precious articles in his shop.  It was agreed that the riches of the pastor and those of the jeweller should be deposited in the same hole.  But, then, who was to dig the said hole?  One of the singers in church was the very pearl of honest fellows, father Moiselet, and in him every confidence could be reposed.  He would not touch a penny that did not belong to him.  The hole, made with much skill, was soon ready to receive the treasure which it was intended to preserve, and six feet of earth were cast on the specie of the Cure, to which were united diamonds worth 100,000 crowns, belonging to M. Senard, and enclosed in a small box.  The hollow filled up, the ground was so well flattened, that one would have betted with the devil that it had not been stirred since the creation.  “This good Moiselet,” said M. Senard, rubbing his hands, “has done it all admirably.  Now, gentlemen cossacks, you must have fine noses if you find it out!” At the end of a few days the allied armies made further progress, and clouds of Kirguiz, Kalmucs, and Tartars, of all hordes and all colours, appeared in the environs of Paris.  These unpleasant guests are, it is well known, very greedy for plunder:  they made, every where, great ravages; they passed no habitation without exacting tribute:  but in their ardour for pillage they did not confine themselves to the surface, all belonged to them to the centre of the globe; and that they might not be frustrated in their pretensions, these intrepid geologists made a thousand excavations, which, to the regret of the naturalists of the country, proved to them, that in France the mines of gold or silver are not so deep as in Peru.  Such a discovery was well calculated to give them additional energy; they dug with unparalleled activity, and the spoil they found in many places of concealment threw the Croesuses of many cantons into perfect despair.  The cursed Cossacks!  But yet the instinct which so surely led them to the spot where treasure was hidden, did not guide them to the hiding place of the Cure.  It was like the blessing of heaven, each morning the sun rose and nothing new; nothing new when it set.

Most decidedly the finger of heaven must be recognised in the impenetrability of the mysterious inhumation performed by Moiselet.  M. Senard was so fully convinced of it, that he actually mingled thanksgivings with the prayers which he made for the preservation and repose of his diamonds.  Persuaded that his vows would be heard, in growing security he began to sleep more soundly, when one fine day, which was, of all days in the week, a Friday, Moiselet, more dead than alive, ran to the Cure’s.

“Ah, sir, I can scarcely speak.”

“What’s the matter, Moiselet?”

“I dare not tell you.  Poor M. le Cure, this affects me deeply, I am paralyzed.  If my veins were open not a drop of blood would flow.”

“What is the matter?  You alarm me.”

“The hole.”

“Mercy!  I want to learn no more.  Oh, what a terrible scourge is war!  Jeanneton, Jeanneton, come quickly, my shoes and hat.”