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deferred. In the meantime we are limiting our exhibition to ‘The Sword.’ I have drawn up an explanatory note indicating the significance of the demonstration.”
Having delivered himself of these remarks, Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec produced a pocket-case stuffed full of papers. Picking out from a medley of judgment summonses and other odds and ends a little piece of very crumpled paper, he exclaimed, “Ah, here it is,” and proceeded to read as follows: “The Sword is a fierce Virgin; it is par excellence the Frenchman’s weapon. And now, when patriotic sentiment, after suffering an all too protracted eclipse, is beginning to shine forth again more ardently than ever . . .’ and so forth; you see?”
And he repeated his request for some really fine specimen to be placed in the most conspicuous position in the exhibition to be held on behalf of the little native children of Morocco, of which General d’Esparvieu was to be honorary President.
Arms and armour were by no means Père Guinardon’s strong point. He dealt principally in pictures, drawings, and books. But he was never to be taken unawares. He took down a rapier with a gilt colander-shaped hilt, a highly typical piece of workmanship of the Louis XIII-Napoleon III period, and presented it to the exhibition pro-
