Major Anspach was an old gentleman who was as thin as he was long, nay, even thinner than he was long.

Forty years before the epoch when occurred, oh reader, the events we shall take the liberty to recount to you, the worthy major was the finest looking musqueteer in the regiment of Monsieur d’Artois. He possessed some fortune, belonged to one of the best families in Lorraine, could fence to admiration, and had a heart at the service of the fair sex. The ladies of the court and city, to whom a son of Mars is always irresistible, of course were not insensible to the attractions of a musqueteer of five feet eleven, and the major, on his part, was so gallant in his attentions to them, that his captain gave him the title of the Turenne of boudoirs.

But forty years leave some traces of their flight; Major Anspach in 1827 was the mere shadow of his former self, and retained of his vanished splendors only a scanty income of 800 livres, a pair of black plush pantaloons, a long snuff-colored overcoat, and a garret for which he paid forty crowns a year.

Notwithstanding this serious diminution of the means of happiness, the major, who was a widower, contrived to enjoy himself perfectly for at least six months in the year. How few persons do we see who can boast of being satisfied with their destiny one day out of two?

It is true that the moderate pleasures of Major Anspach did not materially encroach on his pocket, and for this we deem the cidevant musqueteer worthy of eulogium. He limited his enjoyments to a promenade in the Tuileries, each time that the sun deigned to shine on its precincts, happy alike when the Dog Star raged or under the frozen beams of a wintry sky. As this orb however rarely deigns to show us his face in unclouded brilliance, our old friend had made it his profound study to discover that part of the garden in which he could enjoy the rays of Phoebus without exposure to their intensity.

After much research and divers trials, the major at last made his choice. At the extremity of the terrace des Feuillants is a platform, embowered in trees and shrubs, which commands a view of the Place de la Concorde, and the architectural entrance to that part of the garden. A balustrade terminates this platform, and by a graceful sweep conducts you to a pleasant enclosure between the avenues and the western gate of the Tuileries. This turn in the balustrade forms then, as you will perceive, an acute angle with the line of the platform, and it is of the summit of this angle, whose sides are composed of two walls about twelve feet high, which form a fortified corner, that we are going to speak. Exposed to the rising sun, this spot (as the reader may ascertain for himself if he likes) seems expressly constructed in order to concentrate the greatest possible heat in the smallest space, which heat would indeed be insupportable were it not surrounded with flowering shrubs and thickets to render it agreeable to the frequenters of the place.

Major Anspach, for reasons pertaining a little to his plush inexpressibles, avoided all contact with the passing crowd; and although gazing with pleasure on the sports of the children who visited the garden, nothing would have annoyed him more than too close a proximity to the young rogues, or to the fresh and frisky damsels with laughing eyes who had charge of the juveniles. It was essential to his comfort, therefore, to select a position where he could see without being seen, and also that his seat should be of such narrow limits that when he once occupied it, no one could expect to share it with him.

This bench M. Anspach had at last discovered at the intersection of the balustrade and platform, between two hedges of woodbine and honeysuckle, shaded by the foliage of a noble tree, and fragrant with roses and jasmine. He could there bask in the morning sun, enjoy a refreshing breeze at noon, and in the evening luxuriate in the perfume exhaled from the flowers and shrubs. The place, however, was so narrow, and so completely buried in the surrounding foliage that, although, as we have before insinuated, our friend was the longest and thinnest of majors, he could not, without some trouble, ensconce himself within its limits, but, once seated, his angular figure so completely coincided with the geometrical accidences of the bench, that it was impossible for even a fly to find a resting-place beside him.

Established in his daily position, the view of the dazzling faÇade of the royal palace through the grove of venerable chestnut trees, would plunge the old man in retrospection of the gay scenes in which he had once been an actor, and it was these melancholy though pleasing reminiscences of the past, combined with the murmur of the lively crowd and the mingled perfume and beauty of the flowers and foliage, that rendered this spot a terrestrial paradise to the cidevant musqueteer.

And how does it happen, you ask, that this poor Major Anspach, who was really a gentleman and courtier at Versailles forty years ago, should now be reduced to seek a refuge from the sun, and from the inquisitive gaze that might have too closely peered into the mystery of his plush inexpressibles?

It was by one of those simple, unforeseen accidents, on which sometimes hangs the destiny of a life-time, and which, in the major’s case, occurred in this wise: One evening a celebrated belle, Mademoiselle Guimard, was so awkward as to drop her handkerchief; the consequence of which was that her friend fell from one trouble into another, until Fate landed him in his long snuff-colored overcoat and plush pantaloons on the bench which is the true subject of this remarkable history.

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