employment of such dangerous tools as those to which anger and despair
had reconciled his intellect. But the pointed way in which he had been
shunned or slighted by the two men who belonged to political life--two
men who in youth had looked up to himself, and whose dazzling career of
honours was identified with the Imperial system--reanimated his fiercer
passions and his more perilous designs. The frigid accost of Hennequin
more especially galled him; it wounded not only his pride but his heart;
it had the venom of ingratitude, and it is the peculiar privilege of
ingratitude to wound hearts that have learned to harden themselves to the
hate or contempt of men to whom no services have been rendered. In some
private affair concerning his property, De Mauleon had had occasion to
consult Hennequin, then a rising young avocat. Out of that consultation
a friendship had sprung up, despite the differing habits and social
grades of the two men. One day, calling on Hennequin, he found him in a
state of great nervous excitement. The avocat had received a public
insult in the salon of a noble, to whom De Mauleon had introduced him,
from a man who pretended to the hand of a young lady to whom Hennequin
was attached, and indeed almost affianced. The man was a notorious
_spadassin_,--a duellist little less renowned for skill in all weapons
than De Mauleon himself. The affair had been such that Hennequin's
friends assured him he had no choice but to challenge this bravo.
Hennequin, brave enough at the bar, was no hero before sword-point or
pistol. He was utterly ignorant of the use of either weapon; his death
in the encounter with an antagonist so formidable seemed to him certain,
and life was so precious,--an honourable and distinguished career opening
before him, marriage with the woman he loved. Still he had the
Frenchman's point of honour. He had been told that he must fight; well,
then, he must. He asked De Mauleon to be one of his seconds, and in
asking him, sank in his chair, covered his face with his hands, and burst
into tears.