“I should have liked to clink glasses with you.”
“Will you allow me to breakfast with you to-morrow, instead? You see, I am taking a liberty with you already. Mademoiselle can give me the memoirs this evening. I will read them to-night, and return them to-morrow.”
“What! read them to-night? How many pages are there, Marie?”
“Seven or eight hundred, grandfather,” replied the young girl.
“Seven or eight hundred pages! If you will permit me, I will copy them.”
Well, the Colonel allowed me to copy from his manuscript all that had reference to the arrest of the King at Varennes; and when he died, left me sole possessor of his memoirs.
Colonel Réné Besson has been gathered to his fathers three months since, at the good old age of eighty-seven. He died, on a beautiful sunlit afternoon, when the mellow tints of autumn were melting into the snowy wreaths of winter. Peace be with him.
Eight days after his death, I received the manuscript, with a letter from Marie, who has become one of the most charming girls I ever met with.
The manuscript I now publish, is that of Colonel Réné de Besson; and I give it the title that was chosen by him.