"you, who forget the grief which you will
cause our elder brother, and will cause me too--"

"Forgive me," interrupted Henri, whose cheeks were dyed with crimson,
"forgive me, monseigneur; but is the service of Heaven then so gloomy
and so dishonorable a career that all the members of a family are to be
thrown into distress by it? You, for instance, my brother, whose
portrait I observe suspended in this room, with all this gold, and
diamonds, and purple around you, are you not both the delight and honor
of our house, although you have chosen the service of Heaven, as my
eldest brother has chosen that of the kings of the earth?"

"Boy, boy!" exclaimed the cardinal impatiently, "you will make me
believe your brain is turned. What! will you venture to compare my
residence to a cloister? my hundred attendants, my outriders, the
gentlemen of my suite, and my guards, to a cell and a broom, which are
the only arms and the sole wealth of a cloister? Are you mad? Did you
not just now say that you repudiate these superfluities--these pictures,
precious vases, pomp and distinction, which I cannot do without? Have
you, as I have, the desire and hope of placing on your brow the tiara of
St. Peter? That, indeed, is a career, Henri; one presses onward toward
it, struggles for it, lives in it. But as for you! it is the miner's
pick, the trappist's spade, the gravedigger's tomb, that you desire;
utter abandonment of life, of pleasure, of hope; and all that--I blush
with shame for you, a man--all that, I say, because you love a woman who
loves you not. You do foul injustice to your race, Henri, most truly."

"Brother!" exclaimed the young man, pale as death, while his eyes blazed
with kindling fire, "would you sooner have me blow out my brains, or
plunge in my heart the sword I have the honor to wear by my side?
Pardieu, monseigneur, if you, who are cardinal and prince besides, will
give me absolution for so mortal a sin, the affair will be so quickly
done that you shall have no time to complete your odious and unworthy
thought that I am capable of dishonoring my race, which, Heaven be
praised, a Joyeuse will never do."

"Come, come, Henri," said the cardinal, drawing his brother toward him,
and pressing him in his arms; "come, forget what has passed, and think
of those who love you. I have personal motives for entreating you.
Listen to me; a rare occurrence in this world of ours, we are all happy,
some from feelings of gratified ambi