LOUIS DUVAL.

and pet; partly too because they knew it would please
madame, and partly, also, because he was really a very
tractable and engaging boy, and they pitied his orphan
state; for "as for his good-for-nothing father," they
said, though not in Louis's hearing, who was put in
prison for rioting, no doubt he was sent to the galleys
for life, if he was not hung."
 But while the life of Louis Duval was passing thus
quietly in Anjou, events were taking place elsewhere
which were greatly to influence his future life. Of
these events, the boy heard but little, though his pro-
tectors knew too much for their peace and comfort.
And as this story is intended to illustrate certain
important events in history as well as to give amuse-
ment for "a summer day," or a winter night," we
must say a few words about the French Revolution,
which began, in outward seeming, in the year 1789.
 Long before that year, however, it had really
begun, for quite true it was, as old Margaret Duval
had said, the poor felt themselves oppressed by the
rich and longed for a change. This was nothing
new. Then came a bad harvest in the year 1788,
and this, together with bad government, caused such
distress, that the'poor, as you have read, were suffer-
ing by hundreds for want of food. This stirred them
up in revenge against those who, as they said, had
brought them to such a state of destitution and misery.
 There were others, also, who were not poor, who
wished for a change. Some of these were good and
wise men, and friends of their country; others of them
thought only of themselves and their own selfish pur-
poses, and by them the riot was brought about, or, at
least, helped on, in which Louis's father, poor Henry
Duval, was wounded.
 After that sad affair, things got worse instead of