enced, "I have a greater
respect for religion than you have. I should consider it an infamous
mockery to go to the communion table without feeling the proper
conviction."

"Nonsense! you inflexible man! you frowning Alcestes," said the Marquis
Abbe, smiling slyly. "Your profits and your scruples will go together,
believe me, by listening to me. In short, we shall manage to make it a
BLANK COMMUNION for you; for after all, what is it that we ask?--only the
APPEARANCE!"

Now, a BLANK COMMUNION means breaking an unconsecrated wafer!

The Abbe-Marquis retired with his offers, which were rejected with
indignation;--but then, the refractory man was dismissed from his place
at court. This was but a single isolated fact. Woe to all who found
themselves opposed to the interest and principles of Madame de Saint
Dizier or her friends! Sooner or later, directly or indirectly, they felt
themselves cruelly stabbed, generally immediately--some in their dearest
connections, others in their credit, some in their honor; others in their
official functions; and all by secret action, noiseless, continuous, and
latent, in time becoming a terrible and mysterious dissolvent, which
invisibly undermined reputations, fortunes, positions the most solidly
established, until the moment when all sunk forever into the abyss, amid
the surprise and terror of the beholders.

It will now be conceived how under the Restoration the Princess de Saint
Dizier had become singularly influential and formidable. At the time of
the Revolution of July (1830) she had "rallied," and, strangely enough,
by preserving some relation of family and of society with persons
faithful to the worship of decayed monarchy, people still attributed to
the princess much influence and power. Let us mention, at last, that the
Prince of Saint-Dizier, having died many years since, his very large
personal fortune had descended to his younger brother, the father of
Adrienne de Cardoville; and he, having died eighteen months ago, that
young lady found herself to be the last and only representative of that
branch of the family of the Renneponts.

The Princess of Saint-Dizier awaited her niece in a very large room,
rendered dismal by its gloomy green damask. The chairs, etc., covered
with similar stuff, were of carved ebony. Paintings of scriptural and
other religious subjects, and an ivory crucifix thrown up from a
background of black velvet, contributed to give the apartment a
lugubri