Le Fever’s sword

Le Fever’s sword is at once a remnant of a dead soldier’s fortune, a pledge of Uncle Toby’s care for his son, and the instrument with which the young Le Fever hopes to make his own way in the world. Its movement—from the lieutenant’s estate, to a hook in Uncle Toby’s keeping, and finally into the son’s hand—gives the object a small but consequential history of inheritance, departure, and uncertain return.

The Lieutenant’s Remaining Estate

After settling the accounts between the regimental agent and Le Fever, and between Le Fever and the rest of the world, Uncle Toby finds that only an old regimental coat and a sword remain. The sword is not presented as a valuable prize or a complete provision for the future; Uncle Toby calls it all the fortune God has left the boy. Its meaning therefore rests less on material wealth than on the family history and responsibility carried by it.

Uncle Toby gives the coat to Corporal Trim to wear for the sake of the poor lieutenant, but keeps the sword for Le Fever. He hangs it on a crook and points it out as the son’s inheritance. The distinction is telling: the coat can serve another man in the present, while the sword is reserved for the child whose future is still at stake. The two objects mark what can be put to immediate use and what must be kept for a life not yet begun.

From Keepsake to Possession

Uncle Toby’s care for Le Fever continues beyond preserving the sword. He gives the boy a grounding in geometry, teaching him to inscribe a regular polygon in a circle, and sends him to public school. When, at seventeen, Le Fever hears that the emperor is sending an army into Hungary against the Turks, he leaves his Greek and Latin without leave and asks Uncle Toby for his father’s sword and permission to serve under Eugene.

The request turns the sword from a protected inheritance into a chosen instrument. Le Fever does not ask only for equipment: he asks for the right to enter the military life associated with his father. Uncle Toby twice cries out that he will go with him and that the young man will fight beside him, but each time his old wound brings him back to his own physical limitation. The sword thus carries an aspiration Uncle Toby can encourage but cannot personally fulfill.

Uncle Toby takes the blade down from the crook, where it has remained untouched since the lieutenant’s death, and gives it to Corporal Trim to brighten. He keeps Le Fever for a fortnight to equip him and arrange his passage to Leghorn, then places the sword in his hand. Its preservation is not passive: Toby prepares the inherited object for the departure it was meant to enable.

A Father’s Sword and Toby’s Paternal Care

The sword connects two forms of fatherhood. It belonged to Lieutenant Le Fever, but Uncle Toby has taken responsibility for the son’s education, equipment, and prospects. In giving the sword to the young man, Toby returns the father’s relic to its heir while making clear that the boy is not left to face the world without support. He tells him that courage will not fail him, though Fortune may; if Fortune does, he can come back and they will shape another course.

The farewell makes the sword part of an exchange that exceeds inheritance. Uncle Toby embraces Le Fever, and both men weep as they part. In the last kiss, Toby slips sixty guineas into the young man’s hand, tied in an old purse belonging to his father and containing his mother’s ring. The sword, the purse, and the ring gather the dead parents’ remaining traces into the departure, while Toby’s money and blessing add the help he can give in the present. The sword is therefore neither a complete fortune nor a guarantee of success; it is a tangible bond accompanied by practical aid and an open offer of refuge.

The Sword After Defeat and Illness

Le Fever reaches the Imperial army in time to test his sword at the defeat of the Turks before Belgrade. The result is not the triumphant beginning his departure might have promised. A succession of undeserved misfortunes follows him for four years, and sickness eventually overtakes him at Marseilles. In a letter to Uncle Toby, he says he has lost his time, his services, his health, and everything except his sword, and is waiting for the first ship to return.

The report reverses the sword’s earlier promise without making it meaningless. At departure it embodied the possibility that Le Fever might fight his way through the world; after defeat and illness, it is the one possession that remains when his other resources have failed. The weapon survives as a measure of both what he carried into military life and how little that life has left him. The account does not describe what happens to the sword after the letter, but Le Fever’s expected return places it once more in relation to Uncle Toby, who had promised to help him find another course if Fortune turned against him.

Narrative Significance

The sword is a recurring physical link across separate stages of Le Fever’s story: the lieutenant’s death and impoverished estate, the son’s youthful decision to enlist, and his later report from Marseilles. Its changing situation—kept untouched, brightened for use, carried into battle, and retained through adversity—makes the consequences of time and misfortune legible through one concrete object.

Its significance also lies in what it cannot do. Uncle Toby’s encouragement does not command Fortune, and the inherited weapon cannot protect Le Fever from defeat, four years of mischance, or illness. Yet the sword remains a connection to the father whose legacy it bears and the uncle whose care has shaped the son’s departure. It is both a practical military possession and the visible remainder of a family history that neither hardship nor distance has wholly erased.