mself that he was disappointed. How could it be otherwise? He had
been bred in ease and luxury, and surrounded with everything that
could make life beautiful; while ugliness, and want, and sickness, and
all that make life miserable, had been kept, as far as they can be
kept, from the precincts of the beautiful chateau which was his home.
What were the _consolations_ of religion to him? They are offered to
those (and to those only) who need them. They were to Monsieur the
Viscount what the Crucified Christ was to the Greeks of
old--foolishness.

He put the paper in his pocket and lay down again, feeling it the
crowning disappointment of what he had lately suffered. Presently,
Antoine came with some food; it was not dainty, but Monsieur the
Viscount devoured it like a famished hound, and then made inquiries as
to how he came and how long he had been there. When the gaoler began
to describe him, whom he called the Cure, Monsieur the Viscount's
attention quickened into eagerness, an eagerness deepened by the
tender interest that always hangs round the names of those whom we
have known in happier and younger days. The happy memories recalled by
hearing of his old tutor seemed to blot out his present misfortunes.
With French excitability, he laughed and wept alternately.

"As burly as ever, you say? The little book? I remember it, it was
his breviary. Ah! it is he. It is Monsieur the Preceptor, whom I have
not seen for years. Take me to him, bring him here, let me see him!"

But Monsieur the Preceptor was in Paradise.

That first night of Monsieur the Viscount's imprisonment was a
terrible one. The bitter chill of a Parisian autumn, the gnawings of
half-satisfied hunger, the thick walls that shut out all hope of
escape but did not exclude those fearful cries that lasted with few
intervals throughout the night, made it like some hideous dream. At
last the morning broke; at half-past two o'clock, some members of the
_commune_ presented themselves in the hall of the National Assembly
with the significant announcement:--"The prisons are empty!" and
Antoine, who had been quaking for hours, took courage, and went with
half a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water to the cell that was not
"empty." He found his prisoner struggling with a knot of white ribbon,
which he was trying to fasten in his hair. One glance at his face told
all.

"It is the fever," said Antoine; and he put down the bread and water
and fetched an old blanket