Francis, Count of St. Maurice, was born at Tours, in the year 1580. His father perished in battle before his eyes opened to the day, and his mother scarcely survived his birth a week. His patrimonial property had been wasted in the wars of the League, and his only inheritance was his father's sword, and a few trembling lines written by his dying mother to the famous Baron de Biron, with whom she was distantly connected by the ties of blood. A trinket or two, the remnant of all the jewels that had decked her on her bridal day, paid the expense of arraying the dead wife of the fallen soldier for the grave, and furnished a few masses for the repose of both their souls; and an old servant, who had seen her mistress blossom into woman's loveliness, and then so soon fade into the tomb, after beholding the last dread dear offices bestowed upon the cold clay, took up the unhappy fruit of departed love, and bore it in her arms, on foot, to the only one on whom it seemed to have a claim. Biron, though stern, rude, and selfish, did not resist the demand. Ambition had not yet hardened his heart wholly, nor poisoned the purer stream of his affections; and gazing on the infant for a moment, he declared it was a lovely child, and wondrous like his cousin. He would make a soldier of the brat, he said, and he gave liberal orders for its care and tending. The child grew up, and the slight unmeaning features of the infant were moulded by time's hand--as ready to perfect as to destroy--into the face of as fair a boy as ever the eye beheld. Biron often saw and sported with the child, and its bold, sweet, and fearless mood, tempered by all the graces of youth and innocence, won upon the soldier's heart. He took a pride in his education, made him his page and his companion, led him early to the battle-field, and inured him almost from infancy to danger and to arms. Although occasionally fond of softer occupations--of music, of reading, and the dance--the young Count of St. Maurice loved the profession in which he was trained. Quick-sighted and talented, brave as a lion, and firm as a rock, he rose in his profession, and obtained several of those posts which, together with the liberality of his benefactor, enabled him, in some degree, to maintain the rank which had come down to him without the fortune to support it. Attaching himself more and more to Biron every year, he followed him in all his campaigns and expeditions, and paid him back, by many a service and many a care, the kindness he had shown him in his infancy: so that twice had he saved the marshal's life, and twice, by his active vigilance, had he enabled his leader to defeat the enemy, before he himself had reached the age of eighteen.