and judgments which, if not speedily corrected, might lead him Heavenor rather the Devil-only knew where.

"May I inquire, Charles," said the Marquis in his high thin voice, "what is disturbing you?"

"Sir," says the

66
young man, we have lost a battle."

"Indeed? I was not aware of it. I imagined, on the contrary, that the fleet of M. Buonaparte had received a crushing blow. But I do not trouble myself much about such matters at present; no doubt you are better informed than I. Where did this battle take place, Charles?"

"I was speaking of the battle of Trafalgar, sir, where, as you say, the French fleet has received a crushing blow. The army, I believe, continues to be everywhere victorious. Father," continued the young man in a more animated tone, "let me go and fight for France! Republic or Empire, what signifies the government when it is the nation which is at war? When peace comes it will be time enough to think of politics. And what is to become of me if I am to remain here doing nothing all my life? Here I am neither English nor French, nor boy, nor man. I cannot fight for my king-let me at least draw my sword for my country!" And with this Charles plumped down on his knees, as people sometimes did in those days when they were strongly moved and wanted a thing very badly.

"Your mother It is a point upon

"Hum," muttered the Marquis, stroking his chin. has to some extent prepared me for this outbreak. which we had better understand each other clearly and finally. In the meantime you may as well rise; for your attitude will not affect the matter one way or the other, and your frame is too large to adapt itself readily to constrained postures. Will you now take a seat and be so good as to favour me with your attention for a few minutes. What you propose to do is to enter the service of a man who has usurped the throne of your sovereign-that is to say, to commit the crime of high treason, an offence punishable with death. To ask me to sanction such a course is to ask me to consent to the degradation of our name—which is simply absurd. I do not, however, lay any prohibition upon you. You are of an age to be capable of deciding upon your own course of action. If you can bring yourself to dishonour your father and be a traitor to your king, go. If you think you will not be disgracing your family by caracoling through Europe at the heels of an obscure and theatrical Corsican whom unparalleled events have raised for a time to the position of a successful Robespierre, by all means go. But do not, at any future time, expect me to intercede on your behalf; and remember that, in the event of your taking this step, I shall cease immediately and for ever to be in any way responsible for the result."

This was not very encouraging, but it was more than Charles had expected.

Many years afterwards, when he himself was old and grey-headed, he described the scene to his children, and explained that the old Marquis

was in the habit of expressing himself forcibly, and did not expect his words to be taken quite in a literal sense. "I think he saw," the narrator would say, "that it was rather hard upon a young fellow, such as I was then, to be forced to sit idle with his hands in his lap, whilst others of his age were field-officers, and had been through two or three campaigns. Only he could not give an actual consent to my wearing the uniform of the Emperor, but preferred to let me do so upon my own responsibility. If I had known that I should see him but seldom, and my mother never again, after that day, I might have hesitated about leaving them; but I was young, and troubled myself very little about the future, thinking only of glory and the wars."

To the wars M. Charles accordingly went; and thus we find him, about a year later, charging gallantly as a Lieutenant of Hussars at the Battle of Auerstadt, where he would very likely have distinguished himself more, had not a splinter of a shell laid open his side early in the action, breaking three of his ribs, and nearly putting an end, then and there, to his military career.

Nor were the adverse fates contented with striking this devoted youth so sharp a corporeal blow, but must needs proceed to direct their arrows against the less easily curable region of the heart. For when poor Charles was sufficiently recovered of his wound to drag a feeble and emaciated body by slow stages in the direction of France, it so chanced that he made a halt at Coblenz, and there fell in with a lovely and fascinating Louise, daughter of the Duc and Duchesse de Joigny, a highly aristocratic couple, whom the Revolution had forced to fix their home for a time in that dreary town. Now the Duc, who was bored in his exile to the extent of almost dislocating his noble jaws by continual yawns, was glad enough to have the opportunity of showing some kindness to the son of his old friend, the Marquis de Mersac, and, at the same time, of satisfying his own curiosity as to the appearance, habits, and manners of the great man upon whom the eyes of the world were, at that time, eagerly fixed. Charles de Mersac, fresh from the battle-field, would, he thought, be the very man to give him the gossiping information for which he longed; and it never occurred to him to suspect that the young soldier's ready acceptance of his proffered hospitality was prompted by any other feeling than a desire for intellectual conversation and refined companionship. To chat over the late campaign with one who had taken part in it, and to state in detail his own political views to a patient and courteous listener, was an amusement in which, faute de mieux, the old gentleman was willing to indulge for an unlimited period; but the idea that one who had so far forgotten himself as to wear the uniform of the usurper, should aspire to become his son-in-law was evidently preposterous—particularly when, as in the present case, the individual in question had but slender means and doubtful prospects.

The result of this way of looking at things on the part of the Duc de Joigny, was that M. Charles left Coblenz rather suddenly, one bright

summer morning in the year 1806, taking with him an exceedingly beautiful miniature slung round his neck by a blue ribbon, and that the fair Louise wept for twenty-four hours, more or less, after his departure.

All things considered, the next six years of Charles de Mersac's life may be said to have been tolerably happy. At least, the element of excitement was not wanting in them. He returned to active service, and was wounded over and over again under Masséna and Soult in the Peninsula. Moreover he obtained the Cross of the Legion of Honour, and rose to the rank of Colonel. Danger was his delight, and neither pain, nor sickness, nor hunger, nor even defeat could sadden him; for he wore always next his heart the miniature he had carried away from Coblenz. He was naturally of a healthy, sanguine temperament, and doubted not that she who had sworn to remain faithful to him through good report and evil report, would keep her vow as religiously as he had kept his. So that when he returned from Spain to Paris, invalided, in the year 1812, and weak from the effects of a long fever, the news that Louise de Joigny had been for some time the wife of the old Duc de Breuil, whose estates were almost as broad as his descent was long, was near being the death of him.

But though disappointment is a hard thing to bear, and treachery cuts deep, and the sudden wreck of the hopes and dreams of six years may seem to overwhelm a man for a time, yet these are ills which have seldom been known to prove mortal. De Mersac did not die; but he set out with the Grand Army for Russia with a heavy heart, hoping for nothing better than that some stray bullet might relieve him of a world which he had now found to be altogether cruel, selfish, and deceitful.

That disastrous campaign proved to be his last. At the battle of Borodino he lost his sabre-arm, and there took leave of soldiering for good and all.

Brave as he was, and in spite of the philosophy with which he had already accustomed himself to look upon the vicissitudes of life, this last blow went very near to crushing de Mersac's spirit. He never loved to speak of the time that followed, when he lived with his father in the dull old house at Hampstead, which (his mother being now dead) had lost all attraction for him. Nevertheless he made the best of things, after his usual fashion, setting himself to learn how to use his left hand; and so well did he succeed in this, that, in the year 1814, when his father had departed to Paris to claim his estates, and become a high dignitary at the court of Louis le Désiré, he was able to write with tolerable ease and rapidity, and needed no one to cut up his dinner for him.

It now became necessary that he should be presented to the King of France; and the prospect of this ceremony cost the old Marquis many a sleepless night, it being so very uncertain how that monarch would receive so erring a member of his faithful aristocracy.

The interview, however, passed off more smoothly than might have been expected.

"They tell me you are covered with wounds, sir," said the King on that memorable occasion, "and that you have gained little except a decoration. That is a poor reward for so many years of devoted service."

"I fought for France, Sire," replied de Mersac, who did not like Louis XVIII., and could never be brought to address him with a tithe of the respect he had shown to his mighty predecessor.

The old Marquis made a grimace when he heard this curt answer; but the King laughed good-naturedly.

"The whole nation did as you have done," he said. "But the nation has returned to its allegiance, and so have you. I regret very much that circumstances have deprived the army of the services of so brave an officer; but, if you do not disdain civil employment, you may yet be able to serve your country, M. le Colonel.

The upshot of this was that a diplomatic appointment was conferred upon the gallant Colonel; and in this branch of the public service he remained, doing his work creditably, though without much personal distinction, till the death of the King.

He was sitting over his breakfast at the small German Court to which he was accredited, one morning, shortly after the news of that deplored event had reached him, when his servant laid two letters on the table before him. He took one of them and broke the seal. It contained a brief intimation that his Majesty, King Charles X., had no further occasion for his services. "Aha!" said de Mersac, "I expected as much. M. le Comte d'Artois has little love for those who wear neither pig-tails nor soutanes," Then he opened the other letter, and over that he sighed more than once; for it announced the sudden death of the old Marquis ; and though the father and son had never had much sympathy with one another, the latter was a man of stronger affections than the generality of mankind; and to find oneself quite alone in the world, at a period of life when most men have a wife and children to take the place of the last generation, is enough to afford matter for sad reflection to the most philosophic mind.

And now the new Marquis de Mersac did a thing so grievous and scandalous that his name became a word of warning throughout the Faubourg St. Germain, and moans over his conduct were heard in the highest quarters. He actually sold his ancestral estates. It was considered no palliation of this crime that the culprit was driven thereto by what he chose to consider the necessity of paying the heavy debts bequeathed to him by his late father. The old Duc de Châteauvieux, to whom he ventured to put forward this excuse, had scarcely the patience. to listen to him.

"Sir," said he, "there are certain lines of action which nothing can justify. As you are aware, I have never been one of those who condemned you and others, who were then young men, for wearing the uniform of Buonaparte. You obeyed then a natural and not ignoble impulse. But what you have done now will alienate from you the sym

pathies of every man who respects himself. One raises money, parbleu ! -one borrows-one mortgages-one remains in debt-but sell one's

estates!-never!"

Facilis descensus Averni! Having started with so prodigious a downward step, what could be expected but that the Marquis de Mersac should plunge still deeper into the abyss of disgrace? His friends were grieved rather than surprised when they heard that the misguided man had invested his remaining capital in trade, and had entered into partnership with a low-born West Indian merchant. After that, it was a relief to learn that he had crossed the Atlantic to look after the interests of his business, and that Parisian society would no longer be shocked by the visible presence of the criminal.

Parisian society saw him no more; but those whose memory carries them back as far as the London seasons of 1838 and 1839 may recollect having met pretty frequently a stalwart, grey-haired, one-armed French gentleman, who bore the title of Marquis de Mersac, and who was understood to have amassed a moderate fortune in the West Indies.

This gentleman was very well received by the leaders of fashion in our metropolis, being, as was well known, the representative of one of the oldest families in France, and having, besides, a comfortable fortune, agreeable manners, and an engaging presence. Among the men he speedily acquired popularity by his skill in horsemanship-a science which then, as now, was not considered in this country to be one of the strong points of his nation; while the ladies could not sufficiently praise his old-fashioned, courtly politeness, his readiness to oblige any one of them, old or young, handsome or plain, and a certain youthful sprightliness which yet clung to him in spite of his fifty-six years.

It was a surprise to his friends-perhaps a little disappointment to some of them-to hear that he was about to be married to a certain Miss Moreton, a plain-featured orphan, who already, at the age of six-andtwenty, had assumed something of the demeanour and habits of an old maid. It was thought that the handsome Marquis, old as he was, might have done better; but he never had reason himself to regret his choice. His wife a good, meek, and somewhat characterless person, who adored him-behaved herself throughout her married life in an entirely exemplary manner. She embraced his religion, agreed in all his opinions —even before he uttered them-accompanied him without a murmur to the African colony, whither his longing for occupation of some kind led him; and there, some time after such an event had ceased to appear probable, made him the father of a little girl, who eventually grew up into the stately young lady whom we saw just now gazing over the garden wall. Two years later an heir to the title of de Mersac saw the light; and shortly after the accomplishment of this latter feat, Madame la Marquise, with a happy consciousness that, in an unobtrusive way, she had done what was required of her by God and man in this world, slipped gently out of it.