CHAPTER II

The soul in agony. 
To monsieur Claude de L--------

Seminary of P------sur-C-------

(Haute-Saone).

It affords me unspeakable pleasure to sit down to address you, dear Claude.  Must I tell you that I can not think without pious emotion of that life which but yesterday we were leading together at the Jesuits’ College.  How well I remember our long talks under the great trees, the pious pilgrimages we daily made to the Father Superior’s Calvary, our charming readings, the darting forth of our two souls toward the eternal source of all greatness and all goodness.  I can still see the little chapel which you fitted up one day in your desk, the pretty wax tapers we made for it, which we lighted one day during the cosmography class.

Oh, sweet recollections, how dear you are to me!  Charming details of a calm and holy life, with what happiness do I recall you!  Time in separating you from me seems only to have brought you nearer in recollection.  I have seen life, alas! during these six long months, but, in acquiring a knowledge of the world, I have learned to love still more the innocent ignorance of my past existence.  Wiser than myself, you have remained in the service of the Lord; you have understood the divine mission which had been reserved for you; you have been unwilling to step over the profane threshold and to enter the world, that cavern, I ought to say, in which I am now assailed, tossed about like a frail bark during a tempest.  Nay, the anger of the waves of the sea compared to that of the passions is mere child’s play.  Happy friend, who art ignorant of what I have learned.  Happy friend, whose eyes have not yet measured the abyss into which mine are already sunk.

But what was I to do?  Was I not obliged—­despite my vocation and the tender friendship which called me to your side—­was I not obliged, I say, to submit to the exigencies imposed by the name I bear, and also to the will of my father, who destined me for a military career in order to defend a noble cause which you too would defend?  In short, I obeyed and quitted the college of the Fathers never to return again.

I went into the world, my heart charged with the salutary fears which our pious education had caused to grow up there.  I advanced cautiously, but very soon recoiled horror-stricken.  I am eighteen; I am still young, I know, but I have already reflected much, while the experience of my pious instructors has imparted to my soul a precocious maturity which enables me to judge of many things; besides my faith is so firmly established and so deeply rooted in my being, that I can look about me without danger.  I do not fear for my own salvation, but I am shocked when I think of the future of our modern society, and I pray the Lord fervently, from a heart untainted by sin, not to turn away His countenance in wrath from