Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His basket of little pâtés was covered over with a white damask napkin; another of the same kind was spread at the bottom; and there was a look of propreté and neatness throughout; that one might have bought his pâtés of him, as much from appetite as sentiment.

He made an offer of them to neither; but stood still with them at the corner of an hotel, for those to buy who chose it, without solicitation.

He was about forty-eight-of a sedate look, something approaching to gravity. I did not wonder.-I went up rather to the basket than him, and having lifted up the napkin, and taken one of his pâtés into my hand-I begged he would explain the appearance which affected me.

He told me in a few words, that the best part of his life had passed in the service, in which, after spending a small patrimony, he had obtained a company, and the croix with it; but that, at the conclusion of the last peace, his regiment being reformed, and the whole corps, with those of some other regiments, left without any provision,found himself in a wide world without friends, without a livre—and, indeed, said he, without any thing but this-(pointing, as he said it, to his croix :)-the poor Chevalier won my pity, and he finished the scene with winning my esteem to.

-he

The king, he said, was the most generous of Princes; but his generosity could neither relieve nor reward every one, and it was only his misfortune to be amongst the number. He had a little wife, he said, whom he loved, who did the pâtisserie; and added, be felt no dishonour in defend

ing her and himself from want in this way- ·unless Providence had offered him a better.

It would be wicked to withhold a pleasure from the good, in passing over what happened to this poor Chevalier of St. Louis about nine months after.

It seems, he usually took his stand towards the iron gates which lead up to the palace: and as his croix had caught the eyes of numbers, numbers had made the same inquiry which I had done.— He had told them the same story, and always with so much modesty and good sense, that it had reached at last the King's ears-who hearing the Chevalier had been a gallant officer, and respected by the whole regiment as a man of honour and integrity-he broke up his little trade by a pension of fifteen hundred livres a year.

JOURNEY.

THE SWORD.

Rennes.

WHEN states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel in their turns what distress and poverty is- -I stop not to tell the causes which gradually brought the house d'E****, in Britany, into decay. The Marquis d'E**** had fought up against his condition with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still show to the world some little fragment of what his ancestors had beentheir indiscretions had put it out of his power. There was enough left for the little exigencies of

obscurity.—But he had two boys who looked up to him for light-he thought they deserved it. He had tried his sword-it could not open the way-the mounting was too expensive—and simple economy was not a match for it-there was no resource but commerce.

In any other province in France, save Brittany, this was smiting the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wished to see re-blossom.

But in Brittany there being a provision for this, he availed himself of it; and taking an occasion when the States were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two boys, entered the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, which, tho' seldom claimed, he said, was no less in force, he took his sword from his side.- -Here, said he, take it; and be trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in condition to reclaim it.

The President accepted the Marquis's sword -he staid a few minutes to see it deposited in the archives of the house, and departed.

The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next day for Martinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to business, with some unlooked-for bequests from distant branches of his house-returned home to reclaim his nobility, and to support it.

It was an incident of good fortune which will never happen to any traveller but a sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the very time of this solemn requisition.—I call it solemnit was so to me.

The Marquis entered the court with his whole

family: he supported his lady-his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest was at the other extreme of the line next his mother.He put his handkerchief to his face twice.

-There was a dead silence. When the Marquis had approached within six paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest son, and advancing three steps before his family -he reclaimed his sword. -His sword was

given him, and the moment he got it into his hand, he drew it almost out of the scabbard'twas the shining face of a friend he had once given up-he looked attentively along it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the samewhen observing a little rust which it had contracted near the point, he brought it near his eye, and bending his head down over it-I think I saw a tear fall upon the place: I could not be deceived by what followed.

I shall find,' said he, some other way to get it off.'

When the Marquis had said this, he returned his sword into its scabbard, made a bow to the guardians of it—and, with his wife and daughter, and his, two sons following him, walked out.

O how I envied him his feelings!

JOURNEY.

THE CHARITY.

THERE is a long dark passage issuing out from the opera comique into a narrow street; 'tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a fiacre, or wish to get

off quietly o'foot when the opera is done. At the end of it towards the theatre, 'tis lighted by a small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get half-way down: but near the door'tis more for ornament than use, you see it as a fix'd star of the least magnitude; it burns-but does little good to the world that we know of.

In returning along this passage, I discern'd, as I approach'd within five or six paces of the door, two ladies standing arm in arm, with their backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a fiacre-as they were next the door, I thought they had a prior right; so edged myself up within a yard, or little more, of them, and quietly took my stand.- -I was in black, and scarce seen.

The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a woman, of about thirty-six; the other of the same size and make, of about forty; there was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either of them-they seem'd to be two upright vestal sisters, unsapp'd by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender salutations: I could have wish'd to have made them happy-their happiness was destin'd that night, to come from another quarter.

A loud voice, with a good turn of expression, and sweet cadence at the end of it, begg'd for a twelve-sous piece betwixt them, for the love of Heaven. I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the quota of an alms-and that the sum should be twelve times as much as what is usually given in the dark. They both seem'd astonish'd at it as much as myself.-Twelve sous! said one.——A twelve-sous piece! said the other-and made no reply.

« ПредишнаНапред »