ture,
art, themselves, and love. They were charming pagans, like Marie Stuart,
and capable, like her, of remaining true Catholics even under the axe.

We are speaking, let it be understood, of the best of the elite--of
those that read, and of those that dream. As to the rest, those who
participate in the Parisian life on its lighter side, in its childish
whirl, and the trifling follies it entails, who make rendezvous, waste
their time, who dress and are busy day and night doing nothing, who
dance frantically in the rays of the Parisian sun, without thought,
without passion, without virtue, and even without vice--we must own it
is impossible to imagine anything more contemptible.

The Marquise de Campvallon was then--as she truly said to the man she
resembled--a great pagan; and, as she also said to herself in one of her
serious moments when a woman's destiny is decided by the influence
of those they love, Camors had sown in her heart a seed which had
marvellously fructified.

Camors dreamed little of reproaching himself for it, but struck with
all the harmony that surrounded the Marquise, he regretted more bitterly
than ever the fatality which separated them.

He felt, however, more sure of himself, since he had bound himself
by the strictest obligations of honor. He abandoned himself from this
moment with less scruple to the emotions, and to the danger against
which he believed himself invincibly protected. He did not fear to seek
often the society of his beautiful cousin, and even contracted the habit
of repairing to her house two or three times a week, after leaving the
Chamber of Deputies. Whenever he found her alone, their conversation
invariably assumed a tone of irony and of raillery, in which both
excelled. He had not forgotten her reckless confidences at the opera,
and recalled it to her, asking her whether she had yet discovered that
hero of love for whom she was looking, who should be, according to her
ideas, a villain like Bothwell, or a musician like Rizzio.

"There are," she replied, "villains who are also musicians; but that is
imagination. Sing me, then, something apropos."

It was near the close of winter. The Marquise gave a ball. Her fetes
were justly renowned for their magnificence and good taste. She did the
honors with the grace of a queen. This evening she wore a very simple
costume, as was becoming in the courteous hostess. It was a gown of dark
velvet, with a train; her arms were bare, wit