His signature, in place of plain "Germain Lecour" now read: "LeCour de Répentigny," with the capital "C," or "Répentigny" alone, in a bold hand, with a paraph. And there appeared on his fob a seal cut with a coat of arms highly foliaged—azure with silver chevrons and three leopards' heads gold, which he had discovered to be the Répentigny device. With it he sealed the wax on his letters. He had bought indeed a pocket Armorial, the preface to which was as follows:—
"To the Incomparable French Noblesse.
"The Author presents to you, valiant and courageous Noblesse, the Diamond Armorial, which, despite the malice of the Times and the Flight of Centuries, will carefully preserve the Lustre of your name and the Glory of your Arms emblazoned in their true colours. This glorious heraldic material is a Science of State. Though it is not absolutely necessary that all gentlemen should know how to compose and blazon arms, it is Very Important for them to know their Own and not be ignorant of Those of Others. It is the office of the Heralds to form, charge, break, crown and add Supporters to, the coats of those who by some Brave and Generous action have shown their High and Lofty virtues; whereof Kings make use to recompense to their gentry this mark of Honour and Dignity; that so they may Impel each to goodly conduct on those occasions where Men of Stout Hearts acquire Glory for themselves, and Their Posterity...."
In his chamber, on the day when he bought it, he left it on the table and the open page began—
"The glorious house of MONTMORENCY beareth a shield of gold with a scarlet cross, cantoned with sixteen azure eagles, four by four."
[CHAPTER XIII]
A JAR IN ST. ELPHÈGE
At noon, on a day late in October, 1786, the Merchant of St. Elphège sat at the pine dinner-table in his kitchen, opposite his wife, resting his wooden soup spoon on its butt on the table. The windows, both front and rear, were wide open, for one of those rare fragrant golden days of late autumn still permitted it. He was listening, with some of the stolid Indian manner, to his wife reading Germain's letter. He vouchsafed only one remark, and that a mercantile one: "Seven weeks, mon Dieu! the quickest mail I ever got from France!" From time to time, while he listened, his eyes glanced out with contentment upon the possessions with which he was surrounded—upon the rich-coloured stubble of his clearings stretching as far as eye could see down the Assumption, with their flocks, herds, and brush fences; upon the hamlet to which his enterprise had given birth, and where he could see, in one cottage, his sabotiers bent over their benches adding to their piles of wooden shoes; in others, women at the spinning wheel or loom, making the cloths of which he had improved the pattern, or weaving the fine and beautiful arrow-sashes, those ceintures fléchées of which the art is now lost, yet still known as snowshoers' rareties by the name of "L'Assomption sashes"; his makers of carved elm-bottom chairs and beef mocassins; and, within his courtyard, the large and well stocked granaries, fur-attics and stores for merchandise contained in his four great buildings. His wife was dressed in cloth much more after the fashion of the world than the prunella waist, the skirt shot in colors and the kerchief on the head, which formed the Norman costume of the women seen through the cottage doors. Her silk stockings and buckled slippers marked a desire to be the gentlewoman. Her dark eyes struck one as clever. Her first husband had been the butler of the Marquis de Beauharnois when that nobleman was Governor of Canada, and she had never ceased to look back upon the recollections of high life stored away in those days in her experience.
"There!" she exclaimed, as she flourished the letter at the end of Germain's account of the reception—"Presented to the Court! Lecour, when you said I was my boy's ruin, when you grumbled at his abandoning the apothecary's shop to go to the Seminary and learn fine manners, did I not tell you my son was baked of Sèvres and not of clay? At the Court of France! and presented to his Most Christian Majesty! Among Princes, Counts, Duchesses and Cardinals! What do you say to that, Lecour?"
Her husband's eyes twinkled: "That for the moment you are General Montcalm, victorious; though I remind you that General Montcalm afterwards had his Quebec."