o France: was about to marry, but having
been mixed up with the disturbances of Toulon, managed to escape by a
miracle to England; and learned before long that his father, mother,
one brother, a sister of sixteen years of age, and his betrothed, had
all been led to the guillotine to the tune of the _Marseillaise_.
Thirst for revenge, revenge on the detested Jacobins, was now his sole
aim. For a long time he roved about in the Indian seas, sometimes as a
privateer, at others as a slave-dealer; and was said to have caused
the tricoloured flag much damage, while he acquired a considerable
fortune for himself. With the return of the Bourbons, he came back to
France, and settled at Marseilles. He lived, however, very retired,
and employed his large fortune solely for the poor, for distressed
seamen, and for the clergy. Alms and masses were his only objects of
expense. It may easily be believed, that he acquired no small degree
of popularity among the lower classes and the clergy. But, strangely
enough, when not at church, he spent his time with the most celebrated
fencing-masters, and had acquired in the use of the pistol and the
sword a dexterity that was hardly to be paralleled. In the year 1815,
when the royalist reaction broke out in La Vendee, he roved about for
a long time at the head of a band of followers. When at last this
opportunity of cooling his rage was taken from him by the return of
order, he looked out for some victim who was known to him by his
revolutionary principles, and sought to provoke him to combat. The
younger, the richer, the happier the chosen victim was, the more
desirable did he seem. The landlord told me he himself knew of seven
young persons who had fallen before his redoubted sword.

The next morning at five o'clock, I was at the house of this singular
character. He lived on the ground-floor, in a small simple room,
where, excepting a large crucifix, and a picture covered with black
crape, with the date, 1794, under it, the only ornaments were some
nautical instruments, a trombone, and a human skull. The picture was
the portrait of his guillotined bride; it remained always veiled,
excepting only when he had slaked his revenge with blood; then he
uncovered it for eight days, and indulged himself in the sight. The
skull was that of his mother. His bed consisted of the usual hammock
slung from the ceiling. When I entered, he was at his devotions, and a
little negro brought me meanwhile a cup of