Urbain Le Verrier

“ Urbain Grandier was born at Rovere, a village near Sable, a little town of Bas-Maine. Having studied the sciences with his father Pierre and his uncle Claude Grandier, who were learned astrologers and alchemists, he entered, at the age of twelve, the Jesuit college at Bordeaux, having already received the ordinary education of a young man. ”

“ He was the son of a high dignitary named de Laubardemont, who in 1634, as royal commissioner, condemned Urbain Grandier, a poor, priest of Loudun, to be burnt alive, under the pretence that he had caused several nuns of Loudun to be possessed by devils. These nuns he had so tutored as to their behaviour that many people foolishly believed them to be demoniacs. May we not regard the fate of his son as a chastisement inflicted by Heaven on this unjust judge--an expiation exacted for the pitilessly cruel death inflicted on his victim, whose blood still cries unto the Lord from the ground? ”

“ Madame de Cintré went on simply. "I can absolutely trust her."
Newman, however that might be, had never made a reflexion to this lady on her mother and her brother Urbain—he had given no hint of the impression they made on him. But, as if she could perfectly guess his feeling and subtly spare his nerves, she had markedly avoided any occasion for making him speak of them. She never alluded to her mother's domestic decrees; she never quoted the opinions of the Marquis. They had talked, it was true, of Valentin, and she had made no secret of her extreme affection for her younger brother. ”

“ If any one of us, who are not as happy, who cannot be as refined as that man, should wish to behold anything of the sort, let him go to the temple of Good Fortune, to the monument of Catulus, to the portico of Metellus; let him take pains to get admittance into the Tusculan villa of any one of those men; let him see the forum when decorated, if Verres is ever so kind as to lend any of his treasures to the aediles. Shall Verres have all these things at home? shall Verres have his house full of his villas crammed with, the ornaments of temples and cities? ”

“ And as he emptied the glass, a quick, light footstep sounded in the corridor outside the door.
Verrill looked up in great annoyance. The corridor led to but one place, the door of the Banquet Hall, and any one coming down the corridor at so brisk a pace could have but one intention—that of entering the hall. Verrill frowned at the idea of an intruder. His orders had been of the strictest. That a stranger should thrust himself upon his company at this of all moments was exasperating. ”

“ What would you do for an innocent man or for a relation, when for the sake of a most guilty man, entirely unconnected with you, you depart from your duty and your dignity, and allow what he is constantly saying to appear true to any one who is not acquainted with you? 29For they said that Verres said, that you had not been made consul by destiny, as the rest of your family had been, but by his assistance. ”

“ The king was delighted that that banquet was tolerably pleasant and agreeable to a praetor of the Roman people. After the banquet was over, Verres thought of nothing else, as the facts themselves showed, than how he might plunder and strip the king of everything before he departed from the province. He sends to ask for the most exquisite of the vessels which he had seen at Antiochus's lodgings. He said that he wished to show them to his engravers. The king, who did not know the man, most willingly sent them, without any suspicion of his intention. ”

“ The miserable man cried out that he was a Roman citizen, a citizen, also, of the municipal town of Cosa,—that he had served with Lucius Pretius a most illustrious Roman knight, who was living as a trader at Panormus, and from whom Verres might know that he was speaking the truth. Then Verres says that he has ascertained that he had been sent into Sicily by the leaders of the runaway slaves, in order to act as a spy; a matter as to which there was no witness, no trace, nor even the slightest suspicion in the mind of any one. Then he orders the man to be most violently scourged on all sides. ”

“ I say that there is not one of you who has not often heard that the collectors of the tenths were that mans partners. I do not think that anything else has been said against him falsely by those who think ill of him but this. For they are to be considered partners of a man, with whom the gains of a business are shared. But I say that the whole of these gains, and the whole of the fortunes of the cultivators, went to Verres alone. I say that Apronius, and those slaves of Venus, who were quite a new class of farmers first heard of in his praetorship! ”

“ No faintest tremor of noise rose from the streets. The vast building itself had suddenly grown as soundless as the unplumbed depth of the sea. But Verrill shook himself; all evening fancies such as these had besieged him, even now they were prolonging the ordeal. Once this last toast drunk and he was released from his duty: He raised his glass again, and then in a loud clear voice he said:
"Gentlemen, I give you the toast of the evening." ”

“ And so, I suppose, you have it in your mind to set aside the class of agriculturists, saving that they have come with a hostile and inimical disposition towards Verres because he was a little strict in collecting the tenths. The agriculturists, then, are all your enemies, all your adversaries. There is not one of them who does not wish you dead. Altogether you are admirably well off, when that order and class of men which is the most virtuous and honourable, by which both the republic in general, and most especially that province upheld, as fixedly hostile to you. ”

“ If Carpinatius would not answer me then, do you, O Verres, answer me now, who you imagine this Verrutius, who must almost be one of your own family, to be. It is quite impossible that you should not have known a man in your own province, who, I see, was in Sicily while you were praetor, and who, I perceive from the accounts themselves, was a very wealthy man. ”

“ Is it a great undertaking to say anything against a man, who while he was passing by a place, having his litter put down to rest for a little time, plundered a whole city, house by house; without condescending to any pretences, openly, by his own authority, and by an absolute command? But still, that he might be able to say that he had bought them, he orders Archagathus to give those men, to whom the plate had belonged, some little money, just for form's sake. Archagathus found a few who would accept the money, and those he paid. And still Verres never paid Archagathus that money. ”

“ I state to him that I have seen the accounts of the shareholders, that in these there is a long account of one Caius Verrutius made up of many items, and that I saw, by a computation of the years and months, that this Verrutius had had no account at all with Carpinatius, either before the arrival of Caius Verres, or after his departure. I demand that Carpinatius shall give me an answer who that Verrutius is; whether he is a merchant, or a broker, or an agriculturist, or a grazier; whether he is in Sicily, or whether he has now left it. ”

“ Who would ever believe that Verres would be an adversary of women? or did he do something contrary to the interests of women, in order that the whole edict might not appear to have been drawn up at the will of Chelidon. He wishes, he says, to oppose the covetousness of men. Oh, certainly. Who, not only in the present age, but even in the times of our ancestors, was ever so far removed from covetousness? Recite what comes next, I beg; for the gravity of the man, his knowledge of the law, and his authority delight me. ”

“ Harlequin did I say, my dear fellow I am the Prince of Masqueraders."
"But a Prince in all events," murmured Verrill, half to himself.
"Prince and Slave," returned the other, "slave to circumstance."
"Are we not all—," began Verrill, but the stranger continued:
"Slave to circumstance, slave to time, slave to natural laws, none so abject as I, in my servility. When the meanest, the lowest, the very weakest calls, I must obey. On the other hand, none so despotic as I, none so absolute. When I summon, the strongest must respond; when I command, the most powerful must obey. ”

“ Imagine to yourselves, if you can, any one who can be in every respect equal to him in the wicked and dissolute commission of every crimes that man will be Apronius; who, as he shows not only by his life, but by his person and countenance, is a vast gulf and whirlpool of every sort of vice and infamy. Him did Verres employ as his chief agent in all his adulteries, in all his plundering of temples, in all his debauched banquets ”

“ Shall that man, of such a city as that, a most noble youth, be left to be a witness? At present, says Cleomenes, for it must be so; but afterwards we will take care that it shall be put out of his power to injure us.
41 After all this was settled and determined, Verres immediately advances from his praetorian house, inflamed with wickedness, frenzy, and cruelty. He comes into the forum. He orders the naval captains to be summoned. ”

“ He put nothing in his own house, nothing in his gardens, nothing in his suburban villa; he thought that his house could only be an ornament to the city if he abstained from carrying the ornaments which belonged to the city to his own house. But he left many things of extraordinary beauty at Syracuse; he violated not the respect due to any god; he laid hands on none. Compare Verres with him; not to compare the man with the man,—no such injury must be done to such a man as that, dead though he be ”

“ Shall Verres adorn his house, full of adultery, full of debauchery, full of infamy, with the monuments of Africanus? Shall Verres face the memorial of that most temperate and religious man, the image of the ever virgin Diana, in that house in which the iniquities of harlots and pimps are incessantly being practised?
39 84But is this the only monument of Africanus which you have violated? What! did you take away from the people of Tyndaris an image of Mercury most beautifully made, and placed there by the beneficence of the same Scipio? And how? O ye immortal gods! ”

“ Verdant Green should also find the sun disagreeable, and should follow his light of love, to burn his wings a little more, and flutter round her fascinations? At any rate, whether natural or no, Verdant also drew back a yard or so, and found himself half within the cart-tilt, and very close to Miss Patty.
The pic-nic party were stretched at their ease upon the grass, drinking wine, munching fruit, talking, laughing, and flirting, with the blue sea before them and the bluer sky above them, when said the squire in heroic strain, "Song alone is wanting to crown our feast! ”

“ Then the king sends to Verres to beg him to return it, if he will be so good. He bids the slaves come again. The king begins to think it strange. He sends a second time. It is not returned. He himself calls on the man; he begs him to restore it to him. Think of the face and marvellous impudence of the man. That thing which he knew, and which he had heard from the king himself was to be placed in the Capitol, which he knew was being kept for the great and good Jupiter, and for the Roman people, that he began to ask and entreat earnestly to have given to him. ”

“ Verdant Green felt desirous not only to uphold all the institutions of the University, but also to make himself acquainted with the sports and pastimes of the place, he forthwith joined the Archery and Cricket Clubs. ”

“ Shall I leave unmentioned so infamous a business, a crime of such audacity and such shamelessness, on account of a dearth of witnesses or of documentary proofs? I will not do so, O judges, I will call a witness. Whom? Lucius Vettius Chilo, a most honourable and accomplished man of the equestrian order, who is such a friend of and so closely connected with Verres, that, even if he were not an excellent man, still whatever he said against him would seem to have great weight; but who is so good a man that, even if he were ever so great an enemy to him, yet his testimony ought to be believed. ”

“ In a stolen detour, Vreeland arranged for an early morning interview with Doctor Alberg, and then he passed the “Circassia” on his way to the train after dinner.
The flat demand of janitor Helms for “backsheesh” keenly angered a man already enraged by “Uncle James’” quiet appropriation of the first evening with that hawk-eyed free-lance of marital beauty, Mrs. Katharine Vreeland, “whose remarkable loveliness had created such a London and Paris sensation.”
“I will soon cut the Gordian knot between these two,” growled Vreeland, as he descended from the waiting carriage at Lakemere. ”

“ Love, which induces people to take extraordinary steps, prompted Mr. Verdant Green to jump at a conclusion. He determined, with less display but more sincerity than melodramatic heroes, to save Miss Patty, or "perish in the attempt."
She was seated on the rising bank altogether ignorant of the presence of danger; and, as Verdant returned to her with the tin can of water, she received him with a happy smile, and a gush of pleasant small talk, which our hero immediately repressed by saying, "Don't be frightened - there is no danger - but there is a bull coming towards us. ”

“ Listen, I entreat you, O judges, and do sometimes pity our allies, and show that they ought to have, and that they have, some protection in your integrity.
29 Because the man appeared to all Asia to have been lawfully slain, being in name indeed his lictor, but in reality the minister of his most profligate desires, Verres feared that Philodamus would be acquitted by the sentence of Nero. He begs and entreats Dolabella to leave his own province, to go to Nero; he shows that he himself cannot be safe if Philodamus be allowed to live and at any time to come to Rome. ”