d
alone is in the secret of the energy we expend upon our occult triumphs
over man, over things, over ourselves. Though we know not always
whither we are going we know well what the journey costs us. If it be
permissible for the historian to turn aside for a moment from the drama
he is narrating and ask his readers to cast a glance upon the lives of
these old maids and abbes, and seek the cause of the evil which
vitiates them at their source, we may find it demonstrated that man
must experience certain passions before he can develop within him those
virtues which give grandeur to life by widening his sphere and checking
the selfishness which is inherent in every created being.

Madame de Listomere returned to town without being aware that for the
previous week her friends had felt obliged to refute a rumour (at which
she would have laughed had she known if it) that her affection for her
nephew had an almost criminal motive. She took Birotteau to her lawyer,
who did not regard the case as an easy one. The vicar's friends,
inspired by the belief that justice was certain in so good a cause,
or inclined to procrastinate in a matter which did not concern them
personally, had put off bringing the suit until they returned to
Tours. Consequently the friends of Mademoiselle Gamard had taken the
initiative, and told the affair wherever they could to the injury of
Birotteau. The lawyer, whose practice was exclusively among the most
devout church people, amazed Madame de Listomere by advising her not
to embark on such a suit; he ended the consultation by saying that "he
himself would not be able to undertake it, for, according to the terms
of the deed, Mademoiselle Gamard had the law on her side, and in equity,
that is to say outside of strict legal justice, the Abbe Birotteau would
undoubtedly seem to the judges as well as to all respectable laymen
to have derogated from the peaceable, conciliatory, and mild character
hitherto attributed to him; that Mademoiselle Gamard, known to be a
kindly woman and easy to live with, had put Birotteau under obligations
to her by lending him the money he needed to pay the legacy duties on
Chapeloud's bequest without taking from him a receipt; that Birotteau
was not of an age or character to sign a deed without knowing what
it contained or understanding the importance of it; that in leaving
Mademoiselle Gamard's house at the end of two years, when his friend
Chapeloud had lived there twelve and T