“She will be a simpleton to her last breath,” said the former collector, who, however, dined with her twice a week.

This history would be strangely incomplete if no mention were made of the coincidence of the Chevalier de Valois’s death occurring at the same time as that of Suzanne’s mother.  The chevalier died with the monarchy, in August, 1830.  He had joined the cortege of Charles X. at Nonancourt, and piously escorted it to Cherbourg with the Troisvilles, Casterans, d’Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc.  The old gentleman had taken with him fifty thousand francs,—­the sum to which his savings then amounted.  He offered them to one of the faithful friends of the king for transmission to his master, speaking of his approaching death, and declaring that the money came originally from the goodness of the king, and, moreover, that the property of the last of the Valois belonged of right to the crown.  It is not known whether the fervor of his zeal conquered the reluctance of the Bourbon, who abandoned his fine kingdom of France without carrying away with him a farthing, and who ought to have been touched by the devotion of the chevalier.  It is certain, however, that Cesarine, the residuary legate of the old man, received from his estate only six hundred francs a year.  The chevalier returned to Alencon, cruelly weakened by grief and by fatigue; he died on the very day when Charles X. arrived on a foreign shore.

Madame du Val-Noble and her protector, who was just then afraid of the vengeance of the liberal party, were glad of a pretext to remain incognito in the village where Suzanne’s mother died.  At the sale of the chevalier’s effects, which took place at that time, Suzanne, anxious to obtain a souvenir of her first and last friend, pushed up the price of the famous snuff-box, which was finally knocked down to her for a thousand francs.  The portrait of the Princess Goritza was alone worth that sum.  Two years later, a young dandy, who was making a collection of the fine snuff-boxes of the last century, obtained from Madame du Val-Noble the chevalier’s treasure.  The charming confidant of many a love and the pleasure of an old age is now on exhibition in a species of private museum.  If the dead could know what happens after them, the chevalier’s head would surely blush upon its left cheek.

If this history has no other effect than to inspire the possessors of precious relics with holy fear, and induce them to make codicils to secure these touching souvenirs of joys that are no more by bequeathing them to loving hands, it will have done an immense service to the chivalrous and romantic portion of the community; but it does, in truth, contain a far higher moral.  Does it not show the necessity for a new species of education?  Does it not invoke, from the enlightened solicitude of the ministers of Public Instruction, the creation of chairs of anthropology,—­a science in which Germany outstrips us?  Modern myths are even less understood than ancient ones,