WHEN I was a boy, I used to go every day after school to watch Jean-Pierre Coustel, the turner, at his work. He lived at the other end of the village. He was an old man, partly bald, with a queue hanging down his back, and his feet encased in old worn-out shoes. He used to love to talk of his campaigns on the Rhine and on the Loire in La Vendée. Then he would look at you and smile to himself. His little wife, Mme. Jeannette, sat spinning in the corner behind him; she had large black eyes, and her hair was so white that it looked like flax. I can see her now. She would sit there listening, and she would stop spinning whenever Jean-Pierre spoke of Nantes; it was there they were married in '93. Yes; I can see all these things as if it were yesterday: the two small windows overgrown with ivy; the three bee-hives on a board above the old worm-eaten door, the bees fluttering in the sunshine over the roof of the hovel; Jean-Pierre Coustel with his bent back turning bobbins or rods for chairs; the shavings winding themselves into the shape of corkscrews. . . . I can see it all!

And I can also see coming in the evenings Jacques Chatillon, the dealer in wood, with his rule under his arm, and his thick red whiskers; the forest-keeper, Benassis, with his game-bag on his hip and his hunting-cap over his ears; M. Nadasi, the bailiff, walking proudly, with his head up, and spectacles on his nose, his hands in his coat-pockets, as if to say: "I am Nadasi, and I carry the

citations to the insolvent"; and then my Uncle Eustache, who was called "brigadier," because he had served at Chamboran, and many others besides; without counting the wife of the little tailor Rigodin, who used to come after nine o'clock in search of her husband, in order to be invited to drink half a pint of wine-for, be sides his trade of a turner, JeanPierre Coustel kept a wayside tavern. The branch of fir hung over the low door; and in winter, when it rained, or when the snow covered the window-panes, many liked to sit under the shelter of the old hut, and listen to the crackling of the fire, and the humming sound of Jeannette's spinning-wheel, and the wind whistling out of doors through the street of the village.

For my part, I did not stir from my corner until Uncle Eustache, shaking out the ashes of his pipe, would say to me: "Come, François, we must be going. . . . Good-night all! . . .”

Then he would rise, and we would go out together, sometimes in the mud, sometimes in the snow. We would go to sleep at my grandfather's house, and he used to sit up and wait for us.

How plainly I can see these faroff things when I think them over!

But what I remember best is the story of the salt marshes which belonged to old Jeannette-the salt marshes she had owned in La Vendée near the sea, and which would have made the fortune of the Coustels if they had claimed their rights

sooner.

It appears that, in '93, they drowned a great many people at Nantes, chiefly the old aristocracy. They put them into barks tied together; then they pushed the barks into the Loire, and sank them. It was during the Reign of Terror, and the peasants of La Vendée also shot down all the republican soldiers they could take; extermination was the rule on both sides, and no mercy was shown by either party. Only, whenever a republican soldier demanded in marriage one of these noble ladies who were about to be drowned, if the unfortunate girl were willing to follow him, she was immediately released. And this was how Mme. Jeannette had become the wife of Coustel.

She was on one of these barks at the age of sixteen-an age when one has a great dread of death! . . . She looked around to see if no one would take pity on her, and just then, at the moment the bark was leaving, Jean-Pierre Coustel was passing by with his musket on his shoulders; he saw the young girl, and called out: "Halt . . . a moment! . . . Citoyenne, wilt thou marry me? I will save thy life!"

And Jeannette fell into his arms as if dead; he carried her away; they went to the mayoralty.

Old Jeannette never spoke of these things. In her youth, she had been very happy; she had had domestics, waiting-maids, horses, carriages; then she had become the wife of a soldier, of a poor republican; she had to cook for him, and to mend his clothes; the old ideas of the château, of the respect of the peasants of La Vendée, had passed away. So goes the world! And sometimes even the bailiff Nadasi in his impertinence would mock at the poor old woman, and call out to her "Noble lady, a pint of wine! .

a small glass." He would also make inquiries about her estates; then she would shut her lips tight, and look at him; a faint color would come into her pale cheek, and it appeared as if she were going to answer him; but afterwards she would bend down her head, and go on spinning in silence.

If Nadasi had not spent money at the tavern, Coustel would have turned him out of doors; but, when one is poor, one is obliged to put up with many affronts, and rascals know this! . . . They never mock at those who would be likely to pull their ears, as my Uncle Eustache would not have failed to do: they are too prudent for that. How hard it is to put up with creatures like these! . . . Every one knows there are such beings. But I must go on with my story. We were at the tavern one evening at the end of the autumn of 1830; it was raining in torrents, and about eight o'clock in the evening the keeper Benassis entered, exclaiming: "What weather! . . . If it continues, the three ponds will overflow."

He shook out his cap, and took his blouse off his shoulders, to dry it behind the stove. Then he came to seat himself on the end of the bench, saying to Nadasi: "Come, make room, you lazy fellow, and let me sit near the brigadier."

Nadasi moved back.

Notwithstanding the rain, Benassis appeared to be pleased; he said that that day a large swarm of wild geese had arrived from the north; that they had lighted on the ponds of the Three Sawmills; that he had spied them afar off, and that the shooting on the marshes was about to begin. Benassis laughed and rubbed his hands as he emptied his glass of brandy and water. Every one was listening to him. Uncle

Eustache said, if he went to shoot them, he should go in a little skiff; for as to putting on high boots and going into the mire, at the risk of sinking in above his ears, he would not fancy that much. Then every man had his say, and old Jeannette musingly murmured to herself: "I also owned marshes and ponds!"

"Ah!" cried Nadasi, with a mocking air, "listen to that: Dame Jeannette used to own marshes. . . .'

"Certainly," said she, "I did!..." "Where were they, noble lady ?" "In La Vendée, on the sea-coast." And as Nadasi shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say, The old woman is crazy! Mme. Jeannette ascended the little wooden staircase at the back of the hovel, and then came down again with a basket filled with various articles, needles, thread, bobbins, and yellow parchments, which she deposited on the table. "Here are our papers," said she: "the ponds, the marshes, and the château are there with the other things! . . . We laid claim to them in the time of Louis XVIII., but my relations denied our rights, because I had married a republican. We would have gone to law, but we had no money to pay the lawyers. Is it not so, Coustel, is it not true ?" "Yes," said the turner, without moving.

The persons assembled took no interest in the thing, not any more than they would have done in the packages of paper money of the time of the Republic, which may still be found in old closets.

Nadasi, still mocking, opened one of the parchments, and was raising his head to read it, in order to laugh at Jeannette, when suddenly his countenance become grave; he wiped his spectacles, and turning towards the poor old woman, who had sat down again to her spinning,

"Will you allow me to look at them a little ?"

"You can do as you please with them," said she; "they are of no use to us."

Then Nadasi, who had turned pale, folded up the parchment with several others, saying: "I will see about that. . . . It is striking nine o'clock; good-night."

He went away, and the rest soon followed him.

Eight days after this, Nadasi set out for La Vendée; he had obtained from Coustel and Dame Jeannette his wife their signature to a paper which gave him full power to recover, alienate, and sell all their property, taking upon himself the expenses, with the understanding that he was to be repaid if he obtained the inheritance for them.

Soon after a report was spread in the village that Mme. Jeannette was a noble lady, that she owned a château in La Vendée, and that Coustel would soon receive a large income; but afterwards Nadasi wrote that he had arrived six weeks too late; that the own brother of Mme. Jeannette had shown him papers which made it as clear as the day that he had held possession of the marshes for more than thirty years; and that, whenever one holds the property of another for more than thirty years, it is the same as if one had always had it; so that Jean-Pierre Coustel and his wife, on account of their relations having thus enjoyed their property, had no longer any claim to it.

These poor people, who had thought themselves rich, and whom all the village had gone, according to custom, to congratulate and flatter, when they found they were to have nothing, felt their poverty still

more keenly than before, and not long afterwards they died within a short time of each other, like Christians, asking of the Lord pardon for their sins, and confident in the hope of eternal life.

Nadasi sold his post of bailiff, and did not return to the country; doubtless he had found some employment which suited him better than serving citations.

Many years had passed; Louis Philippe had disappeared, then the Republic; the couple Coustel slept on the hillside, and I suppose even their bones had crumbled into dust in the grave. For my part, I had succeeded my grandfather at the post-house, and Uncle Eustache, as he himself had said, had taken his passport, when one morning, during the gay season at Baden and Homburg, there happened to me something quite surprising, and of which I still think frequently. Several post-chaises had passed during the morning, when, towards eleven o'clock, a courier came to inform me that his master, M. le Baron de Rosélière, was approaching. I was at table. I immediately rose to superintend the

He did not recognize me, and drew back. Then I saw an old lady also in the coach. The horses were harnessed: they set off.

What a surprise, and how many ideas passed through my mind! Nadasi was the Baron de Rosélière. May God forgive me if I am wrong! but I still think that he sold the papers of poor Jeannette, and that he assumed a noble name to ward off the questions of the inquisitive. What was there to prevent him? Had he not obtained all the titledeeds, all the papers, all the powers of attorney? And now has he not had the thirty years of possession? Poor old Jeannette! . . . What misery we meet with in this life! ... And God permits it all! . . .