Page:Highways and Byways in Sussex.djvu/391

 literature is, of course, Denis Duval, which Thackeray wrote in a house on the north of the churchyard, and which is all of Winchelsea and Rye compact, as the author's letters to Mr. Greenwood, editor of Cornhill, detailing the plot (in the person of Denis himself) go to show. Thus:—

Sedilia and Tombs of Gervase and Stephen Alard, Winchelsea.

"I was born in the year 1764, at Winchelsea, where my father was a grocer and clerk of the church. Everybody in the place was a good deal connected with smuggling.

"There used to come to our house a very noble French gentleman, called the, and with him a German, the . My father used to take packages to Ostend and Calais for these two gentlemen, and perhaps I went to Paris once, and saw the French Queen.

"The squire of our town was of the Priory, who, with his brother, kept one of the genteelest houses in the country. He was churchwarden of our church, and much respected. Yes, but if you read the Annual Register of 1781, you will find that on the 13th July the sheriffs attended at the to receive custody of a De la Motte, a prisoner charged with high treason. The fact is, this Alsatian nobleman being in difficulties in his own country (where he had commanded the Regiment Soubise), came to London, and under pretence of sending prints