iticians to whom business gives both consummate
experience and the practice of speech, are admirable story-tellers, when
they tell stories. With them there is no medium; they are either heavy,
or they are sublime. In this delightful sport Prince Metternich is as
good as Charles Nodier. The fun of a statesman, cut in facets like a
diamond, is sharp, sparkling, and full of sense. Being sure that the
proprieties would be observed by these three superior men, my uncle
allowed his wit full play, a refined wit, gentle, penetrating, and
elegant, like that of all men who are accustomed to conceal their
thoughts under the black robe. And you may rely upon it, there was
nothing vulgar nor idle in this light talk, which I would compare, for
its effect on the soul, to Rossini's music.

"The Abbe Gaudron was, as M. de Grandville said, a Saint Peter rather
than a Saint Paul, a peasant full of faith, as square on his feet as he
was tall, a sacerdotal of whose ignorance in matters of the world and
of literature enlivened the conversation by guileless amazement and
unexpected questions. They came to talking of one of the plague spots
of social life, of which we were just now speaking--adultery. My uncle
remarked on the contradiction which the legislators of the Code, still
feeling the blows of the revolutionary storm, had established between
civil and religious law, and which he said was at the root of all the
mischief.

"'In the eyes of the Church,' said he, 'adultery is a crime; in those of
your tribunals it is a misdemeanor. Adultery drives to the police court
in a carriage instead of standing at the bar to be tried. Napoleon's
Council of State, touched with tenderness towards erring women, was
quite inefficient. Ought they not in this case to have harmonized the
civil and the religious law, and have sent the guilty wife to a convent,
as of old?'

"'To a convent!' said M. de Serizy. 'They must first have created
convents, and in those days monasteries were being turned into barracks.
Besides, think of what you say, M. l'Abbe--give to God what society
would have none of?'

"'Oh!' said the Comte de Grandville, 'you do not know France. They were
obliged to leave the husband free to take proceedings: well, there are
not ten cases of adultery brought up in a year.'

"'M. l'Abbe preaches for his own saint, for it was Jesus Christ who
invented adultery,' said Comte Octave. 'In the East, the cradle of
the human race, woman was merely a