jects
which he was anxious to save, and M. Senard, who, like the other
gossips and misers, imagined that Paris would be given over to
pillage, determined to cover up, in a similar way, the most precious
articles in his shop. It was agreed that the riches of the pastor and
those of the jeweller should be deposited in the same hole. But, then,
who was to dig the said hole? One of the singers in church was the
very pearl of honest fellows, father Moiselet, and in him every
confidence could be reposed. He would not touch a penny that did not
belong to him. The hole, made with much skill, was soon ready to
receive the treasure which it was intended to preserve, and six feet
of earth were cast on the specie of the Cure, to which were united
diamonds worth 100,000 crowns, belonging to M. Senard, and enclosed in
a small box. The hollow filled up, the ground was so well flattened,
that one would have betted with the devil that it had not been stirred
since the creation. "This good Moiselet," said M. Senard, rubbing his
hands, "has done it all admirably. Now, gentlemen cossacks, you must
have fine noses if you find it out!" At the end of a few days the
allied armies made further progress, and clouds of Kirguiz, Kalmucs,
and Tartars, of all hordes and all colours, appeared in the environs
of Paris. These unpleasant guests are, it is well known, very greedy
for plunder: they made, every where, great ravages; they passed no
habitation without exacting tribute: but in their ardour for pillage
they did not confine themselves to the surface, all belonged to them
to the centre of the globe; and that they might not be frustrated in
their pretensions, these intrepid geologists made a thousand
excavations, which, to the regret of the naturalists of the country,
proved to them, that in France the mines of gold or silver are not so
deep as in Peru. Such a discovery was well calculated to give them
additional energy; they dug with unparalleled activity, and the spoil
they found in many places of concealment threw the Croesuses of many
cantons into perfect despair. The cursed Cossacks! But yet the
instinct which so surely led them to the spot where treasure was
hidden, did not guide them to the hiding place of the Cure. It was
like the blessing of heaven, each morning the sun rose and nothing
new; nothing new when it set.

Most decidedly the finger of heaven must be recognised in the
impenetrability of the mysterious inhumation performed by M