in his secret heart the outward advantages which his friend seemed so little to appreciate.
Florian de St. Croix, just on the verge of manhood, was as handsome a youth as might be met with amongst the thousand candidates for the priesthood, of whom he was one of the most sanguine and enthusiastic. Not even the extreme plainness of his dress, appropriate to the sacred calling he was about to enter—not even his close-cut hair and pallid hue, result of deep thought and severe application—could diminish the beauty of his flashing eyes, his clear-cut features, and high, intellectual forehead, that denoted ideality and self-sacrifice as surely as the sweet womanly mouth betrayed infirmity of purpose and fatal subservience to the affections. His frame, though slender, was extremely wiry and muscular; cast, too, in the mould of an Apollo. No wonder there was a shadow of something like jealousy on his companion's shrewd, ugly face, while he regarded one so superior in external advantages to himself.
The Abbé Malletort was singular in this respect. He possessed the rare faculty of appreciating events and individuals at their real value. He boasted that he had no prejudices, and especially prided himself on the accuracy with which he predicted the actions of his fellow-creatures by the judgment he had formed of their characters. He made no allowance for failure, as he gave no credit to success. Men, with him, were capable or useless only as they conquered or yielded in the great struggle of life. Systems proved good or bad simply according to their results. The Abbé professed to have no partialities, no feelings, no veneration, and no affections. He had entered the Church as a mere matter of calculation and convenience. Its prizes, like those of the army, were open to intellect and courage. If the priest's outward conduct demanded more of moderation and self-restraint, on the other hand the fasts and vigils of Rome were less easily enforced than the half-rations of a march or the night-watches of an outpost.
Moreover, the tonsure in those days might be clipped (not close enough to draw attention) from a skull that roofed the teeming brain of a politician; and, indeed, the Church of Rome not only permitted but encouraged the assumption of secular power by her votaries, so that the most important
