LETTER ON CHARLES LOYSON. 1G3 



poem addressed to liis brother, wliicli is entitled "The 

 Service for tlie Dead, and a Visit to tlic Country 

 C'hureliyard at (var liirth-place/' It is a genuine out- 

 hurst of fraternal firling, and allhoup^h Avritten in 

 most elegant verse, shows the utter self-forgetfulness 

 of a heart that has abandoned itself to the scene before 

 it, and to the presentiment of approaching death. Amid 

 these funereal forms, there comes into view the fiirui-e 

 of a most sweet and Christian woman, an apparition 

 from heaven, which the grave does but too speedily 

 hide away from the childish vision, but which lingers 

 still in memory to be the light of a whole lifetime. She 

 was a peasant-woman of lirittany, his maternal grand- 

 mother, my own great-grandmother, who had already 

 left the world Avhen I entered it, but the charm of 

 whose life was impressed upon my childhood, through 

 the long stories, full of sober feeling, that my brother 

 used to tell me. 



*' I see her still, devout and dilii^cnt, 

 In her old corner hy the spacious lioartli, 

 Where the dull fire flung out its flickering light, 

 From dawn to eve, spinning, and pra3'ing God."* 



A simple but exalted spirit, a strong, though gentle 

 soul, that had passed through the storm of the revolu- 

 tion with her light in her hand, or rather in her heart, 

 without suflering it either to flicker or die out, Mad- 

 ame Lesuc — permit my pen this once to rest upon her 

 name — had bequeathed to her children far more than 

 fortune or title ; honest and vigorous blood, the fiiith of 

 the Gospel, the virtues of family and Christian life. 



* Toujours je crois la voir, pieuse et cîilijrcnte, 

 Près du lart^e foyer où brille un humble feu, 

 De raube jusqu'au soir filant et priant Dieu. 



