LE PATISSER.

VERSAILLES.

BEFORE I had got half-way down the street, I changed my mind: as I am at Versailles, thought I, I might as well take a view of the town; so I pulled the cord, and ordered the coachman to drive round some of the principal streets-I suppose the town is not very large, said I.-The coachman begged pardon for setting me right, and told me it was very superb, and that numbers of the first dukes, and marquisses and counts, had hotels-The Count de B ****, of whom the bookseller at the Quai de Conti had spoke so handsomely the night before, came instantly into my mind.--And why should I not go, thought I, to the Count de B ****, who has so high an idea of English books, and Englishmen-and tell him my story? So I changed my mind a second time-in truth, it was the third; for I had intended that day for Madam de R **** in the Rue St. Pierre, and had devoutly sent her word by her fille de chambre that I would assuredly wait upon her-but I am governed by circumstances-I cannot govern them: so seeing a man standing with a basket, on the other side of the street, as if he had

something to sell, I bid La Fleur go up to him and inquire for the count's hotel.

La Fleur returned a little pale; and told me it

was a chevalier de St. Louis selling patés-It is impossible, La Fleur! said I.-La Fleur could no more account for the phenomenon than myself; but persisted in his story: he had seen the croix set in gold, with its red ribband, he said, tied to his button-hole-and had looked into the basket, and seen the patés which the chevalier was selling; so could not be mistaken in that.

Such a reverse in man's life awakens a better principle than curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in the remise the more I looked at him, his croix, and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain-I got out of the remise and went towards him.

He was begirt with a clean linen apron which fell below his knees, and with a sort of a bib that went half way up his breast; upon the top of this, but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His basket of little patés 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 patés 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 a 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 patés 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 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 winning 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 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 near the iron gates which led up to the palace, and as his croix had caught the eye 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 ayear.

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 '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 show to the world some little fragments 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 Britanny, this was smiting the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wished to see re-blossomBut 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 dutchy, which, though seldom claimed, he said, was no less in force; he took his sword from his sideHere-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 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 soJemn 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 sup