Since Friday night the good Cure, in his calm, philosophical way, had brooded much over the talk in the garden upon France, the Revolution, and Napoleon.

As a rule, his sermons were commonplace almost to a classical simplicity, but there were times when, moved by some new theme, he talked to the villagers as if they, like himself, were learned and wise.

He thought of his old life in France, of two Napoleons that he had seen, and of the time when, at Neuilly, a famous general burst into his father's house, and, with streaming tears, cried: "He is dead--he is dead--at St.Helena--Napoleon! Oh, Napoleon!" A chapter from Isaiah came to the Cure's mind.

He brought out his Bible from the house, and, walking up and down, read aloud certain passages.
They kept singing in his ears all day He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy lord's house....
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand....
And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house.
And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue....
He looked very benign as he quoted these verses in the pulpit on Sunday morning, with a half smile, as of pleased meditation.

He was lost to the people before him, and when he began to speak, it was as in soliloquy.
He was talking to a vague audience, into that space where a man's eyes look when he is searching his own mind, discovering it to himself.