the Jesuits of Brughetti ended by reviving a harvest of noble virtues, in the days of trial which came only too quickly.  Montfanon made the campaign of France with the other zouaves, and the empty sleeve which was turned up in place of his left arm attested with what courage he fought at Patay, at the time of that sublime charge when the heroic General de Sonis unfurled the banner of the Sacred Heart.  He had been a duelist, sportsman, gambler, lover, but to those of his old companions of pleasure whom chance brought to Rome he was only a devotee who lived economically, notwithstanding the fact that he had saved the remnants of a large fortune for alms, for reading and for collecting.

Every one has that vice, more or less, in Rome, which is in itself the most surprising museum of history and of art.  Montfanon is collecting documents in order to write the history of the French nobility and of the Church.  His mistresses of the time when he was the rival of the Gramont-Caderousses and the Demidoffs would surely not recognize him any more than he would them.  But are they as happy as he seems to have remained through his life of sacrifice?  There is laughter in his blue eyes, which attest his pure Germanic origin, and which light up his face, one of those feudal faces such as one sees in the portraits hung upon the walls of the priories of Malta, where plainness has race.  A thick, white moustache, in which glimmers a vague reflection of gold, partly hides a scar which would give to that red face a terrible look were it not for the expression of those eyes, in which there is fervor mingled with merriment.  For Montfanon is as fanatical on certain subjects as he is genial and jovial on others.  If he had the power he would undoubtedly have Ribalta arrested, tried, and condemned within twenty-four hours for the crime of free-thinking.  Not having it, he amused himself with him, so much the more so as the vanquished Catholic and the discontented Socialists have several common hatreds.  Even on this particular morning we have seen with what indulgence he bore the brusqueness of the old bookseller, at whom he gazed for ten minutes without disconcerting him in the least.  At length the revolutionist seemed to have finished his epigram, for with a quiet smile he carefully folded the sheet of paper, put it in a wooden box which he locked.  Then he turned around.

“What do you desire, Marquis?” he asked, without any further preliminary.

“First of all, you will have to read me your poem, old redshirt,” said Montfanon, “which will only be my recompense for having awaited your good pleasure more patiently than an ambassador.  Let us see whom are you abusing in those verses?  Is it Don Ciccio or His Majesty?  You will not reply?  Are you afraid that I shall denounce you at the Quirinal?”

“No flies enter a closed mouth,” replied the old conspirator, justifying the proverb by the manner in which he shut his toothless mouth, into which, indeed, at that moment, neither a fly nor the tiniest grain of dust could enter.