old friend of my
father, and protector of my family. It was understood that he was to
carry me to Paris with him, where he was expected about the end of the
month; he promised to present me at Versailles, and to give me a company
of dragoons through the credit of his sister, the Marchioness de F----,
a charming young lady, designated by public opinion as Madame de
Pompadour's successor, whose title she claimed with the greater justice
as she had long filled its honorable functions. I reached Sedan at
night, and at too late an hour to go to the chateau of my protector. I
therefore postponed my visit until the nest day, and lay at the
'France's Arms,' the best hotel of the town, and the ordinary rendezvous
of all the officers; for Sedan is a garrison town, and is well
fortified; the streets have a warlike air, and even the shopkeepers have
a martial look, which seems to say to strangers, 'We are fellow
countrymen of the great Turenne!' I supped at the general table, and I
asked what road I should take in the morning to go to the chateau of the
Duke de C----, which is situated some three leagues out of the town.
'Anybody will show you,' I was told, 'for it is well known hereabouts:
Marshal Fabert, a great warrior and a celebrated man, died there.'
Thereupon the conversation turned about Marshal Fabert. Between young
soldiers, this was very natural; his battles, his exploits, his modesty,
which made him refuse the letters patent of nobility and the collar of
his orders offered him by Louis XIV, were all talked about; they dwelt
especially on the inconceivable fortune which had raised him from the
rank of a simple soldier to the rank of a marshal of France--him, who
was nothing at all, the son of a mere printer: it was the only example
of such a piece of fortune which could then be instanced, and which,
even during Fabert's life, had appeared so extraordinary, the vulgar
never feared to ascribe his elevation to supernatural causes. It was
said that from his youth he had busied himself with magic and sorcery,
and that he had made a league with the devil. Mine host, who, to the
stupidity inherent in all the natives of the province of Champagne,
added the credulity of our Brittany peasants, assured us with a great
deal of sangfroid, that when Fabert died in the chateau of the Duke de
C----, a black man, whom nobody knew, was seen to enter into the dead
man's room, and disappear, taking with him the marshal's soul, which he
had b