How Brother Gorenflot remained convinced that he was a somnambulist, and bitterly deplored this infirmity.

Until the day when this unmerited persecution fell on Brother Gorenflot, he had led a contemplative and easy life, diverting himself on occasions at the Corne d’Abondance, when he had gained a little money from the faithful. He was one of those monks for whom the world began at the prior of the convent, and finished at the cook. And now he was sent forth to seek for adventures. He had no money; so that when out of Paris and he heard eleven o’clock (the time for dinner at the convent) strike, he sat down in dejection. His first idea was to return to the convent, and ask to be put in confinement, instead of being sent in to exile, and even to submit to the discipline, provided they would insure him his repasts. His next was more reasonable. He would go to the Corne d’Abondance, send for Chicot, explain to him the lamentable situation into which he had helped to bring him, and obtain aid from this generous friend. He was sitting absorbed in these reflections, when he heard the sound of a horse’s feet approaching. In great fear, he hid behind a tree until the traveler should have passed; but a new idea struck him. He would endeavor to obtain some money for his dinner. So he approached tremblingly, and said, “Monsieur, if five patera, and five aves for the success of your projects would be agreeable to you ——”

“Gorenflot!” cried the cavalier.

“M. Chicot!”

“Where the devil are you going?”

“I do not know. And you?”

“Oh! I am going straight before me.”

“Very far?”

“Till I stop. But you — what are you doing outside the barriers?”

“Alas! M. Chicot! I am proscribed,” said Gorenflot, with an enormous sigh.

“What?”

“Proscribed, I tell you. My brothers reject me from their bosom: I am anathematized, excommunicated.”

“Bah! what for?”

“Listen, M. Chicot; you will not believe me, perhaps, but I do not know.”

“Perhaps you were met last night gadding about.”

“Do not joke; you know quite well what I was doing last night.”

“Yes, from eight till ten, but not from ten till three.”

“How, from ten till three?”

“Yes, at ten you went out.”

“I?”

“Yes, and I asked you where you were going.”

“And what did I say?”

“That you were going to pronounce a discourse.”

“There was some truth in that,” murmured Gorenflot.

“Yes, and you even told me part of it; it was very long, and there were terrible things against the king in it.”

“Bah!”

“So terrible, that I should not wonder if you were arrested for them.”

“M. Chicot, you open my eyes; did I seem quite awake when I spoke?”

“I must say you seemed very strange; you look............