"As I had long ago given up to my creditors all that I possessed, and had sold my real estate and personal property for their benefit, after four years' imprisonment I petitioned the King for my release. The Government was of the opinion that I had suffered enough, but there remained one great difficulty--when a debtor has given up everything, does anything yet remain? The question was a knotty one. Nevertheless, after long debate, it was decided in the negative, and very politely they showed me the door. "My future was broken, like my heart, and I had nothing to do but vegetate without profit to myself or others. But observe the fatality that pursued me. When making my surrender to my creditors I begged them to leave me a certain property of very small immediate value, which I foresaw that I might turn to good account. I promised that whatever I could make out of it should go to wiping out the debt. They laughed me in the face; and very naturally, for there was a beaver to catch. Well, Jules, this same property, which brought hardly enough to cover costs of sale, sold ten years later for a sum which would have covered all my debts and more. "Europe was now too populous for me, and I embarked with my faithful André for New France. I chose out this peaceful dwelling place, where I might have lived happily could I have drunk the waters of Lethe. The ancients, our superiors in point of imagination, knew the needs of the human heart when they created that stream. Long tainted with the errors of the sixteenth century, I used once to cry in my pride, 'O men, if I have shared your vices, I have found few among you endowed with even one of my virtues.' But religion has taught me to know myself better, and I have humbled myself beneath God's hand, convinced at length that I could claim but little credit for merely following the inclinations of my nature. "You are the only one, Jules, to whom I have hinted the story of my life, suppressing the cruelest episodes because I know the tenderness of your heart. My end is attained; let us now go and finish the evening with my faithful André, who will keenly appreciate this attention on the eve of your departure." When they re-entered the house André was making up a bed on a sofa, a piece of furniture which was the result of the combined skill of master and man. This sofa, of which they were both very proud, had one leg shorter than the others, but this little inconvenience was remedied with the aid of a chip. "This sofa," said "the good gentleman," with an air of pride, "has cost André and me more elaborate calculations than Perrault required for the construction of the Louvre; but we accomplished it at last to our satisfaction. One leg, to be sure, presents arms to all comers. But what work is perfect? You must have remembered, my André, that this camp-bed was to be a soldiers' couch."