en do you call miracles?
the dull eye cannot discern them, just because they are too great and
too mighty. That these poor people, who were perfectly content if they
only had their hardly-earned dry bread, and who in the recesses of
their mountains revered every commander as a deity;--that these should
venture to defy the Intendant, the Marshal with his armies, and even
the king himself;--that these poor, common men were enabled to
sacrifice their wives, their children, and their lives, and die martyrs
for their doctrine: Is this then no miracle? A miserable band without
education, without arms, without having ever seen service, led by young
men, who scarcely know what a sword is, should defeat regular troops
and experienced commanders in more than one battle; and, sometimes too,
one against four: Is that no miracle? How, if these rebels, for such
they are in reality, should desire to found the truth of their doctrine
upon this, what have you to oppose against them?"

"Rather mention too," said Edmond, with bitterness, "their prophets,
their ecstasies, their absurd convulsive contortions, which the young
learn from the old and deceive and grossly lie with the name of God on
their lips."

"My son," said his father, sighing, while he gazed with emotion on the
dark eyes of his son. "In all unrestrained passions man is transformed
into an inexplicable but fearful miracle, then becomes realised and
identified with him, what the wildest fancy itself cannot imagine more
irrational. Let every man beware of this state, still less let him seek
it, as you do, Edmond; your fire will consume you. Go not yonder so
often to the lady of Castelnau: this will nourish your enthusiasm and
destroy you." Edmond quitted the hall abruptly without saying a word.
The old man looked after him, sighed and said to himself, "Ardent love
and bigotry encouraged by an enthusiastic woman what may they not
effect in our times in this poor youth; who knows the misery that is
still before me!"

"For God's sake, my Lord," exclaimed old Frantz, rushing in, "what is
the matter with our son; there he is running up the vineyard without a
hat, and the storm is fast gathering. Oh, if you had but not scolded
him! He will never indeed give up the lady!"

"How do you know," asked the father, "that the conversation related to
her?"

"He ran by me," replied Frantz, "and looked at me with that very
peculiar, fierce expression, which he only has, if any one speaks