The New York Packet

A remarkable instance of HEROIC FRIENDSHIP in an humble station.

There is now living at Thionville, in Lorraine, a veteran officer, who for his sight lost in the service of his King, and a long life spent in a meritorious discharge of his duty, has been honored with knighthood, and the cross of St. Lewis, and enriched by a pension, or half-pay, of 1200 livres, or about fifty guineas a year. This old gentleman has the misfortune to have a wife, who unwilling to live with him, or nurse him in his infirmities, procured a separation from him, and an annual charge upon his pension. The scanty allowance of fifty guineas a year was unequal to the support of two persons in separate lodgings; therefore the superannuated Chevalier was not able to maintain himself, and pay his wife the stipulated subsistence. The lady knew this very well; but she was resolved that though he should want bread, he would not lose her maintenance. She therefore sued him for the arrear of the annuity, and the poor old gentleman was actually arrested for it. Just as the arrest had been made, a soldier, in the regiment de Segur (dragoons) called upon the Chevalier. This dragoon, whose name is Bonneferre, had conceived a kind of filial respect for the veteran, whom he cherished as a father: knowing that it was not in the old gentleman's power to keep a servant, he used every day to call upon him, and do for him every thing which the best of servants could do for the best of masters. He was shocked when he found the venerable man in the hands of bailiffs: having enquired what was the amount of the sum for which the arrest had been made, he begged the bailiffs would wait half an hour, before they carried their prisoner to gaol, during which time he hoped he should be able to procure his release. They accordingly consented to wait half an hour, and the dragoon set out in order to raise the money: he did not go to the wealthy to excite their compassion, by stating the unhappy situation of a gentleman, worn out by blindness, age and infirmities, just on the verge of being hurried to a prison for a paltry sum: he did not go to his friends to borrow that sum; for the former might be hard-hearted, and the latter too poor to afford the relief he looked for: his friendship, ingenious in devices, found out a sure way of raising the money, and liberating the man for whom he felt the most generous, because the most disinterested regard; it was this:—In France soldiers enlist not for life, as in this country, but for eight years, except in the foreign regiments in French pay, in which the term of military service is four years. Bonneferre, the dragoon in question, had nearly served out his time, and had flattered himself with the pleasing prospect of being soon at liberty to visit his friends and stay at home with his family: but his friendship made him forego the pleasure that the expiration of his term of service had in store for him; and he resolved to re-enlist for eight years, that he might carry the bounty money, always paid on these occasions, to the relief of the gentleman whom the bailiffs were going to carry to prison: he accordingly re-enlisted; paid the demand made upon his friend, and procured that gentleman's liberty at the expense of his own. As soon as the news of this noble and generous act reached the Viscount de Segur, the Colonel of the regiment, he gave orders that Bonneferre should immediately be made a sergeant; and at the same time declared, that if at any time during the ensuing eight years, he should wish for his discharge, he should obtain it gratis. The noble spirited dragoon could not for some time be prevailed upon to consent to his promotion; his excess of delicacy made him resist it; he said that upon any occasion he would have been highly sensible of the honor his Colonel intended him; but it hurt him that it should be bestowed upon him as a reward for an action, which carried with it its own reward. The reward he looked for was in the action itself; he wished for no other; publicity on this occasion, he said, was painful to him, "as a good turn disclosed lost all its value."