he gave us a short and simple record of his life. We found it deeply interesting, though extremely sad. In brief, it was the story of a son who had foregone every solace of the poor man's existence — a home of his own, wife, and children — for the sake of a blind and aged father too feeble to support himself.

just above the spot where the sand-stained offer; and as we trudged along together, waters of the majestic Loire mingle with those of the blue Atlantic. One fine morning, tempted by a bright blue sky, we sallied forth and wandered along the beach in the direction of the Bourg de Batz, till we had left Le Croisic so far behind us that its roofs and towers looked like a dark grey cloud upon the dim horizon. At the spot which we had now reached, the rock-bound coast presented a most drear and desolate aspect. There was not a single human being in sight, and the melancholy cries of the sea-mews, circling high above our heads, did but serve to increase the sense of utter solitude inspired by the surrounding scene.

Suddenly, on rounding a bold promontory of granite which had effectually shut out the view of what lay before us, we descried a human figure advancing towards us along the sands. As he drew near, we perceived that he was barefooted, and that his only garments consisted of a beggarly pair of canvas trousers, all frayed and worn at the bottom, and full of clumsy darns and patches; a shirt of coarse sailcloth, and a jacket which was simply one mass of rags. The fresh-caught lobster and sea urchin dangling from the string which he carried in his right hand proved him to be a fisherman. Deeply commis erating his obvious penury, my friend hailed him with the intention of purchasing his fish, and so sparing him the fatigue of a possibly fruitless journey to Le Croisic.

"Where are you going to sell your fish, my good fellow?" said my friend.

"In the town yonder," replied the fisherman, pointing in the direction of Le Croisic.

"And how much do you expect to get for it?"

"Eightpence for the lobster, and tenpence for the urchin, sir."

"What say you to five francs for the pair?" inquired my friend.

The poor man stared at him in mute amazement, evidently half-suspecting that we were indulging in a joke at his expense. I soon dispelled his suspicions, however, by tendering him a brand-new five-franc piece.

He took the coin, and, after eying it for a moment, spat upon it for luck, no doubt and slipped it into his pocket. Then, by way of showing his gratitude for our liberality, he volunteered to pilot us as far as the Bourg de Batz, and thence back to Le Croisic, by a short cut of which we knew nothing. We gladly accepted his

Long ere we reached the Bourg de Batz the summer sun had attained its meridian height, and we began to feel its almost perpendicular rays intolerably oppressive. Under these circumstances I suggested that we should seek shelter from the noonday heat in the shadow of a towering rock which rose a little to the left of the path we were pursuing, and to which I pointed as I spoke.

Our guide glanced in the direction indicated, and faintly murmured, "There is a man there. Everybody as passes this way goes half a mile round to shun that rock."

"But why should they shun it?" I enquired. "Is the man you speak of a brigand or a murderer?" The fisherman's only answer to this question was a shudder.

"Is the man likely to molest us if we go near him?" I continued.

"Oh, no, not he!"

"Will you accompany us if we go?" "Not I, sir, begging your pardon.". "Well, then, we will go by ourselves, since you assure us that we may do so in perfect safety."

"Oh! I don't say that, sir. I only say as the man himself won't harm you. He'll neither budge an inch, nor open his lips."

By this time we were within five-andtwenty paces of the rock, and our guide struck into a by-path, leaving us to pursue our course in the direction of a cave which he had pointed out to us in the side of the rock. We soon reached a steep ascent leading up to a small esplanade in front of the cave, which was fully a hundred feet above the level of the sea. On gaining the esplanade we beheld a man seated on a block of detached granite - a man of Herculean build, with large hirsute hands, and wild bloodshot eyes which glared at us for a moment as we approached, and then wandered back to the surface of the ocean, on which they continued to gaze intently during the remainder of our brief stay. To judge solely from his stalwart and muscular frame, no one would have taken him to be more than fifty; but his hair was white as the driven snow, and his face — which was the very picture of de

"Well, did you see him, gentlemen?" asked our guide, when we rejoined him some five minutes afterwards.

"Yes; but who and what is he?" I replied.

"They call him the man with the vow.' The folks at Le Croisic and the Bourg de Batz believe as he's committed some crime for which he's doing penance. Others believe as Bend-the-sea-for that's his right name has the evil eye, and so they always give that rock a wide berth. Other folks will have it that Bend-the-sea has made a vow, and that's how he came by bis nickname. And sure enough he never stirs from that rock, day or night; nor speaks a word to any one not even to the little lass, a niece of his, as brings him his bread and water every morning.' "But, my poor fellow," I interrupted, "can't you tell us what it was that induced him to isolate himself from his fellow creatures? Was it grief, or madness, or remorse?

any

spair was deeply furrowed. Further was of her. She could never bear him to description it would be vain to attempt; be out of her sight no longer than was for, feeling that we were intruding upon absolutely needful for him to be away, some unspeakable sorrow, we hastened to after the sardines. They lived in yonder retrace our steps, leaving him, as we found little house as you can see on yonder him, seemingly glued to the stone on island. Well, they had but one child, a which he sat, and of which he almost ap- boy; and I needn't tell you that they peared to form a part, and gazing intently loved him. They just worshipped him. Í seawards. What was it that he saw don't know what they wouldn't have done there? for him. They were always a-buying him something or other-toys, frocks thing you like to name. In fact, they completely spoilt him. And a terrible. Turk he turned out, always in some kind of scrape! But his father, he only laughed when neighbors would come and complain as how Jim-that was his name had been up to this bit of mischief or that, half-murdering our Molly,' or 'giving our Jack a fearful pair of black eyes.' And so things went on. Neither Peter nor his wife could see any harm in Jim. Whatever he did was sure to be right. Well, by the time he was sixteen, the lad takes to whisking off to Guérande whenever he had a mind, a-courting the girls, and drinking, and playing billiards. You want cash to carry on that sort of game, and so Jim takes to helping himself out of the hoard in his mother's old stocking. She, poor soul, dursn't breathe a word of it to her good man, though she knew of it right enough. Why, bless your heart! Peter Bend-the-sea was a man to go five“Ah, sir, that's a question as nobody and-twenty miles on foot to pay back a but me and my father can answer. My farthing as he'd been overpaid. Well, mother, God rest her soul, was servant to when Master Jim had stripped his mother the magistrate as Bend-the-sea made a of every penny she possessed, what must confession to, by order of the priest; she, he needs do, one fine day when her back being in the kitchen adjoining her master's was turned, but go and sell whatever he dining-room, couldn't help overhearing could lay his hands upon tables, chairs, what Bend-the-sea said to him. Well, linen, plate-leaving little else but the she's dead and gone; and the magistrate, bare walls. And then away he went, he's dead and gone. And my poor mother, to play high jinks with the money at she made me and father swear before Nantes. Well, there was no hiding what she'd tell us what she'd overheard - as he'd done from his father this time. When we'd never breathe a word about it to any he came back from the sardine-fishing he soul hereabouts. But I may tell you, gen- must be told, as sure as fate. And she tlemen, as comes from furrin parts. Well, was mortally afeard to tell him not for you must know as Peter Bend-the-sea - her own sake, you may depend, but for him as you saw yonder-is the head of Jim's. Well, back comes Peter, and sees his family, as have been seafaring men the house a-most refurnished with the from father to son for generations past things as the neighbors had lent to his wife. their name's enough to tell you that much. What's the meaning of this?' says he. Ay, they sailed the sea; and Peter, he 'We've been robbed, Peter,' says his owned two or three tidy smacks, and poor wife, more dead than alive. What's turned sardine-fisher. He'd have fitted up gone with Jim, then?' says Peter. 'Oh, a vessel, and gone cod-fishing, if he hadn't he's off on one of his sprees,' says she. been so fond of his wife, as was an un-He's a deal too fond of his sprees,' says common fine girl when he married her, Peter; and there the matter ended for and had a kind heart into the bargain. that while. Ay, and she was as fond of him as he

"Six months afterwards poor Peter

.

heard that the police were on his son's nose it he did, and off with it to Le Croitrack at Nantes. So off he trudges there sic, to spend it in pleasure. But, as afoot, ferrets Jim out, and brings him chance would have it, back comes Peter home by the scruff of his neck. He never from his fishing that very night; and what asks him what he'd done amiss; but he does he see, floating on the top of the says to him, says he, If you don't stop water, close by the landing-place, but a here and live decent and respectable with scrap of paper, which he picks up and carme and your mother for a couple of years, ries home to his wife, who falls back in a you and me will have a crow to pluck to- dead swoon as soon as ever she sees gether.' But the scamp wouldn't be said For Polly,' in her own handwriting, on not he. He just fancies he can twist the scrap of paper. Peter, he holds his his father and mother round his little fin- tongue, but goes straight to Le Croisic, and ger. So he takes and pulls a face at hears that his son is in the billiard-room at Peter. Peter gives him a cuff as lays the inn. To the door of the inn he goes, Master Jim on his beam ends for a matter and says to Dame Flowers, the landlady, of six weeks. His poor mother, she 'I told our Jim not to spend a certain bit a-most broke her heart over it. Well, one of gold as he'll be for paying you with presnight, as she was quietly sleeping by her ently. I'll wait here, and when he gives good man's side, she hears a noise as it you, you just bring it to me, and I'll wakes her. Up she jumps, and the first give you its full value in silver.' By-andthing she feels is a stab in the arm, as by Dame Flowers brings him the doubmakes her scream out. Peter, he wakes, loon, he gives her the value of it, and strikes a light, and sees her bleeding. He takes it straight home. All the folks at fancies it must be a thief- as if there Le Croisic know that much, but they can was such a thing in these parts, where you only give a rough guess at what I'm going might carry a sack of gold from Croisic to to tell you. As soon as he gets home, St. Nazaire, and no one so much as ask Peter bids his wife clean up the parlor, what you'd got in your hand! Well, then he makes up the fire, lights a couple Peter goes and looks for Jim. Jim was of candles, sets two chairs on one side of nowhere to be found. But in the morning the hearth and a three-legged stool on the in he comes, as cool as a cucumber, and other, and orders his wife to get out his has the face to tell 'em as he's been spend- and her own wedding-clothes- as was ing the night at Batz. No need to say as laid up safe in a coffer- and brush them all this time his mother was at her wits' up a bit. Then he puts on his weddingend to find a safe hiding-place for her clothes, and goes to his brother's house, money. As for Peter's, Lawyer Dupotel and asks him to be on the lookout in front of Croisic always took care of it for him. of his (Peter's) house, and give him warnOf course, Master Jim's pranks had cost ing if he hears any one a-landing on the the old folks a pretty penny by this time. island. After that he goes back home by In fact, they was well-nigh ruined. And the time he thought his wife would have that was hard for folks as had been worth got her wedding-clothes on, loads his gun, -house and all, together a matter of and hides it in the chimney-corner. Presfour or five hundred pounds. Nobody ently back comes Jim-late enough, you ever knew how much it cost Peter to get may be sure, when I tell you that he'd his son out of that scrape at Nantes, when stayed at Le Croisic till ten o'clock, drinkthe police were after him, and it seemed ing and gambling. as if the whole family were doomed to bad luck. For everything had been going wrong with Peter's brother. And so, to comfort him, Peter says to him, 'My Jim and your Polly must make a match of it one of these days.' Meantime, to keep him from starving, Peter gives him a berth in his fishing-smack; and Peter's wife she takes and sews a real Spanish doubloon in a bit of a bag and shoves it into her mattress, with For Polly' written on it, as large as life, in her own handwriting for she was a good scholar, was Peter's wife.

"Well, no mortal could ever tell how Jim came to nose that bit of gold; but

"As soon as ever he shows his face, his father says to him, 'Sit you down on yonder stool; you're in the presence of your father and mother, whom you've offended, and now they're going to judge you.' Thereupon Jim begins to whimper, seeing as how there was a fearsome look in his father's face, while the mother was a-sitting there as stiff as an oar. If you cry, or stir from that stool if you don't sit there as still as a mouse, I'll shoot you like a dog,' says Peter. And so Jim sits there as dumb as a fish, and his mother, she never opens her mouth. 'Look here,' says Peter, there was a Spanish doubloon in this bit of paper. That doubloon was in

soon as ever he heard Jim snoring, he takes and gags him with a handful of tow and a strip of sail-cloth, and binds him hand and foot. The poor mother flings herself at her husband's feet and begs him to stay his hand. But Peter only says to her, 'He's doomed. Come and help me to carry him to the boat.' Of course she refuses. So Bend-the-sea carries him alone, ties a big stone to his neck, and rows out into the open sea, as far as the

your mother's mattress; and no one but her, as put it there, knew it was there. I found this piece of paper a-floating on the water when I landed. This very evening you gave that doubloon to Dame Flowers, and your mother has missed hers from the bed. Now what have you got to say for yourself? Jim takes and swears as he never touched his mother's doubloon, and that the one he'd paid away was one that he had left when he came away from Nantes, after his frolic. So much the bet-rock where you saw him. Meantime his ter,' says Peter. But how can you prove poor wife prays her brother-in-law to row the truth of your words? Will you take her after him; and follows him in another your sacred solemn oath as you didn't steal boat, crying aloud for mercy. She might your mother's doubloon?' Jim was quite as well have prayed to a ravening wolf. ready to swear by all his hopes of heaven. It was a bright moonlight night; and But his mother stopped him. 'Jim, my presently the poor woman saw her husboy,' says she, 'beware! Don't forswear band lift the lad from the bottom of the yourself! You may turn out a good boy boat and fling him overboard. Not a yet, if you'll only repent and mend your breath of wind was stirring, and she disways.' And with that she burst out cry-tinctly heard the loud splash which told ing. You're an old this and an old that, as always wanted to bring me to ruin!' cries Jim. Whereupon Peter he turns pale, and cries, What you've just said to your mother will help to swell my account against you. Come, now, are you prepared to swear?' 'Yes,' says Jim. Stop a moment,' says his father. Had your doubloon got this same cross upon it as the sardine-merchant from whom I took it put upon our piece?' This question staggers and sobers Jim a bit, and he begins to blubber. Enough said!' cries his father. I'm not going to tax you with your old misdeeds. But look you here, I won't see a Bend the-sea swinging on the gallows in front of Croisic gaol. So make haste and say your prayers. A priest willing to any living soul." be here directly to confess you.'

"Meantime Jim's mother had left the house, to escape hearing her son's condemnation. While she was outside, in comes Peter's brother with the rector of Piriac. But Jim was far too artful to make any confession; he thought he knew his father well enough to make sure that he'd never kill him till he had confessed.

Well, seeing Jim so obstinate, Peter says to the priest, Thank you, sir, all the same; for coming. I'm sorry to have troubled you; but I just wanted to give my son a lesson; and I beg you to be good enough to keep the matter quiet. As for you, Jim, the very next time I catch you going astray, your fate is sealed, confession or no confession!'

"Then he sent him up-stairs to bed. The lad, firmly believing as his father meant to let him off scot-free, went quietly to sleep. But Peter sat up; and as

her that her only child was drownedand then nothing! Ah! the sea is a desperate sure prison! Poor creature! The shock killed her. The two brothers had to carry her from the boat back to the house; and she died within the week, imploring her husband, with her last breath, to burn the accursed boat. And burn it he did. After that, he seemed to have lost his wits. He knew no more than a madman what he was about. When he walked, he reeled and staggered like a drunken man. Then he took a journey somewhere, and was away for a fortnight. When he came back he went straight to the place where you saw him; and there he has ever since remained, never speak

From The Westminster Review. REMINISCENCES OF CARDINAL MAZARIN..

alier de Rochefort," which are replete with the earlier part of the seventeenth century. pictures of French life as it existed during In attempting, however, to make a selection such as our space will admit of, we encounter an embarras de richesses, every page bristling with some amusing or exand characteristics of an age in which the citing adventure, illustrating the manners

WE return to the "Memoirs of the Chev

Mémoires de M. le Comte de Rochefort: contenant

ce qui s'est passé de plus particulier sous le Ministre du Cardinal de Richelieu et du Cardinal Mazarin, avec Louis le Grand. Seconde édition. A Cologne: chez plusieurs particularités remarquables du Règne de Pierre Marteau. 1700,

weaknesses of human nature are dealt with with a naïveté that often needs some discretion upon the part of an editor. After the death of Cardinal de Richelieu, the Chevalier de Rochefort seems to have passed into the service of his successor, Cardinal Mazarin, whom he found quite as exacting, but much more austere and far less liberal, than his predecessor, and for whom he appears to have been pretty constantly engaged in business of a secret and confidential nature. When not actually employed, he occasionally amused himself with his friends, and he gives us a rather graphic account of what we might call a spree, ending disastrously. He says:

66

have some enemies there were a few who took a particular pleasure in talking about this adventure, and thus it came to the ears of Cardinal Mazarin, who, possessing sovereign authority, determined to make an example of us, and commanded that we should be treated with the utmost possible severity. We were then interrogated with all the precautions that it is customary to take with the worst criminals. This was particularly the case with regard to myself, who had had some time ago some words with the provost of the city, who had got an idea into his head that I had stood in his light with Cardinal de Richelieu. If I had really been guilty of this act I would not have complained, and I told him so; but, having nothing whatever on my conscience to reproach myself with, I freely answered all his questions, which pleased him, he not doubting but that after that he would have plenty of opportunity for showing me his ill-will. Indeed, I noticed that the gref

down in my deposition a number of things that I had never said, so that when it was finished I was not content with simply hearing him read it over, but I asked to be allowed to read it over myself before I signed it. Upon this he replied that such was not the custom, and that he could not make new laws especially to please me. This speech made me more suspicious still, so I told him resolutely that I should not sign it without, whereon he violently abused me, and sent me at once to a dungeon. God knows what was my despair when I saw myself thus treated as an assassin or a highwayman. I could not see the way to get out of this disaster at all, and he kept me so closely locked up that I had no opportunity of speaking to any one except the gaolers. I begged one of these to carry a letter to one of my friends, and intreated him to bring me some ink and paper, so that I might write to them, but the promise that I made him of a reward for this service as soon as I should get out of prison, instead of touching him, only caused him to say a thousand annoying things quite sufficient to render an honest man desperate.

However, in the intervals of Cardinal Mazarin's service, I sometimes sought how to pass away my time, and, it having chanced that I had joined the set of the Comte de Harcourt, the younger son of the present Duc d'Elbœuf, I found myself one day engaged in a drunken revel with them. After everybody had drunk to ex-fier, who was in league with him, wrote cess, some one proposed that we should go and commit some robberies on the Pont Neuf. These were the pleasures that the Duc d'Orleans had made quite the fashion at that time. For some time I refused to go, but the majority carried their point, and I followed them in spite of myself. The Chevalier de Rieux, the younger son of the Marquis de Sordeac, who had been of my way of thinking, was no sooner arrived on the bridge than he said we had better do as the others did, and proposed that we should get up on to the bronze horse of Henri IV. in order that we might see at our ease who came along. No sooner said than done; we climbed up to the horse's head and used the reins for our feet, both of us sitting on the neck. The others lay in wait for the passers-by, and took four or five cloaks, but, some one who had been robbed having gone to make a complaint, the archers came, and our party, finding themselves outnumbered, took precipitately to flight. We intended to do the like, but the bronze reins having broken under the weight of the Chevalier de Rieux, he fell flat on the pavement, whilst I remained perched up like some bird of prey. The archers did not need their dark lanterns to discover us, for the Chevalier de Rieux, who was a good deal hurt, called out pretty lustily, and they, running to the spot from whence the noise proceeded, secured him and made me come down whether I would or not, and carried us both off to the châtelet. "As one is always pretty certain to

"Cardinal Mazarin, having fully deter mined to make an example in Paris, where it was high time to put a stop to the rob beries that were of daily occurrence in the city, ordered the provost to bring him the depositions taken in our case, and, having seen the garbled version that they had drawn up, he told him to proceed at once with the prosecution. This order had