He lived by his soul and by his intellect.

Laying hold of human thought by reading, he rose to thoughts that stirred in matter; he felt the thoughts of the air, he read the thoughts on the skies.

Early he mounted that ethereal summit where alone he found the delicate nourishment that his soul needed; intoxicating food! which predestined him to sorrow whenever to these accumulated treasures should be added the riches of a passion rising suddenly in his heart.
If, at times, Jeanne de Saint-Savin dreaded that coming storm, he consoled herself with a thought which the otherwise sad vocation of her son put into her mind,--for the poor mother found no remedy for his sorrows except some lesser sorrow.
"He will be a cardinal," she thought; "he will live in the sentiment of Art, of which he will make himself the protector.

He will love Art instead of loving a woman, and Art will not betray him." The pleasures of this tender motherhood were incessantly held in check by sad reflections, born of the strange position in which Etienne was placed.

The brothers had passed the adolescent age without knowing each other, without so much as even suspecting their rival existence.