like unto the essence of the divine nature itself, as a token of the beneficent hand that fashioned us.  Kindness, therefore, ought to be the mainspring and guide of our heart, and ought at the same time to be the chief attraction that should, as it were, be a part of our very being, with which to win the hearts of others.  Greatness, which is but the result of good fortune, so far from diminishing the quality of kindness, is but given one that he might the more freely spread broadcast its beneficent effects like a public fountain, which is but erected that its waters might be scattered to the sunlight.

This is the value of a good heart; and the great who are devoid of the quality of kindness, justly punished for their disdainful insensibility to the misfortunes of their fellows, are forever deprived of the greatest blessing of human life—­that is to say, of the pleasures of society.  Never did man enjoy these pleasures more keenly than the prince of whom I am speaking; never was man less inspired with the misgiving that familiarity breeds contempt.  Is this the man who carried cities by storm and won great battles?  Verily, he seems to have forgotten the high rank he so well knew how to sustain.  Do you not recognize in him the hero, who, ever equable and consistent, never having to stand on tiptoe to seem taller than he is, nor to stoop to be courteous and obliging, found himself by nature all that a man ought to be toward his fellow, like a majestic and bountiful stream, which peacefully bears into the cities the abundance it has spread in the fields that it has watered, which gives to all and never rises above its normal height, nor becomes swollen except when violent opposition is offered to the gentle slope by which it continues on its tranquil course.  Such, indeed, has also been the gentleness and such the might of the Prince de Conde.  Have you a secret of importance?  Confide it boldly to the safe-keeping of this noble heart; he will reward your confidence by making your affair his own.  To this prince nothing is more inviolable than the sacred rights of friendship.  When a favor is asked of him he acts as tho he himself were under obligation; and never has a joy keener and truer been witnessed than he felt at being able to give pleasure to another.

It was a grand spectacle to see during the same period, and in the same campaigns, these two men, who in the common opinion of all Europe could be favorably compared to the greatest captains of past ages, sometimes at the head of different bodies of troops; sometimes united more indeed by the concord of their thoughts than by the orders which the subaltern received from his superior; sometimes at the head of opposing forces, and each redoubling his customary activity and vigilance, as tho God, who, according to the Scriptures, often in His wisdom makes a sport of the universe, had desired to show mortals the wonders in all their forms that He could work with men.  Behold the encampments,