Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/164

142 me? Where are the monsters that immured me? You are a divinity sent from heaven to succor me."

The beautiful Miss St. Yves, with a dejected air, looked at her lover, blushed, and instantly turned away her streaming eyes. In a word, they told him all she knew, and all she had undergone, except what she was willing to conceal forever, but which any other than the Huron, more accustomed to the world and better acquainted with the customs of courts, would easily have guessed.

"Is it possible," said he, "that a wretch like the bailiff can have deprived me of my liberty?

"Alas! I find that men, like the vilest of animals, can all injure.

"But is it possible that a monk, a Jesuit, the king's confessor, should have contributed to my misfortunes as much as the bailiff, without my being able to imagine under what pretence this detestable knave has persecuted me? Did he make me pass for a Jansenist? In fine, how came you to remember me? I did not deserve it; I was then only a savage.

"What! could you, without advice, without assistance, undertake a journey to Versailles?

"You there appeared and my fetters were broken!

"There must then be in beauty and virtue an invincible charm that opens gates of adamant and softens hearts of steel."

At the word "virtue" a flood of tears issued from