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‘How small it looks!’ he sighed.

‘Ay,’ replied the Doctor, ‘small enough now. Yet it was once a walled city; thriving, full of furred burgesses and men in armour, humming with affairs;–with tall spires, for aught that I know, and portly towers along the battlements. A thousand chimneys ceased smoking at the curfew bell. There were gibbets at the gate as thick as scarecrows. In time of war, the assault swarmed against it with ladders, the arrows fell like leaves, the defenders sallied hotly over the drawbridge, each side uttered its cry as they plied their weapons. Do you know that the walls extended as far as the Commanderie? Tradition so reports. Alas, what a long way off is all this confusion–nothing left of it but my quiet words spoken in your ear–and the town itself shrunk to the hamlet underneath us! By-and-by came the English wars–you shall hear more of the English, a stupid people, who sometimes blundered into good–and Gretz was taken, sacked, and burned. It is the history of many towns; but Gretz never rose again; it was never rebuilt; its ruins were a quarry to serve the growth of rivals; and the stones of Gretz are now erect along the streets of Nemours. It gratifies me that our old house was the first to rise after the calamity; when the town had come to an end, it inaugurated the hamlet.’

‘I, too, am glad of that,’ said Jean-Marie.

‘It should be the temple of the humbler virtues,’ responded the Doctor with a savoury gusto. ‘Perhaps one of the reasons why I love my little hamlet as I do, is that we have a similar history, she and I. Have I told you that I was once rich?’

‘I do not think so,’ answered Jean-Marie. ‘I do not think I should have forgotten. I am sorry you should have lost your fortune.’

‘Sorry?’ cried the Doctor. ‘Why, I find I have scarce begun your education after all. Listen to me! Would you rather live in the old Gretz or in the new, free from the alarms of war, with the green country at the door, without noise, passports, the exactions of the soldiery, or the jangle of the curfew-bell to send us off to bed by sundown?’

‘I suppose I should prefer the new,’ replied the boy.

‘Precisely,’ returned the Doctor; ‘so do I. And, in the same way, I prefer my present moderate fortune to my former wealth. Golden mediocrity! cried the adorable ancients; and I subscribe to their enthusiasm. Have I not good wine, good food, good air, the fields and the forest for my walk, a house, an admirable wife, a boy whom I protest I cherish like a son? Now, if I were still rich, I should indubitably make my residence in Paris–you know Paris–Paris and Paradise are not convertible terms. This pleasant noise of the wind streaming among leaves changed into the grinding Babel of the street, the stupid glare of plaster substituted for this quiet pattern of greens and greys, the nerves shattered, the digestion falsified–picture the fall! Already you perceive the consequences; the mind is stimulated, the heart steps to a different measure, and the man is himself no longer. I have passionately studied myself–the true business of philosophy. I know my character as the musician knows the ventages of his flute. Should I return to Paris, I should ruin myself gambling; nay, I go further–I should break the heart of my Anastasie with infidelities.’

This was too much for Jean-Marie. That a place should so transform the most excellent of men transcended his belief. Paris, he protested, was even an agreeable place of residence. ‘Nor when I lived in that city did I feel much difference,’ he pleaded.

‘What!’ cried the Doctor. ‘Did you not steal when you were there?’

But the boy could never be brought to see that he had done anything wrong when he stole. Nor, indeed, did the Doctor think he had; but that gentleman was never very scrupulous when in want of a retort.