eroix. )-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 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 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

As I have told this to please the reader, I beg leave 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 pity they should be parted.

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 exi gencies 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

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-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 sons, 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 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 swordhe 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,

one, that I should be at Rennes at the

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 the Mar

quis 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-it was 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 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, 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 guar

dians of it-and, with his wife and daughter, and

his two sons following him, walked out.

O how I envied him his feelings!

THE PASSPORT.

VERSAILLES,

I

FOUND no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur Le Count de B****.

The set

of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them over. I walked up close to the table, and giving first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew what they were-I told him I had come without any one to present me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartments, who, I trusted, would do it for meit is my countryman, the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works-et ayez la bouté, mon cher ami, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, de me faire cet honneur là.

The Count smiled at the singularity of the intro duction; and seeing I looked a little pale and fickly, insisted upon my taking the arm-chair: so I sat

down;