used with a flourish and a loud report, brought back to memory at once the whole herd of _savans crasseux_ of the eighteenth century. “Well, to return to my tale. At the college, Charles Maurice devoted himself most manfully to study. This is proved by the fact of his having obtained, the second year of his admission, the first prize of his class, although competition must have been hard with boys who had been in the college for many years, while he had been running wild and barefoot on the plains of Perigord. Three years passed away cheerily enough at the college. His life of study had, however, but little variety, for he was during that time one of the unfavoured few who were compelled by the arrangements of their parents to remain at the college during the short vacation. His mother came but seldom to visit him, and never came alone. She was mostly accompanied by an eminent surgeon of Paris, who examined the boy’s leg, and bandaged it and pulled it out to force it to match in length with the other, and burnt and cauterized the offending nerve until the poor fellow learned to dread with extreme terror the summons to the _parloir_, and the announcement that _madame sa mère_ was awaiting him there. I have often heard him tell of the agony of these visits, and of the disappointment which he experienced on seeing all his playmates depart to their various homes for the holidays, but I never heard him utter a single complaint or condemnation of his mother’s conduct. “It was at this time that his father died from the consequences of an old wound received in a skirmish some years before, and Charles Maurice was now the Comte de Talleyrand, and head of that branch of the family to which he belonged. Meanwhile, the younger son, Archambaut, had likewise returned from his most refined and tender nursing; but _he_ had had the better chance; _his_ limbs were sound and well developed, as God had made them. No dire accident, the consequence of foul neglect, had marred his shape or tarnished his comeliness. So, one fine day, and as a natural consequence, mark you, of this fortunate circumstance, when Charles Maurice, the _eldest_ son, had finished his course of study at Louis le Grand, having passed through his classes with great _éclat_, there came a tall, sallow, black-robed priest, and took him away from the midst of friends to the grim old _seminaire_ of St. Sulpice, and it was there that he received the astounding intimation, from the lips of the superior himself, that, by the decision of a _conseil de famille_, from which there was no appeal, his birthright had been taken from him, and transferred to his younger brother. “‘Why so?’ faltered the boy, unable to conceal his emotion. “‘He is not a cripple,’ was the stern and cruel answer.