Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/299

Rh Ecole Polytechnique, or—could it possibly have been one of the boys?—students, I beg your pardon," said she with a saucy glance at Emile.

"My dear child," said her father in a grieved and reproving aside, "do not, I pray thee, try to act l'enfant terrible."

Emile did not condescend to notice her, "No one greater," he resumed, "than the Abbé Sicard."

"Who is he?" asked M. de Sartines.

Madame de Talmont and Clémence knew very well, and looked interested.

"An old fool of a priest who spends his life picking up deaf and dumb children out of the streets, and teaching them to read and to say their prayers," replied Emile.

"How can they say their prayers if they are dumb?" queried Stéphanie.

"They speak with their fingers, dear," Clémence explained in a lower tone. "I will tell you all about it another time. I have seen a poor boy examined who was taught by the Abbé Sicard. It was wonderful and beautiful. He knew far more than many a child who could hear, and he felt what he knew."

"His Imperial Majesty," Emile was saying meanwhile, "who has all the affairs of the world on his shoulders, and can scarcely find time to be commonly courteous to the fair ladies who adore him, found time enough to hear all the 'methods,' as they call them, of this fanatical priest; and has given him the Order of St. Ladislaus, or St. Laocoon, or something."

"The Order of St. Wladamir, you mean," said Ivan very quietly. "When the Czar returns home, he will probably establish a school for the deaf and dumb in St. Petersburg, like that of the Abbé Sicard here. I thank you for telling us all this, M. Emile. Do you take liqueur? I can recommend this curaçoa."

"Curse his effrontery!" thought Emile. "Will nothing