There is, perhaps, no argument so strong, and no virtue that so commands the respect of young men, as consistency.  Monsieur the Preceptor’s lifelong counsel and example would have done less for his pupil than was effected by the knowledge of his consistent career, now that it was past.  It was not the nobility of the priest’s principles that awoke in Monsieur the Viscount a desire to imitate his religious example, but the fact that he had applied them to his own life, not only in the time of wealth, but in the time of tribulation and in the hour of death.  All that high-strung piety—­that life of prayer—­those unswerving admonitions to consider the vanity of earthly treasures, and to prepare for death—­which had sounded so unreal amidst the perfumed elegances of the chateau, came back now with a reality gained from experiment.  The daily life of self-denial, the conversation garnished from Scripture and from the Fathers, had not, after all, been mere priestly affectations.  In no symbolic manner, but literally, he had “watched for the coming of his Lord,” and “taken up the cross daily;” and so, when the cross was laid on him, and when the voice spoke which must speak to all, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee,” he bore the burden and obeyed the summons unmoved.

Unmoved!—­this was the fact that struck deep into the heart of Monsieur the Viscount, as he listened to Antoine’s account of the Cure’s imprisonment.  What had astonished and overpowered his own undisciplined nature had not disturbed Monsieur the Preceptor.  He had prayed in the chateau—­he prayed in the prison.  He had often spoken in the chateau of the softening and comforting influences of communion with the lower animals and with nature, and in the uncertainty of imprisonment he had tamed a toad.  “None of these things had moved him,” and, in a storm of grief and admiration, Monsieur the Viscount bewailed the memory of his tutor.

“If he had only lived to teach me!”

But he was dead, and there was nothing for Monsieur the Viscount but to make the most of his example.  This was not so easy to follow as he imagined.  Things seemed to be different with him to what they had been with Monsieur the Preceptor.  He had no lofty meditations, no ardent prayers, and calm and peace seemed more distant than ever.  Monsieur the Viscount met, in short, with all those difficulties that the soul must meet with, which, in a moment of enthusiasm, has resolved upon a higher and a better way of life, and in moments of depression is perpetually tempted to forego that resolution.  His prison life was, however, a pretty severe discipline, and he held on with struggles and prayers; and so, little by little, and day by day, as the time of his imprisonment went by, the consolations of religion became a daily strength against the fretfulness of imperious temper, the sickness of hope deferred, and the dark suggestions of despair.