“Ah! that’s vexatious; we might have got some useful information from you,” said Maître Kitzig. He then dealt the cards, and the game began. What a position for Maître Frantz! at the moment of gaining the most magnificent oratorical triumph, and of proclaiming the system, to be obliged to remain silent—of denying the doctrine—of concealing himself like a criminal! For the more he thought of giving himself up, the more his natural instincts opposed themselves to such a course, and in his trouble he cried— “O poor Mathéus!—poor Mathéus!—to what extremities are you reduced! To go to the galleys at your time of life!—poor Mathéus! What fault of yours can have merited so sad a fate? Have you not sacrificed your repose, your dearest affections, for the happiness of humankind? Poor Mathéus!” His heart wept, and his whole being trembled; but he had not strength enough to give himself up: he was afraid. When, after the first hand had been played, Maître Kitzig said to him, absently, that he must necessarily have passed through Haslach, as the road from Molsheim passed immediately behind that village, he denied it afresh—denied it emphatically; saying that he had passed at the back of Hirchland, and giving a false description of the route and of the beauties of nature, describing an immense circuit around Oberbronn, Eschenbach, and generally of all the places through which he had passed. “You took a very long and roundabout road?” remarked the procureur; the game then went on without interruption. From time to time Maître Kitzig made some caustic reflection as to the difficulty of mountain roads, as to the danger of preaching new doctrines, and the illustrious philosopher trembled to the marrow of his bones. Thus passed this evening, which was to have decided the eternal glory of Frantz Mathéus, of the progress of civilisation, and of the happiness of future races; it passed in the cruellest of torments. While joy was all around the good man, while the noble Baron de Pipelnaz was blooming in his pride, and all these vulgar beings were lapping themselves in the most radiant hopes: he, so good, so just, so benevolent, was thinking of nothing but of flight—of going and enriching America with the treasures of his science! “There,” he thought, “doctrines are free; no procureurs or gendarmes are to be feared; everybody may perform miracles as they like!” Midnight struck, and a goodly number of the habitués of the casino had already retired, when the Procureur Kitzig rose, and, looking at the illustrious philosopher, said— “Surely, my dear monsieur, you have made a mistake; you _must_ have come into the road at the back of Haslach, and passed through the village?” Frantz Mathéus, as if carried away by anger, declared for the third time, with an oath, that he did not know what was meant—that he had never been that way!