rests. His
utility was recognized and they left him in his place, like many other
solid minds whose rise to power is the terror of mediocrities. If, like
the Abbe de Lamennais, he had taken up his pen he would doubtless, like
him, have been blasted by the court of Rome.

The Abbe Dutheil was imposing in appearance. His exterior revealed the
underlying of a profound nature always calm and equable on the surface.
His tall figure and its thinness did not detract from the general
effect of his lines, which recalled those by which the genius of Spanish
painters delights to represent the great monastic meditators, and those
selected at a later period by Thorwaldsen for the Apostles. The long,
almost rigid folds of the face, in harmony with those of his vestment,
had the charm which the middle-ages bring into relief in the mystical
statues placed beside the portals of their churches. Gravity of thought,
word, and accent, harmonized in this man and became him well. Seeing
his dark eyes hollowed by austerities and surrounded by a brown circle;
seeing, too, his forehead, yellow as some old stone, his head and hands
almost fleshless, men desired to hear the voice and the instructions
which issued from his lips. This purely physical grandeur which accords
with moral grandeur, gave this priest a somewhat haughty and disdainful
air, which was instantly counteracted to an observer by his modesty and
by his speech, though it did not predispose others in his favor. In
some more elevated station these advantages would have obtained that
necessary ascendancy over the masses which the people willingly allow to
men who are thus endowed. But superiors will not forgive their inferiors
for possessing the externals of greatness, nor for displaying
that majesty so prized by the ancients but so often lacking to the
administrators of modern power.

By one of those strange freaks of circumstance which are never accounted
for, the other vicar-general, the Abbe de Grancour, a stout little man
with a rosy complexion and blue eyes, whose opinions were diametrically
opposed to those of the Abbe Dutheil, liked to be in the latter's
company, although he never testified this liking enough to put himself
out of the good graces of the bishop, to whom he would have sacrificed
everything. The Abbe de Grancour believed in the merit of his colleague,
recognized his talents, secretly accepted his doctrines, and condemned
them openly; for the little priest was o