efore going into
Russia."

"Wouldn't it be better," I said, "for those who know how, to practice
the accomplishment before me?"

"Imagine the Count of Provence stepping down from playing royalty to do
that!" my friend laughed.

"I don't know why he shouldn't, since he knows I am alive. He has sent
money every year for my support."

"An established custom, Lazarre, gains strength every day it is
continued. You see how hard it is to overturn an existing system,
because men have to undo the work they have been doing perhaps for a
thousand years. Time gives enormous stability. Monsieur the Count of
Provence has been practicing royalty since word went out that his nephew
had died in the Temple. It will be no easy matter to convince him you
are fit to play king in his stead."

This did not disturb me, however. I thought more of my sister. And I
thought of vast stretches across the center of Europe. The Indian
stirred in me, as it always did stir, when the woman I wanted was
withdrawn from me.

I could not tell my friend, or any man, about Madame de Ferrier. This
story of my life is not to be printed until I am gone from the world.
Otherwise the things set down so freely would remain buried in myself.

Some beggars started from hovels, running like dogs, holding diseased
and crooked-eyed children up for alms, and pleading for God's sake that
we would have pity on them. When they disappeared with their coin I
asked the marquis if there had always been wretchedness in France.

"There is always wretchedness everywhere," he answered. "Napoleon can
turn the world upside down, but he cannot cure the disease of hereditary
poverty. I never rode to Versailles without encountering these people."

When we entered the Place d'Armes fronting the palace, desolation worse
than that of the beggars faced us. That vast noble pile, untenanted and
sacked, symbolized the vanished monarchy of France. Doors stood wide.
The court was strewn with litter and filth; and grass started rank
betwixt the stones where the proudest courtiers in the world had trod. I
tried to enter the queen's rooms, but sat on the steps leading to them,
holding my head in my hands. It was as impossible as it had been to
enter the Temple.

The fountains which once made a concert of mist around their lake basin,
satisfying like music, the marquis said, were dried, and the figures
broken. Millions had been spent upon this domain of kings, and nothing
but the summer'