THE MASS OF TUC ATHEIST. 53.5 



possessing a water-butt and horse ; but on learning my situation, the 

 secrets of which he contrived to draw from me with a depth of cun- 

 ning combined of simplicity, goodness, and native delicacy, the re- 

 membrance of which still fills my heart with the most powerful 

 emotion, he renounced for some time the ambition of his whole life, 

 for Bouro-eat had been eleven years amarchand a la ro<e,*and he sa- 

 crificed his hundred crowns to promote my future success.'' 



Here Desplein grasped convulsively the arm of Bianchon. 



" He gave me the money, without which I could not have passed 

 my examinations. This man, my friend, comprehended that I had 

 a mission to fulfil, that my intellectual wants were more urgent than 

 h's material ones. He interested himself for me in the most minute 

 details, calling me son petit. He lent me what was necessary to the 

 purchase of the books which the course of my studies required. He 

 stole gently into my room at times to look at me while I was at 

 work. He took precautions which might well have been termed ma- 

 ternal, in order to compel me to substitute for the indifferent and in- 

 sufficient food to which I had been condemned a healthy and abund- 

 ant nourishment. Bourgeat was about forty years of age, and pre- 

 sented to the mind the idea of a citizen of the middle age, a pro- 

 minent forehead, and a head that a painter would have made a study 

 of to serve him as the model for a Lycurgus. The poor man had a 

 heart running over with affection to dispose of. He had never been 

 loved but by a water-spaniel, which he had lost, but of which bespoke 

 to me continually, always asking me if I thought that the church 

 would consent to say masses for the repose of its soul. His dog was, 

 he assured me, a real Christian, which for twelve years had accom- 

 panied him to church without ever once barkinor, listening to the 

 organ without opening his mouth, and resting, rolled up, at his feet, 

 with an air of the greatest devotion. This man centered upon me 

 all his affections ; he opened his warm heart to me as to a solitary 

 and suffering being ; he became for me the mother the most watch- 

 ful, the benefactor the most delicate ; in a word, the beau ideal of 

 that virtue which delights in the contemplation of its own work, and 

 seeks no other recompence. When I encountered him in the street 

 he cast towards me a glance of intelligence beaming with a noble- 

 ness beyond the power of description, almost of conception, affecting 

 to walk as if he carried no burden, appearing as if it was happiness 

 enouf'h for him to see me in good health and well dressed. It was, 

 in fact, the unsophisticated devoledness of the humbler classes, the 

 love of the griselte elevated to a higher sphere. He went my errands, 

 wakened me in the night at the proper hours, cleaned my lamp, and 

 dry-rubbed our landing-place — as good a serv.mt as he was a father, 

 and scrupulously neat as the tidiest young English girl. He per- 

 formed all the offices of our simple housekeeping as Philopoemen 

 sawed his wood, communicating to all his actions (he simplicity of his 

 manner of doing them, and preserving his dignity throughout; for he 



* One who draws water from tlie |)ul)lic fountains and carries it about in two 

 buckets suspended from a yoke. The contents of his two buckets is called a voie, and 

 costs two sons. 



