Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-10-07

fear or embarrassment. He himself cauSeC
the result of his examination to be signi
fed to the Dame ROLAND, to the Sieur
Tardivi and Consorts, (Jean Pousset,) ant
even to relations of the Sieur de Caille
who had no interest in the exile's proper
ty.
The Dame ROLAND protested, and de
clared her intention to pursue the impos
tor in criminal court. An ordonnance O
the lieutenant-criminal 10th September
1699) decided that the Marine should bt
taken to Manosque and elsewhere, to be-
confronted with whoever would recognize
or disavow him and he himself urgec
that that measure should be put in execu
ton. NJ. ROLAND appealed on behalf O
his wife, and obtained leave to lay an in
formation against the Marine for assum
ing a name which belonged to another per
son, and to prove that the pretended Dc
Caille, the son, was no other than one
Pierre Mege, the son of galley-slave
well known in Provence for twenty year!
past In fact, there were people who
without the slightest hesitation recognised
in the false De Caille, this same Pierre
Mege, of Marseilles, who had been en-
rolled at Toulon in the body of the Mar
ines.
1t is now time to state how Pierre Mege
alias, Sans-Regret, conceived the strange
idea of personating young De Caille.
One day he happened to be slipping hi:
chopine of wine in a dark corner of a public
house in Touon, when there entered three
men whose patois told him they were ma.
tives of Upper Provence-that they came
from Forcalquier and Manosque. One O
them, who had only just come from home
to sell little alabaster images in Toulon
treated the others to gossip about their re-
lations and friends. The De Cables, be
fore the Revocation of the edict, had been
the great folk of the neighborhood. Once
so rich and powerful, now poor and in exile
their misfortunes furnished an endless
theme They talked of the ancient chateau
of the De Cailles, a seigneurial residence
falling to ruins of the death of Isaac, the
last surviving son; Of the deed of gift
made by the Dame ROLAND to the Charlie
of Manosque and of the considerable
fortune which must one day revert to the
lie Gouches and the Rollands at the death
of the last Of the Lausanne exiles.
When the trio rose to depart, Mege ac-
costed them, and said, % Y ou were speak
ing Just now of Isaac de Caille, who seems
to have died in Switzerland. Have any
of you seen him Would you know him
again ?'
NO" replied a Manoscam; but we
have Toulon the carpenter, La Niolette
from the same place, who knew the whole
family well, and who certainly would know
young De Caille again, if per chance he
were not dead
Much obliged, Messieurs. When you
see La Niolette tell him TO favor me with
a call. If he ask in the port for Sans
Regret, the Marine, he will have no diff
Guilty in finding me out. | may, perhaps,
be able to communicate something that
Will be to his profit as well as to his
pleasure"
A few days afterward the carpenter
went to see Sans Regret, who according
to his own subsequent accounD received
him with How are you, La Niolette
Don't you recOllect me ?'
To which the carpenter replied, g" You
are the son of my former master"
What really passed between the two
men cannot be told with any certainty;
neither Of them had an interest in confess
ing the truth But what is certain Is,
that shortly afterward the Marine, Pierre
Meee, alias Sans Regret, the carpenter
La Niolette, and De Muges the trustees
relation, made common cause that La
Niolette assisted the Marine in his first
advances to NJ. de Nauvray and that
their testimony was the first that was
given in proof Of the Marines identity with
Isaac de Caille.
When the Marine during his examina-
ton, was charged with being Pierre Mege
in reality he was not disconnected in the
least frankly avowing at once that he
had borne that name which, however, was
not his own He explained that it had
thus
After the nice adventure, he was
obliged to live somehow, while waiting for
a favorable opportunity of claiming his
real name, De Caille. The militia having
been disbanded, he betook himself to Mar
seilles with an empty purse. No sooner
had he arrived there than he fell in with !
d certain Honorable Nenelle, the wife Of
one Pierre Mege who was living with her
mother and her two sisters-in-law. The /
husband was absent the wife remiss in |
her coniugal duties All those women
moreover, had been brought up in the re-
formed religion, which they had abjured /
only through fear and restraint. 1t was
further tie between them and the Marine. (
He confessed to them the secret of his /
birth, and his desire to regain his righttul
position; they advised him TO conceal his
name and his faith little longer and,
to make things pleasant, Honorable con-
sented that he should pass for her absent |
husband-for Pierre Mege.
This tale was calumny on poor Homo
rade. who was not unfaithful to an absent |
spouse, seeing that the Marine, then pres
ent, was the injured husband, Pierre Mege
himself in the flesh.
To continue our worthy hero's story.
He enlisted under this borrowed name, in
1893, on board the galley La Fidele; he
served in it three years, and was then dis
charged Returned to Marseiles, he
.red to maintain himself by selling a
certain balm, which, he declared, his
the Dame de Caille, had
-aught him to make. As his speculation
scarcely kept the pot boiling, there was
10 help for it but to enlist again, which he
lid, in 1897, at Toulon, still under the
of Pierre Mege, to which he
added the soubriquet of Sans Regret.
Such was his account of himself. On
he other hand, out Of twenty witnesses
brought forward by the Sieur ROLAND,
several who had pursued their studies
ogether with young De Cille declared
hat this person was not he; several
,thers recognized in him Pierre Mege, who
lad been in the Marines ever since 1876.