ot
lack either interest or poesy. Saint-Ursula, virgin and martyr,
was, as is generally believed, a daughter of prince of Great
Britain. Becoming the abbess of a convent of unmarried women, who
were called with popular naivete the Eleven Thousand Virgins, she
was martyred by the Huns in the fifth century; later, she was
patroness of the order of the Ursulines, to which she gave its
name, and she was also patroness of the famous house of Sorbonne.
An able artist like yourself could, it seems to me, make much of
these details.

Without knowing the locality of which you will be made the
representative, it is expedient that you should from the present
moment, make known your political opinions and your intention of
becoming a candidate for election. But I cannot too strongly
insist on your keeping secret the communication now made to you;
at any rate as much as your patience will allow. Leave my agent in
peace, and await the slow and quiet development of the brilliant
future to which you are destined, without yielding to a curiosity
which might, I warn you, lead to great disasters.

If you refuse to enter my plans, you will take from yourself all
chance of ever penetrating a mystery which you have shown yourself
so eager to understand. But I do not admit even the supposition of
your resistance, and I prefer to believe in your deference to the
wishes of a father who will regard it as the finest day of his
life when at last it be granted to him to reveal himself to his
son.

P.S. Your statue, which is intended for a convent of Ursuline
nuns, must be in white marble. Height: one metre seven hundred and
six millimetres; in other words, five feet three inches. As it
will not be placed in a niche, you must carefully finish all sides
of it. The costs of the work are to be taken out of the two
hundred and fifty thousand francs mentioned above.

This letter chilled and pained me. In the first place, it took from me a
hope long cherished,--that of recovering a mother as loving as yours, of
whose adorable tenderness, dear friend, you have so often told me. After
all, it was a half-light thrown upon the fogs of my life without even
allowing me to know whether I was or was not the child of a legitimate
marriage. It also seemed to me that such paternal intimations addressed
to a man of my age were much too despotic and imperious. Was it not
a strange proceeding to change