"No; but he will teach you your duty as a man, as a Frenchman, a
citizen--a member of the great human family; he will teach you your
rights; what you can and should demand of your government under the
articles 199, 305, 1202, 9999 of the charter--the last charter."

"Sir, I am ashamed to have troubled you; I thank you much for your
explanation; I wish you a very good morning; for mathematics you see,
sir, do send me to sleep, and our _cure_ will tell me all about it on
Sunday. I shall go back to the forest, and finish my job of yesterday."

And are not these simple-minded men much in the right? is not all the
good sense on their side?--they, who living by the axe, the plough, and
the produce of the earth, think only of their trees and their fields,
and ask of God but health and strength to work, rain and sun to nourish
the vines and gild their harvests. They leave to those who possess their
confidence, because they have never deceived them, the care of their
political interests; the care of setting and keeping them in the right
path, and of directing them in that current of life, slow it is true,
but which nevertheless is more effectual towards ameliorating the
condition, and eventually increasing the happiness of the human race,
than all the new-fangled doctrines promulgated by the statesmen and
philosophers of France.

CHAPTER XVII.

The wolf--His aspect and extreme ferocity--His cunning in hunting
his prey--His unsocial nature--Antiquity of the race--Where found,
and their varieties--Annihilated in England by the perseverance of
the kings and people--Decrees and rewards to encourage their
destruction by Athelstane, John, and Edward I.--Death of the last
wolf in England--Death of the last in Ireland.

The wild and furious wolf, both prudent and cowardly, is, from its
strength and voracity, the terror and the most formidable pest of the
inhabitants of those districts of France in which it is found. Provided
by Nature with a craving appetite for blood, possessing great muscular
powers, and an extraordinary scent, whether hunting or laying in ambush;
always ready to pursue and tear its victim limb from limb, the
wolf,--this tyrant,--this buccaneer of the forest lives only upon
rapine, and loves nothing but carnage.

The aspect of the wolf has something sinister and terrible in its
appearance, which his sanguinary and brutal disposition does not belie.
His head is large, his e