who, beginning their career with nothing,
never lose sight of the possibility of being, by
some capricious stroke of Fortune, again
reduced to nothing. Prudence, therefore,
guided him from the outset of his life to its
close. All his thoughts were directed to the
establishment of his house on the surest
foundation; and, to acquire the reputation of
being safe while he silently increased his
wealth, was the great object of his ambition.
He laboured hard also to impress his son
with his own views; and, to carry them into
effect, compelled his closest attention to
business. Never relaxing from personal toil—
not even during the illness which ended
fatally—he permitted no relaxation on the
part of others; and thus it happened that
Richard Devaux knew nothing of the
pleasures of society. Home, in its best sense, he
had none; his mother having died while he
was yet a child without increasing the family,
and he was left to the training of his father
alone. A good training it was for creating
a mere money-making machine; but as men,
after all, are not machines, but have senses,
affections, passions, and as these were for the
most part overlooked by the elder Devaux
in his desire to make his son a model of
commercial respectability, it is not altogether
surprising that the experiment should fail.
Richard Devaux devoted himself to his
father's pursuits, as long as he lived, with all
the earnestness the old man could desire;
being reconciled to what was in reality a
sacrifice, by an ardent love of money. There
was, however, this difference between father
and son: the former would rather have
witnessed the utter downfal of his house than
have sustained it by any course not strictly
honest; the latter was less scrupulous.

Instructed in Monsieur Morin's reasons
for leaving France at that particular crisis,
Richard Devaux foresaw many material
advantages, and anticipated great personal
gratification from being admitted to the counsels,
and enjoying the society of his father's
friend. He certainly was not disappointed
in the last-named expectation. Monsieur
Morin was a person of extensive information,
who had mixed largely with the world,
untainted by its vices, yet familiar with its failings,
and master of many of its secrets. His
powers of observation were rapid, his instincts
true, and his judgments seldom wrong. The
defect in his character—if defect it were
—was a natural tendency, which no
experience could correct, to put implicit trust in
all men's honour. The first article of his
creed, both social and political, was truth: if
difficulties arose from being too out-spoken,
they must be conquered in fair fight.

Richard Devaux was, perhaps, no
worshipper of abstract virtue; but he was fain to
pay respect to the qualities which were
conspicuous in Monsieur Morin, and the sentiments
he uttered were as much to the
purpose as if the sincerest conviction had
prompted them. The atmosphere, moreover,
in which he now lived, allowed but of one
mode of thinking, or, at all events, but of one
form of expression. The friends who gathered
round Monsieur Morin immediately on his
arrival in London, however opposed in many
respects, had one common bond of union.
They were banded together for one high
purpose. The object of the meetings held at
Monsieur Morin's house was to effect a
combination of emigrant wealth and energy, for
restoring France to her former condition.

No sudden impulse had caused this movement;
although it was urged to more immediate
action by the present danger of the
king. Without belonging to the noble class,
Monsieur Morin was thoroughly identified
with all its interests, or, as he viewed the
question, with the interests of his country;
for he had been brought up in the faith of
the ancien régime: not blind to its faults,
but believing that, with those faults amended,
there was no salvation for France beyond the
pale of monarchy. Apprehensions for their
personal safety, and the security of their
property, operated with many of the emigrants;
who, so early as the year seventeen hundred
and ninety, withdrew from France into
Germany and other countries. But all were not
influenced by purely selfish reasons; and, at
the head of the excepted few, was the
Marquis de Grandmesnil, a nobleman of considerable
wealth, who had served with distinction
in the last war. Not even amongst his own
class had Monsieur de Grandmesnil a more
intimate friend than Monsieur Morin, and it
was by his advice that the Marquis acted when,
with his only son, Henri, then in his twenty-
third year, he at length decided on joining
the army of the Prince de Condé. In doing
so he left with Monsieur Morin the
requisite authority for disposing of all his available
property; and, such was the well-known
probity of the man whom he thus trusted,
such was the opinion entertained of his
political capacity, that several other noblemen,
similarly situated also deposited large sums
with Monsieur Morin to be devoted to the
object they all had in view. Foreseeing, on his
side, that England must eventually become
the centre of his party's operations, .Monsieur
Morin repeatedly crossed over to London to
organise his plans for the expected time;
and, although such journeys were eminently
hazardous, his care and skill, coupled with the
assistance rendered by some of the men in
power who secretly wished well to the royal
cause, enabled him to pass to and fro without
molestation and even without suspicion.
These visits were paid in the lifetime of the
elder Devaux, and it was, privately, through
him, as we have seen, that all Monsieur
Morin's financial arrangements were made.

It has been intimated that Richard Devaux
entered readily into the projects of the
emigrants; but, besides the feeling excited
throughout England by the bloody acts of the