rance, had served the latter country; there were lieutenant-colonels
of infantry and cavalry; some dressed in blue coats lined with buff serge
and little round patches of black plush, which served as the uniform for
the dragoons of the Lorraine legion.

Last of all was a young man with an agreeable face, who smiled
superciliously from under a vast wig of powdered hair; a rose was in the
buttonhole of his green cloth pelisse with orange facings, a red
sabrecache hung against his boots a little lower than the hilt of his
sabre. The costume represented a sprightly officer of the Royal Nassau
hussars. The portrait was hung on the left of the entrance door and only
separated by it from his great-grandfather of 1247, whom he might have
assisted, had these venerable portraits taken some night a fancy to
descend from their frames to execute a dance such as Hoffmann dreamed.

These two persons were the alpha and the omega of this genealogical tree,
the two extreme links of the chain-one, the root buried in the sands of
time; the other, the branch which had blossomed at the top. Fate had
created a tragical resemblance between these two lives, separated by more
than five centuries. The chevalier in coat-of-mail had been killed in the
battle of the Mansourah during the first crusade of St. Louis. The young
man with the supercilious smile had mounted the scaffold during the Reign
of Terror, holding between his lips a rose, his usual decoration for his
coat. The history of the French nobility was embodied in these two men,
born in blood, who had died in blood.

Large gilded frames of Gothic style surrounded all these portraits. At
the right, on the bottom of each picture was painted a little escutcheon
having for its crest a baronial coronet and for supports two wild men
armed with clubs. The field was red; with its three bulls' heads in
silver, it announced to people well versed in heraldic art that they had
before them the lineaments of noble and powerful lords, squires of
Reisnach-Bergenheim, lords of Reisnach in Suabia, barons of the Holy
Empire, lords of Sapois, Labresse, Gerbamont, etc., counts of Bergenheim,
the latter title granted them by Louis XV, chevaliers of Lorraine, etc.,
etc., etc.

This ostentatious enumeration was not needed in order to recognize the
kindred of all these noble personages. Had they been mingled with other
portraits, a careful observer would have promptly distinguished and
reunited them, so pronoun