These vindictive men have closed my laboratories and my shops, and confiscated my bottles, my stills, and my retorts.

They have put seals on my doors and now I am compelled to go in through the window.

I am barely able to extract in secret and from time to time the juice of a few plants and that with an apparatus which the humblest labourer would despise." "You suffer from the persecution," said Agaric.

"It strikes us all." The monk of Conils passed his hand over his afflicted brow: "I told you so, Brother Agaric; I told you that your enterprise would turn against ourselves." "Our defeat is only momentary," replied Agaric eagerly.

"It is due to purely accidental causes; it results from mere contingencies.