with him for being so unnecessarily tedious.

"As so often happens, the best part of this book are the notes, that
is to say, a mass of extracts and selections taken from the famous
writers of the last two centuries, notably from Rousseau. All the
'proofs' and apologetic arguments ruin the work unfortunately, the
eloquence and dialectics of Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetius, Holbach, and
even Voltaire, differing very much from those of Abbe Gerard. It is
the same with the libertines' reasons refuted by the father of the
Comte de Valmont. It must be a very dangerous thing to bring forward
mischievous doctrines with so much force. They have a savour which
renders the best things insipid, and it is with these good doctrines
that the six or seven volumes of the _Comte de Valmont_ are filled.
Abbe Gerard did not wish his work to be called a novel, and as a
matter of fact there is neither drama nor action in the interminable
letters of the Marquis, the Count and Emilie.

"Count de Valmont is one of those sceptics who are often met with in
the world. A man of weak mind, pretentious and foppish, incapable of
thinking and reflecting for himself, ignorant into the bargain, and
without any kind of knowledge upon any subject, he meets his hapless
father with all sorts of difficulties against morality, religion and
Christianity in particular, just as if he had a right to an opinion on
matters the study of which requires so much enlightenment and takes up
so much timed. The best thing the poor fellow can do is to reform
his ways, and he does not fail to neglect doing this at nearly every
volume.

"The seventh volume of the edition which I have before me is entitled,
_La Theorie du Bonheur; ou, L' Art de se rendre Heureux mis a la
Portee de tous les Hommes, faisant Suite ait 'Comte de Valmont_,'
Paris Bossange, 1801, eleventh edition. This is a different book,
whatever the publisher may say, and I confess that this secret of
happiness, brought within the reach of everybody, did not create a
very favourable impression upon me."]

THE ST. SULPICE SEMINARY.

PART I.

The house built by M. Olier in 1645 was not the large quadrangular
barrack-like building which now occupies one side of the square of St.
Sulpice. The old seminary of the seventeenth and eighteenth century
covered the whole area of what is now the square, and quite concealed
Servandoni's facade. The site of the present seminary was formerly
occupied by the gardens