allowance for the contradictions and errors of
detail inseparable from such a vagabond existence,
at a time, too, when the registers and
certificates of ecclesiastics offered no guarantee
for their accuracy.

Brought together, the mendicant and the
boy acknowledged each other, without hesitation,
as father and son. The widow declared,
in the most calm and natural way, that the child
was not hers.

"But if this lady is your mother," said
Lamoignon to the boy, "why not avow it?
You can do so without the slightest danger
either to yourself, to her, or to the man."

"She is not my mother," the boy replied.
"My mother died in the hospital at
Tours."

"But wouldn't you like to be the son of this
lady? You would be much better off; you
wouldn't have to beg your bread from town to
town."

"I should very well like to be her son, but I
am not."

"Then beggar you are, and beggar you will
remain."

"What must be, must."

"You are willing, then, to return to Monrousseau,
and beg with him?"

"I cannot help it, since he is my father.
I cannot turn my back on him."

One detail struck Lamoignon,which the Vernon
people either could not or would not see. The
beggar-boy could neither read nor write. Now,
amongst the papers relating to the children's
disappearance, Lamoignon found a certificate
from one Gabriel Alexander, a writing-master,
stating that the boys could read and write, and
knew the rudiments of Latin. The result of
the new inquiry was a Decree in Council, dated
2nd June, 1656, sending the parties before the
Parlement of Paris to receive judgment on the
whole matter.

Scarcely a week after the decree was made,
there happened one of those theatrical events
which so rarely occur soon enough in the
dramas of human justice. The absurdity of the
Vernon folk was manifested by the reappearance
of the elder of the missing boys, Pierre
Le Moine. He told the sad and silly story of
his running away with his brother and the two
young Coustards, and their parting with the
latter. He and Jacques, as soon as they were
alone together, directed their steps towards
Vernon; but whether through false shame or
fear, they gave no sign of life to their friends,
and pursued their way, begging, as far as Saint
Waast. There, a gentleman of the name of
De Montaud saw that, in spite of their rags and
haggard looks, they were children of gentle
birth. For twelve days he fed and lodged
them, when the younger, Jacques Le Moine
(whom everybody at Vernon recognised in the
beggar-boy Monrousseau), fell ill and died.
He was buried in the cemetery of the church
of Saint Waast by the brothers of charity.

In confirmation of his tale, Pierre produced
two certificates signed by the curé, the vicaire
(curate), the charitable gentleman, several
parishioners, and the brothers who had interred
poor little Jacques. Pierre continued to reside
in M. De Montaud's house for some time after
his brother's death, until, yielding to his passion
for a vagabond life, he ran away, and took to
begging as before. Tired at last of such a
wretched existence, or yielding to the voice of
reason and duty, he resolved to go and throw
himself into his mother's arms.

She greatly needed some such comfort. She
was now, as far as she knew, utterly childless,
for she had lost, by illness, her youngest boy,
Louis, the one who had never left her. But
what a strange picture of the state of France in
the middle of the seventeenth century! Here
were two boys, vagabonding about for a couple
of years, without the police, to whom the
mother had notified her loss, taking the trouble
to find them out. And here was a gentleman,
a curé, a religious company, harbouring
those children, burying one of them, and
witnessing the disappearance of the other,
without acquainting the authorities or writing to
the family!

It was not until Thursday in Passion Week,
1659, that the First President de Lamoignon
pronounced a judgment ordaining Jean
Monrousseau to be liberated from prison, and his
name erased from the jailer's book; that Louis
Monrousseau should recognise and obey him as
his father (to be sent to the hospital, nevertheless,
to be fed and brought up like the others);
and that all the goods estreated and seized for
Jacques Le Moine's benefit should be restored
to Jeanne Vacherot.

On Thursday, 12th December, will be published
THE
EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER FOR CHRISTMAS,
BY CHARLES DICKENS
AND WILKIE COLLINS.

A NEW SERIAL STORY,
BY WILKIE COLLINS,
Will shortly appear in these pages.

Now ready, in 3 vols., post 8vo,
MABEL'S PROGRESS.
A NOVEL.
By the Author of "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE."
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, Piccadilly