was made chef-d'escadron, on the grand staff,
of the Duke de Dalmatia—the brave and
virtuous Marshal Soult. Soon after, he was
made chef-de-bataillon of the hundredth
regiment of the line, and his fortune seemed
to be secure. At Toulouse and at Waterloo
he signalised himself greatly, received many
wounds, and performed many acts of
gallantry; for these he was rewarded with the
cross of the legion of honour: no common
reward in those days. In eighteen hundred
and fifteen, the Duke de Berri made him
successively Chevalier de Saint Louis, chef-
de-bataillon, and lieutenant-colonel of the
troops of the Seine. There was not a
man in the army who did not envy and
admire the gallant and successful Count
Pontis de Sainte Hélène.

One day, the count was in the Place
Vendôme. Assisting, at the head of his
troops, in the painful ceremony of a military
degradation. He was in full uniform,
glistening with stars and crosses, and gay
with many-coloured orders; surrounded by
the best and noblest of the land, and standing
there as their equal. A voice at his elbow
calls "Cognard!" The count turns. He
sees a dirty, haggard, low-browed ruffian,
whose features he only too well remembers;
for, years ago, within the fatal walls of
Rochefort, that low-browed ruffian had been
his chained companion, manacled to him
limb to limb. To put a bold front on it was
all that the count could do; to order the
man to be thrust back; to affect indifference,
ignorance, disdain—he saw no better way of
escape. But, his chain-mate, one of
Cognard's inferiors, was not to be so easily put
off. He denounced the lieutenant-colonel, in
the hearing of them all, as an escaped convict,
and gave his real name and history. General
Despinois ordered the arrest of his officer ;
and four gendarmes seized him, in face of his
troops. He demanded and obtained
permission to go to his hotel, for a change of
clothes; when there, he seized a brace of
pistols, presented them at his guards, and
while they stood stupified and thunderstruck
at his daring, he rushed from the hôtel, and
they saw him no more.

Six months afterwards he was caught ; tried
as an escaped convict, and for forgery, and murder;
condemned to the galleys for life; and, in a
few years, died at Brest an outcast and degraded
forçat. If it had not been for that voice on
the Place Vendôme, Cognard the convict
might have died Count Pontis de Sainte
Hélène, Maréchal de France.

Anthelme Collet, a gentleman by birth and
education, an officer on the fair way to
promotion, deserted the army in seventeen
hundred and ninety-six; and, under the name of
Tolosant, establishes himself at Rome as an
"engraver of armorial bearings." In the
course of his profession he became
acquainted with Cardinal Fesch, who, taking a
fancy to the handsome young engraver, had
him to live with him in his palace. Such a
patronage is worth money; accordingly,
Tolosant turned it into sixty thousand francs
(two thousand four hundred pounds), which,
on the strength of his intimacy with
monseigneur, he borrows of a banker. With
this sixty thousand francs he quits Rome
and the cardinal, without the trouble of saying
adieu; escaping to Mondovi, where he leads
the life of a veritable prince. Received
among the golden youth as one of
themselves—as indeed how should he not be with
his elegant manners, handsome person, and
evident wealth?—he soon became the leader
of their fashions and their amusements.
After organising many very popular games,
he proposes private theatricals; of which
he is to be costumier and keeper of the
wardrobe. The thing takes immensely ; and
all sorts of plays are agreed on and dressed
for. When all the dresses are chosen and
in the theatrical wardrobe, our friend amuses
himself one night by packing them up
smoothly and carefully in certain private
vallises: and, before the morning sun shone
on Mondovi, the popular stage-manager and
his characters were far on their way to
Sion.

A mild, modest mannered, young priest
arrived by diligence at Sion. He had excellent
letters of introduction, and was received
with cordiality by the clergy, whom he much
edified by his spiritual graces and good gifts.
In a short time lie was placed as curé in the
small parish of Saint Pierre ; which office he
filled for five months, with exemplary
devotion. There was a talk of removing him to
another more populous sphere, where his
labours would be more conspicuously blessed;
but, while the project was pending, one fine
morning the reverend father was missing;
and, with him, a sum of thirty thousand francs,
which had been intrusted to him for the
reconstruction of the church. The part of the
village curé, which had been apportioned
to one of the golden youth at Mondovi,
brought the grist to Anthelm Collet's mill
for a long time.

From Sion to Strasbourg, from Strasbourg
into Germany; thence back again to
Italy—this time under the name and title of
a general—the thirty thousand francs carrying
him bravely on the very crest of fortune,
the young swindler led a comfortable life
enough. But, his funds were getting low;
and, to replenish them, the general put his
name and graces out at interest, and
borrowed on them a large sum from a banker of
Savone. He was nearly caught there. The
banker was a wary man, and only trusted
even generals as far as he could see them.
However, the man of war disappeared when
the banker began to stir; and, in his place
stood the grave and reverend prelate
Monseigneur Dominique Pasqualini, Bishop of
Manfredonia, who, with a forged bulle