of power?  If the triumph of the will is one of the intoxicating pleasures in the lives of great men, it is the ALL of life to narrow minds.  One must needs have been a minister dismissed from power to comprehend the bitter pain which came upon Madame du Bousquier when she found herself reduced to this absolute servitude.  She often got into the carriage against her will; she saw herself surrounded by servants who were distasteful to her; she no longer had the handling of her dear money,—­she who had known herself free to spend money, and did not spend it.

All imposed limits make the human being desire to go beyond them.  The keenest sufferings come from the thwarting of self-will.  The beginning of this state of things was, however, rose-colored.  Every concession made to marital authority was an effect of the love which the poor woman felt for her husband.  Du Bousquier behaved, in the first instance, admirably to his wife:  he was wise; he was excellent; he gave her the best of reasons for each new encroachment.  So for the first two years of her marriage Madame du Bousquier appeared to be satisfied.  She had that deliberate, demure little air which distinguishes young women who have married for love.  The rush of blood to her head no longer tormented her.  This appearance of satisfaction routed the scoffers, contradicted certain rumors about du Bousquier, and puzzled all observers of the human heart.  Rose-Marie-Victoire was so afraid that if she displeased her husband or opposed him, she would lose his affection and be deprived of his company, that she would willingly have sacrificed all to him, even her uncle.  Her silly little forms of pleasure deceived even the poor abbe for a time, who endured his own trials all the better for thinking that his niece was happy, after all.

Alencon at first thought the same.  But there was one man more difficult to deceive than the whole town put together.  The Chevalier de Valois, who had taken refuge on the Sacred Mount of the upper aristocracy, now passed his life at the d’Esgrignons.  He listened to the gossip and the gabble, and he thought day and night upon his vengeance.  He meant to strike du Bousquier to the heart.

The poor abbe fully understood the baseness of this first and last love of his niece; he shuddered as, little by little, he perceived the hypocritical nature of his nephew and his treacherous manoeuvres.  Though du Bousquier restrained himself, as he thought of the abbe’s property, and wished not to cause him vexation, it was his hand that dealt the blow that sent the old priest to his grave.  If you will interpret the word intolerance as firmness of principle, if you do not wish to condemn in the catholic soul of the Abbe de Sponde the stoicism which Walter Scott has made you admire in the puritan soul of Jeanie Deans’ father; if you are willing to recognize in the Roman Church the Potius mori quam foedari that you admire in republican tenets,—­you