stinking breath several of the high nobility,” had had the good sense to bow to the inevitable, to conform to the times, and to resume their seats in the House of Lords.  To do so, it sufficed that they should take the oath of allegiance to the king.  When these facts were considered—­the glorious reign, the excellent king, august princes given back by divine mercy to the people’s love; when it was remembered that persons of such consideration as Monk, and, later on, Jeffreys, had rallied round the throne; that they had been properly rewarded for their loyalty and zeal by the most splendid appointments and the most lucrative offices; that Lord Clancharlie could not be ignorant of this, and that it only depended on himself to be seated by their side, glorious in his honours; that England had, thanks to her king, risen again to the summit of prosperity; that London was all banquets and carousals; that everybody was rich and enthusiastic, that the court was gallant, gay, and magnificent;—­if by chance, far from these splendours, in some melancholy, indescribable half-light, like nightfall, that old man, clad in the same garb as the common people, was observed pale, absent-minded, bent towards the grave, standing on the shore of the lake, scarce heeding the storm and the winter, walking as though at random, his eye fixed, his white hair tossed by the wind of the shadow, silent, pensive, solitary, who could forbear to smile?

It was the sketch of a madman.

Thinking of Lord Clancharlie, of what he might have been and what he was, a smile was indulgent; some laughed out aloud, others could not restrain their anger.  It is easy to understand that men of sense were much shocked by the insolence implied by his isolation.

One extenuating circumstance:  Lord Clancharlie had never had any brains.  Every one agreed on that point.

II.

It is disagreeable to see one’s fellows practise obstinacy.  Imitations of Regulus are not popular, and public opinion holds them in some derision.  Stubborn people are like reproaches, and we have a right to laugh at them.

Besides, to sum up, are these perversities, these rugged notches, virtues?  Is there not in these excessive advertisements of self-abnegation and of honour a good deal of ostentation?  It is all parade more than anything else.  Why such exaggeration of solitude and exile? to carry nothing to extremes is the wise man’s maxim.  Be in opposition if you choose, blame if you will, but decently, and crying out all the while “Long live the King.”  The true virtue is common sense—­what falls ought to fall, what succeeds ought to succeed.  Providence acts advisedly, it crowns him who deserves the crown; do you pretend to know better than Providence?  When matters are settled—­when one rule has replaced another—­when success is the scale in which truth and falsehood are weighed, in one side the catastrophe, in the other the triumph; then doubt is no longer possible, the honest man rallies to the winning side, and although it may happen to serve his fortune and his family, he does not allow himself to be influenced by that consideration, but thinking only of the public weal, holds out his hand heartily to the conqueror.