On a certain afternoon, when he was alone in his chamber writing, the need for action, the thirst for fame blazed up through his sweet, vain resignation beyond his power to restrain. The glory that he had set himself to achieve had always been the glory of arms, and the realization that this path was for ever closed to him came upon him again suddenly as if he had but just been told that he no longer belonged to the _régiment du roi_. He laid down his pen: he had been writing an Elegy on the young de Caumont, for whom he had often, during the war, written discourses on glory, and as he praised the young soldier he had praised also d’Espagnac--the two, so young, so beautiful, so brave, so pure, became one in his mind, and with them there mingled the vision of another. He felt that he was lamenting a third--his own youth, his own hopes that had been buried in the snows of Bohemia. He had written of Hippolyte de Seytres, “He was born ardent,” and it was true of himself. During these months of idleness the fire of this ardour had increased in his heart until it was unbearable. He sat quite still, with his hands clasped before him, gazing at the thinning chestnut leaves and the blue sky behind them that was spreading in all directions through a pile of loose clouds. His serene face flushed with resolution. In that moment he felt a scorn of himself that he had ever permitted poverty and ill-health to hinder him in his designs on fortune. He was of a noble birth that brought obligations, of gifts that brought obligations also; he was young, laborious, serious, passionately desirous of serving his country; and he was French, born at this most glorious period of liberty of thought, splendour of achievement in every sphere. He must, he could do something. Of Paris and the great world there he knew only what he had heard and read--the outside of it, glittering, young and hopeful, a court led by a king whom France adored and Luc pictured as one like himself--ardent, avid of glory, and with every opportunity to his hand--and another court, no less powerful, of intellect and genius, led by M. de Voltaire, a name that blazed in Europe. Luc had received a scant education, and his long military preoccupation had given him small leisure for study. He could scarcely spell out Latin, and he had not read many books; but those he knew,--Corneille, Racine, Molière, Pascal, La Fontaine, Boileau--he both loved and absorbed. They were as so many torches to light his way. M. de Voltaire himself he had always regarded with deep respect and admiration. The daring atheist, the brilliant son of the people, the caressed of kings and flattered of women, the greatest man of letters of the age, the most decried and abused of human beings had no more fervent disciple than the quiet young aristocrat who had watched his splendour from afar. Luc thought of him now, and the tumult in his heart rose higher.