, to clear her timber properly, and cultivate the stony
plain.

To put this project into execution she needs a man of your
scientific knowledge and ardor, and one who has also your
disinterested devotion and your ideas of practical utility. It
will be little money and much work! a great result from small
means! a whole region to be changed fundamentally! barren places
to be made to gush with plenty! Isn't that precisely what you
want,--you who are dreaming of constructing a poem? From the tone
of sincerity which pervades your letter, I do not hesitate to bid
you come and see me at Limoges. But, my good friend, don't send in
your resignation yet; get leave of absence only, and tell your
administration that you are going to study questions connected
with your profession outside of the government works. In this way,
you will not lose your rights, and you will have time to judge for
yourself whether the project conceived by the rector of Montegnac
and approved by Madame Graslin is feasible.

I will explain to you by word of mouth the advantages you will
find in case this great scheme can be carried out. Rely on the
friendship of

Yours, etc, T. Grossetete.

Madame Graslin replied to Grossetete in few words: "Thank you, my
friend; I shall expect your _protege_." She showed the letter to the
rector, saying,--

"One more wounded man for the hospital."

The rector read the letter, reread it, made two or three turns on the
terrace silently; then he gave it back to Madame Graslin, saying,--

"A fine soul, and a superior man. He says the schools invented by the
genius of the Revolution manufacture incapacities. For my part, I say
they manufacture unbelievers; for if Monsieur Gerard is not an atheist,
he is a protestant."

"We will ask him," she said, struck by an answer.

XVII. THE REVOLUTION OF JULY JUDGED AT MONTEGNAC

A fortnight later, in December, and in spite of the cold, Monsieur
Grossetete came to the chateau de Montegnac, to "present his protege,"
whom Veronique and Monsieur Bonnet were impatiently awaiting.

"I must love you very much, my dear child," said the old man, taking
Veronique's two hands in his, and kissing them with that gallantry of
old men which never displeases women, "yes, I must love you well, to
come from Limoges in such weather. But I wanted to present to you myself
the gift of Monsieur Gregoire Gerard here present. You'll find him a
man aft