nt marvels of the cabala."

"Such studies please you? I have shaken off the influence they once had
on my own imagination."

"You have not shaken it off," returned the stranger, bravely; "it is on
you still,--on you at this hour; it beats in your heart; it kindles in
your reason; it will speak in your tongue!"

And then, with a yet lower voice, the stranger continued to address
him, to remind him of certain ceremonies and doctrines,--to explain and
enforce them by references to the actual experience and history of his
listener, which Cazotte thrilled to find so familiar to a stranger.

Gradually the old man's pleasing and benevolent countenance grew
overcast, and he turned, from time to time, searching, curious, uneasy
glances towards his companion.

The charming Duchesse de G-- archly pointed out to the lively guests the
abstracted air and clouded brow of the poet; and Condorcet, who liked no
one else to be remarked, when he himself was present, said to Cazotte,
"Well, and what do YOU predict of the Revolution,--how, at least, will
it affect us?"

At that question Cazotte started; his cheeks grew pale, large drops
stood on his forehead; his lips writhed; his gay companions gazed on him
in surprise.

"Speak!" whispered the stranger, laying his hand gently upon the arm of
the old wit.

At that word Cazotte's face grew locked and rigid, his eyes dwelt
vacantly on space, and in a low, hollow voice, he thus answered

(The following prophecy (not unfamiliar, perhaps, to some of my
readers), with some slight variations, and at greater length, in the
text of the authority I am about to cite, is to be found in La
Harpe's posthumous works. The MS. is said to exist still in La Harpe's
handwriting, and the story is given on M. Petitot's authority, volume
i. page 62. It is not for me to enquire if there be doubts of its
foundation on fact.--Ed.),--

"You ask how it will affect yourselves,--you, its most learned, and its
least selfish agents. I will answer: you, Marquis de Condorcet, will
die in prison, but not by the hand of the executioner. In the peaceful
happiness of that day, the philosopher will carry about with him not the
elixir but the poison."

"My poor Cazotte," said Condorcet, with his gentle smile, "what have
prisons, executioners, and poison to do with an age of liberty and
brotherhood?"

"It is in the names of Liberty and Brotherhood that the prisons will
reek, and the headsman be glutted."

"You are