I went to the room where the gambler was; he was evidently in mortal fear. I put down the Napoleons on the table, and then in those deep, pedal, and ecclesiastical notes, which have so often hymned my congregation to repose, informed him that friends of John Finnis were in the town, that he was proclaimed to the authorities, and that he had better leave the neighborhood for ever. With this I left him, joined Le Brun, and was soon on my way back to Honfleur.
"It was well I drew the shot from his pistols," said Le Brun, as we were parting. I did not then see any latent meaning in his words, nor would he ever afterwards answer any questions on the subject. I had forgotten to remove my ghostly dresses and decorations, and Grace and Emma both uttered gentle screams as I stalked into their presence. My tale was soon told, and we retired to rest.
Here the whole tale ends. As the events I recorded recede into the past, I begin almost to doubt the truth of them. But I have one living evidence--now I am glad to say not single--and Le Brun may fairly lay it to me that he has at this moment the most agreeable little lady in all Normandy for his wedded wife. I am not aware if Boots still visits the glimpses of the moon at St. Sauveur, for soon after these events I was obliged to return to my parish to put down the Popish fooleries which I found my hack had begun to introduce. If, however, he does, I only hope his reappearance will be as useful as in the above little narrative, but the Brown, the Gray--and the narrator have now done with him for ever.
About the year 1670, there lived at Dijon a certain notary, an original in his way, named Melchior Jolyot. His father was an innkeeper; but of a more ambitious nature than his sire, the son, so soon as he had succeeded in collecting a little money, purchased for himself the office of head clerk in the Chambres des Comptes of Dijon, with the title of Greffier of the same. During the following year, having long been desirous of a title of nobility, he acquired, at a very low price, a little abandoned and almost unknown fief, that of Crebillon, situated about a league and a half from the city.
His son, Prosper Jolyot, the future poet, was at that time a young man of about two-and-twenty years of age, a student at law, and then on the eve of being admitted as advocate at the French bar. From the first years of his sojourn in Paris, we find that he called himself Prosper Jolyot _de Crebillon_. About sixty years later, a worthy philosopher of Dijon, a certain Monsieur J. B. Michault, writes as follows to the President de Ruffey:--"Last Saturday (June 19th, 1762), our celebrated Crebillon was interred at St. Gervais. In his _billets de mort_ they gave him the title of _ecuyer_; but what appears to me more surprising, is the circumstance of his son adopting that of _messire_."