Between you and me, he was not a little vain of his leg, and a compliment on that score was always sure of a gracious reception.
The solitude of my uncle's household was broken by an invasion of three boys,--none of the quietest,--and their mother, who, the gentlest and saddest of womankind, seemed to follow them, the emblem of that primeval silence from which all noise was born.

These three boys were my two brothers and myself.

My father, who had conceived a strong personal attachment for Louis XIV., never quitted his service, and the great King repaid him by orders and favours without number; he died of wounds received in battle,--a Count and a Marshal, full of renown and destitute of money.

He had married twice: his first wife, who died without issue, was a daughter of the noble house of La Tremouille; his second, our mother, was of a younger branch of the English race of Howard.

Brought up in her native country, and influenced by a primitive and retired education, she never loved that gay land which her husband had adopted as his own.