y," give the history of his
life after his marriage.

"Martial de Sairmeuse," it says there, "brought to the service of his
party a brilliant intellect and admirable endowments. Called to the
front at the moment when political strife was raging with the utmost
violence, he had courage to assume the sole responsibility of the most
extreme measures.

"Compelled by almost universal opprobrium to retire from office, he left
behind him animosities which will be extinguished only with life."

But what this article does not state is this: if Martial was wrong--and
that depends entirely upon the point of view from which his conduct
is regarded--he was doubly wrong, since he was not possessed of those
ardent convictions verging upon fanaticism which make men fools, heroes,
and martyrs.

He was not even ambitious.

Those associated with him, witnessing his passionate struggle and his
unceasing activity, thought him actuated by an insatiable thirst for
power.

He cared little or nothing for it. He considered its burdens heavy; its
compensations small. His pride was too lofty to feel any satisfaction in
the applause that delights the vain, and flattery disgusted him.
Often, in his princely drawing-rooms, during some brilliant fete, his
acquaintances noticed a shade of gloom steal over his features, and
seeing him thus thoughtful and preoccupied, they respectfully refrained
from disturbing him.

"His mind is occupied with momentous questions," they thought. "Who can
tell what important decisions may result from this revery?"

They were mistaken.

At the very moment when his brilliant success made his rivals pale with
envy--when it would seem that he had nothing left to wish for in this
world, Martial was saying to himself:

"What an empty life! What weariness and vexation of spirit! To live for
others--what a mockery!"

He looked at his wife, radiant in her beauty, worshipped like a queen,
and he sighed.

He thought of her who was dead--Marie-Anne--the only woman whom he had
ever loved.

She was never absent from his mind. After all these years he saw her
yet, cold, rigid, lifeless, in that luxurious room at the Borderie;
and time, far from effacing the image of the fair girl who had won his
youthful heart, made it still more radiant and endowed his lost idol
with almost superhuman grace of person and of character.

If fate had but given him Marie-Anne for his wife! He said this to
himself again and again, pi