gone too far to recede. Well, then, I am
that unhappy abbe de Ganges whose crimes are known and of whom I have
more than once heard you speak."

"The abbe de Ganges!" cried the countess in horror,--"the abbe de Ganges!
You are that execrable abbe de Ganges whose very name makes one shudder?
And to you, to a man thus infamous, we have entrusted the education of
our only son? Oh, I hope, for all our sakes, monsieur, that you are
speaking falsely; for if you were speaking the truth I think I should
have you arrested this very instant and taken back to France to undergo
your punishment. The best thing you can do, if what you have said to me
is true, is instantly to leave not only the castle, but the town and the
principality; it will be torment enough for the rest of my life whenever
I think that I have spent seven years under the same roof with you."

The abbe would have replied; but the countess raised her voice so much,
that the young prince, who had been won over to his tutor's interests and
who was listening at his mother's door, judged that his protege's
business was taking an unfavourable turn; and went in to try and put
things right. He found his mother so much alarmed that she drew him to
her by an instinctive movement, as though to put herself under his
protection, and beg and pray as he might; he could only obtain permission
for his tutor to go away undisturbed to any country of the world that he
might prefer, but with an express prohibition of ever again entering the
presence of the Count or the Countess of Lippe.

The abbe de Ganges withdrew to Amsterdam, where he became a teacher of
languages, and where his lady-love soon after came to him and married
him: his pupil, whom his parents could not induce, even when they told
him the real name of the false Lamartelliere, to share their horror of
him, gave him assistance as long as he needed it; and this state of
things continued until upon his wife attaining her majority he entered
into possession of some property that belonged to her. His regular
conduct and his learning, which had been rendered more solid by long and
serious study, caused him to be admitted into the Protestant consistory;
there, after an exemplary life, he died, and none but God ever knew
whether it was one of hypocrisy or of penitence.

As for the Marquis de Ganges, who had been sentenced, as we have seen, to
banishment and the confiscation of his property, he was conducted to the
fronti