to a connoisseur. At a bad parry from Max the colonel sent the sabre
spinning from his hand.

"Pick it up," he said, pausing; "I am not the man to kill a disarmed
enemy."

There was something atrocious in the grandeur of these words; they
seemed to show such consciousness of superiority that the onlookers took
them for a shrewd calculation. In fact, when Max replaced himself in
position, he had lost his coolness, and was once more confronted with
his adversary's raised guard which defended the colonel's whole person
while it menaced his. He resolved to redeem his shameful defeat by a
bold stroke. He no longer guarded himself, but took his sabre in both
hands and rushed furiously on his antagonist, resolved to kill him, if
he had to lose his own life. Philippe received a sabre-cut which slashed
open his forehead and a part of his face, but he cleft Max's head
obliquely by the terrible sweep of a "moulinet," made to break the force
of the annihilating stroke Max aimed at him. These two savage blows
ended the combat, at the ninth minute. Fario came down to gloat over the
sight of his enemy in the convulsions of death; for the muscles of a man
of Maxence Gilet's vigor quiver horribly. Philippe was carried back to
his uncle's house.

Thus perished a man destined to do great deeds had he lived his life
amid environments which were suited to him; a man treated by Nature as
a favorite child, for she gave him courage, self-possession, and the
political sagacity of a Cesar Borgia. But education had not bestowed
upon him that nobility of conduct and ideas without which nothing great
is possible in any walk of life. He was not regretted, because of the
perfidy with which his adversary, who was a worse man than he, had
contrived to bring him into disrepute. His death put an end to the
exploits of the Order of Idleness, to the great satisfaction of the town
of Issoudun. Philippe therefore had nothing to fear in consequence
of the duel, which seemed almost the result of divine vengeance: its
circumstances were related throughout that whole region of country, with
unanimous praise for the bravery of the two combatants.

"But they had better both have been killed," remarked Monsieur
Mouilleron; "it would have been a good riddance for the Government."

The situation of Flore Brazier would have been very embarrassing were
it not for the condition into which she was thrown by Max's death. A
brain-fever set in, combined with a dangero