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to me in marriage. I want to speak to the king in favor of fifty thousand families, whom I propose restoring to him. In a word, I want to be useful. Let me be employed and advanced."
"What is your name, sir, who talk in such a high style?"
"Oh! oh!" answered the Huron; "you have not then read my certificates? This is the way they are treated. My name is Hercules de Kerkabon. I am christened, and I lodge at the Blue Dial." The clerk concluded, like the people at Saumur, that his head was turned, and did not pay him any further attention.
The same day, the Reverend Father de la Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV., received his spy's letter, which accused the Breton Kerkabon of favoring in his heart the Huguenots, and condemning the conduct of the Jesuits. M. de Louvois had, on his side, received a letter from the inquisitive bailiff, which depicted the Huron as a wicked, lewd fellow, inclined to burn convents, and carry off the nuns.
Hercules, after having walked in the gardens of Versailles, which had become irksome to him; after having supped like a native of Huronia and Lower Britany: had gone to rest, in the pleasant hope of seeing the king the next day; of obtaining Miss St. Yves in marriage; of having, at least, a company of cavalry; and of setting aside the persecution against the Huguenots. He was rocking himself asleep with these flattering ideas, when the Marechaussée entered his chamber, and seized upon his double-charged fusee and his great sabre.
They took an inventory of his ready money, and then conducted him to the castle erected by King Charles V., son to John II., near the street of St. Antoine, at the gate des Tournelles.
What was the Huron's astonishment in his way thither the reader is left to imagine. He at first fancied it was all a dream; and remained for some time in a state of stupefaction. Presently, transported with rage, that gave him more than common strength, he collared two of his conductors who were with him in the coach, flung them out of the door, cast himself after them, and then dragged the third, who wanted to hold him. He fell in the attempt, when they tied him, and replaced him in the carriage.
"This, then," said he, "is what one gets for driving the English out of Lower Britany! What wouldst thou say, charming Miss St. Yves, if thou didst see me in this situation?"
They at length arrived at the place of their destination. He was carried without any noise into the chamber in which he was to be locked up, like a dead corpse going to the grave. This room was already occupied by an old solitary student of Port Royal, named Gordon, who had been languishing here for two years.
"See," said the chief of the Marechaussée, "here is company I bring you;" and immediately the enormous bolts of this strong door, secured with large iron bars, were fastened upon them. These two captives were thus separated from all the universe besides.
X.
THE HURON IS SHUT UP IN THE BASTILE WITH A JANSENIST.
Mr. Gordon was a healthy old man, of a serene disposition, who was acquainted with two great things; the one was, to bear adversity; the other, to console the afflicted. He approached his companion with an open sympathizing air, and said to him, whilst he embraced him:
"Whoever thou art that is come to partake of my grave, be assured, that I shall constantly forget myself to soften thy torments in the infernal abyss where we are plunged. Let us adore Providence that has conducted us here. Let us suffer in peace, and trust in hope."
These words had the same effect upon the youth as cordial drops, which recall a dying person to life, and show to his astonished eyes a glimpse of light.
After the first compliments were over, Gordon, without urging him to relate the cause of his misfortune, inspired him by the sweetness of his discourse and by that interest which two unfortunate persons share with each other, with a desire of opening his heart and of disburdening himself of the weight which oppressed him; but he could not guess the cause of his misfortune, and the good man Gordon was as much astonished as himself.
"God must, doubtless," said the Jansenist to the Huron, "have great designs upon you, since he conducted you from Lake Ontario into England, from thence to France; caused you to be baptized in Lower Britany, and has now lodged you here for your salvation."
"I' faith," replied Hercules, "I believe the devil alone has interfered in my destiny.1 My countrymen in America would never have treated me with the barbarity that I have here experienced; they have not the least idea of it. They are called savages;—they are good people, but rustic, and the men of this country are refined villains. I am indeed, greatly surprised to have come from another world, to be shut up in this, under four bolts with a priest; but I consider what an infinite number of men set out from one hemisphere to go and get killed in the other, or are cast away in the voyage, and are eaten by the fishes. I cannot discover the gracious designs of God over all these people."
Their dinner was brought them through a wicket. The conversation turned upon Providence, lettres de cachet, and upon the art of not sinking under disgrace, to which all men in this world are exposed.
"It is now two years since I have been here," said the old man, "without any other consolation than myself and books; and yet I have never been a single moment out of temper."
"Ah! Mr. Gordon," cried Hercules, "you are not then in love with your god-mother. If you were as well acquainted with Miss St. Yves as I am, you would be in a state of desperation."
At these words he could not refrain from tears, which greatly relieved him from his oppression.
"How is it then that tears solace us?" said the Huron, "It seems to me that they should have quite an opposite effect."
"My son," said the good old man, "every thing is physical about us; all secretions are useful to the body, and all that comforts it, comforts the soul. We are the machines of Providence."
The ingenuous Huron, who, as we have already observed more than once, had a great share of understanding, entered deeply into the consideration of this idea, the seeds whereof appeared to be in himself. After which he asked his companion.
"Why his machine had for two years been confined by four bolts?"
"By effectual grace," answered Gordon; "I pass for a Jansenist; I know Arnaud and Nicole; the Jesuits have persecuted us. We believe that the Pope is nothing more than a bishop, like another, and therefore Father la Chaise has obtained from the king, his penitent, an order for robbing me without any form of justice, of the most precious inheritance of man—liberty!"
"This is very strange," said the Huron, "all the unhappy people I have met with have been made so solely by the Pope. With respect to your effectual grace, I acknowledge I do not understand what you mean. But I consider it as a very great favor, that God has let me, in my misfortunes, meet with a man, who pours into my heart such consolation as I thought myself incapable of receiving."
The conversation became each day more interesting and instructive. The souls of the two captives seemed to unite in one body. The old man had acquired knowledge, and the young man was willing to receive instruction. At the end of the first month, he eagerly applied himself to the study of geometry. Gordon made him read Rohault's Physics, which book was still in fashion, and he had good sense enough to find in it nothing but doubts and uncertainties.
He afterward read the first volume of the Enquiry After Truth. This instructive work gave him new light.
"What!" said he, "do our imagination and our senses deceive us to that degree? What, are not our ideas formed by objects, and can we not acquire them by ourselves?"
When he had gone through the second volume, he was not so well satisfied; and he concluded it was much easier to destroy than to build.
His colleague, astonished that a young ignoramus should make such a remark, conceived a very high opinion of his understanding, and was more strongly