ple faith. Upon
no account would he have taken any money, and for the matter of that
the people who came to consult him were too poor to give him any, but
one brought a dozen eggs, another a flitch of bacon, a third a jar of
butter, or some fruit. He made no scruple about accepting these, and
though the nobles in the towns ridiculed him, they were very wrong in
doing so. He knew the country very well, and was the very incarnation
and embodiment of it.

"At the outbreak of the Revolution he emigrated to Jersey, though
why it is difficult to understand, for no one assuredly would have
molested him, but the nobles of Treguier told him that such was the
king's order, and he went off with the rest. He was not long away, and
when he came back he found his old house, which had not been occupied,
just as he had left it. When the indemnities were distributed some
of his friends tried to persuade him to put in a claim; and there
was much, no doubt, which could have been said in support of it. But
though the other nobles were anxious to improve his position, he would
not hear of any such thing, his sole reply to all arguments being,
'I had nothing, and I could lose nothing.' He remained, therefore, as
poor as ever.

"His wife died, I believe, while he was at Jersey, and he had a
daughter who was born about the same time. She was a tall and handsome
girl (you have only known her since she has lost her freshness), with
much natural vigour, a beautiful complexion, and no lack of generous
blood running through her veins. She ought to have been married
young, but that was out of the question, for those wretched little
starvelings of nobles in the small towns, who are good for nothing,
and not to be compared with him, would not have heard of her for their
sons. As a matter of etiquette she could not marry a peasant, and
so the poor girl remained, as it were, in mid-air, like a wandering
spirit. There was no place for her on earth. Her father was the last
of his race, and it seemed as if she had been brought into the world
with the destiny of not finding a place for herself in it. Endowed
with great physical beauty, she scarcely had any soul, and with her
instinct was everything. She would have made an excellent mother, but
failing marriage a religious vocation would have suited her best,
as the regular and austere mode of life would have calmed her
temperament. But her father, doubtless, could not afford to provide
her with a dowry,