al propositions had any real existence. However it was,
these insignificant disputes gave rise to two parties in the Gallican
Church--the Jansenists and the Jesuits. Great men were found in either
camp, and a struggle began between two powerful bodies. The Jansenists
affected an excessive purity of morals and of doctrine, and accused the
Jesuits of preaching a relaxed morality. The Jansenists, in fact, were
Catholic Puritans, if two contradictory terms can be combined. During
the Revolution, the Concordat occasioned an unimportant schism, a little
segregation of ultra-catholics who refused to recognize the Bishops
appointed by the authorities with the consent of the Pope. This little
body of the faithful was called the Little Church; and those within its
fold, like the Jansenists, led the strictly ordered lives that appear
to be a first necessity of existence in all proscribed and persecuted
sects. Many Jansenist families had joined the Little Church. The
family to which this young girl belonged had embraced the equally rigid
doctrines of both these Puritanisms, tenets which impart a stern dignity
to the character and mien of those who hold them. It is the nature of
positive doctrine to exaggerate the importance of the most ordinary
actions of life by connecting them with ideas of a future existence.
This is the source of a splendid and delicate purity of heart, a respect
for others and for self, of an indescribably keen sense of right and
wrong, a wide charity, together with a justice so stern that it might
well be called inexorable, and lastly, a perfect hatred of lies and of
all the vices comprised by falsehood.

"I can recall no more delightful moments than those of our first meeting
at my old friend's house. I beheld for the first time this shy young
girl with her sincere nature, her habits of ready obedience. All the
virtues peculiar to the sect to which she belonged shone in her, but
she seemed to be unconscious of her merit. There was a grace, which no
austerity could diminish, about every movement of her lissome, slender
form; her quiet brow, the delicate grave outlines of her face, and her
clearly cut features indicated noble birth; her expression was gentle
and proud; her thick hair had been simply braided, the coronet of plaits
about her head served, all unknown to her, as an adornment. Captain, she
was for me the ideal type that is always made real for us in the woman
with whom we fall in love; for when we l