“But I am fatigued, my son, and shall recapitulate.  To be loved by women, to be feared by men, to be as impassive and as imperturbable as a god before the tears of the one and the blood of the other, and to end in a whirlwind—­such has been the lot in which I have failed, but which, nevertheless, I bequeath to you.  With your great faculties you, however, are capable of accomplishing it, unless indeed you should fail through some ingrained weakness of the heart that I have noticed in you, and which, doubtless, you have imbibed with your mother’s milk.

“So long as man shall be born of woman, there will be something faulty and incomplete in his character.  In fine, strive to relieve yourself from all thraldom, from all natural instincts, affections, and sympathies as from so many fetters upon your liberty, your strength.

   “Do not marry unless some superior interest shall impel you to do
   so.  In that event, have no children.

“Have no intimate friends.  Caesar having grown old, had a friend. 
It was Brutus!

“Contempt for men is the beginning of wisdom.

“Change somewhat your style of fencing, it is altogether too open,
my son.  Do not get angry.  Rarely laugh, and never weep.  Adieu.

“Camors.”

The feeble rays of dawn had passed through the slats of the blinds.  The matin birds began their song in the chestnut-tree near the window.  M. de Camors raised his head and listened in an absent mood to the sound which astonished him.  Seeing that it was daybreak, he folded in some haste the pages he had just finished, pressed his seal upon the envelope, and addressed it, “For the Comte Louis de Camors.”  Then he rose.

M. de Camors was a great lover of art, and had carefully preserved a magnificent ivory carving of the sixteenth century, which had belonged to his wife.  It was a Christ the pallid white relieved by a medallion of dark velvet.

His eye, meeting this pale, sad image, was attracted to it for a moment with strange fascination.  Then he smiled bitterly, seized one of the pistols with a firm hand and pressed it to his temple.

A shot resounded through the house; the fall of a heavy body shook the floor-fragments of brains strewed the carpet.  The Comte de Camors had plunged into eternity!

His last will was clenched in his hand.

To whom was this document addressed?  Upon what kind of soil will these seeds fall?

At this time Louis de Camors was twenty-seven years old.  His mother had died young.  It did not appear that she had been particularly happy with her husband; and her son barely remembered her as a young woman, pretty and pale, and frequently weeping, who used to sing him to sleep in a low, sweet voice.  He had been brought up chiefly by his father’s mistress, who was known as the Vicomtesse d’Oilly, a widow, and a rather good sort of woman.  Her