raising his voice, "and be sure you do all that woman can--and that is no small power--to tease this youth through all his life to come." As the King spoke, the flutter of a woman's robe--the bright, dear eyes--the sweet, all-graceful form,--the bland glad smile of her he loved, burst upon the young soldier's sight; and she, forgetting fear, timidity, the presence of royalty--all, all but love, sprang forward at once, and bedewed his bosom with her happy tears. SAINT RADIGONDE. It was fair-time when we arrived at Poitiers, and twelve o'clock at night, so that we had some difficulty in getting beds; but going into the kitchen, by dint of a little love, and a great deal of civility, I prevailed upon the chambermaid to give us two which had been reserved for a couple of gentlemen expected from Tours. When I returned to the hall I found my friend with two Frenchmen, Now, under all circumstances, an Englishman generally keeps the distance of two yards between him and a stranger; but as I had determined to go through the world precisely as I would do through a menagerie, and to see all the strange beasts that are in it, I approximated myself, in general, to all those whom Heaven threw in my way. The two Frenchmen were waiting for supper, and so were we; therefore without more ado we all sat down together, and as I much wished to find out the famous field of Poitiers, I soon began to ask a great many questions. But they knew nothing about it. They had never heard of it; and they had lived in the neighbourhood for years, so that they were sure the battle I spoke of could not have happened in their day. "Most probably not," said I. "It must have been before the revolution," said the other Frenchman, who was a good, fat, substantial farmer, come into the town to buy and sell at the fair. "But as Monsieur was fond of curious things," he added, "he ought by all means to see the church of St. Radigonde, where the mark of the Saviour's foot was still to be beheld." And he set to tell me how it happened, and all about it. His story was somewhat after his own fashion, it is true, but it is not a whit the worse for that. "Saint Radigonde," he said, "was a Catholic, and the sister of _Clovis_; who was father to _Henri Quatre_." "I thought that they were more distantly related," said I. But he stuck to his biography, and continued. "Well, Clovis was a very warlike monarch as well as his son, and being engaged in a most tremendous battle, he sent to his sister to desire her prayers, which she very readily granted him; and while thus piously engaged, our Saviour appeared to her and promised her the victory for her brother, leaving the mark of his foot in the marble. "Clovis triumphed over his enemy, and so great was his gratitude for this manifest interference of Heaven in his favour, that he instantly became a sincere Catholic. For you know," said the narrator, "that before that time he was a _Protestant_."