LIFE OF THE CHEVALIER DE ST. GEORGE
person the grace and features of his mother, with the strength and firmness of M. de Boulogne. The youth's vigour was highly pleasing to the father, who frequently laughed, and said he thought to have produced a man, but in fact he had produced a sparrow. This sparrow, however, grew into an eagle. No man ever united so much suppleness to so much strength. He excelled in all the bodily exercises in which he engaged—an excellent swimmer and skater. He has been frequently known to swim over the Seine with one arm, and to surpass others by his agility upon its surface in the winter. He was a skilful horseman, and remarkable shot—he rarely missed his aim when his pistol was once before the mark. His talents in music unfolded themselves rapidly; but the art in which he surpassed all his contemporaries and predecessors was fencing: no professor or amateur ever showed so much accuracy, such strength, such length of lunge, and such quickness. His attacks were a perpetual series of hits; his parade was so close that it was in vain to attempt to touch him—in short, he was all nerve. St. George had not attained his 21st year when his father proposed him to go to Rouen, and to fence with M. Picard, a fencing master of that place, with a promise, that if he beat him he should have, on his return, a little horse and a pretty cabriolet. Like Cæsar, he came, saw, and conquered, and St. George had his cabriolet. This Picard had been formerly in the army, and harangued very foolishly against the science. St. George, whom he called the Mulatto of Laboissière, would, he publicly asserted, soon give way to him; but he was mistaken, for Laboissière's pupil beat him with ease.
M. de Boulogne survived but a short time this first triumph of his son; he left him an annuity of 7 or 8,000 francs, and
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