When his strength was with him, he wrote. Many of his papers were with his brother Joseph, who had once shown a furtive interest in them. Luc sent a noble letter asking for them, but received no reply. He smiled, thinking of the furious Joseph casting the manuscripts into the fire. Such as he had in his own possession, and those his solitary meditations had produced, he collected, and sent to one of the great booksellers. The work was taken. For the sake of those who had disowned him, Luc made the last sacrifice, and the modest little volume appeared without any name on the title-page. It made no success whatever, fell dead from its birth, and was forgotten. No one made any remark upon it, for no one read it. “They would say I was a complete failure,” smiled Luc. He sent a copy of his book to M. de Voltaire, with some timidity, for the great man was now historiographer to the Court and deep in politics, being the acknowledged protégé of the Marquise; and then, with the slow, painful effort of his infirmities, he commenced to write another. He had so elevated himself that he was not even disappointed by the failure of the book that contained the inmost convictions of his soul. He saw now that glory was not only reached by the road of success. Six months after he had come to Paris, and a few days after he had sent his book to Voltaire, one fair, clear afternoon in October, he sat at his window, overlooking Paris. It seemed to him that he overlooked the future too; that this window of his poor room was the outlook of some watch-tower, from which he could see the doings of posterity unfold into the distance. Wars and ministries, kings and soldiers, shrank to the size of puppet-shows viewed on the fringe of the changing future. Soon, everything that agitated the world now would be a mere name. Soon again--not even that--fresh creeds, fresh codes, would replace the old; and through all the changing dynasties of thought that would reign, nothing would count but the memory of the few men who had risen above their age, and handed from one generation to another the pure lamp of the truth as it had been revealed to them; of virtue, as it had been permitted to them to practise; of heroism, as they had been able to accomplish it. It was easier on the battle-field or in the Cabinet, but it was possible in a garret. It was easier with a body vigorous and healthy; it was possible with a body broken and dying. It was easier when surrounded by encouragement, attention, acclaim; but it was possible, alone and unnoticed, to win a place in that galaxy of glory that lights eternity. Luc had on his window-sill an evergreen plant with gold leaves, straight and tall in shape, like the silver fir of Bohemia, or the poplars of the Rue Deauville.