in the little world of D---- A member of the Convention--can you
imagine such a thing? That existed from the time when people
called each other thou, and when they said "citizen." This man
was almost a monster. He had not voted for the death of the king,
but almost. He was a quasi-regicide. He had been a terrible man.
How did it happen that such a man had not been brought before
a provost's court, on the return of the legitimate princes?
They need not have cut off his head, if you please; clemency must
be exercised, agreed; but a good banishment for life. An example,
in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like all the rest of
those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture.

Was G---- a vulture after all? Yes; if he were to be judged by the
element of ferocity in this solitude of his. As he had not voted
for the death of the king, he had not been included in the decrees
of exile, and had been able to remain in France.

He dwelt at a distance of three-quarters of an hour from the city,
far from any hamlet, far from any road, in some hidden turn
of a very wild valley, no one knew exactly where. He had there,
it was said, a sort of field, a hole, a lair. There were no neighbors,
not even passers-by. Since he had dwelt in that valley, the path
which led thither had disappeared under a growth of grass.
The locality was spoken of as though it had been the dwelling of
a hangman.

Nevertheless, the Bishop meditated on the subject, and from time
to time he gazed at the horizon at a point where a clump of trees
marked the valley of the former member of the Convention, and he said,
"There is a soul yonder which is lonely."