MONSIEUR MAURICE

By

AMELIA B. EDWARDS

1873



1


The events I am about to relate took place more than fifty years ago. I am
a white-haired old woman now, and I was then a little girl scarce ten years
of age; but those times, and the places and people associated with them,
seem, in truth, to lie nearer my memory than the times and people of
to-day. Trivial incidents which, if they had happened yesterday, would be
forgotten, come back upon me sometimes with all the vivid detail of a
photograph; and words unheeded many a year ago start out, like the
handwriting on the wall, in sudden characters of fire.

But this is no new experience. As age creeps on, we all have the same tale
to tell. The days of our youth are those we remember best and most fondly,
and even the sorrows of that bygone time become pleasures in the
retrospect. Of my own solitary childhood I retain the keenest recollection,
as the following pages will show.

My father's name was Bernhard--Johann Ludwig Bernhard; and he was a native
of Coblentz on the Rhine. Having grown grey in the Prussian service, fought