“I am sorry,” the functionary began, “to inform you that you have entirely failed to pass the tests set you.  You do not know the language of your own country, sir; you write Maisons-Lafitte without an ‘s’ to Maisons.  You cannot spell! and what is more, you do not cross your ‘t’s.’  You must know at your age that a ‘t’ ought to be crossed.  It’s past understanding, sir!”

And striking fiercely at the sheet of foolscap on which the mistakes were marked in red ink, he kept muttering:  “It’s past understanding, past understanding!” His face grew purple, and a swollen vein stood out on his forehead.  A queer look in Jean’s face gave him pause: 

“Young man,” he resumed in a calmer voice, “whatever I can do for you, I will do, be sure of that; but you must not ask me to do impossibilities.  We cannot enlist in the service of the State young men who spell so badly they write Maisons-Lafitte without an ‘s’ to the Maisons.  It is in a way a patriotic duty for a Frenchman to know his own language.  A year hence, the Ministry will hold another examination, and I will enter your name.  You have a year before you; work hard, sir, and learn your mother-tongue.”

Jean stood there scarlet with rage, hate in his heart, his eyes aflame, his throat dry, his teeth clenched, unable to articulate a word; then he swung round like an automaton and darted from the room, banging the door after him with a noise of thunder; piles of books and papers rolled on to the floor of the Chief’s office at the shock.

Monsieur Bargemont was left alone to digest his stupefaction; even so his first thought was to save the honour of his Department.  He reopened the door and shouted, “Leave the room!” after Jean, who, mastered once more by his natural timidity, was flying like a thief down the corridors.

XX

In the court, which was enlivened by a parterre of roses, Jean, carrying a letter in his hand, was trying to find his bearings according to the directions given him in a low voice, as if it were a secret, by the lay-brother who acted as doorkeeper.  He was wandering uncertainly from door to door along the walls of the old silent buildings when a little boy noticed his plight and accosted him: 

“Do you want to see the Director?  He is in his study with mamma.  Go and wait in the parlour.”

This was a large hall with bare walls, a noble enough apartment in its unadorned simplicity, in spite of the mean horsehair chairs that stood round it.  Above the fire-place, instead of a mirror, was a Mater dolorosa that caught the eye by its dazzling whiteness.  Big marble tears stood arrested in mid-career down the cheeks, while the features expressed the pious absorption of the Divine Mother’s grief.  Jean Servien read the inscription cut in red letters on the pedestal, which ran thus: 

PRESENTED TO THE REVEREND ABBE BORDIER,
IN MEMORY OF
PHILIPPE-GUY DE THIERERCHE,
WHO DIED AT PAU,
NOVEMBER 11, 1867, IN THE SEVENTEENTH
YEAR OF HIS AGE,
BY THE COUNTESS VALENTINE DE THIERERCHE,
NEE DE BRUILLE DE SAINT-AMAND.
LAUDATE PUERI DOMINUM