I was seated. Encouraged by this mark of confidence I thus
addressed him: "Father, can you tell me to whom those cottages once
belonged?"--"My son," replied the old man, "those heaps of rubbish,
and that untilled land, were, twenty years ago, the property of two
families, who then found happiness in this solitude. Their history is
affecting; but what European, pursuing his way to the Indies, will pause
one moment to interest himself in the fate of a few obscure individuals?
What European can picture happiness to his imagination amidst poverty
and neglect? The curiosity of mankind is only attracted by the
history of the great, and yet from that knowledge little use can
be derived."--"Father," I rejoined, "from your manner and your
observations, I perceive that you have acquired much experience of human
life. If you have leisure, relate to me, I beseech you, the history of
the ancient inhabitants of this desert; and be assured, that even
the men who are most perverted by the prejudices of the world, find
a soothing pleasure in contemplating that happiness which belongs to
simplicity and virtue." The old man, after a short silence, during which
he leaned his face upon his hands, as if he were trying to recall the
images of the past, thus began his narration:--

Monsieur de la Tour, a young man who was a native of Normandy, after
having in vain solicited a commission in the French army, or some
support from his own family, at length determined to seek his fortune in
this island, where he arrived in 1726. He brought hither a young woman,
whom he loved tenderly, and by whom he was no less tenderly beloved. She
belonged to a rich and ancient family of the same province: but he had
married her secretly and without fortune, and in opposition to the will
of her relations, who refused their consent because he was found guilty
of being descended from parents who had no claims to nobility. Monsieur
de la Tour, leaving his wife at Port Louis, embarked for Madagascar, in