M. Jordan, though he was called "LECTEUR (Reader)," did not read
to him, I can perceive; but took charge of the Books; busied
himself honestly to be useful in all manner of literary or quasi-
literary ways. He was, as his name indicates, from the French-
refugee department; a recent acquisition, much valued at
Reinsberg. As he makes a figure afterwards, we had better mark
him a little.

Jordan's parents were wealthy religious persons, in trade at
Berlin; this Jordan (Charles Etienne, age now thirty-six) was
their eldest son. It seems they had destined him from birth,
consulting their own pious feelings merely, to be a Preacher of
the Gospel; the other sons, all of them reckoned clever too, were
brought up to secular employments. And preach he, this poor
Charles Etienne, accordingly did; what best Gospel he had; in an
honest manner, all say,--though never with other than a kind of
reluctance on the part of Nature, forced out of her course. He had
wedded, been clergyman in two successive country places; when his
wife died, leaving him one little daughter, and a heart much
overset by that event. Friends, wealthy Brothers probably, had
pushed him out into the free air, in these circumstances: "Take a
Tour; Holland, England; feel the winds blowing, see the sun
shining, as in times past: it will do you good!"

Jordan, in the course of his Tour, came to composure on several
points. He found that, by frugality, by wise management of some
peculium already his, his little Daughter and he might have
quietness at Berlin, and the necessary food and raiment;--and, on
the whole, that he would altogether cease preaching, and settle