ou have done?"

"I should have gone at once to warn my benefactor," Lucien exclaimed
quickly.

"You are indeed the child which your story reveals!" said the priest.
"Our man said to himself, 'If the King is resolved to go to such
lengths, it is all over with my benefactor; I must receive this letter
too late;' so he slept on till the favorite was stabbed----"

"He was a monster!" said Lucien, suspecting that the priest meant to
sound him.

"So are all great men; this one was the Cardinal de Richelieu, and his
benefactor was the Marechal d'Ancre. You really do not know your
history of France, you see. Was I not right when I told you that
history as taught in schools is simply a collection of facts and
dates, more than doubtful in the first place, and with no bearing
whatever on the gist of the matter. You are told that such a person as
Jeanne Darc once existed; where is the use of that? Have you never
drawn your own conclusions from that fact? never seen that if France
had accepted the Angevin dynasty of the Plantagenets, the two peoples
thus reunited would be ruling the world to-day, and the islands that
now brew political storms for the continent would be French provinces?
. . . Why, have you so much as studied the means by which simple
merchants like the Medicis became Grand Dukes of Tuscany?"

"A poet in France is not bound to be 'as learned as a Benedictine,'"
said Lucien.

"Well, they became Grand-Dukes as Richelieu became a minister. If you
had looked into history for the causes of events instead of getting
the headings by heart, you would have found precepts for your guidance
in this life. These real facts taken at random from among so many
supply you with the axiom--'Look upon men, and on women most of all,
as your instruments; but never let them see this.' If some one higher
in place can be useful to you, worship him as your god; and never
leave him until he has paid the price of your servility to the last
farthing. In your intercourse with men, in short, be grasping and mean
as a Jew; all that the Jew does for money, you must do for power. And
besides all this, when a man has fallen from power, care no more for
him than if he had ceased to exist. And do you ask why you must do
these things? You mean to rule the world, do you not? You must begin
by obeying and studying it. Scholars study books; politicians study
men, and their interests and the springs of action. Society and
mankind in masses are fatali