o prison;
that the Jesuits easily obtained a special warrant from Versailles to
lock up the poor girl, to hush up, to bury with her an affair so
dismal for themselves. They would wait, of course, until the public
attention was drawn off to something else. Thereon the fatal clutch
would have caught her anew; she would have been buried out of sight in
some unknown convent, snuffed out in some dark _In pace_.

She was but one-and-twenty at the time of the award, and she had
always hoped to die soon. May God have granted her that mercy![119]

[119] Touching this matter, Voltaire is very flippant: he
scoffs at both parties, especially the Jansenists. The
historians of our own day, MM. Cabasse, Fabre, Mery, not
having read the _Trial_, believe themselves impartial, while
they are bearing down the victim.

EPILOGUE.

A woman of genius, in a burst of noble tenderness, has figured to
herself the two spirits whose strife moulded the Middle Ages, as
coming at last to recognise each other, to draw together, to renew
their olden friendship. Looking closer at each other, they discern,
though somewhat late, the marks of a common parentage. How if they
were indeed brethren, and this long battle nought but a mistake? Their
hearts speak, and they are softened. The haughty outlaw and the gentle
persecutor have forgotten everything: they dart forward and throw
themselves into each other's arms.--(_Consuelo._)

A charming, womanly idea. Others, too, have dreamed the same dream.
The sweet Montanelli turned it into a beautiful poem. Ay, who would
not welcome the delightful hope of seeing the battle here hushed down
and finished by an embrace so moving?

What does the wise Merlin think of it? In the mirror of his lake,
whose depths are known to himself only, what did he behold? What said
he in the colossal epic produced by him in 1860? Why, that Satan will
not disarm, if disarm he ever do, until the Day of Judgment. Then,
side by side, at peace with each other, the two will fall asleep in a
common death.

* * * * *

It is not so hard, indeed, to bend them into a kind of compromise. The
weakening, relaxing effects of so long a battle allow of their
mingling in a certain way. In the last chapter we saw two shadows
agreeing to form an alliance in deceit; the Devil appearing as the
friend of Loyola, devotees and demoniacs marching abreast, Hell
touched to softness in the Sacred