ister. If you
had looked into history for the causes of events instead of getting the
headings by heart, you would have found precepts for your guidance in
this life. These real facts taken at random from among so many supply
you with the axiom--'Look upon men, and on women most of all, as your
instruments; but never let them see this.' If some one higher in place
can be useful to you, worship him as your god; and never leave him until
he has paid the price of your servility to the last farthing. In your
intercourse with men, in short, be grasping and mean as a Jew; all that
the Jew does for money, you must do for power. And besides all this,
when a man has fallen from power, care no more for him than if he had
ceased to exist. And do you ask why you must do these things? You mean
to rule the world, do you not? You must begin by obeying and studying
it. Scholars study books; politicians study men, and their interests and
the springs of action. Society and mankind in masses are fatalists; they
bow down and worship the accomplished fact. Do you know why I am giving
you this little history lesson? It seems to me that your ambition is
boundless----"

"Yes, father."

"I saw that myself," said the priest. "But at this moment you are
thinking, 'Here is this Spanish canon inventing anecdotes and straining
history to prove to me that I have too much virtue----'"

Lucien began to smile; his thoughts had been read so clearly.

"Very well, let us take facts that every schoolboy knows. One day France
is almost entirely overrun by the English; the King has only a single
province left. Two figures arise from among the people--a poor herd
girl, that very Jeanne Darc of whom we were speaking, and a burgher
named Jacques Coeur. The girl brings the power of virginity, the
strength of her arm; the burgher gives his gold, and the kingdom is
saved. The maid is taken prisoner, and the King, who could have ransomed
her, leaves her to be burned alive. The King allows his courtier to
accuse the great burgher of capital crime, and they rob him and divide
all his wealth among themselves. The spoils of an innocent man, hunted
down, brought to bay, and driven into exile by the Law, went to enrich
five noble houses; and the father of the Archbishop of Bourges left the
kingdom for ever without one sou of all his possessions in France, and
no resource but moneys remitted to Arabs and Saracens in Egypt. It
is open to you to say that these examples a