"Oh! Franz," said Victoria to the Prince with emotion, after having contemplated at length the sacred relics transmitted in her family from generation to generation for eighteen hundred years and more, "what touching souvenirs! What woes, what miseries, what iniquities, what acts of oppression, what tortures, are recalled to our memory by these inanimate objects, witnesses of the age-long martyrdom of our plebeian family. Malediction on our oppressors--Kings, men of the Church, men of the sword!" "Alas, our sad history is that of all enslaved people, oppressed from age to age since the Frankish conquest," replied Franz of Gerolstein. "If one should dare to doubt the right of this decisive and holy Revolution which the taking of the Bastille this day ushers into being, would not that right be proven by these legends inscribed in the tears and blood of our fathers? What a heritage past generations hand down to the present!" "Perhaps the moment has come to act on the view expressed by our ancestor Christian the printer," observed Monsieur Lebrenn. "He was of the opinion that sooner or later it would be of value to publish our legends, as a work of historic instruction for our brothers of the people, kept till now in the densest ignorance concerning their own true history." "Nothing, in truth, could be more opportune. Aye, these tales, published now under the title of the MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE, would have a powerful influence on the spirit of the masses." "The Society of Jesus is in our days still as active as of old," added Victoria, thinking of her encounter with Abbot Morlet the previous evening. "Facile in all disguises, the adepts of that body will without doubt, as in the days of the League, take on the popular mask, in order to drive the people to excesses and smother their cause under the results of their own misguided exasperation. The recommendation of Loyola, relative to our legends, has most certainly been preserved in the archives of the Society, where the name of our family and those of so many others are inscribed on their Index. We must expect, sooner or later, some attempt on the part of these Jesuits to seize our records." "Good father," assented Franz, "I share Victoria's uneasiness. Here is what I would suggest: I know a retreat almost inaccessible to the Jesuits. Let us thither transport the manuscripts; there they will be in perfect safety. An energetic, intelligent, and discreet editor, for whom I will vouch as for myself, shall to-morrow morning begin the copying of the legends; and soon we shall be on the way to publish our Mysteries of the People." Further discussion of Franz's plan was interrupted by the return of John Lebrenn. As soon as he entered the room, Victoria divined, by the expression he wore, the ill success of his mission. "Alas! Monsieur Desmarais has refused you the hand of his daughter?"