The Amethyst Ring

The Works Of Anatole France

In An English Translation Edited By Frederic Chapman

The Amethyst Ring

[Illustration]

The Amethyst Ring By Anatole France

A Translation By B. Drillien

[Illustration]

London: John Lane, The Bodley Head New York: John Lane Company MCMXIX

Printed By William Brendon And Son, Ltd., Plymouth, England

The Amethyst Ring

Chapter I

True to her word, Madame Bergeret quitted the conjugal roof and betook herself to the house of her mother, the widow Pouilly.

As the time for her departure drew near, she had half a mind not to go, and with a little coaxing would have consented to forget the past and resume the old life with her husband, at the same time vaguely despising M. Bergeret as the injured party.

She was quite ready to forgive and forget, but the unbending esteem in which she was held by the circle in which she moved did not allow of such a course. Madame Dellion had made it clear to her that any such weakness on her part would be judged unfavourably; all the drawing-rooms in the place were unanimous upon that score. There was but one opinion among the tradespeople: Madame Bergeret _must_ return to her mother. In this way did they uphold the proprieties and, at the same time, rid themselves of a thoughtless, common, compromising person, whose vulgarity was apparent even to the vulgar, and who was a burden on everybody about her. They made her believe there was something heroic in her conduct.

“I have the greatest admiration for you, my child,” said old Madame Dutilleul from the depths of her easy chair, she who had survived four husbands, and was a truly terrible woman. People suspected her of everything, except of ever having loved, and in her old age she was honoured and respected by all.

Madame Bergeret was delighted at having inspired sympathy in Madame Dellion and admiration in Madame Dutilleul, and still she could not finally make up her mind to go, for she was of a homely disposition and accustomed to regular habits and quite content to live on in idleness and deceit. Having grasped this fact, M. Bergeret redoubled his efforts to ensure his deliverance. He stoutly upheld Marie, the servant, who kept every one in the house in a state of wretchedness and trepidation, was suspected of harbouring thieves and cut-throats in her kitchen, and only brought herself into prominence by the catastrophes she caused.

Four days before the time appointed for Madame Bergeret’s departure, this girl, who was drunk as usual, upset a lighted lamp in her mistress’s room and set fire to the blue chintz bed-curtains. Madame Bergeret was spending the day with her friend, Madame Lacarelle. She returned and, amid the dreadful stillness of the house, beheld on entering her room the evidences of the disaster. She called and called in vain for her stony-hearted husband and her besotted maid, then stood gazing at the smoke-blackened ceiling and the dismal ravages of the fire. This commonplace accident assumed in her eyes a mystic significance that frightened her. But presently as the candle began to flicker she lay down, tired out and very cold, upon her bed under the skeleton of the charred canopy whose black shreds fluttered like the wings of a bat. The next morning, on waking, she wept for her blue curtains, the souvenir and symbol of her youth; bare-footed, with dishevelled hair, smothered with blacks and clad only in her nightdress, she ran desperately about the rooms, crying and moaning. M. Bergeret took no notice of her; for him she had ceased to exist.

That evening, with the help of the girl Marie, she drew her bed into the middle of the dreary room. But now she realized that this room could never again be a resting-place for her, and that she must leave the home where for fifteen years she had fulfilled the duties of daily life.

Moreover, the ingenious Bergeret, having taken rooms for his daughter Pauline and himself in a little house in the Place Saint-Exupère, was busy moving out and moving in.

He went backwards and forwards ceaselessly between the two houses, keeping close to the walls, and trotting along with the agility of a mouse suddenly unearthed in a heap of debris. His heart was glad within him, but he concealed his joy, for he was a prudent man.

Having been told that, at an early date, she must hand over the keys of the house to the landlord, Madame Bergeret in like manner set about despatching her furniture to her mother, who lived in a maisonnette on the ramparts of a little northern town. She made bundles of clothes and of linen, pushed the furniture about, gave orders to the men, sneezed in the dusty atmosphere, and wrote out labels addressed to “Madame Veuve Pouilly.”

From her labours Madame Bergeret derived moral assistance, for it is good for mankind to work. It takes a man’s mind off his own life and turns him away from dreadful self-examination; it keeps him from that which makes solitude unbearable, the contemplation of that other being, his real self. It is the sovereign remedy for moral and æsthetic obsessions. Work is also excellent, in that it panders to our vanity, hides from us our impotence, and flatters us with the hope of something good to come. We imagine that it enables us to steal a march on Fate. Failing to realize the necessary relation between individual endeavour and the mechanism of the universe, we fondly imagine that our efforts are directed to our own advantage against the rest of the machine. Work gives us illusory determination, strength and independence, and makes us as gods in our own eyes. We appear to ourselves as so many heroes, genii, demons, demiurges, gods--yes, as God Himself. And, in fact, man has always conceived of God as a worker. Thus it was that the removal restored Madame Bergeret’s natural gaiety and the joyous energy of her physical strength. She sang songs as she tied up parcels; the rapid flow of blood in her veins made her content, and she looked forward to a happy future.

She painted in glowing colours her life in the little Flemish town where she would live with her mother and her two younger daughters. There she hoped to grow young again, to be brilliant and admired, to have attention offered her, and to find sympathy. Who could say whether, once the decree _nisi_ was granted in her favour, a second and wealthy marriage were not awaiting her in her native town? Was it not quite possible that she might marry a good-tempered, sensible man, a country gentleman, an agriculturist or a Government official, somebody quite different from M. Bergeret?

The packing-up also afforded her peculiar satisfaction, for from it she derived some solid advantages in the way of gain. Not satisfied with the appropriation of what she had brought as her marriage portion, and a large share of the common property, she heaped into her trunks things which she ought in ordinary fairness to have left to others. In this way she packed among her underclothes a silver cup which had belonged to M. Bergeret’s maternal grandmother. Again, she added to her own jewels which, be it said, were of no great value, the watch and chain of M. Bergeret’s father, a professor at the University, who, having refused in 1852 to swear fidelity to the Empire, had died in 1873, poor and forgotten.

Madame Bergeret interrupted her packing only to go and pay her farewell calls, visits both sad and triumphant. Public opinion was in her favour. Men’s judgments are diverse, and there is no place in the world where there is undivided and unanimous opinion on any single subject. _Tradidit mundum disputationibus eorum._ Madame Bergeret herself was the subject of polite discussion and of secret dissent. The greater number of the ladies of her acquaintance considered her irreproachable, otherwise they would not have received her at their houses. There were a few, however, who suspected that her adventure with M. Roux had not been quite blameless; some of them even went so far as to say so. One blamed her, another excused her, a third approved of her, casting all the blame upon M. Bergeret, as being a spiteful man.

That point, too, was open to doubt. Some people declared M. Bergeret to be a nice, quiet man, the only thing to dislike in him being his too subtle mind, which was at variance with public opinion.

M. de Terremondre said that M. Bergeret was a very nice sort of man; to which Madame Dellion replied that if he were really a good man he would have stood by his wife, however wicked she was.

“There would be some merit in that,” she said. “There is nothing noble in putting-up with a charming woman.”

Another opinion of Madame Dellion’s was: “M. Bergeret is doing his utmost to keep his wife, but she is leaving him, and quite right too! It serves M. Bergeret right.”

Thus did Madame Dellion express opinions which were inconsistent, for human thought has ever depended not upon force of reason but on violence of feeling.

Although the world is known to be uncertain in its judgment, Madame Bergeret would have gone from the town in possession of a good reputation, if on the very eve of her departure, when paying her farewell visit to Madame Lacarelle, she had not met M. Lacarelle alone in the drawing-room.

M. Gustave Lacarelle, chief clerk at the _préfecture_, had a long, thick, fair moustache, which, while the chief characteristic of his countenance, was also destined to determine his character. In his student days at the Law Schools, his comrades had discovered in him a resemblance to the ancient Gauls, as depicted in the sculpture and paintings of the later romanticists. Other more careful observers, remarking that the long strands of hair were situated under a snub nose and placid eyes, gave Lacarelle the name of “The Seal.” The latter, however, did not prevail against that of “The Gaul.” Lacarelle became “The Gaul” to his companions, who consequently made up their minds that he ought to be a great drinker, a great fighter, and a devil with the women, in order that he might conform in reality to the Frenchman of immemorial tradition. At the Corps dinners he was forced to drink far more than he wanted, and he could never go into a _brasserie_ with his friends without being pushed up against some tray-laden waitress. When he married and returned to his native town, and, by what was a great stroke of fortune in those days, obtained a post in the Central Administration of the department from which he hailed, Gustave Lacarelle continued to be called “The Gaul” by the most important of the magistrates, lawyers, and Government officials who frequented his house. The ignorant mob, however, did not bestow this name upon him until 1895, in which year a statue to Eporedorix was erected and unveiled on the Pont National.

Twenty-two years previously, under the presidency of M. Thiers, it had been decided that subscriptions should be invited for the erection of a statue to the Gaulish chief Eporedorix, who, in the year 52 B.C., led the river tribes against Cæsar, and imperilled the small Roman garrison by cutting down the wooden bridge built by them to ensure communication with the rest of the Army. The archæologists of the little county town firmly believed that this feat of arms had been accomplished in their town, founding their belief on a passage in the _Commentaries_ which all the learned societies of the district quoted as a proof of the fact that the wooden bridge cut down by Eporedorix was situated in _their_ particular town. There is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to Cæsar’s geography, and local patriotism is both fierce and jealous. The chief town of the department, three _sous-préfectures_, and four smaller towns quarrelled for the glory of having slaughtered the Romans by the hand of Eporedorix.

Competent authority decided the question in favour of the capital town of the department. It was an unfortified town, which much to its sorrow and anger had been forced in 1870 after one hour’s bombardment to allow the enemy to enter its walls, walls which in the time of Louis XI had been crumbling to pieces, and now lay concealed beneath the ivy that had overgrown them.

The town had undergone the hardships and privations of military occupation. It had suffered and atoned. The project of erecting a monument to the memory of the Gaulish chief was received with enthusiasm by the townspeople, who were experiencing the humiliation of defeat, and were all the more grateful to their long-dead compatriot for providing them with something of which they could be proud. Resuscitated after fifteen hundred years of oblivion, Eporedorix united all the citizens in a bond of filial devotion. The name of the hero roused no distrust in any of the different political parties which were then dividing France. Opportunists, Radicals, Constitutionalists, Royalists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, they all gave to the scheme; half the cost was subscribed within the year, and deputies of the department obtained from the Government what was wanting to make up the required sum.

The order for the statue of Eporedorix was given to Mathieu Michel, David d’Angers’ youngest pupil, he whom the Master had called his Benjamin. Mathieu Michel, who was then in his fiftieth year, at once set to work, and attacked the clay with a generous, if somewhat cramped, hand, for the republican sculptor had done but little work during the Empire. In less than two years, however, he finished the figure, a plaster model of which was exhibited in the Salon of 1873, among many other Gaulish chiefs gathered together among the palms and begonias under the huge glass dome. Owing to the endless formalities insisted upon by the authorities, the statue was not finally completed in marble for another five years. After this, so many administrative difficulties, so many disputes arose, between the town and the Government, that it looked as though the statue of Eporedorix would never be erected upon the Pont National.

In 1895, however, the work was accomplished, and the statue, arriving from Paris, was received by the _préfet_, who solemnly handed it over to the mayor of the town. Mathieu Michel accompanied his work. He was then over seventy, and the whole town turned out to look at the old man with his lion-like head and long, flowing, white hair.

The inauguration took place on the 7th of June, when M. Dupont was Minister of Public Instruction, M. Worms-Clavelin _préfet_ of the department, and M. Trumelle mayor of the town. Doubtless the enthusiasm was not what it would have been on the morrow of the invasion, when indignation was at its height, but at any rate everybody was satisfied. The speeches and also the uniforms of the officers met with applause, and when the green veil which hid Eporedorix from view was withdrawn the whole town cried as with one voice, “Lacarelle! it is Lacarelle! it is the image of Lacarelle!”

This, to tell the truth, was by no means correct. Mathieu Michel, the pupil and emulator of David d’Angers, he whom the venerable master called the child of his old age, the republican sculptor and patriot, insurgent in ’48, volunteer in ’70, had not portrayed M. Gustave Lacarelle in this marble hero. No, indeed! This chief, with his shy and gentle look, clasping his lance, and seeming, under his wide-winged helmet, to be meditating upon the poetry of Chateaubriand and the historic philosophy of Henri Martin, this warrior, steeped in romantic melancholy, was not, in spite of what the people cried, the true portrait of M. Lacarelle.

The _préfet’s_ secretary had big, prominent eyes, a short, snub nose, flabby cheeks, and a double chin. Mathieu Michel’s Eporedorix gazed with deep-set orbs into the distance. His nose was Grecian, and the contour of his face pure and classical. But, like M. Lacarelle, he had a tremendous moustache, the long, curving branches of which were visible from every point of view.

Struck by this resemblance, the crowd unanimously bestowed upon M. Lacarelle the glorious name of Eporedorix, and from that time the secretary of the _préfet_ found himself compelled to personate in public the popular idea of the Gaul, and to conform to it by word and deed under all circumstances. Lacarelle was fairly successful, for he had had plenty of practice since his student days, and all that was required of him was to be hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, keen on the Army, and a teller of broad stories when necessary. He was considered to be an adept at kissing women, and so he became a great embracer. He kissed them all and he kissed them always. It did not matter who they were: women, young girls, and little girls, pretty ones and plain, old and young, he embraced them out of pure Gaulishness, and with no evil intentions, for he was a moral man.

And that is why, coming unexpectedly upon Madame Bergeret waiting in the drawing-room for his wife, he immediately embraced her. Madame Bergeret was not ignorant of M. Lacarelle’s little habit, but her vanity, which was great, confounded her judgment, which was scanty. She thought he kissed her because he loved her, and straightway fell into so great an emotion that her bosom heaved stormily, her legs gave way beneath her, and she sank panting into the arms of M. Lacarelle. The latter was both surprised and embarrassed, but his amour-propre was flattered. He placed Madame Bergeret as comfortably as he could upon the couch, and, bending over her, said in a voice filled with sympathy:

“Poor lady! So charming and so unhappy! And so you are leaving us? You are going to-morrow?”

And he imprinted upon her brow a chaste kiss. But Madame Bergeret, whose nerves were all unstrung, burst into a fit of sobs and tears; then slowly, solemnly, and sorrowfully she returned his kiss at the very moment that Madame Lacarelle entered the room.

* * * * *

The next day the whole town sat in judgment upon Madame Bergeret, who had remained among them just one day too long.

Chapter II

That day the Duc de Brécé was entertaining General Cartier de Chalmot, Abbé Guitrel, and Lerond, the ex-deputy, at Brécé. They had visited the stables, the kennels, the pheasantry, and had been talking, all the time, about the Affair.

As the twilight fell, they commenced to stroll slowly along the great avenue of the park. Before them the château rose up, in the dapple grey sky, with its heavy façade laden with pediments and crowned with the high-pitched roofs of the Empire period.

“I am convinced,” said M. de Brécé, “as I said before, that the fuss made over this affair is, and can only be, some abominable plot instigated by the enemies of France.”

“And of religion,” gently added Abbé Guitrel. “It is impossible to be a good Frenchman without being a good Christian. And it is clear that the scandal was started in the first place by freethinkers and freemasons, by Protestants.”

“And Jews,” went on M. de Brécé, “Jews and Germans. What unheard-of audacity to question the decision of a court martial! For, when all is said and done, it is quite impossible for seven French officers to have made a mistake.”

“No, of course, that is not to be thought of,” said the Abbé Guitrel.

“Generally speaking,” put in M. Lerond, “a miscarriage of justice is a most improbable thing. I would even go so far as to say an impossible thing, inasmuch as the law protects the accused in so many ways. I am speaking of civil law, and I say the same of martial law. As far as courts martial are concerned, even supposing the prisoner’s interest to be less thoroughly safeguarded owing to the comparatively summary form of procedure, he finds all necessary security in the character of his judges. To my mind it is an insult to the Army, to doubt the legality of a verdict delivered by a court martial.”

“You are quite correct,” replied the Duke. “Besides, can anyone really believe seven French officers to be mistaken? Is such a thing conceivable, General?”

“Hardly,” replied General Cartier de Chalmot. “It would take a great deal to make me believe it.”

“A syndicate of treachery!” cried M. de Brécé. “The thing is unheard of!”

Conversation flagged and fell. The Duke and the General had just caught sight of some pheasants in a clearing, and, smitten simultaneously with the burning and instinctive desire to kill, mentally recorded a regret at having no guns with them.

“You have the finest coverts in the district,” said the General to the Duc de Brécé.

The Duke was deep in thought.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” he remarked, “the Jews will never be any good to France.”

The Duc de Brécé, eldest son of the late Duke--who had cut a dash among the light-horse at the Assemblée de Versailles--had entered public life after the death of the Comte de Chambord. He had never known the days of hope, the hours of ardent struggle, of monarchical enterprises as exciting as a conspiracy and as impassioned as an act of faith. He had never seen the tapestried bed offered to the Prince by noble ladies, nor the banners, the flags and the white horses which were to bring the King to his own again. By right of birth as a Brécé he took his place as deputy at the Palais-Bourbon, nourishing a secret enmity against the Comte de Paris, and a hidden wish never to see the restoration, if it were to be in favour of the younger branch of the Royal Family. With this one exception he was a loyal and faithful Royalist. He was drawn into intrigues which he did not understand, made a hopeless muddle of his votes, spent his money freely in Paris, and when the elections took place found himself defeated at Brécé by Dr. Cotard.

From that day onward he devoted his time to farming, to his family and to religion. All that remained of his hereditary domain, which in 1789 was composed of one hundred and twelve parishes, comprising one hundred and seventy “Hommages,” four “Terres titrés,” and eighteen manors, was about two thousand acres of land and forest around the historic castle of Brécé. In his department the Brécé coverts invested him with a lustre that he had never enjoyed at the Palais-Bourbon. The forests of Brécé and La Guerche, in which Francis I had hunted, were also celebrated in the ecclesiastical history of the district, for in these woods was situated the time-honoured chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles.

“Now mark what I tell you,” repeated the Duc de Brécé, “the Jews will bring misfortune upon France. Why don’t we get rid of them? Nothing would be easier!”

“It would be a great thing,” replied the magistrate, “but not so easy as you imagine, M. le Duc. In the first place, if you wish in any way to affect the position of the Jews in this country, you must make new laws on naturalization. Now it is always difficult to make a law which will satisfactorily fulfil the intentions of the legislator, and laws such as these would affect the whole of our legal system, and would, moreover, be extremely difficult to draft. Then, unfortunately, we could never be certain of finding a Government ready to propose or support them, nor a Parliament to carry them. The Senate is no good. As history unrolls itself before our eyes we make the discovery that the eighteenth century is one huge error of the human understanding, and that social as well as religious truths are to be found in their full completeness only in the traditions of the Middle Ages. By and by France will find it necessary--as Russia has done with regard to the Jews--to revert to the procedure adopted in those feudal times which offer the best example of the typical Christian state.”

“Naturally,” said the Duke, “Christian France should belong to Frenchmen and Christians, not to Jews and Protestants.”

“Bravo!” cried the General.

“There was a younger son in our family,” went on the Duke, “called Nez-d’Argent--I don’t know why--who fought in the provinces during the reign of Charles IX. On that tree whose leafless top you see over there, he hanged six hundred and thirty-six Huguenots. Well, I must confess I am proud of being a descendant of Nez-d’Argent. I have inherited his hatred of heretics, and I hate Jews in the same way that he hated Protestants.”

“Such sentiments are most praiseworthy, M. le Duc,” remarked the Abbé, “most laudable, and worthy of the great name you bear. But, if you will allow me, I will make a comment on just one point. In the Middle Ages the Jews were not considered heretics, and, properly speaking, they are not heretics. The heretic is a man who, having been baptized, and instructed in the doctrines of the faith, misrepresents or denies them. Such are, or rather were, the Arians, the Albigenses, the Novatians, the Montanists, the Priscillianists, the Waldenses, the Anabaptists, and the Calvinists, so cleverly disposed of by your illustrious ancestor, Nez-d’Argent; not to mention many other sects who upheld doctrines contrary to the beliefs of the Church. The number of them is very great, for variety is a characteristic of error. There is no stopping on the downward path of heresy; and schism reproduces and multiplies itself _ad infinitum_. All that one finds opposing the true Church is the dust and ashes of churches. The other day, when reading Bossuet, I came across an admirable definition of a heretic. ‘A heretic,’ says Bossuet, ‘is one who holds an opinion of his own; one who acts according to his own ideas and his own feelings.’ Now the Jew, who has never received baptism nor been instructed in the truth, cannot rightly be called a heretic.

“And again we see that the Inquisition never chastised a Jew as such, and if a Jew was handed over to earthly justice it was because he was a blasphemer, a profane person, or a corrupter of the faithful. A better name for the Jew would be infidel, because that is the name we give to those who, being unbaptized, do not believe in the truths of the Christian religion. Again, we must not, strictly speaking, look upon the Jew as an infidel, in the same way as we should a Mohammedan or an idolater. The Jews occupy a unique and singular position in the economy of the eternal verities. Theology bestows upon them a designation conformable to their rôle in history. They were called ‘witnesses’ in the Middle Ages, and we must admire the force and precision of such a term. The reason why God allows them to live is that they may serve as witnesses and sureties for the words and deeds upon which our religion is founded. We must not go so far as to say that God purposely makes the Jews obstinate and blind to serve as living proofs of Christianity; but He utilizes their free and voluntary stubbornness to confirm us in our belief. It is for that reason that He allows them a place among the nations.”

“But in the meanwhile,” put in the Duke, “they rob us of our money and destroy our national energy.”

“And they insult the Army,” said General Cartier de Chalmot. “Or rather it is insulted by the wretches in their pay.”

“And that is a crime,” remarked the Abbé gently. “The salvation of France depends upon the alliance of the Church and the Army.”

“Well, then, M. l’Abbé, why do you defend the Jews?” demanded the Duc de Brécé.

“Far from defending them,” replied the Abbé Guitrel, “I condemn their unpardonable sin, which is to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. On this point their obstinacy is invincible. Their own belief is rational enough, but they do not believe all that they should, and that is why they have drawn so heavy a blame upon themselves. This blame rests upon the Jews as a nation, and not as individuals, and cannot touch any who have been converted to Christianity.”

“For my part,” said the Duke, “converted Jews are just as odious to me, more odious even, than other Jews. It is the race I dislike.”

“Allow me to say I do not believe you, M. le Duc,” said the Abbé. “For that would be to sin against charity and the teaching of the Church. I am sure that, like myself, you are grateful to a certain extent to some unconverted Jews for their liberal donations towards our charities. It is impossible to deny, for instance, that families like the R---- and the F---- have, in this respect, shown an example which might well be followed by all Christian families. I will go so far as to say that Madame Worms-Clavelin, although not openly converted to Catholicism, has on several occasions given proof of truly divine inspiration. It is to the _préfet’s_ wife that we owe the tolerance with which in the midst of general persecution our Church schools are regarded in this department. As for Madame de Bonmont, who is a Jewess by birth, she is a true Christian indeed, and takes pattern to a certain extent by those holy widows who in centuries past gave a part of their riches to the churches and the poor.”

“The Bonmonts’ real name is Gutenberg,” put in M. Lerond. “They are of German extraction. The grandfather amassed his riches by the manufacture of the two poisons, absinth and vermuth, and was imprisoned no less than three times for infringement and adulteration. The father, who was a manufacturer and a financier, made a scandalous fortune through speculation and monopoly. Subsequently his widow presented a golden ciborium to Monseigneur Charlot. That sort of people always makes me think of the two attorneys who, after listening to a sermon by good Father Maillard, said to each other at the church door, ‘Well, neighbour, have we got to disgorge?’”

“It is an extraordinary thing,” said M. Lerond, “that the Semitic question has never arisen in England.”

“That is because the English are not made the same as we are,” said the Duke. “Their blood is not so hot as ours.”

“True,” said M. Lerond. “I fully appreciate that remark; but it may arise from the fact that the English engage all their capital in trade, while our hard-working population save theirs for speculation; in other words, for the Jews. The whole trouble arises from having to submit to the laws and customs of the Revolution. Salvation lies in a speedy return to the old regime.”

“That’s true,” said the Duc de Brécé thoughtfully.

They walked along, chatting as they went. Suddenly a char-à-banc passed them, bowling along the road thrown open to the inhabitants of the town by the late Duke. Filled with laughing, noisy people, it went swiftly past them; amongst the countrywomen with their flower-bedecked hats, and the farmers in blouses, sat a jovial red-bearded fellow smoking a pipe. He was pretending to aim at imaginary pheasants with his cane as they passed by. It was Dr. Cotard, member for the Brécé district, member for the ancient seigniory of Brécé.

“That, at any rate, is a strange sight,” said M. Lerond, brushing off the dust raised by the char-à-banc, “to see Cotard, the medical officer of health, representing this district, upon which your ancestors, M. le Duc, showered benefits and glories for eight hundred years. Only yesterday I was rereading in M. de Terremondre’s book the letter which your great-great-grandfather, the Duc de Brécé, wrote in 1787 to his steward, and which proves how kind-hearted he was. You remember the letter, do you not?”

The Duke replied that he remembered the letter in question, but could not be sure of the precise terms employed.

M. Lerond immediately began to recite by heart the principal phrases of this touching letter. “I have learned,” wrote the Good Duke, “that the inhabitants of Brécé are forbidden to gather strawberries in the woods. People are evidently doing their best to make me disliked, and that would be a terrible grief to me.”

“I have also found,” continued M. Lerond, “some interesting details on the life of the good Duc de Brécé in M. de Terremondre’s summary. The Duke spent the worst days of the Revolution here on his estate without being in any way molested, for his good deeds gained him the love and respect of his old retainers. In exchange for the titles of which by a decree of the National Assembly he was deprived he received that of Commander of the National Guard of Brécé. M. de Terremondre goes on to tell us that on the 20th of September, 1792, the municipality of Brécé assembled in the courtyard of the castle, and there planted a tree to Liberty, to which was suspended this inscription, ‘Hommage à la vertu!’”

“M. de Terremondre,” returned the Duke, “drew his information from the archives of my family. I myself asked him to go into them, for, unfortunately, I have never had the time to do so. Duke Louis de Brécé, of whom you were speaking, surnamed ‘the Good Duke,’ died of grief in 1794. He was gifted with a kindness of disposition which even the Revolutionists themselves delighted to honour. Every one recognizes the fact that he distinguished himself by his loyalty to his King; that he was a good master, a good father, and a good husband. You must take no notice of the so-called revelations of a man called Mazure, who is keeper of the departmental archives. According to him the ‘Good Duke’s’ benevolence was confined to his prettiest vassals, on whom he liked to exercise his ‘droit de jambage.’ As far as that goes, this particular right to which I allude is of a very problematical nature, and I have never been able to discover a trace of it among the Brécé archives, which, by the way, have been in part destroyed.”

“This right,” said M. Lerond, “if it ever did exist at all, was nothing more nor less than a payment in meat or wine which serfs were called upon to bring to their lord before contracting marriage. If I remember rightly, there were certain localities where this tax existed, and was paid in ready money to the value of three halfpence.”

“With regard to that,” went on the Duke, “I consider my ancestor entirely exonerated from the accusations brought against him by this M. Mazure, who, I am told, is a dangerous man. Unfortunately----” The Duke heaved a slight sigh, and continued in a lower and mysterious voice: “Unfortunately, the Good Duke was in the habit of reading pernicious books. Whole editions of Voltaire and Rousseau, bound in morocco and stamped with the Brécé coat of arms, have been discovered in the castle library. He fell, to a certain extent, under the detestable influence of the philosophical thought that was rampant among all classes of people towards the end of the eighteenth century, even among those in the highest society. He was possessed of a mania for writing, and was the author of certain Memoirs, the manuscript of which is still in my possession. Both the Duchess and M. de Terremondre have glanced through it. It is surprising to find there traces of the Voltairian spirit, and the Duke now and then shows his partiality for the Encyclopædists. He used, in fact, to correspond with Diderot. That is why I have thought it wise to withhold my consent to the publication of these Memoirs, in spite of the request of some of the savants of the district, and of M. de Terremondre himself.

“The Good Duke could turn a rhyme quite prettily, and he filled whole books with madrigals, epigrams, and stories. That is quite excusable. A far more serious matter, however, is that he sometimes permitted himself to jeer at the ceremonies of our holy religion, and even at the miracles performed by the intervention of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles. I beg, gentlemen, that you will say nothing of all this; it must remain strictly between ourselves. I should be very sorry to hand over anecdotes such as these to feed the unhealthy curiosity of men like M. Mazure, and the malice of the public in general. The Duc de Brécé in question was my great-great-grandfather, and my family pride is great. I am sure you will not blame me for this.”

“Much valuable instruction and great consolations are to be derived from what you have just related to us, Monsieur,” said the Abbé. “The conclusion we arrive at is that France, which in the eighteenth century had turned away from Christianity, and was so steeped in wickedness, even to the very greatest in the land, that good men, such as your noble great-great-grandfather, pandered to the false philosophy; France, I say, punished for her crimes by a terrible revolution, is now amending her evil ways, and witnessing the return to piety of all classes of the nation, especially in the highest circles. Examples such as yours, Monsieur, are not to be ignored, and if the eighteenth century, taken altogether, appears as the century of crime, the nineteenth, judging by the attitude of the aristocracy, may, if I mistake not, be called the century of public penance.”

“God grant that you are right,” sighed M. Lerond. “But I dare not allow myself to hope. My profession as a man of law brings me into contact with the masses, and I invariably find them indifferent, and even hostile to religion. Let me tell you, M. l’Abbé, that my experience of the world leads me to share in the deep sorrow of the Abbé Lantaigne, and not in your optimistic view of things. Now, without going further afield, do you not see that this Christian land of Brécé has become the fief of the atheist and freemason, Dr. Cotard?”

“And who can say,” demanded the General, “whether the Duke will not unseat Dr. Cotard at the next elections? I am told that a contest is more than probable, and that a good number of electors are in favour of the château.”

“My decision is unalterable,” replied the Duke, “and nothing can make me change it. I shall not stand again. I have not the necessary qualifications to represent the electors of Brécé, and the electors of Brécé have not the necessary qualifications for me to wish to represent them.”

This speech had been composed by his secretary, M. Lacrisse, at the time of his electoral reverse, and since then he had made a point of quoting it on every possible occasion.

Just at that moment three ladies, descending the terrace steps, came along the great drive towards them.

They were the three Brécé ladies, the mother, wife, and daughter of the present Duke. They were all tall, massive, and freckled, with smooth hair tightly plastered back, and clad in black dresses and thick boots. They were on their way to the church of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles, situated by the side of a well half-way between the town and the château.

The General suggested that they should accompany the ladies.

“Nothing could be more delightful,” said M. Lerond.

“True,” assented the Abbé, “and all the more so because the sacred edifice, which has lately been restored and richly redecorated by the care of the Duke, is most delightful to see.”

The Abbé Guitrel took a special interest in the chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles, of which, in archæological and pious vein, he had written a history, for the purpose of attracting pilgrims to the shrine. According to him the church dated from the reign of Clotaire II. “At this period,” wrote the historian, “St. Austrégisile, full of years and good works, and exhausted by his apostolic labours, built with his own hands in this desert spot a hut, where he could pass his days in meditation, and await the approach of blessed death; he also erected an oratory, in which he placed a miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin.”

This assertion had been vigorously contested by M. Mazure in the _Phare_. The keeper of the departmental archives maintained that the worship of Mary came well after the sixth century, and that at the time in which St. Austrégisile was supposed to have lived there were no statues of the Virgin. To which the Abbé Guitrel replied in the _Semaine Religieuse_ that before the birth of Jesus Christ the Druids themselves worshipped the image of the Virgin who was to bear a son, and thus our old earth that was to witness the remarkable spread of the worship of Mary contained her altars and images, prophetic in significance as the warnings of the sibyls, to herald her appearance upon it. Therefore, argued he, there was nothing strange in St. Austrégisile’s possessing an image of the Blessed Virgin as early as the reign of Clotaire II. M. Mazure had treated the arguments of the Abbé as idle fancies, and no one, save M. Bergeret, whose curiosity was unbounded, had read the record of this logomachy.

“The sanctuary erected by the holy apostle,” went on the Abbé Guitrel’s pamphlet, “was rebuilt with great magnificence in the thirteenth century. At the time of the wars of religion that devastated the country during the sixteenth century, the Protestants fired the chapel, without, however, being able to destroy the statue, which by a miracle escaped the flames. The church was rebuilt at the behest of King Louis XIV and his pious mother, but during the Reign of Terror was totally destroyed by the commissioners of the Convention, who carried the miraculous statue, together with the furniture of the chapel, into the courtyard at Brécé and made a bonfire of the whole. Fortunately, however, one of the Virgin’s feet was saved from the flames by a good peasant-woman, who wrapped it carefully in old rags and hid it in a cauldron, where it was discovered in 1815. This foot was included in a new statue which, thanks to the generosity of the Duke, was executed in Paris in 1852.”

The Abbé Guitrel went on to enumerate the miracles accomplished from the sixth century up to the present time by the intervention of Notre-Dames-des-Belles-Feuilles, who was in particular request for the cure of diseases of the respiratory organs and the lungs. And he further affirmed that in 1871 she had turned the Germans aside from the town and miraculously healed of their wounds two soldiers quartered at the château of Brécé, which had been turned into a hospital.

* * * * *

They reached the bottom of a narrow valley with a stream flowing between moss-grown stones. On an irregular platform of sandstone, surrounded by dwarf oak trees, rose the oratory of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles, newly constructed from the plans of M. Quatrebarbe, the diocesan architect, in that modern namby-pamby style which people fondly imagine to be Gothic.

“This oratory,” said the Abbé Guitrel, “was burned down in 1559 by the Calvinists, and again in 1793 by the revolutionaries, and nothing remained but a mass of ruins. Like another Nehemiah, the Duc de Brécé has rebuilt the sanctuary. The Pope, this year, has granted to it numerous indulgences, no doubt with the object of quickening the worship of the Blessed Virgin in this country. Monseigneur Charlot himself celebrated the Holy Eucharist here, and since then pilgrims have flocked to the shrine. They come from all parts of the diocese, and even farther. There is no doubt that such co-operation and zeal must draw special blessings on the country. I myself had the felicity of bringing to the feet of la Vierge des Belles-Feuilles several respectable families of the Tintelleries. And, with the permission of the Duke, I have more than once celebrated Mass at this favoured altar.”

“That is true,” said the Duchess. “And it is noticeable that the Abbé takes more interest in our chapel than the Curé of Brécé himself.”

“Good M. Traviès!” said the Duke. “He is an excellent priest, but an inveterate sportsman, and all he thinks of is shooting. The other day, on returning from the administration of extreme unction to a dying man, he brought down three partridges.”

“Now that the branches are devoid of leaves,” said the Abbé, “you can see the chapel, which, in the summer, is entirely hidden by the thick foliage.”

“One of the reasons which made me determine to rebuild the chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles,” said the Duke, “was that on examining the family archives, I found that the battle-cry of the Brécés was ‘Brécé Notre-Dame!’”

“How very strange!” remarked General Cartier de Chalmot.

“Is it not?” replied Madame de Brécé.

Just as the ladies, followed by M. Lerond, were crossing the rustic bridge that spans the stream, a ragged girl of thirteen or fourteen, with hair of the same dirty white colour as her face, slipping from a copse on the opposite side of the hollow, ran up the steps and rushed into the oratory.

“There’s Honorine,” said Madame de Brécé.

“I’ve been wanting to see her for a long time,” said M. Lerond, “and I must thank you, Madame, for being the means of satisfying my curiosity. I have heard so much about her!”

“Yes, indeed,” said General Cartier de Chalmot. “The young girl in question has been subjected to many and searching inquiries.”

“M. de Goulet,” put in the Abbé, “comes regularly to the sanctuary of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles. It is his pleasure and delight to spend long hours in adoration of her whom he calls his mother.”

“We are very fond of M. de Goulet,” said Madame de Brécé. “What a pity it is that he should be so delicate.”

“Yes, alas!” replied the Abbé. “His strength diminishes from day to day!”

“He ought to take more care of himself,” went on the Duchess, “and rest as much as possible.”

“How can he, Madame?” asked the Abbé. “The management of the diocese fills up every moment of his time.”

As the three ladies, the General, M. Guitrel, M. Lerond, and the Duke entered the chapel, they saw Honorine, as in an ecstasy, kneeling at the foot of the altar.

With clasped hands, and uplifted head, the child knelt there motionless. Out of respect for her mysterious condition, they crossed themselves silently with holy water, letting their gaze wander from the Gothic tabernacle and fall upon the stained-glass windows, in which the Comte de Chambord appeared in the guise of St. Henry, while the faces of St. John the Baptist and St. Guy were executed from photographs of Comte Jean, who died in 1867, and the late Comte Guy, who, in 1871, was a member of the Bordeaux Assembly.

The miraculous statue was covered by a veil, and stood just over the altar. But above the holy-water stoup, painted in bright colours upon the wall was a full-length figure of Notre-Dame de Lourdes, girdled with blue.

The General looked at her with a set expression derived from fifty years of mechanical respect, and gazed at her blue scarf as though it had been the flag of a friendly nation. He had always been looked upon as something of a mystic, and had considered a belief in the future life to be the very base and foundation-stone of military regulations. Age and ill-health were making a devotee of him. For some days past, though he did not betray it, he had been, if not worried, at any rate grieved, by the recent scandals. His simple-mindedness had taken fright at such a tumult of words and passions, and he was obsessed by vague misgivings. He sent up a voiceless prayer to Notre-Dame de Lourdes, imploring her protection for the French Army.

All of them, the women, the Duke, the lawyer, and the priest, had by this time riveted their gaze upon the worn shoes of the motionless Honorine, and these sombre, solemn, solid folk fell into an ecstasy of admiration at the sight of the lithe young body, now stiff and rigid; M. Lerond, who prided himself on being very observant, made sundry observations.

At last, however, Honorine came out of her trance. She rose to her feet, bowed to the altar, and turned round; then, as though astonished at the sight of so many people, stood stock still and brushed away with both hands the hair that had fallen over her eyes.

“Well, my child, did you see the Blessed Virgin to-day?” asked Madame de Brécé.

In the shrill sing-song voice of a child in the catechism class answering by rote, Honorine replied:

“Yes, Madame. The good Virgin remained for one moment, then rolled up like a piece of calico, and I didn’t see her any more.”

“Did she speak to you?”

“Yes, Madame.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘There is much misery in your home.’”

“Is that all she said?”

“She said, ‘There will be much misery in the country over the harvests and the cattle.’”

“Did she not tell you to be good?”

“‘Pray continually,’ she said to me, and then she said like this, ‘I greet you. There is much misery in your home.’”

And the words of the child rang out in the imposing silence.

“Was the Blessed Virgin very beautiful?” again questioned Madame de Brécé.

“Yes, Madame. But one eye and one cheek were missing, because I had not prayed long enough.”

“Had she a crown upon her head?” asked M. Lerond, who, as an ex-member of the magistracy, was inquisitive and fond of asking questions.

Honorine hesitated, and then, with a cunning look, replied:

“Her crown was on one side.”

“Right or left?” asked M. Lerond.

“Right and left,” answered Honorine.

Madame de Brécé intervened:

“What do you mean, my child, that it was first on the right and then on the left? Isn’t that what you mean?” But Honorine would not answer.

She was in the habit sometimes of indulging in obstinate silences, standing, as now, with lowered eyes, rubbing her chin on her shoulder and fidgeting. They stopped questioning her, and she slipped out and away, when the Duke began forthwith to explain her case.

Honorine Porrichet, the daughter of a small farmer who had lived all his life at Brécé and had fallen into the direst poverty, had always been a sickly child. Her intelligence had developed so slowly and tardily, that at first she was looked upon as an idiot. The Curé used to reproach her for her wild disposition and the habit she had of hiding in the woods; he did not like her. But some enlightened priests who saw and questioned her could find in her nothing evil. She frequented churches, and would linger there lost in dreams unusual in a child of her age. Her zeal grew at the approach of her first communion. At that time she fell a victim to consumption, and the doctors gave her up. Dr. Cotard, among others, said there was no hope for her. When the new oratory of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles was inaugurated by Monseigneur Charlot, Honorine assiduously frequented it. She fell into ecstasies when there, and saw visions. She saw the Blessed Virgin, who said to her, “I am Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles!” One day Mary approached her, and, laying a finger upon her throat, told her she was cured.

“It was Honorine herself who came back with this remarkable story,” added the Duke, “and she related it several times with the utmost simplicity. People have said that her story was never twice the same; what is certain, however, is that any inconsistency on her part only concerned the minor details of the narrative. What is also certain is that she suddenly ceased to suffer from the disease that was killing her. The doctors who examined and sounded her immediately after the miraculous apparition found nothing wrong either with the bronchial tubes or the lungs. Dr. Cotard himself confessed that he could make nothing of the cure.”

“What do you think of these facts?” said M. Lerond to the Abbé.

“They are worthy of attention,” replied the priest, “and give rise, in all honest observers, to more than one reflexion. It would certainly be impossible to study them too assiduously. I can say no more. I should certainly never put aside such interesting and consoling facts with bold contempt like M. Lantaigne, neither should I dare, like M. de Goulet, to call them miracles. I reserve my opinion.”

“In Honorine Porrichet’s case,” said the Duke, “we must consider both the remarkable cure, which I am right in saying was directly opposed to medical knowledge, and the visions which she declares to be vouchsafed to her. Now you are aware, M. l’Abbé, that when the girl’s eyes were photographed, during one of her trances, the negatives obtained by the photographer, of whose good faith there is not the shadow of a doubt, contained the figure of the Blessed Virgin, imprinted upon the pupil of the eye. Certain persons whose evidence can be relied on swear to having seen the photographs, and to having distinguished, with the aid of a strong magnifying-glass, the statue of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles.”

“These facts are worthy of notice,” repeated the Abbé, “worthy of the most careful attention. But one must be able to suspend judgment, and not rush to premature conclusions. Let us not, like the unbelievers, form hasty conclusions, prompted by passion. In the matter of miracles, the Church exercises the greatest caution; she requires proofs, indisputable proofs.”

M. Lerond asked whether it were possible to obtain the photographs which portrayed the image of the Blessed Virgin in the eyes of little Honorine Porrichet, and the Duke promised to write on the subject to the photographer, whose studio, he thought, was in the Place Saint-Exupère.

“Anyhow,” put in Madame de Brécé, “little Honorine is a very good, nice little girl. She must be under the special protection of Providence, for her parents, who are overcome with illness and want, have abandoned her. I have made inquiries, and understand that her conduct is good.”

“That is more than can be said of all the village girls of her age,” added the dowager duchess.

“That is only too true,” said the Duke. “The peasant classes are growing more and more demoralized. I will tell you of some terrible instances, General, but as for little Honorine, she is innocence itself.”

* * * * *

While the foregoing conversation was being held on the threshold of the church, Honorine had rejoined Isidore in the copses of La Guerche. He was lying on a bed of dead leaves, waiting impatiently, partly because he thought she would bring him something to eat, or some coppers, partly because he loved her, for she was his sweetheart. It was he who had seen the ladies and gentlemen from the château on their way to the church, and had immediately sought out Honorine, to give her time to reach the church before them, and to fall into a trance.

“What have they given you?” he demanded. “Let me see.”

And, as she had brought nothing, he struck her, but without hurting her very much. In return she scratched and bit him, then said:

“What’s that for?”

“Swear that they didn’t give you anything!” he said.

She swore, and, having sucked away the blood that was trickling down their thin arms, they were reconciled. Then, for the want of something better to do, they fell back upon the pleasure that each was able to bestow upon the other.

Isidore, whose mother was a widow, a bad woman given to drink, had no recognized father. He spent all his time in the woods, and nobody bothered about him. Although he was two years younger than Honorine, he was well versed in the practices of love, about the only need in his life of which he found no lack, under the trees of La Guerche, Lénonville, and Brécé. His love-making with Honorine was only by way of killing time, and for want of something better to do. Occasionally Honorine would be roused to a certain amount of interest, but she could not attach much importance to such commonplace, everyday actions, and a rabbit, a bird, or an uncommon-looking insect, would often be enough to change the entire current of their thoughts.

* * * * *

M. de Brécé returned to the château with his guests. The cold walls of the hall bristled with the evidences of massacre; antlers of deer, heads of young stags and of old veterans, which, in spite of the taxidermist’s care, were moth-eaten, and retained in their staring glass eyes something of the agonized sweat of a creature at bay, equivalent to human tears.

Horns, antlers, bleached bones, severed heads, trophies, by means of which the victims honoured their illustrious slayers, the noblemen of France, and Bourbons of Naples and Spain. Under the great staircase stood a sort of amphibious chariot, shaped like a boat, the body of which could be removed, and was used for the purpose of crossing rivers when hunting. It was looked upon as sacred, because it had once been used by exiled kings.

The Abbé Guitrel carefully placed his big cotton umbrella beneath the black visage of a ferocious wild boar, and led the way through a door on the left, flanked by two tortured-looking caryatides by Ducereau, to a drawing-room, where the three Brécé ladies, who had been the first to return, were already sitting with their friend and neighbour, Madame de Courtrai.

Dressed in black, owing to the interminable series of deaths in their own and the Royal Family, they sat there, nunlike and rustic in their extreme simplicity, chatting of marriages and deaths, of illnesses and their remedies.

On the painted ceiling above them, and on the panelled walls, amid the sombre rows of portraits, one caught an occasional glimpse of a grey-bearded Henri IV in the embrace of a full-bosomed Minerva; or the pale face of Louis XIII in close juxtaposition to the heavy Flemish figures of Victory and Mercy in loosely flowing robes; or, again, the naked body, brick-red in hue, of an old man, Father Time, sparing the fleurs de lis; and anywhere and everywhere the dimpled legs of little boys supporting the Brécé coat of arms with the three golden torches.

All the while the dowager duchess was busy knitting black woollen scarves for the poor. Since those far off days when she had embroidered a counterpane for the bed at Chambord on which the king was to sleep, she had knitted continuously, occupying her hands, and satisfying her heart withal.

The tables and consoles were covered with photographs, in frames of all colours and sizes, some resembling easels, some of porcelain or plush, others of crystal, nickel, shagreen, carved wood or stamped leather-work. There were some, again, like gilded horse-shoes, others like palettes covered with colours and brushes, some shaped like chestnut leaves or butterflies.

In this assortment of frames were portraits of men, women, and children, relations by blood or by marriage; of princes belonging to the house of Bourbon, of Church dignitaries, of the Comte de Chambord, and Pope Pius IX. On the right of the fire-place in the middle of an old console supported by gilded Turks, like a spiritual father, Monseigneur Charlot smiled all over his broad face at the young soldiers grouped closely around him, officers, brigadiers, and privates, wearing upon their heads, their necks, and their breasts all the martial decoration allowed by a democratic army to her cavalry. He smiled at young men dressed in cycling or polo kit; he smiled at young girls. Ladies covered the folding tables, ladies of all ages, some of them with the decided features of men, but a few among them quite pretty.

“‘Mame’ de Courtrai!” cried M. de Brécé, as he entered the room behind the General. “How are you, dear ‘Mame’?”

He then returned to the conversation he had commenced with M. Lerond in the park, and, drawing him aside to one of the corners of the huge room, he concluded:

“For, when all’s said and done, the Army is all that is left us. All that formerly made up the glory and strength of France has vanished, leaving us the Army alone. The Republican Parliament has overthrown the Government, compromised the magistracy, and corrupted public life. The Army alone rears its head above the ruins. That is why I insist that to meddle with it is nothing short of sacrilege.”

He stopped. He was never in the habit of grappling with any question, and usually contented himself with generalities. The nobility of his sentiments was contested by none.

Madame de Courtrai, who until then had been lost in reflection as to the best way of preparing cooling draughts, suddenly looked up, turning her old gamekeeper’s face to the Duke, and remarked:

“I do trust you have written to the proprietors of that paper which is in league with the enemies of France and the Army, saying that you intend to discontinue it. My husband sent back the number containing that article. You know the one I mean--that disgraceful article.”

“My nephew writes to me,” replied the Duke, “that a notice has been posted up at his club, insisting that the subscription to it shall be given up, and I hear that signatures are coming in thick and fast. Nearly all the members fall in with the suggestion, reserving the right to buy any single number.”

“The Army is above all attack,” said M. Lerond.

General Cartier de Chalmot at length broke the silence, in which, until then, he had been wrapped:

“I like to hear you say that. And if, like myself, you had spent the greater part of your life among soldiers, you would be agreeably surprised to note the qualities of endurance, good discipline, and good temper, which make of the French trooper a first-class implement of war. I never tire of repeating it: such units are equal to any task. With the authority of an officer whose life’s career is drawing to a close, I maintain that anyone who takes the trouble to inquire into the spirit which animates the French Army will find it worthy of the highest praise. In the same way, it is a pleasure to me to testify to the persevering effort of several officers of high standing and great capacity who have devoted much time and thought to the organization of the Army, and I declare that their efforts have been crowned with brilliant success.”

In a lower and more serious voice he added:

“All that now remains for me to say is, that as far as the men are concerned, quality is to be preferred to quantity, and what should be aimed at is the formation of crack corps. I feel certain that no capable officer would contradict such an assertion. My last military will and testament is contained in this formula: ‘Quantity is nothing, quality is everything.’ I might add that unity of command is indispensable to an army, and that a great body of men must obey one unique, sovereign, and immutable will, and one only.”

He ceased speaking, his pale eyes full of tears. Confused, inexplicable feelings filled the soul of the honest, simple-minded old man, who in former days had been the most dashing captain of the Imperial Guard. His health was failing, his strength exhausted, and he felt himself lost amongst the officers of the modern school, whom he could not understand.

Madame de Courtrai, who did not care for theories, turned her fierce, masculine old face towards the General:

“Well, General, as, thank God, the Army is respected by every one, as you say it is the only force that keeps us together, why should it not also rule us? Why not send a colonel with his regiment to the Palais Bourbon and the Élysée----?”

She stopped short, as she saw the clouded brow of the General.

The Duke beckoned to M. Lerond.

“You have never seen the library, have you, M. Lerond? I will show it to you. You are fond of old books, and I am sure you will be interested.”

Traversing a long, bare gallery, the ceiling of which was covered with clumsy painting, depicting Louis XIII and Apollo destroying the enemies of the kingdom, as represented by Furies and Hydras, they arrived at a door through which the Duke ushered the counsel for the defence of the religious communities into the room where, in 1605, Duc Guy, Grand-Marshal of France and governor of the province, had founded the library for the solace of his declining years and fortunes.

It was a square room, occupying the whole of the ground floor of the west wing, lighted on the north, west, and south, by three uncurtained windows, offering three charming and magnificent pictures to the eye. Stretching away to the south was the lawn, in the centre of which was a marble vase, with a pair of ring-doves perching upon it. The trees of the park were visible, bared by the winter of their leaves, and in the purple depths of the dark walk glimmered the white statues of the pool of Galatea. To the west was a stretch of flat country, a wide expanse of sky, and the setting sun, which, like a mythological egg of light and of gold, had broken and spread its glory over the clouds. To the north were the ploughed red earth of the hills, the slate roofs and distant smoke of Brécé, and the delicate pointed steeple of the little church standing out in the cold, clear light.

A Louis XIV table, two chairs, and a seventeenth-century globe with a wind-rose relating to the unexplored regions of the Pacific comprised the only furniture of this severe-looking room, the walls of which were lined from floor to ceiling with bookcases, enclosed by wire gratings. Even upon the red marble mantelpiece the grey-painted shelves encroached, and through the mesh of gilded wire peeped the richly decorated backs of ancient volumes.

“The library was founded by the Marshal,” said M. de Brécé. “His grandson, Duc Jean, added many treasures to it during the reign of Louis XIV, and it was he who fitted it up as you see it to-day. It has not been much altered since.”

“Have you a catalogue?” inquired M. Lerond.

The Duke said that he had not, that M. de Terremondre, who was a great lover of valuable books, had warmly recommended him to have them catalogued, but he had never yet found time to have it done.

He opened one of the cases, and M. Lerond drew out several volumes in succession, octavo, quarto, and folio, bound in marbled, stippled or tree-calf, parchment, and red and blue morocco, all bearing on their covers the coat of arms with the three torches surmounted by a ducal crown. M. Lerond was not a keen book-lover, but on opening a beautifully written manuscript on Royal Tithes, presented to the Marshal by Vauban, his astonishment and admiration knew no bounds.

The manuscript was further embellished with a frontispiece, besides several vignettes and tail-pieces.

“Are these original drawings?” asked M. Lerond.

“Very probably,” replied M. de Brécé.

“They are signed,” went on M. Lerond, “and I think I can decipher the name of Sebastian Leclerc.”

“Maybe,” answered M. de Brécé.

These priceless shelves contained, as M. Lerond remarked, books by Tillemont on Roman and Church history, the statute book of the province, and innumerable _Fœdera_ by old doctors at law; he unearthed works on theology, on controversy, and on hagiology, long genealogical histories, old editions of Greek and Latin classics, and some of those enormous books, bigger than atlases, written on the occasion of the marriage of a king or his entry into Paris, or to celebrate his convalescence or his victories.

“This is the oldest part of the library,” said M. de Brécé, “the Marshal’s collection. Here,” he added, opening two or three other cases, “are the additions of Duc Jean.”

“Louis XVI’s minister, surnamed the ‘Good Duke’?” asked M. Lerond.

“Just so,” replied M. de Brécé.

Duc Jean’s collection took up all that side of the wall containing the mantelpiece and also the side looking out upon the little town. M. Lerond read out the titles stamped in gold between two bands, that decorated the backs of the volumes: _Encyclopédie méthodique_; _Œuvres de Montesquieu_; _Œvres de Voltaire_; _Œuvres de Rousseau, de l’abbé Mably, de Condillac_; and _Histoire des Établissements Européens dans les Indes_, by Raynal. He then glanced through the lesser poets and romancers with the vignettes of Grécourt, Dorat, and Saint-Lambert; the Boccaccio illustrated by Marillier, and the edition of La Fontaine, published by the “Fermiers Généraux.”

“The pictures are rather free,” remarked the Duke. “I have been compelled to destroy certain works of the same period, the illustrations of which were really licentious.”

M. Lerond, however, discovered, side by side with these frivolous books, a lengthy series of political and philosophical works, essays on slavery, printed accounts of the American War of Independence. He opened _Vœux d’un solitaire_, and saw that the margins were covered with notes in Duc Jean’s handwriting. He read aloud:

“The author is right; man is naturally good, and the mistaken social laws alone are responsible for his evil deeds.”

“That,” he added, “is what your great-great-grandfather wrote in 1790.”

“How very curious!” remarked the Duke, replacing the book upon its shelf. Then, opening the cases upon the north side of the room, he said:

“These are the books collected by my grandfather, who was page to Charles X.”

Here M. Lerond discovered, bound in sombre sheepskin, tan calf and black shagreen, the works of Chateaubriand, a series of “Mémoires” on the Revolution, the Histories of Anquetil, Guizot, and Augustin Thierry; La Harpe’s _Cours de littérature_, Marchangy’s _Gaule poétique_, and the _Discours_ of Lainé.

Close to this literature dealing with the Restoration, and the Government of July, was a shelf on which lay two or three tattered papers on Pope Pius IX and temporal power, a few dilapidated novels, a pamphlet in praise of Joan of Arc, which had been read by Monseigneur Charlot in the church of Saint-Exupère on the 8th of June, 1890, and a few religious books written for ladies of high degree. This was the contribution of the late Duke, member of the National Assembly in 1871, and of the present Duc de Brécé, to the library created by the marshal in 1605.

“I must lock up these books,” said M. de Brécé. “I cannot be too careful, for my sons are growing up, and at any moment may be seized with the desire to come and examine the library for themselves. There are books among these which should never fall into the hands of any young man, nor of any self-respecting woman, no matter what her age may be.”

And so, in his honest zeal for doing good, and in the happy conviction that he was imprisoning lust, doubt, impiety, and evil thoughts, he turned his key upon them; and this sentiment, which, when analysed, had its share of simple complacency and the secret jealousy of an ignorant man, was not without its beauty and purity also.

Having thrust the bunch of keys into his pocket again, the Duke turned a satisfied countenance to M. Lerond.

“Overhead,” he said, “is the King’s room. The old inventories give this name to all the upper story. The room properly so-called, however, contains the bed in which Louis XIII slept, and it is still hung with the same silk embroidery. It is well worth a visit.”

M. Lerond was so tired that he could hardly stand. His legs, accustomed all the year round to be tucked away under a desk, had had hard work to carry him through the walk on the slippery paths of the park, the tramp round the stables, and the stroll along the woods to the church; they felt limp and weak, and his feet were hot and painful, for the poor man, anxious to do the right thing, had, unfortunately, put on patent-leather boots. Casting an uneasy glance at the ceiling, he stammered:

“It grows late. Would it not be better to join the ladies in the drawing-room?”

M. de Brécé was only adamant with regard to the visit to the stables; as far as the remainder of his property was concerned he was reasonable enough.

“Yes, the light is going,” he said. “We will see the rest another time. To the right, M. Lerond; to the right, please.”

“What walls!” cried the ex-deputy, as he reached the doorway. “What tremendously thick walls!”

His thin face, the calm and cold expression of which had not altered one whit at the sight of the hunting trophies in the hall, the historic paintings in the drawing-room, the rich tapestries, the magnificent ceiling of the gallery, and the beautiful books with their tooled morocco bindings, now grew animated, interested, and full of admiration. He had at last discovered something to stir and amaze him, something which afforded him both food for thought and mental satisfaction--a wall! His legal mind, struck down in its flower at the time of the new regulations, and his heart, too soon bereaved of the joy of administering punishment, rejoiced at the sight of a wall, a deaf, dumb, sombre thing, which recalled to his eager mind thoughts of prison cells, of sentences and public prosecutions, of codes, laws, justice, and morals--a wall!

“Yes,” replied the Duke, “the wall at this particular spot between the gallery and the next wing is tremendously thick. It is the outer wall of the old castle, built in 1405.”

M. Lerond gazed lingeringly at the wall, measured it with his eyes, felt it with his little, crooked, yellow hands, studied, worshipped, loved, and possessed it.

“Mesdames,” he said to the ladies on his return to the drawing-room, “the Duke has very kindly shown me his wonderful library. On my way back I noticed the remarkable wall that separates the gallery from the wing. I don’t think there is anything to equal it even at Chambord.”

But neither the Brécé ladies nor Madame de Courtrai was listening; their united attention was given to another matter.

“Jean,” cried the Duchess to her husband, “Jean, look at this!” And she pointed to a red leather case lying on the table near the lamp which a servant had just brought in. The case was round in shape, topped with a kind of knob like a thimble, and divided at the base in the shape of a clover leaf. A visiting card lay beside it. All around the table were heaps of tissue paper, that made one think of little white dogs tied up with pale blue ribbon.

“Do look, Jean!”

The Abbé Guitrel, who was standing near the table, opened the case with reverent hands, and displayed a golden ciborium.

“Who sent it?” asked M. de Brécé.

“Look at the card. I am horribly worried--I don’t know what to do.”

M. de Brécé put on his glasses, picked up the card, and read aloud:

BARONNE JULES DE BONMONT. For Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles.

He replaced the card upon the table, took off his glasses and murmured:

“How very annoying!”

“A ciborium, a beautiful ciborium,” said the Abbé.

“When I used to sing in the choir as a boy,” said the General, “I always heard the Fathers call it a custodial.”

“Yes, you can call it either a custodial or a ciborium,” replied the Abbé. “These are the names given to the receptacles which hold the reserved Eucharist. But the custodial is formed like a cylinder and has a conical cover.”

With frowning brow M. de Brécé stood wrapped in thought; then with a deep sigh he said:

“Why should Madame de Bonmont, who is a Jewess, give a ciborium to Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles? Why have these people a mania for forcing themselves into our churches?”

The Abbé Guitrel, with his fingers thrust into the sleeves of his coat, moistened his lips and said gently:

“Allow me to point out, Monsieur, that Madame Jules de Bonmont is a Catholic.”

“Nonsense!” cried the Duke. “She is an Austrian Jewess, and her maiden name was Wallstein. The real name of her late husband, the Baron de Bonmont, was Gutenberg.”

“Allow me, Monsieur,” said the Abbé. “I do not deny that the Baronne de Bonmont is of Jewish descent. What I mean is that she has been converted and baptized, and is therefore a Christian. She is a good Christian, I might add, and gives largely to our charities, in fact, she is an example to----”

“I am acquainted with your ideas,” interrupted the Duke, “and I respect them as I respect your cloth. But to me a converted Jew remains a Jew; I cannot make any distinction between the two.”

“Neither can I,” said Madame de Brécé.

“To a certain extent your feelings are legitimate, Madame la Duchesse,” replied the Abbé. “But you cannot be unaware of the teaching of the Church, that the curse pronounced against the Jews was inspired by their crime, and not their race, and that therefore the attendant results cannot affect them if----”

“It _is_ heavy,” said the Duke, lifting the ciborium from its case, and holding it out.

“I am most annoyed,” said the Duchess.

“It is _very_ heavy!” repeated the Duke.

“And, what is more,” added the Abbé, “it is a beautiful piece of work, and possesses the refined characteristics which are, so to speak, the seal and stamp of the work of Rondonneau the younger. None but the Archbishop’s goldsmith could have displayed such judgment in the selection of a model from traditional Christian art, or have reproduced the shape and decoration with such skill and fidelity. This ciborium is a work of the highest merit, and is in the style of the thirteenth century.”

“The bowl and cover are in solid gold,” said M. de Brécé.

“According to liturgical regulations the bowl of the ciborium must be of gold, or, at any rate, of silver, gilded inside,” said the Abbé.

M. de Brécé, who was holding it upside down, remarked:

“The foot is hollow.”

“That’s a good thing!” cried the Duchess.

The Abbé Guitrel looked lovingly at the work of Rondonneau the younger.

“There is no doubt about it,” he said, “it is thirteenth century, and a better period could not have been selected. The thirteenth century is the golden age of this particular kind of work. At that epoch the ciborium was made in the beautiful shape of a pomegranate, which you recognize in this delicious example. The firm, strong foot is further enriched with enamels and inset with precious stones.”

“Mercy upon us! precious stones!” cried the Duchess.

“Figures of angels and prophets are finely chased on the lozenge-shaped panels, giving the most delightful effect to the whole.”

“That Bonmont was a rogue,” said Madame de Courtrai suddenly. “He was a thief; and his widow has not yet made restitution.”

“You see that she is beginning to do so, however,” said the Duke, pointing to the shining ciborium.

“What shall we do?” asked the Duchess.

“We cannot return her gift,” said the Duke.

“Why not?” asked his mother.

“Well, mother, because it is impossible.”

“Then we’ve got to keep it?” asked the Duchess.

“Well--yes, I suppose so.”

“And thank her?”

“What else can we do?”

“Don’t you agree with me, General?”

“It would have been fitter,” said the General, “if this lady, who is a stranger to you, had refrained from making you a present. But there is no reason to respond to her civility with an insult.”

Taking the ciborium in his venerable hands, the Abbé Guitrel said:

“Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles will, I feel sure, look with kindness upon this gift, presented by a pious soul to the tabernacle of her altar.”

“But, hang it all,” put in the Duke, “I am Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles in this case. If Madame de Bonmont and young Bonmont want to be invited to my house--and they certainly will want to--I shall be obliged to receive them now.”

Chapter III

In their efforts to escape the sudden shower that had overtaken them outside the ramparts of the castle, Madame Jules de Bonmont and Madame Hortha ran along the sentry path up to the gate house, upon the debased vault of which could be seen the peacock, emblem of the extinct house of Paves. M. de Terremondre and Baron Wallstein soon caught them up, and the four of them stood still, trying to regain their breath.

“Where is the Abbé?” asked Madame de Bonmont. “Arthur, did you leave the Abbé sheltering by the hedge?”

Baron Wallstein told his sister that the Abbé was coming along behind them.

And soon they saw the Abbé Guitrel walking up the stone steps, damp but cheerful. He alone had managed to display a perfect dignity at the sudden alarm, and had preserved the calm suitable to his years and his corpulence; he had, in fact, maintained a truly episcopal solemnity.

The race had deepened the roses in Madame de Bonmont’s cheeks; her full bosom rose and fell under her light blouse, as she stood drawing her skirts tightly around her plump hips. In her rich maturity, with her disordered hair, lustrous eyes, and ripe lips--a sort of Viennese Erigone--she reminded one of a golden cluster of juicy grapes.

“Are you wet, M. l’Abbé?” she inquired, in that rather coarse voice of hers, so much less sweet than her lips.

The Abbé removed his wide-brimmed hat, the dusty pile of which was spotted with rain, looked with his little grey eyes at each member of the breathless group scared by a few drops of rain, and replied, not without a certain gentle slyness:

“I am wet, but not out of breath,” adding, “It’s nothing but a harmless shower, the rain has not even penetrated my coat.”

“Let us go in,” said Madame de Bonmont.

This was her home, this château of Montil, built in 1508 by Bernard de Paves, Grand-Master of Artillery, for Nicolette de Vaucelles, his fourth wife.

“The house of Paves flourished for nine hundred years,” writes Perrin du Verdier, in the first volume of his _Trésor des généalogies_. “And the Royal Families of Europe were all connected by marriage at some time or other with the said house, more especially the kings of Spain, England, Sicily and Jerusalem, the dukes of Brittany, Alençon, Vendôme, and others, as well as the Orsini, the Colonnas and the Cornaros.” And Perrin du Verdier discourses both lengthily and complacently on the celebrity of this “tant inclite maison” which gave to the Church eighteen cardinals and two popes, and to the throne of France three constables, six marshals and a king’s mistress.

From the reign of Louis XII down to the Revolution the heads of the elder branch of Paves had resided at the château of Montil. Philippe VIII, prince of Paves, lord of Montil, Toche, Les Ponts, Rougeain, La Victoire, Berlogue, and other places, first Lord in Waiting to the King, was the last of that branch of the family. He died in 1795, in London, whither he had emigrated, to set up as a perruquier in a little shop in Whitecross Street. His estates, which had been totally neglected during his lifetime, were, at the time of the Directoire, sold as national property, and divided among a number of peasants who lived there, and founded a line of bourgeois. The rogues who had acquired the château in exchange for a mere handful of paper money, decided in 1813 to demolish it. However, soon after the destruction of the Galerie des Faunes, their work of demolition was interrupted and never completed. For two years the country people helped themselves, when so inclined, to the lead roofing of the château. In 1815 M. de Reu, an old officer of the King’s navy and a secret agent of the Comte de Provence in Holland--it is said that he was also an accomplice of George in the affair of the Rue Saint-Nicaise--desirous of ending his days in his native country, managed to extort a few hundred crowns from the ungrateful Prince, and purchased the château of Montil.

There, poor and unsociable, he with his eleven children, both legitimate and illegitimate, lived within the walls which threatened to fall in and bury them all beneath the ruins. After his death, one of his daughters, who never married, lived there, and filled those halls of beauty and glory with plums picked in the castle gardens, which she placed there to dry. In the year 1875 Mademoiselle Reu, aged ninety-nine years and three months, was found one winter’s morning lying dead upon a torn and rotting mattress, in the room adorned with monograms, devices, and emblems in the honour of Nicolette de Vaucelles.

At this time Baron Jules de Bonmont, son of Nathan, son of Seligmann, son of Simon, came over from Austria, where he had negotiated the loans during the dark days of the Empire. He now made France the headquarters of his financial operations, bringing to the Republic the benefit of his financial genius. M. Laprat-Teulet, a member of Parliament, who at that time represented the district of Montil, became one of the first and surest of his friends and allies. He discovered that, the era of ideas and strife having gone by, the time had come for big business deals. He bestowed upon the Baron his warmest sympathy and his extremely useful devotion, and the Baron, on his side, was always ready to commend Laprat-Teulet as a clever fellow.

It was by the advice of Laprat-Teulet that Baron Jules bought the château of Montil. It was then a dignified and beautiful ruin, well worth restoring and preserving. The task of its restoration was confided to a pupil of Viollet-le-Duc, M. Quatrebarbe, the diocesan architect. He removed all the old stone and replaced it with new. In the new building the Baron, who astonished his political friends by his taste in art, promptly installed his collection of pictures, furniture, and armoury, all of which were of enormous value.

“And thus the château of Montil,” to use the words of M. de Terremondre, “was preserved to the lovers of our national art, and transformed into a marvellous museum by the care and generosity of a great seignior, who, at the same time, was a great connoisseur.”

The Baron was not long permitted to enjoy the proud possession of Montil, with its towers ornamented with medallions, its tracery staircase, and the delicately carved woodwork of its interior. After reaching the zenith of his financial prosperity, he died suddenly of an attack of apoplexy, just on the eve of all the ruin and scandal that followed. He died in possession of all his wealth, leaving behind him a gay young widow, and a boy, who, with his short, squat figure, lowering brows, and already pitiless heart, closely resembled his father. Madame de Bonmont had kept Montil, of which she was very fond.

She led Madame Hortha to the spiral staircase, the interlacing stonework of which repeated interminably in its intertwinings the emblematic peacock of Bernard de Paves tied by the foot to the lute of Nicolette de Vaucelles. Then, picking up her skirts with a sudden, abrupt gesture, not without a charm of its own, she followed her. M. de Terremondre, President of the Archæological Society, and formerly a great lady-killer, came closely behind her with an eye upon the rhythmic movement of her engaging figure.

At the age of forty she had retained the wish and the capacity to please, and M. de Terremondre thoroughly appreciated this, for he was a susceptible man; yet he did not attempt to make love to her, knowing that she herself was greatly infatuated with Raoul Marcien, a handsome, choleric man who had fallen into disrepute.

“Let us go into the armoury,” said Madame de Bonmont, pushing open the door. “It is warmed with hot-air pipes.”

It was true that the armoury was so heated. Amidst the grotesque encaustic tiles of M. Quatrebarbe, designed after the manner of the old paving he had torn up, the hot-air gratings opened their bright brazen mouths.

Madame de Bonmont was careful to invite the Abbé Guitrel to a seat near one of the radiators, and to ask him if his feet were damp, and whether he would not have a glass of something hot.

Under the ribbed vault of its roof, the huge room glittered with a display of iron and steel such as not even the Armeria in Madrid could boast. One or two of the financier’s brilliant business coups had resulted in a collection of armour not to be equalled by that of Spitzer himself.

Examples of the three centuries of plate armour were there in every form known to Europe. On the gigantic chimney-piece, guarded by two Brabançons in magnificent cuisses, a condottiere’s suit of mail bestrode that of a horse, with open chamfron, horse muzzle, mane-guard, tail-guard, and poitrel. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with dazzling suits of armour, casques, basinets, helmets, salades, morions, skull caps, iron hats, hauberks, coats of armour, brigantines, greaves, solerets, and spurs.

From the shields, bucklers, and targes, of all descriptions, radiated flambergs, Konigsmark swords, partizans, gisarmes, war-scythes, two-edged swords, Toledo rapiers, poniards, stylets, and daggers.

All around the room stood phantom figures clothed in polished and unpolished steel; in steel, engraved, inlaid, chased, and damascened. Maximiliennes with fluted and bowed cuirasses, puffed and bell-shaped suits of armour, the “polichinelle” of Henri III, and the “écrevisse” of Louis XIII. Panoplies of war that had adorned French, Spanish, Italian, German, and English princes; coats of mail worn by knights, captains, sergeants, crossbowmen, reiters, veterans, by soldiers of fortune from every country in Europe, by mercenaries and Switzers.

Here was steel armour that had figured at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; at the jousts and tourneys of England, France, and Germany; armour from Poitiers, Verneuil, Granson, Fornovo, Ceresole, Pavia, Ravenna, Pultava, and Culloden; worn by nobles or mercenaries, by knights or caitiffs, by victor or vanquished, by friend or foe--all collected by the Baron and displayed in this room.

After dinner, while pouring out the coffee, Madame de Bonmont offered no sugar to the Abbé, who always took it, and gave it to Baron Wallstein, who suffered from diabetes and had to be very careful in his diet. She did not do this with any malice aforethought, but her mind was full of other matters that engaged her undivided attention. Her depression, which, simple soul that she was, she was incapable of hiding, was caused by a telegram from Paris, worded with a twofold meaning; one literal and commonplace, obvious to all, referring to a delay in forwarding some plants; the other, the real and ingenious one, understood, to her unhappiness, by herself alone, indicated that her lover could not come to Montil but was in dire straits and forced to remain in Paris.

It was nothing new for Raoul Marcien to be in need of money. Since he attained his majority, fifteen years previously, he had just managed to keep himself going by a series of bold and clever _coups_. But this year, his difficulties, which had continued to increase and multiply, were positively appalling.

Madame de Bonmont was nearly always worried and depressed about him and his affairs, for she loved him truly and tenderly with all her soul and with all her body.

“Two lumps for you, M. de Terremondre?”

Yes, she adored her Raoul, her Rara, with all the strength of her placid soul. She would have liked him to be loving and faithful, pure-minded and studious. He was not what she wished him to be, and in her grief and fear of losing him, she regularly burned candles for his benefit in the church of Saint-Antoine.

M. de Terremondre, who was by way of being a connoisseur, examined the pictures. They were all modern works of art, paintings by Daubigny, Theodore Rousseau, Jules Dupré, Chintreuil, Diaz, and Corot, and consisted of mournful-looking pools bordered by deep woods, dew-brushed meadows, village streets, forest glades bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, and willows emerging from the silver mists of morning. The prevailing tones were white, fawn, green, blue, and grey. In massive gilt frames they stood out against the crimson damask hangings that accorded ill with the gigantic Renaissance chimney-piece, with the loves of the nymphs and the metamorphoses of the gods sculptured in the stone. The pictures undoubtedly marred the effect of the wonderful old ceiling, the painted compartments of which reproduced in infinite variety the peacock of Bernard de Paves tied by the foot to the lute of Nicolette de Vaucelles.

“That’s a fine Millet,” said M. de Terremondre, coming to a standstill before a goosegirl, whose figure stood out, terrible in its rustic solemnity, against a background of pale gold.

“It’s a pretty picture,” answered Baron Wallstein. “I have the same thing at my house in Vienna, but mine is a shepherd, not a goosegirl. I don’t know what my brother gave for this one.” Cup in hand, he began to stroll round the gallery. “This Jules Dupré cost my brother-in-law 50,000 francs; this Theodore Rousseau 60,000, and this Corot 100,000.”

“I am acquainted with the views of the late Baron in regard to pictures,” replied M. de Terremondre, following the Baron round the room. “One day he met me going down the staircase of the Hôtel des Ventes, with a little picture under my arm. He caught hold of my sleeve, as he was fond of doing, and said, ‘What are you carrying off there?’ With the satisfied pride of the complacent dabbler in art I replied, ‘A Ruisdael, M. de Bonmont, a genuine Ruisdael. It has been engraved and I happen to have a print in my portfolio.’ ‘What did you give for your Ruisdael?’ ‘The sale was in a dark room on the ground floor and the dealer did not know what he was selling. Thirty francs!’”

“‘What a pity! What a pity!’ he ejaculated, and, seeing my surprise, gave another tug at my sleeve. ‘My dear M. de Terremondre, you ought to have given 10,000 francs for it; if you had paid as much as that it would have been worth 30,000 francs to you. The little picture only cost you thirty francs and will never fetch a high price, say twenty-five louis at the most. The value of a thing cannot rise at a jump from thirty francs to 30,000!’ Ah!” concluded M. de Terremondre, “the Baron was a clever man!”

“He was indeed,” replied Wallstein, “and he also liked taking a rise out of people.”

The two cronies looked up, and saw, right before their eyes, the very Baron they had been discussing, the man who had been so clever all his life. There he was, painted by Delaunay, amongst a lot of costly pictures, his cunning animal-like face leering out of a glittering frame.

Madame de Bonmont and the Abbé, seated together in the huge chimney corner before the fire, were chatting about the weather and day-dreaming. Madame de Bonmont was thinking how sweet life might be, if only Rara willed it so. She loved him so simply and so ingenuously. All the ancient and modern moralists, all the fathers of the Church, the doctors and theologians, the Abbé Guitrel and Monseigneur Charlot, the Pope and the whole of the Church Council, the archangel Michael with his great trumpet, and Christ come again in His glory to judge both the quick and the dead--all of them put together would never have succeeded in making her believe that it was a sin for her to love Rara. She was thinking that she would not see him at Montil, and that perhaps, at that very moment, he was unfaithful to her. She knew he was almost as familiar with women as he was with the bailiffs; she had seen him at the races with ladies of easy virtue and uncertain age, at whom he had cast leering glances as he handed them the field-glasses or helped them on with their cloaks. The poor dear could not get rid of a whole host of tiresome people, to whom he was bound for reasons she found it impossible to understand, even when he explained them at length. She felt very unhappy and heaved a deep sigh.

The Abbé was thinking of the bishopric of Tourcoing. His rival, the Abbé Lantaigne, was done for. He was going under in the ruin of his seminary, smothered beneath bills of the butcher Lafolie. But there were many rivals in the field. A senior curate from Paris and a curé from Lyons seemed to be the Government favourites; the Nunciature as usual lay low. The Abbé Guitrel heaved a sigh.

Hearing the sigh, Madame de Bonmont, who was very kind-hearted, reproached herself for selfishly thinking of her own affairs. She made an effort to appear interested in the Abbé Guitrel’s concerns, and affectionately inquired whether he would not soon be made a bishop.

“You are a candidate for Tourcoing,” she said. “Would you not dislike living in so small a town?”

The Abbé declared that the care of his flock would be sufficient to occupy him, and that, moreover, the diocese of Tourcoing was one of the oldest and most important in Northern France. “It is the see,” he added, “of the blessed St. Loup, the apostle of Flanders.”

“Indeed?” remarked Madame de Bonmont.

“We must be careful,” went on the Abbé, “not to confound St. Loup, the apostle of Flanders, with St. Loup, Bishop of Lyons, St. Leu or Loup, Bishop of Sens, and St. Loup, Bishop of Troyes. The latter had been married seven years to Pimentola, a sister of the Bishop of Arles, when he left her, to retire in solitude to Lerins and devote himself entirely to works of ascetic piety.”

And Madame de Bonmont was thinking:

“He’s been losing heavily again. In one way it is good for him, because he has been winning too frequently at the club lately, and people were getting suspicious. On the other hand it’s a great nuisance. I shall have to pay up.”

And Madame de Bonmont was much annoyed at having to pay Rara’s debts. In the first place she never liked paying and, in the second, she disliked lending money to Rara as much as a matter of principle as from fear of not being loved for herself alone. At the same time she knew that when she saw her Rara, gloomy and terrible, tying a wet towel round his fevered cranium--which was beginning to be discernible through the fast-thinning hair--and when she heard the poor darling crying amidst a torrent of blasphemies that the only thing for him to do was to blow out his brains, she knew she would have to pay. You see Rara was a man of honour; in fact, he lived on honour; since he had left the Army his profession had been that of witness or umpire, and, in the smartest circles, no duel ever took place without his presence.

And to think that she would have to part with more money. If only he belonged entirely to her and was loving and attentive. As it was, he was in a perpetual state of agitation, desperation, and fury, and always seemed like a man laying about him in the thick of a fight.

“The saint of whom I am speaking, Madame la Baronne,” went on the Abbé, “the blessed St. Loup, or Lupus, preached the gospel in Flanders, and his apostolic labours were often fraught with many trials. In his biography we find an instance which will touch you by its naïve beauty. One frosty day in winter he was traversing the frozen countryside, and stopped at the house of a senator to warm himself. The latter, who was entertaining some of his boon companions, continued to hold unseemly conversation with them in the presence of the apostle. St. Loup made an attempt to stop the conversation. ‘My sons,’ said he to the senator and his guests, ‘are you not aware that on the day of judgment you will have to answer for every vain speech you have uttered?’ Treating the exhortations of the holy man with contempt, however, they returned with redoubled zest to their indecent and impious talk. Shaking the dust from off his feet, the blessed saint said to them, ‘I desired to warm my tired body against the bitter cold, but your sinful talk forces me, though still numb with cold, to quit your company.’”

Madame de Bonmont was sadly reflecting that lately, with teeth set and eyes flashing, Rara had been threatening the destruction of the Jews. He had always been against the Jews, and so had she for that matter. However, she preferred not to discuss the subject, and in her opinion Rara, being the lover of a Catholic lady of Jewish origin, was wanting in tact when he swore, as he invariably did, that he would like to rip open every “sheeny” in Christendom. She would have preferred more gentleness and sympathy, calmer views and more amiable desires. As for herself, her thoughts of love were mingled with innocent dreams of sweetmeats and poetry.

“The mission of the blessed St. Loup,” continued the Abbé Guitrel, “bore fruit. The inhabitants of Tourcoing were baptized by him, and chose him by acclamation for their bishop. His end was accompanied by circumstances which I feel sure will impress you, Madame. One December day, in the year of our Lord 397, St. Loup, then full of years and good deeds, made his way to a tree surrounded by briars, where it was his habit to pray. Fixing two stakes into the ground, he marked out a space as long as his body, and said to the disciples he had asked to accompany him, ‘When, by God’s will, I end my exile in this world, it is there I desire to be laid.’

“St. Loup died on the Sunday following the day on which he had marked out his last resting-place, and it was done as he had commanded. Blandus came to inter the body of the blessed saint, whom he was afterwards to succeed as Bishop of Tourcoing.”

She felt sad and full of compassion. She understood the reason for Rara’s anti-Jewish frenzies, and excused them. The fact was that latterly, to re-establish his reputation among his fellows as a man of honour, Rara had warmly espoused the cause of the Army, in which he had formerly served as a cavalry officer. He had greatly tightened the bonds that united him with one great family--the Army, and had even struck a Jew whom he had overheard in a café asking for the Army List.

Madame de Bonmont loved and admired him, but she was far from happy.

Raising her head and opening her flower-like eyes she said:

“The see of the blessed St. Loup, apostle to---- Please go on, M. l’Abbé. I am very interested.”

* * * * *

It was Madame de Bonmont’s fate to seek, in hearts little fitted to give it her, the sweetness of peaceful love. The sentimental Elizabeth had always bestowed her heart upon arrant adventurers. During her husband’s lifetime she had fondly loved the son of an obscure senator, young X----, famous for having appropriated to his own use a whole year’s secret funds of a certain government department. Close upon this she had given her confidence to an extremely fascinating man who was one of the bright particular stars of the government press, and who suddenly disappeared from view in a tremendous financial catastrophe. These two, at any rate, had been introduced to her by the Baron himself. You cannot blame a woman if she has lovers belonging to her own set. But her newest, dearest, her one and only love, Raoul Marcien, had not been one of the Baron’s friends. He did not belong to the world of sale and barter. She had met him in a most select circle of Catholic Royalist society somewhere in the provinces. He was himself as good as a nobleman. This time she had firmly believed she was going to satisfy her desire for love, and delicate, refined intimacy, that at last she had found the chivalrous lover with noble and beautiful feelings of whom she had so long dreamed.

And now she found that he was like all the others, alternately frozen with fear and burning with rage, torn with anguish of mind and agitated by the extraordinary adventures of a life devoted to fraud and blackmail. But he was so much more picturesque and amusing than anyone else! He would, for instance, be summoned as witness in some serious and delicate affair, and at the same time be served with a judgment-summons at his club; or again, he might one day be made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and the same morning be haled before the court on a charge of embezzlement. Moreover, with erect carriage, and well-waxed moustache, he defended his honour at the point of his sword. But for some months past he had seemed to be losing his sang-froid; he spoke too loudly, and gesticulated too much, in fact he compromised his case by his desire for vengeance, for he was always complaining of betrayal.

It was with real anxiety that Elizabeth saw Rara’s temper grow daily more unmanageable. When she went to see him of a morning she would find him in his shirt-sleeves, bending over his old military trunk crammed full of writs, swearing and blaspheming with crimson face. “Rogues! scoundrels! scum! wretches!” he would shout, vociferating that they should hear from him to their cost. She would snatch a kiss in the middle of the curses, and be sent away with the usual remark that he would blow out his brains.

No, it was not the love of which Elizabeth had dreamed.

“You were saying, M. l’Abbé, that the blessed St. Loup----?”

But the Abbé, with his head inclined at a gentle angle and hands clasped upon his portly frame, was fast asleep in his chair.

So Madame de Bonmont, who was as kind to herself as she was to others, also fell asleep in her easy chair; fell asleep, thinking that perhaps after all Rara would come to an end of his worries soon, that she might only have to give him quite a little money, and that after all she was beloved by the handsomest of men.

“My dear, my dear,” cried the much-travelled Madame Hortha, in her trumpet-like voice, calculated to strike terror into the heart of a Turk, “are we not to see M. Ernest to-night?”

Standing there, with her big limbs and heavy features, she looked like a warrior virgin left behind and forgotten for twenty years in the wings of the theatre at Bayreuth; she was terrible to look upon, clothed and girdled with jet and steel that flashed, gleamed, and clanked as she moved, but, in spite of it all, quite a good sort of woman, and the mother of numerous children.

Awakened with a start by the magic blast that blared from the bosom of the excellent Madame Hortha, the Baronne replied that her son, who had obtained sick leave, was to arrive that evening at Montil, and the carriage had gone to the station to meet him.

The Abbé Guitrel, whose slumbers, too, had been pierced by this nocturnal flourish of trumpets, adjusted his spectacles, and, moistening his lips, that they might have the necessary unction, murmured with heavenly sweetness:

“Yes, Loup--Loup.”

“And so,” said Madame de Bonmont, “you will wear the mitre, you will hold the crosier, and have a big ring on your finger.”

“I do not know yet, Madame,” replied M. Guitrel.

“Yes, yes! You will be appointed!” She leaned forward slightly, and, in a low voice, asked: “Monsieur l’Abbé, must the Bishop’s ring be of any particular design?”

“Not exactly, Madame,” replied M. Guitrel. “The Bishop wears the ring as a symbol of his spiritual union with the Church; it is therefore fitting that the ring should suggest by its appearance thoughts of austerity and purity.”

“Ah!” said Madame de Bonmont. “What about the stone?”

“In the Middle Ages,” replied the Abbé, “the bezel was sometimes of gold like the ring, and sometimes consisted of a precious stone. It seems that the amethyst is a very suitable stone with which to adorn the pastoral ring, it gleams with a gentle lustre, and is one of the twelve stones that formed the breastplate worn by the High Priest of the Jews. In Christian symbolism it stands for modesty and humility; Narbode, Bishop of Rennes in the eleventh century, makes it the emblem of those who give themselves to be crucified on the cross of Jesus Christ.”

“Indeed!” said Madame de Bonmont.

She had made up her mind that when M. Guitrel became Bishop of Tourcoing she would make him a present of an episcopal ring set with a large amethyst.

Madame Hortha’s trumpets again rang out:

“My dear, my dear, are we not to see M. Raoul Marcien to-night? Are we not to have the pleasure of seeing the dear man?”

The cosmopolitan lady was well worthy of admiration, in that, although acquainted with every grade of society under the sun, she avoided making a hopeless muddle of them all. Her brain was a directory of all the drawing-rooms of all the capitals of Europe, and she was not wanting in a certain worldly judgment; her kindness of heart, too, was universal. If she had mentioned Raoul Marcien, it was in all innocence. She was innocence personified, and knew nothing of evil. She was a good wife and a good mother, whose home was a sleeping-car or a _wagon-lit_, yet a domesticated woman for all that. Under the corsage of jet and steel that glittered as she moved with a sound as of hail, she wore coarse grey cotton stays. Even her lady’s-maids never questioned her virtue.

“My dear, my dear, of course you know that M. Raoul Marcien has fought a duel with M. Isidore Mayer?”

And in a voice that made one think of international bureaux and tourist inquiry offices, she related the story which Madame de Bonmont knew by heart.

She told how M. Isidore Mayer, a Jew, both well known and highly respected in the financial world, went into a café in the Boulevard des Capucines, sat down at a table and asked for the Army List. Having a son in the Army, he wished to make sure of the names of the officers in his regiment. Just as he was about to take the book from a waiter M. Raoul Marcien strode up, and said: “Monsieur, I forbid you to lay a hand on that book. It is sacred to the French Army!” “Why?” asked M. Isidore Mayer. “Because you are of the same religion as the traitor!”

M. Isidore Mayer shrugged his shoulders, upon which M. Raoul Marcien struck him full in the face. An encounter was arranged, and two shots fired without effect.

“My dear, my dear, do you understand why he did it? I must say I do not.”

Madame de Bonmont did not reply, and her silence was prolonged by that of M. de Terremondre and Baron Wallstein.

“I believe,” said Madame de Bonmont, listening intently to the distant sounds of horses’ hoofs and the rumble of wheels, “that Ernest is coming.”

At this point a servant came in with the newspapers. M. de Terremondre took one of them and glanced casually at it.

“Still the Affair!” he murmured. “More professors protesting! Why will they insist on meddling with what does not concern them? It is only right that the Army should settle its own affairs, as it always has done. Moreover, it seems to me that when seven officers----”

“Of course,” replied the Abbé, “when seven officers have given judgment, I will even go so far as to say that it is unseemly to raise any doubts as to their decision. It is highly indecorous and incongruous!”

“Are you speaking of the Affair?” asked Madame de Bonmont. “Well, I can assure you that Dreyfus is guilty. I have it from an authentic source.”

She blushed as she spoke, for it was Raoul to whom she had referred.

Ernest entered the drawing-room, sulky and morose.

“Good evening, mother! Good evening, M. l’Abbé!”

He took very little notice of the others, but threw himself upon the cushions of a couch which stood just beneath the portrait of his father, whom he much resembled. He was the Baron over again, but shrunken, diminished, and sickly, the wild boar grown small, pale, and flabby. The likeness, however, was striking, and M. de Terremondre drew attention to it:

“It is surprising, M. de Bonmont, how like you are to the portrait of the late Baron, your father.”

Ernest lifted his head and glanced at the picture by Delaunay.

“Ah, yes, the pater! Clever chap, the pater. I’m all there myself, too, but pretty well played out. How are you, M. l’Abbé? You and I are good friends, aren’t we? I want to have a little talk with you presently.” Then, turning to M. de Terremondre, who was still holding the newspaper: “What do they say there? As far as we fellows are concerned, we are not allowed an opinion of any description, you bet! Only a bourgeois is permitted the luxury of an idea, though it may be an idiotic one. Then, good Lord, the things that interest the big bugs, how should they interest us?”

He sneered. His life in the regiment afforded him endless amusement. Although he did not appear so, he was exceedingly shrewd, prudent, and cunning; he also knew when to hold his tongue, and took the keenest delight in the great and demoralizing power he possessed. In spite of himself, he corrupted every one that he approached, and was extremely pleased when he could swindle them in some way, as, for instance, when he succeeded in prevailing upon a poor and vain companion to present him with a meerschaum pipe. His greatest joy was to despise and hate his superiors, and to see how some of the more covetous among them would absolutely sell him their very souls, while others, more timorous and fearful of compromising themselves by showing him any leniency, would deny him, not a favour even, but the enjoyment of some right which they would never refuse to the son of a peasant.

* * * * *

Full of craft and cunning, young Ernest de Bonmont came and sat by the Abbé Guitrel, and began to talk coaxingly to him:

“M. l’Abbé, you often see the Brécés, don’t you? You know them very well?”

“You must not imagine, my son,” replied the Abbé, “that I am an intimate friend of the Duc de Brécé. That is not the case. The utmost I can say is that I often have the privilege of visiting in the family circle. On certain festival days I say Mass in the chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles, which, as you know, is situated in the woods of Brécé. This, as I was just telling your mother, is a source of consolation and thankfulness to me. After Mass I lunch, either at the Presbytery, with M. le curé Traviès, or at the château, where, I am bound to say, they treat me with the greatest kindness. The Duke’s manner towards me is always simple and natural, and the ladies are amiable and pleasant. They do a great deal of good around here, and would do still more were it not for the unjustified prejudices, blind hatred, and bitter feelings of the people.”

“Do you happen to know what effect was produced by the utensil Mother sent to the Duchess for the chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles?”

“What utensil do you mean? Do you refer to the golden ciborium? I can assure you that M. and Madame de Brécé were much touched by your mother’s simple act of homage to the miraculous Virgin.”

“So it was a good idea, wasn’t it, M. l’Abbé? Well, it was my notion. Mother isn’t particularly bright in the way of ideas, you know--oh, I’m not reproaching her. However, let us talk seriously. You are very fond of me, are you not, M. l’Abbé?”

M. Guitrel took young Bonmont’s hands in both his.

“Never doubt my affection for you, my son; it is the love of a father for his child; I might even say that it is a maternal love as well, and thus express more fully all that it contains both of strength and tenderness. I have watched you grow up, my dear Ernest, since that day on which you made so excellent a first communion, to this moment, in which you are accomplishing your noble duty as a soldier in our great French Army, which, day by day, I am thankful to say, grows more Christian and more pious. And it is my firm conviction, my dearest boy, that amid the distractions, the errors even of your age, you have kept the faith. Your actions speak for themselves. I know you have always looked upon it as your duty to contribute towards our works of charity. You are my favourite child.”

“Well, then, M. l’Abbé, do your child a good turn. Tell the Duc de Brécé to give me permission to wear the Brécé Hunt badge.”

“The Hunt badge? But, my son, what do I know of such matters? I am not, like M. de Traviès, a great hunter before the Lord. I have followed St. Thomas far more than St. Hubert. The Hunt badge? Is that not a figurative expression, a kind of metaphor to express the idea of membership of the Hunt? Anyway, my son, what you desire is an invitation to the Brécé meets.”

Young Bonmont gave a jump.

“Don’t, for heaven’s sake, get mixed, M. l’Abbé. That’s not it--oh, not a bit of it. An invitation--I’m pretty sure to get an invitation to the de Brécé meets, in exchange for the utensil.”

“Ciborium, ciborium, remember the Latin _ciborium_! I also think, my dear child, that the Duke and Duchess will make a special point of sending you an invitation as soon as they realize that it will please you and your mother to accept it.”

“I believe you! As soon as they stuck to the plate. But you can tell them from me that I don’t care a flip for an invitation to see a meet. I don’t want to stay and rot at some crossroads where there is nothing to be seen, where you are sure to get all the mud kicked up by the horses full in your face, and then be sworn at by a huntsman for obstructing the way. No, I am not particularly keen on such amusements. The Brécés can keep their invitation!”

“In that case, my son, I do not understand your idea.”

“And yet my idea is clear enough, M. l’Abbé. I do not intend the Brécés to laugh up their sleeve at me, that’s what I’m driving at.”

“Pray explain yourself!”

“Well, M. l’Abbé, just imagine being planted down on the Carrefour du Roi, together with the village doctor, the wife of the Chief of Police, and M. Irvoy’s head clerk! No, such a situation is not to be thought of for one moment. But if I wear the Hunt badge, I can follow the hounds, and, although I may look a bit off colour sometimes, I’ll soon show them whether I can ride or not. Now _you_ can get me what I want, M. l’Abbé; the Brécés will not refuse you anything. All you have to do is to ask it in the name of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles.”

“I beg of you, my child, not to bring Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles into such a matter, which cannot interest her in the very slightest. The miraculous Virgin of Brécé has enough to do in answering the prayers of widows and orphans, not to mention those of our brave soldiers in Madagascar. But, my dear Ernest, is there really so much to be gained by the possession of this badge? Is it then such a precious talisman? No doubt strange privileges are attached to its possession. Tell me all about them. I am far from despising the noble and ancient art of hunting, for I belong to the clergy of an eminently sporting diocese, and would be glad of any information on the subject.”

“You do amuse me, M. l’Abbé, and I know you must be joking. You know as well as I do what is understood by the Hunt badge: it is the right to wear the colours of any particular hunt. I am going to speak frankly to you; I am candid, because I can afford to be so. I want to be made a member of the Brécé Hunt, because it is the correct thing, and I like to be in the swim. I want it because I am a snob and a vain man. I also want it because it would amuse me to dine with the Brécés on St. Hubert’s Day. The Brécé badge would be just about my mark. I want it very badly, and I’m not going to disguise the fact. I have no false shame--no shame of any kind, for the matter of that. Listen to me, M. l’Abbé, I have something of great importance to say to you. You must understand that in broaching the subject to the Duc de Brécé, you will only be claiming what is my due; you understand--my due! I have property round here; I do not shoot the deer; I let people hunt and kill on my estates, all of which deserves both consideration and gratitude. M. de Brécé is really under obligations to his kind little neighbour Ernest.”

The Abbé said nothing. It was evident that he did not like the idea, and was prepared to refuse to do what was asked of him. Young Bonmont went on:

“I need hardly say, M. l’Abbé, that, in case the Brécés demand a price in return for the privilege, I should not stick at such a trifle.”

M. l’Abbé Guitrel made a movement of protest.

“Banish that supposition, my son! It ill accords with the character of the Duc de Brécé.”

“That may be, M. l’Abbé. Whether it be given or sold, depends upon the owner’s ideas and the state of his banking account. Some packs cost the master 80,000 francs a year; others bring him in as much as 30,000 francs a year. In saying this I am not in any way blaming the man who expects people to pay for their privileges. Personally, I should prefer to do so, indeed, I consider it only fair. Then there are districts where hunting costs so much, that the master, even if he is a rich man, cannot keep things going alone. Just suppose for instance, M. l’Abbé, that you kept a pack in the neighbourhood of Paris. Can you see yourself meeting all expenses and finding your purse sufficient to pay the heavy claims entailed? But I think I have heard that the Brécé badge is not to be bought with money. The Duke hasn’t the gumption to make a profit out of his pack. Well, M. l’Abbé, you will get it for me, gratis and for nothing! It will all be so much to the good.”

Before replying, the Abbé reflected long and deeply, and this display of prudence worried young Bonmont not a little. At last, however, the Abbé opened his lips:

“My son, I have said so once, and will say it again. I have a great affection for you, and should like both to please and to aid you. I would welcome any opportunity of doing you a service. But I really have not the necessary qualifications to solicit on your behalf the worldly distinction to which you refer. Just think for a moment. Suppose that, after hearing my request, M. de Brécé should refuse or make some difficulty about granting it? I should be powerless to bring any pressure to bear upon him. What chance would a humble professor of elocution at the Grand Séminaire have of overcoming resistance, removing difficulty, and obtaining consent, so to speak, by main force? I have nothing with which to convince and hold parley with the great ones of the earth. I cannot, must not, even in so paltry a matter as this, undertake anything without being assured of its success.”

Young Bonmont looked at the Abbé with surprise mingled with admiration, and said:

“I understand, M. l’Abbé. You cannot manage it for the time being. But when you are made a bishop you will carry off the badge with the same ease as a man at a fair carries off the ring, when tilting upon the wooden horses of the roundabouts. Of course you will!”

“It is quite possible,” returned M. Guitrel, with the greatest gravity, “that if a bishop were to ask for the Hunt badge for you, the Duke would not refuse him.”

Chapter IV

That evening M. Bergeret, having done a hard day’s work, was feeling tired. He was taking his customary stroll in the town, accompanied by M. Goubin, his favourite disciple since the treachery of M. Roux, and as he ruminated over the work he had accomplished he fell to wondering, like so many others before him, what profit a man hath of all his labours. M. Goubin asked:

“Master, do you think that Paul Louis Courrier would be a good subject to choose for an essay?”

M. Bergeret made no reply. He was just then passing the shop of Madame Fusellier, the stationer, and, stopping in front of the window in which sundry drawing models were displayed, he looked with interest at the Farnese Hercules who was showing off his muscles amid these examples of scholastic art.

“I feel kindly disposed towards him,” remarked M. Bergeret.

“Towards whom?” asked M. Goubin, wiping his glasses.

“Hercules,” replied M. Bergeret. “He was a good man. He himself said: ‘My life is laborious and tends to a high ideal.’ He toiled much upon this earth ere he received the reward of death, which, in truth, is the only guerdon of life. He had no time to give to meditation, and prolonged thought never marred the simplicity of his soul. But when evening came a feeling of melancholy would steal over him, and, in default of an enquiring mind, his great heart would reveal to him the vanity of effort, and the necessity which compels all men, even the best, to do evil even when they do good. This man of might was extraordinarily gentle. Like the rest of us when we commit ourselves to action, he found that he destroyed indiscriminately both the innocent and the guilty, the meek and the violent, and, when he mused over all this, it doubtless caused him more than one regret. Perhaps he even felt compassion for the unhappy monsters he had destroyed for the benefit of mankind: the poor Cretan bull, the poor Lernæan hydra, or the beautiful lion who, when he died, provided him with such an excellently warm cloak. More than once, when the day was over and his work done, his club must have weighed heavily upon him.” M. Bergeret raised aloft his umbrella with an effort as though it had been a heavy weapon. Then he continued his discourse. “He was strong, yet weak. We love him because he is like ourselves.”

“Hercules?” asked M. Goubin.

“Yes,” replied M. Bergeret. “Like ourselves, he was born unhappy, the child of a god and a woman. From this mixed origin he derived the sadness of a thoughtful spirit and the cravings of a ravening body. All his life long he was subject to the caprices of a whimsical king. Are not we too the children of Zeus and the hapless Alcmena, and the slaves of Eurystheus? I am at the mercy of the Minister of Public Instruction, who may take it into his head at any moment to ship me off to Algiers, just as Hercules was sent to the land of the Nasamones.”

“You are not leaving us, dear Master?” asked M. Goubin anxiously.

“See how sad he is!” went on M. Bergeret. “How wearily he leans upon his club, letting his arm hang limply at his side! His head is bowed, he is thinking of his heavy labours. The Farnese Hercules was certainly conceived after the statue by Lysippus, who was a blacksmith’s apprentice before becoming a sculptor, and it is undoubtedly that sturdy sculptor of a sturdy hero who fixed the type of Hercules.”

Having wiped his glasses once again with his handkerchief, M. Goubin tried to catch a glimpse of the principal points mentioned by the master, and while he was thus engaged Madame Fusellier, the proprietress of the shop, on hearing the clock strike nine, extinguished the gas under the disciple’s peering eyes. The poor man had no idea why he could see nothing, for he was so short-sighted as to be an utter stranger to that imaginary world in which most men have their being.

And, as M. Bergeret continued to walk and talk, he followed the sound of his voice, for he trusted only to what he heard others say to guide him along those pathways of the earth whereon his youthful prudence told him he might venture.

“His strength,” continued the Professor, “was the cause of his weakness. He was under the yoke of his own strength, subject to the exigencies of his nature, which compelled him to devour whole sheep, drink great jars of dark wine, and to do foolish deeds for women of little worth. The hero whose club brought peace and happiness and justice to the world, the son of the great god Zeus, would seek sleep anywhere like a mere tramp, or tarry for weeks and weeks with a wench whose lover he was. And this was the cause of his melancholy. With his simple soul, his submissiveness, his love of justice, and his mighty muscles, it was to be feared that he could be nothing more than an excellent soldier or a glorified gendarme. But his very weaknesses, his errors, his unhappy experiences broadened his soul, opened out his vision upon the manifold diversity of life and mellowed with gentleness his terrible capacity for good works.”

“Dear Master,” said M. Goubin, “do you not think that Hercules is the sun, that his twelve labours are the signs of the zodiac, and that Dejanira’s fiery robe represents the flaming clouds of the setting sun?”

“That is possible,” replied M. Bergeret, “but I do not wish to believe it. It pleases me to have the same idea of Hercules that a barber of Thebes or a herb-vendor of Eleusis would have had in the time of the Median wars. I think this idea from the point of view of force, fullness and vivacity is worth all your systems of comparative mythology put together. Hercules was a kind-hearted man. When he went to seek the steeds of Diomedes he crossed through Pheræ and stayed his steps before the palace of Admetus. He called for food and drink, and spoke very roughly to the servants, who had never set eyes on such an uncouth guest. He crowned himself with myrtles, and drank enormous quantities of wine, and, being very drunk, and not at all proud, he tried to force the cup-bearer to drink with him; but the latter, very shocked at such manners, replied severely that it was no time for eating and drinking, when the good Queen Alcestis had just been borne to the grave. She had consecrated herself to Thanatos in place of her husband Admetus. It was, therefore, not an ordinary death, but a kind of spell which had been cast over her.

“Good Hercules immediately recovered from his drunkenness, and asked whither they had taken Alcestis. Beyond the suburb on the way to Larissa she lay in a tomb of polished marble. Thither hastened Hercules, and when Thanatos, robed in black, came to taste of the offering of cakes dipped in blood, the hero, who was lying in ambush behind the funeral pile, threw himself upon the King of Darkness, held him prisoner in the circle of his arms, and forced him, all bruised and broken, to give up Alcestis, who, veiled and silent, returned with him to the palace of Admetus. This time he would accept of no refreshment, he was in haste, for he had barely time to fetch the steeds of Diomedes.

“That was a wonderful adventure, but I think I prefer the tale about the Cercopes. Do you know the story of the two brothers, M. Goubin? One was called Andolous and the other Atlantos, and they had faces like monkeys. Their name leads me to believe that they were also possessed of tails like the smaller species of the monkey tribe. They were very cunning thieves, and robbed the orchards, and their mother was continually warning them to beware of the hero, Melampyges. This, you know, was the name familiarly given to Hercules, whose skin was not white. The two rash little creatures disdained their mother’s wise counsels, and one day, having surprised the ‘Melampyges’ asleep on the mossy banks of a stream, they crept up to him to try and steal his club and lionskin. But the hero, waking suddenly, seized them, tied them by the feet to the branch of a tree, and slinging them over his shoulder went upon his way. The Cercopes were doubtless very uncomfortable, both in mind and body, but as the latter was extremely supple and the former happy-go-lucky, they were amused and interested in everything they could see, and what they chiefly saw was the reason for the hero’s nickname of mélampyge. Atlantos pointed this out to his brother Andolous, who replied that their captor was indeed the hero of whom their mother had spoken. And as they hung like squirrels from a hunter’s spear they whispered, ‘Melampyges! Melampyges!’ with a mocking laugh like the cry of the forest lapwing.”

Hercules was a very irritable man, and did not like being made fun of, but he was not over proud, and never imagined that the whole of his body was as white as that of poor little Hylas. The name that had been bestowed upon him appeared to him an honourable one, and quite worthy of a strong man who journeyed about accomplishing great labours. He was a simple soul and easily moved to laughter. The remarks of the two Cercopes struck him as so funny that he stopped short, and, placing his game upon the ground, sat down by the wayside and began to shout with laughter. For a long time he remained there filling the valley with the sounds of his mirth. The setting sun spread his crimson rays over the clouds and gleamed on the mountain tops, and still the hero’s laughter rang out from beneath the dark pines and tufted larches. At last, however, he rose, untied the two little monkey-men, and, having admonished them, let them go, while in the falling darkness he continued his rough journey across the mountains. You see he was a kind-hearted man!”

“Dear Master,” said M. Goubin, “allow me to ask you a question. Do you consider Paul Louis Courrier a good subject for my essay? Because as soon as I have got my degree----”

Chapter V

As they were discussing the Affair at Paillot’s library, in a corner devoted to old books, M. Bergeret, who was of a speculative turn of mind, gave expression to ideas upon the subject that were not in accord with popular sentiment.

“This hearing of cases in camera is a detestable practice,” he said.

And as M. de Terremondre offered in defence reasons of State, he replied:

“We have no State. We have administrations. What we call reasons of State are simply the reasons of government departments. We are told that such reasons are sacred; as a matter of fact, they afford the department the opportunity to hide its errors, and at the same time to aggravate their consequences.”

“I am a republican, a Jacobin, a terrorist--and a patriot,” remarked M. Mazure solemnly. “I am quite willing to send the generals to the guillotine, but I allow no one to dispute the decisions of military justice.”

“And you are right,” replied M. de Terremondre, “for if any justice is worthy of respect, it is that above all others. And, knowing the army as I do, I can assure you that there are no judges so indulgent or so merciful as military judges.”

“I am very glad to hear you say so,” replied M. Bergeret. “But as the army is a department just the same as agriculture, finance or public instruction, one cannot conceive of there being such a thing as military courts, when there are neither agricultural, financial, nor university courts. Any peculiar form of justice is directly opposed to the fundamental principles of modern law. The military provostships will appear as old-fashioned and barbarous to our descendants as seigniorial and ecclesiastical courts appear to us to-day.”

“You are joking!” said M. de Terremondre.

“That is what has been said of every prophet,” replied M. Bergeret.

“But if you attack the courts martial,” cried M. de Terremondre, “it means the end of the Army, and therefore the end of the country.”

M. Bergeret’s reply was as follows:

“When the priests and seigniors were deprived of the right of hanging their serfs, people thought it meant the end of all law and order. Soon, however, a new order of government sprang up, better than the old one. What I say is this: in times of peace let the soldier be judged by a civil court. Do you imagine that since the time of Charles VII, or even since Napoleon, the Army has not survived more drastic innovations than that?”

“I am an old Jacobin,” repeated M. Mazure. “I am in favour of courts martial, and would have the heads of the Army subject to the authority of a committee of public safety. There is nothing more calculated to keep them up to the mark.”

“That’s another matter altogether,” said M. de Terremondre. “I return to our original subject and ask M. Bergeret whether he honestly believes it possible that _seven_ officers could make a mistake?”

“Fourteen!” cried M. Mazure.

“Fourteen,” repeated M. de Terremondre.

“I do believe it possible,” said M. Bergeret.

“Fourteen French officers!” ejaculated M. de Terremondre.

“Oh, well,” said M. Bergeret, “they might have been Swiss, Belgian, Spanish, German, or Dutch, and have made just as bad a blunder.”

“Impossible!” cried M. de Terremondre.

The librarian Paillot shook his head, thereby meaning to express the fact that he also considered it impossible. And his clerk, Léon, looked at M. Bergeret with indignant surprise.

“I do not know whether you will ever be enlightened,” went on M. Bergeret sweetly. “I do not think so, although all things are possible, even the triumph of truth.”

“You mean the Revision,” said M. de Terremondre. “That, never! You will never succeed in getting the Revision; I have been told as much by three Ministers and twenty deputies.”

“The poet Bouchor,” replied M. Bergeret, “teaches us that it is better to endure the horrors of war than to commit an unjust action. But such an alternative does not confront you, gentlemen, and you are being scared with lies.”

Just as M. Bergeret was saying this a great noise was heard in the square outside. A band of little boys was marching past and shouting, “_A bas Zola! Mort aux juifs!_” They were on their way to break the windows of Meyer, the bootmaker, who was supposed to be a Jew, and the townsmen indulgently watched them go by.

“Fine little chaps!” cried M. de Terremondre, when the demonstrators had filed by.

M. Bergeret, with his nose buried in a ponderous volume, slowly remarked:

“The cause of liberty had only the very smallest minority of educated people upon her side. The clergy almost to a man, the generals and the ignorant and fanatical mob clamoured for a master.”

“What is that you are saying?” asked M. Mazure excitedly.

“Nothing,” replied M. Bergeret. “I am reading a chapter of Spanish history which describes the manners and customs of the people at the time of the restoration of Ferdinand VII.”

The bootmaker, Meyer, was half killed, nevertheless. He did not complain, for fear of being killed outright, and also because the justice of the people, together with that of the Army, filled him with mute admiration.

Chapter VI

M. Bergeret was not unhappy, for he rejoiced in that true independence which comes from within, and his soul was unfettered. Since the departure of his wife he was also enjoying the sweets of solitude, while awaiting the arrival of his daughter Pauline, who was shortly expected from Arcachon with his sister, Mademoiselle Bergeret.

He looked forward to a happy life with his daughter, who resembled him in certain turns of mind and speech, so that it flattered his vanity when people praised her.

He was pleased at the idea of seeing his sister Zoe, an old maid, who, having never had any pretensions to good looks, had not lost her natural frankness of disposition, to which was added a secret delight in making herself unpleasant, but who lacked neither wit nor kindliness.

For the time being, however, M. Bergeret was busy settling down in his new quarters. He hung his views of Naples and Vesuvius, legacies both, on the walls of his study. Now of all the delights permitted to a respectable man, there is perhaps none which procures him such tranquil enjoyment as that of knocking nails into a wall. The keenest pleasure of that experienced voluptuary, Comte de Caylus, was unpacking cases of Etruscan pottery. Thus M. Bergeret proceeded to hang up on his wall an old water-colour representing Vesuvius, adorned with an aigrette of flame and smoke, standing out against the dark blue sky of midnight. This picture reminded him of the days of his wondering and enchanted childhood.

He was not sad, neither was he glad. He had money worries, he knew the unloveliness of poverty. “Money makes the man,” as Pindar says (_Isth._ II).

He did not get on with his colleagues or his pupils. He did not get on with the townspeople; incapable as he was of comprehending either their thoughts or their feelings, he had been obliged to withdraw from human fellowship, and his peculiar way of thinking had deprived him of the enjoyment of that genial feeling of comradeship which even high walls and closed doors cannot exclude.

The mere fact that he was a thinker made him a strange and disturbing element suspected by all. He was even a source of worry to Paillot, the bookseller, and his asylum and refuge, the corner where the old books were kept, was no longer to be counted on. In spite of all this he was not unhappy. He set about arranging his books on the deal shelves put up by the carpenter, and took pleasure in handling these little memorials of his humble contemplative life. He worked with zeal at his task of getting things straight, and when he tired of hanging pictures or arranging furniture, he buried himself deep in some book, with a lurking feeling, however, that he ought not to enjoy it because it was a human product, yet enjoying it notwithstanding. He read a few pages on “the progress realized by modern society,” and his reflections ran as follows:

“Let us be humble and believe ourselves in no way excellent, for we are not excellent. As we examine ourselves, let us uncover our true countenance, which is rough and violent like that of our forefathers, and, as we have the advantage over them of a longer tradition, let us at least recognize the sequence and continuity of our ignorance.”

Thus pondered M. Bergeret, as he settled himself in his new abode. He was not sad, neither was he glad, as he reflected that he would always yearn in vain for Madame de Gromance, not realizing the fact that she was only precious to him by virtue of the craving which she inspired. But the very derangement of his feelings prevented him from clearly grasping this philosophical truth. He was not handsome, he was not young, he was not rich; he was not sad, because his wisdom approached the happy state of ataraxy, without, however, finally attaining it, and he was not glad, because he was somewhat of a sensualist, and his soul was not free from illusions and desires.

The servant Marie, who had fulfilled her task of bringing terror and misery into the house, had been dismissed, and in her place he had engaged a decent woman from the town, whom he called Angélique, but who was spoken of as Madame Borniche by the shopkeepers and the country-people in the market-place.

Her husband, Nicolas Borniche, a good coachman, but a bad man, had deserted her when she was still young and ugly. She had been in service with various families. Her status as a married woman still filled her with a certain pride not always concealed, and with a great fondness for managing. Finally, she was by way of being a herbalist and a healer, something of a sorceress, and filled the house with a pleasant odour of herbs. Full of genuine zeal, she was obsessed by an eternal longing for affection and approval. From the very first she had taken to M. Bergeret, on account of the distinction of his mind and the gentleness of his manner, but she awaited the arrival of Mademoiselle Bergeret with foreboding, for a secret presentiment told her that she would not get on well with the sister from Arcachon. On the other hand, she pleased M. Bergeret, who was at last enjoying peace in his house and deliverance from all his troubles.

His books, which heretofore had been despised and thrown about, were now displayed upon long shelves in the big sunny room. There he could work in quiet at his _Virgilius nauticus_, and indulge freely in silent orgies of meditation. Before the window a young plane tree gently waved its pointed leaves, and, farther away, a dark buttress of Saint-Exupère reared its jagged pinnacle, in which grew a cherry tree, doubtless planted there by a bird.

Seated at his table one morning in front of the window, against which the leaves of the plane tree quivered, M. Bergeret, who was trying to discover how the ships of Æneas had been changed into nymphs, heard a tap at the door, and forthwith his servant entered, carrying in front of her, opossum-like, a tiny creature whose black head peeped out from the folds of her apron, which she had turned up to form a pocket. With a look of anxiety and hope upon her face, she remained motionless for a moment, then she placed the little thing upon the carpet at her master’s feet.

“What’s that?” asked M. Bergeret.

It was a little dog of doubtful breed, having something of the terrier in him, and a well-set head, a short, smooth coat of a dark tan colour, and a tiny little stump of a tail. His body retained its puppy-like softness and he went sniffing at the carpet.

“Angélique,” said M. Bergeret, “take this animal back to its owner.”

“It has no owner, Monsieur.”

M. Bergeret looked silently at the little creature who had come to examine his slippers, and was giving little sniffs of approval. M. Bergeret was a philologist, which perhaps explains why at this juncture he asked a vain question.

“What is he called?”

“Monsieur,” replied Angélique, “he has no name.”

M. Bergeret seemed put out at this answer: he looked at the dog sadly, with a disheartened air.

Then the little animal placed its two front paws on M. Bergeret’s slipper, and, holding it thus, began innocently to nibble at it. With a sudden access of compassion M. Bergeret took the tiny nameless creature upon his knees. The dog looked at him intently, and M. Bergeret was pleased at his confiding expression.

“What beautiful eyes!” he cried.

The dog’s eyes were indeed beautiful, the pupils of a golden-flecked chestnut set in warm white. And his gaze spoke of simple, mysterious thoughts, common alike to the thoughtful beasts and simple men of the earth.

Tired, perhaps, with the intellectual effort he had made for the purpose of entering into communication with a human being, he closed his beautiful eyes, and, yawning widely, revealed his pink mouth, his curled-up tongue, and his array of dazzling teeth.

M. Bergeret put his hand into the dog’s mouth, and allowed him to lick it, at which old Angélique gave a smile of relief.

“A more affectionate little creature doesn’t breathe,” she said.

“The dog,” said M. Bergeret, “is a religious animal. In his savage state he worships the moon and the lights that float upon the waters. These are his gods, to whom he appeals at night with long-drawn howls. In the domesticated state he seeks by his caresses to conciliate those powerful genii who dispense the good things of this world--to wit, men. He worships and honours men by the accomplishment of the rites passed down to him by his ancestors; he licks their hand, jumps against their legs, and when they show signs of anger towards him he approaches them crawling on his belly as a sign of humility, to appease their wrath.”

“All dogs are not the friends of man,” remarked Angélique. “Some of them bite the hand that feeds them.”

“Those are the ungodly, blasphemous dogs,” returned M. Bergeret, “insensate creatures like Ajax, the son of Telamon, who wounded the hand of the golden Aphrodite. These sacrilegious creatures die a dreadful death or lead wandering and miserable lives. They are not to be confounded with those dogs who, espousing the quarrel of their own particular god, wage war upon his enemy, the neighbouring god. They are heroes. Such, for example, is the dog of Lafolie, the butcher, who fixed his sharp teeth into the leg of the tramp Pied-d’Alouette. For it is a fact that dogs fight among themselves like men, and Turk, with his snub nose, serves his god Lafolie against the robber gods, in the same way that Israel helped Jehovah to destroy Chamos and Moloch.”

The puppy, however, having decided that M. Bergeret’s remarks were the reverse of interesting, curled up his feet and stretched out his head, ready to go to sleep upon the knees that harboured him.

“Where did you find him?” asked M. Bergeret.

“Well, Monsieur, it was M. Dellion’s _chef_ gave him to me.”

“With the result,” continued M. Bergeret, “that we now have this soul to care for.”

“What soul?” asked Angélique.

“This canine soul. An animal is, properly speaking, a soul; I do not say an immortal soul. And yet, when I come to consider the positions this poor little beast and I myself occupy in the scheme of things, I recognize in both exactly the same right to immortality.”

After considerable hesitation, old Angélique, with a painful effort that made her upper lip curl up and reveal her two remaining teeth, said:

“If Monsieur does not want a dog, I will return him to M. Dellion’s _chef_; but you may safely keep him, I assure you. You won’t see or hear him.”

She had hardly finished her sentence when the puppy, hearing a heavy van rolling down the street, sat bolt upright on M. Bergeret’s knees, and began to bark both loud and long, so that the window-panes resounded with the noise.

M. Bergeret smiled.

“He is a watch-dog,” said Angélique, by way of excuse. “They are by far the most faithful.”

“Have you given him anything to eat?” asked M. Bergeret.

“Of course,” returned Angélique.

“What does he eat?”

“Monsieur must be aware that dogs eat bread and meat.”

Somewhat piqued, M. Bergeret retorted that in her eagerness she might very likely have taken him away from his mother before he was old enough to leave her, upon which he was lifted up again and re-examined, only to make sure of the fact that he was at least six months old.

M. Bergeret put him down on the carpet, and regarded him with interest.

“Isn’t he pretty?” said the servant.

“No, he is not pretty,” replied M. Bergeret. “But he is engaging, and has beautiful eyes. That is what people used to say about me,” added the professor, “when I was three times as old, and not half as intelligent. Since then I have no doubt acquired an outlook upon the universe which he will never attain. But, in comparison with the Absolute, I may say that my knowledge equals his in the smallness of its extent. Like his, it is a geometrical point in the infinite.” Then, addressing the little creature who was sniffing the waste-paper basket, he went on: “Smell it out, sniff it well, take from the outside world all the knowledge that can reach your simple brain through the medium of that black truffle-like nose of yours. And what though I at the same time observe, and compare, and study? We shall never know, neither the one nor the other of us, why we have been put into this world, and what we are doing in it. What are we here for, eh?”

As he had spoken rather loudly, the puppy looked at him anxiously, and M. Bergeret, returning to the thought which had first filled his mind, said to the servant:

“We must give him a name.”

With her hands folded in front of her she replied laughingly that that would not be a difficult matter.

Upon which M. Bergeret made the private reflection that to the simple all things are simple, but that clear-sighted souls, who look upon things from many and divers aspects, invisible to the vulgar mind, experience the greatest difficulty in coming to a decision about even the most trivial matters. And he cudgelled his brains, trying to hit upon a name for the little living thing who was busily engaged in nibbling the fringe of the carpet.

“All the names of dogs,” thought he, “preserved in the ancient treatises of the huntsmen of old, such as Fouilloux, and in the verses of our sylvan poets such as La Fontaine--Finaud, Miraut, Briffaut, Ravaud, and such-like names, are given to sporting dogs, who are the aristocracy of the kennel, the chivalry of the canine race. The dog of Ulysses was called Argos, and he was a hunter too, so Homer tells us. ‘In his youth he hunted the little hares of Ithaca, but now he was old and hunted no more.’ What we require is something quite different. The names given by old maids to their lap-dogs would be more suitable were they not usually pretentious and absurd. Azor, for instance, is ridiculous!”

So M. Bergeret ruminated, calling to memory many a dog name, without being able to decide, however, on one that pleased him. He would have liked to invent a name, but lacked the imagination.

“What day is it?” he asked at last.

“The ninth,” replied Angélique, “Thursday, the ninth.”

“Well, then!” said M. Bergeret, “can’t we call the dog Thursday, like Robinson Crusoe who called his man Friday, for the same reason?”

“As Monsieur pleases,” said Angélique. “But it isn’t very pretty.”

“Very well,” said M. Bergeret, “find a name for the creature yourself, for, after all, you brought him here.”

“Oh, no,” said the servant. “I couldn’t find a name for him, I’m not clever enough. When I saw him lying on the straw in the kitchen, I called him Riquet, and he came up and played about under my skirts.”

“