"I want to tell you of my father, Margaret," said the young man,
with a gentle voice--" of my father, who thirsted and hungered for
me, in his efforts to feed, clothe, and educate me. He had been an
officer in the army, had distinguished himself in many a battle, was
decorated, on account of his bravery, with the Order of St. Louis,
and discharged as an invalid. That was a sad misfortune for my
father, for he was poor, and his officer's pay was his only fortune.
But no--he had a nobler, a fairer fortune--he had a wife whom he
passionately loved, a little boy whom he adored. And now the means
of existence were taken away from this loved wife, this dear boy,
and from him whose service had been the offering of his life for his
king and country, the storming of fortifications, the defying of the
bayonets of enemies; and who in this service had been so severely
wounded, that his life was saved only by the amputation of his right
arm. Had it not been just this right arm, he would have been able to
do something for himself, and to have found some employment in the
government service. But now he was robbed of all hope of employment;
now he saw for himself and his family only destruction, starvation!
But he could not believe it possible; he held it to be impossible
that the king should allow his bold soldier, his knight of the Order
of St. Louis, to die of hunger, after becoming a cripple in his
service. He resolved to go to Paris, to declare his need to the
king, and to implore the royal bounty. This journey was the last
hope of the family, and my father was just entering on it when my
mother sickened and died. She was the prop, the right arm of my
father; she was the nurse, the teacher of his poor boy; now he had
no hope more, except in the favor of the king and in death. The last
valuables were sold, and father and son journeyed to Paris: an
invalid whose bravery had cost him an arm, and whose tears over a
lost wife had nearly cost him his eyesight, and a lad of twelve