Page:A French volunteer of the war of independence (the chevalier de Pontgibaud).djvu/15

Rh That the book is rare and rather valuable is due to the " book -maniacs ", who have snapped-up every available copy, not on account of any interest in the book or its author, but because of — the printer! A certain young man had persuaded his relatives to set him up in business as a printer, but in a little over a year he contrived to lose more than 150,000 francs. He threw up the business in disgust, and resolved to make his living by the pen. To prove that he was better fitted to compose with the pen than with the "stick", it needs but to cite his name, — Honore de Balzac! Even a book which had the honour of proceeding from the novelist's unprofitable press has acquired a fictitious value.

Both as the Chevalier de Pontgibaud and the Marquis de More, the author had the good sense to keep out of politics, and his name occurs but rarely in memoirs and histories of the day. In Vatel's Vie de Madame du Barry he is mentioned as being present at a dinner party to which she was invited. The incident is related in the MS. Memoirs of Comte Dufort de Cheverny. " Seeing that the Chevalier wore the Order of Cincinnatus, she told us the following story. 'When I was at Versailles, I had the six tallest and best looking footmen that could be found, but the noisiest, laziest rascals that ever lived. The ring-leader of them gave me so much trouble that I was obliged to send him away. The war in America was then beginning, and he asked for letters of recommen- dation. I gave them, and he left me with a well filled purse, and I was glad to get rid of him. A year ago he came to see me, and he was wearing the Order of Cin- cinnatus.' We all laughed at the stury, except the Chevalier de Pontgibaud."

On the fly leaf of a book in the Library at Clermont