c of the Will.

From this point of view the Virgin Mary, even if we regard her only as
a symbol, is supremely great above every other type, whether Hindoo,
Egyptian, or Greek. Virginity, the mother of great things, _magna parens
rerum_, holds in her fair white hands the keys of the upper worlds. In
short, that grand and terrible exception deserves all the honors decreed
to her by the Catholic Church.

Thus, in one moment, Lisbeth Fischer had become the Mohican whose
snares none can escape, whose dissimulation is inscrutable, whose swift
decisiveness is the outcome of the incredible perfection of every organ
of sense. She was Hatred and Revenge, as implacable as they are
in Italy, Spain, and the East. These two feelings, the obverse of
friendship and love carried to the utmost, are known only in lands
scorched by the sun. But Lisbeth was also a daughter of Lorraine, bent
on deceit.

She accepted this detail of her part against her will; she began by
making a curious attempt, due to her ignorance. She fancied, as children
do, that being imprisoned meant the same thing as solitary confinement.
But this is the superlative degree of imprisonment, and that superlative
is the privilege of the Criminal Bench.

As soon as she left Madame Marneffe, Lisbeth hurried off to Monsieur
Rivet, and found him in his office.

"Well, my dear Monsieur Rivet," she began, when she had bolted the
door of the room. "You were quite right. Those Poles! They are low
villains--all alike, men who know neither law nor fidelity."

"And who want to set Europe on fire," said the peaceable Rivet, "to
ruin every trade and every trader for the sake of a country that is all
bog-land, they say, and full of horrible Jews, to say nothing of the
Cossacks and the peasants--a sort of wild beasts classed by mistake with
human beings. Your Poles do not understand the times we live in; we are
no longer barbarians. War is coming to an end, my dear mademoiselle; it
went out with the Monarchy. This is the age of triumph for commerce, and
industry, and middle-class prudence, such as were the making of Holland.

"Yes," he went on with animation, "we live in a period when nations must
obtain all they need by the legal extension of their liberties and by
the pacific action of Constitutional Institutions; that is what the
Poles do not see, and I hope----

"You were saying, my dear?--" he added, interrupting himself when he
saw from his work-woman's face that high po