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, he 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 win ning my esteem too.

The King, he said, was the most generous of Princes, but his generosity could neither relieve or 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 patisserie and added, he felt no dishonour in

defending her and himself from want in this way, unless Providence had offered him a better.

It would be wicked to with-hold 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 near 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.

As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me to relate another, out of its order, to please myself

the two stories reflect light upon each other-and it is a pity they should be parted.

W

RENNES.

HEN 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

-he

who looked up to him for light thought they deserved it. He had tried his sword-it could not open the waythe mounting was too expensive-and simple economy was not a match for itthere was no resource but commerce.

In any other province in France, save Britanny, this was smiting the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wished to see re-blossom-But in Britanny, 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, though 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 stayed a few minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his houseand 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 solemn-it 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