refuses to join us, notwithstanding the reasons he has to hate
+mankind?"
+
+"Then--Bowanee will decide his fate," said Faringhea, with a gloomy look;
+"I have my plan."
+
+"But will the Malay succeed in surprising Djalma during his sleep?" said
+the negro.
+
+"There is none nobler, more agile, more dexterous, than the Malay," said
+Faringhea.  "He once had the daring to surprise in her den a black
+panther, as she suckled her cub.  He killed the dam, and took away the
+young one, which he afterwards sold to some European ship's captain."
+
+"The Malay has succeeded!" exclaimed the Indian, listening to a singular
+kind of hoot, which sounded through the profound silence of the night and
+of the woods.
+
+"Yes, it is the scream of the vulture seizing its prey," said the negro,
+listening in his turn; "it is also the signal of our brethren, after they
+have seized their prey."
+
+In a few minutes, the Malay appeared at the door of the hut.  He had
+wound around him a broad length of cotton, adorned with bright colored
+stripes.
+
+"Well," said the negro, anxiously; "have you succeeded?"
+
+"Djalma must bear all his life the mark of the good work," said the
+Malay, proudly.  "To reach him, I was forced to offer up to Bowanee a man
+who crossed my path--I have left his body under the brambles, near the
+ajoupa.  But Djalma is marked with the sign.  Mahal the Smuggler was the
+first to know it."
+
+"And Djalma did not awake?" said the Indian, confounded by the Malay's
+adroitness.
+
+"Had he awoke," replied the other, calmly, "I should have been a dead
+man--as I was charged to spare his life."
+
+"Because his life may be more useful to us than his death," said the
+half-caste.  Then, addressing the Malay, he added: "Brother, in risking
+life for the good work, you have done to-day what we did yesterday, what
+we may do again to-morrow.  This time, you obey; another you will
+command."
+
+"We all belong to Bowanee," answered the Malay.  "What is there yet to
+do?--I am ready."  Whilst he thus spoke, his face was turned towards the
+door of the hut; on a sudden, he said in a low voice: "Here is Djalma.
+He approaches the cabin.  Mahal has not deceived us."
+
+"He must not see me yet," said Faringhea, retiring to an obscure corner
+of the cabin, and hiding himself under a mat; "try to persuade him.  If
+he resists--I have my project."
+
+Hardly had Faringhea disappeared, saying these words, when Djalma arrived
+at the door of the hovel.  At sight of those three personages with their
+forbidding aspect, Djalma started in surprise.  But ignorant that these
+men belonged to the Phansegars, and knowing that, in a country where
+there are no inns, travellers often pass the night under a tent, or
+beneath the shelter of some ruins, he continued to advance towards them.
+After the first moment, he perceived by the complexion and the dress of
+one of these men, that he was an Indian, and he accosted him in the
+Hindoo language: "I thought to have found here a European--a Frenchman--"
+
+"The Frenchman is not yet come," replied the Indian; "but he will not be
+long."
+
+Guessing by Djalma's question the means which Mahal had employed to draw
+him into the snare, the Indian hoped to gain time by prolonging his
+error.
+
+"You knew this Frenchman?"  asked Djalma of the Phansegar.
+
+"He appointed us to meet here, as he did you," answered the Indian.
+
+"For what?"  inquired Djalma, more and more astonished.
+
+"You will know when he arrives."
+
+"General Simon told you to be at this place?"
+
+"Yes, General Simon," replied the Indian.
+
+There was a moment's pause, during which Djalma sought in vain to explain
+to himself this mysterious adventure.  "And who are you?" asked he, with
+a look of suspicion; for the gloomy silence of the Phansegar's two
+companions, who stared fixedly at each other, began to give him some
+uneasiness.
+
+"We are yours, if you will be ours," answered the Indian.
+
+"I have no need of you--nor you of me."
+
+"Who knows?"
+
+"I know it."
+
+"You are deceived.  The English killed your father, a king; made you a
+captive; proscribed you, you have lost all your possessions."
+
+At this cruel reminder, the countenance of Djalma darkened.  He started,
+and a bitter smile curled his lip.  The Phansegar continued:
+
+"Your father was just and brave--beloved by his subjects--they called him
+`Father of the Generous,' and he was well named.  Will you leave his
+death unavenged?  Will the hate, which gnaws at your heart, be without
+fruit?"
+
+"My father died with arms in his hand.  I revenged his death on the
+English whom I killed in war.  He, who has since been a father to me, and
+who fought also in the same cause, told me, that it would now be madness
+to attempt to recover my territory from the English.  When they gave me
+my liberty, I swore never again to set foot in India--and I keep the
+oaths I make."
+
+"Those who despoiled you, who took you captive, who killed your father--
+were men.  Are there not other men, on whom you can avenge yourself!  Let
+your hate fall upon them!"
+
+"You, who speak thus of men, are not a man!"
+
+"I, and those who resemble me, are more than men.  We are, to the rest of
+the human race, what the bold hunter is to the wild beasts, which they
+run down in the forest.  Will you be, like us, more than a man?  Will you
+glut surely, largely, safely--the hate which devours your heart, for all
+the evil done you?"
+
+"Your words become more and more obscure: I have no hatred in my heart,"
+said Djalma.  "When an enemy is worthy of me, I fight with him; when he
+is unworthy, I despise him.  So that I have no hate--either for brave men
+or cowards."
+
+"Treachery!" cried the negro on a sudden, pointing with rapid gesture to
+the door, for Djalma and the Indian had now withdrawn a little from it,
+and were standing in one corner of the hovel.
+
+At the shout of the negro, Faringhea, who had not been perceived by
+Djalma, threw off abruptly the mat which covered him, drew his crease,
+started up like a tiger, and with one bound was out of the cabin.  Then,
+seeing a body of soldiers advancing cautiously in a circle, he dealt one
+of them a mortal stroke, threw down two others, and disappeared in the
+midst of the ruins.  All this passed so instantaneously, that, when
+Djalma turned round, to ascertain the cause of the negro's cry of alarm,
+Faringhea had already disappeared.
+
+The muskets of several soldiers, crowding to the door, were immediately
+pointed at Djalma and the three Stranglers, whilst others went in pursuit
+of Faringhea.  The negro, the Malay, and the Indian, seeing the
+impossibility of resistance, exchanged a few rapid words, and offered
+their hands to the cords, with which some of the soldiers had provided
+themselves.
+
+The Dutch captain, who commanded the squad, entered the cabin at this
+moment.  "And this other one?" said he, pointing out Djalma to the
+soldiers, who were occupied in binding the three Phansegars.
+
+"Each in his turn, captain!" said an old sergeant.  "We come to him
+next."
+
+Djalma had remained petrified with surprise, not understanding what was
+passing round him; but, when he saw the sergeant and two soldiers
+approach with ropes to bind him, he repulsed them with violent
+indignation, and rushed towards the door where stood the officer.  The
+soldiers, who had supposed that Djalma would submit to his fate with the
+same impassibility as his companions, were astounded by this resistance,
+and recoiled some paces, being struck in spite of themselves, with the
+noble and dignified air of the son of Kadja-sing.
+
+"Why would you bind me like these men?" cried Djalma, addressing himself
+in Hindostanee to the officer, who understood that language from his long
+service in the Dutch colonies.
+
+"Why would we bind you, wretch?--because you form part of this band of
+assassins.  What?" added the officer in Dutch, speaking to the soldiers,
+"are you afraid of him?--Tie the cord tight about his wrists; there will
+soon be another about his neck."
+
+"You are mistaken," said Djalma, with a dignity and calmness which
+astonished the officer; "I have hardly been in this place a quarter of an
+hour--I do not know these men.  I came here to meet a Frenchman."
+
+"Not a Phansegar like them?--Who will believe the falsehood?"
+
+"Them!" cried Djalma, with so natural a movement and expression of
+horror, that with a sign the officer stopped the soldiers, who were again
+advancing to bind the son of Kadja-sing; "these men form part of that
+horrible band of murderers! and you accuse me of being their accomplice!-
+-Oh, in this case, sir! I am perfectly at ease," said the young man, with
+a smile of disdain.
+
+"It will not be sufficient to say that you are tranquil," replied the
+officer; "thanks to their confessions, we now know by what mysterious
+signs to recognize the Thugs."
+
+"I repeat, sir, that I hold these murderers in the greatest horror, and
+that I came here--"
+
+The negro, interrupting Djalma, said to the officer with a ferocious joy:
+"You have hit it; the sons of the good work do know each other by marks
+tattooed on their skin.  For us, the hour has come--we give our necks to
+the cord.  Often enough have we twined it round the necks of those who
+served not with us the good work.  Now, look at our arms, and look at the
+arms of this youth!"
+
+The officer, misinterpreting the words of the negro, said to Djalma: "It
+is quite clear, that if, as this negro tells us, you do not bear on your
+arm the mysterious symbol--(we are going to assure ourselves of the
+fact), and if you can explain your presence here in a satisfactory
+manner, you may be at liberty within two hours."
+
+"You do not understand me," said the negro to the officer; "Prince Djalma
+is one of us, for he bears on his left arm the name of Bowanee."
+
+"Yes! he is like us, a son of Kale!" added the Malay.
+
+"He is like us, a Phansegar," said the Indian.
+
+The three men, irritated at the horror which Djalma had manifested on
+learning that they were Phansegars, took a savage pride in making it
+believed that the son of Kadja-sing belonged to their frightful
+association.
+
+"What have you to answer?"  said the officer to Djalma.  The latter again
+gave a look of disdainful pity, raised with his right hand his long, wide
+left sleeve, and displayed his naked arm.
+
+"What audacity!" cried the officer, for on the inner part of the fore-
+arm, a little below the bend, the name of the Bowanee, in bright red
+Hindoo characters, was distinctly visible.  The officer ran to the Malay,
+and uncovered his arm; he saw the same word, the same signs.  Not yet
+satisfied, he assured himself that the negro and the Indian were likewise
+so marked.
+
+"Wretch!" cried he, turning furiously towards Djalma; "you inspire even
+more horror than your accomplices.  Bind him like a cowardly assassin,"
+added he to the soldiers; "like a cowardly assassin, who lies upon the
+brink of the grave, for his execution will not be long delayed."
+
+Struck with stupor, Djalma, who for some moments had kept his eye riveted
+on the fatal mark, was unable to pronounce a word, or make the least
+movement: his powers of thought seemed to fail him, in presence of this
+incomprehensible fact.
+
+"Would you dare deny this sign?"  said the officer to him, with
+indignation.
+
+"I cannot deny what I see--what is," said Djalma, quite overcome.
+
+"It is lucky that you confess at last," replied the officer.  "Soldiers,
+keep watch over him and his accomplices--you answer for them."
+
+Almost believing himself the sport of some wild dream.  Djalma offered no
+resistance, but allowed himself to be bound and removed with mechanical
+passiveness.  The officer, with part of his soldiers, hoped still to
+discover Faringhea amongst the ruins; but his search was vain, and, after
+spending an hour in fruitless endeavors, he set out for Batavia, where
+the escort of the prisoners had arrived before him.
+
+Some hours after these events, M. Joshua van Dael thus finished his long
+despatch, addressed to M. Rodin, of Paris:
+
+"Circumstances were such, that I could not act otherwise; and, taking all
+into consideration, it is a very small evil for a great good.  Three
+murderers are delivered over to justice, and the temporary arrest of
+Djalma will only serve to make his innocence shine forth with redoubled
+luster.
+
+"Already this morning I went to the governor, to protest in favor of our
+young prince.  `As it was through me,' I said, `that those three great
+criminals fell into the hands of the authorities, let them at least show
+me some gratitude, by doing everything to render clear as day the
+innocence of Prince Djalma, so interesting by reason of his misfortunes
+and noble qualities.  Most certainly,' I added, `when I came yesterday to
+inform the governor, that the Phansegars would be found assembled in the
+ruins of Tchandi, I was far from anticipating that any one would confound
+with those wretches the adopted son of General Simon, an excellent man,
+with whom I have had for some time the most honorable relations.  We
+must, then, at any cost, discover the inconceivable mystery that has
+placed Djalma in this dangerous position;' and, I continued, `so
+convinced am I of his innocence, that, for his own sake, I would not ask
+for any favor on his behalf.  He will have sufficient courage and dignity
+to wait patiently in prison for the day of justice.' In all this, you
+see, I spoke nothing but the truth, and had not to reproach myself with
+the least deception, for nobody in the world is more convinced than I am
+of Djalma's innocence.
+
+"The governor answered me as I expected, that morally he felt as certain
+as I did of the innocence of the young prince, and would treat him with
+all possible consideration; but that it was necessary for justice to have
+its course, because it would be the only way of demonstrating the
+falsehood of the accusation, and discovering by what unaccountable
+fatality that mysterious sign was tattooed upon Djalma's arm.
+
+"Mahal the Smuggler, who alone could enlighten justice on this subject,
+will in another hour have quitted Batavia, to go on board the `Ruyter,'
+which will take him to Egypt; for he has a note from me to the captain,
+to certify that he is the person for whom I engaged and paid the passage.
+At the same time, he will be the bearer of this long despatch, for the
+`Ruyter' is to sail in an hour, and the last letter-bag for Europe was
+made up yesterday evening.  But I wished to see the governor this
+morning, before closing the present.
+
+"Thus, then, is Prince Djalma enforced detained for a month, and, this
+opportunity of the `Ruyter' once lost, it is materially impossible that
+the young Indian can be in France by the 13th of next February.  You see,
+therefore, that, even as you ordered, so have I acted according to the
+means at my disposal--considering only the end which justifies them--for
+you tell me a great interest of the society is concerned.
+
+"In your hands, I have been what we all ought to be in the hands of our
+superiors--a mere instrument: since, for the greater glory of God, we
+become corpses with regard to the will.[7] Men may deny our unity and
+power, and the times appear opposed to us; but circumstances only change;
+we are ever the same.
+
+"Obedience and courage, secrecy and patience, craft and audacity, union
+and devotion--these become us, who have the world for our country, our
+brethren for family, Rome for our Queen!
+                                             "J. V."
+
+
+About ten o'clock in the morning, Mahal the Smuggler set out with this
+despatch (sealed) in his possession, to board the "Ruyter."  An hour
+later, the dead body of this same Mahal, strangled by Thuggee, lay
+concealed beneath some reeds on the edge of a desert strand, whither he
+had gone to take boat to join the vessel.
+
+When at a subsequent period, after the departure of the steamship, they
+found the corpse of the smuggler, M. Joshua sought in vain for the
+voluminous packet, which he had entrusted to his care.  Neither was there
+any trace of the note which Mahal was to have delivered to the captain of
+the "Ruyter," in order to be received as passenger.
+
+Finally, the searches and bushwhacking ordered throughout the country for
+the purpose of discovering Faringhea, were of no avail.  The dangerous
+chief of the Stranglers was never seen again in Java.
+
+[7] It is known that the doctrine of passive and absolute obedience, the
+main-spring of the Society of Jesus, is summed up in those terrible words
+of the dying Loyola: "Every member of the Order shall be, in the hands of
+his superiors, even as a corpse (Perinde ac Cadaver)."--E. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+M. RODIN.
+
+Three months have elapsed since Djalma was thrown into Batavia Prison
+accused of belonging to the murderous gang of Megpunnas.  The following
+scene takes place in France, at the commencement of the month of
+February, 1832, in Cardoville Manor House, an old feudal habitation
+standing upon the tall cliffs of Picardy, not far from Saint Valery, a
+dangerous coast on which almost every year many ships are totally
+wrecked, being driven on shore by the northwesters, which render the
+navigation of the Channel so perilous.
+
+From the interior of the Castle is heard the howling of a violent
+tempest, which has arisen during the night; a frequent formidable noise,
+like the discharge of artillery, thunders in the distance, and is
+repeated by the echoes of the shore; it is the sea breaking with fury
+against the high rocks which are overlooked by the ancient Manor House.
+
+It is about seven o'clock in the morning.  Daylight is not yet visible
+through the windows of a large room situated on the ground-floor.  In
+this apartment, in which a lamp is burning, a woman of about sixty years
+of age, with a simple and honest countenance, dressed as a rich farmer's
+wife of Picardy, is already occupied with her needle-work,
+notwithstanding the early hour.  Close by, the husband of this woman,
+about the same age as herself, is seated at a large table, sorting and
+putting up in bags divers samples of wheat and oats.  The face of this
+white-haired man is intelligent and open, announcing good sense and
+honesty, enlivened by a touch of rustic humor; he wears a shooting-jacket
+of green cloth, and long gaiters of tan-colored leather, which half
+conceal his black velveteen breeches.
+
+The terrible storm which rages without renders still more agreeable the
+picture of this peaceful interior.  A rousing fire burns in a broad
+chimney-place faced with white marble, and throws its joyous light on the
+carefully polished floor; nothing can be more cheerful than the old-
+fashioned chintz hangings and curtains with red Chinese figures upon a
+white ground, and the panels over the door painted with pastoral scenes
+in the style of Watteau.  A clock of Sevres china, and rosewood furniture
+inlaid with green--quaint and portly furniture, twisted into all sorts of
+grotesque shapes--complete the decorations of this apartment.
+
+Out-doors, the gale continued to howl furiously, and sometimes a gust of
+wind would rush down the chimney, or shake the fastenings of the windows.
+The man who was occupied in sorting the samples of grain was M. Dupont,
+bailiff of Cardoville manor.
+
+"Holy Virgin!" said his wife; "what dreadful weather, my dear!  This M.
+Rodin, who is to come here this morning, as the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier's steward announced to us, picked out a very bad day for it."
+
+"Why, in truth, I have rarely heard such a hurricane.  If M. Rodin has
+never seen the sea in its fury, he may feast his eyes to-day with the
+sight."
+
+"What can it be that brings this M. Rodin, my dear?"
+
+"Faith!  I know nothing about it.  The steward tells me in his letter to
+show M. Rodin the greatest attention, and to obey him as if he were my
+master.  It will be for him to explain himself, and for me to execute his
+orders, since he comes on the part of the princess."
+
+"By rights he should come from Mademoiselle Adrienne, as the land belongs
+to her since the death of the duke her father."
+
+"Yes; but the princess being aunt to the young lady, her steward manages
+Mademoiselle Adrienne's affairs--so whether one or the other, it amounts
+to the same thing."
+
+"May be M. Rodin means to buy the estate.  Though, to be sure, that stout
+lady who came from Paris last week on purpose to see the chateau appeared
+to have a great wish for it."
+
+At these words the bailiff began to laugh with a sly look.
+
+"What is there to laugh at, Dupont?" asked his wife, a very good
+creature, but not famous for intelligence or penetration.
+
+"I laugh," answered Dupont, "to think of the face and figure of that
+enormous woman: with such a look, who the devil would call themselves
+Madame de la Sainte-Colombe--Mrs. Holy Dove?  A pretty saint, and a
+pretty dove, truly!  She is round as a hogshead, with the voice of a
+town-crier; has gray moustachios like an old grenadier, and without her
+knowing it, I heard her say to her servant: `Stir your stumps, my
+hearty!'--and yet she calls herself Sainte-Colombe!"
+
+"How hard on her you are, Dupont; a body don't choose one's name.  And,
+if she has a beard, it is not the lady's fault."
+
+"No--but it is her fault to call herself Sainte-Colombe.  Do you imagine
+it her true name?  Ah, my poor Catherine, you are yet very green in some
+things."
+
+"While you, my poor Dupont, are well read in slander!  This lady seems
+very respectable.  The first thing she asked for on arriving was the
+chapel of the Castle, of which she had heard speak.  She even said that
+she would make some embellishments in it; and, when I told her we had no
+church in this little place, she appeared quite vexed not to have a
+curate in the village."
+
+"Oh, to be sure! that's the first thought of your upstarts--to play the
+great lady of the parish, like your titled people."
+
+"Madame de la Sainte-Colombe need not play the great lady, because she is
+one."
+
+"She! a great lady?  Oh, lor'!"
+
+"Yes--only see how she was dressed, in scarlet gown, and violet gloves
+like a bishop's; and, when she took off her bonnet, she had a diamond
+band round her head-dress of false, light hair, and diamond ear-drops as
+large as my thumb, and diamond rings on every finger!  None of your
+tuppenny beauties would wear so many diamonds in the middle of the day."
+
+"You are a pretty judge!"
+
+"That is not all."
+
+"Do you mean to say there's more?"
+
+"She talked of nothing but dukes, and marquises, and counts, and very
+rich gentlemen, who visit at her house, and are her most intimate
+friends; and then, when she saw the summer house in the park, half-burnt
+by the Prussians, which our late master never rebuilt, she asked, `What
+are those ruins there?' and I answered: `Madame, it was in the time of
+the Allies that the pavilion was burnt.'--`Oh, my clear,' cried she; `our
+allies, good, dear allies! they and the Restoration began my fortune!'
+So you see, Dupont, I said to myself directly: `She was no doubt one of
+the noble women who fled abroad--'"
+
+"Madame de la Sainte-Colombe!" cried the bailiff, laughing heartily.
+"Oh, my poor, poor wife!"
+
+"Oh, it is all very well; but because you have been three years at Paris,
+don't think yourself a conjurer!"
+
+"Catherine, let's drop it: you will make me say some folly, and there are
+certain things which dear, good creatures like you need never know."
+
+"I cannot tell what you are driving at, only try to be less slanderous--
+for, after all, should Madame de la Sainte-Colombe buy the estate, will
+you be sorry to remain as her bailiff, eh?"
+
+"Not I--for we are getting old, my good Catherine; we have lived here
+twenty years, and we have been too honest to provide for our old days by
+pilfering--and truly, at our age, it would be hard to seek another place,
+which perhaps we should not find.  What I regret is, that Mademoiselle
+Adrienne should not keep the land; it seems that she wished to sell it,
+against the will of the princess."
+
+"Good gracious, Dupont! is it not very extraordinary that Mademoiselle
+Adrienne should have the disposal of her large fortune so early in life?"
+
+"Faith! simple enough.  Our young lady, having no father or mother, is
+mistress of her property, besides having a famous little will of her own.
+Dost remember, ten years ago, when the count brought her down here one
+summer?--what an imp of mischief! and then what eyes! eh?--how they
+sparkled, even then!"
+
+"It is true that Mademoiselle Adrienne had in her look--an expression--a
+very uncommon expression for her age."
+
+"If she has kept what her witching, luring face promised, she must be
+very pretty by this time, notwithstanding the peculiar color of her hair-
+-for, between ourselves, if she had been a tradesman's daughter, instead
+of a young lady of high birth, they would have called it red."
+
+"There again! more slander."
+
+"What! against Mademoiselle Adrienne?  Heaven forbid--I always thought
+that she would be as good as pretty, and it is not speaking ill of her to
+say she has red hair.  On the contrary, it always appears to me so fine,
+so bright, so sunny, and to suit so well her snowy complexion and black
+eyes, that in truth I would not have had it other than it was; and I am
+sure, that now this very color of her hair, which would be a blemish in
+any one else, must only add to the charm of Mademoiselle Adrienne's face.
+She must have such a sweet vixen look!"
+
+"Oh! to be candid, she really was a vixen--always running about the park,
+aggravating her governess, climbing the trees--in fact, playing all
+manner of naughty tricks."
+
+"I grant you, Mademoiselle Adrienne was a chip of the old block; but then
+what wit, what engaging ways, and above all, what a good heart!"
+
+"Yes--that she certainly had.  Once I remember she gave her shawl and her
+new merino frock to a poor little beggar girl, and came back to the house
+in her petticoat, and bare arms."
+
+"Oh, an excellent heart--but headstrong--terribly headstrong!"
+
+"Yes--that she was; and 'tis likely to finish badly, for it seems that
+she does things at Paris--oh! such things--"
+
+"What things?"
+
+"Oh, my dear; I can hardly venture--"
+
+"Fell, but what are they?"
+
+"Why," said the worthy dame, with a sort of embarrassment and confusion,
+which showed how much she was shocked by such enormities, "they say, that
+Mademoiselle Adrienne never sets foot in a church, but lives in a kind of
+heathen temple in her aunt's garden, where she has masked women to dress
+her up like a goddess, and scratches them very often, because she gets
+tipsy--without mentioning, that every night she plays on a hunting horn
+of massive gold--all which causes the utmost grief and despair to her
+poor aunt the princess."
+
+Here the bailiff burst into a fit of laughter, which interrupted his
+wife.
+
+"Now tell me," said he, when this first access of hilarity was over,
+"where did you get these fine stories about Mademoiselle Adrienne?"
+
+"From Rene's wife, who went to Paris to look for a child to nurse; she
+called at Saint-Dizier House, to see Madame Grivois, her godmother.--Now
+Madame Grivois is first bedchamber woman to the princess--and she it was
+who told her all this--and surely she ought to know, being in the house."
+
+"Yes, a fine piece of goods that Grivois! once she was a regular bad 'un,
+but now she professes to be as over-nice as her mistress; like master
+like man, they say.  The princess herself, who is now so stiff and
+starched, knew how to carry on a lively game in her time.  Fifteen years
+ago, she was no such prude: do you remember that handsome colonel of
+hussars, who was in garrison at Abbeville? an exiled noble who had served
+in Russia, whom the Bourbons gave a regiment on the Restoration?"
+
+"Yes, yes--I remember him; but you are really too backbiting."
+
+"Not a bit--I only speak the truth.  The colonel spent his whole time
+here, and every one said he was very warm with this same princess, who is
+now such a saint.  Oh! those were the jolly times.  Every evening, some
+new entertainment at the chateau.  What a fellow that colonel was, to set
+things going; how well he could act a play!--I remember--"
+
+The bailiff was unable to proceed.  A stout maid-servant, wearing the
+costume and cap of Picardy, entered in haste, and thus addressed her
+mistress: "Madame, there is a person here that wants to speak to master;
+he has come in the postmaster's calash from Saint-Valery, and he says
+that he is M. Rodin."
+
+"M. Rodin?" said the bailiff rising.  "Show him in directly!"
+
+A moment after, M. Rodin made his appearance.  According to his custom,
+he was dressed even more than plainly.  With an air of great humility, he
+saluted the bailiff and his wife, and at a sign from her husband, the
+latter withdrew.  The cadaverous countenance of M. Rodin, his almost
+invisible lips, his little reptile eyes, half concealed by their flabby
+lids, and the sordid style of his dress, rendered his general aspect far
+from prepossessing; yet this man knew how, when it was necessary, to
+affect, with diabolical art, so much sincerity and good-nature--his words
+were so affectionate and subtly penetrating--that the disagreeable
+feeling of repugnance, which the first sight of him generally inspired,
+wore off little by little, and he almost always finished by involving his
+dupe or victim in the tortuous windings of an eloquence as pliant as it
+was honeyed and perfidious; for ugliness and evil have their fascination,
+as well as what is good and fair.
+
+The honest bailiff looked at this man with surprise, when he thought of
+the pressing recommendation of the steward of the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier; he had expected to see quite another sort of personage, and,
+hardly able to dissemble his astonishment, he said to him: "Is it to M.
+Rodin that I have the honor to speak?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and here is another letter from the steward of the Princess de
+Saint-Dizier."
+
+"Pray, sir, draw near the fire, whilst I just see what is in this letter.
+The weather is so bad," continued the bailiff, obligingly, "may I not
+offer you some refreshment?"
+
+"A thousand thanks, my dear sir; I am off again in an hour."
+
+Whilst M. Dupont read, M. Rodin threw inquisitive glances round the
+chamber; like a man of skill and experience, he had frequently drawn just
+and useful inductions from those little appearances, which, revealing a
+taste or habit, give at the same time some notion of a character; on this
+occasion, however, his curiosity was at fault.
+
+"Very good, sir," said the bailiff, when he had finished reading; "the
+steward renews his recommendation, and tells me to attend implicitly to
+your commands."
+
+"Well, sir, they will amount to very little, and I shall not trouble you
+long."
+
+"It will be no trouble, but an honor."
+
+"Nay, I know how much your time must be occupied, for, as soon as one
+enters this chateau, one is struck with the good order and perfect
+keeping of everything in it--which proves, my dear sir, what excellent
+care you take of it."
+
+"Oh, sir, you flatter me."
+
+"Flatter you?--a poor old man like myself has something else to think of.
+But to come to business: there is a room here which is called the Green
+Chamber?"
+
+"Yes, sir; the room which the late Count-Duke de Cardoville used for a
+study."
+
+"You will have the goodness to take me there."
+
+"Unfortunately, it is not in my power to do so.  After the death of the
+Count-Duke, and when the seals were removed, a number of papers were shut
+up in a cabinet in that room, and the lawyers took the keys with them to
+Paris."
+
+"Here are those keys," said M. Rodin, showing to the bailiff a large and
+a small key tied together.
+
+"Oh, sir! that is different.  You come to look for papers?"
+
+"Yes--for certain papers--and also far a small mahogany casket, with
+silver clasps--do you happen to know it?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I have often seen it on the count's writing-table.  It must be
+in the large, lacquered cabinet, of which you have the key."
+
+"You will conduct me to this chamber, as authorized by the Princess de
+Saint-Dizier?"
+
+"Yes, sir; the princess continues in good health?"
+
+"Perfectly so.  She lives altogether above worldly things."
+
+"And Mademoiselle Adrienne?"
+
+"Alas, my dear sir!" said M. Rodin, with a sigh of deep contrition and
+grief.
+
+"Good heaven, sir! has any calamity happened to Mademoiselle Adrienne?"
+
+"In what sense do you mean it?"
+
+"Is she ill?"
+
+"No, no--she is, unfortunately, as well as she is beautiful."
+
+"Unfortunately!" cried the bailiff, in surprise.
+
+"Alas, yes! for when beauty, youth, and health are joined to an evil
+spirit of revolt and perversity--to a character which certainly has not
+its equal upon earth--it would be far better to be deprived of those
+dangerous advantages, which only become so many causes of perdition.  But
+I conjure you, my dear sir, let us talk of something else: this subject
+is too painful," said M. Rodin, with a voice of deep emotion, lifting the
+tip of his little finger to the corner of his right eye, as if to stop a
+rising tear.
+
+The bailiff did not see the tear, but he saw the gesture, and he was
+struck with the change in M. Rodin's voice.  He answered him, therefore,
+with much sympathy: "Pardon my indiscretion, sir; I really did not
+know--"
+
+"It is I who should ask pardon for this involuntary display of feeling--
+tears are so rare with old men--but if you had seen, as I have, the
+despair of that excellent princess, whose only fault has been too much
+kindness, too much weakness, with regard to her niece--by which she has
+encouraged her--but, once more, let us talk of something else, my dear
+sir!"
+
+After a moment's pause, during which M. Rodin seemed to recover from his
+emotion, he said to Dupont: "One part of my mission, my dear sir--that
+which relates to the Green Chamber--I have now told you; but there is yet
+another.  Before coming to it, however, I must remind you of a
+circumstance you have perhaps forgotten--namely, that some fifteen or
+sixteen years ago, the Marquis d'Aigrigny, then colonel of the hussars in
+garrison at Abbeville, spent some time in this house."
+
+"Oh, sir! what a dashing officer was there!  It was only just now, that I
+was talking about him to my wife.  He was the life of the house!--how
+well he could perform plays--particularly the character of a scapegrace.
+In the Two Edmonds, for instance, he would make you die with laughing, in
+that part of a drunken soldier--and then, with what a charming voice he
+sang Joconde, sir--better than they could sing it at Paris!"
+
+Rodin, having listened complacently to the bailiff, said to him: "You
+doubtless know that, after a fierce duel he had with a furious
+Bonapartist, one General Simon, the Marquis d'Aigrigny (whose private
+secretary I have now the honor to be) left the world for the church."
+
+"No, sir! is it possible?  That fine officer!"
+
+"That fine officer--brave, noble, rich, esteemed, and flattered--
+abandoned all those advantages for the sorry black gown; and,
+notwithstanding his name, position, high connections, his reputation as a
+great preacher, he is still what he was fourteen years ago--a plain abbe
+--whilst so many, who have neither his merit nor his virtues, are
+archbishops and cardinals."
+
+M. Rodin expressed himself with so much goodness, with such an air of
+conviction, and the facts he cited appeared to be so incontestable, that
+M. Dupont could not help exclaiming: "Well, sir, that is splendid
+conduct!"
+
+"Splendid?  Oh, no!" said M. Rodin, with an inimitable expression of
+simplicity; "it is quite a matter of course when one has a heart like M.
+d'Aigrigny's.  But amongst all his good qualities, he has particularly
+that of never forgetting worthy people--people of integrity, honor,
+conscience--and therefore, my dear M. Dupont, he has not forgotten you."
+
+"What, the most noble marquis deigns to remember--"
+
+"Three days ago, I received a letter from him, in which he mentions your
+name."
+
+"Is he then at Paris?"
+
+"He will be there soon, if not there now.  He went to Italy about three
+months ago, and, during his absence, he received a very sad piece of
+news--the death of his mother, who was passing the autumn on one of the
+estates of the Princess de Saint-Dizier."
+
+"Oh, indeed!  I was not aware of it."
+
+"Yes, it was a cruel grief to him; but we must all resign ourselves to
+the will of Providence!"
+
+"And with regard to what subject did the marquis do me the honor to
+mention my name?"
+
+"I am going to tell you.  First of all, you must know that this house is
+sold.  The bill of sale was signed the day before my departure from
+Paris."
+
+"Oh, sir! that renews all my uneasiness."
+
+"Pray, why?"
+
+"I am afraid that the new proprietors may not choose to keep me as their
+bailiff."
+
+"Now see what a lucky chance!  It is just on that subject that I am going
+to speak to you."
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+"Certainly.  Knowing the interest which the marquis feels for you, I am
+particularly desirous that you should keep this place, and I will do all
+in my power to serve you, if--"
+
+"Ah, sir!" cried Dupont, interrupting Rodin; "what gratitude do I not owe
+you!  It is Heaven that sends you to me!'
+
+"Now, my dear sir, you flatter me in your turn; but I ought to tell you,
+that I'm obliged to annex a small condition to my support."
+
+"Oh, by all means!  Only name it, sir--name it!"
+
+"The person who is about to inhabit this mansion, is an old lady in every
+way worthy of veneration; Madame de la Sainte-Colombe is the name of this
+respectable--"
+
+"What, sir?" said the bailiff, interrupting Rodin; "Madame de la Sainte-
+Colombe the lady who has bought us out?"
+
+"Do you know her?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she came last week to see the estate.  My wife persists that
+she is a great lady; but--between ourselves--judging by certain words
+that I heard her speak--"
+
+"You are full of penetration, my dear M. Dupont.  Madame de la Sainte-
+Colombe is far from being a great lady.  I believe she was neither more
+nor less than a milliner, under one of the wooden porticoes of the Palais
+Royal.  You see, that I deal openly with you."
+
+"And she boasted of all the noblemen, French and foreign, who used to
+visit her!"
+
+"No doubt, they came to buy bonnets for their wives!  However, the fact
+is, that, having gained a large fortune and, after being in youth and
+middle age--indifferent--alas! more than indifferent to the salvation of
+her soul--Madame de la Sainte-Colombe is now in a likely way to
+experience grace--which renders her, as I told you, worthy of veneration,
+because nothing is so respectable as a sincere repentance--always
+providing it to be lasting.  Now to make the good work sure and
+effectual, we shall need your assistance, my dear M. Dupont."
+
+"Mine, sir! what can I do in it?"
+
+"A great deal; and I will explain to you how.  There is no church in this
+village, which stands at an equal distance from either of two parishes.
+Madame de la Sainte-Colombe, wishing to make choice of one of the two
+
+clergymen, will naturally apply to you and Madame Dupont, who have long
+lived in these parts, for information respecting them."
+
+"Oh! in that case the choice will soon be made.  The incumbent of
+Danicourt is one of the best of men."
+
+"Now that is precisely what you must not say to Madame de la Sainte-
+Colombe."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You must, on the contrary, much praise, without ceasing, the curate of
+Roiville, the other parish, so as to decide this good lady to trust
+herself to his care."
+
+"And why, sir, to him rather than to the other?"
+
+"Why?--because, if you and Madame Dupont succeed in persuading Madame de
+la Sainte-Colombe to make the choice I wish, you will be certain to keep
+your place as bailiff.  I give you my word of it, and what I promise I
+perform."
+
+"I do not doubt, sir, that you have this power," said Dupont, convinced
+by Rodin's manner, and the authority of his words; "but I should like to
+know--"
+
+"One word more," said Rodin, interrupting him; "I will deal openly with
+you, and tell you why I insist on the preference which I beg you to
+support.  I should be grieved if you saw in all this the shadow of an
+intrigue.  It is only for the purpose of doing a good action.  The curate
+of Roiville, for whom I ask your influence, is a man for whom M.
+d'Aigrigny feels a deep interest.  Though very poor, he has to support an
+aged mother.  Now, if he had the spiritual care of Madame de la Sainte-
+Colombe, he would do more good than any one else, because he is full of
+zeal and patience; and then it is clear he would reap some little
+advantages, by which his old mother might profit--there you see is the
+secret of this mighty scheme.  When I knew that this lady was disposed to
+buy an estate in the neighborhood of our friend's parish, I wrote about
+it to the marquis; and he, remembering you, desired me to ask you to
+render him this small service, which, as you see, will not remain without
+a recompense.  For I tell you once more, and I will prove it, that I have
+the power to keep you in your place as bailiff."
+
+"Well, sir," replied Dupont, after a moment's reflection, "you are so
+frank and obliging, that I will imitate your sincerity.  In the same
+degree that the curate of Danicourt is respected and loved in this
+country, the curate of Roiville, whom you wish me to prefer to him, is
+dreaded for his intolerance--and, moreover--"
+
+"Well, and what more?"
+
+"Why, then, they say--"
+
+"Come, what do they say?"
+
+"They say--he is a Jesuit."
+
+Upon these words, M. Rodin burst into so hearty a laugh that the bailiff
+was quite struck dumb with amazement--for the countenance of M. Rodin
+took a singular expression when he laughed.  "A Jesuit!" he repeated,
+with redoubled hilarity; "a Jesuit!--Now really, my dear M. Dupont, for a
+man of sense, experience, and intelligence, how can you believe such idle
+stories?--A Jesuit--are there such people as Jesuits?--in our time, above
+all, can you believe such romance of the Jacobins, hobgoblins of the old
+freedom lovers?--Come, come; I wager, you have read about them in the
+Constitutionnel!"
+
+"And yet, sir, they say--"
+
+"Good heavens! what will they not say?--But wise men, prudent men like
+you, do not meddle with what is said--they manage their own little
+matters, without doing injury to any one, and they never sacrifice, for
+the sake of nonsense, a good place, which secures them a comfortable
+provision for the rest of their days.  I tell you frankly, however much I
+may regret it, that should you not succeed in getting the preference for
+my man, you will not remain bailiff here.
+
+"But, sir," said poor Dupont, "it will not be my fault, if this lady,
+hearing a great deal in praise of the other curate, should prefer him to
+your friend."
+
+"Ah! but if, on the other hand, persons who have long lived in the
+neighborhood--persons worthy of confidence, whom she will see every day--
+tell Madame de la Sainte-Colombe a great deal of good of my friend, and a
+great deal of harm of the other curate, she will prefer the former, and
+you will continue bailiff."
+
+"But, sir--that would be calumny!" cried Dupont.
+
+"Pshaw, my dear M. Dupont!" said Rodin, with an air of sorrowful and
+affectionate reproach, "how can you think me capable of giving you evil
+counsel?--I was only making a supposition.  You wish to remain bailiff on
+this estate.  I offer you the certainty of doing so--it is for you to
+consider and decide."
+
+"But, sir--"
+
+"One word more--or rather one more condition--as important as the other.
+Unfortunately, we have seen clergymen take advantage of the age and
+weakness of their penitents, unfairly to benefit either themselves or
+others: I believe our protege incapable of any such baseness--but, in
+order to discharge my responsibility--and yours also, as you will have
+contributed to his appointment--I must request that you will write to me
+twice a week, giving the most exact detail of all that you have remarked
+in the character, habits, connections, pursuits, of Madame de la Sainte-
+Colombe--for the influence of a confessor, you see, reveals itself in the
+whole conduct of life, and I should wish to be fully edified by the
+proceedings of my friend, without his being aware of it--or, if anything
+blameable were to strike you, I should be immediately informed of it by
+this weekly correspondence."
+
+"But, sir--that would be to act as a spy?" exclaimed the unfortunate
+bailiff.
+
+"Now, my dear M. Dupont! how can you thus brand the sweetest, most
+wholesome of human desires--mutual confidence?--I ask of you nothing
+else--I ask of you to write to me confidentially the details of all that
+goes on here.  On these two conditions, inseparable one from the other,
+you remain bailiff; otherwise, I shall be forced, with grief and regret,
+to recommend some one else to Madame de la Sainte-Colombe."
+
+"I beg you, sir," said Dupont, with emotion, "Be generous without any
+conditions! -I and my wife have only this place to give us bread, and we
+are too old to find another.  Do not expose our probity of forty years'
+standing to be tempted by the fear of want, which is so bad a
+counsellor!"
+
+"My dear M. Dupont, you are really a great child: you must reflect upon
+this, and give me your answer in the course of a week."
+
+"Oh, sir! I implore you--"  The conversation was here interrupted by a
+loud report, which was almost instantaneously repeated by the echoes of
+the cliffs.  "What is that?" said M. Rodin.  Hardly had he spoken, when
+the same noise was again heard more distinctly than before.
+
+"It is the sound of cannon," cried Dupont, rising; "no doubt a ship in
+distress, or signaling for a pilot."
+
+"My dear," said the bailiffs wife, entering abruptly, "from the terrace,
+we can see a steamer and a large ship nearly dismasted--they are drifting
+right upon the shore--the ship is firing minute gulls -it will be lost."
+
+"Oh, it is terrible!" cried the bailiff, taking his hat and preparing to
+go out, "to look on at a shipwreck, and be able to do nothing!"
+
+"Can no help be given to these vessels?" asked M. Rodin.
+
+"If they are driven upon the reefs, no human power can save them; since
+the last equinox two ships have been lost on this coast."
+
+"Lost with all on board?--Oh, very frightful," said M. Rodin.
+
+"In such a storm, there is but little chance for the crew; no matter,"
+said the bailiff, addressing his wife, "I will run down to the rocks with
+the people of the farm, and try to save some of them, poor creatures!--
+Light large fires in several rooms--get ready linen, clothes, cordials--I
+scarcely dare hope to save any, but we must do our best.  Will you come
+with me, M. Rodin?"
+
+"I should think it a duty, if I could be at all useful, but I am too old
+and feeble to be of any service," said M. Rodin, who was by no means
+anxious to encounter the storm.  "Your good lady will be kind enough to
+show me the Green Chamber, and when I have found the articles I require,
+I will set out immediately for Paris, for I am in great haste."
+
+"Very well, sir.  Catherine will show you.  Ring the big bell," said the
+bailiff to his servant; "let all the people of the farm meet me at the
+foot of the cliff, with ropes and levers."
+
+"Yes, my dear," replied Catherine; "but do not expose yourself."
+
+"Kiss me--it will bring me luck," said the bailiff; and he started at a
+full run, crying: "Quick! quick; by this time not a plank may remain of
+the vessels."
+
+"My dear madam," said Rodin, always impassible, "will you be obliging
+enough to show me the Green Chamber?"
+
+"Please to follow me, sir," answered Catherine, drying her tears--for she
+trembled on account of her husband, whose courage she well knew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE TEMPEST
+
+The sea is raging.  Mountainous waves of dark green, marbled with white
+foam, stand out, in high, deep undulations, from the broad streak of red
+light, which extends along the horizon.  Above are piled heavy masses of
+black and sulphurous vapor, whilst a few lighter clouds of a reddish
+gray, driven by the violence of the wind, rush across the murky sky.
+
+The pale winter sun, before he quite disappears in the great clouds,
+behind which he is slowly mounting, casts here and there some oblique
+rays upon the troubled sea, and gilds the transparent crest of some of
+the tallest waves.  A band of snow-white foam boils and rages as far as
+the eye can reach, along the line of the reefs that bristle on this
+dangerous coast.
+
+Half-way up a rugged promontory, which juts pretty far into the sea,
+rises Cardoville Castle; a ray of the sun glitters upon its windows; its
+brick walls and pointed roofs of slate are visible in the midst of this
+sky loaded with vapors.
+
+A large, disabled ship, with mere shreds of sail still fluttering from
+the stumps of broken masts, drives dead upon the coast.  Now she rolls
+her monstrous hull upon the waves--now plunges into their trough.  A
+flash is seen, followed by a dull sound, scarcely perceptible in the
+midst of the roar of the tempest.  That gun is the last signal of
+distress from this lost vessel, which is fast forging on the breakers.
+
+At the same moment, a steamer, with its long plume of black smoke, is
+working her way from east to west, making every effort to keep at a
+distance from the shore, leaving the breakers on her left.  The dismasted
+ship, drifting towards the rocks, at the mercy of the wind and tide, must
+some time pass right ahead of the steamer.
+
+Suddenly, the rush of a heavy sea laid the steamer upon her side; the
+enormous wave broke furiously on her deck; in a second the chimney was
+carried away, the paddle box stove in, one of the wheels rendered
+useless.  A second white-cap, following the first, again struck the
+vessel amidships, and so increased the damage that, no longer answering
+to the helm, she also drifted towards the shore, in the same direction as
+the ship.  But the latter, though further from the breakers, presented a
+greater surface to the wind and sea, and so gained upon the steamer in
+swiftness that a collision between the two vessels became imminent--a new
+clanger added to all the horrors of the now certain wreck.
+
+The ship was an English vessel, the "Black Eagle," homeward bound from
+Alexandria, with passengers, who arriving from India and Java, via the
+Red Sea, had disembarked at the Isthmus of Suez, from on board the
+steamship "Ruyter."  The "Black Eagle," quitting the Straits of
+Gibraltar, had gone to touch at the Azores.  She headed thence for
+Portsmouth, when she was overtaken in the Channel by the northwester.
+The steamer was the "William Tell," coming from Germany, by way of the
+Elbe, and bound, in the last place, for Hamburg to Havre.
+
+These two vessels, the sport of enormous rollers, driven along by tide
+and tempest, were now rushing upon the breakers with frightful speed.
+The deck of each offered a terrible spectacle; the loss of crew and
+passengers appeared almost certain, for before them a tremendous sea
+broke on jagged rocks, at the foot of a perpendicular cliff.
+
+The captain of the "Black Eagle," standing on the poop, holding by the
+remnant of a spar, issued his last orders in this fearful extremity with
+courageous coolness.  The smaller boats had been carried away by the
+waves; it was in vain to think of launching the long-boat; the only
+chance of escape in case the ship should not be immediately dashed to
+pieces on touching the rocks, was to establish a communication with the
+land by means of a life-line--almost the last resort for passing between
+the shore and a stranded vessel.
+
+The deck was covered with passengers, whose cries and terror augmented
+the general confusion.  Some, struck with a kind of stupor, and clinging
+convulsively to the shrouds, awaited their doom in a state of stupid
+insensibility.  Others wrung their hands in despair, or rolled upon the
+deck uttering horrible imprecations.  Here, women knelt down to pray;
+there, others hid their faces in their hands, that they might not see the
+awful approach of death.  A young mother, pale as a specter, holding her
+child clasped tightly to her bosom, went supplicating from sailor to
+sailor, and offering a purse full of gold and jewels to any one that
+would take charge of her son.
+
+These cries, and tears, and terror contrasted with the stern and silent
+resignation of the sailors.  Knowing the imminence of the inevitable
+danger, some of them stripped themselves of part of their clothes,
+waiting for the moment to make a last effort, to dispute their lives with
+the fury of the waves; others renouncing all hope, prepared to meet death
+with stoical indifference.
+
+Here and there, touching or awful episodes rose in relief, if one may so
+express it, from this dark and gloomy background of despair.
+
+A young man of about eighteen or twenty, with shiny black hair, copper-
+colored complexion, and perfectly regular and handsome features,
+contemplated this scene of dismay and horror with that sad calmness
+peculiar to those who have often braved great perils; wrapped in a cloak,
+he leaned his back against the bulwarks, with his feet resting against
+one of the bulkheads.  Suddenly, the unhappy mother, who, with her child
+in her arms, and gold in her hand, had in vain addressed herself to
+several of the mariners, to beg them to save her boy, perceiving the
+young man with the copper-colored complexion, threw herself on her knees
+before him, and lifted her child towards him with a burst of
+inexpressible agony.  The young man took it, mournfully shook his head,
+and pointed to the furious waves--but, with a meaning gesture, he
+appeared to promise that he would at least try to save it.  Then the
+young mother, in a mad transport of hope, seized the hand of the youth,
+and bathed it with her tears.
+
+Further on, another passenger of the "Black Eagle," seemed animated by
+sentiments of the most active pity.  One would hardly have given him
+five-and-twenty years of age.  His long, fair locks fell in curls on
+either side of his angelic countenance.  He wore a black cassock and
+white neck-band.  Applying himself to comfort the most desponding, he
+went from one to the other, and spoke to them pious words of hope and
+resignation; to hear him console some, and encourage others, in language
+full of unction, tenderness, and ineffable charity, one would have
+supposed him unaware or indifferent to the perils that he shared.
+
+On his fine, mild features, was impressed a calm and sacred intrepidity,
+a religious abstraction from every terrestrial thought; from time to
+time, he raised to heaven his large blue eyes, beaming with gratitude,
+love, and serenity, as if to thank God for having called him to one of
+those formidable trials in which the man of humanity and courage may
+devote himself for his brethren, and, if not able to rescue them at all,
+at least die with them, pointing to the sky.  One might almost have taken
+him for an angel, sent down to render less cruel the strokes of
+inexorable fate.
+
+Strange contrast! not far from this young man's angelic beauty, there was
+another being, who resembled an evil spirit!
+
+Boldly mounted on what was left of the bowsprit, to which he held on by
+means of some remaining cordage, this man looked down upon the terrible
+scene that was passing on the deck.  A grim, wild joy lighted up his
+countenance of a dead yellow, that tint peculiar to those who spring from
+the union of the white race with the East.  He wore only a shirt and
+linen drawers; from his neck was suspended, by a cord, a cylindrical tin
+box, similar to that in which soldiers carry their leave of absence.
+
+The more the danger augmented, the nearer the ship came to the breakers,
+or to a collision with the steamer, which she was now rapidly
+approaching--a terrible collision, which would probably cause the two
+vessels to founder before even they touched the rocks--the more did the
+infernal joy of this passenger reveal itself in frightful transports.  He
+seemed to long, with ferocious impatience, for the moment when the work
+of destruction should be accomplished.  To see him thus feasting with
+avidity on all the agony, the terror, and the despair of those around
+him, one might have taken him for the apostle of one of those sanguinary
+deities, who, in barbarous countries, preside over murder and carnage.
+
+By this time the "Black Eagle," driven by the wind and waves, came so
+near the "William Tell" that the passengers on the deck of the nearly
+dismantled steamer were visible from the first-named vessel.
+
+These passengers were no longer numerous.  The heavy sea, which stove in
+the paddle-box and broke one of the paddles, had also carried away nearly
+the whole of the bulwarks on that side; the waves, entering every instant
+by this large opening, swept the decks with irresistible violence, and
+every time bore away with them some fresh victims.
+
+Amongst the passengers, who seemed only to have escaped this danger to be
+hurled against the rocks, or crushed in the encounter of the two vessels,
+one group was especially worthy of the most tender and painful interest.
+Taking refuge abaft, a tall old man, with bald forehead and gray
+moustache, had lashed himself to a stanchion, by winding a piece of rope
+round his body, whilst he clasped in his arms, and held fast to his
+breast, two girls of fifteen or sixteen, half enveloped in a pelisse of
+reindeer-skin.  A large, fallow, Siberian dog, dripping with water, and
+barking furiously at the waves, stood close to their feet.
+
+These girls, clasped in the arms of the old man, also pressed close to
+each other; but, far from being lost in terror, they raised their eyes to
+heaven, full of confidence and ingenuous hope, as though they expected to
+be saved by the intervention of some supernatural power.
+
+A frightful shriek of horror and despair, raised by the passengers of
+both vessels, was heard suddenly above the roar of the tempest.  At the
+moment when, plunging deeply between two waves, the broadside of the
+steamer was turned towards the bows of the ship, the latter, lifted to a
+prodigious height on a mountain of water, remained, as it were, suspended
+over the "William Tell," during the second which preceded the shock of
+the two vessels.
+
+There are sights of so sublime a horror, that it is impossible to
+describe them.  Yet, in the midst of these catastrophes, swift as
+thought, one catches sometimes a momentary glimpse of a picture, rapid
+and fleeting, as if illumined by a flash of lightning.
+
+Thus, when the "Black Eagle," poised aloft by the flood, was about to
+crash down upon the "William Tell," the young man with the angelic
+countenance and fair, waving locks bent over the prow of the ship, ready
+to cast himself into the sea to save some victim.  Suddenly, he perceived
+on board the steamer, on which he looked down from the summit of the
+immense wave, the two girls extending their arms towards him in
+supplication.  They appeared to recognize him, and gazed on him with a
+sort of ecstacy and religious homage!
+
+For a second, in spite of the horrors of the tempest, in spite of the
+approaching shipwreck, the looks of those three beings met.  The features
+of the young man were expressive of sudden and profound pity; for the
+maidens with their hands clasped in prayer, seemed to invoke him as their
+expected Saviour.  The old man, struck down by the fall of a plank, lay
+helpless on the deck.  Soon all disappeared together.
+
+A fearful mass of water dashed the "Black Eagle" down upon the "William
+Tell," in the midst of a cloud of boiling foam.  To the dreadful crash of
+the two great bodies of wood and iron, which splintering against one
+another, instantly foundered, one loud cry was added--a cry of agony and
+death--the cry of a hundred human creatures swallowed up at once by the
+waves!
+
+And then--nothing more was visible!
+
+A few moments after, the fragments of the two vessels appeared in the
+trough of the sea, and on the caps of the waves--with here and there the
+contracted arms, the livid and despairing faces of some unhappy wretches,
+striving to make their way to the reefs along the shore, at the risk of
+being crushed to death by the shock of the furious breakers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE SHIPWRECK.
+
+While the bailiff was gone to the sea-shore, to render help to those of
+the passengers who might escape from the inevitable shipwreck, M. Rodin,
+conducted by Catherine to the Green Chamber, had there found the articles
+that he was to take with him to Paris.
+
+After passing two hours in this apartment, very indifferent to the fate
+of the shipwrecked persons, which alone absorbed the attention of the
+inhabitants of the Castle, Rodin returned to the chamber commonly
+occupied by the bailiff, a room which opened upon a long gallery.  When
+he entered it he found nobody there.  Under his arm he held a casket,
+with silver fastenings, almost black from age, whilst one end of a large
+red morocco portfolio projected from the breast-pocket of his half-
+buttoned great coat.
+
+Had the cold and livid countenance of the Abbe d'Aigrigny's secretary
+been able to express joy otherwise than by a sarcastic smile, his
+features would have been radiant with delight; for, just then, he was
+under the influence of the most agreeable thoughts.  Having placed the
+casket upon a table, it was with marked satisfaction that he thus
+communed with himself:
+
+"All goes well.  It was prudent to keep these papers here till this
+moment, for one must always be on guard against the diabolical spirit of
+that Adrienne de Cardoville, who appears to guess instinctively what it
+is impossible she should know.  Fortunately, the time approaches when we
+shall have no more need to fear her.  Her fate will be a cruel one; it
+must be so.  Those proud, independent characters are at all times our
+natural enemies--they are so by their very essence--how much more when
+they show themselves peculiarly hurtful and dangerous!  As for La Sainte-
+Colombe, the bailiff is sure to act for us; between what the fool calls
+his conscience, and the dread of being at his age deprived of a
+livelihood, he will not hesitate.  I wish to have him because he will
+serve us better than a stranger; his having been here twenty years will
+prevent all suspicion on the part of that dull and narrow-minded woman.
+Once in the hands of our man at Roiville, I will answer for the result.
+The course of all such gross and stupid women is traced beforehand: in
+their youth, they serve the devil; in riper years, they make others serve
+him; in their old age, they are horribly afraid of him; and this fear
+must continue till she has left us the Chateau de Cardoville, which, from
+its isolated position, will make us an excellent college.  All then goes
+well.  As for the affair of the medals, the 13th of February approaches,
+without news from Joshua--evidently, Prince Djalma is still kept prisoner
+by the English in the heart of India, or I must have received letters
+from Batavia.  The daughters of General Simon will be detained at Leipsic
+for at least a month longer.  All our foreign relations are in the best
+condition.  As for our internal affairs--"
+
+ Here M. Rodin was interrupted in the current of his reflections by the
+entrance of Madame Dupont, who was zealously engaged in preparations to
+give assistance in case of need.
+
+"Now," said she to the servant, "light a fire in the next room; put this
+warm wine there; your master may be in every minute."
+
+"Well, my dear madam," said Rodin to her, "do they hope to save any of
+these poor creatures?"
+
+"Alas! I do not know, sir.  My husband has been gone nearly two hours.  I
+am terribly uneasy on his account.  He is so courageous, so imprudent, if
+once he thinks he can be of any service."
+
+"Courageous even to imprudence," said Rodin to himself, impatiently; "I
+do not like that."
+
+"Well," resumed Catherine, "I have here at hand my hot linen, my
+cordials--heaven grant it may all be of use!"
+
+"We may at least hope so, my dear madam.  I very much regretted that my
+age and weakness did not permit me to assist your excellent husband.  I
+also regret not being able to wait for the issue of his exertions, and to
+wish him joy if successful--for I am unfortunately compelled to depart,
+my moments are precious.  I shall be much obliged if you will have the
+carriage got ready."
+
+"Yes, Sir; I will see about it directly."
+
+"One word, my dear, good Madame Dupont.  You are a woman of sense, and
+excellent judgment.  Now I have put your husband in the way to keep, if
+he will, his situation as bailiff of the estate--"
+
+"Is it possible?  What gratitude do we not owe you!  Without this place
+what would become of us at our time of life?"
+
+"I have only saddled my promise with two conditions--mere trifles--he
+will explain all that to you."
+
+"Ah, sir! we shall regard you as our deliverer."
+
+"You are too good.  Only, on two little conditions--"
+
+"If there were a hundred, sir we should gladly accept them.  Think what
+we should be without this place--penniless--absolutely penniless!"
+
+"I reckon upon you then; for the interest of your husband, you will try
+to persuade him."
+
+"Missus! I say, missus! here's master come back," cried a servant,
+rushing into the chamber.
+
+"Has he many with him?"
+
+"No, missus; he is alone."
+
+"Alone! alone?"
+
+"Quite alone, missus."
+
+A few moments after, M. Dupont entered the room; his clothes were
+streaming with water; to keep his hat on in the midst of the storm, he
+had tied it down to his head by means of his cravat, which was knotted
+under his chin; his gaiters were covered with chalky stains.
+
+"There I have thee, my dear love!" cried his wife, tenderly embracing
+him.  "I have been so uneasy!"
+
+"Up to the present moment--THREE SAVED."
+
+"God be praised, my dear M. Dupont!" said Rodin; "at least your efforts
+will not have been all in vain."
+
+"Three, only three?" said Catherine.  "Gracious heaven!"
+
+"I only speak of those I saw myself, near the little creek of Goelands.
+Let us hope there may be more saved on other parts of the coast."
+
+"Yes, indeed; happily, the shore is not equally steep in all parts."
+
+"And where are these interesting sufferers, my dear sir?" asked Rodin,
+who could not avoid remaining a few instants longer.
+
+"They are mounting the cliffs, supported by our people.  As they cannot
+walk very fast, I ran on before to console my wife, and to take the
+necessary measures for their reception.  First of all, my dear, you must
+get ready some women's clothes."
+
+"There is then a woman amongst the persons saved?"
+
+"There are two girls--fifteen or sixteen years of age at the most--mere
+children--and so pretty!"
+
+"Poor little things!" said Rodin, with an affectation of interest.
+
+"The person to whom they owe their lives is with them.  He is a real
+hero!"
+
+"A hero?"
+
+"Yes; only fancy--"
+
+"You can tell me all this by and by.  Just slip on this dry warm
+dressing-gown, and take some of this hot wine.  You are wet through."
+
+"I'll not refuse, for I am almost frozen to death.  I was telling you
+that the person who saved these young girls was a hero; and certainly his
+courage was beyond anything one could have imagined.  When I left here
+with the men of the farm, we descended the little winding path, and
+arrived at the foot of the cliff--near the little creek of Goelands,
+fortunately somewhat sheltered from the waves by five or six enormous
+masses of rock stretching out into the sea.  Well, what should we find
+there?  Why, the two young girls I spoke of, in a swoon, with their feet
+still in the water, and their bodies resting against a rock, as though
+they had been placed there by some one, after being withdrawn from the
+sea."
+
+"Dear children! it is quite touching!" said M. Rodin, raising, as usual,
+the tip of his little finger to the corner of his right eye, as though to
+dry a tear, which was very seldom visible.
+
+"What struck me was their great resemblance to each other," resumed the
+bailiff; "only one in the habit of seeing them could tell the
+difference."
+
+"Twin--sisters, no doubt," said Madame Dupont.
+
+"One of the poor things," continued the bailiff, "held between her
+clasped hands a little bronze medal, which was suspended from her neck by
+a chain of the same material."
+
+Rodin generally maintained a very stooping posture; but at these last
+words of the bailiff, he drew himself up suddenly, whilst a faint color
+spread itself over his livid cheeks.  In any other person, these symptoms
+would have appeared of little consequence; but in Rodin, accustomed for
+long years to control and dissimulate his emotions, they announced no
+ordinary excitement.  Approaching the bailiff, he said to him in a
+slightly agitated voice, but still with an air of indifference: "It was
+doubtless a pious relic.  Did you see what was inscribed on this medal?"
+
+"No, sir; I did not think of it."
+
+"And the two young girls were like one another--very much like, you say?"
+
+"So like, that one would hardly know which was which.  Probably they are
+orphans, for they are dressed in mourning."
+
+"Oh! dressed in mourning?" said M. Rodin, with another start.
+
+"Alas! orphans so young!" said Madame Dupont, wiping her eyes.
+
+"As they had fainted away, we carried them further on to a place where
+the sand was quite dry.  While we were busy about this, we saw the head
+of a man appear from behind one of the rocks, which he was trying to
+climb, clinging to it by one hand; we ran to him, and luckily in the nick
+of time, for he was clean worn out, and fell exhausted into the arms of
+our men.  It was of him I spoke when I talked of a hero; for, not content
+with having saved the two young girls by his admirable courage, he had
+attempted to rescue a third person, and had actually gone back amongst
+the rocks and breakers--but his strength failed him, and, without the aid
+of our men, he would certainly have been washed away from the ridge to
+which he clung."
+
+"He must indeed be a fine fellow!" said Catherine.
+
+Rodin, with his head bowed upon his breast, seemed quite indifferent to
+this conversation.  The dismay and stupor, in which he had been plunged,
+only increased upon reflection.  The two girls, who had just been saved,
+were fifteen years of age; were dressed in mourning; were so like, that
+one might be taken for the other; one of them wore round her neck a chain
+with a bronze medal; he could scarcely doubt that they were the daughters
+of General Simon.  But how could those sisters be amongst the number of
+shipwrecked passengers?  How could they have escaped from the prison at
+Leipsic?  How did it happen, that he had not been informed of it?  Could
+they have fled, or had they been set at liberty?  How was it possible
+that he should not be apprise of such an event?  But these secondary
+thoughts, which offered themselves in crowds to the mind of M. Rodin,
+were swallowed up in the one fact: "the daughters of General Simon are
+here!"--His plan, so laboriously laid, was thus entirely destroyed.
+
+"When I speak of the deliverer of these young girls," resumed the
+bailiff, addressing his wife, and without remarking M. Rodin's absence of
+mind, "you are expecting no doubt to see a Hercules?--well, he is
+altogether the reverse.  He is almost a boy in look, with fair, sweet
+face, and light, curling locks.  I left him a cloak to cover him, for he
+had nothing on but his shirt, black knee-breeches, and a pair of black
+worsted stockings--which struck me as singular."
+
+"Why, it was certainly not a sailor's dress."
+
+"Besides, though the ship was English, I believe my hero is a Frenchman,
+for he speaks our language as well as we do.  What brought the tears to
+my eyes, was to see the young girls, when they came to themselves.  As
+soon as they saw him, they threw themselves at his feet, and seemed to
+look up to him and thank him, as one would pray.  Then they cast their
+eyes around them, as if in search of some other person, and, having
+exchanged a few words, they fell sobbing into each other's arms."
+
+"What a dreadful thing it is!  How many poor creatures must have
+perished!"
+
+"When we quitted the rocks, the sea had already cast ashore seven dead
+bodies, besides fragments of the wrecks, and packages.  I spoke to some
+of the coast-guard, and they will remain all day on the look-out; and if,
+as I hope, any more should escape with life, they are to be brought here.
+But surely that is the sound of voices!--yes, it is our shipwrecked
+guests!"
+
+The bailiff and his wife ran to the door of the room--that door, which
+opened on the long gallery--whilst Rodin, biting convulsively his flat
+nails, awaited with angry impatience the arrival of the strangers.  A
+touching picture soon presented itself to his view.
+
+From the end of the dark some gallery, only lighted on one side by
+several windows, three persons, conducted by a peasant, advanced slowly.
+This group consisted of the two maidens, and the intrepid young man to
+whom they owed their lives.  Rose and Blanche were on either side of
+their deliverer, who, walking with great difficulty, supported himself
+lightly on their arms.
+
+Though he was full twenty-five years of age, the juvenile countenance of
+this man made him appear younger.  His long, fair hair, parted on the
+forehead, streamed wet and smooth over the collar of a large brown cloak,
+with which he had been covered.  It would be difficult to describe the
+adorable expression of goodness in his pale, mild face, as pure as the
+most ideal creations of Raphael's pencil--for that divine artist alone
+could have caught the melancholy grace of those exquisite features, the
+serenity of that celestial look, from eyes limpid and blue as those of an
+archangel, or of a martyr ascended to the skies.
+
+Yes, of a martyr! for a blood-red halo already encircled that beauteous
+head.  Piteous sight to see! just above his light eyebrows, and rendered
+still more visible by the effect of the cold, a narrow cicatrix, from a
+wound inflicted many months before, appeared to encompass his fair
+forehead with a purple band; and (still more sad!) his hands had been
+cruelly pierced by a crucifixion--his feet had suffered the same injury--
+and, if he now walked with so much difficulty, it was that his wounds had
+reopened, as he struggled over the sharp rocks.
+
+This young man was Gabriel, the priest attached to the foreign mission,
+the adopted son of Dagobert's wife.  He was a priest and martyr--for, in
+our days, there are still martyrs, as in the time when the Caesars flung
+the early Christians to the lions and tigers of the circus.
+
+Yes, in our days, the children of the people--for it is almost always
+amongst them that heroic and disinterested devotion may still be found--
+the children of the people, led by an honorable conviction, because it is
+courageous and sincere, go to all parts of the world, to try and
+propagate their faith, and brave both torture and death with the most
+unpretending valor.
+
+How many of them, victims of some barbarous tribe, have perished, obscure
+and unknown, in the midst of the solitudes of the two worlds!--And for
+these humble soldiers of the cross, who have nothing but their faith and
+their intrepidity, there is never reserved on their return (and they
+seldom do return) the rich and sumptuous dignities of the church.  Never
+does the purple or the mitre conceal their scarred brows and mutilated
+limbs; like the great majority of other soldiers, they die forgotten.[8]
+
+In their ingenuous gratitude, the daughters of General Simon, as soon as
+they recovered their senses after the shipwreck, and felt themselves able
+to ascend the cliffs, would not leave to any other person the care of
+sustaining the faltering steps of him who had rescued them from certain
+death.
+
+The black garments of Rose and Blanche streamed with water; their faces
+were deadly pale, and expressive of deep grief; the marks of recent tears
+were on their cheeks, and, with sad, downcast eyes, they trembled both
+from agitation and cold, as the agonizing thought recurred to them, that
+they should never again see Dagobert, their friend and guide; for it was
+to him that Gabriel had stretched forth a helping hand, to assist him to
+climb the rocks.  Unfortunately the strength of both had failed, and the
+soldier had been carried away by a retreating wave.
+
+The sight of Gabriel was a fresh surprise for Rodin, who had retired on
+one side, in order to observe all; but this surprise was of so pleasant a
+nature, and he felt so much joy in beholding the missionary safe after
+such imminent peril, that the painful impression, caused by the view of
+General Simon's daughters, was a little softened.  It must not be
+forgotten, that the presence of Gabriel in Paris, on the 13th of
+February, was essential to the success of Rodin's projects.
+
+The bailiff and his wife, who were greatly moved at sight of the orphans,
+approached them with eagerness.  Just then a farm-boy entered the room,
+crying: "Sir! sir! good news--two more saved from the wreck!"
+
+"Blessing and praise to God for it!" said the missionary.
+
+"Where are they?" asked the bailiff, hastening towards the door.
+
+"There is one who can walk, and is following behind me with Justin; the
+other was wounded against the rocks, and they are carrying him on a
+litter made of branches."
+
+"I will run and have him placed in the room below," said the bailiff, as
+he went out.  "Catherine, you can look to the young ladies."
+
+"And the shipwrecked man who can walk--where is he?" asked the bailiff's
+wife.
+
+"Here he is," said the peasant, pointing to some one who came rapidly
+along the gallery; "when he heard that the two young ladies were safe in
+the chateau--though he is old, and wounded in the head, he took such
+great strides, that it was all I could do to get here before him."
+
+Hardly had the peasant pronounced these words, when Rose and Blanche,
+springing up by a common impulse, flew to the door.  They arrived there
+at the same moment as Dagobert.
+
+The soldier, unable to utter a syllable, fell on his knees at the
+threshold, and extended his arms to the daughters of General Simon; while
+Spoil-sport, running to them licked their hands.
+
+But the emotion was too much for Dagobert; and, when he had clasped the
+orphans in his arms, his head fell backward, and he would have sunk down
+altogether, but for the care of the peasants.  In spite of the
+observations of the bailiff's wife, on their state of weakness and
+agitation, the two young girls insisted on accompanying Dagobert, who was
+carried fainting into an adjoining apartment.
+
+At sight of the soldier, Rodin's face was again violently contracted, for
+he had till then believed that the guide of General Simon's daughters was
+dead.  The missionary, worn out with fatigue, was leaning upon a chair,
+and had not yet perceived Rodin.
+
+A new personage, a man with a dead yellow complexion, now entered the
+room, accompanied by another peasant, who pointed out Gabriel to him.
+This man, who had just borrowed a smock-frock and a pair of trousers,
+approached the missionary, and said to him in French but with a foreign
+accent: "Prince Djalma has just been brought in here.  His first word was
+to ask for you."
+
+"What does that man say?" cried Rodin, in a voice of thunder; for, at the
+name of Djalma, he had sprung with one bound to Gabriel's side.
+
+"M. Rodin!" exclaimed the missionary, falling back in surprise.
+
+"M. Rodin," cried the other shipwrecked person; and from that moment, he
+kept his eye fixed on the correspondent of M. Van Dael.
+
+"You here, sir?" said Gabriel, approaching Rodin with an air of
+deference, not unmixed with fear.
+
+"What did that man say to you?" repeated Rodin, in an excited tone.  "Did
+he not utter the name of Prince Djalma?"
+
+"Yes, sir; Prince Djalma was one of the passengers on board the English
+ship, which came from Alexandria, and in which we have just been wrecked.
+This vessel touched at the Azores, where I then was; the ship that
+brought me from Charlestown having been obliged to put in there, and
+being likely to remain for some time, on account of serious damage, I
+embarked on board the `Black Eagle,' where I met Prince Djalma.  We were
+bound to Portsmouth, and from thence my intention was to proceed to
+France."
+
+Rodin did not care to interrupt Gabriel.  This new shock had completely
+paralyzed his thoughts.  At length, like a man who catches at a last
+hope, which he knows beforehand to be vain, he said to Gabriel: "Can you
+tell me who this Prince Djalma is?"
+
+"A young man as good as brave--the son of an East Indian king,
+dispossessed of his territory by the English."
+
+Then, turning towards the other shipwrecked man, the missionary said to
+him with anxious interest: "How is the Prince? are his wounds dangerous?"
+
+"They are serious contusions, but they will not be mortal," answered the
+other.
+
+"Heaven be praised!" said the missionary, addressing Rodin; "here, you
+see, is another saved."
+
+"So much the better," observed Rodin, in a quick, imperious tone.
+
+"I will go see him," said Gabriel, submissively.  "You have no orders to
+give me?"
+
+"Will you be able to leave this place in two or three hours,
+notwithstanding your fatigue?"
+
+"If it be necessary--yes."
+
+"It is necessary.  You will go with me."
+
+Gabriel only bowed in reply, and Rodin sank confounded into a chair,
+while the missionary went out with the peasant.  The man with the sallow
+complexion still lingered in a corner of the room, unperceived by Rodin.
+
+This man was Faringhea, the half-caste, one of the three chiefs of the
+Stranglers.  Having escaped the pursuit of the soldiers in the ruins of
+Tchandi, he had killed Mahal the Smuggler, and robbed him of the
+despatches written by M. Joshua Van Dael to Rodin, as also of the letter
+by which the smuggler was to have been received as passenger on board the
+"Ruyter."  When Faringhea left the hut in the ruins of Tchandi, he had
+not been seen by Djalma; and the latter, when he met him on shipboard,
+after his escape (which we shall explain by and by), not knowing that he
+belonged to the sect of Phansegars, treated him during the voyage as a
+fellow-countryman.
+
+Rodin, with his eye fixed and haggard, his countenance of a livid hue,
+biting his nails to the quick in silent rage, did not perceive the half-
+caste, who quietly approached him and laying his hand familiarly on his
+shoulder, said to him:  "Your name is Rodin?"
+
+"What now?" asked the other, starting, and raising his head abruptly.
+
+"Your name is Rodin?" repeated Faringhea.
+
+"Yes.  What do you want?"
+
+"You live in the Rue du Milieu-des-Ursins, Paris?"
+
+"Yes.  But, once more, what do you want?"
+
+"Nothing now, brother: hereafter, much!"
+
+And Faringhea, retiring, with slow steps, left Rodin alarmed at what had
+passed; for this man, who scarcely trembled at anything, had quailed
+before the dark look and grim visage of the Strangler.
+
+[8]We always remember with emotion the end of a letter written, two or
+three years ago, by one of these young and valiant missionaries, the son
+of poor parents in Beauce.  He was writing to his mother from the heart
+of Japan, and thus concluded his letter: "Adieu, my dear mother! they say
+there is much danger where I am now sent to.  Pray for me, and tell all
+our good neighbors that I think of them very often."  These few words,
+addressed from the centre of Asia to poor peasants in a hamlet of France,
+are only the more touching from their very simplicity--E. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE DEPARTURE FOR PARIS.
+
+The most profound silence reigns throughout Cardoville House.  The
+tempest has lulled by degrees, and nothing is heard from afar but the
+hoarse murmur of the waves, as they wash heavily the shore.
+
+Dagobert and the orphans have been lodged in warm and comfortable
+apartments on the first-floor of the chateau.  Djalma, too severely hurt
+to be carried upstairs, has remained in a room below.  At the moment of
+the shipwreck, a weeping mother had placed her child in his arms.  He had
+failed in the attempt to snatch this unfortunate infant from certain
+death, but his generous devotion had hampered his movements, and when
+thrown upon the rocks, he was almost dashed to pieces.  Faringhea, who
+has been able to convince him of his affection, remains to watch over
+him.
+
+Gabriel, after administering consolation to Djalma, has rescinded to the
+chamber allotted to him; faithful to the promise he made to Rodin, to be
+ready to set out in two hours, he has not gone to bed; but, having dried
+his clothes, he has fallen asleep in a large, high-backed arm-chair,
+placed in front of a bright coal-fire.  His apartment is situated near
+those occupied by Dagobert and the two sisters.
+
+Spoil-sport, probably quite at his ease in so respectable a dwelling, has
+quitted the door of Rose and Blanche's chamber, to lie down and warm
+himself at the hearth, by the side of which the missionary is sleeping.
+There, with his nose resting on his outstretched paws, he enjoys a
+feeling of perfect comfort and repose, after so many perils by land and
+sea.  We will not venture to affirm, that he thinks habitually of poor
+old Jovial; unless we recognize as a token of remembrance on his part,
+his irresistible propensity to bite all the white horses he has met with,
+ever since the death of his venerable companion, though before, he was
+the most inoffensive of dogs with regard to horses of every color.
+
+Presently one of the doors of the chamber opened, and the two sisters
+entered timidly.  Awake for some minutes, they had risen and dressed
+themselves, feeling still some uneasiness with respect to Dagobert;
+though the bailiff's wife, after showing them to their room, had returned
+again to tell them that the village doctor found nothing serious in the
+hurt of the old soldier, still they hoped to meet some one belonging to
+the chateau, of whom they could make further inquiries about him.
+
+The high back of the old-fashioned arm-chair, in which Gabriel was
+sleeping, completely screened him from view; but the orphans, seeing
+their canine friend lying quietly at his feet, thought it was Dagobert
+reposing there, and hastened towards him on tip-toe.  To their great
+astonishment, they saw Gabriel fast asleep, and stood still in confusion,
+not daring to advance or recede, for fear of waking him.
+
+The long, light hair of the missionary was no longer wet, and now curled
+naturally round his neck and shoulders; the paleness of his complexion
+was the more striking, from the contrast afforded by the deep purple of
+the damask covering of the arm-chair.  His beautiful countenance
+expressed a profound melancholy, either caused by the influence of some
+painful dream, or else that he was in the habit of keeping down, when
+awake, some sad regrets, which revealed themselves without his knowledge
+when he was sleeping.  Notwithstanding this appearance of bitter grief,
+his features preserved their character of angelic sweetness, and seemed
+endowed with an inexpressible charm, for nothing is more touching than
+suffering goodness.  The two young girls cast down their eyes, blushed
+simultaneously, and exchanged anxious glances, as if to point out to each
+other the slumbering missionary.
+
+"He sleeps, sister," said Rose in a low voice.
+
+"So much the better," replied Blanche, also in a whisper, making a sign
+of caution; "we shall now be able to observe him well."
+
+"Yes, for we durst not do so, in coming from the sea hither."
+
+"Look! what a sweet countenance!"
+
+"He is just the same as we saw him in our dreams."
+
+"When he promised he would protect us."
+
+"And he has not failed us."
+
+"But here, at least, he is visible."
+
+"Not as it was in the prison at Leipsic, during that dark night."
+
+"And so--he has again rescued us."
+
+"Without him, we should have perished this morning."
+
+"And yet, sister, it seems to me, that in our dreams his countenance
+shone with light."
+
+"Yes, you know it dazzled us to look at him."
+
+"And then he had not so sad a mien."
+
+"That was because he came then from heaven; now he is upon earth."
+
+"But, sister, had he then that bright red scar round his forehead?"
+
+"Oh, no! we should have certainly perceived it."
+
+"And these other marks on his hands?"
+
+"If he has been wounded, how can he be an archangel?"
+
+"Why not, sister?  If he received those wounds in preventing evil, or in
+helping the unfortunate, who, like us, were about to perish?"
+
+"You are right.  If he did not run any danger for those he protects, it
+would be less noble."
+
+"What a pity that he does not open his eye!"
+
+"Their expression is so good, so tender!"
+
+"Why did he not speak of our mother, by the way?"
+
+"We were not alone with him; he did not like to do so."
+
+"But now we are alone."
+
+"If we were to pray to him to speak to us?"
+
+The orphans looked doubtingly at each other, with charming simplicity; a
+bright glow suffused their cheeks, and their young bosoms heaved gently
+beneath their black dresses.
+
+"You are right.  Let us kneel down to him."
+
+"Oh, sister! our hearts beat so!" said Blanche, believing rightly, that
+Rose felt exactly as she did.  "And yet it seems to do us good.  It is as
+if some happiness were going to befall us."
+
+The sisters, having approached the arm-chair on tip-toe, knelt down with
+clasped hands, one to the right the other to the left of the young
+priest.  It was a charming picture.  Turning their lovely faces towards
+him, they said in a low whisper, with a soft, sweet voice, well suited to
+their youthful appearance: "Gabriel! speak to us of our mother!"
+
+On this appeal, the missionary gave a slight start, half-opened his eyes,
+and, still in a state of semi-consciousness, between sleep and waking,
+beheld those two beauteous faces turned towards him, and heard two gentle
+voices repeat his name.
+
+"Who calls me?" said he, rousing himself, and raising his head.
+
+"It is Blanche and Rose."
+
+It was now Gabriel's turn to blush, for he recognized the young girls he
+had saved.  "Rise, my sisters!" said he to them; "you should kneel only
+unto God."
+
+The orphans obeyed, and were soon beside him, holding each other by the
+hand.  "You know my name, it seems," said the missionary with a smile.
+
+"Oh, we have not forgotten it!"
+
+"Who told it you?"
+
+"Yourself."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes--when you came from our mother."
+
+"I, my sisters?" said the missionary, unable to comprehend the words of
+the orphans.  "You are mistaken.  I saw you to-day for the first time."
+
+"But in our dreams?"
+
+"Yes--do you not remember?--in our dreams."
+
+"In Germany -three months ago, for the first time.  Look at us well."
+
+Gabriel could not help smiling at the simplicity of Rose and Blanche, who
+expected him to remember a dream of theirs; growing more and more
+perplexed, he repeated:  "In your dreams?"
+
+"Certainly; when you gave us such good advice."
+
+"And when we were so sorrowful in prison, your words, which we
+remembered, consoled us, and gave us courage."
+
+"Was it not you, who delivered us from the prison at Leipsic, in that
+dark night, when we were not able to see you?"
+
+"I!"
+
+"What other but you would thus have come to our help, and to that of our
+old friend?"
+
+"We told him, that you would love him, because he loved us, although he
+would not believe in angels."
+
+"And this morning, during the tempest, we had hardly any fear."
+
+"Because we expected you."
+
+"This morning--yes, my sisters--it pleased heaven to send me to your
+assistance.  I was coming from America, but I have never been in Leipsic.
+I could not, therefore, have let you out of prison.  Tell me, my
+sisters," added he, with a benevolent smile, "for whom do you take me?"
+
+"For a good angel whom we have seen already in dreams, sent by our mother
+from heaven to protect us."
+
+"My dear sisters, I am only a poor priest.  It is by mere chance, no
+doubt, that I bear some resemblance to the angel you have seen in your
+dreams, and whom you could not see in any other manner--for angels are
+not visible to mortal eye.
+
+"Angels are not visible?" said the orphans, looking sorrowfully at each
+other.
+
+"No matter, my dear sisters," said Gabriel, taking them affectionately by
+the hand; "dreams, like everything else, come from above.  Since the
+remembrance of your mother was mixed up with this dream, it is twice
+blessed."
+
+At this moment a door opened, and Dagobert made his appearance.  Up to
+this time, the orphans, in their innocent ambition to be protected by an
+archangel, had quite forgotten the circumstance that Dagobert's wife had
+adopted a forsaken child, who was called Gabriel, and who was now a
+priest and missionary.
+
+The soldier, though obstinate in maintaining that his hurt was only a
+blank wound (to use a term of General Simon's), had allowed it to be
+carefully dressed by the surgeon of the village, and now wore a black
+bandage, which concealed one half of his forehead, and added to the
+natural grimness of his features.  On entering the room, he was not a
+little surprised to see a stranger holding the hands of Rose and Blanche
+familiarly in his own.  This surprise was natural, for Dagobert did not
+know that the missionary had saved the lives of the orphans, and had
+attempted to save his also.
+
+In the midst of the storm, tossed about by the waves, and vainly striving
+to cling to the rocks, the soldier had only seen Gabriel very
+imperfectly, at the moment when, having snatched the sisters from certain
+death, the young priest had fruitlessly endeavored to come to his aid.
+And when, after the shipwreck, Dagobert had found the orphans in safety
+beneath the roof of the Manor House, he fell, as we have already stated,
+into a swoon, caused by fatigue, emotion, and the effects of his wound--
+so that he had again no opportunity of observing the features of the
+missionary.
+
+The veteran began to frown from beneath his black bandage and thick, gray
+brows, at beholding a stranger so familiar with Rose and Blanche; but the
+sisters ran to throw themselves into his arms, and to cover him with
+filial caresses.  His anger was soon dissipated by these marks of
+affection, though he continued, from time to time, to cast a suspicious
+glance at the missionary, who had risen from his seat, but whose
+countenance he could not well distinguish.
+
+"How is your wound?" asked Rose, anxiously.  "They told us it was not
+dangerous."
+
+"Does it still pain?" added Blanche.
+
+"No, children; the surgeon of the village would bandage me up in this
+manner.  If my head was carbonadoes with sabre cuts, I could not have
+more wrappings.  They will take me for an old milksop; it is only a blank
+wound, and I have a good mind to--"  And therewith the soldier raised one
+of his hands to the bandage.
+
+"Will you leave that alone?" cried Rose catching his arm.  "How can you
+be so unreasonable--at your age?"
+
+"Well, well! don't scold!  I will do what you wish, and keep it on."
+Then, drawing the sisters to one end of the room, he said to them in a
+low voice, whilst he looked at the young priest from the corner of his
+eye: "Who is that gentleman who was holding your hands when I came in?
+He has very much the look of a curate.  You see, my children, you must be
+on your guard; because -"
+
+"He?" cried both sisters at once, turning towards Gabriel.  "Without him,
+we should not now be here to kiss you."
+
+"What's that?" cried the soldier, suddenly drawing up his tall figure,
+and gazing full at the missionary.
+
+"It is our guardian angel," resumed Blanche.
+
+"Without him," said Rose, "we must have perished this morning in the
+shipwreck."
+
+"Ah! it is he, who--" Dagobert could say no more.  With swelling heart,
+and tears in his eyes, he ran to the missionary, offered him both his
+hands, and exclaimed in a tone of gratitude impossible to describe: "Sir,
+I owe you the lives of these two children.  I feel what a debt that
+service lays upon me.  I will not say more--because it includes
+everything!"
+
+Then, as if struck with a sudden recollection, he cried: "Stop! when I
+was trying to cling to a rock, so as not to be carried away by the waves,
+was it not you that held out your hand to me?  Yes--that light hair--that
+youthful countenance--yes--it was certainly you--now I am sure of it!"
+
+"Unhappily, sir, my strength failed me, and I had the anguish to see you
+fall back into the sea."
+
+"I can say nothing more in the way of thanks than what I have already
+said," answered Dagobert, with touching simplicity: "in preserving these
+children you have done more for me than if you had saved my own life.
+But what heart and courage!" added the soldier, with admiration; "and so
+young, with such a girlish look!"
+
+"And so," cried Blanche, joyfully, "our Gabriel came to your aid also?"
+
+"Gabriel!" said Dagobert interrupting Blanche, and addressing himself to
+the priest.  "Is your name Gabriel?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Gabriel!" repeated the soldier, more and more surprised.  "And a
+priest!" added he.
+
+"A priest of the foreign missions."
+
+"Who--who brought you up?" asked the soldier, with increasing
+astonishment.
+
+"An excellent and generous woman, whom I revere as the best of mothers:
+for she had pity on me, a deserted infant, and treated me ever as her
+son."
+
+"Frances Baudoin--was it not?" said the soldier, with deep emotion.
+
+"It was, sir," answered Gabriel, astonished in his turn.  "But how do you
+know this?"
+
+"The wife of a soldier, eh?" continued Dagobert.
+
+"Yes, of a brave soldier--who, from the most admirable devotion, is even
+now passing his life in exile--far from his wife--far from his son, my
+dear brother--for I am proud to call him by that name--"
+
+"My Agricola!--my wife!--when did you leave them?"
+
+"What! is it possible!  You the father of Agricola?--Oh!  I knew not,
+until now," cried Gabriel, clasping his hands together, "I knew not all
+the gratitude that I owed to heaven!"
+
+"And my wife! my child!" resumed Dagobert, in a trembling voice; "how are
+they? have you news of them?"
+
+"The accounts I received, three months ago, were excellent."
+
+"No; it is too much," cried Dagobert; "it is too much!"  The veteran was
+unable to proceed; his feelings stifled his words, and fell back
+exhausted in a chair.
+
+And now Rose and Blanche recalled to mind that portion of their father's
+letter which related to the child named Gabriel, whom the wife of
+Dagobert had adopted; then they also yielded to transports of innocent
+joy.
+
+"Our Gabriel is the same as yours--what happiness!" cried Rose.
+
+"Yes, my children! he belongs to you as well as to me.  We have all our
+part in him."  Then, addressing Gabriel, the soldier added with
+affectionate warmth: "Your hand, my brave boy! give me your hand!"
+
+"Oh, sir! you are too good to me."
+
+"Yes--that's it--thank me!--after all thou has done for us!"
+
+"Does my adopted mother know of your return?" asked Gabriel, anxious to
+escape from the praises of the soldier.
+
+"I wrote to her five months since, but said that I should come alone;
+there was a reason for it, which I will explain by and by.  Does she
+still live in the Rue Brise-Miche?  It was there Agricola was born."
+
+"She still lives there."
+
+"In that case, she must have received my letter.  I wished to write to
+her from the prison at Leipsic, but it was impossible."
+
+"From prison!  Have you just come out of prison?"
+
+"Yes; I come straight from Germany, by the Elbe and Hamburg, and I should
+be still at Leipsic, but for an event which the Devil must have had a
+hand in--a good sort of devil, though."
+
+"What do you mean?  Pray explain to me."
+
+"That would be difficult, for I cannot explain it to myself.  These
+little ladies," he added, pointing with a smile to Rose and Blanche,
+"pretended to know more about it than I did, and were continually
+repeating: "It was the angel that came to our assistance, Dagobert--the
+good angel we told thee of--though you said you would rather have Spoil-
+sport to defend us--"
+
+"Gabriel, I am waiting for you," said a stern voice, which made the
+missionary start.  They all turned round instantly, whilst the dog
+uttered a deep growl.
+
+It was Rodin.  He stood in the doorway leading to the corridor.  His
+features were calm and impassive, but he darted a rapid, piercing glance
+at the soldier and sisters.
+
+"Who is that man?" said Dagobert, very little prepossessed in favor of
+Rodin, whose countenance he found singularly repulsive.  "What the
+mischief does he want?"
+
+"I must go with him," answered Gabriel, in a tone of sorrowful
+constraint.  Then, turning to Rodin, he added: "A thousand pardons!  I
+shall be ready in a moment."
+
+"What!" cried Dagobert, stupefied with amazement, "going the very instant
+we have just met?  No, by my faith!  you shall not go.  I have too much
+to tell you, and to ask in return.  We will make the journey together.
+It will be a real treat for me."
+
+"It is impossible.  He is my superior, and I must obey him."
+
+"Your superior?--why, he's in citizen's dress."
+
+"He is not obliged to wear the ecclesiastical garb."
+
+"Rubbish! since he is not in uniform, and there is no provost-marshal in
+your troop, send him to the--"
+
+"Believe me, I would not hesitate a minute, if it were possible to
+remain."
+
+"I was right in disliking the phi of that man," muttered Dagobert between
+his teeth.  Then he added, with an air of impatience and vexation: "Shall
+I tell him that he will much oblige us by marching off by himself?"
+
+"I beg you not to do so," said Gabriel; "it would be useless; I know my
+duty, and have no will but my superior's.  As soon as you arrive in
+Paris, I will come and see you, as also my adopted mother, and my dear
+brother, Agricola."
+
+"Well--if it must be.  I have been a soldier, and know what subordination
+is," said Dagobert, much annoyed.  "One must put a good face on bad
+fortune.  So, the day after to-morrow, in the Rue Brise-Miche, my boy;
+for they tell me I can be in Paris by to-morrow evening, and we set out
+almost immediately.  But I say--there seems to be a strict discipline
+with you fellows!"
+
+"Yes, it is strict and severe," answered Gabriel, with a shudder, and a
+stifled sigh.
+
+"Come, shake hands--and let's say farewell for the present.  After all,
+twenty-four hours will soon pass away."
+
+"Adieu! adieu!" replied the missionary, much moved, whilst he returned
+the friendly pressure of the veteran's hand.
+
+"Adieu, Gabriel!" added the orphans, sighing also, and with tears in
+their eyes.
+
+"Adieu, my sisters!" said Gabriel--and he left the room with Rodin, who
+had not lost a word or an incident of this scene.
+
+Two hours after, Dagobert and the orphans had quitted the Castle for
+Paris, not knowing that Djalma was left at Cardoville, being still too
+much injured to proceed on his journey.  The half-caste, Faringhea,
+remained with the young prince, not wishing, he said, to desert a fellow-
+countryman.
+
+We now conduct the reader to the Rue Brise-Miche, the residence of
+Dagobert's wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+DAGOBERT'S WIFE.
+
+The following scenes occur in Paris, on the morrow of the day when the
+shipwrecked travellers were received in Cardoville House.
+
+Nothing can be more gloomy than the aspect of the Rue Brise-Miche, one
+end of which leads into the Rue Saint-Merry, and the other into the
+little square of the Cloister, near the church.  At this end, the street,
+or rather alley--for it is not more than eight feet wide--is shut in
+between immense black, muddy dilapidated walls, the excessive height of
+which excludes both air and light; hardly, during the longest days of the
+year, is the sun able to throw into it a few straggling beams; whilst,
+during the cold damps of winter, a chilling fog, which seems to penetrate
+everything, hangs constantly above the miry pavement of this species of
+oblong well.
+
+It was about eight o'clock in the evening; by the faint, reddish light of
+the street lamp, hardly visible through the haze, two men, stopping at
+the angle of one of those enormous walls, exchanged a few words together.
+
+"So," said one, "you understand all about it.  You are to watch in the
+street, till you see them enter No. 5."
+
+"All right!" answered the other.
+
+"And when you see 'em enter so as to make quite sure of the game, go up
+to Frances Baudoin's room -"
+
+"Under the cloak of asking where the little humpbacked workwoman lives--
+the sister of that gay girl, the Queen of the Bacchanals."
+
+"Yes--and you must try and find out her address also--from her humpbacked
+sister, if possible--for it is very important.  Women of her feather
+change their nests like birds, and we have lost track of her."
+
+"Make yourself easy; I will do my best with Hump, to learn where her
+sister hangs out."
+
+"And, to give you steam, I'11 wait for you at the tavern opposite the
+Cloister, and we'll have a go of hot wine on your return."
+
+"I'll not refuse, for the night is deucedly cold."
+
+"Don't mention it!  This morning the water friz on my sprinkling-brush,
+and I turned as stiff as a mummy in my chair at the church-door.  Ah, my
+boy! a distributor of holy water is not always upon roses!"
+
+"Luckily, you have the pickings--"
+
+"Well, well--good luck to you!  Don't forget the Fiver, the little
+passage next to the dyer's shop."
+
+"Yes, yes--all right!" and the two men separated.
+
+One proceeded to the Cloister Square; the other towards the further end
+of the street, where it led into the Rue Saint-Merry.  This latter soon
+found the number of the house he sought--a tall, narrow building, having,
+like all the other houses in the street, a poor and wretched appearance.
+When he saw he was right, the man commenced walking backwards and
+forwards in front of the door of No. 5.
+
+If the exterior of these buildings was uninviting, the gloom and squalor
+of the interior cannot be described.  The house No. 5 was, in a special
+degree, dirty and dilapidated.  The water, which oozed from the wall,
+trickled down the dark and filthy staircase.  On the second floor, a wisp
+of straw had been laid on the narrow landing-place, for wiping the feet
+on; but this straw, being now quite rotten, only served to augment the
+sickening odor, which arose from want of air, from damp, and from the
+putrid exhalations of the drains.  The few openings, cut at rare
+intervals in the walls of the staircase, could hardly admit more than
+some faint rays of glimmering light.
+
+In this quarter, one of the most populous in Paris, such houses as these,
+poor, cheerless, and unhealthy, are generally inhabited by the working
+classes.  The house in question was of the number.  A dyer occupied the
+ground floor; the deleterious vapors arising from his vats added to the
+stench of the whole building.  On the upper stories, several artisans
+lodged with their families, or carried on their different trades.  Up
+four flights of stairs was the lodging of Frances Baudoin, wife of
+Dagobert.  It consisted of one room, with a closet adjoining, and was now
+lighted by a single candle.  Agricola occupied a garret in the roof.
+
+Old grayish paper, broken here and there by the cracks covered the crazy
+wall, against which rested the bed; scanty curtains, running upon an iron
+rod, concealed the windows; the brick floor, not polished, but often
+washed, had preserved its natural color.  At one end of this room was a
+round iron stove, with a large pot for culinary purposes.  On the wooden
+table, painted yellow, marbled with brown, stood a miniature house made
+of iron--a masterpiece of patience and skill, the work of Agricola
+Baudoin, Dagobert's son.
+
+A plaster crucifix hung up against the wall, surrounded by several
+branches of consecrated box-tree, and various images of saints, very
+coarsely colored, bore witness to the habits of the soldier's wife.
+Between the windows stood one of those old walnut-wood presses, curiously
+fashioned, and almost black with time; an old arm-chair, covered with
+green cotton velvet (Agricola's first present to his mother), a few rush-
+bottomed chairs, and a worktable on which lay several bags of coarse,
+brown cloth, completed the furniture of this room, badly secured by a
+worm-eaten door.  The adjoining closet contained a few kitchen and
+household utensils.
+
+Mean and poor as this interior may perhaps appear, it would not seem so
+to the greater number of artisans; for the bed was supplied with two
+mattresses, clean sheets, and a warm counterpane; the old-fashioned press
+contained linen; and, moreover, Dagobert's wife occupied all to herself a
+room as large as those in which numerous families, belonging to honest
+and laborious workmen, often live and sleep huddled together--only too
+happy if the boys and girls can have separate beds, or if the sheets and
+blankets are not pledged at the pawnbroker's.
+
+Frances Baudoin, seated beside the small stove, which, in the cold and
+damp weather, yielded but little warmth, was busied in preparing her son
+Agricola's evening meal.
+
+Dagobert's wife was about fifty years of age; she wore a close jacket of
+blue cotton, with white flowers on it, and a stuff petticoat; a white
+handkerchief was tied round her head, and fastened under the chin.  Her
+countenance was pale and meagre, the features regular, and expressive of
+resignation and great kindness.  It would have been difficult to find a
+better, a more courageous mother.  With no resource but her labor, she
+had succeeded, by unwearied energy, in bringing up not only her own son
+Agricola, but also Gabriel, the poor deserted child, of whom, with
+admirable devotion, she had ventured to take charge.
+
+In her youth, she had, as it were, anticipated the strength of later
+life, by twelve years of incessant toil, rendered lucrative by the most
+violent exertions, and accompanied by such privations as made it almost
+suicidal.  Then (for it was a time of splendid wages, compared to the
+present), by sleepless nights and constant labor, she contrived to earn
+about two shillings (fifty sous) a day, and with this she managed to
+educate her son and her adopted child.
+
+At the end of these twelve years, her health was ruined, and her strength
+nearly exhausted; but, at all events, her boys had wanted for nothing,
+and had received such an education as children of the people can obtain.
+About this time, M. Francois Hardy took Agricola as an apprentice, and
+Gabriel prepared to enter the priest's seminary, under the active
+patronage of M. Rodin, whose communications with the confessor of Frances
+Baudoin had become very frequent about the year 1820.
+
+This woman (whose piety had always been excessive) was one of those
+simple natures, endowed with extreme goodness, whose self-denial
+approaches to heroism, and who devote themselves in obscurity to a life
+of martyrdom--pure and heavenly minds, in whom the instincts of the heart
+supply the place of the intellect!
+
+The only defect, or rather the necessary consequence of this extreme
+simplicity of character, was the invincible determination she displayed
+in yielding to the commands of her confessor, to whose influence she had
+now for many years been accustomed to submit.  She regarded this
+influence as most venerable and sacred; no mortal power, no human
+consideration, could have prevented her from obeying it.  Did any dispute
+arise on the subject, nothing could move her on this point; she opposed
+to every argument a resistance entirely free from passion--mild as her
+disposition,.calm as her conscience--but, like the latter, not to be
+shaken.  In a word, Frances Baudoin was one of those pure, but
+uninstructed and credulous beings, who may sometimes, in skillful and
+dangerous hands, become, without knowing it, the instruments of much
+evil.
+
+For some time past, the bad state of her health, and particularly the
+increasing weakness of her sight, had condemned her to a forced repose;
+unable to work more than two or three hours a day, she consumed the rest
+of her time at church.
+
+Frances rose from her seat, pushed the coarse bags at which she had been
+working to the further end of the table, and proceeded to lay the cloth
+for her son's supper, with maternal care and solicitude.  She took from
+the press a small leathern bag, containing an old silver cup, very much
+battered, and a fork and spoon, so worn and thin, that the latter cut
+like a knife.  These, her only plate (the wedding present of Dagobert)
+she rubbed and polished as well as she was able, and laid by the side of
+her son's plate.  They were the most precious of her possessions, not so
+much for what little intrinsic value might attach to them, as for the
+associations they recalled; and she had often shed bitter tears, when,
+under the pressure of illness or want of employment, she had been
+compelled to carry these sacred treasures to the pawnbroker's.
+
+Frances next took, from the lower shelf of the press, a bottle of water,
+and one of wine about three-quarters full, which she also placed near her
+son's plate; she then returned to the stove, to watch the cooking of the
+supper.
+
+Though Agricola was not much later than usual, the countenance of his
+mother expressed both uneasiness and grief; one might have seen, by the
+redness of her eyes, that she had been weeping a good deal.  After long
+and painful uncertainty, the poor woman had just arrived at the
+conviction that her eyesight, which had been growing weaker and weaker,
+would soon be so much impaired as to prevent her working even the two or
+three hours a day which had lately been the extent of her labors.
+
+Originally an excellent hand at her needle, she had been obliged, as her
+eyesight gradually failed her, to abandon the finer for the coarser sorts
+of work, and her earnings had necessarily diminished in proportion; she
+had at length been reduced to the necessity of making those coarse bags
+for the army, which took about four yards of sewing, and were paid at the
+rate of two sous each, she having to find her own thread.  This work,
+being very hard, she could at most complete three such bags in a day, and
+her gains thus amounted to threepence (six sous)!
+
+It makes one shudder to think of the great number of unhappy females,
+whose strength has been so much exhausted by privations, old age, or
+sickness, that all the labor of which they are capable, hardly suffices
+to bring them in daily this miserable pittance.  Thus do their gains
+diminish in exact proportion to the increasing wants which age and
+infirmity must occasion.
+
+Happily, Frances had an efficient support in her son.  A first-rate
+workman, profiting by the just scale of wages adopted by M. Hardy, his
+labor brought him from four to five shillings a day--more than double
+what was gained by the workmen of many other establishments.  Admitting
+therefore that his mother were to gain nothing, he could easily maintain
+both her and himself.
+
+But the poor woman, so wonderfully economical that she denied herself
+even some of the necessaries of life, had of late become ruinously
+liberal on the score of the sacristy, since she had adopted the habit of
+visiting daily the parish church.  Scarcely a day passed but she had
+masses sung, or tapers burnt, either for Dagobert, from whom she had been
+so long separated, or for the salvation of her son Agricola, whom she
+considered on the high-road to perdition.  Agricola had so excellent a
+heart, so loved and revered his mother, and considered her actions in
+this respect inspired by so touching a sentiment, that he never
+complained when he saw a great part of his week's wages (which he paid
+regularly over to his mother every Saturday) disappear in pious forms.
+
+Yet now and then he ventured to remark to Frances, with as much respect
+as tenderness, that it pained him to see her enduring privations
+injurious at her age, because she preferred incurring these devotional
+expenses.  But what answer could he make to this excellent mother, when
+she replied with tears: "My child, 'tis for the salvation of your father
+and yours too."
+
+To dispute the efficacy of masses, would have been venturing on a,
+subject which Agricola, through respect for his mother's religious faith,
+never discussed.  He contented himself, therefore, with seeing her
+dispense with comforts she might have enjoyed.
+
+A discreet tap was heard at the door.  "Come in," said Frances.  The
+person came in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE SISTER OF THE BACCHANAL QUEEN.
+
+The person who now entered was a girl of about eighteen, short, and very
+much deformed.  Though not exactly a hunchback, her spine was curved; her
+breast was sunken, and her head deeply set in the shoulders.  Her face
+was regular, but long, thin, very pale, and pitted with the small pox;
+yet it expressed great sweetness and melancholy.  Her blue eyes beamed
+with kindness and intelligence.  By a strange freak of nature, the
+handsomest woman would have been proud of the magnificent hair twisted in
+a coarse net at the back of her head.  She held an old basket in her
+hand.  Though miserably clad, the care and neatness of her dress revealed
+a powerful struggle with her poverty.  Notwithstanding the cold, she wore
+a scanty frock made of print of an indefinable color, spotted with white;
+but it had been so often washed, that its primitive design and color had
+long since disappeared.  In her resigned, yet suffering face, might be
+read a long familiarity with every form of suffering, every description
+of taunting.  From her birth, ridicule had ever pursued her.  We have
+said that she was very deformed, and she was vulgarly called "Mother
+Bunch."  Indeed it was so usual to give her this grotesque name, which
+every moment reminded her of her infirmity, that Frances and Agricola,
+though they felt as much compassion as other people showed contempt for
+her, never called her, however, by any other name.
+
+Mother Bunch, as we shall therefore call her in future, was born in the
+house in which Dagobert's wife had resided for more than twenty years;
+and she had, as it were, been brought up with Agricola and Gabriel.
+
+There are wretches fatally doomed to misery.  Mother Bunch had a very
+pretty sister, on whom Perrine Soliveau, their common mother, the widow
+of a ruined tradesman, had concentrated all her affection, while she
+treated her deformed child with contempt and unkindness.  The latter
+would often come, weeping, to Frances, on this account, who tried to
+console her, and in the long evenings amused her by teaching her to read
+and sew.  Accustomed to pity her by their mother's example, instead of
+imitating other children, who always taunted and sometimes even beat her,
+Agricola and Gabriel liked her, and used to protect and defend her.
+
+She was about fifteen, and her sister Cephyse was about seventeen, when
+their mother died, leaving them both in utter poverty.  Cephyse was
+intelligent, active, clever, but different to her sister; she had the
+lively, alert, hoydenish character which requires air, exercise and
+pleasures--a good girl enough, but foolishly spoiled by her mother.
+Cephyse, listening at first to Frances's good advice, resigned herself to
+her lot; and, having learnt to sew, worked like her sister, for about a
+year.  But, unable to endure any longer the bitter privations her
+insignificant earnings, notwithstanding her incessant toil, exposed her
+to--privations which often bordered on starvation--Cephyse, young,
+pretty, of warm temperament, and surrounded by brilliant offers and
+seductions--brilliant, indeed, for her, since they offered food to
+satisfy her hunger, shelter from the cold, and decent raiment, without
+being obliged to work fifteen hours a day in an obscure and unwholesome
+hovel--Cephyse listened to the vows of a young lawyer's clerk, who
+forsook her soon after.  She formed a connection with another clerk, whom
+she (instructed by the examples set her), forsook in turn for a bagman,
+whom she afterwards cast off for other favorites.  In a word, what with
+changing and being forsaken, Cephyse, in the course of one or two years,
+was the idol of a set of grisettes, students and clerks; and acquired
+such a reputation at the balls on the Hampstead Heaths of Paris, by her
+decision of character, original turn of mind, and unwearied ardor in all
+kinds of pleasures, and especially her wild, noisy gayety, that she was
+termed the Bacchanal Queen, and proved herself in every way worthy of
+this bewildering royalty.
+
+From that time poor Mother Bunch only heard of her sister at rare
+intervals.  She still mourned for her, and continued to toil hard to gain
+her three-and-six a week.  The unfortunate girl, having been taught
+sewing by Frances, made coarse shirts for the common people and the army.
+For these she received half-a-crown a dozen.  They had to be hemmed,
+stitched, provided with collars and wristbands, buttons, and button-
+holes; and at the most, when at work twelve and fifteen hours a day, she
+rarely succeeded in turning out more than fourteen or sixteen shirts a
+week--an excessive amount of toil that brought her in about three
+shillings and fourpence a week.  And the case of this poor girl was
+neither accidental nor uncommon.  And this, because the remuneration
+given for women's work is an example of revolting injustice and savage
+barbarism.  They are paid not half as much as men who are employed at the
+needle: such as tailors, and makers of gloves, or waistcoats, etc.--no
+doubt because women can work as well as men--because they are more weak
+and delicate--and because their need may be twofold as great when they
+become mothers.
+
+Well, Mother Bunch fagged on, with three-and-four a week.  That is to
+say, toiling hard for twelve or fifteen hours every day; she succeeded in
+keeping herself alive, in spite of exposure to hunger, cold, and poverty-
+-so numerous were her privations.  Privations?  No!  The word privation
+expresses but weakly that constant and terrible want of all that is
+necessary to preserve the existence God gives; namely, wholesome air and
+shelter, sufficient and nourishing food and warm clothing.  Mortification
+would be a better word to describe that total want of all that is
+essentially vital, which a justly organized state of society ought--yes--
+ought necessarily to bestow on every active, honest workman and
+workwoman, since civilization has dispossessed them of all territorial
+right, and left them no other patrimony than their hands.
+
+The savage does not enjoy the advantage of civilization; but he has, at
+least, the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fish of the
+sea, and the fruits of the earth, to feed him, and his native woods for
+shelter and for fuel.  The civilized man, disinherited of these gifts,
+considering the rights of property as sacred, may, in return for his hard
+daily labor, which enriches his country, demand wages that will enable
+him to live in the enjoyment of health: nothing more, and nothing less.
+For is it living, to drag along on the extreme edge which separates life
+from the grave, and even there continually struggle against cold, hunger,
+and disease?  And to show how far the mortification which society imposes
+thus inexorably on its millions of honest, industrious laborers (by its
+careless disregard of all the questions which concern the just
+remuneration of labor), may extend, we will describe how this poor girl
+contrived to live on three shillings and sixpence a week.
+
+Society, perhaps, may then feel its obligation to so many unfortunate
+wretches for supporting, with resignation, the horrible existence which
+leaves them just sufficient life to feel the worst pangs of humanity.
+Yes: to live at such a price is virtue!  Yes, society thus organized,
+whether it tolerates or imposes so much misery, loses all right to blame
+the poor wretches who sell themselves not through debauchery, but because
+they are cold and famishing.  This poor girl spent her wages as follows:
+
+        Six pounds of bread, second quality . . . . . . . .0 8 1/2
+        Four pails of water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 2
+        Lard or dripping (butter being out of the question)0 5
+        Coarse salt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 0 3/4
+        A bushel of charcoal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 4
+        A quart of dried vegetables . . . . . . . . . . . .0 3
+        Three quarts of potatoes. . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 2
+        Dips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 3 1/4
+        Thread and needles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0 2 1/2
+                                                          _____
+                                                           2 7
+
+To save charcoal, Mother Bunch prepared soup only two or three times a
+week at most, on a stove that stood on the landing of the fourth story.
+On other days she ate it cold.  There remained nine or ten pence a week
+for clothes and lodging.  By rare good fortune, her situation was in one
+respect an exception to the lot of many others.  Agricola, that he might
+not wound her delicacy, had come to a secret arrangement with the
+housekeeper, and hired a garret for her, just large enough to hold a
+small bed, a chair, and a table; for which the sempstress had to pay five
+shillings a year.  But Agricola, in fulfilment of his agreement with the
+porter, paid the balance, to make up the actual rent of the garret, which
+was twelve and sixpence.  The poor girl had thus about eighteenpence a
+month left for her other expenses.  But many workwomen, whose position is
+less fortunate than hers, since they have neither home nor family, buy a
+piece of bread and some other food to keep them through the day; and at
+night patronize the "twopenny rope," one with another, in a wretched room
+containing five or six beds, some of which are always engaged by men, as
+male lodgers are by far the most abundant.  Yes; and in spite of the
+disgust that a poor and virtuous girl must feel at this arrangement, she
+must submit to it; for a lodging-house keeper cannot have separate rooms
+for females.  To furnish a room, however meanly, the poor workwoman must
+possess three or four shillings in ready money.  But how save this sum,
+out of weekly earnings of a couple of florins, which are scarcely
+sufficient to keep her from starving, and are still less sufficient to
+clothe her?  No! no!  The poor wretch must resign herself to this
+repugnant cohabitation; and so, gradually, the instinct of modesty
+becomes weakened; the natural sentiment of chastity, that saved her from
+the "gay life," becomes extinct; vice appears to be the only means of
+improving her intolerable condition; she yields; and the first "man made
+of money," who can afford a governess for his children, cries out against
+the depravity of the lower orders!  And yet, painful as the condition of
+the working woman is, it is relatively fortunate.  Should work fail her
+for one day, two days, what then?  Should sickness come--sickness almost
+always occasioned by unwholesome food, want of fresh air, necessary
+attention, and good rest; sickness, often so enervating as to render work
+impossible; though not so dangerous as to procure the sufferer a bed in
+an hospital--what becomes of the hapless wretches then?  The mind
+hesitates, and shrinks from dwelling on such gloomy pictures.
+
+This inadequacy of wages, one terrible source only of so many evils, and
+often of so many vices, is general, especially among women; and, again
+this is not private wretchedness, but the wretchedness which afflicts
+whole classes, the type of which we endeavor to develop in Mother Bunch.
+It exhibits the moral and physical condition of thousands of human
+creatures in Paris, obliged to subsist on a scanty four shillings a week.
+This poor workwoman, then, notwithstanding the advantages she unknowingly
+enjoyed through Agricola's generosity, lived very miserably; and her
+health, already shattered, was now wholly undermined by these constant
+hardships.  Yet, with extreme delicacy, though ignorant of the little
+sacrifice already made for her by Agricola, Mother Bunch pretended she
+earned more than she really did, in order to avoid offers of service
+which it would have pained her to accept, because she knew the limited
+means of Frances and her son, and because it would have wounded her
+natural delicacy, rendered still more sensitive by so many sorrows and
+humiliations.
+
+But, singular as it may appear, this deformed body contained a loving and
+generous soul--a mind cultivated even to poetry; and let us add, that
+this was owing to the example of Agricola Baudoin, with whom she had been
+brought up, and who had naturally the gift.  This poor girl was the first
+confidant to whom our young mechanic imparted his literary essays; and
+when he told her of the charm and extreme relief he found in poetic
+reverie, after a day of hard toil, the workwoman, gifted with strong
+natural intelligence, felt, in her turn, how great a resource this would
+be to her in her lonely and despised condition.
+
+One day, to Agricola's great surprise, who had just read some verses to
+her, the sewing-girl, with smiles and blushes, timidly communicated to
+him also a poetic composition.  Her verses wanted rhythm and harmony,
+perhaps; but they were simple and affecting, as a non-envenomed complaint
+entrusted to a friendly hearer.  From that day Agricola and she held
+frequent consultations; they gave each other mutual encouragement: but
+with this exception, no one else knew anything of the girl's poetical
+essays, whose mild timidity made her often pass for a person of weak
+intellect.  This soul must have been great and beautiful, for in all her
+unlettered strains there was not a word of murmuring respecting her hard
+lot: her note was sad, but gentle--desponding, but resigned; it was
+especially the language of deep tenderness--of mournful sympathy--of
+angelic charity for all poor creatures consigned, like her, to bear the
+double burden of poverty and deformity.  Yet she often expressed a
+sincere free-spoken admiration of beauty, free from all envy or
+bitterness; she admired beauty as she admired the sun.  But, alas! many
+were the verses of hers that Agricola had never seen, and which he was
+never to see.
+
+The young mechanic, though not strictly handsome, had an open masculine
+face; was as courageous as kind; possessed a noble, glowing, generous
+heart, a superior mind, and a frank, pleasing gayety of spirits.  The
+young girl, brought up with him, loved him as an unfortunate creature can
+love, who, dreading cruel ridicule, is obliged to hide her affection in
+the depths of her heart, and adopt reserve and deep dissimulation.  She
+did not seek to combat her love; to what purpose should she do so?  No
+one would ever know it.  Her well known sisterly affection for Agricola
+explained the interest she took in all that concerned him; so that no one
+was surprised at the extreme grief of the young workwoman, when, in 1830,
+Agricola, after fighting intrepidly for the people's flag, was brought
+bleeding home to his mother.  Dagobert's son, deceived, like others, on
+this point, had never suspected, and was destined never to suspect, this
+love for him.
+
+Such was the poorly-clad girl who entered the room in which Frances was
+preparing her son's supper.
+
+"Is it you, my poor love," said she; "I have not seen you since morning:
+have you been ill?  Come and kiss me."
+
+The young girl kissed Agricola's mother, and replied: "I was very busy
+about some work, mother; I did not wish to lose a moment; I have only
+just finished it.  I am going down to fetch some charcoal--do you want
+anything while I'm out?"
+
+"No, no, my child, thank you.  But I am very uneasy.  It is half-past
+eight, and Agricola is not come home."  Then she added, after a sigh: "He
+kills himself with work for me.  Ah, I am very unhappy, my girl; my sight
+is quite going.  In a quarter of an hour after I begin working, I cannot
+see at all--not even to sew sacks.  The idea of being a burden to my son
+drives me distracted."
+
+"Oh, don't, ma'am, if Agricola heard you say that--"
+
+"I know the poor boy thinks of nothing but me, and that augments my
+vexation.  Only I think that rather than leave me, he gives up the
+advantages that his fellow-workmen enjoy at Hardy's, his good and worthy
+master--instead of living in this dull garret, where it is scarcely light
+at noon, he would enjoy, like the other workmen, at very little expense,
+a good light room, warm in winter, airy in summer, with a view of the
+garden.  And he is so fond of trees! not to mention that this place is so
+far from his work, that it is quite a toil to him to get to it."
+
+"Oh, when he embraces you he forgets his fatigue, Mrs. Baudoin," said
+Mother Bunch; "besides, he knows how you cling to the house in which he
+was born.  M. Hardy offered to settle you at Plessy with Agricola, in the
+building put up for the workmen."
+
+"Yes, my child; but then I must give up church.  I can't do that."
+
+"But--be easy, I hear him," said the hunchback, blushing.
+
+A sonorous, joyous voice was heard singing on the stairs.
+
+"At least, I'll not let him see that I have been crying," said the good
+mother, drying her tears.  "This is the only moment of rest and ease from
+toil he has--I must not make it sad to him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+AGRICOLA BAUDOIN.
+
+
+Our blacksmith poet, a tall young man, about four-and-twenty years of
+age, was alert and robust, with ruddy complexion, dark hair and eyes, and
+aquiline nose, and an open, expressive countenance.  His resemblance to
+Dagobert was rendered more striking by the thick brown moustache which he
+wore according to the fashion; and a sharp-pointed imperial covered his
+chin.  His cheeks, however, were shaven, Olive color velveteen trousers,
+a blue blouse, bronzed by the forge smoke, a black cravat, tied
+carelessly round his muscular neck, a cloth cap with a narrow vizor,
+composed his dress.  The only thing which contrasted singularly with his
+working habiliments was a handsome purple flower, with silvery pistils,
+which he held in his hand.
+
+"Good-evening, mother," said he, as he came to kiss Frances immediately.
+
+Then, with a friendly nod, he added, "Good-evening, Mother Bunch."
+
+"You are very late, my child," said Frances, approaching the little stove
+on which her son's simple meal was simmering; "I was getting very
+anxious."
+
+"Anxious about me, or about my supper, dear mother?"  said Agricola,
+gayly.  "The deuce! you won't excuse me for keeping the nice little
+supper waiting that you get ready for me, for fear it should be spoilt,
+eh?"
+
+So saying, the blacksmith tried to kiss his mother again.
+
+"Have done, you naughty boy; you'll make me upset the pan."
+
+"That would be a pity, mother; for it smells delightfully.  Let's see
+what it is."
+
+"Wait half a moment."
+
+"I'll swear, now, you have some of the fried potatoes and bacon I'm so
+fond of."
+
+"Being Saturday, of course!" said Frances, in a tone of mild reproach.
+
+"True," rejoined Agricola, exchanging a smile of innocent cunning with
+Mother Bunch; "but, talking of Saturday, mother, here are my wages."
+
+"Thank ye, child; put the money in the cupboard."
+
+"Yes, mother!"
+
+"Oh, dear!" cried the young sempstress, just as Agricola was about to put
+away the money, "what a handsome flower you have in your hand, Agricola.
+I never saw a finer.  In winter, too!  Do look at it, Mrs. Baudoin."
+
+"See there, mother," said Agricola, taking the flower to her; "look at
+it, admire it, and especially smell it.  You can't have a sweeter
+perfume; a blending of vanilla and orange blossom."
+
+"Indeed, it does smell nice, child.  Goodness! how handsome!"  said
+Frances, admiringly; "where did you find it?"
+
+"Find it, my good mother!" repeated Agricola, smilingly: "do you think
+folks pick up such things between the Barriere du Maine and the Rue
+Brise-Miche?"
+
+"How did you get it then?" inquired the sewing girl, sharing in Frances's
+curiosity.
+
+"Oh! you would like to know?  Well, I'll satisfy you, and explain why I
+came home so late; for something else detained me.  It has been an
+evening of adventures, I promise you.  I was hurrying home, when I heard
+a low, gentle barking at the corner of the Rue de Babylone; it was just
+about dusk, and I could see a very pretty little dog, scarce bigger than
+my fist, black and tan, with long, silky hair, and ears that covered its
+paws."
+
+"Lost, poor thing, I warrant," said Frances.
+
+"You've hit it.  I took up the poor thing, and it began to lick my hands.
+Round its neck was a red satin ribbon, tied in a large bow; but as that
+did not bear the master's name, I looked beneath it, and saw a small
+collar, made of a gold plate and small gold chains.  So I took a Lucifer
+match from my 'bacco-box, and striking a light, I read, `FRISKY belongs
+to Hon. Miss Adrienne de Cardoville, No. 7, Rue de Babylone.'"
+
+"Why, you were just in the street," said Mother Bunch.
+
+"Just so.  Taking the little animal under my arm, I looked about me till
+I came to a long garden wall, which seemed to have no end, and found a
+small door of a summer-house, belonging no doubt to the large mansion at
+the other end of the park; for this garden looked just like a park.  So,
+looking up I saw `No. 7,' newly painted over a little door with a grated
+slide.  I rang; and in a few minutes, spent, no doubt, in observing me
+through the bars (for I am sure I saw a pair of eyes peeping through),
+the gate opened.  And now, you'll not believe a word I have to say."
+
+"Why not, my child?"
+
+"Because it seems like a fairy tale."
+
+"A fairy tale?" said Mother Bunch, as if she was really her namesake of
+elfish history.
+
+"For, all the world it does.  I am quite astounded, even now, at my
+adventure; it is like the remembrance of a dream."
+
+"Well, let us have it," said the worthy mother, so deeply interested that
+she did not perceive her son's supper was beginning to burn.
+
+"First," said the blacksmith, smiling at the curiosity he had excited, "a
+young lady opened the door to me, but so lovely, so beautifully and
+gracefully dressed, that you would have taken her for a beautiful
+portrait of past times.  Before I could say a word, she exclaimed, `Ah!
+dear me, sir, you have brought back Frisky; how happy Miss Adrienne will
+be!  Come, pray come in instantly; she would so regret not having an
+opportunity to thank you in person!'  And without giving me time to
+reply, she beckoned me to follow her.  Oh, dear mother, it is quite out
+of my power to tell you, the magnificence I saw, as I passed through a
+small saloon, partially lighted, and full of perfume!  It would be
+impossible.  The young woman walked too quickly.  A door opened,--Oh,
+such a sight!  I was so dazzled I can remember nothing but a great glare
+of gold and light, crystal and flowers; and, amidst all this brilliancy,
+a young lady of extreme beauty--ideal beauty; but she had red hair, or
+rather hair shining like gold!  Oh! it was charming to look at!  I never
+saw such hair before.  She had black eyes, ruddy lips, and her skin
+seemed white as snow.  This is all I can recollect: for, as I said
+before, I was so dazzled, I seemed to be looking through a veil.
+`Madame,' said the young woman, whom I never should have taken for a
+lady's-maid, she was dressed so elegantly, `here is Frisky.  This
+gentleman found him, and brought him back.' `Oh, sir,' said the young
+lady with the golden hair, in a sweet silvery voice, `what thanks I owe
+you!  I am foolishly attached to Frisky.' Then, no doubt, concluding from
+my dress that she ought to thank me in some other way than by words, she
+took up a silk purse, and said to me, though I must confess with some
+hesitation--`No doubt, sir, it gave you some trouble to bring my pet
+back.  You have, perhaps, lost some valuable time--allow me--'  She held
+forth her purse."
+
+"Oh, Agricola," said Mother Bunch, sadly; "how people may be deceived!"
+
+"Hear the end, and you will perhaps forgive the young lady.  Seeing by my
+looks that the offer of the purse hurt me, she took a magnificent
+porcelain vase that contained this flower, and, addressing me in a tone
+full of grace and kindness, that left me room to guess that she was vexed
+at having wounded me, she said--`At least, sir, you will accept this
+flower.'"
+
+"You are right, Agricola," said the girl, smiling sadly; "an involuntary
+error could not be repaired in a nicer way.
+
+"Worthy young lady," said Frances, wiping her eyes; "how well she
+understood my Agricola!"
+
+"Did she not, mother?  But just as I was taking the flower, without
+daring to raise my eyes (for, notwithstanding the young lady's kind
+manner, there was something very imposing about her) another handsome
+girl, tall and dark, and dressed to the top of fashion, came in and said
+to the red-haired young lady, `He is here, Madame.'  She immediately rose
+and said to me, `A thousand pardons, sir.  I shall never forget that I am
+indebted to you for a moment of much pleasure.  Pray remember, on all
+occasions, my address and name--Adrienne de Cardoville.' Thereupon she
+disappeared.  I could not find a word to say in reply.  The same young
+woman showed me to the door, and curtseyed to me very politely.  And
+there I stood in the Rue de Babylone, as dazzled and astonished as if I
+had come out of an enchanted palace."
+
+"Indeed, my child, it is like a fairy tale.  Is it not, my poor girl?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Mother Bunch, in an absent manner that Agricola did
+not observe.
+
+"What affected me most," rejoined Agricola, "was, that the young lady, on
+seeing her little dog, did not forget me for it, as many would have done
+in her place, and took no notice of it before me.  That shows delicacy
+and feeling, does it not?  Indeed, I believe this young lady to be so
+kind and generous, that I should not hesitate to have recourse to her in
+any important case."
+
+"Yes, you are right," replied the sempstress, more and more absent.
+
+The poor girl suffered extremely.  She felt no jealousy, no hatred,
+towards this young stranger, who, from her beauty, wealth, and delicacy,
+seemed to belong to a sphere too splendid and elevated to be even within
+the reach of a work, girl's vision; but, making an involuntary comparison
+of this fortunate condition with her own, the poor thing had never felt
+more cruelly her deformity and poverty.  Yet such were the humility and
+gentle resignation of this noble creature, that the only thing which made
+her feel ill-disposed towards Adrienne de Cardoville was the offer of the
+purse to Agricola; but then the charming way in which the young lady had
+atoned for her error, affected the sempstress deeply.  Yet her heart was
+ready to break.  She could not restrain her tears as she contemplated the
+magnificent flower--so rich in color and perfume, which, given by a
+charming hand, was doubtless very precious to Agricola.
+
+"Now, mother," resumed the young man smilingly, and unaware of the
+painful emotion of the other bystander, "you have had the cream of my
+adventures first.  I have told you one of the causes of my delay; and now
+for the other.  Just now, as I was coming in, I met the dyer at the foot
+of the stairs, his arms a beautiful pea-green.  Stopping me he said, with
+an air full of importance, that he thought he had seen a chap sneaking
+about the house like a spy, `Well, what is that to you, Daddy Loriot?'
+said I: `are you afraid he will nose out the way to make the beautiful
+green, with which you are dyed up to the very elbows?'"
+
+"But who could that man be, Agricola?" said Frances.
+
+"On my word, mother, I don't know and scarcely care; I tried to persuade
+Daddy Loriot, who chatters like a magpie, to return to his cellar, since
+it could signify as little to him as to me, whether a spy watched him or
+not."  So saying, Agricola went and placed the little leathern sack,
+containing his wages, on a shelf, in the cupboard.
+
+As Frances put down the saucepan on the end of the table, Mother Bunch,
+recovering from her reverie, filled a basin with water, and, taking it to
+the blacksmith, said to him in a gentle tone--
+
+"Agricola--for your hands."
+
+"Thank you, little sister.  How kind you are!"  Then with a most
+unaffected gesture and tone, he added, "There is my fine flower for your
+trouble."
+
+"Do you give it me?" cried the sempstress, with emotion, while a vivid
+blush colored her pale and interesting face.  "Do you give me this
+handsome flower, which a lovely rich young lady so kindly and graciously
+gave you?"  And the poor thing repeated, with growing astonishment, "Do
+you give it to me?"
+
+"What the deuce should I do with it?  Wear it on my heart, have it set as
+a pin?" said Agricola, smiling.  "It is true I was very much impressed by
+the charming way in which the young lady thanked me.  I am delighted to
+think I found her little dog, and very happy to be able to give you this
+flower, since it pleases you.  You see the day has been a happy one."
+
+While Mother Bunch, trembling with pleasure, emotion, and surprise, took
+the flower, the young blacksmith washed his hands, so black with smoke
+and steel filings that the water became dark in an instant.  Agricola,
+pointing out this change to the sempstress, said to her in a whisper,
+laughing,--
+
+"Here's cheap ink for us paper-stainers!  I finished some verses
+yesterday, which I am rather satisfied with.  I will read them to you."
+
+With this, Agricola wiped his hands naturally on the front of his blouse,
+while Mother Bunch replaced the basin on the chest of drawers, and laid
+the flower against the side of it.
+
+"Can't you ask for a towel," said Frances, shrugging her shoulders,
+"instead of wiping your hands on your blouse?"
+
+"After being scorched all day long at the forge, it will be all the
+better for a little cooling to-night, won't it?  Am I disobedient,
+mother?  Scold me, then, if you dare!  Come, let us see you."
+
+Frances made no reply; but, placing her hands on either side of her son's
+head, so beautiful in its candor, resolution and intelligence, she
+surveyed him for a moment with maternal pride, and kissed him repeatedly
+on the forehead.
+
+"Come," said she, "sit down: you stand all day at your forge, and it is
+late."
+
+"So,--your arm-chair again!"  said Agricola.--"Our usual quarrel every
+evening--take it away, I shall be quite as much at ease on another."
+
+"No, no!  You ought at least to rest after your hard toil."
+
+"What tyranny!" said Agricola gayly, sitting down.  "Well, I preach like
+a good apostle; but I am quite at ease in your arm-chair, after all.
+Since I sat down on the throne in the Tuileries, I have never had a
+better seat."
+
+Frances Baudoin, standing on one side of the table, cut a slice of bread
+for her son, while Mother Bunch, on the other, filled his silver mug.
+There was something affecting in the attentive eagerness of the two
+excellent creatures, for him whom they loved so tenderly.
+
+"Won't you sup with me?" said Agricola to the girl.
+
+"Thank you, Agricola," replied the sempstress, looking down, "I have only
+just dined."
+
+"Oh, I only ask you for form's sake--you have your whims--we can never
+prevail on you to eat with us--just like mother; she prefers dining all
+alone; and in that way she deprives herself without my knowing it."
+
+"Goodness, child!  It is better for my health to dine early.  Well, do
+you find it nice?"
+
+"Nice!--call it excellent!  Stockfish and parsnips.  Oh, I am very fond
+of stockfish; I should have been born a Newfoundland fisherman."
+
+This worthy lad, on the contrary, was but poorly refreshed, after a hard
+day's toil, with this paltry stew,--a little burnt as it had been, too,
+during his story; but he knew he pleased his mother by observing the fast
+without complaining.  He affected to enjoy his meal; and the good woman
+accordingly observed with satisfaction:
+
+"Oh, I see you like it, my dear boy; Friday and Saturday next we'll have
+some more."
+
+"Thank you, mother,--only not two days together.  One gets tired of
+luxuries, you know!  And now, let us talk of what we shall do to-morrow--
+Sunday.  We must be very merry, for the last few days you seem very sad,
+dear mother, and I can't make it out--I fancy you are not satisfied with
+me."
+
+"Oh, my dear child!--you--the pattern of--"
+
+"Well, well!  Prove to me that you are happy, then, by taking a little
+amusement.  Perhaps you will do us the honor of accompanying us, as you
+did last time," added Agricola, bowing to Mother Bunch.
+
+The latter blushed and looked down; her face assumed an expression of
+bitter grief, and she made no reply.
+
+"I have the prayers to attend all day, you know, my dear child," said
+Frances to her son.
+
+"Well, in the evening, then?  I don't propose the theatre; but they say
+there is a conjurer to be seen whose tricks are very amusing.
+
+"I am obliged to you, my son; but that is a kind of theatre."
+
+"Dear mother, this is unreasonable!"
+
+"My dear child, do I ever hinder others from doing what they like?"
+
+"True, dear mother; forgive me.  Well, then, if it should be fine, we
+will simply take a walk with Mother Bunch on the Boulevards.  It is
+nearly three months since she went out with us; and she never goes out
+without us."
+
+"No, no; go alone, my child.  Enjoy your Sunday, 'tis little enough."
+
+"You know very well, Agricola," said the sempstress, blushing up to the
+eyes, "that I ought not to go out with you and your mother again."
+
+"Why not, madame?  May I ask, without impropriety, the cause of this
+refusal?" said Agricola gayly.
+
+The poor girl smiled sadly, and replied, "Because I will not expose you
+to a quarrel on my account, Agricola."
+
+"Forgive me," said Agricola, in a tone of sincere grief, and he struck
+his forehead vexedly.
+
+To this Mother Bunch alluded sometimes, but very rarely, for she observed
+punctilious discretion.  The girl had gone out with Agricola and his
+mother.  Such occasions were, indeed, holidays for her.  Many days and
+nights had she toiled hard to procure a decent bonnet and shawl, that she
+might not do discredit to her friends.  The five or six days of holidays,
+thus spent arm in arm with him whom she adored in secret, formed the sum
+of her happy days.
+
+Taking their last walk, a coarse, vulgar man elbowed her so rudely that
+the poor girl could not refrain from a cry of terror, and the man
+retorted it by saying,--
+
+"What are you rolling your hump in my way for, stoopid?"
+
+Agricola, like his father, had the patience which force and courage give
+to the truly brave; but he was extremely quick when it became necessary
+to avenge an insult.  Irritated at the vulgarity of this man, Agricola
+left his mother's arm to inflict on the brute, who was of his own age,
+size, and force, two vigorous blows, such as the powerful arm and huge
+fist of a blacksmith never before inflicted on human face.  The villain
+attempted to return it, and Agricola repeated the correction, to the
+amusement of the crowd, and the fellow slunk away amidst a deluge of
+hisses.  This adventure made Mother Bunch say she would not go out with
+Agricola again, in order to save him any occasion of quarrel.  We may
+conceive the blacksmith's regret at having thus unwittingly revived the
+memory of this circumstance,--more painful, alas! for Mother Bunch than
+Agricola could imagine, for she loved him passionately, and her infirmity
+had been the cause of that quarrel.  Notwithstanding his strength and
+resolution, Agricola was childishly sensitive; and, thinking how painful
+that thought must be to the poor girl, a large tear filled his eyes, and,
+holding out his hands, he said, in a brotherly tone, "Forgive my
+heedlessness!  Come, kiss me."  And he gave her thin, pale cheeks two
+hearty kisses.
+
+The poor girl's lips turned pale at this cordial caress; and her heart
+beat so violently that she was obliged to lean against the corner of the
+table.
+
+"Come, you forgive me, do you not?" said Agricola.
+
+"Yes! yes!" she said, trying to subdue her emotion; "but the recollection
+of that quarrel pains me--I was so alarmed on your account; if the crowd
+had sided with that man!"
+
+"Alas!" said Frances, coming to the sewing-girl's relief, without knowing
+it, "I was never so afraid in all my life!"
+
+"Oh, mother," rejoined Agricola, trying to change a conversation which
+had now become disagreeable for the sempstress, "for the wife of a horse
+grenadier of the Imperial Guard, you have not much courage.  Oh, my brave
+father; I can't believe he is really coming!  The very thought turns me
+topsy-turvy!"
+
+"Heaven grant he may come," said Frances, with a sigh.
+
+"God grant it, mother.  He will grant it, I should think.  Lord knows,
+you have had masses enough said for his return."
+
+"Agricola, my child," said Frances, interrupting her son, and shaking her
+head sadly, "do not speak in that way.  Besides, you are talking of your
+father."
+
+"Well, I'm in for it this evening.  'Tis your turn now; positively, I am
+growing stupid, or going crazy.  Forgive me, mother! forgive!  That's the
+only word I can get out to-night.  You know that, when I do let out on
+certain subjects, it is because I can't help it; for I know well the pain
+it gives you."
+
+"You do not offend me, my poor, dear, misguided boy."
+
+"It comes to the same thing; and there is nothing so bad as to offend
+one's mother; and, with respect to what I said about father's return, I
+do not see that we have any cause to doubt it."
+
+"But we have not heard from him for four months."
+
+"You know, mother, in his letter--that is, in the letter which he
+dictated (for you remember that, with the candor of an old soldier, he
+told us that, if he could read tolerably well, he could not write); well,
+in that letter he said we were not to be anxious about him; that he
+expected to be in Paris about the end of January, and would send us word,
+three or four days before, by what road he expected to arrive, that I
+might go and meet him."
+
+"True, my child; and February is come, and no news yet."
+
+"The greater reason why we should wait patiently.  But I'll tell you
+more: I should not be surprised if our good Gabriel were to come back
+about the same time.  His last letter from America makes me hope so.
+What pleasure, mother, should all the family be together!"
+
+"Oh, yes, my child!  It would be a happy day for me."
+
+"And that day will soon come, trust me."
+
+"Do you remember your father, Agricola?" inquired Mother Bunch.
+
+"To tell the truth, I remember most his great grenadier's shako and
+moustache, which used to frighten me so, that nothing but the red ribbon
+of his cross of honor, on the white facings of his uniform, and the
+shining handle of his sabre, could pacify me; could it, mother?  But what
+is the matter?  You are weeping!"
+
+"Alas! poor Baudoin!  What he must suffer at being separated from us at
+his age--sixty and past!  Alas! my child, my heart breaks, when I think
+that he comes home only to change one kind of poverty for another."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Alas! I earn nothing now."
+
+"Why, what's become of me?  Isn't there a room here for you and for him;
+and a table for you too?  Only, my good mother, since we are talking of
+domestic affairs," added the blacksmith, imparting increased tenderness
+to his tone, that he might not shock his mother, "when he and Gabriel
+come home, you won't want to have any more masses said, and tapers burned
+for them, will you?  Well, that saving will enable father to have tobacco
+to smoke, and his bottle of wine every day.  Then, on Sundays, we will
+take a nice dinner at the eating-house."
+
+A knocking at the door disturbed Agricola.
+
+"Come in," said he.  Instead of doing so, some one half-opened the door,
+and, thrusting in an arm of a pea-green color, made signs to the
+blacksmith.
+
+"'Tis old Loriot, the pattern of dyers," said Agricola; "come in, Daddy,
+no ceremony."
+
+"Impossible, my lad; I am dripping with dye from head to foot; I should
+cover missus's floor with green."
+
+"So much the better.  It will remind me of the fields I like so much."
+
+"Without joking, Agricola, I must speak to you immediately."
+
+"About the spy, eh?  Oh, be easy; what's he to us?"
+
+"No; I think he's gone; at any rate, the fog is so thick I can't see him.
+But that's not it--come, come quickly!  It is very important," said the
+dyer, with a mysterious look; "and only concerns you."
+
+"Me, only?" said Agricola, with surprise.  "What can it be.
+
+"Go and see, my child," said Frances.
+
+"Yes, mother; but the deuce take me if I can make it out."
+
+And the blacksmith left the room, leaving his mother with Mother Bunch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE RETURN.
+
+
+In five minutes Agricola returned; his face was pale and agitated--his
+eyes glistened with tears, and his hands trembled; but his countenance
+expressed extraordinary happiness and emotion.  He stood at the door for
+a moment, as if too much affected to accost his mother.
+
+Frances's sight was so bad that she did not immediately perceive the
+change her son's countenance had undergone.
+
+"Well, my child--what is it?" she inquired.
+
+Before the blacksmith could reply, Mother Bunch, who had more
+discernment, exclaimed: "Goodness, Agricola--how pale you are!  Whatever
+is the matter?"
+
+"Mother," said the artisan, hastening to Frances, without replying to the
+sempstress,--"mother, expect news that will astonish you; but promise me
+you will be calm."
+
+"What do you mean?  How you tremble!  Look at me!  Mother Bunch was
+right--you are quite pale."
+
+"My kind mother!" and Agricola, kneeling before Frances, took both her
+hands in his--"you must--you do not know,--but--"
+
+The blacksmith could not go on.  Tears of joy interrupted his speech.
+
+"You weep, my dear child!  Your tears alarm me.  `What is the matter?--
+you terrify me!"
+
+"Oh, no, I would not terrify you; on the contrary," said Agricola, drying
+his eyes--"you will be so happy.  But, again, you must try and command
+your feelings, for too much joy is as hurtful as too much grief."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Did I not say true, when I said he would come?"
+
+"Father!" cried Frances.  She rose from her seat; but her surprise and
+emotion were so great that she put one hand to her heart to still its
+beating, and then she felt her strength fail.  Her son sustained her, and
+assisted her to sit down.
+
+Mother Bunch, till now, had stood discreetly apart, witnessing from a
+distance the scene which completely engrossed Agricola and his mother.
+But she now drew near timidly, thinking she might be useful; for Frances
+changed color more and more.
+
+"Come, courage, mother," said the blacksmith; "now the shock is over, you
+have only to enjoy the pleasure of seeing my father."
+
+"My poor man! after eighteen years' absence.  Oh, I cannot believe it,"
+said Frances, bursting into tears.  "Is it true?  Is it, indeed, true?"
+
+"So true, that if you will promise me to keep as calm as you can, I will
+tell you when you may see him."
+
+"Soon--may I not?"
+
+"Yes; soon."
+
+"But when will he arrive?"
+
+"He may arrive any minute--to-morrow--perhaps to-day."
+
+"To-day!"
+
+"Yes, mother!  Well, I must tell you all--he has arrived."
+
+"He--he is--" Frances could not articulate the word.
+
+"He was downstairs just now.  Before coming up, he sent the dyer to
+apprise me that I might prepare you; for my brave father feared the
+surprise might hurt you."
+
+"Oh, heaven!"
+
+"And now," cried the blacksmith, in an accent of indescribable joy--"he
+is there, waiting!  Oh, mother! for the last ten minutes I have scarcely
+been able to contain myself--my heart is bursting with joy."  And running
+to the door, he threw it open.
+
+Dagobert, holding Rose and Blanche by the hand, stood on the threshold.
+Instead of rushing to her husband's arms, Frances fell on her knees in
+prayer.  She thanked heaven with profound gratitude for hearing her
+prayers, and thus accepting her offerings.  During a second, the actors
+of this scene stood silent and motionless.  Agricola, by a sentiment of
+respect and delicacy, which struggled violently with his affection, did
+not dare to fall on his father's neck.  He waited with constrained
+impatience till his mother had finished her prayer.
+
+The soldier experienced the same feeling as the blacksmith; they
+understood each other.  The first glance exchanged by father and son
+expressed their affection--their veneration for that excellent woman, who
+in the fulness of her religious fervor, forgot, perhaps, too much the
+creature for the Creator.
+
+Rose and Blanche, confused and affected, looked with interest on the
+kneeling woman; while Mother Bunch, shedding in silence tears of joy at
+the thought of Agricola's happiness, withdrew into the most obscure
+corner of the room, feeling that she was a stranger, and necessarily out
+of place in that family meeting.  Frances rose, and took a step towards
+her husband, who received her in his arms.  There was a moment of solemn
+silence.  Dagobert and Frances said not a word.  Nothing could be heard
+but a few sighs, mingled with sighs of joy.  And, when the aged couple
+looked up, their expression was calm, radiant, serene; for the full and
+complete enjoyment of simple and pure sentiments never leaves behind a
+feverish and violent agitation.
+
+"My children," said the soldier, in tones of emotion, presenting the
+orphans to Frances, who, after her first agitation, had surveyed them
+with astonishment, "this is my good and worthy wife; she will be to the
+daughters of General Simon what I have been to them."
+
+"Then, madame, you will treat us as your children," said Rose,
+approaching Frances with her sister.
+
+"The daughters of General Simon!" cried Dagobert's wife, more and more
+astonished.
+
+"Yes, my dear Frances; I have brought them from afar not without some
+difficulty; but I will tell you that by and by."
+
+"Poor little things!  One would take them for two angels, exactly alike!"
+said Frances, contemplating the orphans with as much interest as
+admiration.
+
+"Now--for us," cried Dagobert, turning to his son.
+
+"At last," rejoined the latter.
+
+We must renounce all attempts to describe the wild joy of Dagobert and
+his son, and the crushing grip of their hands, which Dagobert interrupted
+only to look in Agricola's face; while he rested his hands on the young
+blacksmith's broad shoulders that he might see to more advantage his
+frank masculine countenance, and robust frame.  Then he shook his hand
+again, exclaiming, "He's a fine fellow--well built--what a good-hearted
+look he has!"
+
+From a corner of the room Mother Bunch enjoyed Agricola's happiness; but
+she feared that her presence, till then unheeded, would be an intrusion.
+She wished to withdraw unnoticed, but could not do so.  Dagobert and his
+son were between her and the door; and she stood unable to take her eyes
+from the charming faces of Rose and Blanche.  She had never seen anything
+so winsome; and the extraordinary resemblance of the sisters increased
+her surprise.  Then, their humble mourning revealing that they were poor,
+Mother Bunch involuntarily felt more sympathy towards them.
+
+"Dear children!  They are cold; their little hands are frozen, and,
+unfortunately, the fire is out," said Frances, She tried to warm the
+orphans' hands in hers, while Dagobert and his son gave themselves up to
+the feelings of affection, so long restrained.
+
+As soon as Frances said that the fire was out, Mother Bunch hastened to
+make herself useful, as an excuse for her presence; and, going to the
+cupboard, where the charcoal and wood were kept, she took some small
+pieces, and, kneeling before the stove, succeeded, by the aid of a few
+embers that remained, in relighting the fire, which soon began to draw
+and blaze.  Filling a coffee-pot with water, she placed it on the stove,
+presuming that the orphans required some warm drink.  The sempstress did
+all this with so much dexterity and so little noise--she was naturally so
+forgotten amidst the emotions of the scene--that Frances, entirely
+occupied with Rose and Blanche, only perceived the fire when she felt its
+warmth diffusing round, and heard the boiling water singing in the
+coffee-pot.  This phenomenon--fire rekindling of itself--did not astonish
+Dagobert's wife then, so wholly was she taken up in devising how she
+could lodge the maidens; for Dagobert as we have seen, had not given her
+notice of their arrival.
+
+Suddenly a loud bark was heard three or four times at the door.
+
+"Hallo! there's Spoil-sport," said Dagobert, letting in his dog; "he
+wants to come in to brush acquaintance with the family too."
+
+The dog came in with a bound, and in a second was quite at home.  After
+having rubbed Dagobert's hand with his muzzle, he went in turns to greet
+Rose and Blanche, and also Frances and Agricola; but seeing that they
+took but little notice of him, he perceived Mother Bunch, who stood
+apart, in an obscure corner of the room, and carrying out the popular
+saying, "the friends of our friends are our friends," he went and licked
+the hands of the young workwoman, who was just then forgotten by all.  By
+a singular impulse, this action affected the girl to tears; she patted
+her long, thin, white hand several times on the head of the intelligent
+dog.  Then, finding that she could be no longer useful (for she had done
+all the little services she deemed in her power), she took the handsome
+flower Agricola had given her, opened the door gently, and went away so
+discreetly that no one noticed her departure.  After this exchange of
+mutual affection, Dagobert, his wife, and son, began to think of the
+realities of life.
+
+"Poor Frances," said the soldier, glancing at Rose and Blanche, "you did
+not expect such a pretty surprise!"
+
+"I am only sorry, my friend," replied Frances, "that the daughters of
+General Simon will not have a better lodging than this poor room; for
+with Agricola's garret--"
+
+"It composes our mansion," interrupted Dagobert; "there are handsomer, it
+must be confessed.  But be at ease; these young ladies are drilled into
+not being hard to suit on that score.  To-morrow, I and my boy will go
+arm and arm, and I'll answer for it he won't walk the more upright and
+straight of the two, and find out General Simon's father, at M. Hardy's
+factory, to talk about business."
+
+"To-morrow, said Agricola to Dagobert, "you will not find at the factory
+either M. Hardy or Marshall Simon's father."
+
+"What is that you say, my lad?" cried Dagobert, hastily, "the Marshal!"
+
+"To be sure; since 1830, General Simon's friends have secured him the
+title and rank which the emperor gave him at the battle of Ligny."
+
+"Indeed!" cried Dagobert, with emotion, "but that ought not to surprise
+me; for, after all, it is just; and when the emperor said a thing, the
+least they can do is to let it abide.  But it goes all the same to my
+heart; it makes me jump again.
+
+Addressing the sisters, he said: "Do you hear that, my children?  You
+arrive in Paris the daughters of a Duke and Marshal of France.  One would
+hardly think it, indeed, to see you in this room, my poor little
+duchesses!  But patience; all will go well.  Ah, father Simon must have
+been very glad to hear that his son was restored to his rank! eh, my
+lad?"
+
+"He told us he would renounce all kinds of ranks and titles to see his
+son again; for it was during the general's absence that his friends
+obtained this act of justice.  But they expect Marshal Simon every
+moment, for the last letter from India announced his departure."
+
+At these words Rose and Blanche looked at each other; and their eyes
+filled with tears.
+
+"Heaven be praised!  These children rely on his return; but why shall we
+not find M. Hardy and father Simon at the factory to-morrow?"
+
+"Ten days ago, they went to examine and study an English mill established
+in the south; but we expect them back every day."
+
+"The deuce! that's vexing; I relied on seeing the general's father, to
+talk over some important matters with him.  At any rate, they know where
+to write to him.  So to-morrow you will let him know, my lad, that his
+granddaughters are arrived.  In the mean time, children," added the
+soldier, to Rose and Blanche, "my good wife will give you her bed and you
+must put up with the chances of war.  Poor things! they will not be worse
+off here than they were on the journey."
+
+"You know we shall always be well off with you and madame," said Rose.
+
+"Besides, we only think of the pleasure of being at length in Paris,
+since here we are to find our father," added Blanche.
+
+"That hope gives you patience, I know," said Dagobert, "but no matter!
+After all you have heard about it, you ought to be finely surprised, my
+children.  As yet, you have not found it the golden city of your dreams,
+by any means.  But, patience, patience; you'll find Paris not so bad as
+it looks."
+
+"Besides," said Agricola, "I am sure the arrival of Marshal Simon in
+Paris will change it for you into a golden city."
+
+"You are right, Agricola," said Rose, with a smile, "you have, indeed,
+guessed us."
+
+"What! do you know my name?"
+
+"Certainly, Agricola, we often talked about you with Dagobert; and
+latterly, too, with Gabriel," added Blanche.
+
+"Gabriel!" cried Agricola and his mother, at the same time.
+
+"Yes," replied Dagobert, making a sign of intelligence to the orphans,
+"we have lots to tell you for a fortnight to come; and among other
+things, how we chanced to meet with Gabriel.  All I can now say is that,
+in his way, he is quite as good as my boy (I shall never be tired of
+saying `my boy'); and they ought to love each other like brothers.  Oh,
+my brave, brave wife!" said Dagobert, with emotion, "you did a good
+thing, poor as you were, taking the unfortunate child--and bringing him
+up with your own."
+
+"Don't talk so much about it, my dear; it was such a simple thing."
+
+"You are right; but I'll make you amends for it by and by.  'Tis down to
+your account; in the mean time, you will be sure to see him to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"My dear brother arrived too!" cried the blacksmith; "who'll say, after
+this, that there are not days set apart for happiness?  How came you to
+meet him, father?"
+
+"I'll tell you all, by and by, about when and how we met Gabriel; for if
+you expect to sleep, you are mistaken.  You'll give me half your room,
+and a fine chat we'll have.  Spoil-sport will stay outside of this door;
+he is accustomed to sleep at the children's door."
+
+"Dear me, love, I think of nothing.  But, at such a moment, if you and
+the young ladies wish to sup, Agricola will fetch something from the
+cook-shop."
+
+"What do you say, children?"
+
+"No, thank you, Dagobert, we are not hungry; we are too happy."
+
+"You will take a little wine and water, sweetened, nice and hot, to warm
+you a little, my dear young ladies," said Frances; "unfortunately, I have
+nothing else to offer you."
+
+"You are right, Frances; the dear children are tired, and want to go to
+bed; while they do so, I'll go to my boy's room, and, before Rose and
+Blanche are awake, I will come down and converse with you, just to give
+Agricola a respite."
+
+A knock was now heard at the door.
+
+"It is good Mother Bunch come to see if we want her," said Agricola.
+
+"But I think she was here when my husband came in," added Frances.
+
+"Right, mother; and the good girl left lest she should be an intruder:
+she is so thoughtful.  But no--no--it is not she who knocks so loud."
+
+"Go and see who it is, then, Agricola."
+
+Before the blacksmith could reach the door, a man decently dressed, with
+a respectable air, entered the room, and glanced rapidly round, looking
+for a moment at Rose and Blanche.
+
+"Allow me to observe, sir," said Agricola, "that after knocking, you
+might have waited till the door was opened, before you entered.  Pray,
+what is your business?"
+
+"Pray excuse me, sir," said the man, very politely, and speaking slowly,
+perhaps to prolong his stay in the room: "I beg a thousand pardons--I
+regret my intrusion--I am ashamed--"
+
+"Well, you ought to be, sir," said Agricola, with impatience, "what do
+you want?"
+
+"Pray, sir, does not Miss Soliveau, a deformed needlewoman, live here?"
+
+"No, sir; upstairs," said Agricola.
+
+"Really, sir," cried the polite man, with low bows, "I am quite abroad at
+my blunder: I thought this was the room of that young person.  I brought
+her proposals for work from a very respectable party."
+
+"It is very late, sir," said Agricola, with surprise.  "But that young
+person is as one of our family.  Call to-morrow; you cannot see her to-
+night; she is gone to bed."
+
+"Then, sir, I again beg you to excuse--"
+
+"Enough, sir," said Agricola, taking a step towards the door.
+
+"I hope, madame and the young ladies, as well as this gent, will be
+assured that--"
+
+"If you go on much longer making excuses, sir, you will have to excuse
+the length of your excuses; and it is time this came to an end!"
+
+Rose and Blanche smiled at these words of Agricola; while Dagobert rubbed
+his moustache with pride.
+
+"What wit the boy has!" said he aside to his wife.  "But that does not
+astonish you--you are used to it."
+
+During this speech, the ceremonious person withdrew, having again
+directed a long inquiring glance to the sisters, and to Agricola and
+Dagobert.
+
+In a few minutes after, Frances having spread a mattress on the ground
+for herself, and put the whitest sheets on her bed for the orphans,
+assisted them to undress with maternal solicitude, Dagobert and Agricola
+having previously withdrawn to their garret.  Just as the blacksmith, who
+preceded his father with a light, passed before the door of Mother
+Bunch's room, the latter, half concealed in the shade, said to him
+rapidly, in a low tone:
+
+"Agricola, great danger threatens you: I must speak to you."
+
+These words were uttered in so hasty and low a voice that Dagobert did
+not hear them; but as Agricola stopped suddenly, with a start, the old
+soldier said to him,
+
+"Well, boy, what is it?"
+
+"Nothing, father," said the blacksmith, turning round; "I feared I did
+not light you well."
+
+"Oh, stand at ease about that; I have the legs and eyes of fifteen to-
+night;" and the soldier, not noticing his son's surprise, went into the
+little room where they were both to pass the night.
+
+On leaving the house, after his inquiries about Mother Bunch, the over-
+polite Paul Pry slunk along to the end of Brise-Miche Street.  He
+advanced towards a hackney-coach drawn up on the Cloitre Saint-Merry
+Square.
+
+In this carriage lounged Rodin, wrapped in a cloak.
+
+"Well?" said he, in an inquiring tone.
+
+"The two girls and the man with gray moustache went directly to Frances
+Baudoin's; by listening at the door, I learnt that the sisters will sleep
+with her, in that room, to-night; the old man with gray moustache will
+share the young blacksmith's room."
+
+"Very well," said Rodin.
+
+"I did not dare insist on seeing the deformed workwoman this evening on
+the subject of the Bacchanal Queen; I intend returning to-morrow, to
+learn the effect of the letter she must have received this evening by the
+post about the young blacksmith."
+
+"Do not fail!  And now you will call, for me, on Frances Baudoin's
+confessor, late as it is; you will tell him that I am waiting for him at
+Rue du Milieu des Ursins--he must not lose a moment.  Do you come with
+him.  Should I not be returned, he will wait for me.  You will tell him
+it is on a matter of great moment."
+
+"All shall be faithfully executed," said the ceremonious man, cringing to
+Rodin, as the coach drove quickly away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+AGRICOLA AND MOTHER BUNCH.
+
+Within one hour after the different scenes which have just been described
+the most profound silence reigned in the soldier's humble dwelling.  A
+flickering light, which played through two panes of glass in a door,
+betrayed that Mother Bunch had not yet gone to sleep; for her gloomy
+recess, without air or light, was impenetrable to the rays of day, except
+by this door, opening upon a narrow and obscure passage, connected with
+the roof.  A sorry bed, a table, an old portmanteau, and a chair, so
+nearly filled this chilling abode, that two persons could not possibly be
+seated within it, unless one of them sat upon the side of the bed.
+
+The magnificent and precious flower that Agricola had given to the girl
+was carefully stood up in a vessel of water, placed upon the table on a
+linen cloth, diffusing its sweet odor around, and expanding its purple
+calix in the very closet, whose plastered walls, gray and damp, were
+feebly lighted by the rays of an attenuated candle.  The sempstress, who
+had taken off no part of her dress, was seated upon her bed--her looks
+were downcast, and her eyes full of tears.  She supported herself with
+one hand resting on the bolster; and, inclining towards the door,
+listened with painful eagerness, every instant hoping to hear the
+footsteps of Agricola.  The heart of the young sempstress beat violently;
+her face, usually very pale, was now partially flushed--so exciting was
+the emotion by which she was agitated.  Sometimes she cast her eyes with
+terror upon a letter which she held in her hand, a letter that had been
+delivered by post in the course of the evening, and which had been placed
+by the housekeeper (the dyer) upon the table, while she was rendering
+some trivial domestic services during the recognitions of Dagobert and
+his family.
+
+After some seconds, Mother Bunch heard a door, very near her own, softly
+opened.
+
+"There he is at last!" she exclaimed, and Agricola immediately entered.
+
+"I waited till my father went to sleep," said the blacksmith, in a low
+voice, his physiognomy evincing much more curiosity than uneasiness.
+"But what is the matter, my good sister?  How your countenance is
+changed!  You weep!  What has happened?  About what danger would you
+speak to me?"
+
+"Hush!  Read this!" said she, her voice trembling with emotion, while she
+hastily presented to him the open letter.  Agricola held it towards the
+light, and read what follows:
+
+"A person who has reasons for concealing himself, but who knows the
+sisterly interest you take in the welfare of Agricola Baudoin, warns you.
+That young and worthy workman will probably be arrested in the course of
+to-morrow."
+
+"I!" exclaimed Agricola, looking at Mother Bunch with an air of stupefied
+amazement.  "What is the meaning of all this?"
+
+"Read on!" quickly replied the sempstress, clasping her hands.
+
+Agricola resumed reading, scarcely believing the evidence of his eyes:--
+
+"The song, entitled `Working-men Freed,' has been declared libellous.
+Numerous copies of it have been found among the papers of a secret
+society, the leaders of which are about to be incarcerated, as being
+concerned in the Rue des Prouvaires conspiracy."
+
+"Alas!" said the girl, melting into tears, "now I see it all.  The man
+who was lurking about below, this evening, who was observed by the dyer,
+was, doubtless, a spy, lying in wait for you coming home."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Agricola.  "This accusation is quite ridiculous!
+Do not torment yourself.  I never trouble myself with politics.  My
+verses breathe nothing but philanthropy.  Am I to blame, if they have
+been found among the papers of a secret society?"  Agricola disdainfully
+threw the letter upon the table.
+
+"Read! pray read!" said the other; "read on."
+
+"If you wish it," said Agricola, "I will; no time is lost."
+
+He resumed the reading of the letter:
+
+"A warrant is about to be issued against Agricola Baudoin.  There is mo
+doubt of his innocence being sooner or later made clear; but it will be
+well if he screen himself for a time as much as possible from pursuit, in
+order that he may escape a confinement of two or three months previous to
+trial--an imprisonment which would be a terrible blow for his mother,
+whose sole support he is.
+
+"A SINCERE FRIEND, who is compelled to remain unknown."
+
+After a moment's silence, the blacksmith raised his head; his countenance
+resumed its serenity; and laughing, he said: "Reassure yourself, good
+Mother Bunch, these jokers have made a mistake by trying their games on
+me.  It is plainly an attempt at making an April-fool of me before the
+time."
+
+"Agricola, for the love of heaven!" said the girl, in a supplicating
+tone; "treat not the warning thus lightly.  Believe in my forebodings,
+and listen to my advice."
+
+"I tell you again, my good girl," replied Agricola, "that it is two
+months since my song was published.  It is not in any way political;
+indeed, if it were, they would not have waited till now before coming
+down on me."
+
+"But," said the other, "you forget that new events have arisen.  It is
+scarcely two days since the conspiracy was discovered, in this very
+neighborhood, in the Rue des Prouvaires.  And," continued she, "if the
+verses, though perhaps hitherto unnoticed, have now been found in the
+possession of the persons apprehended for this conspiracy, nothing more
+is necessary to compromise you in the plot."
+
+"Compromise me!" said Agricola; "my verses! in which I only praise the
+love of labor and of goodness!  To arrest me for that!  If so, justice
+would be but a blind noodle.  That she might grope her way, it would be
+necessary to furnish her with a dog and a pilgrim's staff to guide her
+steps."
+
+"Agricola," resumed Mother Bunch; overwhelmed with anxiety and terror on
+hearing the blacksmith jest at such a moment, "I conjure you to listen to
+me!  No doubt you uphold in the verses the sacred love of labor; but you
+do also grievously deplore and deprecate the unjust lot of the poor
+laborers, devoted as they are, without hope, to all the miseries of life;
+you recommend, indeed, only fraternity among men; but your good and noble
+heart vents its indignation, at the same time, against the selfish and
+the wicked.  In fine, you fervently hasten on, with the ardor of your
+wishes, the emancipation of all the artisans who, less fortunate than
+you, have not generous M. Hardy for employer.  Say, Agricola, in these
+times of trouble, is there anything more necessary to compromise you than
+that numerous copies of your song have been found in possession of the
+persons who have been apprehended?"
+
+Agricola was moved by these affectionate and judicious expressions of an
+excellent creature, who reasoned from her heart; and he began to view
+with more seriousness the advice which she had given him.
+
+Perceiving that she had shaken him, the sewing-girl went on to say: "And
+then, bear your fellow-workman, Remi, in recollection."
+
+"Remi!" said Agricola, anxiously.
+
+"Yes," resumed the sempstress; "a letter of his, a letter in itself quite
+insignificant, was found in the house of a person arrested last year for
+conspiracy; and Remi, in consequence, remained a month in prison."
+
+"That is true, but the injustice of his implication was easily shown, and
+he was set at liberty."
+
+"Yes, Agricola: but not till he had lain a month in prison; and that has
+furnished the motive of the person who advised you to conceal yourself!
+A month in prison!  Good heavens!  Agricola, think of that! and your
+mother."
+
+These words made a powerful impression upon Agricola.  He took up the
+letter and again read it attentively.
+
+"And the man who has been lurking all this evening about the house?"
+proceeded she.  "I constantly recall that circumstance, which cannot be
+naturally accounted for.  Alas! what a blow it would be for your father,
+and poor mother, who is incapable of earning anything.  Are you not now
+their only resource?  Oh! consider, then, what would become of them
+without you--without your labor!"
+
+"It would indeed be terrible," said Agricola, impatiently casting the
+letter upon the table.  "What you have said concerning Remi is too true.
+He was as innocent as I am: yet an error of justice, an involuntary error
+though it be, is not the less cruel.  But they don't commit a man without
+hearing him."
+
+"But they arrest him first, and hear him afterwards," said Mother Bunch,
+bitterly; "and then, after a month or two, they restore him his liberty.
+And if he have a wife and children, whose only means of living is his
+daily labor, what becomes of them while their only supporter is in
+prison?  They suffer hunger, they endure cold, and they weep!"
+
+At these simple and pathetic words, Agricola trembled.
+
+"A month without work," he said, with a sad and thoughtful air.  "And my
+mother, and father, and the two young ladies who make part of our family
+until the arrival in Paris of their father, Marshal Simon.  Oh! you are
+right.  That thought, in spite of myself, affrights me!"
+
+"Agricola!" exclaimed the girl impetuously; "suppose you apply to M.
+Hardy; he is so good, and his character is so much esteemed and honored,
+that, if he offered bail for you, perhaps they would give up their
+persecution?"
+
+"Unfortunately," replied Agricola, "M. Hardy is absent; he is on a
+journey with Marshal Simon."
+
+After a silence of some time, Agricola, striving to surmount his fear,
+added: "But no! I cannot give credence to this letter.  After all, I had
+rather await what may come.  I'll at least have the chance of proving my
+innocence on my first examination: for indeed, my good sister, whether it
+be that I am in prison or that I fly to conceal myself, my working for my
+family will be equally prevented."
+
+"Alas! that is true," said the poor girl; "what is to be done!  Oh, what
+is to be done?"
+
+"My brave father," said Agricola to himself, "if this misfortune happen
+to-morrow, what an awakening it will be for him, who came here to sleep
+so joyously!"  The blacksmith buried his face in his hands.
+
+Unhappily Mother Bunch's fears were too well-founded, for it will be
+recollected that at that epoch of the year 1832, before and after the Rue
+des Prouvaires conspiracy, a very great number of arrests had been made
+among the working classes, in consequence of a violent reaction against
+democratical ideas.
+
+Suddenly, the girl broke the silence which had been maintained for some
+seconds.  A blush colored her features, which bore the impressions of an
+indefinable expression of constraint, grief, and hope.
+
+"Agricola, you are saved!"
+
+"What say you?" he asked.
+
+"The young lady, so beautiful, so good, who gave you this flower" (she
+showed it to the blacksmith) "who has known how to make reparation with
+so much delicacy for having made a painful offer, cannot but have a
+generous heart.  You must apply to her--"
+
+With these words which seemed to be wrung from her by a violent effort
+over herself, great tears rolled down her cheeks.  For the first time in
+her life she experienced a feeling of grievous jealousy.  Another woman
+was so happy as to have the power of coming to the relief of him whom she
+idolized; while she herself, poor creature, was powerless and wretched.
+
+"Do you think so?" exclaimed Agricola surprised.  "But what could be done
+with this young lady?"
+
+"Did she not say to you," answered Mother Bunch, "`Remember my name; and
+in all circumstances address yourself to me?'"
+
+"She did indeed!"  replied Agricola.
+
+"This young lady, in her exalted position, ought to have powerful
+connections who will be able to protect and defend you.  Go to her to-
+morrow morning; tell her frankly what has happened, and request her
+support."
+
+"But tell me, my good sister, what it is you wish me to do?"
+
+"Listen.  I remember that, in former times, my father told us that he had
+saved one of his friends from being put in prison, by becoming surety for
+him.  It will be easy for you so to convince this young lady of your
+innocence, that she will be induced to become surety; and after that, you
+will have nothing more to fear."
+
+"My poor child!" said Agricola, "to ask so great a service from a person
+to whom one is almost unknown is hard."
+
+"Believe me, Agricola," said the other sadly, "I would never counsel what
+could possibly lower you in the eyes of any one, and above all--do you
+understand?--above all, in the eyes of this young lady.  I do not propose
+that you should ask money from her; but only that she should give surety
+for you, in order that you may have the liberty of continuing at your
+employment, so that the family may not be without resources.  Believe me,
+Agricola, that such a request is in no respect inconsistent with what is
+noble and becoming upon your part.  The heart of the young lady is
+generous.  She will comprehend your position.  The required surety will
+be as nothing to her; while to you it will be everything, and will even
+be the very life to those who depend upon you."
+
+"You are right, my good sister," said Agricola, with sadness and
+dejection.  "It is perhaps worth while to risk taking this step.  If the
+young lady consent to render me this service, and if giving surety will
+indeed preserve me from prison, I shall be prepared for every event.  But
+no, no!" added he, rising, "I'd never dare to make the request to her!
+What right have I to do so?  What is the insignificant service that I
+rendered her, when compared with that which I should solicit from her?"
+
+"Do you imagine then, Agricola, that a generous spirit measures the
+services which ought to be rendered, by those previously received?  Trust
+to me respecting a matter which is an affair of the heart.  I am, it is
+true, but a lowly creature, and ought not to compare myself with any
+other person.  I am nothing, and I can do nothing.  Nevertheless, I am
+sure--yes, Agricola, I am sure--that this young lady, who is so very far
+above me, will experience the same feelings that I do in this affair;
+yes, like me, she will at once comprehend that your position is a cruel
+one; and she will do with joy, with happiness, with thankfulness, that
+which I would do, if, alas! I could do anything more than uselessly
+consume myself with regrets."
+
+In spite of herself, she pronounced the last words with an expression so
+heart-breaking--there was something so moving in the comparison which
+this unfortunate creature, obscure and disdained, infirm and miserable,
+made of herself with Adrienne de Cardoville, the very type of resplendent
+youth, beauty, and opulence--that Agricola was moved even to tears; and,
+holding out one of his hands to the speaker, he said to her, tenderly,
+"How very good you are; how full of nobleness, good feeling, and
+delicacy!"
+
+"Unhappily," said the weeping girl, "I can do nothing more than advise."
+
+"And your counsels shall be followed out, my sister dear.  They are those
+of a soul the most elevated I have ever known.  Yes, you have won me over
+into making this experiment, by persuading me that the heart of Miss de
+Cardoville is perhaps equal in value to your own!"
+
+At this charming and sincere assimilation of herself to Miss Adrienne,
+the sempstress forgot almost everything she had suffered, so exquisitely
+sweet and consoling were her emotions.  If some poor creatures, fatally
+devoted to sufferings, experience griefs of which the world knows naught,
+they sometimes, too, are cheered by humble and timid joys, of which the
+world is equally ignorant.  The least word of true tenderness and
+affection, which elevates them in their own estimation, is ineffably
+blissful for these unfortunate beings, habitually consigned, not only to
+hardships and to disdain, but even to desolating doubts, and distrust of
+themselves.
+
+"Then it is agreed that you will go, to-morrow morning to this young
+lady's house?" exclaimed Mother Bunch, trembling with a new-born hope.
+"And," she quickly added, "at break of day I'll go down to watch at the
+street-door, to see if there be anything suspicious, and to apprise you
+of what I perceive."
+
+"Good, excellent girl!"  exclaimed Agricola, with increasing emotion.
+
+"It will be necessary to endeavor to set off before the wakening of your
+father," said the hunchback.  "The quarter in which the young lady
+dwells, is so deserted, that the mere going there will almost serve for
+your present concealment."
+
+"I think I hear the voice of my father," said Agricola suddenly.
+
+In truth, the little apartment was so near Agricola's garret, that he and
+the sempstress, listening, heard Dagobert say in the dark:
+
+"Agricola, is it thus that you sleep, my boy?  Why, my first sleep is
+over; and my tongue itches deucedly."
+
+"Go quick, Agricola!" said Mother Bunch; "your absence would disquiet
+him.  On no account go out to-morrow morning, before I inform you whether
+or not I shall have seen anything suspicious."
+
+"Why, Agricola, you are not here?" resumed Dagobert, in a louder voice.
+
+"Here I am, father," said the smith, while going out of the sempstress's
+apartment, and entering the garret, to his father.
+
+"I have been to fasten the shutter of a loft that the wind agitated, lest
+its noise should disturb you."
+
+"Thanks, my boy; but it is not noise that wakes me," said Dagobert,
+gayly; "it is an appetite, quite furious, for a chat with you.  Oh, my
+dear boy, it is the hungering of a proud old man of a father, who has not
+seen his son for eighteen years."
+
+"Shall I light a candle, father?"
+
+"No, no; that would be luxurious; let us chat in the dark.  It will be a
+new pleasure for me to see you to-morrow morning at daybreak.  It will be
+like seeing you for the first time twice."  The door of Agricola's garret
+being now closed, Mother Bunch heard nothing more.
+
+The poor girl, without undressing, threw herself upon the bed, and closed
+not an eye during the night, painfully awaiting the appearance of day, in
+order that she might watch over the safety of Agricola.  However, in
+spite of her vivid anxieties for the morrow, she sometimes allowed
+herself to sink into the reveries of a bitter melancholy.  She compared
+the conversation she had just had in the silence of night, with the man
+whom she secretly adored, with what that conversation might have been,
+had she possessed some share of charms and beauty--had she been loved as
+she loved, with a chaste and devoted flame!  But soon sinking into belief
+that she should never know the ravishing sweets of a mutual passion, she
+found consolation in the hope of being useful to Agricola.  At the dawn
+of day, she rose softly, and descended the staircase with little noise,
+in order to see if anything menaced Agricola from without.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE AWAKENING.
+
+The weather, damp and foggy during a portion of the night, became clear
+and cold towards morning.  Through the glazed skylight of Agricola's
+garret, where he lay with his father, a corner of the blue sky could be
+seen.
+
+The apartment of the young blacksmith had an aspect as poor as the
+sewing-girl's.  For its sole ornament, over the deal table upon which
+Agricola wrote his poetical inspirations, there hung suspended from a
+nail in the wall a portrait of Beranger--that immortal poet whom the
+people revere and cherish, because his rare and transcendent genius has
+delighted to enlighten the people, and to sing their glories and their
+reverses.
+
+Although the day had only begun to dawn, Dagobert and Agricola had
+already risen.  The latter had sufficient self command to conceal his
+inquietude, for renewed reflection had again increased his fears.
+
+The recent outbreak in the Rue des Prouvaires had caused a great number
+of precautionary arrests; and the discovery of numerous copies of
+Agricola's song, in the possession of one of the chiefs of the
+disconcerted plot, was, in truth, calculated slightly to compromise the
+young blacksmith.  His father, however, as we have already mentioned,
+suspected not his secret anguish.  Seated by the side of his son, upon
+the edge of their mean little bed, the old soldier, by break of day, had
+dressed and shaved with military care; he now held between his hands both
+those of Agricola, his countenance radiant with joy, and unable to
+discontinue the contemplation of his boy.
+
+"You will laugh at me, my dear boy," said Dagobert to his son; "but I
+wished the night to the devil, in order that I might gaze upon you in
+full day, as I now see you.  But all in good time; I have lost nothing.
+Here is another silliness of mine; it delights me to see you wear
+moustaches.  What a splendid horse-grenadier you would have made!  Tell
+me; have you never had a wish to be a soldier?"
+
+"I thought of mother!"
+
+"That's right," said Dagobert: "and besides, I believe, after all, look
+ye, that the time of the sword has gone by.  We old fellows are now good
+for nothing, but to be put in a corner of the chimney.  Like rusty old
+carbines, we have had our day."
+
+"Yes; your days of heroism and of glory," said Agricola with excitement;
+and then he added, with a voice profoundly softened and agitated, "it is
+something good and cheering to be your son!"
+
+"As to the good, I know nothing of that," replied Dagobert; "but as for
+the cheering, it ought to be so; for I love you proudly.  And I think
+this is but the beginning!  What say you, Agricola?  I am like the
+famished wretches who have been some days without food.  It is but by
+little and little that they recover themselves, and can eat.  Now, you
+may expect to be tasted, my boy, morning and evening, and devoured during
+the day.  No, I wish not to think that--not all the day--no, that thought
+dazzles and perplexes me; and I am no longer myself."
+
+These words of Dagobert caused a painful feeling to Agricola.  He
+believed that they sprang from a presentiment of the separation with
+which he was menaced.
+
+"Well," continued Dagobert; "you are quite happy; M. Hardy is always good
+to you."
+
+"Oh!" replied Agricola: "there is none in the world better, or more
+equitable and generous!  If you knew what wonders he has brought about in
+his factory!  Compared to all others, it is a paradise beside the
+stithies of Lucifer!"
+
+"Indeed!" said Dagobert.
+
+"You shall see," resumed Agricola, "what welfare, what joy, what
+affection, are displayed upon the countenances of all whom he employs;
+who work with an ardent pleasure.
+
+"This M. Hardy of yours must be an out-and-out magician," said Dagobert.
+
+"He is, father, a very great magician.  He has known how to render labor
+pleasant and attractive.  As for the pleasure, over and above good wages,
+he accords to us a portion of his profits according to our deserts;
+whence you may judge of the eagerness with which we go to work.  And that
+is not all: he has caused large, handsome buildings to be erected, in
+which all his workpeople find, at less expense than elsewhere, cheerful
+and salubrious lodgings, in which they enjoy all the advantages of an
+association.  But you shall see--I repeat--you shall see!"
+
+"They have good reason to say, that Paris is the region of wonders,"
+observed Dagobert.
+
+"Well, behold me here again at last, never more to quit you, nor good
+mother!"
+
+"No, father, we will never separate again," said Agricola,  stifling a
+sigh.  "My mother and I will both try to make you forget all that you
+have suffered."
+
+"Suffered!" exclaimed Dagobert, "who the deuce has suffered?  Look me
+well in the face; and see if I have a look of suffering!  Bombs and
+bayonets!  Since I have put my foot here, I feel myself quite a young man
+again!  You shall see me march soon: I bet that I tire you out!  You must
+rig yourself up something extra!  Lord, how they will stare at us!  I
+wager that in beholding your black moustache and my gray one, folks will
+say, behold father and son!  But let us settle what we are to do with the
+day.  You will write to the father of Marshal Simon, informing him the
+his grand-daughters have arrived, and that it is necessary that he should
+hasten his return to Paris; for he has charged himself with matters which
+are of great importance for them.  While you are writing, I will go down
+to say good-morning to my wife, and to the dear little ones.  We will
+then eat a morsel.  Your mother will go to mass; for I perceive that she
+likes to be regular at that: the good soul! no great harm, if it amuse
+her! and during her absence, we will make a raid together."
+
+"Father," said Agricola, with embarrassment, "this morning it is out of
+my power to accompany you."
+
+"How! out of your power?" said Dagobert; "recollect this is Monday!"
+
+"Yes, father," said Agricola, hesitatingly; "but I have promised to
+attend all the morning in the workshop, to finish a job that is required
+in a hurry.  If I fail to do so, I shall inflict some injury upon M.
+Hardy.  But I'll soon be at liberty."
+
+"That alters the case," said Dagobert, with a sigh of regret.  "I thought
+to make my first parade through Paris with you this morning; but it must
+be deferred in favor of your work.  It is sacred: since it is that which
+sustains your mother.  Nevertheless, it is vexatious, devilish vexatious.
+And yet no--I am unjust.  See how quickly one gets habituated to and
+spoilt by happiness.  I growl like a true grumbler, at a walk being put
+off for a few hours!  I do this!  I who, during eighteen years, have only
+hoped to see you once more, without daring to reckon very much upon it!
+Oh!  I am but a silly old fool!  Vive l'amour et cogni--I mean--my
+Agricola!"  And, to console himself, the old soldier gayly slapped his
+son's shoulder.
+
+This seemed another omen of evil to the blacksmith; for he dreaded one
+moment to another lest the fears of Mother Bunch should be realized.
+"Now that I have recovered myself," said Dagobert, laughing, "let us
+speak of business.  Know you where I find the addresses of all the
+notaries in Paris?"
+
+"I don't know; but nothing is more easy than to discover it."
+
+"My reason is," resumed Dagobert, "that I sent from Russia by post, and
+by order of the mother of the two children that I have brought here, some
+important papers to a Parisian notary.  As it was my duty to see this
+notary immediately upon my arrival, I had written his name and his
+address in a portfolio, of which however, I have been robbed during my
+journey; and as I have forgotten his devil of a name, it seems to me,
+that if I should see it again in the list of notaries, I might recollect
+it."
+
+Two knocks at the door of the garret made Agricola start.  He
+involuntarily thought of a warrant for his apprehension.
+
+His father, who, at the sound of the knocking turned round his head, had
+not perceived his emotion, and said with a loud voice: "Come in!"  The
+door opened.  It was Gabriel.  He wore a black cassock and a broad-
+brimmed hat.
+
+To recognize his brother by adoption, and to throw himself into his arms,
+were two movements performed at once by Agricola--as quick as thought.--
+"My brother!" exclaimed Agricola.
+
+"Agricola!" cried Gabriel.
+
+"Gabriel!" responded the blacksmith.
+
+"After so long an absence!" said the one.
+
+"To behold you again!" rejoined the other.
+
+Such were the words exchanged between the blacksmith and the missionary,
+while they were locked in a close embrace.
+
+Dagobert, moved and charmed by these fraternal endearments, felt his eyes
+become moist.  There was something truly touching in the affection of the
+young men--in their hearts so much alike, and yet of characters and
+aspects so very different--for the manly countenance of Agricola
+contrasted strongly with the delicacy and angelic physiognomy of Gabriel.
+
+"I was forewarned by my father of your arrival," said the blacksmith at
+length.  "I have been expecting to see you; and my happiness has been a
+hundred times the greater, because I have had all the pleasures of hoping
+for it."
+
+"And my good mother?" asked Gabriel, in affectionately grasping the hands
+of Dagobert.  "I trust that you have found her in good health."
+
+"Yes, my brave boy!" replied Dagobert; "and her health will have become a
+hundred times better, now that we are all together.  Nothing is so
+healthful as joy."  Then addressing himself to Agricola, who, forgetting
+his fear of being arrested, regarded the missionary with an expression of
+ineffable affection, Dagobert added:
+
+"Let it be remembered, that, with the soft cheek of a young girl, Gabriel
+has the courage of a lion; I have already told with what intrepidity he
+saved the lives of Marshal Simon's daughters, and tried to save mine
+also."
+
+"But, Gabriel! what has happened to your forehead?" suddenly exclaimed
+Agricola, who for a few seconds had been attentively examining the
+missionary.
+
+Gabriel, having thrown aside his hat on entering, was now directly
+beneath the skylight of the garret apartment, the bright light through
+which shone upon his sweet, pale countenance: and the round scar, which
+extended from one eyebrow to the other, was therefore distinctly visible.
+
+In the midst of the powerful and diversified emotion, and of the exciting
+events which so rapidly followed the shipwreck on the rocky coast near
+Cardoville House, Dagobert, during the short interview he then had with
+Gabriel, had not perceived the scar which seamed the forehead of the
+young missionary.  Now, partaking, however, of the surprise of his son,
+Dagobert said:
+
+"Aye, indeed! how came this scar upon your brow?"
+
+"And on his hands, too; see, dear father!"  exclaimed the blacksmith,
+with renewed surprise, while he seized one of the hands which the young
+priest held out towards him in order to tranquillize his fears.
+
+"Gabriel, my brave boy, explain this to us!" added Dagobert; "who has
+wounded you thus?" and in his turn, taking the other hand of the
+missionary, he examined the scar upon it with the eye of a judge of
+wounds, and then added, "In Spain, one of my comrades was found and taken
+down alive from a cross, erected at the junction of several roads, upon
+which the monks had crucified, and left him to die of hunger, thirst, and
+agony.  Ever afterwards he bore scars upon his hands, exactly similar to
+this upon your hand."
+
+"My father is right!" exclaimed Agricola.  "It is evident that your hands
+have been pierced through!  My poor brother!" and Agricola became
+grievously agitated.
+
+"Do not think about it," said Gabriel, reddening with the embarrassment
+of modesty.  "Having gone as a missionary amongst the savages of the
+Rocky Mountains, they crucified me, and they had begun to scalp me, when
+Providence snatched me from their hands."
+
+"Unfortunate youth," said Dagobert; "without arms then?  You had not a
+sufficient escort for your protection?"
+
+"It is not for such as me to carry arms." said Gabriel, sweetly smiling;
+"and we are never accompanied by any escort."
+
+"Well, but your companions, those who were along with you, how came it
+that they did not defend you?" impetuously asked Agricola.
+
+"I was alone, my dear brother."
+
+"Alone!"
+
+"Yes, alone; without even a guide."
+
+"You alone! unarmed! in a barbarous country!" exclaimed Dagobert,
+scarcely crediting a step so unmilitary, and almost distrusting his own
+sense of hearing.
+
+"It was sublime!" said the young blacksmith and poet.
+
+"The Christian faith," said Gabriel, with mild simplicity, "cannot be
+implanted by force or violence.  It is only by the power of persuasion
+that the gospel can be spread amongst poor savages."
+
+"But when persuasions fail!"  said Agricola.
+
+"Why, then, dear brother, one has but to die for the belief that is in
+him, pitying those who have rejected it, and who have refused the
+blessings it offers to mankind."
+
+There was a period of profound silence after the reply of Gabriel, which
+was uttered with simple and touching pathos.
+
+Dagobert was in his own nature too courageous not to comprehend a heroism
+thus calm and resigned; and the old soldier, as well as his son, now
+contemplated Gabriel with the most earnest feelings of mingled admiration
+and respect.
+
+Gabriel, entirely free from the affection of false modesty, seemed quite
+unconscious of the emotions which he had excited in the breasts of his
+two friends; and he therefore said to Dagobert, "What ails you?"
+
+"What ails me!" exclaimed the brave old soldier, with great emotion:
+"After having been for thirty years in the wars, I had imagined myself to
+be about as courageous as any man.  And now I find I have a master!  And
+that master is yourself!"
+
+"I!" said Gabriel; "what do you mean?  What have I done?"
+
+"Thunder, don't you know that the brave wounds there" (the veteran took
+with transport both of Gabriel's hands), "that these wounds are as
+glorious--are more glorious than our--than all ours, as warriors by
+profession!"
+
+"Yes! yes, my father speaks truth!" exclaimed Agricola; and he added,
+with enthusiasm, "Oh, for such priests!  How I love them!  How I venerate
+them!  How I am elevated by their charity, their courage, their
+resignation!"
+
+"I entreat you not to extol me thus," said Gabriel with embarrassment.
+
+"Not extol you!" replied Dagobert.  "Hanged if I shouldn't.  When I have
+gone into the heat of action, did I rush into it alone?  Was I not under
+the eyes of my commanding officer?  Were not my comrades there along with
+me?  In default of true courage, had I not the instinct of self-
+preservation to spur me on, without reckoning the excitement of the
+shouts and tumult of battle, the smell of the gunpowder, the flourishes
+of the trumpets, the thundering of the cannon, the ardor of my horse,
+which bounded beneath me as if the devil were at his tail?  Need I state
+that I also knew that the emperor was present, with his eye upon every
+one--the emperor, who, in recompense for a hole being made in my tough
+hide, would give me a bit of lace or a ribbon, as plaster for the wound.
+Thanks to all these causes, I passed for game.  Fair enough!  But are you
+not a thousand times more game than I, my brave boy; going alone,
+unarmed, to confront enemies a hundred times more ferocious than those
+whom we attacked--we, who fought in whole squadrons, supported by
+artillery, bomb-shells, and case-shot?"
+
+"Excellent father!" cried Agricola, "how noble of you to render to
+Gabriel this justice!"
+
+"Oh, dear brother," said Gabriel, "his kindness to me makes him magnify
+what was quite natural and simple!"
+
+"Natural!" said the veteran soldier; "yes, natural for gallants who have
+hearts of the true temper: but that temper is rare."
+
+"Oh, yes, very rare," said Agricola; "for that kind of courage is the
+most admirable of all.  Most bravely did you seek almost certain death,
+alone, bearing the cross in hand as your only weapon, to preach charity
+and Christian brotherhood.  They seized you, tortured you; and you await
+death and partly endure it, without complaint, without remonstrance,
+without hatred, without anger, without a wish for vengeance; forgiveness
+issuing from your mouth, and a smile of pity beaming upon your lips; and
+this in the depths of forests, where no one could witness your
+magnanimity,--none could behold you--and without other desire, after you
+were rescued than modestly to conceal blessed wounds under your black
+robe!  My father is right, by Jove! can you still contend that you are
+not as brave as he?"
+
+"And besides, too," resumed Dagobert, "the dear boy did all that for a
+thankless paymaster; for it is true, Agricola, that his wounds will never
+change his humble black robe of a priest into the rich robe of a bishop!"
+
+"I am not so disinterested as I may seem to be," said Gabriel to
+Dagobert, smiling meekly.  "If I am deemed worthy, a great recompense
+awaits me on high."
+
+"As to all that, my boy," said Dagobert, "I do not understand it; and I
+will not argue about it.  I maintain it, that my old cross of honor would
+be at least as deservedly affixed to your cassock as upon my uniform."
+
+"But these recompenses are never conferred upon humble priests like
+Gabriel," said Agricola, "and if you did know, dear father, how much
+virtue and valor is among those whom the highest orders in the priesthood
+insolently call the inferior clergy,--the unseen merit and the blind
+devotedness to be found amongst worthy, but obscure, country curates, who
+are inhumanly treated and subjugated to a pitiless yoke by the lordly
+lawnsleeves!  Like us, those poor priests are worthy laborers in their
+vocation; and for them, also, all generous hearts ought to demand
+enfranchisement!  Sons of common people, like ourselves, and useful as we
+are, justice ought to be rendered both to them and to us.  Do I say
+right, Gabriel?  You will not contradict it; for you have told me, that
+your ambition would have been to obtain a small country curacy; because
+you understand the good that you could work within it."
+
+"My desire is still the same," said Gabriel sadly: "but unfortunately--"
+and then, as if he wished to escape from a painful thought, and to change
+the conversation, he, addressing himself to Dagobert, added: "Believe me:
+be more just than to undervalue your own courage by exalting mine.  Your
+courage must be very great--very great; for, after a battle, the
+spectacle of the carnage must be truly terrible to a generous and feeling
+heart.  We, at least, though we may be killed, do not kill."
+
+At these words of the missionary, the soldier drew himself up erect,
+looked upon Gabriel with astonishment, and said, "This is most
+surprising!"
+
+"What is?" inquired Agricola.
+
+"What Gabriel has just told us," replied Dagobert, "brings to my mind
+what I experienced in warfare on the battlefield in proportion as I
+advanced in years.  Listen, my children: more than once, on the night
+after a general engagement, I have been mounted as a vidette,--alone, -by
+night,--amid the moonlight, on the field of battle which remained in our
+possession, and upon which lay the bodies of seven or eight thousand of
+the slain, amongst whom were mingled the slaughtered remains of some of
+my old comrades: and then this sad scene, when the profound silence has
+restored me to my senses from the thirst for bloodshed and the delirious
+whirling of my sword (intoxicated like the rest), I have said to myself,
+'for what have these men been killed?--FOR WHAT--FOR WHAT?'  But this
+feeling, well understood as it was, hindered me not, on the following
+morning, when the trumpets again sounded the charge, from rushing once
+more to the slaughter.  But the same thought always recurred when my arm
+became weary with carnage; and after wiping my sabre upon the mane of my
+horse, I have said to myself, 'I have killed!--killed!!--killed !!! and,
+FOR WHAT!!!'"
+
+The missionary and the blacksmith exchanged looks on hearing the old
+soldier give utterance to this singular retrospection of the past.
+
+"Alas!" said Gabriel to him, "all generous hearts feel as you did during
+the solemn moments, when the intoxication of glory has subsided, and man
+is left alone to the influence of the good instincts planted in his
+bosom."
+
+"And that should prove, my brave boy," rejoined Dagobert, "that you are
+greatly better than I; for those noble instincts, as you call them, have
+never abandoned you.  * * * * But how the deuce did you escape from the
+claws of the infuriated savages who had already crucified you?"
+
+At this question of Dagobert, Gabriel started and reddened so visibly,
+that the soldier said to him: "If you ought not or cannot answer my
+request, let us say no more about it."
+
+"I have nothing to conceal, either from you or from my brother," replied
+the missionary with altered voice.  "Only; it will be difficult for me to
+make you comprehend what I cannot comprehend myself."
+
+"How is that?" asked Agricola with surprise.
+
+"Surely," said Gabriel, reddening more deeply, "I must have been deceived
+by a fallacy of my senses, during that abstracted moment in which I
+awaited death with resignation.  My enfeebled mind, in spite of me, must
+have been cheated by an illusion; or that, which to the present hour has
+remained inexplicable, would have been more slowly developed; and I
+should have known with greater certainty that it was the strange woman--"
+
+Dagobert, while listening to the missionary, was perfectly amazed; for he
+also had vainly tried to account for the unexpected succor which had
+freed him and the two orphans from the prison at Leipsic.
+
+"Of what woman do you speak?"  asked Agricola.
+
+"Of her who saved me," was the reply.
+
+"A woman saved you from the hands of the savages?" said Dagobert.
+
+"Yes," replied Gabriel, though absorbed in his reflections, "a woman,
+young and beautiful!"
+
+"And who was this woman?" asked Agricola.
+
+"I know not.  When I asked her, she replied, 'I am the sister of the
+distressed!'"
+
+"And whence came she?  Whither went she?" asked Dagobert, singularly
+interested.
+
+"`I go wheresoever there is suffering,' she replied," answered the
+missionary;" and she departed, going towards the north of America--
+towards those desolate regions in which there is eternal snow, where the
+nights are without end."
+
+"As in Siberia," said Dagobert, who had become very thoughtful.
+
+"But," resumed Agricola, addressing himself to Gabriel, who seemed also
+to have become more and more absorbed, "in what manner or by what means
+did this woman come to your assistance?"
+
+The missionary was about to reply to the last question, when there was
+heard a gentle tap at the door of the garret apartment, which renewed the
+fears that Agricola had forgotten since the arrival of his adopted
+brother.  "Agricola," said a sweet voice outside the door, "I wish to
+speak with you as soon as possible."
+
+The blacksmith recognized Mother Bunch's voice, and opened the door.  But
+the young sempstress, instead of entering, drew back into the dark
+passage, and said, with a voice of anxiety: "Agricola, it is an hour
+since broad day, and you have not yet departed!  How imprudent!  I have
+been watching below, in the street, until now, and have seen nothing
+alarming; but they may come any instant to arrest you.  Hasten, I conjure
+you, your departure for the abode of Miss de Cardoville.  Not a minute
+should be lost."
+
+"Had it not been for the arrival of Gabriel, I should have been gone.
+But I could not resist the happiness of remaining some little time with
+him."
+
+"Gabriel here!" said Mother Bunch, with sweet surprise; for, as has been
+stated, she had been brought up with him and Agricola.
+
+"Yes," answered Agricola, "for half an hour he has been with my father
+and me."
+
+"What happiness I shall have in seeing him again," said the sewing-girl.
+"He doubtless came upstairs while I had gone for a brief space to your
+mother, to ask if I could be useful in any way on account of the young
+ladies; but they have been so fatigued that they still sleep.  Your
+mother has requested me to give you this letter for your father.  She has
+just received it."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"Well," resumed Mother Bunch, "now that you have seen Gabriel, do not
+delay long.  Think what a blow it would he for your father, if they came
+to arrest you in his very presence mon Dieu!"
+
+"You are right," said Agricola; "it is indispensable that I should
+depart--while near Gabriel in spite of my anxiety, my fears were
+forgotten."
+
+"Go quickly, then; and if Miss de Cardoville should grant this favor,
+perhaps in a couple of hours you will return, quite at ease both as to
+yourself and us."
+
+"True! a very few minutes more; and I'll come down."
+
+"I return to watch at the door.  If I perceive anything.  I'll come up
+again to apprise you.  But pray, do not delay."
+
+"Be easy, good sister."  Mother Bunch hurriedly descended the staircase,
+to resume her watch at the street door, and Agricola re-entered his
+garret.  "Dear father," he said to Dagobert, "my mother has just received
+this letter, and she requests you to read it."
+
+"Very well; read it for me, my boy."  And Agricola read as follows:
+
+MADAME.--I understand that your husband has been charged by General Simon
+with an affair of very great importance.  Will you, as soon as your
+husband arrives in Paris, request him to come to my office at Chartres
+without a moment's delay.  I am instructed to deliver to himself, and to
+no other person, some documents indispensable to the interests of General
+Simon.
+                         "DURAND, Notary at Chartres."
+
+
+Dagobert looked at his son with astonishment, and said to him, "Who can
+have told this gentleman already of my arrival in Paris?"
+
+"Perhaps, father," said Agricola, "this is the notary to whom you
+transmitted some papers, and whose address you have lost."
+
+"But his name was not Durand; and I distinctly recollect that his address
+was Paris, not Chartres.  And, besides," said the soldier, thoughtfully,
+"if he has some important documents, why didn't he transmit them to me?"
+
+"It seems to me that you ought not to neglect going to him as soon as
+possible," said Agricola, secretly rejoiced that this circumstance would
+withdraw his father for about two days, during which time his
+(Agricola's) fate would be decided in one way or other.
+
+"Your counsel is good," replied his father.
+
+"This thwarts your intentions in some degree?" asked Gabriel.
+
+"Rather, my lads; for I counted upon passing the day with you.  However,
+`duty before everything.'  Having come happily from Siberia to Paris, it
+is not for me to fear a journey from Paris to Chartres, when it is
+required on an affair of importance.  In twice twenty-four hours I shall
+be back again.  But the deuce take me if I expected to leave Paris for
+Chartres to-day.  Luckily, I leave Rose and Blanche with my good wife;
+and Gabriel, their angel, as they call him, will be here to keep them
+company."
+
+"That is, unfortunately, impossible," said the missionary, sadly.  "This
+visit on my arrival is also a farewell visit."
+
+"A farewell visit!  Now!" exclaimed Dagobert and Agricola both at once.
+
+"Alas, yes!"
+
+"You start already on another mission?" said Dagobert; "surely it is not
+possible?"
+
+"I must answer no question upon this subject," said Gabriel, suppressing
+a sigh: "but from now, for some time, I cannot, and ought not, come again
+into this house."
+
+"Why, my brave boy," resumed Dagobert with emotion, "there is something
+in thy conduct that savors of constraint, of oppression.  I know
+something of men.  He you call superior, whom I saw for some moments
+after the shipwreck at Cardoville Castle, has a bad look; and I am sorry
+to see you enrolled under such a commander."
+
+"At Cardoville Castle!" exclaimed Agricola, struck with the identity of
+the name with that of the young lady of the golden hair; "was it in
+Cardoville Castle that you were received after your shipwreck?"
+
+"Yes, my boy; why, does that astonish you?" asked Dagobert.
+
+"Nothing father; but were the owners of the castle there at the time?"
+
+"No; for the steward, when I applied to him for an opportunity to return
+thanks for the kind hospitality we had experienced, informed me that the
+person to whom the house belonged was resident at Paris."
+
+"What a singular coincidence," thought Agricola, "if the young lady
+should be the proprietor of the dwelling which bears her name!"
+
+This reflection having recalled to Agricola the promise which he had made
+to Mother Bunch, he said to Dagobert;  "Dear father, excuse me; but it is
+already late, and I ought to be in the workshop by eight o'clock."
+
+"That is too true, my boy. Let us go.  This party is adjourned till my
+return from Chartres.  Embrace me once more, and take care of yourself."
+
+Since Dagobert had spoken of constraint and oppression to Gabriel, the
+latter had continued pensive.  At the moment when Agricola approached him
+to shake hands, and to bid him adieu, the missionary said to him
+solemnly, with a grave voice, and in a tone of decision that astonished
+both the blacksmith and the soldier: "My dear brother, one word more.  I
+have come here to say to you also that within a few days hence I shall
+have need of you; and of you also, my father (permit me so to call you),"
+added Gabriel, with emotion, as he turned round to Dagobert.
+
+"How! you speak thus to us!" exclaimed Agricola; "what is the matter?"
+
+"Yes," replied Gabriel, "I need the advice and assistance of two men of
+honor--of two men of resolution;--and I can reckon upon you two--can I
+not?  At any hour, on whatever day it may be, upon a word from me, will
+you come?"
+
+Dagobert and his son regarded each other in silence, astonished at the
+accents of the missionary.  Agricola felt an oppression of the heart.  If
+he should be a prisoner when his brother should require his assistance,
+what could be done?
+
+"At every hour, by night or by day, my brave boy, you may depend upon
+us," said Dagobert, as much surprised as interested--"You have a father
+and a brother; make your own use of them."
+
+"Thanks, thanks," said Gabriel, "you set me quite at ease."
+
+"I'll tell you what," resumed the soldier, "were it not for your priest's
+robe, I should believe, from the manner in which you have spoken to us,
+that you are about to be engaged in a duel--in a mortal combat."
+
+"In a duel?" said Gabriel, starting.  "Yes; it may be a duel--uncommon
+and fearful--at which it is necessary to have two witnesses such as you--
+A FATHER and A BROTHER!"
+
+Some instants afterwards, Agricola, whose anxiety was continually
+increasing, set off in haste for the dwelling of Mademoiselle de
+Cardoville, to which we now beg leave to take the reader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE PAVILION.
+
+Dizier House was one of the largest and handsomest in the Rue Babylone,
+in Paris.  Nothing could be more severe, more imposing, or more
+depressing than the aspect of this old mansion.  Several immense windows,
+filled with small squares of glass, painted a grayish white, increased
+the sombre effect of the massive layers of huge stones, blackened by
+time, of which the fabric was composed.
+
+This dwelling bore a resemblance to all the others that had been erected
+in the same quarter towards the middle of the last century.  It was
+surmounted in front by a pediment; it had an elevated ground floor, which
+was reached from the outside by a circular flight of broad stone steps.
+One of the fronts looked on an immense court-yard, on each side of which
+an arcade led to the vast interior departments.  The other front
+overlooked the garden, or rather park, of twelve or fifteen roods; and,
+on this side, wings, approaching the principal part of the structure,
+formed a couple of lateral galleries.  Like nearly all the other great
+habitations of this quarter, there might be seen at the extremity of the
+garden, what the owners and occupiers of each called the lesser mansion.
+
+This extension was a Pompadour summer-house, built in the form of a
+rotunda, with the charming though incorrect taste of the era of its
+erection.  It presented, in every part where it was possible for the
+stones to be cut, a profusion of endives, knots of ribbons, garlands of
+flowers, and chubby cupids.  This pavilion, inhabited by Adrienne de
+Cardoville was composed of a ground floor, which was reached by a
+peristyle of several steps.  A small vestibule led to a circular hall,
+lighted from the roof.  Four principal apartments met here; and ranges of
+smaller rooms, concealed in the upper story, served for minor purposes.
+
+These dependencies of great habitations are in our days disused, or
+transformed into irregular conservatories; but by an uncommon exception,
+the black exterior of the pavilion had been scraped and renewed, and the
+entire structure repaired.  The white stones of which it was built
+glistened like Parian marble; and its renovated, coquettish aspect
+contrasted singularly with the gloomy mansion seen at the other extremity
+of an extensive lawn, on which were planted here and there gigantic
+clumps of verdant trees.
+
+The following scene occurred at this residence on the morning following
+that of the arrival of Dagobert, with the daughters of Marshal Simon, in
+the Rue Brise-Miche.  The hour of eight had sounded from the steeple of a
+neighboring church; a brilliant winter sun arose to brighten a pure blue
+sky behind the tall leafless trees, which in summer formed a dome of
+verdure over the summer-house.  The door in the vestibule opened, and the
+rays of the morning sun beamed upon a charming creature, or rather upon
+two charming creatures, for the second one, though filling a modest place
+in the scale of creation, was not less distinguished by beauty of its
+own, which was very striking.  In plain terms two individuals, one of
+them a young girl, and the other a tiny English dog, of great beauty, of
+that breed of spaniels called King Charles's, made their appearance under
+the peristyle of the rotunda.  The name of the young girl was Georgette;
+the beautiful little spaniel's was Frisky.  Georgette was in her
+eighteenth year.  Never had Florine or Manton, never had a lady's maid of
+Marivaux, a more mischievous face, an eye more quick, a smile more
+roguish, teeth more white, cheeks more roseate, figure more coquettish,
+feet smaller, or form smarter, attractive, and enticing.  Though it was
+yet very early, Georgette was carefully and tastefully dressed.  A tiny
+Valenciennes cap, with flaps and flap-band, of half peasant fashion,
+decked with rose-colored ribbons, and stuck a little backward upon bands
+of beautiful fair hair, surrounded her fresh and piquant face; a robe of
+gray levantine, and a cambric neck-kerchief, fastened to her bosom by a
+large tuft of rose-colored ribbons, displayed her figure elegantly
+rounded; a hollands apron, white as snow, trimmed below by three large
+hems, surmounted by a Vandyke-row, encircled her waist, which was as
+round and flexible as a reed; her short, plain sleeves, edged with bone-
+lace, allowed her plump arms to be seen, which her long Swedish gloves,
+reaching to the elbow, defended from the rigor of the cold.  When
+Georgette raised the bottom of her dress, in order to descend more
+quickly the steps, she exhibited to Frisky's indifferent eyes a beautiful
+ankle, and the beginning of the plump calf of a fine leg, encased in
+white silk, and a charming little foot, in a laced half-boot of Turkish
+satin.  When a blonde like Georgette sets herself to be ensnaring; when
+vivid glances sparkle from her eyes of bright yet tender blue; when a
+joyous excitement suffuses her transparent skin, she is more resistless
+for the conquest of everything before her than a brunette.
+
+This bewitching and nimble lady's-maid, who on the previous evening had
+introduced Agricola to the pavilion, was first waiting woman to the
+Honorable Miss Adrienne de Cardoville, niece of the Princess Saint-
+Dizier.
+
+Frisky, so happily found and brought back by the blacksmith, uttered weak
+but joyful barks, and bounded, ran, and frolicked upon the turf.  She was
+not much bigger than one's fist; her curled hair, of lustrous black,
+shone like ebony, under the broad, red satin ribbon which encircled her
+neck; her paws, fringed with long silken fur, were of a bright and fiery
+tan, as well as her muzzle, the nose of which was inconceivably pug; her
+large eyes were full of intelligence; and her curly ears so long that
+they trailed upon the ground.  Georgette seemed to be as brisk and
+petulant as Frisky, and shared her sportiveness,--now scampering after
+the happy little spaniel, and now retreating, in order to be pursued upon
+the greensward in her turn.  All at once, at the sight of a second
+person, who advanced with deliberate gravity, Georgette and Frisky were
+suddenly stopped in their diversion.  The little King Charles, some steps
+in advance of Georgette, faithful to her name, and bold as the devil,
+held herself firmly upon her nervous paws, and fiercely awaited the
+coming up of the enemy, displaying at the same time rows of little teeth,
+which, though of ivory, were none the less pointed and sharp.  The enemy
+consisted of a woman of mature age, accompanied by a very fat dog, of the
+color of coffee and milk; his tail was twisted like a corkscrew; he was
+pot-bellied; his skin was sleek; his neck was turned little to one side;
+he walked with his legs inordinately spread out, and stepped with the air
+of a doctor.  His black muzzle, quarrelsome and scowling showed two fangs
+sallying forth, and turning up from the left side of the mouth, and
+altogether he had an expression singularly forbidding and vindictive.
+This disagreeable animal, a perfect type of what might be called a
+"church-goer's pug," answered to the name of "My Lord."  His mistress, a
+woman of about fifty years of age, corpulent and of middle size, was
+dressed in a costume as gloomy and severe as that of Georgette was gay
+and showy.  It consisted of a brown robe, a black silk mantle, and a hat
+of the same dye.  The features of this woman might have been agreeable in
+her youth; and her florid cheeks, her correct eyebrows, her black eyes,
+which were still very lively, scarcely accorded with the peevish and
+austere physiognomy which she tried to assume.  This matron, of slow and
+discreet gait, was Madame Augustine Grivois, first woman to the Princess
+Saint-Dizier.  Not only did the age, the face, and the dress of these two
+women present a striking contrast; but the contrast extended itself even
+to the animals which attended them.  There were similar differences
+between Frisky and My Lord, as between Georgette and Mrs. Grivois.  When
+the latter perceived the little King Charles, she could not restrain a
+movement of surprise and repugnance, which escaped not the notice of the
+young lady's maid.  Frisky, who had not retreated one inch, since the
+apparition of My Lord, regarded him valiantly, with a look of defiance,
+and even advanced towards him with an air so decidedly hostile, that the
+cur, though thrice as big as the little King Charles, uttered a howl of
+distress and terror, and sought refuge behind Mrs. Grivois, who bitterly
+said to Georgette:
+
+"It seems to me, miss, that you might dispense with exciting your dog
+thus, and setting him upon mine."
+
+"It was doubtless for the purpose of protecting this respectable but ugly
+animal from similar alarms, that you tried to make us lose Frisky
+yesterday, by driving her into the street through the little garden gate.
+But fortunately an honest young man found Frisky in the Rue de Babylone,
+and brought her back to my mistress.  However," continued Georgette, "to
+what, madame, do I owe the pleasure of seeing you this morning?"
+
+"I am commanded by the Princess," replied Mrs. Grivois, unable to conceal
+a smile of triumphant satisfaction, "immediately to see Miss Adrienne.
+It regards a very important affair, which I am to communicate only to
+herself."
+
+At these words Georgette became purple, and could not repress a slight
+start of disquietude, which happily escaped Grivois, who was occupied
+with watching over the safety of her pet, whom Frisky continued to snarl
+at with a very menacing aspect; and Georgette, having quickly overcome
+her temporary emotion, firmly answered: "Miss Adrienne went to rest very
+late last night.  She has forbidden me to enter her apartment before mid-
+day."
+
+"That is very possible: but as the present business is to obey an order
+of the Princess her aunt, you will do well if you please, miss, to awaken
+your mistress immediately."
+
+"My mistress is subject to no one's orders in her own house; and I will
+not disturb her till mid-day, in pursuance of her commands," replied
+Georgette.
+
+"Then I shall go myself," said Mrs. Grivois.
+
+"Florine and Hebe will not admit you.  Indeed, here is the key of the
+saloon; and through the saloon only can the apartments of Miss Adrienne
+be entered."
+
+"How! do you dare refuse me permission to execute the orders of the
+Princess?"
+
+"Yes; I dare to commit the great crime of being unwilling to awaken my
+mistress!"
+
+"Ah! such are the results of the blind affection of the Princess for her
+niece," said the matron, with affected grief:  "Miss Adrienne no longer
+respects her aunt's orders; and she is surrounded by young hare-brained
+persons, who, from the first dawn of morning, dress themselves out as if
+for ball-going."
+
+"Oh, madame! how came you to revile dress, who were formerly the greatest
+coquette and the most frisky and fluttering of all the Princess's women.
+At least, that is what is still spoken of you in the hotel, as having
+been handed down from time out of mind, by generation to generation, even
+unto ours!"
+
+"How! from generation to generation! do you mean to insinuate that I am a
+hundred years old, Miss Impertinence?"
+
+"I speak of the generations of waiting-women; for, except you, it is the
+utmost if they remain two or three years in the Princess's house, who has
+too many tempers for the poor girls!"
+
+"I forbid you to speak thus of my mistress, whose name some people ought
+not to pronounce but on their knees."
+
+"However," said Georgette, "if one wished to speak ill of -"
+
+"Do you dare!"
+
+"No longer ago than last night, at half past eleven o'clock-- "
+
+"Last night?"
+
+"A four-wheeler," continued Georgette, "stopped at a few paces from the
+house.  A mysterious personage, wrapped up in a cloak, alighted from it,
+and directly tapped, not at the door, but on the glass of the porter's
+lodge window; and at one o'clock in the morning, the cab was still
+stationed in the street, waiting for the mysterious personage in the
+cloak, who, doubtless, during all that time, was, as you say, pronouncing
+the name of her Highness the Princess on his knees."
+
+Whether Mrs. Grivois had not been instructed as to a visit made to the
+Princess Saint-Dizier by Rodin (for he was the man in the cloak), in the
+middle of the night, after he had become certain of the arrival in Paris
+of General Simon's daughters; or whether Mrs. Grivois thought it
+necessary to appear ignorant of the visit, she replied, shrugging her
+shoulders disdainfully: "I know not what you, mean, madame.  I have not
+come here to listen to your impertinent stuff.  Once again I ask you--
+will you, or will you not, introduce me to the presence of Miss
+Adrienne?"
+
+"I repeat, madame, that my mistress sleeps, and that she has forbidden me
+to enter her bed-chamber before mid-day."
+
+This conversation took place at some distance from the summer-house, at a
+spot from which the peristyle could be seen at the end of a grand avenue,
+terminating in trees arranged in form of a V.  All at once Mrs. Grivois,
+extending her hand in that direction, exclaimed: "Great heavens! is it
+possible? what have I seen?"
+
+"What have you seen?" said Georgette, turning round.
+
+"What have I seen?" repeated Mrs. Grivois, with amazement.
+
+"Yes: what was it?"
+
+"Miss Adrienne."
+
+"Where?" asked Georgette.
+
+"I saw her run up the porch steps.  I perfectly recognized her by her
+gait, by her hat, and by her mantle.  To come home at eight o'clock in
+the morning !" cried Mrs. Grivois: "it is perfectly incredible!"
+
+"See my lady?  Why, you came to see her!" and Georgette burst out into
+fits of laughter: and then said: "Oh! I understand! you wish to out-do my
+story of the four-wheeler last night!  It is very neat of you!"
+
+"I repeat," said Mrs. Grivois, "that I have this moment seen -"
+
+"Oh! adone, Mrs. Grivois: if you speak seriously, you are mad!"
+
+"I am mad, am I? because I have a pair of good eyes!  The little gate
+that open's on the street lets one into the quincunx near the pavilion.
+It is by that door, doubtless, that mademoiselle has re-entered.  Oh,
+what shameful conduct! what will the Princess say to it!  Ah! her
+presentiments have not yet been mistaken.  See to what her weak
+indulgence of her niece's caprices has led her!  It is monstrous!--so
+monstrous, that, though I have seen her with my own eyes, still I can
+scarcely believe it!"
+
+"Since you've gone so far, ma'am, I now insist upon conducting you into
+the apartment of my lady, in order that you may convince yourself, by
+your own senses, that your eyes have deceived you!"
+
+"Oh, you are very cunning, my dear, but not more cunning than I!  You
+propose my going now!  Yes, yes, I believe you: you are certain that by
+this time I shall find her in her apartment!"
+
+"But, madame, I assure you--"
+
+"All that I can say to you is this: that neither you, nor Florine, nor
+Hebe, shall remain here twenty-four hours.  The Princess will put an end
+to this horrible scandal; for I shall immediately inform her of what has
+passed.  To go out in the night!  Re-enter at eight o'clock in the
+morning!  Why, I am all in a whirl!  Certainly, if I had not seen it with
+my own eyes, I could not have believed it!  Still, it is only what was to
+be expected.  It will astonish nobody.  Assuredly not!  All those to whom
+I am going to relate it, will say, I am quite sure, that it is not at all
+astonishing!  Oh! what a blow to our respectable Princess!  What a blow
+for her!"
+
+Mrs. Grivois returned precipitately towards the mansion, followed by her
+fat pug, who appeared to be as embittered as herself.
+
+Georgette, active and light, ran, on her part, towards the pavilion, in
+order to apprise Miss de Cardoville that Mrs. Grivois had seen her, or
+fancied she had seen her, furtively enter by the little garden gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+ADRIENNE AT HER TOILET.
+
+About an hour had elapsed since Mrs. Grivois had seen or pretended to
+have seen Adrienne de Cardoville re-enter in the morning the extension of
+Saint-Dizier House.
+
+It is for the purpose, not of excusing, but of rendering intelligible,
+the following scenes, that it is deemed necessary to bring out into the
+light some striking peculiarities in the truly original character of Miss
+de Cardoville.
+
+This originality consisted in an excessive independence of mind, joined
+to a natural horror of whatsoever is repulsive or deformed, and to an
+insatiable desire of being surrounded by everything attractive and
+beautiful.  The painter most delighted with coloring and beauty, the
+sculptor most charmed by proportions of form, feel not more than Adrienne
+did the noble enthusiasm which the view of perfect beauty always excites
+in the chosen favorites of nature.
+
+And it was not only the pleasures of sight which this young lady loved to
+gratify: the harmonious modulations of song, the melody of instruments,
+the cadences of poetry, afforded her infinite pleasures; while a harsh
+voice or a discordant noise made her feel the same painful impression, or
+one nearly as painful as that which she involuntarily experienced from
+the sight of a hideous object.  Passionately fond of flowers, too, and of
+their sweet scents, there are some perfumes which she enjoyed equally
+with the delights of music or those of plastic beauty.  It is necessary,
+alas, to acknowledge one enormity: Adrienne was dainty in her food!  She
+valued more than any one else the fresh pulp of handsome fruit, the
+delicate savor of a golden pheasant, cooked to a turn, and the odorous
+cluster of a generous vine.
+
+But Adrienne enjoyed all these pleasures with an exquisite reserve.  She
+sought religiously to cultivate and refine the senses given her.  She
+would have deemed it black ingratitude to blunt those divine gifts by
+excesses, or to debase them by unworthy selections of objects upon which
+to exercise them; a fault from which, indeed, she was preserved by the
+excessive and imperious delicacy of her taste.
+
+The BEAUTIFUL and the UGLY occupied for her the places which GOOD and
+EVIL holds for others.
+
+Her devotion to grace, elegance, and physical beauty, had led her also to
+the adoration of moral beauty; for if the expression of a low and bad
+passion render uncomely the most beautiful countenances, those which are
+in themselves the most ugly are ennobled, on the contrary, by the
+expression of good feelings and generous sentiments.
+
+In a word, Adrienne was the most complete, the most ideal personification
+of SENSUALITY--not of vulgar, ignorant, non intelligent, mistaken
+sensuousness which is always deceit ful and corrupted by habit or by the
+necessity for gross and ill-regulated enjoyments, but that exquisite
+sensuality which is to the senses what intelligence is to the soul.
+
+The independence of this young lady's character was extreme.  Certain
+humiliating subjections imposed upon her success by its social position,
+above all things were revolting to her, and she had the hardihood to
+resolve to withdraw herself from them.  She was a woman, the most
+womanish that it is possible to imagine--a woman in her timidity as well
+as in her audacity--a woman in her hatred of the brutal despotism of men,
+as well as in her intense disposition to self-devoting herself, madly
+even and blindly, to him who should merit such a devotion from her--a
+woman whose piquant wit was occasionally paradoxical--a superior woman,
+in brief, who entertained a well-grounded disdain and contempt for
+certain men either placed very high or greatly adulated, whom she had
+from time to time met in the drawing-room of her aunt, the Princess
+Saint-Dizier, when she resided with her.
+
+These indispensable explanations being given, we usher, the reader into
+the presence of Adrienne de Cardoville, who had just come out of the
+bath.
+
+It would require all the brilliant colorings of the Venetian school to
+represent that charming scene, which would rather seem to have occurred
+in the sixteenth century, in some palace of Florence or Bologna, than in
+Paris, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, in the month of February, 1832.
+
+Adrienne's dressing-room was a kind of miniature temple seemingly one
+erected and dedicated to the worship of beauty, in gratitude to the Maker
+who has lavished so many charms upon woman, not to be neglected by her,
+or to cover and conceal them with ashes, or to destroy them by the
+contact of her person with sordid and harsh haircloth; but in order that,
+with fervent gratitude for the divine gifts wherewith she is endowed, she
+may enhance her charms with all the illusions of grace and all the
+splendors of apparel, so as to glorify the divine work of her own
+perfections in the eyes of all.  Daylight was admitted into this
+semicircular apartment, through one of those double windows, contrived
+for the preservation of heat, so happily imported from Germany.  The
+walls of the pavilion being constructed of stone of great thickness, the
+depth of the aperture for the windows was therefore very great.  That of
+Adrienne's dressing-room was closed on the outside by a sash containing a
+single large pane of plate glass, and within, by another large plate of
+ground glass.  In the interval or space of about three feet left between
+these two transparent enclosures, there was a case or box filled with
+furze mould, whence sprung forth climbing plants, which, directed round
+the ground glass, formed a rich garland of leaves and flowers.  A garnet
+damask tapestry, rich with harmoniously blended arabesques, in the purest
+style, covered the walls and a thick carpet of similar color was extended
+over the floor: and this sombre ground, presented by the floor and walls,
+marvellously enhanced the effects of all the harmonious ornaments and
+decorations of the chamber.
+
+Under the window, opposite to the south, was placed Adrienne's dressing-
+case, a real masterpiece of the skill of the goldsmith.  Upon a large
+tablet of lapis-lazuli, there were scattered boxes of jewels, their lids
+precisely enamelled ; several scent boxes of rock crystal, and other
+implements and utensils of the toilet, some formed of shells, some of
+mother-of-pearl, and others of ivory, covered with ornaments of gold in
+extraordinary taste.  Two large figures, modelled in silver with antique
+purity; supported an oval swing mirror, which had for its rim, in place
+of a frame curiously carved, a fresh garland of natural flowers, renewed
+every day like a nosegay for a ball.
+
+Two enormous Japanese vases, of purple and gold, three feet each in
+diameter, were placed upon the carpet on each side of the toilet, and,
+filled with camellias, ibiscures, and cape jasmine, in full flower formed
+a sort of grove, diversified with the most brilliant colors.  At the
+farther end of the apartment, opposite the casement, was to be seen,
+surrounded by another mass of flowers, a reduction in white marble of the
+enchanting group of Daphnis and Chloe, the more chaste ideal of graceful
+modesty and youthful beauty.
+
+Two golden lamps burned perfumes upon the same pedestal which supported
+those two charming figures.  A coffer of frosted silver, set off with
+small figures in jewelry and precious stones, and supported on four feet
+of gilt bronze, contained various necessaries for the toilette; two
+frosted Psyches, decorated with diamond ear-rings; some excellent
+drawings from Raphael and Titian, painted by Adrienne herself, consisting
+of portraits of both men and women of exquisite beauty; several consoles
+of oriental jasper, supporting ewers and basins of silver and of silver
+gilt, richly chased and filled with scented waters; a voluptuously rich
+divan, some seats, and an illuminated gilt fable, completed the furniture
+of this chamber, the atmosphere of which was impregnated with the
+sweetest perfumes.
+
+Adrienne, whom her attendants had just helped from the bath, was seated
+before her toilette, her three women surrounding her.  By a caprice, or
+rather by a necessary and logical impulse of her soul, filled as it was
+with the love of beauty and of harmony in all things, Adrienne had wished
+the young women who served her to be very pretty, and be dressed with
+attention and with a charming originality.  We have already seen
+Georgette, a piquante blonde, attired in her attractive costume of an
+intriguing lady's maid of Marivaux; and her two companions were quite
+equal to her both in gracefulness and gentility.
+
+One of them, named Florine, a tall, delicately slender, and elegant girl,
+with the air and form of Diana Huntress, was of a pale brown complexion.
+Her thick black hair was turned up behind, where it was fastened with a
+long golden pin.  Like the two other girls, her arms were uncovered to
+facilitate the performance of her duties about and upon the person of her
+charming mistress.  She wore a dress of that gay green so familiar to the
+Venetian painters.  Her petticoat was very ample.  Her slender waist
+curved in from under the plaits of a tucker of white cambric, plaited in
+five minute folds, and fastened by five gold buttons.  The third of
+Adrienne's women had a face so fresh and ingenuous, a waist so delicate,,
+so pleasing, and so finished, that her mistress had given her the name of
+Hebe.  Her dress of a delicate rose color, and Grecian cut, displayed her
+charming neck, and her beautiful arms up to the very shoulders.  The
+physiognomy of these three young women was laughter loving and happy.  On
+their features there was no expression of that bitter sullenness, willing
+and hated obedience, or offensive familiarity, or base and degraded
+deference, which are the ordinary results of a state of servitude.  In
+the zealous eagerness of the cares and attentions which they lavished
+upon Adrienne, there seemed to be at least as much of affection as of
+deference and respect.  They appeared to derive an ardent pleasure from
+the services which they rendered to their lovely mistress.  One would
+have thought that they attached to the dressing and embellishment of her
+person all the merits and the enjoyment arising from the execution of a
+work of art, in the accomplishing of which, fruitful of delights, they
+were stimulated by the passions of love, of pride, and of joy.
+
+The sun beamed brightly upon the toilet-case, placed in front of the
+window.  Adrienne was seated on a chair, its back elevated a little more
+than usual.  She was enveloped in a long morning-gown of blue silk,
+embroidered with a leaf of the same color, which was fitted close to her
+waist, as exquisitely slender and delicate as that of a child of twelve
+years, by a girdle with floating tags.  Her neck, delicately slender and
+flexible as a bird's, was uncovered, as were also her shoulders and arms,
+and all were of incomparable beauty.  Despite the vulgarity of the
+comparison, the purest ivory alone can give an idea of the dazzling
+whiteness of her polished satin skin, of a texture so fresh and so firm,
+that some drops of water, collected and still remaining about the roots
+of her hair from the bath, rolled in serpentine lines over her shoulders,
+like pearls, or beads, of crystal, over white marble.
+
+And what gave enhanced lustre to this wondrous carnation, known but to
+auburn-headed beauties, was the deep purple of her, humid lips,--the
+roseate transparency of her small ears, of her dilated nostrils, and her
+nails, as bright and glossy, as if they had been varnished.  In every
+spot, indeed, where her pure arterial blood, full of animation and heat,
+could make its way to the skin and shine through the surface, it
+proclaimed her high health and the vivid life and joyous buoyancy of her
+glorious youth.  Her eyes were very large, and of a velvet softness.  Now
+they glanced, sparkling and shining with comic humor or intelligence and
+wit; and now they widened and extended themselves, languishing and
+swimming between their double fringes of long crisp eyelashes, of as deep
+a black as her finely-drawn and exquisitely arched eyebrows; for, by a
+delightful freak of nature, she had black eyebrows and eyelashes to
+contrast with the golden red of her hair.  Her forehead, small like those
+of ancient Grecian statues, formed with the rest of her face a perfect
+oval.  Her nose, delicately curved, was slightly aquiline; the enamel of
+her teeth glistened when the light fell upon them; and her vermeil mouth
+voluptuously sensual, seemed to call for sweet kisses, and the gay smiles
+and delectations of dainty and delicious pleasure.  It is impossible to
+behold or to conceive a carriage of the head freer, more noble, or more
+elegant than hers; thanks to the great distance which separated the neck
+and the ear from their attachment to her outspread and dimpled shoulders.
+We have already said that Adrienne was red-haired; but it was the redness
+of many of the admirable portraits of women by Titian and Leonardo da
+Vinci,--that is to say, molten gold presents not reflections more
+delightfully agreeable or more glittering, than the naturally undulating
+mass of her very long hair, as soft and fine as silk, so long, that, when
+let loose, it reached the floor; in it, she could wholly envelop herself,
+like another Venus arising from the sea.  At the present moment,
+Adrienne's tresses were ravishing to behold; Georgette, her arms bare,
+stood behind her mistress, and had carefully collected into one of her
+small white hands, those splendid threads whose naturally ardent
+brightness was doubled in the sunshine.  When the pretty lady's-maid
+pulled a comb of ivory into the midst of the undulating and golden waves
+of that enormously magnificent skein of silk, one might have said that a
+thousand sparks of fire darted forth and coruscated away from it in all
+directions.  The sunshine, too, reflected not less golden and fiery rays
+from numerous clusters of spiral ringlets, which, divided upon Adrienne's
+forehead, fell over her cheeks, and in their elastic flexibility caressed
+the risings of her snowy bosom, to whose charming undulations they
+adapted and applied themselves.  Whilst Georgette, standing, combed the
+beautiful locks of her mistress, Hebe, with one knee upon the floor, and
+having upon the other the sweet little foot of Miss Cardoville, busied
+herself in fitting it with a remarkably small shoe of black satin, and
+crossed its slender ties over a silk stocking of a pale yet rosy flesh-
+color, which imprisoned the smallest and finest ankle in the world.
+Florine, a little farther back, presented to her mistress, in a jeweled
+box, a perfumed paste, with which Adrienne slightly rubbed her dazzling
+hands and outspread fingers, which seemed tinted with carmine to their
+extremities.  Let us not forget Frisky, who, couched in the lap of her
+mistress, opened her great eyes with all her might, and seemed to observe
+the different operations of Adrienne's toilette with grave and reflective
+attention.  A silver bell being sounded from without, Florine, at a sign
+from her mistress, went out and presently returned, bearing a letter upon
+a small silver-gilt salve.  Adrienne, while her women continued fitting
+on her shoes, dressing her hair, and arranging her in her habiliments,
+took the letter, which was written by the steward of the estate of
+Cardoville, and read aloud as follows:
+
+"HONORED MADAME,
+
+"Knowing your goodness of heart and generosity, I venture to address you
+with respectful confidence.  During twenty years I served the late Count
+and Duke of Cardoville, your noble father, I believe I may truly say,
+with probity and zeal.  The castle is now sold; so that I and my wife, in
+our old age, behold ourselves about to be dismissed, and left destitute
+of all resources: which, alas! is very hard at our time of life."
+
+"Poor creature!" said Adrienne, interrupting herself in reading: "my
+father, certainly, always prided himself upon their devotion to him, and
+their probity."  She continued:
+
+"There does, indeed, remain to us a means of retaining our place here;
+but it would constrain us to be guilty of baseness; and, be the
+consequences to us what they may, neither I nor my wife wish to purchase
+our bread at such a price."
+
+"Good, very good," said Adrienne, "always the same--dignity even in
+poverty--it is the sweet perfume of a flower, not the less sweet because
+it has bloomed in a meadow."
+
+"In order to explain to you, honored madame, the unworthy task exacted
+from us, it is necessary to inform you, in the first place, that M. Rodin
+came here from Paris two days ago."
+
+"Ah! M. Rodin!" said Mademoiselle de Cardoville, interrupting herself
+anew; "the secretary of Abbe d'Aigrigny!  I am not at all surprised at
+him being engaged in a perfidious or black intrigue.  But let us see."
+
+"M. Rodin came from Paris to announce to us that the estate was sold, and
+that he was sure of being able to obtain our continuance in our place, if
+we would assist him in imposing a priest not of good character upon the
+new proprietress as her future confessor; and if, the better to attain
+this end, we would consent to calumniate another priest, a deserving and
+excellent man, much loved and much respected in the country.  Even that
+is not all.  I was required to write twice or thrice a week to M. Rodin,
+and to relate to him everything that should occur in the house.  I ought
+to acknowledge, honored madame, that these infamous proposals were as
+much as possible disguised and dissimulated under sufficiently specious
+pretexts; but, notwithstanding the aspect which with more or less skill
+it was attempted to give to the affair, it was precisely and
+substantially what I have now had the honor of stating to you."
+
+"Corruption, calumny, and false and treacherous impeachment!" said
+Adrienne, with disgust: "I cannot think of such wretches without
+involuntarily feeling my mind shocked by dismal ideas of black, venomous,
+and vile reptiles, of aspects most hideous indeed.  How much more do I
+love to dwell upon the consoling thought of honest Dupont and his wife!"
+Adrienne proceeded:
+
+"Believe me, we hesitated not an instant.  We quit Cardoville, which has
+been our home for the last twenty years;--but we shall quit it like
+honest people, and with the consciousness of our integrity.  And now,
+honored madame, if, in the brilliant circle in which you move--you, who
+are so benevolent and amiable--could find a place for us by your
+recommendation, then, with endless gratitude to you, we shall escape from
+a position of most cruel embarrassment."
+
+"Surely, surely," said Adrienne, "they shall not in vain appeal to me.
+To wrest excellent persons from the grip of M. Rodin, is not only a duty
+but a pleasure: for it is at once a righteous and a dangerous enterprise;
+and dearly do I love to brave powerful oppressors!"  Adrienne again went
+on reading:
+
+"After having thus spoken to you of ourselves, honored madame, permit us
+to implore your protection for other unfortunates; for it would be wicked
+to think only of one's self.  Three days ago, two shipwrecks took place
+upon our ironbound coast.  A few passengers only were saved, and were
+conducted hither, where I and my wife gave them all necessary attentions.
+All these passengers have departed for Paris, except one, who still
+remains, his wounds having hitherto prevented him from leaving the house,
+and, indeed, they will constrain him to remain for some days to come.  He
+is a young East Indian prince, of about twenty years of age, and he
+appears to be as amiable and good as he is handsome, which is not a
+little to say, though he has a tawny skin, like the rest of his
+countrymen, as I understand."
+
+"An Indian prince! twenty years of age! young, amiable, and handsome!"
+exclaimed Adrienne, gayly; "this is quite delightful, and not at all of
+an ordinary or vulgar nature!  Oh! this Indian prince has already
+awakened all my sympathies!  But what can I do with this Adonis from the
+banks of the Ganges, who has come to wreck himself upon the Picardy
+coast?"
+
+Adrienne's three women looked at her with much astonishment, though they
+were accustomed to the singular eccentricities of her character.
+
+Georgette and Hebe even indulged in discreet and restrained smiles.
+Florine, the tall and beautiful pale brown girl, also smiled like her
+pretty companions; but it was after a short pause of seeming reflection,
+as if she had previously been entirely engrossed in listening to and
+recollecting the minutest words of her mistress, who, though powerfully
+interested by the situation of the "Adonis from Ganges banks," as she had
+called him, continued to read Dupont's letter:
+
+"One of the countrymen of the Indian prince, who has also remained to
+attend upon him, has given me to understand that the youthful prince has
+lost in the shipwreck all he possessed, and knows not how to get to
+Paris, where his speedy presence is required by some affairs of the very
+greatest importance.  It is not from the prince himself that I have
+obtained this information: no; he appears to be too dignified and proud
+to proclaim of his fate: but his countryman, more communicative,
+confidentially told me what I have stated, adding, that his young
+compatriot has already been subjected to great calamities, and that his
+father, who was the sovereign of an Indian kingdom, has been killed by
+the English, who have also dispossessed his son of his crown."
+
+"This is very singular," said Adrienne, thoughtfully.  "These
+circumstances recall to my mind that my father often mentioned that one
+of our relations was espoused in India by a native monarch; and that
+General Simon: (whom they have created a marshal) had entered into his
+service."  Then interrupting herself to indulge in a smile, she added,
+"Gracious! this affair will be quite odd and fantastical!  Such things
+happen to nobody but me; and then people say that I am the uncommon
+creature!  But it seems to me that it is not I, but Providence, which, in
+truth, sometimes shows itself very eccentric!  But let us see if worthy
+Dupont gives the name of this handsome prince?"
+
+"We trust, honored madame, that you will pardon our boldness: but we
+should have thought ourselves very selfish, if, while stating to you our
+own griefs, we had not also informed you that there is with us a brave
+and estimable prince involved in so much distress.  In fine, lady, trust
+to me; I am old; and I have had much experience of men; and it was only
+necessary to see the nobleness of expression and the sweetness of
+countenance of this young Indian, to enable me to judge that he is worthy
+of the interest which I have taken the liberty to request in his behalf.
+It would be sufficient to transmit to him a small sum of money for the
+purchase of some European clothing; for he has lost all his Indian
+vestments in the shipwreck."
+
+"Good heavens!  European clothing!" exclaimed Adrienne, gayly.  "Poor
+young prince!  Heaven preserve him from that; and me also!  Chance has
+sent hither from the heart of India, a mortal so far favored as never to
+have worn the abominable European costume--those hideous habits, and
+frightful hats, which render the men so ridiculous, so ugly, that in
+truth there is not a single good quality to be discovered in them, nor
+one spark of what can either captivate or attract!  There comes to me at
+last a handsome young prince from the East, where the men are clothed in
+silk and cashmere.  Most assuredly I'll not miss this rare and unique
+opportunity of exposing myself to a very serious and formidable
+temptation!  No, no! not a European dress for me, though poor Dupont
+requests it!  But the name--the name of this dear prince!  Once more,
+what a singular event is this!  If it should turn out to be that cousin
+from beyond the Ganges!  During my childhood, I have heard so much in
+praise of his royal father!  Oh! I shall be quite ravished to give his
+son the kind reception which he merits!"  And then she read on:
+
+"If, besides this small sum, honored madame, you are so kind as to give
+him, and also his companion, the means of reaching Paris, you will confer
+a very great service upon this poor young prince, who is at present so
+unfortunate.
+
+"To conclude, I know enough of your delicacy to be aware that it would
+perhaps be agreeable to you to afford this succor to the prince without
+being known as his benefactress; in which case, I beg that you will be
+pleased to command me; and you may rely upon my discretion.  If, on the
+contrary, you wish to address it directly to himself, his name is, as it
+has been written for me by his countrymen, Prince Djalma, son of Radja-
+sing, King of Mundi."
+
+"Djalma!" said Adrienne, quickly, and appearing to call up her
+recollections, Radja-sing!  Yes--that is it!  These are the very names
+that my father so often repeated, while telling me that there was nothing
+more chivalric or heroic in the world than the old king, our relation by
+marriage; and the son has not derogated, it would seem, from that
+character.  Yes, Djalma, Radja-sing--once more, that is it--such names
+are not so common," she added, smiling, "that one should either forget or
+confound them with others.  This Djalma is my cousin!  Brave and good--
+young and charming! above all, he has never worn the horrid European
+dress!  And destitute of every resource!  This is quite ravishing!  It is
+too much happiness at once!  Quick, quick let us improvise a pretty fairy
+tale, of which the handsome and beloved prince shall be the hero!  The
+poor bird of the golden and azure plumage has wandered into our dismal
+climate; but he will find here, at least, something to remind him of his
+native region of sunshine and perfumes!"  Then, addressing one of her
+women, she said: "Georgette, take paper and write, my child!"  The young
+girl went to the gilt, illuminated table, which contained materials for
+writing; and, having seated herself, she said to her mistress: "I await
+orders."
+
+Adrienne de Cardoville, whose charming countenance was radiant with the
+gayety of happiness and joy, proceeded to dictate the following letter to
+a meritorious old painter, who had long since taught her the arts of
+drawing and designing; in which arts she excelled, as indeed she did in
+all others:
+
+"MY DEAR TITIAN, MY GOOD VERONESE, MY WORTHY RAPHAEL.
+
+--You can render me a very great service,--and you will do it, I am sure,
+with that perfect and obliging complaisance by which you are ever
+distinguished.
+
+"It is to go immediately and apply yourself to the skillful hand who
+designed my last costumes of the fifteenth century.  But the present
+affair is to procure modern East Indian dresses for a young man--yes,
+sir--for a young man,--and according to what I imagine of him, I fancy
+that you can cause his measure to be taken from the Antinous, or rather,
+from the Indian Bacchus; yes--that will be more likely.
+
+"It is necessary that these vestments be at once of perfect propriety and
+correctness, magnificently rich, and of the greatest elegance.  You will
+choose the most beautiful stuffs possible; and endeavor, above all
+things, that they be, or resemble, tissues of Indian manufacture; and you
+will add to them, for turbans and sashes, six splendid long cashmere
+shawls, two of them white, two red, and two orange; as nothing suits
+brown complexions better than those colors.
+
+"This done (and I allow you at the utmost only two or three days), you
+will depart post in my carriage for Cardoville Manor House, which you
+know so well.  The steward, the excellent Dupont, one of your old
+friends, will there introduce you to a young Indian Prince, named Djalma;
+and you will tell that most potent grave, and reverend signior, of
+another quarter of the globe, that you have come on the part of an
+unknown friend, who, taking upon himself the duty of a brother, sends him
+what is necessary to preserve him from the odious fashions of Europe.
+You will add, that his friend expects him with so much impatience that he
+conjures him to come to Paris immediately.  If he objects that he is
+suffering, you will tell him that my carriage is an excellent bed-closet;
+and you will cause the bedding, etc., which it contains, to be fitted up,
+till he finds it quite commodious.  Remember to make very humble excuses
+for the unknown friend not sending to the prince either rich palanquins,
+or even, modestly, a single elephant; for alas! palanquins are only to be
+seen at the opera; and there are no elephants but those in the
+menagerie,--though this must make us seem strangely barbarous in his
+eyes.
+
+"As soon as you shall have decided on your departure, perform the journey
+as rapidly as possible, and bring here, into my house, in the Rue de
+Babylone (what predestination! that I should dwell in the street of
+BABYLON,--a name which must at least accord with the ear of an
+Oriental),--you will bring hither, I say, this dear prince, who is so
+happy as to have been born in a country of flowers, diamonds, and sun!
+
+"Above all, you will have the kindness, my old and worthy friend, not to
+be at all astonished at this new freak, and refrain from indulging in
+extravagant conjectures.  Seriously, the choice which I have made of you
+in this affair,--of you, whom I esteem and most sincerely honor,--is
+because it is sufficient to say to you that, at the bottom of all this,
+there is something more than a seeming act of folly."
+
+In uttering these last words, the tone of Adrienne was as serious and
+dignified as it had been previously comic and jocose.  But she quickly
+resumed, more gayly, dictating to Georgette.
+
+"Adieu, my old friend.  I am something like that commander of ancient
+days, whose heroic nose and conquering chin you have so often made me
+draw: I jest with the utmost freedom of spirit even in the moment of
+battle: yes, for within an hour I shall give battle, a pitched battle--to
+my dear pew-dwelling aunt.  Fortunately, audacity and courage never
+failed me, and I burn with impatience for the engagement with my austere
+princess.
+
+"A kiss, and a thousand heartfelt recollections to your excellent wife.
+If I speak of her here, who is so justly respected, you will please to
+understand, it is to make you quite at ease as to the consequences of
+this running away with, for my sake, a charming young prince,--for it is
+proper to finish well where I should have begun, by avowing to you that
+he is charming indeed!
+
+"Once more, adieu!"
+
+Then, addressing Georgette, said she, "Have you done writing, chit?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Oh, add this postscript."
+
+"P.S.--I send you draft on sight on my banker for all expenses.  Spare
+nothing.  You know I am quite a grand seigneur.  I must use this
+masculine expression, since your sex have exclusively appropriated to
+yourselves (tyrants as you are) a term, so significant as it is of noble
+generosity."
+
+"Now, Georgette," said Adrienne; "bring me an envelope, and the letter,
+that I may sign it."  Mademoiselle de Cardoville took the pen that
+Georgette presented to her, signed the letter, and enclosed in it an
+order upon her banker, which was expressed thus:
+
+"Please pay M. Norval, on demand without grace, the sum of money he may
+require for expenses incurred on my account.
+
+                                   "ADRIENNE DE CARDOVILLE."
+
+
+During all this scene, while Georgette wrote, Florine and Hebe had
+continued to busy themselves with the duties of their mistress's
+toilette, who had put off her morning gown, and was now in full dress, in
+order to wait upon the princess, her aunt.  From the sustained and
+immovably fixed attention with which Florine had listened to Adrienne's
+dictating to Georgette her letter to M. Norval, it might easily have been
+seen that, as was her habit indeed, she endeavored to retain in her
+memory even the slightest words of her mistress.
+
+"Now, chit," said Adrienne to Hebe, "send this letter immediately to M.
+Norval."
+
+The same silver bell was again rung from without.  Hebe moved towards the
+door of the dressing-room, to go and inquire what it was, and also to
+execute the order of her mistress as to the letter.  But Florine
+precipitated herself, so to speak, before her, and so as to prevent her
+leaving the apartment; and said to Adrienne:
+
+"Will it please my lady for me to send this letter?  I have occasion to
+go to the mansion."
+
+"Go, Florine, then," said Adrienne, "seeing that you wish it.  Georgette,
+seal the letter."
+
+At the end of a second or two, during which Georgette had sealed the
+letter, Hebe returned.
+
+"Madame," said she, re-entering, "the working-man who brought back Frisky
+yesterday, entreats you to admit him for an instant.  He is very pale,
+and he appears quite sad."
+
+"Would that he may already have need of me!  I should be too happy!"
+said Adrienne gayly.  "Show the excellent young man into the little
+saloon.  And, Florine, despatch this letter immediately."
+
+Florine went out.  Miss de Cardoville, followed by Frisky, entered the
+little reception-room, where Agricola awaited her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE INTERVIEW.
+
+When Adrienne de Cardoville entered the saloon where Agricola expected
+her, she was dressed with extremely elegant simplicity.  A robe of deep
+blue, perfectly fitted to her shape, embroidered in front with
+interlacings of black silk, according to the then fashion, outlined her
+nymph-like figure, and her rounded bosom.  A French cambric collar,
+fastened by a large Scotch pebble, set as a brooch, served her for a
+necklace.  Her magnificent golden hair formed a framework for her fair
+countenance, with an incredible profusion of long and light spiral
+tresses, which reached nearly to her waist.
+
+Agricola, in order to save explanations with his father, and to make him
+believe that he had indeed gone to the workshop of M. Hardy, had been
+obliged to array himself in his working dress; he had put on a new blouse
+though, and the collar of his shirt, of stout linen, very white, fell
+over upon a black cravat, negligently tied; his gray trousers allowed his
+well polished boots to be seen; and he held between his muscular hands a
+cap of fine woolen cloth, quite new.  To sum up, his blue blouse,
+embroidered with red, showing off the nervous chest of the young
+blacksmith, and indicating his robust shoulders, falling down in graceful
+folds, put not the least constraint upon his free and easy gait, and
+became him much better than either frock-coat or dress-coat would have
+done.  While awaiting Miss de Cardoville, Agricola mechanically examined
+a magnificent silver vase, admirably graven.  A small tablet, of the same
+metal, fitted into a cavity of its antique stand, bore the words--"Chased
+by JEAN MARIE, working chaser, 1831."
+
+Adrienne had stepped so lightly upon the carpet of her saloon, only
+separated from another apartment by the doors, that Agricola had not
+perceived the young lady's entrance.  He started, and turned quickly
+round, upon hearing a silver and brilliant voice say to him--
+
+"That is a beautiful vase, is it not, sir?"
+
+"Very beautiful, madame," answered Agricola greatly embarrassed.
+
+"You may see from it that I like what is equitable." added Miss de
+Cardoville, pointing with her finger to the little silver tablet;--"an
+artist puts his name upon his painting; an author publishes his on the
+title-page of his book; and I contend that an artisan ought also to have
+his name connected with his workmanship."
+
+"Oh, madame, so this name?"
+
+"Is that of the poor chaser who executed this masterpiece, at the order
+of a rich goldsmith.  When the latter sold me the vase, he was amazed at
+my eccentricity, he would have almost said at my injustice, when, after
+having made him tell me the name of the author of this production, I
+ordered his name to be inscribed upon it, instead of that of the
+goldsmith, which had already been affixed to the stand.  In the absence
+of the rich profits, let the artisan enjoy the fame of his skill.  Is it
+not just, sir?"
+
+It would have been impossible for Adrienne to commence the conversation
+more graciously: so that the blacksmith, already beginning to feel a
+little more at ease, answered:
+
+"Being a mechanic myself, madame, I cannot but be doubly affected by such
+a proof of your sense of equity and justice."
+
+"Since you are a mechanic, sir," resumed Adrienne, "I cannot but
+felicitate myself on having so suitable a hearer.  But please to be
+seated."
+
+With a gesture full of affability, she pointed to an armchair of purple
+silk embroidered with gold, sitting down herself upon a tete-d-tete of
+the same materials.
+
+Seeing Agricola's hesitation, who again cast down his eyes with
+embarrassment, Adrienne, to encourage him, showed him Frisky, and said to
+him gayly: "This poor little animal, to which I am very much attached,
+will always afford me a lively remembrance of your obliging complaisance,
+sir.  And this visit seems to me to be of happy augury; I know not what
+good presentiment whispers to me, that perhaps I shall have the pleasure
+of being useful to you in some affair."
+
+"Madame," said Agricola, resolutely, "my name is Baudoin: a blacksmith in
+the employment of M. Hardy, at Pressy, near the city.  Yesterday you
+offered me your purse and I refused it: to-day, I have come to request of
+you perhaps ten or twenty times the sum that you had generously proposed.
+I have said thus much all at once, madame, because it causes me the
+greatest effort.  The words blistered my lips, but now I shall be more at
+ease."
+
+"I appreciate the delicacy of your scruples, sir," said Adrienne; "but if
+you knew me, you would address me without fear.  How much do you
+require?"
+
+"I do not know, madame," answered Agricola.
+
+"I beg your pardon.  You don't know what sum?"
+
+"No madame; and I come to you to request, not only the sum necessary to
+me, but also information as to what that sum is."
+
+"Let us see, sir," said Adrienne, smiling, "explain this to me.  In spite
+of my good will, you feel that I cannot divine, all at once, what it is
+that is required."
+
+"Madame, in two words, I can state the truth.  I have a food old mother,
+who in her youth, broke her health by excessive labor, to enable her to
+bring me up; and not only me, but a poor abandoned child whom she had
+picked up.  It is my turn now to maintain her; and that I have the
+happiness of doing.  But in order to do so, I have only my labor.  If I
+am dragged from my employment, my mother will be without support."
+
+"Your mother cannot want for anything now, sir, since I interest myself
+for her."
+
+"You will interest yourself for her, madame?"  said Agricola.
+
+"Certainly," replied Adrienne.
+
+"But you don't know her," exclaimed the blacksmith.
+
+"Now I do; yes."
+
+"Oh, madame!" said Agricola, with emotion, after a moment's silence.  "I
+understand you.  But indeed you have a noble heart.  Mother Bunch was
+right."
+
+"Mother Bunch?" said Adrienne, looking at Agricola with a very surprised
+air; for what he said to her was an enigma.
+
+The blacksmith, who blushed not for his friends, replied frankly.
+
+"Madame, permit me to explain, to you.  Mother Bunch is a poor and very
+industrious young workwoman, with whom I have been brought up.  She is
+deformed, which is the reason why she is called Mother Bunch.  But
+though, on the one hand, she is sunk, as low as you are highly elevated
+on the other, yet as regards the heart--as to delicacy--oh, lady, I am
+certain that your heart is of equal worth with hers!  That was at once
+her own thought, after I had related to her in what manner, yesterday,
+you had presented me with that beautiful flower."
+
+"I can assure you, sir," said Adrienne, sincerely touched, "that this
+comparison flatters and honors me more than anything else that you could
+say to me,--a heart that remains good and delicate, in spite of cruel
+misfortunes, is so rare a treasure; while it is very easy to be good,
+when we have youth and beauty, and to be delicate and generous, when we
+are rich.  I accept, then, your comparison; but on condition that you
+will quickly put me in a situation to deserve it.  Pray go on,
+therefore."
+
+In spite of the gracious cordiality of Miss de Cardoville, there was
+always observable in her so much of that natural dignity which arises
+from independence of character, so much elevation of soul and nobleness
+of sentiment that Agricola, forgetting the ideal physical beauty of his
+protectress, rather experienced for her the emotions of an affectionate
+and kindly, though profound respect, which offered a singular and
+striking contrast with the youth and gayety of the lovely being who
+inspired him with this sentiment.
+
+"If my mother alone, madame, were exposed to the rigor which I dread.  I
+should not be so greatly disquieted with the fear of a compulsory
+suspension of my employment.  Among poor people, the poor help one
+another; and my mother is worshipped by all the inmates of our house, our
+excellent neighbors, who would willingly succor her.  But, they
+themselves are far from being well off; and as they would incur
+privations by assisting her, their little benefit would still be more
+painful to my mother than the endurance even of misery by herself.  And
+besides, it is not only for my mother that my exertions are required, but
+for my father, whom we have not seen for eighteen years, and who has just
+arrived from Siberia, where he remained during all that time, from
+zealous devotion to his former general, now Marshal Simon."
+
+"Marshal Simon!" said Adrienne, quickly, with an expression of much
+surprise.
+
+"Do you know the marshal, madame?"
+
+"I do not personally know him, but he married a lady of our family."
+
+"What joy!" exclaimed the blacksmith, "then the two young ladies, his
+daughters, whom my father has brought from Russia, are your relations!"
+
+"Has Marshal Simon two daughters?" asked Adrienne, more and more
+astonished and interested.
+
+"Yes, madame, two little angels of fifteen or sixteen, and so pretty, so
+sweet; they are twins so very much alike, as to be mistaken for one
+another.  Their mother died in exile; and the little she possessed having
+been confiscated, they have come hither with my father, from the depths
+of Siberia, travelling very wretchedly; but he tried to make them forget
+so many privations by the fervency of his devotion and his tenderness.
+My excellent father! you will not believe, madame, that, with the courage
+of a lion, he has all the love and tenderness of a mother."
+
+"And where are the dear children, sir?" asked Adrienne.
+
+"At our home, madame.  It is that which renders my position so very hard;
+that which has given me courage to come to you; it is not but that my
+labor would be sufficient for our little household, even thus augmented;
+but that I am about to be arrested."
+
+"About to be arrested?  For what?"
+
+"Pray, madame, have the goodness to read this letter, which has been sent
+by some one to Mother Bunch."
+
+Agricola gave to Miss de Cardoville the anonymous letter which had been
+received by the workwoman.
+
+After having read the letter, Adrienne said to the blacksmith, with
+surprise, "It appears, sir, you are a poet!"
+
+"I have neither the ambition nor the pretension to be one, madame.  Only,
+when I return to my mother after a day's toil, and often, even while
+forging my iron, in order to divert and relax my attention, I amuse
+myself with rhymes, sometimes composing an ode, sometimes a song."
+
+"And your song of the Freed Workman, which is mentioned in this letter,
+is, therefore, very disaffected--very dangerous?"
+
+"Oh, no, madame; quite the contrary.  For myself, I have the good fortune
+to be employed in the factory of M. Hardy, who renders the condition of
+his workpeople as happy as that of their less fortunate comrades is the
+reverse; and I had limited myself to attempt, in favor of the great mass
+of the working classes, an equitable, sincere, warm, and earnest claim--
+nothing more.  But you are aware, perhaps, Madame, that in times of
+conspiracy, and commotion, people are often incriminated and imprisoned
+on very slight grounds.  Should such a misfortune befall me, what will
+become of my mother, my father, and the two orphans whom we are bound to
+regard as part of our family until the return of their father, Marshal
+Simon?  It is on this account, madame, that, if I remain, I run the risk
+of being arrested.  I have come to you to request you to provide surety
+for me; so that I should not be compelled to exchange the workshop for
+the prison, in which case I can answer for it that the fruits of my labor
+will suffice for all."
+
+"Thank the stars!"  said Adrienne, gayly, "this affair will arrange
+itself quite easily.  Henceforth, Mr. Poet, you shall draw your
+inspirations in the midst of good fortune instead of adversity.  Sad
+muse!  But first of all, bonds shall be given for you."
+
+"Oh, madame, you have saved us!"
+
+"To continue," said Adrienne, "the physician of our family is intimately
+connected with a very important minister (understand that, as you like,"
+said she, smiling, "you will not deceive yourself much).  The doctor
+exercises very great influence over this great statesman; for he has
+always had the happiness of recommending to him, on account of his
+health; the sweets and repose of private life, to the very eve of the day
+on which his portfolio was taken from him.  Keep yourself, then,
+perfectly at ease.  If the surety be insufficient, we shall be able to
+devise some other means.
+
+"Madame," said Agricola, with great emotion, "I am indebted to you for
+the repose, perhaps for the life of my mother.  Believe that I shall ever
+be grateful."
+
+"That is all quite simple.  Now for another thing.  It is proper that
+those who have too much should have the right of coming to the aid of
+those who have too little.  Marshal Simon's daughters are members of my
+family, and they will reside here with me, which will be more suitable.
+You will apprise your worthy mother of this; and in the evening, besides
+going to thank her for the hospitality which she has shown to my young
+relations, I shall fetch them home."
+
+At this moment Georgette, throwing open the door which separated the room
+from an adjacent apartment, hurriedly entered, with an affrighted look,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Oh, madame, something extraordinary is going on in the street."
+
+"How so?  Explain yourself," said Adrienne.
+
+"I went to conduct my dressmaker to the little garden-gate," said
+Georgette; "where I saw some ill-looking men, attentively examining the
+walls and windows of the little out-building belonging to the pavilion,
+as if they wished to spy out some one."
+
+"Madame," said Agricola, with chagrin, "I have not been deceived.  They
+are after me."
+
+"What say you?"
+
+"I thought I was followed, from the moment when I left the Rue St. Merry:
+and now it is beyond doubt.  They must have seen me enter your house; and
+are on the watch to arrest me.  Well, now that your interest has been
+acquired for my mother,--now that I have no farther uneasiness for
+Marshal Simon's daughters,--rather than hazard your exposure to anything
+the least unpleasant, I run to deliver myself up."
+
+"Beware of that sir," said Adrienne, quickly.  "Liberty is too precious
+to be voluntarily sacrificed.  Besides, Georgette may have been mistaken.
+But in any case, I entreat you not to surrender yourself.  Take my
+advice, and escape being arrested.  That, I think, will greatly
+facilitate my measures; for I am of opinion that justice evinces a great
+desire to keep possession of those upon whom she has once pounced."
+
+"Madame," said Hebe, now also entering with a terrified look, "a man
+knocked at the little door, and inquired if a young man in a blue blouse
+has not entered here.  He added, that the person whom he seeks is named
+Agricola Baudoin, and that he has something to tell him of great
+importance."
+
+"That's my name," said Agricola; "but the important information is a
+trick to draw me out."
+
+"Evidently," said Adrienne; "and therefore we must play off trick for
+trick.  What did you answer, child?" added she, addressing herself to
+Hebe.
+
+"I answered, that I didn't know what he was talking about."
+
+"Quite right," said Adrienne: "and the man who put the question?"
+
+"He went away, madame."
+
+"Without doubt to come back again, soon," said Agricola.
+
+"That is very probable," said Adrienne, "and therefore, sir, it is
+necessary for you to remain here some hours with resignation.  I am
+unfortunately obliged to go immediately to the Princess Saint-Dizier, my
+aunt, for an important interview, which can no longer be delayed, and is
+rendered more pressing still by what you have told me concerning the
+daughters of Marshal Simon.  Remain here, then, sir; since if you go out,
+you will certainly be arrested."
+
+"Madame, pardon my refusal; but I must say once more that I ought not to
+accept this generous offer."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They have tried to draw me out, in order to avoid penetrating with the
+power of the law into your dwelling but if I go not out, they will come
+in; and never will I expose you to anything so disagreeable.  Now that I
+am no longer uneasy about my mother, what signifies prison?"
+
+"And the grief that your mother will feel, her uneasiness, and her
+fears,--nothing?  Think of your father; and that poor work-woman who
+loves you as a brother, and whom I value as a sister;--say, sir, do you
+forget them also?  Believe me, it is better to spare those torments to
+your family.  Remain here; and before the evening I am certain, either by
+giving surety, or some other means, of delivering you from these
+annoyances."
+
+"But, madame, supposing that I do accept your generous offer, they will
+come and find me here."
+
+"Not at all.  There is in this pavilion, which was formerly the abode of
+a nobleman's left-handed wife,--you see, sir," said Adrienne, smiling,
+"that live in a very profane place--there is here a secret place of
+concealment, so wonderfully well-contrived, that it can defy all
+searches.  Georgette will conduct you to it.  You will be very well
+accommodated.  You will even be able to write some verses for me, if the
+place inspire you."
+
+"Oh, madame! how great is your goodness! how have I merited it?"
+
+"Oh, sir, I will tell you.  Admitting that your character and your
+position do not entitle you to any interest;--admitting that I may not
+owe a sacred debt to your father for the touching regards and cares he
+has bestowed upon the daughters of Marshal Simon, my relations--do you
+forget Frisky, sir?" asked Adrienne, laughing, -"Frisky, there, whom you
+have restored to my fondles?  Seriously, if I laugh," continued this
+singular and extravagant creature, "it is because I know that you are
+entirely out of danger, and that I feel an increase of happiness.
+Therefore, sir, write for me quickly your address, and your mother's, in
+this pocket-book; follow Georgette; and spin me some pretty verses, if
+you do not bore yourself too much in that prison to which you fly."
+
+While Georgette conducted the blacksmith to the hiding-place, Hebe
+brought her mistress a small gray beaver hat with a gray feather; for
+Adrienne had to cross the park to reach the house occupied by the
+Princess Saint-Dizier.
+
+A quarter of an hour after this scene, Florine entered mysteriously the
+apartment of Mrs. Grivois, the first woman of the princess.
+
+"Well?" demanded Mrs. Grivois of the young woman.
+
+"Here are the notes which I have taken this morning," said Florine,
+putting a paper into the duenna's hand.  "Happily, I have a good memory."
+
+"At what time exactly did she return home this morning?"  asked the
+duenna, quickly.
+
+"Who, madame?"
+
+"Miss Adrienne."
+
+"She did not go out, madame.  We put her in the bath at nine o'clock."
+
+"But before nine o'clock she came home, after having passed the night out
+of her house.  Eight o'clock was the time at which she returned,
+however."
+
+Florine looked at Mrs. Grivois with profound astonishment, and said--
+
+"I do not understand you, madame."
+
+"What's that?  Madame did not come home this morning at eight o'clock?
+Dare you lie?"
+
+"I was ill yesterday, and did not come down till nine this morning, in
+order to assist Georgette and Hebe help our young lady from the bath.  I
+know nothing of what passed previously, I swear to you, madame."
+
+"That alters the case.  You must ferret out what I allude to from your
+companions.  They don't distrust you, and will tell you all."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"What has your mistress done this morning since you saw her?"
+
+"Madame dictated a letter to Georgette for M. Norval, I requested
+permission to send it off, as a pretext for going out, and for writing
+down all I recollected."
+
+"Very well.  And this letter?"
+
+"Jerome had to go out, and I gave it him to put in the post-office."
+
+"Idiot!" exclaimed Mrs. Grivois: "couldn't you bring it to me?"
+
+"But, as madame dictated it aloud to Georgette, as is her custom, I knew
+the contents of the letter; and I have written it in my notes."
+
+"That's not the same thing.  It is likely there was need to delay sending
+off this letter; the princess will be very much displeased."
+
+"I thought I did right, madame."
+
+"I know that it is not good will that fails you.  For these six months I
+have been satisfied with you.  But this time you have committed a very
+great mistake."
+
+"Be indulgent, madame! what I do is sufficiently painful!"  The girl
+stifled a sigh.
+
+Mrs. Grivois looked fixedly at her, and said in a sardonic tone:
+
+"Very well, my dear, do not continue it.  If you have scruples, you are
+free.  Go your way."
+
+"You well know that I am not free, madame," said Florine, reddening; and
+with tears in her eyes she added:  "I am dependent upon M. Rodin, who
+placed me here."
+
+"Wherefore these regrets, then?"
+
+"In spite of one's self, one feels remorse.  Madame is so good, and so
+confiding."
+
+"She is all perfection, certainly!  But you are not here to sing her
+praises.  What occurred afterwards?"
+
+"The working-man who yesterday found and brought back Frisky, came early
+this morning and requested permission to speak with my young lady."
+
+"And is this working-man still in her house?"
+
+"I don't know.  He came in when I was going out with the letter."
+
+"You must contrive to learn what it was this workingman came about."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Has your mistress seemed preoccupied, uneasy, or afraid of the interview
+which she is to have to-day with the princess?  She conceals so little of
+what she thinks, that you ought to know."
+
+"She has been as gay as usual.  She has even jested about the interview!"
+
+"Oh! jested, has she?" said the tire-woman, muttering between her teeth,
+without Florine being able to hear her:  "`They laugh most who laugh
+last.' In spite of her audacious and diabolical character, she would
+tremble, and would pray for mercy, if she knew what awaits her this day."
+Then addressing Florine, she continued -
+
+"Return, and keep yourself, I advise you, from those fine scruples, which
+will be quite enough to do you a bad turn.  Do not forget!"
+
+"I cannot forget that I belong not to myself, madame."
+
+"Anyway, let it be so.  Farewell."
+
+Florine quitted the mansion and crossed the park to regain the summer-
+house, while Mrs Grivois went immediately to the Princess Saint-Dizier."
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V2, by Eugene
+Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+XXXVI.     A Female Jesuit
+XXXVII.    The Plot
+XXXVIII.   Adrienne's  Enemies
+XXXIX.     The Skirmish
+XL.        The Revolt
+XLI.       Treachery
+XLII.      The Snare
+XLIII.     A False Friend
+XLIV.      The Minister's Cabinet
+XLV.       The Visit
+XLVI.      Presentiments
+XLVII.     The Letter
+XLVIII.    The Confessional
+XLIX.      My Lord and Spoil-sport
+L.         Appearances
+LI.        The Convent
+LII.       The Influence of a Confessor
+LIII.      The Examination
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+A FEMALE JESUIT.
+
+During the preceding scenes which occurred in the Pompadour rotunda,
+occupied by Miss de Cardoville, other events took place in the residence
+of the Princess Saint-Dizier.  The elegance and sumptuousness of the
+former dwelling presented a strong contrast to the gloomy interior of the
+latter, the first floor of which was inhabited by the princess, for the
+plan of the ground floor rendered it only fit for giving parties; and,
+for a long time past, Madame de Saint-Dizier had renounced all worldly
+splendors.  The gravity of her domestics, all aged and dressed in black;
+the profound silence which reigned in her abode, where everything was
+spoken, if it could be called speaking, in an undertone; and the almost
+monastic regularity and order of this immense mansion, communicated to
+everything around the princess a sad and chilling character.  A man of
+the world, who joined great courage to rare independence of spirit,
+speaking of the princess (to whom Adrienne de Cardoville went, according
+to her expression, to fight a pitched battle), said of her as follows:
+"In order to avoid having Madame de Saint-Dizier for an enemy, I, who am
+neither bashful nor cowardly, have, for the first time in my life, been
+both a noodle and a coward."  This man spoke sincerely.  But Madame de
+Saint-Dizier had not all at once arrived at this high degree of
+importance.
+
+Some words are necessary for the purpose of exhibiting distinctly some
+phases in the life of this dangerous and implacable woman who, by her
+affiliation with the Order of Jesuits, had acquired an occult and
+formidable power.  For there is something even more menacing than a
+Jesuit: it is a Jesuits; and, when one has seen certain circles, it
+becomes evident that there exist, unhappily, many of those affiliated,
+who, more or less, uniformly dress (for the lay members of the Order call
+themselves "Jesuits of the short robe").
+
+Madame de Saint-Dizier, once very beautiful, had been, during the last
+years of the Empire, and the early years of the Restoration, one of the
+most fashionable women of Paris, of a stirring, active, adventurous, and
+commanding spirit, of cold heart, but lively imagination.  She was
+greatly given to amorous adventures, not from tenderness of heart, but
+from a passion for intrigue, which she loved as men love play--for the
+sake of the emotions it excites.  Unhappily, such had always been the
+blindness or the carelessness of her husband, the Prince of Saint-Dizier
+(eldest brother of the Count of Rennepont and Duke of Cardoville, father
+of Adrienne), that during his life he had never said one word that could
+make it be thought that he suspected the actions of his wife.  Attaching
+herself to Napoleon, to dig a mine under the feet of the Colossus, that
+design at least afforded emotions sufficient to gratify the humor of the
+most insatiable.  During some time, all went well.  The princess was
+beautiful and spirited, dexterous and false, perfidious and seductive.
+She was surrounded by fanatical adorers, upon whom she played off a kind
+of ferocious coquetry, to induce them to run their heads into grave
+conspiracies.  They hoped to resuscitate the Fonder party, and carried on
+a very active secret correspondence with some influential personages
+abroad, well known for their hatred against the emperor and France.
+Hence arose her first epistolary relations with the Marquis d'Aigrigny,
+then colonel in the Russian service and aide-de-camp to General Moreau.
+But one day all these petty intrigues were discovered.  Many knights of
+Madame de Saint-Dizier were sent to Vincennes; but the emperor, who might
+have punished her terribly, contented himself with exiling the princess
+to one of her estates near Dunkirk.
+
+Upon the Restoration, the persecutions which Madame de Saint-Dizier had
+suffered for the Good Cause were entered to her credit, and she acquired
+even then very considerable influence, in spite of the lightness of her
+behavior.  The Marquis d'Aigrigny, having entered the military service of
+France, remained there.  He was handsome, and of fashionable manners and
+address.  He had corresponded and conspired with the princess, without
+knowing her; and these circumstances necessarily led to a close
+connection between them.
+
+Excessive self-love, a taste for exciting pleasures, aspirations of
+hatred, pride, and lordliness, a species of evil sympathy, the perfidious
+attraction of which brings together perverse natures without mingling
+them, had made of the princess and the Marquis accomplices rather than
+lovers.  This connection, based upon selfish and bitter feelings, and
+upon the support which two characters of this dangerous temper could lend
+to each other against a world in which their spirit of intrigue, of
+gallantry, and of contempt had made them many enemies, this connection
+endured till the moment when, after his duel with General Simon, the
+Marquis entered a religious house, without any one understanding the
+cause of his unexpected and sudden resolution.
+
+The princess, having not yet heard the hour of her conversion strike,
+continued to whirl round the vortex of the world with a greedy, jealous,
+and hateful ardor, for she saw that the last years of her beauty were
+dying out.
+
+An estimate of the character of this woman may be formed from the
+following fact:
+
+Still very agreeable, she wished to close her worldly and volatile career
+with some brilliant and final triumph, as a great actress knows the
+proper time to withdraw from the stage so as to leave regrets behind.
+Desirous of offering up this final incense to her own vanity, the
+princess skillfully selected her victims.  She spied out in the world a
+young couple who idolized each other; and, by dint of cunning and
+address, she succeeded in taking away the lover from his mistress, a
+charming woman of eighteen, by whom he was adored.  This triumph being
+achieved, Madame Saint-Dizier retired from the fashionable world in the
+full blaze of her exploit.  After many long conversations with the Abbe-
+Marquis d'Aigrigny, who had become a renowned preacher, she departed
+suddenly from Paris, and spent two years upon her estate near Dunkirk, to
+which she took only one of her female attendants, viz., Mrs. Grivois.
+
+When the princess afterwards returned to Paris, it was impossible to
+recognize the frivolous, intriguing, and dissipated woman she had
+formerly been.  The metamorphosis was as complete as it was extraordinary
+and even startling.  Saint-Dizier House, heretofore open to the banquets
+and festivals of every kind of pleasure, became gloomily silent and
+austere.  Instead of the world of elegance and fashion, the princess now
+received in her mansion only women of ostentatious piety, and men of
+consequence, who were remarkably exemplary by the extravagant rigor of
+their religious and monarchial principles.  Above all, she drew around
+her several noted members of the higher orders of the clergy.  She was
+appointed patroness of a body of religious females.  She had her own
+confessor, chaplin, almoner, and even spiritual director; but this last
+performed his functions in partibus.  The Marquis-Abbe d'Aigrigny
+continued in reality to be her spiritual guide; and it is almost
+unnecessary to say that for a long time past their mutual relations as to
+flirting had entirely ceased.
+
+This sudden and complete conversion of a gay and distinguished woman,
+especially as it was loudly trumpeted forth, struck the greater number of
+persons with wonder and respect.  Others, more discerning, only smiled.
+
+A single anecdote, from amongst a thousand, will suffice to show the
+alarming influence and power which the princess had acquired since her
+affiliation with the Jesuits.  This anecdote will also exhibit the deep,
+vindictive, and pitiless character of this woman, whom Adrienne de
+Cardoville had so imprudently made herself ready to brave.
+
+Amongst the persons who smiled more or less at the conversion of Madame
+de Saint-Dizier were the young and charming couple whom she had so
+cruelly disunited before she quitted forever the scenes of revelry in
+which she had lived.  The young couple became more impassioned and
+devoted to each other than ever; they were reconciled and married, after
+the passing storm which had hurled them asunder; and they indulged in no
+other vengeance against the author of their temporary infelicity than
+that of mildly jesting at the pious conversion of the woman who had done
+them so much injury.
+
+Some time after, a terrible fatality overtook the loving pair.  The
+husband, until then blindly unsuspicious, was suddenly inflamed by
+anonymous communications.  A dreadful rupture ensued, and the young wife
+perished.
+
+As for the husband, certain vague rumors, far from distinct, yet pregnant
+with secret meanings, perfidiously contrived, and a thousand times more
+detestable than formal accusations, which can, at least, be met and
+destroyed, were strewn about him with so much perseverance, with a skill
+so diabolical, and by means and ways so very various, that his best
+friends, by little and little, withdrew themselves from him, thus
+yielding to the slow, irresistible influence of that incessant whispering
+and buzzing, confused as indistinct, amounting to some such results as
+this--
+
+"Well! you know!" says one.
+
+"No!" replies another.
+
+"People say very vile things about him."
+
+"Do they? really!  What then?"
+
+"I don't know!  Bad reports!  Rumors grievously affecting his honor!"
+
+"The deuce!  That's very serious.  It accounts for the coldness with
+which he is now everywhere received!"
+
+"I shall avoid him in future!"
+
+"So will I," etc.
+
+Such is the world, that very often nothing more than groundless surmises
+are necessary to brand a man whose very, happiness may have incurred
+envy.  So it was with the gentleman of whom we speak.  The unfortunate
+man, seeing the void around him extending itself,--feeling (so to speak)
+the earth crumbling from beneath his feet, knew not where to find or
+grasp the impalpable enemy whose blows he felt; for not once had the idea
+occurred to him of suspecting the princess, whom he had not seen since
+his adventure with her.  Anxiously desiring to learn why he was so much
+shunned and despised, he at length sought an explanation from an old
+friend; but he received only a disdainfully evasive answer; at which,
+being exasperated, he demanded satisfaction.  His adversary replied--"If
+you can find two persons of our acquaintance, I will fight you!"  The
+unhappy man could not find one!
+
+Finally, forsaken by all, without having ever obtained an explanation of
+the reason for forsaking him--suffering keenly for the fate of the wife
+whom he had lost, he became mad with grief, rage, and despair, and killed
+himself.
+
+On the day of his death, Madame de Saint-Dizier remarked that it was fit
+and necessary that one who had lived so shamefully should come to an
+equally shameful end, and that he who had so long jested at all laws,
+human and divine, could not seemly otherwise terminate his wretched life
+than by perpetrating a last crime--suicide!  And the friends of Madame de
+Saint-Dizier hawked about and everywhere repeated these terrible words
+with a contrite air, as if beatified and convinced!  But this was not
+all.  Along with chastisements there were rewards.
+
+Observant people remarked that the favorites of the religious clan of
+Madame de Saint-Dizier rose to high distinction with singular rapidity.
+The virtuous young men, such as were religiously attentive to tiresome
+sermons, were married to rich orphans of the Sacred Heart Convents, who
+were held in reserve for the purpose; poor young girls, who, learning too
+late what it is to have a pious husband selected and imposed upon them by
+a set of devotees, often expiated by very bitter tears the deceitful
+favor of thus being admitted into a world of hypocrisy and falsehood, in
+which they found themselves strangers without support, crushed by it if
+they dared to complain of the marriages to which they had been condemned.
+
+In the parlor of Madame de Saint-Dizier were appointed prefects,
+colonels, treasurers, deputies, academicians, bishops and peers of the
+realm, from whom nothing more was required in return for the all-powerful
+support bestowed upon them, but to wear a pious gloss, sometimes publicly
+take the communion, swear furious war against everything impious or
+revolutionary,--and above all, correspond confidentially upon "different
+subjects of his choosing" with the Abbe d'Aigrigny,--an amusement,
+moreover, which was very agreeable; for the abbe was the most amiable man
+in the world, the most witty, and above all, the most obliging.  The
+following is an historical fact, which requires the bitter and vengeful
+irony of Moliere or Pascal to do it justice.
+
+During the last year of the Restoration, there was one of the mighty
+dignitaries of the court a firm and independent man, who did not make
+profession (as the holy fathers call it), that is, who did not
+communicate at the altar.  The splendor amid which he moved was
+calculated to give the weight of a very injurious example to his
+indifference.  The Abbe-Marquis d'Aigrigny was therefore despatched to
+him; and he knowing the honorable and elevated character of the non-
+communicant, thought that if he could only bring him to profess by any
+means (whatever the means might be) the effect would be what was desired.
+Like a man of intellect, the abbe prized the dogma but cheaply himself.
+He only spoke of the suitableness of the step, and of the highly salutary
+example which the resolution to adopt it would afford to the public.
+
+"M. Abbe," replied the person sought to be influenced, "I have a greater
+respect for religion than you have.  I should consider it an infamous
+mockery to go to the communion table without feeling the proper
+conviction."
+
+"Nonsense! you inflexible man! you frowning Alcestes," said the Marquis-
+Abbe, smiling slyly.  "Your profits and your scruples will go together,
+believe me, by listening to me.  In short, we shall manage to make it a
+BLANK COMMUNION for you; for after all, what is it that we ask?--only the
+APPEARANCE!"
+
+Now, a BLANK COMMUNION means breaking an unconsecrated wafer!
+
+The Abbe-Marquis retired with his offers, which were rejected with
+indignation;--but then, the refractory man was dismissed from his place
+at court.  This was but a single isolated fact.  Woe to all who found
+themselves opposed to the interest and principles of Madame de Saint-
+Dizier or her friends!  Sooner or later, directly or indirectly, they
+felt themselves cruelly stabbed, generally immediately--some in their
+dearest connections, others in their credit, some in their honor; others
+in their official functions; and all by secret action, noiseless,
+continuous, and latent, in time becoming a terrible and mysterious
+dissolvent, which invisibly undermined reputations, fortunes, positions
+the most solidly established, until the moment when all sunk forever into
+the abyss, amid the surprise and terror of the beholders.
+
+It will now be conceived how under the Restoration the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier had become singularly influential and formidable.  At the time of
+the Revolution of July (1830) she had "rallied," and, strangely enough,
+by preserving some relation of family and of society with persons
+faithful to the worship of decayed monarchy, people still attributed to
+the princess much influence and power.  Let us mention, at last, that the
+Prince of Saint-Dizier, having died many years since, his very large
+personal fortune had descended to his younger brother, the father of
+Adrienne de Cardoville; and he, having died eighteen months ago, that
+young lady found herself to be the last and only representative of that
+branch of the family of the Renneponts.
+
+The Princess of Saint-Dizier awaited her niece in a very large room,
+rendered dismal by its gloomy green damask.  The chairs, etc., covered
+with similar stuff, were of carved ebony.  Paintings of scriptural and
+other religious subjects, and an ivory crucifix thrown up from a
+background of black velvet, contributed to give the apartment a
+lugubrious and austere aspect.
+
+Madame de Saint-Dizier, seated before a large desk, has just finished
+putting the seals on numerous letters; for she had a very extensive and
+very diversified correspondence.  Though then aged about forty-five she
+was still fair.  Advancing years had somewhat thickened her shape, which
+formerly of distinguished elegance, was still sufficiently handsome to be
+seen to advantage under the straight folds of her black dress.  Her
+headdress, very simple, decorated with gray ribbons, allowed her fair
+sleek hair to be seen arranged in broad bands.  At first look, people
+were struck with her dignified though unassuming appearance; and would
+have vainly tried to discover in her physiognomy, now marked with
+repentant calmness, any trace of the agitations of her past life.  So
+naturally grave and reserved was she, that people could not believe her
+the heroine of so many intrigues and adventures and gallantry.  Moreover,
+if by chance she ever heard any lightness of conversation, her
+countenance, since she had come to believe herself a kind of "mother in
+the Church," immediately expressed candid but grieved astonishment, which
+soon changed into an air of offended chastity and disdainful pity.
+
+"For the rest, her smile, when requisite, was still full of grace, and
+even of the seducing and resistless sweetness of seeming good-nature.
+Her large blue eyes, on fit occasions, became affectionate and caressing.
+But if any one dared to wound or ruffle her pride, gainsay her orders or
+harm her interests, her countenance, usually placid and serene, betrayed
+a cold but implacable malignity.  Mrs. Grivois entered the cabinet,
+holding in her hand Florine's report of the manner in which Adrienne de
+Cardoville had spent the morning.
+
+Mrs. Grivois had been about twenty years in the service of Madame de
+Saint-Dizier.  She knew everything that a lady's-maid could or ought to
+have known of her mistress in the days of her sowing of wild (being a
+lady) flowers.  Was it from choice that the princess had still retained
+about her person this so-well-informed witness of the numerous follies of
+her youth?  The world was kept in ignorance of the motive; but one thing
+was evident, viz., that Mrs. Grivois enjoyed great privileges under the
+princess, and was treated by her rather as a companion than as a tiring-
+woman.
+
+"Here are Florine's notes, madame," said Mrs. Grivois, giving the paper
+to the princess.
+
+"I will examine them presently," said the princess; "but tell me, is my
+niece coming?  Pending the conference at which she is to be present, you
+will conduct into her house a person who will soon be here, to inquire
+for you by my desire."
+
+"Well, madame?"
+
+"This man will make an exact inventory of everything contained in
+Adrienne's residence.  You will take care that nothing is omitted; for
+that is of very great importance."
+
+"Yes, madame.  But should Georgette or Hebe make any opposition?"
+
+"There is no fear; the man charged with taking the inventory is of such a
+stamp, that when they know him, they will not dare to oppose either his
+making the inventory, or his other steps.  It will be necessary not to
+fail, as you go along with him, to be careful to obtain certain
+peculiarities destined to confirm the reports which you have spread for
+some time past."
+
+"Do not have the slightest doubt, madame.  The reports have all the
+consistency of truth."
+
+"Very soon, then, this Adrienne, so insolent and so haughty, will be
+crushed and compelled to pray for pardon; and from me!"
+
+An old footman opened both of the folding doors, and announced the
+Marquis-Abbe d'Aigrigny.
+
+"If Miss de Cardoville present herself," said the princess to Mrs.
+Grivois, "you will request her to wait an instant."
+
+"Yes, madame," said the duenna, going out with the servant.
+
+Madame de Saint-Dizier and D'Aigrigny remained alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE PLOT.
+
+The Abbe-Marquis d'Aigrigny, as the reader has easily divined, was the
+person already seen in the Rue du Milieu-des-Ursins; whence he had
+departed from Rome, in which city he had remained about three months.
+The marquis was dressed in deep mourning, but with his usual elegance.
+His was not a priestly robe; his black coat, and his waistcoat, tightly
+gathered in at the waist, set off to great advantage the elegance of his
+figure: his black cassimere pantaloons disguised his feet, exactly fitted
+with lace boots, brilliantly polished.  And all traces of his tonsure
+disappeared in the midst of the slight baldness which whitened slightly
+the back part of his head.  There was nothing in his entire costume, or
+aspect, that revealed the priest, except, perhaps, the entire absence of
+beard, the more remarkable upon so manly a countenance.  His chin, newly
+shaved, rested on a large and elevated black cravat, tied with a military
+ostentation which reminded the beholder, that this abbe-marquis this
+celebrated preacher--now one of the most active and influential chiefs of
+his order, had commanded a regiment of hussars upon the Restoration, and
+had fought in aid of the Russians against France.
+
+Returned to Paris only this morning, the marquis had not seen the
+princess since his mother, the Dowager Marchioness d'Aigrigny, had died
+near Dunkirk, upon an estate belonging to Madame de Saint-Dizier, while
+vainly calling for her son to alleviate her last moments; but the order
+to which M. d'Aigrigny had thought fit to sacrifice the most sacred
+feeling and duties of nature, having been suddenly transmitted to him
+from Rome, he had immediately set out for that city; though not without
+hesitation, which was remarked and denounced by Rodin; for the love of M.
+d'Aigrigny for his mother had been the only pure feeling that had
+invariably distinguished his life.
+
+When the servant had discreetly withdrawn with Mrs. Grivois, the marquis
+quickly approached the princess, held out his hand to her, and said with
+a voice of emotion:
+
+"Herminia, have you not concealed something in your letters.  In her last
+moments did not my mother curse me?"
+
+"No, no, Frederick, compose yourself.  She had anxiously desired your
+presence.  Her ideas soon became confused.  But in her delirium it was
+still for you that she called."
+
+"Yes," said the marquis, bitterly; "her maternal instinct doubtless
+assured her that my presence could have saved her life."
+
+"I entreat you to banish these sad recollections," said the princess,
+"this misfortune is irreparable."
+
+"Tell me for the last time, truly, did not my absence cruelly affect my
+mother?  Had she no suspicion that a more imperious duty called me
+elsewhere?"
+
+"No, no, I assure you.  Even when her reason was shaken, she believed
+that you had not yet had time to come to her.  All the sad details which
+I wrote to you upon this painful subject are strictly true.  Again, I beg
+of you to compose yourself."
+
+"Yes, my conscience ought to be easy; for I have fulfilled my duty in
+sacrificing my mother.  Yet I have never been able to arrive at that
+complete detachment from natural affection, which is commanded to us by
+those awful words:  `He who hates not his father and his mother, even
+with the soul, cannot be my disciple.'"[9]
+
+"Doubtless, Frederick," said the princess, "these renunciations are
+painful.  But, in return, what influence, what power!"
+
+"It is true," said the marquis, after a moment's silence.  "What ought
+not to be sacrificed in order to reign in secret over the all-powerful of
+the earth, who lord it in full day?  This journey to Rome, from which I
+have just returned, has given me a new idea of our formidable power.
+For, Herminia, it is Rome which is the culminating point, overlooking the
+fairest and broadest quarters of the globe, made so by custom, by
+tradition, or by faith.  Thence can our workings be embraced in their
+full extent.  It is an uncommon view to see from its height the myriad
+tools, whose personality is continually absorbed into the immovable
+personality of our Order.  What a might we possess!  Verily, I am always
+swayed with admiration, aye, almost frightened, that man once thinks,
+wishes, believes, and acts as he alone lists, until, soon ours, he
+becomes but a human shell; its kernel of intelligence, mind, reason,
+conscience, and free will, shrivelled within him, dry and withered by the
+habit of mutely, fearingly bowing under mysterious tasks, which shatter
+and slay everything spontaneous in the human soul!  Then do we infuse in
+such spiritless clay, speechless, cold, and motionless as corpses, the
+breath of our Order, and, lo! the dry bones stand up and walk, acting and
+executing, though only within the limits which are circled round them
+evermore.  Thus do they become mere limbs of the gigantic trunk, whose
+impulses they mechanically carry out, while ignorant of the design, like
+the stonecutter who shapes out a stone, unaware if it be for cathedral or
+bagnio."
+
+In so speaking, the marquis's features wore an incredible air of proud
+and domineering haughtiness.
+
+"Oh, yes! this power is great, most great," observed the princess; "and
+the more formidable because it moves in a mysterious way over minds and
+consciences."
+
+"Aye, Herminia," said the marquis: "I have had under my command a
+magnificent regiment.  Very often have I experienced the energetic and
+exquisite enjoyment of command!  At my word my squadrons put themselves
+in action; bugles blared, my officers, glittering in golden embroidery,
+galloped everywhere to repeat my orders: all my brave soldiers, burning
+with courage, and cicatrized by battles, obeyed my signal; and I felt
+proud and strong, holding as I did (so to speak) in my hands, the force
+and valor of each and all combined into one being of resistless strength
+and invincible intrepidity,--of all of which I was as much the master, as
+I mastered the rage and fire of my war-horse!  Aye! that was greatness.
+But now, in spite of the misfortunes which have befallen our Order, I
+feel myself a thousand times more ready for action, more authoritative,
+more strong and more daring, at the head of our mute and black-robed
+militia, who only think and wish, or move and obey, mechanically,
+according to my will.  On a sign they scatter over the surface of the
+globe, gliding stealthily into households under the guise of confessing
+the wife or teaching the children, into family affairs by hearing the
+dying avowals,--up to the throne through the quaking conscience of a
+credulous crowned coward;--aye, even to the chair of the Pope himself,
+living manifesto of the Godhead though he is, by the services rendered
+him or imposed by him.  Is not this secret rule, made to kindle or glut
+the wildest ambition, as it reaches from the cradle to the grave, from
+the laborer's hovel to the royal palace, from palace to the papal chair?
+What career in all the world presents such splendid openings? what
+unutterable scorn ought I not feel for the bright butterfly life of early
+days, when we made so many envy us?  Don't you remember, Herminia?" he
+added, with a bitter smile.
+
+"You are right, perfectly right, Frederick!" replied the princess
+quickly.  "How little soever we may reflect, with what contempt do we not
+think upon the past!  I, like you, often compare it with the present; and
+then what satisfaction I feel at having followed your counsels!  For,
+indeed, without you, I should have played the miserable and ridiculous
+part which a woman always plays in her decline from having been beautiful
+and surrounded by admirers.  What could I have done at this hour?  I
+should have vainly striven to retain around me a selfish and ungrateful
+world of gross and shameful men, who court women only that they may turn
+them to the service of their passions, or to the gratification of their
+vanity.  It is true that there would have remained to me the resource of
+what is called keeping an agreeable house for all others,--yes, in order
+to entertain them, be visited by a crowd of the indifferent, to afford
+opportunities of meeting to amorous young couples, who, following each
+other from parlor to parlor, come not to your house but for the purpose
+of being together; a very pretty pleasure, truly, that of harboring those
+blooming, laughing, amorous youths, who look upon the luxury and
+brilliancy with which one surrounds them, as if they were their due upon
+bonds to minister to their pleasure, and to their impudent amours!"
+
+Her words were so stinging, and such hateful envy sat upon her face, that
+she betrayed the intense bitterness of her regrets in spite of herself.
+
+"NO, no; thanks to you, Frederick," she continued, "After a last and
+brilliant triumph, I broke forever with the world, which would soon have
+abandoned me, though I was so long its idol and its queen.  And I have
+only changed my queendom.  Instead of the dissipated men whom I ruled
+with a frivolity superior to their own, I now find myself surrounded by
+men of high consideration, of redoubtable character, and all-powerful,
+many of whom have governed the state; to them I have devoted myself, as
+they have devoted themselves to me!  It is now only that I really enjoy
+that happiness, of which I ever dreamt.  I have taken an active part and
+have exercised a powerful influence over the greatest interests of the
+world; I have been initiated into the most important secrets; I have been
+able to strike, surely, whosoever scoffed at or hated me; and I have been
+able to elevate beyond their hopes those who have served or respected and
+obeyed me."
+
+"There are some madmen, and some so blind, that they imagine that we are
+struck down, because we ourselves have had to struggle against some
+misfortunes," said M. d'Aigrigny, disdainfully, "as if we were not, above
+all others, securely founded, organized for every struggle, and drew not
+from our very struggles a new and more vigorous activity.  Doubtless the
+times are bad.  But they will become better; and, as you know, it is
+nearly certain that in a few days (the 13th of February), we shall have
+at our disposal a means of action sufficiently powerful for re-
+establishing our influence which has been temporarily shaken."
+
+"Yes, doubtless this affair of the medals is most important," said the
+princess.
+
+"I should not have made so much haste to return hither," resumed the
+abbe, "were it not to act in what will be, perhaps, for us, a very great
+event."
+
+"But you are aware of the fatality which has once again overthrown
+projects the most laboriously conceived and matured?"
+
+"Yes; immediately on arriving I saw Rodin."
+
+"And he told you--?"
+
+"The inconceivable arrival of the Indian, and of General Simon's
+daughters at Cardoville Castle, after a double shipwreck, which threw
+them upon the coast of Picardy; though it was deemed certain that the
+young girls were at Leipsic, and the Indian in Java.  Precautions were so
+well taken, indeed," added the marquis in vexation, "that one would think
+an invisible power protects this family."
+
+"Happily, Rodin is a man of resources and activity, resumed the princess.
+"He came here last night, and we had a long conversation."
+
+"And the result of your consultation is excellent," added the marquis:
+"the old soldier is to be kept out of the way for two days; and his
+wife's confessor has been posted; the rest will proceed of itself.  To-
+morrow, the girls need no longer be feared; and the Indian remains at
+Cardoville, wounded dangerously.  We have plenty of time for action."
+
+"But that is not all," continued the princess: "there are still, without
+reckoning my niece, two persons, who, for our interests, ought not to be
+found in Paris on the 13th of February."
+
+"Yes, M. Hardy: but his most dear and intimate friend has betrayed him;
+for, by means of that friend, we have drawn M. Hardy into the South,
+whence it is impossible for him to return before a month.  As for that
+miserable vagabond workman, surnamed `Sleepinbuff!'"
+
+"Fie!" exclaimed the princess, with an expression of outraged modesty.
+
+"That man," resumed the marquis, "is no longer an object of inquietude.
+Lastly, Gabriel, upon whom our vast and certain hope reposes, will not be
+left by himself for a single minute until the great day.  Everything
+seems, you see, to promise success; indeed, more so than ever; and it is
+necessary to obtain this success at any price.  It is for us a question
+of life or death; for, in returning, I stopped at Forli, and there saw
+the Duke d'Orbano.  His influence over the mind of the king is all-
+powerful--indeed, absolute; and he has completely prepossessed the royal
+mind.  It is with the duke alone, then, that it is possible to treat."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"D'Orbano has gained strength; and he can, I know it, assure to us a
+legal existence, highly protected, in the dominions of his master, with
+full charge of popular education.  Thanks to such advantages, after two
+or three years in that country we shall become so deeply rooted, that
+this very Duke d'Orbano, in his turn, will have to solicit support and
+protection from us.  But at present he has everything in his power; and
+he puts an absolute condition upon his services."
+
+"What is the condition?"
+
+"Five millions down; and an annual pension of a hundred thousand francs."
+
+"It is very much."
+
+"Nay, but little if it be considered that our foot once planted in that
+country, we shall promptly repossess ourselves of that sum, which, after
+all, is scarcely an eighth part of what the affair of the medals, if
+happily brought to an issue, ought to assure to the Order."
+
+"Yes, nearly forty millions," said the princess, thoughtfully.
+
+"And again: these five millions that Orbano demands will be but an
+advance.  They will be returned to us in voluntary gifts, by reason even
+of the increase of influence that we shall acquire from the education of
+children; through whom we have their families.  And yet, the fools
+hesitate! those who govern see not, that in doing our own business, we do
+theirs also;--that in abandoning education to us (which is what we wish
+for above all things) we mold the people into that mute and quiet
+obedience, that servile and brutal submission, which assures the repose
+of states by the immobility of the mind.  They don't reflect that most of
+the upper and middle classes fear and hate us; don't understand that
+(when we have persuaded the mass that their wretchedness is an eternal
+law, that sufferers must give up hope of relief, that it is a crime to
+sigh for welfare in this world, since the crown of glory on high is the
+only reward for misery here), then the stupefied people will resignedly
+wallow in the mire, all their impatient aspirations for better days
+smothered, and the volcano-blasts blown aside, which made the future of
+rulers so horrid and so dark?  They see not, in truth, that this blind
+and passive faith which we demand from the mass, furnishes their rulers
+with a bridle with which both to conduct and curb them; whilst we ask
+from the happy of the world only some appearances which ought, if they
+had only the knowledge of their own corruption, to give an increased
+stimulant to their pleasures.
+
+"It signifies not," resumed the princess; "since, as you say, a great day
+is at hand, bringing nearly forty millions, of which the Order can become
+possessed by the happy success of the affair of the medals.  We certainly
+can attempt very great things.  Like a lever in your hands, such a means
+of action would be of incalculable power, in times during which all men
+buy and sell one another."
+
+"And then," resumed M. d'Aigrigny, with a thoughtful air, "here the
+reaction continues: the example of France is everything.  In Austria and
+Holland we can rarely maintain ourselves; while the resources of the
+Order diminish from day to day.  We have arrived at a crisis; but it can
+be made to prolong itself.  Thus, thanks to the immense resource of the
+affair of the medals, we can not only brave all eventualities, but we can
+again powerfully establish ourselves, thanks to the offer of the Duke
+d'Orbano, which we accept; and then, from that inassailable centre, our
+radiations will be incalculable.  Ah! the 13th of February!" added M.
+d'Aigrigny, after a moment of silence, and shaking his head: "the 13th of
+February, a date perhaps fortunate and famous for our power as that of
+the council which gave to us (so to say) a new life!"
+
+"And nothing must be spared." resumed the princess, "in order to succeed
+at any price.  Of the six persons whom we have to fear, five are or will
+be out of any condition to hurt us.  There remains then only my niece;
+and you know that I have waited but for your arrival in order to take my
+last resolution.  All my preparations are completed; and this very
+morning we will begin to act."
+
+"Have your suspicions increased since your last letter?"
+
+"Yes, I am certain that she is more instructed than she wishes to appear;
+and if so, we shall not have a more dangerous enemy."
+
+"Such has always been my opinion.  Thus it is six month: since I advised
+you to take in all cases the measures which you have adopted, in order to
+provoke, on her part, that demand of emancipation, the consequences of
+which now render quite easy that which would have been impossible without
+it."
+
+"At last," said the princess, with an expression of joy, hateful and
+bitter, "this indomitable spirit will be broken.  I am at length about to
+be avenged of the many insolent sarcasms which I have been compelled to
+swallow, lest I should awaken her suspicions.  I! I to have borne so much
+till now! for this Adrienne has made it her business (imprudent as she
+is!) to irritate me against herself!"
+
+"Whosoever offends you, offends me; you know it," said D'Aigrigny, "my
+hatreds are yours."
+
+"And you yourself!" said the princess, "how many times have you been the
+butt of her poignant irony!"
+
+"My instincts seldom deceive me.  I am certain that this young girl may
+become a dangerous enemy for us," said the marquis, with a voice
+painfully broken into short monosyllables.
+
+"And, therefore, it is necessary that she may be rendered incapable of
+exciting further fear," responded Madame de Saint-Dizier, fixedly
+regarding the marquis.
+
+"Have you seen Dr. Baleinier, and the sub-guardian, M. Tripeaud?" asked
+he.
+
+"They will be here this morning.  I have informed them of everything."
+
+"Did you find them well disposed to act against her?"
+
+"Perfectly so--and the best is, Adrienne does not at all suspect the
+doctor, who has known how, up to a certain point, to preserve her
+confidence.  Moreover, a circumstance which appears to me inexplicable
+has come to our aid."
+
+"What do you allude to?"
+
+"This morning, Mrs. Grivois went, according to my orders, to remind
+Adrienne that I expected her at noon, upon important business.  As she
+approached the pavilion, Mrs. Grivois saw, or thought she saw, Adrienne
+come in by the little garden-gate."
+
+"What do you tell me?  Is it possible?  Is there any positive proof of
+it?"
+cried the marquis.
+
+"Till now, there is no other proof than the spontaneous declaration of
+Mrs. Grivois: but whilst I think of it," said the Princess, taking up a
+paper that lay before her, "here is the report, which, every day, one of
+Adrienne's women makes to me."
+
+"The one that Rodin succeeded in introducing into your niece's service?"
+
+"The same; as this creature is entirely in Rodin's hands, she has
+hitherto answered our purpose very well.  In this report, we shall
+perhaps find the confirmation of what Mrs. Grivois affirms she saw."
+
+Hardly had the Princess glanced at the note, than she exclaimed almost in
+terror: "What do I see?  Why, Adrienne is a very demon!"
+
+"What now?"
+
+"The bailiff at Cardoville, having written to my niece to ask her
+recommendation, informed her at the same time of the stay of the Indian
+prince at the castle.  She knows that he is her relation, and has just
+written to her old drawing-master, Norval, to set out post with Eastern
+dresses, and bring Prince Djalma hither--the man that must be kept away
+from Paris at any cost."
+
+The marquis grew pale, and said to Mme. de Saint-Dizier:  "If this be not
+merely one of her whims, the eagerness she displays in sending for this
+relation hither, proves that she knows more than you even suspected.  She
+is `posted' on the affair of the medals.  Have a care--she may ruin all."
+
+"In that case," said the princess, resolutely, "there is no room to
+hesitate.  We must carry things further than we thought, and make an end
+this very morning."
+
+"Yes, though it is almost impossible."
+
+"Nay, all is possible.  The doctor and M. Tripeaud are ours," said the
+princess, hastily.
+
+"Though I am as sure as you are of the doctor, or of M. Tripeaud, under
+present circumstances, we must not touch on the question of acting--which
+will be sure to frighten them at first--until after our interview with
+your niece.  It will he easy, notwithstanding her cleverness, to find out
+her armor's defect.  If our suspicions should be realized--if she is
+really informed of what it would be so dangerous for her to know--then we
+must have no scruples, and above all no delay.  This very day must see
+all set at rest.  The time for wavering is past."
+
+'Have you been able to send for the person agreed on?" asked the
+princess, after a moment's silence.
+
+"He was to be here at noon.  He cannot be long."
+
+"I thought this room would do very well for our purpose.  It is separated
+from the smaller parlor by a curtain only behind which your man may be
+stationed."
+
+"Capital!"
+
+"Is he a man to be depended on?"
+
+"Quite so--we have often employed him in similar matters.  He is as
+skillful as discreet."
+
+At this moment a low knock was heard at the door.
+
+"Come in," said the princess.
+
+"Dr. Baleinier wishes to know if her Highness the Princess can receive
+him," asked the valet-de-chambre.
+
+"Certainly.  Beg him to walk in."
+
+"There is also a gentleman that M. l'Abbe appointed to be here at noon,
+by whose orders I have left him waiting in the oratory."
+
+"'Tis the person in question," said the marquis to the princess.  "We
+must have him in first.  'Twould be useless for Dr. Baleinier to see him
+at present."
+
+"Show this person in first," said the princess; "next when I ring the
+bell, you will beg Dr. Baleinier to walk this way: and, if Baron Tripeaud
+should call, you will bring him here also.  After that, I am at home to
+no one, except Mdlle. Adrienne."  The servant went out.
+
+[9] With regard to this text, a commentary upon it will be found in the
+Constitutions of the Jesuits, as follows: "In order that the habit of
+language may come to the help of the sentiments, it is wise not to say,
+`I have parents, or I have brothers;' but to say, 'I had parents; I had
+brothers.' --General Examination, p. 29; Constitutions.--Paulin; 1843.
+Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+ADRIENNE'S ENEMIES.
+
+The Princess de Saint-Dizier's valet soon returned, showing in a little,
+pale man, dressed in black, and wearing spectacles.  He carried under his
+left arm a long black morocco writing-case.
+
+The princess said to this man: "M. l'Abbe, I suppose, has already
+informed you of what is to be done?"
+
+"Yes, your highness," said the man in a faint, shrill, piping voice,
+making at the same time a low bow.
+
+"Shall you be conveniently placed in this room?" asked the princess,
+conducting him to the adjoining apartment, which was only separated from
+the other by a curtain hung before a doorway.
+
+"I shall do nicely here, your highness," answered the man in spectacles,
+with a second and still lower bow.
+
+"In that case, sir, please to step in here; I will let you know when it
+is time."
+
+"I shall wait your highness's order."
+
+"And pray remember my instructions," added the marquis, as he unfastened
+the loops of the curtain.
+
+"You may be perfectly tranquil, M. l'Abbe."  The heavy drapery, as it
+fell, completely concealed the man in spectacles.
+
+The princess touched the bell; some moments after, the door opened, and
+the servant announced a very important personage in this work.
+
+Dr. Baleinier was about fifty years of age, middling size, rather plump,
+with a full shining, ruddy countenance.  His gray hair, very smooth and
+rather long, parted by a straight line in the middle, fell flat over his
+temples.  He had retained the fashion of wearing short, black silk
+breeches, perhaps because he had a well-formed leg; his garters were
+fastened with small, golden buckles, as were his shoes of polished
+morocco leather; his coat, waistcoat, and cravat were black, which gave
+him rather a clerical appearance; his sleek, white hand was half hidden
+beneath a cambric ruffle, very closely plaited; on the whole, the gravity
+of his costume did not seem to exclude a shade of foppery.
+
+His face was acute and smiling; his small gray eye announced rare
+penetration and sagacity.  A man of the world and a man of pleasure, a
+delicate epicure, witty in conversation, polite to obsequiousness,
+supple, adroit, insinuating, Baleinier was one of the oldest favorites of
+the congregational set of the Princess de Saint-Dizier.  Thanks to this
+powerful support, its cause unknown, the doctor, who had been long
+neglected, in spite of real skill and incontestable merit, found himself,
+under the Restoration, suddenly provided with two medical sinecures most
+valuable, and soon after with numerous patients.  We must add, that, once
+under the patronage of the princess, the doctor began scrupulously to
+observe his religious duties; he communicated once a week, with great
+publicity, at the high mass in Saint Thomas Aquinas Church.
+
+At the year's end, a certain class of patients, led by the example and
+enthusiasm of Madame de Saint-Dizier's followers, would have no other
+physician than Doctor Baleinier, and his practice was now increased to an
+extraordinary degree.  It may be conceived how important it was for the
+order, to have amongst its "plain clothes members" one of the most
+popular practitioners of Paris.
+
+A doctor has in some sort a priesthood of his own.  Admitted at all hours
+to the most secret intimacy of families, he knows, guesses, and is able
+to effect much.  Like the priest, in short, he has the ear of the sick
+and the dying.  Now, when he who cares for the health of the body, and he
+who takes charge of the health of the soul, understands each other, and
+render mutual aid for the advancement of a common interest, there is
+nothing (with certain exceptions), which they may not extract from the
+weakness and fears of a sick man at the last gasp--not for themselves
+(the laws forbid it)--but for third parties belonging more or less to the
+very convenient class of men of straw.  Doctor Baleinier was therefore
+one of the most active and valuable assistant members of the Paris
+Jesuits.
+
+When he entered the room, he hastened to kiss the princess's hand with
+the most finished gallantry.
+
+"Always punctual, my dear M. Baleinier."
+
+"Always eager and happy to attend to your highness's orders."  Then
+turning towards the marquis, whose hand he pressed cordially, he added:
+"Here we have you then at last.  Do you know, that three months' absence
+appears very long to your friends?"
+
+"The time is as long to the absent as to those who remain, my dear
+doctor.  Well! here is the great day.  Mdlle. de Cardoville is coming."
+
+"I am not quite easy," said the princess; "suppose she had any suspicion?
+"
+
+"That's impossible," said M. Baleinier; "we are the best friends in the
+world.  You know, that Mdlle. Adrienne has always had great confidence in
+me.  The day before yesterday, we laughed a good deal, and as I made some
+observations to her, as usual, on her eccentric mode of life, and on the
+singular state of excitement in which I sometimes found her--"
+
+"M. Baleinier never fails to insist on these circumstances, in appearance
+so insignificant," said Madame de Saint-Dizier to the marquis with a
+meaning look.
+
+"They are indeed very essential," replied the other.
+
+"Mdlle. Adrienne answered my observations," resumed the doctor, "by
+laughing at me in the gayest and most witty manner; for I must confess,
+that this young lady has one of the aptest and most accomplished minds I
+know."
+
+"Doctor, doctor!" said Madame de Saint-Dizier, "no weakness!"
+
+Instead of answering immediately, M. Baleinier drew his gold snuff-box
+from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, and took slowly a pinch of snuff,
+looking all the time at the princess with so significant an air, that she
+appeared quite reassured.  "Weakness, madame?" observed he at last,
+brushing some grains of snuff from his shirt-front with his plump white
+hand; "did I not have the honor of volunteering to extricate you from
+this embarrassment?"
+
+"And you are the only person in the world that could render us this
+important service," said D'Aigrigny.
+
+"Your highness sees, therefore," resumed the doctor, "that I am not
+likely to show any weakness.  I perfectly understand the responsibility
+of what I undertake; but such immense interests, you told me, were at
+stake--"
+
+"Yes," said D'Aigrigny, "interests of the first consequence."
+
+"Therefore I did not hesitate," proceeded M. Baleinier; "and you need not
+be at all uneasy.  As a man of taste, accustomed to good society, allow
+me to render homage to the charming qualities of Mdlle. Adrienne; when
+the time for action comes, you will find me quite as willing to do my
+work."
+
+"Perhaps, that moment may be nearer than we thought," said Madame de
+Saint-Dizier, exchanging a glance with D'Aigrigny.
+
+"I am, and will be, always ready," said the doctor.  "I answer for
+everything that concerns myself.  I wish I could be as tranquil on every
+other point."
+
+"Is not your asylum still as fashionable--as an asylum can well be?"
+asked Madame de Saint-Dizier, with a half smile.
+
+"On the contrary.  I might almost complain of having too many boarders.
+It is not that.  But, whilst we are waiting for Mdlle. Adrienne, I will
+mention another subject, which only relates to her indirectly, for it
+concerns the person who, bought Cardoville Manor, one Madame de la
+Sainte-Colombe, who has taken me for a doctor, thanks to Rodin's able
+management."
+
+"True," said D'Aigrigny; "Rodin wrote to me on the subject--but without
+entering into details."
+
+"These are the facts," resumed the doctor.  "This Madame de la Sainte-
+Colombe, who was at first considered easy enough to lead, has shown
+herself very refractory on the head of her conversion.  Two spiritual
+directors have already renounced the task of saving her soul.  In
+despair, Rodin unslipped little Philippon on her.  He is adroit,
+tenacious, and above all patient in the extreme--the very man that was
+wanted.  When I got Madame de la Sainte-Colombe for a patient, Philippon
+asked my aid, which he was naturally entitled to.  We agreed upon our
+plan.  I was not to appear to know him the least in the world; and he was
+to keep me informed of the variations in the moral state of his penitent,
+so that I might be able, by the use of very inoffensive medicines--for
+there was nothing dangerous in the illness--to keep my patient in
+alternate states of improvement or the reverse, according as her director
+had reason to be satisfied or displeased--so that he might say to her:
+`You see, madame, you are in the good way!  Spiritual grace acts upon
+your bodily health, and you are already better.  If, on the contrary, you
+fall back into evil courses, you feel immediately some physical ail,
+which is a certain proof of the powerful influence of faith, not only on
+the soul, but on the body also?'"
+
+"It is doubtless painful," said D'Aigrigny, with perfect coolness, "to be
+obliged to have recourse to such means, to rescue perverse souls from
+perdition--but we must needs proportion our modes of action to the
+intelligence and the character of the individual."
+
+"By-the-bye, the princess knows," resumed the doctor, "that I have often
+pursued this plan at St. Mary's Convent, to the great advantage of the
+soul's peace and health of some of our patients, being extremely
+innocent.  These alternations never exceed the difference between "pretty
+well," and "not quite so well."  Yet small as are the variations, they
+act most efficaciously on certain minds.  It was thus with Madame de la
+Sainte-Colombe.  She was in such a fair way of recovery, both moral and
+physical, that Rodin thought he might get Philippon to advise the country
+for his penitent, fearing that Paris air might occasion a relapse.  This
+advice, added to the desire the woman had to play `lady of the parish,'
+induced her to buy Cardoville Manor, a good investment in any respect.
+But yesterday, unfortunate Philippon came to tell me, that Madame de la
+Sainte-Colombe was about to have an awful relapse--moral, of course--for
+her physical health is now desperately good.  The said relapse appears to
+have been occasioned by an interview she has had with one Jacques
+Dumoulin, whom they tell me you know, my dear abbe; he has introduced
+himself to her, nobody can guess how."
+
+"This Jacques Dumoulin,"said the marquis, with disgust, "is one of those
+men, that we employ while we despise.  He is a writer full of gall, envy,
+and hate, qualities that give him a certain unmercifully cutting
+eloquence.  We pay him largely to attack our enemies, though it is often
+painful to see principles we respect defended by such a pen.  For this
+wretch lives like a vagabond--is constantly in taverns--almost always
+intoxicated--but, I must own, his power of abuse is inexhaustible, and he
+is well versed in the most abstruse theological controversies, so that he
+is sometimes very useful to us."
+
+"Well! though Madame de la Sainte-Colombe is hard upon sixty, it appears
+that Dumoulin has matrimonial views on her large fortune.  You will do
+well to inform Rodin, so that he may be on his guard against the dark
+designs of this rascal.  I really beg a thousand pardons for having so
+long occupied you with such a paltry affair--but, talking of St. Mary's
+Convent," added the doctor, addressing the princess, "may I take the
+liberty of asking if your highness has been there lately?"
+
+The princess exchanged a rapid glance with D'Aigrigny, and answered: "Oh,
+let me see!  Yes, I was there about a week ago."
+
+"You will find great changes then.  The wall that was next to my asylum
+has been taken down, for they are going to build anew wing and a chapel,
+the old one being too small.  I must say in praise of Mdlle. Adrienne"
+continued the doctor with a singular smile aside, "that she promised me a
+copy of one of Raphael's Madonnas for this chapel."
+
+"Really? very appropriate!" said the princess.  "But here it is almost
+noon, and M. Tripeaud has not come."
+
+"He is the deputy-guardian of Mdlle. de Cardoville, whose property he has
+managed, as former agent of the count-duke," said the marquis, with
+evident anxiety, "and his presence here is absolutely indispensable.  It
+is greatly to be desired that his coming should precede that of Mdlle.
+de Cardoville, who may he here at any moment."
+
+"It is unlucky that his portrait will not do as well," said the doctor,
+smiling maliciously, and drawing a small pamphlet from his pocket.
+
+"What is that, doctor?" asked the princess.
+
+"One of those anonymous sheets, which are published from time to time.
+It is called the `Scourge,' and Baron Tripeaud's portrait is drawn with
+such faithfulness, that it ceases to be satire.  It is really quite life-
+like; you have only to listen.  The sketch is entitled: `TYPE OF THE LYNX
+SPECIES.'
+
+"`The Baron Tripeaud.--This man, who is as basely humble towards his
+social superiors, as he is insolent and coarse to those who depend upon
+him--is the living, frightful incarnation of the worst pardon of the
+moneyed and commercial aristocracy--one of the rich and cynical
+speculators, without heart, faith or conscience, who would speculate for
+a rise or fall on the death of his mother, if the death of his mother
+could influence the price of stocks.
+
+"`Such persons have all the odious vices of men suddenly elevated, not
+like those whom honest and patient labor has nobly enriched, but like
+those who owe their wealth to some blind caprice of fortune, or some
+lucky cast of the net in the miry waters of stock-jobbing.
+
+"'Once up in the world, they hate the people--because the people remind
+them of a mushroom origin of which they are ashamed.  Without pity for
+the dreadful misery of the masses, they ascribe it wholly to idleness or
+debauchery.  because this calumny forms an excuse for their barbarous
+selfishness.
+
+"`And this is not all.  On the strength of his well-filled safe, mounted
+on his right of the candidate, Baron Tripeaud insults the poverty and
+political disfranchisement--
+
+"`Of the officer, who, after forty years of wars and hard service, is
+just able to live on a scanty pension--
+
+"`Of the magistrate, who has consumed his strength in the discharge of
+stern and sad duties, and who is not better remunerated in his litter
+days--
+
+"'Of the learned man who has made his country illustrious by useful
+labors; or the professor who has initiated entire generations in the
+various branches of human knowledge--
+
+"`Of the modest and virtuous country curate, the pure representative of
+the gospel, in its charitable, fraternal, and democratic tendencies, etc.
+
+"`In such a state of things, how should our shoddy baron of in-dust-ry
+not feel the most sovereign contempt for all that stupid mob of honest
+folk, who, having given to their country their youth, their mature age,
+their blood, their intelligence, their learning, see themselves deprived
+of the rights which he enjoys, because he has gained a million by unfair
+and illegal transactions?
+
+"`It is true, that your optimists say to these pariahs of civilization,
+whose proud and noble poverty cannot be too much revered and honored:
+"Buy an estate and you too may be electors and candidates!"
+
+"`But to come to the biography of our worthy baron--Andrew Tripeaud, the
+son of an ostler, at a roadside inn '"
+
+At this instant the folding-doors were thrown open, and the valet
+announced: "The Baron Tripeaud!"
+
+Dr. Baleinier put his pamphlet into his pocket, made the most cordial bow
+to the financier, and even rose to give him his hand.  The baron entered
+the room, overwhelming every one with salutations.  "I have the honor to
+attend the orders of your highness the princess.  She knows that she may
+always count upon me."
+
+"I do indeed rely upon you, M. Tripeaud, and particularly under present
+circumstances."
+
+"If the intentions of your highness the princess are still the same with
+regard to Mdlle. de Cardoville "
+
+"They are still the same, M. Tripeaud, and we meet to-day on that
+subject."
+
+"Your highness may be assured of my concurrence, as, indeed, I have
+already promised.  I think that the greatest severity must at length be
+employed, and that even if it were necessary."
+
+"That is also our opinion," said the marquis, hastily making a sign to
+the princess, and glancing at the place where the man in spectacles was
+hidden; "we are all perfectly in harmony.  Still, we must not leave any
+point doubtful, for the sake of the young lady herself, whose interests
+alone guides us in this affair.  We must draw out her sincerity by every
+possible means."
+
+"Mademoiselle has just arrived from the summer-house and wishes to see
+your highness," said the valet, again entering, after having knocked at
+the door.
+
+"Say that I wait for her," answered the princess; "and now I am at home
+to no one--without exception.  You understand me; absolutely to no one."
+
+Thereupon, approaching the curtain behind which the man was concealed,
+Mme. de Saint-Dizier gave him the cue--after which she returned to her
+seat.
+
+It is singular, but during the short space which preceded Adrienne's
+arrival, the different actors in this scene appeared uneasy and
+embarrassed, as if they had a vague fear of her coming.  In about a
+minute, Mdlle. de Cardoville entered the presence of her aunt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE SKIRMISH.
+
+On entering, Mdlle. de Cardoville threw down upon a chair the gray beaver
+hat she had worn to cross the garden, and displayed her fine golden hair,
+falling on either side of her face in long, light ringlets, and twisted
+in a broad knot behind her head.  She presented herself without boldness,
+but with perfect ease: her countenance was gay and smiling; her large
+black eyes appeared even more brilliant than usual.  When she perceived
+Abbe d'Aigrigny, she started in surprise, and her rosy lips were just
+touched with a mocking smile.
+
+After nodding graciously to the doctor, she passed Baron Tripeaud by
+without looking at him, and saluted the princess with stately obeisance,
+in the most fashionable style.
+
+Though the walk and bearing of Mdlle. de Cardoville were extremely
+elegant, and full of propriety and truly feminine grace, there was about
+her an air of resolution and independence by no means common in women,
+and particularly in girls of her age.  Her movements, without being
+abrupt, bore no traces of restraint, stiffness, or formality.  They were
+frank and free as her character, full of life, youth, and freshness; and
+one could easily divine that so buoyant, straightforward, and decided a
+nature had never been able to conform itself to the rules of an affected
+rigor.
+
+Strangely enough, though he was a man of the world, a man of great
+talent, a churchman distinguished for his eloquence, and, above all, a
+person of influence and authority.  Marquis d'Aigrigny experienced an
+involuntary, incredible, almost painful uneasiness, in presence of
+Adrienne de Cardoville.  He--generally so much the master of himself, so
+accustomed to exercise great power--who (in the name of his Order) had
+often treated with crowned heads on the footing of an equal, felt himself
+abashed and lowered in the presence of this girl, as remarkable for her
+frankness as for her biting irony.  Now, as men who are accustomed to
+impose their will upon others generally hate those who, far from
+submitting to their influence, hamper it and make sport of them, it was
+no great degree of affection that the marquis bore towards the Princess
+de Saint-Dizier's niece.
+
+For a long time past, contrary to his usual habit, he had ceased to try
+upon Adrienne that fascinating address to which he had often owed an
+irresistible charm; towards her he had become dry, curt, serious, taking
+refuge in that icy sphere of haughty dignity and rigid austerity which
+completely hid all those amiable qualities with which he was endowed and
+of which, in general, he made such efficient use.  Adrienne was much
+amused at all this, and thereby showed her imprudence--for the most
+vulgar motives often engender the most implacable hatreds.
+
+From these preliminary observations, the reader will understand the
+divers sentiments and interests which animated the different actors in
+the following scene.
+
+Madame de Saint-Dizier was seated in a large arm-chair by one side of the
+hearth.  Marquis d'Aigrigny was standing before the fire.  Dr. Baleinier
+seated near a bureau, was again turning over the leaves of Baron
+Tripeaud's biography, whilst the baron appeared to be very attentively
+examining one of the pictures of sacred subjects suspended from the wall.
+
+"You sent for me, aunt, to talk upon matters of importance?" said
+Adrienne, breaking the silence which had reigned in the reception-room
+since her entrance.
+
+"Yes, madame," answered the princess, with a cold and severe mien; "upon
+matters of the gravest importance."
+
+"I am at your service, aunt.  Perhaps we had better walk into your
+library?"
+
+"It is not necessary.  We can talk here."  Then, addressing the marquis,
+the doctor, and the baron, she said to them, "Pray, be seated,
+gentlemen," and they all took their places round the table.
+
+"How can the subject of our interview interest these gentlemen, aunt?"
+asked Mdlle. de Cardoville, with surprise.
+
+"These gentlemen are old family friends; all that concerns you must
+interest them, and their advice ought to be heard and accepted by you
+with respect."
+
+"I have no doubt, aunt, of the bosom friendship of M. d'Aigrigny for our
+family: I have still less of the profound and disinterested devotion of
+M. Tripeaud; M. Baleinier is one of my old friends; still, before
+accepting these gentlemen as spectators, or, if you will, as confidants
+of our interview, I wish to know what we are going to talk of before
+them."
+
+"I thought that, among your many singular pretensions, you had at least
+those of frankness and courage."
+
+"Really, aunt," said Adrienne, smiling with mock humility, "I have no
+more pretensions to frankness and courage than you have to sincerity and
+goodness.  Let us admit, once for all, that we are what we are--without
+pretension."
+
+"Be it so," said Madame de Saint-Dizier, in a dry tone; "I have long been
+accustomed to the freaks of your independent spirit.  I suppose, then,
+that, courageous and frank as you say you are, you will not he afraid to
+speak before such grave and respectable persons as these gentlemen what
+you would speak to me alone?"
+
+"Is it a formal examination that I am to submit to? if so, upon what
+subject?"
+
+"It is not an examination: but, as I have a right to watch over you, and
+as you take advantage of my weak compliance with your caprices, I mean to
+put an end to what has lasted too long, and tell you my irrevocable
+resolutions for the future, in presence of friends of the family.  And,
+first, you have hitherto had a very false and imperfect notion of my
+power over you."
+
+"I assure you, aunt, that I have never had any notion, true or false, on
+the subject--for I have never even dreamt about it."
+
+"That is my own fault; for, instead of yielding to your fancies, I should
+have made you sooner feel my authority; but the moment has come to submit
+yourself; the severe censures of my friends have enlightened me in time.
+Your character is self-willed, independent, stubborn; it must change--
+either by fair means or by force, understand me, it shall change."
+
+At these words, pronounced harshly before strangers, with a severity
+which did not seem at all justified by circumstances, Adrienne tossed her
+head proudly; but, restraining herself, she answered with a smile: "You
+say, aunt, that I shall change.  I should not be astonished at it.  We
+hear of such odd conversions."
+
+The princess bit her lips.
+
+"A sincere conversion can never be called odd, as you term it, madame,"
+said Abbe d'Aigrigny, coldly.  "It is, on the contrary, meritorious, and
+forms an excellent example."
+
+"Excellent?" answered Adrienne: "that depends!  For instance, what if one
+converts defects into vices?"
+
+"What do you mean, madame?" cried the princess.
+
+"I am speaking of myself, aunt; you reproach me of being independent and
+resolute--suppose I were to become hypocritical and wicked?  In truth, I
+prefer keeping my dear little faults, which I love like spoiled children.
+I know what I am; I do not know what I might be."
+
+"But you must acknowledge, Mdlle. Adrienne," said Baron Tripeaud, with a
+self-conceited and sententious air, "that a conversion--"
+
+"I believe," said Adrienne, disdainfully, "that M. Tripeaud is well
+versed in the conversion of all sorts of property into all sorts of
+profit, by all sorts of means--but he knows nothing of this matter."
+
+"But, madame," resumed the financier, gathering courage from a glance of
+the princess, "you forget that I have the honor to be your deputy
+guardian, and that--"
+
+"It is true that M. Tripeaud has that honor," said Adrienne, with still
+more haughtiness, and not even looking at the baron; "I could never tell
+exactly why.  But as it is not now the time to guess enigmas, I wish to
+know, aunt, the object and the end of this meeting?"
+
+"You shall be satisfied, madame.  I will explain myself in a very clear
+and precise manner.  You shall know the plan of conduct that you will
+have henceforth to pursue; and if you refuse to submit thereto, with the
+obedience and respect that is due to my orders, I shall at once see what
+course to take."
+
+It is impossible to give an idea of the imperious tone and stern look of
+the princess, as she pronounced these words which were calculated to
+startle a girl, until now accustomed to live in a great measure as she
+pleased: yet, contrary perhaps to the expectation of Madame de Saint-
+Dizier, instead of answering impetuously, Adrienne looked her full in the
+face, and said, laughing: "This is a perfect declaration of war.  It's
+becoming very amusing."
+
+"We are not talking of declarations of war," said the Abbe d'Aigrigny,
+harshly, as if offended by the expressions of Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"Now, M. l'Abbe!" returned Adrienne, "for an old colonel, you are really
+too severe upon a jest!--you are so much indebted to `war,' which gave
+you a French regiment after fighting so long against France--in order to
+learn, of course, the strength and the weakness of her enemies."
+
+On these words, which recalled painful remembrances, the marquis colored;
+he was going to answer, but the princess exclaimed: "Really, madame, your
+behavior is quite intolerable!"
+
+"Well, aunt, I acknowledge I was wrong.  I ought not to have said this is
+very amusing--for it is not so, at all; but it is at least very curious--
+and perhaps," added the young girl, after a moment's silence, "perhaps
+very audacious and audacity pleases me.  As we are upon this subject, and
+you talk of a plan of conduct to which I must conform myself, under pain
+of (interrupting herself)--under pain of what, I should like to know,
+aunt?"
+
+"You shall know.  Proceed."
+
+"I will, in the presence of these gentlemen, also declare, in a very
+plain and precise manner, the determination that I have come to.  As it
+required some time to prepare for its execution, I have not spoken of it
+sooner, for you know I am not in the habit of saying, `I will do so and
+so!' but I do it."
+
+"Certainly; and it is just this habit of culpable independence of which
+you must break yourself."
+
+"Well, I had intended only to inform you of my determination at a later
+period; but I cannot resist the pleasure of doing so to-day, you seem so
+well disposed to hear and receive it.  Still, I would beg of you to speak
+first: it may just so happen, that our views are precisely the same."
+
+"I like better to see you thus," said the princess.  "I acknowledge at
+least the courage of your pride, and your defiance of all authority.  You
+speak of audacity--yours is indeed great."
+
+"I am at least decided to do that which others in their weakness dare
+not--but which I dare.  This, I hope, is clear and precise."
+
+"Very clear, very precise," said the princess, exchanging a glance of
+satisfaction with the other actors in this scene.  "The positions being
+thus established, matters will be much simplified.  I have only to give
+you notice, in your own interest, that this is a very serious affair--
+much more so than you imagine--and that the only way to dispose me to
+indulgence, is to substitute, for the habitual arrogance and irony of
+your language, the modesty and respect becoming a young lady."
+
+Adrienne smiled, but made no reply.  Some moments of silence, and some
+rapid glances exchanged between the princess and her three friends,
+showed that these encounters, more or less brilliant in themselves, were
+to be followed by a serious combat.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville had too much penetration and sagacity, not to
+remark, that the Princess de Saint-Dizier attached the greatest
+importance to this decisive interview.  But she could not understand how
+her aunt could hope to impose her absolute will upon her: the threat of
+coercive measures appearing with reason a mere ridiculous menace.  Yet,
+knowing the vindictive character of her aunt, the secret power at her
+disposal, and the terrible vengeance she had sometimes exacted--
+reflecting, moreover, that men in the position of the marquis and the
+doctor would not have come to attend this interview without some weighty
+motive--the young lady paused for a moment before she plunged into the
+strife.
+
+But soon, the very presentiment of some vague danger, far from weakening
+her, gave her new courage to brave the worst, to exaggerate, if that were
+possible, the independence of her ideas, and uphold, come what might, the
+determination that she was about to signify to the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE REVOLT.
+
+"Madame," said the princess to Adrienne de Cardoville, in a cold, severe
+tone, "I owe it to myself, as well as to these gentlemen, to
+recapitulate, in a few words, the events that have taken place for some
+time past.  Six months ago, at the end of the mourning for your father,
+you, being eighteen years old, asked for the management of your fortune,
+and for emancipation from control.  Unfortunately, I had the weakness to
+consent.  You quitted the house, and established yourself in the
+extension, far from all superintendence.  Then began a train of
+expenditures, each one more extravagant than the last.  Instead of being
+satisfied with one or two waiting-women, taken from that class from which
+they are generally selected, you chose governesses for lady-companions,
+whom you dressed in the most ridiculous and costly fashion.  It is true,
+that, in the solitude of your pavilion, you yourself chose to wear, one
+after another, costumes of different ages.  Your foolish fancies and
+unreasonable whims have been without end and without limit: not only have
+you never fulfilled your religious duties, but you have actually had the
+audacity to profane one of your rooms, by rearing in the centre of it a
+species of pagan altar, on which is a group in marble representing a
+youth and a girl"--the princess uttered these words as if they would burn
+her lips --"a work of art, if you will, but a work in the highest degree
+unsuitable to a person of your age.  You pass whole days entirely
+secluded in your pavilion, refusing to see any one; and Dr. Baleinier,
+the only one of my friends in whom you seem to have retained some
+confidence, having succeeded by much persuasion in gaining admittance,
+has frequently found you in so very excited a state, that he has felt
+seriously uneasy with regard to your health.  You have always insisted on
+going out alone, without rendering any account of your actions to any
+one.  You have taken delight in opposing, in every possible way, your
+will to my authority.  Is all this true?"
+
+"The picture of my past is not much flattered," said Adrienne; smiling,
+"but it is not altogether unlike."
+
+"So you admit, madame," said Abbe d'Aigrigny, laying stress on his words,
+"that all the facts stated by your aunt are scrupulously true?"
+
+Every eye was turned towards Adrienne, as if her answer would be of
+extreme importance.
+
+"Yes, M. l'Abbe," said she; "I live openly enough to render this question
+superfluous."
+
+"These facts are therefore admitted," said Abbe d'Aigrigny, turning
+towards the doctor and the baron.
+
+"These facts are completely established," said M. Tripeaud, in a pompous
+voice.
+
+"Will you tell me, aunt," asked Adrienne, "what is the good of this long
+preamble?"
+
+"This long preamble, madame," resumed the princess with dignity, "exposes
+the past in order to justify the future."
+
+"Really, aunt, such mysterious proceedings are a little in the style of
+the answers of the Cumaean Sybil.  They must be intended to cover
+something formidable."
+
+"Perhaps, mademoiselle--for to certain characters nothing is so
+formidable as duty and obedience.  Your character is one of those
+inclined to revolt--"
+
+"I freely acknowledge it, aunt--and it will always he so, until duty and
+obedience come to me in a shape that I can respect and love."
+
+"Whether you respect and love my orders or not, madame," said the
+princess, in a curt, harsh voice, "you will, from to-day, from this
+moment, learn to submit blindly and absolutely to my will.  In one word,
+you will do nothing without my permission: it is necessary, I insist upon
+it, and so I am determined it shall be."
+
+Adrienne looked at her aunt for a second, and then burst into so free and
+sonorous a laugh, that it rang for quite a time through the vast
+apartment.  D'Aigrigny and Baron Tripeaud started in indignation.  The
+princess looked angrily at her niece.  The doctor raised his eyes to
+heaven, and clasped his hands over his waistcoat with a sanctimonious
+sigh.
+
+"Madame," said Abbe d'Aigrigny, "such fits of laughter are highly
+unbecoming.  Your aunt's words are serious, and deserve a different
+reception."
+
+"Oh, sir!" said Adrienne, recovering herself, "it is not my fault if I
+laugh.  How can I maintain my gravity, when I hear my aunt talking of
+blind submission to her orders?  Is the swallow, accustomed to fly
+upwards and enjoy the sunshine, fledged to live with the mole in
+darkness?"
+
+At this answer, D'Aigrigny affected to stare at the other members of this
+kind of family council with blank astonishment.
+
+"A swallow? what does she mean?" asked the abbe of the baron making a
+sign, which the latter understood.
+
+"I do not know," answered Tripeaud, staring in his turn at the doctor.
+"She spoke too of a mole.  It 'is quite unheard-of--incomprehensible."
+
+"And so, madame," said the princess, appearing to share in the surprise
+of the others, "this is the reply that you make to me?"
+
+"Certainly," answered Adrienne, astonished herself that they should
+pretend not to understand the simile of which she had made use,
+accustomed as she was to speak in figurative language.
+
+"Come, come, madame," said Dr. Baleinier, smiling good-humoredly, "we
+must be indulgent.  My dear Mdlle. Adrienne has naturally so uncommon and
+excitable a nature!  She is really the most charming mad woman I know; I
+have told her so a hundred times, in my position of an old friend, which
+allows such freedom."
+
+"I can conceive that your attachment makes you indulgent--but it is not
+the less true, doctor," said D'Aigrigny, as if reproaching him for taking
+the part of Mdlle. de Cardoville, "that such answers to serious questions
+are most extravagant."
+
+"The evil is, that mademoiselle does not seem to comprehend the serious
+nature of this conference," said the princess, harshly.  "She will
+perhaps understand it better when I have given her my orders."
+
+"Let us hear these orders, aunt," replied Adrienne as, seated on the
+other side of the table, opposite to the princess, she leaned her small,
+dimpled chin in the hollow of her pretty hand, with an air of graceful
+mockery, charming to behold.
+
+"From to-morrow forward," resumed the princess, "you will quit the
+summer-house which you at present inhabit, you will discharge your women,
+and come and occupy two rooms in this house, to which there will be no
+access except through my apartment.  You will never go out alone.  You
+will accompany me to the services of the church.  Your emancipation
+terminates, in consequence of your prodigality duly proven.  I will take
+charge of all your expenses, even to the ordering of your clothes, so
+that you may be properly and modestly dressed.  Until your majority
+(which will be indefinitely postponed, by means of the intervention of a
+family-council), you will have no money at your own disposal.  Such is my
+resolution."
+
+"And certainly your resolution can only be applauded, madame," said Baron
+Tripeaud ; "we can but encourage you to show the greatest firmness, for
+such disorders must have an end."
+
+"It is more than time to put a stop to such scandal," added the abbe.
+
+"Eccentricity and exaltation of temperament--may excuse many things,"
+ventured to observe the smooth-tongued doctor.
+
+"No doubt," replied the princess dryly to Baleinier, who played his part
+to perfection; "but then, doctor, the requisite measures must be taken
+with such characters."
+
+Madame de Saint-Dizier had expressed herself in a firm and precise
+manner; she appeared convinced of the possibility of putting her threats
+into execution.  M. Tripeaud and D'Aigrigny had just now given their full
+consent to the words of the princess.  Adrienne began to perceive that
+something very serious was in contemplation, and her gayety was at once
+replaced by an air of bitter irony and offended independence.
+
+She rose abruptly, and colored a little; her rosy nostrils dilated, her
+eyes flashed fire, and, as she raised her head, she gently shook the
+fine, wavy golden hair, with a movement of pride that was natural to her.
+After a moment's silence, she said to her aunt in a cutting tone: "You
+have spoken of the past, madame; I also will speak a few words concerning
+it, since you force me to do so, though I may regret the necessity. I
+quitted your dwelling, because it was impossible for me to live longer in
+this atmosphere of dark hypocrisy and black treachery."
+
+"Madame," said D'Aigrigny, "such words are as violent as they are
+unreasonable."
+
+"Since you interrupt me, sir," said Adrienne, hastily, as she fixed her
+eyes on the abbe, "tell me what examples did I meet with in my aunt's
+house?"
+
+"Excellent, examples, madame."
+
+"Excellent, sir?  Was it because I saw there, every day, her conversion
+keep pace with your own?"
+
+"Madame, you forget yourself!" cried the princess, becoming pale with
+rage.
+
+"Madame, I do not forget--I remember, like other people; that is all.  I
+had no relation of whom I could ask an asylum.  I wished to live alone.
+I wished to enjoy my revenues--because I chose rather to spend them
+myself, than to see them wasted by M. Tripeaud."
+
+"Madame," cried the baron, "I cannot imagine how you can presume--"
+
+"Sir!" said Adrienne, reducing him to silence by a gesture of
+overwhelming lordliness, "I speak of you--not to you.  I wished to spend
+my income," she continued, "according to my own tastes.  I embellished
+the retreat that I had chosen.  Instead of ugly, ill-taught servants, I
+selected girls, pretty and well brought up, though poor.  Their education
+forbade their being subjected to any humiliating servitude, though I have
+endeavored to make their situation easy and agreeable.  They do not serve
+me, but render me service--I pay them, but I am obliged to them--nice
+distinctions that your highness will not understand, I know.  Instead of
+seeing them badly or ungracefully dressed, I have given them clothes that
+suit their charming faces well, because I like whatever is young and
+fair.  Whether I dress myself one way or the other, concerns only my
+looking-glass.  I go out alone, because I like to follow my fancy.  I do
+not go to mass--but, if I had still a mother, I would explain to her my
+devotions, and she would kiss me none the less tenderly.  It is true,
+that I have raised a pagan altar to youth and beauty, because I adore God
+in all that He has made fair and good, noble and grand--because, morn and
+evening, my heart repeats the fervent and sincere prayer: `Thanks, my
+Creator! thanks!'--Your highness says that M. Baleinier has often found
+me in my solitude, a prey to a strange excitement: yes, it is true; for
+it is then that, escaping in thought from all that renders the present
+odious and painful to me, I find refuge in the future--it is then that
+magical horizons spread far before me--it is then that such splendid
+visions appear to me, as make me feel myself rapt in a sublime and
+heavenly ecstasy, as if I no longer appertained to earth!"
+
+As Adrienne pronounced these last words with enthusiasm, her countenance
+appeared transfigured, so resplendent did it become.  In that moment, she
+had lost sight of all that surrounded her.
+
+"It is then," she resumed, with spirit soaring higher and higher, "that I
+breathe a pure air, reviving and free--yes, free--above all, free--and so
+salubrious, so grateful to the soul!--Yes, instead of seeing my sisters
+painfully submit to a selfish, humiliating, brutal dominion, which
+entails upon them the seductive vices of slavery, the graceful fraud, the
+enchanting perfidy, the caressing falsehood, the contemptuous
+resignation, the hateful obedience--I behold them, my noble sisters!
+worthy and sincere because they are free, faithful and devoted because
+they have liberty to choose--neither imperious not base, because they
+have no master to govern or to flatter--cherished and respected, because
+they can withdraw from a disloyal hand their hand, loyally bestowed.  Oh,
+my sisters! my sisters!  I feel it.  These are not merely consoling
+visions--they are sacred hopes."
+
+Carried away, in spite of herself, by the excitement of her feelings,
+Adrienne paused for a moment, in order to return to earth; she did not
+perceive that the other actors in this scene were looking at each other
+with an air of delight.
+
+"What she says there is excellent," murmured the doctor in the princess's
+ear, next to whom he was seated; "were she in league with us, she would
+not speak differently."
+
+"It is only by excessive harshness," added D'Aigrigny, "that we shall
+bring her to the desired point."
+
+But it seemed as if the vexed emotion of Adrienne had been dissipated by
+the contact of the generous sentiments she had just uttered.  Addressing
+Baleinier with a smile, she said: "I must own, doctor, that there is
+nothing more ridiculous, than to yield to the current of certain
+thoughts, in the presence of persons incapable of understanding them.
+This would give you a fine opportunity to make game of that exaltation of
+mind for which you sometimes reproach me.  To let myself be carried away
+by transports at so serious a moment!--for, verily, the matter in hand
+seems to be serious.  But you see, good M. Baleinier, when an idea comes
+into my head, I can no more help following it out, than I could refrain
+from running after butterflies when I was a little girl."
+
+"And heaven only knows whither these brilliant butterflies of all
+colors," said M. Baleinier, smiling with an air of paternal indulgence,
+"that are passing through your brain, are likely to lead you.  Oh,
+madcap, when will she be as reasonable as she is charming?"
+
+"This very instant, my good doctor," replied Adrienne.  "I am about to
+cast off my reveries for realities, and speak plain and positive
+language, as you shall hear."
+
+Upon which, addressing her aunt, she continued: "You have imparted to me
+your resolution, madame; I will now tell you mine.  Within a week, I
+shall quit the pavilion that I inhabit, for a house which I have arranged
+to my taste, where I shall live after my own fashion.  I have neither
+father nor mother, and I owe no account of my actions to any but myself."
+
+"Upon my word, mademoiselle," said the princess, shrugging her shoulders,
+"you talk nonsense.  You forget that society has inalienable moral
+rights, which we are bound to enforce.  And we shall not neglect them,
+depend upon it."
+
+"So madame, it is you, and M. d'Aigrigny, and M. Tripeaud, that represent
+the morality of society!  This appears to me very fine.  Is it because M.
+Tripeaud has considered (I must acknowledge it) my fortune as his own?
+Is it because--"
+
+"Now, really, madame," began Tripeaud.
+
+"In good time, madame," said Adrienne to her aunt, without noticing the
+baron, "as the occasion offers, I shall have to ask you for explanations
+with regard to certain interests, which have hitherto, I think, been
+concealed from me."
+
+These words of Adrienne made D'Aigrigny and the princess start, and then
+rapidly exchange a glance of uneasiness and anxiety.  Adrienne did not
+seem to perceive it, but thus continued: "To have done with your demands,
+madame, here is my final resolve.  I shall live where and how I please.
+I think that, if I were a man, no one would impose on me, at my age, the
+harsh and humiliating guardianship you have in view, for living as I have
+lived till now--honestly, freely, and generously, in the sight of all."
+
+"This idea is absurd! is madness!"  cried the princess.  "To wish to live
+thus alone, is to carry immorality and immodesty to their utmost limits."
+
+"If so, madame," said Adrienne, "what opinion must you entertain of so
+many poor girls, orphans like myself, who live alone and free, as I wish
+to live?  They have not received, as I have, a refined education,
+calculated to raise the soul, and purify the heart.  They have not
+wealth, as I have, to protect them from the evil temptations of misery;
+and yet they live honestly and proudly in their distress."
+
+"Vice and virtue do not exist for such tag-rag vermin!" cried Baron
+Tripeaud, with an expression of anger and hideous disdain.
+
+"Madame, you would turn away a lackey, that would venture to speak thus
+before you," said Adrienne to her aunt, unable to conceal her disgust,
+"and yet you oblige me to listen to such speeches!"
+
+The Marquis d'Aigrigny touched M. Tripeaud with his knee under the table,
+to remind him that he must not express himself in the princess's parlors
+in the same manner as he would in the lobbies of the Exchange.  To repair
+the baron's coarseness, the abbe thus continued: "There is no comparison,
+mademoiselle, between people of the class you name, and a young lady of
+your rank."
+
+"For a Catholic priest, M. l'Abbe, that distinction is not very
+Christian," replied Adrienne.
+
+"I know the purport of my words, madame," answered the abbe, dryly;
+"besides the independent life that you wish to lead, in opposition to all
+reason, may tend to very serious consequences for you.  Your family may
+one day wish to see you married--"
+
+"I will spare my family that trouble, sir, if I marry at all, I will
+choose for myself, which also appears to me reasonable enough.  But, in
+truth, I am very little tempted by that heavy chain, which selfishness
+and brutality rivet for ever about our necks."
+
+"It is indecent, madame," said the princess, to speak so lightly of such
+an institution."
+
+"Before you, especially, madame, I beg pardon for having shocked your
+highness!  You fear that my independent planner of living will frighten
+away all wooers; but that is another reason for persisting in my
+independence, for I detest wooers.  I only hope that they may have the
+very worst opinion of me, and there is no better means of effecting that
+object, than to appear to live as they live themselves.  I rely upon my
+whims, my follies, my sweet faults, to preserve me from the annoyance of
+any matrimonial hunting."
+
+"You will he quite satisfied on that head," resumed Madame de Saint-
+Dizier, "if unfortunately the report should gain credit, that you have
+carried the forgetfulness of all duty and decency, to such a height, as
+to return home at eight o'clock in the morning.  So I am told is the case
+but I cannot bring myself to believe such an enormity."
+
+"You are wrong, madame, for it is quite true."
+
+"So you confess it?" cried the princess.
+
+"I confess all that I do, madame.  I came home this morning at eight
+o'clock."
+
+"You hear Gentlemen?" ejaculated the princess.
+
+"Oh!" said M. d'Aigrigny, in a bass voice.
+
+"Ah!" said the baron, in a treble key.
+
+"Oh!" muttered the doctor, with a deep sigh.
+
+On hearing these lamentable exclamations, Adrienne seemed about to speak,
+perhaps to justify herself; but her lip speedily assumed a curl of
+contempt, which showed that she disdained to stoop to any explanation.
+
+"So it is true," said the princess.  "Oh, wretched girl, you had
+accustomed me to be astonished at nothing; but, nevertheless, I doubted
+the possibility of such conduct.  It required your impudent and audacious
+reply to convince the of the fact."
+
+"Madame, lying has always appeared to be more impudent than to speak the
+truth."
+
+"And where had you been, madame? and for what?"
+
+"Madame," said Adrienne, interrupting her aunt, "I never speak false--but
+neither do I speak more than I choose; and then again, it were cowardice
+to defend myself from a revolting accusation.  Let us say no more about
+it: your importunities on this head will be altogether vain.  To resume:
+you wish to impose upon me a harsh and humiliating restraint; I wish to
+quit the house I inhabit, to go and live where I please, at my own fancy.
+Which of us two will yield, remains to be seen.  Now for another matter:
+this mansion belongs to me!  As I am about to leave it, I am indifferent
+whether you continue to live here or not; but the ground floor is
+uninhabited.  It contains, besides the reception-rooms, two complete sets
+of apartments; I have let them for some time."
+
+"Indeed!" said the princess, looking at D'Aigrigny with intense surprise.
+"And to whom," she added ironically, "have you disposed of them?"
+
+"To three members of my family."
+
+"What does all this mean?"  said Mme. de Saint-Dizier, more and more
+astonished.
+
+"It means, madame, that I wish to offer a generous hospitality to a young
+Indian prince, my kinsman on my mother's side.  He will arrive in two or
+three days, and I wish to have the rooms ready to receive him."
+
+"You hear, gentlemen?" said D'Aigrigny to the doctor and Tripeaud, with
+an affectation of profound stupor.
+
+"It surpasses all one could imagine!" exclaimed the baron.
+
+"Alas!" observed the doctor, benignantly, "the impulse is generous in
+itself--but the mad little head crops out?"
+
+"Excellent!" said the princes.  "I cannot prevent you madame, from
+announcing the most extravagant designs but it is presumable that you
+will not stop short in so fair a path.  Is that all?"
+
+"Not quite, your highness.  I learned this morning, that two of my female
+relations, also on my mother's side--poor children of fifteen--orphan
+daughters of Marshal Simon arrived yesterday from a long journey, and are
+now with the wife of the brave soldier who brought them to France from
+the depths of Siberia."
+
+At these words from Adrienne, D'Aigrigny and the princess could not help
+starting suddenly, and staring at each other with affright, so far were
+they from expecting that Mdlle. de Cardoville was informed of the coming
+of Marshal Simon's daughters.  This discovery was like a thunder-clap to
+them.
+
+"You are no doubt astonished at seeing me so well informed," said
+Adrienne; "fortunately, before I have done, I hope to astonish you still
+more.  But to return to these daughters of  Marshal Simon: your highness
+will understand, that it is impossible for me to leave them in charge of
+the good people who have afforded them a temporary asylum.  Though this
+family is honest, and hard-working, it is not the place for them.  I
+shall go and fetch them hither, and lodge them in apartments on the
+ground-floor, along with the soldier's wife, who will do very well to
+take care of them."
+
+Upon these words, D'Aigrigny and the baron looked at each other, and the
+baron exclaimed: "Decidedly, she's out of her head."
+
+Without a word to Tripeaud, Adrienne continued: "Marshal Simon cannot
+fail to arrive at Paris shortly.  Your highness perceives how pleasant it
+will he, to be able to present his daughters to him, and prove that they
+have been treated as they deserve.  To-morrow morning I shall send for
+milliners and mantua makers, so that they may want for nothing.  I desire
+their surprised father, on his return, to find them every way beautiful.
+They are pretty, I am told, as angels--but I will endeavor to make little
+Cupids of them."
+
+"At last, madame, you must have finished?" said the princess, in a
+sardonic and deeply irritated tone, whilst D'Aigrigny, calm and cold in
+appearance, could hardly dissemble his mental anguish.
+
+"Try again!" continued the princess, addressing Adrienne.  "Are there no
+more relations that you wish to add to this interesting family-group?
+Really a queen could not act with more magnificence."
+
+"Right! I wish to give my family a royal reception--such as is due to the
+son of a king, and the daughters of the Duke de Ligny.  It is well to
+unite other luxuries of life with the luxury of the hospitable heart."
+
+"The maxim is assuredly generous," said the princess, becoming more and
+more agitated; "it is only a pity that you do not possess the mines of El
+Dorado to make it practicable."
+
+"It was on the subject of a mine, said to be a rich one, that I also
+wished to speak to your highness.  Could I find a better opportunity?
+Though my fortune is already considerable, it is nothing to what may come
+to our family at any moment.  You will perhaps excuse, therefore, what
+you are pleased to call my royal prodigalities."
+
+D'Aigrigny's dilemma became momentarily more and more thorny.  The affair
+of the medals was so important, that he had concealed it even from Dr.
+Baleinier, though he had called in his services to forward immense
+interests.  Neither had Tripeaud been informed of it, for the princess
+believed that she had destroyed every vestige of those papers of
+Adrienne's father, which might have put him on the scent of this
+discovery.  The abbe, therefore was not only greatly alarmed that Mdlle.
+de Cardoville might be informed of this secret, but he trembled lest she
+should divulge it.
+
+The princess, sharing the alarms of D'Aigrigny, interrupted her niece by
+exclaiming: "Madame, there are certain family affairs which ought to be
+kept secret, and, without exactly understanding to what you allude, I
+must request you to change the subject."
+
+"What, madame! are we not here a family party?  Is that not sufficiently
+evident by the somewhat ungracious things that have been here said?"
+
+"No matter, madame! when affairs of interest are concerned, which are
+more or less disputable, it is perfectly useless to speak of them without
+the documents laid before every one."
+
+"And of what have we been speaking this hour, madame, if not of affairs
+of interest?  I really do not understand your surprise and
+embarrassment."
+
+"I am neither surprised nor embarrassed, madame; but for the last two
+hours, you have obliged me to listen to so many new and extravagant
+things, that a little amaze is very permissible."
+
+"I beg your highness's pardon, but you are very much embarrassed," said
+Adrienne, looking fixedly at her aunt, "and M. d'Aigrigny also--which
+confirms certain suspicions that I have not had the time to clear up.
+Have I then guessed rightly?" she added, after a pause.  "We will see--"
+
+"Madame, I command you to be silent," cried the princess, no longer
+mistress of herself.
+
+"Oh, madame!" said Adrienne, "for a person who has in general so much
+command of her feelings, you compromise yourself strangely."
+
+Providence (as some will have it) came to the aid of the princess and the
+Abbe d'Aigrigny at this critical juncture.  A valet entered the room; his
+countenance bore such marks of fright and agitation, that the princess
+exclaimed as soon as she saw him: "Why, Dubois! what is the matter?"
+
+"I have to beg pardon, your highness, for interrupting you against your
+express orders, but a police inspector demands to speak with you
+instantly.  He is below stairs, and the yard is full of policemen and
+soldiers."
+
+Notwithstanding the profound surprise which this new incident occasioned
+her, the princess, determining to profit by the opportunity thus
+afforded, to concert prompt measures with D'Aigrigny on the subject of
+Adrienne's threatened revelations, rose, and said to the abbe: "Will you
+be so obliging as to accompany me, M. d'Aigrigny, for I do not know what
+the presence of this commissary of police may signify."
+
+D'Aigrigny followed the speaker into the next room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+TREACHERY.
+
+The Princess de Saint-Dizier, accompanied by D'Aigrigny, and followed by
+the servants, stopped short in the next room to that in which had
+remained Adrienne, Tripeaud and the doctor.
+
+"Where is the commissary?" asked the princess of the servant, who had
+just before announced to her the arrival of that magistrate."
+
+"In the blue saloon, madame."
+
+"My compliments, and beg him to wait for me a few moments."
+
+The man bowed and withdrew.  As soon as he was gone Madame de Saint-
+Dizier approached hastily M. d'Aigrigny, whose countenance, usually firm
+and haughty, was now pale and agitated.
+
+"You see," cried the princess in a hurried voice, "Adrienne knows all.
+What shall we do?--what?"
+
+"I cannot tell," said the abbe, with a fixed and absent look.  "This
+disclosure is a terrible blow to us."
+
+"Is all, then, lost?"
+
+"There is only one means of safety," said M. d'Aigrigny;--"the doctor."
+
+"But how?" cried the princess.  "So, sudden? this very day?"
+
+"Two hours hence, it will be too late; ere then, this infernal girl will
+have seen Marshal Simon's daughters."
+
+"But--Frederick!--it is impossible!  M. Baleinier will never consent.  I
+ought to have been prepared before hand as we intended, after to-day's
+examination."
+
+"No matter," replied the abbe, quickly; "the doctor must try at any
+hazard."
+
+"But under what pretext?"
+
+"I will try and find one."
+
+"Suppose you were to find a pretext, Frederick, and we could act
+immediately--nothing would be ready down there."
+
+"Be satisfied: they are always ready there, by habitual foresight."
+
+"How instruct the doctor on the instant?" resumed the princess.
+
+"To send for him would be to rouse the suspicions of your niece," said M.
+d'Aigrigny, thoughtfully; "and we must avoid that before everything."
+
+"Of course," answered the princess; "her confidence in the doctor is one
+of our greatest resources."
+
+"There is a way," said the abbe quickly; "I will write a few words in
+haste to Baleinier: one of your people can take the note to him, as if it
+came from without--from a patient dangerously ill."
+
+"An excellent idea!" cried the princess.  "You are right.  Here--upon
+this table--there is everything necessary for writing.  Quick! quick--But
+will the doctor succeed?"
+
+"In truth, I scarcely dare to hope it," said the marquis, sitting down at
+the table with repressed rage.  "Thanks to this examination, going beyond
+our hopes, which our man, hidden behind the curtain, has faithfully taken
+down in shorthand--thanks to the violent scenes, which would necessarily
+have occurred to-morrow and the day after--the doctor, by fencing himself
+round with all sorts of clever precautions, would have been able to act
+with the most complete certainty.  But to ask this of him to-day, on the
+instant!--Herminia--it is folly to think of!"--The marquis threw down the
+pen which he held in his hand; then he added, in a tone of bitter and
+profound irritation: "At the very moment of success--to see all our hopes
+destroyed!--Oh, the consequences of all this are incalculable.  Your
+niece will be the cause of the greatest mischief--oh! the greatest injury
+to us."
+
+It is impossible to describe the expression of deep rage and implacable
+hatred with which D'Aigrigny uttered these last words.
+
+"Frederick," cried the princess with anxiety, as she clasped her hands
+strongly around the abbe's, "I conjure you, do not despair!--The doctor
+is fertile in resources, and he is so devoted to us.  Let us at least,
+make the attempt."
+
+"Well--it is at least a chance," said the abbe, taking up the pen again.
+
+"Should it come to the worst." said the princess, "and Adrienne go this
+evening to fetch General Simon's daughters, she may perhaps no longer
+find them.
+
+"We cannot hope for that.  It is impossible that Rodin's orders should
+have been so quickly executed.  We should have been informed of it."
+
+"It is true.  Write then to the doctor; I will send you Dubois, to carry
+your letter.  Courage, Frederick! we shall yet be too much for that
+ungovernable girl."  Madame de Saint-Dizier added, with concentrated
+rage: "Oh, Adrienne! Adrienne! you shall pay dearly for your insolent
+sarcasms, and the anxiety you have caused us."
+
+As she went out, the princess turned towards M. d'Aigrigny, and said to
+him: "Wait for me here.  I will tell you the meaning of this visit of the
+police, and we will go in together.
+
+The princess disappeared.  D'Aigrigny dashed off a few words, with a
+trembling hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+THE SNARE.
+
+After the departure of Madame de Saint-Dizier and the marquis, Adrienne
+had remained in her aunt's apartment with M. Baleinier and Baron
+Tripeaud.
+
+On hearing of the commissary's arrival, Mdlle. de Cardoville had felt
+considerable uneasiness; for there could be no doubt that, as Agricola
+had apprehended, this magistrate was come to search the hotel and
+extension, in order to find the smith, whom he believed to be concealed
+there.
+
+Though she looked upon Agricola's hiding-place as a very safe one,
+Adrienne was not quite tranquil on his account; so in the event of any
+unfortunate accident, she thought it a good opportunity to recommend the
+refugee to the doctor, an intimate friend, as we have said, of one of the
+most influential ministers of the day.  So, drawing near to the
+physician, who was conversing in a low voice with the baron, she said to
+him in her softest and most coaxing manner: "My good M. Baleinier, I wish
+to speak a few words with you."  She pointed to the deep recess of one of
+the windows.
+
+"I am at your orders, madame," answered the doctor, as he rose to follow
+Adrienne to the recess.
+
+M. Tripeaud, who, no longer sustained by the abbe's presence, dreaded the
+young lady as he did fire, was not sorry for this diversion.  To keep up
+appearances, he stationed himself before one of the sacred pictures, and
+began again to contemplate it, as if there were no bounds to his
+admiration.
+
+When Mdlle. de Cardoville was far enough from the baron, not to be
+overheard by him, she said to the physician, who, all smiles and
+benevolence, waited for her to explain: "My good doctor, you are my
+friend, as you were my father's.  Just now, notwithstanding the
+difficulty of your position, you had the courage to show yourself my only
+partisan."
+
+"Not at all, madame; do not go and say such things!" cried the doctor,
+affecting a pleasant kind of anger.  "Plague on't! you would get me into
+a pretty scrape; so pray be silent on that subject.  Vade retro Satanas!-
+-which means:  Get thee behind me, charming little demon that you are!"
+
+"Do not be afraid," answered Adrienne, with a smile; "I will not
+compromise you.  Only allow me to remind you, that you have often made me
+offers of service, and spoken to me of your devotion."
+
+"Put me to the test--and you will see if I do not keep my promises."
+
+"Well, then! give me a proof on the instant," said Adrienne, quickly.
+
+"Capital! this is how I like to be taken at my word.  What can I do for
+you?"
+
+"Are you still very intimate with your friend the minister?"
+
+"Yes; I am just treating him for a loss of voice, which he always has,
+the day they put questions to him in the house.  He likes it better."
+
+"I want you to obtain from him something very important for me."
+
+"For you? pray, what is it?"
+
+"At this instant, the valet entered the room, delivered a letter to M.
+Baleinier, and said to him: "A footman has just brought this letter for
+you, sir; it is very pressing."
+
+The physician took the letter, and the servant went out.
+
+"This is one of the inconveniences of merit," said Adrienne, smiling;
+"they do not leave you a moment's rest, my poor doctor."
+
+"Do not speak of it, madame," said the physician, who could not conceal a
+start of amazement, as he recognized the writing of D'Aigrigny; "these
+patients think we are made of iron, and have monopolized the health which
+they so much need.  They have really no mercy.  With your permission,
+madame," added M. Baleinier, looking at Adrienne before he unsealed the
+letter.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville answered by a graceful nod.  Marquis d'Aigrigny's
+letter was not long; the doctor read it at a single glance, and,
+notwithstanding his habitual prudence, he shrugged his shoulders, and
+said hastily: "Today! why, it's impossible.  He is mad."
+
+"You speak no doubt of some poor patient, who has placed all his hopes in
+you--who waits and calls for you at this moment.  Come, my dear M.
+Baleinier, do not reject his prayer.  It is so sweet to justify the
+confidence we inspire."
+
+There was at once so much analogy, and such contradiction, between the
+object of this letter, written just before by Adrienne's most implacable
+enemy, and these words of commiseration which she spoke in a touching
+voice, that Dr. Baleinier himself could not help being struck with it.
+He looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with an almost embarrassed air, as he
+replied: "I am indeed speaking of one of my patients, who counts much
+upon me--a great deal too much--for he asks me to do an impossibility.
+But why do you feel so interested in an unknown person?"
+
+"If he is unfortunate, I know enough to interest me.  The person for whom
+I ask your assistance with the minister, was quite as little known to me;
+and now I take the deepest interest in him.  I must tell you, that he is
+the son of the worthy soldier who brought Marshal Simon's daughters from
+the heart of Siberia."
+
+"What! he is--"
+
+"An honest workman, the support of his family; but I must tell you all
+about it--this is how the affair took place."
+
+The confidential communication which Adrienne was going to make to the
+doctor, was cut short by Madame Saint-Dizier, who, followed by M.
+d'Aigrigny, opened abruptly the door.  An expression of infernal joy,
+hardly concealed beneath a semblance of extreme indignation, was visible
+in her countenance.
+
+M. d'Aigrigny threw rapidly, as he entered the apartment, an inquiring
+and anxious glance at M. Baleinier.  The doctor answered by a shake of
+the head.  The abbe bit his lips with silent rage; he had built his last
+hopes upon the doctor, and his projects seemed now forever annihilated,
+notwithstanding the new blow which the princess had in reserve for
+Adrienne.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Madame de Saint-Dizier, in a sharp, hurried voice, for
+she was nearly choking with wicked pleasure, "gentlemen, pray be seated!
+I have some new and curious things to tell you, on the subject of this
+young lady."  She pointed to her niece, with a look of ineffable hatred
+and disdain.
+
+"My poor child, what is the matter now?"  said M. Baleinier, in a soft,
+wheedling tone, before he left the window where he was standing with
+Adrienne.  "Whatever happens, count upon me!"--And the physician went to
+seat himself between M. d'Aigrigny and M. Tripeaud.
+
+At her aunt's insolent address, Mdlle. de Cardoville had proudly lined
+her head.  The blood rushed to her face, and irritated at the new attacks
+with which she was menaced, she advanced to the table where the princess
+was seated, and said in an agitated voice to M. Baleinier: "I shall
+expect you to call on me as soon as possible, my dear doctor.  You know
+that I wish particularly to speak with you."
+
+Adrienne made one step towards the arm-chair, on which she had left her
+hat.  The princess rose abruptly, and exclaimed: "What are you doing,
+madame?"
+
+"I am about to retire.  Your highness has expressed to me your will, and
+I have told you mine.  It is enough."
+
+She took her hat.  Madame de Saint-Dizier, seeing her prey about to
+escape, hastened towards her niece, and, in defiance of all propriety,
+seized her violently by the arm with a convulsive grasp, and bade her,
+"Remain!"
+
+"Fie, madame!" exclaimed Adrienne, with an accent of painful contempt,
+"have we sunk so low?"
+
+"You wish to escape--you are afraid!" resumed Madame de Saint-Dizier,
+looking at her disdainfully from head to foot.
+
+With these words "you are afraid," you could have made Adrienne de
+Cardoville walk into a fiery furnace.  Disengaging her arm from her
+aunt's grasp, with a gesture full of nobleness and pride, she threw down
+the hat upon the chair, and returning to the table, said imperiously to
+the princess: "There is something even stronger than the disgust with
+which all this inspires me--the fear of being accused of cowardice.  Go
+on, madame!  I am listening!"
+
+With her head raised, her color somewhat heightened, her glance half
+veiled by a tear of indignation, her arms folded over her bosom, which
+heaved in spite of herself with deep emotion, and her little foot beating
+convulsively on the carpet, Adrienne looked steadily at her aunt.  The
+princess wished to infuse drop by drop, the poison with which she was
+swelling, and make her victim suffer as long as possible, feeling certain
+that she could not escape.  "Gentlemen," said Madame de Saint-Dizier, in
+a forced voice, "this has occurred: I was told that the commissary of
+police wished to speak with me: I went to receive this magistrate; he
+excused himself, with a troubled air, for the nature of the duty he had
+to perform.  A man, against whom a warrant was out, had been seen to
+enter the garden-house."
+
+Adrienne started, there could be no doubt that Agricola was meant.  But
+she recovered her tranquillity, when she thought of the security of the
+hiding-place she had given him.
+
+"The magistrate," continued the princess, "asked my consent to search the
+hotel and extension, to discover this man.  It was his right.  I begged
+him to commence with the garden-house, and accompanied him.
+Notwithstanding the improper conduct of Mademoiselle, it never, I
+confess, entered my head for a moment, that she was in any way mixed up
+with this police business.  I was deceived."
+
+"What do you mean, madame?" cried Adrienne.
+
+"You shall know all, madame," said the princess, with a triumphant air,
+"in good time.  You were in rather too great a hurry just now, to show
+yourself so proud and satirical.  Well!  I accompanied the commissary in
+his search; we came to the summer-house; I leave you to imagine the
+stupor and astonishment of the magistrate, on seeing three creatures
+dressed up like actresses.  At my request, the fact was noted in the
+official report; for it is well to reveal such extravagances to all whom
+it may concern."
+
+"The princess acted very wisely," said Tripeaud, bowing; "it is well that
+the authorities should be informed of such matters."
+
+Adrienne, too much interested in the fate of the workman to think of
+answering Tripeaud or the princess, listened in silence, and strove to
+conceal her uneasiness.
+
+"The magistrate," resumed Madame de Saint-Dizier, "began by a severe
+examination of these young girls; to learn if any man had, with their
+knowledge, been introduced into the house; with incredible effrontery,
+they answered that they had seen nobody enter."
+
+"The true-hearted, honest girls!" thought Mademoiselle de Cardoville,
+full of joy; "the poor workman is safe! the protection of Dr. Baleinier
+will do the rest."
+
+"Fortunately," continued the princess, "one of my women, Mrs. Grivois,
+had accompanied me.  This excellent person, remembering to have seen
+Mademoiselle return home at eight o'clock in the morning, remarked with
+much simplicity to the magistrate, that the man, whom they sought, might
+probably have entered by the little garden gate, left open, accidentally,
+by Mademoiselle."
+
+"It would have been well, madame," said Tripeaud, "to have caused to be
+noted also in the report, that Mademoiselle had returned home at eight
+o'clock in the morning."
+
+"I do not see the necessity for this," said the doctor, faithful to his
+part: "it would have been quite foreign to the search carried on by the
+commissary."
+
+"But, doctor," said Tripeaud.
+
+"But, baron," resumed M. Baleinier, in a firm voice, "that is my
+opinion."
+
+"It was not mine, doctor," said the princess; "like M. Tripeaud, I
+considered it important to establish the fact by an entry in the report,
+and I saw, by the confused and troubled countenance of the magistrate,
+how painful it was to register the scandalous conduct of a young person
+placed in so high a position in society."
+
+"Certainly, madame," said Adrienne, losing patience, "I believe your
+modesty to be about equal to that of this candid commissary of police;
+but it seems to me, that your mutual innocence was alarmed a little too
+soon.  You might, and ought to have reflected, that there was nothing
+extraordinary in my coming home at eight o'clock, if I had gone out at
+six."
+
+"The excuse, though somewhat tardy, is at least cunning," said the
+princess, spitefully.
+
+"I do not excuse myself, madame," said Adrienne; "but as M. Baleinier has
+been kind enough to speak a word in my favor, I give the possible
+interpretation of a fact, which it would not become me to explain in your
+presence."
+
+"The fact will stand, however, in the report," said Tripeaud, "until the
+explanation is given."
+
+Abbe d'Aigrigny, his forehead resting on his hand, remained as if a
+stranger to this scene; he was too much occupied with his fears at the
+consequences of the approaching interview between Mdlle. de Cardoville
+and Marshal Simon's daughters--for there seemed no possibility of using
+force to prevent Adrienne from going out that evening.
+
+Madame de Saint-Dizier went on: "The fact which so greatly scandalized
+the commissary is nothing compared to what I yet have to tell you,
+gentlemen.  We had searched all parts of the pavilion without finding any
+one, and were just about to quit the bed-chamber, for we had taken this
+room the last, when Mrs. Grivois pointed out to us that one of the golden
+mouldings of a panel did not appear to come quite home to the wall.  We
+drew the attention of the magistrate to this circumstance; his men
+examined, touched, felt--the panel flew open!--and then--can you guess
+what we discovered?  But, no! it is too odious, too revolting; I dare not
+even--"
+
+"Then I dare, madame," said Adrienne, resolutely, though she saw with the
+utmost grief the retreat of Agricola was discovered; "I will spare your
+highness's candor the recital of this new scandal, and yet what I am
+about to say is in nowise intended as a justification."
+
+"It requires one, however," said Madame de Saint-Dizier, with a
+disdainful smile; "a man concealed by you in your own bedroom."
+
+"A man concealed in her bedroom!" cried the Marquis d'Aigrigny, raising
+his head with apparent indignation, which only covered a cruel joy.
+
+"A man! in the bedroom of Mademoiselle!" added Baron Tripeaud.  "I hope
+this also was inserted in the report."
+
+"Yes, yes, baron," said the princess with a triumphant air.
+
+"But this man," said the doctor, in a hypocritical tone, "must have been
+a robber?  Any other supposition would be in the highest degree
+improbable.  This explains itself."
+
+"Your indulgence deceives you, M. Baleinier," answered the princess,
+dryly.
+
+"We knew the sort of thieves," said Tripeaud; "they are generally young
+men, handsome, and very rich."
+
+"You are wrong, sir," resumed Madame de Saint-Dizier.  "Mademoiselle does
+not raise her views so high.  She proves that a dereliction from duty may
+be ignoble as well as criminal.  I am no longer astonished at the
+sympathy which was just now professed for the lower orders.  It is the
+more touching and affecting, as the man concealed by her was dressed in a
+blouse."
+
+"A blouse!" cried the baron, with an air of extreme disgust; "then he is
+one of the common people?  It really makes one's hair stand on end."
+
+"The man is a working smith--he confessed it," said the princess; "but
+not to be unjust--he is really a good-looking fellow.  It was doubtless
+that singular worship which Mademoiselle pays to the beautiful--"
+
+"Enough, madame, enough!" said Adrienne suddenly, for, hitherto
+disdaining to answer, she had listened to her aunt with growing and
+painful indignation; "I was just now on the point of defending myself
+against one of your odious insinuations--but I will not a second time
+descend to any such weakness.  One word only, madame; has this honest and
+worthy artisan been arrested?"
+
+"To be sure, he has been arrested and taken to prison, under a strong
+escort.  Does not that pierce your heart?" sneered the princess, with a
+triumphant air.  "Your tender pity for this interesting smith must indeed
+be very great, since it deprives you of your sarcastic assurance."
+
+"Yes, madame; for I have something better to do than to satirize that
+which is utterly odious and ridiculous," replied Adrienne, whose eyes
+grew dim with tears at the thought of the cruel hurt to Agricola's
+family.  Then, putting her hat on, and tying the strings, she said to the
+doctor: "M. Baleinier, I asked you just now for your interest with the
+minister."
+
+"Yes, madame; and it will give me great pleasure to act on your behalf."
+
+"Is your carriage below?"
+
+"Yes, madame," said the doctor, much surprised.
+
+"You will be good enough to accompany me immediately to the minister's.
+Introduced by you, he will not refuse me the favor, or rather the act of
+justice, that I have to solicit."
+
+"What, mademoiselle," said the princess; "do you dare take such a course,
+without my orders, after what has just passed?  It is really quite
+unheard-of."
+
+"It confounds one," added Tripeaud; "but we must not be surprised at
+anything."
+
+The moment Adrienne asked the doctor if his carriage was below,
+D'Aigrigny started.  A look of intense satisfaction flashed across his
+countenance, and he could hardly repress the violence of his delight,
+when, darting, a rapid and significant glance at the doctor, he saw the
+latter respond to it by trace closing his eyelids in token of
+comprehension and assent.
+
+When therefore the princess resumed, in an angry tone, addressing herself
+to Adrienne: "Madame, I forbid you leaving the house!"--D'Aigrigny said
+to the speaker, with a peculiar inflection of the voice: "I think, your
+highness, we may trust the lady to the doctor's care."
+
+The marquis pronounced these words in so significant a manner, that the
+princess, having looked by turns at the physician and D'Aigrigny,
+understood it all, and her countenance grew radiant with joy.
+
+Not only did this pass with extreme rapidity, but the night was already
+almost come, so that Adrienne, absorbed in painful thoughts with regard
+to Agricola, did not perceive the different signals exchanged between the
+princess, the doctor, and the abbe.  Even had she done so, they would
+have been incomprehensible to her.
+
+Not wishing to have the appearance of yielding too readily, to the
+suggestion of the marquis, Madame de Saint-Dizier resumed: "Though the
+doctor seems to me to be far too indulgent to mademoiselle, I might not
+see any great objection to trusting her with him; but that I do not wish
+to establish such a precedent, for hence forward she must have no will
+but mine."
+
+"Madame," said the physician gravely, feigning to be somewhat shocked by
+the words of the Princess de Saint-Dizier, "I do not think I have been
+too indulgent to mademoiselle--but only just.  I am at her orders, to
+take her to the minister if she wishes it.  I do not know what she
+intends to solicit, but I believe her incapable of abusing the confidence
+I repose in her, or making me support a recommendation undeserved."
+
+Adrienne, much moved, extended her hand cordially to the doctor, and said
+to him: "Rest assured, my excellent friend, that you will thank me for
+the step I am taking, for you will assist in a noble action."
+
+Tripeaud, who was not in the secret of the new plans of the doctor and
+the abbe in a low voice faltered to the latter, with a stupefied air,
+"What! will you let her go?"
+
+"Yes, yes," answered D'Aigrigny abruptly, making a sign that he should
+listen to the princess, who was about to speak.  Advancing towards her
+niece, she said to her in a slow and measured tone, laying a peculiar
+emphasis on every word:  "One moment more, mademoiselle--one last word in
+presence of these gentlemen.  Answer me!  Notwithstanding the heavy
+charges impending over you, are you still determined to resist my formal
+commands?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Notwithstanding the scandalous exposure which has just taken place, you
+still persist in withdrawing yourself from my authority?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"You refuse positively to submit to the regular and decent mode of life
+which I would impose upon you?"
+
+"I have already told you, madame, that I am about to quit this dwelling
+in order to live alone and after my own fashion."
+
+"Is that your final decision?"
+
+"It is my last word."
+
+"Reflect! the matter is serious.  Beware!"
+
+"I have given your highness my last word, and I never speak it twice."
+
+"Gentlemen, you hear all this?" resumed the princess; "I have tried in
+vain all that was possible to conciliate.  Mademoiselle will have only
+herself to thank for the measures to which this audacious revolt will
+oblige me to have recourse."
+
+"Be it so, madame," replied Adrienne.  Then, addressing M. Baleinier, she
+said quickly to him: "Come, my dear doctor; I am dying with impatience.
+Let us set out immediately.  Every minute lost may occasion bitter tears
+to an honest family."
+
+So saying, Adrienne left the room precipitately with the physician.  One
+of the servants called for M. Baleinier's carriage.  Assisted by the
+doctor, Adrienne mounted the step, without perceiving that he said
+something in a low whisper to the footman that opened the coach-door.
+
+When, however, he was seated by the side of Mdlle. de Cardoville, and the
+door was closed upon them, he waited for about a second, and then called
+out in a loud voice to the coachman: "To the house of the minister, by
+the private entrance!"  The horses started at a gallop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+A FALSE FRIEND.
+
+Night had set in dark and cold.  The sky, which had been clear till the
+sun went down, was now covered with gray and lurid clouds; a strong wind
+raised here and there, in circling eddies, the snow that was beginning to
+fall thick and fast.
+
+The lamps threw a dubious light into the interior of Dr. Baleinier's
+carriage, in which he was seated alone with Adrienne de Cardoville.  The
+charming countenance of the latter, faintly illumined by the lamps
+beneath the shade of her little gray hat, looked doubly white and pure in
+contrast with the dark lining of the carriage, which was now filled with
+that, sweet, delicious, and almost voluptuous perfume which hangs about
+the garments of young women of taste.  The attitude of the girl, seated
+next to the doctor, was full of grace.  Her slight and elegant figure,
+imprisoned in her high-necked dress of blue cloth, imprinted its wavy
+outline on the soft cushion against which she leaned; her little feet,
+crossed one upon the other, and stretched rather forward, rested upon a
+thick bear-skin, which carpeted the bottom of the carriage.  In her hand,
+which was ungloved and dazzlingly white, she held a magnificently
+embroidered handkerchief, with which, to the great astonishment of M.
+Baleinier, she dried her eyes, now filled with tears.
+
+Yes; Adrienne wept, for she now felt the reaction from the painful scenes
+through which she had passed at Saint-Dizier House; to the feverish and
+nervous excitement, which had till then sustained her, had succeeded a
+sorrowful dejection.  Resolute in her independence, proud in her disdain,
+implacable in her irony, audacious in her resistance to unjust
+oppression, Adrienne was yet endowed with the most acute sensibility,
+which she always dissembled, however, in the presence of her aunt and
+those who surrounded her.
+
+Notwithstanding her courage, no one could have been less masculine, less
+of a virago, than Mdlle. Cardoville.  She was essentially womanly, but as
+a woman, she knew how to exercise great empire over herself, the moment
+that the least mark of weakness on her part would have rejoiced or
+emboldened her enemies.
+
+The carriage had rolled onwards for some minutes; but Adrienne, drying
+her tears in silence, to the doctor's great astonishment, had not yet
+uttered a word.
+
+"What, my dear Mdlle. Adrienne?" said M. Baleinier, truly surprised at
+her emotion; "what! you, that were just now so courageous, weeping?"
+
+"Yes," answered Adrienne, in an agitated voice; "I weep in presence of a
+friend; but, before my aunt--oh! never."
+
+"And yet, in that long interview, your stinging replies "
+
+"Ah me! do you think that I resigned myself with pleasure to that war of
+sarcasm?  Nothing is more painful to me than such combats of bitter
+irony, to which I am forced by the necessity of defending myself from
+this woman and her friends.  You speak of my courage: it does not
+consist, I assure you, in the display of wicked feelings--but in the
+power to repress and hide all that I suffer, when I hear myself treated
+so grossly--in the presence, too, of people that I hate and despise--
+when, after all, I have never done them any harm, and have only asked to
+be allowed to live alone, freely and quietly, and see those about me
+happy."
+
+"That's where it is: they envy your happiness, and that which you bestow
+upon others."
+
+"And it is my aunt," cried Adrienne, with indignation, "my aunt, whose
+whole life has been one long scandal that accuses me in this revolting
+manner!--as if she did not know me proud and honest enough never to make
+a choice of which I should be ashamed!  Oh! if I ever love, I shall
+proclaim it, I shall be proud of it: for love, as I understand it, is the
+most glorious feeling in the world.  But, alas!" continued Adrienne, with
+redoubled bitterness, "of what use are truth and honor, if they do not
+secure you from suspicions, which are as absurd as they are odious?"  So
+saying, she again pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
+
+"Come, my dear Mdlle. Adrienne," said M. Baleinier, in a voice full of
+the softest unction, "becalm--it is all over now.  You have in me a
+devoted friend."  As he pronounced these last words, he blushed in spite
+of his diabolical craft.
+
+"I know you are my friend," said Adrienne: "I shall never forget that, by
+taking my part to-day, you exposed yourself to the resentment of my aunt-
+-for I am not ignorant of her power, which is very great, alas! for
+evil."
+
+"As for that," said the doctor, affecting a profound indifference, "we
+medical men are pretty safe from personal enmities."
+
+"Nay, my dear M. Baleinier!  Mme. de Saint-Dizier and her friends never
+forgive," said the young girl, with a shudder.  "It needed all my
+invincible aversion, my innate horror for all that is base, cowardly, and
+perfidious, to induce me to break so openly with her.  But if death
+itself were the penalty, I could not hesitate and yet," she added, with
+one of those graceful smiles which gave such a charm to her beautiful
+countenance, "yet I am fond of life: if I have to reproach myself with
+anything, it is that I would have it too bright, too fair, too
+harmonious; but then, you know, I am resigned to my faults."
+
+"Well, come, I am more tranquil," said the doctor, gayly; "for you smile-
+-that is a good sign."
+
+"It is often the wisest course; and yet, ought I smile, after the threats
+that my aunt has held out to me?  Still, what can she do? what is the
+meaning of this kind of family council?  Did she seriously think that the
+advice of a M. D'Aigrigny or a M. Tripeaud could have influenced me?  And
+then she talked of rigorous measures.  What measures can she take; do you
+know?"
+
+"I think, between ourselves, that the princess only wished to frighten
+you, and hopes to succeed by persuasion.  She has the misfortune to fancy
+herself a mother of the Church, and dreams of your conversion," said the
+doctor, maliciously, for he now wished to tranquillize Adrienne at any
+cost; "but let us think no more about it.  Your fire eyes must shine with
+all their lustre, to fascinate the minister that we are going to see."
+
+"You are right, dear doctor; we ought always avoid grief, for it has the
+disadvantage of making us forget the sorrows of others.  But here am I,
+availing myself of your kindness, without even telling you what I
+require."
+
+"Luckily, we shall have plenty of time to talk over it, for our statesman
+lives at some distance."
+
+"In two words, here's the mystery," answered Adrienne.  "I told you what
+reasons I had to interest myself in that honest workman.  This morning he
+came to me in great grief, to inform me that he was compromised by some
+songs he had written (for he is a poet), and that, though innocent, he
+was threatened with an arrest; and if they put him into prison, his
+family, whose sole support he is, would die of hunger.  Therefore he came
+to beg me to procure bail for him, so that he might be left at liberty to
+work: I promised immediately, thinking of your interest with the
+minister; for, as they were already in pursuit of the poor lad, I chose
+to conceal him in my residence, and you know how my aunt has twisted that
+action.  Now tell me, do you think, that, by means of your
+recommendation, the minister will grant me the freedom of this workman,
+bail being given for the same?"
+
+"No doubt of it.  There will not be the shadow of a difficulty--
+especially when you have explained the facts to him, with that eloquence
+of the heart which you possess in perfection."
+
+"Do you know, my dear Dr. Baleinier, why I have taken the resolution
+(which is perhaps a strange one) to ask you to accompany me to the
+minister's?"
+
+"Why, doubtless, to recommend your friend in a more effective manner."
+
+"Yes--but also to put an end, by a decisive step, to the calumnies which
+my aunt will be sure to spread with regard to me, and which she has
+already, you know, had inserted in the report of the commissary of
+police.  I have preferred to address myself at once, frankly and openly,
+to a man placed in a high social position.  I will explain all to him,
+who will believe me, because truth has an accent of its own."
+
+"All this, my dear Mdlle. Adrienne, is wisely planned.  You will, as the
+saw says, kill two birds with one stone--or rather, you will obtain by
+one act of kindness two acts of justice; you will destroy a dangerous
+calumny, and restore a worthy youth to liberty."
+
+"Come," said Adrienne, laughing, "thanks to this pleasing prospect, my
+light heart has returned."
+
+"How true that in life," said the doctor, philosophically, "everything
+depends on the point of view."
+
+Adrienne was so completely ignorant of the forms of a constitutional
+government, and had so blind a confidence in the doctor, that she did not
+doubt for an instant what he told her.  She therefore resumed with joy:
+"What happiness it will be! when I go to fetch the daughters of Marshal
+Simon, to be able to console this workman's mother, who is now perhaps in
+a state of cruel anxiety, at not seeing her son return home!"
+
+"Yes, you will have this pleasure," said M. Baleinier, with a smile; "for
+we will solicit and intrigue to such purpose, that the good, mother may
+learn from you the release of her son before she even knows that he has
+been arrested."
+
+"How kind, how obliging you are!" said Adrienne.  "Really, if the motive
+were not so serious, I should he ashamed of making you lose so much
+precious time, my dear M. Baleinier.  But I know your heart."
+
+"I have no other wish, than to prove to you my profound devotion, my
+sincere attachment," said the doctor inhaling a pinch of snuff.  But at
+the same time, he cast an uneasy glance through the window, for the
+carriage was just crossing the Place de l'Odeon, and in spite of the
+snow, he could see the front of the Odeon theatre brilliantly
+illuminated.  Now Adrienne, who had just turned her head towards that
+side, might perhaps be astonished at the singular road they were taking.
+
+In order to draw off her attention by a skillful diversion, the doctor
+exclaimed suddenly: "Bless me! I had almost forgotten."
+
+"What is the matter, M. Baleinier?" said Adrienne, turning hastily
+towards him.
+
+"I had forgotten a thing of the highest importance, in regard to the
+success of our petition."
+
+"What is it, please?" asked the young girl, anxiously.
+
+M. Baleinier gave a cunning smile.  "Every man," said he, "has his
+weakness--ministers even more than others.  The one we are going to visit
+has the folly to attach the utmost importance to his title, and the first
+impression would be unfavorable, if you did not lay great stress on the
+Minister."
+
+"Is that all, my dear M. Baleinier?" said Adrienne, smiling in her turn.
+"I will even go so far as Your Excellency, which is, I believe, one of
+his adopted titles."
+
+"Not now--but that is no matter; if you could even slide in a My Lord or
+two, our business would be done at once."
+
+"Be satisfied! since there are upstart ministers as well as City-turned
+gentlemen, I will remember Moliere's M. Jourdain, and feed full the
+gluttonous vanity of your friend."
+
+"I give him up to you, for I know he will be in good hands," replied the
+physician, who rejoiced to see that the carriage had now entered those
+dark streets which lead from the Place de l'Odeon to the Pantheon
+district; "I do not wish to find fault with the minister for being proud,
+since his pride may be of service to us on this occasion."
+
+"These petty devices are innocent enough," said Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+"and I confess that I do not scruple to have recourse to them."  Then,
+leaning towards the door-sash, she added: "Gracious! how sad and dark are
+these streets.  What wind! what snow!  In which quarter are we?"
+
+"What! are you so ungrateful, that you do not recognize by the absence of
+shops, your dear quarter of the Faubourg Saint Germain?"
+
+"I imagine we had quitted it long ago."
+
+"I thought so too," said the physician, leaning forward as if to
+ascertain where they were, "but we are still there.  My poor coachman,
+blinded by the snow, which is beating against his face, must have gone
+wrong just now--but we are all right again.  Yes, I perceive we are in
+the Rue Saint Guillaume--not the gayest of streets by the way--but, in
+ten minutes, we shall arrive at the minister's private entrance, for
+intimate friends like myself enjoy the privilege of escaping the honors
+of a grand reception."
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, like most carriage-people, was so little acquainted
+with certain streets of Paris, as well as with the customs of men in
+office, that she did not doubt for a moment the statements of Baleinier,
+in whom she reposed the utmost confidence.
+
+When they left the Saint-Dizier House, the doctor had upon his lips a
+question which he hesitated to put, for fear of endangering himself in
+the eyes of Adrienne.  The latter had spoken of important interests, the
+existence of which had been concealed from her.  The doctor, who was an
+acute and skillful observer, had quite clearly remarked the embarrassment
+and anxiety of the princess and D'Aigrigny.  He no longer doubted, that
+the plot directed against Adrienne--one in which he was the blind agent,
+in submission to the will of the Order--related to interests which had
+been concealed from him, and which, for that very reason, he burned to
+discover; for every member of the dark conspiracy to which he belonged
+had necessarily acquired the odious vices inherent to spies and
+informers--envy, suspicion, and jealous curiosity.
+
+It is easy to understand, therefore, that Dr. Baleinier, though quite
+determined to serve the projects of D'Aigrigny, was yet very anxious to
+learn what had been kept from him.  Conquering his irresolution, and
+finding the opportunity favorable, and no time to be lost, he said to
+Adrienne, after a moment's silence: "I am going perhaps to ask you a very
+indiscreet question.  If you think it such, pray do not answer."
+
+"Nay--go on, I entreat you."
+
+"Just now--a few minutes before the arrival of the commissary of police
+was announced to your aunt--you spoke, I think, of some great interests,
+which had hitherto been concealed from you."
+
+"Yes, I did so."
+
+"These words," continued M. Baleinier, speaking slowly and emphatically,
+"appeared to make a deep impression on the princess."
+
+"An impression so deep," said Adrienne, "that sundry suspicions of mine
+were changed to certainty."
+
+"I need not tell you, my charming friend," resumed M. Baleinier, in a
+bland tone, "that if I remind you of this circumstance, it is only to
+offer you my services, in case they should be required.  If not--and
+there is the shadow of impropriety in letting me know more--forget that I
+have said a word."
+
+Adrienne became serious and pensive, and, after a silence of some
+moments, she thus answered Dr. Baleinier: "On this subject, there are
+some things that I do not know--others that I may tell you--others again
+that I must keep from you: but you are so kind to-day, that I am happy to
+be able to give you a new mark of confidence."
+
+"Then I wish to know nothing," said the doctor, with an air of humble
+deprecation, "for I should have the appearance of accepting a kind of
+reward; whilst I am paid a thousand times over, by the pleasure I feel in
+serving you."
+
+"Listen," said Adrienne, without attending to the delicate scruples of
+Dr. Baleinier; "I have powerful reasons for believing that an immense
+inheritance must, at no very distant period, be divided between the
+members of my family, all of whom I do not know--for, after the
+Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, those from whom we are descended were
+dispersed in foreign countries, and experienced a great variety of
+fortunes."
+
+"Really!" cried the doctor, becoming extremely interested.  "Where is
+this inheritance, in whose hands?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"Now how will you assert your rights?"
+
+"That I shall learn soon."
+
+"Who will inform you of it?"
+
+"That I may not tell you."
+
+"But how did you find out the existence of this inheritance?"
+
+"That also I may not tell you," returned Adrienne, in a soft and
+melancholy tone, which remarkably contrasted with the habitual vivacity
+of her conversation.  "It is a secret--a strange secret--and in those
+moments of excitement, in which you have sometimes surprised me, I have
+been thinking of extraordinary circumstances connected with this secret,
+which awakened within me lofty and magnificent ideas."
+
+Adrienne paused and was silent, absorbed in her own reflections.
+Baleinier did not seek to disturb her.  In the first place, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville did not perceive the direction the coach was taking; secondly,
+the doctor was not sorry to ponder over what he had just heard.  With his
+usual perspicuity, he saw that the Abbe d'Aigrigny was concerned in this
+inheritance, and he resolved instantly to make a secret report on the
+subject; either M. d'Aigrigny was acting under the instructions of the
+Order, or by his own impulse; in the one event, the report of the doctor
+would confirm a fact; in the other, it would reveal one.
+
+For some time, therefore, the lady and Dr. Baleinier remained perfectly
+silent, no longer even disturbed by the noise of the wheels, for the
+carriage now rolled over a thick carpet of snow, and the streets had
+become more and more deserted.  Notwithstanding his crafty treachery,
+notwithstanding his audacity and the blindness of his dupe, the doctor
+was not quite tranquil as to the result of his machinations.  The
+critical moment approached, and the least suspicion roused in the mind of
+Adrienne by any inadvertence on his part, might ruin all his projects.
+
+Adrienne, already fatigued by the painful emotions of the day, shuddered
+from time to time, as the cold became more and more piercing; in her
+haste to accompany Dr. Baleinier, she had neglected to take either shawl
+or mantle.
+
+For some minutes the coach had followed the line of a very high wall,
+which, seen through the snow, looked white against a black sky.  The
+silence was deep and mournful.  Suddenly the carriage stopped, and the
+footman went to knock at a large gateway; he first gave two rapid knocks,
+and then one other at a long interval.  Adrienne did not notice the
+circumstance, for the noise was not loud, and the doctor had immediately
+begun to speak, to drown with his voice this species of signal.
+
+"Here we are at last," said he gayly to Adrienne; "you must be very
+winning--that is, you must be yourself."
+
+"Be sure I will do my best," replied Adrienne, with a smile; then she
+added, shivering in spite of herself: "How dreadfully cold it is!  I must
+confess, my dear Dr. Baleinier, that when I have been to fetch my poor
+little relations from the house of our workman's mother, I shall be truly
+glad to find myself once more in the warmth and light of my own
+cheerful rooms, for you know my aversion to cold and darkness."
+
+"It is quite natural," said the doctor, gallantly; "the most charming
+flowers require the most light and heat."
+
+Whilst the doctor and Mdlle. de Cardoville exchanged these few words, a
+heavy gate had turned creaking upon its hinges, and the carriage had
+entered a court-yard.  The physician got down first, to offer his arm to
+Adrienne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE MINISTER'S CABINET.
+
+The carriage had stopped before some steps covered with snow, which led
+to a vestibule lighted by a lamp.  The better to ascend the steps, which
+were somewhat slippery, Adrienne leaned upon the doctor's arm.
+
+"Dear me! how you tremble," said he.
+
+"Yes," replied she, shuddering, "I feel deadly cold.  In my haste, I came
+out without a shawl.  But how gloomy this house appears," she added,
+pointing to the entrance.
+
+"It is what you call the minister's private house, the sanctum sanctorum,
+whither our statesman retires far from the sound of the profane," said
+Dr. Baleinier, with a smile.  "Pray come in!" and he pushed open the door
+of a large hall, completely empty.
+
+"They are right in saying," resumed Dr. Baleinier, who covered his secret
+agitation with an appearance of gayety, "that a minister's house is like
+nobody else's.  Not a footman--not a page, I should say--to be found in
+the antechamber.  Luckily," added he, opening the door of a room which
+communicated with the vestibule,
+
+"`In this seraglio reared, I know the secret ways.'"
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville was now introduced into an apartment hung with green
+embossed paper, and very simply furnished with mahogany chairs, covered
+with yellow velvet; the floor was carefully polished, and a globe lamp,
+which gave at most a third of its proper light, was suspended (at a much
+greater height than usual) from the ceiling.  Finding the appearance of
+this habitation singularly plain for the dwelling of a minister,
+Adrienne, though she had no suspicion, could not suppress a movement of
+surprise and paused a moment on the threshold of the door.  M. Baleinier,
+by whose arm she held, guessed the cause of her astonishment, and said to
+her with a smile:
+
+"This place appears to you very paltry for `his excellency,' does it not?
+If you knew what a thing constitutional economy is!--Moreover, you will
+see a `my lord,' who has almost as little pretension as his furniture.
+But please to wait for me an instant.  I will go and inform the minister
+you are here, and return immediately."
+
+Gently disengaging himself from the grasp of Adrienne, who had
+involuntarily pressed close to him, the physician opened a small side-
+door, by which he instantly disappeared.  Adrienne de Cardoville was left
+alone.
+
+Though she could not have explained the cause of her impression, there
+was something awe-inspiring to the young lady in this large, cold, naked,
+curtainless room; and as, by degrees, she noticed certain peculiarities
+in the furniture, which she had not at first perceived, she was seized
+with an indefinable feeling of uneasiness.
+
+Approaching the cheerless hearth, she perceived with surprise that an
+iron grating completely enclosed the opening of the chimney, and that the
+tongs and shovel were fastened with iron chains.  Already astonished by
+this singularity, she was about mechanically to draw towards her an
+armchair placed against the wall, when she found that it remained
+motionless.  She then discovered that the back of this piece of
+furniture, as well as that of all the other chairs, was fastened to the
+wainscoting by iron clamps.  Unable to repress a smile, she exclaimed:
+"Have they so little confidence in the statesman in whose house I am,
+that they are obliged to fasten the furniture to the walls?"
+
+Adrienne had recourse to this somewhat forced pleasantry as a kind of
+effort to resist the painful feeling of apprehension that was gradually
+creeping over her; for the most profound and mournful silence reigned in
+this habitation, where nothing indicated the life, the movement and the
+activity, which usually surround a great centre of business.  Only, from
+time to time, the young lady heard the violent gusts of wind from
+without.
+
+More than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and M. Baleinier did not
+return.  In her impatient anxiety, Adrienne wished to call some one to
+inquire about the doctor and the minister.  She raised her eyes to look
+for a bell-rope by the side of the chimney-glass; she found none, but she
+perceived, that what she had hitherto taken for a glass, thanks to the
+half obscurity of the room, was in reality a large sheet of shining tin.
+Drawing nearer to it, she accidentally touched a bronzed candlestick; and
+this, as well as a clock, was fixed to the marble of the chimney-piece.
+
+In certain dispositions of mind, the most insignificant circumstances
+often assume terrific proportions.  This immovable candlestick, this
+furniture fastened to the wainscot, this glass replaced by a tin sheet,
+this profound silence, and the prolonged absence of M. Baleinier, had
+such an effect upon Adrienne, that she was struck with a vague terror.
+Yet such was her implicit confidence in the doctor, that she reproached
+herself with her own fears, persuading herself that the causes of them
+were after all of no real importance, and that it was unreasonable to
+feel uneasy at such trifles.
+
+Still, though she thus strove to regain courage, her anxiety induced her
+to do what otherwise she would never have attempted.  She approached the
+little door by which the doctor had disappeared, and applied her ear to
+it.  She held her breath, and listened, but heard nothing.
+
+Suddenly, a dull, heavy sound, like that of a falling body, was audible
+just above her head; she thought she could even distinguish a stifled
+moaning.  Raising her eyes, hastily, she saw some particles of the
+plaster fall from the ceiling, loosened, no doubt, by the shaking of the
+floor above.
+
+No longer able to resist the feeling of terror, Adrienne ran to the door
+by which she had entered with the doctor, in order to call some one.  To
+her great surprise, she found it was fastened on the outside.  Yet, since
+her arrival, she had heard no sound of a key turning in the lock.
+
+More and more alarmed, the young girl flew to the little door by which
+the physician had disappeared, and at which she had just been listening.
+This door also was fastened on the outside.
+
+Still, wishing to struggle with the terror which was gaining invincibly
+upon her, Adrienne called to her aid all the firmness of her character,
+and tried to argue away her fears.
+
+"I must have been deceived." she said; "it was only a fall that I heard.
+The moaning had no existence, except in my imagination.  There are a
+thousand reasons for believing that it was not a person who fell down.
+But, then, these locked doors?  They, perhaps, do not know that I am
+here; they may have thought that there was nobody in this room."
+
+As she uttered these words, Adrienne looked round with anxiety; then she
+added, in a firm voice: "No weakness! it is useless to try to blind
+myself to my real situation.  On the contrary, I must look it well in the
+face.  It is evident that I am not here at a minister's house; no end of
+reasons prove it beyond a doubt; M. Baleinier has therefore deceived me.
+But for what end?  Why has he brought me hither?  Where am I?"
+
+The last two questions appeared to Adrienne both equally insoluble.  It
+only remained clear, that she was the victim of M. Baleinier's perfidy.
+But this certainly seemed so horrible to the young girl's truthful and
+generous soul, that she still tried to combat the idea by the
+recollection of the confiding friendship which she had always shown this
+man.  She said to herself with bitterness: "See how weakness and fear may
+lead one to unjust and odious suspicions!  Yes; for until the last
+extremity, it is not justifiable to believe in so infernal a deception--
+and then only upon the clearest evidence.  I will call some one: it is
+the only way of completely satisfying these doubts."  Then, remembering
+that there was no bell, she added: "No matter; I will knock, and some one
+will doubtless answer."  With her little, delicate hand, Adrienne struck
+the door several times.
+
+The dull, heavy sound which came from the door showed that it was very
+thick.  No answer was returned to the young girl.  She ran to the other
+door.  There was the same appeal on her part, the same profound silence
+without--only interrupted from time to time by the howling of the wind.
+
+"I am not more timid than other people," said Adrienne, shuddering; "I do
+not know if it is the excessive cold, but I tremble in spite of myself.
+I endeavor to guard against all weakness; yet I think that any one in my
+position would find all this very strange and frightful."
+
+At this instant, loud cries, or rather savage and dreadful howls, burst
+furiously from the room just above, and soon after a sort of stamping of
+feet, like the noise of a violent struggle, shook the ceiling of the
+apartment.  Struck with consternation, Adrienne uttered a loud cry of
+terror became deadly pale, stood for a moment motionless with affright,
+and then rushed to one of the windows, and abruptly threw it open.
+
+A violent gust of wind, mixed with melted snow, beat against Adrienne's
+face, swept roughly into the room, and soon extinguished the flickering
+and smoky light of the lamp.  Thus, plunged in profound darkness, with
+her hands clinging to the bars that were placed across the window, Mdlle.
+de Cardoville yielded at length to the full influence of her fears, so
+long restrained, and was about to call aloud for help, when an unexpected
+apparition rendered her for some minutes absolutely mute with terror.
+
+Another wing of the building, opposite to that in which she was, stood at
+no great distance.  Through the midst of the black darkness, which filled
+the space between, one large, lighted window was distinctly visible.
+Through the curtainless panes, Adrienne perceived a white figure, gaunt
+and ghastly, dragging after it a sort of shroud, and passing and
+repassing continually before the window, with an abrupt and restless
+motion.  Her eyes fixed upon this window, shining through the darkness,
+Adrienne remained as if fascinated by that fatal vision: and, as the
+spectacle filled up the measure of her fears, she called for help with
+all her might, without quitting the bars of the window to which she
+clung.  After a few seconds, whilst she was thus crying out, two tall
+women entered the room in silence, unperceived by Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+who was still clinging to the window.
+
+These women, of about forty to fifty years of age, robust and masculine,
+were negligently and shabbily dressed, like chambermaids of the lower
+sort; over their clothes they wore large aprons of blue cotton, cut
+sloping from their necks, and reaching down to their feet.  One of them,
+who held a lamp in her hand, had a broad, red, shining face, a large
+pimpled nose, small green eyes, and tow hair, which straggled rough and
+shaggy from beneath her dirty white cap.  The other, sallow, withered,
+and bony, wore a mourning-cap over a parchment visage, pitted with the
+small-pox, and rendered still more repulsive by the thick black eyebrows,
+and some long gray hairs that overshadowed the upper lip.  This woman
+carried, half unfolded in her hand, a garment of strange form, made of
+thick gray stuff.
+
+They both entered silently by the little door, at the moment when
+Adrienne, in the excess of her terror, was grasping the bars of the
+window, and crying out: "Help! help!"
+
+Pointing out the young lady to each other, one of them went to place the
+lamp on the chimney-piece, whilst the other (she who wore the mourning-
+cap) approached the window, and laid her great bony hand upon Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's shoulder.
+
+Turning round, Adrienne uttered a new cry of terror at the sight of this
+grim figure.  Then, the first moment of stupor over, she began to feel
+less afraid; hideous as was this woman, it was at least some one to speak
+to; she exclaimed, therefore, in an agitated voice: "Where is M.
+Baleinier?"
+
+The two women looked at each other, exchanged a leer of mutual
+intelligence, but did not answer.
+
+"I ask you, madame,"resumed Adrienne, "where is M. Baleinier, who brought
+me hither?  I wish to see him instantly."
+
+"He is gone," said the big woman.
+
+"Gone!" cried Adrienne; "gone without me!--Gracious heaven! what can be
+the meaning of all this?"  Then, after a moment's reflection, she
+resumed, "Please to fetch me a coach."
+
+The two women looked at each other, and shrugged their shoulders.  "I
+entreat you, madame," continued Adrienne, with forced calmness in her
+voice, "to fetch me a coach since M. Baleinier is gone without me.  I
+wish to leave this place."
+
+"Come, come, madame," said the tall woman, who was called "Tomboy,"
+without appearing to listen to what Adrienne asked, "it is time for you
+to go to bed."
+
+"To go to bed!" cried Mdlle. Cardoville, in alarm.  "This is really
+enough to drive one mad."  Then, addressing the two women, she added:
+"What is this house? where am I? answer!"
+
+"You are in a house," said Tomboy, in a rough voice, "where you must not
+make a row from the window, as you did just now."
+
+"And where you must not put out the lamp as you have done," added the
+other woman, who was called Gervaise, "or else we shall have a crow to
+pick with you."
+
+Adrienne, unable to utter a word, and trembling with fear, looked in a
+kind of stupor from one to the other of these horrible women; her reason
+strove in vain to comprehend what was passing around her.  Suddenly she
+thought she had guessed it, and exclaimed: "I see there is a mistake
+here.  I do not understand how, but there is a mistake.  You take me for
+some one else.  Do you know who I am?  My name is Adrienne de Cardoville
+You see, therefore, that I am at liberty to leave this house; no one in
+the world has the right to detain me.  I command you, then, to fetch me a
+coach immediately.  If there are none in this quarter, let me have some
+one to accompany me home to the Rue de Babylone, Saint-Dizier House.  I
+will reward such a person liberally, and you also."
+
+"Well, have you finished?" said Tomboy.  "What is the use of telling us
+all this rubbish?"
+
+"Take care," resumed Adrienne, who wished to try every means; "if you
+detain me here by force, it will be very serious.  You do not know to
+what you expose yourselves."
+
+"Will you come to bed; yes or no?" said Gervaise, in a tone of harsh
+impatience.
+
+"Listen to me, madame," resumed Adrienne, precipitately, "let me out this
+place, and I will give each of you two thousand francs.  It is not
+enough?  I will give you ten--twenty--whatever you ask.  I am rich--only
+let me out for heaven's sake, let me out!--I cannot remain here--I am
+afraid."  As she said this, the tone of the poor girl's voice was
+heartrending.
+
+"Twenty thousand francs!--that's the usual figure, ain't it, Tomboy?"
+
+"Let be, Gervaise! they all sing the same song."
+
+"Well, then? since reasons, prayers, and menaces are all in vain," said
+Adrienne gathering energy from her desperate position, "I declare to you
+that I will go out and that instantly.  We will see if you are bold
+enough to employ force against me."
+
+So saying, Adrienne advanced resolutely towards the door.  But, at this
+moment, the wild hoarse cries, which had preceded the noise of the
+struggle that had so frightened her, again resounded; only, this time
+they were not accompanied by the movement of feet.
+
+"Oh! what screams!" said Adrienne, stopping short, and in her terror
+drawing nigh to the two women.  "Do you not hear those cries?  What,
+then, is this house, in which one hears such things?  And over there,
+too," added she almost beside herself, as she pointed to the other wing
+where the lighted windows shone through the darkness, and the white
+figure continued to pass and repass before it;  "over there!  do you see?
+What is it?"
+
+"Oh! that 'un," said Tomboy; "one of the folks who, like you, have not
+behaved well."
+
+"What do you say?" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, clasping her hands in
+terror.  "Heavens! what is this house?  What do they do to them?"
+
+"What will be done to you, if you are naughty, and refuse to come to
+bed," answered Gervaise.
+
+"They put this on them," said Tomboy, showing the garment that she had
+held under her arm, "they clap 'em into the strait-waistcoast."
+
+"Oh!" cried Adrienne, hiding her face in her hands with horror.  A
+terrible discovery had flashed suddenly upon her.  She understood it all.
+
+Capping the violent emotions of the day, the effect of this last blow was
+dreadful.  The young girl felt her strength give way.  Her hands fell
+powerless, her face became fearfully pale, all her limbs trembled, and
+sinking upon her knees, and casting a terrified glance at the strait-
+waistcoat she was just able to falter in a feeble voice, "Oh, no:--not
+that--for pity's sake, madame.  I will do--whatever you wish."  And, her
+strength quite failing, she would have fallen upon the ground if the two
+women had not run towards her, and received her fainting into their arms.
+
+"A fainting fit," said Tomboy; "that's not dangerous.  Let us carry her
+to bed.  We can undress her, and this will be all nothing."
+
+"Carry her, then," said Gervaise.  "I will take the lamp."
+
+The tall and robust Tomboy took up Mdlle. de Cardoville as if she had
+been a sleeping child, carried her in her arms, and followed her
+companion into the chamber through which M. Baleinier had made his exit.
+
+This chamber, though perfectly clean, was cold and bare.  A greenish
+paper covered the walls, and a low, little iron bedstead, the head of
+which formed a kind of shelf, stood in one corner; a stove, fixed in the
+chimney-place, was surrounded by an iron grating, which forbade a near
+approach; a table fastened to the wall, a chair placed before this table,
+and also clamped to the floor, a mahogany chest of drawers, and a rush-
+bottomed armchair completed the scanty furniture.  The curtainless window
+was furnished on the inside with an iron grating, which served to protect
+the panes from being broken.
+
+It was into this gloomy retreat, which formed so painful a contrast with
+the charming little summer-house in the Rue de Babylone, that Adrienne
+was carried by Tomboy, who, with the assistance of Gervaise, placed the
+inanimate form on the bed.  The lamp was deposited on the shelf at the
+head of the couch.  Whilst one of the nurses held her up, the other
+unfastened and took off the cloth dress of the young girl, whose head
+drooped languidly on her bosom.  Though in a swoon, large tears trickled
+slowly from her closed eyes, whose long black lashes threw their shadows
+on the transparent whiteness of her cheeks.  Over her neck and breast of
+ivory flowed the golden waves of her magnificent hair, which had come
+down at the time of her fall.  When, as they unlaced her satin corset,
+less soft, less fresh, less white than the virgin form beneath, which lay
+like a statue of alabaster in its covering of lace and lawn, one of the
+horrible hags felt the arms and shoulders of the young girl with her
+large, red, horny, and chapped hands.  Though she did not completely
+recover the use of her senses, she started involuntarily from the rude
+and brutal touch.
+
+"Hasn't she little feet?" said the nurse, who, kneeling down, was
+employed in drawing off Adrienne's stockings.  "I could hold them both in
+the hollow of my hand."  In fact, a small, rosy foot, smooth as a
+child's, here and there veined with azure, was soon exposed to view, as
+was also a leg with pink knee and ankle, of as pure and exquisite a form
+as that of Diana Huntress.
+
+"And what hair!" said Tomboy; "so long and soft!--She might almost walk
+upon it.  'Twould be a pity to cut it off, to put ice upon her skull!"
+As she spoke, she gathered up Adrienne's magnificent hair, and twisted it
+as well as she could behind her head.  Alas! it was no longer the fair,
+light hand of Georgette, Florine, or Hebe that arranged the beauteous
+locks of their mistress with so much love and pride!
+
+And as she again felt the rude touch of the nurse's hand, the young girl
+was once more seized with the same nervous trembling, only more
+frequently and strongly than before.  And soon, whether by a sort of
+instinctive repulsion, magnetically excited during her swoon, or from the
+effect of the cold night air, Adrienne again started and slowly came to
+herself.
+
+It is impossible to describe her alarm, horror, and chaste indignation,
+as, thrusting aside with both her hands the numerous curls that covered
+her face, bathed in tears, she saw herself half-naked between these
+filthy hags.  At first, she uttered a cry of shame and terror; then to
+escape from the looks of the women, by a movement, rapid as thought, she
+drew down the lamp placed on the shelf at the head of her bed, so that it
+was extinguished and broken to pieces on the floor.  After which, in the
+midst of the darkness, the unfortunate girl, covering herself with the
+bed-clothes, burst into passionate sobs.
+
+The nurses attributed Adrienne's cry and violent actions to a fit of
+furious madness.  "Oh! you begin again to break the lamps--that's your
+partickler fancy, is it?"  cried Tomboy, angrily, as she felt her way in
+the dark.  "Well! I gave you fair warning.  You shall have the strait-
+waistcoat on this very night, like the mad gal upstairs."
+
+"That's it," said the other; "hold her fast, Tommy, while I go and fetch
+a light.  Between us, we'll soon master her."
+
+"Make haste, for, in spite of her soft look, she must be a regular fury.
+We shall have to sit up all night with her, I suppose."
+
+Sad and painful contrast!  That morning, Adrienne had risen free,
+smiling, happy, in the midst of all the wonders of luxury and art, and
+surrounded by the delicate attentions of the three charming girls whom
+she had chosen to serve her.  In her generous and fantastic mood, she had
+prepared a magnificent and fairy-like surprise for the young Indian
+prince, her relation; she had also taken a noble resolution with regard
+to the two orphans brought home by Dagobert; in her interview with Mme.
+de Saint-Dizier, she had shown herself by turns proud and sensitive,
+melancholy and gay, ironical and serious, loyal and courageous; finally,
+she had come to this accursed house to plead in favor of an honest and
+laborious artisan.
+
+And now, in the evening delivered over by an atrocious piece of treachery
+to the ignoble hands of two coarse-minded muses in a madhouse--Mdlle. de
+Cardoville felt her delicate limbs imprisoned in that abominable garment,
+which is called a strait-waistcoat.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville passed a horrible night in company with the two
+hags.  The next morning, at nine o'clock, what was the young lady's
+stupor to see Dr. Baleinier enter the room, still smiling with an air at
+once benevolent and paternal.
+
+"Well, my dear child?" said he, in a bland, affectionate voice; "how have
+we spent the night?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE VISIT.
+
+The keepers, yielding to Mdlle. de Cardoville's prayers, and, above all,
+to her promises of good behavior, had only left on the canvas jacket a
+portion of the time.  Towards morning, they had allowed her to rise and
+dress herself, without interfering.
+
+Adrienne was seated on the edge of her bed.  The alteration in her
+features, her dreadful paleness, the lurid fire of fever shining in her
+eyes, the convulsive trembling which ever and anon shook her frame,
+showed already the fatal effects of this terrible night upon a
+susceptible and high-strung organization.  At sight of Dr. Baleinier,
+who, with a sign, made Gervaise and her mate leave the room, Adrienne
+remained petrified.
+
+She felt a kind of giddiness at the thought of the audacity of the man,
+who dared to present himself to her!  But when the physician repeated, in
+the softest tone of affectionate interest: "Well, my poor child! how have
+we spent the night?" she pressed her hands to her burning forehead, as if
+in doubt whether she was awake or sleeping.  Then, staring at the doctor,
+she half opened her lips; but they trembled so much that it was
+impossible for her to utter a word.  Anger, indignation, contempt, and,
+above all, the bitter and acutely painful feeling of a generous heart,
+whose confidence has been basely betrayed, so overpowered Adrienne that
+she was unable to break the silence.
+
+"Come, come! I see how it is," said the doctor, shaking his head
+sorrowfully; "you are very much displeased with me--is it not so?  Well!
+I expected it, my dear child."
+
+These words, pronounced with the most hypocritical effrontery, made
+Adrienne start up.  Her pale cheek flushed, her large eyes sparkled, she
+lifted proudly her beautiful head, whilst her upper lip curled slightly
+with a smile of disdainful bitterness; then, passing in angry silence
+before M. Baleinier, who retained his seat, she directed her swift and
+firm steps towards the door.  This door, in which was a little wicket,
+was fastened on the outside.  Adrienne turned towards the doctor, and
+said to him, with an imperious gesture; "Open that door for me!"
+
+"Come, my dear Mdlle. Adrienne," said the physician, "be calm.  Let us
+talk like good friends--for you know I am your friend."  And he inhaled
+slowly a pinch of snuff.
+
+"It appears, sir," said Adrienne, in a voice trembling with indignation,
+"I am not to leave this place to-day?"
+
+"Alas! no.  In such a state of excitement--if you knew how inflamed your
+face is, and your eyes so feverish, your pulse must be at least eighty to
+the minute--I conjure you, my dear child, not to aggravate your symptoms
+by this fatal agitation."
+
+After looking fixedly at the doctor, Adrienne returned with a slow step,
+and again took her seat on the edge of the bed.  "That is right," resumed
+M. Baleinier: only be reasonable; and, as I said before, let us talk
+together like good friends."
+
+"You say well, sir," replied Adrienne, in a collected and perfectly calm
+voice; "let us talk like friends.  You wish to make me pass for mad--is
+it not so?"
+
+"I wish, my dear child, that one day you may feel towards me as much
+gratitude as you now do aversion.  The latter I had fully foreseen--but,
+however painful may be the performance of certain duties, we must resign
+ourselves to it."
+
+M. Baleinier sighed, as he said this, with such a natural air of
+conviction, that for a moment Adrienne could not repress a movement of
+surprise; then, while her lip curled with a bitter laugh, she answered:
+"Oh, it's very clear, you have done all this for my good?"
+
+"Really, my dear young lady--have I ever had any other design than to be
+useful to you?"
+
+"I do not know, sir, if your impudence be not still more odious than your
+cowardly treachery!"
+
+"Treachery!" said M. Baleinier, shrugging his shoulders with a grieved
+air; "treachery, indeed!  Only reflect, my poor child--do you think, if I
+were not acting with good faith, conscientiously, in your interest, I
+should return this morning to meet your indignation, for which I was
+fully prepared?  I am the head physician of this asylum, which belongs to
+me--but I have two of my pupils here, doctors, like myself--and might
+have left them to take care of you but, no--I could not consent to it--I
+knew your character, your nature, your previous history, and (leaving out
+of the question the interest I feel for you) I can treat your case better
+than any one."
+
+Adrienne had heard M. Baleinier without interrupting him; she now looked
+at him fixedly, and said: "Pray, sir, how much do they pay you to make me
+pass for mad?"
+
+"Madame!" cried M. Baleinier, who felt stung in spite of, himself.
+
+"You know I am rich," continued Adrienne, with over, whelming disdain; "I
+will double the sum that they give you.  Come, sir--in the name of
+friendship, as you call it, let me have the pleasure of outbidding them."
+
+"Your keepers," said M. Baleinier, recovering all his coolness, "have
+informed me, in their report of the night's proceedings, that you made
+similar propositions to them."
+
+"Pardon me, sir; I offered them what might be acceptable to poor women,
+without education, whom misfortune has forced to undertake a painful
+employment--but to you, sir a man of the world, a man of science, a man
+of great abilities--that is quite different--the pay must be a great deal
+higher.  There is treachery at all prices; so do not found your refusal
+on the smallness of my offer to those wretched women.  Tell me--how much
+do you want?"
+
+"Your keepers, in their report of the night, have also spoken of
+threats," resumed M. Baleinier, with the same coolness; "have you any of
+those likewise to address me?  Believe me, my poor child, you will do
+well to exhaust at once your attempts at corruption, and your vain
+threats of vengeance.  We shall then come to the true state of the case."
+
+"So you deem my threats vain!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, at length
+giving way to the full tide of her indignation, till then restrained.
+"Do you think, sir, that when I leave this place--for this outrage must
+have an end--that I will not proclaim aloud your infamous treachery?  Do
+you think chat I will not denounce to the contempt and horror of all,
+your base conspiracy with Madame de Saint-Dizier?  Oh! do you think that
+I will conceal the frightful treatment I have received!  But, mad as I
+may be, I know that there are laws in this country, by which I will
+demand a full reparation for myself, and shame, disgrace, and punishment,
+for you, and for those who have employed you!  Henceforth, between you
+and me will be hate and war to the death; and all my strength, all my
+intelligence--"
+
+"Permit me to interrupt you, my dear Mdlle. Adrienne," said the doctor,
+still perfectly calm and affectionate: "nothing can be more unfavorable
+to your cure, than to cherish idle hopes: they will only tend to keep up
+a state of deplorable excitement: it is best to put the facts fairly
+before you, that you may understand clearly your position.
+
+"1. It is impossible for you to leave this house.  2. You can have no
+communication with any one beyond its walls.  3. No one enters here that
+I cannot perfectly depend upon.  4. I am completely indifferent to your
+threats of vengeance because law and reason are both in my favor."
+
+"What! have you the right to shut me up here?"
+
+"We should never have come to that determination, without a number of
+reasons of the most serious kind."
+
+"Oh! there are reasons for it, it seems."
+
+"Unfortunately, too many."
+
+"You will perhaps inform me of them?"
+
+"Alas! they are only too conclusive; and if you should ever apply to the
+protection of the laws, as you threatened me just now, we should be
+obliged to state them.  The fantastical eccentricity of your manner of
+living, your whimsical mode of dressing up your maids, your extravagant
+expenditure, the story of the Indian prince, to whom you offered a royal
+hospitality, your unprecedented resolution of going to live by yourself,
+like a young bachelor, the adventure of the man found concealed in your
+bed-chamber; finally, the report of your yesterday's conversation, which
+was faithfully taken down in shorthand, by a person employed for that
+purpose."
+
+"Yesterday?" cried Adrienne, with as much indignation as surprise.
+
+"Oh, yes! to be prepared for every event, in case you should misinterpret
+the interest we take in you, we had all your answers reported by a man
+who was concealed behind a curtain in the next room; and really, one day,
+in a calmer state of mind, when you come to read over quietly the
+particulars of what took place, you will no longer be astonished at the
+resolution we have been forced to adopt."
+
+"Go on, sir," said Adrienne, with contempt.
+
+"The facts I have cited being thus confirmed and acknowledged, you will
+understand, my dear Mdlle. Adrienne, that your friends are perfectly free
+from responsibility.  It was their duty to endeavor to cure this
+derangement of mind, which at present only shows itself in idle whims,
+but which, were it to increase, might seriously compromise the happiness
+of your future life.  Now, in my opinion, we may hope to see a radical
+cure, by means of a treatment at once physical and moral; but the first
+condition of this attempt was to remove you from the scenes which so
+dangerously excited your imagination; whilst a calm retreat, the repose
+of a simple and solitary life combined with my anxious, I may say,
+paternal care, will gradually bring about a complete recovery--"
+
+"So, sir," said Adrienne, with a bitter laugh, "the love of a noble
+independence, generosity, the worship of the beautiful, detestation of
+what is base and odious, such are the maladies of which you wish to cure
+me; I fear that my case is desperate, for my aunt has long ago tried to
+effect that benevolent purpose."
+
+"Well, we may perhaps not succeed; but at least we will attempt it.  You
+see, then, there is a mass of serious facts, quite enough to justify the
+determination come to by the family-council, which puts me completely at
+my ease with regard to your menaces.  It is to that I wish to return; a
+man of my age and condition never acts lightly--in such circumstances,
+and you can readily understand what I was saying to you just now.  In a
+word, do not hope to leave this place before your complete recovery, and
+rest assured, that I am and shall ever be safe from your resentment.
+This being once admitted, let us talk of your actual state with all the
+interest that you naturally inspire."
+
+"I think, sir, that, considering I am mad, you speak to me very
+reasonably."
+
+"Mad! no, thank heaven, my poor child, you are not mad yet--and I hope
+that, by my care, you will never be so.  It is to prevent your becoming
+mad, that one must take it in time; and believe me, it is full time.  You
+look at me with such an air of surprise--now tell me, what interest can I
+have in talking to you thus?  Is it the hatred of your aunt that I wish
+to favor?  To what end, I would ask?  What can she do for me or against
+me?  I think of her at this moment neither more nor less than I thought
+yesterday.  Is it a new language that I hold to yourself?  Did I not
+speak to you yesterday many times, of the dangerous excitement of mind in
+which you were, and of your singular whims and fancies?  It is true, I
+made use of stratagem to bring you hither.  No doubt, I did so.  I
+hastened to avail myself of the opportunity, which you yourself offered,
+my poor, dear child; for you would never have come hither with your own
+good will. One day or the other, we must have found some pretext to get
+you here: and I said to myself; `Her interest before all!  Do your duty,
+let whatever will betide!'--"
+
+Whilst M. Baleinier was speaking, Adrienne's countenance, which had
+hitherto expressed alternately indignation and disdain, assumed an
+indefinable look of anguish and horror.  On hearing this man talk in such
+a natural manner, and with such an appearance of sincerity, justice and
+reason, she felt herself more alarmed than ever.  An atrocious deception,
+clothed in such forms, frightened her a hundred times more than the
+avowed hatred of Madame de Saint-Dizier.  This audacious hypocrisy seemed
+to her so monstrous, that she believed it almost impossible.
+
+Adrienne had so little the art of hiding her emotions, that the doctor, a
+skillful and profound physiognomist, instantly perceived the impression
+he had produced.  "Come," said he to himself, "that is a great step.
+Fright has succeeded to disdain and anger.  Doubt will come next.  I
+shall not leave this place, till she has said to me: `Return soon, my
+good M. Baleinier!'  "With a voice of sorrowful emotion, which seemed to
+come from the very depths of his heart, the doctor thus continued: "I
+see, you are still suspicious of me.  All I can say to you is falsehood,
+fraud, hypocrisy, hate--is it not so?--Hate you? why, in heaven's name,
+should I hate you?  What have you done to me?  or rather--you will
+perhaps attach more value to this reason from a man of my sort," added M.
+Baleinier, bitterly, "or rather, what interest have I to hate you?--You,
+that have only been reduced to the state in which you are by an over-
+abundance of the most generous instincts--you, that are suffering, as it
+were, from an excess of good qualities--you can bring yourself coolly and
+deliberately to accuse an honest man, who has never given you any but
+marks of affection, of the basest, the blackest, the most abominable
+crime, of which a human being could be guilty.  Yes, I call it a crime;
+because the audacious deception of which you accuse me would not deserve
+any other name.  Really, my poor child, it is hard--very hard--and I now
+see, that an independent spirit may sometimes exhibit as much injustice
+and intolerance as the most narrow mind.  It does not incense me--no--it
+only pains me: yes, I assure you--it pains me cruelly."  And the doctor
+drew his hand across his moist eyes.
+
+It is impossible to give the accent, the look, the gesture of M.
+Baleinier, as he thus expressed himself.  The most able and practiced
+lawyer, or the greatest actor in the world, could not have played this
+scene with more effect than the doctor--or rather, no one could have
+played it so well -M. Baleinier, carried away by the influence of the
+situations, was himself half convinced of what he said.
+
+In few words, he felt all the horror of his own perfidy but he felt also
+that Adrienne could not believe it; for there are combinations of such
+nefarious character, that pure and upright minds are unable to comprehend
+them as possible.  If a lofty spirit looks down into the abyss of evil,
+beyond a certain depth it is seized with giddiness, and no longer able to
+distinguish one object from the other.
+
+And then the most perverse of men have a day, an hour, a moment, in which
+the good instincts, planted in the heart of every creature, appear in
+spite of themselves.  Adrienne was too interesting, was in too cruel a
+position, for the doctor mot to feel some pity for her in his heart; the
+tone of sympathy, which for some time past he had been obliged to assume
+towards her, and the sweet confidence of the young girl in return, had
+become for this man habitual and necessary ratifications.  But sympathy
+and habit were now to yield to implacable necessity.
+
+Thus the Marquis d'Aigrigny had idolized his mother;  dying, she called
+him to her--and he turned away from the last prayer of a parent in the
+agony of death.  After such an example, how could M. Baleinier hesitate
+to sacrifice Adrienne?  The members of the Order, of which he formed a
+part, were bound to him--but he was perhaps still more strongly bound to
+them, for a long partnership in evil creates terrible and indissoluble
+ties.
+
+The moment M. Baleinier finished his fervid address to Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, the slide of the wicket in the door was softly pushed back,
+and a pair of eyes peered attentively into the chamber, unperceived by
+the doctor.
+
+Adrienne could not withdraw her gaze from the physician's, which seemed
+to fascinate her.  Mute, overpowered, seized with a vague terror, unable
+to penetrate the dark depths of this man's soul, moved in spite of
+herself by the accent of sorrow, half feigned and half real--the young
+lady had a momentary feeling of doubt.  For the first time, it came into
+her mind, that M. Baleinier might perhaps be committing a frightful
+error--committing it in good faith.
+
+Besides, the anguish of the past night, the dangers of her position, her
+feverish agitation, all concurred to fill her mind with trouble and
+indecision.  She looked at the physician with ever increasing surprise,
+and making a violent effort not to yield to a weakness, of which she
+partly foresaw the dreadful consequences, she exclaimed: "No, no, sir; I
+will not, I cannot believe it.  You have too much skill, too much
+experience, to commit such an error."
+
+"An error!" said M. Baleinier, in a grave and sorrowful tone.  "Let me
+speak to you in the name of that skill and experience, which you are
+pleased to ascribe to me.  Hear me but for a moment, my dear child; and
+then I will appeal to yourself."
+
+"To me!" replied the young girl, in a kind of stupor; "you wish to
+persuade me, that--"  Then, interrupting herself, she added, with a
+convulsive laugh: "This only is wanting to your triumph--to bring me to
+confess that I am mad--that my proper place is here--that I owe you -"
+"Gratitude.  Yes, you do owe it me, even as I told you at the
+commencement of this conversation.  Listen to me then; my words may be
+cruel, but there are wounds which can only be cured with steel and fire.
+I conjure you, my dear child--reflect--throw back one impartial glance at
+your past life--weigh your own thoughts--and you will be afraid of
+yourself.  Remember those moments of strange excitement, during which, as
+you have told me, you seemed to soar above the earth--and, above all,
+while it is yet time--while you preserve enough clearness of mind to
+compare and judge--compare, I entreat, your manner of living with that of
+other ladies of your age?  Is there a single one who acts as you act? who
+thinks as you think? unless, indeed, you imagine yourself so superior to
+other women, that, in virtue of that supremacy, you can justify a life
+and habits that have no parallel in the world."
+
+"I have never had such stupid pride, you know it well," said Adrienne,
+looking at the doctor with growing terror.
+
+"Then, my dear child, to what are we to attribute your strange and
+inexplicable mode of life?  Can you even persuade yourself that it is
+founded on reason?  Oh, my child! take care?--As yet, you only indulge in
+charming originalities of conduct, poetical eccentricities, sweet and
+vague reveries--but the tendency is fatal, the downward course
+irresistible.  Take care, take care!--the healthful, graceful, spiritual
+portion of your intelligence has yet the upper hand, and imprints its
+stamp upon all your extravagances; but you do not know, believe me, with
+what frightful force the insane portion of the mind, at a given moment,
+develops itself and strangles up the rest.  Then we have no longer
+graceful eccentricities, like yours, but ridiculous, sordid, hideous
+delusions."
+
+"Oh! you frighten me," said the unfortunate girl, as she passed her
+trembling hands across her burning brow.
+
+"Then," continued M. Baleinier, in an agitated voice, "then the last rays
+of intelligence are extinguished; then madness--for we must pronounce the
+dreaded word--gets the upper hand, and displays itself in furious and
+savage transports."
+
+"Like the woman upstairs," murmured Adrienne, as, with fixed and eager
+look, she raised her finger towards the ceiling.
+
+"Sometimes," continued the doctor, alarmed himself at the terrible
+consequences of his own words, but yielding to the inexorable fatality of
+his situation, "sometimes madness takes a stupid and brutal form; the
+unfortunate creature, who is attacked by it, preserves nothing human but
+the shape--has only the instincts of the lower animals--eats with
+voracity, and moves ever backwards and forwards in the cell, in which
+such a being is obliged to be confined.  That is all its life--all."
+
+"Like the woman yonder." cried Adrienne, with a still wilder look, as she
+slowly raised her arm towards the window that was visible on the other
+side of the building.
+
+"Why--yes," said M. Baleinier.  "Like you, unhappy child, those women
+were young, fair, and sensible, but like you, alas! they had in them the
+fatal germ of insanity, which, not having been destroyed in time, grew,
+and grew, larger and ever larger, until it overspread and destroyed their
+reason."
+
+"Oh, mercy!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, whose head was getting confused
+with terror; "mercy! do not tell me such things!--I am afraid.  Take me
+from this place--oh! take me from this place!"  she added, with a
+heartrending accent; "for, if I remain here, I shall end by going mad!
+No," added she, struggling with the terrible agony which assailed her,
+"no, do not hope it!  I shall not become mad.  I have all my reason.  I
+am not blind enough to believe what you tell me.  Doubtless, I live
+differently from others; think differently from others; am shocked by
+things that do not offend others; but what does all this prove?  Only
+that I am different from others.  Have I a bad heart?  Am I envious or
+selfish?  My ideas are singular, I knew--yes, I confess it--but then, M.
+Baleinier, is not their tendency good, generous, noble!--Oh!" cried
+Adrienne's supplicating voice, while her tears flowed abundantly, "I have
+never in my life done one malicious action; my worst errors have arisen
+from excess of generosity.  Is it madness to wish to see everybody about
+one too happy?  And again, if you are mad, you must feel it yourself--and
+I do not feel it--and yet--I scarcely know--you tell me such terrible
+things of those two women!  You ought to know these things better than I.
+But then," added Mdlle, de Cardoville, with an accent of the deepest
+despair, "something ought to have been done.  Why, if you felt an
+interest for me, did you wait so long?  Why did you not take pity on me
+sooner?  But the most frightful fact is, that I do not know whether I
+ought to believe you--for all this may be a snare--but no, no! you weep--
+it is true, then!--you weep!"  She looked anxiously at M. Baleinier, who,
+notwithstanding his cynical philosophy, could not restrain his tears at
+the sight of these nameless tortures.
+
+"You weep over me," she continued; "so it is true!  But (good heaven!)
+must there not be something done?  I will do all that you wish--all--so
+that I may not be like those women.  But if it should be too late? no, it
+is not too late--say it is not too late, my good M. Baleinier!  Oh, now I
+ask your pardon for what I said when you came in--but then I did not
+know, you see--I did not know!"
+
+To these few broken words, interrupted by sobs, and rushing forth in a
+sort of feverish excitement, succeeded a silence of some minutes, during
+which the deeply affected physician dried his tears.  His resolution had
+almost failed him.  Adrienne hid her face in her hands.  Suddenly she
+again lifted her head; her countenance was calmer than before, though
+agitated by a nervous trembling.
+
+"M. Baleinier," she resumed, with touching dignity, "I hardly know what I
+said to you just now.  Terror, I think, made me wander; I have again
+collected myself.  Hear me!  I know that I am in your power; I know that
+nothing can deliver me from it.  Are you an implacable enemy? or are you
+a friend?  I am not able to determine.  Do you really apprehend, as you
+assure me, that what is now eccentricity will hereafter become madness--
+or are you rather the accomplice in some infernal machination?  You alone
+can answer.  In spite of my boasted courage, I confess myself conquered.
+Whatever is required of me--you understand, whatever it may be, I will
+subscribe to, I give you my word and you know that I hold it sacred--you
+have therefore no longer any interest to keep me here.  If, on the
+contrary, you really think my reason in danger--and I own that you have
+awakened in my mind vague, but frightful doubts--tell it me, and I will
+believe you.  I am alone, at your mercy, without friends, without
+counsel.  I trust myself blindly to you.  I know not whether I address
+myself to a deliverer or a destroyer--but I say to you--here is my
+happiness--here is my life--take it--I have no strength to dispute it
+with you!"
+
+These touching words, full of mournful resignation and almost hopeless
+reliance, gave the finishing stroke to the indecision of M. Baleinier.
+Already deeply moved by this scene, and without reflecting on the
+consequences of what he was about to do, he determined at all events to
+dissipate the terrible and unjust fears with which he had inspired
+Adrienne.  Sentiments of remorse and pity, which now animated the
+physician, were visible in his countenance.
+
+Alas! they were too visible.  The moment he approached to take the hand
+of Mdlle. de Cardoville, a low but sharp voice exclaimed from behind the
+wicket: "M. Baleinier!"
+
+"Rodin!" muttered the startled doctor to himself; "he's been spying on
+me!"
+
+"Who calls you?" asked the lady of the physician.
+
+"A person that I promised to meet here this morning." replied he, with
+the utmost depression, "to go with him to St. Mary's Convent, which is
+close at hand."
+
+"And what answer have you to give me?" said Adrienne with mortal anguish.
+
+After a moment's solemn silence, during which he turned his face towards
+the wicket, the doctor replied, in a voice of deep emotion: "I am--what I
+have always been--a friend incapable of deceiving you."
+
+Adrienne became deadly pale.  Then, extending her hand to M. Baleinier,
+she said to him in a voice that she endeavored to render calm: "Thank
+you--I will have courage--but will it be very long?"
+
+"Perhaps a month.  Solitude, reflection, a proper regimen, my attentive
+care, may do much.  You will be allowed everything that is compatible
+with your situation.  Every attention will be paid you.  If this room
+displeases you, I will see you have another."
+
+"No--this or another--it is of little consequence," answered Adrienne,
+with an air of the deepest dejection.
+
+"Come, come! be of good courage.  There is no reason to despair."
+
+"Perhaps you flatter me," said Adrienne with the shadow of a smile.
+"Return soon," she added, "my dear M. Baleinier! my only hope rests in
+you now."
+
+Her head fell upon her bosom, her hands upon her knees and she remained
+sitting on the edge of the bed, pale, motionless, overwhelmed with woe.
+
+"Mad!" she said when M. Baleinier had disappeared.  "Perhaps mad!"
+
+We have enlarged upon this episode much less romantic than it may appear.
+Many times have motives of interest or vengeance or perfidious
+machination led to the abuse of the imprudent facility with which inmates
+are received in certain private lunatic asylums from the hands of their
+families or friends.
+
+We shall subsequently explain our views, as to the establishment of a
+system of inspection, by the crown or the civil magistrates, for the
+periodical survey of these institutions, and others of no less
+importance, at present placed beyond the reach of all superintendence.
+These latter are the nunneries of which we will presently have an
+example.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+PRESENTIMENTS.
+
+Whilst the preceding events took place in Dr. Baleinier's asylum, other
+scenes were passing about the same hour, at Frances Baudoin's, in the Rue
+Brise-Miche.
+
+Seven o'clock in the morning had just struck at St. Mary church; the day
+was dark and gloomy, and the sleet rattled against the windows of the
+joyless chamber of Dagobert's wife.
+
+As yet ignorant of her son's arrest, Frances had waited for him the whole
+of the preceding evening, and a good part of the night, with the most
+anxious uneasiness; yielding at length to fatigue and sleep, about three
+o'clock in the morning, she had thrown herself on a mattress beside the
+bed of Rose and Blanche.  But she rose with the first dawn of day, to
+ascend to Agricola's garret, in the very faint hope that he might have
+returned home some hours before.
+
+Rose and Blanche had just risen, and dressed themselves.  They were alone
+in the sad, chilly apartment.  Spoil-sport, whom Dagobert had left in
+Paris, was stretched at full length near the cold stove; with his long
+muzzle resting on his forepaws, he kept his eye fixed on the sisters.
+
+Having slept but little during the night, they had perceived the
+agitation and anguish of Dagobert's wife.  They had seen her walk up and
+down, now talking to herself, now listening to the least noise that came
+up the staircase, and now kneeling before the crucifix placed at one
+extremity of the room.  The orphans were not aware, that, whilst she
+brayed with fervor on behalf of her son, this excellent woman was praying
+for them also.  For the state of their souls filled her with anxiety and
+alarm.
+
+The day before, when Dagobert had set out for Chartres, Frances, having
+assisted Rose and Blanche to rise, had invited them to say their morning
+prayer: they answered with the utmost simplicity, that they did not know
+any, and that they never more than addressed their mother, who was in
+heaven.  When Frances, struck with painful surprise, spoke to them of
+catechism, confirmation, communion, the sisters opened widely their large
+eyes with astonishment, understanding nothing of such talk.
+
+According to her simple faith, terrified at the ignorance of the young
+girls in matters of religion, Dagobert's wife believed their souls to be
+in the greatest peril, the more so as, having asked them if they had ever
+been baptized (at the same time explaining to them the nature of that
+sacrament), the orphans answered they did not think they had, since there
+was neither church nor priest in the village where they were born, during
+their mother's exile in Siberia.
+
+Placing one's self in the position of Frances, you understand how much
+she was grieved and alarmed; for, in her eyes, these young girls, whom
+she already loved tenderly, so charmed was she with their sweet
+disposition, were nothing but poor heathens, innocently doomed to eternal
+damnation.  So, unable to restrain her tears, or conceal her horrors, she
+had clasped them in her arms, promising immediately to attend to their
+salvation, and regretting that Dagobert had not thought of having them
+baptized by the way.  Now, it must be confessed, that this notion had
+never once occurred to the ex-grenadier.
+
+When she went to her usual Sunday devotions, Frances had not dared to
+take Rose and Blanche with her, as their complete ignorance of sacred
+things would have rendered their presence at church, if not useless,
+scandalous; but, in her own fervent prayers she implored celestial mercy
+for these orphans, who did not themselves know the desperate position of
+their souls.
+
+Rose and Blanche were now left alone, in the absence of Dagobert's wife.
+They were still dressed in mourning, their charming faces seeming even
+more pensive than usual.  Though they were accustomed to a life of
+misfortune, they had been struck, since their arrival in the Rue Brise-
+Miche, with the painful contrast between the poor dwelling which they had
+come to inhabit, and the wonders which their young imagination had
+conceived of Paris, that golden city of their dreams.  But, soon this
+natural astonishment was replaced by thoughts of singular gravity for
+their age.  The contemplation of such honest and laborious poverty made
+the orphans have reflections no longer those of children, but of young
+women.  Assisted by their admirable spirit of justice and of sympathy for
+all that is good, by their noble heart, by a character at once delicate
+and courageous, they had observed and meditated much during the last
+twenty-four hours.
+
+"Sister," said Rose to Blanche, when Frances had quitted the room,
+"Dagobert's poor wife is very uneasy.  Did you remark in the night, how
+agitated she was? how she wept and prayed?"
+
+"I was grieved to see it, sister, and wondered what could be the cause."
+
+"I am almost afraid to guess.  Perhaps we may be the cause of her
+uneasiness?"
+
+"Why so, sister?  Because we cannot say prayers, nor tell if we have ever
+been baptized?"
+
+"That seemed to give her a good deal of pain, it is true.  I was quite
+touched by it, for it proves that she loves us tenderly.  But I could not
+understand how we ran such terrible danger as she said we did."
+
+"Nor I either, sister.  We have always tried not to displease our mother,
+who sees and hears us."
+
+"We love those who love us; we are resigned to whatever may happen to us.
+So, who can reproach us with any harm?"
+
+"No one.  But, perhaps, we may do some without meaning it."
+
+"We?"
+
+"Yes, and therefore I thought:  We may perhaps be the cause of her
+uneasiness."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Listen, sister! yesterday Madame Baudoin tried to work at those sacks of
+coarse cloth there on the table."
+
+"Yes; but in about an half-hour, she told us sorrowfully, that she could
+not go on, because her eyes failed her, and she could not see clearly."
+
+"So that she is not able to earn her living."
+
+"No--but her son, M. Agricola, works for her.  He looks so good, so gay,
+so frank, and so happy to devote himself for his mother.  Oh, indeed! he
+is the worthy brother of our angel Gabriel!"
+
+"You will see my reason for speaking of this.  Our good old Dagobert told
+us, that, when we arrived here, he had only a few pieces of money left."
+
+"That is true."
+
+"Now both he and his wife are unable to earn their living; what can a
+poor old soldier like him do?"
+
+"You are right; he only knows how to love us, and take care of us, like
+his children."
+
+"It must then be M. Agricola who will have to support his father; for
+Gabriel is a poor priest, who possesses nothing, and can render no
+assistance to those who have brought him up.  So M. Agricola will have to
+support the whole family by himself."
+
+"Doubtless--he owes it to father and mother--it is his duty, and he will
+do it with a good will."
+
+"Yes, sister--but he owes us nothing."
+
+"What do you say, Blanche?"
+
+"He is obliged to work for us also, as we possess nothing in the world."
+
+"I had not thought of that.  True."
+
+"It is all very well, sister, for our father to be Duke and Marshal of
+France, as Dagobert tells us, it is all very well for us to hope great
+things from this medal, but as long as father is not here, and our hopes
+are not realized, we shall be merely poor orphans, obliged to remain a
+burden to this honest family, to whom we already owe so much, and who
+find it so hard to live, that--"
+
+"Why do you pause, sister?"
+
+"What I am about to say would make other people laugh; but you will
+understand it.  Yesterday, when Dagobert's wife saw poor Spoil-sport at
+his dinner, she said, sorrowfully: "Alas! he eats as much as a man!"--so
+that I could almost have cried to hear her.  They must be very poor, and
+yet we have come to increase their poverty."
+
+The sisters looked sadly at each other, while Spoil-sport pretended not
+to know they were talking of his voracity.
+
+"Sister, I understand," said Rose, after a moment's silence.  "Well, we
+must not be at the charge of any one.  We are young, and have courage.
+Till our fate is decided, let us fancy ourselves daughters of workmen.
+After all, is not our grandfather a workman?  Let us find some
+employment, and earn our own living.  It must be so proud and happy to
+earn one's living!"
+
+"Good little sister," said Blanche, kissing Rose.  "What happiness!  You
+have forestalled my thought; kiss me!"
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Your project is mine exactly.  Yesterday, when I heard Dagobert's wife
+complain so sadly that she had lost her sight.  I looked into your large
+eyes, which reminded me of my own, and said to myself : 'Well! this poor
+old woman may have lost her sight, but Rose and Blanche Simon can see
+pretty clearly'--which is a compensation," added Blanche, with a smile.
+
+"And, after all," resumed Rose, smiling in her turn, "the young ladies in
+question are not so very awkward, as not to be able to sew up great sacks
+of coarse cloth--though it may chafe their fingers a little."
+
+"So we had both the same thought, as usual; only I wished to surprise
+you, and waited till we were alone, to tell you my plan."
+
+"Yes, but there is something teases me."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"First of all, Dagobert and his wife will be sure to say to us: `Young
+ladies, you are not fitted for such work.  What, daughters of a Marshal
+of France sewing up great ugly bags!' And then, if we insist upon it,
+they will add: `Well, we have no work to give you.  If you want any, you
+must hunt for it.' What would Misses Simon do then?"
+
+"The fact is, that when Dagobert has made up his mind to anything--"
+
+"Oh! even then, if we coax him well--"
+
+"Yes, in certain things; but in others he is immovable.  It is just as
+when upon the journey, we wished to prevent his doing so much for us."
+
+"Sister, an idea strikes me," cried Rose, "an excellent idea!"
+
+"What is it? quick!"
+
+"You know the young woman they call Mother Bunch, who appears to be so
+serviceable and persevering?"
+
+"Oh yes! and so timid and discreet.  She seems always to be afraid of
+giving offence, even if she looks at one.  Yesterday, she did not
+perceive that I saw her; but her eyes were fixed on you with so good and
+sweet an expression, that tears came into mine at the very sight of it."
+
+"Well, we must ask her how she gets work, for certainly she lives by her
+labor."
+
+"You are right.  She will tell us all about it; and when we know,
+Dagobert may scold us, or try to make great ladies of us, but we will be
+as obstinate as he is."
+
+"That is it; we must show some spirit!  We will prove to him, as he says
+himself, that we have soldier's blood in our veins."
+
+"We will say to him: `Suppose, as you say, we should one day be rich, my
+good Dagobert, we shall only remember this time with the more pleasure."
+
+"It is agreed then, is it not, Rose?  The first time we are alone with
+Mother Bunch, we must make her our confidant, and ask her for
+information.  She is so good a person, that she will not refuse us."
+
+"And when father comes home, he will be pleased, I am sure, with our
+courage."
+
+"And will approve our wish to support ourselves, as if we were alone in
+the world."
+
+On these words of her sister, Rose started.  A cloud of sadness, almost
+of alarm, passed over her charming countenance, as she exclaimed: "Oh,
+sister, what a horrible idea!"
+
+"What is the matter? your look frightens me."
+
+"At the moment I heard you say, that our father would approve our wish to
+support ourselves, as if we were alone in the world--a frightful thought
+struck me--I know not why--but feel how my heart beats--just as if some
+misfortune were about to happen us."
+
+"It is true; your poor heart beats violently.  But what was this thought?
+You alarm me."
+
+"When we were prisoners, they did not at least separate us, and, besides,
+the prison was a kind of shelter--"
+
+"A sad one, though shared with you."
+
+"But if, when arrived here, any accident had parted us from Dagobert--if
+we had been left alone, without help, in this great town?"
+
+"Oh, sister! do not speak of that.  It would indeed be terrible.  What
+would become of us, kind heaven?"
+
+This cruel thought made the girls remain for a moment speechless with
+emotion.  Their sweet faces, which had just before glowed with a noble
+hope, grew pale and sad.  After a pretty long silence, Rose uplifted her
+eyes, now filled with tears, "Why does this thought," she said,
+trembling, "affect us so deeply, sister?  My heart sinks within me, as if
+it were really to happen to us."
+
+"I feel as frightened as you yourself.  Alas! were we both to be lost in
+this immense city, what would become of us?"
+
+"Do not let us give way to such ideas, Blanche!  Are we not here in
+Dagobert's house, in the midst of good people?"
+
+"And yet, sister," said Rose, with a pensive air, "it is perhaps good for
+us to have had this thought."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because we shall now find this poor lodging all the better, as it
+affords a shelter from all our fears.  And when, thanks to our labor, we
+are no longer a burden to any one, what more can we need until the
+arrival of our father?"
+
+"We shall want for nothing--there you are right--but still, why did this
+thought occur to us, and why does it weigh so heavily on our minds?"
+
+"Yes, indeed--why?  Are we not here in the midst of friends that love us?
+How could we suppose that we should ever be left alone in Paris?  It is
+impossible that such a misfortune should happen to us--is it not, my dear
+sister?"
+
+"Impossible!" said Rose, shuddering.  "If the day before we reached that
+village in Germany, where poor Jovial was killed, any one had said to us:
+`To-morrow, you will be in prison'--we should have answered as now: `It
+is impossible.  Is not Dagobert here to protect us; what have we to
+fear?' And yet, sister, the day after we were in prison at Leipsic."
+
+"Oh! do not speak thus, my dear sister!  It frightens me."
+
+By a sympathetic impulse, the orphans took one another by the hand, while
+they pressed close together, and looked around with involuntary fear.
+The sensation they felt was in fact deep, strange, inexplicable, and yet
+lowering--one of those dark presentiments which come over us, in spite of
+ourselves--those fatal gleams of prescience, which throw a lurid light on
+the mysterious profundities of the future.
+
+Unaccountable glimpses of divination! often no sooner perceived than
+forgotten--but, when justified by the event, appearing with all the
+attributes of an awful fatality!
+
+The daughters of Marshal Simon were still absorbed in the mournful
+reverie which these singular thoughts had awakened, when Dagobert's wife,
+returning from her son's chamber, entered the room with a painfully
+agitated countenance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+Frances' agitation was so perceptible that Rose could not help
+exclaiming: "Good gracious, what is the matter?"
+
+"Alas, my dear young ladies!  I can no longer conceal it from you," said
+Frances, bursting into tears.  "Since yesterday I have not seen him.  I
+expected my son to supper as usual, and he never came; but I would not
+let you see how much I suffered.  I continued to expect him, minute after
+minute; for ten years he has never gone up to bed without coming to kiss
+me; so I spent a good part of the night close to the door, listening if I
+could hear his step.  But he did not come; and, at last, about three
+o'clock in the morning, I threw myself down upon the mattress.  I have
+just been to see (for I still had a faint hope), if my son had come in
+this morning--"
+
+"Well, madame!"
+
+"There is no sign of him!" said the poor mother, drying her eyes.
+
+Rose and Blanche looked at each other with emotion; the same thought
+filled the minds of both; if Agricola should not return, how would this
+family live? would they not, in such an event, become doubly burdensome?
+
+"But, perhaps, madame," said Blanche, "M. Agricola remained too late at
+his work to return home last night."
+
+"Oh! no, no! he would have returned in the middle of the night, because
+he knew what uneasiness he would cause me by stopping out.  Alas! some
+misfortune must have happened to him!  Perhaps he has been injured at the
+forge, he is so persevering at his work.  Oh, my poor boy! and, as if I
+did not feel enough anxiety about him, I am also uneasy about the poor
+young woman who lives upstairs."
+
+"Why so, madame?"
+
+"When I left my son's room, I went into hers, to tell her my grief, for
+she is almost a daughter to me; but I did not find her in the little
+closet where she lives, and the bed had not even been slept in.  Where
+can she have gone so early--she, that never goes out?"
+
+Rose and Blanche looked at each other with fresh uneasiness, for they
+counted much upon Mother Bunch to help them in the resolution they had
+taken.  Fortunately, both they and Frances were soon to be satisfied on
+this head, for they heard two low knocks at the door, and the
+sempstress's voice, saying: "Can I come in, Mrs. Baudoin?"
+
+By a spontaneous impulse, Rose and Blanche ran to the door, and opened it
+to the young girl.  Sleet and snow had been falling incessantly since the
+evening before; the gingham dress of the young sempstress, her scanty
+cotton shawl, and the black net cap, which, leaving uncovered two thick
+bands of chestnut hair, encircled her pale and interesting countenance,
+were all dripping wet; the cold had given a livid appearance to her thin,
+white hands; it was only in the fire of her blue eyes, generally so soft
+and timid, that one perceived the extraordinary energy which this frail
+and fearful creature had gathered from the emergency of the occasion.
+
+"Dear me! where do you come from, my good Mother Bunch?" said Frances.
+"Just now, in going to see if my son had returned, I opened your door,
+and was quite astonished to find you gone out so early."
+
+"I bring you news of Agricola."
+
+"Of my son!" cried Frances, trembling all over.  "What has happened to
+him?  Did you see him?--Did you speak to him?--Where is he?"
+
+"I did not see him, but I know where he is."  Then, perceiving that
+Frances grew very pale, the girl added: "He is well; he is in no danger."
+
+"Blessed be God, who has pity on a poor sinner!--who yesterday restored
+me my husband, and to-day, after a night of cruel anguish, assures me of
+the safety of my child!"  So saying, Frances knelt down upon the floor,
+and crossed herself with fervor.
+
+During the moment of silence, caused by this pious action, Rose and
+Blanche approached Mother Bunch, and said to her in a low voice, with an
+expression of touching interest: "How wet you are! you must be very cold.
+Take care you do not get ill.  We did not venture to ask Madame Frances
+to light the fire in the stove, but now we will do so."
+
+Surprised and affected by the kindness of Marshal Simon's daughters, the
+hunchback, who was more sensible than others to the least mark of
+kindness, answered them with a look of ineffable gratitude: "I am much
+obliged to you, young ladies; but I am accustomed to the cold, and am
+moreover so anxious that I do not feel it."
+
+"And my son?" said Frances, rising after she had remained some moments on
+her knees; "why did he stay out all night?  And could you tell me where
+to find him, my good girl?  Will he soon come? why is he so long?"
+
+"I assure you, Agricola is well; but I must inform you, that for some
+time--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You must have courage, mother."
+
+"Oh! the blood runs cold in my veins.  What has happened? why shall I not
+see him?"
+
+"Alas, he is arrested."
+
+"Arrested!" cried Rose and Blanche, with affright.
+
+"Father! Thy will be done!" said Frances; "but it is a great misfortune.
+Arrested! for what?  He is so good and honest, that there must be some
+mistake."
+
+"The day before yesterday," resumed Mother Bunch, "I received an
+anonymous letter, by which I was informed that Agricola might be arrested
+at any moment, on account of his song.  We agreed together that he should
+go to the rich young lady in the Rue de Babylone, who had offered him her
+services, and ask her to procure bail for him; to prevent his going to
+prison.  Yesterday morning he set out to go to the young lady's."
+
+"And neither of you told me anything of all this--why did you hide it
+from me?"
+
+"That we might not make you uneasy, mother; for, counting on the
+generosity of that young lady, I expected Agricola back every moment.
+When he did not come yesterday evening.  I said to myself : `Perhaps the
+necessary formalities with regard to the bail have detained him.' But the
+time passed on, and he did not make his appearance.  So, I watched all
+night, expecting him."
+
+"So you did not go to bed either, my good girl?"
+
+"No, I was too uneasy.  This morning, not being able to conquer my fears,
+I went out before dawn.  I remembered the address of the young lady in
+the Rue de Babylone, and I ran thither."
+
+"Oh, well!" said Frances, with anxiety; "you were in the right.
+According to what my son told us, that young lady appeared very good and
+generous."
+
+Mother Bunch shook her head sorrowfully; a tear glittered in her eyes, as
+she continued: "It was still dark when I arrived at the Rue de Babylone;
+I waited till daylight was come."
+
+"Poor child! you, who are so weak and timid," said Frances, with deep
+feeling, "to go so far, and in this dreadful weather!--Oh, you have been
+a real daughter to me!"
+
+"Has not Agricola been like a brother to me!" said Mother Bunch, softly,
+with a slight blush.
+
+"When it was daylight," she resumed: "I ventured to ring at the door of
+the little summer-house; a charming young girl, but with a sad, pale
+countenance, opened the door to me.  `I come in the name of an
+unfortunate mother in despair,' said I to her immediately, for I was so
+poorly dressed that I feared to be sent away as a beggar; but seeing, on
+the contrary, that the young girl listened to me with kindness, I asked
+her if, the day before, a young workman had not come to solicit a great
+favor of her mistress.  `Alas! yes,' answered the young girl; `my
+mistress was going to interest herself for him, and, hearing that he was
+in danger of being arrested, she concealed him here; unfortunately, his
+retreat was discovered, and yesterday afternoon, at four o'clock, he was
+arrested and taken to prison.'"
+
+Though the orphans took no part in this melancholy conversation, the
+sorrow and anxiety depicted in their countenances, showed how much they
+felt for the sufferings of Dagobert's wife.
+
+"But the young lady?" cried Frances.  "You should have tried to see her,
+my good Mother Bunch, and begged her not to abandon my son.  She is so
+rich that she must have influence, and her protection might save us from
+great calamities."
+
+"Alas!" said Mother Bunch, with bitter grief, "we must renounce this last
+hope."
+
+"Why?" said Frances.  "If this young lady is so good, she will have pity
+upon us, when she knows that my son is the only support of a whole
+family, and that for him to go to prison is worse than for another,
+because it will reduce us all to the greatest misery."
+
+"But this young lady," replied the girl, "according to what I learned
+from her weeping maid, was taken last evening to a lunatic asylum: it
+appears she is mad."
+
+"Mad!  Oh! it is horrible for her, and for us also--for now there is no
+hope.  What will become of us without my son?  Oh, merciful heaven!"  The
+unfortunate woman hid her face in her hands.
+
+A profound silence followed this heart-rending outburst.  Rose and
+Blanche exchanged mournful glances, for they perceived that their
+presence augmented the weighty embarrassments of this family.  Mother
+Bunch, worn out with fatigue, a prey to painful emotions, and trembling
+with cold in her wet clothes, sank exhausted on a chair, and reflected on
+their desperate position.
+
+That position was indeed a cruel one!
+
+Often, in times of political disturbances, or of agitation amongst the
+laboring classes, caused by want of work, or by the unjust reduction of
+wages (the result of the powerful coalition of the capitalists)--often
+are whole families reduced, by a measure of preventive imprisonment, to
+as deplorable a position as that of Dagobert s household by Agricola's
+arrest--an arrest, which, as will afterwards appear, was entirely owing
+to Rodin's arts.
+
+Now, with regard to this "precautionary imprisonment," of which the
+victims are almost always honest and industrious mechanics, driven to the
+necessity of combining together by the In organization of Labor and the
+Insufficiency of Wages, it is painful to see the law, which ought to be
+equal for all, refuse to strikers what it grants to masters--because the
+latter can dispose of a certain sum of money.  Thus, under many
+circumstances, the rich man, by giving bail, can escape the annoyance and
+inconveniences of a preventive incarceration; he deposits a sum of money,
+pledges his word to appear on a certain day, and goes back to his
+pleasures, his occupations, and the sweet delights of his family.
+Nothing can be better; an accused person is innocent till he is proved
+guilty; we cannot be too much impressed with that indulgent maxim.  It is
+well for the rich man that he can avail himself of the mercy of the law.
+But how is it with the poor?
+
+Not only has he no bail to give, for his whole capital consists of his
+daily labor; but it is upon him chiefly that the rigors of preventive
+measures must fall with a terrible and fatal force.
+
+For the rich man, imprisonment is merely the privation of ease and
+comfort, tedious hours, and the pain of separation from his family--
+distresses not unworthy of interest, for all suffering deserves pity, and
+the tears of the rich man separated from his children are as bitter as
+those of the poor.  But the absence of the rich man does not condemn his
+family to hunger and cold, and the incurable maladies caused by
+exhaustion and misery.
+
+For the workman, on the contrary, imprisonment means want, misery,
+sometimes death, to those most dear to him.  Possessing nothing, he is
+unable to find bail, and he goes to prison.  But if he have, as it often
+happens, an old, infirm father or mother, a sick wife, or children in the
+cradle?  What will become of this unfortunate family?  They could hardly
+manage to live from day to day upon the wages of this man, wages almost
+always insufficient, and suddenly this only resource will be wanting for
+three or four months together.
+
+What will this family do?  To whom will they have recourse?
+
+What will become of these infirm old men, these sickly wives, these
+little children, unable to gain their daily bread?  If they chance to
+have a little linen and a few spare clothes, these will be carried to the
+pawnbroker's, and thus they will exist for a week or so--but afterwards?
+
+And if winter adds the rigors of the season to this frightful and
+inevitable misery?
+
+Then will the imprisoned artisan see in his mind's eyes, during the long
+and sleepless nights, those who are dear to him, wan, gaunt, haggard,
+exhausted, stretched almost naked upon filthy straw, or huddled close
+together to warm their frozen limbs.  And, should he afterwards be
+acquitted, it is ruin and desolation that he finds on his return to his
+poor dwelling.
+
+And then, after that long cessation from labor, he will find it difficult
+to return to his old employers.  How many days will be lost in seeking
+for work! and a day without employment is a day without bread!
+
+Let us repeat our opinion, that if, under various circumstances, the law
+did not afford to the rich the facility of giving bail, we could only
+lament over all such victims of individual and inevitable misfortune.
+But since the law does provide the means of setting provisionally at
+liberty those who possess a certain sum of money, why should it deprive
+of this advantage those very persons, for whom liberty is indeed
+indispensable, as it involves the existence of themselves and families?
+
+Is there any remedy for this deplorable state of things?  We believe
+there is.
+
+The law has fixed the minimum of bail at five hundred francs.  Now five
+hundred francs represent, upon the average, six months' labor of an
+industrious workman.
+
+If he have a wife and two children (which is also about the average), it
+is evidently quite impossible for him to have saved any such sum.
+
+So, to ask of such a man five hundred francs, to enable him to continue
+to support his family, is in fact to put him beyond the pale of the law,
+though, more than any one else, he requires its protection, because of
+the disastrous consequences which his imprisonment entails upon others.
+
+Would it not be equitable and humane, a noble and salutary example, to
+accept, in every case where bail is allowed (and where the good character
+of the accused could be honorably established), moral guarantees, in the
+absence of material ones, from those who have no capital but their labor
+and their integrity--to accept the word of an honest man to appear upon
+the day of trial?  Would it not be great and moral, in these days to
+raise the value of the lighted word, and exalt man in his own eyes, by
+showing him that his promise was held to be sufficient security?
+
+Will you so degrade the dignity of man, as to treat this proposition as
+an impossible and Utopian dream?  We ask, how many prisoners of war have
+ever broken their parole, and if officers and soldiers are not brothers
+of the workingman?
+
+Without exaggerating the virtue of promise-keeping in the honest and
+laborious poor, we feel certain, that an engagement taken by the accused
+to appear on the day of trial would be always fulfilled, not only with
+fidelity, but with the warmest gratitude--for his family would not have
+suffered by his absence, thanks to the indulgence of the law.
+
+There is also another fact, of which France may well be proud.  It is,
+that her magistrates (although miserably paid as the army itself) are
+generally wise, upright, humane, and independent; they have the true
+feeling of their own useful and sacred mission; they know how to
+appreciate the wants and distresses of the working classes, with whom
+they are so often brought in contact; to them might be safely granted the
+power of fixing those cases in which a moral security, the only one that
+can be given by the honest and necessitous man, should be received as
+sufficient.[10]
+
+Finally, if those who make the laws have so low an opinion of the people
+as to reject with disdain the suggestions we have ventured to throw out,
+let them at least so reduce the minimum of bail, as to render it
+available for those who have most need to escape the fruitless rigors of
+imprisonment.  Let them take as their lowest limit, the month's wages of
+an artisan--say eighty francs.
+
+This sum would still be exorbitant; but, with the aid of friends, the
+pawnbroker's, and some little advances, eighty francs might perhaps be
+found--not always, it is true--but still sometimes--and, at all events,
+many families would be rescued from frightful misery.
+
+Having made these observations, let us return to Dagobert's family, who,
+in consequence of the preventive arrest of Agricola, were now reduced to
+an almost hopeless state.
+
+The anguish of Dagobert's wife increased, the more she reflected on her
+situation, for, including the marshal's daughters, four persons were left
+absolutely without resource.  It must be confessed, however, that the
+excellent mother thought less of herself, than of the grief which her son
+must feel in thinking over her deplorable position.
+
+At this moment there was a knock at the door.
+
+"Who is there?" said Frances.
+
+"It is me--Father Loriot."
+
+"Come in," said Dagobert's wife.
+
+The dyer, who also performed the functions of a porter, appeared at the
+door of the room.  This time, his arms were no longer of a bright apple-
+green, but of a magnificent violet.
+
+"Mrs. Baudoin," said Father Loriot, "here is a letter that the giver of
+holy water at Saint Merely's has just brought from Abbe Dubois, with a
+request that I would bring it up to you immediately, as it is very
+pressing."
+
+"A letter from my confessor?" said Frances, in astonishment; and, as she
+took it, added: "Thank you, Father Loriot."
+
+"You do not want anything?"
+
+"No, Father Loriot."
+
+"My respects to the ladies!" and the dyer went out.
+
+"Mother Bunch, will you read this letter for me?" said Frances, anxious
+to learn the contents of the missive in question.
+
+"Yes, mother,"--and the young girl read as follows:
+
+"`MY DEAR MADAME BAUDOIN,--I am in the habit of hearing you Tuesday and
+Saturday, but I shall not be at liberty either to-morrow or the last day
+of the week; you must then come to me this morning, unless you wish to
+remain a whole week without approaching the tribunal of penance.'"
+
+"Good heavens! a week!" cried Dagobert's wife.  "Alas! I am only too
+conscious of the necessity of going there today, notwithstanding the
+trouble and grief in which I am plunged."
+
+Then, addressing herself to the orphans, she continued:  "Heaven has
+heard the prayers that I made for you, my dear young ladies; this very
+day I shall be able to consult a good and holy man with regard to the
+great dangers to which you are exposed.  Poor dear souls, that are so
+innocent, and yet so guilty, without any fault of your own!  Heaven is my
+witness, that my heart bleeds for you as much as for my son."
+
+Rose and Blanche looked at each other in confusion; they could not
+understand the fears with which the state of their souls inspired the
+wife of Dagobert.  The latter soon resumed, addressing the young
+sempstress:
+
+"My good girl, will you render me yet another service?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"My husband took Agricola's week's wages with him to pay his journey to
+Chartres.  It was all the money I had in the house; I am sure that my
+poor child had none about him, and in prison he will perhaps want some.
+Therefore take my silver cup, fork, and spoon, the two pair of sheets
+that remain over, and my wadded silk shawl, that Agricola gave me on my
+birthday, and carry them all to the pawnbroker's.  I will try and find
+out in which prison my son is confined, and will send him half of the
+little sum we get upon the things; the rest will serve us till my husband
+comes home.  And then, what shall we do?  What a blow for him--and only
+more misery in prospect--since my son is in prison, and I have lost my
+sight.  Almighty Father!" cried the unfortunate mother, with an
+expression of impatient and bitter grief, "why am I thus afflicted?  Have
+I not done enough to deserve some pity, if not for myself, at least for
+those belonging to me?"  But immediately reproaching herself for this
+outburst, she added, "No, no! I ought to accept with thankfulness all
+that Thou sandiest me.  Forgive me for these complaints, or punish only
+myself!"
+
+"Be of good courage, mother!" said Mother Bunch.  "Agricola is innocent,
+and will not remain long in prison."
+
+"But now I think of it," resumed Dagobert's wife, "to go to the
+pawnbroker's will make you lose much time, my poor girl."
+
+"I can make up that in the night, Madame Frances; I could not sleep,
+knowing you in such trouble.  Work will amuse me."
+
+"Yes, but the candles--"
+
+"Never mind, I am a little beforehand with my work," said the poor girl,
+telling a falsehood.
+
+"Kiss me, at least," said Frances, with moist eyes, "for you are the very
+best creature in the world."  So saying, she hastened cut of the room.
+
+Rose and Blanche were left alone with Mother Bunch; at length had arrived
+the moment for which they had waited with so much impatience.  Dagobert's
+wife proceeded to St. Merely Church, where her confessor was expecting to
+see her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII:
+
+THE CONFESSIONAL
+
+Nothing could be more gloomy than the appearance of St. Merely Church, on
+this dark and snowy winter's day.  Frances stopped a moment beneath the
+porch, to behold a lugubrious spectacle.
+
+While a priest was mumbling some words in a low voice, two or three dirty
+choristers, in soiled surplices, were charting the prayers for the dead,
+with an absent and sullen air, round a plain deal coffin, followed only
+by a sobbing old man and a child, miserably clad.  The beadle and the
+sacristan, very much displeased at being disturbed for so wretched a
+funeral, had not deigned to put on their liveries, but, yawning with
+impatience, waited for the end of the ceremony, so useless to the
+interests of the establishment.  At length, a few drops of holy water
+being sprinkled on the coffin, the priest handed the brush to the beadle,
+and retired.
+
+Then took place one of those shameful scenes, the necessary consequence
+of an ignoble and sacrilegious traffic, so frequent with regard to the
+burials of the poor, who cannot afford to pay for tapers, high mass, or
+violins--for now St. Thomas Aquinas' Church has violins even for the
+dead.
+
+The old man stretched forth his hand to the sacristan to receive the
+brush.  "Come, look sharp!" said that official, blowing on his fingers.
+
+The emotion of the old man was profound, and his weakness extreme; he
+remained for a moment without stirring, while the brush was clasped
+tightly in his trembling hand.  In that coffin was his daughter, the
+mother of the ragged child who wept by his side--his heart was breaking
+at the thought of that last farewell; he stood motionless, and his bosom
+heaved with convulsive sobs.
+
+"Now, will you make haste?" said the brutal beadle.  "Do you think we are
+going to sleep here?"
+
+The old man quickened his movements.  He made the sign of the cross over
+the corpse, and, stooping down, was about to place the brush in the hand
+of his grandson, when the sacristan, thinking the affair had lasted long
+enough, snatched the sprinkling-brush from the child, and made a sign to
+the bearers to carry away the coffin--which was immediately done.
+
+"Wasn't that old beggar a slow coach?" said the beadle to his companion,
+as they went back to the sacristy.  "We shall hardly have time to get
+breakfast, and to dress ourselves for the bang-up funeral of this
+morning.  That will be something like a dead man, that's worth the
+trouble.  I shall shoulder my halberd in style!"
+
+"And mount your colonel's epaulets, to throw dust in the eyes of the
+women that let out the chairs--eh, you old rascal!" said the other, with
+a sly look.
+
+"What can I do, Capillare?  When one has a fine figure, it must be seen,"
+answered the beadle, with a triumphant air.  "I cannot blind the women to
+prevent their losing their hearts!"
+
+Thus conversing; the two men reached the sacristy.  The sight of the
+funeral had only increased the gloom of Frances.  When she entered the
+church, seven or eight persons, scattered about upon chairs, alone
+occupied the damp and icy building.  One of the distributors of holy
+water, an old fellow with a rubicund, joyous, wine-bibbing face, seeing
+Frances approach the little font, said to her in a low voice:  "Abbe
+Dubois is not yet in his box.  Be quick, and you will have the first wag
+of his beard."
+
+Though shocked at this pleasantry, Frances thanked the irreverent
+speaker, made devoutly the sign of the cross, advanced some steps into
+the church, and knelt down upon the stones to repeat the prayer, which
+she always offered up before approaching the tribunal of penance.  Having
+said this prayer, she went towards a dark corner of the church, in which
+was an oaken confessional, with a black curtain drawn across the grated
+door.  The places on each side were vacant; so Frances knelt down in that
+upon the right hand, and remained there for some time absorbed in bitter
+reflections.
+
+In a few minutes, a priest of tall stature, with gray hair and a stern
+countenance, clad in a long black cassock, stalked slowly along one of
+the aisles of the church.  A short, old, misshapen man, badly dressed,
+leaning upon an umbrella, accompanied him, and from time to time
+whispered in his ear, when the priest would stop to listen with a
+profound and respectful deference.
+
+As they approached the confessional, the short old man, perceiving
+Frances on her knees, looked at the priest with an air of interrogation.
+"It is she," said the clergyman.
+
+"Well, in two or three hours, they will expect the two girls at St.
+Mary's Convent.  I count upon it," said the old man.
+
+"I hope so, for the sake of their souls," answered the priest; and,
+bowing gravely, he entered the confessional.  The short old man quitted
+the church.
+
+This old man was Rodin.  It was on leaving Saint Merely's that he went to
+the lunatic asylum, to assure himself that Dr. Baleinier had faithfully
+executed his instructions with regard to Adrienne de Cardoville.
+
+Frances was still kneeling in the interior of the confessional.  One of
+the slides opened, and a voice began to speak.  It was that of the
+priest, who, for the last twenty years had been the confessor of
+Dagobert's wife, and exercised over her an irresistible and all-powerful
+influence.
+
+"You received my letter?" said the voice.
+
+"Yes, father.
+
+"Very well--I listen to you."
+
+"Bless me, father--for I have sinned!" said Frances.
+
+The voice pronounced the formula of the benediction.  Dagobert's wife
+answered "amen," as was proper, said her confider to "It is my fault,"
+gave an account of the manner in which she had performed her last
+penance, and then proceeded to the enumeration of the new sins, committed
+since she had received absolution.
+
+For this excellent woman, a glorious martyr of industry and maternal
+love, always fancied herself sinning: her conscience was incessantly
+tormented by the fear that she had committed some incomprehensible
+offence.  This mild and courageous creature, who, after a whole life of
+devotion, ought to have passed what time remained to her in calm serenity
+of soul, looked upon herself as a great sinner, and lived in continual
+anxiety, doubting much her ultimate salvation.
+
+"Father," said Frances, in a trembling voice, "I accuse myself of
+omitting my evening prayer the day before yesterday.  My husband, from
+whom I had been separated for many years, returned home.  The joy and the
+agitation caused by his arrival, made me commit this great sin."
+
+"What next?" said the voice, in a severe tone, which redoubled the poor
+woman's uneasiness.
+
+"Father, I accuse myself of falling into the same sin yesterday evening.
+I was in a state of mortal anxiety, for my son did not come home as
+usual, and I waited for him minute after minute, till the hour had passed
+over."
+
+"What next?" said the voice.
+
+"Father, I accuse myself of having told a falsehood all this week to my
+son, by letting him think that on account of his reproaching me for
+neglecting my health, I had taken a little wine for my dinner--whereas I
+had left it for him, who has more need of it, because he works so much."
+
+"Go on!" said the voice.
+
+"Father, I accuse myself of a momentary want of resignation this morning,
+when I learned that my poor son was arrested; instead of submitting with
+respect and gratitude to this new trial which the Lord hath sent me--
+alas! I rebelled against it in my grief--and of this I accuse myself."
+
+"A bad week," said the priest, in a tone of still greater severity, "a
+bad week--for you have always put the creature before the Creator.  But
+proceed!"
+
+"alas, father!" resumed Frances, much dejected, "I know that I am a great
+sinner; and I fear that I am on the road to sins of a still graver kind."
+
+"Speak!"
+
+"My husband brought with him from Siberia two young orphans, daughters of
+Marshal Simon.  Yesterday morning, I asked them to say their prayers, and
+I learned from them, with as much fright as sorrow, that they know none
+of the mysteries of our holy faith, though they are fifteen years old.
+They have never received the sacrament, nor are they even baptized,
+father--not even baptized!"
+
+"They must be heathens!" cried the voice, in a tone of angry surprise.
+
+"That is what so much grieves me, father; for, as I and my husband are in
+the room of parents to these young orphans, we should be guilty of the
+sins which they might commit--should we not, father?"
+
+"Certainly,--since you take the place of those who ought to watch over
+their souls.  The shepherd must answer for his flock," said the voice.
+
+"And if they should happen to he in mortal sin, father, I and my husband
+would be in mortal sin?"
+
+"Yes," said the voice; "you take the place of their parents; and fathers
+and mothers are guilty of all the sins which their children commit when
+those sins arise from the want of a Christian education."
+
+"Alas, father! what am I to do?  I address myself to you as I would to
+heaven itself.  Every day, every hour, that these poor young girls remain
+heathens, may contribute to bring about their eternal damnation, may it
+not, father?" said Frances, in a tone of the deepest emotion.
+
+"Yes," answered the voice; "and the weight of this terrible
+responsibility rests upon you and your husband; you have the charge of
+souls!"
+
+"Lord, have mercy upon me!" said Frances weeping.
+
+"You must not grieve yourself thus," answered the voice, in a softer
+tone; "happily for these unfortunates, they have met you upon the way.
+They, will have in you and your husband good and pious examples--for I
+suppose that your husband, though formerly an ungodly person, now
+practices his religious duties!"
+
+"We must pray for him, father," said Frances, sorrowfully; "grace has not
+yet touched his heart.  He is like my poor child, who has also not been
+called to holiness.  Ah, father!" said Frances, drying her tears, "these
+thoughts are my heaviest cross."
+
+"So neither your husband nor your son practises," resumed the voice, in a
+tone of reflection; "this is serious--very serious.  The religious
+education of these two unfortunate girls has yet to begin.  In your
+house, they will have ever before them the most deplorable examples.
+Take care!  I have warned you.  You have the charge of souls--your
+responsibility is immense!"
+
+"Father, it is that which makes me wretched--I am at a loss what to do.
+Help me, and give me your counsels: for twenty years your voice has been
+to me as the voice of the Lord."
+
+"Well! you must agree with your husband to send these unfortunate girls
+to some religious house where they may be instructed."
+
+"We are too poor, father, to pay for their schooling, and unfortunately
+my son has just been put in prison for songs that he wrote."
+
+"Behold the fruit of impiety," said the voice, severely; "look at
+Gabriel! he has followed my counsels, and is now the model of every
+Christian virtue."
+
+"My son, Agricola, has had good qualities, father; he is so kind, so
+devoted!"
+
+"Without religion," said the voice, with redoubled severity, "what you
+call good qualities are only vain appearances; at the least breath of the
+devil they will disappear--for the devil lurks in every soul that has no
+religion."
+
+"Oh! my poor son!" said Frances, weeping; "I pray for him every day, that
+faith may enlighten him."
+
+"I have always told you," resumed the voice, "that you have been too weak
+with him.  God now punishes you for it.  You should have parted from this
+irreligious son, and not sanctioned his impiety by loving him as you do.
+`If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off,' saith the Scripture."
+
+"Alas, father! you know it is the only time I have disobeyed you; but I
+could not bring myself to part from my son."
+
+"Therefore is your salvation uncertain--but God is merciful.  Do not fall
+into the same fault with regard to these young girls, whom Providence has
+sent you, that you might save them from eternal damnation.  Do not plunge
+them into it by your own culpable indifference."
+
+"Oh, father! I have wept and prayed for them."
+
+"That is not sufficient.  These unfortunate children cannot have any
+notion of good or evil.  Their souls must be an abyss of scandal and
+impurity--brought up as they have been, by an impious mother, and a
+soldier devoid of religion."
+
+"As for that, father," said Frances, with simplicity, "they are gentle as
+angels, and my husband, who has not quitted them since their birth,
+declares they have the best hearts in the world."
+
+"Your husband has dwelt all his life in mortal sin," said the voice,
+harshly; "how can he judge of the state of souls?  I repeat to you, that
+as you represent the parents of these unfortunates, it is not to-morrow,
+but it is today, and on the instant, that you must labor for their
+salvation, if you would not incur a terrible responsibility."
+
+"It is true--I know it well, father--and I suffer as much from this fear
+as from grief at my son's arrest.  But what is to be done?  I could not
+instruct these young girls at home--for I have not the knowledge--I have
+only faith--and then my poor husband, in his blindness, makes game of
+sacred things, which my son, at least, respects in my presence, out of
+regard for me.  Then, once more, father, come to my aid, I conjure you!
+Advise me: what is to be done?"
+
+"We cannot abandon these two young souls to frightful perdition," said
+the voice, after a moment's silence: "there are not two ways of saving
+them: there is only one, and that is to place them in a religious house,
+where they may be surrounded by good and pious examples."
+
+"Oh, father! if we were not so poor, or if I could still work, I would
+try to gain sufficient to pay for their board, and do for them as I did
+for Gabriel.  Unfortunately, I have quite lost my sight; but you, father,
+know some charitable souls, and if you could get any of them to interest
+them, selves for these poor orphans--"
+
+"Where is their father?"
+
+"He was in India; but, my husband tells me, he will soon be in France.
+That, however, is uncertain.  Besides, it would make my heart bleed to
+see those poor children share our misery--which will soon be extreme--for
+we only live by my son's labor."
+
+"Have these girls no relation here?" asked the voice.
+
+"I believe not, father."
+
+"It was their mother who entrusted them to your husband, to bring them to
+France?"
+
+"Yes, father; he was obliged to set out yesterday for Chartres, on some
+very pressing business, as he told me."
+
+It will be remembered that Dagobert had not thought fit to inform his
+wife of the hopes which the daughters of Marshall Simon founded on the
+possession of the medal, and that he had particularly charged them not to
+mention these hopes, even to Frances.
+
+"So," resumed the voice, after a pause of some moments' duration, "your
+husband is not in Paris."
+
+"No, father; but he will doubtless return this evening or to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"Listen to me," said the voice, after another pause.  "Every minute lost
+for those two young girls is a new step on the road to perdition.  At any
+moment the hand of God may smite them, for He alone knows the hour of our
+death; and were they to die in the state in which they now are, they
+would most probably be lost to all eternity.  This very day, therefore,
+you must open their eyes to the divine light, and place them in a
+religious house.  It is your duty--it should be your desire!"
+
+"Oh, yes, father; but, unfortunately, I am too poor, as I have already
+told you."
+
+"I know it--you do not want for zeal or faith--but even were you capable
+of directing these young girls, the impious examples of your husband and
+son would daily destroy your work.  Others must do for these orphans, in
+the name of Christian charity, that which you cannot do, though you are
+answerable for them before heaven."
+
+"Oh, father! if, thanks to you, this good work could be accomplished, how
+grateful I should be!"
+
+"It is not impossible.  I know the superior of a convent, where these
+young girls would be instructed as they ought.  The charge for their
+board would be diminished in consideration of their poverty; but, however
+small, it must be paid and there would be also an outfit to furnish.  All
+that would be too dear for you."
+
+"Alas! yes, father."
+
+"But, by taking a little from my poor-box, and by applying to one or two
+generous persons, I think I shall be able to complete the necessary sum,
+and so get the young girls received at the convent."
+
+"Ah, father! you are my deliverer, and these children's."
+
+"I wish to be so--but, in the interest of their salvation, and to make
+these measures really efficacious, I must attach some conditions to the
+support I offer you."
+
+"Name them, father; they are accepted beforehand.  Your commands shall be
+obeyed in everything."
+
+"First of all, the children must be taken this very morning to the
+convent, by my housekeeper, to whom you must bring them almost
+immediately."
+
+"Nay, father; that is impossible!" cried Frances.
+
+"Impossible? why?"
+
+"In the absence of my husband--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I dare not take a such a step without consulting him."
+
+"Not only must you abstain from consulting him, but the thing must be
+done during his absence."
+
+"What, father? should I not wait for his return?"
+
+"No, for two reasons," answered the priest, sternly: "first, because his
+hardened impiety would certainly lead him to oppose your pious
+resolution; secondly, because it is indispensable that these young girls
+should break off all connection with your husband, who, therefore, must
+be left in ignorance of the place of their retreat."
+
+"But, father," said Frances, a prey to cruel doubt and embarrassment, "it
+is to my husband that these children were entrusted--and to dispose of
+them without his consent would be--"
+
+"Can you instruct these children at your house--yes or no?" interrupted
+the voice.
+
+"No, father, I cannot."
+
+"Are they exposed to fall into a state of final impenitence by remaining
+with you--yes or no?"
+
+"Yes, father, they are so exposed."
+
+"Are you responsible, as you take the place of their parents, for the
+mortal sins they may commit--yes or no?"
+
+"Alas, father! I am responsible before God."
+
+"Is it in the interest of their eternal salvation that I enjoin you to
+place them this very day in a convent?"
+
+"It is for their salvation, father."
+
+"Well, then, choose!"
+
+"But tell me, I entreat you, father if I have the right to dispose of
+them without the consent of my husband?"
+
+"The right! you have not only the right, but it is your sacred duty.
+Would you not be bound, I ask you, to rescue these unfortunate creatures
+from a fire, against the will of your husband, or during his absence?
+Well! you must now rescue them, not from a fire that will only consume
+the body, but from one in which their souls would burn to all eternity."
+
+"Forgive me, I implore you, father," said the poor woman, whose
+indecision and anguish increased every minute; "satisfy my doubts!--How
+can I act thus, when I have sworn obedience to my husband?"
+
+"Obedience for good--yes--but never for evil.  You confess, that, were it
+left to him, the salvation of these orphans would be doubtful, and
+perhaps impossible."
+
+"But, father," said Frances, trembling, "when my husband returns, he will
+ask me where are these children?  Must I tell him a falsehood?"
+
+"Silence is not falsehood; you will tell him that you cannot answer his
+question."
+
+"My husband is the kindest of men; but such an answer will drive him
+almost mad.  He has been a soldier, and his anger will be terrible,
+father," said Frances, shuddering at the thought.
+
+"And were his anger a hundred times more terrible, you should be proud to
+brave it in so sacred a cause!" cried the voice, with indignation.  "Do
+you think that salvation is to be so easily gained on earth?  Since when
+does the sinner, that would walk in the way of the Lord, turn aside for
+the stones and briars that may bruise and tear him?"
+
+"Pardon, father, pardon!" said Frances, with the resignation of despair.
+"Permit me to ask one more question, one only.  Alas! if you do not guide
+me, how shall I find the way?"
+
+"Speak!"
+
+"When Marshal Simon arrives, he will ask his children of my husband.
+What answer can he then give to their father?"
+
+"When Marshal Simon arrives, you will let me know immediately, and then--
+I will see what is to be done.  The rights of a father are only sacred in
+so far as he make use of them for the salvation of his children.  Before
+and above the father on earth, is the Father in heaven, whom we must
+first serve.  Reflect upon all this.  By accepting what I propose to you,
+these young girls will be saved from perdition; they will not be at your
+charge; they will not partake of your misery; they will be brought up in
+a sacred institution, as, after all, the daughters of a Marshal of France
+ought to be--and, when their father arrives at Paris, if he be found
+worthy of seeing them again, instead of finding poor, ignorant, half-
+savage heathens, he will behold two girls, pious, modest, and well-
+informed, who, being acceptable with the Almighty, may invoke His mercy
+for their father, who, it must be owned, has great need of it--being a
+man of violence, war, and battle.  Now decide!  Will you, on peril of
+your soul, sacrifice the welfare of these girls in this world and the
+next, because of an impious dread of your husband's anger?"
+
+Though rude and fettered by intolerance, the confessor's language was
+(taking his view of the case) reasonable and just, because the honest
+priest was himself convinced of what he said; a blind instrument of
+Rodin, ignorant of the end in view, he believed firmly, that, in forcing
+Frances to place these young girls in a convent, he was performing a
+pious duty.  Such was, and is, one of the most wonderful resources of the
+order to which Rodin belonged--to have for accomplices good and sincere
+people, who are ignorant of the nature of the plots in which they are the
+principal actors.
+
+Frances, long accustomed to submit to the influence of her confessor,
+could find nothing to object to his last words.  She resigned herself to
+follow his directions, though she trembled to think of the furious anger
+of Dagobert, when he should no longer find the children that a dying
+mother had confided to his care.  But, according to the priest's opinion,
+the more terrible this anger might appear to her, the more she would show
+her pious humility by exposing herself to it.
+
+"God's will be done, father!" said she, in reply to her confessor.
+"Whatever may happen, I wilt do my duty as a Christian--in obedience to
+your commands."
+
+"And the Lord will reward you for what you may have to suffer in the
+accomplishment of this meritorious act.  You promise then, before God,
+that you will not answer any of your husband's questions, when he asks
+you for the daughters of Marshal Simon?"
+
+"Yes, father, I promise!" said Frances, with a shudder.
+
+"And will preserve the same silence towards Marshal Simon himself, in
+case he should return, before his daughters appear to me sufficiently
+grounded in the faith to be restored to him?"
+
+"Yes, father," said Frances, in a still fainter voice.
+
+"You will come and give me an account of the scene that takes place
+between you and your husband, upon his return?"
+
+"Yes, father; when must I bring the orphans to your house?"
+
+"In an hour.  I will write to the superior, and leave the letter with my
+housekeeper.  She is a trusty person, and will conduct the young girls to
+the convent."
+
+After she had listened to the exhortations of her confessor, and received
+absolution for her late sins, on condition of performing penance,
+Dagobert's wife left the confessional.
+
+The church was no longer deserted.  An immense crowd pressed into it,
+drawn thither by the pomp of the grand funeral of which the beadle had
+spoken to the sacristan two hours before.  It was with the greatest
+difficulty that Frances could reach the door of the church, now hung with
+sumptuous drapery.
+
+What a contrast to the poor and humble train, which had that morning so
+timidly presented themselves beneath the porch!
+
+The numerous clergy of the parish, in full procession, advanced
+majestically to receive the coffin covered with a velvet pall; the
+watered silks and stuffs of their copes and stoles, their splendid
+silvered embroideries, sparkled in the light of a thousand tapers.  The
+beadle strutted in all the glory of his brilliant uniform and flashing
+epaulets; on the opposite side walked in high glee the sacristan,
+carrying his whalebone staff with a magisterial air; the voice of the
+choristers, now clad in fresh, white surplices, rolled out in bursts of
+thunder; the trumpets' blare shook the windows; and upon the countenances
+of all those who were to have a share in the spoils of this rich corpse,
+this excellent corpse, this first-class corpse, a look of satisfaction
+was visible, intense and yet subdued, which suited admirably with the air
+and attitude of the two heirs, tall, vigorous fellows with florid
+complexions, who, without overstepping the limits of a charming modesty
+of enjoyment, seemed to cuddle and hug themselves most comfortably in
+their mourning cloaks.
+
+Notwithstanding her simplicity and pious faith, Dagobert's wife was
+painfully impressed with this revolting difference between the reception
+of the rich and the poor man's coffin at the door of the house of God--
+for surely, if equality be ever real, it is in the presence of death and
+eternity!
+
+The two sad spectacles she had witnessed, tended still further to depress
+the spirits of Frances.  Having succeeded with no small trouble in making
+her way out of the church, she hastened to return to the Rue Brise-Miche,
+in order to fetch the orphans and conduct them to the housekeeper of her
+confessor, who was in her turn to take them to St. Mary's Convent.
+situated, as we know, next door to Dr. Baleinier's lunatic-asylum, in
+which--Adrienne de Cardoville was confined.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+MY LORD AND SPOIL-SPORT.
+
+The wife of Dagobert, having quitted the church, arrived at the corner of
+the Rue Brise-Miche, when she was accosted by the distributor of holy
+water; he came running out of breath, to beg her to return to Saint-
+Mery's, where the Abbe Dubois had yet something of importance to say to
+her.
+
+The moment Frances turned to go back, a hackney-coach stopped in front of
+the house she inhabited.  The coachman quitted his box to open the door.
+
+"Driver," said a stout woman dressed in black, who was seated in the
+carriage, and held a pug-dog upon her knees, "ask if Mrs. Frances Baudoin
+lives in this house."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said the coachman.
+
+The reader will no doubt have recognized Mrs. Grivois, head waiting-woman
+to the Princess de Saint-Dizier, accompanied by My Lord, who exercised a
+real tyranny over his mistress.  The dyer, whom we have already seen
+performing the duties of a porter, being questioned by the coachman as to
+the dwelling of Frances, came out of his workshop, and advanced gallantly
+to the coach-door, to inform Mrs. Grivois, that Frances Baudoin did in
+fact live in the house, but that she was at present from home.
+
+The arms, hands, and part of the face of Father Loriot were now of a
+superb gold-color.  The sight of this yellow personage singularly
+provoked My Lord, and at the moment the dyer rested his hand upon the
+edge of the coach-window, the cur began to yelp frightfully, and bit him
+in the wrist.
+
+"Oh! gracious heaven!" cried Mrs. Grivois, in an agony, whilst Father
+Loriot, withdrew his hand with precipitation; "I hope there is nothing
+poisonous in the dye that you have about you--my dog is so delicate!"
+
+So saying, she carefully wiped the pug-nose, spotted with yellow.  Father
+Loriot, not at all satisfied with this speech, when he had expected to
+receive some apology from Mrs. Grivois on account of her dog's behavior,
+said to her, as with difficulty he restrained his anger: "If you did not
+belong to the fair sex, which obliges me to respect you in the person of
+that wretched animal I would have the pleasure of taking him by the tail,
+and making him in one minute a dog of the brightest orange color, by
+plunging him into my cauldron, which is already on the fire."
+
+"Dye my pet yellow!" cried Mrs. Grivois, in great wrath, as she descended
+from the hackney-coach, clasping My Lord tenderly to her bosom, and
+surveying Father Loriot with a savage look.
+
+"I told you, Mrs. Baudoin is not at home," said the dyer, as he saw the
+pug-dog's mistress advance in the direction of the dark staircase.
+
+"Never mind; I will wait for her," said Mrs. Grivois tartly.  "On which
+story does she live?"
+
+"Up four pair!" answered Father Loriot, returning abruptly to his shop.
+And he added to himself, with a chuckle at the anticipation: "I hope
+Father Dagobert's big prowler will be in a bad humor, and give that
+villainous pug a shaking by the skin of his neck."
+
+Mrs. Grivois mounted the steep staircase with some difficulty, stopping
+at every landing-place to take breath, and looking about her with
+profound disgust.  At length she reached the fourth story, and paused an
+instant at the door of the humble chamber, in which the two sisters and
+Mother Bunch then were.
+
+The young sempstress was occupied in collecting the different articles
+that she was about to carry to the pawnbroker's.  Rose and Blanche seemed
+happier, and somewhat less uneasy about the future; for they had learned
+from Mother Bunch, that, when they knew how to sew, they might between
+them earn eight francs a week, which would at least afford some
+assistance to the family.
+
+The presence of Mrs. Grivois in Baudoin's dwelling was occasioned by a
+new resolution of Abbe d'Aigrigny and the Princess de Saint-Dizier; they
+had thought it more prudent to send Mrs. Grivois, on whom they could
+blindly depend, to fetch the young girls, and the confessor was charged
+to inform Frances that it was not to his housekeeper, but to a lady that
+would call on her with a note from him, that she was to deliver the
+orphans, to be taken to a religious establishment.
+
+Having knocked at the door, the waiting-woman of the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier entered the room, and asked for Frances Baudoin.
+
+"She is not at home, madame," said Mother Bunch timidly, not a little
+astonished at so unexpected a visit, and casting down her eyes before the
+gaze of this woman.
+
+"Then I will wait for her, as I have important affairs to speak of,"
+answered Mrs. Grivois, examining with curiosity and attention the faces
+of the two orphans, who also cast down their eyes with an air of
+confusion.
+
+So saying, Madame Grivois sat down, not without some repugnance, in the
+old arm-chair of Dagobert's wife, and believing that she might now leave
+her favorite at liberty, she laid him carefully on the floor.
+Immediately, a low growl, deep and hollow, sounding from behind the
+armchair, made Mrs. Grivois jump from her seat, and sent the pug-dog,
+yelping with affright, and trembling through his fat, to take refuge
+close to his mistress, with all the symptoms of angry alarm.
+
+"What! is there a dog here?" cried Mrs. Grivois, stooping precipitately
+to catch up My Lord, whilst, as if he wished himself to answer the
+question, Spoil-sport rose leisurely from his place behind the arm-chair,
+and appeared suddenly, yawning and stretching himself.
+
+At sight of this powerful animal, with his double row of formidable
+pointed fangs, which he seemed to take delight in displaying as he opened
+his large jaws, Mrs. Grivois could not help giving utterance to a cry of
+terror.  The snappish pug had at first trembled in all his limbs at the
+Siberian's approach; but, finding himself in safety on the lap of his
+mistress, he began to growl insolently, and to throw the most provoking
+glances at Spoil-sport.  These the worthy companion of the deceased
+Jovial answered disdainfully by gaping anew; after which he went smelling
+round Mrs. Grivois with a sort of uneasiness, turned his back upon My
+Lord, and stretched himself at the feet of Rose and Blanche, keeping his
+large, intelligent eyes fixed upon them, as if he foresaw that they were
+menaced with some danger.
+
+"Turn out that beast," said Mrs. Grivois, imperiously; "he frightens my
+dog, and may do him some harm."
+
+"Do not be afraid, madame," replied Rose, with a smile; "Spoil-sport will
+do no harm, if he is not attacked."
+
+"Never mind!" cried Mrs. Grivois; "an accident soon happens.  The very
+sight of that enormous dog, with his wolf's head and terrible teeth, is
+enough to make one tremble at the injuries he might do one.  I tell you
+to turn him out."
+
+Mrs. Grivois had pronounced these last words in a tone of irritation,
+which did not sound at all satisfactory in Spoil-sport's ears; so he
+growled and showed his teeth, turning his head in the direction of the
+stranger.
+
+"Be quiet, Spoil-sport!" said Blanche sternly.
+
+A new personage here entered the room, and put an end to this situation,
+which was embarrassing enough for the two young girls.  It was a
+commissionaire, with a letter in his hand.
+
+"What is it, sir?" asked Mother Bunch.
+
+"A very pressing letter from the good man of the house; the dyer below
+stairs told me to bring it up here."
+
+"A letter from Dagobert!" cried Rose and Blanche, with a lively
+expression of pleasure.  "He is returned then? where is he?"
+
+"I do not know whether the good man is called Dagobert or not," said the
+porter; "but he is an old trooper, with a gray moustache, and may be
+found close by, at the office of the Chartres coaches."
+
+"That is he!" cried Blanche.  "Give me the letter."
+
+The porter handed it to the young girl, who opened it in all haste.
+
+Mrs. Grivois was struck dumb with dismay; she knew that Dagobert had been
+decoyed from Paris, that the Abbe Dubois might have an opportunity to act
+with safety upon Frances.  Hitherto, all had succeeded; the good woman
+had consented to place the young girls in the hands of a religious
+community--and now arrives this soldier, who was thought to be absent
+from Paris for two or three days at least, and whose sudden return might
+easily ruin this laborious machination, at the moment when it seemed to
+promise success.
+
+"Oh!" said Blanche, when she had read the letter.  "What a misfortune!"
+
+"What is it, then, sister?" cried Rose.
+
+"Yesterday, half way to Chartres, Dagobert perceived that he had lost his
+purse.  He was unable to continue his journey; he took a place upon
+credit, to return, and he asks his wife to send him some money to the
+office, to pay what he owes."
+
+"That's it," said the porter; "for the good man told me to make haste,
+because he was there in pledge."
+
+"And nothing in the house!" cried Blanche.  "Dear me! what is to be
+done?"
+
+At these words, Mrs. Grivois felt her hopes revive for a moment, they
+were soon, however, dispelled by Mother Bunch, who exclaimed, as she
+pointed to the parcel she had just made up: "Be satisfied, dear young
+ladies! here is a resource.  The pawnbroker's, to which I am going, is
+not far off, and I will take the money direct to M. Dagobert: in half an
+hour, at latest, he will be here."
+
+"Oh, my dear friend! you are right," said Rose.  "How good you are! you
+think of everything."
+
+"And here," said Blanche, "is the letter, with the address upon it.  Take
+that with you."
+
+"Thank you," answered Mother Bunch: then, addressing the porter, she
+added: "Return to the person who sent you, and tell him I shall be at the
+coach-office very shortly."
+
+"Infernal hunchback!" thought Mrs. Grivois, with suppressed rage, "she
+thinks of everything.  Without her, we should have escaped the plague of
+this man's return.  What is to be done now?  The girls would not go with
+me, before the arrival of the soldier's wife; to propose it to them would
+expose me to a refusal, and might compromise all.  Once more, what is to
+be done?"
+
+"Do not be uneasy, ladies," said the porter as he went out; "I will go
+and assure the good man, that he will not have to remain long in pledge."
+
+Whilst Mother Bunch was occupied in tying her parcel, in which she had
+placed the silver cup, fork, and spoon, Mrs. Grivois seemed to reflect
+deeply.  Suddenly she started.  Her countenance, which had been for some
+moments expressive of anxiety and rage, brightened up on the instant.
+She rose, still holding My Lord in her arms, and said to the young girls:
+"As Mrs. Baudoin does not come in, I am going to pay a visit in the
+neighborhood, and will return immediately.  Pray tell her so!"
+
+With these words Mr. Grivois took her departure, a few minutes before
+Mother Bunch left.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+APPEARANCES.
+
+After she had again endeavored to cheer up the orphans, the sewing-girl
+descended the stairs, not without difficulty, for, in addition to the
+parcel, which was already heavy, she had fetched down from her own room
+the only blanket she possessed--thus leaving herself without protection
+from the cold of her icy garret.
+
+The evening before, tortured with anxiety as to Agricola's fate, the girl
+had been unable to work; the miseries of expectation and hope delayed had
+prevented her from doing so; now another day would be lost, and yet it
+was necessary to live.  Those overwhelming sorrows, which deprive the
+poor of the faculty of labor, are doubly dreaded; they paralyze the
+strength, and, with that forced cessation from toil, want and destitution
+are often added to grief.
+
+But Mother Bunch, that complete incarnation of holiest duty, had yet
+strength enough to devote herself for the service of others.  Some of the
+most frail and feeble creatures are endowed with extraordinary vigor of
+soul; it would seem as if, in these weak, infirm organizations, the
+spirit reigned absolutely over the body, and knew how to inspire it with
+a factitious energy.
+
+Thus, for the last twenty-four hours, Mother Bunch had neither slept nor
+eaten; she had suffered from the cold, through the whole of a frosty
+night.  In the morning she had endured great fatigue, in going, amid rain
+and snow, to the Rue de Babylone and back, twice crossing Paris and yet
+her strength was not exhausted--so immense is the power of the human
+heart!
+
+She had just arrived at the corner of the Rue Saint Mery.  Since the
+recent Rue des Prouvaires conspiracy, there were stationed in this
+populous quarter of the town a much larger number of police-officers than
+usual.  Now the young sempstress, though bending beneath the weight of
+her parcel, had quickened her pace almost to a run, when, just as she
+passed in front of one of the police, two five-franc pieces fell on the
+ground behind her, thrown there by a stout woman in black, who followed
+her closely.
+
+Immediately after the stout woman pointed out the two pieces to the
+policeman, and said something hastily to him with regard to Mother Bunch.
+Then she withdrew at all speed in the direction of the Rue Brise-Miche.
+
+The policeman, struck with what Mrs. Grivois had said to him ( for it was
+that person), picked up the money, and, running after the humpback, cried
+out to her: "Hi, there! young woman, I say--stop! stop!"
+
+On this outcry, several persons turned round suddenly and, as always
+happens in those quarters of the town, a nucleus of five or six persons
+soon grew to a considerable crowd.
+
+Not knowing that the policeman was calling to her, Mother Bunch only
+quickened her speed, wishing to get to the pawnbroker's as soon as
+possible, and trying to avoid touching any of the passers-by, so much did
+she dread the brutal and cruel railleries, to which her infirmity so
+often exposed her.
+
+Suddenly, she heard many persons running after her, and at the same
+instant a hand was laid rudely on her shoulder.  It was the policeman,
+followed by another officer, who had been drawn to the spot by the noise.
+Mother Bunch turned round, struck with as much surprise as fear.
+
+She found herself in the centre of a crowd, composed chiefly of that
+hideous scum, idle and in rags, insolent and malicious, besotted with
+ignorance, brutalized by want, and always loafing about the corners.
+Workmen are scarcely ever met with in these mobs, for they are for the
+most part engaged in their daily labors.
+
+"Come, can't you hear? you are deaf as Punch's dog," said the policeman,
+seizing Mother Bunch so rudely by the arm, that she let her parcel fall
+at her feet.
+
+When the unfortunate girl, looking round in terror, saw herself exposed
+to all those insolent, mocking, malicious glances, when she beheld the
+cynical and coarse grimace on so many ignoble and filthy countenances,
+she trembled in all her limbs, and became fearfully pale.  No doubt the
+policeman had spoken roughly to her; but how could he speak otherwise to
+a poor deformed girl, pale and trembling, with her features agitated by
+grief and fear--to a wretched creature, miserably clad, who wore in
+winter a thin cotton gown, soiled with mud, and wet with melted snow--for
+the poor sempstress had walked much and far that morning.  So the
+policeman resumed, with great severity, following that supreme law of
+appearances which makes poverty always suspected: "Stop a bit, young
+woman! it seems you are in a mighty hurry, to let your money fall without
+picking it up."
+
+"Was her blunt hid in her hump?" said the hoarse voice of a match-boy, a
+hideous and repulsive specimen of precocious depravity.
+
+This sally was received with laughter, shouts, and hooting, which served
+to complete the sewing-girl's dismay and terror.  She was hardly able to
+answer, in a feeble voice, as the policeman handed her the two pieces of
+silver: "This money, sir, is not mine."
+
+"You lie," said the other officer, approaching; "a respectable lady saw
+it drop from your pocket."
+
+"I assure you, sir, it is not so," answered Mother Bunch, trembling.
+
+"I tell you that you lie," resumed the officer; "for the lady, struck
+with your guilty and frightened air, said to me: `Look at yonder little
+hunchback, running away with that large parcel, and letting her money
+fall without even stopping to pick it up--it is not natural.'"
+
+"Bobby," resumed the match-vendor in his hoarse voice, "be on your guard!
+Feel her hump, for that is her luggage-van.  I'm sure that you'll find
+boots, and cloaks, and umbrellas, and clocks in it--for I just heard the
+hour strike in the bend of her back."
+
+Then came fresh bursts of laughter and shouts and hooting, for this
+horrible mob has no pity for those who implore and suffer.  The crowd
+increased more and more, and now they indulged in hoarse cries, piercing
+whistles, and all kinds of horse play.
+
+"Let a fellow see her; it's free gratis."
+
+"Don't push so; I've paid for my place!"
+
+"Make her stand up on something, that all may have a look."
+
+"My corns are being ground: it was not worth coming."
+
+"Show her properly--or return the money."
+
+"That's fair, ain't it?"
+
+"Give it us in the `garden' style."
+
+"Trot her out in all her paces!  Kim up!"
+
+Fancy the feelings of this unfortunate creature, with her delicate mind,
+good heart, and lofty soul, and yet with so timid and nervous a
+character, as she stood alone with the two policemen in the thick of the
+crowd, and was forced to listen to all these coarse and savage insults.
+
+But the young sempstress did not yet understand of what crime she was
+accused.  She soon discovered it, however, for the policeman, seizing the
+parcel which she had picked up and now held in her trembling hands, said
+to her rudely:  "What is there in that bundle?"
+
+"Sir--it is--I am going--" The unfortunate girl hesitated--unable, in her
+terror, to find the word.
+
+"If that's all you have to answer," said the policeman, "it's no great
+shakes.  Come, make haste! turn your bundle inside out."
+
+So saying, the policeman snatched the parcel from her, half opened it,
+and repeated, as he enumerated the divers articles it contained: "The
+devil!--sheets--a spoon and fork--a silver mug--a shawl--a blanket--
+you're a downy mot! it was not so bad a move.  Dressed like a beggar, and
+with silver plate about you.  Oh, yes!  you're a deep 'un."
+
+"Those articles do not belong to you," said the other officer.
+
+"No, sir," replied Mother Bunch, whose strength was failing her; "but--"
+
+"Oh, vile hunchback! you have stolen more than you are big!"
+
+"Stolen!" cried Mother Bunch, clasping her hands in horror, for she now
+understood it all.  "Stolen!"
+
+"The guard! make way for the lobsters!" cried several persons at once.
+
+"Oh, ho! here's the lobsters!"
+
+"The fire-eaters!"
+
+"The Arab devourers!"
+
+"Come for their dromedary!"
+
+In the midst of these noisy jests, two soldiers and a corporal advanced
+with much difficulty.  Their bayonets and the barrels of their guns were
+alone visible above the heads of this hideous and compact crowd.  Some
+officious person had been to inform the officer at the nearest guard-
+house, that a considerable crowd obstructed the public way.
+
+"Come, here is the guard--so march to the guard-house!" said the
+policeman, taking Mother Bunch by the arm.
+
+"Sir," said the poor girl, in a voice stifled by sobs, clasping her hands
+in terror, and sinking upon her knees on the pavement; "sir,--have pity--
+let me explain--"
+
+"You will explain at the guard-house; so come on!"
+
+"But, sir--I am not a thief," cried Mother Bunch, in a heart-rending
+tone; "have pity upon me--do not take me away like a thief, before all
+this crowd.  Oh! mercy! mercy!"
+
+"I tell you, there will be time to explain at the guard-house.  The
+street is blocked up; so come along!"  Grasping the unfortunate creature
+by both her hands, he set her, as it were, on her feet again.
+
+At this instant, the corporal and his two soldiers, having succeeded in
+making their way through the crowd, approached the policeman.
+"Corporal," said the latter, "take this girl to the guard-house.  I am an
+officer of the police."
+
+"Oh, gentlemen!" cried the girl, weeping hot tears, and wringing her
+hands, "do not take me away, before you let me explain myself.  I am not
+a thief--indeed, indeed, I am not a thief!  I will tell you--it was to
+render service to others--only let me tell you--"
+
+"I tell you, you should give your explanations at the guard-house; if you
+will not walk, we must drag you along," said the policeman.
+
+We must renounce the attempt to paint this scene, at once ignoble and
+terrible.
+
+Weak, overpowered, filled with alarm, the unfortunate girl was dragged
+along by the soldiers, her knees sinking under her at every step.  The
+two police-officers had each to lend an arm to support her, and
+mechanically she accepted their assistance.  Then the vociferations and
+hootings burst forth with redoubled fury.  Half-swooning between the two
+men, the hapless creature seemed to drain the cup of bitterness to the
+dregs.
+
+Beneath that foggy sky, in that dirty street, under the shadow of the
+tall black houses, those hideous masses of people reminded one of the
+wildest fancies of Callot and of Goya: children in rags, drunken women,
+grim and blighted figures of men, rushed against each other, pushed,
+fought, struggled, to follow with howls and hisses an almost inanimate
+victim--the victim of a deplorable mistake.
+
+Of a mistake!  How one shudders to think, that such arrests may often
+take place, founded upon nothing but the suspicion caused by the
+appearance of misery, or by some inaccurate description.  Can we forget
+the case of that young girl, who, wrongfully accused of participating in
+a shameful traffic, found means to escape from the persons who were
+leading her to prison, and, rushing up the stairs of a house, threw
+herself from a window, in her despair, and was crushed to death upon the
+paving-stones?
+
+Meanwhile, after the abominable denunciation of which Mother Bunch was
+the victim, Mrs. Grivois had returned precipitately to the Rue Brise-
+Miche.  She ascended in haste to the fourth story, opened the door of
+Frances Baudoin's room, and saw--Dagobert in company with his wife and
+the two orphans!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+THE CONVENT.
+
+Let us explain in a few words the presence of Dagobert.  His countenance
+was impressed with such an air of military frankness that the manager of
+the coach-office would have been satisfied with his promise to return and
+pay the money; but the soldier had obstinately insisted on remaining in
+pledge, as he called it, till his wife had answered his letter.  When,
+however, on the return of the porter, he found that the money was coming,
+his scruples were satisfied, and he hastened to run home.
+
+We may imagine the stupor of Mrs. Grivois, when, upon entering the
+chamber, she perceived Dagobert (whom she easily recognized by the
+description she had heard of him) seated beside his wife and the orphans.
+The anxiety of Frances at sight of Mrs. Grivois was equally striking.
+Rose and Blanche had told her of the visit of a lady, during her absence,
+upon important business; and, judging by the information received from
+her confessor, Frances had no doubt that this was the person charged to
+conduct the orphans to a religious establishment.
+
+Her anxiety was terrible.  Resolved to follow the counsels of Abbe
+Dubois, she dreaded lest a word from Mrs. Grivois should put Dagobert on
+the scent--in which case all would be lost, and the orphans would remain
+in their present state of ignorance and mortal sin, for which she
+believed herself responsible.
+
+Dagobert, who held the hands of Rose and Blanche, left his seat as the
+Princess de Saint-Dizier's waiting-woman entered the room and cast an
+inquiring glance on Frances.
+
+The moment was critical--nay, decisive; but Mrs. Grivois had profited by
+the example of the Princess de Saint-Dizier.  So, taking her resolution
+at once, and turning to account the precipitation with which she had
+mounted the stairs, after the odious charge she had brought against poor
+Mother Bunch, and even the emotion caused by the unexpected sight of
+Dagobert, which gave to her features an expression of uneasiness and
+alarm--she exclaimed, in an agitated voice, after the moment's silence
+necessary to collect her thoughts: "Oh, madame!  I have just been the
+spectator of a great misfortune.  Excuse my agitation! but I am so
+excited--"
+
+"Dear me! what is the matter?"  said Frances, in a trembling voice, for
+she dreaded every moment some indiscretion on the part of Mrs. Grivois.
+
+"I called just now," resumed the other, "to speak to you on some
+important business; whilst I was waiting for you, a poor young woman,
+rather deformed, put up sundry articles in a parcel--"
+
+"Yes," said Frances; "it was Mother Bunch, an excellent, worthy
+creature."
+
+"I thought as much, madame; well, you shall hear what has happened.  As
+you did not come in, I resolved to pay a visit in the neighborhood.  I go
+out, and get as far as the Rue St. Mery, when--Oh, madame!"
+
+"Well?" said Dagobert, "what then?"
+
+"I see a crowd--I inquire what is the matter--I learn that a policeman
+has just arrested a young girl as a thief, because she had been seen
+carrying a bundle, composed of different articles which did not appear to
+belong to her--I approached--what do I behold?--the same young woman that
+I had met just before in this room."
+
+"Oh! the poor child!" exclaimed Frances, growing pale, and clasping her
+hands together.  "What a dreadful thing!"
+
+"Explain, then," said Dagobert to his wife.  "What was in this bundle?"
+
+"Well, my dear--to confess the truth--I was a little short, and I asked
+our poor friend to take some things for me to the pawnbroker's--"
+
+"What! and they thought she had robbed us!" cried Dagobert; "she, the
+most honest girl in the world! it is dreadful--you ought to have
+interfered, madame; you ought to have said that you knew her."
+
+"I tried to do so, sir; but, unfortunately, they would not hear me.  The
+crowd increased every moment, till the guard came up, and carried her
+off."
+
+"She might die of it, she is so sensitive and timid!" exclaimed Frances.
+
+"Ah, good Mother Bunch! so gentle! so considerate!" said Blanche, turning
+with tearful eyes towards her sister.
+
+"Not being able to help her," resumed Mrs. Grivois "I hastened hither to
+inform you of this misadventure--which may, indeed, easily be repaired--
+as it will only be necessary to go and claim the young girl as soon as
+possible."
+
+At these words, Dagobert hastily seized his hat, and said abruptly to
+Mrs. Grivois: "Zounds, madame! you should have begun by telling us that.
+Where is the poor child?  Do you know?"
+
+"I do not, sir; but there are still so many excited people in the street
+that, if you will have the kindness to step out, you will be sure to
+learn."
+
+"Why the devil do you talk of kindness?  It is my duty, madame.  Poor
+child!" repeated Dagobert.  "Taken up as a thief!--it is really horrible.
+I will go to the guard-house, and to the commissary of police for this
+neighborhood, and, by hook or crook, I will find her, and have her out,
+and bring her home with me."
+
+So saying, Dagobert hastily departed.  Frances, now that she felt more
+tranquil as to the fate of Mother Bunch, thanked the Lord that this
+circumstance had obliged her husband to go out, for his presence at this
+juncture caused her a terrible embarrassment.
+
+Mrs. Grivois had left My Lord in the coach below, for the moments were
+precious.  Casting a significant glance at Frances she handed her Abbe
+Dubois' letter, and said to her, with strong emphasis on every word: "You
+will see by this letter, madame, what was the object of my visit, which I
+have not before been able to explain to you, but on which I truly
+congratulate myself, as it brings me into connection with these two
+charming young ladies."  Rose and Blanche looked at each other in
+surprise.  Frances took the letter with a trembling hand.  It required
+all the pressing and threatening injunctions of her confessor to conquer
+the last scruples of the poor woman, for she shuddered at the thought of
+Dagobert's terrible indignation.  Moreover, in her simplicity, she knew
+not how to announce to the young girls that they were to accompany this
+lady.
+
+Mrs. Grivois guessed her embarrassment, made a sign to her to be at her
+ease, and said to Rose, whilst Frances was reading the letter of her
+confessor: "How happy your relation will be to see you, my dear young
+lady!'
+
+"Our relation, madame?" said Rose, more and more astonished.
+
+"Certainly.  She knew of your arrival here, but, as she is still
+suffering from the effects of a long illness, she was not able to come
+herself to-day, and has sent me to fetch you to her.  Unfortunately,"
+added Mrs. Grivois, perceiving a movement of uneasiness on the part of
+the two sisters, "it will not be in her power, as she tells Mrs. Baudoin
+in her letter, to see you for more than a very short time--so you may be
+back here in about an hour.  But to-morrow or the next day after, she
+will be well enough to leave home, and then she will come and make
+arrangements with Mrs. Baudoin and her husband, to take you into her
+house--for she could not bear to leave you at the charge of the worthy
+people who have been so kind to you."
+
+These last words of Mrs. Grivois made a favorable impression upon the two
+sisters, and banished their fears of becoming a heavy burden to
+Dagobert's family.  If it had been proposed to them to quit altogether
+the house in the Rue Bris-Miche, without first asking the consent of
+their old friend, they would certainly have hesitated; but Mrs. Grivois
+had only spoken of an hour's visit.  They felt no suspicion, therefore,
+and Rose said to Frances: "We may go and see our relation, I suppose,
+madame, without waiting for Dagobert's return?"
+
+"Certainly " said Frances, in a feeble voice, "since you are to be back
+almost directly."
+
+"Then, madame, I would beg these dear young ladies to come with me as
+soon as possible, as I should like to bring them back before noon.
+
+"We are ready, madame," said Rose.
+
+"Well then, young ladies, embrace your second mother, and come," said
+Mrs. Grivois, who was hardly able to control her uneasiness, for she
+trembled lest Dagobert should return from one moment to the other.
+
+Rose and Blanche embraced Frances, who, clasping in her arms the two
+charming and innocent creatures that she was about to deliver up, could
+with difficulty restrain her tears, though she was fully convinced that
+she was acting for their salvation.
+
+"Come, young ladies," said Mrs. Grivois, in the most affable tone, "let
+us make haste--you will excuse my impatience, I am sure--but it is in the
+name of your relation that I speak."
+
+Having once more tenderly kissed the wife of Dagobert, the sisters
+quitted the room hand in hand, and descended the staircase close behind
+Mrs. Grivois, followed (without their being aware of it), by Spoil-sport.
+The intelligent animal cautiously watched their movements, for, in the
+absence of his master, he never let them out of his sight.
+
+For greater security, no doubt, the waiting-woman of Madame de Saint-
+Dizier had ordered the hackney-coach to wait for her at a little distance
+from the Rue Brise-Miche, in the cloister square.  In a few seconds, the
+orphans and their conductress reached the carriage.
+
+"Oh, missus!" said the coachman, opening the door; "no offence, I hope--
+but you have the most ill-tempered rascal of a dog!  Since you put him
+into my coach, he has never ceased howling like a roasted cat, and looks
+as if he would eat us all up alive!"  In fact, My Lord, who detested
+solitude, was yelling in the most deplorable manner.
+
+"Be quiet, My Lord! here I am," said Mrs. Grivois; then addressing the
+two sisters, she added: "Pray, get in, my dear young ladies."
+
+Rose and Blanche got into the coach.  Before she followed them, Mrs.
+Grivois was giving to the coachman in a low voice the direction to St.
+Mary's Convent, and was adding other instructions, when suddenly the pug-
+dog, who had growled savagely when the sisters took their seats in the
+coach, began to bark with fury.  The cause of this anger was clear
+enough; Spoil-sport, until now unperceived, had with one bound entered
+the carriage.
+
+The pug, exasperated by this boldness, forgetting his ordinary prudence,
+and excited to the utmost by rage and ugliness of temper, sprang at his
+muzzle, and bit him so cruelly, that, in his turn, the brave Siberian
+dog, maddened by the pain, threw himself upon the teaser, seized him by
+the throat, and fairly strangled him with two grips of his powerful jaws-
+-as appeared by one stifled groan of the pug, previously half suffocated
+with fat.
+
+All this took place in less time than is occupied by the description.
+Rose and Blanche had hardly opportunity to exclaim twice: "Here, Spoil-
+sport! down!"
+
+"Oh, good gracious!" said Mrs. Grivois, turning round at the noise.
+"There again is that monster of a dog--he will certainly hurt my love.
+Send him away, young ladies--make him get down--it is impossible to take
+him with us."
+
+Ignorant of the degree of Spoil-sport's criminality, for his paltry foe
+was stretched lifeless under a seat, the young girls yet felt that it
+would be improper to take the dog with them, and they therefore said to
+him in an angry tone, at the same time slightly touching him with their
+feet: "Get down, Spoil-sport! go away!"
+
+The faithful animal hesitated at first to obey this order.  Sad and
+supplicatingly looked he at the orphans, and with an air of mild
+reproach, as if blaming them for sending away their only defender.
+But, upon the stern repetition of the command, he got down from the
+coach,
+with his tail between his legs, feeling perhaps that he had been somewhat
+over-hasty with regard to the pug.
+
+Mrs. Grivois, who was in a great hurry to leave that quarter of the town,
+seated herself with precipitation in the carriage; the coachman closed
+the door, and mounted his box; and then the coach started at a rapid
+rate, whilst Mrs. Grivois prudently let down the blinds, for fear of
+meeting Dagobert by the way.
+
+Having taken these indispensable precautions, she was able to turn her
+attention to her pet, whom she loved with all that deep, exaggerated
+affection, which people of a bad disposition sometimes entertain for
+animals, as if then concentrated and lavished upon them all those
+feelings in which they are deficient with regard to their fellow-
+creatures.  In a word.  Mrs. Grivois vas passionately attached to this
+peevish, cowardly, spiteful dog, partly perhaps from a secret sympathy
+with his vices.  This attachment had lasted for six years, and only
+seemed to increase as My Lord advanced in age.
+
+We have laid some stress on this apparently puerile detail, because the
+most trifling causes have often disastrous effects, and because we wish
+the reader to understand what must have been the despair, fury, and
+exasperation of this woman, when she discovered the death of her dog--a
+despair, a fury, and an exasperation, of which the orphans might yet feel
+the cruel consequences.
+
+The hackney-coach had proceeded rapidly for some seconds, when Mrs.
+Grivois, who was seated with her back to the horses, called My Lord.  The
+dog had very good reasons for not replying.
+
+"Well, you sulky beauty!" said Mrs. Grivois, soothingly; "you have taken
+offence, have you?  It was not my fault if that great ugly dog came into
+the coach, was it, young ladies?  Come and kiss your mistress, and let us
+make peace, old obstinate!"
+
+The same obstinate silence continued on the part of the canine noble.
+Rose and Blanche began to look anxiously at each other, for they knew
+that Spoil-sport was somewhat rough in his ways, though they were far
+from suspecting what had really happened.  But Mrs. Grivois, rather
+surprised than uneasy at her pug-log's insensibility to her affectionate
+appeals, and believing him to be sullenly crouching beneath the seat,
+stooped clown to take him up, and feeling one of his paws, drew it
+impatiently towards her whilst she said to him in a half-jesting, half-
+angry tone:  "Come, naughty fellow! you will give a pretty notion of your
+temper to these young ladies."
+
+So saying, she took up the dog, much astonished at his unresisting
+torpor; but what was her fright, when, having placed him upon her lap,
+she saw that he was quite motionless.
+
+"An apoplexy!" cried she.  "The dear creature ate too much--I was always
+afraid of it."
+
+Turning round hastily, she exclaimed: "Stop, coachman! stop!" without
+reflecting that the coachman could not hear her.  Then raising the cur's
+head, still thinking that he was only in a fit, she perceived with horror
+the bloody holes imprinted by five or six sharp fangs, which left no
+doubt of the cause of his deplorable end.
+
+Her first impulse was one of grief and despair.  "Dead!" she exclaimed;
+"dead! and already cold!  Oh, goodness!--And this woman burst into tears.
+
+The tears of the wicked are ominous.  For a bad man to weep, he must have
+suffered much; and, with him, the reaction of suffering, instead of
+softening the soul, inflames it to a dangerous anger.
+
+Thus, after yielding to that first painful emotion, the mistress of My
+Lord felt herself transported with rage and hate--yes, hate--violent hate
+for the young girls, who had been the involuntary cause of the dog's
+death.  Her countenance so plainly betrayed her resentment, that Blanche
+and Rose were frightened at the expression of her face, which had now
+grown purple with fury, as with agitated voice and wrathful glance she
+exclaimed: "It was your dog that killed him!"
+
+"Oh, madame!" said Rose; "we had nothing to do with it."
+
+"It was your dog that bit Spoil-sport first," added Blanche, in a
+plaintive voice.
+
+The look of terror impressed on the features of the orphans recalled Mrs.
+Grivois to herself.  She saw the fatal consequences that might arise from
+yielding imprudently to her anger.  For the very sake of vengeance, she
+had to restrain herself, in order not to awaken suspicion in the minds of
+Marshal Simon's daughters.  But not to appear to recover too soon from
+her first impression, she continued for some minutes to cast irritated
+glances at the young girls; then, little by little, her anger seemed to
+give way to violent grief; she covered her face with her hands, heaved a
+long sigh, and appeared to weep bitterly.
+
+"Poor lady!" whispered Rose to Blanche.  "How she weeps!--No doubt, she
+loved her dog as much as we love Spoil-sport."
+
+"Alas! yes," replied Blanche.  "We also wept when our old Jovial was
+killed."
+
+After a few minutes, Mrs. Grivois raised her head, dried her eyes
+definitively, and said in a gentle, and almost affectionate voice:
+"Forgive me, young ladies!  I was unable to repress the first movement of
+irritation, or rather of deep sorrow--for I was tenderly attached to this
+poor dog he has never left me for six years."
+
+"We are very sorry for this misfortune, madame," resumed Rose; "and we
+regret it the more, that it seems to be irreparable."
+
+"I was just saying to my sister, that we can the better fancy your grief,
+as we have had to mourn the death of our old horse, that carried us all
+the way from Siberia."
+
+"Well, my dear young ladies, let us think no more about it.  It was my
+fault; I should not have brought him with me; but he was always so
+miserable, whenever I left him.  You will make allowance for my weakness.
+A good heart feels for animals as well as people; so I must trust to your
+sensibility to excuse my hastiness."
+
+"Do not think of it, madame; it is only your grief that afflicts us."
+
+"I shall get over it, my dear young ladies--I shall get over it.  The joy
+of the meeting between you and your relation will help to console me.
+She will be so happy.  You are so charming! and then the singular
+circumstance of your exact likeness to each other adds to the interest
+you inspire."
+
+"You are too kind to us, madame."
+
+"Oh, no--I am sure you resemble each other as much in disposition as in
+face."
+
+"That is quite natural, madame," said Rose, "for since our birth we have
+never left each other a minute, whether by night or day.  It would be
+strange, if we were not like in character."
+
+"Really, my dear young ladies! you have never left each other a minute?"
+
+"Never, madame."  The sisters joined hands with an expressive smile.
+
+"Then, how unhappy you would be, and how much to be pitied, if ever you
+were separated."
+
+"Oh, madame! it is impossible," said Blanche, smiling.
+
+"How impossible?"
+
+"Who would have the heart to separate us?"
+
+"No doubt, my dear young ladies, it would be very cruel."
+
+"Oh, madame," resumed Blanche, "even very wicked people would not think
+of separating us."
+
+"So much the better, my dear young ladies--pray, why?"
+
+"Because it would cause us too much grief."
+
+"Because it would kill us."
+
+"Poor little dears!"
+
+"Three months ago, we were shut up in prison.  Well when the governor of
+the prison saw us, though he looked a very stern man, he could not help
+saying: "It would be killing these children to separate them;" and so we
+remained together, and were as happy as one can be in prison."
+
+"It shows your excellent heart, and also that of the persons who knew how
+to appreciate it."
+
+The carriage stopped, and they heard the coachman call out "Any one at
+the gate there?"
+
+"Oh! here we are at your relation's," said Mrs. Grivois.  Two wings of a
+gate flew open, and the carriage rolled over the gravel of a court-yard.
+
+Mrs. Grivois having drawn up one of the blinds, they found themselves in
+a vast court, across the centre of which ran a high wall, with a kind of
+porch upon columns, under which was a little door.  Behind this wall,
+they could see the upper part of a very large building in freestone.
+Compared with the house in the Rue Brise-Miche, this building appeared a
+palace; so Blanche said to Mrs. Grivois, with an expression of artless
+admiration: "Dear me, madame, what a fine residence!"
+
+"That is nothing," replied Madame Grivois; "wait till you see the
+interior, which is much finer."
+
+When the coachman opened the door of the carriage, what was the rage of
+Mrs. Grivois, and the surprise of the girls, to see Spoil-sport, who had
+been clever enough to follow the coach.  Pricking up his ears, and
+wagging his tail, he seemed to have forgotten his late offences, and to
+expect to be praised for his intelligent fidelity.
+
+"What!" cried Mrs. Grivois, whose sorrows were renewed at the sight; "has
+that abominable dog followed the coach?"
+
+"A famous dog, mum," answered the coachman "he never once left the heels
+of my horses.  He must have been trained to it.  He's a powerful beast,
+and two men couldn't scare him.  Look at the throat of him now!"
+
+The mistress of the deceased pug, enraged at the somewhat unseasonable
+praises bestowed upon the Siberian, said to the orphans, "I will announce
+your arrival, wait for me an instant in the coach."
+
+So saying, she went with a rapid step towards the porch, and rang the
+bell.  A woman, clad in a monastic garb, appeared at the door, and bowed
+respectfully to Mrs. Grivois, who addressed her in these few words, "I
+have brought you the two young girls; the orders of Abbe d'Aigrigny and
+the princess are, that they be instantly separated, and kept apart in
+solitary cells--you understand, sister--and subjected to the rule for
+impenitents."
+
+"I will go and inform the superior, and it will be done," said the
+portress, with another bend.
+
+"Now, will you come, my dear young ladies?" resumed Mrs. Grivois,
+addressing the two girls, who had secretly bestowed a few caresses upon
+Spoil sport, so deeply were they touched by his instinctive attachment;
+"you will be introduced to your relation, and I will return and fetch you
+in half an hour.  Coachman keep that dog back."
+
+Rose and Blanche, in getting out of the coach, were so much occupied with
+Spoil-sport, that they did not perceive the portress, who was half hidden
+behind the little door.  Neither did they remark, that the person who was
+to introduce them was dressed as a nun, till, taking them by the hand,
+she had led them across the threshold, when the door was immediately
+closed behind them.
+
+As soon as Mrs. Grivois had seen the orphans safe into the convent, she
+told the coachman to leave the court-yard, and wait for her at the outer-
+gate.  The coachman obeyed; but Spoil-sport, who had seen Rose and
+Blanche enter by the little door, ran to it, and remained there.
+
+Mrs. Grivois then called the porter of the main entrance, a tall,
+vigorous fellow and said to him: "Here are ten francs for you, Nicholas,
+if you will beat out the brains of that great dog, who is crouching under
+the porch."
+
+Nicholas shook his head, as he observed Spoil-sport's size and strength.
+"Devil take me, madame!" said he; "'tis not so easy to tackle a dog of
+that build."
+
+"I will give you twenty francs; only kill him before me."
+
+"One ought to have a gun, and I have only an iron hammer."
+
+"That will do; you can knock him down at a blow."
+
+"Well, madame--I will try--but I have my doubts."  And Nicholas went to
+fetch his mallet.
+
+"Oh! if I had the strength!" said Mrs. Grivois.
+
+The porter returned with his weapon, and advanced slowly and
+treacherously towards Spoil-sport, who was still crouching beneath the
+porch.  "Here, old fellow! here, my good dog!" said Nicholas striking his
+left hand on his thigh, and keeping his right behind him, with the
+crowbar grasped in it.
+
+Spoil-sport rose, examined Nicholas attentively, and no doubt perceiving
+by his manner that the porter meditated some evil design, bounded away
+from him, outflanked the enemy, saw clearly what was intended, and kept
+himself at a respectful distance.
+
+"He smells a rat," said Nicholas; "the rascal's on his guard.  He will
+not let me come near him.  It's no go."
+
+"You are an awkward fellow," said Mrs. Grivois in a passion, as she threw
+a five-franc piece to Nicholas: "at all events, drive him away."
+
+"That will be easier than to kill him, madame," said the porter.  Indeed,
+finding himself pursued, and conscious probably that it would be useless
+to attempt an open resistance, Spoil-sport fled from the court-yard into
+the street; but once there, he felt himself, as it were, upon neutral
+ground, and notwithstanding all the threats of Nicholas, refused to
+withdraw an inch further than just sufficient to keep out of reach of the
+sledge-hammer.  So that when Mrs. Grivois, pale with rage, again stepped
+into her hackney-coach, in which were My Lord's lifeless remains, she saw
+with the utmost vexation that Spoil-sport was lying at a few steps from
+the gate, which Nicholas had just closed, having given up the chase in
+despair.
+
+The Siberian dog, sure of finding his way back to the Rue Brise-Miche,
+had determined, with the sagacity peculiar to his race, to wait for the
+orphans on the spot where he then was.
+
+Thus were the two sisters confined in St. Mary's Convent, which, as we
+have already said, was next door to the lunatic asylum in which Adrienne
+de Cardoville was immured.
+
+We now conduct the reader to the dwelling of Dagobert's wife, who was
+waiting with dreadful anxiety for the return of her husband, knowing that
+he would call her to account for the disappearance of Marshal Simon's
+daughters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF A CONFESSOR.
+
+Hardly had the orphans quitted Dagobert's wife, when the poor woman,
+kneeling down, began to pray with fervor.  Her tears, long restrained,
+now flowed abundantly; notwithstanding her sincere conviction that she
+had performed a religious duty in delivering up the girl's she waited
+with extreme fear her husband's return.  Though blinded by her pious
+zeal, she could not hide from herself, that Dagobert would have good
+reason to be angry; and then this poor mother had also, under these
+untoward circumstances, to tell him of Agricola's arrest.
+
+Every noise upon the stairs made Frances start with trembling anxiety;
+after which, she would resume her fervent prayers, supplicating strength
+to support this new and arduous trial.  At length, she heard a step upon
+the landing-place below, and, feeling sure this time that it was
+Dagobert, she hastily seated herself, dried her tears, and taking a sack
+of coarse cloth upon her lap, appeared to be occupied with sewing--though
+her aged hands trembled so much, that she could hardly hold the needle.
+
+After some minutes the door opened, and Dagobert appeared.  The soldier's
+rough countenance was stern and sad; as he entered, he flung his hat
+violently upon the table, so full of painful thought, that he did not at
+first perceive the absence of the orphans.
+
+"Poor girl!" cried he.  "It is really terrible!"
+
+"Didst see Mother Bunch? didst claim her?" said Frances hastily,
+forgetting for a moment her own fears.
+
+"Yes, I have seen her--but in what a state--twas enough to break one's
+heart.  I claimed her, and pretty loud too, I can tell you; but they said
+to me, that the commissary must first come to our place in order--" here
+Dagobert paused, threw a glance of surprise round the room, and exclaimed
+abruptly: "Where are the children?"
+
+Frances felt herself seized with an icy shudder.  "My dear," she began in
+a feeble voice--but she was unable to continue.
+
+"Where are Rose and Blanche!  Answer me then!  And Spoil-sport, who is
+not here either!"
+
+"Do not be angry."
+
+"Come," said Dagobert, abruptly, "I see you have let them go out with a
+neighbor--why not have accompanied them yourself, or let them wait for
+me, if they wished to take a walk; which is natural enough, this room
+being so dull.  But I am astonished that they should have gone out before
+they had news of good Mother Bunch--they have such kind hearts.  But how
+pale you are?" added the soldier looking nearer at Frances; "what is the
+matter, my poor wife?  Are you ill?"
+
+Dagobert took Frances's hand affectionately in his own but the latter,
+painfully agitated by these words, pronounced with touching goodness,
+bowed her head and wept as she kissed her husband's hand.  The soldier,
+growing more and more uneasy as he felt the scalding tears of his wife,
+exclaimed: "You weep, you do not answer--tell me, then, the cause of your
+grief, poor wife!  Is it because I spoke a little loud, in asking you how
+you could let the dear children go out with a neighbor?  Remember their
+dying mother entrusted them to my care--'tis sacred, you see--and with
+them, I am like an old hen after her chickens," added he, laughing to
+enliven Frances.
+
+"Yes, you are right in loving them!"
+
+"Come, then--becalm--you know me of old.  With my great, hoarse voice, I
+am not so bad a fellow at bottom.  As you can trust to this neighbor,
+there is no great harm done; but, in future, my good Frances, do not take
+any step with regard to the children without consulting me.  They asked,
+I suppose, to go out for a little stroll with Spoil-sport?"
+
+"No, my dear!"
+
+"No!  Who is this neighbor, to whom you have entrusted them?  Where has
+she taken them?  What time will she bring them back?"
+
+"I do not know," murmured Frances, in a failing voice.
+
+"You do not know!" cried Dagobert, with indignation; but restraining
+himself, he added, in a tone of friendly reproach: "You do not know?  You
+cannot even fix an hour, or, better still, not entrust them to any one?
+The children must have been very anxious to go out.  They knew that I
+should return at any moment, so why not wait for me--eh, Frances?  I ask
+you, why did they not wait for me?  Answer me, will you!--Zounds! you
+would make a saint swear!" cried Dagobert, stamping his foot; "answer me,
+I say!"
+
+The courage of Frances was fast failing.  These pressing and reiterated
+questions, which might end by the discovery of the truth, made her endure
+a thousand slow and poignant tortures.  She preferred coming at once to
+the point, and determined to bear the full weight of her husband's anger,
+like a humble and resigned victim, obstinately faithful to the promise
+she had sworn to her confessor.
+
+Not having the strength to rise, she bowed her head, allowed her arms to
+fall on either side of the chair, and said to her husband in a tone of
+the deepest despondency: "Do with me what you will--but do not ask what
+is become of the children--I cannot answer you."
+
+If a thunderbolt had fallen at the feet of the soldier, he would not have
+been more violently, more deeply moved; he became deadly pale; his bald
+forehead was covered with cold sweat; with fixed and staring look, he
+remained for some moments motionless, mute, and petrified.  Then, as if
+roused with a start from this momentary torpor, and filled with a
+terrific energy, he seized his wife by the shoulders, lifted her like a
+feather, placed her on her feet before him, and, leaning over her,
+exclaimed in a tone of mingled fury and despair: "The children!"
+
+"Mercy! mercy!" gasped Frances, in a faint voice.
+
+"Where are the children?" repeated Dagobert, as he shook with his
+powerful hands that poor frail body, and added in a voice of thunder:
+"Will you answer? the children!"
+
+"Kill me, or forgive me, I cannot answer you," replied the unhappy woman,
+with that inflexible, yet mild obstinacy, peculiar to timid characters,
+when they act from convictions of doing right.
+
+"Wretch!" cried the soldier; wild with rage, grief, despair, he lifted up
+his wife as if he would have dashed her upon the floor--but he was too
+brave a man to commit such cowardly cruelty, and, after that first burst
+of involuntary fury, he let her go.
+
+Overpowered, Frances sank upon her knees, clasped her hands, and, by the
+faint motion of her lips, it was clear that she was praying.  Dagobert
+had then a moment of stunning giddiness; his thoughts wandered; what had
+just happened was so sudden, so incomprehensible that it required some
+minutes to convince himself that his wife (that angel of goodness, whose
+life had been one course of heroic self-devotion, and who knew what the
+daughters of Marshal Simon were to him) should say to him: "Do not ask me
+about them--I cannot answer you."
+
+The firmest, the strongest mind would have been shaken by this
+inexplicable fact.  But, when the soldier had a little recovered himself,
+he began to look coolly at the circumstances, and reasoned thus sensibly
+with himself: "My wife alone can explain to me this inconceivable
+mystery--I do not mean either to beat or kill her--let us try every
+possibly method, therefore, to induce her to speak, and above all, let me
+try to control myself."
+
+He took a chair, handed another to his wife, who was still on her knees,
+and said to her: "Sit down."  With an air of the utmost dejection,
+Frances obeyed.
+
+"Listen to me, wife," resumed Dagobert in a broken voice, interrupted by
+involuntary starts, which betrayed the boiling impatience he could hardly
+restrain.  "Understand me--this cannot pass over in this manner--you
+know.  I will never use violence towards you--just now, I gave way to a
+first moment of hastiness--I am sorry for it.  Be sure, I shall not do so
+again: but, after all, I must know what has become of these children.
+Their mother entrusted them to my care, and I did not bring them all the
+way from Siberia, for you to say to me: `Do not ask me--I cannot tell you
+what I have done with them.' There is no reason in that.  Suppose Marshal
+Simon were to arrive, and say to me, `Dagobert, my children?' what answer
+am I to give him?  See, I am calm--judge for yourself--I am calm--but
+just put yourself in my place, and tell me--what answer am I to give to
+the marshal?  Well--what say you!  Will you speak!"
+
+"Alas!  my dear--"
+
+"It is of no use crying alas!" said the soldier wiping his forehead, on
+which the veins were swollen as if they would burst; "what am I to answer
+to the marshal?"
+
+"Accuse me to him--I will bear it all--I will say--"
+
+"What will you say?"
+
+"That, on going out, you entrusted the two girls to me, and that not
+finding them on return you asked be about them--and that my answer was,
+that I could not tell you what had become of them."
+
+"And you think the marshal will be satisfied with such reasons?" cried
+Dagobert, clinching his fists convulsively upon his knees.
+
+"Unfortunately, I can give no other--either to him or you--no--not if I
+were to die for it."
+
+Dagobert bounded from his chair at this answer, which was given with
+hopeless resignation.  His patience was exhausted; but determined not to
+yield to new bursts of anger, or to spend his breath in useless menaces,
+he abruptly opened one of the windows, and exposed his burning forehead
+to the cool air.  A little calmer, he walked up and down for a few
+moments, and then returned to seat himself beside his wife.  She, with
+her eyes bathed in tears, fixed her gaze upon the crucifix, thinking that
+she also had to bear a heavy cross.
+
+Dagobert resumed: "By the manner in which you speak, I see that no
+accident has happened, which might endanger the health of the children."
+
+"No, oh no!  thank God, they are quite well--that is all I can say to
+you."
+
+"Did they go out alone?"
+
+"I cannot answer you."
+
+"Has any one taken them away?"
+
+"Alas, my dear! why ask me these questions?  I cannot answer you."
+
+"Will they come back here?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+Dagobert started up; his patience was once more exhausted.  But, after
+taking a few turns in the room, he again seated himself as before.
+
+"After all," said he to his wife, "you have no interest to conceal from
+me what is become of the children.  Why refuse to let me know?"
+
+"I cannot do otherwise."
+
+"I think you will change your opinion, when you know something that I am
+now forced to tell you.  Listen to me well!" added Dagobert, in an
+agitated voice; "if these children are not restored to me before the 13th
+of February--a day close at hand--I am in the position of a man that
+would rob the daughters of Marshal Simon--rob them, d'ye understand?"
+said the soldier, becoming more and more agitated.  Then, with an accent
+of despair which pierced Frances's heart, he continued: "And yet I have
+done all that an honest man could do for those poor children--you cannot
+tell what I have had to suffer on the road--my cares, my anxieties--I, a
+soldier, with the charge of two girls.  It was only by strength of heart,
+by devotion, that I could go through with it--and when, for my reward, I
+hoped to be able to say to their father: `Here are your children!--' The
+soldier paused.  To the violence of his first emotions had succeeded a
+mournful tenderness; he wept.
+
+At sight of the tears rolling slowly down Dagobert's gray moustache,
+Frances felt for a moment her resolution give way; but, recalling the
+oath which she had made to her confessor, and reflecting that the eternal
+salvation of the orphans was at stake, she reproached herself inwardly
+with this evil temptation, which would no doubt be severely blamed by
+Abbe Dubois.  She answered, therefore, in a trembling voice:  "How can
+they accuse you of robbing these children?"
+
+"Know," resumed Dagobert, drawing his hand across his eyes, "that if
+these young girls have braved so many dangers, to come hither, all the
+way from Siberia, it is that great interests are concerned--perhaps an
+immense fortune--and that, if they are not present on the 13th February--
+here, in Paris, Rue Saint Francois--all will be lost--and through my
+fault--for I am responsible for your actions."
+
+"The 13th February?  Rue Saint Francois?" cried Frances, looking at her
+husband with surprise.  "Like Gabriel!"
+
+"What do you say about Gabriel?"
+
+"When I took him in (poor deserted child!), he wore a bronze medal about
+his neck."
+
+"A bronze medal!" cried the soldier, struck with amazement; "a bronze
+medal with these words, `At Paris you will be, the 13th of February,
+1832, Rue Saint Francois?"
+
+"Yes--how do you know?"
+
+"Gabriel, too!" said the soldier speaking to himself.  Then he added
+hastily: "Does Gabriel know that this medal was found upon him?"
+
+"I spoke to him of it at some time.  He had also about him a portfolio,
+filled with papers in a foreign tongue.  I gave them to Abbe Dubois, my
+confessor, to look over.  He told me afterwards, that they were of little
+consequence; and, at a later period, when a charitable person named M.
+Rodin, undertook the education of Gabriel, and to get him into the
+seminary, Abbe Dubois handed both papers and medal to him.  Since then, I
+have heard nothing of them."
+
+When Frances spoke of her confessor a sudden light flashed across the
+mind of the soldier, though he was far from suspecting the machinations
+which had so long been at work with regard to Gabriel and the orphans.
+But he had a vague feeling that his wife was acting in obedience to some
+secret influence of the confessional--an influence of which he could not
+understand the aim or object, but which explained, in part at least,
+Frances's inconceivable obstinacy with regard to the disappearance of the
+orphans.
+
+After a moment's reflection, he rose, and said sternly to his wife,
+looking fixedly at her: "There is a priest at the bottom of all this."
+
+"What do you mean, my dear?"
+
+"You have no interest to conceal these children.  You are one of the best
+of women.  You see that I suffer; if you only were concerned, you would
+have pity upon me."
+
+"My dear--"
+
+"I tell you, all this smacks of the confessional," resumed Dagobert.
+"You would sacrifice me and these children to your confessor; but take
+care--I shall find out where he lives--and a thousand thunders!  I will
+go and ask him who is master in my house, he or I--and if he does not
+answer," added the soldier, with a threatening expression of countenance,
+"I shall know how to make him speak."
+
+"Gracious heaven!" cried Frances, clasping her hands in horror at these
+sacrilegious words; "remember he is a priest!"
+
+"A priest, who causes discord, treachery, and misfortune in my house, is
+as much of a wretch as any other; whom I have a right to call to account
+for the evil he does to me and mine.  Therefore, tell me immediately
+where are the children--or else, I give you fair warning, I will go and
+demand them of the confessor.  Some crime is here hatching, of which you
+are an accomplice without knowing it, unhappy woman!  Well, I prefer
+having to do with another than you."
+
+"My dear," said Frances, in a mild, firm voice, "you cannot think to
+impose by violence on a venerable man, who for twenty years has had the
+care of my soul.  His age alone should be respected."
+
+"No age shall prevent me!"
+
+"Heavens! where are you going?  You alarm me!"
+
+"I am going to your church.  They must know you there--I will ask for
+your confessor--and we shall see!"
+
+"I entreat you, my dear," cried Frances, throwing herself in a fright
+before Dagobert, who was hastening towards the door; "only think, to what
+you will expose yourself!  Heavens! insult a priest?  Why, it is one of
+the reserved cases!"
+
+These last words, which appeared most alarming to the simplicity of
+Dagobert's wife, did not make any impression upon the soldier.  He
+disengaged himself from her grasp, and was going to rush out bareheaded,
+so high was his exasperation, when the door opened, and the commissary of
+police entered, followed by Mother Bunch and a policeman, carrying the
+bundle which he had taken from the young girl.
+
+"The commissary!" cried Dagobert, who recognized him by his official
+scarf.  "Ah! so much the better--he could not have come at a fitter
+moment."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+THE EXAMINATION.
+
+"Mistress Frances Baudoin?" asked the magistrate.
+
+"Yes, sir--it is I," said Frances.  Then, perceiving the pale and
+trembling sewing-girl, who did not dare to come forward, she stretched
+out her arms to her.  "Oh, my poor child!" she exclaimed, bursting into
+tears; "forgive--forgive us--since it is for our sake you have suffered
+this humiliation!"
+
+When Dagobert's wife had tenderly embraced the young sempstress, the
+latter, turning towards the commissary, said to him with an expression of
+sad and touching dignity: `You see, sir, that I am not a thief."
+
+"Madame," said the magistrate, addressing Frances, "am I to understand
+that the silver mug, the shawl, the sheets contained in this bundle--"
+
+"Belong to me, sir.  It was to render me a service that this dear girl,
+who is the best and most honest creature in the world, undertook to carry
+these articles to the pawnbroker's."
+
+"Sir," said the magistrate sternly to the policeman, "you have committed
+a deplorable error.  I shall take care to report you, and see that you
+are punished.  You may go, sir."  Then, addressing Mother Bunch, with an
+air of real regret, he added: "I can only express my sorrow for what has
+happened.  Believe me, I deeply feel for the cruel position in which you
+have been placed."
+
+"I believe it, sir," said Mother Bunch, "and I thank you."  Overcome by
+so many emotions, she sank upon a chair.
+
+The magistrate was about to retire, when Dagobert, who had been seriously
+reflecting for some minutes, said to him in a firm voice: "Please to hear
+me, Sir; I have a deposition to make."
+
+"Speak, Sir."
+
+"What I am about to say is very important; it is to you, in your quality
+of a magistrate, that I make this declaration."
+
+"And as a magistrate I will hear you, sir."
+
+"I arrived here two days ago, bringing with me from Russia two girls who
+had been entrusted to me by their mother--the wife of Marshal Simon."
+
+"Of Marshal Simon, Duke de Ligny?" said the commissary, very much
+surprised.
+
+"Yes, Sir.  Well, I left them here, being obliged to get out on pressing
+business.  This morning, during my absence, they disappeared--and I am
+certain I know the man who has been the cause of it."
+
+"Now, my dear," said Frances, much alarmed.
+
+"Sir," said the magistrate, "your declaration is a very serious one.
+Disappearance of persons--sequestration, perhaps.  But are you quite
+sure?"
+
+"These young ladies were here an hour ago; I repeat, sir, that during my
+absence, they have been taken away."
+
+"I do not doubt the sincerity of your declaration, sir; but still it is
+difficult to explain so strange an abduction.  Who tells you that these
+young girls will not return?  Besides, whom do you suspect?  One word,
+before you make your accusation.  Remember, it is the magistrate who
+hears you.  On leaving this place, the law will take its course in this
+affair."
+
+"That is what I wish, Sir; I am responsible for those young ladies to
+their father.  He may arrive at any moment, and I must be prepared to
+justify myself."
+
+"I understand all these reasons, sir; but still have a care you are not
+deceived by unfounded suspicions.  Your denunciation once made, I may
+have to act provisionally against the person accused.  Now, if you should
+be under a mistake, the consequences would be very serious for you; and,
+without going further," said the magistrate, pointing to Mother Bunch,
+with emotion, "you see what are the results of a false accusation."
+
+"You hear, my dear," cried Frances, terrified at the resolution of
+Dagobert to accuse Abbe Dubois; "do not say a word more, I entreat you."
+
+But the more the soldier reflected, the more he felt convinced that
+nothing but the influence of her confessor could have induced Frances to
+act as she had done; so he resumed, with assurance: "I accuse my wife's
+confessor of being the principal or the accomplice in the abduction of
+Marshal Simon's daughters."
+
+Frances uttered a deep groan, and hid her face in her hands; while Mother
+Bunch, who had drawn nigh, endeavored to console her.  The magistrate had
+listened to Dagobert with extreme astonishment, and he now said to him
+with some severity: "Pray, sir, do not accuse unjustly a man whose
+position is in the highest degree respectable--a priest, sir?--yes, a
+priest?  I warned you beforehand to reflect upon what you advanced.  All
+this becomes very serious, and, at your age, any levity in such matters
+would be unpardonable."
+
+"Bless me, sir!" said Dagobert, with impatience; "at my age, one has
+common sense.  These are the facts.  My wife is one of the best and most
+honorable of human creatures--ask any one in the neighborhood, and they
+will tell you so--but she is a devotee; and, for twenty years, she has
+always seen with her confessor's eyes.  She adores her son, she loves me
+also; but she puts the confessor before us both."
+
+"Sir," said the commissary, "these family details "
+
+Are indispensable, as you shall see.  I go out an hour ago, to look after
+this poor girl here.  When I come back, the young ladies have
+disappeared.  I ask my wife to whom she has entrusted them, and where
+they are; she falls at my feet weeping, and says:  "Do what you will with
+me, but do not ask me what has become of the children.  I cannot answer
+you. "
+
+"Is thus true, madame?" cried the commissary, looking at Frances with
+surprise.
+
+"Anger, threats, entreaties, had no effect," resumed Dagobert; "to
+everything she answered as mildly as a saint:  `I can tell you nothing!'
+Now, sir, I maintain that my wife has no interest to take away these
+children; she is under the absolute dominion of her confessor; she has
+acted by his orders and for his purposes; he is the guilty party."
+
+Whilst Dagobert spoke, the commissary looked more and more attentively at
+Frances, who, supported by the hunchback, continued to weep bitterly.
+After a moment's reflection, the magistrate advanced towards Dagobert's
+wife, and said to her: "Madame, you have heard what your husband has just
+declared."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What have you to say in your justification?''
+
+"But, sir," cried Dagobert, "it is not my wife that I accuse--I do not
+mean that; it is her confessor."
+
+"Sir, you have applied to a magistrate; and the magistrate must act as he
+thinks best for the discovery of the truth.  Once more, madame," he
+resumed, addressing Frances, "what have you to say in your
+justification?"
+
+"Alas! nothing, sir."
+
+"Is it true that your husband left these young girls in your charge when
+he went out?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Is it true that, on his return, they were no longer to be found?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Is it true that, when he asked you where they were, you told him that
+you could give him no information on the subject?"
+
+The commissary appeared to wait for Frances' reply with kind of anxious
+curiosity.
+
+"Yes, sir," said she, with the utmost simplicity, "that was the answer I
+made my husband."
+
+"What, madame!" said the magistrate, with an air of painful astonishment;
+"that was your only answer to all the prayers and commands of your
+husband?  What! you refused to give him the least information?  It is
+neither probable nor possible."
+
+"It is the truth, sir."
+
+"Well, but, after all, madame, what have you done with the young ladies
+that were entrusted to your care?"
+
+"I can tell you nothing about it, sir.  If I would not answer my poor
+husband, I certainly will not answer any one else."
+
+"Well, sir," resumed Dagobert, "was I wrong?  An honest, excellent woman
+like that, who was always full of good sense and affection, to talk in
+this way--is it natural?  I repeat to you, sir that it is the work of her
+confessor; act against him promptly and decidedly, we shall soon know
+all, and my poor children will be restored to me."
+
+"Madame," continued the commissary, without being able to repress a
+certain degree of emotion, "I am about to speak to you very severely.  My
+duty obliges me to do so.  This affair becomes so serious and
+complicated, that I must instantly commence judicial proceedings on the
+subject.  Yon acknowledge that these young ladies have been left in your
+charge, and that you cannot produce them.  Now, listen to me: if you
+refuse to give any explanation in the matter, it is you alone that will
+be accused of their disappearance.  I shall be obliged, though with great
+regret, to take you into custody."
+
+"Me!" cried Frances, with the utmost alarm.
+
+"Her!" exclaimed Dagobert; "never! It is her confessor that I accuse, not
+my poor wife.  Take her into custody, indeed!"  He ran towards her, as if
+he would protect her.
+
+"It is too late, sir," said the commissary.  "You have made your charge
+for the abduction of these two young ladies.  According to your wife's
+own declaration, she alone is compromised up to this point.  I must take
+her before the Public Prosecutor, who will decide what course to pursue."
+
+"And I say, sir," cried Dagobert, in a menacing tone, "that my wife shall
+not stir from this room."
+
+"Sir," said the commissary coolly, "I can appreciate your feelings; but,
+in the interest of justice, I would beg you not to oppose a necessary
+measure--a measure which, moreover, in ten minutes it would be quite
+impossible for you to prevent."
+
+These words, spoken with calmness, recalled the soldier to himself.
+"But, sir," said he, "I do not accuse my wife."'
+
+"Never mind, my dear--do not think of me!"  said Frances, with the
+angelic resignation of a martyr.  "The Lord is still pleased to try me
+sorely; but I am His unworthy servant, and must gratefully resign myself
+to His will.  Let them arrest me, if they choose; I will say no more in
+prison than I have said already on the subject of those poor children."
+
+"But, sir," cried Dagobert, "you see that my wife is out of her head. You
+cannot arrest her."
+
+"There is no charge, proof, or indication against the other person whom
+you accuse, and whose character should be his protection.  If I take your
+wife, she may perhaps be restored to you after a preliminary examination.
+I regret," added the commissary, in a tone of pity, "to have to execute
+such a mission, at the very moment when your son's arrest--"
+
+"What!" cried Dagobert, looking with speechless astonishment at his wife
+and Mother Bunch; "what does he say? my son?"
+
+"You were not then aware of it?  Oh, sir, a thousand pardons!" said the
+magistrate, with painful emotion.  "It is distressing to make you such a
+communication."
+
+"My son!" repeated Dagobert, pressing his two hands to his forehead.  "My
+son! arrested!"
+
+"For a political offence of no great moment," said the commissary.
+
+"Oh! this is too much.  All comes on me at once!" cried the soldier,
+falling overpowered into a chair, and hiding his face with his hands.
+
+After a touching farewell, during which, in spite of her terror, Frances
+remained faithful to the vow she had made to the Abbe Dubois--Dagobert,
+who had refused to give evidence against his wife, was left leaning upon
+a table, exhausted by contending emotions, and could not help explaining:
+"Yesterday, I had with me my wife, my son, my two poor orphans--and now--
+I am alone--alone!"
+
+The moment he pronounced these words, in a despairing tone, a mild sad
+voice was heard close behind him, saying timidly: "M. Dagobert, I am
+here; if you will allow me, I will remain and wait upon you."
+
+It was Mother Bunch!
+
+Trusting that the reader's sympathy is with the old soldier thus left
+desolate, with Agricola in his prison, Adrienne in hers, the madhouse,
+and Rose and Blanche Simon in theirs, the nunnery; we hasten to assure
+him (or her, as the case may be), that not only will their future steps
+be traced, but the dark machinations of the Jesuits, and the thrilling
+scenes in which new characters will perform their varied parts, pervaded
+by the watching spirit of the Wandering Jew, will be revealed in Part
+Second of this work, entitled: THE CHASTISEMENT.
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V3, by Eugene
+Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+By Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+PART SECOND.--THE CHASTISEMENT.
+
+PROLOGUE.--THE BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF TWO WORLDS.
+
+I.         The Masquerade
+II.        The Contrast
+III.       The Carouse
+IV.        The Farewell
+VI.        Mother Sainte-Perpetue
+VII.       The Temptation
+VIII.      Mother Bunch and Mdlle. De Cardoville
+IX.        The Encounters
+X.         The Meeting
+XI.        Discoveries
+XII.       The Penal Code
+XIII.      Burglary
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE.--THE BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF TWO WORLDS.
+
+As the eagle, perched upon the cliff, commands an all-comprehensive view
+--not only of what happens on the plains and in the woodlands, but of
+matters occurring upon the heights, which its aerie overlooks, so may the
+reader have sights pointed out to him, which lie below the level of the
+unassisted eye.
+
+In the year 1831, the powerful Order of the Jesuits saw fit to begin to
+act upon information which had for some time been digesting in their
+hands.
+
+As it related to a sum estimated at no less than thirty or forty millions
+of francs, it is no wonder that they should redouble all exertions to
+obtain it from the rightful owners.
+
+These were, presumably, the descendants of Marius, Count of Rennepont, in
+the reign of Louis XIV. of France.
+
+They were distinguished from other men by a simple token, which all, in
+the year above named, had in their hands.
+
+It was a bronze medal, bearing these legends on reverse and obverse:
+
+                                 VICTIM
+                                   of
+                              L. C. D. J.
+                              Pray for me!
+
+                                 PARIS,
+                        February the 13th, 1682.
+
+
+                                IN PARIS
+                        Rue St Francois, No. 3,
+                        In a century and a half
+                              you will be.
+
+                        February the 13th, 1832.
+                              PRAY FOR ME!
+
+Those who had this token were descendants of a family whom, a hundred and
+fifty years ago, persecution scattered through the world, in emigration
+and exile; in changes of religion, fortune and name.  For this family--
+what grandeur, what reverses, what obscurity, what lustre, what penury,
+what glory!  How many crimes sullied, how many virtues honored it!  The
+history of this single family is the history of humanity!  Passing
+through many generations, throbbing in the veins of the poor and the
+rich, the sovereign and the bandit, the wise and the simple, the coward
+and the brave, the saint and the atheist, the blood flowed on to the year
+we have named.
+
+Seven representatives summed up the virtue, courage, degradation,
+splendor, and poverty of the race.  Seven: two orphan twin daughters of
+exiled parents, a dethroned prince, a humble missionary priest, a man of
+the middle class, a young lady of high name and large fortune, and a
+working man.
+
+Fate scattered them in Russia, India, France, and America.
+
+The orphans, Rose and Blanche Simon, had left their dead mother's grave
+in Siberia, under charge of a trooper named Francis Baudoin, alias
+Dagobert, who was as much attached to them as he had been devoted to
+their father, his commanding general.
+
+On the road to France, this little party had met the first check, in the
+only tavern of Mockern village.  Not only had a wild beast showman, known
+as Morok the lion-tamer, sought to pick a quarrel with the inoffensive
+veteran, but that failing, had let a panther of his menagerie loose upon
+the soldier's horse.  That horse had carried Dagobert, under General
+Simon's and the Great Napoleon's eyes, through many battles; had borne
+the General's wife (a Polish lady under the Czar's ban) to her home of
+exile in Siberia, and their children now across Russia and Germany, but
+only to perish thus cruelly.  An unseen hand appeared in a manifestation
+of spite otherwise unaccountable.  Dagobert, denounced as a French spy,
+and his fair young companions accused of being adventuresses to help his
+designs, had so kindled at the insult, not less to him than to his old
+commander's daughters, that he had taught the pompous burgomaster of
+Mockern a lesson, which, however, resulted in the imprisonment of the
+three in Leipsic jail.
+
+General Simon, who had vainly sought to share his master's St. Helena
+captivity, had gone to fight the English in India.  But notwithstanding
+his drilling of Radja-sings sepoys, they had been beaten by the troops
+taught by Clive, and not only was the old king of Mundi slain, and the
+realm added to the Company's land, but his son, Prince Djalma, taken
+prisoner.  However, at length released, he had gone to Batavia, with
+General Simon.  The prince's mother was a Frenchwoman, and among the
+property she left him in the capital of Java, the general was delighted
+to find just such another medal as he knew was in his wife's possession.
+
+The unseen hand of enmity had reached to him, for letters miscarried, and
+he did not know either his wife's decease or that he had twin daughters.
+
+By a trick, on the eve of the steamship leaving Batavia for the Isthmus
+of Suez, Djalma was separated from his friend, and sailing for Europe
+alone, the latter had to follow in another vessel.
+
+The missionary priest trod the war trails of the wilderness, with that
+faith and fearlessness which true soldiers of the cross should evince.
+In one of these heroic undertakings, Indians had captured him, and
+dragging him to their village under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains,
+they had nailed him in derision to a cross, and prepared to scalp him.
+
+But if an unseen hand of a foe smote or stabbed at the sons of Rennepont,
+a visible interpositor had often shielded them, in various parts of the
+globe.
+
+A man, seeming of thirty years of age, very tall, with a countenance as
+lofty as mournful, marked by the black eyebrows meeting, had thrown
+himself--during a battle's height--between a gun of a park which General
+Simon was charging and that officer.  The cannon vomited its hail of
+death, but when the flame and smoke had passed, the tall man stood erect
+as before, smiling pityingly on the gunner, who fell on his knees as
+frightened as if he beheld Satan himself.  Again, as General Simon lay
+upon the lost field of Waterloo, raging with his wounds, eager to die
+after such a defeat, this same man staunched his hurts, and bade him live
+for his wife's sake.
+
+Years after, wearing the same unalterable look, this man accosted
+Dagobert in Siberia, and gave him for General Simon's wife, the diary and
+letters of her husband, written in India, in little hope of them ever
+reaching her hands.  And at the year our story opens, this man unbarred
+the cell-door of Leipsic jail, and let Dagobert and the orphans out, free
+to continue their way into France.
+
+On the other hand, when the scalping-knife had traced its mark around the
+head of Gabriel the missionary, and when only the dexterous turn and tug
+would have removed the trophy, a sudden apparition had terrified the
+superstitious savages.  It was a woman of thirty, whose brown tresses
+formed a rich frame around a royal face, toned down by endless sorrowing.
+The red-skins shrank from her steady advance, and when her hand was
+stretched out between them and their young victim, they uttered a howl of
+alarm, and fled as if a host of their foemen were on their track.
+Gabriel was saved, but all his life he was doomed to bear that halo of
+martyrdom, the circling sweep of the scalper's knife.
+
+He was a Jesuit.  By the orders of his society he embarked for Europe.
+We should say here, that he, though owning a medal of the seven
+described, was unaware that he should have worn it.  His vessel was
+driven by storms to refit at the Azores, where he had changed ship into
+the same as was bearing Prince Djalma to France, via Portsmouth.
+
+But the gales followed him, and sated their fury by wrecking the "Black
+Eagle" on the Picardy coast.  This was at the same point as were a
+disabled Hamburg steamer, among whose passengers where Dagobert and his
+two charges, was destroyed the same night.  Happily the tempest did not
+annihilate them all.  There were saved, Prince Djalma and a countryman of
+his, one Faringhea, a Thuggee chief, hunted out of British India;
+Dagobert, and Rose and Blanche Simon, whom Gabriel had rescued.  These
+survivors had recovered, thanks to the care they had received in
+Cardoville House, a country mansion which had sheltered them, and except
+the prince and the Strangler chief, the others were speedily able to go
+on to Paris.
+
+The old grenadier and the orphans--until General Simon should be heard
+from--dwelt in the former's house.  His son had kept it, from his
+mother's love for the life-long home.  It was such a mean habitation as a
+workman like Agricola Baudoin could afford to pay the rent of, and far
+from the fit abode of the daughters of the Duke de Ligny and Marshal of
+France, which Napoleon had created General Simon, though the rank had
+only recently been approved by the restoration.
+
+But in Paris the unknown hostile hand showed itself more malignant than
+ever.
+
+The young lady of high name and large fortune was Adrienne de Cardoville,
+whose aunt, the Princess de Saint-Dizier, was a Jesuit.  Through her and
+her accomplices' machinations, the young lady's forward yet virtuous,
+wildly aspiring but sensible, romantic but just, character was twisted
+into a passable reason for her immurement in a mad-house.
+
+This asylum adjoined St. Mary's Convent, into which Rose and Blanche
+Simon were deceitfully conducted.  To secure their removal, Dagobert had
+been decoyed into the country, under pretence of showing some of General
+Simon's document's to a lawyer; his son Agricola arrested for treason, on
+account of some idle verses the blacksmith poet was guilty of, and his
+wife rendered powerless, or, rather, a passive assistant, by the
+influence of the confessional!  When Dagobert hurried back from his wild-
+goose chase, he found the orphans gone: Mother Bunch (a fellow-tenant of
+the house, who had been brought up in the family) ignorant, and his wife
+stubbornly refusing to break the promise she had given her confessor, and
+acquaint a single soul where she had permitted the girls to be taken.  In
+his rage, the soldier rashly accused that confessor, but instead of
+arresting the Abbe Dubois, it was Mrs. Baudoin whom the magistrate felt
+compelled to arrest, as the person whom alone he ventured to commit for
+examination in regard to the orphans' disappearance.  Thus triumphs, for
+the time being, the unseen foe.
+
+The orphans in a nunnery; the dethroned prince a poor castaway in a
+foreign land; the noble young lady in a madhouse; the missionary priest
+under the thumb of his superiors.
+
+As for the man of the middle class, and the working man, who concluded
+the list of this family, we are to read of them, as well as of the
+others, in the pages which now succeed these.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MASQUERADE.
+
+The following day to that on which Dagobert's wife (arrested for not
+accounting for the disappearance of General Simon's daughters) was led
+away before a magistrate, a noisy and animated scene was transpiring on
+the Place du Chatelet, in front of a building whose first floor and
+basement were used as the tap-rooms of the "Sucking Calf" public-house.
+
+A carnival night was dying out.
+
+Quite a number of maskers, grotesquely and shabbily bedecked, had rushed
+out of the low dance-houses in the Guildhall Ward, and were roaring out
+staves of songs as they crossed the square.  But on catching sight of a
+second troop of mummers running about the water-side, the first party
+stopped to wait for the others to come up, rejoicing, with many a shout,
+in hopes of one of those verbal battles of slang and smutty talk which
+made Vade so illustrious.
+
+This mob--nearly all its members half seas over, soon swollen by the many
+people who have to be up early to follow their crafts--suddenly
+concentrated in one of the corners of the square, so that a pale,
+deformed girl, who was going that way, was caught in the human tide.
+This was Mother Bunch.  Up with the lark, she was hurrying to receive
+some work from her employer.  Remembering how a mob had treated her when
+she had been arrested in the streets only the day before, by mistake, the
+poor work-girl's fears may be imagined when she was now surrounded by the
+revellers against her will.  But, spite of all her efforts--very feeble,
+alas!--she could not stir a step, for the band of merry-makers, newly
+arriving, had rushed in among the others, shoving some of them aside,
+pushing far into the mass, and sweeping Mother Bunch--who was in their
+way--clear over to the crowd around the public-house.
+
+The new-comers were much finer rigged out than the others, for they
+belonged to the gay, turbulent class which goes frequently to the
+Chaumiere, the Prado, the Colisee, and other more or less rowdyish haunts
+of waltzers, made up generally of students, shop-girls, and counter-
+skippers, clerks, unfortunates, etc., etc.
+
+This set, while retorting to the chaff of the other party, seemed to be
+very impatiently expecting some singularly desired person to put in her
+appearance.
+
+The following snatches of conversation, passing between clowns and
+columbines, pantaloons and fairies, Turks and sultans, debardeurs and
+debardeuses, paired off more or less properly, will give an idea of the
+importance of the wished-for personage.
+
+"They ordered the spread to be for seven in the morning, so their
+carriages ought to have come up afore now."
+
+"Werry like, but the Bacchanal Queen has got to lead off the last dance
+in the Prado."
+
+"I wish to thunder I'd 'a known that, and I'd 'a stayed there to see her-
+-my beloved Queen!"
+
+"Gobinet; if you call her your beloved Queen again, I'll scratch you!
+Here's a pinch for you, anyhow!"
+
+"Ow, wow, Celeste! hands off!  You are black-spotting the be-yutiful
+white satin jacket my mamma gave me when I first came out as Don
+Pasqually!"
+
+"Why did you call the Bacchanal Queen your beloved, then?  What am I, I'd
+like to know?"
+
+"You are my beloved, but not my Queen, for there is only one moon in the
+nights of nature, and only one Bacchanal Queen in the nights at the
+Prado."
+
+"That's a bit from a valentine!  You can't come over me with such
+rubbish."
+
+"Gobinet's right! the Queen was an out-and-outer tonight!"
+
+"In prime feather!"
+
+"I never saw her more on the go!"
+
+"And, my eyes! wasn't her dress stunning?"
+
+"Took your breath away!"
+
+"Crushing!"
+
+"Heavy!"
+
+"Im-mense!"
+
+"The last kick!"
+
+"No one but she can get up such dresses."
+
+"And, then, the dance!"
+
+"Oh, yes! it was at once bounding waving, twisting!  There is not such
+another bayadere under the night-cap of the sky!"
+
+"Gobinet, give me back my shawl directly.  You have already spoilt it by
+rolling it round your great body.  I don't choose to have my things
+ruined for hulking beasts who call other women bayaderes!"
+
+"Celeste, simmer down.  I am disguised as a Turk, and, when I talk of
+bayaderes, I am only in character."
+
+"Your Celeste is like them all, Gobinet; she's jealous of the Bacchanal
+Queen."
+
+"Jealous!--do you think me jealous?  Well now! that's too bad.  If I
+chose to be as showy as she is they would talk of me as much.  After all,
+it's only a nickname that makes her reputation! nickname!"
+
+"In that you have nothing to envy her--since you are called Celeste!"
+
+"You know well enough, Gobinet, that Celeste is my real name."
+
+"Yes; but it's fancied a nickname--when one looks in your face."
+
+"Gobinet, I will put that down to your account."
+
+"And Oscar will help you to add it up, eh?"
+
+"Yes; and you shall see the total.  When I carry one, the remainder will
+not be you."
+
+"Celeste, you make me cry!  I only meant to say that your celestial name
+does not go well with your charming little face, which is still more
+mischievous than that of the Bacchanal Queen."
+
+"That's right; wheedle me now, wretch!"
+
+"I swear by the accursed head of my landlord, that, if you liked, you
+could spread yourself as much as the Bacchanal Queen--which is saying a
+great deal."
+
+"The fact is, that the Bacchanal had cheek enough, in all conscience."
+
+"Not to speak of her fascinating the bobbies!"
+
+"And magnetizing the beaks."
+
+"They may get as angry as they please; she always finishes by making them
+laugh."
+
+"And they all call her: Queen!"
+
+"Last night she charmed a slop (as modest as a country girl) whose purity
+took up arms against the famous dance of the Storm-blown Tulip."
+
+"What a quadrille!  Sleepinbuff and the Bacchanal Queen, having opposite
+to them Rose-Pompon and Ninny Moulin!"
+
+"And all four making tulips as full-blown as could be!"
+
+"By-the-bye, is it true what they say of Ninny Moulin?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why that he is a writer, and scribbles pamphlets on religion."
+
+"Yes, it is true.  I have often seen him at my employer's, with whom he
+deals; a bad paymaster, but a jolly fellow!"
+
+"And pretends to be devout, eh?"
+
+"I believe you, my boy--when it is necessary; then he is my Lord
+Dumoulin, as large as life.  He rolls his eyes, walks with his head on
+one side, and his toes turned in; but, when the piece is played out, he
+slips away to the balls of which he is so fond.  The girls christened him
+Ninny Moulin.  Add, that he drinks like a fish, and you have the photo of
+the cove.  All this doesn't prevent his writing for the religious
+newspapers; and the saints, whom he lets in even oftener than himself,
+are ready to swear by him.  You should see his articles and his tracts--
+only see, not read!--every page is full of the devil and his horns, and
+the desperate fryings which await your impious revolutionists--and then
+the authority of the bishops, the power of the Pope--hang it! how could I
+know it all?  This toper, Ninny Moulin, gives good measure enough for
+their money!"
+
+"The fact is, that he is both a heavy drinker and a heavy swell.  How he
+rattled on with little Rose-Pompon in the dance and the full-blown
+tulip!"
+
+"And what a rum chap he looked in his Roman helmet and top-boots."
+
+"Rose-Pompon dances divinely, too; she has the poetic twist."
+
+"And don't show her heels a bit!"
+
+"Yes; but the Bacchanal Queen is six thousand feet above the level of any
+common leg-shaker.  I always come back to her step last night in the
+full-blown tulip."
+
+"It was huge!"
+
+"It was serene!"
+
+"If I were father of a family, I would entrust her with the education of
+my sons!"
+
+"It was that step, however, which offended the bobby's modesty."
+
+"The fact is, it was a little free."
+
+"Free as air--so the policeman comes up to her, and says:  `Well, my
+Queen, is your foot to keep on a-goin' up forever?' `No, modest warrior!'
+replies the Queen; `I practice the step only once every evening, to be
+able to dance it when I am old.  I made a vow of it, that you might
+become an inspector.'"
+
+"What a comic card!"
+
+"I don't believe she will remain always with Sleepinbuff."
+
+"Because he has been a workman?"
+
+"What nonsense! it would preciously become us, students and shop-boys, to
+give ourselves airs!  No; but I am astonished at the Queen's fidelity."
+
+"Yes--they've been a team for three or four good months."
+
+"She's wild upon him, and he on her."
+
+"They must lead a gay life."
+
+"Sometimes I ask myself where the devil Sleepinbuff gets all the money he
+spends.  It appears that he pays all last night's expenses, three
+coaches-and-four, and a breakfast this morning for twenty, at ten francs
+a-head."
+
+"They say he has come into some property.  That's why Ninny Moulin, who
+has a good nose for eating and drinking, made acquaintance with him last
+night--leaving out of the question that he may have some designs on the
+Bacchanal Queen."
+
+"He!  In a lot!  He's rather too ugly.  The girls like to dance with him
+because he makes people laugh--but that's all.  Little Rose-Pompon, who
+is such a pretty creature, has taken him as a harmless chap-her-own, in
+the absence of her student."
+
+"The coaches! the coaches!" exclaimed the crowd, all with one voice.
+
+Forced to stop in the midst of the maskers, Mother Bunch had not lost a
+word of this conversation, which was deeply painful to her, as it
+concerned her sister, whom she had not seen for a long time.  Not that
+the Bacchanal Queen had a bad heart; but the sight of the wretched
+poverty of Mother Bunch--a poverty which she had herself shared, but
+which she had not had the strength of mind to bear any longer--caused
+such bitter grief to the gay, thoughtless girl, that she would no more
+expose herself to it, after she had in vain tried to induce her sister to
+accept assistance, which the latter always refused, knowing that its
+source could not be honorable.
+
+"The coaches! the coaches!" once more exclaimed the crowd, as they
+pressed forward with enthusiasm, so that Mother Bunch, carried on against
+her will, was thrust into the foremost rank of the people assembled to
+see the show.
+
+It was, indeed, a curious sight.  A man on horseback, disguised as a
+postilion, his blue jacket embroidered with silver, and enormous tail
+from which the powder escaped in puffs, and a hat adorned with long
+ribbons, preceded the first carriage, cracking his whip, and crying with
+all his might:  "Make way for the Bacchanal Queen and her court!"
+
+In an open carriage, drawn by four lean horses, on which rode two old
+postilions dressed as devils, was raised a downright pyramid of men and
+women, sitting, standing, leaning, in every possible variety of odd,
+extravagant, and grotesque costume; altogether an indescribable mass of
+bright colors, flowers, ribbons, tinsel and spangles.  Amid this heap of
+strange forms and dresses appeared wild or graceful countenances, ugly or
+handsome features--but all animated by the feverish excitement of a
+jovial frenzy--all turned with an expression of fanatical admiration
+towards the second carriage, in which the Queen was enthroned, whilst
+they united with the multitude in reiterated shouts of "Long live the
+Bacchanal Queen."
+
+This second carriage, open like the first, contained only the four
+dancers of the famous step of the Storm-blown Tulip--Ninny Moulin, Rose-
+Pompon, Sleepinbuff, and the Bacchanal Queen.
+
+Dumoulin, the religious writer, who wished to dispute possession of Mme.
+de la Sainte-Colombe with his patron, M. Rodin--Dumoulin, surnamed Ninny
+Moulin, standing on the front cushions, would have presented a
+magnificent study for Callot or Gavarni, that eminent artist, who unites
+with the biting strength and marvellous fancy of an illustrious
+caricaturist, the grace, the poetry, and the depth of Hogarth.
+
+Ninny Moulin, who was about thirty-five years of age, wore very much back
+upon his head a Roman helmet of silver paper.  A voluminous plume of
+black feathers, rising from a red wood holder, was stuck on one side of
+this headgear, breaking the too classic regularity of its outline.
+Beneath this casque, shone forth the most rubicund and jovial face, that
+ever was purpled by the fumes of generous wine.  A prominent nose, with
+its primitive shape modestly concealed beneath a luxuriant growth of
+pimples, half red, half violet, gave a funny expression to a perfectly
+beardless face; while a large mouth, with thick lips turning their
+insides outwards, added to the air of mirth and jollity which beamed from
+his large gray eyes, set flat in his head.
+
+On seeing this joyous fellow, with a paunch like Silenus, one could not
+help asking how it was, that he had not drowned in wine, a hundred times
+over, the gall, bile, and venom which flowed from his pamphlets against
+the enemies of Ultramontanism, and how his Catholic beliefs could float
+upwards in the midst of these mad excesses of drink and dancing.  The
+question would have appeared insoluble, if one had not remembered how
+many actors, who play the blackest and most hateful first robbers on the
+stage, are, when off it, the best fellow in the world.
+
+The weather being cold, Ninny Moulin wore a kind of box-coat, which,
+being half-open, displayed his cuirass of scales, and his flesh-colored
+pantaloons, finishing just below the calf in a pair of yellow tops to his
+boots.  Leaning forward in front of the carriage, he uttered wild shouts
+of delight, mingled with the words: "Long live the Bacchanal Queen!"--
+after which, he shook and whirled the enormous rattle he held in his
+hand.  Standing beside him, Sleepinbuff waved on high a banner of white
+silk, on which were the words:  "Love and joy to the Bacchanal Queen!"
+
+Sleepinbuff was about twenty-five years of age.  His countenance was gay
+and intelligent, surrounded by a collar of chestnut-colored whiskers; but
+worn with late hours and excesses, it expressed a singular mixture of
+carelessness and hardihood, recklessness and mockery; still, no base or
+wicked passion had yet stamped there its fatal impress.  He was the
+perfect type of the Parisian, as the term is generally applied, whether
+in the army, in the provinces, on board a king's ship, or a merchantman.
+It is not a compliment, and yet it is far from being an insult; it is an
+epithet which partakes at once of blame, admiration, and fear; for if, in
+this sense, the Parisian is often idle and rebellious, he is also quick
+at his work, resolute in danger, and always terribly satirical and fond
+of practical jokes.
+
+He was dressed in a very flashy style.  He wore a black velvet jacket
+with silver buttons, a scarlet waistcoat, trousers with broad blue
+stripes, a Cashmere shawl for a girdle with ends loosely floating, and a
+chimney-pot hat covered with flowers and streamers.  This disguise set
+off his light, easy figure to great advantage.
+
+At the back of the carriage, standing up on the cushions, were Rose-
+Pompon and the Bacchanal Queen.
+
+Rose-Pompon, formerly a fringe-maker, was about seventeen years old, and
+had the prettiest and most winning little face imaginable.  She was gayly
+dressed in debardeur costume.  Her powdered wig, over which was smartly
+cocked on one side an orange and green cap laced with silver, increased
+the effect of her bright black eyes, and of her round, carnation cheeks.
+She wore about her neck an orange-colored cravat, of the same material as
+her loose sash.  Her tight jacket and narrow vest of light green velvet,
+with silver ornaments, displayed to the best advantage a charming figure,
+the pliancy of which must have well suited the evolutions of the Storm-
+blown Tulip.  Her large trousers, of the same stuff and color as the
+jacket, were not calculated to hide any of her attractions.
+
+The Bacchanal Queen, being at the least a head taller, leaned with one
+hand on the shoulder of Rose-Pompon.  Mother Bunch's sister ruled, like a
+true monarch, over this mad revelry, which her very presence seemed to
+inspire, such influence had her own mirth and animation over all that
+surrounded her.
+
+She was a tall girl of about twenty years of age, light and graceful,
+with regular features, and a merry, racketing air.  Like her sister, she
+had magnificent chestnut hair, and large blue eyes; but instead of being
+soft and timid, like those of the young sempstress, the latter shone with
+indefatigable ardor in the pursuit of pleasure.  Such was the energy of
+her vivacious constitution, that, notwithstanding many nights and days
+passed in one continued revel, her complexion was as pure, her cheeks as
+rosy, her neck as fresh and fair, as if she had that morning issued from
+some peaceful home.  Her costume, though singular and fantastic, suited
+her admirably.  It was composed of a tight, long-waisted bodice in cloth
+of gold, trimmed with great bunches of scarlet ribbon, the ends of which
+streamed over her naked arms, and a short petticoat of scarlet velvet,
+ornamented with golden beads and spangles.  This petticoat reached half-
+way down a leg, at once trim and strong, in a white silk stocking, and
+red buskin with brass heel.
+
+Never had any Spanish dancer a more supple, elastic, and tempting form,
+than this singular girl, who seemed possessed with the spirit of dancing
+and perpetual motion, for, almost every moment, a slight undulation of
+head, hips, and shoulders seemed to follow the music of an invisible
+orchestra; while the tip of her right foot, placed on the carriage door
+in the most alluring manner, continued to beat time--for the Bacchanal
+Queen stood proudly erect upon the cushions.
+
+A sort of gilt diadem, the emblem of her noisy sovereignty, hung with
+little bells, adorned her forehead.  Her long hair, in two thick braids,
+was drawn back from her rosy cheeks, and twisted behind her head.  Her
+left hand rested on little Rose-Pompon's shoulder, and in her right she
+held an enormous nosegay, which she waved to the crowd, accompanying each
+salute with bursts of laughter.
+
+It would be difficult to give a complete idea of this noisily animated
+and fantastic scene, which included also a third carriage, filled, like
+the first, with a pyramid of grotesque and extravagant masks.  Amongst
+the delighted crowd, one person alone contemplated the picture with deep
+sorrow.  It was Mother Bunch, who was still kept, in spite of herself, in
+the first rank of spectators.
+
+Separated from her sister for a long time, she now beheld her in all the
+pomp of her singular triumph, in the midst of the cries of joy, and the
+applause of her companions in pleasure.  Yet the eyes of the young
+sempstress grew dim with tears; for, though the Bacchanal Queen seemed to
+share in the stunning gayety of all around her--though her face was
+radiant with smiles, and she appeared fully to enjoy the splendors of her
+temporary elevation--yet she had the sincere pity of the poor workwoman,
+almost in rags, who was seeking, with the first dawn of morning, the
+means of earning her daily bread.
+
+Mother Bunch had forgotten the crowd, to look only at her sister, whom
+she tenderly loved--only the more tenderly, that she thought her
+situation to be pitied.  With her eyes fixed on the joyous and beautiful
+girl, her pale and gentle countenance expressed the most touching and
+painful interest.
+
+All at once, as the brilliant glance of the Bacchanal Queen travelled
+along the crowd, it lighted on the sad features of Mother Bunch.
+
+"My sister!" exclaimed Cephyse--such was the name of the Bacchanal Queen-
+-"My sister!"--and with one bound, light as a ballet-dancer, she sprang
+from her movable throne (which fortunately just happened to be stopping),
+and, rushing up to the hunchback, embraced her affectionately.
+
+All this had passed so rapidly, that the companions of the Bacchanal
+Queen, still stupefied by the boldness of her perilous leap, knew not how
+to account for it; whilst the masks who surrounded Mother Bunch drew back
+in surprise, and the latter, absorbed in the delight of embracing her
+sister, whose caresses she returned, did not even think of the singular
+contrast between them, which was sure to soon excite the astonishment and
+hilarity of the crowd.
+
+Cephyse was the first to think of this, and wishing to save her sister at
+least one humiliation, she turned towards the carriage, and said: "Rose-
+Pompon, throw me down my cloak; and, Ninny Moulin, open the door
+directly!"
+
+Having received the cloak, the Bacchanal Queen hastily wrapped it round
+her sister, before the latter could speak or move.  Then, taking her by
+the hand, she said to her: "Come! come!"
+
+"I!" cried Mother Bunch, in alarm.  "Do not think of it!"
+
+"I must speak with you.  I will get a private room, where we shall be
+alone.  So make haste, dear little sister!  Do not resist before all
+these people--but come!"
+
+The fear of becoming a public sight decided Mother Bunch, who, confused
+moreover with the adventure, trembling and frightened, followed her
+sister almost mechanically, and was dragged by her into the carriage, of
+which Ninny Moulin had just opened the door.  And so, with the cloak of
+the Bacchanal Queen covering Mother Bunch's poor garments and deformed
+figure, the crowd had nothing to laugh at, and only wondered what this
+meeting could mean, while the coaches pursued their way to the eating-
+house in the Place du Chatelet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE CONTRAST.
+
+Some minutes after the meeting of Mother Bunch with the Bacchanal Queen,
+the two sisters were alone together in a small room in the tavern.
+
+"Let me kiss you again," said Cephyse to the young sempstress; "at least
+now we are alone, you will not be afraid?"
+
+In the effort of the Bacchanal Queen to clasp Mother Bunch in her arms,
+the cloak fell from the form of the latter.  At sight of those miserable
+garments, which she had hardly had time to observe on the Place du
+Chatelet, in the midst of the crowd, Cephyse clasped her hands, and could
+not repress an exclamation of painful surprise.  Then, approaching her
+sister, that she might contemplate her more closely, she took her thin,
+icy palms between her own plump hands, and examined for some minutes,
+with increasing grief, the suffering, pale, unhappy creature, ground down
+by watching and privations, and half-clothed in a poor, patched cotton
+gown.
+
+"Oh, sister! to see you thus!"  Unable to articulate another word, the
+Bacchanal Queen threw herself on the other's neck, and burst into tears.
+Then, in the midst of her sobs, she added: "Pardon! pardon!"
+
+"What is the matter, my dear Cephyse?" said the young sewing-girl, deeply
+moved, and gently disengaging herself from the embrace of her sister.
+"Why do you ask my pardon?"
+
+"Why?" resumed Cephyse, raising her countenance, bathed in tears, and
+purple with shame; "is it not shameful of me to be dressed in all this
+frippery, and throwing away so much money in follies, while you are thus
+miserably clad, and in need of everything--perhaps dying of want, for I
+have never seen your poor face look so pale and worn."
+
+"Be at ease, dear sister!  I am not ill.  I was up rather late last
+night, and that makes me a little pale--but pray do not cry--it grieves
+me."
+
+The Bacchanal Queen had but just arrived, radiant in the midst of the
+intoxicated crowd, and yet it was Mother Bunch who was now employed in
+consoling her!
+
+An incident occurred, which made the contrast still more striking.
+Joyous cries were heard suddenly in the next apartment, and these words
+were repeated with enthusiasm: "Long live the Bacchanal Queen!"
+
+Mother Bunch trembled, and her eyes filled with tears, as she saw her
+sister with her face buried in her hands, as if overwhelmed with shame.
+"Cephyse," she said, "I entreat you not to grieve so.  You will make me
+regret the delight of this meeting, which is indeed happiness to me!  It
+is so long since I saw you!  But tell me--what ails you?"
+
+"You despise me perhaps--you are right," said the Bacchanal Queen, drying
+her tears.
+
+"Despise you? for what?"
+
+"Because I lead the life I do, instead of having the courage to support
+misery along with you."
+
+The grief of Cephyse was so heart-breaking, that Mother Bunch, always
+good and indulgent, wishing to console her, and raise her a little in her
+own estimation, said to her tenderly: "In supporting it bravely for a
+whole year, my good Cephyse, you have had more merit and courage than I
+should have in bearing with it my whole life."
+
+"Oh, sister! do not say that."
+
+"In simple truth," returned Mother Bunch, "to what temptations is a
+creature like me exposed?  Do I not naturally seek solitude, even as you
+seek a noisy life of pleasure?  What wants have I?  A very little
+suffices."
+
+"But you have not always that little?"
+
+"No--but, weak and sickly as I seem, I can endure some privations better
+than you could.  Thus hunger produces in me a sort of numbness, which
+leaves me very feeble--but for you, robust and full of life, hunger is
+fury, is madness.  Alas! you must remember how many times I have seen you
+suffering from those painful attacks, when work failed us in our wretched
+garret, and we could not even earn our four francs a week--so that we had
+nothing--absolutely nothing to eat--for our pride prevented us from
+applying to the neighbors."
+
+"You have preserved the right to that honest pride."
+
+"And you as well!  Did you not struggle as much as a human creature
+could?  But strength fails at last--I know you well, Cephyse--it was
+hunger that conquered you; and the painful necessity of constant labor,
+which was yet insufficient to supply our common wants."
+
+"But you could endure those privations--you endure them still."
+
+"Can you compare me with yourself?  Look," said Mother Bunch, taking her
+sister by the hand, and leading her to a mirror placed above a couch,
+"look!--Dost think that God made you so beautiful, endowed you with such
+quick and ardent blood, with so joyous, animated, grasping a nature and
+with such taste and fondness for pleasure, that your youth might be spent
+in a freezing garret, hid from the sun, nailed constantly to your chair,
+clad almost in rags, and working without rest and without hope?  No! for
+He has given us other wants than those of eating and drinking.  Even in
+our humble condition, does not beauty require some little ornament?  Does
+not youth require some movement, pleasure, gayety?  Do not all ages call
+for relaxation and rest?  Had you gained sufficient wages to satisfy
+hunger, to have a day or so's amusement in the week, after working every
+other day for twelve or fifteen hours, and to procure the neat and modest
+dress which so charming a face might naturally claim--you would never
+have asked for more, I am sure of it--you have told me as much a hundred
+times.  You have yielded, therefore, to an irresistible necessity,
+because your wants are greater than mine."
+
+"It is true," replied the Bacchanal Queen, with a pensive air; "if I
+could but have gained eighteenpence a day, my life would have been quite
+different; for, in the beginning, sister, I felt cruelly humiliated to
+live at a man's expense."
+
+"Yes, yes--it was inevitable, my dear Cephyse; I must pity, but cannot
+blame you.  You did not choose your destiny; but, like me, you have
+submitted to it."
+
+"Poor sister!" said Cephyse, embracing the speaker tenderly; "you can
+encourage and console me in the midst of your own misfortunes, when I
+ought to be pitying you."
+
+"Be satisfied!" said Mother Bunch; "God is just and good.  If He has
+denied me many advantages, He has given me my joys, as you have yours."
+
+"Joys?"
+
+"Yes, and great ones--without which life would be too burdensome, and I
+should not have the courage to go through with it."
+
+"I understand you," said Cephyse, with emotion; "you still know how to
+devote yourself for others, and that lightens your own sorrows."
+
+"I do what I can, but, alas! it is very little; yet when I succeed,"
+added Mother Bunch, with a faint smile, "I am as proud and happy as a
+poor little ant, who, after a great deal of trouble, has brought a big
+straw to the common nest.  But do not let us talk any more of me."
+
+"Yes, but I must, even at the risk of making you angry," resumed the
+Bacchanal Queen, timidly; "I have something to propose to you which you
+once before refused.  Jacques Rennepont has still, I think, some money
+left--we are spending it in follies--now and then giving a little to poor
+people we may happen to meet--I beg of you, let me come to your
+assistance--I see in your poor face, you cannot conceal it from me, that
+you are wearing yourself out with toil."
+
+"Thanks, my dear Cephyse, I know your good heart; but I am not in want of
+anything.  The little I gain is sufficient for me."
+
+"You refuse me," said the Bacchanal Queen, sadly, "because you know that
+my claim to this money is not honorable--be it so--I respect your
+scruples.  But you will not refuse a service from Jacques; he has been a
+workman, like ourselves, and comrades should help each other.  Accept it
+I beseech you, or I shall think you despise me."
+
+"And I shall think you despise me, if you insist any more upon it, my
+dear Cephyse," said Mother Bunch, in a tone at once so mild and firm that
+the Bacchanal Queen saw that all persuasion would be in vain.  She hung
+her head sorrowfully, and a tear again trickled down her cheek.
+
+"My refusal grieves you," said the other, taking her hand; "I am truly
+sorry--but reflect--and you will understand me."
+
+"You are right," said the Bacchanal Queen, bitterly, after a moment's
+silence; "you cannot accept assistance from my lover--it was an insult to
+propose it to you.  There are positions in life so humiliating, that they
+soil even the good one wishes to do."
+
+"Cephyse, I did not mean to hurt you--you know it well."
+
+"Oh! believe me," replied the Bacchanal Queen, "gay and giddy as I am, I
+have sometimes moments of reflection, even in the midst of my maddest
+joy.  Happily, such moments are rare."
+
+"And what do you think of, then?"
+
+"Why, that the life I lead is hardly the thing; then resolve to ask
+Jacques for a small sum of money, just enough to subsist on for a year,
+and form the plan of joining you, and gradually getting to work again."
+
+"The idea is a good one; why not act upon it?"
+
+"Because, when about to execute this project, I examined myself
+sincerely, and my courage failed.  I feel that I could never resume the
+habit of labor, and renounce this mode of life, sometimes rich, as to-
+day, sometimes precarious,--but at least free and full of leisure, joyous
+and without care, and at worst a thousand times preferable to living upon
+four francs a week.  Not that interest has guided me.  Many times have I
+refused to exchange a lover, who had little or nothing, for a rich man,
+that I did not like.  Nor have I ever asked anything for myself.  Jacques
+has spent perhaps ten thousand francs the last three or four months, yet
+we only occupy two half-furnished rooms, because we always live out of
+doors, like the birds: fortunately, when I first loved him, he had
+nothing at all, and I had just sold some jewels that had been given me,
+for a hundred francs, and put this sum in the lottery.  As mad people and
+fools are always lucky, I gained a prize of four thousand francs.
+Jacques was as gay, and light-headed, and full of fun as myself, so we
+said: `We love each other very much, and, as long as this money lasts, we
+will keep up the racket; when we have no more, one of two things will
+happen--either we shall be tired of one another, and so part--or else we
+shall love each other still, and then, to remain together, we shall try
+and get work again; and, if we cannot do so, and yet will not part--a
+bushel of charcoal will do our business!'"
+
+"Good heaven!" cried Mother Bunch, turning pale.
+
+"Be satisfied! we have not come to that.  We had still something left,
+when a kind of agent, who had paid court to me, but who was so ugly that
+I could not bear him for all his riches, knowing that I was living with
+Jacques asked me to--But why should I trouble you with all these details?
+In one word, he lent Jacques money, on some sort of a doubtful claim he
+had, as was thought, to inherit some property.  It is with this money
+that we are amusing ourselves--as long as its lasts."
+
+"But, my dear Cephyse, instead of spending this money so foolishly, why
+not put it out to interest, and marry Jacques, since you love him?"
+
+"Oh! in the first place," replied the Bacchanal Queen, laughing, as her
+gay and thoughtless character resumed its ascendancy, "to put money out
+to interest gives one no pleasure.  All the amusement one has is to look
+at a little bit of paper, which one gets in exchange for the nice little
+pieces of gold, with which one can purchase a thousand pleasures.  As for
+marrying, I certainly like Jacques better than I ever liked any one; but
+it seems to me, that, if we were married, all our happiness would end--
+for while he is only my lover, he cannot reproach me with what has passed
+--but, as my husband, he would be stare to upbraid me, sooner or later,
+and if my conduct deserves blame, I prefer giving it to myself, because I
+shall do it more tenderly."
+
+"Mad girl that you are!  But this money will not last forever.  What is
+to he done next?"
+
+"Afterwards!--Oh! that's all in the moon.  To-morrow seems to me as if it
+would not come for a hundred years.  If we were always saying: `We must
+die one day or the other'--would life be worth having?"
+
+The conversation between Cephyse and her sister was here again
+interrupted by a terrible uproar, above which sounded the sharp, shrill
+noise of Ninny Moulin's rattle.  To this tumult succeeded a chorus of
+barbarous cries, in the midst of which were distinguishable these words,
+which shook the very windows: "The Queen! the Bacchanal Queen!"
+
+Mother Bunch started at this sudden noise.
+
+"It is only my court, who are getting impatient," said Cephyse--and this
+time she could laugh.
+
+"Heavens!" cried the sewing-girl, in alarm; "if they were to come here in
+search of you?"
+
+"No, no--never fear."
+
+"But listen! do you not hear those steps? they are coming along the
+passage--they are approaching.  Pray, sister, let me go out alone,
+without being seen by all these people."
+
+That moment the door was opened, and Cephyse, ran towards it.  She saw in
+the passage a deputation headed by Ninny Moulin, who was armed with his
+formidable rattle, and followed by Rose-Pompon and Sleepinbuff.
+
+"The Bacchanal Queen! or I poison myself with a glass of water;" cried
+Ninny Moulin.
+
+"The Bacchanal Queen! or I publish my banns of marriage with Ninny
+Moulin!" cried little Rose-Pompon, with a determined air.
+
+"The Bacchanal Queen! or the court will rise in arms, and carry her off
+by force!" said another voice.
+
+"Yes, yes--let us carry her off!" repeated a formidable chorus.
+
+"Jacques, enter alone!" said the Bacchanal Queen, notwithstanding these
+pressing summonses; then, addressing her court in a majestic tone, she
+added: "In ten minutes, I shall be at your service--and then for a--of a
+time!"
+
+"Long live the Bacchanal Queen," cried Dumoulin, shaking his rattle as he
+retired, followed by the deputation, whilst Sleepinbuff entered the room
+alone.
+
+"Jacques," said Cephyse, "this is my good sister."
+
+"Enchanted to see you," said Jacques, cordially; "the more so as you will
+give me some news of my friend Agricola.  Since I began to play the rich
+man, we have not seen each other, but I like him as much as ever, and
+think him a good and worthy fellow.  You live in the same house.  How is
+he?"
+
+"Alas, sir! he and his family have had many misfortunes.  He is in
+prison."
+
+"In prison!" cried Cephyse.
+
+"Agricola in prison! what for?" said Sleepinbuff.
+
+"For a trifling political offence.  We had hoped to get him out on bail."
+
+"Certainly; for five hundred francs it could be done," said Sleepinbuff.
+
+"Unfortunately, we have not been able; the person upon whom we relied--"
+
+The Bacchanal Queen interrupted the speaker by saying to her lover: "Do
+you hear, Jacques?  Agricola in prison, for want of five hundred francs!"
+
+"To be sure! I hear and understand all about it.  No need of your
+winking.  Poor fellow! he was the support of his mother."
+
+"Alas! yes, sir--and it is the more distressing, as his father has but
+just returned from Russia, and his mother--"
+
+"Here," said Sleepinbuff, interrupting, and giving Mother Bunch a purse;
+"take this--all the expenses here have been paid beforehand--this is what
+remains of my last bag.  You will find here some twenty-five or thirty
+Napoleons, and I cannot make a better use of them than to serve a comrade
+in distress.  Give them to Agricola's father; he will take the necessary
+steps, and to-morrow Agricola will be at his forge, where I had much
+rather he should be than myself."
+
+"Jacques, give me a kiss!" said the Bacchanal Queen.
+
+"Now, and afterwards, and again and again!" said Jacques, joyously
+embracing the queen.
+
+Mother Bunch hesitated for a moment; but reflecting that, after all, this
+sum of money, which was about to be spent in follies, would restore life
+and happiness to the family of Agricola, and that hereafter these very
+five hundred francs, when returned to Jacques, might be of the greatest
+use to him, she resolved to accept this offer.  She took the purse, and
+with tearful eyes, said to him: "I will not refuse your kindness M.
+Jacques; you are so good and generous, Agricola's father will thus at
+least have one consolation, in the midst of heavy sorrows.  Thanks! many
+thanks!"
+
+"There is no need to thank me; money was made for others as well as
+ourselves."
+
+Here, without, the noise recommenced more furiously than ever, and Ninny
+Moulin's rattle sent forth the most doleful sounds.
+
+"Cephyse," said Sleepinbuff, "they will break everything to pieces, if
+you do not return to them, and I have nothing left to pay for the damage.
+Excuse us," added he, laughing, "but you see that royalty has its
+duties."
+
+Cephyse deeply moved, extended her arms to Mother Bunch, who threw
+herself into them, shedding sweet tears.
+
+"And now," said she, to her sister, "when shall I see you again?"
+
+"Soon--though nothing grieves me more than to see you in want, out of
+which I am not allowed to help you."
+
+"You will come, then, to see me?  It is a promise?"
+
+"I promise you in her name," said Jacques; "we will pay a visit to you
+and your neighbor Agricola."
+
+"Return to the company, Cephyse, and amuse yourself with a light heart,
+for M. Jacques has made a whole family happy."
+
+So saying, and after Sleepinbuff had ascertained that she could go down
+without being seen by his noisy and joyous companions, Mother Bunch
+quietly withdrew, eager to carry one piece of good news at least to
+Dagobert; but intending, first of all, to go to the Rue de Babylone, to
+the garden-house formerly occupied by Adrienne de Cardoville.  We shall
+explain hereafter the cause of this determination.
+
+As the girl quitted the eating-house, three men plainly and comfortably
+dressed, were watching before it, and talking in a low voice.  Soon
+after, they were joined by a fourth person, who rapidly descended the
+stairs of the tavern.
+
+"Well?" said the three first, with anxiety.
+
+"He is there."
+
+"Are you sure of it?"
+
+"Are there two Sleepers-in-buff on earth?" replied the other.  "I have
+just seen him; he is togged out like one of the swell mob.  They will be
+at table for three hours at least."
+
+"Then wait for me, you others.  Keep as quiet as possible.  I will go and
+fetch the captain, and the game is bagged."  So saying, one of the three
+men walked off quickly, and disappeared in a street leading from the
+square.
+
+At this same instant the Bacchanal Queen entered the banqueting-room,
+accompanied by Jacques, and was received with the most frenzied
+acclamations from all sides.
+
+"Now then," cried Cephyse, with a sort of feverish excitement, as if she
+wished to stun herself; "now then, friends--noise and tumult, hurricane
+and tempest, thunder and earthquake--as much as you please!"  Then,
+holding out her glass to Ninny Moulin, she added: "Pour out! pour out!"
+
+"Long live the Queen!" cried they all, with one voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE CAROUSE.
+
+The Bacchanal Queen, having Sleepinbuff and Rose-Pompon opposite her, and
+Ninny Moulin on her right hand, presided at the repast, called a
+reveille-matin (wake-morning), generously offered by Jacques to his
+companions in pleasure.
+
+Both young men and girls seemed to have forgotten the fatigues of a ball,
+begun at eleven o'clock in the evening, and finished at six in the
+morning; and all these couples, joyous as they were amorous and
+indefatigable, laughed, ate, and drank, with youthful and Pantagruelian
+ardor, so that, during the first part of the feast, there was less
+chatter than clatter of plates and glasses.
+
+The Bacchanal Queen's countenance was less gay, but much more animated
+than usual; her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes announced a feverish
+excitement; she wished to drown reflection, cost what it might.  Her
+conversation with her sister often recurred to her, and she tried to
+escape from such sad remembrances.
+
+Jacques regarded Cephyse from time to time with passionate adoration;
+for, thanks to the singular conformity of character, mind, and taste
+between him and the Bacchanal Queen, their attachment had deeper and
+stronger roots than generally belong to ephemeral connections founded
+upon pleasure.  Cephyse and Jacques were themselves not aware of all the
+power of a passion which till now had been surrounded only by joys and
+festivities, and not yet been tried by any untoward event.
+
+Little Rose-Pompon, left a widow a few days before by a student, who, in
+order to end the carnival in style, had gone into the country to raise
+supplies from his family, under one of those fabulous pretences which
+tradition carefully preserves in colleges of law and medicine--Rose-
+Pompon, we repeat, an example of rare fidelity, determined not to
+compromise herself, had taken for a chaperon the inoffensive Ninny
+Moulin.
+
+This latter, having doffed his helmet, exhibited a bald head, encircled
+by a border of black, curling hair, pretty long at the back of the head.
+By a remarkable Bacchic phenomenon, in proportion as intoxication gained
+upon him, a sort of zone, as purple as his jovial face, crept by degrees
+over his brow, till it obscured even the shining whiteness of his crown.
+Rose-Pompon, who knew the meaning of this symptom, pointed it out to the
+company, and exclaimed with a loud burst of laughter: "Take care, Ninny
+Moulin! the tide of the wine is coming in."
+
+"When it rises above his head he will be drowned," added the Bacchanal
+Queen.
+
+"Oh, Queen! don't disturb me; I am meditating, answered Dumoulin, who was
+getting tipsy.  He held in his hand, in the fashion of an antique goblet,
+a punch-bowl filled with wine, for he despised the ordinary glasses,
+because of their small size.
+
+"Meditating," echoed Rose-Pompon, "Ninny Moulin is meditating.  Be
+attentive!"
+
+"He is meditating; he must be ill then!"
+
+"What is he meditating? an illegal dance?"
+
+"A forbidden Anacreontic attitude?"
+
+"Yes, I am meditating," returned Dumoulin, gravely; "I am meditating upon
+wine, generally and in particular--wine, of which the immortal Bossuet"--
+Dumoulin had the very bad habit of quoting Bossuet when he was drunk--"of
+which the immortal Bossuet says (and he was a judge of good liquor): `In
+wine is courage, strength joy, and spiritual fervor'--when one has any
+brains," added Ninny Moulin, by way of parenthesis.
+
+"Oh, my! how I adore your Bossuet!" said Rose-Pompon.
+
+"As for my particular meditation, it concerns the question, whether the
+wine at the marriage of Cana was red or white.  Sometimes I incline to
+one side, sometimes to the other--and sometimes to both at once."
+
+"That is going to the bottom of the question," said Sleepinbuff.
+
+"And, above all, to the bottom of the bottles," added the Bacchanal
+Queen.
+
+"As your majesty is pleased to observe; and already, by dint of
+reflection and research, I have made a great discovery--namely, that, if
+the wine at the marriage of Cana was red--"
+
+"It couldn't 'a' been white," said Rose-Pompon, judiciously.
+
+"And if I had arrived at the conviction that it was neither white nor
+red?" asked Dumoulin, with a magisterial air.
+
+"That could only be when you had drunk till all was blue," observed
+Sleepinbuff.
+
+"The partner of the Queen says well.  One may be too athirst for science;
+but never mind!  From all my studies on this question, to which I have
+devoted my life--I shall await the end of my respectable career with the
+sense of having emptied tuns with a historical--theological--and
+archeological tone!"
+
+It is impossible to describe the jovial grimace and tone with which
+Dumoulin pronounced and accentuated these last words, which provoked a
+general laugh.
+
+"Archieolopically?" said Rose-Pompon.  "What sawnee is that?  Has he a
+tail? does he live in the water?"
+
+"Never mind," observed the Bacchanal Queen; "these are words of wise men
+and conjurers; they are like horsehair bustles--they serve for filling
+out--that's all.  I like better to drink; so fill the glasses, Ninny
+Moulin; some champagne, Rose-Pompon; here's to the health of your
+Philemon and his speedy return!"
+
+"And to the success of his plant upon his stupid and stingy family!"
+added Rose-Pompon.
+
+The toast was received with unanimous applause.
+
+"With the permission of her majesty and her court," said Dumoulin, "I
+propose a toast to the success of a project which greatly interests me,
+and has some resemblance to Philemon's jockeying.  I fancy that the toast
+will bring me luck."
+
+"Let's have it, by all means!"
+
+"Well, then--success to my marriage!" said Dumoulin, rising.
+
+These words provoked an explosion of shouts, applause, and laughter.
+Ninny Moulin shouted, applauded, laughed even louder than the rest,
+opening wide his enormous mouth, and adding to the stunning noise the
+harsh springing of his rattle, which he had taken up from under his
+chair.
+
+When the storm had somewhat subsided, the Bacchanal Queen rose and said:
+"I drink to the health of the future Madame Ninny Moulin."
+
+"Oh, Queen! your courtesy touches me so sensibly that I must allow you to
+read in the depths of my heart the name of my future spouse," exclaimed
+Dumoulin.  "She is called Madame Honoree-Modeste-Messaline-Angele de la
+Sainte-Colombe, widow."
+
+"Bravo! bravo!"
+
+"She is sixty years old, and has more thousands of francs-a-year than she
+has hair in her gray moustache or wrinkles on her face; she is so
+superbly fat that one of her gowns would serve as a tent for this
+honorable company.  I hope to present my future spouse to you on Shrove-
+Tuesday, in the costume of a shepherdess that has just devoured her
+flock.  Some of them wish to convert her--but I have undertaken to divert
+her, which she will like better.  You must help me to plunge her headlong
+into all sorts of skylarking jollity."
+
+"We will plunge her into anything you please."
+
+"She shall dance like sixty!" said Rose-Pompon, humming a popular tune.
+
+"She will overawe the police."
+
+"We can say to them: `Respect this lady; your mother will perhaps be as
+old some day!'"
+
+Suddenly, the Bacchanal Queen rose; her countenance wore a singular
+expression of bitter and sardonic delight.  In one hand she held a glass
+full to the brim.  "I hear the Cholera is approaching in his seven-league
+boots," she cried.  "I drink luck to the Cholera!"  And she emptied the
+bumper.
+
+Notwithstanding the general gayety, these words made a gloomy impression;
+a sort of electric shudder ran through the assemblage, and nearly every
+countenance became suddenly serious.
+
+"Oh, Cephyse!" said Jacques, in a tone of reproach.
+
+"Luck to the Cholera," repeated the Queen, fearlessly.  "Let him spare
+those who wish to live, and kill together those who dread to part!"
+
+Jacques and Cephyse exchanged a rapid glance, unnoticed by their joyous
+companions, and for some time the Bacchanal Queen remained silent and
+thoughtful.
+
+"If you put it that way, it is different," cried Rose-Pompon, boldly.
+"To the Cholera! may none but good fellows be left on earth!"
+
+In spite of this variation, the impression was still painfully
+impressive.  Dumoulin, wishing to cut short this gloomy subject,
+exclaimed: "Devil take the dead, and long live the living!  And, talking
+of chaps who both live and live well, I ask you to drink a health most
+dear to our joyous queen, the health of our Amphitryon.  Unfortunately, I
+do not know his respectable name, having only had the advantage of making
+his acquaintance this night; he will excuse me, then, if I confine myself
+to proposing the health of Sleepinbuff--a name by no means offensive to
+my modesty, as Adam never slept in any other manner.  I drink to
+Sleepinbuff."
+
+"Thanks, old son!" said Jacques, gayly; "were I to forget your name, I
+should call you `Have-a-sip?' and I am sure that you would answer: `I
+will.'"
+
+"I will directly!" said Dumoulin, making the military salute with one
+hand, and holding out the bowl with the other.
+
+"As we have drunk together," resumed Sleepinbuff, cordially, "we ought to
+know each other thoroughly.  I am Jacques Rennepont?"
+
+"Rennepont!" cried Dumoulin, who appeared struck by the name, in spite of
+his half-drunkenness; "you are Rennepont?"
+
+"Rennepont in the fullest sense of the word.  Does that astonish you?"
+
+"There is a very ancient family of that name--the Counts of Rennepont."
+
+"The deuce there is!" said the other, laughing.
+
+"The Counts of Rennepont are also Dukes of Cardoville," added Dumoulin.
+
+"Now, come, old fellow! do I look as if I belonged to such a family?--I,
+a workman out for a spree?"
+
+"You a workman? why, we are getting into the Arabian Nights!" cried
+Dumoulin, more and more surprised.  "You give us a Belshazzar's banquet,
+with accompaniment of carriages and four, and yet are a workman?  Only
+tell me your trade, and I will join you, leaving the Vine of the Divine
+to take care of itself."
+
+"Come, I say! don't think that I am a printer of flimsies, and a
+smasher!" replied Jacques, laughing.
+
+"Oh, comrade! no such suspicion--"
+
+"It would be excusable, seeing the rigs I run.  But I'll make you easy on
+that point.  I am spending an inheritance."
+
+"Eating and drinking an uncle, no doubt?" said Dumoulin, benevolently.
+
+"Faith, I don't know."
+
+"What! you don't know whom you are eating and drinking?"
+
+"Why, you see, in the first place, my father was a bone-grubber."
+
+"The devil he was!" said Dumoulin, somewhat out of countenance, though in
+general not over-scrupulous in the choice of his bottle-companions: but,
+after the first surprise, he resumed, with the most charming amenity:
+"There are some rag-pickers very high by scent--I mean descent!"
+
+"To be sure! you may think to laugh at me," said Jacques, "but you are
+right in this respect, for my father was a man of very great merit.  He
+spoke Greek and Latin like a scholar, and often told me that he had not
+his equal in mathematics; besides, he had travelled a good deal."
+
+"Well, then," resumed Dumoulin, whom surprise had partly sobered, "you
+may belong to the family of the Counts of Rennepont, after all."
+
+"In which case," said Rose-Pompon, laughing, "your father was not a
+gutter-snipe by trade, but only for the honor of the thing."
+
+"No, no--worse luck! it was to earn his living," replied Jacques; "but,
+in his youth, he had been well off.  By what appeared, or rather by what
+did not appear, he had applied to some rich relation, and the rich
+relation had said to him:  'Much obliged!  try the work'us.'  Then he
+wished to make use of his Greek, and Latin, and mathematics.  Impossible
+to do anything--Paris, it seems, being choke-full of learned men--so my
+father had to look for his bread at the end of a hooked stick, and there,
+too, he must have found it, for I ate of it during two years, when I came
+to live with him after the death of an aunt, with whom I had been staying
+in the country."
+
+"Your respectable father must have been a sort of philosopher," said
+Dumoulin; "but, unless he found an inheritance in a dustbin, I don't see
+how you came into your property."
+
+"Wait for the end of the song.  At twelve years of age I was an
+apprentice at the factory of M. Tripeaud; two years afterwards, my father
+died of an accident, leaving me the furniture of our garret--a mattress,
+a chair, and a table--and, moreover, in an old Eau de Cologne box, some
+papers (written, it seems, in English), and a bronze medal, worth about
+ten sous, chain and all.  He had never spoken to me of these papers, so,
+not knowing if they were good for anything, I left them at the bottom of
+an old trunk, instead of burning them--which was well for me, since it is
+upon these papers that I have had money advanced."
+
+"What a godsend!" said Dumoulin.  "But somebody must have known that you
+had them?"
+
+"Yes; one of those people that are always looking out for old debts came
+to Cephyse, who told me all about it; and, after he had read the papers,
+he said that the affair was doubtful, but that he would lend me ten
+thousand francs on it, if I liked.  Ten thousand francs was a large sum,
+so I snapped him up!"
+
+"But you must have supposed that these old papers were of great value."
+
+"Faith, no! since my father, who ought to have known their value, had
+never realized on them--and then, you see, ten thousand francs in good,
+bright coin, falling as it were from the clouds, are not to be sneezed
+at--so I took them--only the man made me do a bit of stiff as guarantee,
+or something of that kind."
+
+"Did you sign it?"
+
+"Of course--what did I care about it?  The man told me it was only a
+matter of form.  He spoke the truth, for the bill fell due a fortnight
+ago, and I have heard nothing of it.  I have still about a thousand
+francs in his hands, for I have taken him for my banker.  And that's the
+way, old pal, that I'm able to flourish and be jolly all day long, as
+pleased as Punch to have left my old grinder of a master, M. Tripeaud."
+
+As he pronounced this name, the joyous countenance of Jacques became
+suddenly overcast.  Cephyse, no longer under the influence of the painful
+impression she had felt for a moment, looked uneasily at Jacques, for she
+knew the irritation which the name of M. Tripeaud produced within him.
+
+"M. Tripeaud," resumed Sleepinbuff, "is one that would make the good bad,
+and the bad worse.  They say that a good rider makes a good horse; they
+ought to say that a good master makes a good workman.  Zounds! when I
+think of that fellow!" cried Sleepinbuff, striking his hand violently on
+the table.
+
+"Come, Jacques--think of something else!" said the Bacchanal Queen.
+"Make him laugh, Rose-Pompon."
+
+"I am not in a humor to laugh," replied Jacques, abruptly, for he was
+getting excited from the effects of the wine; "it is more than I can bear
+to think of that man.  It exasperates me! it drives me mad!  You should
+have heard him saying: 'Beggarly workmen! rascally workmen! they grumble
+that they have no food in their bellies; well, then, we'll give them
+bayonets to stop their hunger.'[11]  And there's the children in his
+factory--you should see them, poor little creatures!--working as long as
+the men--wasting away, and dying by the dozen--what odds? as soon as they
+were dead plenty of others came to take their places--not like horses,
+which can only be replaced with money."
+
+"Well, it is clear, that you do not like your old master," said Dumoulin,
+more and more surprised at his Amphitryon's gloomy and thoughtful air,
+and, regretting that the conversation had taken this serious turn, he
+whispered a few words in the ear of the Bacchanal Queen, who answered by
+a sign of intelligence.
+
+"I don't like M. Tripeaud!" exclaimed Jacques.  "I hate him--and shall I
+tell you why?  Because it is as much his fault as mine, that I have
+become a good-for-nothing loafer.  I don't say it to screen myself; but
+it is the truth.  When I was 'prenticed to him as a lad, I was all heart
+and ardor, and so bent upon work, that I used to take my shirt off to my
+task, which, by the way, was the reason that I was first called
+Sleepinbuff.  Well! I might have toiled myself to death; not one word of
+encouragement did I receive.  I came first to my work, and was the last
+to leave off; what matter? it was not even noticed.  One day, I was
+injured by the machinery.  I was taken to the hospital.  When I came out,
+weak as I was, I went straight to my work; I was not to be frightened;
+the others, who knew their master well, would often say to me: `What a
+muff you must be, little one!  What good will you get by working so
+hard?'--still I went on.  But, one day, a worthy old man, called Father
+Arsene, who had worked in the house many years, and was a model of good
+conduct, was suddenly turned away, because he was getting too feeble.  It
+was a death-blow to him; his wife was infirm, and, at his age, he could
+not get another place.  When the foreman told him he was dismissed, he
+could not believe it, and he began to cry for grief.  At that moment, M.
+Tripeaud passes; Father Arsene begs him with clasped hands to keep him at
+half-wages. `What!' says M. Tripeaud, shrugging his shoulders; `do you
+think that I will turn my factory into a house of invalids?  You are no
+longer able to work--so be off!' `But I have worked forty years of my
+life; what is to become of me?' cried poor Father Arsene.  `That is not
+my business,' answered M. Tripeaud; and, addressing his clerk, he added:
+`Pay what is due for the week, and let him cut his stick.'  Father Arsene
+did cut his stick; that evening, he and his old wife suffocated
+themselves with charcoal.  Now, you see, I was then a lad; but that story
+of Father Arsene taught me, that, however hard you might work, it would
+only profit your master, who would not even thank you for it, and leave
+you to die on the flags in your old age.  So all my fire was damped, and
+I said to myself: `What's the use of doing more than I just need?  If I
+gain heaps of gold for M. Tripeaud, shall I get an atom of it?'
+Therefore, finding neither pride nor profit in my work, I took a disgust
+for it--just did barely enough to earn my wages--became an idler and a
+rake--and said to myself: `When I get too tired of labor, I can always
+follow the example of Father Arsene and his wife."'
+
+Whilst Jacques resigned himself to the current of these bitter thoughts,
+the other guests, incited by the expressive pantomime of Dumoulin and the
+Bacchanal Queen, had tacitly agreed together; and, on a signal from the
+Queen, who leaped upon the table, and threw down the bottles and glasses
+with her foot, all rose and shouted, with the accompaniment of Ninny
+Moulin's rattle "The storm blown Tulip! the quadrille of the Storm-blown
+Tulip!"
+
+At these joyous cries, which burst suddenly, like shell, Jacques started;
+then gazing with astonishment at his guests, he drew his hand across his
+brow, as if to chase away the painful ideas that oppressed him, and
+exclaimed: "You are right.  Forward the first couple!  Let us be merry!"
+
+In a moment, the table, lifted by vigorous arms, was removed to the
+extremity of the banqueting-room; the spectators, mounted upon chairs,
+benches, and window-ledges, began to sing in chorus the well-known air of
+les Etudiants, so as to serve instead of orchestra, and accompany the
+quadrille formed by Sleepinbuff, the Queen, Ninny Moulin, and Rose-
+Pompon.
+
+Dumoulin, having entrusted his rattle to one of the guests, resumed his
+extravagant Roman helmet and plume; he had taken off his great-coat at
+the commencement of the feast, so that he now appeared in all the
+splendor of his costume.  His cuirass of bright scales ended in a tunic
+of feathers, not unlike those worn by the savages, who form the oxen's
+escort on Mardi Gras.  Ninny Moulin had a huge paunch and thin legs, so
+that the latter moved about at pleasure in the gaping mouths of his large
+top boots.
+
+Little Rose-Pompon, with her pinched-up cocked-hat stuck on one side, her
+hands in the pockets of her trousers, her bust a little inclined forward,
+and undulating from right to left, advanced to meet Ninny-Moulin; the
+latter danced, or rather leaped towards her, his left leg bent under him,
+his right leg stretched forward, with the toe raised, and the heel
+gliding on the floor; moreover, he struck his neck with his left hand,
+and by a simultaneous movement, stretched forth his right, as if he would
+have thrown dust in the eyes of his opposite partner.
+
+This first figure met with great success, and the applause was
+vociferous, though it was only the innocent prelude to the step of the
+Storm-blown Tulip--when suddenly the door opened, and one of the waiters,
+after looking about for an instant, in search of Sleepinbuff, ran to him,
+and whispered some words in his ear.
+
+"Me!" cried Jacques, laughing; "here's a go!"
+
+The waiter added a few more words, when Sleepinbuff's face assumed an
+expression of uneasiness, as he answered.  "Very well! I come directly,"-
+-and he made a step towards the door.
+
+"What's the matter, Jacques?" asked the Bacchanal Queen, in some
+surprise.
+
+"I'll be back immediately.  Some one take my place.  Go on with the
+dance," said Sleepinbuff, as he hastily left the room.
+
+"Something, that was not put down in the bill," said Dumoulin; "he will
+soon be back."
+
+"That's it," said Cephyse.  "Now cavalier suel!" she added, as she took
+Jacques's place, and the dance continued.
+
+Ninny Moulin had just taken hold of Rose Pompon with his right hand, and
+of the Queen with his left, in order to advance between the two, in which
+figure he showed off his buffoonery to the utmost extent, when the door
+again opened, and the same waiter, who had called out Jacques, approached
+Cephyse with an air of consternation, and whispered in her ear, as he had
+before done to Sleepinbuff.
+
+The Bacchanal Queen grew pale, uttered a piercing scream, and rushed out
+of the room without a word, leaving her guests in stupefaction.
+
+[11] These atrocious words were actually spoken during the Lyons Riots.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE FAREWELL
+
+The Bacchanal Queen, following the waiter, arrived at the bottom of the
+staircase.  A coach was standing before the door of the house.  In it she
+saw Sleepinbuff, with one of the men who, two hours before, had been
+waiting on the Place du Chatelet.
+
+On the arrival of Cephyse, the man got down, and said to Jacques, as he
+drew out his watch: "I give you a quarter of an hour; it is all that I
+can do for you, my good fellow; after that we must start.  Do not try to
+escape, for we'll be watching at the coach doors."
+
+With one spring, Cephyse was in the coach.  Too much overcome to speak
+before, she now exclaimed, as she took her seat by Jacques, and remarked
+the paleness of his countenance: "What is it?  What do they want with
+you?"
+
+"I am arrested for debt," said Jacques, in a mournful voice.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Cephyse, with a heart-rending sob.
+
+"Yes, for that bill, or guarantee, they made me sign.  And yet the man
+said it was only a form--the rascal!"
+
+"But you have money in his hands; let him take that on account."
+
+"I have not a copper; he sends me word by the bailiff, that not having
+paid the bill, I shall not have the last thousand francs."
+
+"Then let us go to him, and entreat him to leave you at liberty.  It was
+he who came to propose to lend you this money.  I know it well, as he
+first addressed himself to me.  He will have pity on you."
+
+"Pity?--a money broker pity?  No! no!"
+
+"Is there then no hope? none?" cried Cephyse clasping her hands in
+anguish.  "But there must be something done," she resumed.  "He promised
+you"
+
+"You can see how he keeps his promises," answered Jacques, with
+bitterness.  "I signed, without even knowing what I signed.  The bill is
+over-due; everything is in order, it would be vain to resist.  They have
+just explained all that to me."
+
+"But they cannot keep you long in prison.  It is impossible."
+
+"Five years, if I do not pay.  As I'll never be able to do so, my fate is
+certain."
+
+"Oh! what a misfortune! and not to be able to do anything!" said Cephyse,
+hiding her face in her hands.
+
+"Listen to me, Cephyse," resumed Jacques, in a voice of mournful emotion;
+"since I am here, I have thought only of one thing--what is to become of
+you?"
+
+"Never mind me!"
+
+"Not mind you?--art mad?  What will you do?  The furniture of our two
+rooms is not worth two hundred francs.  We have squandered our money so
+foolishly, that we have not even paid our rent.  We owe three quarters,
+and we must not therefore count upon the furniture.  I leave you without
+a coin.  At least I shall be fed in prison--but how will you manage to
+live?
+
+"What is the use of grieving beforehand?"
+
+"I ask you how you will live to-morrow?" cried Jacques.
+
+"I will sell my costume, and some other clothes.  I will send you half
+the money, and keep the rest.  That will last some days."
+
+"And afterwards?--afterwards?"
+
+"Afterwards?--why, then--I don't know--how can I tell you!  Afterwards--
+I'll look about me."
+
+"Hear me, Cephyse," resumed Jacques, with bitter agony.  "It is now that
+I first know how mach I love you.  My heart is pressed as in a vise at
+the thought of leaving you and I shudder to thinly what is to become of
+you."  Then--drawing his hand across his forehead, Jacques added: "You
+see we have been ruined by saying--"To-morrow will never come!"--for to-
+morrow has come.  When I am no longer with you, and you have spent the
+last penny of the money gained by the sale of your clothes--unfit for
+work as you have become--what will you do next?  Must I tell you what you
+will do!--you will forget me and--" Then, as if he recoiled from his own
+thoughts, Jacques exclaimed, with a burst of rage and despair--"Great
+Heaven! if that were to happen, I should dash my brains out against the
+stones!"
+
+Cephyse guessed the half-told meaning of Jacques, and throwing her arms
+around his neck, she said to him: "I take another lover?--never!  I am
+like you, for I now first know how much I love you."
+
+"But, my poor Cephyse--how will you live?"
+
+"Well, I shall take courage.  I will go back and dwell, with my sister,
+as in old times; we will work together, and so earn our bread.  I'll
+never go out, except to visit you.  In a few days your creditor will
+reflect, that, as you can't pay him ten thousand francs, he may as well
+set you free.  By that time I shall have once more acquired the habit of
+working.  You shall see, you shall see!--and you also will again acquire
+this habit.  We shall live poor, but content.  After all, we have had
+plenty of amusement for six month, while so many others have never known
+pleasure all their lives.  And believe me, my dear Jacques, when I say to
+you--I shall profit by this lesson.  If you love me, do not feel the
+least uneasiness; I tell you, that I would rather die a hundred times,
+than have another lover."
+
+"Kiss me," said Jacques, with eyes full of tears.  "I believe you--yes, I
+believe you--and you give me back my courage, both for now and hereafter.
+You are right; we must try and get to work again, or else nothing remains
+but Father Arsene's bushel of charcoal; for, my girl," added Jacques, in
+a low and trembling voice, "I have been like a drunken man these six
+months, and now I am getting sober, and see whither we are going.  Our
+means once exhausted, I might perhaps have become a robber, and you--"
+
+"Oh, Jacques! don't talk so--it is frightful," interrupted Cephyse; "I
+swear to you that I will return to my sister--that I will work--that I
+will have courage!"
+
+Thus saying, the Bacchanal Queen was very sincere; she fully intended to
+keep her word, for her heart was not yet completely corrupted.  Misery
+and want had been with her, as with so many others, the cause and the
+excuse of her worst errors.  Until now, she had at least followed the
+instincts of her heart, without regard to any base or venal motive.  The
+cruel position in which she beheld Jacques had so far exalted her love,
+that she believed herself capable of resuming, along with Mother Bunch,
+that life of sterile and incessant toil, full of painful sacrifices and
+privations, which once had been impossible for her to bear, and which the
+habits of a life of leisure and dissipation would now render still more
+difficult.
+
+Still, the assurances which she had just given Jacques calmed his grief
+and anxiety a little; he had sense and feeling enough to perceive that
+the fatal track which he had hitherto so blindly followed was leading
+both him and Cephyse directly to infamy.
+
+One of the bailiffs, having knocked at the coach-door, said to Jacques:
+"My lad, you have only five minutes left--so make haste."
+
+"So, courage, my girl--courage!" said Jacques.
+
+"I will; you may rely upon me."
+
+"Are you going upstairs again?"
+
+"No--oh no!" said Cephyse.  "I have now a horror of this festivity."
+
+"Everything is paid for, and the waiter will tell them not to expect us
+back.  They will be much astonished," continued Jacques, "but it's all
+the same now."
+
+"If you could only go with me to our lodging," said Cephyse, "this man
+would perhaps permit it, so as not to enter Sainte-Pelagie in that
+dress."
+
+"Oh! he will not forbid you to accompany me; but, as he will be with us
+in the coach, we shall not be able to talk freely in his presence.
+Therefore, let me speak reason to you for the first time in my life.
+Remember what I say, my dear Cephyse--and the counsel will apply to me as
+well as to yourself," continued Jacques, in a grave and feeling tone--
+"resume from to-day the habit of labor.  It may be painful, unprofitable-
+-never mind--do not hesitate, for too soon will the influence of this
+lesson be forgotten.  By-and-bye it will be too late, and then you will
+end like so many unfortunate creatures--"
+
+"I understand," said Cephyse, blushing; "but I will rather die than lead
+such a life."
+
+"And there you will do well--for in that case," added Jacques, in a deep
+and hollow voice, "I will myself show you how to die."
+
+"I count upon you, Jacques," answered Cephyse, embracing her lover with
+excited feeling; then she added, sorrowfully: "It was a kind of
+presentiment, when just now I felt so sad, without knowing why, in the
+midst of all our gayety--and drank to the Cholera, so that we might die
+together."
+
+"Well! perhaps the Cholera will come," resumed Jacques, with a gloomy
+air; "that would save us the charcoal, which we may not even be able to
+buy."
+
+"I can only tell you one thing, Jacques, that to live and die together,
+you will always find me ready."
+
+"Come, dry your eyes," said he, with profound emotion.  "Do not let us
+play the children before these men."
+
+Some minutes after, the coach took the direction to Jacques's lodging,
+where he was to change his clothes, before proceeding to the debtors'
+prison.
+
+Let us repeat, with regard to the hunchback's sister--for there are
+things which cannot be too often repeated--that one of the most fatal
+consequences of the Inorganization of Labor is the Insufficiency of
+Wages.
+
+The insufficiency of wages forces inevitably the greater number of young
+girls, thus badly paid, to seek their means of subsistence in connections
+which deprave them.
+
+Sometimes they receive a small allowance from their lovers, which, joined
+to the produce of their labor, enables them to live.  Sometimes like the
+sempstress's sister, they throw aside their work altogether, and take up
+their abode with the man of their choice, should he be able to support
+the expense.  It is during this season of pleasure and idleness that the
+incurable leprosy of sloth takes lasting possession of these unfortunate
+creatures.
+
+This is the first phase of degradation that the guilty carelessness of
+Society imposes on an immense number of workwomen, born with instincts of
+modesty, and honesty, and uprightness.
+
+After a certain time they are deserted by their seducers--perhaps when
+they are mothers.  Or, it may be, that foolish extravagance consigns the
+imprudent lover to prison, and the young girl finds herself alone,
+abandoned, without the means of subsistence.
+
+Those who have still preserved courage and energy go back to their work--
+but the examples are very rare.  The others, impelled by misery, and by
+habits of indolence, fall into the lowest depths.
+
+And yet we must pity, rather than blame them, for the first and virtual
+cause of their fall has been the insufficient remuneration of labor and
+sudden reduction of pay.
+
+Another deplorable consequence of this inorganization is the disgust
+which workmen feel for their employment, in addition to the insufficiency
+of their wages.  And this is quite conceivable, for nothing is done to
+render their labor attractive, either by variety of occupations, or by
+honorary rewards, or by proper care, or by remuneration proportionate to
+the benefits which their toil provides, or by the hope of rest after long
+years of industry.  No--the country thinks not, cares not, either for
+their wants or their rights.
+
+And yet, to take only one example, machinists and workers in foundries,
+exposed to boiler explosions, and the contact of formidable engines, run
+every day greater dangers than soldiers in time of war, display rare
+practical sagacity, and render to industry--and, consequently, to their
+country--the most incontestable service, during a long and honorable
+career, if they do not perish by the bursting of a boiler, or have not
+their limbs crushed by the iron teeth of a machine.
+
+In this last case, does the workman receive a recompense equal to that
+which awaits the soldier's praiseworthy, but sterile courage--a place in
+an asylum for invalids?  No.
+
+What does the country care about it?  And if the master should happen to
+be ungrateful, the mutilated workman, incapable of further service, may
+die of want in some corner.
+
+Finally, in our pompous festivals of commerce, do we ever assemble any of
+the skillful workmen who alone have woven those admirable stuffs, forged
+and damascened those shining weapons, chiselled those goblets of gold and
+silver, carved the wood and ivory of that costly furniture, and set those
+dazzling jewels with such exquisite art?  No.
+
+In the obscurity of their garrets, in the midst of a miserable and
+starving family, hardly able to subsist on their scanty wages, these
+workmen have contributed, at least, one half to bestow those wonders upon
+their country, which make its wealth, its glory, and its pride.
+
+A minister of commerce, who had the least intelligence of his high
+functions and duties, would require of every factory that exhibits on
+these occasions, the selection by vote of a certain number of candidates,
+amongst whom the manufacturer would point out the one that appeared most
+worthy to represent the working classes in these great industrial
+solemnities.
+
+Would it not be a noble and encouraging example to see the master propose
+for public recompense and distinction the workman, deputed by his peers,
+as amongst the most honest, laborious, and intelligent of his profession?
+Then one most grievous injustice would disappear, and the virtues of the
+workman would be stimulated by a generous and noble ambition--he would
+have an interest in doing well.
+
+Doubtless, the manufacturer himself, because of the intelligence he
+displays, the capital he risks, the establishment he founds, and the good
+he sometimes does, has a legitimate right to the prizes bestowed upon
+him.  But why is the workman to be rigorously excluded from these
+rewards, which have so powerful an influence upon the people?  Are
+generals and officers the only ones that receive rewards in the army?
+And when we have remunerated the captains of this great and powerful army
+of industry, why should we neglect the privates?
+
+Why for them is there no sign of public gratitude?  no kind or consoling
+word from august lips?  Why do we not see in France, a single workman
+wearing a medal as a reward for his courageous industry, his long and
+laborious career?  The token and the little pension attached to it, would
+be to him a double recompense, justly deserved.  But, no! for humble
+labor that sustains the State, there is only forgetfulness, injustice,
+indifference, and disdain!
+
+By this neglect of the public, often aggravated by individual selfishness
+and ingratitude, our workmen are placed in a deplorable situation.
+
+Some of them, notwithstanding their incessant toil, lead a life of
+privations, and die before their time cursing the social system that
+rides over them.  Others find a temporary oblivion of their ills in
+destructive intoxication.  Others again--in great number--having no
+interest, no advantage, no moral or physical inducement to do more or
+better, confine themselves strictly to just that amount of labor which
+will suffice to earn their wages.  Nothing attaches them to their work,
+because nothing elevates, honors, glorifies it in their eyes.  They have
+no defence against the reductions of indolence; and if, by some chance,
+they find means of living awhile in repose, they give way by degrees to
+habits of laziness and debauchery, and sometimes the worst passions soil
+forever natures originally willing, healthy and honest--and all for want
+of that protecting and equitable superintendence which should have
+sustained, encouraged, and recompensed their first worthy and laborious
+tendencies.
+
+We now follow Mother Bunch, who after seeking for work from the person
+that usually employed her, went to the Rue de Babylone, to the lodge
+lately occupied by Adrienne de Cardoville.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+FLORINE.
+
+While the Bacchanal Queen and Sleepinbuff terminated so sadly the most
+joyous portion of their existence, the sempstress arrived at the door of
+the summer-house in the Rue de Babylone.
+
+Before ringing she dried her tears; a new grief weighed upon her spirits.
+On quitting the tavern, she had gone to the house of the person who
+usually found her in work; but she was told that she could not have any
+because it could be done a third more cheaply by women in prison.  Mother
+Bunch, rather than lose her last resource, offered to take it at the
+third less; but the linen had been already sent out; and the girl could
+not hope for employment for a fortnight to come, even if submitting to
+this reduction of wages.  One may conceive the anguish of the poor
+creature; the prospect before her was to die of hunger, if she would not
+beg or steal.  As for her visit to the lodge in the Rue de Babylone, it
+will be explained presently.
+
+She rang the bell timidly; a few minutes after, Florine opened the door
+to her.  The waiting-maid was no longer adorned after the charming taste
+of Adrienne; on the contrary, she was dressed with an affectation of
+austere simplicity.  She wore a high-necked dress of a dark color, made
+full enough to conceal the light elegance of her figure.  Her bands of
+jet-black hair were hardly visible beneath the flat border of a starched
+white cap, very much resembling the head-dress of a nun.  Yet, in spite
+of this unornamental costume, Florine's pale countenance was still
+admirably beautiful.
+
+We have said that, placed by former misconduct at the mercy of Rodin and
+M. d'Aigrigny, Florine had served them as a spy upon her mistress,
+notwithstanding the marks of kindness and confidence she had received
+from her.  Yet Florine was not entirely corrupted; and she often suffered
+painful, but vain, remorse at the thought of the infamous part she was
+thus obliged to perform.
+
+At the sight of Mother Bunch, whom she recognized--for she had told her,
+the day before, of Agricola's arrest and Mdlle. de Cardoville's madness--
+Florine recoiled a step, so much was she moved with pity at the
+appearance of the young sempstress.  In fact, the idea of being thrown
+out of work, in the midst of so many other painful circumstances, had
+made a terrible impression upon the young workwoman, the traces of recent
+tears furrowed her cheeks--without her knowing it, her features expressed
+the deepest despair--and she appeared so exhausted, so weak, so overcome,
+that Florine offered her arm to support her, and said to her kindly:
+"Pray walk in and rest yourself; you are very pale, and seem to be ill
+and fatigued."
+
+So saying, Florine led her into a small room; with fireplace and carpet,
+and made her sit down in a tapestried armchair by the side of a good
+fire.  Georgette and Hebe had been dismissed, and Florine was left alone
+in care of the house.
+
+When her guest was seated, Florine said to her with an air of interest:
+"Will you not take anything?  A little orange flower-water and sugar,
+warm."
+
+"I thank you, mademoiselle," said Mother Bunch, with emotion, so easily
+was her gratitude excited by the least mark of kindness; she felt, too, a
+pleasing surprise, that her poor garments had not been the cause of
+repugnance or disdain on the part of Florine.
+
+"I thank you, mademoiselle," said she, "but I only require a little rest,
+for I come from a great distance.  If you will permit me--"
+
+"Pray rest yourself as long as you like, mademoiselle; I am alone in this
+pavilion since the departure of my poor mistress,"--here Florine blushed
+and sighed;--"so, pray make yourself quite at home.  Draw near the fire--
+you wilt be more comfortable--and, gracious!  how wet your feet are!--
+place them upon this stool."
+
+The cordial reception given by Florine, her handsome face and agreeable
+manners, which were not those of an ordinary waiting-maid, forcibly
+struck Mother Bunch, who, notwithstanding her humble condition, was
+peculiarly susceptible to the influence of everything graceful and
+delicate.  Yielding, therefore, to these attractions, the young
+sempstress, generally so timid and sensitive, felt herself almost at her
+ease with Florine.
+
+"How obliging you are, mademoiselle!" said she in a grateful tone.  "I am
+quite confused with your kindness."
+
+"I wish I could do you some greater service than offer you a place at the
+fire, mademoiselle.  Your appearance is so good and interesting."
+
+"Oh, mademoiselle!" said the other, with simplicity, almost in spite of
+herself; "it does one so much good to sit by a warm fire!"  Then,
+fearing, in her extreme delicacy, that she might be thought capable of
+abusing the hospitality of her entertainer, by unreasonably prolonging
+her visit, she added: "the motive that has brought me here is this.
+Yesterday, you informed me that a young workman, named Agricola Baudoin,
+had been arrested in this house."
+
+"Alas! yes, mademoiselle.  At the moment, too, when my poor mistress was
+about to render him assistance."
+
+"I am Agricola's adopted sister," resumed Mother Bunch, with a slight
+blush; " he wrote to me yesterday evening from prison.  He begged me to
+tell his father to come here as soon as possible, in order to inform
+Mdlle. de Cardoville that he, Agricola, had important matters to
+communicate to her, or to any person that she might send; but that he
+could not venture to mention them in a letter, as he did not know if the
+correspondence of prisoners might not be read by the governor of the
+prison."
+
+"What!" said Florine, with surprise; "to my mistress, M. Agricola has
+something of importance to communicate?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle; for, up to this time, Agricola is ignorant of the
+great calamity that has befallen Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"True; the attack was indeed so sudden," said Florine, casting down her
+eyes, "that no one could have foreseen it."
+
+"It must have been so," answered Mother Bunch; "for, when Agricola saw
+Mdlle. de Cardoville for the first time, he returned home, struck with
+her grace, and delicacy, and goodness."
+
+"As were all who approached my mistress," said Florine, sorrowfully.
+
+"This morning," resumed the sewing-girl, "when, according to Agricola's
+instructions, I wished to speak to his father on the subject, I found him
+already gone out, for he also is a prey to great anxieties; but my
+adopted brother's letter appeared to me so pressing, and to involve
+something of such consequence to Mdlle. de Cardoville, who had shown
+herself so generous towards him, that I came here immediately."
+
+"Unfortunately, as you already know, my mistress is no longer here."
+
+"But is there no member of her family to whom, if I could not speak
+myself, I might at least send word by you, that Agricola has something to
+communicate of importance to this young lady?"
+
+"It is strange!" said Florine, reflecting, and without replying.  Then,
+turning towards the sempstress, she added:  "You are quite ignorant of
+the nature of these revelations?"
+
+"Completely so, mademoiselle; but I know Agricola.  He is all honor and
+truth, and you may believe whatever he affirms.  Besides, he would have
+no interest--"
+
+"Good gracious!" interrupted Florine, suddenly, as if struck with a
+sadden light; "I have just remembered something.  When he was arrested in
+a hiding-place where my mistress had concealed him, I happened to be
+close at hand, and M. Agricola said to me, in a quick whisper: `Tell your
+generous mistress that her goodness to me will not go unrewarded, and
+that my stay in that hiding-place may not be useless to her.' That was
+all he could say to me, for they hurried him off instantly.  I confess
+that I saw in those words only the expression of his gratitude, and his
+hope of proving it one day to my mistress; but now that I connect them
+with the letter he has written you--" said Florine, reflecting.
+
+"Indeed!" remarked Mother Bunch, "there is certainly some connection
+between his hiding-place here and the important secrets which he wishes
+to communicate to your mistress, or one of her family."
+
+"The hiding-place had neither been inhabited nor visited for some time,"
+said Florine, with a thoughtful air; "M. Agricola may have found therein
+something of interest to my mistress."
+
+"If his letter had not appeared to me so pressing," resumed the other, "I
+should not have come hither; but have left him to do so himself, on his
+release from prison, which now, thanks to the generosity of one of his
+old fellow-workmen, cannot be very distant.  But, not knowing if bail
+would be accepted to-day, I have wished faithfully to perform his
+instructions.  The generous kindness of your mistress made it my first
+duty."
+
+Like all persons whose better instincts are still roused from time to
+time, Florine felt a sort of consolation in doing good whenever she could
+with impunity--that is to say, without exposing herself to the inexorable
+resentments of those on whom she depended.  Thanks to Mother Bunch, she
+might now have an opportunity of rendering a great service to her
+mistress.  She knew enough of the Princess de Saint-Dizier's hatred of
+her niece, to feel certain that Agricola's communication could not, from
+its very importance, be made with safety to any but Mdlle. de Cardoville
+herself.  She therefore said very gravely: "Listen to me, mademoiselle!
+I will give you a piece of advice which will, I think, be useful to my
+poor mistress--but which would be very fatal to me if you did not attend
+to my recommendations."
+
+"How so, mademoiselle?" said the hunchback, looking at Florine with
+extreme surprise.
+
+"For the sake of my mistress, M. Agricola must confide to no one, except
+herself, the important things he has to communicate."
+
+"But, if he cannot see Mdlle. Adrienne, may he not address himself to
+some of her family?"
+
+"It is from her family, above all, that he must conceal whatever he
+knows.  Mdlle. Adrienne may recover, and then M. Agricola can speak to
+her.  But should she never get well again, tell your adopted brother that
+it is better for him to keep his secret than to place it (which would
+infallibly happen) at the disposal of the enemies of my mistress."
+
+"I understand you, mademoiselle," said Mother Bunch, sadly.  "The family
+of your generous mistress do not love her, and perhaps persecute her?"
+
+"I cannot tell you more on this subject now; and, as regards myself, let
+me conjure you to obtain M. Agricola's promise that he will not mention
+to any one in the world the step you have taken, or the advice I have
+given you.  The happiness--no, not the happiness," resumed Florine
+bitterly, as if that were a lost hope, "not the happiness--but the peace
+of my life depends upon your discretion."
+
+"Oh! be satisfied!" said the sewing-girl, both affected and amazed by the
+sorrowful expression of Florine's countenance; "I will not be ungrateful.
+No one in the world but Agricola shall know that I have seen you."
+
+"Thank you--thank you, mademoiselle," cried Florine, with emotion.
+
+"Do you thank me?" said the other, astonished to see the large tears roll
+down her cheeks.
+
+"Yes! I am indebted to you for a moment of pure, unmixed happiness; for I
+have perhaps rendered a service to my dear mistress, without risking the
+increase of the troubles that already overwhelm me."
+
+"You are not happy, then?"
+
+"That astonishes you; but, believe me, whatever may be, your fate, I
+would gladly change with you."
+
+"Alas, mademoiselle!" said the sempstress: "you appear to have too good a
+heart, for me to let you entertain such a wish--particularly now."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I hope sincerely, mademoiselle," proceeded Mother Bunch, with deep
+sadness, "that you may never know what it is to want work, when labor is
+your only resource."
+
+"Are you reduced to that extremity?" cried Florine, looking anxiously at
+the young sempstress, who hung her head, and made no answer.  She
+reproached herself, in her excessive delicacy, with having made a
+communication which resembled a complaint, though it had only been wrung
+from her by the thought of her dreadful situation.
+
+"If it is so," went on Florine, "I pity you with all my heart; and yet I
+know not, if my misfortunes are not still greater than yours."
+
+Then, after a moment's reflection, Florine exclaimed, suddenly: "But let
+me see!  If you are really in that position, I think I can procure you
+some work."
+
+"Is it possible, mademoiselle?" cried Mother Bunch.  "I should never have
+dared to ask you such a service; but your generous offer commands my
+confidence, and may save me from destruction.  I will confess to you,
+that, only this morning, I was thrown out of an employment which enabled
+me to earn four francs a week."
+
+"Four francs a week!" exclaimed Florine, hardly able to believe what she
+heard.
+
+"It was little, doubtless," replied the other; "but enough for me.
+Unfortunately, the person who employed me, has found out where it can be
+done still cheaper."
+
+"Four francs a week!" repeated Florine, deeply touched by so much misery
+and resignation.  "Well! I think I can introduce you to persons, who will
+secure you wages of at least two francs a day."
+
+"I could earn two francs a day?  Is it possible?"
+
+"Yes, there is no doubt of it; only, you will have to go out by the day,
+unless you chose to take a pace as servant."
+
+"In my position," said Mother Bunch, with a mixture of timidity and
+pride, "one has no right, I know, to be overnice; yet I should prefer to
+go out by the day, and still more to remain at home, if possible, even
+though I were to gain less."
+
+"To go out is unfortunately an indispensable condition," said Florine.
+
+"Then I must renounce this hope," answered Mother Bunch, timidly; "not
+that I refuse to go out to work--but those who do so, are expected to be
+decently clad--and I confess without shame, because there is no disgrace
+in honest poverty, that I have no better clothes than these."
+
+"If that be all," said Florine, hastily, "they will find you the means of
+dressing yourself properly."
+
+Mother Bunch looked at Florine with increasing surprise.  These offers
+were so much above what she could have hoped, and what indeed was
+generally earned by needlewomen, that she could hardly credit them.
+
+"But," resumed she, with hesitation, "why should any one be so generous
+to me, mademoiselle?  How should I deserve such high wages?"
+
+Florine started.  A natural impulse of the heart, a desire to be useful
+to the sempstress, whose mildness and resignation greatly interested her,
+had led her to make a hasty proposition; she knew at what price would
+have to be purchased the advantages she proposed, and she now asked
+herself, if the hunchback would ever accept them on such terms.  But
+Florine had gone too far to recede, and she durst not tell all.  She
+resolved, therefore, to leave the future to chance and as those, who have
+themselves fallen, are little disposed to believe in the infallibility of
+others, Florine said to herself, that perhaps in the desperate position
+in which she was, Mother Bunch would not be so scrupulous after all.
+Therefore she said: "I see, mademoiselle, that you are astonished at
+offers so much above what you usually gain; but I must tell you, that I
+am now speaking of a pious institution, founded to procure work for
+deserving young women.  This establishment, which is called St. Mary's
+Society, undertakes to place them out as servants, or by the day as
+needlewomen.  Now this institution is managed by such charitable persons,
+that they themselves undertake to supply an outfit, when the young women,
+received under their protection are not sufficiently well clothed to
+accept the places destined for them."
+
+This plausible explanation of Florine's magnificent offers appeared to
+satisfy the hearer.  "I can now understand the high wages of which you
+speak, mademoiselle," resumed she; "only I have no claim to be patronized
+by the charitable persons who direct this establishment."
+
+"You suffer--you are laborious and honest--those are sufficient claims;
+only, I must tell you, they will ask if you perform regularly your
+religious duties."
+
+"No one loves and blesses God more fervently than I do, mademoiselle,"
+said the hunchback, with mild firmness; "but certain duties are an affair
+of conscience, and I would rather renounce this patronage, than be
+compelled "
+
+"Not the least in the world.  Only, as I told you, there are very pious
+persons at the head of this institution, and you must not be astonished
+at their questions on such a subject.  Make the trial, at all events;
+what do you risk?  If the propositions are suitable--accept them; if, on
+the contrary, they should appear to touch  your liberty of conscience,
+you can always refuse--your position will not be the worse for it."
+
+Mother Bunch had nothing to object to this reasoning which left her at
+perfect freedom, and disarmed her of all suspicion.  "On these terms,
+mademoiselle," said she, "I accept your offer, and thank you with all my
+heart.  But who will introduce me?"
+
+"I will--to-morrow, if you please."
+
+"But they will perhaps desire to make some inquiries about me."
+
+"The venerable Mother Sainte-Perpetue, Superior of St, Mary's Convent,
+where the institution is established, will, I am sure, appreciate your
+good qualities without inquiry; but if otherwise, she will tell you, and
+you can easily satisfy her.  It is then agreed--to-morrow."
+
+"Shall I call upon you here, mademoiselle?"
+
+"No; as I told you before, they must not know that you came here on the
+part of M. Agricola, and a second visit might be discovered, and excite
+suspicion.  I will come and fetch you in a coach; where do you live?"
+
+"At No. 3, Rue Brise-Miche; as you are pleased to give yourself so much
+trouble, mademoiselle, you have only to ask the dyer, who acts as porter,
+to call down Mother Bunch."
+
+"Mother Bunch?" said Florine, with surprise.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle," answered the sempstress, with a sad smile; "it is
+the name every one gives me.  And you see," added the hunchback, unable
+to restrain a tear, "it is because of my ridiculous infirmity, to which
+this name alludes, that I dread going out to work among strangers,
+because there are so many people who laugh at one, without knowing the
+pain they occasion.  But," continued she, drying her eyes, "I have no
+choice, and must make up my mind to it."
+
+Florine, deeply affected, took the speaker's hand, and said to her: "Do
+not fear.  Misfortunes like yours must inspire compassion, not ridicule.
+May I not inquire for you by your real name?"
+
+"It is Magdalen Soliveau; but I repeat, mademoiselle, that you had better
+ask for Mother Bunch, as I am hardly known by any other name."
+
+"I will, then, be in the Rue Brise-Miche to-morrow, at twelve o'clock."
+
+"Oh, mademoiselle! How can I ever requite your goodness?"
+
+"Don't speak of it: I only hope my interference may be of use to you.
+But of this you must judge for yourself.  As for M. Agricola, do not
+answer his letter; wait till he is out of prison, and then tell him to
+keep his secret till he can see my poor mistress."
+
+"And where is the dear young lady now?"
+
+"I cannot tell you.  I do not know where they took her, when she was
+attacked with this frenzy.  You will expect me to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes--to-morrow," said Mother Bunch.
+
+The convent whither Florine was to conduct the hunchback contained the
+daughters of Marshal Simon, and was next door to the lunatic asylum of
+Dr. Baleinier, in which Adrienne de Cardoville was confined.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MOTHER SAINTE-PERPETUE.
+
+St. Mary's Convent, whither the daughters of Marshal Simon had been
+conveyed, was a large old building, the vast garden of which was on the
+Boulevard de l'Hopital, one of the most retired places in Paris,
+particularly at this period.  The following scenes took place on the 12th
+February, the eve of the fatal day, on which the members of the family of
+Rennepont, the last descendants of the sister of the Wandering Jew, were
+to meet together in the Rue St. Francois.  St. Mary's Convent was a model
+of perfect regularity.  A superior council, composed of influential
+ecclesiastics, with Father d'Aigrigny for president, and of women of
+great reputed piety, at the head of whom was the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier, frequently assembled in deliberation, to consult on the means of
+extending and strengthening the secret and powerful influence of this
+establishment, which had already made remarkable progress.
+
+Skillful combinations and deep foresight had presided at the foundation
+of St. Mary's Convent, which, in consequence of numerous donations,
+possessed already real estate to a great extent, and was daily augmenting
+its acquisitions.  The religious community was only a pretext; but,
+thanks to an extensive connection, kept up by means of the most decided
+members of the ultramontane (i. e. high-church) party, a great number of
+rich orphans were placed in the convent, there to receive a solid,
+austere, religious education, very preferable, it was said, to the
+frivolous instruction which might be had in the fashionable boarding-
+schools, infected by the corruption of the age.  To widows also, and lone
+women who happened moreover to he rich, the convent offered a sure asylum
+from the dangers and temptations of the world; in this peaceful retreat,
+they enjoyed a delightful calm, and secured their salvation, whilst
+surrounded by the most tender and affectionate attentions.  Nor was this
+all.  Mother Sainte-Perpetue, the superior of the convent, undertook in
+the name of the institution to procure for the faithful, who wished to
+preserve the interior of their houses from the depravity of the age,
+companions for aged ladies, domestic servants, or needlewomen working by
+the day, all selected persons whose morality could be warranted.  Nothing
+would seem more worthy of sympathy and encouragement than such an
+institution; but we shall presently unveil the vast and dangerous network
+of intrigue concealed under these charitable and holy appearances.  The
+lady Superior, Mother Sainte-Perpetue, was a tall woman of about forty
+years of age, clad in a stuff dress of the Carmelite tan color, and
+wearing a long rosary at her waist; a white cap tied under the chin, and
+a long black veil, closely encircled her thin, sallow face.  A number of
+deep wrinkles had impressed their transverse furrows in her forehead of
+yellow ivory; her marked and prominent nose was bent like the beak of a
+bird of prey; her black eye was knowing and piercing; the expression of
+her countenance was at once intelligent, cold and firm.
+
+In the general management of the pecuniary affairs of the community,
+Mother Sainte-Perpetue would have been a match for the most cunning
+attorney.  When women are possessed of what is called a talent for
+business, and apply to it their keen penetration, their indefatigable
+perseverance, their prudent dissimulation, and, above all, that quick and
+exact insight, which is natural to them, the results are often
+prodigious.  To Mother Sainte-Perpetue, a woman of the coolest and
+strongest intellect, the management of the vast transactions of the
+community was mere child's play.  No one knew better how to purchase a
+depreciated property, to restore it to its former value, and then sell it
+with advantage; the price of stock, the rate of exchange, the current
+value of the shares in the different companies, were all familiar to her;
+she had yet never been known to make bad speculation, when the question
+was to invest any of the funds which were given by pious souls for the
+purposes of the convent.  She had established in the house the utmost
+order and discipline, and, above all, an extreme economy.  The constant
+aim of all her efforts was to enrich, not herself, but the community she
+directed; for the spirit of association, when become a collective
+egotism, gives to corporations the faults and vices of an individual.
+Thus a congregation may dote upon power and money, just as a miser loves
+them for their own sake.  But it is chiefly with regard to estates that
+congregations act like a single man.  They dream of landed property; it
+is their fixed idea, their fruitful monomania.  They pursue it with their
+most sincere, and warm, and tender wishes.
+
+The first estate is to a rising little community what the wedding-
+trousseau is to a young bride, his first horse to a youth, his first
+success to a poet, to a gay girl her first fifty-guinea shawl; because,
+after all, in this material age, an estate gives a certain rank to a
+society on the Religious Exchange, and has so much the more effect upon
+the simple-minded, that all these partnerships in the work of salvation,
+which end by becoming immensely rich, begin with modest poverty as social
+stock-in-trade, and charity towards their neighbors as security reserve
+fund.  We may therefore imagine what bitter and ardent rivalry must exist
+between the different congregations with regard to the various estates
+that each can lay claim to; with what ineffable satisfaction the richer
+society crushes the poorer beneath its inventory of houses, and farms and
+paper securities!  Envy and hateful jealousy, rendered still more
+irritable by the leisure of a cloistered life, are the necessary
+consequences of such a comparison; and yet nothing is less Christian--in
+the adorable acceptation of that divine word--nothing has less in common
+with the true, essential, and religiously social spirit of the gospel,
+than this insatiable ardor to acquire wealth by every possible means--
+this dangerous avidity, which is far from being atoned for, in the eyes
+of public opinion, by a few paltry alms, bestowed in the narrow spirit of
+exclusion and intolerance.
+
+Mother Sainte-Perpetue was seated before a large cylindrical-fronted desk
+in the centre of an apartment simply but comfortably furnished.  An
+excellent fire burned within the marble chimney, and a soft carpet
+covered the floor.  The superior, to whom all letters addressed to the
+sisters or the boarders were every day delivered, had just been opening
+she first, according to her acknowledged right, and carefully unsealing
+the second, without their knowing it, according to a right that she
+ascribed to herself, of course, with a view to the salvation of those
+dear creatures; and partly, perhaps, a little to make herself acquainted
+with their correspondence, for she also had imposed on herself the duty
+of reading all letters that were sent from the convent, before they were
+put into the post.  The traces of this pious and innocent inquisition
+were easily effaced, for the good mother possessed a whole arsenal of
+steel tools, some very sharp, to cut the pager imperceptibly round the
+seal--others, pretty little rods, to be slightly heated and rolled round
+the edge of the seal, when the letter had been read and replaced in its
+envelope, so that the wax, spreading as it melted, might cover the first
+incision.  Moreover, from a praiseworthy feeling of justice and equality,
+there was in the arsenal of the good mother a little fumigator of the
+most ingenious construction, the damp and dissolving vapor of which was
+reserved for the letters humbly and modestly secured with wafers, thus
+softened, they yielded to the least efforts, without any tearing of the
+paper.  According to the importance of the revelations, which she thus
+gleaned from the writers of the letters, the superior took notes more or
+less extensive.  She was interrupted in this investigation by two gentle
+taps at the bolted door.  Mother Sainte-Perpetue immediately let down the
+sliding cylinder of her cabinet, so as to cover the secret arsenal, and
+went to open the door with a grave and solemn air.  A lay sister came to
+announce to her that the Princess de Saint-Dizier was waiting for her in
+the parlor, and that Mdlle. Florine, accompanied by a young girl,
+deformed and badly dressed, was waiting at the door of the little
+corridor.
+
+"Introduce the princess first," said Mother Sainte Perpetue.  And, with
+charming forethought, she drew an armchair to the fire.  Mme. de Saint-
+Dizier entered.
+
+Without pretensions to juvenile coquetry, still the princess was
+tastefully and elegantly dressed.  She wore a black velvet bonnet of the
+most fashionable make, a large blue cashmere shawl, and a black satin
+dress, trimmed with sable, to match the fur of her muff.
+
+"To what good fortune am I again to-day indebted for the honor of your
+visit, my dear daughter?" said the superior, graciously.
+
+"A very important recommendation, my dear mother, though I am in a great
+hurry.  I am expected at the house of his Eminence, and have,
+unfortunately, only a few minutes to spare.  I have again to speak of the
+two orphans who occupied our attention so long yesterday."
+
+"They continue to be kept separate, according to your wish; and this
+separation has had such an effect upon them that I have been obliged to
+send this morning for Dr. Baleinier, from his asylum.  He found much
+fever joined to great depression, and, singular enough, absolutely the
+same symptoms in both cases.  I have again questioned these unfortunate
+creatures, and have been quite confounded and terrified to find them
+perfect heathens."
+
+"It was, you see, very urgent to place them in your care.  But to the
+subject of my visit, my dear mother: we have just learned the unexpected
+return of the soldier who brought these girls to France, and was thought
+to be absent for some days; but he is in Paris, and, notwithstanding his
+age, a man of extraordinary boldness, enterprise and energy.  Should he
+discover that the girls are here (which, however, is fortunately almost
+impossible), in his rage at seeing them removed from his impious
+influence, he would be capable of anything.  Therefore let me entreat
+you, my dear mother, to redouble your precautions, that no one may effect
+an entrance by night.  This quarter of the town is so deserted!"
+
+"Be satisfied, my dear daughter; we are sufficiently guarded.  Our porter
+and gardeners, all well armed, make a round every night on the side of
+the Boulevard de l'Hopital.  The walls are high, and furnished with
+spikes at the more accessible places.  But I thank you, my dear daughter,
+for having warned me.  We will redouble our precautions."
+
+"Particularly this night, my dear mother."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because if this infernal soldier has the audacity to attempt such a
+thing, it will be this very night."
+
+"How do you know, my dear daughter?"
+
+"We have information which makes us certain of it," replied the princess,
+with a slight embarrassment, which did not escape the notice of the
+Superior, though she was too crafty and reserved to appear to see it;
+only she suspected that many things were concealed from her.
+
+"This night, then," resumed Mother Sainte-Perpetue, "we will be more than
+ever on our guard.  But as I have the pleasure of seeing you, my dear
+daughter, I will take the opportunity to say a word or two on the subject
+of that marriage we mentioned."
+
+"Yes, my dear mother," said the princess, hastily, "for it is very
+important.  The young Baron de Brisville is a man full of ardent devotion
+in these times of revolutionary impiety; he practises openly, and is able
+to render us great services.  He is listened to in the Chamber, and does
+not want for a sort of aggressive and provoking eloquence; I know not any
+one whose tone is more insolent with regard to his faith, and the plan is
+a good one, for this cavalier and open manner of speaking of sacred
+things raises and excites the curiosity of the indifferent.
+Circumstances are happily such that he may show the most audacious
+violence towards our enemies, without the least danger to himself, which,
+of course, redoubles his ardor as a would-be martyr.  In a word, he is
+altogether ours, and we, in return, must bring about this marriage.  You
+know, besides, my dear mother, that he proposes to offer a donation of a
+hundred thousand francs to St. Mary's the day he gains possession of the
+fortune of Mdlle. Baudricourt."
+
+"I have never doubted the excellent intentions of M. de Brisville with
+regard to an institution which merits the sympathy of all pious persons,"
+answered the superior, discreetly; "but I did not expect to meet with so
+many obstacles on the part of the young lady."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"This girl, whom I always believed a most simple, submissive, timid,
+almost idiotic person--instead of being delighted with this proposal of
+marriage, asks time to consider!"
+
+"It is really pitiable!"
+
+"She opposes to me an inert resistance.  It is in vain for me to speak
+severely, and tell her that, having no parents or friends, and being
+absolutely confided to my care, she ought to see with my eyes, hear with
+my ears, and when I affirm that this union is suitable in all respects,
+give her adhesion to it without delay or reflection."
+
+"No doubt.  It would be impossible to speak more sensibly."
+
+"She answers that she wishes to see M. de Brisville, and know his
+character before being engaged."
+
+"It is absurd--since you undertake to answer for his morality, and esteem
+this a proper marriage."
+
+"Therefore, I remarked to Mdlle. Baudricourt, this morning, that till now
+I had only employed gentle persuasion, but that, if she forced me to it,
+I should be obliged, in her own interest, to act with rigor, to conquer
+so much obstinacy that I should have to separate her from her companions,
+and to confine her closely in a cell, until she made up her mind, after
+all, to consult her own happiness, and--marry an honorable man."
+
+"And these menaces, my dear mother?"
+
+"Will, I hope, have a good effect.  She kept up a correspondence with an
+old school-friend in the country.  I have put a stop to this, for it
+appeared to me dangerous.  She is now under my sole influence, and I hope
+we shall attain our ends; but you see, my dear daughter, it is never
+without crosses and difficulties that we succeed in doing good!"
+
+"And I feel certain that M. de Brisville will even go beyond his first
+promise, and I will pledge myself for him, that, should he marry Mdlle.
+Baudricourt--"
+
+"You know, my dear daughter," said the superior, interrupting the
+princess, "that if I were myself concerned, I would refuse everything;
+but to give to this institution is to give to Heaven, and I cannot
+prevent M. de Brisville from augmenting the amount of his good works.
+Then, you see, we are exposed to a sad disappointment."
+
+"What is that, my dear mother?"
+
+"The Sacred Heart Convent disputes an estate with us that would have
+suited us exactly.  Really, some people are quite insatiable!  I gave the
+lady superior my opinion upon it pretty freely."
+
+"She told me as much," answered Madame de Saint-Dizier, "and laid the
+blame on the steward."
+
+"Oh! so you see her, my dear daughter?" exclaimed the superior, with an
+air of great surprise.
+
+"I met her at the bishop's," answered Madame de Saint-Dizier, with a
+slight degree of hesitation, that Mother Sainte-Perpetue did not appear
+to notice.
+
+"I really do not know," resumed the latter, "why our establishment should
+excite so violently the jealousy of the Sacred Heart.  There is not an
+evil report that they have not spread with regard to St. Mary's Convent.
+Certain persons are always offended by the success of their neighbors!"
+
+"Come, my dear mother," said the princess, in a conciliating tone, "we
+must hope that the donation of M. de Brisville will enable you to outbid
+the Sacred Heart.  This marriage will have a double advantage, you see,
+my dear mother; it will place a large fortune at the disposal of a man
+who is devoted to us, and who will employ it as we wish; and it will also
+greatly increase the importance of his position as our defender, by the
+addition to his income of 100,000 francs a year.  We shall have at length
+an organ worthy of our cause, and shall no longer be obliged to look for
+defenders amongst such people as that Dumoulin."
+
+"There is great power and much learning in the writings of the man you
+name.  It is the style of a Saint Bernard, in wrath at the impiety of the
+age."
+
+"Alas, my dear mother! if you only knew what a strange Saint Bernard this
+Dumoulin is!  But I will not offend your ears; all I can tell you is,
+that such defenders would compromise the most sacred cause.  Adieu, my
+dear mother! pray redouble your precautions to-night--the return of this
+soldier is alarming."
+
+"Be quite satisfied, my dear daughter!  Oh! I forgot.  Mdlle. Florine
+begged me to ask you a favor.  It is to let her enter your service.  You
+know the fidelity she displayed in watching your unfortunate niece; I
+think that, by rewarding her in this way, you will attach her to you
+completely, and I shall feel grateful on her account."
+
+"If you interest yourself the least in the world in Florine, my dear
+mother, the thing is done.  I will take her into my service.  And now it
+strikes me, she may be more useful to me than I thought."
+
+"A thousand thanks, my dear daughter, for such obliging attention to my
+request.  I hope we shall soon meet again.  The day after to-morrow, at
+two o'clock, we have a long conference with his Eminence and the Bishop;
+do not forget!"
+
+"No, my dear mother; I shall take care to be exact.  Only, pray, redouble
+your precautions to-night for fear of a great scandal!"
+
+After respectfully kissing the hand of the superior, the princess went
+out by the great door, which led to an apartment opening on the principal
+staircase.  Some minutes after, Florine entered the room by another way.
+The superior was seated and Florine approached her with timid humility.
+
+"Did you meet the Princess de Saint-Dizier?" asked Mother Sainte
+Perpetue.
+
+"No, mother; I was waiting in the passage, where the windows look out on
+the garden."
+
+"The princess takes you into her service from to-day," said the superior.
+
+Florine made a movement of sorrowful surprise, and exclaimed: "Me,
+mother! but--"
+
+"I asked her in your name, and you have only to accept," answered the
+other imperiously.
+
+"But, mother, I had entreated you--"
+
+"I tell you, that you accept the offer," said the superior, in so firm
+and positive a tone that Florine cast down her eyes, and replied in a low
+voice: "I accept."
+
+"It is in M. Rodin's name that I give you this order."
+
+"I thought so, mother," replied Florine, sadly; "on what conditions am I
+to serve the princess?"
+
+"On the same conditions as those on which you served her niece."
+
+Florine shuddered and said: "I am, then, to make frequent secret reports
+with regard to the princess?"
+
+"You will observe, you will remember, and you will give an account."
+
+"Yes, my mother."
+
+"You will above all direct your attention to the visits that the princess
+may receive from the lady superior of the Sacred Heart.  You must try and
+listen--for we have to preserve the princess from evil influences."
+
+"I will obey, my mother."
+
+"You will also try and discover why two young orphans have been brought
+hither, and recommended to be severely treated, by Madame Grivois, the
+confidential waiting-woman of the princess."
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+"Which must not prevent you from remembering anything else that may be
+worthy of remark.  To-morrow I will give you particular instructions upon
+another subject."
+
+"It is well, mother."
+
+"If you conduct yourself in a satisfactory manner, and execute faithfully
+the instructions of which I speak, you will soon leave the princess to
+enter the service of a young bride; it will be an excellent and lasting
+situation always on the same conditions.  It is, therefore, perfectly
+understood that you have asked me to recommend you to Madame de Saint-
+Dizier."
+
+"Yes, mother; I shall remember."
+
+"Who is this deformed young girl that accompanies you?"
+
+"A poor creature without any resources, very intelligent, and with an
+education above her class; she works at her needle, but is at present
+without employment, and reduced to the last extremity.  I have made
+inquiries about her this morning; she has an excellent character."
+
+"She is ugly and deformed, you say?"
+
+"She has an interesting countenance, but she is deformed."
+
+The superior appeared pleased at this information, and added, after a
+moment's reflection: "She appears intelligent?"
+
+"Very intelligent."
+
+"And is absolutely without resources?"
+
+"Yes, without any."
+
+"Is she pious?"
+
+"She does not practice."
+
+"No matter," said the superior to herself; "if she be intelligent, that
+will suffice."  Then she resumed aloud.  "Do you know if she is a good
+workwoman?"
+
+"I believe so, mother."
+
+The superior rose, took a register from a shelf, appeared to be looking
+into it attentively for some time, and then said, as she replaced it:
+"Fetch in this young girl, and go and wait for me in the press-room."
+
+"Deformed--intelligent--clever at her needle," said the superior,
+reflecting; "she will excite no suspicion.  We must see."
+
+In about a minute, Florine returned with Mother Bunch, whom she
+introduced to the superior, and then discreetly withdrew.  The young
+sempstress was agitated, trembling, and much troubled, for she could, as
+it were, hardly believe a discovery which she had chanced to make during
+Florine's absence.  It was not without a vague sense of terror that the
+hunchback remained alone with the lady superior.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE TEMPTATION.
+
+This was the cause of Mother Bunch's emotion.  Florine, when she went to
+see the superior, had left the young sempstress in a passage supplied
+with benches, and forming a sort of ante-chamber on the first story.
+Being alone, the girl had mechanically approached a window which looked
+upon the convent garden, shut in by a half demolished wall, and
+terminating at one end in an open paling.  This wall was connected with a
+chapel that was still building, and bordered on the garden of a
+neighboring house.  The sewing-girl, at one of the windows on the ground
+floor of this house--a grated window, still more remarkable by the sort
+of tent-like awning above it--beheld a young female, with her eyes fixed
+upon the convent, making signs with her hand, at once encouraging and
+affectionate.  From the window where she stood, Mother Bunch could not
+see to whom these signs were addressed; but she admired the rare beauty
+of the telegrapher, the brilliancy of her complexion, the shining
+blackness of her large eyes, the sweet and benevolent smile which
+lingered on her lips.  There was, no doubt, some answer to her graceful
+and expressive pantomime, for, by a movement full of elegance, the girl
+laid her left hand on her bosom, and waved her right, which seemed to
+indicate that her heart flew towards the place on which she kept her
+eyes.  One faint sunbeam, piercing the clouds, came at this moment to
+play with the tresses of the pale countenance, which, now held close to
+the bars of the window, was suddenly, as it were, illuminated by the
+dazzling reflection of her splendid golden hair.  At sight of that
+charming face, set in its admirable frame of red curls, Mother Bunch
+started involuntarily; the thought of Mdlle. de Cardoville crossed her
+mind, and she felt persuaded (nor was she, indeed, mistaken), that the
+protectress of Agricola was before her.  On thus beholding, in that
+gloomy asylum, this young lady, so marvellously beautiful, and
+remembering the delicate kindness with which a few days before she had
+received Agricola in her luxurious little palace of dazzling splendor,
+the work-girl felt her heart sink within her.  She believed Adrienne
+insane; and yet, as she looked attentively at her, it seemed as if
+intelligence and grace animated that adorable countenance.  Suddenly,
+Mdlle. de Cardoville laid her fingers upon her lips, blew a couple of
+kisses in the direction towards which she had been looking, and all at
+once disappeared.  Reflecting upon the important revelations which
+Agricola had to make to Mdlle. de Cardoville, Mother Bunch regretted
+bitterly that she had no means of approaching her; for she felt sure
+that, if the young lady were mad, the present was a lucid interval.  She
+was yet absorbed in these uneasy reflections, when she saw Florine
+return, accompanied by one of the nuns.  Mother Bunch was obliged,
+therefore, to keep silence with regard to the discovery she had made, and
+soon after she found herself in the superior's presence.  This latter,
+after a rapid and searching examination of the countenance of the young
+workwoman, judged her appearance so timid, gentle and honest, that she
+thought she might repose full confidence in the information given by
+Florine.
+
+"My dear daughter," said Mother Sainte-Perpetue, in an affectionate
+voice, "Florine has told me in what a cruel situation you are placed.  Is
+it true that you are entirely without work?"
+
+"Alas! yes, madame."
+
+"Call me mother, my dear daughter; that name is dearer to me, and it is
+the rule of our house.  I need not ask you what are your principles?"
+
+"I have always lived honestly by my labor, mother," answered the girl,
+with a simplicity at once dignified and modest.
+
+"I believe you, my dear daughter, and I have good reasons for so doing.
+We must thank the Lord, who has delivered you from temptation; but tell
+me--are you clever at your trade?"
+
+"I do my best, mother, and have always satisfied my employers.  If you
+please to try me, you will be able to judge."
+
+"Your affirmation is sufficient, my dear daughter.  You prefer, I think,
+to go out by the day?"
+
+"Mdlle. Florine told me, mother, that I could not have work at home."
+
+"Why, no--not for the present, my child.  If hereafter an opportunity
+should offer, I will think of it.  Just now I have this to propose to
+you.  A very respectable old lady has asked me to recommend to her a
+needle-woman by the day; introduced by me, you will certainly suit her.
+The institution will undertake to clothe you becomingly, and this advance
+we shall retain by degrees out of your wages, for you will look to us for
+payment.  We propose io give you two francs a day; does that appear to
+you sufficient?"
+
+"Oh, mother! it is much more than I could have expected."
+
+"You will, moreover, only be occupied from nine o'clock in the morning
+till six in the evening; you will thus have still some off hours, of
+which you might make use.  You see, the situation is not a hard one."
+
+"Oh! quite the contrary, mother."
+
+"I must tell you, first of all, with whom the institution intends to
+place you.  It is a widow lady, named Mme. de Bremant, a person of the
+most steadfast piety.  In her house, I hope, you will meet with none but
+excellent examples.  If it should be otherwise, you can come and inform
+me."
+
+"How so, mother?" said the sewing-girl, with surprise.
+
+"Listen to me, my dear daughter," said Mother Sainte-Perpetue, in a tone
+ever more and more affectionate; "the institution of St. Mary has a
+double end in view.  You will perfectly understand that, if it is our
+duty to give to masters and mistresses every possible security as to the
+morality of the persons that we place in their families, we are likewise
+bound to give to the persons that we so place out every possible security
+as to the morality of their employers."
+
+"Nothing can be more just and of a wiser foresight, mother."
+
+"Naturally, my dear daughter; for even as a servant of bad morals may
+cause the utmost trouble in a respectable family, so the bad conduct of a
+master or mistress may have the most baneful influence on the persons who
+serve them, or who come to work in their houses.  Now, it is to offer a
+mutual guarantee to good masters and honest servants, that we have
+founded this institution."
+
+"Oh, madame!" cried Mother Bunch, with simplicity; "such designs merit
+the thanks and blessings of every one."
+
+"And blessings do not fail us, my dear daughter, because we perform our
+promises.  Thus, an interesting workwoman--such as you, for example--is
+placed with persons that we suppose irreproachable.  Should she, however,
+perceive, on the part of her employers, or on that of the persons who
+frequent the house, any irregularity of morals, any tendency to what
+would offend her modesty, or shock her religious principles, she should
+immediately give us a detailed account of the circumstances that have
+caused her alarm.  Nothing can be more proper--don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes, mother," answered Mother Bunch, timidly, for she began to find this
+provision somewhat singular.
+
+"Then," resumed the superior, "if the case appears a serious one, we
+exhort our befriended one to observe what passes more attentively, so as
+to convince herself whether she had really reason to be alarmed.  She
+makes a new report to us, and should it confirm our first fears, faithful
+to our pious guardianship, we withdraw her instantly from the house.
+Moreover, as the majority of our young people, notwithstanding their
+innocence and virtue, have not always sufficient experience to
+distinguish what may be injurious to their soul's health, we think it
+greatly to their interest that they should confide to us once a week, as
+a child would to her mother, either in person or by letter, whatever has
+chanced to occur in the house in which we have placed them.  Then we can
+judge for them, whether to withdraw them or not.  We have already about a
+hundred persons, companions to ladies, young women in shops, servants,
+and needlewomen by the day, whom we have placed in a great number of
+families, and, for the interest of all, we have every reason to
+congratulate ourselves on this mode of proceeding.  You understand me, do
+you not, my dear daughter?"
+
+"Yes-yes, mother," said the sempstress, more and more embarrassed.  She
+had too much uprightness and sagacity not to perceive that this plan of
+mutually insuring the morality of masters and servants resembled a vast
+spy system, brought home to the domestic hearth, and carried on by the
+members of the institution almost without their knowledge, for it would
+have been difficult to disguise more skillfully the employment for which
+they were trained.
+
+"If I have entered into these long details my dear daughter," resumed
+Mother Sainte-Perpetue, taking the hearer's silence for consent, "it is
+that you may not suppose yourself obliged to remain in the house in
+question, if, against our expectation, you should not find there holy and
+pious examples.  I believe Mme. de Bremont's house to be a pure and godly
+place; only I have heard (though I will not believe it) that Mme. de
+Bremont's daughter, Mme. de Noisy, who has lately come to reside with
+her, is not so exemplary in her conduct as could be desired, that she
+does not fulfil regularly her religious duties, and that, during the
+absence of her husband, who is now in America, she receives visits,
+unfortunately too frequent, from one M. Hardy, a rich manufacturer."
+
+At the name of Agricola's master, Mother Bunch could not suppress a
+movement of surprise, and also blushed slightly.  The superior naturally
+mistook this surprise and confusion for a proof of the modest
+susceptibility of the young sempstress, and added: "I have told you all
+this, my dear daughter, that you might be on your guard.  I have even
+mentioned reports that I believe to be completely erroneous, for the
+daughter of Mme. de Bremont has always had such good examples before her
+that she cannot have so forgotten them.  But, being in the house from
+morning to night, you will be able, better than any one, to discover if
+these reports have any foundation in truth.  Should it unfortunately so
+turn out, my dear daughter, you would come and confide to me all the
+circumstances that have led you to such a conclusion; and, should I then
+agree in your opinion, I would withdraw you instantly from the house--for
+the piety of the mother would not compensate sufficiently for the
+deplorable example of the daughter's conduct.  For, as soon as you form
+part of the institution, I am responsible for your salvation, and, in
+case your delicacy should oblige you to leave Mme. de Bremont's, as you
+might be some time without employment, the institution will allow you, if
+satisfied with your zeal and conduct, one franc a day till we could find
+you another place.  You see, my dear daughter, that you have everything
+to gain with us.  It is therefore agreed that the day after to-morrow you
+go to Mme. de Bremont's."  Mother Bunch found herself in a very hard
+position.  Sometimes she thought that her first suspicions were
+confirmed, and, notwithstanding her timidity, her pride felt hurt at the
+supposition, that, because they knew her poor, they should believe her
+capable of selling herself as a spy for the sake of high wages.
+Sometimes, on the contrary, her natural delicacy revolted at the idea
+that a woman of the age and condition of the superior could descend to
+make a proposition so disgraceful both to the accepter and the proposer,
+and she reproached herself with her first doubts and asked herself if the
+superior had not wished to try her, before employing her, to see if her
+probity would enable her to resist a comparatively brilliant offer.
+Mother Bunch was naturally so inclined to think well of every one, that
+she made up her mind to this last conclusion, saying to herself, that if,
+after all, she were deceived, it would be the least offensive mode of
+refusing these unworthy offers.  With a movement, exempt from all
+haughtiness, but expressive of natural dignity, the young workman raised
+her head, which she had hitherto held humbly cast down, looked the
+superior full in the face, that the latter might read in her countenance
+the sincerity of her words, and said to her in a slightly agitated voice,
+forgetting this time to call her "mother": "Ah, madame!  I cannot blame
+you for exposing me to such a trial.  You see that I am very poor, and I
+have yet done nothing to command your confidence.  But, believe me, poor
+as I am, I would never stoop to so despicable an action as that which you
+have thought fit to propose to me, no doubt to assure yourself, by my
+refusal, that I am worthy of your kindness.  No, no, madame--I could
+never bring myself to be a spy at any price."
+
+She pronounced these last words with so much animation that her cheeks
+became slightly flushed.  The superior had too much tact and experience
+not to perceive the sincerity of the words.  Thinking herself lucky that
+the young girl should put this construction upon the affair, she smiled
+upon her affectionately, and stretched out her arms to her, saying: "It
+is well, my dear daughter.  Come and embrace me!"
+
+"Mother--I am really confused--with so much kindness--"
+
+"No--you deserve it--your words are so full of truth and honesty.  Only
+be persuaded that I have not put you to any trial, because there is no
+resemblance between the act of a spy and the marks of filial confidence
+that we require of our members for the sake of watching over their
+morals.  But certain persons--I see you are of the number, my dear
+daughter--have such fixed principles, and so mature a judgment, that they
+can do without our advice and guardianship, and can appreciate themselves
+whatever might be dangerous to their salvation.  I will therefore leave
+the entire responsibility to yourself, and only ask you for such
+communications as you may think proper to make."
+
+"Oh, madame! how good you are!" said poor Mother Bunch, for she was not
+aware of the thousand devices of the monastic spirit, and thought herself
+already sure of gaining just wages honorably.
+
+"It is not goodness--but justice!" answered Mother Sainte-Perpetue, whose
+tone was becoming more and more affectionate.  "Too much tenderness
+cannot be shown to pious young women like you, whom poverty has only
+purified because they have always faithfully observed the divine laws."
+
+"Mother--"
+
+"One last question, my child! how many times a month do you approach the
+Lord's table?"
+
+"Madame," replied the hunchback, "I have not taken the sacrament since my
+first communion, eight years ago.  I am hardly able, by working every
+day, and all day long, to earn my bread.  I have no time--"
+
+"Gracious heaven!" cried the superior, interrupting, and clasping her
+hands with all the signs of painful astonishment.  "Is it possible? you
+do not practise?"
+
+"Alas, madame! I tell you that I have no time," answered Mother Bunch,
+looking disconcertedly at Mother Saint-Perpetue.
+
+"I am grieved, my dear daughter," said the latter sorrowfully, after a
+moment's silence, "but I told you that, as we place our friends in none
+but pious houses, so we are asked to recommend none but pious persons,
+who practise their religious duties.  It is one of the indispensable
+conditions of our institution.  It will, therefore, to my great regret,
+be impossible for me to employ you as I had hoped.  If, hereafter, you
+should renounce your present indifference to those duties, we will then
+see."
+
+"Madame," said Mother Bunch, her heart swollen with tears, for she was
+thus forced to abandon a cheering hope, "I beg pardon for having detained
+you so long--for nothing."
+
+"It is I, my dear daughter, who regret not to be able to attach you to
+the institution; but I am not altogether hopeless, that a person, already
+so worthy of interest, will one day deserve by her piety the lasting
+support of religious people.  Adieu, my dear daughter! go in peace, and
+may God be merciful to you, until the day that you return with your whole
+heart to Him!"
+
+So saying, the superior rose, and conducted her visitor to the door, with
+all the forms of the most maternal kindness.  At the moment she crossed
+the threshold, she said to her: "Follow the passage, go down a few steps,
+and knock at the second door on the right hand.  It is the press-room,
+and there you will find Florine.  She will show you the way out.  Adieu,
+my dear daughter!"
+
+As soon as Mother Bunch had left the presence of the superior, her tears,
+until now restrained, gushed forth abundantly.  Not wishing to appear
+before Florine and the nuns in this state, she stopped a moment at one of
+the windows to dry her eyes.  As she looked mechanically towards the
+windows of the next house, where she fancied she had seen Adrienne de
+Cardoville, she beheld the latter come from a door in the building, and
+advance rapidly towards the open paling that separated the two gardens.
+At the same instant, and to her great astonishment, Mother Bunch saw one
+of the two sisters whose disappearance had caused the despair of
+Dagobert, with pale and dejected countenance, approach the fence that
+separated her from Mdlle. de Cardoville, trembling with fear and anxiety,
+as though she dreaded to be discovered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+MOTHER BUNCH AND MDLLE. DE CARDOVILLE.
+
+Agitated, attentive, uneasy, leaning from one of the convent-windows, the
+work-girl followed with her eyes the movements of Mdlle. de Cardoville
+and Rose Simon, whom she so little expected to find together in such a
+place.  The orphan, approaching close to the fence, which separated the
+nunnery-garden from that of Dr. Baleinier's asylum, spoke a few words to
+Adrienne, whose features at once expressed astonishment, indignation, and
+pity.  At this juncture, a nun came running, and looking right and left,
+as though anxiously seeking for some one; then, perceiving Rose, who
+timidly pressed close to the paling, she seized her by the arm, and
+seemed to scold her severely, and notwithstanding some energetic words
+addressed to her by Mdlle. de Cardoville, she hastily carried off the
+orphan, who with weeping eyes, turned several times to look back at
+Adrienne; whilst the latter, after showing the interest she took in her
+by expressive gestures, turned away suddenly, as if to conceal her tears.
+
+The passage in which the witness stood, during this touching scene, was
+situated on the first story.  The thought immediately occurred to the
+sempstress, to go down to the ground-floor, and try to get into the
+garden, so that she might have an opportunity of speaking to the fair
+girl with the golden hair, and ascertaining if it were really Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, to whom; if she found her in a lucid interval, she might say
+that Agricola had things of the greatest importance to communicate, but
+that he did not know how to inform her of them.  The day was advancing,
+the sun was on its decline, and fearing that Florine would be tired of
+waiting for her, Mother Bunch made haste to act; with a light step,
+listening anxiously as she went, she reached the end of the passage,
+where three or four stairs led down to the landing-place of the press-
+room, and then formed a spiral descent to the ground-floor.  Hearing
+voices in the pressroom, the sempstress hastened down the stairs, and
+found herself in a long passage, in the centre of which was a glass door,
+opening on that part of the garden reserved for the superior.  A path,
+bordered by a high box-hedge, sheltered her from the gaze of curious
+eyes, and she crept along it, till she reached the open paling; which, at
+this spot, separated the convent-garden from that of Dr. Baleinier's
+asylum.  She saw Mdlle. de Cardoville a few steps from her, seated, and
+with her arm resting upon a rustic bench.  The firmness of Adrienne's
+character had for a moment been shaken by fatigue, astonishment, fright,
+despair, on the terrible night when she had been taken to the asylum by
+Dr. Baleinier; and the latter, taking a diabolical advantage of her
+weakness and despondency, had succeeded for a moment in making her doubt
+of her own sanity.  But the calm, which necessarily follows the most
+painful and violent emotions, combined with the reflection and reasoning
+of a clear and subtle intellect, soon convinced Adrienne of the
+groundlessness of the fears inspired by the crafty doctor.  She no longer
+believed that it could even be a mistake on the part of the man of
+science.  She saw clearly in the conduct of this man, in which detestable
+hypocrisy was united with rare audacity, and both served by a skill no
+less remarkable, that M. Baleinier was, in fact, the blind instrument of
+the Princess de Saint-Dizier.  From that moment, she remained silent and
+calm, but full of dignity; not a complaint, not a reproach was allowed to
+pass her lips.  She waited.  Yet, though they left her at liberty to walk
+about (carefully depriving her of all means of communicating with any one
+beyond the walls), Adrienne's situation was harsh and painful,
+particularly for her, who so loved to be surrounded by pleasant and
+harmonious objects.  She felt, however, that this situation could not
+last long.  She did not thoroughly understand the penetration and action
+of the laws; but her good sense taught her, that a confinement of a few
+days under the plea of some appearances of insanity, more or less
+plausible in themselves, might be attempted, and even executed with
+impunity; but that it could not be prolonged beyond certain limits,
+because, after all, a young lady of her rank in society could not
+disappear suddenly from the world, without inquiries being made on the
+subject--and the pretence of a sudden attack of madness would lead to a
+serious investigation.  Whether true or false, this conviction had
+restored Adrienne to her accustomed elasticity and energy of character.
+And yet she sometimes in vain asked herself the cause of this attempt on
+her liberty.  She knew too well the Princess de Saint-Dizier, to believe
+her capable of acting in this way, without a certain end in view, and
+merely for the purpose of inflicting a momentary pang.  In this, Mdlle.
+de Cardoville was not deceived: Father d'Aigrigny and the princess were
+both persuaded, that Adrienne, better informed than she wished to
+acknowledge, knew how important it was for her to find herself in the
+house in the Rue Saint-Francois on the 13th of February, and was
+determined to maintain her rights.  In shutting up Adrienne as mad, it
+was intended to strike a fatal blow at her future prospects; but this
+last precaution was useless, for Adrienne, though upon the true scent of
+the family-secret they lead wished to conceal from her, had not yet
+entirely penetrated its meaning, for want of certain documents, which had
+been lost or hidden.
+
+Whatever had been the motives for the odious conduct of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's enemies, she was not the less disgusted at it.  No one could
+be more free from hatred or revenge, than was this generous young girl,
+but when she thought of all the sufferings which the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier, Abbe d'Aigrigny, and Dr. Baleinier had occasioned her, she
+promised herself, not reprisals, but a striking reparation.  If it were
+refused her, she was resolved to combat--without truce or rest--this
+combination of craft, hypocrisy, and cruelty, not from resentment for
+what she had endured, but to preserve from the same torments other
+innocent victims, who might not, like her, be able to struggle and defend
+themselves.  Adrienne, still under the painful impression which had been
+caused by her interview with Rose Simon, was leaning against one of the
+sides of the rustic bench on which she was seated, and held her left hand
+over her eyes.  She had laid down her bonnet beside her, and the inclined
+position of her head brought the long golden curls over her fair, shining
+cheeks.  In this recumbent attitude, so full of careless grace, the
+charming proportions of her figure were seen to advantage beneath a
+watered green dress, while a broad collar, fastened with a rose-colored
+satin bow, and fine lace cuffs, prevented too strong a contrast between
+the hue of her dress and the dazzling whiteness of the swan-like neck and
+Raphaelesque hands, imperceptibly veined with tiny azure lines.  Over the
+high and well-formed instep, were crossed the delicate strings of a
+little, black satin shoe--for Dr. Baleinier had allowed her to dress
+herself with her usual taste, and elegance of costume was not with
+Adrienne a mark of coquetry, but of duty towards herself, because she had
+been made so beautiful.  At sight of this young lady, whose dress and
+appearance she admired in all simplicity, without any envious or bitter
+comparison with her own poor clothes and deformity of person, Mother
+Bunch said immediately to herself, with the good sense and sagacity
+peculiar to her, that it was strange a mad woman should dress so sanely
+and gracefully.  It was therefore with a mixture of surprise and emotion
+that she approached the fence which separated her from Adrienne--
+reflecting, however, that the unfortunate girl might still be insane, and
+that this might turn out to be merely a lucid interval.  And now, with a
+timid voice, but loud enough to be heard, Mother Bunch, in order to
+assure herself of Adrienne's identity, said, whilst her heart beat fast:
+"Mdlle. de Cardoville!"
+
+"Who calls me?" said Adrienne.  On hastily raising her head, and
+perceiving the hunchback, she could not suppress a slight cry of
+surprise, almost fright.  For indeed this poor creature, pale, deformed,
+miserably clad, thus appearing suddenly before her, must have inspired
+Mdlle, de Cardoville, so passionately fond of grace and beauty, with a
+feeling of repugnance, if not of terror--and these two sentiments were
+both visible in her expressive countenance.
+
+The other did not perceive the impression she had made.  Motionless, with
+her eyes fixed, and her hands clasped in a sort of adoring admiration,
+she gazed on the dazzling beauty of Adrienne, whom she had only half seen
+through the grated window.  All that Agricola had told her of the charms
+of his protectress, appeared to her a thousand times below the reality;
+and never, even in her secret poetic visions, had she dreamed of such
+rare perfection.  Thus, by a singular contrast, a feeling of mutual
+surprise came over these two girls--extreme types of deformity and
+beauty, wealth and wretchedness.  After rendering, as it were, this
+involuntary homage to Adrienne, Mother Bunch advanced another step
+towards the fence.
+
+"What do you want?" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, rising with a sentiment
+of repugnance, which could not escape the work-girl's notice;
+accordingly, she held down her head timidly, and said in a soft voice: "I
+beg your pardon, madame, to appear so suddenly before you.  But moments
+are precious, I come from Agricola."
+
+As she pronounced these words, the sempstress raised her eyes anxiously,
+fearing that Mdlle. de Cardoville might have forgotten the name of the
+workman.  But, to her great surprise and joy, the fears of Adrienne
+seemed to diminish at the name of Agricola, and approaching the fence,
+she looked at the speaker with benevolent curiosity.
+
+"You come from M. Agricola Baudoin?" said she.  "Who are you?"
+
+"His adopted sister, madame--a poor needlewoman, who lives in the same
+house."
+
+Adrienne appeared to collect her thoughts, and said, smiling kindly,
+after a moment's silence: "It was you then, who persuaded M. Agricola to
+apply to me to procure him bail?"
+
+"Oh, madame, do you remember--"
+
+"I never forget anything that is generous and noble.  M. Agricola was
+much affected when he spoke of your devotion.  I remember it well; it
+would be strange if I did not.  But how came you here, in this convent?"
+
+"They told me that I should perhaps be able to get some occupation here,
+as I am out of work.  Unfortunately, I have been refused by the lady
+superior."
+
+"And how did you recognize me?"
+
+"By your great beauty, madame, of which Agricola had told me."
+
+"Or rather by this," said Adrienne, smiling as she lifted, with the tips
+of her rosy fingers, one end of a long, silky ringlet of golden hair.
+
+"You must pardon Agricola, madame," said the sewing girl, with one of
+those half smiles, which rarely settled on her lips: "he is a poet, and
+omitted no single perfection in the respectful and admiring description
+which he gave of his protectress."
+
+"And what induced you to come and speak to me?"
+
+"The hope of being useful to you, madame.  You received Agricola with so
+much goodness, that I have ventured to go shares in his gratitude."
+
+"You may well venture to do so, my dear girl," said Adrienne, with
+ineffable grace; "until now, unfortunately, I have only been able to
+serve your adopted brother by intention."
+
+As they exchanged these words, Adrienne and Mother Bunch looked at each
+other with increasing surprise.  The latter was, first of all, astonished
+that a person who passed for mad should express herself as Adrienne did;
+next, she was amazed at the ease and freedom with which she herself
+answered the questions of Mdlle. de Cardoville--not knowing that the
+latter was endowed with the precious privilege of lofty and benevolent
+natures, to draw out from those who approached her whatever sympathized
+with herself.  On her side, Mdlle. de Cardoville was deeply moved and
+astonished to hear this young, low-born girl, dressed almost like a
+beggar, express herself in terms selected with so much propriety.  The
+more she looked at her, the more the feeling of repugnance she at first
+experienced wore off, and was at length converted into quite the opposite
+sentiment.  With that rapid and minute power of observation natural to
+women, she remarked beneath the black crape of Mother Bunch's cap, the
+smoothness and brilliancy of the fair, chestnut hair.  She remarked, too,
+the whiteness of the long, thin hand, though it displayed itself at the
+end of a patched and tattered sleeve--an infallible proof that care, and
+cleanliness, and self-respect were at least struggling against symptoms
+of fearful distress.  Adrienne discovered, also, in the pale and
+melancholy features, in the expression of the blue eyes, at once
+intelligent, mild and timid, a soft and modest dignity, which made one
+forget the deformed figure.  Adrienne loved physical beauty, and admired
+it passionately, but she had too superior a mind, too noble a soul, too
+sensitive a heart, not to know how to appreciate moral beauty, even when
+it beamed from a humble and suffering countenance.  Only, this kind of
+appreciation was new to Mdlle. de Cardoville; until now, her large
+fortune and elegant habits had kept her at a distance from persons of
+Mother Bunch's class.  After a short silence, during which the fair
+patrician and the poor work-girl had closely examined each other,
+Adrienne said to the other: "It is easy, I think, to explain the cause of
+our mutual astonishment.  You have, no doubt, discovered that I speak
+pretty reasonably for a mad woman--if they have told you I am one.  And
+I," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a tone of respectful commiseration,
+"find that the delicacy of your language and manners so singularly
+contrast with the position in which you appear to be, that my surprise
+must be even greater than yours."
+
+"Ah, madame!" cried Mother Bunch, with a welling forth of such deep and
+sincere joy that the tears started to her eyes; "is it true?--they have
+deceived me--you are not mad!  Just now, when I beheld you so kind and
+beautiful, when I heard the sweet tone of your voice, I could not believe
+that such a misfortune had happened to you.  But, alas! how is it then,
+madame, that you are in this place?"
+
+"Poor child!" said Adrienne, touched by the affectionate interest of this
+excellent creature; "and how is it that you, with such a heart and head,
+should be in such distress?  But be satisfied!  I shall not always be
+here--and that will suffice to tell you, that we shall both resume the
+place which becomes us.  Believe me, I shall never forget how, in spite
+of the painful ideas which must needs occupy your mind, on seeing
+yourself deprived of work--your only resource--you have still thought of
+coming to me, and of trying to serve me.  You may, indeed, be eminently
+useful to me, and I am delighted at it, for then I shall owe you much--
+and you shall see how I will take advantage of my gratitude!" said
+Adrienne, with a sweet smile.  "But," resumed she, "before talking of
+myself, let us think of others.  Is your adopted brother still in
+prison?"
+
+"By this time, madame, I hope he has obtained his freedom; thanks to the
+generosity of one of his comrades.  His father went yesterday to offer
+bail for him, and they promised that he should be released to-day.  But,
+from his prison, he wrote to me, that he had something of importance to
+reveal to you."
+
+"To me?"
+
+"Yes, madame.  Should Agricola be released immediately by what means can
+he communicate with you?"
+
+"He has secrets to tell me!" resumed Mdlle. de Cardoville, with an air of
+thoughtful surprise.  "I seek in vain to imagine what they can be; but so
+long as I am confined in this house, and secluded from every one, M.
+Agricola must not think of addressing himself directly or indirectly to
+me.  He must wait till I am at liberty; but that is not all, he must
+deliver from that convent two poor children, who are much more to be
+pitied than I am.  The daughters of Marshal Simon are detained there
+against their will."
+
+"You know their name, madame?"
+
+"When M. Agricola informed me of their arrival in Paris, he told me they
+were fifteen years old, and that they resembled each other exactly--so
+that, the day before yesterday, when I took my accustomed walk, and
+observed two poor little weeping faces come close to the windows of their
+separate cells, one on the ground floor, the other on the first story, a
+secret presentiment told me that I saw in them the orphans of whom M.
+Agricola had spoken, and in whom I already took a lively interest, as
+being my relations."
+
+"They are your relations, madame, then?"
+
+"Yes, certainly.  So, not being able to do more, I tried to express by
+signs how much I felt for them.  Their tears, and the sadness of their
+charming faces, sufficiently told me that they were prisoners in the
+convent, as I am myself in this house."
+
+"Oh!  I understand, madame--the victim of the animosity of your family?"
+
+"Whatever may be my fate, I am much less to be pitied than these two
+children, whose despair is really alarming.  Their separation is what
+chiefly oppresses them.  By some words that one of them just now said to
+me, I see that they are, like me, the victims of an odious machination.
+But thanks to you, it will be possible to save them: Since I have been in
+this house I have had no communication with any one; they have not
+allowed me pen or paper, so it is impossible to write.  Now listen to me
+attentively, and we shall be able to defeat an odious persecution."
+
+"Oh, speak! speak, madame!"
+
+"The soldier, who brought these orphans to France, the father of M.
+Agricola, is still in town?"
+
+"Yes, madame.  Oh! if you only knew his fury, his despair, when, on his
+return home, he no longer found the children that a dying mother had
+confided to him!"
+
+"He must take care not to act with the least violence.  It would ruin
+all.  Take this ring," said Adrienne, drawing it from her finger, "and
+give it to him.  He must go instantly--are you sure that you can remember
+a name and address?"
+
+"Oh! yes, madame.  Be satisfied on that point.  Agricola only mentioned
+your name once, and I have not forgotten it.  There is a memory of the
+heart."
+
+"I perceive it, my dear girl.  Remember, then, the name of the Count de
+Montbron."
+
+"The Count de Montbron--I shall not forget."
+
+"He is one of my good old friends, and lives on the Place Vendome, No.
+7."
+
+"Place Vendome, No. 7--I shall remember."
+
+"M. Agricola's father must go to him this evening, and, if he is not at
+home, wait for his coming in.  He must ask to speak to him, as if from
+me, and send him this ring as a proof of what he says.  Once with him, he
+must tell him all--the abduction of the girls, the name of the convent
+where they are confined, and my own detention as a lunatic in the asylum
+of Dr. Baleinier.  Truth has an accent of its own, which M. de Montbron
+will recognize.  He is a man of much experience and judgment, and
+possessed of great influence.  He will immediately take the necessary
+steps, and to-morrow, or the day after, these poor orphans and myself
+will be restored to liberty--all thanks to you!  But moments are
+precious; we might be discovered; make haste, dear child!"
+
+At the moment of drawing back, Adrienne said to Mother Bunch, with so
+sweet a smile and affectionate a tone, that it was impossible not to
+believe her sincere: "M. Agricola told me that I had a heart like yours.
+I now understand how honorable, how flattering those words were for me.
+Pray, give me your hand!" added Mdlle. de Cardoville, whose eyes were
+filling with tears; and, passing her beautiful hand through an opening in
+the fence, she offered it to the other.  The words and the gesture of the
+fair patrician were full of so much real cordiality, that the sempstress,
+with no false shame, placed tremblingly her own poor thin hand in
+Adrienne's, while the latter, with a feeling of pious respect, lifted it
+spontaneously to her lips, and said: "Since I cannot embrace you as my
+sister, let me at least kiss this hand, ennobled by labor!"
+
+Suddenly, footsteps were heard in the garden of Dr. Baleinier; Adrienne
+withdrew abruptly, and disappeared behind some trees, saying: "Courage,
+memory, and hope!"
+
+All this had passed so rapidly that the young workwoman had no time to
+speak or move; tears, sweet tears, flowed abundantly down her pale
+cheeks.  For a young lady, like Adrienne de Cardoville, to treat her as a
+sister, to kiss her hand, to tell her that she was proud to resemble her
+in heart--her, a poor creature, vegetating in the lowest abyss of misery-
+-was to show a spirit of fraternal equality, divine, as the gospel words.
+
+There are words and impressions which make a noble soul forget years of
+suffering, and which, as by a sudden flash, reveal to it something of its
+own worth and grandeur.  Thus it was with the hunchback.  Thanks to this
+generous speech, she was for a moment conscious of her own value.  And
+though this feeling was rapid as it was ineffable, she clasped her hands
+and raised her eyes to heaven with an expression of fervent gratitude;
+for, if the poor sempstress did not practise, to use the jargon of
+ultramontane cant, no one was more richly endowed with that deep
+religious sentiment, which is to mere dogmas what the immensity of the
+starry heaven is to the vaulted roof of a church.
+
+Five minutes after quitting Mdlle. de Cardoville, Mother Bunch, having
+left the garden without being perceived, reascended to the first story,
+and knocked gently at the door of the press-room.  A sister came to open
+the door to her.
+
+"Is not Mdlle. Florine, with whom I came, still here, sister?" asked the
+needlewoman.
+
+"She could not wait for you any longer.  No doubt, you have come from our
+mother the superior?"
+
+"Yes, yes, sister," answered the sempstress, casting down her eyes;
+"would you have the goodness to show me the way out?"
+
+"Come with me."
+
+The sewing-girl followed the nun, trembling at every step lest she should
+meet the superior, who would naturally have inquired the cause of her
+long stay in the convent.
+
+At length the inner gate closed upon Mother Bunch.  Passing rapidly
+across the vast court-yard and approaching the porter's lodge, to ask him
+to let her out, she heard these words pronounced in a gruff voice: "It
+seems, old Jerome, that we are to be doubly on our guard to-night.  Well,
+I shall put two extra balls in my gun.  The superior says we are to make
+two rounds instead of one."
+
+"I want no gun, Nicholas," said the other voice; "I have my sharp scythe,
+a true gardener's weapon--and none the worse for that."
+
+Feeling an involuntary uneasiness at these words, which she had heard by
+mere chance, Mother Bunch approached the porter's lodge, and asked him to
+open the outer gate.
+
+"Where do you come from?" challenged the porter, leaning half way out of
+his lodge, with a double barrelled gun, which he was occupied in loading,
+in his hand, and at the same time examining the sempstress with a
+suspicious air.
+
+"I come from speaking to the superior," answered Mother Bunch timidly.
+
+"Is that true?" said Nicholas roughly.  "You look like a sanctified
+scarecrow.  Never mind.  Make haste and cut!"
+
+The gate opened, and Mother Bunch went out.  Hardly had she gone a few
+steps in the sweet, when, to her great surprise, she saw the dog Spoil-
+sport run up to her, and his master, Dagobert, a little way behind him,
+arriving also with precipitation.  She was hastening to meet the soldier,
+when a full, sonorous voice exclaimed from a little distance: "Oh my good
+sister!" which caused the girl to turn round.  From the opposite side to
+that whence Dagobert was coming, she saw Agricola hurrying towards the
+spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE ENCOUNTERS.
+
+At the sight of Dagobert and Agricola, Mother Bunch remained motionless
+with surprise, a few steps from the convent-gate.  The soldier had not
+yet perceived the sempstress.  He advanced rapidly, following the dog,
+who though lean, half-starved, rough-coated, and dirty, seemed to frisk
+with pleasure, as he turned his intelligent face towards his master, to
+whom he had gone back, after caressing Mother Bunch.
+
+"Yes, yes; I understand you, old fellow!" said the soldier, with emotion.
+"You are more faithful than I was; you did not leave the dear children
+for a minute.  Yes, you followed them, and watched day and night, without
+food, at the door of the house to which they were taken--and, at length,
+weary of waiting to see them come forth, ran home to fetch me.  Yes;
+whilst I was giving way to despair, like a furious madman, you were doing
+what I ought to have done--discovering their retreat.  What does it all
+prove?  Why, that beasts are better than men--which is well known.  Well,
+at length I shall see them again.  When I think that tomorrow is the
+13th, and that without you, my did Spoil-sport, all would be lost--it
+makes me shudder.  But I say, shall we soon be there?  What a deserted
+quarter! and night coming on!"
+
+Dagobert had held this discourse to Spoil-sport, as he walked along
+following the good dog, who kept on at a rapid pace.  Suddenly, seeing
+the faithful animal start aside with a bound, he raised his eyes, and
+perceived the dog frisking about the hunchback and Agricola, who had just
+met at a little distance from the convent-gate.
+
+"Mother Bunch?" exclaimed both father and son, as they approached the
+young workwoman, and looked at her with extreme surprise.
+
+"There is good hope, M. Dagobert," said she with inexpressible joy.
+"Rose and Blanche are found!"  Then, turning towards the smith, she
+added, "There is good hope, Agricola:  Mdlle. de Cardoville is not mad.
+I have just seen her."
+
+"She is not mad? what happiness!" exclaimed the smith.
+
+"The children!" cried Dagobert, trembling with emotion, as he took the
+work-girl's hands in his own.  "You have seen them?"
+
+"Yes; just now--very sad--very unhappy--but I was not able to speak to
+them."
+
+"Oh!" said Dagobert, stopping as if suffocated by the news, and pressing
+his hands on his bosom; "I never thought that my old heart could beat
+so!--And yet, thanks to my dog, I almost expected what has taken place.
+Anyhow, I am quite dizzy with joy."
+
+"Well, father, it's a good day," said Agricola, looking gratefully at the
+girl.
+
+"Kiss me, my dear child!" added the soldier, as he pressed Mother Bunch
+affectionately in his arms; then, full of impatience, he added: "Come,
+let us go and fetch the children."
+
+"Ah, my good sister!" said Agricola, deeply moved; "you will restore
+peace, perhaps life, to my father--and Mdlle. de Cardoville--but how do
+you know?"
+
+"A mere chance.  And how did you come here?"
+
+"Spoil-sport stops and barks," cried Dagobert, who had already made
+several steps in advance.
+
+Indeed the dog, who was as impatient as his master to see the orphans,
+and far better informed as to the place of their retreat, had posted
+himself at the convent gate, and was beginning to bark, to attract the
+attention of Dagobert.  Understanding his dog, the latter said to the
+hunchback, as he pointed in that direction with his finger: "The children
+are there?"
+
+"Yes, M. Dagobert."
+
+I was sure of it.  Good dog!--Oh, yes! beasts are better than men--except
+you, my dear girl, who are better than either man or beast.  But my poor
+children! I shall see them, I shall have them once more!"
+
+So saying, Dagobert, in spite of his age, began to run very fast towards
+Spoil-sport.  "Agricola," cried Mother Bunch, "prevent thy father from
+knocking at that door.  He would ruin all."
+
+In two strides, the smith had reached his father, just as the latter was
+raising his hand to the knocker.  "Stop, father!" cried the smith, as he
+seized Dagobert by the arm.
+
+"What the devil is it now?"
+
+"Mother Bunch says that to knock would ruin all."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"She will explain it to you."  Although not so nimble as Agricola, Mother
+Bunch soon came up, and said to the soldier: "M. Dagobert, do not let us
+remain before this gate.  They might open it, and see us; and that would
+excite suspicion.  Let us rather go away--"
+
+"Suspicion!" cried the veteran, much surprised, but without moving from
+the gate; "what suspicion?"
+
+"I conjure you, do not remain there!" said Mother Bunch, with so much
+earnestness, that Agricola joined her, and said to his father: "Since
+sister rashes it, father, she has some reason for it.  The Boulevard de
+l'Hopital is a few steps from here; nobody passes that way; we can talk
+there without being interrupted."
+
+"Devil take me if I understand a word of all this!" cried Dagobert,
+without moving from his post.  "The children are here, and I will fetch
+them away with me.  It is an affair of ten minutes."
+
+"Do not think that, M. Dagobert," said Mother Bunch.  "It is much more
+difficult than you imagine.  But come! come!--I can hear them talk in the
+court-yard."
+
+In fact, the sound of voices was now distinctly audible.  "Come father!"
+said Agricola, forcing away the soldier, almost in spite of himself.
+Spoil-sport, who appeared much astonished at these hesitations, barked
+two or three times without quitting his post, as if to protest against
+this humiliating retreat; but, being called by Dagobert, he hastened to
+rejoin the main body.
+
+It was now about five o'clock in the evening.  A high wind swept thick
+masses of grayish, rainy cloud rapidly across the sky.  The Boulevard de
+l'Hopital, which bordered on this portion of the convent-garden, was, as
+we before said, almost deserted.  Dagobert, Agricola, and the serving-
+girl could hold a private conference in this solitary place.
+
+The soldier did not disguise the extreme impatience that these delays
+occasioned in him.  Hardly had they turned the corner of the street, when
+he said to Mother Bunch: "Come, my child, explain yourself.  I am upon
+hot coals."
+
+"The house in which the daughters of Marshal Simon are confined is a
+convent, M. Dagobert."
+
+"A convent!" cried the soldier: "I might have suspected it."  Then he
+added: "Well, what then?  I will fetch them from a convent as soon as
+from any other place.  Once is not always."
+
+"But, M. Dagobert, they are confined against their will and against
+yours.  They will not give them up."
+
+"They will not give them up?  Zounds! we will see about that."  And he
+made a step towards the street.
+
+"Father," said Agricola, holding him back, "one moment's patience; let us
+hear all."
+
+"I will hear nothing.  What! the children are there--two steps from me--I
+know it--and I shall not have them, either by fair means or foul?  Oh!
+that would indeed be curious.  Let me go."
+
+"Listen to me, I beseech you, M. Dagobert," said Mother Bunch, taking his
+hand: "there is another way to deliver these poor children.  And that
+without violence--for violence, as Mdlle. de Cardoville told me, would
+ruin all."
+
+"If there is any other way--quick--let me know it!"
+
+"Here is a ring of Mdlle. de Cardoville's."
+
+"And who is this Mdlle. de Cardoville?"
+
+"Father," said Agricola, "it is the generous young lady, who offered to
+be my bail, and to whom I have very important matters to communicate."
+
+"Good, good," replied Dagobert; "we will talk of that presently.  Well,
+my dear girl--this ring?"
+
+"You must take it directly, M. Dagobert, to the Count de Montbron, No.
+7, Place Vendome.  He appears to be a person of influence, and is a
+friend of Mdlle. de Cardoville's.  This ring will prove that you come on
+her behalf, and you will tell him, that she is confined as a lunatic in
+the asylum next door to this convent, in which the daughters of Marshal
+Simon are detained against their will."
+
+"Well, well--what next?"
+
+"Then the Count de Montbron will take the proper steps with persons in
+authority, to restore both Mdlle. de Cardoville and the daughters of
+Marshal Simon to liberty--and perhaps, to-morrow, or the day after--"
+
+"To-morrow or the day after!" cried Dagobert; "perhaps?--It is to-day, on
+the instant, that I must have them.  The day after to-morrow would be of
+much use!  Thanks, my good girl, but keep your ring: I will manage my own
+business.  Wait for me here, my boy."
+
+"What are you going to do, father?" cried Agricola, still holding back
+the soldier.  "It is a convent, remember."
+
+"You are only a raw recruit; I have my theory of convents at my fingers'
+end.  In Spain, I have put it in practice a hundred times.  Here is what
+will happen.  I knock; a portress opens the door to me; she asks me what
+I want, but I make no answer; she tries to stop me, but I pass on; once
+in the convent, I walk over it from top to bottom, calling my children
+with all my might."
+
+"But, M. Dagobert, the nuns?" said Mother Bunch, still trying to detain
+the soldier.
+
+"The nuns run after me, screaming like so many magpies.  I know them.  At
+Seville I fetched out an Andalusian girl, whom they were trying to keep
+by force.  Well, I walk about the convent calling for Rose and Blanche.
+They hear me, and answer.  If they are shut in, I take the first piece of
+furniture that comes to hand, and break open the door."
+
+"But, M. Dagobert--the nuns--the nuns?"
+
+"The nuns, with all their squalling, will not prevent my breaking open
+the door, seizing my children in my arms, and carrying them off.  Should
+the outer door be shut, there will be a second smash--that's all.  So,"
+added Dagobert, disengaging himself from the grasp, "wait for me here.
+In ten minutes I shall be back again.  Go and get a hackney-coach ready,
+my boy."
+
+More calm than Dagobert, and, above all, better informed as to the
+provisions of the Penal Code, Agricola was alarmed at the consequences
+that might attend the veteran's strange mode of proceeding.  So, throwing
+himself before him, he exclaimed: "One word more, I entreat you."
+
+"Zounds! make haste!"
+
+"If you attempt to enter the convent by force, you will ruin all."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"First of all, M. Dagobert," said Mother Bunch, "there are men in the
+convent.  As I came out just now, I saw the porter loading his gun, and
+heard the gardener talking of his sharp scythe, and the rounds he was to
+make at night."
+
+"Much I care for a porter's gun and a gardener's scythe!"
+
+"Well, father; but listen to me a moment, I conjure you.  Suppose you
+knock, and the door is opened--the porter will ask you what you want.'
+
+"I tell him that I wish to speak to the superior, and so walk into the
+convent."
+
+"But, M. Dagobert," said Mother Bunch, "when once you have crossed the
+court-yard, you reach a second door, with a wicket.  A nun comes to it,
+to see who rings, and does not open the door till she knows the object of
+the visit."
+
+"I will tell her that I wish to see the lady superior."
+
+"Then, father, as you are not known in the convent, they will go and
+inform the superior."
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"She will come down."
+
+"What next?"
+
+"She will ask you what you want, M. Dagobert."
+
+"What I want?--the devil! my children!"
+
+"One minute's patience, father.  You cannot doubt, from the precautions
+they have taken, that they wish to detain these young ladies against
+their will, and against yours."
+
+"Doubt!  I am sure of it.  To come to that point, they began by turning
+the head of my poor wife."
+
+"Then, father, the superior will reply to you that she does not know what
+you mean, and that the young ladies are not in the convent."
+
+"And I will reply to her, that they are in the convent witness--Mother
+Bunch and Spoil-sport."
+
+"The superior will answer, that she does not know you; that she has no
+explanations to give you; and will close the wicket."
+
+"Then I break it open--since one must come to that in the end--so leave
+me alone, I tell you! 'sblood! leave me alone!"
+
+"And, on this noise and violence, the porter will run and fetch the
+guard, and they will begin by arresting you."
+
+"And what will become of your poor children, then, M. Dagobert?" said
+Mother Bunch.
+
+Agricola's father had too much good sense not to feel the truth of these
+observations of the girl and his son; but he knew also, that, cost what
+it might, the orphans must be delivered before the morrow.  The
+alternative was terrible--so terrible, that, pressing his two hands to
+his burning forehead, Dagobert sunk back upon a stone bench, as if struck
+down by the inexorable fatality of the dilemma.
+
+Agricola and the workwoman, deeply moved by this mute despair, exchanged
+a sad look.  The smith, seating himself beside the soldier, said to him:
+"Do not be down-hearted, father.  Remember what's been told you.  By
+going with this ring of Mdlle. de Cardoville's to the influential
+gentleman she named, the young ladies may be free by to-morrow, or, at
+worst, by the day after."
+
+"Blood and thunder! you want to drive me mad!" exclaimed Dagobert,
+starting up from the bench, and looking at Mother Bunch and his son with
+so savage an expression that Agricola and the sempstress drew back, with
+an air of surprise and uneasiness.
+
+"Pardon me, my children!" said Dagobert, recovering himself after a long
+silence.  "I am wrong to get in a passion, for we do not understand one
+another.  What you say is true; and yet I am right to speak as I do.
+Listen to me.  You are an honest man, Agricola; you an honest girl; what
+I tell you is meant for you alone.  I have brought these children from
+the depths of Siberia--do you know why?  That they may be to-morrow
+morning in the Rue Saint-Francois.  If they are not there, I have failed
+to execute the last wish of their dying mother."
+
+"No. 3, Rue Saint Francois?" cried Agricola, interrupting his father.
+
+"Yes; how do you know the number?" said Dagobert.
+
+"Is not the date inscribed on a bronze medal?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dagobert, more end more surprised; "who told you?"
+
+"One instant, father!" exclaimed Agricola; "let me reflect.  I think I
+guess it.  Did you not tell me, my good sister, that Mdlle. de Cardoville
+was not mad?"
+
+"Not mad.  They detain her in this asylum to prevent her communicating
+with any one.  She believes herself, like the daughters of Marshal Simon,
+the victim of an odious machination."
+
+"No doubt of it," cried the smith.  "I understand all now, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville has the same interest as the orphans to appear to-morrow at
+the Rue Saint-Francois.  But she does not perhaps know it."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"One word more, my good girl.  Did Mdlle. de Cardoville tell you that she
+had a powerful motive to obtain her freedom by to-morrow?"
+
+"No; for when she gave me this ring for the Count de Montbron, she said
+to me: `By this means both I and Marshal Simon's daughters will be at
+liberty either to-morrow or the day after--'"
+
+"But explain yourself, then," said Dagobert to his son, with impatience.
+
+"Just now," replied the smith, "when you came to seek me in prison, I
+told you, father, that I had a sacred duty to perform, and that I would
+rejoin you at home."
+
+"Yes; and I went, on my side, to take some measures, of which I will
+speak to you presently."
+
+"I ran instantly to the house in the Rue de Babylone, not knowing that
+Mdlle. de Cardoville was mad, or passed for mad.  A servant, who opened
+the door to me, informed me that the young lady had been seized with a
+sudden attack of madness.  You may conceive, father, what a blow that was
+to me!  I asked where she was: they answered, that they did not know.  I
+asked if I could speak to any of the family; as my jacket did not inspire
+any great confidence, they replied that none of her family were at
+present there.  I was in despair, but an idea occurred to me.  I said to
+myself: `If she is mad, her family physician must know where they have
+taken her; if she is in a state to hear me, he will take me to her; if
+not, I will speak to her doctor, as I would to her relations.  A doctor
+is often a friend.' I asked the servant, therefore, to give me the
+doctor's address.  I obtained it without difficulty--Dr. Baleinier, No.
+12, Rue Taranne.  I ran thither, but he had gone out; they told me that I
+should find him about five o'clock at his asylum, which is next door to
+the convent.  That is how we have met."
+
+"But the medal--the medal?" said Dagobert, impatiently; "where did you
+see it?"
+
+"It is with regard to this and other things that I wished to make
+important communications to Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"And what are these communications?"
+
+"The fact is, father, I had gone to her the day of your departure, to beg
+her to get me bail.  I was followed; and when she learned this from her
+waiting-woman, she concealed me in a hiding-place.  It was a sort of
+little vaulted room, in which no light was admitted, except through a
+tunnel, made like a chimney; yet in a few minutes, I could see pretty
+clearly.  Having nothing better to do, I looked all about me and saw that
+the walls were covered with wainscoting.  The entrance to this room was
+composed of a sliding panel, moving by means of weights and wheels
+admirably contrived.  As these concern my trade, I was interested in
+them, so I examined the springs, spite of my emotion, with curiosity, and
+understood the nature of their play; but there was one brass knob, of
+which I could not discover the use.  It was in vain to pull and move it
+from right to left, none of the springs were touched.  I said to myself:
+`This knob, no doubt, belongs to another piece of mechanism'--and the
+idea occurred to me, instead of drawing it towards me, to push it with
+force.  Directly after, I heard a grating sound, and perceived, just
+above the entrance to the hiding-place, one of the panels, about two feet
+square, fly open like the door of a secretary.  As I had, no doubt,
+pushed the spring rather too hard, a bronze medal and chain fell out with
+a shock."
+
+"And you saw the address--Rue Saint-Francois?" cried Dagobert.
+
+"Yes, father; and with this medal, a sealed letter fell to the ground.
+On picking it up, I saw that it was addressed, in large letters: `For
+Mdlle. de Cardoville.  To be opened by her the moment it is delivered.'
+Under these words, I saw the initials `R.' and `C.,' accompanied by a
+flourish, and this date: `Paris, November the 13th, 1830.' On the other
+side of the envelope I perceived two seals, with the letters `R.' and
+`C.,' surmounted by a coronet."
+
+"And the seals were unbroken?" asked Mother Bunch.
+
+"Perfectly whole."
+
+"No doubt, then, Mdlle. de Cardoville was ignorant of the existence of
+these papers," said the sempstress.
+
+"That was my first idea, since she was recommended to open the letter
+immediately, and, notwithstanding this recommendation, which bore date
+two years back, the seals remained untouched."
+
+"It is evident," said Dagobert.  "What did you do?"
+
+"I replaced the whole where it was before, promising myself to inform
+Mdlle. de Cardoville of it.  But, a few minutes after, they entered my
+hiding-place, which had been discovered, and I did not see her again.  I
+was only able to whisper a few words of doubtful meaning to one of her
+waiting-women, on the subject of what I had found, hoping thereby to
+arouse the attention of her mistress; and, as soon as I was able to write
+to you, my good sister, I begged you to go and call upon Mdlle. de
+Cardoville."
+
+"But this medal," said Dagobert, "is exactly like that possessed by the
+daughter of Marshal Simon.  How can you account for that?"
+
+"Nothing so plain, father.  Mdlle. de Cardoville is their relation.  I
+remember now, that she told me so."
+
+"A relation of Rose and Blanche?"
+
+"Yes," added Mother Bunch; "she told that also to me just now."
+
+"Well, then," resumed Dagobert, looking anxiously at his son, "do you now
+understand why I must have my children this very day?  Do you now
+understand, as their poor mother told me on her death-bed, that one day's
+delay might ruin all?  Do you now see that I cannot be satisfied with a
+perhaps to-morrow, when I have come all the way from Siberia, only, that
+those children might be to-morrow in the Rue Saint-Francois?  Do you at
+last perceive that I must have them this night, even if I have to set
+fire to the convent?"
+
+"But, father, if you employ violence--"
+
+"Zounds! do you know what the commissary of police answered me this
+morning, when I went to renew my charge against your mother's confessor?
+He said to me that there was no proof, and that they could do nothing."
+
+"But now there is proof, father, for at least we know where the young
+girls are.  With that certainty we shall be strong.  The law is more
+powerful than all the superiors of convents in the world."
+
+"And the Count de Montbron, to whom Mdlle. de Cardoville begs you to
+apply," said Mother Bunch, "is a man of influence.  Tell him the reasons
+that make it so important for these young ladies, as well as Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, to be at liberty this evening and he will certainly hasten
+the course of justice, and to-night your children will be restored to
+you."
+
+"Sister is in the right, father.  Go to the Count.  Meanwhile, I will run
+to the commissary, and tell him that we now know where the young girls
+are confined.  Do you go home, and wait for us, my good girl.  We will
+meet at our own house!"
+
+Dagobert had remained plunged in thought; suddenly, he said to Agricola:
+"Be it so.  I will follow your counsel.  But suppose the commissary says
+to you: `We cannot act before to-morrow'--suppose the Count de Montbron
+says to me the same thing--do not think I shall stand with my arms folded
+until the morning."
+
+"But, father--"
+
+"It is enough," resumed the soldier in an abrupt voice:  "I have made up
+my mind.  Run to the commissary, my boy; wait for us at home, my good
+girl; I will go to the Count.  Give me the ring.  Now for the address!"
+
+"The Count de Montbron, No. 7, Place Vendome," said she; "you come on
+behalf of Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"I have a good memory," answered the soldier.  "We will meet as soon as
+possible in the Rue Brise-Miche."
+
+"Yes, father; have good courage.  You will see that the law protects and
+defends honest people."
+
+"So much the better," said the soldier; "because, otherwise, honest
+people would be obliged to protect and defend themselves.  Farewell, my
+children! we will meet soon in the Rue Brise-Miche."
+
+When Dagobert, Agricola, and Mother Bunch separated, it was already dark
+night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE MEETING.
+
+It is eight o'clock in the evening, the rain dashes against the windows
+of Frances Baudoin's apartment in the Rue Brise-Miche, while violent
+squalls of wind shake the badly dosed doors and casements.  The disorder
+and confusion of this humble abode, usually kept with so much care and
+neatness, bore testimony to the serious nature of the sad events which
+had thus disturbed existences hitherto peaceful in their obscurity.
+
+The paved floor was soiled with mud, and a thick layer of dust covered
+the furniture, once so bright and clean.  Since Frances was taken away by
+the commissary, the bed had not been made; at night Dagobert had thrown
+himself upon it for a few hours in his clothes, when, worn out with
+fatigue, and crushed by despair, he had returned from new and vain
+attempts to discover Rose and Blanche's prison-house.  Upon the drawers
+stood a bottle, a glass, and some fragments of dry bread, proving the
+frugality of the soldier, whose means of subsistence were reduced to the
+money lent by the pawnbroker upon the things pledged by Mother Bunch,
+after the arrest of Frances.
+
+By the faint glimmer of a candle, placed upon the little stove, now cold
+as marble, for the stock of wood had long been exhausted, one might have
+seen the hunchback sleeping upon a chair, her head resting on her bosom,
+her hands concealed beneath her cotton apron, and her feet resting on the
+lowest rung of the chair; from time to time, she shivered in her damp,
+chill garments.
+
+After that long day of fatigue and diverse emotions, the poor creature
+had eaten nothing.  Had she even thought of it, she would have been at a
+loss for bread.  Waiting for the return of Dagobert and Agricola, she had
+sunk into an agitated sleep--very different, alas! from calm and
+refreshing slumber.  From time to time, she half opened her eyes
+uneasily, and looked around her.  Then, again, overcome by irresistible
+heaviness, her head fell upon her bosom.
+
+After some minutes of silence, only interrupted by the noise of the wind,
+a slow and heavy step was heard on the landing-place.  The door opened,
+and Dagobert entered, followed by Spoil-sport.
+
+Waking with a start, Mother Bunch raised her head hastily, sprang from
+her chair, and, advancing rapidly to meet Agricola's father, said to him:
+"Well, M. Dagobert! have you good news?  Have you--"
+
+She could not continue, she was so struck with the gloomy expression of
+the soldier's features.  Absorbed in his reflections, he did not at first
+appear to perceive the speaker, but threw himself despondingly on a
+chair, rested his elbows upon the table, and hid his face in his hands.
+After a long meditation, he rose, and said in a low voice: "It must--yes,
+it must be done!"
+
+Taking a few steps up and down the room, Dagobert looked around him, as
+if in search of something.  At length, after about a minute's
+examination, he perceived near the stove, a bar of iron, perhaps two feet
+long, serving to lift the covers, when too hot for the fingers.  Taking
+this in his hand, he looked at it closely, poised it to judge of its
+weight, and then laid it down upon the drawers with an air of
+satisfaction.  Surprised at the long silence of Dagobert, the needlewoman
+followed his movements with timid and uneasy curiosity.  But soon her
+surprise gave way to fright, when she saw the soldier take down his
+knapsack, place it upon a chair, open it, and draw from it a pair of
+pocket-pistols, the locks of which he tried with the utmost caution.
+
+Seized with terror, the sempstress could not forbear exclaiming: "Good
+gracious, M. Dagobert! what are you going to do?"
+
+The soldier looked at her as if he only now perceived her for the first
+time, and said to her in a cordial, but abrupt voice: "Good-evening, my
+good girl!  What is the time?"
+
+"Eight o'clock has just struck at Saint-Mery's, M. Dagobert."
+
+"Eight o'clock," said the soldier, speaking to himself; "only eight!"
+
+Placing the pistols by the side of the iron bar, he appeared again to
+reflect, while he cast his eyes around him.
+
+"M. Dagobert," ventured the girl, "you have not, then, good news?"
+
+"No."
+
+That single word was uttered by the soldier in so sharp a tone, that, not
+daring to question him further, Mother Bunch sat down in silence.  Spoil-
+sport came to lean his head on the knees of the girl, and followed the
+movements of Dagobert with as much curiosity as herself.
+
+After remaining for some moments pensive and silent, the soldier
+approached the bed, took a sheet from it, appeared to measure its length,
+and then said, turning towards Mother Bunch: "The scissors!"
+
+"But, M. Dagobert--"
+
+"Come, my good girl! the scissors!" replied Dagobert, in a kind tone, but
+one that commanded obedience.  The sempstress took the scissors from
+Frances' work-basket, and presented them to the soldier.
+
+"Now, hold the other end of the sheet, my girl, and draw it out tight."
+
+In a few minutes, Dagobert had cut the sheet into four strips, which he
+twisted in the fashion of cords, fastening them here and there with bits
+of tape, so as to preserve the twist, and tying them strongly together,
+so as to make a rope of about twenty feet long.  This, however, did not
+suffice him, for he said to himself: "Now I must have a hook."
+
+Again he looked around him, and Mother Bunch, more and more frightened,
+for she now no longer doubted Dagobert's designs, said to him timidly:
+"M. Dagobert, Agricola has not yet come in.  It may be some good news
+that makes him so late."
+
+"Yes," said the soldier, bitterly, as he continued to cast round his eyes
+in search of something he wanted; "good news like mine!  But I must have
+a strong iron hook."
+
+Still looking about, he found one of the coarse, gray sacks, that Frances
+was accustomed to make.  He took it, opened it, and said to the work-
+girl: "Put me the iron bar and the cord into this bag, my girl.  It will
+be easier to carry."
+
+°"Heavens!" cried she, obeying his directions; "you will not go without
+seeing Agricola, M. Dagobert?  He may perhaps have some good news to tell
+you."
+
+"Be satisfied!  I shall wait for my boy.  I need not start before ten
+o'clock--so I have time."
+
+"Alas, M. Dagobert! have you last all hope?"
+
+"On the contrary.  I have good hope--but in myself."
+
+So saying, Dagobert twisted the upper end of the sack, for the purpose of
+closing it, and placed it on the drawers, by the side of his pistols.
+
+"At all events, you will wait for Agricola, M. Dagobert?"
+
+"Yes, if he arrives before ten o'clock."
+
+"Alas; you have then quite made up your mind?"
+
+"Quite.  And yet, if I were weak enough to believe in bad omens--"
+
+"Sometimes, M. Dagobert, omens do not deceive one," said the girl, hoping
+to induce the soldier to abandon his dangerous resolution.
+
+"Yes," resumed Dagobert; "old women say so--and, although I am not an old
+woman, what I saw just now weighed heavily on my heart.  After all, I may
+have taken a feeling of anger for a presentiment."
+
+"What have you seen?"
+
+"I will tell it you, my good girl; it may help to pass the time, which
+appears long enough."  Then, interrupting himself, he exclaimed: "Was it
+the half hour that just struck?"
+
+"Yes, M. Dagobert; it is half-past eight."
+
+"Still an hour and a half," said Dagobert, in a hollow voice.  "This," he
+added, "is what I saw.  As I came along the street, my notice was
+attracted by a large red placard, at the head of which was a black
+panther devouring a white horse.  That sight gave me a turn, for you must
+know, my good girl, that a black panther destroyed a poor old white horse
+that I had, Spoil-sport's companion, whose name was Jovial."
+
+At the sound of this name, once so familiar, Spoil-sport, who was
+crouching at the workwoman's feet, raised his head hastily, and looked at
+Dagobert.
+
+"You see that beasts have memory--he recollects," said the soldier,
+sighing himself at the remembrance.  Then, addressing his dog he added:
+"Dost remember Jovial?"
+
+On hearing this name a second time pronounced by his master, in a voice
+of emotion, Spoil-sport gave a low whine, as if to indicate that he had
+not forgotten his old travelling companion.
+
+"It was, indeed, a melancholy incident, M. Dagobert," said Mother Bunch,
+"to find upon this placard a panther devouring a horse."
+
+"That is nothing to what's to come; you shall hear the rest.  I drew near
+the bill, and read in it, that one Morok, just arrived from Germany, is
+about to exhibit in a theatre different wild beasts that he tamed, among
+others a splendid lion, a tiger, and a black Java panther named Death."
+
+"What an awful name!" said the hearer.
+
+"You will think it more awful, my child, when I tell you, that this is
+the very panther which strangled my horse at Leipsic, four months ago."
+
+"Good Heaven! you are right, M. Dagobert," said the girl, "it is awful."
+
+"Wait a little," said Dagobert, whose countenance was growing more and
+more gloomy, "that is not all.  It was by means of this very Morok, the
+owner of the panther, that I and my poor children were imprisoned in
+Leipsic."
+
+"And this wicked man is in Paris, and wishes you evil?" said Mother
+Bunch.  "Oh! you are right, M. Dagobert; you must take care of yourself;
+it is a bad omen."
+
+"For him, if I catch him," said Dagobert, in a hollow tone.  "We have old
+accounts to settle."
+
+"M. Dagobert," cried Mother Bunch, listening; "some one is running up the
+stairs.  It is Agricola's footsteps.  I am sure he has good news."
+
+"That will just do," said the soldier, hastily, without answering.
+"Agricola is a smith.  He will be able to find me the iron hook."
+
+A few moments after, Agricola entered the room; but, alas! the sempstress
+perceived at the first glance, in the dejected countenance of the
+workman, the ruin of her cherished hopes.
+
+"Well!" said Dagobert to his son, in a tone which clearly announced the
+little faith he attached to the steps taken by Agricola; "well, what
+news?"
+
+"Father, it is enough to drive one mad--to make one dash one's brains out
+against the wall!" cried the smith in a rage.
+
+Dagobert turned towards Mother Bunch, and said: "You see, my poor child--
+I was sure of it."
+
+"Well, father," cried Agricola; "have you seen the Court de Montbron?"
+
+"The Count de Montbron set out for Lorraine three days ago.  That is my
+good news," continued the soldier, with bitter irony; "let us have yours-
+-I long to know all.  I need to know, if, on appealing to the laws,
+which, as you told me, protect and defend honest people, it ever happens
+that the rogues get the best of it.  I want to know this, and then I want
+an iron hook--so I count upon you for both."
+
+"What do you mean, father?"
+
+"First, tell me what you have done.  We have time.  It is not much more
+than half-past eight.  On leaving me, where did you go first?"
+
+"To the commissary, who had already received your depositions."
+
+"What did he say to you?"
+
+"After having very kindly listened to all I had to state, he answered,
+that these young girls were placed in a respectable house, a convent--so
+that there did not appear any urgent necessity for their immediate
+removal--and besides, he could not take upon himself to violate the
+sanctity of a religious dwelling upon your simple testimony; to-morrow,
+he will make his report to the proper authorities, and steps will be
+taken accordingly."
+
+"Yes, yes--plenty of put offs," said the soldier.
+
+"`But, sir,' answered I to him," resumed Agricola, "`it is now, this very
+night, that you ought to act, for if these young girls should not be
+present to-morrow morning in the Rue Saint Francois, their interests may
+suffer incalculable damage.  `I am very sorry for it,' replied he, `but I
+cannot, upon your simple declaration, or that of your father, who--like
+yourself--is no relation or connection of these young persons, act in
+direct opposition to forms, which could not be set aside, even on the
+demand of a family.  The law has its delays and its formalities, to which
+we are obliged to submit.'"
+
+"Certainly!" said Dagobert.  "We must submit to them, at the risk of
+becoming cowardly, ungrateful traitors!"
+
+"Didst speak also of Mdlle. de Cardoville to him?" asked the work-girl.
+
+"Yes--but he: answered me on this subject in much the same manner: `It
+was very serious; there was no proof in support of my deposition.  A
+third party had told me that Mdlle. de Cardoville affirms she was not
+mad; but all mad people pretend to be sane.  He could not, therefore,
+upon my sole testimony, take upon himself to enter the house of a
+respectable physician.  But he would report upon it, and the law would
+have its course--'"
+
+"When I wished to act just now for myself," said Dagobert, "did I not
+forsee all this?  And yet I was weak enough to listen to you."
+
+"But, father, what you wished to attempt was impossible,, and you agreed
+that it would expose you to far too dangerous consequences."
+
+"So," resumed the soldier, without answering his son, "they told you in
+plain terms, that we must not think of obtaining legally the release of
+Rose and Blanche this evening or even to-morrow morning?"
+
+"Yes, father.  In the eyes of the law, there is no special urgency.  The
+question may not be decided for two or three days."
+
+"That is all I wished to know," said Dagobert, rising and walking up and
+down the room.
+
+"And yet," resumed his son, "I did not consider myself beaten.  In
+despair, but believing that justice could not remain deaf to such
+equitable claims, I ran to the Palais de Justice, hoping to find there a
+judge, a magistrate who would receive my complaint, and act upon it."
+
+"Well?" said the soldier, stopping him.
+
+"I was told that the courts shut every day at five o'clock, and do not
+open again til ten in the morning.  Thinking of your despair, and of the
+position of poor Mdlle. de Cardoville, I determined to make one more
+attempt.  I entered a guard-house of troops of the line, commanded by a
+lieutenant.  I told him all.  He saw that I was so much moved, and I
+spoke with such warmth and conviction, that he became interested.--
+`Lieutenant,' said I to him, `grant me one favor; let a petty officer and
+two soldiers go to the convent to obtain a legal entrance.  Let them ask
+to see the daughters of Marshal Simon, and learn whether it is their
+choice to remain, or return to my father, who brought them from Russia.
+You will then see if they are not detained against their will--'"
+
+"And what answer did he give you, Agricola?" asked Mother Bunch, while
+Dagobert shrugged his shoulders, and continued to walk up and down.
+
+"`My good fellow,' said he, `what you ask me is impossible.  I understand
+your motives, but I cannot take upon myself so serious a measure.  I
+should be broke were I to enter a convent by force.--`Then, sir, what am
+I to do?  It is enough to turn one's head.'--'Faith, I don't know,' said
+the lieutenant; `it will be safest, I think, to wait.'--Then, believing I
+had done all that was possible, father, I resolved to come back, in the
+hope that you might have been more fortunate than I--but, alas!  I was
+deceived!"
+
+So saying, the smith sank upon a chair, for he was worn out with anxiety
+and fatigue.  There was a moment of profound silence after these words of
+Agricola, which destroyed the last hopes of the three, mute and crushed
+beneath the strokes of inexorable fatality.
+
+A new incident came to deepen the sad and painful character of this
+scene.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+DISCOVERIES.
+
+The door which Agricola had not thought of fastening opened, as it were,
+timidly, and Frances Baudoin, Dagobert's wife, pale, sinking, hardly able
+to support herself, appeared on the threshold.
+
+The soldier, Agricola, and Mother Bunch, were plunged in such deep
+dejection, that neither of them at first perceived the entrance.  Frances
+advanced two steps into the room, fell upon her knees, clasped her hands
+together, and said in a weak and humble voice; "My poor husband--pardon!"
+
+At these words, Agricola and the work-girl--whose backs were towards the
+door--turned round suddenly, and Dagobert hastily raised his head.
+
+"My mother!" cried Agricola, running to Frances.
+
+"My wife!" cried Dagobert, as he also rose, and advanced to meet the
+unfortunate woman.
+
+"On your knees, dear mother!" said Agricola, stooping down to embrace her
+affectionately.  "Get up, I entreat you!"
+
+"No, my child," said Frances, in her mild, firm accents, "I will not
+rise, till your father has forgiven me.  I have wronged him much--now I
+know it."
+
+"Forgive you, my poor wife?" said the soldier, as he drew near with
+emotion.  "Have I ever accused you, except in my first transport of
+despair?  No, no; it was the bad priests that I accused, and there I was
+right.  Well! I have you again," added he, assisting his son to raise
+Frances; "one grief the less.  They have then restored you to liberty?
+Yesterday, I could not even learn in what prison they had put you.  I
+have so many cares that I could not think of you only.  But come, dear
+wife: sit down!"
+
+"How feeble you are, dear mother!--how cold--how pale!" said Agricola
+with anguish, his eyes filling with tears.
+
+"Why did you not let us know?" added he.  "We would have gone to fetch
+you.  But how you tremble!  Your hands are frozen!" continued the smith,
+as he knelt down before Frances.  Then, turning towards Mother Bunch:
+"Pray, make a little fire directly."
+
+"I thought of it, as soon as your father came in, Agricola, but there is
+no wood nor charcoal left."
+
+"Then pray borrow some of Father Loriot, my dear sister.  He is too good
+a fellow to refuse.  My poor mother trembles so--she might fall ill."
+
+Hardly had he said the words, than Mother Bunch went out.  The smith rose
+from the ground, took the blanket from the bed, and carefully wrapped it
+about the knees and feet of his mother.  Then, again kneeling down, he
+said to her: "Your hands, dear mother!" and, taking those feeble palms in
+his own, he tried to warm them with his breath.
+
+Nothing could be more touching than this picture: the robust young man,
+with his energetic and resolute countenance, expressing by his looks the
+greatest tenderness, and paying the most delicate attentions to his poor,
+pale, trembling old mother.
+
+Dagobert, kind-hearted as his son, went to fetch a pillow, and brought it
+to his wife, saying: "Lean forward a little, and I will put this pillow
+behind you; you will be more comfortable and warmer."
+
+"How you both spoil me!" said Frances, trying to smile.  "And you to be
+so kind, after all the ill I have done!" added she to Dagobert, as,
+disengaging one of her hands from those of her son, she took the
+soldier's hand and pressed it to her tearful eyes.  "In prison," said she
+in a low voice, "I had time to repent."
+
+Agricola's heart was near breaking at the thought that his pious and good
+mother, with her angelic purity, should for a moment have been confined
+in prison with so many miserable creatures.  He would have made some
+attempt to console her on the subject of the painful past, but he feared
+to give a new shock to Dagobert, and was silent.
+
+"Where is Gabriel, dear mother?" inquired he.  "How is he?  As you have
+seen him, tell us all about him."
+
+"I have seen Gabriel," said Frances, drying her tears; "he is confined at
+home.  His superiors have rigorously forbidden his going out.  Luckily,
+they did not prevent his receiving me, for his words and counsels have
+opened my eyes to many things.  It is from him that I learned how guilty
+I had been to you, my poor husband."
+
+"How so?" asked Dagobert.
+
+"Why, you know that if I caused you so much grief, it was not from
+wickedness.  When I saw you in such despair, I suffered almost as much
+myself; but I durst not tell you so, for fear of breaking my oath.  I had
+resolved to keep it, believing that I did well, believing that it was my
+duty.  And yet something told me that it could not be my duty to cause
+you so much pain.  `Alas, my God!  enlighten me!' I exclaimed in my
+prison, as I knelt down and prayed, in spite of the mockeries of the
+other women.  `Why should a just and pious work, commanded by my
+confessor, the most respectable of men, overwhelm me and mine with so
+much misery?  `Have mercy on me, my God, and teach me if I have done
+wrong without knowing it!' As I prayed with fervor, God heard me, and
+inspired me with the idea of applying to Gabriel.  `I thank Thee, Father!
+I will obey!' said I within myself.  'Gabriel is like my own child; but
+he is also a priest, a martyr--almost a saint.  If any one in the world
+imitates the charity of our blessed Saviour, it is surely he.  When I
+leave this prison, I will go and consult him and he will clear up my
+doubts.'"
+
+"You are right, dear mother," cried Agricola; "it was a thought from
+heaven.  Gabriel is an angel of purity, courage, nobleness--the type of
+the true and good priest!"
+
+"Ah, poor wife!" said Dagobert, with bitterness; "if you had never had
+any confessor but Gabriel!"
+
+"I thought of it before he went on his journey," said Frances, with
+simplicity.  "I should have liked to confess to the dear boy--but I
+fancied Abbe Dubois would be offended, and that Gabriel would be too
+indulgent with regard to my sins.
+
+"Your sins, poor dear mother?" said Agricola.  "As if you ever committed
+any!"
+
+"And what did Gabriel tell you?" asked the soldier.
+
+"Alas, my dear! had I but had such an interview with him sooner!  What I
+told him of Abbe Dubois roused his suspicions, and he questioned me, dear
+child, as to many things of which he had never spoken to me before.  Then
+I opened to him my whole heart, and he did the same to me, and we both
+made sad discoveries with regard to persons whom we had always thought
+very respectable, and who yet had deceived each of us, unknown to the
+other."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, they used to tell him, under the seal of secrecy, things that were
+supposed to come from me; and they used to tell me, under the same seal
+of secrecy, things that were supposed to come from him.  Thus, he
+confessed to me, that he did not feel at first any vocation for the
+priesthood; but they told him that I should not believe myself safe in
+this world or in the next, if he did not take orders, because I felt
+persuaded that I could best serve the Lord by giving Him so good a
+servant; and that yet I had never dared to ask Gabriel himself to give me
+this proof of his attachment, though I had taken him from the street, a
+deserted orphan, and brought him up as my own son, at the cost of labor
+and privations.  Then, how could it be otherwise?  The poor dear child,
+thinking he could please me, sacrificed himself.  He entered the
+seminary."
+
+"Horrible," said Agricola; "'tis an infamous snare, and, for the priests
+who were guilty of it, a sacrilegious lie!"
+
+"During all that time," resumed Frances, "they were holding very
+different language to me.  I was told that Gabriel felt his vocation, but
+that he durst not avow it to me, for fear of my being jealous on account
+of Agricola, who, being brought up as a workman, would not enjoy the same
+advantages as those which the priesthood would secure to Gabriel.  So
+when he asked my permission to enter the seminary dear child! he entered
+it with regret, but he thought he was making me so happy!--instead of
+discouraging this idea, I did all in my power to persuade him to follow
+it, assuring him that he could not do better, and that it would occasion
+me great joy.  You understand, I exaggerated, for fear he should think me
+jealous on account of Agricola."
+
+"What an odious machination!" said Agricola, in amazement.  "They were
+speculating in this unworthy manner upon your mutual devotion.  Thus
+Gabriel saw the expression of your dearest wish in the almost forced
+encouragement given to his resolution."
+
+"Little by little, however, as Gabriel has the best heart in the world,
+the vocation really came to him.  That was natural enough--he was born to
+console those who suffer, and devote himself for the unfortunate.  He
+would never have spoken to me of the past, had it not been for this
+morning's interview.  But then I beheld him, who is usually so mild and
+gentle, become indignant, exasperated, against M. Rodin and another
+person whom he accuses.  He had serious complaints against them already,
+but these discoveries, he says, will make up the measure."
+
+At these words of Frances, Dagobert pressed his hand to his forehead, as
+if to recall something to his memory.  For some minutes he had listened
+with surprise, and almost terror, to the account of these secret plots,
+conducted with such deep and crafty dissimulation.
+
+Frances continued: "When at last I acknowledged to Gabriel, that by the
+advice of Abbe Dubois, my confessor, I had delivered to a stranger the
+children confined to my husband--General Simon's daughters--the dear boy
+blamed me, though with great regret, not for having wished to instruct
+the poor orphans in the truths of our holy religion, but for having acted
+without the consent of my husband, who alone was answerable before God
+and man for the charge entrusted to him.  Gabriel severely censured Abbe
+Dubois' conduct, who had given me, he said, bad and perfidious counsels;
+and then, with the sweetness of an angel, the dear boy consoled me, and
+exhorted me to come and tell you all.  My poor husband! he would fain
+have accompanied me, for I had scarcely courage to come hither, so
+strongly did I feel the wrong I had done you; but, unfortunately, Gabriel
+is confined at the seminary by the strict order of his superiors; he
+could not come with me, and--"
+
+Here Dagobert, who seemed much agitated, abruptly interrupted his wife.
+"One word, Frances," said he; "for, in truth, in the midst of so many
+cares, and black, diabolical plots, one loses one's memory, and the head
+begins to wander.  Didst not tell me, the day the children disappeared,
+that Gabriel, when taken in by you, had round his neck a bronze medal,
+and in his pocket a book filled with papers in a foreign language?"
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"And this medal and these papers were afterwards delivered to your
+confessor?"
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"And Gabriel never spoke of them since?"
+
+"Never."
+
+Agricola, hearing this from his mother, looked at her with surprise, and
+exclaimed: "Then Gabriel has the same interest as the daughters of
+General Simon, or Mdlle. de Cardoville, to be in the Rue Saint-Francois
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Certainly," said Dagobert.  "And now do you remember what he said to us,
+just after my arrival--that, in a few days, he would need our support in
+a serious matter?"
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"And he is kept a prisoner at his seminary!  And he tells your mother
+that he has to complain of his superiors! and he asked us for our support
+with so sad and grave an air, that I said to him--"
+
+"He would speak so, if about to engage in a deadly duel," interrupted
+Agricola.  "True, father! and yet you, who are a good judge of valor,
+acknowledged that Gabriel's courage was equal to yours.  For him so to
+fear his superiors, the danger must be great indeed."
+
+"Now that I have heard your mother, I understand it all," said Dagobert.
+"Gabriel is like Rose and Blanche, like Mdlle. de Cardoville, like your
+mother, like all of us, perhaps--the victim of a secret conspiracy of
+wicked priests.  Now that I know their dark machinations, their infernal
+perseverance, I see," added the soldier, in a whisper, "that it requires
+strength to struggle against them.  I had not the least idea of their
+power."
+
+"You are right, father; for those who are hypocritical and wicked do as
+much harm as those who are good and charitable, like Gabriel, do good.
+There is no more implacable enemy than a bad priest."
+
+"I know it, and that's what frightens me; for my poor children are in
+their hands.  But is all lost?  Shall I bring myself to give them up
+without an effort?  Oh, no, no!  I will not show any weakness--and yet,
+since your mother told us of these diabolical plots, I do not know how it
+is but I seem less strong, less resolute.  What is passing around me
+appears so terrible.  The spiriting away of these children is no longer
+an isolated fact--it is one of the ramifications of a vast conspiracy,
+which surrounds and threatens us all.  It seems to me as if I and those I
+love walked together in darkness, in the midst of serpents, in the midst
+of snares that we can neither see nor struggle against.  Well!  I'll
+speak out!  I have never feared death--I am not a coward and yet I
+confess--yes, I confess it--these black robes frighten me--"
+
+Dagobert pronounced these words in so sincere a tone, that his son
+started, for he shared the same impression.  And it was quite natural.
+Frank, energetic, resolute characters, accustomed to act and fight in the
+light of day, never feel but one fear--and that is, to be ensnared and
+struck in the dark by enemies that escape their grasp.  Thus, Dagobert
+had encountered death twenty times; and yet, on hearing his wife's simple
+revelation of this dark tissue of lies, and treachery, and crime, the
+soldier felt a vague sense of fear; and, though nothing was changed in
+the conditions of his nocturnal enterprise against the convent, it now
+appeared to him in a darker and more dangerous light.
+
+The silence, which had reigned for some moments, was interrupted by
+Mother Bunch's return.  The latter, knowing that the interview between
+Dagobert, his wife, and Agricola, ought not have any importunate witness,
+knocked lightly at the door, and remained in the passage with Father
+Loriot.
+
+"Can we come in, Mme. Frances?" asked the sempstress.  "Here is Father
+Loriot, bringing some wood."
+
+"Yes, yes; come in, my good girl," said Agricola, whilst his father wiped
+the cold sweat from his forehead.
+
+The door opened, and the worthy dyer appeared, with his hands and arms of
+an amaranthine color; on one side, he carried a basket of wood, and on
+the other some live coal in a shovel.
+
+"Good-evening to the company!" said Daddy Loriot.  "Thank you for having
+thought of me, Mme. Frances.  You know that my shop and everything in it
+are at your service.  Neighbors should help one another; that's my motto!
+You were kind enough, I should think, to my late wife!"
+
+Then, placing the wood in a corner, and giving the shovel to Agricola,
+the worthy dyer, guessing from the sorrowful appearance of the different
+actors in this scene, that it would be impolite to prolong his visit,
+added: "You don't want anything else, Mme. Frances?"
+
+"No, thank you, Father Loriot."
+
+"Then, good-evening to the company!" said the dyer; and, addressing
+Mother Bunch, he added: "Don't forget the letter for M. Dagobert.  I
+durstn't touch it for fear of leaving the marks of my four fingers and
+thumb in amaranthine!  But, good evening to the company!" and Father
+Loriot went out.
+
+"M. Dagobert, here is a letter," said Mother Bunch.  She set herself to
+light the fire in the stove, while Agricola drew his mother's arm-chair
+to the hearth.
+
+"See what it is, my boy," said Dagobert to his son; "my head is so heavy
+that I cannot see clear."  Agricola took the letter, which contained only
+a few lines, and read it before he looked at the signature.
+
+     "At Sea, December 25th, 1831.
+
+     "I avail myself of a few minutes' communication with a ship bound
+direct
+     for Europe, to write to you, my old comrade, a few hasty lines,
+which
+     will reach you probably by way of Havre, before the arrival of my
+last
+     letters from India.  You must by this time be at Paris, with my wife
+and
+     child--tell them--
+
+     "I am unable to say more--the boat is departing.  Only one word; I
+shall
+     soon be in France.  Do not forget the 13th February; the future of
+my
+     wife and child depends upon it.
+
+     "Adieu, my friend!  Believe in my eternal gratitude.
+
+                                             "SIMON."
+
+
+"Agricola--quick! look to your father!" cried the hunchback.
+
+From the first words of this letter, which present circumstances made so
+cruelly applicable, Dagobert had become deadly pale.  Emotion, fatigue,
+exhaustion, joined to this last blow, made him stagger.
+
+His son hastened to him, and supported him in his arms.  But soon the
+momentary weakness passed away, and Dagobert, drawing his hand across his
+brow, raised his tall figure to its full height.  Then, whilst his eye
+sparkled, his rough countenance took an expression of determined
+resolution, and he exclaimed, in wild excitement: "No, no!  I will not be
+a traitor; I will not be a coward.  The black robes shall not frighten
+me; and, this night, Rose and Blanche Simon shall be free!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE PENAL CODE.
+
+Startled for a moment by the dark and secret machinations of the black
+robes, as he called them, against the persons he most loved, Dagobert
+might have hesitated an instant to attempt the deliverance of Rose and
+Blanche; but his indecision ceased directly on the reading of Marshal
+Simon's letter, which came so timely to remind him of his sacred duties.
+
+To the soldier's passing dejection had succeeded a resolution full of
+calm and collected energy.
+
+"Agricola, what o'clock is it?" asked he of his son.
+
+"Just struck nine, father."
+
+"You must make me, directly, an iron hook--strong enough to support my
+weight, and wide enough to hold on the coping of a wall.  This stove will
+be forge and anvil; you will find a hammer in the house; and, for iron,"
+said the soldier, hesitating, and looking around him, "as for iron--here
+is some!"
+
+So saying, the soldier took from the hearth a strong pair of tongs, and
+presented them to his son, adding: "Come, my boy! blow up the fire, blow
+it to a white heat, and forge me this iron!"
+
+On these words, Frances and Agricola looked at each other with surprise;
+the smith remained mute and confounded, not knowing the resolution of his
+father, and the preparations he had already commenced with the
+needlewoman's aid.
+
+"Don't you hear me, Agricola," repeated Dagobert, still holding the pair
+of tongs in his hand; "you must make me a hook directly."
+
+"A hook, father?--for what purpose?"
+
+"To tie to the end of a cord that I have here.  There must be a loop at
+one end large enough to fix it securely."
+
+"But this cord--this hook--for what purpose are they?"
+
+"To scale the walls of the convent, if I cannot get in by the door."
+
+"What convent?" asked Frances of her son.
+
+"How, father?" cried the latter, rising abruptly.  "You still think of
+that?"
+
+"Why! what else should I think of?"
+
+"But, father, it is impossible; you will never attempt such an
+enterprise."
+
+"What is it, my child?" asked Frances, with anxiety.  "Where is father
+going?"
+
+"He is going to break into the convent where Marshal Simon's daughters
+are confined, and carry them off."
+
+"Great God! my poor husband--a sacrilege! cried Frances, faithful to her
+pious traditions, and, clasping her hands together, she endeavored to
+rise and approach Dagobert.
+
+The soldier, forseeing that he would have to contend with observations
+and prayers of all sorts, and resolved not to yield, determined to cut
+short all useless supplications, which would only make him lose precious
+time.  He said, therefore, with a grave, severe, and almost solemn air,
+which showed the inflexibility of his determination: "Listen to me, wife-
+-and you also, my son--when, at my age, a man makes up his mind to do
+anything, he knows the reason why.  And when a man has once made up his
+mind, neither wife nor child can alter it.  I have resolved to do my
+duty; so spare yourselves useless words.  It may be your duty to talk to
+me as you have done; but it is over now, and we will say no more about
+it.  This evening I must be master in my own house."
+
+Timid and alarmed, Frances did not dare to utter a word, but she turned a
+supplicating glance towards her son.
+
+"Father," said the latter, "one word more--only one."
+
+"Let us hear," replied Dagobert, impatiently.
+
+"I will not combat your resolution; but I will prove to you that you do
+not know to what you expose yourself."
+
+"I know it all," replied the soldier, in an abrupt tone.  "The
+undertaking is a serious one; but it shall not be said that I neglected
+any means to accomplish what I promised to do."
+
+"But father, you do not know to what danger you expose yourself," said
+the smith, much alarmed.
+
+"Talk of danger! talk of the porter's gun and the gardener's scythe!"
+said Dagobert, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously.  "Talk of them,
+and have done with it for, after all, suppose I were to leave my carcass
+in the convent, would not you remain to your mother?  For twenty years,
+you were accustomed to do without me.  It will be all the less trying to
+you."
+
+"And I, alas! am the cause of these misfortunes!" cried the poor mother.
+"Ah! Gabriel had good reason to blame me."
+
+"Mme. Frances, be comforted," whispered the sempstress, who had drawn
+near to Dagobert's wife.  "Agricola will not suffer his father to expose
+himself thus."
+
+After a moment's hesitation, the smith resumed, in an agitated voice: "I
+know you too well, father, to think of stopping you by the fear of
+death."
+
+"Of what danger, then, do you speak?"
+
+"Of a danger from which even you will shrink, brave as you are," said the
+young man, in a voice of emotion, that forcibly struck his father.
+
+"Agricola," said the soldier, roughly and severely, "that remark is
+cowardly, you are insulting."
+
+"Father--"
+
+"Cowardly! resumed the soldier, angrily; "because it is cowardice to wish
+to frighten a man from his duty--insulting! because you think me capable
+of being so frightened."
+
+"Oh, M. Dagobert!" exclaimed the sewing-girl, "you do not understand
+Agricola."
+
+"I understand him too well," answered the soldier harshly.
+
+Painfully affected by the severity of his father, but firm in his
+resolution, which sprang from love and respect, Agricola resumed, whilst
+his heart beat violently.  "Forgive me, if I disobey you, father; but,
+were you to hate me for it, I must tell you to what you expose yourself
+by scaling at night the walls of a convent--"
+
+"My son! do you dare?" cried Dagobert, his countenance inflamed with
+rage--
+
+"Agricola!" exclaimed Frances, in tears.  "My husband!"
+
+"M. Dagobert, listen to Agricola!" exclaimed Mother Bunch.  "It is only
+in your interest that he speaks."
+
+"Not one word more!" replied the soldier, stamping his foot with anger.
+
+"I tell you, father," exclaimed the smith, growing fearfully pale as he
+spoke, "that you risk being sent to the galleys!"
+
+"Unhappy boy!" cried Dagobert, seizing his son by the arm; "could you not
+keep that from me--rather than expose me to become a traitor and a
+coward?" And the soldier shuddered, as he repeated: "The galleys!"--and,
+bending down his head, remained mute, pensive, withered, as it were, by
+those blasting words.
+
+"Yes, to enter an inhabited place by night, in such a manner, is what the
+law calls burglary, and punishes with the galleys," cried Agricola, at
+once grieved and rejoicing at his father's depression of mind--"yes,
+father, the galleys, if you are taken in the act; and there are ten
+chances to one that you would be so.  Mother Bunch has told you, the
+convent is guarded.  This morning, had you attempted to carry off the two
+young ladies in broad daylight, you would have been arrested; but, at
+least, the attempt would have been an open one, with a character of
+honest audacity about it, that hereafter might have procured your
+acquittal.  But to enter by night, and by scaling the walls--I tell you,
+the galleys would be the consequence.  Now, father, decide.  Whatever you
+do, I will do also--for you shall not go alone.  Say but the word, and I
+will forge the hook for you--I have here hammer and pincers--and in an
+hour we will set out."
+
+A profound silence followed these words--a silence that was only
+interrupted by the stifled sobs of Frances, who muttered to herself in
+despair: "Alas! this is the consequence of listening to Abbe Dubois!"
+
+It was in vain that Mother Bunch tried to console Frances.  She was
+herself alarmed, for the soldier was capable of braving even infamy, and
+Agricola had determined to share the perils of his father.
+
+In spite of his energetic and resolute character, Dagobert remained for
+some time in a kind of stupor.  According to his military habits, he had
+looked at this nocturnal enterprise only as a ruse de guerre, authorized
+by his good cause, and by the inexorable fatality of his position; but
+the words of his son brought him back to the fearful reality, and left
+him the choice of a terrible alternative--either to betray the confidence
+of Marshal Simon, and set at naught the last wishes of the mother of the
+orphan--or else to expose himself, and above all his son, to lasting
+disgrace--without even the certainty of delivering the orphans after all.
+
+Drying her eyes, bathed in tears, Frances exclaimed, as if by a sudden
+inspiration: "Dear me! I have just thought of it.  There is perhaps a way
+of getting these dear children from the convent without violence."
+
+"How so, mother?" said Agricola, hastily.
+
+"It is Abbe Dubois, who had them conveyed thither; but Gabriel supposes,
+that he probably acted by the advice of M. Rodin.
+
+"And if that were so, mother, it would be in vain to apply to M. Rodin.
+We should get nothing from him."
+
+"Not from him--but perhaps from that powerful abbe, who is Gabriel's
+superior, and has always patronized him since his first entrance at the
+seminary."
+
+"What abbe, mother?"
+
+"Abbe d'Aigrigny."
+
+"True mother; before being a priest, he was a soldier he may be more
+accessible than others--and yet--"
+
+"D'Aigrigny!" cried Dagobert, with an expression of hate and horror.
+"There is then mixed up with these treasons, a man who was a soldier
+before being a priest, and whose name is D'Aigrigny?"
+
+"Yes, father; the Marquis d'Aigrigny--before the Restoration, in the
+service of Russia--but, in 1815, the Bourbons gave him a regiment."
+
+"It is he!" said Dagobert, in a hollow voice.  "Always the same! like an
+evil spirit--to the mother, father, children."
+
+"What do you mean, father?"
+
+"The Marquis d'Aigrigny!" replied Dagobert.  "Do you know what is this
+man?  Before he was a priest, he was the murderer of Rose and Blanche's
+mother, because she despised his love.  Before he was a priest, he fought
+against his country, and twice met General Simon face to face in war.
+Yes; while the general was prisoner at Leipsic, covered with wounds at
+Waterloo, the turncoat marquis triumphed with the Russians and English!--
+Under the Bourbons, this same renegade, loaded with honors, found himself
+once more face to face with the persecuted soldier of the empire.
+Between them, this time, there was a mortal duel--the marquis was
+wounded--General Simon was proscribed, condemned, driven into exile.  The
+renegade, you say, has become a priest.  Well! I am now certain, that it
+is he who has carried off Rose and Blanche, in order to wreak on them his
+hatred of their father and mother.  It is the infamous D'Aigrigny, who
+holds them in his power.  It is no longer the fortune of these children
+that I have to defend; it is their life--do you hear what I say?--their
+very life?"
+
+"What, father! do you think this man capable--"
+
+"A traitor to his country, who finishes by becoming a mock priest, is
+capable of anything.  I tell you, that, perhaps at this moment he may be
+killing those children by a slow-fire!" exclaimed the soldier, in a voice
+of agony.  "To separate them from one another was to begin to kill them.
+Yes!" added Dagobert, with an exasperation impossible to describe; "the
+daughters of Marshal Simon are in the power of the Marquis d'Aigrigny and
+his band, and I hesitate to attempt their rescue, for fear of the
+galleys!  The galleys!" added he, with a convulsive burst of laughter;
+"what do I care for the galleys?  Can they send a corpse there?  If this
+last attempt fail, shall I not have the right to blow my brains out?--Put
+the iron in the fire, my boy--quick! time presses--and strike while the
+iron's hot!"
+
+"But your son goes with you!" exclaimed Frances, with a cry of maternal
+despair.  Then rising, she threw herself at the feet of Dagobert, and
+said: "If you are arrested, he will be arrested also."
+
+"To escape the galleys, he will do as I do.  I have two pistols."
+
+"And without you--without him," cried the unhappy mother, extending her
+hands in supplication, "what will become of me?"
+
+"You are right--I was too selfish," said Dagobert.  "I will go alone."
+
+"You shall not go alone, father," replied Agricola.
+
+"But your mother?"
+
+"Mother Bunch sees what is passing; she will go to Mr. Hardy, my master,
+and tell him all.  He is the most generous of men, and my mother will
+have food and shelter for the rest of her days."
+
+"And I am the cause of all!" cried Frances, wringing her hands in
+despair.  "Punish me, oh, heaven! for it is my fault.  I gave up those
+children.  I shall be punished by the death of my child!"
+
+"Agricola, you shall not go with me--I forbid it!" said Dagobert,
+clasping his son closely to his breast.
+
+"What! when I have pointed out the danger, am I to be the first to shrink
+from it? you cannot think thus lowly of me, father!  Have I not also some
+one to deliver?  The good, the generous Mdlle. de Cardoville, who tried
+to save me from a prison, is a captive in her turn.  I will follow you,
+father.  It is my right, my duty, my determination."
+
+So saying, Agricola put into the heated stove the tongs that were
+intended to form the hook.  "Alas! may heaven have pity upon us!" cried
+his poor mother, sobbing as she still knelt, whilst the soldier seemed a
+prey to the most violent internal struggle.
+
+"Do not cry so, dear mother; you will break my heart," said Agricola, as
+he raised her with the sempstress's help.  "Be comforted!  I have
+exaggerated the danger of my father.  By acting prudently, we two may
+succeed in our enterprise; without much risk--eh, father?" added he, with
+a significant glance at Dagobert.  "Once more, be comforted, dear mother.
+I will answer for everything.  We will deliver Marshal Simon's daughters,
+and Mdlle. de Cardoville too.  Sister, give me the hammer and pincers,
+there in the press."
+
+The sempstress, drying her tears, did as desired, while Agricola, by the
+help of bellows, revived the fire in which the tongs were heating.
+
+"Here are your tools, Agricola," said the hunchback, in a deeply-agitated
+voice, as she presented them with trembling hands to the smith, who, with
+the aid of the pincers, soon drew from the fire the white-hot tongs, and,
+with vigorous blows of the hammer, formed them into a hook, taking the
+stove for his anvil.
+
+Dagobert had remained silent and pensive.  Suddenly he said to Frances,
+taking her by the hand: "You know what metal your son is.  To prevent his
+following me would now be impossible.  But do not be afraid, dear wife;
+we shall succeed--at least, I hope so.  And if we should not succeed--if
+Agricola and me should be arrested--well! we are not cowards; we shall
+not commit suicide; but father and son will go arm in arm to prison, with
+heads high and proud, look like two brave men who have done their duty.
+The day of trial must come, and we will explain all, honestly, openly--we
+will say, that, driven to the last extremity, finding no support, no
+protection in the law, we were forced to have recourse to violence.  So
+hammer away, my boy!" added Dagobert, addressing his son, pounding the
+hot iron; "forge, forge, without fear.  Honest judges will absolve honest
+men."
+
+"Yes, father, you are right, be at ease dear mother!  The judges will see
+the difference between rascals who scale walls in order to rob, and an
+old soldier and his son who, at peril of their liberty, their life, their
+honor, have sought only to deliver unhappy victims."
+
+"And if this language should not be heard," resumed Dagobert, "so much
+the worse for them!  It will not be your son, or husband, who will be
+dishonored in the eyes of honest people.  If they send us to the galleys,
+and we have courage to survive--the young and the old convict will wear
+their chains proudly--and the renegade marquis, the traitor priest, will
+bear more shame than we.  So, forge without fear, my boy!  There are
+things which the galleys themselves cannot disgrace--our good conscience
+and our honor!  But now," he added, "two words with my good Mother Bunch.
+It grows late, and time presses.  On entering the garden, did you remark
+if the windows of the convent were far from the ground?"
+
+"No, not very far, M. Dagobert--particularly on that side which is
+opposite to the madhouse, where Mdlle. de Cardoville is confined."
+
+"How did you manage to speak to that young lady?"
+
+"She was on the other side of an open paling, which separates the two
+gardens."
+
+"Excellent!" said Agricola, as he continued to hammer the iron: "we can
+easily pass from one garden to the other.  The madhouse may perhaps be
+the readier way out.  Unfortunately, you do not know, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's chamber."
+
+"Yes, I do," returned the work-girl, recollecting herself.  "She is
+lodged in one of the wings, and there is a shade over her window, painted
+like canvas, with blue and white stripes."
+
+"Good! I shall not forget that."
+
+"And can you form no guess as to where are the rooms of my poor
+children?" said Dagobert.
+
+After a moment's reflection, Mother Bunch answered, "They are opposite to
+the chamber occupied by Mdlle. de Cardoville, for she makes signs to them
+from her window: and I now remember she told me, that their two rooms are
+on different stories, one on the ground-floor, and the other up one pair
+of stairs."
+
+"Are these windows grated?" asked the smith.
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"Never mind, my good girl: with these indications we shall do very well,"
+said Dagobert.  "For the rest, I have my plans."
+
+"Some water, my little sister," said Agricola, "that I may cool my iron."
+Then addressing his father: "Will this hook do?"
+
+"Yes, my boy; as soon as it is cold we will fasten the cord."
+
+For some time, Frances Baudoin had remained upon her knees, praying with
+fervor.  She implored Heaven to have pity on Agricola and Dagobert, who,
+in their ignorance, were about to commit a great crime; and she entreated
+that the celestial vengeance might fall upon her only, as she alone had
+been the cause of the fatal resolution of her son and husband.
+
+Dagobert and Agricola finished their preparations in silence.  They were
+both very pale, and solemnly grave.  They felt all the danger of so
+desperate an enterprise.
+
+The clock at Saint-Mery's struck ten.  The sound of the bell was faint,
+and almost drowned by the lashing of the wind and rain, which had not
+ceased for a moment.
+
+"Ten o'clock!" said Dagobert, with a start.  "There is not a minute to
+lose.  Take the sack, Agricola."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+As he went to fetch the sack, Agricola approached Mother Bunch, who was
+hardly able to sustain herself, and said to her in a rapid whisper: "If
+we are not here to-morrow, take care of my mother.  Go to M. Hardy, who
+will perhaps have returned from his journey.  Courage, my sister! embrace
+me.  I leave poor mother to you."  The smith, deeply affected, pressed
+the almost fainting girl in his arms.
+
+"Come, old Spoil-sport," said Dagobert: "you shall be our scout."
+Approaching his wife, who, just risen from the ground, was clasping her
+son's head to her bosom, and covering it with tears and kisses, he said
+to her, with a semblance of calmness and serenity: "Come, my dear wife,
+be reasonable!  Make us a good fire.  In two or three hours we will bring
+home the two poor children, and a fine young lady.  Kiss me! that will
+bring me luck."
+
+Frances threw herself on her husband's neck, without uttering a word.
+This mute despair, mingled with convulsive sobs, was heart-rending.
+Dagobert was obliged to tear himself from his wife's arms, and striving
+to conceal his emotion, he said to his son, in an agitated voice: "Let us
+go--she unmans me.  Take care of her, my good Mother Bunch.  Agricola--
+come!"
+
+The soldier slipped the pistols into the pocket of his great coat, and
+rushed towards the door, followed by Spoil-sport.
+
+"My son, let me embrace you once more--alas!  it is perhaps for the last
+time!" cried the unfortunate mother, incapable of rising, but stretching
+out her arms to Agricola.  "Forgive me! it is all my fault."
+
+The smith turned back, mingled his tears with those of his mother--for he
+also wept--and murmured, in a stifled voice: "Adieu, dear mother!  Be
+comforted.  We shall soon meet again."
+
+Then, escaping from the embrace, he joined his father upon the stairs.
+
+Frances Baudoin heaved a long sigh, and fell almost lifeless into the
+needlewoman's arms.
+
+Dagobert and Agricola left the Rue Brise-Miche in the height of the
+storm, and hastened with great strides towards the Boulevard de
+l'Hopital, followed by the dog.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+BURGLARY.
+
+Half-past eleven had just struck, when Dagobert and his son arrived on
+the Boulevard de l'Hopital.
+
+The wind blew violently, and the rain fell down in torrents, but
+notwithstanding the thickness of the watery clouds, it was tolerably
+light, thanks to the late rising of the moon.  The tall, dark trees, and
+the white walls of the convent garden, were distinguishable in the midst
+of the pale glimmer.  Afar off, a street lamp, acted on by the wind, with
+its red lights hardly visible through the mist and rain, swung backwards
+and forwards over the dirty causeway of the solitary boulevard.
+
+At rare intervals, they heard, at a very great distance, the rattle and
+rumble of a coach, returning home late; then all was again silent.
+
+Since their departure from the Rue Brise-Miche, Dagobert and his son had
+hardly exchanged a word.  The design of these two brave men was noble and
+generous, and yet, resolute but pensive, they glided through the darkness
+like bandits, at the hour of nocturnal crimes.
+
+Agricola carried on his shoulders the sack containing the cord, the hook,
+and the iron bar; Dagobert leaned upon the arm of his son, and Spoil-
+sport followed his master.
+
+"The bench, where we sat down, must be close by," said Dagobert,
+stopping.
+
+"Yes," said Agricola, looking around; "here it is, father."
+"It is oily half-past eleven--we must wait for midnight," resumed
+Dagobert.  "Let us be seated for an instant, to rest ourselves, and
+decide upon our plan."
+
+After a moment's silence, the soldier took his son's hands between his
+own, and thus continued: "Agricola, my child--it is yet time.  Let me go
+alone, I entreat you.  I shall know very well how to get through the
+business; but the nearer the moment comes, the more I fear to drag you
+into this dangerous enterprise."
+
+"And the nearer the moment comes, father, the more I feel I may be of
+some use; but, be it good or bad, I will share the fortune of your
+adventure.  Our object is praiseworthy; it is a debt of honor that you
+have to pay, and I will take one half of it.  Do not fancy that I will
+now draw back.  And so, dear father, let us think of our plan of action."
+
+"Then you will come?" said Dagobert, stifling a sigh.
+
+"We must do everything," proceeded Agricola, "to secure success.  You
+have already noticed the little garden-door, near the angle of the wall--
+that is excellent."
+
+"We shall get by that way into the garden, and look immediately for the
+open paling."
+
+"Yes; for on one side of this paling is the wing inhabited by Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, and on the other that part of the convent in which the
+general's daughters are confined."
+
+At this moment, Spoil-sport, who was crouching at Dagobert's feet, rose
+suddenly, and pricked up his ears, as if to listen.
+
+"One would think that Spoil-sport heard something," said Agricola.  They
+listened--but heard only the wind, sounding through the tall trees of the
+boulevard.
+
+"Now I think of it, father--when the garden-door is once open, shall we
+take Spoil-sport with us?"
+
+"Yes; for if there is a watch-dog, he will settle him.  And then he will
+give us notice of the approach of those who go the rounds.  Besides, he
+is so intelligent, so attached to Rose and Blanche, that (who knows?) he
+may help to discover the place where they are.  Twenty times I have seen
+him find them in the woods, by the most extraordinary instinct."
+
+A slow and solemn knell here rose above the noise of the wind: it was the
+first stroke of twelve.
+
+That note seemed to echo mournfully through the souls of Agricola and his
+father.  Mute with emotion, they shuddered, and by a spontaneous
+movement, each grasped the hand of the other.  In spite of themselves,
+their hearts kept time to every stroke of the clock, as each successive
+vibration was prolonged through the gloomy silence of the night.
+
+At the last strobe, Dagobert said to his son, in a firm voice: "It is
+midnight.  Shake hands, and let us forward!"
+
+The moment was decisive and solemn.  "Now, father," said Agricola, "we
+will act with as much craft and daring as thieves going to pillage a
+strong box."
+
+So saying, the smith took from the sack the cord and hook; Dagobert armed
+himself with the iron bar, and both advanced cautiously, following the
+wall in the direction of the little door, situated not far from the angle
+formed by the street and the boulevard.  They stopped from time to time,
+to listen attentively, trying to distinguish those noises which were not
+caused either by the high wind or the rain.
+
+It continued light enough for them to be able to see surrounding objects,
+and the smith and the soldier soon gained the little door, which appeared
+much decayed, and not very strong.
+
+"Good!" said Agricola to his father.  "It will yield at one blow."
+
+The smith was about to apply his shoulder vigorously to the door, when
+Spoil-sport growled hoarsely, and made a "point."  Dagobert silenced the
+dog with a word, and grasping his son's arm, said to him in a whisper:
+"Do not stir.  The dog has scented some one in the garden."
+
+Agricola and his father remained for some minutes motionless, holding
+their breath and listening.  The dog, in obedience to his master, no
+longer growled, but his uneasiness and agitation were displayed more and
+more.  Yet they heard nothing.
+
+"The dog must have been deceived, father," whispered Agricola.
+
+"I am sure of the contrary.  Do not move."
+
+After some seconds of expectation, Spoil-sport crouched down abruptly,
+and pushed his nose as far as possible under the door, snuffling up the
+air.
+
+"They are coming," said Dagobert hastily, to his son.
+
+"Let us draw off a little distance," replied Agricola.
+
+"No," said his father; "we must listen.  It will be time to retire, if
+they open the door.  Here, Spoil-sport! down!"
+
+The dog obeyed, and withdrawing from the door, crouched down at the feet
+of his master.  Some seconds after, they heard a sort of splashing on the
+damp ground, caused by heavy footsteps in puddles of water, and then the
+sound of words, which carried away by the wind, did not reach distinctly
+the ears of the soldier and the smith.
+
+"They are the people of whom Mother Bunch told us, going their round,"
+said Agricola to his father.
+
+"So much the better.  There will be an interval before they come round
+again, and we shall have some two hours before us, without interruption.
+Our affair is all right now."
+
+By degrees, the sound of the footsteps became less and less distinct, and
+at last died away altogether.
+
+"Now, quick! we must not lose any time," said Dagobert to his son, after
+waiting about ten minutes; "they are far enough.  Let us try to open the
+door."
+
+Agricola leaned his powerful shoulder against it, and pushed vigorously;
+but the door did not give way, notwithstanding its age.
+
+"Confound it!" said Agricola; "there is a bar on the inside.  I am sure
+of it, or these old planks would not have resisted my weight."
+
+"What is to be done?"
+
+"I will scale the wall by means of the cord and hook, and open the door
+from the other side."
+
+So saying, Agricola took the cord, and after several attempts, succeeded
+in fixing the hook on the coping of the wall.
+
+"Now, father, give me a leg up; I will help myself up with the cord; once
+astride on the wall, I can easily turn the hook and get down into the
+garden."
+
+The soldier leaned against the wall, and joined his two hands, in the
+hollow of which his son placed one of his feet, then mounting upon the
+robust shoulders of his father, he was able, by help of the cord, and
+some irregularities in the wall, to reach the top.  Unfortunately, the
+smith had not perceived that the coping of the wall was strewed with
+broken bottles, so that he wounded his knees and hands; but, for fear of
+alarming Dagobert, he repressed every exclamation of pain, and replacing
+the hook, he glided down the cord to the ground.  The door was close by,
+and he hastened to it; a strong wooden bar had indeed secured it on the
+inside.  This was removed, and the lock was in so bad a state, that it
+offered no resistance to a violent effort from Agricola.
+
+The door was opened, and Dagobert entered the garden with Spoil-sport.
+
+"Now," said the soldier to his son, "thanks to you, the worst is over.
+Here is a means of escape for the poor children, and Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.  The thing is now to find them, without accident or delay.
+Spoil-sport will go before as a scout.  Come, my good dog!" added
+Dagobert, "above all--fair and softly!"
+
+Immediately, the intelligent animal advanced a few steps, sniffing and
+listening with the care and caution of a hound searching for the game.
+
+By the half-light of the clouded moon, Dagobert and his son perceived
+round them a V-shaped grove of tall trees, at which several paths met.
+Uncertain which to choose, Agricola said to his father: "Let us take the
+path that runs alongside the wall.  It will surely lead to some
+building."
+
+"Right!  Let us walk on the strips of grass, instead of through the mud.
+It will make less noise."
+
+The father and son, preceded by the Siberian dog, kept for some time in a
+winding path, at no great distance from the wall.  They stopped now and
+then to listen, or to satisfy themselves, before continuing their
+advance, with regard to the changing aspects of the trees and bushes,
+which, shaken by the wind, and faintly illumined by the pale light of the
+moon, often took strange and doubtful forms.
+
+Half-past twelve struck as Agricola and his father reached a large iron
+gate which shut in that part of the garden reserved for the Superior--the
+same into which Mother Bunch had intruded herself, after seeing Rose
+Simon converse with Adrienne de Cardoville.
+
+Through the bars of this gate, Agricola and his father perceived at a
+little distance an open paling, which joined a half-finished chapel, and
+beyond it a little square building.
+
+"That is no doubt the building occupied by Mdlle. de Cardoville," said
+Agricola.
+
+"And the building which contains the chambers of Rose and Blanche, but
+which we cannot see from here, is no doubt opposite it," said Dagobert.
+"Poor children! they are there, weeping tears of despair," added he, with
+profound emotion.
+
+"Provided the gate be but open," said Agricola.
+
+"It will probably be so--being within the walls."
+
+"Let us go on gently."
+
+The gate was only fastened by the catch of the lock.  Dagobert was about
+to open it, when Agricola said to him: "Take care!  do not make it creak
+on its hinges."
+
+"Shall I push it slowly or suddenly?"
+
+"Let me manage it," said Agricola; and he opened the gate so quickly,
+that it creaked very little; still the noise might have been plainly
+heard, in the silence of the night, during one of the lulls between the
+squalls of wind.
+
+Agricola and his father remained motionless for a moment, listening
+uneasily, before they ventured to pass through the gate.  Nothing
+stirred, however; all remained calm and still.  With fresh courage, they
+entered the reserved garden.
+
+Hardly had the dog arrived on this spot, when he exhibited tokens of
+extraordinary delight.  Picking up his ears, wagging his tail, bounding
+rather than running, he had soon reached the paling where, in the
+morning, Rose Simon had for a moment conversed with Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+He stopped an instant at this place, as if at fault, and turned round and
+round like a dog seeking the scent.
+
+Dagobert and his son, leaving Spoil-sport to his instinct, followed his
+least movements with intense interest, hoping everything from his
+intelligence and his attachment to the orphans.
+
+"It was no doubt near this paling that Rose stood when Mother Bunch saw
+her," said Dagobert.  "Spoil-sport is on her track.  Let him alone."
+
+After a few seconds, the dog turned his head towards Dagobert, and
+started at full trot in the direction of a door on the ground-floor of a
+building, opposite to that occupied by Adrienne.  Arrived at this door,
+the dog lay down, seemingly waiting for Dagobert.
+
+"No doubt of it! the children are there!" said Dagobert, hastening to
+rejoin Spoil-sport; it was by this door that they took Rose into the
+house."
+
+"We must see if the windows are grated," said Agricola, following his
+father.
+
+"Well, old fellow!" whispered the soldier, as he came up to the dog and
+pointed to the building, "are Rose and Blanche there?"
+
+The dog lifted his head, and answered by a joyful bark.  Dagobert had
+just time to seize the mouth of the animal with his hands.
+
+"He will ruin all!" exclaimed the smith.  "They have, perhaps, heard
+him."
+
+"No," said Dagobert.  "But there is no longer any doubt--the children are
+here."
+
+At this instant, the iron gate, by which the soldier and his son had
+entered the reserved garden, and which they had left open, fell to with a
+loud noise.
+
+"They've shut us in," said Agricola, hastily; "and there is no other
+issue."
+
+For a moment, the father and son looked in dismay at each other; but
+Agricola instantly resumed: "The gate has perhaps shut of itself.  I will
+make haste to assure myself of this, and to open it again if possible."
+
+"Go quickly; I will examine the windows."
+
+Agricola flew towards the gate, whilst Dagobert, gliding along the wall,
+soon reached the windows on the ground floor.  They were four in number,
+and two of them were not grated.  He looked up at the first story; it was
+not very far from the ground, and none of the windows had bars.  It would
+then be easy for that one of the two sisters, who inhabited this story,
+once informed of their presence, to let herself down by means of a sheet,
+as the orphans had already done to escape from the inn of the White
+Falcon.  But the difficult thing was to know which room she occupied.
+Dagobert thought they might learn this from the sister on the ground
+floor; but then there was another difficulty--at which of the four
+windows should they knock?
+
+Agricola returned precipitately.  "It was the wind, no doubt, which shut
+the gate," said he.  "I have opened it again, and made it fast with a
+stone.  But we have no time to lose."
+
+"And how shall we know the windows of the poor children?" said Dagobert,
+anxiously.
+
+"That is true," said Agricola, with uneasiness.  "What is to be done?"
+
+"To call them at hap-hazard," continued Dagobert, "would be to give the
+alarm."
+
+"Oh, heavens!" cried Agricola, with increasing anguish.  "To have arrived
+here, under their windows, and yet not to know!"
+
+"Time presses," said Dagobert, hastily, interrupting his son; "we must
+run all risks."
+
+"But how, father?"
+
+"I will call out loud, `Rose and Blanche'--in their state of despair, I
+am sure they do not sleep.  They will be stirring at my first summons.
+By means of a sheet, fastened to the window, she who is on the first
+story will in five minutes be in our arms.  As for the one on the ground
+floor--if her window is not grated, we can have her in a second.  If it
+is, we shall soon loosen one of the bars."
+
+"But, father--this calling out aloud?"
+
+"Will not perhaps be heard."
+
+"But if it is heard--all will be lost."
+
+"Who knows?  Before they have time to call the watch, and open several
+doors, the children may be delivered.  Once at the entrance of the
+boulevard, and we shall be safe."
+
+"It is a dangerous course; but I see no other."
+
+"If there are only two men, I and Spoil-sport will keep them in check,
+while you will have time to carry off the children."
+
+"Father, there is a better way--a surer one," cried Agricola, suddenly.
+"From what Mother Bunch told us, Mdlle. de Cardoville has corresponded by
+signs with Rose and Blanche."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Hence she knows where they are lodged, as the poor children answered her
+from their windows."
+
+"You are right.  There is only that course to take.  But how find her
+room?"
+
+"Mother Bunch told me there was a shade over the window."
+
+"Quick! we have only to break through a wooden fence.  Have you the iron
+bar?"
+
+"Here it is."
+
+"Then, quick!"
+
+In a few steps, Dagobert and his son had reached the paling.  Three
+planks, torn away by Agricola, opened an easy passage.
+
+"Remain here, father, and keep watch," said he to Dagobert, as he entered
+Dr. Baleinier's garden.
+
+The indicated window was easily recognized.  It was high and broad; a
+sort of shade surmounted it, for this window had once been a door, since
+walled in to the third of its height.  It was protected by bars of iron,
+pretty far apart.  Since some minutes, the rain had ceased.  The moon,
+breaking through the clouds, shone full upon the building.  Agricola,
+approaching the window, saw that the room was perfectly dark; but light
+came from a room beyond, through a door left half open.  The smith,
+hoping that Mdlle. de Cardoville might be still awake, tapped lightly at
+the window.  Soon after, the door in the background opened entirely, and
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, who had not yet gone to bed, came from the other
+chamber, dressed as she had been at her interview with Mother Bunch.  Her
+charming features were visible by the light of the taper she held in her
+hand.  Their present expression was that of surprise and anxiety.  The
+young girl set down the candlestick on the table, and appeared to listen
+attentively as she approached the window.  Suddenly she started and
+stopped abruptly.  She had just discerned the face of a man, looking at
+her through the window.  Agricola, fearing that Mdlle. de Cardoville
+would retire in terror to the next room, again tapped on the glass, and
+running the risk of being heard by others, said in a pretty loud voice:
+"It is Agricola Baudoin."
+
+These words reached the ears of Adrienne.  Instantly remembering her
+interview with Mother Bunch, she thought that Agricola and Dagobert must
+have entered the convent for the purpose of carrying off Rose and
+Blanche.  She ran to the window, recognized Agricola in the clear
+moonlight, and cautiously opened the casement.
+
+"Madame," said the smith, hastily; "there is not an instant to lose.  The
+Count de Montbron is not in Paris.  My father and myself have come to
+deliver you."
+
+"Thanks, thanks, M. Agricola!" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a tone
+expressive of the most touching gratitude; "but think first of the
+daughters of General Simon."
+
+"We do think of them, madame, I have come to ask you which are their
+windows."
+
+"One is on the ground floor, the last on the garden-side; the other is
+exactly over it, on the first story."
+
+"Then they are saved!" cried the smith.
+
+"But let me see!" resumed Adrienne, hastily; "the first story is pretty
+high.  You will find, near the chapel they are building, some long poles
+belonging to the scaffolding.  They may be of use to you."
+
+"They will be as good as a ladder, to reach the upstairs window.  But now
+to think of you madame."
+
+"Think only of the dear orphans.  Time presses.  Provided they are
+delivered to-night, it makes little difference to me to remain a day or
+two longer in this house."  "No, mademoiselle," cried the smith, "it is
+of the first importance that you should leave this place to-night.
+Interests are concerned, of which you know nothing.  I am now sure of
+it."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I have not time to explain myself further; but I conjure you madame, to
+come.  I can wrench out two of these bars; I will fetch a piece of iron."
+
+"It is not necessary.  They are satisfied with locking the outer door of
+this building, which I inhabit alone.  You can easily break open the
+lock."
+
+"And, in ten minutes, we shall be on the boulevard," said the smith.
+"Make yourself ready, madame; take a shawl, a bonnet, for the night is
+cold.  I will return instantly."
+
+"M. Agricola," said Adrienne, with tears in her eyes, "I know what you
+risk for my sake.  I shall prove to you, I hope, that I have as good a
+memory as you have.  You and your adopted sister are noble and valiant
+creatures, and I am proud to be indebted to you.  But do not return for
+me till the daughters of Marshal Simon are in safety."
+
+"Thanks to your directions, the thing will be done directly, madame.  I
+fly to rejoin my father, and we will come together to fetch you."
+
+Following the excellent advice of Mdlle. de Cardoville, Agricola took one
+of the long, strong poles that rested against the wall of the chapel,
+and, bearing it on his robust shoulders, hastened to rejoin his father.
+Hardly had Agricola passed the fence, to direct his steps towards the
+chapel, obscured in shadow, than Mdlle. de Cardoville thought she
+perceived a human form issue from one of the clumps of trees in the
+convent-garden, cross the path hastily, and disappear behind a high hedge
+of box.  Alarmed at the sight, Adrienne in vain called to Agricola in a
+low voice, to bid him beware.  He could not hear her; he had already
+rejoined his father, who, devoured by impatience, went from window to
+window with ever-increasing anguish.
+
+"We are saved," whispered Agricola.  "Those are the windows of the poor
+children--one on the ground floor, the other on the first story."
+
+"At last!" said Dagobert, with a burst of joy impossible to describe.  He
+ran to examine the windows.  "They are not grated!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Let us make sure, that one of them is there," said Agricola; "then, by
+placing this pole against the wall, I will climb up to the first story,
+which is not so very high."
+
+"Right, my boy!--once there, tap at the window, and call Rose or Blanche.
+When she answers, come down.  We will rest the pole against the window,
+and the poor child will slide along it.  They are bold and active.
+Quick, quick! to work!"
+
+"And then we will deliver Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+Whilst Agricola placed his pole against the wall, and prepares to mount,
+Dagobert tapped at the panes of the last window on the ground floor, and
+said aloud: "It is I--Dagobert."
+
+Rose Simon indeed occupied the chamber.  The unhappy child, in despair at
+being separated from her sister, was a prey to a burning fever, and,
+unable to sleep, watered her pillow with her tears.  At the sound of the
+tapping on the glass, she started up affrighted, then, hearing the voice
+of the soldier--that voice so familiar and so dear--she sat up in bed,
+pressed her hands across her forehead, to assure herself that she was not
+the plaything of a dream, and, wrapped in her long night-dress, ran to
+the window with a cry of joy.  But suddenly--and before she could open
+the casement--two reports of fire-arms were heard, accompanied by loud
+cries of "Help! thieves!"
+
+The orphan stood petrified with terror, her eyes mechanically fixed upon
+the window, through which she saw confusedly, by the light of the moon,
+several men engaged in a mortal struggle, whilst the furious barking of
+Spoil-sport was heard above all the incessant cries of "Help! Help!
+Thieves! Murder!"
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V4, by Eugene
+Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+XIV.       The Eve of a Great Day
+XV.        The Thug
+XVI.       The Two Brothers of the Good Work
+XVII.      The House in the Rue Saint-Francois
+XVIII.     Debit and Credit
+XIX.       The Heir
+XX.        The Rupture
+XXI.       The Change
+XXII.      The Red Room
+XXIII.     The Testament
+XXIV.      The Last Stroke of Noon
+XXV.       The Deed of Gift
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE EVE OF A GREAT DAY.
+
+About two hours before the event last related took place at St. Mary's
+Convent, Rodin and Abbe d'Aigrigny met in the room where we have already
+seen them, in the Rue du Milieu-des-Ursins.  Since the Revolution of
+July, Father d'Aigrigny had thought proper to remove for the moment to
+this temporary habitation all the secret archives and correspondence of
+his Order--a prudent measure, since he had every reason to fear that the
+reverend fathers would be expelled by the state from that magnificent
+establishment, with which the restoration had so liberally endowed their
+society.[11]
+
+Rodin, dressed in his usual sordid style, mean and dirty as ever, was
+writing modestly at his desk, faithful to his humble part of secretary,
+which concealed, as we have already seen a far more important office--
+that of Socius--a function which, according to the constitutions of the
+Order, consists in never quitting his superior, watching his least
+actions, spying into his very thoughts, and reporting all to Rome.
+
+In spite of his usual impassibility, Rodin appeared visibly uneasy and
+absent in mind; he answered even more briefly than usual to the commands
+and questions of Father d'Aigrigny, who had but just entered the room.
+
+"Has anything new occurred during my absence?" asked he.  "Are the
+reports still favorable?"
+
+"Very favorable."
+
+"Read them to me."
+
+"Before giving this account to your reverence," said Rodin, "I must
+inform you that Morok has been two days in Paris."
+
+"Morok?"  said Abbe d'Aigrigny, with surprise.  "I thought, on leaving
+Germany and Switzerland, he had received from Friburg the order to
+proceed southward.  At Nismes, or Avignon, he would at this moment be
+useful as an agent; for the Protestants begin to move, and we fear a
+reaction against the Catholics."
+
+"I do not know," said Rodin, "if Morok may not have had private reasons
+for changing his route.  His ostensible reasons are, that he comes here
+to give performances."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"A dramatic agent, passing through Lyons, engaged him and his menagerie
+for the Port Saint-Martin Theatre at a very high price.  He says that he
+did not like to refuse such an offer."
+
+"Well," said Father d'Aigrigny, shrugging his shoulders, "but by
+distributing his little books, and selling prints and chaplets, as well
+as by the influence he would certainly exercise over the pious and
+ignorant people of the South or of Brittany, he might render services,
+such as he can never perform in Paris."
+
+"He is now below, with a kind of giant, who travels about with him.  In
+his capacity of your reverence's old servant, Morok hoped to have the
+honor of kissing your hand this evening."
+
+"Impossible--impossible--you know how much I am occupied.  Have you sent
+to the Rue Saint-Francois?"
+
+"Yes, I have.  The old Jew guardian has had notice from the notary.  To-
+morrow, at six in the morning, the masons will unwall the door, and, for
+the first time since one hundred and fifty years, the house will be
+opened."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny remained in thought for a moment, and then said to
+Rodin: "On the eve of such a decisive day, we must neglect nothing, and
+call every circumstance to memory.  Read me the copy of the note,
+inserted in the archives of the society, a century and a half ago, on the
+subject of Rennepont."
+
+The secretary took the note from the case, and read as follows:
+
+"`This 19th day of February, 1682, the Reverend Father-Provincial
+Alexander Bourdon sent the following advice, with these words in the
+margin: Of extreme importance for the future.
+
+"'We have just discovered, by the confession of a dying person to one of
+our fathers, a very close secret.
+
+"`Marius de Rennepont, one of the most active and redoubtable partisans
+of the Reformed Religion, and one of the most determined enemies of our
+Holy Society, had apparently re-entered the pale of our Mother Church,
+but with the sole design of saving his worldly goods, threatened with
+confiscation because of his irreligious and damnable errors.  Evidence
+having been furnished by different persons of our company to prove that
+the conversion of Rennepont was not sincere, and in reality covered a
+sacrilegious lure, the possessions of the said gentleman, now considered
+a relapsed heretic, were confiscated by our gracious sovereign, his
+Majesty King Louis XIV, and the said Rennepont was condemned to the
+galleys for life.[12]  He escaped his doom by a voluntary death; in
+consequence of which abominable crime, his body was dragged upon a
+hurdle, and flung to the dogs on the highway.
+
+"`From these preliminaries, we come to the great secret, which is of such
+importance to the future interests of our Society.
+
+"`His Majesty Louis XIV., in his paternal and Catholic goodness towards
+the Church in general, and our Order in particular, had granted to us the
+profit of this confiscation, in acknowledgment of our services in
+discovering the infamous and sacrilegious relapse of the said Rennepont.
+
+"`But we have just learned, for certain, that a house situated in Paris,
+No. 3, Rue Saint-Francois, and a sum of fifty thousand gold crowns, have
+escaped this confiscation, and have consequently been stolen from our
+Society.
+
+"`The house was conveyed, before the confiscation, by means of a feigned
+purchase, to a friend of Rennepont's a good Catholic, unfortunately, as
+against him we cannot take any severe measures.  Thanks to the culpable,
+but secure connivance of his friend, the house has been walled up, and is
+only to be opened in a century and a half, according to the last will of
+Rennepont.  As for the fifty thousand gold crowns, they have been placed
+in hands which, unfortunately, are hitherto unknown to us, in order to be
+invested and put out to use for one hundred and fifty years, at the
+expiration of which time they are to be divided between the then existing
+descendants of the said Rennepont; and it is calculated that this sum,
+increased by so many accumulations, will by then have become enormous,
+and will amount to at least forty or fifty millions of livres tournois.
+From motives which are not known, but which are duly stated in a
+testamentary document, the said Rennepont has concealed from his family,
+whom the edicts against the Protestants have driven out of France, the
+investment of these fifty thousand crowns; and has only desired his
+relations to preserve in their line from generation to generation, the
+charge to the last survivors, to meet in Paris, Rue Saint-Francois, a
+hundred and fifty years hence, on February the 13th, 1832.  And that this
+charge might not be forgotten, he employed a person, whose description is
+known, but not his real occupation, to cause to be manufactured sundry
+bronze medals, on which the request and date are engraved, and to deliver
+one to each member of the family--a measure the more necessary, as, from
+some other motive equally unknown, but probably explained in the
+testament, the heirs are to present themselves on the day in question,
+before noon, in person, and not by any attorney, or representative, or to
+forfeit all claim to the inheritance.  The stranger who undertook to
+distribute the medals to the different members of the family of Rennepont
+is a man of thirty to thirty-six years of age, of tall stature, and with
+a proud and sad expression of countenance.  He has black eyebrows, very
+thick, and singularly joined together.  He is known as JOSEPH, and is
+much suspected of being an active and dangerous emissary of the wretched
+republicans and heretics of the Seven United Provinces.  It results from
+these premises, that this sum, surreptitiously confided by a relapsed
+heretic to unknown hands, has escaped the confiscation decreed in our
+favor by our well-beloved king.  A serious fraud and injury has therefore
+been committed, and we are bound to take every means to recover this our
+right, if not immediately, at least in some future time.  Our Society
+being (for the greater glory of God and our Holy Father) imperishable, it
+will be easy, thanks to the connections we keep up with all parts of the
+world, by means of missions and other establishments, to follow the line
+of this family of Rennepont from generation to generation, without ever
+losing sight of it--so that a hundred and fifty years hence, at the
+moment of the division of this immense accumulation of property, our
+Company may claim the inheritance of which it has been so treacherously
+deprived, and recover it by any means in its power, fas aut nefas, even
+by craft or violence--our Company not being bound to act tenderly with
+the future detainers of our goods, of which we have been maliciously
+deprived by an infamous and sacrilegious heretic--and because it is right
+to defend, preserve, and recover one's own property by every means which
+the Lord may place within one's reach.  Until, therefore, the complete
+restitution of this wealth, the family of Rennepont must be considered as
+reprobate and damnable, as the cursed seed of a Cain, and always to be
+watched with the utmost caution.  And it is to be recommended, that,
+every year from this present date, a sort of inquisition should he held
+as to the situation of the successive members of this family.'"
+
+Rodin paused, and said to Father d'Aigrigny: "Here follows the account,
+year by year, of the history of this family, from the year 1682, to our
+own day.  It will be useless to read this to your reverence."
+
+"Quite useless," said Abbe d'Aigrigny.  "The note contains all the
+important facts."  Then, after a moment's silence, he exclaimed, with an
+expression of triumphant pride: "How great is the power of the
+Association, when founded upon tradition and perpetuity!  Thanks to this
+note, inserted in our archives a century and a half ago, this family has
+been watched from generation to generation--our Order has always had its
+eyes upon them, following them to all points of the globe, to which exile
+had distributed them--and at last, to-morrow, we shall obtain possession
+of this property, at first inconsiderable, but which a hundred and fifty
+years have raised to a royal fortune.  Yes, we shall succeed, for we have
+foreseen every eventuality.  One thing only troubles me."
+
+"What is that?" asked Rodin.
+
+"The information that we have in vain tried to obtain from the guardian
+of the house in the Rue Saint-Francois.  Has the attempt been once more
+made, as I directed?"
+
+"It has been made."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"This time, as always before, the old Jew has remained impenetrable.
+Besides he is almost in his second childhood, and his wife not much
+better."
+
+"When I think," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, "that for a century and a
+half, this house in the Rue Saint-Francois has remained walled up, and
+that the care of it has been transmitted from generation to generation in
+this family of the Samuels--I cannot suppose that they have all been
+ignorant as to who were and are the successive holders of these funds,
+now become immense by accumulation."
+
+"You have seen," said Rodin, "by the notes upon this affair, that the
+Order has always carefully followed it up ever since 1682.  At different
+periods attempts have been made to obtain information upon subjects not
+fully explained in the note of Father Bourdon.  But this race of Jew
+guardians has ever remained dumb, and we must therefore conclude that
+they know nothing about it."
+
+"That has always struck me as impossible; for the ancestor of these
+Samuels was present at the closing of the house, a hundred and fifty
+years ago.  He was according to the file, a servant or confidential clerk
+of De Rennepont.  It is impossible that he should not have known many
+things, the tradition of which must have been preserved in the family."
+
+"If I were allowed to hazard a brief observation," began Rodin, humbly.
+
+"Speak."
+
+"A few years ago we obtained certain information through the
+confessional, that the funds were in existence, and that they had risen
+to an enormous amount."
+
+"Doubtless; and it was that which called the attention of the Reverend
+Father-General so strongly to this affair."
+
+"We know, then, what probably the descendants of the family do not--the
+immense value of this inheritance?"
+
+"Yes," answered Father d'Aigrigny, "the person who certified this fact in
+confession is worthy of all belief.  Only lately, the same declaration
+was renewed; but all the efforts of the confessor could not obtain the
+name of the trustee, or anything beyond the assertion, that the money
+could not be in more honest hands."
+
+"It seems to me, then," resumed Rodin, "that we are certain of what is
+most important."
+
+"And who knows if the holder of this enormous sum will appear to-morrow,
+in spite of the honesty ascribed to him?  The nearer the moment the more
+my anxiety increases.  Ah!" continued Father d'Aigrigny, after a moment's
+silence, "the interests concerned are so immense that the consequences of
+success are quite incalculable.  However, all that it was possible to do,
+has been at least tried."
+
+To these words, which Father d'Aigrigny addressed to Rodin, as if asking
+for his assent, the socius returned no answer.
+
+The abbe looked at him with surprise, and said: "Are you not of my
+opinion--could more have been attempted?  Have we not gone to the extreme
+limit of the possible?"
+
+Rodin bowed respectfully, but remained mute.
+
+"If you think we have omitted some precaution," cried Father d'Aigrigny,
+with a sort of uneasy impatience, "speak out!  We have still time.  Once
+more, do you think it is possible to do more than I have done?  All the
+other descendants being removed, when Gabriel appears to-morrow in the
+Rue Saint-Francois, will he not be the only representative of this
+family, and consequently the rightful possessor of this immense fortune?
+Now, according to his act of renunciation, and the provisions of our
+statutes, it is not to him, but to the Order, that these possessions must
+fall.  Could I have acted better, or in any other manner?  Speak
+frankly!"
+
+"I cannot permit myself to offer an opinion on this subject," replied
+Rodin, humbly, and again bowing; "the success of the measures taken must
+answer your reverence."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny shrugged his shoulders, and reproached himself for
+having asked advice of this writing-machine, that served him for a
+secretary, and to whom he only ascribed three qualities--memory,
+discretion, and exactness.
+
+[11] This was an idle fear, for we read in the Constitutionnel, Feb. 1st
+1832, as follows: "When in 1822, M. de Corbiere abruptly abolished that
+splendid Normal School, which, during its few years' existence, had
+called forth or developed such a variety of talent, it was decided, as
+some compensation, that a house in the Rue des Postes should be
+purchased, where the congregation of the Holy Ghost should be located and
+endowed.  The Minister of Marine supplied the funds for this purpose, and
+its management was placed at the disposal of the Society, which then
+reigned over France.  From that period it has held quiet possession of
+the place, which at once became a sort of house of entertainment, where
+Jesuitism sheltered, and provided for, the numerous novitiates that
+flocked from all parts of the country, to receive instructions from
+Father Ronsin.  Matters were in this state when the Revolution of July
+broke out, which threatened to deprive the Society of this establishment.
+But it will hardly be believed; this was not done.  It is true that they
+suppressed their practice, but they left them in possession of the house
+in the Rue des Postes; and to this very day, the 31st of January, 1832,
+the members of the Sacred Heart are housed at the expense of government,
+during the whole of which time the Normal School has been without a
+shelter--and on its reorganization, thrust into a dirty hole, in a narrow
+corner of the College of Louis the Great."
+
+The above appeared in the Constitutionnel, respecting the house in the
+Rue des Posses.  We are certainly ignorant as to the nature of the
+transactions, since that period, that have taken place between the
+reverend fathers and the government; but we read further, in a recently
+published article that appeared in a journal, in reference to the Society
+of Jesus, that the house in the Rue des Postes, still forms a part of
+their landed property.  We will here give some portions of the article in
+question.
+
+"The following is a list of the property belonging to this branch of
+Jesuits
+                                                       Fr.
+House in the Rue de Postes, worth about .  .  .  .  500,000
+One in the Rue de Sevres, estimated at  .  .  .  .  300,000
+Farm, two leagues from Paris .  .   .   .  .  .  .  150,000
+House and church at Bourges  .  .   .   .  .  .  .  100,000
+Notre Dame de Liesse, donation in 1843 .  .  .  .    60,000
+Saint Acheul, House for Novitiates  .  .  .  .  .   400,000
+Nantes, a house . .  .  .   .   .   .  .  .  .  .   100,000
+Quimper, ditto .  .  .  .   .   .   .  .  .  .  .    40,000
+Laval, house and church .   .   .   .  .  .  .  .   150,000
+Rennes, a house   .  .  .   .   .   .  .  .  .  .    20,000
+Vannes, ditto .   .  .  .   .   .   .  .  .  .  .    20,000
+Metz, ditto . .   .  .  .   .   .   .  .  .  .  .    40,000
+Strasbourg .  .   .  .  .   .   .   .  .  .  .  .    60,000
+Rouen, ditto  .   .  .  .   .   .   .  .  .  .  .    15,000
+
+By this it appears that these various items amount to little less than
+two millions.  Teaching, moreover, is another important source of revenue
+to the Jesuits.  The college at Broyclette alone brings in 200,000
+francs.  The two provinces in France (for the general of the Jesuits at
+Rome has divided France into two provinces, Lyons and Paris) possess,
+besides a large sum in ready money, Austrian bonds of more than 260,000
+francs.  Their Propagation of Faith furnishes annually some 50,000
+francs; and the harvest which the priests collect by their sermons
+amounts to 150,000 francs.  The alms given for charity may be estimated
+at the same figure, producing together a revenue of 540,000 francs.  Now,
+to this revenue may be added the produce of the sale of the Society's
+works, and the profit obtained by hawking pictures.  Each plate costs,
+design and engraving included, about 600 francs, off which are struck
+about 10,000 copies, at 40 francs per thousand, and there is a further
+expense of 250 francs to their publisher; and they obtain a net profit of
+210 francs on every thousand.  This, indeed, is working to advantage.
+And it can easily be imagined with what rapidity all these are sold.  The
+fathers themselves are the travellers for the Society, and it would be
+difficult to find more zealous or persevering ones.  They are always well
+received, and do not know what it is to meet with a refusal.  They always
+take care that the publisher should he one of their own body.  The first
+person whom they selected for this occupation was one of their members,
+possessing some money; but they were obliged, notwithstanding, to make
+certain advances to enable him to defray the expenses of its first
+establishment.  But, when they became fully convinced of the success of
+their undertaking, they suddenly called in these advances, which the
+publisher was not in a condition to pay.  They were perfectly aware of
+this, and superseded him by a wealthy successor, with whom they could
+make a better bargain; and thus, without remorse, they ruined the man, by
+thrusting him from an appointment of which they had morally guaranteed
+the continuance."
+
+[12] Louis XIV., the great King, punished with the Baileys those
+Protestants who, once converted, often by force, afterwards returned to
+their first belief.  As for those Protestants who remained in France,
+notwithstanding the rigor of the edicts against them, they were deprived
+of burial, dragged upon a hurdle, and given to the dogs.--E. S.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE THUG.
+
+After a moment's silence, Father d'Aigrigny resumed "Read me to-day's
+report on the situation of each of the persons designated."
+
+"Here is that of this evening; it has just come."
+
+"Let us hear."
+
+Rodin read as follows: "Jacques Rennepont, alias Sleepinbuff, was seen in
+the interior of the debtors' prison at eight o'clock this evening."
+
+"He will not disturb us to-morrow.  One; go on."
+
+"The lady superior of St. Mary's Convent, warned by the Princess de
+Saint-Dizier, has thought fit to confine still more strictly the
+Demoiselles Rose and Blanche Simon.  This evening, at nine o'clock, they
+have been carefully locked in their cells, and armed men will make their
+round in the convent garden during the night."
+
+"Thanks to these precautions, there is nothing to fear from that side,"
+said Father d'Aigrigny.  "Go on."
+
+"Dr. Baleinier, also warned by the Princess de Saint-Dizier, continues to
+have Mdlle. de Cardoville very closely watched.  At a quarter to nine the
+door of the building in which she is lodged was locked and bolted."
+
+"That is still another cause the less for uneasiness."
+
+"As for M. Hardy," resumed Rodin "I have received this morning, from
+Toulouse, a letter from his intimate friend, M. de Bressac, who has been
+of such service to us in keeping the manufacturer away for some days
+longer.  This letter contains a note, addressed by M. Hardy to a
+confidential person, which M. de Bressac has thought fit to intercept,
+and send to us as another proof of the success of the steps he has taken,
+and for which he hopes we shall give him credit--as to serve us, he adds,
+he betrays his friend in the most shameful manner, and acts a part in an
+odious comedy.  M. de Bressac trusts that, in return for these good
+offices, we will deliver up to him those papers, which place him in our
+absolute dependence, as they might ruin for ever a woman he loves with an
+adulterous passion.  He says that we ought to have pity on the horrible
+alternative in which he is placed--either to dishonor and ruin the woman
+he adores, or infamously to betray the confidence of his bosom friend."
+
+"These adulterous lamentations are not deserving of pity," answered
+Father d'Aigrigny, with contempt.  "We will see about that; M. de Bressac
+may still be useful to us.  But let us hear this letter of M. Hardy, that
+impious and republican manufacturer, worthy descendant of an accursed
+race, whom it is of the first importance to keep away."
+
+"Here is M. Hardy's letter," resumed Rodin.  "To-morrow, we will send it
+to the person to whom it is addressed."  Rodin read as follows:
+
+"TOULOUSE, February the 10th.
+
+"At length I find a moment to write to you, and to explain the cause of
+the sudden departure which, without alarming, must at least have
+astonished you.  I write also to ask you a service; the facts may be
+stated in a few words.  I have often spoken to you of Felix de Bressac,
+one of my boyhood mates, though not nearly so old as myself.  We have
+always loved each other tenderly, and have shown too many proofs of
+mutual affection not to count upon one another.  He is a brother to me.
+You know all I mean by that expression.  Well--a few days ago, he wrote
+to me from Toulouse, where he was to spend some time: `If you love me,
+come; I have the greatest need of you.  At once!  Your consolations may
+perhaps give me the courage to live.  If you arrive too late--why,
+forgive me--and think sometimes of him who will be yours to the last.'
+Judge of my grief and fear on receipt of the above.  I seat instantly for
+post-horses.  My old foreman, whom I esteem and revere (the father of
+General Simon), hearing that I was going to the south, begged me to take
+him with me, and to leave him for some days in the department of the
+Creuse, to examine some ironworks recently founded there.  I consented
+willingly to this proposition, as I should thus at least have some one to
+whom I could pour out the grief and anxiety which had been caused by this
+letter from Bressac.  I arrive at Toulouse; they tell me that he left the
+evening before, taking arms with him, a prey to the most violent despair.
+It was impossible at first to tell whither he had gone; after two days,
+some indications, collected with great trouble, put me upon his track.
+At last, after a thousand adventures, I found him in a miserable village.
+Never--no, never, have I seen despair like this.  No violence, but a
+dreadful dejection, a savage silence.  At first, he almost repulsed me;
+then, this horrible agony having reached its height, he softened by
+degrees, and, in about a quarter of an hour, threw himself into my arms,
+bathed in tears.  Beside him were his loaded pistols: one day later, and
+all would have been over.  I cannot tell you the reason of his despair; I
+am not at liberty to do so; but it did not greatly astonish me.  Now
+there is a complete cure to effect.  We must calm, and soothe, and heal
+this poor soul, which has been cruelly wounded.  The hand of friendship
+is alone equal to this delicate task, and I have good hope of success.  I
+have therefore persuaded him to travel for some time; movement and change
+of scene will be favorable to him.  I shall take him first to Nice; we
+set out tomorrow.  If he wishes to prolong this excursion.  I shall do so
+too, for my affairs do not imperiously demand my presence in Paris before
+the end of March.  As for the service I have to ask of you, it is
+conditional.  These are the facts.  According to some family papers that
+belonged to my mother, it seems I have a certain interest to present
+myself at No. 3, Rue Saint-Francois, in Paris, on the 13th of February.
+I had inquired about it, and could learn nothing, except that this house
+of very antique appearance, has been shut up for the last hundred and
+fifty years, through a whim of one of my maternal ancestors, and that it
+is to be opened on the 13th of this month, in presence of the co-heirs
+who, if I have any, are quite unknown to me.  Not being able to attend
+myself, I have written to my foreman, the father of General Simon, in
+whom I have the greatest confidence, and whom I had left behind in the
+department of the Creuse, to set out for Paris, and to be present at the
+opening of this house, not as an agent (which would be useless), but as a
+spectator, and inform me at Nice what has been the result of this
+romantic notion of my ancestor's.  As it is possible that my foreman may
+arrive too late to accomplish this mission, I should be much obliged if
+you would inquire at my house at Plessy, if he has yet come, and, in case
+of his still being absent, if you would take his place at the opening of
+the house in the Rue Saint-Francois.  I believe that I have made a very
+small sacrifice for my friend Bressac, in not being in Paris on that day.
+But had the sacrifice been immense, I should have made it with pleasure,
+for my care and friendship are at present most necessary to the man whom
+I look upon as a brother.  I count upon your compliance with my request,
+and, begging you to be kind enough to write me, `to be called for,' at
+Nice, the result of your visit of inquiry, I remain, etc., etc.
+
+"FRANCIS HARDY."
+
+
+"Though his presence cannot be of any great importance, it would be
+preferable that Marshal Simon's father should not attend at the opening
+of this house to-morrow," said Father d'Aigrigny.  "But no matter.  M.
+Hardy himself is out of the way.  There only remains the young Indian."
+
+"As for him," continued the abbe, with a thoughtful air, "we acted wisely
+in letting M. Norval set out with the presents of Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+The doctor who accompanies M. Norval, and who was chosen by M. Baleinier,
+will inspire no suspicion?"
+
+"None," answered Rod in.  "His letter of yesterday is completely
+satisfactory."
+
+"There is nothing, then, to fear from the Indian prince," said
+D'Aigrigny.  "All goes well."
+
+"As for Gabriel," resumed Rodin, "he has again written this morning, to
+obtain from your reverence the interview that he has vainly solicited for
+the last three days.  He is affected by the rigor exercised towards him,
+in forbidding him to leave the house for these five days past."
+
+"To-morrow, when we take him to the Rue Saint-Francois, I will hear what
+he has to say.  It will be time enough.  Thus, at this hour," said Father
+d'Aigrigny, with an air of triumphant satisfaction, "all the descendants
+of this family, whose presence might ruin our projects, are so placed
+that it is absolutely impossible for them to be at the Rue Saint-Francois
+to-morrow before noon, while Gabriel will he sure to be there.  At last
+our end is gained."
+
+Two cautious knocks at the door interrupted Father d'Aigrigny.  "Come
+in," said he.
+
+An old servant in black presented himself, and said:  "There is a man
+downstairs who wishes to speak instantly to M. Rodin on very urgent
+business."
+
+"His name?" asked Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"He would not tell his name; but he says that he comes from M. Van Dael,
+a merchant in Java."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin exchanged a glance of surprise, almost of
+alarm.
+
+"See what this man is," said D'Aigrigny to Rodin, unable to conceal his
+uneasiness, "and then come and give me an account of it."  Then,
+addressing the servant, he added:  "Show him in"--and exchanging another
+expressive sign with Rodin, Father d'Aigrigny disappeared by a side-door.
+
+A minute after, Faringhea, the ex-chief of the Stranglers, appeared
+before Rodin, who instantly remembered having seen him at Cardoville
+Castle.
+
+The socius started, but he did not wish to appear to recollect his
+visitor.  Still bending over his desk, he seemed not to seen Faringhea,
+but wrote hastily some words on a sheet of paper that lay before him.
+
+"Sir," said the servant, astonished at the silence of Rodin, "here is the
+person."
+
+Rodin folded the note that he had so precipitately written, and said to
+the servant: "Let this be taken to its address.  Wait for an answer."
+
+The servant bowed, and went out.  Then Rodin, without rising, fixed his
+little reptile-eyes on Faringhea, and said to him courteously: "To whom,
+sir, have I the honor of speaking?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE TWO BROTHERS OF THE GOOD WORK.
+
+Faringhea, as we have before stated, though born in India, had travelled
+a good deal, and frequented the European factories in different parts of
+Asia.  Speaking well both English and French, and full of intelligence
+and sagacity, he was perfectly civilized.
+
+Instead of answering Rodin's question, he turned upon him a fixed and
+searching look.  The socius, provoked by this silence, and forseeing
+vaguely that Faringhea's arrival had some connection--direct or indirect-
+-with Djalma, repeated, though still with the greatest coolness: "To
+whom, sir, have I the honor of speaking?"
+
+"Do you not recognize me," said Faringhea, advancing two steps nearer to
+Rodin's chair.
+
+"I do not think I have ever had the honor of seeing you," answered the
+other, coldly.
+
+"But I recognize you," said Faringhea; "I saw you at Cardoville Castle
+the day that a ship and a steamer were wrecked together."
+
+"At Cardoville Castle?  It is very possible, sir.  I was there when a
+shipwreck took place."
+
+"And that day I called you by your name, and you asked me what I wanted.
+I replied: `Nothing now, brother--hereafter, much.'  The time has
+arrived.  I have come to ask for much."
+
+"My dear sir," said Rodin, still impassible, "before we continue this
+conversation, which appears hitherto tolerably obscure, I must repeat my
+wish to be informed to whom I have the advantage of speaking.  You have
+introduced yourself here under pretext of a commission from Mynheer
+Joshua Van Dael, a respectable merchant of Batavia, and--"
+
+"You know the writing of M. Van Dael?" said Faringhea, interrupting
+Rodin.
+
+"I know it perfectly."
+
+"Look!"  The half-caste drew from his pocket (he was shabbily dressed in
+European clothes) a long dispatch, which he had taken from one Mahal the
+Smuggler, after strangling him on the beach near Batavia.  These papers
+he placed before Rodin's eyes, but without quitting his hold of them.
+
+"It is, indeed, M. Van Dael's writing," said Rodin, and he stretched out
+his hard towards the letter, which Faringhea quickly and prudently
+returned to his pocket.
+
+"Allow me to observe, my dear sir, that you have a singular manner of
+executing a commission," said Rodin.  "This letter, being to my address,
+and having been entrusted to you by M. Van Dael, you ought--"
+
+"This letter was not entrusted to me by M. Van Dael," said Faringhea,
+interrupting Rodin.
+
+"How, then, is it in your possession?"
+
+"A Javanese smuggler betrayed me.  Van Dael had secured a passage to
+Alexandria for this man, and had given him this letter to carry with him
+for the European mail.  I strangled the smuggler, took the letter, made
+the passage--and here I am."
+
+The Thug had pronounced these words with an air of savage boasting; his
+wild, intrepid glance did not quail before the piercing look of Rodin,
+who, at this strange confession, had hastily raised his head to observe
+the speaker.
+
+Faringhea thought to astonish or intimidate Rodin by these ferocious
+words; but, to his great surprise, the socius, impassible as a corpse,
+said to him, quite simply: "Oh! they strangle people in Java?"
+
+"Yes, there and elsewhere," answered Faringhea, with a bitter smile.
+
+"I would prefer to disbelieve you; but I am surprised at your sincerity
+M.--, what is your name?"
+
+"Faringhea."
+
+"Well, then, M. Faringhea, what do you wish to come to?  You have
+obtained by an abominable crime, a letter addressed to me, and now you
+hesitate to deliver it "
+
+"Because I have read it, and it may be useful to me."
+
+"Oh! you have read it?" said Rodin, disconcerted for a moment.  Then he
+resumed: "It is true, that judging by your mode of possessing yourself of
+other people's correspondence, we cannot expect any great amount of
+honesty on your part.  And pray what have you found so useful to you in
+this letter?"
+
+"I have found, brother, that you are, like myself, a son of the Good
+Work."
+
+"Of what good work do you speak" asked Rodin not a little surprised.
+
+Faringhea replied with an expression of bitter irony.  "Joshua says to
+you in his letter--`Obedience and courage, secrecy and patience, craft
+and audacity, union between us, who have the world for our country, the
+brethren for our family, Rome for our queen.'"
+
+"It is possible that M. Van Dael has written thus to me Pray, sir, what
+do you conclude from it?"
+
+"We, too, have the world for our country, brother, our accomplices for
+our family, and for our queen Bowanee."
+
+"I do not know that saint," said Rodin, humbly.
+
+"It is our Rome," answered the Strangler.  "Van Dael speaks to you of
+those of your Order, who, scattered over all the earth, labor for the
+glory of Rome, your queen.  Those of our band labor also in divers
+countries, for the glory of Bowanee."
+
+"And who are these sons of Bowanee, M. Faringhea?"
+
+"Men of resolution, audacious, patient, crafty, obstinate, who, to make
+the Good Work succeed, would sacrifice country and parents, and sister
+and brother, and who regard as enemies all not of their band!"
+
+"There seems to be much that is good in the persevering and exclusively
+religious spirit of such an order," said Rodin, with a modest and
+sanctified air; "only, one must know your ends and objects."
+
+"The same as your own, brother--we make corpses."[13]
+
+"Corpses!" cried Rodin.
+
+"In this letter," resumed Faringhea, "Van Dael tells you that the
+greatest glory of your Order is to make `a corpse of man.' Our work also
+is to make corpses of men.  Man's death is sweet to Bowanee."
+
+"But sir," cried Rodin, "M. Van Dael speaks of the soul, of the will, of
+the mind, which are to be brought down by discipline."
+
+"It is true--you kill the soul, and we the body.  Give me your hand,
+brother, for you also are hunters of men."
+
+"But once more, sir,--understand, that we only meddle with the will, the
+mind," said Rodin.
+
+"And what are bodies deprived of soul, will, thought, but mere corpses?
+Come--come, brother; the dead we make by the cord are not more icy and
+inanimate than those you make by your discipline.  Take my hand, brother;
+Rome and Bowanee are sisters."
+
+Notwithstanding his apparent calmness, Rodin could not behold, without
+some secret alarm, a wretch like Faringhea in possession of a long letter
+from Van Dael, wherein mention must necessarily have been made of Djalma.
+Rodin believed, indeed, that he had rendered it impossible for the young
+Indian to be at Paris on the morrow, but not knowing what connection
+might have been formed, since the shipwreck, between the prince and the
+half-caste, he looked upon Faringhea as a man who might probably be very
+dangerous.  But the more uneasy the socius felt in himself, the more he
+affected to appear calm and disdainful.  He replied, therefore: " This
+comparison between Rome and Bowanee is no doubt very amusing; but what,
+sir, do you deduce from it?"
+
+"I wish to show you, brother, what I am, and of what I am capable, to
+convince you that it is better to have me for a friend than an enemy."
+
+"In other terms, sir," said Rodin, with contemptuous irony, "you belong
+to a murderous sect in India, and, you wish, by a transparent allegory,
+to lead me to reflect on the fate of the man from whom you have stolen
+the letter addressed to me.  In my turn, I will take the freedom just to
+observe to you, in all humility, M. Faringhea, that here it is not
+permitted to strangle anybody, and that if you were to think fit to make
+any corpses for the love of Bowanee, your goddess, we should make you a
+head shorter, for the love of another divinity commonly called justice."
+
+"And what would they do to me, if I tried to poison any one?"
+
+"I will again humbly observe to you, M. Faringhea, that I have no time to
+give you a course of criminal jurisprudence; but, believe me, you had
+better resist the temptation to strangle or poison any one.  One word
+more: will you deliver up to me the letters of M. Van Dael, or not?"
+
+"The letters relative to Prince Djalma?" said the half-caste, looking
+fixedly at Rodin, who, notwithstanding a sharp and sudden twinge,
+remained impenetrable, and answered with the utmost simplicity: "Not
+knowing what the letters which you, sir, are pleased to keep from me, may
+contain, it is impossible for me to answer your question.  I beg, and if
+necessary, I demand, that you will hand me those letters--or that you
+will retire."
+
+"In a few minutes, brother, you will entreat me to remain."
+
+"I doubt it."
+
+"A few words will operate--this miracle.  If just now I spoke to you
+about poisoning, brother, it was because you sent a doctor to Cardoville
+Castle, to poison (at least for a time) Prince Djalma."
+
+In spite of himself, Rodin started almost imperceptibly, as he replied:
+"I do not understand you."
+
+"It is true, that I am a poor foreigner, and doubtless speak with an
+accent; I will try and explain myself better.  I know, by Van Dael's
+letters, the interest you have that Prince Djalma should not be here to-
+morrow, and all that you have done with this view.  Do you understand me
+now?"
+
+"I have no answer for you."
+
+Two cautious taps at the door here interrupted the conversation.  "Come
+in," said Rodin.
+
+"The letter has been taken to its address, sir," said the old servant,
+bowing, "and here is the answer."
+
+Rodin took the paper, and, before he opened it, said courteously to
+Faringhea: "With your permission, sir?"
+
+"Make no ceremonies," said the half-caste.
+
+"You are very kind," replied Rodin, as, having read the letter he
+received, he wrote hastily some words at the bottom, saying: "Send this
+back to the same address."
+
+The servant bowed respectfully, and withdrew.
+
+"Now can I continue"' asked the half-caste, of Rodin.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I will continue, then," resumed Faringhea:
+
+"The day before yesterday, just as the prince, all wounded as he was, was
+about, by my advice, to take his departure for Paris, a fine carriage
+arrived, with superb presents for Djalma, from an unknown friend.  In
+this carriage were two men--one sent by the unknown friend--the other a
+doctor, sent by you to attend upon Djalma, and accompany him to Paris.
+It was a charitable act, brother--was it not so?"
+
+"Go on with your story, sir."
+
+"Djalma set out yesterday.  By declaring that the prince's wound would
+grow seriously worse, if he did not lie down in the carriage during all
+the journey, the doctor got rid of the envoy of the unknown friend, who
+went away by himself.  The doctor wished to get rid of me too; but Djalma
+so strongly insisted upon it, that I accompanied the prince and doctor.
+Yesterday evening, we had come about half the distance.  The doctor
+proposed we should pass the night at an inn.  `We have plenty of time,'
+said he, `to reach Paris by to-morrow evening'--the prince having told
+him, that he must absolutely be in Paris by the evening of the 12th.  The
+doctor had been very pressing to set out alone with the prince.  I knew
+by Van Dael's letter, that it was of great importance to you for Djalma
+not to be here on the 13th; I had my suspicions, and I asked the doctor
+if he knew you; he answered with an embarrassed air, and then my
+suspicion became certainty.  When we reached the inn, whilst the doctor
+was occupied with Djalma, I went up to the room of the former, and
+examined a box full of phials that he had brought with him.  One of them
+contained opium--and then I guessed--"
+
+"What did you guess, sir?"
+
+"You shall know.  The doctor said to Djalma, before he left him: `Your
+wound is doing well, but the fatigue of the journey might bring on
+inflammation; it will be good for you, in the course of to-morrow, to
+take a soothing potion, that I will make ready this evening, to have with
+us in the carriage.' The doctor's plan was a simple one," added
+Faringhea; "to-day the prince was to take the potion at four or five
+o'clock in the afternoon--and fall into a deep sleep--the doctor to grow
+uneasy, and stop the carriage--to declare that it would be dangerous to
+continue the journey -to pass the night at an inn, and keep close watch
+over the prince, whose stupor was only, to cease when it suited your
+purposes.  That was your design--it was cleverly planned--I chose to make
+use of it myself, and I have succeeded."
+
+"All that you are talking about, my dear sir," said Rodin, biting his
+nails, "is pure Hebrew to me."
+
+"No doubt, because of my accent.  But tell me, have you heard speak of
+array--mow?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Your loss!  It is an admirable production of the Island of Java, so
+fertile in poisons."
+
+"What is that to me?" said Rodin, in a sharp voice, but hardly able to
+dissemble his growing anxiety.
+
+"It concerns you nearly.  We sons of Bowanee have a horror of shedding
+blood," resumed Faringhea; "to pass the cord round the neck of our
+victims, we wait till they are asleep.  When their sleep is not deep
+enough, we know how to make it deeper.  We are skillful at our work; the
+serpent is not more cunning, or the lion more valiant, Djalma himself
+bears our mark.  The array-mow is an impalpable powder, and, by letting
+the sleeper inhale a few grains of it, or by mixing it with the tobacco
+to be smoked by a waking man, we can throw our victim into a stupor, from
+which nothing will rouse him.  If we fear to administer too strong a dose
+at once, we let the sleeper inhale a little at different times, and we
+can thus prolong the trance at pleasure, and without any danger, as long
+as a man does not require meat and drink--say, thirty or forty hours.
+You see, that opium is mere trash compared to this divine narcotic.  I
+had brought some of this with me from Java--as a mere curiosity, you
+know--without forgetting the counter poison."
+
+"Oh! there is a counter-poison, then?" said Rodin, mechanically.
+
+"Just as there are people quite contrary to what we are, brother of the
+good work.  The Javanese call the juice of this root tooboe; it
+dissipates the stupor caused by the array-mow, as the sun disperses the
+clouds.  Now, yesterday evening, being certain of the projects of your
+emissary against Djalma, I waited till the doctor was in bed and asleep.
+I crept into his room, and made him inhale such a dose of array-mow--that
+he is probably sleeping still."
+
+"Miscreant!" cried Rodin, more and more alarmed by this narrative, for
+Faringhea had dealt a terrible blow at the machinations of the socius and
+his friends.  "You risk poisoning the doctor."
+
+"Yes, brother; just as he ran the risk of poisoning Djalma.  This morning
+we set out, leaving your doctor at the inn, plunged in a deep sleep.  I
+was alone in the carriage with Djalma.  He smoked like a true Indian;
+some grains of array-mow, mixed with the tobacco in his long pipe, first
+made him drowsy; a second dose, that he inhaled, sent him to sleep; and
+so I left him at the inn where we stopped.  Now, brother, it depends upon
+me, to leave Djalma in his trance, which will last till to-morrow evening
+or to rouse him from it on the instant.  Exactly as you comply with my
+demands or not, Djalma will or will not be in the Rue Saint-Francois to-
+morrow."
+
+So saying, Faringhea drew from his pocket the medal belonging to Djalma,
+and observed, as he showed it to Rodin: "You see that I tell you the
+truth.  During Djalma's sleep, took from him this medal, the only
+indication he has of the place where he ought to be to-morrow.  I finish,
+then as I began: Brother, I have come to ask you for a great deal."
+
+For some minutes, Rodin had been biting his nails to the quick, as was
+his custom when seized with a fit of dumb and concentrated rage.  Just
+then, the bell of the porter's lodge rang three times in a particular
+manner.  Rodin did not appear to notice it, and yet a sudden light
+sparkled in his small reptile eyes; while Faringhea, with his arms
+folded, looked at him with an expression of triumph and disdainful
+superiority.  The socius bent down his head, remained silent for some
+seconds, took mechanically a pen from his desk, and began to gnaw the
+feather, as if in deep reflection upon what Faringhea had just said.
+Then, throwing down the pen upon the desk, he turned suddenly towards the
+half-caste, and addressed him with an air of profound contempt "Now,
+really, M. Faringhea--do you think to make game of us with your cock-and-
+bull stories?"
+
+Amazed, in spite of his audacity, the half-caste recoiled a step.
+
+"What, sir!" resumed Rodin.  "You come here into a respectable house, to
+boast that you have stolen letters, strangled this man, drugged that
+other?--Why, sir, it is downright madness.  I wished to hear you to the
+end, to see to what extent you would carry your audacity--for none but a
+monstrous rascal would venture to plume himself on such infamous crimes.
+But I prefer believing, that they exist only in your imagination."
+
+As he barked out these words, with a degree of animation not usual in
+him, Rodin rose from his seat, and approached the chimney, while
+Faringhea, who had not yet recovered from his surprise, looked at him in
+silence.  In a few seconds, however, the half-caste returned, with a
+gloomy and savage mien: "Take care, brother; do not force me to prove to
+you that I have told the truth."
+
+"Come, come, sir; you must be fresh from the Antipodes, to believe us
+Frenchmen such easy dupes.  You have, you say, the prudence of a serpent,
+and the courage of a lion.  I do not know if you are a courageous lion,
+but you are certainly not a prudent serpent.  What! you have about you a
+letter from M. Van Dael, by which I might be compromised--supposing all
+this not to be a fable--you have left Prince Djalma in a stupor, which
+would serve my projects, and from which you alone can rouse him--you are
+able, you say, to strike a terrible blow at my interests--and yet you do
+not consider (bold lion! crafty serpent as you are!) that I only want to
+gain twenty-four hours upon you.  Now, you come from the end of India to
+Paris, an unknown stranger--you believe me to be as great a scoundrel as
+yourself,--since you call me brother--and do not once consider, that you
+are here in my power--that this street and house are solitary, and that I
+could have three or four persons to bind you in a second, savage
+Strangler though you are!--and that just by pulling this bell-rope," said
+Rodin, as he took it in his hand.  "Do not be alarmed," added he, with a
+diabolical smile, as he saw Faringhea make an abrupt movement of surprise
+and fright; "would I give you notice, if I meant to act in this manner?--
+But just answer me.  Once bound and put in confinement for twenty-four
+hours, how could you injure me?  Would it not be easy for me to possess
+myself of Van Dael's letter, and Djalma's medal? and the latter, plunged
+in a stupor till to-morrow evening, need not trouble me at all.  You see,
+therefore, that your threats are vain) because they rest upon falsehood--
+because it is not true, that Prince Djalma is here and in your power.
+Begone, sir--leave the house; and when next you wish to make dupes, show
+more judgment in the selection."
+
+Faringhea seemed struck with astonishment.  All that he had just heard
+seemed very probable.  Rodin might seize upon him, the letter, and the
+medal, and, by keeping him prisoner, prevent Djalma from being awakened.
+And yet Rodin ordered him to leave the house, at the moment when
+Faringhea had imagined himself so formidable.  As he thought for the
+motives of this inexplicable conduct, it struck him that Rodin,
+notwithstanding the proofs he had brought him, did not yet believe that
+Djalma was in his power.  On that theory, the contempt of Van Dael's
+correspondent admitted of a natural explanation.  But Rodin was playing a
+bold and skillful game; and, while he appeared to mutter to himself, as
+in anger, he was observing, with intense anxiety, the Strangler's
+countenance.
+
+The latter, almost certain that he had divined the secret motive of
+Rodin, replied: "I am going--but one word more.  You think I deceive
+you?"
+
+"I am certain of it.  You have told me nothing but a tissue of fables,
+and I have lost much time in listening to them.  Spare me the rest; it is
+late--and I should like to be alone."
+
+"One minute more: you are a man, I see, from whom nothing should be hid,"
+said Faringhea, "from Djalma, I could now only expect alms and disdain--
+for, with a character like this, to say to him, `Pay me, because I might
+have betrayed you and did not,' would be to provoke his anger and
+contempt.  I could have killed him twenty times over, but his day is not
+yet come," said the Thug, with a gloomy air; "and to wait for that and
+other fatal days, I must have gold, much gold.  You alone can pay me for
+the betrayal of Djalma, for you alone profit by it.  You refuse to hear
+me, because you think I am deceiving you.  But I took the direction of
+the inn where we stopped--and here it is.  Send some one to ascertain the
+truth of what I tell you, and then you will believe me.  But the price of
+my services will be high; for I told you that I wanted much."
+
+So saying, Faringhea offered a printed card to Rodin: the socius, who,
+out of the corner of his eye, followed all the half-caste's movements,
+appeared to be absorbed in thought, and taking no heed of anything.
+
+"Here is the address,' repeated Faringhea, as he held out the card to
+Rodin; "assure yourself that I do not lie."
+
+"Eh? what is it?" said the other, casting a rapid but stolen glance at
+the address, which he read greedily, without touching the card.
+
+"Take this address," repeated the half-caste, "and you may then assure
+yourself--"
+
+"Really, sir," cried Rodin, pushing back the card with his hand, "your
+impudence confounds me.  I repeat that I wish to have nothing in common
+with you.  For the last time, I tell you to leave the house.  I know
+nothing about your Prince Djalma.  You say you can injure me--do so--make
+no ceremonies--but, in heaven's name, leave me to myself."
+
+So saying, Rodin rang the bell violently.  Faringhea made a movement as
+if to stand upon the defensive; but only the old servant, with his quiet
+and placid mien, appeared at the door.
+
+"Lapierre, light the gentleman out," said Rodin, pointing to Faringhea.
+
+Terrified at Rodin's calmness, the half-caste hesitated to leave the
+room.
+
+"Why do you wait, sir?" said Rodin, remarking his hesitation.  "I wish to
+be alone."
+
+"So, sir," said Faringhea, as he withdrew, slowly, "you refuse my offers?
+Take care! to-morrow it will be too late."
+
+"I have the honor to be your most humble servant, sir," said Rodin,
+bowing courteously.  The Strangler went out, and the door closed upon
+him.
+
+Immediately, Father d'Aigrigny entered from the next room.  His
+countenance was pale and agitated.
+
+"What have you done?" exclaimed he addressing Rodin.
+
+"I have heard all.  I am unfortunately too sure that this wretch spoke
+the truth.  The Indian is in his power, and he goes to rejoin him."
+
+"I think not," said Rodin, humbly, as bowing, he reassumed his dull and
+submissive countenance.
+
+"What will prevent this man from rejoining the prince?"
+
+"Allow me.  As soon as the rascal was shown in, I knew him; and so,
+before speaking a word to him, I wrote a few lines to Morok, who was
+waiting below with Goliath till your reverence should be at leisure.
+Afterwards, in the course of the conversation, when they brought me
+Morok's answer, I added some fresh instructions, seeing the turn that
+affairs were taking."
+
+"And what was the use of all this, since you have let the man leave the
+house?"
+
+"Your reverence will perhaps deign to observe that he did not leave it;
+till he had given me the direction of the hotel where the Indian now is,
+thanks to my innocent stratagem of appearing to despise him.  But, if it
+had failed, Faringhea would still have fallen into the hands of Goliath
+and Morok, who are waiting for him in the street, a few steps from the
+door.  Only we should have been rather embarrassed, as we should not have
+known where to find Prince Djalma."
+
+"More violence!" said Father d'Aigrigny, with repugnance.
+
+"It is to be regretted, very much regretted," replied Rodin; "but it was
+necessary to follow out the system already adopted."
+
+"Is that meant for a reproach?" said Father d'Aigrigny, who began to
+think that Rodin was something more than a mere writing-machine.
+
+"I could not permit myself to blame your reverence," said Rodin, cringing
+almost to the ground.  "But all that will be required is to confine this
+man for twenty-four hours."
+
+"And afterwards--his complaints?"
+
+"Such a scoundrel as he is will not dare to complain.  Besides, he left
+this house in freedom.  Morok and Goliath will bandage his eyes when they
+seize him.  The house has another entrance in the Rue Vieille-des-Ursins.
+At this hour, and in such a storm, no one will be passing through this
+deserted quarter of the town.  The knave will be confused by the change
+of place; they will put him into a cellar, of the new building, and to-
+morrow night, about the same hour, they will restore him to liberty with
+the like precautions.  As for the East Indian, we now know where to find
+him; we must send to him a confidential person, and, if he recovers from
+his trance, there would be, in my humble opinion," said Rodin, modestly,
+"a very simple and quiet manner of keeping him away from the Rue Saint-
+Francois all day to-morrow."
+
+The same servant with the mild countenance, who had introduced and shown
+out Faringhea, here entered the room, after knocking discreetly at the
+door.  He held in his hand a sort of game-bag, which he gave to Rodin,
+saying: "Here is what M. Morok has just brought; he came in by the Rue
+Vieille."
+
+The servant withdrew, and Rodin, opening the bag, said to Father
+d'Aigrigny, as he showed him the contents: "The medal, and Van Dael's
+letter.  Morok has been quick at his work."
+
+"One more danger avoided," said the marquis; "it is a pity to be forced
+to such measures."
+
+"We must only blame the rascal who has obliged us to have recourse to
+them.  I will send instantly to the hotel where the Indian lodges."
+
+"And, at seven in the morning, you will conduct Gabriel to the Rue Saint-
+Francois.  It is there that I must have with him the interview which he
+has so earnestly demanded these three days."
+
+"I informed him of it this evening, and he awaits your orders."
+
+"At last, then," said Father d'Aigrigny, "after so many struggles, and
+fears, and crosses, only a few hours separate us from the moment which we
+have so long desired."
+
+We now conduct the reader to the house in the Rue Saint-Francois.
+
+[13] The doctrine of passive and absolute obedience, the principal tool
+in the hands of the Jesuits, as summed up in these terrible words of the
+dying Loyola--that every member of the order should be in the hands of
+his superiors as a dead body--'perinde ad cadaver'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE HOUSE IN THE RUE SAINT-FRANCOIS.
+
+On entering the Rue Saint-Gervais, by the Rue Dore (in the Marais), you
+would have found yourself, at the epoch of this narrative, directly
+opposite to an enormously high wall, the stones of which were black and
+worm-eaten with age.  This wall, which extended nearly the whole length
+of that solitary street, served to support a terrace shaded by trees of
+some hundred years old, which thus grew about forty feet above the
+causeway.  Through their thick branches appeared the stone front, peaked
+roof and tall brick chimneys of an antique house, the entrance of which
+was situated in the Rue Saint-Francois, not far from the Rue Saint-
+Gervais corner.  Nothing could be more gloomy than the exterior of this
+abode.  On the entrance-side also was a very high wall, pierced with two
+or three loop-holes, strongly grated.  A carriage gateway in massive oak,
+barred with iron, and studded with large nail-heads, whose primitive
+color disappeared beneath a thick layer of mud, dust, and rust, fitted
+close into the arch of a deep recess, forming the swell of a bay window
+above.  In one of these massive gates was a smaller door, which served
+for ingress and egress to Samuel the Jew, the guardian of this dreary
+abode.  On passing the threshold, you came to a passage, formed in the
+building which faced in the street.  In this building was the lodging of
+Samuel, with its windows opening upon the rather spacious inner court-
+yard, through the railing of which you perceived the garden.  In the
+middle of this garden stood a two-storied stone house, so strangely
+built, that you had to mount a flight of steps, or rather a double-flight
+of at least twenty steps, to reach the door, which had been walled up a
+hundred and fifty years before.  The window-blinds of this habitation had
+been replaced by large thick plates of lead, hermetically soldered and
+kept in by frames of iron clamped in the stone.  Moreover, completely to
+intercept air and light, and thus to guard against decay within and
+without, the roof had been covered with thick sheets of lead, as well as
+the vents of the tall chimneys, which had previously been bricked up.
+The same precautions had been taken with respect to a small square
+belvedere, situated on the top of the house; this glass cage was covered
+with a sort of dome, soldered to the roof.  Only, in consequence of some
+singular fancy, in every one of the leaden plates, which concealed the
+four sides of the belvedere, corresponding to the cardinal points, seven
+little round holes had been bored in the form of a cross, and were easily
+distinguishable from the outside.  Everywhere else the plates of lead
+were completely unpierced.  Thanks to these precautions, and to the
+substantial structure of the building, nothing but a few outward repairs
+had been necessary; and the apartments, entirely removed from the
+influence of the external air, no doubt remained, during a century and a
+half, exactly in the same state as at the time of their being shut up.
+The aspect of walls in crevices, of broken, worm-eaten shutters, of a
+roof half fallen in, and windows covered with wall-flowers, would perhaps
+have been less sad than the appearance of this stone house, plated with
+iron and lead, and preserved like a mausoleum.  The garden, completely
+deserted, and only regularly visited once a week by Samuel, presented to
+the view, particularly in summer, an incredible confusion of parasites
+and brambles.  The trees, left to themselves, had shot forth and mingled
+their branches in all directions; some straggling vines, reproduced from
+offshoots, had crept along the ground to the foot of the trees, and,
+climbing up their trunks, had twined themselves about them, and encircled
+their highest branches with their inextricable net.  You could only pass
+through this virgin forest by following the path made by the guardian, to
+go from the grating to the house, the approaches to which were a little
+sloped to let the water run off, and carefully paved to the width of
+about ten feet.  Another narrow path which extended all around the
+enclosure, was every night perambulated by two or three Pyrenees dogs--a
+faithful race, which had been perpetuated in the house during a century
+and a half.  Such was the habitation destined for the meeting of the
+descendants of the family of Rennepont.  The night which separated the
+12th from the 13th day of February was near its close.  A calm had
+succeeded the storm, and the rain had ceased; the sky was clear and full
+of stars; the moon, on its decline, shone with a mild lustre, and threw a
+melancholy light over that deserted, silent house, whose threshold for so
+many years no human footstep had crossed.
+
+A bright gleam of light, issuing from one of the windows of the
+guardian's dwelling, announced that Samuel was awake.  Figure to yourself
+a tolerably large room, lined from top to bottom with old walnut
+wainscoting browned to an almost black, with age.  Two half-extinguished
+brands are smoking amid the cinders on the hearth.  On the stone
+mantelpiece, painted to resemble gray granite, stands an old iron
+candlestick, furnished with a meagre candle, capped by an extinguisher.
+Near it one sees a pair of double-barrelled pistols, and a sharp cutlass,
+with a hilt of carved bronze, belonging to the seventeenth century.
+Moreover, a heavy rifle rests against one of the chimney jambs.  Four
+stools, an old oak press, and a square table with twisted legs, formed
+the sole furniture of this apartment.  Against the wall were
+systematically suspended a number of keys of different sizes, the shape
+of which bore evidence to their antiquity, whilst to their rings were
+affixed divers labels.  The back of the old press, which moved by a
+secret spring, had been pushed aside, and discovered, built in the wall,
+a large and deep iron chest, the lid of which, being open, displayed the
+wondrous mechanism of one of those Florentine locks of the sixteenth
+century, which, better than any modern invention, set all picklocks at
+defiance; and, moreover, according to the notions of that age, are
+supplied with a thick lining of asbestos cloth, suspended by gold wire at
+a distance from the sides of the chest, for the purpose of rendering
+incombustible the articles contained in it.  A large cedar-wood box had
+been taken from the chest, and placed upon a stool; it contained numerous
+papers, carefully arranged and docketed.  By the light of a brass lamp,
+the old keeper Samuel, was writing in a small register, whilst Bathsheba,
+his wife, was dictating to him from an account.  Samuel was about eighty-
+two years old, and, notwithstanding his advanced age, a mass of gray
+curling hair covered his head.  He was short, thin, nervous, and the
+involuntary petulance of his movements proved that years had not weakened
+his energy and activity; though, out of doors, where, however, he made
+his appearance very seldom, he affected a sort of second childhood, as
+had been remarked by Rodin to Father d'Aigrigny.  An old dressing-gown,
+of maroon-colored camlet, with large sleeves, completely enveloped the
+old man, and reached to his feet.
+
+Samuel's features were cast in the pure, Eastern mould of his race.  His
+complexion was of a dead yellow, his nose aquiline, his chin shaded by a
+little tuft of white beard, while projecting cheek-bones threw a harsh
+shadow upon the hollow and wrinkled cheeks.  His countenance was full of
+intelligence, fine sharpness, and sagacity.  On his broad, high forehead
+one might read frankness, honesty, and firmness; his eyes, black and
+brilliant as an Arab's, were at once mild and piercing.
+
+His wife, Bathsheba, some fifteen years younger than himself, was of tall
+stature, and dressed entirely in black.  A low cap, of starched lawn,
+which reminded one of the grave head-dresses of Dutch matrons, encircled
+a pale and austere countenance, formerly of a rare and haughty beauty,
+and impressed with the Scriptural character.  Some lines in the forehead,
+caused by the almost continual knitting of her gray brows, showed that
+this woman had often suffered from the pressure of intense grief.
+
+At this very moment her countenance betrayed inexpressible sorrow.  Her
+look was fixed, her head resting on her bosom.  She had let her right
+hand, which held a small account-book, fall upon her lap, while the other
+hand grasped convulsively a long tress of jet-black hair, which she bore
+about her neck.  It was fastened by a golden clasp, about an inch square,
+in which, under a plate of crystal, that shut in one side of it like a
+relic-case, could be seen a piece of linen, folded square, and almost
+entirely covered with dark red spots that resembled blood a long time
+dried.
+
+After a short silence, during which Samuel was occupied with his
+register, he read aloud what he had just been writing: "Per contra, 5,000
+Austrian Metallics of 1,000 florins, under date of October 19th, 1826."
+
+After which enumeration, Samuel raised his head, and said to his wife:
+"Well, is it right, Bathsheba?  Have you compared it with the account-
+book?"
+
+Bathsheba did not answer.  Samuel looked at her, and, seeing that she was
+absorbed in grief, said to her, with an expression of tender anxiety:
+"What is the matter?  Good heaven! what is the matter with you?"
+
+"The 19th of October, 1826," said she, slowly, with her eyes still fixed,
+and pressing yet more closely the lock of black hair which she wore about
+her neck; "It was a fatal day--for, Samuel, it was the date of the last
+letter which we received from--"
+
+Bathsheba was unable to proceed.  She uttered a long sigh, and concealed
+her face in her hands.
+
+"Oh! I understand you," observed the old man, in a tremulous voice; "a
+father may be taken up by the thought of other cares; but the heart of a
+mother is ever wakeful."  Throwing his pen down upon the table, Samuel
+leaned his forehead upon his hands in sorrow.
+
+Bathsheba resumed, as if she found a melancholy pleasure in these cruel
+remembrances: "Yes; that was the last day on which our son, Abel, wrote
+to us from Germany, to announce to us that he had invested the funds
+according to your desire and was going thence into Poland, to effect
+another operation."
+
+"And in Poland he met the death of a martyr," added Samuel.  "With no
+motive and no proof, they accused him falsely of coming to organize
+smuggling, and the Russian governor, treating him as they treat our
+brothers in that land of cruel tyranny, condemned him to the dreadful
+punishment of the knout, without even hearing him in his defence.  Why
+should they hear a Jew?  What is a Jew?  A creature below a serf, whom
+they reproach for all the vices that a degrading slavery has engendered.
+A Jew beaten to death?  Who would trouble themselves about it?"
+
+"And poor Abel, so good, so faithful, died beneath their stripes, partly
+from shame, partly from the wounds, said Bathsheba, shuddering.  "One of
+our Polish brethren obtained with great difficulty permission to bury
+him.  He cut off this lode of beautiful black hair--which, with this
+scrap of linen, bathed in the blood of our dear son, is all that now
+remains to us of him."  Bathsheba covered the hair and clasp with
+convulsive kisses.
+
+"Alas!" said Samuel, drying his tears, which had burst forth at these sad
+recollections, "the Lord did not at last remove our child, until the task
+which our family has accomplished faithfully for a century and a half was
+nearly at an end.  Of what use will our race be henceforth upon earth?"
+added Samuel, most bitterly.  "Our duty is performed.  This casket
+contains a royal fortune--and yonder house, walled up for a hundred and
+fifty years, will be opened to-morrow to the descendants of my ancestor's
+benefactor."  So saying, Samuel turned his face sorrowfully towards the
+house, which he could see through the window.  The dawn was just about to
+appear.  The moon had set; belvedere, roof, and chimneys formed a black
+mass upon the dark blue of the starry firmament.
+
+Suddenly, Samuel grew pale, and, rising abruptly, said to his wife in a
+tremulous tone, whilst he still pointed to the house: "Bathsheba! the
+seven points of light--just as it was thirty years ago.  Look! look:"
+
+Indeed, the seven round holes, bored in the form of a cross in the leaden
+plates which covered the window of the belvedere, sparkled like so many
+luminous points, as if some one in the house ascended with a light to the
+roof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+DEBIT AND CREDIT.
+
+For some seconds, Samuel and Bathsheba remained motionless, with their
+eyes fixed in fear and uneasiness on the seven luminous points, which
+shone through the darkness of the night from the summit of the belvedere;
+while, on the horizon, behind the house, a pale, rosy hue announced the
+dawn of day.
+
+Samuel was the first to break silence, and he said to his wife, as he
+drew his hand across his brow: "The grief caused by the remembrance of
+our poor child has prevented us from reflecting that, after all, there
+should be nothing to alarm us in what we see."
+
+"How so, Samuel?"
+
+"My father always told me that he, and my grandfather before him, had
+seen such lights at long intervals."
+
+"Yes, Samuel--but without being able, any more than ourselves, to explain
+the cause."
+
+"Like my father and grandfather, we can only suppose that some secret
+passage gives admittance to persons who, like us, have some mysterious
+duty to fulfil in this dwelling.  Besides, my father warned me not to be
+uneasy at these appearances, foretold by him, and now visible for the
+second time in thirty years."
+
+"No matter for that, Samuel, it does strike one as if it was something
+supernatural."
+
+"The days of miracles are over." said the Jew, shaking his head
+sorrowfully: "many of the old houses in this quarter have subterraneous
+communications with distant places--some extending even to the Seine and
+the Catacombs.  Doubtless, this house is so situated, and the persons who
+make these rare visits enter by some such means."
+
+"But that the belvedere should be thus lighted up?"
+
+"According to the plan of the building, you know that the belvedere forms
+a kind of skylight to the apartment called the Great Hall of Mourning,
+situated on the upper story.  As it is completely dark, in consequence of
+the closing of all the windows, they must use a light to visit this Hall
+of Mourning--a room which is said to contain some very strange and gloomy
+things," added the Jew, with a shudder.
+
+Bathsheba, as well as her husband, gazed attentively on the seven
+luminous points, which diminished in brightness as the daylight gradually
+increased.
+
+"As you say, Samuel, the mystery may be thus explained," resumed the
+Hebrew's wife.  "Besides, the day is so important a one for the family of
+Rennepont, that this apparition: ought not to astonish us under the
+circumstances."
+
+"Only to think," remarked Samuel, "that these lights have appeared at
+several different times throughout a century and a half!  There must,
+therefore, be another family that, like ours, has devoted itself, from
+generation to generation, to accomplish a pious duty."
+
+"But what is this duty?  It will perhaps be explained today."
+
+"Come, come, Bathsheba," suddenly exclaimed Samuel, as if roused from his
+reverie, and reproaching himself with idleness; this is the day, and,
+before eight o'clock, our cash account must be in order, and these titles
+to immense property arranged, so that they may be delivered to the
+rightful owners"--and he pointed to the cedar-wood box.
+
+"You are right, Samuel; this day does not belong to us.  It is a solemn
+day--one that would have been sweet, oh! very sweet to you and me--if now
+any days could be sweet to us," said Bathsheba bitterly, for she was
+thinking of her son.
+
+"Bathsheba," said Samuel, mournfully, as he laid his hand on his wife's;
+"we shall at least have the stern satisfaction of having done our duty.
+And has not the Lord been very favorable to us, though He has thus
+severely tried us by the death of our son?  Is it not thanks to His
+providence that three generations of my family have been able to
+commence, continue, and finish this great work?"
+
+"Yes, Samuel," said the Jewess, affectionately, "and for you at least
+this satisfaction will be combined with calm and quietness, for on the
+stroke of noon you will be delivered from a very terrible
+responsibility."
+
+So saying, Bathsheba pointed to the box.
+
+"It is true," replied the old man; "I had rather these immense riches
+were in the hands of those to whom they belong, than in mine; but, to-
+day, I shall cease to be their trustee.  Once more then, I will check the
+account for the last time, and compare the register with the cash-book
+that you hold in your hand."
+
+Bathsheba bowed her head affirmatively, and Samuel, taking up his pen,
+occupied himself once more with his calculations.  His wife, in spite of
+herself, again yielded to the sad thoughts which that fatal date had
+awakened, by reminding her of the death of her son.
+
+Let us now trace rapidly the history, in appearance so romantic and
+marvellous, in reality so simple, of the fifty thousand crowns, which,
+thanks to the law of accumulation, and to a prudent, intelligent and
+faithful investment, had naturally, and necessarily, been transformed, in
+the space of a century and a half, into a sum far more important than the
+forty millions estimated by Father d'Aigrigny--who, partially informed on
+this subject, and reckoning the disastrous accidents, losses, and
+bankruptcies which might have occurred during so long a period, believed
+that forty millions might well b e considered enormous.
+
+The history of this fortune being closely connected with that of the
+Samuel family, by whom it had been managed for three generations, we
+shall give it again in a few words.
+
+About the period 1670, some years before his death, Marius de Rennepont,
+then travelling in Portugal, had been enabled, by means of powerful
+interest, to save the life of an unfortunate Jew, condemned to be burnt
+alive by the Inquisition, because of his religion.  This Jew was Isaac
+Samuel, grandfather of the present guardian of the house in the Rue
+Saint-Francois.
+
+Generous men often attach themselves to those they have served, as much,
+at least, as the obliged parties are attached to their benefactors.
+Having ascertained that Isaac, who at that time carried on a petty
+broker's business at Lisbon, was industrious, honest, active, laborious,
+and intelligent, M. de Rennepont, who then possessed large property in
+France, proposed to the Jew to accompany him, and undertake the
+management of his affairs.  The same hatred and suspicion with which the
+Israelites have always been followed, was then at its height.  Isaac was
+therefore doubly grateful for this mark of confidence on the part of M.
+de Rennepont.  He accepted the offer, and promised from that day to
+devote his existence to the service of him who had first saved his life,
+and then trusted implicitly to his good faith and uprightness, although
+he was a Jew, and belonged to a race generally suspected and despised.
+M. de Rennepont, a man of great soul, endowed with a good spirit, was not
+deceived in his choice.  Until he was deprived of his fortune, it
+prospered wonderfully in the hands of Isaac Samuel, who, gifted with an
+admirable aptitude for business, applied himself exclusively to advance
+the interests of his benefactor.
+
+Then came the persecution and ruin of M. de Rennepont, whose property was
+confiscated and given up to the reverend fathers of the Company of Jesus
+only a few days before his death.  Concealed in the retreat he had
+chosen, therein to put a violent end to his life, he sent secretly for
+Isaac Samuel, and delivered to him fifty thousand crowns in gold, the
+last remains of his fortune.  This faithful servant was to invest the
+money to the best advantage, and, if he should have a son, transmit to
+him the same obligation; or, should he have no child, he was to seek out
+some relation worthy of continuing this trust, to which would moreover be
+annexed a fair reward.  It was thus to be transmitted and perpetuated
+from relative to relative, until the expiration of a century and a half.
+M. de Rennepont also begged Isaac to take charge, during his life, of the
+house in the Rue Saint-Francois, where he would be lodged gratis, and to
+leave this function likewise to his descendants, if it were possible.
+
+If even Isaac Samuel had not had children, the powerful bond of union
+which exists between certain Jewish families, would have rendered
+practicable the last will of De Rennepont.  The relations of Isaac would
+have become partner; in his gratitude to his benefactor, and they, and
+their succeeding generations, would have religiously accomplished the
+task imposed upon one of their race.  But, several years after the death
+of De Rennepont, Isaac had a son.
+
+This son, Levy Samuel, born in 1689, not having had any children by his
+first wife, married again at nearly sixty years of age, and, in 1750, he
+also had a son--David Samuel, the guardian of the house in the Rue Saint-
+Francois, who, in 1832 (the date of this narrative), was eighty-two years
+old, and seemed likely to live as long as his father, who had died at the
+age of ninety-three.  Finally, Abel Samuel, the son whom Bathsheba so
+bitterly regretted, born in 1790, had perished under the Russian knout,
+at the age of thirty-six.
+
+Having established this humble genealogy, we easily understand how this
+successive longevity of three members of the Samuel family, all of whom
+had been guardians of the walled house, by uniting, as it were, the
+nineteenth with the seventeenth century, simplified and facilitated the
+execution of M. de Rennepont's will; the latter having declared his
+desire to the grandfather of the Samuels, that the capital should only be
+augmented by interest at five per cent.--so that the fortune might come
+to his descendants free from all taint of usurious speculation.
+
+The fellow men of the Samuel family, the first inventors of the bill of
+exchange, which served them in the Middle Ages to transport mysteriously
+considerable amounts from one end of the world to the other, to conceal
+their fortune, and to shield it from the rapacity of their enemies--the
+Jews, we say, having almost the monopoly of the trade in money and
+exchanges, until the end of the eighteenth century, aided the secret
+transactions and financial operations of this family, which, up to about
+1820, placed their different securities, which had become progressively
+immense, in the hands of the principal Israelitish bankers and merchants
+of Europe.  This sure and secret manner of acting had enabled the present
+guardian of the house in the Rue Saint-Francois, to effect enormous
+investments, unknown to all; and it was more especially during the period
+of his management, that the capital sum had acquired, by the mere fact of
+compound interest, an almost incalculable development.  Compared with
+him, his father and grandfather had only small amounts to manage.  Though
+it had only been necessary to find successively sure and immediate
+investments, so that the money might not remain as it were one day
+without bearing interest, it had acquired financial capacity to attain
+this result, when so many millions were in question.  The last of the
+Samuels, brought up in the school of his father, had exhibited this
+capacity in a very high degree, as will be seen immediately by the
+results.  Nothing could be more touching, noble, and respectable, than
+the conduct of the members of this Jewish family, who, partners in the
+engagement of gratitude taken by their ancestor, devote themselves for
+long years, with as much disinterestedness as intelligence and honesty,
+to the slow acquisition of a kingly fortune, of which they expect no part
+themselves, but which, thanks to them, would come pure, as immense, to
+the hands of the descendants of their benefactor!  Nor could anything be
+more honorable to him who made, and him who received this deposit, than
+the simple promise by word of mouth, unaccompanied by any security save
+mutual confidence and reciprocal esteem, when the result was only to be
+produced at the end of a century and a half!
+
+After once more reading his inventory with attention, Samuel said to his
+wife: "I am certain of the correctness of my additions.  Now please to
+compare with the account-book in your hand the summary of the investments
+that I have just entered in the register.  I will assure myself, at the
+same time, that the bonds and vouchers are properly arranged in this
+casket, that, on the opening of the will, they may be delivered in order
+to the notary."
+
+"Begin, my dear, and I will check you," said Bathsheba.
+
+Samuel read as follows, examining as he went on, the contents of his
+casket:
+
+Statement of the account of the heirs of M. DE RENNEPONT, delivered by
+DAVID SAMUELS.
+
+DEBIT.
+
+2,000,000 francs per annum,
+ in the French 5 P. C.,
+ bought from 1825 to 1832,
+ at an average price of 99f.
+ 50c. . . . . . . . . . . . 39,800,000
+900,000 francs, ditto, in
+ the French 3 P. C.,
+ bought during the
+ same years, at an average
+ of 74f 25c . . . . . . . . 22,275,000
+5;000 shares in the Bank
+ of France, bought at 1,900  9,500,000
+3,000 shares in the Four
+ Canals, in a certificate
+ from the Company,
+ bought at 1,115f . . . . .  3,345,000
+125,000 ducats of
+ Neapolitans, at an average
+ of 82.  2,050,000 ducats,
+ at 4f.  400 . . . . . . .   9,020,000
+5,000 Austrian Metallics,
+ of 1,000 florins, at 93
+ --say 4,650,000 florins,
+ at 2f. 50c . . . . . . . . 11,625,000
+75,000 pounds sterling
+ per annum, English
+ Consolidated 3 P. C.,
+ at 88 3/4--say 2,218,750,
+ at 25f   . . . . . . . . . 55,468,750
+1,200,000 florins, Dutch
+2 1/2 P. C., at 60-28,
+860,000 florins, at 2f.
+100.  .  . . . . . . . . .  60,606,000
+Cash in banknotes, gold
+and silver . . . . . . . .     535,250
+                          _____________
+                  Francs   212,175,000
+
+Paris, 12th February, 1832.
+
+CREDIT.
+
+150,000 francs
+ received from M.
+ de Rennepont,
+ in 1682, by Isaac
+ Samuel my grandfather;
+ and invested by him,
+ my father, and myself,
+ in different securities,
+ at Five per Cent.
+ Interest, with a
+ settlement of account
+ and Investment of
+ interest every six
+ months, producing,
+ as by annexed vouchers, 225,950,000
+
+Less losses sustained
+ by failures, expenses of
+ commission and
+ brokerage, and
+ salary of three
+ generations of
+ trustees, as per
+ statement annexed        13,775,000
+                         ____________
+                         212,175,000
+
+Francs 212,175,000
+
+"It is quite right," said Samuel, after examining the papers, contained
+in the cedar-wood box.  "There remains in hand, at the absolute disposal
+of the heirs of the Rennepont family, the Sum Of TWO HUNDRED AND TWELVE
+MILLIONS, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND FRANCS."  And the old man
+looked at his wife with an expression of legitimate pride.  "It is hardly
+credible!" cried Bathsheba, struck with surprise.  "I knew that you had
+immense property in your hands; but I could never have believed, that one
+hundred and fifty thousand francs, left a century and a half ago, should
+be the only source of this immense fortune."
+
+"It is even so, Bathsheba," answered the old man, proudly.  `Doubtless,
+my grandfather, my father, and myself, have all been exact and faithful
+in the management of these funds; doubtless, we have required some
+sagacity in the choice of investments, in times of revolution and
+commercial panics; but all this was easy to us, thanks to our relations
+with our brethren in all countries--and never have I, or any of mine,
+made an usurious investment, or even taken the full advantage of the
+legal rate of interest.  Such were the positive demands of M. de
+Rennepont, given to my grandfather; nor is there in the world a fortune
+that has been obtained by purer means.  Had it not been for this
+disinterestedness, we might have much augmented this two hundred and
+twelve millions, only by taking advantage of a few favorable
+circumstances."
+
+"Dear me! is it possible?"
+
+"Nothing is more simple, Bathsheba.  Every one knows, that in fourteen
+years a capital will be doubled, by the mere accumulation of interest and
+compound interest at five per cent.  Now reflect, that in a century and a
+half there are ten times fourteen years, and that these one hundred and
+fifty thousands francs have thus been doubled and redoubled, over and
+over again.  All that astonishes you will then appear plain enough.  In
+1682, M. de Rennepont entrusted my grandfather with a hundred and fifty
+thousand francs; this sum, invested as I have told you, would have
+produced in 1696, fourteen years after, three hundred thousand francs.
+These last, doubled in 1710, would produce six hundred thousand.  On the
+death of my grandfather in 1719, the amount was already near a million;
+in 1724, it would be twelve hundred thousand francs; in 1738, two
+millions four hundred thousand; in 1752, about two years after my birth,
+four millions eight hundred thousand; in 1766, nine millions six hundred
+thousand; in 1780, nineteen millions two hundred thousand; in 1794,
+twelve years after the death of my father, thirty-eight millions four
+hundred thousand; in 1808, seventy-six millions eight hundred thousand;
+in 1822, one hundred and fifty-three millions six hundred thousand; and,
+at this time, taking the compound interest for ten years, it should be at
+least two hundred and twenty-five millions.  But losses and inevitable
+charges, of which the account has been strictly kept, have reduced the
+sum to two hundred and twelve millions one hundred and seventy-five
+thousand francs, the securities for which are in this box."
+
+"I now understand you, my dear," answered Bathsheba, thoughtfully; "but
+how wonderful is this power of accumulation! and what admirable provision
+may be made for the future, with the smallest present resources!"
+
+"Such, no doubt, was the idea of M. de Rennepont; for my father has often
+told me, and he derived it from his father, that M. de Rennepont was one
+of the soundest intellects of his time," said Samuel, as he closed the
+cedar-box.
+
+"God grant his descendants may be worthy of this kingly fortune, and make
+a noble use of it!" said Bathsheba, rising.
+
+It was now broad day, and the clock had just struck seven.
+
+"The masons will soon be here," said Samuel, as he replaced the cedar-box
+in the iron safe, concealed behind the antique press.  "Like you,
+Bathsheba, I am curious and anxious to know, what descendants of M. de
+Rennepont will now present themselves."
+
+Two or three loud knocks on the outer gate resounded through the house.
+The barking of the watch-dogs responded to this summons.
+
+Samuel said to his wife: "It is no doubt the masons, whom the notary has
+sent with his clerk.  Tie all the keys and their labels together; I will
+come back and fetch them."
+
+So saying, Samuel went down to the door with much nimbleness, considering
+his age, prudently opened a small wicket, and saw three workmen, in the
+garb of masons, accompanied by a young man dressed in black.
+
+"What may you want, gentlemen?" said the Jew, before opening the door, as
+he wished first to make sure of the identity of the personages.
+
+"I am sent by M. Dumesnil, the notary," answered the clerk, "to be
+present at the unwalling of a door.  Here is a letter from my master,
+addressed to M. Samuel, guardian of the house."
+
+"I am he, sir," said the Jew; "please to put the letter through the
+slide, and I will take it."
+
+The clerk did as Samuel desired, but shrugged his shoulders at what he
+considered the ridiculous precautions of a suspicious old man.  The
+housekeeper opened the box, took the letter, went to the end of the
+vaulted passage in order to read it, and carefully compared the signature
+with that of another letter which he drew from the pocket of his long
+coat; then, after all these precautions, he chained up his dogs, and
+returned to open the gate to the clerk and masons.
+
+"What the devil, my good man!" said the clerk, as he entered; "there
+would not be more formalities in opening the gates of a fortress!"
+
+The Jew bowed, but without answering.
+
+"Are you deaf, my good fellow?" cried the clerk, close to his ears.
+
+"No, sir," said Samuel, with a quiet smile, as he advanced several steps
+beyond the passage.  Then pointing to the old house, he added.: "That,
+sir, is the door which you will have to open; you will also have to
+remove the lead and iron from the second window to the right."
+
+"Why not open all the windows?" asked the clerk.
+
+"Because, sir, as guardian of this house, I have received particular
+orders on the subject."
+
+"Who gave you these orders?"
+
+"My father, sir, who received them from his father, who transmitted them
+from the master of this house.  When I cease to have the care of it, the
+new proprietor will do as he pleases."
+
+"Oh! very well," said the clerk, not a little surprised.  Then,
+addressing himself to the masons, he added: "This is your business, my
+fine fellows; you are to unwall the door, and remove the iron frame-work
+of the second window to the right."
+
+Whilst the masons set to work, under the inspection of the notary's
+clerk, a coach stopped before the outer gate, and Rodin, accompanied by
+Gabriel, entered the house in the Rue Saint-Francois.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE HEIR
+
+Samuel opened the door to Gabriel and Rodin.
+
+The latter said to the Jew, "You, sir, are the keeper of this house?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Samuel.
+
+"This is Abbe Gabriel de Rennepont," said Rodin, as he introduced his
+companion, "one of the descendants of the family of the Renneponts."
+
+"Happy to hear it, sir," said the Jew, almost involuntarily, struck with
+the angelic countenance of Gabriel--for nobleness and serenity of soul
+were visible in the glance of the young priest, and were written upon his
+pure, white brow, already crowned with the halo of martyrdom.  Samuel
+looked at Gabriel with curiosity and benevolent interest; but feeling
+that this silent contemplation must cause some embarrassment to his
+guest, he said to him, "M. Abbe, the notary will not be here before ten
+o'clock."
+
+Gabriel looked at him in turn, with an air of surprise, and answered,
+"What notary, sir?"
+
+"Father d'Aigrigny will explain all this to you," said Rodin, hastily.
+Then addressing Samuel, he added, "We are a little before the time.  Will
+you allow us to wait for the arrival of the notary?"
+
+"Certainly," said Samuel, "if you please to walk into my house."
+
+"I thank you, sir," answered Rodin, "and accept your offer."
+
+"Follow me, then, gentlemen," said the old man.
+
+A few moments after, the young priest and the socius, preceded by Samuel,
+entered one of the rooms occupied by the latter, on the ground-floor of
+the building, looking out upon the court-yard.
+
+"The Abbe d'Aigrigny, who has been the guardian of M. Gabriel, will soon
+be coming to ask for us," added Rodin; "will you have the kindness, sir
+to show him into this room?"
+
+"I will not fail to do so, sir," said Samuel, as he went out.
+
+The socius and Gabriel were left alone.  To the adorable gentleness which
+usually gave to the fine features of the missionary so touching a charm,
+there had succeeded in this moment a remarkable expression of sadness,
+resolution, and severity.  Rodin not having seen Gabriel for some days,
+was greatly struck by the change he remarked in him.  He had watched him
+silently all the way from the Rue des Postes to the Rue Saint-Francois.
+The young priest wore, as usual, a long black cassock, which made still
+more visible the transparent paleness of his countenance.  When the Jew
+had left the room, Gabriel said to Rodin, in a firm voice, "Will you at
+length inform me, sir, why, for some days past, I have been prevented
+from speaking to his reverence Father d'Aigrigny?  Why has he chosen this
+house to grant me an interview?"
+
+"It is impossible for me to answer these questions," replied Rodin,
+coldly.  "His reverence will soon arrive, and will listen to you.  All I
+can tell you is, that the reverend father lays as much stress upon this
+meeting as you do.  If he has chosen this house for the interview, it is
+because you have an interest to be here.  You know it well--though you
+affected astonishment on hearing the guardian speak of a notary."
+
+So saying, Rodin fixed a scrutinizing, anxious look upon Gabriel, whose
+countenance expressed only surprise.
+
+"I do not understand you," said he, in reply to Rodin.  "What have I to
+do with this house?"
+
+"It is impossible that you should not know it," answered Rodin, still
+looking at him with attention.
+
+"I have told you, sir, that I do not know it," replied the other, almost
+offended by the pertinacity of the socius.
+
+"What, then, did your adopted mother come to tell you yesterday?  Why did
+you presume to receive her without permission from Father d'Aigrigny, as
+I have heard this morning?  Did she not speak with you of certain family
+papers, found upon you when she took you in?"
+
+"No, sir," said Gabriel; "those papers were delivered at the time to my
+adopted mother's confessor, and they afterwards passed into Father
+d'Aigrigny's hands.  This is the first I hear for a long time of these
+papers."
+
+"So you affirm that Frances Baudoin did not come to speak to you on this
+subject?" resumed Rodin, obstinately, laying great emphasis on his words.
+
+"This is the second time, sir, that you seem to doubt my affirmation,"
+said the young priest, mildly, while he repressed a movement of
+impatience, "I assure you that I speak the truth."
+
+"He knows nothing," thought Rodin; for he was too well convinced of
+Gabriel's sincerity to retain the least doubt after so positive a
+declaration.  "I believe you," went on he.  "The idea only occurred to me
+in reflecting what could be the reason of sufficient weight to induce you
+to transgress Father d'Aigrigny's orders with regard to the absolute
+retirement he had commanded, which was to exclude all communication with
+those without.  Much more, contrary to all the rules of our house, you
+ventured to shut the door of your room, whereas it ought to remain half-
+open, that the mutual inspection enjoined us might be the more easily
+practiced.  I could only explain these sins against discipline, by the
+necessity of some very important conversation with your adopted mother."
+
+"It was to a priest, and not to her adopted son, that Madame Baudoin
+wished to speak," replied Gabriel, in a tone of deep seriousness.  "I
+closed my door because I was to hear a confession."
+
+"And what had Frances Baudoin of such importance to confess?"
+
+"You will know that by-and-bye, when I speak to his reverence--if it be
+his pleasure that you should hear me."
+
+These words were so firmly spoken, that a long silence ensued.  Let us
+remind the reader that Gabriel had hitherto been kept by his superiors in
+the most complete ignorance of the importance of the family interests
+which required his presence in the Rue Saint-Francois.  The day before,
+Frances Baudoin, absorbed in her own grief, had forgotten to tell him
+that the two orphans also should be present at this meeting, and had she
+even thought of it, Dagobert would have prevented her mentioning this
+circumstance to the young priest.
+
+Gabriel was therefore quite ignorant of the family ties which united him
+with the daughters of Marshal Simon, with Mdlle. de Cardoville, with M.
+Hardy, Prince Djalma, and Sleepinbuff.  In a word, if it had then been
+revealed to him that he was the heir of Marius de Rennepont, he would
+have believed himself the only descendant of the family.  During the
+moment's silence which succeeded his conversation with Rodin, Gabriel
+observed through the windows the mason's at their work of unwalling the
+door.  Having finished this first operation, they set about removing the
+bars of iron by which a plate of lead was fixed over the same entrance.
+
+At this juncture, Father d'Aigrigny, conducted by Samuel, entered the
+room.  Before Gabriel could turn around, Rodin had time to whisper to the
+reverend father, "He knows nothing--and we have no longer anything to
+fear from the Indian."
+
+Notwithstanding his affected calmness, Father d'Aigrigny's countenance
+was pale and contracted, like that of a player who is about to stake all
+on a last, decisive game.  Hitherto, all had favored the designs of the
+Society; but he could not think without alarm of the four hours which
+still remained before they should reach the fatal moment.  Gabriel having
+turned towards him, Father d'Aigrigny offered him his hand with a smile,
+and said to him in an affectionate and cordial tone, "My dear son, it has
+pained me a good deal to have been obliged to refuse you till now the
+interview that you so much desired.  It has been no less distressing to
+me to impose on you a confinement of some days.  Though I cannot give any
+explanation of what I may think fit to order, I will just observe to you
+that I have acted only for your interest."
+
+"I am bound to believe your reverence," answered Gabriel, bowing his
+head.
+
+In spite of himself, the young priest felt a vague sense of fear, for
+until his departure for his American mission, Father d'Aigrigny, at whose
+feet he had pronounced the formidable vows which bound him irrevocably to
+the Society of Jesus, had exercised over him that frightful species of
+influence which, acting only by despotism, suppression, and intimidation,
+breaks down all the living forces of the soul, and leaves it inert,
+trembling, and terrified.  Impressions of early youth are indelible, and
+this was the first time, since his return from America, that Gabriel
+found himself in presence of Father d'Aigrigny; and although he did not
+shrink from the resolution he had taken, he regretted not to have been
+able, as he had hoped, to gather new strength and courage from an
+interview with Agricola and Dagobert.  Father d'Aigrigny knew mankind too
+well not to have remarked the emotion of the young priest, and to have
+endeavored to explain its cause.  This emotion appeared to him a
+favorable omen; he redoubled, therefore, his seductive arts, his air of
+tenderness and amenity, reserving to himself, if necessary, the choice of
+assuming another mask.  He sat down, while Gabriel and Rodin remained
+standing in a respectful position, and said to the former: "You desire,
+my dear son, to have an important interview with me?"
+
+"Yes, father," said Gabriel, involuntarily casting down his eyes before
+the large, glittering gray pupil of his superior.
+
+"And I also have matters of great importance to communicate to you.
+Listen to me first; you can speak afterwards."
+
+"I listen, father."
+
+"It is about twelve years ago, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny,
+affectionately, "that the confessor of your adopted mother, addressing
+himself to me through M. Rodin, called my attention to yourself, by
+reporting the astonishing progress you had made at the school of the
+Brothers.  I soon found, indeed, that your excellent conduct, your
+gentle, modest character, and your precocious intelligence, were worthy
+of the most tender interest.  From that moment I kept my eyes upon you,
+and at the end of some time, seeing that you did not fall off, it
+appeared to me that there was something more in you than the stuff that
+makes a workman.  We agreed with your adopted mother, and through my
+intervention, you were admitted gratuitously to one of the schools of our
+Company.  Thus one burden the less weighed upon the excellent woman who
+had taken charge of you, and you received from our paternal care all the
+benefits of a religious education.  Is not this true, my dear son?"
+
+"It is true, father," answered Gabriel, casting down his eyes.
+
+"As you grew up, excellent and rare virtues displayed themselves in your
+character.  Your obedience and mildness were above all exemplary.  You
+made rapid progress in your studies.  I knew not then to what career you
+wished to devote yourself, but I felt certain that, in every station of
+life, you would remain a faithful son of the Church.  I was not deceived
+in my hopes, or rather, my dear son, you surpassed them all.  Learning,
+by a friendly communication, that your adopted mother ardently desired to
+see you take orders, you acceded generously and religiously to the wish
+of the excellent woman to whom you owed so much.  But as the Lord is
+always just in His recompenses, He willed that the most touching work of
+gratitude you could show to your adopted mother, should at the same time
+be divinely profitable by making you one of the militant members of our
+holy Church."
+
+At these words, Gabriel could not repress a significant start, as he
+remembered Frances' sad confidences.  But he restrained himself, whilst
+Rodin stood leaning with his elbow on the corner of the chimney-piece,
+continuing to examine him with singular and obstinate attention.
+
+Father d'Aigrigny resumed: "I do not conceal from you, my dear son, that
+your resolution filled me with joy.  I saw in you one of the future
+lights of the Church, and I was anxious to see it shine in the midst of
+our Company.  You submitted courageously to our painful and difficult
+tests; you were judged worthy of belonging to us, and, after taking in my
+presence the irrevocable and sacred oath, which binds you for ever to our
+Company for the greater glory of God, you answered the appeal of our Holy
+Father[14] to willing souls, and offered yourself as a missionary, to
+preach to savages the one Catholic faith.  Though it was painful to us to
+part with our dear son, we could not refuse to accede to such pious
+wishes.  You set out a humble missionary you return a glorious martyr--
+and we are justly proud to reckon you amongst our number.  This rapid
+sketch of the past was necessary, my dear son to arrive at what follows,
+for we wish now, if it be possible, to draw still closer the bonds that
+unite us.  Listen to me, my dear son; what I am about to say is
+confidential and of the highest importance, not only for you, but the
+whole Company."
+
+"Then, father," cried Gabriel hastily, interrupting the Abbe d'Aigrigny,
+"I cannot--I ought not to hear you."
+
+The young priest became deadly pale; one saw, by the alteration of his
+features, that a violent struggle was taking place within him, but
+recovering his first resolution, he raised his head, and casting an
+assured look on Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin, who glanced at each other in
+mute surprise, he resumed: "I repeat to you, father, that if it concerns
+confidential matters of the Company, I must not hear you."
+
+"Really, my dear son, you occasion me the greatest astonishment.  What is
+the matter?--Your countenance changes, your emotion is visible.  Speak
+without fear; why can you not hear me?"
+
+"I cannot tell you, father, until I also have, in my turn, rapidly
+sketched the past--such as I have learned to judge it of late.  You will
+then understand, father, that I am no longer entitled to your confidence,
+for an abyss will doubtlessly soon separate us."
+
+At these words, it is impossible to paint the look rapidly exchanged
+between Rodin and Father d'Aigrigny.  The socius began to bite his nails,
+fixing his reptile eye angrily upon Gabriel; Father d'Aigrigny grew
+livid, and his brow was bathed in cold sweat.  He asked himself with
+terror, if, at the moment of reaching the goal, the obstacle was going to
+come from Gabriel, in favor of whom all other obstacles had been removed.
+This thought filled him with despair.  Yet the reverend father contained
+himself admirably, remained calm, and answered with affectionate unction:
+"It is impossible to believe, my dear son, that you and I can ever be
+separated by an abyss--unless by the abyss of grief, which would be
+caused by any serious danger to your salvation.  But speak; I listen to
+you."
+
+"It is true, that, twelve years ago, father," proceeded Gabriel, in a
+firm voice, growing more animated as he proceeded, "I entered, through
+your intervention, a college of the Company of Jesus.  I entered it
+loving, truthful, confiding.  How did they encourage those precious
+instincts of childhood?  I will tell you.  The day of my entrance, the
+Superior said to me, as he pointed out two children a little older than
+myself: `These are the companions that you will prefer.  You will always
+walk three together.  The rules of the house forbid all intercourse
+between two persons only.  They also require, that you should listen
+attentively to what your companions say, so that you may report it to me;
+for these dear children may have, without knowing it, bad thoughts or
+evil projects.  Now, if you love your comrades, you must inform me of
+these evil tendencies, that my paternal remonstrances may save them from
+punishment; it is better to prevent evil than to punish it.'"
+
+"Such are, indeed, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, "the rules of
+our house, and the language we hold to all our pupils on their entrance."
+
+"I know it, father," answered Gabriel, bitterly; "three days after, a
+poor, submissive, and credulous child, I was already a spy upon my
+comrades, hearing and remembering their conversation, and reporting it to
+the superior, who congratulated me on my zeal.  What they thus made me do
+was shameful, and yet, God knows!  I thought I was accomplishing a
+charitable duty.  I was happy in obeying the commands of a superior whom
+I respected, and to whose words I listened, in my childish faith, as I
+should have listened to those of Heaven.  One day, that I had broken some
+rule of the house, the superior said to me: `My child, you have deserved
+a severe punishment; but you will be pardoned, if you succeed in
+surprising one of your comrades in the same fault that you have
+committed.' And for that, notwithstanding my faith and blind obedience,
+this encouragement to turn informer, from the motive of personal
+interest, might appear odious to me, the superior added.  `I speak to
+you, my child, for the sake of your comrade's salvation.  Were he to
+escape punishment, his evil habits would become habitual.  But by
+detecting him in a fault, and exposing him to salutary correction, you
+will have the double advantage of aiding in his salvation, and escaping
+yourself a merited punishment, which will have been remitted because of
+your zeal for your neighbor--"
+
+"Doubtless," answered Father d'Aigrigny, more and more terrified by
+Gabriel's language; "and in truth, my dear son, all this is conformable
+to the rule followed in our colleges, and to the habits of the members of
+our Company, `who may denounce each other without prejudice to mutual
+love and charity, and only for their greater spiritual advancement,
+particularly when questioned by their superior, or commanded for the
+greater glory of God,' as our Constitution has it."
+
+"I know it," cried Gabriel; "I know it.  'Tis in the name of all that is
+most sacred amongst men, that we are encouraged to do evil."
+
+"My dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, trying to conceal his secret and
+growing terror beneath an appearance of wounded dignity, "from you to me
+these words are at least strange."
+
+At this, Rodin quitted the mantelpiece, on which he had been leaning,
+begin to walk up and down the room, with a meditative air, and without
+ceasing to bite his nails.
+
+"It is cruel to be obliged to remind you, my dear son, that your are
+indebted to us for the education you have received," added Father
+d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Such were its fruits, father," replied Gabriel.  "Until then I had been
+a spy on the other children, from a sort of disinterestedness; but the
+orders of the superior made me advance another step on that shameful
+road.  I had become an informer, to escape a merited punishment.  And
+yet, such was my faith, my humility, my confidence, that I performed with
+innocence and candor this doubly odious part.  Once, indeed, tormented by
+vague scruples, the last remains of generous aspirations that they were
+stifling within me, I asked myself if the charitable and religious end
+could justify the means, and I communicated my doubts to the superior.
+He replied, that I had not to judge, but to obey, and that to him alone
+belonged the responsibility of my acts."
+
+"Go on, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, gelding, in spite of
+himself, to the deepest dejection.  "Alas! I was right in opposing your
+travel to America."
+
+"And yet it was the will of Providence, in that new, productive, and free
+country, that, enlightened by a singular chance, on past and present, my
+eyes were at length opened.  Yes!" cried Gabriel, "it was in America
+that, released from the gloomy abode where I had spent so many years of
+my youth, and finding myself for the first time face to face with the
+divine majesty of Nature, in the heart of immense solitudes through which
+I journeyed--it was there that, overcome by so much magnificence and
+grandeur, I made a vow--" Here Gabriel interrupted himself, to continue:
+"Presently, father, I will explain to you that vow; but believe me,"
+added the missionary, with an accent of deep sorrow, "it was a fatal day
+to me when I first learned to fear and condemn all that I had hitherto
+most revered and blessed.  Oh! I assure you father," added Gabriel, with
+moist eyes, "it was not for myself alone, that I then wept."
+
+"I know the goodness of your heart, my dear son," replied Father
+d'Aigrigny, catching a glimpse of hope, on seeing Gabriel's emotion; "I
+fear that you have been led astray.  But trust yourself to us, as to your
+spiritual fathers, and I doubt not we shall confirm your faith, so
+unfortunately shaken, and disperse the darkness which at present obscures
+your sight.  Alas, my dear son, in your vain illusions, you have mistaken
+some false glimmer for the pure light of day.  But go on."
+
+Whilst Father d'Aigrigny was thus speaking, Rodin stopped, took a pocket-
+book from his coat, and wrote down several notes.  Gabriel was becoming
+more and more pale and agitated.  It required no small courage in him, to
+speak as he was speaking, for, since his journey to America, he had
+learned to estimate the formidable power of the Company.  But this
+revelation of the past, looked at from the vantage-ground of a more
+enlightened present, was for the young priest the excuse, or rather the
+cause of the determination he had just signified to his superior, and he
+wished to explain all faithfully, notwithstanding the danger he knowingly
+encountered.  He continued therefore, in an agitated voice:
+
+"You know, father, that the last days of my childhood, that happy age of
+frankness and innocent joy, were spent in an atmosphere of terror,
+suspicion, and restraint.  Alas! how could I resign myself to the least
+impulse of confiding trust, when I was recommended to shun the looks of
+him who spoke with me, in order to hide the impression that his words
+might cause--to conceal whatever I felt, and to observe and listen to
+everything?  Thus I reached the age of fifteen; by degrees, the rare
+visits that I was allowed to pay, but always in presence of one of our
+fathers, to my adopted mother and brother, were quite suppressed, so as
+to shut my heart against all soft and tender emotions.  Sad and fearful
+in that large, old noiseless, gloomy house, I felt that I became more and
+more isolated from the affections and the freedom of the world.  My time
+was divided between mutilated studies, without connection and without
+object, and long hours of minute devotional exercises.  I ask you,
+father, did they ever seek to warm our young souls by words of tenderness
+or evangelic love?  Alas, no!  For the words of the divine Saviour--Love
+ye one another, they had substituted the command: Suspect ye one another.
+Did they ever, father, speak to us of our country or of liberty?--No! ah,
+no! for those words make the heart beat high; and with them, the heart
+must not beat at all.  To our long hours of study and devotion, there
+only succeeded a few walks, three by three--never two and two--because by
+threes, the spy-system is more practicable, and because intimacies are
+more easily formed by two alone; and thus might have arisen some of those
+generous friendships, which also make the heart beat more than it
+should.[15] And so, by the habitual repression of every feeling, there
+came a time when I could not feel at all.  For six months, I had not seen
+my adopted mother and brother; they came to visit me at the college; a
+few years before, I should have received them with transports and tears;
+this time my eyes were dry, my heart was cold.  My mother and brother
+quitted me weeping.  The sight of this grief struck me and I became
+conscious of the icy insensibility which had been creeping upon me since
+I inhabited this tomb.  Frightened at myself, I wished to leave it, while
+I had still strength to do so.  Then, father, I spoke to you of the
+choice of a profession; for sometimes, in waking moments, I seemed to
+catch from afar the sound of an active and useful life, laborious and
+free, surrounded by family affections.  Oh! then I felt the want of
+movement and liberty, of noble and warm emotions--of that life of the
+soul, which fled before me.  I told it you, father on my knees, bathing
+your hands with my tears.  The life of a workman or a soldier--anything
+would have suited me.  It was then you informed me, that my adopted
+mother, to whom I owed my life--for she had taken me in, dying of want,
+and, poor herself, had shared with me the scanty bread of her child--
+admirable sacrifice for a mother!--that she," continued Gabriel,
+hesitating and casting down his eyes, for noble natures blush for the
+guilt of others, and are ashamed of the infamies of which they are
+themselves victims, "that she, that my adopted mother, had but one wish,
+one desire--"
+
+"That of seeing you takes orders, my dear son," replied Father
+d'Aigrigny; "for this pious and perfect creature hoped, that, in securing
+your salvation, she would provide for her own: but she did not venture to
+inform you of this thought, for fear you might ascribe it to an
+interested motive."
+
+"Enough, father!" said Gabriel, interrupting the Abbe d'Aigrigny, with a
+movement of involuntary indignation; "it is painful for me to hear you
+assert an error.  Frances Baudoin never had such a thought."
+
+"My dear son, you are too hasty in your judgments," replied Father
+d'Aigrigny, mildly.  "I tell you, that such was the one, sole thought of
+your adopted mother."
+
+"Yesterday, father, she told me all.  She and I were equally deceived."
+
+"Then, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, sternly, "you take the word
+of your adopted mother before mine?"
+
+"Spare me an answer painful for both of us, father," said Gabriel,
+casting down his eyes.
+
+"Will you now tell me," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, with anxiety, "what
+you mean to--"
+
+The reverend father was unable to finish.  Samuel entered the room, and
+said: "A rather old man wishes to speak to M. Rodin."
+
+"That is my name, sir," answered the socius, in surprise; "I am much
+obliged to you."  But, before following the Jew, he gave to Father
+d'Aigrigny a few words written with a pencil upon one of the leaves of
+his packet-book.
+
+Rodin went out in very uneasy mood, to learn who could have come to seek
+him in the Rue Saint-Francois.  Father d'Aigrigny and Gabriel were left
+alone together.
+
+[14] It is only in respect to Missions that the Jesuits acknowledge the
+papal supremacy.
+
+[15] This rule is so strict in Jesuit Colleges, that if one of three
+pupils leaves the other two, they separate out of earshot till the first
+comes back.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE RUPTURE.
+
+Plunged into a state of mortal anxiety, Father d'Aigrigny had taken
+mechanically the note written by Rodin, and held it in his hand without
+thinking of opening it.  The reverend father asked himself in alarm, what
+conclusion Gabriel would draw from these recriminations upon the past;
+and he durst not make any answer to his reproaches, for fear of
+irritating the young priest, upon whose head such immense interests now
+reposed.  Gabriel could possess nothing for himself, according to the
+constitutions of the Society of Jesus.  Moreover, the reverend father had
+obtained from him, in favor of the Order, an express renunciation of all
+property that might ever come to him.  But the commencement of his
+conversation seemed to announce so serious a change in Gabriel's views
+with regard to the Company, that he might choose to break through the
+ties which attached him to it; and in that case, he would not be legally
+bound to fulfil any of his engagements.[16] The donation would thus be
+cancelled de facto, just at the moment of being so marvellously realized
+by the possession of the immense fortune of the Rennepont family, and
+d'Aigrigny's hopes would thus be completely and for ever frustrated.  Of
+all these perplexities which the reverend father had experienced for some
+time past, with regard to this inheritance, none had been more unexpected
+and terrible than this.  Fearing to interrupt or question Gabriel, Father
+d'Aigrigny waited, in mute terror, the end of this interview, which
+already bore so threatening an aspect.
+
+The missionary resumed: "It is my duty, father, to continue this sketch
+of my past life, until the moment of my departure for America.  You will
+understand, presently, why I have imposed on myself this obligation."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny nodded for him to proceed.
+
+"Once informed of the pretended wishes of my adopted mother, I resigned
+myself to them, though at some cost of feeling.  I left the gloomy abode,
+in which I had passed my childhood and part of my youth, to enter one of
+the seminaries of the Company.  My resolution was not caused by an
+irresistible religious vocation, but by a wish to discharge the sacred
+debt I owed my adopted mother.  Yet the true spirit of the religion of
+Christ is so vivifying, that I felt myself animated and warmed by the
+idea of carrying out the adorable precepts of our Blessed Saviour.  To my
+imagination, a seminary, instead of resembling the college where I had
+lived in painful restraint, appeared like a holy place, where all that
+was pure and warm in the fraternity of the Gospel would be applied to
+common life--where, for example, the lessons most frequently taught would
+be the ardent love of humanity, and the ineffable sweets of commiseration
+and tolerance--where the everlasting words of Christ would be interpreted
+in their broadest sense--and where, in fine, by the habitual exercise and
+expansion of the most generous sentiments, men were prepared for the
+magnificent apostolic mission of making the rich and happy sympathize
+with the sufferings of their brethren, by unveiling the frightful
+miseries of humanity--a sublime and sacred morality, which none are able
+to withstand, when it is preached with eyes full of tears, and hearts
+overflowing with tenderness and charity!"
+
+As he delivered these last words with profound emotion, Gabriel's eyes
+became moist, and his countenance shone with angelic beauty.
+
+"Such is, indeed, my dear son, the spirit of Christianity; but one must
+also study and explain the letter," answered Father d'Aigrigny, coldly.
+"It is to this study that the seminaries of our Company are specially
+destined.  Now the interpretation of the letter is a work of analysis,
+discipline, and submission--and not one of heart and sentiment."
+
+"I perceive that only too well, father.  On entering this new house, I
+found, alas! all my hopes defeated.  Dilating for a moment, my heart soon
+sunk within me.  Instead of this centre of life, affection, youth, of
+which I had dreamed.  I found, in the silent and ice-cold seminary, the
+same suppression of every generous emotion, the same inexorable
+discipline, the same system of mutual prying, the same suspicion, the
+same invincible obstacles to all ties of friendship.  The ardor which had
+warmed my soul for an instant soon died out; little by little, I fell
+back into the habits of a stagnant, passive, mechanical life, governed by
+a pitiless power with mechanical precision, just like the inanimate works
+of a watch."
+
+"But order, submission and regularity are the first foundations of our
+Company, my dear son."
+
+"Alas, father! it was death, not life, that I found thus organized.  In
+the midst of this destruction of every generous principle, I devoted
+myself to scholastic and theological studies--gloomy studies--a wily,
+menacing, and hostile science which, always awake to ideas of peril,
+contest, and war, is opposed to all those of peace, progress, and
+liberty."
+
+"Theology, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, sternly, "is at once a
+buckler and a sword; a buckler, to protect and cover the Catholic faith--
+a sword, to attack and combat heresy."
+
+"And yet, father, Christ and His apostles knew not this subtle science:
+their simple and touching words regenerated mankind, and set freedom over
+slavery.  Does not the divine code of the Gospel suffice to teach men to
+love one another?  But, alas! far from speaking to us this language, our
+attention was too often occupied with wars of religion, and the rivers of
+blood that had flowed in honor of the Lord, and for the destruction of
+heresy.  These terrible lessons made our life still more melancholy.  As
+we grew near to manhood, our relations at the seminary assumed a growing
+character of bitterness, jealousy and suspicion.  The habit of tale-
+bearing against each other, applied to more serious subjects, engendered
+silent hate and profound resentments.  I was neither better nor worse
+than the others.  All of us, bowed down for years beneath the iron yoke
+of passive obedience, unaccustomed to reflection or free-will, humble and
+trembling before our superiors, had the same pale, dull, colorless
+disposition.  At last I took orders; once a priest, you invited me,
+father, to enter the Company of Jesus, or rather I found myself
+insensibly brought to this determination.  How, I do not know.  For a
+long time before, my will was not my own.  I went through all my proofs;
+the most terrible was decisive; for some months, I lived in the silence
+of my cell, practicing with resignation the strange and mechanical
+exercises that you ordered me.  With the exception of your reverence,
+nobody approached me during that long space of time; no human voice but
+yours sounded in my ear.  Sometimes, in the night, I felt vague terrors;
+my mind, weakened by fasting, austerity, and solitude, was impressed with
+frightful visions.  At other times, on the contrary, I felt a sort of
+quiescence, in the idea that, having once pronounced my vows, I should be
+delivered for ever from the burden of thought and will.  Then I abandoned
+myself to an insurmountable torpor, like those unfortunate wretches, who,
+surprised by a snow-storm, yield to a suicidal repose.  Thus I awaited
+the fatal moment.  At last, according to the rule of discipline, choking
+with the death rattle,[17] I hastened the moment of accomplishing the
+final act of my expiring will--the vow to renounce it for ever."
+
+"Remember, my dear son," replied Father d'Aigrigny, pale and tortured by
+increasing anguish, "remember, that, on the eve of the day fixed for the
+completion of your vows; I offered, according to the rule of our Company,
+to absolve you from joining us--leaving you completely free, for we
+accept none but voluntary vocations."
+
+"It is true, father," answered Gabriel, with sorrowful bitterness; "when,
+worn out and broken by three months of solitude and trial, I was
+completely exhausted, and unable to move a step, you opened the door of
+my cell, and said to me: 'If you like, rise and walk; you are free; Alas!
+I had no more strength.  The only desire of my soul, inert and paralyzed
+for so long a period, was the repose of the grave; and pronouncing those
+irrevocable vows, I fell, like a corpse, into your hands."
+
+"And, till now, my dear son, you have never failed in this corpse--like
+obedience,--to use the expression of our glorious founder--because, the
+more absolute this obedience, the more meritorious it must be."
+
+After a moment's silence, Gabriel resumed: "You had always concealed from
+me, father, the true ends of the Society into which I entered.  I was
+asked to abandon my free-will to my superiors, in the name of the Greater
+Glory of God.  My vows once pronounced, I was to be in your hands a
+docile and obedient instrument; but I was to be employed, you told me, in
+a holy, great and beauteous work.  I believed you, father--how should I
+not have believed you? but a fatal event changed my destiny--a painful
+malady caused by--"
+
+"My son," cried Father d'Aigrigny, interrupting Gabriel, "it is useless
+to recall these circumstances."
+
+"Pardon me, father, I must recall them.  I have the right to be heard.  I
+cannot pass over in silence any of the facts, which have led me to take
+the immutable resolution that I am about to announce to you."
+
+"Speak on, my son," said Father d'Aigrigny, frowning; for he was much
+alarmed at the words of the young priest, whose cheeks, until now pale,
+were covered with a deep blush.
+
+"Six months before my departure for America," resumed Gabriel, casting
+down his eyes, "you informed me, that I was destined to confess
+penitents; and to prepare then for that sacred ministry, you gave me a
+book."
+
+Gabriel again hesitated.  His blushes increased.  Father d'Aigrigny could
+scarcely restrain a start of impatience and anger.
+
+"You gave me a book," resumed the young priest, with a great effort to
+control himself, "a book containing questions to be addressed by a
+confessor to youths, and young girls, and married women, when they
+present themselves at the tribunal of penance.  My God!" added Gabriel,
+shuddering at the remembrance.  "I shall never forget that awful moment.
+It was night.  I had retired to my chamber, taking with me this book,
+composed, you told me, by one of our fathers, and completed by a holy
+bishop.[18] Full of respect, faith, and confidence, I opened those pages.
+At first, I did not understand them--afterwards I understood--and then I
+was seized with shame and horror--struck with stupor--and had hardly
+strength to close, with trembling hand, this abominable volume.  I ran to
+you, father, to accuse myself of having involuntarily cast my eyes on
+those nameless pages, which, by mistake, you had placed in my hands."
+
+"Remember, also, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, gravely, "that I
+calmed your scruples, and told you that a priest, who is bound to hear
+everything under the seal of confession, must be able to know and
+appreciate everything; and that our Company imposes the task of reading
+this Compendium, as a classical work, upon young deacons seminarists, and
+priests, who are destined to be confessors."
+
+"I believed you, father.  In me the habit of inert obedience was so
+powerful, and I was so unaccustomed to independent reflection, that,
+notwithstanding my horror (with which I now reproached myself as with a
+crime), I took the volume back into my chamber, and read.  Oh, father!
+what a dreadful revelation of criminal fancies, guilty of guiltiest in
+their refinement!"
+
+"You speak of this book in blamable terms," skid Father d'Aigrigny,
+severely; "you were the victim of a too lively imagination.  It is to it
+that you must attribute this fatal impression, and not to an excellent
+work, irreproachable for its special purpose, and duly authorized by the
+Church.  You are not able to judge of such a production."
+
+"I will speak of it no more, father," said Gabriel: and he thus resumed:
+"A long illness followed that terrible night.  Many times, they feared
+for my reason.  When I recovered, the past appeared to me like a painful
+dream.  You told me, then, father, that I was not yet ripe for certain
+functions; and it was then that I earnestly entreated you to be allowed
+to go on the American missions.  After having long refused my prayer, you
+at length consented.  From my childhood, I had always lived in the
+college or seminary, to a state of continual restraint and subjection.
+By constantly holding down my head and eyes, I had lost the habit of
+contemplating the heavens and the splendors of nature.  But, oh! what
+deep, religious happiness I felt, when I found myself suddenly
+transported to the centre of the imposing grandeur of the seas-half-way
+between the ocean and the sky!--I seemed to come forth from a place of
+thick darkness; for the first time, for many years, I felt my heart beat
+freely in my bosom; for the first time, I felt myself master of my own
+thoughts, and ventured to examine my past life, as from the summit of a
+mountain, one looks down into a gloomy vale.  Then strange doubts rose
+within me.  I asked myself by what right, and for what end, any beings
+had so long repressed, almost annihilated, the exercise of my will, of my
+liberty, of my reason, since God had endowed me with these gifts.  But I
+said to myself, that perhaps, one day, the great, beauteous, and holy
+work, in which I was to have my share, would be revealed to me, and would
+recompense my obedience and resignation."
+
+At this moment, Rodin re-entered the room.  Father d'Aigrigny questioned
+him with a significant look.  The socius approached, and said to him in a
+low voice, so, that Gabriel could not hear: "Nothing serious.  It was
+only to inform me, that Marshal Simon's father is arrived at M. Hardy's
+factory."
+
+Then, glancing at Gabriel, Rodin appeared to interrogate Father
+d'Aigrigny, who hung his head with a desponding air.  Yet he resumed,
+again addressing Gabriel, whilst Rodin took his old place, with his elbow
+on the chimney-piece: "Go on, my dear son.  I am anxious to learn what
+resolution you have adopted."
+
+"I will tell you in a moment, father.  I arrived at Charleston.  The
+superior of our establishment in that place, to whom I imparted my doubts
+as to the object of our Society, took upon himself to clear them up, and
+unveiled it all to me with alarming frankness.  He told me the tendency-
+not perhaps of all the members of the Company, for a great number must
+have shared my ignorance--but the objects which our leaders have
+pertinaciously kept in view, ever since the foundation of the Order.  I
+was terrified.  I read the casuists.  Oh, father! that was a new and
+dreadful revelation, when, at every page, I read the excuse and
+justification of robbery, slander, adultery, perjury, murder, regicide.
+When I considered that I, the priest of a God of charity, justice,
+pardon, and love, was to belong henceforth to a Company, whose chiefs
+professed and glorified in such doctrines, I made a solemn oath to break
+for ever the ties which bound me to it!"[19]
+
+On these words of Gabriel, Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin exchanged a look
+of terror.  All was lost; their prey had escaped them.  Deeply moved by
+the remembrances he recalled, Gabriel did not perceive the action of the
+reverend father and the socius, and thus continued: "In spite of my
+resolution, father, to quit the Company, the discovery I had made was
+very painful to me.  Oh! believe me, for the honest and loving soul,
+nothing is more frightful than to have to renounce what it has long
+respected!--I suffered so much, that, when I thought of the dangers of my
+mission, I hoped, with a secret joy, that God would perhaps take me to
+Himself under these circumstances: but, on the contrary, He watched over
+me with providential solicitude."
+
+As he said this, Gabriel felt a thrill, for he remembered a Mysterious
+Woman who had saved his life in America.  After a moment's silence, he
+resumed: "My mission terminated, I returned hither to beg, father, that
+you would release me from my vows.  Many times but in vain, I solicited
+an interview.  Yesterday, it pleased Providence that I should have a long
+conversation with my adopted mother; from her I learned the trick by
+which my vocation had been forced upon me--and the sacrilegious abuse of
+the confessional, by which she had been induced to entrust to other
+persons the orphans that a dying mother had confided to the care of an
+honest soldier.  You understand, father, that, if even I had before
+hesitated to break these bonds, what I have heard yesterday must have
+rendered my decision irrevocable.  But at this solemn moment, father, I
+am bound to tell you, that I do not accuse the whole Society; many
+simple, credulous, and confiding men, like myself, must no doubt form
+part of it.  Docile instruments, they see not in their blindness the work
+to which they are destined.  I pity them, and pray God to enlighten them,
+as he has enlightened me."
+
+"So, my son," said Father d'Aigrigny, rising with livid and despairing
+look, "you come to ask of me to break the ties which attach you to the
+Society?"
+
+"Yes, father; you received my vows--it is for you to release me from
+them."
+
+"So, my son, you understand that engagements once freely taken by you,
+are now to be considered as null and void?"
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"So, my son, there is to be henceforth nothing in common between you and
+our Company?"
+
+"No, father--since I request you to absolve me of my vows."
+
+"But, you know, my son, that the Society may release you--but that you
+cannot release yourself."
+
+"The step I take proves to you, father, the importance I attach to an
+oath, since I come to you to release me from it.  Nevertheless, were you
+to refuse me, I should not think myself bound in the eyes of God or man."
+
+"It is perfectly clear," said Father d'Aigrigny to Rodin, his voice
+expiring upon his lips, so deep was his despair.
+
+Suddenly, whilst Gabriel, with downcast eyes, waited for the answer of
+Father d'Aigrigny, who remained mute and motionless, Rodin appeared
+struck with a new idea, on perceiving that the reverend father still held
+in his hand the note written in pencil.  The socius hastily approached
+Father d'Aigrigny, and said to him in a whisper, with a look of doubt and
+alarm: "Have you not read my note?"
+
+"I did not think of it," answered the reverend father, mechanically.
+
+Rodin appeared to make a great effort to repress a movement of violent
+rage.  Then he said to Father d'Aigrigny, in a calm voice: "Read it now."
+
+Hardly had the reverend father cast his eyes upon this note, than a
+sudden ray of hope illumined his hitherto despairing countenance.
+Pressing the hand of the socius with an expression of deep gratitude, he
+said to him in a low voice: "You are right.  Gabriel is ours."
+
+[16] The statutes formally state that the Company can expel all drones
+and wasps, but that no man can break his ties, if the Order wishes to
+retain him.
+
+[17] This is their own command.  The constitution expressly bids the
+novice wait for this decisive climax of the ordeal before taking the vows
+of God.
+
+[18] It is impossible, even in Latin, to give our readers an idea of this
+infamous work.
+
+[19] This is true.  See the extracts from the Compendium for the use of
+Schools, published under the title of "Discoveries by a Bibliophilist."
+Strasburg, 1843.  For regicide, see Sanchez and others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE CHANGE.
+
+Before again addressing Gabriel, Father d'Aigrigny carefully reflected;
+and his countenance, lately so disturbed, became gradually once more
+serene.  He appeared to meditate and calculate the effects of the
+eloquence he was about to employ, upon an excellent and safe theme, which
+the socius struck with the danger of the situation, had suggested in a
+few lines rapidly written with a pencil, and which, in his despair, the
+reverend father had at first neglected.  Rodin resumed his post of
+observation near the mantelpiece, on which he leaned his elbow, after
+casting at Father d'Aigrigny a glance of disdainful and angry
+superiority, accompanied by a significant shrug of the shoulders.
+
+After this involuntary manifestation, which was luckily not perceived by
+Father d'Aigrigny, the cadaverous face of the socius resumed its icy
+calmness, and his flabby eyelids, raised a moment with anger and
+impatience, fell, and half-veiled his little, dull eyes.  It must be
+confessed that Father d'Aigrigny, notwithstanding the ease and elegance
+of his speech, notwithstanding the seduction of his exquisite manners,
+his agreeable features, and the exterior of an accomplished and refined
+man of the world, was often subdued and governed by the unpitying
+firmness, the diabolical craft and depth of Rodin, the old, repulsive,
+dirty, miserably dressed man, who seldom abandoned his humble part of
+secretary and mute auditor.  The influence of education is so powerful,
+that Gabriel, notwithstanding the formal rupture he had just provoked,
+felt himself still intimidated in presence of Father d'Aigrigny, and
+waited with painful anxiety for the answer of the reverend father to his
+express demand to be released from his old vows.  His reverence having,
+doubtless, regularly laid his plan of attack, at length broke silence,
+heaved a deep sigh, gave to his countenance, lately so severe and
+irritated, a touching expression of kindness, and said to Gabriel, in an
+affectionate voice: "Forgive me, my dear son, for having kept silence so
+long; but your abrupt determination has so stunned me, and has raised
+within me so many painful thoughts, that I have had to reflect for some
+moments, to try and penetrate the cause of this rupture, and I think I
+have succeeded.  You have well considered, my dear son, the serious
+nature of the step you are taking?"
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"And you have absolutely decided to abandon the Society, even against my
+will?"
+
+"It would be painful to me, father--but I must resign myself to it."
+
+"It should be very painful to you, indeed, my dear son; for you took the
+irrevocable vow freely, and this vow, according to our statutes, binds
+you not to quit the Society, unless with the consent of your superiors."
+
+"I did not then know, father, the nature of the engagement I took.  More
+enlightened now, I ask to withdraw myself; my only desire is to obtain a
+curacy in some village far from Paris.  I feel an irresistible vocation
+for such humble and useful functions.  In the country, there is so much
+misery, and such ignorance of all that could contribute to ameliorate the
+condition of the agricultural laborer, that his existence is as unhappy
+as that of a negro slave; for what liberty has he?  and what instruction?
+Oh! it seems to me, that, with God's help, I might, as a village curate,
+render some services to humanity.  It would therefore be painful to me,
+father, to see you refuse--"
+
+"Be satisfied, my son," answered Father d'Aigrigny ; "I will no longer
+seek to combat your desire to separate yourself from us."
+
+"Then, father, you release me from my vows?"
+
+"I have not the power to do so, my dear son; but I will write immediately
+to Rome, to ask the necessary authority from our general."
+
+"I thank you, father."
+
+"Soon, my dear son, you will be delivered from these bonds, which you
+deem so heavy; and the men you abandon will not the less continue to pray
+for you, that God may preserve you from still greater wanderings.  You
+think yourself released with regard to us, my dear son; but we do not
+think ourselves released with regard to you.  It is not thus that we can
+get rid of the habit of paternal attachment.  What would you have?  We
+look upon ourselves as bound to our children, by the very benefits with
+which we have loaded them.  You were poor, and an orphan; we stretched
+out our arms to you, as much from the interest which you deserved, my
+dear son, as to spare your excellent adopted mother too great a burden."
+
+"Father," said Gabriel, with suppressed emotion, "I am not ungrateful."
+
+"I wish to believe so, my dear son.  For long years, we gave to you, as
+to our beloved child, food for the body and the soul.  It pleases you now
+to renounce and abandon us.  Not only do we consent to it--but now that I
+have penetrated the true motives of your rupture with us, it is my duty
+to release you from your vow."
+
+"Of what motives do you speak, Father?"
+
+"Alas! my dear son, I understand your fears.  Dangers menace us--you know
+it well."
+
+"Dangers, father?" cried Gabriel.
+
+"It is impossible, my dear son, that you should not be aware that, since
+the fall of our legitimate sovereigns, our natural protectors,
+revolutionary impiety becomes daily more and more threatening.  We are
+oppressed with persecutions.  I can, therefore, comprehend and
+appreciate, my dear son, the motive which under such circumstances,
+induces you to separate from us."
+
+"Father!" cried Gabriel, with as much indignation as grief, "you do not
+think that of me--you cannot think it."
+
+Without noticing the protestations of Gabriel, Father d'Aigrigny
+continued his imaginary picture of the dangers of the Company, which, far
+from being really in peril, was already beginning secretly to recover its
+influence.
+
+"Oh! if our Company were now as powerful as it was some years ago,"
+resumed the reverend father; "if it were still surrounded by the respect
+and homage which are due to it from all true believers--in spite of the
+abominable calumnies with which we are assailed--then, my dear son, we
+should perhaps have hesitated to release you from your vows, and have
+rather endeavored to open your eyes to the light, and save you from the
+fatal delusion to which you are a prey.  But now that we are weak,
+oppressed, threatened on every side, it is our duty, it is an act of
+charity, not to force you to share in perils from which you have the
+prudence to wish to withdraw yourself."
+
+So, saying, Father d'Aigrigny cast a rapid glance at his socius, who
+answered with a nod of approbation, accompanied by a movement of
+impatience that seemed to say:  "Go on! go on!"
+
+Gabriel was quite overcome.  There was not in the whole world a heart
+more generous, loyal, and brave than his.  We may judge of what he must
+have suffered, on hearing the resolution he had come to thus
+misinterpreted.
+
+"Father," he resumed, in an agitated voice, whilst his eyes filled with
+tears, "your words are cruel and unjust.  You know that I am not a
+coward."
+
+"No," said Rodin, in his sharp, cutting voice, addressing Father
+d'Aigrigny, and pointing to Gabriel with a disdainful look; "your dear
+son is only prudent."
+
+These words from Rodin made Gabriel start; a slight blush colored his
+pale cheeks; his large and blue eyes sparkled with a generous anger;
+then, faithful to the precepts of Christian humility and resignation, he
+conquered this irritable impulse, hung down his head, and, too much
+agitated to reply, remained silent, and brushed away an unseen tear.
+This tear did not escape the notice of the socius.  He saw in it no
+doubt, a favorable symptom, for he exchanged a glance of satisfaction
+with Father d'Aigrigny.  The latter was about to touch on a question of
+great interest, so, notwithstanding his self-command, his voice trembled
+slightly; but encouraged, or rather pushed on by a look from Rodin, who
+had become extremely attentive, he said to Gabriel: "Another motive
+obliges us not to hesitate in releasing you from your vow, my dear son.
+It is a question of pure delicacy.  You probably learned yesterday from
+your adopted mother, that you will perhaps be called upon to take
+possession of an inheritance, of which the value is unknown."
+
+Gabriel raised his head hastily and said to Father d'Aigrigny: "As I have
+already stated to M. Rodin, my adopted mother only talked of her scruples
+of conscience, and I was completely ignorant of the existence of the
+inheritance of which you speak."
+
+The expression of indifference with which the young priest pronounced
+these last words, was remarked by Rodin.
+
+"Be it so," replied Father d'Aigrigny.  "You were not aware of it--I
+believe you--though all appearances would tend to prove the contrary--to
+prove, indeed, that the knowledge of this inheritance was not unconnected
+with your resolution to separate from us."
+
+"I do not understand you, Father."
+
+"It is very simple.  Your rupture with us would then have two motives.
+First, we are in danger, and you think it prudent to leave us--"
+
+"Father!"
+
+"Allow me to finish, my dear son, and come to the second motive.  If I am
+deceived, you can tell me so.  These are the facts.  Formerly, on the
+hypothesis that your family, of which you knew nothing, might one day
+leave you some property, you made, in return for the care bestowed on you
+by the Company, a free gift of all you might hereafter possess, not to
+us--but to the poor, of whom we are the born shepherds."
+
+"Well, father?" asked Gabriel, not seeing to what this preamble tended.
+
+"Well, my dear son--now that you are sure of enjoying a competence, you
+wish, no doubt, by separating from us, to annul this donation made under
+other circumstances."
+
+"To speak plainly, you violate your oath, because we are persecuted, and
+because you wish to take back your gifts," added Rodin, in a sharp voice,
+as if to describe in the clearest and plainest manner the situation of
+Gabriel with regard to the Society.
+
+At this infamous accusation, Gabriel could only raise his hands and eyes
+to heaven, and exclaim, with an expression of despair, "Oh, heaven!"
+
+Once more exchanging a look of intelligence with Rodin, Father d'Aigrigny
+said to him, in a severe tone, as if reproaching him for his too savage
+frankness: "I think you go too far.  Our dear son could only have acted
+in the base and cowardly manner you suggest, had he known his position as
+an heir; but, since he affirms the contrary, we are bound to believe him-
+-in spite of appearances."
+
+"Father," said Gabriel, pale, agitated trembling, and with half-
+suppressed grief and indignation, "I thank you, at least, for having
+suspended your judgment.  No, I am not a coward; for heaven is my
+witness, that I knew of no danger to which the Society was exposed.  Nor
+am I base and avaricious; for heaven is also my witness, that only at
+this moment I learn from you, father, that I may be destined to inherit
+property, and--"
+
+"One word, my dear son.  It is quite lately that I became informed of
+this circumstance, by the greatest chance in the world," said Father
+d'Aigrigny, interrupting Gabriel; "and that was thanks to some family
+papers which your adopted mother had given to her confessor, and which
+were entrusted to us when you entered our college.  A little before your
+return from America, in arranging the archives of the Company, your file
+of papers fell into the hands of our father-attorney.  It was examined,
+and we thus learned that one of your paternal ancestors, to whom the
+house in which we now are belonged, left a will which is to be opened to-
+day at noon.  Yesterday, we believed you one of us; our statutes command
+that we should possess nothing of our own; you had corroborated those
+statutes, by a donation in favor of the patrimony of the poor--which we
+administer.  It was no longer you, therefore, but the Company, which, in
+my person, presented itself as the inheritor in your place, furnished
+with your titles, which I have here ready in order.  But now, my clear
+son, that you separate from us, you must present yourself in your own
+name.  We came here as the representatives of the poor, to whom in former
+days you piously abandoned whatever goods might fall to your share.  Now,
+on the contrary, the hope of a fortune changes your sentiments.  You are
+free to resume your gifts."
+
+Gabriel had listened to Father d'Aigrigny with painful impatience.  At
+length he exclaimed.  "Do you mean to say, father, that you think me
+capable of canceling a donation freely made, in favor of the Company, to
+which I am indebted for my education?  You believe me infamous enough to
+break my word, in the hope of possessing a modest patrimony?"
+
+"This patrimony, my dear, son, may be small; but it may also be
+considerable."
+
+"Well, father! if it were a king's fortune," cried Gabriel, with proud
+and noble indifference, "I should not speak otherwise--and I have, I
+think, the right to be believed listen to my fixed resolution.  The
+Company to which I belong runs, you say, great dangers.  I will inquire
+into these dangers.  Should they prove threatening--strong in the
+determination which morally separates me from you--I will not leave you
+till I see the end of your perils.  As for the inheritance, of which you
+believe me so desirous, I resign it to you formally, father, as I once
+freely promised.  My only wish is, that this property may be employed for
+the relief of the poor.  I do not know what may be the amount of this
+fortune, but large or small, it belongs to the Company, because I have
+thereto pledged my word.  I have told you, father, that my chief desire
+is to obtain a humble curacy in some poor village--poor, above all--
+because there my services will be most useful.  Thus, father, when a man,
+who never spoke falsehood in his life, affirms to you, that he only sighs
+for so humble an existence, you ought, I think, to believe him incapable
+of snatching back, from motives of avarice, gifts already made."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny had now as much trouble to restrain his joy, as he
+before had to conceal his terror.  He appeared, however, tolerably calm,
+and said to Gabriel: "I did not expect less from you, my dear son."
+
+Then he made a sign to Rodin, to invite him to interpose.  The latter
+perfectly understood his superior.  He left the chimney, drew near to
+Gabriel, and leaned against the table, upon which stood paper and
+inkstand.  Then, beginning mechanically to beat the tattoo with the tips
+of his coarse fingers, in all their array of flat and dirty nails, he
+said to Father d'Aigrigny: "All this is very fine! but your dear son
+gives you no security for the fulfilment of his promise except an oath--
+and that, we know, is of little value."
+
+"Sir!" cried Gabriel
+
+"Allow me," said Rodin, coldly.  "The law does not acknowledge our
+existence and therefore can take no cognizance of donations made in favor
+of the Company.  You might resume to-morrow what you are pleased to give
+us to-day."
+
+"But my oath, sir!" cried Gabriel.
+
+Rodin looked at him fixedly, as he answered: "Your oath?  Did you not
+swear eternal obedience to the Company, and never to separate from us?--
+and of what weight now are these oaths?"
+
+For a moment Gabriel was embarrassed; but, feeling how false was this
+logic, he rose, calm and dignified, went to seat himself at the desk,
+took up a pen, and wrote as follows:
+
+"Before God, who sees and hears me, and in the presence of you, Father
+d'Aigrigny and M. Rodin, I renew and confirm, freely and voluntarily, the
+absolute donation made by me to the Society of Jesus, in the person of
+the said Father d'Aigrigny, of all the property which may hereafter
+belong to me, whatever may be its value.  I swear, on pain of infamy, to
+perform tis irrevocable promise, whose accomplishment I regard, in my
+soul and conscience, as the discharge of a debt, and the fulfilment of a
+pious duty.
+
+"This donation having for its object the acknowledgment of past services,
+and the relief of the poor, no future occurrences can at all modify it.
+For the very reason that I know I could one day legally cancel the
+present free and deliberate act, I declare, that if ever I were to
+attempt such a thing, under any possible circumstances, I should deserve
+the contempt and horror of all honest people.
+
+"In witness whereof I have written this paper, on the 13th of February,
+1832, in Paris, immediately before the opening of the testament of one of
+my paternal ancestors.
+
+"GABRIEL DE RENNEPONT."
+
+
+As he rose, the young priest delivered this document to Rodin, without
+uttering a word.  The socius read it attentively, and, still impassible,
+answered, as he looked at Gabriel: "Well, it is a written oath--that is
+all."
+
+Gabriel dwelt stupefied at the audacity of Rodin, who ventured to tell
+him, that this document, in which he renewed his donation in so noble,
+generous, and spontaneous a manner, was not all sufficient.  The socius
+was the first again to break the silence, and he said to Father
+d'Aigrigny, with his usual cool impudence.  "One of two things must be.
+Either your dear son means to render his donation absolutely valuable
+and irrevocable,--or--"
+
+"Sir," exclaimed Gabriel, interrupting him, and hardly able to restrain
+himself, "spare yourself and me such a shameful supposition."
+
+"Well, then," resumed Rodin, impassible as ever, "as you are perfectly
+decided to make this donation a serious reality, what objection can you
+have to secure it legally?"
+
+"None, sir," said Gabriel, bitterly, "since my written and sworn promise
+will not suffice you."
+
+"My dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, affectionately, "if this were a
+donation for my own advantage, believe me I should require no better
+security than your word.  But here I am, as it were, the agent of the
+Society, or rather the trustee of the poor, who will profit by your
+generosity.  For the sake of humanity, therefore, we cannot secure this
+gift by too many legal precautions, so that the unfortunate objects of
+our care may have certainty instead of vague hopes to depend upon.  God
+may call you to him at any moment, and who shall say that your heirs will
+be so ready to keep the oath you have taken?"
+
+"You are right, father," said Gabriel, sadly; "I had not thought of the
+case of death, which is yet so probable."
+
+Hereupon, Samuel opened the door of the room, and said:  "Gentlemen, the
+notary has just arrived.  Shall I show him in?  At ten o'clock precisely,
+the door of the house will be opened."
+
+"We are the more glad to see the notary," said Rodin, "as we just happen
+to have some business with him.  Pray ask him to walk in."
+
+"I will bring him to you instantly," replied Samuel, as he went out."
+
+"Here is a notary," said Rodin to Gabriel.  "If you have still the same
+intentions, you can legalize your donation in presence of this public
+officer, and thus save yourself from a great burden for the future."
+
+"Sir," said Gabriel, "happen what may, I am as irrevocably engaged by
+this written promise, which I beg you to keep, father"--and he handed the
+paper to Father d'Aigrigny "as by the legal document, which I am about to
+sign," he added, turning to Rodin.
+
+"Silence, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny; "here is the notary,"
+just as the latter entered the room.
+
+During the interview of the administrative officer with Rodin, Gabriel,
+and Father d'Aigrigny, we shall conduct the reader to the interior of the
+walled-up house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE RED ROOM.
+
+As Samuel had said, the door of the walled-up house had just been
+disencumbered of the bricks, lead, and iron, which had kept it from view,
+and its panels of carved oak appeared as fresh and sound, as on the day
+when they had first been withdrawn from the influence of the air and
+time.  The laborers, having completed their work, stood waiting upon the
+steps, as impatient and curious as the notary's clerk, who had
+superintended the operation, when they saw Samuel slowly advancing across
+the garden, with a great bunch of keys in his hand.
+
+"Now, my friends," said the old man, when he had reached the steps, "your
+work is finished.  The master of this gentleman will pay you, and I have
+only to show you out by the street door."
+
+"Come, come, my good fellow," cried the clerk, "you don't think.  We are
+just at the most interesting and curious moment; I and these honest
+masons are burning to see the interior of this mysterious house, and you
+would be cruel enough to send us away?  Impossible!"
+
+"I regret the necessity, sir, but so it must he.  I must be the first to
+enter this dwelling, absolutely alone, before introducing the heirs, in
+order to read the testament."
+
+"And who gave you such ridiculous and barbarous orders?" cried the clerk,
+singularly disappointed.
+
+"My father, sir."
+
+"A most respectable authority, no doubt; but come, my worthy guardian, my
+excellent guardian," resumed the clerk, "be a good fellow, and let us
+just take a peep in at the door."
+
+"Yes, yes, sir, only a peep!" cried the heroes of the trowel, with a
+supplicating air.
+
+"It is disagreeable to have to refuse you, gentlemen," answered Samuel;
+"but I cannot open this door, until I am alone."
+
+The masons, seeing the inflexibility of the old man, unwillingly
+descended the steps; but the clerk had resolved to dispute the ground
+inch by inch, and exclaimed: "I shall wait for my master.  I do not leave
+the house without him.  He may want me--and whether I remain on these
+steps or elsewhere, can be of little consequence to you my worthy
+keeper."
+
+The clerk was interrupted in his appeal by his master himself, who called
+out from the further side of the courtyard, with an air of business: "M.
+Piston! quick, M. Piston--come directly!"
+
+"What the devil does he want with me?" cried the clerk, in a passion.
+"He calls me just at the moment when I might have seen something."
+
+"M. Piston," resumed the voice, approaching, "do you not hear?"
+
+While Samuel let out the masons, the clerk saw, through a clump of trees,
+his master running towards him bareheaded, and with an air of singular
+haste and importance.  The clerk was therefore obliged to leave the
+steps, to answer the notary's summons, towards whom he went with a very
+bad grace.
+
+"Sir, sir," said M. Dumesnil, "I have been calling you this hour with all
+my might."
+
+"I did not hear you sir," said M. Piston.
+
+"You must be deaf, then.  Have you any change about you?"
+
+"Yes sir," answered the clerk, with some surprise.
+
+"Well, then, you must go instantly to the nearest stamp-office, and fetch
+me three or four large sheets of stamped paper, to draw up a deed.  Run!
+it is wanted directly."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the clerk, casting a rueful and regretful glance at the
+door of the walled-up house.
+
+"But make haste, will you, M. Piston," said the notary.
+
+"I do not know, sir, where to get any stamped paper."
+
+"Here is the guardian," replied M. Dumesnil.  "He will no doubt be able
+to tell you."
+
+At this instant, Samuel was returning, after showing the masons out by
+the street-door.
+
+"Sir," said the notary to him, "will you please to tell me where we can
+get stamped paper?"
+
+"Close by, sir," answered Samuel; "in the tobacconist's, No. 17, Rue
+Vieille-du-Temple."
+
+"You hear, M. Piston?" said the notary to his clerk.  "You can get the
+stamps at the tobacconist's, No. 17, Rue Vieille-du-Temple.  Be quick!
+for this deed must be executed immediately before the opening of the
+will.  Time presses."
+
+"Very well, sir; I will make haste," answered the clerk, discontentedly,
+as he followed his master, who hurried back into the room where he had
+left Rodin, Gabriel, and Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+During this time, Samuel, ascending the steps, had reached the door, now
+disencumbered of the stone, iron, and lead with which it had been blocked
+up.  It was with deep emotion that the old man having selected from his
+bunch of keys the one he wanted, inserted it in the keyhole, and made the
+door turn upon its hinges.  Immediately he felt on his face a current of
+damp, cold air, like that which exhales from a cellar suddenly opened.
+Having carefully re-closed and double-locked the door, the Jew advanced
+along the hall, lighted by a glass trefoil over the arch of the door.
+The panes had lost their transparency by the effect of time, and now had
+the appearance of ground-glass.  This hall, paved with alternate squares
+of black and white marble, was vast, sonorous, and contained a broad
+staircase leading to the first story.  The walls of smooth stone offered
+not the least appearance of decay or dampness; the stair-rail of wrought
+iron presented no traces of rust; it was inserted, just above the bottom
+step, into a column of gray granite, which sustained a statue of black
+marble, representing a negro bearing a flambeau.  This statue had a
+strange countenance, the pupils of the eyes being made of white marble.
+
+The Jew's heavy tread echoed beneath the lofty dome of the hall.  The
+grandson of Isaac Samuel experienced a melancholy feeling, as he
+reflected that the footsteps of his ancestor had probably been the last
+which had resounded through this dwelling, of which he had closed the
+doors a hundred and fifty years before; for the faithful friend, in favor
+of whom M. de Rennepont had made a feigned transfer of the property, had
+afterwards parted with the same, to place it in the name of Samuel's
+grandfather, who had transmitted it to his descendants, as if it had been
+his own inheritance.
+
+To these thoughts, in which Samuel was wholly absorbed, was joined the
+remembrance of the light seen that morning through the seven openings in
+the leaden cover of the belvedere; and, in spite of the firmness of his
+character, the old man could not repress a shudder, as, taking a second
+key from his bunch, and reading upon the label, The Key of the Red Room,
+he opened a pair of large folding doors, leading to the inner apartments.
+The window which, of all those in the house, had alone been opened,
+lighted this large room, hung with damask, the deep purple of which had
+undergone no alteration.  A thick Turkey carpet covered the floor, and
+large arm-chairs of gilded wood, in the severe Louis XIV. style, were
+symmetrically arranged along the wall.  A second door, leading to the
+next room, was just opposite the entrance.  The wainscoting and the
+cornice were white, relieved with fillets and mouldings of burnished
+gold.  On each side of this door was a large piece of buhl-furniture,
+inlaid with brass and porcelain, supporting ornamental sets of sea-
+crackle vases.  The window vas hung with heavy deep-fringed damask
+curtains, surmounted by scalloped drapery, with silk tassels, directly
+opposite the chimney-piece of dark-gray marble, adorned with carved
+brass-work.  Rich chandeliers, and a clock in the same style as the
+furniture, were reflected in a large Venice glass, with basiled edges.
+A round table, covered with a cloth of crimson velvet, was placed in the
+centre of this saloon.
+
+As he approached this table, Samuel perceived a piece of white vellum, on
+which were inscribed these words: "My testament is to be opened in this
+saloon.  The other apartments are to remain closed, until after the
+reading of my last will--M. De R."
+
+"Yes," said the Jew, as he perused with emotion these lines traced so
+long ago; "this is the same recommendation as that which I received from
+my father; for it would seem that the other apartments of this house are
+filled with objects, on which M. de Rennepont set a high value, not for
+their intrinsic worth, but because of their origin.  The Hall of Mourning
+must be a strange and mysterious chamber.  Well," added Samuel, as he
+drew from his pocket a register bound in black shagreen, with a brass
+lock, from which he drew the key, after placing it upon the table, "here
+is the statement of the property in hand, which I have been ordered to
+bring hither, before the arrival of the heirs."
+
+The deepest silence reigned in the room, at the moment when Samuel placed
+the register on the table.  Suddenly a simple and yet most startling
+occurrence roused him from his reverie.  In the next apartment was heard
+the clear, silvery tone of a clock, striking slowly ten.  And the hour
+was ten!  Samuel had too much sense to believe in perpetual motion, or in
+the possibility of constructing a clock to go far one hundred and fifty
+years.  He asked himself, therefore, with surprise and alarm, how this
+clock could still be going, and how it could mark so exactly the hour of
+the day.  Urged with restless curiosity, the old man was about to enter
+the room; but recollecting the recommendation of his father, which had
+now been confirmed by the few lines he had just read from De Rennepont's
+pen, he stopped at the door, and listened with extreme attention.
+
+He heard nothing--absolutely nothing, but the last dying vibration of the
+clock.  After having long reflected upon this strange fact, Samuel,
+comparing it with the no less extraordinary circumstance of the light
+perceived that morning through the apertures in the belvedere, concluded
+that there must be some connection between these two incidents.  If the
+old man could not penetrate the true cause of these extraordinary
+appearances, he at least explained them to himself, by remembering the
+subterraneous communications, which, according to tradition, were said to
+exist between the cellars of this house and distant places; and he
+conjectured that unknown and mysterious personages thus gained access to
+it two or three times in a century.  Absorbed in these thoughts Samuel
+approached the fireplace, which, as we have said, was directly opposite
+the window.  Just then, a bright ray of sunlight, piercing the clouds,
+shone full upon two large portraits, hung upon either side of the
+fireplace, and not before remarked by the Jew.  They were painted life-
+size, and represented one a woman, the other a man.  By the sober yet
+powerful coloring of these paintings, by the large and vigorous style, it
+was easy to recognize a master's hand.  It would have been difficult to
+find models more fitted to inspire a great painter.  The woman appeared
+to be from five-and-twenty to thirty years of age.  Magnificent brown
+hair, with golden tints, crooned a forehead, white, noble, and lofty.
+Her head-dress, far from recalling the fashion, which Madame de Sevigne
+brought in during the age of Louis XIV., reminded one rather of some of
+the portraits of Paul Veronese, in which the hair encircles the face in
+broad, undulating bands, surmounted by a thick plait, like a crown, at
+the back of the head.  The eyebrows, finely pencilled, were arched over
+large eyes of bright, sapphire blue.  Their gaze at once proud and
+mournful, had something fatal about it.  The nose, finely formed,
+terminated in slight dilated nostrils: a half smile, almost of pain,
+contracted the mouth; the face was a long oval, and the complexion,
+extremely pale, was hardly shaded on the cheek by a light rose-color.
+The position of the head and neck announced a rare mixture of grace and
+dignity.  A sort of tunic or robe, of glossy black material, came as high
+as the commencement of her shoulders, and just marking her lithe and tall
+figure, reached down to her feet, which were almost entirely concealed by
+the folds of this garment.
+
+The attitude was full of nobleness and simplicity.  The head looked white
+and luminous, standing out from a dark gray sky, marbled at the horizon
+by purple clouds, upon which were visible the bluish summits of distant
+hills, in deep shadow.  The arrangement of the picture, as well as the
+warm tints of the foreground, contrasting strongly with these distant
+objects, showed that the woman was placed upon an eminence, from which
+she could view the whole horizon.  The countenance was deeply pensive and
+desponding.  There was an expression of supplicating and resigned grief,
+particularly in her look, half raised to heaven, which one would have
+thought impossible to picture.  On the left side of the fireplace was the
+other portrait, painted with like vigor.  It represented a man, between
+thirty and thirty-five years of age, of tall stature.  A large brown
+cloak, which hung round him in graceful folds, did not quite conceal a
+black doublet, buttoned up to the neck, over which fell a square white
+collar.  The handsome and expressive head was marked with stern powerful
+lines, which did not exclude an admirable air of suffering, resignation,
+and ineffable goodness.  The hair, as well as the beard and eyebrows, was
+black; and the latter, by some singular caprice of nature, instead of
+being separated and forming two distinct arches, extended from one temple
+to the other, in a single bow, and seemed to mark the forehead of this
+man with a black line.
+
+The background of this picture also represented a stormy sky; but, beyond
+some rocks in the distance, the sea was visible, and appeared to mingle
+with the dark clouds.  The sun, just now shining upon these two
+remarkable figures (which it appeared impossible to forget, after once
+seeing them), augmented their brilliancy.
+
+Starting from his reverie, and casting his eyes by chance upon these
+portraits, Samuel was greatly struck with them.  They appeared almost
+alive.  "What noble and handsome faces!" he exclaimed, as he approached
+to examine them more closely.  "Whose are these portraits?  They are not
+those of any of the Rennepont family, for my father told me that they are
+all in the Hall of Mourning.  Alas!" added the old man, "one might think,
+from the great sorrow expressed in their countenances, that they ought to
+have a place in that mourning-chamber."
+
+After a moment's silence, Samuel resumed: "Let me prepare everything for
+this solemn assembly, for it has struck ten."  So saying, he placed the
+gilded arm-chairs round the table, and then continued, with a pensive
+air: "The hour approaches, and of the descendants of my grandfather's
+benefactor, we have seen only this young priest, with the angelic
+countenance.  Can he be the sole representative of the Rennepont family?
+He is a priest, and this family will finish with him!  Well! the moment
+is come when I must open this door, that the will may be read.  Bathsheba
+is bringing hither the notary.  They knock at the door; it is time!"  And
+Samuel, after casting a last glance towards the place where the clock had
+struck ten, hastened to the outer door, behind which voices were now
+audible.
+
+He turned the key twice in the lock, and threw the portals open.  To his
+great regret, he saw only Gabriel on the steps, between Rodin and Father
+d'Aigrigny.  The notary, and Bathsheba, who had served them as a guide,
+waited a little behind the principal group.
+
+Samuel could not repress a sigh, as he stood bowing on the threshold, and
+said to them: "All is ready, gentlemen.  You may walk in."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE TESTAMENT.
+
+When Gabriel, Rodin, and Father d'Aigrigny entered the Red Room, they
+were differently affected.  Gabriel, pale and sad, felt a kind of painful
+impatience.  He was anxious to quit this house, though he had already
+relieved himself of a great weight, by executing before the notary,
+secured by every legal formality, a deed making over all his rights of
+inheritance to Father d'Aigrigny.  Until now it had not occurred to the
+young priest, that in bestowing the care upon him, which he was about to
+reward so generously, and in forcing his vocation by a sacrilegious
+falsehood, the only object of Father d'Aigrigny might have been to secure
+the success of a dark intrigue.  In acting as he did, Gabriel was not
+yielding, in his view of the question, to a sentiment of exaggerated
+delicacy.  He had made this donation freely, many years before.  He would
+have looked upon it as infamy now to withdraw it.  It was hard enough to
+be suspected of cowardice: for nothing in the world would he have
+incurred the least reproach of cupidity.
+
+The missionary must have been endowed with a very rare and excellent
+nature, or this flower of scrupulous probity would have withered beneath
+the deleterious and demoralizing influence of his education; but happily,
+as cold sometimes preserves from corruption, the icy atmosphere in which
+he had passed a portion of his childhood and youth had benumbed, but not
+vitiated, his generous qualities, which had indeed soon revived in the
+warm air of liberty.  Father d'Aigrigny, much paler and more agitated
+than Gabriel, strove to excuse and explain his anxiety by attributing it
+to the sorrow he experienced at the rupture of his dear son with the
+Order.  Rodin, calm, and perfectly master of himself, saw with secret
+rage the strong emotion of Father d'Aigrigny, which might have inspired a
+man less confiding than Gabriel with strange suspicions.  Yet,
+notwithstanding his apparent indifference, the socius was perhaps still
+more ardently impatient than his superior for the success of this
+important affair.  Samuel appeared quite desponding, no other heir but
+Gabriel having presented himself.  No doubt the old man felt a lively
+sympathy for the young priest; but then he was a priest, and with him
+would finish the line of Rennepont; and this immense fortune, accumulated
+with so much labor, would either be again distributed, or employed
+otherwise than the testator had desired.  The different actors in this
+scene were standing around the table.  As they were about to seat
+themselves, at the invitation of the notary, Samuel pointed to the
+register bound in black shagreen, and said: "I was ordered, sir, to
+deposit here this register.  It is locked.  I will deliver up the key,
+immediately after the reading of the will."
+
+"This course is, in fact, directed by the note which accompanies the
+will," said M. Dumesnil, "as it was deposited, in the year 1682, in the
+hands of Master Thomas Le Semelier, king's counsel, and notary of the
+Chatelet of Paris, then living at No. 13, Place Royale."
+
+So saying, M. Dumesnil drew from a portfolio of red morocco a large
+parchment envelope, grown yellow with time; to this envelope was annexed,
+by a silken thread, a note also upon vellum.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the notary, "if you please to sit down, I will read the
+subjoined note, to regulate the formalities at the opening of the will."
+
+The notary, Rodin, Father d'Aigrigny, and Gabriel, took seats.  The young
+priest, having his back turned to the fireplace, could not see the two
+portraits.  In spite of the notary's invitation, Samuel remained standing
+behind the chair of that functionary, who read as follows:
+
+"`On the 13th February, 1832, my will shall be carried to No. 3, in the
+Rue Saint-Francois.
+
+ `At ten o'clock precisely, the door of the Red Room shall be opened to
+my heirs, who will no doubt have arrived long before at Paris, in
+anticipation of this day, and will have had time to establish their line
+of descent.
+
+"`As soon as they are assembled, the will shall be read, and, at the last
+stroke of noon, the inheritance shall be finally settled in favor of
+those of my kindred, who according to my recommendation (preserved, I
+hope, by tradition in my family, during a century and a half); shall
+present themselves in person, and not by agents, before twelve o'clock,
+on the 13th of February, in the Rue Saint-Francois.'"
+
+Having read these words in a sonorous voice, the notary stopped an
+instant, and resumed, in a solemn tone: "M. Gabriel Francois Marie de
+Rennepont, priest, having established, by legal documents, his descent on
+the father's side, and his relationship to the testator, and being at
+this hour the only one of the descendants of the Rennepont family here
+present, I open the testament in his presence, as it has been ordered."
+
+So saying, the notary drew from its envelope the will, which had been
+previously opened by the President of the Tribunal, with the formalities
+required by law.  Father d'Aigrigny leaned forward, and resting his elbow
+on the table, seemed to pant for breath.  Gabriel prepared himself to
+listen with more curiosity than interest.  Rodin was seated at some
+distance from the table, with his old hat between his knees, in the
+bottom of which, half hidden by the folds of a shabby blue cotton
+handkerchief, he had placed his watch.  The attention of the socius was
+divided between the least noise from without, and the slow evolution of
+the hands of the watch, which he followed with his little, wrathful eye,
+as if hastening their progress, so great was his impatience for the hour
+of noon.
+
+The notary, unfolding the sheet of parchment, read what follows, in the
+midst of profound attention:
+
+Hameau de Villetaneuse,
+
+"`February 13th, 1682.
+
+"`I am about to escape, by death, from the disgrace of the galleys, to
+which the implacable enemies of my family have caused me to be condemned
+as a relapsed heretic.
+
+"`Moreover, life is too bitter for me since the death of my son, the
+victim of a mysterious crime.
+
+"`At nineteen years of age--poor henry!--and his murderers unknown--no,
+not unknown--if I may trust my presentiments.
+
+"`To preserve my fortune for my son, I had feigned to abjure the
+Protestant faith.  As long as that beloved boy lived, I scrupulously kept
+up Catholic appearances.  The imposture revolted me, but the interest of
+my son was concerned.
+
+"`When they killed him, this deceit became insupportable to me.  I was
+watched, accused, and condemned as relapsed.  My property has been
+confiscated, and I am sentenced to the galleys.
+
+"'Tis a terrible time we live in!  Misery and servitude! sanguinary
+despotism and religious intolerance!  Oh, it is sweet to abandon life!
+sweet to rest and see no more such evils and such sorrows!
+
+"`In a few hours, I shall enjoy that rest.  I shall die.  Let me think of
+those who will survive--or rather, of those who will live perhaps in
+better times.
+
+"`Out of all my fortune, there remains to me a sum of fifty thousand
+crowns, deposited in a friend's hands.
+
+"`I have no longer a son; but I have numerous relations, exiled in
+various parts of Europe.  This sum of fifty thousand crowns, divided
+between them, would profit each of them very little.  I have disposed of
+it differently.
+
+"`In this I have followed the wise counsels of a man, whom I venerate as
+the image of God on earth, for his intelligence, wisdom, and goodness are
+almost divine.
+
+"`Twice in the course of my life have I seen this man, under very fatal
+circumstances--twice have I owed him safety, once of the soul, once of
+the body.
+
+"'Alas! he might perhaps have saved my poor child, but he came too late--
+too late.
+
+"`Before he left me, he wished to divert me from the intention of dying--
+for he knew all.  But his voice was powerless.  My grief, my regret, my
+discouragement, were too much for him.
+
+"`It is strange! when he was convinced of my resolution to finish my days
+by violence, some words of terrible bitterness escaped him, making me
+believe that he envied me--my fate--my death!
+
+"`Is he perhaps condemned to live?
+
+"`Yes; he has, no doubt, condemned himself to be useful to humanity, and
+yet life is heavy on him, for I heard him repeat one day, with an
+expression of despair and weariness that I have never forgotten: "Life!
+life! who will deliver me from it?"
+
+"`Is life then so very burdensome to him?
+
+"`He is gone.  His last words have made me look for my departure with
+serenity.  Thanks to him, my death shall not be without fruit.
+
+"`Thanks to him, these lines, written at this moment by a man who, in a
+few hours, will have ceased to live, may perhaps be the parents of great
+things a century and a half hence--yes! great and noble things, if my
+last will is piously followed by my descendants, for it is to them that I
+here address myself.
+
+"`That they may understand and appreciate this last will--which I commend
+to the care of the unborn, who dwell in the future whither I am
+hastening--they must know the persecutors of my family and avenge their
+ancestor, but by a noble vengeance.
+
+"`My grandfather was a Catholic.  Induced by perfidious counsels rather
+than religious zeal, he attached himself, though a layman, to a Society
+whose power has always been terrible and mysterious--the Society of
+Jesus--'"
+
+At these words of the testament, Father d'Aigrigny, Rodin, and Gabriel
+looked involuntarily at each other: The notary, who had not perceived
+this action, continued to read:
+
+"`After some years, during which he had never ceased to profess the most
+absolute devotion to this Society, he was suddenly enlightened by fearful
+revelations as to the secret ends it pursued, and the means it employed.
+
+"`This was in 1510, a month before the assassination of Henry IV.
+
+"`My grandfather, terrified at the secret of which he had become the
+unwilling depositary, and which was to be fully explained by the death of
+the best of kings, not only broke with the Society, but, as if
+Catholicism itself had been answerable for the crimes of its members, he
+abandoned the Romish religion, in which he had hitherto lived, and became
+a Protestant.
+
+"`Undeniable proofs, attesting the connivance of two members of the
+Company with Ravaillac, a connivance also proved in the case of Jean
+Chatel, the regicide, were in my grandfather's possession.
+
+"'This was the first cause of the violent hatred of the Society for our
+family.  Thank Heaven, these papers have been placed in safety, and if my
+last will is executed, will be found marked A. M.C. D. G., in the ebony
+casket in the Hall of Mourning, in the house in the Rue Saint-Francois.
+
+"'My father was also exposed to these secret persecutions.  His ruin, and
+perhaps his death, would have been the consequence, had it not been for
+the intervention of an angelic woman, towards whom he felt an almost
+religious veneration.
+
+"`The portrait of this woman, whom I saw a few years ago, as well as that
+of the man whom I hold in the greatest reverence, were painted by me from
+memory, and have been placed in the Red Room in the Rue Saint-Francois--
+to be gratefully valued, I hope, by the descendants of my family.'"
+
+For some moments Gabriel had become more and more attentive to the
+reading of this testament.  He thought within himself by how strange a
+coincidence one of his ancestors had, two centuries before, broken with
+the Society of Jesus, as he himself had just done; and that from this
+rupture, two centuries old, dated also that species of hatred with which
+the Society of Jesus had always pursued his family.  Nor did the young
+priest find it less strange that this inheritance, transmitted to him
+after a lapse of a hundred and fifty years, from one of his kindred (the
+victim of the Society of Jesus), should return by a voluntary act to the
+coffers of this same society.  When the notary read the passage relative
+to the two portraits, Gabriel, who, like Father d'Aigrigny, sat with his
+back towards the pictures, turned round to look at them.  Hardly had the
+missionary cast his eyes on the portrait of the woman, than he uttered a
+loud cry of surprise, and almost terror.  The notary paused in his
+reading, and looked uneasily at the young priest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE LAST STROKE OF NOON.
+
+At the cry uttered by Gabriel, the notary had stopped reading the
+testament, and Father d'Aigrigny hastily drew near the young priest.  The
+latter rose trembling from his seat and gazed with increasing stupor at
+the female portrait.
+
+Then he said in a low voice, as if speaking to himself.  "Good Heaven!
+is it possible that nature can produce such resemblances?  Those eyes--so
+proud and yet so sad--that forehead--that pale complexion--yes, all her
+features, are the same--all of them!"
+
+"My dear son, what is the matter?" said Father d'Aigrigny, as astonished
+as Samuel and the notary.
+
+"Eight months ago," replied the missionary, in a voice of deep emotion,
+without once taking his eyes from the picture, "I was in the power of the
+Indians, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.  They had crucified, and
+were beginning to scalp me; I was on the point of death, when Divine
+Providence sent me unexpected aid--sent me this woman for a deliverer."
+
+"That woman!" cried Samuel, Father d'Aigrigny, and the notary, all
+together.
+
+Rodin alone appeared completely indifferent to this episode of the
+picture.  His face contracted with angry impatience, he bit his nails to
+the quick, as he contemplated with agony the slow progress of the hands
+of his watch.
+
+"What! that woman saved your life?" resumed Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Yes, this woman," replied Gabriel, in a still lower and more trembling
+voice; "this woman--or rather a woman so much resembling her, that if
+this picture had not been here for a century and a half, I should have
+felt sure it was the same--nor can I explain to myself that so striking a
+resemblance could be the effect of chance.  Well," added he, after a
+moment's silence, as he heaved a profound sigh, "the mysteries of Nature,
+and the will of God, are impenetrable."
+
+Gabriel fell back into his chair, in the midst of a general silence,
+which was broken by Father d'Aigrigny saying, "It is a case of
+extraordinary resemblance; that is all, my dear son.  Only, the natural
+gratitude which you feel towards your benefactress, makes you take a deep
+interest in this singular coincidence."
+
+Rodin, bursting with impatience, here said to the notary, by whose side
+he stood, "It seems to me, sir, that all this little romance has nothing
+to do with the testament."
+
+"You are right," answered the notary, resuming his seat; "but the fact is
+so extraordinary, and as you say, romantic, that one cannot help sharing
+in this gentleman's astonishment."
+
+He pointed to Gabriel, who, with his elbow resting on the arms of the
+chair, leaned his forehead upon his hand, apparently quite absorbed in
+thought.  The notary continued the reading of the will, as follows:
+
+"'Such are the persecutions to which my family has been exposed on the
+part of the Society of Jesus.
+
+"`The Society possesses at this hour the whole of my confiscated
+property.  I am about to die.  May its hatred perish with me, and spare
+my kindred, whose fate at this solemn moment is my last and only thought.
+
+"`This morning I sent for a man of long tried probity Isaac Samuel.  He
+owes his life to me, and every day I congratulate myself on having been
+able to preserve to the world so honest and excellent a creature.
+
+"`Before the confiscation of my property, Isaac Samuel had long managed
+it with as much intelligence as uprightness.  I have entrusted him with
+the fifty thousand crowns, returned to me by a faithful friend.  Isaac
+Samuel, and his descendants after him, to whom he will leave this debt of
+gratitude, will invest the above sum, and allow it to accumulate, until
+the expiration of the hundred and fiftieth year from this time.
+
+"`The amount thus accumulated may become enormous, and constitute a royal
+fortune, if no unfavorable event should occur.  May my descendants attend
+to my wishes, as to the division and employment of this immense sum!
+
+"`In a century and a half, there happen so many changes, so many
+varieties of fortunes, such a rise and fall in the condition of the
+successive generations of a family, that probably, a hundred and fifty
+years hence, my descendants will belong to various classes of society,
+and thus represent the divers social elements of their time.
+
+"`There may, perhaps, be among them men of great intelligence great
+courage, or great virtue--learned men, or names illustrious in arts and
+arms.  There may, perhaps, also be obscure workmen, or humble citizens--
+perhaps, also, alas! great criminals.
+
+"`However, this may be, my most earnest desire is that my descendants
+should combine together, and, reconstituting one family, by a close and
+sincere union, put into practice the divine words of Christ, "Love ye one
+another."
+
+"`This union would have a salutary tendency; for it seems to me that upon
+union, upon the association of men together, must depend the future
+happiness of mankind.
+
+"`The Company, which so long persecuted my family, is one of the most
+striking examples of the power of association, even when applied to evil.
+
+"`There is something so fruitful and divine in this principle, that it
+sometimes forces to good the worst and most dangerous combinations.
+
+"`Thus, the missions have thrown a scanty but pure and generous light on
+the darkness of this Company of Jesus--founded with the detestable and
+impious aim of destroying, by a homicidal education, all will, thought,
+liberty, and intelligence, in the people, so as to deliver them,
+trembling, superstitious, brutal, and helpless, to the despotism of
+kings, governed in their turn by confessors belonging to the Society.'"
+
+At this passage of the will, there was another strange look exchanged
+between Gabriel and Father d'Aigrigny.  The notary continued:
+
+"`If a perverse association, based upon the degradation of humanity, upon
+fear and despotism, and followed by the maledictions of the people, has
+survived for centuries, and often governed the world by craft and terror-
+-how would it be with an association, which, taking fraternity and
+evangelic love for its means, had for its end to deliver man and woman
+from all degrading slavery, to invite to the enjoyment of terrestrial
+happiness those who have hitherto known nothing of life but its sorrows
+and miseries, and to glorify and enrich the labor that feeds the state?--
+to enlighten those whom ignorance has depraved?--to favor the free
+expansion of all the passions, which God, in His infinite wisdom, and
+inexhaustible goodness, gave to man as so many powerful levers?--to
+sanctify all the gifts of Heaven: love, maternity, strength,
+intelligence, beauty, genius?--to make men truly religious, and deeply
+grateful to their Creator, by making them understand the splendors of
+Nature, and bestowing on them their rightful share in the treasures which
+have been poured upon us?
+
+"'Oh! if it be Heaven's will that, in a century and a half, the
+descendants of my family, faithful to the last wishes of a heart that
+loved humanity, meet in this sacred union!--if it be Heaven's will that
+amongst them be found charitable and passionate souls, full of
+commiseration for those who suffer, and lofty minds, ardent for liberty!
+warm and eloquent natures! resolute characters! women, who unite beauty
+and wit with goodness--oh! then, how fruitful, how powerful will be the
+harmonious union of all these ideas, and influences, and forces--of all
+these attractions grouped round that princely fortune, which,
+concentrated by association, and wisely managed, would render practicable
+the most admirable Utopias!
+
+"`What a wondrous centre of fertile and generous thoughts! What precious
+and life-giving rays would stream incessantly from this focus of charity,
+emancipation, and love!  What great things might be attempted what
+magnificent examples given to the world!  What a divine mission!  What an
+irresistible tendency towards good might be impressed on the whole human
+race by a family thus situated, and in possession of such means!
+
+"`And, then, such a beneficent association would be able to combat the
+fatal conspiracy of which I am the victim, and which, in a century and a
+half, may have lost none of its formidable power.
+
+"`So, to this work of darkness, restraint, and despotism, which weighs
+heavily on the Christian world, my family would oppose their work of
+light, expansion, and liberty!
+
+"`The genii of good and evil would stand face to face.  The struggle
+would commence, and God would protect the right.
+
+"`And that these immense pecuniary resources, which will give so much
+power to my family, may not be exhausted by the course of years, my
+heirs, following my last will, are to place out, upon the same
+conditions, double the sum that I have invested--so that, a century and a
+half later, a new source of power and action will be at the disposal of
+their descendants.  What a perpetuity of good!
+
+"`In the ebony cabinet of the Hall of Mourning will be found some
+practical suggestions on the subject of this association.
+
+"`Such is my last will--or rather, such are my last hopes.
+
+"`When I require absolutely that the members of my family should appear
+in person in the Rue Saint-Francois, on the day of the opening of this
+testament, it is so that, united in that solemn moment, they may see and
+know each other.  My words may then, perhaps, have some effect upon them;
+and, instead of living divided, they will combine together.  It will be
+for their own interest, and my wishes will thus be accomplished.
+
+"`When I sent, a few days ago, to those of my family whom exile has
+dispersed over Europe, a medal on which is engravers the date of the
+convocation of my heirs, a century and a half from this time, I was
+forced to keep secret my true motive, and only to tell them, that my
+descendants would find it greatly to their interest to attend this
+meeting.
+
+"`I have acted thus, because I know the craft and perseverance of the
+society of which I have been the victim.  If they could guess that my
+descendants would hereafter have to divide immense sums between them, my
+family would run the risk of much fraud and malice, through the fatal
+recommendations handed down from age to age in the Society of Jesus.
+
+"`May these precautions be successful!  May the wish, expressed upon
+these medals, be faithfully transmitted from generation to generation!
+
+"`If I fix a day and hour, in which my inheritance shall irrevocably fall
+to those of my descendants who shall appear in the Rue Saint-Francois on
+the 13th February, in 1832, it is that all delays must have a term, and
+that my heirs will have been sufficiently informed years before of the
+great importance of this meeting.
+
+"`After the reading of my testament, the person who shall then be the
+trustee of the accumulated funds, shall make known their amount, so that,
+with the last stroke of noon, they may be divided between my heirs then
+and there present.
+
+"`The different apartments of the house shall then be opened to them.
+They will see in them divers objects, well worthy of interest, pity, and
+respect--particularly in the Hall of Mourning.
+
+"`My desire is, that the house may not be sold, but that it may remain
+furnished as it is, and serve as a place of meeting for my descendants,
+if, as I hope, they attend to my last wishes.
+
+"`If, on the contrary, they are divided amongst themselves--if, instead
+of uniting for one of the most generous enterprises that ever signalized
+an age, they yield to the influence of selfish passions--if they prefer a
+sterile individuality to a fruitful association--if, in this immense
+fortune, they see only an opportunity for frivolous dissipation, or
+sordid interest--may they be accursed by all those whom they might have
+loved, succored, and disfettered!--and then let this house be utterly
+demolished and destroyed, and the papers, of which Isaac Samuel possesses
+the inventory, as well as the two portraits in the Red Room, be burnt by
+the guardian of the property.
+
+"`I have spoken.  My duty is accomplished.  In all this, I have followed
+the counsels of the man whom I revere and love as the image of God upon
+earth.
+
+"`The faithful friend, who preserved for me the fifty thousand crowns,
+the wreck of my fortune, knows the use I mean to make of them.  I could
+not refuse his friendship this mark of confidence.  But I have concealed
+from him the name of Isaac Samuel--for to have mentioned it might have
+exposed this latter and his descendants to great dangers.
+
+"`In a short time, this friend, who knows not that my resolution to die
+is so near its accomplishment, will come hither with my notary.  Into
+their hands, after the usual formalities, I shall deliver my sealed
+testament.
+
+"`Such is my last will.  I leave its execution to the superintending care
+of Providence.  God will protect the cause of love, peace, union, and
+liberty.
+
+"`This mystic testament,[20] having been freely made by me, and written
+entirely with my own hand, I intend and will its scrupulous execution
+both in spirit and the letter.
+
+"`This 13th day of February, 1682, at one o'clock in the
+afternoon.  "'MARIUS DE RENNEPONT.'"
+
+As the notary had proceeded with the reading of the testament, Gabriel
+was successively agitated by divers painful impressions.  At first, as we
+have before said, he was struck with the singular fatality which restored
+this immense fortune, derived from a victim of the Society of Jesus, to
+the hands of that very association, by the renewal of his deed of gift.
+Then, as his charitable and lofty soul began fully to comprehend the
+admirable tendency of the association so earnestly recommended by Marius
+de Rennepont, he reflected with bitter remorse, that, in consequence of
+his act of renunciation, and of the absence of any other heir, this great
+idea would never be realized, and a fortune, far more considerable than
+had even been expected, would fall to the share of an ill-omened society,
+in whose hands it would become a terrible means of action.  At the same
+time, it must be said that the soul of Gabriel was too pure and noble to
+feel the slightest personal regret, on hearing the great probable value
+of the property he had renounced.  He rejoiced rather in withdrawing his
+mind, by a touching contrast, from the thought of the wealth he had
+abandoned, to the humble parsonage, where he hoped to pass the remainder
+of his life, in the practice of most evangelical virtue.
+
+These ideas passed confusedly through his brain.  The sight of that
+woman's portrait, the dark revelations contained in the testament, the
+grandeur of the views exhibited in this last will of M. de Rennepont, all
+these extraordinary incidents had thrown Gabriel into a sort of stupor,
+in which he was still plunged, when Samuel offered the key of the
+register to the notary, saying: "You will find, sir, in this register,
+the exact statement of the sums in my possession, derived from the
+investment and accumulation of the one hundred and fifty thousand francs,
+entrusted to my grandfather by M. Marius de Rennepont."
+
+"Your grandfather!" cried Father d'Aigrigny, with the utmost surprise;
+"it is then your family that has always had the management of this
+property."
+
+"Yes, sir; and, in a few minutes, my wife will bring hither the casket
+which contains the vouchers."
+
+"And to what sum does this property amount?" asked Rodin, with an air of
+the most complete indifference.
+
+"As M. Notary may convince himself by this statement," replied Samuel,
+with perfect frankness, and as if he were only talking of the original
+one hundred and fifty thousand francs, "I have in my possession various
+current securities to the amount of two hundred and twelve millions, one
+hundred and seventy--"
+
+"You say, sir'" cried Father d'Aigrigny, without giving Samuel time to
+finish, for the odd money did not at all interest his reverence.
+
+"Yes, the sum!" added Rodin, in an agitated voice, and, for the first
+time, perhaps, in his life losing his presence of mind; "the sum--the
+sum--the sum!"
+
+"I say, sir," resumed the old man, "that I hold securities for two
+hundred and twelve millions, one hundred and seventy-five thousand
+francs, payable to self or bearer--as you may soon convince yourself, M.
+Notary, for here is my wife with the casket."
+
+Indeed, at this moment, Bathsheba entered, holding in her arms the cedar-
+wood chest, which contained the securities in question; she placed it
+upon the table, and withdrew, after exchanging an affectionate glance
+with Samuel.  When the latter declared the enormous amount of the sum in
+hand, his words were received with silent stupor.  All the actors in this
+scene, except himself, believed that they were the sport of some
+delusion.  Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin had counted upon forty millions.
+This sum, in itself enormous, was more than quintupled.  Gabriel, when he
+heard the notary read those passages in the testament, which spoke of a
+princely fortune, being quite ignorant of the prodigious effects of
+eligible investments, had valued the property at some three or four
+millions.  He was, therefore, struck dumb with amazement at the
+exorbitant amount named.  Notwithstanding his admirable disinterestedness
+and scrupulous honor, he felt dazzled and giddy at the thought, that all
+these immense riches might have belonged to him--alone.  The notary,
+almost as much amazed as Gabriel, examined the statement, and could
+hardly believe his eyes.  The Jew also remained mute, and seemed
+painfully absorbed in thought, that no other heir made his appearance.
+
+In the depth of this profound silence, the clock in the next room began
+slowly to strike twelve.  Samuel started, and heaved a deep sigh.  A few
+seconds more, and the fatal term would be at an end.  Rodin, Father
+d'Aigrigny, Gabriel, and the notary, were all under the influence of such
+complete surprise, that not one of them even remarked how strange it was
+to hear the sound of this clock.
+
+"Noon!" cried Rodin, as, by an involuntary movement, he hastily placed
+his two hands upon the casket, as if to take possession of it.
+
+"At last!" cried Father d'Aigrigny, with an expression of joy, triumph
+transport, which it is impossible to describe.  Then he added, as he
+threw himself into Gabriel's arms, whom he embraced warmly: "Oh, my dear
+son! how the poor will bless you!  You will be a second Vincent de Paul.
+You will be canonized, I promise you."
+
+"Let us first thank Providence," said Rodin, in a grave and solemn tone,
+as he fell upon his knees, "let us thank Providence, that He has
+permitted so much wealth to be employed for His glory!"'
+
+Father d'Aigrigny, having again embraced Gabriel, took him by the hand,
+and said: "Rodin is right.  Let us kneel, my dear son, and render thanks
+to Providence!"
+
+So saying, Father d'Aigrigny knelt down, dragging Gabriel with him, and
+the latter, confused and giddy with so many precipitate events, yielded
+mechanically to the impulse.  It was the last stroke of twelve when they
+all rose together.
+
+Then said the notary, in a slightly agitated voice, for there was
+something extraordinary and solemn in this scene
+
+"No other heir of M. Marius de Rennepont having presented himself, before
+noon on this day, I execute the will of the testator, by declaring, in
+the name of law and justice, that M. Francois Marie Gabriel de Rennepont,
+here present, is the sole heir and possessor of all the estate, real and
+personal, bequeathed under the said will; all which estate the said
+Gabriel de Rennepont, priest, has freely and voluntarily made over by
+deed of gift to Frederic Emanuel de Bordeville, Marquis d'Aigrigny,
+priest, who has accepted the same, and is, therefore, the only legal
+holder of such property, in the room of the said Gabriel de Rennepont, by
+virtue of the said deed, drawn up and engrossed by me this morning, and
+signed in my presence by the said Gabriel de Rennepont and Frederic
+d'Aigrigny."
+
+At this moment, the sound of loud voices was heard from the garden.
+Bathsheba entered hastily, and said to her husband with an agitated air:
+"Samuel--a soldier--who insists--"
+
+She had not time to finish.  Dagobert appeared at the door of the Red
+Room.  The soldier was fearfully pale.  He seemed almost fainting; his
+left arm was in a sling, and he leaned upon Agricola.  At sight of
+Dagobert, the pale and flabby eyelids of Rodin were suddenly distended,
+as if all the blood in his body had flowed towards the head.  Then the
+socius threw himself upon the casket, with the haste of ferocious rage
+and avidity, as if he were resolved to cover it with his body, and defend
+it at the peril of his life.
+
+[20] This term is sanctioned by legal usage.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE DEED OF GIFT.
+
+Father d'Aigrigny did not recognize Dagobert, and had never seen
+Agricola.  He could not therefore, at first explain the kind of angry
+alarm exhibited by Rodin.  But the reverend father understood it all,
+when he heard Gabriel utter a cry of joy, and saw him rush into the arms
+of the smith, exclaiming: "My brother! my second father--oh! it is heaven
+that sends you to me."
+
+Having pressed Gabriel's hand, Dagobert advanced towards Father
+d'Aigrigny, with a rapid but unsteady step.  As he remarked the soldier's
+threatening countenance, the reverend father, strong in his acquired
+rights, and feeling that, since noon, he was at home here; drew back a
+little, and said imperiously to the veteran: "Who are you, sir!--What do
+you want here?"
+
+Instead of answering, the soldier continued to advance, then, stopping
+just facing Father d'Aigrigny, he looked at him for a second with such an
+astounding mixture of curiosity, disdain, aversion, and audacity, that
+the ex-colonel of hussars quailed before the pale face and glowing eye of
+the veteran.  The notary and Samuel, struck with surprise, remained mute
+spectators of this scene, while Agricola and Gabriel followed with
+anxiety Dagobert's least movements.  As for Rodin, he pretended to be
+leaning on the casket, in order still to cover it with his body.
+
+Surmounting at length the embarrassment caused by the steadfast look of
+the soldier, Father d'Aigrigny raised his head, and repeated.  "I ask
+you, sir, who you are, and what you want?"
+
+"Do you not recognize me?" said Dagobert, hardly able to restrain
+himself.
+
+"No, sir--"
+
+"In truth," returned the soldier, with profound contempt, "You cast down
+your eyes for shame when, at Leipsic, you fought for the Russians against
+the French, and when General Simon, covered with wounds, answered you,
+renegade that you were, when you asked him for his sword, `I do not
+surrender to a traitor!'--and dragged himself along to one of the Russian
+grenadiers, to whom he yielded up his weapon.  Well! there was then a
+wounded soldier by the side of General Simon--I am he."
+
+"In brief, sir, what do you want?" said Father d'Aigrigny, hardly, able
+to control himself.
+
+"I have come to unmask you--you, that are as false and hateful a priest,
+as Gabriel is admirable and beloved by all."
+
+"Sir!" cried the marquis, becoming livid with rage and emotion.
+
+"I tell you, that you are infamous," resumed the soldier, with still
+greater force.  "To rob Marshal Simon's daughters, and Gabriel, and
+Mdlle. de Cardoville of their inheritance, you have had recourse to the
+most shameful means."
+
+"What do you say?" cried Gabriel.  "The daughters of Marshal Simon?"
+
+"Are your relations, my dear boy, as is also that worthy Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, the benefactress of Agricola.  Now, this priest," he added,
+pointing to Father d'Aigrigny, "has had them shut up--the one as mad, in
+a lunatic asylum--the others in a convent.  As for you, my dear boy, I
+did not hope to find you here, believing that they would have prevented
+you, like the others, from coming hither this morning.  But, thank God,
+you are here, and I arrive in time.  I should have been sooner, but for
+my wound.  I have lost so much blood, that I have done nothing but faint
+all the morning."
+
+"Truly!" cried Gabriel, with uneasiness.  "I had not remarked your arm in
+a sling.  What is the wound?"
+
+At a sign from Agricola, Dagobert answered: "Nothing; the consequence of
+a fall.  But here I am, to unveil many infamies."
+
+It is impossible to paint the curiosity, anguish, surprise, or fear, of
+the different actors in this scene, as they listened to Dagobert's
+threatening words.  But the most overcome was Gabriel.  His angelic
+countenance was distorted, his knees trembled under him.  Struck by the
+communication of Dagobert which revealed the existence of other heirs, he
+was unable to speak for some time; at length, he cried out, in a tone of
+despair: "And it is I--oh, God!  I--who am the cause of the spoliation of
+this family!"
+
+"You, brother?" exclaimed Agricola.
+
+"Did they not wish to rob you also?" added Dagobert.
+
+"The will," cried Gabriel, with increasing agony, "gave the property to
+those of the heirs that should appear before noon."
+
+"Well?" said Dagobert, alarmed at the emotion of the young priest.
+
+"Twelve o'clock has struck," resumed the latter.  "Of all the family, I
+alone was present.  Do you understand it now?  The term is expired.  The
+heirs have been thrust aside by me!"
+
+"By you!" said Dagobert, stammering with joy.  "By you, my brave boy!
+then all is well."
+
+"But--"
+
+"All is well," resumed Dagobert, radiant with delight.  "You will share
+with the others--I know you."
+
+"But all this property I have irrevocably, made over to another," cried
+Gabriel, in despair.
+
+"Made over the property!" cried Dagobert, quite petrified.  "To whom,
+then?--to whom?"
+
+"To this gentleman," said Gabriel, pointing to Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"To him!" exclaimed Dagobert, overwhelmed by the news; "to him--the
+renegade--who has always been the evil genius of this family!"
+
+"But, brother," cried Agricola, "did you then know your claim to this
+inheritance?"
+
+"No," answered the young priest, with deep dejection; "no--I only learned
+it this morning, from Father d'Aigrigny.  He told me, that he had only
+recently been informed of my rights, by family papers long ago found upon
+me, and sent by our mother to her confessor."
+
+A sudden light seemed to dawn upon the mind of the smith, as he
+exclaimed: "I understand it all now.  They discovered in these papers,
+that you would one day have a chance of becoming rich.  Therefore, they
+interested themselves about you--therefore, they took you into their
+college, where we could never see you--therefore, they deceived you in
+your vocation by shameful falsehoods, to force you to become a priest,
+and to lead you to make this deed of gift.  Oh, sir!" resumed Agricola,
+turning towards Father d'Aigrigny, with indignation, "my father is right-
+-such machinations are indeed infamous!"
+
+During this scene, the reverend father and his socius, at first alarmed
+and shaken in their audacity, had by degrees recovered all their
+coolness.  Rodin, still leaning upon the casket, had said a few words in
+a low voice to Father d'Aigrigny.  So that when Agricola, carried away by
+his indignation, reproached the latter with his infamous machinations, he
+bowed his head humbly, and answered: " We are bound to forgive injuries,
+and offer them to the Lord as a mark of our humility."
+
+Dagobert, confounded at all he had just heard, felt his reason begin to
+wander.  After so much anxiety, his strength failed beneath this new and
+terrible blow.  Agricola's just and sensible words, in connection with
+certain passages of the testament, at once enlightened Gabriel as to the
+views of Father d'Aigrigny, in taking charge of his education, and
+leading him to join the Society of Jesus.  For the first time in his
+life, Gabriel was able to take in at a glance all the secret springs of
+the dark intrigue, of which he had been the victim.  Then, indignation
+and despair surmounting his natural timidity, the missionary, with
+flashing eye, and cheeks inflamed with noble wrath, exclaimed, as he
+addressed Father d'Aigrigny: "So, father, when you placed me in one of
+your colleges, it was not from any feeling of kindness or commiseration,
+but only in the hope of bringing me one day to renounce in favor of your
+Order my share in this inheritance; and it did not even suffice you to
+sacrifice me to your cupidity, but I must also be rendered the
+involuntary instrument of a shameful spoliation!  If only I were
+concerned--if you only coveted my claim to all this wealth, I should not
+complain.  I am the minister of a religion which honors and sanctifies
+poverty; I have consented to the donation in your favor, and I have not,
+I could never have any claim upon it.  But property is concerned which
+belong to poor orphans, brought from a distant exile by my adopted
+father, and I will not see them wronged.  But the benefactress of my
+adopted brother is concerned, and I will not see her wronged.  But the
+last will of a dying man is concerned, who, in his ardent love of
+humanity, bequeathed to his descendants an evangelic mission--an
+admirable mission of progress, love, union, liberty--and I will not see
+this mission blighted in its bud.  No, no; I tell you, that this his
+mission shall be accomplished, though I have to cancel the donation I
+have made."
+
+On these words, Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin looked at each other with a
+slight shrug of the shoulders.  At a sign from the socius, the reverend
+father began to speak with immovable calmness, in a slow and sanctified
+voice, keeping eyes constantly cast down: "There are many incidents
+connected with this inheritance of M. de Rennepont, which appear very
+complicated--many phantoms, which seem un usually menacing--and yet,
+nothing could be really more simple and natural.  Let us proceed in
+regular order.  Let us put aside all these calumnious imputations; we
+will return to them afterwards.  M. Gabriel de Rennepont--and I
+humbly beg him to contradict me, if I depart in the least instance from
+the exact truth--M. Gabriel de Rennepont, in acknowledgment of the care
+formerly bestowed on him by the society to which I have the honor to
+belong, made over to me, as its representative, freely and voluntarily,
+all the property that might come to him one day, the value of which was
+unknown to him, as well as to myself."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny here looked at Gabriel, as if appealing to him for the
+truth of this statement.
+
+"It is true," said the young priest: "I made this donation freely."
+
+"This morning, in consequence of a private conversation, which I will not
+repeat--and in this, I am certain beforehand, of the Abbe Gabriel--"
+
+"True," replied Gabriel, generously; "the subject of this conversation is
+of little importance."
+
+"It was then, in consequence of this conversation that the Abbe Gabriel
+manifested the desire to confirm this donation--not in my favor, for I
+have little to do with earthly wealth--but in favor of the sacred and
+charitable works of which our Company is the trustee.  I appeal to the
+honor of M. Gabriel to declare if he have not engaged himself towards us,
+not only by a solemn oath, but by a perfectly legal act, executed in
+presence of M. Dumesnil, here present?"
+
+"It is all true," answered Gabriel.
+
+"The deed was prepared by me," added the notary.
+
+"But Gabriel could only give you what belonged to him," cried Dagobert.
+"The dear boy never supposed that you were making use of him to rob other
+people."
+
+"Do me the favor, sir, to allow me to explain myself," replied Father
+d'Aigrigny, courteously; "you can afterwards make answer."
+
+Dagobert repressed with difficulty his painful impatience.  The reverend
+father continued: "The Abbe Gabriel has therefore, by the double
+engagement of an oath and a legal act, confirmed his donation.  Much
+more," resumed Father d'Aigrigny: "when to his great astonishment and to
+ours, the enormous amount of the inheritance became known, the Abbe
+Gabriel, faithful to his own admirable generosity, far from repenting of
+his gifts, consecrated them once more by a pious movement of gratitude to
+Providence--for M. Notary will doubtless remember, that, after embracing
+the Abbe Gabriel with transport, and telling him that he was a second
+Vincent de Paul in charity, I took him by the hand, and we both knelt
+down together to thank heaven for having inspired him with the thought
+too offer these immense riches to the Greater Glory of the Lord."
+
+"That is true, also," said Gabriel, honestly; "so long as myself was
+concerned, though I might be astounded for a moment by the revelation of
+so enormous a fortune, I did not think for an instant of cancelling the
+donation I had freely made."
+
+"Under these circumstances," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, "the hour fixed
+for the settlement of the inheritance having struck, and Abbe Gabriel
+being the only heir that presented himself, he became necessarily the
+only legitimate possessor of this immense wealth--enormous, no doubt--and
+charity makes me rejoice that it is enormous, for, thanks to it, many
+miseries will be relieved and many tears wiped away.  But, all on a
+sudden, here comes this gentleman," said Father d'Aigrigny, pointing to
+Dagobert; "and, under some delusion, which I forgive from the bottom of
+my soul, and which I am sure he will himself regret, accuses me, with
+insults and threats, with having carried off (I know not where) some
+persons (I know not whom), in order to prevent their being here at the
+proper time--"
+
+"Yes, I accuse you of this infamy!" cried the soldier exasperated by the
+calmness and audacity of the reverend father: "yes--and I will--"
+
+"Once again, sir, I conjure you to be so good as to let me finish; you
+can reply afterwards," said Father d'Aigrigny, humbly, in the softest and
+most honeyed accents.
+
+"Yes, I will reply, and confound you!" cried Dagobert.
+
+"Let him finish, father.  You can speak presently," said Agricola.
+
+The soldier was silent as Father d'Aigrigny continued with new assurance:
+"Doubtless, if there should really be any other heirs, besides the Abbe
+Gabriel, it is unfortunate for them that they have not appeared in proper
+time.  And if, instead of defending the cause of the poor and needy, I
+had only to look to my own interest, I should be far from availing myself
+of this advantage, due only to chance; but, as a trustee for the great
+family of the poor, I am obliged to maintain my absolute right to this
+inheritance; and I do not doubt that M. Notary will acknowledge the
+validity of my claim, and deliver to me these securities, which are now
+my legitimate property."
+
+"My only mission," replied the notary, in an agitated voice, "is
+faithfully to execute the will of the testator.  The Abbe Gabriel de
+Rennepont alone presented himself, within the term fixed by the
+testament.  The deed of gift is in due form; I cannot refuse, therefore,
+to deliver to the person named in the deed the amount of the heritage--"
+
+On these words Samuel hid his face in his hands, and heaved a deep sigh;
+he was obliged to acknowledge the rigorous justice of the notary's
+observations.
+
+"But, sir," cried Dagobert, addressing the man of law, "this cannot be.
+You will not allow two poor orphans to be despoiled.  It is in the name
+of their father and mother that I speak to you.  I give you my honor--the
+honor of a soldier!--that they took advantage of the weakness of my wife
+to carry the daughters of Marshal Simon to a convent, and thus prevent me
+bringing them here this morning.  It is so true, that I have already laid
+my charge before a magistrate."
+
+"And what answer did you receive?" said the notary.
+
+"That my deposition was not sufficient for the law to remove these young
+girls from the convent in which they were, and that inquiries would be
+made--"
+
+"Yes, sir," added Agricola, "and it was the same with regard to Mdlle.
+de Cardoville, detained as mad in a lunatic asylum, though in the full
+enjoyment of her reason.  Like Marshal Simon's daughters, she too has a
+claim to this inheritance.  I took the same steps for her, as my father
+took for Marshal Simon's daughters."
+
+"Well?" asked the notary.
+
+"Unfortunately, sir," answered Agricola, "they told me; as they did my
+father, that my deposition would not suffice, and that they must make
+inquiries."
+
+At this moment, Bathsheba, having heard the street-bell ring, left the
+Red Room at a sign from Samuel.  The notary resumed, addressing Agricola
+and his father: "Far be it from me, gentlemen, to call in question your
+good faith; but I cannot, to my great regret, attach such importance to
+your accusations, which are not supported by proof, as to suspend the
+regular legal course.  According to your own confession, gentlemen, the
+authorities, to whom you addressed yourselves, did not see fit to
+interfere on your depositions, and told you they would inquire further.
+Now, really, gentlemen, I appeal to you: how can I, in so serious a
+matter, take upon myself a responsibility, which the magistrates
+themselves have refused to take?"
+
+"Yes, you should do so, in the name of justice and honor?" cried
+Dagobert.
+
+"It may be so, sir, in your opinion; but in my view of the case, I remain
+faithful to justice and honor, by executing with exactness the last will
+of the dead.  For the rest you have no occasion to despair.  If the
+persons, whose interests you represent, consider themselves injured, they
+may hereafter have recourse to an action at law, against the person
+receiving as donee of the Abbe Gabriel--but in the meanwhile, it is my
+duty to put him in immediate possession of the securities.  I should be
+gravely injured, were I to act in any, other manner."
+
+The notary's observations seemed so reasonable, that Samuel, Dagobert and
+Agricola were quite confounded.  After a moment's thought, Gabriel
+appeared to take a desperate resolution, and said to the notary, in a
+firm voice
+
+"Since, under these circumstances, the law is powerless to obtain the
+right, I must adopt, sir, an extreme course.  Before doing so, I will ask
+M. l'Abbe d'Aigrigny, for the last time, if he will content himself with
+that portion of the property which falls justly to me, on condition that
+the rest shall be placed in safe hands, till the heirs, whose names have
+been brought forward, shall prove their claim."
+
+"To this proposition I must answer as I have done already," replied
+Father d'Aigrigny; "it is not I who am concerned, but an immense work of
+charity.  I am, therefore, obliged to refuse the part-offer of the Abbe
+Gabriel, and to remind him of his engagements of every kind."
+
+"Then you refuse this arrangement?" asked Gabriel, in an agitated voice.
+
+"Charity commands me to do so."
+
+"You refuse it--absolutely?"
+
+"I think of all the good and pious institutions that these treasures will
+enable us to establish for the Greater Glory of the Lord, and I have
+neither the courage nor the desire to make the least concession."
+
+"Then, sir," resumed the good priest, in a still more agitated manner,
+"since you force me to do it, I revoke my donation.  I only intended to
+dispose of my own property, and not of that which did not belong to me."
+
+"Take care M. l'Abbe," said rather d'Aigrigny; "I would observe that I
+hold in my hand a written, formal promise."
+
+"I know it, sir;, you have a written paper, in which I take an oath never
+to revoke this donation, upon any pretext whatever, and on pain of
+incurring the aversion and contempt of all honest men.  Well, sir! be it
+so," said Gabriel, with deep bitterness; " I will expose myself to all
+the consequences of perjury; you may proclaim it everywhere.  I may be
+hated and despised by all--but God will judge me!"  The young priest
+dried a tear, which trickled from his eye.
+
+"Oh! do not be afraid, my dear boy!" cried Dagobert, with reviving hope.
+"All honest men will be on your side!"
+
+"Well done, brother!" said Agricola.
+
+"M. Notary," said Rodin, in his little sharp voice, "please to explain to
+Abbe Gabriel, that he may perjure himself as much as he thinks fit, but
+that the Civil Code is much less easy to violate than a mere promise,
+which is only--sacred!"
+
+"Speak, sir," said Gabriel.
+
+"Please to inform Abbe Gabriel," resumed Rodin, "that a deed of gift,
+like that made in favor of Father d'Aigrigny, can only be cancelled for
+one of three reasons--is it not so?"
+
+"Yes, sir, for three reasons," said the notary.
+
+"The first is in case of the birth of a child," said Rodin, "and I should
+blush to mention such a contingency to the Abbe Gabriel.  The second is
+the ingratitude of the donee--and the Abbe Gabriel may be certain of our
+deep and lasting gratitude.  The last case is the non-fulfilment of the
+wishes of the donor, with regard to the employment of his gifts.
+
+Now, although the Abbe Gabriel may have suddenly conceived a very bad
+opinion of us, he will at least give us some time to show that his gifts
+have been disposed of according to his wishes, and applied to the Greater
+Glory of the Lord."
+
+"Now, M. Notary," added Father d'Aigrigny, "it is for you to decide and
+say, if Abbe Gabriel can revoke the donation he has made."
+
+Just as the notary was going to answer, Bathsheba reentered the room,
+followed by two more personages, who appeared in the Red Room at a little
+distance from each other.
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V5, by Eugene
+Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW.
+
+
+BOOK VI.
+
+PART SECOND.--THE CHASTISEMENT.  (Concluded.)
+
+XXVI.      A Good Genius
+XXVII.     The First Last, And the Last First
+XXVIII.    The Stranger
+XXIX.      The Den
+XXX.       An Unexpected Visit
+XXXI.      Friendly Services
+XXXII.     The Advice
+XXXIII.    The Accuser
+XXXIV.     Father d'Aigrigny's Secretary
+XXXV.      Sympathy
+XXXVI.     Suspicions
+XXXVII.    Excuses
+XXXVIII.   Revelations
+XXXIX.     Pierre Simon
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+A GOOD GENIUS.
+
+The first of the two, whose arrival had interrupted the answer of the
+notary, was Faringhea.  At sight of this man's forbidding countenance,
+Samuel approached, and said to him: "Who are you, sir?"
+
+After casting a piercing glance at Rodin, who started but soon recovered
+his habitual coolness, Faringhea replied to Samuel: "Prince Djalma
+arrived lately from India, in order to be present here this day, as it
+was recommended to him by an inscription on a medal, which he wore about
+his neck."
+
+"He, also!" cried Gabriel, who had been the shipmate of the Indian Prince
+from the Azores, where the vessel in which he came from Alexandria had
+been driven into port: "he also one of the heirs!  In fact, the prince
+told me during the voyage that his mother was of French origin.  But,
+doubtless, he thought it right to conceal from me the object of his
+journey.  Oh! that Indian is a noble and courageous young man.  Where is
+he?"
+
+The Strangler again looked at Rodin, and said, laying strong emphasis
+upon his words: "I left the prince yesterday evening.  He informed me
+that, although he had a great interest to be here, he might possibly
+sacrifice that interest to other motives.  I passed the night in the same
+hotel, and this morning, when I went to call on him, they told me he was
+already gone out.  My friendship for him led me to come hither, hoping
+the information I should be able to give might be of use to the prince."
+
+In making no mention of the snare into which he had fallen the day
+before, in concealing Rodin's machinations with regard to Djalma, and in
+attributing the absence of this latter to a voluntary cause, the
+Strangler evidently wished to serve the socius, trusting that Rodin would
+know how to recompense his discretion.  It is useless to observe, that
+all this story was impudently false.  Having succeeded that morning in
+escaping from his prison by a prodigious effort of cunning, audacity, and
+skill, he had run to the hotel where he had left Djalma; there he had
+learned that a man and woman, of an advanced age, and most respectable
+appearance, calling themselves relations of the young Indian, had asked
+to see him--and that, alarmed at the dangerous state of somnolency in
+which he seemed to be plunged, they had taken him home in their carriage,
+in order to pay him the necessary attention.
+
+"It is unfortunate," said the notary, "that this heir also did not make
+his appearance--but he has, unhappily, forfeited his right to the immense
+inheritance that is in question."
+
+"Oh! an immense inheritance is in question," said Faringhea, looking
+fixedly at Rodin, who prudently turned away his eyes.
+
+The second of the two personages we have mentioned entered at this
+moment.  It was the father of Marshal Simon, an old man of tall stature,
+still active and vigorous for his age.  His hair was white and thin.  His
+countenance, rather fresh-colored, was expressive at once of quickness,
+mildness and energy.
+
+Agricola advanced hastily to meet him.  "You here, M. Simon!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, my boy," said the marshal's father, cordially pressing Agricola's
+hand "I have just arrived from my journey.  M. Hardy was to have been
+here, about some matter of inheritance, as he supposed: but, as he will
+still be absent from Paris for some time, he has charged me--"
+
+"He also an heir!--M. Francis Hardy!" cried Agricola, interrupting the
+old workman.
+
+"But how pale and agitated you are, my boy!" said the marshal's father,
+looking round with astonishment.  "What is the matter?"
+
+"What is the matter?" cried Dagobert, in despair, as he approached the
+foreman.  "The matter is that they would rob your granddaughters, and
+that I have brought them from the depths of Siberia only to witness this
+shameful deed!"
+
+"Eh?" cried the old workman, trying to recognize the soldiers face, "you
+are then--"
+
+"Dagobert."
+
+"You--the generous, devoted friend of my son!" cried the marshal's
+father, pressing the hands of Dagobert in his own with strong emotion;
+"but did you not speak of Simon's daughter?"
+
+"Of his daughters; for he is more fortunate than he imagines," said
+Dagobert.  "The poor children are twins."
+
+"And where are they?" asked the old man.
+
+"In a convent."
+
+"In a convent?"
+
+"Yes; by the treachery of this man, who keeps them there in order to
+disinherit them."
+
+"What man?"
+
+"The Marquis d'Aigrigny."
+
+"My son's mortal enemy!" cried the old workman, as he threw a glance of
+aversion at Father d'Aigrigny, whose audacity did not fail him.
+
+"And that is not all," added Agricola.  "M. Hardy, my worthy and
+excellent master, has also lost his right to this immense inheritance."
+
+"What?" cried Marshal Simon's father; "but M. Hardy did not know that
+such important interests were concerned.  He set out hastily to join one
+of his friends who was in want of him."
+
+At each of these successive revelations, Samuel felt his trouble
+increase: but he could only sigh over it, for the will of the testator
+was couched, unhappily, in precise and positive terms.
+
+Father d'Aigrigny, impatient to end this scene, which caused him cruel
+embarrassment, in spite of his apparent calmness, said to the notary, in
+a grave and expressive voice:  "It is necessary, sir, that all this
+should have an end.  If calumny could reach me, I would answer
+victoriously by the facts that have just come to light.  Why attribute to
+odious conspiracies the absence of the heirs, in whose names this soldier
+and his son have so uncourteously urged their demands?  Why should such
+absence be less explicable than the young Indian's, or than M. Hardy's,
+who, as his confidential man has just told us, did not even know the
+importance of the interests that called him hither?  Is it not probable,
+that the daughters of Marshal Simon, and Mdlle. de Cardoville have been
+prevented from coming here to-day by some very natural reasons?  But,
+once again, this has lasted too long.  I think M. Notary will agree with
+me, that this discovery of new heirs does not at all affect the question,
+which I had the honor to propose to him just now; namely whether, as
+trustee for the poor, to whom Abbe Gabriel made a free gift of all he
+possessed, I remain notwithstanding his tardy and illegal opposition, the
+only possessor of this property, which I have promised, and which I now
+again promise, in presence of all here assembled, to employ for the
+Greater Glory of the Lord?  Please to answer me plainly, M. Notary; and
+thus terminate the scene which must needs be painful to us all."
+
+"Sir," replied the notary, in a solemn tone, "on my soul and conscience,
+and in the name of law and justice--as a faithful and impartial executor
+of the last will of M. Marius de Rennepont, I declare that, by virtue of
+the deed of gift of Abbe Gabriel de Rennepont, you, M. l'Abbe d'Aigrigny,
+are the only possessor of this property, which I place at your immediate
+disposal, that you may employ the same according to the intention of the
+donor."
+
+These words pronounced with conviction and gravity, destroyed the last
+vague hopes that the representatives of the heirs might till then have
+entertained.  Samuel became paler than usual, and pressed convulsively
+the hand of Bathsheba, who had drawn near to him.  Large tears rolled
+down the cheeks of the two old people.  Dagobert and Agricola were
+plunged into the deepest dejection.  Struck with the reasoning of the
+notary, who refused to give more credence and authority to their
+remonstrances than the magistrates had done before him, they saw
+themselves forced to abandon every hope.  But Gabriel suffered more than
+any one; he felt the most terrible remorse, in reflecting that, by his
+blindness, he had been the involuntary cause and instrument of this
+abominable theft.
+
+So, when the notary, after having examined and verified the amount of
+securities contained in the cedar box, said to Father d'Aigrigny: "Take
+possession, sir, of this casket--"  "Gabriel exclaimed, with bitter
+disappointment and profound despair: "Alas! one would fancy, under these
+circumstances, that an inexorable fatality pursues all those who are
+worthy of interest, affection or respect.  Oh, my God!" added the young
+priest, clasping his hands with fervor, "Thy sovereign justice will never
+permit the triumph of such iniquity."
+
+It was as if heaven had listened to the prayer of the missionary.  Hardly
+had he spoken, when a strange event took place.
+
+Without waiting for the end of Gabriel's invocation, Rodin, profiting by
+the decision of the notary, had seized the casket in his arms, unable to
+repress a deep aspiration of joy and triumph.  At the very moment when
+Father d'Aigrigny and his socius thought themselves at last in safe
+possession of the treasure, the door of the apartment in which the clock
+had been heard striking was suddenly opened.
+
+A woman appeared upon the threshold.
+
+At sight of her, Gabriel uttered a loud cry, and remained as if
+thunderstruck.  Samuel and Bathsheba fell on their knees together, and
+raised their clasped hands.  The Jew and Jewess felt inexplicable hopes
+reviving within them.
+
+All the other actors in this scene appeared struck with stupor.  Rodin--
+Rodin himself--recoiled two steps, and replaced the casket on the table
+with a trembling hand.  Though the incident might appear natural enough--
+a woman appearing on the threshold of a door, which she had just thrown
+open--there was a pause of deep and solemn silence.  Every bosom seemed
+oppressed, and as if struggling for breath.  All experienced, at sight of
+this woman, surprise mingled with fear, and indefinable anxiety--for this
+woman was the living original of the portrait, which had been placed in
+the room a hundred and fifty years ago.  The same head-dress, the same
+flowing robe, the same countenance, so full of poignant and resigned
+grief!  She advanced slowly, and without appearing to perceive the deep
+impression she had caused.  She approached one of the pieces of
+furniture, inlaid with brass, touched a spring concealed in the moulding
+of gilded bronze, so that an upper drawer flew open, and taking from it a
+sealed parchment envelope, she walked up to the table, and placed this
+packet before the notary, who, hitherto silent and motionless, received
+it mechanically from her.
+
+Then, casting upon Gabriel, who seemed fascinated by her presence, a
+long, mild, melancholy look, this woman directed her steps towards the
+hall, the door of which had remained open.  As she passed near Samuel and
+Bathsheba, who were still kneeling, she stopped an instant, bowed her
+fair head towards them, and looked at them with tender solicitude.  Then,
+giving them her hands to kiss, she glided away as slowly as she had
+entered--throwing a last glance upon Gabriel.  The departure of this
+woman seemed to break the spell under which all present had remained for
+the last few minutes.  Gabriel was the first to speak, exclaiming, in an
+agitated voice.  "It is she--again--here--in this house!"
+
+"Who, brother?" said Agricola, uneasy at the pale and almost wild looks
+of the missionary; for the smith had not yet remarked the strange
+resemblance of the woman to the portrait, though he shared in the general
+feeling of amazement, without being able to explain it to himself.
+Dagobert and Faringhea were in a similar state of mind.
+
+"Who is this woman?" resumed Agricola, as he took the hand of Gabriel,
+which felt damp and icy cold.
+
+"Look!" said the young priest.  "Those portraits have been there for more
+than a century and a half."
+
+He pointed to the paintings before which he was now seated, and Agricola,
+Dagobert, and Faringhea raised their eyes to either side of the
+fireplace.  Three exclamations were now heard at once.
+
+"It is she--it is the same woman!" cried the smith, in amazement, "and
+her portrait has been here for a hundred and fifty years!"
+
+"What do I see?" cried Dagobert, as he gazed at the portrait of the man.
+"The friend and emissary of Marshal Simon.  Yes! it is the same face that
+I saw last year in Siberia.  Oh, yes! I recognize that wild and sorrowful
+air--those black eyebrows, which make only one!"
+
+"My eyes do not deceive me," muttered Faringhea to himself, shuddering
+with horror.  "It is the same man, with the black mark on his forehead,
+that we strangled and buried on the banks of the Ganges--the same man,
+that one of the sons of Bowanee told me, in the ruins of Tchandi, had
+been met by him afterwards at one of the gates of Bombay--the man of the
+fatal curse, who scatters death upon his passage--and his picture has
+existed for a hundred and fifty years!"
+
+And, like Dagobert and Agricola, the stranger could not withdraw his eyes
+from that strange portrait.
+
+"What a mysterious resemblance!" thought Father d'Aigrigny.  Then, as if
+struck with a sudden idea, he said to Gabriel: "But this woman is the
+same that saved your life in America?"
+
+"It is the same," answered Gabriel, with emotion; "and yet she told me
+she was going towards the North," added the young priest, speaking to
+himself.
+
+"But how came she in this house?" said Father d'Aigrigny, addressing
+Samuel.  "Answer me! did this woman come in with you, or before you?"
+
+"I came in first, and alone, when this door was first opened since a
+century and half," said Samuel, gravely.
+
+"Then how can you explain the presence of this woman here?" said Father
+d'Aigrigny.
+
+"I do not try to explain it," said the Jew.  "I see, I believe, and now I
+hope." added he, looking at Bathsheba with an indefinable expression.
+
+"But you ought to explain the presence of this woman!" said Father
+d'Aigrigny, with vague uneasiness.  "Who is she?  How came she hither?"
+
+"All I know is, sir, that my father has often told me; there are
+subterraneous communications between this house and distant parts of the
+quarter."
+
+"Oh! then nothing can be clearer," said Father d'Aigrigny; "it only
+remains to be known what this woman intends by coming hither.  As for her
+singular resemblance to this portrait, it is one of the freaks of
+nature."
+
+Rodin had shared in the general emotion, at the apparition of this
+mysterious woman.  But when he saw that she had delivered a sealed packet
+to the notary, the socius, instead of thinking of the strangeness of this
+unexpected vision, was only occupied with a violent desire to quit the
+house with the treasure which had just fallen to the Company.  He felt a
+vague anxiety at sight of the envelope with the black seal, which the
+protectress of Gabriel had delivered to the notary, and was still held
+mechanically in his hands.  The socius, therefore, judging this a very
+good opportunity to walk off with the casket, during the general silence
+and stupor which still continued, slightly touched Father d'Aigrigny's
+elbow, made him a sign of intelligence, and, tucking the cedar-wood chest
+under his arm, was hastening towards the door.
+
+"One moment, sir," said Samuel, rising, and standing in his path; "I
+request M. Notary to examine the envelope, that has just been delivered
+to him.  You may then go out."
+
+"But, sir," said Rodin, trying to force a passage, "the question is
+definitively decided in favor of Father d'Aigrigny.  Therefore, with your
+permission--"
+
+"I tell you, sir," answered the old man, in a loud voice, "that this
+casket shall not leave the house, until M. Notary has examined the
+envelope just delivered to him!"
+
+These words drew the attention of all,  Rodin was forced to retrace his
+steps.  Notwithstanding the firmness of his character, the Jew shuddered
+at the look of implacable hate which Rodin turned upon him at this
+moment.
+
+Yielding to the wish of Samuel, the notary examined the envelope with
+attention.  "Good Heaven!" he cried suddenly; "what do I see?--Ah! so
+much the better!"
+
+At this exclamation all eyes turned upon the notary.  "Oh! read, read,
+sir!" cried Samuel, clasping his hands together.  "My presentiments have
+not then deceived me!"
+
+"But, sir," said Father d'Aigrigny to the notary, for he began to share
+in the anxiety of Rodin, "what is this paper?"
+
+"A codicil," answered the notary; "a codicil, which reopens the whole
+question."
+
+"How, sir?" cried Father d'Aigrigny, in a fury, as he hastily drew nearer
+to the notary, "reopens the whole question!  By what right?"
+
+"It is impossible," added Rodin.  "We protest against it.
+
+"Gabriel! father! listen," cried Agricola, "all is not lost.  There is
+yet hope.  Do you hear, Gabriel?  There is yet hope."
+
+"What do you say?" exclaimed the young priest, rising, and hardly
+believing the words of his adopted brother.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the notary; "I will read to you the superscription of
+this envelope.  It changes, or rather, it adjourns, the whole of the
+testamentary provisions."
+
+"Gabriel!" cried Agricola, throwing himself on the neck of the
+missionary, "all is adjourned, nothing is lost!"
+
+"Listen, gentlemen," said the notary; and he read as follows:
+
+"'This is a Codicil, which for reasons herein stated, adjourns and
+prorogues to the 1st day of June, 1832, though without any other change,
+all the provisions contained in the testament made by me, at one o'clock
+this afternoon.  The house shall be reclosed, and the funds left in the
+hands of the same trustee, to be distributed to the rightful claimants on
+the 1st of June, 1832.
+
+"`Villetaneuse, this 13th of February, 1682, eleven o'clock at night.
+
+"'MARIUS DE RENNEPONT.'"
+
+
+"I protest against this codicil as a forgery!" cried Father d'Aigrigny
+livid with rage and despair.
+
+"The woman who delivered it to the notary is a suspicious character,"
+added Rodin.  "The codicil has been forged."
+
+"No, sir," said the notary, severely; "I have just compared the two
+signatures, and they are absolutely alike.  For the rest--what I said
+this morning, with regard to the absent heirs, is now applicable to you--
+the law is open; you may dispute the authenticity of this codicil.
+Meanwhile, everything will remain suspended--since the term for the
+adjustment of the inheritance is prolonged for three months and a half."
+
+When the notary had uttered these last words, Rodin's nails dripped
+blood; for the first time, his wan lips became red.
+
+"Oh, God! Thou hast heard and granted my prayer!" cried Gabriel, kneeling
+down with religious fervor, and turning his angelic face towards heaven.
+"Thy sovereign justice has not let iniquity triumph!"
+
+"What do you say, my brave boy?" cried Dagobert, who, in the first tumult
+of joy, had not exactly understood the meaning of the codicil.
+
+"All is put off, father!" exclaimed the smith; "the heirs will have three
+months and a half more to make their claim.  And now that these people
+are unmasked," added Agricola, pointing to Rodin and Father d'Aigrigny,
+"we have nothing more to fear from them.  We shall be on our guard; and
+the orphans, Mdlle. de Cardoville, my worthy master, M. Hardy, and this
+young Indian, will all recover their own."
+
+We must renounce the attempt to paint the delight, the transport of
+Gabriel and Agricola, of Dagobert, and Marshal Simon's father, of Samuel
+and Bathsheba.  Faringhea alone remained in gloomy silence, before the
+portrait of the man with the black-barred forehead.  As for the fury of
+Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin, when they saw Samuel retake possession of
+the casket, we must also renounce any attempt to describe it.  On the
+notary's suggestion, who took with him the codicil, to have it opened
+according to the formalities of the law, Samuel agreed that it would be
+more prudent to deposit in the Bank of France the securities of immense
+value that were now known to be in his possession.
+
+While all the generous hearts, which had for a moment suffered so much,
+were overflowing with happiness, hope, and joy, Father d'Aigrigny and
+Rodin quitted the house with rage and death in their souls.  The reverend
+father got into his carriage, and said to his servants: "To Saint-Dizier
+House!"--Then, worn out and crushed, he fell back upon the seat, and hid
+his face in his hands, while he uttered a deep groan.  Rodin sat next to
+him, and looked with a mixture of anger and disdain at this so dejected
+and broken-spirited man.
+
+"The coward!" said he to himself.  "He despairs--and yet--"
+
+A quarter of an hour later, the carriage stopped in the Rue de Babylone,
+in the court-yard of Saint-Dizier House.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE FIRST LAST, AND THE LAST FIRST.
+
+The carriage had travelled rapidly to Saint-Dizier House.  During all the
+way, Rodin remained mute, contenting himself with observing Father
+d'Aigrigny, and listening to him, as he poured forth his grief and fury
+in a long monologue, interrupted by exclamations, lamentations, and
+bursts of rage, directed against the strokes of that inexorable destiny,
+which had ruined in a moment the best founded hopes.  When the carriage
+entered the courtyard, and stopped before the portico, the princess's
+face could be seen through one of the windows, half hidden by the folds
+of a curtain; in her burning anxiety, she came to see if it was really
+Father d'Aigrigny who arrived at the house.  Still more, in defiance of
+all ordinary rules, this great lady, generally so scrupulous as to
+appearances, hurried from her apartment, and descended several steps of
+the staircase, to meet Father d'Aigrigny, who was coming up with a
+dejected air.  At sight of the livid and agitated countenance of the
+reverend father, the princess stopped suddenly, and grew pale.  She
+suspected that all was lost.  A look rapidly exchanged with her old lover
+left her no doubt of the issue she so much feared.  Rodin humbly followed
+the reverend father, and both, preceded by the princess, entered the
+room.  The door once closed, the princess, addressing Father d'Aigrigny,,
+exclaimed with unspeakable anguish: "What has happened?"
+
+Instead of answering this question, the reverend father, his eyes
+sparkling with rage, his lips white, his features contracted, looked
+fixedly at the princess, and said to her:  "Do you know the amount of
+this inheritance, that we estimated at forty millions?"
+
+"I understand," cried the princess; "we have been deceived.  The
+inheritance amounts to nothing, and all you have dare has been in vain."
+
+"Yes, it has indeed been in vain," answered the reverend father, grinding
+his teeth with rage; "it was no question of forty millions, but of two
+hundred and twelve millions.
+
+"Two hundred and twelve millions!" repeated the princess in amazement, as
+she drew back a step.  "It is impossible!"
+
+"I tell you I saw the vouchers, which were examined by the notary."
+
+"Two hundred and twelve millions?" resumed the princess, with deep
+dejection.  "It is an immense and sovereign power--and you have
+renounced--you have not struggled for it, by every possible means, and
+till the last moment?"
+
+"Madame, I have done all that I could!--notwithstanding the treachery of
+Gabriel, who this very morning declared that he renounced us, and
+separated from the Society."
+
+"Ungrateful!" said the princess, unaffectedly.
+
+"The deed of gift, which I had the precaution to have prepared by the
+notary, was in such good, legal form, that in spite of the objections of
+that accursed soldier and his son, the notary had put me in possession of
+the treasure."
+
+"Two hundred and twelve millions!" repeated the princess clasping her
+hands.  "Verily it is like a dream!"
+
+"Yes," replied Father d'Aigrigny, bitterly, "for us, this possession is
+indeed a dream, for a codicil has been discovered, which puts off for
+three months and a half all the testamentary provisions.  Now that our
+very precautions have roused the suspicion of all these heirs--now that
+they know the enormous amount at stake--they will be upon their guard;
+and all is lost."
+
+"But who is the wretch that produced this codicil?"
+
+"A woman."
+
+"What woman?"
+
+"Some wandering creature, that Gabriel says he met in America, where she
+saved his life."
+
+"And how could this woman be there--how could she know the existence of
+this codicil?"
+
+"I think it was all arranged with a miserable Jew, the guardian of the
+house, whose family has had charge of the funds for three generations; he
+had no doubt some secret instructions, in case he suspected the detention
+of any of the heirs, for this Marius de Rennepont had foreseen that our
+Company would keep their eyes upon his race."
+
+"But can you not dispute the validity of this codicil?"
+
+"What, go to law in these times--litigate about a will--incur the
+certainty of a thousand clamors, with no security for success?--It is bad
+enough, that even this should get wind.  Alas! it is terrible.  So near
+the goal! after so much care and trouble.  An affair that had been
+followed up with so much perseverance during a century and a half!"
+
+"Two hundred and twelve millions!" said the princess.  "The Order would
+have had no need to look for establishments in foreign countries; with
+such resources, it would have been able to impose itself upon France."
+
+"Yes," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, with bitterness; "by means of
+education, we might have possessed ourselves of the rising generation.
+The power is altogether incalculable."  Then, stamping with his foot, he
+resumed: "I tell you, that it is enough to drive one mad with rage! an
+affair so wisely, ably, patiently conducted!"
+
+"Is there no hope?"
+
+"Only that Gabriel may not revoke his donation, in as far as concerns
+himself.  That alone would be a considerable sum--not less than thirty
+millions."
+
+"It is enormous--it is almost what you hoped," said the princess; "then
+why despair?"
+
+"Because it is evident that Gabriel will dispute this donation.  However
+legal it may be, he will find means to annul it, now that he is free,
+informed as to our designs, and surrounded by his adopted family.  I tell
+you, that all is lost.  There is no hope left.  I think it will be even
+prudent to write to Rome, to obtain permission to leave Paris for a
+while.  This town is odious to me!"
+
+"Oh, yes!  I see that no hope is left- since you, my friend, have decided
+almost to fly."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny was completely discouraged and broken down; this
+terrible blow had destroyed all life and energy within him.  He threw
+himself back in an arm-chair, quite overcome.  During the preceding
+dialogue, Rodin was standing humbly near the door, with his old hat in
+his hand.  Two or three times, at certain passages in the conversation
+between Father d'Aigrigny and the princess, the cadaverous face of the
+socius, whose wrath appeared to be concentrated, was slightly flushed,
+and his flappy eyelids were tinged with red, as if the blood mounted in
+consequence of an interior struggle; but, immediately after, his dull
+countenance resumed its pallid blue.
+
+"I must write instantly to Rome, to announce this defeat, which has
+become an event of the first importance, because it overthrows immense
+hopes," said Father d'Aigrigny, much depressed.
+
+The reverend father had remained seated; pointing to a table, he said to
+Rodin, with an abrupt and haughty air:
+
+"Write!"
+
+The socius placed his hat on the ground, answered with a respectful bow
+the command, and with stooping head and slanting walk, went to seat
+himself on a chair, that stood before a desk.  Then, taking pen and
+paper, he waited, silent and motionless, for the dictation of his
+superior.
+
+"With your permission, princess?" said Father d'Aigrigny to Madame de
+Saint-Dizier.  The latter answered by an impatient wave of the hand, as
+if she reproached him for the formal demand at such a time.  The reverend
+father bowed, and dictated these words in a hoarse and hollow voice: "All
+our hopes, which of late had become almost certainties, have been
+suddenly defeated.  The affair of the Rennepont inheritance, in spite of
+all the care and skill employed upon it, has completely and finally
+failed.  At the point to which matters had been brought, it is
+unfortunately worse than a failure; it is a most disastrous event for the
+Society, which was clearly entitled to this property, fraudulently
+withdrawn from a confiscation made in our favor.  My conscience at least
+bears witness, that, to the last moment, I did all that was possible to
+defend and secure our rights.  But I repeat, we must consider this
+important affair as lost absolutely and forever, and think no more about
+it."
+
+Thus dictating, Father d'Aigrigny's back was turned towards Rodin.  At a
+sudden movement made by the socius, in rising and throwing his pen upon
+the table, instead of continuing to write, the reverend father turned
+round, and, looking at Rodin with profound astonishment, said to him:
+"Well! what are you doing?"
+
+"It is time to end this--the man is mad!" said Rodin to himself, as he
+advanced slowly towards the fireplace.
+
+"What! you quit your place--you cease writing?" said the reverend father,
+in amazement.  Then, addressing the princess, who shared in his
+astonishment, he added, as he glanced contemptuously at the socius, "He
+is losing his senses."
+
+"Forgive him," replied Mme. de Saint-Dizier; "it is, no doubt, the
+emotion caused by the ruin of this affair."
+
+"Thank the princess, return to your place, and continue to write," said
+Father d'Aigrigny to Rodin, in a tone of disdainful compassion, as, with
+imperious finger, he pointed to the table.
+
+The socius, perfectly indifferent to this new order, approached the
+fireplace, drew himself up to his full height as he turned his arched
+back, planted himself firmly on his legs, stamped on the carpet with the
+heel of his clumsy, greasy shoes, crossed his hands beneath the flaps of
+his old, spotted coat, and, lifting his head, looked fixedly at Father
+d'Aigrigny.  The socius had not spoken a word, but his hideous
+countenance, now flushed, suddenly revealed such a sense of his
+superiority, and such sovereign contempt for Father d'Aigrigny, mingled
+with so calm and serene a daring, that the reverend father and the
+princess were quite confounded by it.  They felt themselves overawed by
+this little old man, so sordid and so ugly.  Father d'Aigrigny knew too
+well the customs of the Company, to believe his humble secretary capable
+of assuming so suddenly these airs of transcendent superiority without a
+motive, or rather, without a positive right.  Late, too late, the
+reverend father perceived, that this subordinate agent might be partly a
+spy, partly an experienced assistant, who, according to the constitutions
+of the Order, had the power and mission to depose and provisionally
+replace, in certain urgent cases, the incapable person over whom he was
+stationed as a guard.  The reverend father was not deceived.  From the
+general to the provincials, and to the rectors of the colleges, all the
+superior members of the Order have stationed near them, often without
+their knowledge, and in apparently the lowest capacities, men able to
+assume their functions at any given moment, and who, with this view,
+constantly keep up a direct correspondence with Rome.
+
+From the moment Rodin had assumed this position, the manners of Father
+d'Aigrigny, generally so haughty, underwent a change.  Though it cost him
+a good deal, he said with hesitation, mingled with deference: "You have,
+no doubt, the right to command me--who hitherto have commanded."  Rodin,
+without answering, drew from his well-rubbed and greasy pocket-book a
+slip of paper, stamped upon both sides, on which were written several
+lines in Latin.  When he had read it, Father d'Aigrigny pressed this
+paper respectfully, even religiously, to his lips: then returned it to
+Rodin, with a low bow.  When he again raised his head, he was purple with
+shame and vexation.  Notwithstanding his habits of passive obedience and
+immutable respect for the will of the Order, he felt a bitter and violent
+rage at seeing himself thus abruptly deposed from power.  That was not
+all.  Though, for a long time past, all relations in gallantry had ceased
+between him and Mme. de Saint-Dizier, the latter was not the less a
+woman; and for him to suffer this humiliation in presence of a woman was,
+undoubtedly, cruel, as, notwithstanding his entrance into the Order, he
+had not wholly laid aside the character of man of the world.  Moreover,
+the princess, instead of appearing hurt and offended by this sudden
+transformation of the superior into a subaltern, and of the subaltern
+into a superior, looked at Rodin with a sort of curiosity mingled with
+interest.  As a woman--as a woman, intensely ambitious, seeking to
+connect herself with every powerful influence--the princess loved this
+strange species of contrast.  She found it curious and interesting to see
+this man, almost in rags, mean in appearance, and ignobly ugly, and but
+lately the most humble of subordinates look down from the height of his
+superior intelligence upon the nobleman by birth, distinguished for the
+elegance of his manners, and just before so considerable a personage in
+the Society.  From that moment, as the more important personage of the
+two, Rodin completely took the place of Father d'Aigrigny in the
+princess's mind.  The first pang of humiliation over, the reverend
+father, though his pride bled inwardly, applied all his knowledge of the
+world to behave with redoubled courtesy towards Rodin, who had become his
+superior by this abrupt change of fortune.  But the ex-socius, incapable
+of appreciating, or rather of acknowledging, such delicate shades of
+manner, established himself at once, firmly, imperiously, brutally, in
+his new position, not from any reaction of offended pride, but from a
+consciousness of what he was really worth.  A long acquaintance with
+Father d'Aigrigny had revealed to him the inferiority of the latter.
+
+"You threw away your pen," said Father d'Aigrigny to Rodin with extreme
+deference, "while I was dictating a note for Rome.  Will you do me the
+favor to tell me how I have acted wrong?"
+
+"Directly," replied Rodin, in his sharp, cutting voice.  "For a long time
+this affair appeared to me above your strength; but I abstained from
+interfering.  And yet what mistakes! what poverty of invention; what
+coarseness in the means employed to bring it to bear!"
+
+"I can hardly understand your reproaches," answered Father d'Aigrigny,
+mildly, though a secret bitterness made its way through his apparent
+submission.  "Was not the success certain, had it not been for this
+codicil?  Did you not yourself assist in the measures that you now
+blame?"
+
+"You commanded, then, and it was my duty to obey.  Besides, you were just
+on the point of succeeding--not because of the means you had taken--but
+in spite of those means, with all their awkward and revolting brutality."
+
+"Sir--you are severe," said Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"I am just.  One has to be prodigiously clever, truly, to shut up any one
+in a room, and then lock the door!  And yet, what else have you done?
+The daughters of General Simon?--imprisoned at Leipsic, shut up in a
+convent at Paris!  Adrienne de Cardoville?--placed in confinement.
+Sleepinbuff--put in prison.  Djalma?--quieted by a narcotic.  One only
+ingenious method, and a thousand times safer, because it acted morally,
+not materially, was employed to remove M. Hardy.  As for your other
+proceedings--they were all bad, uncertain, dangerous.  Why?  Because they
+were violent, and violence provokes violence.  Then it is no longer a
+struggle of keen, skillful, persevering men, seeing through the darkness
+in which they walk, but a match of fisticuffs in broad day.  Though we
+should be always in action, we should always shrink from view; and yet
+you could find no better plan than to draw universal attention to us by
+proceedings at once open and deplorably notorious.  To make them more
+secret, you call in the guard, the commissary of police, the jailers, for
+your accomplices.  It is pitiable, sir; nothing but the most brilliant
+success could cover such wretched folly; and this success has been
+wanting."
+
+"Sir," said Father d'Aigrigny, deeply hurt, for the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier, unable to conceal the sort of admiration caused in her by the
+plain, decisive words of Rodin, looked at her old lover, with an air that
+seemed to say, "He is right;"--"sir, you are more than severe in your
+judgment; and, notwithstanding the deference I owe to you, I must
+observe, that I am not accustomed--"
+
+"There are many other things to which you are not accustomed," said
+Rodin, harshly interrupting the reverend father; "but you will accustom
+yourself to them.  You have hitherto had a false idea of your own value.
+There is the old leaven of the soldier and the worlding fermenting within
+you, which deprives your reason of the coolness, lucidity, and
+penetration that it ought to possess.  You have been a fine military
+officer, brisk and gay, foremost in wars and festivals, with pleasures
+and women.  These things have half worn you out.  You will never be
+anything but a subaltern; you have been thoroughly tested.  You will
+always want that vigor and concentration of mind which governs men and
+events.  That vigor and concentration of mind I have--and do you know
+why?  It is because, solely devoted to the service of the Company, I have
+always been ugly, dirty, unloved, unloving--I have all my manhood about
+me!"
+
+In pronouncing these words, full of cynical pride, Rodin was truly
+fearful.  The princess de Saint-Dizier thought him almost handsome by his
+energy and audacity.
+
+Father d'Aigrigny, feeling himself overawed, invincibly and inexorably,
+by this diabolical being, made a last effort to resist and exclaimed,
+"Oh! sir, these boastings are no proofs of valor and power.  We must see
+you at work."
+
+"Yes," replied Rodin, coldly; "do you know at what work?"  Rodin was fond
+of this interrogative mode of expression.  "Why, at the work that you so
+basely abandon."
+
+"What!" cried the Princess de Saint-Dizier; for Father d'Aigrigny,
+stupefied at Rodin's audacity, was unable to utter a word.
+
+"I say," resumed Rodin, slowly, "that I undertake to bring to a good
+issue this affair of the Rennepont inheritance, which appears to you so
+desperate."
+
+"You?" cried Father d'Aigrigny.  "You?"
+
+"I."
+
+"But they have unmasked our maneuvers."
+
+"So much the better; we shall be obliged to invent others."
+
+"But they; will suspect us in everything."
+
+"So much the better; the success that is difficult is the most certain."
+
+"What! do you hope to make Gabriel consent not to revoke his donation,
+which is perhaps illegal?"
+
+"I mean to bring in to the coffers of the Company the whole of the two
+hundred and twelve millions, of which they wish to cheat us.  Is that
+clear?"
+
+"It is clear--but impossible."
+
+"And I tell you that it is, and must be possible.  Do you not understand,
+short-sighted as you are!" cried Rodin, animated to such a degree that
+his cadaverous face became slightly flushed; "do you not understand that
+it is no longer in our choice to hesitate?  Either these two hundred and
+twelve millions must be ours--and then the re-establishment of our
+sovereign influence in France is sure--for, in these venal times, with
+such a sum at command, you may bribe or overthrow a government, or light
+up the flame of civil war, and restore legitimacy, which is our natural
+ally, and, owing all to us, would give us all in return--"
+
+"That is clear," cried the princess, clasping her hands in admiration.
+
+"If, on the contrary," resumed Rodin, "these two hundred and twelve
+millions fall into the hands of the family of the Renneponts, it will be
+our ruin and our destruction.  We shall create a stock of bitter and
+implacable enemies.  Have you not heard the execrable designs of that
+Rennepont, with regard to the association he recommends, and which, by an
+accursed fatality, his race are just in a condition to realize?  Think of
+the forces that would rally round these millions.  There would be Marshal
+Simon, acting in the name of his daughters--that is, the man of the
+people become a duke, without being the vainer for it, which secures his
+influence with the mob, because military spirit and Bonapartism still
+represent, in the eyes of the French populace, the traditions of national
+honor and glory.  There would be Francis Hardy, the liberal, independent,
+enlightened citizen, the type of the great manufacturer, the friend of
+progress, the benefactor of his workmen.  There would be Gabriel--the
+good priest, as they say!--the apostle of the primitive gospel, the
+representative of the democracy of the church, of the poor country curate
+as opposed to the rich bishop, the tiller of the vine as opposed to him
+who sits in the shade of it; the propagator of all the ideas of
+fraternity, emancipation, progress--to use their own jargon--and that,
+not in the name of revolutionary and incendiary politics, but in the name
+of a religion of charity, love, and peace--to speak as they speak.
+There, too, would be Adrienne de Cardoville, the type of elegance, grace,
+and beauty, the priestess of the senses, which she deifies by refining
+and cultivating them.  I need not tell you of her wit and audacity; you
+know them but too well.  No one could be more dangerous to us than this
+creature, a patrician in blood, a plebeian in heart, a poet in
+imagination.  Then, too, there would be Prince Djalma, chivalrous, bold,
+ready for adventure, knowing nothing of civilized life, implacable in his
+hate as in his affection, a terrible instrument for whoever can make use
+of him.  In this detestable family, even such a wretch as Sleepinbuff,
+who in himself is of no value, raised and purified by the contact of
+these generous and far from narrow natures (as they call them), might
+represent the working class, and take a large share in the influence of
+that association.  Now do you not think that if all these people, already
+exasperated against us, because (as they say) we have wished to rob them,
+should follow the detestable counsels of this Rennepont--should unite
+their forces around this immense fortune, which would strengthen them a
+hundred-fold--do you not think that, if they declare a deadly war against
+us, they will be the most dangerous enemies that we have ever had?  I
+tell you that the Company has never been in such serious peril; yes, it
+is now a question of life and death.  We must no longer defend ourselves,
+but lead the attack, so as to annihilate this accursed race of Rennepont,
+and obtain possession of these millions."
+
+At this picture, drawn by Rodin with a feverish animation, which had only
+the more influence from its unexpectedness, the princess and Father
+d'Aigrigny looked at each other in confusion.
+
+"I confess," said the reverend father to Rodin, "I had not considered all
+the dangerous consequences of this association, recommended by M. de
+Rennepont.  I believe that the heir, from the characters we know them to
+be possessed of, would wish to realize this Utopia.  The peril is great
+and pressing; what is to be done?"
+
+"What, sir?  You have to act upon ignorant, heroic, enthusiastic natures
+like Djalma's--sensual and eccentric characters like Adrienne de
+Cardoville's--simple and ingenuous minds like Rose and Blanche Simon's--
+honest and frank dispositions like Francis Hardy's--angelic and pure
+souls like Gabriel's--brutal and stupid instincts like Jacques--and can
+you ask, "What is to be done?"
+
+"In truth, I do not understand you," said Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"I believe it.  Your past conduct shows as much," replied Rodin,
+contemptuously.  "You have had recourse to the lowest and most mechanical
+contrivances, instead of acting upon the noble and generous passions,
+which, once united, would constitute so formidable a bond; but which, now
+divided and isolated, are open to every surprise, every seduction, every
+attack!  Do you, at length understand me?  Not yet?" added Rodin,
+shrugging his shoulders.  "Answer me--do people die of despair?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"May not the gratitude of successful love reach the last limits of insane
+generosity?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"May there not be such horrible deceptions, that suicide is the only
+refuge from frightful realities?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"May not the excess of sensuality lead to the grave by a slow and
+voluptuous agony?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are there not in life such terrible circumstances that the most worldly,
+the firmest, the most impious characters, throw themselves blindly,
+overwhelmed with despair, into the arms of religion, and abandon all
+earthly greatness for sackcloth, and prayers, and solitude?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are there not a thousand occasions in which the reaction of the passions
+works the most extraordinary changes, and brings about the most tragic
+catastrophes in the life of man and woman?"
+
+"No doubt."
+
+"Well, then! why ask me, `What is to be done?'  What would you say, for
+example, if before three months are over, the most dangerous members of
+this family of the Renneponts should come to implore, upon their knees,
+admission to that very Society which they now hold in horror, and from
+which Gabriel has just separated?"
+
+"Such a conversion is impossible," cried Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Impossible?  What were you, sir, fifteen years ago?" said Rodin.  "An
+impious and debauched man of the world.  And yet you came to us, and your
+wealth became ours.  What! we have conquered princes, kings, popes; we
+have absorbed and extinguished in our unity magnificent intelligences,
+which, from afar, shone with too dazzling a light; we have all but
+governed two worlds; we have perpetuated our Society, full of life, rich
+and formidable, even to this day, through all the hate, and all the
+persecutions that have assailed us; and yet we shall not be able to get
+the better of a single family, which threatens our Company, and has
+despoiled us of a large fortune?  What! we are not skillful enough to
+obtain this result without having recourse to awkward and dangerous
+violence?  You do not know, then, the immense field that is thrown open
+by the mutually destructive power of human passions, skillfully combined,
+opposed, restrained, excited?--particularly," added Rodin, with a strange
+smile, "when, thanks to a powerful ally, these passions are sure to be
+redoubled in ardor and energy."
+
+"What ally?" asked Father d'Aigrigny, who, as well as the Princess de
+Saint-Dizier, felt a sort of admiration mixed with terror.
+
+"Yes," resumed Rodin, without answering the reverend father; "this
+formidable ally, who comes to our assistance, may bring about the most
+astonishing transformations--make the coward brave, and the impious
+credulous, and the gentle ferocious--"
+
+"But this ally!" cried the Princess, oppressed with a vague sense of
+fear.  "This great and formidable ally--who is he?"
+
+"If he comes," resumed Rodin, still impassible, "the youngest and most
+vigorous, every moment in danger of death, will have no advantage over
+the sick man at his last gasp."
+
+"But who is this ally?" exclaimed Father d'Aigrigny, more and more
+alarmed, for as the picture became darker, Rodin's face become more
+cadaverous.
+
+"This ally, who can decimate a population, may carry away with him in the
+shroud that he drags at his heels, the whole of an accursed race; but
+even he must respect the life of that great intangible body, which does
+not perish with the death of its members--for the spirit of the Society
+of Jesus is immortal!"
+
+"And this ally?"
+
+"Oh, this ally," resumed Rodin, "who advances with slow steps, and whose
+terrible coming is announced by mournful presentiments--"
+
+"Is--"
+
+"The Cholera!"
+
+These words, pronounced by Rodin in an abrupt voice, made the Princess
+and Father d'Aigrigny grow pale and tremble.  Rodin's look was gloomy and
+chilling, like a spectre's.  For some moments, the silence of the tomb
+reigned in the saloon.  Rodin was the first to break it.  Still
+impassible, he pointed with imperious gesture to the table, where a few
+minutes before he had himself been humbly seated, and said in a sharp
+voice to Father d'Aigrigny, "Write!"
+
+The reverend father started at first with surprise; then, remembering
+that from a superior he had become an inferior, he rose, bowed lowly to
+Rodin, as he passed before him, seated himself at the table, took the
+pen, and said, "I am ready."
+
+Rodin dictated, and the reverend Father wrote as follows: "By the
+mismanagement of the Reverend Father d'Aigrigny, the affair of the
+inheritance of the Rennepont family has been seriously compromised.  The
+sum amounts to two hundred and twelve millions.  Notwithstanding the
+check we have received, we believe we may safely promise to prevent these
+Renneponts from injuring the Society, and to restore the two hundred and
+twelve millions to their legitimate possessors.  We only ask for the most
+complete and extensive powers."
+
+A quarter of an hour after this scene, Rodin left Saint Dizier House,
+brushing with his sleeve the old greasy hat, I which he had pulled off to
+return the salute of the porter by a very low bow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE STRANGER.
+
+The following scene took place on the morrow of the day in which Father
+d'Aigrigny had been so rudely degraded by Rodin to the subaltern position
+formerly occupied by the socius.
+
+It is well known that the Rue Clovis is one of the most solitary streets
+in the Montagne St. Genevieve district.  At the epoch of this narrative,
+the house No. 4, in this street, was composed of one principal building,
+through which ran a dark passage, leading to a little, gloomy court, at
+the end of which was a second building, in a singularly miserable and
+dilapidated condition.  On the ground-floor, in front of the house, was a
+half-subterraneous shop, in which was sold charcoal, fagots, vegetables,
+and milk.  Nine o'clock in the morning had just struck.  The mistress of
+the shop, one Mother Arsene, an old woman of a mild, sickly countenance,
+clad in a brown stuff dress, with a red bandanna round her head, was
+mounted on the top step of the stairs which led down to her door, and was
+employed in setting out her goods--that is, on one side of her door she
+placed a tin milk-can, and on the other some bunches of stale vegetables,
+flanked with yellowed cabbages.  At the bottom of the steps, in the
+shadowy depths of the cellar, one could see the light of the burning
+charcoal in a little stove.  This shop situated at the side of the
+passage, served as a porter's lodge, and the old woman acted as portress.
+On a sudden, a pretty little creature, coming from the house, entered
+lightly and merrily the shop.  This young girl was Rose-Pompon, the
+intimate friend of the Bacchanal Queen.--Rose-Pompon, a widow for the
+moment, whose bacchanalian cicisbeo was Ninny Moulin, the orthodox
+scapegrace, who, on occasion, after drinking his fill, could transform
+himself into Jacques Dumoulin, the religious writer, and pass gayly from
+dishevelled dances to ultramontane polemics, from Storm-blown Tulips to
+Catholic pamphlets.
+
+Rose-Pompon had just quitted her bed, as appeared by the negligence of
+her strange morning costume; no doubt, for want of any other head-dress,
+on her beautiful light hair, smooth and well-combed, was stuck jauntily a
+foraging-cap, borrowed from her masquerading costume.  Nothing could be
+more sprightly than that face, seventeen years old, rosy, fresh, dimpled,
+and brilliantly lighted up by a pair of gay, sparkling blue eyes.  Rose-
+Pompon was so closely enveloped from the neck to the feet in a red and
+green plaid cloak, rather faded, that one could guess the cause of her
+modest embarrassment.  Her naked feet, so white that one could not tell
+if she wore stockings or not, were slipped into little morocco shoes,
+with plated buckles.  It was easy to perceive that her cloak concealed
+some article which she held in her hand.
+
+"Good-day, Rose-Pompon," said Mother Arsene with a kindly air; "you are
+early this morning.  Had you no dance last night?"
+
+"Don't talk of it, Mother Arsene; I had no heart to dance.  Poor Cephyse-
+-the Bacchanal Queen--has done nothing but cry all night.  She cannot
+console herself, that her lover should be in prison."
+
+"Now, look here, my girl," said the old woman, "I must speak to you about
+your friend Cephyse.  You won't be angry?"
+
+"Am I ever angry?" said Rose-Pompon, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"Don't you think that M. Philemon will scold me on his return?"
+
+"Scold you! what for?"
+
+"Because of his rooms, that you occupy."
+
+"Why, Mother Arsene, did not Philemon tell you, that, in his absence, I
+was to be as much mistress of his two rooms as I am of himself?"
+
+"I do not speak of you, but of your friend Cephyse, whom you have also
+brought to occupy M. Philemon's lodgings."
+
+"And where would she have gone without me, my good Mother Arsene?  Since
+her lover was arrested, she has not dared to return home, because she
+owes ever so many quarters.  Seeing her troubles.  I said to her: `Come,
+lodge at Philemon's.  When he returns, we must find another place for
+you.'"
+
+"Well, little lovey--if you only assure me that M. Philemon will not be
+angry--"
+
+"Angry! for what?  That we spoil his things?  A fine set of things he has
+to spoil!  I broke his last cup yesterday--and am forced to fetch the
+milk in this comic concern."
+
+So saying, laughing with all her might, Rose-Pompon drew her pretty
+little white arm from under her cloak, and presented to Mother Arsene one
+of those champagne glasses of colossal capacity, which hold about a
+bottle.
+
+"Oh, dear!" said the greengrocer in amazement; "it is like a glass
+trumpet."
+
+"It is Philemon's grand gala-glass, which they gave him when he took his
+degrees in boating," said Rose-Pompon, gravely.
+
+"And to think you must put your milk in it--I am really ashamed," said
+Mother Arsene.
+
+"So am I!  If I were to meet any one on the stairs, holding this glass in
+my hand like a Roman candlestick, I should burst out laughing, and break
+the last remnant of Philemon's bazaar, and he would give me his
+malediction."
+
+"There is no danger that you will meet any one.  The first-floor is gone
+out, and the second gets up very late."
+
+"Talking of lodgers," said Rose-Pompon, "is there not a room to let on
+the second-floor in the rear house?  It might do for Cephyse, when
+Philemon comes back."
+
+"Yes, there is a little closet in the roof--just over the two rooms of
+the mysterious old fellow," said Mother Arsene.
+
+"Oh, yes!  Father Charlemagne.  Have you found out anything more about
+him?"
+
+Dear me, no, my girl! only that he came this morning at break of day, and
+knocked at my shutters.  `Have you received a letter for me, my good
+lady?' said he--for he is always so polite, the dear man!--'No, sir,'
+said I.--`Well, then, pray don't disturb yourself, my good lady!' said
+he; `I will call again.' And so he went away."
+
+"Does he never sleep in the house?"
+
+"Never.  No doubt, he lodges somewhere else--but he passes some hours
+here, once every four or five days."
+
+"And always comes alone?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"Are you quite sure?  Does he never manage to slip in some little puss of
+a woman?  Take care, or Philemon will give you notice to quit," said
+Rose-Pompon, with an air of mock-modesty.
+
+"M. Charlemagne with a woman!  Oh, poor dear man!" said the greengrocer,
+raising her hands to heaven; "if you saw him, with his greasy hat, his
+old gray coat, his patched umbrella, and his simple face, he looks more
+like a saint than anything else."
+
+"But then, Mother Arsene, what does the saint do here, all alone for
+hours, in that hole at the bottom of the court, where one can hardly see
+at noon-day?"
+
+"That's what I ask myself, my dovey, what can he be doing?  It can't be
+that he comes to look at his furniture, for he has nothing but a flock-
+bed, a table, a stove, a chair, and an old trunk."
+
+"Somewhat in the style of Philemon's establishment," said Rose-Pompon.
+
+"Well, notwithstanding that, Rosey, he is as much afraid that any one
+should come into his room, as if we were all thieves, and his furniture
+was made of massy gold.  He has had a patent lock put on the door, at his
+own expense; he never leaves me his key; and he lights his fire himself,
+rather than let anybody into his room."
+
+"And you say he is old?"
+
+"Yes, fifty or sixty."
+
+"And ugly?"
+
+"Just fancy, little viper's eyes, looking as if they had been bored with
+a gimlet, in a face as pale as death--so pale, that the lips are white.
+That's for his appearance.  As for his character, the good old man's so
+polite!--he pulls off his hat so often, and makes you such low bows, that
+it is quite embarrassing."
+
+"But, to come back to the point," resumed Rose-Pompon, "what can he do
+all alone in those two rooms?  If Cephyse should take the closet, on
+Philemon's return, we may amuse ourselves by finding out something about
+it.  How much do they want for the little room?"
+
+"Why, it is in such bad condition, that I think the landlord would let it
+go for fifty or fifty-five francs a-year, for there is no room for a
+stove, and the only light comes through a small pane in the roof."
+
+"Poor Cephyse!" said Rose, sighing, and shaking her head sorrowfully.
+"After having amused herself so well, and flung away so much money with
+Jacques Rennepont, to live in such a place, and support herself by hard
+work!  She must have courage!"
+
+"Why, indeed, there is a great difference between that closet and the
+coach-and-four in which Cephyse came to fetch you the other day, with all
+the fine masks, that looked so gay--particularly the fat man in the
+silver paper helmet, with the plume and the top boots.  What a jolly
+fellow!"
+
+"Yes, Ninny Moulin.  There is no one like him to dance the forbidden
+fruit.  You should see him with Cephyse, the Bacchanal Queen.  Poor
+laughing, noisy thing!--the only noise she makes now is crying."
+
+"Oh! these young people--these young people!" said the greengrocer.
+
+"Easy, Mother Arsene; you were young once."
+
+"I hardly know.  I have always thought myself much the same as I am now."
+
+"And your lovers, Mother Arsene?"
+
+"Lovers!  Oh, yes! I was too ugly for that--and too well taken care of."
+
+"Your mother looked after you, then?"
+
+"No, my girl; but I was harnessed."
+
+"Harnessed!" cried Rose-Pompon, in amazement, interrupting the dealer.
+
+"Yes,--harnessed to a water-cart, along with my brother.  So, you see,
+when we had drawn like a pair of horses for eight or ten hours a day, I
+had no heart to think of nonsense."
+
+"Poor Mother Arsene, what a hard life," said Rose-Pompon with interest.
+
+"In the winter, when it froze, it was hard enough.  I and my brother were
+obliged to be rough-shod, for fear of slipping."
+
+"What a trade for a woman!  It breaks one's heart.  And they forbid
+people to harness dogs!" added Rose-Pompon, sententiously.[21]
+
+"Why, 'tis true," resumed Mother Arsene.  "Animals are sometimes better
+off than people.  But what would you have?  One must live, you know.  As
+you make your bed, you must lie.  It was hard enough, and I got a disease
+of the lungs by it--which was not my fault.  The strap, with which I was
+harnessed, pressed so hard against my chest, that I could scarcely
+breathe: so I left the trade, and took to a shop, which is just to tell
+you, that if I had had a pretty face and opportunity, I might have done
+like so many other young people, who begin with laughter and finish--"
+
+"With a laugh t'other side of the mouth--you would say; it is true,
+Mother Arsene.  But, you see, every one has not the courage to go into
+harness, in order to remain virtuous.  A body says to herself, you must
+have some amusement while you are young and pretty--you will not always
+be seventeen years old--and then--and then--the world will end, or you
+will get married."
+
+"But, perhaps, it would have been better to begin by that."
+
+"Yes, but one is too stupid; one does not know how to catch the men, or
+to frighten them.  One is simple, confiding, and they only laugh at us.
+Why, Mother Arsene, I am myself an example that would make you shudder;
+but 'tis quite enough to have had one's sorrows, without fretting one's
+self at the remembrance."
+
+"What, my beauty! you, so young and gay, have had sorrows?"
+
+"Ah, Mother Arsene!  I believe you.  At fifteen and a half I began to
+cry, and never left off till I was sixteen.  That was enough, I think."
+
+"They deceived you, mademoiselle?"
+
+"They did worse.  They treated me as they have treated many a poor girl,
+who had no more wish to go wrong than I had.  My story is not a three
+volume one.  My father and mother are peasants near Saint-Valery, but so
+poor--so poor, that having five children to provide for, they were
+obliged to send me, at eight years old, to my aunt, who was a charwoman
+here in Paris.  The good woman took me out of charity, and very kind it
+was of her, for I earned but little.  At eleven years of age she sent me
+to work in one of the factories of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.  I don't
+wish to speak, ill of the masters of these factories; but what do they
+care, if little boys and girls are mixed up pell-mell with young men and
+women of eighteen to twenty?  Now you see, there, as everywhere, some are
+no better than they should be; they are not particular in word or deed,
+and I ask you, what art example for the children, who hear and see more
+than you think for.  Then, what happens?  They get accustomed as they
+grow older, to hear and see things, that afterwards will not shock them
+at all."
+
+"What you say there is true, Rose-Pompon.  Poor children! who takes any
+trouble about them?--not their father or mother, for they are at their
+daily work."
+
+"Yes, yes, Mother Arsene, it is all very well; it is easy to cry down a
+young girl that has gone wrong; but if they knew all the ins and outs,
+they would perhaps pity rather than blame her.  To come back to myself--
+at fifteen years old I was tolerably pretty.  One day I had something to
+ask of the head clerk.  I went to him in his private room.  He told me he
+would grant what I wanted, and even take me under his patronage, if I
+would listen to him; and he began by trying to kiss me.  I resisted.
+Then he said to me:--'You refuse my offer?  You shall have no more work;
+I discharge you from the factory.'"
+
+"Oh, the wicked man!" said Mother Arsene.
+
+"I went home all in tears, and my poor aunt encouraged me not to yield,
+and she would try to place me elsewhere.  Yes--but it was impossible; the
+factories were all full.  Misfortunes never come single; my aunt fell
+ill, and there was not a sou in the house; I plucked up my courage, and
+returned to entreat the mercy of the clerk at the factory.  Nothing would
+do.  `So much the worse,' said he; `you are throwing away your luck.  If
+you had been more complying, I should perhaps have married you.'  What
+could I do, Mother Arsene?--misery was staring me in the face; I had no
+work; my aunt was ill; the clerk said he would marry me--I did like so
+many others."
+
+"And when, afterwards, you spoke to him about marriage?"
+
+"Of course he laughed at me, and in six months left me.  Then I wept all
+the tears in my body, till none remained--then I was very ill--and then--
+I console myself, as one may console one's self for anything.  After some
+changes, I met with Philemon.  It is upon him that I revenge myself for
+what others have done to me.  I am his tyrant," added Rose-Pompon, with a
+tragic air, as the cloud passed away which had darkened her pretty face
+during her recital to Mother Arsene.
+
+"It is true," said the latter thoughtfully.  "They deceive a poor girl--
+who is there to protect or defend her?  Oh! the evil we do does not
+always come from ourselves, and then--"
+
+"I spy Ninny Moulin!" cried Rose-Pompon, interrupting the greengrocer,
+and pointing to the other side of the street.  "How early abroad!  What
+can he want with me?" and Rose wrapped herself still more closely and
+modestly in her cloak.
+
+It was indeed Jacques Dumoulin, who advanced with his hat stuck on one
+side, with rubicund nose and sparkling eye, dressed in a loose coat,
+which displayed the rotundity of his abdomen.  His hands, one of which
+held a huge cane shouldered like a musket, were plunged into the vast
+pockets of his outer garment.
+
+Just as he reached the threshold of the door, no doubt with the intention
+of speaking to the portress, he perceived Rose-Pompon.  "What!" he
+exclaimed, "my pupil already stirring?  That is fortunate.  I came on
+purpose to bless her at the rise of morn!"
+
+So saying, Ninny Moulin advanced with open arms towards Rose-Pompon who
+drew back a step.
+
+"What, ungrateful child!" resumed the writer on divinity.  "Will you
+refuse me the morning's paternal kiss?"
+
+"I accept paternal kisses from none but Philemon.  I had a letter from
+him yesterday, with a jar of preserves, two geese, a bottle of home-made
+brandy, and an eel.  What ridiculous presents!  I kept the drink, and
+changed the rest for two darling live pigeons, which I have installed in
+Philemon's cabinet, and a very pretty dove-cote it makes me.  For the
+rest, my husband is coming back with seven hundred francs, which he got
+from his respectable family, under pretence of learning the bass viol,
+the cornet-a-piston, and the speaking trumpet, so as to make his way in
+society, and a slap-up marriage--to use your expression--my good child."
+
+"Well, my dear pupil, we will taste the family brandy, and enjoy
+ourselves in expectation of Philemon and his seven hundred francs."
+
+So saying, Ninny Moulin slapped the pockets of his waistcoat, which gave
+forth a metallic sound, and added: "I come to propose to you to embellish
+my life, to-day and to-morrow, and even the day after, if your heart is
+willing."
+
+"If the announcements are decent and fraternal, my heart does not say
+no."
+
+"Be satisfied; I will act by you as your grandfather, your great-
+grandfather, your family portrait.  We will have a ride, a dinner, the
+play, a fancy dress ball, and a supper afterwards.  Will that suit you?"
+
+"On condition that poor Cephyse is to go with us.  It will raise her
+spirits."
+
+"Well, Cephyse shall be of the party."
+
+"Have you come into a fortune, great apostle?"
+
+"Better than that, most rosy and pompous of all Rose-Pom, pons!  I am
+head editor of a religious journal; and as I must make some appearance in
+so respectable a concern, I ask every month for four weeks in advance,
+and three days of liberty.  On this condition, I consent to play the
+saint for twenty-seven days out of thirty, and to be always as grave and
+heavy as the paper itself."
+
+"A journal! that will be something droll, and dance forbidden steps all
+alone on the tables of the cafes."
+
+"Yes, it will be droll enough; but not for everybody.  They are rich
+sacristans, who pay the expenses.  They don't look to money, provided the
+journal bites, tears, burns, pounds, exterminates and destroys.  On my
+word of honor, I shall never have been in such a fury!" added Ninny
+Moulin, with a loud, hoarse laugh.  "I shall wash the wounds of my
+adversaries with venom of the finest vintage, and gall of the first
+quality."
+
+For his peroration, Ninny Moulin imitated the pop of uncorking a bottle
+of champagne--which made Rose-Pompon laugh heartily.
+
+"And what," resumed she, "will be the name of your journal of
+sacristans?"
+
+"It will be called `Neighborly Love.'"
+
+"Come! that is a very pretty name."
+
+"Wait a little! there is a second title."
+
+"Let us hear it."
+
+"`Neighborly Love; or, the Exterminator of the Incredulous, the
+Indifferent, the Lukewarm, and Others,' with this motto from the great
+Bossuet: `Those who are not for us are against us.'"
+
+"That is what Philemon says in the battles at the Chaumiere, when he
+shakes his cane."
+
+"Which proves, that the genius of the Eagle of Meaux is universal.  I
+only reproach him for having been jealous of Moliere."
+
+"Bah! actor's jealousy," said Rose-Pompon.
+
+"Naughty girl!" cried Ninny Moulin, threatening her with his finger.
+
+"But if you are going to exterminate Madame de la Sainte-Colombo, who is
+somewhat lukewarm--how about your marriage?"
+
+"My journal will advance it, on the contrary.  Only think! editor-In-
+chief is a superb position; the sacristans will praise, and push, and
+support, and bless me; I shall get La-Sainte-Colombe--and then, what a
+life I'll lead!"
+
+At this moment, a postman entered the shop, and delivered a letter to the
+greengrocer, saying: "For M. Charlemagne, post-paid!"
+
+"My!" said Rose-Pompon; "it is for the little mysterious old man, who has
+such extraordinary ways.  Does it come from far?"
+
+"I believe you; it comes from Italy, from Rome," said Ninny Moulin,
+looking in his turn at the letter, which the greengrocer held in her
+hand.  "Who is the astonishing little old man of whom you speak?"
+
+"Just imagine to yourself, my great apostle," said Rose-Pompon, "a little
+old man, who has two rooms at the bottom of that court.  He never sleeps
+there, but comes from time to time, and shuts himself up for hours,
+without ever allowing any one to enter his lodging, and without any one
+knowing what he does there."
+
+"He is a conspirator," said Ninny Moulin, laughing, "or else a comer."
+
+"Poor dear man," said Mother Arsene, "what has he done with his false
+money?  He pays me always in sous for the bit of bread and the radish I
+furnish him for his breakfast."
+
+"And what is the name of this mysterious chap?" asked Dumoulin.
+
+"M. Charlemagne," said the greengrocer.  "But look, surely one speaks of
+the devil, one is sure to see his horns."
+
+"Where's the horns?"
+
+"There, by the side of the house--that little old man, who walks with his
+neck awry, and his umbrella under his arm."
+
+"M. Rodin!" ejaculated Ninny Moulin, retreating hastily, and descending
+three steps into the shop, in order not to be seen.  Then he added.  "You
+say, that this gentleman calls himself--"
+
+"M. Charlemagne--do you know him?" asked the greengrocer.
+
+"What the devil does he do here, under a false name?" said Jacques
+Dumoulin to himself.
+
+"You know him?" said Rose-Pompon, with impatience.  "You are quite
+confused."
+
+"And this gentleman has two rooms in this house, and comes here
+mysteriously," said Jacques Dumoulin, more and more surprised.
+
+"Yes," resumed Rose-Pompon; "you can see his windows from Philemon's
+dove-cote."
+
+"Quick! quick! let me go into the passage, that I may not meet him," said
+Dumoulin.
+
+And, without having been perceived by Rodin, he glided from the shop into
+the passage, and thence mounted to the stairs, which led to the apartment
+occupied by Rose-Pompon.
+
+"Good-morning, M. Charlemagne," said Mother Arsene to Rodin, who made his
+appearance on the threshold.  "You come twice in a day; that is right,
+for your visits are extremely rare."
+
+"You are too polite, my good lady," said Rodin, with a very courteous
+bow; and he entered the shop of the greengrocer.
+
+[21] There are, really, ordinances, full of a touching interest for the
+canine race, which forbid the harnessing of dogs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE DEN.
+
+Rodin's countenance, when he entered Mother Arsene's shop, was expressive
+of the most simple candor.  He leaned his hands on the knob of his
+umbrella, and said: "I much regret, my good lady, that I roused you so
+early this morning."
+
+"You do not come often enough, my dear sir, for me to find fault with
+you."
+
+"How can I help it, my good lady?  I live in the country, and only come
+hither from time to time to settle my little affairs."
+
+"Talking of that sir, the letter you expected yesterday has arrived this
+morning.  It is large, and comes from far.  Here it is," said the
+greengrocer, drawing it from her pocket; "it cost nothing for postage."
+
+"Thank you, my dear lady," said Rodin, taking the letter with apparent
+indifference, and putting it into the side-pocket of his great-coat,
+which he carefully buttoned over.
+
+"Are you going up to your rooms, sir?"
+
+"Yes, my good, lady."
+
+"Then I will get ready your little provisions," said Mother Arsene; "as
+usual, I suppose, my dear sir?"
+
+"Just as usual."
+
+"It shall be ready in the twinkling of an eye, sir."
+
+So saying, the greengrocer took down an old basket; after throwing into
+it three or four pieces of turf, a little bundle of wood, and some
+charcoal, she covered all this fuel with a cabbage leaf; then, going to
+the further end of the shop, she took from a chest a large round loaf,
+cut off a slice, and selecting a magnificent radish with the eye of a
+connoisseur, divided it in two, made a hole in it, which she filled with
+gray salt joined the two pieces together again, and placed it carefully
+by the side of the bread, on the cabbage leaf which separated the
+eatables from the combustibles.  Finally, taking some embers from the
+stove, she put them into a little earthen pot, containing ashes, which
+she placed also in the basket.
+
+Then, reascending to her top step, Mother Arsene said to Rodin: "Here is
+your basket, sir."
+
+"A thousand thanks, my good lady," answered Rodin, and plunging his hand
+into the pocket of his trousers, he drew forth eight sous, which he
+counted out only one by one to the greengrocer, and said to her, as he
+carried off his store: "Presently, when I come down again, I will return
+your basket as usual."
+
+"Quite at your service, my dear sir, quite at your service," said Mother
+Arsene.
+
+Rodin tucked his umbrella under his left arm, took up the greengrocer's
+basket with his right hand, entered the dark passage, crossed the little
+court and mounted with light step to the second story of a dilapidated
+building; there, drawing a key from his pocket, he opened a door, which
+he locked carefully after him.  The first of the two rooms which he
+occupied was completely unfurnished, as for the second, it is impossible
+to imagine a more gloomy and miserable den.  Papering so much worn, torn
+and faded, that no one could recognize its primitive color, bedecked the
+walls.  A wretched flock-bed, covered with a moth-fretted blanket; a
+stool, and a little table of worm-eaten wood; an earthenware stove, as
+cracked as old china; a trunk with a padlock, placed under the bed--such
+was the furniture of this desolate hole.  A narrow window, with dirty
+panes, hardly gave any light to this room, which was almost deprived of
+air by the height of the building in front; two old cotton pocket-
+handkerchiefs, fastened together with pins, and made to slide upon a
+string stretched across the window, served for curtains.  The plaster of
+the roof, coming through the broken and disjointed tiles, showed the
+extreme neglect of the inhabitant of this abode.  After locking his door,
+Rodin threw his hat and umbrella on the bed, placed his basket on the
+ground, set the radish and bread on the table, and kneeling down before
+his stove, stuffed it with fuel, and lighted it by blowing with vigorous
+lungs on the embers contained in his earthen pot.
+
+When, to use the consecrated expression, the stove began to draw, Rodin
+spread out the handkerchiefs, which served him for curtains; then,
+thinking himself quite safe from every eye, he took from the side-pocket
+of his great-coat the letter that Mother Arsene had given him.  In doing
+so, he brought out several papers and different articles; one of these
+papers, folded into a thick and rumpled packet, fell upon the table, and
+flew open.  It contained a silver cross of the Legion of Honor, black
+with time.  The red ribbon of this cross had almost entirely lost its
+original color.  At sight of this cross, which he replaced in his pocket
+with the medal of which Faringhea had despoiled Djalma, Rodin shrugged
+his shoulders with a contemptuous and sardonic air; then, producing his
+large silver watch, he laid it on the table by the side of the letter
+from Rome.  He looked at this letter with a singular mixture of suspicion
+and hope, of fear, and impatient curiosity.  After a moment's reflection,
+he prepared to unseal the envelope; but suddenly he threw it down again
+upon the table, as if, by a strange caprice, he had wished to prolong for
+a few minutes that agony of uncertainty, as poignant and irritating as
+the emotion of the gambler.
+
+Looking at his watch, Rodin resolved not to open the letter, until the
+hand should mark half-past nine, of which it still wanted seven minutes.
+In one of those whims of puerile fatalism, from which great minds have
+not been exempt, Rodin said to himself: "I burn with impatience to open
+this letter.  If I do not open it till half-past nine, the news will he
+favorable."  To employ these minutes, Rodin took several turns up and
+down the room, and stood in admiring contemplation before two old prints,
+stained with damp and age, and fastened to the wall by rusty nails.  The
+first of these works of art--the only ornaments with which Rodin had
+decorated this hole--was one of those coarse pictures, illuminated with
+red, yellow, green, and blue, such as are sold at fairs; an Italian
+inscription announced that this print had been manufactured at Rome.  It
+represented a woman covered with rags, bearing a wallet, and having a
+little child upon her knees; a horrible hag of a fortune-teller held in
+her hands the hand of the little child, and seemed to read there his
+future fate, for these words in large blue letters issued from her mouth:
+"Sara Papa" (he shall be Pope).
+
+The second of these works of art, which appeared to inspire Rodin with
+deep meditations, was an excellent etching, whose careful finish and
+bold, correct drawing, contrasted singularly with the coarse coloring of
+the other picture.  This rare and splendid engraving, which had cost
+Rodin six louis (an enormous expense for him), represented a young boy
+dressed in rags.  The ugliness of his features was compensated by the
+intellectual expression of his strongly marked countenance.  Seated on a
+stone, surrounded by a herd of swine, that he seemed employed in keeping,
+he was seen in front, with his elbow resting on his knee, and his chin in
+the palm of his hand.  The pensive and reflective attitude of this young
+man, dressed as a beggar, the power expressed in his large forehead, the
+acuteness of his penetrating glance, and the firm lines of the mouth,
+seemed to reveal indomitable resolution, combined with superior
+intelligence and ready craft.  Beneath this figure, the emblems of the
+papacy encircled a medallion, in the centre of which was the head of an
+old man, the lines of which, strongly marked, recalled in a striking
+manner, notwithstanding their look of advanced age, the features of the
+young swineherd.  This engraving was entitled THE YOUTH of SIXTUS V.; the
+color print was entitled The Prediction.[22]
+
+In contemplating these prints more and more nearly, with ardent and
+inquiring eye, as though he had asked for hopes or inspirations from
+them, Rodin had come so close that, still standing, with his right arm
+bent behind his head, he rested, as it were, against the wall, whilst,
+hiding his left hand in the pocket of his black trousers, he thus held
+back one of the flaps of his olive great-coat.  For some minutes, he
+remained in this meditative attitude.
+
+Rodin, as we have said, came seldom to this lodging; according to the
+rules of his Order, he had till now lived with Father d'Aigrigny, whom he
+was specially charged to watch.  No member of the Society, particularly
+in the subaltern position which Rodin had hitherto held, could either
+shut himself in, or possess an article of furniture made to lock.  By
+this means nothing interferes with the mutual spy-system, incessantly
+carried on, which forms one of the most powerful resources of the Company
+of Jesus.  It was on account of certain combinations, purely personal to
+himself, though connected on some points with the interests of the Order,
+that Rodin, unknown to all, had taken these rooms in the Rue Clovis.  And
+it was from the depths of this obscure den that the socius corresponded
+directly with the most eminent and influential personages of the sacred
+college.  On one occasion, when Rodin wrote to Rome, that Father
+d'Aigrigny, having received orders to quit France without seeing his
+dying mother, had hesitated to set out, the socius had added, in form of
+postscriptum, at the bottom of the letter denouncing to the General of
+the Order the hesitation of Father d'Aigrigny:
+
+"Tell the Prince Cardinal that he may rely upon me, but I hope for his
+active aid in return."
+
+This familiar manner of corresponding with the most powerful dignitary of
+the Order, the almost patronizing tone of the recommendation that Rodin
+addressed to the Prince Cardinal, proved that the socius, notwithstanding
+his apparently subaltern position, was looked upon, at that epoch, as a
+very important personage, by many of the Princes of the Church, who wrote
+to him at Paris under a false name, making use of a cipher and other
+customary precautions.  After some moments passed in contemplation,
+before the portrait of Sixtus V., Rodin returned slowly to the table, on
+which lay the letter, which, by a sort of superstitious delay, he had
+deferred opening, notwithstanding his extreme curiosity.  As it still
+wanted some minutes of half-past nine, Rodin, in order not to lose time,
+set about making preparations for his frugal breakfast.  He placed on the
+table, by the side of an inkstand, furnished with pens, the slice of
+bread and the radish; then seating himself on his stool, with the stove,
+as it were, between his legs, he drew a horn-handled knife from his
+pocket, and cutting alternately a morsel of bread and a morsel of radish,
+with a sharp, well-worn blade, he began his temperate repast with a
+vigorous appetite, keeping his eye fixed on the hand of his watch.  When
+it reached the momentous hour, he unsealed the envelope with a trembling
+hand.
+
+It contained two letters.  The first appeared to give him little
+satisfaction; for, after some minutes, he shrugged his shoulders, struck
+the table impatiently with the handle of his knife, disdainfully pushed
+aside the letter with the back of his dirty hand, and perused the second
+epistle, holding his bread in one hand, and with the other mechanically
+dipping a slice of radish into the gray salt spilt on a corner of the
+table.  Suddenly, Rodin's hand remained motionless.  As he progressed in
+his reading, he appeared more and more interested, surprised, and struck.
+Rising abruptly, he ran to the window, as if to assure himself, by a
+second examination of the cipher, that he was not deceived.  The news
+announced to him in the letter seemed to be unexpected.  No doubt, Rodin
+found that he had deciphered correctly, for, letting fall his arms, not
+in dejection, but with the stupor of a satisfaction as unforeseen as
+extraordinary, he remained for some time with his head down, and his eyes
+fixed--the only mark of joy that he gave being manifested by a loud,
+frequent, and prolonged respiration.  Men who are as audacious in their
+ambition, as they are patient and obstinate in their mining and
+countermining, are surprised at their own success, when this latter
+precedes and surpasses their wise and prudent expectations.  Rodin was
+now in this case.  Thanks to prodigies of craft, address, and
+dissimulation, thanks to mighty promises of corruption, thanks to the
+singular mixture of admiration, fear, and confidence, with which his
+genius inspired many influential persons, Rodin now learned from members
+of the pontifical government, that, in case of a possible and probable
+occurrence, he might, within a given time, aspire, with a good chance of
+success, to a position which has too often excited the fear, the hate, or
+the envy of many sovereigns, and which has in turn, been occupied by
+great, good men, by abominable scoundrels, and by persons risen from the
+lowest grades of society.  But for Rodin to attain this end with
+certainty, it was absolutely necessary for him to succeed in that
+project, which he had undertaken to accomplish without violence, and only
+by the play and the rebound of passions skillfully managed.  The project
+was: To secure for the Society of Jesus the fortune of the Rennepont
+family.
+
+This possession would thus have a double and immense result; for Rodin,
+acting in accordance with his personal views, intended to make of his
+Order (whose chief was at his discretion) a stepping-stone and a means of
+intimidation.  When his first impression of surprise had passed away--an
+impression that was only a sort of modesty of ambition and self-
+diffidence, not uncommon with men of really superior powers--Rodin looked
+more coldly and logically on the matter, and almost reproached himself
+for his surprise.  But soon after, by a singular contradiction, yielding
+to one of those puerile and absurd ideas, by which men are often carried
+away when they think themselves alone and unobserved, Rodin rose
+abruptly, took the letter which had caused him such glad surprise, and
+went to display it, as it were, before the eyes of the young swineherd in
+the picture: then, shaking his head proudly and triumphantly, casting his
+reptile-glance on the portrait, he muttered between his teeth, as he
+placed his dirty finger on the pontifical emblem:  "Eh, brother? and I
+also--perhaps!"
+
+After this ridiculous interpolation, Rodin returned to his seat, and, as
+if the happy news he had just received had increased his appetite, he
+placed the letter before him, to read it once more, whilst he exercised
+his teeth, with a sort of joyous fury, on his hard bread and radish,
+chanting an old Litany.
+
+There was something strange, great, and, above all, frightful, in the
+contrast afforded by this immense ambition, already almost justified by
+events, and contained, as it were, in so miserable an abode.  Father
+d'Aigrigny (who, if not a very superior man, had at least some real
+value, was a person of high birth, very haughty, and placed in the best
+society) would never have ventured to aspire to what Rodin thus looked to
+from the first.  The only aim of Father d'Aigrigny, and even this he
+thought presumptuous, was to be one day elected General of his Order--
+that Order which embraced the world.  The difference of the ambitious
+aptitudes of these two personages is conceivable.  When a man of eminent
+abilities, of a healthy and vivacious nature, concentrates all the
+strength of his mind and body upon a single point, remaining, like Rodin,
+obstinately chaste and frugal, and renouncing every gratification of the
+heart and the senses--the man, who revolts against the sacred designs of
+his Creator, does so almost always in favor of some monstrous and
+devouring passion--some infernal divinity, which, by a sacrilegious pact,
+asks of him, in return for the bestowal of formidable power, the
+destruction of every noble sentiment, and of all those ineffable
+attractions and tender instincts with which the Maker, in His eternal
+wisdom and inexhaustible munificence, has so paternally endowed His
+creatures.
+
+During the scene that we have just described, Rodin had not perceived
+that the curtain of a window on the third story of the building opposite
+had been partially drawn aside, and had half-revealed the sprightly face
+of Rose-Pompon, and the Silenus-like countenance of Ninny Moulin.  It
+ensued that Rodin, notwithstanding his barricade of cotton handkerchiefs,
+had not been completely sheltered from the indiscreet and curious
+examination of the two dancers of the Storm-blown Tulip.
+
+[22] According to the tradition, it was predicted to the mother of Sixtus
+V., that he would be pope; and, in his youth, he is said to have kept
+swine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED VISIT.
+
+Though Rodin had experienced much surprise on reading the second letter
+from Rome, he did not choose that his answer should betray any such
+amazement.  Having finished his frugal breakfast, he took a sheet of
+paper, and rapidly wrote in cipher the following note, in the short,
+abrupt style that was natural to him when not obliged to restrain
+himself:
+
+"The information does not surprise me.  I had foreseen it all.
+Indecision and cowardice always bear such fruit.  This is not enough.
+Heretical Russia murders Catholic Poland.  Rome blesses the murderers,
+and curses the victims.[23]
+
+"Let it pass.
+
+"In return, Russia guarantees to Rome, by Austria, the bloody suppression
+of the patriots of Romagna.
+
+"That, too, is well.
+
+"The cut-throat band of good Cardinal Albani is not sufficient for the
+massacre of the impious liberals.  They are weary of the task.
+
+"Not so well.  They must go on."
+
+When Rodin had written these last words, his attention was suddenly
+attracted by the clear and sonorous voice of Rose-Pompon, who, knowing
+her Beranger by heart, had opened Philemon's window, and, seated on the
+sill, sang with much grace and prettiness this verse of the immortal
+song-writer:
+
+     "How wrong you are!  Is't you dare say
+     That heaven ever scowls on earth?
+     The earth that laughs up to its blue,
+     The earth that owes it joy and birth?
+     Oh, may the wine from vines it warms,
+     May holy love thence fluttering down,
+     Lend my philosophy their charms,
+     To drive away care's direful frown!
+     So, firm let's stand,
+     Full glass in hand,
+     And all evoke
+     The God of honest folk!"
+
+This song, in its divine gentleness, contrasted so strangely with the
+cold cruelty of the few lines written by Rodin, that he started and bit
+his lips with rage, as he recognized the words of the great poet, truly
+Christian, who had dealt such rude blows to the false Church.  Rodin
+waited for some moments with angry impatience, thinking the voice would
+continue; but Rose-Pompon was silent, or only continued to hum, and soon
+changed to another air, that of the Good Pope, which she entoned, but
+without words.  Rodin, not venturing to look out of his window to see who
+was this troublesome warbler, shrugged his shoulders, resumed his pen,
+and continued:
+
+"To it again.  We must exasperate the independent spirits in all
+countries--excite philosophic rage all over Europe make liberalism foam
+at the mouth--raise all that is wild and noisy against Rome.  To effect
+this, we must proclaim in the face of the world these three propositions.
+1. It is abominable to assert that a man may be saved in any faith
+whatever, provided his morals be pure.  2. It is odious and absurd to
+grant liberty of conscience to the people.  3.  The liberty of the press
+cannot be held in too much horror.[24]
+
+"We must bring the Pap-fed man to declare these propositions in every
+respect orthodox--show him their good effect upon despotic governments--
+upon true Catholics, the muzzlers of the people.  He will fall into the
+snare.  The propositions once published, the storm will burst forth.  A
+general rising against Rome--a wide schism--the sacred college divided
+into three parties.  One approves--the other blames--the third trembles.
+The Sick Man, still more frightened than he is now at having allowed the
+destruction of Poland, will shrink from the clamors, reproaches, threats,
+and violent ruptures that he has occasioned.
+
+"That is well--and goes far.
+
+"Then, set the Pope to shaking the conscience of the Sick Man, to disturb
+his mind, and terrify his soul.
+
+"To sum up.  Make everything bitter to him--divide his council--isolate
+him--frighten him--redouble the ferocious ardor of good Albini--revive
+the appetite of the Sanfedists[25]--give them a gulf of liberals--let
+there be pillage, rape, massacre, as at Cesena--a downright river of
+Carbonaro blood--the Sick Man will have a surfeit of it.  So many
+butcheries in his name--he will shrink, be sure he will shrink--every day
+will have its remorse, every night its terror, every minute its anguish;
+and the abdication he already threatens will come at last--perhaps too
+soon.  That is now the only danger; you must provide against it.
+
+"In case of an abdication, the grand penitentiary has understood me.
+Instead of confiding to a general the direction of our Order, the best
+militia of the Holy See, I should command it myself.  Thenceforward this
+militia would give me no uneasiness.  For instance: the Janissaries and
+the Praetorian Guards were always fatal to authority--why?--because they
+were able to organize themselves as defenders of the government,
+independently of the government; hence their power of intimidation.
+
+"Clement XIV. was a fool.  To brand and abolish our Company was an absurd
+fault.  To protect and make it harmless, by declaring himself the General
+of the Order, is what he should have done.  The Company, then at his
+mercy, would have consented to anything.  He would have absorbed us, made
+us vassals of the Holy See, and would no longer have had to fear our
+services.  Clement XIV. died of the cholic.  Let him heed who hears.  In
+a similar case, I should not die the same death."
+
+Just then, the clear and liquid voice of Rose-Pompon was again heard.
+Rodin bounded with rage upon his seat; but soon, as he listened to the
+following verse, new to him (for, unlike Philemon's widow, he had not his
+Beranger at his fingers' ends), the Jesuit, accessible to certain odd,
+superstitious notions, was confused and almost frightened at so singular
+a coincidence.  It is Beranger's Good Pope who speaks--
+
+     "What are monarchs? sheepish sots!
+     Or they're robbers, puffed with pride,
+     Wearing badges of crime blots,
+     Till their certain graves gape wide.
+     If they'll pour out coin for me,
+     I'll absolve them--skin and bone!
+     If they haggle--they shall see,
+     My nieces dancing on their throne!
+     So laugh away!
+     Leap, my fay!
+     Only watch one hurt the thunder
+     First of all by Zeus under,
+     I'm the Pope, the whole world's wonder!"
+
+Rodin, half-risen from his chair, with outstretched neck and attentive
+eye, was still listening, when Rose-Pompon, flitting like a bee from
+flower to flower of her repertoire, had already begun the delightful air
+of Colibri.  Hearing no more, the Jesuit reseated himself, in a sort of
+stupor; but, after some minutes' reflection, his countenance again
+brightened up, and he seemed to see a lucky omen in this singular
+incident.  He resumed his pen, and the first words he wrote partook, as
+it were, of this strange confidence in fate.
+
+"I have never had more hope of success than at this moment.  Another
+reason to neglect nothing.  Every presentiment demands redoubled zeal.  A
+new thought occurred to me yesterday.
+
+"We shall act here in concert.  I have founded an ultra-Catholic paper
+called Neighborly Love.  From its ultramontane, tyrannical, liberticidal
+fury, it will be thought the organ of Rome.  I will confirm these
+reports.  They will cause new terrors.
+
+"That will be well.
+
+"I shall raise the question of the liberty of instruction.  The raw
+liberals will support us.  Like fools, they admit us to equal rights;
+when our privileges, our influence of the confessional, our obedience to
+Rome, all place us beyond the circle of equal rights, by the advantages
+which we enjoy.  Double fools! they think us disarmed, because they have
+disarmed themselves towards us.
+
+"A burning question--irritating clamors--new cause of disgust for the
+Weak Man.  Every little makes a mickle.
+
+"That also is very well.
+
+"To sum up all in two words.  The end is abdication--the means, vexation,
+incessant torture.  The Rennepont inheritance wilt pay for the election.
+The price agreed, the merchandise will be sold."
+
+Rodin here paused abruptly, thinking he had heard some noise at that door
+of his, which opened on the staircase; therefore he listened with
+suspended breath; but all remaining silent, he thought he must have been
+deceived, and took up his pen:
+
+"I will take care of the Rennepont business--the hinge on which will turn
+our temporal operations.  We must begin from the foundation--substitute
+the play of interests, and the springs of passion, for the stupid club-
+law of Father d'Aigrigny.  He nearly compromised everything--and yet he
+has good parts, knows the world, has powers of seduction, quick insight--
+but plays ever in a single key, and is not great enough to make himself
+little.  In his stead, I shall know how to make use of him.  There is
+good stuff in the man.  I availed myself in time of the full powers given
+by the R. F. G.; I may inform Father d'Aigrigny, in case of need, of the
+secret engagements taken by the General towards myself.  Until now, I
+have let him invent for this inheritance the destination that you know
+of.  A good thought, but unseasonable.  The same end, by other means.
+
+"The information was false.  There are over two hundred millions.  Should
+the eventuality occur, what was doubtful must become certain.  An immense
+latitude is left us.  The Rennepont business is now doubly mine, and
+within three months, the two hundred millions will be ours, by the free
+will of the heirs themselves.  It must be so; for this failing, the
+temporal part would escape me, and my chances be diminished by one half.
+I have asked for full powers; time presses, and I act as if I had them.
+One piece of information is indispensable for the success of my projects.
+I expect it from you, and I must have it; do you understand me?  The
+powerful influence of your brother at the Court of Vienna will serve you
+in this.  I wish to have the most precise details as to the present
+position of the Duke de Reichstadt--the Napoleon II. of the Imperialists.
+Is it possible, by means of your brother, to open a secret correspondence
+with the prince, unknown to his attendants?
+
+"Look to this promptly.  It is urgent.  This note will he sent off to-
+day.  I shall complete it to-morrow.  It will reach you, as usual, by the
+hands of the petty shopkeeper."
+
+At the moment when Rodin was sealing this letter within a double
+envelope, he thought that he again heard a noise at the door.  He
+listened.  After some silence, several knocks were distinctly audible.
+Rodin started.  It was the first time any one had knocked at his door,
+since nearly a twelve-month that he occupied this room.  Hastily placing
+the letter in his great-coat pocket, the Jesuit opened the old trunk
+under his bed, took from it a packet of papers wrapped in a tattered
+cotton handkerchief, added to them the two letters in cipher he had just
+received, and carefully relocked the trunk.  The knocking continued
+without, and seemed to show more and more impatience.  Rodin took the
+greengrocer's basket in his hand, tucked his umbrella under his arm, and
+went with some uneasiness to ascertain who was this unexpected visitor.
+He opened the door, and found himself face to face with Rose-Pompon, the
+troublesome singer, and who now, with a light and pretty courtesy, said
+to him in the most guileless manner in the world, "M. Rodin, if you
+please?"
+
+[23] On page 110 of Lamennais' Affaires de Rome, will be seen the
+following admirable scathing of Rome by the most truly evangelical spirit
+of our age: "So long as the issue of the conflict between Poland and her
+oppressors remained in the balances, the papal official organ contained
+not one word to offend the so long victorious nation; but hardly had she
+gone down under the Czar's atrocious vengeance, and the long torture of a
+whole land doomed to rack, and exile, and servitude began, than this same
+journal found no language black enough to stain those whom fortune had
+fled.  Yet it is wrong to charge this unworthy insult to papal power; it
+only cringes to the law which Russia lays down to it, when it says:
+
+"'If you want to keep your own bones unbroken, bide where you are, beside
+the scaffold, and, as the victims pass, hoot at them!'"
+
+[24] See Pope Gregory XVI.'s Encyclical Letter to the Bishops in France,
+1832.
+
+[25] Hardly had the Sixteenth Gregory ascended the pontifical throne,
+than news came of the rising in Bologna.  His first idea was to call the
+Austrians, and incite the Sanfedist volunteer bands of fanatics.
+Cardinal Albini defeated the liberals at Cesena, where his followers
+pillaged churches, sacked the town, and ill-treated women.  At Forli,
+cold-blooded murders were committed.  In 1832 the Sanfedists (Holy
+Faithites) openly paraded their medals, bearing the heads of the Duke of
+Modem and the Pope; letters issued by the apostolic confederation;
+privileges and indulgences.  They took the following oath: "I. A. B.,
+vow to rear the throne and altar over the bones of infamous freedom-
+shriekers, and exterminate these latter without pity for children's cries
+and women's tears."  The disorders perpetrated by these marauders went
+beyond all bounds; the Romish Court regularized anarchy and organized the
+Sanfedists into volunteer corps, to which fresh privileges were granted.
+[Revue deux Mondes, Nov.  15th, 1844.--"La Revolution en Italie."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+FRIENDLY SERVICES.
+
+Notwithstanding his surprise and uneasiness, Rodin did not frown.  He
+began by locking his door after him, as he noticed the young girl's
+inquisitive glance.  Then he said to her good-naturedly, "Who do you
+want, my dear?"
+
+"M. Rodin," repeated Rose-Pompon, stoutly, opening her bright blue eyes
+to their full extent, and looking Rodin full in the face.
+
+"It's not here," said he, moving towards the stairs.  "I do not know him.
+Inquire above or below."
+
+"No, you don't! giving yourself airs at your age!" said Rose-Pompon,
+shrugging her shoulders.  "As if we did not know that you are M. Rodin."
+
+"Charlemagne," said the socius, bowing; "Charlemagne, to serve you--if I
+am able."
+
+"You are not able," answered Rose-Pompon, majestically; then she added
+with a mocking air, "So, we have our little pussy-cat hiding-places; we
+change our name; we are afraid Mamma Rodin will find us out."
+
+"Come, my dear child," said the socius, with a paternal smile; "you have
+come to the right quarter.  I am an old man, but I love youth--happy,
+joyous youth!  Amuse yourself, pray, at my expense.  Only let me pass,
+for I am in a hurry."  And Rodin again advanced towards the stairs.
+
+"M. Rodin," said Rose-Pompon, in a solemn voice, "I have very important
+things to say to you, and advice to ask about a love affair."
+
+"Why, little madcap that you are! have you nobody to tease in your own
+house, that you must come here?"
+
+"I lodge in this house, M. Rodin," answered Rose-Pompon, laying a
+malicious stress on the name of her victim.
+
+"You?  Oh, dear, only to think I did not know I had such a pretty
+neighbor."
+
+"Yes, I have lodged here six months, M. Rodin."
+
+"Really! where?"
+
+"On the third story, front, M. Rodin."
+
+"It was you, then, that sang so well just now?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"You gave me great pleasure, I must say."
+
+"You are very polite, M. Rodin."
+
+"You lodge, I suppose, with your respectable family?"
+
+"I believe you, M. Rodin," said Rose-Pompon, casting down her eyes with a
+timid air.  "I lodge with Grandpapa Philemon, and Grandmamma Bacchanal--
+who is a queen and no mistake."
+
+Rodin had hitherto been seriously uneasy, not knowing in what manner Rose
+had discovered his real name.  But on hearing her mention the Bacchanal
+queen, with the information that she lodged in the house, he found
+something to compensate for the disagreeable incident of Rose-Pompon's
+appearance.  It was, indeed, important to Rodin to find out the Bacchanal
+Queen, the mistress of Sleepinbuff, and the sister of Mother Bunch, who
+had been noted as dangerous since her interview with the superior of the
+convent, and the part she had taken in the projected escape of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.  Moreover, Rodin hoped--thanks to what he had just heard--to
+bring Rose-Pompon to confess to him the name of the person from whom she
+had learned that "Charlemagne" masked "Rodin."
+
+Hardly had the young girl pronounced the name of the Bacchanal queen,
+than Rodin clasped his hands, and appeared as much surprised as
+interested.
+
+"Oh, my dear child," he exclaimed, "I conjure you not to jest on this
+subject.  Are you speaking of a young girl who bears that nickname, the
+sister of a deformed needlewoman."
+
+"Yes, sir, the Bacchanal Queen is her nickname," said Rose-Pompon,
+astonished in her turn; "she is really Cephyse Soliveau, and she is my
+friend."
+
+"Oh! she is your friend?" said Rodin, reflecting.
+
+"Yes, sir, my bosom friend."
+
+"So you love her?"
+
+"Like a sister.  Poor girl!  I do what I can for her, and that's not
+much.  But how comes it that a respectable man of your age should know
+the Bacchanal Queen?--Ah! that shows you have a false name!"
+
+"My dear child, I am no longer inclined to laugh," said Rodin, with so
+sorrowful an air, that Rose-Pompon, reproaching herself with her
+pleasantry, said to him: "But how comes it that you know Cephyse?"
+
+"Alas! I do not know her--but a young fellow, that I like excessively--"
+
+"Jacques Rennepont?"
+
+"Otherwise called Sleepinbuff.  He is now in prison for debt," sighed
+Rodin.  "I saw him yesterday."
+
+"You saw him yesterday?--how strange!" said Rose-Pompon, clapping her
+hands.  "Quick! quick!--come over to Philemon's, to give Cephyse news of
+her lover.  She is so uneasy about him."
+
+"My dear child, I should like to give her good news of that worthy
+fellow, whom I like in spite of his follies, for who has not been guilty
+of follies?" added Rodin, with indulgent good-nature.
+
+"To be sure," said Rose-Pompon, twisting about as if she still wore the
+costume of a debardeur.
+
+"I will say more," added Rodin: "I love him because of his follies; for,
+talk as we may, my dear child, there is always something good at bottom,
+a good heart, or something, in those who spend generously their money for
+other people."
+
+"Well, come! you are a very good sort of a man," said Rose-Pompon,
+enchanted with Rodin's philosophy.  "But why will you not come and see
+Cephyse, and talk to her of Jacques?"
+
+"Of what use would it be to tell her what she knows already--that Jacques
+is in prison?  What I should like, would be to get the worthy fellow out
+of his scrape."
+
+"Oh, sir! only do that, only get Jacques out of prison," cried Rose-
+Pompon, warmly, "and we will both give you a kiss--me and Cephyse!"
+
+"It would be throwing kisses away, dear little madcap!" said Rodin,
+smiling.  "But be satisfied, I want no reward to induce me to do good
+when I can."
+
+"Then you hope to get Jacques out of prison?"
+
+Rodin shook his head, and answered with a grieved and disappointed air.
+"I did hope it.  Certainly, I did hope it; but now all is changed."
+
+"How's that?" asked Rose-Pompon, with surprise.
+
+"That foolish joke of calling me M. Rodin may appear very amusing to you,
+my dear child.  I understand it, you being only an echo.  Some one has
+said to you: `Go and tell M. Charlemagne that he is one M. Rodin.  That
+will be very funny.'"
+
+"Certainly, I should never myself have thought of calling you M. Rodin.
+One does not invent such names," answered Rose-Pompon.
+
+"Well! that person with his foolish jokes, has done, without knowing it,
+a great injury to Jacques Rennepont."
+
+"What! because I called you Rodin instead of Charlemagne?" cried Rose-
+Pompon, much regretting the pleasantry which she had carried on at the
+instigation of Ninny Moulin.  "But really, sir," she added, "what can
+this joke have to do with the service that you were, about to render
+Jacques?"
+
+"I am not at liberty to tell you, my child.  In truth, I am very sorry
+for poor Jacques.  Believe me, I am; but do let me pass.
+
+"Listen to me, sir, I beg," said Rose-Pompon; "if I told you the name of
+the person who told me to call you Rodin, would you interest yourself
+again for Jacques?"
+
+"I do not wish to know any one's secrets, my dear child.  In all this,
+you have been the echo of persons who are, perhaps, very dangerous; and,
+notwithstanding the interest I feel for Jacques Rennepont, I do not wish,
+you understand, to make myself enemies.  Heaven forbid!"
+
+Rose-Pompon did not at all comprehend Rodin's fears, and upon this he had
+counted; for after a second's reflection, the young girl resumed: "Well,
+sir--this is too deep for me; I do not understand it.  All I know is,
+that I am truly sorry if I have injured a good young man by a mere joke.
+I will tell you exactly how it happened.  My frankness may be of some
+use."
+
+"Frankness will often clear up the most obscure matters," said Rodin,
+sententiously.
+
+"After all," said Rose-Pompon, "it's Ninny's fault.  Why does he tell me
+nonsense, that might injure poor Cephyse's lover?  You see, sir, it
+happened in this way.  Ninny Moulin who is fond of a joke, saw you just
+now in the street.  The portress told him that your name was Charlemagne.
+He said to me: 'No; his name is Rodin.  We must play him a trick.  Go to
+his room, Rose-Pompon, knock at the door, and call him M. Rodin.  You
+will see what a rum face he will make.' I promised Ninny Moulin not to
+name him; but I do it, rather than run the risk of injuring Jacques."
+
+At Ninny Moulin's name Rodin had not been able to repress a movement of
+surprise.  This pamphleteer, whom he had employed to edit the "Neighborly
+Love," was not personally formidable; but, being fond of talking in his
+drink, he might become troublesome, particularly if Rodin, as was
+probable, had often to visit this house, to execute his project upon
+Sleepinbuff, through the medium of the Bacchanal Queen.  The socius
+resolved, therefore, to provide against this inconvenience.
+
+"So, my dear child," said he to Rose-Pompon, "it is a M. Desmoulins that
+persuaded you to play off this silly joke?"
+
+"Not Desmoulins, but Dumoulin," corrected Rose.  "He writes in the
+pewholders' papers, and defends the saints for money; for, if Ninny
+Moulin is a saint, his patrons are Saint Drinkard and Saint Flashette, as
+he himself declares."
+
+"This gentleman appears to be very gay."
+
+"Oh! a very good fellow."
+
+"But stop," resumed Rodin, appearing to recollect himself; "ain't he a
+man about thirty-six or forty, fat, with a ruddy complexion?"
+
+"Ruddy as a glass of red wine," said Rose-Pompon, "and with a pimpled
+nose like a mulberry."
+
+"That's the man--M. Dumoulin.  Oh! in that case, I am quite satisfied, my
+dear child.  The jest no longer makes me uneasy; for M. Dumoulin is a
+very worthy man--only perhaps a little too fond of his joke."
+
+"Then, sir, you will try to be useful to Jacques?  The stupid pleasantry
+of Ninny Moulin will not prevent you?"
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"But I must not tell Ninny Moulin that you know it was he who sent me to
+call you M. Rodin--eh, sir?"
+
+"Why not?  In every case, my dear child, it is always better to speak
+frankly the truth."
+
+"But, sir, Ninny Moulin so strongly recommended me not to name him to
+you--"
+
+"If you have named him, it is from a very good motive; why not avow it?
+However, my dear child, this concerns you, not me.  Do as you think
+best."
+
+"And may I tell Cephyse of your good intentions towards Jacques?"
+
+"The truth, my dear child, always the truth.  One need never hesitate to
+say what is."
+
+"Poor Cephyse! how happy she will be!" cried Rose-Pompon, cheerfully;
+"and the news will come just in time."
+
+"Only you must not exaggerate; I do not promise positively to get this
+good fellow out of prison; I say, that I will do what I can.  But what I
+promise positively is--for, since the imprisonment of poor Jacques, your
+friend must be very much straitened--"
+
+"Alas, sir!"
+
+"What I promise positively is some little assistance which your friend
+will receive to-day, to enable her to live honestly; and if she behaves
+well--hereafter--why, hereafter, we shall see."
+
+"Oh, sir! you do not know how welcome will be your assistance to poor
+Cephyse!  One might fancy you were her actual good angel.  Faith! you may
+call yourself Rodin, or Charlemagne; all I know is, that you are a nice,
+sweet--"
+
+"Come, come, do not exaggerate," said Rodin; "say a good sort of old
+fellow; nothing more, my dear child.  But see how things fall out,
+sometimes!  Who could have told me, when I heard you knock at my door--
+which, I must say, vexed me a great deal--that it was a pretty little
+neighbor of mine, who under the pretext of playing off a joke, was to put
+me in the way of doing a good action?  Go and comfort your friend; this
+evening she will receive some assistance; and let us have hope and
+confidence.  Thanks be, there are still some good people in the world!"
+
+"Oh, sir! you prove it yourself."
+
+"Not at all!  The happiness of the old is to see the young happy."
+
+This was said by Rodin with so much apparent kindness, that Rose-Pompon
+felt the tears well up to her eyes, and answered with much emotion: "Sir,
+Cephyse and me are only poor girls; there are many more virtuous in the
+world; but I venture to say, we have good hearts.  Now, if ever you
+should be ill, only send for us; there are no Sisters of Charity that
+will take better care of you.  It is all that we can offer you, without
+reckoning Philemon, who shall go through fire and water for you, I give
+you my word for it--and Cephyse, I am sure, will answer for Jacques also,
+that he will be yours in life and death."
+
+"You see, my dear child, that I was right in saying--a fitful head and a
+good heart.  Adieu, till we meet again."
+
+Thereupon Rodin, taking up the basket, which he had placed on the ground
+by the side of his umbrella, prepared to descend the stairs.
+
+"First of all, you must give me this basket; it will be in your way going
+down," said Rose-Pompon, taking the basket from the hands of Rodin,
+notwithstanding his resistance.  Then she added: "Lean upon my arm.  The
+stairs are so dark.  You might slip."
+
+"I will accept your offer, my dear child, for I am not very courageous."
+Leaning paternally on the right arm of Rose-Pompon, who held the basket
+in her left hand, Rodin descended the stairs, and crossed the court-yard.
+
+"Up there, on the third story, do you see that big face close to the
+window-frame?" said Rose-Pompon suddenly to Rodin, stopping in the centre
+of the little court.  "That is my Ninny Moulin.  Do you know him?  Is he
+the same as yours?"
+
+"The same as mine," said Rodin, raising his head, and waving his hand
+very affectionately to Jacques Dumoulin, who, stupefied thereat, retired
+abruptly from the window.
+
+"The poor fellow!  I am sure he is afraid of me since his foolish joke,"
+said Rodin, smiling.  "He is very wrong."
+
+And he accompanied these last words with a sinister nipping of the lips,
+not perceived by Rose-Pompon.
+
+"And now, my dear child," said he, as they both entered the passage, "I
+no longer need you assistance; return to your friend, and tell her the
+good news you have heard."
+
+"Yes, sir, you are right.  I burn with impatience to tell her what a good
+man you are."  And Rose-Pompon sprung towards the stairs.
+
+"Stop, stop! how about my basket that the little madcap carries off with
+her?" said Rodin.
+
+"Oh true!  I beg your pardon, sir.  Poor Cephyse! how pleased she will
+be.  Adieu, sir!"  And Rose-Pompon's pretty figure disappeared in the
+darkness of the staircase, which she mounted with an alert and impatient
+step.
+
+Rodin issued from the entry.  "Here is your basket, my good lady, said
+he, stopping at the threshold of Mother Arsene's shop.  "I give you my
+humble thanks for your kindness."
+
+"For nothing, my dear sir, for nothing.  It is all at your service.
+Well, was the radish good?"
+
+"Succulent, my dear madame, and excellent."
+
+"Oh! I am glad of it.  Shall we soon see you again?"
+
+"I hope so.  But could you tell me where is the nearest post-office?"
+
+"Turn to the left, the third house, at the grocer's."
+
+"A thousand thanks."
+
+"I wager it's a love letter for your sweetheart," said Mother Arsene,
+enlivened probably by Rose Pompon's and Ninny Moulin's proximity.
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! the good lady!" said Rodin, with a titter.  Then, suddenly
+resuming his serious aspect, he made a low bow to the greengrocer,
+adding: "Your most obedient humble servant!" and walked out into the
+street.
+
+We now usher the reader into Dr. Baleinier's asylum, in which Mdlle. de
+Cardoville was confined.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE ADVICE.
+
+Adrienne de Cardoville had been still more strictly confined in Dr.
+Baleinier's house, since the double nocturnal attempt of Agricola and
+Dagobert, in which the soldier, though severely wounded, had succeeded,
+thanks to the intrepid devotion of his son, seconded by the heroic Spoil-
+sport, in gaining the little garden gate of the convent, and escaping by
+way of the boulevard, along with the young smith.  Four o'clock had just
+struck.  Adrienne, since the previous day, had been removed to a chamber
+on the second story of the asylum.  The grated window, with closed
+shutters, only admitted a faint light to this apartment.  The young lady,
+since her interview with Mother Bunch, expected to be delivered any day
+by the intervention of her friends.  But she felt painful uneasiness on
+the subject of Agricola and Dagobert, being absolutely ignorant of the
+issue of the struggle in which her intended liberators had been engaged
+with the people of the asylum and convent.  She had in vain questioned
+her keepers on the subject; they had remained perfectly mute.  These new
+incidents had augmented the bitter resentment of Adrienne against the
+Princess de Saint Dizier, Father d'Aigrigny, and their creatures.  The
+slight paleness of Mdlle. de Cardoville's charming face, and her fine
+eyes a little drooping, betrayed her recent sufferings; seated before a
+little table, with her forehead resting upon one of her hands, half
+veiled by the long curls of her golden hair, she was turning over the
+leaves of a book.  Suddenly, the door opened, and M. Baleinier entered.
+The doctor, a Jesuit, in lay attire, a docile and passive instrument of
+the will of his Order, was only half in the confidence of Father
+d'Aigrigny and the Princess de Saint-Dizier.  He was ignorant of the
+object of the imprisonment of Mdlle. de Cardoville; he was ignorant also
+of the sudden change which had taken place in the relative position of
+Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin, after the reading of the testament of Marius
+de Rennepont.  The doctor had, only the day before, received orders from
+Father d'Aigrigny (now acting under the directions of Rodin) to confine
+Mdlle. de Cardoville still more strictly, to act towards her with
+redoubled severity, and to endeavor to force her, it will be seen by what
+expedients, to renounce the judicial proceedings, which she promised
+herself to take hereafter against her persecutors.  At sight of the
+doctor, Mdlle. de Cardoville could not hide the aversion and disdain with
+which this man inspired her.  M. Baleinier, on the contrary, always
+smiling, always courteous, approached Adrienne with perfect ease and
+confidence, stopped a few steps from her, as if to study her features
+more attentively, and then added like a man who is satisfied with the
+observations he had made: "Come! the unfortunate events of the night
+before last have had a less injurious influence than I feared.  There is
+some improvement; the complexion is less flushed, the look calmer, the
+eyes still somewhat too bright, but no longer shining with such unnatural
+fire.  You are getting on so well!  Now the cure must be prolonged--for
+this unfortunate night affair threw you into a state of excitement, that
+was only the more dangerous from your not being conscious of it.
+Happily, with care, your recovery will not, I hope, be very much
+delayed."  Accustomed though she was to the audacity of this tool of the
+Congregation, Mdlle. de Cardoville could not forbear saying to him, with
+a smile of bitter disdain: "What impudence, sir, there is in your
+probity!  What effrontery in your zeal to earn your hire!  Never for a
+moment do you lay aside your mask; craft and falsehood are ever on your
+lips.  Really, if this shameful comedy causes you as much fatigue as it
+does me disgust and contempt, they can never pay you enough."
+
+"Alas!" said the doctor, in a sorrowful tone; "always this unfortunate
+delusion, that you are not in want of our care!--that I am playing a
+part, when I talk to you of the sad state in which you were when we were
+obliged to bring you hither by stratagem.  Still, with the exception of
+this little sign of rebellious insanity, your condition has marvellously
+improved.  You are on the high-road to a complete cure.  By-and-by, your
+excellent heart will render me the justice that is due to me; and, one
+day, I shall be judged as I deserve."
+
+"I, believe it, sir; the day approaches, in which you will be judged as
+you deserve," said Adrienne, laying great stress upon the two words.
+
+"Always that other fixed idea," said the doctor with a sort of
+commiseration.  "Come, be reasonable.  Do not think of this
+childishness."
+
+"What! renounce my intention to demand at the hands of justice reparation
+for myself, and disgrace for you and your accomplices?  Never, sir--
+never!"
+
+"Well!" said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders; "once at liberty, thank
+heaven, you will have many other things to think of, my fair enemy."
+
+"You forget piously the evil that you do; but I, sir, have a better
+memory."
+
+"Let us talk seriously.  Have you really the intention of applying to the
+courts?" inquired Dr. Baleinier, in a grave tone.
+
+"Yes, sir, and you know that what I intend, I firmly carry out."
+
+"Well! I can only conjure you not to follow out this idea," replied the
+doctor, in a still more solemn tone; "I ask it as a favor, in the name of
+your own interest."
+
+"I think, sir, that you are a little too ready to confound your interest
+with mine."
+
+"Now come," said Dr. Baleinier, with a feigned impatience, as if quite
+certain of convincing Mdlle. de Cardoville on the instant; "would you
+have the melancholy courage to plunge into despair two persons full of
+goodness and generosity?"
+
+"Only two?  The jest would be complete, if you were to reckon three: you,
+sir, and my aunt, and Abbe d'Aigrigny; for these are no doubt the
+generous persons in whose name you implore my pity."
+
+"No, madame; I speak neither of myself, nor of your aunt, nor of Abbe
+d'Aigrigny."
+
+"Of whom, then, sir?" asked Mdlle. de Cardoville with surprise.
+
+"Of two poor fellows, who, no doubt sent by those whom you call your
+friends, got into the neighboring convent the other night, and thence
+into this garden.  The guns which you heard go off were fired at them."
+
+"Alas! I thought so.  They refused to tell me if either of them was
+wounded," said Adrienne, with painful emotion.
+
+"One of them received a wound, but not very serious, since he was able to
+fly and escape pursuit."
+
+"Thank God!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, clasping her hands with fervor.
+
+"It is quite natural that you should rejoice at their escape, but by what
+strange contradiction do you now wish to put the officers of justice on
+their track?  A singular manner, truly, of rewarding their devotion!"
+
+"What do you say, sir?" asked Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"For if they should be arrested," resumed Dr. Baleinier, without
+answering her, "as they have been guilty of housebreaking and attempted
+burglary, they would be sent to the galleys."
+
+"Heavens! and for my sake!"
+
+"Yes; it would be for you, and what is worse, by you, that they would be
+condemned."
+
+"By me, sir?"
+
+"Certainly; that is, if you follow up your vengeance against your aunt
+and Abbe d'Aigrigny--I do not speak of myself, for I am quite safe; in a
+word, if you persist in laying your complaint before the magistrates,
+that you have been unjustly confined in this house."
+
+"I do not understand you, sir.  Explain yourself," said Adrienne, with
+growing uneasiness.
+
+"Child that you are!" cried the Jesuit of the short robe, with an air of
+conviction; "do you think that if the law once takes cognizance of this
+affair, you can stop short its action where and when you please?  When
+you leave this house, you lodge a complaint against me and against your
+family; well, what happens?  The law interferes, inquires, calls
+witnesses, enters into the most minute investigations.  Then, what
+follows?  Why, that this nocturnal escalade, which the superior of the
+convent has some interest in hushing up, for fear of scandal--that this
+nocturnal attempt, I say, which I also would keep quiet, is necessarily
+divulged, and as it involves a serious crime, to which a heavy penalty is
+attached, the law will ferret into it, and find out these unfortunate
+men, and if, as is probable, they are detained in Paris by their duties
+or occupations, or even by a false security, arising from the honorable
+motives which they know to have actuated them, they will be arrested.
+And who will be the cause of this arrest?  You, by your deposition
+against us."
+
+"Oh, sir! that would be horrible; but it is impossible."
+
+"It is very possible, on the contrary," returned M. Baleinier: "so that,
+while I and the superior of the convent, who alone are really entitled to
+complain, only wish to keep quiet this unpleasant affair, it is you--you,
+for whom these unfortunate men have risked the galleys--that will deliver
+them up to justice."
+
+Though Mdlle. de Cardoville was not completely duped by the lay Jesuit,
+she guessed that the merciful intentions which he expressed with regard
+to Dagobert and his son, would be absolutely subordinate to the course
+she might take in pressing or abandoning the legitimate vengeance which
+she meant to claim of authority.  Indeed, Rodin, whose instructions the
+doctor was following without knowing it, was too cunning to have it said
+to Mdlle. de Cardoville: "If you attempt any proceedings, we denounce
+Dagobert and his son;" but he attained the same end, by inspiring
+Adrienne with fears on the subject of her two liberators, so as to
+prevent her taking any hostile measures.  Without knowing the exact law
+on the subject, Mdlle. de Cardoville had too much good sense not to
+understand that Dagobert and Agricola might be very seriously involved in
+consequence of their nocturnal adventure, and might even find themselves
+in a terrible position.  And yet, when she thought of all she had
+suffered in that house, and of all the just resentment she entertained in
+the bottom of her heart, Adrienne felt unwilling to renounce the stern
+pleasure of exposing such odious machinations to the light of day.  Dr.
+Baleinier watched with sullen attention her whom he considered his dupe,
+for he thought he could divine the cause of the silence and hesitation of
+Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"But, sir," resumed the latter, unable to conceal her anxiety, "if I were
+disposed, for whatever reason, to make no complaint, and to forget the
+wrongs I have suffered, when should I leave this place?"
+
+"I cannot tell; for I do not know when you will be radically cured," said
+the doctor, benignantly.  "You are in a very good way, but--"
+
+"Still this insolent and stupid acting!" broke forth Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, interrupting the doctor with indignation.  "I ask, and if it
+must be, I entreat you to tell me how long I am to be shut up in this
+dreadful house, for I shall leave it some day, I suppose?"
+
+"I hope so, certainly," said the Jesuit of the short robe, with unction;
+"but when, I am unable to say.  Moreover, I must tell you frankly, that
+every precaution is taken against such attempts as those of the other
+night; and the most vigorous watch will be maintained, to prevent your
+communicating with any one.  And all this in your own interest, that your
+poor head may not again be dangerously excited."
+
+"So, sir," said Adrienne, almost terrified, "compared with what awaits
+me, the last few days have been days of liberty."
+
+"Your interest before everything," answered the doctor, in a fervent
+tone.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, feeling the impotence of her indignation and
+despair, heaved a deep sigh, and hid her face in her hands.
+
+At this moment, quick footsteps were heard in the passage, and one of the
+nurses entered, after having knocked at the door.
+
+"Sir," said she to the doctor, with a frightened air, "there are two
+gentlemen below, who wish to see you instantly, and the lady also."
+
+Adrienne raised her head hastily; her eyes were bathed in tears.
+
+"What are the names of these persons?" said M. Baleinier, much
+astonished.
+
+"One of them said to me," answered the nurse: "`Go and inform Dr.
+Baleinier that I am a magistrate, and that I come on a duty regarding
+Mdlle. de Cardoville.'"
+
+"A magistrate!" exclaimed the Jesuit of the short robe, growing purple in
+the face, and unable to hide his surprise and uneasiness.
+
+"Heaven be praised!" cried Adrienne, rising with vivacity, her
+countenance beaming through her tears with hope and joy; "my friends have
+been informed in time, and the hour of justice is arrived!"
+
+"Ask these persons to walk up," said Dr. Baleinier, after a moment's
+reflection.  Then, with a still more agitated expression of countenance,
+he approached Adrienne with a harsh, and almost menacing air, which
+contrasted with the habitual placidity of his hypocritical smile, and
+said to her in a low voice: "Take care, madame! do not rejoice too soon."
+
+"I no longer fear you," answered Mdlle. de Cardoville, with a bright,
+flashing eye.  "M. de Montbron is no doubt returned to Paris, and has
+been informed in time.  He accompanies the magistrate, and comes to
+deliver me.  I pity you, sir--both you and yours," added Adrienne, with
+an accent of bitter irony.
+
+"Madame," cried M. Baleinier, no longer able to dissemble his growing
+alarm, "I repeat to you, take care!  Remember what I have told you.  Your
+accusations would necessarily involve the discovery of what took place
+the other night.  Beware! the fate of the soldier and his son is in your
+hands.  Recollect they are in danger of the convict's chains."
+
+"Oh! I am not your dupe, sir.  You are holding out a covert menace.  Have
+at least the courage to say to me, that, if I complain to the
+magistrates, you will denounce the soldier and his son."
+
+"I repeat, that, if you make any complaint, those two people are lost,"
+answered the doctor, ambiguously.
+
+Startled by what was really dangerous in the doctor's threats, Adrienne
+asked: "Sir, if this magistrate questions me, do you think I will tell
+him a falsehood?"
+
+"You will answer what is true," said M. Baleinier, hastily, in the hope
+of still attaining his end.  "You will answer that you were in so excited
+a state of mind a few days ago, that it was thought advisable, for your
+own sake, to bring you hither, without your knowing it.  But you are now
+so much better, that you acknowledge the utility of the measures taken
+with regard to you.  I will confirm these words for, after all, it is the
+truth."
+
+"Never!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, with indignation, "never will I be
+the accomplice of so infamous a falsehood; never will I be base enough to
+justify the indignities that I have suffered!"
+
+"Here is the magistrate," said M. Baleinier, as he caught the sound of
+approaching footsteps.  "Beware!"
+
+The door opened, and, to the indescribable amazement of the doctor, Rodin
+appeared on the threshold, accompanied by a man dressed in black, with a
+dignified and severe countenance.  In the interest of his projects, and
+from motives of craft and prudence that will hereafter be known, Rodin
+had not informed Father d'Aigrigny, and consequently the doctor, of the
+unexpected visit he intended to pay to the asylum, accompanied by a
+magistrate.  On the contrary, he had only the day before given orders to
+M. Baleinier to confine Mdlle. de Cardoville still more strictly.
+Therefore, imagine the stupor of the doctor when he saw the judicial
+officer, whose unexpected presence and imposing aspect were otherwise
+sufficiently alarming, enter the room, accompanied by Rodin, Abbe
+d'Aigrigny's humble and obscure secretary.  From the door, Rodin, who was
+very shabbily dressed, as usual, pointed out Mdlle. de Cardoville to the
+magistrate, by a gesture at once respectful and compassionate.  Then,
+while the latter, who had not been able to repress a movement of
+admiration at sight of the rare beauty of Adrienne, seemed to examine her
+with as much surprise as interest, the Jesuit modestly receded several
+steps.
+
+Dr. Baleinier in his extreme astonishment, hoping to be understood by
+Rodin, made suddenly several private signals, as if to interrogate him on
+the cause of the magistrate's visit.  But this was only productive of
+fresh amazement to M. Baleinier; for Rodin did not appear to recognize
+him, or to understand his expressive pantomime, and looked at him with
+affected bewilderment.  At length, as the doctor, growing impatient,
+redoubled his mute questionings, Rodin advanced with a stride, stretched
+forward his crooked neck, and said, in a loud voice: "What is your
+pleasure, doctor?"
+
+These words, which completely disconcerted Baleinier, broke the silence
+which had reigned for some seconds, and the magistrate turned round.
+Rodin added, with imperturbable coolness: "Since our arrival, the doctor
+has been making all sorts of mysterious signs to me.  I suppose he has
+something private to communicate, but, as I have no secrets, I must beg
+him to speak out loud."
+
+This reply, so embarrassing for M.  Baleinier, uttered in a tone of
+aggression, and with an air of icy coldness, plunged the doctor into such
+new and deep amazement, that he remained for some moments without
+answering.  No doubt the magistrate was struck with this incident, and
+with the silence which followed it, for he cast a look of great severity
+on the doctor.  Mdlle. de Cardoville, who had expected to have seen M. de
+Montbron, was also singularly surprised.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE ACCUSER.
+
+Baleinier, disconcerted for a moment by the unexpected presence of a
+magistrate, and by Rodin's inexplicable attitude, soon recovered his
+presence of mind, and addressing his colleague of the longer robe, said
+to him: "If I make signs to you, sir, it was that, while I wished to
+respect the silence which this gentleman"--glancing at the magistrate--
+"has preserved since his entrance, I desired to express my surprise at
+the unexpected honor of this visit."
+
+"It is to the lady that I will explain the reason for my silence, and beg
+her to excuse it," replied the magistrate, as he made a half-bow to
+Adrienne, whom he thus continued to address: "I have just received so
+serious a declaration with regard to you, madame, that I could not
+forbear looking at you for a moment in silence, to see if I could read in
+your countenance or in your attitude, the truth or falsehood of the
+accusation that has been placed in my hands; and I have every reason to
+believe that it is but too well founded."
+
+"May I at length be informed, sir," said Dr. Baleinier, in a polite but
+firm tone, "to whom I have the honor of speaking?"
+
+"Sir, I am juge d'instruction, and I have come to inform myself as to a
+fact which has been pointed out to me--"
+
+"Will you do me the honor to explain yourself, sir?" said the doctor,
+bowing.
+
+"Sir," resumed the magistrate, M. de Gernande, a man of about fifty years
+of age, full of firmness and straightforwardness, and knowing how to
+unite the austere duties of his position with benevolent politeness, "you
+are accused of having committed--a very great error, not to use a harsher
+expression.  As for the nature of that error, I prefer believing, sir,
+that you (a first rate man of science) may have been deceived in the
+calculation of a medical case, rather than suspect you of having
+forgotten all that is sacred in the exercise of a profession that is
+almost a priesthood."
+
+"When you specify the facts, sir," answered the Jesuit of the short robe,
+with a degree of haughtiness, "it will be easy for me to prove that my
+reputation as a man of science is no less free from reproach, than my
+conscience as a man of honor."
+
+"Madame," said M. de Gernande, addressing Adrienne, "is it true that you
+were conveyed to this house by stratagem?"
+
+"Sir," cried M. Baleinier, "permit me to observe, that the manner in
+which you open this question is an insult to me."
+
+"Sir, it is to the lady that I have the honor of addressing myself,"
+replied M. de Gernande, sternly; "and I am the sole judge of the
+propriety of my questions."
+
+Adrienne was about to answer affirmatively to the magistrate, when an
+expressive took from Dr. Baleinier reminded her that she would perhaps
+expose Dagobert and his son to cruel dangers.  It was no base and vulgar
+feeling of vengeance by which Adrienne was animated, but a legitimate
+indignation, inspired by odious hypocrisy.  She would have thought it
+cowardly not to unmask the criminals; but wishing to avoid compromising
+others, she said to the magistrate, with an accent full of mildness and
+dignity: "Permit me, sir, in my turn, rather to ask you a question."
+
+"Speak, madame."
+
+"Will the answer I make be considered a formal accusation?"
+
+"I have come hither, madame, to ascertain the truth, and no consideration
+should induce you to dissemble it."
+
+"So be it, sir," resumed Adrienne; "but suppose, having just causes of
+complaint, I lay them before you, in order to be allowed to leave this
+house, shall I afterwards be at liberty not to press the accusations I
+have made?"
+
+"You may abandon proceedings, madame, but the law will take up your case
+in the name of society, if its rights have been inured in your person."
+
+"Shall I then not be allowed to pardon?  Should I not be sufficiently
+avenged by a contemptuous forgetfulness of the wrongs I have suffered?"
+
+"Personally, madame, you may forgive and forget; but I have the honor to
+repeat to you, that society cannot show the same indulgence, if it should
+turn out that you have been the victim of a criminal machination--and I
+have every reason to fear it is so.  The manner in which you express
+yourself, the generosity of your sentiments, the calmness and dignity of
+your attitude, convince me that I have been well informed."
+
+"I hope, sir," said Dr. Baleinier, recovering his coolness, "that you
+will at least communicate the declaration that has been made to you."
+
+"It has been declared to me, sir," said the magistrate, in a stern voice,
+"that Mdlle. de Cardoville was brought here by stratagem."
+
+"By stratagem?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"It is true.  The lady was brought here by stratagem," answered the
+Jesuit of the short robe, after a moment's silence.
+
+"You confess it, then?" said M. de Gernande.
+
+"Certainly I do, sir.  I admit that I had recourse to means which we are
+unfortunately too often obliged to employ, when persons who most need our
+assistance are unconscious of their own sad state."
+
+"But, sir," replied the magistrate, "it has also been declared to me,
+that Mdlle. de Cardoville never required such aid."
+
+"That, sir, is a question of medical jurisprudence, which has to be
+examined and discussed," said M. Baleinier, recovering his assurance.
+
+"It will, indeed, sir, be seriously discussed; for you are accused of
+confining Mdlle. De Cardoville, while in the full possession of all her
+faculties."
+
+"And may I ask you for what purpose?" said M. de Baleinier, with a slight
+shrug of the shoulders, and in a tone of irony.  "What interest had I to
+commit such a crime, even admitting that my reputation did not place me
+above so odious and absurd a charge?"
+
+"You are said to have acted, sir, in furtherance of a family plot,
+devised against Mdlle. de Cardoville for a pecuniary motive."
+
+"And who has dared, sir, to make so calumnious a charge?" cried Dr.
+Baleinier, with indignant warmth.  "Who has had the audacity to accuse a
+respectable, and I dare to say, respected man, of having been the
+accomplice in such infamy?"
+
+"I," said Rodin, coldly.
+
+"You!" cried Dr. Baleinier, falling back two steps, as if thunderstruck.
+
+"Yes, I accuse you," repeated Rodin, in a clear sharp voice.
+
+"Yes, it was this gentleman who came to me this morning, with ample
+proofs, to demand my interference in favor of Mdlle. de Cardoville," said
+the magistrate, drawing back a little, to give Adrienne the opportunity
+of seeing her defender.
+
+Throughout this scene, Rodin's name had not hitherto been mentioned.
+Mdlle. de Cardoville had often heard speak of the Abbe d'Aigrigny's
+secretary in no very favorable terms; but, never having seen him, she did
+not know that her liberator was this very Jesuit.  She therefore looked
+towards him, with a glance in which were mingled curiosity, interest,
+surprise and gratitude.  Rodin's cadaverous countenance, his repulsive
+ugliness, his sordid dress, would a few days before have occasioned
+Adrienne a perhaps invincible feeling of disgust.  But the young lady,
+remembering how the sempstress, poor, feeble, deformed, and dressed
+almost in rags was endowed notwithstanding her wretched exterior, with
+one of the noblest and most admirable hearts, recalled this recollection
+in favor of the Jesuit.  She forgot that he was ugly and sordid, only to
+remember that he was old, that he seemed poor, and that he had come to
+her assistance.  Dr. Baleinier, notwithstanding his craft,
+notwithstanding his audacious hypocrisy, in spite even of his presence of
+mind, could not conceal how much he was disturbed by Rodin's
+denunciation.  His head became troubled as he remembered how, on the
+first day of Adrienne's confinement in this house, the implacable appeal
+of Rodin, through the hole in the door, had prevented him (Baleinier)
+from yielding to emotions of pity, inspired by the despair of this
+unfortunate young girl, driven almost to doubt of her own reason.  And
+yet it was this very Rodin, so cruel, so inexorable, the devoted agent of
+Father d'Aigrigny, who denounced him (Baleinier), and brought a
+magistrate to set Adrienne at liberty--when, only the day before, Father
+d'Aigrigny had ordered an increase of severity towards her!
+
+The lay Jesuit felt persuaded that Rodin was betraying Father d'Aigrigny
+in the most shameful manner, and that Mdlle. de Cardoville's friends had
+bribed and bought over this scoundrelly secretary.  Exasperated by what
+he considered a monstrous piece of treachery, the doctor exclaimed, in a
+voice broken with rage: "And it is you, sir, that have the impudence to
+accuse me--you, who only a few days ago--"
+
+Then, reflecting that the retort upon Rodin would be self-accusation, he
+appeared to give way to an excess of emotion, and resumed with
+bitterness: "Ah, sir, you are the last person that I should have thought
+capable of this odious denunciation.  It is shameful!"
+
+"And who had a better right than I to denounce this infamy?" answered
+Rodin, in a rude, overbearing tone.  "Was I not in a position to learn--
+unfortunately, too late--the nature of the conspiracy of which Mdlle. de
+Cardoville and others have been the victims?  Then, what was my duty as
+an honest man?  Why, to inform the magistrate, to prove what I set forth,
+and to accompany him hither.  That is what I have done."
+
+"So, sir," said the doctor, addressing the magistrate, "it is not only
+myself that this man accuses, but he dares also--"
+
+"I accuse the Abbe d'Aigrigny," resumed Rodin, in a still louder and more
+imperative tone, interrupting the doctor, "I accuse the Princess de
+Saint-Dizier, I accuse you, sir--of having, from a vile motive of self-
+interest, confined Mdlle. de Cardoville in this house, and the two
+daughters of Marshal Simon in the neighboring convent.  Is that clear?"
+
+"Alas! it is only too true," said Adrienne, hastily.  "I have seen those
+poor children all in tears, making signs of distress to me."
+
+The accusation of Rodin, with regard to the orphans, was a new and
+fearful blow for Dr. Baleinier.  He felt perfectly convinced that the
+traitor had passed clear over to the enemy's camp.  Wishing therefore to
+put an end to this embarrassing scene, he tried to put a good face on the
+matter, in spite of his emotion, and said to the magistrate:
+
+"I might confine myself, sir, to silence--disdaining to answer such
+accusations, till a judicial decision had given them some kind of
+authority.  But, strong in a good conscience I address myself to Mdlle.
+de Cardoville, and I beg her to say if this very morning I did not inform
+her, that her health would soon be sufficiently restored to allow her to
+leave this house.  I conjure her, in the name of her well-known love of
+truth to state if such was not my language, when I was alone with her--"
+
+"Come, sir!" said Rodin, interrupting Baleinier with an insolent air;
+"suppose that, from pure generosity, this dear young lady were to admit
+as much--what will it prove in your favor?--why, nothing at all."
+
+"What, sir," cried the doctor, "do you presume -"
+
+"I presume to unmask you, without asking your leave.  What have you just
+told us?  Why, that being alone with Mdlle. de Cardoville, you talked to
+her as if she were really mad.  How very conclusive!"
+
+"But, sir--" cried the doctor.
+
+"But, sir," resumed Rodin, without allowing him to continue, "it is
+evident that, foreseeing the possibility of what has occurred to-day,
+and, to provide yourself with a hole to creep out at, you have pretended
+to believe your own execrable falsehood, in presence of this poor young
+lady, that you might afterwards call in aid the evidence of your own
+assumed conviction.  Come, sir! such stories will not go down with people
+of common sense or common humanity."
+
+"Come now, sir!" exclaimed Baleinier, angrily.
+
+"Well, sir," resumed Rodin, in a still louder voice, which completely
+drowned that of the doctor; "is it true, or is it not, that you have
+recourse to the mean evasion of ascribing this odious imprisonment to a
+scientific error?  I affirm that you do so, and that you think yourself
+safe, because you can now say: `Thanks to my care, the young lady has
+recovered her reason.  What more would you have?'"
+
+"Yes, I do say that, sir, and I maintain it."
+
+"You maintain a falsehood; for it is proven that the lady never lost her
+reason for a moment."
+
+"But I, sir, maintain that she did lose it."
+
+"And I, sir, will prove the contrary," said Rodin.
+
+"You?  How will you do that?" cried the doctor.
+
+"That I shall take care not to tell you at present, as you may well
+suppose," answered Rodin, with an ironical smile, adding with
+indignation: "But, really, sir, you ought to die for shame, to dare to
+raise such a question in presence of the lady.  You should at least have
+spared her this discussion."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Oh, fie, sir!  I say, fie!  It is odious to maintain this argument
+before her--odious if you speak truth, doubly odious if you lie," said
+Rodin, with disgust.
+
+"This violence is inconceivable!" cried the Jesuit of the short robe,
+exasperated; "and I think the magistrate shows great partiality in
+allowing such gross calumnies to be heaped upon me!"
+
+"Sir," answered M. de Gernande, severely, "I am entitled not only to
+hear, but to provoke any contradictory discussion that may enlighten me
+in the execution of my duty; it results from all this, that, even in your
+opinion, sir, Mdlle. de Cardoville's health is sufficiently good to allow
+her to return home immediately."
+
+"At least, I do not see any very serious inconvenience likely to arise
+from it, sir," said the doctor: "only I maintain that the cure is not so
+complete as it might have been, and, on this subject, I decline all
+responsibility for the future."
+
+"You can do so, safely," said Rodin; "it is not likely that the young
+lady will ever again have recourse to your honest assistance."
+
+"It is useless, therefore, to employ my official authority, to demand the
+immediate liberation of Mdlle. de Cardoville," said the magistrate.
+
+"She is free," said Baleinier, "perfectly free."
+
+"As for the question whether you have imprisoned her on the plea of a
+suppositious madness, the law will inquire into it, sir, and you will be
+heard."
+
+"I am quite easy, sir," answered M. Baleinier, trying to look so; "my
+conscience reproaches me with nothing."
+
+"I hope it may turn out well, sir," said M. de Gernande.  "However bad
+appearances may be, more especially when persons of your station in
+society are concerned, we should always wish to be convinced of their
+innocence."  Then, turning to Adrienne, he added: "I understand, madame,
+how painful this scene must be to all your feelings of delicacy and
+generosity; hereafter, it will depend upon yourself, either to proceed
+for damages against M. Baleinier, or to let the law take its course.  One
+word more.  The bold and upright man"--here the magistrate pointed to
+Rodin--"who has taken up your cause in so frank and disinterested a
+manner, expressed a belief that you would, perhaps, take charge for the
+present of Marshal Simon's daughters, whose liberation I am about to
+demand from the convent where they also are confined by stratagem."
+
+"The fact is, sir," replied Adrienne, "that, as soon as I learned the
+arrival of Marshal Simon's daughters in Paris, my intention was to offer
+them apartments in my house.  These young ladies are my near relations.
+It is at once a duty and a pleasure for me to treat them as sisters.  I
+shall, therefore, be doubly grateful to you, sir, if you will trust them
+to my care."
+
+"I think that I cannot serve them better," answered M. de Gernande.
+Then, addressing Baleinier, he added, "Will you consent, sir, to my
+bringing these two ladies hither?  I will go and fetch them, while Mdlle.
+de Cardoville prepares for her departure.  They will then be able to
+leave this house with their relation."
+
+"I entreat the lady to make use of this house as her own, until she
+leaves it," replied M. Baleinier.  "My carriage shall be at her orders to
+take her home."
+
+"Madame," said the magistrate, approaching Adrienne, "without prejudging
+the question, which must soon be decided by, a court of law, I may at
+least regret that I was not called in sooner.  Your situation must have
+been a very cruel one."
+
+"There will at least remain to me, sir, from this mournful time," said
+Adrienne, with graceful dignity, "one precious and touching remembrance--
+that of the interest which you have shown me.  I hope that you will one
+day permit me to thank you, at my own home, not for the justice you have
+done me, but for the benevolent and paternal manner in which you have
+done it.  And moreover, sir," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, with a sweet
+smile, "I should like to prove to you, that what they call my cure is
+complete."
+
+M. de Gernande bowed respectfully in reply.  During the abort dialogue of
+the magistrate with Adrienne, their backs were both turned to Baleinier
+and Rodin.  The latter, profiting by this moment's opportunity, hastily
+slipped into the doctor's hand a note just written with a pencil in the
+bottom of his hat.  Baleinier looked at Rodin in stupefied amazement.
+But the latter made a peculiar sign, by raising his thumb to his
+forehead, and drawing it twice across his brow.  Then he remained
+impassible.  This had passed so rapidly, that when M. de Gernande turned
+round, Rodin was at a distance of several steps from Dr. Baleinier, and
+looking at Mdlle. de Cardoville with respectful interest.
+
+"Permit me to accompany you, sir," said the doctor, preceding the
+magistrate, whom Mdlle. de Cardoville saluted with much affability.  Then
+both went out, and Rodin remained alone with the young lady.
+
+After conducting M. de Gernande to the outer door of the house, M.
+Baleinier made haste to read the pencil-note written by Rodin; it ran as
+follows: "The magistrate is going to the convent, by way of the street.
+Run round by the garden, and tell the Superior to obey the order I have
+given with regard to the two young girls.  It is of the utmost
+importance."
+
+The peculiar sign which Rodin had made, and the tenor of this note,
+proved to Dr. Baleinier, who was passing from surprise to amazement, that
+the secretary, far from betraying the reverend father, was still acting
+for the Greater Glory of the Lord.  However, whilst he obeyed the orders,
+M. Baleinier sought in vain to penetrate the motives of Rodin's
+inexplicable conduct, who had himself informed the authorities of an
+affair that was to have been hushed up, and that might have the most
+disastrous consequences for Father d'Aigrigny, Madame de Saint-Dizier,
+and Baleinier himself.  But let us return to Rodin, left alone with
+Mdlle, de Cardoville.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+FATHER D'AIGRIGNY'S SECRETARY.
+
+Hardly had the magistrate and Dr. Baleinier disappeared, than Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, whose countenance was beaming with joy, exclaimed, as she
+looked at Rodin with a mixture of respect and gratitude, "At length,
+thanks to you, sir, I am free--free!  Oh, I had never before felt how
+much happiness, expansion, delight, there is in that adorable word--
+liberty!"
+
+Her bosom rose and fell, her rosy nostrils dilated, her vermilion lips
+were half open, as if she again inhaled with rapture pure and vivifying
+air.
+
+"I have been only a few days in this horrible place," she resumed, "but I
+have suffered enough from my captivity to make me resolve never to let a
+year pass without restoring to liberty some poor prisoners for debt.
+This vow no doubt appears to belong a little to the Middle Ages," added
+she, with a smile; "but I would fain borrow from that noble epoch
+something more than its old windows and furniture.  So, doubly thanks,
+sir!--for I take you as a partner in that project of deliverance, which
+has just (you see) unfolded itself in the midst of the happiness I owe to
+you, and by which you seem so much affected.  Oh! let my joy speak my
+gratitude, and pay you for your generous aid!" exclaimed the young girl
+with enthusiasm.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville had truly remarked a complete transfiguration in the
+countenance of Rodin.  This man, lately so harsh, severe, inflexible,
+with regard to Dr. Baleinier, appeared now under the influence of the
+mildest and most tender sentiments.  His little, half-veiled eyes were
+fixed upon Adrienne with an expression of ineffable interest.  Then, as
+if he wished to tear himself from these impressions, he said, speaking to
+himself, "Come, come, no weakness.  Time is too precious; my mission is
+not fulfilled.  My dear young lady," added he, addressing himself to
+Adrienne, "believe what I say--we will talk hereafter of gratitude--but
+we have now to talk of the present so important for you and your family.
+Do you know what is taking place?"
+
+Adrienne looked at the Jesuit with surprise, and said, "What is taking
+place, sir?"
+
+"Do you know the real motive of your imprisonment in this house?  Do you
+know what influenced the Princess de Saint-Dizier and Abbe d'Aigrigny?"
+
+At the sound of those detested names, Mdlle. de Cardoville's face, now so
+full of happiness, became suddenly sad, and she answered with bitterness,
+"It is hatred, sir, that no doubt animated Madame de Saint-Dizier against
+me."
+
+"Yes, hatred; and, moreover, the desire to rob you with impunity of an
+immense fortune."
+
+"Me, sir! how?"
+
+"You must be ignorant, my dear young lady, of the interest you had to be
+in the Rue Saint-Francois on the 13th February, for an inheritance?"
+
+"I was ignorant, sir, of the date and details: but I knew by some family
+papers, and thanks to an extraordinary circumstance, that one of our
+ancestors--"
+
+"Had left an enormous sum to be divided between his descendants; is it
+not so?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But what unfortunately you did not know, my dear young lady, was that
+the heirs were all bound to be present at a certain hour on the 13th
+February.  This day and hour once past, the absent would forfeit their
+claim.  Do you now understand why you have been imprisoned here, my dear
+young lady?"
+
+"Yes, yes; I understand it," cried Mdlle. de Cardoville; "cupidity was
+added to the hatred which my aunt felt for me.  All is explained.
+Marshal Simon's daughters, having the same right as I had have, like me,
+been imprisoned."
+
+"And yet," cried Rodin, "you and they were not the only victims."
+
+"Who, then, are the others, sir?"
+
+"A young East Indian."
+
+"Prince Djalma?" said Adrienne, hastily.
+
+"For the same reason he has been nearly poisoned with a narcotic."
+
+"Great God!" cried the young girl, clasping her hands in horror.  "It is
+fearful.  That young prince, who was said to have so noble and generous a
+character!  But I had sent to Cardoville Castle--"
+
+"A confidential person, to fetch the prince to Paris--I know it, my dear
+young lady; but, by means of a trick, your friend was got out of the way,
+and the young Oriental delivered to his enemies."
+
+"And where is he now?"
+
+"I have only vague information on the subject.  I know that he is in
+Paris, and do not despair of finding him.  I shall pursue my researches
+with an almost paternal ardor, for we cannot too much love the rare
+qualities of that poor king's son.  What a heart, my dear young lady!
+what a heart!  Oh, it is a heart of gold, pure and bright as the gold of
+his country!"
+
+"We must find the prince, sir," said Adrienne with emotion; "let me
+entreat you to neglect nothing for that end.  He is my relation--alone
+here--without support--without assistance."
+
+"Certainly," replied Rodin, with commiseration.  "Poor boy!--for he is
+almost a boy--eighteen or nineteen years of age--thrown into the heart of
+Paris, of this hell--with his fresh, ardent, half-savage passions--with
+his simplicity and confidence--to what perils may he not be exposed?"
+
+"Well, we must first find him, sir," said Adrienne, hastily; "and then we
+will save him from these dangers.  Before I was confined here, I learned
+his arrival in France, and sent a confidential person to offer him the
+services of an unknown friend.  I now see that this mad idea, with which
+I have been so much reproached, was a very sensible one.  I am more
+convinced of it than ever.  The prince belongs to my family, and I owe
+him a generous hospitality.  I had destined for him the lodge I occupied
+at my aunt's."
+
+"And you, my dear young lady?"
+
+"To-day, I shall remove to a house, which I had prepared some time ago,
+with the determination of quitting Madame de Saint-Dizier, and living
+alone as I pleased.  Then, sir, as you seem bent upon being the good
+genius of our family, be as generous with regard to Prince Djalma, as you
+have been to me and Marshal Simon's daughters.  I entreat you to discover
+the hiding-place of this poor king's son, as you call him; keep my secret
+for me, and conduct him to the house offered by the unknown friend.  Let
+him not disquiet himself about anything; all his wants shall be provided
+for; he shall live--like a prince."
+
+"Yes; he will indeed live like a prince, thanks to your royal
+munificence.  But never was such kind interest better deserved.  It is
+enough to see (as I have seen) his fine, melancholy countenance--"
+
+"You have seen him, then, sir?" said Adrienne, interrupting Rodin.
+
+"Yes, my dear young lady; I was with him for about two hours.  It was
+quite enough to judge of him.  His charming features are the mirror of
+his soul."
+
+"And where did you see him, sir?"
+
+"At your old Chateau de Cardoville, my dear young lady, near which he had
+been shipwrecked in a storm, and whither I had gone to--" Rodin hesitated
+for a moment, and then, as if yielding to the frankness of his
+disposition, added: "Whither I had gone to commit a bad action--a
+shameful, miserable action, I must confess!"
+
+"You, sir?--at Cardoville House--to commit a bad action?" cried Adrienne,
+much surprised.
+
+"Alas! yes, my dear young lady," answered Rodin with simplicity.  "In one
+word, I had orders from Abbe d'Aigrigny, to place your former bailiff in
+the alternative either of losing his situation or lending himself to a
+mean action--something, in fact, that resembled spying and calumny; but
+the honest, worthy man refused."
+
+"Why, who are you, sir?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, more and more
+astonished.
+
+"I am Rodin, lately secretary of the Abbe d'Aigrigny--a person of very
+little importance, as you see."
+
+It is impossible to describe the accent, at once humble and ingenuous, of
+the Jesuit, as he pronounced these words, which he accompanied with a
+respectful bow.  On this revelation, Mdlle. de Cardoville drew back
+abruptly.  We have said that Adrienne had sometimes heard talk of Rodin,
+the humble secretary of the Abbe d'Aigrigny, as a sort of obedient and
+passive machine.  That was not all; the bailiff of Cardoville Manor,
+writing to Adrienne on the subject of Prince Djalma, had complained of
+the perfidious and dishonest propositions of Rodin.  She felt, therefore,
+a vague suspicion, when she heard that her liberator was the man who had
+played so odious a part.  Yet this unfavorable feeling was balanced by
+the sense of what she owed to Rodin, and by his frank denunciation of
+Abbe d'Aigrigny before the magistrate.  And then the Jesuit, by his own
+confession, had anticipated, as it were, the reproaches that might have
+been addressed to him.  Still, it was with a kind of cold reserve that
+Mdlle. de Cardoville resumed this dialogue, which she had commenced with
+as much frankness as warmth and sympathy.
+
+Rodin perceived the impression he had made.  He expected it.  He was not
+the least disconcerted when Mdlle. de Cardoville said to him, as she
+fixed upon him a piercing glance, "Ah! you are M. Rodin--secretary to the
+Abbe d'Aigrigny?"
+
+"Say ex-secretary, if you please, my dear young lady," answered the
+Jesuit; "for you see clearly that I can never again enter the house of
+the Abbe d'Aigrigny.  I have made of him an implacable enemy, and I am
+now without employment--but no matter--nay, so much the better--since, at
+this price, the wicked are unmasked, and honest people rescued."
+
+These words, spoken with much simplicity, and dignity, revived a feeling
+of pity in Adrienne's heart.  She thought within herself that, after all,
+the poor old man spoke the truth.  Abbe d'Aigrigny's hate, after this
+exposure, would be inexorable, and Rodin had braved it for the sake of a
+generous action.
+
+Still Mdlle. de Cardoville answered coldly, "Since you knew, sir, that
+the propositions you were charged to make to the bailiff of Cardoville
+were shameful and perfidious, how could you undertake the mission?"
+
+"How?" replied Rodin, with a sort of painful impatience; "why, because I
+was completely under Abbe d'Aigrigny's charm, one of the most
+prodigiously clever men I have ever known, and, as I only discovered the
+day before yesterday, one of the most prodigiously dangerous men there is
+in the world.  He had conquered my scruples, by persuading me that the
+End justifies the Means.  I must confess that the end he seemed to
+propose to himself was great and beautiful; but the day before yesterday
+I was cruelly undeceived.  I was awakened, as it were, by a thunder-peal.
+Oh, my dear young lady!" added Rodin, with a sort of embarrassment and
+confusion, "let us talk no more of my fatal journey to Cardoville.
+Though I was only an ignorant and blind instrument, I feel as ashamed and
+grieved at it as if I had acted for myself.  It weighs upon me, it
+oppresses me.  I entreat you, let us speak rather of yourself, and of
+what interests you--for the soul expands with generous thoughts, even as
+the breast is dilated in pure and healthful air."
+
+Rodin had confessed his fault so spontaneously, he explained it so
+naturally, he appeared to regret it so sincerely, that Adrienne, whose
+suspicions had no other grounds, felt her distrust a good deal
+diminished.
+
+"So," she resumed, still looking attentively at Rodin, "it was at
+Cardoville that you saw Prince Djalma?"
+
+"Yes, madame; and my affection for him dates from that interview.
+Therefore I will accomplish my task.  Be satisfied, my dear young lady;
+like you, like Marshal Simon's daughters, the prince shall avoid being
+the victim of this detestable plot, which unhappily does not stop there."
+
+"And who besides, then, is threatened?"
+
+"M. Hardy, a man full of honor and probity, who is also your relation,
+and interested in this inheritance, but kept away from Paris by infamous
+treachery.  And another heir, an unfortunate artisan, who falling into a
+trap cleverly baited, has been thrown into a prison for debt."
+
+"But, sir," said Adrienne, suddenly, "for whose advantage was this
+abominable plot, which really alarms me, first devised?"
+
+"For the advantage of Abbe d'Aigrigny," answered Rodin.
+
+"How, and by what right!  Was he also an heir?"
+
+"It would take too long to explain it to you, my dear young lady.  You
+will know all one day.  Only be convinced that your family has no more
+bitter enemy that Abbe d'Aigrigny."
+
+"Sir," said Adrienne, giving way to one last suspicion, "I will speak
+frankly to you.  How can I have deserved the interest that you seem to
+take in me, and that you even extend to all the members of my family?"
+
+"My dear young lady," answered Rodin, with a smile, "were I to tell you
+the cause, you would only laugh at, or misapprehend me."
+
+"Speak, I beg of you, sir.  Do not mistrust me or yourself."
+
+"Well, then, I became interested in you--devoted to you--because your
+heart is generous, your mind lofty, your character independent and proud.
+Once attached to you, those of your race, who are indeed themselves
+worthy of interest, were no longer indifferent to me.  To serve them was
+to serve you also."
+
+"But, sir--admitting that you suppose me worthy of the too flattering
+praises you bestow upon me--how could you judge of my heart, my mind, my
+character?"
+
+"I will tell you, my dear young lady; but first I must make another
+confession, that fills me with shame.  If you were not even so
+wonderfully endowed, what you have suffered in this house should suffice
+to command the interest of every honest man--don't you think so?"
+
+"I do think it should, sir."
+
+"I might thus explain the interest I feel in you.  But no--I confess it--
+that would not have sufficed with me.  Had you been only Mdlle. de
+Cardoville--a rich, noble, beautiful young lady--I should doubtless have
+pitied your misfortune; but I should have said to myself, 'This poor
+young lady is certainly much to be pitied; but what can I, poor man, do
+in it?  My only resource is my post of secretary to the Abbe d'Aigrigny,
+and he would be the first that must be attacked.  He is all-powerful, and
+I am nothing.  To engage in a struggle with him would be to ruin myself,
+without the hope of saving this unfortunate person.' But when I learnt
+what you were, my dear young lady, I revolted, in spite of my
+inferiority.  `No,' I said, `a thousand times, no!  So fine an intellect,
+so great a heart, shall not be the victims of an abominable plot.  I may
+perish in the struggle, but I will at least make the attempt.'"
+
+No words can paint the mixture of delicacy, energy, and sensibility with
+which Rodin uttered these sentiments.  As it often happens with people
+singularly repulsive and ill-favored, if they can once bring you to
+forget their ugliness, their very deformity becomes a source of interest
+and commiseration, and you say to yourself, "What a pity that such a
+mind, such a soul, should inhabit so poor a body!"--and you are touched
+and softened by the contrast.
+
+It was thus that Mdlle. de Cardoville began to look upon Rodin.  He had
+shown himself as simple and affectionate towards her as he had been
+brutal and insolent to Dr. Baleinier.  One thing only excited the lively
+curiosity of Mdlle. de Cardoville--she wished to know how Rodin had
+conceived the devotion and admiration which she seemed to inspire.
+
+"Forgive my indiscreet and obstinate curiosity, sir, but I wish to
+know--"
+
+"How you were morally revealed to me--is it not so?  Oh, my dear young
+lady! nothing is more simple.  I will explain it to you in two words.
+The Abbe d'Aigrigny saw in me nothing but a writing-machine, an obtuse,
+mute, blind instrument--"
+
+"I thought M. d'Aigrigny had more penetration."
+
+"And you are right, my dear young lady; he is a man of unparalleled
+sagacity; but I deceived him by affecting more than simplicity.  Do not,
+therefore, think me false.  No; I am proud in my manner--and my pride
+consists in never appearing above my position, however subaltern it may
+be!  Do you know why?  It is that, however haughty may be my superiors, I
+can say to myself, `They do not know my value.  It is the inferiority of
+my condition, not me, that they humiliate.' By this I gain doubly--my
+self-love is spared, and I hate no one."
+
+"Yes, I understand that sort of pride," said Adrienne, more and more
+struck with Rodin's original turn of mind.
+
+"But let us return to what concerns you, my dear young lady.  On the eve
+of the 13th of February, the Abbe d'Aigrigny delivered to me a paper in
+shorthand, and said to me, `Transcribe this examination; you may add that
+it is to support the decision of a family council, which has declared, in
+accordance with the report of Dr. Baleinier, the state of mind of Mdlle.
+de Cardoville to be sufficiently alarming to render it necessary to
+confine her in a lunatic asylum.'"
+
+"Yes," said Adrienne, with bitterness; "it related to a long interview,
+which I had with the Princess de Saint-Dizier, my aunt, and which was
+taken down without my knowledge."
+
+Behold me, then, poring over my shorthand report, and beginning to
+transcribe it.  At the end of the first ten lines, I was struck with
+stupor.  I knew not if I were awake or dreaming.  `What! mad?'  They must
+be themselves insane who dare assert so monstrous a proposition!--More
+and more interested, I continued my reading--I finished it--Oh! then,
+what shall I say?  What I felt, my dear young lady, it is impossible to
+express.  It was sympathy, delight, enthusiasm!"
+
+"Sir," said Adrienne.
+
+"Yes, my dear young lady, enthusiasm!  Let not the words shock your
+modesty.  Know that these ideas, so new, so independent, so courageous
+which you expressed to your aunt with so much brilliancy, are, without
+your being aware of it, common to you and another person, for whom you
+will one day feel the most tender and religious respect."
+
+"Of whom do you speak, sir?" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, more and more
+interested.
+
+After a moment's apparent hesitation, Rodin resumed, "No, no--it is
+useless now to inform you of it.  All I can tell you, my dear young lady,
+is that, when I had finished my reading, I ran to Abbe d'Aigrigny's, to
+convince him of the error into which he had fallen with regard to you.
+It was impossible then to find him; but yesterday morning I told him
+plainly what I thought.  He only appeared surprised to find that I could
+think at all.  He received my communications with contemptuous silence.
+I thought him deceived; I continued my remonstrances, but quite in vain.
+He ordered me to follow him to the house, where the testament of your
+ancestor was to be opened.  I was so blind with regard to the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny, that it required the successive arrivals of the soldier, of
+his son, and of Marshal Simon's father, to open my eyes thoroughly.
+Their indignation unveiled to me the extent of a conspiracy, plotted long
+ago, and carried on with terrible ability.  Then, I understood why you
+were confined here as a lunatic; why the daughters of Marshal Simon were
+imprisoned in a convent.  Then a thousand recollections returned to my
+mind; fragments of letters and statements, which had been given me to
+copy or decipher, and of which I had never been able to find the
+explanation, put me on the track of this odious machination.  To express
+then and there the sudden horror I felt at these crimes, would have been
+to ruin all.  I did not make this mistake.  I opposed cunning to cunning;
+I appeared even more eager than Abbe d'Aigrigny.  Had this immense
+inheritance been destined for me alone, I could not have shown myself
+more grasping and merciless.  Thanks to this stratagem, Abbe d'Aigrigny
+had no suspicion.  A providential accident having rescued the inheritance
+from his hands, he left the house in a state of profound consternation.
+For my part, I felt indescribable joy; for I had now the means of saving
+and avenging you, my dear young lady.  As usual, I went yesterday evening
+to my place of business.  During the absence of the abbe, it was easy for
+me to peruse the correspondence relative to the inheritance.  In this way
+I was able to unite all the threads of this immense plot.  Oh! then, my
+dear young lady, I remained, struck with horror, in presence of the
+discoveries that I made, and that I never should have made under any
+other circumstances."
+
+"What discoveries, sir?"
+
+"There are some secrets which are terrible to those who possess them.  Do
+not ask me to explain, my dear young lady; but, in this examination, the
+league formed against you and your relations, from motives of insatiable
+cupidity, appeared to me in all its dark audacity.  Thereupon, the lively
+and deep interest which I already felt for you, my dear young lady, was
+augmented greatly, and extended itself to the other innocent victims of
+this infernal conspiracy.  In spite of my weakness, I determined to risk
+all, to unmask the Abbe d'Aigrigny.  I collected the necessary proofs, to
+give my declaration before the magistrate the needful authority; and,
+this morning, I left the abbe's house without revealing to him my
+projects.  He might have employed some violent method to detain me; yet
+it would have been cowardly to attack him without warning.  Once out of
+his house, I wrote to him, that I had in my hands proof enough of his
+crimes, to attack him openly in the face of day.  I would accuse, and he
+must defend himself.  I went directly to a magistrate, and you know the
+rest."
+
+At this juncture, the door opened, and one of the nurses appeared, and
+said to Rodin: "Sir, the messenger that you and the magistrate sent to
+the Rue Brise-Miche has just come back."
+
+"Has he left the letter?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and it was taken upstairs directly."
+
+"Very well.  Leave us!"  The nurse went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+SYMPATHY.
+
+If it had been possible for Mdlle. de Cardoville to harbor any suspicion
+of the sincerity of Rodin's devotion, it must have given way before this
+reasoning, unfortunately so simple and undeniable.  How could she suppose
+the faintest complicity between the Abbe d'Aigrigny and his secretary,
+when it was the latter who completely unveiled the machinations of his
+master, and exposed them to the tribunals? when in this, Rodin went even
+further than Mdlle. de Cardoville would herself have gone?  Of what
+secret design could she suspect the Jesuit?  At worst, of a desire to
+earn by his services the profitable patronage of the young lady.
+
+And then, had he not just now protested against this supposition, by
+declaring his devotion, not to Mdlle. de Cardoville--not to the fair,
+rich, noble lady--but to the high-souled and generous girl?  Finally, as
+Rodin had said himself, could any but a miserable wretch fail to be
+interested in Adrienne's fate?  A strange mixture of curiosity, surprise,
+and interest, was joined with Mdlle. de Cardoville's feelings of
+gratitude towards Rodin.  Yet, as she recognized the superior mind under
+that humble exterior, she was suddenly struck with a grave suspicion.
+"Sir," said she to Rodin, "I always confess to the persons I esteem the
+doubts they may have inspired, so that they may justify themselves, and
+excuse me, if I am wrong."
+
+Rodin looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with surprise, as if mentally
+calculating the suspicions than she might entertain, and replied, after a
+moment's silence: "You are perhaps thinking of my journey to Cardoville,
+of my base proposals to your good and worthy bailiff?  Oh! if you--"
+
+"No, no, sir," said Adrienne, interrupting him; "you made that confession
+spontaneously, and I quite understand, that, blinded with regard to M.
+d'Aigrigny, you passively executed instructions repugnant to your
+delicacy.  But how comes it, that, with your incontestable merits, you
+have so long; occupied so mean a position in his service?"
+
+"It is true," said Rodin, with a smile; "that must impress you
+unfavorably, my dear young lady; for a man of any capacity, who remains
+long in an inferior condition, has evidently some radical vice, some bad
+or base passion--"
+
+"It is generally true, sir."
+
+"And personally true--with regard to myself."
+
+"What, sir! do you make this avowal?"
+
+"Alas!  I confess that I have a bad passion, to which, for forty years, I
+have sacrificed all chances of attaining to a better position."
+
+"And this passion, sir?"
+
+"Since I must make the unpleasant avowal, this passion is indolence--yes,
+indolence--the horror of all activity of mind, of all moral
+responsibility, of taking the lead in anything.  With the twelve hundred
+francs that Abbe d'Aigrigny gave me, I was the happiest man in the world;
+I trusted to the nobleness of his views; his thoughts became mine, his
+wishes mine.  My work once finished, I returned to my poor little
+chamber, I lighted my fire, I dined on vegetables--then, taking up some
+book of philosophy, little known, and dreaming over it, I gave free
+course to my imagination, which, restrained all the day long, carried me
+through numberless theories to a delicious Utopia.  Then, from the
+eminences of my intelligence, lifted up Lord knows whither, by the
+audacity of my thoughts, I seemed to look down upon my master, and upon
+the great men of the earth.  This fever lasted for three or four hours,
+after which I had a good sleep; and, the next morning, I went lightly to
+my work, secure of my daily bread, without cares for the future, living
+content with little, waiting with impatience for the delights of my
+solitary evening, and saying to myself as I went on writing like a stupid
+machine: `And yet--and yet--if I chose!'--"
+
+"Doubtless, you could, like others, surer than others, have reached a
+higher position," said Adrienne, greatly struck with Rodin's practical
+philosophy.
+
+"Yes, I think I could have done so; but for what purpose?--You see, my
+dear young lady, what often renders people of some merit puzzles to the
+vulgar, is that they are frequently content to say: 'If I chose!'"
+
+"But, sir, without attaching much importance to the luxuries of life,
+there is a certain degree of comfort, which age renders almost
+indispensable, and which you seem to have utterly renounced."
+
+"Undeceive yourself, if you please, my dear young lady," said Rodin, with
+a playful smile.  "I am a true Sybarite; I require absolutely warm
+clothes, a good stove, a soft mattress, a good piece of bread, a fresh
+radish, flavored with good cheap salt, and some good, clear water; and,
+notwithstanding this complication of wants, my twelve hundred francs have
+always more than sufficed, for I have been able to make some little
+savings."
+
+"But now that you are without employment, how will you manage to live,
+sir?" said Adrienne, more and more interested by the singularities of
+this man, and wishing to put his disinterestedness to the proof.
+
+"I have laid by a little, which will serve me till I have unravelled the
+last thread of Father d'Aigrigny's dark designs.  I owe myself this
+reparation, for having been his dupe; three or four days, I hope, will
+complete the work.  After that, I have the certainty of meeting with a
+situation, in my native province, under a collector of taxes: some time
+ago, the offer was made me by a friend; but then I would not leave Father
+d'Aigrigny, notwithstanding the advantages proposed.  Fancy, my dear
+young lady--eight hundred francs, with board and lodging!  As I am a
+little of the roughest, I should have preferred lodging apart; but, as
+they give me so much, I must submit to this little inconvenience."
+
+Nothing could exceed Rodin's ingenuity, in making these little household
+confidences (so abominably false) to Mdlle. de Cardoville, who felt her
+last suspicions give way.
+
+"What, sir?" said she to the Jesuit, with interest; "in three or four
+days, you mean to quit Paris?"
+
+"I hope to do so, my dear young lady; and that," added he, in a
+mysterious tone, "and that for many reasons.  But what would be very
+precious to me," he resumed, in a serious voice, as he looked at Adrienne
+with emotion, "would be to carry with me the conviction, that you did me
+the justice to believe, that, on merely reading your interview with the
+Princess de Saint-Dizier, I recognized at once qualities quite unexampled
+in our day, in a young person of your age and condition."
+
+"Ah, sir!" said Adrienne, with a smile, "do not think yourself obliged to
+return so soon the sincere praises that I bestowed on your superiority of
+mind.  I should be better pleased with ingratitude."
+
+"Oh, no!  I do not flatter you, my dear young lady.  Why should I?  We
+may probably never meet again.  I do not flatter you; I understand you--
+that's all--and what will seem strange to you, is, that your appearance
+complete, the idea which I had already formed of you, my dear young lady,
+in reading your interview with your aunt: and some parts of your
+character, hitherto obscure to me, are now fully displayed."
+
+"Really, sir, you astonish me more and more."
+
+"I can't help it!  I merely describe my impressions.  I can now explain
+perfectly, for example, your passionate love of the beautiful, your eager
+worship of the refinements of the senses, your ardent aspirations for a
+better state of things, your courageous contempt of many degrading and
+servile customs, to which woman is condemned; yes, now I understand the
+noble pride with which you contemplate the mob of vain, self-sufficient,
+ridiculous men, who look upon woman as a creature destined for their
+service, according to the laws made after their own not very handsome
+image.  In the eyes of these hedge-tyrants, woman, a kind of inferior
+being to whom a council of cardinals deigned to grant a soul by a
+majority of two voices, ought to think herself supremely happy in being
+the servant of these petty pachas, old at thirty, worn-out, used up,
+weary with excesses, wishing only for repose, and seeking, as they say,
+to make an end of it, which they set about by marrying some poor girl,
+who is on her side desirous to make a beginning."
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville would certainly have smiled at these satirical
+remarks, if she had not been greatly struck by hearing Rodin express in
+such appropriate terms her own ideas, though it was the first time in her
+life that she saw this dangerous man.  Adrienne forgot, or rather, she
+was not aware, that she had to deal with a Jesuit of rare intelligence,
+uniting the information and the mysterious resources of the police-spy
+with the profound sagacity of the confessor; one of those diabolic
+priests, who, by the help of a few hints, avowals, letters, reconstruct a
+character, as Cuvier could reconstruct a body from zoological fragments.
+Far from interrupting Rodin, Adrienne listened to him with growing
+curiosity.  Sure of the effect he produced, he continued, in a tone of
+indignation: "And your aunt and the Abbe d'Aigrigny treated you as mad,
+because you revolted against the yoke of such tyrants! because, hating
+the shameful vices of slavery, you chose to be independent with the
+suitable qualities of independence, free with the proud virtues of
+liberty!"
+
+"But, sir," said Adrienne, more and more surprised, "how can my thoughts
+be so familiar to you?"
+
+"First, I know you perfectly, thanks to your interview with the Princess
+de Saint-Dizier: and next, if it should happen that we both pursue the
+same end, though by different means," resumed Rodin, artfully, as he
+looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with an air of intelligence, "why should
+not our convictions be the same?"
+
+"I do not understand you, sir.  Of what end do you speak?"
+
+"The end pursued incessantly by all lofty, generous, independent spirits-
+-some acting, like you, my dear young lady, from passion, from instinct,
+without perhaps explaining to themselves the high mission they are called
+on to ful, fil.  Thus, for example, when you take pleasure in the most
+refined delights, when you surround yourself with all that charms the
+senses, do you think that you only yield to the attractions of the
+beautiful, to the desire of exquisite enjoyments?  No! ah, no! for then
+you would be incomplete, odiously selfish, a dry egotist, with a fine
+taste--nothing more--and at your age, it would be hideous, my dear young
+lady, it would be hideous!"
+
+"And do you really think thus severely of me?" said Adrienne, with
+uneasiness, so much influence had this man irresistibly attained over
+her.
+
+"Certainly, I should think thus of you, if you loved luxury for luxury's
+sake; but, no--quite another sentiment animates you," resumed the Jesuit.
+"Let us reason a little.  Feeling a passionate desire for all these
+enjoyments, you know their value and their need more than any one--is it
+not so?"
+
+"It is so," replied Adrienne, deeply interested.
+
+"Your gratitude and favor are then necessarily acquired by those who,
+poor, laborious, and unknown, have procured for you these marvels of
+luxury, which you could not do without?"
+
+"This feeling of gratitude is so strong in me, sir," replied Adrienne,
+more and more pleased to find herself so well understood, "that I once
+had inscribed on a masterpiece of goldsmith's work, instead of the name
+of the seller, that of the poor unknown artist who designed it, and who
+has since risen to his true place."
+
+"There you see, I was not deceived," went on Rodin; "the taste for
+enjoyment renders you grateful to those who procure it for you; and that
+is not all; here am I, an example, neither better nor worse than my
+neighbors, but accustomed to privations, which cause me no suffering--so
+that the privations of others necessarily touch me less nearly than they
+do you, my dear young lady; for your habits of comfort must needs render
+you more compassionate towards misfortune.  You would yourself suffer too
+much from poverty, not to pity and succor those who are its victims."
+
+"Really, sir," said Adrienne, who began to feel herself under the fatal
+charm of Rodin, "the more I listen to you, the more I am convinced that
+you would defend a thousand times better than I could those ideas for
+which I was so harshly reproached by Madame de Saint-Dizier and Abbe
+d'Aigrigny.  Oh! speak, speak, sir!  I cannot tell you with what
+happiness, with what pride I listen."
+
+Attentive and moved, her eyes fixed on the Jesuit with as much interest
+as sympathy and curiosity, Adrienne, by a graceful toss of the head that
+was habitual to her, threw hack her long, golden curls, the better to
+contemplate Rodin, who thus resumed: "You are astonished, my dear young
+lady, that you were not understood by your aunt or by Abbe d'Aigrigny!
+What point of contact had you with these hypocritical, jealous, crafty
+minds, such as I can judge them to be now?  Do you wish a new proof of
+their hateful blindness?  Among what they called your monstrous follies,
+which was the worst, the most damnable?  Why, your resolution to live
+alone and in your own way, to dispose freely of the present and the
+future.  They declared this to be odious, detestable, immoral.  And yet--
+was this resolution dictated by a mad love of liberty? no!--by a
+disordered aversion to all restraint?  no!--by the desire of singularity?
+--no!--for then I, too, should have blamed you severely."
+
+"Other reasons have indeed guided me, sir, I assure you," said Adrienne
+eagerly, for she had become very eager for the esteem with which her
+character might inspire Rodin.
+
+"Oh! I know it well; your motives could only be excellent ones," replied
+the Jesuit.  "Why then did you take this resolution, so much called in
+question?  Was it to brave established etiquette? no! for you respected
+them until the hate of Mme. de Saint-Dizier forced you to withdraw
+yourself from her unbearable guardianship.  Was it to live alone, to
+escape the eyes of the world? no! you would be a hundred times more open
+to observation in this than any other condition.  Was it to make a bad
+use of your liberty? no, ah, no! those who design evil seek for darkness
+and solitude; while you place yourself right before the jealous anal
+envious eyes of the vulgar crowd.  Why then do you take this
+determination, so courageous and rare, unexampled in a young person of
+your age?  Shall I tell you, my dear young lady?  It is, that you wish to
+prove, by your example, that a woman of pure heart and honest mind, with
+a firm character and independence of soul, may nobly and proudly throw
+off the humiliating guardianship that custom has imposed upon her.  Yes,
+instead of accepting the fate of a revolted slave, a life only destined
+to hypocrisy or vice, you wish to live freely in presence of all the
+world, independent, honorable, and respected.  You wish to have, like
+man, the exercise of your own free will, the entire responsibility of all
+your actions, so as to establish the fact, that a woman left completely
+to herself, may equal man in reason, wisdom, uprightness, and surpass him
+indelicacy and dignity.  That is your design, my dear young lady.  It is
+noble and great.  Will your example be imitated?  I hope it may; but
+whether it be so or not, your generous attempt, believe me, will place
+you in a high and worthy position."
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville's eyes shone with a proud and gentle brightness, her
+cheeks were slightly colored, her bosom heaved, she raised her charming
+head with a movement of involuntary pride; at length completely under the
+charm of that diabolical man she exclaimed: "But, sir, who are you that
+can thus know and analyze my most secret thoughts, and read my soul more
+clearly than myself, so as to give new life and action to those ideas of
+independence which have long stirred within me?  Who are you, that can
+thus elevate me in my own eyes, for now I am conscious of accomplishing a
+mission, honorable to myself, and perhaps useful to my sisters immersed
+in slavery?  Once again, sir, who are you?"
+
+"Who am I, madame?" answered Rodin, with a smile of the greatest good-
+nature; "I have already told you that I am a poor old man, who for the
+last forty years, having served in the day time as a writing machine to
+record the ideas of others, went home every evening to work out ideas of
+his own--a good kind of man who, from his garret, watches and even takes
+some little share in the movement of generous spirits, advancing towards
+an end that is nearer than is commonly thought.  And thus, my dear young
+lady, as I told you just now, you and I are both tending towards the same
+objects, though you may do the same without reflection, and merely in
+obedience to your rare and divine instincts.  So continue so to live,
+fair, free, and happy!--it is your mission--more providential than you
+may think it.  Yes; continue to surround yourself with all the marvels of
+luxury and art; refine your senses, purify your tastes, by the exquisite
+choice of your enjoyments; by genius, grace, and purity raise yourself
+above the stupid and ill-favored mob of men, that will instantly surround
+you, when they behold you alone and free; they will consider you an easy
+prey, destined to please their cupidity, their egotism, their folly.
+
+Laugh at them, and mock these idiotic and sordid pretensions.  Be the
+queen of your own world, and make yourself respected as a queen.  Love--
+shine--enjoy--it is your part upon earth.  All the flowers, with which
+you are whelmed in profusion, will one day bear fruit.  You think that
+you have lived only for pleasure; in reality, you will have lived for the
+noblest aims that could tempt a great and lofty soul.  And so--some years
+hence--we may meet again, perhaps; you, fairer and more followed than
+ever; I, older and more obscure.  But, no matter--a secret voice, I am
+sure, says to you at this moment, that between us two, however different,
+there exists an invisible bond, a mysterious communion, which nothing
+hereafter will ever be able to destroy!"
+
+He uttered these final words in a tone of such profound emotion, that
+Adrienne started.  Rodin had approached without her perceiving it, and
+without, as it were, walking at all, for he dragged his steps along the
+floor, with a sort of serpent motion; and he had spoken with so much
+warmth and enthusiasm, that his pale face had become slightly tinged, and
+his repulsive ugliness had almost disappeared before the brilliancy of
+his small sharp eyes, now wide open, and fixed full upon Adrienne.  The
+latter leaned forward, with half-open lips and deep-drawn breath, nor
+could she take her eyes from the Jesuit's; he had ceased to speak, and
+yet she was still listening.  The feelings of the fair young lady, in
+presence of this little old man, dirty, ugly, and poor, were
+inexplicable.  That comparison so common, and yet so true, of the
+frightful fascination of the bird by the serpent, might give some idea of
+the singular impression made upon her.  Rodin's tactics were skillful and
+sure.  Until now, Mdlle. de Cardoville had never analyzed her tastes or
+instincts.  She had followed them, because they were inoffensive and
+charming.  How happy and proud she then was sure to be to hear a man of
+superior mind not only praise these tendencies, for which she had been
+heretofore so severely blamed, but congratulate her upon them, as upon
+something great, noble, and divine!  If Rodin had only addressed himself
+to Adrienne's self-conceit, he would have failed in his perfidious
+designs, for she had not the least spark of vanity.  But he addressed
+himself to all that was enthusiastic and generous in her heart; that
+which he appeared to encourage and admire in her was really worthy of
+encouragement and admiration.  How could she fail to be the dupe of such
+language, concealing though it did such dark and fatal projects?
+
+Struck with the Jesuit's rare intelligence, feeling her curiosity greatly
+excited by some mysterious words that he had purposely uttered, hardly
+explaining to herself the strange influence which this pernicious
+counsellor already exercised over her, and animated by respectful
+compassion for a man of his age and talents placed in so precarious a
+position, Adrienne said to him, with all her natural cordiality, "A man
+of your merit and character, sir, ought not to be at the mercy of the
+caprice of circumstances.  Some of your words have opened a new horizon
+before me; I feel that, on many points, your counsels may be of the
+greatest use to me.  Moreover, in coming to fetch me from this house, and
+in devoting yourself to the service of other persons of my family, you
+have shown me marks of interest which I cannot forget without
+ingratitude.  You have lost a humble but secure situation.  Permit me--"
+
+"Not a word more, my dear young lady,"said Rodin, interrupting Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, with an air of chagrin. "I feel for you the deepest sympathy;
+I am honored by having ideas in common with you; I believe firmly that
+some day you will have to ask advice of the poor old philosopher; and,
+precisely because of all that, I must and ought to maintain towards you
+the most complete independence."
+
+"But, sir, it is I that would be the obliged party, if you deigned to
+accept what I offer."
+
+"Oh, my dear young lady," said Rodin, with a smile: "I know that your
+generosity would always know how to make gratitude light and easy; but,
+once more, I cannot accept anything from you.  One day, perhaps, you will
+know why."
+
+"One day?"
+
+"It is impossible for me to tell you more.  And then, supposing I were
+under an obligation to you, how could I tell you all that was good and
+beautiful in your actions?  Hereafter, if you are somewhat indebted to me
+for my advice, so much the better; I shall be the more ready to blame
+you, if I find anything to blame."
+
+"In this way, sir, you would forbid me to be grateful to you."
+
+"No, no," said Rodin, with apparent emotion.  "Oh, believe me! there will
+come a solemn moment, in which you may repay all, in a manner worthy of
+yourself and me."
+
+This conversation was here interrupted by the nurse, who said to Adrienne
+as she entered: "Madame, there is a little humpback workwoman downstairs,
+who wishes to speak to you.  As, according to the doctor's new orders,
+you are to do as you like, I have come to ask, if I am to bring her up to
+you.  She is so badly dressed, that I did not venture."
+
+"Bring her up, by all means," said Adrienne, hastily, for she had
+recognized Mother Bunch by the nurse's description.  "Bring her up
+directly."
+
+"The doctor has also left word, that his carriage is to be at your
+orders, madame; are the horses to be put to?"
+
+Yes, in a quarter of an hour," answered Adrienne to the nurse, who went
+out; then, addressing Rodin, she continued: "I do not think the
+magistrate can now be long, before he returns with Marshal Simon's
+daughters?"
+
+"I think not, my dear young lady; but who is this deformed workwoman?"
+asked Rodin, with an air of indifference.
+
+"The adopted sister of a gallant fellow, who risked all in endeavoring to
+rescue me from this house.  And, sir," said Adrienne, with emotion, "this
+young workwoman is a rare and excellent creature.  Never was a nobler
+mind, a more generous heart, concealed beneath an exterior less--"
+
+But reflecting, that Rodin seemed to unite in his own person the same
+moral and physical contrasts as the sewing-girl, Adrienne stopped short,
+and then added, with inimitable grace, as she looked at the Jesuit, who
+was somewhat astonished at the sudden pause: "No; this noble girl is not
+the only person who proves how loftiness of soul, and superiority of
+mind, can make us indifferent to the vain advantages which belong only to
+the accidents of birth or fortune."  At the moment of Adrienne speaking
+these last words, Mother Bunch entered the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+SUSPICIONS.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville sprang hastily to meet the visitor, and said to her,
+in a voice of emotion, as she extended her arms towards her: "Come--come
+--there is no grating to separate us now!"
+
+On this allusion, which reminded her how her poor, laborious hand had
+been respectfully kissed by the fair and rich patrician, the young
+workwoman felt a sentiment of gratitude, which was at once ineffable and
+proud.  But, as she hesitated to respond to the cordial reception,
+Adrienne embraced her with touching affection.  When Mother Bunch found
+herself clasped in the fair arms of Mdlle. de Cardoville, when she felt
+the fresh and rosy lips of the young lady fraternally pressed to her own
+pale and sickly cheek, she burst into tears without being able to utter a
+word.  Rodin, retired in a corner of the chamber, locked on this scene
+with secret uneasiness.  Informed of the refusal, so full of dignity,
+which Mother Bunch had opposed to the perfidious temptations of the
+superior of St. Mary's Convent, and knowing the deep devotion of this
+generous creature for Agricola--a devotion which for some days she had so
+bravely extended to Mdlle. de Cardoville--the Jesuit did not like to see
+the latter thus laboring to increase that affection.  He thought, wisely,
+that one should never despise friend or enemy, however small they may
+appear.  Now, devotion to Mdlle. de Cardoville constituted an enemy in
+his eyes; and we know, moreover, that Rodin combined in his character
+rare firmness, with a certain degree of superstitious weakness, and he
+now felt uneasy at the singular impression of fear which Mother Bunch
+inspired in him.  He determined to recollect this presentiment.
+
+Delicate natures sometimes display in the smallest things the most
+charming instincts of grace and goodness.  Thus, when the sewing-girl was
+shedding abundant and sweet tears of gratitude, Adrienne took a richly
+embroidered handkerchief, and dried the pale and melancholy face.  This
+action, so simple and spontaneous, spared the work-girl one humiliation;
+for, alas! humiliation and suffering are the two gulfs, along the edge of
+which misfortune continually passes.  Therefore, the least kindness is in
+general a double benefit to the unfortunate.  Perhaps the reader may
+smile in disdain at the puerile circumstance we mention.  But poor Mother
+Bunch, not venturing to take from her pocket her old ragged handkerchief,
+would long have remained blinded by her tears, if Mdlle. de Cardoville
+had not come to her aid.
+
+"Oh! you are so good--so nobly charitable, lady!" was all that the
+sempstress could say, in a tone of deep emotion; for she was still more
+touched by the attention of the young lady, than she would perhaps have
+been by a service rendered.
+
+"Look there, sir," said Adrienne to Rodin, who drew near hastily.  "Yes,"
+added the young patrician, proudly, "I have indeed discovered a treasure.
+Look at her, sir; and love her as I love her, honor as I honor.  She has
+one of those hearts for which we are seeking."
+
+"And which, thank heaven, we are still able to find, my dear young lady!"
+said Rodin, as he bowed to the needle-woman.
+
+The latter raised her eyes slowly, and locked at the Jesuit.  At sight of
+that cadaverous countenance, which was smiling benignantly upon her, the
+young girl started.  It was strange! she had never seen this man, and yet
+she felt instantly the same fear and repulsion that he had felt with
+regard to her.  Generally timid and confused, the work-girl could not
+withdraw her eyes from Rodin's; her heart beat violently, as at the
+coming of some great danger, and, as the excellent creature feared only
+for those she loved, she approached Adrienne involuntarily, keeping her
+eyes fixed on Rodin.  The Jesuit was too good a physiognomist not to
+perceive the formidable impression he had made, and he felt an increase
+of his instinctive aversion for the sempstress.  Instead of casting down
+his eyes, he appeared to examine her with such sustained attention, that
+Mdlle. de Cardoville was astonished at it.
+
+"I beg your pardon, my dear girl," said Rodin, as if recalling his
+recollections, and addressing himself to Mother Bunch, "I beg your
+pardon--but I think--if I am not deceived--did you not go a few days
+since to St. Mary's Convent, hard by?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"No doubt, it was you.  Where then was my head?" cried Rodin.  "It was
+you--I should have guessed it sooner."
+
+"Of what do you speak, sir?" asked Adrienne.
+
+"Oh! you are right, my dear young lady," said Rodin, pointing to the
+hunchback.  "She has indeed a noble heart, such as we seek.  If you knew
+with what dignity, with what courage this poor girl, who was out of work
+and, for her, to want work is to want everything--if you knew, I say,
+with what dignity she rejected the shameful wages that the superior of
+the convent was unprincipled enough to offer, on condition of her acting
+as a spy in a family where it was proposed to place her."
+
+"Oh, that is infamous!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, with disgust.  "Such
+a proposal to this poor girl--to her!"
+
+"Madame," said Mother Bunch, bitterly, "I had no work, I was poor, they
+did not know me--and they thought they might propose anything to the
+likes of me."
+
+"And I tell you," said Rodin, "that it was a double baseness on the part
+of the superior, to offer such temptation to misery, and it was doubly
+noble in you to refuse."
+
+"Sir," said the sewing-girl, with modest embarrassment.
+
+"Oh! I am not to be intimidated," resumed Rod in.  "Praise or blame, I
+speak out roughly what I think.  Ask this dear young lady," he added,
+with a glance at Adrienne.  "I tell you plainly, that I think as well of
+you as she does herself."
+
+"Believe me, dear," said Adrienne, "there are some sorts of praise which
+honor, recompense, and encourage; and M. Rodin's is of the number.  I
+know it,--yes, I know it."
+
+"Nay, my dear young lady, you must not ascribe to me all the honor of
+this judgment."
+
+"How so, sir?"
+
+"Is not this dear girl the adopted sister of Agricola Baudoin, the
+gallant workman, the energetic and popular poet?  Is not the affection of
+such a man the best of guarantees, and does it not enable us to judge, as
+it were, by the label?" added Rodin, with a smile.
+
+"You are right, sir," said Adrienne; "for, before knowing this dear girl,
+I began to feel deeply interested in her, from the day that her adopted
+brother spoke to me about her.  He expressed himself with so much warmth,
+so much enthusiasm, that I at once conceived an esteem for the person
+capable of inspiring so noble an attachment."
+
+These words of Adrienne, joined to another circumstance, had such an
+effect upon their hearer, that her pale face became crimson.  The
+unfortunate hunchback loved Agricola, with love as passionate as it was
+secret and painful: the most indirect allusion to this fatal sentiment
+occasioned her the most cruel embarrassment.  Now, the moment Mdlle. de
+Cardoville spoke of Agricola's attachment for Mother Bunch, the latter
+had encountered Rodin's observing and penetrating look fixed upon her.
+Alone with Adrienne, the sempstress would have felt only a momentary
+confusion on hearing the name of the smith; but unfortunately she fancied
+that the Jesuit, who already filled her with involuntary fear, had seen
+into her heart, and read the secrets of that fatal love, of which she was
+the victim.  Thence the deep blushes of the poor girl, and the
+embarrassment so painfully visible, that Adrienne was struck with it.
+
+A subtle and prompt mind, like Rodin's on perceiving the smallest effect,
+immediately seeks the cause.  Proceeding by comparison, the Jesuit saw on
+one side a deformed, but intelligent young girl, capable of passionate
+devotion; on the other, a young workman, handsome, bold, frank, and full
+of talent.  "Brought up together, sympathizing with each other on many
+points, there must be some fraternal affection between them," said he to
+himself; "but fraternal affection does not blush, and the hunchback
+blushed and grew troubled beneath my look; does she, then, Love
+Agricola?"
+
+Once on the scent of this discovery, Rodin wished to pursue the
+investigation.  Remarking the surprise and visible uneasiness that Mother
+Bunch had caused in Adrienne, he said to the latter, with a smile,
+looking significantly at the needlewoman: "You see, my dear young lady,
+how she blushes.  The good girl is troubled by what we said of the
+attachment of this gallant workman."
+
+The needlewoman hung down her head, overcome with confusion.  After the
+pause of a second, during which Rodin preserved silence, so as to give
+time for his cruel remark to pierce the heart of the victim, the savage
+resumed: "Look at the dear girl! how embarrassed she appears!"
+
+Again, after another silence, perceiving that Mother Bunch from crimson
+had become deadly pale, and was trembling in all her limbs, the Jesuit
+feared he had gone too far, whilst Adrienne said to her friend, with
+anxiety: "Why, dear child, are you so agitated?"
+
+"Oh! it is clear enough," resumed Rodin, with an air of perfect
+simplicity; for having discovered what he wished to know, he now chose to
+appear unconscious.  "It is quite clear and plain.  This good girl has
+the modesty of a kind and tender sister for a brother.  When you praise
+him, she fancies that she is herself praised."
+
+"And she is as modest as she is excellent," added Adrienne, taking bath
+of the girl's hands, "the least praise, either of her adopted brother or
+of herself, troubles her in this way.  But it is mere childishness, and I
+must scold her for it."
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville spoke sincerely, for the explanation given by Rodin
+appeared to her very plausible.  Like all other persons who, dreading
+every moment the discovery of some painful secret have their courage as
+easily restored as shaken, Mother Bunch persuaded herself (and she needed
+to do so, to escape dying of shame), that the last words of Rodin were
+sincere, and that he had no idea of the love she felt for Agricola.  So
+her agony diminished, and she found words to reply to Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.
+
+"Excuse me, madame," she said timidly, "I am so little accustomed to such
+kindness as that with which you overwhelm me, that I make a sorry return
+for all your goodness."
+
+"Kindness, my poor girl?" said Adrienne.  "I have done nothing for you
+yet.  But, thank heaven! from this day I shall be able to keep my
+promise, and reward your devotion to me, your courageous resignation,
+your sacred love of labor, and the dignity of which you have given so
+many proofs, under the most cruel privations.  In a word, from this day,
+if you do not object to it, we will part no more."
+
+"Madame, you are too kind," said Mother Bunch, in a trembling voice;
+"but I--"
+
+"Oh! be satisfied," said Adrienne, anticipating her meaning.  "If you
+accept my offer, I shall know how to reconcile with my desire (not a
+little selfish) of having you near me, the independence of your
+character, your habits of labor, your taste for retirement, and your
+anxiety to devote yourself to those who deserve commiseration; it is, I
+confess, by affording you the means of satisfying these generous
+tendencies, that I hope to seduce and keep you by me."
+
+"But what have I done?" asked the other, simply, "to merit any gratitude
+from you?  Did you not begin, on the contrary, by acting so generously to
+my adopted brother?"
+
+"Oh! I do not speak of gratitude," said Adrienne; "we are quits.  I speak
+of friendship and sincere affection, which I now offer you."
+
+"Friendship to me, madame?"
+
+"Come, come," said Adrienne, with a charming smile, "do not be proud
+because your position gives you the advantage.  I have set my heart on
+having you for a friend, and you will see that it shall be so.  But now
+that I think of it (a little late, you will say), what good wind brings
+you hither?"
+
+"This morning M. Dagobert received a letter, in which he was requested to
+come to this place, to learn some news that would be of the greatest
+interest to him.  Thinking it concerned Marshal Simon's daughters, he
+said to me: `Mother Bunch, you have taken so much interest in those dear
+children, that you must come with me: you shall witness my joy on finding
+them, and that will be your reward.'"
+
+Adrienne glanced at Rodin.  The latter made an affirmative movement of
+the head, and answered: "Yes, yes, my dear young lady: it was I who wrote
+to the brave soldier, but without signing the letter, or giving any
+explanation.  You shall know why."
+
+"Then, my dear girl, why did you come alone?" said Adrienne.
+
+"Alas, madame! on arriving here, it was your kind reception that made me
+forget my fears."
+
+"What fears?" asked Rodin.
+
+"Knowing that you lived here, madame, I supposed the letter was from you;
+I told M. Dagobert so, and he thought the same.  When we arrived, his
+impatience was so great, that he asked at the door if the orphans were in
+this house, and he gave their description.  They told him no.  Then, in
+spite of my supplications, he insisted on going to the convent to inquire
+about them."
+
+"What imprudence!" cried Adrienne.
+
+"After what took place the other night, when he broke in," added Rodin,
+shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"It was in vain to tell him," returned Mother Bunch, "that the letter did
+not announce positively, that the orphans would be delivered up to him;
+but that, no doubt, he would gain some information about them.  He
+refused to hear anything, but said to me: `If I cannot find them, I will
+rejoin you.  But they were at the convent the day before yesterday, and
+now that all is discovered, they cannot refuse to give them up--"
+
+"And with such a man there is no disputing!" said Rodin, with a smile.
+
+"I hope they will not recognize him!" said Adrienne, remembering
+Baleinier's threats.
+
+"It is not likely," replied Rodin; "they will only refuse him admittance.
+That will be, I hope, the worst misfortune that will happen.  Besides,
+the magistrate will soon be here with the girls.  I am no longer wanted:
+other cares require my attention.  I must seek out Prince Djalma.  Only
+tell me, my dear young lady, where I shall find you, to keep you informed
+of my discoveries, and to take measures with regard to the young prince,
+if my inquiries, as I hope, shall be attended with success."
+
+"You will find me in my new house, Rue d'Anjou, formerly Beaulieu House.
+But now I think of it," said Adrienne, suddenly, after some moments of
+reflection, "it would not be prudent or proper, on many accounts, to
+lodge the Prince Djalma in the pavilion I occupied at Saint-Dizier House.
+I saw, some time ago, a charming little house, all furnished and ready;
+it only requires some embellishments, that could be completed in twenty-
+four hours, to make it a delightful residence.  Yes, that will be a
+thousand times preferable," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, after a new
+interval of silence; "and I shall thus be able to preserve the strictest
+incognito."
+
+"What!" cried Rodin, whose projects would be much impeded by this new
+resolution of the young lady; "you do not wish him to know who you are?"
+
+"I wish Prince Djalma to know absolutely nothing of the anonymous friend
+who comes to his aid; I desire that my name should not be pronounced
+before him, and that he should not even know of my existence--at least,
+for the present.  Hereafter--in a month, perhaps--I will see;
+circumstances will guide me."
+
+"But this incognito," said Rodin, hiding his disappointment, "will be
+difficult to preserve."
+
+"If the prince had inhabited the lodge, I agree with you; the
+neighborhood of my aunt would have enlightened him, and this fear is one
+of the reasons that have induced me to renounce my first project.  But
+the prince will inhabit a distant quarter--the Rue Blanche.  Who will
+inform him of my secret?  One of my old friends, M. Norval--you, sir--and
+this dear girl," pointing to Mother Bunch, "on whose discretion I can
+depend as on your own, will be my only confidants.  My secret will then
+be quite safe.  Besides, we will talk further on this subject to-morrow.
+You must begin by discovering the retreat of this unfortunate young
+prince."
+
+Rodin, though much vexed at Adrienne's subtle determination with regard
+to Djalma, put the best face on the matter, and replied: "Your intentions
+shall be scrupulously fulfilled, my dear young lady; and to-morrow, with
+your leave, I hope to give you a good account of what you are pleased to
+call my providential mission."
+
+"To-morrow, then, I shall expect you with impatience," said Adrienne, to
+Rodin, affectionately.  "Permit me always to rely upon you, as from this
+day you may count upon me.  You must be indulgent with me, sir; for I see
+that I shall yet have many counsels, many services to ask of you--though
+I already owe you so much."
+
+"You will never owe me enough, my dear young lady, never enough," said
+Rodin, as he moved discreetly towards the door, after bowing to Adrienne.
+At the very moment he was going out, he found himself face to face with
+Dagobert.
+
+"Holloa! at last I have caught one!" shouted the soldier, as he seized
+the Jesuit by the collar with a vigorous hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+EXCUSES.
+
+On seeing Dagobert grasp Rodin so roughly by the collar, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville exclaimed in terror, as she advanced several steps towards the
+soldier: "In the name of Heaven, sir! what are you doing?"
+
+"What am I doing?" echoed the soldier, harshly, without relaxing his hold
+on Rodin, and turning his head towards Adrienne, whom he did not know;
+"I take this opportunity to squeeze the throat of one of the wretches in
+the band of that renegade, until he tells me where my poor children are."
+
+"You strangle me," said the Jesuit, in a stifled voice, as he tried to
+escape from the soldier.
+
+"Where are the orphans, since they are not here, and the convent door has
+been closed against me?" cried Dagobert, in a voice of thunder.
+
+"Help! help!" gasped Rodin.
+
+"Oh! it is dreadful!" said Adrienne, as, pale and trembling, she held up
+her clasped hands to Dagobert.  "Have mercy, sir! listen to me! listen to
+him!"
+
+"M. Dagobert!" cried Mother Bunch, seizing with her weak hands the
+soldier's arm, and showing him Adrienne, "this is Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+What violence in her presence! and then, you are deceived doubtless!"
+
+At the name of Mdlle. de Cardoville, the benefactress of his son, the
+soldier turned round suddenly, and loosened his hold on Rodin.  The
+latter, crimson with rage and suffocation, set about adjusting his collar
+and his cravat.
+
+"I beg your pardon, madame," said Dagobert, going towards Adrienne, who
+was still pale with fright; "I did not known who you were, and the first
+impulse of anger quite carried me away."
+
+"But what has this gentleman done to you?" said Adrienne.  "If you had
+listened to me, you would have learned "
+
+"Excuse me if I interrupt you, madame," said the soldier to Adrienne, in
+a hollow voice.  Then addressing himself to Rodin, who had recovered his
+coolness, he added: "Thank the lady, and begone!--If you remain here, I
+will not answer for myself."
+
+"One word only, my dear sir," said Rodin.
+
+"I tell you that if you remain, I will not answer for myself!" cried
+Dagobert, stamping his foot.
+
+"But, for heaven's sake, tell me the cause of this anger," resumed
+Adrienne; "above all, do not trust to appearances.  Calm yourself, and
+listen."
+
+"Calm myself, madame!" cried Dagobert, in despair; "I can think only of
+one thing, ma dame--of the arrival of Marshal Simon--he will be in Paris
+to-day or to-morrow."
+
+"Is it possible?" said Adrienne.  Rodin started with surprise and joy.
+
+"Yesterday evening," proceeded Dagobert, "I received a letter from the
+marshal: he has landed at Havre.  For three days I have taken step after
+step, hoping that the orphans would be restored to me, as the
+machinations of those wretches have failed."  He pointed to Rodin with a
+new gesture of impatience.  "Well! it is not so.  They are conspiring
+some new infamy.  I am prepared for anything."
+
+"But, sir," said Rodin advancing, "permit me--"
+
+"Begone!" cried Dagobert, whose irritation and anxiety redoubled, as he
+thought how at any moment Marshal Simon might arrive in Paris.  "Begone!
+Were it not for this lady, I would at least be revenged on some one."
+
+Rodin made a nod of intelligence to Adrienne, whom he approached
+prudently, and, pointing to Dagobert with a gesture of affectionate
+commiseration, he said to the latter:  "I will leave you, sir, and the
+more willingly, as I was about to withdraw when you entered."  Then,
+coming still closer to Mdlle. de Cardoville, the Jesuit whispered to her,
+"Poor soldier! he is beside himself with grief, and would be incapable of
+hearing me.  Explain it all to him, my dear young lady; he will be nicely
+caught," added he, with a cunning air.  "But in the meantime," resumed
+Rodin, feeling in the side-pocket of his great-coat and taking out a
+small parcel, "let me beg you to give him this, my dear young lady.  It
+is my revenge, and a very good one."
+
+And while Adrienne, holding the little parcel in her hand looked at the
+Jesuit with astonishment, the latter laying his forefinger upon his lip,
+as if recommending silence, drew backward on tiptoe to the door, and went
+out after again pointing to Dagobert with a gesture of pity; while the
+soldier, in sullen dejection, with his head drooping, and his arms
+crossed upon his bosom, remained deaf to the sewing-girl's earnest
+consolations.  When Rodin had left the room, Adrienne, approaching the
+soldier, said to him, in her mild voice, with an expression of deep
+interest, "Your sudden entry prevented my asking you a question that
+greatly concerns me.  How is your wound?"
+
+"Thank you, madame," said Dagobert, starting from his painful lethargy,
+"it is of no consequence, but I have not time to think of it.  I am sorry
+to have been so rough in your presence, and to have driven away that
+wretch; but 'tis more than I could master.  At sight of those people, my
+blood is all up."
+
+"And yet, believe me, you have been too hasty in your judgment.  The
+person who was just now here--"
+
+"Too hasty, madame!  I do not see him to-day for the first time.  He was
+with that renegade the Abbe d'Aigrigny--"
+
+"No doubt!--and yet he is an honest and excellent man."
+
+"He!" cried Dagobert.
+
+"Yes; for at this moment he is busy about only one thing restoring to you
+those dear children!"
+
+"He!" repeated Dagobert, as if he could not believe what he heard.  "He
+restore me my children?"
+
+"Yes; and sooner, perhaps, than you think for."
+
+"Madame," said Dagobert, abruptly, "he deceives you.  You are the dupe of
+that old rascal."
+
+"No," said Adrienne, shaking her head, with a smile.  "I have proofs of
+his good faith.  First of all, it is he who delivers me from this house."
+
+"Is it true?" said Dagobert, quite confounded.
+
+"Very true; and here is, perhaps, something that will reconcile you to
+him," said Adrienne, as she delivered the small parcel which Rodin had
+given her as he went out.  "Not wishing to exasperate you by his
+presence, he said to me: `Give this to that brave soldier; it is my
+revenge.'"
+
+Dagobert looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with surprise, as he mechanically
+opened the little parcel.  When he had unfolded it, and discovered his
+own silver cross, black with age, and the old red, faded ribbon,
+treasures taken from him at the White Falcon Inn, at the same time as his
+papers, he exclaimed in a broken voice: "My cross! my cross!  It is my
+cross!"  In the excitement of his joy, he pressed the silver star to his
+gray moustache.
+
+Adrienne and the other were deeply affected by the emotion of the old
+soldier, who continued, as he ran towards the door by which Rodin had
+gone out: "Next to a service rendered to Marshal Simon, my wife, or son,
+nothing could be more precious to me.  And you answer for this worthy
+man, madame, and I have ill used him in your presence!  Oh! he is
+entitled to reparation, and he shall have it."
+
+So saying, Dagobert left the room precipitately, hastened through two
+other apartments, gained the staircase, and descending it rapidly,
+overtook Rodin on the lowest step.
+
+"Sir," said the soldier to him, in an agitated voice, as he seized him by
+the arm, "you must come upstairs directly."
+
+"You should make up your mind to one thing or the other, my dear sir,"
+said Rodin, stopping good-naturedly; "one moment you tell me to begone,
+and the next to return.  How are we to decide?"
+
+"Just now, sir, I was wrong; and when I am wrong, I acknowledge it.  I
+abused and ill-treated you before witnesses; I will make you my apologies
+before witnesses."
+
+"But, my dear sir--I am much obliged to you--I am in a hurry."
+
+"I cannot help your being in a hurry.  I tell you, I must have you come
+upstairs, directly--or else--or else," resumed Dagobert, taking the hand
+of the Jesuit, and pressing it with as much cordiality as emotion, "or
+else the happiness you have caused the in returning my cross will not be
+complete."
+
+"Well, then, my good friend, let us go up."
+
+"And not only have you restored me my cross, for which I have wept many
+tears, believe me, unknown to any one," cried Dagobert, much affected;
+"but the young lady told me, that, thanks to you, those poor children but
+tell me--no false joy-is it really true?--My God! is it really true?"
+
+"Ah! ah!  Mr. Inquisitive," said Rodin, with a cunning smile.  Then he
+added: "Be perfectly tranquil, my growler; you shall have your two angels
+back again."  And the Jesuit began to ascend the stairs.
+
+"Will they be restored to me to-day?" cried Dagobert, stopping Rodin
+abruptly, by catching hold of his sleeve.
+
+"Now, really, my good friend," said the Jesuit, "let us come to the
+point.  Are we to go up or down?  I do not find fault, but you turn me
+about like a teetotum."
+
+"You are right.  We shall be better able to explain things upstairs.
+Come with me--quick! quick!" said Dagobert, as, taking the Jesuit by the
+arm, he hurried him along, and brought him triumphantly into the room,
+where Adrienne and Mother Bunch had remained in much surprise at the
+soldier's sudden disappearance.
+
+"Here he is! here he is!" cried Dagobert, as he entered.  "Luckily, I
+caught him at the bottom of the stairs."
+
+"And you have made me come up at a fine pace!" added Rodin, pretty well
+out of breath.
+
+"Now, sir," said Dagobert, in a grave voice, "I declare, in presence of
+all, that I was wrong to abuse and ill-treat you.  I make you my apology
+for it, sir; and I acknowledge, with joy, that I owe you--much--oh! very
+much and when I owe, I pay."
+
+So saying, Dagobert held out his honest hand to Rodin, who pressed it in
+a very affable manner, and replied: "Now, really--what is all this about?
+What great service do you speak of?"
+
+"This!" said Dagobert, holding up the cross before Rodin's eyes.  "You do
+not know, then, what this cross is to me?"
+
+"On the contrary, supposing you would set great store by it, I intended
+to have the pleasure of delivering it myself.  I had brought it for that
+purpose; but, between ourselves, you gave me so warm a reception, that I
+had not the time--"
+
+"Sir," said Dagobert, in confusion, "I assure you that I sincerely repent
+of what I have done."
+
+"I know it, my good friend; do not say another word about it.  You were
+then much attached to this cross?"
+
+"Attached to it, sir!" cried Dagobert.  "Why, this cross," and he kissed
+it as he spoke, "is my relic.  He from whom it came was my saint--my
+hero--and he had touched it with his hand!"
+
+"Oh!" said Rodin, feigning to regard the cross with as much curiosity as
+respectful admiration; "did Napoleon--the Great Napoleon--indeed touch
+with his own hand--that victorious hand!--this noble star of honor?"
+
+"Yes, sir, with his own hand.  He placed it there upon my bleeding
+breast, as a cure for my fifth wound.  So that, you see, were I dying of
+hunger, I think I should not hesitate betwixt bread and my cross--that I
+might, in any case, have it on my heart in death.  But, enough--enough!-
+let us talk of something else.  It is foolish in an old soldier, is it
+not?" added Dagobert, drawing his hand across his eyes, and then, as if
+ashamed to deny what he really felt: "Well, then! yes," he resumed,
+raising his head proudly, and no longer seeking to conceal the tears that
+rolled down his cheek; "yes, I weep for joy, to have found my cross--my
+cross, that the Emperor gave me with his victorious hand, as this worthy
+man has called it."
+
+"Then blessed be my poor old hand for having restored you the glorious
+treasure!" said Rodin, with emotion.  "In truth," he added, "the day will
+be a good one for everybody--as I announced to you this morning in my
+letter."
+
+"That letter without a signature?" asked the soldier, more and more
+astonished.  "Was it from you?"
+
+"It was I who wrote it.  Only, fearing some new snare of the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny, I did not choose, you understand, to explain myself more
+clearly."
+
+"Then--I shall see--my orphans?"
+
+Rodin nodded affirmatively, with an expression of great good-nature.
+
+"Presently--perhaps immediately," said Adrienne, with smile.  "Well! was
+I right in telling you that you had not judged this gentleman fairly?"
+
+"Why did he not tell me this when I came in?" cried Dagobert, almost
+beside himself with joy.
+
+"There was one difficulty in the way, my good friend," said Rodin;  "it
+was, that when you came in, you nearly throttled me."
+
+"True; I was too hasty.  Once more, I ask your pardon.  But was I to
+blame?  I had only seen you with that Abbe d'Aigrigny, and in the first
+moment--"
+
+"This dear young lady," said Rodin, bowing to Adrienne, "will tell you
+that I have been, without knowing it, the accomplice IN many perfidious
+actions; but as soon as I began to see my way through the darkness, I
+quitted the evil course on which I had entered, and returned to that
+which is honest, just and true."
+
+Adrienne nodded affirmatively to Dagobert, who appeared to consult her
+look.
+
+"If I did not sign the letter that I wrote to you, my good friend, it was
+partly from fear that my name might inspire suspicion; and if I asked you
+to come hither, instead of to the convent, it was that I had some dread--
+like this dear young lady--lest you might be recognized by the porter or
+by the gardener, your affair of the other night rendering such a
+recognition somewhat dangerous."
+
+"But M. Baleinier knows all; I forgot that," said Adrienne, with
+uneasiness.  "He threatened to denounce M. Dagobert and his son, if I
+made any complaint."
+
+"Do not be alarmed, my dear young lady; it will soon he for you to
+dictate conditions," replied Rodin.  "Leave that to me; and as for you,
+my good friend, your torments are now finished."
+
+"Yes," said Adrienne, "an upright and worthy magistrate has gone to the
+convent, to fetch Marshal Simon's daughters.  He will bring them hither;
+but he thought with me, that it would be most proper for them to take up
+their abode in my house.  I cannot, however, come to this decision
+without your consent, for it is to you that these orphans were entrusted
+by their mother."
+
+"You wish to take her place with regard to them, madame?" replied
+Dagobert.  "I can only thank you with all my heart, for myself and for
+the children.  But, as the lesson has been a sharp one, I must beg to
+remain at the door of their chamber, night and day.  If they go out with
+you, I must be allowed to follow them at a little distance, so as to keep
+them in view, just like Spoil-sport, who has proved himself a better
+guardian than myself.  When the marshal is once here--it will be in a day
+or two--my post will be relieved.  Heaven grant it may be soon!"
+
+"Yes," replied Rodin, in a firm voice, "heaven grant he may arrive soon,
+for he will have to demand a terrible reckoning of the Abbe d'Aigrigny,
+for the persecution of his daughters; and yet the marshal does not know
+all."
+
+"And don't you tremble for the renegade?" asked Dagobert, as he thought
+how the marquis would soon find himself face to face with the marshal.
+
+"I never care for cowards and traitors," answered Rodin; "and when
+Marshal Simon returns--" Then, after a pause of some seconds, he
+continued: "If he will do me the honor to hear me, he shall be edified as
+to the conduct of the Abbe d'Aigrigny.  The marshal knows that his
+dearest friends, as well as himself, have been victims of the hatred of
+that dangerous man."
+
+"How so?" said Dagobert.
+
+"Why, yourself, for instance," replied Rodin; "you are an example of what
+I advance."
+
+"Do you think it was mere chance, that brought about the scene at the
+White Falcon Inn, near Leipsic?"
+
+"Who told you of that scene?" said Dagobert in astonishment.
+
+"Where you accepted the challenge of Morok," continued the Jesuit,
+without answering Dagobert's question, "and so fell into a trap, or else
+refused it, and were then arrested for want of papers, and thrown into
+prison as a vagabond, with these poor children.  Now, do you know the
+object of this violence?  It was to prevent your being here on the 13th
+of February."
+
+"But the more I hear, sir," said Adrienne, "the more I am alarmed at the
+audacity of the Abbe d'Aigrigny, and the extent of the means he has at
+his command.  Really," she resumed, with increasing surprise, "if your
+words were not entitled to absolute belief--"
+
+"You would doubt their truth, madame?" said Dagobert.  "It is like me.
+Bad as he is.  I cannot think that this renegade had relations with a
+wild-beast showman as far off as Saxony; and then, how could he know that
+I and the children were to pass through Leipsic?  It is impossible, my
+good man."
+
+"In fact, sir," resumed Adrienne, "I fear that you are deceived by your
+dislike (a very legitimate one) of Abbe d'Aigrigny, and that you ascribe
+to him an almost fabulous degree of power and extent of influence."
+
+After a moment's silence, during which Rodin looked first at Adrienne and
+then at Dagobert, with a kind of pity, he resumed.  "How could the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny have your cross in his possession, if he had no connection
+with Morok?"
+
+"That is true, sir," said Dagobert; "joy prevented me from reflecting.
+But how indeed, did my cross come into your hands?"
+
+"By means of the Abbe d'Aigrigny's having precisely those relations with
+Leipsic, of which you and the young lady seem to doubt."
+
+"But how did my cross get to Paris?"
+
+"Tell me; you were arrested at Leipsic for want of papers--is it not so?"
+
+"Yes; but I could never understand how my passports and money disappeared
+from my knapsack.  I thought I must have had the misfortune to lose
+them."
+
+Rodin shrugged his shoulders, and replied: "You were robbed of them at
+the White Falcon Inn, by Goliath, one of Morok's servants, and the latter
+sent the papers and the cross to the Abbe d'Aigrigny, to prove that he
+had succeeded in executing his orders with respect to the orphans and
+yourself.  It was the day before yesterday, that I obtained the key of
+that dark machination.  Cross and papers were amongst the stores of Abbe
+d'Aigrigny; the papers formed a considerable bundle, and he might have
+missed them; but, hoping to see you this morning, and knowing how a
+soldier of the Empire values his cross, his sacred relic, as you call it,
+my good friend--I did not hesitate.  I put the relic into my pocket.
+`After all,' said I, `it is only restitution, and my delicacy perhaps
+exaggerates this breach of trust.'"
+
+"You could not have done a better action," said Adrienne; "and, for my
+part, because of the interest I feel for M. Dagobert--I take it as a
+personal favor.  But, sir," after a moment's silence, she resumed with
+anxiety: "What terrible power must be at the command of M. d'Aigrigny,
+for him to have such extensive and formidable relations in a foreign
+country!"
+
+"Silence!" said Rodin, in a low voice, and looking round him with an air
+of alarm.  "Silence! In heaven's name do not ask me about it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+REVELATIONS.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, much astonished at the alarm displayed by Rodin,
+when she had asked him for some explanation of the formidable and far-
+reaching power of the Abby d'Aigrigny, said to him: "Why, sir, what is
+there so strange in the question that I have just asked you?"
+
+After a moment's silence, Rodin cast his looks all around, with well-
+feigned uneasiness, and replied in a whisper: "Once more, madame, do not
+question me on so fearful a subject.  The walls of this house may have
+ears."
+
+Adrienne and Dagobert looked at each other with growing surprise.  Mother
+Bunch, by an instinct of incredible force, continued to regard Rodin with
+invincible suspicion.  Sometimes she stole a glance at him, as if trying
+to penetrate the mask of this man, who filled her with fear.  At one
+moment, the Jesuit encountered her anxious gaze, obstinately fixed upon
+him; immediately he nodded to her with the greatest amenity.  The young
+girl, alarmed at finding herself observed, turned away with a shudder.
+
+"No, no, my dear young lady," resumed Rodin, with a sigh, as he saw
+Mdlle. de Cardoville astonished at his silence; "do not question me on
+the subject of the Abbe d'Aigrigny's power!"
+
+"But, to persist, sir," said Adrienne; "why this hesitation to answer?
+What do you fear?"
+
+"Ah, my dear young lady," said Rodin, shuddering, "those people are so
+powerful! their animosity is so terrible!"
+
+"Be satisfied, sir; I owe you too much, for my support ever to fail you."
+
+"Ah, my dear young lady," cried Rodin, as if hurt by the supposition;
+"think better of me, I entreat you.  Is it for myself that I fear?--No,
+no; I am too obscure, too inoffensive; but it is for you, for Marshal
+Simon, for the other members of your family, that all is to be feared.
+Oh, my dear young lady! let me beg you to ask no questions.  There are
+secrets which are fatal to those who possess them."
+
+"But, sir, is it not better to know the perils with which one is
+threatened?"
+
+"When you know the manoeuvres of your enemy, you may at least defend
+yourself," said Dagobert.  "I prefer an attack in broad daylight to an
+ambuscade."
+
+"And I assure you," resumed Adrienne, "the few words you have spoken
+cause me a vague uneasiness."
+
+"Well, if I must, my dear young lady," replied the Jesuit, appearing to
+make a great effort, "since you do not understand my hints, I will be
+more explicit; but remember," added he, in a deeply serious tone, "that
+you have persevered in forcing me to tell you what you had perhaps better
+not have known."
+
+"Speak, Sir, I pray you speak," said Adrienne.
+
+Drawing about him Adrienne, Dagobert, and Mother Bunch, Rodin said to
+them in a low voce, and with a mysterious air: "Have you never heard of a
+powerful association, which extends its net over all the earth, and
+counts its disciples, agents, and fanatics in every class of society
+which has had, and often has still, the ear of kings and nobles--which,
+in a word, can raise its creatures to the highest positions, and with a
+word can reduce them again to the nothingness from which it alone could
+uplift them?"
+
+"Good heaven, sir!" said Adrienne, "what formidable association?  Until
+now I never heard of it."
+
+"I believe you; and yet your ignorance on this subject greatly astonishes
+me, my dear young lady."
+
+"And why should it astonish you?"
+
+"Because you lived some time with your aunt, and must have often seen the
+Abbe d'Aigrigny."
+
+"I lived at the princess's, but not with her; for a thousand reasons she
+had inspired me with warrantable aversion."
+
+"In truth, my dear young lady, my remark was ill-judged.  It was there,
+above all, and particularly in your presence, that they would keep
+silence with regard to this association--and yet to it alone did the
+Princess de Saint-Dizier owe her formidable influence in the world,
+during the last reign.  Well, then; know this--it is the aid of that
+association which renders the Abbe d'Aigrigny so dangerous a man.
+
+By it he was enabled to follow and to reach divers members of your
+family, some in Siberia, some in India, others on the heights of the
+American mountains; but, as I have told you, it was only the day before
+yesterday, and by chance, that, examining the papers of Abbe d'Aigrigny,
+I found the trace of his connection with this Company, of which he is the
+most active and able chief."
+
+"But the name, sir, the name of this Company?" said Adrienne.
+
+"Well! it is--" but Rodin stopped short.
+
+"It is," repeated Adrienne, who was now as much interested as Dagobert
+and the sempstress; "it is--"
+
+Rodin looked round him, beckoned all the actors in this scene to draw
+nearer, and said in a whisper, laying great stress upon the words: "It
+is--the Society of Jesus!" and he again shuddered.
+
+"The Jesuits!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, unable to restrain a burst of
+laughter, which was the more buoyant, as, from the mysterious precautions
+of Rodin, she had expected some very different revelation.  "The
+Jesuits!" she resumed, still laughing.  "They have no existence, except
+in books; they are frightful historical personages, certainly; but why
+should you put forward Madame de Saint-Dizier and M. d'Aigrigny in that
+character?  Such as they are, they have done quite enough to justify my
+aversion and disdain."
+
+After listening in silence to Mdlle. de Cardoville Rodin continued, with
+a grave and agitated air: "Your blindness frightens me, my dear, young
+lady; the past should have given you some anxiety for the future, since,
+more than any one, you have already suffered from the fatal influence of
+this Company, whose existence you regard as a dream!"
+
+"I, sir?" said Adrienne, with a smile, although a little surprised.
+
+"You."
+
+"Under what circumstances?"
+
+"You ask me this question! my dear young lady! you ask me this question!-
+-and yet you have been confined here as a mad person!  Is it not enough
+to tell you that the master of this house is one of the most devoted lay
+members of the Company, and therefore the blind instrument of the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny?"
+
+"So," said Adrienne, this time without smiling, "Dr. Baleinier"
+
+"Obeyed the Abbe d'Aigrigny, the most formidable chief of that formidable
+society.  He employs his genius for evil; but I must confess he is a man
+of genius.  Therefore, it is upon him that you and yours must fix all
+your doubts and suspicions; it is against him that you must be upon your
+guard.  For, believe me, I know him, and he does not look upon the game
+as lost.  You must be prepared for new attacks, doubtless of another
+kind, but only the more dangerous on that account--"
+
+"Luckily, you give us notice," said Dagobert, "and you will be on our
+side."
+
+"I can do very little, my good friends; but that little is at the service
+of honest people," said Rodin.
+
+"Now," said Adrienne, with a thoughtful air, completely persuaded by
+Rodin's air of conviction, "I can explain the inconceivable influence
+that my aunt exercised in the world.  I ascribed it chiefly to her
+relations with persons in power; I thought that she, like the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny, was concerned in dark intrigues, for which religion served as
+a veil--but I was far from believing what you tell me."
+
+"How many things you have got to learn!" resumed Rodin.  "If you knew, my
+dear young lady, with what art these people surround you, without your
+being aware of it, by agents devoted to themselves!  Every one of your
+steps is known to them, when they have any interest in such knowledge.
+Thus, little by little, they act upon you--slowly, cautiously, darkly.
+They circumvent you by every possible means, from flattery to terror--
+seduce or frighten, in order at last to rule you, without your being
+conscious of their authority.  Such is their object, and I must confess
+they pursue it with detestable ability."
+
+Rodin had spoken with so much sincerity, that Adrienne trembled; then,
+reproaching herself with these fears, she resumed: "And yet, no--I can
+never believe in so infernal a power; the might of priestly ambition
+belongs to another age.  Heaven be praised, it has disappeared forever!"
+
+"Yes, certainly, it is out of sight; for they now know how to disperse
+and disappear, when circumstances require it.  But then are they the most
+dangerous; for suspicion is laid asleep, and they keep watch in the dark.
+Oh! my dear young lady, if you knew their frightful ability!  In my
+hatred of all that is oppressive, cowardly, and hypocritical, I had
+studied the history of that terrible society, before I knew that the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny belonged to it.  Oh! it is dreadful.  If you knew what means
+they employ!  When I tell you that, thanks to their diabolical devices,
+the most pure and devoted appearances often conceal the most horrible
+snares."  Rodin's eye rested, as if by chance, on the hunchback; but,
+seeing that Adrienne did not take the hint, the Jesuit continued: "In a
+word--are you not exposed to their pursuits?--have they any interest in
+gaining you over?--oh! from that moment, suspect all that surround you,
+suspect the most noble attachments, the most tender affections, for these
+monsters sometimes succeed in corrupting your best friends, and making a
+terrible use of them, in proportion to the blindness of your confidence."
+
+"Oh! it is impossible," cried Adrienne, in horror.  "You must exaggerate.
+No! hell itself never dreamed of more frightful treachery!"
+
+"Alas, my dear young lady!  one of your relations, M. Hardy--the most
+loyal and generous-hearted man that could be--has been the victim of some
+such infamous treachery.  Do you know what we learned from the reading of
+your ancestor's will?  Why, that he died the victim of the malevolence of
+these people; and now, at the lapse of a hundred and fifty years, his
+descendants are still exposed to the hate of that indestructible
+society."
+
+"Oh, sir! it terrifies me," said Adrienne, feeling her heart sink within
+her.  "But are there no weapons against such attacks?"
+
+"Prudence, my dear young lady--the most watchful caution--the most
+incessant study and suspicion of all that approach you."
+
+"But such a life would be frightful!  It is a torture to be the victim of
+continual suspicions, doubts, and fears."
+
+"Without doubt!  They know it well, the wretches!  That constitutes their
+strength.  They often triumph by the very excess of the precautions taken
+against them.  Thus, my dear young lady, and you, brave and worthy
+soldier, in the name of all that is dear to you, be on your guard, and do
+not lightly impart your confidence.  Be on your guard, for you have
+nearly fallen the victims of those people.  They will always be your
+implacable enemies.  And you, also, poor, interesting girl!" added the
+Jesuit, speaking to Mother Bunch, "follow my advice--fear these people.
+Sleep, as the proverb says, with one eye open."
+
+"I, sir!" said the work-girl.  "What have I done? what have I to fear?"
+
+"What have you done?  Dear me!  Do not you tenderly love this young lady,
+your protectress? have you not attempted to assist her?  Are you not the
+adopted sister of the son of this intrepid soldier, the brave Agricola!
+Alas, poor, girl! are not these sufficient claims to their hatred, in
+spite of your obscurity?  Nay, my dear young lady! do not think that I
+exaggerate.  Reflect! only reflect!  Think what I have just said to the
+faithful companion-in-arms of Marshal Simon, with regard to his
+imprisonment at Leipsic.  Think what happened to yourself, when, against
+all law and reason, you were brought hither.  Then you will see, that
+there is nothing exaggerated in the picture I have drawn of the secret
+power of this Company.  Be always on your guard, and, in doubtful cases,
+do not fear to apply to me.  In three days, I have learned enough by my
+own experience, with regard to their manner of acting, to be able to
+point out to you many a snare, device, and danger, and to protect you
+from them."
+
+"In any such case, sir," replied Mdlle. de Cardoville, "my interests, as
+well as gratitude, would point to you as my best counsellor."
+
+According to the skillful tactics of the sons of Loyola, who sometimes
+deny their own existence, in order to escape from an adversary--and
+sometimes proclaim with audacity the living power of their organization,
+in order to intimidate the feeble-R-odin had laughed in the face of the
+bailiff of Cardoville, when the latter had spoken of the existence of the
+Jesuits; while now, at this moment, picturing their means of action, he
+endeavored, and he succeeded in the endeavor, to impregnate the mind of
+Mdlle. de Cardoville with some germs of doubt, which were gradually to
+develop themselves by reflection, and serve hereafter the dark projects
+that he meditated.  Mother Bunch still felt considerable alarm with
+regard to Rodin.  Yet, since she had heard the fatal powers of the
+formidable Order revealed to Adrienne, the young sempstress, far from
+suspecting the Jesuit of having the audacity to speak thus of a society
+of which he was himself a member, felt grateful to him, in spite of
+herself, for the important advice that he had just given her patroness.
+The side-glance which she now cast upon him (which Rodin also detected,
+for he watched the young girl with sustained attention), was full of
+gratitude, mingled with surprise.  Guessing the nature of this
+impression, and wishing entirely to remove her unfavorable opinion, and
+also to anticipate a revelation which would be made sooner or later, the
+Jesuit appeared to have forgotten something of great importance, and
+exclaimed, striking his forehead: "What was I thinking of?"  Then,
+speaking to Mother Bunch, he added: "Do you know where your sister is, my
+dear girl?"  Disconcerted and saddened by this unexpected question, the
+workwoman answered with a blush, for she remembered her last interview
+with the brilliant Bacchanal Queen: "I have not seen my sister for some
+days, sir."
+
+"Well, my dear girl, she is not very comfortable," said Rodin; "I
+promised one of her friends to send her some little assistance.  I have
+applied to a charitable person, and that is what I received for her."  So
+saying, he drew from his pocket a sealed roll of coin, which he delivered
+to Mother Bunch, who was now both surprised and affected.
+
+"You have a sister in trouble, and I know nothing of it?" said Adrienne,
+hastily.  "This is not right of you, my child!"
+
+"Do not blame her," said Rodin.  "First of a11, she did not know that her
+sister was in distress, and, secondly, she could not ask you, my dear
+young lady, to interest yourself about her."
+
+As Mdlle. de Cardoville looked at Rodin with astonishment, he added,
+again speaking to the hunchback: "Is not that true, my dear girl!"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the sempstress, casting down her eyes and blushing.
+Then she added, hastily and anxiously: "But when did you see my sister,
+sir? where is she? how did she fall into distress?"
+
+"All that would take too long to tell you, my dear girl; but go as soon
+as possible to the greengrocer's in the Rue Clovis, and ask to speak to
+your sister as from M. Charlemagne or M.  Rodin, which you please, for I
+am equally well known in that house by my Christian name as by my
+surname, and then you will learn all about it.  Only tell your sister,
+that, if she behaves well, and keeps to her good resolutions, there are
+some who will continue to look after her."
+
+More and more surprised, Mother Bunch was about to answer Rodin, when the
+door opened, and M. de Gernande entered.  The countenance of the
+magistrate was grave and sad.
+
+"Marshal Simon's daughters!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"Unfortunately, they are not with me," answered the judge.
+
+"Then, where are they, sir?  What have they done with them?  The day
+before yesterday, they were in the convent!" cried Dagobert, overwhelmed
+by this complete destruction of his hopes.
+
+Hardly had the soldier pronounced these words, when, profiting by the
+impulse which gathered all the actors in this scene about the magistrate,
+Rodin withdrew discreetly towards the door, and disappeared without any
+one perceiving his absence.  Whilst the soldier, thus suddenly thrown
+back to the depths of his despair, looked at M. de Gernande, waiting with
+anxiety for the answer, Adrienne said to the magistrate: "But, sir, when
+you applied at the convent, what explanation did the superior give on the
+subject of these young girls?"
+
+"The lady superior refused to give any explanation, madame.  `You
+pretend,' said she, `that the young persons of whom you speak are
+detained here against their will.  Since the law gives you the right of
+entering this house, make your search.' `But, madame, please to answer me
+positively,' said I to the superior; `do you declare, that you know
+nothing of the young girls, whom I have come to claim?' `I have nothing
+to say on this subject, sir.  You assert, that you are authorized to make
+a search: make it.' Not being able to get any other explanation,"
+continued the magistrate, "I searched all parts of the convent, and had
+every door opened--but, unfortunately, I could find no trace of these
+young ladies."
+
+"They must have sent them elsewhere," cried Dagobert; "who knows?--
+perhaps, ill.  They will kill them--O God! they will kill them!" cried
+he, in a heart-rending tone.
+
+"After such a refusal, what is to be done?  Pray, sir, give us your
+advice; you are our providence," said Adrienne, turning to speak to
+Rodin, who she fancied was behind her.  "What is your--"
+
+Then, perceiving that the Jesuit had suddenly disappeared, she said to
+Mother Bunch, with uneasiness: "Where is M. Rodin?"
+
+"I do not know, madame," answered the girl, looking round her; "he is no
+longer here."
+
+"It is strange," said Adrienne, "to disappear so abruptly!"
+
+"I told you he was a traitor!" cried Dagobert, stamping with rage; "they
+are all in a plot together."
+
+"No, no," said Mdlle. de Cardoville; "do not think that.  But the absence
+is not the less to be regretted, for, under these difficult
+circumstances, he might have given us very useful information, thanks to
+the position he occupied at M. d'Aigrigny's."
+
+"I confess, madame, that I rather reckoned upon it," said M. de Gernande;
+"and I returned hither, not only to inform you of the fruitless result of
+my search, but also to seek from the upright and honorable roan, who so
+courageously unveiled these odious machinations, the aid of his counsels
+in this contingency."
+
+Strangely enough, for the last few moments Dagobert was so completely
+absorbed in thought, that he paid no attention to the words of the
+magistrate, however important to him.  He did not even perceive the
+departure of M. de Gernande, who retired after promising Adrienne that he
+would neglect no means to arrive at the truth, in regard to the
+disappearance of the orphans.  Uneasy at this silence, wishing to quit
+the house immediately, and induce Dagobert to accompany her, Adrienne,
+after exchanging a rapid glance with Mother Bunch, was advancing towards
+the soldier, when hasty steps were heard from without the chamber, and a
+manly sonorous voice, exclaiming with impatience, "Where is he--where is
+he?"
+
+At the sound of this voice, Dagobert seemed to rouse himself with a
+start, made a sudden bound, and with a loud cry, rushed towards the door.
+It opened.  Marshal Simon appeared on the threshold!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+PIERRE SIMON.
+
+Marshal Pierre Simon, Duke de Ligny, was a man of tall stature, plainly
+dressed in a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to the throat, with a red
+ribbon tied to the top buttonhole.  You could not have wished to see a
+more frank, honest, and chivalrous cast of countenance than the
+marshal's.  He had a broad forehead, an aquiline nose, a well formed
+chin, and a complexion bronzed by exposure to the Indian sun.  His hair,
+cut very short, was inclined to gray about the temples; but his eyebrows
+were still as black as his large, hanging moustache.  His walk was free
+and bold, and his decided movements showed his military impetuosity.  A
+man of the people, a man of war and action, the frank cordiality of his
+address invited friendliness and sympathy.  As enlightened as he was
+intrepid as generous as he was sincere, his manly, plebeian pride was the
+most remarkable part of his character.  As others are proud of their high
+birth, so was he of his obscure origin, because it was ennobled by the
+fine qualities of his father, the rigid republican, the intelligent and
+laborious artisan, who, for the space of forty years, had been the
+example and the glory of his fellow-workmen.  In accepting with gratitude
+the aristocratic title which the Emperor had bestowed upon him, Pierre
+Simon acted with that delicacy which receives from a friendly hand a
+perfectly useless gift, and estimates it according to the intention of
+the giver.  The religious veneration of Pierre Simon for the Emperor had
+never been blind; in proportion as his devotion and love for his idol
+were instructive and necessary, his admiration was serious, and founded
+upon reason.  Far from resembling those swashbucklers who love fighting
+for its own sake, Marshal Simon not only admired his hero as the greatest
+captain in the world, but he admired him, above all, because he knew that
+the Emperor had only accepted war in the hope of one day being able to
+dictate universal peace; for if peace obtained by glory and strength is
+great, fruitful, and magnificent, peace yielded by weakness and cowardice
+is sterile, disastrous, and dishonoring.  The son of a workman, Pierre
+Simon still further admired the Emperor, because that imperial parvenu
+had always known how to make that popular heart beat nobly, and,
+remembering the people, from the masses of whom he first arose, had
+invited them fraternally to share in regal and aristocratic pomp.
+
+When Marshal Simon entered the room, his countenance was much agitated.
+At sight of Dagobert, a flash of joy illumined his features; he rushed
+towards the soldier, extending his arms, and exclaimed, "My friend! my
+old friend!"
+
+Dagobert answered this affectionate salute with silent emotion.  Then the
+marshal, disengaging himself from his arms, and fixing his moist eyes
+upon him, said to him in so agitated a voice that his lips trembled,
+"Well, didst arrive in time for the 13th of February?"
+
+"Yes, general; but everything is postponed for four months."
+
+"And--my wife?--my child?"  At this question Dagobert shuddered, hung
+down
+his head, and was silent.
+
+"They are not, then, here?" asked Simon, with more surprise than
+uneasiness.  "They told me they were not at your house, but that I should
+find you here--and I came immediately.  Are they not with you?"
+
+"General," said Dagobert, becoming deadly pale; "general--"  Drying the
+drops of cold sweat that stood upon his forehead, he was unable to
+articulate a word, for his voice was checked in his parched throat.
+
+"You frighten me!" exclaimed Pierre Simon, becoming pale as the soldier,
+and seizing him by the arm.
+
+At this, Adrienne advanced, with a countenance full of grief and
+sympathy; seeing the cruel embarrassment of Dagobert, she wished to come
+to his assistance, and she said to Pierre Simon, in a mild but agitated
+voice, "Marshal, I am Mdlle. de Cardoville--a relation of your dear
+children."
+
+Pierre Simon turned around suddenly, as much struck with the dazzling
+beauty of Adrienne as with the words she had just pronounced.  He
+stammered out in his surprise, "You, madame--a relation--of my children!"
+
+He laid a stress on the last words, and looked at Dagobert in a kind of
+stupor.
+
+"Yes, marshal your children," hastily replied Adrienne; "and the love of
+those charming twin sisters--"
+
+"Twin sisters!" cried Pierre Simon, interrupting Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+with an outburst of joy impossible to describe.  "Two daughters instead
+of one!  Oh! what happiness for their mother!  Pardon me, madame, for
+being so impolite," he continued; "and so little grateful for what you
+tell me.  But you will understand it; I have been seventeen years without
+seeing my wife; I come, and I find three loved beings, instead of two.
+Thanks, madame: would I could express all the gratitude I owe you!  You
+are our relation; this is no doubt your house; my wife and children are
+with you.  Is it so?  You think that my sudden appearance might be
+prejudicial to them?  I will wait--but madame, you, that I am certain are
+good as fair--pity my impatience--will make haste to prepare them to
+receive me--"
+
+More and more agitated, Dagobert avoided the marshal's gaze, and trembled
+like a leaf.  Adrienne cast down her eyes without answering.  Her heart
+sunk within her, at thought of dealing the terrible blow to Marshal
+Simon.
+
+The latter, astonished at this silence, looking at Adrienne, then at the
+soldier, became first uneasy, and at last alarmed.  "Dagobert!" he
+exclaimed, "something is concealed from me!"
+
+"General!" stammered the soldier, "I assure you--I--I--."
+
+"Madame!" cried Pierre Simon, "I conjure you, in pity, speak to me
+frankly!--my anxiety is horrible.  My first fears return upon me.  What
+is it?  Are my wife and daughters ill?  Are they in danger?  Oh! speak!
+speak!"
+
+"Your daughters, marshal," said Adrienne "have been rather unwell, since
+their long journey--but they are in no danger."
+
+"Oh, heaven! it is my wife!"
+
+"Have courage, sir!" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, sadly. "Alas! you must
+seek consolation in the affection of the  two angels that remain to you."
+
+"General!" said Dagobert, in a firm grave tone, "I returned from Siberia-
+-alone with your two daughters."
+
+"And their mother! their mother!" cried Simon, in a voice of despair.
+
+"I set out with the two orphans the day after her death," said the
+soldier.
+
+"Dead?" exclaimed Pierre Simon, overwhelmed by the stroke; "dead?"  A
+mournful silence was the only answer.  The marshal staggered beneath this
+unexpected shock, leaned on the back of a chair for support, and then,
+sinking into the seat, concealed his face with his hands.  For same
+minutes nothing was heard but stifled sobs, for not only had Pierre Simon
+idolized his wife, but by one of those singular compromises, that a man
+long cruelly tried sometimes makes with destiny, Pierre Simon, with the
+fatalism of loving souls, thought he had a right to reckon upon happiness
+after so many years of suffering, and had not for a moment doubted that
+he should find his wife and child--a double consolation reserved to him
+after going through so much.  Very different from certain people, whom
+the habit of misfortune renders less exacting, Simon had reckoned upon
+happiness as complete as had been his misery.  His wife and child were
+the sole, indispensable conditions of this felicity, and, had the mother
+survived her daughters, she would have no more replaced them in his eyes
+than they did her.  Weakness or avarice of the heart, so it was; we
+insist upon this singularity, because the consequences of these incessant
+and painful regrets exercised a great influence on the future life of
+Marshal Simon.  Adrienne and Dagobert had respected the overwhelming
+grief of this unfortunate man.  When he had given a free course to his
+tears, he raised his manly countenance, now of marble paleness, drew his
+hand across his blood-shot eyes, rose, and said to Adrienne, "Pardon me,
+madame; I could not conquer my first emotion.  Permit me to retire.  I
+have cruel details to ask of the worthy friend who only quitted my wife
+at the last moment.  Have the kindness to let me see my children--my poor
+orphans!--" And the marshal's voice again broke.
+
+"Marshal," said Mdlle. de Cardoville, "just now we were expecting your
+dear children: unfortunately, we have been deceived in our hopes."
+Pierre Simon first looked at Adrienne without answering, as if he had not
+heard or understood.--" But console yourself," resumed the young girl;
+"we have yet no reason to despair."
+
+"To despair?" repeated the marshaling by turns at Mdlle. de Cardoville
+despair?--of what, in heaven's name?"
+
+"Of seeing your children, marshal," said Adrienne; "the presence of their
+father will facilitate the search."
+
+"The search!" cried Pierre Simon.  "Then, my daughters are not here?"
+
+"No, sir," said Adrienne, at length; "they have been taken from the
+affectionate care of the excellent man who brought them from Russia, to
+be removed to a convent."
+
+"Wretch!" cried Pierre Simon, advancing towards Dagobert, with a menacing
+and terrible aspect; "you shall answer to me for all!"
+
+"Oh, sir, do not blame him!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"General," said Dagobert, in a tone of mournful resignation, "I merit
+your anger.  It is my fault.  Forced to absent myself from Paris, I
+entrusted the children to my wife; her confessor turned her head, and
+persuaded her that your daughters would be better in a convent than at
+our house.  She believed him, and let them be conveyed there.  Now they
+say at the convent, that they do not know where they are.  This is the
+truth: do what you will with me; I have only to silently endure."
+
+"This is infamous!" cried Pierre Simon, pointing to Dagobert, with a
+gesture of despairing indignation.  "In whom can a man confide, if he has
+deceived me? Oh, my God!"
+
+"Stay, marshal! do not blame him," repeated Mdlle. de Cardoville; "do not
+think so!  He has risked life and honor to rescue your children from the
+convent.  He is not the only one who has failed in this attempt.  Just
+now, a magistrate--despite his character and authority--was not more
+successful.  His firmness towards the superior, his minute search of the
+convent, were all in vain.  Up to this time it has been impossible to
+find these unfortunate children."
+
+"But where's this convent!" cried Marshal Simon, raising his head, his
+face all pale and agitated with grief and rage.  "Where is it?  Do these
+vermin know what a father is, deprived of his children?"  At the moment
+when Marshal Simon, turning towards Dagobert, pronounced these words,
+Rodin, holding Rose and Blanche by the hand, appeared at the open door of
+the chamber.  On hearing the marshal's exclamation, he started with
+surprise, and a flash of diabolical joy lit up his grim countenance--for
+he had not expected to meet Pierre Simon so opportunely.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville was the first to perceive the presence of Rodin.
+She exclaimed, as she hastened towards him: "Oh!  I was not deceived.  He
+is still our providence."
+
+"My poor children!" said Rodin, in a low voice, to the young girls, as he
+pointed to Pierre Simon, "this is your father!"
+
+"Sir!" cried Adrienne, following close upon Rose and Blanche.  "Your
+children are here!"
+
+As Simon turned round abruptly, his two daughters threw themselves into
+his arms.  Here was a long silence, broken only by sobs, and kisses, and
+exclamations of joy.
+
+"Come forward, at least, and enjoy the good you have done!" said Mdlle.
+de Cardoville, drying her eyes, and turning towards Rodin, who, leaning
+against the door, seemed to contemplate this scene with deep emotion.
+
+Dagobert, at sight of Rodin bringing back the children, was at first
+struck with stupor, and unable to move a step; but hearing the words of
+Adrienne, and yielding to a burst of almost insane gratitude, he threw
+himself on his knees before the Jesuit, joined his hands together, and
+exclaimed in a broken voice: "You have saved me, by bringing back these
+children."
+
+"Oh, bless you, sir!" said Mother Bunch, yielding to the general current.
+
+"My good friends, this is too much," said Rodin, as if his emotions were
+beyond his strength; "this is really too much for me.  Excuse me to the
+marshal, and tell him that I am repaid by the sight of his happiness."
+
+"Pray, sir," said Adrienne, "let the marshal at least have the
+opportunity to see and know you."
+
+"Oh, remain! you that have saved us all!" cried Dagobert, trying to stop
+Rodin.
+
+"Providence, you know, my dear young lady, does not trouble itself about
+the good that is done, but the good that remains to do," said Rodin, with
+an accent of playful kindness.  "Must I not think of Prince Djalma?  My
+task is not finished, and moments are precious.  Come," he added,
+disengaging himself gently from Dagobert's hold, "come the day has been
+as good a one as I had hoped..  The Abbe d'Aigrigny is unmasked; you are
+free, my dear young lady; you have recovered your cross, my brave
+soldier; Mother Bunch is sure of a protectress; the marshal has found his
+children.  I have my share in all these joys, it is a full share--my
+heart is satisfied.  Adieu, my friends, till we meet again."  So saying,
+Rodin waved his hand affectionately to Adrienne, Dagobert, and the
+hunchback, and withdrew, waving his hand with a look of delight on
+Marshal Simon, who, seated between his daughters, held them in his arms,
+and covered them with tears and kisses, remaining quite indifferent to
+all that was passing around him.
+
+An hour after this scene, Mdlle. de Cardoville and the sempstress,
+Marshal Simon, his two daughters and Dagobert quitted Dr. Beleinier's
+asylum.
+
+In terminating this episode, a few words by way of moral, with regard to
+lunatic asylums and convents may not be out of place.  We have said, and
+we repeat, that the laws which apply to the superintendence of lunatic
+asylums appear to us insufficient.  Facts that have recently transpired
+before the courts, and other facts that have been privately communicated
+to us, evidently prove this insufficiency.  Doubtless, magistrates have
+full power to visit lunatic asylums.  They are even required to make such
+visits.  But we know, from the best authority, that the numerous and
+pressing occupations of magistrates, whose number is often out of
+proportion with the labor imposed upon them, render these inspections so
+rare, that they are, so to speak, illusory.  It appears, therefore, to us
+advisable to institute a system of inspections, at least twice a month,
+especially designed for lunatic asylums, and entrusted to a physician and
+a magistrate, so that every complaint may be submitted to a double
+examination.  Doubtless, the law is sufficient when its ministers are
+fully informed; but how many formalities, how many difficulties must be
+gone through, before they can be so, particularly when the unfortunate
+creature who needs their assistance, already suspected, isolated, and
+imprisoned, has no friend to come forward in defence, and demand, in his
+or her name, the protection of the authorities!  Is it not imperative,
+therefore, on the civil power, to meet these necessities by a periodical
+and well-organized system of inspection?
+
+What we here say of lunatic asylums will apply with still greater force
+to convents for women, seminaries, and houses inhabited by religious
+bodies.  Recent and notorious facts, with which all France has rung,
+have, unfortunately, proved that violence, forcible detention, barbarous
+usage, abduction of minors, and illegal imprisonment, accompanied by
+torture, are occurrences which, if not frequent, are at least possible in
+religious houses.  It required singular accidents, audacious and cynical
+brutalities; to bring these detestable actions to public knowledge.  How
+many other victims have been, and, perhaps still are, entombed in those
+large silent mansions, where no profane look may penetrate, and which,
+through the privileges of the clergy, escape the superintendence of the
+civil power.  Is it not deplorable that these dwellings should not also
+be subject to periodical inspection, by visitors consisting, if it be
+desired, of a priest, a magistrate, and some delegate of the municipal
+authorities?  If nothing takes place, but what is legal, human, and
+charitable, in these establishments, which have all the character,
+and incur all the responsibility, of public institutions, why this
+resistance, this furious indignation of the church party, when any
+mention is made of touching what they call their privileges?  There is
+something higher than the constitutions devised at Rome.  We mean the Law
+of France--the common law--which grants to all protection, but which, in
+return, exacts from all respect and obedience.
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V6,
+by Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+
+BOOK VII.
+
+XL.        The East Indian in Paris
+XLI.       Rising
+XLII.      Doubts
+XLIII.     The Letter
+XLIV.      Adrienne and Djalma
+XLV.       The Consultation
+XLVI.      Mother Bunch's Diary
+XLVII.     The Diary Continued
+XLVIII.    The Discovery
+XLIX.      The Trysting-Place of the Wolves
+L.         The Common Dwelling-House
+LI.        The Secret
+LII.       Revelations
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE EAST INDIAN IN PARIS.
+
+Since three days, Mdlle. de Cardoville had left Dr. Baleinier's.  The
+following scene took place in a little dwelling in the Rue Blanche, to
+which Djalma had been conducted in the name of his unknown protector.
+Fancy to yourself a pretty, circular apartment, hung with Indian drapery,
+with purple figures on a gray ground, just relieved by a few threads of
+gold.  The ceiling, towards the centre, is concealed by similar hangings,
+tied together by a thick, silken cord; the two ends of this cord, unequal
+in length, terminated, instead of tassels, in two tiny Indian lamps of
+gold filigreed-work, marvellously finished.  By one of those ingenious
+combinations, so common in barbarous countries, these lamps served also
+to burn perfumes.  Plates of blue crystal, let in between the openings of
+the arabesque, and illumined by the interior light, shone with so limpid
+an azure, that the golden lamps seemed starred with transparent
+sapphires.  Light clouds, of whitish vapor rose incessantly from these
+lamps, and spread all around their balmy odor.
+
+Daylight was only admitted to this room (it was about two o'clock in the
+afternoon) through a little greenhouse, on the other side of a door of
+plate-glass, made to slide into the thickness of the wall, by means of a
+groove.  A Chinese shade was arranged so as to hide or replace this glass
+at pleasure.  Some dwarf palm tress, plantains, and other Indian
+productions, with thick leaves of a metallic green, arranged in clusters
+in this conservatory, formed, as it were, the background to two large
+variegated bushes of exotic flowers, which were separated by a narrow
+path, paved with yellow and blue Japanese tiles, running to the foot of
+the glass.  The daylight, already much dimmed by the leaves through which
+it passed, took a hue of singular mildness as it mingled with the azure
+lustre of the perfumed lamps, and the crimson brightness of the fire in
+the tall chimney of oriental porphyry.  In the obscurity of this
+apartment, impregnated with sweet odors and the aromatic vapor of Persian
+tobacco, a man with brown, hanging locks, dressed in a long robe of dark
+green, fastened round the waist by a parti-colored sash, was kneeling
+upon a magnificent Turkey carpet, filling the golden bowl of a hookah;
+the long, flexible tube of this pipe, after rolling its folds upon the
+carpet, like a scarlet serpent with silver scales, rested between the
+slender fingers of Djalma, who was reclining negligently on a divan.  The
+young prince was bareheaded; his jet-black hair, parted on the middle of
+his forehead, streamed waving about his face and neck of antique beauty--
+their warm transparent colors resembling amber or topaz.  Leaning his
+elbow on a cushion, he supported his chin with the palm of his right
+hand.  The flowing sleeve of his robe, falling back from his arm, which
+was round as that of a woman, revealed mysterious signs formerly tattooed
+there in India by a Thug's needle.  The son of Radja-sing held in his
+left hand the amber mouthpiece of his pipe.  His robe of magnificent
+cashmere, with a border of a thousand hues, reaching to his knee, was
+fastened about his slim and well-formed figure by the large folds of an
+orange-colored shawl.  This robe was half withdrawn from one of the
+elegant legs of this Asiatic Antinous, clad in a kind of very close
+fitting gaiter of crimson velvet, embroidered with silver, and
+terminating in a small white morocco slipper, with a scarlet heel.  At
+once mild and manly, the countenance of Djalma was expressive of that
+melancholy and contemplative calmness habitual to the Indian and the
+Arab, who possess the happy privilege of uniting, by a rare combination,
+the meditative indolence of the dreamer with the fiery energy of the man
+of action--now delicate, nervous, impressionable as women--now
+determined, ferocious, and sanguinary as bandits.
+
+And this semi-feminine comparison, applicable to the moral nature of the
+Arab and the Indian, so long as they are not carried away by the ardor of
+battle and the excitement of carnage, is almost equally applicable to
+their physical constitution; for if, like women of good blood, they have
+small extremities, slender limbs, fine and supple forms, this delicate
+and often charming exterior always covers muscles of steel, full of an
+elasticity, and vigor truly masculine.  Djalma's oblong eyes, like black
+diamonds set in bluish mother-of-pearl, wandered mechanically from the
+exotic flowers to the ceiling; from time to time he raised the amber
+mouthpiece of the hookah to his lips; then, after a slow aspiration, half
+opening his rosy lips, strongly contrasted with the shining enamel of his
+teeth, he sent forth a little spiral line of smoke, freshly scented by
+the rose-water through which it had passed.
+
+"Shall I put more tobacco in the hookah?" said the kneeling figure,
+turning towards Djalma, and revealing the marked and sinister features of
+Faringhea the Strangler.
+
+The young prince remained dumb, either that, from an oriental contempt
+for certain races, he disdained to answer the half-caste, or that,
+absorbed in his reverie, he did not even hear him.  The Strangler became
+again silent; crouching cross-legged upon the carpet, with his elbows
+resting on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, he kept his eyes fixed
+on Djalma, and seemed to await the reply or the orders of him whose sire
+had been surnamed the Father of the Generous.  How had Faringhea, the
+sanguinary worshipper of Bowanee, the Divinity of Murder, been brought to
+seek or to accept such humble functions?  How came this man, possessed of
+no vulgar talents, whose passionate eloquence and ferocious energy had
+recruited many assassins for the service of the Good Work, to resign
+himself to so base a condition?  Why, too, had this man, who, profiting
+by the young prince's blindness with regard to himself, might have so
+easily sacrificed him as an offering to Bowanee--why had he spared the
+life of Radja-sings son?  Why, in fine, did he expose himself to such
+frequent encounters with Rodin, whom he had only known under the most
+unfavorable auspices?  The sequel of this story will answer all these
+questions.  We can only say at present, that, after a long interview with
+Rodin, two nights before, the Thug had quitted him with downcast eyes and
+cautious bearing.
+
+After having remained silent for some time, Djalma, following with his
+eye the cloud of whitish smoke that he had just sent forth into space,
+addressed Faringhea, without looking at him, and said to him in the
+language, as hyperbolical as concise, of Orientals: "Time passes.  The
+old man with the good heart does not come.  But he will come.  His word
+is his word."
+
+"His word is his word, my lord," repeated Faringhea, in an affirmative
+tone.  "When he came to fetch you, three days ago, from the house whither
+those wretches, m furtherance of their wicked designs, had conveyed you
+in a deep sleep--after throwing me, your watchful and devoted servant,
+into a similar state--he said to you: `The unknown friend, who sent for
+you to Cardoville Castle, bids me come to you, prince.  Have confidence,
+and follow me.  A worthy abode is prepared for you.'--And again, he said
+to you, my lord: `Consent not to leave the house, until my return.  Your
+interest requires it.  In three days you will see me again, and then be
+restored to perfect freedom.'  You consented to those terms, my lord, and
+for three days you have not left the house."
+
+"And I wait for the old man with impatience," said Djalma, "for this
+solitude is heavy with me.  There must be so many things to admire in
+Paris.  Above all."
+
+Djalma did not finish the sentence, but relapsed into a reverie.  After
+some moments' silence, the son of Radja-sing said suddenly to Faringhea,
+in the tone of an impatient yet indolent sultan: "Speak to me!"
+
+"Of what shall I speak, my lord?"
+
+"Of what you will," said Djalma, with careless contempt, as he fixed on
+the ceiling his eyes, half-veiled with languor.  "One thought pursues me
+--I wish to be diverted from it.  Speak to me."
+
+Faringhea threw a piercing glance on the countenance of the young Indian,
+and saw that his cheeks were colored with a slight blush.  "My lord,"
+said the half-caste, "I can guess your thought."
+
+Djalma shook his head, without looking at the Strangler.  The latter
+resumed: "You are thinking of the women of Paris, my lord."
+
+Be silent, slave!" said Djalma, turning abruptly on the sofa, as if some
+painful wound had been touched to the quick.  Faringhea obeyed.
+
+After the lapse of some moments.  Djalma broke forth again with
+impatience, throwing aside the tube of the hookah, and veiling both eyes
+with his hands: "Your words are better than silence.  Cursed be my
+thoughts, and the spirit which calls up these phantoms!"
+
+"Why should you fly these thoughts, my lord?  You are nineteen years of
+age, and hitherto all your youth has been spent in war and captivity.  Up
+to this time, you have remained as chaste as Gabriel, that young
+Christian priest, who accompanied us on our voyage."
+
+Though Faringhea did not at all depart from his respectful deference for
+the prince, the latter felt that there was something of irony in the tone
+of the half-caste, as he pronounced the word "chaste."
+
+Djalma said to him with a mixture of pride and severity: "I do not wish
+to pass for a barbarian, as they call us, with these civilized people;
+therefore I glory in my chastity."
+
+"I do not understand, my lord."
+
+"I may perhaps love some woman, pure as was my mother when she married my
+father; and to ask for purity from a woman, a man must be chaste as she."
+
+At this, Faringhea could not refrain from a sardonic smile.
+
+"Why do you laugh, slave?" said the young prince, imperiously.
+
+"Among civilized people, as you call them, my lord, the man who married
+in the flower of his innocence would be mortally wounded with ridicule."
+
+"It is false, slave!  He would only be ridiculous if he married one that
+was not pure as himself."
+
+"Then, my lord, he would not only be wounded--he would be killed
+outright, for he would be doubly and unmercifully laughed at."
+
+"It is false! it is false.  Where did you learn all this?"
+
+"I have seen Parisian women at the Isle of France, and at Pondicherry, my
+lord.  Moreover, I learned a good deal during our voyage; I talked with a
+young officer, while you conversed with the young priest."
+
+"So, like the sultans of our harems, civilized men require of women the
+innocence they have themselves lost."
+
+"They require it the more, the less they have of it, my lord."
+
+"To require without any return, is to act as a master to his slave; by
+what right?"
+
+"By the right of the strongest--as it is among us, my lord."
+
+"And what do the women do?"
+
+"They prevent the men from being too ridiculous, when they marry, in the
+eyes of the world."
+
+"But they kill a woman that is false?" said Djalma, raising himself
+abruptly, and fixing upon Faringhea a savage look, that sparkled with
+lurid fire.
+
+"They kill her, my lord, as with us--when they find her out."
+
+"Despots like ourselves!  Why then do these civilized men not shut up
+their women, to force them to a fidelity which they do not practise?"
+
+"Because their civilization is barbarous, and their barbarism civilized,
+my lord."
+
+"All this is sad enough, if true," observed Djalma, with a pensive air,
+adding, with a species of enthusiasm, employing, as usual, the mystic and
+figurative language familiar to the people of his country; "yes, your
+talk afflicts me, slave--for two drops of dew blending in the cup of a
+flower are as hearts that mingle in a pure and virgin love; and two rays
+of light united in one inextinguishable flame, are as the burning and
+eternal joys of lovers joined in wedlock."
+
+Djalma spoke of the pure enjoyments of the soul with inexpressible grace,
+yet it was when he painted less ideal happiness, that his eyes shone like
+stars; he shuddered slightly, his nostrils swelled, the pale gold of his
+complexion became vermilion, and the young prince sank into a deep
+reverie.
+
+Faringhea, having remarked this emotion, thus spoke: "If, like the proud
+and brilliant king-bird of our woods, you prefer numerous and varied
+pleasures to solitary and monotonous amours--handsome, young, rich as you
+are, my lord, were you to seek out the seductive Parisians--voluptuous
+phantoms of your nights--charming tormentors of your dreams--were you to
+cast upon them looks bold as a challenge, supplicating as prayers, ardent
+as desires--do you not think that many a half-veiled eye would borrow
+fire from your glance?  Then it would no longer be the monotonous
+delights of a single love, the heavy chain of our life--no, it would be
+the thousand pleasures of the harem--a harem peopled with free and proud
+beauties, whom happy love would make your slaves.  So long constrained,
+there is no such thing as excess to you.  Believe me, it would then be
+you, the ardent, the magnificent son of our country, that would become
+the love and pride of these women--the most seductive in the world, who
+would soon have for you no looks but those of languor and passion."
+
+Djalma had listened to Faringhea with silent eagerness.  The expression
+of his features had completely changed; it was no longer the melancholy
+and dreaming youth, invoking the sacred remembrance of his mother, and
+finding only in the dew of heaven, in the calyx of flowers, images
+sufficiently pure to paint the chastity of the love he dreamed of; it was
+no longer even the young man, blushing with a modest ardor at the thought
+of the permitted joys of a legitimate union.  No! the incitements of
+Faringhea had kindled a subterraneous fire; the inflamed countenance of
+Djalma, his eyes now sparkling and now veiled, his manly and sonorous
+respiration, announced the heat of his blood, the boiling up of the
+passions, only the more energetic, that they had been hitherto
+restrained.
+
+So, springing suddenly from the divan, supple, vigorous, and light as a
+young tiger, Djalma clutched Faringhea by the throat exclaiming: "Thy
+words are burning poison!"
+
+"My lord," said Faringhea, without opposing the least resistance, "your
+slave is your slave."  This submission disarmed the prince.
+
+"My life belongs to you," repeated the half-caste.
+
+"I belong to you, slave!" cried Djalma, repulsing him. "Just now, I hung
+upon your lips, devouring your dangerous lies."
+
+"Lies, my lord?  Only appear before these women, and their looks will
+confirm my words."
+
+"These women love me!--me, who have only lived in war and in the woods?"
+
+"The thought that you, so young, have already waged bloody war on men and
+tigers, will make them adore, my lord."
+
+"You lie!"
+
+"I tell you, my lord, on seeing your hand, as delicate as theirs, but
+which has been so often bathed in hostile blood, they will wish to caress
+it; and they will kiss it again, when they think that, in our forests,
+with loaded rifle, and a poniard between your teeth, you smiled at the
+roaring of a lion or panther for whom you lay in wait."
+
+"But I am a savage--a barbarian."
+
+"And for that very reason you will have them at your feet.  They will
+feel themselves both terrified and charmed by all the violence and fury,
+the rage of jealousy, the passion and the love, to which a man of your
+blood, your youth, your ardor must be subject.  To-day mild and tender,
+to-morrow fierce and suspicious, another time ardent and passionate, such
+you will be--and such you ought to be, if you wish to win them.  Yes; let
+a kiss of rage be heard between two kisses: let a dagger glitter in the
+midst of caresses, and they will fall before you, palpitating with
+pleasure, love, and fear--and you will be to them, not a man, but a god."
+
+"Dost think so?" cried Djalma, carried away in spite of himself by the
+Thug's wild eloquence.
+
+"You know, you feel, that I speak the truth," cried the latter, extending
+his arm towards the young Indian.
+
+"Why, yes!" exclaimed Djalma, his eyes sparkling, his nostrils swelling,
+as he moved about the apartment with savage bounds.  "I know not if I
+possess my reason, or if I am intoxicated, but it seems to me that you
+speak truth.  Yes, I feel that they will love me with madness and fury,
+because my love will be mad and furious they will tremble with pleasure
+and fear, because the very thought of it makes me tremble with delight
+and terror.  Slave, it is true; there is something exciting and fearful
+in such a love!"  As he spoke forth these words, Djalma was superb in his
+impetuous sensuality.  It is a rare thing to see a young man arrive in
+his native purity, at the age in which are developed, in all their
+powerful energy, those admirable instincts of love, which God has
+implanted in the heart of his creatures, and which, repressed, disguised,
+or perverted, may unseat the reason, or generate mad excesses and
+frightful crimes--but which, directed towards a great and noble passion,
+may and must, by their very violence, elevate man, through devotion and
+tenderness, to the limits of the ideal.
+
+"Oh! this woman--this woman, before whom I am to tremble--and who, in
+turn, must tremble before me--where is she?" cried Djalma, with redoubled
+excitement.  "Shall I ever find her?"
+
+"One is a good deal, my lord," replied Faringhea, with his sardonic
+coolness; "he who looks for one woman, will rarely succeed in this
+country; he who seeks women, is only at a loss to choose."
+
+As the half-caste made this impertinent answer to Djalma, a very elegant
+blue-and-white carriage stopped before the garden-gate of the house,
+which opened upon a deserted street.  It was drawn by a pair of beautiful
+blood-horses, of a cream color, with black manes and tails.  The
+scutcheons on the harness were of silver, as were also the buttons of the
+servants' livery, which was blue with white collars.  On the blue
+hammercloth, also laced with white, as well as on the panels of the
+doors, were lozenge-shaped coats of arms, without crest or coronet, as
+usually borne by unmarried daughters of noble families.  Two women were
+in this carriage--Mdlle. de Cardoville and Florine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+RISING.
+
+To explain the arrival of Mdlle. de Cardoville at the garden-door of the
+house occupied by Djalma, we must cast a retrospective glance at previous
+events.  On leaving Doctor Baleinier's, Mdlle. de Cardoville had gone to
+take up her residence in the Rue d'Anjou.  During the last few months of
+her stay with her aunt, Adrienne had secretly caused this handsome
+dwelling to be repaired and furnished, and its luxury and elegance were
+now increased by all the wonders of the lodge of Saint-Dizier House.  The
+world found it very strange, that a lady of the age and condition of
+Mdlle. de Cardoville should take the resolution of living completely
+alone and free, and, in fact, of keeping house exactly like a bachelor, a
+young widow, or an emancipated minor.  The world pretended not to know
+that Mdlle. de Cardoville possessed what is often wanting in men, whether
+of age or twice of age--a firm character, a lofty mind, a generous heart,
+strong and vigorous good sense.
+
+Judging that she would require faithful assistance in the internal
+management of her house, Adrienne had written to the bailiff of
+Cardoville, and his wife, old family servants, to come immediately to
+Paris: M. Dupont thus filled the office of steward, and Mme. Dupont that
+of housekeeper.  An old friend of Adrienne's father, the Count de
+Montbron, an accomplished old man, once very much in fashion, and still a
+connoisseur in all sorts of elegances, had advised Adrienne to act like a
+princess, and take an equerry; recommended for this office a man of good
+rearing and ripe age, who, himself an amateur in horses, had been ruined
+in England, at Newmarket, the Derby, and Tattersall's, and reduced, as
+sometimes happened to gentlemen in that country, to drive the stage-
+coaches, thus finding an honest method of earning his bread, and at the
+same time gratifying his taste for horses.  Such was M. de Bonneville, M.
+de Montbron's choice.  Both from age and habits, this equerry could
+accompany Mdlle. de Cardoville on horseback, and better than any one
+else, superintend the stable.  He accepted, therefore, the employment
+with gratitude, and, thanks to his skill and attention, the equipages of
+Mdlle. de Cardoville were not eclipsed in style by anything of the kind
+in Paris.  Mdlle. de Cardoville had taken back her women, Hebe,
+Georgette, and Florine.  The latter was at first to have re-entered the
+service of the Princess de Saint-Dizier, to continue her part of spy for
+the superior of St. Mary's Convent; but, in consequence of the new
+direction given by Rodin to the Rennepont affair, it was decided that
+Florine, if possible, should return to the service of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.  This confidential place, enabling this unfortunate creature
+to render important and mysterious services to the people who held her
+fate in their hands, forced her to infamous treachery.  Unfortunately,
+all things favored this machination.  We know that Florine, in her
+interview with Mother Bunch, a few days after Mdlle. de Cardoville was
+imprisoned at Dr. Baleinier's, had yielded to a twinge of remorse, and
+given to the sempstress advice likely to be of use to Adrienne's
+interests--sending word to Agricola not to deliver to Madame de Saint-
+Dizier the papers found in the hiding-place of the pavilion, but only to
+entrust them to Mdlle. de Cardoville herself.  The latter, afterwards
+informed of these details by Mother Bunch, felt a double degree of
+confidence and interest in Florine, took her back into her service with
+gratitude, and almost immediately charged her with a confidential
+mission--that of superintending the arrangements of the house hired for
+Djalma's habitation.  As for Mother Bunch (yielding to the solicitations
+of Mdlle. de Cardoville, and finding she was no longer of use to
+Dagobert's wife, of whom we shall speak hereafter), she had consented to
+take up her abode in the hotel on the Rue d'Anjou, along with Adrienne,
+who with that rare sagacity of the heart peculiar to her, entrusted the
+young sempstress, who served her also as a secretary, with the department
+of alms-giving.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville had at first thought of entertaining her merely as a
+friend, wishing to pay homage in her person to probity with labor,
+resignation in sorrow, and intelligence in poverty; but knowing the
+workgirl's natural dignity, she feared, with reason that, notwithstanding
+the delicate circumspection with which the hospitality would be offered,
+Mother Bunch might perceive in it alms in disguise.   Adrienne preferred,
+therefore, whilst she treated her as a friend, to give her a confidential
+employment.  In this manner the great delicacy of the needlewoman would
+be spared, since she could earn her livelihood by performing duties which
+would at the same time satisfy her praiseworthy instincts of charity.  In
+fact, she could fulfil, better than any one, the sacred mission confided
+to her by Adrienne.  Her cruel experience in misfortune, the goodness of
+her angelic soul, the elevation of her mind, her rare activity, her
+penetration with regard to the painful secrets of poverty, her perfect
+knowledge of the industrial classes, were sufficient security for the
+tact and intelligence with which the excellent creature would second the
+generous intentions of Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+Let us now speak of the divers events which, on that day, preceded the
+coming of Mdlle. de Cardoville to the garden-gate of the house in the Rue
+Blanche.  About ten o'clock in the morning, the blinds of Adrienne's
+bedchamber, closely shut, admitted no ray of daylight to this apartment,
+which was only lighted by a spherical lamp of oriental alabaster,
+suspended from the ceiling by three long silver chains.  This apartment,
+terminating in a dome, was in the form of a tent with eight sides.  From
+the ceiling to the floor, it was hung with white silk, covered with long
+draperies of muslin, fastened in large puffs to the wall, by bands caught
+in at regular distances by plates of ivory.  Two doors, also of ivory,
+admirably encrusted with mother-of-pearl, led, one to the bath-room, the
+other to the toilet-chamber, a sort of little temple dedicated to the
+worship of beauty, and furnished as it had been at the pavilion of Saint-
+Dizier House.  Two other compartments of the wall were occupied by
+windows, completely veiled with drapery.  Opposite the bed, enclosing
+splendid fire-dogs of chased silver, was a chimney-piece of white marble,
+like crystallized snow, on which were sculptured two magnificent
+caryatides, and a frieze representing birds and flowers.  Above this
+frieze, carved in openwork with extreme delicacy, was a marble basket,
+filled with red camellias.  Their leaves of shining green their flowers
+of a delicate rosy hue, were the only colors that disturbed the
+harmonious whiteness of this virgin retreat.  Finally, half surrounded by
+waves of white muslin, which poured down from the dome like a mass of
+light clouds, the bed was visible--very low, and resting on feet of
+carved ivory, which stood upon the ermine carpet that covered the floor.
+With the exception of a plinth, also in ivory, admirably inlaid with
+mother-of-pearl, the bed was entirely covered with white satin, wadded
+and quilted like an immense scent-bag.  The cambric sheets, trimmed with
+lace, being a little disturbed on one side, discovered the corner of a
+white taffety mattress, and a light counterpane of watered stuff--for an
+equal temperature always reigned in this apartment, warm as a fine spring
+day.
+
+From a singular scruple, arising from the same sentiment which had caused
+Adrienne to have inscribed on a masterpiece of goldsmith's work the name
+of the maker instead of that of the seller, she had wished all these
+articles, so costly and sumptuous, to be manufactured by workmen chosen
+amongst the most intelligent, honest, and industrious of their class,
+whom she had supplied with the necessary materials.  In this manner she
+had been able to add to the price of the work the profit usually gained
+by the middle man, who speculates in such labor; this notable
+augmentation of wages had spread happiness and comfort through a hundred
+necessitous families, who, blessing the munificence of Adrienne, gave
+her, as she said, the right to enjoy her luxury as a good action.
+Nothing could be fresher or more charming than the interior of this
+bedchamber.  Mdlle. de Cardoville had just awoke; she reposed in the
+middle of this flood of muslin, lace, cambric, and white silk, in a
+position full of sweet grace.  Never during the night did she cover that
+beautiful golden hair (a certain recipe, said the Greeks, for preserving
+it for a long while in magnificence).  Every evening, her women arranged
+her long silky curls in flat tresses, forming two broad bands, which,
+descending sufficiently low almost entirely to conceal the small ear, the
+rosy lobe of which was alone visible, were joined to the large plait
+behind the head.
+
+This head-dress, borrowed from Greek antiquity, set off to admiration the
+pure, fine features of Mdlle. de Cardoville, and made her look so much
+younger, that, instead of eighteen, one would hardly have given her
+fifteen years of age.  Gathered thus closely about the temples, the hair
+lost its transparent and brilliant hues, and would have appeared almost
+brown, but for the golden tints which played here and there, amid the
+undulations of the tresses.  Lulled in that morning torpor, the warm
+languor of which is so favorable to soft reveries, Adrienne leaned with
+her elbow on the pillow, and her head a little on one side, which
+displayed to advantage the ideal contour of her bared neck and shoulders;
+her smiling lips, moist and rosy, were, like her cheeks, cold as if they
+had just been bathed in ice-water; her snow-white lids half veiled the
+large, dark, soft eyes, which now gazed languidly upon vacancy, and now
+fixed themselves with pleasure upon the rosy flowers and green leaves in
+the basket of camellias.  Who can paint the matchless serenity of
+Adrienne's awaking--when the fair and chaste soul roused itself in the
+fair and chaste body?  It was the awakening of a heart as pure as the
+fresh and balmy breath of youth, that made her bosom rise and fall in its
+white, immaculate purity.  What creed, what dogma, what formula, what
+religious symbol, oh! paternal and divine Creator! can ever give a more
+complete idea of Thy harmonious and ineffable power, than the image of a
+young maiden awaking in the bloom of her beauty, and in all the grace of
+that modesty with which Thou hast endowed her, seeking, in her dreamy
+innocence, for the secret of that celestial instinct of love, which Thou
+hast placed in the bosom of all Thy creatures--oh! Thou whose love is
+eternal, and goodness infinite!
+
+The confused thoughts which, since her sleep, had appeared gently to
+agitate Adrienne, absorbed her more and more; her head resting on her
+bosom, her beautiful arm upon the couch, her features without becoming
+precisely sad, assumed an expression of touching melancholy.  Her dearest
+desire was accomplished; she was about to live independent and alone.
+But this affectionate, delicate, expansive, and marvellously complete
+nature, felt that God had not given her such rare treasures, to bury them
+in a cold and selfish solitude.  She felt how much that was great and
+beautiful might be inspired by love, both in herself, and in him that
+should be worthy of her.  Confiding in her courage, and the nobleness of
+her character, proud of the example that she wished to give to other
+women, knowing that all eyes would be fixed enviously upon her, she felt,
+as it were, only too sure of herself; far from fearing that she should
+make a bad choice, she rather feared, that she should not find any from
+whom to choose, so pure and perfect was her taste.  And, even had she met
+with her own ideal, she had views so singular and so just, so
+extraordinary and yet so sensible, with regard to the independence and
+dignity of woman, that, inexorably determined to make no concession upon
+this head, she asked herself if the man of her choice would ever accept
+the hitherto unheard-of conditions that she meant to impose.  In
+recalling to her remembrance the possible suitors that she had met in the
+world, she remembered also the dark, but true picture, which Rodin had
+drawn with so much caustic bitterness.  She remembered, too, not without
+a certain pride, the encouragement this man had given her, not by
+flattery, but by advising her to follow out and accomplish a great,
+generous, and beautiful design.  The current or the caprice of fancy soon
+brought Adrienne to think of Djalma.  Whilst she congratulated herself on
+having paid to her royal kinsman the duties of a kingly hospitality, the
+young lady was far from regarding the prince as the hero of her future.
+
+And first she said to herself, not unreasonably, that this half-savage
+boy, with passions, if not untamable, yet untamed, transported on a
+sudden into the midst of a refined civilization, would be inevitably
+destined to fiery trials and violent transformations.  Now Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, having nothing masculine or despotic in her character, had no
+wish to civilize the young savage.  Therefore, notwithstanding the
+interest, or rather because of the interest, which she felt for the young
+Indian, she was firmly resolved, not to make herself known to him, till
+after the lapse of two or three months; and she determined also, that,
+even if Djalma should learn by chance that she was his relation, she
+would not receive his visit.  She desired, if not to try him, at least to
+leave him free in all his acts, so that he might expend the first fire of
+his passions, good or bad.  But not wishing to abandon him quite without
+defence to the perils of Parisian life, she requested the Count de
+Montbron, in confidence, to introduce Prince Djalma to the best company
+in Paris, and to enlighten him by the counsels of his long experience.
+M. de Montbron had received the request of Mdlle. de Cardoville with the
+greatest pleasure, taking delight, he said, in starting his royal tiger
+in drawing-rooms, and bringing him into contact with the flower of the
+fine ladies and gentlemen of Paris, offering at the same time to wager
+any amount in favor of his half-savage pupil.
+
+"As for myself, my dear Count," said Adrienne to M. de Montbron, with her
+usual frankness, "my resolution is not to be shaken.  You have told me
+the effect that will be produced in the fashionable world, by the first
+appearance of Prince Djalma, an Indian nineteen years of age, of
+surprising beauty, proud and wild as a young lion arriving from his
+forest; it is new, it is extraordinary, you added; and, therefore, all
+the coquetries of civilized life will pursue him with an eagerness which
+makes me tremble for him.  Now, seriously, my dear count it will not suit
+me to appear as the rival of so many fine ladies, who are about to expose
+themselves intrepidly to the claws of the young tiger.  I take great
+interest in him, because he is my cousin, because he is handsome, because
+he is brave, and above all because he does not wear that horrible
+European dress.  No doubt these are rare qualities--but not sufficient to
+make me change my mind.  Besides, the good old philosopher, my new
+friend, has given me advice about this Indian, which you, my dear Count,
+who are not a philosopher, will yet approve.  It is, for some time, to
+receive visits at home, but not to visit other people--which will spare
+me the awkwardness of meeting my royal cousin, and allow me to make a
+careful choice, even amongst my usual society.  As my house will be an
+excellent one, my position most unusual, and as I shall be suspected of
+all sorts of naughty secrets, I shall be in no want of inquisitive
+visitors, who will amuse me a good deal, I assure you."
+
+And as M. de Montbron asked, if the exile of the poor young Indian tiger
+was to last long, Adrienne answered:  "As I shall see most of the
+persons, to whom you will introduce him, I shall be pleased to hear
+different opinions about him.  If certain men speak well of him, and
+certain women ill, I shall have good hope of him.  In a word, the opinion
+that I come to, in sifting the true from the false (you may leave that to
+my sagacity), will shorten or prolong the exile of my royal cousin."
+
+Such were the formal intentions of Mdlle. de Cardoville with regard to
+Djalma, even on the day she went with Florine to the house he occupied.
+In a word, she had positively resolved not to be known to him for some
+months to come.
+
+After long reflecting that morning, on the chances that might yet offer
+themselves to satisfy the wants of her heart, Adrienne fell into a new,
+deep reverie.  This charming creature, so full of life and youth, heaved
+a low sigh, raised her arms above her head, turned her profile towards
+the pillow, and remained for some moments as if powerless and vanquished.
+Motionless beneath the white tissues that wrapped her round, she looked
+like a fair, marble statue, visible beneath a light layer of snow.
+Suddenly, Adrienne raised herself up, drew her hand across her brow, and
+rang for her women.  At the first silver tone of the bell, the two ivory
+doors opened.  Georgette appeared on the threshold of the dressing-room,
+from which Frisky, a little black and-tan dog, with his golden collar,
+escaped with a joyful barking.  Hebe appeared at the same time on the
+threshold of the bath-room.  At the further end of this apartment,
+lighted from above, might be seen upon a green mat of Spanish leather,
+with golden ornaments, a crystal bath in the form of a long shell.  The
+three only divisions in this masterpiece of glass work, were concealed by
+the elegant device of several large reeds in silver, which rose from the
+wide base of the bath, also of wrought silver, representing children and
+dolphins playing, among branches of natural coral, and azure shells.
+Nothing could be more pleasing than the effect of these purple reeds and
+ultramarine shells, upon a dull ground of silver; the balsamic vapor,
+which rose from the warm, limpid, and perfumed water, that filled the
+crystal shell, spread through the bath-room, and floated like a light
+cloud into the sleeping-chamber.
+
+Seeing Hebe in her fresh and pretty costume, bringing her a long bathing-
+gown, hanging upon a bare and dimpled arm, Adrienne said to her: "Where
+is Florine, my child?"
+
+"Madame, she went downstairs two hours ago; she was wanted for something
+very pressing."
+
+"Who wanted her?"
+
+"The young person who serves Madame as secretary.  She went out this
+morning very early; and, as soon as she returned, she sent for Florine,
+who has not come back since."
+
+"This absence no doubt relates to some important affair of my angelic
+minister of succor," said Adrienne, smiling, and thinking of the
+hunchback.  Then she made a sign to Hebe to approach her bed.
+
+About two hours after rising, Adrienne, having had herself dressed, as
+usual, with rare elegance, dismissed her women, and sent for Mother
+Bunch, whom she treated with marked deference, always receiving her
+alone. The young sempstress entered hastily, with a pale, agitated
+countenance, and said, in a trembling voice: "Oh, madame! my
+presentiments were justified.  You are betrayed."
+
+"Of what presentiments do you speak, my dear child!" said Adrienne, with
+surprise.  "Who betrays me?"
+
+"M. Rodin!" answered the workgirl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+DOUBTS.
+
+On hearing the accusation brought against Rodin, Mdlle. de Cardoville
+looked at the denunciator with new astonishment.  Before continuing this
+scene, we may say that Mother Bunch was no longer clad in her poor, old
+clothes, but was dressed in black, with as much simplicity as taste.  The
+sad color seemed to indicate her renunciation of all human vanity, the
+eternal mourning of her heart, and the austere duties imposed upon her by
+her devotion to misfortune.  With her black gown, she wore a large
+falling collar, white and neat as her little gauze cap, with its gray
+ribbons, which, revealing her bands of fine brown hair, set off to
+advantage her pale and melancholy countenance, with its soft blue eyes.
+Her long, delicate hands, preserved from the cold by gloves, were no
+longer, as formerly, of a violet hue, but of an almost transparent
+whiteness.
+
+Her agitated features expressed a lively uneasiness.  Extremely
+surprised, Mdlle. de Cardoville exclaimed: "What do you say?"
+
+"M. Rodin betrays you, madame."
+
+"M. Rodin?  Impossible!"
+
+"Oh, madame! my presentiments did not deceive me."
+
+"Your presentiments?"
+
+"The first time I saw M. Rodin, I was frightened in spite of myself.  My
+heart sank within me, and I trembled--for you, madame."
+
+"For me?" said Adrienne.  "Why did you not tremble for yourself, my poor
+friend?"
+
+"I do not know, madame; but such was my first impression.  And this fear
+was so invincible, that, notwithstanding the kindness that M. Rodin
+showed my sister, he frightened me, none the less."
+
+"That is strange.  I can understand as well as any one the almost
+irresistible influence of sympathies or aversions; but, in this
+instance .  However," resumed Adrienne, after a moment's reflection, "no
+matter for that; how have these suspicions been changed to certainty?"
+
+"Yesterday, I went to take to my sister Cephyse, the assistance that M.
+Rodin had given me, in the name of a charitable person.  I did not find
+Cephyse at the friend's who had taken care of her; I therefore begged the
+portress, to inform my sister that I would call again this morning.  That
+is what I did; but you must excuse me, madame, some necessary details."
+
+"Speak, speak, my dear."
+
+"The young girl who had received my sister," said Mother Bunch, with
+embarrassment, casting down her eyes and blushing, "does not lead a very
+regular life.  A person, with whom she has gone on several parties of
+pleasure, one M. Dumoulin, had informed her of the real name of M. Rodin,
+who has a kind of lodging in that house, and there goes by the name of
+Charlemagne."
+
+"That is just what he told us at Dr. Baleinier's; and, the day before
+yesterday, when I again alluded to the circumstance, he explained to me
+the necessity in which he was, for certain reasons, to have a humble
+retreat in that remote quarter--and I could not but approve of his
+motives."
+
+"Well, then! yesterday, M. Rodin received a visit from the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny."
+
+"The Abbe d'Aigrigny!" exclaimed Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"Yes, madame; he remained for two hours shut up with M. Rodin."
+
+"My child, you must have been deceived."
+
+"I was told, madame, that the Abbe d'Aigrigny had called in the morning
+to see M. Rodin; not finding him at home, he had left with the portress
+his name written on a slip of paper, with the words, `I shall return in
+two hours.' The girl of whom I spoke, madame, had seen this slip of
+paper.  As all that concerns M. Rodin appears mysterious enough, she had
+the curiosity to wait for M. d'Aigrigny in the porter's lodge, and, about
+two hours afterwards, he indeed returned, and saw M. Rodin."
+
+"No, no," said Adrienne, shuddering; "it is impossible.  There must be
+some mistake."
+
+"I think not, madame; for, knowing how serious such a discovery would be,
+I begged the young girl to describe to me the appearance of M.
+d'Aigrigny."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The Abbe d'Aigrigny, she told me, is about forty years of age.  He is
+tall and upright, dresses plainly, but with care; has gray eyes, very
+large and piercing, thick eyebrows, chestnut-colored hair, a face closely
+shaved, and a very decided aspect."
+
+"It is true," said Adrienne, hardly able to believe what she heard.  "The
+description is exact."
+
+"Wishing to have all possible details," resumed Mother Bunch, "I asked
+the portress if M. Rodin and the Abbe d'Aigrigny appeared to be at
+variance when they quitted the house?  She replied no, but that the Abbe
+said to M. Rodin, as they parted at the door: `I will write to you
+tomorrow, as agreed.'"
+
+"Is it a dream?  Good heaven!" said Adrienne, drawing her hands across
+her forehead in a sort of stupor.  "I cannot doubt your word, my poor
+friend; and yet it is M. Rodin who himself sent you to that house, to
+give assistance to your sister: would he have wilfully laid open to you
+his secret interviews with the Abbe d'Aigrigny?  It would have been bad
+policy in a traitor."
+
+"That is true, and the same reflection occurred to me.  And yet the
+meeting of these two men appeared so dangerous to you, madame, that I
+returned home full of terror."
+
+Characters of extreme honesty are very hard to convince of the treachery
+of others: the more infamous the deception, the more they are inclined to
+doubt it.  Adrienne was one of these characters, rectitude being a prime
+quality of her mind.  Though deeply impressed by the communication, she
+remarked: "Come, my dear, do not let us frighten ourselves too soon, or
+be over-hasty in believing evil.  Let us try to enlighten ourselves by
+reasoning, and first of all remember facts.  M. Rodin opened for me the
+doors of Dr. Baleinier's asylum; in my presence, he brought, his charge
+against the Abbe d'Aigrigny; he forced the superior of the convent to
+restore Marshal Simon's daughters, he succeeded in discovering the
+retreat of Prince Djalma--he faithfully executed my intentions with
+regard to my young cousin; only yesterday, he gave me the most useful
+advice.  All this is true--is it not?"
+
+"Certainly, madame."
+
+"Now suppose that M. Rodin, putting things in their worst light, had some
+after-thought--that he hopes to be liberally rewarded, for instance;
+hitherto, at least, he has shown complete disinterestedness."
+
+"That also is true, madame," said poor Mother Bunch, obliged, like
+Adrienne, to admit the evidence of fixed facts.
+
+"Now let us look to the possibility of treachery.  Unite with the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny to betray me!  Betray me?--how? and for what purpose?  What
+have I to fear?  Is it not the Abbe d'Aigrigny, on the contrary, is it
+not Madame de Saint-Dizier, who have to render an account for the
+injuries they have done me?"
+
+"But, then, madame, how do you explain the meeting of these two men, who
+have so many motives for mutual aversion?  May there not be some dark
+project still behind?  Besides, madame, I am not the only one to think
+so."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"This morning, on my return, I was so much agitated, that Mdlle. Florine
+asked me the cause of my trouble.  I know, madame, how much she is
+devoted to you."
+
+"Nobody could be more so; only recently, you yourself informed me of the
+signal service she rendered, during my confinement at Dr. Baleinier's."
+
+"Well, madame, this morning, on my return, thinking it necessary to have
+you informed as soon as possible, I told all to Mdlle. Florine.  Like me-
+-even more, perhaps--she was terrified at the meeting of Rodin and M.
+d'Aigrigny.
+
+After a moment's reflection, she said to me: `It is, I think, useless to
+disturb my mistress at present; it can be of no importance whether she is
+informed of this treachery two or three hours sooner or later; during
+that time I may be able to discover something more.  I have an idea,
+which I think a good one.  Make my excuses to my mistress; I shall soon
+be back.' Then Florine sent for a hackney-coach, and went out."
+
+"Florine is an excellent girl," said Mdlle. de Cardoville, with a smile,
+for further reflection had quite reassured her: "but, on this occasion, I
+think that her zeal and good heart have deceived her, as they have you,
+my poor friend.  Do you know, that we are two madcaps, you and I, not to
+have thought of one thing, which would have put us quite at our ease?"
+
+"How so, madame?"
+
+"The Abbe d'Aigrigny fears M. Rodin; he may have sought him out, to
+entreat his forbearance.  Do you not find this explanation both
+satisfactory and reasonable?"
+
+"Perhaps so, madame," said Mother Bunch, after a moment's reflection;
+"yes, it is probable."  But after another silence, and as if yielding to
+a conviction superior to every possible argument, she exclaimed: "And
+yet, no; believe me, madame, you are deceived.  I feel it.  All
+appearances may be against what I affirm; yet, believe me, these
+presentiments are too strong not to be true.  And have you not guessed
+the most secret instincts of my heart?  Why should I not be able to guess
+the dangers with which you are menaced?"
+
+"What do you say? what have I guessed?" replied Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+involuntarily impressed by the other's tone of conviction and alarm.
+
+"What have you guessed?" resumed the latter.  "All the troublesome
+susceptibility of an unfortunate creature, to whom destiny has decreed a
+life apart.  If I have hitherto been silent, it is not from ignorance of
+what I owe you.  Who told you, madame, that the only way to make me
+accept your favors without blushing, was to give me some employment, that
+would enable me to soothe the misfortunes I had so long shared?  Who told
+you, when you wished me to have a seat at your table, and to treat as
+your friend the poor needlewoman, in whose person you sought to honor,
+resignation and honest industry--who told you, when I answered with tears
+of gratitude and regret, that it was not false modesty, but a
+consciousness of my own ridiculous deformity, that made me refuse your
+offer?  Who told you that, but for this, I should have accepted it
+proudly, in the name of all my low-born sisters?  But you replied to me
+with the touching words: `I understand your refusal, my friend; it is not
+occasioned by false modesty, but by a sentiment of dignity that I love
+and respect.' "Who told you," continued the workgirl, with increasing
+animation, "that I should be so happy to find a little solitary retreat
+in this magnificent house, which dazzles me with its splendor?  Who
+guided you in the choice of the apartment (still far too good) that you
+have provided for me?  Who taught you, that, without envying the beauty
+of the charming creatures that surround you, and whom I love because they
+love you, I should always feel, by an involuntary comparison, embarrassed
+and ashamed before them?  Who told you therefore to send them away,
+whenever you wished to speak with me?  Yes! who has revealed to you all
+the painful and secret susceptibilities of a position like mine!  Who has
+revealed them to you?  God, no doubt! who in His infinite majesty creates
+worlds, and yet cares for the poor little insect hidden beneath the
+grass.  And you think, that the gratitude of a heart you have understood
+so well, cannot rise in its turn to the knowledge of what may be hurtful
+to you?  No, no, lady; some people have the instinct of self-
+preservation; others have the still more precious instinct that enables
+them to preserve those they love.  God has given me this instinct.  I
+tell you that you are betrayed!"  And with animated look, and cheeks
+slightly colored with emotion, the speaker laid such stress upon the last
+words, and accompanied them with such energetic gesture, that Mdlle. de
+Cardoville already shaken by the girl's warmth, began almost to share in
+her apprehensions.  Then, although she had before learned to appreciate
+the superior intelligence of this poor child of the people, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville had never till now heard her friend express herself with so
+much eloquence--an eloquence, too, that was inspired by the noblest
+sentiments.  This circumstance added to the impression made upon
+Adrienne.  But at the moment she was about to answer, a knock was heard
+at the door of the room, and Florine entered.
+
+On seeing the alarmed countenance of her waiting-maid, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville said hastily: "Well, Florine! what news?  Whence come you, my
+child?"
+
+"From Saint-Dizier House, madame."
+
+"And why did you go there?" asked Mdlle. de Cardoville, with surprise.
+
+"This morning," said Florine, glancing at the workgirl, "madame, there,
+confided to me her suspicions and uneasiness.  I shared in them.  The
+visit of the Abbe d'Aigrigny to M. Rodin appeared to me very serious.  I
+thought, if it should turn out that M. Rodin had been during the last few
+days to Saint-Dizier House, there would be no longer any doubt of his
+treachery."
+
+"True," said Adrienne, more and more uneasy.  "Well?"
+
+"As I had been charged to superintend the removal from the lodge, I knew
+that several things had remained there.  To obtain admittance, I had to
+apply to Mrs. Grivois.  I had thus a pretext for returning to the hotel."
+
+"What next, Florine, what next?"
+
+"I endeavored to get Mrs. Grivois to talk of M. Rodin; but it was in
+vain."
+
+"She suspected you," said the workgirl.  "It was to be anticipated."
+
+"I asked her," continued Florine, "if they had seen M. Rodin at the hotel
+lately.  She answered evasively.  Then despairing of getting anything out
+of her," continued Florine, "I left Mrs. Grivois, and that my visit might
+excite no suspicion, I went to the pavilion--when, as I turn down the
+avenue--whom do I see? why, M. Rodin himself, hastening towards the
+little garden-door, wishing no doubt to depart unnoticed by that way."
+
+"Madame, you hear," cried Mother Bunch, clasping her hands with a
+supplicating air; "such evidence should convince you."
+
+"M. Rodin at the Princess de Saint-Dizier's!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+whose glance, generally so mild, now suddenly flashed with vehement
+indignation.  Then she added, in a tone of considerable emotion,
+"Continue, Florine."
+
+"At sight of M. Rodin, I stopped," proceeded Florine, "and keeping a
+little on one side, I gained the pavilion without being seen.  I looked
+out into the street, through the closed blinds, and perceived a hackney
+coach.  It was waiting for M. Rodin, for, a minute after, he got into it,
+saying to the coachman, `No. 39, Rue Blanche'
+
+"The prince's!" exclaimed Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Yes, M. Rodin was to see him to-day," said Adrienne, reflecting.
+
+"No doubt he betrays you, madame, and the prince also; the latter will be
+made his victim more easily than you."
+
+"Shame! shame!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, on a sudden, as she rose, all
+her features contracted with painful anger.  "After such a piece of
+treachery, it is enough to make us doubt of everything--even of
+ourselves."
+
+"Oh, madame! is it not dreadful?" said Mother Bunch, shuddering.
+
+"But, then, why did he rescue me and mine, and accuse the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny?" wondered Mdlle. de Cardoville.  "Of a truth, it is enough to
+make one lose one's reason.  It is an abyss--but, oh! how frightful is
+doubt!"
+
+"As I returned," said Florine, casting a look of affectionate devotion on
+her mistress, "I thought of a way to make all clear; but there is not a
+minute to lose."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Adrienne, looking at Florine with surprise.
+
+"M. Rodin will soon be alone with the prince," said Florine.
+
+"No doubt," replied Adrienne.
+
+"The prince always sits in a little room that opens upon a greenhouse.
+It is there that he will receive M. Rodin."
+
+"What then?" resumed Adrienne.
+
+"This greenhouse, which I had arranged according to your orders, has only
+one issue--by a door leading into a little lane.  The gardener gets in
+that way every morning, so as not to have to pass through the apartments.
+Having finished his work, he does not return thither during the day."
+
+"What do you mean? what is your project?" said Adrienne, looking at
+Florine with growing surprise.
+
+"The plants are so disposed, that, I think, if even the shade were not
+there, which screens the glass that separates the saloon from the
+greenhouse, one might get near enough to hear what was passing in the
+room, without being seen.  When I was superintending the arrangements, I
+always entered by this greenhouse door.  The gardener had one key, and I
+another.  Luckily, I have not yet parted with mine.  Within an hour, you
+may know how far to trust M. Rodin.  If he betrays the prince, he betrays
+you also."
+
+"What say you?" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"Set out instantly with me; we reach the side door; I enter alone, for
+precaution sake--if all is right, I return--"
+
+"You would have me turn spy?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, haughtily,
+interrupting Florine.  "You cannot think it.
+
+"I beg your pardon, madame," said the girl, casting down her eyes, with
+confused and sorrowful air; "you had suspicions, and me seems 'tis the
+only way to confirm or destroy them."
+
+"Stoop to listen to a conversation--never!" replied Adrienne.
+
+"Madame," said Mother Bunch, suddenly, after same moments' thought,
+"permit me to tell you that Mdlle. Florine is right.  The plan proposed
+is a painful one, but it is the only way in which you can clear up,
+perhaps, for ever, your doubts as to M. Rodin.  Notwithstanding the
+evidence of facts, in spite of the almost certainty of my presentiments,
+appearances may deceive us.  I was the first who accused M. Rodin to you.
+I should not forgive myself all the rest of my life, did I accuse him
+wrongfully.  Beyond doubt, it is painful, as you say, madame, to listen
+to a conversation--" Then, with a violent effort to console herself, she
+added, as she strove to repress her tears, "Yet, as your safety is at
+stake, madame--for, if this be treachery, the future prospect is
+dreadful--I will go in your place--to--"
+
+"Not a word more, I entreat you," cried Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+interrupting.  "Let you, my poor friend, do for me what I thought
+degrading to do myself?  Never!"
+
+Then, turning to Florine, she added, "Tell M. de Bonneville to have the
+carriage got ready on the instant."
+
+"You consent, then!" cried Florine, clasping her hands, and not seeking
+to conceal her joy; and her eyes also became full of tears.
+
+"Yes, I consent," answered Adrienne, with emotion.  "If it is to be war--
+war to the knife, that they would wage with me--I must be prepared for
+it; and, come to think of it, it would only be weakness and folly not to
+put myself on my guard.  No doubt this step costs me much, and is very
+repugnant to me, but it is the only way to put an end to suspicions that
+would be a continual torment to me, and perhaps to prevent still greater
+evils.  Yes! for many important reasons, this interview of M. Rodin with
+Prince Djalma may be doubly decisive to me--as to the confidence, or the
+inexorable hate, that I must henceforth feel for M. Rodin.  So, Florine,
+quick!--my cloak and bonnet, and the carriage.  You will go with me.  As
+for you, my dear, pray wait for me here," she added, turning to the work-
+girl.
+
+Half an hour after this conversation, Adrienne's carriage stopped, as we
+have before seen, at the little garden-gate of the house in the Rue
+Blanche.  Florine entered the greenhouse and soon returned to her
+mistress.  "The shade is down, madame.  M. Rodin has just entered the
+prince's room."  Mdlle. de Cardoville was, therefore, present, though
+invisible, at the following scene, which took place between Rodin and
+Djalma.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE LETTER.
+
+Some minutes before the entrance of Mdlle. de Cardoville into the
+greenhouse, Rodin had been introduced by Faringhea into the presence of
+the prince, who, still under the influence of the burning excitement into
+which he had been plunged by the words of the half-caste, did not appear
+to perceive the Jesuit.  The latter, surprised at the animated expression
+of Djalma's countenance, and his almost frantic air, made a sign of
+interrogation to Faringhea, who answered him privately in the following
+symbolical manner:--After laying his forefinger on his head and heart, he
+pointed to the fire burning in the chimney, signifying by his pantomimic
+action that the head and heart of Djalma were both in flames.  No doubt
+Rodin understood him, for an imperceptible smile of satisfaction played
+upon his wan lips; then he said aloud to Faringhea, "I wish to be alone
+with the prince.  Let down the shade and see that we are not
+interrupted."  The half-caste bowed, and touched a spring near the sheet
+of plate-glass, which slid into the wall as the blind descended; then,
+again bowing, Faringhea left the room.  It was shortly after that Mdlle.
+de Cardoville and Florine entered the greenhouse, which was now only
+separated from the room in which was Djalma, by the transparent thickness
+of a shade of white silk, embroidered with large colored birds.  The
+noise of the door, which Faringhea closed as he went out, seemed to
+recall the young Indian to himself; his features, though still animated,
+recovered their habitual expression of mildness and gentleness; he
+started, drew his hand across his brow, looked around him, as if waking
+up from a deep reverie, and then, advancing towards Rodin, with an air as
+respectful as confused, he said to him, using the expression commonly
+applied to old men in his country, "Pardon me, father."  Still following
+the customs of his nation, so full of deference towards age, he took
+Rodin's hand to raise it to his lips, but the Jesuit drew back a step,
+and refused his homage.
+
+"For what do you ask pardon, my dear prince?" said he to Djalma.
+
+"When you entered, I was in a dream; I did not come to meet you.  Once
+more, pardon me, father!"
+
+"Once more, I forgive you with all my heart, my dear prince.  But let us
+have some talk.  Pray resume your place on the couch, and your pipe, too,
+if you like it."
+
+But Djalma, instead of adopting the suggestion, and throwing himself on
+the divan, according to his custom, insisted on seating himself in a
+chair, notwithstanding all the persuasions of "the Old Man with the Good
+Heart," as he always called the Jesuit.
+
+"Really, your politeness troubles me, my dear prince," said Rodin; "you
+are here at home in India; at least, we wish you to think so."
+
+"Many things remind me of my country," said Djalma, in a mild grave tone.
+"Your goodness reminds me of my father, and of him who was a father to
+me," added the Indian, as he thought of Marshal Simon, whose arrival in
+Paris had been purposely concealed from him.
+
+After a moment's silence, he resumed in a tone full of affectionate
+warmth, as he stretched out his hand to Rodin, "You are come, and I am
+happy!"
+
+"I understand your joy, my dear prince, for I come to take you out of
+prison--to open your cage for you.  I had begged you to submit to a brief
+seclusion, entirely for your own interest."
+
+"Can I go out to-morrow?"
+
+"To-day, my dear prince, if you please."
+
+The young Indian reflected for a moment, and then resumed, "I must have
+friends, since I am here in a palace that does not belong to me."
+
+"Certainly you have friends--excellent friends," answered Rodin.  At
+these words, Djalma's countenance seemed to acquire fresh beauty.  The
+most noble sentiments were expressed in his fine features; his large
+black eyes became slightly humid, and, after another interval of silence,
+he rose and said to Rodin with emotion: "Come!"
+
+"Whither, dear prince?" said the other, much surprised.
+
+"To thank my friends.  I have waited three days.  It is long."
+
+"Permit me dear prince--I have much to tell you on this subject--please
+to be seated."
+
+Djalma resumed his seat with docility.  Rodin continued: "It is true that
+you have friends; or rather, you have a friend.  Friends are rare."
+
+"What are you?"
+
+"Well, then, you have two friends, my dear prince--myself, whom you know,
+and one other, whom you do not know, and who desires to remain unknown to
+you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why?" answered Rodin, after a moment's embarrassment.  "Because the
+happiness he feels in giving you these proofs of his friendship and even
+his own tranquillity, depend upon preserving this mystery."
+
+"Why should there be concealment when we do good?"
+
+"Sometimes, to conceal the good we do, my dear prince."
+
+"I profit by this friendship; why should he conceal himself from one?"
+These repeated questions of the young Indian appeared to puzzle Rodin,
+who, however, replied: "I have told you, my dear prince, that your secret
+friend would perhaps have his tranquillity compromised, if he were
+known."
+
+"If he were known--as my friend?"
+
+"Exactly so, dear prince."
+
+The countenance of Djalma immediately assumed an appearance of sorrowful
+dignity; he raised his head proudly, and said in a stern and haughty
+voice: "Since this friend hides himself from me, he must either be
+ashamed of me, or there is reason for me to be ashamed of him.  I only
+accept hospitality from those who are worthy of me, and who think me
+worthy of them.  I leave this house."  So saying, Djalma rose with such
+an air of determination, that Rodin exclaimed: "Listen to me, my dear
+prince.  Allow me to tell you, that your petulance and touchiness are
+almost incredible.  Though we have endeavored to remind you of your
+beautiful country, we are here in Europe, in France, in the centre of
+Paris.  This consideration may perhaps a little modify your views.
+Listen to me, I conjure you."
+
+Notwithstanding his complete ignorance of certain social
+conventionalisms, Djalma had too much good sense and uprightness, not to
+appreciate reason, when it appeared reasonable.  The words of Rodin
+calmed him.  With that ingenuous modesty, with which natures full of
+strength and generosity are almost always endowed, he answered mildly:
+"You are right, father.  I am no longer in my own country.  Here the
+customs are different.  I will reflect upon it."
+
+Notwithstanding his craft and suppleness, Rodin sometimes found himself
+perplexed by the wild and unforseen ideas of the young Indian.  Thus he
+saw, to his great surprise, that Djalma now remained pensive for some
+minutes, after which he resumed in a calm but firm tone: "I have obeyed
+you, father: I have reflected."
+
+"Well, my dear prince?"
+
+"In no country in the world, under no pretext, should a man of honor
+conceal his friendship for another man of honor."
+
+"But suppose there should be danger in avowing this friendship?" said
+Rodin, very uneasy at the turn the conversation was taking.  Djalma eyed
+the Jesuit with contemptuous astonishment, and made no reply.
+
+"I understand your silence, my dear prince: a brave man ought to defy
+danger.  True; but if it should be you that the danger threatens, in case
+this friendship were discovered, would not your man of honor be
+excusable, even praiseworthy, to persist in remaining unknown?"
+
+"I accept nothing from a friend, who thinks me capable of denying him
+from cowardice."
+
+"Dear prince--listen to me."
+
+"Adieu, father."
+
+"Yet reflect!"
+
+"I have said it," replied Djalma, in an abrupt and almost sovereign tone,
+as he walked towards the door.
+
+"But suppose a woman were concerned," cried Rodin, driven to extremity,
+and hastening after the young Indian, for he really feared that Djalma
+might rush from the house, and thus overthrow all his projects.
+
+At the last words of Rodin the Indian stopped abruptly.  "A woman!" said
+he, with a start, and turning red.  "A woman is concerned?"
+
+"Why, yes! suppose it were a woman," resumed Rodin, "would you not then
+understand her reserve, and the secrecy with which she is obliged to
+surround the marks of affection she wishes to give you?"
+
+"A woman! repeated Djalma, in a trembling voice, clasping his hands in
+adoration; and his beautiful countenance was expressive of the deepest
+emotion.  "A woman!" said he again.  "A Parisian?"
+
+"Yes, my dear prince, as you force me to this indiscretion, I will
+confess to you that your friend is a real Parisian--a noble matron,
+endowed with the highest virtues--whose age alone merits all your
+respect."
+
+"She is very old, then?" cried poor Djalma, whose charming dream was thus
+abruptly dispelled.
+
+"She may be a few years older than I am," answered Rodin, with an
+ironical smile, expecting to see the young man express a sort of comical
+disappointment or angry regret.
+
+But it was not so.  To the passionate enthusiasm of love, which had for a
+moment lighted up the prince's features, there now succeeded a respectful
+and touching expression.  He looked at Rodin with emotion, and said to
+him in a broken voice: "This woman, is then, a mother to me?"
+
+It is impossible to describe with what a pious, melancholy, and tender
+charm the Indian uttered the word mother.
+
+"You have it, my dear prince; this respectable lady wishes to be a mother
+to you.  But I may not reveal to you the cause of the affection she feels
+for you.  Only, believe me--this affection is sincere, and the cause
+honorable.  If I do not tell you her secret, it is that, with us, the
+secrets of women, young or old, are equally sacred."
+
+"That is right, and I will respect it.  Without seeing her, I will love
+her--as I love God, without seeing Him."
+
+"And now, my dear prince, let me tell you what are the intentions of your
+maternal friend.  This house will remain at your disposal, as long as you
+like it; French servants, a carriage, and horses, will be at your orders;
+the charges of your housekeeping will be paid for you.  Then, as the son
+of a king should live royalty, I have left in the next room a casket
+containing five hundred Louis; every month a similar sum will be
+provided: if it should not be found sufficient for your little
+amusements, you will tell me, and it shall be augmented."
+
+At a movement of Djalma, Rodin hastened to add: "I must tell you at once,
+my dear prince, that your delicacy may be quite at ease.  First of all,
+you may accept anything from a mother; next, as in about three months you
+will come into possession of an immense inheritance, it will be easy for
+you, if you feel the obligation a burden--and the sum cannot exceed, at
+the most, four or five thousand Louis--to repay these advances.  Spare
+nothing, then, but satisfy all your fancies.  You are expected to appear
+in the great world of Paris, in a style becoming the son of a king who
+was called the Father of the Generous.  So once again I conjure you not
+to be restrained by a false delicacy; if this sum should not be
+sufficient--"
+
+"I will ask for more.  My mother is right; the son of a monarch ought to
+live royally."
+
+Such was the answer of the Indian, made with perfect simplicity, and
+without any appearance of astonishment at these magnificent offers.  This
+was natural.  Djalma would have done for others what they were doing for
+him, for the traditions of the prodigal magnificence and splendid
+hospitality of Indian princes are well known.  Djalma had been as moved
+as grateful, on hearing that a woman loved him with maternal affection.
+As for the luxury with which she nought to surround him, he accepted it
+without astonishment and without scruple.  This resignation, again,
+somewhat disconcerted Rodin, who had prepared many excellent arguments to
+persuade the Indian to accept his offers.
+
+"Well, then, it's all agreed, my dear prince," resumed the Jesuit.  "Now,
+as you must see the world, it's just as well to enter by the best door,
+as we say.  One of the friends of your maternal protectress, the Count de
+Montbron, an old nobleman of the greatest experience, and belonging to
+the first society, will introduce you in some of the best houses in
+Paris."
+
+"Will you not introduce me, father?"
+
+"Alas!  my dear prince, look at me.  Tell me, if you think I am fitted
+for such an office.  No. no; I live alone and retired from the world.
+And then," added Rodin, after a short silence, fixing a penetrating,
+attentive, and curious look upon the prince, as if he would have
+subjected him to a sort of experiment by what follows; "and then, you
+see, M. de Montbron will be better able than I should, in the world you
+are about to enter, to enlighten you as to the snares that will be laid
+for you.  For if you have friends, you have also enemies--cowardly
+enemies, as you know, who have abused your confidence in an infamous
+manner, and have made sport of you.  And as, unfortunately, their power
+is equal to their wickedness, it would perhaps be more prudent in you to
+try to avoid them--to fly, instead of resisting them openly."
+
+At the remembrance of his enemies, at the thought of flying from them,
+Djalma trembled in every limb; his features became of a lurid paleness;
+his eyes wide open, so that the pupil was encircled with white, sparkled
+with lurid fire; never had scorn, hatred, and the desire of vengeance,
+expressed themselves so terribly on a human face.  His upper lip, blood-
+red, was curled convulsively, exposing a row of small, white, and close-
+set teeth, and giving to his countenance lately so charming, an air of
+such animal ferocity, that Rodin started from his seat, and exclaimed:
+"What is the matter, prince?  You frighten me."
+
+Djalma did not answer.  Half leaning forward, with his hands clinched in
+rage, he seemed to cling to one of the arms of the chair, for fear of
+yielding to a burst of terrific fury.  At this moment, the amber
+mouthpiece of his pipe rolled, by chance, under one of his feet; the
+violent tension, which contracted all the muscles of the young Indian,
+was so powerful, and notwithstanding his youth and his light figure, he
+was endowed with such vigor, that with one abrupt stamp he powdered to
+dust the piece of amber, in spite of its extreme hardness.
+
+"In the name of heaven, what is the matter, prince?" cried Rodin.
+
+"Thus would I crush my cowardly enemies!" exclaimed Djalma, with menacing
+and excited look.  Then, as if these words had brought his rage to a
+climax, he bounded from his seat, and, with haggard eyes, strode about
+the room for some seconds in all directions, as if he sought for some
+weapon, and uttered from time to time a hoarse cry, which he endeavored
+to stifle by thrusting his clinched fist against his mouth, whilst his
+jaws moved convulsively.  It was the impotent rage of a wild beast,
+thirsting for blood.  Yet, in all this, the young Indian preserved a
+great and savage beauty; it was evident that these instincts of
+sanguinary ardor and blind intrepidity, now excited to this pitch by
+horror of treachery and cowardice, when applied to war, or to those
+gigantic Indian hunts, which are even more bloody than a battle, must
+make of Djalma what he really was a hero.
+
+Rodin admired, with deep and ominous joy, the fiery impetuosity of
+passion in the young Indian, for, under various conceivable
+circumstances, the effect must be terrible.  Suddenly, to the Jesuit's
+great surprise, the tempest was appeased.  Djalma's fury was calmed thus
+instantaneously, because refection showed him how vain it was: ashamed of
+his childish violence, he cast down his eyes.  His countenance remained
+pale and gloomy; and, with a cold tranquillity, far more formidable than
+the violence to which he had yielded, he said to Rodin: "Father, you will
+this day lead me to meet my enemies."
+
+"In what end, my dear prince?  What would you do?"
+
+"Kill the cowards!"
+
+"Kill them! you must not think of it."
+
+"Faringhea will aid me."
+
+"Remember, you are not on the banks of the Ganges, and here one does not
+kill an enemy like a hunted tiger."
+
+"One fights with a loyal enemy, but one kills a traitor like an accursed
+dog," replied Djalma, with as much conviction as tranquillity.
+
+"Ah, prince, whose father was the Father of the Generous," said Rodin, in
+a grave voice; "what pleasure can you find in striking down creatures as
+cowardly as they are wicked?"
+
+"To destroy what is dangerous, is a duty."
+
+"So prince, you seek for revenge."
+
+"I do not revenge myself on a serpent," said the Indian, with haughty
+bitterness; "I crush it."
+
+"But, my dear prince, here we cannot get rid of our enemies in that
+manner.  If we have cause of complaint--"
+
+"Women and children complain," said Djalma, interrupting Rodin: "men
+strike."
+
+"Still on the banks of the Ganges, my dear prince.  Here society takes
+your cause into its own hands, examines, judges, and if there be good
+reason, punishes."
+
+"In my own quarrel, I am both judge and executioner."
+
+"Pray listen to me; you have escaped the odious snares of your enemies,
+have you not?--Well!  suppose it were thanks to the devotion of the
+venerable woman who has for you the tenderness of a mother, and that she
+were to ask you to forgive them--she, who saved you from their hands--
+what would you do then?"
+
+The Indian hung his head, and was silent.  Profiting by his hesitation,
+Rodin continued: "I might say to you that I know your enemies, but that
+in the dread of seeing you commit some terrible imprudence, I would
+conceal their names from you forever.  But no!  I swear to you, that if
+the respectable person, who loves you as her son, should find it either
+right or useful that I should tell you their names, I will do so--until
+she has pronounced, I must be silent."
+
+Djalma looked at Rodin with a dark and wrathful air.  At this moment,
+Faringhea entered, and said to Rodin: "A man with a letter, not finding
+you at home, has been sent on here.  Am I to receive it?  He says it
+comes from the Abbe d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Certainly," answered Rodin.  "That is," he added, "with the prince's
+permission."
+
+Djalma nodded in reply; Faringhea went out.
+
+"You will excuse what I have done, dear prince.  I expected this morning
+a very important letter.  As it was late in coming to hand, I ordered it
+to be sent on."
+
+A few minutes after, Faringhea returned with the letter, which he
+delivered to Rodin--and the half-caste again withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+ADRIENNE AND DJALMA.
+
+When Faringhea had quitted the room, Rodin took the letter from Abbe
+d'Aigrigny with one hand, and with the other appeared to be looking for
+something, first in the side pocket of his great-coat, then in the pocket
+behind, then in that of his trousers; and, not finding what he sought, he
+laid the letter on his knee, and felt himself all over with both hands,
+with an air of regret and uneasiness.  The divers movements of this
+pantomime, performed in the most natural manner, were crowned by the
+exclamations.
+
+"Oh! dear me! how vexatious!"
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Djalma, starting from the gloomy silence in
+which he had been plunged for some minutes.
+
+"Alas! my dear prince!" replied Rodin, "the most vulgar and puerile
+accident may sometimes cause the greatest inconvenience.  I have
+forgotten or lost my spectacles.  Now, in this twilight, with the very
+poor eyesight that years of labor have left me, it will be absolutely
+impossible for me to read this most important letter--and an immediate
+answer is expected--most simple and categorical--a yes or a no.  Times
+presses; it is really most annoying.  If," added Rodin, laying great
+stress on his words, without looking at Djalma, but so as the prince
+might remark it; "if only some one would render me the service to read it
+for me; but there is no one--no--one!"
+
+"Father," said Djalma, obligingly, "shall I read it for you.  When I have
+finished it, I shall forget what I have read."
+
+"You?" cried Rodin, as if the proposition of the Indian had appeared to
+him extravagant and dangerous; "it is impossible, prince, for you to read
+this letter."
+
+"Then excuse my having offered," said Djalma mildly.
+
+"And yet," resumed Rodin, after a moment's reflection, and as if speaking
+to himself, "why not?"
+
+And he added, addressing Djalma: "Would you really be so obliging, my
+dear prince?  I should not have ventured to ask you this service."
+
+So saying, Rodin delivered the letter to Djalma, who read aloud as
+follows: "'Your visit this morning to Saint-Dizier House can only be
+considered, from what I hear, as a new act of aggression on your part.
+
+"`Here is the last proposition I have to make.  It may be as fruitless as
+the step I took yesterday, when I called upon you in the Rue Clovis.
+
+"`After that long and painful explanation, I told you that I would write
+to you.  I keep my promise, and here is my ultimatum.
+
+"`First of all, a piece of advice.  Beware!  If you are determined to
+maintain so unequal a struggle, you will be exposed even to the hatred of
+those whom you so foolishly seek to protect.  There are a thousand ways
+to ruin you with them, by enlightening them as to your protects.  It will
+be proved to them, that you have shared in the plat, which you now
+pretend to reveal, not from generosity, but from cupidity.'"  Though
+Djalma had the delicacy to feel that the least question on the subject of
+this letter would be a serious indiscretion, he could not forbear turning
+his head suddenly towards the Jesuit, as he read the last passage.
+
+"Oh, yes!  it relates to me.  Such as you see me, my dear prince," added
+he, glancing at his shabby clothes, "I am accused of cupidity."
+
+"And who are these people that you protect?"
+
+"Those I protect?" said Rodin feigning some hesitation, as if he had been
+embarrassed to find an answer; "who are those I protect?  Hem--hem--I
+will tell you.  They are poor devils without resources; good people
+without a penny, having only a just cause on their side, in a lawsuit in
+which they are engaged.  They are threatened with destruction by powerful
+parties--very powerful parties; but, happily, these latter are known to
+me, and I am able to unmask them.  What else could have been?  Being
+myself poor and weak, I range myself naturally on the side of the poor
+and weak.  But continue, I beg of you."
+
+Djalma resumed: "`You have therefore every-thing to fear if you persist
+in your hostility, and nothing to gain by taking the side of those whom
+you call your friends.  They might more justly be termed your dupes, for
+your disinterestedness would be inexplicable, were it sincere.  It must
+therefore conceal some after-thought of cupidity.
+
+"`Well! in that view of the case, we can offer you ample compensation--
+with this difference, that your hopes are now entirely founded on the
+probable gratitude of your friends, a very doubtful chance at the best,
+whereas our offers will be realized on the instant.  To speak clearly,
+this is what we ask, what we exact of you.  This very night, before
+twelve, you must have left Paris, and engage not to return for six
+months.'" Djalma could not repress a movement of surprise, and looked at
+Rodin.
+
+"Quite natural," said the latter; "the cause of my poor friends would be
+judged by that time, and I should be unable to watch over them.  You see
+how it is, my dear prince," added Rodin., with bitter indignation.  "But
+please continue, and excuse me for having interrupted you; though,
+indeed, such impudence disgusts me."
+
+Djalma continued: "'That we may be certain of your removal from Paris for
+six months, you will go to the house of one of our friends in Germany.
+You will there be received with generous hospitality, but forcibly
+detained until the expiration of the term.'"
+
+"Yes, yes! a voluntary prison," said Rodin.
+
+"`On these conditions, you will receive a pension of one thousand francs
+a month, to begin from your departure from Paris, ten thousand francs
+down, and twenty thousand at the end of the six months--the whole to be
+completely secured to you.  Finally, at the end of the six months, we
+will place you in a position both honorable and independent.'"
+
+Djalma having stopped short, with involuntary indignation, Rodin said to
+him: "Let me beg you to continue, my dear prince.  Read to the end, and
+it will give you some idea of what passes in the midst of our
+civilization."
+
+Djalma resumed: "`You know well enough the course of affairs, and what we
+are, to feel that in providing for your absence, we only wish to get rid
+of an enemy, not very dangerous, but rather troublesome.  Do not be
+blinded by your first success.  The results of your denunciation will be
+stifled, because they are calumnious.  The judge who received your
+evidence will soon repent his odious partiality.  You may make what use
+you please of this letter.  We know what we write, to whom we write, and
+how we write.  You will receive this letter at three o'clock; if by four
+o'clock we have not your full and complete acceptance, written with your
+own hand at the bottom of this letter, war must commence between us--and
+not from to-morrow, but on the instant.'"
+
+Having finished reading the letter, Djalma looked at Rodin, who said to
+him: "Permit me to summon Faringhea."
+
+He rang the bell, and the half-caste appeared.  Rodin took the letter
+from the hands of Djalma, tore it into halves, rubbed it between his
+palms, so as to make a sort of a ball, and said to the half-caste, as he
+returned it to him:  "Give this palter to the person who waits for it,
+and tell him that is my only answer to his shameless and insolent letter;
+you understand me--this shameless and insolent letter."
+
+"I understand." said the half-caste; and he went out.
+
+"This will perhaps be a dangerous war for you, father, said the Indian,
+with interest.
+
+"Yes, dear prince, it may be dangerous, but I am not like you; I have no
+wish to kill my enemies, because they are cowardly and wicked.  I fight
+them under the shield of the law.  Imitate me in this."  Then, seeing
+that the countenance of Djalma darkened, he added: "I am wrong.  I will
+advise you no more on this subject.  Only, let us defer the decision to
+the judgment of your noble and motherly protectress.  I shall see her to-
+morrow; if she consents, I will tell you the names of your enemies.  If
+not--not."
+
+"And this woman, this second mother," said Djalma, "is her character
+such, that I can rely on her judgment?"
+
+"She!" cried Rodin, clasping his hands, and speaking with increased
+excitement.  "Why, she is the most noble, the most generous, the most
+valiant being upon earth!--why, if you were really her son, and she loved
+you with all the strength of maternal affection, and a case arose in
+which you had to choose between an act of baseness and death, she would
+say to you: 'Die!' though she might herself die with you."
+
+"Oh, noble woman! so was my mother!" cried Djalma, with enthusiasm.
+
+"Yes," resumed Rodin, with growing energy, as he approached the window
+concealed by the shade, towards which he threw an oblique and anxious
+glance, "if you would imagine your protectress, think only of courage,
+uprightness, and loyalty personified.  Oh! she has the chivalrous
+frankness of the brave man, joined with the high-souled dignity of the
+woman, who not only never in her life told a falsehood, never concealed a
+single thought, but who would rather die than give way to the least of
+those sentiments of craft and dissimulation, which are almost forced upon
+ordinary women by the situation in which they are placed."
+
+It is difficult to express the admiration which shone upon the
+countenance of Djalma, as he listened to this description.  His eyes
+sparkled, his cheeks glowed, his heart palpitated with enthusiasm.
+
+"That is well, noble heart!" said Rodin to him, drawing still nearer to
+the blind; "I love to see your soul sparkle through your eyes, on hearing
+me speak thus of your unknown protectress.  Oh! but she is worthy of the
+pious adoration which noble hearts and great characters inspire!"
+
+"Oh! I believe you," cried Djalma, with enthusiasm; "my heart is full of
+admiration and also of astonishment, for my mother is no more, and yet
+such a woman exists!"
+
+"Yes, she exists.  For the consolation of the afflicted, for the glory of
+her sex, she exists.  For the honor of truth, and the shame of falsehood,
+she exists.  No lie, no disguise, has ever tainted her loyalty, brilliant
+and heroic as the sword of a knight.  It is but a few days ago that this
+noble woman spoke to me these admirable words, which, in all my life, I
+shall not forget: `Sir,' she said, `if ever I suspect any one that I love
+or esteem--'"
+
+Rodin did not finish.  The shade, so violently shaken that the spring
+broke, was drawn up abruptly, and, to the great astonishment of Djalma,
+Mdlle. de Cardoville appeared before him.  Adrienne's cloak had fallen
+from her shoulders, and in the violence of the movement with which she
+had approached the blind, her bonnet, the strings of which were untied,
+had also fallen.  Having left home suddenly, with only just time to throw
+a mantle over the picturesque and charming costume which she often chose
+to wear when alone, she appeared so radiant with beauty to Djalma's
+dazzled eyes, in the centre of those leaves and flowers, that the Indian
+believed himself under the influence of a dream.
+
+With clasped hands, eyes wide open, the body slightly bent forward, as if
+in the act of prayer, he stood petrified with admiration, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, much agitated, and her countenance glowing with emotion,
+remained on the threshold of the greenhouse, without entering the room.
+All this had passed in less time than it takes to describe it.  Hardly
+had the blind been raised, than Rodin, feigning surprise, exclaimed: "You
+here, madame?"
+
+"Oh, sir!" said Adrienne, in an agitated voice, "I come to terminate the
+phrase which you have commenced.  I told you, that when a suspicion
+crossed my mind, I uttered it aloud to the person by whom it was
+inspired.  Well!  I confess it: I have failed in this honesty.  I came
+here as a spy upon you, when your answer to the Abbe d'Aigrigny was
+giving me a new pledge of your devotion and sincerity.  I doubted your
+uprightness at the moment when you were bearing testimony to my
+frankness.  For the first time in my life, I stooped to deceit; this
+weakness merits punishment, and I submit to it--demands reparation, and I
+make it--calls for apologies, and I tender them to you."  Then turning
+towards Djalma, she added: "Now, prince, I am no longer mistress of my
+secret.  I am your relation, Mdlle. de Cardoville; and I hope you will
+accept from a sister the hospitality that you did not refuse from a
+mother."
+
+Djalma made no reply.  Plunged in ecstatic contemplation of this sudden
+apparition, which surpassed his wildest and most dazzling visions, he
+felt a sort of intoxication, which, paralyzing the power of thought,
+concentrated all his faculties in the one sense of sight; and just as we
+sometimes seek in vain to satisfy unquenchable thirst, the burning look
+of the Indian sought, as it were, with devouring avidity, to take in all
+the rare perfections of the young lady.  Verily, never had two more
+divine types of beauty met face to face.  Adrienne and Djalma were the
+very ideal of a handsome youth and maiden.  There seemed to be something
+providential in the meeting of these two natures, so young and so
+vivacious, so generous and so full of passion, so heroic and so proud,
+who, before coming into contact, had, singularly enough, each learned the
+moral worth of the other; for if, at the words of Rodin, Djalma had felt
+arise in his heart an admiration, as lively as it was sudden, for the
+valiant and generous qualities of that unknown benefactress, whom he now
+discovered in Mdlle. de Cardoville, the latter had, in her turn, been
+moved, affected, almost terrified, by the interview she had just
+overheard, in which Djalma had displayed the nobleness of his soul, the
+delicate goodness of his heart, and the terrible transports of his
+temper.  Then she had not been able to repress a movement of
+astonishment, almost admiration, at sight of the surprising beauty of the
+prince; and soon after, a strange, painful sentiment, a sort of electric
+shock, seemed to penetrate all her being, as her eyes encountered
+Djalma's.
+
+Cruelly agitated, and suffering deeply from this agitation, she tried to
+dissemble the impression she had received, by addressing Rodin, to
+apologize for having suspected him.  But the obstinate silence of the
+Indian redoubled the lady's painful embarrassment.  Again raising her
+eyes towards the prince, to invite him to respond to her fraternal offer,
+she met his ardent gaze wildly fixed upon her, and she looked once more
+with a mixture of fear, sadness, and wounded pride; then she
+congratulated herself on having foreseen the inexorable necessity of
+keeping Djalma at a distance from her, such apprehension did this ardent
+and impetuous nature already inspire.  Wishing to put an end to her
+present painful situation, she said to Rodin, in a low and trembling
+voice, "Pray, sir, speak to the prince; repeat to him my offers.  I
+cannot remain longer."  So saying, Adrienne turned, as if to rejoin
+Florine.  But, at the first step, Djalma sprang towards her with the
+bound of a tiger, about to be deprived of his prey.  Terrified by the
+expression of wild excitement which inflamed the Indian's countenance,
+the young lady drew back with a loud scream.
+
+At this, Djalma remembered himself, and all that had passed.  Pale with
+regret and shame, trembling, dismayed, his eyes streaming with tears, and
+all his features marked with an expression of the most touching despair,
+he fell at Adrienne's feet, and lifting his clasped hands towards her,
+said in a soft, supplicating, timid voice: "Oh, remain! remain! do not
+leave me.  I have waited for you so long!"  To this prayer, uttered with
+the timid simplicity of a child, and a resignation which contrasted
+strangely with the savage violence that had so frightened Adrienne, she
+replied, as she made a sign to Florine to prepare for their departure:
+"Prince, it is impossible for me to remain longer here."
+
+"But you will return?" said Djalma, striving to restrain his tears.  "I
+shall see you again?"
+
+"Oh, no! never--never!" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a failing voice.
+Then, profiting by the stupor into which her answer had thrown Djalma,
+Adrienne disappeared rapidly behind the plants in the greenhouse.
+
+Florine was hastening to rejoin her mistress, when, just at the moment
+she passed before Rodin, he said to her in a low, quick voice: "To-morrow
+we must finish with the hunchback."  Florine trembled in every limb, and,
+without answering Rodin, disappeared, like her mistress, behind the
+plants.  Broken, overpowered, Djalma remained upon his knees, with his
+head resting on his breast.  His countenance expressed neither rage nor
+excitement, but a painful stupor; he wept silently.  Seeing Rodin
+approach him, he rose, but with so tremulous a step, that he could hardly
+reach the divan, on which he sank down, hiding his face in his hands.
+
+Then Rodin, advancing, said to him in a mild and insinuating tone: "Alas!
+I feared what has happened.  I did not wish you to see your benefactress;
+and if I told you she was old, do you know why, dear prince?"
+
+Djalma, without answering, let his hands fall upon his knees, and turned
+towards Rodin a countenance still bathed in tears.
+
+"I knew that Mdlle. de Cardoville was charming, and at your age it is so
+easy to fall in love," continued Rodin; "I wished to spare you that
+misfortune, my dear prince, for your beautiful protectress passionately
+loves a handsome young man of this town."
+
+Upon these words, Djalma suddenly pressed both hands to his heart, as if
+he felt a piercing stab, uttered a cry of savage grief, threw back his
+head, and fell fainting upon the divan.
+
+Rodin looked at him coldly for some seconds, and then said as he went
+away, brushing his old hat with his elbow,
+
+"Come! it works--it works!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE CONSULTATION.
+
+It is night.  It has just struck nine.  It is the evening of that day on
+which Mdlle. de Cardoville first found herself in the presence of Djalma.
+Florine, pale, agitated, trembling, with a candle in her hand, had just
+entered a bedroom, plainly but comfortably furnished.  This room was one
+of the apartments occupied by Mother Bunch, in Adrienne's house.  They
+were situated on the ground-floor, and had two entrances.  One opened on
+the garden, and the other on the court-yard.  From this side came the
+persons who applied to the workgirl for succor; an ante-chamber in which
+they waited, a parlor in which they were received, constituted Mother
+Bunch's apartments, along with the bedroom, which Florine had just
+entered, looking about her with an anxious and alarmed air, scarcely
+touching the carpet with the tips of her satin shoes, holding her breath,
+and listening at the least noise.
+
+Placing the candle upon the chimney-piece, she took a rapid survey of the
+chamber, and approached the mahogany desk, surmounted by a well-filled
+bookcase.  The key had been left in the drawers of this piece of
+furniture, and they were all three examined by Florine.  They contained
+different petitions from persons in distress, and various, notes in the
+girl's handwriting.  This was not what Florine wanted.  Three cardboard
+boxes were placed in pigeon-holes beneath the bookcase.  These also were
+vainly explored, and Florine, with a gesture of vexation, looked and
+listened anxiously; then, seeing a chest of drawers, she made therein a
+fresh and useless search.  Near the foot of the bed was a little door,
+leading to a dressing-room.  Florine entered it, and looked--at first
+without success--into a large wardrobe, in which were suspended several
+black dresses, recently made for Mother Bunch, by order of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.  Perceiving, at the bottom of this wardrobe, half hidden
+beneath a cloak, a very shabby little trunk, Florine opened it hastily,
+and found there, carefully folded up, the poor old garments in which the
+work-girl had been clad when she first entered this opulent mansion.
+
+Florine started--an involuntary emotion contracted her features; but
+considering that she had not liberty to indulge her feelings, but only to
+obey Rodin's implacable orders, she hastily closed both trunk and
+wardrobe, and leaving the dressing-room, returned into the bed-chamber.
+After having again examined the writing-stand, a sudden idea occurred to
+her.  Not content with once more searching the cardboard boxes, she drew
+out one of them from the pigeon-hole, hoping to find what she sought
+behind the box: her first attempt failed, but the second was more
+successful.  She found behind the middle box a copy-book of considerable
+thickness.  She started in surprise, for she had expected something else;
+yet she took the manuscript, opened it, and rapidly turned over the
+leaves.  After having perused several pages, she manifested her
+satisfaction, and seemed as if about to put the book in her pocket; but
+after a moment's reflection, she replaced it where she had found it,
+arranged everything in order, took her candle, and quitted the apartment
+without being discovered--of which, indeed, she had felt pretty sure,
+knowing that Mother Bunch would be occupied with Mdlle. de Cardoville for
+some hours.
+
+The day after Florine's researches, Mother Bunch, alone in her bed-
+chamber, was seated in an arm-chair, close to a good fire.  A thick
+carpet covered the floor; through the window-curtains could be seen the
+lawn of a large garden; the deep silence was only interrupted by the
+regular ticking of a clock, and the crackling of the wood.  Her hands
+resting on the arms of the chair, she gave way to a feeling of happiness,
+such as she had never so completely enjoyed since she took up her
+residence at the hotel.  For her, accustomed so long to cruel privations,
+there was a kind of inexpressible charm in the calm silence of this
+retreat--in the cheerful aspect of the garden, and above all, in the
+consciousness that she was indebted for this comfortable position, to the
+resignation and energy she had displayed, in the thick of the many severe
+trials which now ended so happily.  An old woman, with a mild and
+friendly countenance, who had been, by express desire of Adrienne,
+attached to the hunchback's service, entered the room and said to her:
+"Mademoiselle, a young man wishes to speak to you on pressing business.
+He gives his name as Agricola Baudoin."
+
+At this name, Mother Bunch uttered an exclamation of surprise and joy,
+blushed slightly, rose and ran to the door which led to the parlor in
+which was Agricola.
+
+"Good-morning, dear sister," said the smith, cordially embracing the
+young girl, whose cheeks burned crimson beneath those fraternal kisses.
+
+"Ah, me!" cried the sempstress on a sudden, as she looked anxiously at
+Agricola; "what is that black band on your forehead? You have been
+wounded!"
+
+"A mere nothing," said the smith, "really nothing. Do not think of it.  I
+will tell you all about that presently.  But first, I have things of
+importance to communicate."
+
+"Come into my room, then; we shall be alone," Mother Bunch, as she went
+before Agricola.
+
+Notwithstanding the expression of uneasiness which was visible on the
+countenance of Agricola, he could not forbear smiling with pleasure as he
+entered the room and looked around him.
+
+"Excellent, my poor sister! this is how I would always have you lodged.
+I recognize here the hand of Mdlle. de Cardoville.  What a heart! what a
+noble mind!--Dost know, she wrote to me the day before yesterday, to
+thank me for what I had done for her, and sent me a gold pin (very
+plain), which she said I need not hesitate to accept, as it had no other
+value but that of having been worn by her mother!  You can't tell how
+much I was affected by the delicacy of this gift!"
+
+"Nothing must astonish you from a heart like hers," answered the
+hunchback.  "But the wound--the wound?"
+
+"Presently, my good sister; I have so many things to tell you.  Let us
+begin by what is most pressing, for I want you to give me some good
+advice in a very serious case.  You know how much confidence I have in
+your excellent heart and judgment.  And then, I have to ask of you a
+service--oh! a great service," added the smith, in an earnest, and almost
+solemn tone, which astonished his hearer.  "Let us begin with what is not
+personal to myself."
+
+"Speak quickly."
+
+"Since my mother went with Gabriel to the little country curacy he has
+obtained, and since my father lodges with Marshal Simon and the young
+ladies, I have resided, you know, with my mates, at M. Hardy's factory,
+in the common dwelling-house.  Now, this morning but first, I must tell
+you that M. Hardy, who has lately returned from a journey, is again
+absent for a few days on business.  This morning, then, at the hour of
+breakfast, I remained at work a little after the last stroke of the bell;
+I was leaving the workshop to go to our eating-room, when I saw entering
+the courtyard, a lady who had just got out of a hackney-coach.  I
+remarked that she was fair, though her veil was half down; she had a mild
+and pretty countenance, and her dress was that of a fashionable lady.
+Struck with her paleness, and her anxious, frightened air, I asked her if
+she wanted anything.  `Sir,' said she to me, in a trembling voice, and as
+if with a great effort, `do you belong to this factory?'--`Yes, madame.'-
+-`M. Hardy is then in clanger?' she exclaimed.--`M. Hardy, madame?  He
+has not yet returned home.'--`What!' she went on, `M. Hardy did not come
+hither yesterday evening?  Was he not dangerously wounded by some of the
+machinery?'  As she said these words, the poor young lady's lips
+trembled, and I saw large tears standing in her eyes.  `Thank God,
+madame! all this is entirely false,' said I, `for M. Hardy has not
+returned, and indeed is only expected by to-morrow or the day after.'--
+'You are quite sure that he has not returned! quite sure that he is not
+hurt?' resumed the pretty young lady, drying her eyes.--`Quite sure,
+madame; if M. Hardy were in danger, I should not be so quiet in talking
+to you about him.'--'Oh! thank God! thank God!' cried the young lady.
+Then she expressed to me her gratitude, with so happy, so feeling an air,
+that I was quite touched by it.  But suddenly, as if then only she felt
+ashamed of the step she had taken, she let down her veil, left me
+precipitately, went out of the court-yard, and got once more into the
+hackney-coach that had brought her.  I said to myself: `This is a lady
+who takes great interest in M. Hardy, and has been alarmed by a false
+report."'
+
+"She loves him, doubtless," said Mother Bunch, much moved, "and, in her
+anxiety, she perhaps committed an act of imprudence, in coming to inquire
+after him."
+
+"It is only too true.  I saw her get into the coach with interests, for
+her emotion had infected me.  The coach started--and what did I see a few
+seconds after?  A cab, which the young lady could not have perceived, for
+it had been hidden by an angle of the wall; and, as it turned round the
+corner, I distinguished perfectly a man seated by the driver's side, and
+making signs to him to take the same road as the hackney-coach."
+
+"The poor young lady was followed," said Mother Bunch, anxiously.
+
+"No doubt of it; so I instantly hastened after the coach, reached it, and
+through the blinds that were let down, I said to the young lady, whilst I
+kept running by the side of the coach door: `Take care, madame; you are
+followed by a cab.
+
+"Well, Agricola! and what did she answer?"
+
+"I heard her exclaim, `Great Heaven!' with an accent of despair.  The
+coach continued its course.  The cab soon came up with me; I saw, by the
+side of the driver, a great, fat, ruddy man, who, having watched me
+running after the coach, no doubt suspected something, for he looked at
+me somewhat uneasily."
+
+"And when does M. Hardy return?" asked the hunchback.
+
+"To-morrow, or the day after.  Now, my good sister, advise me.  It is
+evident that this young lady loves M. Hardy.  She is probably married,
+for she looked so embarrassed when she spoke to me, and she uttered a cry
+of terror on learning that she was followed.  What shall I do?  I wished
+to ask advice of Father Simon, but he is so very strict in such matters--
+and then a love affair, at his age!--while you are so delicate and
+sensible, my good sister, that you will understand it all."
+
+The girl started, and smiled bitterly; Agricola did not perceive it, and
+thus continued: "So I said to myself, `There is only Mother Bunch, who
+can give me good advice.' Suppose M. Hardy returns to-morrow, shall I
+tell him what has passed or not?"
+
+"Wait a moment," cried the other, suddenly interrupting Agricola, and
+appearing to recollect something; "when I went to St.  Mary's Convent, to
+ask for work of the superior, she proposed that I should be employed by
+the day, in a house in which I was to watch or, in other words, to act as
+a spy--"
+
+"What a wretch!"
+
+"And do you know," said the girl, "with whom I was to begin this odious
+trade?  Why, with a Madame de-Fremont, or de Bremont, I do not remember
+which, a very religious woman, whose daughter, a young married lady,
+received visits a great deal too frequent (according to the superior)
+from a certain manufacturer."
+
+"What do you say?" cried Agricola.  "This manufacturer must be--"
+
+"M. Hardy.  I had too many reasons to remember that name, when it was
+pronounced by the superior.  Since that day, so many other events have
+taken place, that I had almost forgotten the circumstance.  But it is
+probable that this young lady is the one of whom I heard speak at the
+convent."
+
+"And what interest had the superior of the convent to set a spy upon
+her?" asked the smith.
+
+"I do not know; but it is clear that the same interest still exists,
+since the young lady was followed, and perhaps, at this hour, is
+discovered and dishonored.  Oh! it is dreadful!"  Then, seeing Agricola
+start suddenly, Mother Bunch added:  "What, then, is the matter?"
+
+"Yes--why not?" said the smith, speaking to himself; "why may not all
+this be the work of the same hand?  The superior of a convent may have a
+private understanding with an abbe--but, then, for what end?"
+
+"Explain yourself, Agricola," said the girl.  "And then,--where did you
+get your wound?  Tell me that, I conjure you."
+
+"It is of my wound that I am just going to speak; for in truth, the more
+I think of it, the more this adventure of the young lady seems to connect
+itself with other facts."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You must know that, for the last few days, singular things are passing
+in the neighborhood of our factory.  First, as we are in Lent, an abbe
+from Paris (a tall, fine-looking man, they say) has come to preach in the
+little village of Villiers, which is only a quarter of a league from our
+works.  The abbe has found occasion to slander and attack M. Hardy in his
+sermons."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"M. Hardy has printed certain rules with regard to our work, and the
+rights and benefits he grants us.  These rules are followed by various
+maxims as noble as they are simple; with precepts of brotherly love such
+as all the world can understand, extracted from different philosophies
+and different religions.  But because M. Hardy has chosen what is best in
+all religions, the abbe concludes that M. Hardy has no religion at all,
+and he has therefore not only attacked him for this in the pulpit, but
+has denounced our factory as a centre of perdition and damnable
+corruption, because, on Sundays, instead of going to listen to his
+sermons, or to drink at a tavern, our comrades, with their wives and
+children, pass their time in cultivating their little gardens, in
+reading, singing in chorus, or dancing together in the common dwelling-
+house.  The abbe has even gone so far as to say, that the neighborhood of
+such an assemblage of atheists, as he calls us, might draw down the anger
+of Heaven upon the country--that the hovering of Cholera was much talked
+of, and that very possibly, thanks to our impious presence, the plague
+might fall upon all our neighborhood."
+
+"But to tell such things to ignorant people," exclaimed Mother Bunch, "is
+likely to excite them to fatal actions."
+
+"That is just what the abbe wants."
+
+"What do you tell me?"
+
+"The people of the environs, still more excited, no doubt by other
+agitators, show themselves hostile to the workmen of our factory.  Their
+hatred, or at least their envy, has been turned to account.  Seeing us
+live all together, well lodged, well warmed, and comfortably clad,
+active, gay, and laborious, their jealousy has been embittered by the
+sermons, and by the secret manoeuvres of some depraved characters, who
+are known to be bad workmen, in the employment of M. Tripeaud, our
+opposition.  All this excitement is beginning to bear fruit; there have
+been already two or three fights between us and our neighbors.  It was in
+one of these skirmishes that I received a blow with a stone on my head."
+
+"Is it not serious, Agricola?--are you quite sure?" said Mother Bunch,
+anxiously.
+
+"It is nothing at all, I tell you.  But the enemies of M. Hardy have not
+confined themselves to preaching.  They have brought into play something
+far more dangerous."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"I, and nearly all my comrades, did our part in the three Revolutionary
+days of July; but we are not eager at present, for good reasons, to take
+up arms again.  That is not everybody's opinion; well, we do not blame
+others, but we have our own ideas; and Father Simon, who is as brave as
+his son, and as good a patriot as any one, approves and directs us.  Now,
+for some days past, we find all about the factory, in the garden, in the
+courts, printed papers to this effect:  `You are selfish cowards; because
+chance has given you a good master, you remain indifferent to the
+misfortunes of your brothers, and to the means of freeing them; material
+comforts have enervated your hearts.'"
+
+"Dear me, Agricola! what frightful perseverance in wickedness!"
+
+"Yes! and unfortunately these devices have their effect on some of our
+younger mates.  As the appeal was, after all, to proud and generous
+sentiments, it has had some influence.  Already, seeds of division have
+shown themselves in our workshops, where, before, all were united as
+brothers.  A secret agitation now reigns there.  Cold suspicion takes the
+place, with some, of our accustomed cordiality.  Now, if I tell you that
+I am nearly sure these printed papers, thrown over the walls of our
+factory, to raise these little sparks of discord amongst us, have been
+scattered about by the emissaries of this same preaching abbe--would it
+not seem from all this, taken in conjunction with what happened this
+morning to the young lady, that M. Hardy has of late numerous enemies?"
+
+"Like you, I think it very fearful, Agricola," said the girl; "and it is
+so serious, that M. Hardy alone can take a proper decision on the
+subject.  As for what happened this morning to the young lady, it appears
+to me, that, immediately on M. Hardy's return, you should ask for an
+interview with him, and, however delicate such a communication may be,
+tell him all that passed."
+
+"There is the difficulty.  Shall I not seem as if wishing to pry into his
+secrets?"
+
+"If the young lady had not been followed, I should have shared your
+scruples.  But she was watched, and is evidently in danger.  It is
+therefore, in my opinion, your duty to warn M. Hardy.  Suppose (which is
+not improbable) that the lady is married; would it not be better, for a
+thousand reasons, that M. Hardy should know all?"
+
+"You are right, my good sister; I will follow your advice.  M. Hardy
+shall know everything.  But now that we have spoken of others, I have to
+speak of myself--yes, of myself--for it concerns a matter, on which may
+depend the happiness of my whole life," added the smith, in a tone of
+seriousness, which struck his hearer.  "You know," proceeded Agricola,
+after a moment's silence, "that, from my childhood, I have never
+concealed anything from you--that I have told you everything--absolutely
+everything?"
+
+"I know it, Agricola, I know it," said the hunchback, stretching out her
+white and slender hand to the smith, who grasped it cordially, and thus
+continued: "When I say everything, I am not quite exact--for I have
+always concealed from you my little love-affairs--because, though we may
+tell almost anything to a sister, there are subjects of which we ought
+not to speak to a good and virtuous girl, such as you are."
+
+"I thank you, Agricola.  I had remarked this reserve on your part,"
+observed the other, casting down her eyes, and heroically repressing the
+grief she felt; "I thank you."
+
+"But for the very reason, that I made it a duty never to speak to you of
+such love affairs, I said to myself, if ever it should happen that I have
+a serious passion--such a love as makes one think of marriage--oh! then,
+just as we tell our sister even before our father and mother, my good
+sister shall be the first to be informed of it."
+
+"You are very kind, Agricola."
+
+"Well then! the serious passion has come at last.  I am over head and
+ears in love, and I think of marriage."
+
+At these words of Agricola, poor Mother Bunch felt herself for an instant
+paralyzed.  It seemed as if all her blood was suddenly frozen in her
+veins.  For some seconds, she thought she was going to die.  Her heart
+ceased to beat; she felt it, not breaking, but melting away to nothing.
+Then, the first blasting emotion over, like those martyrs who found, in
+the very excitement of pain, the terrible power to smile in the midst of
+tortures, the unfortunate girl found, in the fear of betraying the secret
+of her fatal and ridiculous love, almost incredible energy.  She raised
+her head, looked at the smith calmly, almost serenely, and said to him in
+a firm voice: "Ah! so, you truly love?"
+
+"That is to say, my good sister, that, for the last four days, I scarcely
+live at all--or live only upon this passion."
+
+"It is only since four days that you have been in love?"
+
+"Not more--but time has nothing to do with it."
+
+"And is she very pretty?"
+
+"Dark hair--the figure of a nymph--fair as a lily--blue eyes, as large as
+that--and as mild, as good as your own."
+
+"You flatter me, Agricola."
+
+"No, no, it is Angela that I flatter--for that's her name.  What a pretty
+one!  Is it not, my good Mother Bunch?"
+
+"A charming name," said the poor girl, contrasting bitterly that graceful
+appellation with her own nickname, which the thoughtless Agricola applied
+to her without thinking of it.  Then she resumed, with fearful calmness:
+"Angela? yes, it is a charming name!"
+
+"Well, then! imagine to yourself, that this name is not only suited to
+her face, but to her heart.  In a word, I believe her heart to be almost
+equal to yours."
+
+"She has my eyes--she has my heart," said Mother Bunch, smiling.  "It is
+singular, how like we are."
+
+Agricola did not perceive the irony of despair contained in these words.
+He resumed, with a tenderness as sincere as it was inexorable: "Do you
+think, my good girl, that I could ever have fallen seriously in love with
+any one, who had not in character, heart, and mind, much of you?"
+
+"Come, brother," said the girl, smiling--yes, the unfortunate creature
+had the strength to smile; "come, brother, you are in a gallant vein to-
+day.  Where did you make the acquaintance of this beautiful young
+person?"
+
+"She is only the sister of one of my mates.  Her mother is the head
+laundress in our common dwelling, and as she was in want of assistance,
+and we always take in preference the relations of members of the
+association, Mrs. Bertin (that's the mother's name) sent for her daughter
+from Lille, where she had been stopping with one of her aunts, and, for
+the last five days, she has been in the laundry.  The first evening I saw
+her, I passed three hours, after work was over, in talking with her, and
+her mother and brother; and the next day, I felt that my heart was gone;
+the day after that, the feeling was only stronger--and now I am quite mad
+about her, and resolved on marriage--according as you shall decide.  Do
+not be surprised at this; everything depends upon you.  I shall only ask
+my father and mother's leave, after I have yours."
+
+"I do not understand you, Agricola."
+
+"You know the utter confidence I have in the incredible instinct of your
+heart.  Many times, you have said to me:  'Agricola, love this person,
+love that person, have confidence in that other'--and never yet were you
+deceived.  Well! you must now render me the same service.  You will ask
+permission of Mdlle. de Cardoville to absent yourself; I will take you to
+the factory: I have spoken of you to Mrs. Benin and her daughter, as of a
+beloved sister; and, according to your impression at sight of Angela, I
+will declare myself or not.  This may be childishness, or superstition,
+on my part; but I am so made."
+
+"Be it so," answered Mother Bunch, with heroic courage; "I will see
+Mdlle. Angela; I will tell you what I think of her--and that, mind you,
+sincerely."
+
+"I know it.  When will you come?"
+
+"I must ask Mdlle. de Cardoville what day she can spare sue.  I will let
+you know."
+
+"Thanks, my good sister!" said Agricola warmly; then he added, with a
+smile: "Bring your best judgment with you--your full dress judgment."
+
+"Do not make a jest of it, brother," said Mother Bunch, in a mild, sad
+voice; "it is a serious matter, for it concerns the happiness of your
+whole life."
+
+At this moment, a modest knock was heard at the door.  "Come in," said
+Mother Bunch.  Florine appeared.
+
+"My mistress begs that you will come to her, if you are not engaged,"
+said Florine to Mother Bunch.
+
+The latter rose, and, addressing the smith, said to him: "Please wait a
+moment, Agricola.  I will ask Mdlle. de Cardoville what day I can dispose
+of, and I will come and tell you."  So saying, the girl went out, leaving
+Agricola with Florine.
+
+"I should have much wished to pay my respects to Mdlle. de Cardoville,"
+said Agricola; "but I feared to intrude."
+
+"My lady is not quite well, sir," said Florine, "and receives no one to-
+day.  I am sure, that as soon as she is better, she will be quite pleased
+to see you."
+
+Here Mother Bunch returned, and said to Agricola: "If you can come for me
+to-morrow, about three o'clock, so as not to lose the whole day, we will
+go to the factory, and you can bring me back in the evening."
+
+"Then, at three o'clock to-morrow, my good sister."
+
+"At three to-morrow, Agricola."
+
+The evening of that same day, when all was quiet in the hotel, Mother
+Bunch, who had remained till ten o'clock with Mdlle. de Cardoville, re-
+entered her bedchamber, locked the door after her, and finding herself at
+length free and unrestrained, threw herself on her knees before a chair,
+and burst into tears.  She wept long--very long.  When her tears at
+length ceased to flow, she dried her eyes, approached the writing-desk,
+drew out one of the boxes from the pigeonhole, and, taking from this
+hiding-place the manuscript which Florine had so rapidly glanced over the
+evening before, she wrote in it during a portion of the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+MOTHER BUNCH'S DIARY.
+
+We have said that the hunchback wrote during a portion of the night, in
+the book discovered the previous evening by Florine, who had not ventured
+to take it away, until she had informed the persons who employed her of
+its contents, and until she had received their final orders on the
+subject.  Let us explain the existence of this manuscript, before opening
+it to the reader.  The day on which Mother Bunch first became aware of
+her love for Agricola, the first word of this manuscript had been
+written.  Endowed with an essentially trusting character, yet always
+feeling herself restrained by the dread of ridicule--a dread which, in
+its painful exaggeration, was the workgirl's only weakness--to whom could
+the unfortunate creature have confided the secret of that fatal passion,
+if not to paper--that mute confidant of timid and suffering souls, that
+patient friend, silent and cold, who, if it makes no reply to heart-
+rending complaints, at least always listens, and never forgets?
+
+When her heart was overflowing with emotion, sometimes mild and sad,
+sometimes harsh and bitter, the poor workgirl, finding a melancholy charm
+in these dumb and solitary outpourings of the soul, now clothed in the
+form of simple and touching poetry, and now in unaffected prose, had
+accustomed herself by degrees not to confine her confidences to what
+immediately related to Agricola, for though he might be mixed up with all
+her thoughts, for reflections, which the sight of beauty, of happy love,
+of maternity, of wealth, of misfortune, called up within her, were so
+impressed with the influence of her unfortunate personal position, that
+she would not even have dared to communicate them to him.  Such, then,
+was this journal of a poor daughter of the people, weak, deformed, and
+miserable, but endowed with an angelic soul, and a fine intellect,
+improved by reading, meditation, and solitude; pages quite unknown, which
+yet contained many deep and striking views, both as regard men and
+things, taken from the peculiar standpoint in which fate had placed this
+unfortunate creature.  The following lines, here and there abruptly
+interrupted or stained with tears, according to the current of her
+various emotions, on hearing of Agricola's deep love for Angela, formed
+the last pages of this journal:
+
+"Friday, March 3d, 1832.
+
+"I spent the night without any painful dreams.  This morning, I rose with
+no sorrowful presentiment.  I was calm and tranquil when Agricola came.
+He did not appear to me agitated.  He was simple and affectionate as he
+always is.  He spoke to me of events relating to M. Hardy, and then,
+without transition, without hesitation, he said to me:  `The last four
+days I have been desperately in love.  The sentiment is so serious, that
+I think of marriage.  I have come to consult you about it.'  That was how
+this overwhelming revelation was made to me--naturally and cordially -I
+on one side of the hearth, and Agricola an the other, as if we had talked
+of indifferent things.  And yet no more is needed to break one's heart.
+Some one enters, embraces you like a brother, sits down, talks--and then-
+-Oh! Merciful heaven! my head wanders.
+
+"I feel calmer now.  Courage, my poor heart, courage!--Should a day of
+misfortune again overwhelm me, I will read these lines written under the
+impression of the most cruel grief I can ever feel, and I will say to
+myself: `What is the present woe compared to that past?' My grief is
+indeed cruel! it is illegitimate, ridiculous, shameful: I should not dare
+to confess it, even to the most indulgent of mothers.  Alas! there are
+some fearful sorrows, which yet rightly make men shrug their shoulders in
+pity or contempt.  Alas! these are forbidden misfortunes.  Agricola has
+asked me to go to-morrow, to see this young girl to whom he is so
+passionately attached, and whom he will marry, if the instinct of my
+heart should approve the marriage.  This thought is the most painful of
+all those which have tortured me since he so pitilessly announced this
+love.  Pitilessly?  No, Agricola--no, my brother--forgive me this unjust
+cry of pain!  Is it that you know, can even suspect, that I love you
+better than you love, better than you can ever love, this charming
+creature?
+
+"`Dark-haired--the figure of a nymph--fair as a lily--with blue eyes--as
+large as that--and almost as mild as your own.'
+
+"That is the portrait he drew of her.  Poor Agricola! how would he have
+suffered, had he known that every one of his words was tearing my heart.
+Never did I so strongly feel the deep commiseration and tender pity,
+inspired by a good, affectionate being, who, in the sincerity of his
+ignorance, gives you your death-wound with a smile.  We do not blame him-
+-no--we pity him to the full extent of the grief that he would feel on
+learning the pain he had caused me.  It is strange! but never did
+Agricola appear to me more handsome than this morning.  His manly
+countenance was slightly agitated, as he spoke of the uneasiness of that
+pretty young lady.  As I listened to him describing the agony of a woman
+who runs the risk of ruin for the man she loves, I felt my heart beat
+violently, my hands were burning, a soft languor floated over me--
+Ridiculous folly!  As if I had any right to feel thus!
+
+"I remember that, while he spoke, I cast a rapid glance at the glass.  I
+felt proud that I was so well dressed; he had not even remarked it; but
+no matter--it seemed to me that my cap became me, that my hair shone
+finely, my gaze beamed mild--I found Agricola so handsome, that I almost
+began to think myself less ugly--no doubt, to excuse myself in my own
+eyes for daring to love him.  After all, what happened to-day would have
+happened one day or another!  Yes, that is consoling--like the thoughts
+that death is nothing, because it must come at last--to those who are in
+love with life!  I have been always preserved from suicide--the last
+resource of the unfortunate, who prefer trusting in God to remaining
+amongst his creatures--by the sense of duty.  One must not only think of
+self.  And I reflected also`God is good--always good--since the most
+wretched beings find opportunities for love and devotion.' How is it that
+I, so weak and poor, have always found means to be helpful and useful to
+some one?
+
+"This very day I felt tempted to make an end with life--Agricola and his
+mother had no longer need of me.--Yes, but the unfortunate creatures whom
+Mdlle. de Cardoville has commissioned me to watch over?--but my
+benefactress herself, though she has affectionately reproached me with
+the tenacity of my suspicions in regard to that man?  I am more than ever
+alarmed for her--I feel that she is more than ever in danger--more than
+ever--I have faith in the value of my presence near her.  Hence, I must
+live.  Live--to go to-morrow to see this girl, whom Agricola passionately
+loves?  Good heaven! why have I always known grief, and never hate?
+There must be a bitter pleasure in hating.  So many people hate!--Perhaps
+I may hate this girl--Angela, as he called her, when he said, with so
+much simplicity: `A charming name, is it not, Mother Bunch?' Compare this
+name, which recalls an idea so full of grace, with the ironical symbol of
+my witch's deformity!  Poor Agricola! poor brother! goodness is sometimes
+as blind as malice, I see.  Should I hate this young girl?--Why?  Did she
+deprive me of the beauty which charms Agricola?  Can I find fault with
+her for being beautiful?  When I was not yet accustomed to the
+consequences of my ugliness, I asked myself, with bitter curiosity, why
+the Creator had endowed his creatures so unequally.  The habit of pain
+has allowed me to reflect calmly, and I have finished by persuading
+myself, that to beauty and ugliness are attached the two most noble
+emotions of the soul--admiration and compassion.  Those who are like me
+admire beautiful persons--such as Angela, such as Agricola--and these in
+their turn feel a couching pity for such as I am.  Sometimes, in spite of
+one's self, one has very foolish hopes.  Because Agricola, from a feeling
+of propriety had never spoken to me of his love affairs, I sometimes
+persuaded myself that he had none--that he loved me, and that the fear of
+ridicule alone was with him, as with me, an obstacle in the way of
+confessing it.  Yes, I have even made verses on that subject--and those,
+I think, not the worst I have written.
+
+"Mine is a singular position!  If I love, I am ridiculous; if any love
+me, he is still more ridiculous.  How did I come so to forget that, as to
+have suffered and to suffer what I do?--But blessed be that suffering,
+since it has not engendered hate--no; for I will not hate this girl--I
+will Perform a sister's part to the last; I will follow the guidance of
+my heart; I have the instinct of preserving others--my heart will lead
+and enlighten me.  My only fear is, that I shall burst into tears when I
+see her, and not be able to conquer my emotion.  Oh, then! what a
+revelation to Agricola--a discovery of the mad love he has inspired!--Oh,
+never! the day in which he knew that would be the last of my life.  There
+would then be within me something stronger than duty--the longing to
+escape from shame--that incurable shame, that burns me like a hot iron.
+No, no; I will be calm.  Besides, did I not just now, when with him bear
+courageously a terrible trial?  I will be calm.  My personal feelings
+must not darken the second sight, so clear for those I love.  Oh!
+painful--painful task! for the fear of yielding involuntarily to evil
+sentiments must not render me too indulgent toward this girl.  I might
+compromise Agricola's happiness, since my decision is to guide his
+choice.  Poor creature that I am.  How I deceive myself!  Agricola asks
+my advice, because he thinks that I shall have not the melancholy courage
+to oppose his passion; or else he would say to me: `No matter--I love;
+and I brave the future!'
+
+"But then, if my advice, if the instincts of my heart, are not to guide
+him--if his resolution is taken beforehand--of what use will be to-
+morrow's painful mission?  Of what use?  To obey him.  Did he not say--
+'Come!' In thinking of my devotion for him, how many times, in the secret
+depths of my heart, I have asked myself if the thought had ever occurred
+to him to love me otherwise than as a sister; if it had ever struck him,
+what a devoted wife he would have in me!  And why should it have occurred
+to him?  As long as he wished, as long as he may still wish, I have been,
+and I shall be, as devoted to him, as if I were his wife, sister, or
+mother.  Why should he desire what he already possesses?
+
+"Married to him--oh, God!--the dream is mad as ineffable.  Are not such
+thoughts of celestial sweetness--which include all sentiments from
+sisterly to maternal love--forbidden to me, on pain of ridicule as
+distressing as if I wore dresses and ornaments, that my ugliness and
+deformity would render absurd?  I wonder, if I were now plunged into the
+most cruel distress, whether I should suffer as much as I do, on hearing
+of Agricola's intended marriage?  Would hunger, cold, or misery diminish
+this dreadful dolor?--or is it the dread pain that would make me forget
+hunger, cold, and misery?
+
+"No, no; this irony is bitter.  It is not well in me to speak thus.  Why
+such deep grief?  In what way have the affection, the esteem, the respect
+of Agricola, changed towards me?  I complain--but how would it be, kind
+heaven! if, as, alas! too often happens, I were beautiful, loving,
+devoted, and he had chosen another, less beautiful, less loving, less
+devoted?--Should I not be a thousand times more unhappy? for then I
+might, I would have to blame him--whilst now I can find no fault with
+him, for never having thought of a union which was impossible, because
+ridiculous.  And had he wished it, could I ever have had the selfishness
+to consent to it?  I began to write the first pages of this diary as I
+began these last, with my heart steeped in bitterness--and as I went on,
+committing to paper what I could have intrusted to no one, my soul grew
+calm, till resignation came--Resignation, my chosen saint, who, smiling
+through her tears, suffers and loves, but hopes--never!"
+
+These word's were the last in the journal.  It was clear, from the blots
+of abundant tears, that the unfortunate creature had often paused to
+weep.
+
+In truth, worn out by so many emotions, Mother Bunch late in the night,
+had replaced the book behind the cardboard box, not that she thought it
+safer there than elsewhere (she had no suspicion of the slightest need
+for such precaution), but because it was more out of the way there than
+in any of the drawers, which she frequently opened in presence of other
+people.  Determined to perform her courageous promise, and worthily
+accomplish her task to the end, she waited the next day for Agricola, and
+firm in her heroic resolution, went with the smith to M. Hardy's factory.
+Florine, informed of her departure, but detained a portion of the day in
+attendance on Mdlle. de Cardoville preferred waiting for night to perform
+the new orders she had asked and received, since she had communicated by
+letter the contents of Mother Bunch's journal.  Certain not to be
+surprised, she entered the workgirls' chamber, as soon as the night was
+come.
+
+Knowing the place where she should find the manuscript, she went straight
+to the desk, took out the box, and then, drawing from her pocket a sealed
+letter, prepared to leave it in the place of the manuscript, which she
+was to carry away with her.  So doing, she trembled so much, that she was
+obliged to support herself an instant by the table.  Every good sentiment
+was not extinct in Florine's heart; she obeyed passively the orders she
+received, but she felt painfully how horrible and infamous was her
+conduct.  If only herself had been concerned, she would no doubt have had
+the courage to risk all, rather than submit to this odious despotism; but
+unfortunately, it was not so, and her ruin would have caused the mortal
+despair of another person whom she loved better than life itself.  She
+resigned herself, therefore, not without cruel anguish, to abominable
+treachery.
+
+Though she hardly ever knew for what end she acted, and this was
+particularly the case with regard to the abstraction of the journal, she
+foresaw vaguely, that the substitution of this sealed letter for the
+manuscript would have fatal consequences for Mother Bunch, for she
+remembered Rodin's declaration, that "it was time to finish with the
+young sempstress."
+
+What did he mean by those words?  How would the letter that she was
+charged to put in the place of the diary, contribute to bring about this
+result? she did not know--but she understood that the clear-sighted
+devotion of the hunchback justly alarmed the enemies of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, and that she (Florine) herself daily risked having her
+perfidy detected by the young needlewoman.  This last fear put an end to
+the hesitations of Florine; she placed the letter behind the box, and,
+hiding the manuscript under her apron, cautiously withdrew from the
+chamber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+THE DIARY CONTINUED.
+
+Returned into her own room, some hours after she had concealed there the
+manuscript abstracted from Mother Bunch's apartment, Florine yielded to
+her curiosity, and determined to look through it.  She soon felt a
+growing interest, an involuntary emotion, as she read more of these
+private thoughts of the young sempstress.  Among many pieces of verse,
+which all breathed a passionate love for Agricola--a love so deep,
+simple, and sincere, that Florine was touched by it, and forgot the
+author's deformity--among many pieces of verse, we say, were divers other
+fragments, thoughts, and narratives, relating to a variety of facts.  We
+shall quote some of them, in order to explain the profound impression
+that their perusal made upon Florine.
+
+Fragments from the Diary.
+
+"This is my birthday.  Until this evening, I had cherished a foolish
+hope.  Yesterday, I went down to Mrs. Baudoin's, to dress a little wound
+she had on her leg.  When I entered the room, Agricola was there.  No
+doubt he was talking of me to his mother, for they stopped when I came
+in, and exchanged a meaning smile.  In passing by the drawers, I saw a
+pasteboard box, with a pincushion-lid, and I felt myself blushing with
+joy, as I thought this little present was destined for me, but I
+pretended not to see it.  While I was on my knees before his mother,
+Agricola went out.  I remarked that he took the little box with him.
+Never has Mrs. Baudoin been more tender and motherly than she was that
+morning.  It appeared to me that she went to bed earlier than usual.  `It
+is to send me away sooner,' said I to myself, `that I may enjoy the
+surprise Agricola has prepared for me.' How my heart beat, as I ran fast,
+very fast, up to my closet!  I stopped a moment before opening the door,
+that my happiness might last the longer.  At last I entered the room, my
+eyes swimming with tears of joy.  I looked upon my table, my chair, my
+bed--there was nothing.  The little box was not to be found.  My heart
+sank within me.  Then I said to myself: `It will be to-morrow--this is
+only the eve of my birthday.'  The day is gone.  Evening is come.
+Nothing.  The pretty box was not for me.  It had a pincushion-cover.  It
+was only suited for a woman.  To whom has Agricola given it?
+
+"I suffer a good deal just now.  It was a childish idea that I connected
+with Agricola's wishing me many happy returns of the day.  I am ashamed
+to confess it; but it might have proved to me, that he has not forgotten
+I have another name besides that of Mother Bunch, which they always apply
+to me.  My susceptibility on this head is unfortunately so stubborn, that
+I cannot help feeling a momentary pang of mingled shame and sorrow, every
+time that I am called by that fairy-tale name, and yet I have had no
+other from infancy.  It is for that very reason that I should have been
+so happy if Agricola had taken this opportunity to call me for once by my
+own humble name--Magdalen.  Happily, he will never know these wishes and
+regrets!"
+
+Deeper and deeper touched by this page of simple grief, Florine turned
+over several leaves, and continued:
+
+"I have just been to the funeral of poor little Victorine Herbin, our
+neighbor.  Her father, a journeyman upholsterer, is gone to work by the
+month, far from Paris.  She died at nineteen, without a relation near
+her.  Her agony was not long.  The good woman who attended her to the
+last, told us that she only pronounced these words: `At last, oh at
+last!' and that with an air of satisfaction, added the nurse.  Dear
+child! she had become so pitiful.  At fifteen, she was a rosebud--so
+pretty, so fresh-looking, with her light hair as soft as silk; but she
+wasted away by degrees--her trade of renovating mattresses killed her.
+She was slowly poisoned by the emanations from the wool.[26] They were
+all the worse, that she worked almost entirely for the poor, who have
+cheap stuff to lie upon.
+
+"She had the courage of a lion, and an angel's resignation, She always
+said to me, in her low, faint voice, broken by a dry and frequent cough:
+"I have not long to live, breathing, as I do, lime and vitriol all day
+long.  I spit blood, and have spasms that make me faint.'
+
+"'Why not change your trade?' have I said to her.
+
+"`Where will I find the time to make another apprenticeship?' she would
+answer; `and it is now too late.  I feel that I am done for.  It is not
+my fault,' added the good creature, `for I did not choose my employment.
+My father would have it so; luckily he can do without me.  And then, you
+see, when one is dead, one cares for nothing, and has no fear of "slop
+wages.'"
+
+"Victorine uttered that sad, common phrase very sincerely, and with a
+sort of satisfaction.  Therefore she died repeating: `At last!'
+
+"It is painful to think that the labor by which the poor man earns his
+daily bread, often becomes a long suicide!  I said this the other day to
+Agricola; he answered me that there were many other fatal employments;
+those who prepare aquafortis, white lead, or minium, for instance, are
+sure to take incurable maladies of which they die.
+
+"`Do you know,' added Agricola, `what they say when they start for those
+fatal works?'--Why, `We are going to the slaughter-house.'
+
+"That made me tremble with its terrible truth.
+
+"`And all this takes place in our day,' said I to him, with an aching
+heart; `and it is well-known.  And, out of so many of the rich and
+powerful, no one thinks of the mortality which decimates his brothers,
+thus forced to eat homicidal bread!'
+
+"'What can you expect, my poor sister,' answered Agricola.  `When men are
+to be incorporated, that they may get killed in war, all pains are taken
+with them.  But when they are to be organized, so as to live in peace, no
+one cares about it, except M. Hardy, my master.  People say, 'Pooh!
+hunger, misery, and suffering of the laboring classes--what is that to
+us? that is not politics.' `They are wrong,' added Agricola; `IT IS MORE
+THAN POLITICS.'
+
+"As Victorine had not left anything to pay for the church service, there
+was only the presentation of the body under the porch; for there is not
+even a plain mass for the poor.  Besides, as they could not give eighteen
+francs to the curate, no priest accompanied the pauper's coffin to the
+common grave.  If funerals, thus abridged and cut short, are sufficient
+in a religious point of view, why invent other and longer forms?  Is it
+from cupidity?--If, on the other hand, they are not sufficient, why make
+the poor man the only victim of this insufficiency?  But why trouble
+ourselves about the pomp, the incense, the chants, of which they are
+either too sparing or too liberal?  Of what use? and for what purpose?
+They are vain, terrestrial things, for which the soul recks nothing,
+when, radiant, it ascends towards its Creator.  Yesterday, Agricola made
+me read an article in a newspaper, in which violent blame and bitter
+irony are by turns employed, to attack what they call the baneful
+tendencies of some of the lower orders, to improve themselves, to write,
+to read the poets, and sometimes to make verses.  Material enjoyments are
+forbidden us by poverty.  Is it humane to reproach us for seeking the
+enjoyments of the mind?  What harm can it do any one if every evening,
+after a day's toil, remote from all pleasure, I amuse myself, unknown to
+all, in making a few verses, or in writing in this journal the good or
+bad impressions I have received?  Is Agricola the worse workman, because,
+on returning home to his mother, he employs Sunday in composing some of
+those popular songs, which glorify the fruitful labors of the artisan,
+and say to all, Hope and brotherhood!  Does he not make a more worthy use
+of his time than if he spent it in a tavern?  Ah! those who blame us for
+these innocent and noble diversions, which relieve our painful toils and
+sufferings, deceive themselves when they think, that, in proportion as
+the intellect is raised and refined, it is more difficult to bear with
+privations and misery, and that so the irritation increases against the
+luckier few.
+
+"Admitting even this to be the case--and it is not so--is it not better
+to have an intelligent, enlightened enemy, to whose heart and reason you
+may address yourself, than a stupid, ferocious, implacable foe?  But no;
+enmities disappear as the mind becomes enlightened, and the horizon of
+compassion extends itself.  We thus learn to understand moral
+afflictions.  We discover that the rich also have to suffer intense
+pains, and that brotherhood in misfortune is already a link of sympathy.
+Alas! they also have to mourn bitterly for idolized children, beloved
+mistresses, reverend mothers; with them, also, especially amongst the
+women, there are, in the height of luxury and grandeur, many broken
+hearts, many suffering souls, many tears shed in secret.  Let them not be
+alarmed.  By becoming their equals in intelligence, the people will learn
+to pity the rich, if good and unhappy--and to pity them still more if
+rejoicing in wickedness.
+
+"What happiness! what a joyful day!  I am giddy with delight.  Oh, truly,
+man is good, humane, charitable.  Oh, yes! the Creator has implanted
+within him every generous instinct--and, unless he be a monstrous
+exception, he never does evil willingly.  Here is what I saw just now.  I
+will not wait for the evening to write it down, for my heart would, as it
+were, have time to cool.  I had gone to carry home some work that was
+wanted in a hurry.  I was passing the Place du Temple.  A few steps from
+me I saw a child, about twelve years old at most, with bare head, and
+feet, in spite of the severe weather, dressed in a shabby, ragged smock-
+frock and trousers, leading by the bridle a large cart-horse, with his
+harness still on.  From time to time the horse stopped short, and refused
+to advance.  The child, who had no whip, tugged in vain at the bridle.
+The horse remained motionless.  Then the poor little fellow cried out: `O
+dear, O dear!' and began to weep bitterly, looking round him as if to
+implore the assistance of the passers-by.  His dear little face was
+impressed with so heart piercing a sorrow, that, without reflecting, I
+made an attempt at which I can now only smile, I must have presented so
+grotesque a figure.  I am horribly afraid of horses, and I am still more
+afraid of exposing myself to public gaze.  Nevertheless, I took courage,
+and, having an umbrella in my hand, I approached the horse, and with the
+impetuosity of an ant that strives to move a large stone with a little
+piece of straw, I struck with all my strength on the croup of the
+rebellious animal.  `Oh, thanks, my good lady!' exclaimed the child,
+drying his eyes: `hit him again, if you please.  Perhaps he will get up.'
+
+"I began again, heroically; but, alas! either from obstinacy or laziness,
+the horse bent his knees, and stretched himself out upon the ground;
+then, getting entangled with his harness, he tore it, and broke his great
+wooden collar.  I had drawn back quickly, for fear of receiving a kick.
+Upon this new disaster, the child could only throw himself on his knees
+in the middle of the street, clasping his hands and sobbing, and
+exclaiming in a voice of despair: 'Help! help!'
+
+"The call was heard; several of the passers-by gathered round, and a more
+efficacious correction than mine was administered to the restive horse,
+who rose in a vile state, and without harness.
+
+"`My master will beat me,' cried the poor child, as his tears redoubled;
+`I am already two hours after time, for the horse would not go, and now
+he has broken his harness.  My master will beat me, and turn me away.  Oh
+dear! what will become of me!  I have no father nor mother.'
+
+"At these words, uttered with a heart-rending accent, a worthy old
+clothes-dealer of the Temple, who was amongst the spectators, exclaimed,
+with a kindly air: `No father nor mother!  Do not grieve so, my poor
+little fellow; the Temple can supply everything.  We will mend the
+harness, and, if my gossips are like me, you shall not go away bareheaded
+or barefooted in such weather as this.'
+
+"This proposition was greeted with acclamation; they led away both horse
+and child; some were occupied in mending the harness, then one supplied a
+cap, another a pair of stockings, another some shoes, and another a good
+jacket; in a quarter of an hour the child was warmly clad, the harness
+repaired, and a tall lad of eighteen, brandishing a whip, which he
+cracked close to the horse's ears, by way of warning, said to the little
+boy, who, gazing first at his new clothes, and then at the good woman,
+believed himself the hero of a fairy-tale.  `Where does your governor
+live, little 'un?'
+
+"`On the Quai du Canal-Saint-Martin, sir,' answered he, in a voice
+trembling with joy.
+
+"`Very good,' said the young man, `I will help you take home the horse,
+who will go well enough with me, and I will tell the master that the
+delay was no fault of your'n.  A balky horse ought not to be trusted
+to a child of your age.'
+
+"At the moment of setting out, the poor little fellow said timidly to the
+good dame, as he took off his cap to her:  `Will you let me kiss you,
+ma'am?'
+
+"His eyes were full of tears of gratitude.  There was heart in that
+child.  This scene of popular charity gave me delightful emotions.
+As long as I could, I followed with my eyes the tall young man and the
+child, who now could hardly keep up with the pace of the horse, rendered
+suddenly docile by fear of the whip.
+
+"Yes! I repeat it with pride; man is naturally good and helpful.
+Nothing could have been more spontaneous than this movement of pity and
+tenderness in the crowd, when the poor little fellow exclaimed: `What
+will become of me?  I have no father or mother!'
+
+"`Unfortunate child!' said I to myself.  `No father nor mother.  In the
+hands of a brutal master, who hardly covers him with a few rags, and ill-
+treats him into the bargain.  Sleeping, no doubt in the corner of a
+stable.  Poor little, fellow! and yet so mild and good, in spite of
+misery and misfortune.  I saw it--he was even more grateful than pleased
+at the service done him.  But perhaps this good natural disposition,
+abandoned without support or counsel, or help, and exasperated by bad
+treatment, may become changed and embittered--and then will come the age
+of the passions--the bad temptations--'
+
+"Oh! in the deserted poor, virtue is doubly saintly and respectable!
+
+"This morning, after having (as usual) gently reproached me for not going
+to mass, Agricola's mother said to me these words, so touching in her
+simple and believing mouth, `Luckily, I pray for you and myself too, my
+poor girl; the good God will hear me, and you will only go, I hope, to
+Purgatory.'
+
+"Good mother; angelic soul! she spoke those words in so grave and mild a
+tone, with so strong a faith in the happy result of her pious
+intercession, that I felt my eyes become moist, and I threw myself on her
+neck, as sincerely grateful as if I had believed in Purgatory.  This day
+has been a lucky one for me.  I hope I have found work, which luck I
+shall owe to a young person full of heart and goodness, she is to take me
+to-morrow to St. Mary's Convent, where she thinks she can find me
+employment."
+
+Florine, already much moved by the reading, started at this passage in
+which Mother Bunch alluded to her, ere she continued as follows:
+
+"Never shall I forget with what touching interest, what delicate
+benevolence, this handsome young girl received me, so poor, and so
+unfortunate.  It does not astonish me, for she is attached to the person
+of Mdlle. de Cardoville.  She must be worthy to reside with Agricola's
+benefactress.  It will always be dear and pleasant to me to remember her
+name.  It is graceful and pretty as her face; it is Florine.  I am
+nothing, I have nothing--but if the fervent prayers of a grateful heart
+might be heard, Mdlle. Florine would be happy, very happy.  Alas! I am
+reduced to say prayers for her--only prayers--for I can do nothing but
+remember and love her!"
+
+These lines, expressing so simply the sincere gratitude of the hunchback,
+gave the last blow to Florine's hesitations.  She could no longer resist
+the generous temptation she felt.  As she read these last fragments of
+the journal, her affection and respect for Mother Bunch made new
+progress.  More than ever she felt how infamous it was in her to expose
+to sarcasms and contempt the most secret thoughts of this unfortunate
+creature.  Happily, good is often as contagious as evil.  Electrified by
+all that was warm, noble, and magnanimous in the pages she had just read,
+Florine bathed her failing virtue in that pure and vivifying source, and,
+yielding, at last to one of those good impulses which sometimes carried
+her away, she left the room with the manuscript in her hand, determined,
+if Mother Bunch had not yet returned, to replace it--resolved to tell
+Rodin that, this second time, her search for the journal had been vain,
+the sempstress having no doubt discovered the first attempt.
+
+[26] In the Ruche Populaire, a working man's organ, are the following
+particulars:
+
+"Carding Mattresses.--The dust which flies out of the wool makes carding
+destructive to health in any case, but trade adulterations enhance the
+danger.  In sticking sheep, the skin gets blood-spotted; it has to be
+bleached to make it salable.  Lime is the main whitener, and some of it
+clings to the wool after the process.  The dresser (female, most often)
+breathes in the fine dust, and, by lung and other complaints, is far from
+seldom deplorably situated; the majority sicken of it and give up the
+trade, while those who keep to it, at the very least, suffer with a
+catarrh or asthma that torments them until death.
+
+"As for horsehair, the very best is not pure.  You can judge what the
+inferior quality is, from the workgirls calling it vitriol hair, because
+it is the refuse or clippings from goats and swine, washed in vitriol,
+boiled in dyes, etc., to burn and disguise such foreign bodies as straw.
+thorns, splinters, and even bits of skin, not worth picking out.  The
+dust rising when a mass of this is beaten, makes as many ravages as the
+lime-wool."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+THE DISCOVERY.
+
+A little while before Florine made up her mind to atone for her shameful
+breach of confidence, Mother Bunch had returned from the factory, after
+accomplishing to the end her painful task.  After a long interview with
+Angela, struck, like Agricola, with the ingenuous grace, sense, and
+goodness, with which the young girl was endowed, Mother Bunch had the
+courageous frankness to advise the smith to enter into this marriage.
+The following scene took place whilst Florine, still occupied in reading
+the journal, had not yet taken the praiseworthy resolution of replacing
+it.  It was ten o'clock at night.  The workgirl, returned to Cardoville
+House, had just entered her chamber.  Worn out by so many emotions, she
+had thrown herself into a chair.  The deepest silence reigned in the
+house.  It was now and then interrupted by the soughing of a high wind,
+which raged without and shook the trees in the garden.  A single candle
+lighted the room, which was papered with dark green.  That peculiar tint,
+and the hunchback's black dress, increased her apparent paleness.  Seated
+in an arm-chair by the side of the fire, with her head resting upon her
+bosom, her hands crossed upon her knees, the work-girl's countenance was
+melancholy and resigned; on it was visible the austere satisfaction which
+is felt by the consciousness of a duty well performed.
+
+Like all those who, brought up in the merciless school of misfortune, no
+longer exaggerate the sentiment of sorrow, too familiar and assiduous a
+guest to be treated as a stranger, Mother Bunch was incapable of long
+yielding to idle regrets and vain despair, with regard to what was
+already past.  Beyond doubt, the blow had been sudden, dreadful;
+doubtless it must leave a long and painful remembrance in the sufferer's
+soul; but it was soon to pass, as it were, into that chronic state of
+pain-durance, which had become almost an integral part of her life.  And
+then this noble creature, so indulgent to fate, found still some
+consolations in the intensity of her bitter pain.  She had been deeply
+touched by the marks of affection shown her by Angela, Agricola's
+intended: and she had felt a species of pride of the heart, in perceiving
+with what blind confidence, with what ineffable joy, the smith accepted
+the favorable presentiments which seemed to consecrate his happiness.
+Mother Bunch also said to herself: "At least, henceforth I shall not be
+agitated by hopes, or rather by suppositions as ridiculous as they were
+senseless.  Agricola's marriage puts a term to all the miserable reveries
+of my poor head."
+
+Finally, she found a real and deep consolation in the certainty that she
+had been able to go through this terrible trial, and conceal from
+Agricola the love she felt for him.  We know how formidable to this
+unfortunate being were those ideas of ridicule and shame, which she
+believed would attach to the discovery of her mad passion.  After having
+remained for some time absorbed in thought, Mother Bunch rose, and
+advanced slowly towards the desk.
+
+"My only recompense," said she, as she prepared the materials for
+writing, "will be to entrust the mute witness of my pains with this new
+grief.  I shall at least have kept the promise that I made to myself.
+Believing, from the bottom of my soul, that this girl is able to make
+Agricola happy, I told him so with the utmost sincerity.  One day, a long
+time hence, when I shall read over these pages, I shall perhaps find in
+that a compensation for all that I now suffer."
+
+So saying, she drew the box from the pigeon-hole.  Not finding her
+manuscript, she uttered a cry of surprise; but, what was her alarm, when
+she perceived a letter to her address in the place of the journal!  She
+became deadly pale; her knees trembled; she almost fainted away.  But her
+increasing terror gave her a fictitious energy, and she had the strength
+to break the seal.  A bank-note for five hundred francs fell from the
+letter on the table, and Mother Bunch read as follows:
+
+"Mademoiselle,--There is something so original and amusing in reading in
+your memoirs the story of your love for Agricola, that it is impossible
+to resist the pleasure of acquainting him with the extent of it, of which
+he is doubtless ignorant, but to which he cannot fail to show himself
+sensible.  Advantage will be taken to forward it to a multitude of other
+persons, who might, perhaps, otherwise be unfortunately deprived of the
+amusing contents of your diary.  Should copies and extracts not be
+sufficient, we will have it printed, as one cannot too much diffuse such
+things.  Some will weep--others will laugh--what appears superb to one
+set of people, will seem ridiculous to another, such is life--but your
+journal will surely make a great sensation.  As you are capable of
+wishing to avoid your triumph, and as you were only covered with rags
+when you were received, out of charity into this house, where you wish to
+figure as the great lady, which does not suit your shape for more reasons
+than one, we enclose in the present five hundred francs to pay for your
+day-book, and prevent your being without resources, in case you should be
+modest enough to shrink from the congratulations which await you, certain
+to overwhelm you by to-morrow, for, at this hour, your journal is already
+in circulation.
+
+"One of your brethren,
+
+"A REAL MOTHER BUNCH."
+
+The vulgar, mocking, and insolent tone of this letter, which was
+purposely written in the character of a jealous lackey, dissatisfied with
+the admission of the unfortunate creature into the house, had been
+calculated with infernal skill and was sure to produce the effect
+intended.
+
+"Oh, good heaven!" were the only words the unfortunate girl could
+pronounce, in her stupor and alarm.
+
+Now, if we remember in what passionate terms she had expressed her love
+for her adopted brother, if we recall many passages of this manuscript,
+in which she revealed the painful wounds often inflicted on her by
+Agricola without knowing it, and if we consider how great was her terror
+of ridicule, we shall understand her mad despair on reading this infamous
+letter.  Mother Bunch did not think for a moment of all the noble words
+and touching narratives contained in her journal.  The one horrible idea
+which weighed down the troubled spirit of the unfortunate creature, was,
+that on the morrow Agricola, Mdlle. de Cardoville, and an insolent and
+mocking crowd, would be informed of this ridiculous love, which would,
+she imagined, crush her with shame and confusion.  This new blow was so
+stunning, that the recipient staggered a moment beneath the unexpected
+shock.  For some minutes, she remained completely inert and helpless;
+then, upon reflection, she suddenly felt conscious of a terrible
+necessity.
+
+This hospitable mansion, where she had found a sure refuge after so many
+misfortunes, must be left for ever.  The trembling timidity and sensitive
+delicacy of the poor creature did not permit her to remain a minute more
+in this dwelling, where the most secret recesses of her soul had been
+laid open, profaned, and exposed no doubt to sarcasm and contempt.  She
+did not think of demanding justice and revenge from Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+To cause a ferment of trouble and irritation in this house, at the moment
+of quitting it, would have appeared to her ingratitude towards her
+benefactress.  She did not seek to discover the author or the motive of
+this odious robbery and insulting letter.  Why should she, resolved, as
+she was, to fly from the humiliations with which she was threatened?  She
+had a vague notion (as indeed was intended), that this infamy might be
+the work of some of the servants, jealous of the affectionate deference
+shown her by Mdlle. de Cardoville--and this thought filled her with
+despair.  Those pages--so painfully confidential, which she would not
+have ventured to impart to the most tender and indulgent mother, because,
+written as it were with her heart's blood, they painted with too cruel a
+fidelity the thousand secret wounds of her soul--those pages were to
+serve, perhaps served even now, for the jest and laughing-stock of the
+lackeys of the mansion.
+
+The money which accompanied this letter, and the insulting way in which
+it was offered, rather tended to confirm her suspicions.  It was intended
+that the fear of misery should not be the obstacle of her leaving the
+house.  The workgirl's resolution was soon taken, with that calm and firm
+resignation which was familiar to her.  She rose, with somewhat bright
+and haggard eyes, but without a tear in them.  Since the day before, she
+had wept too much.  With a trembling, icy hand, she wrote these words on
+a paper, which she left by the side of the bank-note: May Mdlle. de
+Cardoville be blessed for all that she has done for me, and forgive me
+for having left her house, where I can remain no longer."
+
+Having written this, Mother Bunch threw into the fire the infamous
+letter, which seemed to burn her hands.  Then, taking a last look at her
+chamber, furnished so comfortably, she shuddered involuntarily as she
+thought of the misery that awaited her--a misery more frightful than that
+of which she had already been the victim, for Agricola's mother had
+departed with Gabriel, and the unfortunate girl could no longer, as
+formerly, be consoled in her distress by the almost maternal affection of
+Dagobert's wife.  To live alone--quite alone--with the thought that her
+fatal passion for Agricola was laughed at by everybody, perhaps even by
+himself--such were the future prospects of the hunchback.  This future
+terrified her--a dark desire crossed her mind--she shuddered, and an
+expression of bitter joy contracted her features.  Resolved to go, she
+made some steps towards the door, when, in passing before the fireplace,
+she saw her own image in the glass, pale as death, and clothed in black;
+then it struck her that she wore a dress which did not belong to her, and
+she remembered a passage in the letter, which alluded to the rags she had
+on before she entered that house.  "True!" said she, with a heart-
+breaking smile, as she looked at her black garments; "they would call me
+a thief."
+
+And, taking her candle, she entered the little dressing room, and put on
+again the poor, old clothes, which she had preserved as a sort of pious
+remembrance of her misfortunes.  Only at this instant did her tears flow
+abundantly.  She wept--not in sorrow at resuming the garb of misery, but
+in gratitude; for all the comforts around her, to which she was about to
+bid an eternal adieu, recalled to her mind at every step the delicacy and
+goodness of Mdlle. de Cardoville: therefore, yielding to an almost
+involuntary impulse, after she had put on her poor, old clothes, she fell
+on her knees in the middle of the room, and, addressing herself in
+thought to Mdlle. de Cardoville, she exclaimed, in a voice broken by
+convulsive sobs: " Adieu! oh, for ever, adieu!--You, that deigned to call
+me friend--and sister!"
+
+Suddenly, she rose in alarm; she heard steps in the corridor, which led
+from the garden to one of the doors of her apartment, the other door
+opening into the parlor.  It was Florine, who (alas! too late) was
+bringing back the manuscript.  Alarmed at this noise of footsteps, and
+believing herself already the laughing-stock of the house.  Mother Bunch
+rushed from the room, hastened across the parlor, gained the court-yard,
+and knocked at the window of the porter's lodge.  The house-door opened,
+and immediately closed upon her.  And so the workgirl left Cardoville
+House.
+
+Adrienne was thus deprived of a devoted, faithful, and vigilant guardian.
+Rodin was delivered from an active and sagacious antagonist, whom he had
+always, with good reason, feared.  Having, as we have seen, guessed
+Mother Bunch's love for Agricola, and knowing her to be a poet, the
+Jesuit supposed, logically enough that she must have written secretly
+some verses inspired by this fatal and concealed passion.  Hence the
+order given to Florine, to try and discover some written evidence of this
+love; hence this letter, so horribly effective in its coarse ribaldry, of
+which, it must be observed, Florine did not know the contents, having
+received it after communicating a summary of the contents of the
+manuscript, which, the first time, she had only glanced through without
+taking it away.  We have said, that Florine, yielding too late to a
+generous repentance, had reached Mother Bunch's apartment, just as the
+latter quitted the house in consternation.
+
+Perceiving a light in the dressing-room, the waiting-maid hastened
+thither.  She saw upon a chair the black dress that Mother Bunch had just
+taken off, and, a few steps further, the shabby little trunk, open and
+empty, in which she had hitherto preserved her poor garments.  Florine's
+heart sank within her; she ran to the secretary; the disorder of the
+card-board boxes, the note for five hundred francs left by the side of
+the two lines written to Mdlle. de Cardoville, all proved that her
+obedience to Rodin's orders had borne fatal fruit, and that Mother Bunch
+had quitted the house for ever.  Finding the uselessness of her tardy
+resolution, Florine resigned herself with a sigh to the necessity of
+delivering the manuscript to Rodin.  Then, forced by the fatality of her
+miserable position to console herself for evil by evil, she considered
+that the hunchback's departure would at least make her treachery less
+dangerous.
+
+Two days after these events, Adrienne received the following note from
+Rodin, in answer to a letter she had written him, to inform him of the
+work-girl's inexplicable departure:
+
+"MY DEAR YOUNG LADY;--Obliged to set out this morning for the
+factory of the excellent M. Hardy, whither I am called by an affair of
+importance, it is impossible for me to pay you my humble respects.
+You ask me what I think of the disappearance of this poor girl?  I
+really do not know.  The future will, I doubt not, explain all to her
+advantage.  Only, remember what I told you at Dr. Baleinier's, with
+regard to a certain society and its secret emissaries, with whom it has
+the art of surrounding those it wishes to keep a watch on.  I accuse no
+one; but let us only recall facts.  This poor girl accused me; and I am,
+as you know, the most faithful of your servants.  She possessed nothing;
+and yet five hundred francs were found in her secretary.  You
+loaded her with favors; and she leaves your house without even explaining
+the cause of this extraordinary flight.  I draw no conclusion, my dear
+young lady; I am always unwilling to condemn without evidence; but
+reflect upon all this, and be on your guard, for you have perhaps escaped
+a great danger.  Be more circumspect and suspicious than ever; such at
+least is the respectful advice of your most obedient, humble servant,
+
+"Rodin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+THE TRYSTING-PLACE OF THE WOLVES.
+
+It was a Sunday morning the very day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville had
+received Rodin's letter with regard to Mother Bunch's disappearance.  Two
+men were talking to together, seated at a table in one of the public
+houses in the little village of Villiers, situated at no great distance
+from Hardy's factory.  The village was for the most part inhabited by
+quarrymen and stonecutters, employed in working the neighboring quarries.
+Nothing can be ruder and more laborious, and at the same time less
+adequately paid, than the work of this class of people.  Therefore, as
+Agricola had told Mother Bunch, they drew painful comparisons between
+their condition, almost always miserable, and the comfort and comparative
+ease enjoyed by M. Hardy's workmen, thanks to his generous and
+intelligent management, and to the principles of association and
+community which he had put in practice amongst them.  Misery and
+ignorance are always the cause of great evils.  Misery is easily excited
+to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels.  For a long
+time, the happiness of M. Hardy's workmen had been naturally envied, but
+not with a jealousy amounting to hatred.  As soon, however, as the secret
+enemies of the manufacturer, uniting with his rival Baron Tripeaud, had
+an interest in changing this peaceful state of things--it changed
+accordingly.
+
+With diabolical skill and perseverance they succeeded in kindling the
+most evil passions.  By means of chosen emissaries, they applied to those
+quarrymen and stonecutters of the neighborhood, whose bad conduct had
+aggravated their misery.  Notorious for their turbulence, audacity, and
+energy, these men might exercise a dangerous influence on the majority of
+their companions, who were peaceful, laborious, and honest, but easily
+intimidated by violence.  These turbulent leaders, previously embittered
+by misfortune, were soon impressed with an exaggerated idea of the
+happiness of M. Hardy's workmen, and excited to a jealous hatred of them.
+They went still further; the incendiary sermons of an abbe, a member of
+the Jesuits, who had come expressly from Paris to preach during Lent
+against M. Hardy, acted powerfully on the minds of the women, who filled
+the church, whilst their husbands were haunting the taverns.  Profiting
+by the growing fear, which the approach of the Cholera then inspired, the
+preacher struck with terror these weak and credulous imaginations by
+pointing to M. Hardy's factory as a centre of corruption and damnation,
+capable of drawing down the vengeance of Heaven, and bringing the fatal
+scourge upon the country.  Thus the men, already inflamed with envy, were
+still more excited by the incessant urgency of their wives, who, maddened
+by the abbe's sermons, poured their curses on that band of atheists, who
+might bring down so many misfortunes upon them and their children.  Some
+bad characters, belonging to the factory of Baron Tripeaud, and paid by
+him (for it was a great interest the honorable manufacturer had in the
+ruin of M. Hardy), came to augment the general irritation, and to
+complete it by raising one of those alarming union-questions, which in
+our day have unfortunately caused so much bloodshed.  Many of M. Hardy's
+workmen, before they entered his employ, had belonged to a society or
+union, called the Devourers; while many of the stonecutters in the
+neighboring quarries belonged to a society called the Wolves.  Now, for a
+long time, an implacable rivalry had existed between the Wolves and
+Devourers, and brought about many sanguinary struggles, which are the
+more to be deplored, as, in some respects, the idea of these unions is
+excellent, being founded on the fruitful and mighty principle of
+association.  But unfortunately, instead of embracing all trades in one
+fraternal communion, these unions break up the working-class into
+distinct and hostile societies, whose rivalry often leads to bloody
+collisions.[27] For the last week, the Wolves, excited by so many
+different importunities, burned to discover an occasion or a pretext to
+come to blows with the Devourers; but the latter, not frequenting the
+public-houses, and hardly leaving the factory during the week, had
+hitherto rendered such a meeting impossible, and the Wolves had been
+forced to wait for the Sunday with ferocious impatience.
+
+Moreover, a great number of the quarrymen and stonecutters, being
+peaceable and hard-working people, had refused, though Wolves themselves
+to join this hostile manifestation against the Devourers of M. Hardy's
+factory; the leaders had been obliged to recruit their forces from the
+vagabonds and idlers of the barriers, whom the attraction of tumult and
+disorder had easily enlisted under the flag of the warlike Wolves.  Such
+then was the dull fermentation, which agitated the little village of
+Villiers, whilst the two men of whom we have spoken were at table in the
+public-house.
+
+These men had asked for a private room, that they might be alone.  One of
+them was still young, and pretty well dressed.  But the disorder in his
+clothes, his loose cravat, his shirt spotted with wine, his dishevelled
+hair, his look of fatigue, his marble complexion, his bloodshot eyes,
+announced that a night of debauch had preceded this morning; whilst his
+abrupt and heavy gesture, his hoarse voice, his look, sometimes
+brilliant, and sometimes stupid, proved that to the last fumes of the
+intoxication of the night before, were joined the first attacks of a new
+state of drunkenness.  The companion of this man said to him, as he
+touched his glass with his own: "Your health, my boy!"
+
+"Yours!" answered the young man; "though you look to me like the devil."
+
+"I!--the devil?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"How did you come to know me?"
+
+"Do you repent that you ever knew me?"
+
+"Who told you that I was a prisoner at Sainte-Pelagie?"
+
+"Didn't I take you out of prison?"
+
+"Why did you take me out?"
+
+"Because I have a good heart."
+
+"You are very fond of me, perhaps--just as the butcher likes the ox that
+he drives to the slaughter-house."
+
+"Are you mad?"
+
+"A man does not pay a hundred thousand francs for another without a
+motive."
+
+"I have a motive."
+
+"What is it? what do you want to do with me?"
+
+"A jolly companion that will spend his money like a man, and pass every
+night like the last.  Good wine, good cheer, pretty girls, and gay songs.
+Is that such a bad trade?"
+
+After he had remained a moment without answering, the young man replied
+with a gloomy air: "Why, on the eve of my leaving prison, did you attach
+this condition to my freedom, that I should write to my mistress to tell
+her that I would never see her again!  Why did you exact this letter from
+me?"
+
+"A sigh! what, are you still thinking of her?"
+
+"Always."
+
+"You are wrong.  Your mistress is far from Paris by this time.  I saw her
+get into the stage-coach, before I came to take you out of Sainte-
+Pelagie."
+
+"Yes, I was stifled in that prison.  To get out, I would have given my
+soul to the devil.  You thought so, and therefore you came to me; only,
+instead of my soul, you took Cephyse from me.  Poor Bacchanal-Queen!  And
+why did you do it?  Thousand thunders!  Will you tell me!"
+
+"A man as much attached to his mistress as you are is no longer a man.
+He wants energy, when the occasion requires."
+
+"What occasion?"
+
+"Let us drink!"
+
+"You make me drink too much brandy."
+
+"Bah! look at me!"
+
+"That's what frightens me.  It seems something devilish.  A bottle of
+brandy does not even make you wink.  You must have a stomach of iron and
+a head of marble."
+
+"I have long travelled in Russia.  There we drink to roast ourselves."
+
+"And here to only warm.  So--let's drink--but wine."
+
+"Nonsense! wine is fit for children.  Brandy for men like us!"
+
+"Well, then, brandy; but it burns, and sets the head on fire, and then we
+see all the flames of hell!"
+
+"That's how I like to see you, hang it!"
+
+"But when you told me that I was too much attached to my mistress, and
+that I should want energy when the occasion required, of what occasion
+did you speak?"
+
+"Let us drink!"
+
+"Stop a moment, comrade.  I am no more of a fool than others.  Your half-
+words have taught me something.
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"You know that I have been a workman, that I have many companions, and
+that, being a good fellow, I am much liked amongst them.  You want me for
+a catspaw, to catch other chestnuts?"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"You must be some getter-up of riots--some speculator in revolts."
+
+"What next?"
+
+"You are travelling for some anonymous society, that trades in musket-
+shots."
+
+"Are you a coward?"
+
+"I burned powder in July, I can tell you--make no mistakes!"
+
+"You would not mind burning some again?"
+
+"Just as well that sort of fireworks as any other.  Only I find
+revolutions more agreeable than useful; all that I got from the
+barricades of the three days was burnt breeches and a lost jacket.  All
+the cause won by me, with its 'Forward! March!' says."
+
+"You know many of Hardy's workmen?"
+
+"Oh! that's why you have brought me down here?"
+
+"Yes--you will meet with many of the workmen from the factory."
+
+"Men from Hardy's take part in a row?  No, no; they are too well off for
+that.  You have been sold."
+
+"You will see presently."
+
+"I tell you they are well off.  What have they to complain of?"
+
+"What of their brethren--those who have not so good a master, and die of
+hunger and misery, and call on them for assistance?  Do you think they
+will remain deaf to such a summons?  Hardy is only an exception.  Let the
+people but give a good pull all together, and the exception will become
+the rule, and all the world be happy."
+
+"What you say there is true, but it would be a devil of a pull that would
+make an honest man out of my old master, Baron Tripeaud, who made me what
+I am--an out-and-out rip."
+
+"Hardy's workmen are coming; you are their comrade, and have no interest
+in deceiving them.  They will believe you.  Join with me in persuading
+them--"
+
+"To what?"
+
+"To leave this factory, in which they grow effeminate and selfish, and
+forget their brothers."
+
+"But if they leave the factory, how are they to live?"
+
+"We will provide for that--on the great day."
+
+"And what's to be done till then?"
+
+"What you have done last night--drink, laugh, sing, and, by way of work,
+exercise themselves privately in the use of arms.'
+
+"Who will bring these workmen here?"
+
+"Some one has already spoken to them.  They have had printed papers,
+reproaching them with indifference to their brothers.  Come, will you
+support me?"
+
+"I'll support you--the more readily as I cannot very well support myself.
+I only cared for Cephyse in the world; I know that I am on a bad road;
+you are pushing me on further; let the ball roll!--Whether we go to the
+devil one way or the other is not of much consequence.  Let's drink."
+
+"Drink to our next night's fun; the last was only apprenticeship."
+
+"Of what then are you made?  I looked at you, and never saw you either
+blush or smile, or change countenance.  You are like a man of iron."
+
+"I am not a lad of fifteen.  It would take something more to make me
+laugh.  I shall laugh to-night."
+
+"I don't know if it's the brandy; but, devil take me, if you don't
+frighten me when you say you shall laugh tonight!"
+
+So saying, the young man rose, staggering; he began to be once more
+intoxicated.
+
+There was a knock at the door.  "Come in!"  The host made his appearance.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"There's a young man below, who calls himself Olivier.  He asks for M.
+Morok."
+
+"That's right.  Let him came up."  The host went out.
+
+"It is one of our men, but he is alone," said Morok, whose savage
+countenance expressed disappointment.  "It astonishes me, for I expected
+a good number.  Do you know him?"
+
+"Olivier?  Yes--a fair chap, I think."
+
+"We shall see him directly.  Here he is."  A young man, with an open,
+bold, intelligent countenance, at this moment entered the room.
+
+"What! old Sleepinbuff!" he exclaimed, at sight of Morok's companion.
+
+"Myself.  I have not seen you for an age, Olivier."
+
+"Simple enough, my boy.  We do not work at the same place."
+
+"But you are alone!" cried Morok; and pointing to Sleepinbuff, he added:
+"You may speak before him--he is one of us.  But why are you alone?"
+
+"I come alone, but in the name of my comrades."
+
+"Oh!" said Morok, with a sigh of satisfaction, "they consent."
+
+"They refuse--just as I do!"
+
+"What, the devil! they refuse?  Have they no more courage than women?"
+cried Morok, grinding his teeth with rage.
+
+"Hark ye," answered Olivier, coolly.  "We have received your letters, and
+seen your agent.  We have had proof that he is really connected with
+great societies, many members of which are known to us."
+
+"Well! why do you hesitate?"
+
+"First of all, nothing proves that these societies are ready to make a
+movement."
+
+"I tell you they are."
+
+"He--tells you--they are," said Sleepinbuff, stammering "and I (hic!)
+affirm it.  Forward! March!"
+
+"That's not enough," replied Olivier.  "Besides, we have reflected upon
+it.  For a week the factory was divided.  Even yesterday the discussion
+was too warm to be pleasant.  But this morning Father Simon called to
+him; we explained ourselves fully before him, and he brought us all to
+one mind.  We mean to wait, and if any disturbance breaks out, we shall
+see."
+
+"Is that your final word?"
+
+"It is our last word."
+
+"Silence!" cried Sleepinbuff, suddenly, as he listened, balancing himself
+on his tottering legs.  "It is like the noise of a crowd not far off."  A
+dull sound was indeed audible, which became every moment more and more
+distinct, and at length grew formidable.
+
+"What is that?" said Olivier, in surprise.
+
+"Now," replied Morok, smiling with a sinister air, "I remember the host
+told me there was a great ferment in the village against the factory.  If
+you and your other comrades had separated from Hardy's other workmen, as
+I hoped, these people who are beginning to howl would have been for you,
+instead of against you."
+
+"This was a trap, then, to set one half of M. Hardy's workmen against the
+other!" cried Olivier; "you hoped that we should make common cause with
+these people against the factory, and that--"
+
+The young man had not time to finish.  A terrible outburst of shouts,
+howls, and hisses shook the tavern.  At the same instant the door was
+abruptly opened, and the host, pale and trembling, hurried into the
+chamber, exclaiming: "Gentlemen! do any of you work at M. Hardy's
+factory?"
+
+"I do," said Olivier.
+
+"Then you are lost.  Here are the Wolves in a body, saying there are
+Devourers here from M. Hardy's, and offering them battle--unless the
+Devourers will give up the factory, and range themselves on their side."
+
+"It was a trap, there can be no doubt of it!" cried Olivier, looking at
+Morok and Sleepinbuff, with a threatening air; "if my mates had come, we
+were all to be let in."
+
+"I lay a trap, Olivier?" stammered Jacques Rennepont.  "Never!"
+
+"Battle to the Devourers! or let them join the Wolves!" cried the angry
+crowd with one voice, as they appeared to invade the house.
+
+"Come!" exclaimed the host.  Without giving Olivier time to answer, he
+seized him by the arm, and opening a window which led to a roof at no
+very great height from the ground, he said to him: "Make your escape by
+this window, let yourself slide down, and gain the fields; it is time."
+
+As the young workman hesitated, the host added, with a look of terror:
+
+"Alone, against a couple of hundred, what can you do?  A minute more, and
+you are lost.  Do you not hear them?  They have entered the yard; they
+are coming up."
+
+Indeed, at this moment, the groans, the hisses, and cheers redoubled in
+violence; the wooden staircase which led to the first story shook beneath
+the quick steps of many persons, and the shout arose, loud and piercing:
+"Battle to the Devourers!"
+
+"Fly, Olivier!" cried Sleepinbuff, almost sobered by the danger.
+
+Hardly had he pronounced the words when the door of the large room, which
+communicated with the small one in which they were, was burst open with a
+frightful crash.
+
+"Here they are!" cried the host, clasping his hands in alarm.  Then,
+running to Olivier, he pushed him, as it were, out of the window; for,
+with one foot on the sill, the workman still hesitated.
+
+The window once closed, the publican returned towards Morok the instant
+the latter entered the large room, into which the leaders of the Wolves
+had just forced an entry, whilst their companions were vociferating in
+the yard and on the staircase.  Eight or ten of these madmen, urged by
+others to take part in these scenes of disorder, had rushed first into
+the room, with countenances inflamed by wine and anger; most of them were
+armed with long sticks.  A blaster, of Herculean strength and stature,
+with an old red handkerchief about his head, its ragged ends streaming
+over his shoulders, miserably dressed in a half-worn goat-skin,
+brandished an iron drilling-rod, and appeared to direct the movements.
+With bloodshot eyes, threatening and ferocious countenance, he advanced
+towards the small room, as if to drive back Morok, and exclaimed, in a
+voice of thunder:
+
+"Where are the Devourers?--the Wolves will eat 'em up!"
+
+The host hastened to open the door of the small room, saying: "There is
+no one here, my friends--no one.  Look for yourselves."
+
+"It is true," said the quarryman, surprised, after peeping into the room;
+"where are they, then?  We were told there were a dozen of them here.
+They should have marched with us against the factory, or there'd 'a been
+a battle, and the Wolves would have tried their teeth!"
+
+"If they have not come," said another, "they will come.  Let's wait."
+
+"Yes, yes; we will wait for them."
+
+"We will look close at each other."
+
+"If the Wolves want to see the Devourers," said Morok, "why not go and
+howl round the factory of the miscreant atheists?  At the first howl of
+the Wolves they will come out, and give you battle."
+
+"They will give you--battle," repeated Sleepinbuff, mechanically.
+
+"Unless the Wolves are afraid of the Devourers," added Morok.
+
+"Since you talk of fear, you shall go with us, and see who's afraid!"
+cried the formidable blaster, and in a thundering voice, he advanced
+towards Morok.
+
+A number of voices joined in with, "Who says the Wolves are afraid of the
+Devourers?"
+
+"It would be the first time!"
+
+"Battle! battle! and make an end of it!"
+
+"We are tired of all this.  Why should we be so miserable, and they so
+well off?"
+
+"They have said that quarrymen are brutes, only fit to torn wheels in a
+shaft, like dogs to turn spits," cried an emissary of Baron Tripeaud's.
+
+"And that the Devourers would make themselves caps with wolf-skin," added
+another.
+
+"Neither they nor their wives ever go to mass.  They are pagans and
+dogs!" cried an emissary of the preaching abbe.
+
+"The men might keep their Sunday as they pleased; but their wives not to
+go to mass!--it is abominable.
+
+"And, therefore, the curate has said that their factory, because of its
+abominations, might bring down the cholera to the country."
+
+"True? he said that in his sermon."
+
+"Our wives heard it."
+
+"Yes, yes; down with the Devourers, who want to bring the cholera on the
+country!"
+
+"Hooray, for a fight!" cried the crowd in chorus.
+
+"To the factory, my brave Wolves!" cried Morok, with the voice of a
+Stentor; "on to the factory!"
+
+"Yes! to the factory! to the factory!" repeated the crowd, with furious
+stamping; for, little by little, all who could force their way into the
+room, or up the stairs, had there collected together.
+
+These furious cries recalling Jacques for a moment to his senses, he
+whispered to Morok: "It is slaughter you would provoke?  I wash my hands
+of it."
+
+"We shall have time to let them know at the factory.  We can give these
+fellows the slip on the road," answered Morok.  Then he cried aloud,
+addressing the host, who was terrified at this disorder: "Brandy!--let us
+drink to the health of the brave Wolves!  I will stand treat."  He threw
+some money to the host, who disappeared, and soon returned with several
+bottles of brandy, and some glasses.
+
+"What! glasses?" cried Morok.  "Do jolly companions, like we are, drink
+out of glasses?"  So saying, he forced out one of the corks, raised the
+neck of the bottle to his lips, and, having drunk a deep draught, passed
+it to the gigantic quarryman.
+
+That's the thing!" said the latter.  "Here's in honor of the treat!--None
+but a sneak will refuse, for this stuff will sharpen the Wolves' teeth!"
+
+"Here's to your health, mates!" said Morok, distributing the bottles.
+
+"There will be blood at the end of all this," muttered Sleepinbuff, who,
+in spite of his intoxication, perceived all the danger of these fatal
+incitements.  Indeed, a large portion of the crowd was already quitting
+the yard of the public-house, and advancing rapidly towards M. Hardy's
+factory.
+
+Those of the workmen and inhabitants of the village, who had not chosen
+to take any part in this movement of hostility (they were the majority),
+did not make their appearance, as this threatening troop passed along the
+principal street; but a good number of women, excited to fanaticism by
+the sermons of the abbe, encouraged the warlike assemblage with their
+cries.  At the head of the troop advanced the gigantic blaster,
+brandishing his formidable bar, followed by a motley mass, armed with
+sticks and stones.  Their heads still warmed by their recent libations of
+brandy, they had now attained a frightful state of frenzy.  Their
+countenances were ferocious, inflamed, terrible.  This unchaining of the
+worst passions seemed to forbode the most deplorable consequences.
+Holding each other arm-in-arm, and walking four or five together, the
+Wolves gave vent to their excitement in war-songs, which closed with the
+following verse:
+
+"Forward!  full of assurance!
+Let us try our vigorous arms!
+They have wearied out our prudence;
+Let us show we've no alarms.
+Sprung from a monarch glorious,[28]
+To-day we'll not grow pale,
+Whether we win the fight, or fail,
+Whether we die, or are victorious!
+Children of Solomon, mighty king,
+All your efforts together bring,
+Till in triumph we shall sing!"
+
+Morok and Jacques had disappeared whilst the tumultuous troop were
+leaving the tavern to hasten to the factory.
+
+[27] Let it be noted, to the working-man's credit, that such outrageous
+scenes become more and more rare as he is enlightened to the full
+consciousness of his worth.  Such better tendencies are to be attributed
+to the just influence of an excellent tract on trades' union written by
+M. Agricole Perdignier, and published in 1841, Paris.  This author, a
+joiner, founded at his own expense an establishment in the Faubourg St.
+Antoine, where some forty or fifty of his trade lodged, and were given,
+after the day's work, a course of geometry, etc., applied to wood-
+carving.  We went to one of the lectures, and found as much clearness in
+the professor as attention and intelligence in the audience.  At ten,
+after reading selections, all the lodgers retire, forced by their scanty
+wages to sleep, perhaps, four in a room.  M. Perdignier informed us that
+study and instruction were such powerful ameliorators, that, during six
+years, he had only one of his lodgers to expel.  "In a few days, he
+remarked, "the bad eggs find out this is no place for them to addle sound
+ones!"  We are happy to here reader public homage to a learned and
+upright man, devoted to his fellow-workmen.
+
+[28] The Wolves (among others) ascribe the institution of their company
+to King Solomon.  See the curious work by M. Agricole Perdignier, from
+which the war-song is extracted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+THE COMMON DWELLING-HOUSE
+
+Whilst the Wolves, as we have just seen, prepared a savage attack on the
+Devourers, the factory of M. Hardy had that morning a festal air,
+perfectly in accordance with the serenity of the sky; for the wind was
+from the north, and pretty sharp for a fine day in March.  The clock had
+just struck nine in the Common Dwelling-house of the workmen, separated
+from the workshops by a broad path planted with trees.  The rising sun
+bathed in light this imposing mass of buildings, situated a league from
+Paris, in a gay and salubrious locality, from which were visible the
+woody and picturesque hills, that on this side overlook the great city.
+Nothing could be plainer, and yet more cheerful than the aspect of the
+Common Dwelling-house of the workmen.  Its slanting roof of red tiles
+projected over white walls, divided here and there by broad rows of
+bricks, which contrasted agreeably with the green color of the blinds on
+the first and second stories.
+
+These buildings, open to the south and east, were surrounded by a large
+garden of about ten acres, partly planted with trees, and partly laid out
+in fruit and kitchen-garden.  Before continuing this description, which
+perhaps will appear a little like a fairy-tale, let us begin by saying,
+that the wonders, of which we are about to present the sketch, must not
+to be considered Utopian dreams; nothing, on the contrary, could be of a
+more positive character, and we are able to assert, and even to prove
+(what in our time is of great weight and interest), that these wonders
+were the result of an excellent speculation, and represented an
+investment as lucrative as it was secure.  To undertake a vast, noble,
+and most useful enterprise; to bestow on a considerable number of human
+creatures an ideal prosperity, compared with the frightful, almost
+homicidal doom, to which they are generally condemned; to instruct them,
+and elevate them in their own esteem; to make them prefer to the coarse
+pleasures of the tavern, or rather to the fatal oblivion which they find
+there, as an escape from the consciousness of their deplorable destiny,
+the pleasures, of the intellect and the enjoyments of art; in a word, to
+make men moral by making them happy, and finally, thanks to this generous
+example, so easy of imitation, to take a place amongst the benefactors of
+humanity--and yet, at the same time to do, as it were, without knowing
+it, an excellent stroke of business--may appear fabulous.  And yet this
+was the secret of the wonders of which we speak.
+
+Let us enter the interior of the factory.  Ignorant of Mother Bunch's
+cruel disappearance, Agricola gave himself up to the most happy, thoughts
+as he recalled Angela's image, and, having finished dressing with unusual
+care, went in search of his betrothed.
+
+Let us say two words on the subject of the lodging, which the smith
+occupied in the Common Dwelling-house, at the incredibly low rate of
+seventy-five francs per annum like the other bachelors on the
+establishment.  This lodging, situated on the second story, was comprised
+of a capital chamber and bedroom, with a southern aspect, and looking on
+the garden; the pine floor was perfectly white and clean; the iron
+bedstead was supplied with a good mattress and warm coverings; a gas-
+burner and a warm-air pipe were also introduced into the rooms, to
+furnish light and heat as required; the walls were hung with pretty fancy
+papering, and had curtains to match; a chest of drawers, a walnut table,
+a few chairs, a small library, comprised Agricola's furniture.  Finally,
+in the large and light closet, was a place for his clothes, a dressing-
+table, and large zinc basin, with an ample supply of water.  If we
+compare this agreeable, salubrious, comfortable lodging, with the dark,
+icy, dilapidated garret, for which the worthy fellow paid ninety francs
+at his mother's, and to get to which he had more than a league and a half
+to go every evening, we shall understand the sacrifice he made to his
+affection for that excellent woman.
+
+Agricola, after casting a last glance of tolerable satisfaction at his
+looking-glass, while he combed his moustache and imperial, quitted his
+chamber, to go and join Angela in the women's workroom.  The corridor,
+along which he had to pass, was broad, well-lighted from above, floored
+with pine, and extremely clean.  Notwithstanding some seeds of discord
+which had been lately sown by M. Hardy's enemies amongst his workmen,
+until now so fraternally united, joyous songs were heard in almost all
+the apartments which skirted the corridor, and, as Agricola passed before
+several open doors, he exchanged a cordial good-morrow with many of his
+comrades.  The smith hastily descended the stairs, crossed the court-
+yard, in which was a grass-plot planted with trees, with a fountain in
+the centre, and gained the other wing of the building.  There was the
+workroom, in which a portion of the wives and daughters of the associated
+artisans, who happened not to be employed in the factory, occupied
+themselves in making up the linen.  This labor, joined to the enormous
+saving effected by the purchase of the materials wholesale, reduced to an
+incredible extent the price of each article.  After passing through this
+workroom, a vast apartment looking on the garden, well-aired in
+summer,[29] and well-warmed in winter, Agricola knocked at the door of
+the rooms occupied by Angela's mother.
+
+If we say a few words with regard to this lodging, situated on the first
+story, with an eastern aspect, and also looking on the garden, it is that
+we may tape it as a specimen of the habitation of a family in this
+association, supplied at the incredibly small price of one hundred and
+twenty-five francs per annum.
+
+A small entrance, opening on the corridor, led to a large room, on each
+side of which was a smaller chamber, destined for the family, when the
+boys and girls were too big to continue to sleep in the two dormitories,
+arranged after the fashion of a large school, and reserved for the
+children of both sexes.  Every night the superintendence of these
+dormitories was entrusted to a father and mother of a family, belonging
+to the association.  The lodging of which we speak, being, like all the
+others, disencumbered of the paraphernalia of a kitchen--for the cooking
+was done in common, and on a large scale, in another part of the
+building--was kept extremely clean.  A pretty large piece of carpet, a
+comfortable arm-chair, some pretty-looking china on a stand of well-
+polished wood, some prints hung against the walls, a clock of gilt
+bronze, a bed, a chest of drawers, and a mahogany secretary, announced
+that the inhabitants of this apartment enjoyed not only the necessaries,
+but some of the luxuries of life.  Angela, who, from this time, might be
+called Agricola's betrothed, justified in every point the flattering
+portrait which the smith had drawn of her in his interview with poor
+Mother Bunch.  The charming girl, seventeen years of age at most, dressed
+with as much simplicity as neatness, was seated by the side of her
+mother.  When Agricola entered, she blushed slightly at seeing him.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Agricola, "I have come to keep my promise, if your
+mother has no objection."
+
+"Certainly, M. Agricola," answered the mother of the young girl
+cordially.  "She would not go over the Common Dwelling-house with her
+father, her brother, or me, because she wished to have that pleasure with
+you today.  It is quite right that you, who can talk so well, should do
+the honors of the house to the new-comer.  She has been waiting for you
+an hour, and with such impatience!"
+
+"Pray excuse me, mademoiselle," said Agricola, gayly; "in thinking of the
+pleasure of seeing you, I forgot the hour.  That is my only excuse."
+
+"Oh, mother!" said the young girl, in a tone of mild reproach, and
+becoming red as a cherry, "why did you say that?"
+
+"Is it true, yes or no?  I do not blame you for it; on the contrary.  Go
+with M. Agricola, child, and he will tell you, better than I can, what
+all the workmen of the factory owe to M, Hardy."
+
+"M. Agricola," said Angela, tying the ribbons of her pretty cap, "what a
+pity that your good little adopted sister is not with us."
+
+"Mother Bunch?--yes, you are right, mademoiselle; but that is only a
+pleasure put off, and the visit she paid us yesterday will not be the
+last."
+
+Having embraced her mother, the girl took Agricola's arm, and they went
+out together.
+
+"Dear me, M. Agricola," said Angela; "if you knew how much I was
+surprised on entering this fine house, after being accustomed to see so
+much misery amongst the poor workmen in our country, and in which I too
+have had my share, whilst here everybody seems happy and contented.  It
+is really like fairy-land; I think I am in a dream, and when I ask my
+mother the explanation of these wonders, she tells me, `M. Agricola will
+explain it all to you.'"
+
+"Do you know why I am so happy to undertake that delightful task,
+mademoiselle?" said Agricola, with an accent at once grave and tender.
+"Nothing could be more in season."
+
+"Why so, M. Agricola?"
+
+"Because, to show you this house, to make you acquainted with all the
+resources of our association, is to be able to say to you: `Here, the
+workman, sure of the present, sure of the future, is not, like so many of
+his poor brothers, obliged to renounce the sweetest want of the heart--
+the desire of choosing a companion for life--in the fear of uniting
+misery to misery."'
+
+Angela cast down her eyes, and blushed.
+
+"Here the workman may safely yield to the hope of knowing the sweet joys
+of a family, sure of not having his heart torn hereafter by the sight of
+the horrible privations of those who are dear to him; here, thanks to
+order and industry, and the wise employment of the strength of all, men,
+women, and children live happy and contented.  In a ward, to explain all
+this to you, mademoiselle," added Agricola, smiling with a still more
+tender air, "is to prove, that here we can do nothing more reasonable
+than love, nothing wiser than marry."
+
+"M. Agricola," answered Angela, in a slightly agitated voice, and
+blushing still more as she spoke, "suppose we were to begin our walk."
+
+"Directly, mademoiselle," replied the smith, pleased at the trouble he
+had excited in that ingenuous soul.  "But, come; we are near the
+dormitory of the little girls.  The chirping birds have long left their
+nests.  Let us go there."
+
+"Willingly, M. Agricola."
+
+The young smith and Angela soon entered a spacious dormitory, resembling
+that of a first-rate boarding school.  The little iron bedsteads were
+arranged in symmetrical order; at each end were the beds of the two
+mothers of families, who took the superintendence by turns.
+
+"Dear me! how well it is arranged, M. Agricola, and how neat and clean!
+Who is it that takes such good care of it?"
+
+"The children themselves; we have no servants here.  There is an
+extraordinary emulation between these urchins--as to who shall make her
+bed most neatly, and it amuses them quite as much as making a bed for
+their dolls.  Little girls, you know, delight in playing at keeping
+house.  Well, here they play at it in good earnest, and the house is
+admirably kept in consequence."
+
+"Oh! I understand.  They turn to account their natural taste for all such
+kinds of amusement."
+
+"That is the whole secret.  You will see them everywhere usefully
+occupied, and delighted at the importance of the employments given them."
+
+"Oh, M. Agricola!" said Angela, timidly, "only compare these fine
+dormitories, so warm and healthy, with the horrible icy garrets, where
+children are heaped pell-mell on a wretched straw-mattress, shivering
+with cold, as in the case with almost all the workmen's families in our
+country!"
+
+"And in Paris, mademoiselle, it is even worse."
+
+"Oh! how kind, generous, and rich must M. Hardy be, to spend so much
+money in doing good!"
+
+"I am going to astonish you, mademoiselle!" said Agricola, with a smile;
+"to astonish you so much, that perhaps you will not believe me."
+
+"Why so, M. Agricola?"
+
+"There is not certainly in the world a man with a better and more
+generous heart than M. Hardy; he does good for its own sake and without
+thinking of his personal interest.  And yet, Mdlle. Angela, were he the
+most selfish and avaricious of men, he would still find it greatly to his
+advantage to put us in a position to be as comfortable as we are."
+
+"Is it possible, M. Agricola?  You tell me so, and I believe it; but if
+good can so easily be done, if there is even an advantage in doing it,
+why is it not more commonly attempted?"
+
+"Ah! mademoiselle, it requires three gifts very rarely met with in the
+same person--knowledge, power and will."
+
+"Alas! yes.  Those who have the knowledge, have not the power."
+
+"And those who have the power, have neither the knowledge nor the will."
+
+"But how does M. Hardy find any advantage in the good he does for you?"
+
+"I will explain that presently, mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh, what a nice, sweet smell of fruit!" said Angela, suddenly.
+
+"Our common fruit-store is close at hand.  I wager we shall find there
+some of the little birds from the dormitory--not occupied in picking and
+stealing, but hard at work."
+
+Opening a door, Agricola led Angela into a large room, furnished with
+shelves, on which the winter fruits were arranged in order.  A number of
+children, from seven to eight years old, neatly and warmly clad, and
+glowing with health, exerted themselves cheerfully, under the
+superintendence of a woman, in separating and sorting the spoiled fruit.
+
+"You see," said Agricola, "wherever it is possible, we make use of the
+children.  These occupations are amusements for them, answering to the
+need of movement and activity natural to their age; and, in this way, we
+can employ the grown girls and the women to much better advantage."
+
+"True, M. Agricola; how well it is all arranged."
+
+"And if you saw what services the urchins in the kitchen render!
+Directed by one or two women, they do the work of eight or ten servants."
+
+"In fact," said Angela, smiling, "at their age, we like so much to play
+at cooking dinner.  They must be delighted."
+
+"And, in the same way, under pretext of playing at gardening, they weed
+the ground, gather the fruit and vegetables, water the flowers, roll the
+paths, and so on.  In a word, this army of infant-workers, who generally
+remain till ten or twelve years of age without being of any service, are
+here very useful.  Except three hours of school, which is quite
+sufficient for them, from the age of six or seven their recreations are
+turned to good account, and the dear little creatures, by the saving of
+full-grown arms which they effect, actually gain more than they cost; and
+then, mademoiselle, do you not think there is something in the presence
+of childhood thus mixed up with every labor--something mild, pure, almost
+sacred, which has its influence on our words and actions, and imposes a
+salutary reserve?  The coarsest man will respect the presence of
+children."
+
+"The more one reflects, the more one sees that everything here is really
+designed for the happiness of all!" said Angela, in admiration.
+
+"It has not been done without trouble.  It was necessary to conquer
+prejudices, and break through customs.  But see, Mdlle. Angela! here we
+are at the kitchen," added the smith, smiling; "is it not as imposing as
+that of a barrack or a public school?"
+
+Indeed, the culinary department of the Common Dwelling-house was immense.
+All its utensils were bright and clean; and thanks to the marvellous and
+economical inventions of modern science (which are always beyond the
+reach of the poorer classes, to whom they are most necessary, because
+they can only be practised on a large scale), not only the fire on the
+hearth, and in the stoves, was fed with half the quantity of fuel that
+would have been consumed by each family individually, but the excess of
+the caloric sufficed, with the aid of well-constructed tubes, to spread a
+mild and equal warmth through all parts of the house.  And here also
+children, under the direction of two women, rendered numerous services.
+Nothing could be more comic than the serious manner in which they
+performed their culinary functions; it was the same with the assistance
+they gave in the bakehouse, where, at an extraordinary saving in the
+price (for they bought flour wholesale), they made an excellent household
+bread, composed of pure wheat and rye, so preferable to that whiter
+bread, which too often owes its apparent qualities to some deleterious
+substance.
+
+"Good-day, Dame Bertrand," said Agricola, gayly, to a worthy matron, who
+was gravely contemplating the slow evolution of several spits, worthy of
+Gamache's Wedding so heavily were they laden with pieces of beef, mutton,
+and veal, which began to assume a fine golden brown color of the most
+attractive kind; good-day, Dame Bertrand.  According to the rule, I do
+not pass the threshold of the kitchen.  I only wish it to be admired by
+this young lady, who is a new-comer amongst us."
+
+"Admire, my lad, pray admire--and above all take notice, how good these
+brats are, and how well they work!"  So saying, the matron pointed with
+the long ladle, which served her as a sceptre, to some fifteen children
+of both sexes, seated round a table, and deeply absorbed in the exercise
+of their functions, which consisted in peeling potatoes and picking
+herbs.
+
+"We are, I see, to have a downright Belshazzar's feast, Dame Bertrand?"
+said Agricola, laughing.
+
+"Faith, a feast like we have always, my lad.  Here is our bill of fare
+for to-day.  A good vegetable soup, roast beef with potatoes, salad,
+fruit, cheese; and for extras, it being Sunday, some currant tarts made
+by Mother Denis at the bakehouse, where the oven is heating now."
+
+"What you tell me, Dame Bertrand, gives me a furious appetite," said
+Agricola, gayly.  "One soon knows when it is your turn in the kitchen,"
+added he, with a flattering air.
+
+"Get along, do!" said the female Soyer on service, merrily.
+
+"What astonishes me, so much, M. Agricola," said Angela, as they
+continued their walk, "is the comparison of the insufficient, unwholesome
+food of the workmen in our country, with that which is provided here."
+
+"And yet we do not spend more than twenty-five sous a day, for much
+better food than we should get for three francs in Paris."
+
+"But really it is hard to believe, M. Agricola.  How is it possible?"
+
+"It is thanks to the magic wand of M. Hardy.  I will explain it all
+presently."
+
+"Oh! how impatient I am to see M. Hardy!"
+
+"You will soon see him--perhaps to-day; for he is expected every moment.
+But here is the refectory, which you do not yet know, as your family,
+like many others, prefer dining at home.  See what a fine room, looking
+out on the garden, just opposite the fountain!"
+
+It was indeed a vast hall, built in the form of a gallery, with ten
+windows opening on the garden.  Tables, covered with shining oil-cloth,
+were ranged along the walls, so that, in winter, this apartment served in
+the evening, after work, as a place of meeting for those who preferred to
+pass an hour together, instead of remaining alone or with their families.
+Then, in this large hall, well warmed and brilliantly lighted with gas,
+some read, some played cards, some talked, and some occupied themselves
+with easy work.
+
+"That is not all," said Agricola to the young girl; "I am sure you will
+like this apartment still better when I tell you, that on Thursdays and
+Sundays we make a ball-room of it, and on Tuesdays and Saturdays a
+concert-room."
+
+"Really!"
+
+"Yes," continued the smith, proudly, "we have amongst us musicians, quite
+capable of tempting us to dance.  Moreover, twice a week, nearly all of
+us sing in chorus--men, women, and children.  Unfortunately, this week,
+some disputes that have arisen in the factory have prevented our
+concerts."
+
+"So many voices! that must be superb."
+
+"It is very fine, I assure you.  M. Hardy has always encouraged this
+amusement amongst us, which has, he says--and he is right--so powerful an
+effect on the mind and the manners.  One winter, he sent for two pupils
+of the celebrated Wilhelm, and, since then, our school has made great
+progress.  I assure you, Mdlle. Angela, that, without flattering
+ourselves, there is something truly exciting in the sound of two hundred
+voices, singing in chorus some hymn to Labor or Freedom.  You shall hear
+it, and you will, I think, acknowledge that there is something great and
+elevating in the heart of man, in this fraternal harmony of voices,
+blending in one grave, sonorous, imposing sound."
+
+"Oh! I believe it.  But what happiness to inhabit here.  It is a life of
+joy; for labor, mixed with recreation, becomes itself a pleasure."
+
+"Alas! here, as everywhere, there are tears and sorrows," replied
+Agricola, sadly.  "Do you see that isolated building, in a very exposed
+situation?"
+
+"Yes; what is it?"
+
+"That is our hospital for the sick.  Happily, thanks to our healthy mode
+of life, it is not often full; an annual subscription enables us to have
+a good doctor.  Moreover, a mutual benefit society is arranged in such a
+manner amongst us, that any one of us, in case of illness, receives two-
+thirds of what he would have gained in health."
+
+"How well it is all managed!  And there, M. Agricola, on the other side
+of the grass-plot?"
+
+"That is the wash-house, with water laid on, cold and hot; and under
+yonder shed is the drying-place: further on, you see the stables, and the
+lofts and granaries for the provender of the factory horses."
+
+"But M. Agricola, will you tell me the secret of all these wonders?"
+
+"In ten minutes you shall understand it all, mademoiselle."
+
+Unfortunately, Angela's curiosity was for a while disappointed.  The girl
+was now standing with Agricola close to the iron gate, which shut in the
+garden from the broad avenue that separated the factory from the Common
+Dwelling-house.  Suddenly, the wind brought from the distance the sound
+of trumpets and military music; then was heard the gallop of two horses,
+approaching rapidly, and soon after a general officer made his
+appearance, mounted on a fine black charger, with a long flowing tail and
+crimson housings; he wore cavalry boots and white breeches, after the
+fashion of the empire; his uniform glittered with gold embroidery, the
+red ribbon of the Legion of Honor was passed over his right epaulet, with
+its four silver stars, and his hat had a broad gold border, and was
+crowned with a white plume, the distinctive sign reserved for the
+marshals of France.  No warrior could have had a more martial and
+chivalrous air, or have sat more proudly on his war-horse.  At the moment
+Marshal Simon (for it was he) arrived opposite the place where Angela and
+Agricola were standing, he drew up his horse suddenly, sprang lightly to
+the ground, and threw the golden reins to a servant in livery, who
+followed also on horseback.
+
+"Where shall I wait for your grace?" asked the groom.
+
+"At the end of the avenue," said the marshal.
+
+And, uncovering his head respectfully, he advanced hastily with his hat
+in his hand, to meet a person whom Angela and Agricola had not previously
+perceived.  This person soon appeared at a turn of the avenue; he was an
+old man, with an energetic, intelligent countenance.  He wore a very neat
+blouse, and a cloth cap over his long, white hair.  With his hands in his
+pocket, he was quietly smoking an old meerschaum pipe.
+
+"Good-morning, father," said the marshal, respectfully, as he
+affectionately embraced the old workman, who, having tenderly returned
+the pressure, said to him: "Put on your hat, my boy.  But how gay we
+are!" added he, with a smile.
+
+"I have just been to a review, father, close by; and I took the
+opportunity to call on you as soon as possible."
+
+"But shall I then not see my granddaughters to-day, as I do every
+Sunday?"
+
+"They are coming in a carriage, father, and Dagobert accompanies them."
+
+"But what is the matter? you appear full of thought."
+
+"Indeed, father," said the marshal, with a somewhat agitated air, "I have
+serious things to talk about."
+
+"Come in, then," said the old man, with some anxiety.  The marshal and
+his father disappeared at the turn of the avenue.
+
+Angela had been struck with amazement at seeing this brilliant General,
+who was entitled "your grace," salute an old workman in a blouse as his
+father; and, looking at Agricola with a confused air she said to him:
+"What, M. Agricola! this old workman--"
+
+"Is the father of Marshal Duke de Ligny--the friend--yes, I may say the
+friend," added Agricola, with emotion, "of my father, who for twenty
+years served under him in war.'
+
+"To be placed so high, and yet to be so respectful and tender to his
+father!" said Angela.  "The marshal must have a very noble heart; but why
+does he let his father remain a workman?"
+
+"Because Father Simon will not quit his trade and the factory for
+anything in the world.  He was born a workman, and he will die a workman,
+though he is the father of a duke and marshal of France."
+
+[29] See Adolphe Bobierre "On Air and Health," Paris, 1844.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+THE SECRET.
+
+When the very natural astonishment which the arrival of Marshal Simon had
+caused in Angela had passed away, Agricola said to her with a smile: "I
+do not wish to take advantage of this circumstance, Mdlle. Angela, to
+spare you the account of the secret, by which all the wonders of our
+Common Dwelling-house are brought to pass."
+
+"Oh! I should not have let you forget your promise, M. Agricola,"
+answered Angela, "what you have already told me interests me too much for
+that."
+
+"Listen, then.  M. Hardy, like a true magician, has pronounced three
+cabalistic words: ASSOCIATION--COMMUNITY--FRATERNITY.  We have understood
+the sense of these words, and the wonders you have seen have sprung from
+them, to our great advantage; and also, I repeat, to the great advantage
+of M. Hardy."
+
+"It is that which appears so extraordinary, M. Agricola."
+
+"Suppose, mademoiselle, that M. Hardy, instead of being what he is, had
+only been a cold-hearted speculator, looking merely to the profit, and
+saying to himself: `To make the most of my factory, what is needed?  Good
+work--great economy in the raw material--full employment of the workman's
+time; in a word, cheapness of manufacture, in order to produce cheaply--
+excellence of the thing produced, in order to sell dear.'"
+
+"Truly, M. Agricola, no manufacturer could desire more."
+
+"Well, mademoiselle, these conditions might have been fulfilled, as they
+have been, but how?  Had M. Hardy only been a speculator, he might have
+said: `At a distance from my factory, my workmen might have trouble to
+get there: rising earlier, they will sleep less; it is a bad economy to
+take from the sleep so necessary to those who toil.  When they get
+feeble, the work suffers for it; then the inclemency of the seasons makes
+it worse; the workman arrives wet, trembling with cold, enervated before
+he begins to work--and then, what work!'"
+
+"It is unfortunately but too true, M. Agricola.  At Lille, when I reached
+the factory, wet through with a cold rain, I used sometimes to shiver all
+day long at my work."
+
+"Therefore, Mdlle. Angela, the speculator might say: `To lodge my workmen
+close to the door of my factory would obviate this inconvenience.  Let us
+make the calculation.  In Paris the married workman pays about two
+hundred and fifty francs a-year,[30] for one or two wretched rooms and a
+closet, dark, small, unhealthy, in a narrow, miserable street; there he
+lives pell-mell with his family.  What ruined constitutions are the
+consequence! and what sort of work can you expect from a feverish and
+diseased creature?  As for the single men, they pay for a smaller, and
+quite as unwholesome lodging, about one hundred and fifty francs a-year.
+Now, let us make the addition.  I employ one hundred and forty-six
+married workmen, who pay together, for their wretched holes, thirty-six
+thousand five hundred francs; I employ also one hundred and fifteen
+bachelors, who pay at the rate of seventeen thousand two hundred and
+eighty francs; the total will amount to about fifty thousand francs per
+annum, the interest on a million."'
+
+"Dear me, M. Agricola! what a sum to be produced by uniting all these
+little rents together!"
+
+"You see, mademoiselle, that fifty thousand francs a-year is a
+millionaire's rent.  Now, what says our speculator: To induce our workmen
+to leave Paris, I will offer them, enormous advantages.  I will reduce
+their rent one-half, and, instead of small, unwholesome rooms, they shall
+have large, airy apartments, well-warmed and lighted, at a trifling
+charge.  Thus, one hundred and forty-six families, paying me only one
+hundred and twenty-five francs a-year, and one hundred and fifteen
+bachelors, seventy-five francs, I shall have a total of twenty-six to
+twenty-seven thousand francs.  Now, a building large enough to hold all
+these people would cost me at most five hundred thousand francs.[31] I
+shall then have invested my money at five per cent at the least, and with
+perfect security, since the wages is a guarantee for the payment of the
+rent.'"
+
+"Ah, M. Agricola! I begin to understand how it may sometimes be
+advantageous to do good, even in a pecuniary sense."
+
+"And I am almost certain, mademoiselle, that, in the long run, affairs
+conducted with uprightness and honesty turn out well.  But to return to
+our speculator.  `Here,' will he say, `are my workmen, living close to my
+factory, well lodged, well warmed, and arriving always fresh at their
+work.  That is not all; the English workman who eats good beef, and
+drinks good beer, does twice as much, in the same time, as the French
+workman,[32] reduced to a detestable kind of food, rather weakening than
+the reverse, thanks to the poisonous adulteration of the articles he
+consumes.  My workmen will then labor much better, if they eat much
+better.  How shall I manage it without loss?  Now I think of it, what is
+the food in barracks, schools, even prisons?  Is it not the union of
+individual resources which procures an amount of comfort impossible to
+realize without such an association?  Now, if my two hundred and sixty
+workmen, instead of cooking two hundred and sixty detestable dinners,
+were to unite to prepare one good dinner for all of them, which might be
+done, thanks to the savings of all sorts that would ensue, what an
+advantage for me and them!  Two or three women, aided by children, would
+suffice to make ready the daily repasts; instead of buying wood and
+charcoal in fractions,[33] and so paying for it double its value, the
+association of my workmen would, upon my security (their wages would be
+an efficient security for me in return), lay in their own stock of wood,
+flour, butter, oil, wine, etc., all which they would procure directly
+from the producers.  Thus, they would pay three or four sous for a bottle
+of pure wholesome wine, instead of paying twelve or fifteen sous for
+poison.  Every week the association would buy a whole ox, and some sheep,
+and the women would make bread, as in the country.  Finally, with these
+resources, and order, and economy, my workmen may have wholesome,
+agreeable, and sufficient food, for from twenty to twenty-five sous a
+day.'"
+
+"Ah! this explains it, M. Agricola."
+
+"It is not all, mademoiselle.  Our cool-headed speculator would continue:
+`Here are my workmen well lodged, well warmed, well fed, with a saving of
+at least half; why should they not also be warmly clad?  Their health
+will then have every chance of being good, and health is labor.  The
+association will buy wholesale, and at the manufacturing price (still
+upon my security, secured to me by their wages), warm, good, strong
+materials, which a portion of the workmen's wives will be able to make
+into clothes as well as any tailor.  Finally, the consumption of caps and
+shoes being considerable, the association will obtain them at a great
+reduction in price.'  Well, Mdlle. Angela! what do you say to our
+speculator?"
+
+"I say, M. Agricola," answered the young girl; with ingenuous admiration,
+"that it is almost incredible, and yet so simple!"
+
+"No doubt, nothing is more simple than the good and beautiful, and yet we
+think of it so seldom.  Observe, that our man has only been speaking with
+a view to his own interest--only considering the material side of the
+question--reckoning for nothing the habit of fraternity and mutual aid,
+which inevitably springs from living together in common--not reflecting
+that a better mode of life improves and softens the character of man--not
+thinking of the support and instruction which the strong owe to the weak-
+--not acknowledging, in fine, that the honest, active, and industrious
+man has a positive right to demand employment from society, and wages
+proportionate to the wants of his condition.  No, our speculator only
+thinks of the gross profits; and yet, you see, he invests his money in
+buildings at five per cent., and finds the greatest advantages in the
+material comfort of his workmen."
+
+"It is true, M. Agricola."
+
+"And what will you say, mademoiselle, when I prove to you that our
+speculator finds also a great advantage in giving to his workmen, in
+addition to their regular wages, a proportionate share of his profits?"
+
+"That appears to me more difficult to prove, M. Agricola."
+
+"Yet I will convince you of it in a few minutes."
+
+Thus conversing, Angela and Agricola had reached the garden-gate of the
+Common Dwelling-house.  An elderly woman, dressed plainly, but with care
+and neatness, approached Agricola, and asked him: "Has M. Hardy returned
+to the factory, sir?"
+
+"No, madame; but we expect him hourly."
+
+"To-day, perhaps?"
+
+"To-day or to-morrow, madame."
+
+"You cannot tell me at what hour he will be here?"
+
+"I do not think it is known, madame, but the porter of the factory, who
+also belongs to M. Hardy's private house, may, perhaps, be able to inform
+you."
+
+"I thank you, sir."
+
+"Quite welcome, madame."
+
+"M. Agricola," said Angela, when the woman who had just questioned him
+was gone, "did you remark that this lady was very pale and agitated?"
+
+"I noticed it as you did, mademoiselle; I thought I saw tears standing in
+her eyes."
+
+"Yes, she seemed to have been crying.  Poor woman! perhaps she came to
+ask assistance of M. Hardy.  But what ails you, M. Agricola?  You appear
+quite pensive."
+
+Agricola had a vague presentiment that the visit of this elderly woman
+with so sad a countenance, had some connection with the adventure of the
+young and pretty lady, who, three days before had come all agitated and
+in tears to inquire after M. Hardy, and who had learned--perhaps too
+late--that she was watched and followed.
+
+"Forgive me, mademoiselle," said Agricola to Angela; but the presence of
+this old lady reminded me of a circumstance, which, unfortunately, I
+cannot tell you, for it is a secret that does not belong to me alone."
+
+"Oh! do not trouble yourself, M. Agricola," answered the young girl, with
+a smile; "I am not inquisitive, and what we were talking of before
+interests me so much, that I do not wish to hear you speak of anything
+else."
+
+"Well, then mademoiselle, I will say a few words more, and you will be as
+well informed as I am of the secrets of our association."
+
+"I am listening, M. Agricola."
+
+"Let us still keep in view the speculator from mere interest.  'Here are
+my workmen, says he, `in the best possible condition to do a great deal
+of work.  Now what is to be done to obtain large profits?  Produce
+cheaply, and sell dear.  But there will be no cheapness, without economy
+in the use of the raw material, perfection of the manufacturing process,
+and celerity of labor.  Now, in spite of all my vigilance, how am I to
+prevent my workmen from wasting the materials?  How am I to induce them,
+each in his own province, to seek for the most simple and least irksome
+processes?"
+
+"True, M. Agricola; how is that to be done?"
+
+"'And that is not all,' says our man; `to sell my produce at high prices,
+it should be irreproachable, excellent.  My workmen do pretty well; but
+that is not enough.  I want them to produce masterpieces.'"
+
+"But, M. Agricola, when they have once performed the task set them what
+interest have workmen to give themselves a great deal of trouble to
+produce masterpieces?"
+
+"There it is, Mdlle. Angela; what interest have they?  Therefore, our
+speculator soon says to himself: `That my workmen may have an interest to
+be economical in the use of the materials, an interest to employ their
+time well, an interest to invent new and better manufacturing processes,
+an interest to send out of their hands nothing but masterpieces--I must
+give them an interest in the profits earned by their economy, activity,
+zeal and skill.  The better they manufacture, the better I shall sell,
+and the larger will be their gain and mine also.'"
+
+"Oh! now I understand, M. Agricola."
+
+"And our speculator would make a good speculation.  Before he was
+interested, the workman said: `What does it matter to me, that I do more
+or do better in the course of the day?  What shall I gain by it?
+Nothing.  Well, then, little work for little wages.  But now, on the
+contrary (he says), I have an interest in displaying zeal and economy.
+All is changed.  I redouble my activity, and strive to excel the others.
+If a comrade is lazy, and likely to do harm to the factory, I have the
+right to say to him: `Mate, we all suffer more or less from your
+laziness, and from the injury you are doing the common weal.'"
+
+"And then, M. Agricola, with what ardor, courage, and hope, you must set
+to work!"
+
+"That is what our speculator counts on; and he may say to himself,
+further: `Treasures of experience and practical wisdom are often buried
+in workshops, for want of goodwill, opportunity, or encouragement.
+Excellent workmen, instead of making all the improvements in their power,
+follow with indifference the old jog-trot.  What a pity! for an
+intelligent man, occupied all his life with some special employment, must
+discover, in the long run, a thousand ways of doing his work better and
+quicker.  I will form, therefore, a sort of consulting committee; I will
+summon to it my foremen and my most skillful workmen.  Our interest 1s
+now the same.  Light will necessarily spring from this centre of
+practical intelligence.'  Now, the speculator is not deceived in this,
+and soon struck with the incredible resources, the thousand new,
+ingenious, perfect inventions suddenly revealed by his workmen, `Why' he
+exclaims, `if you knew this, did you not tell it before?  What for the
+last ten years has cost me a hundred francs to make, would have cost me
+only fifty, without reckoning an enormous saving of time.' 'Sir, answers
+the workman, who is not more stupid than others, "what interest had I,
+that you should effect a saving of fifty per cent?  None.  But now it is
+different.  You give me, besides my wages, a share in your profits; you
+raise me in my own esteem, by consulting my experience and knowledge.
+Instead of treating me as an inferior being, you enter into communion
+with me.  It is my interest, it is my duty, to tell you all I know, and
+to try to acquire more.'  And thus it is, Mdlle. Angela, that the
+speculator can organize his establishment, so as to shame his
+oppositionists, and provoke their envy.  Now if, instead of a cold-
+hearted calculator, we tape a man who unites with the knowledge of these
+facts the tender and generous sympathies of an evangelical heart, and the
+elevation of a superior mind, he will extend his ardent solicitude; not
+only to the material comfort, but to the moral emancipation, of his
+workmen.  Seeking everywhere every possible means to develop their
+intelligence, to improve their hearts, and strong in the authority
+acquired by his beneficence, feeling that he on whom depends the
+happiness or the misery of three hundred human creatures has also the
+care of souls, he will be the guide of those whom he no longer calls his
+workmen, but his brothers, in a straightforward and noble path, and will
+try to create in them the taste for knowledge and art, which will render
+them happy and proud of a condition of life that is often accepted by
+others with tears and curses of despair.  Well, Mdlle. Angela, such a man
+is--but, see! he could not arrive amongst us except in the middle of a
+blessing.  There he is--there is M. Hardy!"
+
+"Oh, M. Agricola!" said Angela, deeply moved, and drying her tears; "we
+should receive him with our hands clasped in gratitude."
+
+"Look if that mild and noble countenance is not the image of his
+admirable soul!"
+
+A carriage with post horses, in which was M. Hardy, with M. de Blessac,
+the unworthy friend who was betraying him in so infamous a manner,
+entered at this moment the courtyard of the factory.
+
+A little while after, a humble hackney-coach was seen advancing also
+towards the factory, from the direction of Paris.  In this coach was
+Rodin.
+
+[30] The average price of a workman's lodging, composed of two small
+rooms and a closet at most, on the third or fourth story.
+
+[31] This calculation is amply sufficient, if not excessive.  A similar
+building, at one league from Paris, on the side of Montrouge, with all
+the necessary offices, kitchen, wash-houses, etc., with gas and water
+laid on, apparatus for warming, etc., and a garden of ten acres, cost, at
+the period of this narrative, hardly five hundred thousand francs.  An
+experienced builder less obliged us with an estimate, which confirms what
+we advance.  It is, therefore, evident, that, even at the same price
+which workmen are in the habit of paying, it would be possible to provide
+them with perfectly healthy lodgings, and yet invest one's money at ten
+per cent.
+
+[32] The fact was proved in the works connected with the Rouen Railway.
+Those French workmen who, having no families, were able to live like the
+English, did at least as much work as the latter, being strengthened by
+wholesome and sufficient nourishment.
+
+[33] Buying penny-worths, like all other purchases at minute retail, are
+greatly to the poor man's disadvantage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+REVELATIONS.
+
+During the visit of Angela and Agricola to the Common Dwelling-house, the
+band of Wolves, joined upon the road by many of the haunters of taverns,
+continued to march towards the factory, which the hackney-coach, that
+brought Rodin from Paris, was also fast approaching.  M. Hardy, on
+getting out of the carriage with his friend, M. de Blessac, had entered
+the parlor of the house that he occupied next the factory.  M. Hardy was
+of middle size, with an elegant and slight figure, which announced a
+nature essentially nervous and impressionable.  His forehead was broad
+and open, his complexion pale, his eyes black, full at once of mildness
+and penetration, his countenance honest, intelligent, and attractive.
+
+One word will paint the character of M. Hardy.  His mother had called him
+her Sensitive Plant.  His was indeed one of those fine and exquisitely
+delicate organizations, which are trusting, loving, noble, generous, but
+so susceptible, that the least touch makes them shrink into themselves.
+If we join to this excessive sensibility a passionate love for art, a
+first-rate intellect, tastes essentially refined, and then think of the
+thousand deceptions, and numberless infamies of which M. Hardy must have
+been the victim in his career as a manufacturer, we shall wonder how this
+heart, so delicate and tender, had not been broken a thousand times, in
+its incessant struggle with merciless self-interest.  M. Hardy had indeed
+suffered much.  Forced to follow the career of productive industry, to
+honor the engagements of his father, a model of uprightness and probity,
+who had yet left his affairs somewhat embarrassed, in consequence of the
+events of 1815, he had succeeded, by perseverance and capacity, in
+attaining one of the most honorable positions in the commercial world.
+But, to arrive at this point, what ignoble annoyances had he to bear
+with, what perfidious opposition to combat, what hateful rivalries to
+tire out!
+
+Sensitive as he was, M. Hardy would a thousand times have fallen a victim
+to his emotions of painful indignation against baseness, of bitter
+disgust at dishonesty, but for the wise and firm support of his mother.
+When he returned to her, after a day of painful struggles with odious
+deceptions, he found himself suddenly transported into an atmosphere of
+such beneficent purity, of such radiant serenity, that he lost almost on
+the instant the remembrance of the base things by which he had been so
+cruelly tortured during the day; the pangs of his heart were appeased at
+the mere contact of her great and lofty soul; and therefore his love for
+her resembled idolatry.  When he lost her, he experienced one of those
+calm, deep sorrows which have no end--which become, as it were, part of
+life, and have even sometimes their days of melancholy sweetness.  A
+little while after this great misfortune, M. Hardy became more closely
+connected with his workmen.  He had always been a just and good master;
+but, although the place that his mother left in his heart would ever
+remain void, he felt as it were a redoubled overflowing of the
+affections, and the more he suffered, the more he craved to see happy
+faces around him.  The wonderful ameliorations, which he now produced in
+the physical and moral condition of all about him, served, not to divert,
+but to occupy his grief.  Little by little, he withdrew from the world,
+and concentrated his life in three affections: a tender and devoted
+friendship, which seemed to include all past friendships--a love ardent
+and sincere, like a last passion--and a paternal attachment to his
+workmen.  His days therefore passed in the heart of that little world, so
+full of respect and gratitude towards him--a world, which he had, as it
+were, created after the image of his mind, that he might find there a
+refuge from the painful realities he dreaded, surrounded with good,
+intelligent, happy beings, capable of responding to the noble thoughts
+which had become more and more necessary to his existence.  Thus, after
+many sorrows, M. Hardy, arrived at the maturity of age, possessing a
+sincere friend, a mistress worthy of his love, and knowing himself
+certain of the passionate devotion of his workmen, had attained, at the
+period of this history, all the happiness he could hope for since his
+mother's death.
+
+M. de Blessac, his bosom friend, had long been worthy of his touching and
+fraternal affection; but we have seen by what diabolical means Father
+d'Aigrigny and Rodin had succeeded in making M. de Blessac, until then
+upright and sincere, the instrument of their machinations.  The two
+friends, who had felt on their journey a little of the sharp influence of
+the north wind, were warming themselves at a good fire lighted in M.
+Hardy's parlor.
+
+"Oh! my dear Marcel, I begin really to get old," said M. Hardy, with a
+smile, addressing M. de Blessac; "I feel more and more the want of being
+at home.  To depart from my usual habits has become painful to me, and I
+execrate whatever obliges me to leave this happy little spot of ground."
+
+"And when I think," answered M. de Blessac, unable to forbear blushing,
+"when I think, my friend, that you undertook this long journey only for
+my sake!--"
+
+"Well, my dear Marcel! have you not just accompanied me in your turn, in
+an excursion which, without you, would have been as tiresome as it has
+been charming?"
+
+"What a difference, my friend!  I have contracted towards you a debt that
+I can never repay."
+
+"Nonsense, my dear Marcel!  Between us, there are no distinctions of meum
+and tuum.  Besides, in matters of friendship, it is as sweet to give as
+to receive."
+
+"Noble heart! noble heart!"
+
+"Say, happy heart!--most happy, in the last affections for which it
+beats."
+
+"And who, gracious heaven! could deserve happiness on earth, if it be not
+you, my friend?"
+
+"And to what do I owe that happiness?  To the affections which I found
+here, ready to sustain me, when deprived of the support of my mother, who
+was all my strength, I felt myself (I confess my weakness) almost
+incapable of standing up against adversity."
+
+"You, my friend--with so firm and resolute a character in doing good--
+you, that I have seen struggle with so much energy and courage, to secure
+the triumph of some great and noble idea?"
+
+"Yes; but the farther I advance in my career, the more am I disgusted
+with all base and shameful actions, and the less strength I feel to
+encounter them--"
+
+"Were it necessary, you would have the courage, my friend."
+
+"My dear Marcel," replied M. Hardy, with mild and restrained emotion, "I
+have often said to you: My courage was my mother.  You see, my friend,
+when I went to her, with my heart torn by some horrible ingratitude, or
+disgusted by some base deceit, she, taking my hands between her own
+venerable palms, would say to me in her grave and tender voice: `My dear
+child, it is for the ungrateful and dishonest to suffer; let us pity the
+wicked, let us forget evil, and only think of good.'--Then, my friend,
+this heart, painfully contracted, expanded beneath the sacred influence
+of the maternal words, and every day I gathered strength from her, to
+recommence on the morrow a cruel struggle with the sad necessities of my
+condition.  Happily, it has pleased God, that, after losing that beloved
+mother, I have been able to bind up my life with affections, deprived of
+which, I confess, I should find myself feeble and disarmed for you cannot
+tell, Marcel, the support, the strength that I have found in your
+friendship."
+
+"Do not speak of me, my dear friend," replied M. de Blessac, dissembling
+his embarrassment.  "Let us talk of another affection, almost as sweet
+and tender as that of a mother."
+
+"I understand you, my good Marcel," replied M. Hardy: "I have concealed
+nothing from you since, under such serious circumstances, I had recourse
+to the counsels of your friendship.  Well! yes; I think that every day I
+live augment my adoration for this woman, the only one that I have ever
+passionately loved, the only one that I shall now ever love.  And then I
+must tell you, that my mother, not knowing what Margaret was to me, as
+often loud in her praise, and that circumstance renders this love almost
+sacred in my eyes."
+
+"And then there are such strange resemblances between Mme. de Noisy's
+character and yours, my friend; above all, in her worship of her mother."
+
+"It is true, Marcel; that affection has often caused me both admiration
+and torment.  How often she has said to me, with her habitual frankness:
+`I have sacrificed all for you, but I would sacrifice you for my
+mother.'"
+
+"Thank heaven, my friend, you will never see Mme. de Noisy exposed to
+that cruel choice.  Her mother, you say, has long renounced her intention
+of returning to America, where M. de Noisy, perfectly careless of his
+wife, appears to have settled himself permanently.  Thanks to the
+discreet devotion of the excellent woman by whom Margaret was brought up,
+your love is concealed in the deepest mystery.  What could disturb it
+now?"
+
+"Nothing--oh! nothing," cried M. Hardy.  "I have almost security for its
+duration."
+
+"What do you mean, my friend?"
+
+"I do not know if I ought to tell you."
+
+"Have you ever found me indiscreet, my friend?"
+
+"You, good Marcel! how can you suppose such a thing?" said M. Hardy, in a
+tone of friendly reproach; "no! but I do not like to tell you of my
+happiness, till it is complete; and I am not yet quite certain--"
+
+A servant entered at this moment and said to M. Hardy: "Sir, there is an
+old gentleman who wishes to speak to you on very pressing business."
+
+"So soon!" said M. Hardy, with a slight movement of impatience.  "With
+your permission, my friend."  Then, as M. de Blessac seemed about to
+withdraw into the next room, M. Hardy added with a smile: "No, no; do not
+stir.  Your presence will shorten the interview."
+
+"But if it be a matter of business, my friend?"
+
+"I do everything openly, as you know."  Then, addressing the servant, M.
+Hardy bade him: "Ask the gentleman to walk in."
+
+"The postilion wishes to know if he is to wait?"
+
+"Certainly: he will take M. de Blessac back to Paris."
+
+The servant withdrew, and presently returned, introducing Rodin, with
+whom M. de Blessac was not acquainted, his treacherous bargain having
+been negotiated through another agent.
+
+"M. Hardy?" said Rodin, bowing respectfully to the two friends, and
+looking from one to the other with an air of inquiry.
+
+"That is my name, sir; what can I do to serve you?" answered the
+manufacturer, kindly; for, at first sight of the humble and ill-dressed
+old man, he expected an application for assistance.
+
+"M. Francois Hardy," repeated Rodin, as if he wished to make sure of the
+identity of the person.
+
+"I have had the honor to tell you that I am he."
+
+"I have a private communication to make to you, sir," said Rodin.
+
+"You may speak, sir.  This gentleman is my friend," said M. Hardy,
+pointing to M. de Blessac.
+
+"But I wish to speak to you alone, sir," resumed Rodin.
+
+M. de Blessac was again about to withdraw, when M. Hardy retained him
+with a glance, and said to Rodin kindly, for he thought his feelings
+might be hurt by asking a favor in presence of a third party: "Permit me
+to inquire if it is on your account or on mine, that you wish this
+interview to be secret?"
+
+"On your account entirely, sir," answered Rodin.
+
+"Then, sir," said M. Hardy, with some surprise, "you may speak out.  I
+have no secrets from this gentleman."
+
+After a moment's silence, Rodin resumed, addressing himself to M. Hardy:
+"Sir, you deserve, I know, all the good that is said of you; and you
+therefore command the sympathy of every honest man."
+
+"I hope so, sir."
+
+"Now, as an honest man, I come to render you a service."
+
+"And this service, sir--"
+
+"To reveal to you an infamous piece of treachery, of which you have been
+the victim."
+
+"I think, sir, you must be deceived."
+
+"I have the proofs of what I assert."
+
+"Proofs?"
+
+"The written proofs of the treachery that I come to reveal: I have them
+here," answered Rodin "In a word, a man whom you believed your friend,
+has shamefully deceived you, sir."
+
+"And the name of this man?"
+
+"M. Marcel de Blessac," replied Rodin.
+
+On these words, M. de Blessac started, and became pale as death.  He
+could hardly murmur: "Sir--"
+
+But, without looking at his friend, or perceiving his agitation, M. Hardy
+seized his hand, and exclaimed hastily:  "Silence, my friend!"  Then,
+whilst his eye flashed with indignation, he turned towards Rodin, who had
+not ceased to look him full in the face,, and said to him, with an air of
+lofty disdain: "What! do you accuse M. de Blessac?"
+
+"Yes, I accuse him," replied Rodin, briefly.
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"I have never seen him."
+
+"Of what do you accuse him?  And how dare you say that he has betrayed
+me?"
+
+"Two words, if you please," said Rodin, with an emotion which he appeared
+hardly able to restrain.  "If one man of honor sees another about to be
+slain by an assassin, ought he not give the alarm of murder?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but what has that to do--"
+
+"In my eyes, sir, certain treasons are as criminal as murders: I have
+come to place myself between the assassin and his victim."
+
+"The assassin? the victim?" said M. Hardy more and more astonished.
+
+"You doubtless know M. de Blessac's writing?" said Rodin.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then read this," said Rodin, drawing from his pocket a letter, which he
+handed to M. Hardy.
+
+Casting now for the first time a glance at M. de Blessac, the
+manufacturer drew back a step, terrified at the death-like paleness of
+this man, who, struck dumb with shame, could not find a word to justify
+himself; for he was far from possessing the audacious effrontery
+necessary to carry him through his treachery.
+
+"Marcel!" cried M. Hardy, in alarm, and deeply agitated by this
+unexpected blow.  "Marcel! how pale you are! you do not answer!"
+
+"Marcel! this, then, is M. de Blessac?" cried Rodin, feigning the most
+painful surprise.  "Oh, sir, if I had known--"
+
+"But don't you hear this man, Marcel?" cried M. Hardy.  "He says that you
+have betrayed me infamously."  He seized the hand of M. de Blessac.  That
+hand was cold as ice.  "Oh, God! Oh God!" said M. Hardy, drawing back in
+horror: "he makes no answer!"
+
+"Since I am in presence of M. de Blessac," resumed Rodin, "I am forced to
+ask him, if he can deny having addressed many letters to the Rue du
+Milieu des Ursins, at Paris under cover of M. Rodin."
+
+M. de Blessac remained dumb.  M. Hardy, still unwilling to believe what
+he saw and heard, convulsively tore open the letter, which Rodin had just
+delivered to him, and read the first few lines--interrupting the perusal
+with exclamations of grief and amazement.  He did not require to finish
+the letter, to convince himself of the black treachery of M. de Blessac.
+He staggered; for a moment his senses seemed to abandon him.  The
+horrible discovery made him giddy, and his head swam on his first look
+down into that abyss of infamy.  The loathsome letter dropped from his
+trembling hands.  But soon indignation, rage, and scorn succeeded this
+moment of despair, and rushing, pale and terrible, upon M. de Blessac:
+"Wretch!" he exclaimed, with a threatening gesture.  But, pausing as in
+the act to strike: "No!" he added, with fearful calmness.  "It would be
+to soil my hands."
+
+He turned towards Rodin, who had approached hastily, as if to interpose.
+"It is not worth while chastising a wretch," said M. Hardy; "But I will
+press your honest hand, sir--for you have had the courage to unmask a
+traitor and a coward."
+
+"Sir!" cried M. de Blessac, overcome with shame; "I am at your orders--
+and--"
+
+He could not finish.  The sound of voices was heard behind the door,
+which opened violently, and an aged woman entered, in spite of the
+efforts of the servant, exclaiming in an agitated voice: "I tell you, I
+must speak instantly to your master."
+
+On hearing this voice, and at sight of the pale, weeping woman, M. Hardy,
+forgetting M. de Blessac, Rodin, the infamous treachery, and all, fell
+back a step, and exclaimed:  "Madame Duparc! you here!  What is the
+matter?"
+
+"Oh, sir! a great misfortune "
+
+"Margaret!" cried M. Hardy, in a tone of despair.
+
+"She is gone, sir!"
+
+"Gone!" repeated M. Hardy, as horror-struck as if a thunderbolt had
+fallen at his feet.  "Margaret gone!"
+
+"All is discovered.  Her mother took her away--three days ago!" said the
+unhappy woman, in a failing voice.
+
+"Gone!  Margaret!  It is not true.  You deceive me," cried M. Hardy.
+Refusing to hear more, wild, despairing, he rushed out of the house,
+threw himself into his carriage, to which the post-horses were still
+harnessed, waiting for M. de Blessac, and said to the postilion: "To
+Paris! as fast as you can go!"
+
+As the carriage, rapid as lightning, started upon the road to Paris, the
+wind brought nearer the distant sound of the war-song of the Wolves, who
+were rushing towards the factory.  In this impending destruction, see
+Rodin's subtle hand, administering his fatal blows to clear his way up to
+the chair of St. Peter to which he aspired.  His tireless, wily course
+can hardly be darker shadowed by aught save that dread coming horror the
+Cholera, whose aid he evoked, and whose health the Bacchanal Queen wildly
+drank.
+
+That once gay girl, and her poor famished sister; the fair patrician and
+her Oriental lover; Agricola, the workman, and his veteran father; the
+smiling Rose-Pompon, and the prematurely withered Jacques Rennepont;
+Father d'Aigrigny, the mock priest; and Gabriel, the true disciple; with
+the rest that have been named and others yet to be pictured, in the blaze
+of the bolts of their life's paths, will be seen in the third and
+concluding part of this romance entitled, "THE WANDERING JEW:
+REDEMPTION."
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V7,
+by Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+
+BOOK VIII.
+
+PART THIRD.--THE REDEMPTION.
+
+I.         The Wandering Jew's Chastisement
+II.        The Descendants of the Wandering Jew
+III.       The Attack
+IV.        The Wolves and the Devourers
+V.         The Return
+VI.        The Go-Between
+VII.       Another Secret
+VIII.      The Confession
+IX.        Love
+X.         The Execution
+XI.        The Champs-Elysees
+XII.       Behind the Scenes
+XIII.      Up with the Curtain
+XIV.       Death
+
+
+
+
+PART THIRD.--THE REDEMPTION.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE WANDERING JEW'S CHASTISEMENT.
+
+'Tis night--the moon is brightly shining, the brilliant stars are
+sparkling in a sky of melancholy calmness, the shrill whistlings of a
+northerly wind--cold, bleak, and evil-bearing--are increasing: winding
+about, and bursting into violent blasts, with their harsh and hissing
+gusts, they are sweeping the heights of Montmartre.  A man is standing on
+the very summit of the hill; his lengthened shadow, thrown out by the
+moon's pale beams, darkens the rocky ground in the distance.  The
+traveller is surveying the huge city lying at his feet--the City of
+Paris--from whose profundities are cast up its towers, cupolas, domes,
+and steeples, in the bluish moisture of the horizon; while from the very
+centre of this sea of stones is rising a luminous vapor, reddening the
+starry azure of the sky above.  It is the distant light of a myriad lamps
+which at night, the season for pleasure, is illuminating the noisy
+capital.
+
+"No!" said the traveller, "it will not be.  The Lord surely will not
+suffer it.  Twice is quite enough.  Five centuries ago, the avenging hand
+of the Almighty drove me hither from the depths of Asia.  A solitary
+wanderer, I left in my track more mourning, despair, disaster, and death,
+than the innumerable armies of a hundred devastating conquerors could
+have produced.  I then entered this city, and it was decimated.  Two
+centuries ago that inexorable hand which led me through the world again
+conducted me here; and on that occasion, as on the previous one, that
+scourge, which at intervals the Almighty binds to my footsteps, ravaged
+this city, attacking first my brethren, already wearied by wretchedness
+and toil.  My brethren! through me--the laborer of Jerusalem, cursed by
+the Lord, who in my person cursed the race of laborers--a race always
+suffering, always disinherited, always slaves, who like me, go on, on,
+on, without rest or intermission, without recompense, or hope; until at
+length, women, men, children, and old men, die under their iron yoke of
+self-murder, that others in their turn then take up, borne from age to
+age on their willing but aching shoulders.  And here again, for the third
+time, in the course of five centuries, I have arrived at the summit of
+one of the hills which overlooks the city; and perhaps I bring again with
+me terror, desolation, and death.  And this unhappy city, intoxicated in
+a whirl of joys, and nocturnal revelries, knows nothing about it--oh! it
+knows not that I am at its very gate.  But no! no! my presence will not
+be a source of fresh calamity to it.  The Lord, in His unsearchable
+wisdom, has brought me hither across France, making me avoid on my route
+all but the humblest villages, so that no increase of the funeral knell
+has, marked my journey.  And then, moreover, the spectre has left me--
+that spectre, livid and green, with its deep bloodshot eyes.  When I
+touched the soil of France, its moist and icy hand abandoned mine--it
+disappeared.  And yet I feel the atmosphere of death surrounding me
+still.  There is no cessation; the biting gusts of this sinister wind,
+which envelop me in their breath, seem by their envenomed breath to
+propagate the scourge.  Doubtless the anger of the Lord is appeased.
+Maybe, my presence here is meant only as a threat, intending to bring
+those to their senses whom it ought to intimidate.  It must be so; for
+were it otherwise, it would, on the contrary, strike a loud-sounding blow
+of greater terror, casting at once dread and death into the very heart of
+the country, into the bosom of this immense city.  Oh, no! no! the Lord
+will have mercy; He will not condemn me to this new affliction.  Alas! in
+this city my brethren are more numerous and more wretched than in any
+other.  And must I bring death to them?  No! the Lord will have mercy;
+for, alas! the seven descendants of my sister are at last all united in
+this city.  And must I bring death to them?  Death! instead of that
+immediate assistance they stand so much in need of?  For that woman who,
+like myself, wanders from one end of the world into the other, has gone
+now on her everlasting journey, after having confounded their enemies'
+plots.  In vain did she foretell that great evils still threatened those
+who are akin to me through my sister's blood.  The unseen hand by which I
+am led, drives that woman away from me, even as though it were a
+whirlwind that swept her on.  In vain she entreated and implored at the
+moment she was leaving those who are so dear to me.--At least, 0 Lord,
+permit me to stay until I shall have finished my task!  Onward!  A few
+days, for mercy's sake, only a few days!  Onward!  I leave these whom I
+am protecting on the very brink of an abyss!  Onward!  Onward!!  And the
+wandering star is launched afresh on its perpetual course.  But her voice
+traversed through space, calling me to the assistance of my own!  When
+her voice reached me I felt that the offspring of my sister were still
+exposed to fearful dangers: those dangers are still increasing.  Oh, say,
+say, Lord! shall the descendants of my sister escape those woes which for
+so many centuries have oppressed my race?  Wilt Thou pardon me in them?
+Wilt Thou punish me in them?  Oh! lead them, that they may obey the last
+wishes of their ancestor.  Guide them, that they may join their
+charitable hearts, their powerful strength, their best wisdom, and their
+immense wealth, and work together for the future happiness of mankind,
+thereby, perhaps, enabled to ransom me from my eternal penalties.  Let
+those divine words of the Son of Man, "Love ye one another!" be their
+only aim; and by the assistance of their all-powerful words, let them
+contend against and vanquish those false priests who have trampled on the
+precepts of love, of peace, and hope commanded by the Saviour, setting up
+in their stead the precepts of hatred, violence, and despair.  Those
+false shepherds, supported ay the powerful and wealthy of the world, who
+in all times have been their accomplices, instead of asking here below a
+little happiness for my brethren, who have been suffering and groaning
+for centuries, dare to utter, in Thy name, O Lord! that the poor must
+always be doomed to the tortures of this world, and that it is criminal
+in Thine eyes that they should either wish for or hope a mitigation of
+their sufferings on earth, because the happiness of the few and the
+wretchedness of nearly all mankind is Thine almighty will.  Blasphemies!
+is it not the contrary of these homicidal words that is more worthy of
+the name of Divine will?  Hear, me, O Lord! for mercy's sake.  Snatch
+from their enemies the descendants of my sister, from the artisan up to
+the king's son.  Do not permit them to crush the germ of a mighty and
+fruitful association, which, perhaps, under Thy protection, may take its
+place among the records of the happiness of mankind.  Suffer me, O Lord!
+to unite those whom they are endeavoring to divide--to defend those whom
+they are attacking.  Suffer me to bring hope to those from whom hope has
+fled, to give courage to those who are weak, to uphold those whom evil
+threatens, and to sustain those who would persevere in well-doing.  And
+then, perhaps, their struggles, their devotedness, their virtues, this
+miseries might expiate my sin.  Yes, mine--misfortune, misfortune alone,
+made me unjust and wicked.  O Lord! since Thine almighty hand hath
+brought me hither, for some end unknown to me, disarm Thyself, I implore
+Thee, of Thine anger, and let not me be the instrument of Thy vengeance!
+There is enough of mourning in the earth these two years past--Thy
+creatures have fallen by millions in my footsteps.  The world is
+decimated.  A veil of mourning extends from one end of the globe to the
+other.  I have traveled from Asia even to the Frozen Pole, and death has
+followed in my wake.  Dost Thou not hear, O Lord! the universal wailings
+that mount up to Thee?  Have mercy upon all, and upon me.  One day, grant
+me but a single day, that I may collect the descendants of my sister
+together, and save them!"  And uttering these words, the wanderer fell
+upon his knees, and raised his hands to heaven in a suppliant attitude.
+
+Suddenly, the wind howled with redoubled violence; its sharp whistlings
+changed to a tempest.  The Wanderer trembled, and exclaimed in a voice of
+terror, "O Lord! the blast of death is howling in its rage.  It appears
+as though a whirlwind were lifting me up.  Lord, wilt Thou not, then,
+hear my prayer?  The spectre! O! do I behold the spectre?  Yes, there it
+is; its cadaverous countenance is agitated by convulsive throes, its red
+eyes are rolling in their orbits.  Begone! begone!  Oh! its hand--its icy
+hand has seized on mine!  Mercy, Lord, have mercy!  'Onward!' Oh, Lord!
+this scourge, this terrible avenging scourge!  Must I, then, again carry
+it into this city, must my poor wretched brethren be the first to fall
+under it--though already so miserable?  Mercy, mercy!  'Onward!' And the
+descendants of my sister --oh, pray, have mercy, mercy!  'Onward!' O
+Lord, have pity on me!  I can no longer keep my footing on the ground,
+the spectre is dragging me over the brow of the hill; my course is as
+rapid as the death-bearing wind that whistles in my track; I already
+approach the walls of the city.  Oh, mercy, Lord, mercy on the
+descendants of my sister--spare them! do not compel me to be their
+executioner, and let them triumph over their enemies.  Onward, onward!
+The ground is fleeing from under me; I am already at the city gate; oh,
+yet, Lord, yet there is time; oh, have mercy on this slumbering city,
+that it may not even now awaken with the lamentations of terror, of
+despair and death!  O Lord, I touch the threshold of the gate; verily
+Thou willest it so then.  'Tis done--Paris! the scourge is in thy bosom!
+oh, cursed, cursed evermore am I.  Onward! on! on!"[34]
+
+[34] In 1346, the celebrated Black Death ravaged the earth, presenting
+the same symptoms as the cholera, and the same inexplicable phenomena as
+to its progress and the results in its route.  In 1660 a similar epidemic
+decimated the world.  It is well known that when the cholera first broke
+out in Paris, it had taken a wide and unaccountable leap; and, also
+memorable, a north-east wind prevailed during its utmost fierceness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE DESCENDANTS OF THE WANDERING JEW.
+
+That lonely wayfarer whom we have heard so plaintively urging to be
+relieved of his gigantic burden of misery, spoke of "his sister's
+descendants" being of all ranks, from the working man to the king's son.
+They were seven in number, who had, in the year 1832, been led to Paris,
+directly or indirectly, by a bronze medal which distinguished them from
+others, bearing these words:--
+
+VICTIM
+of
+L. C. D. J.
+Pray for me!
+_____
+PARIS,
+February the 13th, 1682.
+
+IN PARIS,
+Rue St. Francois, No. 3,
+In a century and a half
+you will be.
+February the 13th, 1832.
+_____
+PRAY FOR ME!
+
+The son of the King of Mundi had lost his father and his domains in India
+by the irresistible march of the English, and was but in title Prince
+Djalma.  Spite of attempts to make his departure from the East delayed
+until after the period when he could have obeyed his medal's command, he
+had reached France by the second month of 1832.  Nevertheless, the
+results of shipwreck had detained him from Paris till after that date.  A
+second possessor of this token had remained unaware of its existence,
+only discovered by accident.  But an enemy who sought to thwart the union
+of these seven members, had shut her up in a mad-house, from which she
+was released only after that day.  Not alone was she in imprisonment.  An
+old Bonapartist, General Simon, Marshal of France, and Duke de Ligny, had
+left a wife in Russian exile, while he (unable to follow Napoleon to St.
+Helena) continued to fight the English in India by means of Prince
+Djalma's Sepoys, whom he drilled.  On the latter's defeat, he had meant
+to accompany his young friend to Europe, induced the more by finding that
+the latter's mother, a Frenchwoman, had left him such another bronze
+medal as he knew his wife to have had.
+
+Unhappily, his wife had perished in Siberia, without his knowing it, any
+more than he did, that she had left twin daughters, Rose and Blanche.
+Fortunately for them, one who had served their father in the Grenadiers
+of the Guard.  Francis Baudoin, nicknamed Dagobert, undertook to fulfil
+the dying mother's wishes, inspired by the medal.  Saving a check at
+Leipsic, where one Morok the lion-tamer's panther had escaped from its
+cage and killed Dagobert's horse, and a subsequent imprisonment (which
+the Wandering Jew's succoring hand had terminated) the soldier and his
+orphan charges had reached Paris in safety and in time.  But there, a
+renewal of the foe's attempt had gained its end.  By skillful devices,
+Dagobert and his son Agricola were drawn out of the way while Rose and
+Blanche Simon were decoyed into a nunnery, under the eyes of Dagobert's
+wife.  But she had been bound against interfering by the influence of the
+Jesuit confessional.  The fourth was M. Hardy, a manufacturer, and the
+fifth, Jacques Rennepont, a drunken scamp of a workman, who were more
+easily fended off, the latter in a sponging house, the former by a
+friend's lure.  Adrienne de Cardoville, daughter of the Count of
+Rennepont, who had also been Duke of Cardoville, was the lady who had
+been unwarrantably placed in the lunatic asylum.  The fifth, unaware of
+the medal, was Gabriel, a youth, who had been brought up, though a
+foundling, in Dagobert's family, as a brother to Agricola.  He had
+entered holy orders, and more, was a Jesuit, in name though not in heart.
+Unlike the others, his return from abroad had been smoothed.  He had
+signed away all his future prospects, for the benefit of the order of
+Loyola, and, moreover, executed a more complete deed of transfer on the
+day, the 13th of February, 1832, when he, alone of the heirs, stood in
+the room of the house, No. 3, Rue St. Francois, claiming what was a vast
+surprise for the Jesuits, who, a hundred and fifty years before, had
+discovered that Count Marius de Rennepont had secreted a considerable
+amount of his wealth, all of which had been confiscated to them, in those
+painful days of dragoonings, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
+They had bargained for some thirty or forty millions of francs to be
+theirs, by educating Gabriel into resigning his inheritance to them, but
+it was two hundred and twelve millions which the Jesuit representatives
+(Father d'Aigrigny and his secretary, Rodin) were amazed to hear their
+nursling placed in possession of.  They had the treasure in their hands,
+in fact, when a woman of strangely sad beauty had mysteriously entered
+the room where the will had been read, and laid a paper before the
+notary.  It was a codicil, duly drawn up and signed, deferring the
+carrying out of the testament until the first day of June the same year.
+The Jesuits fled from the house, in rage and intense disappointment.
+Father d'Aigrigny was so stupor-stricken at the defeat, that he bade his
+secretary at once write off to Rome that the Rennepont inheritance had
+escaped them, and hopes to seize it again were utterly at an end.  Upon
+this, Rodin had revolted, and shown that he had authority to command
+where he had, so far, most humbly obeyed.  Many such spies hang about
+their superior's heels, with full powers to become the governor in turn,
+at a moment's notice.  Thenceforward, he, Rodin, had taken the business
+into his own hands.  He had let Rose and Blanche Simon out of the convent
+into their father's arms.  He had gone in person to release Adrienne de
+Cardoville from the asylum.  More, having led her to sigh for Prince
+Djalma, he prompted the latter to burn for her.
+
+He let not M. Hardy escape.  A friend whom the latter treated as a
+brother, had been shown up to him as a mere spy of the Jesuits; the woman
+whom he adored, a wedded woman, alas! who had loved him in spite of her
+vows, had been betrayed.  Her mother had compelled her to hide her shame
+in America, and, as she had often said--"Much as you are endeared to me,
+I cannot waver between you and my mother!" so she had obeyed, without one
+farewell word to him.  Confess, Rodin was a more dextrous man than his
+late master!  In the pages that ensue farther proofs of his superiority
+in baseness and satanic heartlessness will not be wanting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE ATTACK.
+
+On M. Hardy's learning from the confidential go-between of the lovers,
+that his mistress had been taken away by her mother, he turned from Rodin
+and dashed away in a post carriage.  At the same moment, as loud as the
+rattle of the wheels, there arose the shouts of a band of workmen and
+rioters, hired by the Jesuit's emissaries, coming to attack Hardy's
+operatives.  An old grudge long existing between them and a rival
+manufacturer's--Baron Tripeaud--laborers, fanned the flames.  When M.
+Hardy had left the factory, Rodin, who was not prepared for this sudden
+departure, returned slowly to his hackney-coach; but he stopped suddenly,
+and started with pleasure and surprise, when he saw, at some distance,
+Marshall Simon and his father advancing towards one of the wings of the
+Common Dwelling-house; for an accidental circumstance had so far delayed
+the interview of the father and son.
+
+"Very well!" said Rodin.  "Better and better!  Now, only let my man have
+found out and persuaded little Rose-Pompon!"
+
+And Rodin hastened towards his hackney-coach.  At this moment, the wind,
+which continued to rise, brought to the ear of the Jesuit the war song of
+the approaching Wolves.
+
+The workman was in the garden.  The marshal said to him, in a voice of
+such deep emotion that the old man started; "Father, I am very unhappy."
+
+A painful expression, until then concealed, suddenly darkened the
+countenance of the marshal.
+
+"You unhappy?" cried father Simon, anxiously, as he pressed nearer to the
+marshal.
+
+"For some days, my daughters have appeared constrained in manner, and
+lost in thought.  During the first moments of our re-union, they were mad
+with joy and happiness.  Suddenly, all has changed; they are becoming
+more and more sad.  Yesterday, I detected tears in their eyes; then
+deeply moved, I clasped them in my arms, and implored them to tell me the
+cause of their sorrow.  Without answering, they threw themselves on my
+neck, and covered my face with their tears."
+
+"It is strange.  To what do you attribute this alteration?"
+
+"Sometimes, I think I have not sufficiently concealed from them the grief
+occasioned me by the loss of their mother, and they are perhaps miserable
+that they do not suffice for my happiness.  And yet (inexplicable as it
+is) they seem not only to understand, but to share my sorrow.  Yesterday,
+Blanche said to me: `How much happier still should we be, if our mother
+were with us!--'"
+
+"Sharing your sorrow, they cannot reproach you with it.  There must be
+some other cause for their grief."
+
+"Yes," said the marshal, looking fixedly at his father; "yes--but to
+penetrate this secret--it would be necessary not to leave them."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"First learn, father, what are the duties which would keep me here; then
+you shall know those which may take me away from you, from my daughters,
+and from my other child."
+
+"What other child?"
+
+"The son of my old friend, the Indian Prince."
+
+"Djalma?  Is there anything the matter with him?"
+
+"Father, he frightens me.  I told you, father, of his mad and unhappy
+passion for Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"Does that frighten you, my son?" said the old man, looking at the
+marshal with surprise.  "Djalma is only eighteen, and, at that age, one
+love drives away another."
+
+"You have no idea of the ravages which the passion has already made in
+the ardent, indomitable boy; sometimes, fits of savage ferocity follow
+the most painful dejection.  Yesterday, I came suddenly upon him; his
+eyes were bloodshot, his features contracted with rage; yielding to an
+impulse of mad furry, he was piercing with his poinard a cushion of red
+cloth, whilst he exclaimed, panting for breath, 'Ha blood!--I will have
+blood!' `Unhappy boy!' I said to him, `what means this insane passion?'
+`I'm killing the man!' replied he, in a hollow and savage voice: it is
+thus he designates his supposed rival."
+
+"There is indeed something terrible," said the old man, "in such a
+passion, in such a heart."
+
+"At other times," resumed the marshal, "it is against Mdlle. de
+Cardoville that his rage bursts forth; and at others, against himself.  I
+have been obliged to remove his weapons, for a man who came with him from
+Java, and who appears much attached to him, has informed me that he
+suspected him of entertaining some thoughts of suicide."
+
+"Unfortunate boy!"
+
+"Well, father," said Marshal Simon, with profound bitterness; "it is at
+the moment when my daughters and my adopted son require all my
+solicitude, that I am perhaps on the eve of quitting them."
+
+"Of quitting them?"
+
+"Yes, to fulfil a still more sacred duty than that imposed by friendship
+or family," said the marshal, in so grave and solemn a tone, that his
+father exclaimed, with deep emotion:  "What can this duty be?"
+
+"Father," said the marshal, after remaining a moment in thoughtful
+silence, "who made me what I am?  Who gave me the ducal title, and the
+marshal's baton?"
+
+"Napoleon."
+
+"For you, the stern republican, I know that he lost all his value, when
+from the first citizen of a Republic he became an emperor.
+
+"I cursed his weakness," said Father Simon, sadly; "the demi-god sank
+into a man."
+
+"But for me, father--for me, the soldier, who have always fought beside
+him, or under his eye--for me, whom he raised from the lowest rank in the
+army to the highest--for me, whom he loaded with benefits and marks of
+affection--for me, he was more than a hero, he was a friend--and there
+was as much gratitude as admiration in my idolatry for him.  When he was
+exiled, I would fain have shared his exile; they refused me that favor;
+then I conspired, then I drew my sword against those who had robbed his
+son of the crown which France had given him."
+
+"And, in your position, you did well, Pierre; without sharing your
+admiration, I understood your gratitude.  The projects of exile, the
+conspiracies--I approved them all--you know it."
+
+"Well, then, that disinherited child, in whose name I conspired seventeen
+years ago, is now of an age to wield his father's sword."
+
+"Napoleon II!" exclaimed the old man, looking at his son with surprise
+and extreme anxiety; "the king of Rome!"
+
+"King? no; he is no longer king.  Napoleon? no; he is no longer Napoleon.
+They have given him some Austrian name, because the other frightened
+them.  Everything frightens them.  Do you know what they are doing with
+the son of the Emperor?" resumed the marshal, with painful excitement.
+"They are torturing him--killing him by inches!"
+
+"Who told you this?"
+
+"Somebody who knows, whose words are but too true.  Yes; the son of the
+Emperor struggles with all his strength against a premature death.  With
+his eyes turned towards France, he waits--he waits--and no one comes--no
+one--out of all the men that his father made as great as they once were
+little, not one thinks of that crowned child, whom they are stifling,
+till he dies."
+
+"But you think of him?"
+
+"Yes; but I had first to learn--oh! there is no doubt of it, for I have
+not derived all my information from the same source --I had first to
+learn the cruel fate of this youth, to whom I also swore allegiance; for
+one day, as I have told you, the Emperor, proud and loving father as he
+was, showed him to me in his cradle, and said: `My old friend, you will
+be to the son what you have been to the father; who loves us, loves our
+France.'"
+
+"Yes, I know it.  Many times you have repeated those words to me, and,
+like yourself, I have been moved by them."
+
+"Well, father! suppose, informed of the sufferings of the son of the
+Emperor, I had seen--with the positive certainty that I was not deceived-
+-a letter from a person of high rank in the court of Vienna, offering to
+a man that was still faithful to the Emperor's memory, the means of
+communicating with the king of Rome, and perhaps of saving him from his
+tormentors--"
+
+"What next?" said the workman, looking fixedly at his son.  "Suppose
+Napoleon II. once at liberty--"
+
+"What next?" exclaimed the marshal.  Then he added, in a suppressed
+voice: "Do you think, father, that France is insensible to the
+humiliations she endures?  Do you think that the memory of the Emperor is
+extinct?  No, no; it is, above all, in the days of our country's
+degredation, that she whispers that sacred name.  How would it be, then,
+were that name to rise glorious on the frontier, reviving in his son?  Do
+you not think that the heart of all France would beat for him?"
+
+"This implies a conspiracy--against the present government--with Napoleon
+II. for a watchword," said the workman.  "This is very serious."
+
+"I told you, father, that I was very unhappy; judge if it be not so,"
+cried the marshal.  "Not only I ask myself, if I ought to abandon my
+children and you, to run the risk of so daring an enterprise, but I ask
+myself if I am not bound to the present government, which, in
+acknowledging my rank and title, if it bestowed no favor, at least did me
+an act of justice.  How shall I decide?--abandon all that I love, or
+remain insensible to the tortures of Emperor--of that Emperor to the son
+of the whom I owe everything--to whom I have sworn fidelity, both to
+himself and child?  Shall I lose this only opportunity, perhaps, of
+saving him, or shall I conspire in his favor?  Tell me, if I exaggerate
+what I owe to the memory of the Emperor?  Decide for me, father!  During
+a whole sleepless night, I strove to discover, in the midst of this
+chaos, the line prescribed by honor; but I only wandered from indecision
+to indecision.  You alone, father--you alone, I repeat, can direct me."
+
+After remaining for some moments in deep thought, the old man was about
+to answer, when some person, running across the little garden, opened the
+door hastily, and entered the room in which were the marshal and his
+father.  It was Olivier, the young workman, who had been able to effect
+his escape from the village in which the Wolves had assembled.
+
+"M. Simon! M. Simon!" cried he, pale, and panting for breath.  "They are
+here--close at hand.  They have come to attack the factory."
+
+"Who?" cried the old man, rising hastily.
+
+"The Wolves, quarrymen, and stone-cutters, joined on the road by a crowd
+of people from the neighborhood, and vagabonds from town.  Do you not
+hear them?  They are shouting, `Death to the Devourers!'"
+
+The clamor was indeed approaching, and grew more and more distinct.
+
+"It is the same noise that I heard just now," said the marshal, rising in
+his turn.
+
+"There are more than two hundred of them, M. Simon," said Olivier; "they
+are armed with clubs and stones, and unfortunately the greater part of
+our workmen are in Paris.  We are not above forty here in all; the women
+and children are already flying to their chambers, screaming for terror.
+Do you not hear them?"
+
+The ceiling shook beneath the tread of many hasty feet.
+
+"Will this attack be a serious one?" said the marshal to his father, who
+appeared more and more dejected.
+
+"Very serious," said the old man; "there is nothing more fierce than
+these combats between different unions; and everything has been done
+lately to excite the people of the neighborhood against the factory."
+
+"If you are so inferior in number," said the marshal, "you must begin by
+barricading all the doors--and then--"
+
+He was unable to conclude.  A burst of ferocious cries shook the windows
+of the room, and seemed so near and loud, that the marshal, his father,
+and the young workman, rushed out into the little garden, which was
+bounded on one side by a wall that separated it from the fields.
+Suddenly whilst the shouts redoubled in violence, a shower of large
+stones, intended to break the windows of the house, smashed some of the
+panes on the first story, struck against the wall, and fell into the
+garden, all around the marshal and his father.  By a fatal chance, one of
+these large stones struck the old man on the head.  He staggered, bent
+forward, and fell bleeding into the arms of Marshal Simon, just as arose
+from without, with increased fury, the savage cries of, "Death to the
+Devourers!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE WOLVES AND THE DEVOURERS.
+
+It was a frightful thing to view the approach of the lawless crowd, whose
+first act of hostility had been so fatal to Marshal Simon's father.  One
+wing of the Common Dwelling-house, which joined the garden-wall on that
+side, was next to the fields.  It was there that the Wolves began their
+attack.  The precipitation of their march, the halt they had made at two
+public-houses on the road, their ardent impatience for the approaching
+struggle, had inflamed these men to a high pitch of savage excitement.
+Having discharged their first shower of stones, most of the assailants
+stooped down to look for more ammunition.  Some of them, to do so with
+greater ease, held their bludgeons between their teeth; others had placed
+them against the wall; here and there, groups had formed tumultuously
+round the principal leaders of the band; the most neatly dressed of these
+men wore frocks, with caps, whilst others were almost in rags, for, as we
+have already said, many of the hangers-on at the barriers, and people
+without any profession, had joined the troop of the Wolves, whether
+welcome or not.  Some hideous women, with tattered garments, who always
+seem to follow in the track of such people, accompanied them on this
+occasion, and, by their cries and fury, inflamed still more the general
+excitement.  One of them, tall, robust, with purple complexion, blood-
+shot eyes, and toothless jaws, had a handkerchief over her head, from
+beneath which escaped her yellow, frowsy hair.  Over her ragged gown, she
+wore an old plaid shawl, crossed over her bosom, and tied behind her
+back.  This hag seemed possessed with a demon.  She had tucked up her
+half-torn sleeves; in one hand she brandished a stick, in the other she
+grasped a huge stone; her companions called her Ciboule (scullion).
+
+This horrible hag exclaimed, in a hoarse voice: "I'll bite the women of
+the factory; I'll make them bleed."
+
+The ferocious words were received with applause by her companions, and
+with savage cries of "Ciboule forever!" which excited her to frenzy.
+
+Amongst the other leaders, was a small, dry pale man, with the face of a
+ferret, and a black beard all round the chin; he wore a scarlet Greek
+cap, and beneath his long blouse, perfectly new, appeared a pair of neat
+cloth trousers, strapped over thin boots.  This man was evidently of a
+different condition of life from that of the other persons in the troop;
+it was he, in particular, who ascribed the most irritating and insulting
+language to the workmen of the factory, with regard to the inhabitants of
+the neighborhood.  He howled a great deal, but he carried neither stick
+nor stone.  A full-faced, fresh-colored man, with a formidable bass
+voice, like a chorister's, asked him: "Will you not have a shot at those
+impious dogs, who might bring down the Cholera on the country, as the
+curate told us?"
+
+"I will have a better shot than you," said the little man, with a
+singular, sinister smile.
+
+"And with what, I'd like to see?"
+
+"Probably, with this," said the little man, stooping to pick up a large
+stone; but, as he bent, a well-filled though light bag, which he appeared
+to carry under his blouse, fell to the ground.
+
+"Look, you are losing both bag and baggage," said the other; "it does not
+seem very heavy."
+
+"They are samples of wool," answered the man with the ferret's face, as
+he hastily picked up the bag, and replaced it under his blouse; then he
+added: "Attention! the big blaster is going to speak."
+
+And, in fact, he who exercised the most complete ascendency over this
+irritated crowd was the terrible quarryman.  His gigantic form towered so
+much above the multitude, that his great head, bound in its ragged
+handkerchief, and his Herculean shoulders, covered with a fallow goat-
+skin, were always visible above the level of that dark and swarming
+crowd, only relieved here and there by a few women's caps, like so many
+white points.  Seeing to what a degree of exasperation the minds of the
+crowd had reached, the small number of honest, but misguided workmen, who
+had allowed themselves to be drawn into this dangerous enterprise, under
+the pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, now fearing for the
+consequences of the struggle, tried, but too late, to abandon the main
+body.  Pressed close, and as it were, girt in with the more hostile
+groups, dreading to pass for cowards, or to expose themselves to the bad
+treatment of the majority, they were forced to wait for a more favorable
+moment to effect their escape.  To the savage cheers, which had
+accompanied the first discharge of stones, succeeded a deep silence
+commanded by the stentorian voice of the quarryman.
+
+"The Wolves have howled," he exclaimed; "let us wait and see how the
+Devourers will answer, and when they will begin the fight."
+
+"We must draw them out of their factory, and fight them on neutral
+ground," said the little man with the ferret's face, who appeared to be
+the thieves' advocate; "otherwise there would be trespass."
+
+"What do we care about trespass?" cried the horrible hag, Ciboule; "in or
+out, I will tear the chits of the factory."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried other hideous creatures, as ragged as Ciboule herself;
+"we must not leave all to the men."
+
+"We must have our fun, too!"
+
+"The women of the factory say that all the women of the neighborhood are
+drunken drabs," cried the little man with the ferret's face.
+
+"Good! we'll pay them for it."
+
+"The women shall have their share."
+
+"That's our business."
+
+"They like to sing in their Common House," cried Ciboule; "we will make
+them sing the wrong side of their mouths, in the key of `Oh, dear me!'"
+
+This pleasantry was received with shouts, hootings, and furious stamping
+of feet, to which the stentorian voice of the quarryman put a term by
+roaring: "Silence!"
+
+"Silence! silence!" repeated the crowd.  "Hear the blaster!"
+
+"If the Devourers are cowards enough not to dare to show themselves,
+after a second volley of stones, there is a door down there which we can
+break open, and we will soon hunt them from their holes."
+
+"It would be better to draw them out, so that none might remain in the
+factory," said the little old man with the ferret's face, who appeared to
+have some secret motive.
+
+"A man fights where he can," cried the quarryman, in a voice of thunder;
+"all, right, if we can but once catch hold.  We could fight on a sloping
+roof, or on the top of a wall--couldn't we, my Wolves?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried the crowd, still more excited by those savage words;
+"if they don't come out, we will break in."
+
+"We will see their fine palace!"
+
+"The pagans haven't even a chapel," said the bass voice.  "The curate has
+damned them all!"
+
+"Why should they have a palace, and we nothing but dog-kennels?"
+
+"Hardy's workmen say that kennels are good enough for such as you." said
+the little man with the ferret's face.
+
+"Yes, yes! they said so."
+
+"We'll break all their traps."
+
+"We'll pull down their bazaar."
+
+"We'll throw the house out of the windows."
+
+"When we have made the mealy-mouthed chits sing," cried Ciboule, "we will
+make them dance to the clatter of stones on their heads."
+
+"Come, my Wolves! attention!" cried the quarryman, still in the same
+stentorian voice; "one more volley, and if the Devourers do not come out,
+down with the door!"
+
+This proposition was received with cheers of savage ardor, and the
+quarryman, whose voice rose above the tumult, cried with all the strength
+of his herculean lungs: "Attention, my Wolves.  Make ready! all together.
+Now, are you ready?"
+
+"Yes, yes--all ready!"
+
+"Then, present!--fire!"  And, for the second time, a shower of enormous
+stones poured upon that side of the Common Dwelling-house which was
+turned towards the fields.  A part of these projectiles broke such of the
+windows as had been spared by the first volley.  To the sharp smashing
+and cracking of glass were joined the ferocious cries uttered in chorus
+by this formidable mob, drunk with its own excesses: "Death to the
+Devourers!"
+
+Soon these outcries became perfectly frantic, when, through the broken
+windows, the assailants perceived women running in terror, some with
+children in their arms, and others raising their hands to heaven, calling
+aloud for help; whilst a few, bolder than the rest, leaned out of the
+windows, and tried to fasten the outside blinds.
+
+"There come the ants out of their holes!" cried Ciboule, stooping to pick
+up a stone.  "We must have a fling at them for luck!"  The stone, hurled
+by the steady, masculine hand of the virago, went straight to its mark,
+and struck an unfortunate woman who was trying to close one of the
+shutters.
+
+"Hit in the white!" cried the hideous creature.
+
+"Well done, Ciboule!--you've rapped her coker-nut!" cried a voice.
+
+"Ciboule forever!"
+
+"Come out, you Devourers, if you dare!"
+
+"They have said a hundred times, that the neighbors were too cowardly
+even to come and look at their house," squealed the little man with the
+ferret's face.
+
+"And now they show the white feather!"
+
+"If they will not come out," cried the quarryman, in voice of thunder,
+"let us smoke them out!"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Let's break open the door!"
+
+"We are sure to find them!"
+
+"Come on! come on!"
+
+The crowd, with the quarryman at their head, and Ciboule not far from
+him, brandishing a stick, advanced tumultously towards one of the great
+doors.  The ground shook beneath the rapid tread of the mob, which had
+now ceased shouting; but the confused, and, as it were, subterraneous
+noise, sounded even more ominous than those savage outcries.  The Wolves
+soon arrived opposite the massive oaken door.  At the moment the blaster
+raised a sledgehammer, the door opened suddenly.  Some of the most
+determined of the assailants were about to rush in at this entrance; but
+the quarryman stepped back, extending his arm as if to moderate their
+ardor and impose silence.  Then his followers gathered round him.
+
+The half-open door discovered a party of workmen, unfortunately by no
+means numerous, but with countenances full of resolution.  They had armed
+themselves hastily with forks, iron bars, and clubs.  Agricola, who was
+their leader, held in his hand a heavy sledge-hammer.  The young workman
+was very pale; but the fire of his eye, his menacing look, and the
+intrepid assurance of his bearing, showed that his father's blood boiled
+in his veins, and that in such a struggle he might become fear-inspiring.
+Yet he succeeded in restraining himself, and challenged the quarryman, in
+a firm voice: "What do you want?"
+
+"A fight!" thundered the blaster.
+
+"Yes, yes! a fight!" repeated the crowd.
+
+"Silence, my Wolves!" cried the quarryman, as he turned round, and
+stretched forth his large hand towards the multitude.  Then addressing
+Agricola, he said: "The Wolves have come to ask for a fight."
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"With the Devourers."
+
+"There are no Devourers here," replied Agricola; "we are only peaceable
+workmen.  So begone."
+
+"Well! here are the Wolves, that will eat your quiet workmen."
+
+"The Wolves will eat no one here," said Agricola, looking full at the
+quarryman, who approached him with a threatening air; "they can only
+frighten little children."
+
+"Oh! you think so," said the quarryman, with a savage sneer.  Then
+raising his weapon, he shook it in Agricola's face, exclaiming: "Is that
+any laughing matter?
+
+"Is that?" answered Agricola, with a rapid movement, parrying the stone-
+sledge with his own hammer.
+
+"Iron against iron--hammer against hammer--that suits me," said the
+quarryman.
+
+"It does not matter what suits you," answered Agricola, hardly able to
+restrain himself.  "You have broken our windows, frightened our women,
+and wounded--perhaps killed--the oldest workman in the factory, who at
+this moment lies bleeding in the arms of his son."  Here Agricola's voice
+trembled in spite of himself.  "It is, I think, enough,"
+
+"No; the Wolves are hungry for more," answered the blaster; "you must
+come out (cowards that you are!), and fight us on the plain."
+
+"Yes! yes! battle!--let them come out!" cried the crowd, howling,
+hissing, waving their sticks and pushing further into the small space
+which separated them from the door.
+
+"We will have no battle," answered Agricola: "we will not leave our home;
+but if you have the misfortune to pass this," said Agricola, throwing his
+cap upon the threshold, and setting his foot on it with an intrepid air,
+"if you pass this, you attack us in our own house, and you will be
+answerable for all that may happen."
+
+"There or elsewhere we will have the fight! the Wolves must eat the
+Devourers.  Now for the attack!" cried the fierce quarryman, raising his
+hammer to strike Agricola.
+
+But the latter, throwing himself on one side by a sudden leap, avoided
+the blow, and struck with his hammer full at the chest of the quarryman,
+who staggered for a moment, but instantly recovering his legs, rushed
+furiously on Agricola, crying: "Follow me, Wolves!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE RETURN.
+
+As soon as the combat had begun between Agricola and the blaster, the
+general fight became terrible, ardent, implacable.  A flood of
+assailants, following the quarryman's steps, rushed into the house with
+irresistible fury; others, unable to force their way through this
+dreadful crowd, where the more impetuous squeezed, stifled, and crushed
+these who were less so, went round in another direction, broke through
+some lattice work, and thus placed the people of the factory, as it were,
+between two fires.  Some resisted courageously; others, seeing Ciboule,
+followed by some of her horrible companions, and by several of the most
+ill-looking ruffians, hastily enter that part of the Common-Dwelling-
+house in which the women had taken refuge, hurried in pursuit of this
+band; but some of the hag's companions, having faced about, and
+vigorously defended the entrance of the staircase against the workmen,
+Ciboule, with three or four like herself, and about the same number of no
+less ignoble men, rushed through the rooms, with the intention of robbing
+or destroying all that came in their way.  A door, which at first
+resisted their efforts, was soon broken through; Ciboule rushed into the
+apartment with a stick in her hand, her hair dishevelled, furious, and,
+as it were, maddened with the noise and tumult.  A beautiful young girl
+(it was Angela), who appeared anxious to defend the entrance to a second
+chamber, threw herself on her knees, pale and supplicating, and raising
+her clasped hands, exclaimed: "Do not hurt my mother!"
+
+"I'll serve you out first, and your mother afterwards," replied the
+horrible woman, throwing herself on the poor girl, and endeavoring to
+tear her face with her nails, whilst the rest of the ruffianly band broke
+the glass and the clock with their sticks, and possessed themselves of
+some articles of wearing apparel.
+
+Angela, struggling with Ciboule, uttered loud cries of distress, and
+still attempted to guard the room in which her mother had taken refuge;
+whilst the latter, leaning from the window, called Agricola to their
+assistance.  The smith was now engaged with the huge blaster.  In a close
+struggle, their hammers had become useless, and with bloodshot eyes and
+clinched teeth, chest to chest, and limbs twined together like two
+serpents, they made the most violent efforts to overthrow each other.
+Agricola, bent forward, held under his right arm the left leg of the
+quarryman, which he had seized in parrying a violent kick; but such was
+the Herculean strength of the leader of the Wolves, that he remained firm
+as a tower, though resting only on one leg.  With the hand that was still
+free (for the other was gripped by Agricola as in a vise), he endeavored
+with violent blows to break the jaws of the smith, who, leaning his head
+forward, pressed his forehead hard against the breast of his adversary.
+
+"The Wolf will break the Devourer's teeth, and he shall devour no more,"
+said the quarryman.
+
+"You are no true Wolf," answered the smith, redoubling his efforts; "the
+true Wolves are honest fellows, and do not come ten against one."
+
+"True or false, I will break your teeth."
+
+"And I your paw," said the smith, giving so violent a wrench to the leg
+of the quarryman, that the latter uttered a cry of acute pain, and, with
+the rage of a wild beast, butting suddenly forward with his head,
+succeeded in biting Agricola in the side of the neck.
+
+The pang of this bite forced Agricola to make a movement, which enabled
+the quarryman to disengage his leg.  Then, with a superhuman effort, he
+threw himself with his whole weight on Agricola, and brought him to the
+ground, falling himself upon him.
+
+At this juncture, Angela's mother, leaning from one of the windows of the
+Common Dwelling-house, exclaimed in a heart-rending voice: "Help,
+Agricola!--they are killing my child!"
+
+"Let me go--and on, my honor--I will fight you tomorrow, or when you
+will," said Agricola, panting for breath.
+
+"No warmed-up food for me; I eat all hot," answered the quarryman,
+seizing the smith by the throat, whilst he tried to place one of his
+knees upon his chest.
+
+"Help!--they are killing my child!" cried Angela's mother, in a voice of
+despair.
+
+"Mercy!  I ask mercy!  Let me go!"' said Agricola, making the most
+violent efforts to escape.
+
+"I am too hungry," answered the quarryman.
+
+Exasperated by the terror which Angela's danger occasioned him, Agricola
+redoubled his efforts, when the quarryman suddenly felt his thigh seized
+by the sharp teeth of a dog, and at the same instant received from a
+vigorous hand three or four heavy blows with a stick upon his head.  He
+relaxed his grasp, and fell stunned upon his hand and knee, whilst he
+mechanically raised his other arm to parry the blows, which ceased as
+soon as Agricola was delivered.
+
+"Father, you have saved me!" cried the smith, springing up.  "If only I
+am in time to rescue Angela!"
+
+"Run!--never mind me!" answered Dagobert; and Agricola rushed into the
+house.
+
+Dogabert, accompanied by Spoil-sport, had come, as we have already said,
+to bring Marshal Simon's daughters to their grandfather.  Arriving in the
+midst of the tumult, the soldier had collected a few workmen to defend
+the entrance of the chamber, to which the marshal's father had been
+carried in a dying state.  It was from this post that the soldier had
+seen Agricola's danger.  Soon after, the rush of the conflict separated
+Dagobert from the quarryman, who remained for some moments insensible.
+Arrived in two bounds at the Common Dwelling-house, Agricola succeeded in
+forcing his way through the men who defended the staircase, and rushed
+into the corridor that led to Angela's chamber.  At the moment he reached
+it, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face with both
+hands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, was
+trying to scratch and disfigure her.
+
+To spring upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair with
+irresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretch
+her full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievement as rapid
+as thought.  Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almost instantly; but
+at this moment, several workmen, who had followed close upon Agricola,
+were able to attack with advantage, and whilst the smith lifted the
+fainting form of Angela, and carried her into the next room, Ciboule and
+her band were driven from that part of the house.
+
+After the first fire of the assault, the small number of real Wolves,
+who, as Agricola said, were in the main honest fellows, but had the
+weakness to let themselves be drawn into this enterprise, under the
+pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, seeing the excesses committed
+by the rabble who accompanied them, turned suddenly round, and ranged
+themselves on the side of the Devourers.
+
+"There are no longer here either Wolves or Devourers," said one of the
+most determined Wolves to Olivier, with whom he had been fighting roughly
+and fairly; "there are none here but honest workmen, who must unite to
+drive out a set of scoundrels, that have come only to break and pillage."
+
+"Yes," added another; "it was against our will that they began by
+breaking your windows."
+
+"The big blaster did it all," said another; "the true Wolves wash their
+hands of him.  We shall soon settle his account."
+
+"We may fight every day--but we ought to esteem each other."[35]
+
+This defection of a portion of the assailants (unfortunately but a small
+portion) gave new spirit to the workmen of the factory, and all together,
+Wolves and Devourers, though very inferior in number, opposed themselves
+to the band of vagabonds, who were proceeding to new excesses.  Some of
+these wretches, still further excited by the little man with the ferret's
+face, a secret emissary of Baron Tripeaud, now rushed in a mass towards
+the workshops of M. Hardy.  Then began a lamentable devastation.  These
+people, seized with the mania of destruction, broke without remorse
+machines of the greatest value, and most delicate construction; half-
+manufactured articles were pitilessly destroyed; a savage emulation
+seemed to inspire these barbarians, and those workshops, so lately the
+model of order and well-regulated economy, were soon nothing but a wreck;
+the courts were strewed with fragments of all kinds of wares, which were
+thrown from the windows with ferocious outcries, or savage bursts of
+laughter.  Then, still thanks to the incitements of the little man with
+the ferret's face, the books of M. Hardy, archives of commercial
+industry, so indispensable to the trader, were scattered to the wind,
+torn, trampled under foot, in a sort of infernal dance, composed of all
+that was most impure in this assembly of low, filthy, and ragged men and
+women, who held each other by the hand, and whirled round and round with
+horrible clamor.  Strange and painful contrasts!  At the height of the
+stunning noise of these horrid deeds of tumult and devastation, a scene
+of imposing and mournful calm was taking place in the chamber of Marshal
+Simon's father, the door of which was guarded by a few devoted men.  The
+old workman was stretched on his bed, with a bandage across his blood-
+stained white hair.  His countenance was livid, his breathing oppressed,
+his look fixed and glazed.
+
+Marshal Simon, standing at the head of the bed, bending over his father,
+watched in despairing anguish the least sign of consciousness on the part
+of the dying man, near whom was a physician, with his finger on the
+failing pulse.  Rose and Blanche, brought hither by Dagobert, were
+kneeling beside the bed, their hands clasped, and their eyes bathed in
+tears; a little further, half hidden in the shadows of the room, for the
+hours had passed quickly, and the night was at hand, stood Dagobert
+himself, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and his features
+painfully contracted.  A profound and solemn silence reigned in this
+chamber, only interrupted by the broken sobs of Rose and Blanche, or by
+Father Simon's hard breathing.  The eyes of the marshal were dry, gloomy,
+and full of fire.  He only withdrew them from his father's face, to
+interrogate the physician by a look.  There are strange coincidences in
+life.  That physician was Dr. Baleinier.  The asylum of the doctor being
+close to the barrier that was nearest to the factory, and his fame being
+widely spread in the neighborhood, they had run to fetch him on the first
+call for medical assistance.
+
+Suddenly, Dr. Baleinier made a movement; the marshal, who had not taken
+his eyes off him, exclaimed: "Is there any hope?"
+
+"At least, my lord duke, the pulse revives a little."
+
+"He is saved!" said the marshal.
+
+"Do not cherish false hopes, my lord duke," answered the doctor, gravely:
+"the pulse revives, owing to the powerful applications to the feet, but I
+know not what will be the issue of the crisis."
+
+"Father! father! do you hear me?" cried the marshal, seeing the old man
+slightly move his head, and feebly raise his eyelids.  He soon opened his
+eyes, and this time their intelligence had returned.
+
+"Father! you live--you know me!" cried the marshal, giddy with joy and
+hope.
+
+"Pierre! are you there?" said the old man, in a weak voice.  "Your hand--
+give--it--" and he made a feeble movement.
+
+"Here, father!" cried the marshal, as he pressed the hands of the old man
+in his own.
+
+Then, yielding to an impulse of delight, he bent over his father, covered
+his hands, face, and hair with kisses, and repeated: "He lives! kind
+heaven, he lives! he is saved!"
+
+At this instant, the noise of the struggle which had recommenced between
+the rabble, the Wolves, and the Devourers, reached the ears of the dying
+man.
+
+"That noise! that noise!" said he: "they are fighting."
+
+"It is growing less, I think," said the marshal, in order not to agitate
+his father.
+
+"Pierre," said the old man, in a weak and broken voice, "I have not long
+to live."
+
+"Father--"
+
+"Let me speak, child; if I can but tell you all."
+
+"Sir," said Baleinier piously to the old workman, "heaven may perhaps
+work a miracle in your favor; show yourself grateful, and allow a
+priest--"
+
+"A priest!  Thank you, sir--I have my son," said the old man; "in his
+arms, I will render up my soul--which has always been true and honest."
+
+"You die?" exclaimed the marshal; "no! no!"
+
+"Pierre," said the old man, in a voice which, firm at first, gradually
+grew fainter, "just now--you ask my advice in a very serious matter.  I
+think, that the wish to tell you of your duty--has recalled me--for a
+moment--to life--for I should die miserable--if I thought you in a road
+unworthy of yourself and me.  Listen to me, my son--my noble son--at this
+last hour, a father cannot deceive himself.  You have a great duty to
+perform---under pain--of not acting like a man of honor--under pain of
+neglecting my last will.  You ought, without hesitation--"
+
+Here the voice failed the old man.  When he had pronounced the last
+sentence, he became quite unintelligible.  The only words that Marshal
+Simon could distinguish, were these: "Napoleon II.--oath--dishonor--my
+son!"
+
+Then the old workman again moved his lips mechanically --and all was
+over.  At the moment he expired, the night was quite come, and terrible
+shouts were heard from without, of "Fire! Fire!"  The conflagration had
+broken out in one of the workshops, filled with inflammable stuff, into
+which had glided the little man with the ferret's face.  At the same
+time, the roll of drums was heard in the distance, announcing the arrival
+of a detachment of troops from town.
+
+During an hour, in spite of every effort, the fire had been spreading
+through the factory.  The night is clear, cold, starlight; the wind blows
+keenly from the north, with a moaning sound.  A man, walking across the
+fields, where the rising ground conceals the fire from him, advances with
+slow and unsteady steps.  It is M. Hardy.  He had chosen to return home
+on foot, across the country, hoping that a walk would calm the fever in
+his blood--an icy fever, more like the chill of death.  He had not been
+deceived.  His adored mistress--the noble woman, with whom he might have
+found refuge from the consequences of the fearful deception which had
+just been revealed to him--had quitted France.  He could have no doubt of
+it.  Margaret was gone to America.  Her mother had exacted from her, in
+expiation of her fault, that she should not even write to him one word of
+farewell--to him, for whom she had sacrificed her duty as a wife.
+Margaret had obeyed.
+
+Besides, she had often said to him: "Between my mother and you, I should
+not hesitate."
+
+She had not hesitated.  There was therefore no hope, not the slightest;
+even if an ocean had not separated him from Margaret, he knew enough of
+her blind submission to her mother, to be certain that all relations
+between them were broken off forever.  It is well.  He will no longer
+reckon upon this heart--his last refuge.  The two roots of his life have
+been torn up and broken, with the same blow, the same day, almost at the
+same moment.  What then remains for thee, poor sensitive plant, as thy
+tender mother used to call thee?  What remains to console thee for the
+loss of this last love--this last friendship, so infamously crushed?  Oh!
+there remains for thee that one corner of the earth, created after the
+image of thy mind that little colony, so peaceful and flourishing, where,
+thanks to thee, labor brings with it joy and recompense.  These worthy
+artisans, whom thou hast made happy, good, and grateful, will not fail
+thee.  That also is a great and holy affection; let it be thy shelter in
+the midst of this frightful wreck of all thy most sacred convictions!
+The calm of that cheerful and pleasant retreat, the sight of the
+unequalled happiness of thy dependents, will soothe thy poor, suffering
+soul, which now seems to live only for suffering.  Come! you will soon
+reach the top of the hill, from which you can see afar, in the plain
+below, that paradise of workmen, of which you are the presiding divinity.
+
+M. Hardy had reached the summit of the hill.  At that moment the
+conflagration, repressed for a short time, burst forth with redoubled
+fury from the Common Dwelling-house, which it had now reached.  A bright
+streak, at first white, then red, then copper-colored, illuminated the
+distant horizon.  M. Hardy looked at it with a sort of incredulous,
+almost idiotic stupor.  Suddenly, an immense column of flame shot up in
+the thick of a cloud of smoke, accompanied by a shower of sparks, and
+streamed towards the sky, casting a bright reflection over all the
+country, even to M. Hardy's feet.  The violence of the north wind,
+driving the flames in waves before it, soon brought to the ears of M.
+Hardy the hurried clanging of the alarm-bell of the burning factory.
+
+[35] We wish it to be understood, that the necessities of our story alone
+have made the Wolves the assailants.  While endeavoring to paint the
+evils arising the abuse of the spirit of association, we do not wish to
+ascribe a character of savage hostility to one sect rather than to the
+other to the Wolves more than to the Devourers.  The Wolves, a club of
+united stone-cutters, are generally industrious, intelligent workmen,
+whose situation is the more worthy of interest, as not only their labors,
+conducted with mathematical precision, are of the rudest and most
+wearisome kind, but they are likewise out of work during three or four
+months of the year, their profession being, unfortunately, one of those
+which winter condemns to a forced cessation.  A number of Wolves, in
+order to perfect themselves in their trade, attend every evening a course
+of linear geometry, applied to the cutting of stone, analogous to that
+given by M. Agricole Perdignier, for the benefit of carpenters.  Several
+working stone-cutters sent an architectural model in plaster to the last
+exhibition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE GO-BETWEEN.
+
+A few days have elapsed since the conflagration of M. Hardy's factory.
+The following scene takes place in the Rue Clovis, in the house where
+Rodin had lodged, and which was still inhabited by Rose-Pompon, who,
+without the least scruple, availed herself of the household arrangements
+of her friend Philemon.  It was about noon, and Rose-Pompon, alone in the
+chamber of the student, who was still absent, was breakfasting very gayly
+by the fireside; but how singular a breakfast! what a queer fire! how
+strange an apartment!
+
+Imagine a large room, lighted by two windows without curtains--for as
+they looked on empty space, the lodger had fear of being overlooked.  One
+side of this apartment served as a wardrobe, for there was suspended
+Rose-Pompon's flashy costume of debardeur, not far from the boat-man's
+jacket of Philemon, with his large trousers of coarse, gray stuff,
+covered with pitch (shiver my timbers!), just as if this intrepid mariner
+had bunked in the forecastle of a frigate, during a voyage round the
+globe.  A gown of Rose Pompon's hung gracefully over a pair of
+pantaloons, the legs of which seemed to come from beneath the petticoat.
+On the lowest of several book-shelves, very dusty and neglected, by the
+side of three old boots (wherefore three boots?) and a number of empty
+bottles, stood a skull, a scientific and friendly souvenir, left to
+Philemon by one of his comrades, a medical student.  With a species of
+pleasantry, very much to the taste of the student-world, a clay pipe with
+a very black bowl was placed between the magnificently white teeth of
+this skull; moreover, its shining top was half hidden beneath an old hat,
+set knowingly on one side, and adorned with faded flowers and ribbons.
+When Philemon was drunk, he used to contemplate this bony emblem of
+mortality, and break out into the most poetical monologues, with regard
+to this philosophical contrast between death and the mad pleasures of
+life.  Two or three plaster casts, with their noses and chins more or
+less injured, were fastened to the wall, and bore witness to the
+temporary curiosity which Philemon had felt with regard to phrenological
+science, from the patient and serious study of which he had drawn the
+following logical conclusion:--That, having to an alarming extent the
+bump of getting into debt, he ought to resign himself to the fatality of
+this organization, and accept the inconvenience of creditors as a vital
+necessity.  On the chimney-piece, stood uninjured, in all its majesty,
+the magnificent rowing-club drinking-glass, a china teapot without a
+spout, and an inkstand of black wood, the glass mouth of which was
+covered by a coat of greenish and mossy mould.  From time to time, the
+silence of this retreat was interrupted by the cooing of pigeons, which
+Rose-Pompon had established with cordial hospitality in the little study.
+Chilly as a quail, Rose-Pompon crept close to the fire, and at the same
+time seemed to enjoy the warmth of a bright ray of sunshine, which
+enveloped her in its golden light.  This droll little creature was
+dressed in the oddest costume, which, however, displayed to advantage the
+freshness of her piquant and pretty countenance, crowned with its fine,
+fair hair, always neatly combed and arranged the first thing in the
+morning.  By way of dressing-gown, Rose-Pompon had ingeniously drawn over
+her linen, the ample scarlet flannel shirt which belonged to Philemon's
+official garb in the rowing-club; the collar, open and turned down,
+displayed the whiteness of the young girl's under garment, as also of her
+neck and shoulders, on whose firm and polished surface the scarlet shirt
+seemed to cast a rosy light.  The grisette's fresh and dimpled arms half
+protruded from the large, turned-up sleeves; and her charming legs were
+also half visible, crossed one over the other, and clothed in neat white
+stockings, and boots.  A black silk cravat formed the girdle which
+fastened the shirt round the wasp-like waist of Rose-Pompon, just above
+those hips, worthy of the enthusiasm of a modern Phidias, and which gave
+to this style of dress a grace very original.
+
+We have said, that the breakfast of Rose-Pompon was singular.  You shall
+judge.  On a little table placed before her, was a wash-hand-basin, into
+which she had recently plunged her fresh face, bathing it in pure water.
+From the bottom of this basin, now transformed into a salad-bowl, Rose-
+Pompon took with the tips of her fingers large green leaves, dripping
+with vinegar, and crunched them between her tiny white teeth, whose
+enamel was too hard to allow them to be set on edge.  Her drink was a
+glass of water and syrup of gooseberries, which she stirred with a wooden
+mustard-spoon.  Finally, as an extra dish, she had a dozen olives in one
+of those blue glass trinket-dishes sold for twenty-five sous.  Her
+dessert was composed of nuts, which she prepared to roast on a red-hot
+shovel.  That Rose-Pompon, with such an unaccountable savage choice of
+food, should retain a freshness of complexion worthy of her name, is one
+of those miracles, which reveal the mighty power of youth and health.
+When she had eaten her salad, Rose-Pompon was about to begin upon her
+olives, when a low knock was heard at the door, which was modestly bolted
+on the inside.
+
+"Who is there?"said Rose-Pompon.
+
+"A friend--the oldest of the old," replied a sonorous, jovial voice.
+"Why do you lock yourself in?"
+
+"What! is it you, Ninny Moulin?"
+
+"Yes, my beloved pupil.  Open quickly.  Time presses."
+
+"Open to you?  Oh, I dare say!--that would be pretty, the figure I am!"
+
+"I believe you! what does it matter what figure you are?  It would be
+very pretty, thou rosiest of all the roses with which Cupid ever adorned
+his quiver!"
+
+"Go and preach fasting and morality in your journal, fat apostle!" said
+Rose--Pompon, as she restored the scarlet shirt to its place, with
+Philemon's other garments.
+
+"I say! are we to talk much longer through the door, for the greater
+edification of our neighbors?" cried Ninny Moulin.  "I have something of
+importance to tell you--something that will astonish you--"
+
+"Give me time to put on my gown, great plague that you are!"
+
+"If it is because of my modesty, do not think of it.  I am not over nice.
+I should like you very well as you are!"
+
+"Only to think that such a monster is the favorite of all the
+churchgoers!" said Rose-Pompon, opening the door as she finished
+fastening her dress.
+
+"So! you have at last returned to the dovecot, you stray girl!" said
+Ninny Moulin, folding his arms, and looking at Rose-Pompon with comic
+seriousness.  "And where may you have been, I pray?  For three days the
+naughty little bird has left its nest."
+
+"True; I only returned home last night.  You must have called during my
+absence?"
+
+"I came, every day, and even twice a day, young lady, for I have very
+serious matters to communicate."
+
+"Very serious matters?  Then we shall have a good laugh at them."
+
+"Not at all--they are really serious," said Ninny Moulin, seating
+himself.  "But, first of all, what did you do during the three days that
+you left your conjugal and Philemonic home?  I must know all about it,
+before I tell you more."
+
+"Will you have some olives?" said Rose-Pompon, as she nibbled one of them
+herself.
+
+"Is that your answer?--I understand!--Unfortunate Philemon!"
+
+"There is no unfortunate Philemon in the case, slanderer.  Clara had a
+death in her house, and, for the first few days after the funeral she was
+afraid to sleep alone."
+
+"I thought Clara sufficiently provided against such fears."
+
+"There you are deceived, you great viper!  I was obliged to go and keep
+the poor girl company."
+
+At this assertion, the religious pamphleteer hummed a tune, with an
+incredulous and mocking air.
+
+"You think I have played Philemon tricks?" cried Rose-Pompon, cracking a
+nut with the indignation of injured innocence.
+
+"I do not say tricks; but one little rose-colored trick."
+
+"I tell you, that it was not for my pleasure I went out.  On the
+contrary--for, during my absence, poor Cephyse disappeared."
+
+Yes, Mother Arsene told me that the Bacchanal-Queen was gone on a
+journey.  But when I talk of Philemon, you talk of Cephyse; we don't
+progress."
+
+"May I be eaten by the black panther that they are showing at the Porte-
+Saint-Martin if I do not tell you the truth.  And, talking of that, you
+must get tickets to take me to see those animals, my little Ninny Moulin!
+They tell me there never were such darling wild beasts."
+
+"Now really, are you mad?"
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"That I should guide your youth, like a venerable patriarch, through the
+dangers of the Storm-blown Tulip, all well and good--I ran no risk of
+meeting my pastors and masters; but were I to take you to a Lent-
+Spectacle (since there are only beasts to be seen), I might just run
+against my sacristans--and how pretty I should look with you on my arm!"
+
+"You can put on a false nose, and straps to your trousers, my big Ninny;
+they will never know you."
+
+"We must not think of false noses, but of what I have to tell you, since
+you assure me that you have no intrigue in hand."
+
+"I swear it!" said Rose-Pompon, solemnly, extending her left hand
+horizontally, whilst with her right she put a nut into her mouth.  Then
+she added, with surprise, as she looked at the outside coat of Ninny
+Moulin, "Goodness gracious! what full pockets you have got!  What is
+there in them?"
+
+"Something that concerns you, Rose-Pompon," said Dumoulin, gravely.
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Rose-Pompon!" said Ninny Moulin, suddenly, with a majestic air; "will
+you have a carriage?  Will you inhabit a charming apartment, instead of
+living in this dreadful hole?  Will you be dressed like a duchess?"
+
+"Now for some more nonsense!  Come, will you eat the olives?  If not, I
+shall eat them all up.  There is only one left."
+
+Without answering this gastronomic offer, Ninny Moulin felt in one of his
+pockets, and drew from it a case containing a very pretty bracelet, which
+he held up sparkling before the eyes of the young girl.
+
+"Oh! what a sumptuous bracelet!" cried she, clapping her hands.  "A
+green-eyed serpent biting his tail--the emblem of my love for Philemon."
+
+"Do not talk of Philemon; it annoys me," said Ninny Moulin, as he clasped
+the bracelet round the wrist of Rose-Pompon, who allowed him to do it,
+laughing all the while like mad, and saying to him, "So you've been
+employed to make a purchase, big apostle, and wish to see the effect of
+it.  Well! it is charming!"
+
+"Rose-Pompon," resumed Ninny Moulin, "would you like to have a servant, a
+box at the Opera, and a thousand francs a month for your pin-money?"
+
+"Always the same nonsense.  Get along!" said the young girl, as she held
+up the bracelet to the light, still continuing to eat her nuts.  "Why
+always the same farce, and no change of bills?"
+
+Ninny Moulin again plunged his hand into his pocket, and this time drew
+forth an elegant chain, which he hung round Rose-Pompon's neck.
+
+"Oh! what a beautiful chain!" cried the young girl, as she looked by
+turns at the sparkling ornament and the religious writer.  "If you chose
+that also, you have a very good taste.  But am I not a good natured girl
+to be your dummy, just to show off your jewels?"
+
+"Rose-Pompon," returned Ninny Moulin, with a still more majestic air,
+"these trifles are nothing to what you may obtain, if you will but follow
+the advice of your old friend."
+
+Rose began to look at Dumoulin with surprise, and said to him, "What does
+all this mean, Ninny Moulin?  Explain yourself; what advice have you to
+give?"
+
+Dumoulin did not answer, but replunging his hand into his inexhaustible
+pocket, he fished up a parcel, which he carefully unfolded, and in which
+was a magnificent mantilla of black lace.  Rose-Pompon started up, full
+of new admiration, and Dumoulin threw the rich mantilla over the young
+girl's shoulders.
+
+"It is superb!  I have never seen anything like it!  What patterns! what
+work!" said Rose-Pompon, as she examined all with simple and perfectly
+disinterested curiosity.  Then she added, "Your pocket is like a shop;
+where did you get all these pretty things?"  Then, bursting into a fit of
+laughter, which brought the blood to her cheeks, she exclaimed, "Oh, I
+have it!  These are the wedding-presents for Madame de la Sainte-Colombe.
+I congratulate you; they are very choice."
+
+"And where do you suppose I should find money to buy these wonders?"
+said Ninny Moulin.  "I repeat to you, all this is yours if you will but
+listen to me!"
+
+"How is this?" said Rose-Pompon, with the utmost amazement; "is what you
+tell me in downright earnest?"
+
+"In downright earnest."
+
+"This offer to make me a great lady?"
+
+"The jewels might convince you of the reality of my offers."
+
+"And you propose all this to me for some one else, my poor Ninny Moulin?"
+
+"One moment, said the religious writer, with a comical air of modesty,
+"you must know me well enough, my beloved pupil, to feel certain that I
+should be incapable of inducing you to commit an improper action.  I
+respect myself too much for that--leaving out the consideration that it
+would be unfair to Philemon, who confided to me the guardianship of your
+virtue."
+
+"Then, Ninny Moulin," said Rose-Pompon, more and more astonished, "on my
+word of honor, I can make nothing of it.
+
+"Yet, 'tis all very simple, and I--"
+
+'Oh!  I've found it," cried Rose-Pompon, interrupting Ninny Moulin; "it
+is some gentleman who offers me his hand, his heart, and all the rest of
+it.  Could you not tell me that directly?"
+
+"A marriage? oh, laws, yes!" said Dumoulin, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"What! is it not a marriage?" said Rose-Pompon, again much surprised.
+
+"No."
+
+"And the offers you make me are honest ones, my big apostle?"
+
+"They could not be more so."  Here Dumoulin spoke the truth.
+
+"I shall not have to be unfaithful to Philemon?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or faithful to any one else?"
+"No."
+
+Rose-Pompon looked confounded.  Then she rattled on:  "Come, do not let
+us have any joking!  I am not foolish enough to imagine that I am to live
+just like a duchess, just for nothing.  What, therefore, must I give in
+return?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Not even that," said Ninny Moulin, biting his nail-tip.
+
+"But what am I to do, then?"
+
+"Dress yourself as handsomely as possible, take your ease, amuse
+yourself, ride about in a carriage.  You see, it is not very fatiguing--
+and you will, moreover, help to do a good action."
+
+"What! by living like a duchess?"
+
+"Yes! so make up your mind.  Do not ask me for any more details, for I
+cannot give them to you.  For the rest, you will not be detained against
+your will.  Just try the life I propose to you.  If it suits you, go on
+with it; if not, return to your Philemonic household."
+
+"In fact--"
+
+"Only try it.  What can you risk?"
+
+"Nothing; but I can hardly believe that all you say is true.  And then,"
+added she, with hesitation, "I do not know if I ought--"
+
+Ninny Moulin went to the window, opened it, and said to Rose-Pompon, who
+ran up to it, "Look there! before the door of the house."
+
+"What a pretty carriage!  How comfortable a body'd be inside of it!"
+
+"That carriage is yours.  It is waiting for you."
+
+"Waiting for me!" exclaimed Rose-Pompon; "am I to decide as short as
+that?"
+
+"Or not at all."
+
+"To-day?"
+
+"On the instant."
+
+"But where will they take me?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"You do not know where they will take me?"
+
+"Not I,"--and Dumoulin still spoke the truth--"the coachman has his
+orders."
+
+"Do you know all this is very funny, Ninny Moulin?"
+
+"I believe you.  If it were not funny, where would be the pleasure?"
+
+"You are right."
+
+"Then you accept the offer?  That is well.  I am delighted both for you
+and myself."
+
+"For yourself?"
+
+"Yes; because, in accepting, you render me a great service."
+
+"You?  How so?"
+
+"It matters little, as long as I feel obliged to you."
+
+"True."
+
+"Come, then; let us set out!"
+
+"Bah! after all, they cannot eat me," said Rose-Pompon, resolutely.
+
+With a skip and a jump, she went to fetch a rose-colored cap, and, going
+up to a broken looking-glass, placed the cap very much cocked on one side
+on her bands of light hair.  This left uncovered her snowy neck, with the
+silky roots of the hair behind, and gave to her pretty face a very
+mischievous, not to say licentious expression.
+
+"My cloak!" said she to Ninny Moulin, who seemed to be relieved from a
+considerable amount of uneasiness, since she had accepted his offer.
+
+"Fie! a cloak will not do," answered her companion, feeling once more in
+his pocket and drawing out a fine Cashmere shawl, which he threw over
+Rose-Pompon's shoulders.
+
+"A Cashmere!" cried the young girl, trembling with pleasure and joyous
+surprise.  Then she added, with an air of heroism:  "It is settled! I
+will run the gauntlet."  And with a light step she descended the stairs,
+followed by Ninny Moulin.
+
+The worthy greengrocer was at her post.  "Good-morning, mademoiselle; you
+are early to-day," said she to the young girl.
+
+"Yes, Mother Arsene; there is my key."
+
+"Thank you, mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh! now I think of it," said Rose Pompon, suddenly, in a whisper, as she
+turned towards Ninny Moulin, and withdrew further from the portress,
+"what is to became of Philemon?"
+
+"Philemon?"
+
+"If he should arrive--"
+
+"Oh! the devil!" said Ninny Moulin, scratching his ear.
+
+"Yes; if Philemon should arrive, what will they say to him? for I may be
+a long time absent."
+
+"Three or four months, I suppose."
+
+"Not more?"
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"Oh! very good!" said Rose-Pompon.  Then, turning towards the
+greengrocer, she said to her, after a moment's reflection: "Mother
+Arsene, if Philemon should come home, you will tell him I have gone out--
+on business."
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle."
+
+"And that he must not forget to feed my pigeons, which are in his study."
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle."
+
+"Good-bye, Mother Arsene."
+
+"Good-bye, mademoiselle."  And Rose-Pompon entered the carriage in
+triumph, along with Ninny Moulin.
+
+"The devil take me if I know what is to come of all this," said Jacques
+Dumoulin to himself, as the carriage drove rapidly down the Rue Clovis.
+"I have repaired my error--and now I laugh at the rest."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ANOTHER SECRET.
+
+The following scene took place a few days after the abduction of Rose-
+Pompon by Ninny Moulin.  Mdlle. de Cardoville was seated in a dreamy
+mood, in her cabinet, which was hung with green silk, and furnished with
+an ebony library, ornamented with large bronze caryatides.  By some
+significant signs, one could perceive that Mdlle. de Cardoville had
+sought in the fine airs some relief from sad and serious thoughts.  Near
+an open piano, was a harp, placed before a music-stand.  A little
+further, on a table covered with boxes of oil and water-color, were
+several brilliant sketches.  Most of them represented Asiatic scenes,
+lighted by the fires of an oriental sun.  Faithful to her fancy of
+dressing herself at home in a picturesque style, Mademoiselle de
+Cardoville resembled that day one of those proud portraits of Velasquez,
+with stern and noble aspect.  Her gown was of black moire, with wide-
+swelling petticoat, long waist, and sleeve slashed with rose-colored
+satin, fastened together with jet bugles.  A very stiff, Spanish ruff
+reached almost to her chin, and was secured round her neck by a broad
+rose-colored ribbon.  This frill, slightly heaving, sloped down as far as
+the graceful swell of the rose-colored stomacher, laced with strings of
+jet beads, and terminating in a point at the waist.  It is impossible to
+express how well this black garment, with its ample and shining folds,
+relieved with rose-color and brilliant jet, skin, harmonized with the
+shining whiteness of Adrienne's and the golden flood of her beautiful
+hair, whose long, silky ringlets descended to her bosom.
+
+The young lady was in a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting on
+a couch covered with green silk.  The back of this piece of furniture,
+which was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly
+towards the foot.  A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded
+bronze, raised about five feet from the ground, covered with flowering
+plants (the admirable passiflores quadrangulatoe, planted in a deep ebony
+box, from the centre of which rose the trellis-work), surrounded this
+couch with a sort of screen of foliage enamelled with large flowers,
+green without, purple within, and as brilliant as those flowers of
+porcelain, which we receive from Saxony.  A sweet, faint perfume, like a
+faint mixture of jasmine with violet, rose from the cup of these
+admirable passiflores.  Strange enough, a large quantity of new books
+(Adrienne having bought them since the last two or three days) and quite
+fresh-cut, were scattered around her on the couch, and on a little table;
+whilst other larger volumes, amongst which were several atlases full of
+engravings, were piled on the sumptuous fur, which formed the carpet
+beneath the divan.  Stranger still, these books, though of different
+forms, and by different authors, alt treated of the same subject.  The
+posture of Adrienne revealed a sort of melancholy dejection.  Her cheeks
+were pale; a light blue circle surrounded her large, black eyes, now
+half-closed, and gave to them an expression of profound grief.  Many
+causes contributed to this sorrow--amongst others, the disappearance of
+Mother Bunch.  Without absolutely believing the perfidious insinuations
+of Rodin, who gave her to understand that, in the fear of being unmasked
+by him, the hunchback had not dared to remain in the house, Adrienne felt
+a cruel sinking of the heart, when she thought how this young girl, in
+whom she had had so much confidence, had fled from her almost sisterly
+hospitality, without even uttering a word of gratitude; for care had been
+taken not to show her the few lines written by the poor needlewoman to
+her benefactress, just before her departure.
+
+She had only been told of the note of five hundred francs found on her
+desk; and this last inexplicable circumstance had contributed to awaken
+cruel suspicions in the breast of Mdlle. de Cardoville.  She already felt
+the fatal effects of that mistrust of everything and everybody, which
+Rodin had recommended to her; and this sentiment of suspicion and reserve
+had the more tendency to become powerful, that, for the first time in her
+life, Mdlle. de Cardoville, until then a stranger to all deception, had a
+secret to conceal--a secret, which was equally her happiness, her shame,
+and her torment.  Half-recumbent on her divan, pensive and depressed,
+Adrienne pursued, with a mind often absent, one of her newly purchased
+books.  Suddenly, she uttered an exclamation of surprise; the hand which
+held the book trembled like a leaf, and from that moment she appeared to
+read with passionate attention and devouring curiosity.  Soon, her eyes
+sparkled with enthusiasm, her smile assumed ineffable sweetness, and she
+seemed at once proud, happy, delighted--but, as she turned over the last
+page, her countenance expressed disappointment and chagrin.  Then she
+recommenced this reading, which had occasioned her such sweet emotion,
+and this time she read with the most deliberate slowness, going over each
+page twice, and spelling, as it were, every line, every word.  From time
+to time, she paused, and in a pensive mood, with her forehead leaning on
+her fair hand, she seemed to reflect, in a deep reverie, on the passages
+she had read with such tender and religious love.  Arriving at a passage
+which so affected her, that a tear started in her eye, she suddenly
+turned the volume, to see on the cover the name of the author.  For a few
+seconds, she contemplated this name with a singular expression of
+gratitude, and could not forbear raising to her rosy lips the page on
+which it was printed.  After reading many times over the lines with which
+she had been so much struck, forgetting, no doubt, the letter in the
+spirit, she began to reflect so deeply, that the book glided from her
+hand, and fell upon the carpet.  During the course of this reverie, the
+eyes of the young girl rested, at first mechanically, upon an admirable
+bas-relief, placed on an ebony stand, near one of the windows.  This
+magnificent bronze, recently cast after a plaster copy from the antique,
+represented the triumph of the Indian Bacchus.  Never, perhaps, had
+Grecian art attained such rare perfection.  The youthful conqueror, half-
+clad in a lion's skin, which displayed his juvenile grace and charming
+purity of form shone with divine beauty.  Standing up in a car, drawn by
+two tigers, with an air at once gentle and proud, he leaned with one hand
+upon a thyrsus, and with the other guided his savage steeds in tranquil
+majesty.  By this rare mixture of grace, vigor, and serenity, it was easy
+to recognize the hero who had waged such desperate combats with men and
+with monsters of the forest.  Thanks to the brownish tone of the figure,
+the light, falling from one side of the sculpture, admirably displayed
+the form of the youthful god, which, carved in relievo, and thus
+illumined, shone like a magnificent statue of pale gold upon the dark
+fretted background of the bronze.
+
+When Adrienne's look first rested on this rare assemblage of divine
+perfections, her countenance was calm and thoughtful.  But this
+contemplation, at first mechanical, became gradually more and more
+attentive and conscious, and the young lady, rising suddenly from her
+seat, slowly approached the bas-relief, as if yielding to the invincible
+attraction of an extraordinary resemblance.  Then a slight blush appeared
+on the cheeks of Mdlle. de Cardoville, stole across her face, and spread
+rapidly to her neck and forehead.  She approached still closer, threw
+round a hasty glance, as if half-ashamed, or as if she had feared to be
+surprised in a blamable action, and twice stretched forth her hand,
+trembling with emotion, to touch with the tips of her charming fingers
+the bronze forehead of the Indian Bacchus.  And twice she stopped short,
+with a kind of modest hesitation.  At last, the temptation became too
+strong for her.  She yielded to it; and her alabaster finger, after
+delicately caressing the features of pale gold, was pressed more boldly
+for an instant on the pure and noble brow of the youthful god.  At this
+pressure, though so slight, Adrienne seemed to feel a sort of electric
+shock; she trembled in every limb, her eyes languished, and, after
+swimming for an instant in their humid and brilliant crystal, were
+raised, half-closed, to heaven.  Then her head was thrown a little way
+back, her knees bent insensibly, her rosy lips were half opened, as if to
+give a passage to her heated breath, for her bosom heaved violently, as
+thought youth and life had accelerated the pulsations of her heart, and
+made her blood boil in her veins.  Finally, the burning cheeks of
+Adrienne betrayed a species of ecstasy, timid and passionate, chaste and
+sensual, the expression of which was ineffably touching.
+
+An affecting spectacle indeed is that of a young maiden, whose modest
+brow flushes with the first fires of a secret passion.  Does not the
+Creator of all things animate the body as well as the soul, with a spark
+of divine energy?  Should He not be religiously glorified in the
+intellect as in the senses, with which He has so paternally endowed His
+creatures?  They are impious blasphemers who seek to stifle the celestial
+senses, instead of guiding and harmonizing them in their divine flight.
+Suddenly, Mdlle. de Cardoville started, raised her head, opened her eyes
+as if awakening from a dream, withdrew abruptly from the sculptures, and
+walked several times up and down the room in an agitated manner, pressing
+her burning hands to her forehead.  Then, falling, as it were, exhausted
+on her seat, her tears flowed in abundance.  The most bitter grief was
+visible in her features, which revealed the fatal struggle that was
+passing within her.  By degrees, her tears ceased.  To this crisis of
+painful dejection succeeded a species of violent scorn and indignation
+against herself, which were expressed by these words that escaped her:
+"For the first time in my life, I feel weak and cowardly.  Oh yes!
+cowardly--very cowardly!"
+
+The sound of a door opening and closing, roused Mdlle. de Cardoville from
+her bitter reflections.  Georgette entered the room, and said to her
+mistress: "Madame, can you receive the Count de Montbron?"
+
+Adrienne, too well-bred to exhibit before her women the sort of
+impatience occasioned by this unseasonable visit, said to Georgette: "You
+told M. de Montbron that I was at home?"
+
+"Yes, Madame."
+
+"Then beg him to walk in."  Though Mdlle. de Cardoville felt at that
+moment much vexed at the arrival of Montbron, let us hasten to say, that
+she entertained for him an almost filial affection, and a profound
+esteem, though, by a not unfrequent contrast, she almost always differed
+from him in opinion.  Hence arose, when Mdlle. de Cardoville had nothing
+to disturb her mind, the most gay and animated discussions, in which M.
+de Montbron, notwithstanding his mocking and sceptical humor, his long
+experience, his rare knowledge of men and things, his fashionable
+training, in a word, had not always the advantage, and even acknowledged
+his defeat gayly enough.  Thus, to give an idea of the differences of the
+count and Adrienne, before, as he would say laughingly, he had made
+himself her accomplice, he had always opposed (from other motives than
+those alleged by Madame de Saint-Dizier) Adrienne's wish to live alone
+and in her own way; whilst Rodin, on the contrary, by investing the young
+girl's resolve on this subject with an ideal grandeur of intention, had
+acquired a species of influence over her.  M. de Montbron, now upwards of
+sixty years of age, had been a most prominent character during the
+Directory, Consulate, and the Empire.  His prodigal style of living, his
+wit, his gayety, his duels, his amours, and his losses at play, had given
+him a leading influence in the best society of his day; while his
+character, his kind-heartedness, and liberality, secured him the lasting
+friendship of nearly all his female friends.  At the time we now present
+him to the reader, he was still a great gambler; and, moreover, a very
+lucky gambler.  He had, as we have stated, a very lordly style; his
+manners were decided, but polished and lively; his habits were such as
+belong to the higher classes of society, though he could be excessively
+sharp towards people whom he did not like.  He was tall and thin, and his
+slim figure gave him an almost youthful appearance; his forehead was
+high, and a little bald; his hair was gray and short, his countenance
+long, his nose aquiline, his eyes blue and piercing, and his teeth white,
+and still very good.
+
+"The Count de Montbron," said Georgette, opening the door.  The count
+entered, and hastened to kiss Adrienne's hand, with a sort of paternal
+familiarity.
+
+"Come!" said M. de Montbron to himself; "let us try to discover the truth
+I am in search of, that we may escape a great misfortune."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE CONFESSION.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, not wishing to betray the cause of the violent
+feelings which agitated her, received M. de Montbron with a feigned and
+forced gayety.  On the other hand, notwithstanding his tact and knowledge
+of the world, the count was much embarrassed how to enter upon the
+subject on which he wished to confer with Adrienne, and he resolved to
+feel his way, before seriously commencing the conversation.  After
+looking at the young lady for some seconds, M. de Montbron shook his
+head, and said, with a sigh of regret: "My dear child, I am not pleased."
+
+"Some affair of the heart, or of hearts, my dear count?" returned
+Adrienne, smiling.
+
+"Of the heart," said M. de Montbron.
+
+"What! you, so great a player, think more of a woman's whim than a throw
+of the dice?"
+
+"I have a heavy heart, and you are the cause of it, my dear child."
+
+"M. de Montbron, you will make me very proud," said Adrienne, with a
+smile.
+
+"You would be wrong, for I tell you plainly, my trouble is caused by your
+neglect of your beauty.  Yes, your countenance is pale, dejected,
+sorrowful; you have been low-spirited for the last few days; you have
+something on your mind, I am sure of it."
+
+"My dear M. de Montbron, you have so much penetration, that you may be
+allowed to fall for once, as now.  I am not sad, I have nothing on my
+mind, and--I am about to utter a very silly piece of impertinence--I have
+never thought myself so pretty."
+
+"On the contrary, nothing could be more modest than such an assertion.
+Who told you that falsehood? a woman?"
+
+"No; it was my heart, and it spoke the truth," answered Adrienne, with a
+slight degree of emotion.  "Understand it, if you can," she added.
+
+"Do you mean that you are proud of the alteration in your features,
+because you are proud of the sufferings of your heart?" said M. de
+Montbron, looking at Adrienne with attention.  "Be it so; I am then
+right.  You have some sorrow.  I persist in it," added the count,
+speaking with a tone of real feeling, "because it is painful to me."
+
+"Be satisfied; I am as happy as possible--for every instant I take
+delight in repeating, how, at my age, I am free--absolutely free!"
+
+"Yes; free to torment yourself, free to be miserable."
+
+"Come, come, my dear count!" said Adrienne, "you are recommencing our old
+quarrel.  I still find in you the ally of my aunt and the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny."
+
+"Yes; as the republicans are the allies of the legitimists--to destroy
+each other in their turn.  Talking of your abominable aunt, they say that
+she holds a sort of council at her house these last few days, a regular
+mitred conspiracy.  She is certainly in a good way."
+
+"Why not?  Formerly, she would have wished to be Goddess of Reason, now,
+we shall perhaps see her canonized.  She has already performed the first
+part of the life of Mary Magdalen."
+
+"You can never speak worse of her than she deserves, my dear child.
+Still, though for quite opposite reasons, I agreed with her on the
+subject of your wish to reside alone."
+
+"I know it."
+
+"Yes; and because I wished to see you a thousand times freer than you
+really are, I advised you--"
+
+"To marry."
+
+"No doubt; you would have had your dear liberty, with its consequences,
+only, instead of Mdlle. de Cardoville, we should have called you Madame
+Somebody, having found an excellent husband to be responsible for your
+independence."
+
+"And who would have been responsible for this ridiculous husband?  And
+who would bear a mocked and degraded name?  I, perhaps?" said Adrienne,
+with animation.  "No, no, my dear count, good or ill, I will answer for
+my own actions; to my name shall attach the reputation, which I alone
+have formed.  I am as incapable of basely dishonoring a name which is not
+mine, as of continually bearing it myself, if it were not held in,
+esteem.  And, as one can only answer for one's own actions, I prefer to
+keep my name."
+
+"You are the only person in the world that has such ideas."
+
+"Why?" said Adrienne, laughing.  "Because it appears to me horrible, to
+see a poor girl lost and buried in some ugly and selfish man, and become,
+as they say seriously, the better half of the monster--yes! a fresh and
+blooming rose to become part of a frightful thistle!--Come, my dear
+count; confess there is something odious in this conjugal
+metempsychosis," added Adrienne, with a burst of laughter.
+
+The forced and somewhat feverish gayety of Adrienne contrasted painfully
+with her pale and suffering countenance; it was so easy to see that she
+strove to stifle with laughter some deep sorrow, that M. de Montbron was
+much affected by it; but, dissembling his emotion, he appeared to reflect
+a moment, and took up mechanically one of the new, fresh-cut books, by
+which Adrienne was surrounded.  After casting a careless glance at this
+volume, he continued, still dissembling his feelings: "Come, my dear
+madcap: this is another folly.  Suppose I were twenty years old, and that
+you did me the honor to marry me--you would be called Lady de Montbron, I
+imagine?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"How perhaps?  Would you not bear my name, if you married me?"
+
+"My dear count," said Adrienne, with a smile, "do not let us pursue this
+hypothesis, which can only leave us--regrets."
+
+Suddenly, M. de Montbron started, and looked at Mdlle, de Cardoville with
+an expression of surprise.  For some moments, whilst talking to Adrienne,
+he had mechanically--taken up two or three of the volumes scattered over
+the couch, and had glanced at their titles in the same careless manner.
+The first was the "Modern History of India."  The second, "Travels in
+India."  The third, "Letters on India."  Much surprised, M. de Montbron
+had continued his investigation, and found that the fourth volume
+continued this Indian nomenclature, being "Rambles in India."  The fifth
+was, "Recollections of Hindostan."  The sixth, "Notes of a Traveller in
+the East Indies."
+
+Hence the astonishment, which, for many serious reasons, M. de Montbron
+had no longer been able to conceal, and which his looks betrayed to
+Adrienne.  The latter, having completely forgotten the presence of the
+accusing volumes by which she was surrounded, yielded to a movement of
+involuntary confusion, and blushed slightly; but, her firm and resolute
+character again coming to her aid, she looked full at M. de Montbron, and
+said to him: "Well, my dear count! what surprises you?"
+
+Instead of answering, M. de Montbron appeared still more absorbed in
+thought, and contemplating the young girl, he could not forbear saying to
+himself: "No, no--it is impossible--and yet--"
+
+"It would, perhaps, be indiscreet in me to listen to your soliloquy, my
+dear count," said Adrienne.
+
+"Excuse me, my dear child; but what I see surprises me so much--"
+
+"And pray what do you see?"
+
+"The traces of so great and novel an interest in all that relates to
+India," said M. de Montbron, laying a slight stress on his words, and
+fixing a piercing look upon the young girl.
+
+"Well!" said Adrienne, stoutly.
+
+"Well!  I seek the cause of this sudden passion--"
+
+"Geographical?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, interrupting M. de Montbron:
+"you may find this taste somewhat serious for my age my dear count--but
+one must find occupation for leisure hours--and then, having a cousin,
+who is both an Indian and a prince, I should like to know something of
+the fortunate country from which I derive this savage relationship."
+
+These last words were pronounced with a bitterness that was not lost on
+M. de Montbron: watching Adrienne attentively, he observed: "Meseems, you
+speak of the prince with some harshness."
+
+"No; I speak of him with indifference."
+
+"Yet he deserves a very different feeling."
+
+"On the part of some other person, perhaps," replied Adrienne, dryly.
+
+"He is so unhappy!" said M, de Montbron, in a tone of sincere pity.
+"When I saw him the other day, he made my heart ache."
+
+"What have I to do with it?" exclaimed Adrienne, with an accent of
+painful and almost angry impatience.
+
+"I should have thought that his cruel torments at least deserved your
+pity," answered the count gravely.
+
+"Pity--from me!" cried Adrienne, with an air of offended pride.  Then
+restraining herself, she added coldly: "You are jesting, M. de Montbron.
+It is not in sober seriousness that you ask me to take interest in the
+amorous torments of your prince."
+
+There was so much cold disdain in these last words of Adrienne, her pale
+and agitated countenance betrayed such haughty bitterness, that M. de
+Montbron said, sorrowfully:  "It is then true; I have not been deceived.
+I, who thought, from our old and constant friendship, that I had some
+claim to your confidence have known nothing of it--while you told all to
+another.  It is painful, very painful to me."
+
+"I do not understand you, M. de Montbron."
+
+"Well then, since I must speak plainly," cried the count, "there is, I
+see, no hope for this unhappy boy--you love another."
+
+As Adrienne started--"Oh! you cannot deny it," resumed the count; "your
+paleness and melancholy for the last few days, your implacable
+indifference to the prince--all prove to me that you are in love."
+
+Hurt by the manner in which the count spoke of the sentiment he
+attributed to her, Mdlle. de Cardoville answered with dignified
+stateliness: "You must know, M. de Montbron, that a secret discovered is
+not a confidence.  Your language surprises me.
+
+"Oh, my dear friend, if I use the poor privilege of experience--if I
+guess that you are in love--if I tell you so, and even go so far as to
+reproach you with it--it is because the life or death of this poor prince
+is concerned; and I feel for him as if he were my son, for it is
+impossible to know him without taking the warmest interest in him."
+
+"It would be singular," returned Adrienne, with redoubled coldness, and
+still more bitter irony, "if my love--admitting I were in love--could
+have any such strange influence on Prince Djalma.  What can it matter to
+him?" added she, with almost agonizing disdain.
+
+"What can it matter to him?  Now really, my dear friend, permit me to
+tell you, that it is you who are jesting cruelly.  What! this unfortunate
+youth loves you with all the blind ardor of a first love--twice has
+attempted to terminate by suicide the horrible tortures of his passion--
+and you think it strange that your love for another should be with him a
+question of life or death!"
+
+"He loves me then?" cried the young girl, with an accent impossible to
+describe.
+
+He loves you to madness, I tell you; I have seen it."
+
+Adrienne seemed overcome with amazement.  From pale, she became crimson;
+as the redness disappeared, her lips grew white, and trembled.  Her
+emotion was so strong, that she remained for some moments unable to
+speak, and pressed her hand to her heart, as if to moderate its
+pulsations.
+
+M. de Montbron, almost frightened at the sudden change in Adrienne's
+countenance, hastily approached her, exclaiming: "Good heaven, my poor
+child! what is the matter?"
+
+Instead of answering, Adrienne waved her hand to him, in sign that he
+should not be alarmed; and, in fact, the count was speedily
+tranquillized, for the beautiful face, which had so lately been
+contracted with pain, irony, and scorn, seemed now expressive of the
+sweetest and most ineffable emotions; Adrienne appeared to luxuriate in
+delight, and to fear losing the least particle of it; then, as reflection
+told her, that she was, perhaps, the dupe of illusion or falsehood, she
+exclaimed suddenly, with anguish, addressing herself to M. de Montbron:
+"But is what you tell me true?"
+
+"What I tell you!"
+
+"Yes--that Prince Djalma--"
+
+"Loves you to madness?--Alas! it is only too true."
+
+"No, no," cried Adrienne, with a charming expression of simplicity; "that
+could never be too true."
+
+"What do you say?" cried the count.
+
+"But that woman?" asked Adrienne, as if the word scorched her lips.
+
+"What woman?"
+
+"She who has been the cause of all these painful struggles."
+
+"That woman--why, who should it be but you?"
+
+"What, I?  Oh! tell me, was it I?"
+
+"On my word of honor.  I trust my experience.  I have never seen so
+ardent and sincere a passion."
+
+"Oh! is it really so?  Has he never had any other love?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Yet I was told so."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"M. Rodin."
+
+"That Djalma--"
+
+"Had fallen violently in love, two days after I saw him."
+
+"M. Rodin told you that!" cried M. de Montbron, as if struck with a
+sudden idea.  "Why, it is he who told Djalma that you were in love with
+some one else."
+
+"I!"
+
+"And this it was which occasioned the poor youth's dreadful despair."
+
+"It was this which occasioned my despair."
+
+"You love him, then, just as he loves you!" exclaimed M. de Montbron,
+transported with joy.
+
+"Love him!" said Mdlle. de Cardoville.  A discreet knock at the door
+interrupted Adrienne.
+
+"One of your servants, no doubt.  Be calm," said the count.
+
+"Come in," said Adrienne, in an agitated voice.
+
+"What is it?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville.  Florine entered the room.
+
+"M. Rodin has just been here.  Fearing to disturb mademoiselle, he would
+not come in; but he will return in half an hour.  Will mademoiselle
+receive him?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the count to Florine; "even if I am still here, show him
+in by all means.  Is not that your opinion?" asked M. de Montbron of
+Adrienne.
+
+"Quite so," answered the young girl; and a flash of indignation darted
+from her eyes, as she thought of Rodin's perfidy.
+
+"Oho! the old knave!" said M. de Montbron, "I always had my doubts of
+that crooked neck!"  Florine withdrew, leaving the count with her
+mistress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+LOVE.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville was transfigured.  For the first time her beauty
+shone forth in all its lustre.  Until now overshadowed by indifference,
+or darkened by grief, she appeared suddenly illumined by a brilliant ray
+of sunshine.  The slight irritation caused by Rodin's perfidy passed like
+an imperceptible shade from her brow.  What cared she now for falsehood
+and perfidy?  Had they not failed?  And, for the future, what human power
+could interpose between her and Djalma, so sure of each other?  Who would
+dare to cross the path of those two things, resolute and strong with the
+irresistible power of youth, love, and liberty?  Who would dare to follow
+them into that blazing sphere, whither they went, so beautiful and happy,
+to blend together in their inextinguishable love, protected by the proof-
+armor of their own happiness?  Hardly had Florine left the room, when
+Adrienne approached M. de Montbron with a rapid step.  She seemed to have
+become taller; and to watch her advancing, light, radiant, and
+triumphant, one might have fancied her a goddess walking upon clouds.
+
+"When shall I see him?" was her first word to M. de Montbron.
+
+"Well--say to-morrow; he must be prepared for so much happiness; in so
+ardent a nature, such sudden, unexpected joy might be terrible.
+
+Adrienne remained pensive for a moment, and then said rapidly: "To-
+morrow--yes--not before to-morrow.  I have a superstition of the heart."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You shall know.  HE LOVES ME--that word says all, contains all,
+comprehends all, is all--and yet I have a thousand questions to ask with
+regard to him--but I will ask none before to-morrow, because, by a
+mysterious fatality, to-morrow is with me a sacred anniversary.  It will
+be an age till then; but happily, I can wait.  Look here!"
+
+Beckoning M. de Montbron, she led him to the Indian Bacchus.  "How much
+it is like him!" said she to the count.
+
+"Indeed," exclaimed the latter, "it is strange!"
+
+"Strange?" returned Adrienne, with a smile of gentle pride; "strange,
+that a hero, a demi-god, an ideal of beauty, should resemble Djalma?"
+
+"How you love him!" said M. de Montbron, deeply touched, and almost
+dazzled by the felicity which beamed from the countenance of Adrienne.
+
+"I must have suffered a good deal, do you not think so?" said she, after
+a moment's silence.
+
+"If I had not made up my mind to come here to-day, almost in despair,
+what would have happened?"
+
+"I cannot tell; I should perhaps have died, for I am wounded mortally
+here"--she pressed her hand to her heart.  "But what might have been
+death to me, will now be life."
+
+"It was horrible," said the count, shuddering.  "Such a passion, buried
+in your own breast, proud as you are--"
+
+"Yes, proud--but not self-conceited.  When I learned his love for
+another, and that the impression which I fancied I had made on him at our
+first interview had been immediately effaced, I renounced all hope,
+without being able to renounce my love.  Instead of shunning his image, I
+surrounded myself with all that could remind me of him.  In default of
+happiness, there is a bitter pleasure in suffering through what we love."
+
+"I can now understand your Indian library."
+
+Instead of answering the count, Adrienne took from the stand one of the
+freshly-cut volumes, and, bringing it to M. de Montbron, said to him,
+with a smile and a celestial expression of joy and happiness: "I was
+wrong--I am vain.  Just read this--aloud, if you please.  I tell you that
+I can wait for to-morrow."  Presenting the book to the count, she pointed
+out one passage with the tip of her charming finger.  Then she sank down
+upon the couch, and, in an attitude of deep attention, with her body bent
+forward, her hands crossed upon the cushion, her chin resting upon her
+hands, her large eyes fixed with a sort of adoration on the Indian
+Bacchus, that was just opposite to her, she appeared by this impassioned
+contemplation to prepare herself to listen to M. de Montbron.
+
+The latter, much astonished, began to read, after again looking at
+Adrienne, who said to him, in her most coaxing voice, "Very slowly, I beg
+of you.
+
+M. de Montbron then read the following passage from the journal of a
+traveller in India: "`When I was at Bombay, in 1829, I constantly heard
+amongst the English there, of a young hero, the son of--'"
+
+The count having paused a second, by reason of the barbarous spelling of
+the name of Djalma's father, Adrienne immediately said to him, in her
+soft voice: "The son of Kadja-sing."
+
+"What a memory!" said the count, with a smile.  And he resumed: "`A young
+hero, the son of Kadja-sing, king of Mundi.  On his return from a distant
+and sanguinary expedition amongst the mountains against this Indian king,
+Colonel Drake was filled with enthusiasm for this son of Kadja-sing,
+known as Djalma.  Hardly beyond the age of childhood, this young prince
+has in the course of this implacable war given proofs of such chivalrous
+intrepidity, and of so noble a character, that his father has been
+surnamed the Father of the Generous.'"
+
+"That is a touching custom," said the count.  "To recompense the father,
+as it were, by giving him a surname in honor of his son, is a great idea.
+But how strange you should have met with this book!" added the count, in
+surprise.  "I can understand; there is matter here to inflame the coolest
+head."
+
+"Oh! you will see, you will see," said Adrienne.
+
+The count continued to read: "`Colonel Drake, one of the bravest and best
+officers of the English army, said yesterday, in my presence, that having
+been dangerously wounded, and taken prisoner by Prince Djalma, after an
+energetic resistance, he had been conveyed to the camp established in the
+village of--"
+
+Here there was the same hesitation on the part of the count, on seeing a
+still more barbarous name than the first; so, not wishing to try the
+adventure, he paused, and said to Adrienne, "Now really, I give this up."
+
+"And yet it is so easy!" replied Adrienne; and she pronounced with
+inexpressible softness, a name in itself soft, "The village of
+Shumshabad."
+
+"You appear to have an infallible process for remembering geographical
+names," said the count, continuing: "`Once arrived at the camp, Colonel
+Drake received the kindest hospitality, and Prince Djalma treated him
+with the respect of a son.  It was there that the colonel became
+acquainted with some facts, which carried to the highest pitch his
+enthusiasm for prince Djalma.  I heard him relate the two following.
+
+"`In one of the battles, the prince was accompanied by a young Indian of
+about twelve years of age, whom he loved tenderly, and who served him as
+a page, following him on horseback to carry his spare weapons.  This
+child was idolized by its mother; just as they set out on the expedition,
+she had entrusted her son to Prince Djalma's care, saying, with a
+stoicism worthy of antiquity, "Let him be your brother."  "He shall be my
+brother," had replied the prince.  In the height of a disastrous defeat,
+the child is severely wounded, and his horse killed; the prince, at peril
+of his life, notwithstanding the perception of a forced retreat,
+disengages him, and places him on the croup of his own horse; they are
+pursued; a musket-ball strikes their steed, who is just able to reach a
+jungle, in the midst of which, after some vain efforts, he falls
+exhausted.  The child is unable to walk, but the prince carries him in
+his arms, and hides with him in the thickest part of the jungle.  The
+English arrive, and begin their search; but the two victims escape.
+After a night and a day of marches, counter-marches, stratagems,
+fatigues, unheard-of perils, the prince, still, carrying the child, one
+of whose legs is broken, arrives at his father's camp, and says, with the
+utmost simplicity, "I had promised his mother that I would act a
+brother's part by him--and I have done so."'
+
+"That is admirable!" cried the count.
+
+"Go on--pray go on!" said Adrienne, drying a tear, without removing her
+eyes from the bas-relief, which she continued to contemplate with growing
+adoration.
+
+The count continued: "`Another time, Prince Djalma, followed by two black
+slaves, went, before sunrise, to a very wild spot, to seize a couple of
+tiger cubs only a few days old.  The den had been previously discovered.
+The two old tigers were still abroad.  One of the blacks entered the den
+by a narrow aperture; the other, aided by Djalma, cut down a tolerably
+large tree, to prepare a trap for one of the old tigers.  On the side of
+the aperture, the cavern was exceedingly steep.  The prince mounted to
+the top of it with agility, to set his trap, with the aid of the other
+black.  Suddenly, a dreadful roar was heard; and, in a few bounds, the
+tigress, returning from the chase, reached the opening of the den.  The
+black who was laying the trap with the prince had his skull fractured by
+her bite; the tree, falling across the entrance, prevented the female
+from penetrating the cavern, and at the same time stopped the exit of the
+black who had seized the cubs.
+
+"`About twenty feet higher, upon a ledge of rock, the prince lay flat on
+the ground, looking down upon this frightful spectacle.  The tigress,
+rendered furious by the cries of her little ones, gnawed the hands of the
+black, who, from the interior of the den, strove to support the trunk of
+the tree, his only rampart, whilst he uttered the most lamentable
+outcries.'
+
+"It is horrible!" said the count.
+
+"Oh! go on! pray go on!" exclaimed Adrienne, with excitement; "you will
+see what can be achieved by the heroism of goodness."
+
+The count pursued: "`Suddenly the prince seized his dagger between his
+teeth, fastened his sash to a block of stone, took his axe in one hand,
+and with the other slid down this substitute for a rope; falling a few
+steps from the wild beast, he sprang upon her, and, swift as lightning,
+dealt her two mortal strokes, just as the black, losing his strength, was
+about to drop the trunk of the tree, sure to have been torn to pieces.'"
+
+"And you are astonished at his resemblance with the demi-god, to whom
+fable itself ascribes no more generous devotion!" cried the young lady,
+with still increasing excitement.
+
+"I am astonished no longer,I only admire," said the count, in a voice of
+emotion; "and, at these two noble instances of heroism, my heart beats
+with enthusiasm, as if I were still twenty."
+
+"And the, noble heart of this traveller beat like yours at the recital,"
+said Adrienne; "you will see."
+
+"`What renders so admirable the intrepidity of the prince, is, that,
+according to the principle of Indian castes, the life of a slave is of no
+importance; thus a king's son, risking his life for the safety of a poor
+creature, so generally despised, obeyed an heroic and truly Christian
+instinct of charity, until then unheard of in this country."
+
+"`Two such actions," said Colonel Drake, with good reason, "are
+sufficient to paint the man;" it is with a feeling of profound respect
+and admiration, therefore, that I, an obscure traveller, have written the
+name of Prince Djalma in my book; and at the same time, I have
+experienced a kind of sorrow, when I have asked myself what would be the
+future fate of this prince, buried in the depths of a savage country,
+always devastated by war.  However humble may be the homage that I pay to
+this character, worthy of the heroic age, his name will at least be
+repeated with generous enthusiasm by all those who have hearts that beat
+in sympathy with what is great and noble.'"
+
+"And just now, when I read those simple and touching lines," resumed
+Adrienne, I could not forbear pressing my lips to the name of the
+traveller."
+
+"Yes; he is such as I thought him," cried the count, with still more
+emotion, as he returned the book to Adrienne, who rose, with a grave and
+touching air, and said to him:  "It was thus I wished you to know him,
+that you might understand my adoration; for this courage, this heroic
+goodness, I had guessed beforehand, when I was an involuntary listener to
+his conversation.  From that moment, I knew him to be generous as
+intrepid, tender and sensitive as energetic and resolute; and when I saw
+him so marvellously beautiful--so different, in the noble character of
+his countenance, and even in the style of his garments, from all I had
+hitherto met with--when I saw the impression that I made upon him, and
+which I perhaps felt still more violently--I knew that my whole life was
+bound up with his love."
+
+"And now, what are your plans?"
+
+"Divine, radiant as my heart.  When he learns his happiness, I wish that
+Djalma should feel dazzled as I do, so as to prevent my gazing on my sun;
+for I repeat, that until tomorrow will be a century to me.  Yes, it is
+strange!  I should have thought that after such a discovery, I should
+feel the want of being left alone, plunged in an ocean of delicious
+dreams.  But no! from this time till to-morrow--I dread solitude--I feel
+a kind of feverish impatience--uneasy--ardent--Oh! where is the
+beneficent fairy, that, touching me with her wand, will lull me into
+slumber till to-morrow!"
+
+"I will be that beneficent fairy," said the count, smiling.
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, I."
+
+"And how so?"
+
+"The power of my wand is this: I will relieve you from a portion of your
+thoughts by making them materially visible."
+
+"Pray explain yourself."
+
+"And my plan will have another advantage for you.  Listen to me; you are
+so happy now that you can hear anything.  Your odious aunt, and her
+equally odious friends, are spreading the report that your residence with
+Dr. Baleinier--"
+
+"Was rendered necessary by the derangement of my mind," said Adrienne,
+with a smile; "I expected that."
+
+"It is stupid enough; but, as your resolution to live alone makes many
+envious of you, and many hostile, you must feel that there will be no
+want of persons ready to believe the most absurd calumny possible."
+
+"I hope as much.  To pass for mad in the eyes of fools is very
+flattering."
+
+"Yes; but to prove to fools that they are fools, and that in the face of
+all Paris, is much more amusing.  Now, people begin to talk of your
+absence; you have given up your daily rides; for some time my niece has
+appeared alone in our box at the Opera; you wish to kill the time till
+to-morrow--well! here is an excellent opportunity.  It is two o'clock; at
+halfpast three, my niece will come in the carriage; the weather is
+splendid; there is sure to be a crowd in the Bois de Boulogne.  You can
+take a delightful ride, and be seen by everybody.  Then, as the air and
+movement will have calmed your fever of happiness, I will commence my
+magic this evening, and take you to India."
+
+"To India?"
+
+"Into the midst of one of those wild forests, in which roar the lion, the
+panther, and the tiger.  We will have this heroic combat, which so moved
+you just now, under our own eyes, in all its terrible reality."
+
+"Really, my dear count, you must be joking."
+
+"Not at all; I promise to show you real wild beasts, formidable tenants
+of the country of our demigod--growling tigers--roaring lions--do you not
+think that will be better than books?"
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Come! I must give you the secret of my supernatural power.  On returning
+from your ride, you shall dine with my niece, and we will go together to
+a very curious spectacle now exhibiting at the Porte-Saint-Martin
+Theatre.  A most extraordinary lion-tamer there shows you a number of
+wild beasts, in a state of nature, in the midst of a forest (here only
+commences the illusion), and has fierce combats with them all--tigers,
+lions, and panthers.  All Paris is crowding to these representations, and
+all Paris will see you there, more charming than ever."
+
+"I accept your offer," said Adrienne, with childish delight.  "Yes, you
+are right.  I feel a strange pleasure in beholding these ferocious
+monsters, who will remind me of those that my demi-god so heroically
+overcame.  I accept also, because, for the first time in my life, I am
+anxious to be admired --even by everybody.  I accept finally because--"
+Here Mdlle. de Cardoville was interrupted by a low knock at the door, and
+by the entrance of Florine, who announced M. Rodin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE EXECUTION.
+
+Rodin entered.  A rapid glance at Mdlle. de Cardoville and M. de Montbron
+told him at once that he was in a dilemma.  In fact, nothing could be
+less encouraging than the faces of Adrienne and the count.  The latter,
+when he disliked people, exhibited his antipathy, as we have already
+said, by an impertinently aggressive manner, which had before now
+occasioned a good number of duels.  At sight of Rodin, his countenance at
+once assumed a harsh and insolent expression; resting his elbow on the
+chimney-piece, and conversing with Adrienne, he looked disdainfully over
+his shoulder, without taking the least notice of the Jesuit's low bow.
+On the other hand, at sight of this man, Mdlle. de Cardoville almost felt
+surprise, that she should experience no movement of anger or hatred.  The
+brilliant flame which burned in her heart, purified it from every
+vindictive sentiment.  She smiled, on the contrary; for, glancing with
+gentle pride at the Indian Bacchus, and then at herself, she asked
+herself what two beings, so young, and fair, and free, and loving, could
+have to fear from this old, sordid man, with his ignoble and base
+countenance, now advancing towards her with the writhing of a reptile.
+In a word, far from feeling anger or aversion with regard to Rodin, the
+young lady seemed full of the spirit of mocking gayety, and her large
+eyes, already lighted up with happiness, now sparkled with irony and
+mischief.  Rodin felt himself ill at ease.  People of his stamp greatly
+prefer violent to mocking enemies.  They can encounter bursts of rage--
+sometimes by falling on their knees, weeping, groaning, and beating their
+breasts--sometimes by turning on their adversary, armed and implacable.
+But they are easily disconcerted by biting raillery; and thus it was with
+Rodin.  He saw that between Adrienne de Cardoville and M. de Montbron, he
+was about to be placed in what is vulgarly termed a "regular fix."
+
+The count opened the fire; still glancing over his shoulder, he said to
+Rodin: `Ah! you are here, my benevolent gentleman!"
+
+"Pray, sir, draw a little nearer," said Adrienne, with a mocking smile.
+"Best of friends and model of philosophers--as well as declared enemy of
+all fraud and falsehood--I have to pay you a thousand compliments."
+
+"I accent anything from you, my dear young lady, even though undeserved,"
+said the Jesuit, trying to smile, and thus exposing his vile yellow
+teeth; "but may I be informed how I have earned these compliments?"
+
+"Your penetration, sir, which is rare--" replied Adrienne.
+
+"And your veracity, sir," said the count, "which is perhaps no less
+rare--"
+
+"In what have I exhibited my penetration, my dear young lady?" said
+Rodin, coldly.  "In what my veracity?" added he, turning towards M. de
+Montbron.
+
+"In what, sir?" said Adrienne.  "Why, you have guessed a secret
+surrounded by difficulties and mystery.  In a word, you have known how to
+read the depths of a woman's heart."
+
+"I, my dear young lady?"
+
+"You, sir! rejoice at it, for your penetration has had the most fortunate
+results."
+
+"And your veracity has worked wonders," added the count.
+
+"It is pleasant to do good, even without knowing it," said Rodin, still
+acting on the defensive, and throwing side glances by turns on the count
+and Adrienne; "but will you inform me what it is that deserves this
+praise--"
+
+"Gratitude obliges me to inform you of it," said Adrienne, maliciously;
+"you have discovered, and told Prince Djalma, that I was passionately in
+love.  Well! I admire your penetration; it was true."
+
+"You have also discovered, and told this lady, that Prince Djalma was
+passionately in love," resumed the count.  "Well! I admire your
+penetration, my dear sir; it was true."
+
+Rodin looked confused, and at a loss for a reply.
+
+"The person that I loved so passionately," said Adrienne, "was the
+prince."
+
+"The person that the prince loved so passionately," resumed the count,
+"was this lady."
+
+These revelations, so sudden and alarming, almost stunned Rodin; he
+remained mute and terrified, thinking of the future.
+
+"Do you understand now, sir, the extent of our gratitude towards you?"
+resumed Adrienne, in a still more mocking tone.  "Thanks to your
+sagacity, thanks to the touching interest you take in us, the prince and
+I are indebted to you for the knowledge of our mutual sentiments."
+
+The Jesuit had now gradually recovered his presence of mind, and his
+apparent calmness greatly irritated M. de Montbron, who, but for
+Adrienne's presence, would have assumed another tone than jests.
+
+"There is some mistake," said Rodin, "in what you have done me the honor
+to tell me, my dear young lady.  I have never in my life spoken of the
+sentiments, however worthy and respectable, that you may entertain for
+Prince Djalma--"
+
+"That is true," replied Adrienne; "with scrupulous and exquisite
+discretion, whenever you spoke to me of the deep love felt by Prince
+Djalma, you carried your reserve and delicacy so far as to inform me that
+it was not I whom he loved."
+
+"And the same scruple induced you to tell the prince that Mdlle. de
+Cardoville loved some one passionately--but that he was not the person,"
+added the count.
+
+"Sir," answered Rodin, dryly, "I need hardly tell you that I have no
+desire to mix myself up with amorous intrigues."
+
+"Come! this is either pride or modesty," said the count, insolently.
+"For your own interest, pray do not advance such things; for, if we took
+you at your word, and it became known, it might injure some of the nice
+little trades that you carry on."
+
+"There is one at least," said Rodin, drawing himself up as proudly as
+M. de Montbron, "whose rude apprenticeship I shall owe to you.  It is the
+wearisome one of listening to your discourse."
+
+"I tell you what, my good sir!" replied the count, disdainfully: "you
+force me to remind you that there are more ways than one of chastising
+impudent rogues."
+
+"My dear count!" said Adrienne to M. de Montbron, with an air of
+reproach.
+
+With perfect coolness, Rodin replied: "I do not exactly see, sir, first,
+what courage is shown by threatening a poor old man like myself, and,
+secondly--"
+
+"M. Rodin," said the count, interrupting the Jesuit, "first, a poor old
+man like you, who does evil under the shelter of the age he dishonors,
+is both cowardly and wicked, and deserves a double chastisement;
+secondly, with regard to this question of age, I am not aware that
+gamekeepers and policemen bow down respectfully to the gray coats of old
+wolves, and the gray hairs of old thieves.  What do you think, my good
+sir?"
+
+Still impassible, Rodin raised his flabby eyelids, fixed for hardly a
+second his little reptile eye upon the count, and darted at him one of
+his rapid, cold, and piercing glances--and then the livid eyelid again
+covered the dull eye of that corpse-like face.
+
+"Not having the disadvantage of being an old wolf, and still less an old
+thief," said Rodin, quietly, "you will permit me, sir, to take no account
+of the pursuit of hunters and police.  As for the reproaches made me, I
+have a very simple method of answering--I do not say of justifying
+myself--I never justify myself--"
+
+"You don't say!" said the count.
+
+"Never," resumed Rodin coolly; "my acts are sufficient for that.  I will
+then simply answer that seeing the deep, violent, almost fearful
+impression made by this lady on the prince--"
+
+"Let this assurance which you give me of the prince's love," said
+Adrienne interrupting Rodin with an enchanting smile, "absolve you of all
+the evil you wished to do me.  The sight of our happiness be your only
+punishment!"
+
+"It may be that I need neither absolution nor punishment, for, as I have
+already had the honor to observe to the count, my dear young lady, the
+future will justify my acts.  Yes; it was my duty to tell the prince that
+you loved another than himself, and to tell you that he loved another
+than yourself--all in your mutual interest.  That my attachment for you
+may have misled me, is possible--I am not infallible; but, after my past
+conduct towards you, my dear young lady, I have, perhaps, some right to
+be astonished at seeing myself thus treated.  This is not a complaint.
+If I never justify myself, I never complain either."
+
+"Now really, there is something heroic in all this, my good sir," said
+the count.  "You do not condescend to complain or justify yourself, with
+regard to the evil you have done."
+
+"The evil I have done?" said Rodin, looking fixedly at the count.  "Are
+we playing at enigmas?"
+
+"What, sir!" cried the count, with indignation: "is it nothing, by your
+falsehoods, to have plunged the prince into so frightful a state of
+despair, that he has twice attempted his life?  Is it nothing, by similar
+falsehoods, to have induced this lady to believe so cruel and complete an
+error, that but for the resolution I have to-day taken, it might have led
+to the most fatal consequences?"
+
+"And will you do me the honor to tell me, sir, what interest I could have
+in all this despair and error, admitting even that I had wished to
+produce them?"
+
+"Some great interest no doubt," said the count, bluntly; "the more
+dangerous that it is concealed.  You are one of those, I see, to whom the
+woes of others are pleasure and profit."
+
+"That is really too much, sir," said Rodin, bowing; "I should be quite
+contented with the profit."
+
+"Your impudent coolness will not deceive me; this is a serious matter,"
+said the count.  "It is impossible that so perfidious a piece of roguery
+can be an isolated act.  Who knows but this may still be one of the
+fruits of Madame de Saint-Dizier's hatred for Mdlle. de Cardoville?"
+
+Adrienne had listened to the preceding discussion with deep attention.
+Suddenly she started, as if struck by a sudden revelation.
+
+After a moment's silence, she said to Rodin, without anger, without
+bitterness, but with an expression of gentle and serene calmness: "We are
+told, sir, that happy love works miracles.  I should be tempted to
+believe it; for, after some minutes' reflection, and when I recall
+certain circumstances, your conduct appears to me in quite a new light."
+
+"And what may this new perspective be, my dear young lady?"
+
+"That you may see it from my point of view, sir, allow me to remind you
+of a few facts.  That sewing-girl was generously devoted to me; she had
+given me unquestionable proofs of her attachment.  Her mind was equal to
+her noble heart; but she had an invincible dislike to you.  All on a
+sudden she disappears mysteriously from my house, and you do your best to
+cast upon her odious suspicions.  M. de Montbron has a paternal affection
+for me; but, as I must confess, little sympathy for you; and you have
+always tried to produce a coldness between us.  Finally, Prince Djalma
+has a deep affection for me, and you employ the most perfidious treachery
+to kill that sentiment within him.  For what end do you act thus?  I do
+not know; but certainly with some hostile design."
+
+"It appears to me, madame," said Rodin, severely, "that you have
+forgotten services performed."
+
+"I do not deny, sir, that you took me from the house of Dr. Baleinier;
+but, a few days sooner or later, I must infallibly have been released by
+M. de Montbron."
+
+"You are right, my dear child," said the count; "it may be that your
+enemies wished to claim the merit of what must necessarily have happened
+through the exertions of your friends."
+
+"You are drowning, and I save you--it is all a mistake to feel grateful,"
+said Rodin, bitterly; "some one else would no doubt have saved you a
+little later."
+
+"The comparison is wanting in exactness," said Adrienne, with a smile; "a
+lunatic asylum is not a river, and though, from what I see, I think you
+quite capable of diving, you have had no occasion to swim on this
+occasion.  You merely opened a door for me, which would have opened of
+itself a little later."
+
+"Very good, my dear child!" said the count, laughing heartily at
+Adrienne's reply.
+
+"I know, sir, that your care did not extend to me only.  The daughters of
+Marshal Simon were brought back by you; but we may imagine that the claim
+of the Duke de Ligny to the possession of his daughters would not have
+been in vain.  You returned to an old soldier his imperial cross, which
+he held to be a sacred relic; it is a very touching incident.  Finally,
+you unmasked the Abbe d'Aigrigny and Dr. Baleinier: but I had already
+made up my mind to unmask then.  However, all this proves that you are a
+very clever man--"
+
+"Oh, madame!" said Rodin, humbly.
+
+"Full of resources and invention--"
+
+"Oh, madame!"
+
+"It is not my fault if, in our long interview at Dr. Baleinier's, you
+betrayed that superiority of mind which struck me so forcibly, and which
+seems to embarrass you so much at present.  What would you have, sir?--
+great minds like yours find it difficult to maintain their incognito.
+Yet, as by different ways--oh! very different," added the young lady,
+maliciously, "we are tending to the same end (still keeping in view our
+conversation at Dr. Baleinier's), I wish, for the sake of our future
+communion, as you call it, to give you a piece of advice, and speak
+frankly to you."
+
+Rodin had listened to Mdlle. de Cardoville with apparent impassibility,
+holding his hat under his arm, and twirling his thumbs, whilst his hands
+were crossed upon his waistcoat.  The only external mark of the intense
+agitation into which he was thrown by the calm words of Adrienne, was
+that the livid eyelids of the Jesuit, which had been hypocritically
+closed, became gradually red, as the blood flowed into them.
+Nevertheless, he answered Mdlle. de Cardoville in a firm voice, and with
+a low bow: "Good advice and frankness are always excellent things."
+
+"You see, sir," resumed Adrienne, with some excitement, "happy love
+bestows such penetration, such energy, such courage, as enables one to
+laugh at perils, to detect stratagems, and to defy hatred.  Believe me,
+the divine light which surrounds two loving hearts will be sufficient to
+disperse all darkness, and reveal every snare.  You see, in India--excuse
+my weakness, but I like to talk of India," added the young girl, with a
+smile of indescribable grace and meaning--"in India, when travellers
+sleep at night, they kindle great fires round their ajoupa (excuse this
+touch of local coloring), and far as extends the luminous circle, it puts
+to flight by its mere brilliancy, all the impure and venomous reptiles
+that shun the day and live only in darkness."
+
+"The meaning of this comparison has quite escaped me," said Rodin,
+continuing to twirl his thumbs, and half raising his eyelids, which were
+getting redder and redder.
+
+"I will speak more plainly," said Adrienne, with a smile.  "Suppose, sir,
+that the last is a service which you have rendered me and the prince--for
+you only proceed by way of services--that, I acknowledge, is novel and
+ingenious."
+
+"Bravo, my dear child!" said the count, joyfully.  "The execution will be
+complete."
+
+"Oh! this is meant for an execution?" said Rodin, still impassible.
+
+"No, sir," answered Adrienne, with a smile; "it is a simple conversation
+between a poor young girl and an old philosopher, the friend of humanity.
+Suppose, then, that these frequent services that you have rendered to me
+and mine have suddenly opened my eyes; or, rather," added the young girl,
+in a serious tone, "suppose that heaven, who gives to the mother the
+instinct to defend her child, has given me, along with happiness, the
+instinct to preserve my happiness, and that a vague presentiment, by
+throwing light on a thousand circumstances until now obscure, has
+suddenly revealed to me that, instead of being the friend, you are
+perhaps, the most dangerous enemy of myself and family."
+
+"So we pass from the execution to suppositions," said Rodin, still
+immovable.
+
+"And from suppositions, sir, if you must have it, to certainty," resumed
+Adrienne, with dignified firmness; "yes, now I believe that I was for
+awhile your dupe, and I tell you, without hate, without anger, but with
+regret--that it is painful to see a man of your sense and intelligence
+stoop to such machinations, and, after having recourse to so many
+diabolical manoeuvres, finish at last by being ridiculous; for, believe
+me, there is nothing more ridiculous for a man like you, than to be
+vanquished by a young girl, who has no weapon, no defence, no instructor,
+but her love.  In a word, sir, I look upon you from to-day as an
+implacable and dangerous enemy; for I half perceive your aim, without
+guessing by what means you will seek to accomplish it, No doubt your
+future means will be worthy of the past.  Well! in spite of all this, I
+do not fear you.  From tomorrow, my family will be informed of
+everything, and an active, intelligent, resolute union will keep us all
+upon our guard, for it doubtless concerns this enormous inheritance, of
+which they wish to deprive us.  Now, what connection can there be between
+the wrongs I reproach you with and the pecuniary end proposed?  I do not
+at all know--but you have told me yourself that our enemies are so
+dangerously skillful, and their craft so far-reaching, that we must
+expect all, be prepared for all.  I will remember the lesson.  I have
+promised you frankness, sir, and now I suppose you have it."
+
+"It would be an imprudent frankness if I were your enemy," said Rodin,
+still impassible; "but you also promised me some advice, my dear young
+lady."
+
+"My advice will be short; do not attempt to continue the struggle,
+because, you see, there is something stronger than you and yours--it is a
+woman's resolve, defending her happiness."
+
+Adrienne pronounced these last words with so sovereign a confidence; her
+beautiful countenance shone, as is it were, with such intrepid joy, that
+Rodin, notwithstanding his phlegmatic audacity, was for a moment
+frightened.  Yet he did not appear in the least disconcerted; and, after
+a moment's silence, he resumed, with an air of almost contemptuous
+compassion: "My dear young lady, we may perhaps never meet again; it is
+probable.  Only remember one thing, which I now repeat to you: I never
+justify myself.  The future will provide for that.  Notwithstanding
+which, my dear young lady, I am your humble servant;" and he made her a
+low bow.
+
+"Count, I beg to salute you most respectfully," he added, bowing still
+more humbly to M. de Montbron; and he went out.
+
+Hardly had Rodin left the room than Adrienne ran to her desk, and writing
+a few hasty lines, sealed the note, and said to M. de Montbron : "I shall
+not see the prince before to-morrow--as much from superstition of the
+heart as because it is necessary for my plans that this interview should
+be attended with some little solemnity.  You shall know all; but I write
+to him on the instant, for, with an enemy like M. Rodin, one must be
+prepared for all."
+
+"You are right, my dear child; quick! the letter."  Adrienne gave it to
+him.
+
+"I tell him enough," said she, "to calm his grief; and not enough to
+deprive me of the delicious happiness of the surprise I reserve for to-
+morrow."
+
+"All this has as much sense as heart in it: I will hasten to the prince's
+abode, to deliver your letter.  I shall not see him, for I could not
+answer for myself.  But come! our proposed drive, our evening's
+amusement, are still to hold good."
+
+"Certainly.  I have more need than ever to divert my thoughts till to-
+morrow.  I feel, too, that the fresh air will do me good, for this
+interview with M. Rodin has warmed me a little."
+
+"The old wretch! but we will talk further of him.  I will hasten to the
+prince's and return with Madame de Morinval, to fetch you to the Champs-
+Elysees."
+
+The Count de Montbron withdrew precipitately, as joyful at his departure
+as he had been sad on his arrival.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XT.
+
+THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES
+
+It was about two hours after the interview of Rodin with Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.  Numerous loungers, attracted to the Champs-Elysees by the
+serenity of a fine spring day (it was towards the end of the month of
+March) stopped to admire a very handsome equipage.  A bright-blue open
+carriage, with white-and-blue wheels, drawn by four superb horses, of
+cream color, with black manes, and harness glittering with silver
+ornaments, mounted by two boy postilions of equal size, with black velvet
+caps, light-blue cassimere jackets with white collars, buckskin breeches,
+and top-boots; two tall, powdered footmen, also in light-blue livery,
+with white collars and facings, being seated in the rumble behind.
+
+No equipage could have been turned out in better style.  The horses, full
+of blood, spirit, and vigor, were skillfully managed by the postilions,
+and stepped with singular regularity, gracefully keeping time in their
+movements, champing their bits covered with foam, and ever and anon
+shaking their cockades of blue and white silk, with long floating ends,
+and a bright rose blooming in the midst.
+
+A man on horseback, dressed with elegant simplicity, keeping at the other
+side of the avenue, contemplated with proud satisfaction this equipage
+which he had, as it were, created.  It was M. de Bonneville--Adrienne's
+equerry, as M. de Montbron called him--for the carriage belonged to that
+young lady.  A change had taken place in the plan for this magic day's
+amusement.  M. de Montbron had not been able to deliver Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's note to Prince Djalma.  Faringhea had told him that the
+prince had gone that morning into the country with Marshal Simon, and
+would not be back before evening.  The letter should be given him on his
+arrival.  Completely satisfied as to Djalma, knowing that he could find
+these few lines, which, without informing him of the happiness that
+awaited him, would at least give him some idea of it, Adrienne had
+followed the advice of M. de Montbron, and gone to the drive in her own
+carriage, to show all the world that she had quite made up her mind, in
+spite of the perfidious reports circulated by the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier, to keep to her resolution of living by herself in her own way.
+Adrienne wore a small white bonnet, with a fall of blonde, which well
+became her rosy face and golden hair; her high dress of garnet-colored
+velvet was almost hidden beneath a large green cashmere shawl.  The young
+Marchioness de Morinval, who was also very pretty and elegant, was seated
+at her right.  M. de Montbron occupied the front seat of the carriage.
+
+Those who know the Parisian world, or rather, that imperceptible fraction
+of the world of Paris which goes every fine, sunny day to the Champs-
+Elysees, to see and be seen, will understand that the presence of Mdlle.
+de Cardoville on that brilliant promenade was an extraordinary and
+interesting event.
+
+The world (as it is called) could hardly believe its eyes, on seeing this
+lady of eighteen, possessed of princely wealth, and belonging to the
+highest nobility, thus prove to every one, by this appearance in public,
+that she was living completely free and independent, contrary to all
+custom and received notions of propriety.  This kind of emancipation
+appeared something monstrous, and people were almost astonished that the
+graceful and dignified bearing of the young lady should belie so
+completely the calumnies circulated by Madame de Saint-Dizier and her
+friends, with regard to the pretended madness of her niece.  Many beaux,
+profiting by their acquaintance with the Marchioness de Morinval or M. de
+Montbron, came by turns to pay their respects, and rode for a few minutes
+by the side of the carriage, so as to have an opportunity of seeing,
+admiring, and perhaps hearing, Mdlle. de Cardoville; she surpassed their
+expectations, by talking with her usual grace and spirit.  Then surprise
+and enthusiasm knew no bounds.  What had at first been blamed as an
+almost insane caprice, was now voted a charming originality, and it only
+depended on Mdlle. de Cardoville herself, to be declared from that day
+the queen of elegance and fashion.  The young lady understood very well
+the impression she had made; she felt proud and happy, for she thought of
+Djalma; when she compared him to all these men of fashion, her happiness
+was the more increased.  And, verily, these young men, most of whom had
+never quitted Paris, or had ventured at most as far as Naples or Baden,
+looked insignificant enough by the side of Djalma, who, at his age, had
+so many times commanded and combated in bloody wars, and whose reputation
+far courage and generosity, mentioned by travellers with admiration, had
+already reached from India to Paris.  And then, how could these charming
+exquisites, with their small hats, their scanty frock-coats, and their
+huge cravats, compare with the Indian prince, whose graceful and manly
+beauty was still heightened by the splendor of a costume, at once so rich
+and so picturesque?
+
+On this happy day, all was joy and love for Adrienne.  The sun, setting
+in a splendidly serene sky, flooded the promenade with its golden light.
+The air was warm.  Carriages and horsemen passed and repassed in rapid
+succession; a light breeze played with the scarfs of the women, and the
+plumes in their bonnets; all around was noise, movement, sunshine.
+Adrienne, leaning back in her carriage, amused herself with watching this
+busy scene, sparkling with Parisian luxury; but, in the vortex of this
+brilliant chaos, she saw in thought the mild, melancholy countenance of
+Djalma--when suddenly something fell into her lap, and she started.  It
+was a bunch of half-faded violets.  At the same instant she heard a
+child's voice following the carriage, and saying: "For the love of
+heaven, my good lady, one little sou!"  Adrienne turned her head, and saw
+a poor little girl, pale and wan, with mild, sorrowful features, scarcely
+covered with rags, holding out her hand, and raising her eyes in
+supplication.  Though the striking contrast of extreme misery, side by
+side with extreme luxury, is so common, that it no longer excites
+attention, Adrienne was deeply affected by it.  She thought of Mother
+Bunch, now, perhaps, the victim of frightful destitution.
+
+"Ah! at least," thought the young lady, "let not this day be one of
+happiness for me alone!"
+
+She leaned from the carriage-window, and said to the poor child: "Have
+you a mother, my dear?"
+
+"No, my lady, I have neither father nor mother."
+
+"Who takes care of you?"
+
+"No one, my lady.  They give me nosegays to sell, and I must bring home
+money--or they beat me."
+
+"Poor little thing!"
+
+"A sou, my good lady--a sou, for the love of heaven!" said the child,
+continuing to follow the carriage, which was then moving slowly.
+
+"My dear count," said Adrienne, smiling, and addressing M. de Montbron,
+"you are, unfortunately, no novice at an elopement.  Please to stretch
+forth your arms, take up that child with both hands, and lift her into
+the carriage.  We can hide her between Lady de Morinval and myself; and
+we can drive away before any one perceives this audacious abduction."
+
+"What!" said the count, in surprise.  "You wish--"
+
+"Yes; I beg you to do it."
+
+"What a folly!"
+
+"Yesterday, you might, perhaps, have treated this caprice as a folly; but
+to-day," said Adrienne, laying great stress upon the word, and glancing
+at M. de Montbron with a significant air, "to-day, you should understand
+that it is almost a duty."
+
+"Yes, I understand you, good and noble heart!" said the count, with
+emotion; while Lady de Morinval, who knew nothing of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's love for Djalma, looked with as much surprise as curiosity
+at the count and the young lady.
+
+M. de Montbron, leaning from the carriage, stretched out his arms towards
+the child, and said to her: "Give me your hands, little girl."
+
+Though much astonished, the child obeyed mechanically, and held out both
+her little arms; then the count took her by the wrists, and lifted her
+lightly from the ground, which he did the more easily, as the carnage was
+very low, and its progress by no means rapid.  More stupefied than
+frightened, the child said not a word.  Adrienne and Lady de Morinval
+made room for her to crouch down between them, and the little girl was
+soon hidden beneath the shawls of the two young women.  All this was
+executed so quickly, that it was hardly perceived by a few persons
+passing in the side-avenues.
+
+"Now, my dear count," said Adrienne, radiant with pleasure, "let us make
+off at once with our prey."
+
+M. de Montbron half rose, and called to the postilions.  "Home!" and the
+four horses started at once into a rapid and regular trot.
+
+"This day of happiness now seems consecrated, and my luxury is excused,"
+thought Adrienne; "till I can again meet with that poor Mother Bunch, and
+from this day I will make every exertion to find her out, her place will
+at least not be quite empty."
+
+There are often strange coincidences in life.  At the moment when this
+thought of the hunchback crossed the mind of Adrienne, a crowd had
+collected in one of the side-avenues, and other persons soon ran to join
+the group.
+
+"Look, uncle!" said Lady de Morinval; "how many people are assembled
+yonder.  What can it be?  Shall we stop, and send to inquire?"
+
+"I am sorry, my dear, but your curiosity cannot be satisfied," said the
+count, drawing out his watch; "it will soon be six o'clock, and the
+exhibition of the wild beasts begin at eight.  We shall only just have
+time to go home and dine.  Is not that your opinion, my dear child?" said
+he to Adrienne.
+
+"And yours, Julia?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville to the marchioness.
+
+"Oh, certainly!" answered her friend.
+
+"I am the less inclined to delay," resumed the count, "as when I have
+taken you to the Porte-Saint-Martin, I shall be obliged to go for half-
+an-hour to my club, to ballot for Lord Campbell, whom I propose."
+
+"Then, Adrienne and I will be left alone at the play, uncle?"
+
+"Your husband will go with you, I suppose."
+
+"True, dear uncle; but do not quite leave us, because of that."
+
+"Be sure I shall not: for I am curious as you are to see these terrible
+animals, and the famous Morok, the incomparable lion-tamer."
+
+A few minutes after, Mdlle. de Cardoville's carriage had left the Champs-
+Elysees, carrying with it the little girl, and directing its course
+towards the Rue d'Anjou.  As the brilliant equipage disappeared from the
+scene, the crowd, of which we before have spoken, greatly increased about
+one of the large trees in the Champs-Elysees, and expressions of pity
+were heard here and there amongst the groups.  A lounger approached a
+young man on the skirts of the crowd, and said to him: "What is the
+matter, sir?"
+
+"I hear it is a poor young girl, a hunchback, that has fallen from
+exhaustion."
+
+"A hunchback! is that all?  There will always be enough hunchbacks," said
+the lounger, brutally, with a coarse laugh.
+
+"Hunchback or not, if she dies of hunger," answered the young man,
+scarcely able to restrain his indignation, "it will be no less sad--and
+there is really nothing to laugh at, sir."
+
+"Die of hunger! pooh!" said the lounger, shrugging his shoulders.  "It is
+only lazy scoundrels, that will not work, who die of hunger.  And it
+serves them right."
+
+"I wager, sir, there is one death you will never die of," cried the young
+man, incensed at the cruel insolence of the lounger.
+
+"What do you mean?" answered the other, haughtily.
+
+"I mean, sir, that your heart is not likely to kill you."
+
+"Sir!" cried the lounger in an angry tone.
+
+"Well! what, sir?" replied the young man, looking full in his face.
+
+"Nothing," said the lounger, turning abruptly on his heel, and grumbling
+as he sauntered towards an orange-colored cabriolet, on which was
+emblazoned an enormous coat-of-arms, surmounted by a baron's crest.  A
+servant in green livery, ridiculously laced with gold, was standing
+beside the horse, and did not perceive his master.
+
+"Are you catching flies, fool?" said the latter, pushing him with his
+cane.  The servant turned round in confusion.  "Sir," said he.
+
+"Will you never learn to call me Monsieur le Baron, rascal?" cried his
+master, in a rage--"Open the door directly!"
+
+The lounger was Baron Tripeaud, the manufacturing baron the stock-jobber.
+The poor hunchback was Mother Bunch, who had, indeed fallen with hunger
+and fatigue, whilst on her way to Mdlle. de Cardoville's.  The
+unfortunate creature had found courage to brave the shame of the ridicule
+she so much feared, by returning to that house from which she was a
+voluntary exile; but this time, it was not for herself, but for her
+sister Cephyse--the Bacchanal Queen, who had returned to Paris the
+previous day, and whom Mother Bunch now sought, through the means of
+Adrienne, to rescue from a most dreadful fate.
+
+Two hours after these different scenes, an enormous crowd pressed round
+the doors of the Porte-Saint-Martin, to witness the exercises of Morok,
+who was about to perform a mock combat with the famous black panther of
+Java, named Death.  Adrienne, accompanied by Lord and Lady de Morinval,
+now stepped from a carriage at the entrance of the theatre.  They were to
+be joined in the course of the evening by M. de Montbron, whom they had
+dropped, in passing, at his club.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+BEHIND THE SCENES.
+
+The large theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin was crowded by an impatient
+multitude.  All Paris had hurried with eager and burning curiosity to
+Morok's exhibition.  It is quite unnecessary to say that the lion-tamer
+had completely abandoned his small taste in religious baubles, which he
+had so successfully carried on at the White Falcon Inn at Leipsic.  There
+were, moreover, numerous tokens by which the surprising effects of
+Morok's sudden conversion had been blazoned in the most extraordinary
+pictures: the antiquated baubles in which he had formerly dealt would
+have found no sale in Paris.  Morok had nearly finished dressing himself,
+in one of the actor's rooms, which had been lent to him.  Over a coat of
+mail, with cuishes and brassarts, he wore an ample pair of red trousers,
+fastened round his ankles by broad rings of gilt brass.  His long caftan
+of black cloth, embroidered with scarlet and gold, was bound round his
+waist and wrist by other large rings of gilt metal.  This sombre costume
+imparted to him an aspect still more ferocious.  His thick and red-haired
+beard fell in large quantities down to his chest, and a long piece of
+white muslin was folded round his red head.  A devout missionary in
+Germany and an actor in Paris, Morok knew as well as his employers, the
+Jesuits, how to accommodate himself to circumstances.
+
+Seated in one corner of the room, and contemplating with a sort of stupid
+admiration, was Jacques Rennepont, better known as "Sleepinbuff" (from
+the likelihood that he would end his days in rags, or his present
+antipathy to great care in dress).  Since the day Hardy's factory had
+been destroyed by fire, Jacques had not quitted Morok, passing the nights
+in excesses, which had no baneful effects on the iron constitution of the
+lion-tamer.  On the other's features, on the contrary, a great alteration
+was perceptible; his hollow cheeks, marble pallor, his eyes, by turns
+dull and heavy, or gleaming with lurid fire, betrayed the ravages of
+debauchery, his parched lips were almost constantly curled by a bitter
+and sardonic smile.  His spirit, once gay and sanguine, still struggled
+against the besotting influence of habitual intoxication.  Unfitted for
+labor, no longer able to forego gross pleasures, Jacques sought to drown
+in wine a few virtuous impulses which he still possessed, and had sunk so
+low as to accept without shame the large dole of sensual gratification
+proffered him by Morok, who paid all the expenses of their orgies, but
+never gave him money, in order that he might be completely dependent on
+him.  After gazing at Morok for some time in amazement, Jacques said to
+him, in a familiar tone: "Well, yours is a famous trade; you may boast
+that, at this moment, there are not two men like you in the whole world
+That's flattering.  It's a pity you don't stick to this fine trade."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, how is the conspiracy going on, in whose honor you make me keep it
+up all day and all night?"
+
+"It is working, but the time is not yet come; that is why I wish to have
+you always at hand, till the great day.  Do you complain?"
+
+"Hang it, no!" said Jacques.  "What could I do?  Burnt up with brandy as
+I am, if I wanted to work, I've no longer the strength to do so.  I have
+not, like you, a head of marble, and a body of iron; but as for fuddling
+myself with gunpowder, instead of anything else, that'll do for me; I'm
+only fit for that work now--and then, it will drive away thought."
+
+"Oh what kind?"
+
+"You know that when I do think, I think only of one thing," said Jacques,
+gloomily.
+
+"The Bacchanal queen?--still?" said Morok, in a disdainful tone.
+
+"Still! rather: when I shall think of her no longer, I shall be dead--or
+stupefied.  Fiend!"
+
+"You were never better or more intelligent, you fool!" replied Morok,
+fastening his turban.  The conversation was here interrupted.  Morok's
+aider entered hastily.
+
+The gigantic form of this Hercules had increased in width.  He was
+habited like Alcides; his enormous limbs, furrowed with veins as thick as
+whipcord, were covered with a close-fitting flesh-colored garment, to
+which a pair of red drawers formed a strong contrast.
+
+"Why do you rush in like a storm, Goliath?" said Morok.
+
+"There's a pretty storm in the house; they are beginning to get
+impatient, and are calling out like madmen.  But if that were all!"
+
+"Well, what else?"
+
+"Death will not be able to play this evening."
+
+Morok turned quickly around.  He seemed uneasy.  "Why so?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I have just seen her! she's crouching at the bottom of her cage; her
+ears lie so close to her head, she looks as if they had been cut off.
+You know what that means."
+
+"Is that all?" said Morok, turning to the glass to complete his head-
+dress.
+
+"It's quite enough; she's in one of her tearing fits.  Since that night
+in Germany, when she ripped up that old hack of a white horse, I've not
+seen her look so savage! her eyes shine like burning candles."
+
+"Then she must have her fine collar on," said Morok, quietly.
+
+"Her fine collar?"
+
+"Yes; her spring-collar."
+
+"And I must be lady's-maid," said the giant.  "A nice toilet to attend
+to!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!"
+
+"That's not all--" continued Goliath, hesitating.
+
+"What more?"
+
+"I might as well tell you at once."
+
+"Will you speak?"
+
+"Well! he is here."
+
+"Who, you stupid brute?"
+
+"The Englishman!"
+
+Morok started; his arms fell powerless by his side.  Jacques was struck
+with the lion-tamer's paleness and troubled countenance.
+
+"The Englishman!--you have seen him?" cried Morok, addressing Goliath.
+"You are quite sure?"
+
+"Quite sure.  I was looking through the peep-hole in the curtain; I saw
+him in one of the stage-boxes--he wishes to see things close; he's easy
+to recognize, with his pointed forehead, big nose, and goggle eyes."
+
+Morok shuddered again; usually fierce and unmoved, he appeared to be more
+and more agitated, and so alarmed, that Jacques said to him: "Who is this
+Englishman?"
+
+"He has followed me from Strasburg, where he fell in with me," said
+Morok, with visible dejection.  "He travelled with his own horses, by
+short stages, as I did; stopping where I stopped, so as never to miss one
+of my exhibitions.  But two days before I arrived at Paris, he left me--I
+thought I was rid of him," said Morok, with a sigh.
+
+"Rid of him!--how you talk!" replied Jacques, surprised; "such a good
+customer, such an admirer!"
+
+"Aye!" said Morok, becoming more and more agitated; "this wretch has
+wagered an enormous sum, that I will be devoured in his presence, during
+one of my performances:  he hopes to win his wager--that is why he
+follows me about."
+
+Sleepinbuff found the John Bull's idea so amusingly eccentric, that, for
+the first time since a very long period, he burst into a peal of hearty
+laughter.  Morok, pale with rage, rushed towards him with so menacing an
+air, that Goliath was obliged to interpose.
+
+"Come, come," said Jacques, don't be angry; if it is serious, I will not
+laugh any more."
+
+Morok was appeased, and said to Sleepinbuff in a hoarse voice: "Do you
+think me a coward?"
+
+"No, by heaven!"
+
+"Well!  And yet this Englishman, with his grotesque face, frightens me
+more than any tiger or my panther!"
+
+"You say so, and I believe it," replied Jacques; "but I cannot understand
+why the presence of this man should alarm you."
+
+"But consider, you dull knave!" cried Morok, "that, obliged to watch
+incessantly the least movement of the ferocious beast, whom I keep in
+subjection by my action and my looks, there is something terrible in
+knowing that two eyes are there--always there--fixed--waiting till the
+least absence of mind shall expose me to be torn in pieces by the
+animals."
+
+"Now, I understand," said Jacques, shuddering in his turn.  "It is
+terrible."
+
+"Yes; for once there, though I may not see this cursed Englishman, I
+fancy I have his two round eyes, fixed and wide open, always before me.
+My tiger Cain once nearly mutilated my arm, when my attention was drawn
+away by this Englishman, whom the devil take!  Blood and thunder!" cried
+Morok: "this man will be fatal to me."  And Morok paced the room in great
+agitation.
+
+"Besides, Death lays her ears close to her skull," said Goliath,
+brutally.  "If you persist--mind, I tell you--the Englishman will win his
+wager this evening."
+
+"Go away, you brute!--don't vex my head with your confounded
+predictions," cried Morok: "go and prepare Death's collar."
+
+"Well, every one to his taste; you wish the panther to taste you," said
+the giant, stalking heavily away, after this joke.
+
+"But if you feel these fears," said Jacques, "why do you not say that the
+panther is ill?"
+
+Morok shrugged his shoulders, and replied with a sort of feverish
+ferocity, "Have you ever heard of the fierce pleasure of the gamester,
+who stakes his honor, his life, upon a card?  Well!  I too--in these
+daily exhibitions where my life is at stake--find a wild, fierce pleasure
+in braving death, before a crowded assembly, shuddering and terrified at
+my audacity.  Yes, even in the fear with which this Englishman inspires
+me, I find, in spite of myself, a terrible excitement, which I abhor, and
+which yet subjugates me."
+
+At this moment, the stage-manager entered the room, and interrupted the
+beast-tamer.  "May we give the signal, M. Morok?" said the stage-manager.
+"The overture will not last above ten minutes."
+
+"I am ready," said Morok.
+
+"The police-inspector has just now given orders, that the double chain of
+the panther, and the iron ring riveted to the floor of the stage, at the
+end of the cavern in the foreground, shall be again examined; and
+everything has been reported quite secure."
+
+"Yes--secure--except for me," murmured the beast-tamer.
+
+"So, M. Morok, the signal may be given?"
+
+"The signal may--be given," replied Morok.  And the manager went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+UP WITH THE CURTAIN.
+
+The usual bell sounded with solemnity behind the scenes the overture
+began, and, to say the truth, but little attention was paid to it.  The
+interior of the theatre offered a very animated view.  With the exception
+of two stage-boxes even with the dress circle, one to the left, the other
+to the right of the audience, every seat was occupied.  A great number of
+very fashionable ladies, attracted, as is always the case, by the strange
+wildness of the spectacle, filled the boxes.  The stalls were crowded by
+most of the young men who; in the morning, had walked their horses on the
+Champs-Elysees.  The observations which passed from one stall to another,
+will give some idea of their conversation.
+
+"Do you know, my dear boy, there would not be so crowded or fashionable
+an audience to witness Racine's Athalia?"
+
+"Undoubtedly.  What is the beggarly howling of an actor, compared to the
+roaring of the lion?"
+
+"I cannot understand how the authorities permit this Morok to fasten his
+panther with a chain to an iron ring in the corner of the stage.  If the
+chain were to break?"
+
+"Talking of broken chains--there's little Mme. de Blinville, who is no
+tigress.  Do you see her in the second tier, opposite?"
+
+"It becomes her very well to have broken, as you say, the marriage chain;
+she looks very well this season."
+
+"Oh! there is the beautiful Duchess de Saint-Prix; all the world is here
+to-night--I don't speak of ourselves."
+
+"It is a regular opera night--what a festive scene!"
+
+"Well, after all, people do well to amuse themselves, perhaps it will not
+be for long."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Suppose the cholera were to come to Paris?"
+
+"Oh! nonsense!"
+
+"Do you believe in the cholera?"
+
+"To be sure I do!  He's coming from the North, with his walking-stick
+under his arm."
+
+"The devil take him on the road! don't let us see his green visage here."
+
+"They say he's at London."
+
+"A pleasant journey to him."
+
+"Come, let us talk of something else; it may be a weakness, if you
+please, but I call this a dull subject."
+
+"I believe you."
+
+"Oh! gentlemen--I am not mistaken--no--it is she!"
+
+"Who, then?"
+
+"Mdlle. de Cardoville!  She is coming into the stage-box with Morinval
+and his wife.  It is a complete resuscitation: this morning on the
+Champs-Elysees; in the evening here."
+
+"Faith, you are right!  It is Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"Good heaven! how lovely she is!"
+
+"Lend me your eyeglass."
+
+"Well, what do you think of her?"
+
+"Exquisite--dazzling."
+
+"And in addition to her beauty, an inexhaustible flow of wit, three
+hundred thousand francs a year, high birth, eighteen years of age, and--
+free as air."
+
+"Yes, that is to say, that, provided it pleased her, I might be to-
+morrow--or even to-day--the happiest of men."
+
+"It is enough to turn one's brain."
+
+"I am told that her mansion, Rue d'Anjou, is like an enchanted palace; a
+great deal is said about a bath-room and bedroom, worthy of the Arabian
+Nights."
+
+"And free as air--I come back to that."
+
+"Ah! if I were in her place!"
+
+"My levity would be quite shocking."
+
+"Oh! gentlemen, what a happy man will he be who is loved first!"
+
+"You think, then, that she will have many lovers?"
+
+"Being as free as air--"
+
+"All the boxes are full, except the stage-box opposite to that in which
+Mdlle. de Cardoville is seated.  Happy the occupiers of that box!"
+
+"Did you see the English ambassador's lady in the dress circle?"
+
+"And the Princess d'Alvimar--what an enormous bouquet!"
+
+"I should like to know the name--of that nosegay."
+
+"Oh!--it's Germigny."
+
+"How flattering for the lions and tigers, to attract so fashionable an
+audience."
+
+"Do you notice, gentlemen, how all the women are eye-glassing Mdlle. de
+Cardoville?"
+
+"She makes a sensation."
+
+"She is right to show herself; they gave her out as mad."
+
+"Oh! gentlemen, what a capital phiz!"
+
+"Where--where?"
+
+"There--in the omnibus-box beneath Mdlle. de Cardoville's."
+
+"It's a Nuremburg nutcracker."
+
+"An ourang-outang!"
+
+"Did you ever see such round, staring eyes?"
+
+"And the nose!"
+
+"And the forehead!"
+
+"It's a caricature."
+
+"Order, order! the curtain rises."
+
+And, in fact, the curtain rose.  Some explanation is necessary for the
+clear understanding of what follows.  In the lower stage-box, to the left
+of the audience, were several persons, who had been referred to by the
+young men in the stalls.  The omnibus-box was occupied by the Englishman,
+the eccentric and portentous bettor, whose presence inspired Morok with
+so much dread.
+
+It would require Hoffman's rare and fantastic genius to describe worthily
+that countenance, at once grotesque and frightful, as it stood out from
+the dark background of the box.  This Englishman was about fifty years
+old; his forehead was quite bald, and of a conical shape; beneath this
+forehead, surmounted by eyebrows like parenthesis marks, glittered large,
+green eyes, remarkably round and staring, and set very close to a hooked
+nose, extremely sharp and prominent; a chin like that on the old-
+fashioned nutcrackers was half-hidden in a broad and ample white cravat,
+as stiffly-starched as the round-cornered shirt-collar, which nearly
+touched his ears.  The face was exceedingly thin and bony, and yet the
+complexion was high-colored, approaching to purple, which made the bright
+green of the pupils, and the white of the other part of the eyes, still
+more conspicuous.  The mouth, which was very wide, sometimes whistled
+inaudibly the tune of a Scotch jig (always the same tune), sometimes was
+slightly curled with a sardonic smite.  The Englishman was dressed with
+extreme care; his blue coat, with brass buttons, displayed his spotless
+waistcoat, snowy, white as his ample cravat; his shirt was fastened with
+two magnificent ruby studs, and his patrician hands were carefully kid-
+gloved.
+
+To any one who knew the eccentric and cruel desire which attracted this
+man to every representation, his grotesque face became almost terrific,
+instead of exciting ridicule; and it was easy to understand the dread
+experience by Morok at sight of those great, staring round eyes, which
+appeared to watch for the death of the lion-tamer (what a horrible
+death!) with unshaken confidence.  Above the dark box of the Englishman,
+affording a graceful contrast, were seated the Morinvals and Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.  The latter was placed nearest the stage.  Her head was
+uncovered, and she wore a dress of sky-blue China crepe, ornamented at
+the bosom with a brooch of the finest Oriental pearls--nothing more; yet
+Adrienne, thus attired, was charming.  She held in her hand an enormous
+bouquet, composed of the rarest flowers of India: the stephanotis and the
+gardenia mingled the dead white of their blossoms with the purple
+hibiscus and Java amaryllis.
+
+Madame de Morinval, seated on the opposite side of the box, was dressed
+with equal taste and simplicity; Morinval, a fair and very handsome young
+man, of elegant appearance, was behind the two ladies.  M. de Montbron
+was expected to arrive every moment.  The reader will please to recollect
+that the stage-box to the right of the audience, opposite Adrienne's, had
+remained till then quite empty.  The stage represented one of the
+gigantic forests of India.  In the background, tall exotic trees rose in
+spiral or spreading forms, among rugged masses of perpendicular rocks,
+with here and there glimpses of a tropical sky.  The side-scenes formed
+tufts of trees, interspersed with rocks; and at the side which was
+immediately beneath Adrienne's box appeared the irregular opening of a
+deep and gloomy cavern, round which were heaped huge blocks of granite,
+as if thrown together by some convulsion of nature.  This scenery, full
+of a wild and savage grandeur, was wonderfully "built up," so as to make
+the illusion as complete as possible; the footlights were lowered, and
+being covered with a purple shade, threw over this landscape a subdued
+reddish light, which increased the gloomy and startling effect of the
+whole.  Adrienne, leaning forward from the box, with cheeks slightly
+flushed, sparkling eyes, and throbbing heart, sought to trace in this
+scene the solitary forest described by the traveller who had eulogized
+Djalma's generosity and courage, when he threw himself upon a ferocious
+tigress to save the life of a poor black slave.  Chance coincided
+wonderfully indeed with her recollections.  Absorbed in the contemplation
+of the scenery and the thoughts it awakened in her heart, she paid no
+attention to what was passing in the house.  And yet something calculated
+to excite curiosity was taking place in the opposite stage-box.
+
+The door of this box opened.  A man about forty years of age, of a yellow
+complexion, entered; he was clothed after the East Indian fashion, in a
+long robe of orange silk, bound round the waist with a green sash, and he
+wore a small white turban.  He placed two chairs at the front of the box;
+and, having glanced round the house for a moment, he started, his black
+eyes sparkled, and he went out quickly.  That man was Faringhea.  His
+apparition caused surprise and curiosity in the theatre; the majority of
+the spectators not having, like Adrienne, a thousand reasons for being
+absorbed in the contemplation of a picturesque set scene.  The public
+attention was still more excited when they saw the box which Faringhea
+had just left, entered by a youth of rare beauty, also dressed Oriental
+fashion, in a long robe of white Cashmere with flowing sleeves, with a
+scarlet turban striped with gold on his head, and a sash to correspond,
+in which was stuck a long dagger, glittering with precious stones.  This
+young man was Prince Djalma.  For an instant he remained standing at the
+door, and cast a look of indifference upon the immense theatre, crowded
+with people; then, stepping forward with a majestic and tranquil air, the
+prince seated himself negligently on one of the chairs, and, turning his
+head in a few moments towards the entrance, appeared surprised at not
+seeing some person whom he doubtless expected.  This person appeared at
+length; the boxkeeper had been assisting her to take off her cloak.  She
+was a charming, fair-haired girl, attired with more show than taste, in a
+dress of white silk, with broad cherry-colored stripes, made ultra-
+fashionably low, and with short sleeves; a large bow of cherry-colored
+ribbon was placed on each side of her light hair, and set off the
+prettiest, sprightliest, most wilful little face in the world.
+
+It was Rose-Pompon.  Her pretty arms were partly covered by long white
+gloves, and ridiculously loaded with bracelets: in her hand she carried
+an enormous bouquet of roses.
+
+Far from imitating the calm demeanor of Djalma, Rose-Pompon skipped into
+the box, moved the chairs about noisily, and fidgeted on her seat for
+some time, to display her fine dress; then, without being in the least
+intimidated by the presence of the brilliant assembly, she, with a little
+coquettish air, held her bouquet towards Djalma, that he might smell it,
+and appeared finally to establish herself on her seat.  Faringhea came
+in, shut the door of the box, and seated himself behind the prince.
+Adrienne, still completely absorbed in the contemplation of the Indian
+forest, and in her own sweet thoughts, had not observed the newcomers.
+As she was turning her head completely towards the stage, and Djalma
+could not, for the moment, see even her profile, he, on his side, had not
+recognized Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+DEATH.
+
+The pantomime opening, by which was introduced the combat of Morok with
+the black panther, was so unmeaning, that the majority of the audience
+paid no attention to it, reserving all their interest for the scene in
+which the lion-tamer was to make his appearance.
+
+This indifference of the public explains the curiosity excited in the
+theatre by the arrival of Faringhea and Djalma--a curiosity which
+expressed itself (as at this day, when uncommon foreigners appear in
+public) by a slight murmur and general movement amongst the crowd.  The
+sprightly, pretty face of Rose-Pompon, always charming, in spite of her
+singularly staring dress, in style so ridiculous for such a theatre, and
+her light and familiar manner towards the handsome Indian who accompanied
+her, increased and animated the general surprise; for, at this moment,
+Rose-Pompon, yielding without reserve to a movement of teasing coquetry,
+had held up, as we have already stated, her large bunch of roses to
+Djalma.  But the prince, at sight of the landscape which reminded him of
+his country, instead of appearing sensible to this pretty, provocation,
+remained for some minutes as in a dream, with his eyes fixed upon the
+stage.  Then Rose-Pompon began to beat time on the front of the box with
+her bouquet, whilst the somewhat too visible movement of her pretty
+shoulders showed that this devoted dancer was thinking of fast-life
+dances, as the orchestra struck up a more lively strain.
+
+Placed directly opposite the box in which Faringhea, Djalma, and Rose-
+Pompon had just taken their seats, Lady Morinval soon perceived the
+arrival of these two personages, and particularly the eccentric
+coquetries of Rose-Pompon.  Immediately, the young marchioness, leaning
+over towards Mdlle. de Cardoville, who was still absorbed in memories
+ineffable, said to her, laughing: "My dear, the most amusing part of the
+performance is not upon the stage.  Look just opposite."
+
+"Just opposite?" repeated Adrienne, mechanically: and, turning towards
+Lady Morinval with an air of surprise, she glanced in the direction
+pointed out.
+
+She looked--what did she see?--Djalma seated by the side of a young
+woman, who was familiarly offering to his sense of smell the perfume of
+her bouquet.  Amazed, struck almost literally to the heart, as by an
+electric shock, swift, sharp, and painful, Adrienne became deadly pale.
+From instinct, she shut her eyes for a second, in order not to see--as
+men try to ward off the dagger, which, having once dealt the blow,
+threatens to strike again.  Then suddenly, to this feeling of grief
+succeeded a reflection, terrible both to her love and to her wounded
+pride.
+
+"Djalma is present with this woman, though he must have received my
+letter," she said to herself,--"wherein he was informed of the happiness
+that awaited him."
+
+At the idea of so cruel an insult, a blush of shame and indignation
+displaced Adrienne's paleness, who overwhelmed by this sad reality, said
+to herself: "Rodin did not deceive me."
+
+We abandon all idea of picturing the lightning-like rapidity of certain
+emotions which in a moment may torture--may kill you in the space of a
+minute.  Thus Adrienne was precipitated from the most radiant happiness
+to the lowest depths of an abyss of the most heart-rending grief, in less
+than a second; for a second had hardly elapsed before she replied to Lady
+Morinval: "What is there, then, so curious, opposite to us, my dear
+Julia?"
+
+This evasive question gave Adrienne time to recover her self-possession.
+Fortunately, thanks to the thick folds of hair which almost entirely
+concealed her cheeks, the rapid and sudden changes from pallor to blush
+escaped the notice of Lady Morinval, who gayly replied: "What, my dear,
+do you not perceive those East Indians, who have just entered the box
+immediately opposite to ours?  There, just before us!"
+
+"Yes, I see them; but what then?" replied Adrienne, in a firm tone.
+
+"And don't you observe anything remarkable?" said the marchioness.
+
+"Don't be too hard, ladies," laughingly interposed the marquis; "we ought
+to allow the poor foreigners some little indulgence.  They are ignorant
+of our manners and customs; were it not for that, they would never appear
+in the face of all Paris in such dubious company."
+
+"Indeed," said Adrienne, with a bitter smile, "their simplicity is
+touching; we must pity them."
+
+"And, unfortunately, the girl is charming, spite of her low dress and
+bare arms," said the marchioness; "she cannot be more than sixteen or
+seventeen at most.  Look at her, my dear Adrienne; what a pity!"
+
+"It is one of your charitable days, my dear Julia," answered Adrienne;
+"we are to pity the Indians, to pity this creature, and--pray, whom else
+are we to pity?"
+
+"We will not pity that handsome Indian, in his red-and-gold turban," said
+the marquis, laughing, "for, if this goes on, the girl with the cherry-
+colored ribbons will be giving him a kiss.  See how she leans towards her
+sultan."
+
+"They are very amusing," said the marchioness, sharing the hilarity of
+her husband, and looking at Rose-Pompom through her glass; then she
+resumed, in about a minute, addressing herself to Adrienne: "I am quite
+certain of one thing.  Notwithstanding her giddy airs, that girl is very
+fond of her Indian.  I just saw a look that expresses a great deal."
+
+"Why so much penetration, my dear Julia?" said Adrienne, mildly; "what
+interest have we to read the heart of that girl?"
+
+"Why, if she loves her sultan, she is quite in the right," said the
+marquis, looking through his opera-glass in turn; "for, in my whole life,
+I never saw a more handsome fellow than that Indian.  I can only catch
+his side-face, but the profile is pure and fine as an antique cameo.  Do
+you not think so?" added the marquis, leaning towards Adrienne.  "Of
+course, it is only as a matter of art, that I permit myself to ask you
+the question."
+
+"As a work of art," answered Adrienne, "it is certainly very fine."
+
+"But see!" said the marchioness; "how impertinent the little creature
+is!--She is actually staring at us."
+
+"Well!" said the marquis; "and she is actually laying her hand quite
+unceremoniously on her sultan's shoulder, to make him share, no doubt, in
+her admiration of you ladies."
+
+In fact, Djalma, until now occupied with the contemplation of the scene
+which reminded him of his country, had remained insensible to the
+enticements of Rose-Pompon, and had not yet perceived Adrienne.
+
+"Well, now!" said Rose-Pompon, bustling herself about in front of the
+box, and continuing to stare at Mdlle. de Cardoville, for it was she, and
+not the marchioness, who now drew her attention; "that is something quite
+out of the common way--a pretty woman, with red hair; but such sweet red,
+it must be owned.  Look, Prince Charming!"
+
+And so saying, she tapped Djalma lightly on the shoulder; he started at
+these words, turned round, and for the first time perceived Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.
+
+Though he had been almost prepared for this meeting, the prince was so
+violently affected by it, that he was about involuntarily to rise, in a
+state of the utmost confusion; but he felt the iron hand of Faringhea
+laid heavily on his shoulder, and heard him whisper in Hindostanee:
+"Courage! and by to-morrow she will be at your feet."
+
+As Djalma still struggled to rise, the half-caste added to restrain him:
+"Just now, she grew pale and red with jealousy.  No weakness, or all is
+lost!"
+
+"So! there you are again, talking your dreadful gibberish," said Rose-
+Pompon, turning round towards Faringhea.  "First of all, it is not
+polite; and then the language is so odd, that one might suppose you were
+cracking nuts."
+
+"I spoke of you to my master," said the half-caste; "he is preparing a
+surprise for you."
+
+"A surprise? oh! that is different.  Only make haste--do you hear, Prince
+Charming!" added she, looking tenderly at Djalma.
+
+"My heart is breaking," said Djalma, in a hollow voice to Faringhea,
+still using the language of India.
+
+"But to-morrow it will bound with joy and love," answered the half-caste.
+"It is only by disdain that you can conquer a proud woman.  To-morrow, I
+tell you, she will be trembling, confused, supplicating, at your feet!"
+
+"To-morrow, she will hate me like death!" replied the prince, mournfully.
+
+"Yes, were she now to see you weak and cowardly.  It is now too late to
+draw back; look full at her, take the nosegay from this girl, and raise
+it to your lips.  Instantly, you will see yonder woman, proud as she is,
+grow pale and red, as just now.  Then will you believe me?"
+
+Reduced by despair to make almost any attempt, and fascinated, in spite
+of himself, by the diabolical hints of Faringhea, Djalma looked for a
+second full at Mdlle. de Cardoville; then, with a trembling hand he took
+the bouquet from Rose-Pompon, and, again looking at Adrienne, pressed it
+to his lips.
+
+Upon this insolent bravado, Mdlle. de Cardoville could not restrain so
+sudden and visible a pang, that the prince was struck by it.
+
+"She is yours," said the half-caste, to him.  "Did you see, my lord, how
+she trembled with jealousy?--Only have courage! and she is yours.  She
+will soon prefer you to that handsome young man behind her--for it is he
+whom she has hitherto fancied herself in love with."
+
+As if the half-caste had guessed the movement of rage and hatred, which
+this revelation would excite in the heart of the prince, he hastily
+added: "Calmness and disdain!  Is it not his turn now to hate you?"
+
+The prince restrained himself, and drew his hand across his forehead
+which glowed with anger.
+
+"There now! what are you telling him, that vexes him so?" said Rose-
+Pompon to Faringhea, with pouting lip.  Then, addressing Djalma, she
+continued: "Come, Prince Charming, as they say in the fairy-tale, give me
+back my flowers."
+
+As she took it again, she added: "You have kissed it, and I could almost
+eat it."  Then, with a sigh, and a passionate glance at Djalma, she said
+softly to herself: "That monster Ninny Moulin did not deceive me.  All
+this is quite proper; I have not even that to reproach myself with."  And
+with her little white teeth, she bit at a rosy nail of her right hand,
+from which she had just drawn the glove.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say, that Adrienne's letter had not been
+delivered to the prince, and that he had not gone to pass the day in the
+country with Marshal Simon.  During the three days in which Montbron had
+not seen Djalma, Faringhea had persuaded him, that, by affecting another
+passion, he would bring Mdlle. de Cardoville to terms.  With regard to
+Djalma's presence at the theatre, Rodin had learned from her maid,
+Florine, that her mistress was to go in the evening to the Porte-Saint-
+Martin.  Before Djalma had recognized her, Adrienne, who felt her
+strength failing her, was on the point of quitting the theatre; the man,
+whom she had hitherto placed so high, whom she had regarded as a hero and
+a demi-god and whom she had imagined plunged in such dreadful despair,
+that, led by the most tender pity, she had written to him with simple
+frankness, that a sweet hope might calm his grief--replied to a generous
+mark of sincerity and love, by making himself a ridiculous spectacle with
+a creature unworthy of him.  What incurable wounds for Adrienne's pride!
+It mattered little, whether Djalma knew or not, that she would be a
+spectator of the indignity.  But when she saw herself recognized by the
+prince, when he carried the insult so far as to look full at her, and, at
+the same time, raise to his lips the creature's bouquet who accompanied
+him, Adrienne was seized with noble indignation, and felt sufficient
+courage to remain: instead of closing her eyes to evidence, she found a
+sort of barbarous pleasure in assisting at the agony and death of her
+pure and divine love.  With head erect, proud and flashing eye, flushed
+cheek, and curling lip, she looked in her turn at the prince with
+disdainful steadiness.  It was with a sardonic smile that she said to the
+marchioness, who, like many others of the spectators was occupied with
+what was passing in the stage-box: "This revolting exhibition of savage
+manners is at least in accordance with the rest of the performance."
+
+"Certainly," said the marchioness; "and my dear uncle will have lost,
+perhaps, the most amusing part."
+
+"Montbron?" said Adrienne, hastily, with hardly repressed bitterness;
+"yes, he will regret not having seen all.  I am impatient for his
+arrival.  Is it not to him that I am indebted for his charming evening?"
+
+Perhaps Madame de Morinval would have remarked the expression of bitter
+irony, that Adrienne could not altogether dissemble, if suddenly a hoarse
+and prolonged roar had net attracted her attention, as well as that of
+the rest of the audience, who had hitherto been quite indifferent to the
+scenes intended for an introduction to the appearance of Morok.  Every
+eye was now turned instinctively towards the cavern situated to the left
+of the stage, just below Mdlle. de Cardoville's box; a thrill of
+curiosity ran through the house.  A second roar, deeper and more
+sonorous, and apparently expressive of more irritation than the first,
+now rose from the cave, the mouth of which was half-hidden by artificial
+brambles, made so as to be easily put on one side.  At this sound, the
+Englishman stood up in his little box, leaned half over the front, and
+began to rub his hands with great energy; then, remaining perfectly
+motionless, he fixed his large, green, glittering eyes on the mouth of
+the cavern.
+
+At these ferocious howlings, Djalma also had started, notwithstanding the
+frenzy of love, hate, and jealousy, to which he was a prey.  The sight of
+this forest, and the roarings of the panther, filled him with deep
+emotion, for they recalled the remembrance of his country, and of those
+great hunts which, like war, have their own terrible excitement.  Had he
+suddenly heard the horns and gongs of his father's army sounding to the
+charge, he could not have been transported with more savage ardor.  And
+now deep growls, like distant thunder, almost drowned the roar of the
+panther.  The lion and tiger, Judas and Cain answered her from their dens
+at the back of the stage.  On this frightful concert, with which his ears
+had been familiar in the midst of the solitudes of India, when he lay
+encamped, for the purposes of the chase or of war, Djalma's blood boiled
+in his veins.  His eyes sparkled with a wild ardor.  Leaning a little
+forward, with both hands pressed on the front of the box, his whole body
+trembled with a convulsive shudder.  The audience, the theatre, Adrienne
+herself no longer existed for him; he was in a forest of his own lands,
+tracking the tiger.
+
+Then there mingled with his beauty so intrepid and ferocious an
+expression, that Rose-Pompon looked at him with a sort of terror and
+passionate admiration.  For the first time in her life, perhaps, her
+pretty blue eyes, generally so gay and mischievous; expressed a serious
+emotion.  She could not explain what she felt; but her heart seemed
+frightened, and beat violently, as though some calamity were at hand.
+
+Yielding to a movement of involuntary fear, she seized Djalma by the arm,
+and said to him: "Do not stare so into that cavern; you frighten me."
+
+Djalma did not hear what she said.
+
+"Here he is! here he is!" murmured the crowd, almost with one voice, as
+Morok appeared at the back of the stage.
+
+Dressed as we have described, Morok now carried in addition a bow and a
+long quiver full of arrows.  He slowly descended the line of painted
+rocks, which came sloping down towards the centre of the stage.  From
+time to time, he stopped as if to listen, and appeared to advance with
+caution.  Looking from one side to the other, his eyes involuntarily
+encountered the large, green eyes of the Englishman, whose box was close
+to the cavern.  Instantly the lion-tamer's countenance was contracted in
+so frightful a manner, that Lady Morinval, who was examining him closely
+with the aid of an excellent glass, said hastily to Adrienne: "My dear,
+the man is afraid.  Some misfortune will happen."
+
+"How can accidents happen," said Adrienne, with a sardonic smile, "in the
+midst of this brilliant crowd, so well dressed and full of animation!
+Misfortunes here, this evening! why, dear Julia, you do not think it.  It
+is in darkness and solitude that misfortunes come--never in the midst of
+a joyous crowd, and in all this blaze of light."
+
+"Good gracious, Adrienne! take care!" cried the marchioness, unable to
+repress an exclamation of alarm, and seizing her arm, as if to draw her
+closer; "do you not see it?"  And with a trembling hand, she pointed to
+the cavern's mouth.  Adrienne hastily bent forward, and looked in that
+direction.  "Take care, do not lean so forward!" exclaimed Lady Morinval.
+
+"Your terrors are nonsensical, my dear," said the marquis to his wife.
+"The panther is securely chained; and even were it to break its chains
+(which is impossible), we are here beyond its reach."
+
+A long murmur of trembling curiosity here ran through the house, and
+every eye was intently fixed on the cavern.  From amongst the artificial
+brambles, which she abruptly pushed aside with her broad chest, the black
+panther suddenly appeared.  Twice she stretched forth her flat head,
+illumined by yellow, flaming eyes; then, half-opening her blood-red jaws,
+she uttered another roar, and exhibited two rows of formidable fangs.  A
+double iron chain, and a collar also of iron, painted black, blended with
+the ebon shades of her hide, and with the darkness of the cavern.  The
+illusion was complete, and the terrible animal seemed to be at liberty in
+her den.
+
+"Ladies," said the marquis, suddenly, "look at those Indians.  Their
+emotion makes them superb!"
+
+In fact, the sight of the panther had raised the wild ardor of Djalma to
+its utmost pitch.  His eyes sparkled in their pearly orbits like two
+black diamonds; his upper lip was curled convulsively with an expression
+of animal ferocity, as if he were in a violent paroxysm of rage.
+
+Faringhea, now leaning on the front of the box, was also greatly excited,
+by reason of a strange coincidence."That black panther of so rare a
+breed," thought he, "which I see here at Paris, upon the stage, must be
+the very one that the Malay"--the Thug who had tatooed Djalma at Java
+during his sleep--"took quite young from his den, and sold to a European
+captain.  Bowanee's power is everywhere!" added the Thug, in his
+sanguinary superstition.
+
+"Do you not think," resumed the marquis, addressing Adrienne, "that those
+Indians are really splendid in their present attitude?"
+
+"Perhaps they may have seen such a hunt in their own country," said
+Adrienne, as if she would recall and brave the most cruel remembrances.
+
+"Adrienne," said the marchioness, suddenly, in an agitated voice, "the
+lion-tamer has now come nearer--is not his countenance fearful to look
+at?--I tell you he is afraid."
+
+"In truth," observed the marquis, this time very seriously, "he is
+dreadfully pale, and seems to grow worse every minute, the nearer he
+approaches this side.  It is said that, were he to lose his presence of
+mind for a single moment, he would run the greatest danger."
+
+"O! it would be horrible!" cried the marchioness, addressing Adrienne,
+"if he were wounded--there--under our eyes!"
+
+"Every wound does not kill," replied her friend, with an accent of such
+cold indifference, that the marchioness looked at her with surprise, and
+said to her: "My dear girl, what you say there is cruel!"
+
+"It is the air of the place that acts on me," answered Adrienne, with an
+icy smile.
+
+"Look! look! the lion-tamer is about to shoot his arrow at the panther,"
+said the marquis, suddenly.  "No doubt, he will next perform the hand to
+hand grapple."
+
+Morok was at this moment in front of the stage, but he had yet to
+traverse its entire breadth to reach the cavern's mouth.  He stopped an
+instant, adjusted an arrow to the string, knelt down behind a mass of
+rock, took deliberate aim--and then the arrow hissed across the stage,
+and was lost in the depths of the cavern, into which the panther had
+retired, after showing for a moment her threatening head to the audience.
+Hardly had the arrow disappeared, than Death, purposely irritated by
+Goliath (who was invisible) sent forth a howl of rage, as if she had been
+really wounded.  Morok's actions became so expressive, he evinced so
+naturally his joy at having hit the wild beast, that a tempest of
+applause burst from every quarter of the house.  Then, throwing away his
+bow, he drew a dagger from his girdle, took it between his teeth, and
+began to crawl forward on hands and knees, as though he meant to surprise
+the wounded panther in his den.  To render the illusion perfect, Death,
+again excited by Goliath, who struck him with an iron bar, sent forth
+frightful howlings from the depths of the cavern.
+
+The gloomy aspect of the forest, only half-lighted with a reddish glare,
+was so effective--the howlings of the panther were so furious--the
+gestures, attitude, and countenance of Morok were so expressive of
+terror, that the audience, attentive and trembling, now maintained a
+profound silence.  Every one held his breath, and a kind of shudder came
+over the spectators, as though they expected some horrible event.  What
+gave such a fearful air of truth to the pantomime of Morok, was that, as
+he approached the cavern step by step, he approached also the
+Englishman's box.  In spite of himself, the lion-tamer, fascinated by
+terror, could not take his eyes from the large green eyes of this man,
+and it seemed as if every one of the abrupt movements which he made in
+crawling along, was produced by a species of magnetic attraction, caused
+by the fixed gaze of the fatal wagerer.  Therefore, the nearer Morok
+approached, the more ghastly and livid he became.  At sight of this
+pantomime, which was no longer acting, but the real expression of intense
+fear, the deep and trembling silence which had reigned in the theatre was
+once more interrupted by acclamations, with which were mingled the
+roarings of the panther, and the distant growls of the lion and tiger.
+
+The Englishman leaned almost out of his box, with a frightful sardonic
+smile on his lip, and with his large eyes still fixed, panted for breath.
+The perspiration ran down his bald red forehead, as if he had really
+expended an incredible amount of magnetic power in attracting Morok, whom
+he now saw close to the cavern entrance.  The moment was decisive.
+Crouching down with his dagger in his hand, following with eye and
+gesture Death's every movement, who, roaring furiously, and opening wide
+her enormous jaws, seemed determined to guard the entrance of her den,
+Morok waited for the moment to rush upon her.  There is such fascination
+in danger, that Adrienne shared, in spite of herself, the feeling of
+painful curiosity, mixed with terror, that thrilled through all the
+spectators.  Leaning forward like the marchioness, and gazing upon this
+scene of fearful interest, the lady still held mechanically in her hand
+the Indian bouquet preserved since the morning.  Suddenly, Morok raised a
+wild shout, as he rushed towards Death, who answered this exclamation by
+a dreadful roar, and threw herself upon her master with so much fury,
+that Adrienne, in alarm, believing the man lost, drew herself back, and
+covered her fact with her hands.  Her flowers slipped from her grasp,
+and, falling upon the stage, rolled into the cavern in which Morok was
+struggling with the panther.
+
+Quick as lightning, supple and agile as a tiger, yielding to the
+intoxication of his love, and to the wild ardor excited in him by the
+roaring of the panther, Djalma sprang at one bound upon the stage, drew
+his dagger, and rushed into the cavern to recover Adrienne's nosegay.  At
+that instant, Morok, being wounded, uttered a dreadful cry for help; the
+panther, rendered still more furious at sight of Djalma, make the most
+desperate efforts to break her chain.  Unable to succeed in doing so, she
+rose upon her hind legs, in order to seize Djalma, then within reach of
+her sharp claws.  It was only by bending down his head, throwing himself
+on his knees, and twice plunging his dagger into her belly with the
+rapidity of lightning, that Djalma escaped certain death.  The panther
+gave a howl, and fell with her whole weight upon the prince.  For a
+second, during which lasted her terrible agony, nothing was seen but a
+confused and convulsive mass of black limbs, and white garments stained
+with blood--and then Djalma rose, pale, bleeding, for he was wounded--and
+standing erect, his eye flashing with savage pride, his foot on the body
+of the panther, he held in his hand Adrienne's bouquet, and cast towards
+her a glance which told the intensity of his love.  Then only did
+Adrienne feel her strength fail her--for only superhuman courage had
+enabled her to watch all the terrible incidents of the struggle.
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V8,
+by Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+
+BOOK IX.
+
+XV.        The Constant Wanderer
+XVI.       The Luncheon
+XVII.      Rendering the Account
+XVIII.     The Square of Notre Dame
+XIX.       The Cholera Masquerade
+XX.        The Defiance
+XXI.       Brandy to the Rescue
+XXII.      Memories
+XXIII.     The Poisoner
+XXIV.      Cathedral
+XXV.       The Murderers
+XXVI.      The Patient
+XXVII.     The Lure
+XXVIII.    Good News
+XXIX.      The Operation
+XXX.       The Torture
+XXXI.      Vice and Virtue
+XXXII.     Suicide
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE CONSTANT WANDERER.
+
+It is night.  The moon shines and the stars glimmer in the midst of a
+serene but cheerless sky; the sharp whistlings of the north wind, that
+fatal, dry, and icy breeze, ever and anon burst forth in violent gusts.
+With its harsh and cutting breath, it sweeps Montmartre's Heights.  On
+the highest point of the hills, a man is standing.  His long shadow is
+cast upon the stony, moon-lit ground.  He gazes on the immense city,
+which lies outspread beneath his feet.  PARIS--with the dark outline of
+its towers, cupolas, domes, and steeples, standing out from the limpid
+blue of the horizon, while from the midst of the ocean of masonry, rises
+a luminous vapor, that reddens the starry azure of the sky.  It is the
+distant reflection of the thousand fires, which at night, the hour of
+pleasures, light up so joyously the noisy capital.
+
+"No," said the wayfarer; "it is not to be.  The Lord will not exact it.
+Is not twice enough?
+
+"Five centuries ago, the avenging hand of the Almighty drove me hither
+from the uttermost confines of Asia.  A solitary traveller, I had left
+behind me more grief, despair, disaster, and death, than the innumerable
+armies of a hundred devastating conquerors.  I entered this town, and it
+too was decimated.
+
+"Again, two centuries ago, the inexorable hand, which leads me through
+the world, brought me once more hither; and then, as the time before, the
+plague, which the Almighty attaches to my steps, again ravaged this city,
+and fell first on my brethren, already worn out with labor and misery.
+
+"My brethren--mine?--the cobbler of Jerusalem, the artisan accursed by
+the Lord, who, in my person, condemned the whole race of workmen, ever
+suffering, ever disinherited, ever in slavery, toiling on like me without
+rest or pause, without recompense or hope, till men, women, and children,
+young and old, all die beneath the same iron yoke--that murderous yoke,
+which others take in their turn, thus to be borne from age to age on the
+submissive and bruised shoulders of the masses.
+
+"And now, for the third time in five centuries, I reach the summit of one
+of the hills that overlook the city.  And perhaps I again bring with me
+fear, desolation, and death.
+
+"Yet this city, intoxicated with the sounds of its joys and its nocturnal
+revelries, does not know--oh! does not know that I am at its gates.
+
+"But no, no! my presence will not be a new calamity.  The Lord, in his
+impenetrable views, has hitherto led me through France, so as to avoid
+the humblest hamlet; and the sound of the funeral knell has not
+accompanied my passage.
+
+"And, moreover, the spectre has left me--the green, livid spectre, with
+its hollow, bloodshot eyes.  When I touched the soil of France, its damp
+and icy hands was no longer clasped in mine--and it disappeared.
+
+"And yet--I feel that the atmosphere of death is around me.
+
+"The sharp whistlings of that fatal wind cease not, which, catching me in
+their whirl, seem to propagate blasting and mildew as they blow.
+
+"But perhaps the wrath of the Lord is appeased, and my presence here is
+only a threat--to be communicated in some way to those "whom it should
+intimidate.
+
+"Yes; for otherwise he would smite with a fearful blow, by first
+scattering terror and death here in the heart of the country, in the
+bosom of this immense city!
+
+"Oh! no, no! the Lord will be merciful.  No! he will not condemn me to
+this new torture.
+
+"Alas! in this city, my brethren are more numerous and miserable than
+elsewhere.  And should I be their messenger of death?"
+
+"No! the Lord will have pity.  For, alas! the seven descendants of my
+sister have at length met in this town.  And to them likewise should I be
+the messenger of death, instead of the help they so much need?
+
+"For that woman, who like me wanders from one border of the earth to the
+other, after having once more rent asunder the nets of their enemies, has
+gone forth upon her endless journey.
+
+"In vain she foresaw that new misfortunes threatened my sister's family.
+The invisible hand, that drives me on, drives her on also.
+
+"Carried away, as of old, by the irresistible whirlwind, at the moment of
+leaving my kindred to their fate, she in vain cried with supplicating
+tone: `Let me at least, O Lord, complete my task!'--'GO ON!--`A few days,
+in mercy, only a few poor days!'--'GO ON'--'I leave those I love on the
+brink of the abyss!'--'GO ON! GO ON!'
+
+"And the wandering star--again started on its eternal round.  And her
+voice, passing through space, called me to the assistance of mine own.
+
+"When that voice readied me, I knew that the descendants of my sister
+were still exposed to frightful perils.  Those perils are even now on the
+increase.
+
+"Tell me, O Lord! will they escape the scourge, which for so many
+centuries has weighed down our race?
+
+"Wilt thou pardon me in them? wilt thou punish me in them?  Oh, that they
+might obey the last will of their ancestor!
+
+"Oh, that they might join together their charitable hearts, their valor
+and their strength, their noble intelligence, and their great riches!
+
+"They would then labor for the future happiness of humanity--they would
+thus, perhaps, redeem me from my eternal punishment!
+
+"The words of the Son of Man, LOVE YE ONE ANOTHER, will be their only
+end, their only means.
+
+"By the help of those all-powerful words, they will fight and conquer the
+false priests, who have renounced the precepts of love, peace, and hope,
+for lessons of hatred, violence, and despair.
+
+"Those false priests, who, kept in pay by the powerful and happy of this
+world, their accomplices in every age, instead of asking here below for
+some slight share of well-being for my unfortunate brethren, dare in thy
+name, O Lord God, to assert that the poor are condemned to endless
+suffering in this world--and that the desire or the hope to suffer less
+is a crime in thine eyes--because the happiness of the few, and the
+misery of nearly the whole human race, is (O blasphemy!) according to thy
+will.  Is not the very contrary of those murderous words alone worthy of
+divinity!
+
+"In mercy, hear me, Lord!  Rescue from their enemies the descendants of
+my sister--the artisan as the king's son.  Do not let them destroy the
+germ of so mighty and fruitful an association, which, with thy blessing,
+would make an epoch in the annals of human happiness!
+
+"Let me unite them, O Lord, since others would divide them--defend them,
+since others attack; let me give hope to those who have ceased to hope,
+courage to those who are brought low with fear--let me raise up the
+falling, and sustain those who persevere in the way of the righteous!
+
+"And, peradventure, their struggles, devotion, virtue, and grief, may
+expiate my fault--that of a man, whom misfortune alone rendered unjust
+and wicked.
+
+"Oh! since Thy Almighty hand hath led me hither--to what end I know not--
+lay aside Thy wrath, I beseech Thee--let me be no longer the instrument
+of Thy vengeance!
+
+"Enough of woe upon the earth! for the last two years, Thy creatures have
+fallen by thousands upon my track.  The world is decimated.  A veil of
+mourning extends over all the globe.
+
+"From Asia to the icy Pole, they died upon the path of the wanderer.
+Dost Thou not hear the long-drawn sigh that rises from the earth unto
+Thee, O Lord?
+
+"Mercy for all! mercy for me!--Let me but unite the descendants of my
+sister for a single day, and they will be saved!"
+
+As he pronounced these words, the wayfarer sank upon his knees, and
+raised to heaven, his supplicating hands.  Suddenly, the wind blew with
+redoubled violence; its sharp whistlings were changed into the roar of a
+tempest.
+
+The traveller shuddered; in a voice of terror he exclaimed: "The blast of
+death rises in its fury--the whirlwind carries me on--Lord! Thou art then
+deaf to my prayer?"
+
+"The spectre! oh, the spectre! it is again here! its green face twitching
+with convulsive spasms--its red eyes rolling in their orbits.  Begone!
+begone!--its hand, oh! its icy hand has again laid hold of mine.  Have
+mercy, heaven!"
+
+"GO ON!"
+
+"Oh, Lord! the pestilence--the terrible plague--must I carry it into this
+city?--And my brethren will perish the first--they, who are so sorely
+smitten even now! Mercy!"
+
+"GO ON!"
+
+"And the descendants of my sister.  Mercy! Mercy!"
+
+"GO ON!"
+
+"Oh, Lord, have pity!--I can no longer keep my ground; the spectre drags
+me to the slope of the hill; my walk is rapid as the deadly blast that
+rages behind me; already do I behold the city gates.  Have mercy, Lord,
+on the descendants of my sister! Spare them; do not make me their
+executioner; let them triumph over their enemies!"
+
+"GO ON! GO ON!"
+
+"The ground flies beneath my feet; there is the city gate.  Lord, it is
+yet time! Oh, mercy for that sleeping town! Let it not waken to cries of
+terror, despair, and death! Lord, I am on the threshold.  Must it be?--
+Yes, it is done.  Paris, the plague is in thy bosom.  The curse--oh, the
+eternal curse!"
+
+"GO ON! GO ON! GO ON!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE LUNCHEON.
+
+The morning after the doomed traveller, descending the heights of
+Montmartre, had entered the walls of Paris, great activity reigned in St.
+Dizier House.  Though it was hardly noon, the Princess de St. Dizier,
+without being exactly in full dress (she had too much taste for that),
+was yet arrayed with more care than usual.  Her light hair, instead of
+being merely banded, was arranged in two bunches of curls, which suited
+very well with her full and florid cheeks.  Her cap was trimmed with
+bright rose-colored ribbon, and whoever had seen the lady in her tight-
+fitting dress of gray-watered silk would have easily guessed that Mrs.
+Grivois, her tirewoman, must have required the assistance and the efforts
+of another of the princess's women to achieve so remarkable a reduction
+in the ample figure of their mistress.
+
+We shall explain the edifying cause of this partial return to the
+vanities of the world.  The princess, attended by Mrs. Grivois, who acted
+as housekeeper, was giving her final orders with regard to some
+preparations that were going on in a vast parlor.  In the midst of this
+room was a large round table, covered with crimson velvet, and near it
+stood several chairs, amongst which, in the place of honor, was an arm-
+chair of gilded wood.  In one corner, not far from the chimney, in which
+burned an excellent fire, was a buffet.  On it were the divers materials
+for a most dainty and exquisite collation.  Upon silver dishes were piled
+pyramids of sandwiches composed of the roes of carp and anchovy paste,
+with slices of pickled tunny-fish and Lenigord truffles (it was in Lent);
+on silver dishes, placed over burning spirits of wine, so as to keep them
+very hot, tails of Meuse crawfish boiled in cream, smoked in golden-
+colored pastry, and seemed to challenge comparison with delicious little
+Marennes oyster-patties, stewed in Madeira, and flavored with a seasoning
+of spiced sturgeon.  By the side of these substantial dishes were some of
+a lighter character, such as pineapple tarts, strawberry-creams (it was
+early for such fruit), and orange-jelly served in the peel, which had
+been artistically emptied for that purpose.  Bordeaux, Madeira, and
+Alicant sparkled like rubies and topazes in large glass decanters, while
+two Sevres ewers were filled, one with coffee a la creme, the other with
+vanilla chocolate, almost in the state of sherbet, from being plunged in
+a large cooler of chiselled silver, containing ice.
+
+But what gave to this dainty collation a singularly apostolic and papal
+character were sundry symbols of religious worship carefully represented.
+Thus there were charming little Calvaries in apricot paste, sacerdotal
+mitres in burnt almonds, episcopal croziers in sweet cake, to which the
+princess added, as a mark of delicate attention, a little cardinal's hat
+in cherry sweetmeat, ornamented with bands in burnt sugar.  The most
+important, however, of these Catholic delicacies, the masterpiece of the
+cook, was a superb crucifix in angelica, with a crown of candied berries.
+These are strange profanations, which scandalize even the least devout.
+But, from the impudent juggle of the coat of Triers, down to the
+shameless jest of the shrine at Argenteuil, people, who are pious after
+the fashion of the princess, seem to take delight in bringing ridicule
+upon the most respectable traditions.
+
+After glancing with an air of satisfaction at these preparations for the
+collation, the lady said to Mrs. Grivois, as she pointed to the gilded
+arm-chair, which seemed destined for the president of the meeting: "Is
+there a cushion under the table, for his Eminence to rest his feet on?
+He always complains of cold."
+
+"Yes, your highness," said Mrs. Grivois, when she had looked under the
+table; "the cushion is there."
+
+"Let also a pewter bottle be filled with boiling water, in case his
+Eminence should not find the cushion enough to keep his feet warm."
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+"And put some more wood on the fire."
+
+"But, my lady, it is already a very furnace.  And if his Eminence is
+always too cold, my lord the Bishop of Halfagen is always too hot.  He
+perspires dreadfully."
+
+The princess shrugged her shoulders, and said to Mrs. Grivois: "Is not
+his Eminence Cardinal Malipieri the superior of his Lordship the Bishop
+of Halfagen?"
+
+"Yes, your highness."
+
+"Then, according to the rules of the hierarchy, it is for his Lordship to
+suffer from the heat, rather than his Eminence from the cold.  Therefore,
+do as I tell you, and put more wood on the fire.  Nothing is more
+natural; his Eminence being an Italian, and his Lordship coming from the
+north of Belgium, they are accustomed to different temperatures."
+
+"Just as your highness pleases," said Mrs. Grivois, as she placed two
+enormous logs on the fire; "but in such a heat as there is here his
+Lordship might really be suffocated."
+
+"I also find it too warm; but does not our holy religion teach us lessons
+of self-sacrifice and mortification?" said the princess, with a touching
+expression of devotion.
+
+We have now explained the cause of the rather gay attire of the princess.
+She was preparing for a reception of prelates, who, along with Father
+d'Aigrigny and other dignitaries of the Church, had already held at the
+princely house a sort of council on a small scale.  A young bride who
+gives her first ball, an emancipated minor who gives his first bachelor's
+dinner, a woman of talent who reads aloud for the first time her first
+unpublished work, are not more joyous and proud, and, at the same time,
+more attentive to their guests, than was this lady with her prelates.  To
+behold great interests discussed in her house, and in her presence, to
+hear men of acknowledged ability ask her advice upon certain practical
+matters relating to the influence of female congregations, filled the
+princess with pride, as her claims to consideration were thus sanctioned
+by Lordships and Eminences, and she took the position, as it were, of a
+mother of the Church.  Therefore, to win these prelates, whether native
+or foreign, she had recourse to no end of saintly flatteries and
+sanctified coaxing.  Nor could anything be more logical than these
+successive transfigurations of this heartless woman, who only loved
+sincerely and passionately the pursuit of intrigue and domination.  With
+the progress of age, she passed naturally from the intrigues of love to
+those of politics, and from the latter to those of religion.
+
+At the moment she finished inspecting her preparations, the sound of
+coaches was heard in the courtyard, apprising her of the arrival of the
+persons she had been expecting.  Doubtless, these persons were of the
+highest rank, for contrary to all custom, she went to receive them at the
+door of her outer saloon.  It was, indeed, Cardinal Malipieri, who was
+always cold, with the Belgian Bishop of Halfagen, who was always hot.
+They were accompanied by Father d'Aigrigny.  The Roman cardinal was a
+tall man, rather bony than thin, with a yellowish puffy countenance,
+haughty and full of craft; he squinted a good deal, and his black eyes
+were surrounded by a deep brown circle.  The Belgian Bishop was short,
+thick, and fat, with a prominent abdomen, an apoplectic complexion, a
+slow, deliberate look, and a soft, dimpled, delicate hand.
+
+The company soon assembled in the great saloon.  The cardinal instantly
+crept close to the fire, whilst the bishop, beginning to sweat and blow,
+cast longing glances at the iced chocolate and coffee, which were to aid
+him in sustaining the oppressive heat of the artificial dog-day.  Father
+d'Aigrigny, approaching the princess, said to her in a low voice: "Will
+you give orders for the admittance of Abbe Gabriel de Rennepont, when he
+arrives?"
+
+"Is that young priest then here?" asked the princess, with extreme
+surprise.
+
+"Since the day before yesterday.  We had him sent for to Paris, by his
+superiors.  You shall know all.  As for Father Rodin, let Mrs. Grivois
+admit him, as the other day, by the little door of the back stairs."
+
+"He will come to-day?"
+
+"He has very important matters to communicate.  He  desires that both the
+cardinal and the bishop should be present for they have been informed of
+everything at Rome by the Superior General, in their quality of
+associates."
+
+The princess rang the bell, gave the necessary orders, and, returning
+towards the cardinal, said to him, in a tone of the most earnest
+solicitude: "Does your Eminence begin to feel a little warmer?  Would
+your Eminence like a bottle of hot water to your feet?  Shall we make a
+larger fire for your Eminence?"
+
+At this proposition, the Belgian bishop, who was wiping the perspiration
+from his forehead, heaved a despairing sigh.
+
+"A thousand thanks, princess," answered the cardinal to her, in very good
+French, but with an intolerable Italian accent; "I am really overcome
+with so much kindness."
+
+"Will not your Lordship take some refreshment?" said the princess to the
+bishop, as she turned towards the sideboard.
+
+"With your permission, madame, I will take a little iced coffee," said
+the prelate, making a prudent circuit to approach the dishes without
+passing before the fire.
+
+"And will not your Eminence try one of these little oyster-patties?  They
+are quite hot," said the princess.
+
+"I know them already, princess," said the cardinal, with the air and look
+of an epicure; "they are delicious, and I cannot resist the temptation."
+
+"What wine shall I have the honor to offer your Eminence?" resumed the
+princess, graciously.
+
+"A little claret, if you please, madame;" and as Father d'Aigrigny
+prepared to fill the cardinal's glass, the princess disputed with him
+that pleasure.
+
+"Your Eminence will doubtless approve what I have done," said Father
+d'Aigrigny to the cardinal, whilst the latter was gravely despatching the
+oyster-patties, "in not summoning for to-day the Bishop of Mogador, the
+Archbishop of Nanterre, and our holy Mother Perpetue, the lady-superior
+of St. Mary Convent, the interview we are about to have with his
+Reverence Father Rodin and Abbe Gabriel being altogether private and
+confidential."
+
+"Our good father was perfectly right," said the cardinal; "for, though
+the possible consequences of this Rennepont affair may interest the whole
+Church, there are some things that are as well kept secret."
+
+"Then I must seize this opportunity to thank your Eminence for having
+deigned to make an exception in favor of a very obscure and humble
+servant of the Church," said the princess to the cardinal, with a very
+deep and respectful curtsey.
+
+"It is only just and right, madame," replied the cardinal, bowing as he
+replaced his empty glass upon the table; "we know how much the Church is
+indebted to you for the salutary direction you give to the religious
+institutions of which you are the patroness."
+
+"With regard to that, your Eminence may be assured that I always refuse
+assistance to any poor person who cannot produce a certificate from the
+confessional."
+
+"And it is only thus, madame," resumed the cardinal, this time allowing
+himself to be tempted by the attractions of the crawfish's tails, "it is
+only thus that charity has any meaning.  I care little that the
+irreligious should feel hunger, but with the pious it is different;" and
+the prelate gayly swallowed a mouthful.  "Moreover," resumed he, "it is
+well known with what ardent zeal you pursue the impious, and those who
+are rebels against the authority of our Holy Father."
+
+"Your Eminence may feel convinced that I am Roman in heart and soul; I
+see no difference between a Gallican and a Turk," said the princess,
+bravely.
+
+"The princess is right," said the Belgian bishop: "I will go further, and
+assert that a Gallican should be more odious to the church than a pagan.
+In this respect I am of the opinion of Louis XIV.  They asked him a favor
+for a man about the court.  `Never,' said the great king; `this person is
+a Jansenist.'--`No, sire; he is an atheist.'--'Oh! that is different; I
+will grant what he asks,' said the King."
+
+This little episcopal jest made them all laugh.  After which Father
+d'Aigrigny resumed seriously, addressing the cardinal: "Unfortunately, as
+I was about to observe to your Eminence with regard to the Abbe Gabriel,
+unless they are very narrowly watched, the lower clergy have a tendency
+to become infected with dissenting views, and with ideas of rebellion
+against what they call the despotism of the bishops."
+
+"This young man must be a Catholic Luther!" said the bishop.  And,
+walking on tip-toe, he went to pour himself out a glorious glass of
+Madeira, in which he soaked some sweet cake, made in the form of a
+crozier.
+
+Led by his example, the Cardinal, under pretence of warming his feet by
+drawing still closer to the fire, helped himself to an excellent glass of
+old Malaga, which he swallowed by mouthfuls, with an air of profound
+meditation; after which he resumed: "So this Abbe Gabriel starts as a
+reformer.  He must be an ambitious man.  Is he dangerous?"
+
+"By our advice his superiors have judged him to be so.  They have ordered
+him to come hither.  He will soon be here, and I will tell your Eminence
+why I have sent for him.  But first, I have a note on the dangerous
+tendencies of the Abbe Gabriel.  Certain questions were addressed to him,
+with regard to some of his acts, and it was in consequence of his answers
+that his superiors recalled him."
+
+So saying, Father d'Aigrigny, took from his pocket-book a paper, which he
+read as follows:
+
+"`Question.--Is it true that you performed religious rites for an
+inhabitant of your parish who died in final impenitence of the most
+detestable kind, since he had committed suicide?
+
+"`Answer of Abbe Gabriel.--I paid him the last duties, because, more than
+any one else, because of his guilty end, he required the prayers of the
+church.  During the night which followed his interment I continually
+implored for him the divine mercy.
+
+"`Q.--Is it true that you refused a set of silver-gilt sacramental
+vessels, and other ornaments, with which one of the faithful, in pious
+zeal, wished to endow your parish?
+
+"`A.--I refused the vessels and embellishments, because the house of the
+Lord should be plain and without ornament, so as to remind the faithful
+that the divine Saviour was born in a stable.  I advised the person who
+wished to make these useless presents to my parish to employ the money in
+judicious almsgiving, assuring him it would be more agreeable to the
+Lord.'"
+
+"What a bitter and violent declamation against the adorning of our
+temples!" cried the cardinal.  "This young priest is most dangerous.
+Continue, my good father."
+
+And, in his indignation, his Eminence swallowed several mouthfuls of
+strawberry-cream.  Father d'Aigrigny continued.
+
+"`Q.--Is it true that you received in your parsonage, and kept there for
+some days, an inhabitant of the village, by birth a Swiss, belonging to
+the Protestant communion?  Is it true that not only you did not attempt
+to convert him to the one Catholic and Apostolic faith, but that you
+carried so far the neglect of your sacred duties as to inter this heretic
+in the ground consecrated for the repose of true believers?
+
+"`A.--One of my brethren was houseless.  His life had been honest and
+laborious.  In his old age his strength had failed him, and sickness had
+come at the back of it; almost in a dying state, he had been driven from
+his humble dwelling by a pitiless landlord, to whom he owed a year's
+rent.  I received the old man in my house, and soothed his last days.
+The poor creature had toiled and suffered all his life; dying, he uttered
+no word of bitterness at his hard fate; he recommended his soul to God
+and piously kissed the crucifix.  His pure and simple spirit returned to
+the bosom of its Creator.  I closed his eyes with respect, I buried him,
+I prayed for him; and, though he died in the Protestant faith, I thought
+him worthy of a place in consecrated ground.'"
+
+"Worse and worse!" said the cardinal.  "This tolerance is monstrous.  It
+is a horrible attack on that maxim of Catholicism: `Out of the pale of
+the Church there is no salvation.'"
+
+"And all this is the more serious, my lord," resumed Father d'Aigrigny,
+"because the mildness, charity, and Christian devotion of Abbe Gabriel
+have excited, not only in his parish, but in all the surrounding
+districts, the greatest enthusiasm.  The priests of the neighboring
+parishes have yielded to the general impulse, and it must be confessed
+that but for his moderation a wide-spread schism would have commenced."
+
+"But what do you hope will result from bringing him here?" said the
+prelate.
+
+"The position of Abbe Gabriel is complicated; first of all, he is the
+heir of the Rennepont family."
+
+"But has he not ceded his rights?" asked the cardinal.
+
+"Yes, my lord; and this cession, which was at first informal, has lately,
+with his free consent, been made perfectly regular in law; for he had
+sworn, happen what might, to renounce his part of the inheritance in
+favor of the Society of Jesus.  Nevertheless, his Reverence Father Rodin
+thinks, that if your Eminence, after explaining to Abbe Gabriel that he
+was about to be recalled by his superiors, were to propose to him some
+eminent position at Rome, he might be induced to leave France, and we
+might succeed in arousing within him those sentiments of ambition which
+are doubtless only sleeping for the present; your Eminence, having
+observed, very judiciously, that every reformer must be ambitious."
+
+"I approve of this idea," said the cardinal, after a moment's reflection;
+"with his merit and power of acting on other men, Abbe Gabriel may rise
+very high, if he is docile; and if he should not be so, it is better for
+the safety of the Church that he should be at Rome than here--for you
+know, my good father, we have securities that are unfortunately wanting
+in France."[36]
+
+After some moments of silence, the cardinal said suddenly to Father
+d'Aigrigny: "As we were talking of Father Rodin, tell me frankly what you
+think of him."
+
+"Your Eminence knows his capacity," said Father d'Aigrigny, with a
+constrained and suspicious air; "our reverend Father-General--"
+
+"Commissioned him to take your place," said the cardinal; "I know that.
+He told me so at Rome.  But what do you think of the character of Father
+Rodin?  Can one have full confidence in him?"
+
+"He has so complete, so original, so secret, and so impenetrable a mind,"
+said Father d'Aigrigny, with hesitation, "that it is difficult to form
+any certain judgment with respect to him."
+
+"Do you think him ambitious?" said the cardinal, after another moment's
+pause.  "Do you not suppose him capable of having other views than those
+of the greater glory of his Order?--Come, I have reasons for speaking
+thus," added the prelate, with emphasis.
+
+"Why," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, not without suspicion, for the game is
+played cautiously between people of the same craft, "what should your
+Eminence think of him, either from your own observation, or from the
+report of the Father-General?"
+
+"I think--that if his apparent devotion to his Order really concealed
+some after-thought--it would be well to discover it--for, with the
+influence that he has obtained at Rome (as I have found out), he might
+one day, and that shortly, become very formidable."
+
+"Well!" cried Father d'Aigrigny, impelled by his jealousy of Rodin; "I
+am, in this respect, of the same opinion as your Eminence; for I have
+sometimes perceived in him flashes of ambition, that were as alarming as
+they were extraordinary--and since I must tell all to your Eminence--"
+
+Father d'Aigrigny was unable to continue; at this moment Mrs. Grivois,
+who had been knocking at the door, half-opened it, and made a sign to her
+mistress.  The princess answered by bowing her head, and Mrs. Grivois
+again withdrew.  A second afterwards Rodin entered the room.
+
+[36] It is known that, in 1845, the Inquisition, solitary confinement,
+etc., still existed at Rome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+RENDERING THE ACCOUNT.
+
+At sight of Rodin, the two prelates and Father d'Aigrigny rose
+spontaneously, so much were they overawed by the real superiority of this
+man; their faces, just before contracted with suspicion and jealousy,
+suddenly brightened up, and seemed to smile on the reverend father with
+affectionate deference.  The princess advanced some steps to meet him.
+
+Rodin, badly dressed as ever, leaving on the soft carpet the muddy track
+of his clumsy shoes, put his umbrella into one corner, and advanced
+towards the table--not with his accustomed humility, but with slow step,
+uplifted head, and steady glance; not only did he feel himself in the
+midst of his partisans, but he knew that he could rule them all by the
+power of his intellect.
+
+"We were speaking of your reverence, my dear, good father," said the
+cardinal, with charming affability.
+
+"Ah!" said Rodin, looking fixedly at the prelate; "and what were you
+saying?"
+
+"Why," replied the Belgian bishop, wiping his forehead, "all the good
+that can be said of your reverence."
+
+"Will you not take something, my good father?" said the princess to
+Rodin, as she pointed to the splendid sideboard.
+
+"Thank you, madame, I have eaten my radish already this morning."
+
+"My secretary, Abbe Berlini, who was present at your repast, was, indeed,
+much astonished at your reverence's frugality," said the prelate: "it is
+worthy of an anchorite."
+
+"Suppose we talk of business," said Rodin, abruptly, like a man
+accustomed to lead and control the discussion.
+
+"We shall always be most happy to hear you," said the prelate.  "Your
+reverence yourself fixed to-day to talk over this great Rennepont affair.
+It is of such importance, that it was partly the cause of my journey to
+France; for to support the interests of the glorious Company of Jesus,
+with which I have the honor of being associated, is to support the
+interests of Rome itself, and I promised the reverend Father-General that
+I would place myself entirely at your orders."
+
+"I can only repeat what his Eminence has just said," added the bishop.
+"We set out from Rome together, and our ideas are just the same."
+
+"Certainly," said Rodin, addressing the cardinal, "your Eminence may
+serve our cause, and that materially.  I will tell you how presently."
+
+Then, addressing the princess, he continued: "I have desired Dr.
+Baleinier to come here, madame, for it will be well to inform him of
+certain things."
+
+"He will be admitted as usual," said the princess.
+
+Since Rodin's arrival Father d'Aigrigny had remained silent; he seemed
+occupied with bitter thoughts, and with some violent internal struggle.
+At last, half rising, he said to the prelate, in a forced tone of voice:
+"I will not ask your Eminence to judge between the reverend Father Rodin
+and myself.  Our General has pronounced, and I have obeyed.  But, as your
+Eminence will soon see our superior, I should wish that you would grant
+me the favor to report faithfully the answers of Father Rodin to one or
+two questions I am about to put to him."
+
+The prelate bowed.  Rodin looked at Father d'Aigrigny with an air of
+surprise, and said to him, dryly: "The thing is decided.  What is the use
+of questions?"
+
+"Not to justify myself," answered Father d'Aigrigny, "but to place
+matters in their true light before his Eminence."
+
+"Speak, then; but let us have no useless speeches," said Rodin, drawing
+out his large silver watch, and looking at it.  "By two o'clock I must be
+at Saint-Sulpice."
+
+"I will be as brief as possible," said Father d'Aigrigny, with repressed
+resentment.  Then, addressing Rodin, he resumed: "When your reverence
+thought fit to take my place, and to blame, very severely perhaps, the
+manner in which I had managed the interests confided to my care, I
+confess honestly that these interests were gravely compromised."
+
+"Compromised?" said Rodin, ironically; "you mean lost.  Did you not order
+me to write to Rome, to bid them renounce all hope?"
+
+"That is true," said Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"It was then a desperate case, given up by the best doctors," continued
+Rodin, with irony, "and yet I have undertaken to restore it to life.  Go
+on."
+
+And, plunging both hands into the pockets of his trousers, he looked
+Father d'Aigrigny full in the face.
+
+"Your reverence blamed me harshly," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, "not for
+having sought, by every possible means, to recover the property odiously
+diverted from our society--"
+
+"All your casuists authorize you to do so," said the cardinal; "the texts
+are clear and positive; you have a right to recover; per fas aut nefas
+what has been treacherously taken from you."
+
+"And therefore," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, "Father Rodin only reproached
+me with the military roughness of my means.  `Their violence,' he said,
+`was in dangerous opposition to the manners of the age.' Be it so; but
+first of all, I could not be exposed to any legal proceedings, and, but
+for one fatal circumstance, success would have crowned the course I had
+taken, however rough and brutal it may appear.  Now, may I ask your
+reverence what--"
+
+"What I have done more than you?" said Rodin to Father d'Aigrigny, giving
+way to his impertinent habit of interrupting people; "what I have done
+better than you?--what step I have taken in the Rennepont affair, since I
+received it from you in a desperate condition?  Is that what you wish to
+know?"
+
+"Precisely," said Father d'Aigrigny, dryly.
+
+"Well, I confess," resumed Rodin, in a sardonic tone, "just as you did
+great things, coarse things, turbulent things, I have been doing little,
+puerile, secret things.  Oh, heaven! you cannot imagine what a foolish
+part I, who passed for a man of enlarged views, have been acting for the
+last six weeks."
+
+"I should never have allowed myself to address such a reproach to your
+reverence, however deserved it may appear," said Father d'Aigrigny, with
+a bitter smile.
+
+"A reproach?" said Rodin, shrugging his shoulders; "a reproach?  You
+shall be the judge.  Do you know what I wrote about you, some six weeks
+ago?  Here it is: `Father d'Aigrigny has excellent qualities.  He will be
+of much service to me'--and from to-morrow I shall employ you very
+actively, added Rodin, by way of parenthesis--`but he is not great enough
+to know how to make himself little on occasion.' Do you understand?"
+
+"Not very well," said Father d'Aigrigny, blushing.
+
+"So much the worse for you," answered Rodin; "it only proves that I was
+right.  Well, since I must tell you, I have been wise enough to play the
+most foolish part for six whole weeks.  Yes, I have chatted nonsense with
+a grisette--have talked of liberty, progress, humanity, emancipation of
+women, with a young, excited girl; of Napoleon the Great, and all sorts
+of Bonapartist idolatry, with an old, imbecile soldier; of imperial
+glory, humiliation of France, hopes in the King of Rome, with a certain
+marshal of France, who, with a heart full of adoration for the robber of
+thrones, that was transported to Saint-Helena, has a head as hollow and
+sonorous as a trumpet, into which you have only to blow some warlike or
+patriotic notes, and it will flourish away of itself, without knowing why
+or how.  More than all this, I have talked of love affairs with a young
+tiger.  When I told you it was lamentable to see a man of any
+intelligence descend, as I have done, to all such petty ways of
+connecting the thousand threads of this dark web, was I not right?  Is it
+not a fine spectacle to see the spider obstinately weaving its net?--to
+see the ugly little black animal crossing thread upon thread, fastening
+it here, strengthening it there, and again lengthening it in some other
+place?  You shrug your shoulders in pity; but return two hours after--
+what will you find?  The little black animal eating its fill, and in its
+web a dozen of the foolish flies, bound so securely, that the little
+black animal has only to choose the moment of its repast."
+
+As he uttered those words, Rodin smiled strangely; his eyes, gradually
+half closed, opened to their full width, and seemed to shine more than
+usual.  The Jesuit felt a sort of feverish excitement, which he
+attributed to the contest in which he had engaged before these eminent
+personages, who already felt the influence of his original and cutting
+speech.
+
+Father d'Aigrigny began to regret having entered on the contest.  He
+resumed, however, with ill-repressed irony: "I do not dispute the
+smallness of your means.  I agree with you, they are very puerile--they
+are even very vulgar.  But that is not quite sufficient to give an
+exalted notion of your merit.  May I be allowed to ask--"
+
+"What these means have produced?" resumed Rodin, with an excitement that
+was not usual with him.  "Look into my spider's web, and you will see
+there the beautiful and insolent young girl, so proud, six weeks ago, of
+her grace, mind, and audacity--now pale, trembling, mortally wounded at
+the heart."
+
+"But the act of chivalrous intrepidity of the Indian prince, with which
+all Paris is ringing," said the princess, "must surely have touched
+Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"Yes; but I have paralyzed the effect of that stupid and savage devotion,
+by demonstrating to the young lady that it is not sufficient to kill
+black panthers to prove one's self a susceptible, delicate, and faithful
+lover."
+
+"Be it so," said Father d'Aigrigny; "we will admit the fact that Mdlle.
+de Cardoville is wounded to the heart."
+
+"But what does this prove with regard to the Rennepont affair?" asked the
+cardinal, with curiosity, as he leaned his elbows on the table.
+
+"There results from it," said Rodin, "that when our most dangerous enemy
+is mortally wounded, she abandons the battlefield.  That is something, I
+should imagine."
+
+"Indeed," said the princess, "the talents and audacity of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville would make her the soul of the coalition formed against us."
+
+"Be it so," replied Father d'Aigrigny, obstinately; "she may be no longer
+formidable in that respect.  But the wound in her heart will not prevent
+her from inheriting."
+
+"Who tells you so?" asked Rodin, coldly, and with assurance.  "Do you
+know why I have taken such pains, first to bring her in contact with
+Djalma, and then to separate her from him?"
+
+"That is what I ask you," said Father D'Aigrigny; "how can this storm of
+passion prevent Mdlle. de Cardoville and the prince from inheriting?"
+
+"Is it from the serene, or from the stormy sky, that darts the destroying
+thunderbolt?" said Rodin, disdainfully.  "Be satisfied; I shall know
+where to place the conductor.  As for M. Hardy, the man lived for three
+things: his workmen, his friend, his mistress.  He has been thrice
+wounded in the heart.  I always take aim at the heart; it is legal and
+sure."
+
+"It is legal, and sure, and praiseworthy," said the bishop; "for, if I
+understand you rightly, this manufacturer had a concubine; now it is well
+to make use of an evil passion for the punishment of the wicked."
+
+"True, quite true," added the cardinal; "if they have evil passion for us
+to make use of it, it is their own fault."
+
+"Our holy Mother Perpetue," said the princess, "took every means to
+discover this abominable adultery."
+
+"Well, then, M. Hardy is wounded in his dearest affections, I admit,"
+said Father d'Aigrigny, still disputing every inch of ground; "ruined too
+in his fortune, which will only make him the more eager after this
+inheritance."
+
+The argument appeared of weight to the two prelates and the princess; all
+looked at Rodin with anxious curiosity.  Instead of answering he walked
+up to the sideboard, and, contrary to his habits of stoical sobriety, and
+in spite of his repugnance for wine, he examined the decanters, and said:
+"What is there in them?"
+
+"Claret and sherry," said the hostess, much astonished at the sudden
+taste of Rodin, "and--"
+
+The latter took a decanter at hazard, and poured out a glass of Madeira,
+which he drank off at a draught.  Just be fore he had felt a strange kind
+of shivering; to this had succeeded a sort of weakness.  He hoped the
+wine would revive him.
+
+After wiping his mouth with the back of his dirty hand, he returned to
+the table, and said to Father d'Aigrigny: "What did you tell me about M.
+Hardy?"
+
+"That being ruined in fortune, he would be the more eager to obtain this
+immense inheritance," answered Father d'Aigrigny, inwardly much offended
+at the imperious tone.
+
+"M. Hardy think of money?" said Rodin, shrugging his shoulders.  "He is
+indifferent to life, plunged in a stupor from which he only starts to
+burst into tears.  Then he speaks with mechanical kindness to those about
+him.  I have placed him in good hands.  He begins, however, to be
+sensible to the attentions shown him, for he is good, excellent, weak;
+and ii is to this excellence, Father d'Aigrigny, that you must appeal to
+finish the work in hand."
+
+"I?" said Father d'Aigrigny, much surprised.
+
+"Yes; and then you will find that the result I have obtained is
+considerable, and--"
+
+Rodin paused, and, pressing his hand to his forehead, said to himself:
+"It is strange!"
+
+"What is the matter?" said the princess, with interest.
+
+"Nothing, madame," answered Rodin, with a shiver; "it is doubtless the
+wine I drank; I am not accustomed to it.  I feel a slight headache; but
+it will pass."
+
+"Your eyes are very bloodshot, my good father, said the princess.
+
+"I have looked too closely into my web," answered the Jesuit, with a
+sinister smile; "and I must look again, to make Father d'Aigrigny, who
+pretends to be blind, catch a glimpse of my other flies.  The two
+daughters of Marshal Simon, for instance, growing sadder and more
+dejected every day, at the icy barrier raised between them and their
+father; and the latter thinking himself one day dishonored if he does
+this, another if he does that; so that the hero of the Empire has become
+weaker and more irresolute than a child.  What more remains of this
+impious family?  Jacques Rennepont?  Ask Morok, to what a state of
+debasement intemperance has reduced him, and towards what an abyss he is
+rushing!--There is my occurrence-sheet; you see to what are reduced all
+the members of this family, who, six weeks ago, had each elements of
+strength and union! Behold these Renneponts, who, by the will of their
+heretical ancestor, were to unite their forces to combat and crush our
+Society!--There was good reason to fear them; but what did I say?  That I
+would act upon their passions.  What have I done?  I have acted upon
+their passions.  At this hour they are vainly struggling in my web--they
+are mine--they are mine--"
+
+As he was speaking, Rodin's countenance and voice had undergone a
+singular alteration; his complexion, generally so cadaverous, had become
+flushed, but unequally, and in patches; then, strange phenomenon! his
+eyes grew both more brilliant and more sunken, and his voice sharper and
+louder.  The change in the countenance of Rodin, of which he did not
+appear to be conscious, was so remarkable, that the other actors in this
+scene looked at him with a sort of terror.
+
+Deceived as to the cause of this impression, Rodin exclaimed with
+indignation, in a voice interrupted by deep gaspings for breath: "It is
+pity for this impious race, that I read upon your faces?  Pity for the
+young girl, who never enters a church, and erects pagan altars in her
+habitation?  Pity for Hardy, the sentimental blasphemer, the
+philanthropic atheist, who had no chapel in his factory, and dared to
+blend the names of Socrates, Marcus, Aurelius, and Plato, with our
+Savior's?  Pity for the Indian worshipper of Brahma?  Pity for the two
+sisters, who have never even been baptized?  Pity for that brute, Jacques
+Rennepont?  Pity for the stupid imperial soldier, who has Napoleon for
+his god, and the bulletins of the Grand Army for his gospel?  Pity for
+this family of renegades, whose ancestor, a relapsed heretic, not content
+with robbing us of our property, excites from his tomb, at the end of a
+century and a half, his cursed race to lift their heads against us?
+What! to defend ourselves from these vipers, we shall not have the right
+to crush them in their own venom?--I tell you, that it is to serve
+heaven, and to give a salutary example to the world, to devote, by
+unchaining their own passions, this impious family to grief and despair
+and death!"
+
+As he spoke thus, Rodin was dreadful in his ferocity; the fire of his
+eyes became still more brilliant; his lips were dry and burning, a cold
+sweat bathed his temples, which could be seen throbbing; an icy shudder
+ran through his frame.  Attributing these symptoms to fatigue from
+writing through a portion of the night, and wishing to avoid fainting, he
+went to the sideboard, filled another glass with wine, which he drank off
+at a draught, and returned as the cardinal said to him: "If your course
+with regard to this family needed justification, my good father, your
+last word would have victoriously justified it.  Not only are you right,
+according to your own casuists, but there is nothing in your proceedings
+contrary to human laws.  As for the divine law, it is pleasing to the
+Lord to destroy impiety with its own weapons.
+
+Conquered, as well as the others, by Rodin's diabolical assurance, and
+brought back to a kind of fearful admiration, Father d'Aigrigny said to
+him: "I confess I was wrong in doubting the judgment of your reverence.
+Deceived by the appearance of the means employed, I could not judge of
+their connection, and above all, of their results.  I now see, that,
+thanks to you, success is no longer doubtful."
+
+"This is an exaggeration," replied Rodin, with feverish impatience; "all
+these passions are at work, but the moment is critical.  As the alchemist
+bends over the crucible, which may give him either treasures or sudden
+death--I alone at this moment--"
+
+Rodin did not finish the sentence.  He pressed both his hands to his
+forehead, with a stifled cry of pain.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Father d'Aigrigny.  "For some moments you have
+been growing fearfully pale."
+
+"I do not know 'what is the matter," said Rodin, in an altered voice; "my
+headache increases--I am seized with a sort of giddiness."
+
+"Sit down," said the princess, with interest.
+
+"Take something," said the bishop.
+
+"It will be nothing," said Rodin, with an effort; "I am no milksop, thank
+heaven!--I had little sleep last night; it is fatigue--nothing more.  I
+was saying, that I alone could now direct this affair: but I cannot
+execute the plan myself.  I must keep out of the way, and watch in the
+shade: I must hold the threads, which I alone can manage," added Rodin,
+in a faint voice.
+
+"My good father," said the cardinal uneasily, "I assure you that you are
+very unwell.  Your paleness is becoming livid."
+
+"It is possible," answered Rodin, courageously; "but I am not to be so
+soon conquered.  To return to our affair--this is the time, in which your
+qualities, Father d'Aigrigny, will turn to good account.  I have never
+denied them, and they may now be of the greatest use.  You have the power
+of charming--grace--eloquence--you must--"
+
+Rodin paused again.  A cold sweat poured from his forehead.  He felt his
+legs give way under him, notwithstanding his obstinate energy.
+
+"I confess, I am not well," he said; "yet, this morning, I was as well as
+ever.  I shiver.  I am icy cold."
+
+"Draw near the fire--it is a sudden indisposition," said the bishop,
+offering his arm with heroic devotion; "it will not be anything of
+consequence."
+
+"If you were to take something warm, a cup of tea," said the princess;
+"Dr. Baleinier will be here directly--he will reassure us as to this--
+indisposition."
+
+"It is really inexplicable," said the prelate.
+
+At these words of the cardinal, Rodin, who had advanced with difficulty
+towards the fire, turned his eyes upon the prelate, and looked at him
+fixedly in a strange manner, for about a second; then, strong in his
+unconquerable energy, notwithstanding the change in his features, which
+were now visibly disfigured, Rodin said, in a broken voice, which he
+tried to make firm: "The fire has warmed me; it will be nothing.  I have
+no time to coddle myself.  It would be a pretty thing to fall ill just as
+the Rennepont affair can only succeed by my exertions! Let us return to
+business.  I told you, Father d'Aigrigny, that you might serve us a good
+deal; and you also, princess, who have espoused this cause as if it were
+your own--"
+
+Rodin again paused.  This time he uttered a piercing cry, sank upon a
+chair placed near him, and throwing himself back convulsively, he pressed
+his hands to his chest, and exclaimed: "Oh! what pain!"
+
+Then (dreadful sight!) a cadaverous decomposition, rapid as thought, took
+place in Rodin's features.  His hollow eyes were filled with blood, and
+seemed to shrink back in their orbits, which formed, as it were, two dark
+holes, in the centre of which blazed points of fire; nervous convulsions
+drew the flabby, damp, and icy skin tight over the bony prominences of
+the face, which was becoming rapidly green.  From the lips, writhing with
+pain, issued the struggling breath, mingled with the words: "Oh! I
+suffer! I burn!"
+
+Then, yielding to a transport of fury.  Rodin tore with his nails his
+naked chest, for he had twisted off the buttons of his waistcoat, and
+rent his black and filthy shirt-front, as if the pressure of those
+garments augmented the violence of the pain under which he was writhing.
+The bishop, the cardinal, and Father d'Aigrigny, hastily approached
+Rodin, to try and hold him; he was seized with horrible convulsions; but,
+suddenly, collecting all his strength, he rose upon his feet stiff as a
+corpse.  Then, with his garments in disorder, his thin, gray hair
+standing up all around his greenish face, fixing his red and flaming eyes
+upon the cardinal, he seized him with convulsive grasp, and exclaimed in
+a terrible voice, half stifled in his throat: "Cardinal Malipieri--this
+illness is too sudden--they suspect me at Rome--you are of the race of
+the Borgias--and your secretary was with me this morning!"
+
+"Unhappy man! what does he dare insinuate?" cried the prelate, as amazed
+as he was indignant at the accusation.  So saying, the cardinal strove to
+free himself from the grasp of Rodin, whose fingers were now as stiff as
+iron.
+
+"I am poisoned!" muttered Rodin, and sinking back, he fell into the arms
+of Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+Notwithstanding his alarm, the cardinal had time to whisper to the
+latter: "He thinks himself poisoned.  He must therefore be plotting
+something very dangerous."
+
+The door of the room opened.  It was Dr. Baleinier.
+
+"Oh, doctor!" cried the princess, as she ran pale and frightened towards
+him; "Father Rodin has been suddenly attacked with terrible convulsions.
+Quick! quick!"
+
+"Convulsions? oh! it will be nothing, madame," said the doctor, throwing
+down his hat upon a chair, and hastily approaching the group which
+surrounded the sick man.
+
+"Here is the doctor!" cried the princess.  All stepped aside, except
+Father d'Aigrigny, who continued to support Rodin, leaning against a
+chair.
+
+"Heavens! what symptoms!" cried Dr. Baleinier, examining with growing
+terror the countenance of Rodin, which from green was turning blue.
+
+"What is it?" asked all the spectators, with one voice.
+
+"What is it?" repeated the doctor, drawing back as if he had trodden upon
+a serpent.  "It is the cholera! and contagious!"
+
+On this frightful, magic word, Father d'Aigrigny abandoned his hold of
+Rodin, who rolled upon the floor.
+
+"He is lost!" cried Dr. Baleinier.  "But I will run to fetch the means
+for a last effort." And he rushed towards the door.
+
+The Princess de Saint-Dizier, Father d'Aigrigny, the bishop, and the
+cardinal followed in terror the flight of Dr. Baleinier.  They all
+pressed to the door, which, in their consternation, they could not open.
+It opened at last but from without--and Gabriel appeared upon the
+threshold.  Gabriel, the type of the true priest, the holy, the
+evangelical minister, to whom we can never pay enough of respect and
+ardent sympathy, and tender admiration.  His angelic countenance, in its
+mild serenity, offered a striking contrast of these faces, all disturbed
+and contracted with terror.
+
+The young priest was nearly thrown down by the fugitives, who rushed
+through the now open doorway, exclaiming: "Do not go in! he is dying of
+the cholera.  Fly!"
+
+On these words, pushing back the bishop, who, being the last, was trying
+to force a passage, Gabriel ran towards Rodin, while the prelate
+succeeded in making his escape.  Rodin, stretched upon the carpet, his
+limbs twisted with fearful cramps, was writhing in the extremity of pain.
+The violence of his fall had, no doubt, roused him to consciousness, for
+he moaned, in a sepulchral voice: "They leave me to die--like a dog--the
+cowards!--Help!--no one--"
+
+And the dying man, rolling on his back with a convulsive movement, turned
+towards the ceiling a face on which was branded the infernal despair of
+the damned, as he once more repeated: "No one!--not one!"
+
+His eyes, which suddenly flamed with fury, just then met the large blue
+eyes of the angelic and mild countenance of Gabriel who, kneeling beside
+him, said to him, in his soft, grave tones: "I am here, father--to help
+you, if help be possible-- to pray for you, if God calls you to him."
+
+"Gabriel!" murmured Rodin, with failing voice; "forgive me for the evil I
+have done you--do not leave me--do not--"
+
+Rodin could not finish; he had succeeded in raising himself into a
+sitting posture; he now uttered a loud cry, and fell back without sense
+or motion.
+
+The same day it was announced in the evening papers: "The cholera has
+broken out in Paris.  The first case declared itself this day, at half-
+past three, P.M. in the Rue de Babylone, at Saint-Dizier House."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE SQUARE OF NOTRE DAME.
+
+A week had passed since Rodin was seized with the cholera, and its
+ravages had continually increased.  That was an awful time! A funeral
+pall was spread over Paris, once so gay.  And yet, never had the sky been
+of a more settled, purer blue; never had the sun shone more brilliantly.
+The inexorable serenity of nature, during the ravages of the deadly
+scourge, offered a strange and mysterious contrast.  The flaunting light
+of the dazzling sunshine fell full upon the features, contracted by a
+thousand agonizing fears.  Each trembled for himself, or for those dear
+to him; every countenance was stamped with an expression of feverish
+astonishment and dread.  People walked with rapid steps, as if they would
+escape from the fate which threatened them; besides, they were in haste
+to return to their homes, for often they left life, health, happiness,
+and, two hours later, they found agony, death, and despair.
+
+At every moment, new dismal objects met the view.  Sometimes carts passed
+along, filled with coffins, symmetrically piled; they stopped before
+every house.  Men in black and gray garments were in waiting before the
+door; they held out their hands, and to some, one coffin was thrown, to
+some two, frequently three or four, from the same house.  It sometimes
+happened that the store was quickly exhausted, and the cart, which had
+arrived full, went away empty, whilst many of the dead in the street were
+still unserved.  In nearly every dwelling, upstairs and down, from the
+roof to the cellar, there was a stunning tapping of hammers: coffins were
+being nailed down, and so many, so very many were nailed, that sometimes
+those who worked stopped from sheer fatigue.  Then broke forth laments,
+heart-rending moans, despairing imprecations.  They were uttered by those
+from whom the men in black and gray had taken some one to fill the
+coffins.
+
+Unceasingly were the coffins filled, and day and night did those men
+work, but by day more than by night, for, as soon as it was dusk, carne a
+gloomy file of vehicles of all kinds--the usual hearses were not
+sufficient; but cars, carts, drays, hackney-coaches, and such like,
+swelled the funeral procession; different to the other conveyances, which
+entered the streets full and went away empty--these came empty but soon
+returned full.  During that period, the windows of many houses were
+illuminated, and often the lights remained burning till the morning.  It
+was "the season." These illuminations resembled the gleaming rays which
+shine in the gay haunts of pleasure; but there were tapers instead of wax
+candles, and the chanting of prayers for the dead replaced the murmur of
+the ball-room.  In the streets, instead of the facetious transparencies
+which indicate the costumers, there swung at intervals huge lanterns of a
+blood-red color, with these words in black letters: "Assistance for those
+attacked with the cholera." The true places for revelry, during the
+night, were the churchyards; they ran riot--they, usually so desolate and
+silent, during the dark, quiet hours, when the cypress trees rustle in
+the breeze, so lonely, that no human step dared to disturb the solemn
+silence which reigned there at night, became on a sudden, animated,
+noisy, riotous, and resplendent with light.  By the smoky flames of
+torches, which threw a red glare upon the dark fir-trees, and the white
+tombstones, many grave-diggers worked merrily, humming snatches of some
+favorite tune.  Their laborious and hazardous industry then commanded a
+very high price; they were in such request that it was necessary to humor
+them.  They drank often and much; they sang long and loud; and this to
+keep up their strength and spirits good, absolute requisites in such an
+employment.  If, by chance, any did not finish the grave they had begun,
+some obliging comrade finished it for them (fitting expression!), and
+placed them in it with friendly care.
+
+Other distant sounds responded to the joyous strains of the grave-
+diggers; public-houses had sprung up in the neighborhood of the
+churchyards, and the drivers of the dead, when they had "set down their
+customers," as they jocosely expressed themselves, enriched with their
+unusual gratuities, feasted and made merry like lords; dawn often found
+them with a glass in their hands, and a jest on their lips; and, strange
+to say, among these funeral satellites, who breathed the very atmosphere
+of the disease, the mortality was scarcely perceptible.  In the dark,
+squalid quarters of the town, where, surrounded by infectious
+exhalations, the indigent population was crowded together, and miserable
+beings, exhausted by severe privation, were "bespoke" by the cholera, as
+it was energetically said at the time, not only individuals, but whole
+families, were carried off in a few hours; and yet, sometimes, oh,
+merciful Providence! one or two little children were left in the cold and
+empty room, after the father and mother, brother and sister, had been
+taken away in their shells.
+
+Frequently, houses which had swarmed with hard working laborers, were
+obliged to be shut up for want of tenants; in one day, they had been
+completely cleared by this terrible visitation, from the cellars, where
+little chimney-sweepers slept upon straw, to the garret, on whose cold
+brick floor lay stretched some wan and half-naked being, without work and
+without bread.  But, of all the wards of Paris, that which perhaps
+presented the most frightful spectacle during the progress of the
+cholera, was the City; and in the City, the square before the cathedral
+of Notre-Dame was almost every day the theatre of dreadful scenes: for
+this locality was frequently thronged with those who conveyed the sick
+from the neighboring streets to the Great Hospital.  The cholera had not
+one aspect, but a thousand.  So that one week after Rodin had been
+suddenly attacked, several events combining the horrible and the
+grotesque occurred in the square of Notre Dame.
+
+Instead of the Rue d'Arcole, which now leads directly to the square, it
+was then approached on one side, by a mean, narrow lane, like all the
+other streets of the City, and terminating in a dark, low archway.  Upon
+entering the square the principal door of the huge Cathedral was to the
+left of the spectator, and facing him were the Hospital buildings.  A
+little beyond, was an opening which gave to view a portion of the parapet
+of the Quay Notre-Dame.  A placard had been recently stuck on the
+discolored and sunken wail of the archway; it contained these words,
+traced in large characters.[37]
+
+"VENGEANCE! VENGEANCE!
+
+"The Working-men carried to the hospitals are poisoned, because the
+number of patients is too great; every night, Boats filled with corpses,
+drop down the Seine.
+
+"Vengeance and Death to the murderers of the People!"
+
+Two men, enveloped in cloaks, and half-hidden in the deep shadow of the
+vault, were listening with anxious curiosity to the threatening murmur,
+which rose with increasing force from among a tumultuous assembly,
+grouped around the Hospital.  Soon, cries of "Death to the doctors!--
+Vengeance!" reached the ears of the persons who were in ambush under the
+arch.
+
+"The posters are working," said one; "the train is on fire.  When once
+the populace is roused, we can set them on whom we please."
+
+"I say," replied the other man, "look over there.  That Hercules, whose
+athletic form towers above the mob, was cue of the most frantic leaders
+when M. Hardy's factory was destroyed."
+
+"To be sure he was; I know him again. Wherever mischief is to be done,
+you are sure to find those vagabonds.
+
+"Now, take my advice, do not let us remain under this archway," said the
+other man; "the wind is as cold as ice, and though I am cased in
+flannel--"
+
+"You are right, the cholera is confoundedly impolite.  Besides,
+everything is going on well here; I am likewise assured that the whole of
+the Faubourg Saint-Antoine is ready to rise in the republican cause; that
+will serve our ends, and our holy religion will triumph over
+revolutionary impiety.  Let us rejoin Father d'Aigrigny."
+
+"Where shall we find him?"
+
+"Near here, come--come."
+
+The two hastily disappeared.
+
+The sun, beginning to decline, shed its golden rays upon the blackened
+sculptures of the porch of Notre-Dame, and upon its two massy towers,
+rising in imposing majesty against a perfectly blue sky, for during the
+fast few days, a north-east wind, dry and cold, had driven away the
+lightest cloud.  A considerable number of people, as we have already
+stated, obstructed the approach to the Hospital; they crowded round the
+iron railings that protect the front of the building, behind which was
+stationed a detachment of infantry, the cries of "Death to the doctors!"
+becoming every moment more threatening.  The people who thus vociferated.
+belonged to an idle, vagabond, and depraved populace--the dregs of the
+Paris mob; and (terrible spectacle!) the unfortunate beings who were
+forcibly carried through the midst of these hideous groups entered the
+Hospital, whilst the air resounded with hoarse clamors, and cries of
+"Death." Every moment, fresh victims were brought along in litters, and
+on stretchers; the litters were frequently furnished with coarse
+curtains, and thus the sick occupants were concealed from the public
+gaze; but the stretchers, having no covering, the convulsive movements of
+the dying patients often thrust aside the sheet, and exposed to view
+their faces, livid as corpses.  Far from inspiring with terror the
+wretches assembled round the Hospital, such spectacles became to them the
+signal for savage jests, and atrocious predictions upon the fate of these
+poor creatures, when once in the power of the doctors.
+
+The big blaster and Ciboule, with a good many of their adherents, were
+among the mob.  After the destruction of Hardy's factory, the quarryman
+was formally expelled from the union of the Wolves, who would have
+nothing more to do with this wretch; since then, he had plunged into the
+grossest debauchery, and speculating on his herculean strength, had hired
+himself as the officious champion of Ciboule and her compeers.  With the
+exception therefore of some chance passengers, the square of Notre-Dame
+was filled with a ragged crowd, composed of the refuse of the Parisian
+populace--wretches who call for pity as well as blame; for misery,
+ignorance, and destitution, beget but too fatally vice and crime.  These
+savages of civilization felt neither pity, improvement, nor terror, at
+the shocking sights with which they were surrounded; careless of a life
+which was a daily struggle against hunger, or the allurements of guilt,
+they braved the pestilence with infernal audacity, or sank under it with
+blasphemy on their lips.
+
+The tall form of the quarryman was conspicuous amongst the rest; with
+inflamed eyes and swollen features, he yelled at the top of his voice:
+"Death to the body-snatchers! they poison the people."
+
+"That is easier than to feed them," added Ciboule.  Then, addressing
+herself to an old man, who was being carried with great difficulty
+through the dense crowd, upon a chair, by two men, the hag continued:
+"Hey? don't go in there, old croaker; die here in the open air instead of
+dying in that den, where you'll be doctored like an old rat."
+
+"Yes," added the quarryman; "and then they'll throw you into the water to
+feast the fishes, which you won't swallow any more."
+
+At these atrocious cries, the old man looked wildly around, and uttered
+faint groans.  Ciboule wished to stop the persons who were carrying him,
+and they had much difficulty in getting rid of the hag.  The number of
+cholera-patients arriving increased every moment, and soon neither
+litters nor stretchers could be obtained, so that they were borne along
+in the arms of the attendants.  Several awful episodes bore witness to
+the startling rapidity of the infection.  Two men were carrying a
+stretcher covered with a blood-stained sheet; one of them suddenly felt
+himself attacked with the complaint; he stopped short, his powerless arms
+let go the stretcher; he turned pale, staggered, fell upon the patient,
+becoming as livid as him; the other man, struck with terror, fled
+precipitately, leaving his companion and the dying man in the midst of
+the crowd.  Some drew back in horror, others burst into a savage laugh.
+
+"The horses have taken fright," said the quarryman, "and have left the
+turn-out in the lurch."
+
+"Help!" cried the dying man, with a despairing accent; "for pity's sake
+take me in."
+
+"There's no more room in the pit," said one, in a jeering tone.
+
+"And you've no legs left to reach the gallery," added another.
+
+The sick man made an effort to rise; but his strength failed him; he fell
+back exhausted on the mattress.  A sudden movement took place among the
+crowd, the stretcher was overturned, the old man and his companion were
+trodden underfoot, and their groans were drowned in the cries of "Death
+to the body-snatchers!" The yells were renewed with fresh fury, but the
+ferocious band, who respected nothing in their savage fury, were soon
+after obliged to open their ranks to several workmen, who vigorously
+cleared the way for two of their friends carrying in their arms a poor
+artisan.  He was still young, but his heavy and already livid head hung
+down upon the shoulder of one of them.  A little child followed, sobbing,
+and holding by one of the workmen's coats.  The measured and sonorous
+sound of several drums was now heard at a distance in the winding streets
+of the city: they were beating the call to arms, for sedition was rife in
+the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.  The drummers emerged from under the archway,
+and were traversing the square, when one of them, a gray-haired veteran,
+suddenly slackened the rolling of his drum, and stood still: his
+companions turned round in surprise--he had turned green; his legs gave
+way, he stammered some unintelligible words, and had fallen upon the
+pavement before those in the front rank had time to pause.  The
+overwhelming rapidity of this attack startled for a moment the most
+hardened among the surrounding spectators; for, wondering at the
+interruption, a part of the crowd had rushed towards the soldiers.
+
+At sight of the dying man, supported in the arms of two of his comrades,
+one of the individuals, who, concealed under the arch, had watched the
+beginning of the popular excitement, said to the drummers: "Your comrade
+drank, perhaps, at some fountain on the road?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied one; "he was very thirsty; he drank two mouthfuls of
+water on the Place du Chatelet."
+
+"Then he is poisoned," said the man.
+
+"Poisoned?" cried several voices.
+
+"It is not surprising," replied the man, in a mysterious tone; "poison is
+thrown into the public fountains; and this very morning a man was
+massacred in the Rue Beaubourg who was discovered emptying a paper of
+arsenic into a pot of wine at a public-house."[38]
+
+Having said these words, the man disappeared in the crowd.  This report,
+no less absurd than the tales about the poisoning of the Hospital
+patients, was received with a general burst of indignation.  Five or six
+ragged beings, regular ruffians, seized the body of the expiring drummer,
+hoisted it upon their shoulders, in spite of all the efforts of his
+comrades to prevent them, and paraded the square exhibiting the dismal
+trophy.  Ciboule and the quarryman went before, crying: "Wake way for the
+corpse! This is how they poison the people!"
+
+A fresh incident now attracted the attention of the crowd.  A travelling-
+carriage, which had not been able to pass along the Quai-Napoleon, the
+pavement of which was up, had ventured among the intricate streets of the
+city, and now arrived in the square of Notre-Dame on its way to the other
+side of the Seine.  Like many others, its owners were flying from Paris,
+to escape the pestilence which decimated it.  A man-servant and a lady's
+maid were in the rumble, and they exchanged a glance of alarm as they
+passed the Hospital, whilst a young man seated in the front part of the
+carriage let down the glass, and called to the postilions to go slowly,
+for fear of accident, as the crowd was very dense at that part of the
+square.  This young man was Lord Morinval, and on the back seat were Lord
+Montbron and his niece, Lady Morinval.  The pale and anxious countenance
+of the young lady showed the alarm which she felt; and Montbron,
+notwithstanding his firmness of mind, appeared to be very uneasy; he, as
+well as his niece, frequently had recourse to a smelling-bottle filled
+with camphor.
+
+During the last few minutes, the carriage had advanced very slowly, the
+postilions managing their horses with great caution, when a sudden
+hubbub, at first distant and undefined, but soon more distinct, arose
+among the throng, as it drew near, the ringing sound of chains and metal,
+peculiar to the artillery-wagons, was plainly audible, and presently one
+of these vehicles came towards the travelling-carriage, from the
+direction of the Quai Notre-Dame.  It seemed strange, that though the
+crowd was so compact, yet at the rapid approach of this wagon, the close
+ranks of human beings opened as if by enchantment, but the following
+words which were passed from mouth to mouth soon accounted for the
+prodigy: "A wagon full of dead! the wagon of the dead!" As we have
+already stated, the usual funeral conveyances were no longer sufficient
+for the removal of the corpses; a number of artillery wagons had been put
+into requisition, and the coffins were hastily piled in these novel
+hearses.
+
+Many of the spectators regarded this gloomy vehicle with dismay, but the
+quarryman and his band redoubled their horrible jokes.
+
+"Make way for the omnibus of the departed!" cried Ciboule.
+
+"No danger of having one's toes crushed in that omnibus," said the
+quarryman.
+
+"Doubtless they're easy to please, the stiff-uns in there."
+
+"They never want to be set down, at all events."
+
+"I say, there's only one reg'lar on duty as postilion!"
+
+"That's true, the leaders are driven by a man in a smock-frock."
+
+"Oh! I daresay the other soldier was tired, lazy fellow! and got into the
+omnibus with the others--they'll all get out at the same big hole."
+
+"Head foremost, you know."
+
+"Yes, they pitch them head first into a bed of lime."
+
+"Why, one might follow the dead-cart blind-fold, and no mistake.  It's
+worse than Montfaucon knacker-yards!"
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!--it's rather gamey!" said the quarryman, alluding to the
+infectious and cadaverous odor which this funeral conveyance left behind
+it.
+
+"Here's sport!" exclaimed Ciboule: "the omnibus of the dead will run
+against the fine coach.  Hurrah! the rich folks will smell death."
+
+Indeed, the wagon was now directly in front of the carriage, and at a
+very little distance from it.  A man in a smock-frock and wooden shoes
+drove the two leaders, and an artilleryman the other horses.  The coffins
+were so piled up within this wagon, that its semicircular top did not
+shut down closely, so that, as it jolted heavily over the uneven
+pavement, the biers could be seen chafing against each other.  The fiery
+eyes and inflamed countenance of the man in the smock-frock showed that
+he was half intoxicated; urging on the horses with his voice, his heels,
+and his whip, he paid no attention to the remonstrances of the soldier,
+who had great difficulty in restraining his own animals, and was obliged
+to follow the irregular movements of the carman.  Advancing in this
+disorderly manner, the wagon deviated from its course just as it should
+have passed the travelling-carriage, and ran against it.  The shock
+forced open the top, one of the coffins was thrown out, and, after
+damaging the panels of the carriage, fell upon the pavement with a dull
+and heavy sound.  The deal planks had been hastily nailed together, and
+were shivered in the fall, and from the wreck of the coffin rolled a
+livid corpse, half enveloped in a shroud.
+
+At this horrible spectacle, Lady Morinval, who had mechanically leaned
+forward, gave a loud scream, and fainted.  The crowd fell back in dismay;
+the postilions, no less alarmed, took advantage of the space left open to
+them by the retreat of the multitude; they whipped their horses, and the
+carriage dashed on towards the quay.  As it disappeared behind the
+furthermost buildings of the Hospital, the shrill joyous notes of distant
+trumpets were heard, and repeated shouts proclaimed: "The Cholera
+Masquerade!" The words announced one of those episodes combining
+buffoonery with terror, which marked the period when the pestilence was
+on the increase, though now they can with difficulty be credited.  If the
+evidence of eyewitnesses did not agree in every particular with the
+accounts given in the public papers of this masquerade, they might be
+regarded as the ravings of some diseased brain, and not as the notice of
+a fact which really occurred.
+
+"The Masquerade of the Cholera" appeared, we say, in the square of Notre-
+Dame, just as Morinval's carriage gained the quay, after disengaging
+itself from the death-wagon.
+
+[37] It is well-known that at the time of the cholera, such placards were
+numerous in Paris, and were alternately attributed to opposite parties.
+Among others, to the priests, many of the bishops having published
+mandatory letters, or stated openly in the churches of their diocese,
+that the Almighty had sent the cholera as a punishment to France for
+having driven away its lawful sovereign, and assimilated the Catholic to
+other forms of worship.
+
+[38] It is notorious, that at this unhappy period several persons were
+massacred, under a false accusation of poisoning the fountains, etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE CHOLERA MASQUERADE.[39]
+
+A stream of people, who preceded the masquerade, made a sudden irruption
+through the arch into the square, uttering loud cheers as they advanced.
+Children were also there, blowing horns, whilst some hooted and others
+hissed.
+
+The quarryman, Ciboule, and their band, attracted by this new spectacle,
+rushed tumultuously towards the arch.  Instead of the two eating-houses,
+which now (1845) stand on either side of the Rue d'Arcole, there was then
+only one, situated to the left of the vaulted passage, and much
+celebrated amongst the joyous community of students, for the excellence
+both of its cookery and its wines.  At the first blare of the trumpets,
+sounded by the outriders in livery who preceded the masquerade, the
+windows of the great room of the eating-house were thrown open, and
+several waiters, with their napkins under their arms, leaned forward,
+impatient to witness the arrival of the singular guests they were
+expecting.
+
+At length, the grotesque procession made its appearance in the thick of
+an immense uproar.  The train comprised a chariot, escorted by men and
+women on horseback, clad in rich and elegant fancy dresses.  Most of
+these maskers belonged to the middle and easy classes of society.  The
+report had spread that masquerade was in preparation, for the purpose of
+daring the cholera, and, by this joyous demonstration, to revive the
+courage of the affrighted populace.  Immediately, artists, young men
+about town, students, and so on, responded to the appeal, and though till
+now unknown one to the other, they easily fraternized together.  Many
+brought their mistresses, to complete the show.  A subscription had been
+opened to defray the expenses, and, that morning, after a splendid
+breakfast at the other end of Paris, the joyous troop had started bravely
+on their march, to finish the day by a dinner in the square of Notre-
+Dame.
+
+We say bravely, for it required a singular turn of mind, a rare firmness
+of character, in young women, to traverse, in this fashion, a great city
+plunged in consternation and terror--to fall in at every step with
+litters loaded with the dying, and carriages filled with the dead--to
+defy, as it were, in a spirit of strange pleasantry, the plague that was
+detonating the Parisians.  It is certain that, in Paris alone, and there
+only amongst a peculiar class, could such an idea have ever been
+conceived or realized.  Two men, grotesquely disguised as postilions at a
+funeral, with formidable false noses, rose-colored crape hat-bands and
+large favors of roses and crape bows at their buttonholes, rode before
+the vehicle.  Upon the platform of the car were groups of allegorical
+personages, representing WINE, PLEASURE, LOVE, PLAY.  The mission of
+these symbolical beings was, by means of jokes, sarcasms, and mockeries,
+to plague the life out of Goodman Cholera, a sort of funeral and
+burlesque Cassander, whom they ridiculed and made game of in a hundred
+ways.  The moral of the play was this: "To brave Cholera in security, let
+us drink, laugh, game, and make love!"
+
+WINE was represented by a huge, lusty Silenus, thick-set, and with
+swollen paunch, a crown of ivy on his brow, a panther's skin across his
+shoulder, and in his hand a large gilt goblet, wreathed with flowers.
+None other than Ninny Moulin, the famous moral and religious writer,
+could have exhibited to the astonished and delighted spectators an ear of
+so deep a scarlet, so majestic an abdomen, and a face of such triumphant
+and majestic fulness.  Every moment, Ninny Moulin appeared to empty his
+cup--after which he burst out laughing in the face of Goodman Cholera.
+Goodman Cholera, a cadaverous pantaloon, was half-enveloped in a shroud;
+his mask of greenish cardboard, with red, hollow eyes, seemed every
+moment to grin as in mockery of death; from beneath his powdered peruke,
+surmounted by a pyramidical cotton night-cap, appeared his neck and arm,
+dyed of a bright green color; his lean hand, which shook almost always
+with a feverish trembling (not feigned, but natural), rested upon a
+crutch-handled cane; finally, as was becoming in a pantaloon, he wore red
+stockings, with buckles at the knees, and high slippers of black beaver.
+This grotesque representative of the cholera was Sleepinbuff.
+
+Notwithstanding a slow and dangerous fever, caused by the excessive use
+of brandy, and by constant debauchery, that was silently undermining his
+constitution, Jacques Rennepont had been induced by Morok to join the
+masquerade.  The brute-tamer himself, dressed as the King of Diamonds,
+represented PLAY.  His forehead was adorned with a diadem of gilded
+paper, his face was pale and impassible, and as his long, yellow beard
+fell down the front of his parti-colored robe, Morok looked exactly the
+character he personated.  From time to time, with an air of grave
+mockery, he shook close to the eyes of Goodman Cholera a large bag full
+of sounding counters, and on this bag were painted all sorts of playing-
+cards.  A certain stiffness in the right arm showed that the lion-tamer
+had not yet quite recovered from the effects of the wound which the
+panther had inflicted before being stabbed by Djalma.
+
+PLEASURE, who also represented Laughter, classically shook her rattle,
+with its sonorous gilded bells, close to the ears of Goodman Cholera.
+She was a quick, lively young girl, and her fine black hair was crowned
+with a scarlet cap of liberty.  For Sleepinbuff's sake, she had taken the
+place of the poor Bacchanal queen, who would not have failed to attend on
+such an occasion--she, who had been so valiant and gay, when she bore her
+part in a less philosophical, but not less amusing masquerade.  Another
+pretty creature, Modeste Bornichoux, who served as a model to a painter
+of renown (one of the cavaliers of the procession), was eminently
+successful in her representation of LOVE.  He could not have had a more
+charming face, and more graceful form.  Clad in a light blue spangled
+tunic, with a blue and silver band across her chestnut hair, and little
+transparent wings affixed to her white shoulders, she placed one
+forefinger upon the other, and pointed with the prettiest impertinence at
+Goodman Cholera.  Around the principal group, other maskers, more or less
+grotesque in appearance, waved each a banner, an which were inscriptions
+of a very anacreontic character, considering the circumstances:
+
+"Down with the Cholera!" "Short and sweet!" "Laugh away, laugh always!"
+"We'll collar the Cholera!" "Love forever!" "Wine forever!" "Come if you
+dare, old terror!"
+
+There was really such audacious gayety in this masquerade, that the
+greater number of the spectators, at the moment when it crossed the
+square, in the direction of the eating-house, where dinner was waiting,
+applauded it loudly and repeatedly.  This sort of admiration, which
+courage, however mad and blind, almost always inspires, appeared to
+others (a small number, it must be confessed) a kind of defiance to the
+wrath of heaven; and these received the procession with angry murmurs.
+This extraordinary spectacle, and the different impressions it produced,
+were too remote from all customary facts to admit of a just appreciation.
+We hardly know if this daring bravado was deserving of praise or blame.
+
+Besides, the appearance of those plagues, which from age to age decimate
+the population of whole countries, has almost always been accompanied by
+a sort of mental excitement, which none of those who have been spared by
+the contagion can hope to escape.  It is a strange fever of the mind,
+which sometimes rouses the most stupid prejudices and the most ferocious
+passions, and sometimes inspires, on the contrary, the most magnificent
+devotion, the most courageous actions--with some, driving the fear of
+death to a point of the wildest terror--with others, exciting the
+contempt of life to express itself in the most audacious bravadoes.
+Caring little for the praise or blame it might deserve, the masquerade
+arrived before the eating-house, and made its entry in the midst of
+universal acclamations.  Everything seemed to combine to give full effect
+to this strange scene, by the opposition of the most singular contrasts.
+Thus the tavern, in which was to be held this extraordinary feast, being
+situated at no great distance from the antique cathedral, and the gloomy
+hospital, the religious anthems of the ancient temple, the cries of the
+dying, and the bacchanalian songs of the banqueteers, must needs mingle,
+and by turns drown one another.  The maskers now got down from their
+chariot, and from their horses, and went to take their places at the
+repast, which was waiting for them.  The actors in the masquerade are at
+table in the great room of the tavern.  They are joyous, noisy, even
+riotous.  Yet their gayety has a strange tone, peculiar to itself.
+
+Sometimes, the most resolute involuntarily remember that their life is at
+stake in this mad and audacious game with destiny.  That fatal thought is
+rapid as the icy fever-shudder, which chills you in an instant;
+therefore, from time to time, an abrupt silence, lasting indeed only for
+a second, betrays these passing emotions which are almost immediately
+effaced by new bursts of joyful acclamation, for each one says to
+himself: "No weakness! my chum and my girl are looking at me!"
+
+And all laugh, and knock glasses together, and challenge the next man,
+and drink out of the glass of the nearest woman.  Jacques had taken off
+the mask and peruke of Goodman Cholera.  His thin, leaden features, his
+deadly paleness, the lurid brilliancy of his hollow eyes, showed the
+incessant progress of the slow malady which was consuming this
+unfortunate man, brought by excesses to the last extremity of weakness.
+Though he felt the slow fire devouring his entrails, he concealed his
+pain beneath a forced and nervous smile.
+
+To the left of Jacques was Morok, whose fatal influence was ever on the
+increase, and to his right the girl disguised as PLEASURE.  She was named
+Mariette.  By her side sat Ninny Moulin, in all his majestic bulk, who
+often pretended to be looking for his napkin under the table, in order to
+have the opportunity of pressing the knees of his other neighbor,
+Modeste, the representative of LOVE.  Most of the guests were grouped
+according to their several tastes, each tender pair together, and the
+bachelors where they could.  They had reached the second course, and the
+excellence of the wine, the good cheer, the gay speeches, and even the
+singularity of the occasion, had raised their spirits to a high degree of
+excitement, as may be gathered from the extraordinary incidents of the
+following scene.
+
+[39]  We read in the Constitutionnel, Saturday March 31st, 1832: "The
+Parisians readily conform to that part of the official instructions with
+regard to the cholera, which prescribes, as a preservation from the
+disease, not to be afraid, to amuse one's self, etc.  The pleasures of
+Mid-Lent have been as brilliant and as mad as those of the carnival
+itself.  For a long time past there had not been so many balls at this
+period of the year.  Even the cholera has been made the subject of an
+itinerant caricature."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE DEFIANCE.
+
+Two or three times, without being remarked by the guests, one of the
+waiters had come to whisper to his fellows, and point with expressive
+gesture to the ceiling.  But his comrades had taken small account of his
+observations or fears, not wishing, doubtless, to disturb the guests,
+whose mad gayety seemed ever on the increase.
+
+"Who can doubt now of the superiority of our manner of treating this
+impertinent Cholera?  Has he dared even to touch our sacred battalion?"
+said a magnificent mountebank-Turk, one of the standard-bearers of the
+masquerade.
+
+"Here is all the mystery," answered another.  "It is very simple.  Only
+laugh in the face of the plague, and it will run away from you."
+
+"And right enough too, for very stupid work it does," added a pretty
+little Columbine, emptying her glass.
+
+"You are right, my darling; it is intolerably stupid work," answered the
+Clown belonging to the Columbine; "here you are very quiet, enjoying
+life, and all on a sudden you die with an atrocious grimace.  Well! what
+then?  Clever, isn't it?  I ask you, what does it prove?"
+
+"It proves," replied an illustrious painter of the romantic school,
+disguised like a Roman out of one of David's pictures, "it proves that
+the Cholera is a wretched colorist, for he has nothing but a dirty green
+on his pallet.  Evidently he is a pupil of Jacobus, that king of
+classical painters, who are another species of plagues."
+
+"And yet, master," added respectfully a pupil of the great painter, "I
+have seen some cholera patients whose convulsions were rather fine, and
+their dying looks first-rate!"
+
+"Gentlemen," cried a sculptor of no less celebrity, "the question lies in
+a nutshell.  The Cholera is a detestable colorist, but a good
+draughtsman.  He shows you the skeleton in no time.  By heaven! how he
+strips off the flesh!--Michael Angelo would be nothing to him."
+
+"True," cried they all, with one voice; "the Cholera is a bad colorist,
+but a good draughtsman."
+
+"Moreover, gentlemen," added Ninny Moulin, with comic gravity, "this
+plague brings with it a providential lesson, as the great Bossuet would
+have said."
+
+"The lesson! the lesson!"
+
+"Yes, gentlemen; I seem to hear a voice from above, proclaiming: `Drink
+of the best, empty your purse, and kiss your neighbor's wife; for your
+hours are perhaps numbered, unhappy wretch!'"
+
+So saying, the orthodox Silenus took advantage of a momentary absence of
+mind on the part of Modeste, his neighbor, to imprint on the blooming
+cheek of LOVE a long, loud kiss.  The example was contagious, and a storm
+of kisses was mingled with bursts of laughter.
+
+"Ha! blood and thunder!" cried the great painter as he gayly threatened
+Ninny Moulin; "you are very lucky that to-morrow will perhaps be the end
+of the world, or else I should pick a quarrel with you for having kissed
+my lovely LOVE."
+
+"Which proves to you, O Rubens! O Raphael! the thousand advantages of the
+Cholera, whom I declare to be essentially sociable and caressing."
+
+"And philanthropic," said one of the guests; "thanks to him, creditors
+take care of the health of their debtors.  This morning a usurer, who
+feels a particular interest in my existence, brought me all sorts of
+anti-choleraic drugs, and begged me to make use of them."
+
+"And I!" said the pupil of the great painter.  "My tailor wished to force
+me to wear a flannel band next to the skin, because I owe him a thousand
+crowns.  But I answered `Oh, tailor, give me a receipt in full, and I
+will wrap myself up in flannel, to preserve you my custom!'"
+
+"O Cholera, I drink to thee!" said Ninny Moulin, by way of grotesque
+invocation.  "You are not Despair; on the contrary, you are the emblem of
+Hope--yes, of hope.  How many husbands, how many wives, longed for a
+number (alas! too uncertain chance) in the lottery of widowhood! You
+appear, and their hearts are gladdened.  Thanks to you, benevolent pest!
+their chances of liberty are increased a hundredfold."
+
+And how grateful heirs ought to be! A cold--a heat--a trifle--and there,
+in an hour, some old uncle becomes a revered benefactor!"
+
+"And those who are always looking out for other people's places--what an
+ally they must find in the Cholera!"
+
+"And how true it will make many vows of constancy!" said Modeste,
+sentimentally.  "How many villains have sworn to a poor, weak woman, to
+love her all their lives, who never meant (the wretches!) to keep their
+word so well!"
+
+"Gentlemen," cried Ninny Moulin, "since we are now, perhaps, at the eve
+of the end of the world, as yonder celebrated painter has expressed it, I
+propose to play the world topsy-turvy: I beg these ladies to make
+advances to us, to tease us, to excite us, to steal kisses from us, to
+take all sorts of liberties with us, and (we shall not die of it) even to
+insult us.  Yes, I declare that I will allow myself to be insulted.  So,
+LOVE, you may offer me the greatest insult that can be offered to a
+virtuous and modest bachelor," added the religious writer, leaning over
+towards his neighbor, who repulsed him with peals of laughter; and the
+proposal of Ninny Moulin being received with general hilarity, a new
+impulse was given to the mirth and riot.
+
+In the midst of the uproar, the waiter, who had before entered the room
+several times, to whisper uneasily to his comrades, whilst he pointed to
+the ceiling, again appeared with a pale and agitated countenance;
+approaching the man who performed the office of butler, he said to him,
+in a low voice, tremulous with emotion: "They are come!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"You know--up there"; and he pointed to the ceiling.
+
+"Oh!" said the butler, becoming thoughtful; "where are they?"
+
+"They have just gone upstairs; they are there now," answered the waiter,
+shaking his head with an air of alarm; "yes, they are there!"
+
+"What does master say?"
+
+"He is very vexed, because--" and the waiter glanced round at the guests.
+"He does not know what to do; he has sent me to you."
+
+"What the devil have I to do with it?" said the other; wiping his
+forehead.  "It was to be expected, and cannot be helped."
+
+"I will not remain here till they begin."
+
+"You may as well go, for your long face already attracts attention.  Tell
+master we must wait for the upshot."
+
+The above incident was scarcely perceived in the midst of the growing
+tumult of the joyous feast.  But, among the guests, one alone laughed
+not, drank not.  This was Jacques.  With fixed and lurid eye, he gazed
+upon vacancy.  A stranger to what was passing around him, the unhappy man
+thought of the Bacchanal Queen, who had been so gay and brilliant in the
+midst of similar saturnalia.  The remembrance of that one being, whom he
+still loved with an extravagant love, was the only thought that from time
+to time roused him from his besotted state.
+
+It is strange, but Jacques had only consented to join this masquerade
+because the mad scene reminded him of the merry day he had spent with
+Cephyse--that famous breakfast, after a night of dancing, in which the
+Bacchanal Queen, from some extraordinary presentiment, had proposed a
+lugubrious toast with regard to this very pestilence, which was then
+reported to be approaching France.  "To the Cholera!" had she said.  "Let
+him spare those who wish to live, and kill at the same moment those who
+dread to part!"
+
+And now, at this time, remembering those mournful words, Jacques was
+absorbed in painful thought.  Morok perceived his absence of mind, and
+said aloud to him, "You have given over drinking, Jacques.  Have you had
+enough wine?  Then you will want brandy.  I will send for some."
+
+"I want neither wine nor brandy," answered Jacques, abruptly, and he fell
+back into a sombre reverie.
+
+"Well, you may be right," resumed Morok, in a sardonic tone, and raising
+his voice still higher.  "You do well to take care of yourself.  I was
+wrong to name brandy in these times.  There would be as much temerity in
+facing a bottle of brandy as the barrel of a loaded pistol."
+
+On hearing his courage as a toper called in question, Sleepinbuff looked
+angrily at Morok.  "You think it is from cowardice that I will not drink
+brandy!" cried the unfortunate man, whose half-extinguished intellect was
+roused to defend what he called his dignity.  "Is it from cowardice that
+I refuse, d'ye think, Morok?  Answer me!"
+
+"Come, my good fellow, we have all shown our pluck today," said one of
+the guests to Jacques; "you, above all, who, being rather indisposed, yet
+had the courage to take the part of Goodman Cholera."
+
+"Gentlemen," resumed Morok, seeing the general attention fixed upon
+himself and Sleepinbuff, "I was only joking; for if my comrade (pointing
+to Jacques) had the imprudence to accept my offer, it would be an act,
+not of courage, but of foolhardiness.  Luckily, he has sense enough to
+renounce a piece of boasting so dangerous at this time, and I--"
+
+"Waiter!" cried Jacques, interrupting Morok with angry impatience, "two
+bottles of brandy, and two glasses!"
+
+"What are you going to do?" said Morok, with pretended uneasiness.  "Why
+do you order two bottles of brandy?"
+
+"For a duel," said Jacques, in a cool, resolute tone.
+
+"A duel!" cried the spectators, in surprise.
+
+"Yes," resumed Jacques, "a duel with brandy.  You pretend there is as
+much danger in facing a bottle of brandy as a loaded pistol; let us each
+take a full bottle, and see who will be the first to cry quarter."
+
+This strange proposition was received by some with shouts of joy, and by
+others with genuine uneasiness.
+
+"Bravo! the champions of the bottle!" cried the first.
+
+"No, no; there would be too much danger in such a contest," said the
+others.
+
+"Just now," added one of the guests; "this challenge is as serious as an
+invitation to fight to the death."
+
+"You hear," said Morok, with a diabolical smile, "you hear, Jacques?
+Will you now retreat before the danger?"
+
+At these words, which reminded him of the peril to which he was about to
+expose himself, Jacques started, as if a sudden idea had occurred to him.
+He raised his head proudly, his cheeks were slightly flushed, his eye
+shone with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, and he exclaimed in a firm
+voice: "Hang it, waiter! are you deaf?  I asked you for two bottles of
+brandy."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the waiter, going to fetch them, although himself
+frightened at what might be the result of this bacchanalian struggle.
+But the mad and perilous resolution of Jacques was applauded by the
+majority.
+
+Ninny Moulin moved about on his chair, stamped his feet, and shouted with
+all his might: "Bacchus and drink! bottles and glasses! the throats are
+dry! brandy to the rescue! Largess! largess!"
+
+And, like a true champion of the tournament, he embraced Modeste, adding,
+to excuse the liberty: "Love, you shall be the Queen of Beauty, and I am
+only anticipating the victor's happiness!"
+
+"Brandy to the rescue!" repeated they all, in chorus.  "Largess!"
+
+"Gentlemen," added Ninny Moulin, with enthusiasm, "shall we remain
+indifferent to the noble example set us by Goodman Cholera?  He said in
+his pride, `brandy!' Let us gloriously answer, 'punch!'"
+
+"Yes, yes! punch!"
+
+"Punch to the rescue!"
+
+"Waiter!" shouted the religious writer, with the voice of a Stentor,
+"waiter! have you a pan, a caldron, a hogshead, or any other immensity,
+in which we can brew a monster punch?"
+
+"A Babylonian punch!"
+
+"A lake of punch!"
+
+"An ocean of punch!"
+
+Such was the ambitious crescendo that followed the proposition of Ninny
+Moulin.
+
+"Sir," answered the waiter, with an air of triumph, "we just happen to
+have a large copper caldron, quite new.  It has been used, and would hold
+at least thirty bottles."
+
+"Bring the caldron!" said Ninny Moulin, majestically.
+
+"The caldron forever!" shouted the chorus.
+
+"Put in twenty bottles of brandy, six loaves of sugar, a dozen lemons, a
+pound of cinnamon, and then--fire! fire!" shouted the religious writer,
+with the most vociferous exclamations.
+
+"Yes, yes! fire!" repeated the chorus!
+
+The proposition of Ninny Moulin gave a new impetus to the general gayety;
+the most extravagant remarks were mingled with the sound of kisses, taken
+or given under the pretext that perhaps there would be no to-morrow, that
+one must make the most of the present, etc., etc.  Suddenly, in one of
+the moments of silence which sometimes occur in the midst of the greatest
+tumult, a succession of slow and measured taps sounded above the ceiling
+of the banqueting-room.  All remained silent, and listened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+BRANDY TO THE RESCUE.
+
+After the lapse of some seconds, the singular rapping which had so much
+surprised the guests, was again heard, but this time louder and longer.
+
+"Waiter!" cried one of the party, "what in the devil's name is knocking?"
+
+The waiter, exchanging with his comrades a look of uneasiness and alarm,
+stammered Out in reply: "Sir--it is--it is--"
+
+"Well! I suppose it is some crabbed, cross-grained lodger, some animal,
+the enemy of joy, who is pounding on the floor of his room to warn us to
+sing less loud," said Ninny Moulin.
+
+"Then, by a general rule," answered sententiously the pupil of the great
+painter, "if lodger or landlord ask for silence, tradition bids us reply
+by an infernal uproar, destined to drown all his remonstrances.  Such, at
+least," added the scapegrace, modestly, are the foreign relations that I
+have always seen observed between neighboring powers."
+
+This remark was received with general laughter and applause.  During the
+tumult, Morok questioned one of the waiters, and then exclaimed in a
+shrill tone, which rose above the clamor: "I demand a hearing!"
+
+"Granted!" cried the others, gayly.  During the silence which followed
+the exclamation of Morok, the noise was again heard; it was this time
+quicker than before.
+
+"The lodger is innocent," said Morok, with a strange smile, "and would be
+quite incapable of interfering with your enjoyment."
+
+"Then why does he keep up that knocking?" said Ninny Moulin, emptying his
+glass.
+
+"Like a deaf man who has lost his ear-horn?" added the young artist.
+
+"It is not the lodger who is knocking" said Morok, in a sharp, quick
+tone; "for they are nailing him down in his coffin." A sudden and
+mournful silence followed these words.
+
+"His coffin no, I am wrong," resumed Morok; "her coffin, I should say, or
+more properly their coffin; for, in these pressing times, they put mother
+and child together."
+
+"A woman!" cried PLEASURE, addressing the writer; "is it a woman that is
+dead?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; a poor young woman about twenty years of age," answered the
+waiter in a sorrowful tone.  "Her little girl, that she was nursing, died
+soon after--all in less than two hours.  My master is very sorry that you
+ladies and gents should be disturbed in this way; but he could not
+foresee this misfortune, as yesterday morning the young woman was quite
+well, and singing with all her might--no one could have been gayer than
+she was."
+
+Upon these words, it was as if a funeral pall had been suddenly thrown
+over a scene lately so full of joy; all the rubicund and jovial faces
+took an expression of sadness; no one had the hardihood to make a jest of
+mother and child, nailed down together in the same coffin.  The silence
+became so profound, that one could hear each breath oppressed by terror:
+the last blows of the hammer seemed to strike painfully on every heart;
+it appeared as if each sad feeling, until now repressed, was about to
+replace that animation and gayety, which had been more factitious than
+sincere.  The moment was decisive.  It was necessary to strike an
+immediate blow, and to raise the spirits of the guests, for many pretty
+rosy faces began to grow pale, many scarlet ears became suddenly white;
+Ninny Moulin's were of the number.
+
+On the contrary, Sleepinbuff exhibited an increase of audacity; he drew
+up his figure, bent down from the effects of exhaustion, and, with a
+cheek slightly flushed, he exclaimed: "Well, waiter? are those bottles of
+brandy coming? And the punch?  Devil and all! are the dead to frighten
+the living?"
+
+"He's right! Down with sorrow, and let's have the punch!" cried several
+of the guests, who felt the necessity of reviving their courage.
+
+"Forward, punch!"
+
+"Begone, dull care!"
+
+"Jollity forever!"
+
+"Gentlemen, here is the punch," said a waiter, opening the door.  At
+sight of the flaming beverage, which was to reanimate their enfeebled
+spirits, the room rang with the loudest applause.
+
+The sun had just set.  The room was large, being capable of dining a
+hundred guests; and the windows were few, narrow, and half veiled by red
+cotton curtains.  Though it was not yet night, some portions of this vast
+saloon were almost entirely dark.  Two waiters brought the monster-punch,
+in an immense brass kettle, brilliant as gold, suspended from an iron
+bar, and crowned with flames of changing color.  The burning beverage was
+then placed upon the table, to the great joy of the guests, who began to
+forget their past alarms.
+
+"Now," said Jacques to Morok, in a taunting tone, "while the punch is
+burning, we will have our duel.  The company shall judge." Then, pointing
+to the two bottles of brandy, which the waiter had brought, Jacques
+added: "Choose your weapon!"
+
+"Do you choose," answered Morok.
+
+"Well! here's your bottle--and here's your glass.  Ninny Moulin shall be
+umpire."
+
+"I do not refuse to be judge of the field," answered the religious
+writer, "only I must warn you, comrade, that you are playing a desperate
+game, and that just now, as one of these gentlemen has said, the neck of
+a bottle of brandy in one's mouth, is perhaps more dangerous than the
+barrel of a loaded pistol."
+
+"Give the word, old fellow!" said Jacques, interrupting Ninny Moulin, "or
+I will give it myself."
+
+"Since you will have it so--so be it!"
+
+"The first who gives in is conquered," said Jacques.
+
+"Agreed!" answered Morok.
+
+"Come, gentlemen, attention! we must follow every movement," resumed
+Ninny Moulin.  "Let us first see if the bottles are of the same size--
+equality of weapons being the foremost condition."
+
+During these preparations, profound silence reigned in the room.  The
+courage of the majority of those present, animated for a moment by the
+arrival of the punch, was soon again depressed by gloomy thoughts, as
+they vaguely foresaw the danger of the contest between Morok and Jacques.
+This impression joined to the sad thoughts occasioned by the incident of
+the coffin, darkened by degrees many a countenance.  Some of the guests,
+indeed, continued to make a show of rejoicing, but their gayety appeared
+forced.  Under certain circumstances, the smallest things will have the
+most powerful effect.  We have said that, after sunset, a portion of this
+large room was plunged in obscurity; therefore, the guests who sat in the
+remote corners of the apartment, had no other light than the reflection
+of the flaming punch.  Now it is well known, that the flame of burning
+spirit throws a livid, bluish tint over the countenance; it was therefore
+a strange, almost frightful spectacle, to see a number of the guests, who
+happened to be at a distance from the windows, in this ghastly and
+fantastic light.
+
+The painter, more struck than all the rest by this effect of color,
+exclaimed: "Look! at this end of the table, we might fancy ourselves
+feasting with cholera-patients, we are such fine blues and greens.
+
+This jest was not much relished.  Fortunately, the loud voice of Ninny
+Moulin demanded attention, and for a moment turned the thoughts of the
+company.
+
+"The lists are open," cried the religious writer, really more frightened
+than he chose to appear.  "Are you ready, brave champions?" he added.
+
+"We are ready," said Morok and Jacques.
+
+"Present! fire!" cried Ninny Moulin, clapping his hands.  And the two
+drinkers each emptied a tumbler full of brandy at a draught.
+
+Morok did not even knit his brow; his marble face remained impassible;
+with a steady hand he replaced his glass upon the table.  But Jacques, as
+he put down his glass, could not conceal a slight convulsive trembling,
+caused by internal suffering.
+
+"Bravely done!" cried Ninny Moulin.  "The quarter of a bottle of brandy
+at a draught--it is glorious! No one else here would be capable of such
+prowess.  And now, worthy champions, if you believe me, you will stop
+where you are."
+
+"Give the word!" answered Jacques, intrepidly.  And, with feverish and
+shaking hand, he seized the bottle; then suddenly, instead of filling his
+glass, he said to Morok: "Bah! we want no glasses.  It is braver to drink
+from the bottle.  I dare you to it!"
+
+Morok's only answer was to shrug his shoulders, and raise the neck of the
+bottle to his lips.  Jacques hastened to imitate him.  The thin,
+yellowish, transparent glass gave a perfect view of the progressive
+diminution of the liquor.  The stony countenance of Morok, and the pale
+thin face of Jacques, on which already stood large drops of cold sweat,
+were now, as well as the features of the other guests, illuminated by the
+bluish light of the punch; every eye was fixed upon Morok and Jacques,
+with that barbarous curiosity which cruel spectacles seem involuntarily
+to inspire.
+
+Jacques continued to drink, holding the bottle in his left hand;
+suddenly, he closed and tightened the fingers of his right hand with a
+convulsive movement; his hair clung to his icy forehead, and his
+countenance revealed an agony of pain.  Yet he continued to drink; only,
+without removing his lips from the neck of the bottle, he lowered it for
+an instant, as if to recover breath.  Just then, Jacques met the sardonic
+look of Morok, who continued to drink with his accustomed impassibility.
+Thinking that he saw the expression of insulting triumph in Morok's
+glance, Jacques raised his elbow abruptly, and drank with avidity a few
+drops more.  But his strength was exhausted.  A quenchless fire devoured
+his vitals.  His sufferings were too intense, and he could no longer bear
+up against them.  His head fell backwards, his jaws closed convulsively,
+he crushed the neck of the bottle between his teeth, his neck grew rigid,
+his limbs writhed with spasmodic action, and he became almost senseless.
+
+"Jacques, my good fellow! it is nothing," cried Morok, whose ferocious
+glance now sparkled with diabolical joy.  Then, replacing his bottle on
+the table, he rose to go to the aid of Ninny Moulin, who was vainly
+endeavoring to hold Sleepinbuff.
+
+This sudden attack had none of the symptoms of cholera.  Yet terror
+seized upon all present; one of the women was taken with hysterics, and
+another uttered piercing cries and fainted away.  Ninny Moulin, leaving
+Jacques in the hands of Morok, ran towards the door to seek for help,--
+when that door was suddenly opened, and the religious writer drew back in
+alarm, at the sight of the unexpected personage who appeared on the
+threshold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIL
+
+MEMORIES.
+
+The person before whom Ninny Moulin stopped in such extreme astonishment
+was the Bacchanal Queen.
+
+Pale and wan, with, hair in disorder, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and
+clothed almost in rags, this brilliant and joyous heroine of so many mad
+orgies was now only the shadow of her former self.  Misery and grief were
+impressed on that countenance, once so charming.  Hardly had she entered
+the room, when Cephyse paused; her mournful and unquiet gaze strove to
+penetrate the half-obscurity of the apartment, in search of him she
+longed to see.  Suddenly the girl started, and uttered a loud scream.
+She had just perceived, at the other side of a long table, by the bluish
+light of the punch, Jacques struggling with Morok and one of the guests,
+who were hardly able to restrain his convulsive movements.
+
+At this sight Cephyse, in her first alarm, carried away by her affection,
+did what she had so often done in the intoxication of joy and pleasure.
+Light and agile, instead of losing precious time in making a long
+circuit, she sprang at once upon the table, passed nimbly through the
+array of plates and bottles, and with one spring was by the side of the
+sufferer.
+
+"Jacques!" she exclaimed, without yet remarking the lion-tamer, and
+throwing herself on the neck of her lover.  "Jacques! it is I--Cephyse!"
+
+That well-known voice, that heart-piercing cry, which came from the
+bottom of the soul, seemed not unheard by Sleepinbuff.  He turned his
+head mechanically towards the Bacchanal Queen, without opening his eyes,
+and heaved a deep sigh; his stiffened limbs relaxed, a slight trembling
+succeeded to the convulsions, and in a few seconds his heavy eyelids were
+raised with an effort, so as to uncover his dull and wandering gaze.
+Mute with astonishment, the spectators of this scene felt an uneasy
+curiosity.  Cephyse, kneeling beside her lover, bathed his hands in her
+tears, covered them with kisses, and exclaimed, in a voice broken by
+sobs, "It is I--Cephyse--I have found you again--it was not my fault that
+I abandoned you! Forgive me, forgive--"
+
+"Wretched woman!" cried Morok, irritated at this meeting, which might,
+perhaps, be fatal to his projects; "do you wish to kill him?  In his
+present state, this agitation is death.  Begone!" So saying, he seized
+Cephyse suddenly by the arm, just as Jacques, waking, as it were, from a
+painful dream, began to distinguish what was passing around him.
+
+"You! It is you!" cried the Bacchanal Queen, in amazement, as she
+recognized Morok, "who separated me from Jacques!"
+
+She paused; for the dim eye of the victim, as it rested upon her, grew
+suddenly bright.
+
+"Cephyse!" murmured Jacques; "is it you?"
+
+"Yes, it is I," answered she, in a voice of deep emotion; "who have come-
+---I will tell you--"
+
+She was unable to continue, and, as she clasped her hands together, her
+pale, agitated, tearful countenance expressed her astonishment and
+despair at the mortal change which had taken place in the features of
+Jacques.  He understood the cause of her surprise, and as he
+contemplated, in his turn, the suffering and emaciated countenance of
+Cephyse.  he said to her, "Poor girl! you also have had to bear much
+grief, much misery--I should hardly have known you."
+
+"Yes," replied Cephyse, "much grief--much misery--and worse than misery,"
+she added, trembling, whilst a deep blush overspread her pale features.
+
+"Worse than misery?" said Jacques, astonished.
+
+"But it is you who have suffered," hastily resumed Cephyse, without
+answering her lover.
+
+"Just now, I was going to make an end of it--your voice has recalled me
+for an instant--but I feel something here," and he laid his hand upon his
+breast, "which never gives quarter.  It is all the same now--I have seen
+you--I shall die happy."
+
+"You shall not die, Jacques; I am here--"
+
+"Listen to one, my girl.  If I had a bushel of live coal in my stomach,
+it could hardly burn me more.  For more than a month, I have been
+consuming my body by a slow fire.  This gentleman," he added, glancing at
+Morok, "this dear friend, always undertook to feed the flame.  I do not
+regret life; I have lost the habit of work, and taken to drink and riot;
+I should have finished by becoming a thorough blackguard: I preferred
+that my friend here should amuse himself with lighting a furnace in my
+inside.  Since what I drank just now, I am certain that it fumes like
+yonder punch."
+
+"You are both foolish and ungrateful," said Morok, shrugging his
+shoulders; "you held out your glass, and I filled it--and, faith, we
+shall drink long and often together yet."
+
+For some moments, Cephyse had not withdrawn her eyes from Morok.  "I tell
+you, that you have long blown the fire, in which I have burnt my skin,"
+resumed Jacques, addressing Morok in a feeble voice, "so that they may
+not think I die of cholera.  It would look as if I had been frightened by
+the part I played.  I do not therefore reproach you, my affectionate
+friend," added he, with a sardonic smile; "you dug my grave gayly--and
+sometimes, when, seeing the great dark hole, into which I was about to
+fall, I drew back a step--but you, my excellent friend, still pushed me
+forward, saying, `Go on, my boy, go on!'--and I went on--and here I am--"
+
+So saying, Sleepinbuff burst into a bitter laugh, which sent an icy
+shudder through the spectators of this scene.
+
+"My good fellow," said Morok, coolly, "listen to me, and follow my
+advice."
+
+"Thank you! I know your advice--and, instead of listening to you, I
+prefer speaking to my poor Cephyse.  Before I go down to the moles, I
+should like to tell her what weighs on my heart."
+
+"Jacques," replied Cephyse, "do not talk so.  I tell you, you shall not
+die."
+
+"Why, then, my brave Cephyse, I shall owe my life to you," returned
+Jacques, in a tone of serious feeling, which surprised the spectators.
+"Yes," resumed he, "when I came to myself, and saw you so poorly clad, I
+felt something good about my heart--do you know why?--it was because I
+said to myself, `Poor girl! she has kept her word bravely; she has chosen
+to toil, and want, and suffer--rather than take another love--who would
+have given her what I gave her as long as I could'--and that thought,
+Cephyse, refreshed my soul.  I needed it, for I was burning--and I burn
+still," added he, clinching his fists with pain; "but that made me happy-
+-it did me good--thanks, my good, brave Cephyse--yes, you are good and
+brave--and you were right; for I never loved any but you in the wide
+world; and if, in my degradation, I had one thought that raised me a
+little above the filth, and made me regret that I was not better--the
+thought was of you! Thanks then, my poor, dear love," said Jacques, whose
+hot and shining eyes were becoming moist; "thanks once again," and he
+reached his cold hand to Cephyse; "if I die, I shall die happy--if I
+live, I shall live happy also.  Give me your hand, my brave Cephyse!--you
+have acted like a good and honest creature."
+
+Instead of taking the hand which Jacques offered her, Cephyse, still
+kneeling, bowed her head, and dared not raise her eyes to her lover.
+
+"You don't answer," said he, leaning over towards the young girl; "you
+don't take my hand--why is this?"
+
+The unfortunate creature only answered by stifled sobs.  Borne down with
+shame, she held herself in so humble, so supplicating an attitude, that
+her forehead almost touched the feet of her lover.
+
+Amazed at the silence and conduct of the Bacchanal Queen, Jacques looked
+at her with increasing agitation; suddenly he stammered out with
+trembling lips, "Cephyse, I know you.  If you do not take my hand, it is
+because--"
+
+Then, his voice failing, he added, in a dull tone, after a moment's
+silence, "When, six weeks ago, I was taken to prison, did you not say to
+me, 'Jacques, I swear that I will work--and if need be, live in horrible
+misery--but I will live true!' That was your promise.  Now, I know you
+never speak false; tell me you have kept your word, and I shall believe
+you."
+
+Cephyse only answered by a heart-rending sob, as she pressed the knees of
+Jacques against her heaving bosom.  By a strange contradiction, more
+common than is generally thought--this man, degraded by intoxication and
+debauchery, who, since he came out of prison, had plunged in every
+excess, and tamely yielded to all the fatal incitements of Morok, yet
+received a fearful blow, when he learned, by the mute avowal of Cephyse,
+the infidelity, of this creature, whom he had loved in spite of
+degradation.  The first impulse of Jacques was terrible.  Notwithstanding
+his weakness and exhaustion, he succeeded in rising from his seat, and,
+with a countenance contracted by rage and despair, he seized a knife,
+before they had time to prevent him, and turned it upon Cephyse.  But at
+the moment he was about to strike, shrinking from an act of murder, he
+hurled the knife far away from him, and falling back into the chair,
+covered his face with his hands.
+
+At the cry of Ninny Moulin, who had, though late, thrown himself upon
+Jacques to take away the knife, Cephyse raised her head: Jacques's woeful
+dejection wrung her heart; she rose, and fell upon his neck,
+notwithstanding his resistance, exclaiming in a voice broken by sobs,
+"Jacques, if you knew! if you only knew--listen--do not condemn me
+without hearing me--I will tell you all, I swear to you--without
+falsehood--this man," and she pointed to Morok, "will not dare deny what
+I say; he came, and told me to have the courage to--"
+
+"I do not reproach you.  I have no right to reproach you.  Let me die in
+peace.  I ask nothing but that now," said Jacques, in a still weaker
+voice, as he repulsed Cephyse.  Then he added, with a grievous and bitter
+smile, "Luckily, I have my dose.  I knew--what I was doing--when I
+accepted the duel with brandy."
+
+"No, you shall not die, and you shall hear me," cried Cephyse, with a
+bewildered air; "you shall hear me, and everybody else shall hear me.
+They shall see that it is not my fault.  Is it not so, gentlemen?  Do I
+not deserve pity?  You will entreat Jacques to forgive me; for if driven
+by misery--finding no work--I was forced to this--not for the sake of any
+luxury--you see the rags I wear--but to get bread and shelter for my
+poor, sick sister--dying, and even more miserable than myself--would you
+not have pity upon me?  Do you think one finds pleasure in one's infamy?"
+cried the unfortunate, with a burst of frightful laughter; then she
+added, in a low voice, and with a shudder, "Oh, if you knew, Jacques! it
+is so infamous, so horrible, that I preferred death to falling so low a
+second time.  I should have killed myself, had I not heard you were
+here." Then, seeing that Jacques did not answer her, but shook his head
+mournfully as he sank down though still supported by Ninny Moulin,
+Cephyse exclaimed, as she lifted her clasped hands towards him, "Jacques!
+one word--for pity's sake--forgive me!"
+
+"Gentlemen, pray remove this woman," cried Morok; "the sight of her
+causes my friend too painful emotions."
+
+"Come, my dear child, be reasonable," said several of the guests, who,
+deeply moved by this scene, were endeavoring to withdraw Cephyse from it;
+"leave him, and come with us; he is not in any danger."
+
+"Gentlemen! oh, gentlemen!" cried the unfortunate creature, bursting into
+tears, and raising her hands in supplication; "listen to me--I will do
+all that you wish me--I will go--but, in heaven's name, send for help,
+and do not let him die thus.  Look, what pain he suffers! what horrible
+convulsions!"
+
+"She is right," said one of the guests, hastening towards the door; "we
+must send for a doctor."
+
+"There is no doctor to be found," said another; "they are all too busy."
+
+"We will do better than that," cried a third; "the Hospital is just
+opposite, and we can carry the poor fellow thither.  They will give him
+instant help.  A leaf of the table will make a litter, and the table-
+cloth a covering."
+
+"Yes, yes, that is it," said several voices; "let us carry him over at
+once."
+
+Jacques, burnt up with brandy, and overcome by his interview with
+Cephyse, had again fallen into violent convulsions.  It was the dying
+paroxysm of the unfortunate man.  They were obliged to tie him with the
+ends of the cloth, so as to secure him to the leaf which was to serve for
+a litter, which two of the guests hastened to carry away.  They yielded
+to the supplication of Cephyse, who asked, as a last favor, to accompany
+Jacques to the Hospital.  When the mournful procession quitted the great
+room of the eating-house, there was a general flight among the guests.
+Men and women made haste to wrap themselves in their cloaks, in order to
+conceal their costumes.  The coaches, which had been ordered in tolerable
+number for the return of the masquerade, had luckily arrived.  The
+defiance had been fully carried out, the audacious bravado accomplished,
+and they could now retire with the honors of war.  Whilst a part of the
+guests were still in the room, an uproar, at first distant, but which
+soon drew nearer, broke out with incredible fury in the square of Notre-
+Dame.
+
+Jacques had been carried to the outer door of the tavern.  Morok and
+Ninny Moulin, striving to open a passage through the crowd in the
+direction of the Hospital, preceded the litter.  A violent reflux of the
+multitude soon forced them to stop, whilst a new storm of savage outcries
+burst from the other extremity of the square, near the angle of the
+church.
+
+"What is it then?" asked Ninny Moulin of one of those ignoble figures
+that was leaping up before him.  "What are those cries?"
+
+"They are making mince-meat of a poisoner, like him they have thrown into
+the river," replied the man.  "If you want to see the fun, follow me
+close," added he, "and peg away with your elbows, for fear you should be
+too late."
+
+Hardly had the wretch pronounced these words than a dreadful shriek
+sounded above the roar of the crowd, through which the bearers of the
+litter, preceded by Morok, were with difficulty making their way.  It was
+Cephyse who uttered that cry.  Jacques (one of the seven heirs of the
+Rennepont family) had just expired in her arms! By a strange fatality, at
+the very moment that the despairing exclamation of Cephyse announced that
+death, another cry rose from that part of the square where they were
+attacking the poisoner.  That distant, supplicating cry, tremulous with
+horrible alarm, like the last appeal of a man staggering beneath the
+blows of his murderers, chilled the soul of Morok in the midst of his
+execrable triumph.
+
+"Damnation!" cried the skillful assassin, who had selected drunkenness
+and debauchery for his murderous but legal weapons; "it is the voice of
+the Abbe d'Aigrigny, whom they have in their clutches!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE POISONER.
+
+It is necessary to go back a little before relating the adventure of
+Father d'Aigrigny, whose cry of distress made so deep an impression upon
+Morok just at the moment of Jacques Rennepont's death.  We have said that
+the most absurd and alarming reports were circulating in Paris; not only
+did people talk of poison given to the sick or thrown into the public
+fountains, but it was also said that wretches had been surprised in the
+act of putting arsenic into the pots which are usually kept all ready on
+the counters of wine-shops.  Goliath was on his way to rejoin Morok,
+after delivering a message to Father d'Aigrigny, who was waiting in a
+house on the Place de l'Archeveche.  He entered a wine-shop in the Rue de
+la Calandre, to get some refreshment, and having drunk two glasses of
+wine, he proceeded to pay for them.  Whilst the woman of the house was
+looking for change, Goliath, mechanically and very innocently, rested his
+hand on the mouth of one of the pots that happened to be within his
+reach.
+
+The tall stature of this man and his repulsive and savage countenance had
+already alarmed the good woman, whose fears and prejudices had previously
+been roused by the public rumors on the subject of poisoning; but when
+she saw Goliath place his hand over the mouth of one of her pots, she
+cried out in dismay: "Oh! my gracious! what are you throwing into that
+pot?" At these words, spoken in a loud voice, and with the accent of
+terror, two or three of the drinkers at one of the tables rose
+precipitately, and ran to the counter, while one of them rashly
+exclaimed: "It is a poisoner!"
+
+Goliath, not aware of the reports circulated in the neighborhood, did not
+at first understand of what he was accused.  The men raised their voices
+as they called on him to answer the charge; but he, trusting to his
+strength, shrugged his shoulders in disdain, and roughly demanded the
+change, which the pale and frightened hostess no longer thought of giving
+him.
+
+"Rascal!" cried one of the men, with so much violence that several of the
+passers-by stopped to listen; "you shall have your change when you tell
+us what you threw in the pot!"
+
+"Ha! did he throw anything into the wine-pot?" said one of the passers-
+by.
+
+"It is, perhaps, a poisoner," said another.
+
+"He ought to be taken up," added a third.
+
+"Yes, yes," cried those in the house--honest people perhaps, but under
+the influence of the general panic; "he must be taken up, for he has been
+throwing poison into the wine-pots."
+
+The words "He is a poisoner" soon spread through the group, which, at
+first composed of three or four persons, increased every instant around
+the door of the wine-shop.  A dull, menacing clamor began to rise from
+the crowd; the first accuser, seeing his fears thus shared and almost
+justified, thought he was acting like a good and courageous citizen in
+taking Goliath by the collar, and saying to him: "Come and explain
+yourself at the guard-house, villain!"
+
+The giant, already provoked at insults of which he did not perceive the
+real meaning, was exasperated at this sudden attack; yielding to his
+natural brutality, he knocked his adversary down upon the counter, and
+began to hammer him with his fists.  During this collision, several
+bottles and two or three panes of glass were broken with much noise,
+whilst the woman of the house, more and more frightened, cried out with
+all her might; "Help! a poisoner! Help! murder!"
+
+At the sound of the breaking windows and these cries of distress, the
+passers-by, of whom the greater number believed in the stories about the
+poisoners, rushed into the shop to aid in securing Goliath.  But the
+latter, thanks to his herculean strength, after struggling for some
+moments with seven or eight persons, knocked down two of his most furious
+assailants, disengaged himself from the others, drew near the counter,
+and, taking a vigorous spring, rushed head-foremost, like a bull about to
+butt, upon the crowd that blocked up the door; then, forcing a passage,
+by the help of his enormous shoulders and athletic arms, he made his way
+into the street, and ran with all speed in the direction of the square of
+Notre-Dame, his garments torn, his head bare, and his countenance pale
+and full of rage.  Immediately, a number of persons from amongst the
+crowd started in pursuit of Goliath, and a hundred voices exclaimed:
+"Stop--stop the poisoner!"
+
+Hearing these cries, and seeing a man draw near with a wild and troubled
+look, a butcher, who happened to be passing with his large, empty tray on
+his head, threw it against Goliath's shins, and taken by surprise, he
+stumbled and fell.  The butcher, thinking he had performed as heroic an
+action as if he had encountered a mad dog, flung himself on Goliath, and
+rolled over with him on the pavement, exclaiming: "Help! it is a
+poisoner! Help! help!"  This scene took place not far from the Cathedral,
+but at some distance from the crowd which was pressing round the hospital
+gate, as well as from the eating-house in which the masquerade of the
+cholera then was.  The day was now drawing to a close.  On the piercing
+call of the butcher, several groups, at the head of which were Ciboule
+and the quarryman, flew towards the scene of the struggle, while those
+who had pursued the pretended poisoner from the Rue de la Calandre,
+reached the square on their side.
+
+At sight of this threatening crowd advancing towards him, Goliath, whilst
+he continued to defend himself against the butcher, who held him with the
+tenacity of a bull-dog, felt that he was lost unless he could rid himself
+of this adversary before the arrival of the rest; with a furious blow of
+the fist, therefore, he broke the jaw of the butcher, who just then was
+above him, and disengaging himself from his hold, he rose, and staggered
+a few steps forward.  Suddenly he stopped.  He saw that he was
+surrounded.  Behind him rose the walls of the cathedral; to the right and
+left, and in front of him, advanced a hostile multitude.  The groans
+uttered by the butcher, who had just been lifted from the ground covered
+with blood, augmented the fury of the populace.
+
+This was a terrible moment for Goliath: still standing alone in the
+centre of a ring that grew smaller every second, he saw on all sides
+angry enemies rushing towards him, and uttering cries of death.  As the
+wild boar turns round once or twice, before resolving to stand at bay and
+face the devouring pack, Goliath, struck with terror, made one or two
+abrupt and wavering movements.  Then, as he abandoned the possibility of
+flight, instinct told him that he had no mercy to expect from a crowd
+given up to blind and savage fury--a fury the more pitiless as it was
+believed to be legitimate.  Goliath determined, therefore, at least to
+sell his life dearly; he sought for a knife in his pocket, but, not
+finding it, he threw out his left leg in an athletic posture, and holding
+up his muscular arms, hard and stiff as bars of iron, waited with
+intrepidity for the shock.
+
+The first who approached Goliath was Ciboule.  The hag, heated and out of
+breath, instead of rushing upon him, paused, stooped down, and taking off
+one of the large wooden shoes that she wore, hurled it at the giant's
+head with so much force and with so true an aim that it struck him right
+in the eye, which hung half out of its socket.  Goliath pressed his hands
+to his face, and uttered a cry of excruciating pain.
+
+"I've made him squint!" said Ciboule, with a burst of laughter.
+
+Goliath, maddened by the pain, instead of waiting for the attack, which
+the mob still hesitated to begin, so greatly were they awed by his
+appearance of herculean strength--the only adversary worthy to cope with
+him being the quarryman, who had been borne to a distance by the surging
+of the crowd--Goliath, in his rage, rushed headlong upon the nearest.
+Such a struggle was too unequal to last long; but despair redoubled the
+Colossus's strength, and the combat was for a moment terrible.  The
+unfortunate man did not fall at once.  For some seconds, almost buried
+amid a swarm of furious assailants, one saw now his mighty arm rise and
+fall like a sledge hammer, beating upon skulls and faces, and now his
+enormous head, livid and bloody, drawn back by some of the combatants
+hanging to his tangled hair.  Here and there sudden openings and violent
+oscillations of the crowd bore witness to the incredible energy of
+Goliath's defence.  But when the quarryman succeeded in reaching him,
+Goliath was overpowered and thrown down.  A long, savage cheer in triumph
+announced this fall; for, under such circumstances, to "go under" is "to
+die."  Instantly a thousand breathless and angry voices repeated the
+cry of "Death to the poisoner!"
+
+Then began one of those scenes of massacre and torture, worthy of
+cannibals, horrible to relate, and the more incredible, that they happen
+almost always in the presence, and often with the aid, of honest and
+humane people, who, blinded by false notions and stupid prejudices, allow
+themselves to be led into all sorts of barbarity, under the idea of
+performing an act of inexorable justice.  As it frequently happens, the
+sight of the blood which flowed in torrents from Goliath's wounds
+inflamed to madness the rage of his assailants.  A hundred fists struck
+at the unhappy man; he was stamped under foot, his face and chest were
+beaten in.  Ever and anon, in the midst of furious cries of "Death to the
+poisoner!" heavy blows were audible, followed by stifled groans.  It was
+a frightful butchery.  Each individual, yielding to a sanguinary frenzy,
+came in turn to strike his blow; or to tear off his morsel of flesh.
+Women--yes, women--mothers!--came to spend their rage on this mutilated
+form.
+
+There was one moment of frightful terror.  With his face all bruised and
+covered with mud, his garments in rags, his chest bare, red, gaping with
+wounds--Goliath, availing himself of a moment's weariness on the part of
+his assassins, who believed him already, finished, succeeded, by one of
+those convulsive starts frequent in the last agony, in raising himself to
+his feet for a few seconds; then, blind with wounds and loss of blood,
+striking about his arms in the air as if to parry blows that were no
+longer struck, he muttered these words, which came from his mouth,
+accompanied by a crimson torrent: "Mercy! I am no poisoner.  Mercy!"
+This sort of resurrection produced so great an effect on the crowd, that
+for an instant they fell hack affrighted.  The clamor ceased, and a small
+space was left around the victim.  Some hearts began even to feel pity;
+when the quarryman, seeing Goliath blinded with blood, groping before him
+with his hands, exclaimed in ferocious allusion to a well-known game:
+"Now for blind-man's-bluff."
+
+Then, with a violent kick, he again threw down the victim, whose head
+struck twice heavily on the pavement.
+
+Just as the giant fell a voice from amongst the crowd exclaimed: "It is
+Goliath! stop! he is innocent."
+
+It was Father d'Aigrigny, who, yielding to a generous impulse, was making
+violent efforts to reach the foremost rank of the actors in this scene,
+and who cried out, as he came nearer, pale, indignant, menacing: "You are
+cowards and murderers! This man is innocent.  I know him.  You shall
+answer for his life."
+
+These vehement words were received with loud murmurs.
+
+"You know that poisoner," cried the quarryman, seizing the Jesuit by the
+collar; "then perhaps you are a poisoner too.
+
+"Wretch," exclaimed Father d'Aigrigny, endeavoring to shake himself loose
+from the grasp, "do you dare to lay hand upon me?"
+
+"Yes, I dare do anything," answered the quarryman.
+
+"He knows him: he's a poisoner like the other," cried the crowd, pressing
+round the two adversaries; whilst Goliath, who had fractured his skull in
+the fall, uttered a long death-rattle.
+
+At a sudden movement of Father d'Aigrigny, who disengaged himself from
+the quarryman, a large glass phial of peculiar form, very thick, and
+filled with a greenish liquor, fell from his pocket, and rolled close to
+the dying Goliath.  At sight of this phial, many voices exclaimed
+together: "It is poison! Only see! He had poison upon him."
+
+The clamor redoubled at this accusation, and they pressed so close to
+Abbe d'Aigrigny, that he exclaimed: "Do not touch me! do not approach
+me!"
+
+"If he is a poisoner," said a voice, "no more mercy for him than for the
+other."
+
+"I a poisoner?" said the abbe, struck with horror.
+
+Ciboule had darted upon the phial; the quarryman seized it from her,
+uncorked it and presenting it to Father d'Aigrigny, said to him: "Now
+tell us what is that?"
+
+"It is not poison," cried Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Then drink it!" returned the quarryman.
+
+"Yes, yes! let him drink it!" cried the mob.
+
+"Never," answered Father d'Aigrigny, in extreme alarm.  And he drew back
+as he spoke, pushing away the phial with his hand.
+
+"Do you see?  It is poison.  He dares not drink it," they exclaimed.
+Hemmed in on every side, Father d'Aigrigny stumbled against the body of
+Goliath.
+
+"My friends," cried the Jesuit, who, without being a poisoner, found
+himself exposed to a terrible alternative, for his phial contained
+aromatic salts of extraordinary strength, designed for a preservative
+against the cholera, and as dangerous to swallow as any poison, "my good
+friends, you are in error.  I conjure you, in the name of heaven--"
+
+"If that is not poison, drink it!" interrupted the quarryman, as he again
+offered the bottle to the Jesuit.
+
+"If he does not drink it, death to the poisoner of the poor!"
+
+"Yes!--death to him! death to him!"
+
+"Unhappy men!" cried Father d'Aigrigny, whilst his hair stood on end with
+terror; "do you mean to murder me?"
+
+"What about all those, that you and your mate have killed, you wretch?"
+
+"But it is not true--and--"
+
+"Drink, then!" repeated the inflexible quarryman; "I ask you for the last
+time."
+
+"To drink that would be death," cried Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Oh! only hear the wretch!" cried the mob, pressing closer to him; "he
+has confessed--he has confessed!"
+
+"He has betrayed himself!"[40]
+
+"He said, `to drink that would be death!'"
+
+"But listen to me," cried the abbe, clasping his hands together; "this
+phial is--"
+
+Furious cries interrupted Father d'Aigrigny.  "Ciboule, make an end of
+that one!" cried the quarryman, spurning Goliath with his foot.  "I will
+begin this one!" And he seized Father d'Aigrigny by the throat.
+
+At these words, two different groups formed themselves.  One, led by
+Ciboule, "made an end" of Goliath, with kicks and blows, stones and
+wooden shoes; his body was soon reduced to a horrible thing, mutilated,
+nameless, formless--a mere inert mass of filth and mangled flesh.
+Ciboule gave her cloak, which they tied to one of the dislocated ankles
+of the body, and thus dragged it to the parapet of the quay.  There, with
+shouts of ferocious joy, they precipitated the bloody remains into the
+river.  Now who does not shudder at the thought that, in a time of
+popular commotion, a word, a single word, spoken imprudently, even by an
+honest man, and without hatred, will suffice to provoke so horrible a
+murder.
+
+"Perhaps it is a poisoner!" said one of the drinkers in the tavern of the
+Rue de la Calandre--nothing more--and Goliath had been pitilessly
+murdered.
+
+What imperious reasons for penetrating the lowest depths of the masses
+with instruction and with light--to enable unfortunate creatures to
+defend themselves from so many stupid prejudices, so many fatal
+superstitions, so much implacable fanaticism!--How can we ask for
+calmness, reflection, self-control, or the sentiment of justice from
+abandoned beings, whom ignorance has brutalized, and misery depraved, and
+suffering made ferocious, and of whom society takes no thought, except
+when it chains them to the galleys, or binds them ready for the
+executioner! The terrible cry which had so startled Morok was uttered by
+Father d'Aigrigny as the quarryman laid his formidable hand upon him,
+saying to Ciboule: "Make an end of that one--I will begin this one!"
+
+[40] This fact is historical.  A man was murdered because a phial full of
+ammonia was found upon him.  On his refusal to drink it, the populace,
+persuaded that the bottle contained poison, tore him to pieces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+IN THE CATHEDRAL.
+
+Night was almost come, as the mutilated body of Goliath was thrown into
+the river.  The oscillations of the mob had carried into the street,
+which runs along the left side of the cathedral, the group into whose
+power Father d'Aigrigny had fallen.  Having succeeded in freeing himself
+from the grasp of the quarryman, but still closely pressed by the
+multitude that surrounded him, crying, "Death to the poisoner!" he
+retreated step by step, trying to parry the blows that were dealt him.
+By presence of mind, address, and courage, recovering at that critical
+moment his old military energy, he had hitherto been able to resist and
+to remain firm on his feet--knowing, by the example of Goliath, that to
+fall was to die.  Though he had little hope of being heard to any
+purpose, the abbe continued to call for help with all his might.
+Disputing the ground inch by inch, he manoeuvred so as to draw near one
+of the lateral walls of the church, and at length succeeded in ensconcing
+himself in a corner formed by the projection of a buttress, and close by
+a little door.
+
+This position was rather favorable.  Leaning with his back against the
+wall, Father d'Aigrigny was sheltered from the attacks of a portion of
+his assailants.  But the quarryman, wishing to deprive him of this last
+chance of safety, rushed upon him, with the intention of dragging him out
+into the circle where he would have been trampled under foot.  The fear
+of death gave Father d'Aigrigny extraordinary strength, and he was able
+once more to repulse the quarryman, and remain entrenched in the corner
+where he had taken refuge.  The resistance of the victim redoubled the
+rage of the assailants.  Cries of murderous import resounded with new
+violence.  The quarryman again rushed upon Father d'Aigrigny, saying,
+"Follow me, friends! this lasts too long.  Let us make an end of it."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny saw that he was lost.  His strength was exhausted, and
+he felt himself sinking; his legs trembled under him, and a cloud
+obscured his sight; the howling of the furious mob began to sound dull
+upon his ear.  The effects of violent contusions, received during the
+struggle, both on the head and chest, were now very perceptible.  Two or
+three times, a mixture of blood and foam rose to the lips of the abbe;
+his position was a desperate one.
+
+"To be slaughtered by these brutes, after escaping death so often in
+war!" Such was the thought of Father d'Aigrigny, as the quarryman rushed
+upon him.
+
+Suddenly, at the very moment when the abbe, yielding to the instinct of
+self-preservation, uttered one last call for help, in a heart-piercing
+voice, the door against which he leaned opened behind him, and a firm
+hand caught hold of him, and pulled him into the church.  Thanks to this
+movement, performed with the rapidity of lightning, the quarryman, thrown
+forward in his attempt to seize Father d'Aigrigny, could not check his
+progress, and found himself just opposite to the person who had come, as
+it were, to take the place of the victim.
+
+The quarryman stopped short, and then fell back a couple of paces, so
+much was he amazed at this sudden apparition, and impressed, like the
+rest of the crowd, with a vague feeling of admiration and respect at
+sight of him who had come so miraculously to the aid of Father
+d'Aigrigny.  It was Gabriel.  The young missionary remained standing on
+the threshold of the door.  His long black cassock was half lost in the
+shadows of the cathedral; whilst his angelic countenance, with its border
+of long light hair, now pale and agitated by pity and grief, was
+illumined by the last faint rays of twilight.  This countenance shone
+with so divine a beauty, and expressed such touching and tender
+compassion, that the crowd felt awed as, with his large blue eyes full of
+tears, and his hands clasped together, he exclaimed, in a sonorous voice:
+"Have mercy, my brethren! Be humane--be just!"
+
+Recovering from his first feeling of surprise and involuntary emotion,
+the quarryman advanced a step towards Gabriel, and said to him: "No mercy
+for the poisoner! we must have him! Give him up to us, or we go and take
+him!"
+
+"You cannot think of it, my brethren," answered Gabriel; "the church is a
+sacred place--a place of refuge for the persecuted."
+
+"We would drag our prisoner from the altar!" answered the quarryman,
+roughly; "so give him up to us."
+
+"Listen to me, my brethren," said Gabriel, extending his arms towards
+them.
+
+"Down with the shaveling!" cried the quarryman; "let us go in and hunt
+him up in the church!"
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried the mob, again led away by the violence of this wretch,
+"down with the black gown!"
+
+"They are all of a piece!"
+
+"Down with them!"
+
+"Let us do as we did at the archbishop's!"
+
+"Or at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois!"
+
+"What do our likes care for a church?"
+
+"If the priests defend the poisoners, we'll pitch them into the water
+too!"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"I'll show you the lead!" cried the quarryman; and followed by Ciboule,
+and a good number of determined men, he rushed towards Gabriel.
+
+The missionary, who for some moments had watched the increasing fury of
+the crowd, had foreseen this movement; hastily retreating into the
+church, he succeeded, in spite of the efforts of the assailants, in
+nearly closing the door, and in barricading it by the help of a wooden
+bar, which he held in such a manner as would enable the door to resist
+for a few minutes.
+
+Whilst he thus defended the entrance, Gabriel shouted to Father
+d'Aigrigny: "Fly, father! fly through the vestry! the other doors are
+fastened."
+
+The Jesuit, overpowered by fatigue, covered with contusions, bathed in
+cold sweat, feeling his strength altogether fail, and too soon fancying
+himself in safety, had sunk, half fainting, into a chair.  At the voice
+of Gabriel, he rose with difficulty, and, with a trembling step,
+endeavored to reach the choir, separated from the rest of the church by
+an iron railing.
+
+"Quick, father!" added Gabriel, in alarm, using every effort to maintain
+the door, which was now vigorously assailed.  "Make haste! In a few
+minutes it will be too late.  All alone!" continued the missionary, in
+despair, "alone, to arrest the progress of these madmen!"
+
+He was indeed alone.  At the first outbreak of the attack, three or four
+sacristans and other members of the establishment were in the church;
+but, struck with terror, and remembering the sack of the archbishop's
+palace, and of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, they had immediately taken
+flight.  Some of them had concealed themselves in the organ-loft and
+others fled into the vestry, the doors of which they locked after them,
+thus cutting off the retreat of Gabriel and Father d'Aigrigny.  The
+latter, bent double by pain, yet roused by the missionary's portentive
+warning, helping himself on by means of the chairs he met with on his
+passage, made vain efforts to reach the choir railing.  After advancing a
+few steps, vanquished by his suffering, he staggered and fell upon the
+pavement, deprived of sense and motion.  At the same moment, Gabriel, in
+spite of the incredible energy with which the desire to save Father
+d'Aigrigny had inspired him, felt the door giving way beneath the
+formidable pressure from without.
+
+Turning his head, to see if the Jesuit had at least quitted the church,
+Gabriel, to his great alarm, perceived that he was lying motionless at a
+few steps from the choir.  To abandon the half-broken door, to run to
+Father d'Aigrigny, to lift him in his arms, and drag him within the
+railing of the choir, was for the young priest an action rapid as
+thought; for he closed the gate of the choir just at the instant that the
+quarryman and his band, having finished breaking down the door, rushed in
+a body into the church.
+
+Standing in front of the choir, with his arms crossed upon his breast,
+Gabriel waited calmly and intrepidly for this mob, still more exasperated
+by such unexpected resistance.
+
+The door once forced, the assailants rushed in with great violence.  But
+hardly had they entered the church, than a strange scene took place.  It
+was nearly dark; only a few silver lamps shed their pale light round the
+sanctuary, whose far outlines disappeared in the shadow.  On suddenly
+entering the immense cathedral, dark, silent, and deserted, the most
+audacious were struck with awe, almost with fear in presence of the
+imposing grandeur of that stony solitude.  Outcries and threats died away
+on the lips of the most furious.  They seemed to dread awaking the echoes
+of those enormous arches, those black vaults, from which oozed a
+sepulchral dampness, which chilled their brows, inflamed with anger, and
+fell upon their shoulders like a mantle of ice.
+
+Religious tradition, routine, habit, the memories of childhood, have so
+much influence upon men, that hardly had they entered the church, than
+several of the quarryman's followers respectfully took off their hats,
+bowed their bare heads, and walked along cautiously, as if to check the
+noise of their footsteps on the sounding stones.  Then they exchanged a
+few words in a low and fearful whisper.  Others timidly raised their eyes
+to the far heights of the topmost arches of that gigantic building, now
+lost in obscurity, and felt almost frightened to see themselves so little
+in the midst of that immensity of darkness.  But at the first joke of the
+quarryman, who broke this respectful silence, the emotion soon passed
+away.
+
+"Blood and thunder!" cried he; "are you fetching breath to sing vespers?
+If they had wine in the font, well and good!"
+
+These words were received with a burst of savage laughter.  "All this
+time the villain will escape!" said one.
+
+"And we shall be done," added Ciboule.
+
+"One would think we had cowards here, who are afraid of the sacristans!"
+cried the quarryman.
+
+"Never!" replied the others in chorus; "we fear nobody."
+
+"Forward!"
+
+"Yes, yes--forward!" was repeated on all sides.  And the animation, which
+had been calmed down for a moment, was redoubled in the midst of renewed
+tumult.  Some moments after, the eyes of the assailants, becoming
+accustomed to the twilight, were able to distinguish in the midst of the
+faint halo shed around by a silver lamp, the imposing countenance of
+Gabriel, as he stood before the iron railing of the choir.
+
+"The poisoner is here, hid in some corner," cried the quarryman.  "We
+must force this parson to give us back the villain."
+
+"He shall answer for him!"
+
+"He took him into the church."
+
+"He shall pay for both, if we do not find the other!"
+
+As the first impression of involuntary respect was effaced from the minds
+of the crowd, their voices rose the louder, and their faces became the
+more savage and threatening, because they all felt ashamed of their
+momentary hesitation and weakness.
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried many voices, trembling with rage, "we must have the
+life of one or the other!"
+
+"Or of both!"
+
+"So much the worse for this priest, if he wants to prevent us from
+serving out our poisoner!"
+
+"Death to him! death to him!"
+
+With this burst of ferocious yells, which were fearfully re-echoed from
+the groined arches of the cathedral, the mob, maddened by rage, rushed
+towards the choir, at the door of which Gabriel was standing.  The young
+missionary, who, when placed on the cross by the savages of the Rocky
+Mountains, yet entreated heaven to spare his executioners, had too much
+courage in his heart, too much charity in his soul, not to risk his life
+a thousand times over to save Father d'Aigrigny's--the very man who had
+betrayed hire by such cowardly and cruel hypocrisy.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE MURDERERS.
+
+The quarryman, followed by his gang, ran towards Gabriel, who had
+advanced a few paces from the choir-railing, and exclaimed, his eyes
+sparkling with rage: "Where is the poisoner?  We will have him!"
+
+"Who has told you, my brethren, that he is a poisoner?" replied Gabriel,
+with his deep, sonorous voice.  "A poisoner! Where are the proofs--
+witnesses or victims?"
+
+"Enough of that stuff! we are not here for confession," brutally answered
+the quarryman, advancing towards him in a threatening manner.  "Give up
+the man to us; he shall be forthcoming, unless you choose to stand in his
+shoes?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" exclaimed several voices; "they are `in' with one another!
+One or the other we will have!"
+
+"Very well, then; since it is so," said Gabriel, raising his head, and
+advancing with calmness, resignation; and fearlessness; "he or me," added
+he;--"it seems to make no difference to you--you are determined to have
+blood--take mine, and I will pardon you, my friends; for a fatal delusion
+has unsettled your reason."
+
+These words of Gabriel, his courage, the nobleness of his attitude, the
+beauty of his countenance, had made an impression on some of the
+assailants, when suddenly a voice exclaimed: "Look! there is the
+poisoner, behind the railing!"
+
+"Where--where?" cried they.
+
+"There--don't you see?--stretched on the floor."
+
+On hearing this, the mob, which had hitherto formed a compact mass, in
+the sort of passage separating the two sides of the nave, between the
+rows of chairs, dispersed in every direction, to reach the railing of the
+choir, the last and only barrier that now sheltered Father d'Aigrigny.
+During this manoeuvre the quarryman, Ciboule, and others, advanced
+towards Gabriel, exclaiming, with ferocious joy: "This time we have him.
+Death to the poisoner!"
+
+To save Father d'Aigrigny, Gabriel would have allowed himself to be
+massacred at the entrance of the choir; but, a little further on, the
+railing, not above four feet in height, would in another instant be
+scaled or broken through.  The Missionary lost all hope of saving the
+Jesuit from a frightful death.  Yet he exclaimed: "Stop, poor deluded
+people!"--and, extending his arms, he threw himself in front of the
+crowd.
+
+His words, gesture, and countenance, were expressive of an authority at
+once so affectionate and so fraternal, that there was a momentary
+hesitation amongst the mob.  But to this hesitation soon succeeded the
+most furious cries of "Death; death!"
+
+"You cry for his death?" cried Gabriel, growing still paler.
+
+"Yes! yes!"
+
+"Well, let him die," cried the missionary, inspired with a sudden
+thought; "let him die on the instant!"
+
+These words of the young priest struck the crowd with amazement.  For a
+few moments, they all stood mute, motionless, and as it were, paralyzed,
+looking at Gabriel in stupid astonishment.
+
+"This man is guilty, you say," resumed the young missionary, in a voice
+trembling with emotion.  "You have condemned him without proof, without
+witnesses--no matter, he must die.  You reproach him with being a
+poisoner; where are his victims?  You cannot tell--but no matter; he is
+condemned.  You refuse to hear his defense, the sacred right of every
+accused person--no matter; the sentence is pronounced.  You are at once
+his accusers, judges, and executioners.  Be it so!--You have never seen
+till now this unfortunate man, he has done you no harm, he has perhaps
+not done harm to any one--yet you take upon yourselves the terrible
+responsibility of his death--understand me well--of his death.  Be it so
+then! your conscience will absolve you--I will believe it.  He must die;
+the sacredness of God's house will not save him--"
+
+"No, no!" cried many furious voices.
+
+"No," resumed Gabriel, with increasing warmth; "no you have determined to
+shed his blood, and you will shed it, even in the Lord's temple.  It is,
+you say, your right.  You are doing an act of terrible justice.  But why
+then, so many vigorous arms to make an end of one dying man?  Why these
+outcries? this fury? this violence?  Is it thus that the people, the
+strong and equitable people, are wont to execute their judgments?  No,
+no; when sure of their right, they strike their enemies, it is with the
+calmness of the judge, who, in freedom of soul and conscience, passes
+sentence.  No, the strong and equitable people do not deal their blows
+like men blind or mad, uttering cries of rage, as if to drown the sense
+of some cowardly and horrible murder.  No, it is not thus that they
+exercise the formidable right, to which you now lay claim--for you will
+have it--"
+
+"Yes, we will have it!" shouted the quarryman, Ciboule, and others of the
+more pitiless portion of the mob; whilst a great number remained silent,
+struck with the words of Gabriel, who had just painted to them, in such
+lively colors, the frightful act they were about to commit.
+
+"Yes," resumed the quarryman, "it is our right; we have determined to
+kill the poisoner!"
+
+So saying, and with bloodshot eyes, and flushed cheek, the wretch
+advanced at the head of a resolute group, making a gesture as though he
+would have pushed aside Gabriel, who was still standing in front of the
+railing.  But instead of resisting the bandit, the missionary advanced a
+couple of steps to meet him, took him by the arm, and said in a firm
+voice: "Come!"
+
+And dragging, as it were, with him the stupefied quarryman, whose
+companions did not venture to follow at the moment, struck dumb as they
+were by this new incident, Gabriel rapidly traversed the space which
+separated him from the choir, opened the iron gate, and, still holding
+the quarryman by the arm, led him up to the prostrate form of Father
+d'Aigrigny, and said to him: "There is the victim.  He is condemned.
+Strike!"
+
+"I" cried the quarryman, hesitating; "I--all alone!"
+
+"Oh!" replied Gabriel, with bitterness, "there is no danger.  You can
+easily finish him.  Look! he is broken down with suffering; he has hardly
+a breath of life left; he will make no resistance.  Do not be afraid!"
+
+The quarryman remained motionless, whilst the crowd, strangely impressed
+with this incident, approached a little nearer the railing, without
+daring to come within the gate.
+
+"Strike then!" resumed Gabriel, addressing the quarryman, whilst he
+pointed to the crowd with a solemn gesture; "there are the judges; you
+are the executioner."
+
+"No!" cried the quarryman, drawing back, and turning away his eyes; "I'm
+not the executioner--not I!"
+
+The crowd remained silent.  For a few moments, not a word, not a cry,
+disturbed the stillness of the solemn cathedral.  In a desperate case,
+Gabriel had acted with a profound knowledge of the human heart.  When the
+multitude, inflamed with blind rage, rushes with ferocious clamor upon a
+single victim, and each man strikes his blow, this dreadful species of
+combined murder appears less horrible to each, because they all share in
+the common crime; and then the shouts, the sight of blood, the desperate
+defence of the man they massacre, finish by producing a sort of ferocious
+intoxication; but, amongst all those furious madmen, who take part in the
+homicide, select one, and place him face to face with the victim, no
+longer capable of resistance, and say to him, "Strike!"--he will hardly
+ever dare to do so.
+
+It was thus with the quarryman; the wretch trembled at the idea of
+committing a murder in cold blood, "all alone."  The preceding scene had
+passed very rapidly; amongst the companions of the quarryman, nearest to
+the railing, some did not understand an impression, which they would
+themselves have felt as strongly as this bold man, if it had been said to
+them: "Do the office of executioner!"  These, therefore, began to murmur
+aloud at his weakness.  "He dares not finish the poisoner," said one.
+
+"The coward!"
+
+"He is afraid."
+
+"He draws back."  Hearing these words, the quarryman ran to the gate,
+threw it wide open, and, pointing to Father d'Aigrigny, exclaimed: "If
+there is one here braver than I am, let him go and finish the job--let
+him be, the executioner--come!"
+
+On this proposal the murmurs ceased.  A deep silence reigned once more in
+the cathedral.  All those countenances, but now so furious, became sad,
+confused, almost frightened.
+
+The deluded mob began to appreciate the ferocious cowardice of the action
+it had been about to commit.  Not one durst go alone to strike the half-
+expiring man.  Suddenly, Father d'Aigrigny uttered a dying rattle, his
+head and one of his arms stirred with a convulsive movement, and then
+fell back upon the stones as if he had just expired.
+
+Gabriel uttered a cry of anguish, and threw himself on his knees close to
+Father d'Aigrigny, exclaiming: "Great Heaven! he is dead!"
+
+There is a singular variableness in the mind of a crowd, susceptible
+alike to good or evil impressions.  At the heart-piercing cry of Gabriel,
+all these people, who, a moment before, had demanded, with loud uproar,
+the massacre of this man, felt touched with a sudden pity.  The words:
+"He is dead!" circulated in low whispers through the crowd accompanied by
+a slight shudder, whilst Gabriel raised with one hand the victim's heavy
+head, and with the other sought to feel if the pulse still beat beneath
+the ice-cold skin.
+
+"Mr. Curate," said the quarryman, bending towards Gabriel, "is there
+really no hope?"
+
+The answer was waited for with anxiety, in the midst of deep silence.
+The people hardly ventured to exchange a few words in whispers.
+
+"Blessed be God!" exclaimed Gabriel, suddenly.  "His heart beats."
+
+"His heart beats," repeated the quarryman, turning his head towards the
+crowd, to inform them of the good news.
+
+"Oh! his heart beats!" repeated the others, in whispers.
+
+"There is hope.  We may yet save him," added Gabriel with an expression
+of indescribable happiness.
+
+"We may yet save him," repeated the quarryman, mechanically.
+
+"We may yet save him," muttered the crowd.
+
+"Quick, quick," resumed Gabriel, addressing the quarryman; "help me,
+brother.  Let us carry him to a neighboring house, where he can have
+immediate aid."
+
+The quarryman obeyed with readiness.  Whilst the missionary lifted Father
+d'Aigrigny by holding him under the arms, the quarryman took the legs of
+the almost inanimate body.  Together, they carried him outside of the
+choir.  At sight of the formidable quarryman, aiding the young priest to
+render assistance to the man whom he had just before pursued with menaces
+of death, the multitude felt a sudden thrill of compassion.  Yielding to
+the powerful influence of the words and example of Gabriel, they felt
+themselves deeply moved, and each became anxious to offer services.
+
+"Mr. Curate, he would perhaps be better on a chair, that one could carry
+upright," said Ciboule.
+
+"Shall I go and fetch a stretcher from the hospital?" asked another.
+
+"Mr. Curate, let me take your place; the body is too heavy for you."
+
+"Don't trouble yourself," said a powerful man, approaching the missionary
+respectfully; "I can carry him alone."
+
+"Shall I run and fetch a coach, Mr. Curate?" said a young vagabond,
+taking off his red cap.
+
+"Right," said the quarryman; "run away, my buck!"
+
+"But first, ask Mr. Curate if you are to go for a coach," said Ciboule,
+stopping the impatient messenger.
+
+"True," added one of the bystanders; "we are here in a church, and Mr.
+Curate has the command.  He is at home."
+
+"Yes, yes; go at once, my child," said Gabriel to the obliging young
+vagabond.
+
+Whilst the latter was making his way through the crowd, a voice said:
+"I've a little wicker-bottle of brandy; will that be of any use?"
+
+"No doubt," answered Gabriel, hastily; "pray give it here.  We can rub
+his temples with the spirit, and make him inhale a little."
+
+"Pass the bottle," cried Ciboule; "but don't put your noses in it!" And,
+passed with caution from hand to hand, the flask reached Gabriel in
+safety.
+
+Whilst waiting for the coming of the coach, Father d'Aigrigny had been
+seated on a chair.  Whilst several good-natured people carefully
+supported the abbe, the missionary made him inhale a little brandy.  In a
+few minutes, the spirit had a powerful influence on the Jesuit; he made
+some slight movements, and his oppressed bosom heaved with a deep sigh.
+
+"He is saved--he will live," cried Gabriel, in a triumphant voice; "he
+will live, my brothers!"
+
+"Oh! glad to hear it!" exclaimed many voices.
+
+"Oh, yes! be glad, my brothers!" repeated Gabriel; "for, instead of being
+weighed down with the remorse of crime, you will have a just and
+charitable action to remember.  Let us thank God, that he has changed
+your blind fury into a sentiment of compassion! Let us pray to Him, that
+neither you, nor those you love, may ever be exposed to such frightful
+danger as this unfortunate man has just escaped.  Oh, my brothers!" added
+Gabriel, as he pointed to the image of Christ with touching emotion,
+which communicated itself the more easily to others from the expression
+of his angelic countenance; "oh, my brothers! let us never forget, that
+HE, who died upon that cross for the defence of the oppressed, for the
+obscure children of the people like to ourselves, pronounced those
+affectionate words so sweet to the heart; `Love ye one another!'--Let us
+never forget it; let us love and help one another, and we poor people
+shall then become better, happier, just.  Love--yes, love ye one another-
+-and fall prostrate before that Saviour, who is the God of all that are
+weak, oppressed, and suffering in this world!"
+
+So saying, Gabriel knelt down.  All present respectfully followed his
+example, such power was there in his simple and persuasive words.  At
+this moment, a singular incident added to the grandeur of the scene.  We
+have said that a few seconds before the quarryman and his band entered
+the body of the church, several persons had fled from it.  Two of these
+had taken refuge in the organ-loft, from which retreat they had viewed
+the preceding scene, themselves remaining invisible.  One of these
+persons was a young man charged with the care of the organ, and quite
+musician enough to play on it.  Deeply moved by the unexpected turn of an
+event which at first appeared so tragical, and yielding to an artistical
+inspiration, this young man, at the moment when he saw the people
+kneeling with Gabriel, could not forbear striking the notes.  Then a sort
+of harmonious sigh, at first almost insensible, seemed to rise from the
+midst of this immense cathedral, like a divine aspiration.  As soft and
+aerial as the balmy vapor of incense, it mounted and spread through the
+lofty arches.  Little by little the faint, sweet sounds, though still as
+it were covered, changed to an exquisite melody, religious, melancholy,
+and affectionate, which rose to heaven like a song of ineffable gratitude
+and love.  And the notes were at first so faint, so covered, that the
+kneeling multitude had scarcely felt surprise, and had yielded insensibly
+to the irresistible influence of that enchanting harmony.
+
+Then many an eye, until now dry and ferocious, became wet with tears--
+many hard hearts beat gently, as they remembered the words pronounced by
+Gabriel with so tender an accent: "Love ye one another!" It was at this
+moment that Father d'Aigrigny came to himself--and opened his eyes.  He
+thought himself under the influence of a dream.  He had lost his senses
+in sight of a furious populace, who, with insult and blasphemy on their
+lips, pursued him with cries of death even to the sanctuary of the
+temple.  He opened his eyes--and, by the pale light of the sacred lamps,
+to the solemn music of the organ, he saw that crowd, just now so menacing
+and implacable, kneeling in mute and reverential emotion, and humbly
+bowing their heads before the majesty of the shrine.
+
+Some minutes after, Gabriel, carried almost in triumph on the shoulders
+of the crowd, entered the coach, in which Father d'Aigrigny, who by
+degrees had completely recovered his senses, was already reclining.  By
+the order of the Jesuit, the coach stopped before the door of a house in
+the Rue de Vaugirard; he had the strength and courage to enter this
+dwelling alone; Gabriel was not admitted, but we shall conduct the reader
+thither.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE PATIENT.
+
+At the end of the Rue de Vaugirard, there was then a very high wall, with
+only one small doorway in all its length.  On opening this door, you
+entered a yard surrounded by a railing, with screens like Venetian
+blinds, to prevent your seeing between the rails.  Crossing this
+courtyard, you come to a fine large garden, symmetrically planted, at the
+end of which stood a building two stories high, looking perfectly
+comfortable, without luxury, but with all that cozy simplicity which
+betokens discreet opulence.  A few days had elapsed since Father
+d'Aigrigny had been so courageously rescued by Gabriel from the popular
+fury.  Three ecclesiastics, wearing black gowns, white bands, and square
+caps, were walking in the garden with a slow and measured step.  The
+youngest seemed to be about thirty years of age; his countenance was
+pale, hollow, and impressed with a certain ascetic austerity.  His two
+companions, aged between fifty or sixty, had, on the contrary, faces at
+once hypocritical and cunning; their round, rosy cheeks shone brightly in
+the sunshine, whilst their triple chins, buried in fat, descended in soft
+folds over the fine cambric of their bands.  According to the rules of
+their order (they belonged to the Society of Jesus), which forbade their
+walking only two together, these three members of the brotherhood never
+quitted each other a moment.
+
+"I fear," said one of the two, continuing a conversation already begun,
+and speaking of an absent person, "I fear, that the continual agitation
+to which the reverend father has been a prey, ever since he was attacked
+with the cholera, has exhausted his strength, and caused the dangerous
+relapse which now makes us fear for his life."
+
+"They say," resumed the other, "that never was there seen anxiety like to
+his."
+
+"And moreover," remarked the young priest, bitterly, "it is painful to
+think, that his reverence Father Rodin has given cause for scandal, by
+obstinately refusing to make a public confession, the day before
+yesterday when his situation appeared so desperate, that, between two
+fits of a delirium, it was thought right to propose to him to receive the
+last sacraments."
+
+"His reverence declared that he was not so ill as they supposed,"
+answered one of the fathers, "and that he would have the last duties
+performed when he thought necessary."
+
+"The fact is, that for the last ten days, ever since he was brought here
+dying, his life has been, as it were, only a long and painful agony; and
+yet he continues to live."
+
+"I watched by him during the first three days of his malady, with M.
+Rousselet, the pupil of Dr. Baleinier," resumed the youngest father; "he
+had hardly a moment's consciousness, and when the Lord did grant him a
+lucid interval, he employed it in detestable execrations against the fate
+which had confined him to his bed."
+
+"It is said," resumed the other, "that Father Rodin made answer to his
+Eminence Cardinal Malipieri, who came to persuade him to die in an
+exemplary manner, worthy of a son of Loyola, our blessed founder"--at
+these words, the three Jesuits bowed their heads together, as if they had
+been all moved by the same spring--"it is said, that Father Rodin made
+answer to his eminence: `I do not need to confess publicly; I WANT TO
+LIVE, AND I WILL LIVE.'"
+
+"I did not hear that," said the young priest, with an indignant air; "but
+if Father Rodin really made use of such expressions, it is--"
+
+Here, no doubt, reflection came to him just in time, for he stole a
+sidelong glance at his two silent, impassible companions, and added: "It
+is a great misfortune for his soul; but I am certain, his reverence has
+been slandered."
+
+"It was only as a calumnious report, that I mentioned those words," said
+the other priest, exchanging a glance with his companion.
+
+One of the garden gates opened, and one of the three reverend fathers
+exclaimed, at the sight of the personage who now entered: "Oh! here is
+his Eminence Cardinal Malipieri, coming to pay a visit to Father Rodin."
+
+"May this visit of his eminence," said the young priest, calmly, "be more
+profitable to Father Rodin than the last!"
+
+Cardinal Malipieri was crossing the garden, on his way to the apartment
+occupied by Rodin.
+
+Cardinal Malipieri, whom we saw assisting at the sort of council held at
+the Princess de Saint-Dizier's, now on his way to Rodin's apartment, was
+dressed as a layman, but enveloped in an ample pelisse of puce-colored
+satin, which exhaled a strong odor of camphor, for the prelate had taken
+care to surround himself with all sorts of anti-cholera specifics.
+Having reached the second story of the house, the cardinal knocked at a
+little gray door.  Nobody answering, he opened it, and, like a man to
+whom the locality was well known, passed through a sort of antechamber,
+and entered a room in which was a turn-up bed.  On a black wood table
+were many phials, which had contained different medicines.  The prelate's
+countenance seemed uneasy and morose; his complexion was still yellow and
+bilious; the brown circle which surrounded his black, squinting eyes
+appeared still darker than usual.
+
+Pausing a moment, he looked round him almost in fear, and several times
+stopped to smell at his anti-cholera bottle.  Then, seeing he was alone,
+he approached a glass over the chimney-piece, and examined with much
+attention the color of his tongue; after some minutes spent in this
+careful investigation, with the result of which he appeared tolerably
+satisfied, he took some preservative lozenges out of a golden box, and
+allowed them to melt in his mouth, whilst he closed his eyes with a
+sanctified air.  Having taken these sanitary precautions, and again
+pressed his bottle to his nose, the prelate prepared to enter the third
+room, when he heard a tolerably loud noise through the thin partition
+which separated him from it, and, stopping to listen, all that was said
+in the next apartment easily reached his ear.
+
+"Now that my wounds are dressed, I will get up," said weak, but sharp and
+imperious voice.
+
+"Do not think of it, reverend father," was answered in a stronger tone;
+"it is impossible."
+
+"You shall see if it is impossible," replied the other voice.
+
+"But, reverend father, you will kill yourself.  You are not in a state to
+get up.  You will expose yourself to a mortal relapse.  I cannot consent
+to it."
+
+To these words succeeded the noise of a faint struggle, mingled with
+groans more angry than plaintive, and the voice resumed: "No, no, father;
+for your own safety, I will not leave your clothes within your reach.  It
+is almost time for your medicine; I will go and prepare it for you."
+
+Almost immediately after, the door opened, and the prelate saw enter a
+man of about twenty-five years of age, carrying on his arm an old olive
+great-coat and threadbare black trousers, which he threw down upon a
+chair.
+
+This personage was Ange Modeste Rousselet, chief pupil of Dr. Baleinier;
+the countenance of the young practitioner was mild, humble, and reserved;
+his hair, very short in front, flowed down upon his neck behind.  He made
+a slight start in surprise on perceiving the cardinal, and bowed twice
+very low, without raising his eyes.
+
+"Before anything else," said the prelate, with his marked Italian accent,
+still holding to his nose his bottle of camphor, "have any choleraic
+symptoms returned?"
+
+"No, my lord; the pernicious fever, which succeeded the attack of
+cholera, still continues."
+
+"Very good.  But will not the reverend father be reasonable?  What was
+the noise that I just heard?"
+
+"His reverence wished absolutely to get up and dress himself; but his
+weakness is so great, that he could not have taken two steps from the
+bed.  He is devoured by impatience, and we fear that this agitation will
+cause a mortal relapse."
+
+"Has Dr. Baleinier been here this morning?"
+
+"He has just left, my lord."
+
+"What does he think of the patient?"
+
+"He finds him in the most alarming state, my lord.  The night was so bad,
+that he was extremely uneasy this morning.  Father Rodin is at one of
+those critical junctures, when a few hours may decide the life or death
+of the patient.  Dr. Baleinier is now gone to fetch what is necessary for
+a very painful operation, which he is about to perform on the reverend
+father."
+
+"Has Father d'Aigrigny been told of this?"
+
+"Father d'Aigrigny is himself very unwell, as your eminence knows; he has
+not been able to leave his bed for the last three days."
+
+"I inquired about him as I came up," answered the prelate, "and I shall
+see him directly.  But, to return to Father Rodin, have you sent for his
+confessor, since he is in a desperate state, and about to undergo a
+serious operation?"
+
+"Dr. Baleinier spoke a word to him about it, as well as about the last
+sacraments; but Father Rodin exclaimed, with great irritation, that they
+did not leave him a moment's peace, that he had as much care as any one
+for his salvation, and that--"
+
+"Per Bacco! I am not thinking of him," cried the cardinal, interrupting
+Ange Modeste Rousselet with his pagan oath, and raising his sharp voice
+to a still higher key; "I am not thinking of him, but of the interests of
+the Company.  It is indispensable that the reverend father should receive
+the sacraments with the most splendid solemnity, and that his end should
+not only be Christian, but exemplary.  All the people in the house, and
+even strangers, should be invited to the spectacle, so that his edifying
+death may produce an excellent sensation."
+
+"That is what Fathers Grison and Brunet have already endeavored to
+persuade his reverence, my lord; but your Eminence knows with what
+impatience Father Rodin received this advice, and Dr. Baleinier did not
+venture to persist, for fear of advancing a fatal crisis."
+
+"Well, I will venture to do it; for in these times of revolutionary
+impiety, a solemnly Christian death would produce a very salutary effect
+on the public.  It would indeed be proper to make the necessary
+preparations to embalm the reverend father: he might then lie in state
+for some days, with lighted tapers, according to Romish custom.  My
+secretary would furnish the design for the bier; it would be very
+splendid and imposing; from his position in the Order, Father Rodin is
+entitled to have everything in the most sumptuous style.  He must have at
+least six hundred tapers, and a dozen funeral lamps, burning spirits of
+wine, to hang just over the body, and light it from above: the effect
+would be excellent.  We must also distribute little tracts to the people,
+concerning the pious and ascetic life of his reverence--"
+
+Here a sudden noise, like that of some piece of metal thrown angrily on
+the floor, was heard from the next room, in which was the sick man, and
+interrupted the prelate in his description.
+
+"I hope Father Rodin has not heard you talk of embalming him, my lord,"
+said Rousselet, in a whisper: "his bed touches the partition, and almost
+everything is audible through it."
+
+"If Father Rodin has heard me," answered the cardinal, sinking his voice,
+and retiring to the other end of the room, "this circumstance will enable
+me to enter at once on the business; but, in any case, I persist in
+believing that the embalming and the lying in state are required to make
+a good effect upon the public.  The people are already frightened at the
+cholera, and such funeral pomp would have no small influence on the
+imagination."
+
+"I would venture to observe to your Eminence, that here the laws are
+opposed to such exhibitions."
+
+"The laws--already the laws!" said the cardinal, angrily; "has not Rome
+also her laws?  And is not every priest a subject of Rome?  Is it not
+time--"
+
+But, not choosing, doubtless, to begin a more explicit conversation with
+the young doctor, the prelate resumed, "We will talk of this hereafter.
+But, tell me, since my last visit, has the reverend father had any fresh
+attacks of delirium?"
+
+"Yes, my lord; here is the note, as your Eminence commanded." So saying
+Rousselet delivered a paper to the prelate.  We will inform the reader
+that this part of the conversation between Rousselet and the cardinal was
+carried on at a distance from the partition, so that Rodin could hear
+nothing of it, whilst that which related to the embalming had been
+perfectly audible to him.
+
+The cardinal, having received the note from Rousselet, perused it with an
+expression of lively curiosity.  When he had finished, he crumpled it in
+his hand, and said, without attempting to dissemble his vexation, "Always
+nothing but incoherent expression.  Not two words together, from which
+you can draw any reasonable conclusion.  One would really think this man
+had the power to control himself even in his delirium, and to rave about
+insignificant matters only."
+
+Then, addressing Rousselet, "You are sure that you have reported
+everything that escaped from him during his delirium?"
+
+"With the exception of the same phrases, that he repeated over and over
+again, your Eminence may be assured that I have not omitted a single
+word, however unmeaning."
+
+"Show me into Father Rodin's room," said the prelate, after a moment's
+silence.
+
+"But, my lord," answered the young doctor, with some hesitation, "the fit
+has only left him about an hour, and the reverend father is still very
+weak."
+
+"The more the reason," replied the prelate, somewhat indiscreetly.
+Then, recollecting himself, he added, "He will the better appreciate the
+consolations I have to offer.  Should he be asleep, awake him, and
+announce my visit."
+
+"I have only orders to receive from your Eminence," said Rousselet,
+bowing, and entering the next room.
+
+Left alone, the cardinal said to himself, with a pensive air, "I always
+come back to that.  When he was suddenly attacked by the cholera, Father
+Rodin believed himself poisoned by order of the Holy See.  He must then
+have been plotting something very formidable against Rome, to entertain
+so abominable a fear.  Can our suspicions be well founded?  Is he acting
+secretly and powerfully on the Sacred College?  But then for what end?
+This it has been impossible to penetrate, so faithfully has the secret
+been kept by his accomplices.  I had hoped that, during his delirium, he
+would let slip some word that would put us on the trace of what we are so
+much interested to discover.  With so restless and active a mind,
+delirium is often the exaggeration of some dominant idea; yet here I have
+the report of five different fits--and nothing--no, nothing but vague,
+unconnected phrases."
+
+The return of Rousselet put an end to these reflections.  "I am sorry to
+inform my lord that the reverend father obstinately refuses to see any
+one.  He says that he requires absolute repose.  Though very weak, he has
+a savage and angry look, and I should not be surprised if he overheard
+your Eminence talk about embalming him."
+
+The cardinal, interrupting Rousselet, said to him, "Did Father Rodin have
+his last fit of delirium in the night?"
+
+"Between three and half-past five this morning, my lord."
+
+"Between three and half-past five," repeated the prelate, as if he wished
+to impress this circumstance on his memory, "the attack presented no
+particular symptoms?"
+
+"No, my lord; it consisted of rambling, incoherent talk, as your Eminence
+may see by this note."
+
+Then, as he perceived the prelate approaching Father Rodin's door,
+Rousselet added, "The reverend father will positively see no one, my
+lord; he requires rest, to prepare for the operation; it might be
+dangerous--"
+
+Without attending to these observations, the cardinal entered Rodin's
+chamber.  It was a tolerably large room, lighted by two windows, and
+simply but commodiously furnished.  Two logs were burning slowly in the
+fireplace, in which stood a coffee-pot, a vessel containing mustard-
+poultice, etc.  On the chimney-piece were several pieces of rag, and some
+linen bandages.  The room was full of that faint chemical odor peculiar
+to the chambers of the sick, mingled with so putrid a stench, that the
+cardinal stopped at the door a moment, before he ventured to advance
+further.  As the three reverend fathers had mentioned in their walk,
+Rodin lived because he had said to himself, "I want to live, and I will
+live."
+
+For, as men of timid imaginations and cowardly minds often die from the
+mere dread of dying, so a thousand facts prove that vigor of character
+and moral energy may often struggle successfully against disease, and
+triumph over the most desperate symptoms.
+
+It was thus with the Jesuit.  The unshaken firmness of his character, the
+formidable tenacity of his will (for the will has sometimes a mysterious
+and almost terrific power), aiding the skillful treatment of Dr.
+Baleinier, had saved him from the pestilence with which he had been so
+suddenly attacked.  But the shock had been succeeded by a violent fever,
+which placed Rodin's life in the utmost peril.  This increased danger had
+caused the greatest alarm to Father d'Aigrigny, who felt, in spite of his
+rivalry and jealousy, that Rodin was the master-spirit of the plot in
+which they were engaged, and could alone conduct it to a successful
+issue.
+
+The curtains of the room was half closed, and admitted only a doubtful
+light to the bed on which Rodin was lying.  The Jesuit's features had
+lost the greenish hue peculiar to cholera patients, but remained
+perfectly livid and cadaverous, and so thin, that the dry, rugged skin
+appeared to cling to the smallest prominence of bone.  The muscles and
+veins of the long, lean, vulture-like neck resembled a bundle of cords.
+The head, covered with an old, black, filthy nightcap, from beneath which
+strayed a few thin, gray hairs, rested upon a dirty pillow; for Rodin
+would not allow them to change his linen.  His iron-gray beard had not
+been shaved for some time, and stood out like the hairs of a brush.
+Under his shirt he wore an old flannel waistcoat full of holes.  He had
+one of his arms out of bed, and his bony hairy hand, with its bluish
+nails, held fast a cotton handkerchief of indescribable color.
+
+You might have taken him for a corpse, had it not been for the two
+brilliant sparks which still burned in the depths of his eyes.  In that
+look, in which seemed concentrated all the remaining life and energy of
+the man, you might read the most restless anxiety.  Sometimes his
+features revealed the sharpest pangs; sometimes the twisting of his
+hands, and his sudden starts, proclaimed his despair at being thus
+fettered to a bed of pain, whilst the serious interests which he had in
+charge required all the activity of his mind.  Thus, with thoughts
+continually on the stretch, his mind often wandered, and he had fits of
+delirium, from which he woke as from a painful dream.  By the prudent
+advice of Dr. Baleinier, who considered him not in a state to attend to
+matters of--importance, Father d'Aigrigny had hitherto evaded Rodin's
+questions with regard to the Rennepont affair, which he dreaded to see
+lost and ruined in consequence of his forced inaction.  The silence of
+Father d'Aigrigny on this head, and the ignorance in which they kept him,
+only augmented the sick man's exasperation.  Such was the moral and
+physical state of Rodin, when Cardinal Malipieri entered his chamber
+against his will.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE LURE.
+
+To understand fully the tortures of Rodin, reduced to inactivity by
+sickness, and to explain the importance of Cardinal Malipieri's visit, we
+must remember the audacious views of the ambitious Jesuit, who believed
+himself following in the steps of Sixtus V., and expected to become his
+equal.  By the success of the Rennepont affair, to attain to the
+generalship of his Order, by the corruption of the Sacred College to
+ascend the pontifical throne, and then, by means of a change in the
+statutes of the Company, to incorporate the Society of Jesus with the
+Holy See, instead of leaving it independent, to equal and almost always
+rule the Papacy--such were the secret projects of Rodin.
+
+Their possibility was sanctioned by numerous precedents, for many mere
+monks and priests had been suddenly raised to the pontifical dignity.
+And as for their morality, the accession of the Borgias, of Julius II.,
+and other dubious Vicars of Christ, might excuse and authorize the
+pretensions of the Jesuits.
+
+Though the object of his secret intrigues at Rome had hitherto been
+enveloped in the greatest mystery, suspicions had been excited in regard
+to his private communications with many members of the Sacred College.  A
+portion of that college, Cardinal Malipieri at the head of them, had
+become very uneasy on the subject, and, profiting by his journey to
+France, the cardinal had resolved to penetrate the Jesuit's dark designs.
+If, in the scene we have just painted, the cardinal showed himself so
+obstinately bent on having a conference with Rodin, in spite of the
+refusal of the latter, it was because the prelate hoped, as we shall soon
+see, to get by cunning at the secret, which had hitherto been so well
+concealed.  It was, therefore, in the midst of all these extraordinary
+circumstances, that Rodin saw himself the victim of a malady, which
+paralyzed his strength, at the moment when he had need of all his
+activity, and of all the resources of his mind.  After remaining for some
+seconds motionless near the door, the cardinal, still holding his bottle
+under his nose, slowly approached the bed where Rodin lay.
+
+The latter, enraged at this perseverance, and wishing to avoid an
+interview which for many reasons was singularly odious to him, turned his
+face towards the wall, and pretended to be asleep.  Caring little for
+this feint, and determined to profit by Rodin's state of weakness, the
+prelate took a chair, and, conquering his repugnance, sat down close to
+the Jesuit's bed.
+
+"My reverend and very dear father, how do you find yourself?" said he to
+him, in a honeyed tone, which his Italian accent seemed to render still
+more hypocritical.  Rodin pretended not to hear, breathed hard, and made
+no answer.  But the cardinal, not without disgust, shook with his gloved
+hand the arm of the Jesuit, and repeated in a louder voice: "My reverend
+and very dear father, answer me, I conjure you!"
+
+Rodin could not restrain a movement of angry impatience, but he continued
+silent.  The cardinal was not a man to be discouraged by so little; he
+again shook the arm of the Jesuit, somewhat more roughly, repeating, with
+a passionless tenacity that would have incensed the most patient person
+in the world: "My reverend and very dear father, since you are not
+asleep, listen to me, I entreat of you."
+
+Irritable with pain, exasperated by the obstinacy of the prelate, Rodin
+abruptly turned his head, fixed on the Roman his hollow eyes, shining
+with lurid fire, and, with lips contracted by a sardonic smile, said to
+him, bitterly: "You must be very anxious, my lord, to see me embalmed,
+and lie in state with tapers, as you were saying just now, for you thus
+to come to torment me in my last moments, and hasten my end!"
+
+"Oh, my good father! how can you talk so?" cried the cardinal, raising
+his hands as if to call heaven to witness to the sincerity of the tender
+interest he felt for the Jesuit.
+
+"I tell you that I heard all just now, my lord; for the partition is
+thin," added Rodin, with redoubled bitterness.
+
+"If you mean that, from the bottom of my soul, I desired that you should
+make an exemplary and Christian end, you are perfectly right, my dear
+father.  I did say so; for, after a life so well employed, it would be
+sweet to see you an object of adoration for the faithful!"
+
+"I tell you, my lord," cried Rodin, in a weak and broken voice, "that it
+is ferocious to express such wishes in the presence of a dying man.
+Yes," he added, with growing animation, that contrasted strongly with his
+weakness, "take care what you do; for if I am too much plagued and
+pestered--if I am not allowed to breathe my last breath quietly--I give
+you notice that you will force me to die in anything but a Christian
+manner, and if you mean to profit by an edifying spectacle, you will be
+deceived."
+
+This burst of anger having greatly fatigued Rodin, his head fell back
+upon the pillow, and he wiped his cracked and bleeding lips with his old
+cotton handkerchief.
+
+"Come, come, be calm, my very dear father," resumed the cardinal, with a
+patronizing air; "do not give way to such gloomy ideas.  Doubtless,
+Providence reserves you for great designs, since you have been already
+delivered from so much peril.  Let us hope that you will be likewise
+saved from your present danger."
+
+Rodin answered by a hoarse growl, and turned his face towards the wall.
+
+The imperturbable prelate continued: "The views of Providence are not
+confined to your salvation, my very dear father.  Its power has been
+manifested in another way.  What I am about to tell you is of the highest
+importance.  Listen attentively."
+
+Without turning his head, Rodin muttered in a tone of angry bitterness,
+which betrayed his intense sufferings: "They desire my death.  My chest
+is on fire, my head racked with pain, and they have no pity.  Oh, I
+suffer the tortures of the damned!"
+
+"What! already" thought the Roman, with a smile of sarcastic malice; then
+he said aloud: "Let me persuade you, my very dear father--make an effort
+to listen to me; you will not regret it."
+
+Still stretched upon the bed, Rodin lifted his hands clasped upon his
+cotton handkerchief with a gesture of despair, and then let them fall
+again by his side.
+
+The cardinal slightly shrugged his shoulders, and laid great stress on
+what follows, so that Rodin might not lose a word of it: "My dear father,
+it has pleased Providence that, during your fit of raving, you have made,
+without knowing it, the most important revelations."
+
+The prelate waited with anxious curiosity for the effect of the pious
+trap he had laid for the Jesuit's weakened faculties.  But the latter,
+still turned towards the wall, did not appear to have heard him and
+remained silent.
+
+"You are, no doubt, reflecting on my words, my dear father," resumed the
+cardinal; "you are right, for it concerns a very serious affair.  I
+repeat to you that Providence has allowed you, during your delirium, to
+betray your most secret thoughts--happily, to me alone.  They are such as
+would compromise you in the highest degree.  In short, during your
+delirium of last night, which lasted nearly two hours, you unveiled the
+secret objects of your intrigues at Rome with many of the members of the
+Sacred College."
+
+The cardinal, rising softly, stooped over the bed to watch the expression
+of Rodin's countenance.  But the latter did not give him time.  As a
+galvanized corpse starts into strange and sudden motion, Rodin sprang
+into a sitting posture at the last words of the prelate.
+
+"He has betrayed himself," said the cardinal, in a low voice, in Italian.
+Then, resuming his seat, he fixed on the Jesuit his eyes, that sparkled
+with triumphant joy.
+
+Though he did not hear the exclamation of Malipieri, nor remark the
+expression of his countenance, Rodin, notwithstanding his state of
+weakness, instantly felt the imprudence of his start.  He pressed his
+hand to his forehead, as though he had been seized with a giddiness;
+then, looking wildly round him, he pressed to his trembling lips his old
+cotton handkerchief, and gnawed it mechanically for some seconds.
+
+"Your emotion and alarm confirm the sad discoveries I have made," resumed
+the cardinal, still more rejoicing at the success of his trick; "and now,
+my dear father," added he, "you will understand that it is for your best
+interest to enter into the most minute detail as to your projects and
+accomplices at Rome.  You may then hope, my dear father, for the
+indulgence of the Holy See--that is, if your avowals are sufficiently
+explicit to fill up the chasms necessarily left in a confession made
+during delirium."
+
+Rodin, recovered from his first surprise, perceived, but too late, that
+he had fallen into a snare, not by any words he had spoken, but by his
+too significant movements.  In fact, the Jesuit had feared for a moment
+that he might have betrayed himself during his delirium, when he heard
+himself accused of dark intrigues with Rome; but, after some minutes of
+reflection, his common sense suggested: "If this crafty Roman knew my
+secret, he would take care not to tell me so.  He has only suspicions,
+confirmed by my involuntary start just now."
+
+Rodin wiped the cold sweat from his burning forehead.  The emotion of
+this scene augmented his sufferings, and aggravated the danger of his
+condition.  Worn out with fatigue, he could not remain long in a sitting
+posture, and soon fell back upon the bed.
+
+"Per Bacco!" said the cardinal to himself, alarmed at the expression of
+the Jesuit's face; "if he were to die before he had spoken, and so escape
+the snare!"
+
+Then, leaning over the bed, the prelate asked: "What is the matter, my
+very dear father?"
+
+"I am weak, my lord--I am in pain--I cannot express what I suffer."
+
+"Let us hope, my very dear father, that this crisis will have no fatal
+results; but the contrary may happen, and it behooves the salvation of
+your soul to make instantly the fullest confession.  Were it even to
+exhaust your strength, what is this perishable body compared to eternal
+life?"
+
+"Of what confession do you speak, my lord?" said Rodin, in a feeble and
+yet sarcastic tone.
+
+"What confession!" cried the amazed cardinal; "why, with regard to your
+dangerous intrigues at Rome."
+
+"What intrigues?" asked Rodin.
+
+"The intrigues you revealed during your delirium," replied the prelate,
+with still more angry impatience.  "Were not your avowals sufficiently
+explicit?  Why, then, this culpable hesitation to complete them?"
+
+"My avowals--were explicit--you assure me?" said Rodin, pausing after
+each word for want of breath, but without losing his energy and presence
+of mind.
+
+"Yes, I repeat it," resumed the cardinal; "with the exception of a few
+chasms, they were most explicit."
+
+"Then why repeat them?" said Rodin, with the same sardonic smile on his
+violet lips.
+
+"Why repeat them?" cried the angry prelate.  "In order to gain pardon;
+for if there is indulgence and mercy for the repentant sinner, there must
+be condemnation and curses for the hardened criminal!"
+
+"Oh, what torture! I am dying by slow fire!" murmured Rodin.  "Since I
+have told all," he resumed, " I have nothing more to tell.  You know it
+already."
+
+"I know all--doubtless, I know all," replied the prelate, in a voice of
+thunder; "but how have I learned it?  By confessions made in a state of
+unconsciousness.  Do you think they will avail you anything?  No; the
+moment is solemn--death is at hand, tremble to die with a sacrilegious
+falsehood on your lips," cried the prelate, shaking Rodin violently by
+the arm; "dread the eternal flames, if you dare deny what you know to be
+the truth.  Do you deny it?"
+
+"I deny nothing," murmured Rodin, with difficulty.  "Only leave me
+alone!"
+
+"Then heaven inspires you," said the cardinal, with a sigh of
+satisfaction; and, thinking he had nearly attained his object, he
+resumed, "Listen to the divine word, that will guide you, father.  You
+deny nothing?"
+
+"I was--delirious--and cannot--(oh! how I suffer!)" added Rodin, by way
+of parenthesis; "and cannot therefore--deny--the nonsense--I may have
+uttered!"
+
+"But when this nonsense agrees with the truth," cried the prelate,
+furious at being again deceived in his expectation; "but when raving is
+an involuntary, providential revelation--"
+
+"Cardinal Malipieri--your craft is no match--for my agony," answered
+Rodin, in a failing voice.  "The proof--that I have not told my secret--
+if I have a secret--is--that you want to make me tell it!"  In spite of
+his pain and weakness, the Jesuit had courage to raise himself in the
+bed, and look the cardinal full in the face, with a smile of bitter
+irony.  After which he fell back on the pillow, and pressed his hands to
+his chest, with a long sigh of anguish.
+
+"Damnation! the infernal Jesuit has found me out!" said the cardinal to
+himself, as he stamped his foot with rage.  "He sees that he was
+compromised by his first movement; he is now upon his guard; I shall get
+nothing more from him--unless indeed, profiting by the state of weakness
+in which he is, I can, by entreaties, by threats, by terror--"
+
+The prelate was unable to finish.  The door opened abruptly, and Father
+d'Aigrigny entered the room, exclaiming with an explosion of joy:
+"Excellent news!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+GOOD NEWS.
+
+By the alteration in the countenance of Father d'Aigrigny, his pale
+cheek, and the feebleness of his walk, one might see that the terrible
+scene in the square of Notre-Dame, had violently reacted upon his health.
+Yet his face was radiant and triumphant, as he entered Rodin's chamber,
+exclaiming: "Excellent news!"
+
+On these words, Rodin started.  In spite of his weakness, he raised his
+head, and his eves shone with a curious, uneasy, piercing expression.
+With his lean hand, he beckoned Father d'Aigrigny to approach the bed,
+and said to him, in a broken voice, so weak that it was scarcely audible:
+"I am very ill--the cardinal has nearly finished me--but if this
+excellent news--relates to the Rennepont affair--of which I hear nothing
+--it might save me yet!"
+
+"Be saved then!" cried Father d'Aigrigny, forgetting the recommendations
+of Dr. Baleinier; "read, rejoice!  What you foretold is beginning to be
+realized!"
+
+So saying, he drew a paper from his pocket, and delivered it to Rodin,
+who seized it with an eager and trembling hand.  Some minutes before,
+Rodin would have been really incapable of continuing his conversation
+with the cardinal, even if prudence had allowed him to do so; nor could
+he have read a single line, so dim had his sight become.  But, at the
+words of Father d'Aigrigny, he felt such a renewal of hope and vigor,
+that, by a mighty effort of energy and will, he rose to a sitting
+posture, and, with clear head, and look of intelligent animation, he read
+rapidly the paper that Father d'Aigrigny had just delivered to him.
+
+The cardinal, amazed at this sudden transfiguration, asked himself if he
+beheld the same man, who, a few minutes before, had fallen back on his
+bed, almost insensible.  Hardly had Rodin finished reading, than he
+uttered a cry of stifled joy, saying, with an accent impossible to
+describe: "ONE gone! it works--'tis well!" And, closing his eyes in a
+kind of ecstatic transport, a smile of proud triumph overspread his face,
+and rendered him still more hideous, by discovering his yellow and
+gumless teeth.  His emotion was so violent, that the paper fell from his
+trembling hand.
+
+"He has fainted," cried Father d'Aigrigny, with uneasiness, as he leaned
+over Rodin.  "It is my fault, I forgot that the doctor cautioned me not
+to talk to him of serious matters."
+
+"No; do not reproach yourself," said Rodin, in a low voice, half-raising
+himself in the bed.  "This unexpected joy may perhaps cure me.  Yes--I
+scarce know what I feel--but look at my cheeks--it seems to me, that, for
+the first time since I have been stretched on this bed of pain, they are
+a little warm."
+
+Rodin spoke the truth.  A slight color appeared suddenly on his livid and
+icy cheeks; his voice though still very weak, became less tremulous, and
+he exclaimed, in a tone of conviction that startled Father d'Aigrigny and
+the prelate, "This first success answers for the others.  I read the
+future.  Yes, yes; our cause will triumph.  Every member of the execrable
+Rennepont family will be crushed--and that soon you will see--"
+
+Then, pausing, Rodin threw himself back on the pillow, exclaiming: "Oh! I
+am choked with joy.  My voice fails me."
+
+"But what is it?" asked the cardinal of Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+The latter replied, in a tone of hypocritical sanctity: "One of the heirs
+of the Rennepont family, a poor fellow, worn out with excesses and
+debauchery, died three days ago, at the close of some abominable orgies,
+in which he had braved the cholera with sacrilegious impiety.  In
+consequence of the indisposition that kept me at home, and of another
+circumstance, I only received to-day the certificate of the death of this
+victim of intemperance and irreligion.  I must proclaim it to the praise
+of his reverence"--pointing to Rodin--"that he told me, the worst enemies
+of the descendants of that infamous renegade would be their own bad
+passions, and that the might look to them as our allies against the whole
+impious race.  And so it has happened with Jacques Rennepont."
+
+"You see," said Rodin, in so faint a voice that it was almost
+unintelligible, "the punishment begins already.  One of the Renneponts is
+dead--and believe me--this certificate," and he pointed to the paper that
+Father d'Aigrigny held in his hand, "will one day be worth forty millions
+to the Society of Jesus--and that--because--"
+
+The lips alone finished the sentence.  During some seconds, Rodin's voice
+had become so faint, that it was at last quite imperceptible.  His
+larynx, contracted by violent emotion, no longer emitted any sound.  The
+Jesuit, far from being disconcerted by this incident, finished his
+phrase, as it were, by expressive pantomime.  Raising his head proudly he
+tapped his forehead with his forefinger, as if to express that it was to
+his ability this first success was owing.  But he soon fell back again on
+the bed, exhausted, breathless, sinking, with his cotton handkerchief
+pressed once more to his parched lips.  The good news, as Father
+d'Aigrigny called it, had not cured Rodin.  For a moment only, he had had
+the courage to forget his pain.  But the slight color on his cheek soon
+disappeared; his face became once more livid.  His sufferings, suspended
+for a moment, were so much increased in violence, that he writhed beneath
+the coverlet, and buried his face in the pillow, extending his arms above
+his head, and holding them stiff as bars of iron.  After this crisis,
+intense as it was rapid: during which Father d'Aigrigny and the prelate
+bent anxiously over him, Rodin, whose face was bathed in cold sweat, made
+a sign that he suffered less, and that he wished to drink of a potion to
+which he pointed.  Father d'Aigrigny fetched it for him, and while the
+cardinal held him up with marked disgust, the abbe administered a few
+spoonfuls of the potion, which almost immediately produced a soothing
+effect.
+
+"Shall I call M. Rousselet?" said Father d'Aigrigny, when Rodin was once
+more laid down in bed.
+
+Rodin shook his head; then, with a fresh effort, he raised his right
+hand, opened it, and pointed with his forefinger to a desk in a corner of
+the room, to signify that, being no longer able to speak, he wished to
+write.
+
+"I understand your reverence," said Father d'Aigrigny; "but first calm
+yourself.  Presently, if you require it.  I will give you writing-
+materials."
+
+Two knocks at the outer door of the next room interrupted this scene.
+From motives of prudence, Father d'Aigrigny had begged Rousselet to
+remain in the first of the three rooms.  He now went to open the door,
+and Rousselet handed him a voluminous packet, saying: "I beg pardon for
+disturbing you, father, but I was told to let you have these papers
+instantly."
+
+"Thank you, M. Rousselet," said Father d'Aigrigny; "do you know at what
+hour Dr. Baleinier will return?"
+
+"He will not be long, father, for he wishes to perform before night the
+painful operation, that will have a decisive effect on the condition of
+Father Rodin.  I am preparing what is necessary for it," added Rousselet,
+as he pointed to a singular and formidable apparatus, which Father
+d'Aigrigny examined with a kind of terror.
+
+"I do not know if the symptom is a serious one," said the Jesuit; "but
+the reverend father has suddenly lost his voice."
+
+"It is the third time this has happened within the last week," said
+Rousselet; "the operation of Dr. Baleiner will act both on the larynx and
+on the lungs."
+
+"Is the operation a very painful one?" asked Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"There is, perhaps, none more cruel in surgery," answered the young
+doctor; "and Dr. Baleinier has partly concealed its nature from Father
+Rodin."
+
+"Please to wait here for Dr. Baleinier, and send him to us as soon as he
+arrives," resumed Father d'Aigrigny: and, returning to the sick chamber,
+he sat down by the bedside, and said to Rodin, as he showed him the
+letter: "Here are different reports with regard to different members of
+the Rennepont family, whom I have had looked after by others, my
+indisposition having kept me at home for the last few days.  I do not
+know, father, if the state of your health will permit you to hear--"
+
+Rodin made a gesture, at once so supplicating and peremptory, that Father
+d'Aigrigny felt there would be at least as much danger in refusing as in
+granting his request; so, turning towards the cardinal, still
+inconsolable at not having discovered the Jesuit's secret, he said to him
+with respectful deference, pointing at the same time to the letter: "Have
+I the permission of your Eminence?"
+
+The prelate bowed, and replied: "Your affairs are ours, my dear father.
+The Church must always rejoice in what rejoices your glorious Company."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny unsealed the packet, and found in it different notes in
+different handwritings.  When he had read the first, his countenance
+darkened, and he said, in a grave tone: "A misfortune--a great
+misfortune."
+
+Rodin turned his head abruptly, and looked at him with an air of uneasy
+questioning.
+
+"Florine is dead of the cholera," answered Father d'Aigrigny; "and what
+is the worst," added he, crumpling the note between his hands, "before
+dying, the miserable creature confessed to Mdlle. de Cardoville that she
+long acted as a spy under the orders of your reverence."
+
+No doubt the death of Florine, and the confession she had made, crossed
+some of the plans of Rodin, for he uttered an inarticulate murmur, and
+his countenance expressed great vexation.
+
+Passing to another note, Father d'Aigrigny continued: "This relates to
+Marshal Simon, and is not absolutely bad, but still far from
+satisfactory, as it announces some amelioration in his position.  We
+shall see if it merits belief, by information from another source." `
+
+Rodin made a sign of impatience, to hasten Father d'Aigrigny to read the
+note, which he did as follows.  "`For some days, the mind of the marshal
+has appeared to be less sorrowful, anxious and agitated.  He lately
+passed two hours with his daughters, which had not been the case for some
+time before.  The harsh countenance of the soldier Dagobert is becoming
+smoother--a sure sign of some amelioration in the condition of the
+marshal.  Detected by their handwriting, the last anonymous letters were
+returned by Dagobert to the postman, without having been opened by the
+marshal.  Some other method must be found to get them delivered.'"
+
+Looking at Rodin, Father d'Aigrigny said to him: "Your reverence thinks
+with me that this note is not very satisfactory?"
+
+Rodin held down his head.  One saw by the expression of his countenance
+how much he suffered by not being able to speak.  Twice he put his hand
+to his throat, and looked at Father d'Aigrigny with anguish.
+
+"Oh!" cried Father d'Aigrigny, angrily, when he had perused another note,
+"for one lucky chance, to-day brings some very black ones."
+
+At these words turning hastily to Father d'Aigrigny, and extending his
+trembling hands, Rodin questioned him with look and gesture.  The
+cardinal, sharing his uneasiness, exclaimed: "What do you learn by this
+note, my dear father?"
+
+"We thought the residence of M. Hardy in our house completely unknown,"
+replied Father d'Aigrigny, "but we now fear that Agricola Baudoin has
+discovered the retreat of his old master, and that he has even
+communicated with him by letter, through a servant of the house.  So,"
+added the reverend father, angrily, "during the three days that I have
+not been able to visit the pavilion, one of my servants must have been
+bought over.  There is one of them, a man blind of one eye, whom I have
+always suspected--the wretch!  But no: I will not yet believe this
+treachery.  The consequences would be too deplorable; for I know how
+matters stand, and that such a correspondence might ruin everything.  By
+awaking in M. Hardy memories with difficulty laid asleep, they might
+destroy in a single day all that has been done since he inhabits our
+house.  Luckily, this note contains only doubts and fears; my other
+information will be more positive, and will not, I hope, confirm them."
+
+"My dear father," said the cardinal, "do not despair.  The Lord will not
+abandon the good cause!"
+
+Father d'Aigrigny seemed very little consoled by this assurance.  He
+remained still and thoughtful, whilst Rodin writhed his head in a
+paroxysm of mute rage, as he reflected on this new check.
+
+"Let us turn to the last note," said Father d'Aigrigny, after a moment of
+thoughtful silence.  "I have so much confidence in the person who sends
+it, that I cannot doubt the correctness of the information it contains.
+May it contradict the others!"
+
+In order not to break the chain of facts contained in this last note,
+which was to have so startling an effect on the actors in this scene, we
+shall leave it to the reader's imagination to supply the exclamations of
+surprise, hate, rage and fear of Father d'Aigrigny, and the terrific
+pantomime of Rodin, during the perusal of this formidable document, the
+result of the observations of a faithful and secret agent of the reverend
+fathers.  Comparing this note with the other information received, the
+results appeared more distressing to the reverend fathers.  Thus Gabriel
+had long and frequent conferences with Adrienne, who before was unknown
+to him.  Agricola Baudoin had opened a communication with Francis Hardy,
+and the officers of justice were on the track of the authors and
+instigators of the riot which had led to the burning of the factory of
+Baron Tripeaud's rival.  It seemed almost certain that Mdlle. de
+Cardoville had had an interview with Prince Djalma.
+
+This combination of facts showed that, faithful to the threats she had
+uttered to Rodin, when she had unmasked the double perfidy of the
+reverend father, Mdlle. de Cardoville was actively engaged in uniting the
+scattered members of her family, to form a league against those dangerous
+enemies, whose detestable projects, once unveiled and boldly encountered,
+could hardly have a chance of success.  The reader will now understand
+the tremendous effect of this note on Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin--on
+Rodin, stretched powerless on a bed of pain at the moment when the
+scaffolding, raised with so much labor, seemed to be tumbling around him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE OPERATION.
+
+We have given up the attempt to paint the countenance, attitude, and
+gesticulation of Rodin during the reading of this note, which seemed to
+ruin all his most cherished hopes.  Everything was failing at once, at
+the moment when only superhuman trust in the success of his plans could
+give him sufficient energy to strive against mortal sickness.  A single,
+absorbing thought had agitated him even to delirium: What progress,
+during his illness, had been made in this immense affair?  He had first
+heard a good piece of news, the death of Jacques Rennepont; but now the
+advantages of this decease, which reduced the number of the heirs from
+seven to six, were entirely lost.  To what purpose would be this death,
+if the other members of the family, dispersed and persecuted with such
+infernal perseverance, were to unite and discover the enemies who had so
+long aimed at them in darkness?  If all those wounded hearts were to
+console, enlighten, support each other, their cause would be gained, and
+the inheritance rescued from the reverend fathers.  What was to be done?
+
+Strange power of the human will!--Rodin had one foot in the grave, he was
+almost at the last gasp; his voice had failed him.  And yet that
+obstinate nature, so full of energy and resources, did not despair.  Let
+but a miracle restore his health, and that firm confidence in the success
+of his projects which has given him power to struggle against disease,
+tells him that he could yet save all--but then he must have health and
+life!  Health! life!  His physician does not know if he will survive the
+shock--if he can bear the pain--of a terrible operation.  Health! life!
+and just now Rodin heard talk of the solemn funeral they had prepared for
+him.  And yet--health, life, he will have them.  Yes; he has willed to
+live--and he has lived--why should he not live longer?  He will live--
+because he has willed it.
+
+All that we have just written passed though Rodin's mind in a second.
+His features, convulsed by the mental torment he endured, must have
+assumed a very strange expression, for Father d'Aigrigny and the cardinal
+looked at him in silent consternation.  Once resolved to live, and to
+sustain a desperate struggle with the Rennepont family, Rodin acted in
+consequence.  For a few moments Father d'Aigrigny and the prelate
+believed themselves under the influence of a dream.  By an effort of
+unparalleled energy, and as if moved by hidden mechanism, Rodin sprang
+from the bed, dragging the sheet with him, and trailing it, like a
+shroud, behind his livid and fleshless body.  The room was cold; the face
+of the Jesuit was bathed in sweat; his naked and bony feet left their
+moist print upon the stones.
+
+"What are you doing?  It is death!" cried Father d'Aigrigny, rushing
+towards Rodin, to force him to lie down again.
+
+But the latter, extending one of his skeleton arms, as hard as iron,
+pushed aside Father d'Aigrigny with inconceivable vigor, considering the
+state of exhaustion in which he had so long been.
+
+"He has the strength of a man in a fit of epilepsy," said Father
+d'Aigrigny, recovering his balance.
+
+With a steady step Rodin advanced to the desk on which Dr. Baleinier
+daily wrote his prescriptions.  Seating himself before it, the Jesuit
+took pen and paper, and began to write in a firm hand.  His calm, slow,
+and sure movements had in them something of the deliberateness remarked
+in somnambulists.  Mute and motionless, hardly knowing whether they
+dreamed or not, the cardinal and Father d'Aigrigny remained staring at
+the incredible coolness of Rodin, who, half-naked, continued to write
+with perfect tranquillity.
+
+"But, father," said the Abbe d'Aigrigny, advancing towards him, "this is
+madness!"
+
+Rodin shrugged his shoulders, stopped him with a gesture and made him a
+sign to read what he had just written.
+
+The reverend father expected to see the ravings of a diseased brain; but
+he took the note, whilst Rodin commenced another.
+
+"My lord," exclaimed Father d'Aigrigny, "read this!"
+
+The cardinal read the paper, and returning it to the reverend father with
+equal amazement, added: "It is full of reason, ability, and resources.
+We shall thus be able to neutralize the dangerous combination of Abbe
+Gabriel and Mdlle. de Cardoville, who appear to be the most formidable
+leaders of the coalition."
+
+"It is really miraculous," said Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Oh, my dear father!" whispered the cardinal, shaking his head; "what a
+pity that we are the only witnesses of this scene! What an excellent
+MIRACLE we could have made of it! In one sense, it is another Raising of
+Lazarus!"
+
+"What an idea, my lord!" answered Father d'Aigrigny, in a low voice.  "It
+is perfect--and we must not give it up--"
+
+This innocent little plot was interrupted by Rodin, who, turning his
+head, made a sign to Father d'Aigrigny to approach, and delivered to him
+another sheet, with this note attached: "To be executed within an hour."
+
+Having rapidly perused the paper, Father d'Aigrigny exclaimed: "Right! I
+had not thought of that.  Instead of being fatal, the correspondence
+between Agricola and M. Hardy may thus have the best results.  Really,"
+added the reverend father in a low voice to the prelate, while Rodin
+continued to write, "I am quite confounded.  I read--I see--and yet I can
+hardly believe my eyes.  Just before, exhausted and dying--and now with
+his mind as clear and penetrating as ever.  Can this be one of the
+phenomena of somnambulism, in which the mind alone governs and sustains
+the body?"
+
+Suddenly the door opened, and Dr. Baleinier entered the room.  At sight
+of Rodin, seated half-naked at the desk, with his feet upon the cold
+stones, the doctor exclaimed, in a tone of reproach and alarm: "But, my
+lord--but, father--it is murder to let the unhappy man do this!--If he is
+delirious from fever, he must have the strait-waistcoat, and be tied down
+in bed."
+
+So saying.  Dr. Baleinier hastily approached Rodin, and took him by the
+arm.  Instead of finding the skin dry and chilly, as he expected, he
+found it flexible, almost damp.  Struck with surprise, the doctor sought
+to feel the pulse of the left hand, which Rodin resigned, to him, whilst
+he continued working with the right.
+
+"What a prodigy!" cried the doctor, as he counted Rodin's pulse; "for a
+week past, and even this morning, the pulse has been abrupt,
+intermittent, almost insensible, and now it is firm, regular--I am really
+puzzled--what then has happened?  I can hardly believe what I see," added
+the doctor, turning towards Father d'Aigrigny and the cardinal.
+
+"The reverend father, who had first lost his voice, was next seized with
+such furious and violent despair caused by the receipt of bad news,"
+answered Father d'Aigrigny, "that we feared a moment for his life; while
+now, on the contrary, the reverend father has gained sufficient strength
+to go to his desk, and write for some minutes, with a clearness of
+argument and expression, which has confounded both the cardinal and
+myself."
+
+"There is no longer any doubt of it," cried the doctor.  "The violent
+despair has caused a degree of emotion, which will admirably prepare the
+reactive crisis, that I am now almost certain of producing by the
+operation."
+
+"You persist in the operation?" whispered Father d'Aigrigny, whilst Rodin
+continued to write.
+
+"I might have hesitated this morning; but, disposed as he now is for it,
+I must profit by the moment of excitement, which will be followed by
+greater depression."
+
+"Then, without the operation--" said the cardinal.
+
+"This fortunate and unexpected crisis will soon be over, and the reaction
+may kill him, my lord."
+
+"Have you informed him of the serious nature of the operation?"
+
+"Pretty nearly, my lord."
+
+"But it is time to bring him to the point."
+
+"That is what I will do, my lord," said Dr. Baleinier; and approaching
+Rodin, who continued to write, he thus addressed him, in a firm voice:
+"My reverend father, do you wish to be up and well in a week?"
+
+Rodin nodded, full of confidence, as much as to say: "I am up already."
+
+"Do not deceive yourself," replied the doctor.  "This crisis is
+excellent, but it will not last, and if we would profit by it, we must
+proceed with the operation of which I have spoken to you--or, I tell you
+plainly, I answer for nothing after such a shock."
+
+Rodin was the more struck with these words, as, half an hour ago, he had
+experienced the short duration of the improvement occasioned by Father
+d'Aigrigny's good news, and as already he felt increased oppression on
+the chest.
+
+Dr. Baleinier, wishing to decide him, added: "In a word, father, will you
+live or die?"
+
+Rodin wrote rapidly this answer, which he gave to the doctor: "To live, I
+would let you cut me limb from limb.  I am ready for anything."  And he
+made a movement to rise.
+
+"I must tell you, reverend father, so as not to take you by surprise,"
+added Dr. Baleinier, "that this operation is cruelly painful."
+
+Rodin shrugged his shoulders and wrote with a firm hand: "Leave me my
+head; you may take all the rest."
+
+The doctor read these words aloud, and the cardinal and Father d'Aigrigny
+looked at each other in admiration of this dauntless courage.
+
+"Reverend father," said Dr. Baleinier, "you must lie down."
+
+Rodin wrote: "Get everything ready.  I have still some orders to write.
+Let me know when it is time."
+
+Then folding up a paper, which he had sealed with a wafer, Rodin gave
+these words to Father d'Aigrigny: "Send this note instantly to the agent
+who addressed the anonymous letters to Marshal Simon."
+
+"Instantly, reverend father," replied the abbe; "I will employ a sure
+messenger."
+
+"Reverend father," said Baleinier to Rodin, "since you must write, lie
+down in bed, and write there, during our little preparations."
+
+Rodin made an affirmative gesture, and rose.  But already the prognostics
+of the doctor were realized.  The Jesuit could hardly remain standing for
+a second; he fell back into a chair, and looked at Dr. Baleinier with
+anguish, whilst his breathing became more and more difficult.
+
+The doctor said to him: "Do not be uneasy.  But we must make haste.  Lean
+upon me and Father d'Aigrigny."
+
+Aided by these two supporters, Rodin was able to regain the bed.  Once
+there, he made signs that they should bring him pen, ink, and paper.
+Then he continued to write upon his knees, pausing from time to time, to
+breathe with great difficulty.
+
+"Reverend father," said Baleinier to d'Aigrigny, "are you capable of
+acting as one of my assistants in the operation?  Have you that sort of
+courage?"
+
+"No," said the reverend father; "in the army I could never assist at an
+amputation.  The sight of blood is too much for me."
+
+"There will be no blood," said the doctor, "but it will be worse.  Please
+send me three of our reverend fathers to assist me, and ask M. Rousselet
+to bring in the apparatus."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny went out.  The prelate approached the doctor, and
+whispered, pointing to Rodin: "Is he out of danger?"
+
+"If he stands the operation--yes, my lord."
+
+"Are you sure that he can stand it?"
+
+"To him I should say `yes,' to you `I hope so.'"
+
+`And were he to die, would there be time to administer the sacraments in
+public, with a certain pomp, which always causes some little delay?"
+
+"His dying may continue, my lord--a quarter of an hour."
+
+"It is short, but we must be satisfied with that," said the prelate.
+
+And, going to one of the windows, he began to tap with his fingers on the
+glass, while he thought of the illumination effects, in the event of
+Rodin's lying in state.  At this moment, Rousselet entered, with a large
+square box under his arm.  He placed it on the drawers, and began to
+arrange his apparatus.
+
+"How many have you prepared?" said the doctor.
+
+"Six, sir."
+
+"Four will do, but it is well to be fully provided.  The cotton is not
+too thick?"
+
+"Look, sir."
+
+"Very good."
+
+"And how is the reverend father?" asked the pupil.
+
+"Humph!" answered the doctor, in a whisper.  "The chest is terribly
+clogged, the respiration hissing, the voice gone--still there is a
+change."
+
+"All my fear is, sir, that the reverend father will not be able to stand
+the dreadful pain."
+
+"It is another chance; but, under the circumstances, we must risk all.
+Come, my dear boy, light the--taper; I hear our assistants."
+
+Just then Father d'Aigrigny entered the room, accompanied by the three
+Jesuits, who, in the morning, had walked in the garden.  The two old men,
+with their rosy cheeks, and the young one, with the ascetic countenance,
+all three dressed in black, with their square caps and white bands,
+appeared perfectly ready to assist Dr. Baleinier in his formidable
+operation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE TORTURE.
+
+"Reverend fathers," said Dr. Baleinier, graciously, to the three, "I
+thank you for your kind aid.  What you have to do is very simple, and, by
+the blessing of heaven, this operation will save the life of our dear
+Father Rodin.
+
+The three black-gowns cast up their eyes piously, and then bowed
+altogether, like one man.  Rodin, indifferent to what was passing around
+him, never ceased an instant to write or reflect.  Nevertheless, in spite
+of his apparent calmness, he felt such difficulty in breathing, that more
+than once Dr. Baleinier had turned round uneasily, as he heard the
+stifled rattling in the throat of the sick man.  Making a sign to his
+pupil, the doctor approached Rodin and said to him: "Come, reverend
+father; this is the important moment.  Courage!"
+
+No sign of alarm was expressed in the Jesuit's countenance.  His features
+remained impassible as those of a corpse.  Only, his little reptile eyes
+sparkled still more brightly in their dark cavities.  For a moment, he
+looked round at the spectators of this scene; then, taking his pen
+between his teeth, he folded and wafered another letter, placed it on the
+table beside the bed, and nodded to Dr. Baleinier, as if to say: "I am
+ready."
+
+"You must take off your flannel waistcoat, and your shirt, father." Rodin
+hesitated an instant, and the doctor resumed: "It is absolutely
+necessary, father."
+
+Aided by Baleinier, Rodin obeyed, whilst the doctor added, no doubt to
+spare his modesty: "We shall only require the chest, right and left, my
+dear father."
+
+And now, Rodin, stretched upon his back, with his dirty night-cap still
+on his head, exposed the upper part of a livid trunk, or rather, the bony
+cage of a skeleton, for the shadows of the ribs and cartilages encircled
+the skin with deep, black lines.  As for the arms, they resembled bones
+twisted with cord and covered with tanned parchment.
+
+"Come, M. Rousselet, the apparatus!" said Baleinier.
+
+Then addressing the three Jesuits, he added: "Please draw near,
+gentlemen; what you have to do is very simple, as you will see."
+
+It was indeed very simple.  The doctor gave to each of his four
+assistants a sort of little steel tripod about two inches in diameter and
+three in height; the circular centre of this tripod was filled with
+cotton; the instrument was held in the left hand by means of a wooden
+handle.  In the right hand each assistant held a small tin tube about
+eighteen inches long; at one end was a mouthpiece to receive the lips of
+the operator, and the other spread out so as to form a cover to the
+little tripod.  These preparations had nothing alarming in them.  Father
+d'Aigrigny and the prelate, who looked on from a little distance, could
+not understand how this operation should be so painful.  They soon
+understood it.
+
+Dr. Baleinier, having thus provided his four assistants, made them
+approach Rodin, whose bed had been rolled into the middle of the room.
+Two of them were placed on one side, two on the other.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," said Dr. Baleinier, "set light to the cotton; place the
+lighted part on the skin of his reverence, by means of the tripod which
+contains the wick; cover the tripod with the broad part of the tube, and
+then blow through the other end to keep up the fire.  It is very simple,
+as you see."
+
+It was, in fact, full of the most patriarchal and primitive ingenuity.
+Four lighted cotton rocks, so disposed as to burn very slowly, were
+applied to the two sides of Rodin's chest.  This is vulgarly called the
+moxa.  The trick is done, when the whole thickness of the skin has been
+burnt slowly through.  It lasts seven or eight minutes.  They say that an
+amputation is nothing to it.  Rodin had watched the preparations with
+intrepid curiosity.  But, at the first touch of the four fires, he
+writhed like a serpent, without being able to utter a cry.  Even the
+expression of pain was denied him.  The four assistants being disturbed
+by, the sudden start of Rodin, it was necessary to begin again.
+
+"Courage, my dear father! offer these sufferings to the Lord!" said Dr.
+Baleinier, in a sanctified tone.  "I told you the operation would he very
+painful; but then it is salutary in proportion.  Come; you that have
+shown such decisive resolution, do not fail at the last movement!"
+
+Rodin had closed his eyes, conquered by the first agony of pain.  He now
+opened them, and looked at the doctor as if ashamed of such weakness.
+And yet on the sides of his chest were four large, bleeding wounds--so
+violent had been the first singe.  As he again extended himself on the
+bed of torture, Rodin made a sign that he wished to write.  The doctor
+gave him the pen, and he wrote as follows, by way of memorandum; "It is
+better not to lose any time.  Inform Baron Tripeaud of the warrant issued
+against Leonard, so that he may be on his guard."
+
+Having written this note, the Jesuit gave it to Dr. Baleinier, to hand it
+to Father d'Aigrigny, who was as much amazed as the doctor and the
+cardinal, at such extraordinary presence of mind in the midst of such
+horrible pain.  Rodin, with his eyes fixed on the reverend father, seemed
+to wait with impatience for him to leave the room to execute his orders.
+Guessing the thought of Rodin, the doctor whispered Father d'Aigrigny,
+who went out.
+
+"Come, reverend father," said the doctor, "we must begin again.  This
+time do not move."
+
+Rodin did not answer, but clasped his hands over his head, closed his
+eyes, and presented his chest.  It was a strange, lugubrious, almost
+fantastic spectacle.  The three priests, in their long black gowns,
+leaned over this body, which almost resembled a corpse, and blowing
+through their tubes into the chest of the patient, seemed as if pumping
+up his blood by some magic charm.  A sickening odor of burnt flesh began
+to spread through the silent chamber, and each assistant heard a slight
+crackling beneath the smoking trivet; it was the skin of Rodin giving way
+to the action of fire, and splitting open in four different parts of his
+chest.  The sweat poured from his livid face, which it made to shine; a
+few locks of his gray hair stood up stiff and moist from his temples.
+Sometimes the spasms were so violent, that the veins swelled on his
+stiffened arms, and were stretched like cords ready to break.
+
+Enduring this frightful torture with as much intrepid resignation as the
+savage whose glory consists in despising pain, Rodin gathered his
+strength and courage from the hope--we had almost said the certainty--of
+life.  Such was the make of this dauntless character, such the energy of
+this powerful mind, that, in the midst of indescribable torments, his one
+fixed idea never left him.  During the rare intervals of suffering--for
+pain is equal even at this degree of intensity--Rodin still thought of
+the Rennepont inheritance, and calculated his chances, and combined his
+measures, feeling that he had not a minute to lose.  Dr. Baleinier
+watched him with extreme attention, waiting for the effects of the
+reaction of pain upon the patient, who seemed already to breathe with
+less difficulty.
+
+Suddenly Rodin placed his hand on his forehead, as if struck with some
+new idea, and turning his head towards Dr. Baleinier, made a sign to him
+to suspend the operation.
+
+"I must tell you, reverend father," answered the doctor.  "that it is not
+half finished, and, if we leave off, the renewal will be more painful--"
+
+Rodin made a sign that he did not care, and that he wanted to write.
+
+"Gentlemen, stop a moment," said Dr. Baleinier; "keep down your moxas,
+but do not blow the fire."
+
+So the fire was to burn slowly, instead of fiercely, but still upon the
+skin of the patient.  In spite of this pain, less intense, but still
+sharp and keen, Rodin, stretched upon his back, began to write, holding
+the paper above his head.  On the first sheet he traced some alphabetic
+signs, part of a cipher known to himself alone.  In the midst of the
+torture, a luminous idea had crossed his mind; fearful of forgetting it
+amidst his sufferings, he now took note of it.  On another paper he wrote
+the following, which was instantly delivered to Father d'Aigrigny: "Send
+B. immediately to Faringhea, for the report of the last few days with
+regard to Djalma, and let B. bring it hither on the instant." Father
+d'Aigrigny went out to execute this new order.  The cardinal approached a
+little nearer to the scene of the operation, for, in spite of the bad
+odor of the room, he took delight in seeing the Jesuit half roasted,
+having long cherished against him the rancor of an Italian and a priest.
+
+"Come, reverend father," said the doctor to Rodin, "continue to be
+admirably courageous, and your chest will free itself.  You have still a
+bitter moment to go through--and then I have good hope."
+
+The patient resumed his former position.  The moment Father d'Aigrigny
+returned, Rodin questioned him with a look, to which the reverend father
+replied by a nod.  At a sign from the doctor, the four assistants began
+to blow through the tubes with all their might.  This increase of torture
+was so horrible, that, in spite of his self-control, Rodin gnashed his
+teeth, started convulsively, and so expanded his palpitating chest, that,
+after a violent spasm, there rose from his throat and lungs a scream of
+terrific pain--but it was free, loud, sonorous.
+
+"The chest is free!" cried the doctor, in triumph.  "The lungs have play-
+-the voice returns--he is saved!--Blow, gentlemen, blow; and, reverend
+father, cry out as much as you please: I shall be delighted to hear you,
+for it will give you relief.  Courage!  I answer for the result.  It is a
+wonderful cure.  I will publish it by sound of trumpet."
+
+"Allow me, doctor," whispered Father d'Aigrigny, as he approached Dr.
+Baleinier; "the cardinal can witness, that I claimed beforehand the
+publication of this affair--as a miraculous fact."
+
+"Let it be miraculous then," answered Dr. Baleinier, disappointed--for he
+set some value on his own work.
+
+On hearing he was saved, Rodin though his sufferings were perhaps worse
+than ever, for the fire had now pierced the scarf-skin, assumed almost an
+infernal beauty.  Through the painful contraction of his features shone
+the pride of savage triumph; the monster felt that he was becoming once
+more strong and powerful, and he seemed conscious the evils that his
+fatal resurrection was to cause.  And so, of still writhing beneath the
+flames, he pronounced these words, the first that struggled from his
+chest: "I told you I should live!"
+
+"You told us true," cried the doctor, feeling his pulse; "the circulation
+is now full and regular, the lungs are free.  The reaction is complete.
+You are saved."
+
+At this moment, the last shreds of cotton had burnt out.  The trivets
+were withdrawn, and on the skeleton trunk of Rodin were seen four large
+round blisters.  The skin still smoked, and the raw flesh was visible
+beneath.  In one of his sudden movements, a lamp had been misplaced, and
+one of these burns was larger than the other, presenting as it were to
+the eye a double circle.  Rodin looked down upon his wounds.  After some
+seconds of silent contemplation, a strange smile curled his lips.
+Without changing his position, he glanced at Father d'Aigrigny with an
+expression impossible to describe, and said to him, as he slowly counted
+the wounds touching them with his flat and dirty nail: "Father
+d'Aigrigny, what an omen!--Look here! one Rennepont--two Renneponts--
+three Renneponts--four Renneponts--where is then the fifth!--Ah! here--
+this wound will count for two.  They are twins."[41]  And he emitted a
+little dry, bitter laugh.  Father d'Aigrigny, the cardinal, and Dr.
+Baleinier, alone understood the sense of these mysterious and fatal
+words, which Rodin soon completed by a terrible allusion, as he
+exclaimed, with prophetic voice, and almost inspired air: "Yes, I say it.
+The impious race will be reduced to ashes, like the fragments of this
+poor flesh.  I say it, and it will be so.  I said I would live--and I do
+live!"
+
+[41] Jacques Rennepont being dead, and Gabriel out of the field, in
+consequence of his donation, there remained only five persons of the
+family--Rose and Blanche, Djalma, Adrienne, and Hardy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+VICE AND VIRTUE.
+
+Two days have elapsed since Rodin was miraculously restored to life.  The
+reader will not have forgotten the house in the Rue Clovis, where the
+reverend father had an apartment, and where also was the lodging of
+Philemon, inhabited by Rose-Pompon.  It is about three o'clock in the
+afternoon.  A bright ray of light, penetrating through a round hole in
+the door Mother Arsene's subterraneous shop, forms a striking contrast
+with the darkness of this cavern.  The ray streams full upon a melancholy
+object.  In the midst of fagots and faded vegetables, and close to a
+great heap of charcoal, stands a wretched bed; beneath the sheet, which
+covers it, can be traced the stiff and angular proportions of a corpse.
+It is the body of Mother Arsene herself, who died two days before, of the
+cholera.  The burials have been so numerous, that there has been no time
+to remove her remains.  The Rue Clovis is almost deserted.  A mournful
+silence reigns without, often broken by the sharp whistling of the north
+wind.  Between the squalls, one hears a sort of pattering.  It is the
+noise of the large rats, running to and fro across the heap of charcoal.
+
+Suddenly, another sound is heard, and these unclean animals fly to hide
+themselves in their holes.  Some one is trying to force open the door,
+which communicates between the shop and the passage.  It offers but
+little resistance, and, in a few seconds, the worn-out lock gives way,
+and a woman enters.  For a short time she stands motionless in the
+obscurity of the damp and icy cave.  After a minute's hesitation, the
+woman advances and the ray of light illumines the features of the
+Bacchanal Queen.  Slowly, she approached the funeral couch.  Since the
+death of Jacques, the alteration in the countenance of Cephyse had gone
+on increasing.  Fearfully pale, with her fine black hair in disorder, her
+legs and feet naked, she was barely covered with an old patched petticoat
+and a very ragged handkerchief.
+
+When she came near the bed, she cast a glance of almost savage assurance
+at the shroud.  Suddenly she drew back, with a low cry of involuntary
+terror.  The sheet moved with a rapid undulation, extending from the feet
+to the head of the corpse.  But soon the sight of a rat, flying along the
+side of the worm-eaten bedstead, explained the movement of the shroud.
+Recovering from her fright, Cephyse began to look for several things, and
+collected them in haste, as though she dreaded being surprised in the
+miserable shop.  First, she seized a basket, and filled it with charcoal;
+then, looking from side to side, she discovered in a corner an earthen
+pot, which she took with a burst of ominous joy.
+
+"It is not all, it is not all," said Cephyse, as she continued to search
+with an unquiet air.
+
+At last she perceived near the stove a little tin box, containing flint,
+steel and matches.  She placed these articles on the top of the basket,
+and took it in one hand, and the earthen pot in the other.  As she passed
+near the corpse of the poor charcoal-dealer, Cephyse said, with a strange
+smile: "I rob you, poor Mother Arsene, but my theft will not do me much
+good."
+
+Cephyse left the shop, reclosed the door as well as she could, went up
+the passage, and crossed the little court-yard which separated the front
+of the building from that part in which Rodin had lodged.  With the
+exception of the windows of Philemon's apartment, where Rose-Pompon had
+so often sat perched like a bird, warbling Beranger, the other windows of
+the house were open.  There had been deaths on the first and second
+floors, and, like many others, they were waiting for the cart piled up
+with coffins.
+
+The Bacchanal Queen gained the stairs, which led to the chambers formerly
+occupied by Rodin.  Arrived at the landing-place she ascended another
+ruinous staircase, steep as a ladder, and with nothing but an old rope
+for a rail.  She at length reached the half-rotten door of a garret,
+situated in the roof.  The house was in such a state of dilapidation,
+that, in many places the roof gave admission to the rain, and allowed it
+to penetrate into this cell, which was not above ten feet square, and
+lighted by an attic window.  All the furniture consisted of an old straw
+mattress, laid upon the ground, with the straw peeping out from a rent in
+its ticking; a small earthenware pitcher, with the spout broken, and
+containing a little water, stood by the side of this couch.  Dressed in
+rags, Mother Bunch was seated on the side of the mattress, with her
+elbows on her knees, and her face concealed in her thin, white hands.
+When Cephyse entered the room, the adopted sister of Agricola raised her
+head; her pale, mild face seemed thinner than ever, hollow with
+suffering, grief, misery; her eyes, red with weeping, were fixed on her
+sister with an expression of mournful tenderness.
+
+"I have what we want, sister," said Cephyse, in a low, deep voice; "in
+this basket there is wherewith to finish our misery."
+
+Then, showing to Mother Bunch the articles she had just placed on the
+floor, she added: "For the first time in my life, I have been a thief.
+It made me ashamed and frightened; I was never intended for that or
+worse.  It is a pity." added she, with a sardonic smile.
+
+After a moment's silence, the hunchback said to her sister, in a heart-
+rending tone: "Cephyse--my dear Cephyse--are you quite determined to
+die?"
+
+"How should I hesitate?" answered Cephyse, in a firm voice.  "Come,
+sister, let us once more make our reckoning.  If even I could forget my
+shame, and Jacques' contempt in his last moments, what would remain to
+me?  Two courses only: first, to be honest, and work for my living.  But
+you know that, in spite of the best will in the world, work will often
+fail, as it has failed for the last few days, and, even when I got it, I
+would have to live on four to five francs a week.  Live? that is to say,
+die by inches.  I know that already, and I prefer dying at once.  The
+other course would be to live a life of infamy--and that I will not do.
+Frankly, sister, between frightful misery, infamy, or death, can the
+choice be doubtful?  Answer me!"
+
+Then, without giving Mother Bunch time to speak, Cephyse added, in an
+abrupt tone: "Besides, what is the good of discussing it?  I have made up
+my mind, and nothing shall prevent my purpose, since all that you, dear
+sister, could obtain from me, was a delay of a few days, to see if the
+cholera would not save us the trouble.  To please you I consented; the
+cholera has come, killed every one else in the house, but left us.  You
+see, it is better to do one's own business," added she, again smiling
+bitterly.  Then she resumed: "Besides, dear sister, you also wish to
+finish with life."
+
+"It is true, Cephyse," answered the sempstress, who seemed very much
+depressed; "but alone--one has only to answer for one's self--and to die
+with you," added she, shuddering, "appears like being an accomplice in
+your death."
+
+"Do you wish, then, to make an end of it, I in one place, you in
+another?--that would be agreeable!" said Cephyse, displaying in that
+terrible moment the sort of bitter and despairing irony which is more
+frequent than may be imagined in the midst of mortal anguish.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" said the other in alarm, "not alone--I will not die alone!"
+
+"Do you not see, dear sister, we are right not to part?  And yet," added
+Cephyse, in a voice of emotion, "my heart almost breaks sometimes, to
+think that you will die like me."
+
+"How selfish!" said the hunchback, with a faint smile.  "What reasons
+nave I to love life?  What void shall I leave behind me?"
+
+"But you are a martyr, sister," resumed Cephyse.  "The priests talk of
+saints! Is there one of them so good as you?  And yet you are about to
+die like me, who have always been idle, careless, sinful--while you were
+so hardworking, so devoted to all who suffered.  What should I say?  You
+were an angel on the earth; and yet you will die like me, who have fallen
+as low as a woman can fall," added the unfortunate, casting down her
+eyes.
+
+"It is strange," answered Mother Bunch, thoughtfully.  "Starting from the
+same point, we have followed different roads, and yet we have reached the
+same goal--disgust of life.  For you, my poor sister, but a few days ago,
+life was so fair, so full of pleasure and of youth; and now it is equally
+heavy with us both.  After all, I have followed to the end what was my
+duty," added she, mildly.  "Agricola no longer needs me.  He is married;
+he loves, and is beloved; his happiness is secured.  Mdlle. de Cardoville
+wants for nothing.  Fair, rich, prosperous--what could a poor creature
+like myself do for her?  Those who have been kind to me are happy.  What
+prevents my going now to my rest?  I am so weary!"
+
+"Poor sister!" said Cephyse, with touching emotion, which seemed to
+expand her contracted features; "when I think that, without informing me,
+and in spite of your resolution never to see that generous young lady,
+who protected you, you yet had the courage to drag yourself to her house,
+dying with fatigue and want, to try to interest her in my fate--yes,
+dying, for your strength failed on the Champs-Elysees."
+
+"And when I was able to reach the mansion, Mdlle. de Cardoville was
+unfortunately absent--very unfortunately!" repeated the hunchback, as she
+looked at Cephyse with anguish; "for the next day, seeing that our last
+resource had failed us, thinking more of me than of yourself, and
+determined at any price to procure us bread--"
+
+She could not finish.  She buried her face in her hands, and shuddered.
+
+"Well, I did as so many other hapless women have done when work fails or
+wages do not suffice, and hunger becomes too pressing," replied Cephyse,
+in a broken voice; "only that, unlike so many others, instead of living
+on my shame, I shall die of it."
+
+"Alas! this terrible shame which kills you, my poor Cephyse, because you
+have a heart, would have been averted, had I seen Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+or had she but answered the letter which I asked leave to write to her at
+the porter's lodge.  But her silence proves to me that she is justly hurt
+at my abrupt departure from her house.  I can understand it; she believes
+me guilty of the blackest ingratitude--for she must have been greatly
+offended not to have deigned to answer me--and therefore I had not the
+courage to write a second time.  It would have been useless, I am sure;
+for, good and just as she is, her refusals are inexorable when she
+believes them deserved.  And besides, for what good?  It was too late;
+you had resolved to die!"
+
+"Oh, yes, quite resolved: for my infamy was gnawing at my heart.  Jacques
+had died in my arms despising me; and I loved him--mark me, sister,"
+added Cephyse, with passionate enthusiasm, "I loved him as we love only
+once in life!"
+
+"Let our fate be accomplished, then!" said Mother Bunch with a pensive
+air.
+
+"But you have never told me, sister, the cause of your departure from
+Mdlle. de Cardoville's," resumed Cephyse, after a moment's silence.
+
+"It will be the only secret that I shall take with me, dear Cephyse,"
+said the other, casting down her eyes.  And she thought, with bitter joy,
+that she would soon be delivered from the fear which had poisoned the
+last days of her sad life--the fear of meeting Agricola, informed of the
+fatal and ridiculous love she felt for him.
+
+For, it must be said, this fatal and despairing love was one of the
+causes of the suicide of the unfortunate creature.  Since the
+disappearance of her journal, she believed that the blacksmith knew the
+melancholy secret contained in its sad pages.  She doubted not the
+generosity and good heart of Agricola; but she had such doubts of
+herself, she was so ashamed of this passion, however pure and noble,
+that, even in the extremity to which Cephyse and herself were reduced--
+wanting work, wanting bread--no power on earth could have induced her to
+meet Agricola, in an attempt to ask him for assistance.  Doubtless, she
+would have taken another view of the subject if her mind had not been
+obscured by that sort of dizziness to which the firmest characters are
+exposed when their misfortunes surpass all bounds.  Misery, hunger, the
+influence, almost contagious in such a moment, of the suicidal ideas of
+Cephyse, and weariness of a life so long devoted to pain and
+mortification, gave the last blow to the sewing-girl's reason.  After
+long struggling against the fatal design of her sister, the poor,
+dejected, broken-hearted creature finished by determining to share
+Cephyse's fate, and seek in death the end of so many evils.
+
+"Of what are you thinking, sister?" said Cephyse, astonished at the long
+silence.  The other replied, trembling: "I think of that which made me
+leave Mdlle. de Cardoville so abruptly, and appear so ungrateful in her
+eyes.  May the fatality which drove me from her house have made no other
+victims! may my devoted service, however obscure and powerless, never be
+missed by her, who extended her noble hand to the poor sempstress, and
+deigned to call me sister!  May she be happy--oh, ever happy!" said
+Mother Bunch, clasping her hands with the ardor of a sincere invocation.
+
+"That is noble, sister--such a wish in such a moment!" said Cephyse.
+
+"Oh," said her sister, with energy, "I loved, I admired that marvel of
+genius, and heart, and ideal beauty--I viewed her with pious respect--for
+never was the power of the Divinity revealed in a more adorable and purer
+creation.  At least one of my last thoughts will have been of her."
+
+"Yes, you will have loved and respected your generous patroness to the
+last."
+
+"To the last!" said the poor girl, after a moment's silence.  "It is
+true--you are right--it will soon be the last!--in a few moments, all
+will be finished.  See how calmly we can talk of that which frightens so
+many others!"
+
+"Sister, we are calm because we are resolved."
+
+"Quite resolved, Cephyse," said the hunchback, casting once more a deep
+and penetrating glance upon her sister.
+
+"Oh, yes, if you are only as determined as I am."
+
+"Be satisfied; if I put off from day to day the final moment," answered
+the sempstress, "it was because I wished to give you time to reflect.  As
+for me--"
+
+She did not finish, but she shook her head with an air of the utmost
+despondency.
+
+"Well, sister, let us kiss each other," said Cephyse; "and, courage!"
+
+The hunchback rose, and threw herself into her sister's arms.  They held
+one another fast in a long embrace.  There followed a few seconds of deep
+and solemn silence, only interrupted by the sobs of the sisters, for now
+they had begun to weep.
+
+"Oh, heaven! to love each other so, and to part forever!" said Cephyse.
+"It is a cruel fate."
+
+"To part?" cried Mother Bunch, and her pale, mild countenance, bathed in
+tears, was suddenly illumined with a ray of divine hope; "to part,
+sister? oh, no! What makes me so calm is the deep and certain
+expectation, which I feel here at my heart, of that better world where a
+better life awaits us.  God, so great, so merciful, so prodigal of good,
+cannot destine His creatures to be forever miserable.  Selfish men may
+pervert His benevolent designs, and reduce their brethren to a state of
+suffering and despair.  Let us pity the wicked and leave them! Come up on
+high, sister; men are nothing there, where God is all.  We shall do well
+there.  Let us depart, for it is late."
+
+So saying, she pointed to the ruddy beams of the setting sun, which began
+to shine upon the window.
+
+Carried away by the religious enthusiasm of her sister, whose
+countenance, transfigured, as it were, by the hope of an approaching
+deliverance, gleamed brightly in the reflected sunset, Cephyse took her
+hands, and, looking at her with deep emotion, exclaimed, "Oh, sister! how
+beautiful you look now!"
+
+"Then my beauty comes rather late in the day," said Mother Bunch, with a
+sad smile.
+
+"No, sister; for you appear so happy, that the last scruples I had upon
+your account are quite gone."
+
+"Then let us make haste," said the hunchback, as she pointed to the
+chafing-dish.
+
+"Be satisfied, sister--it will not be long," said Cephyse.  And she took
+the chafing-dish full of charcoal, which she had placed in a corner of
+the garret, and brought it out into the middle of the room.
+
+"Do you know how to manage it?" asked the sewing-girl approaching.
+
+"Oh! it is very simple," answered Cephyse; "we have only to close the
+door and window, and light the charcoal."
+
+"Yes, sister; but I think I have heard that every opening must be well
+stopped, so as to admit no current of air."
+
+"You are right, and the door shuts so badly."
+
+"And look at the holes in the roof."
+
+"What is to be done, sister?"
+
+"I will tell you," said Mother Bunch.  "The straw of our mattress, well
+twisted, will answer every purpose."
+
+"Certainly," replied Cephyse.  "We will keep a little to light our fire,
+and with the rest we will stop up all the crevices in the roof, and make
+filling for our doors and windows."
+
+Then, smiling with that bitter irony, so frequent, we repeat, in the most
+gloomy moments, Cephyse added, "I say, sister, weather-boards at our
+doors and windows, to prevent the air from getting in--what a luxury! we
+are as delicate as rich people."
+
+"At such a time, we may as well try to make ourselves a little
+comfortable," said Mother Bunch, trying to jest like the Bacchanal Queen.
+
+And with incredible coolness, the two began to twist the straw into
+lengths of braid, small enough to be stuffed into the cracks of the door,
+and also constructed large plugs, destined to stop up the crevices in the
+roof.  While this mournful occupation lasted, there was no departure from
+the calm and sad resignation of the two unfortunate creatures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+SUICIDE.
+
+Cephyse and her sister continued with calmness the preparations for their
+death.
+
+Alas! how many poor young girls, like these sisters, have been, and still
+will be, fatally driven to seek in suicide a refuge from despair, from
+infamy, or from a too miserable existence!  And upon society will rest
+the terrible responsibility of these sad deaths, so long as thousands of
+human creatures, unable to live upon the mockery of wages granted to
+their labor, have to choose between these three gulfs of shame and woe; a
+life of enervating toil and mortal privations, causes of premature death;
+prostitution, which kills also, but slowly--by contempt, brutality, and
+uncleanness; suicide--which kills at once.
+
+In a few minutes, the two sisters had constructed, with the straw of
+their couch, the calkings necessary to intercept the air, and to render
+suffocation more expeditious and certain.
+
+The hunchback said to her sister, "You are the taller, Cephyse, and must
+look to the ceiling; I will take care of the window and door."
+
+"Be satisfied, sister; I shall have finished before you," answered
+Cephyse.
+
+And the two began carefully to stop up every crevice through which a
+current of air could penetrate into the ruined garret.  Thanks to her
+tall stature, Cephyse was able to reach the holes in the roof, and to
+close them up entirely.  When they had finished this sad work, the
+sisters again approached, and looked at each other in silence.
+
+The fatal moment drew near; their faces, though still calm, seemed
+slightly agitated by that strange excitement which always accompanies a
+double suicide.
+
+"Now," said Mother Bunch, "now for the fire!"
+
+She knelt down before the little chafing-dish, filled with charcoal.  But
+Cephyse took hold of her under the arm, and obliged her to rise again,
+saying to her, "Let me light the fire--that is my business."
+
+"But, Cephyse--"
+
+"You know, poor sister, that the smell of charcoal gives you the
+headache!"
+
+At the simplicity of this speech, for the Bacchanal Queen had spoken
+seriously, the sisters could not forbear smiling sadly.
+
+"Never mind," resumed Cephyse; "why suffer more and sooner than is
+necessary?"
+
+Then, pointing to the mattress, which still contained a little straw,
+Cephyse added, "Lie down there, good little sister; when our fire is
+alight, I will come and sit down by you."
+
+"Do not be long, Cephyse."
+
+"In five minutes it will be done."
+
+The tall building, which faced the street, was separated by a narrow
+court from that which contained the retreat of the two sisters, and was
+so much higher, that when the sun had once disappeared behind its lofty
+roof, the garret soon became dark.  The light, passing through the dirty
+panes of the small window, fell faintly on the blue and white patchwork
+of the old mattress, on which Mother Bunch was now stretched, covered
+with rags.  Leaning on her left arm, with her chin resting in the palm of
+her hand, she looked after her sister with an expression of heart-rending
+grief.  Cephyse, kneeling over the chafing-dish, with her face close to
+the black charcoal, above which already played a little bluish flame,
+exerted herself to blow the newly-kindled fire, which was reflected on
+the pale countenance of the unhappy girl.
+
+The silence was deep.  No sound was heard but the panting breath of
+Cephyse, and, at intervals, the slight crackling of the charcoal, which
+began to burn, and already sent forth a faint sickening vapor.  Cephyse,
+seeing the fire completely lighted, and feeling already a little dizzy,
+rose from the ground, and said to her sister, as she approached her, "It
+is done!"
+
+"Sister," answered Mother Bunch, kneeling on the mattress, whilst Cephyse
+remained standing, "how shall we place ourselves?  I should like to be
+near you to the last."
+
+Stop!" said Cephyse, half executing the measures of which she spoke, "I
+will sit on the mattress with my back against the wall.  Now, little
+sister, you lie there.  Lean your head upon my knees, and give me your
+hand.  Are you comfortable so?"
+
+"Yes--but I cannot see you."
+
+"That is better.  It seems there is a moment--very short, it is true--in
+which one suffers a good deal.  And," added Cephyse, in a voice of
+emotion, "it will be as well not to see each other suffer."
+
+"You are right, Cephyse."
+
+"Let me kiss that beautiful hair for the last time," said Cephyse, as she
+pressed her lips to the silky locks which crowned the hunchback's pale
+and melancholy countenance, "and then--we will remain very quiet."
+
+"Sister, your hand," said the sewing-girl; "for the last time, your hand
+--and then, as you say, we will move no more.  We shall not have to wait
+long, I think, for I begin to feel dizzy.  And you, sister?"
+
+"Not yet," replied Cephyse; "I only perceive the smell of the charcoal."
+
+"Do you know where they will bury us?" said Mother Bunch, after a
+moment's silence.
+
+"No. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because I should like it to be in Pere-la-Chaise.  I went there once
+with Agricola and his mother.  What a fine view there is!--and then the
+trees, the flowers, the marble--do you know the dead are better lodged--
+than the living--and--"
+
+What is the matter, sister?" said Cephyse to her companion, who had
+stopped short, after speaking in a slow voice.
+
+"I am giddy--my temples throb," was the answer.  "How do you feel?"
+
+"I only begin to be a little faint; it is strange--the effect is slower
+with me than you."
+
+"Oh! you see," said Mother Bunch, trying to smile, "I was always so
+forward.  At school, do you remember, they said I was before the others.
+And, now it happens again."
+
+"I hope soon to overtake you this time," said Cephyse.
+
+What astonished the sisters was quite natural.  Though weakened by sorrow
+and misery, the Bacchanal Queen, with a constitution as robust as the
+other was frail and delicate, was necessarily longer than her sister in
+feeling the effects of the deleterious vapor.  After a moment's silence,
+Cephyse resumed, as she laid her hand on the head she still held upon her
+knees, "You say nothing, sister! You suffer, is it not so?"
+
+"No," said Mother Bunch, in a weak voice; "my eyelids are heavy as lead--
+I am getting benumbed--I feel that I speak more slowly--but I have no
+acute pain.  And you, sister?"
+
+"Whilst you were speaking, I felt giddy--and now my temples throb
+violently."
+
+"As it was with me just now.  One would think it was more painful and
+difficult to die."
+
+Then after a moment's silence, the hunchback said suddenly to her sister,
+"Do you think that Agricola will much regret me, and think of me for some
+time?"
+
+"How can you ask?" said Cephyse, in a tone of reproach.
+
+"You are right," answered Mother Bunch, mildly; "there is a bad feeling
+in such a doubt--but if you knew--"
+
+"What, sister?"
+
+The other hesitated for an instant, and then said, dejectedly, "Nothing."
+Afterwards, she added, "Fortunately, I die convinced that he will never
+miss me.  He married a charming girl, who loves him, I am sure, and will
+make him perfectly happy."
+
+As she pronounced these last words, the speaker's voice grew fainter and
+fainter.  Suddenly she started and said to Cephyse, in a trembling,
+almost frightened tone, "Sister! Hold me in your arms--I am afraid--
+everything looks dark--everything is turning round."  And the unfortunate
+girl, raising herself a little, hid her face in her sister's bosom, and
+threw his weak arms around her.
+
+"Courage, sister!" said Cephyse, in a voice which was also growing faint,
+as she pressed her closer to her bosom; "it will soon be over."
+
+And Cephyse added, with a kind of envy, "Oh! why does my sister's
+strength fail so much sooner than mine?  I have still my perfect senses
+and I suffer less than she does.  Oh! if I thought she would die first!--
+But, no--I will go and hold my face over the chafing-dish rather."
+
+At the movement Cephyse made to rise, a feeble pressure from her sister
+held her back.  "You suffer, my poor child!" said Cephyse, trembling.
+
+"Oh yes! a good deal now--do not leave me!"
+
+"And I scarcely at all," said Cephyse, gazing wildly at the chafing-dish.
+"Ah!" added she, with a kind of fatal! joy; "now I begin to feel it--I
+choke--my head is ready to split."
+
+And indeed the destructive gas now filled the little chamber, from which
+it had, by degrees, driven all the air fit for respiration.  The day was
+closing in, and the gloomy garret was only lighted by the reflection of
+the burning charcoal, which threw a red glare on the sisters, locked in
+each other's arms.  Suddenly Mother Bunch made some slight convulsive
+movements, and pronounced these words in a failing voice: "Agricola--
+Mademoiselle de Cardoville--Oh! farewell!--Agricola--I--"
+
+Then she murmured some unintelligible words; the convulsive moments
+ceased, and her arms, which had been clasped round Cephyse, fell inert
+upon the mattress.
+
+"Sister!" cried Cephyse, in alarm, as she raised Mother Bunch's head, to
+look at her face.  "Not already, sister!--And I?--and I?"
+
+The sewing-girl's mild countenance was not paler than usual.  Only her
+eyes, half-closed, seemed no longer to see anything, and a half-smile of
+mingled grief and goodness lingered an instant about her violet lips,
+from which stole the almost imperceptible breath--and then the mouth
+became motionless, and the face assumed a great serenity of expression.
+
+"But you must not die before me!" cried Cephyse, in a heart-rending tone,
+as she covered with kisses the cold cheek.  "Wait for me, sister! wait
+for me!"
+
+Mother Bunch did not answer.  The head, which Cephyse let slip from her
+hands, fell back gently on the mattress.
+
+"My God.  It is not my fault, if we do not die together!" cried Cephyse
+in despair, as she knelt beside the couch, on which the other lay
+motionless.
+
+"Dead!" she murmured in terror.  "Dead before me!--Perhaps it is that I
+am the strongest.  Ah! it begins--fortunately--like her, I see everything
+dark-blue--I suffer--what happiness!--I can scarcely breathe.  Sister!"
+she added, as she threw her arms round her loved one's neck; "I am
+coming--I am here!"
+
+At the same instant the sound of footsteps and voices was heard from the
+staircase.  Cephyse had still presence of mind enough to distinguish the
+sound.  Stretched beside the body of her sister, she raised her head
+hastily.
+
+The noise approached, and a voice was heard exclaiming, not far from the
+doer: "Good heavens! what a smell of fire!"
+
+And, at the same instant, the door was violently shaken, and another
+voice exclaimed: "Open! open!"
+
+"They will come in--they will save me--and my sister is dead--Oh, no! I
+will not have the baseness to survive her!"
+
+Such was the last thought of Cephyse.  Using what little strength she had
+left, she ran to the window and opened it--and, at the same instant that
+the half-broken door yielded to a vigorous effort from without, the
+unfortunate creature precipitated herself from that third story into the
+court below.  Just then, Adrienne and Agricola appeared on the threshold
+of the chamber.  In spite of the stifling odor of the charcoal, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville rushed into the garret, and, seeing the stove, she exclaimed,
+"The unhappy girl has killed herself!"
+
+"No, she has thrown herself from the window," cried Agricola: for, at the
+moment of breaking open the door, he had seen a human form disappear in
+that direction, and he now ran to the window.
+
+"Oh! this is frightful!" he exclaimed, with a cry of horror, as he put
+his hand before his eyes, and returned pale and terrified to Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.
+
+But, misunderstanding the cause of his terror, Adrienne, who had just
+perceived Mother Bunch through the darkness, hastened to answer: "No! she
+is here."
+
+And she pointed to the pale form stretched on the mattress, beside which
+Adrienne now threw herself on her knees.  Grasping the hands of the poor
+sempstress, she found them as cold as ice.  Laying her hand on her heart,
+she could not feel it beat.  Yet, in a few seconds, as the fresh air
+rushed into the room from the door and window, Adrienne thought she
+remarked an almost imperceptible pulsation, and she exclaimed: "Her heart
+beats! Run quickly for help! Luckily, I have my smelling bottle."
+
+"Yes, yes! help for her--and for the other too, if it is yet time!" cried
+the smith in despair, as he rushed down the stairs, leaving Mdlle. de
+Cardoville still kneeling by the side of the mattress.
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V9,
+by Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+
+BOOK X.
+
+XXXIII.    Confessions
+XXXIV.     More Confessions
+XXXV.      The Rivals
+XXXVI.     The Interview
+XXXVII.    Soothing Words
+XXXVIII.   The Two Carriages
+XXXIX.     The Appointment
+XL.        Anxiety
+XLI.       Adrienne and Djalma
+XLII.      "The Imitation"
+XLIII.     Prayer
+XLIV.      Remembrances
+XLV.       The Blockhead
+XLVI.      The Anonymous Letters
+XLVII.     The Golden City
+XLVIII.    The Stung Lion
+XLIX.      The Test
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+CONFESSIONS.
+
+During the painful scene that we have just described, a lively emotion
+glowed in the countenance of Mdlle. de Cardoville, grown pale and thin
+with sorrow.  Her cheeks, once so full, were now slightly hollowed,
+whilst a faint line of transparent azure encircled those large black
+eyes, no longer so bright as formerly.  But the charming lips, though
+contracted by painful anxiety, had retained their rich and velvet
+moisture.  To attend more easily to Mother Bunch, Adrienne had thrown
+aside her bonnet, and the silky waves of her beautiful golden hair almost
+concealed her face as she bent over the mattress, rubbing the thin, ivory
+hands of the poor sempstress, completely called to life by the salubrious
+freshness of the air, and by the strong action of the salts which
+Adrienne carried in her smelling-bottle.  Luckily, Mother Bunch had
+fainted, rather from emotion and weakness than from the effects of
+suffocation, the senses of the unfortunate girl having failed her before
+the deleterious gas had attained its highest degree of intensity.
+
+Before continuing the recital of the scene between the sempstress and the
+patrician, a few retrospective words will be necessary.  Since the
+strange adventure at the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin, where Djalma,
+at peril of his life, rushed upon the black panther in sight of Mdlle.
+de Cardoville, the young lady had been deeply affected in various ways.
+Forgetting her jealousy, and the humiliation she had suffered in presence
+of Djalma--of Djalma exhibiting himself before every one with a woman so
+little worthy of him--Adrienne was for a moment dazzled by the chivalrous
+and heroic action of the prince, and said to herself: "In spite of odious
+appearances, Djalma loves me enough to brave death in order to pick up my
+nosegay."
+
+But with a soul so delicate as that of this young lady, a character so
+generous, and a mind so true, reflection was certain soon to demonstrate
+the vanity of such consolations, powerless to cure the cruel wounds of
+offended dignity an love.
+
+"How many times," said Adrienne to herself, and with reason, "has the
+prince encountered, in hunting, from pure caprice and with no gain, such
+danger as he braved in picking up my bouquet! and then, who tells me he
+did not mean to offer it to the woman who accompanied him?"
+
+Singular (it may be) in the eyes of the world, but just and great in
+those of heaven, the ideas which Adrienne cherished with regard to love,
+joined to her natural pride, presented an invincible obstacle to the
+thought of her succeeding this woman (whoever she might be), thus
+publicly displayed by the prince as his mistress.  And yet Adrienne
+hardly dared avow to herself, that she experienced a feeling of jealousy,
+only the more painful and humiliating, the less her rival appeared worthy
+to be compared to her.
+
+At other times, on the contrary, in spite of a conscious sense of her own
+value, Mdlle. de Cardoville, remembering the charming countenance of
+Rose-Pompon, asked herself if the bad taste and improper manners of this
+pretty creature resulted from precocious and depraved effrontery, or from
+a complete ignorance of the usages of society.  In the latter case, such
+ignorance, arising from a simple and ingenuous nature, might in itself
+have a great charm; and if to this attraction, combined with that of
+incontestable beauty, were added sincere love and a pure soul, the
+obscure birth, or neglected education of the girl might be of little
+consequence, and she might be capable of inspiring Djalma with a profound
+passion.  If Adrienne hesitated to see a lost creature in Rose-Pompon,
+notwithstanding unfavorable appearances, it was because, remembering what
+so many travellers had related of Djalma's greatness of soul, and
+recalling the conversation she had overheard between him and Rodin, she
+could not bring herself to believe that a man of such remarkable
+intelligence, with so tender a heart, so poetical, imaginative and
+enthusiastic a mind could be capable of loving a depraved and vulgar
+creature, and of openly exhibiting himself in public along with her.
+There was a mystery in the transaction, which Adrienne sought in vain to
+penetrate.  These trying doubts, this cruel curiosity, only served to
+nourish Adrienne's fatal love; and we may imagine her incurable despair,
+when she found that the indifference, or even disdain of Djalma, was
+unable to stifle a passion that now burned more fiercely than ever.
+Sometimes, having recourse to notions of fatality, she fancied that she
+was destined to feel this love; that Djalma must therefore deserve it,
+and that one day whatever was incomprehensible in the conduct of the
+prince would be explained to his advantage.  At other times, on the
+contrary, she felt ashamed of excusing Djalma, and the consciousness of
+this weakness was for Adrienne a constant occasion for remorse and
+torture.  The victim of all these agonies, she lived in perfect solitude.
+
+The cholera soon broke out, startling as a clap of thunder.  Too unhappy
+to fear the pestilence on her own account, Adrienne was only moved by the
+sorrows of others.  She was amongst the first to contribute to those
+charitable donations, which were now flowing in from all sides in the
+admirable spirit of benevolence.  Florine was suddenly attacked by the
+epidemic.  In spite of the danger, her mistress insisted on seeing her,
+and endeavored to revive her failing courage.  Conquered by this new mark
+of kindness, Florine could no longer conceal the treachery in which she
+had borne a part.  Death was about to deliver her from the odious tyranny
+of the people whose yoke weighed upon her, and she was at length in a
+position to reveal everything to Adrienne.  The latter thus learned how
+she had been continually betrayed by Florine, and also the cause of the
+sewing-girl's abrupt departure.  At these revelations, Adrienne felt her
+affection and tender pity for the poor sempstress greatly increase.  By
+her command, the most active steps were taken to discover traces of the
+hunchback; but Florine's confession had a still more important result.
+Justly alarmed at this new evidence of Rodin's machinations, Adrienne
+remembered the projects formed, when, believing herself beloved, the
+instinct of affection had revealed to her the perils to which Djalma and
+other members of the Rennepont family were exposed.  To assemble the race
+around her, and bid them rally against the common enemy, such was
+Adrienne's first thought, when she heard the confession of Florine.  She
+regarded it as a duty to accomplish this project.  In a struggle with
+such dangerous and powerful adversaries as Rodin, Father d'Aigrigny, and
+the Princess de Saint-Dizier, and their allies, Adrienne saw not only the
+praiseworthy and perilous task of unmasking hypocrisy and cupidity, but
+also, if not a consolation, at least a generous diversion in the midst of
+terrible sorrows.
+
+From this moment, a restless, feverish activity took the place of the
+mournful apathy in which the young lady had languished.  She called round
+her all the members of her family capable of answering the appeal, and,
+as had been mentioned in the secret note delivered to Father d'Aigrigny,
+Cardoville House soon became the centre of the most active and unceasing
+operations, and also a place of meeting, in which the modes of attack and
+defence were fully discussed.  Perfectly correct in all points, the
+secret note of which we have spoken stated, as a mere conjecture, that
+Mdlle. de Cardoville had granted an interview to Djalma.  This fact was
+untrue, but the cause which led to the supposition will be explained
+hereafter.  Far from such being the case, Mdlle. de Cardoville scarcely
+found, in attending to the great family interests now at stake, a
+momentary diversion from the fatal love, which was slowly undermining her
+health, and with which she so bitterly reproached herself.
+
+The morning of the day on which Adrienne, at length discovering Mother
+Bunch's residence, came so miraculously to rescue her from death,
+Agricola Baudoin had been to Cardoville House to confer on the subject of
+Francis Hardy, and had begged Adrienne to permit him to accompany her to
+the Rue Clovis, whither they repaired in haste.
+
+Thus, once again, there was a noble spectacle, a touching symbol!  Mdlle.
+de Cardoville and Mother Bunch, the two extremities of the social chain,
+were united on equal terms--for the sempstress and the fair patrician
+were equal in intelligence and heart--and equal also, because the one was
+the ideal of riches, grace, and beauty, and the other the ideal of
+resignation and unmerited misfortune--and does not a halo rest on
+misfortune borne with courage and dignity?  Stretched on her mattress,
+the hunchback appeared so weak, that even if Agricola had not been
+detained on the ground floor with Cephyse, now dying a dreadful death,
+Mdlle. de Cardoville would have waited some time, before inducing Mother
+Bunch to rise and accompany her to her carriage.  Thanks to the presence
+of mind and pious fraud of Adrienne, the sewing-girl was persuaded that
+Cephyse had been carried to a neighboring hospital, to receive the
+necessary succors, which promised to be crowned with success.  The
+hunchback's faculties recovering slowly from their stupor, she at first
+received this fable without the least suspicion--for she did not even
+know that Agricola had accompanied Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"And it is to you, lady, that Cephyse and I owe our lives," said she,
+turning her mild and melancholy face towards Adrienne, "you, kneeling in
+this garret, near this couch of misery, where I and my sister meant to
+die--for you assure me, lady, that Cephyse was succored in time."
+
+"Be satisfied!  I was told just now that she was recovering her senses."
+
+"And they told her I was living, did they not, lady?  Otherwise, she
+would perhaps regret having survived me."
+
+"Be quite easy, my dear girl!" said Adrienne, pressing the poor hands in
+her own, and gazing on her with eyes full of tears; "they have told her
+all that was proper.  Do not trouble yourself about anything; only think
+of recovering--and I hope you will yet enjoy that happiness of which you
+have known so little, my poor child."
+
+"How kind you are, lady!  After flying from your house--and when you must
+think me so ungrateful!"
+
+"Presently, when you are not so weak, I have a great deal to tell you.
+Just now, it would fatigue you too much.  But how do you feel?"
+
+"Better, lady.  This fresh air--and then the thought, that, since you are
+come--my poor sister will no more be reduced to despair; for I will tell
+you all, and I am sure you will have pity on Cephyse--will you not,
+lady?"
+
+"Rely upon me, my child, answered Adrienne, forced to dissemble her
+painful embarrassment; "you know I am interested in all that interests
+you.  But tell me," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a voice of emotion,
+"before taking this desperate resolution, did you not write to me?"
+
+"Yes, lady."
+
+"Alas!" resumed Adrienne, sorrowfully; "and when you received no answer--
+how cruel, how ungrateful you must have thought me!"
+
+"Oh! never, lady, did I accuse you of such feelings; my poor sister will
+tell you so.  You had my gratitude to the last."
+
+"I believe you--for I knew your heart.  But how then did you explain my
+silence?"
+
+"I had justly offended you by my sudden departure, lady."
+
+"Offended!--Alas!  I never received your letter."
+
+"And yet you know that I wrote to you, lady."
+
+"Yes, my poor girl; I know, also, that you wrote to me at my porter's
+lodge.  Unfortunately, he delivered your letter to one of my women, named
+Florine, telling her it came from you."
+
+"Florine! the young woman that was so kind to me!"
+
+"Florine deceived me shamefully; she was sold to my enemies, and acted as
+a spy on my actions."
+
+"She!--Good Heavens!" cried Mother Bunch.  "Is it possible?"
+
+"She herself," answered Adrienne, bitterly; "but, after all, we must pity
+as well as blame her.  She was forced to obey by a terrible necessity,
+and her confession and repentance secured my pardon before her death."
+
+"Then she is dead--so young! so fair!"
+
+"In spite of her faults, I was greatly moved by her end.  She confessed
+what she had done, with such heart-rending regrets.  Amongst her avowals,
+she told me she had intercepted a letter, in which you asked for an
+interview that might save your sister's life."
+
+"It is true, lady; such were the terms of my letter.  What interest had
+they to keep it from you?"
+
+"They feared to see you return to me, my good guardian angel.  You loved
+me so tenderly, and my enemies dreaded your faithful affection, so
+wonderfully aided by the admirable instinct of your heart.  Ah! I shall
+never forget how well-deserved was the horror with which you were
+inspired by a wretch whom I defended against your suspicions."
+
+"M. Rodin?" said Mother Bunch, with a shudder.
+
+"Yes," replied Adrienne; "but we will not talk of these people now.
+Their odious remembrance would spoil the joy I feel in seeing you
+restored to life--for your voice is less feeble, your cheeks are
+beginning to regain a little color.  Thank God!  I am so happy to have
+found you once more;--if you knew all that I hope, all that I expect from
+our reunion--for we will not part again--promise me that, in the name of
+our friendship."
+
+"I--your friend!" said Mother Bunch, timidly casting down her eyes.
+
+"A few days before your departure from my house, did I not call you my
+friend, my sister?  What is there changed?  Nothing, nothing," added
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, with deep emotion.  "One might say, on the
+contrary, that a fatal resemblance in our positions renders your
+friendship even dearer to me.  And I shall have it, shall I not.  Oh, do
+not refuse it me--I am so much in want of a friend!"
+
+"You, lady? you in want of the friendship of a poor creature like me?"
+
+"Yes," answered Adrienne, as she gazed on the other with an expression of
+intense grief; "nay, more, you are perhaps the only person, to whom I
+could venture to confide my bitter sorrows."  So saying, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville colored deeply.
+
+"And how do I deserve such marks of confidence?" asked Mother Bunch, more
+and more surprised.
+
+"You deserve it by the delicacy of your heart, by the steadiness of your
+character," answered Adrienne, with some hesitation; "then--you are a
+woman--and I am certain you will understand what I suffer, and pity me."
+
+"Pity you, lady?" said the other, whose astonishment continued to
+increase.  "You, a great lady, and so much envied--I, so humble and
+despised, pity you?"
+
+"Tell me, my poor friend," resumed Adrienne, after some moments of
+silence, "are not the worst griefs those which we dare not avow to any
+one, for fear of raillery and contempt?  How can we venture to ask
+interest or pity, for sufferings that we hardly dare avow to ourselves,
+because they make us blush?"
+
+The sewing-girl could hardly believe what she heard.  Had her
+benefactress felt, like her, the effects of an unfortunate passion, she
+could not have held any other language.  But the sempstress could not
+admit such a supposition; so, attributing to some other cause the sorrows
+of Adrienne, she answered mournfully, whilst she thought of her own fatal
+love for Agricola, "Oh! yes, lady.  A secret grief, of which we are
+ashamed, must be frightful--very frightful!"
+
+"But then what happiness to meet, not only a heart noble enough to
+inspire complete confidence, but one which has itself been tried by a
+thousand sorrows, and is capable of affording you pity, support and
+counsel!--Tell me, my dear child," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, as she
+looked attentively at Mother Bunch, "if you were weighed down by one of
+those sorrows, at which one blushes, would you not be happy, very happy,
+to find a kindred soul, to whom you might entrust your griefs, and half
+relieve them by entire and merited confidence?"
+
+For the first time in her life, Mother Bunch regarded Mdlle. de
+Cardoville with a feeling of suspicion and sadness.
+
+The last words of the young lady seemed to her full of meaning
+"Doubtless, she knows my secret," said Mother Bunch to herself;
+"doubtless, my journal has fallen into her hands.--She knows my love for
+Agricola, or at least suspects it.  What she has been saying to me is
+intended to provoke my confidence, and to assure herself if she has been
+rightly informed."
+
+These thoughts excited in the workgirl's mind no bitter or ungrateful
+feeling towards her benefactress; but the heart of the unfortunate girl
+was so delicately susceptible on the subject of her fatal passion, that,
+in spite of her deep and tender affection for Mdlle. de Cardoville, she
+suffered cruelly at the thought of Adrienne's being mistress of her
+secret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+MORE CONFESSIONS.
+
+The fancy, at first so painful, that Mdlle. de Cardoville was informed of
+her love for Agricola was soon exchanged in the hunchbacks heart, thanks
+to the generous instincts of that rare and excellent creature, for a
+touching regret, which showed all her attachment and veneration for
+Adrienne.
+
+"Perhaps," said Mother Bunch to herself, "conquered by the influence of
+the adorable kindness of my protectress, I might have made to her a
+confession which I could make to none other, and revealed a secret which
+I thought to carry with me to my grave.  It would, at least, have been a
+mark of gratitude to Mdlle. de Cardoville; but, unfortunately, I am now
+deprived of the sad comfort of confiding my only secret to my
+benefactress.  And then--however generous may be her pity for me, however
+intelligent her affection, she cannot--she, that is so fair and so much
+admired--she cannot understand how frightful is the position of a
+creature like myself, hiding in the depth of a wounded heart, a love at
+once hopeless and ridiculous.  No, no--in spite of the delicacy of her
+attachment, my benefactress must unconsciously hurt my feelings, even
+whilst she pities me--for only sympathetic sorrows can console each
+other.  Alas! why did she not leave me to die?"
+
+These reflections presented themselves to the thinker's mind as rapidly
+as thought could travel.  Adrienne observed her attentively; she remarked
+that the sewing-girl's countenance, which had lately brightened up, was
+again clouded, and expressed a feeling of painful humiliation.  Terrified
+at this relapse into gloomy dejection, the consequences of which might be
+serious, for Mother Bunch was still very weak, and, as it were, hovering
+on the brink of the grave, Mdlle. de Cardoville resumed hastily: "My
+friend, do not you think with me, that the most cruel and humiliating
+grief admits of consolation, when it can be entrusted to a faithful and
+devoted heart?"
+
+"Yes, lady," said the young sempstress, bitterly; "but the heart which
+suffers in silence, should be the only judge of the moment for making so
+painful a confession.  Until then, it would perhaps be more humane to
+respect its fatal secret, even if one had by chance discovered it."
+
+"You are right, my child," said Adrienne, sorrowfully, "if I choose this
+solemn moment to entrust you with a very painful secret, it is that, when
+you have heard me, I am sure you will set more value on your life, as
+knowing how much I need your tenderness, consolation, and pity."
+
+At these words, the other half raised herself on the mattress, and looked
+at Mdlle. de Cardoville in amazement.  She could scarcely believe what
+she heard; far from designing to intrude upon her confidence, it was her
+protectress who was to make the painful confession, and who came to
+implore pity and consolation from her!
+
+"What!" stammered she; "you, lady!"
+
+"I come to tell you that I suffer, and am ashamed of my sufferings.
+Yes," added the young lady, with a touching expression, "yes--of all
+confessions, I am about to make the most painful--I love--and I blush for
+my love."
+
+"Like myself!" cried Mother Bunch, involuntarily, clasping her hands
+together.
+
+"I love," resumed Adrienne, with a long-pent-up grief; "I love, and am
+not beloved--and my love is miserable, is impossible--it consumes me--it
+kills me--and I dare not confide to any one the fatal secret!"
+
+"Like me," repeated the other, with a fixed look.  "She--a queen in
+beauty, rank, wealth, intelligence--suffers like me.  Like me, poor
+unfortunate creature! she loves, and is not loved again."
+
+"Well, yes! like you, I love and am not loved again," cried Mdlle. de
+Cardoville; "was I wrong in saying, that to you alone I could confide my
+secret--because, having suffered the same pangs, you alone can pity
+them?"
+
+"Then, lady," said Mother Bunch, casting down her eyes, and recovering
+from her first amazement, "you knew--"
+
+"I knew all, my poor child--but never should I have mentioned your
+secret, had I not had one to entrust you with, of a still more painful
+nature.  Yours is cruel, but mine is humiliating.  Oh, my sister!" added
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a tone impossible to describe, "misfortune, you,
+see, blends and confounds together what are called distinctions of rank
+and fortune--and often those whom the world envies are reduced by
+suffering far below the poorest and most humble, and have to seek from
+the latter pity and consolation."
+
+Then, drying her tears, which nosy flowed abundantly, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville resumed, in a voice of emotion: "Come, sister! courage,
+courage! let us love and sustain each other.  Let this sad and mysterious
+bond unite us forever."
+
+"Oh, lady! forgive me.  But now that you know the secret of my life,"
+said the workgirl, casting down her eyes, and unable to vanquish her
+confusion, "it seems to me, that I can never look at you without
+blushing."
+
+"And why? because you love Agricola?" said Adrienne.  "Then I must die of
+shame before you, since, less courageous than you, I had not the strength
+to suffer and be resigned, and so conceal my love in the depths of my
+heart.  He that I love, with a love henceforth deprived of hope, knew of
+that love and despised it--preferring to me a woman, the very choice of
+whom was a new and grievous insult, if I am not much deceived by
+appearances.  I sometimes hope that I am deceived on this point.  Now
+tell me--is it for you to blush?"
+
+"Alas, lady! who could tell you all this?"
+
+"Which you only entrusted to your journal?  Well, then--it was the dying
+Florine who confessed her misdeeds.  She had been base enough to steal
+your papers, forced to this odious act, by the people who had dominion
+over her.  But she had read your journal--and as every good feeling was
+not dead within her, your admirable resignation, your melancholy and
+pious love, had left such an impression on her mind, that she was able to
+repeat whole passages to me on her death bed, and thus to explain the
+cause of your sudden disappearance--for she had no doubt that the fear of
+seeing your love for Agricola divulged had been the cause of your
+flight."
+
+"Alas! it is but too true, lady."
+
+"Oh, yes!" answered Adrienne, bitterly; "those who employed the wretched
+girl to act as she did, well knew the effect of the blow.  It was not
+their first attempt.  They reduced you to despair, they would have killed
+you, because you were devoted to me, and because you had guessed their
+intentions.  Oh! these black-gowns are implacable, and their power is
+great!" said Adrienne, shuddering.
+
+"It is fearful, lady."
+
+"But do not be alarmed, dear child; you see, that the arms of the wicked
+have turned against themselves; for the moment I knew the cause of your
+flight, you became dearer to me than ever.  From that time I made every
+exertion to find out where you were; after long efforts, it was only this
+morning that the person I had employed succeeded in discovering that you
+inhabited this house.  Agricola was with me when I heard it, and
+instantly asked to accompany me."
+
+"Agricola!" said Mother Bunch, clasping her hands; "he came--"
+
+"Yes, my child--be calm.  Whilst I attended to you, he was busy with your
+poor sister.  You will soon see him."
+
+"Alas, lady!" resumed the hunchback, in alarm.  "He doubtless knows--"
+
+"Your love! No, no; be satisfied.  Only think of the happiness of again
+seeing your good and worthy brother."
+
+"Ah, lady! may he never know what caused me so much shame, that I was
+like to die of it.  Thank God, he is not aware of it!"
+
+"Then let us have no more sad thoughts, my child.  Only remember, that
+this worthy brother came here in time to save us from everlasting
+regrets--and you from a great fault.  Oh! I do not speak of the
+prejudices of the world, with regard to the right of every creature to
+return to heaven a life that has become too burdensome!--I only say that
+you ought not to have died, because those who love you, and whom you
+love, were still in need of your assistance."
+
+"I thought you happy; Agricola was married to the girl of his choice, who
+will, I am sure, make him happy.  To whom could I be useful?"
+
+"First, to myself, as you see--and then, who tells you that Agricola will
+never have need of you?  Who tells you, that his happiness, or that of
+his family, will last forever, and will not be tried by cruel shocks?
+And even if those you love had been destined to be always happy, could
+their happiness be complete without you?  And would not your death, with
+which they would perhaps have reproached themselves, have left behind it
+endless regrets?"
+
+"It is true, lady," answered the other, "I was wrong--the dizziness of
+despair had seized me--frightful misery weighed upon us--we had not been
+able to find work for some days--we lived on the charity of a poor woman,
+and her the cholera carried off.  To-morrow or next day, we must have
+died of hunger."
+
+"Die of hunger!--and you knew where I lived!"
+
+"I had written to you, lady, and receiving no answer, I thought you
+offended at my abrupt departure."
+
+"Poor, dear child! you must have been, as you say, seized with dizziness
+in that terrible moment; so that I have not the courage to reproach you
+for doubting me a single instant.  How can I blame you?  Did I not myself
+think of terminating my life?"
+
+"You, lady!" cried the hunchback.
+
+"Yes, I thought of it--when they came to tell me, that Florine, dying,
+wished to speak to me.  I heard what she had to say; her revelations
+changed my projects.  This dark and mournful life which had become
+insupportable to me, was suddenly lighted up.  The sense of duty woke
+within me.  You were no doubt a prey to horrible misery; it was my duty
+to seek and save you.  Florine's confessions unveiled to me the new plots
+of the enemies of my scattered family, dispersed by sorrows and cruel
+losses; it was my duty to warn them of their danger, and to unite them
+against the common enemy.  I had been the victim of odious manoeuvres: it
+was my duty to punish their authors, for fear that, encouraged by
+impunity, these black-gowns should make other victims.  Then the sense of
+duty gave me strength, and I was able to rouse myself from my lethargy.
+With the help of Abbe Gabriel, a sublime, oh! a sublime priest--the ideal
+of a true Christian--the worthy brother of Agricola--I courageously
+entered on the struggle.  What shall I say to you, my child?  The
+performance of these duties, the hope of finding you again, have been
+some relief to me in my trouble.  If I was not consoled, I was at least
+occupied.  Your tender friendship, the example of your resignation, will
+do the rest--I think so--I am sure so--and I shall forget this fatal
+love."
+
+At the moment Adrienne pronounced these words, rapid footsteps were heard
+upon the stairs, and a young, clear voice exclaimed: "Oh! dear me, poor
+Mother Bunch! How lucky I have come just now! If only I could be of some
+use to her!"
+
+Almost immediately, Rose-Pompon entered the garret with precipitation.
+Agricola soon followed the grisette, and pointing to the open window,
+tried to make Adrienne understand by signs, that she was not to mention
+to the girl the deplorable end of the Bacchanal Queen.  This pantomime
+was lost on Mdlle. de Cardoville.  Adrienne's heart swelled with grief,
+indignation, pride, as she recognized the girl she had seen at the Porte-
+Saint-Martin in company with Djalma, and who alone was the cause of the
+dreadful sufferings she endured since that fatal evening.  And, strange
+irony of fate! it was at the very moment when Adrienne had just made the
+humiliating and cruel confession of her despised love, that the woman, to
+whom she believed herself sacrificed, appeared before her.
+
+If the surprise of Mdlle. de Cardoville was great, Rose-Pompon's was not
+less so.  Not only did she recognize in Adrienne the fair young lady with
+the golden locks, who had sat opposite to her at the theatre, on the
+night of the adventure of the black panther, but she had serious reasons
+for desiring most ardently this unexpected interview.  It is impossible
+to paint the look of malignant joy and triumph, that she affected to cast
+upon Adrienne.  The first impulse of Mdlle. de Cardoville was to quit the
+room.  But she could not bear to leave Mother Bunch at this moment, or to
+give, in the presence of Agricola, her reasons for such an abrupt
+departure, and moreover, an inexplicable and fatal curiosity held her
+back, in spite of her offended pride.  She remained, therefore, and was
+about to examine closely, to hear and to judge, this rival, who had
+nearly occasioned her death, to whom, in her jealous agony, she had
+ascribed so many different aspects, in order to explain Djalma's love for
+such a creature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE RIVALS.
+
+Rose-Pompon, whose presence caused such deep emotion in Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, was dressed in the most showy and extravagant bad taste.  Her
+very small, narrow, rose-colored satin bonnet, placed so forward over her
+face as almost to touch the tip of her little nose, left uncovered behind
+half of her light, silky hair; her plaid dress, of an excessively broad
+pattern, was open in front, and the almost transparent gauze, rather too
+honest in its revelations, hardly covered the charms of the form beneath.
+
+The grisette having run all the way upstairs, held in her hands the ends
+of her large blue shawl, which, falling from her shoulders, had slid down
+to her wasp-like waist, and there been stopped by the swell of the
+figure.  If we enter into these details, it is to explain how, at the
+sight of this pretty creature, dressed in so impertinent and almost
+indecent, a fashion, Mdlle. de Cardoville, who thought she saw in her a
+successful rival, felt her indignation, grief, and shame redoubled.
+
+But judge of the surprise and confusion of Adrienne, when Mdlle. Rose-
+Pompon said to her, with the utmost freedom and pertness, "I am delighted
+to see you, madame.  You and I must have a long talk together.  Only I
+must begin by kissing poor Mother Bunch--with your permission, madame!"
+
+To understand the tone and manner with which this word ,"madame" was
+pronounced, you must have been present at some stormy discussion between
+two Rose-Pompons, jealous of each other; then you would be able to judge
+how much provoking hostility may be compressed into the word "madame,"
+under certain circumstances.  Amazed at the impudence of Rose-Pompon,
+Mdlle. de Cardoville remained mute; whilst Agricola, entirely occupied
+with the interest he took in the workgirl, who had never withdrawn her
+eyes from him since he entered the room, and with the remembrance of the
+painful scene he had just quitted, whispered to Adrienne, without
+remarking the grisette's effrontery, "Alas, lady! it is all over.
+Cephyse has just breathed her last sigh, without recovering her senses."
+
+"Unfortunate girl!" said Adrienne, with emotion; and for the moment she
+forgot Rose-Pompon.
+
+"We must keep this sad news from Mother Bunch, and only let her know it
+hereafter, with great caution," resumed Agricola. "Luckily, little Rose-
+Pompon knows nothing about it.'
+
+And he pointed to the grisette, who was now stooping down by the side of
+the workgirl.  On hearing Agricola speak so familiarly of Rose-Pompon,
+Adrienne's amazement increased.  It is impossible to describe what she
+felt; yet, strangely enough, her sufferings grew less and less, and her
+anxiety diminished, as she listened to the chatter of the grisette.
+
+"Oh, my good dear!" said the latter, with as much volubility as emotion,
+while her pretty blue eyes were filled with tears; "is it possible that
+you did so stupid a thing?  Do not poor people help one another?  Could
+you not apply to me?  You knew that others are welcome to whatever is
+mine, and I would have made a raffle of Philemon's bazaar," added this
+singular girl, with a burst of feeling, at once sincere, touching, and
+grotesque; "I would have sold his three boots, pipes, boating-costume,
+bed, and even his great drinking-glass, and at all events you should not
+have been brought to such an ugly pass.  Philemon would not have minded,
+for he is a good fellow; and if he had minded, it would have been all the
+same.  Thank heaven! we are not married.  I am only wishing to remind you
+that you should have thought of little Rose-Pompon."
+
+"I know you are obliging and kind, miss," said Mother Bunch: for she had
+heard from her sister that Rose-Pompon, like so many of her class, had a
+warm and generous heart.
+
+"After all," resumed the grisette, wiping with the back of her hand the
+tip of her little nose, down which a tear was trickling, "you may tell me
+that you did not know where I had taken up my quarters.  It's a queer
+story, I can tell you.  When I say queer," added Rose-Pompon, with a deep
+sigh, "it is quite the contrary--but no matter: I need not trouble you
+with that.  One thing is certain; you are getting better--and you and
+Cephyse will not do such a thing again.  She is said to be very weak.
+Can I not see her yet, M. Agricola?
+
+"No," said the smith, with embarrassment, for Mother Bunch kept her eyes
+fixed upon him; "you must have patience."
+
+"But I may see her to-day, Agricola?" exclaimed the hunchback.
+
+"We will talk about that.  Only be calm, I entreat."
+
+"Agricola is right; you must be reasonable, my good dear," resumed Rose-
+Pompon; "we will wait patiently.  I can wait too, for I have to talk
+presently to this lady;" and Rose-Pompon glanced at Adrienne with the
+expression of an angry cat.  "Yes, yes; I can wait; for I long to tell
+Cephyse also that she may reckon upon me."  Here Rose-Pompon bridled up
+very prettily, and thus continued, "Do not be uneasy! It is the least one
+can do, when one is in a good position, to share the advantages with
+one's friends, who are not so well off.  It would be a fine thing to keep
+one's happiness to one's self! to stuff it with straw, and put it under a
+glass, and let no one touch it!  When I talk of happiness, it's only to
+make talk; it is true in one sense; but to another, you see, my good
+dear--Bah! I am only seventeen--but no matter--I might go on talking till
+tomorrow, and you would not be any the wiser.  So let me kiss you once
+more, and don't be down-hearted--nor Cephyse either, do you hear?  for I
+shall be close at hand."
+
+And, stooping still lower, Rose-Pompon cordially embraced Mother Bunch.
+It is impossible to express what Mdlle. de Cardoville felt during this
+conversation, or rather during this monologue of the grisette on the
+subject of the attempted suicide.  The eccentric jargon of Mdlle. Rose-
+Pompon, her liberal facility in disposing of Philemon's bazaar, to the
+owner of which (as she said) she was luckily not married--the goodness of
+her heart, which revealed itself in her offers of service--her contrasts,
+her impertinence, her drollery--all this was so new and inexplicable to
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, that she remained for some time mute and motionless
+with surprise.  Such, then, was the creature to whom Djalma had
+sacrificed her!
+
+If Adrienne's first impression at sight of Rose-Pompon had been horribly
+painful, reflection soon awakened doubts, which were to become shortly
+ineffable hopes.  Remembering the interview she had overheard between
+Rodin and Djalma, when, concealed in the conservatory, she had wished to
+prove the Jesuit's fidelity, Adrienne, asked herself if it was
+reasonable, if it was possible to believe, that the prince, whose ideas
+of love seemed to be so poetical, so elevated, so pure, could find any
+charm in the disjointed and silly chat of this young girl?  Adrienne
+could not hesitate; she pronounced the thing impossible, from the moment
+she had seen her rival near, and witnessed her style both of manners and
+conversation, which, without detracting from the prettiness of her
+features, gave them a trivial and not very attractive character.
+Adrienne's doubts with regard to the deep love of the prince for Rose-
+Pompon were hence soon changed to complete incredulity.  Endowed with too
+much sense and penetration, not to perceive that this apparent
+connection, so inconceivable on the part of Djalma, must conceal some
+mystery, Mdlle. de Cardoville felt her hopes revive.  As this consoling
+thought arose in her mind, her heart, until now so painfully oppressed,
+began once more to dilate; she felt vague aspirations towards a better
+future; and yet, cruelly warned by the past, she feared to yield too
+readily to a mere illusion, for she remembered the notorious fact that
+the prince had really appeared in public with this girl.  But now that
+Mdlle. de Cardoville could fully appreciate what she was, she found the
+conduct of the prince only the more incomprehensible.  And how can we
+judge soundly and surely of that which is enveloped in mystery?  And then
+a secret presentiment told her, that it would, perhaps, be beside the
+couch of the poor sempstress, whom she had just saved from death, that,
+by a providential coincidence, she would learn the secret on which
+depended the happiness of her life.
+
+The emotions which agitated she heart of Adrienne, became so violent,
+that her fine face was flushed with a bright red, her bosom heaved, and
+her large, black eyes, lately dimmed by sadness, once more shone with a
+mild radiance.  She waited with inexpressible impatience for what was to
+follow.  In the interview, with which Rose-Pompon had threatened her, and
+which a few minutes before Adrienne would have declined with all the
+dignity of legitimate indignation, she now hoped to find the explanation
+of a mystery, which it was of such importance for her to clear up.  After
+once more tenderly embracing Mother Bunch, Rose-Pompon got up from the
+ground, and, turning towards Adrienne, eyed her from head to foot, with
+the utmost coolness, and said to her, in a somewhat impertinent tone: "It
+is now our turn, madame"--the word "madame" still pronounced with the
+accent before described--"we have a little matter to settle together."
+
+"I am at your order," answered Adrienne, with much mildness and
+simplicity.
+
+At sight of the triumphant and decisive air of Rose-Pompon, and on
+hearing her challenge to Mdlle. de Cardoville, the worthy Agricola, after
+exchanging a few words with Mother Bunch, opened his eyes and ears very
+wide, and remained staring in amazement at the effrontery of the
+grisette; then, advancing towards her, he whispered, as he plucked her by
+the sleeve: "I say, are you mad?  Do you know to whom you speak?"
+
+"Well! what then?  Is not one pretty woman worth another!  I say that for
+the lady.  She will not eat me, I suppose," replied Rose-Pompon, aloud,
+and with an air of defiance.  "I have to talk with madame, here.  I am
+sure, she knows why and wherefore.  If not, I will tell her; it will not
+take me long."
+
+Adrienne, who feared some ridiculous exposure on the subject of Djalma,
+in the presence of Agricola, made a sign to the latter, and thus answered
+the grisette: "I am ready to hear you, miss, but not in this place.  You
+will understand why."
+
+"Very well, madame, I have my key.  You can come to any apartments"--the
+last word pronounced with an air of ostentatious importance.
+
+"Let us go then to your apartments, miss since you to me the honor to
+receive me there," answered Mdlle. de Cardoville, in her mild, sweet
+voice, and with a slight inclination of the head, so full of exquisite
+politeness, that Rose-Pompon was daunted, notwithstanding all her
+effrontery.
+
+"What, lady!" said Agricola to Adrienne; "you are good enough--"
+
+"M. Agricola," said Mdlle. de Cardoville, interrupting him, "please to
+remain with our poor friend: I shall soon be back."
+
+Then, approaching Mother Bunch, who shared in Agricola's astonishment she
+said to her: "Excuse me for leaving you a few seconds.  Only regain a
+little strength, and, when I return, I will take you home with me, dear
+sister."
+
+Then, turning towards Rose-Pompon, who was more and more surprised at
+hearing so fine a lady call the workgirl her sister, she added: "I am
+ready whenever you please, mademoiselle."
+
+"Beg pardon, madame, if I go first to show you the way, but it's a
+regular break-neck sort of a place," answered Rose-Pompon, pressing her
+elbows to her sides, and screwing up her lips to prove that she was no
+stranger to polite manners and fine language.  And the two rivals quitted
+the garret together, leaving Agricola alone with Mother Bunch.
+
+Luckily, the disfigured remains of the Bacchanal Queen had been carried
+into Mother Arsene's subterraneous shop, so that the crowd of spectators,
+always attracted by any fatal event, had assembled in front of the house;
+and Rose-Pompon, meeting no one in the little court she had to traverse
+with Adrienne, continued in ignorance of the tragical death of her old
+friend Cephyse.  In a few moments the grisette and Mdlle. de Cardoville
+had reached Philemon's apartment.  This singular abode remained in the
+same state of picturesque disorder in which Rose-Pompon had left it, when
+Ninny Moulin came to fetch her to act the heroine of a mysterious
+adventure.
+
+Adrienne, completely ignorant of the eccentric modes of life of students
+and their companions, could not, in spite of the thoughts which occupied
+her mind, forebear examining, with a mixture of surprise and curiosity,
+this strange and grotesque chaos, composed of the most dissimilar
+objects--disguises for masked balls, skulls with pipes in their mouths,
+odd boots standing on book shelves, monstrous bottles, women's clothes,
+ends of tobacco pipes, etc., etc.  To the first astonishment of Adrienne
+succeeded an impression of painful repugnance.  The young lady felt
+herself uneasy and out of place in this abode, not of poverty, but
+disorder; whilst, on the contrary, the sewing-girl's miserable garret had
+caused her no such feeling.
+
+Rose-Pompon, notwithstanding all her airs, was considerably troubled when
+she found herself alone with Mdlle, de Cardoville; the rare beauty of the
+young patrician, her fashionable look, the elegance of her manners, the
+style, both dignified and affable, with which she had answered the
+impertinent address of the grisette, began to have their effect upon the
+latter, who, being moreover a good-natured girl, had been touched at
+hearing Mdlle. de Cardoville call the hunchback "friend and sister."
+Without knowing exactly who Adrienne was, Rose-Pompon was not ignorant
+that she belonged to the richest and highest class of society; she felt
+already some remorse at having attacked her so cavalierly; and her
+intentions, at first very hostile with regard to Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+were gradually much modified.  Yet, being very obstinate, and not wishing
+to appear to submit to an influence that offended her pride, Rose-Pompon
+endeavored to recover her assurance; and, having bolted the door, she
+said to Adrienne: "Pray do me the favor to sit down, madame"--still with
+the intention of showing that she was no stranger to refined manners and
+conversation.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville was about mechanically to take a chair, when Rose-
+Pompon, worthy to practise those ancient virtues of hospitality, which
+regarded even an enemy as sacred in the person of a guest, cried out
+hastily: "Don't take that chair, madame; it wants a leg."
+
+Adrienne laid her hand on another chair.
+
+"Nor that either; the back is quite loose," again exclaimed Rose-Pompon.
+And she spoke the truth; for the chair-back, which was made in the form
+of a lyre, remained in the hands of Mdlle. de Cardoville, who said, as
+she replaced it discreetly in its former position: "I think, miss, that
+we can very well talk standing."
+
+"As you please, madame," replied Rose-Pompon, steadying herself the more
+bravely the more uneasy she felt.  And the interview of the lady and the
+grisette began in this fashion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE INTERVIEW.
+
+After a minute's hesitation, Rose-Pompon said to Adrienne, whose heart
+was beating violently: "I will tell you directly, madame, what I have on
+my mind.  I should not have gone out of my way to seek you, but, as I
+happen to fall in with you, it is very natural I should take advantage of
+it."
+
+"But, miss," said Adrienne, mildly, "may I at least know the subject of
+the conversation we are to have together?"
+
+"Yes, madame," replied Rose-Pompon, affecting an air of still more
+decided confidence; "first of all, you must not suppose I am unhappy, or
+going to make a scene of jealousy, or cry like a forsaken damsel.  Do not
+flatter yourself!  Thank heaven, I have no reason to complain of Prince
+Charming--that is the pet name I gave him--on the contrary, he has made
+me very happy.  If I left him, it was against his will, and because I
+chose."
+
+So saying, Rose-Pompon, whose heart was swelling in spite of her fine
+airs, could not repress a sigh.
+
+"Yes, madame," she resumed, "I left him because I chose--for he quite
+doted on me.  If I had liked, he would have married me--yes, madame,
+married me--so much the worse, if that gives you pain.  Though, when I
+say `so much the worse,' it is true that I meant to pain you.  To be sure
+I did--but then, just now when I saw you so kind to poor Mother Bunch,
+though I was certainly in the right, still I felt something.  However, to
+cut matters short, it is clear that I detest you, and that you deserve
+it," added Rose-Pompon, stamping her foot.
+
+From all this it resulted, even for a person much less sagacious than
+Adrienne, and much less interested in discovering the truth, that Rose-
+Pompon, notwithstanding her triumphant airs in speaking of him whom she
+represented as so much attached to her, and even anxious to wed her, was
+in reality completely disappointed, and was now taking refuge in a
+deliberate falsehood.  It was evident that she was not loved, and that
+nothing but violent jealousy had induced her to desire this interview
+with Mdlle. de Cardoville, in order to make what is vulgarly called a
+scene, considering Adrienne (the reason will be explained presently) as
+her successful rival.  But Rose-Pompon, having recovered her good-nature,
+found it very difficult to continue the scene in question, particularly
+as, for many reasons, she felt overawed by Adrienne.
+
+Though she had expected, if not the singular speech of the grisette, at
+least something of the same result--for she felt it was impossible that
+the prince could entertain a serious attachment for this girl--Mdlle. de
+Cardoville was at first delighted to hear the confirmation of her hopes
+from the lips of her rival; but suddenly these hopes were succeeded by a
+cruel apprehension, which we will endeavor to explain.  What Adrienne had
+just heard ought to have satisfied her completely.  Sure that the heart
+of Djalma had never ceased to belong to her, she ought, according to the
+customs and opinions of the world, to have cared little if, in the
+effervescence of an ardent youth, he had chanced to yield to some
+ephemeral caprice for this creature, who was, after all, very pretty and
+desirable--the more especially as he had now repaired his error by
+separating from her.
+
+Notwithstanding these good reasons, such an error of the senses would not
+have been pardoned by Adrienne.  She did not understand that complete
+separation of the body and soul that would make the one exempt from the
+stains of the other.  She did not think it a matter of indifference to
+toy with one woman whilst you were thinking of another.  Her young,
+chaste, passionate love demanded an absolute fealty--a fealty as just in
+the eyes of heaven and nature as it may be ridiculous and foolish in the
+eyes of man.  For the very reason that she cherished a refined religion
+of the senses, and revered them as an adorable and divine manifestation,
+Adrienne had all sorts of delicate scruples and nice repugnances, unknown
+to the austere spirituality of those ascetic prudes who despise vile
+matter too much to take notice of its errors, and allow it to grovel in
+filth, to show the contempt in which they hold it.  Mdlle. de Cardoville
+was not one of those wonderfully modest creatures who would die of
+confusion rather than say plainly that they wished for a young and
+handsome husband, at once ardent and pure.  It is true that they
+generally marry old, ugly, and corrupted men, and make up for it by
+taking two or three lovers six months after.  But Adrienne felt
+instinctively how much of virginal and celestial freshness there is in
+the equal innocence of two loving and passionate beings--what guarantees
+for the future in the remembrance which a man preserves of his first
+love!
+
+We say, then, that Adrienne was only half-satisfied, though convinced by
+the vexation of Rose-Pompon that Djalma had never entertained a serious
+attachment for the grisette.
+
+"And why do you detest me, miss?" said Adrienne mildly, when Rose-Pompon
+had finished her speech.
+
+"Oh! bless me, madame!" replied the latter, forgetting altogether her
+assumption of triumph, and yielding to the natural sincerity of her
+character; "pretend that you don't know why I detest you!--Oh, yes!
+people go and pick bouquets from the jaws of a panther for people that
+they care nothing about, don't they?  And if it was only that!" added
+Rose-Pompon, who was gradually getting animated, and whose pretty face,
+at first contracted into a sullen pout, now assumed an expression of real
+and yet half-comic sorrow.
+
+"And if it was only the nosegay!" resumed she.  "Though it gave me a
+dreadful turn to see Prince Charming leap like a kid upon the stage, I
+might have said to myself: `Pooh! these Indians have their own way of
+showing politeness.  Here, a lady drops her nosegay, and a gentleman
+picks it up and gives it to her; but in India it is quite another thing;
+the man picks up the nosegay, and does not return it to the woman--he
+only kills a panther before her eyes.'  Those are good manners in that
+country, I suppose; but what cannot be good manners anywhere is to treat
+a woman as I have been treated.  And all thanks to you, madame!"
+
+These complaints of Rose-Pompon, at once bitter and laughable, did not at
+all agree with what she had previously stated as to Djalma's passionate
+love for her; but Adrienne took care not to point out this contradiction,
+and said to her, mildly: "You must be mistaken, miss, when you suppose
+that I had anything to do with your troubles.  But, in any case, I regret
+sincerely that you should have been ill-treated by any one."
+
+"If you think I have been beaten, you are quite wrong," exclaimed Rose-
+Pompon.  "Ah! well, I am sure!  No, it is not that.  But I am certain
+that, had it not been for you, Prince Charming would have got to love me
+a little.  I am worthy of the trouble, after all--and then there are
+different sorts of love--I am not so very particular--not even so much as
+that," added Rose-Pompon, snapping her fingers.
+
+"Ah!" she continued, "when Ninny Moulin came to fetch me, and brought me
+jewels and laces to persuade me to go with him, he was quite right in
+saying there was no harm in his offers."
+
+"Ninny Moulin?" asked Mdlle. de Cardoville, becoming more and more
+interested; "who is this Ninny Moulin, miss?"
+
+"A religious writer," answered Rose-Pompon, pouting; "the right-hand man
+of a lot of old sacristans, whose money he takes on pretense of writing
+about morality and religion.  A fine morality it is!"
+
+At these words--"a religious writer"--"sacristans" Adrienne instantly
+divined some new plot of Rodin or Father d'Aigrigny, of which she and
+Djalma were to have been the victims.  She began vaguely to perceive the
+real state of the case, as she resumed: "But, miss, under what pretence
+could this man take you away with him?"
+
+"He came to fetch me, and said I need not fear for my virtue, and was
+only to make myself look pretty.  So I said to myself: 'Philemon's out of
+town, and it's very dull here all alone: This seems a droll affair; what
+can I risk by it?'--Alas! I didn't know what I risked," added Rose-
+Pompon, with a sigh.  "Well! Ninny Moulin takes me away in a fine
+carriage.  We stop in the Place du Palais-Royal.  A sullen-looking man,
+with a yellow face, gets up in the room of Ninny Moulin, and takes me to
+the house of Prince Charming.  When I saw him--la! he was so handsome, so
+very handsome, that I was quite dizzy-like; and he had such a kind, noble
+air, that I said to myself, 'Well! there will be some credit if I remain
+a good girl now!'--I did not know what a true word I was speaking.  I
+have been good--oh! worse than good."
+
+"What, miss! do you regret having been so virtuous?"
+
+"Why, you see, I regret, at least, that I have not had the pleasure of
+refusing.  But how can you refuse, when nothing is asked--when you are
+not even thought worth one little loving word?"
+
+"But, miss, allow me to observe to you that the indifference of which you
+complain does not see to have prevented your making a long stay in the
+house in question."
+
+"How should I know why the prince kept me there, or took me out riding
+with him, or to the play?  Perhaps it is the fashion in his savage
+country to have a pretty girl by your side, and to pay no attention to
+her at all!"
+
+"But why, then, did you remain, miss?"
+
+"Why did I remain?" said Rose-Pompon, stamping her loot with vexation.
+"I remained because, without knowing how it happened, I began to get very
+fond of Prince Charming; and what is queer enough, I, who am as gay as a
+lark, loved him because he was so sorrowful, which shows that it was a
+serious matter.  At last, one day, I could hold out no longer.  I said:
+`Never mind; I don't care for the consequences.  Philemon, I am sure, is
+having his fun in the country.'  That set my mind at ease.  So one
+morning, I dress myself in my best, all very pretty, look in my glass,
+and say: "Well, that will do--he can't stand that,!' and, going to his
+room, I tell him all that passes through my head; I laugh, I cry--at last
+I tell him that I adore him.  What do you think he answers, in his mild
+voice, and as cold as a piece of marble?  Why, `Poor child--poor child--
+poor child!'" added Rose-Pompon, with indignation; "neither more nor less
+than if I had come to complain to him of the toothache.  But the worst of
+it is that I am sure, if he were not in love elsewhere, he would be all
+fire and gunpowder.  Only now he is so sad, so dejected!"
+
+Then, pausing a moment, Rose-Pompon added: "No, I will not tell you that;
+you would be too pleased." But, after another pause, she continued:
+"Well, never mind; I will tell you, though"; and this singular girl
+looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with a mixture of sympathy and deference.
+"Why should I keep it from you?  I began by riding the high horse, and
+saying that the prince wished to marry me; and I finished by confessing
+that he almost turned me out.  Well, it's not my fault; when I try to
+fib, I am sure to get confused.  So, madame, this is the plain truth:--
+When I met you at poor Mother Bunch's, I was at first as angry as a
+little turkey-cock; but when I heard you, that are such a fine great
+lady, speak so kindly to the poor girl, and treat her as your sister, do
+what I would, my anger began to go away.  Since we have been here, I have
+done my utmost to get it up again; but I find it impossible, and the more
+I see the difference between us, the more I perceive that Prince Charming
+was right in thinking so much of you.  For you must know, madame, that he
+is over head and ears in love with you.  I don't say so merely because he
+killed the panther for you at the Porte-Saint-Martin; but if you knew all
+the tricks he played with your bouquet, and how he will sit up all night
+weeping in that room where he saw you for the first time--and then your
+portrait, that he has drawn upon glass, after the fashion of his country,
+and so many other things--the fact is, that I, who was fond of him, and
+saw all this was at first in a great rage; but afterwards it was so
+touching that it brought the tears into my eyes.  Yes, madame, just as it
+does now, when I merely think of the poor prince.  Oh, madame!" added
+Rose-Pompon, her eyes swimming in tears, and with such an expression of
+sincere interest, that Adrienne was much moved by it; "oh, madame, you
+look so mild and good, that you will not make this poor prince miserable.
+Pray love him a little bit; what can it matter to you?"
+
+So saying, Rose-Pompon, with a perfectly simple, though too familiar,
+gesture, took hold of Adrienne's hand, as if to enforce her request.  It
+had required great self-command in Mdlle. de Cardoville to repress the
+rush of joy that was mounting from her heart to her lips, to check the
+torrent of questions which she burned to address to Rose-Pompon, and to
+restrain the sweet tears of happiness that for some seconds had trembled
+in her eyes; and, strangely enough, when Rose-Pompon took her hand,
+Adrienne, instead of withdrawing it, pressed the offered hand almost
+affectionately, and led her towards the window, as if to examine her
+sweet face more attentively.
+
+On entering the room, the grisette had thrown her bonnet and shawl down
+upon the bed, so that Adrienne could admire the thick and silky masses of
+light hair that crowned the fresh face of the charming girl, with its
+firm, rosy cheeks, its mouth as red as a cherry, and its large blue
+laughing eyes; and, thanks to the somewhat scanty dress of Rose-Pompon,
+Adrienne could fully appreciate the various graces of her nymph-like
+figure.  Strange as it may appear, Adrienne was delighted at finding the
+girl still prettier than she had at first imagined.  The stoical
+indifference of Djalma to so attractive a creature was the best proof of
+the sincerity of the passion by which he was actuated.
+
+Having taken the hand of Adrienne, Rose-Pompon was herself confused and
+surprised at the kindness with which Mdlle. de Cardoville permitted this
+familiarity.  Emboldened by this indulgence, and by the silence of
+Adrienne, who for some moments had been contemplating her with almost
+grateful benevolence, the grisette resumed: "Oh, you will not refuse,
+madame?  You will take pity on this poor prince?"
+
+We cannot tell how Adrienne would have answered this indiscreet question
+of Rose-Pompon, for suddenly a loud, wild, shrill, piercing sound,
+evidently intended to imitate the crowing of a cock, was heard close to
+the door of the room.
+
+Adrienne started in alarm; but the countenance of Rose Pompon, just now
+so sad, brightened up joyously at this signal, and, clapping her hands
+she exclaimed, "It is Philemon!"
+
+"What--who?" said Adrienne, hastily.
+
+"My lover; oh, the monster! he must have come upstairs on tiptoe, to take
+me by surprise with his crowing.  Just like him!"
+
+A second cock-a-doodle-doo, still louder than the first, was heard close
+to the door.  "What a stupid, droll creature it is!  Always the same
+joke, and yet it always amuses me," said Rose-Pompon.
+
+And drying her tears with the back of her hand, she began to laugh like
+one bewitched at Philemon's jest, which, though well known to her, always
+seemed new and agreeable.
+
+"Do not open the door," whispered Adrienne, much embarrassed; "do not
+answer, I beg of you."
+
+"Though the door is bolted, the key is on the outside; Philemon can see
+that there is some one at home."
+
+"No matter--do not let him in."
+
+"But, madame, he lives here; the room belongs to him."
+
+In fact, Philemon, probably growing tired of the little effect produced
+by his two ornithological imitations, turned the key in the lock, and
+finding himself unable to open the door, said in a deep bass voice:
+"What, dearest puss, have you shut yourself in?  Are you praying Saint-
+Flambard for the return of Philly?" (short for Philemon.)
+
+Adrienne, not coshing to increase, by prolonging it, the awkwardness of
+this ridiculous situation, went straight to the door and opened it, to
+the great surprise of Philemon, who recoiled two or three steps.
+Notwithstanding the annoyance of this incident, Mdlle. de Cardoville
+could not help smiling at sight of Rose-Pompon's lover, and of the
+articles he carried in his hand or under his arm.
+
+Philemon was a tall fellow, with dark hair and a very fresh color, and,
+being just arrived from a journey, he wore a white cap; his thick, black
+beard flowed down on his sky-blue waistcoat; and a short olive-colored
+velvet shooting-coat, with extravagantly large plaid trousers, completed
+his costume.  As for the accessories which had provoked a smile from
+Adrienne, they consisted: first, of a portmanteau tucked under his arm,
+with the head and neck of a goose protruding from it; secondly, of a cage
+held in his hand, with an enormous white rabbit all alive within it.
+
+"Oh! the darling white rabbit! what pretty red eyes!"  Such, it must be
+confessed, was the first exclamation of Rose-Pompon, though Philemon, to
+whom it was not addressed, had returned after a long absence; but the
+student far from being shocked at seeing himself thus sacrificed to his
+long-earned companion, smiled complacently, rejoicing at the success of
+his attempt to please his mistress.
+
+All this passed very rapidly.  While Rose-Pompon, kneeling before the
+cage, was still occupied with her admiration of the rabbit, Philemon,
+struck with the lofty air of Mdlle. de Cardoville, raised his hand to his
+cap, and bowed respectfully as he made way for her to pass.  Adrienne
+returned his salutation with politeness, full of grace and dignity, and,
+lightly descending the stairs, soon disappeared.  Dazzled by her beauty,
+as well as impressed with her noble and lofty bearing, and curious to
+know how in the world Rose-Pompon had fallen in with such an
+acquaintance, Philemon said to her, in his amorous jargon: "Dearest puss!
+tell her Philly who is that fine lady?"
+
+"One of my school-fellows, you great satyr!" said Rose-Pompon, still
+playing with the rabbit.
+
+Then, glancing at a box, which Philemon deposited close to the cage and
+the portmanteau, she added: "I'll wager anything you have brought me some
+more preserves!"
+
+"Philly has brought something better to his dear puss," said the student,
+imprinting two vigorous kisses on the rosy cheeks of Rose-Pompon, who had
+at length, consented to stand up; "Philly has brought her his heart."
+
+"Fudge!" said the grisette, delicately placing the thumb of her left hand
+on the tip of her nose, and opening the fingers, which she slightly moved
+to and fro.  Philemon answered this provocation by putting his arm around
+her waist; and then the happy pair shut their door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+SOOTHING WORDS.
+
+During the interview of Adrienne with Rose-Pompon a touching scene took
+place between Agricola and Mother Bunch, who had been much surprised at
+Mdlle. de Cardoville's condescension with regard to the grisette.
+Immediately after the departure of Adrienne, Agricola had knelt down
+beside Mother Bunch, and said to her, with profound emotion: "We are
+alone, and I can at length tell you what weighs upon my heart.  This act
+is too cruel--to die of misery and despair, and not to send to me for
+assistance."
+
+"Listen to me, Agricola--"
+
+"No, there is no excuse for this.  What! we called each other by the
+names of brother and sister, and for fifteen years gave every proof of
+sincere affection--and, when the day of misfortune comes, you quit life
+without caring for those you must leave behind--without considering that
+to kill yourself is to tell them they are indifferent to you!"
+
+"Forgive me, Agricola! it is true.  I had never thought of that," said
+the workgirl, casting down her eyes; "but poverty--want of work--"
+
+"Misery! want of work! and was I not here?"
+
+"And despair!"
+
+"But why despair?  This generous young lady had received you in her
+house; she knew your worth, and treated you as her friend--and just at
+the moment when you had every chance of happiness, you leave the house
+abruptly, and we remain in the most horrible anxiety on your account."
+
+"I feared--to be--to be a burden to my benefactress," stammered she.
+
+"You a burden to Mdlle. de Cardoville, that is so rich and good!"
+
+"I feared to be indiscreet," said the sewing-girl, more and more
+embarrassed.
+
+Instead of answering his adopted sister, Agricola remained silent, and
+contemplated her for some moments with an undefinable expression; then he
+exclaimed suddenly, as if replying to a question put by himself: "She
+will forgive me for disobeying her.--I am sure of it."
+
+He next turned towards Mother Bunch, who was looking at him in
+astonishment, and said to her in a voice of emotion: "I am too frank to
+keep up this deception.  I am reproaching you--blaming you--and my
+thoughts are quite different."
+
+"How so, Agricola?"
+
+"My heart aches, when I think of the evil I have done you."
+
+"I do not understand you, my friend; you have never done me any evil."
+
+"What! never? even in little things? when, for instance, yielding to a
+detestable habit, I, who loved and respected you as my sister, insulted
+you a hundred times a day?"
+
+"Insulted me!"
+
+"Yes--when I gave you an odious and ridiculous nickname, instead of
+calling you properly."
+
+At these words, Mother Bunch looked at the smith in the utmost alarm,
+trembling lest he had discovered her painful secret, notwithstanding the
+assurance she had received from Mdlle. de Cardoville.  Yet she calmed
+herself a little when she reflected, that Agricola might of himself have
+thought of the humiliation inflicted on her by calling her Mother Bunch,
+and she answered him with a forced smile.  "Can you be grieved at so
+small a thing?  It was a habit, Agricola, from childhood.  When did your
+good and affectionate mother, who nevertheless loved me as her daughter,
+ever call me anything else?"
+
+"And did my mother consult you about my marriage, speak to you of the
+rare beauty of my bride, beg you to come and see her, and study her
+character, in the hope that the instinct of your affection for me would
+warn you--if I made a bad choice?  Did my mother have this cruelty?--No;
+it was I, who thus pierced your heart!"
+
+The fears of the hearer were again aroused; there could be but little
+doubt that Agricola knew her secret.  She felt herself sinking with
+confusion; yet, making a last effort not to believe the discovery, she
+murmured in a feeble voice: "True, Agricola!  It was not your mother, but
+yourself, who made me that request--and I was grateful to you for such a
+mark of confidence."
+
+"Grateful, my poor girl!" cried the smith, whilst his eyes filled with
+tears; "no, it is not true.  I pained you fearfully--I was merciless--
+heaven knows, without being aware of it!"
+
+"But," said the other, in a voice now almost unintelligible, "what makes
+you think so?"
+
+"Your love for me!" cried the smith, trembling with emotion, as he
+clasped Mother Bunch in a brotherly embrace.
+
+"Oh heaven!" murmured the unfortunate creature, as she covered her face
+with her hands, "he knows all."
+
+"Yes, I know all," resumed Agricola, with an expression of ineffable
+tenderness and respect: "yes, I know all, and I will not have you blush
+for a sentiment, which honors me, and of which I feel so justly proud.
+Yes, I know all; and I say to myself with joy and pride, that the best,
+the most noble heart in the world is mine--will be mine always.  Come,
+Magdalen; let us leave shame to evil passions.  Raise your eyes, and look
+at me!  You know, if my countenance was ever false--if it ever reflected
+a feigned emotion.  Then look and tell me, if you cannot read in my
+features, how proud I am, Magdalen, how justly proud of your love!"
+
+Overwhelmed with grief and confusion, Mother Bunch had not dared to look
+on Agricola; but his words expressed so deep a conviction, the tones of
+his voice revealed so tender an emotion, that the poor creature felt her
+shame gradually diminish, particularly when Agricola added, with rising
+animation: "Be satisfied, my sweet, my noble Magdalen; I will be worthy
+of this love.  Believe me, it shall yet cause you as much happiness as it
+has occasioned tears.  Why should this love be a motive for estrangement,
+confusion, fear?  For what is love, in the sense in which it is held by
+your generous heart?  Is it not a continual exchange of devotion,
+tenderness, esteem, of mutual and blind confidence?--Why, Magdalen! we
+may have all this for one another--devotion, tenderness, confidence--even
+more than in times past; for, on a thousand occasions, your secret
+inspired you with fear and suspicion--while, for the future, on the
+contrary, you will see me take such delight in the place I fill in your
+good and valiant heart, that you will be happy in the happiness you
+bestow.  What I have just said may seem very selfish and conceited; so
+much the worse!  I do not know how to lie."
+
+The longer the smith spoke, the less troubled became Mother Bunch.  What
+she had above all feared in the discovery of her secret was to see it
+received with raillery, contempt, or humiliating compassion; far from
+this, joy and happiness were distinctly visible on the manly and honest
+face of Agricola.  The hunchback knew him incapable of deception;
+therefore she exclaimed, this time without shame or confusion, but rather
+with a sort of pride.
+
+"Every sincere and pure passion is so far good and con soling as to end
+by deserving interest and sympathy, when it has triumphed over its first
+excess! It is alike honorable to the heart which feels and that which
+inspires it!--Thanks to you, Agricola--thanks to the kind words, which
+have raised me in my own esteem--I feel that, instead of blushing, I
+ought to be proud of this love.  My benefactress is right--you are right:
+why should I be ashamed of it?  Is it not a true and sacred love?  To be
+near you, to love you, to tell you so, to prove it by constant devotion,
+what did I ever desire more?  And yet shame and fear, joined with that
+dizziness of the brain which extreme misery produces, drove me to
+suicide!--But then some allowance must be made for the suspicions of a
+poor creature, who has been the subject of ridicule from her cradle.  So
+my secret was to die with me, unless some unforeseen accident should
+reveal it to you; and, in that case, you are right--sure of myself, sure
+of you, I ought to have feared nothing.  But I may claim some indulgence;
+mistrust, cruel mistrust of one's self makes one doubt others also.  Let
+us forget all that.  Agricola, my generous brother, I will say to you, as
+you said to me just now, `Look at me; you know my countenance cannot lie.
+Look at me: see if I shun your gaze; see if, ever in my life, I looked so
+happy'--and yet, even now, I was about to die!"
+
+She spoke the truth.  Agricola himself could not have hoped so prompt an
+effect from his words.  In spite of the deep traces which misery, grief,
+and sickness had imprinted on the girl's features, they now shone with
+radiant happiness and serenity, whilst her blue eyes, gentle and pure as
+her soul, were fixed, without embarrassment, on those of Agricola.
+
+"Oh! thanks, thanks!" cried the smith, in a rapture of delight: "when I
+see you so calm, and so happy, Magdalen, I am indeed grateful."
+
+"Yes, I am calm, I am happy," replied she; "and happy I shall be, for I
+can now tell you my most secret thoughts.  Yes, happy; for this day,
+which began so fatally, ends like a divine dream.  Far from being afraid,
+I now look at you with hope and joy.  I have again found my generous
+benefactress, and I am tranquil as to the fate of my poor sister.  Oh!
+shall we not soon see her?  I should like her to take part in this
+happiness."
+
+She seemed so happy, that the smith did not dare to inform her of the
+death of Cephyse, and reserved himself to communicate the same at a more
+fitting opportunity.  Therefore he answered: "Cephyse, being the
+stronger, has been the more shaken; it will not be prudent, I am told, to
+see her to-day."
+
+"I will wait then.  I can repress my impatience, I have so much to say to
+you."
+
+"Dear, gentle Magdalen!"
+
+"Oh, my friend!" cried the girl, interrupting Agricola, with tears of
+joy: "I cannot tell you what I feel, when I hear you call me Magdalen.
+It is so sweet, so soothing, that my heart expands with delight."
+
+"Poor girl! how dreadfully she must have suffered!" cried the smith, with
+inexpressible emotion, "when she displays so much happiness, so much
+gratitude, at being called by her own poor name!"
+
+"But consider, my friend; that word in your mouth contains a new life for
+me.  If you only knew what hopes, what pleasures I can now see gleaming
+in the future!  If you knew all the cherished longings of my tenderness!
+Your wife, the charming Angela, with her angel face and angel-soul--oh!
+in my turn, I can say to, you, `Look at me, and see how sweet that name
+is to my lips and heart!'  Yes, your charming, your good Angela will call
+me Magdalen--and your children, Agricola, your children!--dear little
+creatures!--to them also I shall be Magdalen--their good Magdalen--and
+the love I shall bear them will make them mine, as well as their
+mother's--and I shall have my part in every maternal care--and they will
+belong to us three; will they not, Agricola?--Oh! let me, let me weep!
+These tears without bitterness do me so much good; they are tears that
+need not be concealed.  Thank heaven! thank you, my friend! those other
+tears are I trust dried forever."
+
+For some seconds, this affecting scene had been overlooked by an
+invisible witness.  The smith and Mother Bunch had not perceived Mdlle.
+de Cardoville standing on the threshold of the door.  As Mother Bunch had
+said, this day, which dawned with all under such fatal auspices, had
+become for all a day of ineffable felicity.  Adrienne, too, was full of
+joy, for Djalma had been faithful to her, Djalma loved her with passion.
+The odious appearances, of which she had been the dupe and victim,
+evidently formed part of a new plot of Rodin, and it only remained for
+Mdlle. de Cardoville to discover the end of these machinations.
+
+Another joy was reserved for her.  The happy are quick in detecting
+happiness in others, and Adrienne guessed, by the hunchback's last words,
+that there was no longer any secret between the smith and the sempstress.
+She could not therefore help exclaiming, as she entered: "Oh! this
+will be the brightest day of my life, for I shall not be happy alone!"
+
+Agricola and Mother Bunch turned round hastily.  "Lady," said the smith,
+"in spite of the promise I made you, I could not conceal from Magdalen
+that I knew she loved me!"
+
+"Now that I no longer blush for this love before Agricola, why should I
+blush for it before you, lady, that told me to be proud of it, because it
+is noble and pure?" said Mother Bunch, to whom her happiness gave
+strength enough to rise, and to lean upon Agricola's arm.
+
+"It is well, my friend," said Adrienne, as she threw her arms round her
+to support her; "only one word, to excuse the indiscretion with which you
+will perhaps reproach me.  If I told your secret to M. Agricola--"
+
+"Do you know why it was, Magdalen?" cried the smith, interrupting
+Adrienne.  "It was only another proof of the lady's delicate generosity.
+`I long hesitate to confide to you this secret,' said she to me this
+morning, `but I have at length made up my mind to it.  We shall probably
+find your adopted sister; you have been to her the best of brothers: but
+many times, without knowing it, you have wounded her feelings cruelly--
+and now that you know her secret, I trust in your kind heart to keep it
+faithfully, and so spare the poor child a thousand pangs--pangs the more
+bitter, because they come from you, and are suffered in silence.  Hence,
+when you speak to her of your wife, your domestic happiness, take care
+not to gall that noble and tender heart.'--Yes, Magdalen, these were the
+reasons that led the lady to commit what she called an indiscretion."
+
+"I want words to thank you now and ever," said Mother Bunch.
+
+"See, my friend," replied Adrienne, "how often the designs of the wicked
+turn against themselves.  They feared your devotion to me, and therefore
+employed that unhappy Florine to steal your journal--"
+
+"So as to drive me from your house with shame, lady, When I supposed my
+most secret thoughts an object of ridicule to all.  There can be no doubt
+such was their plan," said Mother Bunch.
+
+"None, my child.  Well! this horrible wickedness, which nearly caused
+your death, now turns to the confusion of the criminals.  Their plot is
+discovered--and, luckily, many other of their designs," said Adrienne, as
+she thought of Rose-Pompon.
+
+Then she resumed, with heartfelt joy: "At last, we are again united,
+happier than ever, and in our very happiness we shall find new resources
+to combat our enemies.  I say our enemies--for all that love me are
+odious to these wretches.  But courage, the hour is come, and the good
+people will have their turn."
+
+"Thank heaven, lady," said the smith; "or my part, I shall not be wanting
+in zeal.  What delight to strip them of their mask!"
+
+"Let me remind you, M. Baudoin, that you have an appointment for to-
+morrow with M. Hardy."
+
+"I have not forgotten it, lady, any more than the generous offers I am to
+convey to him."
+
+"That is nothing.  He belongs to my family.  Tell him (what indeed I
+shall write to him this evening), that the funds necessary to reopen his
+factory are at his disposal; I do not say so for his sake only, but for
+that of a hundred families reduced to want.  Beg him to quit immediately
+the fatal abode to which they have taken him: for a thousand reasons he
+should be on his guard against all that surround him."
+
+"Be satisfied, lady.  The letter he wrote to me in reply to the one I got
+secretly delivered to him, was short, affectionate, sad--but he grants me
+the interview I had asked for, and I am sure I shall be able to persuade
+him to leave that melancholy dwelling, and perhaps to depart with me, he
+has always had so much confidence in my attachment."
+
+"Well, M. Baudoin, courage!" said Adrienne, as she threw her cloak over
+the workgirl's shoulders, and wrapped her round with care.  "Let us be
+gone, for it is late.  As soon as we get home, I will give you a letter
+for M. Hardy, and to-morrow you will come and tell me the result of your
+visit.  No, not to-morrow," she added, blushing slightly.  "Write to me
+to-morrow, and the day after, about twelve, come to me."
+
+Some minutes later, the young sempstress, supported by Agricola and
+Adrienne, had descended the stairs of that gloomy house, and, being
+placed in the carriage by the side of Mdlle. de Cardoville, she earnestly
+entreated to be allowed to see Cephyse; it was in vain that Agricola
+assured her it was impossible, and that she should see her the next day.
+Thanks to the information derived from Rose-Pompon, Mdlle. de Cardoville
+was reasonably suspicious of all those who surrounded Djalma, and she
+therefore took measures, that, very evening, to have a letter delivered
+to the prince by what she considered a sure hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE TWO CARRIAGES.
+
+It is the evening of the day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville prevented the
+sewing-girl's suicide.  It strikes eleven; the night is dark; the wind
+blows with violence, and drives along great black clouds, which
+completely hide the pale lustre of the moon.  A hackney-coach, drawn by
+two broken-winded horses, ascends slowly and with difficulty the slope of
+the Rue Blanche, which is pretty steep near the barrier, in the part
+where is situated the house occupied by Djalma.
+
+The coach stops.  The coachman, cursing the length of an interminable
+drive "within the circuit," leading at last to this difficult ascent,
+turns round on his box, leans over towards the front window of the
+vehicle, and says in a gruff tone to the person he is driving: "Come! are
+we almost there?  From the Rue de Vaugirard to the Barriere Blanche, is a
+pretty good stretch, I think, without reckoning that the night is so
+dark, that one can hardly see two steps before one--and the street-lamps
+not lighted because of the moon, which doesn't shine, after all!"
+
+"Look out for a little door with a portico-drive on about twenty yards
+beyond--and then stop close to the wall," answered a squeaking voice,
+impatiently, and with an Italian accent.
+
+"Here is a beggarly Dutchman, that will make me as savage as a bear?"
+muttered the angry Jehu to himself.  Then he added: "Thousand thunders! I
+tell you that I can't see.  How the devil can I find out your little
+door?"
+
+"Have you no sense?  Follow the wall to the right, brush against it, and
+you will easily find the little door.  It is next to No. 50.  If you do
+not find it, you must be drunk," answered the Italian, with increased
+bitterness.
+
+The coachman only replied by swearing like a trooper, and whipping up his
+jaded horses.  Then, keeping close to the wall, he strained his eyes in
+trying to read the numbers of the houses, by the aid of his carriage-
+lamps.
+
+After some moments, the coach again stopped.  "I have passed No. 50, and
+here is a little door with a portico," said the coachman.  "Is that the
+one?"
+
+"Yes," said the voice.  "Now go forward some twenty yards, and then
+stop."
+
+"Well! I never--"
+
+"Then get down from your box, and give twice three knocks at the little
+door we have just passed--you understand me?--twice three knocks."
+
+"Is that all you give me to drink?" cried the exasperated coachman.
+
+"When you have taken me back to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where I live,
+you shall have something handsome, if you do but manage matters well."
+
+"Ha! now the Faubourg Saint-Germain! Only that little bit of distance!"
+said the driver, with repressed rage.  "And I who have winded my horses,
+wanted to be on the boulevard by the time the play was out.  Well, I'm
+blowed!"  Then, putting a good face on his bad luck, and consoling
+himself with the thought of the promised drink-money, he resumed: "I am
+to give twice three knocks at the little door?"
+
+"Yes; three knocks first--then pause--then three other knocks.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+"What next?"
+
+"Tell the person who comes, that he is waited for, and bring him here to
+the coach."
+
+"The devil burn you!" said the coachman to himself, as he turned round on
+the box, and whipped up his horses, adding: "this crusty old Dutchman has
+something to do with Free-masons, or, perhaps, smugglers, seeing we are
+so near the gates.  He deserves my giving him in charge, for bringing me
+all the way from the Rue de Vaugirard."
+
+At twenty steps beyond the little door, the coach again stopped, and the
+coachman descended from the box to execute the orders he had received.
+Going to the little door, he knocked three times; then paused, as he had
+been desired, and then knocked three times more.  The clouds, which had
+hitherto been so thick as entirely to conceal the disk of the moon, just
+then withdrew sufficiently to afford a glimmering light, so that when the
+door opened at the signal, the coachman saw a middle-sized person issue
+from it, wrapped in a cloak, and wearing a colored cap.
+
+This man carefully locked the door, and then advanced two steps into the
+street.  "They are waiting for you," said the coachman; "I am to take you
+along with me to the coach."
+
+Preceding the man with the cloak, who only answered him by a nod, he led
+him to the coach-door, which he was about to open, and to let down the
+step, when the voice exclaimed from the inside: "It is not necessary.
+The gentleman may talk to me through the window.  I will call you when it
+is time to start."
+
+"Which means that I shall be kept here long enough to send you to all the
+devils!" murmured the driver.  "However, I may as well walk about, just
+to stretch my legs."
+
+So saying, he began to walk up and down, by the side of the wall in which
+was the little door.  Presently he heard the distant sound of wheels,
+which soon came nearer and nearer, and a carriage, rapidly ascending the
+slope, stopped on the other side of the little garden-door.
+
+"Come, I say! a private carriage!" said the coachman.  "Good horses
+those, to come up the Rue Blanche at a trot."
+
+The coachman was just making this observation, when, by favor of a
+momentary gleam of light, he saw a man step from the carriage, advance
+rapidly to the little door, open it, and go in, closing it after him.
+
+"It gets thicker and thicker!" said the coachman.  "One comes out, and
+the other goes in."
+
+So saying, he walked up to the carriage.  It was splendidly harnessed,
+and drawn by two handsome and vigorous horses.  The driver sat
+motionless, in his great box-coat, with the handle of his whip resting on
+his right knee.
+
+"Here's weather to drive about in, with such tidy dukes as yours,
+comrade!" said the humble hackney-coachman to this automaton, who
+remained mute and impassible, without even appearing to know that he was
+spoken to.
+
+"He doesn't understand French--he's an Englishman.  One could tell that
+by his horses," said the coachman, putting this interpretation on the
+silence of his brother whip.  Then, perceiving a tall footman at a little
+distance, dressed in a long gray livery coat, with blue collar and silver
+buttons, the coachman addressed himself to him, by way of compensation,
+but without much varying his phrase: "Here's nice weather to stand about
+in, comrade!"  On the part of the footman, he was met with the same
+imperturbable silence.
+
+"They're both Englishmen," resumed the coachman, philosophically; and,
+though somewhat astonished at the incident of the little door, he
+recommenced his walk in the direction of his own vehicle.
+
+While these facts were passing, the man in the cloak, and the man with
+the Italian accent continued their conversation, the one still in the
+coach, and the other leaning with his hand on the door.  It had already
+lasted for some time, and was carried on in Italian.  They were evidently
+talking of some absent person, as will appear from the following.
+
+"So," said the voice from the coach, "that is agreed to?"
+
+"Yes, my lord," answered the man in the cloak; "but only in case the
+eagle should become a serpent."
+
+"And, in the contrary event, you will receive the other half of the ivory
+crucifix I gave you."
+
+"I shall know what it means, my lord."
+
+"Continue to merit and preserve his confidence."
+
+"I will merit and preserve it, my lord, because I admire and respect this
+man, who is stronger than the strongest, by craft, and courage, and will.
+I have knelt before him with humility, as I would kneel before one of the
+three black idols that stand between Bowanee and her worshippers; for his
+religion, like mine, teaches to change life into nothingness."
+
+"Humph!" said the voice, in a tone of some embarrassment; "these
+comparisons are useless and inaccurate.  Only think of obeying him,
+without explaining your obedience."
+
+"Let him speak, and I perform his will!  I am in his hands like a corpse,
+as he himself expresses it.  He has seen, he sees every day, my devotion
+to his interests with regard to Prince Djalma.  He has only to say: `Kill
+him!'and this son of a king--"
+
+"For heaven's salve, do not have such ideas!" cried the voice,
+interrupting the man in the cloak.  "Thank heaven, you will never be
+asked for such proofs of your submission."
+
+"What I am ordered I do.  Bowanee sees me."
+
+"I do not doubt your zeal.  I know that you are a loving and intelligent
+barrier, placed between the prince and many guilty interests; and it is
+because I have heard of that zeal, of your skill in circumventing this
+young Indian, and, above all, of the motives of your blind devotion, that
+I have wished to inform you of everything.  You are the fanatical
+worshipper of him you serve.  That is well; man should be the obedient
+slave of the god he chooses for himself."
+
+"Yes, my lord; so long as the god remains a god."
+
+"We understand each other perfectly.  As for your recompense, you know
+what I have promised."
+
+"My lord, I have my reward already."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I know what I know."
+
+"Very well.  Then as for secrecy--"
+
+"You have securities, my lord."
+
+"Yes--and sufficient ones."
+
+"The interest of the cause I serve, my lord, would alone be enough to
+secure my zeal and discretion."
+
+"True; you are a man of firm and ardent convictions."
+
+"I strive to be so, my lord."
+
+"And, after all, a very religious man in your way.  It is very
+praiseworthy, in these irreligious times, to have any views at all on
+such matters--particularly when those views will just enable me to count
+upon your aid."
+
+"You may count upon it, my lord, for the same reason that the intrepid
+hunter prefers a jackal to ten foxes, a tiger to ten jackals, a lion to
+ten tigers, and the welmiss to ten lions."
+
+"What is the welmiss?"
+
+"It is what spirit is to matter, the blade to the scabbard, the perfume
+to the flower, the head to the body."
+
+"I understand.  There never was a more just comparison.  You are a man of
+sound judgment.  Always recollect what you have just told me, and make
+yourself more and more worthy of the confidence of--your idol."
+
+"Will he soon be in a state to hear me, my lord?"
+
+"In two or three days, at most.  Yesterday a providential crisis saved
+his life; and he is endowed with so energetic a will, that his cure will
+be very rapid."
+
+"Shall you see him again to-morrow, my lord?"
+
+"Yes, before my departure, to bid him farewell."
+
+"Then tell him a strange circumstance, of which I have not been able to
+inform him, but which happened yesterday."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"I had gone to the garden of the dead.  I saw funerals everywhere, and
+lighted torches, in the midst of the black night, shining upon tombs.
+Bowanee smiled in her ebon sky.  As I thought of that divinity of
+destruction, I beheld with joy the dead-cart emptied of its coffins.  The
+immense pit yawned like the mouth of hell; corpses were heaped upon
+corpses, and still it yawned the same.  Suddenly, by the light of a
+torch, I saw an old man beside me.  He wept.  I had seen him before.  He
+is a Jew--the keeper of the house in the Rue Saint-Francois--you know
+what I mean."  Here the man in the cloak started.
+
+"Yes, I know; but what is the matter? why do you stop short?"
+
+"Because in that house there has been for a hundred and fifty years the
+portrait of a man whom I once met in the centre of India, on the banks of
+the Ganges." And the man in the cloak again paused and shuddered.
+
+"A singular resemblance, no doubt."
+
+"Yes, my lord, a singular resemblance--nothing more."
+
+"But the Jew--the old Jew?"
+
+"I am coming to that, my lord.  Still weeping, he said to a gravedigger,
+`Well! and the coffin?'  `You were right,' answered the man; `I found it
+in the second row of the other grave.  It had the figure of a cross on
+it, formed by seven black nails.  But how could you know the place and
+the mark?'  'Alas! it is no matter,' replied the old Jew, with bitter
+melancholy.  `You see that I was but too well informed on the subject.
+But where is the coffin?'  `Behind the great tomb of black marble; I have
+hidden it there.  So make haste; for, in the confusion, nothing will be
+noticed.  You have paid me well, and I wish you to succeed in what you
+require.'"
+
+"And what did the old Jew do with the coffin marked with the seven black
+nails?"
+
+"Two men accompanied him, my lord, bearing a covered litter, with
+curtains drawn round it.  He lighted a lantern, and, followed by these
+two men, went towards the place pointed out by the gravedigger.  A
+stoppage, occasioned by the dead-carts, made me lose sight of the old
+Jew, whom I was following amongst the tombs.  Afterwards I was unable to
+find him."
+
+"It is indeed a strange affair.  What could this old Jew want with the
+coffin?"
+
+"It is said, my lord, that they use dead bodies in preparing their magic
+charms."
+
+"Those unbelievers are capable of anything--even of holding communication
+with the Enemy of mankind.  However, we will look after this: the
+discovery may be of importance."
+
+At this instant a clock struck twelve in the distance.
+
+"Midnight! already?"
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"I must be gone.  Good-bye--but for the last time swear to me that,
+should matters so turn out, as soon as you receive the other half of the
+ivory crucifix I have just given you, you will keep your promise."
+
+"I have sworn it by Bowanee, my lord."
+
+"Don't forget that, to make all sure, the person who will deliver to you
+the other half of the crucifix is to say--come, what is he to say?"
+
+"He is to say, my lord: `There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the
+lip.'"
+
+"Very well.  Adieu! secrecy and fidelity!"
+
+"Secrecy and fidelity, my lord," answered the man in the cloak.
+
+Some seconds after the hackney-coach started, carrying with it Cardinal
+Malipieri, one of the speakers in the above dialogue.  The other, whom
+the reader has no doubt recognized as Faringhea, returned to the little
+garden-door of the house occupied by Djalma.  At the moment he was
+putting the key into the lock, the door opened, to his great
+astonishment, and a man came forth.  Faringhea rushed upon the unknown,
+seized him violently by the collar, and exclaimed: "Who are you? whence
+came you?"
+
+The stranger evidently found the tone of this question anything but
+satisfactory; for, instead of answering, he struggled to disengage
+himself from Faringhea's hold, and cried out, in a loud voice: "Help!
+Peter!"
+
+Instantly the carriage, which had been standing a few yards off, dashed
+up at full speed, and Peter, the tall footman, seizing the half-breed by
+the shoulders, flung him back several paces, and thus made a seasonable
+diversion in favor of the unknown.
+
+"Now, sir," said the latter to Faringhea, shaking himself, and still
+protected by the gigantic footman, "I am in a state to answer your
+questions, though you certainly have a very rough way of receiving an old
+acquaintance.  I am Dupont, ex-bailiff of the estate of Cardoville, and
+it was I who helped to fish you out of the water, when the ship was
+wrecked in which you had embarked."
+
+By the light of the carriage-lamps, indeed, the half-caste recognized the
+good, honest face of Dupont, formerly bailiff, and now house-steward, to
+Mdlle. de Cardoville.  It must not be forgotten that Dupont had been the
+first to write to Mdlle. de Cardoville, to ask her to interest herself
+for Djalma, who was then detained at Cardoville Castle by the injuries he
+had received during the shipwreck.
+
+"But, sir, what is your business here?  Why do you introduce yourself
+clandestinely into this house?" said Faringhea, in an abrupt and
+suspicious tone.
+
+"I will--just observe to you that there is nothing clandestine in the
+matter.  I came here in a carriage, with servants in the livery of my
+excellent mistress, Mdlle. de Cardoville, charged by her, without any
+disguise or mystery, to deliver a letter to Prince Djalma, her cousin,"
+replied Dupont, with dignity.
+
+On these words, Faringhea trembled with mute rage, as he answered: "And
+why, sir, come at this late hour, and introduce yourself by this little
+door?"
+
+"I came at this hour, my dear sir, because such was Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's command, and I entered by this little gate because there is
+every reason to believe that if I had gone around to the other I should
+not have been permitted to see the prince."
+
+"You are mistaken, sir," replied the half-caste.
+
+"It is possible: but as we knew that the prince usually passed a good
+portion of the night in the little saloon, which communicates with the
+greenhouse, and as Mdlle. de Cardoville had kept a duplicate key of this
+door, I was pretty certain, by taking this course, to be able to deliver
+into the prince's own hands the letter from Mdlle. de Cardoville, his
+cousin, which I have now had the honor of doing, my dear sir; and I have
+been deeply touched by the kindness with which the prince deigned to
+receive me and to remember our last interview."
+
+"And who kept you so well informed, sir, of the prince's habits?" said
+Faringhea, unable to control his vexation.
+
+"If I have been well informed as to his habits, my dear sir, I have had
+no such correct knowledge of yours," answered Dupont, with a mocking air;
+"for I assure you that I had no more notion of seeing you than you had of
+seeing me."
+
+So saying, M. Dupont bowed with something like mock politeness to the
+half-caste, and got into the carriage, which drove off rapidly, leaving
+Faringhea in a state of the utmost surprise and anger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE APPOINTMENT.
+
+The morning after--Dupont's mission to Prince Djalma, the latter was
+walking with hasty and impatient step up and down the little saloon,
+which communicated, as we already know, with the greenhouse from which
+Adrienne had entered when she first appeared to him.  In remembrance of
+that day, he had chosen to dress himself as on the occasion in question;
+he wore the same tunic of white cashmere, with a cherry-colored turban,
+to match with his girdle; his gaiters, of scarlet velvet, embroidered
+with silver, displayed the fine form of his leg, and terminated in small
+white morocco slippers, with red heels.  Happiness has so instantaneous,
+and, as it were, material an influence upon young, lively, and ardent
+natures, that Djalma, dejected and despairing only the day before, was no
+longer like the same person.  The pale, transparent gold of his
+complexion was no longer tarnished by a livid hue.  His large eyes, of
+late obscured like black diamonds by a humid vapor, now shone with mild
+radiance in the centre of their pearly setting; his lips, long pale, had
+recovered their natural color, which was rich and soft as the fine purple
+flowers of his country.
+
+Ever and anon, pausing in his hasty walk, he stopped suddenly, and drew
+from his bosom a little piece of paper, carefully folded, which he
+pressed to his lips with enthusiastic ardor.  Then, unable to restrain
+the expression of his full happiness, he uttered a full and sonorous cry
+of joy, and with a bound he was in front of the plate-glass which
+separated the saloon from the conservatory, in which he had first seen
+Mdlle. de Cardoville.  By a singular power of remembrance, or marvellous
+hallucination of a mind possessed by a fixed idea, Djalma had often seen,
+or fancied he saw, the adored semblance of Adrienne appear to him through
+this sheet of crystal.  The illusion had been so complete, that, with his
+eyes ardently fixed on the vision he invoked, he had been able, with the
+aid of a pencil dipped in carmine, to trace with astonishing exactness,
+the profile of the ideal countenance which the delirium of his
+imagination had presented to his view.[42]  It was before these delicate
+lines of bright carmine that Djalma now stood in deep contemplation,
+after perusing and reperusing, and raising twenty times to his lips, the
+letter he had received the night before from the hands of Dupont.  Djalma
+was not alone.  Faringhea watched all the movements of the prince, with a
+subtle, attentive, and gloomy aspect.  Standing respectfully in a corner
+of the saloon, the half-caste appeared to be occupied in unfolding and
+spreading out Djalma's sash, light, silky Indian web, the brown ground of
+which was almost entirely concealed by the exquisite gold and silver
+embroidery with which it was overlaid.
+
+The countenance of the half-caste wore a dark and gloomy expression.  He
+could not deceive himself.  The letter from Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+delivered by Dupont to Djalma, must have been the cause of the delight he
+now experienced, for, without doubt, he knew himself beloved.  In that
+event, his obstinate silence towards Faringhea, ever since the latter had
+entered the saloon, greatly alarmed the half-caste, who could not tell
+what interpretation to put upon it.  The night before, after parting with
+Dupont, he had hastened, in a state of anxiety easily understood, to look
+for the prince, in the hope of ascertaining the effect produced by Mdlle.
+de Cardoville's letter.  But he found the parlor door closed, and when he
+knocked, he received no answer from within.  Then, though the night was
+far advanced, he had dispatched a note to Rodin, in which he informed him
+of Dupont's visit and its probable intention.  Djalma had indeed passed
+the night in a tumult of happiness and hope, and a fever of impatience
+quite impossible to describe.  Repairing to his bed-chamber only towards
+the morning, he had taken a few moments of repose, and had then dressed
+himself without assistance.
+
+Many times, but in vain, the half-caste had discreetly knocked at the
+door of Djalma's apartment.  It was only in the early part of the
+afternoon that the prince had rung the bell to order his carriage to be
+ready by half-past two.  Faringhea having presented himself, the prince
+had given him the order without looking at him, as he might have done to
+any other of his servants.  Was this suspicion, aversion, or mere absence
+of mind on the part of Djalma?  Such were the questions which the half-
+caste put to himself with growing anguish; for the designs of which he
+was the most active and immediate instrument might all be ruined by the
+least suspicion in the prince.
+
+"Oh! the hours--the hours--how slow they are!" cried the young Indian,
+suddenly, in a low and trembling voice.
+
+"The day before yesterday, my lord, you said the hours were very long,"
+observed Faringhea, as he drew near Djalma in order to attract his
+attention.  Seeing that he did not succeed in this he advanced a few
+steps nearer, and resumed: "Your joy seems very great, my lord; tell the
+cause of it to your poor and faithful servant, that he also may rejoice
+with you."
+
+If he heard the words, Djalma did not pay any attention to them.  He made
+no answer, and his large black eyes gazed upon vacancy.  He seemed to
+smile admiringly upon some enchanting vision, and he folded his two hands
+upon his bosom, in the attitude which his countrymen assume at the hour
+of prayer.  After some instants of contemplation, he said: "What o'clock
+is it?"--but he asked this question of himself, rather than of any third
+person.
+
+"It will soon be two o'clock, my lord," said Faringhea.
+
+Having heard this answer, Djalma seated himself, and hid his face in his
+hands, as if completely absorbed in some ineffable meditation.  Urged on
+by his growing anxiety, and wishing at any cost to attract the attention
+of Djalma, Faringhea approached still nearer to him, and, almost certain
+of the effect of the words he was about to utter, said to him in a slow
+and emphatic voice: "My lord, I am sure that you owe the happiness which
+now transports you to Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+Hardly had this name been pronounced, than Djalma started from his chair,
+looked the half-breed full in the face, and exclaimed, as if only just
+aware of his presence, "Faringhea! you here!--what is the matter?"
+
+"Your faithful servant shares in your joy, my lord."
+
+"What joy?"
+
+"That which the letter of Mdlle. de Cardoville has occasioned, my lord."
+
+Djalma returned no answer, but his eye shone with so much serene
+happiness, that the half-caste recovered from his apprehensions.  No
+cloud of doubt or suspicion obscured the radiant features of the prince.
+After a few moments of silence, Djalma fixed upon the half-caste a look
+half-veiled with a tear of joy, and said to him, with the expression of
+one whose heart overflows with love and happiness: "Oh! such delight is
+good--great--like heaven!--for it is heaven which--"
+
+"You deserve this happiness, my lord, after so many sufferings."
+
+"What sufferings?--Oh! yes.  I formerly suffered at Java; but that was
+years ago."
+
+"My lord, this great good fortune does not astonish me.  What have I
+always told you?  Do not despair; feign a violent passion for some other
+woman, and then this proud young lady--"
+
+At these words Djalma looked at the half-caste with so piercing a glance,
+that the latter stopped short; but the prince said to him with
+affectionate goodness, "Go on! I listen."
+
+Then, leaning his chin upon his hand, and his elbow on his knee, he gazed
+so intently on Faringhea, and yet with such unutterable mildness, that
+even that iron soul was touched for a moment with a slight feeling of
+remorse.
+
+"I was saying, my lord," he resumed, "that by following the counsels of
+your faithful slave, who persuaded you to feign a passionate love for
+another woman, you have brought the proud Mdlle. de Cardoville to come to
+you.  Did I not tell you it would be so?"
+
+"Yes, you did tell me so," answered Djalma, still maintaining the same
+position, and examining the half-caste with the same fixed and mild
+attention.
+
+The surprise of Faringhea increased; generally, the prince, without
+treating him with the least harshness, preserved the somewhat distant and
+imperious manners of their common country, and he had never before spoken
+to him with such extreme mildness.  Knowing all the evil he had done the
+prince, and suspicious as the wicked must ever be, the half-caste thought
+for a moment, that his master's apparent kindness might conceal a snare.
+He continued, therefore, with less assurance, "Believe me, my lord, this
+day, if you do but know how to profit by your advantages, will console
+you for all your troubles, which have indeed been great--for only
+yesterday, though you were generous enough to forget it, only yesterday
+you suffered cruelly--but you were not alone in your sufferings.  This
+proud young lady suffered also!"
+
+"Do you think so?" said Djalma.
+
+"Oh! it is quite sure, my lord.  What must she not have felt, when she
+saw you at the theatre with another woman!--If she loved you only a
+little, she must have been deeply wounded in her self-esteem; if she
+loved you with passion, she must have been struck to the heart.  At
+length, you see, wearied out with suffering, she has come to you."
+
+"So that, any way, she must have suffered--and that does not move your
+pity?" said Djalma, in a constrained, but still very mild voice.
+
+"Before thinking of others, my lord, I think of your distresses; and they
+touch me too nearly to leave me any pity for other woes," added Faringhea
+hypocritically, so greatly had the influence of Rodin already modified
+the character of the Phansegar.
+
+"It is strange!" said Djalma, speaking to himself, as he viewed the half-
+caste with a glance still kind but piercing.
+
+"What is strange, my lord?"
+
+"Nothing.  But tell me, since your advice has hitherto prospered so well,
+what think you of the future?"
+
+"Of the future, my lord?"
+
+"Yes; in an hour I shall be with Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"That is a serious matter, my lord.  The whole future will depend upon
+this interview."
+
+"That is what I was just thinking."
+
+"Believe me, my lord, women never love any so well, as the bold man who
+spares them the embarrassment of a refusal."
+
+"Explain more fully."
+
+"Well, my lord, they despise the timid and languishing lover, who asks
+humbly for what he might take by force."
+
+"But to-day I shall meet Mdlle. de Cardoville for the first time."
+
+"You have met her a thousand times in your dreams, my lord; and depend
+upon it, she has seen you also in her dreams, since she loves you.  Every
+one of your amorous thoughts has found an echo in her heart.  All your
+ardent adorations have been responded to by her.  Love has not two
+languages, and, without meeting, you have said all that you had to say to
+each other.  Now, it is for you to act as her master, and she will be
+yours entirely."
+
+"It is strange--very strange!" said Djalma, a second time, without
+removing his eyes from Faringhea's face.
+
+Mistaking the sense which the prince attached to these words, the half-
+caste resumed: "Believe me, my lord, however strange it may appear, this
+is the wisest course.  Remember the past.  Was it by playing the part of
+a timid lover that you have brought to your feet this proud young lady,
+my lord?  No, it was by pretending to despise her, in favor of another
+woman.  Therefore, let us have no weakness.  The lion does not woo like
+the poor turtle-dove.  What cares the sultan of the desert for a few
+plaintive howls from the lioness, who is more pleased than angry at his
+rude and wild caresses?  Soon submissive, fearful and happy, she follows
+in the track of her master.  Believe me, my lord--try everything--dare
+everything--and to-day you will become the adored sultan of this young
+lady, whose beauty all Paris admires."
+
+After some minutes' silence, Djalma, shaking his head with an expression
+of tender pity, said to the half-caste, in his mild, sonorous voice: "Why
+betray me thus?  Why advise me thus wickedly to use violence, terror, and
+surprise, towards an angel of purity, whom I respect as my mother?  Is it
+not enough for you to have been so long devoted to my enemies, whose
+hatred has followed me from Java?"
+
+Had Djalma sprung upon the half-caste with bloodshot eye, menacing brow,
+and lifted poniard, the latter would have been less surprised, and
+perhaps less frightened, than when he heard the prince speak of his
+treachery in this tone of mild reproach.
+
+He drew back hastily, as if about to stand on his guard.  But Djalma
+resumed, with the same gentleness, "Fear nothing.  Yesterday I should
+have killed you! But to-day happy love renders me too just, too merciful
+for that.  I pity you, without any feeling of bitterness--for you must
+have been very unhappy, or you could not have become so wicked."
+
+"My lord!" said the half-caste, with growing amazement.
+
+"Yes, you must have suffered much, and met with little mercy, poor
+creature, to have become so merciless, in your hate, and proof against
+the sight of a happiness like mine.  When I listened to you just now, and
+saw the sad perseverance of your hatred, I felt the deepest commiseration
+for you."
+
+"I do not know, my lord--but--" stammered the half-caste, and was unable
+to find words to proceed.
+
+"Come, now--what harm have I ever done you?"
+
+"None, my lord," answered Faringhea.
+
+"Then why do you hate me thus? why pursue me with so much animosity?  Was
+it not enough to give me the perfidious counsel to feign a shameful love
+for the young girl that was brought hither, and who quitted the house
+disgusted at the miserable part she was to play?"
+
+"Your feigned love for that young girl, my lord," replied Faringhea,
+gradually recovering his presence of mind, "conquered the coldness of--"
+
+"Do not say that," resumed the prince, interrupting him with the same
+mildness.  "If I enjoy this happiness, which makes me compassionate
+towards you, and raises me above myself, it is because Mdlle de
+Cardoville now knows that I have never for a moment ceased to love her as
+she ought to be loved, with adoration and reverence.  It was your
+intention to have parted us forever, and you had nearly succeeded."
+
+"If you think this of me, my lord, you must look upon me as your most
+mortal enemy."
+
+"Fear nothing, I tell you.  I have no right to blame you.  In the madness
+of my grief, I listened to you and followed your advice.  I was not only
+your dupe, but your accomplice.  Only confess that, when you saw me at
+your mercy, dejected, crushed, despairing, it was cruel in you to advise
+the course that might have been most fatal to me."
+
+"The ardor of my zeal may have deceived me, my lord."
+
+"I am willing to believe it.  And yet again to-day there were the same
+evil counsels.  You had no more pity for my happiness than for my sorrow.
+The rapture of my heart inspires you with only one desire--that of
+changing this rapture into despair."
+
+"I, my lord!"
+
+"Yes, you.  It was your intention to ruin me--to dishonor me forever in
+the eyes of Mdlle. de Cardoville.  Now, tell me--why this furious hate?
+what have I done to you?"
+
+"You misjudge me, my lord--and--"
+
+"Listen to me.  I do not wish you to be any longer wicked and
+treacherous.  I wish to make you good.  In our country, they charm
+serpents, and tame the wildest tigers.  You are a man, with a mind to
+reason, a heart to love, and I will tame you too by gentleness.  This day
+has bestowed on me divine happiness; you shall have good cause to bless
+this day.  What can I do for you?  what would you have--gold?  You shall
+have it.  Do you desire more than gold?  Do you desire a friend, to
+console you for the sorrows that made you wicked, and to teach you to be
+good?  Though a king's son, I will be that friend--in spite of the evil--
+ay, because of the evil you have done me.  Yes; I will be your sincere
+friend, and it shall be my delight to say to myself: `The day on which I
+learned that my angel loved me, my happiness was great indeed--for, in
+the morning, I had an implacable enemy, and, ere night, his hatred was
+changed to friendship.'  Believe me, Faringhea, misery makes crime, but
+happiness produces virtue.  Be happy!"
+
+At this moment the clock struck two.  The prince started.  It was time to
+go on his visit to Adrienne.  The handsome countenance of Djalma, doubly
+embellished by the mild, ineffable expression with which it had been
+animated whilst he was talking to the half-caste, now seemed illumined
+with almost divine radiance.
+
+Approaching Faringhea, he extended his hand with the utmost, grace and
+courtesy, saying to him, "Your hand!"
+
+The half-caste, whose brow was bathed with a cold sweat, whose
+countenance was pale and agitated, seemed to hesitate for an instant;
+then, overawed, conquered, fascinated, he offered his trembling hand to
+the prince, who pressed it, and said to him, in their country's fashion,
+"You have laid your hand honestly in a friend's; this hand shall never be
+closed against you.  Faringhea, farewell!  I now feel myself more worthy
+to kneel before my angel."
+
+And Djalma went out, on his way to the appointment with Adrienne.  In
+spite of his ferocity, in spite of the pitiless hate he bore to the whole
+human race, the dark sectary of Bowanee was staggered by the noble and
+clement words of Djalma, and said to himself, with terror, "I have taken
+his hand.  He is now sacred for me."
+
+Then, after a moment's silence, a thought occurred to him, and he
+exclaimed, "Yes--but he will not be sacred for him who, according to the
+answer of last night, waits for him at the door of the house."
+
+So saying, the half-caste hastened into the next room, which looked upon
+the street, and, raising a corner of the curtain, muttered anxiously to
+himself, "The carriage moves off--the man approaches.  Perdition! it is
+gone and I see no more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+ANXIETY.
+
+By a singular coincidence of ideas, Adrienne, like Djalma, had wished to
+be dressed exactly in the same costume as at their interview in the house
+in the Rue Blanche.  For the site of this solemn meeting, so important to
+her future happiness, Adrienne had chosen, with habitual tact, the grand
+drawing-room of Cardoville House, in which hung many family portraits.
+The most apparent were those of her father and mother.  The room was
+large and lofty, and furnished, like those which preceded it, with all
+the imposing splendor of the age of Louis XIV.  The ceiling, painted by
+Lebrun, to represent the Triumph of Apollo, displayed his bold designing
+and vigorous coloring, in the centre of a wide cornice, magnificently
+carved and gilt, and supported at its angles by four large gilt figures,
+representing the Seasons.  Huge panels, covered with crimson damask, and
+set in frames, served as the background to the family portraits which
+adorned this apartment.  It is easier to conceive than describe the
+thousand conflicting emotions which agitated the bosom of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville as the moment approached for her interview with Djalma.  Their
+meeting had been hitherto prevented by so many painful obstacles, and
+Adrienne was so well aware of the vigilant and active perfidy of her
+enemies, that even now she doubted of her happiness.  Every instant, in
+spite of herself, her eyes wandered to the clock.  A few minutes more,
+and the hour of the appointment would strike.  It struck at last.  Every
+reverberation was echoed from the depth of Adrienne's heart.  She
+considered that Djalma's modest reserve had, doubtless, prevented his
+coming before the moment fixed by herself.  Far from blaming this
+discretion, she fully appreciated it.  But, from that moment, at the
+least noise in the adjoining apartments, she held her breath and listened
+with the anxiety of expectation.
+
+For the first few minutes which followed the hour at which she expected
+Djalma, Mdlle. de Cardoville felt no serious apprehension, and calmed her
+impatience by the notion (which appears childish enough to those who have
+never known the feverish agitation of waiting for a happy meeting), that
+perhaps the clocks in the Rue Blanche might vary a little from those in
+the Rue d'Anjou.  But when this supposed variation, conceivable enough in
+itself, could no longer explain a delay of a quarter of an hour, of
+twenty minutes, of more, Adrienne felt her anxiety gradually increase.
+Two or three times the young girl rose, with palpitating heart, and went
+on tip-toe to listen at the door of the saloon.  She heard nothing.  The
+clock struck half-past three.
+
+Unable to suppress her growing terror, and clinging to a last hope,
+Adrienne returned towards the fireplace and rang the bell.  After which
+she endeavored to compose her features, so as to betray no outward sign
+of emotion.  In a few seconds, a gray-haired footman, dressed in black,
+opened the door, and waited in respectful silence for the orders of his
+mistress.  The latter said to him, in a calm voice, "Andrew, request Hebe
+to give you the smelling bottle that I left on the chimney-piece in my
+room, and bring it me here."  Andrew bowed; but just as he was about to
+withdraw to execute Adrienne's orders, which was only a pretext to enable
+her to ask a question without appearing to attach much importance to it
+in her servant's eyes, already informed of the expected visit of the
+prince, Mdlle. de Cardoville added, with an air of indifference.  "Pray,
+is that clock right?"
+
+Andrew drew out his watch, and replied as he cast his eyes upon it, "Yes,
+mademoiselle.  I set my watch by the Tuileries.  It is more than half-
+past three."
+
+"Very well--thank you!" said Adrienne kindly.
+
+Andrew again bowed; but, before going out, he said to Adrienne, "I forgot
+to tell you, lady, that Marshal Simon called about an hour ago; but, as
+you were only to be at home to Prince Djalma, we told him that you
+received no company."
+
+"Very well," said Adrienne.  With another low bow, Andrew quitted the
+room, and all returned to silence.
+
+For the precise reason that, up to the last minute of the hour previous
+to the time fixed for her interview with Djalma, the hopes of Adrienne
+had not been disturbed by the slightest shadow of doubt, the
+disappointment she now felt was the more dreadful.  Casting a desponding
+look at one of the portraits placed above her, she murmured, with a
+plaintive and despairing accent, "Oh, mother!"
+
+Hardly had Mdlle. de Cardoville uttered the words than the windows were
+slightly shaken by a carriage rolling into the courtyard.  The young lady
+started, and was unable to repress a low cry of joy.  Her heart bounded
+at the thought of meeting Djalma, for this time she felt that he was
+really come.  She was quite as certain of it as if she had seen him.  She
+resumed her seat and brushed away a tear suspended from her long
+eyelashes.  Her hand trembled like a leaf.  The sound of several doors
+opening and shutting proved that the young lady was right in her
+conjecture.  The gilded panels of the drawing-room door soon turned upon
+their hinges, and the prince appeared.
+
+While a second footman ushered in Djalma, Andrew placed on a gilded
+table, within reach of his mistress, a little silver salver, on which
+stood the crystal smelling-bottle.  Then he withdrew, and the door of the
+room was closed.  The prince and Mdlle. de Cardoville were left alone
+together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+ADRIENNE AND DJALMA.
+
+The prince had slowly approached Mdlle. de Cardoville.  Notwithstanding
+the impetuosity of the Oriental's passions, his uncertain and timid step-
+-timid, yet graceful--betrayed his profound emotion.  He did not venture
+to lift his eyes to Adrienne's face; he had suddenly become very pale,
+and his finely formed hands, folded over his bosom in the attitude of
+adoration, trembled violently.  With head bent down, he remained standing
+at a little distance from Adrienne.  This embarrassment, ridiculous in
+any other person, appeared touching in this prince of twenty years of
+age, endowed with an almost fabulous intrepidity, and of so heroic and
+generous a character, that no traveller could speak of the son of Kadja-
+sing without a tribute of admiration and respect.  Sweet emotion! chaste
+reserve! doubly interesting if we consider that the burning passions of
+this youth were all the more inflammable, because they had hitherto been
+held in check.
+
+No less embarrassed than her cousin, Adrienne de Cardoville remained
+seated.  Like Djalma, she cast down her eyes; but the burning blush on
+her cheeks, the quick heaving of her virgin bosom, revealed an emotion
+that she did not even attempt to hide.  Notwithstanding the powers of her
+mind, by turns gay, graceful, and witty--notwithstanding the decision of
+her proud and independent character, and her complete acquaintance with
+the manners of the world--Adrienne shared Djalma's simple and enchanting
+awkwardness, and partook of that kind of temporary weakness, beneath
+which these two pure, ardent, and loving beings appeared sinking--as if
+unable to support the boiling agitation of the senses, combined with the
+intoxicating excitement of the heart.  And yet their eyes had not met.
+Each seemed to fear the first electric shock of the other's glance--that
+invincible attraction of two impassioned beings--that sacred fire, which
+suddenly kindles the blood, and lifts two mortals from earth to heaven;
+for it is to approach the Divinity to give one's self up with religious
+fervor to the most noble and irresistible sentiment that He has implanted
+within us--the only sentiment that, in His adorable wisdom, the Dispenser
+of all good has vouchsafed to sanctify, by endowing it with a spark of
+His own creative energy.
+
+Djalma was the first to raise his eyes.  They were moist and sparkling.
+The excitement of passionate love, the burning ardor of his age, so long
+repressed, the intense admiration in which he held ideal beauty, were all
+expressed in his look, mingled with respectful timidity, and gave to the
+countenance of this youth an undefinable, irresistible character.  Yes,
+irresistible!--for, when Adrienne encountered his glance, she trembled in
+every limb, and felt herself attracted by a magnetic power.  Already, her
+eyes were heavy with a kind of intoxicating languor, when, by a great
+effort of will and dignity, she succeeded in overcoming this delicious
+confusion, rose from her chair, and said to Djalma in a trembling voice:
+"Prince, I am happy to receive you here."  Then, pointing to one of the
+portraits suspended above her, she added, as if introducing him to a
+living person: "Prince--my mother!"
+
+With an instinct of rare delicacy, Adrienne had thus summoned her mother
+to be present at her interview with Djalma.  It seemed a security for
+herself and the prince, against the seductions of a first interview--
+which was likely to be all the more perilous, that they both knew
+themselves madly loved that they both were free, and had only to answer
+to Providence for the treasures of happiness and enjoyment with which He
+had so magnificently endowed them.  The prince understood Adrienne's
+thoughts; so that, when the young lady pointed to the portrait, Djalma,
+by a spontaneous movement full of grace and simplicity, knelt down before
+the picture, and said to it in a gentle, but manly voice: "I will love
+and revere you as my mother.  And, in thought, my mother too shall be
+present, and stand like you, beside your child!"
+
+No better answer could have been given to the feeling which induced
+Mdlle. de Cardoville to place herself, as it were, under the protection
+of her mother.  From that moment, confident in Djalma, confident in
+herself, the young lady felt more at her ease, and the delicious sense of
+happiness replaced those exciting emotions, which had at first so
+violently agitated her.
+
+Then, seating herself once more, she said to Djalma, as she pointed to
+the opposite chair: "Pray take a seat, my dear cousin; and allow me to
+call you so, for there is too much ceremony in the word prince; and do
+you call me cousin also, for I find other names too grave.  Having
+settled this point, we can talk together like old friends."
+
+"Yes cousin," answered Djalma, blushing.
+
+"And, as frankness is proper between friends," resumed Adrienne, "I have
+first to make you a reproach," she added, with a half-smile.
+
+The prince had remained standing, with his arm resting on the chimney-
+piece, in an attitude full of grace and respect.
+
+"Yes, cousin," continued Adrienne, "a reproach, that you will perhaps
+forgive me for making.  I had expected you a little sooner."
+
+"Perhaps, cousin, you may blame me for having come so soon."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"At the moment when I left home, a man, whom I did not know, approached
+my carriage, and said to me, with such an air of sincerity that I
+believed him: `You are able to save the life of a person who has been a
+second father to you.  Marshal Simon is in great danger, and, to rescue
+him, you must follow me on the instant--'"
+
+"It was a snare," cried Adrienne, hastily.  "Marshal Simon was here,
+scarcely an hour ago."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Djalma, joyfully, and as if he had been relieved from
+a great weight.  "Then there will be nothing to sadden this happy day!"
+
+"But, cousin," resumed Adrienne, "how came you not to suspect this
+emissary?"
+
+"Some words, which afterwards escaped from him, inspired me with doubts,"
+answered Djalma: "but at first I followed him, fearing the marshal might
+be in danger--for I know that he also has enemies."
+
+"Now that I reflect on it, you were quite right, cousin, for some new
+plot against the marshal was probable enough; and the least doubt was
+enough to induce you to go to him."
+
+"I did so--even though you were waiting for me."
+
+"It was a generous sacrifice; and my esteem for you is increased by it,
+if it could be increased," said Adrienne, with emotion.  "But what became
+of this man?"
+
+"At my desire, he got into the carriage with me.  Anxious about the
+marshal, and in despair at seeing the time wasted, that I was to have
+passed with you, cousin, I pressed him with all sorts of questions.
+Several times, he replied to me with embarrassment, and then the idea
+struck me that the whole might be a snare.  Remembering all that they had
+already attempted, to ruin me in your opinion, I immediately changed my
+course.  The vexation of the man who accompanied me then because so
+visible, that I ought to have had no doubt upon the subject.  Still, when
+I thought of Marshal Simon, I felt a kind of vague remorse, which you,
+cousin, have now happily set at rest."
+
+'Those people are implacable!" said Adrienne; "but our happiness will be
+stronger than their hate."
+
+After a moment's silence, she resumed, with her habitual frankness: "My
+dear cousin, it is impossible for me to conceal what I have at heart.
+Let us talk for a few seconds of the past, which was made so painful to
+us, and then we will forget it forever, like an evil dream."
+
+"I will answer you sincerely, at the risk of injuring myself," said the
+prince.
+
+"How could you make up your mind to exhibit yourself in public with--?"
+
+"With that young girl?" interrupted Djalma.
+
+"Yes, cousin," replied Mdlle. de Cardoville, and she waited for Djalma's
+answer with anxious curiosity.
+
+"A stranger to the customs of this country," said Djalma, without any
+embarrassment, for he spoke the truth, "with a mind weakened with
+despair, and misled by the fatal counsels of a man devoted to my enemies,
+I believed, even as I was told, that, by displaying before you the
+semblance of another love, I should excite your jealousy, and thus--"
+
+"Enough, cousin; I understand it all," said Adrienne hastily,
+interrupting Djalma in her turn, that she might spare him a painful
+confession.  "I too must have been blinded by despair, not to have seen
+through this wicked plot, especially after your rash and intrepid action.
+To risk death for the sake of my bouquet!" added Adrienne, shuddering at
+the mere remembrance.  "But one last question," she resumed, "though I am
+already sure of your answer.  Did you receive a letter that I wrote to
+you, on the morning of the day in which I saw you at the theatre?"
+
+Djalma made no reply.  A dark cloud passed over his fine countenance,
+and, for a second, his features assumed so menacing an expression, that
+Adrienne was terrified at the effect produced by her words.  But this
+violent agitation soon passed away, and Djalma's brow became once more
+calm and serene.
+
+"I have been more merciful that I thought," said the prince to Adrienne,
+who looked at him with astonishment.  "I wished to come hither worthy of
+you, my cousin.  I pardoned the man who, to serve my enemies, had given
+me all those fatal counsels.  The same person, I am sure, must have
+intercepted your letter.  Just now, at the memory of the evils he thus
+caused me, I, for a moment, regretted my clemency.  But then, again, I
+thought of your letter of yesterday--and my anger is all gone."
+
+"Then the sad time of fear and suspicion is over--suspicion, that made me
+doubt of your sentiments, and you of mine.  Oh, yes! far removed from us
+be that fatal past!" cried Adrienne de Cardoville, with deep joy..
+
+Then, as if she had relieved her heart from the last thought of sadness,
+she continued: "The future is all your own--the radiant future, without
+cloud or obstacle, pure in the immensity of its horizon, and extending
+beyond the reach of sight!"
+
+It is impossible to describe the tone of enthusiastic hope which
+accompanied these words.  But suddenly Adrienne's features assumed an
+expression of touching melancholy, and she added, in a voice of profound
+emotion: "And yet--at this hour--so many unfortunate creatures suffer
+pain!"
+
+This simple touch of pity for the misfortunes of others, at the moment
+when the noble maiden herself attained to the highest point of happiness,
+had such an effect on Djalma, that involuntarily he fell on his knees
+before Adrienne, clasped his hands together, and turned towards her his
+fine countenance, with an almost daring expression.  Then, hiding his
+face in his hands, he bowed his head without speaking a single word.
+There was a moment of deep silence.  Adrienne was the first to break it,
+as she saw a tear steal through the slender fingers of the prince.
+
+"My friend! what is the matter?" she exclaimed, as with a movement rapid
+as thought, she stooped forward, and taking hold of Djalma's hands, drew
+them from before his face.  That face was bathed in tears.
+
+"You weep!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, so much agitated that she kept
+the hands of Djalma in her own; and, unable to dry his tears, the young
+Hindoo allowed them to flow like so many drops of crystal over the pale
+gold of his cheeks.
+
+"There is not in this wide world a happiness like to mine!" said the
+prince, in his soft, melodious voice, and with a kind of exhaustion:
+"therefore do I feel great sadness, and so it should be.  You give me
+heaven--and were I to give you the whole earth, it would be but a poor
+return.  Alas! what can man do for a divinity, but humbly bless and
+adore?  He can never hope to return the gifts bestowed: and this makes
+him suffer--not in his pride--but in his heart!"
+
+Djalma did not exaggerate.  He said what he really felt: and the rather
+hyperbolical form, familiar to Oriental nations, could alone express his
+thought.  The tone of his regret was so sincere, his humility so gentle
+and full of simplicity, that Adrienne, also moved to tears, answered him
+with an effusion of serious tenderness, "My friend, we are both at the
+supreme point of happiness.  Our future felicity appears to have no
+limits, and yet, though derived from different sources, sad reflections
+have come to both of us.  It is, you see, that there are some sorts of
+happiness, which make you dizzy with their own immensity.  For a moment,
+the heart, the mind, the soul, are incapable of containing so much bliss;
+it overflows and drowns us.  Thus the flowers sometimes hang their heads,
+oppressed by the too ardent rays of the sun, which is yet their love and
+life.  Oh, my friend! this sadness may be great, but it also sweet!"
+
+As she uttered these words, the voice of Adrienne grew fainter and
+fainter, and her head bowed lower, as if she were indeed sinking beneath
+the weight of her happiness.  Djalma had remained kneeling before her,
+his hands in hers--so that as she thus bent forward, her ivory forehead
+and golden hair touched the amber-colored brow and ebon curls of Djalma.
+And the sweet, silent tears of the two young lovers flowed together, and
+mingled as they fell on their clasped hands.
+
+Whilst this scene was passing in Cardoville House, Agricola had gone to
+the Rue de Vaugirard, to deliver a letter from Adrienne to M. Hardy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+"THE IMITATION."
+
+As we have already said, M. Hardy occupied a pavilion in the "Retreat"
+annexed to the house in the Rue de Vaugirard, inhabited by a goodly
+number of the reverend fathers of the Company of Jesus.  Nothing could be
+calmer and more silent than this dwelling.  Every one spoke in whispers,
+and the servants themselves had something oily in their words, something
+sanctified in their very walk.
+
+Like all that is subject to the chilling and destructive influences of
+these men, this mournfully quiet house was entirely wanting in life and
+animation.  The boarders passed an existence of wearisome and icy
+monotony, only broken by the use of certain devotional exercises; and
+thus, in accordance with the selfish calculation of the reverend fathers,
+the mind, deprived of all nourishment and all external support, soon
+began to droop and pine away in solitude.  The heart seemed to beat more
+slowly, the soul was benumbed, the character weakened; at last, all
+freewill, all power of discrimination, was extinguished, and the
+boarders, submitting to the same process of self-annihilation as the
+novices of the Company, became, like them, mere "corpses" in the hands of
+the brotherhood.
+
+The object of these manoeuvres was clear and simple.  They secured the
+means of obtaining all kinds of donations, the constant aim of the
+skillful policy and merciless cupidity of these priests.  By the aid of
+enormous sums, of which they thus become the possessors or the trustees,
+they follow out and obtain the success of their projects, even though
+murder, incendiarism, revolt, and all the horrors of civil war, excited
+by and through them, should drench in blood the lands over which they
+seek to extend their dark dominion.
+
+Such, then, was the asylum of peace and innocence in which Francois Hardy
+had taken refuge.  He occupied the ground-floor of a summer-house, which
+opened upon a portion of the garden.  His apartments had been judiciously
+chosen, for we know with what profound and diabolical craft the reverend
+fathers avail themselves of material influences, to make a deep
+impression upon the minds they are moulding to their purpose.  Imagine a
+prospect bounded by a high wall, of a blackish gray, half-covered with
+ivy, the plant peculiar to ruins.  A dark avenue of old yew-trees, so fit
+to shade the grave with their sepulchral verdure, extended from this wall
+to a little semicircle, in front of the apartment generally occupied by
+M. Hardy.  Two or three mounds of earth, bordered with box, symmetrically
+cut, completed the charms of this garden, which in every respect
+resembled a cemetery.
+
+It was about two o'clock in the afternoon.  Though the April sun shone
+brightly, its rays, intercepted by the high wall of which we have spoken,
+could not penetrate into that portion of the garden, obscure, damp, and
+cold as a cavern, which communicated with M. Hardy's apartment.  The room
+was furnished with a perfect sense of the comfortable.  A soft carpet
+covered the floor; thick curtains of dark green baize, the same color as
+the walls, sheltered an excellent bed, and hung in folds about the glass-
+door, which opened on the garden.  Some pieces of mahogany furniture,
+plain, but very clean and bright, stood round the room.  Above the
+secretary, placed just in front of the bed, was a large ivory crucifix,
+upon a black velvet ground.  The chimney-piece was adorned with a clock,
+in an ebony case, with ivory ornaments representing all sorts of gloomy
+emblems, such as hour-glasses, scythes, death's-heads, etc.  Now imagine
+this scene in twilight, with its solitary and mournful silence, only
+broken at the hour of prayer by the lugubrious sound of the bells of the
+neighboring chapel, and you will recognize the infernal skill, with which
+these dangerous priests know how to turn to account every external
+object, when they wish to influence the mind of those they are anxious to
+gain over.
+
+And this was not all.  After appealing to the senses, it was necessary to
+address themselves to the intellect--and this was the method adopted by
+the reverend fathers.  A single book--but one--was left, as if by chance,
+within reach.  This book was Thomas a Kempis' "Imitation."  But as it
+might happen that M. Hardy would not have the courage or the desire to
+read this book, thoughts and reflections borrowed from its merciless
+pages, and written in very large characters, were suspended in black
+frames close to the bed, or at other parts within sight, so that,
+involuntarily, in the sad leisure of his inactive dejection, the
+dweller's eyes were almost necessarily attracted by them.  To that fatal
+circle of despairing thoughts they confined the already weakened mind of
+this unfortunate man, so long a prey to the most acute sorrow.  What he
+read mechanically, every instant of the day and night, whenever the
+blessed sleep fled from his eyes inflamed with tears, was not enough
+merely to plunge the soul of the victim into incurable despair, but also
+to reduce him to the corpse-like obedience required by the Society of
+Jesus.  In that awful book may be found a thousand terrors to operate on
+weak minds, a thousand slavish maxims to chain and degrade the
+pusillanimous soul.
+
+And now imagine M. Hardy carried wounded into this house; while his
+heart, torn by bitter grief and the sense of horrible treachery, bled
+even faster than his external injuries.  Attended with the utmost care,
+and thanks to the acknowledged skill of Dr. Baleinier, M. Hardy soon
+recovered from the hurts he had received when he threw himself into the
+embers of his burning factory.  Yet, in order to favor the projects of
+the reverend fathers, a drug, harmless enough in its effects, but
+destined to act for a time upon the mind of the patient, and often
+employed for that purpose in similar important cases by the pious doctor,
+was administered to Hardy, and had kept him pretty long in a state of
+mental torpor.  To a soul agonized by cruel deceptions, it appears an
+inestimable benefit to be plunged into that kind of torpor, which at
+least prevents one from dwelling upon the past.
+
+Hardy resigned himself entirely to this profound apathy, and at length
+came to regard it as the supreme good.  Thus do unfortunate wretches,
+tortured by cruel diseases, accept with gratitude the opiate which kills
+them slowly, but which at least deadens the sense of pain.
+
+In sketching the portrait of M. Hardy, we tried to give some idea of the
+exquisite delicacy of his tender soul, of his painful susceptibility with
+regard to anything base or wicked, and of his extreme goodness,
+uprightness, and generosity.  We now allude to these admirable qualities,
+because we must observe, that with him, as with almost all who possess
+them, they were not, and could not be, united with an energetic and
+resolute character.  Admirably persevering in good deeds, the influence
+of this excellent man, was insinuating rather than commanding; it was not
+by the bold energy and somewhat overbearing will, peculiar to other men
+of great and noble heart, that Hardy had realized the prodigy of his
+Common Dwelling-house; it was by affectionate persuasion, for with him
+mildness took the place of force.  At sight of any baseness or injustice,
+he did not rouse himself, furious and threatening; but he suffered
+intense pain.  He did not boldly attack the criminal, but he turned away
+from him in pity and sorrow.  And then his loving heart, so full of
+feminine delicacy, had an irresistible longing for the blessed contact of
+dear affections; they alone could keep it alive.  Even as a poor, frail
+bird dies with the cold, when it can no longer lie close to its brethren,
+and receive and communicate the sweet warmth of the maternal nest.  And
+now this sensitive organization, this extremely susceptible nature,
+receives blow after blow from sorrows and deceptions, one of which would
+suffice to shake, if it did not conquer, the firmest and most resolute
+character.  Hardy's best friend has infamously betrayed him.  His adored
+mistress has abandoned him.
+
+The house which he had founded for the benefit of his workmen, whom he
+loved as brethren, is reduced to a heap of ashes.  What then happens?
+All the springs of his soul are at once broken.  Too feeble to resist
+such frightful attacks, too fatally deceived to seek refuge in other
+affections, too much discouraged to think of laying the first stone of
+any new edifice--this poor heart, isolated from every salutary influence,
+finds oblivion of the world and of itself in a kind of gloomy torpor.
+And if some remaining instincts of life and affection, at long intervals,
+endeavored to rouse themselves within him, and if, half-opening his
+mind's eye, which he had kept closed against the present, the past, and
+the future, Hardy looks around him--what does he see?  Only these
+sentences, so full of terrible despair:
+
+"Thou art nothing but dust and ashes.  Grief and tears art thy portion.
+Believe not in any son of man.  There are no such things as friendship or
+ties of kindred.  All human affections are false.  Die in the morning,
+and thou wilt be forgotten before night.  Be humble--despise thyself--and
+let others despise thee.  Think not, reason not, live not--but commit thy
+fate to the hands of a superior, who will think and reason for thee.
+Weep, suffer, think upon death.  Yes, death! always death--that should be
+thy thought when thou thinkest--but it is better not to think at all.
+Let a feeling of ceaseless woe prepare thy way to heaven.  It is only by
+sorrow that we are welcome to the terrible God whom we adore!"
+
+Such were the consolations offered to this unfortunate man.  Affrighted,
+he again closed his eyes, and fell back into his lethargy.  As for
+leaving this gloomy retreat, he could not, or rather he did not desire to
+do so.  He had lost the power of will; and then, it must be confessed, he
+had finished by getting accustomed to this house, and liked it well--they
+paid him such discreet attentions, and yet left him so much alone with
+his grief--there reigned all around such a death-like silence, which
+harmonized closely with the silence of his heart; and that was now the
+tomb of his last love, last friendship, last hope.  All energy was dead
+within him!  Then began that slow, but inevitable transformation, so
+judiciously foreseen by Rodin, who directed the whole of this
+machination, even in its smallest details.  At first alarmed by the
+dreadful maxims which surrounded him, M. Hardy had at length accustomed
+himself to read them over almost mechanically, just as the captive, in
+his mournful hours of leisure, counts the nails in the door of his
+prison, or the bars of the grated window.  This was already a great point
+gained by the reverend fathers.
+
+And soon his weakened mind was struck with the apparent correctness of
+these false and melancholy aphorisms.
+
+Thus he read: "Do not count upon the affection of any human creature"--
+and he had himself been shamefully betrayed.
+
+"Man is born to sorrow and despair"--and he was himself despairing.
+
+"There is no rest save in the cessation of thought"--and the slumber of
+his mind had brought some relief to his pain.
+
+Peepholes, skillfully concealed by the hangings and in the wainscoting of
+these apartments, enabled the reverend fathers at all times to see and
+hear the boarders, and above all to observe their countenance and manner,
+when they believed themselves to be alone.  Every exclamation of grief
+which escaped Hardy in his gloomy solitude, was repeated to Father
+d'Aigrigny by a mysterious listener.  The reverend father, following
+scrupulously Rodin's instructions, had at first visited his boarder very
+rarely.  We have said, that when Father d'Aigrigny wished it, he could
+display an almost irresistible power of charming, and accordingly he
+threw all his tact and skill into the interviews he had with Hardy, when
+he came from time to time to inquire after his health.  Informed of
+everything by his spies, and aided by his natural sagacity, he soon saw
+all the use that might be made of the physical and moral prostration of
+the boarder.  Certain beforehand that Hardy would not take the hint, he
+spoke to him frequently of the gloom of the house, advising him
+affectionately to leave it, if he felt oppressed by its monotony, or at
+all events to seek beyond its walls for some pleasure and amusement.  To
+speak of pleasure and amusement to this unfortunate man, was in his
+present state to insure a refusal, and so it of course happened.  Father
+d'Aigrigny did not at first try to gain the recluse's confidence, nor did
+he speak to him of sorrow; but every time he came, he appeared to take
+such a tender interest in him, and showed it by a few simple and well-
+timed words.  By degrees, these interviews, at first so rare, became more
+frequent and longer.  Endowed with a flow of honeyed, insinuating, and
+persuasive eloquence, Father d'Aigrigny naturally took for his theme
+those gloomy maxims, to which Hardy's attention was now so often
+directed.
+
+Supple, prudent, skillful, knowing that the hermit had hitherto professed
+that generous natural religion which teaches the grateful adoration of
+God, the love of humanity, the worship of what is just and good, and
+which, disdaining dogmas, professes the same veneration for Marcus
+Aurelius as for Confucius, for Plato as for Christ, for Moses as for
+Lycurgus--Father d'Aigrigny did not at first attempt to convert him, but
+began by incessantly reminding him of the abominable deceptions practised
+upon him; and, instead of describing such treachery as an exception in
+life--instead of trying to calm, encourage, and revive his drooping soul-
+-instead of exhorting Hardy to seek oblivion and consolation in the
+discharge of his duties toward humanity, towards his brethren, whom he
+had previously loved and succored --Father d'Aigrigny strove to inflame
+the bleeding wounds of the unfortunate man, painted the human race in the
+most atrocious blackness, and, by declaring all men treacherous,
+ungrateful, wicked, succeeded in rendering his despair incurable.  Having
+attained this object, the Jesuit took another step.  Knowing Hardy's
+admirable goodness of heart, and profiting by the weakened state of his
+mind, he spoke to him of the consolation to be derived by a man
+overwhelmed with sorrow, from the belief that every one of his tears,
+instead of being unfruitful, was in fact agreeable to God, and might aid
+in the salvation of souls--the belief, as the reverend father adroitly
+added, that by faith alone can sorrow be made useful to humanity, and
+acceptable to Divinity.
+
+Whatever impiety, whatever atrocious Machiavelism there was in these
+detestable maxims, which make of a loving-kind Deity a being delighted
+with the tears of his creatures, was thus skillfully concealed from
+Hardy's eyes, whose generous instincts were still alive.  Soon did this
+loving and tender soul, whom unworthy priests were driving to a sort of
+moral suicide, find a mournful charm in the fiction, that his sorrows
+would at least be profitable to other men.  It was at first only a
+fiction; but the enfeebled mind which takes pleasure in such a fable,
+finishes by receiving it as a reality, and by degrees will submit to the
+consequences.  Such was Hardy's moral and physical state, when, by means
+of a servant who had been bought over, he received from Agricola Baudoin
+a letter requesting an interview.  Alone, the workman could not have
+broken the band of the Jesuit's pleadings, but he was accompanied by
+Gabriel, whose eloquence and reasonings were of a most convincing nature
+to a spirit like Hardy's.
+
+It is unnecessary to point out to the reader, with what dignified reserve
+Gabriel had confined himself to the most generous means of rescuing Hardy
+from the deadly influence of the reverend fathers.  It was repugnant to
+the great soul of the young missionary, to stoop to a revelation of the
+odious plots of these priests.  He would only have taken this extreme
+course, had his powerful and sympathetic words have failed to have any
+effect on Hardy's blindness.  About a quarter of an hour had elapsed
+since Gabriel's departure, when the servant appointed to wait on this
+boarder of the reverend fathers entered and delivered to him a letter.
+
+"From whom is this?" asked Hardy.
+
+"From a boarder in the house, sir," answered the servant bowing.
+
+This man had a crafty hypocritical face; he wore his hair combed over his
+forehead, spoke in a low voice, and always cast clown his eyes.  Waiting
+the answer, he joined his hands, and began to twiddle his thumbs.  Hardy
+opened the letter, and read as follows:
+
+"SIR,--I have only just heard, by mere chance, that you also inhabit this
+respectable house: a long illness, and the retirement in which I live,
+will explain my ignorance of your being so near.  Though we have only met
+once, sir, the circumstance which led to that meeting was of so serious a
+nature, that I cannot think you have forgotten it.
+
+Hardy stopped, and tasked his memory for an explanation, and not finding
+anything to put him on the right track, he continued to read:
+
+"This circumstance excited in me a feeling of such deep and respectful
+sympathy for you, sir, that I cannot resist my anxious desire to wait
+upon you, particularly as I learn, that you intend leaving this house to-
+day--a piece of information I have just derived from the excellent and
+worthy Abbe Gabriel, one of the men I most love, esteem, and reverence.
+May I venture to hope, sir, that just at the moment of quitting our
+common retreat to return to the world, you will deign to receive
+favorably the request, however intrusive, of a poor old man, whose life
+will henceforth be passed in solitude, and who cannot therefore have any
+prospect of meeting you, in that vortex of society which he has abandoned
+forever.  Waiting the honor of your answer, I beg you to accept, sir, the
+assurance of the sentiments of high esteem with which I remain, sir, with
+the deepest respect,
+
+"Your very humble and most obedient servant,
+
+"RODIN."
+
+
+After reading this letter and the signature of the writer, Hardy remained
+for some time in deep thought, without being able to recollect the name
+of Rodin, or to what serious circumstances he alluded.
+
+After a silence of some duration, he said to the servant "M. Rodin gave
+you this letter?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And who is M. Rodin?"
+
+"A good old gentleman, who is just recovering from a long illness, that
+almost carried him off.  Lately, he has been getting better, but he is
+still so weak and melancholy, that it makes one sad to see him.  It is a
+great pity, for there is not a better and more worthy gentleman in the
+house--unless it be you, sir," added the servant, bowing with an air of
+flattering respect.
+
+"M. Rodin;" said Hardy, thoughtfully.  "It is singular, that I should not
+remember the name nor any circumstance connected with it."
+
+"If you will give me your answer, sir," resumed the servant, "I will take
+it to M. Rodin.  He is now with Father d'Aigrigny, to whom he is bidding
+farewell."
+
+"Farewell?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the post-horses have just come."
+
+"Post-horses for whom?" asked Hardy.
+
+"For Father d'Aigrigny, sir."
+
+"He is going on a journey then!" said Hardy, with some surprise.
+
+"Oh! he will not, I think be long absent," said the servant, with a
+confidential air, "for the reverend father takes no one with him, and but
+very light luggage.  No doubt, the reverend father will come to say
+farewell to you, sir, before he starts.  But what answer shall I give M.
+Rodin?"
+
+The letter, just received, was couched in such polite terms--it spoke of
+Gabriel with so much respect--that Hardy, urged moreover by a natural
+curiosity, and seeing no motive to refuse this interview before quitting
+the house, said to the servant: "Please tell M. Rodin, that if he will
+give himself the trouble to come to me, I shall be glad to see him."
+
+"I will let him know immediately, sir," answered the servant, bowing as
+he left the room.
+
+When alone, Hardy, while wondering who this M. Rodin could be, began to
+make some slight preparations for his departure.  For nothing in the
+world would he have passed another night in this house; and, in order to
+keep up his courage, he recalled every instant the mild, evangelical
+language of Gabriel, just as the superstitious recite certain litanies,
+with a view of escaping from temptation.
+
+The servant soon returned, and said: "M. Rodin is here, sir."
+
+"Beg him to walk in."
+
+Rodin entered, clad in his long black dressing-gown, and with his old
+silk cap in his hand.  The servant then withdrew.  The day was just
+closing.  Hardy rose to meet Rodin, whose features he did not at first
+distinguish.  But as the reverend father approached the window, Hardy
+looked narrowly at him for an instant, and then uttered an exclamation,
+wrung from him by surprise and painful remembrance.  But, recovering
+himself from this first movement, Hardy said to the Jesuit, in an
+agitated voice: "You here, sir?  Oh, you are right! It was indeed a very
+serious circumstance that first brought us together."
+
+"Oh, my dear sir!" said Rodin, in a kindly and unctuous tone; "I was sure
+you would not have forgotten me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+PRAYER.
+
+It will doubtless be remembered that Rodin had gone (although a stranger
+to Hardy) to visit him at his factory, and inform him of De Blessac's
+shameful treachery--a dreadful blow, which had only preceded by a few
+moments a second no less horrible misfortune; for it was in the presence
+of Rodin that Hardy had learned the unexpected departure of the woman he
+adored.  Painful to him must have been the sudden appearance of Rodin.
+Yes, thanks to the salutary influence of Gabriel's counsels, he recovered
+himself by degrees, and the contraction of his features being succeeded
+by a melancholy calm, he said to Rodin: "I did not indeed expect to meet
+you, sir, in this house."
+
+"Alas, sir!" answered Rodin, with a sigh, "I did not expect to come
+hither, probably to end my days beneath this roof, when I went, without
+being acquainted with you, but only as one honest man should serve
+another, to unveil to you a great infamy."
+
+"Indeed, sir, you then rendered me a true service; perhaps, in that
+painful moment, I did not fully express my gratitude; for, at the same
+moment in which you revealed to me the treachery of M. de Blessac--"
+
+"You were overwhelmed by another piece of painful intelligence," said
+Rodin, interrupting M. Hardy; "I shall never forget the sudden arrival of
+that poor woman, who, pale and affrighted, and without considering my
+presence, came to inform you that a person who was exceedingly dear to
+you had quitted Paris abruptly."
+
+"Yes, sir; and, without stopping to thank you, I set out immediately,"
+answered Hardy, with a mournful air.
+
+"Do you know, sir," said Rodin, after a moment's silence, "that there are
+sometimes very strange coincidences?"
+
+"To what do you allude, sir?"
+
+"While I went to inform you that you were betrayed in
+so infamous a manner--I was myself--"
+
+Rodin paused, as if unable to control his deep emotion, and his
+countenance wore the expression of such overpowering grief that Hardy
+said to him, with interest: "What ails you, sir?"
+
+"Forgive me," replied Rodin, with a bitter smile.  "Thanks to the ghostly
+counsels of the angelic Abbe Gabriel, I have reached a sort of
+resignation.  Still, there are certain memories which affect me with the
+most acute pain.  I told you," resumed Rodin, in a firmer voice, "or was
+going to tell you, that the very day after that on which I informed you
+of the treachery practised against you, I was myself the victim of a
+frightful deception.  An adopted son--a poor unfortunate child, whom I
+had brought up--"  He paused again, drew his trembling hand over his
+eyes, and added: "Pardon me, sir, for speaking of matters which must be
+indifferent to you.  Excuse the intrusive sorrow of a poor, broken-
+hearted old man!"
+
+"I have suffered too much myself, sir, to be indifferent to any kind of
+sorrow," replied Hardy.  "Besides, you are no stranger to me--for you did
+me a real service--and we both agree in our veneration for the same young
+priest."
+
+"The Abbe Gabriel!" cried Rodin, interrupting Hardy; "ah, sir! he is my
+deliverer, my benefactor.  If you knew all his care and devotion, during
+my long illness, caused by intense grief--if you knew the ineffable
+sweetness of his counsels--"
+
+"I know them, sir," cried Hardy; "oh, yes! I know how salutary is the
+influence."
+
+"In his mouth, sir, the precepts of religion are full of mildness,"
+resumed Rodin, with excitement.  "Do they not heal and console? do they
+not make us love and hope, instead of fear and tremble?"
+
+"Alas, sir! in this very house," said Hardy, "I have been able to make
+the comparison."
+
+"I was happy enough," said Rodin, "to have the angelic Abbe Gabriel for
+my confessor, or, rather, my confidant."
+
+"Yes," replied Hardy, "for he prefers confidence to confession."
+
+"How well you know him!" said Rodin, in a tone of the utmost simplicity.
+Then he resumed: "He is not a man but an angel.  His words would convert
+the most hardened sinner.  Without being exactly impious, I had myself
+lived in the profession of what is called Natural Religion; but the
+angelic Abbe Gabriel has, by degrees, fixed my wavering belief, given it
+body and soul, and, in fact, endowed me with faith."
+
+"Yes! he is a truly Christian priest--a priest of love and pardon!" cried
+Hardy.
+
+"What you say is perfectly true," replied Rodin; "for I came here almost
+mad with grief, thinking only of the unhappy boy who had repaid my
+paternal goodness with the most monstrous ingratitude, and sometimes I
+yielded to violent bursts of despair, and sometimes sank into a state of
+mournful dejection, cold as the grave itself.  But, suddenly, the Abbe
+Gabriel appeared--and the darkness fled before the dawning of a new day."
+
+"You were right, sir; there are strange coincidences," said Hardy,
+yielding more and more to the feeling of confidence and sympathy,
+produced by the resemblance of his real position to Rodin's pretended
+one.  "And to speak frankly," he added, "I am very glad I have seen you
+before quitting this house.  Were I capable of falling back into fits of
+cowardly weakness, your example alone would prevent me.  Since I listen
+to you, I feel myself stronger in the noble path which the angelic Abbe
+Gabriel has opened before me, as you so well express it."
+
+"The poor old man will not then regret having listened to the first
+impulse of his heart, which urged him to come to you," said Robin, with a
+touching expression.  "You will sometimes remember me in that world to
+which you are returning?"
+
+"Be sure of it, sir; but allow me to ask one question: You remain, you
+say, in this house?"
+
+"What would you have me do?  There reigns here a calm repose, and one is
+not disturbed in one's prayers," said Rodin, in a very gentle tone.  "You
+see, I have suffered so much--the conduct of that unhappy youth was so
+horrible--he plunged into such shocking excesses--that the wrath of
+heaven must be kindled against him.  Now I am very old, and it is only by
+passing the few days that are left me in fervent prayer that I can hope
+to disarm the just anger of the Lord.  Oh! prayer--prayer! It was the
+Abbe Gabriel who revealed to me all its power and sweetness--and
+therewith the formidable duties it imposes."
+
+"Its duties are indeed great and sacred," answered Hardy, with a pensive
+air.
+
+"Do you remember the life of Rancey?" said Rodin, abruptly, as he darted
+a peculiar glance at Hardy.
+
+"The founder of La Trappe?" said Hardy, surprised at Rodin's question.  I
+remember hearing a very vague account, some time ago, of the motives of
+his conversion."
+
+"There is, mark you, no more striking an example of the power of prayer,
+and of the state of almost divine ecstasy, to which it may lead a
+religious soul.  In a few words, I will relate to you this instructive
+and tragic history.  Rancey--but I beg your pardon; I fear I am
+trespassing on your time."
+
+"No, no," answered Hardy, hastily; "You cannot think how interested I am
+in what you tell me.  My interview with the Abbe Gabriel was abruptly
+broken off, and in listening to you I fancy that I hear the further
+development of his views.  Go on, I conjure you.
+
+"With all my heart.  I only wish that the instruction which, thanks to
+our angelic priest, I derived from the story of Rancey might be as
+profitable to you as it was to me."
+
+"This, then, also came from the Abbe Gabriel?"
+
+"He related to me this kind of parable in support of his exhortations,"
+replied Rodin.  "Oh, sir! do I not owe to the consoling words of that
+young priest all that has strengthened and revived my poor old broken
+heart?"
+
+"Then I shall listen to you with a double interest."
+
+"Rancey was a man of the world," resumed Rodin, as he looked attentively
+at Hardy; "a gentleman--young, ardent, handsome.  He loved a young lady
+of high rank.  I cannot tell what impediments stood in the way of their
+union.  But this love, though successful, was kept secret, and every
+evening Rancey visited his mistress by means of a private staircase.  It
+was, they say, one of those passionate loves which men feel but once in
+their lives.  The mystery, even the sacrifice made by the unfortunate
+girl, who forgot every duty, seemed to give new charms to this guilty
+passion.  In the silence and darkness of secrecy, these two lovers passed
+two years of voluptuous delirium, which amounted almost to ecstasy."
+
+At these words Hardy started.  For the first time of late his brow was
+suffused with a deep blush; his heart throbbed violently; he remembered
+that he too had once known the ardent intoxication of a guilty and hidden
+love.  Though the day was closing rapidly, Rodin cast a sidelong glance
+at Hardy, and perceived the impression he had made.  "Some times," he
+continued, "thinking of the dangers to which his mistress was exposed, if
+their connection should be discovered, Rancey wished to sever these
+delicious ties; but the girl, beside herself with passion, threw herself
+on the neck of her lover, and threatened him, in the language of intense
+excitement, to reveal and to brave all, if he thought of leaving her.
+Too weak and loving to resist the prayers of his mistress, Rancey again
+and again yielded, and they both gave themselves up to a torrent of
+delight, which carried them along, forgetful of earth and heaven!"
+
+M. Hardy listened to Rodin with feverish and devouring avidity.  The
+Jesuit, in painting, with these almost sensual colors, an ardent and
+secret love, revived in Hardy burning memories, which till now had been
+drowned in tears.  To the beneficent calm produced by the mild language
+of Gabriel had succeeded a painful agitation, which, mingled with the
+reaction of the shocks received that day, began to throw his mind into a
+strange state of confusion.
+
+Rodin, having so far succeeded in his object, continued as follows: "A
+fatal day came at last.  Rancey, obliged to go to the wars, quitted the
+girl; but, after a short campaign, he returned, more in love than ever.
+He had written privately, to say he would arrive almost immediately after
+his letter.  He came accordingly.  It was night.  He ascended, as usual,
+the private staircase which led to the chamber of his mistress; he
+entered the room, his heart beating with love and hope.  His mistress had
+died that morning!"
+
+"Ah!" cried Hardy, covering his face with his hands, in terror.
+
+"She was dead," resumed Rodin.  "Two wax-candles were burning beside the
+funeral couch.  Rancey could not, would not believe that she was dead.
+He threw himself on his knees by the corpse.  In his delirium, he seized
+that fair, beloved head, to cover it with kisses.  The head parted from
+the body, and remained in his hands!  Yes," resumed Rodin as Hardy drew
+back, pale and mute with terror, "yes, the girl had fallen a victim to so
+swift and extraordinary a disease, that she had not been able to receive
+the last sacraments.  After her death, the doctors, in the hope of
+discovering the cause of this unknown malady, had begun to dissect that
+fair form--"
+
+As Rodin reached this part of his narrative, night was almost come.  A
+sort of hazy twilight alone reigned in this silent chamber, in the centre
+of which appeared the pale and ghastly form of Rodin, clad in his long
+black gown, whilst his eyes seemed to sparkle with diabolic fire.
+Overcome by the violent emotions occasioned by this story, in which
+thoughts of death and voluptuousness, love and horror, were so strangely
+mingled, Hardy remained fixed and motionless, waiting for the words of
+Rodin, with a combination of curiosity, anguish and alarm.
+
+"And Rancey?" said he, at last, in an agitated voice, whilst he wiped the
+cold sweat from his brow.
+
+"After two days of furious delirium," resumed Rodin, "he renounced the
+world, and shut himself up in impenetrable solitude.  The first period of
+his retreat was frightful; in his despair, he uttered loud yells of grief
+and rage, that were audible at some distance.  Twice he attempted
+suicide, to escape from the terrible visions."
+
+"He had visions, then?" said Hardy, with an increased agony of curiosity.
+
+"Yes," replied Rodin, in a solemn tone, "he had fearful visions.  He saw
+the girl, who, for his sake, had died in mortal sin, plunged in the heat
+of the everlasting flames of hell!  On that fair face, disfigured by
+infernal tortures, was stamped the despairing laugh of the damned!  Her
+teeth gnashed with pain; her arms writhed in anguish!  She wept tears of
+blood, and, with an agonized and avenging voice, she cried to her
+seducer: 'Thou art the cause of my perdition--my curse, my curse be upon
+thee!'"
+
+As he pronounced these last words, Rodin advanced three steps nearer to
+Hardy, accompanying each step with a menacing gesture.  If we remember
+the state of weakness, trouble, and fear, in which M. Hardy was--if we
+remember that the Jesuit had just roused in the soul of this unfortunate
+man all the sensual and spiritual memories of a love, cooled, but not
+extinguished, in tears--if we remember, too, that Hardy reproached
+himself with the seduction of a beloved object, whom her departure from
+her duties might (according to the Catholic faith) doom to everlasting
+flames--we shall not wonder at the terrible effect of this
+phantasmagoria, conjured up in silence and solitude, in the evening dusk,
+by this fearful priest.
+
+The effect on Hardy was indeed striking, and the more dangerous, that the
+Jesuit, with diabolical craft, seemed only to be carrying out, from
+another point of view, the ideas of Gabriel.  Had not the young priest
+convinced Hardy that nothing is sweeter, than to ask of heaven
+forgiveness for those who have sinned, or whom we have led astray?  But
+forgiveness implies punishment; and it was to the punishment alone that
+Rodin drew the attention of his victim, by painting it in these terrible
+hues.  With hands clasped together, and eye fixed and dilated, Hardy
+trembled in all his limbs, and seemed still listening to Rodin, though
+the latter had ceased to speak.  Mechanically, he repeated: "My curse, my
+curse be upon thee?"
+
+Then suddenly he exclaimed, in a kind of frenzy: "The curse is on me
+also!  The woman, whom I taught to forget her sacred duties, and to
+commit mortal sin--one day plunged in the everlasting flames--her arms
+writhing in agony--weeping tears of blood--will cry to me from the
+bottomless pit: `My curse, my curse be upon thee!'--One day," he added,
+with redoubled terror, "one day?--who knows? perhaps at this moment!--for
+if the sea voyage had been fatal to her--if a shipwreck--oh, God! she too
+would have died in mortal sin--lost, lost, forever!--Oh, have mercy on
+her, my God! Crush me in Thy wrath--but have mercy on her--for I alone am
+guilty!"
+
+And the unfortunate man, almost delirious, sank with clasped hands upon
+the ground.
+
+"Sir," cried Rodin, in an affectionate voice, as he hastened to lift him
+up, "my dear sir--my dear friend--be calm! Comfort yourself.  I cannot
+bear to see you despond.  Alas! my intention was quite the contrary to
+that."
+
+"The curse! the curse! yes, she will curse me also--she, that I loved so
+much--in the everlasting flames!" murmured Hardy, shuddering, and
+apparently insensible to the other's words.
+
+"But, my dear sir, listen to me, I entreat you," resumed the latter; "let
+me finish my story, and then you will find it as consoling as it now
+seems terrible.  For heaven's sake, remember the adorable words of our
+angelic Abbe Gabriel, with regard to the sweetness of prayer."
+
+At the name of Gabriel, Hardy recovered himself a little, and exclaimed,
+in a heart-rending tone: "Ay! his words were sweet and beneficent.  Where
+are they now?  For mercy's sake, repeat to me those consoling words."
+
+"Our angelic Abbe Gabriel," resumed Rodin, "spoke to you of the sweetness
+of prayer--"
+
+"Oh, yes! prayer!"
+
+"Well, my dear sir, listen to me, and you shall see how prayer saved
+Rancey, and made a saint of him.  Yes, these frightful torments, that I
+have just described, these threatening visions, were all conquered by
+prayer, and changed into celestial delights."
+
+"I beg of you," said Hardy, in a faint voice, "speak to me of Gabriel,
+speak to me of heaven--but no more flames--no more hell--where sinful
+women weep tears of blood--"
+
+"No, no," replied Rodin; and even as, in describing hell, his tone had
+been harsh and threatening, it now became warm and tender, as he uttered
+the following words: "No; we will have no more images of despair--for, as
+I have told you, after suffering infernal tortures, Rancey, thanks to the
+power of prayer, enjoyed the delights of paradise."
+
+"The delights of paradise?" repeated Hardy, listening with anxious
+attention.
+
+"One day, at the height of his grief, a priest, a good priest--another
+Abbe Gabriel--came to Rancey.  Oh, happiness! oh, providential change!
+In a few days, he taught the sufferer the sacred mysteries of prayer--
+that pious intercession of the creature, addressed to the Creator, in
+favor of a soul exposed to the wrath of heaven.  Then Rancey seemed
+transformed.  His grief was at once appeased.  He prayed; and the more he
+prayed, the greater was his hope.  He felt that God listened to his
+prayer.  Instead of trying to forget his beloved, he now thought of her
+constantly, and prayed for her salvation.  Happy in his obscure cell,
+alone with that adored remembrance, he passed days and nights in praying
+for her--plunged in an ineffable, burning, I had almost said amorous
+ecstasy."
+
+It is impossible to give an idea of the tone of almost sensual energy
+with which Rodin pronounced the word "amorous." Hardy started, changing
+from hot to cold.  For the first time, his weakened mind caught a glimpse
+of the fatal pleasures of asceticism, and of that deplorable catalepsy,
+described in the lives of St. Theresa, St. Aubierge and others.
+
+Rodin perceived the other's thoughts, and continued "Oh, Rancey was not
+now the man to content himself with a vague, passing prayer, uttered in
+the whirl of the world's business, which swallows it up, and prevents it
+from reaching the ear of heaven.  No, no; in the depth of solitude, he
+endeavored to make his prayers even more efficacious, so ardently did he
+desire the eternal salvation of his mistress."
+
+"What did he do then--oh! what did he do in his solitude?" cried Hardy,
+who was now powerless in the hands of the Jesuit.
+
+"First of all," said Rodin, with a slight emphasis, "he became a monk."
+
+"A monk!" repeated Hardy, with a pensive air.
+
+"Yes," resumed Rodin, "he became a monk, because his prayers were thus
+more likely to be favorably accepted.  And then, as in solitude our
+thoughts are apt to wander, he fasted, and mortified his flesh, and
+brought into subjection all that was carnal within him, so that, becoming
+all spirit, his prayers might issue like a pure flame from his bosom, and
+ascend like the perfume of incense to the throne of the Most High!"
+
+"Oh! what a delicious dream!" cried Hardy, more and more under the
+influence of the spell; "to pray for the woman we have adored, and to
+become spirit--perfume--light!"
+
+"Yes; spirit, perfume, light!" said Rodin, with emphasis.  "But it is no
+dream.  How many monks, how many hermits, like Rancey, have, by prayers,
+and austerity, and macerations, attained a divine ecstasy! and if you
+only knew the celestial pleasures of such ecstasies!--Thus, after he
+became a monk, the terrible dreams were succeeded by enchanting visions.
+Many times, after a day of fasting, and a night passed in prayers and
+macerations, Rancey sank down exhausted on the floor of his cell!  Then
+the spirit freed itself from the vile clogs of matter.  His senses were
+absorbed in pleasure; the sound of heavenly harmony struck upon his
+ravished car; a bright, mild light, which was not of this world, dawned
+upon his half-closed eyes; and, at the height of the melodious vibrations
+of the golden harps of the Seraphim, in the centre of a glory, compared
+to which the sun is pale, the monk beheld the image of that beloved
+woman--"
+
+"Whom by his prayers he had at length rescued from the eternal flames?"
+said Hardy, in a trembling voice.
+
+"Yes, herself," replied Rodin, with eloquent enthusiasm, for this monster
+was skilled in every style of speech.  "Thanks to the prayers of her
+lover, which the Lord had granted, this woman no longer shed tears of
+blood--no longer writhed her beautiful arms in the convulsions of
+infernal anguish.  No, no; still fair--oh! a thousand times fairer than
+when she dwelt on earth--fair with the everlasting beauty of angels--she
+smiled on her lover with ineffable ardor, and, her eyes beaming with a
+mild radiance, she said to him in a tender and passionate voice: `Glory
+to the Lord! glory to thee, O my beloved!  Thy prayers and austerities
+have saved me.  I am numbered amongst the chosen.  Thanks, my beloved,
+and glory!'--And therewith, radiant in her felicity, she stooped to kiss,
+with lips fragrant with immortality, the lips of the enraptured monk--and
+their souls mingled in that kiss, burning as love, chaste as divine grace
+immense as eternity!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Hardy, completely beside himself; "a whole life of prayer,
+fasting, torture, for such a moment--with her, whom I mourn--with her,
+whom I have perhaps led to perdition!"
+
+"What do you say? such a moment!" cried Rodin, whose yellow forehead was
+bathed in sweat like that of a magnetizer, and who now took Hardy by the
+hand, and drew still closer, as if to breathe into him the burning
+delirium; "it was not once in his religious life--it was almost every
+day, that Rancey, plunged in divine ecstasy, enjoyed these delicious,
+ineffable, superhuman pleasures, which are to the pleasures of earth what
+eternity is to man's existence!"
+
+Seeing, no doubt, that Hardy was now at the point to which he wished to
+bring him, and the night being almost entirely come, the reverend father
+coughed two or three times in a significant manner, and looked towards
+the door.  At this moment, Hardy, in the height of his frenzy, exclaimed,
+with a supplicating voice: "A cell--a tomb--and the Ecstatic Vision!"
+
+The door of the room opened, and Father d'Aigrigny entered, with a cloak
+under his arm.  A servant followed him, bearing a light.
+
+About ten minutes after this scene, a dozen robust men with frank, open
+countenances, led by Agricola, entered the Rue de Vaugirard, and advanced
+joyously towards the house of the reverend fathers.  It was a deputation
+from the former workmen of M. Hardy.  They came to escort him, and to
+congratulate him on his return amongst them.  Agricola walked at their
+head.  Suddenly he saw a carriage with post-horses issuing from the
+gateway of the house.  The postilion whipped up the horses, and they
+started at full gallop.  Was it chance or instinct?  The nearer the
+carriage approached the group of which he formed a part, the more did
+Agricola's heart sink within him.
+
+The impression became so vivid that it was soon changed into a terrible
+apprehension; and at the moment when the vehicle, which had its blinds
+down, was about to pass close by him, the smith, in obedience to a
+resistless impulse, exclaimed, as he rushed to the horses' heads: "Help,
+friends! stop them!"
+
+"Postilion! ten louis if you ride over him!" cried from the carriage the
+military voice of Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+The cholera was still raging.  The postilion had heard of the murder of
+the poisoners.  Already frightened at the sudden attack of Agricola, he
+struck him a heavy blow on the head with the butt of his whip which
+stretched him senseless on the ground.  Then, spurring with all his
+might, he urged his three horses into a triple gallop, and the carriage
+rapidly disappeared, whilst Agricola's companions, who had neither
+understood his actions nor the sense of his words, crowded around the
+smith, and did their best to revive him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+REMEMBRANCES.
+
+Other events took place a few days after the fatal evening in which M.
+Hardy, fascinated and misled by the deplorable, mystic jargon of Rodin,
+had implored Father d'Aigrigny on his knees to remove him far from Paris,
+into some deep solitude where he might devote himself to a life of prayer
+and ascetic austerities.  Marshal Simon, since his arrival in Paris, had
+occupied, with his two daughters, a house in the Rue des Trois-Freres.
+Before introducing the reader into this modest dwelling, we are obliged
+to recall to his memory some preceding facts.  The day of the burning of
+Hardy 's factory, Marshal Simon had come to consult with his father on a
+question of the highest importance, and to communicate to him his painful
+apprehensions on the subject of the growing sadness of his twin
+daughters, which he was unable to explain.
+
+Marshal Simon held in religious reverence the memory of the Great
+Emperor.  His gratitude to the hero was boundless, his devotion blind,
+his enthusiasm founded upon reason, his affection warm as the most
+sincere and passionate friendship.  But this was not all.
+
+One day the emperor, in a burst of joy and paternal tenderness, had led
+the marshal to the cradle of the sleeping King of Rome, and said to him,
+as he proudly pointed to the beautiful child: "My old friend, swear to me
+that you will serve the son as you have served the father!"
+
+Marshal Simon took and kept that vow.  During the Restoration, the chief
+of a military conspiracy in favor of Napoleon II., he had attempted in
+vain to secure a regiment of cavalry, at that time commanded by the
+Marquis d'Aigrigny.  Betrayed and denounced, the marshal, after a
+desperate duel with the future Jesuit, had succeeded in reaching Poland,
+and thus escaping a sentence of death.  It is useless to repeat the
+series of events which led the marshal from Poland to India, and then
+brought him back to Paris after the Revolution of July--an epoch at which
+a number of his old comrades in arms had solicited and obtained from the
+government, without his knowledge, the confirmation of the rank and title
+which the emperor had bestowed upon him just before Waterloo.
+
+On his return to Paris, after his long exile, in spite of all the
+happiness he felt in at length embracing his children, Marshal Simon was
+deeply affected on learning the death of their mother, whom he adored.
+Till the last moment, he had hoped to find her in Paris.  The
+disappointment was dreadful, and he felt it cruelly, though he sought
+consolation in his children's affection.
+
+But soon new causes of trouble and anxiety were interwoven with his life
+by the machinations of Rodin.  Thanks to the secret intrigues of the
+reverend father at the Courts of Rome and Vienna, one of his emissaries,
+in a condition to inspire full confidence, and provided with undeniable
+evidence to support his words, went to Marshal Simon, and said to him:
+"The son of the emperor is dying, the victim of the fears with which the
+name of Napoleon still inspires Europe.
+
+"From this slow expiring, you, Marshal Simon, one of the emperor's most
+faithful friends, are able to rescue this unfortunate prince.
+
+"The correspondence in my hand proves that it would be easy to open
+relations, of the surest and most secret nature, with one of the most
+influential persons about the King of Rome, and this person would be
+disposed to favor the prince's escape.
+
+"It is possible, by a bold, unexpected stroke, to deliver Napoleon II.
+from the custody of Austria, which would leave him to perish by inches in
+an atmosphere that is fatal to him.
+
+"The enterprise may be a rash one, but it has chances of success that you
+Marshal Simon, more than any other, could change into certainties; for
+your devotion to the emperor is well known, and we remember with what
+adventurous audacity you conspired, in 1815, in favor of Napoleon II."
+
+The state of languor and decline of the King of Rome was then in France a
+matter of public notoriety.  People even went so far as to affirm that
+the son of the hero was carefully trained by priests, who kept him in
+complete ignorance of the glory of his paternal name; and that, by the
+most execrable machinations, they strove day by day to extinguish every
+noble and generous instinct that displayed itself in the unfortunate
+youth.  The coldest hearts were touched and softened at the story of so
+sad and fatal a destiny.  When we remember the heroic character and
+chivalrous loyalty of Marshal Simon, and his passionate devotion to the
+emperor, we can understand how the father of Rose and Blanche was more
+interested than any one else in the fate of the young prince, and how, if
+occasion offered, he would feel himself obliged not to confine his
+efforts to mere regrets.  With regard to the reality of the
+correspondence produced by Rodin's emissary, it had been submitted by the
+marshal to a searching test, by means of his intimacy with one of his old
+companions in arms, who had been for a long period on a mission to
+Vienna, in the time of the empire.  The result of this investigation,
+conducted with as much prudence as address, so that nothing should
+transpire, showed that the marshal might give his serious attention to
+the advances made him.
+
+Hence, this proposition threw the father of Rose and Blanche into a cruel
+perplexity; for, to attempt so bold and dangerous an enterprise, he must
+once more abandon his children; whilst, on the contrary, if, alarmed at
+this separation, he renounced the endeavor to save the King of Rome,
+whose lingering death was perfectly true and well authenticated, the
+marshal would consider himself as false to the vow he had sworn to the
+emperor.  To end these painful hesitations, full of confidence in the
+inflexible uprightness of his father's character, the marshal had gone to
+ask his advice; unfortunately the old republican workman, mortally
+wounded during the attack on M. Hardy's factory, but still pondering over
+the serious communication of his son, died with these words upon his
+Lips: "My son, you have a great duty to perform, under pain of not acting
+like a man of honor, and of disobeying my last will.  You must, without
+hesitation--"
+
+But, by a deplorable fatality, the last words, which would have completed
+the sense of the old workman's thought, were spoken in so feeble a voice
+as to be quite unintelligible.  He died, leaving Marshal Simon in a worse
+state of anxiety, as one of the two courses open to him had now been
+formally condemned by his father, in whose judgment he had the most
+implicit and merited confidence.  In a word, his mind was now tortured by
+the doubt whether his father had intended, in the name of honor and duty,
+to advise him not to abandon his children, to engage in so hazardous an
+enterprise, or whether, on the contrary, he had wished him to leave them
+for a time, to perform the vow made to the emperor, and endeavor at least
+to rescue Napoleon II. from a captivity that might soon be mortal.
+
+This perplexity, rendered more cruel by certain circumstances, to be
+related hereafter, the tragical death of his father, who had expired in
+his arms; the incessant and painful remembrance of his wife, who had
+perished in a land of exile; and finally, the grief he felt at perceiving
+the overgrowing sadness of Rose and Blanche, occasioned severe shocks to
+Marshal Simon.  Let us add that, in spite of his natural intrepidity, so
+nobly proved by twenty years of war, the ravages of the cholera, the same
+terrible malady to which his wife had fallen a victim in Siberia, filled
+the marshal with involuntary dread.  Yes, this man of iron nerves, who
+had coolly braved death in so many battles, felt the habitual firmness of
+his character give way at sight of the scenes of desolation and mourning
+which Paris offered at every step.  Yet, when Mdlle. de Cardoville
+gathered round her the members of her family, to warn them against the
+plot of their enemies, the affectionate tenderness of Adrienne for Rose
+and Blanche appeared to exercise so happy an influence on their
+mysterious sorrow, that the marshal, forgetting for a moment his fatal
+regrets, thought only of enjoying this blessed change, which, alas! was
+but of short duration.  Having now recalled these facts to the mind of
+the reader, we shall continue our story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE BLOCKHEAD
+
+We have stated that Marshal Simon occupied a small house in the Rue des
+Trois-Freres.  Two o'clock in the afternoon had just struck in the
+marshal's sleeping-chamber, a room furnished with military simplicity.
+In the recess, in which stood the bed, hung a trophy composed of the arms
+used by the marshal during his campaigns.  On the secretary opposite was
+a small bronze bust of the emperor, the only ornament of the apartment.
+Out of doors the temperature was far from warm, and the marshal had
+become susceptible to cold during his long residence in India.  A good
+fire therefore blazed upon the hearth.  A door, concealed by the
+hangings, and leading to a back staircase, opened slowly, and a man
+entered the chamber.  He carried a basket of wood, and advanced leisurely
+to the fireplace, before which he knelt clown, and began to arrange the
+logs symmetrically in a box that stood besides the hearth.  After some
+minutes occupied in this manner, still kneeling, he gradually approached
+another door, at a little distance from the chimney, and appeared to
+listen with deep attention, as if he wished to hear what was passing in
+the next room.
+
+This man, employed as an inferior servant in the house, had the most
+ridiculously stupid look that can be imagined.  His functions consisted
+in carrying wood, running errands, etc.  In other respects he was a kind
+of laughing-stock to the other servants.  In a moment of good humor,
+Dagobert, who filled the post of major-domo, had given this idiot the
+name of "Loony" (lunatic), which he had retained ever since, and which he
+deserved in every respect, as well for his awkwardness and folly as for
+his unmeaning face, with its grotesquely flat nose, sloping chin, and
+wide, staring eyes.  Add to this description a jacket of red stuff, and a
+triangular white apron, and we must acknowledge that the simpleton was
+quite worthy of his name.
+
+Yet, at the moment when Loony listened so attentively at the door of the
+adjoining room, a ray of quick intelligence animated for an instant his
+dull and stupid countenance.
+
+When he had thus listened for a short time, Loony returned to the
+fireplace, still crawling on his knees; then rising, he again took his
+basket half full of wood, and once more approaching the door at which he
+had listened knocked discreetly.  No one answered.  He knocked a second
+time, and more loudly.  Still there was the same silence.
+
+Then he said, in a harsh, squeaking, laughable voice: "Ladies, do you
+want any wood, if you please, for your fire?"
+
+Receiving no answer, Loony placed his basket on the ground, opened the
+door gently, and entered the next room, after casting a rapid glance
+around.  He came out again in a few seconds, looking from side to side
+with an anxious air, like a man who had just accomplished some important
+and mysterious task.
+
+Taking up his basket, he was about to leave Marshal Simon's room, when
+the door of the private staircase was opened slowly and with precaution,
+and Dagobert appeared.
+
+The soldier, evidently surprised at the servant's presence, knitted his
+brows, and exclaimed abruptly, "What are you doing here?"
+
+At this sudden interrogation, accompanied by a growl expressive of the
+ill-humor of Spoil-sport, who followed close on his master's heels, Loony
+uttered a cry of real or pretended terror.  To give, perhaps, an
+appearance of greater reality to his dread, the supposed simpleton let
+his basket fall on the ground, as if astonishment and fear had loosened
+his hold of it.
+
+"What are you doing, numbskull?" resumed Dagobert, whose countenance was
+impressed with deep sadness, and who seemed little disposed to laugh at
+the fellow's stupidity.
+
+"Oh, M. Dagobert! how you frighten me! Dear me! what a pity I had not an
+armful of plates, to prove it was not my fault if I broke them all."
+
+"I ask what you are doing," resumed the soldier.
+
+"You see, M. Dagobert," replied Loony, pointing to his basket, "that I
+came with some wood to master's room, so that he might burn it, if it was
+cold--which it is."
+
+"Very well.  Pick up your wood, and begone!"
+
+"Oh, M. Dagobert! my legs tremble under me.  How you did scare me, to be
+sure!"
+
+"Will you begone, brute?" resumed the veteran; and seizing Loony by the
+arm, he pushed him towards the door, while Spoil-sport, with recumbent
+ears, and hair standing up like the quills of a porcupine, seemed
+inclined to accelerate his retreat.
+
+"I am going, M. Dagobert, I am going," replied the simpleton, as he
+hastily gathered up his basket; "only please to tell the dog--"
+
+"Go to the devil, you stupid chatterbox!" cried Dagobert, as he pushed
+Loony through the doorway.
+
+Then the soldier bolted the door which led to the private staircase, and
+going to that which communicated with the apartments of the two sisters,
+he double-locked it.  Having done this, he hastened to the alcove in
+which stood the bed and taking down a pair of loaded pistols, he
+carefully removed the percussion caps, and, unable to repress a deep
+sigh, restored the weapons to the place in which he had found them.
+Then, as if on second thoughts, he took down an Indian dagger with a very
+sharp blade, and drawing it from its silver-gilt sheath, proceeded to
+break the point of this murderous instrument, by twisting it beneath one
+of the iron castors of the bed.
+
+Dagobert then proceeded to unfasten the two doors, and, returning slowly
+to the marble chimney-piece, he leaned against it with a gloomy and
+pensive air.  Crouching before the fire, Spoil-sport followed with an
+attentive eye the least movement of his master.  The good dog displayed a
+rare and intelligent sagacity.  The soldier, having drawn out his
+handkerchief, let fall, without perceiving it, a paper containing a roll
+of tobacco.  Spoil-sport, who had all the qualities of a retriever of the
+Rutland race, took the paper between his teeth, and, rising upon his
+hind-legs, presented it respectfully to Dagobert.  But the latter
+received it mechanically, and appeared indifferent to the dexterity of
+his dog.  The grenadier's countenance revealed as much sorrow as anxiety.
+After remaining for some minutes near the fire, with fixed and meditative
+look, he began to walk about the room in great agitation, one of his
+hands thrust into the bosom of his long blue frock-coat, which was
+buttoned up to the chin, and the other into one of his hind-pockets.
+
+From time to time he stopped abruptly, and seemed to make reply to his
+own thoughts, or uttered an exclamation of doubt and uneasiness; then,
+turning towards the trophy of arms, he shook his head mournfully, and
+murmured, "No matter--this fear may be idle; but he has acted so
+extraordinarily these two days, that it is at all events more prudent--"
+
+He continued his walk, and said, after a new and prolonged silence: "Yes
+he must tell me.  It makes me too uneasy.  And then the poor children--it
+is enough to break one's heart."
+
+And Dagobert hastily drew his moustache between his thumb and forefinger,
+a nervous movement, which with him was an evident symptom of extreme
+agitation.  Some minutes after, the soldier resumed, still answering his
+inward thoughts: "What can it be?  It is hardly possible to be the
+letters, they are too infamous; he despises them.  And yet   But no, no--
+he is above that!"
+
+And Dagobert again began to walk with hasty steps.  Suddenly, Spoil-sport
+pricked up his ears, turned his head in the direction of the staircase
+door, and growled hoarsely.  A few seconds after, some one knocked at the
+door.
+
+"Who is there?" said Dagobert.  There was no answer, but the person
+knocked again.  Losing patience, the soldier went hastily to open it, and
+saw the servant's stupid face.
+
+"Why don't you answer, when I ask who knocks!" said the soldier, angrily.
+
+"M. Dagobert, you sent me away just now, and I was afraid of making you
+cross, if I said I had come again."
+
+"What do you want?  Speak then--come in, stupid!" cried the exasperated.
+Dagobert, as he pulled him into the room.
+
+"M. Dagobert, don't be angry--I'll tell you all about it--it is a young
+man."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He wants to speak to you directly, Mr. Dagobert."
+
+"His name?"
+
+"His name, M. Dagobert?" replied Loony, rolling about and laughing with
+an idiotic air.
+
+"Yes, his name.  Speak, idiot!"
+
+"Oh, M. Dagobert! it's all in joke that you ask me his name!"
+
+"You are determined, fool that you are, to drive me out of my senses!"
+cried the soldier, seizing Loony by the collar.  "The name of this young
+man!"
+
+"Don't be angry, M. Dagobert.  I didn't tell you the name because you
+know it."
+
+"Beast!" said Dagobert, shaking his fist at him.
+
+"Yes, you do know it, M. Dagobert, for the young man is your own son.  He
+is downstairs, and wants to speak to you directly--yes, directly."
+
+The stupidity was so well assumed, that Dagobert was the dupe of it.
+Moved to compassion rather than anger by such imbecility, he looked
+fixedly at the servant, shrugged his shoulders, and said, as he advanced
+towards the staircase, "Follow me!"
+
+Loony obeyed; but, before closing the door, he drew a letter secretly
+from his pocket, and dropped it behind him without turning his head,
+saying all the while to Dagobert, for the purpose of occupying his
+attention: "Your son is in the court, M. Dagobert.  He would not come up
+--that's why he is still downstairs!"
+
+Thus talking, he closed the door, believing he had left the letter on the
+floor of Marshal Simon's room.  But he had reckoned without Spoil-sport.
+Whether he thought it more prudent to bring up the rear, or, from
+respectful deference for a biped, the worthy dog had been the last to
+leave the room, and, being a famous carrier, as soon as he saw the letter
+dropped by Loony, he took it delicately between his teeth, and followed
+close on the heels of the servant, without the latter perceiving this new
+proof of the intelligence and sagacity of Spoil-sport.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE ANONYMOUS LETTERS.
+
+We will explain presently what became of the letter, which Spoil-sport
+held between his teeth, and why he left his master, when the latter ran
+to meet Agricola.  Dagobert had not seen his son for some days.
+Embracing him cordially, he led him into one of the rooms on the ground-
+floor, which he usually occupied.  "And how is your wife?" said the
+soldier to his son.
+
+"She is well, father, thank you."
+
+Perceiving a great change in Agricola's countenance, Dagobert resumed:
+"You look sad.  Has anything gone wrong since I saw you last?"
+
+"All is over, father.  We have lost him," said the smith, in a tone of
+despair.
+
+"Lost whom?"
+
+"M. Hardy."
+
+"M. Hardy!--why, three days ago, you told me you were going to see him."
+
+"Yes, father, I have seen him--and my dear brother Gabriel saw him and
+spoke to him--how he speaks! with a voice that comes from the heart!--and
+he had so revived and encouraged him, that M. Hardy consented to return
+amongst us.  Then I, wild with joy, ran to tell the good news to some of
+my mates, who were waiting to hear the result of nay interview with M.
+Hardy.  I brought them all with me to thank and bless him.  We were
+within a hundred yards of the house belonging to the black-gowns--"
+
+"Ali, the black-gowns!" said Dagobert, with a gloomy air.  "Then some
+mischief will happen.  I know them."
+
+"You are not mistaken, father," answered Agricola, with a sigh.  "I was
+running on with my comrades, when I saw a carriage coming towards us.
+Some presentiment told me that they were taking away M. Hardy."
+
+"By force!" said Dagobert, hastily.
+
+"No," answered Agricola, bitterly; "no--the priests are too cunning for
+that.  They know how to make you an accomplice in the evil they do you.
+Shall I not always remember how they managed with my good mother?"
+
+"Yes, the worthy woman! there was a poor fly caught in the spider's web.
+But this carriage, of which you speak?"
+
+"On seeing it start from the house of the black-gowns," replied Agricola,
+"my heart sank within me; and, by an impulse stronger than myself, I
+rushed to the horses' heads, calling on my comrades to help me.  But the
+postilion knocked me down and stunned me with a blow from his whip.  When
+I recovered my senses, the carriage was already far away."
+
+"You were not hurt?" cried Dagobert, anxiously, as he examined his son
+from top to toe.
+
+"No, father; a mere scratch."
+
+"What did you next, my boy?"
+
+"I hastened to our good angel, Mdlle. de Cardoville, and told her all.
+`You must follow M. Hardy on the instant,' said she to me.  `Take my
+carriage and post-horses.  Dupont will accompany you; follow M. Hardy
+from stage to stage; should you succeed in overtaking him your presence
+and your prayers may perhaps conquer the fatal influence that these
+priests have acquired over him.'"
+
+"It was the best advice she could give you.  That excellent young lady is
+always right."
+
+"An hour after, we were upon our way, for we learned by the returned
+postilions, that M. Hardy had taken the Orleans road.  We followed him as
+far as Etampes.  There we heard that he had taken a cross-road, to reach
+a solitary house in a valley about four leagues from the highway.  They
+told us that this house called the Val-de-St. Herem, belonged to certain
+priests, and that, as the night was so dark, and the road so bad, we had
+better sleep at the inn, and start early in the morning.  We followed
+this advice, and set out at dawn.  In a quarter of an hour, we quitted
+the high-road for a mountainous and desert track.  We saw nothing but
+brown rocks, and a few birch trees.  As we advanced, the scene became
+wilder and wilder.  We might have fancied ourselves a hundred leagues
+from Paris.  At last we stopped in front of a large, old, black-looking
+house with only a few small windows in it, and built at the foot of a
+high, rocky mountain.  In my whole life I have never seen anything so
+deserted and sad.  We got out of the carriage, and I rang the bell.  A
+man opened the door.  `Did not the Abbe d'Aigrigny arrive here last night
+with a gentleman?' said I to this man, with a confidential air.  `Inform
+the gentleman directly, that I come on business of importance, and that I
+must see him forthwith.'--The man, believing me an accomplice, showed us
+in immediately; a moment after, the Abbe d'Aigrigny opened the door, saw
+me, and drew back; yet, in five minutes more, I was in presence of M.
+Hardy."
+
+"Well!" said Dagobert, with interest.
+
+Agricola shook his head sorrowfully, and replied: "I knew by the very
+countenance of M. Hardy, that all was over.  Addressing me in a mild but
+firm voice, he said to me: `I understand, I can even excuse, the motives
+that bring you hither.  But I am quite determined to live henceforth in
+solitude and prayer.  I take this resolution freely and voluntarily,
+because I would fain provide for the salvation of my soul.  Tell your
+fellows that my arrangements will be such as to leave them a good
+remembrance of me.'--And as I was about to speak, M. Hardy interrupted
+me, saying: `It is useless, my friend.  My determination is unalterable.
+Do not write to me, for your letters would remain unanswered.  Prayer
+will henceforth be my only occupation.  Excuse me for leaving you, but I
+am fatigued from my journey!'--He spoke the truth for he was as pale as a
+spectre, with a kind of wildness about the eyes, and so changed since the
+day before, as to be hardly the same man.  His hand, when he offered it
+on parting from me, was dry and burning.  The Abbe d'Aigrigny soon came
+in.  `Father,' said M. Hardy to him, `have the goodness to see M. Baudoin
+to the door.'--So saying, he waved his hand to me in token of farewell,
+and retired to the next chamber.  All was over; he is lost to us
+forever."
+
+"Yes," said Dagobert, "those black-gowns have enchanted him, like so many
+others."
+
+"In despair," resumed Agricola, "I returned hither with M. Dupont.  This,
+then, is what the priests have made of M. Hardy--of that generous man,
+who supported nearly three hundred industrious workmen in order and
+happiness, increasing their knowledge, improving their hearts, and
+earning the benediction of that little people, of which he was the
+providence.  Instead of all this, M. Hardy is now forever reduced to a
+gloomy and unavailing life of contemplation."
+
+"Oh, the black-gowns!" said Dagobert, shuddering, and unable to conceal a
+vague sense of fear.  "The longer I live, the more I am afraid of them.
+You have seen what those people did to your poor mother; you see what
+they have just done to M. Hardy; you know their plots against my two poor
+orphans, and against that generous young lady.  Oh, these people are very
+powerful! I would rather face a battalion of Russian grenadiers, than a
+dozen of these cassocks.  But don't let's talk of it.  I have causes
+enough beside for grief and fear."
+
+Then seeing the astonished look of Agricola, the soldier, unable to
+restrain his emotion, threw himself into the arms of his son, exclaiming
+with a choking voice: "I can hold out no longer.  My heart is too full.
+I must speak; and whom shall I trust if not you?"
+
+"Father, you frighten me!" said Agricola, "What is the matter?"
+
+"Why, you see, had it not been for you and the two poor girls, I should
+have blown out my brains twenty times over rather than see what I see--
+and dread what I do."
+
+"What do you dread, father?"
+
+"Since the last few days, I do not know what has come over the marshal--
+but he frightens me."
+
+"Yet in his last interviews with Mdlle. de Cardoville "
+
+"Yes, he was a little better.  By her kind words, this generous young
+lady poured balm into his wounds; the presence of the young Indian
+cheered him; he appeared to shake off his cares, and his poor little
+girls felt the benefit of the change.  But for some days, I know not what
+demon has been loosed against his family.  It is enough to turn one's
+head.  First of all, I am sure that the anonymous letters have begun
+again."
+
+"What letters, father?"
+
+"The anonymous letters."
+
+"But what are they about?"
+
+"You know how the marshal hated that renegade, the Abbe d'Aigrigny.  When
+he found that the traitor was here, and that he had persecuted the two
+orphans, even as he persecuted their mother to the death--but that now he
+had become a priest--I thought the marshal would have gone mad with
+indignation and fury.  He wishes to go in search of the renegade.  With
+one word I calmed him.  `He is a priest,' I said; `you may do what you
+will, insult or strike him--he will not fight.  He began by serving
+against his country, he ends by becoming a bad priest.  It is all in
+character.  He is not worth spitting upon.'--'But surely I may punish the
+wrong done to my children, and avenge the death of my wife,' cried the
+marshal, much exasperated.--`They say, as you well know, that there are
+courts of law to avenge your wrongs,' answered I; 'Mdlle. de Cardoville
+has lodged a charge against the renegade, for having attempted to confine
+your daughters in a convent.  We must champ the bit and wait."'
+
+"Yes," said Agricola, mournfully, "and unfortunately there lacks proof to
+bring it home to the Abbe d'Aigrigny.  The other day, when I was examined
+by Mdlle. de Cardoville's lawyer, with regard to our attempt on the
+convent, he told me that we should meet with obstacles at every step, for
+want of legal evidence, and that the priests had taken their precautions
+with so much skill that the indictment would be quashed."
+
+"That is just what the marshal thinks, my boy, and this increases his
+irritation at such injustice."
+
+"He should despise the wretches."
+
+"But the anonymous letters!"
+
+"Well, what of them, father?"
+
+"You shall know all.  A brave and honorable man like the marshal, when
+his first movement of indignation was over, felt that to insult the
+renegade disguised in the garb of a priest, would be like insulting an
+old man or a woman.  He determined therefore to despise him, and to
+forget him as soon as possible.  But then, almost every day, there came
+by the post anonymous letters, in which all sorts of devices were
+employed, to revive and excite the anger of the marshal against the
+renegade by reminding him of all the evil contrived by the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny against him and his family.  The marshal was reproached with
+cowardice for not taking vengeance on this priest, the persecutor of his
+wife and children, the insolent mocker at his misfortunes."
+
+"And from whom do you suspect these letters to come, father?"
+
+"I cannot tell--it is that which turns one's brain.  They must come from
+the enemies of the marshal, and he has no enemies but the black-gowns."
+
+"But, father, since these letters are to excite his anger against the
+Abbe d'Aigrigny, they can hardly have been written by priests."
+
+"That is what I have said to myself."
+
+"But what, then, can be their object?"
+
+"Their object?  oh, it is too plain!" cried Dagobert.  "The marshal is
+hasty, ardent; he has a thousand reasons to desire vengeance on the
+renegade.  But he cannot do himself justice, and the other sort of
+justice fails him.  Then what does he do?  He endeavors to forget, he
+forgets.  But every day there comes to him an insolent letter, to provoke
+and exasperate his legitimate hatred, by mockeries and insults.  Devil
+take me! my head is not the weakest--but, at such a game, I should go
+mad."
+
+"Father, such a plot would be horrible, and only worthy of hell!"
+
+"And that is not all."
+
+"What more?"
+
+"The marshal has received other letters; those he has not shown me--but,
+after he had read the first, he remained like a man struck motionless,
+and murmured to himself: `They do not even respect that--oh! it is too
+much--too much!'--And, hiding his face in his hands he wept."
+
+"The marshal wept!" cried the blacksmith, hardly able to believe what he
+heard.
+
+"Yes," answered Dagobert, "he wept like a child."
+
+"And what could these letters contain, father?"
+
+"I did not venture to ask him, he appeared so miserable and dejected."
+
+"But thus harassed and tormented incessantly, the marshal must lead a
+wretched life."
+
+"And his poor little girls too! he sees them grow sadder and sadder,
+without being able to guess the cause.  And the death of his father,
+killed almost in his arms!  Perhaps, you will think all this enough; but,
+no! I am sure there is something still more painful behind.  Lately, you
+would hardly know the marshal.  He is irritable about nothing, and falls
+into such fits of passion, that--"  After a moment's hesitation, the
+soldier resumed: "I way tell this to you, my poor boy.  I have just been
+upstairs, to take the caps from his pistols."
+
+"What, father!" cried Agricola; "you fear--"
+
+"In the state of exasperation in which I saw him yesterday, there is
+everything to fear."
+
+" What then happened?"
+
+"Since some time, he has often long secret interviews with a gentleman,
+who looks like an old soldier and a worthy man.  I have remarked that the
+gloom and agitation of the marshal are always redoubled after one of
+these visits.  Two or three times, I have spoken to him about it; but I
+saw by his look, that I displeased him, and therefore I desisted.
+
+"Well! yesterday, this gentleman came in the evening.  He remained here
+until eleven o'clock, and his wife came to fetch him, and waited for him
+in a coach.  After his departure, I went up to see if the marshal wanted
+anything.  He was very pale, but calm; he thanked me, and I came down
+again.  You know that my room is just under his.  I could hear the
+marshal walking about as if much agitated, and soon after he seemed to be
+knocking down the furniture.  In alarm, I once more went upstairs.  He
+asked me, with an irritated air, what I wanted, and ordered me to leave
+the room.  Seeing him in that way, I remained; he grew more angry, still
+I remained; perceiving a chair and table thrown down, I pointed to them
+with so sad an air that he understood me.  You know that he has the best
+heart in the world, so, taking me by the hand, he said to me: `Forgive me
+for causing you this uneasiness, my good Dagobert; but just now, I lost
+my senses, and gave way to a burst of absurd fury; I think I should have
+thrown myself out of the window, had it been open.  I only hope, that my
+poor dear girls have not heard me,' added he, as he went on tip-toe to
+open the door which communicates with his daughters' bedroom.  When he
+had listened anxiously for a moment, he returned to me, and said:
+"Luckily, they are asleep.'--Then I asked him what was the cause of his
+agitation, and if, in spite of my precautions, he had received any more
+anonymous letters.  `No,' replied he, with a gloomy air; `but leave me,
+my friend.  I am now better.  It has done me good to see you.  Good--
+night, old comrade! go downstairs to bed.'--I took care not to contradict
+him; but, pretending to go down, I came up again, and seated myself on
+the top stair, listening.  No doubt, to calm himself entirely, the
+marshal went to embrace his children, for I heard him open and shut their
+door.  Then he returned to his room, and walked about for a long time,
+but with a more quiet step.  At last, I heard him throw himself on his
+bed, and I came down about break of day.  After that, all remained
+tranquil."
+
+"But whatever can be the matter with him, father?"
+
+"I do not know.  When I went up to him, I was astonished at the agitation
+of his countenance, and the brilliancy of his eyes.  He would have looked
+much the same, had he been delirious, or in a burning fever--so that,
+when I heard him say, he could have thrown himself out of the window, had
+it been open, I thought it more prudent to remove the caps from his
+pistols."
+
+"I cannot understand it!" said Agricola.  "So firm, intrepid, and cool a
+man as the marshal, a prey to such violence!"
+
+"I tell you that something very extraordinary is passing within him.  For
+two days, he has not been to see his children, which is always a bad sign
+with him--to say nothing of the poor little angels themselves, who are
+miserable at the notion that they have displeased their father.  They
+displease him!  If you only knew the life they lead, dear creatures! a
+walk or ride with me and their companion, for I never let them go out
+alone, and, the rest of their time, at their studies, reading, or
+needlework--always together--and then to bed.  Yet their duenna, who is,
+I think, a worthy woman, tells me that sometimes at night, she has seen
+them shed tears in their sleep.  Poor children! they have hitherto known
+but little happiness," added the soldier, with a sigh.
+
+At this moment, hearing some one walk hastily across the courtyard,
+Dagobert raised his eyes, and saw Marshal Simon, with pale face and
+bewildered air, holding in his two hands a letter, which he seemed to
+read with devouring anxiety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+THE GOLDEN CITY.
+
+While Marshal Simon was crossing the little court with so agitated an
+air, reading the anonymous letter, which he had received by Spoil-sport's
+unexpected medium, Rose and Blanche were alone together, in the sitting-
+room they usually occupied, which had been entered for a moment by Loony
+during their absence.  The poor children seemed destined to a succession
+of sorrows.  At the moment their mourning for their mother drew near its
+close, the tragical death of their grandfather had again dressed them in
+funereal weeds.  They were seated together upon a couch, in front of
+their work-table.  Grief often produces the effect of years.  Hence, in a
+few months, Rose and Blanche had become quite young women.  To the
+infantine grace of their charming faces, formerly so plump and rosy, but
+now pale and thin, had succeeded an expression of grave and touching
+sadness.  Their large, mild eyes of limpid azure, which always had a
+dreamy character, were now never bathed in those joyous tears, with which
+a burst of frank and hearty laughter used of old to adorn their silky
+lashes, when the comic coolness of Dagobert, or some funny trick of
+Spoil-sport, cheered them in the course of their long and weary
+pilgrimage.
+
+In a word, those delightful faces, which the flowery pencil of Greuze
+could alone have painted in all their velvet freshness, were now worthy
+of inspiring the melancholy ideal of the immortal Ary Scheffer, who gave
+us Mignon aspiring to Paradise, and Margaret dreaming of Faust.  Rose,
+leaning back on the couch, held her head somewhat bowed upon her bosom,
+over which was crossed a handkerchief of black crape.  The light
+streaming from a window opposite, shone softly on her pure, white
+forehead, crowned by two thick bands of chestnut hair.  Her look was
+fixed, and the open arch of her eyebrows, now somewhat contracted,
+announced a mind occupied with painful thoughts.  Her thin, white little
+hands had fallen upon her knees, but still held the embroidery, on which
+she had been engaged.  The profile of Blanche was visible, leaning a
+little towards her sister, with an expression of tender and anxious
+solicitude, whilst her needle remained in the canvas, as if she had just
+ceased to work.
+
+"Sister," said Blanche, in a low voice, after some moments of silence,
+during which the tears seemed to mount to her eyes, "tell me what you are
+thinking of.  You look so sad."
+
+"I think of the Golden City of our dreams," replied Rose, almost in a
+whisper, after another short silence.
+
+Blanche understood the bitterness of these words.  Without speaking, she
+threw herself on her sister's neck, and wept.  Poor girls! the Golden
+City of their dreams was Paris, with their father in it--Paris, the
+marvellous city of joys and festivals, through all of which the orphans
+had beheld the radiant and smiling countenance of their sire!  But, alas!
+the Beautiful City had been changed into a place of tears, and death, and
+mourning.  The same terrible pestilence which had struck down their
+mother in the heart of Siberia, seemed to have followed them like a dark
+and fatal cloud, which, always hovering above them, hid the mild blue of
+the sky, and the joyous light of the sun.
+
+The Golden City of their dreams!  It was the place, where perhaps one day
+their father would present to them two young lovers, good and fair as
+themselves.  "They love you," he was to say; " they are worthy of you.
+Let each of you have a brother, and me two sons." Then what chaste,
+enchanting confusion for those two orphans, whose hearts, pure as
+crystal, had never reflected any image but that of Gabriel, the celestial
+messenger sent by their mother to protect them!
+
+We can therefore understand the painful emotion of Blanche, when she
+heard her sister repeat, with bitter melancholy, those words which
+described their whole situation: "I think of the Golden City of our
+dreams!"
+
+"Who knows?" proceeded Blanche, drying her sister's tears; "perhaps,
+happiness may yet be in store for us."
+
+"Alas! if we are not happy with our father by us--shall we ever be so?"
+
+"Yes, when we rejoin our mother," said Blanche, lifting her eyes to
+heaven.
+
+"Then, sister, this dream may be a warning--it is so like that we had in
+Germany."
+
+"The difference being that then the Angel Gabriel came down from heaven
+to us, and that this time he takes us from earth, to our mother."
+
+"And this dream will perhaps come true, like the other, my sister.  We
+dreamt that the Angel Gabriel would protect us, and he came to save us
+from the shipwreck."
+
+"And, this time, we dream that he will lead us to heaven.  Why should not
+that happen also?"
+
+"But to bring that about, sister, our Gabriel, who saved us from the
+shipwreck, must die also.  No, no; that must not happen.  Let us pray
+that it may not happen."
+
+"No, it will not happen--for it is only Gabriel's good angel, who is so
+like him, that we saw in our dreams."
+
+"Sister, dear, how singular is this dream!--Here, as in Germany, we have
+both dreamt the same--three times, the very same!"
+
+"It is true.  The Angel Gabriel bent over us, and looked at us with so
+mild and sad an air, saying: `Come, my children! come, my sisters!  Your
+mother waits for you.  Poor children, arrived from so far!' added he in
+his tender voice: `You have passed over the earth, gentle and innocent as
+two doves, to repose forever in the maternal nest.'"
+
+"Yes, those were the words of the archangel," said the other orphan, with
+a pensive air; "we have done no harm to any one, and we have loved those
+who loved us--why should we fear to die?"
+
+"Therefore, dear sister, we rather smiled than wept, when he took us by
+the hand, and, spreading wide his beautiful white wings, carried us along
+with him to the blue depths of the sky."
+
+"To heaven, where our dear mother waited for us with open arms, her face
+all bathed in tears."
+
+"Oh, sweet sister! one has not dreams like ours for nothing.  And then,"
+added she, looking at Rose, with a sad smile that went to the heart, "our
+death might perhaps end the sorrow, of which we have been the cause."
+
+"Alas! it is not our fault.  We love him so much.  But we are so timid
+and sorrowful before him, that he may perhaps think we love him not."
+
+So saying, Rose took her handkerchief from her workbasket, to dry her
+fears; a paper, folded in the form of a letter, fell out.
+
+At this sight, the two shuddered, and pressed close to one mother, and
+Rose said to Blanche, in a trembling voice: "Another of these letters!--
+Oh, I am afraid!  It will doubtless be like the last."
+
+"We must pick it up quickly, that it may not be seen," said Blanche,
+hastily stooping to seize the letter; "the people who take interest in us
+might otherwise be exposed to great danger."
+
+"But how could this letter come to us?"
+
+"How did the others come to be placed right under our hand, and always in
+the absence of our duenna?"
+
+"It is true.  Why seek to explain the mystery?  We should never be able
+to do so.  Let us read the letter.  It will perhaps be more favorable to
+us than the last."  And the two sisters read as follows:--
+
+"Continue to love your father, dear children, for he is very miserable,
+and you are the involuntary cause of his distress.  You will never know
+the terrible sacrifices that your presence imposes on him; but, alas! he
+is the victim of his paternal duties.  His sufferings are more cruel than
+ever; spare him at least those marks of tenderness, which occasion him so
+much more pain than pleasure.  Each caress is a dagger-stroke, for he
+sees in you the innocent cause of his misfortunes.  Dear children, you
+must not therefore despair.  If you have enough command over yourselves,
+not to torture him by the display of too warm a tenderness, if you can
+mingle some reserve with your affection, you will greatly alleviate his
+sorrow.  Keep these letters a secret from every one, even from good
+Dagobert, who loves you so much; otherwise, both he and you, your father,
+and the unknown friend who is writing to you, will be exposed to the
+utmost peril, for your enemies are indeed formidable.  Courage and hope!
+May your father's tenderness be once more free from sorrow and regret!--
+That happy day is perhaps not so far distant.  Burn this letter like all
+the others!"
+
+The above note was written with so much cunning that, even supposing the
+orphans had communicated it to their father or Dagobert, it would at the
+worst have been considered a strange, intrusive proceeding, but almost
+excusable from the spirit in which it was conceived.  Nothing could have
+been contrived with more perfidious art, if we consider the cruel
+perplexity in which Marshal Simon was struggling between the fear of
+again leaving his children and the shame of neglecting what he considered
+a sacred duty.  All the tenderness, all the susceptibility of heart which
+distinguished the orphans, had been called into play by these diabolical
+counsels, and the sisters soon perceived that their presence was in fact
+both sweet and painful to their father; for sometimes he felt himself
+incapable of leaving them, and sometimes the thought of a neglected duty
+spread a cloud of sadness over his brow.  Hence the poor twins could not
+fail to value the fatal meaning of the anonymous letters they received.
+They were persuaded that, from some mysterious motive, which they were
+unable to penetrate, their presence was often importunate and even
+painful to their father.  Hence the growing sadness of Rose and Blanche--
+hence the sort of fear and reserve which restrained the expression of
+their filial tenderness.  A most painful situation for the marshal, who
+deceived by inexplicable appearances, mistook, in his turn, their manner
+of indifference to him--and so, with breaking heart, and bitter grief
+upon his face, often abruptly quitted his children to conceal his tears!
+
+And the desponding orphans said to each other: "We are the cause of our
+father's grief.  It is our presence which makes him so unhappy."
+
+The reader may new judge what ravages such a thought, when fixed and
+incessant, must have made on these young, loving, timid, and simple
+hearts.  Haw could the orphans be on their guard against such anonymous
+communications, which spoke with reverence of all they loved, and seemed
+every day justified by the conduct of their father?  Already victims of
+numerous plots, and hearing that they were surrounded by enemies, we can
+understand, how faithful to the advice of their unknown friend, they
+forbore to confide to Dagobert these letters, in which he was so justly
+appreciated.  The object of the proceeding was very plain.  By
+continually harassing the marshal on all sides, and persuading him of the
+coldness of his children, the conspirators might naturally hope to
+conquer the hesitation which had hitherto prevented his again quitting
+his daughters to embark in a dangerous enterprise.  To render the
+marshal's life so burdensome that he would desire to seek relief from his
+torments in airy project of daring and generous chivalry, was one of the
+ends proposed by Rodin--and, as we have seen, it wanted neither logic nor
+possibility.
+
+After having read the letter, the two remained for a moment silent and
+dejected.  Then Rose, who held the paper in her hand, started up
+suddenly, approached the chimneypiece, and threw the letter into the
+fire, saying, with a timid air: "We must burn it quickly, or perhaps some
+great danger will ensue."
+
+"What greater misfortune can happen to us," said Blanche, despondingly,
+"than to cause such sorrow to our father?  What can be the reason of it?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Rose, whose tears were slowly trickling down her cheek,
+"he does not find us what he could have desired.  He may love us well as
+the children of our poor mother, but we are not the daughters he had
+dreamed of.  Do you understand me, sister?"
+
+"Yes, yes--that is perhaps what occasioned all his sorrow.  We are so
+badly informed, so wild, so awkward, that he is no doubt ashamed of us;
+and, as he loves us in spite of all, it makes him suffer."
+
+"Alas! it is not our fault.  Our dear mother brought us up in the deserts
+of Siberia as well as she could."
+
+"Oh! father himself does not reproach us with it; only it gives him
+pain."
+
+"Particularly if he has friends whose daughters are very beautiful, and
+possessed of all sorts of talents.  Then he must bitterly regret that we
+are not the same."
+
+"Dost remember when he took us to see our cousin, Mdlle. Adrienne, who
+was so affectionate and kind to us, that he said to us, with admiration:
+`Did you notice her, my children?  How beautiful she is, and what talent,
+what a noble heart, and therewith such grace and elegance!'"
+
+"Oh, it is very true!  Mdlle. de Cardoville is so beautiful, her voice is
+so sweet and gentle, that, when we saw and heard her, we fancied that all
+our troubles were at an end."
+
+"And it is because of such beauty, no doubt, that our father, comparing
+us with our cousin and so many other handsome young ladies, cannot be
+very proud of us.  And he, who is so loved and honored, would have liked
+to have been proud of his daughters."
+
+Suddenly Rose laid her hand on her sister's arm, and said to her, with
+anxiety: "Listen! listen! they are talking very loud in father's
+bedroom."
+
+"Yes," said Blanche, listening in her turn; "and I can hear him walking.
+That is his step."
+
+"Good heaven! how he raises his voice; he seems to be in a great passion;
+he will perhaps come this way."
+
+And at the thought of their father's coming--that father who really
+adored them--the unhappy children looked in terror at each other.  The
+sound of a loud and angry voice became more and more distinct; and Rose,
+trembling through all her frame, said to her sister: "Do not let us
+remain here! Come into our room."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"We should hear, without designing it, the words of our father--and he
+does not perhaps know that we are so near."
+
+"You are right.  Come, come!" answered Blanche, as she rose hastily from
+her seat.
+
+"Oh! I am afraid.  I have never heard him speak in so angry a tone."
+
+"Oh! kind heaven!" said Blanche, growing pale, as she stopped
+involuntarily.  "It is to Dagobert that he is talking so loud."
+
+"What can be the matter--to make our father speak to him in that way?"
+
+"Alas! some great misfortune must have happened."
+
+"Oh, sister! do not let us remain here! It pains me too much to hear
+Dagobert thus spoken to."
+
+The crash of some article, hurled with violence and broken to pieces in
+the next room, so frightened the orphans, that, pale and trembling with
+emotion, they rushed into their own apartment, and fastened the door.  We
+must now explain the cause of Marshal Simon's violent anger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+THE STUNG LION.
+
+This was the scene, the sound of which had so terrified Rose and Blanche.
+At first alone in his chamber, in a state of exasperation difficult to
+describe, Marshal Simon had begun to walk hastily up and down, his
+handsome, manly face inflamed with rage, his eyes sparkling with
+indignation, while on his broad forehead, crowned with short-cut hair
+that was now turning gray, large veins, of which you might count the
+pulsations, were swollen almost to bursting; and sometimes his thick,
+black moustache was curled with a convulsive motion, not unlike that
+which is seen in the visage of a raging lion.  And even as the wounded
+lion, in its fury, harassed and tortured by a thousand invisible darts,
+walks up and down its den with savage wrath, so Marshal Simon paced the
+floor of his room, as if bounding from side to side; sometimes he
+stooped, as though bending beneath the weight of his anger; sometimes, on
+the contrary, he paused abruptly, drew himself up to his full height,
+crossed his arms upon his vigorous chest, and with raised brow,
+threatening and terrible look, seemed to defy some invisible enemy, and
+murmur confused exclamations.  Then he stood like a man of war and battle
+in all his intrepid fire.
+
+And now he stamped angrily with his foot, approached the chimney-piece,
+and pulled the bell so violently that the bell-rope remained in his hand.
+A servant hastened to attend to this precipitate summons.  "Did you not
+tell Dagobert that I wished to speak to him?" cried the marshal.
+
+"I executed your grace's orders, but M. Dagobert was accompanying his son
+to the door, and--"
+
+"Very well!" interrupted Marshal Simon, with an abrupt and imperious
+gesture.
+
+The servant went out, and his master continued to walk up and down with
+impatient steps, crumpling, in his rage, a letter that he held in his
+left hand.  This letter had been innocently delivered by Spoil-sport,
+who, seeing him come in, had run joyously to meet him.  At length the
+door opened, and Dagobert appeared.  "I have been waiting for you a long
+time, sirrah!" cried the marshal, in an irritated tone.
+
+Dagobert, more pained than surprised at this burst of anger, which he
+rightly attributed to the constant state of excitement in which the
+marshal had now been for some time past, answered mildly: "I beg your
+pardon, general, but I was letting out my son--"
+
+"Read that, sir!" said the marshal abruptly, giving him the letter.
+
+While Dagobert was reading it, the marshal resumed, with growing anger,
+as he kicked over a chair that stood in his way: "Thus, even in my own
+house, there are wretches bribed to harass me with incredible
+perseverance.  Well! have you read it, sir?"
+
+"It is a fresh insult to add to the others," said Dagobert, coolly, as he
+threw the letter into the fire.
+
+"The letter is infamous--but it speaks the truth," replied the marshal.
+Dagobert looked at him in amazement.
+
+"And can you tell who brought me this infamous letter" continued the
+marshal.  "One would think the devil had a hand in it--for it was your
+dog!"
+
+"Spoil-sport?" said Dagobert, in the utmost surprise.
+
+"Yes," answered the marshal, bitterly; "it is no doubt a joke of your
+invention."
+
+"I have no heart for joking, general," answered Dagobert, more and more
+saddened by the irritable state of the marshal; "I cannot explain how it
+happened.  Spoil-sport is a good carrier, and no doubt found the letter
+in the house--"
+
+"And who can have left it there?  Am I surrounded by traitors?  Do you
+keep no watch?  You, in whom I have every confidence?"
+
+"Listen to me, general--"
+
+But the marshal proceeded, without waiting to hear him.  "What! I have
+made war for five-and-twenty years, I have battled with armies, I have
+struggled victoriously through the evil times of exile and proscription,
+I have withstood blows from maces of iron--and now I am to be killed with
+pins! Pursued into my own house, harassed with impunity, worn out,
+tortured every minute, to gratify some unknown, miserable hate!--When I
+say unknown, I am wrong--it is d'Aigrigny, the renegade, who is at the
+bottom of all this, I am sure.  I have in the world but one enemy, and he
+is the man.  I must finish with him, for I am weary of this--it is too
+much."
+
+"But, general, remember he is a priest--"
+
+"What do I care for that?  Have I not seen him handle the sword?  I will
+yet make a soldier's blood rise to the forehead of the traitor!"
+
+But, general--"
+
+"I tell you, that I must be avenged on some one," cried the marshal, with
+an accent of the most violent exasperation; "I tell you, that I mast find
+a living representative of these cowardly plots, that I may at once make
+an end of him!--They press upon me from all sides; they make my life a
+hell--you know it--and you do nothing to save me from these tortures,
+which are killing me as by a slow fire.  Can I have no one in whom to
+trust?"
+
+"General, I can't let you say that," replied Dagobert, in a calm, but
+firm voice.
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"General, I can't let you say that you have no one to trust to.  You
+might end perhaps in believing it, and then it would be even worse for
+yourself, than for those who well know their devotion for you, and would
+go through fire and water to serve you.  I am one of them--and you know
+it."
+
+These simple words, pronounced by Dagobert with a tone of deep
+conviction, recalled the marshal to himself; for although his honorable
+and generous character might from time to time be embittered by
+irritation and grief, he soon recovered his natural equanimity.  So,
+addressing Dagobert in a less abrupt tone, he said to him, though still
+much agitated: "You are right.  I could never doubt your fidelity.  But
+anger deprives me of my senses.  This infamous letter is enough to drive
+one mad.  I am unjust, ungrateful--yes, ungrateful--and to you!"
+
+"Do not think of me, general.  With a kind word at the end, you might
+blow me up all the year round.  But what has happened?"
+
+The general's countenance again darkened, as he answered rapidly: "I am
+looked down upon, and despised!"
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes I.  After all," resumed the marshal bitterly, "why should I conceal
+from you this new wound?  If I doubted you a moment, I owe you some
+compensation, and you shall know all.  For some time past, I perceived
+that, when I meet any of my old companions in arms, they try to avoid
+me -"
+
+"What! was it to this that the anonymous letter alluded?"
+
+"Yes; and it spoke the truth," replied the marshal, with a sigh of grief
+and indignation.
+
+"But it is impossible, general--you are so loved and respected--"
+
+"Those are mere words; I speak of positive facts.  When I appear, the
+conversation is often interrupted.  Instead of treating me as an old
+comrade, they affect towards me a rigorously cold politeness.  There are
+a thousand little shades, a thousand trifles, which wound the heart, but
+which it is impossible to notice--"
+
+"What you are now saying, general, quite confounds me," replied Dagobert.
+"You assure me of it, and I am forced to believe you."
+
+"Oh, it is intolerable! I was resolved to ease my heart of it; so, this
+morning, I went to General d'Havrincourt, who was colonel with me in the
+Imperial Guard; he is honor and honesty itself.  I went to him with open
+heart.  `I perceive,' said I, `the coldness that is shown me.  Some
+calumny must be circulating to my disadvantage.  Tell me all about it.
+Knowing the attack, I shall be able to defend myself--'
+
+"Well, general?"
+
+"D'Havrincourt remained impassible ceremoniously polite.  To all my
+questions he answered coldly: `I am not aware, my lord duke, that any
+calumny has been circulated with regard to you.'--'Do not call me "my
+lord duke," my dear D'Havrincourt; we are old fellow-soldiers and
+friends, my honor is somewhat touchy, I confess, and I find that you and
+our comrades do not receive me so cordially, as in times past.  You do
+not deny it; I see, I know, I feel it.'  To all this D'Havrincourt
+answered, with the same coldness: `I have never seen any one wanting in
+respect towards you.'--'I am not talking of respect,' exclaimed I, as I
+clasped his hand affectionately, though I observed that he but feebly
+returned the pressure; `I speak of cordiality, confidence, which I once
+enjoyed, while now I am treated like a stranger.  Why is it?  What has
+occasioned this change?'--Still cold and reserved, he answered: `These
+distinctions are so nice, marshal, that it is impossible for me to give
+you any opinion on the subject.'--My heart swelled with grief and anger.
+What was I to do?  To quarrel with D'Havrincourt would have been absurd.
+A sense of dignity forced me to break off the interview, but it has only
+confirmed my fears.  Thus," added the marshal, getting more and more
+animated, "thus am I fallen from the esteem to which I am entitled, thus
+am I despised, without even knowing the cause!  Is it not odious?  If
+they would only utter a charge against me--I should at least be able to
+defend myself, and to find an answer.  But no, no! not even a word--only
+the cold politeness that is worse than any insult.  Oh! it is too much,
+too much! for all this comes but in addition to other cares.  What a life
+is mine since the death of my father!  If I did but find rest and
+happiness at home--but no! I come in, but to read shameful letters; and
+still worse," added the marshal, in a heartrending tone, and after a
+moment's hesitation, "to find my children grow more and more indifferent
+towards me--
+
+"Yes," continued he, perceiving the amazement of Dagobert, "and yet they
+know how much I love them!"
+
+"Your daughters indifferent!" exclaimed Dagobert, in astonishment.  "You
+make them such a reproach?"
+
+"Oh! I do not blame them.  They have hardly had time to know me."
+
+"Not had time to know you?" returned the soldier, in a tone of
+remonstrance, and warming up in his turn.  "Ah! of what did their mother
+talk to them, except you?  and I too! what could I teach your children
+except to know and love you?"
+
+"You take their part--that is natural--they love you better than they do
+me," said the marshal, with growing bitterness.  Dagobert felt himself so
+painfully affected, that he looked at the marshal without answering.
+
+"Yes!" continued the other; "yes! it may be base and ungrateful--but no
+matter!--Twenty times I have felt jealous of the affectionate confidence
+which my children display towards you, while with me they seem always to
+be in fear.  If their melancholy faces ever grow animated for a moment,
+it is in talking to you, in seeing you; while for me they have nothing
+but cold respect--and that kills me.  Sure of the affection of my
+children, I would have braved and surmounted every difficulty--"  Then,
+seeing that Dagobert rushed towards the door which led to the chamber of
+Rose and Blanche, the marshal asked: "Where are you going?"
+
+"For your daughters, general."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To bring them face to face with you--to tell them: `My children, your
+father thinks that you do not love him.'--I will only say that--and then
+you will see."
+
+"Dagobert! I forbid you to do it," cried the marshal, hastily.
+
+"I don't care for that--you have no right to be unjust to the poor
+children," said the soldier, as he again advanced towards the door.
+
+"Dagobert, I command you to remain here," cried the marshal.
+
+"Listen to me, general.  I am your soldier, your inferior, your servant,
+if you will," said the old grenadier, roughly; "but neither rank nor
+station shall keep me silent, when I have to defend your daughters.  All
+must be explained--I know but one way--and that is to bring honest people
+face to face."
+
+If the marshal had not seized him by the arm, Dagobert would have entered
+the apartment of the young girls.
+
+"Remain!" said the marshal, so imperiously that the soldier, accustomed
+to obedience, hung his head, and stood still.
+
+"What would you do?" resumed the marshal.  "Tell my children, that I
+think they do not love me? induce them to affect a tenderness they do not
+feel--when it is not their fault, but mine?"
+
+"Oh, general!" said Dagobert, in a tone of despair, "I no longer feel
+anger, in hearing you speak thus of your children.  It is such grief,
+that it breaks my heart!"
+
+Touched by the expression of the soldier's countenance, the marshal
+continued, less abruptly: "Come, I may be wrong; and yet I ask you,
+without bitterness or jealousy, are not my children more confiding, more
+familiar, with you than with me?"
+
+"God bless me, general!" cried Dagobert; "if you come to that, they are
+more familiar with Spoil-sport than with either of us.  You are their
+father; and, however kind a father may be, he must always command some
+respect.  Familiar with me!  I should think so.  A fine story!  What the
+devil should they respect in me, who, except that I am six feet high, and
+wear a moustache, might pass for the old woman that nursed them?--and
+then I must say, that, even before the death of your worthy father, you
+were sad and full of thought; the children have remarked that; and what
+you take for coldness on their part, is, I am sure, anxiety for you.
+Come, general; you are not just.  You complain, because they love you too
+much."
+
+"I complain, because I suffer," said the marshal, in an agony of
+excitement.  "I alone know my sufferings."
+
+"They must indeed be grievous, general," said Dagobert, carried further
+than he would otherwise have gone by his attachment for the orphans,
+"since those who love you feel them so cruelly."
+
+"What, sir! more reproaches?"
+
+"Yes, general, reproaches," cried Dagobert.  "Your children have the
+right to complain of you, since you accuse them so unjustly."
+
+"Sir," said the marshal, scarcely able to contain himself, `this is
+enough--this is too much!"
+
+"Oh, yes! it is enough," replied Dagobert, with rising emotion.  "Why
+defend unfortunate children, who can only love and submit?  Why defend
+them against your unhappy blindness?"
+
+The marshal started with anger and impatience, but then replied, with a
+forced calmness: "I needs must remember all that I owe you--and I will
+not forget it, say what you will."
+
+"But, general," cried Dagobert, "why will you not let me fetch your
+children?"
+
+"Do you not see that this scene is killing me?" cried the exasperated
+marshal.  "Do you not understand, that I will not have my children
+witness what I suffer?  A father's grief has its dignity, sir; and you
+ought to feel for and respect it."
+
+"Respect it? no--not when it is founded on injustice!"
+
+"Enough, sir--enough!"
+
+"And not content with tormenting yourself," cried Dagobert, unable any
+longer to control his feelings, "do you know what you will do?  You will
+make your children die of sorrow.  Was it for this, that I brought them
+to you from the depths of Siberia?"
+
+"More reproaches!"
+
+"Yes; for the worst ingratitude towards me, is to make your children
+unhappy."
+
+"Leave the room, sir!" cried the marshal, quite beside himself, and so
+terrible with rage and grief, that Dagobert, regretting that he had gone
+so far, resumed: "I was wrong, general.  I have perhaps been wanting in
+respect to you--forgive me--but--"
+
+"I forgive you--only leave me!" said the marshal, hardly restraining
+himself.
+
+"One word, general--"
+
+"I entreat you to leave me--I ask it as a service--is that enough?" said
+the marshal, with renewed efforts to control the violence of his
+emotions.
+
+A deadly paleness succeeded to the high color which during this painful
+scene had inflamed the cheeks of the marshal.  Alarmed at this symptom,
+Dagobert redoubled his entreaties.  "I implore you, general," said he, in
+an agitated mice, "to permit me for one moment--"
+
+"Since you will have it so, sir, I must be the one to leave," said the
+marshal, making a step towards the door.
+
+These words were said in such a manner, that Dagobert could no longer
+resist.  He hung his head in despair, looked for a moment in silent
+supplication at the marshal, and then, as the latter seemed yielding to a
+new movement of rage, the soldier slowly quitted the room.
+
+A few minutes had scarcely elapsed since the departure of Dagobert, when
+the marshal, who, after a long and gloomy silence, had repeatedly drawn
+near the door of his daughters' apartment with a mixture of hesitation
+and anguish, suddenly made a violent effort, wiped the cold sweat from
+his brow, and entered the chamber in which Rose and Blanche had taken
+refuge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+THE TEST.
+
+Dagobert was right in defending his children, as he paternally called
+Rose and Blanche, and yet the apprehensions of the marshal with regard to
+the coldness of his daughters, were unfortunately justified by
+appearances.  As he had told his father, unable to explain the sad, and
+almost trembling embarrassment, which his daughters felt in his presence,
+he sought in vain for the cause of what he termed their indifference.
+Now reproaching himself bitterly for not concealing from them his grief
+at the death of their mother, he feared he might have given them to
+understand that they would be unable to console him; now supposing that
+he had not shown himself sufficiently tender, and that had chilled them
+with his military sternness; and now repeating with bitter regret, that,
+having always lived away from them, he must be always a stranger to them.
+In a word, the most unlikely suppositions presented themselves by turns
+to his mind, and whenever such seeds of doubt, suspicion, or fear, are
+blended with a warm affection, they will sooner or later develop
+themselves with fatal effect.  Yet, notwithstanding this fancied
+coldness, from which he suffered so much, the affection of the marshal
+for his daughters was so true and deep, that the thought of again
+quitting them caused the hesitations which were the torment of his life,
+and provoked an incessant struggle between his paternal love and the duty
+he held most sacred.
+
+The injurious calumnies, which had been so skillfully propagated, that
+men of honor, like his old brothers in arms, were found to attach some
+credit to them, had been spread with frightful pertinacity by the friends
+of the Princess de Saint-Dizier.  We shall describe hereafter the meaning
+and object of these odious reports, which, joined with so many other
+fatal injuries, had filled up the measure of the marshal's indignation.
+Inflamed with anger, excited almost to madness by this incessant
+"stabbing with pins" (as he had himself called it), and offended at some
+of Dagobert's words, he had spoken harshly to him.  But, after the
+soldier's departure, when left to reflect in silence, the marshal
+remembered the warm and earnest expressions of the defender of his
+children, and doubt crossed his mind, as to the reality of the coldness
+of which he accused them.  Therefore, having taken a terrible resolution
+in case a new trial should confirm his desponding doubts, he entered, as
+we before said, his, daughters' chamber.  The discussion with Dagobert
+had been so loud, that the sound of the voices had confusedly reached the
+ears of the two sisters, even after they had taken refuge in their
+bedroom.  So that, on the arrival of their father, their pale faces
+betrayed their fear and anxiety.  At sight of the marshal, whose
+countenance was also much agitated, the girls rose respectfully, but
+remained close together, trembling in each other's arms.  And yet there
+was neither anger nor severity on their father's face--only a deep,
+almost supplicating grief, which seemed to say: "My children, I suffer--I
+have come to you--console me, love me! or I shall die!"
+
+The marshal's countenance was at this moment so expressive, that, the
+first impulse of fear once surmounted, the sisters were about to throw
+themselves into his arms; but remembering the recommendations of the
+anonymous letter, which told them how painful any effusion of their
+tenderness was to their father, they exchanged a rapid glance, and
+remained motionless.  By a cruel fatality, the marshal at this moment
+burned to open his arms to his children.  He looked at them with love, he
+even made a slight movement as if to call them to him; but he would not
+attempt more, for fear of meeting with no response.  Still the poor
+children, paralyzed by perfidious counsels, remained mute, motionless,
+trembling!
+
+"It is all over," thought he, as he gazed upon them.  "No chord of
+sympathy stirs in their bosom.  Whether I go---whether I remain--matters
+not to them.  No, I am nothing to these children--since, at this awful
+moment, when they see me perhaps for the last time, no filial instinct
+tells them that their affection might save me still!"
+
+During these terrible reflections, the marshal had not taken his eyes off
+his children, and his manly countenance assumed an expression at once so
+touching and mournful--his look revealed so painfully the tortures of his
+despairing soul--that Rose and Blanche, confused, alarmed, but yielding
+together to a spontaneous movement, threw themselves on their father's
+neck, and covered him with tears and caresses.  Marshal Simon had not
+spoken a word; his daughters had not uttered a sound; and yet all three
+had at length understood one another.  A sympathetic shock had
+electrified and mingled those three hearts.  Vain fears, false doubts,
+lying counsel, all had yielded to the irresistible emotion.  which had
+brought the daughters to their father's arms.  A sudden revelation gave
+them faith, at the fatal moment when incurable suspicion was about to
+separate them forever.
+
+In a second, the marshal felt all this, but words failed him.  Pale,
+bewildered, kissing the brows, the hair, the hands of his daughters,
+weeping, sighing, smiling all in turn, he was wild, delirious, drunk with
+happiness.  At length, he exclaimed: "I have found them--or rather, I
+have never lost them.  They loved me, and did not dare to tell me so.  I
+overawed them.  And I thought it was my fault.  Heavens! what good that
+does! what strength, what heart, what hope!--Ha! ha!" cried he, laughing
+and weeping at the same time, whilst he covered his children with
+caresses; "they may despise me now, they may harass me now--I defy them
+all.  My own blue eyes! my sweet blue eyes! look at me well, and inspire
+me with new life."
+
+"Oh, father! you love us then as much as we love you?" cried Rose, with
+enchanting simplicity.
+
+"And we may often, very often, perhaps every day, throw ourselves on your
+neck, embrace you, and prove how glad we are to be with you?"
+
+"Show you, dear father, all the store of love we were heaping up in our
+hearts--so sad, alas! that we could not spend it upon you?"
+
+"Tell you aloud all that we think in secret?"
+
+"Yes--you may do so--you may do so," said Marshal ,Simon, faltering with
+joy; "what prevented you, my children?  But no; do not answer; enough of
+the past!--I know all, I understand all.  You misinterpreted my gloom,
+and it made you sad; I, in my turn, misinterpreted your sadness.  But
+never mind; I scarcely know what I am saying to you.  I only think of
+looking at you--and it dazzles me--it confuses me--it is the dizziness of
+joy!"
+
+"Oh, look at us, father! look into our eyes, into our hearts," cried
+Rose, with rapture.
+
+"And you will read there, happiness for us, and love for you, sir!" added
+Blanche.
+
+"Sir, sir!" said the marshal, in a tone of affectionate reproach; "what
+does that mean?  Will you call me father, if you please?"
+
+"Dear father, your hand!" said Blanche, as she took it, and placed it on
+her heart.
+
+"Dear father, your hand!" said Rose, as she took the other hand of the
+marshal.  "Do you believe now in our love and happiness?" she continued.
+
+It is impossible to describe the charming expression of filial pride in
+the divine faces of the girls, as their father, slightly pressing their
+virgin bosoms, seemed to count with delight the joyous pulsations of
+their hearts.
+
+"Oh, yes! happiness and affection can alone make the heart beat thus!"
+cried the marshal.
+
+A hoarse sob, heard in the direction of the open door, made the three
+turn round, and there they saw the tall figure of Dagobert, with the
+black nose of Spoil-sport reaching to his master's knee.  The soldier,
+drying his eyes and moustache with his little blue cotton handkerchief,
+remained motionless as the god Terminus.  When he could speak, he
+addressed himself to the marshal, and, shaking his head, muttered, in a
+hoarse voice, for the good man was swallowing his tears: "Did I not tell
+you so?"
+
+"Silence!" said the marshal, with a sign of intelligence.  "You were a
+better father than myself, my old friend.  Come and kiss them! I shall
+not be jealous."
+
+The marshal stretched out his hand to the soldier, who pressed it
+cordially, whilst the two sisters threw themselves on his neck, and
+Spoil-sport, according to custom wishing to have his share in the general
+joy, raised himself on his hind legs, and rested his fore-paws against
+his master's back.  There was a moment of profound silence.  The
+celestial felicity enjoyed during that moment, by the marshal, his
+daughters, and the soldier, was interrupted by the barking of Spoil-sort,
+who suddenly quitted the attitude of a biped.  The happy group separated,
+looked round, and saw Loony's stupid face.  He looked even duller than
+usual, as he stood quite still in the doorway, staring with wide-
+stretched eyes, and holding a feather-broom under his arm, and in his
+hand the ever-present basket of wood.
+
+Nothing makes one so gay as happiness; and, though this grotesque figure
+appeared at a very unseasonable moment, it was received with frank
+laughter from the blooming lips of Rose and Blanche.  Having made the
+marshal's daughters laugh, after their long sadness, Loony at once
+acquired a claim to the indulgence of the marshal, who said to him, good-
+humoredly: "What do you want, my lad?"
+
+"It's not me, my lord duke!" answered Loony, laying his hand on his
+breast, as if it were taking a vow, so that his feather-brush fell down
+from under his arm.  The laughter of the girls redoubled.
+
+"It is not you?" said the marshal.
+
+"Here! Spoil-sport!" Dagobert called, for the honest dog seemed to have a
+secret dislike for the pretended idiot, and approached him with an angry
+air.
+
+"No, my lord duke, it is not me!" resumed Loony.  "It is the footman who
+told me to tell M. Dagobert, when I brought up the wood to tell my lord
+duke, as I was coming up with the basket, that M. Robert wants to see
+him."
+
+The girls laughed still more at this new stupidity.  But, at the name of
+Robert, Marshal Simon started.
+
+M. Robert was the secret emissary of Rodin, with regard to the possible,
+but adventurous, enterprise of attempting the liberation of Napoleon II.
+
+After a moment's silence, the marshal, whose face was still radiant with
+joy and happiness, said to Loony: "Beg M. Robert to wait for me a moment
+in my study."
+
+"Yes, my lord duke," answered Loony, bowing almost to the ground.
+
+The simpleton withdrew, and the marshal said to his daughters, in a
+joyous tone, "You see, that, in a moment like this, one does not leave
+one's children, even for M. Robert."
+
+"Oh! that's right, father!" cried Blanche, gayly; "for I was already very
+angry with this M. Robert."
+
+"Have you pen and paper at hand?" asked the marshal.
+
+"Yes, father; there on the table," said Rose, hastily, as she pointed to
+a little desk near one of the windows, towards which the marshal now
+advanced rapidly.
+
+From motives of delicacy, the girls remained where they were, close to
+the fireplace, and caressed each other tenderly, as if to congratulate
+themselves in private on the unexpected happiness of this day.
+
+The marshal seated himself at the desk, and made a sign to Dagobert to
+draw near.
+
+While he wrote rapidly a few words in a firm hand, he said to the soldier
+with a smile, in so low a tone that it was impossible for his daughters
+to hear: "Do you know what I had almost resolved upon, before entering
+this room?"
+
+"What, general?"
+
+"To blow my brains out.  It is to my children that I owe my life."  And
+the marshal continued writing.
+
+Dagobert started at this communication, and then replied, also in a
+whisper: "It would not have been with your pistols.  I took off the
+caps."
+
+The marshal turned round hastily, and looked at him with an air of
+surprise.  But the soldier only nodded his head affirmatively, and added:
+"Thank heaven, we have now done with all those ideas!"
+
+The marshal's only answer was to glance at his children, his eyes
+swimming with tenderness, and sparkling with delight; then, sealing the
+note he had written, he gave it to the soldier, and said to him, "Give
+that to M. Robert.  I will see him to-morrow."
+
+Dagobert took the letter, and went out.  Returning towards his daughters,
+the marshal joyfully extended his arms to them, and said, "Now, young
+ladies, two nice kisses for having sacrificed M. Robert to you.  Have I
+not earned them?" And Rose and Blanche threw themselves on their father's
+neck.
+
+About the time that these events were taking place at Paris, two
+travellers, wide apart from each other, exchanged mysterious thoughts
+through the breadth of space.
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wandering Jew, V10,
+by Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WANDERING JEW
+
+
+BOOK XI.
+
+L.         The Ruins of the Abbey of St. John the Baptist
+LI.        The Calvary
+LII.       The Council
+LIII.      Happiness
+LIV.       Duty
+LV.        The Improvised Hospital
+LVI.       Hydrophobia
+LVII.      The Guardian Angel
+LVIII.     Ruin
+LIX.       Memories
+LX.        The Ordeal
+LXI.       Ambition
+LXII.      To a Socius, a Socius and a Half
+LXIII.     Faringhea's Affection
+LXIV.      An Evening at St. Colombe's
+LXV.       The Nuptial Bed
+LXVI.      A Duel to the Death
+LXVII.     A Message
+LXVIII.    The First of June
+
+
+EPILOGUE.
+
+I.         Four Years After
+II.        The Redemption
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+THE RUINS OF THE ABBEY OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.
+
+The sun is fast sinking.  In the depths of an immense piny wood, in the
+midst of profound solitude, rise the ruins of an abbey, once sacred to
+St. John the Baptist.  Ivy, moss, and creeping plants, almost entirely
+conceal the stones, now black with age.  Some broken arches, some walls
+pierced with ovals, still remain standing, visible on the dark background
+of the thick wood.  Looking down upon this mass of ruins from a broken
+pedestal, half-covered with ivy, a mutilated, but colossal statue of
+stone still keeps its place.  This statue is strange and awful.  It
+represents a headless human figure.  Clad in the antique toga, it holds
+in its hand a dish and on that dish is a head.  This head is its own.  It
+is the statue of St. John the Baptist and Martyr, put to death by wish of
+Herodias.
+
+The silence around is solemn.  From time to time, however, is heard the
+dull rustling of the enormous branches of the pine-trees, shaken by the
+wind.  Copper-colored clouds, reddened by the setting sun, pass slowly
+over the forest, and are reflected in the current of a brook, which,
+deriving its source from a neighboring mass of rocks, flows through the
+ruins.  The water flows, the clouds pass on, the ancient trees tremble,
+the breeze murmurs.
+
+Suddenly, through the shadow thrown by the overhanging wood, which
+stretches far into endless depths, a human form appears.  It is a woman.
+She advances slowly towards the ruins.  She has reached them.  She treads
+the once sacred ground.  This woman is pale, her look sad, her long robe
+floats on the wind, her feet covered with dust.  She walks with
+difficulty and pain.  A block of stone is placed near the stream, almost
+at the foot of the statue of John the Baptist.  Upon this stone she sinks
+breathless and exhausted, worn out with fatigue.  And yet, for many days,
+many years, many centuries, she has walked on unwearied.
+
+For the first time, she feels an unconquerable sense of lassitude.  For
+the first time, her feet begin to fail her.  For the first time, she, who
+traversed, with firm and equal footsteps, the moving lava of torrid
+deserts, while whole caravans were buried in drifts of fiery sand--who
+passed, with steady and disdainful tread, over the eternal snows of
+Arctic regions, over icy solitudes, in which no other human being could
+live--who had been spared by the devouring flames of conflagrations, and
+by the impetuous waters of torrents--she, in brief, who for centuries had
+had nothing in common with humanity--for the first time suffers mortal
+pain.
+
+Her feet bleed, her limbs ache with fatigue, she is devoured by burning
+thirst.  She feels these infirmities, yet scarcely dares to believe them
+real.  Her joy would be too immense!  But now, her throat becomes dry,
+contracted, all on fire.  She sees the stream, and throws herself on her
+knees, to quench her thirst in that crystal current, transparent as a
+mirror.  What happens then?  Hardly have her fevered lips touched the
+fresh, pure water, than, still kneeling, supported on her hands, she
+suddenly ceases to drink, and gazes eagerly on the limpid stream.
+Forgetting the thirst which devours her, she utters a loud cry--a cry of
+deep, earnest, religious joy, like a note of praise and infinite
+gratitude to heaven.  In that deep mirror, she perceives that she has
+grown older.
+
+In a few days, a few hours, a few minutes, perhaps in a single second,
+she has attained the maturity of age.  She, who for more than eighteen
+centuries has been as a woman of twenty, carrying through successive
+generations the load of her imperishable youth--she has grown old, and
+may, perhaps, at length, hope to die.  Every minute of her life may now
+bring her nearer to the last home!  Transported by that ineffable hope,
+she rises, and lifts her eyes to heaven, clasping her hands in an
+attitude of fervent prayer.  Then her eyes rest on the tall statue of
+stone, representing St. John.  The head, which the martyr carries in his
+hand, seems, from beneath its half-closed granite eyelid, to cast upon
+the Wandering Jewess a glance of commiseration and pity.  And it was she,
+Herodias who, in the cruel intoxication of a pagan festival, demanded the
+murder of the saint!  And it is at the foot of the martyr's image, that,
+for the first time, the immortality, which weighed on her for so many
+centuries, seems likely to find a term!
+
+"Oh, impenetrable mystery! oh, divine hope!" she cries.  "The wrath of
+heaven is at length appeased.  The hand of the Lord brings me to the feet
+of the blessed martyr, and I begin once more to feel myself a human
+creature.  And yet it was to avenge his death, that the same heaven
+condemned me to eternal wanderings!
+
+"Oh, Lord! grant that I may not be the only one forgiven.  May he--the
+artisan, who like me, daughter of a king, wanders on for centuries--
+likewise hope to reach the end of that immense journey!
+
+"Where is he, Lord? where is he?  Hast thou deprived me of the power once
+bestowed, to see and hear him through the vastness of intervening space?
+Oh, in this mighty moment, restore me that divine gift--for the more I
+feel these human infirmities, which I hail and bless as the end of my
+eternity of ills, the more my sight loses the power to traverse
+immensity, and my ear to catch the sound of that wanderer's accent, from
+the other extremity of the globe?"
+
+Night had fallen, dark and stormy.  The wind rose in the midst of the
+great pine-trees.  Behind their black summits, through masses of dark
+cloud, slowly sailed the silver disk of the moon.  The invocation of the
+Wandering Jewess had perhaps been heard.  Suddenly, her eyes closed--with
+hands clasped together, she remained kneeling in the heart of the ruins--
+motionless as a statue upon a tomb.  And then she had a wondrous dream!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+THE CALVARY.
+
+This was the vision of Herodias:  On the summit of a high, steep, rocky
+mountain, there stands a cross.  The sun is sinking, even as when the
+Jewess herself, worn out with fatigue, entered the ruins of St. John's
+Abbey.  The great figure on the cross--which looks down from this
+Calvary, on the mountain, and on the vast, dreary plain beyond--stands
+out white and pale against the dark, blue clouds, which stretch across
+the heavens, and assume a violent tint towards the horizon.  There, where
+the setting sun has left a long track of lurid light, almost of the hue
+of blood--as far as the eye can reach, no vegetation appears on the
+surface of the gloomy desert, covered with sand and stones, like the
+ancient bed of some dried-up ocean.  A silence as of death broods over
+this desolate tract.  Sometimes, gigantic black vultures, with red
+unfeathered necks, luminous yellow eyes, stooping from their lofty flight
+in the midst of these solitudes, come to make their bloody feast on the
+prey they have carried off from less uncultivated regions.
+
+How, then, did this Calvary, this place of prayer, come to be erected so
+far from the abodes of men?  This Calvary was prepared at a great cost by
+a repentant sinner.  He had done much harm to his fellow-creatures, and,
+in the hope of obtaining pardon for his crimes, he had climbed this
+mountain on his knees, and become a hermit, and lived there till his
+death, at the foot of this cross, only sheltered by a roof of thatch, now
+long since swept away by the wind.  The sun is still sinking.  The sky
+becomes darker.  The luminous lines on the horizon grow fainter and
+fainter, like heated bars of iron that gradually grow cool.  Suddenly, on
+the eastern side of the Calvary, is heard the noise of some falling
+stones, which, loosened from the side of the mountain, roll down
+rebounding to its base.  These stones have been loosened by the foot of a
+traveller, who, after traversing the plain below, has, during the last
+hour, been climbing the steep ascent.  He is not yet visible--but one
+hears the echo of his tread--slow, steady, and firm.  At length, he
+reaches the top of the mountain, and his tall figure stands out against
+the stormy sky.
+
+The traveller is pale as the great figure on the cross.  On his broad
+forehead a black line extends from one temple to the other.  It is the
+cobbler of Jerusalem.  The poor artisan, who hardened by misery,
+injustice and oppression, without pity for the suffering of the Divine
+Being who bore the cross, repulsed him from his dwelling, and bade him:
+"Go ON! GO ON! GO ON!"  And, from that day, the avenging Deity has in his
+turn said to the artisan of Jerusalem: "GO ON! GO ON! GO ON!"
+
+And he has gone on, without end or rest.  Nor did the divine vengeance
+stop there.  From time to time death has followed the steps of the
+wanderer, and innumerable graves have been even as mile-stones on his
+fatal path.  And if ever he found periods of repose in the midst of his
+infinite grief, it was when the hand of the Lord led him into deep
+solitudes, like that where he now dragged his steps along.  In passing
+over that dreary plain, or climbing to that rude Calvary, he at least
+heard no more the funeral knell, which always, always sounded behind him
+in every inhabited region.
+
+All day long, even at this hour, plunged in the black abyss of his
+thoughts, following the fatal track--going whither he was guided by the
+invisible hand, with head bowed on his breast, and eyes fixed upon the
+ground, the wanderer had passed over the plain, and ascended the
+mountain, without once looking at the sky--without even perceiving the
+Calvary--without seeing the image upon the cross.  He thought of the last
+descendants of his race.  He felt, by the sinking of his heart, that
+great perils continued to threaten him.  And in the bitterness of a
+despair, wild and deep as the ocean, the cobbler of Jerusalem seated
+himself at the foot of the cross.  At this moment a farewell ray of the
+setting sun, piercing the dark mass of clouds, threw a refection upon the
+Calvary, vivid as a conflagration's glare.  The Jew rested his forehead
+upon his hand.  His long hair, shaken by the evening breeze, fell over
+his pale face--when sweeping it back from his brow, he started with
+surprise--he, who had long ceased to wonder at anything.  With eager
+glance he contemplated the long lock of hair that he held between his
+fingers.  That hair, until now black as night, had become gray.  He also,
+like unto Herodias, was growing older.
+
+His progress towards old age, stopped for eighteen hundred years, had
+resumed its course.  Like the Wandering Jewess, he might henceforth hope
+for the rest of the grave.  Throwing himself on his knees, he stretched
+his hands towards heaven, to ask for the explanation of the mystery which
+filled him with hope.  Then, for the first time, his eyes rested on the
+Crucified One, looking down upon the Calvary, even as the Wandering
+Jewess had fixed her gaze on the granite eyelids of the Blessed Martyr.
+
+The Saviour, his head bowed under the weight of his crown of thorns,
+seemed from the cross to view with pity, and pardon the artisan, who for
+so many centuries had felt his curse--and who, kneeling, with his body
+thrown backward in an attitude of fear and supplication, now lifted
+towards the crucifix his imploring hands.
+
+"Oh, Messiah!" cried the Jew, "the avenging arm of heaven brings me back
+to the foot of this heavy cross, which thou didst bear, when, stopping at
+the door of my poor dwelling, thou wert repulsed with merciless
+harshness, and I said unto thee: `Go on!  go on!'--After my long life of
+wanderings, I am again before this cross, and my hair begins to whiten.
+Oh Lord! in thy divine mercy, hast thou at length pardoned me?  Have I
+reached the term of my endless march?  Will thy celestial clemency grant
+me at length the repose of the sepulchre, which, until now, alas! has
+ever fled before me?--Oh! if thy mercy should descend upon me, let it
+fall likewise upon that woman, whose woes are equal to mine own!  Protect
+also the last descendants of my race!  What will be their fate?  Already,
+Lord, one of them--the only one that misfortune had perverted--has
+perished from the face of the earth.  Is it for this that my hair grows
+gray?  Will my crime only be expiated when there no longer remains in
+this world one member of our accursed race?  Or does this proof of thy
+powerful goodness, Lord, which restores me to the condition of humanity,
+serve also as a sign of the pardon and happiness of my family?  Will they
+at length triumph over the perils which beset them?  Will they,
+accomplishing the good which their ancestor designed for his fellow-
+creatures, merit forgiveness both for themselves and me?  Or will they,
+inexorably condemned as the accursed scions of an accursed stock, expiate
+the original stain of my detested crime?
+
+"Oh, tell me--tell me, gracious Lord! shall I be forgiven with them, or
+will they be punished with me?"
+
+
+The twilight gave place to a dark and stormy night, yet the Jew continued
+to pray, kneeling at the foot of the cross.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+THE COUNCIL.
+
+The following scene took place at Saint-Dizier House, two days after the
+reconciliation of Marshal Simon with his daughters.  The princess is
+listening with the most profound attention to the words of Rodin.  The
+reverend father, according to his habit, stands leaning against the
+mantelpiece, with his hands thrust into the pockets of his old brown
+great-coat.  His thick, dirty shoes have left their mark on the ermine
+hearth-rug.  A deep sense of satisfaction is impressed on the Jesuit's
+cadaverous countenance.  Princess de Saint-Dizier, dressed with that sort
+of modest elegance which becomes a mother of the church, keeps her eyes
+fixed on Rodin--for the latter has completely supplanted Father
+d'Aigrigny in the good graces of this pious lady.  The coolness, audacity
+lofty intelligence, and rough and imperious character of the ex-socius
+have overawed this proud woman, and inspired her with a sincere
+admiration.  Even his filthy habits and often brutal repartees have their
+charm for her, and she now prefers them to the exquisite politeness and
+perfumed elegance of the accomplished Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Yes, madame," said Rodin, in a sanctified tone, for these people do not
+take off their masks even with their accomplices, "yes, madame, we have
+excellent news from our house at St. Herem.  M. Hardy, the infidel, the
+freethinker, has at length entered the pale of the holy Roman Catholic
+and Apostolic Church."  Rodin pronounced these last word with a nasal
+twang, and the devout lady bowed her head respectfully.
+
+"Grace has at length touched the heart of this impious man," continued
+Rodin, "and so effectually that, in his ascetic enthusiasm, he has
+already wished to take the vows which will bind him forever to our divine
+Order."
+
+"So soon, father?" said the princess, in astonishment.
+
+"Our statutes are opposed to this precipitation, unless in the case of a
+penitent in articulo mortis--on the very gasp of death--should such a
+person consider it necessary for his salvation to die in the habit of our
+Order, and leave us all his wealth for the greater glory of the Lord."
+
+"And is M. Hardy in so dangerous a condition, father?"
+
+"He has a violent fever.  After so many successive calamities, which have
+miraculously brought him into the path of salvation," said Rodin,
+piously, "his frail and delicate constitution is almost broken up,
+morally and physically.  Austerities, macerations, and the divine joys of
+ecstasy, will probably hasten his passage to eternal life, and in a few
+clays," said the priest, shaking his head with a solemn air, "perhaps--"
+
+"So soon as that, father?"
+
+"It is almost certain.  I have therefore made use of my dispensations, to
+receive the dear penitent, as in articulo mortis, a member of our divine
+Company, to which, in the usual course, he has made over all his
+possessions, present and to come--so that now he can devote himself
+entirely to the care of his soul, which will be one victim more rescued
+from the claws of Satan."
+
+"Oh, father!" cried the lady, in admiration; "it is a miraculous
+conversion.  Father d'Aigrigny told me how you had to contend against the
+influence of Abbe Gabriel."
+
+"The Abbe Gabriel," replied Rodin, "has been punished for meddling with
+what did not concern him.  I have procured his suspension, and he has
+been deprived of his curacy.  I hear that he now goes about the cholera-
+hospitals to administer Christian consolation; we cannot oppose that--but
+this universal comforter is of the true heretical stamp."
+
+"He is a dangerous character, no doubt," answered the princess, "for he
+has considerable influence over other men.  It must have needed all your
+admirable and irresistible eloquence to combat the detestable counsels of
+this Abbe Gabriel, who had taken it into his head to persuade M. Hardy to
+return to the life of the world.  Really, father, you are a second St.
+Chrysostom."
+
+"Tut, tut, madame!" said Rodin, abruptly, for he was very little sensible
+to flattery; "keep that for others."
+
+"I tell you that you're a second St. Chrysostom father," repeated the
+princess with enthusiasm; "like him, you deserve the name of Golden
+Mouth."
+
+"Stuff, madame!" said Rodin, brutally, shrugging his shoulders; "my lips
+are too pale, my teeth too black, for a mouth of gold.  You must be only
+joking."
+
+"But, father--"
+
+"No, madame, you will not catch old birds with chaff," replied Rodin,
+harshly.  "I hate compliments, and I never pay them."
+
+"Your modesty must pardon me, father," said the princess, humbly; "I
+could not resist the desire to express to you my admiration, for, as you
+almost predicted, or at least foresaw, two members of the Rennepont
+family, have, within the last few months, resigned all claim to the
+inheritance."
+
+Rodin looked at Madame de Saint-Dizier with a softened and approving air,
+as he heard her thus describe the position of the two defunct claimants.
+For, in Rodin's view of the case, M. Hardy, in consequence of his
+donation and his suicidal asceticism, belonged no longer to this world.
+
+The lady continued: "One of these men, a wretched artisan, has been led
+to his ruin by the exaggeration of his vices.  You have brought the other
+into the path of salvation, by carrying out his loving and tender
+qualities.  Honor, then. to your foresight, father! for you said that you
+would make use of the passions to attain your end."
+
+"Do not boast too soon," said Rodin, impatiently.  "Have you forgotten
+your niece, and the Hindoo, and the daughters of Marshal Simon?  Have
+they also made a Christian end, or resigned their claim to share in this
+inheritance?"
+
+"No, doubtless."
+
+"Hence, you see, madame, we should not lose time in congratulating
+ourselves on the past, but make ready for the future.  The great day
+approaches.  The first of June is not far off.  Heaven grant we may not
+see the four surviving members of the family continue to live impenitent
+up to that period, and so take possession of this enormous property--the
+source of perdition in their hands--but productive of the glory of the
+Church in the hands of our Company!"
+
+"True, father!"
+
+"By the way, you were to see your lawyers on the subject of your niece?"
+
+"I have seen them, father.  However uncertain may be the chance of which
+I spoke, it is worth trying.  I shall know to-day, I hope, if it is
+legally possible."
+
+"Perhaps then,--in the new condition of life to which she would be
+reduced, we might find means to effect her conversion," said Rodin, with
+a strange and hideous smile; "until now, since she has been so fatally
+brought in contact with the Oriental, the happiness of these two pagans
+appears bright and changeless as the diamond.  Nothing bites into it, not
+even Faringhea's tooth.  Let us hope that the Lord will wreak justice on
+their vain and guilty felicity!"
+
+This conversation was here interrupted by Father d'Aigrigny, who entered
+the room with an air of triumph, and exclaimed, "Victory!"
+
+"What do you say"' asked the princess.
+
+"He is gone--last night," said Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Who?" said Rodin.
+
+"Marshal Simon," replied the abbe.
+
+"At last!" said Rodin, unable to hide his joy.
+
+"It was no doubt his interview with General d'Havrincourt which filled up
+the measure," cried the princess, "for I know he had a long conversation
+with the general, who like so many others, believed the reports in
+circulation.  All means are good against the impious!" added the
+princess, by way of moral.
+
+"Have you any details?" asked Rodin.
+
+"I have just left Robert," said Father d'Aigrigny.  "His age and
+description agree with the marshal's, and the latter travels with his
+papers.  Only one thing has greatly surprised your emissary."
+
+"What is that?" said Rodin.
+
+"Until now, he had always to contend with the hesitations of the marshal,
+and had moreover noticed his gloomy and desponding air.  Yesterday, on
+the contrary, he found him so bright with happiness, that he could not
+help asking him the cause of the alteration."
+
+"Well?" said Rodin and the princess together, both extremely surprised.
+
+"The marshal answered: `I am indeed the happiest man in the world; for I
+am going joyfully to accomplish a sacred duty!"
+
+The three actors in this scene looked at each other in silence.
+
+"And what can have produced this sudden change in the mind of the
+marshal?" said the princess, with a pensive air.  "We rather reckon on
+sorrow and every kind of irritation to urge him to engage in this
+adventurous enterprise."
+
+"I cannot make it out," said Rodin, reflecting; "but no matter--he is
+gone.  We must not lose a moment, to commence operations on his
+daughters.  Has he taken that infernal soldier with him?"
+
+"No," said Father d'Aigrigny; "unfortunately, he has not done so.  Warned
+by the past, he will redouble his precautions; and a man, whom we might
+have used against him at a pinch, has just been taken with the
+contagion."
+
+"Who is that?" asked the princess.
+
+"Morok.  I could count upon him anywhere and for anything.  He is lost to
+us; for, should he recover from the cholera, I fear he will fall a victim
+to a horrible and incurable disease."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"A few days ago, he was bitten by one of the mastiffs of his menagerie,
+and, the next day, the dog showed symptoms of hydrophobia."
+
+"Ah! it is dreadful," cried the princess; "and where is this unfortunate
+man?"
+
+"He has been taken to one of the temporary hospitals established in
+Paris, for at present he has only been attacked with cholera.  It is
+doubly unfortunate, I repeat, for he was a devoted, determined fellow,
+ready for anything.  Now this soldier, who has the care of the orphans,
+will be very difficult to get at, and yet only through him can we hope to
+reach Marshal Simon's daughters."
+
+"That is clear," said Rodin, thoughtfully.
+
+"Particularly since the anonymous letters have again awakened his
+suspicions," added Father d'Aigrigny "and--"
+
+"Talking of the anonymous letters," said Rodin suddenly, interrupting
+Father d'Aigrigny, "there is a fact that you ought to know; I will tell
+you why."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Besides the letters that you know of, Marshal Simon has received a
+number of others unknown to you, in which, by every possible means, it is
+tried to exasperate his irritation against yourself--for they remind him
+of all the reasons he has to hate you, and mock at him, because your
+sacred character shelters you from his vengeance."
+
+Father d'Aigrigny looked at Rodin with amazement, colored in spite of
+himself, and said to him: "But for what purpose has your reverence acted
+in this manner?"
+
+"First of all, to clear myself of suspicion with regard to the letters;
+then, to excite the rage of the marshal to madness, by incessantly
+reminding him of the just grounds he has to hate you, and of the
+impossibility of being avenged upon you.  This, joined to the other
+emotions of sorrow and anger, which ferment in the savage bosom of this
+man of bloodshed, tended to urge him on to the rash enterprise, which is
+the consequence and the punishment of his idolatry for a miserable
+usurper."
+
+"That may be," said Father d'Aigrigny, with an air of constraint: "but I
+will observe to your reverence, that it was, perhaps, rather dangerous
+thus to excite Marshal Simon against me."
+
+"Why?" asked Rodin, as he fixed a piercing look upon Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Because the marshal, excited beyond all bounds, and remembering only our
+mutual hate, might seek me out--"
+
+"Well! and what then?"
+
+"Well! he might forget that I am a priest--"
+
+"Oh, you are afraid are you?" said Rodin, disdainfully, interrupting
+Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+At the words: "You are afraid," the reverend father almost started from
+his chair; but recovering his coolness, he answered: "Your reverence is
+right; yes, I should be afraid under such circumstances; I should be
+afraid of forgetting that I am a priest, and of remembering too well that
+I have been a soldier."
+
+"Really?" said Rodin, with sovereign contempt.  "You are still no further
+than that stupid and savage point of honor?  Your cassock has not yet
+extinguished the warlike fire?  So that if this brawling swordsman, whose
+poor, weak head, empty and sonorous as a drum, is so easily turned with
+the stupid jargon of `Military honor, oaths, Napoleon II.'--if this
+brawling bravo, I say, were to commit some violence against you, it would
+require a great effort, I suppose, for you to remain calm?"
+
+"It is useless, I think," said Father d'Aigrigny, quite unable to control
+his agitation, "for your reverence to enter upon such questions."
+
+"As your superior," answered Rodin, severely, "I have the right to ask.
+If Marshal Simon had lifted his hand against you--"
+
+"Sir," cried the reverend father.
+
+"There are no sirs here--we are only priests," said Rodin, harshly.
+Father d'Aigrigny held down his head, scarcely able to repress his rage.
+
+"I ask you," continued Rodin, obstinately, "if Marshal Simon had struck
+you?  Is that clear?"
+
+"Enough! in mercy," said Father d'Aigrigny, "enough!"
+
+"Or, if you like it better, had Marshal Simon left the marks of his
+fingers on your cheek?" resumed Rodin, with the utmost pertinacity.
+
+Father d'Aigrigny, pale as death, ground his teeth in a kind of fury at
+the very idea of such an insult, while Rodin, who had no doubt his object
+in asking the question, raised his flabby eyelids, and seemed to watch
+attentively the significant symptoms revealed in the agitated countenance
+of the ex-colonel.
+
+At length, recovering partly his presence of mind, Father d'Aigrigny
+replied, in a forcedly calm tone: "If I were to be exposed to such an
+insult, I would pray heaven to give me resignation and humility."
+
+"And no doubt heaven would hear your prayers," said Rodin, coldly,
+satisfied with the trial to which he had just put him.  "Besides, you are
+now warned, and it is not very probable," added he, with a grim smile,
+"that Marshal Simon will ever return to test your humility.  But if he
+were to return," said Rodin, fixing on the reverend father a long and
+piercing look, "you would know how to show this brutal swordsman, in
+spite of all his violence, what resignation and humility there is in a
+Christian soul!"
+
+Two humble knocks at the door here interrupted the conversation for a
+moment.  A footman entered, bearing a large sealed packet on a salver,
+which he presented to the princess.  After this, he withdrew.  Princess
+de Saint-Dizier, having by a look asked Rodin's permission to open the
+letter, began to read it--and a cruel satisfaction was soon visible on
+her face.
+
+"There is hope," cried she addressing herself to Rodin: "the demand is
+rigorously legal, and the consequence may be such as we desire.  In a
+word, my niece may, any day, be exposed to complete destitution.  She,
+who is so extravagant! what a change in her life!"
+
+"We shall then no doubt have some hold on that untamable character," said
+Rodin with a meditative air; "for, till now, all has failed in that
+direction, and one would suppose some kinds of happiness are
+invulnerable," added the Jesuit, gnawing his flat and dirty nails.
+
+"But, to obtain the result we desire, we must exasperate my niece's
+pride.  It is, therefore, absolutely necessary, that I should see and
+talk to her," said the Princess de Saint-Dizier, reflecting.
+
+"Mdlle. de Cardoville will refuse this interview," said Father
+d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Perhaps," replied the princess.  "But she is so happy that her audacity
+must be at its height.  Yes, yes--I know her--and I will write in such a
+manner, that she will come."
+
+"You think so?" asked Rodin, with a doubtful air.
+
+"Do not fear it, father," answered the lady, "she will come.  And her
+pride once brought into play, we may hope a good deal from it."
+
+"We must then act, lady," resumed Rodin; "yes, act promptly.  The moment
+approaches.  Hate and suspicion are awake.  There is not a moment to
+lose."
+
+"As for hate," replied the princess, "Mdlle. de Cardoville must have seen
+to what her lawsuit would lead, about what she called her illegal
+detention in a lunatic asylum, and that of the two young ladies in St.
+Mary's Convent.  Thank heaven, we have friends everywhere!  I know from
+good authority, that the case will break down from want of evidence, in
+spite of the animosity of certain parliamentary magistrates, who shall be
+well remembered."
+
+"Under these circumstances," replied Rodin, "the departure of the marshal
+gives us every latitude.  We must act immediately on his daughters."
+
+"But how?" said the princess.
+
+"We must see them," resumed Rodin, "talk with them, study them.  Then we
+shall act in consequence."
+
+"But the soldier will not leave them a second," said Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"Then," replied Rodin, "we must talk to them in presence of the soldier,
+and get him on our side."
+
+"That hope is idle," cried Father d'Aigrigny.  "You do not know the
+military honor of his character.  You do not know this man."
+
+"Don't I know him?" said Rodin, shrugging his shoulders.  "Did not Mdlle.
+de Cardoville present me to him as her liberator, when I denounced you as
+the soul of the conspiracy?  Did I not restore to him his ridiculous
+imperial relic--his cross of honor--when we met at Dr. Baleinier's?  Did
+I not bring him back the girls from the convent, and place them in the
+arms of their father?"
+
+"Yes," replied the princess; "but, since that time, my abominable niece
+has either guessed or discovered all.  She told you so herself, father."
+
+"She told me, that she considered me her most mortal enemy," said Rodin.
+"Be it so.  But did she tell the same to the marshal?  Has she ever
+mentioned me to him? and if she have done so, has the marshal
+communicated this circumstance to his soldier?  It may be so; but it is
+by no means sure; in any case.  I must ascertain the fact; if the soldier
+treats me as an enemy, we shall see what is next to be done--but I will
+first try to be received as a friend."
+
+"When?" asked the princess.
+
+"To-morrow morning," replied Rodin.
+
+"Good heaven, my clear father!" cried the Princess de Saint-Dizier, in
+alarm; "if this soldier were to treat you as an enemy--beware--"
+
+"I always beware, madame.  I have had to face worse enemies than he is,"
+said the Jesuit showing his black teeth; "the cholera to begin with."
+
+"But he may refuse to see you, and in what way will you then get at
+Marshal Simon's daughters?" said Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+"I do not yet know." answered Rodin.  "But as I intend to do it, I shall
+find the means."
+
+"Father," said the princess, suddenly, on reflection, "these girls have
+never seen me, and I might obtain admittance to them, without sending in
+my name."
+
+"That would be perfectly useless at present, madame, for I must first
+know what course to take with respect to them.  I must see and converse
+with them, at any cost, and then, after I have fixed my plan, your
+assistance may be very useful.  In any case, please to be ready to-
+morrow, madame, to accompany me."
+
+"To what place, father?"
+
+"To Marshal Simon's."
+
+"To the marshal's?"
+
+"Not exactly.  You will get into your carriage, and I will take a
+hackney-coach.  I will then try to obtain an interview with the girls,
+and, during that time, you will wait for me at a few yards from the
+house.  If I succeed, and require your aid, I will come and fetch you; I
+can give you my instructions without any appearance of concert between
+us."
+
+"I am content, reverend father; but, in truth, I tremble at the thought
+of your interview with that rough trooper."
+
+"The Lord will watch over his servant, madame!" replied Rodin.  "As for
+you, father," added he, addressing the Abbe d'Aigrigny, "despatch
+instantly to Vienna the note which is all prepared to announce the
+departure and speedy arrival of the marshal.  Every precaution has been
+taken.  I shall write more fully this evening."
+
+The next morning, about eight o'clock, the Princess de Saint-Dizier, in
+her carriage, and Rodin, in his hackney-coach, took the direction of
+Marshal Simon's house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+HAPPINESS.
+
+Marshal Simon has been absent two days.  It is eight o'clock in the
+morning.  Dagobert, walking on tip-toe with the greatest caution, so as
+not to make the floor creak beneath his tread, crosses the room which
+leads to the bedchamber of Rose and Blanche and applies his ear to the
+door of the apartment.  With equal caution, Spoil-sport follows exactly
+the movements of his master.  The countenance of the soldier is uneasy
+and full of thought.  As he approaches the door, he says to himself: "I
+hope the dear children heard nothing of what happened in the night!  It
+would alarm them, and it is much better that they should not know it at
+present.  It might afflict them sadly, poor dears! and they are so gay,
+so happy, since they feel sure of their father's love for them.  They
+bore his departure so bravely!  I would not for the world that they
+should know of this unfortunate event."
+
+Then as he listened, the soldier resumed: "I hear nothing--and yet they
+are always awake so early.  Can it be sorrow?"
+
+Dagobert's reflections were here interrupted by two frank, hearty bursts
+of laughter, from the interior of the bedroom.
+
+"Come! they are not so sad as I thought," said the soldier, breathing
+more freely.  "Probably they know nothing about it."
+
+Soon, the laughter was again heard with redoubled force, and the soldier,
+delighted at this gayety, so rare on the part of "his children," was much
+affected by it: the tears started to his eyes at the thought that the
+orphans had at length recovered the serenity natural to their age; then,
+passing from one emotion to the other, still listening at the door, with
+his body leaning forward, and his hands resting on his knees, Dagobert's
+lip quivered with an expression of mute joy, and, shaking his head a
+little, he accompanied with his silent laughter, the increasing hilarity
+of the young girls.  At last, as nothing is so contagious as gayety, and
+as the worthy soldier was in an ecstasy of joy, he finished by laughing
+aloud with all his might, without knowing why, and only because Rose and
+Blanche were laughing.  Spoil-sport had never seen his master in such a
+transport of delight; he looked at him for a while in deep and silent
+astonishment, and then began to bark in a questioning way.
+
+At this well-known sound, the laughter within suddenly ceased, and a
+sweet voice, still trembling with joyous emotion, exclaimed: "Is it you,
+Spoil-sport, that have come to wake us?"  The dog understood what was
+said, wagged his tail, held down his ears, and, approaching close to the
+door, answered the appeal of his young mistress by a kind of friendly
+growl.
+
+"Spoil-sport," said Rose, hardly able to restrain her laughter, "you are
+very early this morning."
+
+"Tell us what o'clock it is, if you please, old fellow?" added Blanche.
+
+"Young ladies, it is past eight," said suddenly the gruff voice of
+Dagobert, accompanying this piece of humor with a loud laugh.
+
+A cry of gay surprise was heard, and then Rose resumed: "Good-morning,
+Dagobert."
+
+"Good-morning, my children.  You are very lazy to-day, I must tell you."
+
+"It is not our fault.  Our dear Augustine has not yet been to call us.
+We are waiting for her."
+
+"Oh! there it is," said Dagobert to himself, his features once more
+assuming an expression of anxiety.  Then he returned aloud, in a tone of
+some embarrassment, for the worthy man was no hand at a falsehood: "My
+children, our companion went out this morning--very early.  She is gone
+to the country--on business--she will not return for some days--so you
+had better get up by yourselves for today."
+
+"Our good Madame Augustine!" exclaimed Blanche, with interest.  "I hope
+it is nothing bad that has made her leave suddenly--eh, Dagobert?"
+
+"No, no--not at all--only business," answered the soldier.  "To see one
+of her relations."
+
+"Oh, so much the better!" said Rose.  "Well, Dagobert, when we call you
+can come in."
+
+"I will come back in a quarter of an hour," said the soldier as he
+withdrew; and he thought to himself: "I must lecture that fool Loony--for
+he is so stupid, and so fond of talking, that he will let it all out."
+
+The name of the pretended simpleton will serve as a natural transition,
+to inform the reader of the cause of the hilarity of the sisters.  They
+were laughing at the numberless absurdities of the idiot.  The girls rose
+and dressed themselves, each serving as lady's-maid to the other.  Rose
+had combed and arranged Blanche's hair; it was now Blanche's turn to do
+the same for her sister.  Thus occupied, they formed a charming picture.
+Rose was seated before the dressing-table; her sister, standing behind
+her, was smoothing her beautiful brown hair.  Happy age! so little
+removed from childhood, that present joy instantly obliterates the traces
+of past sorrow!  But the sisters felt more than joy; it was happiness,
+deep and unalterable, for their father loved them, and their happiness
+was a delight, and not a pain to him.  Assured of the affection of his
+children, he, also, thanks to them, no longer feared any grief.  To those
+three beings, thus certain of their mutual love, what was a momentary
+separation?  Having explained this, we shall understand the innocent
+gayety of the sisters, notwithstanding their father's departure, and the
+happy, joyous expression, which now filled with animation their charming
+faces, on which the late fading rose had begun once more to bloom.  Their
+faith in the future gave to their countenances something resolute and
+decisive, which added a degree of piquancy to the beauty of their
+enchanting features.
+
+Blanche, in smoothing her sister's hair, let fall the comb, and, as she
+was stooping to pick it up, Rose anticipated her, saying: "If it had been
+broken, we would have put it into the handle-basket."
+
+Then the two laughed merrily at this expression, which reminded them of
+an admirable piece of folly on the part of Loony.
+
+The supposed simpleton had broken the handle of a cup, and when the
+governess of the young ladies had reprimanded him for his carelessness,
+he had answered: "Never mind, madame; I have put it into the handle-
+basket."
+
+"The handle-basket, what is that?"
+
+"Yes, Madame; it is where I keep all the handles I break off the things!"
+
+"Dear me!" said Rose, drying her eyes; "how silly it is to laugh at such
+foolishness."
+
+"It is droll," replied Blanche; "how can we help it?"
+
+"All I regret is, that father cannot hear us laugh."
+
+"He was so happy to see us gay!"
+
+"We must write to him to-day, the story of the handle-basket."
+
+"And that of the feather-brush, to show that, according to promise, we
+kept up our spirits during his absence."
+
+"Write to him, sister? no, he is to write to us, and we are not to answer
+his letters."
+
+"True! well then, I have an idea.  Let us address letters to him here,
+Dagobert can put them into the post, and, on his return, our father will
+read our correspondence."
+
+"That will be charming!  What nonsense we will write to him, since he
+takes pleasure in it!"
+
+"And we, too, like to amuse ourselves."
+
+"Oh, certainly! father's last words have given us so much courage."
+
+"As I listened to them, I felt quite reconciled to his going."
+
+"When he said to us: `My children, I will confide in you all I can.  I go
+to fulfill a sacred duty, and I must be absent for some time; for though,
+when I was blind enough to doubt your affection, I could not make up my
+mind to leave you, my conscience was by no means tranquil.  Grief takes
+such an effect on us, that I had not the strength to come to a decision,
+and my days were passed in painful hesitation.  But now that I am certain
+of your tenderness, all this irresolution has ceased, and I understand
+how one duty is not to be sacrificed to another, and that I have to
+perform two duties at once, both equally sacred; and this I now do with
+joy, and delight, and courage!'"
+
+"Go on, sister!" cried Blanche, rising to draw nearer to Rose.  "I think
+I hear our father when I remember those words, which must console and
+support us during his absence."
+
+"And then our father continued: `Instead of grieving at my departure, you
+would rejoice in it, you should be proud and happy.  I go to perform a
+good and generous act.  Fancy to yourselves, that there is somewhere a
+poor orphan, oppressed and abandoned by all--and that the father of that
+orphan was once my benefactor, and that I had promised him to protect his
+son--and that the life of that son is now in peril--tell me, my children;
+would you regret that I should leave you to fly to the aid of such an
+orphan?'--"
+
+"`No, no, brave father!' we answered: `we should not then be your
+daughters!'" continued Rose, with enthusiasm.  "`Count upon us!  We
+should be indeed unhappy if we thought that our sorrow could deprive thee
+of thy courage.  Go! and every day we will say to ourselves proudly, "It
+was to perform a great and noble duty that our father left us--we can
+wait calmly for his return."
+
+"How that idea of duty sustains one, sister!" resumed Rose, with growing
+enthusiasm.  "It gave our father the courage to leave us without regret,
+and to us the courage to bear his absence gayly!"
+
+"And then, how calm we are now!  Those mournful dreams, which seemed to
+portend such sad events, no longer afflict us."
+
+"I tell you, sister, this time we are really happy once for all."
+
+"And then, do you feel like me?  I fancy, that I am stronger and more
+courageous and that I could brave every danger."
+
+"I should think so!  We are strong enough now.  Our father in the midst,
+you on one side, I on the other--"
+
+"Dagobert in the vanguard, and Spoil-sport in the rear!  Then the army
+will be complete, and let 'em come on by thousands!" added a gruff, but
+jovial voice, interrupting the girl, as Dagobert appeared at the half-
+open door of the room.  It was worth looking at his face, radiant with
+joy; for the old fellow had somewhat indiscreetly been listening to the
+conversation.
+
+"Oh! you were listening, Paul Pry!" said Rose gayly, as she entered the
+adjoining room with her sister, and both affectionately embraced the
+soldier.
+
+"To be sure, I was listening; and I only regretted not to have ears as
+large as Spoil-sport's!  Brave, good girls! that's how I like to see you-
+-bold as brass, and saying to care and sorrow: `Right about face! march!
+go to the devil!'"
+
+"He will want to make us swear, now," said Rose to her sister, laughing
+with all her might.
+
+"Well! now and then, it does no harm," said the soldier; "it relieves and
+calms one, when if one could not swear by five hundred thousand de--"
+
+"That's enough!" said Rose, covering with her pretty hand the gray
+moustache, so as to stop Dagobert in his speech.  "If Madame Augustine
+heard you--"
+
+"Our poor governess! so mild and timid," resumed Blanche.  "How you would
+frighten her!"
+
+"Yes," said Dagobert, as he tried to conceal his rising embarrassment;
+"but she does not hear us.  She is gone into the country."
+
+"Good, worthy woman!" replied Blanche, with interest.  "She said
+something of you, which shows her excellent heart."
+
+"Certainly," resumed Rose; "for she said to us, in speaking of you, `Ah,
+young ladies! my affection must appear very little, compared with M.
+Dagobert's.  But I feel that I also have the right to devote myself to
+you.'"
+
+"No doubt, no doubt! she has a heart of gold," answered Dagobert.  Then
+he added to himself, "It's as if they did it on purpose, to bring the
+conversation back to this poor woman."
+
+"Father made a good choice," continued Rose.  "She is the widow of an old
+officer, who was with him in the wars."
+
+"When we were out of spirits," said Blanche, "you should have seen her
+uneasiness and grief, and how earnestly she set about consoling us."
+
+"I have seen the tears in her eyes when she looked at us," resumed Rose.
+"Oh! she loves us tenderly, and we return her affection.  With regard to
+that, Dagobert, we have a plan as soon as our father comes back."
+
+"Be quiet, sister!" said Blanche, laughing.  "Dagobert will not keep our
+secret."
+
+"He!"
+
+"Will you keep it for us, Dagobert?"
+
+"I tell you what," said the soldier, more and more embarrassed; "you had
+better not tell it to me."
+
+"What! can you keep nothing from Madame Augustine?"
+
+"Ah, Dagobert! Dagobert!" said Blanche, gayly holding up her finger at
+the soldier; "I suspect you very much of paying court to our governess."
+
+"I pay court?" said the soldier--and the expression of his face was so
+rueful, as he pronounced these words, that the two sisters burst out
+laughing.
+
+Their hilarity was at its height when the door opened and Loony advanced
+into room announcing, with a loud voice, "M. Rodin!"  In fact, the Jesuit
+glided almost imperceptibly into the apartment, as if to take possession
+of the ground.  Once there, he thought the game his own, and his reptile
+eyes sparkled with joy.  It would be difficult to paint the surprise of
+the two sisters, and the anger of the soldier, at this unexpected visit.
+
+Rushing upon Loony, Dagobert seized him by the collar, and exclaimed:
+"Who gave you leave to introduce any one here without my permission?"
+
+"Pardon, M. Dagobert!" said Loony, throwing himself on his knees, and
+clasping his hands with an air of idiotic entreaty.
+
+"Leave the room!--and you too!" added the soldier, with a menacing
+gesture, as he turned towards Rodin, who had already approached the
+girls, with a paternal smile on his countenance.
+
+"I am at your orders, my dear sir," said the priest, humbly; and he made
+a low bow, but without stirring from the spot.
+
+"Will you go?" cried the soldier to Loony, who was still kneeling, and
+who, thanks to the advantages of this position, was able to utter a
+certain number of words before Dagobert could remove him.
+
+"M. Dagobert," said Loony in a doleful voice, "I beg pardon for bringing
+up the gentleman without leave; but, alas, my head is turned, because of
+the misfortune that happened to Madame Augustine."
+
+"What misfortune?" cried Rose and Blanche together, as they advanced
+anxiously towards Loony.
+
+"Will you go?" thundered Dagobert, shaking the servant by the collar, to
+force him to rise.
+
+"Speak--speak!" said Blanche, interposing between the soldier and his
+prey.  "What has happened to Madame Augustine?"
+
+"Oh," shouted Loony, in spite of the cuffs of the soldier.  "Madame
+Augustine was attacked in the night with cholera, and taken--"
+
+He was unable to finish.  Dagobert struck him a tremendous blow with his
+fist, right on the jaw, and, putting forth his still formidable strength,
+the old horse-grenadier lifted him to his legs, and with one violent kick
+bestowed on the lower part of his back, sent him rolling into the ante-
+chamber.
+
+Then turning to Rodin, with flushed cheek and sparkling eye, Dagobert
+pointed to the door with an expressive gesture, and said in an angry
+voice: "Now, be off with you and that quickly!"
+
+"I must pay my respects another time, my dear sir," said Rodin, as he
+retired towards the door, bowing to the young girls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+DUTY.
+
+Rodin, retreating slowly before the fire of Dagobert's angry looks,
+walked backwards to the door, casting oblique but piercing glances at the
+orphans, who were visibly affected by the servant's intentional
+indiscretion. (Dagobert had ordered him not to speak before the girls of
+the illness of their governess, and that was quite enough to induce the
+simpleton to take the first opportunity of doing so.)
+
+Rose hastily approached the soldier, and said to him: "Is it true--is it
+really true that poor Madame Augustine has been attacked with the
+cholera?"
+
+"No--I do not know--I cannot tell," replied the soldier, hesitating;
+"besides, what is it to you?"
+
+"Dagobert, you would conceal from us a calamity," said Blanche.  "I
+remember now your embarrassment, when we spoke to you of our governess."
+
+"If she is ill, we ought not to abandon her.  She had pity on our
+sorrows; we ought to pity her sufferings."
+
+"Come, sister; come to her room," said Blanche, advancing towards the
+door, where Rodin had stopped short, and stood listening with growing
+attention to this unexpected scene, which seemed to give him ample food
+for thought.
+
+"You will not leave this room," said the soldier, sternly, addressing the
+two sisters.
+
+"Dagobert," replied Rose, firmly, "it is a sacred duty, and it would be
+cowardice not to fulfil it."
+
+"I tell you that you shall not leave the room," said the soldier,
+stamping his foot with impatience.
+
+"Dagobert," replied Blanche, with as resolute an air as her sister's, and
+with a kind of enthusiasm which brought the blood to her fair cheek, "our
+father, when he left us, give us an admirable example of devotion and
+duty.  He would not forgive us were we to forget the lesson."
+
+"What," cried Dagobert, in a rage, and advancing towards the sisters to
+prevent their quitting the apartment; "you think that if your governess
+had the cholera, I would let you go to her under the pretext of duty?--
+Your duty is to live, to live happy, for your father's sake--and for mine
+into the bargain--so not a word more of such folly!"
+
+"We can run no danger by going to our governess in her room," said Rose.
+
+"And if there were danger," added Blanche, "we ought not to hesitate.
+So, Dagobert, be good! and let us pass."
+
+Rodin, who had listened to what precedes, with sustained attention,
+suddenly started, as if a thought had struck him; his eye shone brightly,
+and an expression of fatal joy illumined his countenance.
+
+"Dagobert, do not refuse!" said Blanche.  "You would do for us what you
+reproach us with wishing to do for another."
+
+Dagobert had as it were, till now stood in the path of the Jesuit and the
+twins by keeping close to the door; but, after a moments reflection, he
+shrugged his shoulders, stepped to one side, and said calmly: "I was an
+old fool.  Come, young ladies; if you find Madame Augustine in the house,
+I will allow you to remain with her."
+
+Surprised at these words, the girls stood motionless and irresolute.
+
+"If our governess is not here, where is she, then?" said Rose.
+
+"You think, perhaps, that I am going to tell you in the excitement in
+which you are!"
+
+"She is dead!" cried Rose growing pale.
+
+"No, no--be calm," said the soldier, hastily; "I swear to you, by your
+father's honor, that she is not dead.  At the first appearance of the
+disorder, she begged to be removed from the house, fearing the contagion
+for those in it."
+
+"Good and courageous woman!" said Rose tenderly, "And you will not allow
+us--"
+
+"I will not allow you to go out, even if I have to lock you up in your
+room," cried the soldier, again stamping with rage; then, remembering
+that the blunderhead's indiscretion was the sole cause of this
+unfortunate incident, he added, with concentrated fury: "Oh! I will break
+my stick upon that rascal's back."
+
+So saying, he turned towards the door, where Rodin still stood, silent
+and attentive, dissembling with habitual impassibility the fatal hopes he
+had just conceived in his brain.  The girls, no longer doubting the
+removal of their governess, and convinced that Dagobert would not tell
+them whither they had conveyed her, remained pensive and sad.
+
+At sight of the priest, whom he had forgotten for the moment, the
+soldier's rage increased, and he said to him abruptly: "Are you still
+there?"
+
+"I would merely observe to you, my dear sir," said Rodin, with that air
+of perfect good nature which he knew so well how to assume, "that you
+were standing before the door, which naturally prevented me from going
+out."
+
+Well, now nothing prevents you--so file off!"
+
+"Certainly, I will file off, if you wish it, my dear sir though I think I
+have some reason to be surprised at such a reception."
+
+"It is no reception at all--so begone!"
+
+"I had come, my dear sir to speak to you--"
+
+"I have no time for talking."
+
+"Upon business of great importance."
+
+"I have no other business of importance than to remain with these
+children."
+
+"Very good, my dear sir," said Rodin, pausing on the threshold.  "I will
+not disturb you any longer; excuse my indiscretion.  The bearer of
+excellent news from Marshal Simon, I came--"
+
+"News from our father!" cried Rose, drawing nearer to Rodin.
+
+"Oh, speak, speak, sir!" added Blanche.
+
+"You have news of the marshal!" said Dagobert, glancing suspiciously at
+Rodin.  "Pray, what is this news?"
+
+But Rodin, without immediately answering the question, returned from the
+threshold into the room, and, contemplating Rose and Blanche by turns
+with admiration, he resumed: "What happiness for me, to be able to bring
+some pleasure to these dear young ladies.  They are even as I left them
+graceful, and fair, and charming--only less sad than on the day when I
+fetched them from the gloomy convent in which they were kept prisoners,
+to restore them to the arms of their glorious father!"
+
+"That was their place, and this is not yours," said Dagobert, harshly,
+still holding the door open behind Rodin.
+
+Confess, at least that I was not so much out of place at Dr.
+Baleinier's," said the Jesuit, with a cunning air.  "You know, for it was
+there that I restored to you the noble imperial cross you so much
+regretted--the day when that good Mdlle. de Cardoville only prevented you
+from strangling me by telling you that I was her liberator.  Aye! it was
+just as I have the honor of stating, young ladies," added Rodin, with a
+smile; "this brave soldier was very near strangling me, for, be it said
+without offense, he has, in spite of his age, a grasp of iron.  Ha, ha!
+the Prussians and Cossacks must know that better than I!"
+
+These few words reminded Dagobert and the twins of the services which
+Rodin had really rendered them; and though the marshal had heard Mdlle.
+de Cardoville speak of Rodin as of a very dangerous man, he had
+forgotten, in the midst of so many anxieties, to communicate this
+circumstance to Dagobert.  But this latter, warned by experience, felt,
+in spite of favorable appearances, a secret aversion for the Jesuit; so
+he replied abruptly: "The strength of my grasp has nothing to do with the
+matter."
+
+"If I allude to that little innocent playfulness on your part, my dear
+sir," said Rodin, in his softest tone, approaching the two sisters with a
+wriggle which was peculiar to him; "if I allude to it, you see, it was
+suggested by the involuntary recollection of the little services I was
+happy enough to render you." Dagobert looked fixedly at Rodin, who
+instantly veiled his glance beneath his flabby eyelids.
+
+"First of all," said the soldier, after a moment's silence, "a true man
+never speaks of the services he has rendered, and you come back three
+times to the subject."
+
+"But Dagobert," whispered Rose, "if he brings news of our father?"
+
+The soldier made a sign, as if to beg the girl to let him speak, and
+resumed, looking full at Rodin: "You are cunning, but I'm no raw
+recruit."
+
+"I cunning?" said Rodin, with a sanctified air.
+
+"Yes, very.  You think to puzzle me with your fine phrases; but I'm not
+to be caught in that way.  Just listen to me.  Some of your band of
+black-gowns stole my cross; you returned it to me.  Some of the same band
+carried off these children; you brought them back.  It is also true that
+you denounced the renegade D'Aigrigny.  But all this only proves two
+things: first, that you were vile enough to be the accomplice of these
+scoundrels; and secondly, that, having been their accomplice, you were
+base enough to betray them.  Now, those two facts are equally bad, and I
+suspect you most furiously.  So march off at once; your presence is not
+good for these children."
+
+"But, my dear sir--"
+
+"I will have no buts," answered Dagobert, in an angry voice.  "When a man
+of your look does good, it is only to hide some evil; and one must be on
+guard."
+
+"I understand your suspicions," said Rodin coolly, hiding his growing
+disappointment, for he had hoped it would have been easy to coax the
+soldier; but, if you reflect, what interest have I in deceiving you?  And
+in what should the deception consist?"
+
+"You have some interest or other in persisting to remain here, when I
+tell you to go away."
+
+"I have already had the honor of informing you of the object of my visit,
+my dear sir."
+
+"To bring news of Marshal Simon?"
+
+"That is exactly the case.  I am happy enough to have news of the
+marshal.  Yes, my dear young ladies," added Rodin, as he again approached
+the two sisters, to recover, as it were, the ground he had lost, "I have
+news of your glorious father!"
+
+"Then come to my room directly, and you can tell it to me," replied
+Dagobert.
+
+"What! you would be cruel enough to deprive these dear ladies of the
+pleasure--"
+
+"By heaven, sir!" cried Dagobert, in a voice of thunder, "you will make
+me forget myself.  I should be sorry to fling a man of your age down the
+stairs.  Will you be gone?"
+
+"Well, well," said Rodin mildly, "do not be angry with a poor old man.  I
+am really not worth the trouble.  I will go with you to your room, and
+tell you what I have to communicate.  You will repent not having let me
+speak before these dear young ladies; but that will be your punishment,
+naughty man!"
+
+So saying, Rodin again bowed very low, and, concealing his rage and
+vexation, left the room before Dagobert, who made a sign to the two
+sisters, and then followed, closing the door after him.
+
+"What news of our father, Dagobert?" said Rose anxiously, when the
+soldier returned, after a quarter of an hours absence.
+
+"Well, that old conjurer knows that the marshal set out in good spirits,
+and he seems acquainted with M. Robert.  How could he be informed of all
+this?  I cannot tell," added the soldier, with a thoughtful air; "but it
+is only another reason to be on one's guard against him."
+
+"But what news of our father?" asked Rose.
+
+"One of that old rascal's friends (I think him a rascal still) knows your
+father, he tells me, and met him five-and-twenty leagues from here.
+Knowing that this man was coming to Paris, the marshal charged him to let
+you know that he was in perfect health, and hoped soon to see you again."
+
+"Oh, what happiness!" cried Rose.
+
+"You see, you were wrong to suspect the poor old man, Dagobert," added
+Blanche.  "You treated him so harshly!"
+
+"Possibly so; but I am not sorry for it."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"I have my reasons; and one of the best is that, when I saw him came in,
+and go sidling and creeping round about us, I felt chilled to the marrow
+of my bones, without knowing why.  Had I seen a serpent crawling towards
+you, I should not have been more frightened.  I knew, of course, that he
+could not hurt you in my presence; but I tell you, my children, in spite
+of the services he has no doubt rendered us, it was all I could do to
+refrain from throwing him out of the window.  Now, this manner of proving
+my gratitude is not natural, and one must be on one's guard against
+people who inspire us with such ideas."
+
+"Good Dagobert, it is your affection for us that makes you so
+suspicious," said Rose, in a coaxing tone; "it proves how much you love
+us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+THE IMPROVISED HOSPITAL
+
+Among a great number of temporary hospitals opened at the time of the
+cholera in every quarter of Paris, one had been established on the
+ground-floor of a large house in the Rue du Mont-Blanc.  The vacant
+apartments had been generously placed by their proprietor at the disposal
+of the authorities; and to this place were carried a number of persons,
+who, being suddenly attacked with the contagion, were considered in too
+dangerous a state to be removed to the principal hospitals.
+
+Two days had elapsed since Rodin's visit to Marshal Simon's daughters.
+Shortly after he had been expelled, the Princess de Saint-Dizier had
+entered to see them, under the cloak of being a house-to-house visitor to
+collect funds for the cholera sufferers.
+
+Choosing the moment when Dagobert, deceived by her lady-like demeanor,
+had withdrawn, she counselled the twins that it was their duty to go and
+see their governess, whom she stated to be in the hospital we now
+describe.
+
+It was about ten o'clock in the morning.  The persons who had watched
+during the night by the sick people, in the hospital established in the
+Rue du Mont-Blanc, were about to be relieved by other voluntary
+assistants.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said one of those newly arrived, "how are we getting
+on?  Has there been any decrease last night in the number of the sick?"
+
+"Unfortunately, no; but the doctors think the contagion has reached its
+height."
+
+Then there is some hope of seeing it decrease."
+
+"And have any of the gentlemen, whose places we come to take, been
+attacked by the disease?"
+
+"We came eleven strong last night; we are only nine now."
+
+"That is bad.  Were these two persons taken off rapidly?"
+
+"One of the victims, a young man of twenty-five years of age, a cavalry
+officer on furlough, was struck as it were by lightning.  In less than a
+quarter of an hour he was dead.  Though such facts are frequent, we were
+speechless with horror."
+
+"Poor young man!"
+
+"He had a word of cordial encouragement and hope for every, one.  He had
+so far succeeded in raising the spirits of the patients, that some of
+them who were less affected by the cholera than by the fear of it, were
+able to quit the hospital nearly well."
+
+"What a pity! So good a young man!  Well, he died gloriously; it requires
+as much courage as on the field of battle."
+
+"He had only one rival in zeal and courage, and that is a Young priest,
+with an angelic countenance, whom they call the Abbe Gabriel.  He is
+indefatigable; he hardly takes an hour's rest, but runs from one to the
+other, and offers himself to everybody.  He forgets nothing.  The
+consolation; which he offers come from the depths of his soul, and are
+not mere formalities in the way of his profession.  No, no, I saw him
+weep over a poor woman, whose eyes he had closed after a dreadful agony.
+Oh, if all priests were like him!"
+
+"No doubt, a good priest is most worthy of respect.  But! who is the
+other victim of last night?"
+
+"Oh! his death was frightful.  Do not speak of it.  I have still the
+horrible scene before my eyes."
+
+"A sudden attack of cholera?"
+
+"If it had only been the contagion, I should not so shudder at the
+remembrance."
+
+"What then did he die of?"
+
+"It is a string of horrors.  Three days ago, they brought here a man, who
+was supposed to be only attacked with cholera.  You have no doubt heard
+speak of this personage.  He is the lion-tamer, that drew all Paris to
+the Porte-Saint-Martin."
+
+"I know the man you mean.  Called Morok.  He performed a kind of play
+with a tame panther."
+
+"Exactly so; I was myself present at a similar scene, which a stranger,
+an Indian, in consequence of a wager, was said at the time, jumped upon
+the stage and killed the panther."
+
+"Well, this Morok, brought here as a cholera-patient, and indeed with all
+the symptoms of the contagion, soon showed signs of a still more
+frightful malady."
+
+"And this was--"
+
+"Hydrophobia."
+
+"Did he become mad?"
+
+"Yes; he confessed, that he had been bitten a few days before by one of
+the mastiffs in his menagerie; unfortunately, we only learnt this
+circumstance after the terrible attack, which cost the life of the poor
+fellow we deplore."
+
+"How did it happen, then?"
+
+"Morok was in a room with three other patients.  Suddenly seized with a
+sort of furious delirium, he rose, uttering ferocious cries, and rushed
+raving mad into the passage.  Our poor friend made an attempt to stop
+him.  This kind of resistance increased the frenzy of Morok, who threw
+himself on the man that crossed his path, and, tearing him with his
+teeth, fell down in horrible convulsions."
+
+"Oh! you are right.  'Twas indeed frightful.  And, not withstanding every
+assistance this victim of Morok's--"
+
+"Died during the night, in dreadful agony; for the shock had been so
+violent, that brain-fever almost instantly declared itself."
+
+"And is Morok dead?"
+
+"I do not know.  He was to be taken to another hospital, after being fast
+bound in the state of weakness which generally succeeds the fit.  But,
+till he can be removed he has been confined in a room upstairs."
+
+"But he cannot recover."
+
+"I should think he must be dead by this time.  The doctors did not give
+him twenty-four hours to live."
+
+The persons engaged in this conversation were standing in an ante-chamber
+on the ground-floor, in which usually assembled those who came to offer
+their voluntary aid to the sick.  One door of this room communicated with
+the rest of the hospital, and the other with the passage that opened upon
+the courtyard.
+
+"Dear me!" said one of the two speakers, looking through the window.
+"See what two charming girls have just got out of that elegant carriage.
+How much alike they are!  Such a resemblance is indeed extraordinary."
+
+"No doubt they are twins.  Poor young girls! dressed in Mourning.  They
+have perhaps lost father or mother."
+
+"One would imagine they are coming this way."
+
+"Yes, they are coming up the steps."
+
+And indeed Rose and Blanche soon entered the antechamber, with a timid,
+anxious air, though a sort of feverish excitement was visible in their
+looks.  One of the two men that were talking together, moved by the
+embarrassment of the girls, advanced toward them, and said, in a tone of
+attentive politeness: "Is there anything I can do for you, ladies?"
+
+"Is not this, sir," replied Rose, "the infirmary of the Rue du Mont-
+Blanc?"
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"A lady, called Madame Augustine du Tremblay, was brought here, we are
+told, about two days ago.  Could we see her?"
+
+"I would observe to you, miss, that there is some danger in entering the
+sick-wards."
+
+It is a dear friend that we wish to see," answered Rose, in a mild and
+firm tone, which sufficiently expressed that she was determined to brave
+the danger.
+
+"I cannot be sure, miss," resumed the other, "that the person you seek is
+here; but, if you will take the trouble to walk into this room on the
+left, you will find there the good Sister Martha; she has the care of the
+women's wards, and will give you all the information you can desire."
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Blanche, with a graceful bow; and she and her
+sister entered together the apartment which had been pointed out to them.
+
+"They are really charming," said the man, looking after the two sisters,
+who soon disappeared from his view.  "It would be a great pity if--"
+
+He was unable to finish.  A frightful tumult, mingled with cries of alarm
+and horror, rose suddenly from the adjoining rooms.  Almost instantly,
+two doors were thrown open, and a number of the sick, half-naked, pale,
+fleshless, and their features convulsed with terror, rushed into the
+antechamber, exclaiming: "Help! help! the madman!"  It is impossible to
+paint the scene of despairing and furious confusion which followed this
+panic of so many affrighted wretches, flying to the only other door, to
+escape from the perils they dreaded, and there, struggling and trampling
+on each other to pass through the narrow entrance.
+
+At the moment when the last of these unhappy creatures succeeded in
+reaching the door, dragging himself along upon his bleeding hands, for he
+had been thrown down and almost crushed in the confusion--Morok, the
+object of so much terror--Morok himself appeared.  He was a horrible
+sight.  With the exception of a rag bound about his middle, his wan form
+was entirely naked, and from his bare legs still hung the remnants of the
+cords he had just broken.  His thick, yellow hair stood almost on end,
+his beard bristled, his savage eyes rolled full of blood in their orbits,
+and shone with a glassy brightness; his lips were covered with foam; from
+time to time, he uttered hoarse, guttural cries.  The veins, visible on
+his iron limbs were swollen almost to bursting.  He bounded like a wild
+beast, and stretched out before him his bony and quivering hands.  At the
+moment Morok reached the doorway, by which those he pursued made their
+escape, some persons, attracted by the noise, managed to close this door
+from without, whilst others secured that which communicated with the
+sick-ward.
+
+Morok thus found himself a prisoner.  He ran to the window to force it
+open, and threw himself into the courtyard.  But, stopping suddenly, he
+drew back from the glittering panes, seized with that invincible horror
+which all the victims of hydrophobia feel at the sight of any shining
+object, particularly glass.  The unfortunate creatures whom he had
+pursued, saw him from the courtyard exhausting himself in furious efforts
+to open the doors that just had been closed upon him.  Then, perceiving
+the inutility of his attempts, he uttered savage cries, and rushed
+furiously round the room, like a wild beast that seeks in vain to escape
+from its cage.
+
+But, suddenly, those spectators of this scene, who had approached nearest
+to the window, uttered a loud exclamation of fear and anguish.  Morok had
+perceived the little door which led to the closet occupied by Sister
+Martha, where Rose and Blanche had entered a few minutes before.  Hoping
+to get out by this way, Morok drew the door violently towards him, and
+succeeded in half opening it, notwithstanding the resistance he
+experienced from the inside.  For an instant the affrighted crowd saw the
+stiffened arms Of Sister Martha and the orphans, clinging to the door,
+and holding it back with all their might.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+HYDROPHOBIA.
+
+When the sick people, assembled in the courtyard, saw the desperate
+efforts of Morok to force the door of the room which contained Sister
+Martha and the orphans, their fright redoubled.  "It is all over, Sister
+Martha!" cried they.
+
+"The door will give way."
+
+"And the closet has no other entrance."
+
+"There are two young girls in mourning with her."
+
+"Come! we must not leave these poor women to encounter the madman.
+Follow me, friends!" cried generously one of the spectators, who was
+still blessed with health, and he rushed towards the steps to return to
+the ante-chamber.
+
+"It's too late! it's only exposing yourself in vain," cried many persons,
+holding him back by force.
+
+At this moment, voices were heard, exclaiming: "Here is the Abbe
+Gabriel."
+
+"He is coming downstairs.  He has heard the noise."
+
+"He is asking what is the matter."
+
+"What will he do?"
+
+Gabriel, occupied with a dying person in a neighboring room, had, indeed,
+just learned that Morok, having broken his bonds, had succeeded in
+escaping from the chamber in which he had been temporarily confined.
+Foreseeing the terrible dangers which might result from the escape of the
+lion-tamer, the missionary consulted only his courage, and hastened down,
+in the hope of preventing greater misfortunes.  In obedience to his
+orders, an attendant followed him, bearing a brazier full of hot cinders,
+on which lay several irons, at a white heat, used by the doctors for
+cauterizing, in desperate cases of cholera.
+
+The angelic countenance of Gabriel was very pale; but calm intrepidity
+shone upon his noble brow.  Hastily crossing the passage, and making his
+way through the crowd, he went straight to the ante-chamber door.  As he
+approached it, one of the sick people said to him, in a lamentable voice;
+"Ah, sir! it is all over.  Those who can see through the window say that
+Sister Martha is lost."
+
+Gabriel made no answer, but grasped the key of the door.  Before entering
+the room, however, he turned to the attendant, and said to him in a firm
+voice: "Are the irons of a white heat?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then wait here, and be ready.  As for you, my friends," he added,
+turning to some of the sick, who shuddered with terror, "as soon as I
+enter shut the door after me.  I will answer for the rest.  And you;
+friend, only bring your irons when I call."
+
+And the young missionary turned the key in the lock.  At this juncture, a
+cry of alarm, pity, and admiration rose from every lip, and the
+spectators drew back from the door, with an involuntary feeling of fear.
+Raising his eyes to heaven, as if to invoke its assistance at this
+terrible moment, Gabriel pushed open the door, and immediately closed it
+behind him.  He was alone with Morok.
+
+The lion-tamer, by a last furious effort, had almost succeeded in opening
+the door, to which Sister Martha and the orphans were clinging, in a fit
+of terror, uttering piercing cries.  At the sound of Gabriel's footsteps,
+Morok turned round suddenly.  Then, instead of continuing his attack on
+the closet, he sprang, with a roar and a bound, upon the new-comer.
+
+During this time, Sister Martha and the orphans, not knowing the cause of
+the sudden retreat of their assailant, took advantage of the opportunity
+to close and bolt the door, and thus placed themselves in security from a
+new attack.  Morok, with haggard eye, and teeth convulsively clinched,
+had rushed upon Gabriel, his hands extended to seize him by the throat.
+The missionary stood the shock valiantly.  Guessing, at a glance, the
+intention of his adversary, he seized him by the wrists as he advanced,
+and, holding him back, bent him down violently with a vigorous hand.  For
+a second, Morok and Gabriel remained mute, breathless, motionless, gazing
+on each other; then the missionary strove to conquer the efforts of the
+madman, who, with violent jerks, attempted to throw himself upon him, and
+to seize and tear him with his teeth.
+
+Suddenly the lion-tamer's strength seemed to fail, his knees quivered,
+his livid head sank upon his shoulder, his eyes closed.  The missionary,
+supposing that a momentary weakness had succeeded to the fit of rage, and
+that the wretch was about to fall, relaxed his hold in order to lend him
+assistance.  But no sooner did he feel himself at liberty, thanks to his
+crafty device, than Morok flung himself furiously upon Gabriel.
+Surprised by this sudden attack, the latter stumbled, and at once felt
+himself clasped into the iron arms of the madman.  Yet, with redoubled
+strength and energy, struggling breast to breast, foot to foot, the
+missionary in his turn succeeded in tripping up his adversary, and,
+throwing him with a vigorous effort, again seized his hands, and now held
+him down beneath his knee.  Having thus completely mastered him, Gabriel
+turned his head to call for assistance, when Morok, by a desperate
+strain, succeeded in raising himself a little, and seized with his teeth
+the left arm of the missionary.  At this sharp, deep, horrible bite,
+which penetrated to the very bone, Gabriel could not restrain a scream of
+anguish and horror.  He strove in vain to disengage himself, for his arm
+was held fast, as in a vice, between the firm-set jaws of Morok.
+
+This frightful scene had lasted less time than it has taken in the
+description, when suddenly the door leading to the passage was violently
+opened, and several courageous men, who had learned from the patients to
+what danger the young priest was exposed, came rushing to his assistance,
+in spite of his recommendation not to enter till he should call.  The
+attendant was amongst the number, with the brazier and the hot irons.
+Gabriel, as soon as he perceived him, said to him in an agitated voice:
+"Quick, friend! your iron.  Thank God I had thought of that."
+
+One of the men who had entered the room was luckily provided with a
+blanket; and the moment the missionary succeeded in wresting his arm from
+the clinched teeth of Morok, whom he still held down with his knee, this
+blanket was thrown over the madman's head, so that he could now be held
+and bound without danger, notwithstanding his desperate resistance.  Then
+Gabriel rose, tore open the sleeve of his cassock, and laying bare his
+left arm, on which a deep bite was visible, bleeding, of a bluish color,
+he beckoned the attendant to draw near, seized one of the hot irons, and,
+with a firm and sure hand, twice applied the burning metal to the wound,
+with a calm heroism which struck all the spectators, with admiration.
+But soon so many various emotions, intrepidly sustained, were followed by
+a natural reaction.  Large drops of sweat stood upon Gabriel's brow; his
+long light hair clung to his temples; he grew deadly pale, reeled, lost
+his senses, and was carried into the next room to receive immediate
+attention.
+
+An accidental circumstance, likely enough to occur, had converted one of
+the Princess de Saint-Dizier's falsehoods into a truth.  To induce the
+orphans to go to the hospital, she had told them Gabriel was there, which
+at the time she was far from believing.  On the contrary, she would have
+wished to prevent a meeting, which, from the attachment of the missionary
+to the girls, might interfere with her projects.  A little while after
+the terrible scene we have just related, Rose and Blanche, accompanied by
+Sister Martha, entered a vast room, of a strange and fatal aspect,
+containing a number of women who had suddenly been seized with cholera.
+
+These immense apartments, generously supplied for the purpose of a
+temporary hospital, had been furnished with excessive luxury.  The room
+now occupied by the sick women, of whom we speak, had been used for a
+ball-room.  The white panels glittered with sumptuous gilding, and
+magnificent pier-glasses occupied the spaces between the windows, through
+which could be seen the fresh verdure of a pleasant garden, smiling
+beneath the influence of budding May.  In the midst of all this gilded
+luxury, on a rich, inlaid floor of costly woods, were seen arranged in
+regular order four rows of beds, of every shape and kind, from the humble
+truckle-bed to the handsome couch in carved mahogany.
+
+This long room was divided into two compartments by a temporary
+partition, four or five feet in height.  They had thus been able to
+manage the four rows of beds.  This partition finished at some little
+distance from either end of the room, so as to leave an open space
+without beds, for the volunteer attendants, when the sick did not require
+their aid.  At one of these extremities of the room was a lofty and
+magnificent marble chimney piece, ornamented with gilt bronze.  On the
+fire beneath, various drinks were brewing for the patients.  To complete
+the singular picture, women of every class took their turns in attending
+upon the sick, to whose sighs and groans they always responded with
+consoling words of hope and pity.  Such was the place, strange and
+mournful, that Rose and Blanche entered together, hand in hand, a short
+time after Gabriel had displayed such heroic courage in the struggle
+against Morok.  Sister Martha accompanied Marshal Simon's daughters.
+After speaking a few words to them in a whisper, she pointed out to them
+the two divisions in which the beds were arranged, and herself went to
+the other end of the room to give some orders.
+
+The orphans, still under the impression of the terrible danger from which
+Gabriel had rescued them without their knowing it, were both excessively
+pale; yet their eyes were expressive of firm resolution.  They had
+determined not only to perform what they considered an imperative duty,
+but to prove themselves worthy of their valiant father; they were acting
+too for their mother's sake, since they had been told that, dying in
+Siberia without receiving the sacrament, her eternal felicity might
+depend on the proofs they gave of Christian devotion.  Need we add that
+the Princess de Saint-Dizier, following the advice of Rodin, had, in a
+second interview, skillfully brought about without the knowledge of
+Dagobert, taken advantage of the excitable qualities of these poor,
+confiding, simple, and generous souls, by a fatal exaggeration of the
+most noble and courageous sentiments.  The orphans having asked Sister
+Martha if Madame Augustine du Tremblay had been brought to this asylum
+within the last three days, that person had answered, that she really did
+not know, but, if they would go through the women's wards, it would be
+easy for them to ascertain.  For the abominable hypocrite, who, in
+conjunction with Rodin, had sent these two children to encounter a mortal
+peril, had told an impudent falsehood when she affirmed that their
+governess had been removed to this hospital.  During their exile, and
+their toilsome journey with Dagobert, the sisters had been exposed to
+many hard trials.  But never had they witnessed so sad a spectacle as
+that which now offered itself to their view.
+
+The long row of beds, on which so many poor creatures writhed in agony,
+some uttering deep groans, some only a dull rattle in the throat, some
+raving in the delirium of fever, or calling on those from whom they were
+about to part forever--these frightful sights and sounds, which are too
+much even for brave men, would inevitably, (such was the execrable design
+of Rodin and his accomplices) make a fatal impression on these young
+girls, urged by the most generous motives to undertake this perilous
+visit.  And then--sad memory! which awoke, in all its deep and poignant
+bitterness, by the side of the first beds they came to--it was of this
+very malady, the Cholera, that their mother had died a painful death.
+Fancy the twins entering this vast room, of so fearful an aspect, and,
+already much shaken by the terror which Morok had inspired, pursuing
+their search in the midst of these unfortunate creatures, whose dying
+pangs reminded them every instant of the dying agony of their mother!
+For a moment, at sight of the funeral hall, Rose and Blanche had felt
+their resolution fail them.  A black presentiment made them regret their
+heroic imprudence; and, moreover, since several minutes they had begun to
+feel an icy shudder, and painful shootings across the temples; but,
+attributing these symptoms to the fright occasioned by Morok, their good
+and valiant natures soon stifled all these fears.  They exchanged glances
+of affection, their courage revived, and both of them--Rose on one side
+of the partition, and Blanche on the other--proceeded with their painful
+task.  Gabriel, carried to the doctors' private room, had soon recovered
+his senses.  Thanks to his courage and presence of mind, his wound,
+cauterized in time, could have no dangerous consequences.  As soon as it
+was dressed he insisted on returning to the women's ward, where he had be
+offering pious consolations to a dying person at the moment they had come
+to inform him of the frightful danger caused by the escape of Morok.
+
+A few minutes before the missionary entered the room, Rose and Blanche
+arrived almost together at the term of their mournful search, one from
+the left, the other from the right-hand row of beds, separated by the
+partition which divided the hall into compartments.  The sisters had not
+yet seen each other.  Their steps tottered as they advanced, and they
+were forced, from time to time, to lean against the beds as they passed
+along.  Their strength was--rapidly failing them.  Giddy with fear and
+pain, they appeared to act almost mechanically.  Alas! the orphans had
+been seized almost at the same moment with the terrible symptoms of
+cholera.  In consequence of that species of physiological phenomenon, of
+which we have already spoken--a phenomenon by no means rare in twins,
+which had already been displayed on one or two occasions of their
+sickness--their organizations seemed liable to the same sensations, the
+same simultaneous accidents, like two flowers on one stem, which bloom
+and fade together.  The sight of so much suffering, and so many deaths,
+had accelerated the development of this dreadful disease.  Already, on
+their agitated and altered countenances, they bore the mortal tokens of
+the contagion, as they came forth, each on her own side, from the two
+subdivisions of the room in which they had vainly sought their governess.
+Until now separated by the partition, Rose and Blanche had not yet seen
+each other; but, when at length their eyes met, there ensued a heart-
+rending scene.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.
+
+To the charming freshness of the sisters' faces had succeeded a livid
+pallor.  Their large blue eyes, now hollow and sunk in, appeared of
+enormous dimensions.  Their lips, once so rosy, were now suffused with a
+violet hue, and a similar color was gradually displacing the transparent
+carmine of their cheeks and fingers.  It was as if all the roses in their
+charming countenances were fading and turning blue before the icy blast
+of death.
+
+When the orphans met, tottering and hardly able to sustain themselves, a
+cry of mutual horror burst from their lips.  Each of them exclaimed, at
+sight of the fearful change in her sister's features.  "Are you also ill,
+sister?"  And then, bursting into tears, they threw themselves into each
+other's arms, and looked anxiously at one another.
+
+"Good heaven, Rose! how pale you are!"
+
+"Like you, sister."
+
+"And do you feel a cold shudder?"
+
+"Yes, and my sight fails me."
+
+"My bosom is all on fire."
+
+"Sister, we are perhaps going to die."
+
+"Let it only be together!"
+
+"And our poor father?"
+
+"And Dagobert?"
+
+"Sister, our dream has come true!" cried Rose, almost deliriously, as she
+threw her arms round Blanche's neck.  "Look! look! the Angel Gabriel is
+here to fetch us."
+
+Indeed, at this moment, Gabriel entered the open space at the end of the
+room.  "Heaven! what do I see?" cried the young priest.  "The daughters
+of Marshal Simon!"
+
+And, rushing forward, he received the sisters in his arms, for they were
+no longer able to stand.  Already their drooping heads, their half-closed
+eyes, their painful and difficult breathing, announced the approach of
+death.  Sister Martha was close at hand.  She hastened to respond to the
+call of Gabriel.  Aided by this pious woman, he was able to lift the
+orphans upon a bed reserved for the doctor in attendance.  For fear that
+the sight of this mournful agony should make too deep an impression on
+the other patients, Sister Martha drew a large curtain, and the sisters
+were thus in some sort walled off from the rest of the room.  Their hands
+had been so tightly clasped together, during a nervous paroxysm, that it
+was impossible to separate them.  It was in this position that the first
+remedies were applied--remedies incapable of conquering the violence of
+the disease, but which at least mitigated for a few moments the excessive
+pains they suffered, and restored some faint glimmer of perception to
+their obscured and troubled senses.  At this moment, Gabriel was leaning
+over the bed with a look of inexpressible grief.  With breaking heart,
+and face bathed in tears, he thought of the strange destiny, which thus
+made him a witness of the death of these girls, his relations, whom but a
+few months before he had rescued from the horrors of the tempest.  In
+spite of his firmness of soul, the missionary could not help shuddering
+as he reflected on the fate of the orphans, the death of Jacques
+Rennepont, and the fearful devices by which M. Hardy, retired to the
+cloistered solitude of St. Herein, had become a member of the Society of
+Jesus almost in dying.  The missionary said to himself, that already four
+members of the Rennepont family--his family--had been successively struck
+down by some dreadful fate; and he asked himself with alarm, how it was
+that the detestable interests of the Society of Loyola should be served
+by a providential fatality?  The astonishment of the young missionary
+would have given place to the deepest horror, could he have known the
+part that Rodin and his accomplices had taken, both in the death of
+Jacques Rennepont, by exciting, through Morok, the evil propensities of
+the artisan, and in the approaching end of Rose and Blanche, by
+converting, through the Princess de Saint-Dizier, the generous
+inspirations of the orphans into suicidal heroism.
+
+Roused for a moment from the painful stupor in which they had been
+plunged, Rose and Blanche half-opened their large eyes, already dull and
+faded.  Then, more and more bewildered they both gazed fixedly at the
+angelic countenance of Gabriel.
+
+"Sister," said Rose, in a faint voice, "do you see the archangel--as in
+our dreams, in Germany?"
+
+"Yes--three days ago--he appeared to us."
+
+"He is come to fetch us."
+
+"Alas! will our death save our poor mother from purgatory?"
+
+"Angel! blessed angel! pray God for our mother--and for us!"  Until now,
+stupefied with amazement and sorrow, almost suffocated with sobs, Gabriel
+had not been able to utter a word.  But at these words of the orphans, he
+exclaimed: "Dear children, why doubt of your mother's salvation?  Oh!
+never did a purer soul ascend to its Creator.  Your mother?  I know from
+my adopted father, that her virtues and courage were the admiration of
+all who knew her.  Oh! believe me; God has blessed her."
+
+"Do you hear, sister?" cried Rose, as a ray of celestial joy illumined
+for an instant the livid faces of the orphans.  "God has blessed our
+mother."
+
+"Yes, yes," resumed Gabriel; "banish these gloomy ideas.  Take courage,
+poor children!  You must not die.  Think of your father."
+
+"Our father?" said Blanche, shuddering; and she continued, with a mixture
+of reason and wild excitement, which would have touched the soul of the
+most indifferent: "Alas! he will not find us on his return.  Forgive us,
+father! we did not think to do any harm.  We wished, like you, to do
+something generous--to help our governess."
+
+"And we did not think to die so quickly, and so soon.  Yesterday, we were
+gay and happy."
+
+"Oh, good angel! you will appear to our father, even as you have appeared
+to us.  You will tell him that, in dying--the last thought of his
+children--was of him."
+
+"We came here without Dagobert's knowing it--do not let our father scold
+him."
+
+"Blessed angel!" resumed the other sister in a still more feeble voice;
+"appear to Dagobert, also.  Tell him, that we ask his forgiveness, for
+the grief our death will occasion him."
+
+"And let our old friend caress our poor Spoil-sport for us--our faithful
+guardian," added Blanche, trying to smile.
+
+"And then," resumed Rose, in a voice that was growing still fainter,
+"promise to appear to two other persons, that have been so kind to us--
+good Mother Bunch--and the beautiful Lady Adrienne."
+
+"We forget none whom we have loved," said Blanche, with a last effort.
+"Now, God grant we may go to our mother, never to leave her more!"
+
+"You promised it good angel--you know you did--in the dream.  You said to
+us: `Poor children--come from so far--you will have traversed the earth--
+to rest on the maternal bosom!'"
+
+"Oh! it is dreadful--dreadful! So young--and no hope!" murmured Gabriel,
+as he buried his face in his hands.  "Almighty Father!  Thy views are
+impenetrable.  Alas! yet why should these children die this cruel death?"
+
+Rose heaved a deep sigh and said in an expiring tone: "Let us be buried
+together!--united in life, in death not divided--"
+
+And the two turned their dying looks upon Gabriel, and stretched out
+towards him their supplicating hands.
+
+"Oh, blessed martyrs to a generous devotion!" cried the missionary,
+raising to heaven his eyes streaming with tears.  "Angelic souls!
+treasures of innocence and truth! ascend, ascend to heaven--since God
+calls you to him, and the earth is not worthy to possess you!"
+
+"Sister! father!" were the last words that the orphans pronounced with
+their dying voices.
+
+And then the twins, by a last instinctive impulse, endeavored to clasp
+each other, and their eyes half-opened to exchange yet another glance.
+They shuddered twice or thrice, their limbs stiffened, a deep sigh
+struggled from their violet-colored lips.  Rose and Blanche were both
+dead!  Gabriel and Sister Martha, after closing the eyes of the orphans,
+knelt down to pray by the side of that funeral couch.  Suddenly a great
+tumult was heard in the room.  Rapid footsteps, mingled with
+imprecations, sounded close at hand, the curtain was drawn aside from
+this mournful scene, and Dagobert entered precipitately, pale, haggard,
+his dress in disorder.  At sight of Gabriel and the Sister of Charity
+kneeling beside the corpses of his children, the soldier uttered a
+terrible roar, and tried to advance--but in vain--for, before Gabriel
+could reach him, Dagobert fell flat on the ground, and his gray head
+struck violently on the floor.
+
+It is night--a dark and stormy night.  One o'clock in the morning has
+just sounded from the church of Montmartre.  It is to the cemetery of
+Montmartre that is carried the coffin which, according to the last wishes
+of Rose and Blanche contains them both.  Through the thick shadow, which
+rests upon that field of death, may be seen moving a pale light.  It is
+the gravedigger.  He advances with caution; a dark lantern is in his
+hand.  A man wrapped in a cloak accompanies him.  He holds down his head
+and weeps.  It is Samuel.  The old Jew--the keeper of the house in the
+Rue Saint-Francois.  On the night of the funeral of Jacques Rennepont,
+the first who died of the seven heirs, and who was buried in another
+cemetery, Samuel had a similar mysterious interview with the gravedigger,
+to obtain a favor at the price of gold.  A strange and awful favor!
+After passing down several paths, bordered with cypress trees, by the
+side of many tombs, the Jew and the gravedigger arrived, at a little
+glade, situated near the western wall of the cemetery.  The night was so
+dark, that scarcely anything could be seen.  After moving his lantern up
+and down, and all about, the gravedigger showed Samuel, at the foot of a
+tall yew-tree, with long black branches, a little mound of newly-raised
+earth, and said: "It is here."
+
+"You are sure of it?"
+
+"Yes, yes--two bodies in one coffin! it is not such a common thing."
+
+"Alas! two in the same coffin!" said the Jew, with a deep sigh.
+
+"Now that you know the place, what do you want more?" asked the
+gravedigger.
+
+Samuel did not answer.  He fell on his knees, and piously kissed the
+little mound.  Then rising, with his cheeks bathed in tears, he
+approached the gravedigger, and spoke to him for some moments in a
+whisper--though they were alone, and in the centre of that deserted
+place.  Then began between those two men a mysterious dialogue, which the
+night enveloped in shade and silence.  The gravedigger, alarmed at what
+Samuel asked him, at first refused his request.
+
+But the Jew, employing persuasions, entreaties, tears, and at last the
+seduction of the jingling gold, succeeded in conquering the scruples of
+the gravedigger.  Though the latter trembled at the thought of what he
+promised, he said to Samuel in an agitated tone: "To-morrow night, then,
+at two o'clock."
+
+"I shall be behind the wall," answered Samuel, pointing out the place
+with the aid of a lantern.  "I will throw three stones into the cemetery,
+for a signal."
+
+"Yes, three stones--as a signal," replied the gravedigger shuddering, and
+wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
+
+With considerable remains of vigor, notwithstanding his great age, Samuel
+availed himself of the broken surface of the low wall, and climbing over
+it, soon disappeared.  The gravedigger returned home with hasty strides.
+From time to time, he looked fearfully behind him, as though he had been
+pursued by some fatal vision.
+
+On the evening after the funeral of Rose and Blanche, Rodin wrote two
+letters.  The first, addressed to his mysterious correspondent at Rome,
+alluded to the deaths of Jacques Rennepont, and Rose and Blanche Simon,
+as well as to the cession of M. Hardy's property, and the donation
+of Gabriel--events which reduced the claimants of the inheritance to two-
+-Mdlle. de Cardoville and Djalma.  This first note written by Rodin for
+Rome, contained only the following words: "Five from seven leaves two.
+Announce this result to the Cardinal-Prince.  Let him go on.  I advance-
+advance-advance!"  The second note, in a feigned hand, was addressed to
+Marshal Simon, to be delivered by a sure messenger, contained these few
+lines: "If there is yet time, make haste to return.  Your daughters are
+both dead. You shall learn who killed them."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+RUIN.
+
+It is the day after the death of Marshal Simon's daughters.  Mdlle. de
+Cardoville is yet ignorant of the sad end of her young relatives.  Her
+countenance is radiant with happiness, and never has she looked more
+beautiful; her eye has never been more brilliant, her complexion more
+dazzling white, her lip of a richer coral.  According to her somewhat
+eccentric custom of dressing herself in her own house in a picturesque
+style, Adrienne wears to-day, though it is about three o'clock in the
+afternoon, a pale green watered-silk dress, with a very full skirt, the
+sleeves and bodice slashed with rose-colored ribbon, and adorned with
+white bugle-beads, of exquisite workmanship; while a slender network,
+also of white bugle-beads, concealing the thick plait of Adrienne's back-
+hair, forms an oriental head-dress of charming originality, and contrasts
+agreeably with the long curls which fall in front almost to the swell of
+the bosom.  To the expression of indescribable happiness which marks the
+features of Mdlle. de Cardoville, is added a certain resolute, cutting,
+satirical air, which is not habitual to her.  Her charming head, and
+graceful, swan-like neck, are raised in an attitude of defiance; her
+small, rose-colored nostrils seem to dilate with ill-repressed ardor, and
+she waits with haughty impatience for the moment of an aggressive and
+ironical interview.  Not far from Adrienne is Mother Bunch.  She has
+resumed in the house the place which she at first occupied.  The young
+sempstress is in mourning for her sister, but her countenance is
+expressive of a mild, calm sorrow.  She looks at Mdlle. de Cardoville
+with surprise; for never, till now, has she seen the features of the fair
+patrician impressed with such a character of ironical audacity.  Mdlle.
+de Cardoville was exempt from the slightest coquetry, in the narrow and
+ordinary sense of the word.  Yet she now cast an inquiring look at the
+glass before which she was standing, and, having restored the elastic
+smoothness to one of her long, golden curls, by rolling it for a moment
+round her ivory finger, she carefully effaced with her hands some almost
+imperceptible folds, which had formed themselves in the thick material of
+her elegant corsage.  This movement, and that of turning her back to the
+glass, to see if her dress sat perfectly on all points, revealed, in
+serpentine undulations, all the charms and graces of her light and
+elegant figure; for, in spite of the rich fulness of her shoulders, white
+and firm as sculptured alabaster, Adrienne belonged to that class of
+privileged persons, who are able at need to make a girdle out of a
+garter.
+
+Having performed, with indescribable grace, these charming evolutions of
+feminine coquetry, Adrienne turned towards Mother Bunch, whose surprise
+was still on the increase, and said to her, smiling: "My dear Magdalen,
+do not laugh at my question--but what would you say to a picture, that
+should represent me as I am now?"
+
+"Why, lady--"
+
+"There you are again, with your lady-ing," said Adrienne, in a tone of
+gentle reproach.
+
+"Well, then, Adrienne," resumed Mother Bunch, "I think it would be a
+charming picture, for you are dressed, as usual with perfect taste."
+
+"But am I not better dressed than on other days, my dear poetess?  I
+began by telling you that I do not ask the question for my own sake,"
+said Adrienne, gayly.
+
+"Well, I suppose so," replied Mother Bunch, with a faint smile.  "It is
+certainly impossible to imagine anything that would suit you better.  The
+light green and the pale rose-color, with the soft lustre of the white
+ornaments, harmonize so well with your golden hair, that I cannot
+conceive, I tell you, a more graceful picture."
+
+The speaker felt what she said, and she was happy to be able to express
+it, for we know the intense admiration of that poetic soul for all that
+was beautiful.
+
+"Well!" went on Adrienne, gayly, "I am glad, my dear, that you find me
+better dressed than usual."
+
+"Only," said the hunchback, hesitating.
+
+"Only?" repeated Adrienne, looking at her with an air of interrogation.
+
+"Why, only," continued the other, "if I have never seen you look more
+pretty, I have also never observed in your features the resolute and
+ironical expression which they had just now.  It was like an air of
+impatient defiance."
+
+"And so it was, my dear little Magdalen," said Adrienne, throwing her
+arms round the girl's neck with joyous tenderness.  "I must kiss you, for
+having guessed it.  You see, I expect a visit from my dear aunt."
+
+"The Princess de Saint-Dizier?" cried Mother Bunch, in alarm.  "That
+wicked lady, who did you so much evil?"
+
+"The very same.  She has asked for an interview, and I shall be delighted
+to receive her."
+
+"Delighted?"
+
+"Yes--a somewhat ironical and malicious delight, it is true," answered
+Adrienne, still more gayly.  "You shall judge for yourself.  She regrets
+her gallantries, her beauty, her youth--even her size afflicts the holy
+woman!--and she will see me young, fair, beloved--and above all thin--
+yes, thin," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, laughing merrily.  "And you may
+imagine, my dear, how much envy and despair, the sight of a young, thin
+woman excites in a stout one of a certain age!"
+
+"My friend," said Mother Bunch, gravely, "you speak in jest.  And yet, I
+know not why, the coming of this princess alarms me."
+
+"Dear, gentle soul, be satisfied!" answered Adrienne, affectionately.  "I
+do not fear this woman--I no longer have any fear of her--and to prove it
+to her confusion, I will treat her--a monster of hypocrisy and
+wickedness, who comes here, no doubt, on some abominable design--I will
+treat her as an inoffensive, ridiculous fat woman!"  And Adrienne again
+laughed.
+
+A servant here entered the room, and interrupted the mirth of Adrienne,
+by saying: "The Princess de Saint-Dizier wishes to know if you can
+receive her?"
+
+"Certainly," said Mdlle. de Cardoville; and the servant retired.  Mother
+Bunch was about to rise and quit the room; but Adrienne held her back,
+and said to her, taking her hand with an air of serious tenderness:
+"Stay, my dear friend, I entreat you."
+
+"Do you wish it?"
+
+"Yes; I wish--still in revenge, you know," said Adrienne, with a smile,
+"to prove to her highness of Saint-Dizier, that I have an affectionate
+friend--that I have, in fact, every happiness."
+
+"But, Adrienne," replied the other, timidly, "consider--"
+
+"Silence! here is the princess.  Remain! I ask it as a favor.  The
+instinct of your heart will discover any snare she may have laid.  Did
+not your affection warn me of the plots of Rodin?"
+
+Mother Bunch could not refuse such a request.  She remained, but was
+about to draw back from the fireplace.  Adrienne, however, took her by
+the hand, and made her resume her seat in the arm-chair, saying: "My dear
+Magdalen, keep your place.  You owe nothing to the lady.  With me it is
+different; she comes to my house."
+
+Hardly had Adrienne uttered these words, than the princess entered with
+head erect, and haughty air (we have said, she could carry herself most
+loftily), and advanced with a firm step.  The strongest minds have their
+side of puerile weakness; a savage envy, excited by the elegance, wit,
+and beauty of Adrienne, bore a large part in the hatred of the princess
+for her niece; and though it was idle to think of eclipsing Adrienne, and
+the Princess de Saint-Dizier did not seriously mean to attempt it, she
+could not forbear, in preparing for the interview she had demanded,
+taking more pains even than usual in the arrangement of her dress.
+Beneath her robe of shot silk, she was laced in and tightened to excess--
+a pressure which considerably increased the color in her cheeks.  The
+throng of jealous and hateful sentiments, which inspired her with regard
+to Adrienne, had so troubled the clearness of her ordinarily calm
+judgment, that, instead of the plain and quiet style, in which, as a
+woman of tact and taste, she was generally attired, she now committed the
+folly of wearing a dress of changing hues, and a crimson hat, adorned
+with a magnificent bird of paradise.  Hate, envy, the pride of triumph--
+for she thought of the skillful perfidy with which she had sent to almost
+certain death the daughters of Marshal Simon--and the execrable hope of
+succeeding in new plots, were all expressed in the countenance of the
+Princess de Saint-Dizier, as she entered her niece's apartment.
+
+Without advancing to meet her aunt, Adrienne rose politely from the sofa
+on which she was seated, made a half-curtsey, full of grace and dignity,
+and immediately resumed her former posture.  Then, pointing to an arm-
+chair near the fireplace, at one corner of which sat Mother Bunch, and
+she herself at the other, she said: "Pray sit down, your highness."  The
+princess turned very red, remained standing, and cast a disdainful glance
+of insolent surprise at the sempstress, who, in compliance with
+Adrienne's wish, only bowed slightly at the entrance of the Princess de
+Saint-Dizier, wihout offering to give up her place.  In acting thus, the
+young sempstress followed the dictates of her conscience, which told her
+that the real superiority did not belong to this base, hypocritical, and
+wicked princess, but rather to such a person as herself, the admirable
+and devoted friend.
+
+"Let me beg your highness to sit down," resumed Adrienne, in a mild tone,
+as she pointed to the vacant chair.
+
+"The interview I have demanded, niece," said the princess "must be a
+private one."
+
+"I have no secrets, madame, from my best friend; you may speak in the
+presence of this young lady."
+
+"I have long known," replied Madame de Saint-Dizier, with bitter irony,
+"that in all things you care little for secrecy, and that you are easy in
+the choice of what you call your friends.  But you will permit me to act
+differently from you.  If you have no secrets, madame, I have--and I do
+not choose to confide them to the first comer."
+
+So saying, the pious lady glanced contemptuously at the sempstress.  The
+latter, hurt at the insolent tone of the princess, answered mildly and
+simply:
+
+"I do not see what can be the great difference between the first and the
+last comer to Mdlle. de Cardoville's."
+
+"What! can it speak!" cried the princess, insolently.
+
+"It can at least answer, madame," replied Mother Bunch, in her calm
+voice.
+
+"I wish to see you alone, niece--is that clear?" said the princess,
+impatiently, to her niece.
+
+"I beg your pardon, but I do not quite understand your highness," said
+Adrienne, with an air of surprise.  "This young lady, who honors me with
+her friendship, is willing to be present at this interview, which you
+have asked for--I say she has consented to be present, for it needs, I
+confess, the kindest condescension in her to resign herself, from
+affection for me, to hear all the graceful, obliging, and charming things
+which you have no doubt come hither to communicate."
+
+"Madame--" began the princess, angrily.
+
+"Permit me to interrupt your highness," returned Adrienne, in a tone of
+perfect amenity, as if she were addressing the most flattering
+compliments to her visitor.  "To put you quite at your ease with the lady
+here, I will begin by informing you that she is quite aware of all the
+holy perfidies, pious wrongs, and devout infamies, of which you nearly
+made me the victim.  She knows that you are a mother of the Church, such
+as one sees but few of in these days.  May I hope, therefore, that your
+highness will dispense with this delicate and interesting reserve?"
+
+"Really," said the princess, with a sort of incensed amazement, "I
+scarcely know if I wake or sleep."
+
+"Dear me!" said Adrienne, in apparent alarm; "this doubt as to the state
+of your faculties is very shocking, madame.  I see that the blood flies
+to your head, for your face sufficiently shows it; you seem oppressed,
+confined, uncomfortable--perhaps (we women may say so between ourselves),
+perhaps you are laced a little too tightly, madame?"
+
+These words, pronounced by Adrienne with an air of warm interest and
+perfect simplicity, almost choked the princess with rage.  She became
+crimson, seated herself abruptly, and exclaimed: "Be it so, madame!  I
+prefer this reception to any other.  It puts me at my ease, as you say."
+
+"Does it indeed, madame?" said Adrienne, with a smile.  "You may now at
+least speak frankly all that you feel, which must for you have the charm
+of novelty!  Confess that you are obliged to me for enabling you, even
+for a moment, to lay aside that mask of piety, amiability, and goodness,
+which must be so troublesome to you."
+
+As she listened to the sarcasms of Adrienne (an innocent and excusable
+revenge, if we consider all the wrongs she had suffered), Mother Bunch
+felt her heart sink within her; for she dreaded the malignity of the
+princess, who replied, with the utmost calmness: "A thousand thanks,
+madame, for your excellent intentions and sentiments.  I appreciate them
+as I ought, and I hope in a short time to prove it to you."
+
+"Well, madame," said Adrienne, playfully, "let us have it all at once.  I
+am full of impatient curiosity."
+
+"And yet," said the princess, feigning in her turn a bitter and ironical
+delight, "you are far from having the least notion of what I am about to
+announce to you."
+
+"Indeed! I fear that your highness's candor and modesty deceive you,"
+replied Adrienne, with the same mocking affability; "for there are very
+few things on your part that can surprise me, madame.  You must be aware
+that from your highness, I am prepared for anything."
+
+"Perhaps, madame," said the princess, laying great stress on her words,
+"if, for instance, I were to tell you that within twenty-four hours--
+suppose between this and to-morrow-thou will be reduced to poverty--"
+
+This was so unexpected, that Mdlle. de Cardoville started in spite of
+herself, and Mother Bunch shuddered.
+
+"Ah, madame!" said the princess, with triumphant joy and cruel mildness,
+as she watched the growing surprise of her niece, "confess that I have
+astonished you a little.  You were right in giving to our interview the
+turn it has taken.  I should have needed all sorts of circumlocution to
+say to you, `Niece, to-morrow you will be as poor as you are rich to-
+day.'  But now I can tell you the fact quite plainly and simply."
+
+Recovering from her first amazement, Adrienne replied, with a calm smile,
+which checked the joy of the princess: "Well, I confess frankly, madame,
+that you have surprised me; I expected from you one of those black pieces
+of malignity, one of those well-laid plots, in which you are known to
+excel, and I did not think you would make all this fuss about such a
+trifle."
+
+"To be ruined--completely ruined," cried the princess.  "and that by to-
+morrow--you that have been so prodigal, will see your house, furniture,
+horses, jewels, even the ridiculous dresses of which you are so vain, all
+taken from you--do you call that a trifle?  You, that spend with
+indifference thousands of louis, will be reduced to a pension inferior to
+the wages you gave your foot-boy--do you call that a trifle?"
+
+To her aunt's cruel disappointment, Adrienne, who appeared quite to have
+recovered her serenity was about to answer accordingly, when the door
+suddenly opened, and, without being announced, Prince Djalma entered the
+room.  A proud and tender expression of delight beamed from the radiant
+brow of Adrienne at sight of the prince, and it is impossible to describe
+the look of triumphant happiness and high disdain that she cast upon the
+Princess de Saint-Dizier.  Djalma himself had never looked more handsome,
+and never had more intense happiness been impressed on a human
+countenance.  The Hindoo wore a long robe of white Cashmere, adorned with
+innumerable stripes of gold and purple; his turban was of the same color
+and material; a magnificent figured shawl was twisted about his waist.
+On seeing the Indian, whom she had not hoped to meet at Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's, the Princess de Saint-Dizier could not at first conceal her
+extreme surprise.  It was between these four, then, that the following
+scene took place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+MEMORIES.
+
+Djalma, having never before met the Princess de Saint-Dizier at
+Adrienne's, at first appeared rather astonished at her presence.  The
+princess, keeping silence for a moment, contemplated with implacable
+hatred and envy those two beings, both so fair and young, so loving and
+happy.  Suddenly she started, as if she had just remembered something of
+great importance, and for some seconds she remained absorbed in thought.
+
+Adrienne and Djalma availed themselves of this interval to gaze fondly on
+each other, with a sort of ardent idolatry, which filled their eyes with
+sweet tears.  Then, at a movement of the Princess de Saint-Dizier, who
+seemed to rouse herself from her momentary trance, Mdlle. de Cardoville
+said to the young prince, with a smile: "My dear cousin, I have to repair
+an omission (voluntary, I confess, and for good reasons), in never having
+before mentioned to you one of my relations, whom I have now the honor to
+present to you.  The Princess de Saint-Dizier!"
+
+Djalma bowed; but Mdlle. de Cardoville resumed, just as her aunt was
+about to make some reply: "Her Highness of Saint-Dizier came very kindly
+to inform me of an event which is a most fortunate one for me, and of
+which I will speak to you hereafter, cousin--unless this amiable lady
+should wish to deprive me of the pleasure of making such a
+communication."
+
+The unexpected arrival of the prince, and the recollections which had
+suddenly occurred to the princess, had no doubt greatly modified her
+first plans: for, instead of continuing the conversation with regard to
+Adrienne's threatened loss of fortune, the princess answered, with a
+bland smile, that covered an odious meaning: "I should be sorry, prince,
+to deprive my dear and amiable niece of the pleasure of announcing to you
+the happy news to which she alludes, and which, as a near relative, I
+lost no time in communicating to her.  I have here some notes on this
+subject, added the princess, delivering a paper to Adrienne, "which I
+hope will prove, to her entire satisfaction, the reality of what I have
+announced to her."
+
+"A thousand thanks, my dear aunt," said Adrienne, receiving the paper
+with perfect indifference; "these precautions and proofs are quite
+superfluous.  You know that I always believe you on your word, when it
+concerns your good feeling towards myself."
+
+Notwithstanding his ignorance of the refined perfidy and cruel politeness
+of civilized life, Djalma, endowed with a tact and fineness of perception
+common to most natures of extreme susceptibility, felt some degree of
+mental discomfort as he listened to this exchange of false compliments.
+He could not guess their full meaning, but they sounded hollow to his
+ear; and moreover, whether from instinct or presentiment, he had
+conceived a vague dislike for the Princess de Saint-Dizier.  That pious
+lady, full of the great affair in hand, was a prey to the most violent
+agitation, which betrayed itself in the growing color of her cheeks, her
+bitter smile, and the malicious brightness of her glance.  As he gazed on
+this woman, Djalma was unable to conquer his rising antipathy, and he
+remained silent and attentive, whilst his handsome countenance lost
+something of its former serenity.  Mother Bunch also felt the influence
+of a painful impression.  She glanced in terror at the princess, and then
+imploringly at Adrienne, as though she entreated the latter to but an end
+to an interview of which the young sempstress foresaw the fatal
+consequences.  But, unfortunately, the Princess de Saint-Dizier was too
+much interested in prolonging this conversation; and Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, gathering new courage and confidence from the presence of the
+man she adored, took delight in vexing the princess with the exhibition
+of their happy love.
+
+After a short silence, the Princess de Saint-Dizier observed, in a soft
+and insinuating tone: "Really, prince, you cannot think how pleased I was
+to learn by public report (for people talk of nothing else, and with good
+reason) of your chivalrous attachment to my dear niece; for, without
+knowing it, you will extricate me from a difficult position."
+
+Djalma made no answer, but he looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with a
+surprised and almost sorrowful air, as if to ask what her aunt meant to
+insinuate.
+
+The latter, not perceiving this mute interrogation, resumed as follows:
+"I will express myself more clearly, prince.  You can understand that,
+being the nearest relative of this dear, obstinate girl, I am more or
+less responsible for her conduct in the eyes of the world; and you,
+prince, seem just to have arrived on purpose, from the end of the earth,
+to take charge of a destiny which had caused me considerable
+apprehension.  It is charming, it is excellent; and I know not which most
+to admire, your courage or your good fortune."  The princess threw a
+glance of diabolical malice at Adrienne, and awaited her answer with an
+air of defiance.
+
+"Listen to our good aunt, my dear cousin," said the young lady, smiling
+calmly.  "Since our affectionate kinswoman sees you and me united and
+happy, her heart is swelling with such a flood of joy, that it must run
+over, and the effects will he delightful.  Only have a little patience,
+and you will behold them in their full beauty.  I do not know," added
+Adrienne, in the most natural tone, "why, in thinking of these
+outpourings of our dear aunt's affection, I should remember what you told
+me, cousin, of a certain viper in your country which sometimes, in a
+powerless bite, breaks its fangs, and, absorbing its own venom, becomes
+the victim of the poison it distills.  Come, my dear aunt, you that had
+so good and noble a heart, I am sure you must feel interested in the fate
+of those poor vipers."
+
+The princess darted an implacable look at her niece, and replied, in an
+agitated voice, "I do not see the object of this selection of natural
+history.  Do you, prince?"
+
+Djalma made no answer; leaning with his arm on the mantelpiece, he threw
+dark and piercing glances upon the princess.  His involuntary hatred of
+this woman filled his heart.
+
+"Ah, my dear aunt!" resumed Adrienne, in a tone of self-reproach; "have I
+presumed too much on the goodness of your heart?  Have you not even
+sympathy for vipers?  For whom, then, have you any?  After all, I can
+very well understand it," added Adrienne, as if to herself; "vipers are
+so thin.  But, to lay aside these follies," she continued, gayly, as she
+saw the ill-repressed rage of the pious woman, "tell us at once, my dear
+aunt, all the tender things which the sight of our happiness inspires."
+
+"I hope to do so, my amiable niece.  First, I must congratulate this dear
+prince, on having come so far to take charge, in all confidence, and with
+his eyes shut, of you, my poor child, whom we were obliged to confine as
+mad, in order to give a decent color to your excesses.  You remember the
+handsome lad, that we found in your apartment.  You cannot be so
+faithless, as already to have forgotten his name?  He was a fine, youth,
+and a poet--one Agricola Baudoin--and was discovered in a secret place,
+attached to your bed-chamber.  All Paris was amused with the scandal--for
+you are not about to marry an unknown person, dear prince; her name has
+been in every mouth."
+
+At these unexpected and dreadful words, Adrienne, Djalma, and Mother
+Bunch, though under the influence of different kinds of resentment,
+remained for a moment mute with surprise; and the princess, judging it no
+longer necessary to repress her infernal joy and triumphant hatred,
+exclaimed, as she rose from her seat, with flushed cheek, and flashing
+eyes, "Yes, I defy you to contradict me.  Were we not forced to confine
+you, on the plea of madness?  And did we not find a workman (your lover)
+concealed in your bedroom?"
+
+On this horrible accusation, Djalma's golden complexion, transparent as
+amber, became suddenly the color of lead; his eyes, fixed and staring
+showed the white round the pupil--his upper lip, red as blood, was curled
+in a kind of wild convulsion, which exposed to view the firmly-set teeth
+--and his whole countenance became so frightfully threatening and
+ferocious, that Mother Bunch shuddered with terror.  Carried away by the
+ardor of his blood, the young Oriental felt a sort of dizzy,
+unreflecting, involuntary rage--a fiery commotion, like that which makes
+the blood leap to the brave man's eyes and brain, when he feels a blow
+upon his face.  If, during that moment, rapid as the passage of the
+lightning through the cloud, action could have taken the place of
+thought, the princess and Adrienne, Mother Bunch and himself, would all
+have been annihilated by an explosion as sudden and fatal as that of the
+bursting of a mine.  He would have killed the princess, because she
+accused Adrienne of infamous deception he would have killed Adrienne,
+because she could even be suspected of such infamy--and Mother Bunch, for
+being a witness of the accusation--and himself, in order not to survive
+such horrid treachery.  But, oh wonder! his furious and bloodshot gaze
+met the calm look of Adrienne--a look so full of dignity and serene
+confidence--and the expression of ferocious rage passed away like a flash
+of lightning.
+
+Much more: to the great surprise of the princess and the young workgirl,
+as the glances which Djalma cast upon Adrienne went (as it were) deeper
+into that pure soul, not only did the Indian grow calm, but, by a kind of
+transfiguration, his countenance seemed to borrow her serene expression,
+and reflect, as in a mirror, the noble serenity impressed on the young
+lady's features.  Let us explain physically this moral revolution, as
+consoling to the terrified workgirl, as provoking to the princess.
+Hardly had the princess distilled the atrocious calumny from her venomous
+lips, than Djalma, then standing before the fireplace, had, in the first
+paroxysm of his fury, advanced a step towards her; but, wishing as it
+were to moderate his rage, he held by the marble chimney-piece, which he
+grasped with iron strength.  A convulsive trembling shook his whole body,
+and his features, altered and contracted, became almost frightful.
+Adrienne, on her part, when she heard the accusation, yielding to a first
+impulse of just indignation, even as Djalma had yielded to one of blind
+fury, rose abruptly, with offended pride flashing from her eyes; but,
+almost immediately appeased by the consciousness of her own purity, her
+charming face resumed its expression of adorable serenity.  It was then
+that her eyes met Djalma's.  For a second, the young lady was even more
+afflicted than terrified at the threatening and formidable expression of
+the young Indian's countenance.  "Can stupid indignity exasperate him to
+this degree?" said Adrienne to herself.  "Does he suspect me; then?"
+
+But to this reflection, as rapid as it was painful, succeeded the most
+lively joy, when the eyes of Adrienne rested for a short time on those of
+the Indian, and she saw his agitated countenance grow calm as if by
+magic, and become radiant and beautiful as before.  Thus was the
+abominable plot of the princess de Saint-Dizier utterly confounded by the
+sincere and confiding expression of Adrienne's face.  That was not all.
+At the moment, when, as a spectator of this mute and expressive scene
+(which proved so well the wondrous sympathy of those two beings, who,
+without speaking a word, had understood and satisfied each other), the
+princess was choking with rage and vexation--Adrienne, with a charming
+smile and gesture, extended her fair hand to Djalma, who, kneeling,
+imprinted on it a kiss of fire, which sent a light blush to the forehead
+of the young lady.
+
+Then the Hindoo, placing himself on the ermine carpet at the feet of
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, in an attitude full of grace: and respect, rested
+his chin on the palm of one of his hands, and gazed on her silently, in a
+sort of mute adoration--while Adrienne, bending over him with a happy
+smile "looked at the babies in his eyes," as the song says, with as much
+amorous complacency, as if the hateful princess had not been present.
+But soon, as if something were wanting to complete her happiness,
+Adrienne beckoned to Mother Bunch, and made her sit down by her side.
+Then, with her hand clasped in that of this excellent friend, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville smiled on Djalma, stretched adoringly at her feet, and cast on
+the dismayed princess a look of such calm and firm serenity, so nobly
+expressive of the invincible quiet of her happiness, and her lofty
+disdain of all calumnious attacks, that the Princess de Saint-Dizier,
+confused and stupefied, murmured some hardly intelligible words, in a
+voice trembling with passion, and, completely losing her presence of
+mind, rushed towards the door.  But, at this moment, the hunchback, who
+feared some ambush, some perfidious plot in the background, resolved,
+after exchanging a glance with Adrienne, to accompany the princess to her
+carriage.
+
+The angry disappointment of the Princess de Saint-Dizier, when she saw
+herself thus followed and watched, appeared so comical to Mdlle. de
+Cardoville that she could not help laughing aloud; and it was to the
+sound of contemptuous hilarity that the hypocritical princess, with rage
+and despair in her heart, quitted the house to which she had hoped to
+bring trouble end misery.  Adrienne and Djalma were left alone.  Before
+relating the scene which took place between them, a few retrospective
+words are indispensable.  It will easily be imagined, that since Mdlle.
+de Cardoville and the Oriental had been brought into such close contact,
+after so many disappointments, their days had passed away like a dream of
+happiness.  Adrienne had especially taken pains to bring to light, one by
+one, all the generous qualities of Djalma, of which she had read so much
+in her books of travels.  The young lady had imposed on herself this
+tender and patient study of Djalma's character, not only to justify to
+her own mind the intensity of her love, but because this period of trial,
+to which she had assigned a term, enabled her to temper and divert the
+violence of Djalma's passion--a task the more meritorious, as she herself
+was of the same ardent temperament.  For, in those two lovers, the finest
+qualities of sense and soul seemed exactly to balance each other, and
+heaven had bestowed on them the rarest beauty of form, and the most
+adorable excellence of heart, as if to legitimatize the irresistible
+attraction which drew and bound them together.  What, then, was to be the
+term of this painful trial, which Adrienne had imposed on Djalma and on
+herself?  This is what Mdlle. de Cardoville intended to tell the prince,
+in the interview she had with him, after the abrupt departure of the
+Princess de Saint-Dizier.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+
+THE ORDEAL.
+
+Adrienne de Cardoville and Djalma had remained alone.  Such was the noble
+confidence which had succeeded in the Hindoo's mind to his first movement
+of unreflecting fury, caused by the infamous calumny, that, once alone
+with Adrienne, he did not even allude to that shameful accusation.
+
+On her side (touching and admirable sympathy of those two hearts!), the
+young lady was too proud, conscious of the purity of her love, to descend
+to any justification of herself.
+
+She would have considered it an insult both to herself and him.
+Therefore, the lovers began their interview, as if the princess had never
+made any such remark.  The same contempt was extended to the papers,
+which the princess had brought with her to prove the imminent ruin to
+which Adrienne was exposed.  The young lady had laid them down, without
+reading them, on a stand within her reach.  She made a graceful sign to
+Djalma to seat himself by her side, and accordingly he quitted, not
+without regret, the place he had occupied at her feet.
+
+"My love," said Adrienne, in a grave and tender voice, "you have often
+impatiently asked me, when would come the term of the trial we have laid
+upon ourselves.  That moment is at hand."
+
+Djalma started, and could not restrain a cry of surprise and joy; but
+this almost trembling exclamation was so soft and sweet, that it seemed
+rather the expression of ineffable gratitude, than of exulting passion.
+
+Adrienne continued: "Separated--surrounded by treachery and fraud--
+mutually deceived as to each other's sentiments--we yet loved on, and in
+that followed an irresistible attraction, stronger than every opposing
+influence.  But since then, in these days of happy retirement from the
+world, we have learned to value and esteem each other more.  Left to
+ourselves in perfect freedom, we have had the courage to resist every
+temptation, that hereafter we might be happy without remorse.  During
+these days, in which our hearts had been laid open to each other, we have
+read them thoroughly.  Yes, Djalma! I believe in you, and you in me--I
+find in you all that you find in me--every possible human security for
+our future happiness.  But this love must yet be consecrated; and in the
+eyes of the world, in which we are called upon to live, marriage is the
+only consecration, and marriage enchains one's whole life."
+
+Djalma looked at the young lady with surprise.
+
+"Yes, one's whole life! and yet who can answer for the sentiments of a
+whole life?" resumed Adrienne.  "A God, that could see into the future,
+could alone bind irrevocably certain hearts for their own happiness; but,
+alas! to human eyes the future is impenetrable.  Therefore, to accept
+indissoluble ties, for any longer than one can answer for a present
+sentiment, is to commit an act of selfish and impious folly."
+
+Djalma made no reply, but, with an almost respectful gesture, he urged
+the speaker to continue.
+
+"And then," proceeded she, with a mixture of tenderness and pride, "from
+respect for your dignity and mine, I would never promise to keep a law
+made by man against woman, with contemptuous and brutal egotism--a law,
+which denies to woman soul, mind, and heart--a law, which none can
+accept, without being either a slave or perjured--a law, which takes from
+the girl her name, reduces the wife to a state of degrading inferiority,
+denies to the mother all rights over her own children, and enslaves one
+human creature to the will of another, who is in all respects her equal
+in the sight of God!--You know, my love," added the young lady, with
+passionate enthusiasm, "how much I honor you, whose father was called the
+Father of the Generous.  I do not then fear, noble and valiant heart, to
+see you use against me these tyrannical powers; but, throughout my life,
+I never uttered a falsehood, and our love is too sacred and celestial to
+be purchased by a double perjury.  No, never will I swear to observe a
+law, that my dignity, and my reason refuse to sanction.  If, to-morrow,
+the freedom of divorce were established, and the rights of women
+recognized, I should be willing to observe usages, which would then be in
+accordance with my conscience, and with what is just, possible, and
+humane."  Then, after a pause, Adrienne continued, with such deep and
+sweet emotion, that a tear of tenderness veiled her beauteous eyes: "Oh!
+if you knew, my love, what your love is to me: if you knew how dear and
+sacred I hold your happiness--you would excuse, you would understand,
+these generous superstitions of a loving and honest heart, which could
+only see a fatal omen in forms degraded by falsehood and perjury.  What I
+wish, is, to attach you by love, to bind you in chains of happiness--and
+to leave you free, that I may owe your constancy only to your affection."
+
+Djalma had listened to the young girl with passionate attention.  Proud
+and generous himself, he admired this proud and generous character.
+After a moment's meditative silence, he answered, in his sweet, sonorous
+voice, in an almost solemn tone: "Like you, I hold in detestation,
+falsehood and perjury.  Like you, I think that man degrades himself, by
+accepting the right of being a cowardly tyrant, even though resolved
+never to use the power.  Like you, I could not bear the thought, that I
+owed all I most valued, not to your love alone, but to the eternal
+constraint of an indissoluble bond.  Like you, I believe there is no
+dignity but in freedom.  But you have said, that, for this great and holy
+love, you demand a religious consecration; and if you reject vows, that
+you cannot make without folly and perjury, are there then others, which
+your reason and your heart approve?--Who will pronounce the required
+blessing?  To whom must these vows be spoken?"
+
+"In a few days, my love, I believe I shall be able to tell you all.
+Every evening, after your departure, I have no other thought.  I wish to
+find the means of uniting yourself and me--in the eyes of God, not of the
+law--without offending the habits and prejudices of a world, in which it
+may suit us hereafter to live.  Yes, my friend! when you know whose are
+the noble hands, that are to join ours together, who is to bless and
+glorify God in our union--a sacred union, that will leave us worthy and
+free--you will say, I am sure, that never purer hands could have been
+laid upon us.  Forgive me, friend! all this is in earnest--yes, earnest
+as our love, earnest as our happiness.  If my words seem to you strange,
+my thoughts unreasonable, tell it me, love!  We will seek and find some
+better means, to reconcile that we owe to heaven, with what we owe to the
+world and to ourselves.  It is said, that lovers are beside themselves,"
+added the young lady, with a smile, "but I think that no creatures are
+more reasonable."
+
+"When I hear you speak thus of our happiness," said Djalma, deeply moved,
+"with so much calm and earnest tenderness, I think I see a mother
+occupied with the future prospects of her darling child--trying to
+surround him with all that can make him strong, valiant, and generous--
+trying to remove far from him all that is ignoble and unworthy.  You ask
+me to tell you if your thoughts seem strange to me, Adrienne.  You
+forget, that what makes my faith in our love, is my feeling exactly as
+you do.  What offends you, offends me also; what disgusts you, disgusts
+me.  Just now, when you cited to me the laws of this country, which
+respect in a woman not even a mother's right--I thought with pride of our
+barbarous countries, where woman, though a slave, is made free when she
+becomes a mother.  No, no; such laws are not made either for you or me.
+Is it not to prove your sacred respect for our love, to wish to raise it
+above the shameful servitude that would degrade it?  You see, Adrienne, I
+have often heard said by the priests of my country, that there were
+beings inferior to the gods, but superior to every other creature.  I did
+not believe those priests; but now I do."  These last words were uttered,
+not in the tone of flattery, but with an accent of sincere conviction,
+and with that sort of passionate veneration and almost timid fervor,
+which mark the believer talking of his faith; but what is impossible to
+describe, is the ineffable harmony of these almost religious words, with
+the mild, deep tone of the young Oriental's voice--as well as the ardent
+expression of amorous melancholy, which gave an irresistible charm to his
+enchanting features.
+
+Adrienne had listened to Djalma with an indescribable mixture of joy,
+gratitude, and pride.  Laying her hand on her bosom, as if to keep down
+its violent pulsations, she resumed, as she looked at the prince with
+delight: "Behold him, ever the same!--just, good, great!--Oh, my heart!
+my heart! how proudly it beats.  Blessed be God, who created me for this
+adored lover!  He must mean to astonish the world, by the prodigies of
+tenderness and charity, that such a love may produce.  They do not yet
+know the sovereign might of free, happy, ardent love.  Yes, Djalma! on
+the day when our hands are joined together, what hymns of gratitude will
+ascend to heaven!--Ah! they do not know the immense, the insatiable
+longing for joy aria delight, which possesses two hearts like ours; they
+do not know what rays of happiness stream from the celestial halo of such
+a flame!--Oh, yes! I feel it.  Many tears will be dried, many cold hearts
+warmed, at the divine fire of our love.  And it will be by the
+benedictions of those we serve, that they will learn the intoxication of
+our rapture!"
+
+To the dazzled eyes of Djalma, Adrienne appeared more and more an ideal
+being--partaking of the Divinity by her goodness, of the animal nature by
+passion--for, yielding to the intensity of excitement, Adrienne fixed
+upon Djalma looks that sparkled with love.
+
+'Then, almost beside himself, the Asiatic fell prostrate at the feet of
+the maiden, and exclaimed, in a supplicating voice: "Mercy! my courage
+fails me.  Have pity on me! do not talk thus.  Oh, that day! what years
+of my life would I not give to hasten it!"
+
+"Silence! no blasphemy.  Do not your years belong to me?"
+
+"Adrienne! you love me!"
+
+The young lady did not answer; but her half-veiled, burning glance, dealt
+the last blow to reason.  Seizing her hands in his own, he exclaimed,
+with a tremulous voice: "That day, in which we shall mount to heaven, in
+which we shall be gods in happiness--why postpone it any longer?"
+
+"Because our love must be consecrated by the benediction of heaven."
+
+"Are we not free?"
+
+"Yes, yes, my love; we are free.  Let us be worthy of our liberty!"
+
+"Adrienne! mercy!"
+
+"I ask you also to have mercy--to have mercy on the sacredness of our
+love.  Do not profane it in its very flower.  Believe my heart! believe
+my presentiments! to profane it would be to kill.  Courage, my adored
+lover! a few days longer--and then happiness--without regret, and without
+remorse!"
+
+"And, until then, hell! tortures without a name!  You do not, cannot know
+what I suffer when I leave your presence.  Your image follows me, your
+breath burns me up; I cannot sleep, but call on you every night with
+sighs and tears--just as I called on, you, when I thought you did not
+love me--and yet I know you love me, I know you are mine.  But to see you
+every day more beautiful, more adored--and every day to quit you more
+impassioned--oh! you cannot tell--"
+
+Djalma was unable to proceed.  What he said of his devouring tortures,
+Adrienne had felt, perhaps even more intensely.  Electrified by the
+passionate words of Djalma, so beautiful in his excitement, her courage
+failed, and she perceived that an irresistible languor was creeping over
+her.  By a last chaste effort of the will, she rose abruptly, and
+hastening to the door, which communicated with Mother Bunch's chamber,
+she exclaimed: "My, sister! help me!"
+
+In another moment, Mdlle. de Cardoville, her face bathed in tears,
+clasped the young sempstress in her arms; while Djalma knelt respectfully
+on the threshold he did not dare to pass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+
+AMBITION.
+
+A few days after the interview of Djalma and Adrienne, just described,
+Rodin was alone in his bed-chamber, in the house in the Rue de Vaugirard,
+walking up and down the room where he had so valiantly undergone the
+moxas of Dr. Baleinier.  With his hands thrust into the hind-pockets of
+his greatcoat, and his head bowed upon his breast, the Jesuit seemed to
+be reflecting profoundly, and his varying walk, now slow, now quick,
+betrayed the agitation of his mind.
+
+"On the side of Rome," said Rodin to himself, "I am tranquil.  All is
+going well.  The abdication is as good as settled, and if I can pay them
+the price agreed, the Prince Cardinal can secure me a majority of nine
+voices in the conclave.  Our General is with me; the doubts of Cardinal
+Malipieri are at an end, or have found no echo.  Yet I am not quite easy,
+with regard to the reported correspondence between Father d'Aigrigny and
+Malipieri.  I have not been able to intercept any of it.  No matter; that
+soldier's business is settled.  A little patience and he will be wiped
+out."
+
+Here the pale lips were contracted by one of those frightful smiles,
+which gave to Rodin's countenance so diabolical an expression.
+
+After a pause, he resumed: "The funeral of the freethinker, the
+philanthropist, the workman's friend, took place yesterday at St. Herem.
+Francis Hardy went off in a fit of ecstatic delirium.  I had his
+donation, it is true; but this is more certain.  Everything may be
+disputed in this world; the dead dispute nothing."
+
+Rodin remained in thought for some moments; then he added, in a grave
+tone: "There remain this red-haired wench and her mulatto.  This is the
+twenty-seventh of May; the first of June approaches, and these turtle-
+doves still seem invulnerable.  The princess thought she had hit upon a
+good plan, and I should have thought so too.  It was a good idea to
+mention the discovery of Agricola Baudoin in the madcap's room, for it
+made the Indian tiger roar with savage jealousy.  Yes: but then the dove
+began to coo, and hold out her pretty beak, and the foolish tiger
+sheathed his claws, and rolled on the ground before her.  It's a pity,
+for there was some sense in the scheme."
+
+The walk of Rodin became more and more agitated.  "Nothing is more
+extraordinary," continued he, "than the generative succession of ideas.
+In comparing this red-haired jade to a dove (colombe), I could not help
+thinking of that infamous old woman, Sainte-Colombe, whom that big rascal
+Jacques Dumoulin pays his court to, and whom the Abbe Corbinet will
+finish, I hope, by turning to good account.  I have often remarked, that,
+as a poet may find an excellent rhyme by mere chance, so the germ of the
+best ideas is sometimes found in a word, or in some absurd resemblance
+like the present.  That abominable hag, Sainte-Colombo, and the pretty
+Adrienne de Cardoville, go as well together, as a ring would suit a cat,
+or a necklace a fish.  Well, there is nothing in it."
+
+Hardly had Rodin pronounced these words, than he started suddenly, and
+his face shone with a fatal joy.  Then it assumed an expression of
+meditative astonishment, as happens when chance reveals some unexpected
+discovery to the surprised and charmed inquirer after knowledge.
+
+Soon, with raised head and sparkling eye, his hollow cheeks swelling with
+joy and pride, Rodin folded his arms in triumph on his breast, and
+exclaimed: "Oh! how admirable and marvellous are these mysterious
+evolutions of the mind; how incomprehensible is the chain of human
+thought, which, starting from an absurd jingle of words, arrives at a
+splendid or luminous idea!  Is it weakness? or is it strength?  Strange--
+very strange!  I compare the red-haired girl to a dove--a colombe.  That
+makes me think of the hag, who traded in the bodies and souls of so many
+creatures.  Vulgar proverbs occur to me, about a ring and a cat, a fish
+and a necklace--and suddenly, at the word NECKLACE, a new light dawns
+upon me.  Yes: that one word NECKLACE shall be to me a golden key, to
+open the portals of my brain, so long foolishly closed."
+
+And, after again walking hastily up and down, Rodin continued: "Yes, it
+is worth attempting.  The more I reflect upon it, the more feasible it
+appears.  Only how to get at that wretch, Saint-Colombe?  Well, there is
+Jacques Dumoulin, and the other--where to find her?  That is the
+stumbling-block.  I must not shout before I am out of the wood."
+
+Rodin began again to walk, biting his nails with an air of deep thought.
+For some moments, such was the tension of his mind, large drops of sweat
+stood on his yellow brow.  He walked up and down, stopped, stamped with
+his foot, now raised his eyes as if in search of an inspiration, and now
+scratched his head violently with his left hand, whilst he continued to
+gnaw the nails of the right.  Finally, from time to time, he uttered
+exclamations of rage, despondency, or hope, as by turns they took
+possession of his mind.  If the cause of this monster's agitation had not
+been horrible, it would have been a curious and interesting spectacle to
+watch the labors of that powerful brain--to follow, as it were, on that
+shifting countenance, the progress and development of the project, on
+which he was now concentrating all the resources of his strong intellect.
+At length, the work appeared to be near completion, for Rodin resumed:
+"Yes, yes! it is bold, hazardous--but then it is prompt, and the
+consequences may be incalculable.  Who can foresee the effects of the
+explosion of a mine?"
+
+Then, yielding to a movement of enthusiasm, which was hardly natural to
+him, the Jesuit exclaimed, with rapture: "Oh, the passions! the passions!
+what a magical instrument do they form, if you do but touch the keys with
+a light, skillful, and vigorous hand!  How beautiful too is the power of
+thought!  Talk of the acorn that becomes an oak, the seed that grows up
+to the corn--the seed takes months, the acorn centuries, to unfold its
+splendors--but here is a little word in eight letters, necklace and this
+word, falling into my brain but a few minutes ago, has grown and grown
+till it has become larger than any oak.  Yes, that word is the germ of an
+idea, that, like the oak, lifts itself up towards heaven, for the greater
+glory of the Lord--such as they call Him, and such as I would assert Him
+to be, should I attain--and I shall attain--for these miserable
+Renneponts will pass away like a shadow.  And what matters it, after all,
+to the moral order I am reserved to guide, whether these people live or
+die?  What do such lives weigh in the balance of the great destinies of
+the world? while this inheritance which I shall boldly fling into the
+scale, will lift me to a sphere, from which one commands many kings, many
+nations--let them say and make what noise they will.  The idiots--the
+stupid idiots! or rather, the kind, blessed, adorable idiots!  They think
+they have crushed us, when they say to us men of the church: `You take
+the spiritual, but we will keep the temporal!'--Oh, their conscience or
+their modesty inspires them well, when it bids them not meddle with
+spiritual things!  They abandon the spiritual! they despise it, they will
+have nothing to do with it--oh, the venerable asses! they do not see,
+that, even as they go straight to the mill, it is by the spiritual that
+we go straight to the temporal.  As if the mind did not govern the body!
+They leave us the spiritual--that is, command of the conscience, soul,
+heart, and judgment--the spiritual--that is, the distribution of heaven's
+rewards, and punishments, and pardons--without check, without control, in
+the secrecy of the confessional--and that dolt, the temporal, has nothing
+but brute matter for his portion, and yet rubs his paunch for joy.  Only,
+from time to time, he perceives, too late, that, if he has the body, we
+have the soul, and that the soul governs the body, and so the body ends
+by coming with us also--to the great surprise of Master Temporal, who
+stands staring with his hands on his paunch, and says: "Dear me! is it
+possible?"
+
+Then, with a laugh of savage contempt, Rodin began to walk with great
+strides, and thus continued: "Oh! let me reach it--let me but reach the
+place of SIXTUS V.--and the world shall see (one day, when it awakes)
+what it is to have the spiritual power in hands like mine--in the hands
+of a priest, who, for fifty years, has lived hardly, frugally, chastely,
+and who, were he pope, would continue to live hardly, frugally,
+chastely!"
+
+Rodin became terrible, as he spoke thus.  All the sanguinary,
+sacrilegious, execrable ambition of the worst popes seemed written in
+fiery characters on the brow of this son of Ignatius.  A morbid desire of
+rule seemed to stir up the Jesuit's impure blood; he was bathed in a
+burning sweat, and a kind of nauseous vapor spread itself round about
+him.  Suddenly, the noise of a travelling-carriage, which entered the
+courtyard of the house, attracted his attention.  Regretting his
+momentary excitement, he drew from his pocket his dirty white and red
+cotton handkerchief, and dipping it in a glass of water, he applied it to
+his cheeks and temples, while he approached the window, to look through
+the half-open blinds at the traveller who had just arrived.  The
+projection of a portico, over the door at which the carriage had stopped,
+intercepted Rodin's view.
+
+"No matter," said he, recovering his coolness: "I shall know presently
+who is there.  I must write at once to Jacques Dumoulin, to come hither
+immediately.  He served me well, with regard to that little slut in the
+Rue Clovis, who made my hair stand on end with her infernal Beranger.
+This time, Dumoulin may serve me again.  I have him in my clutches, and
+he will obey me."
+
+Rodin sat down to his desk and wrote.  A few seconds later, some one
+knocked at the door, which was double-locked, quite contrary to the
+rules of the order.  But, sure of his own influence and importance,
+Rodin, who had obtained from the general permission to be rid for a time
+of the inconvenient company of a socius, often took upon himself to break
+through a number of the rules.  A servant entered and delivered a letter
+to Rodin.  Before opening it the latter said to the man: "What carriage
+is that which just arrived?"
+
+"It comes from Rome, father," answered the servant, bowing.
+
+"From Rome!" said Rodin, hastily; and in spite of himself, a vague
+uneasiness was expressed in his countenance.  But, still holding the
+letter in his hands, he added: "Who comes in the carriage."
+
+"A reverend father of our blessed Company."
+
+Notwithstanding his ardent curiosity, for he knew that a reverend father,
+travelling post, is always charged with some important mission, Rodin
+asked no more questions on the subject, but said, as he pointed to the
+paper in his hand: "Whence comes this letter?"
+
+"From our house at St. Herem, father."
+
+Rodin looked more attentively at the writing, and recognized the hand of
+Father d'Aigrigny, who had been commissioned to attend M. Hardy in his
+last moments.  The letter ran as follows:
+
+"I send a despatch to inform your reverence of a fact which is, perhaps,
+more singular than important.  After the funeral of M.  Francis Hardy,
+the coffin, which contained his remains, had been provisionally deposited
+in a vault beneath our chapel, until it could be removed to the cemetery
+of the neighboring town.  This morning, when our people went down into
+the vault, to make the necessary preparations for the removal of the
+body--the coffin had disappeared.
+
+"That is strange indeed," said Rodin with a start.  Then, he continued to
+read:
+
+"All search has hitherto been vain, to discover the authors of the
+sacrilegious deed.  The chapel being, as you know, at a distance from the
+house, they were able to effect an entry without disturbing us.  We
+have found traces of a four-wheeled carriage on the damp ground in the
+neighborhood; but, at some little distance from the chapel, these marks
+are lost in the sand, and it has been impossible to follow them any
+farther."
+
+"Who can have carried away this body?" said Rodin, with a thoughtful air.
+"Who could have any interest in doing so?"
+
+He continued to read:
+
+"Luckily, the certificate of death is quite correct.  I sent for a doctor
+from Etampes, to prove the disease, and no question can be raised on that
+point.  The donation is therefore good and valid in every respect, but I
+think it best to inform your reverence of what has happened, that you may
+take measures accordingly, etc., etc."
+
+After a moment's reflection, Rodin said to himself: "D'Aigrigny is right
+in his remark; it is more singular than important.  Still, it makes one
+think.  We must have an eye to this affair."
+
+Turning towards the servant, who had brought him the letter, Rodin gave
+him the note he had just written to Ninny Moulin, and said to him: "Let
+this letter be taken instantly to its address, and let the bearer wait
+for an answer."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+At the moment the servant left the room, a reverend father entered, and
+said to Rodin, "Father Caboccini of Rome has just arrived, with a mission
+from our general to your reverence."
+
+At these words, Rodin's blood ran cold, but he maintained his immovable
+calmness, and said simply: "Where is Father Caboccini?"
+
+"In the next room, father."
+
+"Beg him to walk in, and leave us," said the other.
+
+A second after, Father Caboccini of Rome entered the room and was left
+alone with Rodin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+TO A SOCIUS, A SOCIUS AND A HALF.
+
+The Reverend Father Caboccini, the Roman Jesuit who now came to visit
+Rodin, was a short man of about thirty years of age, plump, in good
+condition, and with an abdomen that swelled out his black cassock.  The
+good little father was blind with one eye, but his remaining organ of
+vision sparkled with vivacity.  His rosy countenance was gay, smiling,
+joyous, splendidly crowned with thick chestnut hair, which curled like a
+wax doll's.  His address was cordial to familiarity, and his expansive
+and petulant manners harmonized well with his general appearance.  In a
+second, Rodin had taken his measure of the Italian emissary; and as he
+knew the practice of his Company, and the ways of Rome, he felt by no
+means comfortable at sight of this jolly little father, with such affable
+manners.  He would have less feared some tall, bony priest, with austere
+and sepulchral countenance, for he knew that the Company loves to deceive
+by the outward appearance of its agents; and if Rodin guessed rightly,
+the cordial address of this personage would rather tend to show that he
+was charged with some fatal mission.
+
+Suspicious, attentive, with eye and mind on the watch, like an old wolf,
+expecting an attack, Rodin advanced as usual, slowly and tortuously
+towards the little man, so as to have time to examine him thoroughly, and
+penetrate beneath his jovial outside.  But the Roman left him no space
+for that purpose.  In his impetuous affection he threw himself right on
+the neck of Rodin, pressed him in his arms with an effusion of
+tenderness, and kissed him over and over again upon both cheeks, so
+loudly and plentifully that the echo resounded through the apartment.  In
+his life Rodin had never been so treated.  More and more uneasy at the
+treachery which must needs lurk under such warm embraces, and irritated
+by his own evil presentiments, the French Jesuit did, all he could to
+extricate himself from the Roman's exaggerated tokens of tenderness.  But
+the latter kept his hold; his arms, though short, were vigorous, and
+Rodin was kissed over and over again, till the little one-eyed man was
+quite out of breath.  It is hardly necessary to state that these embraces
+were accompanied by the most friendly, affectionate, and fraternal
+exclamations--all in tolerably good French, but with a strong Italian
+accent, which we muss beg the reader to supply for himself, after we have
+given a single specimen.  It will perhaps be remembered that, fully aware
+of the danger he might possibly incur by his ambitious machinations, and
+knowing from history that the use of poison had often been considered at
+Rome as a state necessity, Rodin, on being suddenly attacked with the
+cholera, had exclaimed, with a furious glance at Cardinal Malipieri, "I
+am poisoned!"
+
+The same apprehensions occurred involuntarily to the Jesuit's mind as he
+tried, by useless efforts, to escape from the embraces of the Italian
+emissary; and he could not help muttering to himself, "This one-eyed
+fellow is a great deal too fond.  I hope there is no poison under his
+Judas-kisses."  At last, little Father Caboccini, being quite out of
+breath, was obliged to relinquish his hold on Rodin's neck, who,
+readjusting his dirty collar, and his old cravat and waistcoat, somewhat
+in disorder in consequence of this hurricane of caresses, said in a gruff
+tone, "Your humble servant, father, but you need not kiss quite so hard."
+
+Without making any answer to this reproach, the little father riveted his
+one eye upon Rodin with an expression of enthusiasm, and exclaimed,
+whilst he accompanied his words with petulant gestures, "At lazt I zee te
+zuperb light of our zacred Company, and can zalute him from my heart--
+vonse more, vonse more."
+
+As the little father had already recovered his breath, and was about to
+rush once again into Rodin's arms, the latter stepped back hastily, and
+held out his arm to keep him off, saying, in allusion to the illogical
+metaphor employed by Father Caboccini, "First of all, father, one does
+not embrace a light--and then I am not a light--I am a humble and obscure
+laborer in the Lord's vineyard."
+
+The Roman replied with enthusiasm (we shall henceforth translate his
+gibberish), "You are right, father, we cannot embrace a light, but we can
+prostrate ourselves before it, and admire its dazzling brightness."
+
+So saying, Caboccini was about to suit the action to the word, and to
+prostrate himself before Rodin, had not the latter prevented this mode of
+adulation by seizing the Roman by the arm and exclaiming, "This is mere
+idolatry, father.  Pass over my qualities, and tell me what is the object
+of your journey."
+
+"The object, my dear father, fills me with joy and happiness.  I have
+endeavored to show you my affection by my caresses, for my heart is
+overflowing.  I have hardly been able to restrain myself during my
+journey hither, for my heart rushed to meet you.  The object transports,
+delights, enchants me--"
+
+"But what enchants you?" cried Rodin, exasperated by these Italian
+exaggerations.  "What is the object?"
+
+"This rescript of our very reverend and excellent General will inform
+you, my clear father."
+
+Caboccini drew from his pocket-book a folded paper, with three seals,
+which he kissed respectfully, and delivered to Rodin, who himself kissed
+it in his turn, and opened it with visible anxiety.  While he read it the
+countenance of the Jesuit remained impassible, but the pulsation of the
+arteries on his temples announced his internal agitation.  Yet he put the
+letter coolly into his pocket, and looking at the Roman, said to him, "Be
+it as our excellent General has commanded!"
+
+"Then, father," cried Caboccini, with a new effusion of tenderness and
+admiration, "I shall be the shadow of your light, and, in fact, your
+second self.  I shall have the happiness of being always with you, day
+and night, and of acting as your socius, since, after having allowed you
+to be without one for some time, according to your wish, and for the
+interest of our blessed Company, our excellent General now thinks fit to
+send me from Rome, to fill that post about your person--an unexpected, an
+immense favor, which fills me with gratitude to our General, and with
+love to you, my dear, my excellent father!"
+
+"It is well played," thought Rodin; "but I am not so soft, and 'tis only
+among the blind that your Cyclops are kings!"
+
+The evening of the day in which this scene took place between the Jesuit
+and his new socius, Ninny Moulin, after receiving in presence of
+Caboccini the instructions of Rodin, went straight to Madame de la
+Sainte-Colombe's.
+
+This woman had made her fortune, at the time of the allies taking Paris,
+by keeping one of those "pretty milliner's shops," whose "pink bonnets"
+have run into a proverb not extinct in these days when bonnets are not
+known.  Ninny Moulin had no better well to draw inspiration from when, as
+now, he had to find out, as per Rodin's order, a girl of an age and
+appearance which, singularly enough, were closely resembling those of
+Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+No doubt of Ninny Moulin's success in this mission, for the next morning
+Rodin, whose countenance wore a triumphant expression, put with his own
+hand a letter into the post.
+
+This letter was addressed:
+
+"To M. Agricola Baudoin,
+"No.  2, Rue Brise-Miche,
+"Paris."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+FARINGHEA'S AFFECTION.
+
+It will, perhaps, be remembered that Djalma, when he heard for the first
+time that he was beloved by Adrienne, had, in the fulness of his joy,
+spoken thus to Faringhea, whose treachery he had just discovered, "You
+leagued with my enemies, and I had done you no harm.  You are wicked,
+because you are no doubt unhappy.  I will strive to make you happy, so
+that you may be good.  Would you have gold?--you shall have it.  Would
+you have a friend?--though you are a slave, a king's son offers you his
+friendship."
+
+Faringhea had refused the gold, and appeared to accept the friendship of
+the son of Kadja-sing.  Endowed with remarkable intelligence, and
+extraordinary power of dissimulation the half-breed had easily persuaded
+the prince of the sincerity of his repentance, and obtained credit for
+his gratitude and attachment from so confiding and generous a character.
+Besides, what motives could Djalma have to suspect the slave, now become
+his friend?  Certain of the love of Mdlle. de Cardoville, with whom he
+passed a portion of every day, her salutary influence would have guarded
+him against any dangerous counsels or calumnies of the half-caste, a
+faithful and secret instrument of Rodin, and attached by him to the
+Company.  But Faringhea, whose tact was amazing, did not act so lightly;
+he never spoke to the prince of Mdlle. de Cardoville, and waited
+unobtrusively for the confidential communications into which Djalma was
+sometimes hurried by his excessive joy.  A few days after the interview
+last described between Adrienne and Djalma, and on the morrow of the day
+when Rodin, certain of the success of Ninny Moulin's mission to Sainte-
+Colombe, had himself put a letter in the post to the address of Agricola
+Baudoin, the half-caste, who for some time had appeared oppressed with a
+violent grief, seemed to get so much worse, that the prince, struck with
+the desponding air of the man, asked him kindly and repeatedly the cause
+of his sorrow.  But Faringhea, while he gratefully thanked the prince for
+the interest he took in him, maintained the most absolute silence and
+reserve on the subject of his grief.
+
+These preliminaries will enable the reader to understand the following
+scene, which took place about noon in the house in the Rue de Clichy
+occupied by the Hindoo.  Contrary to his habit, Djalma had not passed
+that morning with Adrienne.  He had been informed the evening before, by
+the young lady, that she must ask of him the sacrifice of this whole day,
+to take the necessary measures to make their marriage sacred and
+acceptable in the eyes of the world, and yet free from the restrictions
+which she and Djalma disapproved. As for the means to be employed by
+Mdlle. de Cardoville to attain this end, and the name of the pure and
+honorable person who was to consecrate their union, these were secrets
+which, not belonging exclusively to the young lady, could not yet be
+communicated to Djalma.  To the Indian, so long accustomed to devote
+every instant to Adrienne, this day seemed interminable.  By turns a prey
+to the most burning agitation, and to a kind of stupor, in which he
+plunged himself to escape from the thoughts that caused his tortures,
+Djalma lay stretched upon a divan, with his face buried in his hands, as
+if to shut out the view of a too enchanting vision.  Suddenly, without
+knocking at the door, as usual, Faringhea entered the prince's apartment.
+
+At the noise the half-caste made in entering Djalma started, raised his
+head, and looked round him with surprise; but, on seeing the pale
+agitated countenance of the slave, he rose hastily, and advancing towards
+him, exclaimed, "What is the matter, Faringhea!"
+
+After a moment's silence, and as if struggling with a painful feeling of
+hesitation, Faringhea threw himself at the feet of Djalma, and murmured
+in a weak, despairing, almost supplicating voice: "I am very miserable.
+Pity me, my good lord!"
+
+The tone was so touching, the grief under which the half-breed suffered
+seemed to give to his features, generally fixed and hard as bronze, such
+a heart-rending expression, that Djalma was deeply affected, and, bending
+to raise him from the ground, said to him, in a kindly voice: "Speak to
+me!  Confidence appeases the torments of the heart.  Trust me, friend--
+for my angel herself said to me, that happy love cannot bear to see tears
+about him."
+
+"But unhappy love, miserable love, betrayed love--weeps tears of blood,"
+replied Faringhea, with painful dejection.
+
+"Of what love dost thou speak?" asked Djalma, in surprise.
+
+"I speak of my love," answered the half-caste, with a gloomy air.
+
+"Of your love?" said Djalma, more and more astonished; not that the half-
+caste, still young, and with a countenance of sombre beauty, appeared to
+him incapable of inspiring or feeling the tender passion, but that, until
+now, he had never imagined him capable of conceiving so deep a sorrow.
+
+"My lord," resumed the half-caste, "you told me, that misfortune had made
+me wicked, and that happiness would make me good.  In those words, I saw
+a presentiment, and a noble love entered my heart, at the moment when
+hatred and treachery departed from it.  I, the half-savage, found a
+woman, beautiful and young, to respond to my passion.  At least I thought
+so.  But I had betrayed you, my lord, and there is no happiness for a
+traitor, even though he repent.  In my turn, I have been shamefully
+betrayed."
+
+Then, seeing the surprise of the prince, the half-caste added, as if
+overwhelmed with confusion: "Do not mock me, my lord! The most frightful
+tortures would not have wrung this confession from me; but you, the son
+of a king, deigned to call the poor slave your friend!"
+
+"And your friend thanks you for the confidence," answered Djalma.  "Far
+from mocking, he will console you.  Mock you! do you think it possible?"
+
+"Betrayed love merits contempt and insult," said Faringhea, bitterly.
+"Even cowards may point at one with scorn--for, in this country, the
+sight of the man deceived in what is dearest to his soul, the very life-
+blood of his life, only makes people shrug their shoulders and laugh."
+
+"But are you certain of this treachery?" said Djalma, mildly.  Then he
+added, with visible hesitation, that proved the goodness of his heart:
+"Listen to me, and forgive me for speaking of the past!  It will only be
+another proof, that I cherish no evil memories, and that I fully believe
+in your repentance and affection.  Remember, that I also once thought,
+that she, who is the angel of my life, did not love me--and yet it was
+false.  Who tells you, that you are not, like me, deceived by false
+appearances?"
+
+"Alas, my lord! could I only believe so!  But I dare not hope it.  My
+brain wanders uncertain, I cannot come to any resolution, and therefore I
+have recourse to you."
+
+"But what causes your suspicions?"
+
+"Her coldness, which sometimes succeeds to apparent tenderness.  The
+refusals she gives me in the name of duty.  Yes," added the half-caste,
+after a moment's silence.  "she reasons about her love--a proof, that she
+has never loved me, or that she loves me no more."
+
+"On the contrary, she perhaps loves you all the more, that she takes into
+consideration the interest and the dignity of her love."
+
+"That is what they all say," replied the half-caste, with bitter irony,
+as he fixed a penetrating look on Djalma; "thus speak all those who love
+weakly, coldly; but those who love valiantly, never show these insulting
+suspicions.  For them, a word from the man they adore is a command; they
+do not haggle and bargain, for the cruel pleasure of exciting the passion
+of their lover to madness, and so ruling him more surely.  No, what their
+lover asks of them, were it to cost life and honor, they would grant it
+without hesitation--because, with them, the will of the man they love is
+above every other consideration, divine and human.  But those crafty
+women, whose pride it is to tame and conquer man--who take delight in
+irritating his passion, and sometimes appear on the point of yielding to
+it--are demons, who rejoice in the tears and torments of the wretch, that
+loves them with the miserable weakness of a child.  While we expire with
+love at their feet, the perfidious creatures are calculating the effects
+of their refusals, and seeing how far they can go, without quite driving
+their victim to despair.  Oh! how cold and cowardly are they, compared to
+the valiant, true-hearted women, who say to the men of their choice: `Let
+me be thine to-day-and to-morrow, come shame, despair, and death--it
+matters little!  Be happy! my life is not worth one tear of thine!"
+
+Djalma's brow had darkened, as he listened.  Having kept inviolable the
+secret of the various incidents of his passion for Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+he could not but see in these words a quite involuntary allusion to the
+delays and refusals of Adrienne.  And yet Djalma suffered a moment in his
+pride, at the thought of considerations and duties, that a woman holds
+dearer than her love.  But this bitter and painful thought was soon
+effaced from the oriental's mind, thanks to the beneficent influence of
+the remembrance of Adrienne.  His brow again cleared, and he answered the
+half-caste, who was watching him attentively with a sidelong glance: "You
+are deluded by grief.  If you have no other reason to doubt her you love,
+than these refusals and vague suspicions, be satisfied!  You are perhaps
+loved better than you can imagine."
+
+"Alas! would it were so, my lord!" replied the half-caste, dejectedly, as
+if he had been deeply touched by the words of Djalma.  "Yet I say to
+myself: There is for this woman something stronger than her love--
+delicacy, dignity, honor, what you will--but she does not love me enough
+to sacrifice for me this something!"
+
+"Friend, you are deceived," answered Djalma, mildly, though the words
+affected him with a painful impression.  "The greater the love of a
+woman, the more it should be chaste and noble.  It is love itself that
+awakens this delicacy and these scruples.  He rules, instead of being
+ruled."
+
+"That is true," replied the half-caste, with bitter irony, "Love so rules
+me, that this woman bids me love in her own fashion, and I have only to
+submit."
+
+Pausing suddenly, Faringhea hid his face in his hands, and heaved a deep-
+drawn sigh.  His features expressed a mixture of hate, rage, and despair,
+at once so terrible and so painful, that Djalma, more and more affected,
+exclaimed, as he seized the other's hand: "Calm this fury, and listen to
+the voice of friendship! It will disperse this evil influence.  Speak to
+me!"
+
+"No, no! it is too dreadful!"
+
+"Speak, I bid thee."
+
+"No! leave the wretch to his despair!"
+
+"Do you think me capable of that?" said Djalma, with a mixture of
+mildness and dignity, which seemed to make an impression on the half-
+caste.
+
+"Alas!" replied he, hesitating; "do you wish to hear more, my lord?"
+
+"I wish to hear all."
+
+"Well, then! I have not told you all--for, at the moment of making this
+confession, shame and the fear of ridicule kept me back.  You asked me
+what reason I had to believe myself betrayed.  I spoke to you of vague
+suspicions, refusals, coldness.  That is not all--this evening--"
+
+"Go on!"
+
+"This evening--she made an appointment--with a man that she prefers to
+me."
+
+"Who told you so?"
+
+"A stranger who pitied my blindness."
+
+"And suppose the man deceived you--or deceives himself?"
+
+"He has offered me proofs of what he advances."
+
+"What proofs?"
+
+"He will enable me this evening to witness the interview.  `It may be,'
+said he, `that this appointment may have no guilt in it, notwithstanding
+appearances to the contrary.  Judge for yourself, have courage, and your
+cruel indecision will be at an end.'"
+
+"And what did you answer?"
+
+"Nothing, my lord.  My head wandered as it does now and I came to you for
+advice."
+
+Then, making a gesture of despair, he proceeded with a savage laugh:
+"Advice?  It is from the blade of my kand-jiar that I should ask counsel!
+It would answer: `Blood! blood!'"
+
+Faringhea grasped convulsively the long dagger attached to his girdle.
+There is a sort of contagion in certain forms of passion.  At sight of
+Faringhea's countenance, agitated by jealous fury, Djalma shuddered--for
+he remembered the fit of insane rage, with which he had been possessed,
+when the Princess de Saint-Dizier had defied Adrienne to contradict her,
+as to the discovery of Agricola Baudoin in her bed-chamber.  But then,
+reassured by the lady's proud and noble bearing, Djalma had soon learned
+to despise the horrible calumny, which Adrienne had not even thought
+worthy of an answer.  Still, two or three times, as the lightning will
+flash suddenly across the clearest sky, the remembrance of that shameful
+accusation had crossed the prince's mind, like a streak of fire, but had
+almost instantly vanished, in the serenity and happiness of his ineffable
+confidence in Adrienne's heart.  These memories, however, whilst they
+saddened the mind of Djalma, only made him more compassionate with regard
+to Faringhea, than he might have been without this strange coincidence
+between the position of the half-caste and his own.  Knowing, by his own
+experience, to what madness a blind fury may be carried, and wishing to
+tame the half-caste by affectionate kindness, Djalma said to him in a
+grave and mild tone: "I offered you my friendship.  I will now act
+towards you a friend."
+
+But Faringhea, seemingly a prey to a dull and mute frenzy, stood with
+fixed and haggard eyes, as though he did not hear Djalma.
+
+The latter laid his hand on his shoulder, and resumed: "Faringhea, listen
+to me!"
+
+"My lord," said the half-caste, starting abruptly, as from a dream,
+"forgive me--but--"
+
+"In the anguish occasioned by these cruel suspicions, it is not of your
+kandjiar that you must take counsel--but of your friend."
+
+"My lord--"
+
+"To this interview, which will prove the innocence or the treachery of
+your beloved, you will do well to go."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said the half-caste, in a hollow voice, and with a bitter
+smile: "I shall be there."
+
+"But you must not go alone."
+
+"What do you mean, my lord?" cried the half-caste.  "Who will accompany
+me?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"You, my lord?"
+
+"Yes--perhaps, to save you from a crime--for I know how blind and unjust
+is the earliest outburst of rage."
+
+"But that transport gives us revenge!" cried the half-caste, with a cruel
+smile.
+
+"Faringhea, this day is all my own.  I shall not leave you," said the
+prince, resolutely.  "Either you shall not go to this interview, or I
+will accompany you."
+
+The half-caste appeared conquered by this generous perseverance.  He fell
+at the feet of Djalma, pressed the prince's hand respectfully to his
+forehead and to his lips, and said: "My lord, be generous to the end!
+forgive me!"
+
+"For what should I forgive you?"
+
+"Before I spoke to you, I had the audacity to think of asking for what
+you have just freely offered.  Not knowing to what extent my fury might
+carry me, I had thought of asking you this favor, which you would not
+perhaps grant to an equal, but I did not dare to do it.  I shrunk even
+from the avowal of the treachery I have cause to fear, and I came only to
+tell you of my misery--because to you alone in all the world I could tell
+it."
+
+It is impossible to describe the almost candid simplicity, with which the
+half-breed pronounced these words, and the soft tones, mingled with
+tears, which had succeeded his savage fury.  Deeply affected, Djalma
+raised him from the ground, and said: "You were entitled to ask of me a
+mark of friendship.  I am happy in having forestalled you.  Courage! be
+of good cheer!  I will accompany you to this interview, and if my hopes
+do not deceive me, you will find you have been deluded by false
+appearances."
+
+When the night was come, the half-breed and Djalma, wrapped in their
+cloaks, got into a hackney-coach.  Faringhea ordered the coachman to
+drive to the house inhabited by Sainte-Colombe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+AN EVENING AT SAINTE-COLOMBE'S.
+
+Leaving Djalma and Faringhea in the coach, on their way, a few words are
+indispensable before continuing this scene.   Ninny Moulin, ignorant of
+the real object of the step he took at the instigation of Rodin, had, on
+the evening before, according to orders received from the latter, offered
+a considerable sum to Sainte-Colombe, to obtain from that creature
+(still singularly rapacious) the use of her apartments for whole day.
+Sainte-Colombe, having accepted this proposition, too advantageous to be
+refused, had set out that morning with her servants, to whom she wished,
+she said, in return for their good services, to give a day's pleasure in
+the country.  Master of the house, Rodin, in a black wig, blue
+spectacles, and a cloak, and with his mouth and chin buried in a worsted
+comforter--in a word, perfectly disguised--had gone that morning to take
+a look at the apartments, and to give his instructions to the half-caste.
+The latter, in two hours from the departure of the Jesuit, had, thanks to
+his address and intelligence, completed the most important preparation
+and returned in haste to Djalma, to play with detestable hypocrisy the
+scene at which we have just been present.
+
+During the ride from the Rue de Clichy to the Rue de Richelieu, Faringhea
+appeared plunged in a mournful reverie.  Suddenly, he said to Djalma to a
+quick tone: "My lord, if I am betrayed, I must have vengeance."
+
+"Contempt is a terrible revenge," answered Djalma.
+
+"No, no," replied the half-caste, with an accent of repressed rage.  "It
+is not enough.  The nearer the moment approaches, the more I feel I must
+have blood."
+
+"Listen to me "
+
+"My lord, have pity on me!  I was a coward to draw back from my revenge.
+Let me leave you, my lord!  I will go alone to this interview."
+
+So saying, Faringhea made a movement, as if he would spring from the
+carriage.
+
+Djalma held him by the arm, and said: "Remain!  I wilt not leave you.  If
+you are betrayed, you shall not shed blood.  Contempt will avenge and
+friendship will console you."
+
+"No, no, my lord; I am resolved.  When I have killed--then I will kill
+myself," cried the half-caste, with savage excitement.  "This kandjiar
+for the false ones!" added he, laying his hand on his dagger.  "The
+poison in the hilt for me."
+
+"Faringhea--"
+
+"If I resist you, my lord, forgive me!  My destiny must be accomplished."
+
+Time pressed, and Djalma, despairing to calm the other's ferocious rage,
+resolved to have recourse to a stratagem.
+
+After some minutes' silence, he said to Faringhea : I will not leave you.
+I will do all I can to save you from a crime.  If I do not succeed, the
+blood you shed be on your own head.  This hand shall never again be
+locked in yours."
+
+These words appeared to make a deep impression on Faringhea.  He breathed
+a long sigh, and, bowing his head upon his breast, remained silent and
+full of thought.  Djalma prepared, by the faint light of the lamps,
+reflected in the interior of the coach, to throw himself suddenly on the
+half-caste, and disarm him.  But the latter, who saw at a glance the
+intention of the prince, drew his kandjiar abruptly from his girdle, and
+holding it still in its sheath, said to the prince in a half-solemn,
+half-savage tone: "This dagger, in a strong hand, is terrible; and in
+this phial is one of the most subtle poisons of our country."
+
+He touched a spring, and the knob at the top of the hilt rose like a lid,
+discovering the mouth of a small crystal phial concealed in this
+murderous weapon.
+
+"Two or three drops of this poison upon the lips," resumed the half-
+caste, "and death comes slowly and peacefully, in a few hours, and
+without pain.  Only, for the first symptom, the nails turn blue.  But he
+who emptied this phial at a draught would fall dead, as if struck by
+lightning."
+
+"Yes," replied Djalma; "I know that our country produces such mysterious
+poisons.  But why lay such stress on the murderous properties of this
+weapon?"
+
+"To show you, my lord, that this kandjiar would ensure the success and
+impunity of my vengeance.  With the blade I could destroy, and by the
+poison escape from human justice.  Well, my lord! this kandjiar--take it-
+-I give it up to you--I renounce my vengeance--rather than render myself
+unworthy to clasp again your hand!"
+
+He presented the dagger to the prince, who, as pleased as surprised at
+this unexpected determination, hastily secured the terrible weapon
+beneath his own girdle; whilst the half-breed continued, in a voice of
+emotion: "Deep this kandjiar, my lord--and when you have seen and heard
+all that we go to hear and see--you shall either give me the dagger to
+strike a wretch--or the poison, to die without striking.  You shall
+command; I will obey."
+
+Djalma was about to reply, when the coach stopped at the house inhabited
+by Sainte-Colombe.  The prince and the half-caste, well enveloped in
+their mantles, entered a dark porch, and the door was closed after them.
+Faringhea exchanged a few words with the porter, and the latter gave him
+a key.  The two Orientals soon arrived at Sainte-Colombe's apartments,
+which had two doors opening upon the landing-place, besides a private
+entrance from the courtyard.  As he put the key into the lock, Faringhea
+said to Djalma, in an agitated voice: "Pity my weakness, my lord--but, at
+this terrible moment, I tremble and hesitate.  It were perhaps better to
+doubt--or to forget!"
+
+Then, as the prince was about to answer, the half-caste exclaimed: "No!
+we must have no cowardice!" and, opening the door precipitately, he
+entered, followed by Djalma.
+
+When the door was again closed, the prince and the half-caste found
+themselves in a dark and narrow passage.  "Your hand, my lord--let me
+guide you--walk lightly," said Faringhea, in a low whisper.
+
+He extended his hand to the prince, who took hold of it, and they both
+advanced silently through the darkness.  After leading Djalma some
+distance, and opening and closing several doors, the half-caste stopped
+abruptly, and abandoning the hand which he had hitherto held, said to the
+prince: "My lord, the decisive moment approaches; let us wait here for a
+few seconds."
+
+A profound silence followed these words of the half-caste.  The darkness
+was so complete, that Djalma could distinguish nothing.  In about a
+minute, he heard Faringhea moving away from him; and then a door was
+suddenly opened, and as abruptly closed and locked.  This circumstance
+made Djalma somewhat uneasy.  By a mechanical movement, he laid his hand
+upon his dagger, and advanced cautiously towards the side, where he
+supposed the door to be.
+
+Suddenly, the half-caste's voice struck upon his ear, though it was
+impossible to guess whence it came.  "My lord," it said, "you told me,
+you were my friend.  I act as a friend.  If I have employed stratagem to
+bring you hither, it is because the blindness of your fatal passion would
+otherwise have prevented your accompanying me.  The Princess de Saint-
+Dizier named to you Agricola Baudoin, the lover of Adrienne de
+Cardoville.  Listen--look--judge!"
+
+The voice ceased.  It appeared to have issued from one corner of the
+room.  Djalma, still in darkness, perceived too late into what a snare he
+had fallen, and trembled with rage--almost with alarm.
+
+"Faringhea!" he exclaimed; "where am I?  where are you?  Open the door on
+your life!  I would leave this place instantly."
+
+Extending his arms, the prince advanced hastily several steps, but he
+only touched a tapestried wall; he followed it, hoping to find the door,
+and he at length found it; but it was locked, and resisted all his
+efforts.  He continued his researches, and came to a fireplace with no
+fire in it, and to a second door, equally fast.  In a few moments, he had
+thus made the circle of the room, and found himself again at the
+fireplace.  The anxiety of the prince increased more and more.  He called
+Faringhea, in a voice trembling with passion.  There was no answer.
+Profound silence reigned without, and complete darkness within.  Ere
+long, a perfumed vapor, of indescribable sweetness, but very subtle and
+penetrating, spread itself insensibly through the little room in which
+Djalma was.  It might be, that the orifice of a tube, passing through one
+of the doors of the room, introduced this balmy current.  At the height
+of angry and terrible thoughts, Djalma paid no attention to this odor--
+but soon the arteries of his temples began to beat violently, a burning
+heat seemed to circulate rapidly through his veins, he felt a sensation
+of pleasure, his resentment died gradually away, and a mild, ineffable
+torpor crept over him, without his being fully conscious of the mental
+transformation that was taking place.  Yet, by a last effort of the
+wavering will, Djalma advanced once more to try and open one of the
+doors; he found it indeed, but at this place the vapor was so strong,
+that its action redoubled, and, unable to move a step further, Djalma was
+obliged to support himself by leaning against the wall.[43]
+
+Then a strange thing happened.  A faint light spread itself gradually
+through an adjoining apartment, and Djalma now perceived, for the first
+time, the existence of a little round window, in the wall of the room in
+which he was.  On the side of the prince, this opening was protected by a
+slight but strong railing, which hardly intercepted the view.  On the
+other side a thick piece of plate-glass was fixed at the distance of two
+or three inches from the railing in question.  The room, which Djalma saw
+through this window, and through which the faint light was now gradually
+spreading, was richly furnished.  Between two windows, hung with crimson
+silk curtains, stood a kind of wardrobe, with a looking-glass front;
+opposite the fireplace in which glowed the burning coals, was a long,
+wide divan, furnished with cushions.
+
+In another second a woman entered this apartment.  Her face and figure
+were invisible, being wrapped in a long, hooded mantle, of peculiar form,
+and a dark color.  The sight of this mantle made Djalma start.  To the
+pleasure he at first felt succeeded a feverish anxiety, like the growing
+fumes of intoxication.  There was that strange buzzing in his ears which
+we experience when we plunge into deep waters.  It was in a kind of
+delirium that Djalma looked on at what was passing in the next room.  The
+woman who had just appeared entered with caution, almost with fear.
+Drawing aside one of the window curtains, she glanced through the closed
+blinds into the street.  Then she returned slowly to the fireplace, where
+she stood for a moment pensive, still carefully enveloped in her mantle.
+Completely yielding to the influence of the vapor, which deprived him of
+his presence of mind--forgetting Faringhea, and all the circumstances
+that had accompanied his arrival at this house--Djalma concentrated all
+the powers of his attention on the spectacle before him, at which he
+seemed to be present as in a dream.
+
+Suddenly Djalma saw the woman leave the fireplace and advance towards the
+looking-glass.  Turning her face toward it, she allowed the mantle to
+glide down to her feet.  Djalma was thunderstruck.  He saw the face of
+Adrienne de Cardoville.  Yes, Adrienne, as he had seen her the night
+before, attired as during her interview with the Princess de Saint-
+Dizier--the light green dress, the rose-colored ribbons, the white head
+ornaments.  A network of white beads concealed her back hair, and
+harmonized admirably with the shining gold of her ringlets.  Finally, as
+far as the Hindoo could judge through the railing and the thick glass,
+and in the faint light, it was the figure of Adrienne, with her marble
+shoulders and swan-like neck, so proud and so graceful.  In a word, he
+could not, he did not doubt that it was Adrienne de Cardoville.  Djalma
+was bathed in a burning dew, his dizzy excitement increased, and, with
+bloodshot eye and heaving bosom, he remained motionless, gazing almost
+without the power of thought.  The young lady, with her back still turned
+towards Djalma, arranged her hair with graceful art, took off the network
+which formed her head-dress, placed it on the chimney-piece, and began to
+unfasten her gown; then, withdrawing from the looking-glass, she
+disappeared for an instant from Djalma's view.
+
+"She is expecting Agricola Baudoin, her lover," said a voice, which
+seemed to proceed from the wall of the dark room in which Djalma was.
+
+Notwithstanding his bewilderment, these terrible words, "She is expecting
+Agricola Baudoin, her lover," passed like a stream of fire through the
+brain and heart of the prince.  A cloud of blood came over his eyes, he
+uttered a hollow moan, which the thickness of the glass prevented from
+being heard in the next room, and broke his nails in attempting to tear
+down the iron railing before the window.
+
+Having reached this paroxysm of delirious rage, Djalma saw the uncertain
+light grow still fainter, as if it had been discreetly obscured, and,
+through the vapory shadow that hung before him, he perceived the young
+lady returning, clad in a long white dressing-gown, and with her golden
+curls floating over her naked arms and shoulders.  She advanced
+cautiously in the direction of a door which was hid from Djalma's view.
+At this moment, one of the doors of the apartment in which the prince was
+concealed was gently opened by an invisible hand.  Djalma noticed it by
+the click of the lock, and by the current of fresh air which streamed
+upon his face, for he could see nothing.  This door, left open for
+Djalma, like that in the next room, to which the young lady had drawn
+near, led to a sort of ante-chamber communicating with the stairs, which
+some one now rapidly ascended, and, stopping short, knocked twice at the
+outer door.
+
+"Here comes Agricola Baudoin.  Look and listen!" said the same voice that
+the prince had already heard.
+
+Mad, intoxicated, but with the fixed idea and reckless determination of a
+madman or a drunkard, Djalma drew the dagger which Faringhea had left in
+his possession, and stood in motionless expectation.  Hardly were the two
+knocks heard before the young lady quitted the apartment, from which
+streamed a faint ray of light, ran to the door of the staircase, so that
+some faint glimmer reached the place where Djalma stood watching, his
+dagger in his hand.  He saw the young lady pass across the ante-chamber,
+and approach the door of the staircase, where she said in a whisper: "Who
+is there?"
+
+"It is I--Agricola Baudoin," answered, from, without, a manly voice.
+
+What followed was rapid as lightning, and must be conceived rather than
+described.  Hardly had the young lady drawn the bolt of the door, hardly
+had Agricola Baudoin stepped across the threshold, than Djalma, with the
+bound of a tiger, stabbed as it were at once, so rapid were the strokes,
+both the young lady, who fell dead on the floor, and Agricola, who sank,
+dangerously wounded, by the side of the unfortunate victim.  This scene
+of murder, rapid as thought, took place in the midst of a half obscurity.
+Suddenly the faint light from the chamber was completely extinguished,
+and a second after, Djalma felt his arm seized in the darkness by an iron
+grasp, and the voice of Faringhea whispered: "You are avenged.  Come; we
+can secure our retreat."  Inert, stupefied at what he had done, Djalma
+offered no resistance, and let himself be dragged by the half-caste into
+the inner apartment, from which there was another way out.
+
+When Rodin had exclaimed, in his admiration of the generative power of
+thought, that the word NECKLACE had been the germ of the infernal project
+he then contemplated, it was, that chance had brought to his mind the
+remembrance of the too famous affair of the diamond necklace, in which a
+woman, thanks to her vague resemblance to Queen Marie Antoinette, being
+dressed like that princess, and favored by the uncertainty of a twilight,
+had played so skillfully the part of her unfortunate sovereign, as to
+make the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, though familiar with the court, the
+complete dupe of the illusion.  Having once determined on his execrable
+design, Rodin had sent Jacques Dumoulin to Sainte-Colombe, without
+telling him the real object of his mission, to ask this experienced woman
+to procure a fine young girl, tall, and with red hair.  Once found, a
+costume exactly resembling that worn by Adrienne, and of which the
+Princess de Saint-Dizier gave the description to Rodin (though herself
+ignorant of this new plot), was to complete the deception.  The rest is
+known, or may be guessed.  The unfortunate girl, who acted as Adrienne's
+double, believed she was only aiding in a jest.  As for Agricola, he had
+received a letter, in which he was invited to a meeting that might be of
+the greatest importance to Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+[43] See the strange effect of hasheesh.  To the effect of this is
+attributed the kind of hallucination which seized on those unhappy
+persons, whom the Prince of the Assassins (the Old Man of the Mountain)
+used as the instruments of his vengeance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+
+THE NUPTIAL BED.
+
+The mild light of a circular lamp of oriental alabaster, suspended from
+the ceiling by three silver chains, spreads a faint lustre through the
+bed-chamber of Adrienne de Cardoville.
+
+The large ivory bedstead, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, is not at present
+occupied, and almost disappears beneath snowy curtains of lace and
+muslin, transparent and vapory as clouds.  On the white marble
+mantlepiece, from beneath which the fire throws ruddy beams on the ermine
+carpet, is the usual basket filled with a bush of red camellias, in the
+midst of their shining green leaves.  A pleasant aromatic odor, rising
+from a warm and perfumed bath in the next room, penetrates every corner
+of the bed-chamber.  All without is calm and silent.  It is hardly eleven
+o'clock.  The ivory door, opposite to that which leads to the bath-room,
+opens slowly.  Djalma appears.  Two hours have elapsed since he committed
+a double murder, and believed that he had killed Adrienne in a fit of
+jealous fury.
+
+The servants of Mdlle. de Cardoville, accustomed to Djalma's daily
+visits, no longer announced his arrival, and admitted him without
+difficulty, having received no orders to the contrary from their
+mistress.  He had never before entered the bed-chamber, but, knowing that
+the apartment the lady occupied was on the first floor of the house, he
+had easily found it.  As he entered that virgin sanctuary, his
+countenance was pretty calm, so well did he control his feelings, only a
+slight paleness tarnished the brilliant amber of his complexion.  He wore
+that day a robe of purple cashmere, striped with silver--a color which
+did not show the stains of blood upon it.  Djalma closed the door after
+him, and tore off his white turban, for it seemed to him as if a band of
+hot iron encircled his brow.  His dark hair streamed around his handsome
+face.  He crossed his arms upon his bosom, and looked slowly about him.
+When his eyes rested on Adrienne's bed, he started suddenly, and his
+cheek grew purple.  Then he drew his hand across his brow, hung down his
+head, and remained standing for some moments in a dream, motionless as a
+statue.
+
+After a mournful silence of a few seconds' duration, Djalma fell upon his
+knees, and raised his eyes to heaven.  The Asiatic's countenance was
+bathed in tears, and no longer expressed any violent passion.  On his
+features was no longer the stamp of hate, or despair, or the ferocious
+joy of vengeance gratified.  It was rather the expression of grief at
+once simple and immense.  For several minutes he was almost choked with
+sobs, and tears ran freely down his cheeks.
+
+"Dead! dead!" he murmured, in a half-stifled voice.  "She, who this
+morning slept so peacefully in this chamber!  And I have killed her.  Now
+that she is dead, what is her treachery to me?  I should not have killed
+her for that.  She had betrayed me; she loved the man whom I slew--she
+loved him!  Alas! I could not hope to gain the preference," added he,
+with a touching mixture of resignation and remorse; "I, poor, untaught
+youth--how could I merit her love?  It was my fault that she did not love
+me; but, always generous, she concealed from me her indifference, that
+she might not make me too unhappy--and for that I killed her.  What was
+her crime?  Did she not meet me freely?  Did she not open to me her
+dwelling?  Did she not allow me to pass whole days with her?  No doubt
+she tried to love me, and could not.  I loved her with all the faculties
+of my soul, but my love was not such as she required.  For that, I should
+not have killed her.  But a fatal delusion seized me and, after it was
+done, I woke as from a dream.  Alas! it was not a dream: I have killed
+her.  And yet--until this evening--what happiness I owed to her--what
+hope--what joy! She made my heart better, nobler, more generous.  All
+came from her," added the Indian, with a new burst of grief.  "That
+remained with me--no one could take from me that treasure of the past--
+that ought to have consoled me.  But why think of it?  I struck them
+both--her and the man--without a struggle.  It was a cowardly murder--the
+ferocity of the tiger that tears its innocent prey!"
+
+Djalma buried his face in his hands.  Then, drying his tears, he resumed,
+"I know, clearly, that I mean to die also.  But my death will not restore
+her to life!"
+
+He rose from the ground, and drew from his girdle Faringhea's bloody
+dagger; then, taking the little phial from the hilt, he threw the blood-
+stained blade upon the ermine carpet, the immaculate whiteness of which
+was thus slightly stained with red.
+
+"Yes," resumed Djalma, holding the phial with a convulsive grasp, "I know
+well that I am about to die.  It is right.  Blood for blood; my life for
+hers.  How happens it that my steel did not turn aside?  How could I kill
+her?--but it is done--and my heart is full of remorse, and sorrow, an
+inexpressible tenderness--and I have come here--to die!
+
+"Here, in this chamber," he continued, "the heaven of my burning
+visions!"  And then he added, with a heartrending accent, as he again
+buried his face in his hands, "Dead! dead!"
+
+"Well! I too shall soon be dead," he resumed, in a firmer voice.  "But,
+no! I will die slowly, gradually.  A few drops of the poison will
+suffice; and, when I am quite certain of dying, my remorse will perhaps
+be less terrible.  Yesterday, she pressed my hand when we parted.  Who
+could have foretold me this?"  The Indian raised the phial resolutely to
+his lips.  He drank a few drops of the liquor it contained, and replaced
+it on a little ivory table close to Adrienne's bed.
+
+"This liquor is sharp and hot," said he.  "Now I am certain to die.  Oh!
+that I may still have time to feast on the sight and perfume of this
+chamber--to lay my dying head on the couch where she has reposed."
+
+Djalma fell on his knees beside the bed, and leaned against it his
+burning brow.  At this moment, the ivory door, which communicated with
+the bath-room, rolled gently on its hinges, and Adrienne entered.  The
+young lady had just sent away her woman, who had assisted to undress her.
+She wore a long muslin wrapper of lustrous whiteness.  Her golden hair,
+neatly arranged in little plaits, formed two bands, which gave to her
+sweet face an extremely juvenile air.  Her snowy complexion was slightly
+tinged with rose-color, from the warmth of the perfumed bath, which she
+used for a few seconds every evening.  When she opened the ivory door,
+and placed her little naked foot, in its white satin slipper, upon the
+ermine carpet, Adrienne was dazzlingly beautiful.  Happiness sparkled in
+her eyes, and adorned her brow.  All the difficulties relative to her
+union with Djalma had now been removed.  In two days she would be his.
+The sight of the nuptial chamber oppressed her with a vague and ineffable
+languor.  The ivory door had been opened so gently, the lady's first
+steps were so soft upon the fur carpet, that Djalma, still leaning
+against the bed, had heard nothing.  But suddenly a cry of surprise and
+alarm struck upon his ear.  He turned round abruptly. Adrienne stood
+before him.
+
+With an impulse of modesty, Adrienne closed her nightdress over her
+bosom, and hastily drew back, still more afflicted than angry at what she
+considered a guilty attempt on the part of Djalma.  Cruelly hurt and
+offended, she was about to reproach him with his conduct, when she
+perceived the dagger, which he had thrown down upon the ermine carpet.
+At sight of this weapon, and the expression of fear and stupor which
+petrified the features of Djalma, who remained kneeling, motionless, with
+his body thrown back, hands stretched out, his eyes fixed and wildly
+staring Adrienne, no longer dreading an amorous surprise, was seized with
+an indescribable terror, and, instead of flying from the prince, advanced
+several steps towards him, and said, in an agitated voice, whilst she
+pointed to the kandjiar, "My friend, why are you here? what ails you?
+why this dagger?"
+
+Djalma made no answer.  At first, the presence of Adrienne seemed to him
+a vision, which he attributed to the excitement of his brain, already (it
+might be) under the influence of the poison.  But when the soft voice
+sounded in his ears--when his heart bounded with the species of electric
+shock, which he always felt when he met the gaze of that woman so
+ardently beloved--when he had contemplated for an instant that adorable
+face, so fresh and fair, in spite of its expression of deep uneasiness--
+Djalma understood that he was not the sport of a dream, but that Mdlle.
+de Cardoville was really before his eyes.
+
+Then, as he began fully to grasp the thought that Adrienne was not dead,
+though he could not at all explain the prodigy of her resurrection, the
+Hindoo's countenance was transfigured, the pale gold of his complexion
+became warm and red, his eyes (tarnished by tears of remorse) shone with
+new radiance, and his features, so lately contracted with terror and
+despair, expressed all the phases of the most ecstatic joy.  Advancing,
+still on his knees, towards Adrienne, he lifted up to her his trembling
+hands, and, too deeply affected to pronounce a word, he gazed on her with
+so much amazement, love, adoration, gratitude, that the young lady,
+fascinated by those inexplicable looks, remained mute also, motionless
+also, and felt, by the precipitate beating of her heart, and by the
+shudder which ran through her frame, that there was here some dreadful
+mystery to be unfolded.
+
+At last, Djalma, clasping his hands together, exclaimed with an accent
+impossible to describe, "Thou art not dead!"
+
+"Dead!" repeated the young lady, in amazement.
+
+"It was not thou, really not thou, whom I killed?  God is kind and just!"
+
+And as he pronounced these words with intense joy, the unfortunate youth
+forgot the victim whom he had sacrificed in error.
+
+More and more alarmed, and again glancing at the dagger en which she now
+perceived marks of blood--a terrible evidence, in confirmation of the
+words of Djalma--Mdlle. de Cardoville exclaimed, "You have killed some
+one, Djalma! Oh! what does he say?  It is dreadful!"
+
+"You are alive--I see you--you are here," said Djalma, in a voice
+trembling with rapture.  "You are here--beautiful! pure! for it was not
+you! Oh, no! had it been you, the steel would have turned back upon
+myself."
+
+"You have killed some one?" cried the young lady, beside her with this
+unforeseen revelation, and clasping her hands in horror.  "Why? whom did
+you kill?"
+
+"I do not know.  A woman that was like you--a man that I thought your
+lover--it was an illusion, a frightful dream--you are alive--you are
+here!"
+
+And the oriental wept for joy.
+
+"A dream? but no, it is not a dream.  There is blood upon that dagger!"
+cried the young lady, as she pointed wildly to the kandjiar.  "I tell you
+there is blood upon it!"
+
+"Yes.  I threw it down just now, when I took the poison from it, thinking
+that I had killed you."
+
+"The poison!" exclaimed Adrienne, and her teeth chattered convulsively.
+"What poison?"
+
+"I thought I had killed you, and I came here to die."
+
+"To die?  Oh! wherefore? who is to die?" cried the young lady, almost in
+delirium.
+
+"I," replied Djalma, with inexpressible tenderness, "I thought I had
+killed you--and I took poison."
+
+"You!" exclaimed Adrienne, becoming pale as death.  "You!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh! it is not true!" said the young lady, shaking her head.
+
+"Look!" said the Asiatic.  Mechanically, he turned towards the bed--
+towards the little ivory table, on which sparkled the crystal phial.
+
+With a sudden movement, swifter than thought, swifter, it may be, than
+the will, Adrienne rushed to the table, seized the phial, and applied it
+eagerly to her lips.
+
+Djalma had hitherto remained on his knees; but he now uttered a terrible
+cry, made one spring to the drinker's side, and dragged away the phial,
+which seemed almost glued to her mouth.
+
+"No matter! I have swallowed as much as you," said Adrienne, with an air
+of gloomy triumph.
+
+For an instant, there followed an awful silence.  Adrienne and Djalma
+gazed upon each other, mute, motionless, horror-struck.  The young lady
+was the first to break this mournful silence, and said in a tone which
+she tried to make calm and steady, "Well! what is there extraordinary in
+this?  You have killed, and death most expiate your crime.  It is just.
+I will not survive you.  That also is natural enough.  Why look at me
+thus?  This poison has a sharp taste--does it act quickly! Tell me, my
+Djalma!"
+
+The prince did not answer.  Shuddering through all his frame, he looked
+down upon his hands.  Faringhea had told the truth; a slight violet tint
+appeared already beneath the nails.  Death was approaching, slowly,
+almost insensibly, but not the less certain.  Overwhelmed with despair at
+the thought that Adrienne, too, was about to die, Djalma felt his courage
+fail him.  He uttered a long groan, and hid his face in his hands.  His
+knees shook under him, and he felt down upon the bed, near which he was
+standing.
+
+"Already?" cried the young lady in horror, as she threw herself on her
+knees at Djalma's feet.  "Death already?  Do you hide your face from me?"
+
+In her fright, she pulled his hands from before his face.  That face was
+bathed in tears.
+
+"No, not yet," murmured he, through his sobs.  "The poison is slow."
+
+"Really!" cried Adrienne, with ineffable joy.  Then, kissing the hands of
+Djalma, she added tenderly, "If the poison is slow, why do you weep?"
+
+"For you! for you!" said the Indian, in a heart-rending tone.
+
+"Think not of me," replied Adrienne, resolutely.  "You have killed, and
+we must expiate the crime.  I know not what has taken place; but I swear
+by our love that you did not do evil for evil's sake.  There is some
+horrible mystery in all this."
+
+"On a pretence which I felt bound to believe," replied Djalma, speaking
+quickly, and panting for breath, "Faringhea led me to a certain house.
+Once there, he told me that you had betrayed me.  I did not believe him,
+but I know not what strange dizziness seized upon me--and then, through a
+half-obscurity, I saw you--"
+
+"Me!"
+
+"No--not you--but a woman resembling you, dressed like you, so that I
+believed the illusion--and then there came a man--and you flew to meet
+him--and I--mad with rage--stabbed her, stabbed him, saw them fall--and
+so came here to die.  And now I find you only to cause your death.  Oh,
+misery! misery! that you should die through me!"
+
+And Djalma, this man of formidable energy, began again to weep with the
+weakness of a child.  At sight of this deep, touching, passionate
+despair, Adrienne, with that admirable courage which women alone possess
+in love, thought only of consoling Djalma.  By an effort of superhuman
+passion, as the prince revealed to her this infernal plot, the lady's
+countenance became so splendid with an expression of love and happiness,
+that the East Indian looked at her in amazement, fearing for an instant
+that he must have lost his reason.
+
+"No more tears, my adored!" cried the young lady, exultingly.  "No more
+tears--but only smiles of joy and love! Our cruel enemies shall not
+triumph!"
+
+"What do you say?"
+
+"They wished to make us miserable.  We pity them.  Our felicity shall be
+the envy of the world!"
+
+"Adrienne--bethink you--"
+
+"Oh! I have all my senses about me.  Listen to me, my adored!  I now
+understand it all.  Falling into a snare, which these wretches spread for
+you, you have committed murder.  Now, in this country, murder leads to
+infamy, or the scaffold--and to-morrow--to-night, perhaps--you would be
+thrown into prison.  But our enemies have said: `A man like Prince Djalma
+does not wait for infamy --he kills himself.  A woman like Adrienne de
+Cardoville does not survive the disgrace or death of her lover--she
+prefers to die.  Therefore a frightful death awaits them both," said the
+black-robed men; 'and that immense inheritance, which we covet--'"
+
+"And for you--so young, so beautiful so innocent--death is frightful, and
+these monsters triumph!" cried Djalma.  "They have spoken the truth!"
+
+"They have lied!" answered Adrienne.  "Our death shall be celestial.
+This poison is slow--and I adore you, my Djalma!"
+
+She spoke those words in a low voice, trembling with passionate love,
+and, leaning upon Djalma's knees, approached so near, that he felt her
+warm breath upon his cheek.  As he felt that breath, and saw the humid
+flame that darted from the large, swimming eyes of Adrienne, whose half-
+opened lips were becoming of a still deeper and brighter hue, the Indian
+started--his young blood boiled in his veins--he forgot everything--his
+despair, and the approach of death, which as yet (as with Adrienne), only
+showed itself in a kind of feverish ardor.  His face, like the young
+girl's, became once more splendidly beautiful.
+
+"Oh, my lover! my husband! how beautiful you are!" said Adrienne, with
+idolatry.  "Those eyes--that brow--those lips--how I love them!--How many
+times has the remembrance of your grace and beauty, coupled with your
+love, unsettled my reason, and shaken my resolves--even to this moment,
+when I am wholly yours!--Yes, heaven wills that we should be united.
+Only this morning, I gave to the apostolic man, that was to bless our
+union, in thy name and mine, a royal gift--a gift, that will bring joy
+and peace to the heart of many an unfortunate creature.  Then what have
+we to regret, my beloved?  Our immortal souls will pass away in a kiss,
+and ascend, full of love, to that God who is all love!"
+
+"Adrienne!"
+
+"Djalma!"
+
+The light, transparent curtains fell like a cloud over that nuptial and
+funereal couch.  Yes, funereal; for, two hours after, Adrienne and Djalma
+breathed their last sigh in a voluptuous agony.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI.
+
+A DUEL TO THE DEATH.
+
+Adrienne and Djalma died on the 30th of May.  The following scene took
+place on the 31st, the eve of the day appointed for the last convocation
+of the heirs of Marius de Rennepont.  The reader will no doubt remember
+the room occupied by M. Hardy, in the "house of retreat," in the Rue de
+Vaugirard--a gloomy and retired apartment, opening on a dreary little
+garden, planted with yew-trees, and surrounded by high walls.  To reach
+this chamber, it was necessary to cross two vast rooms, the doors of
+which, once shut, intercepted all noise and communication from without.
+Bearing this in mind, we may go on with our narrative.  For the last
+three or four days, Father d'Aigrigny occupied this apartment.  He had
+not chosen it, but had been induced to accept it, under most plausible
+pretexts, given him at the instigation of Rodin.  It was about noon.
+Seated in an arm-chair, by the window opening on the little garden,
+Father d'Aigrigny held in his hand a newspaper, in which he read as
+follows, under the head of "Paris:"
+
+"Eleven p.m.--A most horrible and tragical event has just excited the
+greatest consternation in the quarter of the Rue de Richelieu.  A double
+murder has been committed, on the person of a young man and woman.  The
+girl was killed on the spot, by the stroke of a dagger; hopes are
+entertained of saving the life of the young man.  The crime is attributed
+to jealousy.  The officers of justice are investigating the matter.  We
+shall give full particulars tomorrow."
+
+When he had read these lines, Father d'Aigrigny threw down the paper and
+remained in deep thought.
+
+"It is incredible," said he, with bitter envy, in allusion to Rodin.  "He
+has attained his end.  Hardly one of his anticipations has been defeated.
+This family is annihilated, by the mere play of the passions, good and
+evil that he has known how to set in motion.  He said it would be so.
+Oh! I must confess," added Father d'Aigrigny, with a jealous and hateful
+smile, "that Rodin is a man of rare dissimulation, patience, energy,
+obstinacy and intelligence.  Who would have told a few months ago, when
+he wrote under my orders, a discreet and humble socius, that he had
+already conceived the most audacious ambition, and dared to lift his eyes
+to the Holy See itself? that, thanks to intrigues and corruption, pursued
+with wondrous ability, these views were not so unreasonable?  Nay, that
+this infernal ambition would soon be realized, were it not that the
+secret proceedings of this dangerous man have long been as secretly
+watched?--Ah!" sneered Father d'Aigrigny, with a smile of irony and
+triumph, "you wish to be a second Sixtus V., do you?  And, not content
+with this audacious pretension, you mean, if successful, to absorb our
+Company in the Papacy, even as the Sultan has absorbed the Janissaries.
+Ah! You would make us your stepping-stone to power!  And you have thought
+to humiliate and crush me with your insolent disdain!  But patience,
+patience: the day of retribution approaches.  I alone am the depository
+of our General's will.  Father Caboccini himself does not know that.  The
+fate of Rodin is in my hands.  Oh! it will not be what he expects.  In
+this Rennepont affair (which, I must needs confess, he has managed
+admirably), he thinks to outwit us all, and to work only for himself.
+But to-morrow--"
+
+Father d'Aigrigny was suddenly disturbed in these agreeable reflections.
+He heard the door of the next room open, and, as he turned round to see
+who was coming, the door of the apartment in which he was turned upon its
+hinges.  Father d'Aigrigny started with surprise, and became almost
+purple.  Marshal Simon stood before him.  And, behind the marshal, in the
+shadow of the door, Father d'Aigrigny perceived the cadaverous face of
+Rodin.  The latter cast on him one glance of diabolical delight, and
+instantly disappeared.  The door was again closed, and Father d'Aigrigny
+and Marshal Simon were left alone together.  The father of Rose and
+Blanche was hardly recognizable.  His gray hair had become completely
+white.  His pale, thin face had not been shaved for some days.  His
+hollow eyes were bloodshot and restless, and had in them something wild
+and haggard.  He was wrapped in a large cloak, and his black cravat was
+tied loosely about his neck.  In withdrawing from the apartment, Rodin
+had (as if by inadvertence) double-locked the door on the outside.  When
+he was alone with the Jesuit, the marshal threw back his cloak from his
+shoulders, and Father d'Aigrigny could see two naked swords, stuck
+through a silk handkerchief which served him as a belt.
+
+Father d'Aigrigny understood it all.  He remembered how, a few days
+before, Rodin had obstinately pressed him to say what he would do if the
+marshal were to strike him in the face.  There could be no doubt that he,
+who thought to have held the fate of Rodin in his hands, had been brought
+by the latter into a fearful peril; for he knew that, the two outer rooms
+being closed, there was no possibility of making himself heard, and that
+the high walls of the garden only bordered upon some vacant lots.  The
+first thought which occurred to him, one by no means destitute of
+probability, was that Rodin, either by his agents at Rome, or by his own
+incredible penetration, had learned that his fate depended on Father
+d'Aigrigny, and hoped therefore to get rid of him, by delivering him over
+to the inexorable vengeance of the father of Rose and Blanche.  Without
+speaking a word, the marshal unbound the handkerchief from his waist,
+laid the two swords upon the table, and, folding his arms upon his
+breast, advanced slowly towards Father d'Aigrigny.  Thus these two men,
+who through life had pursued each other with implacable hatred, at length
+met face to face--they, who had fought in hostile armies, and measured
+swords in single combat, and one of whom now came to seek vengeance for
+the death of his children.  As the marshal approached, Father d'Aigrigny
+rose from his seat.  He wore that day a black cassock, which rendered
+still more visible the pale hue, which had now succeeded to the sudden
+flush on his cheek.  For a few seconds, the two men stood face to face
+without speaking.  The marshal was terrific in his paternal despair.  His
+calmness, inexorable as fate, was more impressive than the most furious
+burst of anger.
+
+"My children are dead," said he at last, in a slow and hollow tone.  "I
+come to kill you."
+
+"Sir," cried Father d'Aigrigny, "listen to me.  Do not believe--"
+
+"I must kill you," resumed the marshal, interrupting the Jesuit; "your
+hate followed my wife into exile, where she perished.  You and your
+accomplices sent my children to certain death.  For twenty years you have
+been my evil genius.  I must have your life, and I will have it."
+
+"My life belongs, first, to God," answered Father d'Aigrigny, piously,
+"and then to who likes to take it."
+
+"We will fight to the death in this room," said the marshal; "and, as I
+have to avenge my wife and children, I am tranquil as to the result."
+
+"Sir," answered Father d'Aigrigny, coldly, "you forget that my profession
+forbids me to fight.  Once I accepted your challenge--but my position is
+changed since then."
+
+"Ah!" said the marshal, with a bitter smile; "you refuse to fight because
+you are a priest?"
+
+"Yes, sir--because I am a priest."
+
+"So that, because he is a priest, a wretch like you may commit any crime,
+any baseness, under shelter of his black gown?"
+
+"I do not understand a word of your accusations.  In any case, the law is
+open," said Father d'Aigrigny, biting his pale lips, for he felt deeply
+the insult offered by the marshal; "if you have anything to complain of,
+appeal to that law, before which all are equal."
+
+Marshal Simon shrugged his shoulders in angry disdain.  "Your crimes
+escape the law--and, could it even reach you, that would not satisfy my
+vengeance, after all the evil you have done me, after all you have taken
+from me," said the marshal; and, at the memory of his children, his voice
+slightly trembled; but he soon proceeded, with terrible calmness: "You
+must feel that I now only live for vengeance.  And I must have such
+revenge as is worth the seeking--I must have your coward's heart
+palpitating on the point of my sword.  Our last duel was play; this will
+be earnest--oh! you shall see."
+
+The marshal walked up to the table, where he had laid the two swords.
+Father d'Aigrigny needed all his resolution to restrain himself.  The
+implacable hate which he had always felt for Marshal Simon, added to
+these insults, filled him with savage ardor.  Yet he answered, in a tone
+that was still calm: "For the last time, sir, I repeat to you, that my
+profession forbids me to fight."
+
+"Then you refuse?" said the marshal, turning abruptly towards him.
+
+"I refuse."
+
+"Positively?"
+
+"Positively.  Nothing on earth should force me to it."
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"No, sir; nothing."
+
+"We shall see," said the marshal, as his hand fell with its full force on
+the cheek of Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+The Jesuit uttered a cry of fury; all his blood rushed to his face, so
+roughly handled; the courage of the man (for he was brave), his ancient
+military ardor, carried him away; his eyes sparkled, and, with teeth
+firmly set, and clenched fists, he advanced towards the marshal,
+exclaiming: "The swords! the swords!"
+
+But suddenly, remembering the appearance of Rodin, and the interest which
+the latter had in bringing about this encounter, he determined to avoid
+the diabolical snare laid by his former socius, and so gathered
+sufficient resolution to restrain his terrible resentment.
+
+To his passing fury succeeded a calm, full of contrition; and, wishing to
+play his part out to the end, he knelt down, and bowing his head and
+beating his bosom, repeated: "Forgive me, Lord, for yielding to a
+movement of rage! and, above all, forgive him who has injured me!"
+
+In spite of his apparent resignation, the Jesuit's voice was neatly
+agitated.  He seemed to feel a hot iron upon his cheek, for never before
+in his life, whether as a soldier or a priest, had he suffered such an
+insult.  He had thrown himself upon his knees, partly from religious
+mummery, and partly to avoid the gaze of the marshal, fearing that, were
+he to meet his eye, he should not be able to answer for himself, but give
+way to his impetuous feelings.  On seeing the Jesuit kneel down, and on
+hearing his hypocritical invocation, the marshal, whose sword was in his
+hand, shook with indignation.
+
+"Stand up, scoundrel!" he said, "stand up, wretch!"  And he spurned the
+Jesuit with his boot.
+
+At this new insult, Father d'Aigrigny leaped up, as if he had been moved
+by steel springs.  It was too much; he could bear no more.  Blinded with
+rage, he rushed to the able, caught up the other sword, and exclaimed,
+grinding his teeth together: "Ah! you will have blood.  Well then! it
+shall be yours--if possible!"
+
+And the Jesuit, still in all the vigor of manhood, his face purple, his
+large gray eyes sparkling with hate, fell upon his guard with the ease
+and skill of a finished swordsman.
+
+"At last!" cried the marshal, as their blades were about to cross.
+
+But once more reflection came to damp the fire of the Jesuit.  He
+remembered how this hazardous duel would gratify the wishes of Rodin,
+whose fate was in his hands, and whom he hated perhaps even more than the
+marshal.  Therefore, in spite of the fury which possessed him, in spite
+of his secret hope to conquer in this combat, so strong and healthy did
+he feel himself, and so fatal had been the effects of grief on the
+constitution of Marshal Simon, he succeeded in mastering his rage, and,
+to the amazement of the marshal, dropped the point of his sword,
+exclaiming: "I am a minister of the Lord, and must not shed blood.
+Forgive ne, heaven! and, oh! forgive my brother also."
+
+Then placing the blade beneath his heel, he drew the hilt suddenly
+towards him, and broke the weapon into two pieces.  The duel was no
+longer possible.  Father d'Aigrigny had put it out of his own power to
+yield to a new burst of violence, of which he saw the imminent danger.
+Marshal Simon remained for an instant mute and motionless with surprise
+and indignation, for he also saw that the duel was now impossible.  But,
+suddenly, imitating the Jesuit, the marshal placed his blade also under
+his heel, broke it in half, and picking up the pointed end, about
+eighteen inches in length tore off his black silk cravat, rolled it round
+the broken part so as to form a handle, and said to Father d'Aigrigny:
+"Then we will fight with daggers."
+
+Struck with this mixture of coolness and ferocity, the Jesuit exclaimed:
+"Is this then a demon of hell?"
+
+"No; it is a father, whose children have been murdered," said the
+marshal, in a hollow voice, whilst he fitted the blade to his hand, and a
+tear stood in the eye, that instantly after became fierce and ardent.
+
+The Jesuit saw that tear.  There was in this mixture of vindictive rage
+and paternal grief something so awful, and yet so sacred, that for the
+first time in his life Father d'Aigrigny felt fear--cowardly, ignoble
+fear--fear for his own safety.  While a combat with swords was in
+question, in which skill, agility, and experience are such powerful
+auxiliaries to courage, his only difficulty had been to repress the ardor
+of his hate--but when he thought of the combat proposed, body to body,
+face to face, heart to heart, he trembled, grew pale, and exclaimed: "A
+butchery with knives?--never!"
+
+His countenance and the accent betrayed his alarm, so that the marshal
+himself was struck with it, and fearing to lose his revenge, he cried:
+"After all, he is a coward!  The wretch had only the courage or the
+vanity of a fencer.  This pitiful renegade--this traitor to his country--
+whom I have cuffed, kicked--yes, kicked, most noble marquis!--shame of
+your ancient house--disgrace to the rank of gentleman, old or new--ah! it
+is not hypocrisy, it is not calculation, as I at first thought--it is
+fear!  You need the noise of war, and the eyes of spectators to give you
+courage--"
+
+"Sir--have a care!" said Father d'Aigrigny, stammering through his
+clenched teeth, for rage and hate now made him forget his fear--
+
+"Must I then spit on you, to make the little blood you have left rise to
+your face?" cried the exasperated marshal.
+
+"Oh! this is too much! too much!" said the Jesuit, seizing the pointed
+piece of the blade that lay at his feet.
+
+"It is not enough!" said the marshal, panting for breath.  "There,
+Judas!" and he spat in his face.
+
+"If you will not fight now," added the marshal, "I will beat you like a
+dog, base child-murderer!"
+
+On receiving the uttermost insult which can be offered to an already
+insulted man, Father d'Aigrigny lost all his presence of mind, forgot his
+interests, his resolutions, his fears, forgot even Rodin--felt only the
+frenzied ardor of revenge--and, recovering his courage, rejoiced in the
+prospect of a close struggle, in which his superior strength promised
+success over the enfeebled frame of the marshal for, in this kind of
+brutal and savage combat, physical strength offers an immense advantage.
+In an instant, Father d'Aigrigny had rolled his handkerchief round the
+broken blade, and rushed upon Marshal Simon, who received the shock with
+intrepidity.  For the short time that this unequal struggle lasted--
+unequal, for the marshal had since some days been a prey to a devouring
+fever, which had undermined his strength--the two combatants, mute in
+their fury, uttered not a word or a cry.  Had any one been present at
+this horrible scene, it would have been impossible for him to tell how
+they dealt their blows.  He would have seen two heads--frightful, livid,
+convulsed--rising, falling, now here, now there--arms, now stiff as bars
+of iron, and now twisting like serpents--and, in the midst of the
+undulation of the blue coat of the marshal and the black cassock of the
+Jesuit, from time to time the sudden gleam of the steel.  He would have
+heard only a dull stamping, and now and then a deep breath.  In about two
+minutes at most, the two adversaries fell, and rolled one over the other.
+One of them--it was Father d'Aigrigny--contrived to disengage himself
+with a violent effort, and to rise upon his knees.  His arms fell
+powerless by his side; and then the dying voice of the marshal murmured:
+"My children! Dagobert!"
+
+"I have killed him," said Father d'Aigrigny, in a weak voice; "but I
+feel--that I am wounded--to death."
+
+Leaning with one hand on the ground, the Jesuit pressed the other to his
+bosom.  His black cassock was pierced through and through, but the
+blades, which had served for the combat, being triangular and very sharp,
+the blood instead of issuing from the wounds, was flowing inwards.
+
+"Oh! I die--I choke," said Father d'Aigrigny, whose features were already
+changing with the approach of death.
+
+At this moment, the key turned twice in the door, Rodin appeared on the
+threshold, and, thrusting in his head, he said in a humble and discreet
+voice: "May I come in?"
+
+At this dreadful irony, Father d'Aigrigny strove to rise, and rush upon
+Rodin; but he fell back exhausted; the blood was choking him.
+
+"Monster of hell!" he muttered, casting on Rodin a terrible glance of
+rage and agony.  "Thou art the cause of my death."
+
+"I always told you, my dear father, that your old military habits would
+be fatal to you," answered Rodin with a frightful smile.  "Only a few
+days ago, I gave you warning, and advised you take a blow patiently from
+this old swordsman--who seems to have done with that work forever, which
+is well--for the Scripture says: `All they that take the sword shall
+perish with the sword.'  And then this Marshal Simon might have had some
+claim on his daughter's inheritance.  And, between ourselves, my dear
+father, what was I to do?  It was necessary to sacrifice you for the
+common interest; the rather, that I well knew what you had in pickle for
+me to-morrow.  But I am not so easily caught napping."
+
+"Before I die," said Father d'Aigrigny, in a failing voice, "I will
+unmask you."
+
+"Oh, no, you will not," said Rodin, shaking his head with a knowing air;
+"I alone, if you please, will receive your last confession."
+
+"Oh! this is horrible," moaned Father d'Aigrigny, whose eyes were
+closing.  "May God have mercy on me, if it is not too late!--Alas! at
+this awful moment, I feel that I have been a great sinner--"
+
+"And, above all, a great fool," said Rodin, shrugging his shoulders, and
+watching with cold disdain the dying moments of his accomplice.
+
+Father d'Aigrigny had now but a few minutes more to live.  Rodin
+perceived it, and said: "It is time to call for help."  And the Jesuit
+ran, with an air of alarm and consternation, into the courtyard of the
+house.
+
+Others came at his cries; but, as he had promised, Rodin had only quitted
+Father d'Aigrigny as the latter had breathed his last sigh.
+
+That evening, alone in his chamber, by the glimmer of a little lamp,
+Rodin sat plunged in a sort of ecstatic contemplation, before the print
+representing Sixtus V.  The great house-clock struck twelve.  At the last
+stroke, Rodin drew himself up in all the savage majesty of his infernal
+triumph, and exclaimed: "This is the first of June.  There are no more
+Renneponts!--Methinks, I hear the hour from the clock of St. Peter's at
+Rome striking!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII.
+
+A MESSAGE.
+
+While Rodin sat plunged in ambitious reverie, contemplating the portrait
+of Sixtus V., good little Father Caboccini, whose warm embraces had so
+much irritated the first mentioned personage, went secretly to Faringhea,
+to deliver to him a fragment of an ivory crucifix, and said to him with
+his usual air of jovial good-nature: "His Excellency Cardinal Malipieri,
+on my departure from Rome, charged me to give you this only on the 31st
+of May."
+
+The half-caste, who was seldom affected by anything, started abruptly,
+almost with an expression of pain.  His face darkened, and bending upon
+the little father a piercing look, he said to him: "You were to add
+something."
+
+"True," replied Father Caboccini; "the words I was to add are these:
+'There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.'"
+
+"It is well," said the other.  Heaving a deep sigh, he joined the
+fragment of the ivory crucifix to a piece already in his possession; it
+fitted exactly.
+
+Father Caboccini looked at him with curiosity, for the cardinal had only
+told him to deliver the ivory fragment to Faringhea, and to repeat the
+above words.  Being somewhat mystified with all this, the reverend father
+said to the half-caste: "What are you going to do with that crucifix?"
+
+"Nothing," said Faringhea, still absorbed in painful thought.
+
+"Nothing?" resumed the reverend father, in astonishment.  "What, then,
+was the use of bringing it so far?"
+
+Without satisfying his curiosity, Faringhea replied: "At what hour to-
+morrow does Father Rodin go to the Rue Saint Francois?"
+
+"Very early."
+
+"Before leaving home, he will go to say prayers in the chapel?"
+
+"Yes, according to the habit of our reverend fathers."
+
+"You sleep near him?"
+
+"Being his socius, I occupy the room next to his."
+
+"It is possible," said Faringhea, after a moment's silence, "that the
+reverend father, full of the great interests which occupy his mind, might
+forget to go to the chapel.  In that case, pray remind him of this pious
+duty."
+
+"I shall not fail."
+
+"Pray do not fail," repeated Faringhea, anxiously.
+
+"Be satisfied," said the good little father; "I see that you take great
+interest in his salvation."
+
+"Great interest."
+
+"It is very praiseworthy in you.  Continue as you have begun, and you may
+one day belong, completely to our Company," said Father Caboccini,
+affectionately.
+
+"I am as yet but a poor auxiliary member," said Faringhea, humbly; "but
+no one is more devoted to the Society, body and soul.  Bowanee is nothing
+to it."
+
+"Bowanee! who is that, my good friend?"
+
+"Bowanee makes corpses which rot in the ground.  The Society makes
+corpses which walk about."
+
+"Ah, yes! Perinde ac cadaver--they were the last words of our great
+saint, Ignatius de Loyola.  But who is this Bowanee?"
+
+"Bowanee is to the Society what a child is to a man," replied the
+Asiatic, with growing excitement.  "Glory to the Company--glory!  Were my
+father its enemy, I would kill my father.  The man whose genius inspires
+me most with admiration, respect, and terror--were he its enemy, I would
+kill, in spite of all," said the half-caste, with an effort.  Then, after
+a moment's silence, he looked full in Caboccini's face, and added: "I say
+this, that you may report my words to Cardinal Malipieri, and beg him to
+mention them to--"
+
+Faringhea stopped short.  "To whom should the cardinal mention your
+words?" asked Caboccini.
+
+"He knows," replied the half-caste, abruptly.  "Good night!"
+
+"Good-night, my friend!  I can only approve of your excellent sentiments
+with regard to our Company.  Alas! it is in want of energetic defenders,
+for there are said to be traitors in its bosom."
+
+"For those," said Faringhea, "we must have no pity."
+
+"Certainly," said the good little father; "we understand one another."
+
+"Perhaps," said the half-caste.  "Do not, at all events, forget to remind
+Father Rodin to go to chapel to-morrow morning."
+
+"I will take care of that," said Father Caboccini.
+
+The two men parted.  On his return to the house, Caboccini learned that a
+courier, only arrived that night from Rome, had brought despatches to
+Rodin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII.
+
+THE FIRST OF JUNE.
+
+The chapel belonging to the house of the reverend fathers in the Rue de
+Vaugirard, was gay and elegant.  Large panes of stained glass admitted a
+mysterious light; the altar shone with gold and silver; and at the
+entrance of this little church, in an obscure corner beneath the organ-
+loft, was a font for holy water in sculptured marble.  It was close to
+this font, in a dark nook where he could hardly be seen, that Faringhea
+knelt down, early on the 1st of June, as soon indeed as the chapel doors
+were opened.  The half-caste was exceedingly sad.  From time to time he
+started and sighed, as if agitated by a violent internal struggle.  This
+wild, untamable being, possessed with the monomania of evil and
+destruction, felt, as may be imagined, a profound admiration for Rodin,
+who exercised over him a kind of magnetic fascination.  The half-caste,
+almost a wild beast in human form, saw something supernatural in the
+infernal genius of Rodin.  And the latter, too sagacious not to have
+discovered the savage devotion of this wretch, had made, as we have seen,
+good use of him, is bringing about the tragical termination of the loves
+of Adrienne and Djalma.  But what excited to an incredible degree the
+admiration of Faringhea, was what he knew of the Society of Jesus.  This
+immense, occult power, which undermined the world by its subterraneous
+ramifications, and reached its ends by diabolical means, had inspired the
+half-caste with a wild enthusiasm.  And if anything in the world
+surpassed his fanatical admiration for Rodin, it was his blind devotion
+to the Company of Ignatius de Loyola, which, as he said, could make
+corpses that walk about.  Hid in the shadow of the organ-loft, Faringhea
+was reflecting deeply on these things, when footsteps were heard, and
+Rodin entered the chapel, accompanied by his socius, the little one-eyed
+father.
+
+Whether from absence of mind, or that the shadow of the orange-loft
+completely concealed the half-caste, Rodin dipped his fingers into the
+font without perceiving Faringhea, who stood motionless as a statue,
+though a cold sweat streamed from his brow.  The prayer of Rodin was, as
+may be supposed, short; he was in haste to get to the Rue Saint-Francois.
+After kneeling down with Father Caboccini for a few seconds, he rose,
+bowed respectfully to the altar, and returned towards the door, followed
+by his socius.  At the moment Rodin approached the font he perceived the
+tall figure of the half-caste standing out from the midst of the dark
+shadow; advancing a little, Faringhea bowed respectfully to Rodin, who
+said to him, in a low voice; "Come to me at two o'clock."
+
+So saying, Rodin stretched forth his hand to dip it into the holy water;
+but Faringhea spared him the trouble, by offering him the sprinkling-
+brush, which generally stood in the font.
+
+Pressing between his dirty fingers the damp hairs of the brush, which the
+half-caste held by the handle, Rodin wetted his thumb and forefinger,
+and, according to custom, traced the sign of the cross upon his forehead.
+Then, opening the door of the chapel, he went out, after again repeating
+to Faringhea: "Come to me at two o'clock."
+
+Thinking he would also make use of the sprinkling-brush, which,
+Faringhea, still motionless, held with a trembling hand, Father Caboccini
+stretched out his fingers to reach it, when the half-breed, as if
+determined to confine his favors to Rodin, hastily withdrew the
+instrument.  Deceived in his expectation, Father Caboccini lost no time
+in following Rodin, whom he was not to leave that day for a single
+moment, and, getting into a hackney-coach with him, set out for the Rue
+Saint-Francois.  It is impossible to describe the look which the half-
+breed fixed upon Rodin as the latter quitted the chapel.  Left alone in
+the sacred edifice, Faringhea sank upon the stones, half kneeling, half
+crouching, with his face buried in his hands.  As the coach drew near the
+quarter of the Marais, in which was situated the house of Marius de
+Rennepont, a feverish agitation, and the devouring impatience of triumph,
+were visible on the countenance of Rodin.  Two or three times he opened
+his pocketbook, and read and arranged the different certificates of death
+of the various members of the Rennepont family; and from time to time he
+thrust his head anxiously from the coach-window, as if he had wished to
+hasten the slow progress of the vehicle.
+
+The good little father, his socius, did not take his eye off Rodin, and
+his look had a strange and crafty expression.  At last the coach entered
+the Rue Saint-Francois, and stopped before the iron-studded door of the
+old house, which had been closed for a century and a half.  Rodin sprang
+from the coach with the agility of a young man, and knocked violently at
+the door, whilst Father Caboccini, less light of foot, descended more
+prudently to the ground.  No answer was returned to the loud knocking of
+Rodin.  Trembling with anxiety, he knocked again.  This time, as he
+listened attentively, he heard slow steps approaching.  They stopped at
+some distance from the door, which was not yet opened.
+
+"It is keeping one upon red-hot coals," said Rodin, for he felt as if
+there was a burning fire in his chest.  He again shook the door
+violently, and began to gnaw his nails according to his custom.
+
+Suddenly the door opened, and Samuel, the Jew guardian, appeared beneath
+the porch.  The countenance of the old man expressed bitter grief.  Upon
+his venerable cheeks were the traces of recent tears, which he strove to
+dry with his trembling hands, as he opened the door to Rodin.
+
+"Who are you, gentlemen?" said Samuel.
+
+"I am the bearer of a power of attorney from the Abbe Gabriel, the only
+living representative of the Rennepont family," answered Rodin, hastily.
+"This gentleman is my secretary," added he, pointing to Father Caboccini,
+who bowed.
+
+After looking attentively at Rodin, Samuel resumed: "I recognize you,
+sir.  Please to follow me."  And the old guardian advanced towards the
+house in the garden, making a sign to the two reverend fathers to follow.
+
+"That confounded old man kept me so long at the door," said Rodin to his
+socius, "that I think I have caught a cold in consequence.  My lips and
+throat are dried up, like parchment baked at the fire."
+
+"Will you not take something, my dear, good father?  Suppose you were to
+ask this man for a glass of water," cried the little one-eyed priest,
+with tender solicitude.
+
+"No, no," answered Rodin; "it is nothing.  I am devoured by impatience.
+That is all."
+
+Pale and desolate, Bathsheba, the wife of Samuel, was standing at the
+door of the apartment she occupied with her husband, in the building next
+the street.  As the Jew passed before her, he said, in Hebrew: "The
+curtains of the Hall of Mourning?"
+
+"Are closed."
+
+"And the iron casket?"
+
+"Is prepared," answered Bathsheba, also in Hebrew.
+
+After pronouncing these words, completely unintelligible to Rodin and
+Caboccini, Samuel and Bathsheba exchanged a bitter smile, notwithstanding
+the despair impressed on their countenances.
+
+Ascending the steps, followed by the two reverend fathers, Samuel entered
+the vestibule of the house, in which a lamp was burning.  Endowed with an
+excellent local memory, Rodin was about to take the direction of the Red
+Saloon, in which had been held the first convocation of the heirs, when
+Samuel stopped him, and said: "It is not that way."
+
+Then, taking the lamp, he advanced towards a dark staircase, for the
+windows of the house had not been un-bricked.
+
+"But," said Rodin, "the last time, we met in a saloon on the ground
+floor."
+
+To-day, we must go higher," answered Samuel, as he began slowly to ascend
+the stairs.
+
+"Where to? higher!" said Rodin, following him.
+
+"To the Hall of Mourning," replied the Jew, and he continued to ascend.
+
+"What is the Hall of Mourning?" resumed Rodin, in some surprise.
+
+"A place of tears and death," answered the Israelite; and he kept on
+ascending through the darkness, for the little lamp threw but a faint
+light around.
+
+"But," said Rodin, more and more astonished, and stopping short on the
+stairs, "why go to this place?"
+
+"The money is there," answered Samuel, and he went on,
+
+"Oh? if the money is there, that alters the case," replied Rodin; and he
+made haste to regain the few steps he had lost by stopping.
+
+Samuel continued to ascend, and, at a turn of the staircase, the two
+Jesuits could see by the pale light of the little lamp, the profile of
+the old Israelite, in the space left between the iron balustrade and the
+wall, as he climbed on with difficulty above them.  Rodin was struck with
+the expression of Samuel's countenance.  His black eyes, generally so
+calm, sparkled with ardor.  His features, usually impressed with a
+mixture of sorrow, intelligence, and goodness, seemed to grow harsh and
+stern, and his thin lips wore a strange smile.
+
+"It is not so very high," whispered Rodin to Caboccini.  "and yet my legs
+ache, and I am quite out of breath.  There is a strange throbbing too in
+my temples."
+
+In fact, Rodin breathed hard, and with difficulty.  To this confidential
+communication, good little Father Caboccini, in general so full of tender
+care for his colleague, made no answer.  He seemed to be in deep thought.
+
+"Will we soon be there?" said Rodin, impatiently, to Samuel.
+
+"We are there," replied the Israelite.
+
+"And a good thing too," said Rodin.
+
+"Very good," said the Jew.
+
+Stopping in the midst of a corridor, he pointed with the hand in which he
+held the lamp to a large door from which streamed a faint light.  In
+spite of his growing surprise.  Rodin entered resolutely, followed by
+Father Caboccini and Samuel.  The apartment in which these three
+personage, now found themselves was very large.  The daylight only
+entered from a belvedere in the roof, the four sides of which had been
+covered with leaden plates, each of which was pierced with seven holes,
+forming a cross, thus:
+                         *
+                       * * *
+                         *
+                         *
+                         *
+
+Now, the light being only admitted through these holes, the obscurity
+would have been complete, had it not been for a lamp, which burned on a
+large massive slab of black marble, fixed against one of the walls.  One
+would have taken it for a funeral chamber, for it was all hung with black
+curtains, fringed with white.  There was no furniture, save the slab of
+black marble we have already mentioned.  On this slab was an iron casket,
+of the manufacture of the seventeenth century, admirably adorned with
+open work, like lace made of metal.
+
+Addressing Rodin, who was wiping his forehead with his dirty
+handkerchief, and looking round him with surprise, but not fear, Samuel
+said to him: "The will of the testator, however strange it may appear, is
+sacred with me, and must be accomplished in all things."
+
+"Certainly," said Rodin; "but what are we to do here?"
+
+"You will know presently, sir.  You are the representative of the only
+remaining heir of the Rennepont family, the Abbe Gabriel de Rennepont?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and here are my papers," replied Rodin.
+
+"To save time," resumed Samuel, "I will, previous to the arrival of the
+magistrate, go through the inventory of the securities contained in this
+casket, which I withdrew yesterday from the custody of the Bank of
+France."
+
+"The securities are there?" cried Rodin, advancing eagerly towards the
+casket.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Samuel, "as by the list.  Your secretary will call
+them over, and I will produce each in turn.  They can then be replaced in
+the casket, which I will deliver up to you in presence of the
+magistrate."
+
+"All this seems perfectly correct," said Rodin.
+
+Samuel delivered the list to Father Caboccini, and approaching the
+casket, touched a spring, which was not seen by Rodin.  The heavy lid
+flew open, and, while Father Caboccini read the names of the different
+securities, Samuel showed them to Rodin, who returned them to the old
+Jew, after a careful examination.  This verification did not last long,
+for this immense fortune was all comprised, as we already know, in eight
+government securities, five hundred thousand francs in bank-note, thirty-
+five thousand francs in gold, and two hundred and fifty francs in silver-
+-making in all an amount of two hundred and twelve millions, one hundred
+and seventy-five thousand francs.  When Rodin had counted the last of the
+five hundred bank-notes, of a thousand francs each, he said, as he
+returned them to Samuel: "It is quite right.  Two hundred and twelve
+millions, one hundred and seventy-five thousand francs!"
+
+He was no doubt almost choked with joy, for he breathed with difficulty,
+his eyes closed, and he was obliged to lean upon Father Caboccini's arm,
+as he said to him in an altered voice: "It is singular.  I thought myself
+proof against all such emotions; but what I feel is extraordinary."
+
+The natural paleness of the Jesuit increased so much, and he seemed so
+much agitated with convulsive movements, that Father Caboccini exclaimed:
+"My dear father, collect yourself; do not let success overcome you thus."
+
+Whilst the little one-eyed man was, attending to Rodin, Samuel carefully
+replaced the securities in the iron casket.  Thanks to his unconquerable
+energy, and to the joy he felt at seeing himself so near the term of his
+labors, Rodin mastered this attack of weakness, and drawing himself up,
+calm and proud, he said to Caboccini: "It is nothing.  I did not survive
+the cholera to die of joy on the first of June."
+
+And, though still frightfully pale, the countenance of the Jesuit shone
+with audacious confidence.  But now, when Rodin appeared to be quite
+recovered, Father Caboccini seemed suddenly transformed.  Though short,
+fat, and one-eyed, his features assumed on the instant so firm, harsh,
+and commanding an expression, that Rodin recoiled a step as he looked at
+him.  Then Father Caboccini, drawing a paper from his pocket, kissed it
+respectfully, glanced sternly at Rodin, and read as follows, in a severe
+and menacing tone:
+
+"`On receipt of the present rescript, the Reverend Father Rodin will
+deliver up all his powers to the Reverend Father Caboccini, who is alone
+commissioned, with the Reverend Father d'Aigrigny, to receive the
+inheritance of the Rennepont family, if, in His eternal justice, the Lord
+should restore this property, of which our Company has been wronged.
+
+"`Moreover, on receipt of the present rescript, the Reverend Father
+Rodin, in charge of a person to be named by the Reverend Father
+Caboccini, shall be conveyed to our house in the Town of Laval, to be
+kept in strict seclusion in his cell until further orders.'"
+
+Then Father Caboccini handed the rescript to Rodin, that the latter might
+read the signature of the General of the Company.  Samuel, greatly
+interested by this scene, drew a few steps nearer, leaving the casket
+half-open.  Suddenly, Rodin burst into a loud laugh--a laugh of joy,
+contempt and triumph, impossible to describe.  Father Caboccini
+looked at him with angry astonishment; when Rodin, growing still more
+imperious and haughty, and with an air of more sovereign disdain than
+ever, pushed aside the paper with the back of his dirty hand and said:
+"What is the date of that scribble?"
+
+"The eleventh of May," answered Father Caboccini in amazement.
+
+"Here is a brief, that I received last night from Rome, under date of the
+eighteenth.  It informs me that I am appointed GENERAL OF THE ORDER.
+Read!"
+
+Father Caboccini took the paper, read it, and remained thunderstruck.
+Then, returning it humbly to Rodin, he respectfully bent his knee before
+him.  Thus seemed the ambitious views of Rodin accomplished.  In spite of
+the hatred and suspicion of that party, of which Cardinal Malipieri was
+the representative and the chief, Rodin, by address and craft, audacity
+and persuasion, and in consequence of the high esteem in which his
+partisans at Rome held his rare capacity, had succeeded in deposing his
+General, and in procuring his own elevation to that eminent post.  Now,
+according to his calculation, aided by the millions he was about to
+possess, it would be but one step from that post to the pontifical
+throne.  A mute witness of this scene, Samuel smiled also with an air of
+triumph, as he closed the casket by means of the spring known only to
+himself.  That metallic sound recalled Rodin from the heights of his mad
+ambition to the realities of life, and he said to Samuel in a sharp
+voice: "You have heard?  These millions must be delivered to me alone."
+
+He extended his hands eagerly and impatiently towards the casket, as if
+he would have taken possession of it, before the arrival of the
+magistrate.  Then Samuel in his turn seemed transfigured, and, folding
+his arms upon his breast, and drawing up his aged form to its full
+height, he assumed a threatening and imposing air.  His eyes flashed with
+indignation, and he said in a solemn tone: "This fortune--at first the
+humble remains of the inheritance of the most noble of men, whom the
+plots of the sons of Loyola drove to suicide--this fortune, which has
+since become royal in amount, thanks to the sacred probity of three
+generations of faithful servants--this fortune shall never be the reward
+of falsehood, hypocrisy and murder.  No! the eternal justice of heaven
+will not allow it."
+
+"On murder? what do you mean, sir?" asked Rodin, boldly.
+
+Samuel made no answer.  He stamped his foot, and extended his arm slowly
+towards the extremity of the apartment.  Then Rodin and Father Caboccini
+beheld an awful spectacle.  The draperies on the wall were drawn aside,
+as if by an invisible hand.  Round a funeral vault, faintly illumined-by
+the bluish light of a silver lamp, six dead bodies were ranged upon black
+biers, dressed in long black robes.  They were: Jacques Rennepont--
+Francois Hardy--Rose and Blanche Simon--Adrienne and Djalma.  They
+appeared to be asleep.  Their eyelids were closed, their hands crossed
+over their breasts.  Father Caboccini, trembling in every limb, made the
+sign of the cross, and retreating to the opposite wall, buried his face
+in his hands.  Rodin on the contrary, with agitated countenance, staring
+eyes, and hair standing on end, yielding to an invincible attraction,
+advanced towards those inanimate forms.  One would have said that these
+last of the Renneponts had only just expired.  They seemed to be in the
+first hour of the eternal sleep.[44]
+
+"Behold those whom thou host slain!" cried Samuel, in a voice broken with
+sobs.  "Yea! your detestable plots caused their death--and, as they fell
+one by one, it was my pious care to obtain possession of their poor
+remains, that they may all repose in the same sepulchre.  Oh!--cursed--
+cursed--cursed--be thou who has killed them!  But their spoils shall
+escape thy murderous hands."
+
+Rodin, still drawn forward in spite of himself, had approached the
+funeral couch of Djalma.  Surmounting his first alarm, the Jesuit, to
+assure himself that he was not the sport of frightful dream, ventured to
+touch the hands of the Asiatic--and found that they were damp and pliant,
+though cold as ice.
+
+The Jesuit drew back in horror.  For some seconds, he trembled
+convulsively.  But, his first amazement over, reflection returned, and,
+with reflection came that invincible energy, that infernal obstinacy of
+character, that gave him so much power.  Steadying himself on his legs,
+drawing his hand across his brow, raising his head, moistening his lips
+two or three times before he spoke--for his throat and mouth grew ever
+drier and hotter, without his being able to explain the cause--he
+succeeded in giving to his features an imperious and ironical expression,
+and, turning towards Samuel, who wept in silence, he said to him, in a
+hoarse, guttural voice: "I need not show you the certificates of their
+death.  There they are in person."  And he pointed with his bony hand to
+the six dead bodies.
+
+At these words of his General, Father Caboccini again made the sign of
+the cross, as if he had seen a fiend.
+
+"Oh, my God!" cried Samuel; "Thou hast quite abandoned this man.  With
+what a calm look he contemplates his victims!"
+
+"Come, sir!" said Rodin, with a horrid smile; "this is a natural waxwork
+exhibition, that is all.  My calmness proves my innocence--and we had
+best come at once to business.  I have an appointment at two o'clock.  So
+let us carry down this casket."
+
+He advanced towards the marble slab.  Seized with indignation and horror,
+Samuel threw himself before him, and, pressing with all his might on a
+knob in the lid of the casket--a knob which yielded to the pressure--he
+exclaimed: "Since your infernal soul is incapable of remorse, it may
+perhaps be shaken by disappointed avarice."
+
+"What does he say?" cried Rodin.  "What is he doing?"
+
+"Look!" said Samuel, in his turn assuming an air of savage triumph.  "I
+told you, that the spoils of your victims should escape your murderous
+hands."
+
+Hardly had he uttered these words, before through the open-work of the
+iron casket rose a light cloud of smoke, and an odor as of burnt paper
+spread itself through the room.  Rodin understood it instantly.  "Fire!"
+he exclaimed, as he rushed forward to seize the casket.  It had been made
+fast to the heavy marble slab.
+
+"Yes, fire," said Samuel.  "In a few minutes, of that immense treasure
+there will remain nothing but ashes.  And better so, than that it should
+belong to you or yours.  This treasure is not mine, and it only remains
+for me to destroy it--since Gabriel de Rennepont will be faithful to the
+oath he has taken."
+
+"Help! water! water!" cried Rodin, as he covered the casket with his
+body, trying in vain to extinguish the flames, which, fanned by the
+current of air, now issued from the thousand apertures in the lid; but
+soon the intensity of the fire diminished, a few threads of bluish smoke
+alone mounted upwards--and then, all was extinct.
+
+The work was done!  Breathless and faint, Rodin leaned against the marble
+slab.  For the first time in his life, he wept; large tears of rage
+rolled down his cadaverous cheeks.  But suddenly, dreadful pains, at
+first dull, but gradually augmenting in intensity, seized on him with so
+much fury, though he employed all his energy to struggle against them,
+that he fell on his knees, and, pressing his two hands to his chest,
+murmured with an attempt to smile: "It is nothing.  Do not be alarmed.  A
+few spasms--that is all.  The treasure is destroyed--but I remain General
+of the Order.  Oh! I suffer.  What a furnace!" he added, writhing in
+agony.  "Since I entered this cursed house, I know not what ails me.  If
+--I had not lived on roots--water--bread--which I go myself to buy--I
+should think--I was poisoned--for I triumph--and Cardinal Malipieri has
+long arms.  Yes--I still triumph--for I will not die--this time no more
+than the other--I will not die!"
+
+Then, as he stretched out his arms convulsively, he continued: "It is
+fire that devours my entrails.  No doubt, they have tried to poison me.
+But when? but how?"
+
+After another pause, Rodin again cried out, in a stifled voice: "Help!
+help me, you that stand looking on--like, spectres!--Help me, I say!"
+
+Horror-struck at this dreadful agony, Samuel and Father Caboccini were
+unable to stir.
+
+"Help!" repeated Rodin, in a tone of strangulation, "This poison is
+horrible.--But how--"  Then, with a terrific cry of rage, as if a sudden
+idea had struck him, he exclaimed: "Ha! Faringhea--this morning--the holy
+water--he knows such subtle poisons.  Yes--it is he--he had an interview
+with Malipieri.  The demon!--Oh! it was well played.  The Borgias are
+still the same.  Oh! it is all over.  I die.  They will regret me, the
+fools!--Oh! hell! hell!  The Church knows not its loss--but I burn--
+help!"
+
+They came to his assistance.  Quick steps were heard upon the stairs, and
+Dr. Baleinier, followed by the Princess de Saint-Dizier, appeared at the
+entrance of the Hall of Mourning.  The princess had learned vaguely that
+morning the death of Father d'Aigrigny, and had come to question Rodin
+upon the subject.  When this woman, entering the room, suddenly saw the
+frightful spectacle that offered itself to her view--when she saw Rodin
+writhing in horrible agony, and, further on, by the light of the
+sepulchral lamp, those six corpses--and, amongst them, her own niece, and
+the two orphans whom she had sent to meet their death--she stood
+petrified with horror, and her reason was unable to withstand the shock.
+She looked slowly round her, and then raised her arms on high, and burst
+into a wild fit of laughter.  She had gone mad.  Whilst Dr. Baleinier
+supported the head of Rodin, who expired in his arms, Faringhea appeared
+at the door; remaining in the shade, he cast a ferocious glance at the
+corpse of the Jesuit.  "He would have made himself the chief of the
+Company of Jesus, to destroy it," said he; "with me, the Company of Jesus
+stands in the place of Bowanee.  I have obeyed the cardinal!"
+
+[44] Should this appear incredible, we would remind the reader of the
+marvellous discoveries in the art of embalming--particularly Dr.
+Gannal's.
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+FOUR YEARS AFTER.
+
+Four years had elapsed, since the events we have just related, when
+Gabriel de Rennepont wrote the following letter to Abbe Joseph
+Charpentier, curate of the Parish of Saint-Aubin, a hamlet of Sologne:
+
+"Springwater Farm,
+"June 2d, 1836.
+
+"Intending to write to you yesterday, my bear Joseph, I seated myself at
+the little old black table, that you will remember well.  My window
+looks, you know, upon the farmyard, and I can see all that takes place
+there.  These are grave preliminaries, my friend, but I am coming to the
+point.  I had just taken my seat at the table, when, looking from the
+window, this is what I saw.  You, my dear Joseph, who can draw so well,
+should have been there to have sketched the charming scene.  The sun was
+sinking, the sky serene, the air warm and balmy with the breath of the
+hawthorn, which, flowering by the side of a little rivulet, forms the
+edge which borders the yard.  Under the large pear-tree, close to the
+wall of the barn, sat upon the stone bench my adopted father, Dagobert,
+that brave and honest soldier whom you love so much.  He appeared
+thoughtful, his white head was bowed on his bosom; with absent mind, he
+patted old Spoil-sport, whose intelligent face was resting on his
+master's knees.  By his side was his wife, my dear adopted mother,
+occupied with her sewing; and near them, on a stool, sat Angela, the wife
+of Agricola, nursing her last-born child, while the gentle Magdalen, with
+the eldest boy in her lap, was occupied in teaching him the letters of
+the alphabet.  Agricola had just returned from the fields, and was
+beginning to unyoke his cattle, when, struck, like me, no doubt, with
+this picture, he stood gazing on it for a moment, with his hand still
+leaning on the yoke, beneath which bent submissive the broad foreheads of
+his two large black oxen.  I cannot express to you, my friend, the
+enchanting repose of this picture, lighted by the last rays of the sun,
+here and there broken by the thick foliage.  What various and touching
+types!  The venerable face of the soldier--the good, loving countenance
+of my adopted mother--the fresh beauty of Angela, smiling on her little
+child--the soft melancholy of the hunchback, now and then pressing her
+lips to the fair, laughing cheek of Agricola's eldest son--and then
+Agricola himself, in his manly beauty, which seems to reflect so well the
+valor and honesty of his heart!  Oh, my Friend! in contemplating this
+assemblage of good, devoted, noble, and loving beings, so dear to each
+other, living retired in a little farm of our poor Sologne, my heart rose
+towards heaven with a feeling of ineffable gratitude.  This peace of the
+family circle--this clear evening, with the perfume of the woods and wild
+flowers wafted on the breeze--this deep silence, only broken by the
+murmur of the neighboring rill--all affected me with one of these passing
+fits of vague and sweet emotion, which one feels but cannot express.  You
+well know it, my friend, who, in your solitary walks, in the midst of
+your immense plains of flowering heath, surrounded by forests of fir
+trees, often feel your eyes grow moist, without being able to explain the
+cause of that sweet melancholy, which I, too, have often felt, during
+those glorious nights passed in the profound solitudes of America.
+
+"But, alas! a painful incident disturbed the serenity of the picture.
+Suddenly I heard Dagobert's wife say to him: `My dear--you are weeping!'
+
+"At these words, Agricola, Angela, and Magdalen gathered round the
+soldier.  Anxiety was visible upon every face.  Then, as he raised his
+head abruptly, one could see two large tears trickle down his cheek to
+his white moustache.  `It is nothing, my children,' said he, in a voice
+of emotion `it is nothing.  Only, to-day is the first of June--and this
+day four years--' He could not complete the sentence; and, as he raised
+his hands to his eyes, to brush away the tears, we saw that he held
+between his fingers a little bronze chain, with a medal suspended to it.
+That is his dearest relic.  Four years ago, almost dying with despair at
+the loss of the two angels, of whom I have so often spoken to you, my
+friend, he took from the neck of Marshal Simon, brought home dead from a
+fatal duel, this chain and medal which his children had so long worn.  I
+went down instantly, as you may suppose, to endeavor to soothe the
+painful remembrances of this excellent man; gradually, he grew calmer,
+and the evening was passed in a pious and quiet sadness.
+
+"You cannot imagine, my friend, when I returned to my chamber, what cruel
+thoughts came to my mind, as I recalled those past events, from which I
+generally turn away with fear and horror.  Then I saw once more the
+victims of those terrible and mysterious plots, the awful depths of which
+have never been penetrated thanks to the death of Father d'A. and Father
+R., and the incurable madness of Madame de St.-D., the three authors or
+accomplices of the dreadful deeds.  The calamities occasioned by them are
+irreparable; for those who were thus sacrificed to a criminal ambition,
+would have been the pride of humanity by the good they would have done.
+Ah, my friend! if you had known those noble hearts; if you had known the
+projects of splendid charity, formed by that young lady, whose heart was
+so generous, whose mind so elevated, whose soul so great! On the eve of
+her death, as a kind of prelude to her magnificent designs, after a
+conversation, the subject of which I must keep secret, even from you, she
+put into my hands a considerable sum, saying, with her usual grace and
+goodness: "I have been threatened with ruin, and it might perhaps come.
+What I now confide to you will at least be safe--safe--for those who
+suffer.  Give much--give freely--make as many happy hearts as you can.
+My happiness shall have a royal inauguration!!"  I do not know whether I
+ever told you, my friend, that, after those fatal events, seeing Dagobert
+and his wife reduced to misery, poor "Mother Bunch" hardly able to earn a
+wretched subsistence, Agricola soon to become a father, and myself
+deprived of my curacy, and suspended by my bishop, for having given
+religious consolations to a Protestant, and offered up prayers at the
+tomb of an unfortunate suicide--I considered myself justified in
+employing a small portion of the sum intrusted to me by Mdlle. de
+Cardoville in the purchase of this farm in Dagobert's name.
+
+"Yes, my friend, such is the origin of my fortune.  The farmer to whom
+these few acres formerly belonged, gave us the rudiments of our
+agricultural education, and common sense, and the study of a few good
+practical books, completed it.  From an excellent workman, Agricola has
+become an equally excellent husbandman; I have tried to imitate him, and
+have put my hand also to the plough there is no derogation in it, for the
+labor which provides food for man is thrice hallowed, and it is truly to
+serve and glorify God, to cultivate and enrich the earth He has created.
+Dagobert, when his first grief was a little appeased, seemed to gather
+new vigor from this healthy life of the fields; and, during his exile in
+Siberia, he had already learned to till the ground.  Finally, my dear
+adopted mother and sister, and Agricola's good wife, have divided between
+them the household cares; and God has blessed this little colony of
+people, who, alas! have been sorely tried by misfortune, and who now only
+ask of toil and solitude, a quite, laborious, innocent life, and oblivion
+of great sorrows.  Sometimes, in our winter evenings, you have been able
+to appreciate the delicate and charming mind of the gentle "Mother
+Bunch," the rare poetical imagination of Agricola, the tenderness of his
+mother, the good sense of his father, the exquisite natural grace of
+Angela.  Tell me, my friend, was it possible to unite more elements of
+domestic happiness?  What long evenings have we passed round the fire of
+crackling wood, reading, or commenting on a few immortal works, which
+always warm the heart, and enlarge the soul!  What sweet talk have we
+had, prolonged far into the night!  And then Agricola's pastorals, and
+the timid literary confidences of Magdalen!  And the fresh, clear voice
+of Angela, joined to the deep manly tones of Agricola, in songs of simple
+melody!  And the old stories of Dagobert, so energetic and picturesque in
+their warlike spirit!  And the adorable gayety of the children, in their
+sports with good old Spoil-sport, who rather lends himself to their play
+than takes part in it--for the faithful, intelligent creature seems
+always to be looking for somebody, as Dagobert says--and he is right.
+Yes, the dog also regrets those two angels, of whom he was the devoted
+guardian!
+
+"Do not think, my friend, that our happiness makes us forgetful.  No, no;
+not a day passes without our repeating, with pious and tender respect,
+those names so dear to our heart.  And these painful memories, hovering
+forever about us, give to our calm and happy existence that shade of mild
+seriousness which struck you so much.  No doubt, my friend, this kind of
+life, bounded by the family circle, and not extending beyond, for the
+happiness or improvement of our brethren, may be set down as selfish;
+but, alas! we have not the means--and though the poor man always finds a
+place at our frugal table, and shelter beneath our roof, we must renounce
+all great projects of fraternal action.  The little revenue of our farm
+just suffices to supply our wants.  Alas! when I think over it,
+notwithstanding a momentary regret, I cannot blame my resolution to keep
+faithfully my sacred oath, and to renounce that great inheritance, which,
+alas! had become immense by the death of my kindred.  Yes, I believe I
+performed a duty, when I begged the guardian of that treasure to reduce
+it to ashes, rather than let it fall into the hands of people, who would
+have made an execrable use of it, or to perjure myself by disputing a
+donation which I had granted freely, voluntarily, sincerely.  And yet,
+when I picture to myself the realization of the magnificent views of--my
+ancestor--an admirable Utopia, only possible with immense resources--and
+which Mdlle. de Cardoville hoped to carry into execution, with the aid of
+M. Francois Hardy, of Prince Djalma, of Marshal Simon and his daughters,
+and of myself--when I think of the dazzling focus of living forces, which
+such an association would have been, and of the immense influence it
+might have had on the happiness of the whole human race--my indignation
+and horror, as an honest man and a Christian, are excited against that
+abominable Company, whose black plots nipped in their bud all those great
+hopes, which promised so much for futurity.  What remains now of all
+these splendid projects?  Seven tombs.  For my grave also is dug in that
+mausoleum, which Samuel has erected on the site of the house in the Rue
+Neuve-Saint-Francois, and of which he remains the keeper--faithful to the
+end!
+
+"I had written thus far, my friend, when I received your letter.  So,
+after having forbidden you to see me, your bishop now orders that you
+shall cease to correspond with me.  Your touching, painful regrets have
+deeply moved me, my friend.  Often have we talked together of
+ecclesiastical discipline, and of the absolute power of the bishops over,
+us, the poor working clergy, left to their mercy without remedy.  It is
+painful, but it is the law of the church, my friend, and you have sworn
+to observe it.  Submit as I have submitted.  Every engagement is binding
+upon the man of honor!  My poor, dear Joseph! would that you had the
+compensations which remained to me, after the rupture of ties that I so
+much value.  But I know too well what you must feel--I cannot go on I
+find it impossible to continue this letter, I might be bitter against
+those whose orders we are bound to respect.  Since it must be so, this
+letter shall be my last.  Farewell, my friend! farewell forever.  My
+heart is almost broken.
+
+"GABRIEL DE RENNEPONT."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11.
+
+THE REDEMPTION.
+
+Day was about to dawn.  A rosy light, almost imperceptible, began to
+glimmer in the east; but the stars still shone, sparkling with radiance,
+upon the azure of the zenith.  The birds awoke beneath the fresh foliage
+of the great woods; and, with isolated warblings, sang the prelude of
+their morning-concert.  A light mist rose from the high grass, bathed in
+nocturnal dew, while the calm and limpid waters of a vast lake reflected
+the whitening dawn in their deep, blue mirror.  Everything promised one
+of those warm and joyous days, that belong to the opening of summer.
+
+Half-way up the slope of a hill, facing the east, a tuft of old, moss-
+grown willows, whose rugged bark disappeared beneath the climbing
+branches of wild honeysuckle and harebells, formed a natural harbor; and
+on their gnarled and enormous roots, covered with thick moss, were seated
+a man and a woman, whose white hair, deep wrinkles, and bending figures,
+announced extreme old age.  And yet this woman had only lately been young
+and beautiful, with long black hair overshadowing her pale forehead.  And
+yet this man had, a short time ago, been still in the vigor of his age.
+From the spot where this man and woman were reposing, could be seen the
+valley, the lake, the woods, and, soaring above the woods, the blue
+summit of a high mountain, from behind which the sun was about to rise.
+This picture, half veiled by the pale transparency of the morning
+twilight, was pleasing, melancholy, and solemn.
+
+"Oh, my sister!" said the old man to the woman, who was reposing with him
+beneath the rustic arbor formed by the tuft of willow-trees; "oh, my
+sister! how many times during the centuries in which the hand of the Lord
+carried us onward, and, separated from each other, we traversed the world
+from pole to pole--how many times we have witnessed this awakening of
+nature with a sentiment of incurable grief!--Alas! it was but another day
+of wandering--another useless day added to our life, since it brought
+death no nearer!"
+
+"But now what happiness, oh, my brother! since the Lord has had mercy on
+us, and, with us, as with all other creatures, every returning day is a
+step nearer to the grave.  Glory to Him! yes, glory!"
+
+"Glory to Him, my sister! for since yesterday, when we again met, I feel
+that indescribable languor which announces the approach of death."
+
+"Like you, my brother, I feel my strength, already shaken, passing away
+in a sweet exhaustion.  Doubtless, the term of our life approaches.  The
+wrath of the Lord is satisfied."
+
+"Alas, my sister! doubtless also, the last of my doomed race, will, at
+the same time, complete our redemption by his death; for the will of
+heaven is manifest, that I can only be pardoned, when the last of my
+family shall have disappeared from the face of the earth.  To him,
+holiest amongst the holiest--was reserved the favor of accomplishing this
+end he who has done so much for the salvation of his brethren!"
+
+"Oh, yes, my brother! he who has suffered so much, and without
+complaining, drunk to the dregs the bitter cup of woe--he, the minister
+of the Lord, who has been his Master's image upon earth--he was fitted
+for the last instrument of this redemption!"
+
+"Yes, for I feel, my sister, that, at this hour, the last of my race,
+touching victim of slow persecution, is on the point of resigning his
+angelic soul to God.  Thus, even to the end, have I been fatal to my
+doomed family.  Lord, if Thy mercy is great, Thy anger is great
+likewise!"
+
+"Courage and hope, my brother!  Think how after the expiration cometh
+pardon, and pardon is followed by a blessing.  The Lord punished, in you
+and your posterity, the artisan rendered wicked by misfortune and
+injustice.  He said to you: `Go on! without truce or rest--and your labor
+shall be vain--and every evening, throwing yourself on the hard ground,
+you shall be no nearer to the end of your eternal course!'--And so, for
+centuries, men without pity have said to the artisan: 'Work! work! work!
+without truce or rest--and your labor shall be fruitful for all others,
+but fruitless for yourself--and every evening, throwing yourself on the
+hard ground, you shall be no nearer to happiness and repose; and your
+wages shall only suffice to keep you alive in pain, privation, and
+poverty!'"
+
+"Alas! alas! will it be always thus?"
+
+"No, no, my brother! and instead of weeping over your lost race, rejoice
+for them--since their death was needed for your redemption, and in
+redeeming you, heaven will redeem the artisan, cursed and feared by
+those--who have laid on him the iron yoke.  Yes, my brother! the time
+draweth nigh--heaven's mercy will not stop with us alone.  Yes, I tell
+you; in us will be rescued both the WOMAN and the SLAVE of these modern
+ages.  The trial has been hard, brother; it has lasted throughout
+eighteen centuries; but it will last no longer.  Look, my brother! see
+that rosy light, there in the east, gradually spreading over the
+firmament!  Thus will rise the sun of the new emancipation--peaceful,
+holy, great, salutary, fruitful, filling the world with light and
+vivifying heat, like the day-star that will soon appear in heaven!"
+
+"Yes, yes, my sister! I feel it.  Your words are prophetic.  We shall
+close our heavy eyes just as we see the aurora of the day of deliverance
+--a fair, a splendid day, like that which is about to dawn.  Henceforth I
+will only shed tears of pride and glory for those of my race, who have
+died the martyrs of humanity, sacrificed by humanity's eternal enemies--
+for the true ancestors of the sacrilegious wretches, who blaspheme the
+name of Jesus by giving it to their Company, were the false Scribes and
+Pharisees, whom the Saviour cursed!--Yes! glory to the descendants of my
+family, who have been the last martyrs offered up by the accomplices of
+all slavery and all despotism, the pitiless enemies of those who wish to
+think, and not to suffer in silence--of those that would feign enjoy, as
+children of heaven, the gifts which the Creator has bestowed upon all the
+human family.  Yes, the day approaches--the end of the reign of our
+modern Pharisees--the false priests, who lend their sacrilegious aid to
+the merciless selfishness of the strong against the weak, by daring to
+maintain in the face of the exhaustless treasures of the creation, that
+God has made man for tears, and sorrow, and suffering--the false priests,
+who are the agents of all oppression, and would bow to the earth, in
+brutish and hopeless humiliation, the brow of every creature.  No, no!
+let man lift his head proudly!  God made him to be noble and intelligent
+free and happy."
+
+"Oh, my brother! your words also are prophetic.  Yes, yes! the dawn of
+that bright day approaches, even as the dawn of the natural day which, by
+the mercy of God, will be our last on earth."
+
+"The last, my sister; for a strange weakness creeps over me, all matter
+seems dissolving in me, and my soul aspires to mount to heaven."
+
+"Mine eyes are growing dim, brother; I can scarcely see that light in the
+east, which lately appeared so red."
+
+"Sister! it is through a confused vapor that I now see the valley--the
+lake--the woods.  My strength fails me."
+
+"Blessed be God, brother! the moment of eternal rest is at hand."
+
+"Yes, it comes, my sister! the sweetness of the everlasting sleep takes
+possession of my senses."
+
+"Oh, happiness! I am dying--"
+
+"These eyes are closing, sister!"
+
+"We are then forgiven!"
+
+"Forgiven!"
+
+"Oh, my brother! may this Divine redemption extend to all those who
+suffer upon the earth!"
+
+"Die in peace, my sister! The great day has dawned--the sun is rising--
+behold!"
+
+"Blessed be God!"
+
+"Blessed be God!"
+
+And at the moment when those two voices ceased forever, the sun rose
+radiant and dazzling, and deluged the valley with its beams.
+
+To M. C--P--.
+
+To you, my friend, I dedicated this book.  To inscribe it with your name,
+was to assume an engagement that, in the absence of talent, it should be
+at least conscientious, sincere, and of a salutary influence, however
+limited.  My object is attained.  Some select hearts, like yours, my
+friend, have put into practice the legitimate association of labor,
+capital, and intelligence, and have already granted to their workmen a
+proportionate share in the profits of their industry.  Others have laid
+the foundations of Common Dwelling-houses, and one of the chief
+capitalists of Hamburg has favored me with his views respecting an
+establishment of this kind, on the most gigantic scale.
+
+As for the dispersion of the members of the Company of Jesus, I have
+taken less part in it than other enemies of the detestable doctrines of
+Loyola, whose influence and authority were far greater than mine.
+
+Adieu, my friend.  I could have wished this work more worthy of you; but
+you are indulgent, and will at least give me credit for the intentions
+which dictated it.
+
+Believe me,
+Yours truly,
+
+EUGENE SUE.
+
+Paris, 25th August, 1845.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Complete Wandering Jew, by Eugene Sue
+