failing to appreciate the greatness of God, he looked with
contempt upon those who believed that they could move Him. Lost in
profound tranquillity and unaffected humility, he saw that human error
was more to be pitied than hated. It was evident that he despised his
age. The revival of superstition, which, he thought, had been buried
by Voltaire and Rousseau, seemed to him a sign of utter imbecility in
the rising generation.

He was found dead one morning in his humble room, with his books and
papers littered all about him. This was soon after the Revolution of
1830, and the mayor had him decently interred at night. The clergy
purchased the whole of his library at a nominal price and made away
with it. No papers were found which served to elucidate the mystery
which had always surrounded him, but in the corner of one drawer
was found a packet containing some faded flowers tied up with a
tricoloured ribbon. At first this was supposed to be some love-token,
and several people built upon this foundation a romantic biography
of the deceased recluse, but the tricolour ribbon tended to discredit
this version. My mother never believed that it was the correct one.
Although she had an instinctive feeling of respect for System, she
always said to me: "I am sure that he was one of the Terrorists. I
sometimes fancy that I remember seeing him in 1793. Besides, he has
all the ways and ideas of M----, who terrorised Lannion and kept the
guillotine in constant play there during the time that Robespierre
had the upper hand." Fifteen or twenty years ago, I read the following
paragraph in a newspaper:

"There died yesterday, almost suddenly, in an unfrequented street
of the Faubourg St. Jacques, an old man whose way of living was a
constant source of gossip in the neighbourhood. He was respected in
the parish as a model of charity and kindness, but he was careful
to avoid any allusion to his past. A few works, such as Volney's
_Catechism_, and odd volumes of Rousseau, were scattered about the
table. All his property consisted of a trunk, which, when opened by
the Commissary of Police, was found to contain only a few clothes and
a faded bouquet carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper on which was
written: 'Bouquet which I wore at the festival of the Supreme Being,
20 Prairial, year II.'"

This explained the whole thing to me. I remembered how the few
disciples of the Jacobite School whom I had known were ardently
attached to the reco