Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Atheist's Mass, and Other Stories Lo Colonel Chabert, which would well have deserved a place in those Scones do la Vie so scantily repre sented in the Come'dz'e, has other attractions. It reminds us of Balzac's sojourn in the tents of Themis, and of the knowledge that he brought therefrom; it gives an example of his affection for the {doe fixe, for the man with a mania; and it is also no inconsiderable example of his pathos. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.