to intrude on your
meditations.

"They were of no agreeable nature," said Glyndon; "and never was
intrusion more welcome."

"You will be charmed to hear," said Nicot, drawing several letters
from his bosom, "that the good work proceeds with marvellous rapidity.
Mirabeau, indeed, is no more; but, mort Diable! the French people are
now a Mirabeau themselves." With this remark, Monsieur Nicot proceeded
to read and to comment upon several animated and interesting passages in
his correspondence, in which the word virtue was introduced twenty-seven
times, and God not once. And then, warmed by the cheering prospects thus
opened to him, he began to indulge in those anticipations of the future,
the outline of which we have already seen in the eloquent extravagance
of Condorcet. All the old virtues were dethroned for a new Pantheon:
patriotism was a narrow sentiment; philanthropy was to be its successor.
No love that did not embrace all mankind, as warm for Indus and the
Pole as for the hearth of home, was worthy the breast of a generous
man. Opinion was to be free as air; and in order to make it so, it was
necessary to exterminate all those whose opinions were not the same as
Mons. Jean Nicot's. Much of this amused, much revolted Glyndon; but when
the painter turned to dwell upon a science that all should comprehend,
and the results of which all should enjoy,--a science that, springing
from the soil of equal institutions and equal mental cultivation, should
give to all the races of men wealth without labour, and a life longer
than the Patriarchs', without care,--then Glyndon listened with interest
and admiration, not unmixed with awe. "Observe," said Nicot, "how much
that we now cherish as a virtue will then be rejected as meanness. Our
oppressors, for instance, preach to us of the excellence of gratitude.
Gratitude, the confession of inferiority! What so hateful to a noble
spirit as the humiliating sense of obligation? But where there is
equality there can be no means for power thus to enslave merit. The
benefactor and the client will alike cease, and--"

"And in the mean time," said a low voice, at hand,--"in the mean time,
Jean Nicot?"

The two artists started, and Glyndon recognised Zanoni.

He gazed with a brow of unusual sternness on Nicot, who, lumped together
as he sat, looked up at him askew, and with an expression of fear and
dismay upon his distorted countenance.

Ho, ho! Messire Jean Nicot, thou who fearest ne