sts; they bow down and worship the
accomplished fact. Do you know why I am giving you this little history
lesson? It seems to me that your ambition is boundless----"

"Yes, father."

"I saw that myself," said the priest. "But at this moment you are
thinking, 'Here is this Spanish canon inventing anecdotes and
straining history to prove to me that I have too much virtue----'"

Lucien began to smile; his thoughts had been read so clearly.

"Very well, let us take facts that every schoolboy knows. One day
France is almost entirely overrun by the English; the King has only a
single province left. Two figures arise from among the people--a poor
herd girl, that very Jeanne Darc of whom we were speaking, and a
burgher named Jacques Coeur. The girl brings the power of virginity,
the strength of her arm; the burgher gives his gold, and the kingdom
is saved. The maid is taken prisoner, and the King, who could have
ransomed her, leaves her to be burned alive. The King allows his
courtier to accuse the great burgher of capital crime, and they rob
him and divide all his wealth among themselves. The spoils of an
innocent man, hunted down, brought to bay, and driven into exile by
the Law, went to enrich five noble houses; and the father of the
Archbishop of Bourges left the kingdom for ever without one sou of all
his possessions in France, and no resource but moneys remitted to
Arabs and Saracens in Egypt. It is open to you to say that these
examples are out of date, that three centuries of public education
have since elapsed, and that the outlines of those ages are more or
less dim figures. Well, young man, do you believe in the last demi-god
of France, in Napoleon? One of his generals was in disgrace all
through his career; Napoleon made him a marshal grudgingly, and never
sent him on service if he could help it. That marshal was Kellermann.
Do you know the reason of the grudge? . . . Kellermann saved France
and the First Consul at Marengo by a brilliant charge; the ranks
applauded under fire and in the thick of the carnage. That heroic
charge was not even mentioned in the bulletin. Napoleon's coolness
toward Kellermann, Fouche's fall, and Talleyrand's disgrace were all
attributable to the same cause; it is the ingratitude of a Charles
VII., or a Richelieu, or ----"

"But, father," said Lucien, "suppose that you should save my life and
make my fortune, you are making the ties of gratitude somewhat
slight."

"Little rogue," s