a generation before coming to the wilds of America, was now lifted from its gilt frame and every particle of quicksilver carefully scraped from the back. Then the pier plate was shattered and the fragments gathered, bit by bit, into the Doctor's mysterious crucible, making the country people watch and wonder.
So long had Meriwether Lewis been with Jefferson, that he had imbibed the same eager desire to know, to understand. When he met with Doctor Saugrain it was like a union of kindred spirits. Saugrain, the pupil, friend, and disciple of the great Franklin, was often with the American scientist when he experimented with his kites, and drew down lightning to charge his Leyden jars. Three times Dr. Saugrain came to America, twice as guest of Dr. Franklin, before he settled down as physician to the Spanish garrison at St. Louis in 1800. With him he brought all his scientific lore, the latest of the most advanced city in the world. When all the world depended on flint and steel, Paris and Dr. Saugrain made matches. He made matches for Lewis and Clark that were struck on the Columbia a generation before Boston or London made use of the secret.
Bitterly the cheerful, sprightly little Royalist in curls lamented the French Revolution. "Oh, the guillotine! the guillotine! My own uncle, Dr. Guillotine, invented that instrument to save pain, not to waste life. But when he saw his own friends led up to the knife, distressed at its abuse he died in despair!"
Sufficient reason had Dr. Saugrain to be loyal to Louis XVI. For more than two hundred years his people had been librarians, book-binders, and printers for the King. Litterateurs and authors were the Saugrains for six continuous generations, and out of their scientific and historical publications came the bent of Dr. Antoine François Saugrain of St. Louis. But when the Bastile was stormed, Saugrain left France for ever. An emigré, a royalist, with others of the King's friends he came to the land that honoured Louis XVI.
Between the Rue de l'Église and the Rue des Granges, at the extreme southwestern limit of the old village of
