The main outline of the story of _Jean le Trouveur_ is soon told, and has no great novelty. The interest lies in the varied incidents that crowd every chapter. In the year 1699 there dwelt at Arles, in Provence, a commander of Malta, by name Anthony Quiqueran, Lord of Beaujeu. After an adventurous career, and innumerable valiant exploits achieved in the wars of the Order against Turks and barbarians; after commanding the galleys of Malta in a hundred successful sea-fights, and enduring a long captivity in the fortress of the Seven Towers, this brave man, at the age of nearly eighty years, dwelt tranquilly in his castle of Beaujeu, reposing, in the enjoyment of perfect health, from the fatigues of his long and busy life, and awaiting with seeming resignation and confidence the inevitable summons of death. Only two peculiarities struck the neighbours of the old knight: one of which was, that he avoided speaking of his past adventures; the other, that he would attend mass but at a particular convent, and that even there he never entered the chapel, but kneeled on a chair in the porch, his face covered with his hands, until the service was concluded. It was supposed by many that he was bound by a vow, and that his conduct was a mark of penitence and humiliation. And although the commander never went to confession, or the communion table, his life was so pure, his charities were so numerous, and he had rendered such great services to the cause of religion, that none ventured to blame his eccentricities and omissions. But one stormy day a little old Turk, the fashion of whose garments was a century old, landed from a brigantine, which had made its way up the Rhone in spite of wind, and, to the wonder of the assembled population, approached the commander of Malta, and said to him--"Anthony Quiqueran, you have but three days left to fulfil your engagements." An hour later, the old knight is in the convent chapel, assisting at a mass, which he has requested the superior to say for him. But when the priest takes the sacred wafer it falls from his hands, a gust of wind extinguishes the tapers, and a confused murmur of voices is heard in the lateral nave of the church. In spite of himself, the officiant utters a malediction instead of a prayer, and, horror-stricken, he descends the steps of the altar, at whose foot M. de Beaujeu lies senseless, his face against the ground. The ensuing chapters contain the commander's confession. Long previously, when languishing in hopeless captivity in a Turkish dungeon, he had made a compact with a demon, by which he was to enjoy liberty and health, and thirty years of glory and good fortune. At the end of that term he must find another person to take his place on similar conditions, or his soul was the property of the fiend. Scarcely was the bargain concluded, when he doubted its reality, and was disposed to attribute it to the delirium of fever. In the uncertainty, he studiously abstained from