“Help! help!” cried Madame Ragon.  “Monsieur l’Abbe is fainting!”

She caught up a flask of vinegar and brought him quickly back to consciousness.

“He must have given me,” said the old priest, “the handkerchief with which the king wiped his brow as he went to his martyrdom.  Poor man! that steel knife had a heart when all France had none!”

The perfumers thought the words of the priest were an effect of delirium.

Translation copyrighted by Roberts Brothers.

A PASSION IN THE DESERT

“The sight was fearful!” she exclaimed, as we left the menagerie of Monsieur Martin.

She had been watching that daring speculator as he went through his wonderful performance in the den of the hyena.

“How is it possible,” she continued, “to tame those animals so as to be certain that he can trust them?”

“You think it a problem,” I answered, interrupting her, “and yet it is a natural fact.”

“Oh!” she cried, an incredulous smile flickering on her lip.

“Do you think that beasts are devoid of passions?” I asked.  “Let me assure you that we teach them all the vices and virtues of our own state of civilization.”

She looked at me in amazement.

“The first time I saw Monsieur Martin,” I added, “I exclaimed, as you do, with surprise.  I happened to be sitting beside an old soldier whose right leg was amputated, and whose appearance had attracted my notice as I entered the building.  His face, stamped with the scars of battle, wore the undaunted look of a veteran of the wars of Napoleon.  Moreover, the old hero had a frank and joyous manner which attracts me wherever I meet it.  He was doubtless one of those old campaigners whom nothing can surprise, who find something to laugh at in the last contortions of a comrade, and will bury a friend or rifle his body gayly; challenging bullets with indifference; making short shrift for themselves or others; and fraternizing, as a usual thing, with the devil.  After looking very attentively at the proprietor of the menagerie as he entered the den, my companion curled his lip with that expression of satirical contempt which well-informed men sometimes put on to mark the difference between themselves and dupes.  As I uttered my exclamation of surprise at the coolness and courage of Monsieur Martin, the old soldier smiled, shook his head, and said with a knowing glance, ‘An old story!’

“‘How do you mean an old story?’ I asked.  ’If you could explain the secret of this mysterious power, I should be greatly obliged to you.’

“After a while, during which we became better acquainted, we went to dine at the first cafe we could find after leaving the menagerie.  A bottle of champagne with our dessert brightened the old man’s recollections and made them singularly vivid.  He related to me a circumstance in his early history which proved that he had ample cause to pronounce Monsieur Martin’s performance ‘an old story.’”