use the career which
was open to them closed with his abdication, but a nobler feeling of
devotion animated them in his hour of trial, and survived his downfall.

Many of our instructors were well satisfied with the new state of
things. Some of the older ones had been educated as priests, and were
officiating in their calling, when the Revolution broke in upon them,
trampling alike on sacred shrine and holy vestment. The shaven crown was
a warrant for execution, and it rolled beneath the guillotine, or fell
by cold-blooded murder at the altar where it ministered. Infuriated
mobs hunted them like bloodhounds; and the cloisters of convent and
monastery, which had hitherto been disturbed only by footsteps gliding
quietly from cell to chapel, or the hum of voices mingling in devotion,
now echoed the tread of armed ruffians and resounded with ribaldry and
imprecations. An old man, who was for a time my teacher, told me many a
tale of those days. He had narrowly escaped, once, by concealing himself
under the floor of his room. He said that he felt the pressure, as
his pursuers repeatedly passed over him, and could hear their avowed
intention to hang him at the next lamp-post,--a mode of execution not
uncommon, when hot violence could not wait the slow processes of law.

These men saw in the Restoration a hope that the good old times would
come back,--that the crucifix would again be an emblem of temporal
power, mightier than the sword,--that the cowled monk would become the
counsellor of kings, and once more take his share in the administration
of empires.

But if they expected to commence operations by subjecting their pupils
to their own legitimate standard, and to bring about a tame acquiescence
in the existing order of things, they were wofully mistaken.
Conservatism never struggled with a more determined set of radicals.
Their life and action were treason. They talked it, and wrote it, and
sang it. There was no form in which they could express it that they left
untouched. They covered the walls with grotesque representations of the
royal family; they shouted out parodies of Bourbon songs; and there was
not a hero of the old _regime_, from Hugh Capet down, whose virtues were
not celebrated under the name of Napoleon. It was in vain that orders
were issued not to mention him. They might as well have told the young
rebels not to breathe. "Not mention him! They would like to see who
could stop them!" And they yelled out hi