within that
worthy priest's reach? As soon should I have thought of walking into a
Babylonish furnace. That priest had arms which could influence me: he
was naturally kind, with a sentimental French kindness, to whose
softness I knew myself not wholly impervious. Without respecting some
sorts of affection, there was hardly any sort having a fibre of root in
reality, which I could rely on my force wholly to withstand. Had I gone
to him, he would have shown me all that was tender, and comforting, and
gentle, in the honest Popish superstition. Then he would have tried to
kindle, blow and stir up in me the zeal of good works. I know not how
it would all have ended. We all think ourselves strong in some points;
we all know ourselves weak in many; the probabilities are that had I
visited Numero 10, Rue des Mages, at the hour and day appointed, I
might just now, instead of writing this heretic narrative, be counting
my beads in the cell of a certain Carmelite convent on the Boulevard of
Crecy, in Villette. There was something of Fenelon about that benign
old priest; and whatever most of his brethren may be, and whatever I
may think of his Church and creed (and I like neither), of himself I
must ever retain a grateful recollection. He was kind when I needed
kindness; he did me good. May Heaven bless him!

Twilight had passed into night, and the lamps were lit in the streets
ere I issued from that sombre church. To turn back was now become
possible to me; the wild longing to breathe this October wind on the
little hill far without the city walls had ceased to be an imperative
impulse, and was softened into a wish with which Reason could cope: she
put it down, and I turned, as I thought, to the Rue Fossette. But I had
become involved in a part of the city with which I was not familiar; it
was the old part, and full of narrow streets of picturesque, ancient,
and mouldering houses. I was much too weak to be very collected, and I
was still too careless of my own welfare and safety to be cautious; I
grew embarrassed; I got immeshed in a network of turns unknown. I was
lost and had no resolution to ask guidance of any passenger.

If the storm had lulled a little at sunset, it made up now for lost
time. Strong and horizontal thundered the current of the wind from
north-west to south-east; it brought rain like spray, and sometimes a
sharp hail, like shot: it was cold and pierced me to the vitals. I bent
my head to meet it, but it beat