dry sticks and show how rootless, how sapless,
they are. The words are not cold on your lips
before the waterers have replanted their beloved
idols; and you must wait for the Day of
Judgment until they are removed.

JEANNE VACHEROT.

SIXTUS THE FIFTH used to say that he was
ready to canonise any woman who got praise
from her husband. One of his saints ought to
have been Jeanne Vacherot, even although the
praise was posthumous.

On the 6th of May, 1640, she was married
to Lancelot Le Moine, of Norman extraction,
and a notary of the Clâtelet, in Paris. He
died in January, 1649, leaving her with three
boys, Pierre, Jacques, and Louis, and appointing
her by his will, dated 1645, their sole guardian
during their minority—"desiring them to have
no other guardian but her, because it would be
their ruin."

The wishes of the defunct were strictly carried
out. Jeanne Vacherot, widow of Lancelot Le
Moine, was fully invested with the guardianship
of her children by sentence of the Châtelet.
Discreet and religious, well-conducted, and of
good repute, she perfectly fulfilled her duties
as a mother and a widow. She gave her three
sons an education suitable to their condition—
summary, no doubt—but quite sufficient, according
to the notions of the day. She sent them
to school, where they learnt to read, write, and
cipher, and were even taught the elements of
the Latin language.

Amongst the property which she had to
manage were two farms, situated between
Saint Pierre d'Autils and Vernon, a small
fortified town in Normandy. They required her
occasional visits to the latter place, where she
was known by the title of the notaress. In
September, 1654, she had to pay one of these visits,
in order to receive her rents. Her three sons
were, at that time, aged—Pierre, fourteen;
Jacques, ten; and Louis not quite eight years.
She took the youngest only with her, leaving
the two others under the care of Catherine
Janvier, their maternal grandmother, and a
maid-servant, who had had charge of them from
their infancy.

All this is common-place enough; the strange
part of the story now begins. After the mother's
departure, whether the grandmother and the
servants allowed the boys to do pretty much
as they liked, or whether they were led astray
by bad examples, they forgot the way to school,
filling up their time with truanting instead, in
company with the two sons of a neighbour
named Coustard. One fine evening the four
young gentlemen failed to return to their
respective homes. What had become of them?
Neither the Morgue nor the Lieutenant de
Police gave the slightest clue to their anxious
friends.

After the lapse of several days, Coustard's
two lads were brought back again by one of
the Provost Marshal's officers, crestfallen, haggard,
tanned, with their clothes in tatters, but
right glad to regain the comforts of bed and
board, even at the expense of a paternal
correction. Of the widow's sons there were not
the slightest tidings. They had parted company
with the others in the course of their wanderings.
Jeanne Vacherot, informed of these sad
events at Vernon, had the country searched all
round about. In vain she caused their description
to be published from village to village with
trumpet and drum; she could not hit upon a
trace of the fugitives. Several months were
spent in fruitless inquiries. The distracted
mother frequented fairs, questioned beggars,
and visited gipsies' camps, for many stories
were then current of children being carried off
by strolling mendicants. But it is not easy to
steal a boy of ten, still less of fourteen years
of age; nor would he, even after a long
confinement, forget his name and his parent's
dwelling-place.

Finding all her endeavours useless, on the
12th of May, 1655, Jeanne Vacherot made her
complaint before a commissaire, acquainting him
with the disappearance of her children. It was
a prudential step, a formality gone through with
in obedience to sage advice, rather than a tardy
measure to obtain a clue to the children's
whereabouts. The police, at that time, and especially
the rural police, was nearly powerless for good,
and, what a mother's exertions had failed to
accomplish, official interference was not likely
to effect.

Meanwhile, poor Jeanne Vacherot had not
forgotten her missing boys. One day she caught
sight of a pauper lying on the steps of the
Hôtel Dieu, in Paris, with a child by his side.
A vague and distant resemblance to Jacques at
once struck the mother's heart; she advanced
and examined the beggar-boy, as she had already
done with so many others. No, it was not her
Jacques; this one was younger, slighter made;
and, besides, with a parent a mistake is not
possible, after only eight months' absence. The
widow, nevertheless, entreated the father to
inquire after her lost boys wherever he went.
She minutely described them to him, gave him
a small offering, and promised him a handsome
recompense if he should succeed in finding
them.

On the 25th of July, 1655, the good people
of Vernon were assembled at mass in the parish
church of Sainte Geneviève. During the Gospel,
a mendicant entered, accompanied by a lad
who appeared to be about eight years of age.
Both of them, in rags and tatters, carried a
beggar's wallet, and their dusty and dilapidated
shoes indicated that they were on the tramp.
Jeanne Vacherot happened to be in church at
the time. Now the people of Vernon were
perfectly aware of her having lost her two eldest
boys; Jacques Le Moine, the younger of the
fugitives, was born there; and many persons
present had seen the child, and took an interest
in his fate.

After the beggars had said a short prayer,