was[81]--with its storm-tossed sea--its sandy strip of land, good only
for the production of salt--its solitary Menhir, which recalls, and in
some degree perpetuates, the wild life and the barbarous Druid worship
of old Breton times.[82] And in the bright-hued flames, which leap up
and vanish before his bodily eyes, he sees also the two ephemeral
reputations which flashed forth and expired there.

René Gentilhomme, born 1610, was a rhymer, as his father had been before
him. He became page to the Prince of Condé, and occupied his spare time
by writing complimentary verse. One day, as he was hammering at an ode,
a violent storm broke out; and the lightning shattered a ducal crown in
marble which stood on a pedestal in the room in which he sat. Condé was
regarded as future King of France: for Louis XIII. was childless, and
his brother Gaston believed to be so; in consideration of this fact, men
called him "Duke." René took the incident as an omen, and turned his ode
into a prophecy which he delivered to his master as the utterance of
God. "The Prince's hopes were at an end: a Dauphin would be born in the
ensuing year." A Dauphin was born; and René, who had at first been
terrified at his own boldness, received the title of Royal Poet, and the
honours due to a seer. But he wrote little or no more; and he and the
tiny volume which composed his works soon disappeared from sight.

The narrator, however, judges that this oblivion may not have been
unsought, since one who had believed himself the object of a direct
message from God, would have little taste for intercourse with his
fellow men; and he suspends his story for a moment to ask himself how
such a one would bear the weight of his experience; and how far the
knowledge conveyed by it might be true. He decides (as we should expect)
that a direct Revelation is forbidden by the laws of life; but that life
is full of indirect messages from the unseen world; that all our