"All men are madmen, Raoul," said the church-man, who stood in the relation of maternal uncle to the youth, "who suffer their passions to have the mastery of them. You must learn, therefore, to be their tyrant, for if you be not, be well assured that they will be yours—and merciless tyrants they are to the wretches who become their subjects."
"I will remember what you say, sir," answered the boy, "and, indeed, I am not like to forget it, for, altogether, this is the saddest day I ever have passed; and this is the most horrible and appalling story that I ever have heard told. It was but just that the Lord of Kerguelen should die, for he did a murder; and since the law punishes that in a peasant, it must do so likewise with a noble. But to break him upon the wheel!—it is atrocious! I should have thought all the nobles of the land would have applied to the king to spare him that horror."
"Many of them did apply, Raoul; but the king, or his ministers in his name, made answer, that during the Regency the Count Horn was broken on the wheel for murder, and therefore that to behead the Lord of Kerguelen for the same offence, would be to admit that the Count was wrongfully condemned."
"Out on it! out on it! what sophistry. Count Horn murdered a banker, like a common thief, for his gold, and this unhappy lord hath done the deed for which he must suffer in a mistaken sense of honor, and with all tenderness compatible with such a deed. There is nothing similar or parallel in the two cases; and if there were, what signifies it now to Count Horn, whether he were condemned rightfully or no; are these men heathen, that they would offer a victim to the offended manes of the dead? But is there no hope, my father, that his sentence may be commuted?"
"None whatsoever. Let us trust, therefore, that he has died penitent, and that his sufferings are already over; and let us pray, ere we lay us down to sleep, that his sins may be forgiven to him, and that his soul may have rest."
"Amen!" replied the boy, solemnly, at the same moment that the ecclesiastic repeated the same word, though he did so, as it would seem, less from the heart, and more as a matter of course.
Nothing further was said on that subject, and in truth the conversation ceased altogether. A gloom was cast over the spirits of all present, both by the imagination of the horrors which were in progress at that very moment, and by the recollection of the preceding enormities of which this was but the consummation; but the young Viscount Raoul was so completely engrossed by the deep thoughts which that conversation had awakened in his mind, that his father, who was a very close observer, and correct judge of human nature, almost regretted that he had spoken, and determined, if possible, to divert him from the gloomy revery into which he had fallen.
"Viscount," said he, after a silence which had endured now for many minutes, "when did you last wait upon Mademoiselle Melanie d'Argenson?"
Raoul's eyes, brightened at the name, and again the bright blush, which I noticed before, crossed his ingenuous features; but this time it was pleasure, not embarrassment, which colored his young face so vividly.
"I called yesterday, sir;" he answered, "but she was abroad with the countess, her mother. In truth, I have not seen her since Friday last."