and betrayal that he had suffered. We gave the accusers a glance of
stern reproach: had they not delivered us over to the common enemy? If
the common law of school entitled them to thrash us, did it not
require them to keep silence as to our misdeeds?

In a moment they were no doubt ashamed of their baseness.

Father Haugoult probably sold the _Treatise on the Will_ to a local
grocer, unconscious of the scientific treasure, of which the germs
thus fell into unworthy hands.



Six months later I left the school, and I do not know whether Lambert
ever recommenced his labors. Our parting threw him into a mood of the
darkest melancholy.

It was in memory of the disaster that befell Louis' book that, in the
tale which comes first in these _Etudes_, I adopted the title invented
by Lambert for a work of fiction, and gave the name of a woman who was
dear to him to a girl characterized by her self-devotion; but this is
not all I have borrowed from him: his character and occupations were
of great value to me in writing that book, and the subject arose from
some reminiscences of our youthful meditations. This present volume is
intended as a modest monument, a broken column, to commemorate the
life of the man who bequeathed to me all he had to leave--his
thoughts.

In that boyish effort Lambert had enshrined the ideas of a man. Ten
years later, when I met some learned men who were devoting serious