in vague rumors, far from distinct, yet
pregnant with secret meanings, perfidiously contrived, and a thousand
times more detestable than formal accusations, which can, at least, be
met and destroyed, were strewn about him with so much perseverance, with
a skill so diabolical, and by means and ways so very various, that his
best friends, by little and little, withdrew themselves from him,
thus yielding to the slow, irresistible influence of that incessant
whispering and buzzing, confused as indistinct, amounting to some such
results as this-"Well! you know!" says one.

"No!" replies another.

"People say very vile things about him."

"Do they? really! What then?"

"I don't know! Bad reports! Rumors grievously affecting his honor!"

"The deuce! That's very serious. It accounts for the coldness with which
he is now everywhere received!"

"I shall avoid him in future!"

"So will I," etc.

Such is the world, that very often nothing more than groundless surmises
are necessary to brand a man whose very, happiness may have incurred
envy. So it was with the gentleman of whom we speak. The unfortunate
man, seeing the void around him extending itself,--feeling (so to speak)
the earth crumbling from beneath his feet, knew not where to find or
grasp the impalpable enemy whose blows he felt; for not once had the
idea occurred to him of suspecting the princess, whom he had not seen
since his adventure with her. Anxiously desiring to learn why he was so
much shunned and despised, he at length sought an explanation from
an old friend; but he received only a disdainfully evasive answer;
at which, being exasperated, he demanded satisfaction. His adversary
replied--"If you can find two persons of our acquaintance, I will fight
you!" The unhappy man could not find one!

Finally, forsaken by all, without having ever obtained an explanation of
the reason for forsaking him--suffering keenly for the fate of the
wife whom he had lost, he became mad with grief, rage, and despair, and
killed himself.

On the day of his death, Madame de Saint-Dizier remarked that it was
fit and necessary that one who had lived so shamefully should come to
an equally shameful end, and that he who had so long jested at all laws,
human and divine, could not seemly otherwise terminate his wretched life
than by perpetrating a last crime--suicide! And the friends of Madame de
Saint-Dizier hawked about and everywhere repeated these terrible words
with a contr