upper class, who neither understand themselves nor are wholly comprehensible to others.  In ‘Monsieur de Camors’, crowned by the Academy, he has yielded to the demands of a stricter realism.  Especially after the fall of the Empire had removed a powerful motive for gilding the vices of aristocratic society, he painted its hard and selfish qualities as none of his contemporaries could have done.  Octave Feuillet was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1862 to succeed Scribe.  He died December 29, 1890.

                  Maximedu camp
               de l’Acadamie Francaise.

MONSIEUR DE CAMORS

BOOK 1.

CHAPTER I

“The wages of sin is death”

Near eleven o’clock, one evening in the month of May, a man about fifty years of age, well formed, and of noble carriage, stepped from a coupe in the courtyard of a small hotel in the Rue Barbet-de-Jouy.  He ascended, with the walk of a master, the steps leading to the entrance, to the hall where several servants awaited him.  One of them followed him into an elegant study on the first floor, which communicated with a handsome bedroom, separated from it by a curtained arch.  The valet arranged the fire, raised the lamps in both rooms, and was about to retire, when his master spoke: 

“Has my son returned home?”

“No, Monsieur le Comte.  Monsieur is not ill?”

“Ill!  Why?”

“Because Monsieur le Comte is so pale.”

“Ah!  It is only a slight cold I have taken this evening on the banks of the lake.”

“Will Monsieur require anything?”

“Nothing,” replied the Count briefly, and the servant retired.  Left alone, his master approached a cabinet curiously carved in the Italian style, and took from it a long flat ebony box.

This contained two pistols.  He loaded them with great care, adjusting the caps by pressing them lightly to the nipple with his thumb.  That done, he lighted a cigar, and for half an hour the muffled beat of his regular tread sounded on the carpet of the gallery.  He finished his cigar, paused a moment in deep thought, and then entered the adjoining room, taking the pistols with him.

This room, like the other, was furnished in a style of severe elegance, relieved by tasteful ornament.  It showed some pictures by famous masters, statues, bronzes, and rare carvings in ivory.  The Count threw a glance of singular interest round the interior of this chamber, which was his own—­on the familiar objects—­on the sombre hangings—­on the bed, prepared for sleep.  Then he turned toward a table, placed in a recess of the window, laid the pistols upon it, and dropping his head in his hands, meditated deeply many minutes.  Suddenly he raised his head, and wrote rapidly as follows: