THE LACE-MERCHANT OF NAMUR. In the beautiful city of Namur, in Flanders, there lived an old widow, whose very existence was unknown, unless to those who saw her in church. which she frequented every day, or in her small shop, where she carried on a trade in silks and laces. Perhaps poor Madame Le Blond might have died as unknown as she had lived, if she had not had the good fortune to have a son, who as he grew to man's estate, attracted a good deal of observation among his town-people, particularly the fairer portion of them. He was now in his two-and-twentieth year; a modest, sedate, young man, who did great credit to the training of his mother-unknowing of evil, and indeed, having no acquaintance beyond the small circle of devout and respectable old ladies who formed the society of his parent. Of money he had no great store, as his father, who however was an officer high in the army, had died without fortune, and the small trade in lace did little more than keep the widow and her son alive. But the virtues and good qualities of young Le Blond would never have made him a reputation in Namur, if he had not been the handsomest young fellow that all Flanders, or perhaps all Europe, had to boast of. In what his good looks consisted, or from what collocation of limbs and features his excessive handsomeness arose, we find it impossible to describe. Suffice it to say, that there was a something whatever that something might be that made his form and face a study for the painter, and as was soon sufficiently proved, when he began to assist his mother in her trade there were a good many painters in the fair town of Namur, of the softer sex, who were in search of such a model. For instantly on young Le Blond commencing business, there was such a rush upon his shop, as if his silks were the richest that India had ever sent home, and his laces finer than those of Malines. Trade prospered So strangely under his management, that the old lady could find no means of accounting for it but the interposition of two or three of the saints, to whose service she accordingly devoted herself with more energy than ever; leaving the young man in the shop to profit by their favour. The admiration of his visiters was not created by any splendour of dress or decoration. At that time it was the fashion for young galants to shine forth in all the splendour of a huge periwig and a long sword. But the widow's parsimony-or indeed her poverty-forbade any such ornaments-and the poor youth was left to the natural simplicity of his rich brown hair, that waved in long curls over his snowwhite collar-and to the unadorned plainness of a tight-fitting coat and pantaloons, to which was appended neither sword nor dagger. As to Le Blond himself, he did not take any notice whether people wondered at his wiglessness or not. He was totally unconscious of any thing peculiar either in his dress or appearance; and had not the remotest idea what exact note was taken of both by the fairest aud loftiest ladies in Namur. When the shop was filled with the beauty and fashion of the whole city-buying, as if in emulation-and smiling condescendingly on the attentive laceman, "see, my son !" whispered the good widow, as she took her rosary and hurried off to church, "see how the saints have blest our piety-our zeal our industry!" The son bent religiously as she passed by, and thanked the saints for their goodness. But when, after some time, it became evident, even to the old lady, that the saints were somewhat arbitrary in their favours, and in fact only rewarded piety, and zeal, and industry in the person of the son-leaving the poor widow, as often as she took charge of the business, without any customers whatsoever-she addressed him one day in a more serious manner than usual. "Alas, alas, I am an old and feeble woman, and have not the way of talking to customers as you have; twere better for me to give up. I have laboured and kept house, and saved and scraped long enough. Work now for yourself; take a wife, and I will live with you peaceably till I die." The son, who was never known to disobey an injunction of his mother, found this very reasonable. He knew that it was usual when a man reached 246 a certain age for him to take a wife; "But where shall I get a wife, mo- had never ventured to hope that any of the four known quarters of the globe would have produced her a heard of Le Blond's proposal, that her wooer, blushed so celestially when she But the good Le Blond, when he heard countenance actually became blue. the same colour. When he had reof his acquisition, looked exactly of covered a little from his first surprise, he held out all his ten fingers, and said, not one reason, but two hundred and see, mother, I will count you fifty-on these fingers, why young Mademoiselle Paulet can never be my wife. First, when I only think of it, ly, influenza; thirdly, giddiness in the I it gives me the scarlet fever; second. head-fourthly, Asiatic cholera; fifthly". 66 "Leave that to me," replied the widow, 66 I'll manage every thing." "How if I were to take Maria, my godfather's daughter?" enquired Le Blond-" she is a well-behaved girl. I recollect when we were children, we used to play at man and wife. My godfather spoke of it to me last week." "He spoke to me too," said the mother" but that can never be-and for a hundred and fifty reasons. will only mention to you half a dozen of them. First, as long as we did not get on in our trade, your godfather looked at us over his shoulder-now, when he sees we are prospering, he Blond, who did not wish to hear the "Hold!" exclaimed Madame Le tries to be civil. I can't bear the old remaining two hundred grounds of fox. Second, Maria is good and tidy, dissent; "You speak like an apotheand active-but she has nothing. merchant, my dear son, must not ask late, if we turn over the lady's portion A cary, not a merchant. Let us calcuwhat a wife is, but what she has. ten times in the year, how much our Nothing multiplied by nothing pro- gains will be." duces nothing. Third, there are objections to it which I am acquainted with, and even if there were none, I would never give my consent to it while I live. Fourth" 66 Enough, enough, mother," interrupted the young man. "It was nothing but a suggestion of my own. Choose another for me yourself." In a very few days the careful motber had fixed upon another, the daughter of Paulet the silversmith. girl was rich, but hideously ugly. A The hump on her back, and one eye closed up by the small- pox, were the smallest of the unlovelinesses of the selected bride. It was from these causes she had not obtained a husband, though her wealth was enough to have tempted a dozen. Master Paulet the silversmith agreed with the old lady in a moment; and the young damsel, who 66 never brought their reckonings to the same But the mother and son sum. ness between them; the lady stood on This produced a little bitterthe young man the oldness and wisdom of her headwarmth of his heart; and when head on the youth and and heart are at variance, there can be cies are reconciled. Home became no great comfort till their discrepanuncomfortable to even the best and had not been for the strong filial affecmost unsophisticated of sons. tion he retained, he would have left If it the poor old lady to herself. was, he went more frequently abroad than he had ever done in his life, in As it order to hear no more of his pestilencecreating bride. Once, indeed, he was nearly off altogether, and it was on the following occasion. THE APPARITION. One morning he had gone to mass, as was his custom, and he observed kneeling, not far from him, a female figure in a rich, yet simple travelling dress, with her face hidden by a goldspangled veil. The worshipper, although the golden balls of her rosary fell quickly through her fingers, did not seem to be very deep in her devotions. Blond with great attention, and then She appeared to regard Le she whispered to her neighbour, and then both of them looked at him. Le Blond saw their proceedings, but took little notice. The thought only crossed him, "Ah! they are not so hide ous as my pretty bargain." But this, to be sure, he thought at the sight of every woman he saw, and it only added to his distress. As he left the church he observed that the ladies also got up, and moved away. A number of gentlemen followed them respectfully, assisted them at the church door into a magnificent carrage, went themselves into a second, and drove off. Le Blond concluded from all this that they must have been duchesses at the least. But this momentary apparition made the deeper impression on him that it presented itself to him again. As he wandered the same day, to dispel his melancholy thoughts, through the lower town, over the stone bridge across the Sambre, he took a fancy to climb the Castle-hill. On the steps of the lower ascent he was encountered by the gentlemen he had seen at church. The two carriages were also drawn up in waiting. When he had ascended a little way, to where the road makes the second turning, he met the lady in the gold-spangled veil in lively conversation with her friend, and loud in her admiration of the prospect; for from that point the view of Namur is very beautiful, as it lies between the two mountains, surrounded and crossed by the Meuse and the Sambre, and the rivulet, the Bederin. But ladies, in coming down steps, should take care not to be lively in conversation, or ecstatic about scenery. A false step is easily made, even when there is no snow to make it slippery. Of this the veiled lady gave a striking example -she fell with a loud scream. Le Blond rushed up the steps to her assistance, and raised her courteously. She thanked him, and took the arm he had offered for her support. But as her foot was slightly hurt, she frequently paused, on their downward way, to rest. She asked many questions of the polite Le Blond, and when she heard, among other things, that he dealt in lace, she expressed a wish to buy, named the hotel where she resided, and fixed an hour for him to bring some articles for her inspection. He was directed to ask for the Countess de St. Silvain. She would probably have talked much longer, had not the gentlemen come up the steps to inquire what had detained the lady. She related the accident in answer to their respectful inquiries; and on hearing it they nearly fell into fits, conducted her with the utmost care to the carriage, and left Le Blond transfixed to the spot. In the course of time, however, he recovered himself sufficiently to find his way home, and tell his mother the whole occurrence. At the appointed hour he went to the hotel, and inquired for the Countess de St. Silvain. He was conducted to her apartment, and found her still in her travelling dress, and still enveloped in the gold-spangled veil. He laid before her two boxes of the costliest laces; her choice was quickly made; she paid him the price demanded, and added a piece of gold for the trouble she had given him in coming to the hotel. After this, she again led him into conversation, as she had done in the morning on the hill. When Le Blond told her that he had never yet been more than twenty miles from Namur, she wondered at his want of curiosity, and asked him if he would enter into her service. 66 "You will see all France," she said; "I will give you more than you make by your trade. You shall be private secretary either to me or my lord-my husband." This was said in such a soft sweet tone that Le Blond was nearly tempted; particularly as at that very moment a thought came across him of the very untempting Mademoiselle Paulet, and the different tone she spoke in. But then, to leave his old mother such a step was impossible. And though he had threatened a hundred times rather to throw himself on the wide world than marry the silversmith's daughter, still, when he thought of how desolate his departure would make the poor old woman, he declined the Countess's invitation, and told her he could not leave an aged parent who had no friend in the world but himself. When he came home and told the whole story to his mother, she, who, like most mothers, had a higher opinion of the return due by her son for all her kindness, than of any thing else, exclaimed, in a sort of pet, at the very thought of such a proposition, 66 Go, if you please, you disobedient boy, but Mademoiselle Paulet must go with you. Marriage, I see, is the only thing to save you; and I have gone too far in the business with the silversmith to draw back with honour." Driven to despair, Le Blond went next day to offer himself to the Countess, but he came back to his shop half bro ken hearted. The Countess had left Namur ! AN INTERFERENCE. out. It was no small addition to his gratification that his new dwelling had a small garden attached to it, for he was an enthusiast in his love for plants and flowers. The garden was surrounded on all sides by those of his neighbours. Little hedges, and even flower borders, were the only divisions between them; so that they presented the appearance of one large garden, instead of numer ous small ones. In the portion belong ing to Le Blond, there was a bower of wild jasmin. Here it was that he re solved to spend his happiest hours, and to devote himself to the study of Ital ian, in order to be able, like other silk merchants, to write to his corres pondents in their own language. The splendid house of which he had hired the ground-floor, belonged to the President of the Sovereign Court, who troubled himself very little about his tenant. Every thing went on delightfully. The ladies, who had formerly shown so much favour to the wares of the handsome laceman, did not desert him in his new position. They were constantly dropping in to rummage his stock, and make their purchases, and have a few minutes conversation.Le Blond, indeed, appeared to grow hands omer every day; but the ladies maintained that his silks and laces were the best in Namur, and his prices the most reasonable. Happy, happy Le Blond!-But, on the other hand, his efforts were not so prosper. ous in respect to the Italian grammar, It was a wearisome employment; and besides this, it was not long before he encountered another obstacle to The apparition was soon forgotten; but old Madame Le Blond did not forget Mademoiselle Paulet. "Custom at last makes all things tolerable." This proverb was repeated in Le Blond's ear day after day. Day after day he denied its truth. In this way a whole year was passed; and then other sorrows came in addition. Louis XIV. had taken it into his head to be a great man; even already people called him Louis the Great; but what will not people do to please an individual with an army of two hundred thousand men? At last, in the year 1692, he advanced in person to besiege Namur, and, with a few waggon loads of powder, blew all Madame Le Blond's plans of marrying her son to the silversmith's daughrer into the air. For after an attack of eight days, he carried the city; and after two-and-twenty days he carried the castles; and Madame Le Blond grew ill from the extremity of her fears, and died. Le Blond was infinitely obliged to the French monarch for his timely interposition; but at the same time his grief for his poor mother was sincere. That careful manager left behind her a far more considerable succession than he had expected. Without his knowledge, she had scraped together sundry rouleaus of gold, which enabled the young man to carry a design he had long entertained into execution, namely, to remove into a more spacious ware-room. In about a quarter of a year, he had left the small shop in the small street, and had settled himself in fine commodious premises in one of the most fashionable parts of the town. His customers, his studies. both male and female, soon found him THE OBSTACLE. One warm summer day, as he went into the garden with the Italian grammar in his hand, and was about to enter the jasmin bower, he perceived that it was already occupied. A young lady sat there, busily intent upon a book. She was apparently not more than eighteen-graceful as a lily-in short, a maiden such as Le Blond had never seen in his life. For it was not an every-day sight-that throat of snow, those cheeks of roses, those glowing lips, and round the stately head, those raven tresses waving in a cloud that might have formed a portion of the Egyption darkness. Le Blond stood at the entrance of the bower abashed and thunderstruck. No less astonished was the beautiful stranger at the approach of Le Blond, who appeared to her like a being from another world. She seemed, indeed, never to have gazed on a Le Blond before. In the agitation of the moment she bowed to him, and he nearly curtsied to her, and both begged pardon a thousand times, without being offended with each other in the least degree. At last a conversation was commenced; the beauty carried it on with wonderful fluency, but without much benefit to Le Blond; for, in the first place, that individual's soul was situated more in his eyes than his ears; and in the second place, her French was nearly unintelligible, and terribly mixed with Italian idioms. But they made out they were neighbours. The garden that joined the foot of Le Blond's belonged to the great house, whose front looked towards the street of St. Fiacre; the said street of St. Fiacre being parallel with that in which Le Blond resided. He had come to learn Italian; she with a French grammar-for she had only been three months arrived from Italy, and was anxious to acquire the French as quickly as possible. While they were engaged in this mutual explanation, which was, indeed, a some. what tedious process for signs and attitudes had to assist in the translation of Italian into French, and French into Italian-a female voice was heard calling the name Jacqueline! Hereupon Jacqueline rapidly took leave, lifted the grammar from the table, and disappeared. Le Blond stood nearly rooted to the ground, and was scarcly aware of what had passed. He seated himself on the bench she had left-he dreamed-he raved as if intoxicated, and was profuse in complimentary speeches to the vanished beauty, as if she were still before him. And now, for the first time, he cursed with all his heart his ignorance of Itallian, and swore by all the saints to devote himself to the study of the grammar, that he might tell his neighbour he was not exactly certain what. But when he seized the grammar, he perceived that the book was not the same-it was a French one. In the agitation of the moment Jacqueline had taken his Italian rudiments, and left her own. He scarcely ventured to touch the holy leaves that had been consecrated by her fingers, and lamented his fate in being only Julius Le Blond, and not the enviable Italian grammar that Jacqueline had carried away with her. He did not recover himself the whole day; but when there were no customers in his shop, he sat in the little back parlour and gazed at the jasmine bower, and the great house beyond it that it belonged to. It was only towards the evening that the thought struck him that it would be proper to go and restore the volume, and by way of insuring its safe delivery, to give it to his lovely neighbour with his own hand. He set off on the instant, and had very soon hurried through the cross alley and reached the street of St. Fiacre. The great house was soon discovered. On the ground-floor was a merchant's shop, and there, in great letters on a black board, he read, "Mesdemoiselles Buonvicini, mantuamakers from Milan." Thus far all was well; but all of a sudden a sort of failing of nerve got possession of him; he went past the palace, for a palace it really was, the whole length of the street; and only recovered his courage when he had got to some distance." Why shouldn't I go in?" he thought; I am not going to do any harm." He turned round, but with every step that he made towards the palace his nervousness increased. "What will she say when she sees me with the grammar? Won't she consider me a pushing, impertinent fool? Couldn't I wait till she asked me for the book herself? And which of the sisters Buonvicini is Jacqueline? Who can tell whether she is at home? And besides, wouldn't it be giving up the grammar, the only chance I have of ever seeing her again?" In the midst of these ruminations he was long past the palace on the other side; but with every step his anxiety to call upon Jacqueline grew stronger. Again and again he returned, and always lost heart at the door. At last, when he had wearied himself with his wanderings up the street and down the street, he |