Dedication

Dedication

"Et nunc et semper dilectae dicatum."

Louis Lambert was born in 1797 at Montoire, a little town in the Vendomois, where his father owned a tannery of no great magnitude, and intended that his son should succeed him; but his precocious bent for study modified the paternal decision. For, indeed, the tanner and his wife adored Louis, their only child, and never contradicted him in anything.

At the age of five Louis had begun by reading the Old and New Testaments; and these two Books, including so many books, had sealed his fate. Could that childish imagination understand the mystical depths of the Scriptures? Could it so early follow the flight of the Holy Spirit across the worlds? Or was it merely attracted by the romantic touches which abound in those Oriental poems! Our narrative will answer these questions to some readers.

One thing resulted from this first reading of the Bible: Louis went all over Montoire begging for books, and he obtained them by those winning ways peculiar to children, which no one can resist. While devoting himself to these studies under no sort of guidance, he reached the age of ten.

At that period substitutes for the army were scarce; rich families secured them long beforehand to have them ready when the lots were drawn. The poor tanner's modest fortune did not allow of their purchasing a substitute for their son, and they saw no means allowed by law for evading the conscription but that of making him a priest; so, in 1807, they sent him to his maternal uncle, the parish priest of Mer, another small town on the Loire, not far from Blois. This arrangement at once satisfied Louis' passion for knowledge, and his parents' wish not to expose him to the dreadful chances of war; and, indeed, his taste for study and precocious intelligence gave grounds for hoping that he might rise to high fortunes in the Church.

After remaining for about three years with his uncle, an old and not uncultured Oratorian, Louis left him early in 1811 to enter the college at Vendome, where he was maintained at the cost of Madame de Stael.

Lambert owed the favor and patronage of this celebrated lady to chance, or shall we not say to Providence, who can smooth the path of forlorn genius? To us, indeed, who do not see below the surface of human things, such vicissitudes, of which we find many examples in the lives of great men, appear to be merely the result of physical phenomena; to most biographers the head of a man of genius rises above the herd as some noble plant in the fields attracts the eye of a botanist in its splendor. This comparison may well be applied to Louis Lambert's adventure; he was accustomed to spend the time allowed him by his uncle for holidays at his father's house; but instead of indulging, after the manner of schoolboys, in the sweets of the delightful far niente that tempts us at every age, he set out every morning with part of a loaf and his books, and went to read and meditate in the woods, to escape his mother's remonstrances, for she believed such persistent study to be injurious. How admirable is a mother's instinct! From that time reading was in Louis a sort of appetite which nothing could satisfy; he devoured books of every kind, feeding indiscriminately on religious works, history, philosophy, and physics. He has told me that he found indescribable delight in reading dictionaries for lack of other books, and I readily believed him. What scholar has not many a time found pleasure in seeking the probable meaning of some unknown word? The analysis of a word, its physiognomy and history, would be to Lambert matter for long dreaming. But these were not the instinctive dreams by which a boy accustoms himself to the phenomena of life, steels himself to every moral or physical perception--an involuntary education which subsequently brings forth fruit both in the understanding and character of a man; no, Louis mastered the facts, and he accounted for them after seeking out both the principle and the end with the mother wit of a savage. Indeed, from the age of fourteen, by one of those startling freaks in which nature sometimes indulges, and which proved how anomalous was his temperament, he would utter quite simply ideas of which the depth was not revealed to me till a long time after.

"Often," he has said to me when speaking of his studies, "often have I made the most delightful voyage, floating on a word down the abyss of the past, like an insect embarked on a blade of grass tossing on the ripples of a stream. Starting from Greece, I would get to Rome, and traverse the whole extent of modern ages. What a fine book might be written of the life and adventures of a word! It has, of course, received various stamps from the occasions on which it has served its purpose; it has conveyed different ideas in different places; but is it not still grander to think of it under the three aspects of soul, body, and motion? Merely to regard it in the abstract, apart from its functions, its effects, and its influence, is enough to cast one into an ocean of meditations? Are not most words colored by the idea they represent? Then, to whose genius are they due? If it takes great intelligence to create a word, how old may human speech be? The combination of letters, their shapes, and the look they give to the word, are the exact reflection, in accordance with the character of each nation, of the unknown beings whose traces survive in us.

"Who can philosophically explain the transition from sensation to thought, from thought to word, from the word to its hieroglyphic presentment, from hieroglyphics to the alphabet, from the alphabet to written language, of which the eloquent beauty resides in a series of images, classified by rhetoric, and forming, in a sense, the hieroglyphics of thought? Was it not the ancient mode of representing human ideas as embodied in the forms of animals that gave rise to the shapes of the first signs used in the East for writing down language? Then has it not left its traces by tradition on our modern languages, which have all seized some remnant of the primitive speech of nations, a majestic and solemn tongue whose grandeur and solemnity decrease as communities grow old; whose sonorous tones ring in the Hebrew Bible, and still are noble in Greece, but grow weaker under the progress of successive phases of civilization?

"Is it to this time-honored spirit that we owe the mysteries lying buried in every human word? In the word True do we not discern a certain imaginary rectitude? Does not the compact brevity of its sound suggest a vague image of chaste nudity and the simplicity of Truth in all things? The syllable seems to me singularly crisp and fresh.

"I chose the formula of an abstract idea on purpose, not wishing to illustrate the case by a word which should make it too obvious to the apprehension, as the word Flight for instance, which is a direct appeal to the senses.

"But is it not so with every root word? They all are stamped with a living power that comes from the soul, and which they restore to the soul through the mysterious and wonderful action and reaction between thought and speech. Might we not speak of it as a lover who finds on his mistress' lips as much love as he gives? Thus, by their mere physiognomy, words call to life in our brain the beings which they serve to clothe. Like all beings, there is but one place where their properties are at full liberty to act and develop. But the subject demands a science to itself perhaps!"

And he would shrug his shoulders as much as to say, "But we are too high and too low!"

Louis' passion for reading had on the whole been very well satisfied. The cure of Mer had two or three thousand volumes. This treasure had been derived from the plunder committed during the Revolution in the neighboring chateaux and abbeys. As a priest who had taken the oath, the worthy man had been able to choose the best books from among these precious libraries, which were sold by the pound. In three years Louis Lambert had assimilated the contents of all the books in his uncle's library that were worth reading. The process of absorbing ideas by means of reading had become in him a very strange phenomenon. His eye took in six or seven lines at once, and his mind grasped the sense with a swiftness as remarkable as that of his eye; sometimes even one word in a sentence was enough to enable him to seize the gist of the matter.

His memory was prodigious. He remembered with equal exactitude the ideas he had derived from reading, and those which had occurred to him in the course of meditation or conversation. Indeed, he had every form of memory--for places, for names, for words, things, and faces. He not only recalled any object at will, but he saw them in his mind, situated, lighted, and colored as he had originally seen them. And this power he could exert with equal effect with regard to the most abstract efforts of the intellect. He could remember, as he said, not merely the position of a sentence in the book where he had met with it, but the frame of mind he had been in at remote dates. Thus his was the singular privilege of being able to retrace in memory the whole life and progress of his mind, from the ideas he had first acquired to the last thought evolved in it, from the most obscure to the clearest. His brain, accustomed in early youth to the mysterious mechanism by which human faculties are concentrated, drew from this rich treasury endless images full of life and freshness, on which he fed his spirit during those lucid spells of contemplation.

"Whenever I wish it," said he to me in his own language, to which a fund of remembrance gave precocious originality, "I can draw a veil over my eyes. Then I suddenly see within me a camera obscura, where natural objects are reproduced in purer forms than those under which they first appeared to my external sense."

At the age of twelve his imagination, stimulated by the perpetual exercise of his faculties, had developed to a point which permitted him to have such precise concepts of things which he knew only from reading about them, that the image stamped on his mind could not have been clearer if he had actually seen them, whether this was by a process of analogy or that he was gifted with a sort of second sight by which he could command all nature.

"When I read the story of the battle of Austerlitz," said he to me one day, "I saw every incident. The roar of the cannon, the cries of the fighting men rang in my ears, and made my inmost self quiver; I could smell the powder; I heard the clatter of horses and the voices of men; I looked down on the plain where armed nations were in collision, just as if I had been on the heights of Santon. The scene was as terrifying as a passage from the Apocalypse." On the occasions when he brought all his powers into play, and in some degree lost consciousness of his physical existence, and lived on only by the remarkable energy of his mental powers, whose sphere was enormously expanded, he left space behind him, to use his own words.

But I will not here anticipate the intellectual phases of his life. Already, in spite of myself, I have reversed the order in which I ought to tell the history of this man, who transferred all his activities to thinking, as others throw all their life into action.

A strong bias drew his mind to mystical studies.

"Abyssus abyssum," he would say. "Our spirit is abysmal and loves the abyss. In childhood, manhood, and old age we are always eager for mysteries in whatever form they present themselves."

This predilection was disastrous; if indeed his life can be measured by ordinary standards, or if we may gauge another's happiness by our own or by social notions. This taste for the "things of heaven," another phrase he was fond of using, this mens divinior, was due perhaps to the influence produced on his mind by the first books he read at his uncle's. Saint Theresa and Madame Guyon were a sequel to the Bible; they had the first-fruits of his manly intelligence, and accustomed him to those swift reactions of the soul of which ecstasy is at once the result and the means. This line of study, this peculiar taste, elevated his heart, purified, ennobled it, gave him an appetite for the divine nature, and suggested to him the almost womanly refinement of feeling which is instinctive in great men; perhaps their sublime superiority is no more than the desire to devote themselves which characterizes woman, only transferred to the greatest things.

As a result of these early impressions, Louis passed immaculate through his school life; this beautiful virginity of the senses naturally resulted in the richer fervor of his blood, and in increased faculties of mind.

The Baroness de Stael, forbidden to come within forty leagues of Paris, spent several months of her banishment on an estate near Vendome. One day, when out walking, she met on the skirts of the park the tanner's son, almost in rags, and absorbed in reading. The book was a translation of Heaven and Hell. At that time Monsieur Saint-Martin, Monsieur de Gence, and a few other French or half German writers were almost the only persons in the French Empire to whom the name of Swedenborg was known. Madame de Stael, greatly surprised, took the book from him with the roughness she affected in her questions, looks, and manners, and with a keen glance at Lambert,--

"Do you understand all this?" she asked.

"Do you pray to God?" said the child.

"Why? yes!"

"And do you understand Him?"

The Baroness was silent for a moment; then she sat down by Lambert, and began to talk to him. Unfortunately, my memory, though retentive, is far from being so trustworthy as my friend's, and I have forgotten the whole of the dialogue excepting those first words.

Such a meeting was of a kind to strike Madame de Stael very greatly; on her return home she said but little about it, notwithstanding an effusiveness which in her became mere loquacity; but it evidently occupied her thoughts.

The only person now living who preserves any recollection of the incident, and whom I catechised to be informed of what few words Madame de Stael had let drop, could with difficulty recall these words spoken by the Baroness as describing Lambert, "He is a real seer."

Louis failed to justify in the eyes of the world the high hopes he had inspired in his protectress. The transient favor she showed him was regarded as a feminine caprice, one of the fancies characteristic of artist souls. Madame de Stael determined to save Louis Lambert alike from serving the Emperor or the Church, and to preserve him for the glorious destiny which, she thought, awaited him; for she made him out to be a second Moses snatched from the waters. Before her departure she instructed a friend of hers, Monsieur de Corbigny, to send her Moses in due course to the High School at Vendome; then she probably forget him.

* * * * *

Having entered this college at the age of fourteen, early in 1811, Lambert would leave it at the end of 1814, when he had finished the course of Philosophy. I doubt whether during the whole time he ever heard a word of his benefactress--if indeed it was the act of a benefactress to pay for a lad's schooling for three years without a thought of his future prospects, after diverting him from a career in which he might have found happiness. The circumstances of the time, and Louis Lambert's character, may to a great extent absolve Madame de Stael for her thoughtlessness and her generosity. The gentleman who was to have kept up communications between her and the boy left Blois just at the time when Louis passed out of the college. The political events that ensued were then a sufficient excuse for this gentleman's neglect of the Baroness' protege. The authoress of Corinne heard no more of her little Moses.

A hundred louis, which she placed in the hands of Monsieur de Corbigny, who died, I believe, in 1812, was not a sufficiently large sum to leave lasting memories in Madame de Stael, whose excitable nature found ample pasture during the vicissitudes of 1814 and 1815, which absorbed all her interest.

At this time Louis Lambert was at once too proud and too poor to go in search of a patroness who was traveling all over Europe. However, he went on foot from Blois to Paris in the hope of seeing her, and arrived, unluckily, on the very day of her death. Two letters from Lambert to the Baroness remained unanswered. The memory of Madame de Stael's good intentions with regard to Louis remains, therefore, only in some few young minds, struck, as mine was, by the strangeness of the story.

No one who had not gone through the training at our college could understand the effect usually made on our minds by the announcement that a "new boy" had arrived, or the impression that such an adventure as Louis Lambert's was calculated to produce.

And here a little information must be given as to the primitive administration of this institution, originally half-military and half-monastic, to explain the new life which there awaited Lambert. Before the Revolution, the Oratorians, devoted, like the Society of Jesus, to the education of youth--succeeding the Jesuits, in fact, in certain of their establishments--had various provincial houses, of which the most famous were the colleges of Vendome, of Tournon, of la Fleche, Pont-Levoy, Sorreze, and Juilly. That at Vendome, like the others, I believe, turned out a certain number of cadets for the army. The abolition of educational bodies, decreed by the Convention, had but little effect on the college at Vendome. When the first crisis had blown over, the authorities recovered possession of their buildings; certain Oratorians, scattered about the country, came back to the college and re-opened it under the old rules, with the habits, practices, and customs which gave this school a character with which I have seen nothing at all comparable in any that I have visited since I left that establishment.

Standing in the heart of the town, on the little river Loir which flows under its walls, the college possesses extensive precincts, carefully enclosed by walls, and including all the buildings necessary for an institution on that scale: a chapel, a theatre, an infirmary, a bakehouse, gardens, and water supply. This college is the most celebrated home of learning in all the central provinces, and receives pupils from them and from the colonies. Distance prohibits any frequent visits from parents to their children.

The rule of the House forbids holidays away from it. Once entered there, a pupil never leaves till his studies are finished. With the exception of walks taken under the guidance of the Fathers, everything is calculated to give the School the benefit of conventual discipline; in my day the tawse was still a living memory, and the classical leather strap played its terrible part with all the honors. The punishments originally invented by the Society of Jesus, as alarming to the moral as to the physical man, was still in force in all the integrity of the original code.

Letters to parents were obligatory on certain days, so was confession. Thus our sins and our sentiments were all according to pattern. Everything bore the stamp of monastic rule. I well remember, among other relics of the ancient order, the inspection we went through every Sunday. We were all in our best, placed in file like soldiers to await the arrival of the two inspectors who, attended by the tutors and the tradesmen, examined us from the three points of view of dress, health, and morals.

The two or three hundred pupils lodged in the establishment were divided, according to ancient custom, into the minimes (the smallest), the little boys, the middle boys, and the big boys. The division of the minimes included the eighth and seventh classes; the little boys formed the sixth, fifth, and fourth; the middle boys were classed as third and second; and the first class comprised the senior students--of philosophy, rhetoric, the higher mathematics, and chemistry. Each of these divisions had its own building, classrooms, and playground, in the large common precincts on to which the classrooms opened, and beyond which was the refectory.

This dining-hall, worthy of an ancient religious Order, accommodated all the school. Contrary to the usual practice in educational institutions, we were allowed to talk at our meals, a tolerant Oratorian rule which enabled us to exchange plates according to our taste. This gastronomical barter was always one of the chief pleasures of our college life. If one of the "middle" boys at the head of his table wished for a helping of lentils instead of dessert--for we had dessert--the offer was passed down from one to another; "Dessert for lentils!" till some other epicure had accepted; then the plate of lentils was passed up to the bidder from hand to hand, and the plate of dessert returned by the same road. Mistakes were never made. If several identical offers were made, they were taken in order, and the formula would be, "Lentils number one for dessert number one." The tables were very long; our incessant barter kept everything moving; we transacted it with amazing eagerness; and the chatter of three hundred lads, the bustling to and fro of the servants employed in changing the plates, setting down the dishes, handing the bread, with the tours of inspection of the masters, made this refectory at Vendome a scene unique in its way, and the amazement of visitors.

To make our life more tolerable, deprived as we were of all communication with the outer world and of family affection, we were allowed to keep pigeons and to have gardens. Our two or three hundred pigeon-houses, with a thousand birds nesting all round the outer wall, and above thirty garden plots, were a sight even stranger than our meals. But a full account of the peculiarities which made the college at Vendome a place unique in itself and fertile in reminiscences to those who spent their boyhood there, would be weariness to the reader. Which of us all but remembers with delight, notwithstanding the bitterness of learning, the eccentric pleasures of that cloistered life? The sweetmeats purchased by stealth in the course of our walks, permission obtained to play cards and devise theatrical performances during the holidays, such tricks and freedom as were necessitated by our seclusion; then, again, our military band, a relic of the cadets; our academy, our chaplain, our Father professors, and all our games permitted or prohibited, as the case might be; the cavalry charges on stilts, the long slides made in winter, the clatter of our clogs; and, above all, the trading transactions with "the shop" set up in the courtyard itself.

This shop was kept by a sort of cheap-jack, of whom big and little boys could procure--according to his prospectus--boxes, stilts, tools, Jacobin pigeons, and Nuns, Mass-books--an article in small demand--penknives, paper, pens, pencils, ink of all colors, balls and marbles; in short, the whole catalogue of the most treasured possessions of boys, including everything from sauce for the pigeons we were obliged to kill off, to the earthenware pots in which we set aside the rice from supper to be eaten at next morning's breakfast. Which of us is so unhappy as to have forgotten how his heart beat at the sight of this booth, open periodically during play-hours on Sundays, to which we went, each in his turn, to spend his little pocket-money; while the smallness of the sum allowed by our parents for these minor pleasures required us to make a choice among all the objects that appealed so strongly to our desires? Did ever a young wife, to whom her husband, during the first days of happiness, hands, twelve times a year, a purse of gold, the budget of her personal fancies, dream of so many different purchases, each of which would absorb the whole sum, as we imagined possible on the eve of the first Sunday in each month? For six francs during one night we owned every delight of that inexhaustible shop! and during Mass every response we chanted was mixed up in our minds with our secret calculations. Which of us all can recollect ever having had a sou left to spend on the Sunday following? And which of us but obeyed the instinctive law of social existence by pitying, helping, and despising those pariahs who, by the avarice or poverty of their parents, found themselves penniless?

Any one who forms a clear idea of this huge college, with its monastic buildings in the heart of a little town, and the four plots in which we were distributed as by a monastic rule, will easily conceive of the excitement that we felt at the arrival of a new boy, a passenger suddenly embarked on the ship. No young duchess, on her first appearance at Court, was ever more spitefully criticised than the new boy by the youths in his division. Usually during the evening play-hour before prayers, those sycophants who were accustomed to ingratiate themselves with the Fathers who took it in turns two and two for a week to keep an eye on us, would be the first to hear on trustworthy authority: "There will be a new boy to-morrow!" and then suddenly the shout, "A New Boy!--A New Boy!" rang through the courts. We hurried up to crowd round the superintendent and pester him with questions:

"Where was he coming from? What was his name? Which class would he be in?" and so forth.

Louis Lambert's advent was the subject of a romance worthy of the Arabian Nights. I was in the fourth class at the time--among the little boys. Our housemasters were two men whom we called Fathers from habit and tradition, though they were not priests. In my time there were indeed but three genuine Oratorians to whom this title legitimately belonged; in 1814 they all left the college, which had gradually become secularized, to find occupation about the altar in various country parishes, like the cure of Mer.

Father Haugoult, the master for the week, was not a bad man, but of very moderate attainments, and he lacked the tact which is indispensable for discerning the different characters of children, and graduating their punishment to their powers of resistance. Father Haugoult, then, began very obligingly to communicate to his pupils the wonderful events which were to end on the morrow in the advent of the most singular of "new boys." Games were at an end. All the children came round in silence to hear the story of Louis Lambert, discovered, like an aerolite, by Madame de Stael, in a corner of the wood. Monsieur Haugoult had to tell us all about Madame de Stael; that evening she seemed to me ten feet high; I saw at a later time the picture of Corinne, in which Gerard represents her as so tall and handsome; and, alas! the woman painted by my imagination so far transcended this, that the real Madame de Stael fell at once in my estimation, even after I read her book of really masculine power, De l'Allemagne.

But Lambert at that time was an even greater wonder. Monsieur Mareschal, the headmaster, after examining him, had thought of placing him among the senior boys. It was Louis' ignorance of Latin that placed him so low as the fourth class, but he would certainly leap up a class every year; and, as a remarkable exception, he was to be one of the "Academy." Proh pudor! we were to have the honor of counting among the "little boys" one whose coat was adorned with the red ribbon displayed by the "Academicians" of Vendome. These Academicians enjoyed distinguished privileges; they often dined at the director's table, and held two literary meetings annually, at which we were all present to hear their elucubrations. An Academician was a great man in embryo. And if every Vendome scholar would speak the truth, he would confess that, in later life, an Academician of the great French Academy seemed to him far less remarkable than the stupendous boy who wore the cross and the imposing red ribbon which were the insignia of our "Academy."

It was very unusual to be one of that illustrious body before attaining to the second class, for the Academicians were expected to hold public meetings every Thursday during the holidays, and to read tales in verse or prose, epistles, essays, tragedies, dramas--compositions far above the intelligence of the lower classes. I long treasured the memory of a story called the "Green Ass," which was, I think, the masterpiece of this unknown Society. In the fourth, and an Academician! This boy of fourteen, a poet already, the protege of Madame de Stael, a coming genius, said Father Haugoult, was to be one of us! a wizard, a youth capable of writing a composition or a translation while we were being called in to lessons, and of learning his lessons by reading them through but once. Louis Lambert bewildered all our ideas. And Father Haugoult's curiosity and impatience to see this new boy added fuel to our excited fancy.

"If he has pigeons, he can have no pigeon-house; there is not room for another. Well, it cannot be helped," said one boy, since famous as an agriculturist.

"Who will sit next to him?" said another.

"Oh, I wish I might be his chum!" cried an enthusiast.

In school language, the word here rendered chum--faisant, or, in some schools, copin--expressed a fraternal sharing of the joys and evils of your childish existence, a community of interests that was fruitful of squabbling and making friends again, a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive. It is strange, but never in my time did I know brothers who were chums. If man lives by his feelings, he thinks perhaps that he will make his life the poorer if he merges an affection of his own choosing in a natural tie.

The impression made upon me by Father Haugoult's harangue that evening is one of the most vivid reminiscences of my childhood; I can compare it with nothing but my first reading of Robinson Crusoe. Indeed, I owe to my recollection of these prodigious impressions an observation that may perhaps be new as to the different sense attached to words by each hearer. The word in itself has no final meaning; we affect a word more than it affects us; its value is in relation to the images we have assimilated and grouped round it; but a study of this fact would require considerable elaboration, and lead us too far from our immediate subject.

Not being able to sleep, I had a long discussion with my next neighbor in the dormitory as to the remarkable being who on the morrow was to be one of us. This neighbor, who became an officer, and is now a writer with lofty philosophical views, Barchou de Penhoen, has not been false to his predestination, nor to the hazard of fortune by which the only two scholars of Vendome, of whose fame Vendome ever hears, were brought together in the same classroom, on the same form, and under the same roof. Our comrade Dufaure had not, when this book was published, made his appearance in public life as a lawyer. The translator of Fichte, the expositor and friend of Ballanche, was already interested, as I myself was, in metaphysical questions; we often talked nonsense together about God, ourselves, and nature. He at that time affected pyrrhonism. Jealous of his place as leader, he doubted Lambert's precocious gifts; while I, having lately read Les Enfants celebres, overwhelmed him with evidence, quoting young Montcalm, Pico della Mirandola, Pascal--in short, a score of early developed brains, anomalies that are famous in the history of the human mind, and Lambert's predecessors.

I was at the time passionately addicted to reading. My father, who was ambitious to see me in the Ecole Polytechnique, paid for me to have a special course of private lessons in mathematics. My mathematical master was the librarian of the college, and allowed me to help myself to books without much caring what I chose to take from the library, a quiet spot where I went to him during play-hours to have my lesson. Either he was no great mathematician, or he was absorbed in some grand scheme, for he very willingly left me to read when I ought to have been learning, while he worked at I knew not what. So, by a tacit understanding between us, I made no complaints of being taught nothing, and he said nothing of the books I borrowed.

Carried away by this ill-timed mania, I neglected my studies to compose poems, which certainly can have shown no great promise, to judge by a line of too many feet which became famous among my companions--the beginning of an epic on the Incas:

"O Inca! O roi infortune et malheureux!"

In derision of such attempts, I was nicknamed the Poet, but mockery did not cure me. I was always rhyming, in spite of good advice from Monsieur Mareschal, the headmaster, who tried to cure me of an unfortunately inveterate passion by telling me the fable of a linnet that fell out of the nest because it tried to fly before its wings were grown. I persisted in my reading; I became the least emulous, the idlest, the most dreamy of all the division of "little boys," and consequently the most frequently punished.

This autobiographical digression may give some idea of the reflections I was led to make in anticipation of Lambert's arrival. I was then twelve years old. I felt sympathy from the first for the boy whose temperament had some points of likeness to my own. I was at last to have a companion in day-dreams and meditations. Though I knew not yet what glory meant, I thought it glory to be the familiar friend of a child whose immortality was foreseen by Madame de Stael. To me Louis Lambert was as a giant.

The looked-for morrow came at last. A minute before breakfast we heard the steps of Monsieur Mareschal and of the new boy in the quiet courtyard. Every head was turned at once to the door of the classroom. Father Haugoult, who participated in our torments of curiosity, did not sound the whistle he used to reduce our mutterings to silence and bring us back to our tasks. We then saw this famous new boy, whom Monsieur Mareschal was leading by the hand. The superintendent descended from his desk, and the headmaster said to him solemnly, according to etiquette: "Monsieur, I have brought you Monsieur Louis Lambert; will you place him in the fourth class? He will begin work to-morrow."

Then, after speaking a few words in an undertone to the class-master, he said:

"Where can he sit?"

It would have been unfair to displace one of us for a newcomer; so as there was but one desk vacant, Louis Lambert came to fill it, next to me, for I had last joined the class. Though we still had some time to wait before lessons were over, we all stood up to look at Louis Lambert. Monsieur Mareschal heard our mutterings, saw how eager we were, and said, with the kindness that endeared him to us all:

"Well, well, but make no noise; do not disturb the other classes."

These words set us free to play some little time before breakfast, and we all gathered round Lambert while Monsieur Mareschal walked up and down the courtyard with Father Haugoult.

There were about eighty of us little demons, as bold as birds of prey. Though we ourselves had all gone through this cruel novitiate, we showed no mercy on a newcomer, never sparing him the mockery, the catechism, the impertinence, which were inexhaustible on such occasions, to the discomfiture of the neophyte, whose manners, strength, and temper were thus tested. Lambert, whether he was stoical or dumfounded, made no reply to any questions. One of us thereupon remarked that he was no doubt of the school of Pythagoras, and there was a shout of laughter. The new boy was thenceforth Pythagoras through all his life at the college. At the same time, Lambert's piercing eye, the scorn expressed in his face for our childishness, so far removed from the stamp of his own nature, the easy attitude he assumed, and his evident strength in proportion to his years, infused a certain respect into the veriest scamps among us. For my part, I kept near him, absorbed in studying him in silence.

* * * * *

Louis Lambert was slightly built, nearly five feet in height; his face was tanned, and his hands were burnt brown by the sun, giving him an appearance of manly vigor, which, in fact, he did not possess. Indeed, two months after he came to the college, when studying in the classroom had faded his vivid, so to speak, vegetable coloring, he became as pale and white as a woman.

His head was unusually large. His hair, of a fine, bright black in masses of curls, gave wonderful beauty to his brow, of which the proportions were extraordinary even to us heedless boys, knowing nothing, as may be supposed, of the auguries of phrenology, a science still in its cradle. The distinction of this prophetic brow lay principally in the exquisitely chiseled shape of the arches under which his black eyes sparkled, and which had the transparency of alabaster, the line having the unusual beauty of being perfectly level to where it met the top of the nose. But when you saw his eyes it was difficult to think of the rest of his face, which was indeed plain enough, for their look was full of a wonderful variety of expression; they seemed to have a soul in their depths. At one moment astonishingly clear and piercing, at another full of heavenly sweetness, those eyes became dull, almost colorless, as it seemed, when he was lost in meditation. They then looked like a window from which the sun had suddenly vanished after lighting it up. His strength and his voice were no less variable; equally rigid, equally unexpected. His tone could be as sweet as that of a woman compelled to own her love; at other times it was labored, rough, rugged, if I may use such words in a new sense. As to his strength, he was habitually incapable of enduring the fatigue of any game, and seemed weakly, almost infirm. But during the early days of his school-life, one of our little bullies having made game of this sickliness, which rendered him unfit for the violent exercise in vogue among his fellows, Lambert took hold with both hands of one of the class-tables, consisting of twelve large desks, face to face and sloping from the middle; he leaned back against the class-master's desk, steadying the table with his feet on the cross-bar below, and said:

"Now, ten of you try to move it!"

I was present, and can vouch for this strange display of strength; it was impossible to move the table.

Lambert had the gift of summoning to his aid at certain times the most extraordinary powers, and of concentrating all his forces on a given point. But children, like men, are wont to judge of everything by first impressions, and after the first few days we ceased to study Louis; he entirely belied Madame de Stael's prognostications, and displayed none of the prodigies we looked for in him.

After three months at school, Louis was looked upon as a quite ordinary scholar. I alone was allowed really to know that sublime--why should I not say divine?--soul, for what is nearer to God than genius in the heart of a child? The similarity of our tastes and ideas made us friends and chums; our intimacy was so brotherly that our schoolfellows joined our two names; one was never spoken without the other, and to call either they always shouted "Poet-and-Pythagoras!" Some other names had been known coupled in a like manner. Thus for two years I was the school friend of poor Louis Lambert; and during that time my life was so identified with his, that I am enabled now to write his intellectual biography.

It was long before I fully knew the poetry and the wealth of ideas that lay hidden in my companion's heart and brain. It was not till I was thirty years of age, till my experience was matured and condensed, till the flash of an intense illumination had thrown a fresh light upon it, that I was capable of understanding all the bearings of the phenomena which I witnessed at that early time. I benefited by them without understanding their greatness or their processes; indeed, I have forgotten some, or remember only the most conspicuous facts; still, my memory is now able to co-ordinate them, and I have mastered the secrets of that fertile brain by looking back to the delightful days of our boyish affection. So it was time alone that initiated me into the meaning of the events and facts that were crowded into that obscure life, as into that of many another man who is lost to science. Indeed, this narrative, so far as the expression and appreciation of many things is concerned, will be found full of what may be termed moral anachronisms, which perhaps will not detract from its peculiar interest.

* * * * *

In the course of the first few months after coming to Vendome, Louis became the victim of a malady which, though the symptoms were invisible to the eye of our superiors, considerably interfered with the exercise of his remarkable gifts. Accustomed to live in the open air, and to the freedom of a purely haphazard education, happy in the tender care of an old man who was devoted to him, used to meditating in the sunshine, he found it very hard to submit to college rules, to walk in the ranks, to live within the four walls of a room where eighty boys were sitting in silence on wooden forms each in front of his desk. His senses were developed to such perfection as gave them the most sensitive keenness, and every part of him suffered from this life in common.

The effluvia that vitiated the air, mingled with the odors of a classroom that was never clean or free from the fragments of our breakfasts or snacks, affected his sense of smell, the sense which, being more immediately connected than the others with the nerve-centres of the brain, must, when shocked, cause invisible disturbance to the organs of thought.

Besides these elements of impurity in the atmosphere, there were lockers in the classrooms in which the boys kept their miscellaneous plunder--pigeons killed for fete days, or tidbits filched from the dinner-table. In each classroom, too, there was a large stone slab, on which two pails full of water were kept standing, a sort of sink, where we every morning washed our faces and hands, one after another, in the master's presence. We then passed on to a table, where women combed and powdered our hair. Thus the place, being cleaned but once a day before we were up, was always more or less dirty. In spite of numerous windows and lofty doors, the air was constantly fouled by the smells from the washing-place, the hairdressing, the lockers, and the thousand messes made by the boys, to say nothing of their eighty closely packed bodies. And this sort of humus, mingling with the mud we brought in from the playing-yard, produced a suffocatingly pestilent muck-heap.

The loss of the fresh and fragrant country air in which he had hitherto lived, the change of habits and strict discipline, combined to depress Lambert. With his elbow on his desk and his head supported on his left hand, he spent the hours of study gazing at the trees in the court or the clouds in the sky; he seemed to be thinking of his lessons; but the master, seeing his pen motionless, or the sheet before him still a blank, would call out:

"Lambert, you are doing nothing!"

This "you are doing nothing!" was a pin-thrust that wounded Louis to the quick. And then he never earned the rest of play-time; he always had impositions to write. The imposition, a punishment which varies according to the practice of different schools, consisted at Vendome of a certain number of lines to be written out in play hours. Lambert and I were so overpowered with impositions, that we had not six free days during the two years of our school friendship. But for the books we took out of the library, which maintained some vitality in our brains, this system of discipline would have reduced us to idiotcy. Want of exercise is fatal to children. The habit of preserving a dignified appearance, begun in tender infancy, has, it is said, a visible effect on the constitution of royal personages when the faults of such an education are not counteracted by the life of the battle-field or the laborious sport of hunting. And if the laws of etiquette and Court manners can act on the spinal marrow to such an extent as to affect the pelvis of kings, to soften their cerebral tissue, and so degenerate the race, what deep-seated mischief, physical and moral, must result in schoolboys from the constant lack of air, exercise, and cheerfulness!

Indeed, the rules of punishment carried out in schools deserve the attention of the Office of Public Instruction when any thinkers are to be found there who do not think exclusively of themselves.

We incurred the infliction of an imposition in a thousand ways. Our memory was so good that we never learned a lesson. It was enough for either of us to hear our class-fellows repeat the task in French, Latin, or grammar, and we could say it when our turn came; but if the master, unfortunately, took it into his head to reverse the usual order and call upon us first, we very often did not even know what the lesson was; then the imposition fell in spite of our most ingenious excuses. Then we always put off writing our exercises till the last moment; if there were a book to be finished, or if we were lost in thought, the task was forgotten--again an imposition. How often have we scribbled an exercise during the time when the head-boy, whose business it was to collect them when we came into school, was gathering them from the others!

In addition to the moral misery which Lambert went through in trying to acclimatize himself to college life, there was a scarcely less cruel apprenticeship through which every boy had to pass: to those bodily sufferings which seemed infinitely varied. The tenderness of a child's skin needs extreme care, especially in winter, when a school-boy is constantly exchanging the frozen air of the muddy playing-yard for the stuffy atmosphere of the classroom. The "little boys" and the smallest of all, for lack of a mother's care, were martyrs to chilblains and chaps so severe that they had to be regularly dressed during the breakfast hour; but this could only be very indifferently done to so many damaged hands, toes, and heels. A good many of the boys indeed were obliged to prefer the evil to the remedy; the choice constantly lay between their lessons waiting to be finished or the joys of a slide, and waiting for a bandage carelessly put on, and still more carelessly cast off again. Also it was the fashion in the school to gibe at the poor, feeble creatures who went to be doctored; the bullies vied with each other in snatching off the rags which the infirmary nurse had tied on. Hence, in winter, many of us, with half-dead feet and fingers, sick with pain, were incapable of work, and punished for not working. The Fathers, too often deluded by shammed ailments, would not believe in real suffering.

The price paid for our schooling and board also covered the cost of clothing. The committee contracted for the shoes and clothes supplied to the boys; hence the weekly inspection of which I have spoken. This plan, though admirable for the manager, is always disastrous to the managed. Woe to the boy who indulged in the bad habit of treading his shoes down at heel, of cracking the shoe-leather, or wearing out the soles too fast, whether from a defect in his gait, or by fidgeting during lessons in obedience to the instinctive need of movement common to all children. That boy did not get through the winter without great suffering. In the first place, his chilblains would ache and shoot as badly as a fit of the gout; then the rivets and pack-thread intended to repair the shoes would give way, or the broken heels would prevent the wretched shoes from keeping on his feet; he was obliged to drag them wearily along the frozen roads, or sometimes to dispute their possession with the clay soil of the district; the water and snow got in through some unnoticed crack or ill-sewn patch, and the foot would swell.

Out of sixty boys, not ten perhaps could walk without some special form of torture; and yet they all kept up with the body of the troop, dragged on by the general movement, as men are driven through life by life itself. Many a time some proud-tempered boy would shed tears of rage while summoning his remaining energy to run ahead and get home again in spite of pain, so sensitively afraid of laughter or of pity--two forms of scorn--is the still tender soul at that age.

At school, as in social life, the strong despise the feeble without knowing in what true strength consists.

Nor was this all. No gloves. If by good hap a boy's parents, the infirmary nurse, or the headmaster gave gloves to a particularly delicate lad, the wags or the big boys of the class would put them on the stove, amused to see them dry and shrivel; or if the gloves escaped the marauders, after getting wet they shrunk as they dried for want of care. No, gloves were impossible. Gloves were a privilege, and boys insist on equality.

Louis Lambert fell a victim to all these varieties of torment. Like many contemplative men, who, when lost in thought, acquire a habit of mechanical motion, he had a mania for fidgeting with his shoes, and destroyed them very quickly. His girlish complexion, the skin of his ears and lips, cracked with the least cold. His soft, white hands grew red and swollen. He had perpetual colds. Thus he was a constant sufferer till he became inured to school-life. Taught at last by cruel experience, he was obliged to "look after his things," to use the school phrase. He was forced to take care of his locker, his desk, his clothes, his shoes; to protect his ink, his books, his copy-paper, and his pens from pilferers; in short, to give his mind to the thousand details of our trivial life, to which more selfish and commonplace minds devoted such strict attention--thus infallibly securing prizes for "proficiency" and "good conduct"--while they were overlooked by a boy of the highest promise, who, under the hand of an almost divine imagination, gave himself up with rapture to the flow of his ideas.

This was not all. There is a perpetual struggle going on between the masters and the boys, a struggle without truce, to be compared with nothing else in the social world, unless it be the resistance of the opposition to the ministry in a representative government. But journalists and opposition speakers are probably less prompt to take advantage of a weak point, less extreme in resenting an injury, and less merciless in their mockery than boys are in regard to those who rule over them. It is a task to put angels out of patience. An unhappy class-master must then not be too severely blamed, ill-paid as he is, and consequently not too competent, if he is occasionally unjust or out of temper. Perpetually watched by a hundred mocking eyes, and surrounded with snares, he sometimes revenges himself for his own blunders on the boys who are only too ready to detect them.

Unless for serious misdemeanors, for which there were other forms of punishment, the strap was regarded at Vendome as the ultima ratio Patrum. Exercises forgotten, lessons ill learned, common ill behavior were sufficiently punished by an imposition, but offended dignity spoke in the master through the strap. Of all the physical torments to which we were exposed, certainly the most acute was that inflicted by this leathern instrument, about two fingers wide, applied to our poor little hands with all the strength and all the fury of the administrator. To endure this classical form of correction, the victim knelt in the middle of the room. He had to leave his form and go to kneel down near the master's desk under the curious and generally merciless eyes of his fellows. To sensitive natures these preliminaries were an introductory torture, like the journey from the Palais de Justice to the Place de Greve which the condemned used to make to the scaffold.

Some boys cried out and shed bitter tears before or after the application of the strap; others accepted the infliction with stoic calm; it was a question of nature; but few could control an expression of anguish in anticipation.

Louis Lambert was constantly enduring the strap, and owed it to a peculiarity of his physiognomy of which he was for a long time quite unconscious. Whenever he was suddenly roused from a fit of abstraction by the master's cry, "You are doing nothing!" it often happened that, without knowing it, he flashed at his teacher a look full of fierce contempt, and charged with thought, as a Leyden jar is charged with electricity. This look, no doubt, discomfited the master, who, indignant at this unspoken retort, wished to cure his scholar of that thunderous flash.

The first time the Father took offence at this ray of scorn, which struck him like a lightning-flash, he made this speech, as I well remember:

"If you look at me again in that way, Lambert, you will get the strap."

At these words every nose was in the air, every eye looked alternately at the master and at Louis. The observation was so utterly foolish, that the boy again looked at the Father, overwhelming him with another flash. From this arose a standing feud between Lambert and his master, resulting in a certain amount of "strap." Thus did he first discover the power of his eye.

The hapless poet, so full of nerves, as sensitive as a woman, under the sway of chronic melancholy, and as sick with genius as a girl with love that she pines for, knowing nothing of it;--this boy, at once so powerful and so weak, transplanted by "Corinne" from the country he loved, to be squeezed in the mould of a collegiate routine to which every spirit and every body must yield, whatever their range or temperament, accepting its rule and its uniform as gold is crushed into round coin under the press; Louis Lambert suffered in every spot where pain can touch the soul or the flesh. Stuck on a form, restricted to the acreage of his desk, a victim of the strap and to a sickly frame, tortured in every sense, environed by distress--everything compelled him to give his body up to the myriad tyrannies of school life; and, like the martyrs who smiled in the midst of suffering, he took refuge in heaven, which lay open to his mind. Perhaps this life of purely inward emotions helped him to see something of the mysteries he so entirely believed in!

Our independence, our illicit amusements, our apparent waste of time, our persistent indifference, our frequent punishments and aversion for our exercises and impositions, earned us a reputation, which no one cared to controvert, for being an idle and incorrigible pair. Our masters treated us with contempt, and we fell into utter disgrace with our companions, from whom we concealed our secret studies for fear of being laughed at. This hard judgment, which was injustice in the masters, was but natural in our schoolfellows. We could neither play ball, nor run races, nor walk on stilts. On exceptional holidays, when amnesty was proclaimed and we got a few hours of freedom, we shared in none of the popular diversions of the school. Aliens from the pleasures enjoyed by the others, we were outcasts, sitting forlorn under a tree in the playing-ground. The Poet-and-Pythagoras formed an exception and led a life apart from the life of the rest.

The penetrating instinct and unerring conceit of schoolboys made them feel that we were of a nature either far above or far beneath their own; hence some simply hated our aristocratic reserve, others merely scorned our ineptitude. These feelings were equally shared by us without our knowing it; perhaps I have but now divined them. We lived exactly like two rats, huddled into the corner of the room where our desks were, sitting there alike during lesson time and play hours. This strange state of affairs inevitably and in fact placed us on a footing of war with all the other boys in our division. Forgotten for the most part, we sat there very contentedly; half happy, like two plants, two images who would have been missed from the furniture of the room. But the most aggressive of our schoolfellows would sometimes torment us, just to show their malignant power, and we responded with stolid contempt, which brought many a thrashing down on the Poet-and-Pythagoras.

Lambert's home-sickness lasted for many months. I know no words to describe the dejection to which he was a prey. Louis has taken the glory off many a masterpiece for me. We had both played the part of the "Leper of Aosta," and had both experienced the feelings described in Monsieur de Maistre's story, before we read them as expressed by his eloquent pen. A book may, indeed, revive the memories of our childhood, but it can never compete with them successfully. Lambert's woes had taught me many a chant of sorrow far more appealing than the finest passages in "Werther." And, indeed, there is no possible comparison between the pangs of a passion condemned, whether rightly or wrongly, by every law, and the grief of a poor child pining for the glorious sunshine, the dews of the valley, and liberty. Werther is the slave of desire; Louis Lambert was an enslaved soul. Given equal talent, the more pathetic sorrow, founded on desires which, being purer, are the more genuine, must transcend the wail even of genius.

After sitting for a long time with his eyes fixed on a lime-tree in the playground, Louis would say just a word; but that word would reveal an infinite speculation.

"Happily for me," he exclaimed one day, "there are hours of comfort when I feel as though the walls of the room had fallen and I were away--away in the fields! What a pleasure it is to let oneself go on the stream of one's thoughts as a bird is borne up on its wings!"

"Why is green a color so largely diffused throughout creation?" he would ask me. "Why are there so few straight lines in nature? Why is it that man, in his structures, rarely introduces curves? Why is it that he alone, of all creatures, has a sense of straightness?"

These queries revealed long excursions in space. He had, I am sure, seen vast landscapes, fragrant with the scent of woods. He was always silent and resigned, a living elegy, always suffering but unable to complain of suffering. An eagle that needed the world to feed him, shut in between four narrow, dirty walls; and thus his life became an ideal life in the strictest meaning of the words. Filled as he was with contempt of the almost useless studies to which we were harnessed, Louis went on his skyward way absolutely unconscious of the things about us.

I, obeying the imitative instinct that is so strong in childhood, tried to regulate my life in conformity with his. And Louis the more easily infected me with the sort of torpor in which deep contemplation leaves the body, because I was younger and more impressionable than he. Like two lovers, we got into the habit of thinking together in a common reverie. His intuitions had already acquired that acuteness which must surely characterize the intellectual perceptiveness of great poets and often bring them to the verge of madness.

"Do you ever feel," said he to me one day, "as though imagined suffering affected you in spite of yourself? If, for instance, I think with concentration of the effect that the blade of my penknife would have in piercing my flesh, I feel an acute pain as if I had really cut myself; only the blood is wanting. But the pain comes suddenly, and startles me like a sharp noise breaking profound silence. Can an idea cause physical pain?--What do you say to that, eh?"

When he gave utterance to such subtle reflections, we both fell into artless meditation; we set to work to detect in ourselves the inscrutable phenomena of the origin of thoughts, which Lambert hoped to discover in their earliest germ, so as to describe some day the unknown process. Then, after much discussion, often mixed up with childish notions, a look would flash from Lambert's eager eyes; he would grasp my hand, and a word from the depths of his soul would show the current of his mind.

"Thinking is seeing," said he one day, carried away by some objection raised as to the first principles of our organization. "Every human science is based on deduction, which is a slow process of seeing by which we work up from the effect to the cause; or, in a wider sense, all poetry, like every work of art, proceeds from a swift vision of things."

He was a spiritualist (as opposed to materialism); but I would venture to contradict him, using his own arguments to consider the intellect as a purely physical phenomenon. We both were right. Perhaps the words materialism and spiritualism express the two faces of the same fact. His considerations on the substance of the mind led to his accepting, with a certain pride, the life of privation to which we were condemned in consequence of our idleness and our indifference to learning. He had a certain consciousness of his own powers which bore him up through his spiritual cogitations. How delightful it was to me to feel his soul acting on my own! Many a time have we remained sitting on our form, both buried in one book, having quite forgotten each other's existence, and yet not apart; each conscious of the other's presence, and bathing in an ocean of thought, like two fish swimming in the same waters.

Our life, apparently, was merely vegetating; but we lived through our heart and brain.

Lambert's influence over my imagination left traces that still abide. I used to listen hungrily to his tales, full of the marvels which make men, as well as children, rapturously devour stories in which truth assumes the most grotesque forms. His passion for mystery, and the credulity natural to the young, often led us to discuss Heaven and Hell. Then Louis, by expounding Swedenborg, would try to make me share in his beliefs concerning angels. In his least logical arguments there were still amazing observations as to the powers of man, which gave his words that color of truth without which nothing can be done in any art. The romantic end he foresaw as the destiny of man was calculated to flatter the yearning which tempts blameless imaginations to give themselves up to beliefs. Is it not during the youth of a nation that its dogmas and idols are conceived? And are not the supernatural beings before whom the people tremble the personification of their feelings and their magnified desires?

* * * * *

All that I can now remember of the poetical conversations we held together concerning the Swedish prophet, whose works I have since had the curiosity to read, may be told in a few paragraphs.

In each of us there are two distinct beings. According to Swedenborg, the angel is an individual in whom the inner being conquers the external being. If a man desires to earn his call to be an angel, as soon as his mind reveals to him his twofold existence, he must strive to foster the delicate angelic essence that exists within him. If, for lack of a lucid appreciation of his destiny, he allows bodily action to predominate, instead of confirming his intellectual being, all his powers will be absorbed in the use of his external senses, and the angel will slowly perish by the materialization of both natures. In the contrary case, if he nourishes his inner being with the aliment needful to it, the soul triumphs over matter and strives to get free.

When they separate by the act of what we call death, the angel, strong enough then to cast off its wrappings, survives and begins its real life. The infinite variety which differentiates individual men can only be explained by this twofold existence, which, again, is proved and made intelligible by that variety.

In point of fact, the wide distance between a man whose torpid intelligence condemns him to evident stupidity, and one who, by the exercise of his inner life, has acquired the gift of some power, allows us to suppose that there is as great a difference between men of genius and other beings as there is between the blind and those who see. This hypothesis, since it extends creation beyond all limits, gives us, as it were, the clue to heaven. The beings who, here on earth, are apparently mingled without distinction, are there distributed, according to their inner perfection, in distinct spheres whose speech and manners have nothing in common. In the invisible world, as in the real world, if some native of the lower spheres comes, all unworthy, into a higher sphere, not only can he never understand the customs and language there, but his mere presence paralyzes the voice and hearts of those who dwell therein.

Dante, in his Divine Comedy, had perhaps some slight intuition of those spheres which begin in the world of torment, and rise, circle on circle, to the highest heaven. Thus Swedenborg's doctrine is the product of a lucid spirit noting down the innumerable signs by which the angels manifest their presence among men.

This doctrine, which I have endeavored to sum up in a more or less consistent form, was set before me by Lambert with all the fascination of mysticism, swathed in the wrappings of the phraseology affected by mystical writers: an obscure language full of abstractions, and taking such effect on the brain, that there are books by Jacob Boehm, Swedenborg, and Madame Guyon, so strangely powerful that they give rise to phantasies as various as the dreams of the opium-eater. Lambert told me of mystical facts so extraordinary, he so acted on my imagination, that he made my brain reel. Still, I loved to plunge into that realm of mystery, invisible to the senses, in which every one likes to dwell, whether he pictures it to himself under the indefinite ideal of the Future, or clothes it in the more solid guise of romance. These violent revulsions of the mind on itself gave me, without my knowing it, a comprehension of its power, and accustomed me to the workings of the mind.

Lambert himself explained everything by his theory of the angels. To him pure love--love as we dream of it in youth--was the coalescence of two angelic natures. Nothing could exceed the fervency with which he longed to meet a woman angel. And who better than he could inspire or feel love? If anything could give an impression of an exquisite nature, was it not the amiability and kindliness that marked his feelings, his words, his actions, his slightest gestures, the conjugal regard that united us as boys, and that we expressed when we called ourselves chums?

There was no distinction for us between my ideas and his. We imitated each other's handwriting, so that one might write the tasks of both. Thus, if one of us had a book to finish and to return to the mathematical master, he could read on without interruption while the other scribbled off his exercise and imposition. We did our tasks as though paying a task on our peace of mind. If my memory does not play me false, they were sometimes of remarkable merit when Lambert did them. But on the foregone conclusion that we were both of us idiots, the master always went through them under a rooted prejudice, and even kept them to read to be laughed at by our schoolfellows.

I remember one afternoon, at the end of the lesson, which lasted from two till four, the master took possession of a page of translation by Lambert. The passage began with, Caius Gracchus, vir nobilis; Lambert had construed this by "Caius Gracchus had a noble heart."

"Where do you find 'heart' in nobilis?" said the Father sharply.

And there was a roar of laughter, while Lambert looked at the master in some bewilderment.

"What would Madame la Baronne de Stael say if she could know that you make such nonsense of a word that means of noble family, of patrician rank?"

"She would say that you were an ass!" said I in a muttered tone.

"Master Poet, you will stay in for a week," replied the master, who unfortunately overheard me.

Lambert simply repeated, looking at me with inexpressible affection, "Vir nobilis!"

Madame de Stael was, in fact, partly the cause of Lambert's troubles. On every pretext masters and pupils threw the name in his teeth, either in irony or in reproof.

Louis lost no time in getting himself "kept in" to share my imprisonment. Freer thus than in any other circumstances, we could talk the whole day long in the silence of the dormitories, where each boy had a cubicle six feet square, the partitions consisting at the top of open bars. The doors, fitted with gratings, were locked at night and opened in the morning under the eye of the Father whose duty it was to superintend our rising and going to bed. The creak of these gates, which the college servants unlocked with remarkable expedition, was a sound peculiar to that college. These little cells were our prison, and boys were sometimes shut up there for a month at a time. The boys in these coops were under the stern eye of the prefect, a sort of censor who stole up at certain hours, or at unexpected moments, with a silent step, to hear if we were talking instead of writing our impositions. But a few walnut shells dropped on the stairs, or the sharpness of our hearing, almost always enabled us to beware of his joining, so we could give ourselves up without anxiety to our favorite studies. However, as books were prohibited, our prison hours were chiefly filled up with metaphysical discussions, or with relating singular facts connected with the phenomena of mind.

One of the most extraordinary of these incidents beyond question is this, which I will here record, not only because it concerns Lambert, but because it perhaps was the turning-point of his scientific career. By the law of custom in all schools, Thursday and Sunday were holidays; but the services, which we were made to attend very regularly, so completely filled up Sunday, that we considered Thursday our only real day of freedom. After once attending Mass, we had a long day before us to spend in walks in the country round the town of Vendome. The manor of Rochambeau was the most interesting object of our excursions, perhaps by reason of its distance; the smaller boys were very seldom taken on so fatiguing an expedition. However, once or twice a year the class-masters would hold out Rochambeau as a reward for diligence.

In 1812, towards the end of the spring, we were to go there for the first time. Our anxiety to see this famous chateau of Rochambeau, where the owner sometimes treated the boys to milk, made us all very good, and nothing hindered the outing. Neither Lambert nor I had ever seen the pretty valley of the Loir where the house stood. So his imagination and mine were much excited by the prospect of this excursion, which filled the school with traditional glee. We talked of it all the evening, planning to spend in fruit or milk such money as we had saved, against all the habits of school-life.

After dinner next day, we set out at half-past twelve, each provided with a square hunch of bread, given to us for our afternoon snack. And off we went, as gay as swallows, marching in a body on the famous chateau with an eagerness which would at first allow of no fatigue. When we reached the hill, whence we looked down on the house standing half-way down the slope, on the devious valley through which the river winds and sparkles between meadows in graceful curves--a beautiful landscape, one of those scenes to which the keen emotions of early youth or of love lend such a charm, that it is wise never to see them again in later years--Louis Lambert said to me, "Why, I saw this last night in a dream."

He recognized the clump of trees under which we were standing, the grouping of the woods, the color of the water, the turrets of the chateau, the details, the distance, in fact every part of the prospect which we looked on for the first time. We were mere children; I, at any rate, who was but thirteen; Louis, at fifteen, might, have the precocity of genius, but at that time we were incapable of falsehood in the most trivial matters of our life as friends. Indeed, if Lambert's powerful mind had any presentiment of the importance of such facts, he was far from appreciating their whole bearing; and he was quite astonished by this incident. I asked him if he had not perhaps been brought to Rochambeau in his infancy, and my question struck him; but after thinking it over, he answered in the negative. This incident, analogous to what may be known of the phenomena of sleep in several persons, will illustrate the beginnings of Lambert's line of talent; he took it, in fact, as the basis of a whole system, using a fragment--as Cuvier did in another branch of inquiry--as a clue to the reconstruction of a complete system.

At this moment we were sitting together on an old oak-stump, and after a few minutes' reflection, Louis said to me:

"If the landscape did not come to me--which it is absurd to imagine--I must have come here. If I was here while I was asleep in my cubicle, does not that constitute a complete severance of my body and my inner being? Does it not prove some inscrutable locomotive faculty in the spirit with effects resembling those of locomotion in the body? Well, then, if my spirit and my body can be severed during sleep, why should I not insist on their separating in the same way while I am awake? I see no half-way mean between the two propositions.

"But if we go further into details: Either the facts are due to the action of a faculty which brings out a second being to whom my body is merely a husk, since I was in my cell, and yet I saw the landscape--and this upsets many systems; or the facts took place either in some nerve centre, of which the name is yet to be discovered, where our feelings dwell and move; or else in the cerebral centre, where ideas are formed. This last hypothesis gives rise to some strange questions. I walked, I saw, I heard. Motion is inconceivable but in space, sound acts only at certain angles or on surfaces, color is caused only by light. If, in the dark, with my eyes shut, I saw, in myself, colored objects; if I heard sounds in the most perfect silence and without the conditions requisite for the production of sound; if without stirring I traversed wide tracts of space, there must be inner faculties independent of the external laws of physics. Material nature must be penetrable by the spirit.

"How is it that men have hitherto given so little thought to the phenomena of sleep, which seem to prove that man has a double life? May there not be a new science lying beneath them?" he added, striking his brow with his hand. "If not the elements of a science, at any rate the revelation of stupendous powers in man; at least they prove a frequent severance of our two natures, the fact I have been thinking out for a very long time. At last, then, I have hit on evidence to show the superiority that distinguishes our latent senses from our corporeal senses! Homo duplex!

"And yet," he went on, after a pause, with a doubtful shrug, "perhaps we have not two natures; perhaps we are merely gifted with personal and perfectible qualities, of which the development within us produces certain unobserved phenomena of activity, penetration, and vision. In our love of the marvelous, a passion begotten of our pride, we have translated these effects into poetical inventions, because we did not understand them. It is so convenient to deify the incomprehensible!

"I should, I own, lament over the loss of my illusions. I so much wished to believe in our twofold nature and in Swedenborg's angels. Must this new science destroy them? Yes; for the study of our unknown properties involves us in a science that appears to be materialistic, for the Spirit uses, divides, and animates the Substance; but it does not destroy it."

He remained pensive, almost sad. Perhaps he saw the dreams of his youth as swaddling clothes that he must soon shake off.

"Sight and hearing are, no doubt, the sheaths for a very marvelous instrument," said he, laughing at his own figure of speech.

Always when he was talking to me of Heaven and Hell, he was wont to treat of Nature as being master; but now, as he pronounced these last words, big with prescience, he seemed to soar more boldly than ever above the landscape, and his forehead seemed ready to burst with the afflatus of genius. His powers--mental powers we must call them till some new term is found--seemed to flash from the organs intended to express them. His eyes shot out thoughts; his uplifted hand, his silent but tremulous lips were eloquent; his burning glance was radiant; at last his head, as though too heavy, or exhausted by too eager a flight, fell on his breast. This boy--this giant--bent his head, took my hand and clasped it in his own, which was damp, so fevered was he for the search for truth; then, after a pause, he said:

"I shall be famous!--And you too," he added after a pause. "We will both study the Chemistry of the Will."

Noble soul! I recognized his superiority, though he took great care never to make me feel it. He shared with me all the treasures of his mind, and regarded me as instrumental in his discoveries, leaving me the credit of my insignificant contributions. He was always as gracious as a woman in love; he had all the bashful feeling, the delicacy of soul which make life happy and pleasant to endure.

* * * * *

On the following day he began writing what he called a Treatise on the Will; his subsequent reflections led to many changes in its plan and method; but the incident of that day was certainly the germ of the work, just as the electric shock always felt by Mesmer at the approach of a particular man-servant was the starting-point of his discoveries in magnetism, a science till then interred under the mysteries of Isis, of Delphi, of the cave of Trophonius, and rediscovered by that prodigious genius, close on Lavater, and the precursor of Gall.

Lambert's ideas, suddenly illuminated by this flash of light, assumed vaster proportions; he disentangled certain truths from his many acquisitions and brought them into order; then, like a founder, he cast the model of his work. At the end of six months' indefatigable labor, Lambert's writings excited the curiosity of our companions, and became the object of cruel practical jokes which led to a fatal issue.

One day one of the masters, who was bent on seeing the manuscripts, enlisted the aid of our tyrants, and came to seize, by force, a box that contained the precious papers. Lambert and I defended it with incredible courage. The trunk was locked, our aggressors could not open it, but they tried to smash it in the struggle, a stroke of malignity at which we shrieked with rage. Some of the boys, with a sense of justice, or struck perhaps by our heroic defence, advised the attacking party to leave us in peace, crushing us with insulting contempt. But suddenly, brought to the spot by the noise of a battle, Father Haugoult roughly intervened, inquiring as to the cause of the fight. Our enemies had interrupted us in writing our impositions, and the class-master came to protect his slaves. The foe, in self-defence, betrayed the existence of the manuscript. The dreadful Haugoult insisted on our giving up the box; if we should resist, he would have it broken open. Lambert gave him the key; the master took out the papers, glanced through them, and said, as he confiscated them:

"And it is for such rubbish as this that you neglect your lessons!"

Large tears fell from Lambert's eyes, wrung from him as much by a sense of his offended moral superiority as by the gratuitous insult and betrayal that he had suffered. We gave the accusers a glance of stern reproach: had they not delivered us over to the common enemy? If the common law of school entitled them to thrash us, did it not require them to keep silence as to our misdeeds?

In a moment they were no doubt ashamed of their baseness.

Father Haugoult probably sold the Treatise on the Will to a local grocer, unconscious of the scientific treasure, of which the germs thus fell into unworthy hands.

* * * * *

Six months later I left the school, and I do not know whether Lambert ever recommenced his labors. Our parting threw him into a mood of the darkest melancholy.

It was in memory of the disaster that befell Louis' book that, in the tale which comes first in these Etudes, I adopted the title invented by Lambert for a work of fiction, and gave the name of a woman who was dear to him to a girl characterized by her self-devotion; but this is not all I have borrowed from him: his character and occupations were of great value to me in writing that book, and the subject arose from some reminiscences of our youthful meditations. This present volume is intended as a modest monument, a broken column, to commemorate the life of the man who bequeathed to me all he had to leave--his thoughts.

In that boyish effort Lambert had enshrined the ideas of a man. Ten years later, when I met some learned men who were devoting serious attention to the phenomena that had struck us and that Lambert had so marvelously analyzed, I understood the value of his work, then already forgotten as childish. I at once spent several months in recalling the principal theories discovered by my poor schoolmate. Having collected my reminiscences, I can boldly state that, by 1812, he had proved, divined, and set forth in his Treatise several important facts of which, as he had declared, evidence was certain to come sooner or later. His philosophical speculations ought undoubtedly to gain him recognition as one of the great thinkers who have appeared at wide intervals among men, to reveal to them the bare skeleton of some science to come, of which the roots spread slowly, but which, in due time, bring forth fair fruit in the intellectual sphere. Thus a humble artisan, Bernard Palissy, searching the soil to find minerals for glazing pottery, proclaimed, in the sixteenth century, with the infallible intuition of genius, geological facts which it is now the glory of Cuvier and Buffon to have demonstrated.

I can, I believe, give some idea of Lambert's Treatise by stating the chief propositions on which it was based; but, in spite of myself, I shall strip them of the ideas in which they were clothed, and which were indeed their indispensable accompaniment. I started on a different path, and only made use of those of his researches which answered the purpose of my scheme. I know not, therefore, whether as his disciple I can faithfully expound his views, having assimilated them in the first instance so as to color them with my own.

New ideas require new words, or a new and expanded use of old words, extended and defined in their meaning. Thus Lambert, to set forth the basis of his system, had adopted certain common words that answered to his notions. The word Will he used to connote the medium in which the mind moves, or to use a less abstract expression, the mass of power by which man can reproduce, outside himself, the actions constituting his external life. Volition--a word due to Locke--expressed the act by which a man exerts his will. The word Mind, or Thought, which he regarded as the quintessential product of the Will, also represented the medium in which the ideas originate to which thought gives substance. The Idea, a name common to every creation of the brain, constituted the act by which man uses his mind. Thus the Will and the Mind were the two generating forces; the Volition and the Idea were the two products. Volition, he thought, was the Idea evolved from the abstract state to a concrete state, from its generative fluid to a solid expression, so to speak, if such words may be taken to formulate notions so difficult of definition. According to him, the Mind and Ideas are the motion and the outcome of our inner organization, just as the Will and Volition are of our external activity.

He gave the Will precedence over the Mind.

"You must will before you can think," he said. "Many beings live in a condition of Willing without ever attaining to the condition of Thinking. In the North, life is long; in the South, it is shorter; but in the North we see torpor, in the South a constant excitability of the Will, up to the point where from an excess of cold or of heat the organs are almost nullified."

The use of the word "medium" was suggested to him by an observation he had made in his childhood, though, to be sure, he had no suspicion then of its importance, but its singularity naturally struck his delicately alert imagination. His mother, a fragile, nervous woman, all sensitiveness and affection, was one of those beings created to represent womanhood in all the perfection of her attributes, but relegated by a mistaken fate to too low a place in the social scale. Wholly loving, and consequently wholly suffering, she died young, having thrown all her energies into her motherly love. Lambert, a child of six, lying, but not always sleeping, in a cot by his mother's bed, saw the electric sparks from her hair when she combed it. The man of fifteen made scientific application of this fact which had amused the child, a fact beyond dispute, of which there is ample evidence in many instances, especially of women who by a sad fatality are doomed to let unappreciated feelings evaporate in the air, or some superabundant power run to waste.

In support of his definitions, Lambert propounded a variety of problems to be solved, challenges flung out to science, though he proposed to seek the solution for himself. He inquired, for instance, whether the element that constitutes electricity does not enter as a base into the specific fluid whence our Ideas and Volitions proceed? Whether the hair, which loses its color, turns white, falls out, or disappears, in proportion to the decay or crystallization of our thoughts, may not be in fact a capillary system, either absorbent or diffusive, and wholly electrical? Whether the fluid phenomena of the Will, a matter generated within us, and spontaneously reacting under the impress of conditions as yet unobserved, were at all more extraordinary than those of the invisible and intangible fluid produced by a voltaic pile, and applied to the nervous system of a dead man? Whether the formation of Ideas and their constant diffusion was less incomprehensible than evaporation of the atoms, imperceptible indeed, but so violent in their effects, that are given off from a grain of musk without any loss of weight. Whether, granting that the function of the skin is purely protective, absorbent, excretive, and tactile, the circulation of the blood and all its mechanism would not correspond with the transubstantiation of our Will, as the circulation of the nerve fluid corresponds to that of the Mind? Finally, whether the more or less rapid affluence of these two real substances may not be the result of a certain perfection or imperfection of organs whose conditions require investigation in every manifestation?

Having set forth these principles, he proposed to class the phenomena of human life in two series of distinct results, demanding, with the ardent insistency of conviction, a special analysis for each. In fact, having observed in almost every type of created thing two separate motions, he assumed, nay, he asserted, their existence in our human nature, and designated this vital antithesis Action and Reaction.

"A desire," he said, "is a fact completely accomplished in our will before it is accomplished externally."

Hence the sum-total of our Volitions and our Ideas constitutes Action, and the sum-total of our external acts he called Reaction.

When I subsequently read the observations made by Bichat on the duality of our external senses, I was really bewildered by my recollections, recognizing the startling coincidences between the views of that celebrated physiologist and those of Louis Lambert. They both died too young, and they had with equal steps arrived at the same strange truths. Nature has in every case been pleased to give a twofold purpose to the various apparatus that constitute her creatures; and the twofold action of the human organism, which is now ascertained beyond dispute, proves by a mass of evidence in daily life how true were Lambert's deductions as to Action and Reaction.

The inner Being, the Being of Action--the word he used to designate an unknown specialization--the mysterious nexus of fibrils to which we owe the inadequately investigated powers of thought and will--in short, the nameless entity which sees, acts, foresees the end, and accomplishes everything before expressing itself in any physical phenomenon--must, in conformity with its nature, be free from the physical conditions by which the external Being of Reaction, the visible man, is fettered in its manifestation. From this followed a multitude of logical explanation as to those results of our twofold nature which appear the strangest, and a rectification of various systems in which truth and falsehood are mingled.

Certain men, having had a glimpse of some phenomena of the natural working of the Being of Action, were, like Swedenborg, carried away above this world by their ardent soul, thirsting for poetry, and filled with the Divine Spirit. Thus, in their ignorance of the causes and their admiration of the facts, they pleased their fancy by regarding that inner man as divine, and constructing a mystical universe. Hence we have angels! A lovely illusion which Lambert would never abandon, cherishing it even when the sword of his logic was cutting off their dazzling wings.

"Heaven," he would say, "must, after all, be the survival of our perfected faculties, and hell the void into which our unperfected faculties are cast away."

But how, then, in the ages when the understanding had preserved the religious and spiritualist impressions, which prevailed from the time of Christ till that of Descartes, between faith and doubt, how could men help accounting for the mysteries of our nature otherwise than by divine interposition? Of whom but of God Himself could sages demand an account of an invisible creature so actively and so reactively sensitive, gifted with faculties so extensive, so improvable by use, and so powerful under certain occult influences, that they could sometimes see it annihilate, by some phenomenon of sight or movement, space in its two manifestations--Time and Distance--of which the former is the space of the intellect, the latter is physical space? Sometimes they found it reconstructing the past, either by the power of retrospective vision, or by the mystery of a palingenesis not unlike the power a man might have of detecting in the form, integument, and embryo in a seed, the flowers of the past, and the numberless variations of their color, scent, and shape; and sometimes, again, it could be seen vaguely foreseeing the future, either by its apprehension of final causes, or by some phenomenon of physical presentiment.

Other men, less poetically religious, cold, and argumentative--quacks perhaps, but enthusiasts in brain at least, if not in heart--recognizing some isolated examples of such phenomena, admitted their truth while refusing to consider them as radiating from a common centre. Each of these was, then, bent on constructing a science out of a simple fact. Hence arose demonology, judicial astrology, the black arts, in short, every form of divination founded on circumstances that were essentially transient, because they varied according to men's temperament, and to conditions that are still completely unknown.

But from these errors of the learned, and from the ecclesiastical trials under which fell so many martyrs to their own powers, startling evidence was derived of the prodigious faculties at the command of the Being of Action, which, according to Lambert, can abstract itself completely from the Being of Reaction, bursting its envelope, and piercing walls by its potent vision; a phenomenon known to the Hindoos, as missionaries tell us, by the name of Tokeiad; or again, by another faculty, can grasp in the brain, in spite of its closest convolutions, the ideas which are formed or forming there, and the whole of past consciousness.

"If apparitions are not impossible," said Lambert, "they must be due to a faculty of discerning the ideas which represent man in his purest essence, whose life, imperishable perhaps, escapes our grosser senses, though they may become perceptible to the inner being when it has reached a high degree of ecstasy, or a great perfection of vision."

I know--though my remembrance is now vague--that Lambert, by following the results of Mind and Will step by step, after he had established their laws, accounted for a multitude of phenomena which, till then, had been regarded with reason as incomprehensible. Thus wizards, men possessed, those gifted with second sight, and demoniacs of every degree--the victims of the Middle Ages--became the subject of explanations so natural, that their very simplicity often seemed to me the seal of their truth. The marvelous gifts which the Church of Rome, jealous of all mysteries, punished with the stake, were, in Louis' opinion, the result of certain affinities between the constituent elements of matter and those of mind, which proceed from the same source. The man holding a hazel rod when he found a spring of water was guided by some antipathy or sympathy of which he was unconscious; nothing but the eccentricity of these phenomena could have availed to give some of them historic certainty.

Sympathies have rarely been proved; they afford a kind of pleasure which those who are so happy as to possess them rarely speak of unless they are abnormally singular, and even then only in the privacy of intimate intercourse, where everything is buried. But the antipathies that arise from the inversion of affinities have, very happily, been recorded when developed in famous men. Thus, Bayle had hysterics when he heard water splashing, Scaliger turned pale at the sight of water-cress, Erasmus was thrown into a fever by the smell of fish. These three antipathies were connected with water. The Duc d'Epernon fainted at the sight of a hare, Tycho-Brahe at that of a fox, Henri III. at the presence of a cat, the Marechal d'Albret at the sight of a wild hog; these antipathies were produced by animal emanations, and often took effect at a great distance. The Chevalier de Guise, Marie de' Medici, and many other persons, have felt faint at seeing a rose even in a painting. Lord Bacon, whether he were forewarned or no of an eclipse of the moon, always fell into a syncope while it lasted; and his vitality, suspended while the phenomenon lasted, was restored as soon as it was over without his feeling any further inconvenience. These effects of antipathy, all well authenticated, and chosen from among many which history has happened to preserve, are enough to give a clue to the sympathies which remain unknown.

This fragment of Lambert's investigations, which I remember from among his essays, will throw a light on the method on which he worked. I need not emphasize the obvious connection between this theory and the collateral sciences projected by Gall and Lavater; they were its natural corollary; and every more or less scientific brain will discern the ramifications by which it is inevitably connected with the phrenological observations of one and the speculations on physiognomy of the other.

Mesmer's discovery, so important, though as yet so little appreciated, was also embodied in a single section of this treatise, though Louis did not know the Swiss doctor's writings--which are few and brief.

A simple and logical inference from these principles led him to perceive that the will might be accumulated by a contractile effort of the inner man, and then, by another effort, projected, or even imparted, to material objects. Thus, the whole force of a man must have the property of reacting on other men, and of infusing into them an essence foreign to their own, if they could not protect themselves against such an aggression. The evidence of this theorem of the science of humanity is, of course, very multifarious; but there is nothing to establish it beyond question. We have only the notorious disaster of Marius and his harangue to the Cimbrian commanded to kill him, or the august injunction of a mother to the Lion of Florence, in historic proof of instances of such lightning flashes of mind. To Lambert, then, Will and Thought were living forces; and he spoke of them in such a way as to impress his belief on the hearer. To him these two forces were, in a way, visible, tangible. Thought was slow or alert, heavy or nimble, light or dark; he ascribed to it all the attributes of an active agent, and thought of it as rising, resting, waking, expanding, growing old, shrinking, becoming atrophied, or resuscitating; he described its life, and specified all its actions by the strangest words in our language, speaking of its spontaneity, its strength, and all its qualities with a kind of intuition which enabled him to recognize all the manifestations of its substantial existence.

"Often," said he, "in the midst of quiet and silence, when our inner faculties are dormant, when we have given ourselves up to sweet repose, when a sort of darkness reigns within us, and we are lost in the contemplation of things outside us, an idea suddenly flies forth, and rushes with the swiftness of lightning across the infinite space which our inner vision allows us to perceive. This radiant idea, springing into existence like a will-o'-the-wisp, dies out never to return; an ephemeral life, like that of babes who give their parents such infinite joy and sorrow; a sort of still-born blossom in the fields of the mind. Sometimes an idea, instead of springing forcibly into life and dying unembodied, dawns gradually, hovers in the unknown limbo of the organs where it has its birth; exhausts us by long gestation, develops, is itself fruitful, grows outwardly in all the grace of youth and the promising attributes of a long life; it can endure the closest inspection, invites it, and never tires the sight; the investigation it undergoes commands the admiration we give to works slowly elaborated. Sometimes ideas are evolved in a swarm; one brings another; they come linked together; they vie with each other; they fly in clouds, wild and headlong. Again, they rise up pallid and misty, and perish for want of strength or of nutrition; the vital force is lacking. Or again, on certain days, they rush down into the depths to light up that immense obscurity; they terrify us and leave the soul dejected.

"Ideas are a complete system within us, resembling a natural kingdom, a sort of flora, of which the iconography will one day be outlined by some man who will perhaps be accounted a madman.

"Yes, within us and without, everything testifies to the livingness of those exquisite creations, which I compare with flowers in obedience to some unutterable revelation of their true nature!

"Their being produced as the final cause of man is, after all, not more amazing than the production of perfume and color in a plant. Perfumes are ideas, perhaps!

"When we consider that the line where flesh ends and the nail begins contains the invisible and inexplicable mystery of the constant transformation of a fluid into horn, we must confess that nothing is impossible in the marvelous modifications of human tissue.

"And are there not in our inner nature phenomena of weight and motion comparable to those of physical nature? Suspense, to choose an example vividly familiar to everybody, is painful only as a result of the law in virtue of which the weight of a body is multiplied by its velocity. The weight of the feeling produced by suspense increases by the constant addition of past pain to the pain of the moment.

"And then, to what, unless it be to the electric fluid, are we to attribute the magic by which the Will enthrones itself so imperiously in the eye to demolish obstacles at the behest of genius, thunders in the voice, or filters, in spite of dissimulation, through the human frame? The current of that sovereign fluid, which, in obedience to the high pressure of thought or of feeling, flows in a torrent or is reduced to a mere thread, and collects to flash in lightnings, is the occult agent to which are due the evil or the beneficent efforts of Art and Passion--intonation of voice, whether harsh or suave, terrible, lascivious, horrifying or seductive by turns, thrilling the heart, the nerves, or the brain at our will; the marvels of the touch, the instrument of the mental transfusions of a myriad artists, whose creative fingers are able, after passionate study, to reproduce the forms of nature; or, again, the infinite gradations of the eye from dull inertia to the emission of the most terrifying gleams.

"By this system God is bereft of none of His rights. Mind, as a form of matter, has brought me a new conviction of His greatness."

After hearing him discourse thus, after receiving into my soul his look like a ray of light, it was difficult not to be dazzled by his conviction and carried away by his arguments. The Mind appeared to me as a purely physical power, surrounded by its innumerable progeny. It was a new conception of humanity under a new form.

This brief sketch of the laws which, as Lambert maintained, constitute the formula of our intellect, must suffice to give a notion of the prodigious activity of his spirit feeding on itself. Louis had sought for proofs of his theories in the history of great men, whose lives, as set forth by their biographers, supply very curious particulars as to the operation of their understanding. His memory allowed him to recall such facts as might serve to support his statements; he had appended them to each chapter in the form of demonstrations, so as to give to many of his theories an almost mathematical certainty. The works of Cardan, a man gifted with singular powers of insight, supplied him with valuable materials. He had not forgotten that Apollonius of Tyana had, in Asia, announced the death of the tyrant with every detail of his execution, at the very hour when it was taking place in Rome; nor that Plotinus, when far away from Porphyrius, was aware of his friend's intention to kill himself, and flew to dissuade him; nor the incident in the last century, proved in the face of the most incredulous mockery ever known--an incident most surprising to men who were accustomed to regard doubt as a weapon against the fact alone, but simple enough to believers--the fact that Alphonzo-Maria di Liguori, Bishop of Saint-Agatha, administered consolations to Pope Ganganelli, who saw him, heard him, and answered him, while the Bishop himself, at a great distance from Rome, was in a trance at home, in the chair where he commonly sat on his return from Mass. On recovering consciousness, he saw all his attendants kneeling beside him, believing him to be dead: "My friends," said he, "the Holy Father is just dead." Two days later a letter confirmed the news. The hour of the Pope's death coincided with that when the Bishop had been restored to his natural state.

Nor had Lambert omitted the yet more recent adventure of an English girl who was passionately attached to a sailor, and set out from London to seek him. She found him, without a guide, making her way alone in the North American wilderness, reaching him just in time to save his life.

Louis had found confirmatory evidence in the mysteries of the ancients, in the acts of the martyrs--in which glorious instances may be found of the triumph of human will, in the demonology of the Middle Ages, in criminal trials and medical researches; always selecting the real fact, the probable phenomenon, with admirable sagacity.

All this rich collection of scientific anecdotes, culled from so many books, most of them worthy of credit, served no doubt to wrap parcels in; and this work, which was curious, to say the least of it, as the outcome of a most extraordinary memory, was doomed to destruction.

Among the various cases which added to the value of Lambert's Treatise was an incident that had taken place in his own family, of which he had told me before he wrote his essay. This fact, bearing on the post-existence of the inner man, if I may be allowed to coin a new word for a phenomenon hitherto nameless, struck me so forcibly that I have never forgotten it. His father and mother were being forced into a lawsuit, of which the loss would leave them with a stain on their good name, the only thing they had in the world. Hence their anxiety was very great when the question first arose as to whether they should yield to the plaintiff's unjust demands, or should defend themselves against him. The matter came under discussion one autumn evening, before a turf fire in the room used by the tanner and his wife. Two or three relations were invited to this family council, and among others Louis' maternal great-grandfather, an old laborer, much bent, but with a venerable and dignified countenance, bright eyes, and a bald, yellow head, on which grew a few locks of thin, white hair. Like the Obi of the Negroes, or the Sagamore of the Indian savage, he was a sort of oracle, consulted on important occasions. His land was tilled by his grandchildren, who fed and served him; he predicted rain and fine weather, and told them when to mow the hay and gather the crops. The barometric exactitude of his forecasts was quite famous, and added to the confidence and respect he inspired. For whole days he would sit immovable in his armchair. This state of rapt meditation often came upon him since his wife's death; he had been attached to her with the truest and most faithful affection.

This discussion was held in his presence, but he did not seem to give much heed to it.

"My children," said he, when he was asked for his opinion, "this is too serious a matter for me to decide on alone. I must go and consult my wife."

The old man rose, took his stick, and went out, to the great astonishment of the others, who thought him daft. He presently came back and said:

"I did not have to go so far as the graveyard; your mother came to meet me; I found her by the brook. She tells me that you will find some receipts in the hands of a notary at Blois, which will enable you to gain your suit."

The words were spoken in a firm tone; the old man's demeanor and countenance showed that such an apparition was habitual with him. In fact, the disputed receipts were found, and the lawsuit was not attempted.

This event, under his father's roof and to his own knowledge, when Louis was nine years old, contributed largely to his belief in Swedenborg's miraculous visions, for in the course of that philosopher's life he repeatedly gave proof of the power of sight developed in his Inner Being. As he grew older, and as his intelligence was developed, Lambert was naturally led to seek in the laws of nature for the causes of the miracle which, in his childhood, had captivated his attention. What name can be given to the chance which brought within his ken so many facts and books bearing on such phenomena, and made him the principal subject and actor in such marvelous manifestations of mind?

If Lambert had no other title to fame than the fact of his having formulated, in his sixteenth year, such a psychological dictum as this:--"The events which bear witness to the action of the human race, and are the outcome of its intellect, have causes by which they are preconceived, as our actions are accomplished in our mind before they are reproduced by the outer man; presentiments or predictions are the perception of these causes"--I think we may deplore in him a genius equal to Pascal, Lavoisier, or Laplace. His chimerical notions about angels perhaps overruled his work too long; but was it not in trying to make gold that the alchemists unconsciously created chemistry? At the same time, Lambert, at a later period, studied comparative anatomy, physics, geometry, and other sciences bearing on his discoveries, and this was undoubtedly with the purpose of collecting facts and submitting them to analysis--the only torch that can guide us through the dark places of the most inscrutable work of nature. He had too much good sense to dwell among the clouds of theories which can all be expressed in a few words. In our day, is not the simplest demonstration based on facts more highly esteemed than the most specious system though defended by more or less ingenious inductions? But as I did not know him at the period of his life when his cogitations were, no doubt, the most productive of results, I can only conjecture what the bent of his work must have been from that of his first efforts of thought.

It is easy to see where his Treatise on the Will was faulty. Though gifted already with the powers which characterize superior men, he was but a boy. His brain, though endowed with a great faculty for abstractions, was still full of the delightful beliefs that hover around youth. Thus his conception, while at some points it touched the ripest fruits of his genius, still, by many more, clung to the smaller elements of its germs. To certain readers, lovers of poetry, what he chiefly lacked must have been a certain vein of interest.

But his work bore the stamp of the struggle that was going on in that noble Spirit between the two great principles of Spiritualism and Materialism, round which so many a fine genius has beaten its way without ever daring to amalgamate them. Louis, at first purely Spiritualist, had been irresistibly led to recognize the Material conditions of Mind. Confounded by the facts of analysis at the moment when his heart still gazed with yearning at the clouds that floated in Swedenborg's heaven, he had not yet acquired the necessary powers to produce a coherent system, compactly cast in a piece, as it were. Hence certain inconsistencies that have left their stamp even on the sketch here given of his first attempts. Still, incomplete as his work may have been, was it not the rough copy of a science of which he would have investigated the secrets at a later time, have secured the foundations, have examined, deduced, and connected the logical sequence?

* * * * *

Six months after the confiscation of the Treatise on the Will I left school. Our parting was unexpected. My mother, alarmed by a feverish attack which for some months I had been unable to shake off, while my inactive life induced symptoms of coma, carried me off at four or five hours' notice. The announcement of my departure reduced Lambert to dreadful dejection.

"Shall I ever see you again?" said he in his gentle voice, as he clasped me in his arms. "You will live," he went on, "but I shall die. If I can, I will come back to you."

Only the young can utter such words with the accent of conviction that gives them the impressiveness of prophecy, of a pledge, leaving a terror of its fulfilment. For a long time indeed I vaguely looked for the promised apparition. Even now there are days of depression, of doubt, alarm, and loneliness, when I am forced to repel the intrusion of that sad parting, though it was not fated to be the last.

When I crossed the yard by which we left, Lambert was at one of the refectory windows to see me pass. By my request my mother obtained leave for him to dine with us at the inn, and in the evening I escorted him back to the fatal gate of the college. No lover and his mistress ever shed more tears at parting.

"Well, good-bye; I shall be left alone in this desert!" said he, pointing to the playground where two hundred boys were disporting themselves and shouting. "When I come back half dead with fatigue from my long excursions through the fields of thought, on whose heart can I rest? I could tell you everything in a look. Who will understand me now?--Good-bye! I could wish I had never met you; I should not know all I am losing."

"And what is to become of me?" said I. "Is not my position a dreadful one. I have nothing here to uphold me!" and I slapped my forehead.

He shook his head with a gentle gesture, gracious and sad, and we parted.

At that time Louis Lambert was about five feet five inches in height; he grew no more. His countenance, which was full of expression, revealed his sweet nature. Divine patience, developed by harsh usage, and the constant concentration needed for his meditative life, had bereft his eyes of the audacious pride which is so attractive in some faces, and which had so shocked our masters. Peaceful mildness gave charm to his face, an exquisite serenity that was never marred by a tinge of irony or satire; for his natural kindliness tempered his conscious strength and superiority. He had pretty hands, very slender, and almost always moist. His frame was a marvel, a model for a sculptor; but our iron-gray uniform, with gilt buttons and knee-breeches, gave us such an ungainly appearance that Lambert's fine proportions and firm muscles could only be appreciated in the bath. When we swam in our pool in the Loir, Louis was conspicuous by the whiteness of his skin, which was unlike the different shades of our schoolfellows' bodies mottled by the cold, or blue from the water. Gracefully formed, elegant in his attitudes, delicate in hue, never shivering after his bath, perhaps because he avoided the shade and always ran into the sunshine, Louis was like one of those cautious blossoms that close their petals to the blast and refuse to open unless to a clear sky. He ate little, and drank water only; either by instinct or by choice he was averse to any exertion that made a demand on his strength; his movements were few and simple, like those of Orientals or of savages, with whom gravity seems a condition of nature.

As a rule, he disliked everything that resembled any special care for his person. He commonly sat with his head a little inclined to the left, and so constantly rested his elbows on the table, that the sleeves of his coats were soon in holes.

To this slight picture of the outer man I must add a sketch of his moral qualities, for I believe I can now judge him impartially.

Though naturally religious, Louis did not accept the minute practices of the Roman ritual; his ideas were more intimately in sympathy with Saint Theresa and Fenelon, and several Fathers and certain Saints, who, in our day, would be regarded as heresiarchs or atheists. He was rigidly calm during the services. His own prayers went up in gusts, in aspirations, without any regular formality; in all things he gave himself up to nature, and would not pray, any more than he would think, at any fixed hour. In chapel he was equally apt to think of God or to meditate on some problem of philosophy.

To him Jesus Christ was the most perfect type of his system. Et Verbum caro factum est seemed a sublime statement intended to express the traditional formula of the Will, the Word, and the Act made visible. Christ's unconsciousness of His Death--having so perfected His inner Being by divine works, that one day the invisible form of it appeared to His disciples--and the other Mysteries of the Gospels, the magnetic cures wrought by Christ, and the gift of tongues, all to him confirmed his doctrine. I remember once hearing him say on this subject, that the greatest work that could be written nowadays was a History of the Primitive Church. And he never rose to such poetic heights as when, in the evening, as we conversed, he would enter on an inquiry into miracles, worked by the power of Will during that great age of faith. He discerned the strongest evidence of his theory in most of the martyrdoms endured during the first century of our era, which he spoke of as the great era of the Mind.

"Do not the phenomena observed in almost every instance of the torments so heroically endured by the early Christians for the establishment of the faith, amply prove that Material force will never prevail against the force of Ideas or the Will of man?" he would say. "From this effect, produced by the Will of all, each man may draw conclusions in favor of his own."

I need say nothing of his views on poetry or history, nor of his judgment on the masterpieces of our language. There would be little interest in the record of opinions now almost universally held, though at that time, from the lips of a boy, they might seem remarkable. Louis was capable of the highest flights. To give a notion of his talents in two words, he could have written Zadig as wittily as Voltaire; he could have thought out the Dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates as powerfully as Montesquieu. His rectitude of character made him desire above all else in a work that it should bear the stamp of utility; at the same time, his refined taste demanded novelty of thought as well as of form. One of his most remarkable literary observations, which will serve as a clue to all the others, and show the lucidity of his judgment, is this, which has ever dwelt in my memory, "The Apocalypse is written ecstasy." He regarded the Bible as a part of the traditional history of the antediluvian nations which had taken for its share the new humanity. He thought that the mythology of the Greeks was borrowed both from the Hebrew Scriptures and from the sacred Books of India, adapted after their own fashion by the beauty-loving Hellenes.

"It is impossible," said he, "to doubt the priority of the Asiatic Scriptures; they are earlier than our sacred books. The man who is candid enough to admit this historical fact sees the whole world expand before him. Was it not on the Asiatic highland that the few men took refuge who were able to escape the catastrophe that ruined our globe--if, indeed, men had existed before that cataclysm or shock? A serious query, the answer to which lies at the bottom of the sea. The anthropogony of the Bible is merely a genealogy of a swarm escaping from the human hive which settled on the mountainous slopes of Thibet between the summits of the Himalaya and the Caucasus.

"The character of the primitive ideas of that horde called by its lawgiver the people of God, no doubt to secure its unity, and perhaps also to induce it to maintain his laws and his system of government--for the Books of Moses are a religious, political, and civil code--that character bears the authority of terror; convulsions of nature are interpreted with stupendous power as a vengeance from on high. In fact, since this wandering tribe knew none of the ease enjoyed by a community settled in a patriarchal home, their sorrows as pilgrims inspired them with none but gloomy poems, majestic but blood-stained. In the Hindoos, on the contrary, the spectacle of the rapid recoveries of the natural world, and the prodigious effects of sunshine, which they were the first to recognize, gave rise to happy images of blissful love, to the worship of Fire and of the endless personifications of reproductive force. These fine fancies are lacking in the Book of the Hebrews. A constant need of self-preservation amid all the dangers and the lands they traversed to reach the Promised Land engendered their exclusive race-feeling and their hatred of all other nations.

"These three Scriptures are the archives of an engulfed world. Therein lies the secret of the extraordinary splendor of those languages and their myths. A grand human history lies beneath those names of men and places, and those fables which charm us so irresistibly, we know not why. Perhaps it is because we find in them the native air of renewed humanity."

Thus, to him, this threefold literature included all the thoughts of man. Not a book could be written, in his opinion, of which the subject might not there be discerned in its germ. This view shows how learnedly he had pursued his early studies of the Bible, and how far they had led him. Hovering, as it were, over the heads of society, and knowing it solely from books, he could judge it coldly.

"The law," said he, "never puts a check on the enterprises of the rich and great, but crushes the poor, who, on the contrary, need protection."

His kind heart did not therefore allow him to sympathize in political ideas; his system led rather to the passive obedience of which Jesus set the example. During the last hours of my life at Vendome, Louis had ceased to feel the spur to glory; he had, in a way, had an abstract enjoyment of fame; and having opened it, as the ancient priests of sacrifice sought to read the future in the hearts of men, he had found nothing in the entrails of his chimera. Scorning a sentiment so wholly personal: "Glory," said he, "is but beatified egoism."

Here, perhaps, before taking leave of this exceptional boyhood, I may pronounce judgment on it by a rapid glance.

A short time before our separation, Lambert said to me:

"Apart from the general laws which I have formulated--and this, perhaps, will be my glory--laws which must be those of the human organism, the life of man is Movement determined in each individual by the pressure of some inscrutable influence--by the brain, the heart, or the sinews. All the innumerable modes of human existence result from the proportions in which these three generating forces are more or less intimately combined with the substances they assimilate in the environment they live in."

He stopped short, struck his forehead, and exclaimed: "How strange! In every great man whose portrait I have remarked, the neck is short. Perhaps nature requires that in them the heart should be nearer to the brain!"

Then he went on:

"From that, a sum-total of action takes its rise which constitutes social life. The man of sinew contributes action or strength; the man of brain, genius; the man of heart, faith. But," he added sadly, "faith sees only the clouds of the sanctuary; the Angel alone has light."

So, according to his own definitions, Lambert was all brain and all heart. It seems to me that his intellectual life was divided into three marked phases.

Under the impulsion, from his earliest years, of a precocious activity, due, no doubt, to some malady--or to some special perfection--of organism, his powers were concentrated on the functions of the inner senses and a superabundant flow of nerve-fluid. As a man of ideas, he craved to satisfy the thirst of his brain, to assimilate every idea. Hence his reading; and from his reading, the reflections that gave him the power of reducing things to their simplest expression, and of absorbing them to study them in their essence. Thus, the advantages of this splendid stage, acquired by other men only after long study, were achieved by Lambert during his bodily childhood: a happy childhood, colored by the studious joys of a born poet.

The point which most thinkers reach at last was to him the starting-point, whence his brain was to set out one day in search of new worlds of knowledge. Though as yet he knew it not, he had made for himself the most exacting life possible, and the most insatiably greedy. Merely to live, was he not compelled to be perpetually casting nutriment into the gulf he had opened in himself? Like some beings who dwell in the grosser world, might he not die of inanition for want of feeding abnormal and disappointed cravings? Was not this a sort of debauchery of the intellect which might lead to spontaneous combustion, like that of bodies saturated with alcohol?

I had seen nothing of this first phase of his brain-development; it is only now, at a later day, that I can thus give an account of its prodigious fruit and results. Lambert was now thirteen.

I was so fortunate as to witness the first stage of the second period. Lambert was cast into all the miseries of school-life--and that, perhaps, was his salvation--it absorbed the superabundance of his thoughts. After passing from concrete ideas to their purest expression, from words to their ideal import, and from that import to principles, after reducing everything to the abstract, to enable him to live he yearned for yet other intellectual creations. Quelled by the woes of school and the critical development of his physical constitution, he became thoughtful, dreamed of feeling, and caught a glimpse of new sciences--positively masses of ideas. Checked in his career, and not yet strong enough to contemplate the higher spheres, he contemplated his inmost self. I then perceived in him the struggle of the Mind reacting on itself, and trying to detect the secrets of its own nature, like a physician who watches the course of his own disease.

At this stage of weakness and strength, of childish grace and superhuman powers, Louis Lambert is the creature who, more than any other, gave me a poetical and truthful image of the being we call an angel, always excepting one woman whose name, whose features, whose identity, and whose life I would fain hide from all the world, so as to be sole master of the secret of her existence, and to bury it in the depths of my heart.

* * * * *

The third phase I was not destined to see. It began when Lambert and I were parted, for he did not leave college till he was eighteen, in the summer of 1815. He had at that time lost his father and mother about six months before. Finding no member of his family with whom his soul could sympathize, expansive still, but, since our parting, thrown back on himself, he made his home with his uncle, who was also his guardian, and who, having been turned out of his benefice as a priest who had taken the oaths, had come to settle at Blois. There Louis lived for some time; but consumed ere long by the desire to finish his incomplete studies, he came to Paris to see Madame de Stael, and to drink of science at its highest fount. The old priest, being very fond of his nephew, left Louis free to spend his whole little inheritance in his three years' stay in Paris, though he lived very poorly. This fortune consisted of but a few thousand francs.

Lambert returned to Blois at the beginning of 1820, driven from Paris by the sufferings to which the impecunious are exposed there. He must often have been a victim to the secret storms, the terrible rage of mind by which artists are tossed to judge from the only fact his uncle recollected, and the only letter he preserved of all those which Louis Lambert wrote to him at that time, perhaps because it was the last and the longest.

To begin with the story. Louis one evening was at the Theatre-Francais, seated on a bench in the upper gallery, near to one of the pillars which, in those days, divided off the third row of boxes. On rising between the acts, he saw a young woman who had just come into the box next him. The sight of this lady, who was young, pretty, well dressed, in a low bodice no doubt, and escorted by a man for whom her face beamed with all the charms of love, produced such a terrible effect on Lambert's soul and senses, that he was obliged to leave the theatre. If he had not been controlled by some remaining glimmer of reason, which was not wholly extinguished by this first fever of burning passion, he might perhaps have yielded to the almost irresistible desire that came over him to kill the young man on whom the lady's looks beamed. Was not this a reversion, in the heart of the Paris world, to the savage passion that regards women as its prey, an effect of animal instinct combining with the almost luminous flashes of a soul crushed under the weight of thought? In short, was it not the prick of the penknife so vividly imagined by the boy, felt by the man as the thunderbolt of his most vital craving--for love?

And now, here is the letter that depicts the state of his mind as it was struck by the spectacle of Parisian civilization. His feelings, perpetually wounded no doubt in that whirlpool of self-interest, must always have suffered there; he probably had no friend to comfort him, no enemy to give tone to his life. Compelled to live in himself alone, having no one to share his subtle raptures, he may have hoped to solve the problem of his destiny by a life of ecstasy, adopting an almost vegetative attitude, like an anchorite of the early Church, and abdicating the empire of the intellectual world.

This letter seems to hint at such a scheme, which is a temptation to all lofty souls at periods of social reform. But is not this purpose, in some cases, the result of a vocation? Do not some of them endeavor to concentrate their powers by long silence, so as to emerge fully capable of governing the world by word or by deed? Louis must, assuredly, have found much bitterness in his intercourse with men, or have striven hard with Society in terrible irony, without extracting anything from it, before uttering so strident a cry, and expressing, poor fellow, the desire which satiety of power and of all earthly things has led even monarchs to indulge!

And perhaps, too, he went back to solitude to carry out some great work that was floating inchoate in his brain. We would gladly believe it as we read this fragment of his thoughts, betraying the struggle of his soul at the time when youth was ending and the terrible power of production was coming into being, to which we might have owed the works of the man.

This letter connects itself with the adventure at the theatre. The incident and the letter throw light on each other, body and soul were tuned to the same pitch. This tempest of doubts and asseverations, of clouds and of lightnings that flash before the thunder, ending by a starved yearning for heavenly illumination, throws such a light on the third phase of his education as enables us to understand it perfectly. As we read these lines, written at chance moments, taken up when the vicissitudes of life in Paris allowed, may we not fancy that we see an oak at that stage of its growth when its inner expansion bursts the tender green bark, covering it with wrinkles and cracks, when its majestic stature is in preparation--if indeed the lightnings of heaven and the axe of man shall spare it?

This letter, then, will close, alike for the poet and the philosopher, this portentous childhood and unappreciated youth. It finishes off the outline of this nature in its germ. Philosophers will regret the foliage frost-nipped in the bud; but they will, perhaps, find the flowers expanding in regions far above the highest places of the earth.

"PARIS, September-October 1819.

"DEAR UNCLE,--I shall soon be leaving this part of the world, where I could never bear to live. I find no one here who likes what I like, who works at my work, or is amazed at what amazes me. Thrown back on myself, I eat my heart out in misery. My long and patient study of Society here has brought me to melancholy conclusions, in which doubt predominates.

"Here, money is the mainspring of everything. Money is indispensable, even for going without money. But though that dross is necessary to any one who wishes to think in peace, I have not courage enough to make it the sole motive power of my thoughts. To make a fortune, I must take up a profession; in two words, I must, by acquiring some privilege of position or of self-advertisement, either legal or ingeniously contrived, purchase the right of taking day by day out of somebody else's purse a certain sum which, by the end of the year, would amount to a small capital; and this, in twenty years, would hardly secure an income of four or five thousand francs to a man who deals honestly. An advocate, a notary, a merchant, any recognized professional, has earned a living for his later days in the course of fifteen or sixteen years after ending his apprenticeship.

"But I have never felt fit for work of this kind. I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity. I am absolutely devoid of the constant attention indispensable to the making of a fortune. Any mercantile venture, any need for using other people's money would bring me to grief, and I should be ruined. Though I have nothing, at least at the moment, I owe nothing. The man who gives his life to the achievement of great things in the sphere of intellect, needs very little; still, though twenty sous a day would be enough, I do not possess that small income for my laborious idleness. When I wish to cogitate, want drives me out of the sanctuary where my mind has its being. What is to become of me?

"I am not frightened at poverty. If it were not that beggars are imprisoned, branded, scorned, I would beg, to enable me to solve at my leisure the problems that haunt me. Still, this sublime resignation, by which I might emancipate my mind, through abstracting it from the body, would not serve my end. I should still need money to devote myself to certain experiments. But for that, I would accept the outward indigence of a sage possessed of both heaven and earth. A man need only never stoop, to remain lofty in poverty. He who struggles and endures, while marching on to a glorious end, presents a noble spectacle; but who can have the strength to fight here? We can climb cliffs, but it is unendurable to remain for ever tramping the mud. Everything here checks the flight of a spirit that strives towards the future.

"I should not be afraid of myself in a desert cave; I am afraid of myself here. In the desert I should be alone with myself, undisturbed; here man has a thousand wants which drag him down. You go out walking, absorbed in dreams; the voice of the beggar asking an alms brings you back to this world of hunger and thirst. You need money only to take a walk. Your organs of sense, perpetually wearied by trifles, never get any rest. The poet's sensitive nerves are perpetually shocked, and what ought to be his glory becomes his torment; his imagination is his cruelest enemy. The injured workman, the poor mother in childbed, the prostitute who has fallen ill, the foundling, the infirm and aged--even vice and crime here find a refuge and charity; but the world is merciless to the inventor, to the man who thinks. Here everything must show an immediate and practical result. Fruitless attempts are mocked at, though they may lead to the greatest discoveries; the deep and untiring study that demands long concentration of every faculty is not valued here. The State might pay talent as it pays the bayonet; but it is afraid of being taken in by mere cleverness, as if genius could be counterfeited for any length of time.

"Ah, my dear uncle, when monastic solitude was destroyed, uprooted from its home at the foot of mountains, under green and silent shade, asylums ought to have been provided for those suffering souls who, by an idea, promote the progress of nations or prepare some new and fruitful development of science."

"September 20th.

"The love of study brought me hither, as you know. I have met really learned men, amazing for the most part; but the lack of unity in scientific work almost nullifies their efforts. There is no Head of instruction or of scientific research. At the Museum a professor argues to prove that another in the Rue Saint-Jacques talks nonsense. The lecturer at the College of Medicine abuses him of the College de France. When I first arrived, I went to hear an old Academician who taught five hundred youths that Corneille was a haughty and powerful genius; Racine, elegiac and graceful; Moliere, inimitable; Voltaire, supremely witty; Bossuet and Pascal, incomparable in argument. A professor of philosophy may make a name by explaining how Plato is Platonic. Another discourses on the history of words, without troubling himself about ideas. One explains AEschylus, another tells you that communes were communes, and neither more nor less. These original and brilliant discoveries, diluted to last several hours, constitute the higher education which is to lead to giant strides in human knowledge.

"If the Government could have an idea, I should suspect it of being afraid of any real superiority, which, once roused, might bring Society under the yoke of an intelligent rule. Then nations would go too far and too fast; so professors are appointed to produce simpletons. How else can we account for a scheme devoid of method or any notion of the future?

"The Institut might be the central government of the moral and intellectual world; but it has been ruined lately by its subdivision into separate academies. So human science marches on, without a guide, without a system, and floats haphazard with no road traced out.

"This vagueness and uncertainty prevails in politics as well as in science. In the order of nature means are simple, the end is grand and marvelous; here in science, as in government, the means are stupendous, the end is mean. The force which in nature proceeds at an equal pace, and of which the sum is constantly being added to itself--the A+A from which everything is produced--is destructive in society. Politics, at the present time, place human forces in antagonism to neutralize each other, instead of combining them to promote their action to some definite end.

"Looking at Europe alone, from Caesar to Constantine, from the puny Constantine to the great Attila, from the Huns to Charlemagne, from Charlemagne to Leo X., from Leo X. to Philip II., from Philip II. to Louis XIV.; from Venice to England, from England to Napoleon, from Napoleon to England, I see no fixed purpose in politics; its constant agitation has led to no progress.

"Nations leave witnesses to their greatness in monuments, and to their happiness in the welfare of individuals. Are modern monuments as fine as those of the ancients? I doubt it. The arts, which are the direct outcome of the individual, the products of genius or of handicraft, have not advanced much. The pleasures of Lucullus were as good as those of Samuel Bernard, of Beaujon, or of the King of Bavaria. And then human longevity has diminished.

"Thus, to those who will be candid, man is still the same; might is his only law, and success his only wisdom.

"Jesus Christ, Mahomet, and Luther only lent a different hue to the arena in which youthful nations disport themselves.

"No development of politics has hindered civilization, with its riches, its manners, its alliance of the strong against the weak, its ideas, and its delights, from moving from Memphis to Tyre, from Tyre to Baalbek, from Tadmor to Carthage, from Carthage to Rome, from Rome to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Venice, from Venice to Spain, from Spain to England--while no trace is left of Memphis, of Tyre, of Carthage, of Rome, of Venice, or Madrid. The soul of those great bodies has fled. Not one of them has preserved itself from destruction, nor formulated this axiom: When the effect produced ceases to be in a ratio to its cause, disorganization follows.

"The most subtle genius can discover no common bond between great social facts. No political theory has ever lasted. Governments pass away, as men do, without handing down any lesson, and no system gives birth to a system better than that which came before it. What can we say about politics when a Government directly referred to God perished in India and Egypt; when the rule of the Sword and of the Tiara are past; when Monarchy is dying; when the Government of the People has never been alive; when no scheme of intellectual power as applied to material interests has ever proved durable, and everything at this day remains to be done all over again, as it has been at every period when man has turned to cry out, 'I am in torment!'

"The code, which is considered Napoleon's greatest achievement, is the most Draconian work I know of. Territorial subdivision carried out to the uttermost, and its principle confirmed by the equal division of property generally, must result in the degeneracy of the nation and the death of the Arts and Sciences. The land, too much broken up, is cultivated only with cereals and small crops; the forests, and consequently the rivers, are disappearing; oxen and horses are no longer bred. Means are lacking both for attack and for resistance. If we should be invaded, the people must be crushed; it has lost its mainspring--its leaders. This is the history of deserts!

"Thus the science of politics has no definite principles, and it can have no fixity; it is the spirit of the hour, the perpetual application of strength proportioned to the necessities of the moment. The man who should foresee two centuries ahead would die on the place of execution, loaded with the imprecations of the mob, or else--which seems worse--would be lashed with the myriad whips of ridicule. Nations are but individuals, neither wiser nor stronger than man, and their destinies are identical. If we reflect on man, is not that to consider mankind?

"By studying the spectacle of society perpetually storm-tossed in its foundations as well as in its results, in its causes as well as in its actions, while philanthropy is but a splendid mistake, and progress is vanity, I have been confirmed in this truth: Life is within and not without us; to rise above men, to govern them, is only the part of an aggrandized schoolmaster; and those men who are capable of rising to the level whence they can enjoy a view of the world should not look at their own feet."

"November 4th.

"I am no doubt occupied with weighty thoughts, I am on the way to certain discoveries, an invincible power bears me toward a luminary which shone at an early age on the darkness of my moral life; but what name can I give to the power that ties my hands and shuts my mouth, and drags me in a direction opposite to my vocation? I must leave Paris, bid farewell to the books in the libraries, those noble centres of illumination, those kindly and always accessible sages, and the younger geniuses with whom I sympathize. Who is it that drives me away? Chance or Providence?

"The two ideas represented by those words are irreconcilable. If Chance does not exist, we must admit fatalism, that is to say, the compulsory co-ordination of things under the rule of a general plan. Why then do we rebel? If man is not free, what becomes of the scaffolding of his moral sense? Or, if he can control his destiny, if by his own freewill he can interfere with the execution of the general plan, what becomes of God?

"Why did I come here? If I examine myself, I find the answer: I find in myself axioms that need developing. But why then have I such vast faculties without being suffered to use them? If my suffering could serve as an example, I could understand it; but no, I suffer unknown.

"This is perhaps as much the act of Providence as the fate of the flower that dies unseen in the heart of the virgin forest, where no one can enjoy its perfume or admire its splendor. Just as that blossom vainly sheds its fragrance to the solitude, so do I, here in a garret, give birth to ideas that no one can grasp.

"Yesterday evening I sat eating bread and grapes in front of my window with a young doctor named Meyraux. We talked as men do whom misfortune has joined in brotherhood, and I said to him:

"'I am going away; you are staying. Take up my ideas and develop them.'

"'I cannot!' said he, with bitter regret; 'my feeble health cannot stand so much work, and I shall die young of my struggle with penury.'

"We looked up at the sky and grasped hands. We first met at the Comparative Anatomy course, and in the galleries of the Museum, attracted thither by the same study--the unity of geological structure. In him this was the presentiment of genius sent to open a new path in the fallows of intellect; in me it was a deduction from a general system.

"My point is to ascertain the real relation that may exist between God and man. Is not this a need of the age? Without the highest assurance, it is impossible to put bit and bridle on the social factions that have been let loose by the spirit of scepticism and discussion, and which are now crying aloud: 'Show us a way in which we may walk and find no pitfalls in our way!'

"You will wonder what comparative anatomy has to do with a question of such importance to the future of society. Must we not attain to the conviction that man is the end of all earthly means before we ask whether he too is not the means to some end? If man is bound up with everything, is there not something above him with which he again is bound up? If he is the end-all of the unexplained transmutations that lead up to him, must he not be also the link between the visible and invisible creations?

"The activity of the universe is not absurd; it must tend to an end, and that end is surely not a social body constituted as ours is! There is a fearful gulf between us and heaven. In our present existence we can neither be always happy nor always in torment; must there not be some tremendous change to bring about Paradise and Hell, two images without which God cannot exist to the mind of the vulgar? I know that a compromise was made by the invention of the Soul; but it is repugnant to me to make God answerable for human baseness, for our disenchantments, our aversions, our degeneracy.

"Again, how can we recognize as divine the principle within us which can be overthrown by a few glasses of rum? How conceive of immaterial faculties which matter can conquer, and whose exercise is suspended by a grain of opium? How imagine that we shall be able to feel when we are bereft of the vehicles of sensation? Why must God perish if matter can be proved to think? Is the vitality of matter in its innumerable manifestations--the effect of its instincts--at all more explicable than the effects of the mind? Is not the motion given to the worlds enough to prove God's existence, without our plunging into absurd speculations suggested by pride? And if we pass, after our trials, from a perishable state of being to a higher existence, is not that enough for a creature that is distinguished from other creatures only by more perfect instincts? If in moral philosophy there is not a single principle which does not lead to the absurd, or cannot be disproved by evidence, is it not high time that we should set to work to seek such dogmas as are written in the innermost nature of things? Must we not reverse philosophical science?

"We trouble ourselves very little about the supposed void that must have pre-existed for us, and we try to fathom the supposed void that lies before us. We make God responsible for the future, but we do not expect Him to account for the past. And yet it is quite as desirable to know whether we have any roots in the past as to discover whether we are inseparable from the future.

"We have been Deists or Atheists in one direction only.

"Is the world eternal? Was the world created? We can conceive of no middle term between these two propositions; one, then, is true and the other false! Take your choice. Whichever it may be, God, as our reason depicts Him, must be deposed, and that amounts to denial. The world is eternal: then, beyond question, God has had it forced upon Him. The world was created: then God is an impossibility. How could He have subsisted through an eternity, not knowing that He would presently want to create the world? How could He have failed to foresee all the results?

"Whence did He derive the essence of creation? Evidently from Himself. If, then, the world proceeds from God, how can you account for evil? That Evil should proceed from Good is absurd. If evil does not exist, what do you make of social life and its laws? On all hands we find a precipice! On every side a gulf in which reason is lost! Then social science must be altogether reconstructed.

"Listen to me, uncle; until some splendid genius shall have taken account of the obvious inequality of intellects and the general sense of humanity, the word God will be constantly arraigned, and Society will rest on shifting sands. The secret of the various moral zones through which man passes will be discovered by the analysis of the animal type as a whole. That animal type has hitherto been studied with reference only to its differences, not to its similitudes; in its organic manifestations, not in its faculties. Animal faculties are perfected in direct transmission, in obedience to laws which remain to be discovered. These faculties correspond to the forces which express them, and those forces are essentially material and divisible.

"Material faculties! Reflect on this juxtaposition of words. Is not this a problem as insoluble as that of the first communication of motion to matter--an unsounded gulf of which the difficulties were transposed rather than removed by Newton's system? Again, the universal assimilation of light by everything that exists on earth demands a new study of our globe. The same animal differs in the tropics of India and in the North. Under the angular or the vertical incidence of the sun's rays nature is developed the same, but not the same; identical in its principles, but totally dissimilar in its outcome. The phenomenon that amazes our eyes in the zoological world when we compare the butterflies of Brazil with those of Europe, is even more startling in the world of Mind. A particular facial angle, a certain amount of brain convolutions, are indispensable to produce Columbus, Raphael, Napoleon, Laplace, or Beethoven; the sunless valley produces the cretin--draw your own conclusions. Why such differences, due to the more or less ample diffusion of light to men? The masses of suffering humanity, more or less active, fed, and enlightened, are a difficulty to be accounted for, crying out against God.

"Why in great joy do we always want to quit the earth? whence comes the longing to rise which every creature has known or will know? Motion is a great soul, and its alliance with matter is just as difficult to account for as the origin of thought in man. In these days science is one; it is impossible to touch politics independent of moral questions, and these are bound up with scientific questions. It seems to me that we are on the eve of a great human struggle; the forces are there; only I do not see the General."

"November 25.

"Believe me, dear uncle, it is hard to give up the life that is in us without a pang. I am returning to Blois with a heavy grip at my heart; I shall die then, taking with me some useful truths. No personal interest debases my regrets. Is earthly fame a guerdon to those who believe that they will mount to a higher sphere?

"I am by no means in love with the two syllables Lam and bert; whether spoken with respect or with contempt over my grave, they can make no change in my ultimate destiny. I feel myself strong and energetic; I might become a power; I feel in myself a life so luminous that it might enlighten a world, and yet I am shut up in a sort of mineral, as perhaps indeed are the colors you admire on the neck of an Indian bird. I should need to embrace the whole world, to clasp and recreate it; but those who have done this, who have thus embraced and remoulded it began--did they not?--by being a wheel in the machine. I can only be crushed. Mahomet had the sword; Jesus had the cross; I shall die unknown. I shall be at Blois for a day, and then in my coffin.

"Do you know why I have come back to Swedenborg after vast studies of all religions, and after proving to myself, by reading all the works published within the last sixty years by the patient English, by Germany, and by France, how deeply true were my youthful views about the Bible? Swedenborg undoubtedly epitomizes all the religions--or rather the one religion--of humanity. Though forms of worship are infinitely various, neither their true meaning nor their metaphysical interpretation has ever varied. In short, man has, and has had, but one religion.

"Sivaism, Vishnuism, and Brahmanism, the three primitive creeds, originating as they did in Thibet, in the valley of the Indus, and on the vast plains of the Ganges, ended their warfare some thousand years before the birth of Christ by adopting the Hindoo Trimourti. The Trimourti is our Trinity. From this dogma Magianism arose in Persia; in Egypt, the African beliefs and the Mosaic law; the worship of the Cabiri, and the polytheism of Greece and Rome. While by this ramification of the Trimourti the Asiatic myths became adapted to the imaginations of various races in the lands they reached by the agency of certain sages whom men elevated to be demi-gods--Mithra, Bacchus, Hermes, Hercules, and the rest--Buddha, the great reformer of the three primeval religions, lived in India, and founded his Church there, a sect which still numbers two hundred millions more believers than Christianity can show, while it certainly influenced the powerful Will both of Jesus and of Confucius.

"Then Christianity raised her standard. Subsequently Mahomet fused Judaism and Christianity, the Bible and the Gospel, in one book, the Koran, adapting them to the apprehension of the Arab race. Finally, Swedenborg borrowed from Magianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Christian mysticism all the truth and divine beauty that those four great religious books hold in common, and added to them a doctrine, a basis of reasoning, that may be termed mathematical.

"Any man who plunges into those religious waters, of which the sources are not all known, will find proofs that Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, and Swedenborg had identical principles and aimed at identical ends.

"The last of them all, Swedenborg, will perhaps be the Buddha of the North. Obscure and diffuse as his writings are, we find in them the elements of a magnificent conception of society. His Theocracy is sublime, and his creed is the only acceptable one to superior souls. He alone brings man into immediate communion with God, he gives a thirst for God, he has freed the majesty of God from the trappings in which other human dogmas have disguised Him. He left Him where He is, making His myriad creations and creatures gravitate towards Him through successive transformations which promise a more immediate and more natural future than the Catholic idea of Eternity. Swedenborg has absolved God from the reproach attaching to Him in the estimation of tender souls for the perpetuity of revenge to punish the sin of a moment--a system of injustice and cruelty.

"Each man may know for himself what hope he has of life eternal, and whether this world has any rational sense. I mean to make the attempt. And this attempt may save the world, just as much as the cross at Jerusalem or the sword at Mecca. These were both the offspring of the desert. Of the thirty-three years of Christ's life, we only know the history of nine; His life of seclusion prepared Him for His life of glory. And I too crave for the desert!"

Notwithstanding the difficulties of the task, I have felt it my duty to depict Lambert's boyhood, the unknown life to which I owe the only happy hours, the only pleasant memories, of my early days. Excepting during those two years I had nothing but annoyances and weariness. Though some happiness was mine at a later time, it was always incomplete.

I have been diffuse, I know; but in default of entering into the whole wide heart and brain of Louis Lambert--two words which inadequately express the infinite aspects of his inner life--it would be almost impossible to make the second part of his intellectual history intelligible--a phase that was unknown to the world and to me, but of which the mystical outcome was made evident to my eyes in the course of a few hours. Those who have not already dropped this volume, will, I hope, understand the events I still have to tell, forming as they do a sort of second existence lived by this creature--may I not say this creation?--in whom everything was to be so extraordinary, even his end.

* * * * *

When Louis returned to Blois, his uncle was eager to procure him some amusement; but the poor priest was regarded as a perfect leper in that godly-minded town. No one would have anything to say to a revolutionary who had taken the oaths. His society, therefore, consisted of a few individuals of what were then called liberal or patriotic, or constitutional opinions, on whom he would call for a rubber of whist or of boston.

At the first house where he was introduced by his uncle, Louis met a young lady, whose circumstances obliged her to remain in this circle, so contemned by those of the fashionable world, though her fortune was such as to make it probable that she might by and by marry into the highest aristocracy of the province. Mademoiselle Pauline de Villenoix was sole heiress to the wealth amassed by her grandfather, a Jew named Salomon, who, contrary to the customs of his nation, had, in his old age, married a Christian and a Catholic. He had an only son, who was brought up in his mother's faith. At his father's death young Salomon purchased what was known at that time as a savonnette a vilain (literally a cake of soap for a serf), a small estate called Villenoix, which he contrived to get registered with a baronial title, and took its name. He died unmarried, but he left a natural daughter, to whom he bequeathed the greater part of his fortune, including the lands of Villenoix. He appointed one of his uncles, Monsieur Joseph Salomon, to be the girl's guardian. The old Jew was so devoted to his ward that he seemed willing to make great sacrifices for the sake of marrying her well. But Mademoiselle de Villenoix's birth, and the cherished prejudice against Jews that prevails in the provinces, would not allow of her being received in the very exclusive circle which, rightly or wrongly, considers itself noble, notwithstanding her own large fortune and her guardian's.

Monsieur Joseph Salomon was resolved that if she could not secure a country squire, his niece should go to Paris and make choice of a husband among the peers of France, liberal or monarchical; as to happiness, that he believed he could secure her by the terms of the marriage contract.

Mademoiselle de Villenoix was now twenty. Her remarkable beauty and gifts of mind were surer guarantees of happiness than those offered by money. Her features were of the purest type of Jewish beauty; the oval lines, so noble and maidenly, have an indescribable stamp of the ideal, and seem to speak of the joys of the East, its unchangeably blue sky, the glories of its lands, and the fabulous riches of life there. She had fine eyes, shaded by deep eyelids, fringed with thick, curled lashes. Biblical innocence sat on her brow. Her complexion was of the pure whiteness of the Levite's robe. She was habitually silent and thoughtful, but her movements and gestures betrayed a quiet grace, as her speech bore witness to a woman's sweet and loving nature. She had not, indeed, the rosy freshness, the fruit-like bloom which blush on a girl's cheek during her careless years. Darker shadows, with here and there a redder vein, took the place of color, symptomatic of an energetic temper and nervous irritability, such as many men do not like to meet with in a wife, while to others they are an indication of the most sensitive chastity and passion mingled with pride.

As soon as Louis saw Mademoiselle de Villenoix, he discerned the angel within. The richest powers of his soul, and his tendency to ecstatic reverie, every faculty within him was at once concentrated in boundless love, the first love of a young man, a passion which is strong indeed in all, but which in him was raised to incalculable power by the perennial ardor of his senses, the character of his ideas, and the manner in which he lived. This passion became a gulf, into which the hapless fellow threw everything; a gulf whither the mind dare not venture, since his, flexible and firm as it was, was lost there. There all was mysterious, for everything went on in that moral world, closed to most men, whose laws were revealed to him--perhaps to his sorrow.

When an accident threw me in the way of his uncle, the good man showed me into the room which Lambert had at that time lived in. I wanted to find some vestiges of his writings, if he should have left any. There, among his papers, untouched by the old man from that fine instinct of grief that characterizes the aged, I found a number of letters, too illegible ever to have been sent to Mademoiselle de Villenoix. My familiarity with Lambert's writing enabled me in time to decipher the hieroglyphics of this shorthand, the result of impatience and a frenzy of passion. Carried away by his feelings, he had written without being conscious of the irregularity of words too slow to express his thoughts. He must have been compelled to copy these chaotic attempts, for the lines often ran into each other; but he was also afraid perhaps of not having sufficiently disguised his feelings, and at first, at any rate, he had probably written his love-letters twice over.

It required all the fervency of my devotion to his memory, and the sort of fanaticism which comes of such a task, to enable me to divine and restore the meaning of the five letters that here follow. These documents, preserved by me with pious care, are the only material evidence of his overmastering passion. Mademoiselle de Villenoix has no doubt destroyed the real letters that she received, eloquent witnesses to the delirium she inspired.

The first of these papers, evidently a rough sketch, betrays by its style and by its length the many emendations, the heartfelt alarms, the innumerable terrors caused by a desire to please; the changes of expression and the hesitation between the whirl of ideas that beset a man as he indites his first love-letter--a letter he never will forget, each line the result of a reverie, each word the subject of long cogitation, while the most unbridled passion known to man feels the necessity of the most reserved utterance, and like a giant stooping to enter a hovel, speaks humbly and low, so as not to alarm a girl's soul.

No antiquary ever handled his palimpsests with greater respect than I showed in reconstructing these mutilated documents of such joy and suffering as must always be sacred to those who have known similar joy and grief.

I

"Mademoiselle, when you have read this letter, if you ever should read it, my life will be in your hands, for I love you; and to me, the hope of being loved is life. Others, perhaps, ere now, have, in speaking of themselves, misused the words I must employ to depict the state of my soul; yet, I beseech you to believe in the truth of my expressions; though weak, they are sincere. Perhaps I ought not thus to proclaim my love. Indeed, my heart counseled me to wait in silence till my passion should touch you, that I might the better conceal it if its silent demonstrations should displease you; or till I could express it even more delicately than in words if I found favor in your eyes. However, after having listened for long to the coy fears that fill a youthful heart with alarms, I write in obedience to the instinct which drags useless lamentations from the dying.

"It has needed all my courage to silence the pride of poverty, and to overleap the barriers which prejudice erects between you and me. I have had to smother many reflections to love you in spite of your wealth; and as I write to you, am I not in danger of the scorn which women often reserve for professions of love, which they accept only as one more tribute of flattery? But we cannot help rushing with all our might towards happiness, or being attracted to the life of love as a plant is to the light; we must have been very unhappy before we can conquer the torment, the anguish, of those secret deliberations when reason proves to us by a thousand arguments how barren our yearning must be if it remains buried in our hearts, and when hopes bid us dare everything.

"I was happy when I admired you in silence; I was so lost in the contemplation of your beautiful soul, that only to see you left me hardly anything further to imagine. And I should not now have dared to address you if I had not heard that you were leaving. What misery has that one word brought upon me! Indeed, it is my despair that has shown me the extent of my attachment--it is unbounded. Mademoiselle, you will never know--at least, I hope you may never know--the anguish of dreading lest you should lose the only happiness that has dawned on you on earth, the only thing that has thrown a gleam of light in the darkness of misery. I understood yesterday that my life was no more in myself, but in you. There is but one woman in the world for me, as there is but one thought in my soul. I dare not tell you to what a state I am reduced by my love for you. I would have you only as a gift from yourself; I must therefore avoid showing myself to you in all the attractiveness of dejection--for is it not often more impressive to a noble soul than that of good fortune? There are many things I may not tell you. Indeed, I have too lofty a notion of love to taint it with ideas that are alien to its nature. If my soul is worthy of yours, and my life pure, your heart will have a sympathetic insight, and you will understand me!

"It is the fate of man to offer himself to the woman who can make him believe in happiness; but it is your prerogative to reject the truest passion if it is not in harmony with the vague voices in your heart--that I know. If my lot, as decided by you, must be adverse to my hopes, mademoiselle, let me appeal to the delicacy of your maiden soul and the ingenuous compassion of a woman to burn my letter. On my knees I beseech you to forget all! Do not mock at a feeling that is wholly respectful, and that is too deeply graven on my heart ever to be effaced. Break my heart, but do not rend it! Let the expression of my first love, a pure and youthful love, be lost in your pure and youthful heart! Let it die there as a prayer rises up to die in the bosom of God!

"I owe you much gratitude: I have spent delicious hours occupied in watching you, and giving myself up to the faint dreams of my life; do not crush these long but transient joys by some girlish irony. Be satisfied not to answer me. I shall know how to interpret your silence; you will see me no more. If I must be condemned to know for ever what happiness means, and to be for ever bereft of it; if, like a banished angel, I am to cherish the sense of celestial joys while bound for ever to a world of sorrow--well, I can keep the secret of my love as well as that of my griefs.--And farewell!

"Yes, I resign you to God, to whom I will pray for you, beseeching Him to grant you a happy life; for even if I am driven from your heart, into which I have crept by stealth, still I shall ever be near you. Otherwise, of what value would the sacred words be of this letter, my first and perhaps my last entreaty? If I should ever cease to think of you, to love you whether in happiness or in woe, should I not deserve my punishment?"

II

"You are not going away! And I am loved! I, a poor, insignificant creature! My beloved Pauline, you do not yourself know the power of the look I believe in, the look you gave me to tell me that you had chosen me--you so young and lovely, with the world at your feet!

"To enable you to understand my happiness, I should have to give you a history of my life. If you had rejected me, all was over for me. I have suffered too much. Yes, my love for you, my comforting and stupendous love, was a last effort of yearning for the happiness my soul strove to reach--a soul crushed by fruitless labor, consumed by fears that make me doubt myself, eaten into by despair which has often urged me to die. No one in the world can conceive of the terrors my fateful imagination inflicts on me. It often bears me up to the sky, and suddenly flings me to earth again from prodigious heights. Deep-seated rushes of power, or some rare and subtle instance of peculiar lucidity, assure me now and then that I am capable of great things. Then I embrace the universe in my mind, I knead, shape it, inform it, I comprehend it--or fancy that I do; then suddenly I awake--alone, sunk in blackest night, helpless and weak; I forget the light I saw but now, I find no succor; above all, there is no heart where I may take refuge.

"This distress of my inner life affects my physical existence. The nature of my character gives me over to the raptures of happiness as defenceless as when the fearful light of reflection comes to analyze and demolish them. Gifted as I am with the melancholy faculty of seeing obstacles and success with equal clearness, according to the mood of the moment, I am happy or miserable by turns.

"Thus, when first I met you, I felt the presence of an angelic nature, I breathed an air that was sweet to my burning breast, I heard in my soul the voice that never can be false, telling me that here was happiness; but perceiving all the barriers that divided us, I understood for the first time what worldly prejudices were; I understood the vastness of their pettiness, and these difficulties terrified me more than the prospect of happiness could delight me. At once I felt the awful reaction which casts my expansive soul back on itself; the smile you had brought to my lips suddenly turned to a bitter grimace, and I could only strive to keep calm, while my soul was boiling with the turmoil of contradictory emotions. In short, I experienced that gnawing pang to which twenty-three years of suppressed sighs and betrayed affections have not inured me.

"Well, Pauline, the look by which you promised that I should be happy suddenly warmed my vitality, and turned all my sorrows into joy. Now, I could wish that I had suffered more. My love is suddenly full-grown. My soul was a wide territory that lacked the blessing of sunshine, and your eyes have shed light on it. Beloved providence! you will be all in all to me, orphan as I am, without a relation but my uncle. You will be my whole family, as you are my whole wealth, nay, the whole world to me. Have you not bestowed on me every gladness man can desire in that chaste--lavish--timid glance?

"You have given me incredible self-confidence and audacity. I can dare all things now. I came back to Blois in deep dejection. Five years of study in the heart of Paris had made me look on the world as a prison. I had conceived of vast schemes, and dared not speak of them. Fame seemed to me a prize for charlatans, to which a really noble spirit should not stoop. Thus, my ideas could only make their way by the assistance of a man bold enough to mount the platform of the press, and to harangue loudly the simpletons he scorns. This kind of courage I have not. I ploughed my way on, crushed by the verdict of the crowd, in despair at never making it hear me. I was at once too humble and too lofty! I swallowed my thoughts as other men swallow humiliations. I had even come to despise knowledge, blaming it for yielding no real happiness.

"But since yesterday I am wholly changed. For your sake I now covet every palm of glory, every triumph of success. When I lay my head on your knees, I could wish to attract to you the eyes of the whole world, just as I long to concentrate in my love every idea, every power that is in me. The most splendid celebrity is a possession that genius alone can create. Well, I can, at my will, make for you a bed of laurels. And if the silent ovation paid to science is not all you desire, I have within me the sword of the Word; I could run in the path of honor and ambition where others only crawl.

"Command me, Pauline; I will be whatever you will. My iron will can do anything--I am loved! Armed with that thought, ought not a man to sweep everything before him? The man who wants all can do all. If you are the prize of success, I enter the lists to-morrow. To win such a look as that you bestowed on me, I would leap the deepest abyss. Through you I understand the fabulous achievements of chivalry and the most fantastic tales of the Arabian Nights. I can believe now in the most fantastic excesses of love, and in the success of a prisoner's wildest attempt to recover his liberty. You have aroused the thousand virtues that lay dormant within me--patience, resignation, all the powers of my heart, all the strength of my soul. I live by you and--heavenly thought!--for you. Everything now has a meaning for me in life. I understand everything, even the vanities of wealth.

"I find myself shedding all the pearls of the Indies at your feet; I fancy you reclining either on the rarest flowers, or on the softest tissues, and all the splendor of the world seems hardly worthy of you, for whom I would I could command the harmony and the light that are given out by the harps of seraphs and the stars of heaven! Alas! a poor, studious poet, I offer you in words treasures I cannot bestow; I can only give you my heart, in which you reign for ever. I have nothing else. But are there no treasures in eternal gratitude, in a smile whose expression will perpetually vary with perennial happiness, under the constant eagerness of my devotion to guess the wishes of your loving soul? Has not one celestial glance given us assurance of always understanding each other?

"I have a prayer now to be said to God every night--a prayer full of you: 'Let my Pauline be happy!' And will you fill all my days as you now fill my heart?

"Farewell, I can but trust you to God alone!"

III

"Pauline! tell me if I can in any way have displeased you yesterday? Throw off the pride of heart which inflicts on me the secret tortures that can be caused by one we love. Scold me if you will! Since yesterday, a vague, unutterable dread of having offended you pours grief on the life of feeling which you had made so sweet and so rich. The lightest veil that comes between two souls sometimes grows to be a brazen wall. There are no venial crimes in love! If you have the very spirit of that noble sentiment, you must feel all its pangs, and we must be unceasingly careful not to fret each other by some heedless word.

"No doubt, my beloved treasure, if there is any fault, it is in me. I cannot pride myself in the belief that I understand a woman's heart in all the expansion of its tenderness, all the grace of its devotedness; but I will always endeavor to appreciate the value of what you vouchsafe to show me of the secrets of yours.

"Speak to me! Answer me soon! The melancholy into which we are thrown by the idea of a wrong done is frightful; it casts a shroud over life, and doubts on everything.

"I spent this morning sitting on the bank by the sunken road, gazing at the turrets of Villenoix, not daring to go to our hedge. If you could imagine all I saw in my soul! What gloomy visions passed before me under the gray sky, whose cold sheen added to my dreary mood! I had dark presentiments! I was terrified lest I should fail to make you happy.

"I must tell you everything, my dear Pauline. There are moments when the spirit of vitality seems to abandon me. I feel bereft of all strength. Everything is a burden to me; every fibre of my body is inert, every sense is flaccid, my sight grows dim, my tongue is paralyzed, my imagination is extinct, desire is dead--nothing survives but my mere human vitality. At such times, though you were in all the splendor of your beauty, though you should lavish on me your subtlest smiles and tenderest words, an evil influence would blind me, and distort the most ravishing melody into discordant sounds. At those times--as I believe--some argumentative demon stands before me, showing me the void beneath the most real possessions. This pitiless demon mows down every flower, and mocks at the sweetest feelings, saying: 'Well--and then?' He mars the fairest work by showing me its skeleton, and reveals the mechanism of things while hiding the beautiful results.

"At those terrible moments, when the evil spirit takes possession of me, when the divine light is darkened in my soul without my knowing the cause, I sit in grief and anguish, I wish myself deaf and dumb, I long for death to give me rest. These hours of doubt and uneasiness are perhaps inevitable; at any rate, they teach me not to be proud after the flights which have borne me to the skies where I have gathered a full harvest of thoughts; for it is always after some long excursion in the vast fields of the intellect, and after the most luminous speculations, that I tumble, broken and weary, into this limbo. At such a moment, my angel, a wife would doubt my love for her--at any rate, she might. If she were capricious, ailing, or depressed, she would need the comforting overflow of ingenious affection, and I should not have a glance to bestow on her. It is my shame, Pauline, to have to tell you that at such times I could weep with you, but that nothing could make me smile.

"A woman can always conceal her troubles; for her child, or for the man she loves, she can laugh in the midst of suffering. And could not I, for you, Pauline, imitate the exquisite reserve of a woman? Since yesterday I have doubted my own power. If I could displease you once, if I failed once to understand you, I dread lest I should often be carried out of our happy circle by my evil demon. Supposing I were to have many of those dreadful moods, or that my unbounded love could not make up for the dark hours of my life--that I were doomed to remain such as I am?--Fatal doubts!

"Power is indeed a fatal possession if what I feel within me is power. Pauline, go! Leave me, desert me! Sooner would I endure every ill in life than endure the misery of knowing that you were unhappy through me.

"But, perhaps, the demon has had such empire over me only because I have had no gentle, white hands about me to drive him off. No woman has ever shed on me the balm of her affection; and I know not whether, if love should wave his pinions over my head in these moments of exhaustion, new strength might not be given to my spirit. This terrible melancholy is perhaps a result of my isolation, one of the torments of a lonely soul which pays for its hidden treasures with groans and unknown suffering. Those who enjoy little shall suffer little; immense happiness entails unutterable anguish!

"How terrible a doom! If it be so, must we not shudder for ourselves, we who are superhumanly happy? If nature sells us everything at its true value, into what pit are we not fated to fall? Ah! the most fortunate lovers are those who die together in the midst of their youth and love! How sad it all is! Does my soul foresee evil in the future? I examine myself, wondering whether there is anything in me that can cause you a moment's anxiety. I love you too selfishly perhaps? I shall be laying on your beloved head a burden heavy out of all proportion to the joy my love can bring to your heart. If there dwells in me some inexorable power which I must obey--if I am compelled to curse when you pray, if some dark thought coerces me when I would fain kneel at your feet and play as a child, will you not be jealous of that wayward and tricky spirit?

"You understand, dearest heart, that what I dread is not being wholly yours; that I would gladly forego all the sceptres and the palms of the world to enshrine you in one eternal thought, to see a perfect life and an exquisite poem in our rapturous love; to throw my soul into it, drown my powers, and wring from each hour the joys it has to give!

"Ah, my memories of love are crowding back upon me, the clouds of despair will lift. Farewell. I leave you now to be more entirely yours. My beloved soul, I look for a line, a word that may restore my peace of mind. Let me know whether I really grieved my Pauline, or whether some uncertain expression of her countenance misled me. I could not bear to have to reproach myself after a whole life of happiness, for ever having met you without a smile of love, a honeyed word. To grieve the woman I love--Pauline, I should count it a crime. Tell me the truth, do not put me off with some magnanimous subterfuge, but forgive me without cruelty."

FRAGMENT.

"Is so perfect an attachment happiness? Yes, for years of suffering would not pay for an hour of love.

"Yesterday, your sadness, as I suppose, passed into my soul as swiftly as a shadow falls. Were you sad or suffering? I was wretched. Whence came my distress? Write to me at once. Why did I not know it? We are not yet completely one in mind. At two leagues' distance or at a thousand I ought to feel your pains and sorrows. I shall not believe that I love you till my life is so bound up with yours that our life is one, till our hearts, our thoughts are one. I must be where you are, see what you see, feel what you feel, be with you in thought. Did not I know, at once, that your carriage had been overthrown and you were bruised? But on that day I had been with you, I had never left you, I could see you. When my uncle asked me what made me turn so pale, I answered at once, 'Mademoiselle de Villenoix has had a fall.'

"Why, then, yesterday, did I fail to read your soul? Did you wish to hide the cause of your grief? However, I fancied I could feel that you were arguing in my favor, though in vain, with that dreadful Salomon, who freezes my blood. That man is not of our heaven.

"Why do you insist that our happiness, which has no resemblance to that of other people, should conform to the laws of the world? And yet I delight too much in your bashfulness, your religion, your superstitions, not to obey your lightest whim. What you do must be right; nothing can be purer than your mind, as nothing is lovelier than your face, which reflects your divine soul.

"I shall wait for a letter before going along the lanes to meet the sweet hour you grant me. Oh! if you could know how the sight of those turrets makes my heart throb when I see them edged with light by the moon, our only confidante."

IV

"Farewell to glory, farewell to the future, to the life I had dreamed of! Now, my well-beloved, my glory is that I am yours, and worthy of you; my future lies entirely in the hope of seeing you; and is not my life summed up in sitting at your feet, in lying under your eyes, in drawing deep breaths in the heaven you have created for me? All my powers, all my thoughts must be yours, since you could speak those thrilling words, 'Your sufferings must be mine!' Should I not be stealing some joys from love, some moments from happiness, some experiences from your divine spirit, if I gave my hours to study--ideas to the world and poems to the poets? Nay, nay, my very life, I will treasure everything for you; I will bring to you every flower of my soul. Is there anything fine enough, splendid enough, in all the resources of the world, or of intellect, to do honor to a heart so rich, so pure as yours--the heart to which I dare now and again to unite my own? Yes, now and again, I dare believe that I can love as much as you do.

"And yet, no; you are the angel-woman; there will always be a greater charm in the expression of your feelings, more harmony in your voice, more grace in your smile, more purity in your looks than in mine. Let me feel that you are the creature of a higher sphere than that I live in; it will be your pride to have descended from it; mine, that I should have deserved you; and you will not perhaps have fallen too far by coming down to me in my poverty and misery. Nay, if a woman's most glorious refuge is in a heart that is wholly her own, you will always reign supreme in mine. Not a thought, not a deed, shall ever pollute this heart, this glorious sanctuary, so long as you vouchsafe to dwell in it--and will you not dwell in it for ever? Did you not enchant me by the words, 'Now and for ever?' Nunc et semper! And I have written these words of our ritual below your portrait--words worthy of you, as they are of God. He is nunc et semper, as my love is.

"Never, no, never, can I exhaust that which is immense, infinite, unbounded--and such is the feeling I have for you; I have imagined its immeasurable extent, as we measure space by the dimensions of one of its parts. I have had ineffable joys, whole hours filled with delicious meditation, as I have recalled a single gesture or the tone of a word of yours. Thus there will be memories of which the magnitude will overpower me, if the reminiscence of a sweet and friendly interview is enough to make me shed tears of joy, to move and thrill my soul, and to be an inexhaustible well-spring of gladness. Love is the life of angels!

"I can never, I believe, exhaust my joy in seeing you. This rapture, the least fervid of any, though it never can last long enough, has made me apprehend the eternal contemplation in which seraphs and spirits abide in the presence of God; nothing can be more natural, if from His essence there emanates a light as fruitful of new emotions as that of your eyes is, of your imposing brow, and your beautiful countenance--the image of your soul. Then, the soul, our second self, whose pure form can never perish, makes our love immortal. I would there were some other language than that I use to express to you the ever-new ecstasy of my love; but since there is one of our own creating, since our looks are living speech, must we not meet face to face to read in each other's eyes those questions and answers from the heart, that are so living, so penetrating, that one evening you could say to me, 'Be silent!' when I was not speaking. Do you remember it, dear life?

"When I am away from you in the darkness of absence, am I not reduced to use human words, too feeble to express heavenly feelings? But words at any rate represent the marks these feelings leave in my soul, just as the word God imperfectly sums up the notions we form of that mysterious First Cause. But, in spite of the subtleties and infinite variety of language, I have no words that can express to you the exquisite union by which my life is merged into yours whenever I think of you.

"And with what word can I conclude when I cease writing to you, and yet do not part from you? What can farewell mean, unless in death? But is death a farewell? Would not my spirit be then more closely one with yours? Ah! my first and last thought; formerly I offered you my heart and life on my knees; now what fresh blossoms of feelings can I discover in my soul that I have not already given you? It would be a gift of a part of what is wholly yours.

"Are you my future? How deeply I regret the past! I would I could have back all the years that are ours no more, and give them to you to reign over, as you do over my present life. What indeed was that time when I knew you not? It would be a void but that I was so wretched."

FRAGMENT.

"Beloved angel, how delightful last evening was! How full of riches your dear heart is! And is your love endless, like mine? Each word brought me fresh joy, and each look made it deeper. The placid expression of your countenance gave our thoughts a limitless horizon. It was all as infinite as the sky, and as bland as its blue. The refinement of your adored features repeated itself by some inexplicable magic in your pretty movements and your least gestures. I knew that you were all graciousness, all love, but I did not know how variously graceful you could be. Everything combined to urge me to tender solicitations, to make me ask the first kiss that a woman always refuses, no doubt that it may be snatched from her. You, dear soul of my life, will never guess beforehand what you may grant to my love, and will yield perhaps without knowing it! You are utterly true, and obey your heart alone.

"The sweet tones of your voice blended with the tender harmonies that filled the quiet air, the cloudless sky. Not a bird piped, not a breeze whispered--solitude, you, and I. The motionless leaves did not quiver in the beautiful sunset hues which are both light and shadow. You felt that heavenly poetry--you who experienced so many various emotions, and who so often raised your eyes to heaven to avoid answering me. You who are proud and saucy, humble and masterful, who give yourself to me so completely in spirit and in thought, and evade the most bashful caress. Dear witcheries of the heart! They ring in my ears; they sound and play there still. Sweet words but half spoken, like a child's speech, neither promise nor confession, but allowing love to cherish its fairest hopes without fear or torment! How pure a memory for life! What a free blossoming of all the flowers that spring from the soul, which a mere trifle can blight, but which, at that moment, everything warmed and expanded.

"And it will be always so, will it not, my beloved? As I recall, this morning, the fresh and living delights revealed to me in that hour, I am conscious of a joy which makes me conceive of true love as an ocean of everlasting and ever-new experiences, into which we may plunge with increasing delight. Every day, every word, every kiss, every glance, must increase it by its tribute of past happiness. Hearts that are large enough never to forget must live every moment in their past joys as much as in those promised by the future. This was my dream of old, and now it is no longer a dream! Have I not met on this earth with an angel who has made me know all its happiness, as a reward, perhaps, for having endured all its torments? Angel of heaven, I salute thee with a kiss.

"I shall send you this hymn of thanksgiving from my heart, I owe it to you; but it can hardly express my gratitude or the morning worship my heart offers up day by day to her who epitomized the whole gospel of the heart in this divine word: 'Believe.'"

V

"What! no further difficulties, dearest heart! We shall be free to belong to each other every day, every hour, every minute, and for ever! We may be as happy for all the days of our life as we now are by stealth, at rare intervals! Our pure, deep feelings will assume the expression of the thousand fond acts I have dreamed of. For me your little foot will be bared, you will be wholly mine! Such happiness kills me; it is too much for me. My head is too weak, it will burst with the vehemence of my ideas. I cry and I laugh--I am possessed! Every joy is as an arrow of flame; it pierces and burns me. In fancy you rise before my eyes, ravished and dazzled by numberless and capricious images of delight.

"In short, our whole future life is before me--its torrents, its still places, its joys; it seethes, it flows on, it lies sleeping; then again it awakes fresh and young. I see myself and you side by side, walking with equal pace, living in the same thought; each dwelling in the other's heart, understanding each other, responding to each other as an echo catches and repeats a sound across wide distances.

"Can life be long when it is thus consumed hour by hour? Shall we not die in a first embrace? What if our souls have already met in that sweet evening kiss which almost overpowered us--a feeling kiss, but the crown of my hopes, the ineffectual expression of all the prayers I breathe while we are apart, hidden in my soul like remorse?

"I, who would creep back and hide in the hedge only to hear your footsteps as you went homewards--I may henceforth admire you at my leisure, see you busy, moving, smiling, prattling! An endless joy! You cannot imagine all the gladness it is to me to see you going and coming; only a man can know that deep delight. Your least movement gives me greater pleasure than a mother even can feel as she sees her child asleep or at play. I love you with every kind of love in one. The grace of your least gesture is always new to me. I fancy I could spend whole nights breathing your breath; I would I could steal into every detail of your life, be the very substance of your thoughts--be your very self.

"Well, we shall, at any rate, never part again! No human alloy shall ever disturb our love, infinite in its phases and as pure as all things are which are One--our love, vast as the sea, vast as the sky! You are mine! all mine! I may look into the depths of your eyes to read the sweet soul that alternately hides and shines there, to anticipate your wishes.

"My best-beloved, listen to some things I have never yet dared to tell you, but which I may confess to you now. I felt a certain bashfulness of soul which hindered the full expression of my feelings, so I strove to shroud them under the garb of thoughts. But now I long to lay my heart bare before you, to tell you of the ardor of my dreams, to reveal the boiling demands of my senses, excited, no doubt, by the solitude in which I have lived, perpetually fired by conceptions of happiness, and aroused by you, so fair in form, so attractive in manner. How can I express to you my thirst for the unknown rapture of possessing an adored wife, a rapture to which the union of two souls by love must give frenzied intensity. Yes, my Pauline, I have sat for hours in a sort of stupor caused by the violence of my passionate yearning, lost in the dream of a caress as though in a bottomless abyss. At such moments my whole vitality, my thoughts and powers, are merged and united in what I must call desire, for lack of a word to express that nameless delirium.

"And I may confess to you now that one day, when I would not take your hand when you offered it so sweetly--an act of melancholy prudence that made you doubt my love--I was in one of those fits of madness when a man could commit a murder to possess a woman. Yes, if I had felt the exquisite pressure you offered me as vividly as I heard your voice in my heart, I know not to what lengths my passion might not have carried me. But I can be silent, and suffer a great deal. Why speak of this anguish when my visions are to become realities? It will be in my power now to make life one long love-making!

"Dearest love, there is a certain effect of light on your black hair which could rivet me for hours, my eyes full of tears, as I gazed at your sweet person, were it not that you turn away and say, 'For shame; you make me quite shy!'

"To-morrow, then, our love is to be made known! Oh, Pauline! the eyes of others, the curiosity of strangers, weigh on my soul. Let us go to Villenoix, and stay there far from every one. I should like no creature in human form to intrude into the sanctuary where you are to be mine; I could even wish that, when we are dead, it should cease to exist--should be destroyed. Yes, I would fain hide from all nature a happiness which we alone can understand, alone can feel, which is so stupendous that I throw myself into it only to die--it is a gulf!

"Do not be alarmed by the tears that have wetted this page; they are tears of joy. My only blessing, we need never part again!"

* * * * *

In 1823 I traveled from Paris to Touraine by diligence. At Mer we took up a passenger for Blois. As the guard put him into that part of the coach where I had my seat, he said jestingly:

"You will not be crowded, Monsieur Lefebvre!"--I was, in fact, alone.

On hearing this name, and seeing a white-haired old man, who looked eighty at least, I naturally thought of Lambert's uncle. After a few ingenious questions, I discovered that I was not mistaken. The good man had been looking after his vintage at Mer, and was returning to Blois. I then asked for some news of my old "chum." At the first word, the old priest's face, as grave and stern already as that of a soldier who has gone through many hardships, became more sad and dark; the lines on his forehead were slightly knit, he set his lips, and said, with a suspicious glance:

"Then you have never seen him since you left the College?"

"Indeed, I have not," said I. "But we are equally to blame for our forgetfulness. Young men, as you know, lead such an adventurous and storm-tossed life when they leave their school-forms, that it is only by meeting that they can be sure of an enduring affection. However, a reminiscence of youth sometimes comes as a reminder, and it is impossible to forget entirely, especially when two lads have been such friends as we were. We went by the name of the Poet-and-Pythagoras."

I told him my name; when he heard it, the worthy man grew gloomier than ever.

"Then you have not heard his story?" said he. "My poor nephew was to be married to the richest heiress in Blois; but the day before his wedding he went mad."

"Lambert! Mad!" cried I in dismay. "But from what cause? He had the finest memory, the most strongly-constituted brain, the soundest judgment, I ever met with. Really a great genius--with too great a passion for mysticism perhaps; but the kindest heart in the world. Something most extraordinary must have happened?"

"I see you knew him well," said the priest.

From Mer, till we reached Blois, we talked only of my poor friend, with long digressions, by which I learned the facts I have already related in the order of their interest. I confessed to his uncle the character of our studies and of his nephew's predominant ideas; then the old man told me of the events that had come into Lambert's life since our parting. From Monsieur Lefebvre's account, Lambert had betrayed some symptoms of madness before his marriage; but they were such as are common to men who love passionately, and seemed to me less startling when I knew how vehement his love had been and when I saw Mademoiselle de Villenoix. In the country, where ideas are scarce, a man overflowing with original thought and devoted to a system, as Louis was, might well be regarded as eccentric, to say the least. His language would, no doubt, seem the stranger because he so rarely spoke. He would say, "That man does not dwell in my heaven," where any one else would have said, "We are not made on the same pattern." Every clever man has his own quirks of speech. The broader his genius, the more conspicuous are the singularities which constitute the various degrees of eccentricity. In the country an eccentric man is at once set down as half mad.

Hence Monsieur Lefebvre's first sentences left me doubtful of my schoolmate's insanity. I listened to the old man, but I criticised his statements.

The most serious symptom had supervened a day or two before the marriage. Louis had had some well-marked attacks of catalepsy. He had once remained motionless for fifty-nine hours, his eyes staring, neither speaking nor eating; a purely nervous affection, to which persons under the influence of violent passion are liable; a rare malady, but perfectly well known to the medical faculty. What was really extraordinary was that Louis should not have had several previous attacks, since his habits of rapt thought and the character of his mind would predispose him to them. But his temperament, physical and mental, was so admirably balanced, that it had no doubt been able to resist the demands on his strength. The excitement to which he had been wound up by the anticipation of acute physical enjoyment, enhanced by a chaste life and a highly-strung soul, had no doubt led to these attacks, of which the results are as little known as the cause.

The letters that have by chance escaped destruction show very plainly a transition from pure idealism to the most intense sensualism.

Time was when Lambert and I had admired this phenomenon of the human mind, in which he saw the fortuitous separation of our two natures, and the signs of a total removal of the inner man, using its unknown faculties under the operation of an unknown cause. This disorder, a mystery as deep as that of sleep, was connected with the scheme of evidence which Lambert had set forth in his Treatise on the Will. And when Monsieur Lefebvre spoke to me of Louis' first attack, I suddenly remembered a conversation we had had on the subject after reading a medical book.

"Deep meditation and rapt ecstasy are perhaps the undeveloped germs of catalepsy," he said in conclusion.

On the occasion when he so concisely formulated this idea, he had been trying to link mental phenomena together by a series of results, following the processes of the intellect step by step, from their beginnings as those simple, purely animal impulses of instinct, which are all-sufficient to many human beings, particularly to those men whose energies are wholly spent in mere mechanical labor; then, going on to the aggregation of ideas and rising to comparison, reflection, meditation, and finally ecstasy and catalepsy. Lambert, of course, in the artlessness of youth, imagined that he had laid down the lines of a great work when he thus built up a scale of the various degrees of man's mental powers.

I remember that, by one of those chances which seem like predestination, we got hold of a great Martyrology, in which the most curious narratives are given of the total abeyance of physical life which a man can attain to under the paroxysms of the inner life. By reflecting on the effects of fanaticism, Lambert was led to believe that the collected ideas to which we give the name of feelings may very possibly be the material outcome of some fluid which is generated in all men, more or less abundantly, according to the way in which their organs absorb, from the medium in which they live, the elementary atoms that produce it. We went crazy over catalepsy; and with the eagerness that boys throw into every pursuit, we endeavored to endure pain by thinking of something else. We exhausted ourselves by making experiments not unlike those of the epileptic fanatics of the last century, a religious mania which will some day be of service to the science of humanity. I would stand on Lambert's chest, remaining there several minutes without giving him the slightest pain; but notwithstanding these crazy attempts, we did not achieve an attack of catalepsy.

This digression seemed necessary to account for my first doubts, which were, however, completely dispelled by Monsieur Lefebvre.

"When this attack had passed off," said he, "my nephew sank into a state of extreme terror, a dejection that nothing could overcome. He thought himself unfit for marriage. I watched him with the care of a mother for her child, and found him preparing to perform on himself the operation to which Origen believed he owed his talents. I at once carried him off to Paris, and placed him under the care of Monsieur Esquirol. All through our journey Louis sat sunk in almost unbroken torpor, and did not recognize me. The Paris physicians pronounced him incurable, and unanimously advised his being left in perfect solitude, with nothing to break the silence that was needful for his very improbable recovery, and that he should live always in a cool room with a subdued light.--Mademoiselle de Villenoix, whom I had been careful not to apprise of Louis' state," he went on, blinking his eyes, "but who was supposed to have broken off the match, went to Paris and heard what the doctors had pronounced. She immediately begged to see my nephew, who hardly recognized her; then, like the noble soul she is, she insisted on devoting herself to giving him such care as might tend to his recovery. She would have been obliged to do so if he had been her husband, she said, and could she do less for him as her lover?

"She removed Louis to Villenoix, where they have been living for two years."

So, instead of continuing my journey, I stopped at Blois to go to see Louis. Good Monsieur Lefebvre would not hear of my lodging anywhere but at his house, where he showed me his nephew's room with the books and all else that had belonged to him. At every turn the old man could not suppress some mournful exclamation, showing what hopes Louis' precocious genius had raised, and the terrible grief into which this irreparable ruin had plunged him.

"That young fellow knew everything, my dear sir!" said he, laying on the table a volume containing Spinoza's works. "How could so well organized a brain go astray?"

"Indeed, monsieur," said I, "was it not perhaps the result of its being so highly organized? If he really is a victim to the malady as yet unstudied in all its aspects, which is known simply as madness, I am inclined to attribute it to his passion. His studies and his mode of life had strung his powers and faculties to a degree of energy beyond which the least further strain was too much for nature; Love was enough to crack them, or to raise them to a new form of expression which we are maligning perhaps, by ticketing it without due knowledge. In fact, he may perhaps have regarded the joys of marriage as an obstacle to the perfection of his inner man and his flight towards spiritual spheres."

"My dear sir," said the old man, after listening to me with attention, "your reasoning is, no doubt, very sound; but even if I could follow it, would this melancholy logic comfort me for the loss of my nephew?"

Lambert's uncle was one of those men who live only by their affections.

* * * * *

I went to Villenoix on the following day. The kind old man accompanied me to the gates of Blois. When we were out on the road to Villenoix, he stopped me and said:

"As you may suppose, I do not go there. But do not forget what I have said; and in Mademoiselle de Villenoix's presence affect not to perceive that Louis is mad."

He remained standing on the spot where I left him, watching me till I was out of sight.

I made my way to the chateau of Villenoix, not without deep agitation. My thoughts were many at each step on this road, which Louis had so often trodden with a heart full of hopes, a soul spurred on by the myriad darts of love. The shrubs, the trees, the turns of the winding road where little gullies broke the banks on each side, were to me full of strange interest. I tried to enter into the impressions and thoughts of my unhappy friend. Those evening meetings on the edge of the coombe, where his lady-love had been wont to find him, had, no doubt, initiated Mademoiselle de Villenoix into the secrets of that vast and lofty spirit, as I had learned them all some years before.

But the thing that most occupied my mind, and gave to my pilgrimage the interest of intense curiosity, in addition to the almost pious feelings that led me onwards, was that glorious faith of Mademoiselle de Villenoix's which the good priest had told me of. Had she in the course of time been infected with her lover's madness, or had she so completely entered into his soul that she could understand all its thoughts, even the most perplexed? I lost myself in the wonderful problem of feeling, passing the highest inspirations of passion and the most beautiful instances of self-sacrifice. That one should die for the other is an almost vulgar form of devotion. To live faithful to one love is a form of heroism that immortalized Mademoiselle Dupuis. When the great Napoleon and Lord Byron could find successors in the hearts of women they had loved, we may well admire Bolingbroke's widow; but Mademoiselle Dupuis could feed on the memories of many years of happiness, whereas Mademoiselle de Villenoix, having known nothing of love but its first excitement, seemed to me to typify love in its highest expression. If she were herself almost crazy, it was splendid; but if she had understood and entered into his madness, she combined with the beauty of a noble heart a crowning effort of passion worthy to be studied and honored.

When I saw the tall turrets of the chateau, remembering how often poor Lambert must have thrilled at the sight of them, my heart beat anxiously. As I recalled the events of our boyhood, I was almost a sharer in his present life and situation. At last I reached a wide, deserted courtyard, and I went into the hall of the house without meeting a soul. There the sound of my steps brought out an old woman, to whom I gave a letter written to Mademoiselle de Villenoix by Monsieur Lefebvre. In a few minutes this woman returned to bid me enter, and led me to a low room, floored with black-and-white marble; the Venetian shutters were closed, and at the end of the room I dimly saw Louis Lambert.

"Be seated, monsieur," said a gentle voice that went to my heart.

Mademoiselle de Villenoix was at my side before I was aware of her presence, and noiselessly brought me a chair, which at first I would not accept. It was so dark that at first I saw Mademoiselle de Villenoix and Lambert only as two black masses perceived against the gloomy background. I presently sat down under the influence of the feeling that comes over us, almost in spite of ourselves, under the obscure vault of a church. My eyes, full of the bright sunshine, accustomed themselves gradually to this artificial night.

"Monsieur is your old school-friend," she said to Louis.

He made no reply. At last I could see him, and it was one of those spectacles that are stamped on the memory for ever. He was standing, his elbows resting on the cornice of the low wainscot, which threw his body forward, so that it seemed bowed under the weight of his bent head. His hair was as long as a woman's, falling over his shoulders and hanging about his face, giving him a resemblance to the busts of the great men of the time of Louis XIV. His face was perfectly white. He constantly rubbed one leg against the other, with a mechanical action that nothing could have checked, and the incessant friction of the bones made a doleful sound. Near him was a bed of moss on boards.

"He very rarely lies down," said Mademoiselle de Villenoix; "but whenever he does, he sleeps for several days."

Louis stood, as I beheld him, day and night with a fixed gaze, never winking his eyelids as we do. Having asked Mademoiselle de Villenoix whether a little more light would hurt our friend, on her reply I opened the shutters a little way, and could see the expression of Lambert's countenance. Alas! he was wrinkled, white-headed, his eyes dull and lifeless as those of the blind. His features seemed all drawn upwards to the top of his head. I made several attempts to talk to him, but he did not hear me. He was a wreck snatched from the grave, a conquest of life from death--or of death from life!

I stayed for about an hour, sunk in unaccountable dreams, and lost in painful thought. I listened to Mademoiselle de Villenoix, who told me every detail of this life--that of a child in arms.

Suddenly Louis ceased rubbing his legs together, and said slowly:

"The angels are white."

I cannot express the effect produced upon me by this utterance, by the sound of the voice I had loved, whose accents, so painfully expected, had seemed to be lost for ever. My eyes filled with tears in spite of every effort. An involuntary instinct warned me, making me doubt whether Louis had really lost his reason. I was indeed well assured that he neither saw nor heard me; but the sweetness of his tone, which seemed to reveal heavenly happiness, gave his speech an amazing effect. These words, the incomplete revelation of an unknown world, rang in our souls like some glorious distant bells in the depth of a dark night. I was no longer surprised that Mademoiselle de Villenoix considered Lambert to be perfectly sane. The life of the soul had perhaps subdued that of the body. His faithful companion had, no doubt--as I had at that moment--intuitions of that melodious and beautiful existence to which we give the name of Heaven in its highest meaning.

This woman, this angel, always was with him, seated at her embroidery frame; and each time she drew the needle out she gazed at Lambert with sad and tender feeling. Unable to endure this terrible sight--for I could not, like Mademoiselle de Villenoix, read all his secrets--I went out, and she came with me to walk for a few minutes and talk of herself and of Lambert.

"Louis must, no doubt, appear to be mad," said she. "But he is not, if the term mad ought only to be used in speaking of those whose brain is for some unknown cause diseased, and who can show no reason in their actions. Everything in my husband is perfectly balanced. Though he did not actively recognize you, it is not that he did not see you. He has succeeded in detaching himself from his body, and discerns us under some other aspect--what that is, I know not. When he speaks, he utters wondrous things. Only it often happens that he concludes in speech an idea that had its beginning in his mind; or he may begin a sentence and finish it in thought. To other men he seems insane; to me, living as I do in his mind, his ideas are quite lucid. I follow the road his spirit travels; and though I do not know every turning, I can reach the goal with him.

"Which of us has not often known what it is to think of some futile thing and be led on to some serious reflection through the ideas or memories it brings in its train? Not unfrequently, after speaking about some trifle, the simple starting-point of a rapid train of reflections, a thinker may forget or be silent as to the abstract connection of ideas leading to his conclusion, and speak again only to utter the last link in the chain of his meditations.

"Inferior minds, to whom this swift mental vision is a thing unknown, who are ignorant of the spirit's inner workings, laugh at the dreamer; and if he is subject to this kind of obliviousness, regard him as a madman. Louis is always in this state; he soars perpetually through the spaces of thought, traversing them with the swiftness of a swallow; I can follow him in his flight. This is the whole history of his madness. Some day, perhaps, Louis will come back to the life in which we vegetate; but if he breathes the air of heaven before the time when we may be permitted to do so, why should we desire to have him down among us? I am content to hear his heart beat, and all my happiness is to be with him. Is he not wholly mine? In three years, twice at intervals he was himself for a few days; once in Switzerland, where we went, and once in an island off the wilds of Brittany, where we took some sea-baths. I have twice been very happy! I can live on memory."

"But do you write down the things he says?" I asked.

"Why should I?" said she.

I was silent; human knowledge was indeed as nothing in this woman's eyes.

"At those times, when he talked a little," she added, "I think I have recorded some of his phrases, but I left it off; I did not understand him then."

I asked her for them by a look; she understood me. This is what I have been able to preserve from oblivion.

I

Everything here on earth is produced by an ethereal substance which is the common element of various phenomena, known inaccurately as electricity, heat, light, the galvanic fluid, the magnetic fluid, and so forth. The universal distribution of this substance, under various forms, constitutes what is commonly known as Matter.

II

The brain is the alembic to which the Animal conveys what each of its organizations, in proportion to the strength of that vessel, can absorb of that Substance, which returns it transformed into Will.

The Will is a fluid inherent in every creature endowed with motion. Hence the innumerable forms assumed by the Animal, the results of its combinations with that Substance. The Animal's instincts are the product of the coercion of the environment in which it develops. Hence its variety.

III

In Man the Will becomes a power peculiar to him, and exceeding in intensity that of any other species.

IV

By constant assimilation, the Will depends on the Substance it meets with again and again in all its transmutations, pervading them by Thought, which is a product peculiar to the human Will, in combination with the modifications of that Substance.

V

The innumerable forms assumed by Thought are the result of the greater or less perfection of the human mechanism.

VI

The Will acts through organs commonly called the five senses, which, in fact, are but one--the faculty of Sight. Feeling and tasting, hearing and smelling, are Sight modified to the transformations of the Substance which Man can absorb in two conditions: untransformed and transformed.

VII

Everything of which the form comes within the cognizance of the one sense of Sight may be reduced to certain simple bodies of which the elements exist in the air, the light, or in the elements of air and light. Sound is a condition of the air; colors are all conditions of light; every smell is a combination of air and light; hence the four aspects of Matter with regard to Man--sound, color, smell, and shape--have the same origin, for the day is not far off when the relationship of the phenomena of air and light will be made clear.

Thought, which is allied to Light, is expressed in words which depend on sound. To man, then, everything is derived from the Substance, whose transformations vary only through Number--a certain quantitative dissimilarity, the proportions resulting in the individuals or objects of what are classed as Kingdoms.

VIII

When the Substance is absorbed in sufficient number (or quantity) it makes of man an immensely powerful mechanism, in direct communication with the very element of the Substance, and acting on organic nature in the same way as a large stream when it absorbs the smaller brooks. Volition sets this force in motion independently of the Mind. By its concentration it acquires some of the qualities of the Substance, such as the swiftness of light, the penetrating power of electricity, and the faculty of saturating a body; to which must be added that it apprehends what it can do.

Still, there is in man a primordial and overruling phenomenon which defies analysis. Man may be dissected completely; the elements of Will and Mind may perhaps be found; but there still will remain beyond apprehension the x against which I once used to struggle. That x is the Word, the Logos, whose communication burns and consumes those who are not prepared to receive it. The Word is for ever generating the Substance.

IX

Rage, like all our vehement demonstrations, is a current of the human force that acts electrically; its turmoil when liberated acts on persons who are present even though they be neither its cause nor its object. Are there not certain men who by a discharge of Volition can sublimate the essence of the feelings of the masses?

X

Fanaticism and all emotions are living forces. These forces in some beings become rivers that gather in and sweep away everything.

XI

Though Space is, certain faculties have the power of traversing it with such rapidity that it is as though it existed not. From your own bed to the frontiers of the universe there are but two steps: Will and Faith.

XII

Facts are nothing; they do not subsist; all that lives of us is the Idea.

XIII

The realm of Ideas is divided into three spheres: that of Instinct, that of Abstractions, that of Specialism.

XIV

The greater part, the weaker part of visible humanity, dwells in the Sphere of Instinct. The Instinctives are born, labor, and die without rising to the second degree of human intelligence, namely, Abstraction.

XV

Society begins in the sphere of Abstraction. If Abstraction, as compared with Instinct, is an almost divine power, it is nevertheless incredibly weak as compared with the gift of Specialism, which is the formula of God. Abstraction comprises all nature in a germ, more virtually than a seed contains the whole system of a plant and its fruits. From Abstraction are derived laws, arts, social ideas, and interests. It is the glory and the scourge of the earth: its glory because it has created social life; its scourge because it allows man to evade entering into Specialism, which is one of the paths to the Infinite. Man measures everything by Abstractions: Good and Evil, Virtue and Crime. Its formula of equity is a pair of scales, its justice is blind. God's justice sees: there is all the difference.

There must be intermediate Beings, then, dividing the sphere of Instinct from the sphere of Abstractions, in whom the two elements mingle in an infinite variety of proportions. Some have more of one, some more of the other. And there are also some in which the two powers neutralize each other by equality of effect.

XVI

Specialism consists in seeing the things of the material universe and the things of the spiritual universe in all their ramifications original and causative. The greatest human geniuses are those who started from the darkness of Abstraction to attain to the light of Specialism. (Specialism, species, sight; speculation, or seeing everything, and all at once; Speculum, a mirror or means of apprehending a thing by seeing the whole of it.) Jesus had the gift of Specialism; He saw each fact in its root and in its results, in the past where it had its rise, and in the future where it would grow and spread; His sight pierced into the understanding of others. The perfection of the inner eye gives rise to the gift of Specialism. Specialism brings with it Intuition. Intuition is one of the faculties of the Inner Man, of which Specialism is an attribute. Intuition acts by an imperceptible sensation of which he who obeys it is not conscious: for instance, Napoleon instinctively moving from a spot struck immediately afterwards by a cannon ball.

XVII

Between the sphere of Abstraction and that of Specialism, as between those of Abstraction and Instinct, there are beings in whom the attributes of both combine and produce a mixture; these are men of genius.

XVIII

Specialism is necessarily the most perfect expression of man, and he is the link binding the visible world to the higher worlds; he acts, sees, and feels by his inner powers. The man of Abstraction thinks. The man of Instinct acts.

XIX

Hence man has three degrees. That of Instinct, below the average; that of Abstraction, the general average; that of Specialism, above the average. Specialism opens to man his true career; the Infinite dawns on him; he sees what his destiny must be.

XX

There are three worlds--the Natural, the Spiritual, and the Divine. Humanity passes through the Natural world, which is not fixed either in its essence or its faculties. The Spiritual world is fixed in its essence and unfixed in its faculties. The Divine world is fixed in its faculties and its essence both. Hence there is necessarily a Material worship, a Spiritual worship, and a Divine worship: three forms expressed in action, speech, and prayer, or, in other words, in deed, apprehension, and love. Instinct demands deed; Abstraction is concerned with Ideas; Specialism sees the end, it aspires to God with presentiment or contemplation.

XXI

Hence, perhaps, some day the converse of Et Verbum caro factum est will become the epitome of a new Gospel, which will proclaim that The Flesh shall be made the Word and become the Utterance of God.

XXII

The Resurrection is the work of the Wind of Heaven sweeping over the worlds. The angel borne on the Wind does not say: "Arise, ye dead"; he says, "Arise, ye who live!"

* * * * *

Such are the meditations which I have with great difficulty cast in a form adapted to our understanding. There are some others which Pauline remembered more exactly, wherefore I know not, and which I wrote from her dictation; but they drive the mind to despair when, knowing in what an intellect they originated, we strive to understand them. I will quote a few of them to complete my study of this figure; partly, too, perhaps, because, in these last aphorisms, Lambert's formulas seem to include a larger universe than the former set, which would apply only to zoological evolution. Still, there is a relation between the two fragments, evident to those persons--though they be but few--who love to dive into such intellectual deeps.

I

Everything on earth exists solely by motion and number.

II

Motion is, so to speak, number in action.

III

Motion is the product of a force generated by the Word and by Resistance, which is Matter. But for Resistance, Motion would have had no results; its action would have been infinite. Newton's gravitation is not a law, but an effect of the general law of universal motion.

IV

Motion, acting in proportion to Resistance, produces a result which is Life. As soon as one or the other is the stronger, Life ceases.

V

No portion of Motion is wasted; it always produces number; still, it can be neutralized by disproportionate resistance, as in minerals.

VI

Number, which produces variety of all kinds, also gives rise to Harmony, which, in the highest meaning of the word, is the relation of parts to the whole.

VII

But for Motion, everything would be one and the same. Its products, identical in their essence, differ only by Number, which gives rise to faculties.

VIII

Man looks to faculties; angels look to the Essence.

IX

By giving his body up to elemental action, man can achieve an inner union with the Light.

X

Number is intellectual evidence belonging to man alone; by it he acquires knowledge of the Word.

XI

There is a Number beyond which the impure cannot pass: the Number which is the limit of creation.

XII

The Unit was the starting-point of every product: compounds are derived from it, but the end must be identical with the beginning. Hence this Spiritual formula: the compound Unit, the variable Unit, the fixed Unit.

XIII

The Universe is the Unit in variety. Motion is the means; Number is the result. The end is the return of all things to the Unit, which is God.

XIV

Three and Seven are the two chief Spiritual numbers.

XV

Three is the formula of created worlds. It is the Spiritual Sign of the creation, as it is the Material Sign of dimension. In fact, God has worked by curved lines only: the Straight Line is an attribute of the Infinite; and man, who has the presentiment of the Infinite, reproduces it in his works. Two is the number of generation. Three is the number of Life which includes generation and offspring. Add the sum of four, and you have Seven, the formula of Heaven. Above all is God; He is the Unit.

* * * * *

After going in to see Louis, once more, I took leave of his wife and went home, lost in ideas so adverse to social life that, in spite of a promise to return to Villenoix, I did not go.

The sight of Louis had had some mysteriously sinister influence over me. I was afraid to place myself again in that heavy atmosphere, where ecstasy was contagious. Any man would have felt, as I did, a longing to throw himself into the infinite, just as one soldier after another killed himself in a certain sentry box where one had committed suicide in the camp at Boulogne. It is a known fact that Napoleon was obliged to have the hut burned which had harbored an idea that had become a mortal infection.

Louis' room had perhaps the same fatal effect as that sentry box.

These two facts would then be additional evidence in favor of his theory of the transfusion of Will. I was conscious of strange disturbances, transcending the most fantastic results of taking tea, coffee, or opium, of dreams or of fever--mysterious agents, whose terrible action often sets our brains on fire.

I ought perhaps to have made a separate book of these fragments of thought, intelligible only to certain spirits who have been accustomed to lean over the edge of abysses in the hope of seeing to the bottom. The life of that mighty brain, which split up on every side perhaps, like a too vast empire, would have been set forth in the narrative of this man's visions--a being incomplete for lack of force or of weakness; but I preferred to give an account of my own impressions rather than to compose a more or less poetical romance.

* * * * *

Louis Lambert died at the age of twenty-eight, September 25, 1824, in his true love's arms. He was buried by her desire in an island in the park at Villenoix. His tombstone is a plain stone cross, without name or date. Like a flower that has blossomed on the margin of a precipice, and drops into it, its colors and fragrance all unknown, it was fitting that he too should fall. Like many another misprized soul, he had often yearned to dive haughtily into the void, and abandon there the secrets of his own life.

Mademoiselle de Villenoix would, however, have been quite justified in recording his name on that cross with her own. Since her partner's death, reunion has been her constant, hourly hope. But the vanities of woe are foreign to faithful souls.

Villenoix is falling into ruin. She no longer resides there; to the end, no doubt, that she may the better picture herself there as she used to be. She had said long ago:

"His heart was mine; his genius is with God."

CHATEAU DE SACHE, June-July 1832.

THE EXILES

ALMAE SORORI

In the year 1308 few houses were yet standing on the Island formed by the alluvium and sand deposited by the Seine above the Cite, behind the Church of Notre-Dame. The first man who was so bold as to build on this strand, then liable to frequent floods, was a constable of the watch of the City of Paris, who had been able to do some service to their Reverences the Chapter of the Cathedral; and in return the Bishop leased him twenty-five perches of land, with exemption from all feudal dues or taxes on the buildings he might erect.

Seven years before the beginning of this narrative, Joseph Tirechair, one of the sternest of Paris constables, as his name [Tear Flesh] would indicate, had, thanks to his share of the fines collected by him for delinquencies committed within the precincts of the Cite, been able to build a house on the bank of the Seine just at the end of the Rue du Port-Saint-Landry. To protect the merchandise landed on the strand, the municipality had constructed a sort of break-water of masonry, which may still be seen on some old plans of Paris, and which preserved the piles of the landing-place by meeting the rush of water and ice at the upper end of the Island. The constable had taken advantage of this for the foundation of his house, so that there were several steps up to his door.

Like all the houses of that date, this cottage was crowned by a peaked roof, forming a gable-end to the front, or half a diamond. To the great regret of historians, but two or three examples of such roofs survive in Paris. A round opening gave light to a loft, where the constable's wife dried the linen of the Chapter, for she had the honor of washing for the Cathedral--which was certainly not a bad customer. On the first floor were two rooms, let to lodgers at a rent, one year with another, of forty sous Parisis each, an exorbitant sum, that was however justified by the luxury Tirechair had lavished on their adornment. Flanders tapestry hung on the walls, and a large bed with a top valance of green serge, like a peasant's bed, was amply furnished with mattresses, and covered with good sheets of fine linen. Each room had a stove called a chauffe-doux; the floor, carefully polished by Dame Tirechair's apprentices, shone like the woodwork of a shrine. Instead of stools, the lodgers had deep chairs of carved walnut, the spoils probably of some raided castle. Two chests with pewter mouldings, and tables on twisted legs, completed the fittings, worthy of the most fastidious knights-banneret whom business might bring to Paris.

The windows of those two rooms looked out on the river. From one you could only see the shores of the Seine, and the three barren islands, of which two were subsequently joined together to form the Ile Saint-Louis; the third was the Ile de Louviers. From the other could be seen, down a vista of the Port-Saint-Landry, the buildings on the Greve, the Bridge of Notre-Dame, with its houses, and the tall towers of the Louvre, but lately built by Philippe-Auguste to overlook the then poor and squalid town of Paris, which suggests so many imaginary marvels to the fancy of modern romancers.

The ground floor of Tirechair's house consisted of a large hall, where his wife's business was carried on, through which the lodgers were obliged to pass on their way to their own rooms up a stairway like a mill-ladder. Behind this were a kitchen and a bedroom, with a view over the Seine. A tiny garden, reclaimed from the waters, displayed at the foot of this modest dwelling its beds of cabbages and onions, and a few rose-bushes, sheltered by palings, forming a sort of hedge. A little structure of lath and mud served as a kennel for a big dog, the indispensable guardian of so lonely a dwelling. Beyond this kennel was a little plot, where the hens cackled whose eggs were sold to the Canons. Here and there on this patch of earth, muddy or dry according to the whimsical Parisian weather, a few trees grew, constantly lashed by the wind, and teased and broken by the passer-by--willows, reeds, and tall grasses.

The Eyot, the Seine, the landing-place, the house, were all overshadowed on the west by the huge basilica of Notre-Dame casting its cold gloom over the whole plot as the sun moved. Then, as now, there was not in all Paris a more deserted spot, a more solemn or more melancholy prospect. The noise of waters, the chanting of priests, or the piping of the wind, were the only sounds that disturbed this wilderness, where lovers would sometimes meet to discuss their secrets when the church-folks and clergy were safe in church at the services.

* * * * *

One evening in April in the year 1308, Tirechair came home in a remarkably bad temper. For three days past everything had been in good order on the King's highway. Now, as an officer of the peace, nothing annoyed him so much as to feel himself useless. He flung down his halbert in a rage, muttered inarticulate words as he pulled off his doublet, half red and half blue, and slipped on a shabby camlet jerkin. After helping himself from the bread-box to a hunch of bread, and spreading it with butter, he seated himself on a bench, looked round at his four whitewashed walls, counted the beams of the ceiling, made a mental inventory of the household goods hanging from the nails, scowled at the neatness which left him nothing to complain of, and looked at his wife, who said not a word as she ironed the albs and surplices from the sacristy.

"By my halidom," he said, to open the conversation, "I cannot think, Jacqueline, where you go to catch your apprenticed maids. Now, here is one," he went on, pointing to a girl who was folding an altar-cloth, clumsily enough, it must be owned, "who looks to me more like a damsel rather free of her person than a sturdy country wench. Her hands are as white as a fine lady's! By the Mass! and her hair smells of essences, I verily believe, and her hose are as fine as a queen's. By the two horns of Old Nick, matters please me but ill as I find them here."

The girl colored, and stole a look at Jacqueline, full of alarm not unmixed with pride. The mistress answered her glance with a smile, laid down her work, and turned to her husband.

"Come now," said she, in a sharp tone, "you need not harry me. Are you going to accuse me next of some underhand tricks? Patrol your roads as much as you please, but do not meddle here with anything but what concerns your sleeping in peace, drinking your wine, and eating what I set before you, or else, I warn you, I will have no more to do with keeping you healthy and happy. Let any one find me a happier man in all the town," she went on, with a scolding grimace. "He has silver in his purse, a gable over the Seine, a stout halbert on one hand, an honest wife on the other, a house as clean and smart as a new pin! And he growls like a pilgrim smarting from Saint Anthony's fire!"

"Hey day!" exclaimed the sergeant of the watch, "do you fancy, Jacqueline, that I have any wish to see my house razed down, my halbert given to another, and my wife standing in the pillory?"

Jacqueline and the dainty journeywoman turned pale.

"Just tell me what you are driving at," said the washerwoman sharply, "and make a clean breast of it. For some days, my man, I have observed that you have some maggot twisting in your poor brain. Come up, then, and have it all out. You must be a pretty coward indeed if you fear any harm when you have only to guard the common council and live under the protection of the Chapter! Their Reverences the Canons would lay the whole bishopric under an interdict if Jacqueline brought a complaint of the smallest damage."

As she spoke, she went straight up to her husband and took him by the arm.

"Come with me," she added, pulling him up and out on to the steps.

When they were down by the water in their little garden, Jacqueline looked saucily in her husband's face.

"I would have you to know, you old gaby, that when my lady fair goes out, a piece of gold comes into our savings-box."

"Oh, ho!" said the constable, who stood silent and meditative before his wife. But he presently said, "Any way, we are done for.--What brings the dame to our house?"

"She comes to see the well-favored young clerk who lives overhead," replied Jacqueline, looking up at the window that opened on to the vast landscape of the Seine valley.

"The Devil's in it!" cried the man. "For a few base crowns you have ruined me, Jacqueline. Is that an honest trade for a sergeant's decent wife to ply? And, be she Countess or Baroness, the lady will not be able to get us out of the trap in which we shall find ourselves caught sooner or later. Shall we not have to square accounts with some puissant and offended husband? for, by the Mass, she is fair to look upon!"

"But she is a widow, I tell you, gray gander! How dare you accuse your wife of foul play and folly? And the lady has never spoken a word to yon gentle clerk; she is content to look on him and think of him. Poor lad! he would be dead of starvation by now but for her, for she is as good as a mother to him. And he, the sweet cherub! it is as easy to cheat him as to rock a new-born babe. He believes his pence will last for ever, and he has eaten them through twice over in the past six months."

"Woman," said the sergeant, solemnly pointing to the Place de Greve, "do you remember seeing, even from this spot, the fire in which they burnt the Danish woman the other day?"

"What then?" said Jacqueline, in a fright.

"What then?" echoed Tirechair. "Why, the two men who lodge with us smell of scorching. Neither Chapter nor Countess nor Protector can serve them. Here is Easter come round; the year is ending; we must turn our company out of doors, and that at once. Do you think you can teach an old constable how to know a gallows-bird? Our two lodgers were on terms with la Porette, that heretic jade from Denmark or Norway, whose last cries you heard from here. She was a brave witch; she never blenched at the stake, which was proof enough of her compact with the Devil. I saw her as plain as I see you; she preached to the throng, and declared she was in heaven and could see God.

"And since that, I tell you, I have never slept quietly in my bed. My lord, who lodges over us, is of a surety more of a wizard than a Christian. On my word as an officer, I shiver when that old man passes near me; he never sleeps of nights; if I wake, his voice is ringing like a bourdon of bells, and I hear him uttering incantations in the language of hell. Have you ever seen him eat an honest crust of bread or a hearth-cake made by a good Catholic baker? His brown skin has been scorched and tanned by hell-fires. Marry, and I tell you his eyes hold a spell like those of serpents. Jacqueline, I will have none of those two men under my roof. I see too much of the law not to know that it is well to have nothing to do with it.--You must get rid of our two lodgers; the elder, because I suspect him; the youngster, because he is too pretty. They neither of them seem to me to keep Christian company. The boy is ever staring at the moon, the stars, and the clouds, like a wizard watching for the hour when he shall mount his broomstick; the other old rogue certainly makes some use of the poor boy for his black art. My house stands too close to the river as it is, and that risk of ruin is bad enough without bringing down fire from heaven, or the love affairs of a countess. I have spoken. Do not rebel."

In spite of her sway in the house, Jacqueline stood stupefied as she listened to the edict fulminated against his lodgers by the sergeant of the watch. She mechanically looked up at the window of the room inhabited by the old man, and shivered with horror as she suddenly caught sight of the gloomy, melancholy face, and the piercing eye that so affected her husband, accustomed as he was to dealing with criminals.

At that period, great and small, priests and laymen, all trembled before the idea of any supernatural power. The word "magic" was as powerful as leprosy to root up feelings, break social ties, and freeze piety in the most generous soul. It suddenly struck the constable's wife that she never, in fact, had seen either of her lodgers exercising any human function. Though the younger man's voice was as sweet and melodious as the tones of a flute, she so rarely heard it that she was tempted to think his silence the result of a spell. As she recalled the strange beauty of that pink-and-white face, and saw in memory the fine fair hair and moist brilliancy of those eyes, she believed they were indeed the artifices of the Devil. She remembered that for days at a time she had never heard the slightest sound from either room. Where were the strangers during all those hours?

Suddenly the most singular circumstances recurred to her mind. She was completely overmastered by fear, and could even discern witchcraft in the rich lady's interest in this young Godefroid, a poor orphan who had come from Flanders to study at the University of Paris. She hastily put her hand into one of her pockets, pulled out four livres of Tournay in large silver coinage, and looked at the pieces with an expression of avarice mingled with terror.

"That, at any rate, is not false coin," said she, showing the silver to her husband. "Besides," she went on, "how can I turn them out after taking next year's rent paid in advance?"

"You had better inquire of the Dean of the Chapter," replied Tirechair. "Is not it his business to tell us how we should deal with these extraordinary persons?"

"Ay, truly extraordinary," cried Jacqueline. "To think of their cunning; coming here under the very shadow of Notre-Dame! Still," she went on, "or ever I ask the Dean, why not warn that fair and noble lady of the risk she runs?"

As she spoke, Jacqueline went into the house with her husband, who had not missed a mouthful. Tirechair, as a man grown old in the tricks of his trade, affected to believe that the strange lady was in fact a work-girl; still, this assumed indifference could not altogether cloak the timidity of a courtier who respects a royal incognito. At this moment six was striking by the clock of Saint-Denis du Pas, a small church that stood between Notre-Dame and the Port-Saint-Landry--the first church erected in Paris, on the very spot where Saint-Denis was laid on the gridiron, as chronicles tell. The hour flew from steeple to tower all over the city. Then suddenly confused shouts were heard on the left bank of the Seine, behind Notre-Dame, in the quarter where the schools of the University harbored their swarms.

At this signal, Jacqueline's elder lodger began to move about his room. The sergeant, his wife, and the strange lady listened while he opened and shut his door, and the old man's heavy step was heard on the steep stair. The constable's suspicions gave such interest to the advent of this personage, that the lady was startled as she observed the strange expression of the two countenances before her. Referring the terrors of this couple to the youth she was protecting--as was natural in a lover--the young lady awaited, with some uneasiness, the event thus heralded by the fears of her so-called master and mistress.

The old man paused for a moment on the threshold to scrutinize the three persons in the room, and seemed to be looking for his young companion. This glance of inquiry, unsuspicious as it was, agitated the three. Indeed, nobody, not even the stoutest man, could deny that Nature had bestowed exceptional powers on this being, who seemed almost supernatural. Though his eyes were somewhat deeply shaded by the wide sockets fringed with long eyebrows, they were set, like a kite's eyes, in eyelids so broad, and bordered by so dark a circle sharply defined on his cheek, that they seemed rather to be prominent. These singular eyes had in them something indescribably domineering and piercing, which took possession of the soul by a grave and thoughtful look, a look as bright and lucid as that of a serpent or a bird, but which held one fascinated and crushed by the swift communication of some tremendous sorrow, or of some superhuman power.

Every feature was in harmony with this eye of lead and of fire, at once rigid and flashing, stern and calm. While in this eagle eye earthly emotions seemed in some sort extinct, the lean, parched face also bore traces of unhappy passions and great deeds done. The nose, which was narrow and aquiline, was so long that it seemed to hang on by the nostrils. The bones of the face were strongly marked by the long, straight wrinkles that furrowed the hollow cheeks. Every line in the countenance looked dark. It would suggest the bed of a torrent where the violence of former floods was recorded in the depth of the water-courses, which testified to some terrible, unceasing turmoil. Like the ripples left by the oars of a boat on the waters, deep lines, starting from each side of his nose, marked his face strongly, and gave an expression of bitter sadness to his mouth, which was firm and straight-lipped. Above the storm thus stamped on his countenance, his calm brow rose with what may be called boldness, and crowned it as with a marble dome.

The stranger preserved that intrepid and dignified manner that is frequently habitual with men inured to disaster, and fitted by nature to stand unmoved before a furious mob and to face the greatest dangers. He seemed to move in a sphere apart, where he poised above humanity. His gestures, no less than his look, were full of irresistible power; his lean hands were those of a soldier; and if your own eyes were forced to fall before his piercing gaze, you were no less sure to tremble when by word or action he spoke to your soul. He moved in silent majesty that made him seem a king without his guard, a god without his rays.

His dress emphasized the ideas suggested by the peculiarities of his mien and face. Soul, body, and garb were in harmony, and calculated to impress the coldest imagination. He wore a sort of sleeveless gown of black cloth, fastened in front, and falling to the calf, leaving the neck bare with no collar. His doublet and boots were likewise black. On his head was a black velvet cap like a priest's, sitting in a close circle above his forehead, and not showing a single hair. It was the strictest mourning, the gloomiest habit a man could wear. But for a long sword that hung by his side from a leather belt which could be seen where his surcoat hung open, a priest would have hailed him as a brother. Though of no more than middle height, he appeared tall; and, looking him in the face, he seemed a giant.

"The clock has struck, the boat is waiting; will you not come?"

At these words, spoken in bad French, but distinctly audible in the silence, a little noise was heard in the other top room, and the young man came down as lightly as a bird.

When Godefroid appeared, the lady's face turned crimson; she trembled, started, and covered her face with her white hands.

Any woman might have shared her agitation at the sight of this youth of about twenty, of a form and stature so slender that at a first glance he might have been taken for a mere boy, or a young girl in disguise. His black cap--like the beret worn by the Basque people--showed a brow as white as snow, where grace and innocence shone with an expression of divine sweetness--the light of a soul full of faith. A poet's fancy would have seen there the star which, in some old tale, a mother entreats the fairy godmother to set on the forehead of an infant abandoned, like Moses, to the waves. Love lurked in the thousand fair curls that fell over his shoulders. His throat, truly a swan's throat, was white and exquisitely round. His blue eyes, bright and liquid, mirrored the sky. His features and the mould of his brow were refined and delicate enough to enchant a painter. The bloom of beauty, which in a woman's face causes men such indescribable delight, the exquisite purity of outline, the halo of light that bathes the features we love, were here combined with a masculine complexion, and with strength as yet but half developed, in the most enchanting contrast. His was one of those melodious countenances which even when silent speak and attract us. And yet, on marking it attentively, the incipient blight might have been detected which comes of a great thought or a passion, the faint yellow tinge that made him seem like a young leaf opening to the sun.

No contrast could be greater or more startling than that seen in the companionship of these two men. It was like seeing a frail and graceful shrub that has grown from the hollow trunk of some gnarled willow, withered by age, blasted by lightning, standing decrepit; one of those majestic trees that painters love; the trembling sapling takes shelter there from storms. One was a god, the other was an angel; one the poet that feels, the other the poet that expresses--a prophet in sorrow, a levite in prayer.

They went out together without speaking.

"Did you mark how he called him to him?" cried the sergeant of the watch when the footsteps of the couple were no longer audible on the strand. "Are not they a demon and his familiar?"

"Phooh!" puffed Jacqueline. "I felt smothered! I never marked our two lodgers so carefully. 'Tis a bad thing for us women that the Devil can wear so fair a mien!"

"Ay, cast some holy water on him," said Tirechair, "and you will see him turn into a toad.--I am off to tell the office all about them."

On hearing this speech, the lady roused herself from the reverie into which she had sunk, and looked at the constable, who was donning his red-and-blue jacket.

"Whither are you off to?" she asked.

"To tell the justices that wizards are lodging in our house very much against our will."

The lady smiled.

"I," said she, "am the Comtesse de Mahaut," and she rose with a dignity that took the man's breath away. "Beware of bringing the smallest trouble on your guests. Above all, respect the old man; I have seen him in the company of your Lord the King, who entreated him courteously; you will be ill advised to trouble him in any way. As to my having been here--never breathe a word of it, as you value your life."

She said no more, but relapsed into thought.

Presently she looked up, signed to Jacqueline, and together they went up into Godefroid's room. The fair Countess looked at the bed, the carved chairs, the chest, the tapestry, the table, with a joy like that of the exile who sees on his return the crowded roofs of his native town nestling at the foot of a hill.

"If you have not deceived me," she said to Jacqueline, "I promise you a hundred crowns in gold."

"Behold, madame," said the woman, "the poor angel is confiding--here is all his treasure."

As she spoke, Jacqueline opened a drawer in the table and showed some parchments.

"God of mercy!" cried the Countess, snatching up a document that caught her eye, on which she read, Gothofredus Comes Gantiacus (Godefroid, Count of Ghent).

She dropped the parchment, and passed her hand over her brow; then, feeling, no doubt, that she had compromised herself by showing so much emotion, she recovered her cold demeanor.

"I am satisfied," said she.

She went downstairs and out of the house. The constable and his wife stood in their doorway, and saw her take the path to the landing-place.

A boat was moored hard by. When the rustle of the Countess' approach was audible, a boatman suddenly stood up, helped the fair laundress to take her seat in it, and rowed with such strength as to make the boat fly like a swallow down the stream.

"You are a sorry fellow," said Jacqueline, giving the officer's shoulder a familiar slap. "We have earned a hundred gold crowns this morning."

"I like harboring lords no better than harboring wizards. And I know not, of the two, which is the more like to bring us to the gallows," replied Tirechair, taking up his halbert. "I will go my rounds over by Champfleuri; God protect us, and send me to meet some pert jade out in her bravery of gold rings to glitter in the shade like a glow-worm!"

Jacqueline, alone in the house, hastily went up to the unknown lord's room to discover, if she could, some clue to this mysterious business. Like some learned men who give themselves infinite pains to complicate the clear and simple laws of nature, she had already invented a chaotic romance to account for the meeting of these three persons under her humble roof. She hunted through the chest, examined everything, but could find nothing extraordinary. She saw nothing on the table but a writing-case and some sheets of parchment; and as she could not read, this discovery told her nothing. A woman's instinct then took her into the young man's room, and from thence she descried her two lodgers crossing the river in the ferry boat.

"They stand like two statues," said she to herself. "Ah, ha! They are landing at the Rue du Fouarre. How nimble he is, the sweet youth! He jumped out like a bird. By him the old man looks like some stone saint in the Cathedral.--They are going to the old School of the Four Nations. Presto! they are out of sight.--And this is where he lives, poor cherub!" she went on, looking about the room. "How smart and winning he is! Ah! your fine gentry are made of other stuff than we are."

And Jacqueline went down again after smoothing down the bed-coverlet, dusting the chest, and wondering for the hundredth time in six months:

"What in the world does he do all the blessed day? He cannot always be staring at the blue sky and the stars that God has hung up there like lanterns. That dear boy has known trouble. But why do he and the old man hardly ever speak to each other?"

Then she lost herself in wonderment and in thoughts which, in her woman's brain, were tangled like a skein of thread.

The old man and his young companion had gone into one of the schools for which the Rue du Fouarre was at that time famous throughout Europe. At the moment when Jacqueline's two lodgers arrived at the old School des Quatre Nations, the celebrated Sigier, the most noted Doctor of Mystical Theology of the University of Paris, was mounting his pulpit in a spacious low room on a level with the street. The cold stones were strewn with clean straw, on which several of his disciples knelt on one knee, writing on the other, to enable them to take notes from the Master's improvised discourse, in the shorthand abbreviations which are the despair of modern decipherers.

The hall was full, not of students only, but of the most distinguished men belonging to the clergy, the court, and the legal faculty. There were some learned foreigners, too--soldiers and rich citizens. The broad faces were there, with prominent brows and venerable beards, which fill us with a sort of pious respect for our ancestors when we see their portraits from the Middle Ages. Lean faces, too, with burning, sunken eyes, under bald heads yellow from the labors of futile scholasticism, contrasted with young and eager countenances, grave faces, warlike faces, and the ruddy cheeks of the financial class.

These lectures, dissertations, theses, sustained by the brightest geniuses of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, roused our forefathers to enthusiasm. They were to them their bull-fights, their Italian opera, their tragedy, their dancers; in short, all their drama. The performance of Mysteries was a later thing than these spiritual disputations, to which, perhaps, we owe the French stage. Inspired eloquence, combining the attractions of the human voice skilfully used, with daring inquisition into the secrets of God, sufficed to satisfy every form of curiosity, appealed to the soul, and constituted the fashionable entertainment of the time. Not only did Theology include the other sciences, it was science itself, as grammar was science to the Ancient Greeks; and those who distinguished themselves in these duels, in which the orators, like Jacob, wrestled with the Spirit of God, had a promising future before them. Embassies, arbitrations between sovereigns, chancellorships, and ecclesiastical dignities were the meed of men whose rhetoric had been schooled in theological controversy. The professor's chair was the tribune of the period.

This system lasted till the day when Rabelais gibbeted dialectics by his merciless satire, as Cervantes demolished chivalry by a narrative comedy.

To understand this amazing period and the spirit which dictated its voluminous, though now forgotten, masterpieces, to analyze it, even to its barbarisms, we need only examine the Constitutions of the University of Paris and the extraordinary scheme of instruction that then obtained. Theology was taught under two faculties--that of Theology properly so called, and that of Canon Law. The faculty of Theology, again, had three sections--Scholastic, Canonical, and Mystic. It would be wearisome to give an account of the attributes of each section of the science, since one only, namely, Mystic, is the subject of this Etude.

Mystical Theology included the whole of Divine Revelation and the elucidation of the Mysteries. And this branch of ancient theology has been secretly preserved with reverence even to our own day; Jacob Boehm, Swedenborg, Martinez Pasqualis, Saint-Martin, Molinos, Madame Guyon, Madame Bourignon, and Madame Krudener, the extensive sect of the Ecstatics, and that of the Illuminati, have at different periods duly treasured the doctrines of this science, of which the aim is indeed truly startling and portentous. In Doctor Sigier's day, as in our own, man has striven to gain wings to fly into the sanctuary where God hides from our gaze.

This digression was necessary to give a clue to the scene at which the old man and the youth from the island under Notre-Dame had come to be audience; it will also protect this narrative from all blame on the score of falsehood and hyperbole, of which certain persons of hasty judgment might perhaps suspect me.

Doctor Sigier was a tall man in the prime of life. His face, rescued from oblivion by the archives of the University, had singular analogies with that of Mirabeau. It was stamped with the seal of fierce, swift, and terrible eloquence. But the Doctor bore on his brow the expression of religious faith that his modern double had not. His voice, too, was of persuasive sweetness, with a clear and pleasing ring in it.

At this moment the daylight, that was stintingly diffused through the small, heavily-leaded window-panes, tinted the assembly with capricious tones and powerful contrasts from the chequered light and shade. Here, in a dark corner, eyes shone brightly, their dark heads under the sunbeams gleamed light above faces in shadow, and various bald heads, with only a circlet of white hair, were distinguished among the crowd like battlements silvered by moonlight. Every face was turned towards the Doctor, mute but impatient. The drowsy voices of other lecturers in the adjoining schools were audible in the silent street like the murmuring of the sea; and the steps of the two strangers, as they now came in, attracted general attention. Doctor Sigier, ready to begin, saw the stately senior standing, looked round for a seat for him, and then finding none, as the place was full, came down from his place, went to the newcomer, and with great respect, led him to the platform of his professor's chair, and there gave him his stool to sit upon. The assembly hailed this mark of deference with a murmur of approval, recognizing the old man as the orator of a fine thesis admirably argued not long since at the Sorbonne.

The stranger looked down from his raised position on the crowd below with that deep glance that held a whole poem of sorrow, and those who met his eye felt an indescribable thrill. The lad, following the old man, sat down on one of the steps, leaning against the pulpit in a graceful and melancholy attitude. The silence was now profound, and the doorway and even the street were blocked by scholars who had deserted the other classes.

Doctor Sigier was to-day to recapitulate, in the last of a series of discourses, the views he had set forth in the former lectures on the Resurrection, Heaven, and Hell. His strange doctrine responded to the sympathies of the time, and gratified the immoderate love of the marvelous, which haunts the mind of man in every age. This effort of man to clutch the infinite, which for ever slips through his ineffectual grasp, this last tourney of thought against thought, was a task worthy of an assembly where the brightest luminaries of the age had met, and where the most stupendous human imagination ever known, perhaps, at that moment shone.

The Doctor began by summing up in a mild and even tone the principal points he had so far established:

"No intellect was the exact counterpart of another. Had man any right to require an account of his Creator for the inequality of powers bestowed on each? Without attempting to penetrate rashly into the designs of God, ought we not to recognize the fact that by reason of their general diversity intelligences could be classed in spheres? From the sphere where the least degree of intelligence gleamed, to the most translucent souls who could see the road by which to ascend to God, was there not an ascending scale of spiritual gift? And did not spirits of the same sphere understand each other like brothers in soul, in flesh, in mind, and in feeling?"

From this the Doctor went on to unfold the most wonderful theories of sympathy. He set forth in Biblical language the phenomena of love, of instinctive repulsion, of strong affinities which transcend the laws of space, of the sudden mingling of souls which seem to recognize each other. With regard to the different degrees of strength of which our affections are capable, he accounted for them by the place, more or less near the centre, occupied by beings in their respective circles.

He gave mathematical expression to God's grand idea in the co-ordination of the various human spheres. "Through man," he said, "these spheres constituted a world intermediate between the intelligence of the brute and the intelligence of the angels." As he stated it, the divine Word nourishes the spiritual Word, the spiritual Word nourishes the living Word, the living Word nourishes the animal Word, the animal Word nourishes the vegetable Word, and the vegetable Word is the expression of the life of the barren Word. These successive evolutions, as of a chrysalis, which God thus wrought in our souls, this infusorial life, so to speak, communicated from each zone to the next, more vivid, more spiritual, more perceptive in its ascent, represented, rather dimly no doubt, but marvelously enough to his inexperienced hearers, the impulse given to Nature by the Almighty. Supported by many texts from the Sacred Scriptures, which he used as a commentary on his own statements to express by concrete images the abstract arguments he felt to be wanting, he flourished the Spirit of God like a torch over the deep secrets of creation, with an eloquence peculiar to himself, and accents that urged conviction on his audience. As he unfolded his mysterious system and all its consequences, he gave a key to every symbol and justified the vocation, the special gifts, the genius, the talent of each human being.

Then, instinctively becoming physiological, he remarked on the resemblance to certain animals stamped on some human faces, accounting for them by primordial analogies and the upward tendency of all creation. He showed his audience the workings of Nature, and assigned a mission and a future to minerals, plants, and animals. Bible in hand, after thus spiritualizing Matter and materializing Spirit, after pointing to the Will of God in all things, and enjoining respect for His smallest works, he suggested the possibility of rising by faith from sphere to sphere.

This was the first portion of his discourse, and by adroit digressions he applied the doctrine of his system to feudalism. The poetry--religious and profane--and the abrupt eloquence of that period had a grand opening in this vast theory, wherein the Doctor had amalgamated all the philosophical systems of the ancients, and from which he brought them out again classified, transfigured, purified. The false dogmas of two adverse principles and of Pantheism were demolished at his word, which proclaimed the Divine Unity, while ascribing to God and His angels the knowledge, the ends to which the means shone resplendent to the eyes of man. Fortified by the demonstrations that proved the existence of the world of Matter, Doctor Sigier constructed the scheme of a spiritual world dividing us from God by an ascending scale of spheres, just as the plant is divided from man by an infinite number of grades. He peopled the heavens, the stars, the planets, the sun.

Quoting Saint Paul, he invested man with a new power; he might rise, from globe to globe, to the very Fount of eternal life. Jacob's mystical ladder was both the religious formula and the traditional proof of the fact. He soared through space, carrying with him the passionate souls of his hearers on the wings of his word, making them feel the infinite, and bathing them in the heavenly sea. Then the Doctor accounted logically for hell by circles placed in inverse order to the shining spheres that lead to God, in which torments and darkness take the place of the Spirit and of light. Pain was as intelligible as rapture. The terms of the comparison were present in the conditions of human life and its various atmospheres of suffering and of intellect. Thus the most extraordinary traditions of hell and purgatory were quite naturally conceivable.

He gave the fundamental rationale of virtue with admirable clearness. A pious man, toiling onward in poverty, proud of his good conscience, at peace with himself, and steadfastly true to himself in his heart in spite of the spectacle of exultant vice, was a fallen angel doing penance, who remembered his origin, foresaw his guerdon, accomplished his task, and obeyed his glorious mission. The sublime resignation of Christians was then seen in all its glory. He depicted martyrs at the burning stake, and almost stripped them of their merit by stripping them of their sufferings. He showed their inner angel as dwelling in the heavens, while the outer man was tortured by the executioner's sword. He described angels dwelling among men, and gave tokens by which to recognize them.

He next strove to drag from the very depths of man's understanding the real sense of the word fall, which occurs in every language. He appealed to the most widely-spread traditions in evidence of this one true origin, explaining, with much lucidity, the passion all men have for rising, mounting--an instinctive ambition, the perennial revelation of our destiny.

He displayed the whole universe at a glance, and described the nature of God Himself circulating in a full tide from the centre to the extremities, and from the extremities to the centre again. Nature was one and homogeneous. In the most seemingly trivial, as in the most stupendous work, everything obeyed that law; each created object reproduced in little an exact image of that nature--the sap in the plant, the blood in man, the orbits of the planets. He piled proof on proof, always completing his idea by a picture musical with poetry.

And he boldly anticipated every objection. He thundered forth an eloquent challenge to the monumental works of science and human excrescences of knowledge, such as those which societies use the elements of the earthly globe to produce. He asked whether our wars, our disasters, our depravity could hinder the great movement given by God to all the globes; and he laughed human impotence to scorn by pointing to their efforts everywhere in ruins. He cried upon the manes of Tyre, Carthage, and Babylon; he called upon Babel and Jerusalem to appear; and sought, without finding them, the transient furrows made by the ploughshare of civilization. Humanity floated on the surface of the earth as a ship whose wake is lost in the calm level of ocean.

These were the fundamental notions set forth in Doctor Sigier's address, all wrapped in the mystical language and strange school Latin of the time. He had made a special study of the Scriptures, and they supplied him with the weapons with which he came before his contemporaries to hasten their progress. He hid his boldness under his immense learning, as with a cloak, and his philosophical bent under a saintly life. At this moment, after bringing his hearers face to face with God, after packing the universe into an idea, and almost unveiling the idea of the world, he gazed down on the silent, throbbing mass, and scrutinized the stranger with a look. Then, spurred on, no doubt, by the presence of this remarkable personage, he added these words, from which I have eliminated the corrupt Latinity of the Middle Ages:--

"Where, think you, may a man find these fruitful truths if not in the heart of God Himself?--What am I?--The humble interpreter of a single line left to us by the greatest of the Apostles--a single line out of thousands all equally full of light. Before us, Saint Paul said, 'In Deo vivimus movemur et sumus.' In our day, less believing and more learned, or better instructed and more sceptical, we should ask the Apostle, 'To what end this perpetual motion? Whither leads this life divided into zones? Wherefore an intelligence that begins with the obscure perfection of marble and proceeds from sphere to sphere up to man, up to the angel, up to God? Where is the Fount, where is the ocean, if life, attaining to God across worlds and stars, through Matter and Spirit, has to come down again to some other goal?'

"You desire to see both aspects of the universe at once. You would adore the Sovereign on condition of being suffered to sit for an instant on His throne. Mad fools that we are! We will not admit that the most intelligent animals are able to understand our ideas and the object of our actions; we are merciless to the creatures of the inferior spheres, and exile them from our own; we deny them the faculty of divining human thoughts, and yet we ourselves would fain master the highest of all ideas--the Idea of the Idea!

"Well, go then, start! Fly by faith up from globe to globe, soar through space! Thought, love, and faith are its mystical keys. Traverse the circles, reach the throne! God is more merciful than you are; He opens His temple to all His creatures. Only, do not forget the pattern of Moses; put your shoes from off your feet cast off all filth, leave your body far behind; otherwise you shall be consumed; for God--God is Light!"

Just as Doctor Sigier spoke these grand words, his face radiant, his hand uplifted, a sunbeam pierced through an open window, like a magic jet from a fount of splendor, a long triangular shaft of gold that lay like a scarf over the whole assembly. They all clapped their hands, for the audience accepted this effect of the sinking sun as a miracle. There was a universal cry of:

"Vivat! Vivat!"

The very sky seemed to shed approval. Godefroid, struck with reverence, looked from the old man to Doctor Sigier; they were talking together in an undertone.

"All honor to the Master!" said the stranger.

"What is such transient honor?" replied Sigier.

"I would I could perpetuate my gratitude," said the older man.

"A line written by you is enough!" said the Doctor. "It would give me immortality, humanly speaking."

"Can I give what I have not?" cried the elder.

Escorted by the crowd, which followed in their footsteps, like courtiers round a king, at a respectful distance, Godefroid, with the old man and the Doctor, made their way to the oozy shore, where as yet there were no houses, and where the ferryman was waiting for them. The Doctor and the stranger were talking together, not in Latin nor in any Gallic tongue, but in an unknown language, and very gravely. They pointed with their hands now to heaven and now to the earth. Sigier, to whom the paths by the river were familiar, guided the venerable stranger with particular care to the narrow planks which here and there bridged the mud; the following watched them inquisitively; and some of the students envied the privileged boy who might walk with these two great masters of speech. Finally, the Doctor took leave of the stranger, and the ferry-boat pushed off.

At the moment when the boat was afloat on the wide river, communicating its motion to the soul, the sun pierced the clouds like a conflagration blazing up on the horizon, and poured forth a flood of light, coloring slate roof-tops and humbler thatch with a ruddy glow and tawny reflections, fringed Philippe Auguste's towers with fire, flooded the sky, dyed the waters, gilded the plants, and aroused the half-sleeping insects. The immense shaft of light set the clouds on fire. It was like the last verse of the daily hymn. Every heart was thrilled; nature in such a moment is sublime.

As he gazed at the spectacle, the stranger's eyes moistened with the tenderest of human tears: Godefroid too was weeping; his trembling hand touched that of the elder man, who, looking round, confessed his emotion. But thinking his dignity as a man compromised, no doubt, to redeem it, he said in a deep voice:

"I weep for my native land. I am an exile! Young man, in such an hour as this I left my home. There, at this hour, the fireflies are coming out of their fragile dwellings and clinging like diamond sparks to the leaves of the iris. At this hour the breeze, as sweet as the sweetest poetry, rises up from a valley bathed in light, bearing on its wings the richest fragrance. On the horizon I could see a golden city like the Heavenly Jerusalem--a city whose name I may not speak. There, too, a river winds. But that city and its buildings, that river of which the lovely vistas, and the pools of blue water, mingled, crossed, and embraced each other, which gladdened my sight and filled me with love--where are they?

"At that hour the waters assumed fantastic hues under the sunset sky, and seemed to be painted pictures; the stars dropped tender streaks of light, the moon spread its pleasing snares; it gave another life to the trees, to the color and form of things, and a new aspect to the sparkling water, the silent hills, the eloquent buildings. The city spoke, it glittered, it called to me to return!

"Columns of smoke rose up by the side of the ancient pillars, whose marble sheen gleamed white through the night; the lines of the horizon were still visible through the mists of evening; all was harmony and mystery. Nature would not say farewell; she desired to keep me there. Ah! It was all in all to me; my mother and my child, my wife and my glory! The very bells bewailed my condemnation. Oh, land of marvels! It is as beautiful as heaven. From that hour the wide world has been my dungeon. Beloved land, why hast thou rejected me?

"But I shall triumph there yet!" he cried, speaking with an accent of such intense conviction and such a ringing tone, that the boatman started as at a trumpet call.

The stranger was standing in a prophetic attitude and gazing southwards into the blue, pointing to his native home across the skyey regions. The ascetic pallor of his face had given place to a glow of triumph, his eyes flashed, he was as grand as a lion shaking his mane.

"But you, poor child," he went on, looking at Godefroid, whose cheeks were beaded with glittering tears, "have you, like me, studied life from blood-stained pages? What can you have to weep for, at your age?"

"Alas!" said Godefroid, "I regret a land more beautiful than any land on earth--a land I never saw and yet remember. Oh, if I could but cleave the air on beating wings, I would fly----"

"Whither?" asked the exile.

"Up there," replied the boy.

On hearing this answer, the stranger seemed surprised; he looked darkly at the youth, who remained silent. They seemed to communicate by an unspeakable effusion of the spirit, hearing each other's yearnings in the teeming silence, and going forth side by side, like two doves sweeping the air on equal wing, till the boat, touching the strand of the island, roused them from their deep reverie.

Then, each lost in thought, they went together to the sergeant's house.

"And so the boy believes that he is an angel exiled from heaven!" thought the tall stranger. "Which of us all has a right to undeceive him? Not I--I, who am so often lifted by some magic spell so far above the earth; I who am dedicate to God; I who am a mystery to myself. Have I not already seen the fairest of the angels dwelling in this mire? Is this child more or less crazed than I am? Has he taken a bolder step in the way of faith? He believes, and his belief no doubt will lead him into some path of light like that in which I walk. But though he is as beautiful as an angel, is he not too feeble to stand fast in such a struggle?"

Abashed by the presence of his companion, whose voice of thunder expressed to him his own thoughts, as lightning expresses the will of Heaven, the boy was satisfied to gaze at the stars with a lover's eyes. Overwhelmed by a luxury of sentiment, which weighed on his heart, he stood there timid and weak--a midge in the sunbeams. Sigier's discourse had proved to them the mysteries of the spiritual world; the tall, old man was to invest them with glory; the lad felt them in himself, though he could in no way express them. The three represented in living embodiment Science, Poetry, and Feeling.

* * * * *

On going into the house, the Exile shut himself into his room, lighted the inspiring lamp, and gave himself over to the ruthless demon of Work, seeking words of the silence and ideas of the night. Godefroid sat down in his window sill, by turns gazing at the moon reflected in the water, and studying the mysteries of the sky. Lost in one of the trances that were frequent with him, he traveled from sphere to sphere, from vision to vision, listening for obscure rustlings and the voices of angels, and believing that he heard them; seeing, or fancying that he saw, a divine radiance in which he lost himself; striving to attain the far-away goal, the source of all light, the fount of all harmony.

Presently the vast clamor of Paris, brought down on the current, was hushed; lights were extinguished one by one in the houses; silence spread over all; and the huge city slept like a tired giant.

Midnight struck. The least noise, the fall of a leaf, or the flight of a jackdaw changing its perching-place among the pinnacles of Notre-Dame, would have been enough to bring the stranger's mind to earth again, to have made the youth drop from the celestial heights to which his soul had soared on the wings of rapture.

And then the old man heard with dismay a groan mingling with the sound of a heavy fall--the fall, as his experienced ear assured him, of a dead body. He hastened into Godefroid's room, and saw him lying in a heap with a long rope tight round his neck, the end meandering over the floor.

When he had untied it, the poor lad opened his eyes.

"Where am I?" he asked, with a hopeful gleam.

"In your own room," said the elder man, looking with surprise at Godefroid's neck, and at the nail to which the cord had been tied, and which was still in the knot.

"In heaven?" said the boy, in a voice of music.

"No; on earth!"

Godefroid rose and walked along the path of light traced on the floor by the moon through the window, which stood open; he saw the rippling Seine, the willows and plants on the island. A misty atmosphere hung over the waters like a smoky floor.

On seeing the view, to him so heartbreaking, he folded his hands over his bosom, and stood in an attitude of despair; the Exile came up to him with astonishment on his face.

"You meant to kill yourself?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Godefroid, while the stranger passed his hand about his neck again and again to feel the place where the rope had tightened on it.

But for some slight bruises, the young man had been but little hurt. His friend supposed that the nail had given way at once under the weight of the body, and the terrible attempt had ended in a fall without injury.

"And why, dear lad, did you try to kill yourself?"

"Alas!" said Godefroid, no longer restraining the tears that rolled down his cheeks, "I heard the Voice from on high; it called me by name! It had never named me before, but this time it bade me to Heaven! Oh, how sweet is that voice!--As I could not fly to Heaven," he added artlessly, "I took the only way we know of going to God."

"My child! oh, sublime boy!" cried the old man, throwing his arms round Godefroid, and clasping him to his heart. "You are a poet; you can boldly ride the whirlwind! Your poetry does not proceed from your heart; your living, burning thoughts, your creations, move and grow in your soul.--Go, never reveal your ideas to the vulgar! Be at once the altar, the priest, and the victim!

"You know Heaven, do you not? You have seen those myriads of angels, white-winged, and holding golden sistrums, all soaring with equal flight towards the Throne, and you have often seen their pinions moving at the breath of God as the trees of the forest bow with one consent before the storm. Ah, how glorious is unlimited space! Tell me."

The stranger clasped Godefroid's hand convulsively, and they both gazed at the firmament, whence the stars seemed to shed gentle poetry which they could bear.

"Oh, to see God!" murmured Godefroid.

"Child!" said the old man suddenly, in a sterner voice, "have you so soon forgotten the holy teaching of our good master, Doctor Sigier? In order to return, you to your heavenly home, and I to my native land on earth, must we not obey the voice of God? We must walk on resignedly in the stony paths where His almighty finger points the way. Do not you quail at the thought of the danger to which you exposed yourself? Arriving there without being bidden, and saying, 'Here I am!' before your time, would you not have been cast back into a world beneath that where your soul now hovers? Poor outcast cherub! Should you not rather bless God for having suffered you to live in a sphere where you may hear none but heavenly harmonies? Are you not as pure as a diamond, as lovely as a flower?

"Think what it is to know, like me, only the City of Sorrows!--Dwelling there I have worn out my heart.--To search the tombs for their horrible secrets; to wipe hands steeped in blood, counting them over night after night, seeing them rise up before me imploring forgiveness which I may not grant; to mark the writhing of the assassin and the last shriek of his victim; to listen to appalling noises and fearful silence, the silence of a father devouring his dead sons; to wonder at the laughter of the damned; to look for some human form among the livid heaps wrung and trampled by crime; to learn words such as living men may not hear without dying; to call perpetually on the dead, and always to accuse and condemn!--Is that living?"

"Cease!" cried Godefroid; "I cannot see you or hear you any further! My reason wanders, my eyes are dim. You light a fire within me which consumes me."

"And yet I must go on!" said the senior, waving his hand with a strange gesture that worked on the youth like a spell.

For a moment the old man fixed Godefroid with his large, weary, lightless eyes; then he pointed with one finger to the ground. A gulf seemed to open at his bidding. He remained standing in the doubtful light of the moon; it lent a glory to his brow which reflected an almost solar gleam. Though at first a somewhat disdainful expression lurked in the wrinkles of his face, his look presently assumed the fixity which seems to gaze on an object invisible to the ordinary organs of sight. His eyes, no doubt, were seeing then the remoter images which the grave has in store for us.

Never, perhaps, had this man presented so grand an aspect. A terrible struggle was going on in his soul, and reacted on his outer frame; strong man as he seemed to be, he bent as a reed bows under the breeze that comes before a storm. Godefroid stood motionless, speechless, spellbound; some inexplicable force nailed him to the floor; and, as happens when our attention takes us out of ourselves while watching a fire or a battle, he was wholly unconscious of his body.

"Shall I tell you the fate to which you were hastening, poor angel of love? Listen! It has been given to me to see immeasurable space, bottomless gulfs in which, all human creations are swallowed up, the shoreless sea whither flows the vast stream of men and of angels. As I made my way through the realms of eternal torment, I was sheltered under the cloak of an immortal--the robe of glory due to genius, and which the ages hand on--I, a frail mortal! When I wandered through the fields of light where the happy souls play, I was borne up by the love of a woman, the wings of an angel; resting on her heart, I could taste the ineffable pleasures whose touch is more perilous to us mortals than are the torments of the worser world.

"As I achieved my pilgrimage through the dark regions below I had mounted from torture to torture, from crime to crime, from punishment to punishment, from awful silence to heartrending cries, till I reached the uppermost circle of Hell. Already, from afar, I could see the glory of Paradise shining at a vast distance; I was still in darkness, but on the borders of day. I flew, upheld by my Guide, borne along by a power akin to that which, during our dreams, wafts us to spheres invisible to the eye of the body. The halo that crowned our heads scared away the shades as we passed, like impalpable dust. Far above us the suns of all the worlds shone with scarce so much light as the twinkling fireflies of my native land. I was soaring towards the fields of air where, round about Paradise, the bodies of light are in closer array, where the azure is easy to pass through, where worlds innumerable spring like flowers in a meadow.

"There, on the last level of the circles where those phantoms dwell that I had left behind me, like sorrows one would fain forget, I saw a vast shade. Standing in an attitude of aspiration, that soul looked eagerly into space; his feet were riveted by the will of God to the topmost point of the margin, and he remained for ever in the painful strain by which we project our purpose when we long to soar, as birds about to take wing. I saw the man; he neither looked at us nor heard us; every muscle quivered and throbbed; at each separate instant he seemed to feel, though he did not move, all the fatigue of traversing the infinite that divided him from Paradise where, as he gazed steadfastly, he believed he had glimpses of a beloved image. At this last gate of Hell, as at the first, I saw the stamp of despair even in hope. The hapless creature was so fearfully held by some unseen force, that his anguish entered into my bones and froze my blood. I shrank closer to my Guide, whose protection restored me to peace and silence.

"Suddenly the Shade gave a cry of joy--a cry as shrill as that of the mother bird that sees a hawk in the air, or suspects its presence. We looked where he was looking, and saw, as it were, a sapphire, floating high up in the abysses of light. The glowing star fell with the swiftness of a sunbeam when it flashes over the horizon in the morning and its first rays shoot across the world. The Splendor became clearer and grew larger; presently I beheld the cloud of glory in which the angels move--a shining vapor that emanates from their divine substance, and that glitters here and there like tongues of flame. A noble face, whose glory none may endure that have not won the mantle, the laurel, and the palm--the attribute of the Powers--rose above this cloud as white and pure as snow. It was Light within light. His wings as they waved shed dazzling ripples in the spheres through which he descended, as the glance of God pierces through the universe. At last I saw the archangel in all his glory. The flower of eternal beauty that belongs to the angels of the Spirit shone in him. In one hand he held a green palm branch, in the other a sword of flame: the palm to bestow on the pardoned soul, the sword to drive back all the hosts of Hell with one sweep. As he approached, the perfumes of Heaven fell upon us as dew. In the region where the archangel paused, the air took the hues of opal, and moved in eddies of which he was the centre. He paused, looked at the Shade, and said:

"'To-morrow.'

"Then he turned heavenwards once more, spread his wings, and clove through space as a vessel cuts through the waves, hardly showing her white sails to the exiles left on some deserted shore.

"The Shade uttered appalling cries, to which the damned responded from the lowest circle, the deepest in the immensity of suffering, to the more peaceful zone near the surface on which we were standing. This worst torment of all had appealed to all the rest. The turmoil was swelled by the roar of a sea of fire which formed a bass to the terrific harmony of endless millions of suffering souls.

"Then suddenly the Shade took flight through the doleful city, and down to its place at the very bottom of Hell; but as suddenly it came up again, turned, soared through the endless circles in every direction, as a vulture, confined for the first time in a cage, exhausts itself in vain efforts. The Shade was free to do this; he could wander through the zones of Hell icy, fetid, or scorching without enduring their pangs; he glided into that vastness as a sunbeam makes its way into the deepest dark.

"'God has not condemned him to any torment,' said the Master; 'but not one of the souls you have seen suffering their various punishments would exchange his anguish for the hope that is consuming this soul.'

"And just then the Shade came back to us, brought thither by an irresistible force which condemned him to parch on the verge of Hell. My divine Guide, guessing my curiosity, touched the unhappy Shade with his palm-branch. He, who was perhaps trying to measure the age of sorrow that divided him from that ever-vanishing 'To-morrow,' started and gave a look full of all the tears he had already shed.

"'You would know my woe?' said he sadly. 'Oh, I love to tell it. I am here, Teresa is above; that is all. On earth we were happy, we were always together. When I saw my loved Teresa Donati for the first time, she was ten years old. We loved each other even then, not knowing what love meant. Our lives were one; I turned pale if she were pale, I was happy in her joy; we gave ourselves up to the pleasure of thinking and feeling together; and we learned what love was, each through the other. We were wedded at Cremona; we never saw each other's lips but decked with the pearls of a smile; our eyes always shone; our hair, like our desires, flowed together; our heads were always bent over one book when we read, our feet walked in equal step. Life was one long kiss, our home was a nest.

"'One day, for the first time, Teresa turned pale and said, "I am in pain!"--And I was not in pain!

"'She never rose again. I saw her sweet face change, her golden hair fade--and I did not die! She smiled to hide her sufferings, but I could read them in her blue eyes, of which I could interpret the slightest trembling. "Honorino, I love you!" said she, at the very moment when her lips turned white, and she was clasping my hand still in hers when death chilled them. So I killed myself that she might not lie alone in her sepulchral bed, under her marble sheet. Teresa is above, and I am here. I could not bear to leave her, but God has divided us. Why, then, did He unite us on earth? He is jealous! Paradise was no doubt so much the fairer on the day when Teresa entered in.

"'Do you see her? She is sad in her bliss; she is parted from me! Paradise must be a desert to her.'

"'Master,' said I with tears, for I thought of my love, 'when this one shall desire Paradise for God's sake alone, shall he not be delivered?' And the Father of Poets mildly bowed his head in sign of assent.

"We departed, cleaving the air, and making no more noise than the birds that pass overhead sometimes when we lie in the shade of a tree. It would have been vain to try to check the hapless shade in his blasphemy. It is one of the griefs of the angels of darkness that they can never see the light even when they are surrounded by it. He would not have understood us."

* * * * *

At this moment the swift approach of many horses rang through the stillness, the dog barked, the constable's deep growl replied; the horsemen dismounted, knocked at the door; the noise was so unexpected that it seemed like some sudden explosion.

The two exiles, the two poets, fell to earth through all the space that divides us from the skies. The painful shock of this fall rushed through their veins like strange blood, hissing as it seemed, and full of scorching sparks. Their pain was like an electric discharge. The loud, heavy step of a man-at-arms sounded on the stairs with the iron clank of his sword, his cuirass, and spurs; a soldier presently stood before the astonished stranger.

"We can return to Florence," said the man, whose bass voice sounded soft as he spoke in Italian.

"What is that you say?" asked the old man.

"The Bianchi are triumphant."

"Are you not mistaken?" asked the poet.

"No, dear Dante!" replied the soldier, whose warlike tones rang with the thrill of battle and the exultation of victory.

"To Florence! To Florence! Ah, my Florence!" cried Dante Alighieri, drawing himself up, and gazing into the distance. In fancy he saw Italy; he was gigantic.

"But I--when shall I be in Heaven?" said Godefroid, kneeling on one knee before the immortal poet, like an angel before the sanctuary.

"Come to Florence," said Dante in compassionate tones. "Come! when you see its lovely landscape from the heights of Fiesole you will fancy yourself in Paradise."

The soldier smiled. For the first time, perhaps for the only time in his life, Dante's gloomy and solemn features wore a look of joy; his eyes and brow expressed the happiness he has depicted so lavishly in his vision of Paradise. He thought perhaps that he heard the voice of Beatrice.

A light step, and the rustle of a woman's gown, were audible in the silence. Dawn was now showing its first streaks of light. The fair Comtesse de Mahaut came in and flew to Godefroid.

"Come, my child, my son! I may at last acknowledge you. Your birth is recognized, your rights are under the protection of the King of France, and you will find Paradise in your mother's heart."

"I hear, I know, the voice of Heaven!" cried the youth in rapture.

The exclamation roused Dante, who saw the young man folded in the Countess' arms. He took leave of them with a look, and left his young companion on his mother's bosom.

"Come away!" he cried in a voice of thunder. "Death to the Guelphs!"

PARIS, October 1831.

MAITRE CORNELIUS

To Monsieur Le Comte Georges Mniszech.

Some envious persons, when they see one of the oldest and most illustrious of Sarmatian names adorning this page, may imagine that I am endeavoring, as goldsmiths do, to enhance a piece of modern work by the addition of an ancient gem,--a fashion of the day. But you, my dear Count, and a few others, will know that I aim at paying my debt to talent, old memories, and friendship.

In 1479, on All Saints' day, at the moment when this tale opens, vespers were just over in the cathedral of Tours. The Archbishop Helie de Bourdeilles rose from his throne, himself to pronounce the blessing on the worshipers. The sermon had been lengthy, dusk had fallen before the service was ended, and utter darkness prevailed in many parts of the great church, of which the towers, at that time, were not finished.

However, a considerable number of tapers were burning in honor of the saints, on the triangular frames constructed for the display of these pious offerings, of which the virtue and meaning have never been fully understood. The candles on every altar and the candelabra in the choir were all flaming. These masses of light, irregularly occurring among the forest of pillars and arches that sustain the three aisles of the cathedral, scarcely illuminated the vast body of the church; for, by throwing the deep shadows of the piers across the upper portions of the building, they gave rise to a thousand fantastic effects which added to the gloom in which arches, vaulting, and chapels were now wrapped,--dark enough as they were even in broad daylight.

The congregation presented effects that were not less picturesque. Some figures were so dimly visible in the doubtful light that they might have been taken for phantoms; others, hit by some side-light, caught the eye like the principal heads in a picture. Statues seemed to live, and men seemed turned to stone. Here and there eyes sparkled in the recess of a pillar; the stone had sight, the marble spoke, the vault reechoed sighs, the whole structure was endowed with life.

The life of a people can show no more solemn scene, no more majestic moment. Men, in masses, always need action to produce a poetical effect; still, in these homes of religious thought, where human wealth is wedded to celestial splendor, there is an incredible sublimity in silence; there is awe in these bended knees and hope in these uplifted hands. The concord of feeling with which all the assembled souls fly heavenward, produces an indescribably spiritual effect. The mystical exaltation of the united believers reacts on each individual; the feeble are no doubt borne upwards on the full tide of this ocean of love and faith.

Prayer, an electrical force, thus snatches our nature upwards. This involuntary union of so many wills, all equally humbled to earth, all equally lifted to heaven, contains, no doubt, the secret of the magical influences exerted by the chanting of the priests and the music of the organ, the perfume and pomp of the altar, the voice of the crowd and its meditations in silence.

Hence we need not be surprised when we see, in the middle ages, that so many love affairs had their beginnings in church, after long hours of ecstasy--passions which often had no saintly ending and for which the woman, as she always must, ended by doing penance. Religious emotion had certainly, at that time, some affinity with love; it was either the element or the end of it. Love was still a second religion; it still had its fine frenzies, its artless superstitions, its sublime emotion in harmony with those of Christianity.

The manners of the time also help to explain the alliance between religion and love. In the first place, society never mingled but in front of the altar. Lords and vassals, men and women, were nowhere equal but in church. There alone could lovers meet and exchange their vows. Then Church Festivals were the only spectacles; a woman's soul was more deeply stirred within the walls of a cathedral than it now is at a ball or an opera. And does not every strong emotion bring a woman round to love? Thus, by dint of forming part of life, and identifying itself with every act, religion had become the moving principle of virtue and vice alike. Religion was mixed up with science, with politics, with eloquence, with crime; on the throne or in the skin of the poor and suffering; it was all-pervading.

These semi-learned reflections will perhaps certify to the truth of this Etude, though some of its details may scandalize the improved propriety of our age--a little too strait-laced perhaps, as we all know.

At the instant when the priests ceased their chanting, the last notes of the organ mingling with the throbbing Amen sent out from the deep-chested choir-men, while a faint murmur still lingered under the remoter vaults and the devout assembly awaited the prelate's benedictory words, a citizen, in a hurry to get home, or fearing to lose his purse in the crowd going out, gently stole away, at the risk of being regarded as a bad Catholic. A gentleman, who had lurked till now close to one of the enormous pillars of the choir, where he was shrouded in the shadow, hastened to take the place left vacant by the worthy burgess. As soon as he reached it, he hid his face in the feathers that adorned his tall gray cap, and knelt down on a chair in a contrite attitude that might have deceived an inquisitor.

His neighbors, having stared curiously at the youth, appeared to recognize him and turned to their devotions once more with a significant shrug, by which they all expressed the same idea--a sarcastic mocking thought, an unspoken scandal. Two old women nodded their heads and exchanged glances which seemed to read the future.

The chair taken by the young man was close to a chapel built in between two pillars, and closed by an iron railing. At that time the Chapter was wont to let out at a high figure the use of the side chapels situated outside the ambulatory, to certain lordly families, who thus had a right to occupy them exclusively, with their people, during divine service. This form of simony is practised even now. A lady had her chapel in church, as in our day she has a box at the opera. The lessees of these privileged nooks were, however, expected to decorate and keep up the altars in them. Thus each one made it a point of honor to make his chapel as sumptuous as possible, a form of vanity very acceptable to the Church.

In this chapel, close to the railing, knelt a young lady, on a handsome square of red velvet with gold tassels, close to the spot but just now occupied by the worthy citizen. A silver-gilt lamp, hanging from the roof of the chapel in front of a magnificent altar, shed a dim light on the Book of Hours that the lady held. This book shook violently in her hand as the young gentleman came towards her.

"Amen!" and to this response, chanted in a sweet voice with terrible agitation, happily drowned in the general noise, she added in a low tone: "You will ruin me!"

The words were spoken with an innocence to which any man of delicate feeling could not fail to submit; it went piercingly to the heart; but the stranger, carried away no doubt by a tumult of passion that stifled his conscience, remained in his seat, and slightly raised his head to look hastily into the chapel.

"He is asleep," he replied in a voice so carefully modulated that the words could only be heard by the lady as a sound is heard in its echo.

The young woman turned pale, her eyes were furtively raised for an instant from the vellum page to glance at an old man whom the youth was studying. What a terrible understanding was conveyed by that look! When the lady had examined the old man, she drew a deep breath and raised her beautiful brow, adorned with a precious jewel, to a picture representing the Virgin; this simple gesture and attitude, with her glistening eye, revealed her life with imprudent candor; if she had been wicked, she would have dissimulated her feelings.

The person who inspired such terror in these lovers was a little old hunchback, almost bald, with a fierce expression of face, and a large dingy-gray beard cut square into a broad fan. The Cross of Saint-Michael glittered on his breast; his hands, which were coarse, strong, and rough, with gray hairs, had no doubt been clasped, but had fallen a little apart in the sleep he had so imprudently allowed to overtake him. His right hand seemed about to drop on to the handle of his dagger, of which the hilt was guarded by a large shell of pierced iron; from the way he had arranged the weapon, the handle was just below his hand; if by ill chance he should touch it, beyond a doubt he would wake and look at his wife. His sardonic mouth and the sharp turn of his chin were characteristic signs of a malignant wit, of a coldly cruel shrewdness, which would enable him to guess everything, because he could imagine anything. His yellow forehead was wrinkled like that of a man accustomed to believe nothing, to weigh everything, to test the exact meaning and value of every human action as a miser rings every gold piece. His frame was large-boned and strongly knit, he might be nervous and consequently irritable--in short, an ogre spoiled in the making.

When her terrible lord would wake, the young lady evidently would be in danger. This jealous husband would not fail to note the difference between the old burgess, whose presence had given him no umbrage, and the newcomer, a young courtier, smart and genteel.

"Libera nos a malo!" said she, trying to convey her fears to the young man.

He, on his part, raised his head and gazed at her. There were tears in his eyes, tears of love or despair. Seeing this, the lady started, and lost her head. They had both, no doubt, held out for a long time, and perhaps could no longer resist a passion encouraged day after day by invincible obstacles, brooded by fears, and emboldened by youth. The lady was not perfectly beautiful, but her pale complexion betrayed a secret grief which made her interesting. She was elegant and had the most magnificent hair imaginable. Watched over by a tiger, she was risking her life perhaps by uttering a word, by allowing her hand to be taken, by meeting his look. If ever love had been more deeply buried in two hearts, or more rapturously confessed, no passion could ever have been more dangerous.

It may easily be understood that to these two beings, the air, the sounds about them, the noise of steps on the pavement,--things utterly indifferent to other men,--had some peculiarities, some perceptible properties which they alone detected. Love enabled them, perhaps, to find a faithful messenger even in the icy cold hands of the old priests to whom they confessed their sins, or from whom they received the Host, kneeling at the altar. It was a deep love, love graven on the soul like a scar on the body which remains for life. As the two young people looked at each other, the woman seemed to say to her lover: "Let us perish, but be one!" and the gentleman seemed to reply: "We will be one, but we will not perish!"

But then, with a melancholy jerk of the head, she pointed out to him an elderly duenna and a couple of pages. The duenna was asleep. The pages were but boys, and seemed perfectly reckless of any good or ill that might befall their master.

"Do not be frightened as you go out, but go just where you are led."

The young man had scarcely murmured these words, when the old gentleman's hand slipped down on to the handle of his weapon. At the touch of the cold iron he woke with a start, and his tawny eyes at once turned to his wife. By a peculiarity rarely bestowed, even on men of genius, he awoke with a brain as alert, and ideas as clear, as if he had never slept. He was jealous.

Though the young man kept one eye on his mistress, he watched her husband out of the other; he rose at once, and vanished behind a pillar, just as the old fellow's hands began to move; then he went off as lightly as a bird. The lady's eyes were fixed on her book. She pretended to be reading, and tried to seem calm; but she could not hinder herself from reddening, nor her heart from beating with unwonted violence.

The old man heard the vehement throbs that were audible in the chapel, and observed the extraordinary flush that had mounted to his wife's cheeks, brow, and eyelids; he looked cautiously about him, but seeing no one whom he could suspect, he said:

"What is troubling you, ma mie?"

"The smell of the incense makes me squeamish," said she.

"Then is it not good to-day?" said he.

In spite of this comment, the wily old man affected to believe in this excuse; still, he suspected some secret treason, and resolved to watch more carefully over his treasure.

The Benediction was pronounced. The crowd, without waiting for the end of in secula seculorum, hurried to the church door like a torrent. The old lord, as was his custom, waited quietly till the general rush was moderated, and then went forth, sending the duenna in front with the youngest page, who carried a lantern on a pole; he gave his arm to his wife and the other page followed. Just as the old gentleman had reached the side door opening into the eastern part of the cloisters, by which he usually went out, a crowd of people turned back from the mass that was blocking the front porch, surging in towards the aisle where he and his people were standing, and this compact body prevented his retracing his steps. The gentleman and his wife were, in fact, pushed out by the tremendous pressure of the crowd. The husband tried to get through first, dragging the lady by the arm; but at this juncture he was violently pulled into the street, and his wife was snatched from him by a stranger.

The sinister hunchback at once understood that this was a deep-laid plot into which he had fallen. Repenting now of his long nap, he collected all his strength; with one hand he clutched at his wife's gown, and with the other he tried to cling to the door-post. But the frenzy of love won the day from the fury of jealousy. The young man took his mistress round the waist, and snatched her away with such strength of despair that the tissue of silk and gold, the brocade, and whalebone gave way, and split with a crash. The sleeve was left in her husband's hand.

A roar like a lion's rose above the shouts of the multitude, and an awful voice was heard bellowing these words:

"Help! Poitiers! Here, to the door! The Comte de Saint-Vallier's people! Help, this way, help!"

And the Comte Aymar de Poitiers, Sire de Saint-Vallier, tried to draw his sword, and get a way cleared for him to pass; but he found himself closely surrounded by thirty or forty gentlemen whom it would have been dangerous to wound. Several of these, men of the highest rank, answered him with gibes, as they hauled him out to the cloister.

The ravisher, with the swiftness of lightning, had led the Countess to an open chapel, where he found her a seat on a wooden bench behind a confessional. By the light of the tapers burning before the image of the saint to whom the chapel was dedicated, they looked at each other for a moment in silence, clasping hands, and mutually amazed at their daring. The Countess had not the heart to blame the young man for the audacity to which she owed this first and only instant of happiness.

"Will you fly with me into the adjacent territory?" he asked her eagerly. "I have at hand a pair of English jennets which will carry us thirty leagues without drawing rein."

"Oh," cried she sweetly, "where in the world can you find asylum for a daughter of Louis XI.?"

"To be sure," replied the gentleman, bewildered by this difficulty, which he had overlooked.

"Why, then, did you tear me from my husband?" she asked in some terror.

"Alas!" replied he, "I had not thought of the agitation I should feel on finding myself by your side, on hearing you speak to me. I had conceived of two or three plans, and now that I see you, I feel as if everything were achieved."

"But I am lost," said the Countess.

"We are saved," replied the gentleman, with the blind enthusiasm of love. "Listen to me----"

"It will cost me my life," she went on, letting the tears flow which had gathered in her eyes. "The Count will kill me,--this evening, perhaps. But go to the King, tell him of all the torments his daughter has endured for five years past. He loved me well when I was a child. He was wont to laugh and call me Mary-full-of-grace because I was so ugly. Oh, if he could know to what a man he gave me, he would be in a terrible rage! I have never dared to complain, out of pity for the Count. And, besides, how should my voice reach the King's ears? My confessor even is a spy for Saint-Vallier. I therefore lent myself to this criminal escape, in the hope of enlisting a champion. But--dare I trust----Oh!" she cried, breaking off and turning pale; "here is the page."

The unhappy Countess tried to make a veil of her hands to hide her face.

"Fear nothing," said the young man; "he is on our side. You may make use of him in all security; he is mine. When the Count comes in search of you, he will warn us in time. In that confessional," he went on in an undertone, "is a canon who is a friend of mine. He will say that he has rescued you from the fray and led you, under his protection, to this chapel. Thus everything is prepared for deceiving Saint-Vallier."

On hearing this, the Countess dried away her tears, but her brow was clouded with alarm.

"There is no deceiving him," said she. "He will know everything this evening. Beware of his revenge. Go to Le Plessis, see the King, tell him that----"

She hesitated, but something gave her courage to tell the secrets of her married life, and she went on.

"Yes, tell him that to secure his mastery over me the Count has me bled in both arms and exhausts me. Tell him he has dragged me by my hair--tell him I am a prisoner--say that----"

Her heart was bursting, sobs choked her throat, a few tears fell again, and in her agitation she allowed the young man to kiss her hand while he uttered incoherent phrases.

"No one may speak to the King, poor child! Though I am the nephew of the grand captain of the crossbowmen, I cannot get into Le Plessis this night. My beloved lady, my beautiful queen!----Good God! how she has suffered! Marie, let me say two words to you or we are lost!"

"What is to become of us?" said she.

The Countess discerned on the blackened wall a picture of the Virgin on which the light fell, and she cried out:

"Holy Mother of God, give us counsel."

"To-night," the gentleman went on, "I will be in your house."

"How?" she asked, very simply.

They were in such great peril that their fondest words seemed bereft of tenderness.

"I am going this evening to propose myself as an apprentice to Maitre Cornelius, the King's treasurer. I have succeeded in obtaining a letter of introduction which will secure his receiving me. His house is close to yours. Once under that old rascal's roof, by the help of a silken ladder I can find my way to your rooms."

"Oh!" cried she, petrified with dismay, "if you love me, do not go to Maitre Cornelius."

"Why!" cried he, clasping her to his heart with all the strength of his youth. "Then you love me?"

"Yes," said she. "Are you not my only hope? You are a gentleman; I place my honor in your hands. And indeed," she went on with dignified confidence, "I am too unfortunate for you co betray my trust. But to what end is all this? Go, leave me to die rather than take up your abode with Cornelius. Do you not know that all his apprentices----"

"Have been hanged?" said the gentleman, laughing. "Do you suppose that his treasure tempts me?"

"Nay, nay, do not go there; you will be the victim of some sorcery."

"I cannot pay too dearly for the honor of serving you," replied he, giving her a look of such ardor as made her lower her eyes.

"And my husband?" said she.

"Here is something to send him to sleep," replied the young man, taking a small phial out of his belt.

"Not for ever?" said the Countess, trembling.

The young man's reply was a gesture of horror.

"I would have challenged him to single combat, if he were not so old," he said. "But God forbid I should rescue you from him by giving him a philter."

"Forgive me," said the Countess, blushing. "I am cruelly punished for my sins. In a moment of despair I did wish to kill the Count; I feared lest you might wish the same. My grief is great that I have not yet had an opportunity of confessing that wicked thought, but I feared that he would be told of it and he would be revenged. You are ashamed of me?" she added, hurt by the young man's silence. "I deserve your blame!"

She flung the phial violently to the ground, and it broke.

"Do not come," she went on; "the Count sleeps lightly. It is my duty to await the aid of Heaven. And that is what I will do."

She rose to go.

"Ah!" cried the young man, "bid me kill him, and I will do it, madame. You will see me this evening."

"I was wise to waste that drug," she replied, her voice husky with the joy of finding herself so ardently beloved. "The dread of awaking my husband will save us from ourselves."

"I plight my life to you," said the youth as he held her hand.

"If the King desires it, the Pope may annul my marriage; then we may be united," said she, giving him a look full of rapturous hope.

"Here comes Monseigneur," cried the page, hurrying up.

Instantly the gentleman, amazed at the shortness of the time he had spent with his mistress, and at the Count's swift movements, snatched a kiss which the lady could not refuse.

"This evening!" he repeated, as he slipped out of the chapel.

Favored by the darkness, the lover made his way to the great entrance, creeping from pillar to pillar along the shaft of shadow cast across the church by each great column.

An old canon suddenly stepped out of the confessional and seated himself by the Countess, after gently closing the gate, while the page marched gravely up and down outside, with the composure of an assassin.

A glare of light heralded the Count; escorted by a party of friends and retainers carrying torches, he himself held his drawn sword. His gloomy gaze seemed to pierce the darkness, and search the deepest corners of the cathedral.

"Monseigneur, madame is here," said the page, going to meet him.

The Lord of Saint-Vallier found his wife kneeling in front of the altar, and the canon standing by her, reading his breviary. At this sight he shook the gate furiously as if to give vent to his rage.

"What are you doing with a naked sword in hand in this church?" asked the priest.

"Father, this gentleman is my husband," said the Countess.

The priest took the key out of his sleeve and opened the chapel gate. The Count almost involuntarily glanced round the confessional, and then went into it; then he stood listening to the silence of the place.

"Monsieur," said his wife, "you owe your thanks to this venerable canon who gave me shelter here."

The Sire de Saint-Vallier turned pale with anger, and dared not look at his friends, who had come to laugh at him rather than to help him. He sharply replied:

"Thank the Lord, Father. I will find some way to repay you."

He took his wife by the arm, and without giving her time to make her courtesy to the canon, he signed to his people and went away, without a word to those who had given him their company. There was something ominous in his silence.

Impatient to be at home, and puzzling his brain for some means of discovering the truth, he made his way along the winding streets which at that time led from the cathedral to the porch of the Chancery office, where stood the noble mansion then recently built by the Chancellor Juvenal des Ursins, on the site of an old fortress given by Charles VII. to that faithful servant as a reward for his splendid services. There began a street which has since been named Rue de la Scellerie, in memory of the office of the Great Seal which long stood there. It connected old Tours with the borough of Chateauneuf, where stood the famous Abbey of Saint-Martin, of which many kings were content to be canons. For about a hundred years, and after long discussions, this borough had been incorporated with the city.

Many of the streets adjacent to the Rue de la Scellerie, in the heart now of modern Tours, were already built; but the finest houses, and more particularly that of the Treasurer Xancoings, still standing in the Rue du Commerce, were actually situated in the commune of Chateauneuf.

It was past this that the Sire de Saint-Vallier's torch-bearers led the way, to that part of the town which lay by the river Loire; he mechanically followed, casting a dark glance now and again at his wife and at the page, hoping to detect a look of mutual understanding between them which might throw some light on this most puzzling adventure.

At last the Count found himself in the Rue du Murier, where his house was. When the whole party had gone in, and the ponderous gate was shut, profound silence reigned in the narrow street where a few magnates at that time resided; for this side of the town was near to Le Plessis, the King's usual residence, enabling the courtiers to attend him at a moment's notice. The last house in this street was the last house in the town, and belonged to Maitre Cornelius Hoogworst, an old merchant from Brabant, whom the King Louis XI. honored with his confidence in such financial transactions as his astute policy required outside his realm. For reasons favoring the tyranny he exerted over his wife, the Comte de Saint-Vallier had settled in a mansion adjoining Maitre Cornelius' house.

The topography of the buildings will explain the advantages they offered to a jealous husband. The Count's house, known as the Hotel de Poitiers, had a garden, shut in on the north by the wall and moat that had been the boundary of the ancient borough of Chateauneuf skirted by the embankment then lately constructed by Louis XI. between Tours and Le Plessis. On that side dogs defended the entrance to the premises, which, on the east, were divided from the neighboring houses by a large courtyard, and on the west backed on to the house occupied by Maitre Cornelius. The street front faced south. Thus isolated on three sides, the suspicious and wily old Count was safe against all intruders but the inhabitants of the Brabant house, of which the roofs and chimneys were undistinguishable from those of the Hotel de Poitiers. The windows to the street were narrow, cut in the stone walls, and barred with iron; the door, low and arched like the entrance to our ancient prisons, was strong enough to resist any attack. A stone bench for mounting on horseback was close to the porch.

On seeing the side view of the houses occupied by Maitre Cornelius and the Comte de Poitiers, it could easily be supposed that they had both been built by the same architect, and constructed for tyrants. Both, with their sinister appearance, resembled little strongholds, and would have stood a siege for some time against a furious mob. They were protected by turrets at the corners, such as lovers of antiquities may yet see in some towns where the hammer of the destroyer has not found employment. The openings, which were everywhere narrow, allowed of the shutters and doors being constructed of extraordinary strength and clamped with iron. The riots and civil wars which were so frequent in those quarrelsome times amply justified these precautions.

As six o'clock struck by the clock of the Abbey of Saint-Martin, the Countess' lover walked past the Hotel de Poitiers, pausing a moment to hear the noise made by the Count's retainers over their supper. After glancing up at the room he might suppose to be that of his lady-love, he went on to the door of the next house. Everywhere on his way the young man had heard sounds of mirth from the feasters in every house doing honor to the holyday. From every window ineffectually shuttered came beams of light; chimneys were smoking, and the savor of roast meats gave cheer to the streets. Religious service being over, the whole town was reveling, and giving out confused sounds which the imagination can fancy better than words can describe them.

But here there was total silence; for in these two houses dwelt passions which never rejoice. Beyond them the open country was still; and here, under the shadow of the abbey towers of Saint-Martin, the two dumb houses, apart from the rest and standing in the darkest part of the tortuous street, looked like a leper's home. The building opposite to them belonged to certain state criminals, and was under sequestration. Any young man could not fail to be easily impressed by so sudden a contrast. And, indeed, on the verge of embarking in a horribly perilous enterprise, the gentleman stood pensive in front of the goldsmith's house, recalling the various tales he had heard of Maitre Cornelius and his proceedings, which had inspired the Countess with such lively fears.

At that period a warrior, a lover even, every man quaked at the word "magic." There were few imaginations that could be incredulous of extraordinary facts, or indifferent to tales of wonder. And this lover of Madame de Saint-Vallier (one of Louis XI.'s daughters by Madame de Sassenage, in Dauphine), brave as he might be, could not but think twice before venturing into a house that was full of sorceries.

The history of Maitre Cornelius Hoogworst will fully account for the confidence he had inspired in the Comte de Saint-Vallier, for the lady's terror, and for the hesitancy that gave pause to the lover. But to enable the nineteenth century reader to understand clearly how events apparently commonplace had been deemed supernatural, to make him enter into the terrors of that olden time, it is necessary to interrupt the narrative and glance at the previous career of Maitre Cornelius.

Cornelius Hoogworst, one of the wealthiest merchants of Ghent, having incurred the displeasure of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, had found a refuge and protection at the Court of Louis XI. The King was quite alive to the advantages he might derive from a man in communication with the principal houses of Flanders, Venice, and Brabant; he granted to Maitre Cornelius letters of nobility and naturalization; nay, he flattered him,--a rare thing with Louis XI. And, indeed the Fleming liked the King as well as the King liked the Fleming. Crafty, suspicious, avaricious; equally astute, equally well-informed, equally superior to their time, they understood each other to perfection; they dropped and took up again with equal readiness, the one his conscience and the other his religion; they worshiped the same Virgin--one from conviction, the other from flattery; finally, if we may believe the jealous statements of Olivier le Daim and Tristan, the King resorted to the goldsmith's house to take his pleasure--as Louis XI. took it. History has taken care to preserve the memory of this monarch's licentious tastes, for he was not averse to a debauch. The old Fleming, no doubt, found it pleasant and profitable to lend himself to his royal patron's caprices and indulgences.

Cornelius had now lived in Tours for nine years. During these nine years incidents had occurred under his roof which made him the object of general execration. On arriving he had spent large sums on the house, with a view to securing his treasures. The ingenuity secretly exerted on his behalf by the locksmiths of the town, the singular precautions he had taken to get them into his house, in such a way as to feel sure of their compulsory secrecy, were for a long time the subject of a thousand wonderful tales which furnished the evening gossip of Touraine. The old man's extraordinary devices led to the idea that he was possessed of Oriental wealth. The story-tellers of the province which was the birth-place of romance in France built chambers of gold and precious stones in the Fleming's dwelling, never failing to ascribe his immense riches to unholy compacts.

Cornelius had brought with him originally a couple of Flemish varlets, an old woman, and a young apprentice of mild and attractive appearance; this youth served him as secretary, cashier, factotum, and messenger.

In the course of the first year of his residence at Tours, a considerable robbery was effected from his premises. Judicial investigation proved that the theft had been committed by someone living in the house. The old miser had his two men and his apprentice put in prison. The young lad was weakly; he died under torture, still protesting his innocence. The two men confessed, to escape torture; but on being asked by the judge where the stolen money was hidden, they were silent; so, after fresh tortures, they were tried, condemned, and hanged. On their way to the gallows they still declared that they were guiltless, after the manner of all men to be hanged.

The town of Tours talked over the strange business for many a day. But the criminals were Flemings, so the interest excited in the unfortunate men and the youthful clerk soon died out. In those days war and sedition supplied perpetual excitement, and to-day's drama extinguished yesterday's tragedy.

Maitre Cornelius, more affected by the loss of so large a sum than by the death of his three retainers, now lived alone with the old woman who was his sister. He obtained from the King the privilege of using the state couriers for his private business, put up his mules with a muleteer in the neighborhood, and thenceforth lived in perfect solitude, seeing scarce anyone but the King, and transacting his business through the medium of the Jews--crafty arithmeticians, who served him faithfully for the sake of his omnipotent interest.

Some time after this event, the King himself placed with his old torconnier a young orphan in whom he took a great interest. Louis XI. commonly called Maitre Cornelius by the old name of torconnier, which, in the reign of Saint-Louis, had meant an usurer, a tax-collector, a man who squeezed money out of folks by extortionate means. The word tortionnaire, a legal term still in use, in fact, explains the word torconnier, which was often written tortionneur. This poor lad devoted himself to the goldsmith's interest, succeeded in satisfying his master and winning his favor. One winter's night the diamonds placed in Cornelius' keeping by the King of England were stolen, and suspicion fell on the orphan lad. Louis XI. was all the more severe with him because he had answered for his honesty. So, after a summary inquiry, the hapless boy was hanged before the Provost Marshal.

Nobody dared go to learn the arts of banking and exchange from Maitre Cornelius. Nevertheless two young men of the town, youths of honor and anxious to win a fortune, one after the other entered his service. Large robberies from the treasurer's house at once ensued; the circumstances of the crimes, and the way in which they were carried out, pointed clearly to some collusion between the thieves and the inmates of the house; it was impossible that the newcomers should escape accusation. The Fleming, more and more vindictive and suspicious, at once laid the matter before the King, who placed the cases in his Provost's hands. Each was promptly tried, and more promptly punished.

But the patriotism of the citizens was opposed to Tristan's swift proceedings. Guilty or no, the two young men were regarded as victims, and Cornelius as a ruffian. The two families thrown into mourning were persons in high esteem, their complaints met with sympathy, and step by step they succeeded in persuading everyone to believe in the innocence of all the men that the King's treasurer had sent to the gallows. Some declared that this cruel miser was imitating the King and trying to set terror and the gibbet between himself and the world; that he had never been robbed at all; that these horrible executions were brought about by cold self-interest; and that he only wanted to be quit of all alarms about his treasure.

The immediate result of these popular rumors was to isolate Cornelius. The good folks of Tours treated him as one plague-stricken, spoke of him as the extortioner, and called his house La Malemaison (the House of Ill). Even if the usurer could have found a youth bold enough to take service with him, the inhabitants of the town would have hindered it by their sayings. The most favorable opinions about Maitre Cornelius were those expressed by men who regarded him only as a sinister personage. In some he inspired involuntary terrors, in others, the deep respect that is always paid to unlimited power or great wealth; to some he had the attraction of mystery. His mode of life, his countenance, and the King's favor justified every rumor of which he was the subject.

Since the death of his persecutor, the Duke of Burgundy, Cornelius frequently traveled in foreign parts, and during his absence the King had his house guarded by a company of his Scottish guard. This royal care led the courtiers to suppose that the old man had left his fortune to Louis XI. The Fleming rarely went out; the gentlemen about the Court visited him frequently; he was ready enough to lend them money, but he was whimsical. On certain days he would not give them a sou Parisis; on the morrow he would offer them enormous sums, always at a high rate of interest and on good security. He was, however, a good Catholic, and attended the services regularly; but he went to Saint-Martin at a very early hour, and as he had purchased a chapel in perpetuity, there, as elsewhere, he was divided from other Christians.

A proverb which became popular at this period and survived at Tours for a long time was the saying: "You have crossed the usurer's path; woe will befall you." "You have crossed the usurer's path" accounted for sudden ailments, involuntary depression, and the evil turns of fortune. Even at Court Cornelius was credited with the fatal influence which, in Italy, Spain, and the East, superstition has named the Evil Eye.

But for the terrible power of Louis XI., which was extended like a shield over his house, the populace would, on the slenderest pretext, have demolished the Malemaison of the Rue du Murier. And yet it was by Cornelius that the first mulberry trees in Tours had been planted, and at that time the inhabitants had regarded him as a good genius. Who then may trust to popular favor?

Certain gentlemen who had met Maitre Cornelius in foreign lands had been amazed by his good humor. At Tours he was constantly gloomy and absent-minded; but he always came back there. Some inexplicable attraction always brought him home to his dismal house in the Rue du Murier. Like the snail whose life is inseparable from that of his shell, he confessed to the King that he never felt so happy as behind the time-eaten stones, the bolts of his little bastille, albeit he knew that in the event of Louis' death it would be the most dangerous spot on earth to him.

"The devil is amusing himself at the expense of our friend the torconnier," said Louis XI. to his barber, a few days before the festival of All Saints. "He complains of having been robbed again! But there is nobody this time for him to hang--unless he hangs himself. If the old vagabond did not come to ask me whether I had carried off by mistake a chain of rubies he had been meaning to sell me? By the Mass! I do not steal what I have only to take, said I."

"And was he frightened?" asked the barber.

"Misers are afraid but of one thing," replied the King. "My gossip the usurer knows full well that I should not flay him for nothing; otherwise I should be unjust, and I have never done anything that was not just and necessary."

"And yet the old hulk cheats you," replied the barber.

"You only wish that were true, heh?" said the King, with a cunning leer at the barber.

"Nay, Sire," replied the man, with an oath; "but there would be a snug fortune to divide between you and the devil."

"That will do," said the King. "Do not put mischief into my head. My gossip is a more faithful friend than all the men whose fortunes I have made--possibly because he owes me nothing."

Thus, for two years past, Cornelius lived alone with his sister, who was believed to be a witch. A tailor who lived hard by declared that he had often seen her at night waiting on the roof to fly off to her Sabbath. This statement was all the more extraordinary because the old miser shut his sister up in a room of which the windows were barred with iron.

Cornelius in his old age, fearing more and more that men should rob him, had conceived a hatred for all the world excepting the King, whom he esteemed highly. He had sunk into deep misanthropy; but, in his passion for gold, the assimilation of the metal with his very substance had become more and more complete, and, as is commonly the case with misers, his avarice increased with age. He was suspicious even of his sister, though she was perhaps more avaricious and thrifty than himself, and outdid him in sordid inventiveness. There was something mysterious and questionable in their way of life. The old woman so rarely took bread from the baker, and was so seldom seen at market, that the least credulous observers had at last attributed to these strange beings the knowledge of some occult means of sustaining life. Some, who meddled in alchemy, said that Maitre Cornelius could make gold. The learned declared that he had discovered the universal panacea. And to most of the country folk, when the townspeople spoke of him, he was a chimerical creature, so that they would come out of curiosity to stare at his house.

* * * * *

The young gentleman, sitting on a bench by the house facing that of Maitre Cornelius, looked at the Malemaison and the Hotel de Poitiers by turns. The moon shed high lights on the salient parts, lending color by the contrast of light and shade on the sculpture in relief. The play of this capricious pale light gave a somewhat sinister expression to both houses. Nature seemed to lend herself to the superstitious notions that hung about the place.

The gentleman recalled all the many traditions which made Cornelius an object at once of curiosity and dread. Though the vehemence of his passion confirmed him in his determination to get into the house and to stay there as long as might be necessary to carry out his projects, he hesitated before taking this final step, though well aware that he should do so. But who, in the critical hours of life, does not love to listen to presentiments and play see-saw, as it were, over the abyss of futurity? As a lover worthy of his love, the youth feared lest he should perish before the Countess' love should grace his life.

This secret hesitancy was so painfully absorbing that he did not feel the cold wind that blew round his legs and against the projecting masses of the houses. If he entered the goldsmith's service, he must renounce his name, as he had already doffed his handsome garb as a nobleman. In the event of disaster, he could make no appeal to the privileges of his birth or the protection of his friends but at the cost of destroying the Comtesse de Saint-Vallier beyond all rescue. If the old lord suspected her of having a lover, he was capable of roasting her in an iron cage by a slow fire, of torturing her to death day by day in the depths of some dungeon.

As he looked down on the wretched clothes in which he was disguised, the gentleman was ashamed of his own appearance. To behold his black leather belt, his clumsy shoes, his wrinkled hose, his frieze breeches, and his gray cloth jerkin, he might be the follower of some mean sergeant of the law. To a nobleman of the fifteenth century it was as bad as death to play the part of pauper townsman and renounce the privileges of his rank. Still, to climb the roof of the mansion where his mistress sat weeping; to creep down the chimney or run along the parapet, crawling from gutter to gutter till he reached her window; to risk his life, if only he might sit by her side on a silken cushion, in front of a good fire, during the slumbers of that sinister husband, whose snore would enhance their rapture; to defy heaven and earth; to exchange the most audacious embrace; to speak words which would inevitably be punished by death, or at least by a bloody struggle,--all these enchanting visions, with the romantic perils of the adventure brought him to a decision. The smaller the prize of his endeavor,--were it only to be that he should once more kiss his lady's hand,--the more determined was he to dare everything, prompted by the chivalrous and impassioned spirit of the time. Then he did not really suppose that the Countess would dare to refuse him the sweetest reward of love, in the midst of such mortal dangers. The adventure was too perilous, too impossible, not to be carried through to the end.

At this juncture every bell in the town rang the curfew. The law had fallen into disuse, but in the provinces the hour was still tolled, for customs die slowly in the country. Though the lights were not put out, the captains of the watch stretched chains across the streets. Many doors were bolted and barred; the steps of a few belated citizens were heard in the distance as they made their way, surrounded by their followers, armed to the teeth and carrying lanterns; and then, ere long, the town, gagged as it were, seemed to fall asleep, fearing no attack from malefactors, unless by way of the roof.

And at that time the house-tops were a recognized highway during the night. The streets were so narrow in country towns, and even in Paris, that robbers could jump from one side to the other. This dangerous game was a constant amusement to King Charles IX. in his youth, if we may believe the memoirs of the time.

Fearing to be too late in presenting himself to Maitre Cornelius, the young gentleman was on the point of rising to knock at the door of the House of Evil, when, on looking at it, his attention was riveted by a sort of vision, such as the writers of the day would have called diabolical. He rubbed his eyes as if to clear them, and a thousand different emotions flashed through his brain. On each side of the door he beheld a face framed between the bars of a sort of loophole. At first he supposed these faces to be grotesque masks carved in stone, so wrinkled were they, so angular, twisted, exaggerated, and motionless; they were tanned,--that is to say, brown; but the cold and the moonlight enabled him to detect the slight white cloud of thin breath coming out of the two blue noses, and at last he could make out in each haggard face, under shaggy eyebrows, a pair of china-blue eyes that sparkled with a pale light, like those of a wolf crouching in a thicket when he hears the hounds in full cry. The uneasy gleam of those eyes rested so fixedly on him, that, after meeting it during the moment when he was studying these singular objects, he felt like a bird put up by a sporting dog; a fevered spasm clutched at his heart, but was at once controlled. These two faces were beyond a doubt those of Cornelius and his sister.

The gentleman at once affected to be examining the street and to be in search of a dwelling of which the address was written on a card that he took out of his pocket, trying to read it by the moonlight; he then went straight up to the extortioner's door and gave three knocks, which echoed within the house as if this were the portal of a cellar. A small light became visible, and an eye was applied to a small and strongly barred wicket.

"Who is there?"

"A friend, sent by Oosterlinck of Bruges."

"What do you want?"

"To be let in."

"Your name?"

"Philippe Goulenoire."

"Have you letters of introduction?"

"Here they are."

"Put them in through the box."

"Where is it?"

"To the left."

Philippe Goulenoire put the letter into a slit in an iron chest below a loophole window.

"The devil!" thought he. "It is evident that the King comes here, for as many precautions are observed as he takes at Le Plessis."

He waited in the street about a quarter of an hour longer. At the end of that time he heard the old man say to his sister:

"Shut the traps inside the door."

Then a clatter of chains and iron echoed through the porch. Philippe heard bolts drawn and locks creak; finally a small, low door, sheathed with iron, opened so as to afford the smallest chink through which a man might squeeze. At the risk of tearing his clothes, Philippe crept rather than walked into the Malemaison. A toothless old woman with a face like a fiddle, and eyebrows like the handles of a caldron, who could not have put a nut between the tip of her nose and her chin, colorless, sallow, with hollow temples and an appearance of being constructed of nothing but bone and sinew, silently led the stranger into a low sitting-room, while Cornelius prudently kept in the rear.

"Be seated there," said she to Philippe, pointing to a three-legged stool that stood in the corner of a huge chimney-place of carved stone, though there was no fire on the hearth.

On the opposite side of this fireplace was a walnut-wood table with twisted legs, on which there were an egg in a plate and ten or twelve hard strips of dry bread cut with parsimonious exactitude. Two stools, on one of which the old woman seated herself, showed that the good folks were in the act of supping.

Cornelius went to close two iron shutters, protecting the peepholes, no doubt, through which they had so long been gazing into the street; then he came back to his place. Philippe, as he called himself, now saw the brother and sister take it in turns, with perfect gravity, to dip a strip of bread into the egg, with the same precision as soldiers use in dipping their spoon into the tin pot; but they scarcely colored them, in order that the egg might last out the full allowance of strips of bread. This was performed in perfect silence.

While he ate, Cornelius studied the sham apprentice with as much care and shrewdness as if he had been made of gold bezants. Philippe, feeling an icy cloak fall on his shoulders, was tempted to look about him; but, with the prudence born of a love-adventure, he took care not to cast even a furtive glance at the walls, for he was well aware that if Cornelius saw him in the act he would not keep an inquisitive man in the house. So he restricted himself to fixing a modest eye now on the egg, now on the old maid, and anon he contemplated his future master.

Louis' treasurer resembled that monarch; he had even caught some of his tricks, as not unfrequently happens when people live together in intimacy. The Fleming's thick eyebrows almost hid his eyes; but when he raised them a little his glance was bright, penetrating, and full of energy,--the look of men who are used to be silent, and to whom concentration of mind is a familiar habit. His thin lips, finely puckered with upright lines, gave him a keenly subtle expression. The lower part of his face, indeed, vaguely suggested a fox's muzzle; still, a lofty and prominent brow, deeply furrowed, seemed to reveal some great and fine qualities,--a noble soul whose flights had been checked by experience, while the bitter lessons of life had quenched it and thrust it down into the deepest secret places of this strange being. He was certainly no ordinary miser, and his passion no doubt covered intense joys and secret conceptions.

"At what rate are Venetian sequins doings?" he suddenly asked his intending apprentice.

"At three-quarters, at Bruges; at one, at Ghent."

"What is the freight on the Scheldt?"

"Three sous Parisis."

"Nothing new in Ghent?"

"Lieven d'Herde's brother is ruined."

"Indeed!"

After allowing this exclamation to escape him, the old man covered his knees with the skirt of his dalmatic, a sort of robe of black velvet in front, with wide sleeves and no collar. The magnificent material was shiny with wear. This relic of the handsome dress he had been wont to wear as president of the tribunal of Parchons--a position which had brought upon him the Duke of Burgundy's enmity--was no more than a rag.

Philippe was not cold; he was bathed in sweat, trembling lest he should be required to answer any further questions. So far the brief information he had extracted the day before from a Jew, whose life he had once saved, had proved sufficient, thanks to his good memory, and to the Jew's thorough knowledge of the money-lender's manners and habits. But the young gentleman who, in the first flush of enterprise, had been full of confidence, now began to perceive the many difficulties of the business. The terrible Fleming's solemn gravity and perfect coolness were telling on him. And besides, he felt himself under lock and key, and could picture all the Provost's cords at Maitre Cornelius' command.

"Have you supped?" said the miser, in a tone which plainly meant "Do not sup."

In spite of her brother's tone the old woman was startled; she looked at their young inmate as if to gauge the capacity of the stomach she would be expected to fill, and then said with a false smile:

"You have not got your name for nothing, for your hair and moustache are blacker than the devil's tail."

"I have supped," replied he.

"Very well," said the miser; "then come to see me again to-morrow. I have long been accustomed to dispense with the services of an apprentice. Besides, the night brings good counsel."

"Nay, by Saint-Bavon! monsieur, I am from Flanders. I know nobody here, the chains are up. I shall be cast into prison. However," he added, frightened at the eagerness with which he had spoken, "of course, if it suits your convenience, I will go."

The oath had a strange effect on the old Fleming.

"Well, well. By Saint-Bavon! you shall sleep here."

"But----" his sister began in dismay.

"Silence," said Cornelius. "Oosterlinck, in his letter, answers for this youth. Have we not a hundred thousand livres in hand belonging to Oosterlinck?" he whispered in her ear; "and is not that good security?"

"And supposing he were to steal the Bavarian jewels? He looks far more like a thief than a Fleming."

"Hark!" exclaimed the old man, listening.

The two misers listened. Vaguely, an instant after the hush, a noise of men's steps was heard, far away on the further side of the city moat.

"It is the round of the watch at Le Plessis," said the sister.

"Come, give me the key of the apprentice's room," Cornelius went on.

The old maid was about to take up the lamp.

"What, are you going to leave us together without a light?" cried Cornelius, with evident meaning. "Cannot you move about in the dark at your age? Is it so difficult to find that key?"

The old woman understood the meaning behind these words, and went away.

As he looked after this extraordinary creature, just as she reached the door, Philippe Goulenoire could cast a furtive glance round the room unobserved by his master. It was wainscoted with oak half-way up, and the walls were hung with yellow leather, patterned with black; but what most struck him was a firelock musket with its long spring dagger attached. This new and terrible weapon lay close by Cornelius.

"How do you propose to earn your living?" asked the usurer.

"I have but little money," replied Goulenoire, "but I know some good trade recipes. If you will give me no more than a sou on every mark I earn for you, I shall be content."

"A sou! a sou!" cried the miser; "but that is a great deal."

Hereupon the old hag came in again.

"Come," said Cornelius to Philippe.

They went out into the entrance, and mounted a newel stair that ran up a turret close by the side of the living-room. On the first floor the young man paused.

"Nay, nay," said Cornelius. "The devil! why, these are the premises where the King takes his pleasure."

The architect had constructed the lodging for the apprentice under the conical roof of the staircase tower. It was a small circular room, with stone walls, cold and devoid of ornament. This tower stood in the middle of the front to the courtyard, which, as usual in provincial towns, was narrow and dark. Beyond and through the iron gratings of an arcade, there was a meagre garden, or rather a mulberry orchard, tended no doubt by Cornelius himself.

All this the youth could see through the loopholes in the turret, by the light of the moon, which happily shone brightly. A truckle-bed, a stool, a stone pitcher, and a rickety chest formed the furniture of this cage. The light was admitted through tiny square slits at regular intervals below the outer cornice of the structure, forming its ornamentation, no doubt, in character with this pleasing style of architecture.

"Here is your room. It is simple and strong. There is everything needed for sleep. Good-night. Do not leave it as the others did."

After giving his new apprentice a parting glance fraught with many meanings, Cornelius locked and double-locked the door, and carried away the key. He went downstairs again, leaving his man as much at his wit's end as a bell-founder who finds his mould empty. Alone, without a light, sitting on a stool in this little garret, which his four precursors had quitted only for the gallows, the young fellow felt like a wild animal caught in a sack. He sprang on to the stool, and stood on tiptoe to look out of the little loopholes through which the white light came in. He could thence see the Loire, the beautiful hills of Saint-Cyr, and the gloomy splendor of Le Plessis, where a few lights twinkled from the deep-set windows. Further away lay the fair fields of Touraine and the silvery reaches of the great river. Every detail of the pleasing landscape had at this moment an unwonted charm. Window-panes, water-pools, the roofs of the houses, glittered like gems in the tremulous moonbeams.

The young man could not altogether suppress some sweet but painful feeling.

"If it should be for the last time," thought he.

And he stood there, already tasting the terrible emotion his adventure had promised, and abandoning himself to the fears of a prisoner who still has a gleam of hope. Every difficulty added to his mistress' beauty. She was to him no longer a woman, but a supernatural being, seen through the hot vapors of desire.

A faint cry, which he fancied proceeded from the Hotel de Poitiers, brought him to himself and to a sense of his situation. As he sat down on the bed to meditate on the matter, he heard a soft rustle on the winding stair. He listened with all his ears; and presently the words, "He is in bed," spoken by the old woman, reached his ear.

By an accident of which the architect was unaware, the least sound below was echoed in the turret room, so that the sham apprentice did not lose one of the movements of the miser and his sister, who were spying on him. He undressed, got into bed, and pretended to sleep, spending the time during which his two hosts remained on the watch on the turret steps, in devising the means for getting out of his prison and into the Hotel de Poitiers. By about ten o'clock Cornelius and his sister, convinced that their apprentice was asleep, went to their own rooms.

The young man listened keenly to the dull remote sounds made by the Flemings, and fancied he could guess where they slept; they must, he thought, occupy the whole of the second floor.

As in all houses of that date, that floor was in the roof, with dormer windows richly ornamented with carved stone pediments. The roof was also edged by a sort of parapet, concealing the gutters for conducting the rain-water to the spouts, mimicking crocodiles' heads, which shed it into the street. The youth, who had studied his bearings as cunningly as a cat could have done, expected to find a means of getting from the tower on to the roof, and climbing along the gutter as far as Madame de Saint-Vallier's window, by the help of the water-spouts; but he had not known that the windows of the turret would be so small that it was impossible to pass through them. So he resolved to get out on the roof by the window that lighted the second-floor landing of the turret stair.

To execute this bold scheme, he must get out of his room, and Cornelius had the key. The young gentleman had taken the precaution of arming himself with one of the daggers, which were at this time in use for dealing the death-blow, the coup de grace, in single combat, when the adversary prayed that it might end. This horrible weapon had one edge as sharp as a razor, and the other toothed like a saw, with the teeth turned in a contrary sense to the thrust as it entered the body. The youth now proposed to use this dagger as a saw to cut the lock out from the wooden door. Happily for him, the staple proved to be attached to the inner side of the lintel by four large screws. By the help of his poniard he succeeded, not without difficulty, in unscrewing the staple which kept him a prisoner, and he carefully laid the screws on the chest.

By midnight he was free, and crept downstairs without his shoes to reconnoitre the ground. He was not a little surprised to find an open door to a passage leading to several rooms, and he saw at the end of it a window opening on to the V-shaped space between the roofs of the Hotel de Poitiers and that of the Malemaison, which met here. Nothing could express his joy, unless it were the vow he forthwith made to the Holy Virgin to found a mass in her honor, at the famous parish church of Escrignoles. After studying from thence the tall and vast chimneys of the Hotel de Poitiers, he went back again to fetch his weapon; but he now saw with a terrified shudder that there was a bright light on the stairs, and perceived Cornelius in his old dalmatic, carrying his lamp, his eyes wide open and fixed on the corridor, while he stood like a spectre at the entrance.

"If I open the window and leap out on the roof, he will hear me," thought the young man.

But the terrible Fleming was coming on--coming as the hour of death steals on the criminal. In this extremity, Goulenoire, his wits quickened by love, recovered his presence of mind; he shrank into the recess of a door, squeezing himself into the corner, and waited for the usurer to pass him. As soon as Cornelius, holding his lamp before him, was just at the angle where the youth could make a draught by blowing, he puffed out the light.

Cornelius muttered a Dutch oath and some incoherent words; but he turned back. The gentleman then flew up to his room, seized his weapon, ran back to the thrice-blessed window, opened it cautiously, and sprang out on to the roof.

Once free and under the sky, he almost fainted with joy. The excitement of danger or the audacity of his enterprise perhaps caused his agitation; victory is often as full of risk as the battle. He leaned against a parapet, trembling with satisfaction, and asked himself:

"Now, by which of those chimneys can I get into her room?"

He looked at them all. With the instinct of a lover, he touched them by turns to feel in which there had been a fire. When he had made up his mind, the gallant youth fixed his dagger firmly in the joint between two stones, attached his rope-ladder, and threw it down the chimney; and then, without a qualm, trusting to his good blade, climbed down to his mistress. He knew not whether the Comte de Saint-Vallier were asleep or awake, but he was fully bent on clasping the Countess in his arms even if it should cost two men their life. He gently set foot on the still warm ashes; he yet more gently stooped down and saw the Countess seated in an armchair.

By the light of the lamp, pale and trembling with joy, the timid woman pointed to Saint-Vallier in bed, a few yards off. You may suppose that their burning and silent kiss found no echo but in their hearts.

* * * * *

By nine next morning, just as Louis XI. was coming out of chapel, after attending mass, he found Maitre Cornelius in his path.

"Good luck, gossip," said he, curtly, as he pulled his cap straight.

"Sire, I will gladly pay a thousand gold crowns for a moment's speech of your Majesty, seeing that I have discovered the thief who stole the ruby chain and all the jewels."

"Let us hear this," said Louis XI., coming out into the courtyard of Le Plessis, followed by his treasurer, by Coyctier his physician, by Olivier le Daim, and the captain of the Scottish Guard. "Tell me your business. We are to have another man hanged for you, then? Here, Tristan!"

The Provost Marshal, who was marching up and down the courtyard, came up slowly, like a dog proud of his fidelity. The group paused under a tree. The King sat down on a bench; the courtiers formed a circle round him.

"Sire, I have been fairly trapped by a pretended Fleming," said Cornelius.

"He must be a wily knave indeed, then," said the King, shaking his head.

"Ay, truly," replied the goldsmith. "But I am not sure that he might not have beguiled you even. How was I to suspect a poor wight recommended to me by Oosterlinck, a man for whom I hold a hundred thousand livres? Nay, but I will wager that the Jew's seal is a forgery. In short, Sire, this morning I found myself robbed of the jewels you admired for their beauty. They have been stolen from me, Sire! The Elector of Bavaria's jewels stolen! The villains respect no man. They would rob you of your kingdom if you were not on the alert. Forthwith I went up to the room where I had bestowed this apprentice, who is certainly a past master of thieving. This time proofs are not lacking. He had unscrewed the staple of the lock; but on his return, the moon having set, he could not lay hands on all the screws. Thus, by good hap, as I went in, I trod on a screw. He was asleep, the varlet, for he was tired out. Fancy this, gentlemen; he had descended into my room by the chimney. To-morrow, or rather this evening, I will have it hot for him. We always learn something from these villains. He had about him a silken ladder, and his clothes bear the traces of his traveling over the roofs and through the chimney. He thought to live with me and bring me to ruin, the bold varlet! Now, where has he buried the jewels? The country-folk saw him early in the morning coming back across the roofs. He had accomplices waiting for him on the dyke you made. Ah, my lord, you are yourself the accomplice of thieves who come in boats; and, snap! they carry away what they will, and no traces left! However, we have the leader, a daring scapegrace, a rascal who would do credit to a gentleman's mother. Ay, he will look well hanging on a gibbet, and with a screw of the torture-chamber he will confess all. And is not this a matter for the honor of your rule? There should be no robbers under so great a King!"

But the King had long since ceased to listen. He was sunk in one of the gloomy moods that became frequent with him during the later years of his life. Silence reigned.

"This is your business man," said he at length, to Tristan. "Go and search out this matter."

He rose, and went forward a few steps; his courtiers left him to himself. He then perceived Cornelius, who, mounted on his mule, was going off in company with the Provost.

"And the thousand crowns?" said the King.

"Nay, Sire, you are too great a King! No sum of money could pay for your justice----"

Louis XI. smiled. The courtiers envied the old Fleming his bold tongue and many privileges; he rode off at a good pace, down the avenue of mulberry-trees that led from Le Plessis to Tours.

Exhausted by fatigue, the young gentleman was, in fact, sleeping soundly. On his return from his adventure of gallantry, he had ceased to feel such spirit and ardor for defending himself against distant and perhaps imaginary dangers, as had inspired him to rush on perilous delights. So he had postponed till morning the task of cleaning his soiled raiment and effacing the traces of his success. It was a great blunder, but one towards which everything tended. When, in the absence of the moon, which had set while he was happy with his love, he failed to find all the screws of the vexatious staple, he lost patience. Then, with the happy recklessness of a man full of contentment, or longing for rest, he trusted to the good luck of his fate, which had so far served him so well. He did, indeed, make a sort of bargain with himself, in virtue of which he was to wake at daybreak; but the events of the day and the excitements of the night hindered him from keeping the promise. Happiness is oblivious. The goldsmith seemed less formidable to the young gentleman as he lay on the hard truckle-bed whence so many of his predecessors had risen only to go to execution, and this recklessness was his undoing.

While the King's treasurer was on his way back from Plessis-les-Tours, escorted by the Provost and his terrible bowmen, the self-styled Goulenoire was being watched by the old sister, who sat knitting stockings for Cornelius on one of the steps of the turret stair, never heeding the cold.

The youth, meanwhile, was prolonging the joys of that enchanting night, ignorant of the disaster which was coming down on him at a gallop. He was dreaming. His dreams, like all the visions of youth, were so vividly colored that he was unconscious of where illusion began and reality ended. He saw himself on a cushion at the lady's feet; his head on her knees warm with affection; he was listening to the tale of the persecutions and petty tyranny the Count had so long inflicted on his wife; he wept with the Countess, who was, in fact, of all his natural children the daughter Louis XI. loved best; he promised her that he would go on the morrow and reveal all the facts to that terrible father. They had settled everything in their mind, annulling the marriage and imprisoning the husband, while they themselves might at any moment be the victims of his sword if the least sound had roused him. But in his dream the light of the lamp, the flame in their eyes, the hues of stuffs and tapestries, were brighter than in fact; a richer perfume exhaled from their night garments; there was more love in the air, more glow in the atmosphere, than there had been in reality. And the Marie of his dream was far less obdurate than the living Marie had been, to the languishing looks, the insinuating prayers, the magical questioning, the expressive silence, the voluptuous solicitation, the affected generosity which make the first moments of passion so fiercely ardent, and rouse lovers' souls to increased intoxication at each step in their love.

In accordance with the jurisprudence of love in those days Marie de Saint-Vallier granted her adorer the superficial privileges of la petite oie; that is to say, she willingly allowed him to kiss her feet, her robe, her hands, and her throat; she confessed her love; she accepted her lover's attentions and vows; she would permit him to die for her; she allowed herself to encourage an intoxication to which this half reserve, severe and often cruel as it was, gave added heat; but she was herself immovable, and would promise the highest reward of love only as the price of her deliverance. To annul a marriage in those days recourse to Rome was necessary. The parties needed the devotion of a few cardinals, and had to appear in the presence of the Sovereign Pontiff armed with the King's protection. Marie wished to owe her liberty to love, that she might resign it into love's hands.

In those days almost every woman had power enough so to establish her empire in the heart of a man as to make his passion the history of his whole life, the mainspring of the highest resolve. But then ladies could be numbered in France; they were so many sovereigns; they had a noble pride; their lovers belonged to them rather than they to the men; their love often cost much bloodshed, and to be accepted by them dangers had to be faced.

But in his dream Marie was merciful, and deeply touched by the devotion of her beloved, and she made little resistance to the handsome youth's vehement passion. Which was the real Marie? Did the so-called apprentice see the true woman in his dream? Was the lady he had found in the Hotel de Poitiers merely wearing a mask of virtue? The question is a delicate one, and the honor of the ladies requires that it should remain undecided.

At the very moment when the dream-Marie was about perhaps to forego her high dignity as his mistress, the lover felt himself gripped by an iron hand, and the sharp tones of the Provost thus addressed him:

"Come, you midnight Christian, who go feeling about for heaven. Come, wake up!"

Philippe saw Tristan's swarthy face and recognized his sardonic smile; and then on the steps of the spiral stairs he saw Cornelius and his sister, and behind them the Provost's men-at-arms. At this sight, at the aspect of all those diabolical countenances expressing hatred or else the vile curiosity of men accustomed to the hangman's office, Philippe Goulenoire sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.

"'Sdeath!" cried he, snatching his dagger from under his pillow. "It is time to be trying knife-play!"

"Oh, ho!" cried Tristan. "I smell the gentleman! It strikes me that we have here Georges d'Estouteville, nephew to the grand captain of the crossbowmen."

On hearing his true name proclaimed by Tristan, young d'Estouteville thought less of himself than of the danger his unhappy mistress would be in if he were recognized. To divert suspicion, he exclaimed:

"By all the devils, help! All good vagabonds, help!"

After this terrible outcry, uttered by a man who was absolutely desperate, the young courtier with one tremendous bound, poniard in hand, rushed out to the stairs. But the Provost's followers were used to such adventures. As soon as Georges d'Estouteville had reached the steps, they dexterously captured him, undaunted by the vigorous thrust he made at one of them, which fortunately slipped on the man's breastplate. They disarmed him, tied his hands, and threw him back on his bed under the eyes of their chief, who stood thoughtful and immovable.

Tristan silently examined the prisoner's hands, and scratching his chin he pointed them out to Cornelius, saying:

"Those are no more the hands of a robber than those of an apprentice. He is of noble birth."

"Say rather of ignoble earth," cried the Fleming, dolefully. "My good Tristan, whether he be noble or base-born, the villain has undone me. I would I might see him at this moment with his hands and feet toasting, or fitted into your neat little boots. He is beyond a doubt the captain of the invisible legion of devils who know all my secrets, open all my locks, rob me, and kill me by inches. They are rich by now, my friend. Ah! But this time we will have their treasure, for this fellow looks like the King of Egypt. I shall get back my precious rubies and vast sums of money; our good King shall have his hands full of crowns."

"Oh, our hiding-places are safer than yours!" said Georges, smiling.

"Ah, the damned villain, he confesses!" exclaimed the miser.

The Provost Marshal, meanwhile, had been examining the prisoner's clothes and the lock.

"Was it you who unscrewed all those rivets?"

Georges made no reply.

"Oh, very well; hold your tongue if you like. You will confess presently to Saint-Rack-bones," said Tristan.

"Ah, now you talk sense!" cried Cornelius.

"Lead him away," said the Provost.

Georges d'Estouteville asked permission to dress. At a sign from their master, the men-at-arms dressed the prisoner with the dexterous rapidity of a nurse who takes advantage of a moment when her baby is quiet, to change its clothes.

* * * * *

A great crowd had collected in the Rue du Murier. Their murmurs grew louder every moment, and seemed to threaten a riot. Rumors of the theft had been rife in the town from an early hour. Popular sympathy was in favor of the apprentice, who was said to be young and good-looking, and there was a general revival of hatred against Cornelius; so there was never a good mother's son, nor a young woman blest with neat feet and a rosy face, who was not eager to see the victim. There was a fearful uproar as soon as Georges appeared in the street, led by one of the Provost's men who, though mounted on a horse, held the strong leather thong by which the prisoner was secured, twisted round his arm, while the young man's hands were tightly tied. Whether it was merely to see Philippe Goulenoire, or in the hope of a rescue, those behind pushed those in front close up to the guard of cavalry posted outside the Malemaison. At this instant Cornelius and his sister slammed the door and closed the shutters with the vehemence of panic terror. Tristan, who was not accustomed to respect the populace, saw that the mob was not yet master, and cared not a straw for any riot.

"Push on, push on!" said he to his men.

At their master's word the bowmen urged their horses towards the end of the street. And then, seeing two or three inquisitive mortals fallen under the horses' feet, and some others crushed against the walls where they were being stifled, the crowd that had collected took the wiser part and went home again.

"Make way for the King's justice!" cried Tristan. "What business have you here? Do you want to be hanged, too? Go home, good folks, your roast meat is burning! Now then, goodwife, your husband's hose need mending; go back to your needle."

Although these facetious remarks showed that the Provost was in high good humor, the most daring fled from him as if he were the Black Death. Just as the crowd began to give way, Georges d'Estouteville was startled to see, at one of the windows of the Hotel de Poitiers, his beloved Marie de Saint-Vallier, laughing with the Count. She was laughing at him, the unhappy, devoted lover, who was going to death for her sake. Nay, perhaps she only was amused by those in the crowd whose caps had been knocked off by the archer's accoutrements.

A man must be three and twenty and rich indeed in illusions, must dare to trust in a woman's love, must love with all the powers of his being, and, after risking his life with joy on the faith of a kiss, must feel himself betrayed, ere he can understand the rage, hatred, and despair that surged up in the young man's soul as he saw his mistress laughing and vouchsafing him only a cold and indifferent glance. She had, no doubt, been there some time, for her arms rested on a cushion. She was evidently quite comfortable, and her old ogre quite content. He was laughing, too,--curse him for a hunchback!

A tear or two trickled from the young man's eyes; but when Marie saw them, she hastily drew back. And suddenly Georges' eyes were dry, for he descried the red and black feathers of the page who was devoted to him.

The Count did not observe the movements of that cautious servant, who came in on tiptoe. The page spoke a word in his mistress' ear, and then Marie came back to the window. She contrived to evade the watchful eye of her tyrant long enough to flash a look at her lover--the look of a woman who has skilfully deceived her Argus--bright with the fires of love and the triumph of hope.

"I am watching over you." If she had shouted the words, it could not have expressed so many things as this glance, embodying a thousand thoughts, and charged with the alarms, the joys, the perils, of their situation. It bore him from heaven to martyrdom, and from martyrdom to heaven. And so the young man, light-hearted and content, marched on to execution, counting the anguish of the torture-chamber as a small price for the raptures of love.

As Tristan was turning out of the Rue du Murier, his men drew up at the presence of an officer of the Scottish Guard, who rode up at full tilt.

"What is to do?" asked the Provost.

"Nothing that concerns you," replied the officer, scornfully. "The King has sent me to summon the Comte and Comtesse de Saint-Vallier, whom he bids to dine at his table."

Hardly had the Provost reached the quay of Le Plessis when the Count and his wife, both riding, she on a white mule and he on his horse, and followed by two pages, came up with the bowmen to enter the precincts of the chateau in their company. The whole party went but slowly. Georges was on foot, between two men-at-arms, one of whom still led him by the thong.

Tristan, the Count, and his wife naturally led the van, and the criminal came behind. The younger page, mingling with the bowmen, was questioning them, or from time to time addressing the prisoner; and he cleverly seized an opportunity to say in an undertone:

"I climbed over the garden wall of Le Plessis, and carried a letter that madame had written to the King. She thought she would have died when she heard that you were accused of theft. Be of good courage; she will speak for you."

Love had already lent the Countess courage and craft. When she had laughed, her attitude and mirth were due to the heroism women can display in the great crises of life.

Notwithstanding the singular caprice which led the author of Quentin Durward to place the chateau of Plessis-les-Tours on a height, we are compelled to leave it where it really stood at that time, in a hollow, protected on two sides by the Cher and the Loire, and again by the canal, named by Louis XI. the Canal Sainte-Anne in honor of his favorite daughter, Madame de Beaujeu. By uniting the two rivers between Tours and Le Plessis, this canal was at once a formidable protection to the stronghold and a valuable highway for trade. On the side next to the broad and fertile plain of Brehemont, the park was enclosed behind a moat, of which the enormous width and depth are sufficiently shown by what remains.

Thus, at a period when the power of artillery was in its infancy, the position of Le Plessis, long since chosen by Louis XI. as his favorite retreat, might be regarded as impregnable. The chateau itself was built of brick and stone, and not in any way remarkable, but it was surrounded by fine groves, and from its windows, through the alleys of the park (Plexitium), the loveliest views possible could be seen. And no rival mansion was to be found anywhere near this lovely palace standing exactly in the middle of the little plain enclosed for the King within four effectual bulwarks of water. If tradition may be trusted, Louis XI. occupied the western wing, and he could from his room see at once the course of the Loire, and beyond the river the pretty valley watered by the Choisille, and part of the hills of Saint-Cyr; from the windows overlooking the courtyard he commanded the entrance to his fortress, and the quay by which his favorite residence was connected with the city of Tours. The King's suspicious temper gives weight to this tradition. And certainly, if Louis XI. had but lavished in the building of this palace such architectural magnificence as Francois I. afterwards indulged at Chambord, the home of the kings of France would have been permanently fixed in Touraine. This beautiful spot, and its lovely scenery, have only to be seen to prove its superiority over the situation of any other royal residence.

Louis XI., now in his fifty-seventh year, had scarcely three more years to live, and was already made aware of the approach of death by attacks of illness. Delivered now from his enemies, and on the eve of adding to the kingdom of France all the possessions of the duchy of Burgundy, by means of a marriage, arranged by Desquerdes, the captain-general of his army in Flanders, between the Dauphin and Marguerite, sole heiress of Burgundy; having secured his authority in every part of his realm, while still planning wise improvements, he saw time slipping from his grasp, nothing left to him but the troubles of advancing years. Deceived by everybody, even by his creatures, experience had increased his natural distrustfulness. The desire to live had become in him the egoism of a king who had made himself one incarnate with his people, and who craved for long life to carry out vast schemes.

Everything that the good sense of public-spirited statesmen or the instinct of revolution has since achieved in reforming the monarchy, Louis XI. had thought out. Equality of taxation, and that of all subjects in the eye of the Law--the Sovereign was the Law then--were objects he boldly strove for. On the day before All Saints he had assembled certain learned goldsmiths to establish uniform weights and measures throughout France, as he had already established uniform authority. Thus his great mind soared eagle-like above the whole kingdom, and Louis XI. added to the cautiousness of a king the eccentricities that are natural to men of lofty genius.

So grand a figure would at no period have appeared more poetical or more dignified. A strange mixture of contrasts! A great will in a feeble frame; a mind incredulous as to earthly things, credulous as concerned religious practices; a man combating two forces greater than himself--the present and the future: the future, when he dreaded to endure torment, which made him sacrifice so largely to the Church; the present, his actual life, for whose sake he was a slave to Coyctier. This King, who could crush whom he would, was crushed by remorse, and yet more by sickness, in the midst of all the mysterious prestige that enwraps a suspicious king, in whom all power centres.

It was the stupendous and always impressive struggle of man in the fullest expression of his power, rebelling against nature.

* * * * *

While waiting till the dinner hour, at that time between eleven o'clock and noon, Louis XI., after a short walk, was sitting in a large tapestried armchair in the chimney-corner of his own room. Olivier le Daim and Coyctier, the leech, looked at each other without a word, standing in a window-bay, and respecting their master's slumbers. The only sound to be heard was that made in the ante-room by the two chamberlains-in-waiting, as they paced to and fro; the Sire de Montresor and Jean Dufou, Sire de Montbazon. These two, gentlemen of the Touraine, kept an eye on the captain of the Scottish Guard, who was probably asleep in his chair, as was his custom.

The King seemed to be dozing; his head was sunk on his breast; his cap, pulled over his brow, almost concealed his eyes. Thus huddled in his raised throne, which was surmounted by a crown, he looked like a man who had fallen asleep in the midst of some deep calculation.

At this moment Tristan and his party were crossing the bridge of Sainte-Anne over the canal, at about two hundred paces from the entrance to the chateau.

"Who goes there?" asked the King.

The courtiers looked inquiringly at each other in surprise.

"He is dreaming," whispered Coyctier.

"Pasques Dieu!" cried the King. "Do you take me for a fool? Somebody is coming across the bridge. To be sure, I am sitting by the chimney, and of course can hear the sound more clearly than you can. That natural effect might be utilized----"

"What a man!" said Olivier le Daim.

Louis XI. rose and went to the window, whence he could look out on the town; then he saw the High Provost, and exclaimed:

"Ah ha! Here is my old gossip with his thief. And there, too, comes my little Marie de Saint-Vallier. I had forgotten that little matter. Olivier," he went on, addressing the barber, "go and tell Monsieur de Montbazon to put us some fine Burgundy on the table; and see that the cook gives us lampreys. Madame la Comtesse dearly likes them both. May I eat lampreys?" he added after a pause, with an uneasy look at Coyctier.

His attendant's only reply was to examine his master's face. The two men made a picture.

History and romance have consecrated the brown camlet overcoat, and trunks of the same material worn by Louis XI. His cap, garnished with pewter medals, and his collar of the Order of Saint-Michael, are no less famous; but no writer, no painter, has ever shown us the terrible King's face in his later days: a sickly face, hollow, yellow, and tawny, every feature expressive of bitter cunning and icy irony. There was, indeed, a noble brow to this mask, a brow furrowed with lines and seamed with lofty thought, but on his cheeks and lips a singularly vulgar and common stamp. Certain details of that countenance would have led to the conclusion that it belonged to some debauched old vine-grower, some miserly tradesman; but then, through these vague suggestions and the decrepitude of a dying old man, the King flashed out, the man of power and action. His eyes, pale and yellow, looked extinct; but a spark lurked within of courage and wrath, which at the least touch would flame up into consuming fires.

The physician was a sturdy citizen, dressed in black, with a florid, keen, and greedy face, giving himself airs of importance.

The setting of these two figures was a room paneled with walnut wood, and hung with fine Flemish tapestry above the wainscot; the ceiling, supported on carved beams, was already blackened by smoke. The furniture and bedstead, inlaid with arabesques in white metal, would seem more valuable now than they really were at that time, when the arts were beginning to produce so many masterpieces.

"Lamprey is very bad for you," replied the physician.[G]

"What am I to eat, then?" the King humbly asked.

"Some widgeon, with salt. Otherwise you are so full of bile that you might die on All Souls' day."

"To-day?" cried the King, in great alarm.

"Oh, be easy, Sire, I am here," replied Coyctier. "Try not to fret, and amuse yourself a little."

"Ah," said the King, "my daughter used to be skilled in that difficult art."

Just then Imbert de Bastarnay, Sire de Montresor and de Bridore, gently knocked at the royal door. By the King's leave he came in, announcing the Comte and Comtesse de Saint-Vallier. Louis nodded. Marie entered the room, followed by her old husband, who allowed her to precede him.

"Good-day, my children," said the King.

"Sire," said the lady in a whisper, as she embraced him, "I would fain speak with you in private."

Louis XI. made as though he had not heard her.

"Dufou, hola!" cried he, in a hollow voice.

Dufou, Lord of Montbazon and high cupbearer of France, hastened in.

"Go to the steward; I must have a widgeon for dinner. Then go to Madame de Beaujeu and tell her that I dine alone to-day. Do you know, madame," the King went on, affecting some little anger, "that you neglect me? It is nearly three years since I saw you last. Come, come hither, pretty one," he added, sitting down and holding out his arms to her. "How thin you are! What do you do to make her so thin? Heh?" he suddenly asked, turning to the Count.

The jealous wretch gave his wife such a pathetic look that she was almost sorry for him.

"It is happiness, Sire," he replied.

"Oh, ho! You are too fond of each other," said the King, holding his daughter upright on his knees. "Well, well, I see I was right, then, when I called you Marie-pleine-de-Grace. Coyctier, leave us! Now, what do you want of me?" he added, to his daughter, as the leech disappeared. "When you sent me your----"

In such peril Marie audaciously laid her hand on the King's mouth, and said in his ear:

"I always thought you secret and keen-witted----"

"Saint-Vallier," said the King, laughing, "I believe that Bridore has something to say to you."

The Count left the room; but he shrugged one shoulder in a way his wife knew only too well; she could guess the jealous monster's thoughts, and concluded that she must be on her guard against his malignancy.

"Now tell me, child, how do you think I am looking? Am I much altered?"

"Gramercy, my lord, do you want the truth? Or shall I speak you fair?"

"No," said he, in a husky voice, "I want to know where I stand."

"In that case, you look but ill to-day. But I trust my truthfulness may not mar the success of my business."

"What is it?" asked the King, passing one of his hands over his knitted brows.

"Well, Sire," said she, "the young man who has been arrested in the house of your treasurer Cornelius, and who is at this present in the hands of your Provost Marshal, is innocent of stealing the jewels of Bavaria."

"How do you know?" asked the King.

Marie hung her head, and blushed.

"I need not ask if there is a love-affair at the bottom of this," said Louis XI., gently raising his daughter's face, and stroking her chin. "If you do not confess every morning, child, you will go to hell."

"And cannot you oblige me without violating my secret thoughts?"

"What would be the pleasure of that?" exclaimed the King, seeing that there might be some amusement in the matter.

"Oh, but you would not wish your pleasure to cost me sorrow?"

"Heh! sly puss, do not you trust me?"

"Well, then, my lord, set this young gentleman free."

"Oh, ho! So he is a gentleman!" cried the King. "Then he is not an apprentice?"

"He is most certainly innocent," said she.

"I do not see it in that light," said the King, coldly. "I am the supreme judge in my kingdom, and it is my duty to punish malefactors."

"Fay, come, do not put on your considering face. Grant me the young man's life!"

"Would not that be giving you back what is your own?"

"Sire," said she, "I am honest and virtuous. You are mocking me."

"Well, then," said the King, "as I cannot see my way in this business, let Tristan throw some light upon it."

Marie de Sassenage turned pale. With a violent effort she said:

"Sire, I assure you that you will be in despair if you do. The so-called thief has stolen nothing. If you will promise me his pardon, I will tell you everything, even if you should visit it on me."

"Oh, ho! This looks serious," said Louis XI., setting his cap aside. "Speak, my child."

"Well," said she, in a low voice, and speaking with her lips close to her father's ear, "the gentleman spent the night in my room."

"He may have gone to see you, and yet have robbed Cornelius--a double larceny."

"Sire, I have your blood in my veins, and I am not the woman to love a vagabond. This gentleman is the nephew of the captain-general of your crossbowmen."

"Go on," said the King. "It is very hard to get anything out of you."

As he spoke, Louis flung his daughter off to some distance; and she stood trembling while he ran to the door into the next room, but on tiptoe, and without making a sound. A moment since the light from a window in the outer room, shining beneath the door, had shown him the shadow of a pair of feet close to the entrance. He suddenly opened the iron-bound door, and surprised the Comte de Saint-Vallier, who was listening.

"Pasques Dieu!" cried he, "this is such insolence as deserves the axe."

"My liege," said Saint-Vallier, boldly, "I would rather have the axe at my neck than the ornament of the married on my forehead."

"You may live to have both," said the King. "Not a man of you all is secure against those two misfortunes, my lords. Go into the farther ante-room. Conyngham," he went on, addressing the Scottish captain, "were you asleep? And where is Monsieur Bridore? Do you allow me to be thus invaded? Pasques Dieu! the plainest citizen in Tours is better served than I am."

Having thus vented his anger, Louis came back into his room; but he took care to draw the tapestry curtains which covered the door on the inner side, less for the purpose of moderating the cold draught than of smothering the King's words.

"And so, daughter," said he, amusing himself by teasing her, as a cat plays with a mouse it has caught, "Georges d'Estouteville was your gallant yesterday?"

"Oh, no, Sire!"

"No? Then by Saint-Carpion! he deserves to die. The villain did not think my daughter fair enough perhaps."

"Oh, if that is all," said she, "I assure you he kissed my feet and hands with such ardor as might have melted the most virtuous wife. He loves me, but honestly, as a gentleman should."

"And do you take me for Saint-Louis that you foist such a tale on me? A youngster of that pattern would have risked his life to kiss your slippers or your sleeve! Nay, nay----"

"Ay, my lord, but it is true. Still he came for another reason."

As she spoke, it struck Marie that she had imperiled her husband's life, for Louis at once eagerly inquired:

"For what?"

The adventure was amusing him hugely. He certainly did not expect the strange revelations now made by his daughter, after stipulating for her husband's pardon.

"Oh, ho! Monsieur de Saint-Vallier, so this is the way you draw the blood royal!" cried the King, his eyes blazing with wrath.

At this moment the bell of Le Plessis rang to call the King's escort to arms. Leaning on his daughter's arm, Louis XI. appeared on the threshold and found his guard in attendance. He first glanced dubiously at the Comte de Saint-Vallier, considering the sentence he was about to pronounce on him.

The deep silence was broken by Tristan's footsteps coming up the grand stairs. He came into the room, and advancing to the King said:

"Sire, the matter is settled!"

"What, all over?" said the King.

"Our man is in the priest's hands. He confessed to the theft after a screw of the rack."

The Countess sighed and turned pale; she could not even command her voice as she looked at the King. This glance was not lost on Saint-Vallier, who said in an undertone:

"I am undone. The thief is known to my wife!"

"Silence!" cried the King. "There is some one here of whom I am tired. Go quickly and stop the execution," he added, turning to the Provost. "You will answer to me for the criminal; your life for his, my friend! This affair must be thoroughly searched out, and I reserve the judgment. Provisionally, set the prisoner at large. I shall know where to find him; these robbers have hiding-places that they love, dens where they lurk. Make it known to Cornelius that I purpose going to his house this very evening to conduct the inquiry. Monsieur de Saint-Vallier," the King went on, fixing his eyes on the Count, "I have heard of all your doings. All the blood in your body cannot pay for one drop of mine; do you know that? By our Lady of Clery, you have been guilty of high treason. Did I give you so sweet a wife that you might make her pale and haggard? Marry, my lord! You go to your own house at this moment, and make you ready there for a long journey."

The mere habit of cruelty made the King pause on these words, but he presently added:

"You will set forth this night to treat of my business with the Signors of Venice. Do not be uneasy; I will bring your wife home with me this evening to my chateau of Le Plessis; there, at least, she will be safe. Henceforth I shall take better care of her than I have done since you wedded her."

Marie, as she heard these words, silently pressed her father's arm to thank him for his clemency and good grace. As to Louis, he was laughing in his sleeve.

Louis XI. dearly loved to interfere in his subjects' concerns, and was ever ready to mingle in his own royal person in scenes of middle-class life. This fancy, severely blamed by some historians, was no more than the passion for the incognito which is one of the chief amusements of princes, a sort of temporary abdication which enables them to bring a breath of work-a-day life into an existence which is insipid for lack of opposition; but then Louis XI. played at an incognito without any disguise. In this sort of adventures, too, he was always good-humored, and did his utmost to be pleasant to the citizen class, of whom he had made friends and allies against the feudal lords.

It was now some little time since he had an opportunity of thus making himself popular, or taking up the defence of a man enmeshed in some actionable offence, so he was ready to enter vehemently into Maitre Cornelius' alarms and the Countess' secret griefs.

Several times during dinner he said to his daughter:

"But who can have robbed my old gossip? He has lost more than twelve hundred thousand crowns' worth of jewels, stolen within the last eight years. Twelve hundred thousand crowns, my lords," he repeated, looking round on the gentlemen in attendance. "By our Lady, for such a sum of money a great many absolutions may be bought of the Court of Rome. I could have embanked the Loire for the money, or, better still, have conquered Piedmont--a fine bulwark, ready made, for our kingdom."

* * * * *

When dinner was ended, Louis XI. led away his daughter, his physician, and the Provost Marshal, and made his way with an escort of his guard to the Hotel de Poitiers, where, as he had expected, he found the Comte de Saint-Vallier, who was awaiting his wife, perhaps to get rid of her.

"Monsieur," said the King, "I had instructed you to depart as soon as possible. Take leave of your wife and get across the frontier; you will be granted an escort of honor. As to your instructions and letters of credit, they will be at Venice sooner than you."

Louis gave his orders, adding certain secret instructions, to a lieutenant of the Scottish Guard, who was to take a company and attend his envoy to Venice. Saint-Vallier went off in great haste, after giving his wife a cold kiss, which he would gladly have rendered fatal.

As soon as the Countess had retired to her room, Louis proceeded to the Malemaison, very anxious to see the end of the dismal farce that was going on under his gossip the usurer's roof, and flattering himself that, being the King, he would have keen wit enough to detect the robbers' secrets.

It was not without apprehension that Cornelius saw his master's company.

"And are all these folks part of the ceremony?" he asked in a low voice. Louis could not help smiling at the terrors of the old miser and his sister.

"No, gossip," replied he, "be quite easy. They will sup with us at my house; we shall go into the matter alone. I am such a good justiciary that I wager ten thousand crowns I find the criminal."

"Let us find him, my lord, and never mind the wager."

They went into the closet where the Fleming stored his treasures. Here King Louis, having first examined the case which had contained the Elector of Bavaria's jewels, and then the chimney down which the thief was supposed to have come, easily proved to the goldsmith that his suspicions were unfounded, inasmuch as there was no soot on the hearth--where, indeed, a fire was rarely kindled--and no trace of any kind in the chimney. Moreover, the chimney opened to a part of the roof that was practically inaccessible. Finally, after two hours spent in investigations characterized by the sagacity which distinguished the King's distrustful temper, it was proved to a demonstration that no one could have got into the miser's treasury. There was no mark of violence on any of the locks, inside or out, nor on the iron coffers containing his gold and silver and the costly jewels pledged by wealthy borrowers.

"If the robber opened this board," said Louis XI., "why did he take only the Bavarian jewels? Why should he have left this pearl necklace? A strange thief, indeed!"

At this reflection the hapless miser turned pale; the King and he eyed each other for a moment.

"Well, then, my liege, what was the robber doing whom you have taken under your protection, and who certainly was out during the night?"

"If you have not guessed, master, I desire that you never will; it is one of my secrets."

"Then the devil haunts me!" said the goldsmith, lamentably.

Under any other circumstances the King would have laughed at his treasurer's exclamation; but he stood thinking and gazing at Maitre Cornelius with the scrutiny familiar to men of genius and authority, as if he could see into the man's brain. The Fleming, in fact, was terrified, thinking he had offended his formidable master.

"Angel or devil, I will have the malefactor!" the King suddenly exclaimed. "If you are robbed this night, I will know by whom to-morrow. Call up that old ape, your sister," he added.

Cornelius almost hesitated to leave the King alone in the room that contained his treasure; however, he went, coerced by the strength of the bitter smile that curled Louis' faded lips. And in spite of his confidence, he soon returned, followed by the old woman.

"Have you any flour?" asked the King.

"To be sure! we have laid in our store for the winter," said she.

"Well, then, bring it here," said the King.

"And what would you be doing with our flour, Sire?" cried she in alarm, and not in the least awed by the presence of majesty, like all persons possessed by a ruling passion.

"You old fool, will you do as our gracious liege bids you?" cried Cornelius. "Does the King want your flour?"

"This is what I buy fine flour for," muttered she, on the stairs. "Oh, my good flour!"

She turned back to say to the King:

"Is it your royal whim, my lord, to examine my flour?"

But at last she returned with one of the linen bags, which from time immemorial have been used in Touraine for carrying provisions to or from market--walnuts, fruit, or corn. This sack was half full of flour. The housewife opened it, and timidly showed it to the King, looking at him with the swift stolen glances by which old maids, as it would seem, hope to cast venom on a man.

"It is worth six sous the measure," said she.

"What matter!" replied the King. "Sprinkle it on the floor, and above all strew it very evenly, as if there had been a light fall of snow."

The old woman did not understand. The order dismayed her more than the end of the world could have done.

"My flour, my liege--on the floor--why----"

Maitre Cornelius, who had an inkling, though a vague one, of the King's idea, snatched the bag, and sprinkled the flour gently on the boards. The old woman shuddered, and held out her hand for the bag; as soon as her brother restored it to her, she vanished with a deep sigh.

Cornelius took a feather broom and began spreading the flour with it over the floor till it lay like a sheet of snow, walking backwards towards the door, followed by the King, who seemed greatly amused by the proceedings. When they were at the threshold, Louis XI. said to his gossip:

"Are there two keys to the lock?"

"No, Sire."

The King examined the structure of the door, which was strengthened by large iron plates and bars. All the parts of this armor centered round a lock with a secret, of which Cornelius alone had the key. After investigating it thoroughly, Louis sent for Tristan, and bid him to set a watch with the utmost secrecy that night, some in the mulberry-trees on the quay, and on the parapets of the neighboring houses; but first to collect all his men to escort him back to Le Plessis, so as to make it appear that he, the King, was not supping with Maitre Cornelius. Then he desired the miser to be so particular in closing every window, that not a glimmer of light could pierce through, and to order a light meal, so as not to give a hint that His Majesty was sleeping there that night.

The King set out in state by the dyke road and returned privily, with only two attendants, by the rampart gate to the house of his friend the miser. Everything was so well arranged that all the townsfolk and courtiers supposed that the King had chosen to go back to the chateau, and would sup with the treasurer on the morrow. The miser's sister confirmed this notion by buying some green sauce from the best maker, whose shop was close to the quarroir aux herbes, since called the carroir de Beaune, in honor of a splendid white marble fountain which the unfortunate Semblancay (Jacques de Beaune) sent for from Italy to adorn the capital of his province.

At about eight in the evening, when the King was at supper with his leech, Cornelius and the captain of the Scottish Guard, talking gayly and forgetting that he was Louis XI. and ill, and almost dying, perfect silence reigned outside, and the passers-by, nay, even a thief, might have supposed the dwelling to be uninhabited.

"I hope," said the King, laughing, "that my gossip may be robbed this night, to satisfy my curiosity. And see to it, gentlemen, that no one leaves his chamber to-morrow morning without my orders, under pain of serious punishment."

Thereupon they all went to bed.

* * * * *

Next morning Louis XI. was the first to leave his room, and he made his way towards Cornelius' treasure-room. He was not a little surprised to detect the prints of a large foot on the stairs and in the passages of the house. Carefully avoiding these precious marks, he went to the door of the miser's closet and found it locked, with no traces of violence. He examined the direction of the footprints, but as they gradually grew fainter and at last left no mark, it was impossible to discover how the robber had escaped.

"Ah ha! gossip," cried the King to Cornelius, "you have been robbed, that is very certain!"

At these words the old Fleming came out, a prey to evident horror. Louis XI. led him to look at the footprints on the boards, and while examining them once more, the King, having by chance observed the miser's slippers, recognized the shape of the sole of which so many copies were stamped on the flooring. He said not a word, and suppressed a laugh, remembering how many innocent men had been hanged.

Cornelius hurried into his strong room. The King, bidding him make a fresh footprint by the side of those already visible, convinced him that the thief was none other than himself.

"The pearl necklace is missing!" cried Cornelius. "There is witchcraft in this. I have not left my room."

"We will find out about that at once," said the King, puzzled by the goldsmith's evident good faith.

He called the men of the watch into his room and asked them:

"Marry now, what did you see in the night?"

"Ah, Sire! a magical sight!" replied the lieutenant. "Your Majesty's treasurer stealing downstairs close to the wall, and so nimbly that at first we took him for a spectre."

"I!" cried Cornelius, who then stood silent and motionless as a paralyzed creature.

"You may go, all of you," said Louis, addressing the bowmen, "and tell Monsieur Conyngham, Coyctier, Bridore, and Tristan that they may get out of bed and come here. You have incurred pain of death," said Louis, coldly, to the miser, who, happily, did not hear him, "for you have at least ten on your soul!"

The King laughed, a grim, noiseless laugh, and paused.

"But be easy," he went on, as he noticed the strange pallor that overspread the old man's face; "you are better to bleed than to kill. And in consideration of a handsome fine, paid into my coffers, you may escape the clutches of justice; but if you do not build at least a chapel to the Virgin, you are in jeopardy of finding warm and anxious work before you for all eternity."

"Twelve hundred and thirty and eighty-eight thousand crowns make thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns," replied Cornelius, mechanically, absorbed in calculations. "Thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns misappropriated!"

"He must have buried them in some hidden spot," said the King, who was beginning to think the sum a royal prize. "This is the lodestone that has always attracted him hither--he smelt his gold."

Hereupon Coyctier came in. Noticing the treasurer's attitude, he watched him keenly while the King was relating the adventure.

"My lord," replied the physician, "there is nothing supernatural in the business. Our friend here has the peculiarity of walking in his sleep. This is the third case I have met with of this singular malady. If you should be pleased to witness its effects, you might see this old man walking without danger on the parapet of the roof any night when he should be seized by it. In the two men I have already studied, I discovered a curious connection between the instincts of this nocturnal vitality and their business or occupations by day."

"Ah, Maitre Coyctier, you are indeed most learned!"

"Am I not your physician?" retorted the leech, insolently.

On this reply Louis XI. made a little movement which was a familiar trick with him when he had hit on a good idea--a gesture of hastily pushing his cap up.

"In such cases," Coyctier went on, "men transact their business in their sleep. As our friend here is not averse to hoarding, he has quietly yielded to his favorite habit. Indeed, he probably has an attack whenever, during the day, he has been in alarm for his treasure."

"Pasques Dieu! and what a treasure!" cried the King.

"Where is it?" asked Cornelius, who, by a singular peculiarity of our nature, heard all that the King and his leech were saying, though almost stunned by his reflections and his misfortune.

"Oh!" replied Coyctier, with a coarse, diabolical laugh, "somnambulists have no recollection of their acts and deeds when they awake."

"Leave us!" said the King.

When Louis XI. was alone with his gossip, he looked at him with a cold chuckle.

"Worshipful Master Hoogworst," said he, bowing low, "all treasure-trove in France belongs to the King."

"Yes, my liege, it is all yours; and our lives and fortunes are in your hands; but hitherto you have been so merciful as to take no more than you found necessary."

"Listen to me, gossip. If I help you to recover this treasure, you may, in all confidence and without fear, divide it with me."

"No, Sire, I will not divide it. It shall be all yours, when I am dead. But what scheme have you for finding it?"

"I have only to watch you, myself, while you are taking your nocturnal walks. Any one but myself would be a danger."

"Ah, Sire," replied Cornelius, falling at the King's feet, "you are the only man in the kingdom whom I would trust with that office, and I shall find means to prove my gratitude for your kindness to your humble servant by doing my utmost to promote the marriage of the Heiress of Bourgogne to Monseigneur the Dauphin. There indeed is a treasure, not, to be sure, in crown-pieces, but in land, which will nobly round out your dominions!"

"Pshaw, Fleming, you are deceiving me!" said the King, knitting his brows, "or you have played me false."

"Nay, Sire, can you doubt my devotion--you, the only man I love?"

"Words, words!" said the King, turning to face the miser. "You ought not to have waited for this to be of use to me. You are selling me your patronage--Pasques Dieu! to me--Louis the Eleventh! Are you the master, I would know, and am I the servant?"

"Ah, my liege," replied the old usurer, "I had hoped to give you an agreeable surprise by news of the communications I had established with the men of Ghent. I expected confirmation of it by the hand of Oosterlinck's apprentice. But what has become of him?"

"Enough," said the King. "Another error. I do not choose that any one should interfere, uncalled for, in my concerns. Enough! I must think all this over."

Maitre Cornelius found the agility of youth to fly to the lower room, where his sister was sitting.

"Oh, Jeanne, dear heart, we have somewhere a hoard where I have hidden the thirteen hundred thousand crowns. And I--I am the thief!"

Jeanne Hoogworst rose from her stool, starting to her feet as if the seat were of red-hot iron. The shock was so frightful to an old woman accustomed for many years to exhaust herself by voluntary abstinence, that she quaked in every limb and felt a terrible pain in her back. By degrees her color faded, and her face, in which the wrinkles made any change very difficult to detect, gradually fell, while her brother explained to her the disease to which he was a victim, and the strange situation in which they both stood.

"King Louis and I," said he in conclusion, "have just been telling each other as many lies as two miracle-mongers. You see, child, if he were to watch me, he would be sole master of the secret of the treasure. No one in the world but the King can spy on my nocturnal movements. Now I do not know that the King's conscience, near on death as he is, could stand out against thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns. We must be beforehand with him, find the nest, and send all treasure to Ghent. Now you alone----"

Cornelius suddenly stopped short, as if he were gauging the heart of this King, who, at two and twenty, had dreamed of parricide. When the treasurer had made up his mind as to Louis XI., he hastily rose, as a man in a hurry to escape some danger.

At this sudden movement, his sister, too weak or too strong for such a crisis, fell down flat; she was dead. Cornelius lifted her up and shook her violently, saying:

"This is no time for dying; you will have time enough for that afterwards. Oh! it is all over! Wretched creature, she could never do the right thing----"

He closed her eyes and laid her on the floor. But then the kind and noble feelings that lurked at the bottom of his heart came to the surface, and almost forgetting his undiscovered treasure, he cried out in sorrow:

"My poor companion! what, have I lost you--you who understood me so well? Ah! you were my real treasure. There, there, lies the treasure. With you I have lost all my peace of mind, all my affections. If you had but known how well it would have paid you to live only two nights longer, you would not have died, if only to please me, poor little woman. I say, Jeanne--thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns! No, even that does not rouse you. No, she is dead, quite dead!"

He thereupon sat down and said no more, but two large tears gathered in his eyes and rolled down his hollow cheeks; then with many an "Ah!" and sigh he locked the room up and returned to the King. Louis was startled by the grief he saw written on his old friend's features.

"What is this?" said he.

"Alas, Sire, a misfortune never comes single. My sister is dead. She has gone below before me," and he pointed to the ground with startling emphasis.

"Enough, enough!" said Louis XI., who did not like to hear any mention of death.

"You are my heir. I care for nothing now. Here are my keys. Hang me, if it is your good pleasure. Take everything; search the house; it is full of gold. I give it all to you."

"Come, come, gossip," said the King, half moved by the sight of this strange anguish, "we will discover the hoard some fine night, and the sight of so much riches will revive your taste for life. I will come again this week."

"Whenever Your Majesty pleases."

At these words, the King, who had gone a few steps towards the door, turned sharply round, and the two men looked at each other with an expression that no brush, nor words, could render.

"Good-bye, gossip," said Louis, at last, in a sharp voice, as he put his bonnet straight.

"May God and the Virgin keep you in their good grace!" the usurer replied humbly, as he escorted the King to the street.

After so long a friendship these two men found a barrier raised between them by distrust and money, whereas they had hitherto been quite agreed on matters of money and distrust; but they knew each other so well, they were so much in the habit of intimacy, that the King could guess from the miser's tone as he rashly said, "Whenever Your Majesty pleases," the annoyance his visits would thenceforth be to his treasurer, just as Cornelius had discerned a declaration of war in the way Louis had said "Good-bye, gossip."

So Louis XI. and his banker parted, very uncertain as to what, for the future, their demeanor was to be. The monarch, indeed, knew the Fleming's secret; but the Fleming on his part could, through his connections, secure the grandest conquest any king of France had yet achieved--that of the domains of the House of Burgundy, which were just then the object of envy to every sovereign in Europe.

The famous Margaret's choice would be guided by the good folks of Ghent and the Flemings about her. Hoogworst's gold and influence would tell for a great deal in the negotiations opened by Desquerdes, the captain to whom Louis XI. had given the command of the army on the Belgian frontier. Thus these two master foxes were in the position of duelists whose strength had been neutralized by some stroke of fate.

And whether it was that from that day the King's health had failed visibly, or that Cornelius in part promoted the arrival in France of Marguerite of Burgundy, who came to Amboise in July 1438 to be married to the Dauphin in the chapel of the chateau, the King claimed no fine from his treasurer and no trial was held; but they remained in the half-cordial terms of an armed friendship.

Happily for the miser, a rumor got about that his sister had committed the thefts, and that she had been privily executed by Tristan. Otherwise, and if the true story had become known, the whole town would have risen in arms to destroy the Malemaison before the King could possibly have defended it.

However, if all this historical guesswork has some foundation with regard to Louis XI.'s inaction, Master Cornelius Hoogworst cannot be accused of supineness. He spent the first days after this fatal morning in a constant hurry. Like a beast of prey shut up in a cage, he came and went, scenting gold in every corner of his dwelling; he examined every cranny; he tapped the walls; he demanded his treasure of the trees in the garden, of the foundations, of the turret roofs, of earth, and of heaven. Often he would stand for hours looking at everything around him, his eyes searching vacancy. He tried the miracles and second-sight of magic powers, endeavoring to see his gold through space and solid obstacles.

He was constantly absorbed in one overwhelming thought, consumed by an idea that gnawed at his vitals, and yet more cruelly racked by the perennial torments of his duel with himself, since his love of gold had turned to rend itself; it was a sort of incomplete suicide comprehending all the pangs of living and of dying. Never had a vice so effectually entrapped itself; for the miser who inadvertently locks himself into the subterranean cell where his wealth is buried, has, like Sardanapalus, the satisfaction of perishing in the midst of it. But Cornelius, at once the robber and the robbed, and in the secret of neither, possessed, and yet did not possess, his treasures--a quite new, quite whimsical form of torture, but perpetually excruciating.

Sometimes, almost oblivious, he would leave the little wicket of his door open, and then the passers-by could see the shriveled old man standing in the middle of his neglected garden, perfectly motionless, and looking at any who stopped to gaze at him, with a fixed stare, a lurid glare, that froze them with terror. If by chance he went out into the streets of the town, you would have thought he was a stranger; he never knew where he was, nor whether it was the sun or the moon that were shining. He would often ask his way of the persons he met, fancying himself at Ghent, and he seemed always to be looking for his lost treasure.

The most irrepressible and most incorporate of all human ideas,--that by which a man identifies himself by creating outside and apart from his person the whole fictitious entity which he calls his property,--this demon idea had its talons constantly clutching at the miser's soul.

Then, in the midst of his torments, Fear would rise up with all the feelings that come in its train. For, in fact, two men knew his secret--the secret which he himself did not know. Louis XI. or Coyctier might post their spies to watch his movements while he was asleep, and discover the unknown gulf into which he had flung his wealth with the blood of so many innocent men; for Remorse kept watch with Fear.

To preserve his lost riches from being snatched from him while he lived, during the early days after his disaster, he took the utmost precaution to avoid sleeping, and his connection with the commercial world enabled him to procure the strongest anti-narcotics. His wakeful nights must have been terrible; he was alone to struggle against the night and silence, against remorse and fear, and all the thoughts that man has most effectually personified--instinctively, no doubt, in obedience to some law of the mind, true, though not yet proved.

In short, this man, strong as he was; this heart, annealed by the life of politics and commerce; this genius, though unknown to history,--was doomed to succumb under the horrors of the torments he himself had created. Crushed by some reflection even more cruel than all that had gone before, he cut his throat with a razor.

His death almost exactly coincided in time with the King's, so that the House of Evil was plundered by the mob. Some of the older inhabitants of the province asserted that a revenue farmer named Bohier had found the extortioner's treasure, and had employed it in building the beginnings of the chateau of Chenonceaux, that wonderful palace which, in spite of the lavish outlay of several kings and the fine taste of Diane de Poitiers and her rival Catherine de' Medici, is still unfinished.

* * * * *

Happily for Marie de Sassenage, the Comte de Saint-Vallier died, as is well known, as ambassador to Venice. The family did not become extinct. After the Count's departure his wife had a son, whose fortunes were famous in the history of France under the reign of Francois I. He was saved by his daughter, the famous Diane de Poitiers, Louis XI.'s illegitimate great-granddaughter; and she became the illegal wife, the adored mistress, of Henri II.; for in that noble family bastardy and love were hereditary.

CHATEAU DE SACHE, November and December 1831.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] Le physicien: this word then lately substituted for maitre myrrhe (or leech) has been retained in English. It was generally used in France at that time.--Balzac.

THE ELIXIR OF LIFE

TO THE READER

At the very outset of the writer's literary career, a friend, long since dead, gave him the subject of this Study. Later on he found the same story in a collection published about the beginning of the present century. To the best of his belief, it is some stray fancy of the brain of Hoffmann of Berlin; probably it appeared in some German almanac, and was omitted in the published editions of his collected works. The Comedie Humaine is sufficiently rich in original creations for the author to own to this innocent piece of plagiarism: when, like the worthy La Fontaine, he has told unwittingly, and after his own fashion, a tale already related by another. This is not one of the hoaxes in vogue in the year 1830, when every author wrote his "tale of horror" for the amusement of young ladies. When you have read the account of Don Juan's decorous parricide, try to picture to yourself the part which would be played under very similar circumstances by honest folk who, in this nineteenth century, will take a man's money and undertake to pay him a life annuity on the faith of a chill, or let a house to an ancient lady for the term of her natural life Would they be for resuscitating their clients? I should dearly like a connoisseur in consciences to consider how far there is a resemblance between a Don Juan and fathers who marry their children to great expectations. Does humanity, which, according to certain philosophers, is making progress, look on the art of waiting for dead men's shoes as a step in the right direction? To this art we owe several honorable professions, which open up ways of living on death. There are people who rely entirely on an expected demise; who brood over it, crouching each morning upon a corpse, that serves again for their pillow at night. To this class belong bishops' coadjutors, cardinals' supernumeraries, tontiniers, and the like. Add to the list many delicately scrupulous persons eager to buy landed property beyond their means, who calculate with dry logic and in cold blood the probable duration of the life of a father or of a stepmother, some old man or woman of eighty or ninety, saying to themselves, "I shall be sure to come in for it in three years' time, and then----" A murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life. Then what must it be to live when every moment of your life is tainted with murder? And have we not just admitted that a host of human creatures in our midst are led by our laws, customs, and usages to dwell without ceasing on a fellow-creature's death? There are men who put the weight of a coffin into their deliberations as they bargain for Cashmere shawls for their wives, as they go up the staircase of a theatre, or think of going to the Bouffons, or of setting up a carriage; who are murderers in thought when dear ones, with the irresistible charm of innocence, hold up childish foreheads to be kissed with a "Good-night, father!" Hourly they meet the gaze of eyes that they would fain close for ever, eyes that still open each morning to the light, like Belvidero's in this Study. God alone knows the number of those who are parricides in thought. Picture to yourself the state of mind of a man who must pay a life annuity to some old woman whom he scarcely knows; both live in the country with a brook between them, both sides are free to hate cordially, without offending against the social conventions that require two brothers to wear a mask if the older will succeed to the entail, and the other to the fortune of a younger son. The whole civilization of Europe turns upon the principle of hereditary succession as upon a pivot; it would be madness to subvert the principle; but could we not, in an age that prides itself upon its mechanical inventions, perfect this essential portion of the social machinery?

If the author has preserved the old-fashioned style of address To the Reader before a work wherein he endeavors to represent all literary forms, it is for the purpose of making a remark that applies to several of the Studies, and very specially to this. Every one of his compositions has been based upon ideas more or less novel, which, as it seemed to him, needed literary expression; he can claim priority for certain forms and for certain ideas which have since passed into the domain of literature, and have there, in some instances, become common property; so that the date of the first publication of each Study cannot be a matter of indifference to those of his readers who would fain do him justice.

Reading brings us unknown friends, and what friend is like a reader? We have friends in our own circle who read nothing of ours. The author hopes to pay his debt, by dedicating this work Diis ignotis.

* * * * *

One winter evening, in a princely palace at Ferrara, Don Juan Belvidero was giving a banquet to a prince of the house of Este. A banquet in those times was a marvelous spectacle which only royal wealth or the power of a mightly lord could furnish forth. Seated about a table lit up with perfumed tapers, seven laughter-loving women were interchanging sweet talk. The white marble of the noble works of art about them stood out against the red stucco walls, and made strong contrasts with the rich Turkey carpets. Clad in satin, glittering with gold, and covered with gems less brilliant than their eyes, each told a tale of energetic passions as diverse as their styles of beauty. They differed neither in their ideas nor in their language; but the expression of their eyes, their glances, occasional gestures, or the tones of their voices supplied a commentary, dissolute, wanton, melancholy, or satirical, to their words.

One seemed to be saying--"The frozen heart of age might kindle at my beauty."

Another--"I love to lounge upon cushions, and think with rapture of my adorers."

A third, a neophyte at these banquets, was inclined to blush. "I feel remorse in the depths of my heart! I am a Catholic, and afraid of hell. But I love you, I love you so that I can sacrifice my hereafter to you."

The fourth drained a cup of Chian wine. "Give me a joyous life!" she cried; "I begin life afresh each day with the dawn. Forgetful of the past, with the intoxication of yesterday's rapture still upon me, I drink deep of life--a whole lifetime of pleasure and of love!"

The woman who sat next to Juan Belvidero looked at him with a feverish glitter in her eyes. She was silent. Then--"I should need no hired bravo to kill my lover if he forsook me!" she cried at last, and laughed, but the marvelously wrought gold comfit box in her fingers was crushed by her convulsive clutch.

"When are you to be Grand Duke?" asked the sixth. There was the frenzy of a Bacchante in her eyes, and her teeth gleamed between the lips parted with a smile of cruel glee.

"Yes, when is that father of yours going to die?" asked the seventh, throwing her bouquet at Don Juan with bewitching playfulness. It was a childish girl who spoke, and the speaker was wont to make sport of sacred things.

"Oh! don't talk about it," cried Don Juan, the young and handsome giver of the banquet. "There is but one eternal father, and, as ill luck will have it, he is mine."

The seven Ferrarese, Don Juan's friends, the Prince himself, gave a cry of horror. Two hundred years later, in the days of Louis XV., people of taste would have laughed at this witticism. Or was it, perhaps, that at the outset of an orgy there is a certain unwonted lucidity of mind? Despite the taper light, the clamor of the senses, the gleam of gold and silver, the fumes of wine, and the exquisite beauty of the women, there may perhaps have been in the depths of the revelers' hearts some struggling glimmer of reverence for things divine and human, until it was drowned in glowing floods of wine! Yet even then the flowers had been crushed, eyes were growing dull, and drunkenness, in Rabelais' phrase, had "taken possession of them down to their sandals."

During that brief pause a door opened; and as once the Divine presence was revealed at Belshazzar's feast, so now it seemed to be manifest in the apparition of an old white-haired servant, who tottered in, and looked sadly from under knitted brows at the revelers. He gave a withering glance at the garlands, the golden cups, the pyramids of fruit, the dazzling lights of the banquet, the flushed scared faces, the hues of the cushions pressed by the white arms of the women.

"My lord, your father is dying!" he said; and at those solemn words, uttered in hollow tones, a veil of crape seemed to be drawn over the wild mirth.

Don Juan rose to his feet with a gesture to his guests that might be rendered by, "Excuse me; this kind of thing does not happen every day."

Does it so seldom happen that a father's death surprises youth in the full-blown splendor of life, in the midst of the mad riot of an orgy? Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer--Death has never forsaken any man.

Don Juan closed the door of the banqueting-hall; and as he went down the long gallery, through the cold and darkness, he strove to assume an expression in keeping with the part he had to play; he had thrown off his mirthful mood, as he had thrown down his table napkin, at the first thought of this role. The night was dark. The mute servitor, his guide to the chamber where the dying man lay, lighted the way so dimly that Death, aided by cold, silence, and darkness, and it may be by a reaction of drunkenness, could send some sober thoughts through the spendthrift's soul. He examined his life, and became thoughtful, like a man involved in a lawsuit on his way to the Court.

Bartolommeo Belvidero, Don Juan's father, was an old man of ninety, who had devoted the greatest part of his life to business pursuits. He had acquired vast wealth in many a journey in magical Eastern lands, and knowledge, so it was said, more valuable than the gold and diamonds, which had almost ceased to have any value for him.

"I would give more to have a tooth in my head than for a ruby," he would say at times with a smile. The indulgent father loved to hear Don Juan's story of this and that wild freak of youth. "So long as these follies amuse you, dear boy----" he would say laughingly, as he lavished money on his son. Age never took such pleasure in the sight of youth; the fond father did not remember his own decaying powers while he looked on that brilliant young life.

Bartolommeo Belvidero, at the age of sixty, had fallen in love with an angel of peace and beauty. Don Juan had been the sole fruit of this late and short-lived love. For fifteen years the widower had mourned the loss of his beloved Juana; and to this sorrow of age, his son and his numerous household had attributed the strange habits that he had contracted. He had shut himself up in the least comfortable wing of his palace, and very seldom left his apartments; even Don Juan himself must first ask permission before seeing his father. If this hermit, unbound by vows, came or went in his palace or in the streets of Ferrara, he walked as if he were in a dream, wholly engrossed, like a man at strife with a memory, or a wrestler with some thought.

The young Don Juan might give princely banquets, the palace might echo with clamorous mirth, horses pawed the ground in the courtyards, pages quarreled and flung dice upon the stairs, but Bartolommeo ate his seven ounces of bread daily and drank water. A fowl was occasionally dressed for him, simply that the black poodle, his faithful companion, might have the bones. Bartolommeo never complained of the noise. If huntsmen's horns and baying dogs disturbed his sleep during his illness, he only said, "Ah! Don Juan has come back again." Never on earth has there been a father so little exacting and so indulgent; and, in consequence, young Belvidero, accustomed to treat his father unceremoniously, had all the faults of a spoiled child. He treated old Bartolommeo as a wilful courtesan treats an elderly adorer; buying indemnity for insolence with a smile, selling good-humor, submitting to be loved.

Don Juan, beholding scene after scene of his younger years, saw that it would be a difficult task to find his father's indulgence at fault. Some new-born remorse stirred the depths of his heart; he felt almost ready to forgive this father now about to die for having lived so long. He had an accession of filial piety, like a thief's return in thought to honesty at the prospect of a million adroitly stolen.

Before long Don Juan had crossed the lofty, chilly suite of rooms in which his father lived; the penetrating influences of the damp close air, the mustiness diffused by old tapestries and presses thickly covered with dust had passed into him, and now he stood in the old man's antiquated room, in the repulsive presence of the deathbed, beside a dying fire. A flickering lamp on a Gothic table sent broad uncertain shafts of light, fainter or brighter, across the bed, so that the dying man's face seemed to wear a different look at every moment. The bitter wind whistled through the crannies of the ill-fitting casements; there was a smothered sound of snow lashing the windows. The harsh contrast of these sights and sounds with the scenes which Don Juan had just quitted was so sudden that he could not help shuddering. He turned cold as he came towards the bed; the lamp flared in a sudden vehement gust of wind and lighted up his father's face; the features were wasted and distorted; the skin that cleaved to their bony outlines had taken wan livid hues, all the more ghastly by force of contrast with the white pillows on which he lay. The muscles about the toothless mouth had contracted with pain and drawn apart the lips; the moans that issued between them with appalling energy found an accompaniment in the howling of the storm without.

In spite of every sign of coming dissolution, the most striking thing about the dying face was its incredible power. It was no ordinary spirit that wrestled there with Death. The eyes glared with strange fixity of gaze from the cavernous sockets hollowed by disease. It seemed as if Bartolommeo sought to kill some enemy sitting at the foot of his bed by the intent gaze of dying eyes. That steady remorseless look was the more appalling because the head that lay upon the pillow was passive and motionless as a skull upon a doctor's table. The outlines of the body, revealed by the coverlet, were no less rigid and stiff; he lay there as one dead, save for those eyes. There was something automatic about the moaning sounds that came from the mouth. Don Juan felt something like shame that he must be brought thus to his father's bedside, wearing a courtesan's bouquet, redolent of the fragrance of the banqueting-chamber and the fumes of wine.

"You were enjoying yourself!" the old man cried as he saw his son.

Even as he spoke the pure high notes of a woman's voice, sustained by the sound of the viol on which she accompanied her song, rose above the rattle of the storm against the casements, and floated up to the chamber of death. Don Juan stopped his ears against the barbarous answer to his father's speech.

"I bear you no grudge, my child," Bartolommeo went on.

The words were full of kindness, but they hurt Don Juan; he could not pardon this heart-searching goodness on his father's part.

"What a remorseful memory for me!" he cried, hypocritically.

"Poor Juanino," the dying man went on, in a smothered voice, "I have always been so kind to you, that you could not surely desire my death?"

"Oh, if it were only possible to keep you here by giving up a part of my own life!" cried Don Juan.

("We can always say this sort of thing," the spendthrift thought; "it is as if I laid the whole world at my mistress' feet.")

The thought had scarcely crossed his mind when the old poodle barked. Don Juan shivered; the response was so intelligent that he fancied the dog must have understood him.

"I was sure that I could count upon you, my son!" cried the dying man. "I shall live. So be it; you shall be satisfied. I shall live, but without depriving you of a single day of your life."

"He is raving," thought Don Juan. Aloud he added, "Yes, dearest father, yes; you shall live, of course, as long as I live, for your image will be for ever in my heart."

"It is not that kind of life that I mean," said the old noble, summoning all his strength to sit up in bed; for a thrill of doubt ran through him, one of those suspicions that come into being under a dying man's pillow. "Listen, my son," he went on, in a voice grown weak with that last effort, "I have no more wish to give up life than you to give up wine and mistresses, horses and hounds, and hawks and gold----"

"I can well believe it," thought the son; and he knelt down by the bed and kissed Bartolommeo's cold hands. "But, father, my dear father," he added aloud, "we must submit to the will of God."

"I am God!" muttered the dying man.

"Do not blaspheme!" cried the other, as he saw the menacing expression on his father's face. "Beware what you say; you have received extreme unction, and I should be inconsolable if you were to die before my eyes in mortal sin."

"Will you listen to me?" cried Bartolommeo, and his mouth twitched.

Don Juan held his peace; an ugly silence prevailed. Yet above the muffled sound of the beating of the snow against the windows rose the sounds of the beautiful voice and the viol in unison, far off and faint as the dawn. The dying man smiled.

"Thank you," he said, "for bringing those singing voices and the music, a banquet, young and lovely women with fair faces and dark tresses, all the pleasure of life! Bid them wait for me; for I am about to begin life anew."

"The delirium is at its height," said Don Juan to himself.

"I have found out a way of coming to life again," the speaker went on. "There, just look in that table drawer, press the spring hidden by the griffin, and it will fly open."

"I have found it, father."

"Well, then, now take out a little phial of rock crystal."

"I have it."

"I have spent twenty years in----" but even as he spoke the old man felt how very near the end had come, and summoned all his dying strength to say, "As soon as the breath is out of me, rub me all over with that liquid, and I shall come to life again."

"There is very little of it," his son remarked.

Though Bartolommeo could no longer speak, he could still hear and see. When those words dropped from Don Juan, his head turned with appalling quickness, his neck was twisted like the throat of some marble statue which the sculptor had condemned to remain stretched out for ever, the wide eyes had come to have a ghastly fixity.

He was dead, and in death he lost his last and sole illusion.

He had sought a shelter in his son's heart, and it had proved to be a sepulchre, a pit deeper than men dig for their dead. The hair on his head had risen and stiffened with horror, his agonized glance still spoke. He was a father rising in just anger from his tomb, to demand vengeance at the throne of God.

"There! it is all over with the old man!" cried Don Juan.

He had been so interested in holding the mysterious phial to the lamp, as a drinker holds up the wine-bottle at the end of a meal, that he had not seen his father's eyes fade. The cowering poodle looked from his master to the elixir, just as Don Juan himself glanced again and again from his father to the flask. The lamplight flickered. There was a deep silence; the viol was mute. Juan Belvidero thought that he saw his father stir, and trembled. The changeless gaze of those accusing eyes frightened him; he closed them hastily, as he would have closed a loose shutter swayed by the wind of an autumn night. He stood there motionless, lost in a world of thought.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a shrill sound like the creaking of a rusty spring. It startled Don Juan; he all but dropped the phial. A sweat, colder than the blade of a dagger, issued through every pore. It was only a piece of clockwork, a wooden cock that sprang out and crowed three times, an ingenious contrivance by which the learned of that epoch were wont to be awakened at the appointed hour to begin the labors of the day. Through the windows there came already a flush of dawn. The thing, composed of wood, and cords, and wheels, and pulleys, was more faithful in its service than he in his duty to Bartolommeo--he, a man with that peculiar piece of human mechanism within him that we call a heart.

Don Juan the sceptic shut the flask again in the secret drawer in the Gothic table--he meant to run no more risks of losing the mysterious liquid.

Even at that solemn moment he heard the murmur of a crowd in the gallery, a confused sound of voices, of stifled laughter and light footfalls, and the rustling of silks--the sounds of a band of revelers struggling for gravity. The door opened, and in came the Prince and Don Juan's friends, the seven courtesans, and the singers, disheveled and wild like dancers surprised by the dawn, when the tapers that have burned through the night struggle with the sunlight.

They had come to offer the customary condolence to the young heir.

"Oho! is poor Don Juan really taking this seriously?" said the Prince in Brambilla's ear.

"Well, his father was very good," she returned.

But Don Juan's night-thoughts had left such unmistakable traces on his features, that the crew was awed into silence. The men stood motionless. The women, with wine-parched lips and cheeks marbled with kisses, knelt down and began a prayer. Don Juan could scarce help trembling when he saw splendor and mirth and laughter and song and youth and beauty and power bowed in reverence before Death. But in those times, in that adorable Italy of the sixteenth century, religion and revelry went hand in hand; and religious excess became a sort of debauch, and a debauch a religious rite!

The Prince grasped Don Juan's hand affectionately, then when all faces had simultaneously put on the same grimace--half-gloomy, half-indifferent--the whole masque disappeared, and left the chamber of death empty. It was like an allegory of life.

As they went down the staircase, the Prince spoke to Rivabarella: "Now, who would have taken Don Juan's impiety for a boast? He loves his father."

"Did you see that black dog?" asked La Brambilla.

"He is enormously rich now," sighed Bianca Cavatolino.

"What is that to me?" cried the proud Veronese (she who had crushed the comfit-box).

"What does it matter to you, forsooth?" cried the Duke. "With his money he is as much a prince as I am."

At first Don Juan was swayed hither and thither by countless thoughts, and wavered between two decisions. He took counsel with the gold heaped up by his father, and returned in the evening to the chamber of death, his whole soul brimming over with hideous selfishness. He found all his household busy there. "His lordship" was to lie in state to-morrow; all Ferrara would flock to behold the wonderful spectacle; and the servants were busy decking the room and the couch on which the dead man lay. At a sign from Don Juan all his people stopped, dumfounded and trembling.

"Leave me alone here," he said, and his voice was changed, "and do not return until I leave the room."

When the footsteps of the old servitor, who was the last to go, echoed but faintly along the paved gallery, Don Juan hastily locked the door, and, sure that he was quite alone, "Let us try," he said to himself.

Bartolommeo's body was stretched on a long table. The embalmers had laid a sheet over it, to hide from all eyes the dreadful spectacle of a corpse so wasted and shrunken that it seemed like a skeleton, and only the face was uncovered. This mummy-like figure lay in the middle of the room. The limp clinging linen lent itself to the outlines it shrouded--so sharp, bony, and thin. Large violet patches had already begun to spread over the face; the embalmers' work had not been finished too soon.

Don Juan, strong as he was in his scepticism, felt a tremor as he opened the magic crystal flask. When he stood over that face, he was trembling so violently, that he was actually obliged to wait for a moment. But Don Juan had acquired an early familiarity with evil; his morals had been corrupted by a licentious court, a reflection worthy of the Duke of Urbino crossed his mind, and it was a keen sense of curiosity that goaded him into boldness. The devil himself might have whispered the words that were echoing through his brain, Moisten one of the eyes with the liquid! He took up a linen cloth, moistened it sparingly with the precious fluid, and passed it lightly over the right eyelid of the corpse. The eye unclosed....

"Aha!" said Don Juan. He gripped the flask tightly, as we clutch in dreams the branch from which we hang suspended over a precipice.

For the eye was full of life. It was a young child's eye set in a death's head; the light quivered in the depths of its youthful liquid brightness. Shaded by the long dark lashes, it sparkled like the strange lights that travelers see in lonely places in winter nights. The eye seemed as if it would fain dart fire at Don Juan; he saw it thinking, upbraiding, condemning, uttering accusations, threatening doom; it cried aloud, and gnashed upon him. All anguish that shakes human souls was gathered there; supplications the most tender, the wrath of kings, the love in a girl's heart pleading with the headsman; then, and after all these, the deeply searching glance a man turns on his fellows as he mounts the last step of the scaffold. Life so dilated in this fragment of life that Don Juan shrank back; he walked up and down the room, he dared not meet that gaze, but he saw nothing else. The ceiling and the hangings, the whole room was sown with living points of fire and intelligence. Everywhere those gleaming eyes haunted him.

"He might very likely have lived another hundred years!" he cried involuntarily. Some diabolical influence had drawn him to his father, and again he gazed at that luminous spark. The eyelid closed and opened again abruptly; it was like a woman's sign of assent. It was an intelligent movement. If a voice had cried "Yes!" Don Juan could not have been more startled.

"What is to be done?" he thought.

He nerved himself to try to close the white eyelid. In vain.

"Kill it? That would perhaps be parricide," he debated with himself.

"Yes," the eye said, with a strange sardonic quiver of the lid.

"Aha!" said Don Juan to himself, "here is witchcraft at work!" And he went closer to crush the thing. A great tear trickled over the hollow cheeks, and fell on Don Juan's hand.

"It is scalding!" he cried. He sat down. The struggle exhausted him; it was as if, like Jacob of old, he was wrestling with an angel.

At last he rose. "So long as there is no blood----" he muttered.

Then, summoning all the courage needed for a coward's crime, he extinguished the eye, pressing it with the linen cloth, turning his head away. A terrible groan startled him. It was the poor poodle, who died with a long-drawn howl.

"Could the brute have been in the secret?" thought Don Juan, looking down at the faithful creature.

Don Juan Belvidero was looked upon as a dutiful son. He reared a white marble monument on his father's tomb, and employed the greatest sculptors of the time upon it. He did not recover perfect ease of mind till the day when his father knelt in marble before Religion, and the heavy weight of the stone had sealed the mouth of the grave in which he had laid the one feeling of remorse that sometimes flitted through his soul in moments of physical weariness.

He had drawn up a list of the wealth heaped up by the old merchant in the East, and he became a miser: had he not to provide for a second lifetime? His views of life were the more profound and penetrating; he grasped its significance, as a whole, the better, because he saw it across a grave. All men, all things, he analyzed once and for all; he summed up the Past, represented by its records; the Present in the law, its crystallized form; the Future, revealed by religion. He took spirit and matter, and flung them into his crucible, and found--Nothing. Thenceforward he became DON JUAN.

At the outset of his life, in the prime of youth and the beauty of youth, he knew the illusions of life for what they were; he despised the world, and made the utmost of the world. His felicity could not have been of the bourgeois kind, rejoicing in periodically recurrent bouilli, in the comforts of a warming-pan, a lamp of a night, and a new pair of slippers once a quarter. Nay, rather he seized upon existence as a monkey snatches a nut, and after no long toying with it, proceeds deftly to strip off the mere husks to reach the savory kernel within.

Poetry and the sublime transports of passion scarcely reached ankle-depth with him now. He in nowise fell into the error of strong natures who flatter themselves now and again that little souls will believe in a great soul, and are willing to barter their own lofty thoughts of the future for the small change of our life-annuity ideas. He, even as they, had he chosen, might well have walked with his feet on the earth and his head in the skies; but he liked better to sit on earth, to wither the soft, fresh, fragrant lips of a woman with kisses, for, like Death, he devoured everything without scruple as he passed; he would have full fruition; he was an Oriental lover, seeking prolonged pleasures easily obtained. He sought nothing but a woman in women, and cultivated cynicism, until it became with him a habit of mind. When his mistress, from the couch on which she lay, soared and was lost in regions of ecstatic bliss, Don Juan followed suit, earnest, expansive, serious as any German student. But he said I, while she, in the transports of intoxication, said We. He understood to admiration the art of abandoning himself to the influence of a woman; he was always clever enough to make her believe that he trembled like some boy fresh from college before his first partner at a dance, when he asks her, "Do you like dancing?" But, no less, he could be terrible at need, could unsheathe a formidable sword and make short work of Commandants. Banter lurked beneath his simplicity, mocking laughter behind his tears--for he had tears at need, like any woman nowadays who says to her husband, "Give me a carriage, or I shall go into a consumption."

For the merchant the world is a bale of goods or a mass of circulating bills; for most young men it is a woman, and for a woman here and there it is a man; for a certain order of mind it is a salon, a coterie, a quarter of the town, or some single city; but Don Juan found his world in himself.

This model of grace and dignity, this captivating wit, moored his bark by every shore; but wherever he was led he was never carried away, and was only steered in a course of his own choosing. The more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent, or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-men.

"What a cold-blooded jest!" said he to himself. "It was not devised by a God."

From that time forth he renounced a better world, and never uncovered himself when a Name was pronounced, and for him the carven saints in the churches became works of art. He understood the mechanism of society too well to clash wantonly with its prejudices; for, after all, he was not as powerful as the executioner, but he evaded social laws with the wit and grace so well rendered in the scene with M. Dimanche. He was, in fact, Moliere's Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred, Mathurin's Melmoth--great allegorical figures drawn by the greatest men of genius in Europe, to which Mozart's harmonies, perhaps, do no more justice that Rossini's lyre. Terrible allegorical figures that shall endure as long as the principle of evil existing in the heart of man shall produce a few copies from century to century. Sometimes the type becomes half-human when incarnate as a Mirabeau, sometimes it is an inarticulate force in a Bonaparte, sometimes it overwhelms the universe with irony as a Rabelais; or, yet again, it appears when a Marechal de Richelieu elects to laugh at human beings instead of scoffing at things, or when one of the most famous of our ambassadors goes a step further and scoffs at both men and things. But the profound genius of Juan Belvidero anticipated and resumed all these. All things were a jest to him. His was the life of a mocking spirit. All men, all institutions, all realities, all ideas were within its scope. As for eternity, after half an hour of familiar conversation with Pope Julius II. he had said, laughing:

"If it is absolutely necessary to make a choice, I would rather believe in God than in the Devil; power combined with goodness always offers more resources than the spirit of Evil can boast."

"Yes; still God requires repentance in this present world----"

"So you always think of your indulgences," returned Don Juan Belvidero. "Well, well, I have another life in reserve in which to repent of the sins of my previous existence."

"Oh, if you regard old age in that light," cried the Pope, "you are in danger of canonization----"

"After your elevation to the Papacy nothing is incredible." And they went to watch the workmen who were building the huge basilica dedicated to Saint Peter.

"Saint Peter, as the man of genius who laid the foundation of our double power," the Pope said to Don Juan, "deserves this monument. Sometimes, though, at night, I think that a deluge will wipe all this out as with a sponge, and it will be all to begin over again."

Don Juan and the Pope began to laugh; they understood each other. A fool would have gone on the morrow to amuse himself with Julius II. in Raphael's studio or at the delicious Villa Madama; not so Belvidero. He went to see the Pope as pontiff, to be convinced of any doubts that he (Don Juan) entertained. Over his cups the Rovere would have been capable of denying his own infallibility and of commenting on the Apocalypse.

* * * * *

Nevertheless, this legend has not been undertaken to furnish materials for future biographies of Don Juan; it is intended to prove to honest folk that Belvidero did not die in a duel with stone, as some lithographers would have us believe.

When Don Juan Belvidero reached the age of sixty he settled in Spain, and there in his old age he married a young and charming Andalusian wife. But of set purpose he was neither a good husband nor a good father. He had observed that we are never so tenderly loved as by women to whom we scarcely give a thought. Dona Elvira had been devoutly brought up by an old aunt in a castle a few leagues from San Lucar in a remote part of Andalusia. She was a model of devotion and grace. Don Juan foresaw that this would be a woman who would struggle long against a passion before yielding, and therefore hoped to keep her virtuous until his death. It was a jest undertaken in earnest, a game of chess which he meant to reserve till his old age. Don Juan had learned wisdom from the mistakes made by his father Bartolommeo; he determined that the least details of his life in old age should be subordinated to one object--the success of the drama which was to be played out upon his deathbed.

For the same reason the largest part of his wealth was buried in the cellars of his palace at Ferrara, whither he seldom went. As for the rest of his fortune, it was invested in a life annuity, with a view to give his wife and children an interest in keeping him alive; but this Machiavellian piece of foresight was scarcely necessary. His son, young Felipe Belvidero, grew up as a Spaniard as religiously conscientious as his father was irreligious, in virtue, perhaps, of the old rule, "A miser has a spendthrift son." The Abbot of San-Lucar was chosen by Don Juan to be the director of the consciences of the Duchess of Belvidero and her son Felipe. The ecclesiastic was a holy man, well shaped, and admirably well proportioned. He had fine dark eyes, a head like that of Tiberius, worn with fasting, bleached by an ascetic life, and, like all dwellers in the wilderness, was daily tempted. The noble lord had hopes, it may he, of despatching yet another monk before his term of life was out.

But whether because the Abbot was every whit as clever as Don Juan himself, or Dona Elvira possessed more discretion or more virtue than Spanish wives are usually credited with, Don Juan was compelled to spend his declining years beneath his own roof, with no more scandal under it than if he had been an ancient country parson. Occasionally he would take wife and son to task for negligence in the duties of religion, peremptorily insisting that they should carry out to the letter the obligations imposed upon the flock by the Court of Rome. Indeed, he was never so well pleased as when he had set the courtly Abbot discussing some case of conscience with Dona Elvira and Felipe.

At length, however, despite the prodigious care that the great magnifico, Don Juan Belvidero, took of himself, the days of decrepitude came upon him, and with those days the constant importunity of physical feebleness, an importunity all the more distressing by contrast with the wealth of memories of his impetuous youth and the sensual pleasures of middle age. The unbeliever who in the height of his cynical humor had been wont to persuade others to believe in laws and principles at which he scoffed, must repose nightly upon a perhaps. The great Duke, the pattern of good breeding, the champion of many a carouse, the proud ornament of Courts, the man of genius, the graceful winner of hearts that he had wrung as carelessly as a peasant twists an osier withe, was now the victim of a cough, of a ruthless sciatica, of an unmannerly gout. His teeth gradually deserted him, as at the end of an evening the fairest and best-dressed women take their leave one by one till the room is left empty and desolate. The active hands became palsy-stricken, the shapely legs tottered as he walked. At last, one night, a stroke of apoplexy caught him by the throat in its icy clutch. After that fatal day he grew morose and stern.

He would reproach his wife and son with their devotion, casting it in their teeth that the affecting and thoughtful care that they lavished so tenderly upon him was bestowed because they knew that his money was invested in a life annuity. Then Elvira and Felipe would shed bitter tears and redouble their caresses, and the wicked old man's insinuating voice would take an affectionate tone--"Ah, you will forgive me, will you not, dear friends, dear wife? I am rather a nuisance. Alas, Lord in heaven, how canst Thou use me as the instrument by which Thou provest these two angelic creatures? I who should be the joy of their lives am become their scourge...."

In this manner he kept them tethered to his pillow, blotting out the memory of whole months of fretfulness and unkindness in one short hour when he chose to display for them the ever-new treasures of his pinchbeck tenderness and charm of manner--a system of paternity that yielded him an infinitely better return than his own father's indulgence had formerly gained. At length his bodily infirmities reached a point when the task of laying him in bed became as difficult as the navigation of a felucca in the perils of an intricate channel. Then came the day of his death; and this brilliant sceptic, whose mental faculties alone had survived the most dreadful of all destructions, found himself between his two special antipathies--the doctor and the confessor. But he was jovial with them. Did he not see a light gleaming in the future beyond the veil? The pall that is like lead for other men was thin and translucent for him; the light-footed, irresistible delights of youth danced beyond it like shadows.

* * * * *

It was on a beautiful summer evening that Don Juan felt the near approach of death. The sky of Spain was serene and cloudless; the air was full of the scent of orange-blossom; the stars shed clear, pure gleams of light; nature without seemed to give the dying man assurance of resurrection; a dutiful and obedient son sat there watching him with loving and respectful eyes. Towards eleven o'clock he desired to be left alone with this single-hearted being.

"Felipe," said the father, in tones so soft and affectionate that the young man trembled, and tears of gladness came to his eyes; never had that stern father spoken his name in such a tone. "Listen, my son," the dying man went on. "I am a great sinner. All my life long, however, I have thought of my death. I was once the friend of the great Pope Julius II.; and that illustrious Pontiff, fearing lest the excessive excitability of my senses should entangle me in mortal sin between the moment of my death and the time of my anointing with the holy oil, gave me a flask that contains a little of the holy water that once issued from the rock in the wilderness. I have kept the secret of this squandering of a treasure belonging to Holy Church, but I am permitted to reveal the mystery in articulo mortis to my son. You will find the flask in a drawer in that Gothic table that always stands by the head of the bed.... The precious little crystal flask may be of use yet again for you, dearest Felipe. Will you swear to me, by your salvation, to carry out my instructions faithfully?"

Felipe looked at his father, and Don Juan was too deeply learned in the lore of the human countenance not to die in peace with that look as his warrant, as his own father had died in despair at meeting the expression in his son's eyes.

"You deserved to have a better father," Don Juan went on. "I dare to confess, my child, that while the reverend Abbot of San-Lucar was administering the Viaticum I was thinking of the incompatibility of the co-existence of two powers so infinite as God and the Devil----"

"Oh, father!"

"And I said to myself, when Satan makes his peace he ought surely to stipulate for the pardon of his followers, or he will be the veriest scoundrel. The thought haunted me; so I shall go to hell, my son, unless you carry out my wishes."

"Oh, quick; tell me quickly, father."

"As soon as I have closed my eyes," Don Juan went on, "and that may be in a few minutes, you must take my body before it grows cold and lay it on a table in this room. Then put out the lamp; the light of the stars should be sufficient. Take off my clothes, reciting Aves and Paters the while, raising your soul to God in prayer, and carefully anoint my lips and eyes with this holy water; begin with the face, and proceed successively to my limbs and the rest of my body; my dear son, the power of God is so great that you must be astonished at nothing."

Don Juan felt death so near, that he added in a terrible voice, "Be careful not to drop the flask."

Then he breathed his last gently in the arms of his son, and his son's tears fell fast over his sardonic, haggard features.

It was almost midnight when Don Felipe Belvidero laid his father's body upon the table. He kissed the sinister brow and the gray hair; then he put out the lamp.

By the soft moonlight that lit strange gleams across the country without, Felipe could dimly see his father's body, a vague white thing among the shadows. The dutiful son moistened a linen cloth with the liquid, and, absorbed in prayer, he anointed the revered face. A deep silence reigned. Felipe heard faint, indescribable rustlings; it was the breeze in the tree-tops, he thought. But when he had moistened the right arm, he felt himself caught by the throat, a young strong hand held him in a tight grip--it was his father's hand! He shrieked aloud; the flask dropped from his hand and broke in pieces. The liquid evaporated; the whole household hurried into the room, holding torches aloft. That shriek had startled them, and filled them with as much terror as if the Trumpet of the Angel sounding on the Last Day had rung through earth and sky. The room was full of people, and a horror-stricken crowd beheld the fainting Felipe upheld by the strong arm of his father, who clutched him by the throat. They saw another thing, an unearthly spectacle--Don Juan's face grown young and beautiful as Antinoues, with its dark hair and brilliant eyes and red lips, a head that made horrible efforts, but could not move the dead, wasted body.

An old servitor cried, "A miracle! a miracle!" and all the Spaniards echoed, "A miracle! a miracle!"

Dona Elvira, too pious to attribute this to magic, sent for the Abbot of San-Lucar; and the Prior beholding the miracle with his own eyes, being a clever man, and withal an Abbot desirous of augmenting his revenues, determined to turn the occasion to profit. He immediately gave out that Don Juan would certainly be canonized; he appointed a day for the celebration of the apotheosis in his convent, which thenceforward, he said, should be called the convent of San Juan of Lucar. At these words a sufficiently facetious grimace passed over the features of the late Duke.

The taste of the Spanish people for ecclesiastical solemnities is so well known, that it should not be difficult to imagine the religious pantomime by which the Convent of San-Lucar celebrated the translation of the blessed Don Juan Belvidero to the abbey-church. The tale of the partial resurrection had spread so quickly from village to village, that a day or two after the death of the illustrious nobleman the report had reached every place within fifty miles of San-Lucar, and it was as good as a play to see the roads covered already with crowds flocking in on all sides, their curiosity whetted still further by the prospect of a Te Deum sung by torchlight. The old abbey church of San-Lucar, a marvelous building erected by the Moors, a mosque of Allah, which for three centuries had heard the name of Christ, could not hold the throng that poured in to see the ceremony. Hidalgos in their velvet mantles, with their good swords at their sides, swarmed like ants, and were so tightly packed in among the pillars that they had not room to bend the knees, which never bent save to God. Charming peasant girls, in the basquina that defines the luxuriant outlines of their figures, lent an arm to white-haired old men. Young men, with eyes of fire, walked beside aged crones in holiday array. Then came couples tremulous with joy, young lovers led thither by curiosity, newly-wedded folk; children timidly clasping each other by the hand. This throng, so rich in coloring, in vivid contrasts, laden with flowers, enameled like a meadow, sent up a soft murmur through the quiet night. Then the great doors of the church opened.

Late comers who remained without saw afar, through the three great open doorways, a scene of which the theatrical illusions of modern opera can give but a faint idea. The vast church was lighted up by thousands of candles, offered by saints and sinners alike eager to win the favor of this new candidate for canonization, and these self-commending illuminations turned the great building into an enchanted fairyland. The black archways, the shafts and capitals, the recessed chapels with gold and silver gleaming in their depths, the galleries, the Arab traceries, all the most delicate outlines of that delicate sculpture, burned in the excess of light like the fantastic figures in the red heart of a brazier. At the further end of the church, above that blazing sea, rose the high altar like a splendid dawn. All the glories of the golden lamps and silver candlesticks, of banners and tassels, of the shrines of the saints and votive offerings, paled before the gorgeous brightness of the reliquary in which Don Juan lay. The blasphemer's body sparkled with gems, and flowers, and crystal, with diamonds and gold, and plumes white as the wings of seraphim; they had set it up on the altar, where the pictures of Christ had stood. All about him blazed a host of tall candles; the air quivered in the radiant light. The worthy Abbot of San-Lucar, in pontifical robes, with his mitre set with precious stones, his rochet and golden crosier, sat enthroned in imperial state among his clergy in the choir. Rows of impassive aged faces, silver-haired old men clad in fine linen albs, were grouped about him, as the saints who confessed Christ on earth are set by painters, each in his place, about the throne of God in heaven. The precentor and the dignitaries of the chapter, adorned with the gorgeous insignia of ecclesiastical vanity, came and went through the clouds of incense, like stars upon their courses in the firmament.

When the hour of triumph arrived, the bells awoke the echoes far and wide, and the whole vast crowd raised to God the first cry of praise that begins the Te Deum. A sublime cry! High, pure notes, the voices of women in ecstasy, mingled in it with the sterner and deeper voices of men; thousands of voices sent up a volume of sound so mighty, that the straining, groaning organ-pipes could not dominate that harmony. But the shrill sound of children's singing among the choristers, the reverberation of deep bass notes, awakened gracious associations, visions of childhood, and of man in his strength, and rose above that entrancing harmony of human voices blended in one sentiment of love.

Te Deum laudamus!

The chant went up from the black masses of men and women kneeling in the cathedral, like a sudden breaking out of light in darkness, and the silence was shattered as by a peal of thunder. The voices floated up with the clouds of incense that had begun to cast thin bluish veils over the fanciful marvels of the architecture, and the aisles were filled with splendor and perfume and light and melody. Even at the moment when that music of love and thanksgiving soared up to the altar, Don Juan, too well bred not to express his acknowledgments, too witty not to understand how to take a jest, bridled up in his reliquary, and responded with an appalling burst of laughter. Then the Devil having put him in mind of the risk he was running of being taken for an ordinary man, a saint, a Boniface, a Pantaleone, he interrupted the melody of love by a yell, the thousand voices of hell joined in it. Earth blessed, Heaven banned. The church was shaken to its ancient foundations.

Te Deum laudamus! cried the many voices.

"Go to the devil, brute beasts that you are! Dios! Dios! Garajos demonios! Idiots! What fools you are with your dotard God!" and a torrent of imprecations poured forth like a stream of red-hot lava from the mouth of Vesuvius.

"Deus Sabaoth!... Sabaoth!" cried the believers.

"You are insulting the majesty of Hell," shouted Don Juan, gnashing his teeth. In another moment the living arm struggled out of the reliquary, and was brandished over the assembly in mockery and despair.

"The saint is blessing us," cried the old women, children, lovers, and the credulous among the crowd.

And note how often we are deceived in the homage we pay; the great man scoffs at those who praise him, and pays compliments now and again to those whom he laughs at in the depths of his heart.

Just as the Abbot, prostrate before the altar, was chanting "Sancte Johannes, ora pro nobis!" he heard a voice exclaim sufficiently distinctly: "O coglione!"

"What can be going on up there?" cried the Sub-prior, as he saw the reliquary move.

"The saint is playing the devil," replied the Abbot.

Even as he spoke the living head tore itself away from the lifeless body, and dropped upon the sallow cranium of the officiating priest.

"Remember Dona Elvira!" cried the thing, with its teeth set fast in the Abbot's head.

The Abbot's horror-stricken shriek disturbed the ceremony; all the ecclesiastics hurried up and crowded about their chief.

"Idiot, tell us now if there is a God!" the voice cried, as the Abbot, bitten through the brain, drew his last breath.

PARIS, October 1830.

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