, and alone in the
world. He married her. This was in 1855, and the following year brought
to Dr. Reynaud a great sorrow and a great joy--the death of his old
mother and the birth of his son Jean.

At an interval of six weeks, the Abby Constantin recited the prayers
for the dead over the grave of the grandmother, and was present in the
position of godfather at the baptism of the grandson.

In consequence of constantly meeting at the bedside of the suffering
and dying, the priest and the doctor had been strongly attracted to each
other. They instinctively felt that they belonged to the same family,
the same race--the race of the tender, the just, and the benevolent.

Year followed year--calm, peaceful, fully occupied in labor and duty.
Jean was no longer an infant. His father gave him his first lessons in
reading and writing, the priest his first lessons in Latin. Jean was
intelligent and industrious. He made so much progress that the two
professors--particularly the Cure--found themselves at the end of a few
years rather cast into the shade by their pupil. It was at this moment
that the Countess, after the death of her husband, came to settle at
Lavardens. She brought with her a tutor for her son Paul, a very nice,
but very lazy little fellow. The two children were of the same age; they
had known each other from their earliest years.

Madame de Lavardens had a great regard for Dr. Reynaud, and one day she
made him the following proposal:

"Send Jean to me every morning," said she, "I will send him home in
the evening. Paul's tutor is a very accomplished man; he will make the
children work together. It will be rendering me a real service. Jean
will set Paul a good example."

Things were thus arranged, and the little bourgeois set the little
nobleman a most excellent example of industry and application, but this
excellent example was not followed.

The war broke out. On November 14th, at seven o'clock in the morning,
the mobiles of Souvigny assembled in the great square of the town; their
chaplain was the Abbe Constantin, their surgeon-major, Dr. Reynaud. The
same idea had come at the same moment to both; the priest was sixty-two,
the doctor fifty.

When they started, the battalion followed the road which led through
Longueval, and which passed before the doctor's house. Madame Reynaud
and Jean were waiting by the roadside. The child threw himself into his
father's arms.

"Take me, too, papa! take me, too!"