wish she could," said one of the visitors. "But, alas! it is lost.
Our house was plundered during the invasion, and among other things
taken was this precious relic. It is irretrievably gone."

That seemed to end the matter; but not so, there was more of the
consecration oil in existence than could have been imagined. The visit
of the Hourelles was followed after an interval by a call from a Judge
Lecomte, who brought what he affirmed was a portion of the holy ointment
which had been given him by the widow Hourelle. Unluckily, it was of
microscopic dimensions, far from enough to impart the full flavor of
kingship to his majesty Louis XVIII.

It seemed as if this worthy monarch of the Restoration would have to
wear his crown without anointment, when, fortunately, a new and
interesting item of news was made public. It was declared by a number of
ecclesiastics that the cure, M. Seraine, had given only a part of the
oil to Philippe Hourelle, and had himself kept the remainder. He had
told them so, but, as it proved, not a man of them all knew what he had
done with it. He had died, and the secret with him. Months passed away;
spring vanished; summer came; then new tidings bloomed. A priest of
Berry-au-Bac, M. Boure by name, sought M. de Chevrieres, and gladdened
his heart with the announcement that the missing relic was in his
possession, having been consigned to him by M. Seraine. It was rendered
doubly precious by being wrapped in a portion of the winding sheet of
the blessed St. Remy himself.

Nor was this all. Within a week another portion of the lost treasure was
brought forward. It had been preserved in a manner almost miraculous.
Its possessor was a gentleman named M. Champagne Provotian, who had the
following interesting story to tell. He had, a quarter of a century
before, in 1793, been standing near Citizen Rhul when that scion of the
Revolution destroyed the vial of St. Remy, at the foot of the statue of
Louis XV., in front of the Cathedral of Rheims. When he struck the vial
he did so with such force that fragments of it flew right and left, some
of them falling on the coat-sleeve of the young man beside him, M.
Champagne. These he dexterously concealed from the iconoclastic citizen,
took home, and preserved. He now produced them.

Here were three separate portions of the precious ointment. A commission
was appointed to examine them. They were pronounced genuine, oil and
glass alike. Enough had been saved to c