Father Francis, whose whole heart was mildness and humility, began to fancy after a few minutes that he had been guilty of some presumption in arguing so boldly on the secrets of Providence. "God forgive me," said he, "if I have done irreverently in seeking, as far as my poor intellect could go, to demonstrate by simple reasoning, that which we ought to receive as a matter of faith; but often, in my more solitary hours, in thinking over these subjects I would find a degree of obscurity and confusion in my own ideas, which impelled me to endeavour to clear and to arrange them." "I am convinced you did very right, my good father," replied the Chevalier, "and that one great object in the good regulations of one's mind is to obtain fixed principles on every subject which comes under our review, carrying to the examination an ardent desire for truth; and to religious inquiries, that profound reverence and humble diffidence of human reason, that so deep and so important a subject imperatively requires." Here dropped the conversation, leaving both parties better satisfied with each other than usually happens after any discussion, but more especially where religion is at all involved. CHAPTER VIII. My first care, after finding myself completely settled at Saragossa, was to overcome the difficulties of the Spanish language. I had studied it superficially long before, and, thanks to my Bearnaise tongue, I now accomplished the hardest part of the undertaking, namely, the pronunciation, which is very rarely acquired by Frenchmen in general. By the time this was gained, I had been three months in Spain, living in a state of high ease and tranquillity, very much against my will; finding nothing to excite or to romance upon; and, at best, meeting with but those little adventures which are unworthy, if not unfit for detail. It was not, however, my fault. I went continually to the Teatro, to the Plaza de Toros, and to all those places where one may most easily get one's self into mischief, without accomplishing my object; going from one to the other with the most provoking, quiet, uninterrupted facility that fortune could furnish forth to annoy me withal. Every one was calm, polite, and cold; no one fell in love with me; no one quarrelled with me; no one took any notice of me, and I was beginning to think the Spaniards the most stupid, sober, mole-like race that the world contained, when some circumstances occurred, which, from the very first excited my curiosity, if they did not reach any more violent passion.