every ten paces, assuredly marked the line which the procession would follow, and which led to the central basilica.  Although his anxiety as to the issue of his undertaking was extreme, he could not help being impressed by the grandeur of the sight presented by the catacomb thus illuminated.  The uneven niches reserved for the dead, asleep in the peace of the Lord for so many centuries, made recesses in the corridors and gave them a solemn and tragical aspect.  Inscriptions were to be seen there, traced on the stone, and all spoke of the great hope which those first Christians had cherished, the same which believers of our day cherish.

Julien knew enough of symbols to understand the significance of the images between which the persecuted of the primitive church had laid their fathers.  They are so touching and so simple!  The anchor represents safety in the storm; the gentle dove and the ewe, symbols of the soul, which flies away and seeks its shepherd; the phoenix, whose wings announce the resurrection.  Then there were the bread and the wine, the branches of the olive and the palm.  The silent cemetery was filled with a faint aroma of incense, noticed by Dorsenne on entering.  High mass, celebrated in the morning, left the sacred perfume diffused among those bones, once the forms of human beings who kneeled there amid the same holy aroma.  The contrast was strong between that spot, where everything spoke of things eternal, and the drama of passion, worldly and culpable, the progress of which agitated even Dorsenne.  At that moment he appeared to himself in the light of a profaner, although he was obeying generous and humane instincts.  He experienced a sense of relief when, at a bend in one of the corridors which he had selected from among many others, he found himself face to face with a priest, who held in his hand a basket filled with the petals of flowers, destined, no doubt, for the procession.  Dorsenne inquired of him the way to the Basilica in Italian, while the reply was given in perfect French.

“Perhaps you know the Marquis de Montfanon, father?” asked the novelist.

“I am one of the chaplains of Saint Louis,” said the priest, with a smile, adding:  “You will find him in the Basilica.”

“Now, the moment has come,” thought Dorsenne, “I must be subtle....  After all, it is charity I am about to ask him to do....  Here I am.  I recognize the staircase and the opening above.”

A corner of the sky, indeed, was to be seen, and a ray of light entered which permitted the writer to distinguish him whom he was seeking among the few persons assembled in the ruined chapel, the most venerable of all those which encircle Rome with a hidden girdle of sanctuaries.  Montfanon, too recognizable, alas! by the empty sleeve of his black redingote, was seated on a chair, not very far from the altar, on which burned enormous tapers.  Priests and monks were arranging baskets filled with petals, like those