being deprived of our possessions if the ravisher be powerful enough. Thus it is permitted to the king to take our silver-plate to make war, as was seen under Louis the Great, when the requisition was so exacting that they even took away the fringe of the bed-hangings, to use the gold woven with the silk. This prince put his hand on the goods of individuals and on the treasures of the Church, and twenty years ago, performing my devotions in Notre-Dame-de-Liesse in Picardy, I heard the complaints of an old verger, who deplored that the late king had taken away and melted down all the treasures of the church, and ravished even the jewelled breast of gold, placed there some time before in great pomp by the Princess Palatine, after she had been miraculously cured of cancer. Justice seconded the prince in his requisition, and punished severely those who hid away any article from the king’s commissaries. Evidently she did not think that these things belonged so peculiarly to their possessors that nothing could separate them.” “Monsieur,” said the little official, “the commissaries acted in the name of the king, who, possessing everything in the kingdom, can dispose of it to his liking, either for war, or for naval armaments, or in any other way.” “That is true,” said my good master, “and that is one of the rules of the game. The judges go about it as in the game of ‘goose,’ following one another and looking at what is written in the rules. The sovereign’s rights, upheld by the Swiss Guard, and by all sorts of soldiers, are written there. And this poor girl, who has been hanged, had no Swiss Guard to inscribe in the rules of the game that she had the right to wear Madame Josse’s lace. That is just how it is.” “Monsieur,” said the little official, “I hope you do not liken Louis the Great, who took his subjects’ plate to pay his soldiers, to this creature who stole a head-dress to deck herself.” “Monsieur,” said my good master, “it is less innocent to make war than to go to Ramponneau’s in a lace head-dress. But justice gives to every one what is his, according to the rules of this game played by man, which is the wickedest, the most absurd, and the least amusing of all games. And ’tis our misfortune that every man is obliged to take a hand in it.” “It is necessary,” said the little official.