In good and evil, from this hour
My chosen place is at thy side.

Tuz. And were you then, indeed, the
first

Within Galera's walls to go?

Gar.-Ah! would to God it were not so! Tuz.-Why does the memory seem accurst?

Gar. Because from that unlucky hour That first I placed my foot therein, I know not for what deadly sin, Mortune, with malignant power, Or Fate, or some stern star malign, Or & tribution's wrath, has shed Its bandful influence o'er my head, And all goes wrong with me and mine. Tuz.-Why art thou thus so much dismayed?

Gur. I know not, if 'twas not that day On which it was my fate to slay A young and beauteous Moorish maid. In feed, just heaven can do no less Tan strike me for a deed so base, Er beaven was copied in her face. Tz.-Was she so beautiful?

How did this chance?

Gar.-
'Twas in this way.
On a certain day being stationed
Sil within a forest,
'Neath the thick o'erhanging branches
Which difused the gloom of midnight
Down along the sloping mountains,
There I sized a Moorish prisoner.
It were telious to discover

How he managed to deceive me ;
T. enough to say, he led me
Far away 'mid precipices,

Where his shouts soon called together
All the troops of Alpujarra.
Þving, then, I sought for shelter
In ap and darksome grotto,
We the fatal mine was opened
To the hollow rock soon after-
Ima iful monster, which conceiveth
oh fire within its entrails!
It was I who first revealed it

To my lomi, Don John of Austria;

It was I who, through the night-time,

rid it from all surprises;

I was I who held the entrance

I v comrades took possession;

It was I. in fine, who entered

Fint ami! the flaming eity,

Full of anger, full of fury,
Till I reached the house of Malec,
Which, in fine, was all my trouble.
'Twas the time that round the palace,
Or the mansion, or the fortress,
Don Lope di Figueroa-
Light and honour of his country——
Had drawn up his valiant forces,
And the flames were bursting redly
From the walls, and the Alcaide
Was no more. And I, who ever
Seek for prizes as for plaudits-

Though, indeed, rewards and honours
Seldom can be found together-
Daringly ambitious, onward

Through the halls and rooms I wandered,
Till I reached a little chamber,
Last retreat of the most lovely
Moorish maid my eyes e'er gazed on.
Ah! my words were vain to paint her,
Were it even the time for painting!
Confused, in fine, and sorely troubled,
When she saw me, she concealed her
Down behind her bed's white curtains,
As if they, indeed, that moment
Were the curtains of a rampart.
But what mean these tears that trickle
Down your face so pale and haggard?

Tuz.-Those, indeed, are but mementoes Of a similar misfortune.

Gar. Do not heed the lost occasion, What you wish to find, believe me, You will meet without your seeking. Tuz.-You speak truly. Pray continue. Gar.-I pursued her; she was covered With so many sparkling jewels, With a dress so rich and splendid, That she seemed a bride expecting Her beloved--not a victim Waiting for the coming death-stroke. I, beholding so much beauty, Wished to save her life, provided She would give her heart as ransom. Scarcely had I dared to touch her Snow-white hand, when thus she prayed me: "Christian, if you are desirous More of plunder than of glory

Since a woman's blood doth ever

Stain the sword man's blood doth brighten

Let your thirst be satiated

By these jewels that I carry;

Leave untouched my faith, my honour;

Touch not this poor breast that carries

Many mysteries within it,

Which itself doth comprehend not."
In my arms I seized-

Tuz.

Oh! torture!

Pause a moment!-stay!-detain thee!—
But what words are these? My fancy
Makes me use these exclamations.
Pray, continue your narration,
Though to me 'tis of no moment.
Ah! I feel even more his daring

Thus to touch her, than to kill her! [aside.
Gar.-Piercing cries aloud she uttered

In defence of life and honour.

I being now aware that others
Wore approaching the apartment,

In the last years of Louis XIV., when the hypocritical piety of Madame de Maintenon had rendered devotion fashionable, and had restored to the Tartuffes the influence of which they had been deprived by the satire of Moliere, there resided in a dilapidated chateau near Grenoble, a family named Guerin, which, in spite of straitened circumstances, maintained all its pretensions to gentility, and took the title of De Tencin, from the moderate estate on which they vegetated rather than lived. The family consisted of a widowed mother, two sons, and four daughters, two of whom were marriageable. The eldest son obtained a diplomatic situation; the eldest daughter married a rich financier; the second son, called the Abbé de Tencin, was destined to enter the church; and the second daughter, Claudine de Tencin, was warned by her mother to procure a husband within twelve months, or else to prepare herself for

a convent.

Claudine, though pretty, was poor, and dowries were as great objects of consideration in Grenoble as they were in Paris; moreover, she had a decided taste for contradiction and repartee, so as to be called Mademoiselle Nenni throughout the country, from her habit of always replying in the negative. Her brother the abbé was notorious for assenting to everybody, and was, in consequence, admitted to every table where flattery would pass as current coin in payment for food. Notwithstanding this difference of disposition, the brother and sister were warmly attached to each other, and had vowed to share any benefits which fortune might have in store for them. Both had boundless ambition: the abbé aspired to the highest dignities of the church; Claudine more vaguely fixed her hopes on acquiring political

influence, either as a wife or a mistress.

The alternative presented by the mother alarmed Claudine; she represented its injustice, if she was to remain in the country, where no eligible partner was likely to appear. Madame yielded to the reasoning, and removed for a season to Grenoble, where Claudine was presented to fashionable society, in a robe made from her mother's well-preserved wedding-gown. At her first ball she captivated M. de Chandennier, a young man of good family and tolerable fortune. He was the cousin of the Marquis de Chandennier, of the ancient house of Rochechouart, whose obstinate resistance to Cardinal Mazarin, and voluntary exile from court, are now almost forgotten, though they were deemed the most extraordinary instance of personal independence under the despotic reign of Louis XIV. The marquis was the first captain of the household troops, and was highly respected for his valour, talents, and singular probity. These qualities did not suit Mazarin; he wished to have a more flexible officer, who would implicitly obey his commands, without inquiring too nicely into the morality or legality of his injunctions. Mazarin commanded Chandennier to sell his commission to M. de Nouilles, who, without waiting for the marquis's consent, assumed at once the functions of his post. Chandennier refused to send in his resignation, or to accept the purchase-money; he was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Loches, where, as he was known to be poor, it was hoped that he might be starved into submission. The marquis, however, lived contentedly on the prison allowance, receiving, however, occasional presents of better provisions from the inhabitants of Loches, who honoured his spirit, and detested the

VOL. XXXII.-NO. CXCI.

20

cardinal. Two years elapsed, during which the prisoner made no complaint, and offered no sign of submission. At length the court, ashamed of its own violence, granted him his freedom, but at the same time banished him from Paris. It was notified to him that the price of his commission was ready to be paid whenever he chose to accept it, and that, so soon as he signed a receipt for the money, he would be restored to royal favour. Chandennier was as obstinate in exile as he had been in prison; it was hoped that leniency would have a better effect than severity, and he was permitted to return to Paris. Still unsubdued, he went to reside in a small cottage near Sainte Genevieve, and gave himself up to devotion. This suggested the last attempt to overcome his obstinacy; his confessor was induced to represent to him that, in justice to his creditors, he ought to accept the purchase-money of his commission, and apply it to the payment of his debts. Chandennier so far yielded, as to have an interview with the younger Nouilles, who had succeeded to the disputed post on the death of his father, but no agreement could be arrived at; to the last hour of his life, the Marquis de Chandennier retained his titular rank as first captain of the royal guards.

M. de Chandennier, the hero of the ball at Grenoble, was said to have inherited his cousin's noble qualities the marquis, indeed, had nothing else to bequeath-he was preparing to visit Paris in search of fortune, when he was caught by the fair form and lively wit of Claudine de Tencin. He at first meditated nothing more than a little flirtation with the rustic beauty, whom he hoped to dazzle and overawe by his superior knowledge of the world, but he soon found that he was beaten with his own weapons; long before the ball had concluded, Chandennier had abandoned all his plans of a wealthy marriage, for love and a cottage with the beauty of Grenoble. At the conclusion of the ball, as Claudine and her mother were about to return home in their modest carriage, the gallant lover offered the services of his footmen to light them with flambeaux to the gates of the city. Claudine yielded to her natural instinct, and without any reflection replied "No, sir, we thank you, our servant knows the way."

This unexpected repulse discouraged the lover, but he sought to gain the favour of her brother, and he invited the abbé to a supper, where the most fashionable young men of Grenoble were assembled.

Among the guests was a young financier, of more wealth than wit. Enraged at finding himself eclipsed in conversation by a poor abbé, he began to mock the mean dress and poverty of Tencin. The abbé defended himself with so much wit, that the rest of the company ranged themselves on his side; and when, with a triumphant joke, he asked the financier to lend him five hundred pistoles on his note of hand, all present insisted that the wealthy blockhead should comply, under pain of personal chastisement. On the following morning, Claudine received a letter from her brother, enclosing half the sum he had so strangely gained, declaring that with the rest he would go to Paris in search of fortune, and advising her to lose no time in coming to an arrangement with her suitor.

Claudine had already repented her refusal of her lover's proffered politeness; she had even gone the length of inviting him to pay her a visit, whenever his taste led him to make a rural excursion. Five or six days after the ball, it was announced that a brilliant band of cavaliers was approaching the dilapidated castle of the Tencins; and all the preparations usually adopted by pride to hide poverty, were hastily made for their reception. A ploughboy, in an old livery, enacted the part of porter; the farm-servants, unprepared by previous drill, were suddenly transformed into grooms, ushers, footmen, and feudal retainers. Several amusing blunders were made the porter, dazzled by the dresses of the guests, exhausted himself in mute salutations; the groom was so charmed with M. de Chandennier's horse, that he compelled the gentleman to tell him the price of the animal before he assisted him to dismount; and the footmen, instead of marshalling the way, ran against each other, and knocked their heads together, so that Chandennier in the end entered the saloon without being previously announced.

Claudine and her mother had too much tact to notice the confusion which the polite Chandennier affected

not to perceive. The topics of the day were discussed; the Tencins had recently received letters from Spain, which enabled them to amuse their guest with the latest details respecting the disgrace of the Princess d'Ursians. The visitor was able to elucidate the narrative, by relating the scandals circulated in Paris against the Duke of Orleans. Claudine, as if she had some secret foresight of her future destiny, took a lively interest in the anecdotes told of that licentious prince, and was not quite so much shocked as might have been expected from her secluded education.

After some time, it was proposed that the gentleman should visit the gardens, accompanied by Claudine and her two sisters, the eldest of whom was only ten years of age. In this promenade the conquest was completed; the mother, who watched from the windows, though she could not hear the conversation, easily learned, from the cavalier's animated gestures, that his heart was won.

Chandennier was an ardent lover: he frequently repeated his visits to the De Tencins, sent them presents of game, but could not be induced to make a formal proposal of marriage. Evil tongues soon began to propagate scandal. At a later period, such attentions might have passed unnoticed, but at this period the piety and prudery of Madame de Maintenon reigned supreme-the ladies of the provinces, aping the manners of Versailles, had three confessors a-piece, read nothing but homilies, and were quite convinced that society was threatened with total ruin by the profane levity of the rising generation. The young men of Gre noble observed that Chandennier seemed to have forgotten the journey to Paris, for which he was at first so eager; his repeated rural excursions gave rise to suspicion; and with the usual charity of provincial gossip, it was speedily decided that Claudine had fallen a victim to vanity and temptation.

The tale reached the ears of the abbess of the Augustinian nuns at Montfleury, who was distantly related to the family; she came to the castle, and informed Claudine and her mother of the calumnies which had been propagated. While the ladies were discussing this delicate subject, Chandennier made his

appearance.

Claudine overwhelmed

him with reproaches, until he offered to silence scandal by immediately making her his wife. Though this had been the great object of her arts and hopes, she could not resist the waywardness of her temper: she declared that the lover should endure the penance of three months' delay, which she would spend in a convent; and she insisted that the abbess should carry her off to Montfleury within the hour. Remonstrances were in vain. Claudine, however, feeling that she had been a little hasty, informed her lover, that if she had reason to be satisfied with his conduct, she would abridge the period of his penance.

Chandennier's self-love was wounded by such caprice; his friends in Grenoble jested him on having been the dupe of a village coquette. Claudine soon perceived that his attachment was cooling, and, in order to revive it, she pretended to have imbibed a taste for conventual life; and when he spoke to her of his heart, she answered with pious disquisitions on the state of her soul. In imagination she had constructed a romance, of which she hoped to be the heroine. A true lover in her view, so far from being daunted by obstacles, ought rather to be roused to exertion by every new difficulty. He ought to be prepared to escalade walls, to burst bars, to storm the cloister, to tear his mistress from the altar, and even if she had pronounced conventual vows, to fly with her to Rome, and wrest a dispensation from the Pope, by dint of tears and supplications. Unfortunately while poetry and romance led the lady in one direction, prose and reality conducted the gentleman in the very opposite. His ambitious hopes returned; he remembered his resolution to seek for a wealthy wife, and recollected that Claudine had no fortune; he thought that a rustic beauty ought to have been more grateful for the proffer of his purse and person; and he could not comprehend Claudine's high-flown sentimentality. Finally, Chandennier became weary of the romance: he wrote her a letter, in which he showed that he clearly understood the nature of the farce which she was playing, declared that he would no longer be her dupe, and bade her farewell in cold and cutting terms.