“By the king—by the king!” I repeated wonderingly. “Just think!”
“Precisely. By the king himself, as a reward of valor and a token of his regard. And when I was married my brother gave it to me as a keepsake. And now—and now, my Gregory, I am going to give it to thee as a birthday present.”
“To me! Oh!” I cried. That was the most I could say. I was quite overcome by my surprise and my delight.
“Yes, I give it to thee; and we will hang it up in thy bed-chamber, on the wall opposite thy bed; and every night and every morning thou shalt look at it, and think of thy Uncle Florimond, and remember to be like him. So thy first and thy last thought every day shall be of him.”
I leave it to you to fancy how happy this present made me, how happy and how proud. For many years that sword was the most highly prized of all my goods and chattels. At this very moment it hangs on the wall in my study, facing the table at which I write these lines.
A day or two later, when I made my usual afternoon trip to the post-office, I found there a large, square brown-paper package, about the size of a school geography, postmarked Paris, and addressed, in my Uncle Florimond's handwriting, not to my grandmother, but to me! to my very self. “Monsieur Grégoire Brace, chez Madame Brace, Norwich Town, Connecticut, Etats-unis d'Amérique.” At first I could hardly believe my eyesight. Why should my Uncle Florimond address anything to me? What could it mean? And what could the contents of the mysterious parcel be? It never occurred to me to open it, and thus settle the question for myself; but, burning with curiosity, I hastened home, and putting it into my grandmother's hands, informed her how it had puzzled and astonished me. She opened it at once, I peering eagerly over her shoulder; and then both of us uttered an exclamation of delight. It was a large illustrated copy of my favorite story, “Paul et Virginie,” bound in scarlet leather, stamped and lettered in gold; and on the fly-leaf, in French, was written, “To my dear little nephew Gregory, on his tenth birthday with much love from his Uncle de la Bourbonnaye.” I can't tell you how this book pleased me. That my Uncle Florimond should care enough for me to send me such a lovely birthday gift! For weeks afterward I wanted no better entertainment than to read it, and to look at its pictures, and remember who had sent it to me. Of course, I sat right down and wrote the very nicest letter I possibly could, to thank him for it.
Now, as you know, in that same year, 1870, the French Emperor, Louis Napoleon, began his disastrous war with the King of Prussia; and it may seem very strange to you when I say that that war, fought more than three thousand miles away, had a direct and important influence upon my life, and indeed brought it to its first great turning-point. But such is the truth. For, as you will remember, after a few successes at the outset, the French army met with defeat in every quarter; and as the news of these calamities reached us in Norwich, through the New York papers, my grandmother grew visibly feebler and older from day to day. The color left her cheeks; the light left her eyes; her voice lost its ring; she ate scarcely more than a bird's portion at dinner; she became nervous, and restless, and very sad: so intense was her love for her native country, so painfully was she affected by its misfortunes.