Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/144

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
122
The Huron.

emotion that he made the old Jansenist weep. He then read "Cinna," which did not excite his tears, but his admiration.


CHAPTER XIII.

THE BEAUTIFUL MISS ST. YVES GOES TO VERSAILLES.


While the unfortunate Hercules was more enlightened than consoled; while his genius, so long stifled, unfolded itself with so much rapidity and strength; while nature, which was attaining a degree of perfection in him, avenged herself of the outrages of fortune, what became of the prior, his good sister and the beautiful recluse, Miss St. Yves? The first month they were uneasy, and the third they were immersed in sorrow. False conjectures, ill-grounded reports, alarmed them. At the end of six months it was concluded he was dead. At length Mr. and Miss Kerkabon learned, by a letter of ancient date, which one of the king's guards had written to Brittany, that a young man resembling the Huron arrived one night at Versailles, but that since that time no one had heard him spoken of.

"Alas," said Miss Kerkabon, "our nephew has done some ridiculous thing, which has brought on some terrible consequences. He is young, a Low Breton, and cannot know how to behave at court. My dear brother, I never saw Versailles nor Paris; here is a fine opportunity, and we shall perhaps find