629 



. 



THE FETE OP ST. LAMBERT, OR THE VALLEY OF 

 MONTMORENCY. 







WHEN two shrubs spring up near to each other, they soon mingle, as 

 they grow, their branches and roots together, and thus form but one 

 shade. They are caressed by the same zephyrs, and they are the more 

 easily enabled, by the additional strength which each imparts to the 

 other, to sustain, without injury, those storms which, disunited, neither 

 would have been able to resist. 



Thus two children, who exchange together their first smiles, and their 

 first caresses, preserve ever after, for each other, a kind of fraternal in- 

 stinct, an invincible inclination of nature, which will seldom, while 

 existence remains, resign its rights. The friends of childhood may, 

 indeed, be separated by different social distances, by any one of the 

 various occurrences of life, but they always return to each other with 

 an increase of ardour, and view with astonishment the resemblance of 

 their tastes and their inclinations. 



This union of the heart does not take place exclusively between indi- 

 viduals of the same sex; for such was the nature of the remarkable 

 attachment, which existed for nearly eighty years, between St. Lambert 

 and the Countess D . 



They were both born in Lorraine, on the same day, and in nearly the 

 same hour. The families of both were of high respectability, and had 

 for many centuries held various situations of distinction in the com- 

 munity. 



The lady was blessed with that softness of disposition, which is so 

 particularly adapted to embellish the morning of life, which tends not 

 only to awaken those germs of affection, which become stronger as life 

 waxes older, but likewise lends, to the latest hour of the evening of ex- 

 istence, a charm which no other feeling can impart. 



St. Lambert joined to the talents which distinguish a literary man, 

 those qualities which characterize a sage. He was one of the most 

 favourite pupils of Voltaire ; and yet the admiration which he felt for 

 that wonderful genius, could never make him blind to his errors. An 

 enemy to every principle which was likely to cast a shadow over the 

 happiness of his native country, he quitted Paris at the period when 

 political troubles began to darken in the horizon, and retired to a little 

 country seat, which he possessed near to the village of Eaubonne, in the 

 valley of Montmorency. 



This retreat had been formed almost entirely by his own hands. 

 There was not a tree which had not been planted by himself: the gar- 

 den had been laid out under his direction ; and the very house itself 

 was a part of his handiwork. Simplicity was the leading feature of the 

 whole ; and yet there was a gaiety about it that announced it as the 

 asylum of the muses, the mansion of independence and repose. 



At this period, the Countess of D.. had been for some considerable 

 time a widow, and had retired to the village of Saunois, which is only a 

 small distance from Eaubonne. 



After they regained this opportunity of being again together, scarcely 

 a single day passed without one of these sexagenarians paying a visit to 

 the other, and, seemingly, with as much ardour of affection as if they 



