“Breathe that prayer night and morning, and it will be of more benefit than all the prayers printed in the Church Service.”
The burial was to take place at four o’clock in the Cemetery of Islettes. After it was over, he proposed that I should go with him to St. Menehould, to pass the night, and in the following morning with a notary, who would arrange the deceased man’s papers &c., &c.
In the afternoon, at four o’clock, my uncle’s corpse, accompanied by the whole village of Islettes, followed by me, his sole relative, and by Drouet, Billard, Guillaume, Mathieu, and Bertrand, his friends, was placed in its last resting-place, accompanied by the blessings of the Abbé Fortin, and all those who knew his upright and irreproachable life.
The funeral over, M. Drouet put the key of the cottage in his own pocket. Then we mounted into M. Drouet’s cabriolet, and drove off to St. Menehould.
In the evening, M. Drouet went to seek the notary, who promised to run over the following day, after breakfast, to open the will, and make an inventory. On the morrow, at mid-day, in the presence of MM. Fortin, Drouet, Bertrand, and Mathieu, the will was opened.
It appointed me his sole heir, and at the same time indicated a cupboard in which would be found, in a bag, two hundred and sixty louis d’or, which comprised his whole fortune.
It also charged me to give all the little things he had collected, and which were of no use to me, to the poor of the village of Islettes; also to give all the implements of the chase, with the exception of those which pleased me, to his old friends, Flobert and Lafeuille.
On no account was anything to be sold.
As I was under age, M. Drouet, by my uncle’s wish, became my guardian.
As a matter of course, I immediately handed over to him the two hundred and sixty louis which my uncle had left me, telling him to keep them till I came of age.