and the soil that bore themall worn out.

Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a

national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite

example of luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to

equal purpose; nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had,

somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange that Creation,

designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry

and squeezed out! There must be something short-sighted in the

eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it was, however; and the last

drop of blood having been extracted from the flints, and the last

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screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase

crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite,

Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and

unaccountable.

But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a

village like it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had

squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his

presence except for the pleasures of the chasenow, found in

hunting the people; now, found in hunting the beasts, for whose

preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of barbarous and

barren wilderness. No. The change consisted in the appearance of

strange faces of low caste, rather than in the disappearance of