Morvilliers, keeper of the seals to Charles the Ninth of France, was one day ordered by his sovereign to put the seals to the pardon of a nobleman who had committed murder.  He refused.  The king then took the seals out of his hands, and having put them himself to the instrument of remission, returned them immediately to Morvilliers, who refused to take them again, saying, “The seals have twice put me in a situation of great honour:  once when I received them, and again when I resigned them.”

Louis the Fourteenth had granted a pardon to a nobleman who had committed some very great crime.  M. Voisin, the chancellor, ran to him in his closet, and exclaimed, “Sire, you cannot pardon a person in the situation of Mr. ——.”  “I have promised him,” replied the king, who was always impatient of contradiction; “go and fetch the great seal.”  “But sire—.”  “Pray, sir, do as I order you.”  The chancellor returned with the seals; Louis applied them himself to the instrument containing the pardon, and gives them again to the chancellor.  “They are polluted, now, sire,” exclaimed the intrepid and excellent magistrate, pushing them from him on the table, “I cannot take them again.”  “What an impracticable man!” cried the monarch, and threw the pardon into the fire.  “I will now, sire, take them again,” said the chancellor; “fire purifies all things.”

FIDELITY.

Old Ambrose.—­Among the few individuals who accompanied James II. to France, when he was dethroned, was Madame de Varonne, a lady of good family, but of ruined fortune.  She was compelled to part with all her servants successively, until she came to her footman, Ambrose, who had lived with her twenty years; and who, although of an austere deportment, was a faithful and valuable servant.  At length her resources would not permit her to retain even Ambrose, and she told him he must seek another place.  “Another place!” exclaimed the astonished servant; “No; I will never quit you, let what will happen; I will live and die in your service.”  In vain was Ambrose told by his mistress that she was totally ruined; that she had sold every thing she had, and that she had no other means of subsistence than by seeking some employment for herself.  Ambrose protested he would not quit his mistress; he brought her his scanty savings of twenty years, and engaged himself to a brazier for tenpence a day and his board.  The money he brought every evening to his mistress, whom he thus supported for four years; at the end of which time she received a pension from the French king, which enabled her to reward the remarkable fidelity of her old servant.