something, and that there was more than one good reason for putting in a claim. The other nobles were annoyed at seeing him so poor, and would have liked to give him a hand; this simple soul did not enter into the arguments that they put before him. When they asked him to declare what he had lost. “I had nothing,” he said, “I couldn’t have lost anything.” Nobody succeeded in getting any other answer from him, and he remained poor as before.

‘His wife died, I think, in Jersey. He had a daughter, who was born about the time of the emigrations. She was a fine looking, big girl (you have only seen her withered); she had nature’s own sap, a splendid complexion, pure strong blood. She ought to have been married young, but it was impossible. These bankrupt little nobles of a little town who are good for nothing, and who are not worth a quarter of the old country nobility, would have nothing to do with her for their sons. His principles prevented him from marrying her to a peasant. The poor girl stayed thus, hung up like a soul in torment. She had no place here below. Her father was the last of his race, and she seemed wantonly cast on the earth, and could find there no corner to shelter in. She was good tempered and docile. She was a beautiful body, almost without a soul. Instinct in her was everything. She would have been an excellent mother. In default of marriage, she should have been made a nun: rules and austerities would have calmed her: but it is probable that the father was not rich enough to pay the dowry to the church, and his position did not allow of his making her a lay sister. Poor girl! cast into the wrong road, she was condemned to perish there.

‘She was born upright and good, she had never any doubt as to her duty: she had no other fault than that of having blood and veins. No young man of the village would have dared to be indiscreet with her, so much her father was respected. The feeling of her superiority kept her from turning to the young peasants: for them, she was a lady: they did not think of her. The poor girl lived thus in an absolute solitude. There was nobody in the house except a young boy of twelve or thirteen, a nephew of Kermelle, whom the latter had received into his house, and whom the vicar, worthy man that he was, taught what he knew: Latin.

‘The church was the sole diversion of the poor child. She was pious by nature, although too little intelligent to understand anything of the mysteries of our religion. The vicar, a good priest, very attached to his duties, had for the flax pounder the respect which was his due; the hours which were left over from his breviary and the cares of his ministry, were passed at the latter’s house. He educated the young nephew; for the girl he had those reserved manners which our Breton ecclesiastics have with “persons of the sex” as they call them. He greeted her, asked how she was getting on, but never talked with her if it were not about insignificant matters. The wretched girl fell in love with him deeper and deeper. The vicar was the only person of her own rank that she saw, if it is permissible to talk like that. This young priest was, besides that, a very attractive person. Along with the exquisite modesty which his whole outward appearance breathed, he had a sad, resigned, discreet air. You felt that he had a heart and feelings, but that a principle more lofty dominated them, and was transformed in him to something higher. You know the infinite charm of some of our good Breton ecclesiastics. Women feel that very keenly. This invincible attachment to a vow, which is in its way a homage to their power, emboldens them, attracts them, flatters them. The priest becomes for them a safe brother who has laid aside, because of them, his sex and its joys. Thence springs a sentiment in which is mingled confidence, pity, regret, gratitude. Let the priest marry, and you will destroy one of the most necessary elements, one of the most delicate graduations, of our society. The women will protest; for there is only one thing which a woman sets even above being loved, that is, that importance should be attached to love. Women are never more flatted than in showing them that they are feared. The Church, in imposing chastity as the first duty of its ministers, caresses feminine vanity in its most tender spot.

‘So the poor girl was seized with a deep love for the vicar, which soon took possession of her entire being. The virtuous and mystic race to which she belonged does not know the frenzy which overturns obstacles, and which accounts it to have nothing if it has not all. Oh, she was content with really very little. If he should only acknowledge her existence, she would have been happy. She did not ask a look from him: a thought would have sufficed. The vicar was naturally her confessor; there was no other priest