I imagined I could hear him talk like that in the interval between two pinches of snuff, and I really did not know what to reply to such a Christian speech. On the other hand, I thought in advance how puzzled I should be to reply to M. d'Asterac when he inquired of me after news of the Salamander. What could I say? How was I to avow my reserve and my abstention without betraying my defiance and fear? And after all, without being aware of it, I was curious to try the adventure. I am not credulous. On the contrary I am marvellously inclined to doubt, and by this inclination to brave common-sense, as well as evidence and everything else. Of the strangest things that may be told me, I say to myself, "Why not?" This "Why not?" wronged my natural intelligence in sight of that globe. This "Why not?" pushed me towards credulity, and it may be interesting to remark, on this occasion, to believe in nothing means to believe in everything, and that the mind is not to be kept too free and too vacant, for fear that commodities of extravagant form and weight should enter by a loophole, commodities of a kind which could not find room in minds reasonably and tolerably well furnished with belief. And while, with my hand on the wax seal, I remembered what my mother had narrated to me of the magic bottle, my "Why not?" whispered to me that perhaps, after all, aerial fairies may be visible through the dust of the sun. But as soon as this idea, having entered into my mind, began to become easy therein, I found it to be odd, absurd and grotesque. Ideas, when they impose themselves, very soon become impudent. But few are apt to be better than pleasant passers-by; and, decidedly, this very one had somehow an air of madness. During the time I asked myself, "Shall I open it?" "Shall I not?" the seal, which I had held continuously between my pressing fingers, broke suddenly in my hand, and the flagon was open.

I waited, I observed, I saw nothing, I felt nothing. And I was disappointed, so much the hope of stepping out of nature is prone and ready to glide into our souls! Nothing! Not even a vague or confused illusion, an uncertain image! What I had foreseen occurred. What a deception! I felt somewhat vexed. Reclined in my arm-chair I vowed to myself, before all the black-haired Egyptians surrounding me, to close my soul better in the future to the lies of the cabalists; and once more recognised my dear teacher's wisdom and resolved, like him, to be guided by reason in all matters not connected with faith, Christian and Catholic. Expecting the visit of a lady Salamander, what silliness! Is it possible that Salamanders exist? But what is known about it, and "Why not?"

Since noon the air was heavy, now it became stifling. Rendered torpid by long days of quietness and seclusion, I felt a weight on my forehead and eyes. The approach of a thunderstorm lay heavy on me. I let my arms hang down, and, with head thrown back, and eyes closed, I glided into a doze full of golden Egyptians and lustful shadows. In this uncertain state the sense of love alone was alive in my body, like a fire in the night. How long it had lasted I could not say, when I was awakened by a sound of light steps and the rustling of a dress. I opened my eyes and gave a great shout.

A marvellous creature stood before me, clad in black satin, a lace veil on her head—a dark woman with blue eyes, of resolute features in a juvenile and pure skin, round cheeks and the mouth animated as by an invisible kiss. The short skirt let little feet be seen, dancing, jolly, spirited feet. She held herself upright, but was round, somewhat thick-set, in her voluptuous perfection. Under the black velvet ribbon round her throat a little square of her bosom was visible, brown, but dazzling. She looked on me with an air of curiosity. I have said already how sleep had rendered me amorous. I rose quickly, and stepped forward.

"Excuse me," she said, "I am looking for M. d'Asterac."

I said to her:

"Madam, there is no M. d'Asterac. There is you and I. I expected you. You are a Salamander. I have opened the crystal flagon. You have come. You are mine."

I took her in my arms and covered with kisses all places my lips could find uncovered by her dress.

She tore herself away and said:

"You are mad."

"That is quite natural," I replied. "Who in my place could remain sane?"

She lowered her eyes, blushed, and smiled. I fell at her feet.

"As M. d'Asterac is not here," she said, "I had better retire."

"Remain!" I cried, and bolted the door.

"Do you know if he will soon be back?"

"No, madam! He will not return for a long time. He left me alone with the Salamanders. But I want one only, and that one is you."

I lifted her in my arms, carried her to the sofa, fell down on it with her, and smothered her with kisses. I was out of my senses. She screamed, I did not hear her; she pushed me back with outstretched hands; her fingernails scratched me all over, and her vain defence only excited my frenzy. I pressed, enlaced her, she fell back worn out. Her mollified body gave way, she closed her eyes and soon, in my triumph, her beautiful arms, reconciled, pressed me on her bosom.

Released, alas! from that delicious embrace, we looked at one another with surprise. Occupied to get up again decently she put her dress in order and remained silent.

"I love you," I said. "What is your name?"

I did not think her to be a Salamander, and to say the truth never did think so.

"My name is Jahel," she said.

"What! you're the niece of Mosaide?"

"Yes; but keep quiet. If he should know—"

"What would he do?"

"Oh! nothing to me—nothing. But to you the worst. He dislikes Christians."

"And you?"

"Oh! I? I dislike the Jews."

"Jahel, do you love me a little?"

"It seems to me, sir, that after what we have just now said to one another, your question is an offence."

"True, mademoiselle, but I try to obtain forgiveness for a vivacity, an ardour, which did not take the leisure to consult your sentiments."

"Oh! monsieur, do not make yourself out to be more guilty than you really are. All your violence, and all your passion, would not have served you at all, had I not found you lovable. When I saw you sleeping in that arm-chair, I liked your looks, waited for your awakening—the rest you know."

As reply I gave her a kiss, she gave it me back, what a kiss! I fancied fresh-gathered strawberries melting in my mouth. My desire revived and passionately I pressed her on my heart.

"This time," she said, "be less hasty, and do not think only of yourself. You must not be selfish in love. Young men do not sufficiently know that. But we teach them."

And we immersed ourselves in an unfathomable depth of deliciousness.

After that the divine Jahel asked of me:

"Have you a comb? I look like a witch."

"Jahel," I answered, "I have no comb. I had expected a Salamander. I adore you."

"Adore me, dearest, but remain secret. You do not know Mosaide."

"What, Jahel. Is he still so terrible as that, at the age of one hundred and thirty years, of which he has lived sixty-five inside a pyramid?"

"I see, my friend, that stories of my uncle have been told you and that you were simple enough to believe them. Nobody knows his age; I myself am ignorant of it, but I have always known him as an old man. I know only that he is robust and of uncommon strength. He has been a banker at Lisbon, where he killed a Christian he surprised in the arms of my Aunt Myriam. He took to flight, and carried me with him. Since then he loves me with the tenderness of a mother. He tells me things that are told to little children only, and he cries when he sees me asleep."

"Do you live with him?"

"Yes, in the keeper's lodge, at the other end of the park."

"I know; you reach it by the lane where mandrakes are to be found. How is it that I did not meet you before? By what sinister destiny, living so near you, have I lived without seeing you? But what do I say, lived? Is it to live without knowing you? Are you shut up in yonder lodge?"

"It is true I am somewhat of a recluse, and cannot go for walks as I wish, to the shops, to theatres. Mosaide's tenderness does not leave me any liberty. He guards me jealously, and, besides six small gold cups he brought with him from Lisbon, he loves but me on earth. As he is much more attached to me than he was to my Aunt Myriam, he would kill you, dear, with a better heart than he killed the Portuguese. I warn you so, to impress the necessity of discretion on you, and because it is not a consideration which could stop a brave gentleman. Are you of a good family, my friend?"

"Alas! no; my father applies himself to a mechanic art, and has a sort of trade."

"And he is not of any of the professions? Does not belong to the banking world? No? It is a pity. Well. you're to be loved for yourself. But speak the truth. Is M. d'Asterac to be back shortly?"

At this name and question a terrible doubt came in my mind. I suspected the enchanting Jahel to have been sent by the cabalist to play the part of a Salamander with me. I went so far as to excuse her in my mind of being the nymph of that old fool. To obtain an immediate explanation I bluntly and coarsely asked her if she was in the habit of acting the Salamander in the castle.

"I don't understand you," she replied, looking at me with eyes full of innocent surprise. "You speak like M. d'Asterac himself, and I could believe you to be attacked by his mania also, if I had not proved that you do not share the aversion to women that he has. He cannot stand any female, and it is a real annoyance to me to see and speak with him. Nevertheless I was looking for him when I found you."

The pleasure of being reassured made me again smother her with kisses.

She managed to let me see that she had black stockings which, over the knees, were held up by garters ornamented with diamond buckles and that sight brought back my mind to ideas pleasant to her. Besides she entreated me on the welcome subject with much ability and fervour, and I was aware that she became excited over the game at the very moment I began to get fatigued from it, However I did my best, and was fortunate enough to spare the beautiful girl a disgrace which she did not deserve in the least. It seemed to me that she was not discontented with me. She rose, very quietly, and said:

"Do you really not know if M. d'Asterac will soon be back? I confess to you that I came to ask him for a small amount of that pension he owes to my uncle, a trifle only. I very badly want it just now."

I took my purse out and handed her, with due excuses, the three crowns it contained. It was all that remained of the too rare liberalities of the cabalist who, professing to dislike money, unluckily forgot to pay me my salary.

I asked Mademoiselle Jahel if I should not have the pleasure of seeing her again.

"You will," she replied.

And we agreed that she should ascend at night-time to my room whenever she could escape from the lodge, where she was pretty nearly a prisoner.

"Take care to remember," I told her, "that my room is the fourth on the right of the corridor and Abbe Coignard's the fifth. The others give access to the lofts, where two or three scullions lodge, and hundreds of rats."

She assured me that she would be very careful not to make a mistake, and would scratch on my door and not on any other.

"Besides," she continued, "your Abbe Coignard seems to be a very good man, and I am pretty sure that we have in no way to be afraid of him. I looked at him, through a peephole, on the day he came with you to visit my uncle! I thought him amiable, though I could not hear what he said. Principally his nose I thought to be really ingenious and capable. A man with such a nose ought to be full of expedients and I very much wish to become acquainted with him. One can but better one's mind by having intercourse with people of high spirit. I am only sorry that my uncle was not pleased with his words and scoffing humour. Mosaide hates him, and of his capacity for hate no Christian can form an idea."

"Mademoiselle," I replied, "Monsieur l'Abbe Jerome Coignard is a very learned man, and he has in addition philosophy and kindness. He knows the world, and you are quite right in believing him to be a good counsellor. I regulate myself fully after his advice. But, tell me, did you see me also, on yonder day, at the lodge, through the peephole you spoke of?"

"I saw you," she said to me, "and I will not hide from you that I was pleased. But I must return to my uncle. Good-bye."

The same evening, after supper, M. d'Asterac did not fail to ask me for news of the Salamander. His curiosity troubled me somewhat. My answer was that the meeting had surpassed all my expectations, but that I thought it my duty to confine myself to a discretion due to such kind of adventures.

"That discretion, my son," he said, "is not of so much use in your case as you represent. Salamanders do not want their amours to be kept secret, they are not ashamed of them. One of those nymphs who loves me does not know of a sweeter pastime than to engrave my initials enlaced with hers on the bark of trees, as you can see for yourself by examining the stems of five or six Scotch firs, the exquisite tops of which you can see from yonder windows. But have you not, my son, learned that that kind of amour, truly sublime, far from leaving any fatigue behind, lends to the heart a new vigour? I am sure that after what passed to-day you'll employ your night in translating at least sixty pages of Zosimus the Panopolitan."

I confessed that on the contrary I felt very sleepy, which he explained by reason of the astonishment produced by such a first meeting. And so the great man remained convinced that I had had intercourse with a Salamander. I felt some scruples at deceiving him, but I was compelled to do it and, besides, he deceived himself to such a degree that it was hardly possible to add anything to his illusions. So I ascended peacefully to my room, went to bed, and blew the candle out at the end of the most glorious day of my life.



CHAPTER XVI

Jahel comes to my Room—What the Abbe saw on the Stairs—His Encounter with Mosaide.

Jahel kept her word. On the second day after, she scratched at my door. We were a great deal more comfortable in my room than we had been in M. d'Asterac's study, and what had taken place at our first meeting was but child's play in comparison to what love inspired us at our second opportunity. She tore herself out of my arms at the dawn with a thousand oaths to join me again very soon, calling me her soul, her life, her dearest sweetheart.

That day I rose very late. When I reached the library, my master was already sitting over the papyrus of Zosimus, his pen in one hand, his magnifying-glass in the other, and worthy of the admiration of anyone having due consideration for good literature.

"Jacques Tournebroche," he said to me, "the principal difficulty of this reading consists in not a few of the letters being easily confounded with others, and it is important for the success of the deciphering to make a list of the characters lending themselves to similar mistakes, because by not taking such precautions we are running the risk of employing the wrong terminations, to our eternal shame and just vituperation. I have to-day already committed some ridiculous blunders. It must have been because, since daybreak, my mind has been troubled by what I saw last night, and of which I will give you an account.

"I woke up in the morning twilight, and I felt a longing for a glass of that light white wine about which I made yesterday my compliments to M. d'Asterac, if you remember. For there exists, my son, between white wine and the crowing of the cock a sympathy, doubtless dating from Noah's time, and I am certain that if Saint Peter, in that sacred night he passed in the yard of the great high priest, had had just a mouthful of Moselle claret or only wine of Orleans, he never would have disowned Jesus Christ before the cock crowed a second time. But in no sense, my boy, have we to regret that bad action; it was of the utmost importance that the prophecies were fulfilled, and if Peter, or Cephas, had not committed on that very night the worst of infamies, he would not now be the greatest saint in heaven, and the corner-stone of our holy Church, to the confusion of honest men according to the world, who have to see the keys of their eternal bliss held by a dastardly knave. O salutary example, which, drawing man out of the fallacious inspirations of human honour, leads him on the road of salvation! O masterly disposition of religion! O divine wisdom, exalting the meek and wretched to the humiliation of the haughty! O marvel! O mystery! To the eternal shame of the Pharisees and lawyers, a common mariner of the Lake of Tiberias, who by his gross cowardice had become the laughing-stock of the kitchen wenches who warmed themselves with him in the courtyard of the high priest, a churl and a dastard, who denied his master and his faith before slatterns certainly not so pretty by far as the chamber-maid of the bailiff's wife at Seez, wears the triple crown, the pontifical ring on his finger and rules over princes and bishops, over kings and emperors, is invested with the right to bind and loose; the most respectable of men, the most honest dame, cannot enter heaven unless he gives them admission.

"But tell me, Tournebroche, my boy, at what part of my narrative had I arrived when I got muddled over that great Saint Peter, the prince of apostles? If I remember well I spoke to you of a glass of white wine I drank at daybreak. I came down to the pantry in my shirt, and took out of a certain cupboard, the key of which I had prudently kept by me the day before, a bottle, the contents of which I emptied with no little pleasure. Afterwards reascending the stairs I met, between the second and third flights, a tiny damsel clad as a pierrot, who descended the steps. She seemed to be mightily afraid, and fled into the farthest corner of the passage. I followed her, caught her, took her in my arms, and kissed her in a sudden and irresistible outbreak of sympathy. Don't blame me, my boy; in my place you would have done as much, perhaps more. It was a pretty girl, reminding me of the serving-maid of the bailiff's wife, but with more vivacity in her looks. She did not dare to scream. She whispered breathless in my ear: 'Leave me, leave me; you're mad!' Look here, Tournebroche, I still have the marks of her finger nails on my wrist. O that I could keep as vivid on my lips the impression of the kiss she gave me!"

"What, Monsieur Abbe," I exclaimed, "she gave you a kiss?"

"Be sure, my boy, that in my place you would have had one too—that is to say, if you, as I did, seized the opportunity. I believe I told you that I held the damsel in close embrace. She tried to fly from me, she suppressed her screams, she murmured groans. 'For heaven's sake, leave me! It begins to be light, a moment more and I am lost.' Her fears, her fright, her danger—who could be barbarous enough not to be affected by them? I am not inhuman. I gave her freedom at the price of a kiss, which she gave me quickly. On my word, I never enjoyed a more delicious one."

At this part of his tale, my dear tutor, raising his nose to sniff a pinch of snuff, became aware of my confusion and pain, which he thought to be utter astonishment, and continued to say:

"Jacques Tournebroche, all that remains for me to tell will astonish you still more. To my regret I let the pretty girl go, but curiosity tempted me to follow her. I went down the stairs after her, saw her cross the lobby, go out by a little door opening on the fields in the direction where the park extends farthest, and run up the lane. I followed swiftly. I was quite sure that she would not go far, dressed as a pierrot and wearing a night-cap. She took the path wherein the mandrakes dwell. My curiosity doubled, and I followed her up to Mosaide's lodge. At this moment the hideous Jew appeared at a window in his dressing-gown and monstrous headgear, like one of those figures who show themselves at the stroke of noon, outside those old clocks more Gothic and more ridiculous than the churches wherein they are kept, for the enjoyment of the yokels and the profit of the beadle.

"He discovered me, hidden as I was behind the foliage, at the very moment when that pretty girl, fleet as Galatea, slipped into the lodge. It looked as if I had followed her up in the manner, way and habit of those satyrs of which we have spoken of late when conferring on the finest passages of Ovid. My dress could but add to such resemblance—did I tell you, my boy, that I wore only a shirt? Seeing me, Mosaide's eyes vomited fire. Out of his dirty yellow greatcoat he drew a neat little stiletto and shook it through the window with an arm in no way weighed down by age. He roared bilingual curses on me. Yes, Tournebroche, my grammatical knowledge authorises me to say that his curses were bilingual, that Spanish, or rather Portuguese, was mixed in them with Hebrew. I went into a rage at not being able to catch their exact sense, as I do not know these languages, although I can recognise them by certain sounds which are frequent when they are spoken. It is very possible that he accused me of wanting to corrupt that girl, whom I believe to be his niece Jahel, whom, as you will remember, M. d'Asterac has repeatedly mentioned to us. As such his invectives were rather flattering to me, as I have become, my boy, by the progress of age and the fatigues of an agitated life, so that I cannot aspire any longer to the love of juvenile maidens. Alas! should I become a bishop that is a dish of which I shall never taste. I am sorry for it. But it is no good to be closely attached to the perishable things of this world, and we are compelled to leave what leaves us. Accordingly Mosaide, brandishing his stiletto, squalled out his hoarse sounds mingled with sharp yelpings in such a manner that I felt insulted, as well as vituperated, in a chant or song. And without flattering myself, my dear boy, I can say that I have been treated as a rake and a seducer in a tune solemn and ceremonious. When yonder Mosaide brought his imprecations to an end, I endeavoured to let him have my reply in two languages also. I replied in a mixture of Latin and French that he was a manslayer and a sacrilegist, who murdered tiny babes and stabbed sacred hosts. The fresh morning wind blowing between my naked legs reminded me that I wore a shirt only. I felt somewhat embarrassed, because it is evident, my boy, that a man without breeches is in a state highly inconvenient to speak of sacred truth, to confound error and to prevent crime. Withal I gave him a prodigious sketch of his outrages, and I threatened him with the terrors of justice both human and divine."

"What do you say, my good master?" I nearly screamed, "yonder Mosaide, who has such a pretty niece, kills newborn babes and stabs hosts?"

"I don't know anything about him," M. Jerome Coignard replied, "and besides cannot know it. But those crimes are his, they are of his race, and I can charge him with them without slandering him. I place on that miscreant's back a long array of flagitious ancestors. You cannot have remained ignorant of all that is said of the Jews and of their abominable rites. You may see in an ancient cosmography of Munster in Westphalia a drawing representing some Jews mutilating a child; they are recognisable by the wheel or round of cloth they wear on their clothes in sign of infamy. For all that I do not believe these misdeeds to be of their daily and domestic use. I also doubt that the majority of Israelites are inclined to outrage the holy wafers. To accuse them of doing so would be to believe that they are as deeply convinced of the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ as we are ourselves. Sacrilege without faith is unbelievable, and the Jew who stabbed a host rendered by that very deed a sincere homage to the truth of transubstantiation. These are fables, my boy, to be left to the ignorant and, if I throw them in the face of that horrible Mosaide, I do it less by the counsels of sound criticism than by the impressive suggestions of resentment and anger."

"Oh! sir," I said, "you might have contented yourself with reproaching him for the murder of the Portuguese he killed in the frenzy of his jealousy; that certainly was a murder."

"What!" broke out my good master. "Mosaide has killed a Christian? He is dangerous, my dear Tournebroche. You'll have to come to the same conclusion that I have arrived at myself about this adventure. It is quite certain that his niece is the mistress of M. d'Asterac, whose room she doubtless had just left when I met her on the stairs.

"I am too religious a man not to be sorry that so amiable a person comes of the Jewish race, who crucified Jesus Christ. Alas! do not doubt, my dear boy, that villain Mordecai is the uncle of an Esther who does not need to macerate six months in myrrh to become worthy of the bed of a king. That old spagyric raven is not the man fit for such a beauty, and I am rather inclined to take an interest in her myself.

"Mosaide will have to hide her very secretly and carefully; should she show herself once only at the promenade or the theatre, she would have all the world at her feet on the following morning. Don't you wish to see her, Tournebroche?"

I replied that I wished it very much. And then both of us drove deeper in our Greek.



CHAPTER XVII

Outside Mademoiselle Catherine's House—We are invited in by M. d'Anquetil—The Supper—The Visit of the Owner and the horrible Consequences.

That evening my tutor and I happened to be in the Rue du Bac, and as it was rather warm M. Jerome Coignard said to me:

"Jacques Tournebroche, my son, would it be agreeable to you to turn to the left, into the Rue de Grenelle, in quest of a tavern—that's to say, to some place where we could get a pot of wine for two sous? I am rather short of cash, my boy, and strongly suppose you to be no better off. M. d'Asterac, who possibly can make gold, does not give any to his secretaries and servants, as we well know, to our cost, you and I. He leaves us in a lamentable state. I have never a penny in my pocket, and it will become necessary to remedy that evil by industry and artifice. It is a fine thing to bear poverty with an even mind, like Epictetus of glorious memory. But it is an exercise I am tired of and which has become tedious by habit. I feel it is high time for a change of virtue, and to insinuate myself into the possession of wealth without being possessed by it, which certainly is the noblest state to be reached by the soul of a philosopher. I shall feel myself obliged, very soon, to earn profits of some kind to show that my sagacity has not failed me during my prosperity. I am in search of the means to reach such an issue; my mind is occupied by it, Tournebroche."

And as my dear tutor spoke with a noble distinction of that matter, we came near the pretty dwelling wherein M. de la Gueritude had lodged Mademoiselle Catherine. "You'll recognise it, she had said to me, by the roses on the balcony." There was not light enough to see the roses, but I fancied I could smell them. Advancing a few yards I saw her at the window watering flowers. She recognised me, laughed, and threw me kisses with her chubby little hand. Upon that a hand passing through the open window slapped her cheek. In her surprise she let the water jug slip out of her hand, it fell down into the street, at a hair's breadth from my tutor's head. The slapped beauty disappeared from the window, and the ear-boxer appeared; he leaned out and shouted:

"Thank God, sir, you are not the Capuchin. I cannot stand seeing my mistress throw kisses to that stinking beast, who continually prowls under this window. For once I have not to blush at her choice. You look quite an honest man, and I believe I have seen you before. Do me the honour to come up. Within a supper is prepared. You'll do me a real favour to partake of it, as well as the abbe, who has just had a pot of water thrown over his head, and shakes himself like a wetted dog. After supper we'll have a game of cards, and at daybreak we'll go hence to cut one another's throats. But that will be purely and simply an act of civility and only to do you honour, sir, for, in truth, that girl is not worth the thrust of a sword. She is a hussy. I'll never see her any more."

I recognised in the speaker, the Monsieur d'Anquetil whom I had seen a short time ago excite his followers so vehemently to spike Friar Ange. Now he spoke with courtesy and treated me as a gentleman. I understood all the favour he conferred on me by his consent to cut my throat. Nor was my dear tutor less sensible of so much urbanity, and after having shaken himself he said to me:

"Jacques Tournebroche, my son, we cannot say nay to such a gracious invitation."

Already two lackeys had come down bearing torches. They led us to a room where a collation had been prepared on a table lit up by wax candles burning in two silver candelabra. M. d'Anquetil invited us to be seated, and my good master tied his napkin round his throat. He already had a thrush on his fork when heart-rending sobs were to be heard.

"Don't take any notice of yonder noise," said M. d'Anquetil, "it's only Catherine, whom I have locked in that room."

"Ah! sir; you must forgive her," said my kind-hearted tutor, looking sadly on the gold-brown toasted little bird on his fork. "The pleasantest meat tastes bitter when seasoned with tears and moans. Could you have the heart to let a woman cry? Reprieve this one, I beg of you! Is she then so blamable for having thrown a kiss to my young pupil, who was her neighbour and companion in the days of their common mediocrity, at a time when this pretty girl's charms were only famous under the vine arbour of the Little Bacchus? It was but an innocent action, as much so as a human, and particularly a woman's, action can ever be innocent, and altogether free of the original stain. Allow me also to say, sir, that jealousy is a Gothic sentiment, a sad reminder of barbaric customs, which has no business to survive in a delicate, well-born soul."

"Monsieur l'Abbe," inquired M. d'Anquetil, "on what grounds do you presume me to be jealous? I am not! But I cannot stand a woman mocking me."

"We are playthings of the winds," said my tutor, and sighed. "Everything laughs at us, the sky, the stars, rain and shadow, zephyr and light and woman. Let Catherine sup with us. She is pretty and will enliven our table. Whatever she may have done, that kiss and the rest, do not render her the less pleasant to look at. The infidelities of women do not spoil their beauty. Nature, pleased to adorn them, is indifferent to their faults; follow her, and forgive Catherine."

I seconded my tutor's entreaties, and M. d'Anquetil consented to free the prisoner. He went to the door of the room from whence the cries came, unlocked it, and called Catherine, whose only reply was to redouble her wailing.

"Gentlemen," her lover said to us, "there she is lying flat on her belly, her head plunged in the pillows, and at every sob raising her rump ridiculously. Look at that. It is for such we take so much trouble and commit so many absurdities! Catherine, come to supper."

But Catherine did not move, and continued to cry. He pulled her by the arm, by the waist. She resisted. He became more pressing, and said caressingly:

"Come, darling, get up."

But she was stubborn, would not change place, and stuck there, holding to pillows and mattress.

At last her lover lost patience, swore, and shouted rudely:

"Get up, slut!"

At once she got up, and, smiling amid her tears, took his arm and came with him to the dining-room, looking the very picture of a happy victim.

She sat down between M. d'Anquetil and me, her head inclined on the shoulder of her lover the while her foot felt for mine under the table.

"Gentlemen," said our host, "forgive my vivacity, an impulse I cannot regret, because it gives me the honour to entertain you at this place. To say the truth, I cannot endure all the whims of this pretty girl, and I have been very suspicious since I surprised her with her Capuchin."

"My dear friend," Catherine said, pressing at the sama time her foot on mine, "your jealousy goes astray. You should know that my only liking is for M. Jacques."

"She jests," said M. d'Anquetil.

"Do not doubt of it," said I. "It is quite evident that she loves you, and you alone."

"Without flattering myself," he replied, "I have somehow attracted her attachment. But she is coquettish and fickle."

"Give me something to drink," said the abbe.

M. d'Anquetil passed him the demijohn and exclaimed:

"By gad! abbe, you who belong to the Church, you'll tell us why women love Capuchins."

M. Coignard wiped his lips and said:

"The reason is that Capuchins love humbly, and never refuse anything. Another reason is that neither reflection nor courtesy weakens their natural instincts. Sir, yours is a generous wine."

"You do me too much honour," replied M. d'Anquetil. "It is M. de la Gueritude's. I have taken his mistress. I may as well take his bottles."

"Nothing is more equitable," said my tutor. "I see, with pleasure, that you rise above prejudices."

"Do not praise me, abbe, more than I deserve. My birth renders easy to me what may be difficult for the vulgar. A commoner is compelled to have some restraint in all his doings. He is tied down to rigid probity; but a gentleman enjoys the honour of fighting for his king and his pleasure, and does not need to encumber himself with foolish trifles. I have seen active service under M. de Villars, and in the War of Succession, and have also run the risk of being killed without any reason in the battle of Parma. The least you can do is to leave me free to lick my servants, to balk my creditors, and take, if it please me, the wives of my friends—likewise their mistresses."

"You speak nobly," said my good master, "and you are careful to maintain the prerogatives of the nobility."

"I have not," replied M. d'Anquetil, "those scruples which intimidate the crowd of ordinary men, and which I consider good only to stop the timorous and restrain the wretched."

"Well spoken!" said my tutor.

"I do not believe in virtue," replied the other.

"You're right," said my master again. "With his quite peculiar shape, the human animal could not be virtuous without being somewhat deformed. Look, for an example, on this pretty girl supping with us; on her beautiful bosom, her marvellously rounded form, and the rest. In what part of her enchanting body could she lodge a grain of virtue? There is no room for it; everything is so firm, so juicy, solid, and plump! Virtue, like the raven, nests in ruins. Her dwellings are the cavities and wrinkles of the human body. I myself, sir, who, since my childhood, have meditated over the austere principles of religion and philosophy, could not insinuate into myself a minimum of virtue otherwise than by means of constitutional flaws produced by sufferings and age. And ever more I absorbed less virtue than pride. In doing so I got into the habit of addressing to the Divine Creator of this world the following prayer: 'My Lord, preserve me from virtue if it is to lead me from godliness.' Ah! godliness; this it is possible and necessary to attain. That is our decent ending. May we reach it some day! In the meantime, give me something to drink."

"I'll confess," said M. d'Anquetil, "that I do not believe in a God."

"Now, for once, sir, I must blame you," said the abbe "One must believe in God, and all the truths of our holy religion."

M. d'Anquetil protested.

"You make game of us, abbe, and take us to be worse ninnies than we really are. As I have said, I do not believe either in God or devil, and I never go to Mass—the king's Mass alone excepted. The sermons of the priests are stories for old women, bearable, perhaps, in such times as when my grandmother saw the Abbe de Choisy, dressed as a woman, distribute the holy bread at the Church of Saint Jacques du Haut Pas. In those times there may have been religion; to-day there is none, thank God!"

"By all the Saints and all the devils, don't speak like that, my friend," exclaimed Catherine. "As sure as that pie stands on this table God exists! And if you want a proof of it, let me say, that when, last year, on a certain day, I was in direful distress and penury, I went, on the advice of Friar Ange, to burn a wax candle in the Church of the Capuchins, and on the following I met M. de la Gueritude at the promenade, who gave me this house, with all the furniture it contains, the cellar full of wine, some of which we enjoy to-night, and sufficient money to live honestly."

"Fie! fie!" said M. d'Anquetil, "the idiot makes God Almighty interfere in dirty affairs. This shocks and wounds one's feelings, even if one is an atheist."

"My dear sir," said my good tutor, "it is a great deal better to compromise God in dirty business, as does that simple-minded girl, than, as you do, to chase Him out of the world He has created. If He has not expressly sent that burly contractor to Catherine, His creature, He at least suffered her to meet him. We are ignorant of His ways, and what this simpleton says contains more truth, maybe mixed and alloyed with blasphemy, than all the vain words a reprobate draws out of the emptiness of his heart. Nothing is more despicable than the libertinism of mind that the youth of our days make a show of. Your words make me shiver. Am I to reply to them by proofs out of the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the fathers? Shall I make you hear God speaking to the patriarchs and to the prophets: Si locutus est Abraham et semini ejus in saecula? Shall I spread out before you the traditions of the Church? Invoke against you the authority of both Testaments? Blind you with Christ's miracles, and His words as miraculous as His deeds? No! I will not arm myself with those holy weapons. I fear too much to pollute them in such a fight, which is not at all solemn. In her prudence the Church warns us not to risk turning edification into a scandal. Therefore I will not speak, sir, of that wherewith I have been fed on the steps of sanctuaries. But, without violating the chaste modesty of my soul, and without exposing to profanation the sacred mysteries, I'll show you God overawing human reason, I'll show you it by the philosophy of pagans, and by the tittle-tattle of ungodly persons. Yes, sir, I'll make you avow that you recognise Him, against your own free will. Much as you want to pretend He does not exist you cannot but agree that, if a certain order prevails in this world, such order is divine—flows out of the spring and fountain of all order."

"I agree," replied M. d'Anquetil, reclining in his armchair and fondling his finely shaped calves.

"Therefore, take care," said my good tutor. "When you say that God does not exist what else are you doing but linking thought, directing reason, and manifesting in your innermost soul, the principle of all thought, and all reason, which is God? Is it possible only to attempt to establish that He is not, without illuminating, by the most paltry reasoning, which still is reasoning, some remains of the harmony He has established in the universe?"

"Abbe," replied M. d'Anquetil, "you are a humorous sophist. It is well known in our days that this world is the work of chance, and it is superfluous to speak of a providence, since natural philosophers have discovered, by means of their telescopes, that winged frogs are living on the moon."

"Well, sir," replied my good master, "I am in no way angry that winged frogs are living on the moon; such kind of marsh-birds are very worthy inhabitants of a world which has not been sanctified by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. True, we only know the minor part of the universe, and it is quite possible, as M. d'Asterac says—who is a bit of a fool—that this earth is no more than a spot of mud in the infinity of worlds. Maybe the astronomer Copernicus was not altogether dreaming when he taught that, mathematically, the earth is not the centre of creation. I have also read that an Italian of the name of Galileo, who died miserably, shared Copernicus' opinion, and in our days we see little M. de Fontenelle entertaining the same ideas. But all this is but a vain imagination, fit only to unhinge weak minds. What does it matter if the physical world is larger or smaller, of one shape or another? It is quite sufficient that it can be duly considered only by intelligence and reason for God to be manifest therein.

"If a wise man's meditations could be of some use to you, sir, I will inform you how such proof of God's existence, better than the proof of St. Anselm, and quite independent of that resulting from Revelation, appeared to me suddenly in unclouded limpidity. It was at Seez, five and twenty years ago when I was the bishop's librarian. The gallery windows opened on a courtyard where, every morning, I saw a kitchen wench clean the saucepans. She was young, tall, sturdy. A slight down, shadowlike, over her lips lent irritating and proud gracefulness to her countenance. Her entangled hair, meagre bosom, and long, naked arms were worthy of an Adonis or a Diana. She was of a boyish beauty. I loved her for it, loved her strong, red hands. All in all that girl evoked in me a longing as rude and brutal as herself. You know how imperious such longings are. I made her understand by sign and word. Without the slightest hesitation she quickly let me know that my longings were not stronger than hers, and appointed the very next night for a meeting, to take place in the loft, where she slept on the hay, by gracious permission of the bishop, whose saucepans she cleaned. Impatiently I waited for the night. When at last her shadow covered the earth I climbed, by means of a ladder, to the loft, where the girl expected me. My first thought was to embrace her, my second to admire the links which brought me into her arms. For, sir, a young ecclesiastic—a kitchen wench—a ladder—a bundle of hay. What a train! What regulation! What a concourse of pre-established harmonies! What a concatenation of cause and effect! What a proof of God's existence! I was strangely struck by it, and mightily glad I am to be able to add this profane demonstration to the reasons furnished by theology, which are, however, amply sufficient."

"Abbe," said Catherine, "the only weak point in your story is that the girl had a meagre bosom. A woman without breasts is like a bed without pillows. But don't you know, d'Anquetil, what we might do?"

"Yes," said he, "play a game of ombre, which is played by three."

"If you will," she said. "But, dear, have the pipes brought in. Nothing is pleasanter than to smoke a pipe of tobacco when drinking wine."

A lackey brought the cards and pipes, which we lit. Soon the room was full of dense smoke, wherein our host and the Abbe Coignard played gravely at piquet.

Luck followed my dear tutor up to the moment when M. d'Anquetil, fancying he saw him for the third time score fifty-five when he had only made forty points, called him a Greek, a villainous trickster, a Knight of Transylvania, and threw a bottle at his head, which broke on the table, flooding it with wine.

"Well, sir," said the abbe, "you'll have to take the trouble to open another bottle: we are thirsty."

"With pleasure," replied M. d'Anquetil. "But, abbe, know that a gentleman does not mark points he has not made, and does not cheat at cards except at the king's card-table, round which all sorts of people are assembled, to whom one owes nothing. On any other table it is a vile action. Abbe, say, do you want to be looked on as an adventurer?"

"It is remarkable," said my good tutor, "that you blame at cards or dice a practice so much commended in the art of war, politics and trade; in each of these people glorify themselves by correcting the injuries of fortune. It is not that I do not pique myself on honesty when playing at cards. Thank God, I always play straight, and you must have been dreaming, sir, when you fancied I had marked points I did not make. Had it been otherwise, I would appeal to the example given by the blessed Bishop of Geneva, who did not scruple to cheat at cards. But I cannot defend myself against the reflection that at play men are much more sensitive than in serious business, and that they employ the whole of their probity at the backgammon board, where it incommodes them but indifferently, whereas they put it entirely in the background in a battle or a treaty of peace, where it would be troublesome. Polyaenus, sir, has written, in the Greek language a book on Stratagems, wherein is shown to what excess deceit is pushed by the great leaders."

"Abbe," said M. d'Anquetil, "I have not read your Polyaenus, and do not think I ever shall read him. But like every true gentleman, I have been to the wars. I have served the king for eighteen months. It is the noblest of all professions. I'll tell you exactly what war is. I may tell the secret of it, as nobody is present to listen but yourself, some bottles, yonder gentleman whom I intend to kill very shortly, and that girl, who begins to undress herself."

"Yes," said Catherine, "I undress, and will keep only my chemise on, because I feel too hot."

"Well then," M. d'Anquetil continued, "whatever may be printed of it in the gazettes, war consists, above all things, of stealing the pigs and chickens of peasants. Soldiers in the fields have no other occupation."

"You are right," said M. Coignard, "and in days of yore it was the saying in Gaul that the soldier's best friend was Madame Marauding. But I beg of you not to kill my pupil, Jacques Tournebroche."

"Ouf!" exclaimed Catherine, arranging the lace of her chemise on her bosom. "Now I feel easier."

"Abbe," replied M. d'Anquetil, "honour compels me to do it."

But my kind-hearted tutor went on:

"Sir, Jacques Tournebroche is very useful to me for the translation, I have undertaken, of Zosimus the Panopolitan. I would give you many thanks not to fight him before the finishing touch has been given to that grand work."

"To the deuce with your Zosimus," said M. d'Anquetil. "To the deuce with him! Do you hear, abbe! I'll send him to the deuce, as a king would do with his first mistress."

And he sang:

"Pour dresser un jeune courrier Et l'affermir sur l'etrier Il lui fallait une routiere Laire lan laire."

"What's that Zosimus?"

"Zosimus, sir, Zosimus of Panopolis, was a learned Greek, who flourished at Alexandria in the third century of the Christian era, and wrote treatises on the spagyric art."

"Do you fancy it matters to me? Why do you translate it?

"Battons le fer quand il est chaud Dit-elle, en faisant sonner haut Le nom de sultan premiere Laire lan laire."

"Sir," said my dear tutor, "I quite agree with you; there is no practical utility in it, and by it the course of the world will not be changed in the slightest. But making clearer by annotations and comments this treatise, which that Greek compiled for his sister Theosebia—"

Catherine interrupted him by singing in a high-pitched voice:

"Je veux en depit des jaloux Qu'on fasse duc mon epoux Lasse de le voir secretairev Laire lan laire."

And my tutor continued:

"—I contribute to the treasure of knowledge gathered by erudite men, and bring forward one stone of my own for a monument to true history, which is a better one than the chronicles of war and treaties; for, sir, the nobility of man—"

Catherine continued to sing:

"Je sais bien qu'on murmurera Que Paris nous chansonnera Mais tant pis pour le sot vulgaire Laire lan laire."

And my dear tutor went on:

"—is thought. And concerning that, it is not indifferent to know what idea the Egyptians had formed of the nature of metals and the qualities of the primitive substance."

The Abbe Jerome Coignard, having come to the end of his discourse, emptied a big glass of wine, while Catherine sang:

"Par l'epee ou par le fourreau Devenir due est toujours beau Il n'importe le maniere Laire lan laire."

"Abbe," said M. d'Anquetil, "you do not drink, and in spite of such abstinence you lose your reason. In Italy, during the War of Succession, I was under the orders of a brigadier who translated Polybius. But he was an idiot. Why translate Zosimus?"

"If you want my true reason," replied the abbe, "because I find some sensuality in it."

"That's something like!" protested M. d'Anquetil. "But in what can M. Tournebroche, who at this moment is caressing my mistress, assist you?"

"With the knowledge of Greek I have given him."

M. d'Anquetil turned round to me and said:

"What, sir, you know Greek! You are not then a gentleman?"

"No, sir," I replied, "I am not. My father is the banner-bearer of the Guild of Parisian Cooks."

"Well, under such conditions it is impossible for me to kill you. Kindly accept my excuses. But, abbe, you don't drink. You imposed upon me. I believed you to be a real good tippler, and wished you to become my chaplain as soon as I could set up my own establishment."

However, M. Coignard did drink all that the bottle contained, and Catherine, inclining to me, whispered in my ear:

"Jacques, I feel that I shall never love anyone but you."

These words, spoken by a really fine woman clad in no other wrapper than a chemise, troubled me to the extreme. Catherine ended by fuddling me entirely, by making me drink out of her own glass, an action passing unobserved in the confusion of a supper which had overheated the heads of us all.

M. d'Anquetil knocked off the neck of a bottle on the corner of the table and filled our bumpers; from this moment on, I cannot give a reliable account of what was said and done around me. One incident I remember: Catherine treacherously emptying her glass into her lover's neck, between the nape and the collar of his coat; and M. d'Anquetil retorting by pouring the contents of two or three bottles over the girl. Wearing nothing beyond her chemise, it changed Catherine into a kind of mythological figure of a humid species like nymphs and naiads. She cried herself into a rage and twisted in convulsions.

At that very moment, in the silence of the night, we heard knocks at the house door. We became suddenly motionless and dumb, like people bewitched.

The knocks soon redoubled in strength and frequency. M. d'Anquetil was the first to break the silence by questioning himself aloud, swearing horribly the while, who the deuce the pesterers could be. My good tutor, to whom the most ordinary circumstances often inspired admirable maxims, rose and said with unction and gravity:

"What does it matter whose hand knocks so violently at closed doors for a vulgar, perhaps ridiculous, reason? Do not let us seek to know, and consider them as knocking on the door of our hardened and corrupted souls. At each knock let us say to ourselves: This one is to give us notice to amend and think on the salvation we neglect in the turmoil of our pleasures, that other one is to remind us of eternity. In that way we shall draw the utmost profit out of an incident which, after all, is as paltry as it is frivolous."

"You're humorous, abbe," said M. d'Anquetil; "to judge by the sturdiness of their knocks, they'll burst the door open."

And as a fact the knocker resounded like thunder.

"They are robbers," exclaimed the soaked girl. "Jesus! We shall be massacred; it is our chastisement for having sent away the little friar. Many times I have told you. M. d'Anquetil, that misfortune comes to houses from which a Capuchin has been driven.'

"Hear the stupid!" replied M. d'Anquetil. "That damned monk makes her believe any imbecility he chooses to dish her up. Thieves would be more polite, or at least more discreet. I rather think it is the watch."

"The watch! Worse and worse," said Catherine.

"Bah!" M. d'Anquetil exclaimed, "we'll lick them."

My dear tutor took the precaution to put one bottle in one of his pockets, and as an equipoise another bottle in the other pocket. The house shook all over from the furious knocks. M. d'Anquetil, whose military qualities were aroused by the knocker's onslaught, after reconnoitring, exclaimed:

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Do you know who knocks? It is M. de la Gueritude with his full-bottomed periwig and two big flunkeys carrying lighted torches."

"That's not possible," said Catherine, "at this very moment he is in bed with his old woman."

"Then it is his ghost," said M. d'Anquetil. "And the ghost also wears his periwig, which is so ridiculous that any self-respecting spectre would refuse to copy it."

"Do you speak the truth, and not jeer at me?" asked Catherine." Is it really M. de la Gueritude?"

"It's himself, Catherine, if I may believe my own eyes/'

"Then I am lost!" exclaimed the poor girl. "Women are indeed unhappy! They are never left in peace. What will become of me? Would you not hide, gentlemen, in some of the cupboards?"

"That could be done," said M. Jerome Coignard, "as far as we are concerned, but how are we to hide all those empty bottles, mostly smashed, or at least broken necked; the remains of that demijohn M. d'Anquetil threw at me; that tablecloth; those plates, candelabra and mademoiselle's chemise, which in its soaked state is nothing but a transparent veil encircling her beauty?"

"It is true," said Catherine, "yonder idiot has drenched my chemise, and I am catching cold. But listen. Perhaps M. d'Anquetil could hide in the top room, and I would make the abbe my uncle and Jacques my brother."

"No good at all," said M. d'Anquetil. "I'll go myself and kindly ask M. de la Gueritude to have supper with us."

We urged him, all of us—my tutor, Catherine and I—to keep quiet; we entreated him, hung on his neck. It was useless. He got hold of a candelabra and descended the stairs. Trembling we followed him. He unlocked the door. M. de la Gueritude was there, exactly as M. d'Anquetil had described him, with his periwig, between two flunkeys bearing torches. M. d'Anquetil saluted with the utmost correctness and said:

"Accord us the favour to come in, sir. You'll find some persons as amiable as singular. Tournebroche, to whom Mam'selle Catherine throws kisses from the window, and a priest who believes in God."

Wherewith he bowed respectfully.

M. de la Gueritude was of the dry sort, very tall, and little inclined to the enjoyment of a joke. That of M. d'Anquetil provoked him strongly, and his anger rose when he saw my good tutor, one bottle in hand and two peeping out of his pockets, and by the look of Catherine with her wet chemise sticking to her body.

"Young man," he said in an icy fit of passion to M. d'Anquetil, "I have the honour to know your father, of whom I will inquire, not later than to-morrow, the name of the town to which the king shall send you to meditate over the shame of your behaviour and impertinence. That worthy nobleman, to whom I have lent some money I do not reclaim, can refuse me nothing. And our well-beloved Prince, who is in precisely the same position as your father, has always a kindness for me. Consider it a matter done. I have settled, thank God, others more difficult. Now as to that lady yonder, of whom neither repentance nor improvement can be expected. I'll say to- morrow before noon, two words to the Lieutenant of Police, whom I know to be well disposed, to send her to the spittel. I have nothing else to say to you. This house is my property, I have paid for it and I intend to enter when I like." Then, turning to his flunkeys, and pointing out my tutor and myself with his walking stick, he said:

"Throw these two drunkards out."

M. Jerome Coignard was commonly of an exemplary forbearance, and he used to say that he owed his gentleness to the vicissitudes of life; chance having treated him as the sea treats the pebbles—that is, polishing them by means of the rolling of flood and ebb. He could easily stand insults, as much by Christian spirit as by philosophy. But what helped him best thereto was his deep-rooted contempt of mankind, not excepting himself. However, for once he lost all measure and forgot all prudence.

"Hold your tongue, vile publican," he shouted and brandished a bottle like a crowbar. "If yonder rascals dare to approach me I'll smash their heads, to teach them respect for my cloth, which proves in an ample way my sacred calling."

In the faint glimmer of the torches, shiny from sweat, his eyes starting out of their sockets, his coat unbuttoned, and his big belly half out of his breeches, he looked a fellow not easy to be got rid of. The lackeys hesitated.

"Out with him, out with him," shouted M. de la Gueritude; "out with this bag of wine! Can't you see that all you have to do is to push him in the gutter, where he'll remain till the scavengers throw him into the dustcart? I would throw him out myself were I not afraid to pollute my clothes."

My good tutor flew into a passion, and shouted in a voice worthy to sound in a church:

"You odious money-monger, infamous partisan, barbarous evildoer, you pretend this house to be yours? So that everyone may know it belongs to you, inscribe on the door the gospel word Aceldema, which in our language means Bloodmoney. And then we'll let the master enter his dwelling. Thief, robber, murderer, write with the piece of charcoal I throw in your face, write with your own filthy hand, on the floor, your title deed. Bloodmoney of the widow and orphans, bloodmoney of the just. Aceldema. If not, out with you, man of quantities! We'll remain."

M. de la Gueritude had never in his life heard anything of this sort, and thought he had to deal with a madman, as one might easily suppose, and, more for defence than attack, he raised his big stick. My good tutor, out of his senses, threw a bottle at the head of the contractor, who fell headlong on the floor, howling, "He has killed me!" And as he was swimming in red wine he really looked as though murdered. Both the flunkeys wanted to throw themselves on the murderer, and one of them, a burly fellow, tried to grasp him, when M. Coignard gave the fellow such a butt that he rolled in the stream beside the financier.

Unluckily he rose quickly, and, arming himself with a still burning torch, jumped into the passage, where bad luck awaited him. My good master was no longer there; he had taken to his heels. But M. d'Anquetil was still there with Catherine, and he it was who received the burning torch on his forehead, an outrage he could not stand. He drew his sword, and drove it to the hilt in the unlucky knave's stomach, teaching him, at his own expense, how fatal it may be to attack a gentleman. Now M. Coignard had not got twenty yards away from the house when the other lackey, a tall fellow, with the limbs of a daddy-longlegs, ran after him, shouting for the guard.

"Stop him! Stop him!" The footman ran faster than the abbe, and we could see him, at the corner of the Rue Saint Guillaume, extending his arms to catch M. Coignard by the collar of his gown. But my dear tutor, who had more than one trick, veering abruptly, got behind the fellow, tripped him up, and sent him on to a stone post, where he got his head broken. It was done before M. d'Anquetil and I, running to the abbe's assistance, could reach him. We could not leave M. Coignard in this pressing danger.

"Abbe," said M. d'Anquetil, "give me your hand. You're a gallant man."

"I really cannot help thinking," my good master replied, "that I have been somewhat murderously inclined; but I am not cruel enough to be proud of it. I am quite satisfied so long as I am not reproached too vehemently. Such violence does not lie in my habits, and as you can see, sir, I am better fitted to lecture from the chair of a college on belles-lettres than I am to fight with lackeys at the corner of a street."

"Oh!" replied M. d'Anquetil, "that's not the worst of the whole business. I fully believe you have knocked the Farmer-general on the head."

"Is it true?" questioned the abbe.

"As true as that I have perforated with my sword yonder scoundrel's tripes."

"Under such circumstances we ought to ask pardon of God, to whom alone we are responsible for the blood shed by us, and secondly to hasten to the nearest fountain, there to wash ourselves, because I perceive that my nose is bleeding."

"Right you are, abbe," said M. d'Anquetil; "for the blackguard now dying in the gutter has cut my forehead. What an impertinence!"

"Forgive him," said the abbe, "as you wish to be forgiven yourself."

At the place where the Rue de Bac loses itself in the fields, we fortunately found along the wall of a hospital a little bronze Triton, shooting a spirt of water into a stone tub. We stopped to wash and drink, for our throats were dry.

"What have we done," said my master, "and how could I have lost my temper, usually so peaceable? True men must not be judged by their deeds, which depend on circumstances, but rather, on the example of God our Father, by their secret thoughts and their deepest intentions."

"And Catherine," I asked, "what has become of her through this horrible adventure?"

"I left her," was M. d'Anquetil's answer, "breathing into the mouth of her financier, to revive him. But she had better save her breath. I know La Gueritude. He is pitiless. He'll send her to the spittel, perhaps to America. I am sorry for her. She was a fine girl. I did not love her, but she was mad after me. And, an extraordinary state of things, I am now without a mistress."

"Don't bother," said my good tutor. "You'll soon find another, not different, or hardly differing in essentials, from her. What you look for in a woman, as it appears to me, is common to all females."

"It is clear," said M. d'Anquetil, "that we are in danger: I of being sent to the Bastille, you, abbe, together with your pupil, Tournebroche, who certainly has not killed anybody, of being hanged."

"That's but too true," said my good master. "We have to look out for safety. Perhaps it will be necessary to leave Paris, where, no doubt, we shall be wanted; and even to fly to Holland. Alas! I foresee that there I shall write lampoons for ballet girls with that same hand which has been employed to annotate right amply the alchemistic treatises of Zosimus the Panopolitan."

"Listen to me, abbe," said M. d'Anquetil, "I have a friend who will hide us at his country seat for any length of time. He lives within four miles of Lyons, in a country horrid and wild, where nothing is to be seen but poplars, grass and woods. There we must go. There we'll wait till the storm is over. We'll pass the time hunting and shooting. But we must at once find a post-chaise or, better still, a travelling coach."

"I know where to get that," said the abbe. "At the Red Horse hotel, at the Circus of the Bergeres, you can have good horses, as well as all sorts of vehicles. I made the acquaintance of the landlord at the time I was secretary to Madame de Saint Ernest. He liked to oblige people of quality. I am not quite sure if he is still alive, but he ought to have a son like himself. Have you money?"

"I have with me a rather large sum," replied M. d'Anquetil, "and I am glad of it, as I cannot dream of going home, where the constables will not fail to be on the lookout to arrest and conduct me to the Chatelet. I forgot my servants, whom I left in Catherine's house, and I do not know what has become of them. I thrashed them, and never paid their wages, and withal I am not sure of their fidelity. In whom can you have confidence? Let's be off at once for the Circus of the Bergeres."

"Sir," said the abbe, "I'll make you a proposal, hoping it may be agreeable to you. We are living, Tournebroche and I, in an alchemistic and ramshackle castle at the Cross of the Sablons, where we can easily stay for a dozen hours without being seen by anyone. There we will take you and wait quietly till our carriage is ready. The advantage is that the Sablons is very near the Circus of the Bergeres."

M. d'Anquetil had nothing against the abbe's proposal, and so we resolved in front of the Triton, who blew the water out of his fat cheeks, to go first to the Cross of the Sablons, and to hire, later on, at the Red Horse hotel, a travelling coach for our journey to Lyons.

"I want to inform you, gentlemen," said my dear tutor, "that of the three bottles I took care to carry with me, one was broken on the head of M. de la Gueritude, another one was smashed in my pocket during my flight. They are both regretted. The third, against all hope, has been preserved. Here it is!"

Pulling it out of his pocket, he placed it on the edge of the fountain.

"That's well," sail M, d'Anquetil. "You have some wine, I have dice and cards in my pocket. We can play."

"It is true," said my good master, "that is a pleasant pastime. A pack of cards is a book of adventure, of the kind called romances. It is so far superior to other books of a similar kind that it can be made and read at the same time, and that it is not necessary to have brains to make it, nor knowledge of reading to read it. It is a marvellous work, also, in that it offers a regular and new sense every time its pages are shuffled. It is a contrivance never to be too much admired, because out of mathematical principles it extracts thousands on thousands of curious combinations, and so many singular affinities that it is believed, contrary to all truth, that in it are discoverable the secrets of hearts, the mystery of destinies and the arcanum of the future. What I have said is particularly applicable to the tarot of the Bohemians, which is the finest of all games, piquet not excepted. The invention of cards must be ascribed to the ancients, and as far as I am concerned—I have, to speak candidly, no kind of documentary evidence for my assertion—I believe them to be of Chaldean origin. But in their present appearance the piquet cards cannot be traced further back than to King Charles VII., if what is said in a learned essay, that I remember to have read at Seez, is true, that the queen of hearts is an emblematical likeness of the beautiful Agnes Sorel, and that the queen of spades is, under the name of Pallas, no other than that Jeanne Dulys, better known as Joan of Arc, who by her bravery re- established the business of the French monarchy and was afterwards boiled to death by the English, in a cauldron, shown for two farthings at Rouen, where I have seen it in passing through that city. Certain historians pretend that she was burnt alive at the stake. It is to be read in the works of Nicole Gilles and in Pasquier that St Catherine and St Margaret appeared to her. Certainly it was not God who sent these saints to her, because there is no person of any learning and solid piety who does not know that Margaret and Catherine were invented by Byzantine monks, whose abundant and barbarous imaginations have altogether muddled up the martyrology. It is a ridiculous impiety to pretend that God made two saints who never existed appear to Jeanne Dulys. However, the ancient chroniclers were not afraid to publish it. Why have they not said that God sent to the Maid of Orleans the fair Yseult, Melusine, Berthe the Bigfooted, and all the other heroines of the romances of chivalry the existence of whom is not more fabulous that that of the two virgins, Catherine and Margaret? M. de Valois, in the last century, rose with full reason against these clumsy fables, as much opposed to religion as error is to truth. It is desirable that an ecclesiastic learned in history undertook to show the distinction between real saints and saints such as Margaret, Luce or Lucie, Eustache, and perhaps Saint George, about whom I have my doubts.

"If on a future day I should be able to retire to some beautiful abbey, possessing a rich library, I will devote to this task the remainder of a life, half worn out in frightful tempests and frequent shipwrecks. I am longing for a harbour of refuge, and I have the desire and the taste for a chaste repose suitable to my age and profession."

While M. Coignard was holding this memorable discourse, M. d'Anquetil, without listening to the abbe's words, was seated on the edge of the fountain, shuffling the cards and swearing like a trooper, because it was too dark to play a game of piquet.

"You are right," said my good master; "it is a bad light, and I am somewhat displeased over it, less because I cannot play cards than because I have a desire to read a few pages of the 'Consolations' of Boethius, of which I always carry a small edition, so as to have it handy when something unfortunate overcomes me, as has been the case this day. It is a cruel disgrace, sir, for a man of my calling to be a homicide, and liable at any moment to be locked up in one of the ecclesiastical prisons. I feel that a single page of that admirable book would strengthen my heart, crushed by the very idea of the officer."

Having spoken, he let himself gently slide over the edge of the basin, so deep that the best part of his body went into the water. But not taking the slightest notice, and hardly feeling it, he took the Boethius out of his pocket—it was really there—and putting his spectacles on, wherein one glass only remained, and that one cracked in three places, he looked in the little book for the page most appropriate for his present situation. He doubtless would have found it, and extracted from it new strength, if the rotten state of his barnacles, the tears that came into his eyes, and the feeble light which came from the sky, had permitted him to search for it. Very soon he had to confess that he was unable to see a wink, and became angry with the moon, who showed her pointed sickle on the edge of a cloud. He reproached her and heaped bitter invectives on her. He shouted:

"Luminary obscene, mischievous and libidinous, you never tire of illuminating men's wickedness, and you deny a ray of your light to him who searches for virtuous maxims!"

"The more so, abbe, as this bitch of a moon gives just light enough to find our way along the streets, and not sufficient to play a game of piquet. Let's go at once to the castle you spoke of, where I have to slip in without being seen."

That was good advice, and after we had drunk the wine to the last drop we took the road, all three of us, to the Cross of the Sablons. I walked with M. d'Anquetil. My good tutor, hindered by the water his breeches had soaked in, followed us, crying, moaning and disgusted.



CHAPTER XVIII

Our Return—We smuggle M. d'Anquetil in—M. d'Asterac on Jealousy— M. Jerome Coignard in Trouble—What happened while I was in the Laboratory—Jahel persuaded to elope.

The morning light already pricked our jaded eyes when we reached the green door to the park. We had not to use the knocker, as some time ago the porter had given us the keys of his domain. It was agreed that my good tutor, with d'Anquetil, should cautiously advance in the shadow of the lane, and that I should remain behind on the lookout for the faithful Criton, and the kitchen boys who might perhaps see us coming along. This arrangement, which was nothing but reasonable, was to turn out rather badly for me. My two companions had gone up without being discovered, and reached my room, where we had decided to hide M. d'Anquetil until the moment of escape in the post-chaise, but as I was climbing the second flight of steps I met M. d'Asterac, in a red damask gown, carrying a silver candlestick. He put, as he habitually did, his hand on my shoulder.

"Hello! my son," he said, "are you not very happy, having broken off all intercourse with women, and by that escaped all dangers of bad company? With the august maidens of the air you need not be in fear of quarrels, scuffles, injurious and violent rows which usually occur with creatures following a loose life. In your solitude, which delights the fairies, you enjoy a delicious peace."

I thought at first that he mocked me. But I soon found out that nothing was further from his thoughts.

"I am pleased to have met you, my son," he continued, "and will thank you to come with me to my studio for a moment."

I followed him. He unlocked, with a key nearly an ell long, that confounded room where I had seen the glare of infernal fires. When we were inside the laboratory he asked me to kindly make up the smouldering fire. I threw some short logs into the furnace, where I don't know what was steaming, exhaling a suffocating odour. While he was occupied with his black cookery, cupellating and matrassing, I remained seated on a settle, and, against my will, closed my eyes. He made me reopen them to admire a green earthenware vessel, with a glass top, which he had in his hand.

"You ought to know, my son," he said, "that this subliming pot is called aludel. It contains a liquid to be looked at with the greatest attention, as it is nothing less than the mercury of the philosophers. Do not suppose that it is to keep its present dark colour for ever. Soon it will change to white and in that state will change all metals into silver. Hereafter, by my art and industry, it will turn red, and acquire the virtue of transmuting silver into gold. It certainly would be of advantage to you that, shut in this laboratory, you should not leave it before these sublime operations have fully taken place, a process which cannot require more than two or three months. But as to ask you to do so would perhaps be imposing too hard a restriction on your youth, be satisfied, for this time, to observe the preludes of the work, while putting, if you please, as much wood on the fire as possible."

Having said that he returned to his phials and retorts, and I could not help thinking of the sad position wherein ill-luck and imprudence had placed me.

"Alas!" I said to myself, and threw logs into the fire, "at this very moment the constables are searching for my good tutor and myself; perhaps we shall have to go to prison, certainly we have to leave this castle. I have in default of money, at least board and an honourable position. I shall never again dare to stand before M. d'Asterac, who believes me to have passed the night in the silent voluptuousness of magic, which perhaps would have been better for me. Alas! I'll never more see Mosaide's niece, Mademoiselle Jahel, who at night-time woke me in my room in such a charming way. No doubt she will forget me. Perhaps she'll love someone else, and bestow on him the same caresses as she gave to me." The idea of such an infidelity became unbearable. But as the world goes, one has to be ready for anything.

"My son," M. d'Asterac began to say again, "you do not sufficiently feed the athanor. I see that you are still not fully convinced of the excellency of fire, which is capable of ripening this mercury and transforming it into the wonderful fruit I expect to gather very soon. More wood! The fire, my son, is the superior element; I have told you enough, and now I'll show you an example. On a very cold day last winter, visiting Mosaide in his lodge, I found him sitting, his feet on a warming pan. I observed that the subtle particles of fire escaping from the pan had power enough to inflate and lift up the folds of his gown, wherefrom I inferred, that had the fire been hotter, it would have raised Mosaide himself into the air, of which he is certainly worthy, and that, if it should be possible to close into some kind of a vessel a very large quantity of such fire particles, it would be possible to sail on the clouds as easily as we sail on the sea, and to visit the Salamanders in their aerial abodes, a problem I shall keep in mind. I do not despair of constructing such a fireship. But let us go back to our work of putting wood on the fire."

He kept me for some time in the glow of the laboratory whence I wanted to escape as quickly as possible, to join Jahel, whom I was anxious to inform of my misfortune. At last he left me, and I thought myself free, a hope shortly to be disappointed by his return.

"It is rather mild this morning," he said, "but the sky is somewhat cloudy. Would it please you to go for a walk in the park with me before returning to the translation of Zosimus the Panopolitan, which will be a great honour to you and your tutor if you finish it as you have begun?"

With much regret I followed him into the park, where he said to me:

"I am not sorry, my son, to be alone with you, to warn you, as it is high time to do, against a great danger by which you may be threatened one day; I reproach myself not to have thought of warning you before, as what I shall communicate to you is of the utmost consequence."

And speaking in this way, he led me through the grand avenue which leads down to the marshes of the Seine, whence Rueil is to be seen and Mont Valerien with its calvary. It was his usual walk. The alley was practicable in spite of some dead trees which had fallen across it.

"It is important for you to know to what you expose yourself by betraying your Salamander. I do not want to interrogate you as to what intercourse you have had with that superhuman person I have been fortunate enough to make you acquainted with. I dare say you feel somewhat reluctant to discuss it. Possibly you deserve praise for that. If the Salamanders have not, m what concerns the discretion of their lovers, the same ideas that court ladies and tradeswomen have, it is not less true that it is the special quality of beautiful amours to be unutterable, and that it would profane a grand sentiment to spread it abroad.

"But your Salamander (of which I could easily find the name if I had any idle curiosity) has perhaps omitted to give you information about one of the most violent passions—jealousy; this character is common to them. Know well, my son, Salamanders are not to be betrayed without punishment awaiting you. Their vengeance on the perjurer is of the cruelest. The divine Paracelsus gives one example, which will suffice to inspire in you a salutary fear.

"There was in the German town of Staufen a spagyric philosopher who had, like yourself, connection with a Salamander. He was depraved enough to deceive her with a woman, certainly pretty, but not more beautiful than a woman can be. One evening, having supper with his new mistress in company with some friends, they saw a thigh of marvellous beauty shining over their heads. The Salamander exposed it to impress on them all, that she did not deserve the wrong inflicted by her lover; after that the outraged celestial struck down the unfaithful lover with apoplexy. The vulgar, who are made to be deceived, believed his to be a natural death; the initiated knew by whose hand he was slain. I owed you this advice, my son, and this example."

They were less useful to me than M. d'Asterac thought. Listening to them I mused on other subjects of alarm. Without doubt my face must have betrayed the state of anxiety I was in; because the great cabalist, having looked at me, asked me if I was not afraid that an engagement, guarded by conditions so severe, would be troublesome to my youth.

"I am able to reassure you," he added. "The jealousy of a Salamander is awakened only by rivalry with women, and to speak truly it is more resentment, indignation, disgust, than real jealousy. The souls of the Salamanders are too noble, their intelligence too subtle, to envy one another, and to give way to a sentiment pertaining to the barbarity wherein humanity is still half plunged. On the contrary they delight to share with their playmates the joys they taste beside a sage, and are pleased to bring to their lovers the most beautiful of their sisters. Very soon you'll experience that, as a fact, they push politeness to the point I mentioned, and not a year, nay not six months, will pass before your room will be the trysting place of five or six daughters of the light, who will untie before you their sparkling girdles. Do not be afraid, my son, to answer their caresses. Your own fairy love will not take umbrage. How could she be offended, wise as she is? And on your side, do not get irritated if your Salamander leaves you for a moment to visit another philosopher. Consider that the proud jealousy men bring into the union of the sexes is but a savage sentiment, founded on the most ridiculous of illusions. It rests on the idea that a woman belongs to you because she has given herself to you, which is nothing but a play on words."

While making this speech, M. d'Asterac had turned into the lane of the mandrakes, where we could see Mosaide's cottage, half hidden by foliage, when suddenly an appalling voice burst upon us and made my heart beat faster—hoarse sounds, accompanied by a sharp gnashing, and on getting nearer the sounds seemed to be modulated, and each phrase ended in a sort of very feeble melody, which could not be listened to without shuddering.

Advancing a few paces we could, by listening closely, understand the sense of the strange words. The voice said:

"Hear the malediction with which Elisha cursed the insolent and mirthful children. Listen to the anathema Barak flung on Meros.

"I curse thee in the name of Archithuriel, who is also called the lord of battles, and holds the flaming sword. I doom thee to perdition in the name of Sardaliphonos, who presents to his master the flowers and garlands of merit offered by the children of Israel.

"Be cursed, hound! Anathema, swine!"

Looking from whence the voice came, we could see Mosaide on the threshold of his house, standing erect, his arms raised, his hands in the form of fangs, with nails crooked, appearing inflamed by the fiery light of the sun. His head was covered with his dirty tiara, and he was enveloped in his gorgeous gown, showing when flying open his meagre bow-legs in ragged breeches. He looked like some begging magician, immortal, and very old. His eyes glared, and he said:

"Be cursed in the name of all globes, be cursed in the name of all wheels, be cursed in the name of the mysterious beasts Ezekiel saw."

Out he stretched his long arms, ending in claws, and continued:

"In the name of the globes, in the name of the wheels, in the name of the mysterious beasts, descend among those who are no more."

We advanced a few paces between the half-grown trees to see the object over which Mosaide extended his arms and his anger, and discovered, to our great surprise, M. Jerome Coignard, hanging by a lapel of his gown on an evergreen thorn bush. The night's disorder was visible all over his body; his collar and his shoes torn, his stockings smeared with mud, his shirt open, all reminded me of our common misadventures, and, worse than all, the swelling of his nose spoilt entirely the noble and smiling expression which never left his features.

I ran up to him and unhooked him so luckily off the thorns that only a small piece of his breeches stuck to them. Mosaide, having had his say, re-entered the cottage. As he wore only slippers I could observe that his legs fitted right into the middle of his feet, so that the heel stuck out behind pretty nearly as much as the forefoot in front, a singular deformation, rendering his walking uncouth, which otherwise would have been noble and full of dignity.

"Jacques Tournebroche! my dear boy," said my tutor, with a sigh, "that Jew must be Isaac Laquedem in person, so to blaspheme in all languages. He vowed me to a death near and violent with an enormous abundance of metaphors, and he called me a pig in fourteen distinct languages, if I counted them correctly. I could believe him to be the Antichrist, and he does not want some of the signs by which that enemy of God is to be recognised. Under any circumstances he is a dirty Jew, and never has the wheel as a brand of infamy been exposed on the vestments of a worse or more rabid miscreant. As for himself, he not only deserves the wheel formerly attached to the garments of Jews, but also that other wheel on which scoundrels have their bones broken."

And my good master, mightily angry in his turn, shook his fist in the direction where Mosaide had disappeared, and accused him of crucifying children and devouring the flesh of new-born babes.

M. d'Asterac went up to him and touched his breast with the ruby he used to wear on his finger.

"It is useful," said the great cabalist, "to know the peculiar qualities of precious stones. Rubies soothe resentments, and you'll soon see the Abbe Coignard regain his natural suavity."

My dear tutor smiled already, less by virtue of the stone than by the influence of a philosophy which raised this admirable man above all human passions, for I feel it my duty to say, at the very moment my narrative becomes clouded and sad, that M. Jerome Coignard has given me examples of wisdom under circumstances in which it is but rarely met with.

We inquired the cause of the quarrel, but easily understood by the vagueness of his embarrassed replies that he did not intend to satisfy our curiosity. I surmised at once that Jahel was mixed up with it in some way, when I heard with the gnashing of Mosaide's voice the grating of locks and bolts, and later on the noise, in the lodge, of a violent dispute between uncle and niece. When we tried again to bring my tutor to some explanation, he said:

"Hate for Christians is deeply rooted in every Jew's heart, and yonder Mosaide is an execrable example of it. I fancy I discovered in his horrible yelpings some parts of the imprecations the Amsterdam synagogue vomited in the last century on a little Dutch Jew called Baruch or Benedict, but better known under the name of Spinoza, for having framed a philosophy which has been perfectly refuted, as soon as it was brought to public knowledge, by excellent theologians. But this old Mordecai has added to it, so it seems to me, many and much more horrible imprecations, and I confess to having somewhat resented them. For a moment I thought of escaping by flight this torrent of abuse, when to my dismay I found myself entangled in yonder thorn, and sticking to it by different parts of my clothes and skin so fast that I really expected to have to leave the one or the other behind me. I should still be there, in smarting agony, if Tournebroche, my dear pupil, had not freed me."

"The thorns count for nothing," said M. d'Asterac, "but I'm afraid, Monsieur l'Abbe, that you have trodden on a mandrake."

"Mandrakes," replied the abbe, "are certainly the least of my cares."

"You're wrong," said M. d'Asterac. "It suffices to tread on a mandrake to become involved in a love crime, and perish by it miserably."

"Ah! sir," my dear tutor replied, "here are all sorts of dangers, and I become aware that it was necessary to be closely shut in between the eloquent walls of the 'Asteracian,' which is the queen of libraries. For having left it for a moment only, I get the beasts of Ezekiel thrown at my head, not to speak of anything else."

"Would you kindly give me news of Zosimus the Panopolitan?" inquired M. d'Asterac.

"He goes on," replied my master; "goes on nicely, though slowly at the moment."

"Do not forget, abbe," said the cabalist, "that possession of the greatest secrets is attached to the knowledge of those ancient texts."

"I think of it, sir, with solicitude," said the abbe.

M. d'Asterac, after this assurance, left us standing at the statue of the faun, who continued to play the flute without taking any notice of his head, fallen into the grass. He disappeared rapidly between the trees, looking for Salamanders.

My tutor linked his arm in mine with the air of one who can at last speak freely.

"Jacques Tournebroche, my son, I must not conceal from you that this very morning, in the attics of the castle, a rather peculiar chance meeting has taken place, while you were kept in the room of yonder mad fire-blower. I plainly heard him ask you to assist him for a moment in his cooking, which is a great deal less savoury and Christian than that of Master Leonard your father. Alas! when shall I be lucky enough to see again the cookshop of the Queen Pedauque and the bookshop of M. Blaizot, with the sign of Saint Catherine, where I enjoyed myself so heartily thumbing the books newly arrived from The Hague and Amsterdam!"

"Alas!" I exclaimed, the tears coming into my eyes, "when shall I return to it again? When shall I return to the Rue St Jacques again, where I was born, and see my dear parents, who'll feel burning shame when they hear of our misfortunes? But do be so good, my dear tutor, as to explain that strange encounter you said you had this very morning, and also the events of the day."

M. Jerome Coignard willingly consented to give me all the enlightenment I wished for. He did it in the following words:

"Know then, my dear boy, that I reached the upper storey of the castle without hindrance in company with M. d'Anquetil, whom I like well enough, although rude and uncultured. His mind is possessed neither of fine knowledge nor deep curiosity. But youth's vivacity sparkleth pleasantly with him, and the ardour of his blood results in amusing sallies. He knows the world as well as he knows women, because he is above them, and without any kind of philosophy. It's a great frankness on his part to call himself an atheist. His ungodliness is without malice, and will disappear with the exuberance of his sensuality. In his soul God has no other enemies than horses, cards and women. In the mind of a real libertine, like M. Bayle for example, truth has to meet more formidable and malicious adversaries. But, my dear boy, I give you a character sketch instead of the plain narrative you wish to have of me.

"I'll satisfy you. Let's see. Having arrived at the top storey of the castle in company with M. d'Anquetil, I made the young gentleman enter your room, and wished him, in accordance with the promise we made him at the Triton fountain, to use the room as his own. He did so willingly, undressed, and, keeping nothing on but his boots, went into your bed, the curtains of which he closed so as not to be incommoded by the bright morning light, and was not long before he was sound asleep.

"As to myself, my dear boy, having reached my room, tired as I was, I did not want to go to rest before I had looked up in my Boethius one or two sentences appropriate to my state of mind. I could not find the very one fit for it. It must not be forgotten that this great thinker had not had occasion to meditate on the disgrace of having broken the head of a Farmer-general with a bottle out of his own cellar. But I was able to pick up here and there, in his admirable treatise, some maxims applicable to present conjunctures. Having done so, I drew the night-cap over my eyes, recommended my soul to God, and quietly went to sleep. After what seemed to me, without being able to measure it, a very short space of time—be mindful, my son, that our actions are the only measure for time, which, if I may say so, is suspended for us by sleep—I felt my arm pulled, and heard a voice shouting in my ear: 'Eh! Abbe! Eh! Abbe, wake up!' Half dozing as I was, I believed it was a constable wanting to conduct me to the officer, and I deliberated with myself the easiest way in which I could break his head, and rapidly came to the conclusion that the candlestick would be the handiest weapon. It is unhappily, too true, my dear boy, that having once stepped aside from the road of kindness and equity, where the wise man walks with a firm and prudent step, one becomes compelled to sustain violence by violence and cruelty by cruelty, thereby proving that a first fault leads invariably to other faults—evil always follows evil done. One has to be reminded of this if one wants to fully understand the lives of the Roman emperors, of whom M. Crevier has given such an exact account. Those princes were not born more evilly disposed than other men. Caius, surnamed Caligula, was wanting neither in natural spirit nor in judgment, and was quite capable of friendship. Nero had an inborn liking for virtue, and his temperament disposed him towards all that is grand and sublime. Both of them were led by a first fault on the nefarious, villainous road whereon they walked to their miserable end. Their history is cleverly treated in M. Crevier's book. I knew that remarkable writer when he was a teacher of literature and history at the College of Beauvais, as I might be teaching to-day, had my life not been crossed by a thousand impediments, and if the natural easiness of my spirit had not drawn me into the manifold snares laid in my way. M. Crevier, my boy, led a pure life; his morals were severe, and I have myself heard him say that a woman who had broken her conjugal vows was capable of the crimes of murder and incendiarism. I repeat this saying of his, to impress you with the saintly austerity of that model priest.

"But, once more, I digress, and I must hasten to return to my narrative. Well, as I have said, I thought a constable had come to arrest me, and I could see myself in one of the archbishop's dungeons, when I opened my eyes and recognised the features and voice of M. d'Anquetil. 'Abbe,' said that young gentleman to me, 'I have just had a singular adventure in Tournebroche's room. During my sleep a woman entered my room, glided into my bed, and awoke me with a shower of caresses, tender epithets, sweet murmurings, and passionate kisses. I pushed the curtains back to see the features of my good luck. She was dark and had ardent eyes, one of the finest women I have ever held in my arms. But all at once she screamed and jumped out, violently angry, but not quick enough to prevent me catching her in the passage and pressing her closely in my arms. She began by striking me and scratching my face. After having lacerated it sufficiently to satisfy her outraged womanly honour, we began to explain ourselves. She was well pleased to learn that I am a gentleman, and none of the poorest, and sooner than I might have expected I ceased to be odious to her, and she began to be tender with me, when a scullion appeared in the passage; his appearance put her to flight at once.

"'I am quite aware,' said M. d'Anquetil, 'that that admirable girl had come for another than myself; she must have entered the wrong room, and the surprise frightened her. I did my best to reassure her, and should doubtless have won her amity had not that sot of a scullion come between us.'

"I confirmed him in that supposition. We put our heads together to get an idea of the man for whom that beautiful woman had ventured on such an early morning visit, and were easily agreed that it could be no other but that old fool d'Asterac—you know, Tournebroche, I suspected him before—who awaits her intimacy in an adjoining room, if not, and without your knowledge, in your own. Are you not of the same opinion?"

"Nothing is more credible," I replied.

"No doubt it is so. That sorcerer amuses himself when he talks to us of his Salamanders. The truth is, he caresses that amazingly pretty girl. He's an impostor."

I asked my tutor to favour me with the continuance of his narrative. He willingly complied and said:

"Well, my dear boy, I'll briefly report the remainder of M. d'Anquetil's discourse. I know very well that it's rather commonplace, almost vulgar, to lay much stress on trifling circumstances. It is, on the contrary, some sort of duty to express them in the fewest possible words, to condense them carefully and reserve the tempting abundance of word-flow to moral instruction and exhortation, which may be hurled as the avalanches are hurled from the mountains. On this principle I shall have mentioned enough of M. d'Anquetil's sayings when I have told you that he impressed on me that yonder young girl's beauty, charms, and accomplishments are quite extraordinary. In the end he inquired of me if I knew her name and position. And I replied to him that, from his description of her, I was pretty sure that she was Rabbi Mosaide's niece Jahel, whom by a lucky accident I had embraced one night on that very same staircase, with this difference only, that my luck occurred between the first and second flights of steps. 'I hope and trust,' said M. d'Anquetil, 'that there may be other differences too, for, as far as I am concerned, I embraced her very closely. I am also sorry that, as you say, she is a Jewess, as, without believing in God, I feel that I should have liked better for her to be a Christian. But can anyone be sure of his own family? Who knows if she has not been kidnapped as a child? Jews and gypsies steal children daily. And we do not, as a rule, remember sufficiently that the Holy Virgin was born a Jewess. But let her be Jewess or not, she pleases me; I want her and shall have her!' Such were that reckless youngster's words. But allow me, my boy, to sit down on yonder moss-covered stone; last night's work, my fights, my flight, too, have nearly broken my legs."