with all the magic of the thoughts and hopes which were then fermenting
in France, from the court of Versailles to the most uninhabitable heath.
He became enamoured of Jean Jacques, and made the cure read as much of
him as he possibly could without neglecting his duties. Then he begged a
copy of the _Contrat Social_, and hastened to Gazeau Tower to spell his
way through it feverishly. At first the cure had given him of this manna
only with a sparing hand, and while making him admire the lofty thoughts
and noble sentiments of the philosopher, had thought to put him on his
guard against the poison of anarchy. But all the old learning, all the
happy texts of bygone days--in a word, all the theology of the worthy
priest--was swept away like a fragile bridge by the torrent of wild
eloquence and ungovernable enthusiasm which Patience had accumulated
in his desert. The vicar had to give way and fall back terrified upon
himself. There he discovered that the shrine of his own science was
everywhere cracking and crumbling to ruin. The new sun which was rising
on the political horizon and making havoc in so many minds, melted his
own like a light snow under the first breath of spring. The sublime
enthusiasm of Patience; the strange poetic life of the man which seemed
to reveal him as one inspired; the romantic turn which their mysterious
relations were taking (the ignoble persecutions of the convent making it
noble to revolt)--all this so worked upon the priest that by 1770 he had
already travelled far from Jansenism, and was vainly searching all the
religious heresies for some spot on which he might rest before falling
into the abyss of philosophy so often opened at his feet by Patience, so
often hidden in vain by the exorcisms of Roman theology.

IV

After this account of the philosophical life of Patience, set forth
by me now in manhood (continued Bernard, after a pause), it is not
altogether easy to return to the very different impressions I received
in boyhood on meeting the wizard of Gazeau Tower. I will make an effort,
however, to reproduce my recollections faithfully.

It was one summer evening, as I was returning from bird-snaring with
several peasant-boys, that I passed Gazeau Tower for the first time.
My age was about thirteen, and I was bigger and stronger than any of my
comrades; besides, I exercised over them, sternly enough, the authority
I drew from my noble birth. In fact, the mixture of familiarity and