1827.J Luck and Ill-Luck. , 157 



academician, Duclos, the vermin which torment the Roman conclaves 

 have frequently triumphed over intrigues and seductions, and made popes of 

 people, who bat for them never would have attained the dignity. A child 

 playing in the shop of a spectacle-maker, is the cause of discovering my- 

 riads of suns and new worlds, and prepares, without thinking of it, the way 

 for the reputation of Simon Marius, of Galileo, of twenty other great astro- 

 nomers. A falling apple demonstrated to Newton the laws of the universe, 

 and perhaps revealed to him the extent of his own genius. As for me, 

 who seem to have been cast into the world to prove the influence which 

 can be exercised over the destinies of man, the master of the earth, by the 

 most subaltern and contemptible causes ; such as an aukvvard gesture, a 

 nick-name, a grape-stone, a worm, a blast of dust, a puppy-dog, an in- 

 sect, or a censor : I say, as for me, have not these trifles closed before 

 my footsteps twenty paths to glory or honour ? 1 might have become a 

 fatalist; but I will not. Mad, a thousand-fold mad, are they who refuse 

 to believe that an infinite mind presided over the creation of these beings, 

 so low in the scale of creation as to be almost imperceptible, yet alMmpor- 

 tant in the great proceedings of the universe. The harmony of the world 

 is kept up only by apparent irregularities. I shall not cry out: All is right; 

 but 1 will say, nothing is useless or contemptible. An atom acquires im- 

 portance by its position, like a cypher [0] in arithmetical calculation. 

 Every thing has its power of action ; every thing may become a lever in 

 its turn ; every thing has been produced to keep up that eternal re-action 

 of good and evil which alone gives motion and life to the creation." 



M. Pigafet concluded ; and Comte de M , after having heard in si- 

 lence his long philosophical tirade, replied, " Your history has surprised 

 and interested me more than you can imagine. Your profound understand- 

 ing, however, M. Pigafet, does not appear to have yet made you comprehend 

 that, if unmerited misfortunes may continually cling to a man without 

 tarnishing him, fortune often smiles also on men, perhaps unworthy of her 

 favours, from the weakness of their capacity, but who yet would not con- 

 descend to look for them by intrigue or baseness. 1 am Bernard I- 

 that Bernard who profited by your disasters without having caused them 

 who was sometimes your rival, never your enemy who has obtained a 

 great reputation without having looked for it, and arrived at honours with- 

 out caring about them and who has no more reason to blush for his pros- 

 perity than you for your misfortunes !" Here M. Pigafet attempted to in- 

 terrupt the Comte, or Bernard, if you so please to call him ; but the latter, 

 having implored his silence by a gesture, went on thus- " It is my turn 

 to tell you the principal events of my life : 1 shall be brief for my history 

 is but the supplement of your's. 



" It may be a good thing to follow one's vocation in the choice of a pro- 

 fession ; but, as I had no particular vocation for one thing more than 

 another, I only consulted the taste of my father, and became a lawyer to 

 oblige him. If, however, I wanted eloquence, I did not want common- 

 sense ; and I soon felt that nature had denied me the gifts of oratory. 

 Hence arose that timidity that confusion that feebleness of voice, which 

 struck you so forcibly in my first pleading. The accident of your periwig 

 made me share in the general laugh, in which I own I was wrong ; but 

 people cannot always contain themselves, and your appearance was really 

 most comical. My unexpected success did not blind me as to my want 

 of capacity for the bar; for. a few days afterwards, one of ray uncles, a 

 rich and fashionable physician, having proposed to make me his heir at law, 



