who says that the blessed will go from one star to another? Well, we shall be the grasshoppers of the skies. And then we shall see God. Tut tut tut. All these heavens are silly. God is a monstrous myth. I shouldn't say that in the Moniteur, of course, but I whisper it among my friends. Inter pocula. To sacrifice earth to paradise is to leave the substance for the shadow. I am not so stupid as to be the dupe of the Infinite. I am nothing; I call myself Count Nothing, Senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I, after my death? No. What am I? A little dust aggregated by an organism. What have I to do on this earth? I have the choice to suffer or to enjoy. Where will suffering lead me? To nothing. But I shall have suffered. Where will enjoyment lead me? To nothing. But I shall have enjoyed. My choice is made. I must eat or be eaten, and I choose to eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. Such is my philosophy. After which, as I tell you, there is the grave-digger-the pantheon for us-but all fall into the great gulf-the end; finis; total liquidation. This is the vanishing point. Death is dead, believe me. I laugh at the idea that there is any one there that has anything to say to me. It is an invention of nurses: Bugaboo for children; Jehovah for men. No, our morrow is night. Beyond the tomb are only equal nothings. You have been. Sardanapalus, or you have been Vincent de Paul-that amounts to the same nothing. That is the truth of it. Let us live, then, above all things; use your personality while you have it. In fact, I tell you, Monsieur Bishop, I have my philosophy, and I have my philosophers. I do not allow myself to be entangled with nonsense. But it is necessary there should be something for those who are below us, the bare-foots, knife-grinders, and other wretches. Legends and chimeras are given them to swallow, about the soul, immortality, paradise, and the stars. They munch that; they spread it on their dry bread. He who has

nothing besides, has the good God-that is the least good he can have. I make no objection to it, but I keep Monsieur Naigeon for myself. The good God is good for the people."

The Bishop clapped his hands.

"That is the idea," he exclaimed. "This materialism is an excellent thing, and truly marvellous; reject it who will. Ah! when one has it, he is a dupe no more; he does not stupidly allow himself to be exiled like Cato, or stoned like Stephen, or burnt alive like Joan of Arc. Those who have succeeded in procuring this admirable materialism have the happiness of feeling that they are irresponsible, and of thinking they can devour everything in quietness-places, sinecures, honours, power rightly or wrongly acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treasons, savoury capitulations of conscience, and that they will enter their graves with their digestion completed. How agreeable it is! I do not say that for you, Monsieur Senator. Nevertheless, I cannot but felicitate you. You great lords have, you say, a philosophy of your own, for your special benefit-exquisite, refined, accessible to the rich alone; good with all sauces, admirably seasoning the pleasures of life. This philosophy is found at great depths, and brought up by special search. But you are good princes, and you are quite willing that the belief in the good God should be the philosophy of the people, much as goose with onions is the turkey with truffles of the poor."

IX.

THE BROTHER PORTRAYED BY THE SISTER.

To afford an idea of the household of the Bishop of D, and the manner in which these two good women subordinated their actions, thoughts, even their womanly

instincts, so liable to disturbance, to the habits and projects of the Bishop, so that he had not even to speak, in order to express them, we cannot do better than to copy here a letter from Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame la Vicomtesse de Boischevron, the friend of her childhood. This letter is in our possession :

"D, Dec. 16th, 18—.

"MY DEAR MADAME,-Not a day passes that we do not speak of you; that is customary enough with us; but we have now another reason. Would you believe that in washing and dusting the ceilings and walls, Madame Magloire has made some discoveries? At present, our two chambers, which were hung with old paper, whitewashed, would not disparage a château in the style of your own. Madame Magloire has torn off all the paper: it had something underneath. My parlour, where there is no furniture, and which we use to dry clothes in, is fifteen feet high, eighteen feet square, and has a ceiling, once painted and gilded, with beams like those of your house. This was covered over with canvas during the time it was used as a hospital; and then we have wainscoting of the time of our grandmothers. But it is my own room which you ought to see. Magloire has discovered, beneath at least ten thicknesses of paper, some pictures, which, though not good, are quite endurable. Telemachus received on horseback, by Minerva, is one; and then, again, he is in the gardens-I forget their name; another is where the Roman ladies resorted for a single night. I could say much more; I have Romans, men and women [here a word is illegible] and all their retinue. Madame Magloire has cleaned it all, and this summer she is going to repair some little damages, and varnish it, and my room will be a veritable museum. She also found in a corner of the storehouse two pier tables of antique style; they asked two crowns of six livres to regild them, but it is far better

Madame

to give that to the poor; besides that they are very ugly, and I much prefer a round mahogany table.

“I am always happy: my brother is so good: he gives all he has to the poor and sick. weather is very severe in the something for those who lack.

We are full of cares: the winter, and one must do We, at least, are warmed

and lighted, and you know those are great comforts.

My brother has his peculiarities; when he talks he says that a bishop ought to be thus. Just think of it, that the door is never closed. Come in who will, he is at once my brother's guest; he fears nothing, not even in the night; he says that is his form of bravery.

"He wishes me not to fear for him, nor that Madame Magloire should; he exposes himself to every danger, and prefers that we should not even seem to be aware of it; one must know how to understand him.

"He goes out in the rain, walks through the water, travels in winter; he has no fear of darkness, or dangerous roads, or of those he may meet.

Last year he went all alone into a district infested with robbers. He would not take us. He was gone a fortnight, and when he came back, though we had thought him dead, nothing had happened to him, and he was quite well. He said 'See, how they have robbed me!' And he opened a trunk in which he had the jewels of the Embrun Cathedral which the robbers had given him.

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Upon that occasion, on the return, I could not keep from scolding him a little, taking care only to speak while the carriage made a noise, so that no one could hear us.

"At first I used to say to myself, he stops for no danger, he is incorrigible. But now I have become used to it. I make signs to Madame Magloire that she shall not oppose him, and he runs what risks he chooses. I call away Madame Magloire; I go to my room, I pray for him, and fall asleep. I am calm, for I know very well that if any

harm happened to him, it would be my death: I should go away to the good Father with my brother and my bishop. Madame Magloire has had more difficulty in getting used to what she calls his imprudence. Now the thing is settled: we pray together; we are afraid together, and we go to sleep. Should Satan even come into the house, no one would interfere. After all, what is there to fear in this house? There is always One with us who is the strongest : Satan may visit our house, but the good God inhabits it.

"That is enough for me. My brother has no need now even to speak a word. I understand him without his speaking, and we commend ourselves to Providence.

"It must be so with a man whose soul is so noble.

"I asked my brother for the information which you requested respecting the Faux family. You know how well he knows about it, and how much he remembers, for he was always a very good royalist, and this is really a very old Norman family, of the district of Caen. There are five centuries of a Raoul de Faux, Jean de Faux, and Thomas de Faux, who were of the gentry, one of whom was a lord of Rochefort. The last was Guy Etienne Alexandre, who was a cavalry colonel, and held some rank in the light horse of Brittany. His daughter, Marie Louise, married Adrien Charles de Gramont, son of Duke Louis de Gramont, a peer of France, colonel of the Gardes Françaises, and Lieutenant General of the army. It is written Faux, Fauq, and Faouq.

"Will you not, my dear madame, ask for us the prayers of your holy relative, Monsieur le Cardinal? As to your precious Sylvanie, she has done well not to waste the short time that she is with you in writing to me. She is well, you say; studies according to your wishes, and loves me still. That is all I could desire. Her remembrance, through you, reached me, and I was glad to receive it. My health is tolerably good; still I grow thinner every day.