He was, as his name indicates, from the French-refugee department; a recent acquisition, much valued at Reinsberg.

As he makes a figure afterwards, we had better mark him a little.
Jordan's parents were wealthy religious persons, in trade at Berlin; this Jordan (Charles Etienne, age now thirty-six) was their eldest son.
It seems they had destined him from birth, consulting their own pious feelings merely, to be a Preacher of the Gospel; the other sons, all of them reckoned clever too, were brought up to secular employments.

And preach he, this poor Charles Etienne, accordingly did; what best Gospel he had; in an honest manner, all say,--though never with other than a kind of reluctance on the part of Nature, forced out of her course.

He had wedded, been clergyman in two successive country places; when his wife died, leaving him one little daughter, and a heart much overset by that event.

Friends, wealthy Brothers probably, had pushed him out into the free air, in these circumstances: "Take a Tour; Holland, England; feel the winds blowing, see the sun shining, as in times past: it will do you good!" Jordan, in the course of his Tour, came to composure on several points.
He found that, by frugality, by wise management of some peculium already his, his little Daughter and he might have quietness at Berlin, and the necessary food and raiment;--and, on the whole, that he would altogether cease preaching, and settle down there, among his Books, in a frugal manner.