When Luc looked from the window of his room across the Isle of St. Louis he realized the great gulf he had set between himself and his past.

The chamber was high up in a tall, straight-fronted house that had once been of some pretensions to splendour, and a man with good vision could have seen a strange array of twisted roofs and chimney-stacks beneath the two dominant towers of Notre-Dame de Paris; and even Luc’s ruined sight could discern a vast, if blurred, sweep of houses, sky, and clouds.

Looking down into the street, he could dimly see the dirty house-fronts; the kennels with their up-piled garbage; the poor wine-shop; the people between poverty and draggled fashion, who came and went in this heart of the city that was now so decayed, yet retained still some remnants of splendour; a certain air of being old and royal; a certain pretence of being prosperous and refined; a poor enough pretence, and one fast wearing thin, still there, and sometimes, as on Sundays, when the small lawyers and men of letters with their ladies walked abroad, worn jauntily enough.

Newly polished swords, newly powdered wigs, gold lace, and hooped petticoats would then grace the rambling streets. Sedan-chairs would cross the cobbles, and sometimes a great man would dash past in a coach and four to one of the hotels the Isle still boasted, where the wit and learning of France gathered occasionally.

Often though, too, this romantic and brave pretence would be abandoned, and the truth stick through, like sharp elbows through a threadbare coat. And bitter penury, and coarse licence, and desperate lawlessness showed openly enough in the narrow streets; and starved faces would be common enough for those who liked to count them, and rebellious talk common enough for those who cared to listen; and people at squalid doorways would curse the war, and taxes, and sometimes the nobles. Even the King did not seem so beloved in these dark streets as he was at Versailles. But the priests, and the tax-gatherers, and the little officials had the people well in hand, and Luc had seen them go, obediently enough, to the church to celebrate a victory—and victories came plentifully.

Maurice de Saxe was handing brilliant laurels to Louis, who wore them gracefully, and pleased France, it seemed. For France endured the Marquise de Pompadour and certain creatures of hers, such as the brothers Paris, Devernay, and others who flourished and fattened, and used the country like a pot of gold, into which they could dip their fists and enrich themselves, under the cynical approval of the melancholy King.

Luc saw France differently from this poor quarter. Paris had seemed another city viewed from the Rue du Bac. The war had been different, too, viewed in the light of the gala lamps of Versailles, or by the camp fires of Bohemia.

There was no glory to gild these humble lives, no hope, no lure to lead them on. Luc watched, and was troubled. Could France flower from such a soil? Would the light of the coming age of freedom ever overcome the dark windings of the religion of Pompadour and peasant, ever dissipate the errors taught by the ignorant to the ignorant, by dirty priests to sullen minds?

Luc watched the sky at evening. That was as pure, as remote, as golden above the stale odours of the crooked streets as above the untouched fields of Provence. And he dared to hope that the golden age was coming.

For himself, he did not wince from the ignoble melancholy of his surroundings. His poverty did not trouble him, nor had he once regretted the impulse that had driven him from home. He was living on about five francs a day. His money, that had come from the sale of what was left of his personal property after the expenses of the war, would, at this rate, last him three years, and he did not think to live so long. Indeed, his weakness increased so on him, his attacks of illness were so frequent and severe, that he often thought it might be weeks only before the end.

Sometimes he would lie all day alone on his poor bed, gazing up at the strip of sky, unable to move or sleep, smiling at the sunshine which, towards evening (the hour he loved the most), would dazzle over his bare boards like the skirts of Glory herself.

When his strength was with him, he wrote. Many of his papers were with his brother Joseph, who had once shown a furtive interest in them. Luc sent a noble letter asking for them, but received no reply. He smiled, thinking of the furious Joseph casting the manuscripts into the fire.

Such as he had in his own possession, and those his solitary meditations had produced, he collected, and sent to one of the great booksellers.

The work was taken. For the sake of those who had disowned him, Luc made the last sacrifice, and the modest little volume appeared without any name on the title-page.

It made no success whatever, fell dead from its birth, and was forgotten. No one made any remark upon it, for no one read it.

“They would say I was a complete failure,” smiled Luc.

He sent a copy of his book to M. de Voltaire, with some timidity, for the great man was now historiographer to the Court and deep in politics, being the acknowledged protÉgÉ of the Marquise; and then, with the slow, painful effort of his infirmities, he commenced to write another. He had so elevated himself that he was not even disappointed by the failure of the book that contained the inmost convictions of his soul. He saw now that glory was not only reached by the road of success.

Six months after he had come to Paris, and a few days after he had sent his book to Voltaire, one fair, clear afternoon in October, he sat at his window, overlooking Paris. It seemed to him that he overlooked the future too; that this window of his poor room was the outlook of some watch-tower, from which he could see the doings of posterity unfold into the distance.

Wars and ministries, kings and soldiers, shrank to the size of puppet-shows viewed on the fringe of the changing future. Soon, everything that agitated the world now would be a mere name. Soon again—not even that—fresh creeds, fresh codes, would replace the old; and through all the changing dynasties of thought that would reign, nothing would count but the memory of the few men who had risen above their age, and handed from one generation to another the pure lamp of the truth as it had been revealed to them; of virtue, as it had been permitted to them to practise; of heroism, as they had been able to accomplish it.

It was easier on the battle-field or in the Cabinet, but it was possible in a garret. It was easier with a body vigorous and healthy; it was possible with a body broken and dying. It was easier when surrounded by encouragement, attention, acclaim; but it was possible, alone and unnoticed, to win a place in that galaxy of glory that lights eternity.

Luc had on his window-sill an evergreen plant with gold leaves, straight and tall in shape, like the silver fir of Bohemia, or the poplars of the Rue Deauville.

He opened the window now, and moved the pot, and admired the glint of the sun on the glossy leaves. The sight of this little plant, so strong, so silent, gave him an extraordinary sensation—it was so noble in its intense life, and yet so helpless. Luc sometimes felt abashed before the gold foliage rising out of the common pot on the dirty sill.

He thought now that the soil felt dry, and turned to get water. In that moment the door opened and a man stepped into the room.

“Who are you, Monsieur?” asked Luc pleasantly.

The other swept off his hat.

“Do you not know me, Monsieur le Marquis?”

Luc strained his eyes.

“Come a little nearer. Ah!”—as the other obeyed—“Monsieur de Richelieu!”

“Yes.”

The Duke glanced round the plaster walls, the raftered ceiling, the shabby furniture. Then his bold dark eyes rested on the meagre figure of Luc, clothed in garments still too good for his surroundings, and he flushed, and a shade came over his broad low brow.

“Do you live here?” he asked.

“Yes, MarÉchal.”

Luc indicated a chair, and M. de Richelieu seated himself. The splendour of his velvets, laces, brilliants, and all his extravagant appointments, looked strange enough in this room. His charming face was red between the flowing curls, and he gazed at Luc with an expression of amazement.

“Yesterday,” he said, “M. de Voltaire brought your book to the HÔtel d’Antin, and I was reading it last night. Good God—a man of your quality! I wish you could have accepted the Spanish appointment.”

Luc seated himself on the low chair by the hearth, on which a few sticks were burning.

“I wished so also,” he said quietly. “But you see for yourself, Monseigneur, that my health would not permit.”

The MarÉchal seemed unable to find words.

Luc leant forward and narrowed his weak eyes.

“Have you come to offer me patronage, Monsieur?” he asked.

The Duke answered with a noble air—

“It would not be possible for anyone to offer M. de Vauvenargues patronage. I heard from M. de Voltaire that you were here, and I came to be instructed in philosophy.”

“A MarÉchal de France comes to be instructed in philosophy in a garret!” smiled Luc; “and from one with whom he discovered long since that he had nothing in common!”

The Duke looked down at his open hand, that he lightly struck with his gauntlet, which was heavily embroidered with wreaths of roses, of gold ribbon, and of violets.

“We have something in common,” he said—“Madame la Comtesse Koklinska.”

Luc rose and leant against the mean mantelshelf.

“Yes, we have that memory in common,” he answered calmly.

“When did you see her last?” asked the Duke.

“She is dead,” said Luc, looking at him.

M. de Richelieu glanced up swiftly. There was a curious sense of stillness in the room. When the Duke spoke, his tone was also low.

“When did she die?”

“In a convent in Aix—nearly a year ago. So you did not know?”

“But I might have guessed that no other reason would have prevented her from coming back.”

“If she had lived, M. de MarÉchal, she would never have come back. She died in the habit of a novice.”

“Ah—well, after all, that is what they all do. Did she speak of me?”

“She said, Monsieur, you had done—what they all do.”

M. de Richelieu laughed softly.

“She was a clever woman. I never knew her deceived. She was, in her way, quite marvellous. But I did not come to speak of her.”

“No, Monsieur, but to look on a curiosity, I suppose?”

M. de Richelieu rose to his feet with a shimmer of his violet watered silks, and said a curious thing.

“Are you—with the world forgone—happy?” he asked.

Luc looked over the house-tops at the setting sun that glittered over the roofs of the Isle of St. Louis.

“Yes,” he answered. He coughed, put his hand to the plain linen ruffles on his bosom, and sat down again in the worn chair.

“And yet you have lost everything!” exclaimed the MarÉchal.

“I keep my soul,” smiled Luc; and his pallid, disfigured face glowed for a second into its old likeness.

“I have my soul,” said the MarÉchal, “and all the world besides. What have you that I have not?”

“Nothing, maybe,” replied Luc gravely.

“Ah,” insisted the Court favourite, “you have the power to come and live—like this.” His superb gesture was as if he indicated a kennel. “You have the power to sacrifice things that must be sweet to you. What inspires you?”

“The love of glory, Monsieur,” smiled Luc. “Call it that. But what is the use of words? My life marches to a different music from yours.”

“Do you despise me?” asked the MarÉchal quickly, eagerly.

Luc considered a moment before he lifted his head and answered quietly—

“I think I do.”

“So M. de Voltaire says sometimes; but he is not a man of quality. I thought you despised me when we first met. Why?”

“You had such great opportunities,” answered Luc.

“I have made great use of them. There is no one more powerful in France, except La Pompadour.”

“That is a proud boast,” said the Marquis. “I recommend it for your epitaph, Monsieur le MarÉchal.”

The Duke put his hand swiftly to the gold lace on his bosom.

“You hold me in contempt,” he said, with a fine smile, “but I can feel no scorn for you. How do you do it?”

Luc lifted his head.

“Are you so discontented with your own life that you must come prying into mine?” he said evenly. “You have what you wanted. Be satisfied, as I am.”

M. de Richelieu’s face paled with a sudden passion.

“There is nothing can satisfy me! I begin to find the world very stale, so much of it is foolish. But you seem to have found something new. Tell me, for I no longer see anything gilded in all the world. There is a tarnish over the gold pieces, and over the women’s hair—and both were bright enough to me once.”

Luc leant forward, and with a bent poker stirred the fire into a sparkle of embers.

“I fear, Monsieur le MarÉchal,” he said, “that you begin to grow old.”

The Duke laughed.

“Old!” he repeated. “Old!” He rose. “My God! do you think I am old? Look at me, Monsieur—am I old?”

Luc turned his head towards him.

“I can scarcely see you at all,” he said serenely. “I only see something gold and purple. I am, Monsieur, half blind.”

The Duke stared at him.

“If I was stricken like you, I would fall on my sword!” he exclaimed impulsively.

“Each has his own courage,” replied Luc.

“How long will you stay here?” asked the MarÉchal abruptly.

“Until I die, Monsieur.”

“By Heaven, no. Come to the HÔtel d’Antin. You are a great man. Since I am growing old I need a philosopher at my side, and—I always liked you, Luc de Vauvenargues.”

The Marquis rose.

“I suppose it was you who obtained me the Spanish appointment after all?” he asked suddenly.

“Do you bear me malice for that?”

“No,” said Luc, “no. But I am glad that I have chosen a way where I can walk unaided.”

“Will you come to the HÔtel d’Antin?”

“Monseigneur, this time I have not come to Paris to become a pensioner of the great.”

This answer, spoken with pride, but sweetly, caused the blood to flush to M. de Richelieu’s side curls.

“So my philosopher rejects me!” he cried. “And I have prostrated myself at the feet of the wise man without learning the secret of perpetual youth or happiness! Farewell, Monsieur de Vauvenargues.”

He bowed and stepped towards the door. When he had opened it he paused with the latch in his hand.

“Where is she buried?” he asked.

Luc did not answer.

“I mean La Koklinska,” insisted the resplendent MarÉchal.

“In our hearts,” answered the Marquis swiftly. “Let her lie at peace.”

“Your pardon,” said M. de Richelieu. “I would have dedicated something to her memory.”

“You can, Monsieur—your silence.”

The Duke bowed again.

“My silence, then, until we three meet in the Elysian Fields, when we shall be able to have an interesting conversation. Again, and till then, farewell.”

“Farewell, Monsieur le MarÉchal.”

The door closed on the gorgeous courtier, and Luc was alone as usual in the cold, darkening room, with the fire sinking on the hearth and the sun fading without over the roofs of Paris.