ded by perceiving circumstances unseen by others, in spite of all the
investigations before and during the trial of the case.

Monsieur de Grandville was playing whist at Madame Graslin's house; it
was necessary to await his return; the bishop did not therefore receive
his answer till nearly midnight. The Abbe Gabriel, to whom the prelate
lent his carriage, started at two in the morning for Montegnac. This
region, which begins about twenty-five miles from the town, is situated
in that part of the Limousin which lies at the base of the mountains
of the Correze and follows the line of the Creuze. The young abbe left
Limoges all heaving with expectation of the spectacle on the morrow, and
still unaware that it would not take place.

VII. MONTEGNAC

Priests and religious devotees have a tendency in the matter of payments
to keep strictly to the letter of the law. Is this from poverty, or from
the selfishness to which their isolation condemns them, thus encouraging
the natural inclination of all men to avarice; or is it from a
conscientious parsimony which saves all it can for deeds of charity?
Each nature will give a different answer to this question. The
difficulty of putting the hand into the pocket, sometimes concealed by
a gracious kindliness, oftener unreservedly exhibited, is more
particularly noticeable in travelling. Gabriel de Rastignac, the
prettiest youth who had served before the altar for many a long day,
gave only a thirty-sous _pour-boire_ to the postilion. Consequently he
travelled slowly. Postilions drive bishops and other clergy with the
utmost care when they merely double the legal wage, and they run no risk
of damaging the episcopal carriage for any such sum, fearing, they
might say, to get themselves into trouble. The Abbe Gabriel, who was
travelling alone for the first time, said, at each relay, in his dulcet
voice:--

"Pray go faster, postilion."

"We ply the whip," replied an old postilion, "according to how the
traveller plies his finger and thumb."

The young abbe flung himself back into a corner of the carriage unable
to comprehend that answer. To occupy the time he began to study the
country through which he was passing, making several mental excursions
on foot among the hills through which the road winds between Bordeaux
and Lyon.

About fifteen miles from Limoges the landscape, losing the graceful flow
of the Vienne through the undulating meadows of the Limousin, which
in certain