--"a war of savages, skulking in ambush, of trickery and treachery,
declared in the name of Madame Jules. What sort of man is this to whom
she belongs? What species of power does this Ferragus wield?"

Monsieur de Maulincour, though a soldier and brave man, could not
repress a shudder. In the midst of many thoughts that now assailed
him, there was one against which he felt he had neither defence nor
courage: might not poison be employed ere long by his secret enemies?
Under the influence of fears, which his momentary weakness and fever
and low diet increased, he sent for an old woman long attached to the
service of his grandmother, whose affection for himself was one of
those semi-maternal sentiments which are the sublime of the
commonplace. Without confiding in her wholly, he charged her to buy
secretly and daily, in different localities, the food he needed;
telling her to keep it under lock and key and bring it to him herself,
not allowing any one, no matter who, to approach her while preparing
it. He took the most minute precautions to protect himself against
that form of death. He was ill in his bed and alone, and he had
therefore the leisure to think of his own security,--the one necessity
clear-sighted enough to enable human egotism to forget nothing!

But the unfortunate man had poisoned his own life by this dread, and,
in spite of himself, suspicion dyed all his hours with its gloomy
tints. These two lessons of attempted assassination did teach him,
however, the value of one of the virtues most necessary to a public
man; he saw the wise dissimulation that must be practised in dealing
with the great interests of life. To be silent about our own secret is
nothing; but to be silent from the start, to forget a fact as Ali
Pacha did for thirty years in order to be sure of a vengeance waited
for for thirty years, is a fine study in a land where there are few