as a
colossal genius.

"Education is making strides in France," said he to himself.

_The Conscript_

[The inner self] ... by a phenomenon of vision or of locomotion
has been known at times to abolish Space in its two modes of Time
and Distance--the one intellectual, the other physical.

--HISTORY OF LOUIS LAMBERT.

On a November evening in the year 1793 the principal citizens of
Carentan were assembled in Mme. de Dey's drawing-room. Mme. de Dey
held this _reception_ every night of the week, but an unwonted interest
attached to this evening's gathering, owing to certain circumstances
which would have passed altogether unnoticed in a great city, though in
a small country town they excited the greatest curiosity. For two days
before Mme. de Dey had not been at home to her visitors, and on the
previous evening her door had been shut, on the ground of indisposition.
Two such events at any ordinary time would have produced in Carentan
the same sensation that Paris knows on nights when there is no
performance at the theaters--existence is in some sort incomplete; but
in those times when the least indiscretion on the part of an aristocrat
might be a matter of life and death, this conduct of Mme. de Dey's was
likely to bring about the most disastrous consequences for her. Her
position in Carentan ought to be made clear, if the reader is to
appreciate the expression of keen curiosity and cunning fanaticism on
the countenances of these Norman citizens, and, what is of most
importance, the part that the lady played among them. Many a one during
the days of the Revolution has doubtless passed through a crisis as
difficult as hers at that moment, and the sympathies of more than one
reader will fill in all the coloring of the picture.

Mme. de Dey was the widow of a Lieutenant-General, a Knight of the
Orders of Saint Michael and of the Holy Ghost. She had left the Court
when the Emigration began, and taken refuge in the neighborhood of
Carentan, where she had large estates, hoping that the influence of the
Reign of Terror would be but little felt there. Her calculations, based
on a thorough knowledge of the district, proved correct. The Revolution
made little disturbance in Lower Normandy. Formerly, when Mme. de Dey
had spent any time in the country, her circle of acquaintance had been
confined to the noble families of the district; but now, from politic
motives, she opened her house to the principal cit