Story of Marquis d'F****.

upon each other---and 'tis a pity they should be parted.

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 Britanny into decay. The *Marquis d' E**** had fought up against his condition with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still shew to the world, some little fragments of what his ancestors had been---their indiscretions had put it out of his power. There was enough left for the little exigencies of obscurity-But he had two boys who look'd 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 Britanny, this was smiting the root for ever of the little

* This story, and the foregoing one of the Chevalier, are beyond doubt beautiful-worked up with a delicacy peculiar to our author in all his recitals of this kind; while he highly interests the mind, he never loses sight of probability.

Continued.

tree his pride and affection wish'd to see reblossom-But in Britanny, there being a provision for this, he avail'd himself of it; and taking an occasion when the states were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two boys, enter'd the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the duchy, which though seldom claim'd, 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 swordhe staid a few minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his 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 unlook'd-for bequests from distant branches of his house, return'd 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 solemn---it was so to me

:

The Marquis enter'd the court with his whole family he supported his lady---his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest was at the

The Sword reclaimed.

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 approach'd within six paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest son, and advancing three steps before his family ---he reclaim'd 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 look'd attentively along it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the same-when 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, 66

it off."*

some other way

to get

When the Marquis had said this, he return'd 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, walk'd out.

O how I envied him his feelings!

* This apostrophe of the Marquis to his sword is peculiarly interesting, and the presence of his wife and family at the solemnity throws a lustre over the story, which renders it highly captivating.