r
game is up, and for ever. These pious men, who despised this world, and
yet had no other hold upon the minds of others than by the very craft
and subtlety that world taught them--these heavenly souls, whose whole
machinations revolved about earthy objects and the successes of this
grovelling planet! Fight for them! No, _parbleu!_ we owe them but little
love or affection. Their whole aim in life has been to disgust one
with whatever is enjoyable, and the best boon they have conferred upon
humanity, that bright thought of locking up the softest eyes and fairest
cheeks of France in cloisters and nunneries! I can forgive our glorious
Revolution much of its wrong when I think of the Pretre; not but that
they could have knocked down the church without suffering the ruins to
crush the chateau!'

Such, in brief, were the opinions my companion held, and of which I was
accustomed to hear specimens every day; at first, with displeasure and
repugnance; later on, with more of toleration; and at last, with a sense
of amusement at the singularity of the notions, or the dexterity
with which he defended them. The poison of his doctrines was the more
insidious, because it was mingled with a certain dash of good-nature,
and a reckless, careless easiness of disposition always attractive to
very young men. His reputation for courage, of which he had given signal
proofs, elevated him in my esteem; and, ere long, all my misgivings
about him, in regard of certain blemishes, gave way before my admiration
of his heroic bearing and a readiness to confront peril, wherever to be
found.

I had made him the confidant of my own history, of which I told him
everything, save the passages which related to the Pere Michel. These
I either entirely glossed over, or touched so lightly as to render
unimportant--a dread of ridicule restraining me from any mention of
those earlier scenes of my life, which were alone of all those I should
have avowed with pride. Perhaps it was from mere accident--perhaps some
secret shame to conceal my forlorn and destitute condition may have had
its share in the motive; but, for some cause or other, I gave him to
understand that my acquaintance with Colonel Mahon had dated back to
a much earlier period than a few days before, and, the impression once
made, a sense of false shame led me to support it.

'Mahon can be a good friend to you,' said Eugene; 'he stands well with
all parties. The Convention trust him, the sans-culo