n began my real
life. I ceased to be a dupe, and felt a man. I am a quick learner, and
I acquired their vices rapidly, all but one, that is still my
stumbling-block--hypocrisy. All that I have done,' said he, in half
soliloquy, 'might have passed harmlessly had I known but how to
shroud it. Slander, theft, and seduction must not walk naked in this
well-dressed world; but, with fine clothes on, they make very good
company. I was curious to see if other lands were the same slaves of
conventionalities, and I travelled. I went to Holland and to England;
I found both as bad--nay worse--than France. If I obtained a momentary
success in life I was certain to be robbed of it by some allegation
foreign to the question. My book was clever; but I had deserted my
wife. My treatise was admirable; but I had seduced the daughter of my
protector. My views were just, right-minded, and true; but I had robbed
my father. Thus, with a subtlety the stupidest possess, they were
able to detract from my genius by charging it with the defects of my
character, as if it behoved one to pay the debts of the other. I went on
insisting that it was my opinions alone were before the world; they as
steadily persisted in dragging myself there. At last they have had their
will, and I wish them joy of the victory.' There was a savage triumph
in his eyes as he spoke this that made Gerald tremble while he looked at
him.

'If you care for my story, boy,' resumed he, 'old Pippo there will
give it to you for a flask of Monte Pulciano. He 'll tell you of all my
cruelties in my first campaign in Corsica; how I won my wife by first
blasting her reputation; how I left her; how I was imprisoned and fined,
and how escaped from both by a seduction. If he forget the name, you may
remind him of Sophie De Mounier. They beheaded me in effigy for this
at Dole. But why go on with vulgar incidents which have happened to
so many! It is the moral of it all I would impress, boy, which is
this--take nothing from the world but solid gifts. Laugh at its praises,
and drink deep of its indulgences! Those born great are able to do this
by prerogative; you and I may succeed to it by skill. Remember, too,
that my theory is a wide, a most catholic one; and to follow it you
need assume no special discipline, but be priest, soldier, statesman,
scholar, just as you will. I have been all these in turn, and may be so
again; but whether I wear a cassock or a cuirass, my knowledge of men
will