;
and he did this once, by the by, to somebody or other whose suit
depended upon him. The handsome young secretary began by chewing blank
paper, found it insipid for a while, and acquired a taste for
manuscript as having more flavor. People did not smoke as yet in those
days. At last, from flavor to flavor, he began to chew parchment and
swallow it. Now, at that time a treaty was being negotiated between
Russia and Sweden. The States-General insisted that Charles XII.
should make peace (much as they tried in France to make Napoleon treat
for peace in 1814) and the basis of these negotiations was the treaty
between the two powers with regard to Finland. Goertz gave the
original into his secretary's keeping; but when the time came for
laying the draft before the States-General, a trifling difficulty
arose; the treaty was not to be found. The States-General believed
that the Minister, pandering to the King's wishes, had taken it into
his head to get rid of the document. Baron Goertz was, in fact,
accused of this, and the secretary owned that he had eaten the treaty.
He was tried and convicted and condemned to death.--But you have not
come to that yet, so take a cigar and smoke till we reach the
caleche."

Lucien took a cigar and lit it, Spanish fashion, at the priest's
cigar. "He is right," he thought; "I can take my life at any time."

"It often happens that a young man's fortunes take a turn when despair
is darkest," the Spaniard continued. "That is what I wished to tell
you, but I preferred to prove it by a case in point. Here was the
handsome young secretary lying under sentence of death, and his case
the more desperate because, as he had been condemned by the
States-General, the King could not pardon him, but he connived at his
escape. The secretary stole away in a fishing-boat with a few crowns
in his pocket, and reached the court of Courland with a letter of
introduction from Goertz, explaining his secretary's adventures and
his craze for paper. The Duke of Courland was a spendthrift; he had a
steward and a pretty wife--three several causes of ruin. He placed the
charming young stranger with his steward.

"If you can imagine that the sometime secretary had been cured of his
depraved taste by a sentence of death, you do not know the grip that a
man's failings have upon him; let a man discover some satisfaction for
himself, and the headsman will not keep him from it.--How is it that
the vice has this power? Is it