for his service, who surrounded him: "My friends, having delivered the Abbé of the Mountain is nothing; we must rescue a nymph."
The warm blood of these youths was fired at the expression. He was already followed by crowds, who repaired to the convent. If the bailiff had not immediately acquainted the commandant with their design, and he had not sent a detachment after the joyous troop, the thing would have been done. The Huron was conducted back to his uncle and aunt, who overwhelmed him with tears and tenderness.
"I see very well," said his uncle, "that you will never be either a sub-deacon or a prior; you will be an officer, and one still braver than my brother the Captain, and probably as poor."
Miss Kerkabon could not stop an incessant flood of tears, whilst she embraced him, saying, "he will be killed too, like my brother; it were much better he were a sub-deacon."
The Huron had, during the battle, picked up a purse full of guineas, which the Admiral had probably lost. He did not doubt but that this purse would buy all Lower Britany, and, above all, make Miss St. Yves a great lady. Every one persuaded him to repair to Versailles, to receive the recompense due to his services. The commandant, and the principal officers, furnished him with certificates in abundance. The uncle and aunt also approved of this journey. He was to be presented to the king without any difficulty. This alone would give him great weight in the province. These two good folks added to the English purse a considerable present out of their savings. The Huron said to himself, "When I see the king, I will ask Miss St. Yves of him in marriage, and certainly he will not refuse me." He set out accordingly, amidst the acclamations of the whole district, stifled with embraces, bathed in tears by his aunt, blessed by his uncle, and recommending himself to the charming Miss St.
Yves.
VIII.
THE HURON GOES TO COURT. SUPS UPON THE ROAD WITH SOME HUGUENOTS.
The ingenuous Hercules took the Saumur road in the coach, because there was at that time no other convenience. When he came to Saumur, he was astonished to find the city almost deserted, and to see several families going away. He was told, that half a dozen years before, Saumur contained upwards of fifty thousand inhabitants, and that at present there were not six thousand. He mentioned this at the inn, whilst at supper. Several Protestants were at table; some complained bitterly, others trembled with rage, others, weeping, said, _Nos dulcia linquimus arva, nos patriam fugimus_. The Huron, who did not understand Latin, had these words explained to him, which signified, "We abandon our sweet fields;--We fly from our country."
"And why do you fly from your country, gentlemen?"
"Because we must otherwise acknowledge the Pope."
"And why not acknowledge him? You have no god-mothers, then, that you want to marry; for, I am told it is he that grants this permission."
"Ah! sir, this Pope says, that he is master of the domains of kings."
"But, gentlemen, what religion are you of?"
"Why, sir, we are for the most part drapers and manufacturers."
"If the Pope, then, is not the master of your clothes and manufactures, you do very well not to acknowledge him; but as to kings, it is their business, and why do you trouble yourselves about it?"
Here a little black man took up the argument, and very learnedly set forth the grievances of the company. He talked of the revocation of the edict of Nantes with so much energy; he deplored, in so pathetic a manner, the fate of fifty thousand fugitive families, and of fifty thousand others converted by dragoons; that the ingenuous Hercules could not refrain from shedding tears.
"Whence arises it," said he, "that so great a king, whose renown expands itself even to the Hurons, should thus deprive himself of so many hearts that would have loved him, and so many arms that would have served him."
"Because he has been imposed upon, like other great kings," replied the little orator, "He has been made to believe, that as soon as he utters a word, all people think as he does; and that he can make us change our religion, just as his musician Lulli, in a moment, changes the decorations of his opera. He has not only already lost five or six hundred thousand very useful subjects, but he has turned many of them into enemies; and King William, who is at this time master of England, has formed several regiments of these identical Frenchmen, who would otherwise have fought for their monarch.
"Such a disaster is more astonishing, as the present Pope, to whom Louis XIV. sacrifices a part of his people, is his declared enemy. A violent quarrel has subsisted between them for nearly nine years. It has been carried so far, that France was in hopes of at length casting off the yoke, by which it has been kept in subjection for so many ages to this foreigner, and, more particularly, of not giving him any more money, which is the _primum mobile_ of the affairs of this world. It, therefore, appears evident, that this great king has been imposed on, as well with respect to his interest, as the extent of his power, and that even the magnanimity of his heart has been struck at."
The Huron, becoming more and more interested, asked: "Who were the Frenchmen who thus deceived a monarch so dear to the Hurons?"
"They are the Jesuits," he was answered, "and, particularly, Father la Chaise, the kings confessor. It is to be hoped that God will one day punish them for it, and that they will be driven out, as they now drive us. Can any misfortune equal ours? Mons. de Louvois besets us on all sides with Jesuits and dragoons."
"Well gentlemen," replied the Huron, "I am going to Versailles to receive the recompense due to my services; I will speak to Mons. de Louvois. I am told it is he who makes war from his closet. I shall see the king, and I will acquaint him with the truth. It is impossible not to yield to this truth, when it is felt. I shall return very soon to marry Miss St. Yves, and I beg you will be present at our nuptials."
These good people now took him for some great Lord, who traveled _incognito_ in the coach. Some took him for the king's fool.
There was at table a disguised Jesuit, who acted as a spy to the Reverend Father de la Chaise. He gave him an account of everything that passed, and Father de la Chaise reported it to M. de Louvois. The spy wrote. The Huron and the letter arrived almost at the same time at Versailles.
IX.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE HURON AT VERSAILLES. HIS RECEPTION AT COURT.
The ingenuous Hercules was set down from a public carriage, in the court of the kitchens. He asks the chairmen, what hour the king can be seen?
The chairmen laugh in his face, just as the English Admiral had done: and he treated them in the same manner--he beat them. They were for retaliation, and the scene had like to have proved bloody, if a soldier, who was a gentleman of Britany, had not passed by, and who dispersed the mob.
"Sir," said the traveler to him, "you appear to me to be a brave man. I am nephew to the Prior of our Lady of the Mountain. I have killed Englishmen, and I am come to speak to the king. I beg you will conduct me to his chamber."
The soldier, delighted to find a man of courage from his province, who did not seem acquainted with the customs of the court, told him it was necessary to be presented to M. de Louvois.
"Very well, then, conduct me to M. de Louvois, who will doubtless conduct me to the king."
"It is more difficult to speak to M. de Louvois than the king. But I will conduct you to Mr. Alexander, first commissioner of war, and this will be just the same as if you spoke to the minister."
They accordingly repair to Mr. Alexander's, who is first clerk, but they cannot be introduced, he being closely engaged in business with a lady of the court, and no person is allowed admittance.
"Well," said the soldier, "there is no harm done, let us go to Mr.
Alexander's first clerk. This will be just the same as if you spoke to Mr. Alexander himself."
The Huron quite astonished, followed him. They remained together half an hour in a little anti-chamber.
"What is all this?" said the ingenuous Hercules. "Is all the world invisible in this country? It is much easier to fight in Lower Britany against Englishmen, than to meet with people at Versailles, with whom one hath business."
He amused himself for some time with relating his amours to his countryman; but the clock striking, recalled the soldier to his post, when a mutual promise was given of meeting on the morrow.
The Huron remained another half hour in the anti-chamber, meditating upon Miss St. Yves, and the difficulty of speaking to kings and first clerks.
At length the patron appeared.
"Sir," said the ingenuous Hercules, "If I had waited to repulse the English as long as you have made me wait for my audience, they would certainly have ravaged all Lower Britany without opposition."
These words impressed the clerk. He at length said to the inhabitant of Britany, "What is your request?"
"A recompense," said the other: "these are my titles;" showing his certificates.
The clerk read, and told him, "that probably he might obtain leave to purchase a lieutenancy."
"Me? what, must I pay money for having repulsed the English? Must I pay a tax to be killed for you, whilst you are peaceably giving your audience here? You are certainly jesting. I require a company of cavalry for nothing. I require that the king shall set Miss St. Yves at liberty from the convent, and give her to me in marriage. I want to speak to the king in favor of fifty thousand families, whom I propose restoring to him. In a word, I want to be useful. Let me be employed and advanced."
"What is your name, sir, who talk in such a high style?"
"Oh! oh!" answered the Huron; "you have not then read my certificates?
This is the way they are treated. My name is _Hercules de Kerkabon_. I am christened, and I lodge at the Blue Dial." The clerk concluded, like the people at Saumur, that his head was turned, and did not pay him any further attention.
The same day, the Reverend Father de la Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV., received his spy's letter, which accused the Breton Kerkabon of favoring in his heart the Huguenots, and condemning the conduct of the Jesuits.
M. de Louvois had, on his side, received a letter from the inquisitive bailiff, which depicted the Huron as a wicked, lewd fellow, inclined to burn convents, and carry off the nuns.
Hercules, after having walked in the gardens of Versailles, which had become irksome to him; after having supped like a native of Huronia and Lower Britany: had gone to rest, in the pleasant hope of seeing the king the next day; of obtaining Miss St. Yves in marriage; of having, at least, a company of cavalry; and of setting aside the persecution against the Huguenots. He was rocking himself asleep with these flattering ideas, when the _Marechaussée_ entered his chamber, and seized upon his double-charged fusee and his great sabre.
They took an inventory of his ready money, and then conducted him to the castle erected by King Charles V., son to John II., near the street of St. Antoine, at the gate des Tournelles.
What was the Huron's astonishment in his way thither the reader is left to imagine. He at first fancied it was all a dream; and remained for some time in a state of stupefaction. Presently, transported with rage, that gave him more than common strength, he collared two of his conductors who were with him in the coach, flung them out of the door, cast himself after them, and then dragged the third, who wanted to hold him. He fell in the attempt, when they tied him, and replaced him in the carriage.
"This, then," said he, "is what one gets for driving the English out of Lower Britany! What wouldst thou say, charming Miss St. Yves, if thou didst see me in this situation?"
They at length arrived at the place of their destination. He was carried without any noise into the chamber in which he was to be locked up, like a dead corpse going to the grave. This room was already occupied by an old solitary student of Port Royal, named Gordon, who had been languishing here for two years.
"See," said the chief of the Marechaussée, "here is company I bring you;" and immediately the enormous bolts of this strong door, secured with large iron bars, were fastened upon them. These two captives were thus separated from all the universe besides.
X.
THE HURON IS SHUT UP IN THE BASTILE WITH A JANSENIST.
Mr. Gordon was a healthy old man, of a serene disposition, who was acquainted with two great things; the one was, to bear adversity; the other, to console the afflicted. He approached his companion with an open sympathizing air, and said to him, whilst he embraced him: "Whoever thou art that is come to partake of my grave, be assured, that I shall constantly forget myself to soften thy torments in the infernal abyss where we are plunged. Let us adore Providence that has conducted us here. Let us suffer in peace, and trust in hope."
These words had the same effect upon the youth as cordial drops, which recall a dying person to life, and show to his astonished eyes a glimpse of light.
After the first compliments were over, Gordon, without urging him to relate the cause of his misfortune, inspired him by the sweetness of his discourse and by that interest which two unfortunate persons share with each other, with a desire of opening his heart and of disburdening himself of the weight which oppressed him; but he could not guess the cause of his misfortune, and the good man Gordon was as much astonished as himself.
"God must, doubtless," said the Jansenist to the Huron, "have great designs upon you, since he conducted you from Lake Ontario into England, from thence to France; caused you to be baptized in Lower Britany, and has now lodged you here for your salvation."
"I' faith," replied Hercules, "I believe the devil alone has interfered in my destiny.[1] My countrymen in America would never have treated me with the barbarity that I have here experienced; they have not the least idea of it. They are called savages;--they are good people, but rustic, and the men of this country are refined villains. I am indeed, greatly surprised to have come from another world, to be shut up in this, under four bolts with a priest; but I consider what an infinite number of men set out from one hemisphere to go and get killed in the other, or are cast away in the voyage, and are eaten by the fishes. I cannot discover the gracious designs of God over all these people."
Their dinner was brought them through a wicket. The conversation turned upon Providence, _lettres de cachet_, and upon the art of not sinking under disgrace, to which all men in this world are exposed.
"It is now two years since I have been here," said the old man, "without any other consolation than myself and books; and yet I have never been a single moment out of temper."
"Ah! Mr. Gordon," cried Hercules, "you are not then in love with your god-mother. If you were as well acquainted with Miss St. Yves as I am, you would be in a state of desperation."
At these words he could not refrain from tears, which greatly relieved him from his oppression.
"How is it then that tears solace us?" said the Huron, "It seems to me that they should have quite an opposite effect."
"My son," said the good old man, "every thing is physical about us; all secretions are useful to the body, and all that comforts it, comforts the soul. We are the machines of Providence."
The ingenuous Huron, who, as we have already observed more than once, had a great share of understanding, entered deeply into the consideration of this idea, the seeds whereof appeared to be in himself.
After which he asked his companion.
"Why his machine had for two years been confined by four bolts?"
"By effectual grace," answered Gordon; "I pass for a Jansenist; I know Arnaud and Nicole; the Jesuits have persecuted us. We believe that the Pope is nothing more than a bishop, like another, and therefore Father la Chaise has obtained from the king, his penitent, an order for robbing me without any form of justice, of the most precious inheritance of man--liberty!"
"This is very strange," said the Huron, "all the unhappy people I have met with have been made so solely by the Pope. With respect to your effectual grace, I acknowledge I do not understand what you mean. But I consider it as a very great favor, that God has let me, in my misfortunes, meet with a man, who pours into my heart such consolation as I thought myself incapable of receiving."
The conversation became each day more interesting and instructive. The souls of the two captives seemed to unite in one body. The old man had acquired knowledge, and the young man was willing to receive instruction. At the end of the first month, he eagerly applied himself to the study of geometry. Gordon made him read _Rohault's Physics_, which book was still in fashion, and he had good sense enough to find in it nothing but doubts and uncertainties.
He afterward read the first volume of the _Enquiry After Truth_. This instructive work gave him new light.
"What!" said he, "do our imagination and our senses deceive us to that degree? What, are not our ideas formed by objects, and can we not acquire them by ourselves?"
When he had gone through the second volume, he was not so well satisfied; and he concluded it was much easier to destroy than to build.
His colleague, astonished that a young ignoramus should make such a remark, conceived a very high opinion of his understanding, and was more strongly attached to him.
"Your Malebranche," said he to Gordon one day, "seems to have written half his book whilst he was in possession of his reason, and the other half with the assistance only of imagination and prejudice."
Some days after, Gordon asked him what he thought of the soul, and the manner in which we receive our ideas of volition, grace, and free agency.
"Nothing," replied the Huron. "If I think sometimes, it is that we are under the power of the Eternal Being, like the stars and the elements--that he operates everything in us--that we are small wheels of the immense machine, of which he is the soul--that he acts according to general laws, and not from particular views. This is all that appears to me intelligible; all the rest is to me a dark abyss."
"But this, my son, would be making God the author of sin!"
"But, father, your effectual grace would equally make him the author of sin; for certainly all those to whom this grace was refused, would sin; and is not an all-powerful being who permits evil, virtually the author of evil?"
This sincerity greatly embarrassed the good man; he found that all his endeavors to extricate himself from this quagmire were ineffectual; and he heaped such quantities of words upon one another, which seemed to have meaning, but which in fact had none, that the Huron could not help pitying him. This question evidently determined the origin of good and evil; and poor Gordon was reduced to the necessity of recurring to Pandora's box--Oromasdes's egg pierced by Arimanes--the enmity between Typhon and Osiris--and, at last, original sin; and these he huddled together in profound darkness, without their throwing the least glimmering light upon one another. However, this romance of the soul diverted their thoughts from the contemplation of their own misery; and, by a strange magic, the multitude of calamities dispersed throughout the world diminished the sensation of their own miseries. They did not dare complain when all mankind was in a state of sufferance.
But in the repose of night, the image of the charming Miss St. Yves effaced from the mind of her lover every metaphysical and moral idea. He awoke with his eyes bathed in tears; and the old Jansenist forgot his effectual grace, and the Abbé of St. Cyran, and even Jansenius himself, to afford consolation to a youth whom he had judged guilty of a mortal sin.
After these lectures and their reasonings were over, their adventures furnished them with subjects of conversation; after this store was exhausted, they read together, or separately. The Huron's understanding daily increased; and he would certainly have made great progress in mathematics, if the thought of Miss St. Yves had not frequently distracted him.
He read histories, which made him melancholy. The world appeared to him too wicked and too miserable. In fact, history is nothing more than a picture of crimes and misfortunes. The crowd of innocent and peaceable men are always invisible upon this vast theatre. The _dramatis personæ_ are composed of ambitious, perverse men. The pleasure which history affords is derived from the same source as tragedy, which would languish and become insipid, were it not inspired with strong passions, great events, and piteous misfortunes. Clio must be armed with a poniard as well as Melpomene.
Though the history of France is not less filled with horror than those of other nations, it nevertheless appeared to him so disgusting in the beginning, so dry in the continuation, and so trifling in the end, (even in the time of Henry IV.); ever destitute of grand monuments, or foreign to those fine discoveries which have illustrated other nations; that he was obliged to resolve upon not being tired, in order to go through all the particulars of obscure calamities confined to a little corner of the world.
Gordon thought like him. They both laughed with pity when they read of the sovereigns of Fezensacs, Fesansaguet, and Astrac: such a study could be relished only by their heirs, if they had any. The brilliant ages of the Roman Republic made him sometimes quite indifferent as to any other part of the globe. The spectacle of victorious Rome, the lawgiver of nations, engrossed his whole soul. He glowed in contemplating a people who were governed for seven hundred years by the enthusiasm of liberty and glory.
Thus rolled days, weeks, and months; and he would have thought himself happy in the sanctuary of despair, if he had not loved.
The natural goodness of his heart was softened still more when he reflected upon the Prior of our Lady of the Mountain, and the sensible Kerkabon.
"What must they think," he would often repeat, "when they can get no tidings of me? They must think me an ungrateful wretch." This idea rendered him inconsolable. He pitied those who loved him much more than he pitied himself.
[1] In the play called _Civilization_, Hercules uses the following language: "In my barbarian days, I spoke the truth: Wrong'd not my neighbor: paid back benefits, With benefit and gratitude to boot; Dealt justly: held a friend to be a gift, Precious as stars dropt down from heaven: bowed Before the works of God: beheld in them His presence, palpable, as at an altar: And worshipp'd heaven at the mountain's foot.
But this Was Barbarism, I am wiser now; More civilized. I know the way to lie, To cheat, deceive, and be a zealous Christian!"--E.
XI.
HOW THE HURON DISCLOSES HIS GENIUS.
Reading aggrandizes the soul, and an enlightened friend affords consolation. Our captive had these two advantages in his favor which he had never expected.
"I shall begin to believe in the Metamorphoses," said he, "for I have been transformed from a brute into a man."
He formed a chosen library with part of the money which he was allowed to dispose of. His friend encouraged him to commit to writing such observations as occurred to him. These are his notes upon ancient history: "I imagine that nations were for a long time like myself; that they did not become enlightened till very late; that for many ages they were occupied with nothing but the present moment which elapsed: that they thought very little of what was past, and never of the future. I have traversed five or six hundred leagues in Canada, and I did not meet with a single monument: no one is the least acquainted with the actions of his predecessors. Is not this the natural state of man? The human species of this continent appears to me superior to that of the other.
They have extended their being for many ages by arts and knowledge. Is this because they have beards upon their chins and God has refused this ornament to the Americans? I do not believe it; for I find the Chinese have very little beard, and that they have cultivated arts for upwards of five thousand years. In effect, if their annals go back upwards of four thousand years, the nation must necessarily have been united and in a flourishing state more than five hundred centuries.
"One thing particularly strikes me in this ancient history of China, which is, that almost every thing is probable and natural. I admire it because it is not tinctured with anything of the marvelous.
"Why have all other nations adopted fabulous origins? The ancient chronicles of the history of France, which, by the by, are not very ancient, make the French descend from one Francus, the son of Hector.
The Romans said they were the issue of a Phrygian, though there was not in their whole language a single word that had the least connection with the language of Phrygia. The gods had inhabited Egypt for ten thousand years, and the devils Scythia, where they had engendered the Huns. I meet with nothing before Thucydides but romances similar to the Amadis, and far less amusing. Apparitions, oracles, prodigies, sorcery, metamorphoses, are interspersed throughout with the explanation of dreams, which are the bases of the destiny of the greatest empires and the smallest states. Here are speaking beasts, there brutes that are adored, gods transformed into men, and men into gods. If we must have fables, let us, at least, have such as appear the emblem of truth. I admire the fables of philosophers, but I laugh at those of children, and hate those of impostors."
He one day hit upon a history of the Emperor Justinian. It was there related, that some Appedeutes of Constantinople had delivered, in very bad Greek, an edict against the greatest captain of the age, because this hero had uttered the following words in the warmth of conversation: "Truth shines forth with its proper light, and people's minds are not illumined with flaming piles." The Appedeutes declared that this proposition was heretical, bordering upon heresy, and that the contrary action was catholic, universal, and Grecian: "The minds of the people are enlightened but with flaming piles, and truth cannot shine forth with its own light." These Linostolians thus condemned several discourses of the captain, and published an edict.
"What!" said the Huron, with much emotion, "shall such people publish edicts?"
"They are not edicts," replied Gordon: "they are contradictions, which all the world laughed at in Constantinople, and the Emperor the first.
He was a wise prince, who knew how to reduce the Linostolian Appedeutes to a state incapable of doing anything but good. He knew that these gentlemen, and several other Pastophores, had tired the patience of the Emperors, his predecessors, with contradictions in more serious matters."
"He did quite right," said the Huron, "the Pastophores should not be supported, but constrained."
He committed several other observations to paper, which astonished old Gordon. "What," said he to himself, "have I consumed fifty years in instruction and not attained to the degree of natural good sense of this child, who is almost a savage? I tremble to think I have so arduously strengthened prejudices, and he listens to simple nature only."
The good man had some little books of criticism, some of those periodical pamphlets wherein men, incapable of producing anything themselves, blacken the productions of others; where a Vise insults a Racine, and a Faidit a Fénelon. The Huron ran over some of them. "I compare them," said he, "to certain gnats that lodge their eggs in the nostrils of the finest horses, which do not, however, retard their speed."
The two philosophers scarce deigned to cast their eyes upon these dregs of literature.
They soon after went through the elements of astronomy. The Huron sent for some globes: he was ravished at this great spectacle.
"How hard it is," said he, "that I should only begin to be acquainted with heaven, when the power of contemplating it is ravished from me!
Jupiter and Saturn revolve in these immense spaces;--millions of suns illumine myriads of worlds; and, in this corner of the earth on which I am cast, there are beings that deprive me of seeing and studying those worlds to which my eye might reach, and even that in which God has placed me. The light created for the whole universe is lost to me. It was not hidden from me in the northern horizon, where I passed my infancy and youth. Without you, my dear Gordon, I should be annihilated."
XII.
THE HURON'S SENTIMENTS UPON THEATRICAL PIECES.
The young Huron resembled one of those vigorous trees, which, languishing in an ungrateful soil, extend in a little time their roots and branches when transplanted to a more favorable spot; and it was very extraordinary that this favorable spot should be a prison.
Among the books which employed the leisure of the two captives were some poems and also translations of Greek tragedies, and some dramatic pieces in French. Those passages that dwelt on love communicated at once pleasure and pain to the soul of the Huron. They were but so many images of his dear Miss St. Yves. The fable of the two pigeons rent his heart: for he was far estranged from his tender dove.
Molière enchanted him. He taught him the manners of Paris and of human nature.
"To which of his comedies do you give the preference?"
"Doubtless to his _Tartuffe_."
"I am of your opinion," said Gordon; "it was a Tartuffe that flung me into this dungeon, and perhaps they were Tartuffes who have been the cause of your misfortunes."
"What do you think of these Greek tragedies?"
"They are very good for Grecians."
But when he read the modern _Iphigenia, Phædrus, Andromache_, and _Athalia_, he was in ecstacy, he sighed, he wept,--and he learned them by heart, without having any such intention.
"Read _Rodogune_," said Gordon; "that is said to be a capital production; the other pieces which have given you so much pleasure, are trifles compared to this."
The young man had scarce got through the first page, before he said, "This is not written by the same author."
"How do you know it?"
"I know nothing yet; but these lines neither touch my ear nor my heart."
"O!" said Gordon, "the versification does not signify." The Huron asked, "What must I judge by then?"
After having read the piece very attentively without any other design than being pleased, he looked steadfastly at his friend with much astonishment, not knowing what to say. At length, being urged to give his opinion with respect to what he felt, this was the answer he made: "I understood very little of the beginning; the middle disgusted me; but the last scene greatly moved me, though there appears to me but little probability in it. I have no prejudices for or against any one, but I do not remember twenty lines, I, who recollect them all when they please me."
"This piece, nevertheless, passes for the best upon our stage."
"If that be the case," said he, "it is perhaps like many people who are not worthy of the places they hold. After all, this is a matter of taste, and mine cannot yet be formed. I may be mistaken; but you know I am accustomed to say what I think or rather what I feel. I suspect that illusion, fashion, caprice, often warp the judgments of men."
Here he repeated some lines from _Iphigenia_, which he was full of; and though he declaimed but indifferently, he uttered them with such truth and emotion that he made the old Jansenist weep. He then read _Cinna_, which did not excite his tears, but his admiration.
XIII.
THE BEAUTIFUL MISS ST. YVES GOES TO VERSAILLES.
Whilst the unfortunate Hercules was more enlightened than consoled; whilst his genius, so long stifled, unfolded itself with so much rapidity and strength; whilst nature, which was attaining a degree of perfection in him, avenged herself of the outrages of fortune; what became of the Prior, his good sister, and the beautiful recluse, Miss St. Yves? The first month they were uneasy, and the third they were immersed in sorrow. False conjectures, ill-grounded reports, alarmed them. At the end of six months, it was concluded he was dead. At length, Mr. and Miss Kerkabon learned, by a letter of ancient date, which one of the king's guards had written to Britany, that a young man resembling the Huron arrived one night at Versailles, but that since that time no one had heard him spoken of.
"Alas," said Miss Kerkabon, "our nephew has done some ridiculous thing, which has brought on some terrible consequences. He is young, a _Low Breton_, and cannot know how to behave at court. My dear brother, I never saw Versailles nor Paris; here is a fine opportunity, and we shall perhaps find our poor nephew. He is our brother's son, and it is our duty to assist him. Who knows? we may perhaps at length prevail upon him to become a sub-deacon when the fire of youth is somewhat abated. He was much inclined to the sciences. Do you recollect how he reasoned upon the Old and New Testaments? We are answerable for his soul. He was baptized at our instigation. His dear mistress Miss St. Yves does nothing but weep incessantly. Indeed, we must go to Paris. If he is concealed in any of those infamous houses of pleasure, which I have often heard of, we will get him out."
The Prior was affected at his sister's discourse. He went in search of the Bishop of St. Malo's, who had baptized the Huron, and requested his protection and advice. The Prelate approved of the journey. He gave the Prior letters of recommendation to Father la Chaise, the king's confessor, who was invested with the first dignity in the kingdom; to Harlai, the Archbishop of Paris, and to Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux.
At length, the brother and sister set out; but when they came to Paris, they found themselves bewildered in a great labyrinth without clue or end. Their fortune was but middling, and they had occasion every day for carriages to pursue their discovery, which they could not accomplish.
The Prior waited upon the Reverend Father la Chaise; he was with Mademoiselle du Tron, and could not give audience to Priors. He went to the Archbishop's door: the Prelate was shut up with the beautiful Mademoiselle de Lesdiguières about church matters. He flew to the country house of the Bishop of Meaux: he was engaged in a close examination with Mademoiselle de Mauleon, of the mystery relating to Mademoiselle Guyon. At length, however, he gained access to these two prelates; they both declared they could not interfere with regard to his nephew, as he was not a sub-deacon.
He at length saw the Jesuit, who received him with open arms, protesting he had always entertained the greatest private esteem for him, though he had never known him. He swore that his society had always been attached to the inhabitants of Lower Britany.
"But," said he, "has not your nephew the misfortune of being a Huguenot?"