1831.] a Tale of the Days of Terror. 37 



lovely female, in the dress of a Carmelite nun, whose full dark eyes as 

 they met my gaze, beamed with more of tenderness than devotion, ere 

 the returning footsteps of Monsieur St. Croix were audible in the pas- 

 sage. I dropped the curtain, and saw it no more. 



I often discerned St. Croix afterwards as I returned home late from 

 the Champs Elysees or the Boulevards, seated at an open upper window, 

 upon a dirty striped pillow, reading in the moonlight ; and our conver- 

 sations from his garden were continued without interruption till my 

 return to England. I know not wherefore, but the old man grew 

 attached to me as to a child, and to my great surprise, the day before 

 my departure, I saw him hastily crossing the court of our little hotel, 

 and in another moment he entered, unannounced, into the salon where 

 I sat. He held a scroll of papers in his hand, but, as usual, he was 

 without a hat. 



" My young friend," he said, and he smiled, though tears were in 

 his eyes, " you are about to depart, and with God's pleasure I shall not 

 be long here. You have been kind to a poor desolate old man, and I 

 thank you. You have not mocked my infirmities like the rest of the 

 world, you have been indulgent to them, though you know not their 

 cause. It is time you should learn the dark events which made me 

 what I am a scorn and a laughing-stock to fools. You have spoken 

 with a voice of kindness to my broken spirit ; it was long since I had 

 heard such tones from any human being, and they were very sweet. In 

 your own land you will read these," he continued, giving me the roll of 

 papers he held, and pressing both my hands convulsively between his 

 as he did so ; " you will there learn the fatal tale I have not power to 

 relate, which, thank God, I sometimes forget ; my mind is not what it 

 was, but I have had cause for madness. I shall miss you much ; but 

 it will be a pleasure to me to think that you will pity me when you 

 know all, and that though you are far away, you sometimes offer up 

 your prayers for a solitary and forsaken being who hath great need of 

 them/' 



He then darted from my presence even more abruptly than he entered. 

 It was the last time I beheld Monsieur St. Croix ; and as I have never 

 since returned to Paris, I know not whether he is still in existence. The 

 following narrative is extracted from his roll of papers : 



NARRATIVE OF MONSIEUR ST. CROIX. 



My father was one of the haute noblesse ; it had been better for me 

 if he had been a beggar. I should never then have been a slave to the 

 leaden bondage of pride ; idleness would never have nourished the seeds 

 of all the evil passions which, wretched victim ! I inherited from a long 

 line of corrupted ancestry ; they would have had no time to bud and 

 blossom in the hot- bed of sloth ; I should have been compelled to labour 

 for my daily bread ; hunger would have tamed my wandering thoughts, 

 and I might have been a happy and an honest man. My father and 

 mother lived as many other French couples do at the present day, and 

 many more did then ; they dwelt under the same roof, met seldom, but 

 with perfect politeness on both sides ; hated each other with all their 

 hearts, and spoke of each other (whenever such a rare occurrence did 

 take place) with the tenderest affection. Sentiment covers a multitude 

 of sins. They had two sons, an elder brother and myself, who were 



