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. de
though I do not shoot much, and I think they are good for
my health."
"Health, always health!'' the Count exclaimed, "that is
the excuse for everything. I am getting tired of it."
"
But, my dear, if these long walks strengthen him," Madame
Vedelles said.
He seems strong enough now," the Count rejoined. "It
would be well to think of the improvement of his mind. Come,
George, he added in a kinder manner 'can't you resume a
little your course of studies? Jacques would direct and help
you."
" Pray do not talk of that, my dear father. I cannot work my
head. I tried to look into the books Jacques leut me, but I
could make nothing of them."
"Don't you understand what you read?" Madame de Vedelles
asked.
"
Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't, mother. But I hate
study ;
"Astronomy is, perhaps, your favorite pursuit,"
it tries my head."
delles sneeringly remarked.
II. de Ve-
"
I saw you yesterday walking up
and down the avenue, With your nose in the air, star-gazing, I
presume."
" Oh, yes; I like to look at the sky; it is so beautiful.'
you
"Then 1 hope your memory is returning. Do you find that
recollect the names of the constellations ? If I remember
right, you had at college the first prize for cosmography."
"Oh !
that was before my illness, father, and I have forgotten
the names they gave to my dear, beautiful stars. Now I can
only look at them and feel glad that God made them."
M. de Vedelles looked disappointed and sighed. His wife,
who wished to interrupt the conversation, turned to her eldest
son and said, "Dear Jacoues, will you read us "
something
aloud ?
" Yes, mother. What shall I read? I have got here Valen-
Karr "
. a novel of Georg^ Sand's, and Sousles Titteuls, by Alphouse
1
'
"Novels, Madame
de Vedelles said. "What sort of novels
inquired.
"You need not take the trouble to ask,
"
the names of the authors are enough."
"
I know nothing about them.'
THE NOTARY'* ItM.'filfTKH.
her husband said,
"Well, I will tell you what they are/' the old Count rejoined.
"They are writers who seek for subjects of interest amidst the
foulest icenes of human depravity and exhibit the worst passions
of human nature under the fairest and most deceitful garb.
Karr and Madame Sand hold a high rank in this intellectual
orgy, which would end by utterly dishonoring literature in
France, if like all other orgies, it was not doomed to be short-
lived and to die of its*own excesses.
' You
said.
are very severe,. father, on these poor authors, '
'
Jacques
If they had appeared before you when you sat on the
bench, they wouid hayc found no mercy at your hands.
'
1 shouid have made short work with them '
M
the old Count
answered, and then turning to Ins wife he said, 'I suppose you
do not
dear/
wish Jacques to read to us such books as those, my
"
"
No, indeed," she replied.
"
Can you suggest anything we
should like to hear? "
"Why not one of the cliff-itmitres of our old literature?"
the Count said, taking up from the table a volume of Voltaire's
edies.
Be it remarked that the" old man, who nad so justly and vehe.
mently denounced the immoral writers of his day, shared that
unaccountable partiahty tor the wickedest, (lie meanest, and the
most unpatriotic Frenchman or the iast century, which lingers
II in the minds ot so many 01 ins compatriots, even in HIOM-
who, to a. certain degree, have struggled out of the mists ot
cynical unbelief with which he has poisoned the souls of sue-
[ve gem-rations. .M. de Vedelles was of the. number ot Miose
who hud imbibed from the; teaching of the. eighteenth century a
practical scepticism, if the two v, lie united, which,
though not obtrusively put forward, nevertheless influenced his
thoughts and actions in various respects. He was a Hoyalist, a
Conservative, and the husband of a pious woman. For all th
reasons he always spoke of religion with ropcct. atidlic abhorred
modern infidelity and lawlessness. But hi . mpathy
with Voltaire and his school sometimes pierced through his political
and domestic code of religious propriety and Jacques de
Vedelles, in spite of his mother's efforts, hail derived from his
father opinions which he more boklly announced and acted
upon more consistently when not under the paternal roof.
Though a general admiration for Voltaire was among the half
involuntary influences which the Count had exercised over the
mind of his son, the proposal to read aloud JA /