I am a Catholic in every fibre, and that I am at home here.  I am here because I am a monarchist, because I believe in old France as you believe in the modern world; and I serve her in my fashion, which is not very efficacious, but which is one way, nevertheless....  The post of trustee of Saint Louis, which I accepted from Corcelle, is to me my duty, and I will sustain it in the best way in my power....  Ah! that ancient France, how one feels her grandeur here, and what a part she is known to have had in Christianity!  It is that chord which I should like to have heard vibrate in a fluent writer like you, and not eternally those paradoxes, those sophisms.  But what matters it to you who date from yesterday and who boast of it,” he added, almost sadly, “that in the most insignificant corners of this city centuries of history abound?  Does your heart blush at the sight of the facade of the church of Saint-Louis, the salamander of Francois I and the lilies?  Do you know why the Rue Bargognona is called thus, and that near by is Saint-Claudedes-Bourguignons, our church?  Have you visited, you who are from the Vosges, that of your province, Saint-Nicolas-des-Lorrains?  Do you know Saint-Yves-des-Bretons?”

“But,” and here his voice assumed a gay accent, “I have thoroughly charged into that rascal of a Hafner.  I have laid him before you without any hesitation.  I have spoken to you as I feel, with all the fervor of my heart, although it may seem sport to you.  You will be punished, for I shall not allow you to escape.  I will take you to the France of other days.  You shall dine with me at noon, and between this and then we will make the tour of those churches I have just named.  During that time we will go back one hundred and fifty years in the past, into that world in which there were neither cosmopolites nor dilettantes.  It is the old world, but it is hardy, and the proof is that it has endured; while your society-look where it is after one hundred years in France, in Italy, in England—­thanks to that detestable Gladstone, of whom pride has made a second Nebuchadnezzar.  It is like Russia, your society; according to the only decent words of the obscene Diderot, ‘rotten before mature!’ Come, will you go?”

“You are mistaken,” replied the writer, “in thinking that.  I do not love your old France, but that does not prevent me from enjoying the new.  One can like wine and champagne at the same time.  But I am not at liberty.  I must visit the exposition at Palais Castagna this morning.”

“You will not do that,” exclaimed impetuous Montfanon, whose severe face again expressed one of those contrarieties which caused it to brighten when he was with one of whom he was fond as he was of Dorsenne.  “You would not have gone to see the King assassinated in ’93?  The selling at auction of the old dwelling of Pope Urban VII is almost as tragical!  It is the beginning of the agony of what was Roman nobility.  I know.  They deserve it all, since