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THE PARISIANS.

AUTHOR OF

“THE COMING RACE,” “ KENELM CHILLINGLY,” “A STRANGE STORY,”
“MY NOVEL,” “THE CAXTONS,” &C., &C

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY SYDNEY HALL

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

1874.

TZ3

.L'?9?

40-

Lord Lytton’s Works.

KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 8vo, Paper, 75 cents;
i2mo, Cloth, $i 25.

THE PARISIANS. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper,
i2mo. Cloth,

THE COMING RACE. i2mo. Paper, 50 cents;
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WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT? 8vo, Paper.
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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

Harper & Brothers ivill send any of the above works by mail, postage prepaid, to any
part of the United States, on receipt of the price.

•J

> J A

PREFATORY NOTE.

(BY THE AUTHOR’S SON.)

The Parisians and Kenelm Chillingly were begun about the same time, and
had their common origin in the same central idea. That idea first found fan-
tastic expression in The Coming Race ; and the three books, taken togethei-,
constitute a special group distinctly apart from all the other works of their
author.

The satire of his earlier novels is a protest against false social respectabili-
ties ; the humor of his later ones is a protest against the disrespect of social
realities. By the first he sought to promote social sincerity, and the free play
of personal character ; by the last, to encourage mutual charity and sympathy
among all classes on whose inter-relation depends the character of society itself.
But in these three books, his latest fictions, the moral purpose is more definite
and exclusive. Each of them is an expostulation against what seemed to him
the perilous popularity of certain social and political theories, or a warning
against the influence of certain intellectual tendencies upon individual character
and national life. This purpose, however, though common to the three fictions,
is worked out in each of them by a different method. The Coming Race is a
work of pure fancy, and the satire of it is vague and sportive. The outlines
of a definite purpose are more distinctly drawn in Chillingly — a romance
which has the source of its effect in a highly wrought imagination. The
humor and pathos of Chillingly are of a kind incompatible with the design of
The ParisianSy which is a work of dramatized observation. Chillingly is a
Romance, The Parisians is a Novel. The subject of Chillingly is psychological,
that of The Parisians is social. The author’s object in Chillingly being to
illustrate the effect of “ modern ideas” upon an individual character, he has
confined his narrative to the biography of that one character. Hence the
simplicity of plot and small number of dramatis personoCy whereby the work
gains in height and depth what it loses in breadth of surface. The ParisiaiUy
on the contrary, is designed to illustrate the effect of “ modern ideas” upon a
whole community. This novel is therefore panoramic in the profusion and
variety of figures presented by it to the reader’s imagination. No exclusive
prominence is vouchsafed to any of these figures. All of them are drawn and
colored with an equal care, but by means of the bold broad touches necessary

Vlll

THE PARISIANS.— PREFATORY NOTE.

for their effective presentation on a canvas so large and so crowded. Such
figures are, indeed, but the component features of one great Form, and their
actions only so many modes of one collective impersonal character, that of the
Parisian Society of Imperial and Democratic France — a character every where
present and busy throughout the story, of which it is the real hero or heroine.
This society was doubtless selected for characteristic illustration as being the
most advanced in the progress of “ modern ideas.” Thus, for a complete
perception of its writer’s fundamental purpose, Tlie Parisians should be read
ill connection with Chillingly^ and these two books 'in connection with The
Coming Pace. It will then be perceived that, through the medium of alter-
nate fancy, sentiment, and observation, assisted by humor and passion, these
three books (in all other respects so different from each other) complete the
presentation of the same purpose under different aspects, and thereby consti-
tute a group of fictions which claims a separate place of its own in any
thoughtful classification of their author’s works.

One last word to those who will miss from these pages the connecting and*
completing touches of the master’s hand.* It may be hoped that such a
disadvantage, though irreparable, is somewhat mitigated by the essential
character of the work itself.* The aesthetic merit of this kind of novel is in
the vivacity of a general effect produced by large swift strokes of character ;
and in such strokes, if they be by a great artist, force and freedom of style
must still be apparent, even when they are left rough and unfinished. Nor
can any lack of final verbal correction much diminish the intellectual value
which many of the more thoughtful passages of the present work derive from
a long, keen, and practical study of political phenomena, guided by personal
experience of public life, and enlightened by a large, instinctive knowledge of
the human heart.

Such a belief is, at least, encouraged by the private communications sponta-
neously made, to him who expresses it, by persons of political experience and
social position in France, who have acknowledged the general accuracy of the
author’s descriptions, and noticed the suggestive sagacity and penetration of
his occasional comments on the circumstances and sentiments he describes.

See also Note, by the Author’s Son, p. 238.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

They who chance to have read the Coming Mace may perhaps remember
that I, the adventurous discoverer of the land without a sun, concluded the
sketch of my adventures by a brief reference to the malady which, though
giving no perceptible notice of its encroachments, might, in the opinion of my
medical attendant, prove suddenly fatal.

I had brought my little book to this somewhat *melancholy close a few years
before the date of its publication, and, in the mean while, I was induced to
transfer my residence to Paris, in order to place myself under the care of an
English physician renowned for his successful treatment of complaints anal-
ogous to my own.

I was the more readily persuaded to undertake this journey, partly because
I enjoyed a familiar acquaintance with the eminent physician referred to, who
had commenced his career and founded his reputation in the United States,
partly because I had become a solitary man, the ties of home broken, and dear
friends of mine were domiciled in Paris, with whom I should be sure of tender
sympathy and cheerful companionship. I had reason to be thankful for this

change of residence; the skill of Dr. C soon restored me to health.

Brought much into contact with various circles of Parisian society, I became
acquainted with the persons, and a witness of the events, that form the sub-
stance of the tale I am about to submit to the public, which has treated my
former book with so generous an indulgence. Sensitively tenacious of that
character for strict and unalloyed veracity which, I flatter myself, my account
of the abodes and manners of the Vril-ya has established, I could have wished
to preserve the following narrative no less jealously guarded than its prede-
cessor from the vagaries of fancy. But Truth undisguised, never welcome in
any civilized community above-ground, is exposed at this time to especial
dangers in Paris; and my life would not be worth an hour’s purchase if I
exhibited her in puris naturalibus to the eyes of a people wholly unfamiliar-
ized to a spectacle so indecorous. That care for one’s personal safety, which
is the first duty of thoughtful man, compels me, therefore, to reconcile the

THE PARISIANS.— INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

appearance of la Yerite to the hiens'mnces of the polished society in which
la Liherte admits no opinion not dressed after the last fashion.

Attired as fiction, Truth may be peacefully received ; and, despite the neces-
sity thus imposed by prudence, I indulge the modest hope that I do not in
these pages unfaithfully represent certain prominent types of the brilliant pop-
ulation which has invented so many varieties of Koom-Posh ;* and even when
it appears hopelessly lost in the slough of a Glek-Nas, re-emerges fresh and
lively as if from an invigorating plunge into the Fountain of Youth. 0 Paris,
foyer des idees, et ceil du monde ! — animated contrast to the serene tranquillity
of the Vril-ya, which, nevertheless, thy noisiest philosophers ever pretend to
make the goal of their desires — of all communities on which shines the sun
and descend the rains of heaven, fertilizing alike wisdom and folly, virtue and
vice, in every city men have yet built on this earth, mayest thou, O Paris, be
the last to brave the wands of the Coming Race and be reduced into cinders
for the sake of the common good !

Tish.

Paeis, Augmt 28, 1872.

* Koom-Posh, Glek-Nas. For the derivation of these terras and their metaphorical significa-
tion I must refer the reader to the Coming Race, Chapter XII., on the language of the Vril-ya.
To those who have not read or have forgotten that historical composition, it may be convenient
to state briefly that Koom-Posh with the Vril-ya is the name for the government of the many, or
the ascendency of the most ignorant or hollow, and may be loosely rendered Hollow-Bosh. When
Koom-Posh degenerates from popular ignorance into the popular ferocity which precedes its de-
cease, the name for that state of things is Glek-Nas, viz., the universal strife-rot.

THE PARISIANS.

BOOK

CHAPTER I.

It was a bright day in the early spring of 1869.

All Paris seemed to have turned out to enjoy
itself. The Tuileries, the Champs Elyse'es, the
Bois de Boulogne, swarmed with idlers. A stran-
ger might have wondered where Toil was at work,
and in what nook Poverty lurked concealed. A
millionnaire from the London Exchange, as he
looked round on the magasins, the equipages, the
dresses of the women — as he inquired the prices
in the shops and the rent of apartments — might
have asked himself, in envious wonder. How on
earth do those gay Parisians live ? What is their
fortune ? Where does it come from ?

As the day declined, many of the scattered
loungers crowded into the Boulevards ; the cafes
and restaurants began to light up.

About this time a young man, who might be
some five or six and twenty, was walking along
the Boulevard des Italiens, heeding little the
throng through which he glided his solitary way :
there was that in his aspect and bearing which
caught attention. He looked a somebody, but,
though unmistakably a Frenchman, not a Paris-
ian. His dress was not in the prevailing mode
-^to a practiced eye it betrayed the taste and the
cut of a provincial tailor. His gait was not that
of the Parisian — less lounging, more stately ; and,
unlike the Parisian, he seemed indifferent to the
gaze of others.

Nevertheless there was about him that air of
dignity or distinction which those who are reared
from their cradle in the pride of birth acquire so
unconsciously that it seems hereditary and inborn.
It must also be confessed that the young man
himself was endowed with a considerable share
of that nobility which Nature capriciously dis-
tributes among her favorites, with little respect
for their pedigree and blazon^ — the nobility of
form and face. He was tall and well shaped,
with graceful length of limb and fall of shoul-
ders ; his face was handsome, of the purest type
of French masculine beauty — the nose inclined to
be aquiline, and delicately thin, with finely cut
open nostrils; the complexion clear, the eyes
large, of a light hazel, with dark lashes, the hair
of a chestnut brown, with no tint of auburn, the
beard and mustache a shade darker, clipped short,
not disguising the outline of lips, which were now
compressed, as if smiles had of late been unfamil-
iar to them ; yet such compression did not seem
in harmony with the physiognomical character of
their formation, which was that assigned by La-
vater to temperaments easily moved to gayety and
pleasure.

Another man, about his own age, coming quick-

FIRST.

ly out of one of the streets of the Chaussee d’An-
tin, brushed close by the stately pedestrian above
described, caught sight of his countenance, stopped
short, and exclaimed, ‘ ‘ Alain ! ” The person thus
abruptly accosted turned his eye tranquilly on the
eager face, of which all the lower part was envel-
oped in black beard ; and slightly lifting his hat,
with a gesture of the head that implied, “Sir,
you are mistaken : I have not the honor to know
you,” continued his slow, indifferent way. The
would-be acquaintance was not so easily rebuffed.
“Pes^e,” said he, between his teeth, “lam cer-
tainly right. He is not much altered — of course
I am ; ten years of Paris would improve an orang-
outang.” Quickening his step, and regaining the
side of the man he had called “Alain,” he said,
with a well-bred mixture of boldness and courtesy
in his tone and countenance,

“Ten thousand pardons if I am wrong. But
surely I accost Alain de Kerouec, son of the Mar-
quis de Rochebriant ?”

“True, Sir; but—”

“But you do not remember me, your old college
friend, Frederic Lemercier ?”

“Is it possible?” cried Alain, cordially, and
with an animation which changed the whole char-
acter of his countenance. “ My dear Frederic,
my dear friend, this is indeed good fortune ! So
you, too, are at Paris ?”

“Of course; and you? Just come, I perceive,”
he added, somewhat satirically, as, linking his arm
in his new-found friend’s, he glanced at the cut of
that friend’s coat collar.

“ I have been here a fortnight,” replied Alain.

“ Hem ! I suppose you lodge in the old Hotel
de Rochebriant. I passed it yesterday, admiring
its vast fagade^ little thinking you were its in-
mate. ”

“ Neither am I ; the hotel does not belong to
me — it was sold some years ago by my father.”

“ Indeed ! I hope your father got a good price
for it ; those grand hotels have trebled their value
within the last five years. And how is your fa-
ther ? Still the same polished grand seigneur ?
I never saw him but once, you know ; and I shall
never forget his smile, style grand monarque, when
he patted me on the head and tipped me ten na-
poleons.”

“ My father is no more,” said Alain, gravely ;
“he has been dead nearly three years.”

'■'■del! forgive me; I am greatly shocked.
Hem! so you are now the Marquis de Roche-
briant— a great historical name, worth a large
sum in the market. Few such names left. Su-
perb place your old chateau, is it not?”

“A superb place. No — a venerable ruin. Yes !”

“Ah, a ruin! so much the better. All the

THE PARISIANS.

bankers are mad after ruins — so charming an
amusement to restore them. You will restore
yours, without doubt. I will introduce you to
such an architect ! has the moyen age at liis fin-
gers’ ends. Dear — but a genius. ”

The young Marquis smiled — for since he had
found a college fiiend, his face showed that it
could smile — smiled, but not cheerfully, and an-
swered,

“I have no intention to restore Rochebriant.
The walls are solid ; they have weathered the
storms of six centuries ; they will last my time,
and with me the race perishes.”

“Bah ! the race perish, indeed ! you will mar-
ry. Parlez-moi de ga — you could not come to
a better man. I have a list of all the heiresses
at Paris, bound in Russia leather. You may take
your choice out of twenty. Ah, if I were but a
Rochebriant ! It is an infernal thing to come
into the world a Lemercier. I am a democrat,
of course. A Lemercier would be in a false po-
sition if he were not. But if any one would leave
me twenty acres of land, with some antique right
to the De and a title, faith, w'ould not I be an
aristocrat, and stand up for my order ? But now
we have met, pray let us dine together. Ah ! no
doubt you are engaged every day for a month.
A Rochebriant just new to Paris must be fke by
all the Faubourg.”

“No,” answered Alain, simply, “ I am not en-
gaged ; my range of acquaintance is more circum-
scribed than you suppose.”

“So much the better for me. I am luckily
disengaged to-day, which is not often the case,
for I am in some request in my own set, though
it is not that of the Faubourg. Where shall we
dine ? — at the Trois Freres ?”

“ Wherever you please. I know no restaurant
at Paris except a very ignoble one, close by my
lodging.”

'■‘‘Apropos, where do you lodge?”

“Rue de TUniversite, Numero — ”

“A fine street, but triste. If you have no
longer your family hotel, you have no excuse to
linger in that museum of mummies, the Faubourg
St. Germain ; you must go into one of the new
quarters by the Champs Elysees. Leave it to me ;
I’ll find you a charming apartment. I know one
to be had a bargain — a bagatelle — five hundred
naps a year. Cost you about two or three thou-
sand more to furnish tolerably, not showily.
Leave all to me. In three days you shall be set-
tled. Apropos! horses! You must have En-
glish ones. How many ? — three for the saddle,
two for your coupe? I’ll find them for you. I
will write to London to-morrow. Reese" (Rice)
“is your man.”

“Spare yourself that trouble, my dear Fred-
eric. I keep no horses and no coupe. I shall not
change my apartment.” As he said this, Roche-
briant drew himself up somewhat haughtily.

“Faith,” thought Lemercier, “is it possible
that the Marquis is poor ? No. I have always
heard that the Rochebriants were among the
greatest proprietors in Bretagne. Most likely,
with all his innocence of the Faubourg St. Ger-
main, he knows enough of it to be aware that I,
Frederic Lemercier, am not the man to patron-
ize one of its greatest nobles. Sacre bleu ! if I
thought that ; if he meant to give himself airs to
me, his old college friend — I would — I would
call him out.”

Just as M. Lemercier had come to that belli-
cose resolution, the Marquis said, with a smile
which, though frank, was not without a certain
grave melancholy in its expression, “ My dear
Frederic, pardon me if I seem to receive your
friendly offers ungraciously. But believe that I
have reasons you will approve for leading at
Paris a life which you certainly will not enAy
then, evidently desirous to change the subject, he
said, in a livelier tone, “But what a marvelous
city this Paris of ours is ! Remember, I had
never seen it before : it burst on me like a city
in the Arabian Nights two w'eeks ago. And
that which strikes me most — I say it with regret
and a pang of conscience — is certainly not the
Paris of former times, but that Paris which M.
Bonaparte — I beg pardon, Avhich the Emperor —
has called up around him, and identified forever
with his reign. It is what is new in Paris that
strikes and inthralls me. Here I see the life of
France, and I belong to her tombs!”

“ I don’t quite understand you,” said Lemer-
cier. “If you think that because your father
and grandfather w’ere Legitimists, you have not
the fair field of living ambition open to you un-
der the empire, you never Avere more mistaken.
Moyen age, and even rococo, are all the rage.
You have no idea how valuable your name would
be either at the Imperial Court or in a Commer-
cial Company. But Avith your fortune you are
independent of all but fashion and the Jockey
Club. And a propos of that, pardon me — Avhat
A’illain made your coat? — let me know; I will
denounce him to the police.”

Half amused, half amazed, Alain Marquis
de Rochebriant looked at Frederic Lemercier
much as a good-tempered lion may look upon a
lively poodle who takes a liberty Avith his mane,
and, after a pause, he replied, curtly, “ The
clothes I wear at Paris Avere made in Bretagne ;
and if the name of Rochebriant be of any value
at all in Paris, Avhich I doubt, let me trust that
it Avill make me acknowledged as gentilhomme,
Avhatever my taste in a coat, or Avhatever the
doctrines of a club composed — of jockeys.”

“ Ha, ha!” cried Lemercier, freeing himself
from the aim of his friend, and laughing the
more irresistibly as he encountered the grave
look of the Marquis. “Pardon me — I can’t
help it — the Jockey Club — composed of jockeys !
— it is too much! — the best joke! My dear
Alain, there is some of the best blood of Europe
in the Jockey Club : they Avould exclude a plain
bourgeois like me. But it is all the same ; in one
respect you are quite right. Walk in a blouse if
you please — you are still Rochebriant — you Avould
only be called eccentric. Alas ! I am obliged to
send to London for my pantaloons ; that comes
of being a Lemercier. But here we are in the
Palais Royal.”

CHAPTER II.

The salons of the Trois Freres w^ere crow'ded
— our friends found a table Avith some little diffi-
culty. Lemercier proposed a priAate cabinet,
which, for some reason known to himself, the
Marquis declined.

Lemercier, spontaneously and unrequested, or-
I dered the dinner and the Avines.

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TUE MAEQTTIS 1>E EOCUEBEIANT, BUPLESSIS, AND LEMEECIEK AT THE TEOIS FEERES.

THE PARISIANS.

when in season, French hon-vivants usually com-
mence their dinner, Lemercier looked round the
salon with that air of inimitable, scrutinizing, su-
perb impertinence which distinguishes the Pa-
risian dandy. Some of the ladies returned his
glance coquettishly, for Lemercier was beau gar-
qon ; others turned aside indignantly, and mut-
tered something to the gentlemen dining with
them. The said gentlemen, when old, shook
their heads, and continued to eat unmoved ;
w’hen young, turned briskly round, and looked,
at first fiercely, at M. Lemercier, but, encounter-
ing his eye through the glass which he had screw-
ed into its socket — noticing the hardihood of his
countenance and the squareness of his shoulders
— even they turned back to the tables, shook
their heads, and continued to eat unmoved, just
like the old ones.

“Ah!” cried Lemercier, suddenly, “here
comes a man you should know, mon cher. He
will tell you how to place your money — a rising
man — a coming man — a future minister. Ah !
bon-jour^ Duplessis, bon-jour^'^ kissing his hand
to a gentleman who had just entered, and was
looking about him for a seat. He was e^ddently
well and favorably known at the Trois Freres.
The waiters had flocked round him, and were
pointing to a table by the window which a sat-
urnine Englishman, who had dined off a beef-
steak and potatoes, was about to vacate.

Mons. Duplessis, having first assured himself,
like a prudent man, that his table was secure,
having ordered his oysters, his chablis, and his
potage a la bisque^ now paced calmly and slowly
across the salon, and halted before Lemercier.

Here let me pause for a moment, and give the
reader a rapid sketch of the two Parisians.

Frederic Lemercier is dressed, somewhat too
showily, in the extreme of the prevalent hishion.
He wears a superb pin in his cravat — a pin worth
2000 francs ; he wears rings on his fingers, hre-
loques to his watch-chain. He has a wama
though dark complexion, thick black eyebrows,
full lips, a nose somewhat turned up, but not
small, veiy fine large dark eyes, a bold, open,
somewhat impertinent expression of countenance
— withal decidedly handsome, thanks to coloring,
youth, and vivacity of regard.”

Lucien Duplessis, bending over the table, glan-
cing first with curiosity at the Marquis de Roche-
briant, who leans his cheek on his hand and seems
not to notice him, then concentrating his atten-
tion on Frederic Lemercier, who sits square with
his hands clasped — Lucien Duplessis is somewhere
between forty and fifty, rather below the middle
height, slender but not slight — what in English
phrase is called “ wiry.” He is dressed with ex-
treme simplicity : black frock-coat buttoned up ;
black cravat worn higher than men who follow
the fashions wear their neckcloths nowadays ; a
hawk’s eye and a hawk’s beak; hair of a dull
brown, very short, and wholly without curl ; his
cheeks thin and smoothly shaven, but he wears a
mustache and imperial, plagiarized from those of
his sovereign, and, like all plagiarisms, carrying
the borrowed beauty to extremes, so that the
points of mustache and imperial, stiffened and
shai-pened by cosmetics which must have been
composed of iron, looked like three long stings
guarding lip and jaw from invasion ; a pale olive
brown complexion ; eyes small, deep sunk, calm,
piercing ; his expression of face at first glance

not striking, except for quiet immovability. Ob-
served more heedfully, the expression was keenly
intellectual — determined about the lips, calcula-
ting about the brows : altogether the face of no
ordinary man, and one not, perhaps, without fine
and high qualities, concealed from the general
gaze by habitual reserve, but justifying the con-
fidence of those whom he admitted into his in-
timacy.

“Ah, mon cher” said Lemercier, “you prom-
ised to call on me yesterday at two o’clock. I
waited in for you half an hour ; you never came.”

“No ; I went first to the Bourse. The shares
in that company we spoke of have fallen ; they
will fall much lower — foolish to buy in yet ; so
the object of my calling on you was over. I
took it for granted you would not wait if I failed
my appointment. Do you go to the opera to-
night ?”

“I think not — nothing worth going for; be-
sides, I have found an old friend, to whom I con-
secrate this evening. Let me introduce you to
the Marquis de Rochebriant. Alain, M. Du-
plessis.”

The two gentlemen bowed.

“I had the honor to be known to monsieur
your father,” said Duplessis.

“Indeed,” returned Rochebriant. “He had
not visited Paris for many years before he died.”

“It was in London I met him, at the house
of the Russian Princess C .”

The Marquis colored high, inclined his head
gravely, and made no reply. Here the waiter
brought the oysters and the chablis, and Duples-
sis retired to his owm table.

“That is the most extraordinary man,” said
Frederic, as he squeezed the lemon over his
oysters, “and very much to be admired.”

“How so! I see nothing at least to admire
in his face,” said the Marquis, with the bluntness
of a provincial.

“ His face. Ah ! you are a Legitimist — party
prejudice. He dresses his face after the Emper-
or; in itself a very clever face, surely.”

“ Perhaps, but not an amiable one. He looks
like a bird of prey.”

“All clever men are birds of prey. The ea-
gles are the heroes, and the owls the sages. Du-
plessis is not an eagle nor an owl. I should rath-
er call him a falcon, except that I would not at-
tempt to hoodwink him.”

“Call him what you will,” said the Marquis,
indifferently; “M. Duplessis can be nothing to
me.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” answered Freder-
ic, somewhat nettled by the phlegm with which
the Provincial regarded the pretensions of the
Parisian. “Duplessis, I repeat it, is an extraor-
dinary man. Though untitled, he descends fi-om
your old aristocracy ; in fact, I believe, as his
name shows, from the same stem as the Riche-
lieus. His father was a great scholar, and I
believe he has read much himself. Might have
taken to literature or the bar, but his parents
died fearfully poor; and some distant relations
in commerce took charge of him, and devoted
his talents to the Bourse. Seven years ago he
lived in a single chamber, au quatrihne, near the
Luxembourg. He has now a hotel, not large
but charming, in the Champs Elysees, worth at
least 600,000 francs. Nor has he made his own
fortune alone, but that of many others ; some of

THE PARISIANS.

birth as high as your own. He has the genius
of riches, and knocks otf a million as a poet does
an ode, by the force of inspiration. He is hand-
in-glove with the ministers, and has been invited
to Compiegne by the Emperor. You will find
him very useful.”

Alain made a slight movement of incredulous
dissent, and changed the conversation to remi-
niscences of old school-boy days.

The dinner at length came to a close. Fred-
eric rang for the bill — glanced over it. “Fifty-
nine francs,” said he, carelessly flinging down
his napoleon and a half. The Marquis silently
drew forth his purse and extracted the same
sum.

When they were out of the restaurant^ Fred-
eric proposed adjourning to his own rooms. “ I
can promise you an excellent cigar, one of a box
given to me by an invaluable young Spaniard at-
tached to the Embass)^ here. Such cigars are
not to be had at Paris for money, nor even for
love, seeing that women, however devoted and
generous, never offer you any thing better than
a cigarette. Such cigars are only to be had for
friendship. Friendship is a jewel. ”*

“I never smoke,” answered the Marquis, “but
I shall be charmed to come to your rooms ; only
don’t let me encroach on your good nature.
Doubtless you have engagements for the even-
mg.

“None till eleven o’clock, when I have prom-
ised to go to a soiree to which I do not offer to
take you ; for it is one of those Bohemian enter-
tainments at which it would do you harm in the
Faubourg to assist — at least until you have made
good your position. Let me see, is not the Du-
chesse de Tarascon a relation of yours ?”

“ Yes ; my poor mother’s first cousin.”

“I congratulate you. Tr'es grande dame. She
will launch you in puro coeloy as Juno might have
launched one of her young peacocks. ”

“There has been no acquaintance between our
houses,” returned the Marquis, diyly, “ since the
mesalliance of her second nuptials.”

‘ ‘ Mesalliance 1 second nuptials ! Her second
husband was the Duke de Tarascon.”

“A duke of the First Empire — the grandson
of a butcher.”

‘‘^Diahle! you are a severe genealogist. Mon-
sieur le Marquis. How can you consent to walk
arm in arm with me, whose great-grandfather
supplied bread to the same army to which the
Duke de Tarascon’s grandfather furnished the
meat ?”

“ My dear Frederic, we two have an equal
pedigree, for our friendship dates from the same
hour. I do not blame the Duchesse de Taras-
con for marrying the grandson of a butcher, but
for marrying the son of a man made duke by a
usurper. She abandoned the faith of her house
and the cause of her sovereign. Therefore her
marriage is a blot on our scutcheon.”

Frederic raised his eyebrows, but had the tact
to pursue the subject no further. He who inter-
feres in the quarrels of relations must pass through
life without a friend.

The young men now arrived at Lemercier’s
apartment, an entresol looking on the Boulevard
des Italiens, consisting of more rooms than a
bachelor generally requires, and though low-
pitched, of good dimensions, decorated and fur-
nished with a luxury which really astonished the

provincial, though, with the high-bred pride of an
Oriental, he suppressed every sign of suiprise.

Florentine cabinets freshly retouched by the ex-
quisite skill of Mombro, costly specimens of old
Sevres and Limoges, pictures and bronzes and
marble statuettes — all well chosen and of great
price, i-eflected from mirrors in Venetian frames
— made a coup d'oeil very fiivorable to that re-
spect which the human mind pays to the evidences
of money. Nor was comfort less studied than
splendor. Thick carpets covered the floors, dou-
bled and quilted portieres excluded all draughts
from chinks in the doors. Having allowed his
friend a few minutes to contemplate and admire
the salle a manger and salon which constituted
his more state apartments, Frederic then con-
ducted him into a small cabinet, fitted up with
scarlet cloth and gold fringes, whereon were ar-
tistically arranged trophies of Eastern weapons,
and Turkish pipes with amber mouth-pieces.

There placing the Marquis at ease on a divan,
and flinging himself on another, the Parisian ex-
quisite ordered a valet, well dressed as himself,
to bring coffee and liqueurs; and after vainly
pressing one of his matchless cigars on his friend,
indulged in his own regalia.

“They are ten years old,” said Frederic, with
a tone of compassion at Alain’s self-inflicted loss
— “ten years old. Born, therefore, about the
year in which we two parted. ”

“When you were so hastily summoned from
college,” said the Marquis, “ by the news of your
father’s illness. We expected you back in vain.
Have you been at Paris ever since ?”

“Ever since; my poor father died of that ill-
ness. His fortune proved much larger than was
suspected — my share amounted to an income from
investments in stocks, houses, etc., to upward of
60,000 francs a year ; and as I wanted six years
to my majority, of course the capital on attaining
my majority would be increased by accumuhition.
My mother desired to keep me near her; my
uncle, who was joint guardian with hei‘, looked
with disdain on our poor little provincial cottage ;
so promising an heir should acquire his finishing
education under mastei's at Paris. Long before
I was of age I was initiated into politer myste-
ries of our capital than those celebrated by Eugene
Sue. When I took possession of my fortune -five
years ago, I was considered a Croesus; and real-
ly for that patriarchal time I was wealthy. Now,
alas! my accumulations have vanished in my
outfit; and 60,000 francs a year is the least a
Parisian can live upon. It is not only that all
prices have fabulously increased, but that the dear-
er things become, the better people live. When
I first came out, the world speculated upon me ;
now, in order to keep my standing, I am forced
to speculate on the world. Hitherto I have not
lost; Duplessis let me into -a few good things
this year, worth 100,000 francs or so. Croesus
consulted the Delphic Oracle. Duplessis was not
alive in the time of Croesus, or Croesus would have
consulted Duplessis.”

Here there was a ring at the outer door of
the apartment, and in another minute the valet
ushered in a gentleman somewhere about the age
of thirty, of prepossessing countenance, and with
the indefinable air of good-breeding and usage du
monde. Frederic started up to greet cordially
the new-comer, and introduced him to the Mar-
quis under the name of “Sare Grarm-Varn.”

THE PARISIANS.

“ Decidedly,” said the visitor, as he took off his
paletot and seated himself beside the Marquis —
“ decidedly, my dear Lemercier,” said he, in very
correct French, and with the true Parisian accent
and intonation. “You Frenchmen merit that
praise for polished ignorance of the language of
barbarians which a distinguished historian bestows
on the ancient Romans. Permit me, Marquis,
to submit to you the consideration whether Grarm
\'arn is a fair rendering of my name as truthful-
ly printed on this card.”

Tlie inscription on the card, thus drawn from
its case and placed in Alain’s hand, was —

Mr. Graham Vane.

No. — Rtie D'A njoit.

The Marquis gazed at it as he miglit on a hiero-
glyphic, and passed it on to Lemercier in discreet
silence.

That gentleman made another attempt at the
barbarian appellation.

‘ ‘ ‘ Grar — ham Varne. ’ C’est 9a ! I triumph !
all dithculties yield to French energy.”

Here the coffee and liqueurs were served ; and
after a short pause the Englishman, who had very
quietly been observing the silent Marquis, turned
to him and said: ‘‘^Monsieur le Marquis.^ I pre-
sume it was your father whom I remember as an
acquaintance of my own father at Ems. It is
many years ago : I was but a child. The Count
de Chamboni was then at that enervating little
spa for the benefit of the Countess’s health. If
our friend Lemercier does not mangle your name
as he does mine, I understand him to say that
you are the Marquis de Rochebriant.”

“ That is my name ; it pleases me to hear that
my father was among those who flocked to Ems
to do homage to the royal personage who deigns
to assume the title of Count de Chambord.”

“My own ancestors clung to the descendants
of James II. till their claims were buried in the
grave of the last Stuai-t ; and I honor the gallant
men who, like your father, revere in an exile the
heir to their ancient kings.”

The Englishman said this with grace and feel-
ing ; the Marquis’s heart warmed to him at once.

“The first loyal gentilhovnne I have met at
Paris,” thought the Legitimist; “and oh, shame!
not a Frenchman !”

Graham Vane, now stretching himself and ac-
cepting the cigar which Lemercier offered him,
said to that gentleman: “You who know your
Paris by heart — every body and every thing there-
in worth the knowing, with many bodies and many
things that are not worth it — can you inform me
who and what is a certain lady who every fine
day may be seen walking in a quiet spot at the
outskirts of the Bois de Boulogne, not far from
the Baron de Rothschild’s villa ? The said lady
arrives at this selected spot, in a dark blue coujte
without armorial bearings, punctually at the hour
of three. She wears always the same dress, a
kind of gray pearl-colored silk, with a cachemire
shawd. In age she may be somewhat about twen-
ty— a year or so more or less — and has a face as
haunting as a Medusa’s ; not, however, a face to
turn a man into a stone, but rather of the two
tuni a stone into a man. A clear paleness, with
a bloom like an alabaster lamp with the light j
flashing through. I borrow that illustration from j
Sare Scott, who applied it to Milor Bee-ron.” j

“I have not seen the lady you describe,” an-
B

1 5

swered Lemercier, feeling humiliated by the avow-
al; “in fact, I have not been in that sequestered
part of the Bois for months ; but I will go to-
morrow : three o’clock, you say — leave it to me ;
to-morrpw evening, if she is a Parisienne, you
shall know all about her. But, rnon cher, you
are not of a jealous temperament to confide your
discovery to another.”

“Yes, I am of a very jealous temperament,”
replied the Englishman ; “ but jealousy comes
after love, and not before it. I am not in love ;
I am only haunted. To-morrow evening, then,
shall we dine at Philippe’s, seven o’clock ?”

“ With all my heart,” said Lemercier ; “ and
you too, Alain.”

“Thank you, no,” said the Marquis, briefly ;
and he rose, drew on his gloves, and took up his
hat.

At these signals of departure, the Englishman,
who did not want tact nor delicacy, thought
that he had made himself de trop in the tete-a-
tete of two friends of the same age and nation ;
and catching up his paletot, said, hastily, “No,
Marquis, do not go yet, and leave our host in
solitude ; for I have an engagement which press-
es, and only looked in at Lemercier’s for a mo-
ment, seeing the light at his windows. Permit
me to hope that our acquaintance will not drop,
and inform me where I may have the honor to
call on you.”

“Nay,” said the Marquis ; “ I claim the right
of a native to pay my respects first to the foreign-
er who visits our capital, and,” he added in a
lower tone, “who speaks so nobly of those who
revere its exiles.”

The Englishman saluted, and walked slowlv
toward the door ; but on reaching the threshold,
turned back and made a sign to Lemercier,
un perceived by Alain.

Frederic understood the sign, and followed
Graham Vane into the adjoining room, closing
the door as he passed.

“ My dear Lemercier, of course I should not
have intruded on you at this hour on a mere visit
of ceremony. I called to say that the Mademoi-
selle Duval whose address you sent me is not the
right one — not the lady whom, knowing your
wide range of acquaintance, I asked you to aid
me in finding out.”

“ Not the right Duval ? Diable! she answered
your description exactly.”

“ Not at all.”

“You said she was veiy pretty and young —
under twenty.”

“ You forgot that I said she deserved that de-
scription twenty-one years ago.”

“Ah, so you did ; but some ladies are always
young. ‘Age,’ says a wit in the Figaro, ‘is a
river which the women compel to reascend to
its source when it has flowed onward more than
twenty years.’ Never mind — soyez tranquille —
I will find your Duval yet if she is to be found.
But why could not the friend who commissioned
you to inquire choose a name less common ? Du-
val ! every street in Paris has a shop door over
which is inscribed the name of Duval.”

“Quite true, there is the difficulty ; however,
my dear Lemercier, pray continue to look out
j for a Louise Duval who was young and pretty
i twenty-one years ago — this search ought to in-
j terest me more than that which I intrusted to
you to-night respecting the pearly-robed lady :

THE PARISTANS.

for in the last I but gratify my own whim ; in
the first I discharge a promise to a friend. You,
so perfect a Frenchman, know the difierence ;
honor is engaged to the first. Be sure you let
me know if you find any other Madame or Made-
moiselle Duval ; and of course you remember
your promise not to mention to any one the com-
mission of inquiry you so kindly undertake. I
congratulate you on your friendship for M. de
Kochebriant. What a noble countenance and
manner ! ”

Lemercier returned to the Marquis. “ Such a
pity you can’t dine with us to-morrow. I fear
you made but a poor dinner to-day. But it is
always better to arrange the menu beforehand.
I will send to Philippe’s to-morrow. Do not be
afraid. ”

The Marquis paused a moment, and on his
young face a proud struggle was visible. At last
he said, bluntly and manfully,

“ My dear Frederic, your world and mine are
not and can not be the same. Why should I be
ashamed to own to my old school-fellow that 1 am
poor — very poor ; that the dinner I have shared
with you to-day is to me a criminal extrava-
gance ? I lodge in a single chamber on the fourth
story ; I dine off" a single plat at a small restau-
rateur's ; the utmost income I can allow to my-
self does not exceed five thousand francs a year :
my fortunes I can not hope much to improve.
In his own country Alain de Kochebriant has no
career.”

Lemercier was so astonished by this confession
that he remained for some moments silent, eyes
and mouth both wide open ; at length he sprang
up, embraced his friend, well-nigh sobbing, and
exclaimed, “ Tan# mieux pour moi ! You must
take your lodging with me. I haA^e a charming
bedroom to spare. Don’t say no. It ivill raise
my own position to say I and Kochebriant keep
house together. It must be so. Come here to-
morrow. As for not haAung a career — bah ! I
and Duplessis will settle that. You shall be a
millionnaire in two years. Meanwhile we will
join capitals : I my paltry notes, you your grand
name. Settled!”

“My dear, dear Frederic,” said the young
noble, deeply affected, “ on reflection you will see
Avhat you propose is impossible. Poor I may be
without dishonor ; live at another man’s cost I
can not do without baseness. It does not re-
quire to be gentilhomme to feel that : it is enough
to be a Frenchman. Come and see me when
you can spare the time. There is my address.
You are the only man in Paris to whom I shall
be at home. Au revoir." And breaking away
from Lemercier’s clasp, the Marquis hurried off.

CHAPTEKIII.

Alain reached the house in which he lodged.
Externally a fine house, it had been the hotel of
a great family in the old regime. On the first
floor were still superb apartments, with ceilings
painted by Le Brun, with walls on which the
thick silks still seemed fresh. These rooms were
occupied by a rich agent de change ; but, like
all such ancient palaces, the upper stories were
wretchedly defective, even in the comforts which
poor men demand nowadays : a back staircase,

narrow, dirty, never lighted, dark as Erebus, led
to the room occupied by the Marquis, which
might be naturally occupied by a needy student
or a virtuous grisette. But there was to him a
charm in that old hotel, and the richest locataire
therein w'as not treated with a respect so cere-
monious as that which attended the lodger on the
fourth story. The porter and his wife w^ere Bre-
tons ; they came from the village of Kochebriant ;
they had known Alain’s parents in their young
days ; it was their kinsman who had recommend-
ed him to the hotel which they served : so, when
he paused at the lodge for his key, which he had
left there, the porter’s wife w^as in waiting for his
return, and insisted on lighting him up stairs and
seeing to his fire, for after a warm day the night
had turned to that sharp biting cold which is
more trying in Paris than even in London.

The old woman, running up the stairs before
him, opened the door of his room, and busied
herself at the fire. “Gently, my good Martha,”
said he ; “ that log suffices. I have been extrav-
agant to-dav, and must pinch for it.”

“Ji. le Marquis jests,” said the old woman,
laughing.

“No, Martha; I am serious. I haA'e sinned,
but I shall reform. Entre nous, my dear friend,
Paris is veiy dear w'hen one sets one’s foot out-
of-doors : I must soon go back to Kochebriant.”

“When M. le Marquis goes back to Koche-
briant he must take with him a Madame la Mar-
quise— some pretty angel with a suitable dot."

“A dot suitable to the ruins of Kochebriant
would not suffice to repair them, Martha : give
me my dressing-gown, and good-night.”

Bon repos, M. le Marquis! heaux reves, et
bel avenir."

Bel avenir!" murmured the young man, bit-
terly, leaning his cheek on his hand ; “w'hat for-
tune fairer than the present can be mine? yet in-
action in youth is more keenly felt than in age.
How lightly I should endure poverty if it brought
poverty’s ennobling companion. Labor — denied
to me I Well, well ; I must go back to the old
rock : on this ocean there is no sail, not even an
oai', for me.”

Alain de Kochebriant had not been reared to
the expectation of poverty. The only son of a
father whose estates were large beyond those of
most nobles in modern France, his destined her-
itage seemed not unsuitable to his illustrious
birth. Educated at a provincial academy, he
had been removed at the age of sixteen to Koche-
briant, and lived there simply and lonelily enough,
but still in a sort of feudal state, with an aunt, an
elder and unmarried sister to his father.

His father he never saw but twice after leaving
college. That brilliant seigneur visited France
but rarely, for very brief intervals, residing wholly
abroad. To him went all the revenues of Koche-
briant save what sufficed for the manage of his
son and his sister. It was the cherished belief
of these two lo^al natures that the Marquis se-
cretly devoted his fortune to the cause of the
Bourbons — how, they knew not, though they oft-
en amused themselves by conjecturing ; and the
young man, as he grew up, nursed the hope that
he should soon hear that the descendant of Henri
Quatre had crossed the frontier on a white charger
and hoisted the old gonfalon with its Jieur-de-lis.
Then, indeed, his own career would be opened,
and the sword of the Kerouecs drawn from its

THE PARISIANS.

sheath. Day after day he expected to hear of
revolts, of which his noble father was doubtless
the soul. But the Marquis, though a sincere Le-
gitimist, was by no means an enthusiastic fanat-
ic. He was simply a very proud, a very polish-
ed, a very luxurious, and, though not without
the kindliness and generosity which were com-
mon attributes of the old French noblesse^ a very
selfish grand seigneur.

Losing his wife (who died the first year of mar-
riage in giving birth to Alain) while he was yet
very young, he had lived a frank libertine life un-
til he fell submissive under the despotic yoke of a
Russian princess, who, for some mysterious rea-
son, never visited her own country, and obstinate-
ly refused to reside in France. She was fond of
travel, and moved yearly from London to Naples,
Naples to Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Seville, Carls-
bad, Baden-Baden — any where for caprice or
change, except Paris. This fair wanderer suc-
ceeded in chaining to herself the heart and the
steps of the Marquis de Rochebriant.

She w’as veiy rich ; she lived semi-royally.
Hers was just the house in which it suited the
Marquis to be the enfant gate. I suspect that,
cat-like, his attachment was rather to the house
than to the person of his mistress. Not that he
was domiciled with the princess ; that would have
been somewhat too much against the proprieties,
greatly too much against the 'Marquis’s notions
of his own dignity. He had his own carriage,
his own apartments, his own suite, as became so
grand a seigneur, and the lover of so grand a
dome. His estates, mortgaged before he came to
them, yielded no income sufficient for his wants ;
he mortgaged deeper and deeper, year after year,
till he could mortgage them no more. He sold
his hotel at Paris — he accepted without scruple
his sister’s fortune — he borrowed with equal sang-
froid the two hundred thousand francs which his
son on coming of age inherited from his mother.
Alain yielded that fortune to him without a mur-
mur— nay, with pride ; he thought it destined to
go toward raising a regiment for the fleur-de-lis.

To do the Marquis justice, he was fully per-
suaded that he should shortly restore to his sister
and son what he so recklessly took from them.
He was engaged to be married to his princess so
soon as her own husband died. She had been
separated from the prince for many years, and
every year it was said he could not last a year
longer. But he completed the measure of his
conjugal iniquities by continuing to live ; and one
day, by mistake. Death robbed the lady of the
Mai'quis instead of the prince.

This was an accident which the Marquis had
never counted upon. He was still young enough
to consider himself young ; in fact, one principal
reason for keeping Alain secluded in Brittany
was his reluctance to introduce into the -world a
son “as old as myself,” he would say, pathetically.
The news of his death, which happened nt Baden
after a short attack of bronchitis caught in a sup-
per al fresco at the old castle, was duly transmit-
ted to Rochebriant by the princess ; and the shock
to Alain and his aunt was the greater because
they had seen so little of the departed that they
regarded him as a heroic myth, an impersonation
of ancient chivalry, condemning himself to vol-
untary exile rather than do homage to usurpers.
But from their grief they were soon roused by
the terrible doubt whether Rochebriant could

still be retained in the family. Besides the mort-
gagees, creditors from half the capitals in Europe
sent in their claims ; and all the movable eftects
transmitted to Alain by his father’s confidential
Italian valet, except sundry carriages and horses
which were sold at Baden for what they would
fetch, w'ere a magnificent dressing-case, in the
secret drawer of which were some bank-notes
amounting to thirty thousand francs, and three
large boxes containing the Marquis’s correspond-
ence, a few miniature female portraits, and a
great many locks of hair.

Wholly unprepared for the ruin that stared
him in the face, the young Marquis evinced the
natural strength of his character by the calmness
with which he met the danger, and the intelli-
gence with which he calculated and reduced it.

By the help of the family notary in the neigh-
boring town, he made himself master of his lia-
bilities and his means ; and he found that, after
paying all debts and providing for the interest of
the mortgages, a property which ought to have
realized a rental of £10,000 a year yielded not
more than £400. Nor was even this margin
safe, nor the property out of peril ; for the prin-
cipal mortgagee, who was a capitalist in Paris,
named Louvier, having had during the life of the
late Marquis more than once to wait for his half-
yearly interest longer than suited his patience —
and his patience was not enduring — plainly de-
clared that if the same delay recurred he should
put his right of seizure in force ; and in France,
still more than in England, bad seasons seriously
affect the security of rents. To pay away £9G00
a year regularly out of £10,000, with the penalty
of forfeiting the whole if not paid, whether crops
may fail, farmers procrastinate, and timber fall
in price, is to live with the sword of Damocles
over one’s head.

For two years and more, however, Alain met
his difficulties with prudence and vigor ; he re-
trenched the establishment hitherto kept at the
chateau, resigned such rural pleasures as he had
been accustomed to indulge, and lived like one
of his petty farmers. But the risks of the future
remained undiminished.

“ There is but one Avay, Monsieur le Marquis fl
said the family notary, M. Hebert, “by which
you can put your estate in comparative safety.
Your father raised his mortgages from time to
time, as he wanted money, and often at interest
above the average market interest. You may add
considerably to your income by consolidating all
these mortgages into one at a lower percentage,
and in so doing pay off this formidable mortga-
gee, M. Louvier, who, I shrewdly suspect, is bent
upon becoming the proprietor of Rochebriant.
Unfortunately those few portions of your land
which were but lightly charged, and, Ipng con-
tiguous to small proprietors, were coveted by
them, and could be advantageously sold, are al-
ready gone to pay the debts of moqsieur the late
Marquis. There are, however, two small farms

which, bordering close on the town of S , I

think I could dispose of for building purposes at
high rates ; but these lands are covered by Mon-
sieur Lourier’s general mortgage, and he has re-
fused to release them unless the whole debt be
paid. Were that debt, therefore, transferred to
another mortgagee, we might stipulate for their
exception, and in so doing secure a sum of more
than lOOjOOO francs, which you could keep in re-

THE PARISIANS.

serve for a pressing or unforeseen occasion, and
make the nucleus of a capital devoted to the
gradual liquidation of the cliarges on the estate.
For with a little capital, Monsieur le Marquis,
your rent-roll might be very greatly increased, the
forests and orchards improved, those meadows

round S drained and irrigated. Agriculture

is beginning to be understood in Bretagne, and
your estate would soon double its value in the
hands of a spirited capitalist. My advice to you,
therefore, is to go to Paris, employ a good avoue,
practiced in such branch of his profession, to ne-
gotiate the consolidation of your mortgages upon
terms that will enable you to sell* outlying por-
tions, and so pay oft’ the charge by installments
agreed upon ; to see if some safe company or
rich individual can be found to undertake for a
term of years the management of your forests,
the draining of the S meadows, the superin-

tendence of your fisheries, etc. They, it is true,
w'ill monopolize the profits for many years — per-
haps twenty ; but you are a young man ; at the
end of that time you will re-enter on your estate
with a rental so improved that the mortgages, now
so awful, will seem to you comparatively trivial.”

In pursuance of this advice, the young Marquis
had come to Paris fortified with a letter from M.
Hebert to an avoueoi eminence, and with many let-
ters from his aunt to the nobles of the Faubourg
connected with his house. Now one reason why
M. Hebert had urged his client to undertake this
important business in person, rather than volun-
teer his own services in Paris, w'as somewhat ex-
tra-professional. He had a sincere and profound
aft’ection for Alain ; he felt compassion for that
young life so barrenly wasted in seclusion and
severe privations ; he respected, but was too prac-
tical a man of business to share, those chivalrous
sentiments of loyalty to an exiled dynasty which
disqualified the man for the age he lived in, and,
if not greatly modified, would cut him oft’ from
the hopes and aspirations of his eager generation.
He thought plausibly enough that the air of the
grand metropolis was necessary to the mental
liealth, enfeebled and withering amidst the feud-
al mists of Bretagne ; that once in Paris, Alain
w'ould imbibe the ideas of Paris, adapt himself
to some career leading to honor and to fortune,
for which he took facilities from his high birth,
a historical name too national for any dynasty
not to w'elcome among its adherents, and an in-
tellect not yet sharpened by contact and com-
petition witli others, but in itself vigorous, habit-
uated to thought, and vivified by the noble aspi-
rations which belong to imaginative natures.

At the least, Alain w'ould be at Pans in the social
position which would aft'ord him the opportunities
of a marriage in w'hich his birth and rank w'ould
be readily accepted as an equivalent to some am-
ple fortune that would serve to redeem the en-
dangered seigneuries. He therefore warned Alain
that the affair for which he went to Paris might
be tedious, that lawyers were always slow, and
advised him to calculate on remaining several
months, perhaps a year ; delicately suggesting
that his rearing hitherto had been too secluded
for his age and rank, and that a year at Pans,
even if he failed in the object w’hich took him
there, would not be thrown aw'ay in the knowd-
edge of men and things that would fit him better
to grapple with his difficulties on his return.

Alain divided his spare income between his

aunt and himself, and had come to Paris reso-
lutely determined to live within the <£200 a year
which remained to his share. He felt the revo-
lution in his w'hole being which commenced when
out of sight of the petty principality in which he
was the object of that feudal reverence, still sur-
viving in the more unfrequented parts of Bre-
tagne, for the representatives of illustrious names
connected with tlie immemorial legends of the
province.

The very bustle of a railway, w'ith its crowd
and quickness and unceremonious democracy of
travel, served to pain and confound and humili-
ate that sense of individual dignity in which he
had been nurtured. He felt that, once away
from Rochebriant, he was but a cipher in the
sum of human beings. Arrived at Paris, and
reaching the gloomy hotel to which he had been
I’ecommended, he greeted even the desolation of
that solitude which is usually so oppressive to a
stranger in the metropolis of his native land.
Loneliness w'as better than the loss of self in the
reek and pressure of an unfamiliar throng. For
the first few days he had wandered over Paris
without calling even on the avou^ to whom M.
Hebert had directed him. He felt with the in-
stinctive acuteness of a mind which, under sound-
er training, would have achieved no mean dis-
tinction, that it was a safe precaution to imbue
himself with the atmosphere of the place, seize
on those general ideas which in great capitals are
so contagious that they are often more accurate-
ly caught by the first impressions than by subse-
quent habit, before he brought his mind into con-
tact with those of the individuals he had practi-
cally to deal with.

At last he repaired to the avoue, M. Gandrin,
Rue St. Florentin. He had mechanically form-
ed his idea of the abode and person of an avoue
from his association with M. Hebert. He ex-
pected to find a dull house in a dull street near
the centre of business, remote from the haunts of
idlers, and a grave man of unpretending exterior
and matured years.

He arrived at a hotel newly fronted, richly dec-
orated, in the fashionable quartier close by the
Tuileries. He entered a w'ide ^orfe cochere, and
was directed by the concierge to mount au pre-
mier. There, first detained in an office faultless-
ly neat, with spruce young men at smart desks,
he was at length admitted into a noble salon, and
into the presence of a gentleman lounging in an
easy-chair befoi'e a magnificent bureau of mar-
queterie, genre Louis Seize, engaged in patting a
white curly lap-dog with a pointed nose and a
shrill bark.

The gentleman rose politely on his entrance,
and released the dog, who, after sniffing the Mar-
quis, condescended not to bite.

‘‘‘‘Monsieur le Marquis," said M. Gandrin,
glancing at the card and the introductory note
from M. Hebert, which Alain had sent in, and
which lay on the secretaire beside heaps of let-
ters nicely arranged and labeled, “charmed to
make the honor of your acquaintance ; just ar-
rived at Paris? So M. Hebert — a very worthy
person whom I have never seen, but with whom
I have had correspondence — tells me you wish
for my advice ; in fact, he wrote to me some days
ago, mentioning the business in question — consol-
idation of mortgages. A very large sum wanted.
Monsieur le Marquis, and not to be had easily.”

THE PARISIANS.

“ Nevertheless,” said Alain, quietly, “ I should
imagine that there must be many capitalists in
Paris willing to invest in good securities at fair
interest.”

“You are mistaken. Marquis; very few such
capitalists. Men worth money nowadays like
quick returns and large profits, thanks to the
magnificent system of Credit Mobilier, in which,
as you are aware, a man may place his money
in any trade or speculation without liabilities be-
yond his share. Capitalists are nearly all traders
or speculators.”

“Then,” said the Marquis, half rising, “I am
to presume. Sir, that you are not likely to assist
me.”

“No, I don’t say that. Marquis. I will look
with care into the matter. Doubtless you have
with you an abstract of the necessary documents,
the conditions of the present mortgages, the rental
of the estate, its probable prospects, and so forth.”

“Sir, I have such an abstract with me at
Paris ; and having gone into it myself with M.
Hebert, I can pledge you my word that it is
strictly faithful to the facts.”

The Marquis said this with naive simplicity,
as if his word were quite sufficient to set that
part of the question at rest.

M. Gandrin smiled politely and said, “AlA
bien, M. le Marquis : favor me with the abstract ;
in a week’s time you shall have my opinion.
You enjoy Paris ? Greatly improved under the
Emperor ; the salons, indeed, are hardly open yet.
Apropos, Madame Gandrin receives to-morrow
evening; allow me that opportunity to present
you to her.”

Unprepared for the proffered hospitality, the
Marquis had no option but to murmur his grati-
fication and assent.

In a minute more he was in the streets. The
next evening he went to Madame Gandrin’s —
a brilliant reception — a whole moving flower bed
of “decorations” there. Having gone through
the ceremony of presentation to Madame Gan-
drin— a handsome woman dressed to perfection,
and conversing with the secretary to an embassy
— the young noble ensconced himself in an ob-
scure and quiet corner, observing all, and imag-
ining that he escaped observation. And as the
young men of his own years glided by him, or as
their talk reached his ears, he became aware that
from top to toe, within and without, he was old-
fashioned, obsolete, not of his race, not of his day.
His rank itself seemed to him a Waste-paper ti-
tle-deed to a heritage long lapsed. Not thus the
princely seigneurs of Rochebriant made their de-
but at the capital of their nation. They had had
the entree to the cabinets of their kings ; they
had glittered in the halls of Versailles ; they had
held high posts of distinction in court and camp;
the great Order of St. Louis had seemed their
hereditary appanage. His father, though a vol-
untary exile in manhood, had been in childhood
a king’s page, and throughout life remained the
associate of princes; and here, in an avoue's soiree,
unknown, unregarded, an expectant on an avoue's
patronage, stood the last lord of Rochebriant.

It is easy to conceive that Alain did not stay
long. But he staid long enough to convince
him that on £200 a year the polite society of
I*aris, even as seen at M. Gandrin’s, was not for
him. Nevertheless, a day"^ or two after, he re-
solved to call upon the nearest of his kinsmen to

whom his aunt had given him letters. With the
Count de Vandemar, one of his fellow-nobles of
the sacred Faubourg, he should be no less Roche-
briant, whether in a garret or a palace. The
Vandemars, in fact, though for many generations
before the First Revolution a puissant and brill-
iant family, had always recognized the Roche-
briants as the head of their house — the trunk!
from which they had been slipped in the fifteenth
century, when a younger son of the Rochebriants
married a wealthy heiress and took the title, with
the lands of Vandemar.

Since then the two families had often inter-
married. The present Count had a reputation
for ability, was himself a large proprietor, and
might furnish advice to guide him with M. Gan-
drin. The Hotel de Vandemar stood facing the
old Hotel de Rochebriant; it was less spacious,
but not less venerable, gloomy, and prison-like.

As he turned his eyes from the armorial scutch-
eon which still rested, though chipped and mould-
ering, over the portals of his lost ancestral house,
and was about to cross the street, two young men,
who seemed two or three years older than him-
self, emerged on horseback from the Hotel de
Vandemar.

Handsome young men, with the lofty look of
the old race, dressed with the punctilious care of
person which is not foppery in men of birth, but
seems part of the self-respect that appertains to
the old chivalric point of honor. The horse of
one of these cavaliers made a caracole which
brought it nearly upon Alain as he was about to
cross. The rider, checking his steed, lifted his
hat to Alain and uttered a word of apology in
the courtesy of ancient high-breeding, but still
with condescension as to an inferior. This little
incident, and the slighting kind of notice received
from coevals of his own birth, and doubtless his
own blood — for he divined truly that they were
the sons of the Count de Vandemar — disconcert-
ed Alain to a degree which perhaps a French-
man alone can comprehend. He had even half
a mind to give up his visit and turn back. How-
ever, his native manhood prevailed over that mor-
bid sensitiveness which, born out of the union of
pride and poverty, has all the effects of vanity,
and yet is not vanity itself.

The Count was at home, a thin spare man with
a narrow but high forehead, and an expression of
countenance keen, severe, and un peu moqueuse.

He received the Marquis, however, at first with
great cordiality, kissed him on both sides of his
cheek, called him “ cousin,” expressed immeasur-
able regret that the Countess was gone out on one
of the missions of charity in which the great la-
dies of the Faubourg religiously interest them-
selves, and that his sons had just ridden forth to
the Bois.

As Alain, however, proceeded, simply and with-
out false shame, to communicate the object of his
visit at Paris, the extent of his liabilities, and the
penury of his means, the smile vanished from the
Count’s fiice ; he somewhat drew back his fauteu-
il in the movement common to men who wish to
estrange themselves from some other man’s diffi-
culties ; and when Alain came to a close, the
Count remained some moments seized with a
slight cough ; and, gazing intently on the car-
pet, at length he said, “My dear young friend,
your father behaved extremely ill to you — dis-
honorably, fraudulently.”

THE PARISIANS.

“Hold!” said the Marquis, coloring high.
“ Those are words no man can apply to my fa-
ther in my presence.”

The Count stared, shrugged his shoulders, and
replied, with sang-froid^

“ Marquis, if you are contented with your fa-
ther’s conduct, of course it is no business of
mine; he never injured me. I presume, how-
ever, that, considering my years and my charac-
ter, you come to me for advice — is it so ?”

Alain bowed his head in assent.

“ There are four courses for one in your posi-
tion to take,” said the Count, placing the index
of the right hand successively on the thumb and
three fingers of the left — “ four courses, and no
more.

“ First. To do as your notary recommended :
consolidate your mortgages, patch up your in-
come as you best can, return to Rochebriant, and
devote the rest of your existence to the preserva-
tion of your property. By that course your life
will be one of permanent privation, severe strug-
gle ; and the probability is that you will not suc-
ceed : there will come one or two bad seasons,
the farmers will fail to pay, the mortgagee will
foreclose, and you may find yourself, after twen-
ty years of anxiety and torment, prematurely old
and without a sou.

“ Course the second. Rochebriant, though so
heavily encumbered as to yield you some such in-
come as your father gave to his chef de cuisine, is
still one of those superb terres which bankers and
Jews and stock-jobbers court and hunt after, for
which they will give enormous sums. If you
place it in good hands, I do not doubt that you
could dispose of the property within three months,
on terms that would leave you a considerable sur-
plus, which, invested with judgment, would afford
you whereon you could live at Paris in a way suit-
able to your rank and age. — Need we go further ?
Does this course smile to you ?”

“ Pass on. Count ; I will defend to the last what
I take from my ancestors, and can not voluntari-
ly sell their roof-tree and their tombs.”

“ Your name would still remain, and you w’ould
be just as well received in Paris, and your noblesse
just as implicitly conceded, if all Judaea encamp-
ed upon Rochebriant. Consider how few of us
gentilshommes of the old regime have any domains
left to us. Our names alone survive ; no revolu-
tion can efface them.”

“ It may be so, but pardon me ; there are sub-
jects on which we can not reason — we can but
feel. Rochebriant may be tom from me, but I
can not yield it.”

“I proceed to the third course. Keep the
chateau and give up its traditions; remain de
facto Marquis of Rochebriant, but accept the
new order of things. Make yourself known to
the people in power. They will be charmed to
welcome you ; a convert from the old noblesse is
a guarantee of stability to the new system. You
will be placed in diplomacy ; effloresce into an
embassador, a minister — and ministers nowadays
have opportunities to become enormously rich.”

“That course is not less impossible than the
last. Till Henry V. formally resign his right to
the throne of St. Louis, I can be seiwant to no
other man seated on that throne.”

“Such, too, is my creed,” said the Count, “and
I cling to it ; but my estate is not mortgaged, and
I have neither the tastes nor the age for public

employments. The last course is perhaps better
than the rest ; at all events, it is the easiest. A
wealthy marriage, even if it must be a mesalli-
ance. I think at your age, with your appearance,
that your name is worth at least two million francs
in the eyes of a rich roturier with an ambitious
daughter.”

“ Alas !” said the young man, rising, “I see I
shall have to go back to Rochebriant. I cannot
sell my castle, I can not sell my creed, and I can
not sell my name and myself. ”

“The last all of us did in the old regime,
Marquis. Though I still retain the title of Van-
demar, my property comes from the Farmer-
General’s daughter, whom my great-grandfather,
happily for us, married in the days of Louis
Quinze. Marriages with people of sense and
rank have always been mariages de convenance
in France. It is only in le petit monde that men
having nothing marry girls having nothing, and
I don’t believe they are a bit the happier for it.
On the contrary, the quarrels de menage leading
to frightful crimes appear by the Gazette des
Tribunaux to be chiefly found among those who
do not sell themselves at the altar.”

The old Count said this with a gx'im persiflage.
He was a Voltairian.

Voltairianism deserted by the modern Liber-
als of France has its chief cultivation nowadays
among the wits of the old regime. They pick up
its light weapons on the battle-field on which their
fathers perished, and re-feather against the ca-
naille the shafts which had been pointed against
the noblesse.

“Adieu, Count,” said Alain, rising ; “ I do not
thank you less for your advice because I have not
the wit to profit by it.”

“ Au revoir, my cousin ; you will think better
of it when you have been a month or two at Par-
is. By-the-way, my wife receives every Wednes-
day ; consider our house yours.”

“Count, can I enter into the world which Ma-
dame la Comtesse receives, in the way that be-
comes my birth, on the income I take from my
fortune ?”

The Count hesitated. “ No,” said he at last,
frankly ; “ not because you will be less welcome
or less respected, but because I see that you have
all the pride and sensitiveness of a seigneur de
province. Society would therefore give you pain,
not pleasure. More than this, I know by the re-
membrance of my own youth, and the sad expe-
rience of my own sons, that you would be irre-
sistibly led into debt, and debt in your circum-
stances would be the loss of Rochebriant. No ;
I invite you to visit us. I offer you the most se-
lect but not the most brilliant circles of Paris,
because my wife is religious, and frightens away
the birds of gay plumage with the scarecrow's of
priests and bishops. But if you accept my invi-
tation and my offer, I am bound, as an old man
of the world to a young kinsman, to say that the
chances are that you will be ruined.”

“I thank you. Count, for your candor; and I
now acknowledge that I have found a relation
and a guide,” answered the Marquis, with a no-
bility of mien that was not without a pathos which
touched the hard heart of the old man.

“ Come at least whenever you want a sincere
if a rude friend;” and tiiough he did not kiss his
1 cousin’s cheek this time, he gave him, with more
I sincerity, a parting shake of the hand.

THE PAKISIANS.

And these made the principal events in Alain’s
Paris life till he met Frederic Lemercier. Hith-
erto he had received no definite answer from
M. Gandrin, who had postponed an interview,
not having had leisure to make himself master
of all the details in the abstract sent to him.

CHAPTER IV.

The next day, toward the aftemoon, Frederic
Lemercier, somewhat breathless from the rapidi-
ty at which he had ascended to so high an emi-
nence, burst into Alain’s chamber.

“Pr-r.' mon cher ; what superb exercise for
the health — how it must strengthen the muscles
and expand the chest; after this who should
shrink from scaling Mont Blanc? — Well, well.
I have been meditating on your business ever
since we parted. But I would fain know more
of its details. You shall confide them to me as
we drive through the Bois. My coupe is below,
and the day is beautiful. Come.”

To the young Marquis, the gayety, the hearti-
ness of his college friend were a cordial. How
different from the dry counsels of the Count de
Vandemar! Hope, though vaguely, entered into
his heart. Willingly he accepted Frederic’s in-
vitation, and the young men were soon rapidly
borne along the Champs Elysees. As briefly as
he could Alain described the state of his affairs,
the nature of his mortgages, and the result of his
interview with M. Gandrin.

Frederic listened attentively. “Then Gan-
drin has given you as yet no answer ?”

“ None : but I have a note from him this morn-
ing asking me to call to-morrow. ”

“After you have seen him, decide on nothing
— if he makes you any offer. Get back your ab-
stract, or a copy of it, and confide it to me. Gan-
drin ought to help you ; he transacts affairs in a
large way. Belle clientele among the million-
naires. But his clients expect fabulous profits,
and so does he. As for your principal mort-
gagee, Louvier, you know of course who he is.”

“No, except that M. Hebert told me that he
was very rich.”

“Rich — I should think so; one of the Kings
of Finance. Ah ! observe those young men on
horseback.”

Alain looked forth and recognized the two
cavaliers whom he had conjectured to be the sons
of the Count de Vandemar.

“Those beaux gargons are fair specimens of
your Faubourg,” said Frederic; “they would
decline my acquaintance because my grandfather
kept a shop, and they keep a shop between them ! ”

“A shop — I am mistaken, then. Who are
they ?”

“Raoul and Enguerrand, sons of that mocker
of man, the Count de Vandemar.”

“And they keep a shop! you are jesting.”

“A shop at which you may buy gloves and per-
fumes, Rue de la Chaussee d’Antin. Of course
they don’t serve at the counter ; they only invest
their pocket-money in the speculation, and in so
doing — treble at least their pocket-money, buy
their horses, and keep their grooms.”

“Is it possible! nobles of such birth! How
shocked the Count would be if he knew it!”

“Yes, very much shocked if he was supposed

to know it. But he is too wise a father not to
give his sons limited allowances and unlimited
liberty, especially the liberty to add to the allow-
ances as they please. Look again at them ; no
better riders and more affectionate brothers since
the date of Castor and Pollux. Their tastes, in-
deed, differ : Raoul is religious and moral, mel-
ancholy and dignified ; Enguerrand is a lion of
the first water — elegant to the tips of his nails.
These demigods are nevertheless very mild to
mortals. Though Enguerrand is the best pistol-
shot in Paris, and Raoul the best fencer, the first
is so good-tempered that you would be a brute to
quarrel with him ; the last so true a Catholic
that if you quarreled with him you need fear not
his sword. He would not die in the committal
of what the Church holds a mortal sin.”

“Are you speaking ironically ? Do you mean
to imply that men .of the name of Vandemar are
not brave ?”

“On the contrary, I believe that, though mas-
ters of their weapons, they are too brave to abuse
their skill ; and I must add that, though they are
sleeping partners in a shop, they would not cheat
you of a farthing. — Benign stars on earth, as
Castor and Pollux were in heaven.”

“ But partners in a shop !”

“Bah! when a minister himself, like the late

M. de M , kept a shop, and added the profits

of bonbons to his revenue, you may form some
idea of the spirit of the age. If young nobles are
not generally sleeping partners in shops, still they
are more or less adventurers in commerce. The
Bourse is the profession of those who have no
other profession. You have visited the Bourse f'

“No.”

“ No ! this is just the hour ; we have time yet
for the Bois. — Coachman, drive to the Bourse"

“The fact is,” resumed Frederic, “that gam-
bling is one of the wants of civilized men. The
rouge-et-noir and roulette tables are forbidden —
the hells closed; but the passion for making
money without working for it must have its vent,
and that vent is the Bourse. As instead of a
hundred wax -lights you now have one jet of gas,
so instead of a hundred hells you have now one
Bourse., and — it is exceedingly convenient; al-
ways at hand ; no discredit being seen there, as
it was to be seen at Frascati’s — on the contrary,
at once respectable, and yet the mode."

The coupe stops at the Bourse, our friends
mount the steps, glide through the pillars, deposit
their canes at a place destined to guard them,
and the Marquis follows Frederic up a flight of
stairs till he gains the open gallery round a vast
hall below. Such a din ! such a clamor ! dis-
putatious, wrangling, wrathful.

Here Lemercier distinguished some friends,
whom he joined for a few minutes.

Alain, left alone, looked down into the hall.
He thought himself in some stormy scene of the
First Revolution. An English contested election
in the market-place of a borough when the can-
didates are running close on each other, the re-
sult doubtful, passions excited, the whole borough
in civil war, is peaceful compared to the scene at
the Bourse.

Bulls and bears screaming, bawling, gesticulat-
ing, as if one were about to strangle the other; the
whole, to an uninitiated eye, a confusion, a Babel,
which it seems absolutely impossible to reconcile
to the notion of quiet mercantile transactions, the

THE PARISIANS.

purchase and sale of shares and stocks. As Alain
jiazed bewildered, he felt himself gently touched,
and, looking round, saw the Englishman.

“A lively scene!” whispered Mr. Vane. “This
is the heart of Paris : it beats very loudly.”

“Is your Bourse in London like this?”

“I can not tell you; at our Exchange the
general public are not admitted; the privileged
priests of that temple sacrifice their victims in
closed ])enetralia, beyond which the sounds made
in the operation do not travel to ears profane.
But had we an Exchange like this open to all
the world, and placed, not in a region of our
metropolis unknown to fashion, but in some ele-
gant square in St. James’s or at Hyde Park Cor-
ner, I suspect that our national character would
soon undergo a great change, and that all our
idlers and sporting men would make their books
there every day, instead of waiting long months
in ennui for the Doncaster and the Derby. At
present we have but few men on the turf ; we
should then have few men not on Exchange, es-
pecially if we adopt your law, and can contrive to
be traders without risk of becoming bankrupts.
Napoleon I. called us a shop-keeping nation.
Napoleon HI. has taught France to excel us in
every thing, and certainly he has made Paris a
shop-keeping city.”

Alain thought of Raoul and Enguerrand, and
blushed to find that what he considered a blot on
his countrymen was so familiarly perceptible to
a foreigner’s eye.

“And the Emperor has done wisely, at least
for the time,” continued the Englishman, with a
more thoughtful accent. “He has found vent
thus for that very dangerous class in Paris soci-
ety to which the subdivision of property gave
birth — viz., the crowd of well-born, daring young
men without fortune and without profession. He
has opened the Bourse, and said, ‘There, I give
you employment, resource, an avenir.' He has
cleared the by-ways into commerce and trade,
and opened new avenues of wealth to the no-
blesse, whom the great Revolution so unwisely
beggared. What other way to rebuild a noblesse
in France, and give it a chance of powder because
an access to fortune? But to how' many sides
of your national character has the Bourse of
Paris magnetic attraction I You Frenchmen are
so brave that you could not be happy without
facing danger, so covetous of distinction that
you w'ould pine yourselves away without a dash,
coute que coute, at celebrity and a red ribbon.
Danger ! look below at that arena — there it is ;
danger daily, hourly. But there also is celebri-
ty ; win at the Bourse, as of old in a tourna-
ment, and paladins smile on you, and ladies give
3^ou their scarfs, or, w'hat is much the same, they
allow' 3'ou to buy their cachemires. Win at the
Bourse — what follows ? the Chamber, the Sen-
ate, the Cross, the Minister’s portefeuille. I
might rejoice in all this for the sake of Europe
— could it last, and did it not bring the conse-
quences that follow the demoralization which at-
tends it. The Bourse and the Credit Mobilier
keep Paris quiet — at least as quiet as it can be.
These are the secrets of this reign of splendor;
these the two lio7is couchants on w'hich rests the
throne of the imperial reconstructor.”

Alain listened surprised and struck. He had
not given the Englishman credit for the cast of
mind which such reflections evinced.

Here Lemercier rejoined them, and shook hands
with Graham Vane, who, taking him aside, said,
“But you promised to go to the Bois, and in-
dulge my insane curiosity about the lady in the
pearl-colored robe ?”

“ 1 have not forgotten ; it is not half past tw’o
j'et ; you said three. Soyez tranquille ; I drive
thither from the Bourse with Rochebriant. ”

“Is it necessary to take w'ith you that very
good-looking Marquis ?”

“I thought you said j-ou w'ere not jealous, be-
cause not yet in love. However, if Rochebriant
occasions you the pang which your humble serv-
ant failed to inflict, I will take care that he do
not see the lady.”

“No,” said the Englishman; “on consider-
ation, I should be very much obliged to anj' one
with whom she would fall in love. That would
disenchant me. Take the Marquis by all means.”

Meanw'hile Alain, again looking down, saw
just under him, close b}' one of the pillars, Lu-
cien Duplessis. He was standing apart from
the throng — a small space cleared round himself
— and two men who had the air of gentlemen of
the beau monde w'ith whom he was conferring.
Duplessis, thus seen, was not like the Duplessis
at the restaurant. It would be difficult to ex-
plain what the change was, but it forcibly struck
Alain : the air was more dignified, the expres-
sion keener ; there was a look of conscious pow-
er and command about the man even at that dis-
tance ; the intense, concentrated intelligence of
his eye, his firm lip, his marked features, his pro-
jecting, massive brow — w'ould have impressed a
very ordinary observer. In fact, the man w'as
here in his native element — in the field in which
his intellect gloried, commanded, and had sig-
nalized itself by successive triumphs. Just thus
may be the change in the great orator w hom j'ou
deemed insignificant in a drawing-room, w'hen
you see his crest rise above a reverential audi-
ence ; or the great soldier, who w'as not distin-
guishable from the subaltern in a peaceful club,
could you see him issuing the order to his aids-
de-camp amidst the smoke and roar of the bat-
tle-field.

“Ah, Marquis!” said Graham Vane, “are
3'ou gazing at Duplessis ? He is the modern ge-
nius of Paris. He is at once the Cousin, the
Guizot, and the Victor Hugo of speculation.
Philosophy — Eloquence — audacious Romance —
all Literature now is swallowed up iu the sub-
lime epic of Agiotage, and Duplessis is the poet
of the empire.”

“Well said, M. Grarm-Varn,” cried Freder-
ic, forgetting his recent lesson in English names.
“Alain underrates that great man. How could
an Englishman appreciate him so well ?”

“ Ma foi I" returned Graham, quietly ; “I am
studying to think at Paris, in order some day or
other to know how to act in London. Time for
the Bois. Lemercier, we meet at seven — Phi-
lippe’s.”

CHAPTER V.

“What do you think of the Bourse ?" asked
Lemercier, as their carriage took the way to the
Bois.

“ I can not think of it yet ; I am stunned. It
seems to me as if I had been at a Sabbat, of

THE PARISIANS.

■which the wizards were agents de change^ but
not less bent upon raising Satan.”

“Pooh! the best way to exorcise Satan is to
get rich enough not to be tempted by him. The
fiend always loved to haunt empty places ; and
of all places nowadays he prefers empty purses
and empty stomachs.”

“But do all people get rich at the Bourse ? or
is not one man’s wealth many men’s ruin ?”

“ That is a question not very easy to answer ;
but under our present system Paris gets rich,
though at the expense of individual Parisians.
I will try and explain. The average luxury is
enormously increased even in my experience ;
what were once considered refinements and fop-
peries are now called necessary comforts. Prices
are risen enormously, house rent doubled within
the last five or six years ; all articles of luxury
are very much dearer; the very gloves I wear
cost twenty per cent, more than I used to pay
for gloves of the same quality. How the people
we meet live, and live so well, is an enigma that
would defy (Edipus if CEdipus were not a Paris-
ian. But the main explanation is this : specu-
lation and commerce, with the facilities given to
all investments, have really opened more numer-
ous and more rapid ways to fortune than were
known a few years ago.

“Crowds are thus attracted to Paris, resolved
to venture a small capital in the hope of a large
one; they live on that capital, not on their in-
come, as gamesters do. There is an idea among
us that it is necessary to seem rich in order to
become rich. Thus there is a general extrava-
gance and profusion. English milords marvel at
our splendor. Those who, while spending their
capital as their income, fail in their schemes of
fortune, after one, two, three, or four years — van-
ish. What becomes of them I know no more
tiian I do what becomes of the old moons. Their
})lace is immediately supplied by new candidates.
Paris is thus kept perennially sumptuous and
splendid by the gold it ingulfs. But then some
men succeed — succeed prodigiously, preternatu-
rally; they make colossal fortunes, which are
magnificently expended. They set an example
of show and pomp, which is of course the more
contagious because so many men say, ‘ The oth-
er day those millionnaires were as poor as we are ;
they never economized ; why should we ?’ Paris
is thus doubly enriched — by the fortunes it swal-
lows up, and by the fortunes it casts up ; the last
being always reproductive, and the first never lost
except to the individuals.”

“I understand: but what struck me forcibly
at the scene we have left was the number of
young men there; young men whom I should
judge by their appearance to be gentlemen, evi-
dently not mere spectators — eager, anxious, with
tablets in their hands. That old or middle-aged
men should find a zest in the pursuit of gain I
can understand, but youth and avarice seem to
me a new combination, which Moli^re never di-
vined in his Avare”

“Young men, especially if young gentlemen,
love pleasure ; and pleasure in this city is very
dear. This explains why so many young men
frequent the Bourse. In the old gaming-tables,
now suppressed, young men were the majority ;
in the days of your chivalrous forefathers, it was
the young nobles, not the old, who would stake
their very mantles and swords on a cast of the

die. And naturally enough, mon cher ; for is
not youth the season of hope, and is not Hope
the goddess of gaming, whether at rouge-et-noir
or the Bourse

Alain felt himself more and more behind his
generation. The acute reasoning of Lemercier
humbled his amour propre. At college Lemer-
cier was never considered Alain’s equal in abili-
ty or book-learning. What a stride beyond his
school-fellow had Lemercier now made ! How
dull and stupid the young provincial felt himself
to be, as compared with the easy cleverness and
half-sportive philosophy of the Parisian’s fluent
talk !

He sighed with a melancholy and yet with a
generous envy. He had too fine a natural per-
ception not to acknowledge that there is a rank
of mind as well as of birth, and in the first he
felt that Lemercier might well walk before a
Rochebriant ; but his very humility was a proof
that he underrated himself.

Lemercier did not excel him in mind, but in
experience. And just as the drilled soldier seems
a much finer fellow than the raw recruit, because
he knows how to carry himself, but after a year’s
discipline the raw recruit may excel in martial
air the upright hero whom he now despairingly
admires, and never dreams he can rival, so set
a mind from a village into the drill of a capital,
and see it a year after ; it may tower a head
higher than its recruiting sergeant.

CHAPTER VI.

“I BELIEVE,” said Lemercier, as the coupe
rolled through the lively alleys of the Bois de
Boulogne, ‘ ‘ that Paris is built on a loadstone,
and that every Frenchman with some iron glob-
ules in his blood is irresistibly attracted toward
it. The English never seem to feel for London
the passionate devotion that we feel for Paris.
On the contrary, the London middle class, the
commercialists, the shop-keepers, t’ne clerks, even
the superior artisans compelled to do their busi-
ness in the capital, seem always scheming and
pining to have their home out of it, though but
in a suburb.”

“You have been in London, Frederic ?”

“Of course; it is the mode to visit that dull
and hideous metropolis.”

“If it be dull and hideous, no wonder the peo-
ple who are compelled to do business in it seek
the pleasures of home out of it.”

“It is very droll that, though the middle class
entirely govern the melancholy Albion, it is the
only country in Europe in which the middle class
seem to have no amusements ; nay, they legislate
against amusement. They have no leisure day
but Sunday ; and on that day they close all their
theatres — even their museums and picture-gal-
leries. What amusements there may be in En-
gland are for the higher classes and the lowest.”

“What are the amusements of the lowest
class ?”

“ Getting drunk.”

“Nothing else ?”

“ Yes. I was taken at night under protection
of a policeman to some cabarets, where I found
crowds of that class which is the stratum below
the working class ; lads who sweep crossings and

THE PARISIANS.

hold horses, mendicants, and, I was told, thieves,
girls whom a servant-maid would not speak to —
very merry — dancing quadrilles and waltzes, and
regaling themselves on sausages — the happiest-
looking folks I found in all London — and, I
must say, conducting themselves very decently.

“Ah!” Here Lemercier pulled the check-
string. “ Will you object to a walk in this quiet
alley? I see some one whom I have promised
the Englishman to — But heed me, Alain ; don’t
fall in love with her.”

CHAPTER VII.

The lady in the pearl-colored dress ! Certain-
ly it was a face that might well arrest the eye and
linger long on the remembrance.

There are certain “ beauty-women,” as there
are certain “ beauty-men,” in whose features one
detects no fault — who are the show figures of any
assembly in which they appeal- — but who, some-
how or other, inspire no sentiment and excite no
interest ; they lack some expression, whether of
mind, or of soul, or of heart, without which the
most beautiful face is but a beautiful picture.
This lady was not one of those “beauty-wom-
en.” Her features taken singly were by no
means perfect, nor were they set off by any brill-
iancy of coloring. But the countenance aroused
and impressed the imagination with a belief
that there was some history attached to it which
you longed to learn. * The hair, simply parted
over a forehead unusually spacious and high for
a woman, was of lustrous darkness ; the eyes, of
a deep violet blue, were shaded with long lashes.

Their expression was soft and mournful, but
unobservant. She did not notice Alain and Le-
mercier as the two men slowly passed her. She
seemed abstracted, gazing into space as one ab-
sorbed in thought or reverie. Her complexion
was clear and pale, and apparently betokened del-
icate health.

Lemercier seated himself on a bench beside the
path, and invited Alain to do the same. “She
will return this way soon,” said the Parisian,
“and we can observe her more attentively and
more respectfully thus seated than if we were on
foot; meanwhile, what do you think of her?
Is she French — is she Italian ? — can she be En-
glish ?”

“I should have guessed Italian, judging by the
darkness of her hair and the outline of tlie feat-
ures ; but do Italians have so delicate a fairness
of complexion ?”

“ Very rarely; and I should guess her to be
French, judging by the intelligence of her expres-
sion, the simple neatness of her dress, and by that
nameless refinement of air in which a Parisienne
excels all the descendants of Eve — if it were not
for her eyes. I never saw a Frenchwoman with
eyes of that peculiar shade of blue ; and if a
Fj-enchwoman had such eyes, I flatter myself
she would have scarcely allowed us to pass with-
out making some use of them.”

“Do you think she is married?” asked Alain.

“ I hope so — for a girl of her age, if comme il
faut, can scarcely walk alone in the Bois, and
would not have acquired that look so intelligent
— more than intelligent — so poetic.”

“But regard that air of unmistakable distinc-

tion, regard that expression of face — so pure, so
virginal : comme il faut she must be.”

As Alain said these last words, the lady, who
had turned back, was approaching them, and in
full view of their gaze. She seemed unconscious
of their existence as before, and Lemercier no-
ticed that her lips moved as if she were murmur-
ing inaudibly to herself.

She did not return again, but continued her
walk straight on till at the end of the alley she
entered a carriage in waiting for her, and was
driven off.

“Quick, quick!” cried Lemercier, running to-
ward his own coupe; “we must give chase.”

Alain followed somewhat less hurriedly, and,
agreeably to instructions Lemercier had already
given to his coachman, the Parisian’s coupe set
off at full speed in the track of the strange lady’s,
which was still in sight.

In less than twenty minutes the carriage in chase
stopped at the grille of one of those charming
little villas to be found in the pleasant suburb of
A ; a porter emerged from the lodge, open-

ed the gate ; the carriage drove in, again stopped
at the door of the house, and the two gentlemen
could not catch even a glimpse of the lady’s robe
as she descended from the carriage and disap-
peared within the house.

“I see a cafe yonder,” said Lemercier; “let
us learn all we can as to the fair unknown, over
a sorbet or Si petit verre”

Alain silently, but not reluctantly, consented.
He felt in the fair stranger an interest new to
his existence.

They entered the little cafe, and in a few min-
utes Lemercier, with the easy savoir vivre of a
Parisian, had extracted from the gargon as much
as probably any one in the neighborhood knew
of the inhabitants of the villa.

It had been hired and furnished about two
months previously in the name of Signora Ve-
nosta ; but* according to the report of the serv-
ants, the lady appeared to be the gouvernante or
guardian of a lady much younger, out of whose
income the villa was rented and the household
maintained.

It was for her the coupe was hired from Paris.
The elder lady very rarely stirred out during the
day, but always accompanied the younger in any
evening visits to the theatre or the houses of
friends.

It was only within the last few weeks that such
visits had been made.

The younger lady was in delicate health, and
under the care of an English physician famous for
skill in the treatment of pulmonary complaints.
It was by his advice that she took daily walking
exercise in the Bois. The establishment con-
sisted of three servants, all Italians, and speak-
ing but imperfect French. The gargon did not
know whether either of the ladies was married,
but their mode of life was free from all scandal
or suspicion ; they probably belonged to the lit-
erary or musical world, as the gargon had ob-
served as their visitor the eminent author M.
Savarin and his wife, and, still more frequently,
an old man not less eminent as a musical com-
poser.

“It is clear to me now,” said Lemercier, as
the two friends reseated themselves in the car-
riage, “that our pearly ange is some Italian
singer of repute enough in her own counti-}’^ to

THE PARISIANS.

have gained already a competence; and that,
perhaps on account of her own health or her
friend’s, she is living quietly here in the expec-
mtion of some professional engagement, or the
absence of some foreign lover.”

“Lover! do you think that?” exclaimed
Alain, in a tone of voice that betrayed pain.

“It is possible enough; and in that case the
Englishman may profit little by the information
I have promised to give liim.”

“You have promised the Englishman ?”

“Do you not remember last night that he de-
scribed the lady, and said that her face haunted
him : and I — ”

“Ah ! I remember now. What do you know
of this Englishman ? He is rich, I suppose.”

“ Yes, I hear he is very rich now ; that an un-
cle lately left him an enormous sum of money.
He was attached to the English Embassy many
years ago, which accounts for his good French
and his knowledge of Parisian life. He comes
to Paris very often, and I have known him some
time. Indeed, he has intrusted to me a difficult
and delicate commission. The English tell me
that his father was one of the most eminent mem-
bers of their Parliament, of ancient birth, very
highly connected, but ran out his fortune and
died poor ; that our friend had for some years
to maintain liimself, I fancy, by his pen ; that
he is considered very able; and, now that his
uncle has enriched him, likely to enter public life
and run a career as distinguished as his father’s.”

“ Happy man ! happy are the English,” said
the Marquis, with a sigh ; and as the carriage
now entered Paris, he pleaded the excuse of an
engagement, bade his friend good-by, and went
his way musing through the crowded streets.

CHAPTER VIII.

LETTER FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MADAME
DE GRANTMESNIL.

“Villa D’ , A .

“ I can never express to you, my beloved Eu-
lalie, the strange charm which a letter from you
throws over my poor little lonely world for days
after it is received. There is always in it some-
thing that comforts, something that sustains, but
also a something that troubles and disquiets me.
I suppose Goethe is right, ‘ that it is the property
of true genius to disturb all settled ideas,’ in or-
der, no doubt, to lift them into a higher level
when they settle down again.

“Your sketch of the new work you are medi-
tating amidst the orange groves of Provence in-
terests me intensely ; yet, do you forgive me when
I add that the interest is not without terror. I
do not find myself able to comprehend how, amidst
those lovely scenes of nature, your mind volun-
tarily surrounds itself with images of pain and
discord. I stand in awe of the calm with which
you subject to your analysis tbe infirmities of rea-
son and the tumults of passion. And all those
laws of the social state which seem to me so fixed
and immovable you treat with so quiet a scorn, as
if they were but the gossamer threads which a
touch of your slight woman’s hand could brush
away. But I can not venture to discuss such
subjects with you. It is only the skilled enchant-
er who can stand safely in the magic circle, and

compel the spirits that he summons, even if they
are evil, to minister to ends in which he foresees
a good.

“We continue to live here very quietly, and I
do not as yet feel the worse for the colder climate.
Indeed, my wonderful doctor, who was recom-
mended to me as American, but is in reality En-
glish, assures me that a single winter spent here
under his care will suffice for my complete re-
establishment. Yet that career, to the training
for which so many years have been devoted, does
not seem to me so alluring as it once did.

“I have much to say on this subject, which I
defer till I can better collect my own thoughts on
it — at present they are confused and struggling.
The great Maestro has been most gracious.

“In what a radiant atmosphere his genius
lives and breathes ! Even in his cynical moods,
his very cynicism has in it the ring of a jocund
music — the laugh of Figaro, not of Mephistoph-
eles.

“We went to dine with him last week; he

invited to meet us Madame S , who has this

year conquered all opposition, and reigns alone,
the great S , Mr. T , a pianist of admira-

ble promise — your friend M. Savarin, wit, critic,
and poet, with his pleasant sensible wife, and a
few others whom the Maestro confided to me in
a whisper were authorities in the press. After

dinner S sang to us, magnificently, of course.

Then she herself graciously turned to me, said
how much she had heard from the Maestro in
my praise, and so-and-so. I was persuaded
to sing after her. I need not say to what disad-
vantage. But I forgot my nervousness ; I for-
got my audience ; I forgot myself, as I always
do when once my soul, as it were, finds wing
in music, and buoys itself in air, relieved from
the sense of earth. I knew not that I had suc-
ceeded till I came to a close, and then my eyes
resting on the face of the grand privia donna, I
was seized with an indescribable sadness — with
a keen pang of remorse. Perfect artiste though
she be, and with powers in her own realm of art
which admit of no living equal, I saw at once
that I had pained her ; she had grown almost
livid ; her lips were quivering, and it was only
with a great effort that she muttered out some
faint words intended for applause. I compre-
hended by an instinct how gradually there can
grow upon the mind of an artist the most gener-
ous that jealousy which makes the fear of a rival
annihilate the delight in art. If ever I should

achieve S ’s fame as a singer, should I feel

the same jealousy ? I think not now, but I have
not been tested. She went away abruptly. I
spare you the recital of the compliments paid to
me by my other auditors, compliments that gave
me no pleasure ; for on all lips, except those of
the Maestro, they implied, as the height of eu-
logy, that I had inflicted torture upon S .

‘If so,’ said he, ‘she would be as foolish as a
rose that was jealous of the whiteness of a lily.
You would do yourself great wrong, my child, if
you tried to vie with the rose in its own color.’

“ He patted my bended head as he spoke, with
that kind of fatherly king -like fondness with
which he honors me; and I took his hand in
mine, and kissed it gratefully. ‘Nevertheless,’
said Savarin, ‘ when the lily comes out there will
be a furious attack on it, made by the clique that
devotes itself to the rose : a lily clique will be

THE PARISIANS.

formed en revanche, .and I foresee a fierce paper
war. Ho not be friglitened at its first outburst ;
every fame worth having must be fought for.’

“ Is it so ? have you had to fight for your fame,
Eulalie ? and do you hate all contest as much as
I do?

‘ ‘ Our only other gayety since I last wrote was a
soiree at M. Louvier’s. That republican million-
naire was not slow in attending to the kind letter
you addressed to him recommending us to his
civilities. He called at once, placed his good
ofiices at our disposal, took charge of my mod-
est fortune, which he has invested, no doubt, as
safely as it is advantageously in point of interest,
hired our carriage for us, and in short has been
most amiably useful.

“ At his house we met many to me most pleas-
ant, for they spoke with such genuine apprecia-
tion of your works and yourself. But there were
others whom I should never have expected to
meet under the roof of a Croesus who has so great '
a stake in the order of things established. One
young man — a noble whom he specially present-
ed to me, as a politician who would be at the
head of affairs when the Red Republic was es-
tablished— asked me whether I did not agree
with him that all private property was public
spoliation, and that the great enemy to civiliza-
tion was religion, no matter in what foi m.

“ He addressed to me these tremendous ques-
tions with an effeminate lisp, and harangued on
them with small feeble gesticulations of pale dain-
ty fingers covered with rings.

“I asked him if there were many who in
France shared his ideas.

“ ‘ Quite enough to carry them some d.ay,’ he
answered, with a lofty smile. ‘And the day
may be nearer than the world thinks, when my
confreres will be so numerous that they will have
to shoot down each other for the sake of cheese
to their bread.’

“That day nearer than the world thinks!
Certainly, so far as one m.ay judge the outward
signs of the world at Paris, it does not think of
such things at all. With what an air of self-con-
tent the beautiful city parades her riches ! Who
can gaze on her splendid palaces, her gorgeous
shops, and believe that she will give ear to doc-
trines that would annihilate private rights of
property; or who can enter her crowded church-
es, and dream that she can ever again install a re-
public too civilized for religion ?

“Adieu. Excuse me for this dull letter. If
I have written on much that has little interest
even for me, it is that I wish to distract my mind
from brooding over the question that interests me
most, and on which I most need your counsel.

I will try to approach it in my next.

“ ISAURA.”

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

“ Euhalie, Eulalie ! — What mocking spirit has
been permitted in this modern age of ours to
place in the heart of woman the ambition which
is the prerogative of men ? — You, indeed, so rich-
ly endowed with a man’s genius, have a right to
man’s aspirations. But what can justify such
ambition in me ? Nothing but this one unintel-
lectual perishable gift of a voice that does but
please in uttering the thoughts of others. Doubt-
less I could make a name familiar for its brief

time to the talk of Europe — a name, what name ?
a singer’s name. Once I thought that name .a
gloiy. Shall I ever forget the day when you first
shone upon me ; when, emerging from childhood
as from a dim and solitary by-path, I stood for-
lorn on the great thoroughfare of life, and all the
prospects before me stretched sad in mists and in
rain ? You beamed on me then as the sun com-
ing out from the cloud and changing the face of
eai’th ; you opened to my sight the fairy-land of
poetry and art ; you took me by the hand and
said, ‘ Courage ! there is at each step some green
gap in the hedge-rows, some soft escape from the
•stony thoroughfare. Beside the real life expands
the ideal life to those who seek it. Droop not,
seek it ; the ideal life has its sorrows, but it nev-
er admits despair ; as on the ear of him who fol-
lows the winding course of a streanj, the stream
ever varies the note of its music, ^ow loud with
the rush of the falls, now low and calm as it glides
' by the level marge of smooth banks ; now sigh-
ing through the stir of the reeds, now babbling
with a fretful joy as some sudden curve on the
shore stays its flight among gleaming pebbles ;
so to the soul of the artist is the voice of the art
ever fleeting beside and before him. Nature
gave thee the bird’s gift of song — raise the gift
into art, and make the art thy companion.

“ ‘Art and Hope were twin-born, and they die
together.’

“See how faithfully I remember, methinks,
your very words. But the magic of the words,
which I then but dimly understood, was in your
smile and in your eye, and the queen-like wave
of your hand as if beckoning to a world which
lay before you, visible and familiar as your native
land. And how devotedly, with what earnestness
of passion, I gave myself up to the task of raising
my gift into an art ! I thought of nothing else,
dreamed of nothing else ; and oh, how sweet to
me then were words of praise ! ‘ Another year

yet,’ at length said the masters, ‘ and you ascend
your throne among the queens of song.’ Then
— then — I would have changed for no other
throne on earth my hope of that to be achieved
in the realms of my art. And then came that
long fever : my strength bioke down, and the
Maestro said, ‘ Rest, or your voice is gone, and
your throne is lost forever.’ How hateful that
rest seemed to me ! You again came to my aid.
You said, ‘The time you think lost should be but
time improved. Penetrate your mind with oth-
er songs than the trash of Libretti. The more
you habituate yourself to the forms, the more you
imbue yourself with the spirit, in which passions
have been expressed and character delineated by
great writers, the more completely you will ac-
complish yourself in your own special art of sing-
er and actress.’ So, then, you allured me to a
new study. Ah ! in so doing did you dream
that you diverted me from the old ambition ?
My knowledge of French and Italian, and my
rearing in childhood, which had made English
familiar to me, gave me the keys to the treasure-
houses of three languages. Naturally I began
with that in which your masterpieces are com-
posed. Till then I had not even read your works.
They were the first I chose. How they impress-
ed, how they startled me I what depths in the
mind of man, in the heart of woman, they reveal-
ed to me ! But I owned to you then, and I re-
peat it now, neither they nor any of the works in

THE PARISIANS.

romance and poetry which form the boast of re-
cent French literature, satisfied yearnings for that
calm sense of beauty, that divine joy in a world
beyond this world, which you had led me to be-
lieve it was the prerogative of ideal art to bestow.
And when I told you this with the rude frank-
ness you had bid me exercise in talk with you, a
thoughtful melancholy shade fell over your face,
and you said, quietly, ‘ You are right, child ; we,
the French of our time, are the offspring of revo-
lutions that settled nothing, unsettled all : we re-
semble those troubled states which rush into war
abroad in order to re-establish peace at home.
Our books suggest problems to men for recon-
structing some social system in which the calm
that belongs to art may be found at last : but
* such books should not be in your hands ; they
are not for the innocence and youth of women,
as yet unchanged by the systems which exist.’
And the next day you brought me Tasso’s great
poem, the Germalemme Liberata^ and said, smil-
ing, ^ Art in its calm is here.’

“You remember that I was then at Sorrento
by the order of my physician. Never shall I for-
get the soft autumn day Avhen I sat among the
lonely rocklets to the left of the town — the sea
l)efore me, with scarce a ripple ; my very heart
steeped in the melodies of that poem, so marvel-
ous for a strength disguised in sweetness, and for
a symmetry in which each proportion blends into
t!ie other with the perfectness of a Grecian statue,
'riia whole place seemed to me filled with the pres-
ence of the poet to whom it had given birth. Cer-
tainly the reading of that poem formed an era in
my existence ; to this day I can not acknowledge
the faults or weaknesses which your criticisms
pointed out — I believe because they are in unison
with my own nature, which yearns for harmony,
and, finding that, rests contented. I shrink from
violent contrasts, and can discover nothing tame
and insipid in a continuance of sweetness and se-
renity. But it was not till after I had read La
Gerusalemme again and again, and then sat and
brooded over it, that I recognized the main charm
of the poem in the religion which clings to it as
the perfume clings to a flower — a religion some-
times melancholy, but never to me sad. Hope
always pervades it. Surely if, as you said, ‘ Hope
is twin-born with art,’ it is because art at its high-
est blends itself unconsciously with religion, and
proclaims its affinity with hope by its faith in
some future good more perfect than it has real-
ized in the past.

“Be this as it may, it was in this poem so
pre-eminently Christian that I found the some-
thing which I missed and craved for in modern
French masterpieces, even yours — a something
spiritual, speaking to my own soul, calling it forth ;
distinguishit)g it as an essence apart from mere
human reason ; soothing, even when it excited ;
making earth nearer to heaven. And when I
ran on in this strain to you after my own wild fash-
ion, you took my head between your hands and
kissed me, and said, ‘ Happy are those who be-
lieve ! long may that happiness be thine !’ Why
did I not feel in Dante the Christian charm that
1 felt in Tasso ? Dante in your eyes, as in those
of most judges, is infinitely the greater genius,
but reflected on the dark stream of that genius
the stars are so troubled, the heavens so threat-
ening.

“Just as my year of holiday was expiring I

turned to English literature ; and Shakspeare,
of course, was the first English poet put into my
hands. It proves how child-like my mind still
was, that my earliest sensation in reading him
was that of disappointment. It was not only that,
despite my familiarity with English (thanks chief-
ly to the care of him whom I call my second
father), there is much in the metaphorical dic-
tion of Shakspeare which I failed to comprehend ;
but he seemed to me so far like the modern French
writers who affect to have found inspiration in
his muse, that he obtrudes images of pain and
suffering without cause or motive sufficiently clear
to ordinary understandings, as I had taught my-
self to think it ought to be in the drama.

“He makes Fate so cruel that we lose sight
of the mild deity behind her. Compare, in
this, Corneille’s Polyeticte with the Hamlet. In
the first an equal calamity befalls the good, but
in their calamity they are blessed. The death
of the martyr is the triumph of his creed. But
when we have put down the English tragedy —
when Hamlet and Ophelia are confounded in
death with Folonius and the fratricidal king, we
see not what good end for humanity is achieved.
The passages that fasten on our memory do not
make us happier and holier ; they suggest but
terrible problems, to which they give us no solu-
tion.

“In the Horaces of Corneille there are fierce
contests, rude passions, tears drawn from some
of the bitterest sources of human pity ; but then
through all stands out, large and visible to the
eyes of all spectators, the great ideal of devoted
patriotism. How much of all that has been grand-
est in the life of France, redeeming even its \yorst
crimes of revolution in the love of country, has
had its origin in the Horaces of Corneille ! But
I doubt if the fates of Coriolanus, and Caesar,
and Brutus, and Antony, in the giant tragedies
of Shakspeare, have made Englishmen more
willing to die for England. In fine, it was long
before — I will not say I understood or right-
ly appreciated Shakspeare, for no Englishman
would admit that I or even you could ever do
so — but before I could recognize the justice
of the place his country claims for him as the
genius without an equal in the literature of
Europe. Meanwhile, the ardor I had put into
study, and the wear and tear of the emotions
which the study called forth, made themselves
felt in a return of my former illness, with symp-
toms still more alarming ; and when the year was
out, I was ordained to rest for perhaps another
year before I could sing in public, still less ap-
pear on the stage. How I rejoiced when I heard
that fiat, for I emerged from that year of study
with a heart utterly estranged from the profession
in which I had centred my hopes before — Yes,
Eulalie, you had bid me accomplish myself for
the arts of utterance by the study of arts in which
thoughts originate the words they employ, and
in doing so I had changed myself into another
being. I was forbidden all fatigue of mind ; my.
books were banished, but not the new self which
the books had formed. Recovering slowly through
the summer, I came hither two months since,

ostensibly for the advice of Dr. C , but really

in the desire to commune with my own heart,
and be still.

“And now I have poured forth that heart to
you — would you persuade me still to be a singer ?

THE PAKISIANS.

If you do, remember at least how jealous and ab-
sorbing the art of the singer and of the actress

is. How completely I must surrender myself to

it, and live among books, or among dreams, no
more. Can I be any thing else but singer ? and
if not, should I be contented merely to read and
to dream ?

“ I must confide to you one ambition which
during the lazy Italian summer took possession of
me — I must tell you the ambition, and add that
I have renounced it as a vain one. I had hoped
that I could compose, I mean in music. I was
pleased with some things I did — they expressed
in music what I could not express in words ; and
one secret object in coming here was to submit
them to the great Maestro. He listened to them
patiently ; he complimented me on my accuracy
in the mechanical laws of composition ; he even
said that my favorite airs were ‘ touchants et gra-
cieux. ’

“ And so he would have left me, but I stopped
bim timidly, and said, ‘ Tell me frankly, do you
think that with time and study I could compose
music such as singers equal to mvself would sing
to?’

“ ‘ You mean as a professional composer?’

‘“Well, yes.’

“ ‘ And to the abandonment of your vocation
as a singer ?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘ My dear child, I should be your worst en-
emy if I encouraged such a notion ; cling to the
career in which you can be greatest ; gain but
health, and I wager my reputation on your glori-
ous success on the stage. What can you be as a
composer ? You will set pretty music to pretty
words, and will be sung in drawing-rooms with
the fame a little more or less that generally at-
tends the compositions of female amateurs. Aim
at something higher, as I know you would do,
and you will not succeed. Is there any instance
in modern times, perhaps in any times, of a fe-
male composer who attains even to the eminence
of a third-rate opera writer? Composition in
letters may be of no sex. In that Madame Du-
devant and your friend Madame de Grantmesnil
can beat most men ; but the genius of musical
composition is homme, and accept it as a compli-
ment when I say that you are essentially femme.'

“ He left me, of course, mortified and hum-
bled ; but I feel he is right as regards myself,
though whether in his depreciation of our whole
sex I can not say. But as this hope has left me,
I have become more disquieted, still more rest-
less. Counsel me, Eulalie ; counsel, and, if pos-
sible, comfort me. Isaura.”

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

“No letter from you yet, and I have left you
in peace for ten days. How do you think I have
spent them ? The Maestro called on us with M.
Savarin, to insist on our accompanying them on
a round of the theatres. I had not been to one
since my arrival. I divined that the kind-heart-
ed composer had a motive in this invitation. He
thought that in witnessing the applauses bestowed
on actors, and sharing in the fascination in which
theatrical illusion holds an audience, my old pas-
sion for the stage, and with it the longing for an
artiste's fame, would revive.

“In my heart I wished that his expectations

might be realized. Well for me if I could once
more concentre all my aspirations on a prize with-
in my reach !

“We went first to see a comedy greatly in
vogue, and the author thoroughly understands the
French stage of our day. The acting was excel-
lent in its way. The next night we went to the
Odeon, a romantic melodrama in six acts, and 1
know not how many tableaux. I found no fault
with the acting there. I do not give you the rest
of our programme. We visited all the principal

theatres, reserving the opera and Madame S

for the last. Before I speak of the opera, let me
say a word or two on the plays.

“ There is no country in which the theatre has
so great a hold on the public as in France ; no
country in which the successful dramatist has so
high a fame ; no country, perhaps, in which the
state of the stage so faithfully represents the mor-
al and intellectual condition of the people. I say
this not, of course, from my experience of coun-
tries which I have not visited, but from all I hear
of the stage in Germany and in England.

“The impression left on my mind by the per-
formances I witnessed is, that the French people
are becoming dwarfed. The comedies that please
them are but pleasant caricatures of petty sections
in a corrupt society. They contain no large types
of human nature; their witticisms convey no
luminous flashes of truth ; their sentiment is not
pure and noble — it is a sickly and false perversion
of the impure and ignoble into travesties of the
pure and noble.

“Their melodramas can not be classed as lit-
erature— all that really remains of the old French
genius is its vaudeville.

“Great dramatists create great parts. One
great part, such as a liachel would gladly .have
accepted, I have not seen in the dramas of the
young generation.

“ High art has taken refuge in the opera ; but
that is not French opera. I do not complain so
much that French taste is less refined. I com-
plain that French intellect is lowered. The de-
scent from Polyeucie to Ruy Bias is great, not so
much in the poetry of form as in the elevation of
thought; but the descent from Ruy Bias to the
best drama now produced is out of poetry' alto-
gether, and into those flats of prose which give
not even the glimpse of a mountain-top.

“But now to the opera. S in Norma!

The house was crowded, and its enthusiasm as

loud as it was genuine. You tell me that S

never rivaled Pasta, but certainly her Nonna is
a great performance. Her voice has lost less of
its freshness than I had been told, and what is
lost of it her practiced management conceals or
carries ofl’.

‘ ‘ The Maestro was quite right — I could never
vie with her in her own line ; but conceited and
vain as I may seem even to you in saying so, I
feel in my own line that I could command as
large an applause — of course taking into account
my brief-lived advantage of youth. Her acting,
apart from her voice, does not please me. It
seems to me to want intelligence of the subtler
feelings, the under-current of emotion, which con-
stitutes the chief beauty of the situation and the
character. Am I jealous when I say this?
Bead on and judge.

“On our return that night, when I had seen
the Venosta to bed, I went into my own room,

THE PARISIANS.

2*S

opened the window, and looked out. • A lovely
night, mild as in spring at Florence — the moon
at her full, and the stars looking so calm and so
high beyond our reach of their tranquillity. The
evergreens in the gardens of the villas around me
silvered over, and the summer boughs, not yet
clothed with leaves, were scarcely visible amidst
the changeless smile of the laurels. At the dis-
tance lay Paris, only to be known by its innu-
merable lights. And then I said to myself,

“No, I can not be an actress ; I can not re-
sign my real self for that vamped-up hypocrite
before the lamps. Out on those stage robes and
painted cheeks ! Out on that simulated utterance
of sentiments learned by rote and practiced before
the looking-glass till every gesture has its drill !

“Then I gazed on those stars which provoke
our questionings, and return no answer, till my
heart grew full, so full, and I bowed my head and
wept like a child. ”

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

“And still no letter from you! I see in the
journals that you have left Nice. Is it that you
are too absorbed in your work to have leisure to
w'rite to me ? I know you are not ill ; for if you
were, all Paris would know of it. All Europe
has an interest in your health. Positively I will
write to you no more till a word from yourself
bids me do so.

“I fear I must give up my solitaiy walks in
the Bois de Boulogne : they were very dear to
me, partly because the quiet path to which I con-
fined myself was that to which you directed me
as the one you habitually selected when at Paris,
and in which you had brooded over and revolved
the loveliest of your romances ; and partly be-
cause it was there that, catching, alas I not in-
spiration but enthusiasm from the genius that
had hallowed the place, and dreaming I might
originate music, I nursed my own aspirations and
munnured my own airs. And though so close
to that world of Paris to which all artists must
appeal for judgment or audience, the spot was so
undisturbed, so sequestered. But of late that
path has lost its solitude, and therefore its charm.

“Six days ago the first person I encountered
in my walk was a man whom I did not then
heed. He seemed in thought, or rather in rev-
erie, like myself ; we passed each other twice or
thrice, and I did not notice whether he was
young or old, tall or short ; but he came the next
day, and a third day, and then I saw that he was
young, and, in so regarding him, his eyes became
fixed on mine. The fourth day he did not come,
but two other men came, and the look of one
was inquisitive and offensive. They sat them-
selves down on a bench in the walk, and though
I did not seem to notice them, I hastened home :
and the next day, in talking Avith our kind Ma-
dame Savarin, and alluding to these quiet walks
of mine, she hinted, with the delicacy which is
her characteristic, that the customs of Paris did
not allow demoiselles comme il faut to walk alone
even in the most sequestered paths of the Bois.

“I begin now to comprehend your disdain of
customs which impose chains so idly galling on
the liberty of our sex.

“We dined with the Savarins last evening:
what a joyous nature he has ! Not reading Lat-
in, I only know Horace by translations, which I

am told are bad ; but Savarin seems to me a sort
of half Horace. Horace on his town-bred side,
so playfully well-bred, so good-humored in his:
philosophy, so affectionate to friends, and so bit-
ing to foes. But certainly Savarin could not have
lived in a country farm upon endives and mal-
lows. He is town-bred and Parisian, jusqu'aii
hout des angles. How he admires you, and how
I love him for it 1 Only in one thing he disap-
points me there. It is your style that he chiefly
praises: certainly that style is matchless; but
style is only the clothing of thought, and to praise
your style seems to me almost as invidious as the
compliment to some perfect beauty, not on her
form and face, but on her taste in dress.

“We met at dinner an American and his wife
— a Colonel and Mrs. Morley : she is delicately
handsome, as the American women I have seen
generally are, and with that frank vivacity of
manner Avhich distinguishes them from English
women. She seemed to take a fancy to me, and
we soon grew veiy good friends.

“She is the first advocate I have met, except
yourself, of that doctrine upon the Rights of
Women — of which one reads more in the jour-
nals than one hears discussed in salons.

“Naturally enough I felt great interest in that
subject, more especially since my rambles in the
Bois Avere forbidden ; and as long as she declaim-
ed on the hard fate of the Avomen AA’ho, feeling
Avithin them powers that struggle for air and light
beyond the close precinct of household duties,
find themselA’es restricted from fair rh^alry with
men in such fields of knoAvledge and toil and
glory as men since the world began have appro-
priated to themselves, I need not say that I Avent
Avith her cordially : you can guess that by my
former letters. But when she entered into th£
detailed catalogue of our exact Avrongs and our
exact rights, I felt all the pusillanimity of my
sex, and shrank back in terror.

“Her husband, joining us when she w^as in
full tide of eloquence, smiled at me with a kind
of saturnine mirth. ‘Mademoiselle, don’t be-
lieve a Avord she says ; it is only tall talk ! In
America the women are absolute tyrants, and it
is I who, in concert with my oppressed countiy-
men, am going in for a platform agitation to re-
store the Rights of Men.’

“Upon this there Avas a lively battle of words
between the spouses, in which, I must OAvn, I
thought the lady was decidedly worsted.

“No, Eulalie, I see nothing in these schemes
for altering our relations toward the other sex
Avhich would improve our condition. The ine-
qualities Ave suffer are not imposed by law — not
even by convention ; they are imposed by nature.

“Eulalie, you haA’e had an experience un-
knoAA'n to me ; you have loved. In that day did
you — you, round w’hom poets and sages and
statesmen gather, listening to your words as to
an oracle — did you feel that your pride of genius
had gone out from you — that your ambition lived
in him whom you loved — that his smile was more
to you than the applause of a world ?

“ I feel as if love in a Avoman must destroy her
rights of equality — that it gives to her a sovereign
even in one Avho would be inferior to herself if
her love did not glorify and croAvn him. Ah !
if I could but merge this terrible egotism which
oppresses me into the being of some one Avho is
what I would Avish to be Avere I man 1 I would

{30

THE TARISIANS.

not ask him to achieve fame. Enough if I felt
that he was worthy of it, and hap{)ier methinks
to console him when he failed than to triumph
with him when he won. Tell me, have you felt
this? When you loved, did you stoop as to a
slave, or did you bow down as to a master ?”

FROM MADAME DE GKANTMESNIL TO ISAURA
CICOGNA.

“Chere enfant, — All your four letters have
reached me the same day. In one of my sud-
den whims I set off with a few friends on a rapid
tour along the Riviera to Genoa, thence to Turin
on to Milan. Not knowing where we should rest
even for a day, my letters were not forwarded.

“I came back to Nice yesterday, consoled for
all fatigues in having insured that accuracy in de-
scription of localities which my work necessitates.

“You are, my poor child, in that revolution-
ary crisis through which genius passes in youth
before it knows its own self, and longs vaguely
to do or to be a something other than it has done
or has been before. For, not to be unjust to your
own powers, genius you have — that inborn unde-
linable essence, including talent, and yet distinct
from it. Genius you have, but genius unconcen-
trated, undisciplined. I see, though you are too
diffident to say so openly, that you shrink from
the fame of singer, because, fevered by your read-
ing, you would fain aspire to the thorny crown
of author. I echo the hard saying of the Maestro,
I should be your worst enemy did I encourage
you to forsake a career in which a dazzling suc-
cess is so assured, for one in which, if it were
your true vocation, you would not ask whether
you were fit for it ; you would be impelled to it
by the terrible star which presides over the birth
of poets.

“Have you, who are so naturally obseivant,
and of late have become so reflective, never re-
marked that authors, however absorbed in their
own craft, do nbt wish their children to adopt it ?
The most successful author is perhaps the last
jjerson to whom neophytes should come for en-
couragement. This I think is not the case with
the cultivators of the sister arts. The painter,
the sculptor, the musician, seem disposed to invite
tUsciples and welcome acolytes. As for those en-
gaged in the practical affairs of life, fathers mostly
wish their sons to be as they have been.

“The politician, the lawyer, the merchant, each
says to his children, ‘Follow my steps.’ All
parents in practical life would at least agree in
this — they would not wish their sons to be poets.
There must be some sound cause in the world’s
philosophy for this general concuirence of digres-
sion from a road of which the travelers themselves
say to those whom they love best, ‘Beware!’

“Romance in youth is, if rightly understood,
the happiest nutriment of wisdom in after-years ;
but I would never invite any one to look upon
the romance of youth as a thing

‘“To case in periods and embalm in ink.’

Enfant, have you need of a publisher to cre-
ate romance? Is it not in yourself? Do not im-
agine that genius requires for its enjoyment the
scratch of the pen and the types of the printer.
Do not suppose that the poet, the romancier, is
most poetic, most romantic, when he is striving,
struggling, laboring, to check the rush of his

ideas, and materialize the images which visit him
as souls into such tangible likenesses of flesh and
blood that the highest compliment a reader can
bestow on them is to say that they are life-like.
No : the poet’s real delight is not in the mechan-
ism of composing; the best part of that delight
is in the sympatiiies he has established with in-
numerable modifications of life and form, and
art and nature — sympathies which are often found
equally keen in those who have not the same gift
of language. The poet is but the interpreter.
What of? — Truths in the hearts of others. He
utters what they feel. Is the joy in the utter-
ance ? Nay, it is in the feeling itself. So, my
dear, dark-bright child of song, when I bade thee
open, out of the beaten thoroughfare, paths into
the meads and river-banks at either side of the
formal hedge-rows, rightly dost thou add that I
enjoined thee to make thine art thy companion.
In the culture of that art for which you are so
eminently gifted, you will find the ideal life ever
beside the real. Are you not ashamed to tell
me that in that art you do but utter the thoughts
of others? You utter them in music; through
the music you not only give to the thoughts a
new character, but you make them reproductive
of fresh thoughts in your audience.

“You said very truly that you found in com-
posing you could put into music thoughts which
you could not put into words. That is the pe-
culiar distinction of music. No genuine musi-
cian can explain in words exactly what he means
to convey in his music.

“ How little a libretto interprets an opera — how
little we care even to read it! It is the music
that speaks to us ; and how ? — through the hu-
man voice. We do not notice how poor are the
words which the voice warbles. It is the voice
itself interpreting the soul of the musician whicli
enchants and inthralls us. And you who have
that voice pretend to despise the gift. What!
despise the power of communicating delight! —
the power that we authors envy ; and rarely, if
ever, can we give delight with so little alloy as
the singer.

“And when an audience disperses, can you
guess what griefs the singer may have comforted?
what hard hearts he may have softened? what
high thoughts he may have awakened ?

“You say, ‘Out on the vamped-up hypocrite!
Out on the stage robes and painted cheeks!’

“I say, ‘Out on the morbid .spirit which so
cynically regards the mere details by which a
whole effect on the minds and hearts and souls
of races and nations can be produced!’

“There, have I scolded you sufficiently? I
should scold you more, if I did not see in the
affluence of your youth and your intellect the
cause of your restlessness.

‘ ‘ Riches are always restless. It is only to
poverty that the gods give content.

“You question me about love: you ask me if
I have ever bowed to a master, ever merged my
life in another’s ; expect no answer on this from
me. Circe herself could give no answer to the
simplest maid, who, never having loved, asks,

‘ What is love ?’

“In the history of the passions each human
heart is a world in itself: its experience profits
no others. In no two lives does love play the
same part or bequeath the same record.

“ I know not whether I am glad or sorry that

THE PARISIANS.

the word ‘ love’ now falls on my ear with a sound
as slight and as faint as the dropping of a leaf in
autumn may fall on thine.

“ I volunteer but this lesson, the wisest I can
give, if thou canst understand it : as I bade thee
take art into thy life, so learn to look on life itself
as an art. Thou couldst discover the charm in
Tasso; thou couldst perceive that the requisite

of all art, that which pleases, is in the harmony
of proportion. We lose sight of beauty if we ex-
aggerate the feature most beautiful.

“Love proportioned, adorns the homeliest ex-
istence ; love disproportioned, deforms the fairest,
“ Alas ! wilt thou remember this wanting when
the time comes in which it may be needed ?

“E G

BOOK SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

It is several weeks after the date of the last
chapter ; the lime - trees in the Tuileries are
clothed in green.

In a somewhat spacious apartment on the
ground -floor in the quiet locality of the Rue
d’ Anjou a man was seated, very still, and evi-
dently absorbed in deep thought, before a writ-
ing-table placed close to the window.

Seen thus, there was an expression of great
power both of intellect and of character in a face
Avhich, in ordinary social commune, might rather
be noticeable for an aspect of hardy frankness,
suiting well with the clear-cut, handsome profile,
and the rich dark auburn hair, waving carelessly
over one of those broad open foreheads which,
according to an old writer, seem the “frontis-
piece of a temple dedicated to Honor.”

The forehead, indeed, was the man’s most re-
markable feature. It could not but prepossess
the beholder. When, in private theatricals, he
had need to alter the character of his counte-
nance, he did it effectually, merely by forcing
down his hair till it reached his eyebrows. He
no longer then looked like the same man.

The person I describe has been already intro-
duced to the reader as Graham Vane. But per-
haps this is the fit occasion to enter into some
such details as to his parentage and position as
may make the introduction more satisfactory and
complete.

His father, the representative of a very ancient
family, came into possession, after a long minori-
ty, of what may be called a fair squire’s estate,
and about half a million in moneyed investments,
inherited on the female side. Both land and
money were absolutely at his disposal, unencum-
bered by entail or settlement. He was a man
of a brilliant, irregular genius, of princely gener-
osity, of splendid taste, of a gorgeous kind of
pride closely allied to a masculine kind of vanity.
As soon as he was of age he began to build, con-
verting his squire’s hall into a ducal palace. He
then stood for the county; and in days before
the first Reform Bill, when a county election was
to the estate of a candidate what a long war is
to the debt of a nation. He won the election ;
he obtained early successes in Parliament. It
was said by good authorities in political circles
that, if he chose, he might aspire to lead his par-
ty, and ultimately to hold the first rank in the
government of his country.

That may or may not be true ; but certainly
he did not choose to take the trouble necessary
for such an ambition. He was too fond of pleas-
ure, of luxurv, of pomp. He kept a famous stud
C

of racers and hunters. He was a munificent pa-
tron of art. His establishments, his entertain-
ments, were on a par with those of the great no-
ble who represented the loftiest (Mr. Vane would
not own it to be the eldest) branch of his genea-
logical tree.

He became indifferent to political contests, in-
dolent in his attendance at the House, speaking
seldom, not at great length nor with much prep-
aration, but with power and fire, originality and
genius ; so that he was not only effective as an
orator, but, combining with eloquence advantages
of birth, person, station, the reputation of patri-
otic independence, and genial atti ibutes of char-
acter, he was an authority of weight in the scales
of party.

This gentleman, at the age of forty, married
the dowerless daughter of a poor but distinguish-
ed naval officer, of noble family, first cousin to
the Duke of Alton.

He settled on her a suitable jointure, but de-
clined to tie up any portion of his property for
the benefit of children by the marriage. He de-
clared that so much of his fortune was invested
either in mines, the produce of which was ex-
tremely fluctuating, or in various funds, over rap-
id transfers in which it was his amusement and
his interest to have control, unchecked by refer-
ence to trustees, that entails and settlements on
children were an inconvenience he declined to
incur.

Besides, he held notions of his own as to the
wisdom of keeping children dependent on their
father. “What numbers of young men,” said
he, “are ruined in character and in fortune by
knowing that when their father dies they are cer-
tain of the same provision, no matter how the}'
displease him ; and in the mean while forestalling
that provision by recourse to usurers!” These
arguments might not have prevailed over the
bride’s father a year or two later, Avhen, by the
death of intervening kinsmen, he became Duke
of Alton ; but in his then circumstances the mar-
riage itself was so much beyond the expectations
which the portionless daughter of a sea-captain
has the right to form that Mr. Vane had it all
his own way, and he remained absolute master
of his whole fortune, save of that part of his land-
ed estate on which his wife’s jointure was settled ;
and even from this encumbrance he was very
soon freed. His wife died in the second year of
marriage, leaving an only son — Graham. He
grieved for her loss with all the passion of an im-
pressionable, ardent, and powerful nature. Then
for a while he sought distraction to his sorrow by
throwing himself into public life with a devoted
energy he had not previously displayed.

THE PARISIANS.

His speeches served to bring his party into
power, and he yielded, though reluctantly, to the
unanimous demand of that party that he should
accept one of the highest offices in the new Cab-
inet. He acquitted himself well as an adminis-
trator, but declared, no doubt honestly, that he
felt like Sindbad released from the old man on his
back, when, a year or two afterward, he went
out of office with his party. No persuasions
could induce him to come in again ; nor did he
ever again take a very active part in debate,
“No, ’’said he, “I was born to the freedom of
a private gentleman — intolerable to me is the
thralldom of a public servant. But I will bring
up my son so that he may acquit the debt which
I decline to pay to my country.” There he kept
his word. Graham had been carefully educated
for public life, the ambition for it dinned into his
ear from childhood. In his school vacations his
father made him leani and declaim chosen speci-
mens of masculine oratory ; engaged an eminent
actor to give him lessons in elocution ; bade him
frequent theatres, and study there the effect which
words derive from looks and gesture ; encouraged
him to take part himself in private theatricals.
To all this the boy lent his mind with delight.
He had the orator’s inbora temperament ; quick,
yet imaginative, and loving the sport of rivalry
and contest. Being also, in his boyish years,
good-humored and joyous, he was not more a fa-
vorite with the masters in the school-room than
with boys in the play-ground. Leaving Eton at
seventeen, he then entered at Cambridge, and be-
came, in his first term, the most popular speaker
at the Union.

But his father cut short his academical career,
and decided, for reasons of his own, to place him
at once in Diplomacy. He was attached to the
Embassy at Paris, and partook of the pleasures
and dissipations of that metropolis too keenly to
retain much of the sterner ambition to which he
had before devoted himself. Becoming one of
the spoiled darlings of fashion, there was great
danger that his character would relax into the
easy grace of the Epicurean, when all such loiter-
ings in the Rose Garden were brought to abrupt
close by a rude and terrible change in his for-
tunes.

His father was killed by a fall from his horse
in hunting ; and when his affairs were investi-
gated, they were found to be hopelessly involved
— apparently the assets would not suffice for the
debts. The elder Vane himself was probably not
aware of the extent of his liabilities. He had
never wanted ready money to the last. He could
always obtain that from a money-lender, or from
the sale of his funded investments. But it be-
came obvious, on examining his papers, that he
knew at least how impaired would be the herit-
age he should bequeath to a son whom he idol-
ized. For that reason he had given Graham a
profession in diplomacy, and for that reason he
had privately applied to the Ministry for the
Viceroyalty of India, in the event of its speedy
vacancy. He was eminent enough not to antici-
pate refusal, and with economy in that lucrative
post much of his pecuniary difficulties might have
been redeemed, and at least an independent pro-
vision secured for his son.

Graham, like Alain de Rochebriant, allowed
no reproach on his father’s memory — indeed, with
more reason than Alain, for the elder Vane’s for-

tune had at least gone on no mean and frivolous
dissipation.

It had lavished itself on encouragement to art
— on great objects of public beneficence — on pub-
lic-spirited aid of political objects ; and even in
mere selfish enjoyments there was a certain
grandeur in his princely hospitalities, in his mu-
nificent generosity, in a warm-hearted careless-
ness for money. No indulgence in petty follies
or degrading vices aggravated the offense of the
magnificent squanderer.

“ Let me look on my loss of fortune as a gain
to myself,” said Graham, manfully. “Had I
been a rich man, my experience of Paris tells me
that I should most likely have been a very idle
one. Now that I have no gold, I must dig in
myself for iron.”

The man to whom he said this was an uncle-
in-law — if I may use that phrase — the Right
Honorable Richard King, popularly styled “the
blameless King.”

This gentleman had mamed the sister of Gra-
ham’s mother, whose loss in his infancy and boy-
hood she had tenderly and anxiously sought to
supply. It is impossible to conceive a woman
more fitted to invite love and reverence than was
Lady Janet King, her manners were so sweet and
gentle, her whole nature so elevated and pure.

Her father had succeeded to the dukedom when
she married Mr, King, and the alliance was not
deemed quite suitable. Still it was not one to
which the Duke would have been fairly justified
in refusing his assent.

Mr. King could not, indeed, boast of noble an-
cestry, nor was he even a landed proprietor ; but
he was a not undistinguished member of Parlia-
ment, of irreproachable character, and ample for-
tune inherited from a distant kinsman, who had
enriched himself as a merchant. It was on both
sides a marriage of love.

It is popularly said that a man uplifts a wife
to his own rank; it as often happens that a wom-
an uplifts her husband to the dignity of.her own
character. Richard King rose greatly in public
estimation after his marriage with Lady Janet.

She united to a sincere piety a very active and
a very enlightened benevolence. She guided his
ambition aside from mere party politics into sub-
jects of social and religious interest, and in de-
voting himself to these he achieved a position
more popular and more respected than he could
ever have won in the strife of party.

When the government of which the elder Vane
became a leading minister was formed, it was
considered a great object to secure a name so
high in the religious world, so beloved by the
working classes, as that of Richard King ; and
he accepted one of those places which, though
not in the Cabinet, confer the rank of privy
councilor.

When that brief-lived administration ceased,
he felt the same sensation of relief that Vane had
felt, and came to the same resolution never again
to accept office, but from different reasons, all of
which need not now be detailed. Among them,
however, certainly this : He was exceedingly sen-
sitive to opinion, thin-skinned as to abuse, and
very tenacious of the respect due to his peculiar
character of sanctity and philanthropy. He
writhed under every newspaper article that had
made “the blameless King” responsible for the
iniquities of the government to which he belonged.

THE PARISIANS.

In the loss of office he seemed to recover his for-
mer throne.

Mr. King heard Graham’s resolution with a
grave approving smile, and his interest in the
young man became greatly increased. He de-
voted himself strenuously to the object of saving
to Graham some wrecks of his paternal fortunes,
and having a clear head and great experience in
the transaction of business, he succeeded beyond
the most sanguine expectations formed by the
family solicitor. A rich manufacturer was found
to purchase at a fancy price the bulk of the es-
tate with the palatial mansion, which the estate
alone could never have sufficed to maintain with
suitable establishments.

So that when all debts were paid, Graham
found himself in possession of a clear income of
about £500 a year, invested in a mortgage se-
• cured on a part of the hereditary lands, on which
was seated an old hunting-lodge bought by a
brewer.

With this portion of the property Graham part-
ed very reluctantly. It was situated amidst the
most picturesque scenery on the estate, and the
lodge itself was a remnant of the original resi-
dence of his ancestors before it had been aban-
doned for that which, built in the reign of Eliza-
beth, had been expanded into a Trentham-like
palace by the last owner.

But Mr. King’s argument reconciled him to the
sacrifice. “ I can manage,” said the prudent ad-
viser, “ if you insist on it, to retain that remnant
of the hereditary estate which jmu are so loath to
part with. But how ? by mortgaging it to an ex-
tent that will scarcely leave you £50 a year net
from the rents. This is not all. Your mind will
then be distracted from the large object of a ca-
reer to the small object of retaining a few family
acres ; you will be constantly hampered by pri-
vate anxieties and fears : you could do nothing
for the benefit of those around you — could not
repair a farm-house for a better class of tenant —
could not rebuild a laborer’s dilapidated cottage.
Give up an idea that might be very w'ell for a man
whose sole ambition was to remain a squire, how-
ever beggarly. Launch yourself into the larger
world of metropolitan life with energies wholly
unshackled, a mind wholly undisturbed, and se-
cure of an income which, however modest, is
equal to that of most young men who enter that
world as your equals.”

Graham was convinced, and yielded, though
with a bitter pang. It is hard for a man whose
fathers have lived on the soil to give up all trace
of their whereabouts. But none saw in him any
morbid consciousness of change of fortune, when,
a year after his father’s death, he reassumed his
place in society. If before courted for his expec-
tations, he was still courted for himself ; by many
of the great who had loved his father, perhaps
even courted more.

He resigned the diplomatic career, not merely
because the rise in that profession is slow, and in
the intermediate steps the chances of distinction
are slight and few, but more because he desired
to cast his lot in the home country, and regarded
the courts of other lands as exile.

It was not true, however, as Lemercier had
stated on report, that he lived on his pen. Curb-
ing all his old extravagant tastes, £500 a year
amply supplied his wants. But he had by his
pen gained distinction, and created great belief

in his abilities for a public career. He had writ-
ten critical articles, read with much praise, in pe-
riodicals of authority, and had published one or
two essays on political questions, which had cre-
ated yet more sensation. It was only the graver
literature, connected more or less with his ulti-
mate object of a public career, in which he had
thus evinced his talents of composition. Such
writings were not of a nature to bring him much
money, but they gave him a definite and solid
station. In the old time, before the first Reform
Bill, his reputation would have secured him at
once a seat in Parliament ; but the ancient nur-
series of statesmen are gone, and their place is
not supplied.

He had been invited, however, to stand for
more than one large and populous borough, with
very fair prospects of success ; and whatever the
expense, Mr. King had offered to defray it. But
Graham would not have incurred the latter obli-
gation ; and when he learned the pledges which
his supporters would have exacted, he would not
have stood if success had been certain and the
cost nothing. “I can not,” he said to his
friends, “go into the consideration of what is
best for the country with my thoughts manacled ;
and I can not be both representative and slave of
the greatest ignorance of the greatest number. I
bide my time, and meanwhile I prefer to Avrite as
I please, rather than vote as I don’t please.”

Three years went by, passed chiefly in En-
gland, partly in travel ; and at the age of thirty
Graham Vane was still one of those of whom ad-
mirers say, “ He Avill be a great man some day
and detractors reply, “ Some day seems a long
way off.”

The same fastidiousness which had operated
against that entrance into Parliament to Avhich
his ambition not the less steadily adapted itself,
had kept him free from the perils of wedlock.
In his heart he yearned for love and domestic
life, but he had hitherto met with no one who re-
alized the ideal he had formed. With his per-
son, his accomplishments, his connections, and
his repute, he might have made many an advan-
tageous marriage. But somehow or other the
charm vanished from a fair face if the shadow
of a money-bag fell on it ; on the other hand,
his ambition occupied so large a share in his
thoughts that he would have fled in time from
the temptation of a marriage that would have
overweighted him beyond the chance of rising.
Added to all, he desired in a wife an intellect
that, if not equal to his own, could become so by
sympathy — a union of high culture and noble
aspiration, and yet of loving womanly sweetness
which a man seldom finds out of books ; and
when he does find it, perhaps it does not Avear
the sort of face that he fancies. Be that as it
may, Graham was still unmarried and heart-
whole.

And noAv a new change in his life befell him.
Lady Janet died of a fe\’er contracted in her ha-
bitual rounds of charity among the houses of the
poor. She had been to him as the most tender
mother, and a lovelier soul than hers never alight-
ed on the earth. His grief was intense ; but
what was her husband’s? — one of those griefs
that kill.

To the side of Richard King his Janet had
been as the guardian angel. His love for her
was almost Avorship — Avith her, eA'ery object in a

THE PARISIANS.

life hitherto so active and useful seemed gone.
He evinced no noisy passion of sorrow. He shut
himself up, and refused to see even Graham. But
after some weeks had passed, he admitted the
clergyman in whom, on spiritual matters, he ha-
bitually confided, and seemed consoled by the vis-
its ; then he sent for his lawyer, and made his
will ; after which he allowed Graham to call on
him daily, on the condition that there should be
no reference to his loss. He spoke to the young
man on other subjects, rather drawing him out
about himself, sounding his opinion on various
grave matters, watching his face while he ques-
tioned, as if seeking to dive into his heart, and
sometimes pathetically sinking into silence, bro-
ken but by sighs. 8o it went on for a few more
weeks ; then he took the advice of his physician
to seek change of air and scene. He went away
alone, without even a servant, not leaving word
where he had gone. After a little while he re-
turned, more ailing, more broken than before.
One morning he was found insensible — stricken
by paralysis. He regained consciousness, and
even for some days rallied strength. He might
have recovered, but he seemed as if he tacitly re-
fused to live. He expired at last, peacefully, in
Graham’s arms.

At the opening of his will, it was found that
he had left Graham his sole heir and executor.
Deducting government duties, legacies to serv-
ants, and donations to public charities, the sum
thus bequeathed to his lost w’ife’s nephew was
two hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

With such a fortune, opening indeed was made
for an ambition so long obstructed. But Gra-
ham affected no change in his mode of life ; he
still retained his modest bachelor’s apartments —
engaged no seiwants — bought no horses — in no
way exceeded the income he had possessed be-
fore. He seemed, indeed, depressed rather than
elated by the succession to a wealth which he had
never anticipated.

Two children had been born from the marriage
of Richard King ; they had died young, it is true,
but Lady Janet at the time of her own decease
w'as not too advanced in years for the reasonable
expectation of other offspring ; and even after
Richard King became a widower, he had given
to Graham no hint of his testamentary disposi-
tions. The young man was no blood-relation to
him, and naturally supposed that such relations
would become the heirs. But in truth the de-
ceased seemed to have no near relations — none
had ever been known to visit him — none raised
a voice to question the justice of his will.

Lady Janet had been buried at Kensal Green ;
her husband’s remains w'ere placed in the same
vault.

For days and days Graham went his way lone-
lily to the cemetery. He might be seen standing
motionless by that tomb, with tears rolling down
his cheeks ; yet his was not a w'eak nature — not
one of those that love indulgence of irremedia-
ble grief. On the contrary, people who did not
know him well said “ that he had more head than
heart,” and the character of his pursuits, as of his
writings, was certainly not that of a sentimental-
ist. He had not thus visited the tomb till Rich-
ard King had been placed within it. Yet his love
for his aunt was unspeakably greater than that
w hich he could have felt for her husband. Was
it, then, the husband that he so much more acute-

ly mourned ; or w'as there something that, since
the husband’s death, had deepened his reverence
for the memory of her whom he not only loved
as a mother, but honored as a saint ?

These visits to the cemetery did not cease till
Graham w'as confined to his bed by a very grave
illness — the only one he had ever known. His
physician said it w^as neiwous fever, and occa-
sioned by moral shock or excitement ; it was at-
tended with delirium. His recoveiy was slow,
and when it was sufficiently completed he quitted
England ; and we find him now, with his mind
composed, his strength restored, and his spirits
braced, in that gay city of Paris, hiding, perhaps,
some earnest puiq)ose amidst his participation in
its holiday enjoyments.

He is now, as I have said, seated before his
writing-table in deep thought. He takes up a
letter which he had already glanced over hastily,
and reperuses it with more care.

The letter is from his cousin, the Duke of Al-
ton, who had succeeded a few years since to the
family honors — an able man, with no small de-
gree of information, an ardent politician, but of
very rational and temperate opinions ; too much
occupied by the cares of a princely estate to cov-
et office for himself ; too sincere a patriot not to
desire office for those to whose hands he thought
the country might be most safely intrusted — an
intimate friend of Graham’s. The contents of
the letter are these :

‘ ‘ My dear Graham, — I trust that you will wel-
come the brilliant opening into public life which
these lines are intended to announce to you.
Vavasour has just been with me to say that he
intends to resign his seat for the county w'hen
Parliament meets, and agreeing wdth me that
there is no one so fit to succeed him as yourself,
he suggests the keeping his intention secret until
you have arranged your committee and are pre-
pared to take the field. You can not hope to es-
cape a contest ; but I have examined the Regis-
ter, and the party has gained rather than lost
since the last election, when Vavasour was so tri-
umphantly retunied.

“The expenses for this county, where there
are so many out-voters to bring up, and so many
agents to retain, are always large in comparison
wdth some other counties ; but that consideration
is all in your favor, for it deters Squire Hunston,
the only man who could beat you, from starting ;
and to your resources a thousand pounds more
or less are a trifle not w'orth discussing. You
know how difficult it is nowadays to find a seat
for a man of moderate opinions like yours and
mine. Our county would exactly suit you. The
constituency is so evenly divided between the ur-
ban and rural populations, that its representative
must fairly consult the interests of both. He can
be neither an ultra-Toiy nor a violent Radical.

He is left to the enviable freedom, to which you
say you aspire, of considering what is best for i
the country as a whole. '

“Do not lose so rare an opportunity. There
is but one drawback to your triumphant Candida- .
ture. It will be said that you have no longer an
acre in the county in which the Vanes have been |
settled so long. That drawback can be removed, i
It is true that you can never hope to buy back i
the estates which you were compelled to sell at
your father’s death — the old manufacturer gripes

THE PARISIANS.

them too firmly to loosen his hold ; and after all,
even were your income double what it is, you
would be overhoused in the vast pile in which
your father buried so large a share of his fortune.
But that beautiful old hunting-lodge, the Stamm
Schloss of your family, with the adjacent farms,
can be now repurchased veiy reasonably. The
brew’er who bought them is afflicted with an ex-
travagant son, whom he placed in the IIus-

sai-s, and will gladly sell the property for £5000
more than he gave : w'ell worth the dilFerente,
as he has improved the farm-buildings and raised
the rental. I think, in addition to the sum you
have on mortgage, £23,000 will be accepted, and
as a mere investment pay you nearly three per
cent. But to you it is worth more than double
the money ; it once more identifies your ancient
name with the county. You would be a greater
personage with that moderate holding in the dis-
trict in which your race took root, and on which
your father’s genius threw such a lustre, than
you would be if you invested all your wealth in a
county in which every squire and farmer would
call you ‘the new man.’ Pray think over this
most seriously, and instruct your solicitor to open
negotiations with the brewer at once. But rath-
er put yourself into the train, and come back to
England straight to me. I will ask Vavasour to
meet you. What news from Paris ? Is the Em-
peror as ill as the papers insinuate ? And is the
revolutionary party gaining ground ? Your af-
fectionate cousin, Alton.”

As he put down this letter, Graham heaved a
short impatient sigh.

“ The old Stamm Schloss," he muttered — “ a
foot on the old soil once more ! and an entrance
into the great arena with hands unfettered. Is
it possible ! — is it — is it ?”

At this moment the door-bell of the apartment
rang, and a servant whom Graham had hired at
Paris as a laquais de place announced “ Ce Mon-
sieur. ”

Graham hun-ied the letter into his portfolio,
and said, “You mean the person to w'hom I am
ahvays at home ?”

“ The same, monsieur.”

“ Admit him, of course.”

There entered a wonderfully thin man, middle-
aged, clothed in black, his face cleanly shaven,
his hair cut very short, with one of those faces
which, to use a French expression, say “ noth-
ing.” It was absolutel}'^ without expression — it
had not even, despite its thinness, one salient feat-
ure. If you had found yourself anj' where seat-
ed next to that man, your eye would have passed
him over as too insignificant to notice ; if at a
cafe, you would have gone on talking to your
friend without lowering your voice. What mat-
tered it whether a bete like that overheard or
not ? Had you been asked to guess his calling
and station, you might have said, minutely ob-
serving the freshness of his clothes and the un-
deniable respectability of his tout ensemble, “He
must be well off, and with no care for customers
on his mind — a ci-devant chandler who has retired
on a legacy. ”

Graham rose at the entrance of his visitor,
motioned him courteously to a seat beside him,
and waiting till the laquais had vanished, then
asked, “ What news ?”

“ None, I fear, that will satisfy monsieur. I

have certainly hunted out, since I had last the
honor to see you, no less than four ladies of the
name of Duval, but only one of them took that
name from her parents, and was also christened
Louise.”

‘ ‘ Ah — Louise. ”

“ Yes, the daughter of a perfumer, aged twenty-
eight. She, therefore, is not the Louise you seek.
Permit me to refer to your instructions.” Here
M. Renard took out a note-book, turned over the
leaves, and resumed — “Wanted, Louise Duval,
daughter of Auguste Duval, a French drawing-
master, w'lio lived for many years at Tours, re-
moved to Paris in 1845, lived at No. 12 Rue de

S at Paris for some years, but afterward

moved to a different quartier of the town, and

died, 1848, in Rue L , No. 39. Shortly after

his death, his daughter Louise left that lodging,
and could not be traced. In 1849 official docu-
ments reporting her death were forwarded from
Munich to a person (a friend of yours, monsieur).
Death, of course, taken for granted ; but nearly
five years afterward, this very person encounter-
ed the said Louise Duval at Aix-la-Chapelle, and
never heard nor saw more of her. Demande
submitted, to find out said Louise Duval or any
children of hers born in 1848-9 ; supposed in
1852-3 to have one child, a girl, between four
and five years old. Is that right, monsieur ?”

‘ ‘ Quite right. ”

“And this is the whole information given to
me. Monsieur, on giving it, asked me if I
thought it desirable that he should commence in-
quiries at Aix-la-Chapelle, where Louise Duval
was last seen by the person interested to discover
her. I reply. No ; — pains thrown away. Aix-
la-Chapelle is not a place where any French-
woman not settled there by marriage would re-
main. Nor does it seem probable that the said
Duval would venture to select for her residence
Munich, a city in which she had contrived to
obtain certificates of her death. A Frenchwom-
an who has once known Paris always wants to
get back to it ; especially, monsieur, if she has
the beauty which you assign to this lady. I there-
fore suggested that our inquiries should commence
in this capital. Monsieur agreed with me, and I
did not grudge the time necessary for investiga-
tion.”

“You were most obliging. Still I am be-
ginning to be impatient if time is to be thrown
away.”

‘ ‘ Naturally. Permit me to return to my notes.
Monsieur informs me that tw'enty-one years ago,
in 1848, the Parisian police were instructed to
find out this lady and failed, but gave hopes of
discovering her through her relations. He asks
me to refer to our archives ; I tell him that is no
use. However, in order to oblige him, I do so.
No trace of such inquiry — it must have been, as
monsieur led me to suppose, a strictly private
one, unconnected with crime or with politics ;
and as I have the honor to tell monsieur, no rec-
ord of such investigations is preserved in the
Rue Jerusalem. Great scandal would there be,
and injury to the peace of families, if we pre-
served the results of private inquiries intrusted to
us — by absurdly jealous husbands, for instance.
Honor, monsieur, honor forbids it. Next, I sug-
gest to monsieur that his simplest plan would be
an advertisement in the French journals, stating,
if I understand him right, that it is for the pe-

THE PARISIANS.

cuniary interest of Madame or Mademoiselle Du-
val, daughter of Auguste Duval, artiste en dessin,
to come forward. Monsieur objects to that.”

“ I object to it extremely ; as I have told you,
this is a strictly confidential inquiiy, and an ad-
vertisement, which in all likelihood would be
practically useless (it proved to be so in a former
inquiry), would not be resorted to unless all else
failed, and even then with reluctance.”

“Quite so. Accordingly, monsieur delegates
to me, who have been recommended to him as
the best person he can employ in that department
of our police which is not connected with crime
or political surveillance, a task the most difficult.

I have, through strictly private investigations, to
discover the address and prove the identity of a
lady bearing a name among the most common in
France, and of whom nothing has been heard for
fifteen years, and then at so migratory an endroit
as Aix-la-Chapelle. You will not or can not in-
form me if since that time the lady has changed
her name by marriage.”

“ I have no reason to think that she has ; and
there are reasons against the supposition that she
married after 1849.”

“ Permit me to observe that the more details
of information monsieur can give me, the easier
my task of research will be.”

“I have given you all the details I can, and,
aware of the difficulty of tracing a person with a
name so much the reverse of singular, I adopted
your advice in our first inteiwiew, of asking some
Parisian friend of mine, with a large acquaint-
ance in the miscellaneous societies of your capital,
to inform me of any ladies of that name whom
he might chance to encounter ; and he, like you,
has lighted upon one or two, who, alas ! resemble
the right one in name, and nothing more.”

“ You will do wisely to keep him on the watch
as well as myself. If it were but a murderess or
a political incendiary, then you might trust ex-
clusively to the enlightenment of our corys, but
this seems an affair of sentiment, monsieur. Sen-
timent is not in our way. Seek the trace of that
in the haunts of pleasure.”

M. Renard, having thus poetically delivered
himself of that philosophical dogma, rose to de-
part.

Graham slipped into his hand a bank-note of
sufficient value to justify the profound bow he
received in return.

When M. Renard had gone, Graham heaved
another impatient sigh, and said to himself, “No,
it is not possible — at least not yet.”

Then, compressing his lips as a man who
forces himself to something he dislikes, he dipped
his pen into the inkstand, and wrote rapidly thus
to his kinsman :

“ My dear Cousin, — I lose not a post in re-
plying to your kind and considerate letter. It
is not in my power at present to return to En-
gland. I need not say how fondly I cherish the
hope of representing the dear old county some
day. If Vavasour could be induced to defer his
resignation of the seat for another session, or at
least for six or seven months, why then I might
be free to avail myself of the opening; at pres-
ent I am not. Meanwhile I am sorely tempted
to buy back the old Lodge — probably the brewer
would allow me to leave on mortgage the sum I
myself have on the property and a few additional :

thousands. I have reasons for not wishing to
transfer at present much of the money now in-
vested in the funds. I will consider tliis point,
which probably does not press.

“I reserve all Paris news till my next; and
begging you to forgive so curt and unsatisfactory
a reply to a letter so important that it excites me
more than I like to own, believe me, your affec-
tionate friend and cousin, Graham.”

CHAPTER II.

At about the same hour on the same day in
which the Englishman held the conference with
the Parisian detective just related, the Marquis
de Rochebriant found himself by appointment in
the cabinet d’affaires of his avoue M. Gandrin :
that gentleman had hitherto not found time to
give him a definitive opinion as to the case sub-
mitted to his judgment. The avoue received
Alain with a kind of forced civility, in which the
natural intelligence of the Marquis, despite his
inexperience of life, discovered embarrassment.

’■‘■Monsieur le Marquis,” said Gandrin, fidget-
ing among the papers on his bureau, “ this is
a very complicated business. I have given not
only my best attention to it, but to your general
interests. To be plain, your estate, though a
fine one, is fearfully encumbered — fearfully —
frightfully.”

“ Sir,” said the Marquis, haughtily, “ that is a
fact which was never disguised from you.”

“ I do not say that it was. Marquis ; but I
scarcely realized the amount of the liabilities nor
the nature of the property. It will be difficult —
nay, I fear, impossible — to find any capitalist to
advance a sum that will cover the mortgages at
an interest less than you now pay. As for a
company to take the whole trouble off your
hands, clear off the mortgages, manage the for-
ests, develop the fisheries, guarantee you an ade-
quate income, and at the end of twenty-one years
or so render up to you or your heirs the free en-
joyment of an estate thus improved, we must
dismiss that prospect as a wild dream of my good
friend M. Hebert’s. People in the provinces do
dream ; in Paris every body is wide awake.”

“ Monsieur,” said the Marquis, with that in-
boni imperturbable loftiness of sang-froid which
has always in adverse circumstances character-
ized the French noblesse, “be kind enough to re-
store my papei’s. I see that you are not the man
for me. Allow me only to thank you, and in-
quire the amount of my debt for the trouble I
have given.”

“Perhaps you are quite justified in thinking
I am not the man for you. Monsieur le Marquis;
and your papers shall, if you decide on dismiss-
ing me, be returned to you this evening. But
as to my accepting remunei’ation where I have
rendered no service, I request M. le Marquis to
put that out of the question. Considering my-
self, then, no longer your avoue, do not think I
take too great a liberty in volunteering my coun-
sel as a friend — or a friend at least to M. Hebert,
if you do not vouchsafe my right so to address
yourself.”

M. Gandrin spoke with a certain dignity of
voice and manner which touched and softened
: his listener.

THE PARISIANS.

“You make me your debtor far more than I
pretend to repay,” replied Alain. “Heaven
knows I want a friend, and I will heed with
gratitude and respect all your counsels in that
character.”

“Plainly and briefly, my advice is this : Mon-
sieur Louvier is the principal mortgagee. He is
among the six richest negotiators of Paris. He
does not, therefore, want money, hut, like most
self-made men, he is very accessible to social
vanities. He would be proud to think he had
l endered a service to a Rochebriant. Approach
him either through me, or, far better, at once in-
troduce yourself, and propose to consolidate all
your other liabilities in one mortgage to him, at
a rate of interest lower than that which is now
paid to some of the small mortgagees. This
would add considerably to your income, and
would carry out M. He'bert’s advice.”

“ But does it not strike you, dear M. Gandrin,
that such going cap in hand to one who has pow-
er over my fate, while I have none over his, would
scarcely be consistent with my self-respect, not
as Rochebriant only, but as Frenchman ?”

“ It does not strike me so in the least ; at all
events, I could make the proposal on your behalf
without compromising yourself, though I should
be far more sanguine of success if you addressed
M. Louvier in person.”

“I should nevertheless prefer leaving it in
your hands ; but even for that I must take a
few days to consider. Of all the mortgagees, M.
Louvier has been hitherto the severest and most
menacing, the one whom Hebert dreads the most ;
and should he become sole mortgagee, my whole
estate would pass to him if, through any succes-
sion of bad seasons and failing tenants, the inter-
est was not punctually paid.”

“ It could so pass to him now.”

“No ; for there have been years in which the
other mortgagees^, who are Bretons, and would
be loath to ruin a Rochebriant, have been lenient
and patient.”

“ If Louvier has not been equally so, it is only
because he knew nothing of you, and your father
no doubt had often sorely tasked his endurance.
Come, suppose we manage to break the ice easi-
ly. Do me the honor to dine here to meet him ;
you will find that he is not an unpleasant man.”

The Marquis hesitated, but the thought of the
sharp and seemingly hopeless struggle for the re-
tention of his ancestral home to which he would
be doomed if he returned from Paris unsuccess-
ful in his errand overmastered his pride. He
felt as if that self-conquest was a duty he owed
to the very tombs of his fathers. “ I ought not
to shrink from the face of a creditor,” said he,
smiling somewhat sadly, “and I accept the pro-
posal you so graciously make.”

“You do well. Marquis, and I will write at
once to Louvier to ask him to give me his first
disengaged day.”

The Marquis had no sooner quitted the house
than M. Gandrin opened a door at the side of
his office, and a large portly man strode into the
room — stride it was rather than step — firm, self-
assured, arrogant, masterful.

“Well, nion amf,” said this man, taking his
stand at the hearth, as a king might take his
stand in the hall of his vassal — “and what says
our petit muscadin ?”

“ He is neither jueriV nor muscadin^ Monsieur

Louvier,” replied Gandrin, peevishly; “and he
will task your powers to get him thoroughly into
your net. But I have persuaded him to meet
you here. What day can you dine with me ? I
had better ask no one else.”

“ To-morrow I dine with my friend O , to

meet the chiefs of the Opposition,” said M. Lou-
vier, with a sort of careless rollicking pomposity.
“Thursday with Periera — Saturday I entertain
at home. Say Friday. Your hour ?”

“ Seven.”

“ Good ! Show me those Rochebriant papers
again ; there is something I had forgotten to
note. Never mind me. Go on with your work
as if I were not here.”

Louvier took up the papers, seated himself in
an arm-chair by the fire-place, stretched out his
legs, and read at his ease, but with a very rapid
eye, as a practiced lawyer skims through the
technical forms of a case to fasten upon the mar-
row of it.

“Ah! as I thought. The farms could not pay
even the interest on my present mortgage ; the
forests come in for that. If a contractor for the
yearly sale of the woods was bankrupt and did
not pay, how could I get my interest ? Answer
me that, Gandrin.”

“Certainly you must run the risk of that
chance.”

“Of course the chance occurs, and then I fore-
close*— I seize — Rochebriant and its seigneuries
are mine.”

As he spoke he laughed, not sardonically — a
jovial laugh — and opened wide, to reshut as in a
vise, the strong iron hand which had doubtless
closed over many a man’s all.

“Thanks. On Friday, seven o’clock.” He
tossed the papers back on the bureau, nodded a
royal nod, and strode forth imperiously as he had
strided in.

CHAPTER HI.

Meanwhile the young Marquis pursued his
way thoughtfully through the streets, and enter-
ed the Champs Elysees. Since we first, nay,
since we last saw him, he is strikingly improved
in outward appearances. He has unconsciously
acquired more of the easy grace of the Parisian
in gait and bearing. You would no longer de-
tect the provincial — perhaps, however, because
he is now dressed, though very simply, in habili-
ments that belong to the style of the day. Rare-
ly among the loungers in the Champs Elysees
could be seen a finer form, a comelier face, an air
of more unmistakable distinction.

The eyes of many a passing fair one gazed on
him, admiringly or coquettishly. But he was
still so little the true Parisian that they got no
smile, no look in return. He was wrapped in his
own thoughts; was he thinking of M. Louvier?

He had nearly gained the entrance of the Bois
de Boulogne, when he was accosted by a voice
behind, and, tuniing round, saw his friend Le-
mercier arm in arm with Graham Vane.

Bon-j our ^ Alain,” said Lemercier, hooking
his disengaged arm into Rochebriant’s. “I sus-
pect we are going the same way.”

* For the sake of the general reader, English technic-
al words are here, as elsewhere, substituted as much
as possible for French.

THE PARISIANS.

Alain felt himself change countenance at this
conjecture, and replied, coldly, “ I think not ; 1
have got to the end of my walk, and shall turn
back to Paris;” addressing himself to the En-
glishman, he said, with formal politeness, “ I re-
gret not to have found you at home when I call-
ed some weeks ago, and no less so to have been
out when you had the complaisance to return my
visit.”

“At all eA'ents,” replied the Englishman, “ let
me not lose the opportunity of improving our ac-
quaintance Avhich now offers. It is true that our
friend Lemercier, catching sight of me in the
Rue de Rivoli, stopped his coupe and carried me
off for a promenade in the Bois. The fineness
of the day tempted us to get out of his carriage
as the Bois came in sight. But if you are going
back to Paris, I relinquish the Bois, and offer my-
self as your companion.”

Frederic (the name is so familiarly English
that the reader might think me pedantic did I
accentuate it as French) looked from one to the
other of his two friends, half amused and half
angry.

“And am I to be left alone to achieve a con-
quest, in which, if I succeed, I shall change into
hate and en^y the affection of my two best
friends ? — Be it so.

‘“Un veritable amant ne connait point d’amis.’”

“I do not comprehend your meaning,” said
the Marquis, Avith a compressed lip and a slight
froAvn.

‘ ‘ Bah ! ” cried Frederic ; ‘ ‘ come, franc jeu —
cards on the table — M. Grarm-Vara was going
into the Bois at my suggestion on the chance of
having another look at the pearl-colored angel ;
and you, Rochebriant, can’t deny that you were
going into the Bois for the same object.”

“One may pardon an enfant ?em’6/e, ” said
the Englishman, laughing, “but an ami terrible
should be sent to the galleys. Come, Marquis, let
us Avalk back and submit to our fate. EA'en Avere
the lady once more visible, Ave have no chance
of being observed by the side of a Lovelace so
accomplished and so audacious I” '

“Adieu, then, recreants — I go alone. Victo-
ry or death.”

The Parisian beckoned his coachman, entered
his carriage, and, with a mocking grimace, kissed
his hand to the companions thus deserting or de-
serted.

Rochebriant touched the Englishman’s arm,
and said, “Do you think that Lemercier could
be impertinent enough to accost that lady ?”

“ In the first place,” returned the Englishman,
“Lemercier himself tells me that the lady has
for several weeks relinquished her Avalks in the
Bois, and the probability is, therefore, that he
Avill not haA’e the opportunity to accost her. In
the next place, it appears that when she did take
her solitary walk she did not stray far from her
carriage, and was in reach of the protection of
her laquais and coachman. But to speak hon-
estly, do you, w’ho know Lemercier better than I,
take him to be a man who would commit an im-
pertinence to a woman unless there were viveurs
of his own sex to see him do it.”

Alain smiled. “No. Frederic’s real nature
is an admirable one, and if he ever do any thing
that he ought to be ashamed of, ’twill be from
the pride of shoAving how finely he can do it.

Such Avas his character at college, and such it
still seems at Paris. But it is true that the lady
has forsaken her former walk ; at least I — I have
not seen her since the day I first beheld her in
company Avith Frederic. Yet — yet, pardon me,
you AA'ere going to the Bois on the chance of see-
ing her. Perhaps she has changed the direction
of her walk, and — and — ”

The Marquis stopped short, stammering and
confused.

The Englishman scanned his countenance with
the rapid glance of a practiced observer of men
and things, and after a short pause said : “If the
lady has selected some other spot for her prome-
nade, I am ignorant of it ; nor have I eA'en vol-
unteered the chance of meeting with her since I
learned — first from Lemercier, and afterward
from others — that her destination is the stage.
Let us talk frankly. Marquis. I am accustomed
to take much exercise on foot, and the Bois is
my favorite resort ; one day I there found my-
self in the alike which the lady we speak of used
to select for her promenade, and there saw her.
Something in her face impressed me ; how shall
I describe the impression ? Did you ever open
a poem, a romance, in some style wholly ncAv to
you, and before you Avere quite certain whether
or not its merits justified the interest which the
novelty inspired, you were summoned away, or
the book was taken out of your hands? If so,
did you not feel an intellectual longing to have
another glimpse of the book ? That illustration
describes my impression, and I own that I twice
again Avent to the same alike. The last time I
only caught sight of the young lady as she Avas
getting into her carriage. As she Avas then
borne away, I perceived one of the custodians of
the Bois ; and learned, on questioning him, that
the lady Avas in the habit of Avalking always alone
in the same alike at the same hour on most fine
days, but that he did not know her name or ad-
dress. A motive of curiosity — perhaps an idle
one — then made me ask Lemercier, Avho boasts
of knoAving his Paris so intimately, if he could
inform me Avho the lady was. He undertook ta
ascertain.”

“But,” interposed the Marquis, “he did not
ascertain Avho she Avas ; he only ascertained,
where she lived, and that she and an elder com-
panion Avere Italians, Avhom he suspected, with-
out sufficient ground, to be professional singers.”

“True; but since then I ascertained more
detailed particulars from tAvo acquaintances of
mine Avho happen to knoAv her — M. Savarin, the
distinguished writer, and Mrs. Morley, an ac-
complished and beautiful American lady, Avho is
more than an acquaintance. I may boast the
honor of ranking among her friends. As SaA'a-

rin’s villa is at A , I asked him incidentally

if he knew the fair neighbor whose face had so
attracted me ; and Mrs. Morley being present,
and overhearing me, I learned from both Avhat I
now repeat to you.

“The young lady is a Signorina Cicogna —
at Paris exchanging (except among particular
friends), as is not unusual, the outlandish desig-
nation of signorina for the more conventional
one of mademoiselle. Her father Avas a mem-
ber of the noble Milanese family of the same
name, therefore the young lady is well born.
Her father has been long dead ; his Avidow mar-
ried again an English gentleman settled in Italy,

THE PARISIANS.

a scholar and antiquarian ; his name was Selby.
This gentleman, also dead, bequeathed the sign-
orina a small but sufficient competence. She
is now an orphan, and residing with a compan-
ion, a Signora Venosta, who was once a singer
of some repute at the Neapolitan Theatre, in the
orchestra of which her husband was principal
performer; but she relinquished the stage sev-
eral years ago on becoming a widow, and gave
lessons as a teacher. She has the character of
being a scientific musician, and of unblemished
private respectability. Subsequently she was in-
duced to give up general teaching, and under-
take the musical education and the social charge
of the young lady with her. This girl is said to
have early given promise of extraordinary ex-
cellence as a singer, and excited great interest
among a coterie of literary critics and musical
cognoscenti. She was to have come out at the
Theatre of Milan a year or two ago, but her ca-
reer has been suspended in consequence of ill
health, for which she is now at Paris under the
care of an English physician, who has made re-
markable cures in all complaints of the respira-
tory organs. M , the great composer, who

knows her, says that in expression and feeling
she has no living superior, perhaps no equal
since Malibran.”

“You seem, dear monsieur, to have taken
much pains to acquire this information.”

“No great pains were necessary; but had
they been I might have taken them, for, as I
have owned to you. Mademoiselle Cicogna, while
she was yet a mystery to me, strangely interest-
ed ray thoughts or my fancies. That interest
has now ceased. The world of actresses and
singers lies apart from mine.”

“Yet,” said Alain, in a tone of voice that im-
plied doubt, “if I understand Lemercier aright,
you were going with him to the Bois on the
chance of seeing again the lady in whom your
interest has ceased.”

“ Lemercier s account was not strictly accu-
rate. He stopped his carriage to speak to me on
quite another subject, on which I have consult-
ed him, and then proposed to take me on to the
Bois. I assented ; and it was not till we were
in the caniage that he suggested the idea of see-
ing whether the pearly-robed lady had resumed
her walk in the alUe. You may judge how in-
difterent I was to that chance when I preferred
turning back with you to going on with him.
Between you and me. Marquis, to men of our age,
who have the business of life before them, and
feel that if there be aught in which noblesse oblige
it is a severe devotion to noble objects, there is
nothing moi'e fatal to such devotion than allow-
ing the heart to be blown hither and thither at
every breeze of mere fancy, and dreaming our-
selves into love with some fair creature whom
we never could marry consistently with the ca-
reer we have set before our ambition. I could
not marry an actress — neither, I presume, could
the Marquis de Rochebriant ; and the thought
of a courtship which excluded the idea of mar-
riage, to a yoting orphan of name unblemished —
of virtue unsuspected — would certainly not be
compatible with ‘devotion to noble objects.’ ”

Alain involuntarily bowed his head in assent
to the proposition, and, it may be, in submission
to an implied rebuke. The two men walked in
silence for some minutes, and Graham first

spoke, changing altogether the subject of con-
versation.

“Lemercier tells me you decline going much
into this world of Paris — the capital of capitals
— which appears so irresistibly attractive to us
foreigners.”

‘ ‘ Possibly ; but, to borrow your words, I have
the business of life before me.”

“Business is a good safeguard against the
temptations to excess in pleasure, in which Paris
abounds. But there is no business which does
not admit of some holiday, and all business ne-
cessitates commerce with mankind. Apropos, I
was the other evening at the Duchess de Taras-
con’s — a brilliant assembly, filled with ministers,
senators, and courtiers. I heard your name men-
tioned.”

“Mine?”

“Yes; Duplessis, the rising financier — who,
rather to my surprise, was not only present
among these official and decorated celebrities,
but apparently quite at home among them — ask-
ed the Duchess if she had not seen you since
your arrival at Paris. She replied, ‘ No ; that
though you were among her nearest connections,
you had not called on her ;’ and bade Duplessis
tell you that you were a monstre for not doing
so. Whether or not Duplessis will take that lib-
erty, I know not ; but you must pardon me if I
do. She is a very charming woman, full of tal-
ent ; and that stream of the world which reflects
the stars, w'ith all their mythical influences on
fortune, flows through her salons.'"

“I am not born under those stars. I am a
Legitimist.”

“ I did .not forget your political creed ; but in
England the leaders of opposition attend the sa-
lons of the Prime Minister. A man is not sup-
posed to compromise his opinions because he ex-
changes social courtesies with those to whom his
opinions are hostile. Pray excuse me if I am
indiscreet — I speak as a traveler who asks for
information — but do Legitimists really believe
that they best serve their cause by declining any
mode of competing with its opponents ? Would
there not be a fairer chance for the ultimate vic-
tory of their principles if they made their talents
and energies individually prominent — if they were
known as skillful generals, practical statesmen,
eminent diplomatists, brilliant writers? — could
they combine — not to sulk and exclude them-
selves from the great battle-field of the world —
but in their several ways to render themselves of
such use to their country that some day or other,
in one of those revolutionary crises to which
Prance, alas ! must long be subjected, they would
find themselves able to turn the scale of unde-
cided councils and conflicting jealousies?”

“ Monsieur, we hope for the day when the Di-
vine Disposer of events will strike into the hearts
of our fickle and erring countrymen the convic-
tion that there will be no settled repose for Prance
save under the sceptre of her rightful kings. But
meanwhile we are — I see it more clearly since I
have quitted Bretagne — we are a hopeless mi-
nority.”

“ Does not history tell us that the great changes
of the world have been wrought by minorities?
but on the one condition that the minorities shall
noi be hopeless ? It is almost the other day that
the Bonapartists were in a minority that their
adversaries called hopeless, and the majority foi;

THE PARISIANS.

the Emperor is now so preponderant that I trem-
ble for his safety. When a majority becomes so
vast that intellect disappears in the crowd, the
date of its destruction commences ; for by the law
of reaction the minority is installed against it.
It is the nature of things that minorities are al-
ways more intellectual than multitudes, and in-
tellect is ever at work in sapping numerical force.
What your party want is hope, because without
hope there is no energy. I remember hearing
ray father say that when he met the Count de
Chambord at Eras, that illustrious personage de-
livered himself of a belle phrase much admired by
his partisans. The Emperor was then President
of the Republic, in a very doubtful and danger-
ous position. France seemed on the verge of an-
other convulsion. A certain distinguished poli-
tician recommended the Count de Chambord to
hold himself ready to enter at once as a candi-
date for the throne. And the Count, with a be-
nignant smile on his handsome face, answered,

‘ All wrecks come to the shore — the shore does
not go to the wrecks.’ ”

“Beautifully said!” exclaimed the Marquis.

“Not if Le beau est toujours le vrai. My fa-
ther, no inexperienced nor unwise politician, in
repeating the royal words, remarked ; ‘ The fal-
lacy of the Count’s argument is in its metaphor.
A man is not a shore. Do you not think that j
the seiimen on board the wrecks would be more
grateful to him who did not complacently com-
pare himself to a shore, but considered himself a
human being like themselves, and I'isked his own
life in a boat, even though it were a cockle-shell,
in the chance of saving theirs ?’ ”

Alain de Rochebriant was a brave man, with
that intense sentiment of patriotism which char-
acterizes Frenchmen of every rank and persua-
sion, unless they belong to the Internationalists ;
and without pausing to consider, he cried, “Your
father was right. ” ,

The Englishman resumed: “Need I say, my
dear Marquis, that I am not a Legitimist? I
am not an Imperialist, neither am I an Orlean-
ist nor a Republican. Between all those polit-
ical divisions it is for Frenchmen to make their
choice, and for Englishmen to accept for France
that government which France has established.

I view things here as a simple observer. But it
strikes me that, if I were a Frenchman in your
position, I should think myself unworthy my
ancestors if I consented to be an insignificant
looker-on.”

“You are not in my position,” said the Mar-
quis, half mournfully, half haughtily, “and you
can scarcely judge of it even in imagination.”

“I need not much task my imagination; I
judge of it by analogy. I was very much in your
position when I entered upon what I venture to
call my career; and it is the curious similarity
between us in circumstances that made me wish
for your friendship when that similarity was made
known to me by Lemercier, who is not less gar-
rulous than the true Parisian usually is. Permit
me to say that, like you, I was reared in some
pride of no ingloidous ancestiy. I was reared
also in the expectation of great wealth. Those
expectations were not realized: my father had
the fault of noble natures — generosity pushed to
imprudence : he died poor, and in debt. You
retain the home of your ancestors ; I had to re-
sign mine.”

The Marquis had felt deeply interested in this
narrative, and as Graham now paused, took his
hand and pressed it.

“One of our most eminent personages said to
me about that time, ‘ Whatever a clever man of
your age determines to do or to be, the odds are
twenty to one that he has only to live on in or-
der to do or to be it.’ Don’t you think he spoke
truly? I think so.”

“ I scarcely know what to think,” said Roche-
briant ; “I feel as if you had given me so rough
a shake when I was in the midst of a dull dream,
that I do not yet know whether I am asleep or
awake.”

Just as he said this, and toward the Paris end
of the Champs Elysees, there was a halt, a sen-
sation among the loungers round them : many
of them uncovered in salute.

A man on the younger side of middle age,
somewhat inclined to coipulence, with a very
striking countenance, was riding slowly by. He
returned the salutations he received with the care-
less dignity of a personage accustomed to respect,
and then reined in his horse by the side of a ba-
rouche, and exchanged some words with a port-
ly gentleman who was its sole occupant. The
loungers, still halting, seemed to contemplate this
parley — between him on horseback and him in
the carriage — with A'ery eager interest. Some
put their hands behind their ears and pressed
forward, as if trying to overhear what was said.

“I wonder,” quoth Graham, “whether, with
all his cleverness, the Prince has in any w'ay de-
cided what he means to do or to be.”

“ The Prince !” said Rochebriant, rousing him-
self from reverie ; “ what Prince ?”

“Do you not recognize him by his wonderful
likeness to the first Napoleon — him on horseback
talking to Louvier, the great financier ?”

“Is that stout bourgeois in the carriage Lou-
vier— my mortgagee, Louvier ?”

“Your mortgagee, my dear Marquis? Well,
he is rich enough to be a very lenient one upon
pay-day.”

Hein! — I doubt his leniency,” said Alain.
“ I have promised my avoue to meet him at din-
ner. Do you think I did wrong ?”

“ Wrong ! of course not ; he is likely to over-
whelm you with civilities. Pray don’t refuse if
he gives you an invitation to his soiree next Sat-
urday— I am going to it. One meets there the
notabilities most interesting to study — artists,
authors, politicians, especially those who call
themselves Republicans. He and the Prince
agree in one thing — viz., the cordial reception
they give to the men who w'ould destroy the state
of things upon which Prince and financier both
thrive. Hillo 1 here comes Lemercier on return
from the Bois.”

Lemercier’s coupe stopped beside the foot-path.
“ What tidings of the Belle Inconnue ?” asked
the Englishman.

“ None ; she was not there. But I am re-
warded— such an adventure — a dame of the haute
volee — I believe she is a duchess. She was w'alk-
ing with a lap-dog, a pure Pomeranian. A strange
poodle flew at the Pomeranian. I drove off the
poodle, rescued the Pomeranian, received the most
gracious thanks, the sweetest smile : femme su-
perbe, middle-aged. I prefer women of forty.
Au revoir^ I am due at the club. ”

Alain felt a sensation of relief that Lemercier

THE PARISIANS.

had not seen the lady in the pearl-colored dress,
and quitted the Englishman with a lightened
heart.

CHAPTER IV.

‘ ‘ PiccoLA, piccola ! com' e cortese I another
invitation from M. Louvier for next Saturday —
conversazione." This was said in Italian by an
elderly lady bursting noisily into the room — el-
derly, yet with a youthful expression of face, ow-
ing perhaps to a pair of very vivacious black eyes.
She was dressed, after a somewhat slatternly fash-
ion, in a wrapper of crimson merino much the
worse for wear, a blue handkerchief twisted tur-
ban-like round her head, and her feet encased in
list slippers. The person to whom she addressed
herself was a young lady with dark hair, which,
despite its evident redundance, was restrained
into smooth glossy braids over the forehead, and
at the crown of the small graceful head into the
simple knot which Horace has described as
“ Spartan.” Her dress contrasted the speaker’s
by an exquisite neatness. We have seen her be-
fore as the lady in the pearl-colored robe, but
seen now at home she looks much younger. She i
was one of those whom, encountered in the streets
or in society, one might guess to be married —
probably a young bride ; for thus seen there was
about her an air of dignity and of self-possession |
which suits well with the ideal of chaste youthful
matronage ; and in the expression of the face
there was a pensive thoughtfulness beyond her
years. But as she now sat by the open window
arranging flowers in a glass .bowl, a book lying
open on her lap, you would never have said,
“What a handsome woman!” you would have
said, “What a charming girl!” All about her
was maidenly, innocent, and fresh. The dignity
of her bearing was lost in household ease, the
pensiveness of her expression in an untroubled
serene sweetness.

Perhaps many of my readers may have known
friends engaged in some absorbing cause of
thought, and who are in the habit when they go
out, especially if on solitary walks, to take that
cause of thought with them. The friend may
be an orator meditating his speech, a poet his
verses, a lawyer a difficult case, a physician an
intricate malady. If you have such a friend,
and you observe him thus away from his home,
his face will seem to you older and graver. He
is absorbed in the care that weighs on him.
When you see him in a holiday moment at his
own fireside, the care is thrown aside; perhaps
he mastered while abroad the difficulty that had
troubled him; he is cheerful, pleasant, sunny.
This appears to be very much the case with per-
sons of genius. When in their own houses we
usually find them very playful and child-like.
Most persons of real genius, whatever they may
seem out-of-doors, are very sweet-tempered at
home, and sweet temper is sympathizing and
genial in the intercourse of private life. Cer-
tainly, observing this girl as she now bends over
the flowers, it would be difficult to believe her to
be the Isaura Cicogna whose letters to Madame
de Grantmesnil exhibit the doubts and struggles
of an unquiet, discontented, aspiring mind. Only
in one or two passages in those letters would you
have guessed at the writer in the girl as we now

see her. It is in those passages where she ex-
presses her love of harmony, and her repugnance
to contest — those were characteristics you might
have read in her face.

Certainly the girl is very lovely — what long
dark eyelashes, what soft, tender, dark blue e}'iBs
— now that she looks up and smiles, what a be-
witching smile it is! — by what sudden play of
rippling dimples the smile is enlivened and re-
doubled ! Do you notice one feature ? in very
showy beauties it is seldom noticed ; but I, be-
ing in my way a physiognomist, consider that it
is always worth heeding as an index of charac-
ter. It is the ear. Remark how delicately it is
formed in her — none of that heaviness of lobe
which is a sure sign of sluggish intellect and
coarse perception. Hers is the artist’s ear.
Note next those hands — how beautifully shaped !
small, but not doll-like hands — ready and nim-
ble, firm and nervous hands, that could work for
a helpmate. By no means very white, still less
red, but somewhat embrowned as by the sun,
such as you may see in girls reared in southern
climates, and in her perhaps betokening an im-
pulsive character which had not accustomed it-
self, when at sport in the open air, to the thrall-
dom of gloves — very impulsive people, even in
cold climates, seldom do.

In conveying to us by a few bold strokes an
idea of the sensitive, quick-moved, warm-blooded
Henry II., the most impulsive of the Plantage-
nets, his contemporary chronicler tells us that
rather than imprison those active hands of his,
even in hawking-gloves, he would suffer his fal-
con to fix its sharp claws into his wrist. No
doubt there is a difference as to what is befitting
between a burly bellicose creature like Henry II.
and a delicate young lady like Isaura Cicogna ;
and one would not wish to see those dainty wrists
of hers seamed and scarred by a falcon’s claws.
But a girl may not be less exquisitely feminine
for slight heed of artificial prettinesses. Isaura
had no need of pale bloodless hands to seem one
of Nature’s highest grade of gentlewomen even
to the most fastidious eyes. About her there
was a charm apart from her mere beauty, and
often disturbed instead of heightened by her mere
intellect : it consisted in a combination of exqui-
site artistic refinement, and of a generosity of char-
acter by which refinement was animated into vig-
or and warmth.

The room, which was devoted exclusively to
Isaura, had in it much that spoke of the occu-
pant. That room, when first taken furnished,
had a good deal of the comfortless showiness
which belongs to ordinary furnished apartments
in France, especially in the Parisian suburbs,
chiefly let for the summer — thin limp muslin cur-
tains that decline to draw, stiff mahogany chairs
covered with yellow Utrecht velvet, a tall secretaire
in a dark corner, an oval buhl table set in tawdry
ormolu, islanded in the centre of a poor but gaudy
Scotch carpet, and but one other table of dull
walnut-wood standing clothless before a sofa to
match the chairs ; the eternal ormolu clock flank-
ed by the two eternal ormolu candelabra on the
dreary mantel-piece. Some of this garniture had
been removed, others softened into cheeriness and
comfort. The room somehow or other — thanks
partly to a very moderate expenditure in pretty
twills with pretty borders, gracefully simple table-
covers, with one or two additional small tables

THE PARISIANS.

and easy-chairs, two simple vases filled with flow-
ers— thanks still more to a nameless skill in re-
arrangement, and the disposal of the slight knick-
knacks and well-bound volumes, which, even in
traveling, women, who have cultivated the pleas-
ure of taste, carry about with them — had been
coaxed into that quiet harmony, that tone of con-
sistent subdued color, which corresponded with
the characteristics of the inmate. Most people
might have been puzzled where to place the pi-
ano, a semi-grand, so as not to take up too much
space in the little room ; but where it was placed
it seemed so at home that you might have sup-
posed the room had been built for it.

There are two kinds of neatness — one is too
evident, and makes every thing about it seem
trite and cold and stiff, and another kind of
neatness disappears from our sight in a satisfied
sense of completeness — like some exquisite, sim-
ple, finished style of writing — an Addison’s or a
St. Pierre’s.

This last sort of neatness belonged to Isaura,
and brought to mind the well-known line of Ca-
tullus, when, on recrossing his threshold, he in-
vokes its welcome — a line thus not inelegantly
translated by Leigh Hunt —

“Smile every dimple on the cheek of Home."

I entreat the reader’s pardon for this long de-
scriptive digression ; but Isaura is one of those
characters which are called many-sided, and there-
fore not very easy to comprehend. She gives us
one side of her character in her correspondence
with Madame de Grantmesnil, and another side
of it in her own home with her Italian companion
— half nurse, half chaperon.

“ Monsieur Louvier is indeed very courteous,”
said Isaura, looking up from the flowers with tlie
dimpled smile we have noticed. “But I think,
Madre, that we should do well to stay at home
on Saturday — not peacefully, for I owe you your
revenge at euchre."

“You can’t mean it, Piccola!" exclaimed the
signora in evident consternation. “ Stay at
home! — why stay at home? Euchre is very
well when there is nothing else to do ; but change
is pleasant — le hon Dieu likes it —

‘Ne caldo ne gelo
Resta mai in cielo.’

And such beautiful ices one gets at M. Louvier’s.
Did you taste the Pistachio ice? What fine
rooms, and so well lit up ! — I adore light. And
the ladies so beautifully dressed — one sees the
fashions. Stay at home — play at euchre indeed !
Piccola, you can not be so cruel to yourself — you
are young.”

“But, dear Madre^ just consider — we are in-
vited because we are considered professional sing-
ers ; your reputation as such is of course estab-
lished— mine is not ; but still I shall be asked to
sing as I was asked before ; and you know Dr.

C forbids me to do so except to a very small

audience ; and it is so ungracious always to say
‘ No and besides, did you not yourself say, when
we came away last time from M. Louvier’s, that
it was very dull — that you knew nobody — and
that the ladies had such superb toilets that you
felt mortified — and — ”

‘ ‘ Zitto ! zitto ! you talk idly, Piccola — very
idly. I was mortified then in my old blaek Lyons
silk ; but have I not bought since then my beau-

tiful Greek jacket — scarlet and gold-lace? and
why should I buy it if I am not to show it ?”

“But, dear Madre, the jacket is certainly very
handsome, and will make an effect in a little din-
ner at the Savarins’, or Mrs. Morley’s. But in a
great formal reception like M. Louvier’s will it
not look — ”

“Splendid !” interrupted the signora.

“ But singolare."

“So much the better; did not that great En-
glish lady wear such a jacket, and did not every
one admire her — piu tosto invidia che compas-
sione f'

Isaura sighed. Now the jacket of the signora
was a subject of disquietude to her friend. It so
happened that a young English lady of the high-
est rank and the rarest beauty had appeared at
M. Louvier’s, and indeed generally in the beau
monde of Paris, in a Greek jacket that became
her very much. That jacket had fascinated, at
M. Louvier’s, the eyes of the signora. But of
this Isaura was unaware. The signora, on re-
turning home from M. Louvier’s, had certainly
lamented much over the mesquin appearance of
her own old-fashioned Italian habiliments com-
pared with the brilliant toilet of the gay Pari-
siennes ; and Isaura — quite woman enough to
sympathize with woman in such w’omanly vani-
ties— proposed the next day to go with the sign-
ora to one of the principal couturieres of Paris,
and adapt the signora’s costume to the fashions
of the place. But the signora having predeter-
mined on a Greek jacket, and knowing by instinct
that Isaura would be disposed to thwart that
splendid predilection, had artfully suggested that
it would be better to go to the couturiere with
Madame Savarin, as being a more experienced
adviser — and the coupe only held two.

As Madame Savarin was about the same age
as the signora, and dressed as became her years,
and in excellent taste, Isaura thought this an ad-
mirable suggestion ; and pressing into her chape-
ron! s hand a billet de banque sufficient to re-equip
her cap-a-pie, dismissed the subject from her
mind. But the signora was much too cunning
to submit her passion for the Greek jacket to
the discouraging comments of Madame Savarin.
Monopolizing the coupe, she became absolute
mistress of the situation. She went to no fash-
ionable couturierd s. She went to a magasin that
she had seen advertised in t\\Q P elites Affiches as
supplying superb costumes for fancy balls and
amateur performers in private theatricals. She
returned home triumphant, with a jacket still more
dazzling to the eye than that of the English lady.

When Isaura first beheld it, she drew back in
a sort of superstitious terror, as of a comet or
other blazing portent.

‘ ‘ Cosa stupenda !" — (stupendous thing ! ) She
might well be dismayed when the signora pro-
posed to appear thus attired in M. Louvier’s sa-
lon. What might be admired as coquetry of
dress in a young beauty of rank so great that
even a vulgarity in her would be called distingue,
was certainly an audacious challenge of ridicule
in the elderly ci-devant music-teacher.

But how could Isaura, how can any one of
common humanity, say to a woman resolved
upon wearing a certain dress, “You are not
young and handsome enough for that ?” Isaura
could only murmur, “For many reasons I would
rather stay at home, dear Madre'."

THE PARISIANS.

“Ah! I see you are ashamed of me,” said
the signora, in softened tones: “very natural.
When the nightingale sings no more, she is only
an ugly brown bird and therewith the Signora
Venosta seated herself submissively, and began
to cry.

On this Isaura sprang up, wound her arms
round the signora’s neck, soothed her with coax-
ing, kissed and petted her, and ended by saying,
“Of course we will go and, “ but let me choose
you another dress — a dark green velvet trimmed
with blonde — blonde becomes you so well.”

“No, no — I hate green velvet; any body can
wear that. Piccola, I am not clever like thee ;
I can not amuse myself like thee with books.
I am in a foreign land. I have a poor head,
but I have a big heart” (another burst of tears) ;
“ and that big heart is set on my beautiful Greek
jacket.”

“Dearest Madre,^' said Isaura, half weeping
too, “forgive me; you are right. The Greek
jacket is splendid ; I shall be so pleased to see
you wear it. Poor Madre — so pleased to think
that in the foreign land you are not without
something that pleases you”

CHAPTER V.

Conformably with his engagement to meet
M. Louvier, Alain found himself on the day and
at the hour named in M. Gandrin’s salon. On
this occasion Madame Gandrin did not appear.
Her husband was accustomed to give diners
d'hommes. The great man had not yet arrived.
“I think, Marquis,” said M. Gandrin, “ that you
will not regi’et having followed my advice : my
representations have disposed Louvier to regard
you with much favor, and he is certainly flattered
by being permitted to make your personal ac-
quaintance.”

The avou€ had scarcely finished this little
speech when M. Louvier was announced. He
entered with a beaming smile, which did not de-
tract from his imposing presence. His flatterers
had told him that he had a look of Louis Phi-
lippe ; therefore he had sought to imitate the
dress and bonhomie of that monarch of the mid-
dle class. He wore a wig, elaborately piled up,
and shaped his whiskers in royal harmony with
the royal wig. Above all, he studied that social
frankness of manner with which the able sover-
eign dispelled awe of his presence or dread of his
astuteness. Decidedly he was a man very pleas-
ant to converse and to deal with — so long as there
seemed to him something to gain and nothing to
lose by being pleasant. He returned Alain’s bow
by a cordial offer of both expansive hands, into the
grasp of which the hands of the aristocrat utterly
disappeared. ‘ ‘ Channed to make your acquaint-
ance, Marquis — still more charmed if you will let
me be useful during your s^jour at Paris. Ma
foi, excuse my bluntness, but you are a fort beau
gargon. Monsieur, your father, was a handsome
man, but you beat him hollow. Gandrin, my
friend, would not you and I give half our for-
tunes for one year of this fine fellow’s youth spent
at Paris ? Peste ! what love-letters we should
have, with no need to buy them by billets de
banque Thus he ran on, much to Alain’s con-
fusion, till dinner was announced. Then there

was something grandiose in the frank bourgeois
style wherewith he expanded his napkin and
twisted one end into his waistcoat — it was so
manly a renunciation of the fashions which a
man so repandu in all circles might be supposed
to follow — as if he were both too great and too
much in earnest for such frivolities. He was
evidently a sincere bon vivant^ and M. Gandrin
had no less evidently taken all requisite pains to
gratify his taste. The Montrachet serv'ed with
the oysters was of precious vintage. The vin de
madere which accompanied the potage a la bisque
would have contented an American. And how
radiant became Louvier’s face, when among the
entries he came upon laitances de carpes ! ‘ ‘ The
best thing in the world,” he cried, “ and one gets
it so seldom since the old Rocher de Cancale has
lost its renown. At private bouses, what does
one get now ? — blanc de poulet — flavorless trash.
After all, Gandrin, when we lose the love-letters,
it is some consolation that laitances de carpes
and sautes de foie gras are still left to fill up the
void in our hearts. Marquis, heed my counsel ;
cultivate betimes the taste for the table ; that and
whist are the sole resources of declining years.
You never met my old friend Talleyrand — ah,
no! he was long before your time. He culti-
vated both, but he made two mistakes. No
man’s intellect is perfect on all sides. He con-
fined himself to one meal a day, and he never
learned to play well at whist. Avoid his errors,
my young friend — avoid them. Gandrin, I guess
this pine-apple is English — it is superb.”

“You are right — a present from the Marquis
of H .”

“Ah! instead of a fee, I wager. The Mar-
quis gh'es nothing for nothing, dear man ! Droll
people the English. You have never visited En-
gland, I presume, cher Rochebriant ?”

The affable financier had already made vast
progress in familiarity with his silent fellow-guest.

When the dinner was over and the three men
had re-entered the salon for coffee and liqueurs,
Gandrin left Louvier and Alain alone, saying he
was going to his cabinet for cigars which he
could recommend. Then Louvier, lightly pat-
ting the Marquis on the shoulder, said, with what
the French call eff'vsion, “My dear Rochebriant,
your father and I did not quite understand each
other. He took a tone of grand seigneur that
sometimes wounded me ; and I in turn was per-
haps too Hide in asserting my rights— as creditor,
shall I say ? — no, as fellow-citizen ; and French-
men are so vain, so oversusceptible — fire up at
a word — take offense when none is meant. We
two, my dear boy, should be superior to such
national foibles. Bref—1 have a mortgage on
your lands. Why should that thought mar our
friendship ? At my age, though I am not yet
old, one is flattered if the young like us — pleased
if we can oblige them, and remove from their ca-
reer any little obstacle in its way. Gandrin tells
me you wish to consolidate all the charges on
your estate into one on lower rate of interest.
Is it so ?”

“I am so advised,” said the Marquis.

“And very rightly advised; come and talk
with me about it some day next week. I hope
to have a large sum of money set free in a few
days. Of course mortgages on land don’t pay like
speculations at the Bourse ; but I am rich enough
to please myself. We will see — we will see.”

THE PARISIANS.

Here Gandrin returned with the cigars ; but
Alain at that time never smoked, and Louvier
excused himself, with a laugh and a sly wink, on
the plea that he was going to pay his respects—
as doubtless that joli gargon was going to do,
likewise — to a helle dame who did not reckon the
smell of tobacco among the perfumes of Houbi-
gant or Arabia.

“Meanwhile,” added Louvier, turning ,to Gan-
drin, “ I have something to say to you on busi-
ness about the contract for that new street of
mine. No hurry — after our young friend has
gone to his ‘assignation.’ ”

Alain could not misinterpret the hint ; and in
a few moments took leave of his host more sur-
prised than disappointed that the financier had
not invited him, as Graham had assumed he
would, to his soiree the following evening.

When Alain was gone, Louvier’s jovial man-
ner disappeared also, and became bluffly rude
rather than bluntly cordial.

“Gandrin, what did you mean by saying that
that young man was no muscadin ? Muscadin
— aristocrat — offensive from top to toe.”

“You amaze me — you seemed to take to him
so cordially.”

“And pray, were you too blind to remark
with what cold reserve he responded to my con-
descensions? How he winced when I called
him Rochebriant ! how he colored when I call-
ed him ‘dear boy!’ These aristocrats think we
ought to thank them on our knees when they
take our money, and ” — here Louvier’s face dark-
ened— “seduce our women.”

“Monsieur Louvier, in all France I do not
know a greater aristocrat than yourself.”

I don’t know whether M. Gandrin meant that
speech as a compliment, but M. Louvier took it
as such — laughed complacently and rubbed his
hands. “Ay, ay, millionnaires are the real aris-
tocrats, for they have power, as my beau Marquis
will soon find. I must bid you good-night. Of
course I shall see Madame Gandrin and yourself
to-morrow. Prepare for a motley gathering —
lots of democrats and foreigners, with artists and
authors, and such creatures.”

“Is that the reason why you did not invite
the Marquis ?”

“To be sure; I would not shock so pure a
Legitimist by contact with the sons of the peo-
ple, and make him still colder to myself. No ;
when he comes to my house he shall meet lions
and viveurs of the haut ton^ who will play into
my hands by teaching him how to ruin himself
in the quickest manner and in the genre Louis
XV. JBonsoir^ mon vieux.^'

CHAPTER VI.

The next night Graham in vain looked round
for Alain in M. Louvier’s salons, and missed his
high-bred mien and melancholy countenance.
M. Louvier had been for some four years a child-
less widower, but his receptions were not the less
numerously attended, nor his establishment less
magnificently monte for the absence of a presid-
ing lady: veiy much the contrary; it was no-
ticeable how much he had increased his status
and prestige as a social personage since the death
of his unlamented spouse.

To say truth, she had been rather a heavy
drag on his triumphal car. She had been the
heiress of a man who had amassed a great deal
of money ; not in the higher walks of commerce,
but in a retail trade.

Louvier himself was the son of a rich money-
lender ; he had entered life with an ample for-
tune and an intense desire to be admitted into
those more brilliant circles in which fortune can
be dissipated with ^clat. He might not have
attained this object but for the friendly counte-
nance of a young noble who was then

“The glass of fashion and the mould of form.”

But this young noble, of whom later we shall
hear more, came suddenly to grief ; and when
the money-lender’s son lost that potent protect-
or, the dandies, previously so civil, showed him
a very cold shoulder.

Louvier then became an ardent democrat, and
recruited the fortune he had impaired by the
aforesaid marriage, launched into colossal specu-
lations, and became enormously rich. His aspi-
rations for social rank now revived, but his wife
sadly interfered with them. She was thrifty by
nature ; sympathized little with her husband’s
genius for accumulation ; always said he would
end in a hospital ; hated Republicans ; despised
authors and artists ; and by the ladies of the
beau monde was pronounced common and vulgar.

So long as she lived, it was impossible for
Louvier to realize his ambition of having one of
the salons which at Paris establish celebrity and
position. He could not then command those ad-
vantages of wealth which he especially coveted.
He was eminently successfid in doing this now.
As soon as she was safe in Pere la Chaise, he
enlarged his hotel by the purchase and annexa-
tion of an adjoining house ; redecorated and re-
furnished it, and in this task displayed, it must
be said to his credit, or to that of the adminis-
trators he selected for the purpose, a nobleness
of taste rarely exhibited nowadays. His collec-
tion of pictures was not large, and consisted ex-
clusively of the French school, ancient and mod-
ern, for in all things Louvier affected the patriot.
But each of those pictures was a gem ; such Wat-
teaus ! such Greuzes ! such landscapes by Patel !
and, above all, such masterpieces by ffngres, Hor-
ace Vernet, and Delaroche, were w^orth all the
doubtful originals of Flemish and Italian art which
make the ordinary boast of private collectors.

These pictures occupied tw'o rooms of moder-
ate size, built for their reception, and lighted
from above. The great salon to W'hich they led
contained treasures scarcely less precious ; the
walls were covered with tlie richest silks which
the looms of Lyons could produce. Every piece
of furniture here was a work of art in its way :
console-tables of Florentine mosaic, inlaid with
pearl and lapis lazuli ; cabinets in which the
I exquisite designs of the renaissance were carved
in ebony; colossal vases of Russian malachite,
but wrought by French artists. The very knick-
knacks scattered carelessly about the room might
have been admired in the cabinets of the Palaz-
zo Pitti. Beyond this room lay the salle de

danse, its ceiling painted by , supported by

white marble columns, the glazed balcony and
the angles of the room filled with tiers of ex-
otics. In the dining-room, on the same floor, on
the other side of the landing-place, were stored

THE PARISIANS.

in glazed buffets, not only vessels and salvers of
plate, silver and gold, but, more costly still,
matchless specimens of Sevres and Limoges, and
medieval varieties of Venetian glass. On the
ground -floor, which opened on the lawn of a
large garden, Louvier had his suit of private
apartments, furnished, as he said, “simply ac-
cording to English notions of comfort.” En-
glishmen would have said, “according to French
notions of luxuiy.” Enough of these details,
which a writer can not give without feeling him-
self somewhat vulgarized in doing so, but with-
out a loose general idea of which a reader would
not have an accurate conception of something
not vulgar — of something grave, historical, pos-
sibly tragical, the existence of a Parisian million-
naire at the date of this narrative.

The evidence of wealth was every where man-
ifest at M. Louvier’s, but it was every where re-
fined by an equal evidence of taste. The apart-
ments devoted to hospitality ministered to the
delighted study of artists, to whom free access
was given, and of whom two or three might be
seen daily in the “show-rooms,” copying pic-
tures or taking sketches of rare articles of furni-
ture or effects for palatian interiors.

Among the things which rich English visitors
of Paris most coveted to see was M. Louvier’s
hotel ; and few among the richest left it without
a sigh of envy and despair. Only in such Lon-
don houses as belonged to a Sutherland or a Hol-
ford could our metropolis exhibit a splendor as
opulent and a taste as refined.

M. Louvier had his set evenings for popular
assemblies. At these were entertained the Lib-
erals of every shade, from tricolor to rouge, with
the artists and writers most in vogue, pele-mele
with decorated diplomatists, ex-ministers, Or-
leanists, and Republicans, distinguished foreign-
ers, plutocrats of the Bourse, and lions male and
female from the arid nurse of that race, the
Chaussee d’Antin. Of his more select reunions
something will be said later.

“And how does this poor Paris metamor-
phosed please Monsieur Vane ?” asked a French-
man with a handsome intelligent countenance,
very carefully dressed, though in a somewhat by-
gone fashion, and carrying off his tenth lustrum
with an air too sprightly to evince any sense of
the weight.

This gentleman, the Vicomte de Breze, was
of good birth, and had a legitimate right to his
title of Vicomte, which is more than can be said
of many vicomtes one meets at Paris. He had
no other property, however, than a principal share
in an influential journal, to which he was a live-
ly and sparkling contributor. In his youth, un-
der the reign of Louis Philippe, he had been a
chief among literary exquisites, and Balzac was
said to have taken him more than once as his i
model for those brilliant young vauriens who I
figure in the great novelist’s comedy of Human
Life. The Vicomte’s fashion expired with the
Orleanist dynasty.

“Is it possible, my dear Vicomte,” answered
Graham, “not to be pleased with a capital so
marvelously embellished?”

. “ Embellished it may be to foreign eyes,” said
the Vicomte, sighing, “ but not improved to the |
taste of a Parisian like me. I miss the dear |
Paris of old — the streets associated with my I
beaux jours are no more. Is there not some- I

thing drearily monotonous in those interminable
perspectives? How frightfully the way length-
ens before one’s eyes ! In the twists and curves
of the old Paris one was relieved from the pain
of seeing how far one had to go from one spot
to another — each tortuous street had a separate
idiosyncrasy ; what picturesque diversities, what
interesting recollections — all swept away ! Mon
Lieu ! and what for ? Miles of florid fagades,
staring and glaring at one with goggle-eyed pit-
iless windows. House rents trebled; and the
consciousness that, if you venture to grumble,
under-ground railways, like concealed volcanoes,
can, burst forth on you at any moment with an
eruption of bayonets and muskets. This maudit
empire seeks to keep its hold on France much as
a grand seigneur seeks to enchain a nymph of
the ballet, tricks her out in finery and baubles,
and insures her infidelity the moment he fails to
satisfy her whims.”

“Vicomte,” answered Graham, “I have had
the honor to know you since I was a small boy
at a preparatory school home for the holidays,
and you were a guest at my father’s country
house. You were then fete, as one of the most
promising writers among the young men of the
day, especially favored by the princes of the
reigning family. I shall never forget the im-
pression made on me by your brilliant appear-
ance and your no less brilliant talk.”

“AA/ ces beaux jours ! ce hon Louis Philippe,
ce cher petit Joinville," sighed the Vicomte.

“But at that day 3'ou compared le bon Louis
Philippe to Robert Macaire. You described all
his sons, including, no doubt, ce cher petit Join-
ville, in terms of resentful contempt, as so many
plausible gamins whom Robert Macaire was train-
ing to cheat the public in the interest of the fam-
ily firm. I remember my father saying to you
in answer, ‘ No royal house in Europe has more
sought to develop the literatui'e of an epoch, and
to signalize its representatives by social respect
and official honors, than that of the Orleans dy-
nasty ; you, M. de Breze, do but imitate your
elders in seeking to destroy the dynasty under
which you flourish ; should you succeed, you
homines de plume will be the first sufferers and
the loudest complainers.’”

“ Cher Monsieur Vane" said the Vicomte, smil-
ing complacently, “your father did me great
honor in classing me with Victor Hugo, Alexan-
dre Dumas, Emile de Girardin, and the other
stars of the Orleanist galaxy, including our friend
here, M. Savarin. A very superior man was your
father.”

“And,” said Savarin, who, being an Orleanist,
had listened to Graham’s speech with an approv-
ing smile — “and if I remember right, my dear
De Breze, no one was more severe than yourself
on poor De Lamartine and the Republic that
succeeded Louis Philippe ; no one more emphat-
ically expressed the yearning desire for another
Napoleon to restore order at home and renown
abroad. Now you have got another Napoleon.”

“And I want change for my Napoleon,” said
De Breze, laughing.

“ My dear Vicomte,” said Graham, “one thing
we may all grant, that in culture and intellect
you are far superior to the mass of your fellow-
Parisians ; that you are therefore a favorable type
of their political character.”

“AA, mon cher, vous etes trap aimable."

THE PAKISIANS.

“And therefore I venture to say this, if the
archangel Gabriel were permitted to descend to
Paris and form the best government for Prance
that the wisdom of seraph could devise, it would
not be two years — I doubt if it would be six
months — before out of this Paris, which you call
the Foyer des Idees, would emerge a powerful
party, adorned by yourself and other homrnes de
plume, in favor of a revolution for the benefit of
ce bon Satan and ce cher petit Beelzebub.”

“What a pretty vein of satire you have, mon
cher !" said the Vicomte, good-humoredly ; ‘ ‘ there
is a sting of truth in your witticism. Indeed,
I must send you some articles of mine in which
I have said much the same thing — les beaux es-
prits se rencontrent. The fault of us French is
impatience — desire of change ; but then it is that
desire which keeps the world going and retains
our place at the head of it. However, at this
time we are all living too fast for our money to
keep up with it, and too slow for our intellect
not to flag. We vie with each other on the road
to ruin, for in literature all the old paths to fame
are shut up.”

Here a tall gentleman, with whom the Vicomte
had been conversing before he accosted Vane,
and who had remained beside De Breze listening
in silent attention to this colloquy, intei-posed,
speaking in the slow voice of one accustomed to
measure his words, and with a slight but unmis-
takable German accent — “There is that, M. de
Bre'ze, which makes one think gravely of what
you say so lightly. Viewing things with the un-
prejudiced eyes of a foreigner, I recognize much
for which France should be grateful to the Em-
peror. Under his sway her material resources
have been marvelously augmented; her com-
merce has been placed by the treaty with En-
gland on sounder foundations, and is daily ex-
hibiting richer life ; her agiiculture has made a
prodigious advance wherever it has allowed room
for capitalists, and escaped from the curse of pet-
ty allotments . and peasant proprietors — a curse
which would have ruined any country less blessed
by Nature ; turbulent factions have been quelled ;
internal order maintained ; the external prestige
of France, up at least to the date of the Mexican
war, increased to an extent that might satisfy even
a Frenchman’s amour propre ; and her advance in
civilization has been manifested by the rapid cre-
ation of a naval power which should put even En-
gland on her mettle. But, on the other hand — ”

“Ay, on the other hand,” said the Vicomte.

“On the other hand, there are in the imperial
system two causes of decay and of rot silently at
work. They may not be the faults of the Em-
peror, but they are such misfortunes as may cause
the fall of the empire. The first is an absolute
divorce between the political system and the in-
tellectual culture of the nation. The throne and
the system rest on universal suffrage — on a suf-
frage which gives to classes the most ignorant a
power that preponderates over all the healthful
elements of knowledge. It is the tendency of
all ignorant multitudes to personify themselves,
as it were, in one individual. They can not com-
prehend you when you argue for a principle ; they
do comprehend you when you talk of a name.
The Emperor Napoleon is to them a name, and
the prefects and officials who influence their votes
are paid for incorporating all principles in the
shibboleth of that single name. You have thus

sought the well-spring of a political system in
the deepest stratum of popular ignorance. To
rid popular ignorance of its normal revolutionary
bias, the rural peasants are indoctrinated with the
conservatism that comes from the fear which ap-
pertains to property. They have their roods of
land or their shares in a national loan. Thus
you estrange the crassitude of an ignorant de-
mocracy still more from the intelligence of the
educated classes by combining it with the most
selfish and abject of all the apprehensions that
are ascribed to aristocracy and wealth. What
is thus imbedded in the depths of your society
makes itself shown on the surface. Napoleon
III. has been compared to Augustus ; and there
are many startling similitudes between them in
character and in fate. Each succeeds to the
heritage of a great name that had contrived to
unite autocracy with the popular cause. Each
subdued all rival competitors, and inaugurated
despotic rule in the name of freedom. Each
mingled enough of sternness with ambitious will
to stain with bloodshed the commencement of
his power ; but it would be an absurd injustice to
fix the same degree of condemnation on the coup
(Tetat as humanity fixes on the earlier cruelties
of Augustus. Each, once firm in his seat, be-
came mild and clement : Augustus perhaps from
policy, Napoleon III. from a native kindliness of
disposition which no fair critic of character can
fail to acknowledge. Enough of similitudes ;
now for one salient difference. Observe how
earnestly Augustus strove, and how completely
he succeeded in the task, to rally round him all
the leading intellects in every grade and of every
party — the followers of Antony, the friends of
Brutus — every great captain, every great states-
man, every great writer, every man who could
lend a ray of mind to his own Julian constellation,
and make the age of Augustus an era in the an-
nals of human intellect and genius. But this has
not been the good fortune of your Emperor. The
result of his system has been the suppression of
intellect in every department. He has rallied
round him not one great statesman ; his praises
are hymned by not one great poet. The c€Ubri-
tes of a former day stand aloof, or, preferring
exile to constrained allegiance, assail him with
unremitting missiles from their asylum in foreign
shores. His reign is sterile of new cd^brites.
The few that arise enlist themselves against him.
Whenever he shall ventui e to give full freedom
to the press and to the legislature, the intellect
thus sup})ressed or thus hostile will burst forth in
collected volume. His partisans have not been
trained and disciplined to meet such assailants.
They will be as weak as no doubt they will be
violent. And the worst is that the intellect
thus rising in mass against him will be warped
and distorted, like captives who, being kept in
chains, exercise their limbs, on escaping, in ve-
hement jumps without definite object. The di-
rectors of emancipated opinion may thus be ter-
rible enemies to the Imperial Government, but
they will be very unsafe councilors to France.
Concurrently with this divorce fietween the im-
perial system and the national intellect — a di-
vorce so complete that even your salons have lost
their wit, and even your caricatures their point—
a corruption of manners which the empire, I
own, did not originate, but inherit, has become
so common that every one owns and nobody

THE PARISIANS.

blames it. The gorgeous ostentation of the Court
has perverted the habits of the people. The in-
telligence obstructed from other vents betakes it-
self to speculating for a fortune, and the greed
of gain and the passion for show are sapping
the noblest elements of the old French manhood.
Public opinion stamps with no opprobrium a min-
ister or favorite who profits by a job ; and I fear
you will find that jobbing pervades all your ad-
ministrative departments.”

“All very true,” said De Breze, with a shrug
of the shoulders, and in a tone of levity that
seemed to ridicule the assertion he volunteered ;
“Virtue and Honor banished from courts and
salons and the cabinets of authors, ascend to fairer
heights in the attics of ouvriers.”

“The ouvriers, ouvriers of Paris!” cried this
terrible German.

“Ay, Monsieur le Comte, what can you say
against our ouvriers ? A German count can not
condescend to learn any thing about ces petits
gens."

“ Monsieur,” replied the German, “ in the eyes
of a statesman there are no petits gens, and in
those of a philosopher nopetites choses. We in Ger-
many have too many difficult problems affecting
our working classes to solve, not to have induced
me to glean all the information I can as to the
ouvriers of Paris. They have among them men of
aspirations as noble as can animate the souls of
philosophers and poets, perhaps not the less no-
ble because common-sense and experience can
not follow their flight. But as a body, the oti-
vriers of Paris have not been elevated in political
morality by the benevolent aim of the Emperor to
find them ample work and good wages independ-
ent of the natural laws that regulate the markets
of labor. Accustomed thus to consider the state
bound to maintain them, the moment the state
fails in that impossible task, they will accommo-
date their honesty to a rush upon property under
the name of social reform. Have you not noticed
how largely increased within the last few years is
the number of those who cry out, ‘ La Proprie'te,
c'est le vol?’ Have you considered the rapid
growth of the International Association ? I do
not say that for all these evils the empire is ex-
clusively responsible. To a certain degree they
are found in all rich communities, especially where
democracy is more or less in the ascendant. To
a certain extent they exist in the large towns of
Germany; they are conspicuously increasing in
England ; they are acknowledged to be danger-
ous in the United States of America ; they are, I
am told on good authority, making themselves vis-
ible with the spread of civilization in Russia. But
under the French empire they have%ecome glar-
ingly rampant, and I venture to predict that the
day is not far off when the rot at work through-
out all layers and strata of French society will in-
sure a fall of the fabric at the sound of which the
world will ring.

“There is many a fair and stately tree which
continues to throw out its leaves and rear its crest
till suddenly the wind smites it, and then, and not
till then, the trunk which seems so solid is found
to be but the rind to a mass of crumbled powder.”

“ Monsieur le Comte,” said the Vicomte, “you
are a severe critic and a lugubrious prophet. But
a German is so safe from revolution that he takes
alarm at the stir of movement which is the nor-
mal state of the French esprit."

“French esprit may soon evaporate into Paris-
ian hetise. As to Germany being safe from rev-
olution, allow me to repeat a saying of Goethe’s —
but has M. le Comte ever heard of Goethe?”

“Goethe, of course — tresjoli ecrivain."

“Goethe said to some one who was making
much the same remark as yourself, ‘ We Germans
are in a state of revolution now, but we do things
so slowly that it will be a hundred years before we
Germans shall find it out. But when completed,
it will be the greatest revolution society has yet
seen, and will last like the other revolutions that,
beginning, scarce noticed, in Germany, have trans-
formed the world.’ ”

M. le Comte! Germans transformed
the world ! What revolutions do you speak of?”

“The invention of gunpowder, the invention
of printing, and the expansion of a monk’s quar-
rel with his Pope into the Lutheran revolution.”

Here the German paused, and asked the Vicomte
to introduce him to Vane, which De Breze did
by the title of Count von Rudesheim. On hear-
ing Vane’s name, the Count inquired if he were
related to the orator and statesman, George Gra-
ham Vane, whose opinions, uttered in Parliament,
were still authoritative among German thinkers.
This compliment to his deceased father immense-
ly gratified, but at the same time considerably
surprised, the Englishman. His father, no doubt,
had been a man of much influence in the British
House of Commons — a very weighty speaker, and,
while in office, a first-rate administrator ; but En-
glishmen kno\v what a House of Commons repu-
tation is — how fugitive, how little cosmopolitan ;
and that a German count should ever have heard
of his father delighted but amazed him. In stat-
ing himself to be the son of George Graham Vane,
he intimated not only the delight, but the amaze,
with the frank savoir vivre which was one of his
salient characteristics.

“ Sir, ” replied the German, speaking in very
correct English, but still with his national accent,
“ every German reared to political service studies
England as the school for practical thought dis-
tinct from impracticable theories. Long may
you allow us to do so ; only excuse me one re-
mark ; never let the selfish element of the practi-
cal supersede the generous element. Your father
never did so in his speeches, and therefore we ad-
mired him. At the present day we don’t so much
care to study English speeches. They may be in-
sular— they are not European. I honor England ;
Heaven grant that you may not be making sad
mistakes in the belief that you can long remain
England if you cease to be European.” Here-
with the German bowed, not uncivilly — on the
contrary, somewhat ceremoniously — and disap-
peared with a Prussian secretary of embassy,
whose arm he linked in his own, into a room less
frequented.

“ Vicomte, who and what is your German
count ?” asked Vane.

“A solemn pedant,” answered the lively Vi-
comte— “a German count, que voulez-vous de
plus ?"

CHAPTER VII.

A LITTLE later Graham found himself alone
among the crowd. Attracted by the sound of
music, he had strayed into one of the rooms

THE PARISIANS.

whence it came, and in which, though his range
of acquaintance at Paris was, for an Englishman,
large and somewhat miscellaneous, he recognized
no familiar countenance. A lady was playing the
piano-forte — playing remarkably well — with ac-
curate science, with that equal lightness and
strength of finger which produces brilliancy of
execution. But to appreciate her music one
should be musical one’s self. It wanted the charm
that fascinates the uninitiated. The guests in
the room were musical connoisseurs — a class
Avith whom Graham Vane had nothing in com-
mon. Even if he had been more capable of
enjoying the excellence of the player’s perform-
ance, the glance he directed toward her would
have sufficed to chill him into indifference. She
was not young, and, with prominent features and
puckered skin, was twisting her face into strange
sentimental grimaces, as if terribly overcome by
the beauty and pathos of her own melodies. To
add to Vane’s displeasure, she was dressed in a
costume Avholly antagonistic to his views of the
becoming — in a Greek jacket of gold and scarlet,
contrasted by a Turkish turban.

Muttering “What she-mountebank have we
here ?” he sank into a chair behind the door,
and fell into an absorbed reverie. From this he
was aroused by the cessation of the music, and the
hum of subdued approbation by which it was fol-
lowed. Above the hum swelled the imposing
voice of M. Louvier, as he rose from a seat on
the other side of the piano, by which his bulky
form had been partially concealed.

“Bravo! perfectly played — excellent! Can
we not persuade your charming young country-
Avoman to gratify us even by a single song ?”
Then turning aside and addressing some one else
invisible to Graham, he said, “Does that tyran-
nical doctor still compel you to silence, mademoi-
selle?”

A voice so SAveetly modulated that if there
Avere any sarcasm in the words it Avas lost in the
softness of pathos, ansAvered, “Nay, M. Louvier,
he rather overtasks the Avords at my command in
thankfulness to those Avho, like yourself, so kindly
regard me as something else than a singer.”

It was not the she-mountebank Avho thus
spoke. Graham rose and looked round Avith in-
stinctive curiosity. He met the face that he said
had haunted him. She too had lisen, standing
near the piano, Avith one hand tenderly resting
on the she-mountebank’s scarlet and gilded shoul-
der— the face that haunted him, and yet Avith a
difference. There Avas a faint blush on the clear
j)ale cheek, a soft yet playful light in the grave
dark blue eyes, which had not been visible in the
countenance of the young lady in the peai l-color-
ed robe. Graham did not hear Louvier’s reply,
though no doubt it Avas loud enough for him to
hear. He sank again into reverie. Other guests
noAv came into the room, among them Frank
Morleyy styled Colonel (eminent militaiy titles
in the States do not always denote eminent mil-
itary services), a Avealthy American, and his
sprightly and beautiful wife. The Colonel was a
clever man, rather stiff in his deportment, and
grave in speech, but by no means Avithout a vein
of dry humor. By the French he Avas esteemed
a high-bred specimen of the kind of grand sei-
gneur which democratic republics engender. He
spoke French like a Parisian, had an imposing
presence, and spent a great deal of money Avith

the elegance of a man of taste and the generosity
of a man of heart. His high breeding Avas not
quite so well understood by the English, because
the English are apt to judge breeding by little
conventional rules not observed by the American
colonel. He had a slight nasal twang, and intro-
duced “Sir” Avith redundant ceremony in ad-
dressing Englishmen, however intimate he might
be with them, and had the habit (perhaps with
a sly intention to startle or puzzle them) of
adorning his style of conversation with quaint
Americanisms.

Nevertheless, the genial amiability and the in-
herent dignity of his character made him ac-
knowledged as a thorough gentleman by eveiy
Englishman, however conventional in tastes, who
became admitted into his intimate acquaintance.

Mrs. Morley, ten or tAvelve years younger than
her husband, had no' nasal twang, and employed
no Americanisms in her talk, Avhich was frank,
lively, and at times eloquent. She had a great
ambition to be esteemed of a masculine under-
standing : Nature unkindly frustrated that am-
bition in rendering her a model of feminine grace.
Graham Avas intimately acquainted with Colonel
Morley ; and Avith Mrs. Morley had contracted
one of those cordial friendships which, perfectly
free alike from polite flirtation and Platonic
attachment, do sometimes spring up between per-
sons of opposite sexes Avithout the slightest dan-
ger of changing its honest character into morbid
sentimentality or unlawful pas.sion. The Mor-
leys stopped to accost Graham, but the lady had
scarcely said three Avoids to him before, catching
sight of the haunting face, she darted toward
it. Her husband, less emotional, bowed at the
distance, and said, “To my taste. Sir, the Sign-
orina Cicogna is the loveliest girl in the present
bee* and full of mind. Sir.”

“Singing mind,” said Graham, sarcastically,
and in the ill-natured impulse of a man striving
to check his inclination to admire.

“I haA'e not heard her sing,” replied the
American, dryly; “and the Avords ‘ singing mind’
are doubtless accurately English, since you em-
ploy them ; but at Boston the collocation would
be deemed barbarous. You fly off the handle.
The epithet. Sir, is not in concord with the sub-
stantive.”

“Boston would be in the right, my dear Col-
onel. I stand rebuked ; mind has little to do with
singing.”

“I take leave to deny that. Sir. You fire into
the wrong flock, and Avould not hazard the remark
if you had conversed as I have with Signorina
Cicogna.”

Before Graham could ansAver, Signorina Ci-
cogna stood before him, leaning lightly on Mrs. .
Morley’s arm.

“Frank, you must take us into the refreshment-
room,” said Mrs. Morley to her husband ; and
then, turning to Graham, added, “Will you help
to make Avay for us ?”

Graham bowed, and offered his arm to the fair
speaker.

“No,” said she, taking her husband’s. “Of
course you know the signorina, or as we usually
call her. Mademoiselle Cicogna. No ? alloAv me
to present you— Mr. Graham Vane— Mademoi-

* Bee, a common expression in “the West” for a
meeting or gathering of people.

THE PARISIANS.

selle Cicogna. Mademoiselle speaks English like
a native.”

And thus abruptly Graham was introduced to
the owner of the haunting face. He had lived
too much in the great world all his life to retain
the innate shyness of an Englishman, but he cer-
tainly was confused and embarrassed when his
eyes met Isaura’s, and he felt her hand on his
arm. Before quitting the room, she paused and
looked back — Graham’s look followed her own,
and saw behind them the lady with the scarlet
jacket escorted by some portly and decorated
connoisseur. Isaura’s face brightened to anotlier
kind of brightness — a pleased and tender light.

“Poor dear Madre^'' she murmured to herself,
in Italian.

‘ ‘ Madre, ” echoed Graham, also in Italian . “I
have been misinformed, then : that lady is your
mother ?”

Isaura laughed a pretty low silvery laugh, and
replied in English, “She is not my mother, but
1 call her Madre^ for I know no name more lov-
ing.”

Graham was tduched, and said, gently, “Your
own mother was evidently very dear to you.”

Isaura’s lip quivered, and she made a slight
movement as if she would have withdrawn her
hand from his arm. He saw that he had offend-
ed or wounded her, and with the straightforward
tVankness natural to him, resumed, quickly,

“My remark was impertinent in a stranger;
forgive it.”

“There is nothing to forgive, monsieur.”

The two now threaded their way through the
crowd, both silent. At last Isaura, thinking she
ought to speak first in order to show that Gra-
ham had not otfended her, said,

“ How lovely Mrs. Morley is !”

“Yes, and I like the spirit and ease of her
American manner : have you known her long,
mademoiselle ?”

“No; we met her for the first time some
weeks ago at M. Savarin’s.”

“ Was she very eloquent on the rights of wmm-
en ?”

“ What ! you have heard her on that subject ?”

“ I have rarely heard her on any other, though
she is the best and perhaps the cleverest friend I
have at Paris ; but that may be my fault, for I
like to start it. It is a relief to the languid Small-
talk of society to listen to any one thoroughly in
earnest upon turning tlie world topsy-turvy.”

“ Do you suppose poor Mrs. Morley would seek
to do that if she had her rights ?” asked Isaura,
with her musical laugh.

“Not a doubt of it; but perhaps you share
her opinions.”

' “I scarcely know what her opinions are, but — ”

“Yes— but— ”

“There is a — what shall I call it ? — a persua-
sion— a sentiment — out of which the opinions
probably spring that I do share.”

“Indeed? a persuasion, a sentiment, for in-
.stance, that a woman should have votes in the
choice of legislators, and, I presume, in the task
of legislation ?”

“No, that is not what I mean. Still, that is
an opinion, right or wrong, which grows out of
the sentiment I speak of.”

“Pray explain the sentiment.”

“It is alw’ays so difficult to define a sentiment,
but does it not strike you that in proportion as

the tendency of modern civilization has been to
raise women more and more to an intellectual
equality with men — in proportion as they read
and study and think — an uneasy sentiment, per-
haps querulous, perhaps unreasonable, grows up
within their minds that the conventions of tlie
world are against the complete development of
the faculties thus ai'oused and the ambition thus
animated ; that they can not but rebel, though it
may be silently, against the notions of the former
age, when women were not thus educated ; no-
tions that the aim of the sex should be to steal
through life unremarked ; that it is a reproach to
be talked of; that women are plants to be kept
in a hot-house, and forbidden the frank liberty of
growth in the natural air and sunshine of heaven ?
This, at least, is a sentiment which has sprung
up within myself, and I imagine that it is the
sentiment which has given birth to many of the
opinions or doctrines that seem absurd, and very
likely are so to the general public. I don’t pre-
tend even to have considered those doctrines. I
don’t pretend to say w'hat may be the remedies
for the restlessness and uneasiness I feel. I
doubt if on this earth there be any remedies ; all
I know is that 1 feel restless and uneasy.”

Graham gazed on her countenance as she spoke,
with an astonishment not unmingled with tender-
ness and compassion — astonishment at the con-
trast between a vein of reflection so hardy, ex-
pressed in a style of language that seemed to him
so masculine, and the soft velvet dreamy eyes,
the gentle tones, and delicate purity of hues ren-
dered younger still by the blush that deepened
their bloom.

At this moment they had entered the refresh-
ment-room ; but a dense group being round the
table, and both perhaps forgetting the object for
which Mrs. Morley had introduced them to each
other, they had mechanically seated themselves
on an ottoman in a recess w hile Isaura was yet
speaking. It must seem as strange to the read-
er as it did to Graham that such a speech should
have been spoken by so young a girl to an ac-
quaintance so new. But in truth Isaura was
very little conscious of Graham’s presence. She
had got on a subject that peiplexed and torment-
ed her solitary thoughts — she was but thinking
aloud.

“ I believe,” said Graham, after a pause, “that
I comprehend your sentiment much better than I
do Mrs. Morley’s opinions ; but permit me one
observation. You say, truly, that the course of
modern civilization has more or less affected the
relative position of woman cultivated beyond that
level on w'hich she was formerly contented to
stand — the nearer perhaps to the heart of man
because not lifting her head to his height — and
hence a sense of restlesness, uneasiness. But do
you suppose that, in this whirl and dance of the
atoms which compose the rolling ball of the civ-
ilized world, it is only w’omen that are made rest-
less and uneasy? Do you not see, amidst the
masses congregated in the w’ealthiest cities of the
world, writhings and struggles against the re-
ceived order of things? In,this sentiment of dis-
content there is a certain truthfulness, because it
is an element of human nature ; and how best to
deal with it is a problem yet unsolved. But in
the opinions and doctrines to which, among the
masses, the sentiment gives birth, the wisdom of
the wisest detects only the certainty of a common

THE PARISIANS.

ruin, offering for reconstruction the same build-
ing materials as the former edifice — materials
not likely to be improved because they may be
defaced. Ascend from the working classes to
all others in which civilized culture prevails, and
you will find that same restless feeling — the flut-
tering of untried wings against the bars between
wider space and their longings. Could you poll
all the educated ambitious young men in England
— perhaps in Europe — at least half of them, di-
vided between a reverence for the past and a cu-
riosity as to the future, would sigh, ‘I am born a
century too late or a century too soon !’ ”

Isaura listened to this answer with a profound
and absorbing interest. It was the first time
that a clever young man talked thus sympathet-
ically to her, a clever young girl.

Then rising, he said, “I see your Madre and
our American friends are darting angry looks at
me. They have made room for us at the table,
and are wondering why I should keep you thus
from the good things of this little life. One word
more ere we join them — Consult your own mind,
and consider whether your uneasiness and unrest
are caused solely by conventional shackles on
your sex. Are they not equally common to the
youth of ours ? — common to all who seek in art,
in letters, nay, in the stormier field of active life,
to clasp as a reality some image yet seen but as
a dream ?”

CHAPTER VIII.

No further conversation in the w'ay of sustain-
ed dialogue took place that evening between Gra-
ham and Isaura.

The Americans and the Savarins clustered
round Isaura when they quitted the refreshment-
room. The party was breaking up. Vane would
have offered his arm again to Isaura, but M. Sa-
varin had forestalled him. The American was
dispatched by his wife to see for the carriage ;
and jMis. Morley said, with her wonted sprightly
tone of command,

“Now, Mr. Vane, you have no option but to
take care of me to the shawl-room.”

Madame Savarin and Signora Venosta had
each found their cavaliers, the Italian still re-
taining hold of the portly connoisseur, and the
Frenchwoman accepting the safeguard of the Vi-
comte de Breze. As they descended the stairs,
Mrs. Morley asked Graham what he thought of
the young lady to whom she had presented him.

“ I think she is charming,” answered Graham.

“Of course; that is the stereotyped answer
to all such questions, especially by you English-
men. In public or in private, England is the
mouth-piece of platitudes.”

“It is natural for an American to think so.
Every child that has just learned to speak uses
bolder expressions than its grandmamma ; but
I am rather at a loss to know by what novelty
of phrase an American would have answered
your question.”

“An American v^'ould have discovered that
Isaura Cicogna had a soul, and his answer would
have confessed it.”

“ It strikes me that he would then have utter-
ed a platitude more stolid than mine. Every
Christian knows that the dullest human being
has a soul. But, to speak frankly, I grant that

my answer did not do justice to the signorina,
nor to the impression she makes on me ; and
putting aside the charm of the face, there is a
charm in a mind that seems to have gathered
stores of reflection which I should scarcely have
expected to find in a young lady brought up to be
a professional singer.”

“You add prejudice to platitude, and are hor-
ribly prosaic to-night ; but here we are in the
shawl-room. I must take another opportunity
of attacking you. Fray dine with us to-morrow ;
you will meet our minister and a few other pleas-
ant friends.”

“ I suppose I must not say, ‘ I shall be charm-
ed,’” answered Vane; “but I shall be.”

“ Bon Dieti ! that horrid fat man has deserted
Signora Venosta — looking for his own cloak, I
dare say. Selfish monster! — go and hand her
to her carriage — quick, it is announced!”

Graham, thus ordered, hastened to offer his
arm to the she-mountebank. Somehow she had
acquired dignity in his eyes, and he did not feel
the least ashamed of being in contact with the
scarlet jacket.

The signora grappled to him with a confiding
familiarity.

“lam afraid,” she said, in Italian, as they passed
along the spacious hall to the •porte cochhre — “I
am afraid that I did not make a good effect to-
night— I was nervous : did not you perceive it ?”

“No, indeed; you enchanted us all,” replied
the dissimulator.

“ How amiable you are to say so! — you must
think that I sought for a compliment. So I did
— you gave me more than I deserved. Wine is
the milk of old men, and praise of old women.
But an old man may be killed by too much wine,
and an old woman lives all the longer for too
much praise — huona notte."

Here she sprang, lithesomely enough, into the
carriage, and Isaura followed, escorted by M.
Savarin. As the two men returned toward the
shawl-room, the Frenchman said, “Madame Sa-
varin and I complain that you have not let us see
so much of you as we ought. No doubt you are
greatly sought after; but are you free to take
your soup with us the day after to-morrow ? You
will meet a select few of my confreres.''’

“The day after to-morrow I will mark wdth a
white stone. To dine with M. Savarin is an
event to a man who covets distinction.”

“Such compliments reconcile an author to his
trade. You deserve the best return I can make
you. You w'ill meet la belle Isaure. I have just
engaged her and her chaperon. She is a girl of
true genius, and genius is like those objects of
virtu which belong to a former age, and become
every day more scarce and more precious.”

Here they encountered Colonel Morley and his
wife hurrying to their carriage. The American
stopped Vane, and whispered, “I am glad. Sir,
to hear from my wife that you dine with us to-
moi row. Sir, you will meet Mademoiselle Ci-
cogna, and I am not without a kinkle* that you
will be enthused.”

“ This seems like a fatality,” soliloquized Vane
as he walked through the deserted streets toward
his lodging. “I strove to banish that haunting
face from my mind. I had half forgotten it, and
now — ” Here his murmur sank into silence. He

* A notion.

THE PARISIANS.

was deliberating in very conflicted thought wheth-
er or not he should write to refuse the two invi-
tations he had accepted.

“Pooh!” he said at last, as he reached the
door of his lodging ; “is my reason so weak that
it should be influenced by a mere superstition ?
Surely I know myself too well, and have tried
myself too long, to fear that I should be untrue
to the duty and ends of my life, even if I found
my heart in danger of suffering.”

Certainly the Fates do seem to mock our re-
solves to keep our feet from their ambush, and
our hearts from their snare.

How our lives may be colored by that which
seems to us the most trivial accident, the merest
chance! Suppose that Alain de Kochebriant
had been invited to that reunion at M. Louvier’s,

and Graham Vane had accepted some other in-
vitation and passed his evening elsewhere, Alain
would probably have been presented to Isaura —
what then might have happened ? The impres-
sion Isaura had already made upon the young
Frenchman was not so deep as that made upon
Graham ; but then, Alain’s resolution to efface
it was but commenced that day, and by no means
yet confirmed. And if he had been the first
clever young man to talk earnestly to that clever
young girl, who can guess what impression he
might have made upon her? His conversation
might have had less philosophy and strong sense
than Graham’s, but more of poetic sentiment and
fascinating romance.

However, the history of events that do not
come to pass is not in the chronicle of the Fates.

BOOK THIED.

CHAPTER I.

The next day the guests at the Morleys’ had
assembled when Vane entered. His apology for
impunctuality was cut short by the lively host-
ess: “Your pardon is granted without the hu-
miliation of asking for it ; we know that the
characteristie of the English is always to be a
little behindhand.”

She then proceeded to introduce him to the
American minister, to a distinguished American
poet, w'ith a countenance striking for mingled
sweetness and power, and one or two other of
her countrymen sojourning at Paris; and this
ceremony over, dinner was announced, and she
bade Graham offer his arm to Mademoiselle
Cicogna.

“Have you ever visited the United States,
mademoiselle?” asked Vane, as they seated
themselves at the table.

“No.”

“It is a voyage you are sure to make soon.”

“ Why so ?”

“ Because report says you will create a great
sensation at the very commencement of your ca-
reer, and the New World is ever eager to wel-
come each celebrity that is achieved in the Old,
more especially that which belongs to your en-
chanting art.”

“True, Sir,” said an American senator, sol-
emnly striking into the conversation ; “ we are
an appreciative people, and if that lady be as
fine a singer as I am told, she might command
any amount of dollars.”

Isaura colored, and turning to Graham, asked
him in a low voice if he were fond of music.

“1 ought, of course, to say ‘yes,’” answ'ered
Graham, in the same tone; “but I doubt if
that ‘yes’ would be an honest one. In some
moods music — if a kind of music I like — affects
me very deeply ; in other moods not at all. And
I can not bear much at a time. A concert
wearies me shamefully; even an opera always
seems to me a great deal too long. But I ought
to add that I am no judge of music ; that music
was never admitted into my education ; and, be-
tween ourselves, I doubt if there be one English-
man in five hundred who would care for opera

or concert if it w'ere not the fashion to say he
did. Hoes my frankness revolt ^mu ?”

“On the contrary, I sometimes doubt, espe-
cially of late, if I am fond of music myself.”

“ Signorina — pardon me — it is impossible that
you should not be. Genius can never be untrue
to itself, and must love that in which it excels —
that by which it communicates joy, and,” he add-
ed, with a half-suppressed sigh, “attains to glory.”

“ Genius is a divine word, and not to be ap-
plied to a singer,” said Isaura, with a humility in
which there was an earnest sadness.

Graham w’as touched and startled ; but before
he could answer, the American minister appealed
to him across the table, asking him if he had
quoted accurately a passage in a speech by
Graham’s distinguished father, in regard to the
share which England ought to take in the polit-
ical affairs of Europe.

The conversation now became general; very
political and very serious. Graham was drawn
into it, and grew animated and eloquent.

Isaura listened to him with admiration. She
was struck by what seemed to her a nobleness of
sentiment which elevated his theme above the
level of commonplace polemics. She was pleased
to notice, in the attentive silence of his intelli-
gent listeners, that they shared the effect pro-
duced on herself. In fact, Graham Vane was a
born orator, and his studies had been those of a
political thinker. In common talk he was but
the accomplished man of the world, easy and
frank and genial, with a touch of good-natured
sarcasm. But when the subject started drew
him upward to those heights in wliich politics
become the science of humanity, he seemed a
changed being. His cheek glowed, his eye
brightened, his voice mellowed into richer tones,
his language became unconsciously adorned.
In such moments there might scarcely be an au-
dience, even differing from him in opinion,
which would not have acknowledged his spell.

When the party adjourned to the salon, Isaura
said, softly, to Graham, “ I understand why you
did not cultivate music ; and I think, too, that I
can now understand what effects tlie human voice
can produce on human minds, without recurring
to the art of song.”

THE PARISIANS.

“Ah,” said Graham, with a pleased smile,
“do not make me ashamed of my former rude-
ness by the revenge of compliment, and, above
all, do not disparage your own art by supposing
that any prose effect of voice in its utterance of
mind can interpret that which music alone can
express, even to listeners so uncultivated as my-
self. Am I not told truly by musical composers,
Avhen I ask them to explain in words what they
say in their music, that such explanation is im-
possible, that music has a language of its own
untranslatable by words ?”

“Yes,” said Isaura, with thoughtful brow but
brightening eyes, “you are told truly. It was
only the other day that I was pondering over
that truth.”

“ But what recesses of mind, of heart, of soul,
this untranslatable language penetrates and
brightens up ! How incomplete the grand na-
ture of man — though man the grandest — would
be, if you struck out of his reason the compre-
liension of poetry, music, and religion ! In each
are reached and are sounded deeps in his reason
otherwise concealed from himself. History, '
knowledge, science, stop at the point in which |
mystery begins. There they meet with the world
of shadow. Not an inch of that world can they
penetrate without the aid of poetry and religion, |
two necessities of intellectual man much more
nearly allied than the votaries of the practical '
and the positive suppose. To the aid and eleva- j
tion of both those necessities comes in music, !
and there has never existed a religion in the
world which has not demanded music as its ally. '
If, as I said frankly, it is only in certain moods
of my mind that I enjoy music, it is only be- '
cause in certain moods of my mind I am capable
of quitting the guidance of prosaic reason for the
world of shadow ; that I am so susceptible as at
every hour, were my nature perfect, I should be
to the mysterious influences of poetry and re-
ligion. Do you understand what I wish to ex-
press ?”

“Yes, I do, and clearly.”

“Then, signorina, you are forbidden to un-
dervalue the gift of song. You must feel its
power over the heart when you enter the opera-
house ; over the soul, when you kneel in a ca-
thedral.”

“Oh,” cried Isaura, with enthusiasm, a rich
glow mantling over her lovely face, “ how I
thank you ! Is it you who say you do not love
music? How much better you understand it
than I did till this moment!”

Here Mrs. Morley, joined by the American
poet, came to the corner in which the English-
man and the singer had niched themselves. The '
))oet began to talk, the other guests gathered
round, and every one listened reverentially until
the party broke up. Colonel Morley handed
Isaura to her carriage; the she -mountebank
again fell to the lot of Graham. i

“Signor,” said she, as he respectfully placed
her shawl round her scarlet-and-gilt jacket, “are
we so far from Paris that you can not spare the
lime to call ? My child does not sing in public,
but at home you can hear her. It is not every
woman’s voice that is sweetest at home.”

Graham bowed, and said he would call on the
morrow.

Isaura mused in silent delight over the words
which had so extolled the art of the singer.

' Alas, poor child! she could not guess that in
those words, reconciling her to the profession
of the stage, the speaker was pleading against
his own heart.

I There was in Graham’s nature, as I think it
commonly is in that of most true orators, a won-
derful degree of intellectual conscience, which
impelled him to acknowledge the benignant in-
fluences of song, and to set before the young
singer the noblest incentives to the profession to
which he deemed her assuredly destined. But
I in so doing he must have felt that he was widen-
ing the gulf between her life and his own. Per-
haps he wished to widen it in proportion as he
dreaded to listen to any voice in his heart which
asked if the gulf might not be overleaped.

CHAPTER ir.

On the morrow Graham called at the villa at

A . The two ladies received him in Isaura’s

chosen sitting-room.

Somehow or other conversation at first lan-
guished. Graham was reserved and distant,
Isaura shy and embarrassed.

The Venosta had the /rais of making talk to
herself. Probably at another time Graham
would have been amused and interested in the
observation of a character new to him, and thor-
oughly southern — lovable, not more from its
naive simplicity of kindliness than from various
little foibles and vanities, all of which were
harmless, and some of them endearing as those
of a child whom it is easy to make happy, and
whom it seems so cruel to pain ; and with all
the Venosta’s deviations from the polished and
tranquil good taste of the beau monde, she had
I that indescribable grace which rarely deserts a
; Florentine, so that you might call her odd, but
I not vulgar ; while, though uneducated, except
in the way of her old profession, and never hav-
ing troubled herself to read any thing but a li-
bretto, and the pious books commended to her
by her confessor, the artless babble of her talk
every now and then flashed out with a quaint
humor, lighting up terse fragments of the old
Italian wisdom which had mysteriously em-
bedded themselves in the groundwork of her
mind.

But Graham was not at this time disposed to
judge the poor Venosta kindly or fairly. Isaura
had taken high rank in his thoughts. He felt
an impatient resentment, mingled with anxiety
and compassionate tenderness, at a companion-
ship which seemed to him derogatory to the
position he would have assigned to a creature
so gifted, and unsafe as a guide amidst the perils
and trials to which the youth, the beauty, and
the destined profession of Isaura were exposed.
Like most Englishmen — especially Englishmen
wise in the knowledge of life — he held in fastid-
ious regard the proprieties and conventions by
which the dignity of woman is fenced round";
and of those proprieties and conventions the
Venosta naturally appeared to him a very un-
satisfactory guardian and representative.

Happily unconscious of those hostile prepos-
sessions, the elder signora chatted on very gayly
to the visitor. She was in excellent spirits ; peo-
ple had been very civil to her both at Colonel

THE PARISIANS.

Morley’s and M. Louviev’s. The American
minister had praised the scarlet jacket. She
was convinced she had made a sensation two
nights running. When the amour propre is
pleased the tongue is freed.

The Venosta ran on in praise of Paris and the
Parisians ; of Louvier and his aoir^e, and the
pistachio ice ; of the Americans, and a certain
creme de maraschino which she hoped the Signor
Inglese had not failed to taste. The crhne de
maraschino led her thoughts back to Italy. Then
she grew mournful — how she missed the native
beau del! Paris was pleasant, but how absurd
to call it “ /e Paradis des Femmes'' — as if les
Feuwies could find Paradise in a brouiUard!

“But,” she exclaimed, with vivacity of voice
and gesticulation, “the signor does not come to
hear the parrot talk. He is engaged to come
that he may hear the nightingale sing. A drop
of honey attracts the fly more than a bottle of
vinegar.”

Graham could not help smiling at this adage.
“I submit,” said he, “to your comparison as
regards myself ; but certainly any thing less like
a bottle of vinegar than your amiable conversa-
tion I can not well conceive. However, the met-
aphor apart, I scarcely know how I dare ask ma-
demoiselle to sing after the confession I made to
her last night.”

“ What confession?” asked the Venosta.

“That I know nothing of music, and doubt
if I can honestly say that I am fond of it.”

“Not fond of music! Impossible! You
slander yourself. He who loves not music would
have a dull time of it in heaven. But you are
English, and perhaps have only heard the music
of your own country. Bad, very bad — a here-
tic’s music! Now listen.”

Seating herself at the piano, she began an
air from the Liicia, crying out to Isaura to come
and sing to her accompaniment.

“Do you really wish it?” asked Isaura of
Graham, fixing on him questioning, timid eyes.

“ I can not say how much I wish to hear you. ”

Isaura moved to the instrument, and Graham
stood behind her. Perhaps he felt that he should
judge more impartially of her voice if not sub-
jected to the charm of her face.

But the first note of the voice held him spell-
bound : in itself, the organ was of the rarest or-
der, mellow and rich, but so soft that its power
was lost in its sweetness, and so exquisitely fresh
in every note.

But the singer’s charm was less in voice than
in feeling — she conveyed to the listener so much
more than was said by the words, or even im-
plied by the music. Her song in this caught
the art of the painter who impresses the mind
with the consciousness of a something which the
eye can not detect on the canvas.

She seemed to breathe ont from the depths of
her heart the intense pathos of the original ro-
mance, so far exceeding that of the opera — the
human tenderness, the mystic terror of a tragic
love-tale more solemn in its sweetness than that
of Verona.

When her voice died away no applause came
— not even a murmur. Isaura bashfully turned
round to steal a glance at her silent listener, and
beheld moistened eyes and quivering lips. At
that moment she w'as reconciled to her art. Gra-
ham rose abruptly and walked to the window.

“Do you doubt now if you are foud of mu-
sic?” cried the Venosta.

“This is more than music,” answered Gra-
ham, still with averted face. Then, after a short
pause, he approached Isaura and said, with a
melancholy half smile,

“ I do not think, mademoiselle, that I could
dare to hear you often ; it would take me too
far from the hard real world ; and he who would
not be left behindliand on the road that he must
journey can not indulge frequent excursions
into fairy-land.”

“Yet,” said Isaura, in a tone yet sadder, “I
was told in my childhood, by one whose genius
gives authority to her words, that beside the
real world lies the ideal. The real world then
seemed rough to me. ‘Escape,’ said my coun-
selor, ‘is granted from that stony thoroughfare
into the fields beyond its formal hedge-rows.
The ideal world has its sorrows, but it never ad-
mits despair.’ That counsel then, methought,
decided my choice of life. I know not now if
it has done so.”

“Fate,” answered Graham, slowly and
thoughtfully — “Fate, which is not the ruler but
the servant of Providence, decides our choice of
life, and rarely from outward circumstances.
Usually the motive power is \\ithin. We apply
the word genius to the minds of the gifted few ;
but in all of us there is a genius that is inborn,
a pervading something which distinguishes our
very identity, and dictates to the conscience that
which we are best fitted to do and to be. In so
dictating it compels our choice of life ; or if we
resist the dictate, we find at the close that we
have gone astray. My choice of life thus com-
pelled is on the stony thoroughfares — yours in
the green fields.”

As he thus said, his face became clouded and
mournful.

The Venosta, quickly tired of a conversation
in which she had no part, and having various
little household matters to attend to, had during
this dialogue slipped unobserved from the room ;
yet neither Isaura nor Graham felt the sudden
consciousness that they were alone which be-
longs to lovers.

“Why,” asked Isaura, with that magic smile
reflected in countless dimples which, even when
her words were those of a man’s reasoning,
made them .seem gentle with a woman’s senti-
ment— “ why must your road through the world
be so exclusively the stony one? It is not from
necessity — it can not be from taste. And what-
ever definition you give to genius, surely it is
not your own inborn genius that dictates to you
a constant exclusive adherence to the common-
place of life.”

“Ah, mademoiselle! do not misrepresent
me. I did not say that I could not sometimes
quit the real world for fairy-land — I said that I
could not do so often. My vocation is not that
of a poet or artist.”

“It is that of an orator, I know,” said Isaura,
kindling — “so they tell me, and I believe them.
But is not the orator somewhat akin to the poet?
Is not oratory an art ?”

“Let us dismiss the word orator; as applied
to English public lif^, it is a very deceptive ex-
pression. The Englishman who wishes to influ-
ence his countrymen by force of words spoken
must mix with them in their beaten thorough-*

THE PARISIANS.

r)4

fares ; must make himself master of their prac-
tical views and interests ; must be conversant
with their prosaic occupations and business ;
must understand how to adjust their loftiest as-
pirations to their material welfare ; must avoid,
as the fault most dangerous to himself and to
others, that kind of eloquence which is called
oratory in Prance, and which has helped to
make the French the worst politicians in Eu-
rope. Alas, mademoiselle ! 1 fear that an En-
glish statesman would appear to you a very dull
orator.”

“I see that I spoke foolishly — yes, you show
me that the world of the statesman lies apart
from that of the artist. Yet — ”

“ Yet what ?”

“ May not the ambition of both be the same ?”

“ How so ?”

“To refine the rude, to exalt the mean — to
identify their own fame with some new beauty,
some new glory, added to the treasure-house of
all.”

Graham bowed his head reverently, and then
raised it with the flush of enthusiasm on his
cheek and brow.

“Oh, mademoiselle!” he exclaimed, “what
a sure guide and what a noble inspii er to a true
Englishman's ambition nature has fitted you to
be, were it not — ” He paused abruptly.

This outburst took Isaura utterly by surprise.
She had been accustomed to the language of
compliment till it had begun to pall, but a com-
])liment of this kind was the first that had ever
reached her ear. She had no words in answer
to it ; involuntarily she placed her hand on her
heart, as if to still its beatings. But the unfin-
ished exclamation, “ Were it not,” troubled her
more than the preceding words had flattered,
and mechanically she murmured, “Were it not
— what ?”

“Oh,” answered Graham, affecting a tone of
gayety, “I felt too ashamed of my selfishness
as man to finish my sentence. ”

“ Do so, or I shall fancy you refrained lest
you might wound me as woman.”

“Not so — on the contrary ; had I gone on, it
would have been to say that a woman of your
genius, and more especially of such mastery in
the most popular and fascinating of all arts,
could not be contented if she inspired nobler
thoughts in a single breast — she must belong to
the public, or rather the public must belong to
her : it is but a corner of her heart that an in-
dividual can occupy, and even that individual
must merge his existence in hers — must be con-
tented to reflect a ray of the light she sheds on
admiring thousands. Who could dare to say
to you, ‘Renounce your career — confine your
genius, your art, to the petty circle of home?’
To an actress — a singer — with whose fame the
world rings, home would be a prison. Pardon
me, pardon — ”

Isaura had turned away her face to hide tears
that would force their way, but she held out her
hand to him with a child-like frankness, and said,
softly, “I am not offended.” Graham did not
trust himself to continue the same strain of con-
A’ersation. Breaking into a new subject, he said,
after a constrained pause, “Will you think it
very impertinent in so new an acquaintance if I
ask how it is that you, an Italian, know our
language as a native, and is it by Italian teach-

ers that you have been trained to think and to
feel ?”

“Mr. Selby, my second father, was an En-
glishman, and did not speak any other language
with comfort to himself He was very fond of
me, and had he been really my fathfer 1 could
not have loved him more. We were constant
companions till — till I lost him.”

“And no mother left to console you.” Isaura
shook her head mournfully, and the Venosta here
re-entered.

Graham felt conscious that he had already
staid too long, and took leave.

They knew that they were to meet that even-
ing at the Savarins’.

Graham did not feel unmixed pleasure at that
thought : the more he knew of Isaura, the more
he felt self-reproach that he had allowed himself
to know her at all.

But after he had left Isaura sang low to her-
self the song which had so affected her listener ;
then she fell into abstracted reverie, but she felt
a strange and new sort of happiness. In dress-
ing for M. Savarin’s dinner, and twining the
classic ivy wreath into her dark locks, her Ital-
ian servant exclaimed, “ How beautiful the sign-
orina looks to-night !”

CHAPTER III.

M. Savarin was one of the most brilliant
of that galaxy of literary men which shed lustre
on the reign of Louis Philippe.

His was an intellect peculiarly French in its
lightness and grace. Neither England, nor Ger-
many, nor America has produced any resemblance
to it. Ireland has, in Thomas Moore ; but then
in Irish genius there is so much that is French.

M. Savarin was free from the ostentatious ex-
travagance which had come into vogue with the
empire. His house and establishment were mod-
estly maintained within the limit of an income
chiefly, perhaps entirely, derived from literary
profits.

Though he gave frequent dinners, it was but
to few at a time, and without show or pretense.
Yet the dinners, though simple, were perfect of
their kind ; and the host so contrived to infuse
his own playful gayety into the temper of his
guests that the feasts at his house were considered
the pleasantest at Paris. On this occasion the
party extended to ten, the largest number his
table admitted.

All the French guests belonged to the Liberal
party, though in changing tints of the tricolor.
Place aux dames, first to be named were the
Countess de Craon and Madame Vertot — both
without husbands. The Countess had buried
the Count, Madame Vertot had separated from
monsieur. The Countess was very handsome,
but she was sixty. Madame Vertot was twenty
years younger, but she was very plain. She had
quarreled with the distinguished author for whose
sake she had separated from monsieur, and no
man had since presumed to think that he could
console a lady so plain for the loss of an author
so distinguished.

Both these ladies were very clever. The Count-
ess had written lyrical poems entitled Cries of
Liberty, and a drama of which Danton was the

THE PARISIANS.

hero, and the moral too revolutionary for admis-
sion to the stage ; but at heart the Countess was
not at all a revolutionist — the last person in the
world to do or desire any thing that could bring
a washer-woman an inch nearer to a countess.
She was one of those persons who play with fire
in order to appear enlightened.

Madame Vertot was of severer mould. She
had knelt at the feet of M. Thiers, and went
into the historico-political line. She had written
a remarkable book upon the modern Carthage
(meaning England), and more recently a work
that had excited much attention upon the Bal-
ance of Power, in which she proved it to be the
interest of civilization and the necessity of Eu-
rope that Belgium should be added to Prance,
and Prussia circumscribed to the bounds of its
original margravate. She showed how easily
these two objects could have been effected by a
constitutional monarch instead of an egotistical
emperor. Madame Vertot was a decided Or-
leanist.

Both these ladies condescended to put aside
authorship in general society. Next among our
guests let me place the Count de Passy and
Madame son epouse. The Count was seventy-
one, and, it is needless to add, a type of French-
man rapidly vanishing, and not likely to find it-
self renewed. How shall I describe him so as
to make my English reader understand? Let
me try by analogy. Suppose a man of great
birth and fortune, who in his youth had been an
enthusiastic friend of Lord Byron and a jocund
companion of George IV. — who had in him an
immense degree of lofty romantic sentiment with
an equal degree of well-bred worldly cynicism,
but who, on account of that admixture, which
is rare, kept a high rank in either of the two
societies into which, speaking broadly, civilized
life divides itself — the romantic and the cynical.
The Count de Passy had been the most ardent
among the young disciples of Chateaubriand —
the most brilliant among the young courtiers of
Charles X. Need I add that he had been a ter-
rible lady-killer?

But in spite of his admiration of Chateau-
briand and his allegiance to Charles X., the
Count had been always true to those caprices
of the French noblesse from which he descended
— caprices which destroyed them in the old Rev-
olution— caprices belonging to the splendid ig-
norance of their nation in general, and their
order in particular. Speaking without regard
to partial exceptions, the French gentilhomme is
essentially a Parisian ; a Parisian is essentially
impressionable to the impulse or fashion of the
moment. Is it a la mode for the moment to be
Liberal or anti-Liberal ? Parisians embrace and
kiss each other, and swear through life and death
to adhere forever to the mode of the moment.
The Three Days were the mode of the moment —
the Count de Passy became an enthusiastic Or-
leanist. Louis Philippe was very gracious to
him. He was decorated ; he was named prefet
of his department ; he was created senator ; he
was about to be sent minister to a German court
when Louis Philippe fell. The republic was
])roclaimed. The Count caught the populai- con-
tagion, and after exchanging tears and kisses
with patriots whom a week before he had called
canaille, he swore eternal fidelity to the republic.
The fashion of the moment suddenly became

Napoleonic, and with the coup d'etat the republic
was metamorphosed into an empire. The Count
wept on the bosoms of all the Vieilles Moustaches
he could find, and rejoiced that the sun of Aus-
terlitz had rearisen. But after the affair of
Mexico the sun of Austerlitz waxed very sickly.
Imperialism was fast going out of fashion. The
Count transferred his affection to Jules Favre,
and joined the ranks of the advanced Liberals.
During ail these political changes the Count had
remained very much the same man in private
life — agreeable, good-natured, witty, and, above
all, a devotee of the fair sex. When he had
reached the age of sixty-eight he was still forte
hel homme — unmarried, with a grand presence
and charming manner. At that age he said,
“.Tie me range," and married a young lady of
eighteen. 8he adored her husband, and was
wildly jealous of him, while the Count did not
seem at all jealous of her, and submitted to her
adoration with a gentle shrug of the shoulders.

The three other guests who, with Graham and
the two Italian ladies, made up the complement
of ten, were the German Count von Rudesheim,
whom Vane had met at M. Louvier’s, a cele-
brated French physician named Bacourt, and a
young author whom Savarin had admitted into
his clique and declared to be of rare prom-
ise. This author, whose real name was Gustave
Rameau, but who, to prove, I suppose, the sin-
cerity of that scorn for ancestry which he pro-
fessed, published his verses under the patrician
designation of Alphonse de Valcour, was about
twenty-four, and might have passed at the first
glance for younger; but, looking at him closely,
the signs of old age were already stamped on his
visage.

He was undersized, and of a feeble, slender
frame. In the eyes of women and artists the de-
fects of his frame were redeemed by the extraor-
dinary beauty of the face. His black hair, care-
fully parted in the centre, and worn long and
flowing, contrasted the whiteness of a high
though narrow forehead and the delicate pallor
of his cheeks. His features were very regular,
his eyes singularly bright ; but the expression of
the face spoke of fatigue and exhaustion ; the
silky locks were already thin, and interspersed
with threads of silver ; the bright eyes shone out
from sunken orbits ; the lines round the mouth
were marked as they are in the middle age of
one who has lived too fast.

It was a countenance that might have excited
a compassionate and tender interest but for
something arrogant and supercilious in the ex-
pression— something that demanded not tender
pity, but enthusiastic admiration. Yet that ex-
pression was displeasing rather to men than to
women ; and one could well conceive that among
the latter the enthusiastic admiration it chal-
lenged would be largely conceded.

The conversation at dinner was in complete
contrast to that at the American’s the day be-
fore. There the talk, though animated, had
been chiefly earnest and serious — here it was all
touch and go, sally and repartee. The subjects
were the light on dits and lively anecdotes of the
day, not free from literature and politics, but
both treated as matters of persiflage, hovered
round with a jest, and quitted with an epigram.
The two French lady authors, the Count de Pas-
sy, the physician, and the host far outshone all

THE PARISIANS.

the other guests. Now and then, however, the
German count struck in with an ironical remark
condensing a great deal of grave wisdom, and
the young author with ruder and more biting
sarcasm. If the sarcasm told, he showed his
triumph by a low-pitched laugh ; if it failed, he
evinced his displeasure by a contemptuous sneer
or a grim scowl.

Isaura and Graham were not seated near each
other, and were for the most part contented to
be listeners.

On adjourning to the salon after dinner Gra-
ham, however, was approaching the chair in
which Isaura had placed herself, when the young
author, forestalling him, dropped into the seat
next to her, and began a conversation in a voice
so low that it might have passed for a whisper.
The Englishman drew back and observed them.
He soon perceived, with a pang of jealousy not
unmingled with scorn, that the author’s talk ap-
peared to interest Isaura. She listened with ev-
ident attention ; and when she spoke in return,
though Graham did not hear her words, he could
observe on her expressive countenance an in-
creased gentleness of aspect.

“ I hope,” said the physician, joining Graham,
as most of the other guests gathered around Sa-
varin, who was in his liveliest vein of anecdote
and wit — “I hope that the fair Italian will not
allow that ink-bottle imp to persuade her that
she has fallen in love with him.”

“Do young ladies generally find him so se-
ductive ?” asked Graham, with a forced smile.

“Probably enough. He has the reputation
of being very clever and very wicked, and that
is a sort of character which has the serpent’s
fascination for the daughters of Eve.”

“ Is the reputation merited ?”

“As to the cleverness I am not a fair judge.
I dislike that sort of writing which is neither
manlike nor womanlike, and in which young
Rameau excels. He has the knack of finding
very exaggerated phrases by which to express
commonplace thoughts. He writes verses about
love in words so stormy that you might fancy
that Jove was descending upon Semele. But
when you examine his words, as a sober pathol-
ogist like myself is disposed to do, your fear for
the peace of households vanishes — they are ‘ Vox
et prceterea nihiV — no man really in love would
use them. He writes prose about the wrongs of
humanity. You feel for humanity. You say,

‘ Grant the wrongs, now for the remedy,’ and
you find nothing but balderdash. Still I am
bound to say that both in verse and prose Gus-
tave Rameau is in unison with a corrupt taste
of the day, and therefore he is coming into vogue.
So much as to his writings. As to his wicked-
^ness, you have only to look at him to feel sure
that he is not a hundredth part so wicked as he
wishes to seem. In a word, then. Monsieur Gus-
tave Rameau is a type of that somewhat numer-
ous class among the youth of Paris which I call
‘the Lost Tribe of Absinthe.’ There is a set of
men who begin to live full gallop while they are
still boys. As a general rule, they are original-
ly of the sickly frames which can scarceW even
trot, much less gallop, without the spur of stim-
ulants, and no stimulant so fascinates their pe-
culiar nervous system as absinthe. The number
of patients in this set who at the age of thirty
are more worn out than septuagenarians increases

so rapidly as to make one dread to think what
will be the next race of Frenchmen. To the
predilection for absinthe young Rameau and the
writers of his set add the imitation of Heine,
after, indeed, the manner of caricaturists, who
effect a likeness striking in proportion as it is
ugly. It is not easy to imitate the pathos and
the wit of Heine, but it is easy to imitate his de-
fiance of the Deity, his mockery of right and
wrong, his relentless war on that heroic stand-
ard of thought and action which the writers who
exalt their nation intuitively preserve. Rameau
can not be a Heine, but he can be to Heine what
a misshapen snarling dwarf is to a mangled blas-
pheming Titan. Yet he interests the women in
general, and he evidently interests the fair sign-
orina in especial.”

Just as Bacourt finished that last sentence
Isaura lifted the head which had hitherto bent
in an earnest listening attitude that seemed to
justify the doctor’s remarks, and looked round.
Her eyes met Graham’s with the fearless candor
which made half the charm of their bright yet
soft intelligence. But she dropped them sud-
denly with a half start and a change of color, for
the expression of Graham’s face was unlike that
which she had hitherto seen on it — it was hard,
stern, somewhat disdainful. A minute or so
afterward she rose, and in passing across the
room toward the group round the host, paused
at a table covered with books and prints near to
which Graham was standing — alone. The doc-
tor had departed in company with the German
count.

Isaura took up one of the prints.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “Sorrento — my Sor-
rento! Have you ever visited Sorrento, Mr.
Vane?”

Her question and her movement were evident-
ly in conciliation. Was the conciliation prompt-
ed by coquetry, or by a sentiment more innocent
and artless ?

Graham doubted, and replied, coldly, as he
bent over the print,

“I once staid there a few days, but my rec-
ollection of it is not sufficiently lively to enable
me to recognize its features in this design.”

“That is the house, at least so they say, of
Tasso’s father ; of course you visited that ?”

“Yes, it was a hotel in my time; I lodged
there. ”

“ And I, too. There I first read The Geru-
salemme." The last words were said in Italian,
with a low measured tone, inwardly and dreamily.

A somewhat sharp and incisive voice speaking
in French here struck in and prevented Graham’s
rejoinder: '‘‘‘Quel joli dessin! What is it, ma-
demoiselle ?”

Graham recoiled : the speaker was Gustave
Rameau, who had, unobserved, first watched
Isaura, then rejoined her side.

“A view of Sorrento, monsieur; but it does
not do justice to the place. I was pointing out
the house which belonged to Tasso’s father.”

“Tasso! Hein! and which is the fair Eleo-
nora’s ?”

“ Monsieur,” answered Isaura, rather startled
at that question from a professed homme de let-
tres, “Eleonora did not live at Sorrento.”

“ Tant pis pour Sorrente," said the homme de
lettres, carelessly. “No one would care for
Tasso if it were not for Eleonora.”

(

. -ly -X'’-r‘ V

. r/. ■ >, / 1. *

. N

THE PARISIANS.

“ I should rather have thought,” said Graham,
“that no one would have cared for Eleonora if
it were not for Tasso.”

Rameau glanced at the Englishman supercili-
ously.

‘ ‘ Pardon^ monsieur^ in every age a love-story
keeps its interest; but who cares nowadays for
le clinqimnt dxi Tasse?"

“Ze clinquant du Tasse!" exclaimed Isaura,
indignantly.

“The expression is Boileau’s, mademoiselle,
in ridicule of the '’Sot de qualite,’ who prefers

‘Le clinquant du Tasse d tout Vor de Virgile.'

But for my part, I have as little faith in the last
as the first.”

“I do not know Latin, and have therefore
not read Virgil,” said Isaura.

“Possibly,” remarked Graham, “monsieur
does not know Italian, and has therefore not
read Tasso.”

“ If that be meant in sarcasm,” retorted Ra-
meau, “I construe it as a compliment. A
Frenchman who is contented to study the mas-
terpieces of modern literature need learn no lan-
guage and read no authors but his own.”

Isaura laughed her pleasant silvery laugh. “ I
should admire the frankness of that boast, mon-
sieur, if in our talk just now you had not spoken
as contemptuously of what we are accustomed to
consider French masterpieces as you have done
of Virgil and Tasso.”

“ Ah, mademoiselle! it is not my fault if you
have had teachers of taste so rococo as to bid
you find masterpieces in the tiresome stilted
tragedies of Corneille and Racine. Poetry of a
court, not of a people — one simple novel, one
simple stanza that probes the hidden recesses of
the human heart, reveals the sores of this wretch-
ed social state, denounces the evils of supersti-
tion, kingcraft, and priestcraft — is worth a li-
brary of the rubbish which pedagogues call ‘ the
classics.’ We agree, at least, in one thing, ma-
demoiselle— we both do homage to the genius of
your friend, Madame de Grantrnesnil.”

“Your friend, signorina!” cried Graham, in-
credulously; “is Madame de Grantrnesnil your
friend ?”

“ The dearest I have in the world.”

Graham’s face darkened ; he turned away in
silence, and in another minute vanished from
the room, persuading himself that he felt not
one pang of jealousy in leaving Gustave Ra-
meau by the side of Isaura. “Her dearest
friend, Madame de Grantrnesnil!” he muttered.

A word now on Isaura’s chief correspondent.
Madame de Grantrnesnil was a woman of noble
birth and ample fortune. She had separated
from her husband in the second year after mar-
riage. She was a singularly eloquent writer,
surpassed among contemporaries of her sex in
popularity and renown only by George Sand.

At least as fearless as that great novelist in the
frank exposition of her views, she had com-
menced her career in letters by a w^ork of aston-
ishing power and pathos, directed against the
institution of marriage as regulated in Roman
Catholic communities. I do not know that it
said more on this delicate subject than the En-
glish Milton has said ; but then Milton did not
write for a Roman Catholic community, nor
adopt a style likely to captivate the working

classes. Madame de Grantmesnil’s first book
was deemed an attack on the religion of the
country, and captivated those among the work-
ing classes who had already abjured that relig-
ion. This work was followed up by others more
or less in defiance of “ received opinions ;” some
with political, some with social revolutionary
aim and tendency, but always with a singular
jurity of style. Search all her books, and how-
ever you might revolt from her doctrine, you
could not find a hazardous expression. The
novels of English young ladies are naughty in
comparison. Of late years whatever might be
lard or audacious in her political or social doc-
trines softened itself into charm amidst the
golden haze of romance. Her writings had
grown more and more purely artistic — poetizing
what is good and beautiful in the realities of life
rather than creating a false ideal out of what is
vicious and deformed. Such a woman, separated
young from her husband, could not enunciate
such opinions and lead a life so independent and
uncontrolled as Madame de Grantrnesnil had
done without scandal, without calumny. Noth-
ing, however, in her actual life had ever been so
proved against her as to lower the high position
she occupied in right of birth, fortune, renown.
Wherever she went she was fetde — as in En-
gland foreign princes, and in America foreign
authors, are fet^s. Those who knew her well
concurred in praise of her lofty, generous, lov-
able qualities. Madame de Grantrnesnil had
known Mr. Selby ; and when at his death Isaura,
in the innocent age between childhood and youth,
had been left the most sorrowful and most lonely
creature on the face of the earth, this famous
woman, worshiped by the rich for her intellect,
adored by the poor for her beneficence, came to
the orphan’s friendless side, breathing love once
more into her pining heart, and waking for the
first time the desires of genius, the aspirations
of art, in the dim self-consciousness of a soul
between sleep and waking.

But, my dear Englishman, put yourself in
Graham’s place, and suppose that you were be-
ginning to fall in love with a girl whom for many
good reasons you ought not to marry ; suppose
that in the same hour in Avhich you were angrily
conscious of jealousy on account of a man whom
it wounds your self-esteem to consider a rival,
the girl tells you that her dearest friend is a
woman who is filmed for her hostility to the in-
stitution of marriage !

♦

CHAPTER IV.

On the same day in which Graham dined with
the Savarins, M. Louvier assembled round his
table the dite of the young Parisians who con-
stitute the oligarchy of fashion, to meet whom he
had invited his new friend the Marquis de Roche-
briant. Most of them belonged to the Legitimist
party — the noblesse of the faubourg ; those who
did not, belonged to no political party at all — in-
different to the cares of mortal states as the gods
of Epicurus. Foremost among ihxajeunesse dord
were Alain’s kinsmen, Raoul and Enguerrand de
Vandemar. To these Louvier introduced him
with a burly parental bonhomie, as if he were the
head of the family. ‘ ‘ I need not bid you, young

THE PARISIANS.

folks, to make friends with each other. A Van-
demar and a Rochebriant are not made friends —
they are born friends.” So saying he turned to
his other guests.

Almost in an instant Alain felt his constraint
melt away in the cordial warmth with which his
cousins greeted him.

These young men had a striking family like-
ness to each other, and yet in feature, coloring,
and expression, in all save that strange family
likeness, they were contrasts.

Raoul was tall, and though inclined to be slen-
der, with sufficient breadth of shoulder to indi-
cate no inconsiderable strength of frame. His
hair worn short, and his silky beard worn long,
were dark, so were his eyes, shaded by curved
drooping eyelashes ; his complexion was pale,
but clear and healthful. In repose the expres-
sion of his face was that of a somewhat mel-
ancholy indolence, but in speaking it became
singularly sweet, with a smile of the exquisite
urbanity which no artificial politeness can be-
stow: it must emanate from that native high
breeding which has its source in goodness of
heart.

Enguerrand was fair, with curly locks of gold-
en chestnut. He wore no beard, only a small
mustache, rather darker than his hair. His
complexion might in itself be called efieminate,
its bloom was so fresh and delicate, but there
was so much of boldness and energy in the play
of his countenance, the hardy outline of the lips,
and the open breadth of the forehead, that “ef-
feminate” was an epithet no one ever assigned to
his aspect. He was somewhat under the middle
height, but beautifully proportioned, carried him-
self well, and somehow or other did not look
short even by the side of tall men. Altogether
he seemed formed to be a mother’s darling, and
spoiled by women, yet to hold his own among
men with a strength of will more evident in his
look and his bearing than it was in those of his
graver and statelier brother.

Both were considered by their young coeqnals
models in dress, but in Raoul there was no sign
that care or thought upon dress had been be-
stowed ; the simplicity of his costume was abso-
lute and severe. On his plain shirt-front there
gleamed not a stud, on his fingers there sparkled
not a ring. Enguerrand, on the contrary, was
not without pretension in his attire ; the broderie
in his shirt-front seemed woven by the queen of
the fairies. His rings of turquoise and opal, his
studs and wrist buttons of pearl and brilliants,
must have cost double the rental of Rochebriant,
but probably they cost him nothing. He was one
of those hapj)y Lotharios to whom Calistas make
constant presents. All about him was so bright
that the atmosphere around seemed gayer for his
presence.

In one respect, at least, the brothers closely
resembled each other — in that exquisite gracious-
ness of manner for which the genuine French no-
ble is traditionally renowned — a graciousness that
did not desert them even when they came reluc-
tantly into contact with roturiers or republicans ;
but the graciousness became €galite^ fraternite
toward one of their caste and kindred.

“We must do our best to make Paris pleasant
to you,” said Raoul, still retaining in his grasp
the hand he had taken.

“ Vilain cousin,” said the livelier Enguerrand,

“ to have been in Paris twenty-four hours, and
without letting us know.”

“ Has not your father told you that I called
upon him ?”

“Our father,” answered Raoul, “was not so
savage as to conceal that fact, but he said you
were only here on business for a day or two, had
declined his invitation, and would nOt give your
address. Pauvre j>ere! we scolded him well for
letting you escape from us thus. My mother has
not forgiven him yet ; we must present you to
her to-morrow. I answer for your liking her al-
most as much as she will like you.”

Before Alain could answer dinner was an-
nounced. Alain's place at dinner was between
his cousins. How pleasant they made them-
selves ! It was the first time in which Alain had
been brought into such familiar conversation with
countrymen of his own rank as well as his own
age. His heart warmed to them. The general
talk of the other guests was strange to his ear ;
it ran much upon horses and races, upon the
opera and the ballet ; it was enlivened with sa-
tirical anecdotes of persons whose names were
unknown to the provincial — not a word was said
that showed the smallest interest in politics or
the slightest acquaintance with literatui'e. The
world of these well-born guests seemed one from
which all that concerned the great mass of man-
kind was excluded, yet the talk was that which
could only be found in a very polished society ;
in it there was not much wit, but there was a
prevalent vein of gayety, and the gayety was nev-
er violent, the laughter was never loud ; the scan-
dals circulated might imply cynicism the most
absolute, but in language the most refined. The
Jockey Club of Paris has its perfume.

Raoul did not mix in the general conversation ;
he devoted himself pointedly to the amusement
of his cousin, explaining to him the point of the
anecdotes circulated, or hitting off in terse sen-
tences the characters of the talkers.

Enguerrand was evidently of temper more vi-
vacious than his brother, and contributed freely
to the current play of light gossip and mirthful
sally.

Louvier, seated between a duke and a Russian
prince, said little, except to recommend a wine
or an entree, but kept his eye constantly on the
Vandemars and Alain.

Immediately after coffee the guests departed.
Before they did so, however, Raoul introduced
his cousin to those of the party most distinguished
by hereditary rank or social position. With these
the name of Rochebriant was too historically fa-
mous not to insure respect of its owner ; they
welcomed him among them as if he were their
brother.

The French duke claimed him as a connection
by an alliance in the fourteenth century ; the
Russian prince had known the late Marquis,
and “trusted that the son would allow him to
improve into friendship the acquaintance he had
formed with the father.”

Those ceremonials over, Raoul linked his arm
in Alain’s, and said, “ I am not going to release
you so soon after we have caught you. You must
come with me to a house in which 1, at least, spend
an hour or two every evening. I am at home
there. Bah ! I take no refusal. Do not suppose
I carry you off to Bohemia, a country which, I
am sorry to say, Enguerrand now and then vis-

THE PAKISIANS.

its, but which is to me as unknow'n as the mount-
ains of the moon. The house I speak of is cotnme
il faut to the utmost. It is that of the Contessa
di liimini — a charming Italian by marriage, but
by birth and in character French— bout
des angles. My mother adores her.”

That dinner at M. Louvier’s had already effect-
ed a great change in the mood and temper of
Alain de Rochebriant ; he felt, as if by magic,
the sense of youth, of rank, of station, which had
been so suddenly checked and stifled, warmed to
life within his veins. He should have deemed
himself a boor had he refused the invitation so
frankly tendered. But on reaching the coup€
which the brothers kept in common, and seeing
it only held two, he drew back.

“Nay, enter, mon cher” said Raoul, divining
the cause of ]iis hesitation; “Enguerrand has
gone on to his club.”

♦

CHAPTER V.

“Tell me,” said Raoul, when they were in
the carriage, “how you came to know M. Lou-
vier ?”

“ He is my chief mortgagee.”

“H’m! that explains it. But you might be
in w orse hands ; the man has a character for
liberality. ”

“ Did your father mention to you my circum-
stances, and the reason that brings me to Paris ?”

“Since you put the question point-blank, my
dear cousin, he did.”

“He told you how poor I am, and how keen
must be my life-long struggle to keep Rochebri-
ant as the home of my race.”

“He told us all that could make us still more
respect the Marquis de Rochebriant, and still
more eagerly long to know our cousin and the
head of our house,” answered Raoul, with a cer-
tain nobleness of tone and manner.

Alain pressed his kinsman’s hand with grate-
ful emotion.

“Yet,” he said, falteringly, “your father
agreed w’ith me that my circumstances would
not allow me to — ”

“Bah!” interrupted Raoul, with a gentle
laugh ; “ my father is a very clever man, doubt-
less, but he knows only the world of his own day,
nothing of the world of ours. I and Enguerrand
wdll call on you to-morrow, to take you to my
mother, and before doing so to consult as to af-
fairs in general. On this last matter Enguerrand
is an oracle. Here w^e are at the Contessa’s.”

CHAPTER VI.

The Contessa di Rimini received her visitors
in a boudoir furnished with much apparent sim-
plicity, but a simplicity by no means inexpensive.
The draperies were but of chintz, and the walls
covered with the same material, a lively pattern,
in which the prevalent tints were rose-color and
w'hite ; but the ornaments on the mantel-piece,
the china stored in the cabinets or arranged in
the shelves, the small knickknacks scattered on
the tables, were costly rarities of art.

The Contessa herself was a woman who bad

somewhat passed her thirtieth year, not striking-
ly handsome, but exquisitely pretty. “There
is,” said a great French writer, “only one way
in which a woman can be handsome, but a hun-
dred thousand ways in which she can be pretty ;”
and it would be im})ossible to reckon up the num-
ber of ways in which Adeline di Rimini carried
otF the prize in prettiness.

Yet it would be unjust to the personal attrac-
tions of the Contessa to class them all under the
word “prettiness.” When regarded more at-
tentively, there was an expression in her counte-
nance that might almost be called divine, it spoke
so unmistakably of a sweet nature and an un-
troubled soul. An English poet once described
her by repeating the old lines :

“ Her face is like the Milky Way i’ the sky—

A meeting of gentle lights without a name.”

She was not alone ; an elderly lady sat on an
arm-chair by the fire engaged in knitting, and a
man, also elderly, and whose dress proclaimed
him an ecclesiastic, sat at the opposite corner,
with a large Angora cat on his lap.

“I present to you, madame,” said Raoul,
“my new-found cousin, the seventeenth Mar-
quis de Rochebriant, whom I am proud to con-
sider, on the male side, the head of our house,
representing its eldest branch : welcome him for
my sake — in future he will be welcome for his
own.”

The Contessa replied very graciously to this
introduction, and made room for Alain on the
divan from which she had risen.

The old lady looked up from her knitting, the
ecclesiastic removed the cat from his lap. , Said
the old lady, “I announce myself to M. le
Marquis ; I knew his mother well enough to be
invited to his christening ; otherwise I have no
pretension to the acquaintance of a cavalier si
beau, being old — rather deaf — very stupid — ex-
ceedingly poor — ”

“ And,” interrupted Raoul, “the woman in
all Paris the most adored for bonte, and con-
sulted for savoir vivre by the young cavaliers
whom she deigns to receive. Alain, I present
you to Madame de Maury, the widow of a dis-
tinguished author and academician, and the
daughter of the brave Henri de Gerval, who
fought for the good cause in La Vendee. I pre-
sent you also to the Abbe Vertpre, who has
passed his life in the vain endeavor to make oth-
I er men as good as himself.”

I “Base flatterer!” said the Abbe, pinching
Raoul’s ear with one hand, while he extended
the other to Alain. “Do not let your cousin
frighten you from knowing me, M. le Marquis.
When he was my pupil he so convinced me of
the incorrigibility of perverse human nature
that I now chiefly address myself to the moral
improvement of the brute creation. Ask the
Contessa if I have not achieved a beaii succes
with her Angora cat. Three months ago that
creature had the two worst propensities of man.
He was at once savage and mean ; he bit, he stole.
Does he ever bite now ? No. Does he ever
steal? No. Why? I have awakened in that
cat the dormant conscience, and that done, the
conscience regulates his actions : once made
aware of the difference between wrong and right,
the cat maintains it unswervingly, as if it were a
law of nature. But if, with prodigious labor,

THE PAKISIAXS.

one does awaken conscience in a human sinner,
it has no steady effect on his conduct — he con-
tinues to sin all the same. Mankind at Paris,
Monsieur le Marquis, is divided between two
classes — one bites and the other steals : shun
both ; devote yourself to cats. ”

The Abbe delivered his oration with a gravity
of mien and tone wliich made it difficult to guess
whether he spoke in sport or in earnest — in sim-
ple playfulness or in latent sarcasm.

But on the brow and in the eye of the priest
there was a general expression of quiet benevo-
lence, which made Alain incline to the belief
that he was only speaking as a pleasant humor-
ist ; and the Marquis replied, gayly,

“ Monsieur I’Abbe, admitting the supeiior
virtue of cats, when taught by so intelligent a
preceptor, still the business of human life is not
transacted by cats ; and since men must deal
with men, permit me, as a preliminary caution,
to inquire in which class I must rank yourself.
Do you bite, or do you steal ?”

This sally, which showed that the Marquis
was already shaking off his provincial reserve,
met with great success.

Raoul and the Contessa laughed merrily ;
Madame de Maury clapped her hands, and cried,
“ Bien

The Abbe replied, with unmoved gravity,
“Both. I am a priest; it is my duty to bite
the bad and steal from the good, as you will
see, M. le Marquis, if you will glance at this
paper.”

Here he handed to Alain a memorial on be-
half of an afflicted family who had been burned
out of their home, and reduced from compara-
tive ease to absolute w^ant. There was a list
appended of some twenty subscribers, the last
being the Contessa, fifty francs, and Madame
de Maui-y, five.

“Allow me. Marquis,” said the Abbe, “to
steal from you ; bless you twofold, mon Jils !”
(taking the napoleon Alain extended to him) —
“ first, for your charity ; secondly, for the effect
of its example upon the heart of your cousin.
Raoul de Vandemar, stand and deliver. Bah !
— what! only ten francs.”

Raoul made a sign to the Abbe, unperceived
by the rest, as he answered, “Abbe, I should
excel your expectations of my career if I always
continue worth half as much as my cousin.”

Alain felt to the bottom of his heart the deli-
cate tact of his richer kinsman in giving less
than himself, and the Abbe replied, “Niggard,
you are pardoned. Humility is a more difficult
virtue to produce than charity, and in your case
an instance of it is so rare that it merits encour-
agement.”

The “ tea equipage” was now served in what
at Paris is called the English fashion ; the Con-
tessa presided over it, the guests gathered round
the table, and the evening passed away in the in-
nocent gayety of a domestic circle. The talk,
if not especially intellectual, was, at least, not
fashionable — books were not discussed, neither
were scandals; yet somehow or other it was
cheery and animated, like that of a happy fami-
ly in a country house. Alain thought still the
better of Raoul that, Parisian though he was, he
could appreciate the charm of an evening so in-
nocently spent.

On taking leave, the Contessa gave Alain a

general invitation to drop in whenever he was
not better engaged.

“I except only the opera nights,” said she.
“ My husband has gone to Milan on his affairs,
and during his absence I do not go to parties ;
the opera I can not resist.”

Raoul set Alain down at his lodgings. “Am
revoir ; to-morrow at one o’clock expect Enguer-
rand and myself.”

CHAPTER VII.

Raoul and Enguerrand called on Alain at the
hour fixed.

“ In the first place,” said Raoul, “ I must beg
you to accept my mother’s regrets that she can
not receive you to-day. She and the Contessa
belong to a society of ladies formed for visiting
the poor, and this is their day ; but to-morrow
you must dine with us en famille. Now to busi-
ness. Allow me to light my cigar while you
confide the whole state of affairs to Enguerrand :
whatever he counsels I am sure to approve.”

Alain, as briefly as he could, stated his cir-
cumstances, his mortgages, and the hopes which
his avoid had encouraged him to place in the
friendly disposition of M. Louvier. When he
had concluded, Enguerrand mused for a few mo-
ments before replying. At last he said, “ Will
you trust me to call on Louvier on your behalf?
I shall but inquire if he is inclined to take on
himself the other mortgages ; and if so, on what
terms. Our relationship gives me the excuse
for my interference ; and, to say truth, I have
had much familiar intercourse with the man. I
too am a speculator, and have often profited by
Louvier’s advice. You may ask what can be
his object in serving me ; he can gain nothing
by it. To this I answer, the key to his good of-
fices is in his character. Audacious though he
be as a speculator, he is wonderfully prudent as
a politician. This belle France of ours is like a
stage tumbler ; one can never be sure whether
it will stand on its head or its feet. Louvier
very wisely wishes to feel himself safe, whatever
party comes uppermost. He has no faith in the
duration of the empire ; and as, at all events,
the empire will not confiscate his millions, he
takes no trouble in conciliating Imperialists.
But on the principle which induces certain sav-
ages to worship the devil and neglect the bon
Dieu, because the devil is spiteful and the bon
Dieu is too beneficent to injure them, Louvier,
at heart detesting as well as dreading a republic,
lays himself out to secure friends with the Repub-
licans of all classes, and pretends to espouse their
cause. Next to them he is very conciliatory to
the Orleanists. Lastly, though he thinks the
Legitimists have no chance, he desires to keep
well with the nobles of that party, because they
exercise a considerable influence over that sphere
of opinion which belongs to fashion ; for fashion
is never powerless in Paris. Raoul and myself
are no mean authorities in salons and clubs ; and
a good word from us is worth having.

“ Besides, Louvier himself in his youth set
up for a dandy ; and that deposed ruler of dan-
dies, our unfortunate kinsman, Victor de Mau-
leon, shed some of his own radiance on the mon-
ey-lender’s son. But when Victor’s star was
eclipsed, Louvier ceased to gleam. The dan-

THE PARISIANS.

dies cut him. In his heart he exults that the
dandies now throng to his soirees. Bref^ the
millionnaire is especially civil to me — the more
so as I know intimately two or three eminent
jouiTialists ; and Louvier takes pains to plant
garrisons in the press. I trust I have explained
the grounds on which I may be a better diplo-
matist to employ than your avou6 ; and with your
leave I will go to Louvier at once. ”

“Let him go,” said Raoul. “Enguerrand
never fails in any thing he undertakes, especial-
ly,” he added, with a smile half sad, half tender,
“ when one wishes to replenish one’s purse.”

“ I, too, gratefully grant such an embassador
all powers to treat,” said Alain. “I am only
ashamed to consign to him a post so much be-
neath his genius,” and “his birth” be was about
to add, but wisely checked himself. Enguer-
rand said, shrugging his shoulders, “You can’t
do me a greater kindness than by setting my
wits at work. I fall a martyr to ennui when I
am not in action,” he said, and was gone.

“It makes me very melancholy at times,”
said Raoul, flinging away the end of his cigar,
“to think that a man so clever and so energetic
as Enguerrand should be as much excluded from
the service of his country as if he were an Iro-
quois Indian. He would have made a great
diplomatist.”

“Alas!” replied Alain, with a sigh, “I begin
to doubt whether we Legitimists are justified in
inainiaining a useless loyalty to a sovereign who
renders us morally exiles in the land of our
birth.”

“I have no doubt on the subject,” said Raoul.
“\Ye are not justified on the score of policy, but
we have no option at present on the score of
honor. We should gain so much for ourselves
if we adopted the state livery and took the state
wages that no man would esteem us as patriots ;
we should only be despised as apostates. So
long as Henry V. lives, and does* not resign his
claim, we can not be active citizens ; we must
be mournful lookers-on. But what matters it ?
We nobles of the old race are becoming rapidly
extinct. Under any form of government like-
ly to be established in France we are equally
doomed. The French people, aiming at an im-
possible equality, will never again tolerate a race
of gentilshommes. They can not prevent, with-
out destroying commerce and capital altogether,
a quick succession of men of the day, who form
nominal aristocracies much more opposed to
equality than any hereditary class of nobles.
But they refuse these fleeting substitutes of born
patricians all permanent stake in the country,
since whatever estate they buy must be subdi-
vided at their death. My poor Alain, you are
making it the one ambition of your life to pre-
serve to your posterity the home and lands of
your forefathers. How is that possible, even
supposing you could redeem the mortgages?
You marry some day — you have children, and
Rochebriant must then be sold to pay for their
separate portions. How this condition of things,
while rendering us so ineffective to perform the
normal functions of a noblesse in public life, af-
fects us in private life may be easily conceived. ^

‘ ‘ Condemned to a career of pleasure and fri-
volity, we can scarcely escape from the contagion
of extravagant luxury which forms the vice of
the time. With grand names to keep up, and

small fortunes whereon to keep them, we readily
incur embarrassment and debt. Then needi-
ness conquers pride. We can not be great mer-
chants, but we can be small gamblers on the
Bourse, or, thanks to the Credit Mobilier^ imi-
tate a cabinet minister, and keep a shop under
another name. Perhaps you have heard that
Enguerrand and I keep a shop. Pray buy your
gloves there. Strange fate for men whose an-
cestors fought in the first Crusade — inais que
voulez-vous

“I was told of the shop,” said Alain, “but
the moment I knew you I disbelieved the story. ”

“ Quite true. Shall I confide to you why we
resorted to that means of finding ourselves in
pocket-money? My father gives us rooms in
his hotel ; the use of his table, which we do not
much profit by ; and an allowance, on which we
could not live as young men of our class live at
Paris. Enguerrand had his means of spending
pocket-money, I mine ; but it came to the same
thing — the pockets were emptied. We incurred
debts. Two years ago my father straitened
himself to pay them, saying, ‘The next time
you come to me with debts, however small, you
must pay them yourselves, or you must marry,
and leave it to me to find you wdves.’ This
threat appalled us both. A month afterward
Enguerrand made a lucky hit at the Bourse, and
proposed to invest the proceeds in a shop. I re-
sisted as long as I could, but Enguerrand tri-
umphed over me, as he always does. He found
an excellent deputy in a bonne who had nursed
us in childhood, and married a journeyman per-
fumer who understands the business. It an-
swers t^’ell ; we are not in debt, and we have pre-
served our freedom.”

After these confessions Raoul went away, and
Alain fell into a mournful reverie, from which
he was roused by a loud ring at his bell. He
opened the door, and beheld M. Louvier. The
burly financier w*as much out of breath after
making so steep an ascent. It was in gasps
that he muttered, “ Bon jour ; excuse me if I
derange you.” Then entering and seating him-
self on a chair, he took some minutes to recover
speech, rolling his eyes staringly round the mea-
gre, unluxurious room, and then concentrating
their gaze upon its occupier.

“Peste, my dear Marquis!” he said at last;
“ I hope the next time I visit you the ascent
may be less arduous. One would think you
were in training to ascend the Himalaya. ”

The haughty noble Avrithed under this jest,
and the spirit inborn in his order spoke in his
answer :

“I am accustomed to dwell on heights, M.
Louvier ; the castle of Rochebriant is not on a
level with the town.”

An angry gleam shot from the eyes of the
millionnaire, but there Avas no other sign of dis-
pleasure in his answer :

“ Bien dit, nion cher : hoAV you remind me of
your father! Now give me leaA'e to speak on af-
fairs. I haA'e seen your cousin, Enguerrand de
Vandemar. 'Homme demoynes, though yb/i gar-
^n. He proposed that you should call on me.
I said ‘ no’ to the cher petit Enguerrand — a visit
from me Avas due to you. To cut matters short,
M. Gandrin has allowed me to look into your
papers. I Avas disposed to serve you from tho
first ; I am still more disposed to serve you noAv.

THE PAKISIANS.

I undertake to pay off all your other mortgages,
and become sole mortgagee, and on terms that I
have jotted down on this paper, and which I
hope will content you.”

He placed a paper in Alain’s hand, and took
out a box, from which he extracted a jujube,
placed it in his mouth, folded his hands, and re-
clined back in his chair, with his eyes half closed,
as if exhausted alike by his ascent and his gen-
erosity.

In effect, the terms were unexpectedly liberal.
The reduced interest on the mortgages would
leave the Marquis an income of £1000 a year in-
stead of £100. Louvier proposed to take on
himself the legal cost of transfer, and to pay to
the Marquis 2;), 000 francs on the completion of
the deed as a bonus. The mortgage did not ex-
empt the building land, as Hebert desired. In
all else it was singularly advantageous, and Alain
could but feel a thrill of grateful delight at an
offer by which his stinted income was raised to
comparative affluence.

“Well, Marquis,” said Louvier, “what does
the castle say to the town ?”'

“ P.I. Louvier,” answered Alain, extending his
hand with cordial eagerness, “accept my sincere
apologies for the indiscretion of my metaphor.
Poverty is proverbially sensitive to jests on it.
I owe it to you if I can not hereafter make that
excuse for any words of mine that may displease
you. The terms you propose are most liberal,
and I close with them at once.”

“ .Bon,” said Louvier, shaking vehemently the
hand offered to him; “I will take the paper to
Gandrin, and instruct him accordingly. And
now may I attach a condition to the agreement,
which is not put down on paper ? It may have
surprised you perhaps that I should promise a
gratuity of 25,000 francs on completion of the
contract. It is a droll thing to do, and not in
the ordinary way of business ; therefore I must
explain. Marquis, pardon the liberty I take,
but you have inspired me with an interest in
your future. With your birth, connections, and
figure, you should push your way in the world
far and fast. But you can’t do so in a province.
You must find your opening at Paris. I wish
you to spend a year in the capital, and live, not
extravagantly, like a nouveau riche, but in a way
not unsuited to your rank, and permitting you
all the social advantages that belong to it. These
25,000 francs, in addition to your improved in-
come, will enable you to gratify my wish in this
respect. Spend the money in Paris : you will
want every sou of it in the course of the year.
It will be money well spent. Take my advice,
cher Marquis. Au plaisir.''

The financier bowed himself out. The young
Marquis forgot all the mournful reflections with
which Raoul’s conversation had inspired him.
He gave a new touch to his toilet, and sallied
forth with the air of a man on whose morning
of life a sun heretofore clouded has burst forth
and transformed’ the' face of the landscape.

CHAPTER VIII.

Since the evening spent at the Savarins’ Gra-
ham had seen no more of Isaura. He had avoid-
ed all chance of seeing her; in fact, the jealousy

with which he had viewed her manner toward
Rameau, and the angry amaze with which he
had heard her proclaim her friendship for Ma-
dame de Grantmesnil, served to strengthen the
grave and secret reasons which made him desire
to keep his heart yet free and his hand yet un-
pledged. But, alas ! the heart was enslaved al-
ready. It was under the most fatal of all spells
— first love conceived at first sight. He was
wretched, and in his wretchedness his resolves
became involuntarily weakened. He found him-
self making excuses for the beloved. What
cause had he, after all, for that jealousy of the
young poet which had so offended him ? And
if, in her youth and inexperience, Isaura had
made her dearest friend of a great writer by
whose genius she might be dazzled, and of
whose opinions she might scarcely be aware,
was it a crime that necessitated her eternal ban-
ishment from the reverence which belongs to all
manly love ? Certainly he found no satisfactory
answers to such self-questionings. And then
those grave reasonings known only to himself,
and never to be confided to another — why he
should yet reserve his hand unpledged — were
not so imperative as to admit of no compromise.
They might entail a sacrifice, and not a small
one to a man of Graham’s views and ambition.
But what is love if it can think any sacrifice
short of duty and honor too great to offer up un-
known, uncomprehended, to the one beloved?
Still, while thus softened in his feelings towaid
Isaura, he became, perhaps in consequence of
such softening, more and more restlessly im-
patient to fulfill the object for which he had
come to Paris, the great step toward which was
the discovery of the undiscoverable Louise Duval.

He had written more than once to M. Renard
since the interview with that functionary already
recorded, demanding whether Renard had not
made some progress in the research on which
he was employed, and had received short unsat-
isfactory replies preaching patience and implying
hope.

The plain truth, however, was that M. Renard
had taken no further pains in the matter. He
considered it utter waste of lime and thought to
attempt a discovery to which the traces were so
faint and so obsolete. If the discovery was ef-
fected, it must be by one of those chances which
occur without labor or forethought of our own.
He trusted only to such a chance in continuing
the chaise he had undertaken. But during the
last day or two Graham had become yet more
impatient than before, and peremptorily request-
ed another visit from this dilatory confidant.

In that visit, finding himself pressed hard, and
though naturally willing, if possible, to retain a
client unusually generous, yet being, on the
whole, an honest member of his profession, and
feeling it to be somewhat unfair to accept large
remuneration for doing nothing, M. Renard said,
frankly, “Monsieur, this affair is beyond me;
the keenest agent of our police could make noth-
ing of it. Unless you can tell me more than you
have done I am utterly without a clew. I resign,
therefore, the task with which you honored me,
willing to resume it again if you can give me in-
formation that could render me of use.”

“What sort of information?”

“At least the names of some of the lady’j
relations who may yet be living.”

THE PARISIANS.

6:i

“But it strikes me that if I could get at that
piece of knowledge, I should not require the
services of the police. The relations would tell
me what had become of Louise Duval quite as
readily as they would tell a police agent.”

“Quite true, monsieur. It would really be
jacking your pockets if I did not at once retire
from ycur service. Nay, monsieur, pardon me —
no further jmyments; I have already accepted
too much. Your most obedient servant.”

Graham, left alone, fell into a very gloomy
reverie. He could not but be sensible of the
difficulties in the way of the object wdiich had
brought him to Paris, with somewhat sanguine
e.xpectations of success, founded on a belief in
the omniscience of the Parisian police, which is
only to be justified when they have to deal with
a murderess or a political incendiary. But the
name of Louise Duval is aboat as common in
France as that of Mary Smith in England ; and
the English reader may judge what would be the
likely result of inquiring through the ablest of
our detectives after some Mary Smith, of whom
you could give little more information than that
she was the dangliter of a drawir.g-master, who
had died twenty years ago, that it was about fif-
teen years since any thing had been heard of her,
and that you could not say if, through marriage
or for other reasons, she had changed her name
or not, and you had reasons for declining re-
course to public advertisements. In the course
of inquiry so instituted the probability would
be that you might hear of a great many Mary
Smiths, in the j)ursuit of whom your evijdoye
would lose all sight and scent of the one Mary
Smith for whom the chase was instituted.

In the midst of Graham’s desjjairing reflections
his laquais announced M. Frederic Lemercier.

‘■‘‘Cher Grarm-Varn. A thousand pardons if
I disturb you at this late hour of the evening;
but you remember the request you made me
Avhen you first arrived in Paris this season?”

“Of course I do — in case you should ever
chance in your wide round of acquaintances to
fall in with a Madame or Mademoiselle Duval,
of about the age of forty, or a year or so less,
to let me know : and you did fall in with two
ladies of that name, but they were not the right
one — not the person whom my friend begged me
to discover — both much too young.”

bien, vion cher. If you will come with
me to le hal chavi]>etre in the Champs Elysees
to-night, I can show you a third Madame Duval:
lier Christian name is Louise, too, of the age
you mention — though she does her best to look
younger, and is still very handsome. You said
your Duval was handsome. It was only last
evening that I met this lady at a soiree given by
Mademoiselle Jnlie Caumartin, coryphee distin-
yv.ee, in love with young Rameau.”

“In love with young Rameau? I am very
glad to hear it. He returns the love ?”

“ I suj^pose so. He seems very proud of it.
But a jtropos of Madame Duval, she has been
long absent from Paris — just returned — and
looking out for conquests. She says she has a
great penchant for the English ; promises me to
be at this ball. Come.”

‘ ‘ Hearty thanks, my dear Lemercier. I am at
your service. ”

CHAPTER IX.

The hal champetre was gay and brilliant, as
such festal scenes are at Paris. A lovely night
in the midst of May — lamps below and stars
above: the society mixed, of course. Evidently,
when Graham had singled out Frederic Lemer-
cier from all his acquaintances at Paris to con-
join with the official aid of M. Renard in search
ot the mysterious lady, he had conjectured the
probability that she might be found in the Bo-
hemian world so familiar to Frederic— if not as
an inhabitant, at least as an explorer. Bohemia
was largely represented at the bal champetre,
but not without a fair sprinkling of what we call
the “ respectable classes,” especially English and
Americans, who brought theii- wives there to take
care of them. Frenchmen, not needing such
care, jirudently left their wives at home. Among
the Frenchmen of station were the Comte de
Passy and the Vicomte de Breze.

On first entering the gardens Graham’s eye
was attracted and dazzled by a brilliant form.
It was standing under a festoon of flowers ex-
tended from tree to tree, and a gas jet opposite
shone full upon the face — the face of a girl in all
the freshness of youth. If the freshness owed
any thing to art, the art was so well disguised
that it seemed nature. The beauty of the coun-
tenance was Hebe-like, joyous, and radiant, and
yet one could not look at the girl without a senti-
ment of deep mournfulness. IShe was surrounded
by a group of young men, and the ring of her
laugh jarred u})on Graham’s ear. He pressed
Frederic’s arm, and directing his attention to the
girl, asked who she was.

“Who? Don’t you know ? That is Julie Cau-
martin. A little while ago her equijtage was the
most admired in the Bois, and great ladies conde-
scended to copy her dress or her coiffure. But
she has lost her sjdendor, and dismissed the rich
admirer who sui)plied the fuel for its blaze, since
she fell in love with Gustave Rameau. Doubt-
less she is expecting him to-night. You ought
to know her : shall I present you ?”

“No,” answered Graham, with a comjjassion-
ate expression in his manly face. “So young;
seemingly so gay. How I pity her!”

“What! for throwing herself away on Rameau ?
True. There is a great deal of good in her girl’s
nature, if she had been properly trained. Rameau
wrote a pretty poem on her, which turned her head
and won her heart, in which she is styled the ‘On-
dine of Paris’ — a nymph-like type of Paris itself. ”

“Vanishing type, like her namesake; born
of the spray, and vanishing soon into the deep,”
said Graham. “Pray go and look for the Du-
val: you will find me seated yonder.”

Graham passed into a retired alley, and threw
himself on a solitary bench, while Lemercier
went in search of Madame Duval. In a few
minutes the Frenchman reappeared. By his
side was a lady, well dressed, and as she passed
under the lamps Graham perceived that, though
of a certain age, she was undeniably handsome.
His heart beat more qnickly. Surely this was
the Louise Duval he sought.

He rose from his seat, and was presented in
due form to the lady, with whom Frederic then
discreetly left him.

“Monsieur Lemercier tells me that you think
that we were once acquainted with each other.”

THE PARISIANS.

“Nay, madame; I should not fail to recog-
nize you were that the case. A friend of mine
had the honor of knowing a lady of your name ;
and should I be fortunate enough to meet that
lady, I am charged with a commission that may
not be unwelcome to her. M. Lemercier tells
me your nom de bapteme, is Louise.”

“Louise Corinne, monsieur.”

“ And I presume that Duval is the name you
take from your parents.”

“No; my father’s name was Bernard. I
married, when I was a mere child, M. Duval, in
the wine trade at Bordeaux.”

“Ah, indeed!” said Graham, much disap-
pointed, but looking at her with a keen, search-
ing eye, which she met with a decided frankness.
Evidently, in his judgment, she was speaking
the truth. •

“You know English, I think, madame,” he
resumed, addressing her in that language.

“A leetle — speak un peu."

“Only a little ?”

Madame Duval looked puzzled, and replied in
French, with a laugh, “Is it that you were told
that I spoke English by your countryman. Mi-
lord Sare Boulby ? Petit sc€lerat^ I hope he is
well. He sends you a commission for me — so he
ought : he behaved to me like a monster.”

“ Alas I I know nothing of my lord Sir Boul-
by. Were you never in England yourself?”

“ Never” — with a coquettish side glance — “I
should like so much to go. I have a foible for
the English in spite of that vilain petit Boulby.
Who is it gave you the commission for me?
Ha! I guess — le Capitaine Nelton.”

“No. What year, madame, if not imperti-
nent, were you at Aix-la-Chnpelle?”

“You mean Baden? I was there seA’en years
ago, when I met le Capitaine Nelton — bel hoinme
aux cheveux rouges."

“ But you have been at Aix ?”

“Never.”

“I have, then, been mistaken, madame, and
have only to offer my most humble apologies.”

“ But perhaps you will favor me with a visit,
and we may on further conversation find that
you are not mistaken. I can’t stay now, for I
am engaged to dance with the Belgian, of whom,
no doubt, M. Lemercier has told you.”

“No, madame, he has not.”

“Well, then, he will tell you. The Belgian
is very jealous. But I am always at home be-
between three and four. This is my card.”

Graham eagerly took the card, and exclaim-
ed, “Is this vour own handwriting, madame?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“ Tres belle ecriture" said Graham, and re-
ceded with a ceremonious bow. “ Any thing so
utdike her handwriting. Another disapjwint-
ment,” muttered the Englishman, as the lady
went back to the ball.

A few minutes later Graham joined Lemercier,
who was talking with De Passy and De Breze.

“Well,” said Lemercier, when his eye rested
on Graham, “I hit the right nail on the head
this time, eh ?”

Graham shook his head.

“ What ! Is she not the right Louise Duval ?”

“ Certainly not.”

“The Count de Passy overheard the name,
and turned, “ Louise Duval,” he said ; “does
Monsieur Vane know a Louise Duval?”

“ No ; but a friend asked me to inquire after
a lady of that name whom he had met many
years ago at Paris.”

The Count mused a moment, and said, “Is it
possible that your friend knew the family De
Mauleon ?”

“ I really can’t say. What then ?”

“ The old Vicomte de Mauleon was one of my
most intimate associates. In fact, our houses
are connected. And he was extremely grieved,
poor man, when his daughter Louise married her
drawing-master, Auguste Duval.”

“ Her drawing-master, Auguste Duval ? Pray
say on. I think the Louise Duval my friend knew
must have been her daughter. She was the only
child of a drawing-master or artist named Au-
guste Duval, and probably enough her Christian
name would have been derived from her mother.
A Mademoiselle de Mauleon, then, married M.
Auguste Duval ?”

“ Yes; the old Vicomte had espoused en pre-
mises noces Mademoiselle Camille de Chavigny,
a lady of birth equal to his own — had by her one
daughter, Louise. I recollect her well — a plain
girl, with a high nose and a sour expression.
She was just of age when the first Vicomtess
died, and by the marriage settlement she suc-
ceeded at once to her mother’s fortune, which
was not large. The Vicomte was, however, so
poor that the loss of that income was no trifle to
him. Though past fifty, he was still very hand-
some. Men of that generation did not age soon,
monsieur,” said the Count, expanding his fine
chest and laughing exultingly.

“ He married, en secondes noces, a lady of
still higher birth than the first, and with a much
better dot. Louise was indignant at this, hated
her step-mother, and when a son was born by the
second marriage she left the paternal roof, went
to reside with an old female relative near the
Luxembourg, and there married this drawing-
master. Her father and the family did all they
could to prevent it ; but in these democratic
days a woman who has attained her majority
can, if she persist in her determination, marry
to please herself, and disgrace her ancestors.
After that mSnlliance her father never would
see her again. I tried in vain to soften him.
All his parental affections settled on his hand-
some Victor. Ah ! you are too young to have
known Victor de Mauleon during his short reign
at Paris — as roi des viveurs."

“Yes, he was before my time; but I have heard
of him as a young man of great fashion — said to
be very clever, a duelist, and a sort of Don Juan.”

“ Exactly.”

“ And then I remember vaguely to have heard
that he committed, or was said to have commit-
ted, some villainous action connected with a great
lady’s jewels, and to have left Paris in conse-
quence.”

“ Ah, yes, a sad scrape. At that time there
was a political crisis ; we were under a republic ;
any thing against a noble was believed. But 1
am sure Victor de Mauleon was not the man to
commit a larceny. However, it is quite true
that he left Paris, and I don’t know what has
become of him since.” Here he touched De
Breze, who, though still near, had not been list-
ening to this conversation, but interchanging
jest and laughter with Lemercier on the motley
I scene of the dance.

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>* “BIIE had just found GUSTAVE RAMEAU; AKD WAS CLINGING TO IIIS ARM WITH A LOOK

OF UArPlNESS IN HER FACE, li-RANK AND INNOCENT AS A CHILD’S.”

#• ‘ ‘

\ ' . ■

THE PARISIANS.

“ De Breze, have you ever heard what became
ofpoor dear Victor de Mauleori? Youkiiewhim.”

“ Knew him ? I should think so. Who could
he in the great world and not know le beau Vic-
tor ? No ; after he vanished I never heard more
of him — doubtless long since dead. A good-
hearted fellow in spite of all his sins.”

“ My dear M. de Breze, did you know his half-
sister?” asked Graham — “a Madame Duval?”

“ No ; I never heard he had a half-sister.
Halt there: I recollect that I met Victor once
in the garden at Versailles, walking arm in arm
with the most beautiful girl I ever saw ; and
when I complimented him afterward at the
Jockey Club on his new conquest, he replied,
very gravely, that the young lady was his niece.
‘Niece!’ said I; ‘why, there can’t be more
than five or six years between you.’ ‘About
that, I suppose,’ said he; ‘my half-sister, her
mother, was more than twenty years older than
I at the time of my birth.’ I doubted the truth
of his story at the time; but since you- say he
really had a sister, my doubt wronged him.”

“ Have you never seen this same young lady
since?”

“Never.”

“ How many years ago was this?”

“Let me see — about tw'enty or twenty-one
years ago. How time Hies !”

Graham still continued to question, but could
learn no further particulars. He turned to quit
the gardens just as the band w’as striking up for
a fresh dance, a wild German waltz air, and
mingled with that German music his ear caught
the sprightly sounds of the French laugh, one
laugh distinguished from the rest by a more gen-
uine ring of light-hearted joy — the laugh that
he had heard on entering the gardens, and the
sound of which had then saddened him. Look-
ing toward the quarter from which it came, he
again saw the “ Ondine of Paris.” She was not
now the centre of a group. She had just found
Gustave Rameau ; and w'as clinging to his arm
with a look of happiness in her face, frank and
innocent as a child’s. And so they passed amidst
the dancers dowm a solitary lamp-lit alley, till
lost to the Englishman’s lingering gaze.

CHAPTER X.

The next morning Graham sent again for M.
Renard.

^‘Well,” he cried, when that dignitary ap-
peared and took a seat beside him; “chance
has favored me.”

“I always counted on chance, monsieur.
Chance has more wit in its little finger than the
Paris police in its whole body.”

“I have ascertained the relations, on the
mother’s side, of Louise Duval, and the only
question is how to get at them.”

Here Graham related what he had heard, and
ended by saying, “This Victor de Mauleon is
therefore my Louise Duval’s uncle. He was, no
doubt, taking charge of her in the year that the
persons interested in her discovery lost sight of
her in Paris ; and surely he must know what
became of her afterw'ard.”

'“Very probably; and chance may befriend
US yet in the discovery of Victor de Mauleon.

You seem not to know’ the particulars of that
story about the jew'els w'hich brought him into
some connection with the police, and resulted in
his disappearance from Paris.”

“No ; tell me the particulars.”

“ Victor de Mauleon was heir to some BO, 000
or 70,000 francs a year, chiefly on the mother’s
side ; for his father, though the representative
of one of the most ancient houses in Ih'ance, was
very poor, having little of his own except the
emoluments of an appointment in the court of
Louis Philippe.

“ But before, by the death of his parents, Vic-
tor came into that inheritance, he very largely
forestalled it. His tastes were magnificent. He
took to ‘ sport’ — kept a famous stud, w’as a great
favorite with the English, and spoke their lan-
guage fluently. Indeed, he w'as considered very
accomplished, and of considerable intellectual
powers. It W'as generally said that some day or
other, when he had sown his wild oats, he would,
if he took to politics, be an eminent man. Al-
together he was a very sti'ong creature. That
was a very strong age under Louis Philippe.
The viveurs of Paris w’ere fine types for the he-
roes of Dumas and Sue — full of animal life and
spirits. Victor de Mauleon w'as a romance of
Dumas — incarnated. ”

“M. Renard, forgive me that I did not before
do justice to your taste in polite literature.”

“Monsieur, a man in my profession does not
attain even to my humble eminence if he be not
something else than a professional. He must
study mankind wherever they are described —
even in les romans. To return to Victor de
Mauleon. Though he was a ‘sportman,’ a
gambler, a Don Juan, a duelist, nothing was
ever said against his honor. On the contrary,
on matters of honor he was a received, oracle ;
and even though he had fought several duels
(that was the age of duels), and was reported
without a superior, almost without an equal, in
either weapon — the sw'ord or the pistol — he is
said never to have w'antonly provoked an en-
counter, and to have so used his skill that he
contrived never to slay, nor even gravely to
wound, an antagonist.

“I remember one instance of his generosity
in this respect, for it w'as much talked of at the
time. One of your countrymen, who had never
handled a fencing-foil nor fired a pistol, took of-
fense at something M. de Mauleon had said in
disparagement of the Duke of Wellington, and
called him out. Victor de Mauleon accepted
the challenge, discharged his pistol, not in the
air — that might have been an affront — but so as
to be w’ide of the mark, w'alked up to the lines to
be shot at, and w'hen missed, said, ‘ Excuse the
susceptibility of a Frenchman, loath to believe
that his countrymen can be beaten save by acci-
dent, and accept every apology one gentleman
can make to another for having forgotten the re-
spect due to one of the most renowned of your
national heroes.’ The Englishman’s name was
Vane. Could it have been your father ?”

“Very probably; just like my father to call
out any man who insulted the honor of his coun-
try, as represented by its men. I hope the two
combatants became friends?”

“That I never heard; the duel was over —
there my story ends.”

“Pray go on.”

THE PARISIANS.

“One day — it was in the midst of political
events which would have silenced most subjects
of private gossip — the beau monde was startled by
the news that the Vicorate (he was then, by his
father’s death, Vicomte) de Mauleon had been
given into the custody of the police on the charge

of stealing the jewels of the Duchesse de

(the wife of a distinguished foreigner). It seems
that some days before this event the Due, wish-
ing to make madame, his spouse, an agreeable
surprise, had resolved to have a diamond neck-
lace belonging to her, and which was of setting
so old-fashioned that she had not lately worn it,
reset for her birthday. He therefore secretly
possessed himself of the key to an iron safe in a
cabinet adjoining her dressing-room (in which
safe her more valuable jewels were kept), and
took from it the necklace. Imagine his dismay
when the jeweler in the Rue Vivienne to whom
he carried it, recognized the pretended diamonds
as imitation paste which he himself had some
days previously inserted into an empty setting
brought to him by a monsieur with whose name
he was unacquainted. The Duchesse was at
that time in delicate health ; and as the Due’s
suspicions naturally fell on the servants, especial-
ly on the femme de chambre, who was in great
favor with his wife, he did not like to alarm
madame, nor through her to put the servants on
their guard. He resolved, therefore, to place

tlie matter in the hands of the famous , who

was then the pride and ornament of the Parisian
police. And the very night afterwai'd the Vi-
comte de Mauleon was caught and apprehended
in the cabinet where the jewels were kept, and
to which he had got access by a false key, or at
least a duplicate key, found in his possession. I
should observe that M. de Mauleon occupied the
entresol in the same hotel in which the upper
rooms were devoted to the Due and Duchesse
and their suit. As soon as this charge against
the Vicomte was made known (and it was known
the next morning) the extent of his debts and
the utterness of his ruin (before scarcely con-
jectured, or wholly unheeded) became public
through the medium of the journals, and fur-
nished an obvious motive for the crime of which
he was accused. We Parisians, monsieur, are
subject to the most startling reactions of feeling.
The men we adore one day we execrate the next.
The Vicomte passed at once from the popular
admiration one bestows on a hero to the popu-
lar contempt with which one regards a petty
larcener. Society wondered how it had ever
condescended to receive into its bosom the gam-
bler, the duelist, the Don Juan. How'ever, one
compensation in the way of amusement he might
still afford to society for the grave injuries he
had done it. Society would attend his trial, wit-
ness his demeanor at the bar, and watch the ex-
])ression of his face when he was sentenced to
the galleys. But, monsieur, this wretch com-
pleted the measure of his iniquities. He was
not tried at all. The Due and Duchesse quitted
Paris for Spain, and the Due instructed his law-
yer to withdraw his charge, stating his convic-
tion of the Vicomte’s complete innocence of any
other offense than that which he himself had
confessed.”

“ What did the Vicomte confess ? you omitted
to state that.”

“The Vicomte, when apprehended, confessed

that, smitten by an insane passion for the Du-
chesse, which she had, on his presuming to de-
clare it^ met with indignant scorn, he had taken
advantage of his lodgment in the same house to
admit himself into the cabinet adjoining her
dressing-room by means of a key which he had
procured made from an impression of the key-
Iiole taken in wax.

“ No evidence in support of any other charge
against the Vicomte was forth-coming — nothing,
in short, beyond the in fraction du domicile caused
by the madness of youthful love, and for which
there was no prosecution. The law, therefore,
could have little to say against him. But society
was more rigid, and, exceedingly angry to find
that a man who had been so conspicuous for lux-
ury should prove to be a pauper, insisted on be-
lieving that M. de Mauleon was guilty of the
meaner, though not perhaps, in the eyes of hus-
bands and fathers, the more heinous of the two
offenses. I presume that the Vicomte felt that
he had got into a dilemma from which no pistol-
shot or sword -thrust could free him, for he left
Paris abruptly, and has not since reappeared.
The sale of his stud and effects sufficed, I believe,
to pay his debts, for I will do him the justice to
say that they were paid.”

“But though the Vicomte de Mauleon has
disappeared, he must have left relations at Paris,
who would perhaps know what has become of
him and of his niece.”

“ I doubt it. He had no very near relations.
The nearest was an old celibataire of the same
name, from whom he had some expectations,
but who died shortly after this esclandre, and
did not name the Vicomte in his will. M. Vic-
tor had numerous connections among the highest
families — the Rochebriants, Chavignys, Vande-
mars, Beauvilliers. But they are not likely to
have retained any connection with a ruined vau-
rien, and still less with a niece of his who was
the child of a drawing-master. But now you
have given me a clew, I will try to follow it up.
We must find the Vicomte, and I am not with-
out hope of doing so. Pardon me if I decline to
say more at present. I would not raise false ex-
pectations. But in a week or two I will have
the honor to call again upon monsieur.”

“Wait one instant. You have really a hope
of discovering M. de Mauleon ?”

“Yes. I can not say more at present.”

M. Renard departed.

Still that hope, however faint it might prove,
served to reanimate Graham ; and with that hope
his heart, as if a load had been lifted from its
mainspring, returned instinctively to the thought
of Isaura. Whatever seemed to promise an early
discharge of the commission connected with the
discovery of Louise Duval seemed to bring Isaura
nearer to him, or at least to excuse his yearning
desire to see more of her — to understand her bet-
ter. Faded into thin air was the vague jealousy
of Gustave Rameau which he had so unreason-
ably conceived ; he felt as if it were impossible
that the man whom the “Ondine of Paris”
claimed as her lover could dare to woo or hope
to win an Isaura. He even forgot the friendship
with the eloquent denouncer of the marriage-
bond, which a little while ago had seemed to
him an unpardonable offense; he remembered
only the lovely face, so innocent, yet so intelli-
gent; only the sweet voice which had for the

THE PARISIANS.

first time breathed music into his own soul ; only
the gentle hand whose touch had for the first
time sent through his veins the thrill which dis-
tinguishes from all her sex the woman whom we
love. He went forth elated and joyous, and took
his way to Isaura’s villa. As he went, the leaves
on the trees under which he passed seemed stirred
by the soft May breeze in sympathy with his own
delight. Perhaps it was rather the reverse : his

own silent delight sympathized with all delight
in awakening nature. The lover seeking recon-
ciliation with the loved one from whom some
trifle has unreasonably estranged him, in a cloud-
less day of May — if he he not happy enough to
teel a brotherhood in all things happy — a leaf
in bloom, a bird in song — then, indeed, he may
call himself lover, but he does not know what is
love.

BOOK FOUKTH.

CHAPTER I.,

FROM IS AURA CICOGNA TO MADAME DE GRANT-
MBSNIL.

“ It is many days since I wrote to you, and hut
for your delightful note just received, reproach-
ing me for silence, I should still be under the
spell of that awe which certain words of M. Sa-
varin were well fitted to produce. Chancing to
ask him if he had written to you lately, he said,
with that laugh of his, good-humoredly ironical,
‘No, mademoiselle, I am not one of the Facheux
whom Moliere has immortalized. If the meet-
ing of lovers should be sacred from the intrusion
of a third person, however amiable, more sacred
still should be the parting between an author and
his work. Madame de Grantmesnil is in that
moment so solemn to a genius earnest as hers —
she is bidding farewell to a companion with whom,
once dismissed into the world, she can never con-
verse familiarly again ; it ceases to be her com-
panion when it becomes ours. Do not let us
disturb the last hours they will pass together.’

“These words struck me much. I suppose there
is truth in them. I can comprehend that a work
which has long been all in all to its author, con-
centrating his thoughts, gathering round it the
hopes and fears of his inmost heart, dies, as it
were, to him when he has completed its life for
others, and launched it into a world estranged
from the solitude in which it was born and form-
ed. I can almost conceive that, to a writer like
you, the very fame which attends the work thus
sent forth chills your own love for it. The char-
acters you created in a fairy-land, known but to
yourself, must lose something of their mysterious
charm when you hear them discussed and caviled
at, blamed or praised, as if they were really the
creatures of streets and salons.

“I -wonder if hostile criticism pains or enrages
you as it seems to do such other authors as I have
known. M, Savarin, for instance, sets down in
his tablets as an enemy to whom vengeance is
due the smallest scribbler who wounds his self-
love, and says, frankly, ‘To me praise is food,
dispraise is poison. Him who feeds me I pay ;
him Avho poisons me I break on the wheel.’ M.
Savarin is, indeed, a skillful and energetic admin-
istrator to his own reputation. He deals with it
as if it were a kingdom — establishes fortifications
for its defense — enlists soldiers to fight for it.
He is the soul and centre of a confederation in
which each is bound to defend the territory of the
othei’s, and all those territories united constitute
the imperial realm of M. Savarin. Don’t think
me an ungracious satirist in what I am thus say-

ing of our brilliant friend. It is not I who here
speak ; it is himself. He avows his policy with
the naivete Avhich makes the charm of his style
as Avriter. ‘It is the greatest mistake,’ he said
to me yesterday, ‘ to talk of the Republic of Let-
ters. Every author Avho Avins a name is a sover-
eign in his OAvn domain, be it large or small.
Woe to any republican who Avants to dethrone
me !’ Somehow or other, when M. Savarin thus
talks I feel as if he Avere betraying the cause of
genius. I can not bring myself to regard liter-
ature as a craft — to me it is a sacred mission ;
and in hearing this ‘ sovereign’ boast of the tricks
by Avhich be maintains his state, I seem to listen
to a priest Avho treats as imposture the relig-
ion he professes to teach. M. Savarin’s faA'orite
deve now is a young contributor to his journal,
named Gustave Rameau. M. Savarin said the
other day in my hearing, ‘ I and my set Avere
Young France — GustaA'e Rameau and his set are
New Paris.'

“ ‘ And Avhat is the distinction between the one
and the other ?’ asked my American friend, Mrs.
Morley.

“ ‘ The set of “Young France,” ’ ansAvered M.
SaA'arin, ‘ had in it the hearty consciousness of
youth : it Avas bold and A^ehement, AAuth abundant
vitality and animalspirits ; AvhateA'er may be said
against it in other respects, the poAver of theAA’s
and sineAvs must be conceded to its chief repre-
sentatives. But the set of “ Noav Paris” has very
bad health, and very inditferent spirits. 8till, in
its way, it is very clever ; it can sting and bite as
keenly as if it were big and strong. Rameau is
the most promising member of the set. He Avill
be popular in his time, because he represents a
good deal of the mind of his time — viz., the mind
and the time of “Noav Paris.” ’

“Do youknoAv anything of this youngRameau’s
Avritings ? You do not know himself, for he told
me so, expressing a desire that Avas evidently very
sincere, to find some occasion on Avhich to ren-
der you his homage. He said this the first time
I met him at M. Savarin’s, and before he knew
hoAv dear to me are yourself and your fame. He
came and sat by me after dinner, and Avon my
interest at once by asking me if I had heard that
you Avere busied on a neAv Avork ; and then, Avith-
out Avaiting for myansAver, he launched forth into
praises of you, Avhich made a notable contrast to
the scorn Avith Avhich he spoke of all your contem-
poraries, except indeed M. Savarin, Avho, hoAvever,
might not have been pleased to hear his faAmrite
pupil style him ‘ a great Avriter in small things.’
I spare you his epigrams on Dumas and Victor
Hugo and my beloved Lamartine. Though his

THE PARISrAXS.

talk was showy, and dazzled me at first, I soon
got rather tired of it — even the first time we met.
Since then I have seen him very often, not only
at M. Savarin’s, but he calls here at least every
other day, and we have become quite good
friends. He gains on acquaintance so far, that
one can not help feeling how much he is to be
pitied. He is so envious ! and the envious must
be so unhappy. And then he is at once so near
and so far from all the things that he envies.
He longs for riches and luxury, and can only
as yet earn a bare competence by his labors.
Therefore he hates the rich and luxurious. His
literary successes, instead of pleasing him, render
him miserable by their contrast with the fame of
the authors whom he envies and assails. He has
a beautiful head, of which he is conscious, but it
is joined to a body without strength or grace.
He is conscious of this too : but it is cruel to go
on with this sketch. You can see at once the
kind of person who, whether he inspire afiection
or dislike, can not fail to create an interest — pain-
ful but compassionate.

“You will be pleased to hear that Dr, C

considers my health so improved that I may next
year enter fairly on the profession for which I
was intended and trained. Yet I still feel hesi-
tating and doubtful. To give myself wholly up
to the art in which I am told I could excel, must
alienate me entirely from the ambition that yearns
for fields in which, alas! it may perhaps never
appropriate to itself a rood for culture — only wan-
der, lost in a vague fairy-land, to which it has not
the fairy’s birthright. Oh, thou great Enchant-
ress, to whom are equally subject the streets of
Paris and the realm of Faerie — thou who hast
sounded to the deeps that circumfluent ocean
called ‘practical human life,’ and hast taught
the acutest of its navigators to consider how far
its courses are guided by orbs in heaven — canst
thou solve this riddle which, if it perplexes me,
must perplex so many? What is the real dis-
tinction between the rare genius and the com-
monalty of human souls that feel to the quick
all the grandest and divinest things which the
rare genius places before them, sighing within
themselves — ‘This rare genius does but express
that which was previously familiar to us, so far
as thought and sentiment extend.’ Nay, the
genius itself, however eloquent, never does, nev-
er can, express the whole of the thought or the
sentiment it interprets : on the contrary, the
greater the genius is, the more it leaves a some-
thing of incomplete satisfaction on our minds —
it promises so much more than it performs — it
implies so much more than it announces. I am
impressed with the truth of what I thus say in
proportion as I reperuse and restudy the greatest
writers that have come within my narrow range
of reading. And by the greatest writers I mean
those who are not exclusively reasoners (of such
I can not judge), nor mere poets (of whom, so
far as concerns the union of words with music,
I ought to be able to judge), but the few who
unite reason and poetry, and appeal at once to
the common-sense of the multitude and the im-
agination of the few. The highest type of this
union to me is Shakspeare; and I can compre-
hend the justice of no criticism on him which
does not allow this sense of incomplete satisfac-
tion, augmenting in proportion as the poet soars
to his highest. I ask again. In what consists

this distinction between the rare genius and the
commonalty of minds that exclaim, ‘ He ex-
presses what we feel, but never the whole of
what we feel!’ Is it the mere power over lan-
guage, a larger knowledge of dictionaries, a finer
ear for period and cadence, a more artistic craft
in casing our thoughts and sentiments in well-
selected words? Is it true what Bufibn says,
‘that the style is the man?’ Is it true what I
am told Goethe said, ‘ Poetry is form ?’ I can
not believe this ; and if you tell me it is true,
then I no longer pine to be a writer. But if it
be not true, explain to me how it is that the
greatest genius is popular in proportion as it
makes itself akin to us by uttering in better
words than w'e employ that which w'as already
within us, brings to light what in our souls was
latent, and does but correct, beautify, and pub-
lish the correspondence which an ordinary read-
er carries on privately every day, between himself
and his mind or his heart. If this superiority
in the genius be but style and form, I abandon
mj dream of being something else than a singer
of words by another to the music of another.
But then, what then ? My knowdedge of books
and art is wonderfully small. What little I do
know I gather from very few books, and from
what I hear said by the few worth listening to
w'hom I happen to meet ; and out of these, in
solitude and reverie, not by conscious effort, I
arrive at some results which appear to my inex-
perience original. Perhaps, indeed, they have
the same kind of originality as the musical com-
positions of amateurs who effect a cantata or a
quartette made up of borrowed details from great
masters, and constituting a whole so original that
no real master would deign to own it. Oh, if I
could get you to understand how unsettled, how
struggling, my whole nature at this moment is !
I wonder what is the sensation of the chrysalis
which has been a silk-worm, when it first feels
the new wings stirring within its shell — wings,
alas! that are but those of the humblest and
shortest-lived sort of moth, scarcely born into day-
light before it dies. Could it reason, it might
regret its earlier life, and say, ‘Better be the
silk-worm than the moth.’ ”

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

“Have you known well any English people
in the course of your life? I say well, for you
must have had acquaintance with many. But
it seems to me so difficult to know an English-
man well. Even I, who so loved and revered
Mr. Selby — I, whose childhood was admitted
into his companionship by that love which places
ignorance and knowledge, infancy and age, upon
ground so equal that heart touches heart — can
not say that I understand the English character
to any thing like the extent to which I fancy I
understand the Italian and the French. Be-
tween us of the Continent and them of the isl-
and the British Channel ahvays flows. There
is an Englishman here to whom I have been in-
troduced, whom I have met, though but seldom,
in that society which bounds th*e Paris world to
me. Pray, pray tell me, did you ever know, ever
meet him ? His name is Graham Vane. He is ;
the only son, I am told, of a man who was a c^-
! lebrite in England as an orator and 'statesman,*^

1 and on both sides he belongs to the haute am-5

THE PARISIANS.

tocratie. He himself has that indescribable air !
and mien to which we apply the epithet ‘ distin-
guished.’ In the most crowded salon the eye
would fix on liim, and involuntarily follow his
movements. Yet his manners are frank and
simple, w'holly without the stiffness or reserve
which are said to characterize the English.
There is an inborn dignity in his bearing which
consists in the absence of all dignity assumed.
But what strikes me most in this Englishman is
an expression of countenance which the English
depict by the word ‘ open’ — that expression which
inspires you with a belief in the existence of sin-
cerity. Mrs. Morley said of him, in that poetic
extravagance of phrase by which the Americans
startle the English, ‘ That man’s forehead would
light up the Mammoth Cave. ’ Do you not know,
Eulalie, what it is to us cultivators of art — art
being the expression of truth through fiction — to
come into the atmosphere of one of those souls
in which Truth stands out bold and beautiful in
itself, and needs no idealization through fiction ?
Oh, how near we should be to heaven, could we
live daily, hourly, in the presence of one the hon-
esty of whose word we could never doubt, the
authority of whose word we could never disobey !
Mr. Vane professes not to understand music —
not even to care for it, except rarely — and yet
he spoke of its influence over others with an en-
thusiasm that half charmed me once more back
to my destined calling — nay, might have chann-
ed me wholly, but that he seemed to think that
I — that any public singer — must be a creature
apart from the world — the world in which such
men live. Perhaps that is true.”

CHAPTER II.

It was one of those lovely noons toward the
end of May in which a rural suburb has the mel-
low charm of summer to him who escapes a while
from the streets of a crowded capital. The Lon-
doner knows its charm when he feels his tread on
the softening swards of the Vale of Health, or,
pausing at Richmond under the budding willow,
gazes on the river glittering in the warmer sun-
light, and hears from the villa gardens behind
him the brief trill of the blackbird. But the
suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet more
pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are
more easily reached, and I know not why, but
they seem more rural, perhaps because the con-
trast of their repose with the stir left behind — of
their redundance of leaf and blossom, compared
with the prim efflorescence of trees in the Boule-
vards and Tuileries — is more striking. Howev-
er that may be, when Graham reached the pret-
ty suburb in which Isaura dwelt, it seemed to
him as if all the wheels of the loud busy life were
suddenly smitten still. The hour was yet early ;
he felt sure that he should find Isaura at home.
The garden gate stood unfastened and ajar ; he
pushed it aside and entered. I think I have be-
fore said that the garden of the villa was shut
out from the road, and the gaze of neighbors, by
a wall and thick belts of evergreens ; it stretched
behind the house somewhat far for the garden of
a suburban villa. He paused when he had passed
the gateway, for he heard in the distance the voice
of one singing — singing low, singing plaintively.

He knew it was the voice of Isaura ; he passed
on, leaving the house behind him, and tracking
the voice till he reached the singer.

Isaura was seated within an arbor toward the
farther end of the garden — an arbor which, a lit-
tle later in the year, must indeed be delicate and
dainty with lush exuberance of jasmine and
woodbine ; now into its iron trellis-work leaflet
and flowers were insinuating their gentle way.
Just at the entrance one white rose — a winter
rose that had mysteriously survived its relations
— opened its pale hues frankly to the noonday
sun. Graham approached slowly, noiselessly,
and the last note of the song had ceased when
he stood at the entrance of the arbor. Isaura
did not perceive him at first, for her face was
bent downward musingly, as was often her wont
after singing, especially when alone. But she
felt that the place was darkened, that something
stood between her and the sunshine. She raised
her face, and a quick flush mantled over it as she
uttered his name, not loudly, not as in surprise,
but inwardly and whisperingly, as in a sort of fear.

“Pardon me, mademoiselle,” said Graham,
entering; “but I heard your voice as I came
into the garden, and it drew me onward involun-
tarily. What a lovely air ! and what simple
sweetness in such of the words as reached me !
I am so ignorant of music that you must not
laugh at me if I ask whose is the music and
whose are the words ? Probably both are so
well known as to convict me of a barbarous igno-
rance.”

“Oh no,” said Isaura, with a still heightened
color, and in accents embarrassed and hesitating.
“ Both the words and music are by an unknown
and very humble composer, yet not, indeed, quite
original ; they have not even that merit — at least
they were suggested by a popular song in the
Neapolitan dialect which is said to be very old.”

“ I don’t know if I caught the true meaning
of the words, for they seemed to me to convey a
more subtle and refined sentiment than is com-
mon in the popular songs of Southern Italy.”

“ The sentiment in the original is changed in
the paraphrase, and not, I fear, improved by the
change.”

“Will you explain to me the sentiment in
both, and let me judge which I prefer ?”

“In the Neapolitan song a young fisherman,
who has moored his boat under a rock on the
shore, sees a beautiful face below the surface of
the waters ; he imagines it to be that of a Nereid,
and casts in his net to catch this supposed nymph
of the ocean. He only disturbs the w^ater, loses
the image, and brings up a few common fishes.
He returns home disappointed, and very much
enamored of the supposed Nereid. The next
day he goes again to the same place, and discov-
ers that the face which had so charmed him was
that of a mortal girl reflected on the waters from
the rock behind him, on which she had been
seated, and on wfflich she had her liome. The
original air is arch and lively; just listen to it.”
And Isaura w'arbled one of those artless and
somewhat meagre tunes to which light-stringed
instruments are the fitting accompaniment.

“That,” said Graham, “is a different music
indeed from the other, which is deep and plaint-
ive, and goes to the heart.”

“ But do you not see how the words have been
altered ? In the song you first heard me singing.

THE PARISIANS.

the fisherman goes again to the spot, again and
again sees the face in the water, again and again
seeks to capture the Nereid, and never knows to
the last that the face was that of the mortal on
the rock close behind him, and which he passed
by without notice every day. Deluded by an
ideal image, the real one escapes from his eye.”

“Is the verse that is recast meant to symbol-
ize a moral in love ?”

“In love ? nay, I know not ; but in life, yes —
at least the life of the artist.”

“ The paraphrase of the original is yours, sign-
orina — Avords and music both. Am I not right ?
Your silence ansAvers, ‘Yes.’ Will you pardon
me if I say that, though there can be no doubt
of the new beauty you haA^e given to the old
song, I think that the moral of the old Avas the
sounder one, the truer to human life. We do not
go on to the last duped by an illusion. If enam-
ored by the shadow on the Avaters, still Ave do
look around us and discover the image it reflects.”

Isaura shook her head gently, but made no an-
swer. On the table before her there Avere a feAV
myrtle sprigs and one or two buds from the last
Avinter rose, Avhich she had been arranging into a
simple nosegay ; she took up these, and abstract-
edly began to pluck and scatter the rose leaves.

“ Despise the coming May-floAvers if youAvill,
they Avill soon be so plentiful,” said Graham;
“ but do not cast aAvay the feAV blossoms Avhich
Avinter has so kindly spared, and Avhich even
summer Avill not giA^e again and, placing his
hand on the Avinter buds, it touched hers — light-
ly, indeed, but she felt the touch, shrank from it,
colored, and rose from her seat.

“The sun has left this side of the garden, the
east Avind is rising, and you must find it chilly
here,” she said, in an altered tone; “ Avill you
not come into the house?”

“It is not the air that I feel chilly,” said Gra-
ham, Avith a half smile ; “I almost fear that my
prosaic admonitions have displeased you.”

“They Avere not prosaic ; and they Avere kind
and very Avise,” she added, Avith her exquisite
laugh — laugh so Avonderfully SAveet and musical.
She noAv had gained the entrance of the arbor ;
Graham joined her, and they Avalked tOAvard the
house. He asked her if she had seen much of
the SaA-arins since they had met.

“Once or tAvice Ave have been there of an
eA'ening.”

“And encountered, no doubt, the illustrious
young minstrel Avho despises Tasso and Cor-
neille ?”

“M. Rameau ? Oh yes ; he is constantly at
the Savarins’. Do not be severe on him. He
is unhappy — he is struggling — he is soured. An
artist has thonis in his path Avhich lookers-on do
not heed.”

“All people haA'e thorns in their path, and I
have no great respect for those Avho Avant look-
ers-on to heed them Avhenever they are scratched.
But M. Rameau seems to me one of those Avriters
very common noAvadays, in France and CA-en in
England ; Avriters Avho have never read any thing
Avorth studying, and are, of course, presumptu-
ous in proportion to their ignorance. I should
not have thought an artist like yourself could
have recognized an artist in a M. Rameau Avho
despises Tasso AA’ithout knoAving Italian.”

Graham spoke bitterly ; he Avas once more
jealous.

“Are you not an artist yourself? Are you
not a writer ? M. SaA'arin told me you Avere a
distinguished man of letters.”

“ M. Savarin flatters me too much. I am not
an artist, and I have a great dislike to that word
as it is now hackneyed and vulgarized in England
and in France. A cook calls himself an artist;
a tailor does the same ; a man Avrites a gaudy
melodrame, a spasmodic song, a sensational nov’-
el, and straightway he calls himself an artist, and
indulges in a pedantic jargon about ‘essence’ and
‘form,’ assuring us that a poet Ave can under-
stand Avants essence, and a poet Ave can scan
Avants form. Thank Heaven, I am not vain
enough to call myself artist. I have Avritten
some very dry lucubiations in periodicals, chiefly
political, or critical upon other subjects than art.
But Avhy, a propos of M. Rameau, did you ask
me that question respecting myself?”

“Because much in your conversation,” ansAver-
ed Isaura, in rather a mournful tone, “ made me
suppose you had more sympathies Avith art and
its cultivators than you cared to aA’ow. And if
you had such sympathies, you Avould comprehend
Avhat a relief it is to a poor aspirant to art like
myself to come into communication Avith those
Avho devote themselves to any art distinct from
the common piirsuits of the vA^orld ; what a relief
it is to escape from the ordinary talk of society.
There is a sort of instinctive freemasonry among
us, including masters and disciples, and one art
has a felloAvship Avith other arts ; mine is but
song and music, yet I feel attracted toward a
sculptor, a painter, a romance-Avriter, a poet, as
much as toAvard a singer, a musician. Do you
understand Avhy I can not contemn M. Rameau
as you do ? I ditfer from his tastes in literature ;

I do not much admire such of his writings as I
have read ; I grant that he ov’erestimates his own
genius, whatever that be — yet I like to conA^erse
with him : he is a straggler upAvard, though Avith
Aveak Avings, or Avith erring footsteps, like myself.”

“Mademoiselle,” said Graham, earnesthq “I
can not say hoAV I thank you for this candor.
Do not condemn me for abusing it — if — ” He
paused.

“If Avhat?”

“If I, so much older than yourself — I do not
say only in years, but in the experience of life —
I, Avhose lot is cast among those busy and ‘ posi-
tiA'e’ pursuits, which necessarily quicken that un-
romantic faculty called common sense — if, I say,
the deep interest Avith Avhich you must inspire all
whom you admit into an acquaintance, even as
unfamiliar as that noAv between us, makes me
utter one caution, such as might be uttered by a
friend or brother. BeAvare of those artistic sym-
pathies Avhich you so touchingly confess ; bcAvare
how, in the great events of life, you alloAV fancy
to misguide your reason. In choosing friends on
Avhom to rely, separate the artist from the human
being. Judge of the human being for Avhat it is
in itself. Do not worship the face on the Avaters,
blind to the image on the rock. In one word,
never see in an artist like a M. Rameau the hu-
man being to Avhom you could intrust the des-
tinies of your life. Pardon me, pardon me ; we
may meet little hereafter, but you are a creature
so utterly neAV to me, so wholly unlike any wom-
an I have ever before encountered and admired,
and to me seem endoAved Avirh such Avealth of
mind and soul, exposed to such hazard, that —

THE PARISIANS.

that — ” Again he paused, and his voice trem-
bled as he concluded — “that it would be a deep
sorrow to me if, perhaps years hence, I should
have to say, ‘Alas! by what mistake has that
wealth been wasted ! ’ ”

While they had thus conversed, mechanically
they had turned away from the house, and were
again standing before the arbor.

Graham, absorbed in the passion of his adjura-
tion, had not till now looked into the face of the
companion by his side. Now, when he had con-
cluded, and heard no reply, he bent down and
saw that Isaura was weeping silently.

His heart smote him.

“Forgive me,” he exclaimed, drawing her
hand into his ; “ I have had no right to talk
thus ; but it was not from want of respect ; it
was — it was — ”

The hand which was yielded to his pressed it
gently, timidly, chastely.

“Forgive!” murmured Isaura; “ do you think
that I, an orphan, have never longed for a friend
who would speak to me thus ?” And so saying,
she lifted her eyes, streaming still, to his bended
countenance — eyes, despite their tears, so clear
in their innocent limpid beauty, so ingenuous, so
frank, so virgin-like, so unlike the eyes of “any
other woman he had encountered and admired.”

“Alas!” he said, in quick and hurried accents,
“ you maj'^ remember, when we have before con-
versed, how I, though so uncultured in your art,
still recognized its beautiful influence upon human
breasts ; how I sought to combat your own de-
preciation of its rank among the elevating agen-
cies of humanity ; how, too, I said that no man
could venture to ask you to renounce the boards,
the lamps — resign the fame of actress, of singer.
Well, now that you accord to me the title of
friend, now that you so touchingly remind me
that you are an orphan — thinking of all the perils
the young and the beautiful of your sex must en-
counter when they abandon private life for pub-
lic— I think that a true friend might put the ques-
tion, ‘ Can you resign the fame of actress, of
singer ?’ ”

“I will answer you frankly. The profession
w'hich once seemed to me so alluring began to
lose its charms in my eyes some months ago. It
was your words, very eloquently expressed, on
the ennobling eftects of music and song upon a
popular audience, that counteracted the growing
distaste to rendering up my whole life to the vo-
cation of the stage. But now I think I should
feel grateful to the friend whose advice interpret-
ed the voice of my own heart, and bade me re-
linquish the career of actress.”

Graham’s face grew radiant. But whatever
might have been his reply, it was arrested ; voices
and footsteps were heard behind. He turned
round and saw the Venosta, the Savarins, and
Gustave Rameau.

Isaura heard and saw also, started in a sort of
alarmed confusion, and then instinctively retreat-
ed toward the arbor.

Graham hurried on to meet the signora and
the visitors, giving time to Isaura to compose
herself by arresting them in the pathway with
conventional salutations.

A few minutes later Isaura joined them, and
there was talk to which Graham scarcely listened,
though he shared in it by abstracted monosylla-
bles. He declined going into the house, and took

leave at the gate. In parting, his eyes fixed them-
selves on Isaura. Gustave Rameau was by her
side. That nosegay'wbich had been left in the ar-
bor was in her hand ; and though she was bend-
ing over it, she did not now pluck and scatter the
rose leaves. Graham at that moment felt no Jeal-
ousy of the fair-faced young poet beside her.

As he walked slowly back, he muttered to him-
self, “But am I yet in the position to hold my-
self wholly free ? Am I, am I ? Were the sole
choice before me that between her and ambition
and wealth, how soon it would be made! Am-
bition has no prize equal to the heart of such a
woman ; wealth no sources of joy equal to the
treasures of her love.”

CHAPTER III.

FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MADAME DE GRANT-
ME8NIL.

“The day after I posted my last, Mr. Vane
called on us. I was in our little garden at the
time. Our conversation was brief, and soon in-
terrupted by visitors — the Savarins and M. Ra-
meau. I long for your answer. I wonder how
he impressed you, if you have met him ; how he
would impress, if you met him now. To me he
is so different from all others ; and I scarcely
know why his vvords ring in my ears, and his
image rests in my thoughts. It is strange alto-
gether ; for though he is young, he speaks to rne
as if he were so much older than I — so kindly,
so tenderly, yet as if I were a child, and niuch
as the dear Maestro might do if he thought I
needed caution or counsel. Do not fancy, Eula-
lie, that there is any danger of my deceiving my-
self as to the nature of such interest as he may
take in me. Oh no ! There is a gulf between
us there which he does not lose sight of, and
which we could not pass. How, indeed, I could
interest him at all I can not guess. A rich,
high-born Englishman, intent on political life;
practical, prosaic — no, not prosaic ; but still with
the kind of sense which does not admit into its
range of vision that world of dreams which is
familiar as their daily home to Romance and to
Art. It has always seemed to me that for love,
love such as I conceive it, there must be a deep
and constant sympathy between two persons —
not, indeed, in the usual and ordinary tiifles of
taste and sentiment, but in those e.ssentials which
form the root of character, and branch out in all
the leaves and blooms that expand to the sun-
shine and shrink from the cold — that the world-
ling should wed the worldling, the artist the art-
ist. Can the realist and the idealist blend to-
gether, and hold together till death and beyond
death ? If not, can there be true love between
them ? By true love I mean the love which in-
terpenetrates the soul, and once given, can never
die. Oh, Eulalie — answer me — answer !

“P.S. — I have now fully made up my mind
to renounce all though^of the stage,”

FROM MADAME DE GRANTMESNIL TO ISAURA
CICOGNA.

“My dear Child, — How your mind has
grown since you left me, the sanguine and aspiring
votary of an art which, of all arts, brings the most

THE PAEISIANS.

iinmediate reward to a successful cultivator, and
is in itself so divine in its immediate effects upon
human souls! Who shall say what may be the
after-results of those effects which the waiters on
])Osterity presume to despise because they are im-
mediate ? A dull man, to whose mind a ray of
that vague starlight undetected in the atmosphere
of work-day life has never yet traveled ; to whom
the philosopher, the preacher, the poet appeal in
vain — nay, to whom the conceptions of the grand-
est master of instrumental music are incompre-
hensible ; to whom Beethoven unlocks no portal
in heaven ; to whom Rossini has no mysteries on
earth unsolved by the critics of the pit — sudden-
ly hears the human voice of the human singer,
and at the sound of that voice the walls which
inclosed him fall. The something far from and
beyond the routine of his commonplace existence
becomes known to him. He of himself, poor
man, can make nothing of it. He can not put
it down on paper, and say the next morning, ‘I
am an inch nearer to heaven than I was last
night;’ but the feeling that he is an inch nearer
to heaven abides with him. Unconsciously he
is gentler, he is less earthly, and, in being nearer
to heaven, he is stronger for earth. You singers
do not seem to me to understand that you have
— to use your own word, so much in vogue that it
has become abused and trite — a mission ! When
you talk of missions, from whom comes the mis-
sion ? Not from men. If there be a mission
from man to men, it must be appointed from on
high.

“Think of all this; and in being faithful to
your art, be true to yourself. If you feel divided
between that art and the art of the writer, and
acknowledge the first to be too exacting to admit
a rival, keep to that in which you are sure to ex-
cel. Alas, my fair child ! do not imagine that
we writers feel a happiness in our pursuits and
aims more complete than that which you can
command. If we care for fame (and, to be frank,
we all do), that fame does not come before us
face to face — a real, visible, palpable form, as it
does to the singer, to the actress. I grant that
it may be more enduring, but an endurance on
the length of which we dare not reckon. A
writer can not be sure of immortality till his lan-
guage itself be dead ; and then he has but a share
in an uncertain lottery. Nothing but fragments
remains of the Phrynichus, who rivaled ^schy-
lus ; of the Agathon, who perhaps excelled Eurip-
ides ; of the Alcteus, in whom Horace acknowl-
edged a master and a model ; their renown is not
in their works, it is but in their names. And,
after all, the names of singers and actors last,
perhaps, as long. Greece retains the name of
Pol us, Rome of Roscius, England of Garrick,
France of Talma, Italy of Pasta, more lastingly
than posterity is likely to retain mine. You ad-
dress to me a question, which I have often put
to myself — ‘What is the distinction between the
writer and the reader, when the reader says,
“ These are my thoughts, these are my feelings ;
the writer has stolen them, and clothed them in
his own words?”’ And the more the reader
says this, the more wide is the audience, the
more genuine the renown, and, paradox though
it seems, the more consummate the originality of
the writer. But no, it is not the mere gift of ex-
pression, it is not the mere craft of the pen, it is
not the mere taste in arrangement of word and

cadence, which thus enables the one to interpret
the mind, the heart, the soul of the many. It is
a power breathed into him as he lay in his cradle,
and a power that gathered around itself, as he
grew up, all the influences he acquired, whether
from observation of external nature, or from
study of men and books, or from that experience
of daily life which varies with every human be-
ing. No education could make two intellects
exactly alike, as no culture can make two leaves
exactly alike. How truly you describe the sense
of dissatisfaction which every writer of superior
genius communicates to his admirers! how truly
do you feel that the greater is the dissatisfaction
in proportion to the writer’s genius, and the ad-
mirer’s conception of it! But that is the mys-
tery which makes — let me borrow a German
phrase — the cloud-land between the finite and the
infinite. The greatest philosopher, intent on the
secrets of Nature, feels that dissatisfaction in Na-
ture herself. The finite can not reduce into logic
and criticism the infinite.

“Let us dismiss these matters, which perplex
the reason, and approach that which touches the
heart — which in your case, my child, touches the
heart of woman. You speak of love, and deem
that the love which lasts — the household, the
conjugal love — should be based upon such sym-
pathies of pursuit that the artist should wed with
the artist.

“This is one of the questions you do well to
address to me; for whether from my own experi-
ence, or from that which I have gained from ob-
servation extended over a wide range of life, and
quickened and intensified by the class of writing
that I cultivate, and which necessitates a calm
study of the passions, I am an authority on such
subjects, better than most women can be. And
alas ! my child, I come to this result : there is no
prescribing to men or to women whom to select,
whom to refuse. I can not refute the axiom of
the ancient poet, ‘ In love there is no wherefore. ’
But there is a time — it is often but a moment of
time — in which love is not yet a master, in which
we can say, ‘I will love — I will not love.’

“Now, if I could find you in such a moment, I
would say to you, ‘Artist, do not love — do not
marry — an artist.’ Two artistic natures rarely
combine. The artistic nature is wonderfully ex-
acting. I fear it is supremely egotistical — so
jealously sensitive that it wjithes at the touch of
a rival. Racine was the happiest of husbands ;
his wife adored his genius, b>it could not under-
stand his plays. Would Racine have been happy
if he had married a Corneille in petticoats? I
who speak have loved an artist, certainly equ; 1
to myself. I am sure that he loved me. That
sympathy in pursuits of which you speak drew us
together, and became very soon the cause of an-
tipathy. To both of us the endeavor to coalesce
was misery.

“I don’t know your M. Rameau. Savarin has
sent me some of his writings ; from these I judge
that his only chance of happiness would be to
marry a commonplace woman, with separation
de biens. He is, believe me, but one of the many
with whom New Baris abounds, who, because
they have the infirmities of genius, imagine they
have its strength.

“ I come next to the Englishman. I see how ,
serious is your questioning about him. You not
only regard him as a being distinct from the

THE PARISIANS.

crowd of a salon ; he stands equally apart in the
chamber of your thoughts — you do not mention
liim in the same letter as that which treats of
Rameau and Savarin. He has become already
an image not to he lightly mixed up with others.
You would rather not have mentioned him at all
to me, but you could not resist it. The interest
you feel in him so perplexed you that in a kind
of feveiish impatience you cry out to me, ‘ Can
you solve the riddle ? Did you ever know well
Englishmen ? Can an Englishman be under-
stood out of his island ?’ etc., etc. Yes, I have
known well many Englishmen. In allairs of the
heart they are much like all other men. No; I
do not know this Englishman in particular, nor
any one of his name.

“Well, my child, let us frankly grant that this
foreigner has gained some hold on your thoughts,
on your fancy, perhaps also on your heart. Do
not fear that he will love you less enduringly, or
that you will become alienated from him, because
he is not an artist. If he be a stx'ong nature, and
with some great purpose in life, your ambition
w'ill fuse itself in his ; and knowing you as I do,
I believe you would make an excellent wife to an
Englishman whom you honored as well as loved ;
and sorry though I should be that you relinquish-
ed the singer’s fame, I should be consoled in
thinking you safe in the woman’s best sphere — a
contented home, safe from calumny, safe from
gossip. I never had that home ; and there has
been no part in my author’s life in which I would
not have given all the celebrity it won for the
obscure commonplace of such woman lot. Could
I move human beings as pawns on a chess-board,
I should indeed say that the most suitable and
congenial mate for you, for a woman of sentiment
and genius, would be a well-born and well-edu-
cated German ; for such a German unites, with
domestic habits and a strong sense of family ties,
a romance of sentiment, a love of art, a predispo-
sition toward the poetic side of life, which is very
rare among Englishmen of the same class. But
as the German is not forth-coming, I give my
vote for the Englishman, provided only you love
him. Ah, child, be sure of that. Do not mis-
take fancy for love. All women do not require
love in marriage, but without it that w’hich is best
and highest in you would wither and die. Write
to me often and tell me all. M. Savarin is right.
My book is no longer my companion. It is gone
from me, and I am once more alone in tlie world.
— Youi’s affectionately.

“P.S. — Is not your postscript a w’oman’s?
Does it not require a woman’s postscript in reply ?
You say in yours that you have fully made up
your mind to renounce all thoughts of the stage.
1 ask in mine, ‘What has the Englishman to do
with that determination ?’ ”

CHAPTER IV. •

Some weeks have passed since Graham’s talk
with Isaura in tlie garden ; he has not visited the
villa since. His cousins the D’Altons have pass-
ed through Paris on their way to Italy, meaning
to stay a few days ; they staid nearly a month,
and monopolized much of Graham's companion-
ship. Both these w'ere reasons why, in the ha-
bitual society of the Duke, Graham’s persuasion

that he was not yet free to court the hand of
Isaura became strengthened, and with that persua-
sion necessarily came a question equally address-
ed to his conscience: “If not yet free to court
her hand, am I free to expose myself to the temp-
tation of seeking to win her affection ?” But
when his cousin was gone, his heart began to as-
sert its own rights, to argue its own case, and
suggest modes of reconciling its dictates to the
obligations which seemed to oppose them. In
this hesitating state of mind he received the fol-
lowing note :

“Villa. , Lao d’Enguif.n.

“Mv DEAR Mr. Vane,— We have retreated
from Paris to the banks of this beautiful little
lake. Come and help to save Prank and myself
from quarreling with each other, which, until the
Rights of Women are firmly established, married
folks always will do when left to themselves, es-
pecially if they are still lovers, as Prank and I
are. Love is a terribly quarrelsome thing. Make
us a present of a few days out of your wealth of
time. We will visit Montmorency and the haunts
of Rosseau — sail on the lake at moonlight — dine
at gypsy restaurants under trees not yet embrown-
ed by summer heats — discuss literature and poli-
tics— ‘ Shakspeare and the musical glasses’ —
and be as sociable and pleasant as Boccaccio’s
tale-tellers at Piesole. We shall be but a small
party, only the Savarins, that unconscious sage
and humorist Signora Venosta, and that dimple-
cheeked Isaura, who embodies the song of night-
ingales and the smile of summer. Refuse, and
Prank shall not have an easy moment till he sends
in his claims for thirty millions against the Ala-
bama. — Yours, as you behave,

“Lizzie IMorley.”

Graham did not refuse. He went to Enghien
for four days and a quarter. He was under the
same roof as Isaura. Oh, those happy days! —
so happy that they defy description. But though
to Graham the happiest days he had ever known,
they Avere happier still to Isaura. There Avere
drawbacks to his happiness, none to hers — draAv-
backs partly from reasons the Aveight of Avhich
the reader will estimate later ; partly from rea-
sons the reader may at once comprehend and as-
sess. In the sunshine of her joy, all the vi\id
colorings of Isaura’s artistic tempei'ainent came
forth, so that Avhat I may call the homely, domes-
tic Avoman side of her nature hided into shadoAV.
If, my dear reader, A\hether you be man or Avom-
an, you have come into familiar contact Avith
some creature of a genius to which, even assum-
ing that you yourself have a genius in its ow n
Avay, you have no special affinities — have you not
felt shy Avith that creature? HaA'e you not, per-
haps, felt how intensely you could love that creat-
ure, and doubted if that creature could possibly
loA-e you? Noav I think that shyness and that
disbelief are common Avith either man or Avoman,
if, hoAvever conscious of superiority in the prose
of life, he or she recognizes inferiority in the
poetiy of it. And yet this self-abasement is ex-
ceedingly mistaken. The poetical kind of genius
is so grandly indulgent, so inherently deferential,
boAvs Avith such unaffected modesty to the supe-
riority in Avhich it fears it may fail (yet seldom
does fail) — the supenority of common-sense. And
Avhen we come to Avomen, what marvelous truth
is conveyed by the Avoman aa’Iio has had no supe-

THE PARISIANS.

vior in intellectual gifts among her own sex!
Corinne, crowned at the Capitol, selects out of
the wliole world, as the hero of her love, no rival
poet and enthusiast, but a cold-blooded, sensible
Englishman.

Graham Vane, in his strong masculine form
of intellect — Graham Vane, from whom I hope
much, if he live to fulfill his rightful career — had,
not unreasonably, the desire to dominate the life
of the woman whom he selected as the partner
of his own. But the life of Isaura seemed to es-
cape him. If at moments, listening to her, he
would say to himself, “What a companion! —
life could never be dull with her” — at other mo-
ments he would say, “True, never dull, but would
it be always safe ?” And then comes in that mys-
terious power of love which crushes all beneath
its feet, and makes us end self- commune by that
abject submission of reason, which only murmurs,
“Better be unhappy with the one you love, than
happy with one whom you do not.” All such
self-communes were unknown to Isaura. She
lived in the bliss of the hour. If Graham could
have read her heart, he would have dismissed all
doubt whether he could dominate her life. Could
a Fate or an angel have said to her, “Choose
— on one side I promise you the glories of a Ca-
talini, a Pasta, a Sappho, a De Stael, a George
Sand — all combined into one immortal name ;
or, on the other side, the whole heart of the man
who would estrange himself from you if you had
such combination of glories” — her answer would
have brought Graham Vane to her feet ; all scru-
ples, all doubts would have vanished ; he would
have exclaimed, with the generosity inherent in
the higher order of man, “Be glorious, if your
nature wills it so. Glory enough to me that you
would have resigned glory itself to become mine.”
But how is it that men worth a woman’s loving
become so diffident when they love intensely?
Even in ordinary cases of love there is so ineffa-
ble a delicacy in virgin woman, that a man, be
he how refined soever, feels himself rough and
rude and coarse in comparison. And while that
sort of delicacy was pre-eminent in this Italian
orphan, there came, to increase the humility of
the man so proud and so confident in himself when
lie had only men to deal with, the consciousness
that his intellectual nature was hard and positive
beside the angel-like purity and the fairy-like
play of hers.

There was a strong wish on the part of Mrs.
Morley to bring about the union of these two.
She had a great regard and a great admiration
for both. To her mind, unconscious of all Gra-
ham’s doubts and prejudices, they were exactly
suited to each other. A man of intellect so cul-
tivated as Graham’s, if married to a common-
place English “Miss,” would surely feel as if
life had no sunshine and no flowers. The love
of an Isaura would steep it in sunshine, pave it
with flowers. Mrs. Morley admitted — all Amer-
ican Republicans of gentle birth do admit — the
instincts which lead “ like” to match with “like”
an equality of blood and race. With all her as-
sertion of the Rights of Woman, I do not think
that Mrs. Morley would ever have conceived the
possibility of consenting that the richest, and
prettiest, and cleverest girl in the States could
become the wife of a son of hers if the girl had
the taint of negro blood, even though shown no-
where save the slight distinguishing hue of her

finger-nails. So, bad Isaura’s merits been three-
fold what they were, and she had been the wealthy
heiress of a retail grocer, this fair Republican
would have opposed (more strongly than many
an English duchess, or at least a Scotch duke,
would do, the wish of a son) the thought of an
alliance betAveen Graham Vane and the grocer’s
daughter! But Isaura was a Cicogna — an off-
spring of a very ancient and very noble house.
Disparities of fortune, or mere worldly position,
Mrs. Morley supremely despised. Here were
the great parities of alliance — parities in years
and good looks and mental culture. So, in
short, she, in the invitation given to them, had
planned for the union between Isaura and Gra-
ham.

To this plan she had an antagonist, whom she
did not even guess, in Madame Savarin. That
lady, as much attached to Isaura as was Mrs.
Morley herself, and still more desirous of seeing
a girl, brilliant and parentless, transferred from
the companionship of Signora Venosta to the
protection of a husband, entertained no belief in
the serious attentions of Graham Vane. Perhaps
she exaggerated his worldly advantages — perhaps
she undeiwalued the warmth of his affections;
but it was not within the range of her experience,
confined much to Parisian life, nor in harmony
with her notions of the frigidity and morgue of
the English national character, that a rich and
high-born young man, to whom a great career in
practical public life \vas predicted, should form
a matrimonial alliance with a foreign orphan girl
who, if of gentle birth, had no useful connections,
would bring no correspondent dot^ and had been
reared and intended for the profession of the
stage. She much more feared that the result of
any attentions on the part of such a man would
be rather calculated to compromise the oi’phan’s
name, or at least to mislead her expectations,
than to secure her the shelter of a wedded home.
Moreover, she had cherished plans of her own
for Isaura’s future. Madame Savarin had con-
ceived for Gustave Ihimeau a friendly regard,
stronger than that which Mrs. Morley entertain-
ed for Graham Vane, for it was more motherly.
Gustave had been familiarized to her sight and
her thoughts since he had first been launched
into the literary world under her husband’s au-
spices ; he had confided to her his mortification
in his failures, his joy in his successes. His
beautiful countenance, his delicate health, his
very infirmities and defects, had endeared him
to her womanly heart. Isaura was the wife of
all others who, in Madame Savarin’s opinion,
was made for Rameau. Her fortune, so trivial
beside the wealth of the Englishman, would be ,
a competence to Rameau ; then that competence !
might swell into vast riches if Isaura succeeded i
on tlie Stage. She found with extreme displeas- i
me that Isaura’s mind had become estranged !
from the profession to which she had been des-
tilled, and divined that a deference to the En-
glishman’s prejudices had something to do with j
that estrangement. It was not to be expected i
that a Frenchwoman, wife to a sprightly man of \
letters, who had intimate friends and allies in |
every department of the artistic world, should
cherish any prejudice whatever against the exer-
cise of an art in which success achieved riches
and renown. But she was prejudiced, as most
Frenchwomen are, against allowing to unmarried

THE PARISIANS.

f2irls the same freedom and independence of ac-
tion that are the rights of women — French wom-
en— when married. And she would have disap-
proved the entrance of Isaura on her professional
career until she could enter it as a wife — the
wife of an artist — the wife of Gustave Rameau.

Unaware of the rivalry between these friendlv’’
diplomatists and schemers, Graham and Isaura
glided hourly more and more down the current,
which as yet ran smooth. No words by which
love is spoken were exchanged between them;
in fact, though constantly together, they were
very rarely, and then but for moments, alone
with each other. Mrs. Morley artfully schemed
more than once to give them such opportunities
for that mutual explanation of heart which, she
saw, had not yet taken place ; with art more
practiced and more watchful, Madame Savarin
contrived to baffle her hostess’s intention. But,
indeed, neither Graham nor Isaura sought to
make opportunities for themselves. He, as we
know, did not deem himself wholly justified in
uttering the words of love by which a man of
honor binds himself for life; and she! — what
girl, pure-hearted and loving truly, does not
shrink from seeking the opportunities which it
is for the man to court ? Yet Isaura needed no
words to tell her that she was loved — no, nor
even a pressure of the hand, a glance of the eye ;
site felt it instinctively, mysteriously, by the glow
of her own being in the presence of her lover.
She knew that she herself could not so love un-
less she were beloved.

Here woman’s wit is keener and truthfuler
than man’s. Graham, as I have said, did not
feel confident that he had reached the heart of
Isaura : he was conscious that he had engaged
her interests, that he had attracted her fancy;
but often, when charmed by the joyous play of
her imagination, he would sigh to himself, “To
natures so gifted what single mortal can be the
all in all?”

They spent the summer mornings in excursions
round the beautiful neighborhood, dined early,
and sailed on the calm lake at moonlight. Their
talk was such as might be expected from lovers
of books in summer holidays. Savarin was a
critic by profession ; Graham Vane, if nPt that,
at least owed such literary reputation as he had
yet gained to essays in which the rare ciitical
faculty was conspicuously developed.

It was pleasant to hear the clash of these two
minds encountering each other; they differed
perhaps less in opinions than in the mode by
which opinions are discussed. The Englishman’s
range of reading was wider than the French-
man’s, and his scholarship more accurate ; but
the Frenchman had a compact neatness of ex-
pression, a light and nimble grace, whether in
the advancing or the retreat of his argument,
which covered deficiencies, and often made them
appear like merits. Graham was compelled, in-
deed, to relinquish many of the forces of superior
knowledge or graver eloquence which, with less
lively antagonists, he could have brought into the
field, for the witty sarcasm of Savarin w'ould
have turned them aside as pedantry or declama-
tion. But though Graham was neither dry nor
diffuse, and the happiness at his heart brought
out the gayety of humor which had been his early
cliaracteristic, and yet rendered his familiar in-
tercourse genial and plavful — still there Avas this
*F

distinction between his humor and SaA'arin’s wit,
that in the first there Avas always something ear-
nest, in the last always something mocking. And
in criticism Graham seemed ever anxious to
bring out a latent beauty, CA^en in Aviiters com-
paratively neglected. Savarin was acutest when
dragging forth a blemish never before discovered
in writers universally read.

Graham did not perhaps notice the profound
attention Avith Avhich Isaura listened to him in
these intellectual skirmishes with the more glit-
tering Parisian. There was this distinction she
made betAveen him and Savarin : Avhen the last
spoke she often chimed in Avith some happy sen-
timent of her OAvn ; but she never interrupted
Graham — never intimated a dissent from his the-
ories of art, or the deductions he drew from
them ; and she would remain silent and thought-
ful for some minutes Avhen his voice ceased.
There Avas passing from his mind into hers an
ambition Avhich she imagined, poor girl, that he
would be pleased to think he had inspired, and
Avhich might become a neAv bond of sympathy
between them. But as yet the ambition Avas
vague and timid — an idea or a dream to be ful-
filled in some indefinite future.

The last night of this short-lived holiday-time
the party, after staying out on the lake to a later
hour than usual, stood lingering still on the lawn
of the villa ; and their host, Avho Avas rather ad-
dicted to superficial studies of the positive sci-
ences, including, of course, the most popular of
all, astronomy, kept his guests politely listening
to speculatiA'e conjectures on the probable size of
the inhabitants of Sirius — that very distant and
very gigantic inhabitant of heaven Avho has led
philosophers into mortifying reflections upon the
utter insignificance of our own poor little planet,
capable of producing nothing greater than Shaks-
peares and NeAvtons, Aristotles and Ctesars —
manikins, no doubt, beside intellects proportioned
to the size of the Avorld in which they flourish.

As it chanced, Isaura and Graham Avere then
standing close to each other and a little apart
from the rest. “It is very strange,” said Gra-
ham, laughing Ioav, “ hoAv little I care about
Sirius. He is the sun of some other system, and
is perhaps not habitable at all, except by Sala-
manders. He can not be one of the stars Avith
Avhich I have established familiar acquaintance,
associated Avith fancies and dreams and hopes, as
most of us do, for instance, A\ith Hesperus, the
moon’s harbinger and comrade. But amidst all
those stars there is one — not Hesperus — which
has ahvays had, from my childhood, a mysterious
fascination for me. Knowing as little of astrolo-
gy as I do of astronomy, when I gaze upon that
star I become credulously superstitious, and fancy
it has an influence on my life. Have you, too,
any favorite star?”

“Yes,” said Isaura; “and I distinguish it
now, but I do not even know its name, and iieA er
Avould ask it.”

“So like me. I Avould not ATtlgarize my un-
known source of beautiful illusions by giving it
the name it takes in technical catalogues. For
fear of learning that name I never have pointed
it out to any one before. I too at this moment
distinguish it apart from all its brotherhood.
Tell me Avhich is yours.”

Isaura pointed and explained. The English-
man Avas startled. By Avhat strange coincidence

THE PARISIANS.

could they both have singled out from all the
host of heaven the same favorite star ?

“ Cher Vane,” cried Savarin, “ Colonel Morley
declares that what America is to the terrestrial
system Sirius is to the heavenly. America is to
extinguish Europe, and then Sirius is to extin-
guish the world.”

“Not for some millions of years ; time to look
about us,” said the Colonel, gravely. “But I
certaiply differ from those who maintain that
Sirius recedes from us. I say that he approach-
es. The principles of a body so enlightened
must be those of progress.” Then, addressing
Graham in English, he added, “ There will be a
mulling in this fogified planet some day, I predi-
cate. Sirius is a keener!"

“I have not imagination lively enough to in-
terest myself in the destinies of Sirius in connec-
tion with our planet at a date so remote,” said
Graham, smiling. Then he added in a whisper
to Isaura, “My imagination does not carry me
further than to wonder whether this day twelve-
month — the 8th of July — we two shall both be
singling out that same star, and gazing on it as
now, side by side.”

This was the sole utterance of that sentiment in
which the romance of love is so rich that the En-
glishman addressed to Isaura during those mem-
orable summer days at Enghien.

CHAPTER V.

The next morning the party broke up. Let-
ters had been delivered both to Savarin and to
Graham which, even had the day for departure
not been fixed, would have summoned them
away. On reading his letter, Savarin’s brow be-
came clouded. He made a sign to his wife after
breakfast, and wandered away with her down an
alley in the little garden. His trouble was of
that nature which a wife either soothes or aggra-
vates, according sometimes to her habitual frame
of mind, sometimes to the mood of temper in
which she may chance to be — a household trou-
ble, a pecuniary trouble.

Savarin was by no means an extravagant man.
His mode of living, though elegant and hospi-
table, was modest compared to that of many
French authors inferior to himself in the fame
which at Paris brings a very good return in
francs. But his station itself as the head of a
pow’erful literary clique necessitated many ex-
penses which were too congenial to his extreme
good-nature to be regulated by strict prudence.
His hand was always open to distressed writers
and struggling artists, and his sole income w'as
derived from his pen and a journal in which he
was chief editor and formerly sole proprietor.
But that journal had of late not prospered. He
had sold or pledged a considerable share in the
proprietorship. He had been compelled also to
borrow a sura large for him, and the debt, ob-
tained from a retired bourgeois who lent out his
moneys “ by way,” he said, “of maintaining an
excitement and interest in life, ” would in a few
days become due. The letter was not from that
creditor, but it was from his publisher, containing
a very disagreeable statement of accounts, pressing
for settlement, and declining an otfer of Savarin’s
for a new book (not yet begun) except upon terms

that the author valued himself too highly to ac-
cept. Altogether, the situation was unpleasant.
There were many times in which Madame Savarin
presumed to scold her distinguished husband for
his want of prudence and thrift. But those were
never the times when scolding could be of no
use. It could clearly be of no use now. Now
was the moment to cheer and encourage him, to
reassure him as to his own undiminished powers
and popularity, for he talked dejectedly of him-
self as obsolete and passing out of fashion ; to
convince him also of the impossibility that the
ungrateful publisher whom Savarin’s more brill-
iant successes had enriched could encounter the
odium of hostile proceedings ; and to remind
him of all the authors, all the artists, whom he,
in their earlier difficulties, had so liberally as-
sisted, and from whom a sum sufficing to pay
off the bourgeois creditor when the day arrived
could now be honorably asked and would be
readily contributed. In this last suggestion the
homely prudent good sense of Madame Savarin
failed her. She did not comprehend that deli-
cate pride of honor which, with all his Parisian
frivolities and cynicism, dignified the Parisian
man of genius. Savarin could not, to save his
neck from a rope, have sent round the begging-
hat to friends whom he had obliged. Madame
Savarin was one of those women with large-
lobed ears, who can be wonderfully affectionate,
wonderfully sensible; admirable wives and moth-
ers, and yet are deficient in artistic sympathies
with artistic natures. Still, a really good hon-
est wife is such an incalculable blessing to her
lord, that, at the end of the talk in the solitary
alUe, this man of exquisite finesse, of the unde-
finable high-bred temperament, and, alas! the
painfully morbid susceptibility, which belong to
the genuine artistic character, emerged into the
open sun-lit lawn with his crest uplifted, his lip
curved upward in its joyous mockery, and per-
fectly persuaded that somehow or other he should
put down the offensive publisher, and pay off the
offending creditor when the day for payment
came. Still he had judgment enough to know
that to do this he must get back to Paris, and
could not dawdle away precious hours in dis-
cussing the principles of poetry with Graham
Vane.

There was only one thing, apart from “the
begging-hat,” in which Savarin dissented from
his wife. She suggested his starting a new jour-
nal in conjunction with Gustave Rameau, upon
whose genius and the expectations to be formed
from it (here she was tacitly thinking of Isaura
wedded to Rameau, and more than a Malibran
on the stage) she insisted vehemently. Savarin
did not thus estimate Gustave Rameau — thought
him a clever, promising young writer in a very
bad school of writing, who might do well some
day or other. But that a Rameau could help a
Savarin to make a fortune! No; at that idea
he opened his eyes, patted his wife’s shoulder,
and called her '‘'"enfant"

Graham’s letter was fiom M. Renard, and ran
thus :

“ Monsieur, — I had the honor to call at your
apartment this morning, and I Avrite this line to
the address given to me by your concierge to say
that I have been foi-tunate enough to ascertain
that the relation of the missing lady is noAV at

THE PARISIANS.

Paris. I shall hold myself in readiness to attend
your summons. — Deign to accept, monsieur, the
assurance of my profound consideration.

“ J. Renard.”

This communication sufficed to put Graham
into very high spirits. Any thing that promised
success to his research seemed to deliver his
thoughts from a burden and his will from a fet-
ter. Perhaps in a few days he might frankly
and honorably say to Isaura words which would
justify his retaining longer, and pressing more
ardently, the delicate hand which trembled in his
as they took leave.

On arriving at Paris, Graham dispatched a
note to M. Renard requesting to see him, and
received a brief line in reply that M. Renard
feared he should be detained on other and im-
portant business till the evening, but hoped to
call at eight o’clock. A few minutes before that
hour he entered Graham’s apartment.

“ You have discovered the uncle of Louise Du-
val!” exclaimed Graham ; “of course you mean
M. de Mauleon, and he is at Paris?”

“True so far, monsieur; but do not be too
sanguine as to the results of the information I
can give you. Permit me, as briefly as possible,
to state the circumstances. When you acquaint-
ed me with the fact that M. de Mauleon was the
uncle of Louise Duval, I told you that I was not
without hopes of finding him out, though so long
absent from Paris. I will now explain why.
Some months ago one of my colleagues engaged
in the political department (which I am not) was
sent to Lyons, in consequence of some suspicions
conceived by the loyal authorities there of a plot
against the Emperor’s life. The suspicions were
groundless, the plot a mare’s-nest. But my col-
league’s attention was especially drawn toward a
man, not mixed up with the circumstances from
M'hich a plot had been inferred, but deemed in
some way or other a dangerous enemy to the
government. Ostensibly, he exercised a modest
and small calling as a sort of courtier or agent de
change ; but it was noticed that certain persons
familiarly frequenting his apartment, or to whose
houses he used to go at night, were disaffected to
the government — not by any means of the lowest
rank — some of them rich malcontents who had
been devoted Orleanists ; others, disappointed as-
pirants to office or the ‘cross ;’ one or two well-
born and opulent fanatics dreaming of another
republic. Certain very able articles in the jour-
nals of the excitable Midi, though bearing anoth-
er signature, were composed or dictated by this
man — articles evading the censure and penalties
of the law, but very mischievous in their tone.
All Avho had come into familiar communication
wdth this person were impressed with a sense of
his powers ; and also with a vague belief that he
belonged to a higher class in breeding and edu-
cation than that of a petty agent de change. My
colleague set himself to watch the man, and took
occasions of business at his little office to enter
into talk with him. Not by personal appearance,
but by voice, he came to a conclusion that the
man was not wholly a stranger to him ; a pecul-
iar voice with a slight Norman breadth of pro-
nunciation, though a Parisian accent; a voice
very low, yet very distinct — very masculine, yet
very gentle. My colleague was puzzled, till late
one evening he obsen ed the man coming out of

the house of one of these rich malcontents, the
rich malcontent himself accompanying him. My
colleague, availing himself of the dimness of light,
as the two passed into a lane which led to the
agent’s apartment, contrived to keep close be-
hind and listen to their conversation. But of
this he heard nothing — only, when at the end of
the lane, the rich man turned abruptly, shook his
companion warmly by the hand, and parted from
him, saying, ‘Never fear; all shall go right
with you, my dear Victor.’ At the sound of
that name ‘Victor,’ my colleague’s memories, be-
fore so confused, became instantaneously clear.
Previous to entering our service, he had been in
the horse business — a votary of the turf ; as such
he had often seen the brilliant ^sportman,’ Victor
de Mauleon ; sometimes talked to him. Yes,
that was the voice — the slight Norman intona-
tion (Victor de Mauleon ’s father had it strongly,
and Victor had passed some of his early child-
hood in Normandy), the subdued modulation of
speech w'hich had made so polite the offense to
men, or so winning the courtship to women —
that was Victor de Mauleon. But why there in
that disguise? What was his real business and
object ? My confrhre had no time allowed to him
to prosecute such inquiries. Whether Victor or
the rich malcontent had observed him at their
heels, and feared he might have overheard their
words, I know not; but the next day appeared
in one of the popular journals circulating among
the ouvriers, a paragraph stating that a Paris spy
had been seen at Lyons, warning all honest men
against his machinations, and containing a toler-
ably accurate de.scription of his person. And that
very day, on venturing forth, my estimable col-
league suddenly found himself hustled by a fero-
cious throng, from whose hands he was with
great difficulty rescued by the municipal guard.
He left Lyons that night ; and for recompense
of his services received a sharp reprimand from
his chief. He had committed the worst offense
in our profession, trap de zele. Having only
heard the outlines of this story from another, I
repaired to my cpn/rh'e, after my last interview
with monsieur, and learned what I now tell you
from his own lips. As he was not in my branch
of the service, I could not order him to return to
Lyons ; and I doubt whether his chief would
have allowed it. But I went to Lyons myself,
and there ascertained that our supposed Vicomte
had left that town for Paris some months ago,
not long after the adventure of my colleague.
The man bore a very good chai'acter generally —
was said to be very honest and inoffensive ; and
the notice taken of him by persons of higher rank
was attributed generally to a respect for his tal-
ents, and not on account of any sympathy in po-
litical opinions. I found that the confrere men-
tioned, and who alone could identify M. de Mau-
leon in the disguise which the Vicomte had as-
sumed, was absent on one of those missions
abroad in which he is chiefly employed. I had
to wait for his return, and it was only the day
before yesterday that I obtained the following
particulars : M. de Mauleon bears the same
name as he did at Lyons — that name is Jean
Lebeau ; he exercises the ostensible profession
of ‘ a letter-writer,’ and a sort of adviser on busi-
ness among the workmen and petty bourgeoisie,
and he nightly frequents the Cafe Jean Jacques,
Rue , Faubourg Montmartre. It is not yet

THE PAlilSlANS.

({uite half past eight, and, no doubt, you could see
him at the caf^ this very night, if you thought
proper to go.”

“ Excellent ! I will go ! Describe him !”

“ Alas ! that is exactly what I can not do at
present. For after hearing what I now tell you,

I put the same request you do to my colleague,
when, before he could answer me, he was sum-
moned to the bureau of his chief, promising to
return and give me the requisite description.
He did not return. And I find that he was com-
pelled, on quitting his chief, to seize the first train
starting for Lille upon an important political in-
vestigation which brooked no delay. He will
be back in a few days, and then monsieur shall
have the description.”

“Nay: I think 1 wilLseize time by the fore-
lock, and try my chance to-night. If the man
be really a conspirator, and it looks likely enough,
who knows but what he may see quick reason to
take alarm and vanish from Paris at any hour ?

Cafe Jean Jacques, Rue ; I will go. Stay ;

you have seen Victor de Mauleon in his youth :
what was he like then ?”

“ Tall — slender — but broad-shouldered — very
erect — carrying his head high — a profusion of !
dark curls — a small black mustache — fair clear [
complexion — light-colored eyes with dark lashes
—fort bel homme. But he will not look like that
now. ”

“ His present age?”

“Forty-seven or forty-eight. But before you
go, I must beg you to consider well what you are j
about. It is evident that M. de Mauleon has j
some strong reason, whatever it be, for merging :
his identity in that of Jean Lebeau. I presume, I
therefore, that you could scarcely go up to M. I
Lebeau, when you have discovered him, and say, |
‘ Pray, M. le Vicomte, can you give me some j
tidings of your niece, Louise Duval?’ If you
thus accosted him, you might possibly bring some i
danger on yourself, but you would certainly gain
no information from him.”

“ True.”

“On the other hand, if you make his acquaint-
ance as M. Lebeau, how can you assume him to
know any thing about Louise Duval ?”

'•'‘Parbleul M. lienard, you try to toss me
aside on both honis of the dilemma ; but it
seems to me that, if I once make his acquaint-
ance as M. Lebeau, I might gradually and cau-
tiously feel my way as to the best mode of put- I
ting the question to which I seek reply. I sup-
I»ose, too, that the man must be in very poor cir-
cumstances to adopt so humble a calling, and
that a small sum of money may smooth all diffi-
culties.”

“ I am not so sure of that,” said M. Renard, I
thoughtfully ; “ but grant that money may do ;
so, and grant also that the Vicomte, being a i
needy man, has become a very unscrupulous one
— is there any thing in your motives for discov-
ering Louise Duval which might occasion you
trouble and annoyance, if it were divined by a
needy and unscrapulous man ? — any thing which
might give him a power of threat or exaction ?
Mind, I am not asking you to tell me any secret
you have reasons for concealing, but I suggest
that it might be prudent if you did not let M.
Lebeau know your real name and rank — if, in
short, you could follow his example, and adopt a '
disguise. But no ; when I think of it, you would

doubtless be so unpracticed in the art of disguise
that he would detect you at once to be other than
you seem ; and if suspecting you of spying into
his secrets, and if those secrets be really of a po-
litical nature, your very life might not be safe.”

“ Thank you for your hint — the disguise is an
excellent idea, and combines amusement with
precaution. That this Victor de Mauleon must
be a very unprincipled and dangerous man is, I
think, abundantly clear. Granting that he was
innocent of all design of robbery in the afiair of
the jewels, still, the offense which he did own —
that of admitting himself at night by a false key
into the rooms of a wife, whom he sought to sur-
prise or terrify into dishonor — was a villainous
action ; and his present course of life is sufficient-
ly mysterious to warrant the most unfavorable
supposition. Besides, there is another motive for
concealing my name from him : 3 011 say that he
once had a duel with a Vane, who was very prob-
ably my father, and I have no wish to expose
myself to the chance of his turning up in London
some day, and seeking to renew there the ac-
quaintance that I had courted at Paris. As for
my skill in playing any part I may assume, do
not fear. I am no novice in that. In rny 3'oung-
er days I was thought clever in private theatric-
als, especially in the transfonnations of appear-
ance which belong to light comedy and farce.
Wait a few minutes, and )’ou shall see.”

Graham then retreated into his bedroom, and
in a few minutes reappeared so changed thaf
Renard at first glance took him for a stranger.
He had doffed his dress — which habitually, when
in capitals, was characterized b}' the quiet, in-
definable elegance that to a man of the great
world, high-bred and young, seems “to the man-
ner born” — for one of those coarse suits which
Englishmen are wont to wear in their travels,
and by which the}' are represented in French or
German caricatures — loose jacket of tweed, with
redundant pockets, waistcoat to match, short
dust-colored trowsers. He had combed his hair
straight over his forehead, which, as I have said
somewhere before, appeared in itself to alter the
character of his countenance, and, without an}'
resort to paints or cosmetics, had somehow or
other given to the expression of his face an im-
pudent, low-bred expression, with a glass screwed
on to his right eye; such a look as a cockney
journeyman, wishing to pass for a “ swell” about
town, may cast on a seiwant-maid in the pit of a
suburban theatre.

“Will it do, old fellow?” he exclaimed, in a
rollicking, swaggering tone of voice, speaking
French with a villainous British accent.

“Perfectly,” said Renard, laughing. “I of-
fer my compliments, and if ever you are ruined,
monsieur, I will promise you a place in our po-
lice. Only one caution — take care not to overdo
your part. ”

“ Right. A quarter to nine — I’m off.”

CHAPTER VI.

There is generally a brisk exhilaration of
spirits in the return to any .special amusement or
light accomplishment as.sociated with the pleas-
ant memories of earlier youth ; and remarkably
so, I believe, when the amusement or accom-

THE PARISIANS.

plishment has been that of the amateur stage-
player. Certainly I have known persons of very
grave pursuits, of very dignified character and
position, who seem to regain the vivacity of boy-
hood when disguising look and voice for a part
in some drawing-room comedy or charade. I
might name statesmen of solemn repute rejoicing
to raise and to join in a laugh at their expense
in such travesty of their habitual selves.

The reader must not, therefore, be surprised,
nor, I trust, deem it inconsistent with the more
serious attributes of Graham’s character, if the
Englishman felt the sort of joyous excitement I
describe, as, in his way to the Cafe Jean Jacques,
he meditated the role he had undertaken ; and
the joyousness was heightened beyond the mere
holiday sense of humoristic pleasantry by the san-
guine hope that much to affect his lasting happi-
ness might result from the success of the object
for which his disguise was assumed.

It was just twenty minutes past nine when he
arrived at the Cafe Jean Jctcques. He dismiss-
ed the fiacre and entered. The apartment de-
voted to customers comprised tw’o large rooms.
The first was the cafe properly speaking; the
second, opening on it, was the billiard - room.
Conjecturing that he should probably find the
person of whom he was in quest employed at the
billiard-table, Graham passed thither at once. A
tall man, who might be seven-and-forty, with a
long black beard slightly grizzled, was at play
with a young man of perhaps twenty-eight, who
gave him odds — as better players of twenty-eight
ought to give odds to a player, though originally
of equal force, whose eye is not so quick, whose
hand is not so steady, as they w’ere twenty years
ago. Said Graham to himself, “The bearded
man is my Vicomte.” He called for a cup of
coffee, and seated himself on a bench at the end
of the room.

The bearded man was far behind in the game.
It was his turn to play ; the balls were placed in
the most awkward position for him. Graham
himself was a fair billiard-player, both in the En-
glish and the French game. He said to himself,
“No man who can make a cannon there should
accept odds.” The bearded man made a can-
non; the bearded man continued to make can-
nons ; the bearded man did not stop till he had
won the game. The gallery of spectators was
enthusiastic. Taking care to speak in very bad,
very English French, Graham expressed to one
of the enthusiasts seated beside him his admira-
tion of the bearded man’s playing, and ventured
to ask if the bearded man were a professional or
an amateur player.

“ Monsieur,” replied the enthusiast, taking a
short cutty-pipe from his mouth, “it is an ama-
teur, who has been a great player in his day, and
is so proud that he always takes less odds than
he ought of a younger man. It is not once in a
month that he comes out as he has done to-night;
but to-night he has steadied his hand. He has
had six petits verresj

“ Ah, indeed ! Do you know his name ?”

“I should think so;* he buried my father, my
two aunts, and my wife.”

“ Buried ?” said Graham, more and more Brit-
ish in his accent ; “I don’t understand.”

“Monsieur, you are English.”

“ I confess it.”

. “And a stranger to the Faubourg Montmartre.”

“True.”

“Or you would have heard of M. Giraud, the
liveliest member of the State Company for con-
ducting funerals. They are going to play La
Poule. ”

Much disconcerted, Graham retreated into the
cafe, and seated himself hap-hazard at one of the
small tables. Glancing round the room, he saw
no one in whom he could conjecture the once
brilliant Vicomte.

The company appeared to him sufficiently de-
cent, and especially what may be called local.
There were some blouses drinking wine, no doubt
of the cheapest and thinnest; some in rough,
coarse dresses, drinking beer. These were evi-
dently English, Belgian, or German artisans.
At one table four young men, who looked like
small journeymen, wei e playing cards. At three
other tables men older, better dressed, probably
shop-keepers, were playing dominoes. Graham
scrutinized these last, but among them all could
detect no one corresponding to his ideal of the
Vicomte de Mauleon. “Probably,” thought he,
“I am too late, or perhaps he will not be here
this evening. At all events, I will wait a quar-
ter of an hour.” Then, the gargon approaching
his table, he deemed it necessary to call for some-
thing, and, still in strong English accent, asked
for lemonade and an evening journal. The gar-
gon nodded, and went his way. A monsieur at
the round table next his own politely handed to
him the Galignani, saying in very good En-
glish, though unmistakably the good English of
a Frenchman, “The English journal, at your
service.”

Graham bowed his head, accepted the Ga-
lignani, and inspected his courteous neighbor.
A more respectable-looking man no Englishman
could see in an English country town. He wore
an unpretending flaxen wig, with limp whiskers
that met at the chin, and might originally have
been the same color as the wig, but were now of
a pale gray — no beard, no mustache. He was
dressed with the scrupulous cleanliness of a sober
citizen — a high white neckcloth, with a large
old-fashioned pin, containing a little knot of hair,
covered with glass or crystal, and bordered with
a black frame-work, in which were inscribed let-
ters— evidently a mourning-pin, hallowed to the
memory of lost spouse or child — a man who, in
England, might be the mayor of a cathedral town,
at least the town-clerk. He seemed suffering
from some infirmity of vision, for he wore green
spectacles. The expression of his face was very
mild and gentle ; apparently he was about sixty
years old — somewhat more.

Graham took kindly to his neighbor, insomuch
that, in return for the Galignani, he offered him
a cigar, lighting one himself.

His neighbor refused politely.

‘ ‘ Merci ! I never smoke — never ; inon medecin
forbids it. If I could be tempted, it would be by
an English cigar. Ah, how you English beat
us in all things — your ships, your iron, your tabac
— which you do not grow ! ”

This speech, rendered literally as we now ren-
der it, may give the idea of a somewhat vulgar
speaker. But there was something in the man’s
manner, in his smile, in his courtesy, which did
not strike Graham as vulgar ; on the contrary,
he thought within himself, “How instinctive to
all Frenchmen good-breeding is !”

THE PARISIANS.

Before, however, Graham liad time to explain
to his amiable neighbor the politico-economical
principle according to which England, growing
no tobacco, bad tobacco mnch better than France,
which did grow it, a rosy middle-aged monsieur
made his appearance, saying hurriedly to Gra-
ham’s neighbor, “ I’m afraid I’m late, but there
is still a good half hour before us if you will give
me my revenge.”

‘ ‘ Willingly, M. Georges. Garmon, the domi-
noes.”

“ Have you been playing at billiards ?” asked
M. Georges.

“ Yes, two games.”

“With success ?” ^

“I won the first, and lost the second through
the defect of my eye-sight ; the game depended
on a stroke w'hich would have been easy to an in-
fant— I missed it.”

Here the dominoes arrived, and M. Georges
began shuffling them ;• the other turned to Gra-
ham and asked politely if he understood the
game.

“A little, but not enough to comprehend why
it is said to require so much skill.”

“It is chiefly an affair of memory with me ;
but M. Georges, my opponent, has the talent of
combination, which I have not.”

“Nevertheless,” replied M. Georges, gruffly,
“ you are not easily beaten ; it is for you to play
first, M. Lebeau.”

Graham almost started. Was it possible !
This mild, limp-Avhiskered, flaxen-wigged man,
Victor de Mauleon, the Don Juan of his time;
the last person in the room he should have guess-
ed. Yet, now examining his neighbor with more
attentive eye, he wondered at his stupidity in not
having recognized at once the ci-devant gentil-
homme^ and heau gargon. It happens frequently
that our imagination plays us this trick ; we form
to ourselves an idea of some one eminent for good
or for evil — a poet, a statesman, a general, a mur-
derer, a swindler, a thief : the man is before us,
and our ideas have gone into so different a groove
that he does not excite a suspicion. We are told
who he is, and immediately detect a thousand
things that ought to have proved his identity.

Looking thus again with i-ectified vision at the
false Lebeau, Graham observed an elegance and
delicacy of feature which might, in youth, have
made the countenance very handsome, and ren-
dered it still good-looking, nay, prepossessing.
He now noticed, too, the slight Norman accent,
its native harshness of breadth subdued into the
modulated tones which bespoke the habits of pol-
ished society. Above all, as M. Lebeau moved
his dominoes with one hand, not shielding his
pieces with the other (as M. Geoi'ges warily did),
but allowing it to rest carelessly on the table, he
detected the hands of the French aristocrat ;
hands that had never done work — never (like
those of the English noble of equal birth) been
embrowned or frecked, or roughened or enlarged
by early practice in athletic sports ; but hands
seldom seen save in the higher circles of Parisian
life — partly perhaps of hereditary formation, part-
ly owing their texture to great care begun in early
youth, and continued mechanically in after-life —
with long taper fingers and polished nails ; wdiite
and delicate as those of a woman, but not slight,
not feeble ; nervous and sinewy as those of a
practiced swordsman.

Graham watched the play, and Lebeau good-
naturedly explained to him its complications as it
proceeded ; though the explanation, diligently at-
tended to by M. Georges, lost Lebeau the game.

The dominoes were again shuffled, and during
that operation M. Georges said, “By-the-way,
M. Lebeau, you promised to find me a locataire
for my second floor ; have you succeeded ?”

“Not yet. Perhaps you had better advertise
in Les P elites Affiches. You ask too much for
the habitues of this neighborhood — one hundred
francs a month.”

“But the lodging is furnished, and well too,
and has four rooms. One hundred francs are
not much.”

A thought flashed upon Graham — “Pardon,
monsieur,” he said, “have you an appartement
de gargon to let furnished ?”

“Yes, monsieur, a charming one. Are you
in search of an apartment ?”

“I have some idea of taking one, but only by
the month. I am but just amved at Paiis, and
I have business which may keep me here a few
weeks. I do but require a bedroom and a small
cabinet, and the rent must be modest. I am not
a milord”

“lam sure we could arrange, monsieur,” said
M. Georges, “though I could not well divide
my logement. But one hundred francs a month
is not much !”

“I fear it is more than I can afford ; however,
if you will give me your address, I will call and
see the rooms — say the day after to-morrow.
Between this and then I expect letters which
may more clearly decide my movements.”

“If the apartments suit you,” said M. Lebeau,
“you will at least be in the house of a very hon-
est man, which is more than can be said of ev-
ery one who lets furnished apartments. The
house, too, has a concierge, with a handy wife
who will arrange your rooms and provide you
with coffee — or tea, which you English prefer —
if you breakfast at home.”

Here M. Georges handed a card to Graham,
and asked what hour he would call.

“About twelve, if that hour is convenient,”
said Graham, rising. “ I presume there is a res-
taurant in the neighborhood where I could dine
reasonably. ”

“ Je crois hien — half a dozen. I can recom-
mend to you one wdiere you can dine en prince
for thirty sous. And if you are at Paris on busi-
ness, and want any letters written in private, I
can also recommend to you my friend here, M.
Lebeau. Ay, and on aflairs his advice is as good
as a lawyer’s, and his fee a bagatelle”

“Don’t believe all that M. Georges so flatter-
ingly says of me,” put in M. Lebeau, with a mod-
est half smile, and in English. “I should tell
you that I, like yourself, am recently arrived at
Paris, having bought the business and good-will
of my predecessor in the apartment I occupy ;
and it is only to the respect due to his anteced-
ents, and on the score of a few letters of recom-
mendation which I bring from Lyons, that I can
attribute the confidence shown to me, a stranger
in this neighborhood. Still I have some knowl-
edge of the world, and I am always glad if I can
be of service to the English. I love the English
he said this with a sort of melancholy earnest-
ness which seemed sincere, and then "added in
a more careless tone, “I have met with much

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THE PARISIANS.

kindness from them in the course of a checkered
life.”

“ You seem a very good fellow — in fact, a reg-
ular trump, M. Lebeau,” replied Graham, in the
same language. “ Give me your address. To
say truth, I am a very poor French scholar, as'
you must have seen, and am awfully bother-headed
how to manage some correspondence on matters
with which I am intrusted by my employer, so
that it is a lucky chance which has brought me
acquainted with you.”

M. Lebeau inclined his head gracefully, and
drew from a very neat morocco case a card,
which Graham took and pocketed. Then he
paid for his coffee and lemonade, and returned
home well satisfied with the evening’s adventure.

» ■ ■

CHAPTER VII.

The next mortnng Graham sent for M. Re-
nard, and consulted Avith that experienced func-
tionaiy as to the details of the plan of action
which he had revolved during the hours of a
sleepless night.

“In conformity with your advice,” said he,
“not to expose myself to the chance of future
annoyance, by confiding to a man so dangerous
as the false Lebeau my name and address, I pro-
pose to take the lodging offered to me, as Mr.
Lamb, an attorney’s clerk, commissioned to get
in certain debts, and transact other matters of
business, on behalf of his employer’s clients. I
suppose there will be no difficulty with the police
in this change of name, now that passports for
the English are not necessary ?”

“ Certainly not. You wul have no trouble in
that respect. ”

‘ ‘ I shall thus be enabled very naturally to im-
prove acquaintance with the professional letteiv
writer, and find an easy opportunity to introduce
the name of Louise Duval. My chief difficulty,
I fear, not being a practical actor, will be to keep
up consistently the queer sort of language I have
adopted, both in French and in English. I have
too sharp a critic in a man so consuqimate him-
self in stage trick and disguise as M. Lebeau, not
to feel the necessity of getting through my role
as quickly as I can. Meanwhile, can you recom-
mend me to some magasin where I can obtain a
suitable change of costume ? I can’t always wear
a traveling suit, and I must buy linen of coarser
texture than mine, and with the initials of my
new name inscribed on it.”

“ Quite right to study such details ; I will in-
troduce you to a magasin near the Temple, where
you will find all you want.”

“Next, have you any friends or relations in
the proA'inces unknown to M. Lebeau, to whom
I might be supposed to write about debts or busi-
ness matters, and from Avhom I might have re-
plies ?”

“I Avill think over it, and manage that for you
very easily. Your letters shall find their Avay to
me, and I Avill dictate the ansAvers.”

After some further conA^ersation on that busi-
ness, M. Renard made an appointment to meet
Graham at a caf^ near the Temple later in the
afternoon, and took his departure.

Graham then informed his laquais de place
that, though he kept on his lodgings, he Avas go-

ing into the country for a few days, and should
not Avant the man’s services till he returned. He
therefore dismissed and paid him oft' at once, so
that the laquais might not observe, Avhen he quit-
ted his rooms the next day, that he took with
him no change of clothes, etc.

CHAPTER VIII.

Graham Vane has been for some days in the
apartment rented of M. Georges. He takes it in
the name of Mr. Lamb — a name wisely cbosen,
less common than Thomson and Smith,* less like-
ly to be supposed an assumed name, yet common
enough not to be able easily to trace it to any
special family. He appears, as he had proposed,
in the character of an agent employed by a solic-
itor in London to execute sundry commissions,
and to collect certain outstanding debts. There
is no need to mention the name of the solicitor ;
if there Aveie, he could gi\'e the name of his own
solicitor, to Avhose discretion he could trust im-
plicitly. He dresses and acts up to his assumed
character with the skill of a man who, like the il-
lustrious Charles Fox, has, though in private rep-
resentations, practiced the stage -play in which
Demosthenes said the triple art of oratory con-
sisted— who has seen a great deal of the world,
and has that adaptability of intellect which
knowledge of the world lends to one Avho is so
thoroughly in earnest as to his end that he agrees
to be sportive as to his means.

The kind of language he employs Avhen speak-
ing English to Lebeau is that suited to the role
of a dapper young underling of vulgar mind ha-
bituated to vulgar companionships. I feel it due,
if not to Graham himself, at least to the memory
of the dignified orator Avhose name be inherits,
so to modify and soften the hardy style of that
peculiar diction in which he disguises his birtli
and disgraces his culture, that it is only here and
there that I can Aenture to indicate the general
tone of it. But in order to supply my deficien-
cies therein, the reader has only to call to mind
the forms of phraseology Avhich polite novelists
in vogue, especially young lady novelists, ascribe
to well-born gentlemen, and more emphatically
to those in the higher ranks of the Peerage. No
doubt Graham in his capacity of critic bad been
compelled to read, in order to revieAv, those con-
tributions to refined literature, and had familiar-
ized himself to a vein of conversation abounding
with “sAvell,” and “stunner,” and “aAvfully jol-
ly,” in its libel on manners and outrage on taste.

He has attended nightly the Cafe Jean
Jacques; he has improAed acquaintance Avith M.
Georges and M. Lebeau ; he has played at bill-
iards, he has played at dominoes, Avith the latter.
He has been much surprised at the unimpeacha-
ble honesty which M. Lebeau has exhibited in
both these games. In billiards, indeed, a man
can not cheat except by disguising his strength ;
it is much the same in dominoes — it is skill com-
bined with luck, as in whist ; but in whist there
are modes of cheating which dominoes do not
allow — you can’t mark a domino as you can a
card. It was perfectly clear to Graham that M.
Lebeau did not gain a livelihood by billiards or
dominoes at the Cafe Jean Jacques. In the for-
mer he Avas not only a fair but a generous player.

THE PARISIANS.

He played exceedingly well, despite his specta-
cles ; but he gave, with something of a French-
man’s lofty fanfaronnade^ larger odds to his ad-
versary than liis play justified. In dominoes,
where such odds could not well be given, he in-
sisted on playing such small stakes as two or
three francs miglit cover. In short, M. Lebeau
])uzzled Graham. All about M. Lebeau, his
manner, his talk, was irreproachable, and baffled
suspicion ; except in this, Graham gradually dis-
covered that the caf^ had a quasi political char-
acter. Listening to talkers round him, he over-
heard much that might well have shocked the
notions of a moderate Liberal ; much that held
in disdain the objects to w hich, in 1869, an En-
glish Radical directed his aspirations. Vote by
ballot, universal suffrage, etc. — such objects the
French had already attained. By the talkers at
the Caf^ Jean Jacques they were deemed to be
the tricky contrivances of tyranny. In fact, the
talk was more scornful of what Englishmen un-
derstand by radicalism or democracy than Gra-
ham ever heard from the lips of an ultra-Tory.
It assumed a strain of philosophy far above the
vulgar squabbles of ordinary party politicians — a
philosophy which took for its fundamental prin-
ciples the destruction of religion and of private
property. These two objects seemed dependent
the one on the other. The philosophers of the
Jean Jacques held with that expounder of Inter-
nationalism, Eugene Dupont, “ Nous ne voulons
plus de religion, car les religions etouffent I’intel-
ligence.”* Now and then, indeed, a dissentient
voice was raised as to the existence of a Supreme
Being, but, with one exception, it soon sunk into
silence. No voice was raised in defense of pri-
vate property. These sages appeared for the
most part to belong to the class of ouvriers or
artisans. Some of them were foreigners — Bel-
gian, German, English ; all seemed w'ell off for
their calling. Indeed, they must have had com-
paratively high wages, to judge by their dress and
the money they spent on regaling themselves.
The language of several was well chosen, at times
eloquent. Some brought with them women who
seemed respectable, and who often joined in the
conversation, especially when it turned upon the
law of marriage as a main obstacle ^to all person-
al liberty and social improvement. If this was a
subject on which the women did not all agree,
still they discussed it, without prejudice and with
admirable sang-froid. Yet many of them looked
like w'ives and mothers. Now and then a young
journeyman brought with him a young lady of
more doubtful aspect, but such a couple kept
aloof from the others. Now and then, too, a
man evidently of higher station than that of ou-
vrier^ and who was received by the philosophers
with courtesy and respect, joined one of the ta-
bles and ordered a bowl of punch for general par-
ticipation. In such occasional visitors, Graham,
still listening, detected a writer of the press ; now
and then a small artist, or actor, or medical stu-
dent. Among the hnhitu^s there was one man,
an ouvrier, in whom Graham could not help feel-
ing an interest. He was called Monnier, some-
times more familiarly Armand, his baptismal ap-
pellation. This man had a bold and honest ex-
pression of countenance. He talked like one

* Discours par Eugene Dupont h la Cloture du Con-
gress de Bruxelles, September 3, 1868.

who, if he had not read much, had thought much
on the subjects he loved to discuss. He argued
against the capital of em})loyers quite as ably as
Mr. Mill has argued against the rights of proper-
ty in land. He was still more eloquent against
the laws of marriage and heritage. But his was
the one voice not to be silenced in favor of a Su-
preme Being. He had at least the courage of his
opinions, and was always thoroughly in earnest.
M. Lebeau seemed to know this man, and honor-
ed him with a nod and a smile, when passing by
him to the table he generally occupied. This fa-
miliarity with a man of that class, and of opin-
ions so extreme, excited Graham’s curiosity.
One evening he said to Lebeau, “A queer fellow
that you have just nodded to.”

“ How so?”

“Well, he has queer notions.”

“Notions shared, I believe, by many of your
countrymen ?”

“ I should think not many. Those poor sim-
pletons yonder may have caught them from their
French fellow- workmen, but I don’t think that
even the gobemouches in our National Reform So- -
ciety open their mouths to swallow such wasps.”

“Yet I believe the association to which most
of those ouvriers belong had its origin in En-
gland. ”

• “ Indeed ! what association ?”

“The International.”

“Ah, I have heard of that.”

Lebeau turned his green spectacles full on Gra-
ham’s face as he said, slowly, “And what do you
think of it ?”

Graham prudently checked the disparaging re-
ply that first occurred to him, and said, “I know
so little about it tha^ would rather ask you.”

“I think it mignt become formidable if it
found able leaders who knew how to use it.
Pardon me— how' came you to know of this caf^ ?
Were you recommended to it ?”

“No; I happened to be in this neighborhood
on business, and walked in, as I might into any
other co/’^.”

“You don’t interest yourself in the great social
questions which are agitated below the surface of
this best of all possible worlds ?”

“I can’t say that I trouble my head much
about them.”

“A game at dominoes before M. Georges ar-
rives ?”

“Willingly. Is M. Georges one of those agi-
tators below the surface ?”

“ No, indeed. It is for you to play.”

Here M. Georges arrived, and no further con-
versation on political or social questions ensued.

Graham had already called more than once at
M. Lebeau’s office, and asked him to put into
good French various letters on matters of busi-
ness, the subjects of which had been furnished by
M. Renard. The office was rather imposing and ^
stately, considering the modest nature of M. Le-
beau’s ostensible profession. It occupied the en-
tire ground-floor of a corner house, with a front- ;
door at one angle and a back-door at the other. '
The anteroom to his cabinet, and in which Gra- :
ham had generally to wait some minutes before ;
he was introduced, was generally well filled, and i
not only by persons who, by their dress and out- ji
ward appearance, might be fairly supposed suffi- I.
ciently illiterate to require his aid as polite letter- i
writers — not only by servant-maids and grisettes^ I

THE PARISIANS.

by sailors, zouaves, and jounieymen workmen —
but not unfrequently by clients evidently belong-
ing to a higher, or at least a richer, class of soci-
ety— men with clothes made by a fashionable
tailor — men, again, who, less fashionably attired,
looked like opulent tradesmen and fathers of well-
to-do families — the first generally young, the last
generally middle-aged. All these denizens of a
higher world were introduced by a saturnine clerk
into M. Lebeau’s reception-room very quickly,
and in precedence of the ouvriers and grisettes.

“What can this mean ?” thought Graham.
“Is it really that this humble business avowed
is the cloak to some political conspiracy con-
cealed— the International Association ?” And,
so pondering, the clerk one day singled him from
the crov/d and admitted him into M. Lebeau’s
cabinet. Graham thought the time had now ar-
lived when he might safely approach the sub-
ject that brought him to the Faubourg Mont-
martre.

“You are very good,” said Graham, speaking
in the English of a young earl in our elegant
novels — “you are very good to let me in while
you have so many swells and nobs waiting for
you in the other room. But I say, old fellow,
you have not the cheek to tell me that they want
you to correct their cocker or spoon for them by
proxy ?”

“ Pardon me,” answered M. Lebeau in French,
“ if I prefer my own language in replying to you.
I speak the English I learned many years ago,
and your language in the beau monde, to which
you evidently belong, is strange to me. You are
quite right, however, in your surmise that I have
other clients than those who, like yourself, think
I could correct their verbs or their spelling. I
have seen a great deal of the world — I know
something of it, and something of the law ; so
that many persons come to me for advice and for
legal information on terms more moderate than
those of an avoue. But my antechamber is full ;
I am pressed for time ; excuse me if I ask you
to say at once in what I can be agreeable to you
to-day.”

“Ah!” said Graham, assuming a very earnest
look, “you do know the world, that is clear;
and you do know the law of France — eh ?”

“Yes, a little.”

“What I wanted to say at present may have
something to do with French law, and I meant
to ask you either to recommend to me a sharp
lawyer, or to tell me how I can best get at your
famous police here.”

“Police?”

“I think I may require the service of one of
those officers whom we in England call detect-
ives ; but if you are busy now, I can call to-
morrow.”

“ I spare you two mintites. Say at once, dear
monsieur, what you want with law or police.”

“ I am instructed to find out the address of
a certain Louise Duval, daughter of a drawing-
master named Adolphe Duval, living in the Rue
in the year 1848.”

Graham, while he thus said, naturally looked
Lebeau in the face — notpryingly, not significant-
ly, but as a man generally does look in the face
the other man wdiom he accosts seriously. The
change in the face he regarded was slight, but it
was unmistakable. It was the sudden meeting
of the eyebrowSj accompanied with the sudden

jerk of the shoulder and bend of the neck, which
betoken a man taken by surprise, and who pauses
to reflect before he replies. His pause was but
momentary.

“ For what object is this address required ?”

“That I don’t know; but evidently for some
advantage to Madame or Mademoiselle Duval,
if still alive, because my employer authorizes me
to spend no less than ,£100 in ascertaining where
she is, it alive, or where she was buried, if dead ;
and if other means fail, I am instructed to adverl
tise to the effect — ‘ That if Louise Duval, or, in
case of her death, any children of hers living in
the year 1849, will communicate with some per-
son whom I may appoint at Paris — such intelli-
gence, authenticated, may prove to the advantage
of the party advertised for. ’ I am, however, told
not to resort to this means without consulting
either with a legal adviser or the police.”

“Hem! — have you inquired at the house
where this lady was, you say, living in 1848?”

“Of course I have done that; but very clum-
sily, I dare say — through a friend — and leained
nothing. But I must not keep you now. I
think I shall apply at once to the police. What
should I say when I get to the bureau ?"

“Stop, monsieur, stop. I do not advise you
to apply to the police. It would be waste of time
and money. Allow me to think over the matter.
I shall see you this evening at the Caf^ Jean.
Jacques at eight o’clock. Till then do nothing.”

“All right : I obey you. The whole thing is
out of my way of business — awfully. Bon jour,'*

CHAPTER IX.

Punctually at eight o’clock Graham Vane
had taken his seat at a corner table at the remote
end of the Ca f^ Jean Jacques, called for his cup
of coffee and his evening journal, and awaited
the arrival of M. Lebeau. His patience was not
tasked long. In a few minutes the Frenchman
entered, paused at the comptoir, as was his habit,
to address a polite salutation to the well-dressed
lady who there presided, nodded as usual to Ar-
mand Monnier, then glanced round, recognized
Graham with a smile, and approached his table
with the quiet grace of movement by which he
was distinguished. Seating himself opposite to
Graham, and speaking in a voice too low to be
heard by others, and in French, he then said,

“ In thinking over your communication this
morning, it strikes me as probable, perhaps as
certain, that this Louise Duval, or her children,
if she have any, must be entitled to some mon-
eys bequeathed to her by a relation or friend in
England. What sav you to that assumption, M.
Lamb ?”

“You are a sharp fellow,” answered Graham.
“Just what I say to myself. Why else should
I be instructed to go to such expense in finding
her out? Most likely, if one can’t trace her, or
her children born before the date named, any
such moneys will go to some one else ; and that
some one else, whoever he be, has commissioned
my employer to find out. But I don’t imagine
i any sum due to her or her heirs can be much, or
j that the matter is very important ; for, if so, the
I thing would 'not be carelessly left in the hands
1 of one of the small fry like myself, and clapped

THE PARISIANS.

in along with a lot of other business as an off-
hand job.”

“Will you tell me who employed you?”

“ No, 1 don’t feel authorized to do that at pres-
ent ; and I don’t see the necessity of it. It seems
to me, on consideration, a matter for the police
to ferret out ; only, as I asked before, how should
I get at the police ?”

“ That is not difficult. It is just possible that
I might help you better than any lawyer or any
detective.”

“Why, did you ever know this Louise Duval ?”

“Excuse me, M. Lamb: you refuse me your
full confidence ; allow me to imitate your re-
serve.”

“Oho!” said Graham; “shut up as close as
you like; it is nothing to me. Only observe,
there is this difference between us, that I am em-
ployed by another. He does not authorize me
to name him ; and if I did commit that indiscre-
tion, I might lose my bread-and-cheese. Where-
as you have nobody’s secret to guard but your
own in saying whether or not you ever knew a
Madame or Mademoiselle Duval. And if you
have some reason for not getting me the in-
formation I am instructed to obtain, that is also
a reason for not troubling you further. And aft-
er all, old boy” (with a familiar slap on Lebeau’s
stately shoulder) — “after all, it is I who would
employ you ; you don’t employ me. And if you
find out the lady, it is you who would get the
£100, not 1.”

M. Lebeau mechanically brushed, with a light
movement of the hand, the shoulder which the
Englishman had so pleasantly touched, drew
himself and chair some inches back, and said,
slowly,

“M. Lamb, let us talk as gentleman to gen-
tleman. Put aside the question of money alto-
gether, I must first know why your employer
wants to hunt out this poor Louise Duval. It
may be to her injury, and I would do her none
if you offered thousands where you offer pounds.
I forestall the condition of mutual confidence ; I
own that I have known her — it is many years ago ;
and, M. Lamb, though a Frenchman very often
injures a woman from love, he is in a worse
]>light for bread-and-cheese than I am if he in-
jures her for money.”

“Is he thinking of the duchess’s jewels?”
thought Graham.

“Bravo, mon vieiix^" he said, aloud; “but as
I don’t know what my employer’s motive in his
commission is, perhaps you can enlighten me.
How could his inquiry injure Louise Duval ?”

“I can not say; but you English have the
power to divorce your wives. Louise Duval may
liave married an Englishman, separated from
him, and he wants to know where he can find,
in order to criminate and divorce her, or it may
be to insist on her return to him.”

“ Bosh ! that is not likely.”

“Perhaps, then, some English friend she may
have known has left her a bequest, which would
of course lapse to some one else if she be not liv-
ing.”

“By gad!” cried Graham, “I think you hit
the right nail on the head : c’es? cela. But what
then ?”

“ Well, if I thought any substantial benefit to
Louise Duval might result from the success of

your inquiry, I would really see if it were in my
power to help you. But I must have time to
consider.”

“ How long?”

“I can’t exactly say; perhaps three or four
days. ”

“ Bon ! I will wait. Here comes M. Georges.
I leave you to dominoes and him. Good-night.”

Late that night M. Lebeau was seated alone
in a chamber connected with the cabinet in
which he received visitors. A ledger was open
before him, which he scanned with careful eyes,
no longer screened by spectacles. The survey
seemed to satisfy him. He murmured, “It suL
fices — the time has come;” closed the book, re-
turned it to his bureau, which he locked up, and
then wi ote in cipher the letter here reduced into
English :

“ Dear and noble Friend, — Events march ;
the empire is every where undermined. Our
treasury has thriven in my hands; the sums
subscribed and received by me through you have
become more than quadrupled by advantageous
speculations, in which M. Georges has been a
most trustworthy agent. A portion of them I
have continued to employ in the mode suggested
— viz., in bringing together men discreetly chosen
as being in their various ways representatives
and ringleaders of the motley varieties that,
when united at the right moment, form a Paris-
ian mob. But from that right moment we are
as yet distant. Before we can call passion into
action, we must prepare opinion for change. I
propose now to devote no inconsiderable portio)i
of our fund toward the inauguration of a journal
which shall gradually give voice to our designs.
Tnist to me to insure its success, and obtain the
aid of Avriters Avho aaIU have no notion of the
uses to Avhich they ultimately contribute. Noav
that the time has come to establish for ourselves
an organ in the press, addressing higher orders
of intelligence than those which are needed to
destroy, and incapable of reconstructing, the
time has also arriA^ed for the reappearance in his
proper name and rank of the man in Avhom you
take so gracious an interest. In vain you have
pressed him to do so before; till now he had not
amassed together, by the sIoav process of petty
gains and constant savings, with such additions
as prudent speculations on his OAvn account
might contribute, the modest means necessary to
his resumed position. And as he always con-
tended against your generous offers, no consider-
ation should ever tempt him either to appropriate
to his personal use a single sou intrusted to him
for a public purpose, or to accept from friendship
the pecuniary aid which would abase him into
the hireling of a cause. No ! Victor de Mauleon
despises too much the tools that he employs to
allow any man hereafter to say, ‘Thou also
wert a tool, and hast been paid for thy uses.’

“But to restore the victim of calumny to his
rightful place in this gfftidy Avorld, stripped of
youth and reduced in fortune, is a task that may
well seem impossible. To-morroAv he takes the
first step toward the achievement of the impossi-
ble. Experience is no bad substitute for youth,
and ambition is made stronger by the goad of
poverty.

“Thou shalt hear of his netvs soon.”

THE PARISIANS.

BOOK

CHAPTER I.

Thk next day at noon M. Louvier was clos-
eted in his study with M. Gandrin.

“ Yes,” cried Louvier, “ I have behaved very
handsomely to the beau Marquis. No one can
say to the contrary.”

“True,” answered Gandrin. “Besides the
easy terms for the transfer of the mortgages,
that free bonus of 1000 louis is a generous and
noble act of munificence.”

“Is it not! and my youngster has already
begun to do with it as I meant and expected.
He has taken a fine apartment ; he has bought
a coup^ and horses ; he has placed himself in the
Iiands of the Chevalier de Einisterre ; he is en-
tered at the Jockey Club. Parbleu, the 1000
louis will be soon gone.”

“ And then ?”

“And then! — why, he will have tasted the
sweets of Parisian life. He will think with dis-
gust of the vieux inanoir. He can borrow no
more. I must remain sole mortgagee, and I
shall behave as handsomely in buying his es-
tates as I have behaved in increasing his in-
come.”

Here a clerk entered and said “that a mon-
.sieur wished to see M. Louvier for a few min-
utes, in private, on urgent business.”

“Tell him to send in his card.”

“ He has declined to do so, but states that
he has already the honor of your acquaintance.”

‘ ‘ A writer in the press, perhaps ; or is he an
artist ?”

“I have not seen him before, monsieur, but
he has the air ires coinme il faut."

“Well, you may admit him. I will not de-
tain you longer, my dear Gandrin. My hom-
ages to madame. Bonjour."

Louvier bowed out M. Gandrin, and then
rubbed his hands complacently. He was in high
spirits. “Aha, my dear Marquis, thou art in
my trap now. Would it were thy father in-
stead,” he muttered, chucklingly, and then took
his stand on his hearth, with his back to the fire-
less giate. There entered a gentleman, exceed-
ingly well di'essed — dressed according to the fash-
ion, but still as became one of ripe middle age, not
desiring to pass for younger than he was.

He was tall, with a kind of lofty ease in his
air and his movements ; not slight of frame, but
spare enough to disguise the strength and endur-
ance which belong to sinews and thews of steel,
freed from all superfluous flesh, broad across the
shoulders, thin in the flanks. His dark hair had
in youth been luxuriant in thickness and curl ;
it was now clipped short, and had become bare
at the temples, but it still retained the lustre of its
color and the crispness of its ringlets. He wore
neither beard nor mustache, and the darkness
of his hair was contrasted by a clear fairness of
complexion, healthful, though somewhat pale,
and eyes of that rare gray tint which has in it
no shade of blue — peculiar eyes, which give a
very distinct character to the face. The man
must have been singularly handsome in youth ;
he was handsome still, though probably in his
forty-seventh or forty-eighth year, doubtless a

FIFTH.

very different kind of comeliness. The form of
the features and the contour of the face were
those that suit the rounded beauty of the Greek
outline, and such beauty would naturally have
been the attribute of the countenance in earlier
days. But the cheeks were now thin, and with
lines of care or sorrow between nostril and lip,
so that the shape of the face seemed lengthened,
and the features had become more salient.

Louvier gazed at his visitor with a vague idea
that he had seen him before, and could not re-
member where or when ; but, at all events, he
recognized at the first glance a man of rank and
of the great world.

“Pray be seated, monsieur!” he said, resum-
ing his own easy-chair.

The visitor obeyed the invitation with a very
graceful bend of his head, drew his chair near to
the financier’s, stretched his limbs with the ease
of a man making himself at home, and fixing
his calm bright eyes quietly on Louvier, said,
with a bland smile,

“My dear old friend, do you not remember
me? You are less altered than I am.”

Louvier stared hard and long; his lip fell, his
cheek paled, and at last he faltered out, “ del!
is it possible ! Victor — the Vicomte de Mau-
leon?”

“ At your service, my dear Louvier.”

There was a pause ; the financier was evident-
ly confused and embarrassed, and not less evi-
dently the visit of the “ dear old friend” was un-
welcome.

“Vicomte,” he said at last, “this is indeed
a surprise ; I thought you had long since quitted
Paris for good.”

^ L'homme propose,' etc. I have returned,
and mean to enjoy the rest of my days in the
metropolis of the Graces and the Pleasures.
What though we are not so young as we were,
Louvier — we have more vigor in us than the new
generation ; and though it may no longer befit
us to renew the gay carousals of old, life has
still excitements as vivid for the social tempera-
ment and ambitious mind. Yes, the roi des
viveurs returns to Paris for a more solid throne
than he filled before.”

“Are you serious ?”

“As serious as the French gayety will permit
one to be.”

“Alas, M. le Vicomte ! Can you flatter your-
self that you will regain the society you have
quitted, and the name you have — ”

Louvier stopped short ; something in the Vi-
comte’s eye daunted him.

“The name I have laid aside for convenience
of travel. Princes travel incognito, and so may
a simple gentilhovnne. ‘ Regain my place in so-
ciety,’ say you? Yes; it is not that which
troubles me.”

“What does?”

“The consideration whether on a very modest
income I can be sufficiently esteemed for myself
to render that society more pleasant than ever.
Ah, mon cher ! why recoil? why so frightened?
Do you think I am going to ask you for money ?
Have I ever done so since we parted ? and did I
ever do so before without repaying you ? Bah !

THP: PARISIANS.

you roturiers are worse than the Bourbons. You
never learn nor unlearn. ^ Fors non mutat
genus.' "

The magnificent millionnaire, accustomed to
the homage of grandees from the Faubourg and
lions from the Chaussee d’Antin, rose to his feet
in superb wrath, less at the taunting words than
at the haughtiness of mien with which they were
uttered.

“Monsieur, I can not permit you to address
me in that tone. Do you mean to insult me ?"

‘ ‘ Certainly not. Tranquillize your nerves, re-
seat yourself, and listen. Reseat yourself, I say. "

Louvier dropped into his chair.

“No,” resumed the Vicomte, politely, “I do
not come here to insult you, neither do I come
to ask money ; I assume that I am in my rights
when I ask M. Louvier what has become of
Louise Duval ?”

“ Louise Duval ! I know nothing about her.”

“Possibly not now; but you did know her
w’ell enough, when we two parted, to be a candi-
date for her hand. You did know her enough
to solicit my good offices in promotion of your
suit; and you did, at my advice, quit Paris to
seek her at Aix-la-Chapelle.”

“ What ! have you, M. de Mauleon, not heard
news of her since that day ?”

“ I decline to accept your question as an an-
swer to mine. You went to Aix-la-Chapelle ;
you saw Louise Duval; at my urgent request
she condescended to accept your hand.”

“ No, M. de Mauleon, she did not accept my
hand. I did not even see her. The day before
1 arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle she had left it — not
alone — left it with her lover.”

“ Her lover ! You do not mean the miserable
Englishman who — ”

“ No Englishman,” interrupted Louvier, fierce-
ly. “ Enough that the step she took placed an
eternal barrier between her and myself. I have
never even sought to hear of her since that day.
Vicomte, that woman was the one love of my
life. I loved her, as you must have known, to
folly — to madness. And how was my love re-
quited? Ah! you open a very deep wound, M.
le Vicomte.”

“Pardon me, Louvier; I did not give you
credit for feelings so keen and so genuine, nor
did I think myself thus easily affected by mat-
ters belonging to a past life so remote from the
present. For whom did Louise forsake you ?”

“ It matters not — he is dead.”

“ 1 regret to hear that ; 1 might have avenged
you.”

“I need no one to avenge my wrong. Let
this pass.”

“Not yet. Louise, you say, fled with a se-
ducer ? So proud as she was, 1 can scarcely be-
lieve it. ”

“ Oh, it was not with a roturier she fled ; her
pride would not have allowed that. ”

“ He must have deceived her somehow. Did
she continue to live with him ?”

“That question, at least, I can answer; for
though I lost all trace of her life, his life was
pretty well known to me till its end ; and a very
few months after she fled he was enchained to
another. Let us talk of her no more.”

“ Ay, ay,” muttered De Mauleon, “some dis-
graces are not to be redeemed, and therefore not
to be discussed. To me, though a relation,

Louise Duval was but little known, and after
what you tell me, I can not dispute your right to
say, ‘ talk of her no more.’ You loved her, and
she wronged you. My poor Louvier, pardon
me if I made an old wound bleed afresh.”

These words were said with a certain pathetic
tenderness ; they softened Louvier toward the
speaker.

After a short pause the Vicomte swept his
hand over his brow, as if to dismiss from his
mind a painful and obtrusive thought ; then,
with a changed expression of countenance — an
expression frank and winning — with voice and
with manner in which no vestige remained of
the irony or the haughtiness with which he had
resented the frigidity of his reception, he drew
his chair still nearer to Louvier’s, and resumed :
“Our situations, Paul Louvier, are much changed
since we two became friends. I then could say,

‘ Open, sesame,’ to whatever recesses, forbidden to
vulgar footsteps, the adventurer whom I took by
the hand might wish to explore. In those days
my heart was warm ; I liked you, Louvier — hon-
estly liked you. I think our personal acquaint-
ance commenced in some gay gathering of young
viveurs, whose behavior to you offended my sense
of good-breeding ?”

Louvier colored, and muttered inaudibly.

De Mauleon continued : “I felt it due to you
to rebuke their incivilities, the more so as you
e\dnced on that occasion your own superiority in
sense and temper, permit me to add, with no lack
of becoming spirit. ”

Louvier bowed his head, evidently gratified.

“From that day we became familiar. If any
obligation to me were incurred, you would not
have been slow to return it. On more than
one occasion when I was rapidly wasting money
— and money was plentiful with you — you gen-
erously offered me your purse. On more than
one occasion I accepted the offer ; and you would
never have asked repayment if I had not insisted
on repaying. I was no less grateful for your aid. ”

Louvier made a movement as if to extend his
hand, but he checked the impulse.

“There was another attraction which drew
me toward you. I recognized in your charac-
ter a certain power in sympathy with that power
which I imagined lay dormant in myself, and not
to be found among the freluquets and lions who
were my more habitual associates. Do you not
remember some hours of serious talk we have had
together when we lounged in the Tuileries, or
sipped our coffee in the garden of the Palais
Royal^ — hours when we forgot that those were
the haunts of idlers, and thought of the stormy
actions affecting the history of the world of which
they had been the scene — hours when I confided
to you, as I confided to no other man, the ambi-
tious hopes for the future which my follies in the
present, alas ! were hourly tending to frustrate ?”

“ Ay, I remember the star-lit night ; it was not
in the gardens of the Tuileries nor in the Palais
Royal — it was on the Pont de la Concorde, on
which we had paused, noting the starlight on the
waters, that you said, pointing toward the walls
of the Corps Legislatif^ ‘ Paul, when I once get
into the Chamber, how long will it take me to
become First Minister of France ?’ ”

“Did I say so? — possibly; but I was too
young then for admission to the Chamber, and
I fancied I had so many years yet to spare in

THE PARISIANS.

idle loiterings at the Fountain of Youth. Pass
over these circumstances. Yon became in love
with Louise. I told you her troubled history ; it
did not diminish your love ; and then I frankly
favored your suit. You set out for Aix-la-Cha-
pelle a day or two afterward — then fell the thun-
der-bolt which shattered my existence — and we
have never met again till this hour. You did
not receive me kindly, Paul Louvier.”

“But,” said Louvier, falteringly — “but since
you refer to that thunder-bolt, you can not but
be aware that — that — ”

“1 was subjected to a calumny which I expect
those who ha^ known me as well as you did to
assist me now to refute.”

“ If it be really a calumny.”

“ Heavens, man ! could you ever doubt that?"
cried De Mauleon, with heat; “ever doubt that
I would rather have blown out my brains than
allowed them even to conceive the idea of a crime
so base?”

“Pardon me,” answered Louvier, meekly,
“but I did not return to Paris for months
after you had disappeared. My mind was un-
settled by the news that awaited me at Aix ; I
sought to distract it by travel — visited Holland
and England ; and when I did return to Paris,
all that I heard of your story was the darker side
of it. I willingly listen to your own account.
You never took, or at least never accepted, the

Duchesse de ’s jewels ; and your friend M.

de N never sold them to one jeweler and

obtained their substitutes in paste from another ?”

The Vicomte made a perceptible etfort to re-
press an impulse of rage ; then reseating himself
in his chair, and with that slight shrug of the
shoulder by which a Frenchman implies to him-
self that rage would be out of place, replied,

calmly, “M. de N did as you say, but, of

course, not employed by me, nor with my knowl-
edge. Listen ; the truth is this — the time has
come to tell it. Before you left Paris for Aix I
found myself on the brink of ruin. I had glided
toward it with my characteristic recklessness —
with that scorn of money for itself — that sanguine
confidence in the favor of fortune which are vices
common to every roi des viveurs. Poor mock
Alexanders that we spendthrifts are in youth !
we divide all we have among others, and when
asked by some prudent friend, ‘ What have you
left for your own share?’ answer, ‘Hope.’ I
knew, of course, that my patrimony was rapid-
ly vanishing ; but then my horses were match-
less. I had enough to last me for years on their
chance of winning — of course th6y would win.
But you may recollect when we parted that I
was troubled — creditors’ bills before me, usurers’
bills too — and you, my dear Louvier, pressed on
me your purse — were angry when I refused it.
How could I accept ? All my chance of repay-
ment was in the speed of a horse. I believed in
that chance for myself ; but for a trustful friend,
no. Ask your own heart, now — nay, I will not
say heart — ask your own common-sense, whether
a man who then put aside your purse — spend-
thrift, vaurien though he might be— was likely
to steal or accept a woman’s jewels — Pa, mon
pauvre Louvier^ again I say, Fors non inutat
genus.' ”

Despite the repetition of the displeasing patri-
cian motto, such reminiscences of his visitor s
motley character — irregular, turbulent, the re-

verse of severe, but, in its own loose way, grand-
ly generous and grandly brave — struck both on
the common-sense and the heart of the listener ;
and the Frenchman recognized the Frenchman.
Louvier doubted Mauleon ’s word no more, bowed
his head, and said, “ Victor de Mauleon, I have
wronged you — go on.”

“ On the day after you left for Aix came that
horse-race on which my all depended : it was
lost. The loss absorbed the whole of my remain-
ing fortune : it absorbed about 20,000 francs in

excess, a debt of honor to De N , whom you

called my friend : friend he was not ; imitator,
follower, flatterer, yes. Still I deemed him
enough my friend to say to him, ‘Give me a
little time to pay the money; I must sell my
stud, or write to my only living relation from
whom I have expectations. ’ You remember that
relation — Jacques de Mauleon, old and unmar-
ried. By De N ’s advice I did write to my

kinsman. No answer came ; but what did come
were fresh bills from creditors. I then calmly
calculated my assets. The sale of my stud and
effects might suflice to pay every sou that I owed,

including my debt to De N ; but that was not

quite certain — at all events, when the debts were
paid I should be beggared. Well, you know,
Louvier, what we Frenchmen are: how Nature
has denied to us the quality of patience ; how in-
voluntarily suicide presents itself to us when hope
is lost — and suicide seemed to me here due to
honor — viz., to the certain discharge of my lia-
bilities— for the stud and effects of Victor de
Mauleon, roi des viveurs, would command much
higher prices if he died like Cato than if he ran
away from his fate like Pompey. Doubtless De

N guessed my intention from my words or

my manner ; but on the very day in which I had
made all preparations for quitting the world from
which sunshine had vanished I received in a
blank envelope bank-notes amounting to 70,000
francs, and the postmark on the “envelope was
that of the town of Fontainebleau, near to which
lived my rich kinsman Jacques. I took it for
granted that the sum came from him. Dis-
pleased as he might have been with my wild
career, still I was his natural heir. The sum
sufficed to pay my debt to De N , to all cred-

itors, and leave a surplus. My sanguine spirits
returned. I would sell my stud ; I would re-
trench, reform, go to my kinsman as the pen-
itent son. The fatted calf would be killed, and
I should wear purple yet. You understand that,
Louvier ?”

“Yes, yes; so like you. Go on.”

“ Now, then, came the thunder-bolt. Ah ! in
those sunny days you used to envy me for being

so spoiled by women. The Duchesse de had

conceived for me one of those romantic fancies
which women without children, and with ample
leisure for the waste of affection, do sometimes
conceive for very ordinaiy men younger than
themselves, but in whom they imagine they dis-
cover sinners to reform or heroes to exalt. 1
had been honored by some notes from the Du-
chesse, in which this sort of romance was owned.
I had not replied to them encouragingly. In
truth, my heart was then devoted to another —
the English girl whom I had wooed as my wife
— who, despite her parents’ retractation of their
consent to our union when they learned how
dilapidated were my fortunes, pledged herself

THE PARISIANS.

to remain faithful to me, and wait for better
days.” Again De Mauleon paused in suppressed
emotion, and then went on, hurriedly : “ No, the
Duchesse did not inspire me with guilty passion,
but she did inspire me with an affectionate re-
spect. I felt that she was by nature meant to
be a great and noble creature, and was, never-
theless, at that moment wholly misled from her
right place among women by an illusion of mere
imagination about a man who happened then to
l)e very much talked about, and perhaps resem-
bled some Lothario in the novels which she was
always reading. We lodged, as you may re-
member, in the same house.”

“Yes, I remember. I remember how you
once took me to a great ball given by the Du-
chesse ; how handsome I thought her, though no
longer young; and you say right — how 1 did
envy you that night!”

“From that night, however, the Due, not un-
naturally, became jealous. He reproved the
Duchesse for her too amiable manner toward a
mauvais sujet like myself, and forbade her in
future to receive my visits. It was then that
these notes became frequent and clandestine,
brought to me by her maid, who took back my
somewhat chilling replies.

“But to proceed. In the flush of my high
spirits, and in the insolence of magnificent ease

with which I paid De N the trifle I ow ed him,

something he said made my heart stand still. I
told him that the money received had come from
Jacques de Mauleon, and that I was going down
to his house that day to thank him. He replied,
‘Don’t go; it did not come from him.’ ‘It
must; see the postmark of the envelope — Fon-
tainebleau.’ ‘I posted it at Fontainebleau.’
‘You sent me the money — you!’ ‘Nay, that
is beyond my means. Where it came from,’
said this miserable, ‘much more may yet come;’
and then he narrated, with that cynicism so in
vogue at Paris, how he had told the Duchesse
(who knew him as my intimate associate) of my
stress of circumstance, of his fear that I medi-
tated something desperate; how she gave him
the jew’els to sell and to substitute ; how, in order
to baffle my suspicion and frustrate my scruples,
he had gone to Fontainebleau, and there posted
the envelope containing the bank-notes, out of
which he secured for himself the payment he

deemed otherwise imperiled. De N , having

made this confession, hurried down the stairs
swiftly enough to save himself a descent by the
window. Do you believe me still ?”

“Yes; you were always so hot-blooded, and

De N so considerate of self, I believe you

implicitly.”

“ Of course I did what any man would do — I
wrote a hasty letter to the Duchesse, stating all
my gratitude for an act of pure friendship so
noble, urging also the reasons that rendered it
impossible for a man of honor to profit by such
an act. Unhappily, what had been sent was
paid away ere I knew the facts, but 1 could not
bear the thought of life till my debt to her was
acquitted ; in short, J.ouvier, conceive for your-
self the sort of letter which I — which any hon-
est man — would write under circumstances so
cruel.”

“ H’m !” grunted Louvier.

“ Something, however, in my letter, conjoined
wirh what De N had told her as to my state of

mind, alarmed this poor woman, who had deigned
to take in me an interest so little deserved. Her
reply, very agitated and incoherent, was brought
to me by her maid, who had taken my letter,
and by whom, as I before said, our correspond-
ence had been of late carried on. In her reply
she implored me to decide, to reflect on nothing
till I had seen her; stated how the rest of her
day was pre-engaged ; and since to visit her
openly had been made impossible by the Due’s
interdict, inclosed the key to the private entrance
to her rooms, by which I could gain an interview
with her at ten o’clock that night, an hour at
which the Due had informed he|^ he should be
out till late at his club. Now, however great
the indiscretion which the Duchesse here com-
mitted, it is due to her memory to say that I am
convinced that her dominant idea was that I
meditated self-destruction ; that no time was to
be lost to save me from it ; and for the rest she
trusted to the influence which a woman’s tears
and adjurations and reasonings have over even
the strongest and hardest men. It is only one
of those coxcombs in whom the world of fashion
abounds who could have admitted a thought that
would have done wrong to the impulsive, gener-
ous, imprudent eagerness of a woman to be in
time to save from death by his own hand a fel-
low-being for whom she had conceived an inter-
est. I so construed her note. At the hour she
named I admitted myself into the rooms by the
key she sent. You know the rest: I w'as dis-
covered by the Due and by the agents of police
in the cabinet in w'hich the Duchesse’s jewels
were kept. The key that admitted me into the
cabinet was found in my possession.”

De Mauleon’s voice here faltered, and he cov-
ered his face with a convulsive hand. Almost in
the same breath he recovered from visible sign of
emotion, and went on, with a half laugh :

“ Ah ! you envied me, did you, for being
spoiled by the women ? Enviable position, in-
deed, was mine that night. The Due obeyed
the first impulse of his wrath. He imagined
that I had dishonored him : he w’ould dishonor
me in return. Easier to his pride, too, a charge
against the robber of jewels than against a fa-
vored lover of his wife. But when I, obeying
the first necessary obligation of honor, invented
on the spur of the moment the story by which
the Duchesse’s reputation w'as cleared from sus-
picion, accused myself of a frantic passion and
the trickery of a fabricated key, the Due’s true
nature of gentilhomme came back. He retracted
the charge w'hich he could scarcely even at the
first blush have felt to be well founded ; and as
the sole charge left was simply that which men
comme il faut do not refer to criminal courts and
police investigations, I was left to make my bow
unmolested, and retreat to my own rooms, await-
ing there such communications as the Due might
deem it right to convey to me on the morrow.

“But on the morrow' the Due, w'ith his wife
and personal suit, quitted Paris en route for
Spain ; the bulk of his retinue, including the of-
fending abigail, was discharged ; and, whether
through these servants or through the police,
the story before evening w'as in the mouth of
every gossip in club or cafd — exaggerated, dis-
torted, to my ignominy and shame. My detec-
tion in the cabinet, the sale of the jewels, the sub-
stitution of paste by De N , who was known

THE PARISIANS.

to be my servile imitator, and reputed to be my
abject tool, all my losses on the turf, my debts
— all these scattered fibres of flax were twisted
together in a rope that would have hanged a dog
with a much better name than mine. If some
disbelieved that I could be a thief, few of those
who should have known me best held me guilt-
less of a baseness almost equal to that of theft —
the exaction of profit from the love of a foolish
woman.”

“ But you could have told your own tale, shown
the letters you had received from the Ducliesse,
and cleared away every stain on your honor.”

“ How'? — shown her letters, ruined her char-
acter, even stated that she had caused her jewels
to be sold for the uses of a young roue ! Ah, no,
Louvier. I would rather have gone to tlie gal-
leys!”

“ H’m !” grunted Louvier again.

“The Due generously gave me better means
of righting myself. Three days after he quitted
Paris I received a letter from him, very politely
written, expressing his great regret that any
words implying the suspicion too monstrous and
absurd to need refutation should have escaped
him in the surprise of the moment ; but stating
that since the otfense I had owned was one that
he could not overlook, he was under the necessi-
ty of asking the only reparation I could make.
That if it ‘ deranged’ me to quit Paris, he would
return to it for the purpose I'equired ; but that
if I would give him the additional satisfaction
of suiting his convenience, he should prefer to
await my arrival at Bayonne, where he was, de-
tained by the indisposition of tlie Duchesse.”

“You have still that letter?” asked Louvier,
quickly.

“ Yes ; with other more important documents
constituting what I may call my pieces justijica-
tives.

“I need not say that I replied, stating the
time at which I should arrive at Bayonne, and
the hotel at which I should await the Due’s
command. Accordingly I set out that same
day, gained the hotel named, dispatched to the
Due the announcement of my arrival, and was
considering how I should obtain a second in
some officer quartered in the town — for my sore-
ness and resentment at the marked coldness of
my former acquaintances at Paris had forbidden
me to seek a second among any of that faithless
number — when the Due himself entered my
room. Judge of my amaze at seeing him in
person ; judge how much greater the amaze be-
came when he advanced, with a grave but cor-
dial smile, offering me his hand !

“ ‘M. de Mauleon,’ said he, ‘since I wrote to
you, facts have become known to me Avhich
would induce me rather to ask your friendship
than call on you to defend your life. Madame
la Duchesse has been seriously ill since we left
Paris, and I refrained from all explanations
likely to add to the hysterical excitement under
which she was suffering. It is only this day
that her mind became collected, and she herself
then gave me her entire confidence. Monsieur,
she insisted on my reading the letters that you
addressed to her. Those letters, monsieur, suf-
fice to prove your innocence of any design against
my peace. The Duchesse has so candidly avow-
ed her own indiscretion, has so clearly established
the distinction between indiscretion and guilt,

that I have granted her my pardon with a light-
ened heart, and a firm belief that we shall be
happier together than we have been yet. ’

“The Due continued his journey the next
day, but he subsequently honored me with two
or three letters, written as friend to friend, and
in which you will find repeated the substance
of what I have stated him to say by word of
mouth.”

“ But why not then have returned to Paris ?
Such letters, at least, you might have shown, and
in braving your calumniators you would have
soon lived them down.”

“ You forget that I was a ruined man. When,
by the sale of my horses, etc. , my debts, includ-
ing what was owed to the Duchesse, and which
I remitted to the Due, were discharged, the bal-
ance left to me would not have maintained me a
week at Paris. Besides, I felt so sore, so indig-
nant. Paris and the Parisians had become to
me so hateful. And to crown all, that girl, that
English girl whom I had so loved, on whose
fidelity I had so counted — well, I received a let-
ter from her, gently but coldly bidding me fare-
well forever. I do not think she believed me
guilty of theft, but doubtless the oflPense I had
confessed, in order to save the honor of the
Duchesse, could but seem to her all-sufficient!
Broken in spirit, bleeding at heart to the very
core, still self-destruction was no longer to be
thought of. I would not die till I could once
more lift up my head as Victor de Mauleon.”

“ What then became of you, my poor Victor ?”

“Ah! that is a tale too long for recital. I
have played so many parts that I am puzzled to
recognize my own identity with the Victor de
Mauleon whose name I abandoned. I have
been a soldier in Algeria, and won my cross on
the field of battle — that cross and my colonel’s
letter are among my pieces justijicatives. I have
been a gold-digger in California, a speculator in
New York, of late in callings obscure and hum-
ble. But in all my adventures, under whatever
name, I have earned testimonials of probity, could
manifestations of so vulgar a virtue be held of
account by the enlightened people of Paris. I
come now to a close. The Vicomte de Mauleon
is about to reappear in Paris, and the first to
whom he announces that sublime avatar is Paul
Louvier. Wlien settled in some modest apart-
ment, I shall place in your hands my pieces jus-
tijicatives. I shall ask you to summon my sur-
viving relations or connections, among which are
the Counts de Vandemar, Beauvilliers, De Passy,
and the Marquis de Rochebriant, with any friends
of your own who sway the opinions of the Great
World. You will place my justification before
them, expressing your own opinion that it suf-
fices ; in a word, you will give me the sanction
of your countenance. For the rest, I trust to
myself to propitiate the kindly and to silence the
calumnious. I have spoken ; what say you ?”

“ You overrate my power in society. Why
not appeal yourself to your high-born relations ?”

“No, Louvier; I have too well considered
the case to alter my decision. It is through
you, and you alone, that I shall approach my
relations. My vindicator must be a man of
whom the vulgar can not say, ‘ Oh, he is a re-
lation— fellow-noble: those aristocrats white-
wash each other.’ It must be an authority with
the public at large — a bourgeois, a millionnaire, a

THE PARISIANS.

roi de la Bourse. I choose you, and that ends
the discussion.”

Louvier c.ould not help laughing good-humor-
edly at the samj-froid of the Vicomte. He was
once more under the domination of a man who
had for a time dominated all with whom he lived.

De Mauleon continued: “Your task will be
easy enough. Society changes rapidly at Paris.
Few persons now exist who have more than a
vague recollection of the circumstances, which
can be so easily explained to my complete vin-
dication when the vindication comes from a man
of your solid respectability and social influence.
Besides, I have political objects in view. You
are a Liberal ; the Vandemars and Rochebiiants
are Legitimists. I prefer a godfather on the
Liberal side. Pardieu, mm ami, why such co-
quettish hesitation? Said and done. Your
hand on it.”

“ There is my hand, then. I will do all I
can to help you.”

“ I know you will, old friend ; and you do both
kindly and wisely. ” Here De Mauleon cordially
pressed the hand he held, and departed.

On gaining the street the Vicomte glided
into a neighboring court-yard, in which he had
left his fiacre, and bade the coachman drive to-
ward the Boulevard Sebastopol. On the way
he took from a small bag that he had left in the
carriage the flaxen wig and pale whiskers which
distinguished M. Lebeau, and mantled his ele-
gant habiliments in an immense cloak, which he
had also left in the fiacre. Arrived at the Boule-
vard Sebastopol, he drew up the collar of the
cloak so as to conceal much of his face, stopped
the driver, paid him quickly, and, bag in hand,
hurried on to another stand of fiacres at a little
distance, entered one, drove to the Faubourg
Montmartre, dismissed the vehicle at the mouth
of a street not far from M. Lebeau’s office, and
gained on foot the private side-door of the house,
let himself in with his latch-key, entered the
private room on the inner side of his office, lock-
ed the door, and proceeded leisurely to exchange
the brilliant appearance which the Vicomte de
Mauleon had borne on his visit to the million-
naire for the sober raiment and bourgeois air of
M. Lebeau, the letter-writer.

Then after locking up his former costume in
a drawer of his secretaire, he sat himself down
and wrote the following lines :

“Dear M. Georges, — I advise you strongly,
from information that has just reached me, to
lose no time in pressing M. Savarin to repay the
sum I recommended you to lend him, and for
which you hold his bill due this day. The scan-
dal of legal measures against a writer so distin-
guished should be avoided if possible. He will
avoid it and get the money somehow. But he
must be urgently pressed. If you neglect this
warning, my responsibility is past. — Agreez vies
sentimens les plus sinceres. J. L.”

CHAPTER II.

The Marquis de Rochebriant is no longer
domiciled in an attic in the gloomy faubourg.
See him now in a charming appartement de gar-
den au premier in the Rue du Helder, close by

the promenades and haunts of the mode. It had
been furnished and inhabited by a brilliant
young provincial from Bordeaux, who, coming
into an inheritance of 100,000 francs, had rush-
ed up to Paris to enjoy himself, and make his
million at the Bourse. He had enjoyed him-
self thoroughly — he had been a darling of the
demi monde. He had been a successful and an
inconstant gallant. Zelie had listened to his
vows of eternal love, and his offers of unlimited
cachemires. Desiree, succeeding Zelie, had as-
signed to him her whole heart, or all tiiat was
left of it, in gratitude for the ardor of his pas-
sion, and the diamonds and coupe which accom-
panied and attested the ardor. The superb
Hortense, stipplanting Desiree, received, his vis-
its in the charming apartment he furnished for
her, and entertained him and his friends at the
most delicate little suppers, for the moderate
sum of 4000 francs a month. Yes, he had en-
joyed himself thoroughly, but he had not made
a million at the Bourse. Before the year was
out the 100,000 francs were gone. Compelled
to return to his province, and by his hard-heart-
ed relations ordained, on penalty of starvation,
to marry the daughter of an avoue, for the sake
of her dot and a share in the hated drudgery of
the avou^'s business, his apartment was to be
had for a tenth part of the original cost of its
furniture. A certain Chevalier de Finisterre, to
whom Louvier had introduced the Marquis as a
useful fellow, who knew Paris, and would save
him from being cheated, had secured this bijou
of an apartment for Alain, and concluded the
bargain for the bagatelle of £500. The Cheva-
lier took the same advantageous oceasion to pur-
chase the English well-bred hack, and the neat
coup^ and horses which the Bordelais was also
necessitated to dispose of. These purchases
made, the Marquis had some 5000 francs (£200)
left out of Louvier’s premium of £1000. The
Marquis, however, did not seem alarmed or de-
jected by the sudden diminution of capital so
expeditiously effected. The easy life thus com-
menced seemed to him too natural to be fraught
with danger ; and easy though it was, it was a
very simple and modest sort of life cqmpared
with that of many other men of his age to whom
Enguerrand had introduced him, though most
of them had an income less than his, and few,
indeed, of them were his equals in dignity of
birth. Could a Marquis de Rochebriant, if he
lived at Paris at all, give less than 3000 francs
a year for his apartment, or mount a more hum-
ble establishment than that confined to a valet
and a tiger, two horses for his coup€ and one for
the saddle? “ Impossible,” said the Chevalier
de Finisterre, decidedly ; and the Marquis bow-
ed to so high an authority. He thought within
himself, “If I find in a few months that I am
exceeding my means, I can but dispose of my
rooms and my horses, and return to Rochebri-
ant a richer man by far than I left it.”

To say truth, the brilliant seductions of Paris
had already produced their effect, not only on
the habits, but on the character and cast of
thought, which the young noble had brought
with him from the feudal and melancholy Bre-
tagne.

Warmed by the kindness with which, once in-
troduced by his popular kinsmen, he was every
where received, the reserve or shyness which is

THE PARISIANS.

the compromise between the haughtiness of
self-esteem and the painful doubt of appreciation
by others rapidly melted away. He caught in-
sensibly the polished tone, at once so light and
so cordial, of his new-made friends. With all
the efforts ot the democrats to establish equality
and tVaternit3\ it is among the aristocrats that
equality and fraternity are most to be found.
All gentilshommes in the best society are equals,
and whether they embrace or fight each other,
they embrace or fight as brothers of the same
family. But with the tone of manners Alain de
Rochebriant imbibed still more insensibly the
lore of that philosophy which young idlers in
pursuit of pleasure teach to each other. Prob-
ably in all civilized and luxurious capitals that
philosophy is very much the same among the
same class of idlers at the same age ; probably
it flourishes in Pekin not less than at Paris. If
Paris has the credit, or discredit, of it more
than any other capital, it is because in Paris
more than in any other capital it charms the
eye by grace and amuses the ear by wit.- A
philosophy which takes the things of this life
very easily — which has a smile and a shrug of
the shoulders for any pretender to the Heroic —
wdiich subdivides the wealth of passion into the
pocket-money of caprices — is always in or out
of love, ankle-deep, never venturing a plunge —
which, light of heart as of tongue, turns “the
solemn plausibilities” of earth into subjects for
epigrams and bons mots — it jests at loyalty to
kings, and turns up its nose at enthusiasm for
commonwealths — it abjures all grave studies — it
shuns all profound emotions. We have crowds
of such philosophers in London, but there they
are less noticed, because the agreeable attributes
of the sect are there dimmed and obfuscated.
It is not a philosophy that flowers richly in the
reek of fogs and in the teeth of east winds ; it
wants for full development the light atmosphere
of Paris. Now this philosophy began rapidly to
exercise its charms upon Alain de Rochebriant.
Even in the society of professed Legitimists he
felt that faith had deserted the Legitimist creed,
or taken refuge only as a companion of religion
in the hearts of high-born women and a small
minority of priests. His chivalrous loyalty still
struggled to keep its ground, but its roots were
very much loosened. He saAv — for his natural
intellect was keen — that the cause of the Bour-
bon was hopeless, at least for the present, be-
cause it had ceased, at least for the present, to
be a cause. Plis political creed thus shaken,
with it was shaken also that adherence to the
past which had stifled his ambition of a future.
That ambition began to breathe and to stir,
though he owned it not to others — though, as
yet, he scarce distinguished its whispers, much
less directed its movements toward any definite
object. Meanwhile, all that he knew of his am-
bition was the new-born desire for social success.

We see him, then, under the quick operation
of this change in sentiments and habits reclined
on the fauteuil before his fireside, and listening
to his college friend, of whom we have so long
lost sight, Frederic Lemercier. Frederic had
breakfasted with Alain— a breakfast such as
might have contented the author of t\\Q Almanack
des Gourmands^ and provided from the Cafe
Anglais. Frederic has just thrown aside his
regalia.

Pardieu! my dear Alain. If Louvier has
no sinister object in the generosity of his deal-
ings with you, he will have raised himself pro-
digiously in my estimation. I shall forsake in
his favor my allegiance to Duplessis, though that
clever fellow has just made a wondrous coup in
the Egyptians, and I gain 40,000 francs- by hav-
ing followed his advice. But if Duplessis has a
head as long as Louvier’s, he; certainly has not
an equal greatness of soul. Still, my dear friend,
will you pardon me if I speak frankly, and in
the way of a warning homily?”

“ Speak ; you can not oblige me more.”

“Well, then, I know that you can no more
live at Paris in the way you are doing, or mean
to do, without some fresh addition to your in-
come than a lion could live in the Jardin des
Plantes upon an allowance of two mice a week.”

“I don’t see that. Deducting what I pay to
my aunt — and I can not get her to take rnore
than 6000 francs a year — I have 700 napoleons
left, net and clear. My rooms and stables are
equipped, and I have 2500 francs in hand. On
700 napoleons a year I calculate that I can verv
easily live as I do, and if I fail — well, I must
return to Rochebriant. Seven hundred napo-
leons a year will be a magnificent rental there.”

Frederic shook his head.

“ You do not know how one expense leads to
another. Above all, you do not calculate the
chief part of one’s expenditure — the unforeseen.
You will play at the Jockey Club, and lose half
your income in a night.”

“ I shall never touch a card.”

“So you say now, innocent as a lamb of the
force of example. At all events, beau seigneur,
I presume you are not going to resuscitate the
part of the Ermite de la Ckaussee d’Antin; and
the fair Parisiennes are demons of extrava-
gance.”

“Demons whom I shall not court.”

‘ ‘ Did I say you would ? They will court you.
Before another month has flown you will be in-
undated with billets-doux."

“It is not a shower that will devastate my
humble harvest. But, mon cher, we are falling
upon very gloomy topics. Laissez-moi tranquille
in my illusions, if illusions they be. Ah, you
can not co-nceive what a new life opens to the
man who, like myself, has passed the dawn of
his youth in privation and fear when he suddenly
acquires competence and hope. If it last only a
year, it will be something to say ‘ Vixi.’”

“Alain,” said Frederic, very earnestly, “be-
lieve me I should not have assumed the un-
gracious and inappropriate task of Mentor if it
were only a year’s experience at stake, or if you
were in the position of men like myself — free
from the encumbrance of a great name and heav-
ily mortgaged lands. Should you fail to pay
regularly the interest due to Louvier, he has the
power to put up at public auction, and there to
buy in for himself, your chateau and domain.”

“I am aware that in strict law he would have
such power, though I doubt if he would use it.
Louvier is certainly a much better and more
generous fellow than I could have expected, and
if I believe De Finisterre, he has taken a sincere
liking to me on account of affection to my poor
father. But why should not the interest be paid
regularly? The revenues from Rochebriant are
not likely to decrease, and the charge on them

THE PARISIANS.

is lightened by the contract with Louvier. And
I will confide to you a hope I entertain of a very
large addition to my rental. ”

“How?”

“A chief part of my rental is derived from
forests, and De Finisterre has heard of a capital-
ist who is disposed to make a contract for their
sale at the fall this year, and may probably ex-
tend it to future years, at a price far exceeding
that which I have hitherto obtained.”

“Pray be cautious. De Finisterre is not a
man I should implicitly trust in such matters.”

“ Why ? do you know any thing against him ?
He is in the best society — perfect gentilhomme —
and as his name may tell you, a fellow-Breton.
You yourself allow, and so does Enguerrand,
that the purchases he made for me — in this
apartment, my horses, etc. — are singularly ad-
vantageous.”

“Quite true; the Chevalier is reputed sharp
and clever, is said to be very amusing, and a
first-rate piquet-^lsiyex. I don’t know him per-
sonally. I am not in his set. I have no valid
reason to disparage his character, nor do I con-
jecture any motive he could have to injure or
mislead you. Still, I say, be cautious how far
you trust to his advice or recommendation.”

“Again I ask why?”

“He is unlucky to his friends. He attaches
himself much to men younger than himself; and
somehow or other I have observed that most of
them have come to grief. Besides, a person in
whose sagacity I have great confidence warned
me against making the Chevalier’s acquaintance,
and said to me, in his blunt way, ‘ De Finisterre
came to Paris with nothing; he has succeeded
to nothing; he belongs to no ostensible profes-
sion by which any thing can be made. But ev-
idently now he has picked up a good deal ; and
in proportion as any young associate of his be-
comes poorer, De Finisterre seems mysteriously
to become richer. Shun that sort of acquaint-
ance. ’ ”

“ Who is your sagacious adviser?”

“Duplessis.”

“Ah, I thought so. That bird of prey fan-
cies every other bird looking out for pigeons. I
fancy that Duplessis is, like all those money-get-
ters, a seeker after fashion, and De Finisterre
has not returned his bow.”

“My dear Alain, I am to blame; nothing is
so irritating as a dispute about the worth of the
men we like. I began it, now let it be dropped ;
only make me one promise, that if you should
be in arrear, or if need presses, you will come
at once to me. It was very well to be absurdly
proud in an attic, but that pride will be out of
place in your appartement au premier ”

“You are the best fellow in the world, Fred-
eric, and I make you the promise you ask,” said
Alain, cheerfully, but yet with a secret emotion
• of tenderness and gratitude. “And now, mon
chery what day will you dine with me to meet
Raoul and Enguerrand and some others whom
you would like to know ?”

“Thanks, and hearty ones, but we move now
in different spheres, and I shall' not trespass on
yours. Je suis trop bourgeois to incur the ridi-
cule of le bourgeois gentilhomme. ”

“Frederic, how dare you speak thus? My
dear fellow, my friends shall honor you as I do.”

“ But that will be on your account, not mine.

No ; honestly, that kind of society neither tempts
nor suits me. 1 am a sort of king in my own
walk ; and I prefer my Bohemian royalty to vas-
salage in higher regions. Say no moie of it.
It will flatter my vanity enough if you will now
and then descend to my coteries, and allow me
to parade a Rochebriant as my familiar crony,
slap him on the shoulder, and call him Alain.”

“Fie! you who stopped me and the English
aristocrat in the Champs Elysees to humble us
with your boast of having fascinated une grande
dame — I think you said a diichesse."

“Oh,” said Lemercier, conceitedly, and pass-
ing his hand through his scented locks, “ women
are different ; love levels all ranks. I don’t blame
Ruy Bias for accepting the love of a queen, but
I do blame him for passing himself oflf' as a no-
ble— a plagiarism, by-the-bye, from an English
play. I do not love the English enough to copy
them. ApropoSy what has become of ce beau
Grarm-Varn ? I have not seen him of late.”

“ Neither have I.”

“Nor the belle Italiennef"

“Nor her,” said Alain, slightly blushing.

At this moment Enguerrand lounged into the
room. Alain sto])ped Lemercier to introduce
him to his kinsman. “Enguerrand, I present
to you M. Lemercier, my earliest and one of my
dearest friends.”

The young noble held out his hand Avith the
bright and joyous grace which accompanied all
his movements, and expressed in cordial words
his delight to make M. Lemercier’s acquaintance.
Bold and assured as Frederic was in his own cir-
cles, he was more discomposed than set at ease
by the gracious accost of a liony whom he felt at
once to be of a breed superior to his own. He
muttered some confused phrases, in which ravi
and Jiatte were alone audible, and evanished.

“I know M. Lemercier by sight very well,”
said Enguerrand, seating himself. “ One sees
him very often in the Bois ; and I have met him
in the Coulisses and the Bal Mabille. I think,
too, that he plays at the Bourse, and is li^ with
M. Duplessis, who bids fair to rival Louvier one
of these days. Is Duplessis also one of your
dearest friends ?”

“No, indeed. I once met him, and Avas not
prepossessed in his favor.”

“Nevertheless he is a man much to be ad-
mired and respected.”

“Why so?”

“ Because he understands so Avell the art of
making Avhat Ave all covet — money. I Avill in-
troduce you to him.”

“ I have been already introduced.”

“Then I aauU reintroduce you. He is much
courted in a society Avhich I have recently been
permitted by my father to frequent — the society
of tbe Imperial Court.”

“You frequent that society, and the Count
permits it?”

“ Yes ; better the Imperialists than the Repub-
licans ; and my father begins to own that truth,
though he is too old or too indolent to act on it.”

“ And Raoul ?”

“Oh, Raoul, the melancholy and philosophic-
al Raoul, has no ambition of any kind so long as
— thanks someAvhat to me — his purse is always
replenished for the Avants of his stately exist-
ence, among the foremost of which wants are
the means to supply the Avants of others. That

THE PARISIANS.

is the true reason why he consents to our glove
shop. Raoul belongs, with some other young
men of the faubourg, to a society enrolled under
the name of Saint Fran9ois de Sales, for the re-
lief of the poor. He visits their houses, and is
at home by their sick-beds as at their stinted
boards. Nor does he confine his visitations to
the limits of our faubourg ; he extends his trav-
els to Montmartre and Belleville. As to our up-
I)er world, he does not concern himself much
with its changes. He says that ‘we have de-
stroyed too much ever to rebuild solidly ; and
that whatever we do build could be upset any
day by a Paris mob,’ which he declares to be the
only institution we have left. A wonderful fel-
low is Raoul ; full of mind, though he does little
with it ; full of heart, which he devotes to suf-
fering humanity, and to a poetic, knightly rev-
erence (not to be confounded with earthly love,
and not to be degraded into that sickly senti-
ment called Platonic affection) for the Comtesse
di Rimini, who is six years older than himself,
and who is very faithfully attached to her hus-
band, Raoul’s intimate friend, whose honor he
would guard as his own. It is an episode in the
drama of Parisian life, and one not so uncom-
mpn as the malignant may suppose. Di Rimini
knows and approves of his veneration ; my moth-
er, the best of women, sanctions it, and deems
truly that it preserves Raoul safe from all the
temptations to which ignobler youth is exposed.
I mention this lest you should imagine there was
any thing in Raoul’s worship of his star less pure
than it is. For the rest, Raoul, to the grief and
amazement of that disciple of Voltaire, my re-
spected father, is one of the very few men I know
in our circles who is sincerely religious — an or-
thodox Catholic — and the only man I know who
practices the religion he professes ; charitable,
chaste, benevolent ; and no bigot, no intolerant
ascetic. His only weakness is his entire submis-
sion to the worldly common-sense of his good-
for-nothing, covetous, ambitious brother Enguer-
rand. I can not say how I love him for that.
If he had not such a weakness his excellence
Avould gall me, and I believe I should hate him.”

Alain bowed his head at this eulogium. Such
had been the character that, a few months ago,
he would have sought as example and model.
He seemed to gaze upon a flattered portrait of
himself as he had been.

“But,” said Enguerrand, “I have not come
here to indulge in the overflow of brotherly af-
fection. I come to take you to your relation
the Duchess of Tarascon. I have pledged my-
self to her to bring you, and she is at home on
purpose to receive you. ”

“In that case I can not be such a churl as to
refuse. And, indeed, I no longer feel quite the
same prejudices against her and the Imperialists
as I brought from Bretagne. Shall I order my
carriage ?”

“ No ; mine is at the door. Yours can meet
you where 3'ou will later. Allans.''

CHAPTER III.

Thk Duchesse de Tarascon occupied a vast
apartment in the Rue Royale, close to the Tui-
leries. She held a high post among the ladies

who graced the brilliant court of the Empress.
She had survived her second husband, the Due,
who left no issue, and the title died with him.
Alain and Enguerrand were ushered up the grand
staircase, lined with tiers of costly exotics as if
for a fete; but in that and in all kinds of female
luxury the Duchesse lived in a state of fete per-
p^tuelle. The doors on the landing-place were
screened by heavy portieres of Genoa velvet,
richly embroidered in gold, with the ducal crown
and cipher. The two salons through which the
visitors passed to the private cabinet or boudoir
were decorated w’ith Gobelin tapestries, fresh,
with a mixture of roseate hues, and depicting
incidents in the career of the first Emperor;
while the effigies of the late Due's father — the
gallant founder of a short-lived race — figured
modestly in the background. On a table of
Russian malachite within the recess of the cen-
tral window lay, preserved in glass cases, the
baton and the sword, the epaulets and the dec-
orations, of the brave Marshal. On the consoles
and the mantel-pieces stood clocks and vases of
Sevres that could scarcely be eclipsed by those
in the imperial palaces. Entering the cabinet,
they found the Duchesse seated at her writing-
table, with a small Skye terrier, hideous in the
beauty of the purest breed, nestled at her feet.
This room was an exquisite combination of cost-
liness and comfort — Luxury at home. The
hangings were of geranium-colored silk, with
double curtains of white satin ; near to the writ-
ing-table a conservatory, with a white marble
fountain at play in the centre, and a trellised avi-
ary at the back. The walls were covered with
small pictures — chiefly portraits and miniatures
of the members of the imperial family, of the late
Due, of his father the Marshal, and Madame la
Marechale, of the present Duchesse herself, and
of some of the principal ladies of the court.

The Duchesse was still in the prime of life.
She had passed her fortieth year, but was so well
“conserved” that you might have guessed her
to be ten years younger. She was tall; not
large — but with rounded figure inclined to em-
bonpoint ; with dark hair and eyes, but fair com-
plexion, injured in effect rather than improved
by pearl-powder, and that' atrocious barbarism
of a dark stain on the eyelids which has of late
years been a baneful fashion ; dressed — I am a
nian, and can not describe her dress — all I know
is, that she had the acknowledged fame of the
best-dressed subject of France. As she rose
from her seat there was in her look and air the
unmistakable evidence of grande dame ; a family
likeness in feature to Alain himself, a stronger
likeness to the picture of her first cousin— his
mother — which w’as preserved at Rochebriant.
Her descent was indeed from ancient and noble
houses. But to the distinction of race she added
that of fashion, crowning both with a tranquil
consciousness of lofty position and unblemished
reputation.

“Unnatural cousin,” she said to Alain, offer-
ing her hand to him, with a gracious smile ;
“ all this age in Paris, and I see you for the first
time. But there is joy on earth as in heaven
over sinners who truly repent. You repent tru-
ly— nest ce pas ?"

It is impossible to describe the caressing charm
which the Duchesse threw into her words, voice,
and look. Alain was fascinated and subdued.

THE PARISIANS.

“Ah, Madame la Duchesse,” said he, bowing
over the fair hand he lightly held, “it was not
sin, unless modesty be a sin, which made a rus-
tic hesitate long before he dared to oiler his
homage to the queen of the graces.”

“Not badly said for a rustic,” cried Enguer-
rand ; “ eh, madame ?”

“ My cousin, you are pardoned,” said the Du-
chesse. “Compliment is the perfume gentil-
hommerie. And if you brought enough of that
])erfume from the flowers of Rochebriant to dis-
tribute among the ladies at court, you will be
terribly the mode there. Seducer!” — here she
gave the Marquis a playful tap on the cheek,
not in a coquettish but in a mother-like famil-
iarity, and looking at him attentively, said :
“Why, you are even handsomer than your fa-
ther. I shall be proud to present to their Im-
perial Majesties so becoming a cousin. But
seat yourselves here, messieurs, close to my arm-
chair, causons."

The Duchesse then took up the ball of the
conversation. She talked without any apparent
artifice, but with admirable tact; put just the
({uestions about Rochebriant most calculated to
])lease Alain, shunning all that might have pained
him ; asking him for descriptions of the sur-
rounding scenery — the Breton legends ; hoping
that the old castle would never be spoiled by
modernizing restorations ; inquiring tenderly
after his aunt, whom she had in her childhood
once seen, and still remembered with her sweet,
grave face ; paused little for replies ; then turned
to Enguerrand with sprightly small-talk on the
topics of the day, and every now and then bring-
ing Alain into the pale of the talk, leading on
insensibly until she got Enguerrand himself to
introduce the subject of the Emperor, and the
political troubles which were darkening a reign !
heretofore so prosperous and splendid.

Her countenance then changed ; it became se-
rious, and even grave, iti its expression.

“It is true,” she said, “that the times grow
menacing — menacing not only to the throne, but
TO order and property and France. One by one
they are removing all the breakwaters which the
empire had constructed between the executive
and the most fickle and impulsive population that
ever shouted ‘ long live’ one day to the man
whom they would send to the guillotine the next.
They are denouncing what they call personal
government — grant that it has its evils ; but
what would they substitute? — a constitutional
monarchy like the English ? That is impossible
with universal suftrage and without a hereditary
chamber. The nearest approach to it was the
monarchy of Louis Philippe — we know how sick
they became of that. A republic ? mon Dieu !
composed of republicans terrified out of their
wits at each other. The moderate men, mimics
of the Girondins, with the Reds, and the Social-
ists, and the Communists, ready to tear them to
pieces. And then — what then? — the commer-
cialists, the agi'iculturists, the middle class,
combining to elect some dictator who will can-
nonade the mob, and become a mimic Napoleon,
grafted on a mimic Necker or a mimic Danton.
Oh, messieurs, I am French to the core ! You
inheritors of such names must be as French as I
am ; and yet you men insist on remaining more
useless to France in the midst of her need than I
am — I, a woman who can but talk and weep.”

The Duchesse spoke with a warmth of emotion
which startled and profoundly affected Alain.
He remained silent, leaving it to Enguerrand to
answer.

“Dear madame,” said the latter, “I do not
see how either myself or our kinsman can meiit
your reproach. We are not legislators. 1 doubt
if there is a single department in France that
would elect us if we ofl’ered ourselves. It is not
our fault if the various floods of revolution leave
men of our birth and opinions stranded wrecks
of a perished world. The Emperor chooses his
own advisers, and if they are bad ones, his Maj-
esty certainly will not ask Alain and me to re-
place them.”

“You do not answer — you evade me,” said
the Duchesse, with a mournful smile. “You
are too skilled a man of the world, M. Enguer-
rand, not to know that it is not only legislators
and ministers that are necessary to the support
of a throne and the safeguard of a nation. Do
you not see how great a help it is to both
throne and nation when that section of public
opinion which is represented by names illustrious
in history, identified with records of chivalrous
deeds and loyal devotion, rallies round the order
established ? Let that section of public opinion
stand aloof, soured and discontented, excluded
from active life, lending no counterbalance to the
perilous oscillations of democratic passion, and
tell me if it is not an enemy to itself as well as
a traitor to the principles it embodies ?”

“The principles it embodies, madame,” said
Alain, “are those of fidelity to a race of kings
unjustly set aside, less for the vices than the
virtues of ancestors. Louis XV. was the worst
of the Bourbons — he was the bien aime — he es-
capes ; Louis XVI. was in moral attributes the
best of the Bourbons — he dies the death of a
felon ; Louis XVIII., against whom much may
be said, restored to the throne by foreign bayonets,
reigning as a disciple of Voltaire might reign,
secretly scotfing alike at the royalty and the re-
ligion which were crowned in his person, dies
})eacefully in his bed; Charles X., redeeming
the errors of his youth by a reign untarnished
by a vice, by a religion earnest and sincere, is
sent into exile for defending established order
from the very inroads which you lament. He
leaves an heir against whom calumny can not in-
vent a tale, and that heir remains an outlaw sim-
ply because he descends from Henry IV., and
has a right to reign. Madame, you appeal to
us as among the representatives of the chivalrous
deeds and loyal devotion which characterized
the old nobility of France. Should we deserve
that character if we forsook the unfortunate, and
gained wealth and honor in forsaking ?”

“Your words endear you to me. I am proud
to call you cousin,” said the Duchesse. “But
do you, or does any man in his senses, believe
that if you upset the empire you could get back
the Bourbons ? that you would not be in immi-
nent danger of a government infinitely more op-
posed to the theories on which rests the creed of
Legitimists than that of Louis Napoleon ? After
all, what is there in the loyalty of you Bourbon-
ites that has in it the solid worth of an argu-
ment which can appeal to the comprehension of
mankind, except it be the principle of a hered-
itary monarchy? Nobody nowadays can main-
tain the right divine of a sipgle regal family to^

THE PARISIANS.

impose itself upon a nation. That dogma has
ceased to be a living principle ; it is only a dead
reminiscence. But the institution of monarchy
is a principle strong and vital, and appealing to
the practical interests of vast sections of society.
Would you sacrifice the principle which concerns
the welfare of millions, because you can not em-
body it in the person of an individual utterly in-
significant in himself? In a word, if you pre-
fer monarchy to the hazard of republicanism for
such a country as France, accept the monarchy
you find, since it is quite clear you can not re-
build the monarchy you would prefer. Does it
not embrace all the great objects for which you
call yourself Legitimist? Under it religion is
honored, a national Church secured, in reality
if not in name ; under it you have united the
votes of millions to the establishment of the
throne ; under it all the material interests of
the country, commercial, agilcultural, have ad-
vanced with an unequaled rapidity of progress :
under it Paris has become the wonder of the
world for riches, for splendor, for grace and
beauty ; under it the old traditional enemies of
France have been humbled and rendered impo-
tent. The policy of Richelieu has been achieved
in the abasement of Austria ; the policy of Na-
poleon I. has been consummated in the salvation
of Europe from the semi-barbarous ambition of
Russia. England no longer casts her trident in
the opposite scale of the balance of European
power. Satisfied with the honor of our alliance,
she has lost every other ally ; and her forces
neglected, her spirit enervated, her statesmen
dreaming believers in the safety of their island,
provided they withdraw from the affairs of Eu-
rope, may sometimes scold us, but will certainly
not dare to fight. With France she is but an in-
ferior satellite ; without France she is — nothing.
Add to all this a court more brilliant than that
of Louis XIV., a sovereign not, indeed, without
faults and errors, but singularly mild in his na-
ture, warm-hearted to friends, forgiving to foes,
whom personally no one could familiarly know
and not be charmed with a bonte of character,
lovable as that of Henri IV. — and tell me what
more than all this could you expect from the
reign of a Bourbon ?”

‘•With such results,” said Alain, “from the
monarchy you so eloquently praise, I fail to dis-
cover what the Emperor’s throne could possibly
gain by a few powerless converts from an un-
popular, and yon say, no doubt truly, from a
hopeless cause.”

“ I say monarchy gains much by the loyal ad-
hesion of any man of courage, ability, and hon-
or. Every new monarchy gains much by conver-
sions from the ranks by which the older mon-
archies were strengthened and adorned. But I
do not here invoke your aid merely to this mon-
archy, my cousin ; 1 demand your devotion to the
interests of France; I demand that you should
not rest an outlaw from her service. Ah, you
think that France is in no danger — that you may
desert or oppose the em])ire as you list, and that
society will remain safe! You are mistaken.
Ask Enguerrand.”

“ Madame,” said Enguerrand, “you overrate
my political knowledge in that appeal ; but, hon-
estly speaking, I subscribe to your reasonings.
I agree with you that the empire sorely needs
the support of men of honor : it has one cause

of rot which now undermines it — dishonest job-
bery in its administrative departments, even in
that of the army, which apparently is so heeded
and cared for. I agree with you that France is
in danger, and may need the swords of all her
better sons, whether against the foreigner or
against her worst enemies — the mobs of her great
towns. I myself received a military education,
and but for my reluctance to separate myself from
rny father and Raoul, I should be a candidate for
employments more congenial to me than those
of the Bourse and my trade in the glove shop.
But Alain is happily free from all family lies,
and Alain knows that my advice to him is not
hostile to your exhortations.”

“I am glad to think he is under so salutary
an influence,” said the Duchesse; and seeing
that Alain remained silent and thoughtful, she
wisely changed the subject, and shortly afterward
the two friends took leave.

CHAPTER IV.

Three days elapsed before Graham again saw
M. Lebeau. The letter-writer did not show
himself at the cafe, and was not to be found at
his office, the ordinary business of which was
transacted by his clerk, saying that his master
was much engaged on important matters that
took him from home.

Graham naturally thought that these matters
concerned the discovery of Louise Duval, and
was reconciled to suspense. At the cafe, await-
ing Lebeau, he had slid into some acquaintance
with the ouvrier, Armand Monuier, whose face
and talk had before excited his interest. In-
deed, the acquaintance had been commenced by
the ouvrier, who seated himself at a table near
to Graham’s, and, after looking at him earnestly
for some minutes, said, “You are waiting for
your antagonist at dominoes, M. Lebeau — a very
remarkable man.”

“ So he seems. I know, however, but little of
him. You, perhaps, have known him longer?”

“ Several months. Many of your countrymen
frequent this cafe, but you do not seem to care
to associate with the blouses.’'

“ It is not that ; but we islanders are shy, and
don’t make acquaintance with each other readily.
By-the-way, since you so courteously accost me,
I may take the liberty of saying that I overheard
you defend the other night, against one of ra}'
countrymen, who seemed to me to talk great
nonsense, the existence of le Bon JJieu. You
had much the best of it. I rather gathered from
your ai’gument that you went somewhat farther,
and were not too enlightened to admit of Chris-
tianity.”

Armand Monnier looked pleased — he liked
praise ; and he liked to heiir himself talk, and he
plunged at once into a very complicated sort of
Christianity — partly Arian, partly St. Simonian,
with a little of Rousseau, and a great deal of
Armand Monnier. Into this we need not follow
him ; but, in sum, it was a sort of Christianity
the main heads of which consisted in the remov-
al of your neighbor’s landmarks — in the right of
the poor to appropriate the property of the rich
— in the right of love to dispense with marriage,
and the duty of the state to provide for any chil-

THE PARISIANS.

dren that might result from such union, the par-
ents being incapacitated to do so, as whatever
they might leave was due to the treasury in com-
mon. Graham listened to these doctrines with
melancholy not unmixed with contempt. “ Are
these opinions of yours,” he asked, “derived
from reading or your own reflection ?”

“Well, from both, but from circumstances in
life that induced me to read and reflect. I am
one of the many victims of the tyrannical law
of marriage. When very young I married a
woman who made me miserable, and then forsook
me. Morally, she has ceased to be my wife —
legally, she is. I then met with another woman
who suits me, who loves me. She lives with
me ; I can not marry her ; she has to submit to
humiliations, to be called contemptuously an ou-
vrier's mistress. Then, though before I was
only a Republican, I felt there was something
wrong in society which needed a greater change
than that of a merely political government ; and
then, too, when I was all troubled and sore, I
chanced to read one of Madame de Grantmes-
nil’s books. A glorious genius that woman’s!”

“She has genius, certainly,” said Graham,
with a keen pang at his heart ; Madame de
Grantmesnil, the dearest friend of Isaura!
“But,” he added, “though I believe that elo-
quent author has indirectly assailed certain so-
cial institutions, including that of marriage, I
am perfectly persuaded that she never designed
to effect such complete overthrow of the system
which all civilized communities have hitherto
held in reverence as your doctrines would at-
tempt ; and after all, she but expresses her ideas
through the medium of fabulous incidents and
characters. And men of your sense should not
look for a creed in the fictions of poets and ro-
mance-Avriters. ”

“Ah,” said Monnier, “I dare say neither
Madame de Grantmesnil nor even Rousseau ever
even guessed the ideas they awoke in their read-
ers ; but one idea leads on to another. And
genuine poetry and romance touch the heart so
much more than dry treatises. In a word, Ma-
dame de Grantmesnil’s book set me thinking ;
and then I read other books, and talked with
clever men, and educated myself. And so I
became the man I am.” Here, with a self-sat-
isfied air, Monnier bowed to the Englishman,
and joined a group at the other end of the room.

The next evening, just before dusk, Graham
Vane was seated musingly in his own apartment
in the Faubourg Montmartre, w'hen there came
a slight knock at his door. He was so wrapped
in thought that he did not hear the sound, though
twice repeated. The door opened gently, and
M. Lebeau appeared on the threshold. The
room was lighted only by the gas-lamp from the
street without.

Lebeau advanced through the gloom, and qui-
etly seated himself in the corner of the fire-place
opposite to Graham before he spoke. “A
thousand pardons for disturbing your slumbers,
M. Lamb.”

Startled then by the voice so near him, Gra-
ham raised his head, looked round, and beheld
very indistinctly the person seated so near him.

“M. Lebeau?”

“ At your service. I promised to give an an-
swer to your question : accept my apologies that
it has been deferred so long. I shall not this

evening go to our cafe; I took the liberty of
calling — ”

“M. Lebeau, you are a brick.”

“ A what, monsieur ! — a brique ?"

“I forgot — you are not up to our fashionable
London idioms. A brick means a jolly fellow,
and it is very kind in you to call. What is your
I decision ?”

“Monsieur, I can give you some information,
but it is so slight that I offer it gratis, and fore-
go all thought of undertaking farther inquiries.
They could only be prosecuted in another coun-
try, and it would not be worth my while to leave
Paris on the chance of gaining so trifling a re-
ward as you propose. Judge for yourself. In
the year 1849, and in the month of July, Louise
Duval left Paris for Aix-la-Chapelle. There she
remained some weeks, and then left it. I can
learn no farther traces of her movements.”

“ Aix-la-Chapelle! — what could she do there?”

“ It is a Spa in great request — crowded during
the summer season with visitors from all coun-
tries. She might have gone there for health or
for pleasure.”

‘ ‘ Do you think that one could learn more at
the Spa itself if one went there ?”

“Possibly. But it is so long — twenty years
ago.”

“She might have revisited the place.”

“Certainly; but I know no more.”

“Was she there under the same name —
Duval?”

“ I am sure of that.”

“Do you think she left it alone or with others?
You tell me she was awTulIy belle — she might
have attracted admirers.”

“If,” answered Lebeau, reluctantly, “I could
believe the report of my informant, Louise Duval
left Aix not alone, but with some gallant — not
an Englishman. They are said to have parted
soon, and the man is now dead. But, speaking
frankly, I do not think Mademoiselle Duval
would have thus compromised her honor and
sacrificed her future. I believe she would have
scorned all proposals that were not those of mar-
riage. But all I can say for certainty is, that
nothing is known to me of her fate since she
quitted Aix-la-Chapelle.”

“ In 1849 — she had then a child living?”

“A child? I never heard that she had any
child ; and I do not believe she could have had
any child in 1849.”

Graham mused. Somewhat less than five
years after 1849 Louise Duval had been seen at
Aix-la-Chapelle. Possibly she found some at-
traction at that place, and might yet be discover-
ed there. “ Monsieur Lebeau,” said Graham,
“you know this lady by sight; you would re-
cognize her in spite of the lapse of years. Will
you go to Aix and find out there what you can ?.
Of course expenses will be paid, and the reward
will be given if you succeed.”

“I can not oblige you. My interest in this
poor lady is not very strong, though I should be
willing to serve her, and glad to know she were
alive. I have now business on hand which in-
terests me much more, and wLich will take me
from Paris, but not in the direction of Aix. ”

“If I wrote to my employer, and got him to
raise the reward to some higher amount that
might make it worth your while ?”

“ I should still answer that my afhiirs will not

THE PARISIANS.

permit such a journey. But if there be any
chance of tracing Louise Duval at Aix — and
there may be — you would succeed quite as well
as I should. You must judge for yourself if it
be worth your trouble to attempt such a task ;
and if you do attempt it, and do succeed, pray
let me know. A line to my office will reach me
for some little time, even if I am absent from
Paris. Adieu, M. Lamb.”

Here M. Lebeau rose and departed.

Graham’relapsed into thought, but a train of
thought much more active, much more concen-
tred than before. ‘ ‘ No” — thus ran his medita-
tions— “ no, it w’ould not be safe to employ that
man further. The reasons that forbid me to
offer any very high reward for the discovery of
this woman operate still more strongly against
tendering to her own relation a sum that might
indeed secure his aid, but would unquestionably
arouse his suspicions, and perhaps drag into light
all that must be concealed. Oh, this cruel mis-
sion! I am, indeed, an impostor to myself till
it be fulfilled. I will go to Aix, and take Renard
with me. I am impatient till I set out, but I
can not quit Paris without once more seeing
Isaura. She consents to relinquish the stage ;
surely I could wean her, too, from intimate
friendship with a woman whose genius has so
fatal an effect upon enthusiastic minds. And
then — and then?”

He fell into a delightful reverie ; and con-
templating Isaura as his future wife, he sur-
rounded her sweet image with all those attributes
of dignity and respect with which an Englishman
is accustomed to invest the destined bearer of
his name, the gentle sovereign of his household,
the sacred mother of his children. In this pic-
ture the more brilliant qualities of Isaura found,
perhaps, but faint presentation. Her glow of
sentiment, her play of fancy, her artistic yearn-
ings for truths remote, for the invisible fairy-
land of beautiful romance, receded into the back-
ground of the picture. It was all these, no doubt,
that had so strengthened and enriched the love
at first sight whiqh had shaken the equilibrium
of his positive existence ; and yet he now viewed
all these as subordinate to the one image of mild
decorous matronage into which wedlock was to
transform the child of genius, longing for angel
wings and unlimited space.

CHAPTER V.

On quitting the sorry apartment of the false
M. Lamb, Lebeau walked on with slow steps
and bended head, like a man absorbed in thought.
He threaded a labyrinth of obscure streets, no
longer in the Faubourg Montmartre, and dived
at last into one of the few courts which preserve
the cachet of the moyen age untouched by the
ruthless spirit of improvement which, during the
Second Empire, has so altered the face of Paris.
At the bottom of the court stood a large house,
much dilapidated, but bearing the trace of for-
mer grandeur in pilasters and fretwork in the
style of the Renaissance, and a defaced coat of
arms, surmounted with a ducal coronet, over the
doorway. The house had the aspect of deser- |
tion : many of the windows were broken, others I
were jealously closed with mouldering shutters. 1

The door stood ajar; Lebeau pushed it open,
and the action set in movement a bell within a
porter s lodge. The house, then, was not unin-
habited; it retained the dignity of a concierge.
A man with a large gnzzled beard cut square,
and holding a journal in his hand, emerged from
the lodge, and moved his cap with a certain bluff
and surly reverence on recognizing Lebeau.

“ What ! so early, citizen ?”

“Is it too early?” said Lebeau, glancing at
his watch. “So it is. I was not aware of the
time ; but I am tired with waiting. Let me into
the salon. I will wait for the rest; I shall not
be sorry for a little repose.”

“ Bon” said the porter, sententiously ; “while
man reposes men advance.”

“A profound truth. Citizen Le Roux; though,
if they advance on a reposing foe, they have
blundering leaders unless they march through
unguarded by-paths and with noiseless tread.”

Following the porter up a dingy broad stair-
case, Lebeau was admitted into a large room void
of all other furniture than a table, two benches
at its sides, and a fauteuil at its head. On the
mantel-piece there was a huge clock, and some
iron sconces were fixed on the paneled walls.

Lebeau flung himself with a wearied air into
the fauteuil. The porter looked at him with a
kindly expression. He had a liking to Lebeau,
whom he had served in his proper profession of
messenger or commissionnaire before being placed
by that courteous employer in the easy post he
now held. Lebeau, indeed, had the art, when
he pleased, of charming inferiors ; his knowledge
of mankind allowed him to distinguish pecul-
iarities in each individual, and flatter the amour
propre by deference to such eccentricities. Marc
le Roux, the roughest of “red caps,” had a wife
of whom he was very proud. He would have
called the Empress Citoyenne Eugenie, but he
always spoke of his wife as madame. Lebeau
won his heart by always asking after madame.

“Y"ou look tired, citizen,” said the porter;
“let me bring you a glass of wine.”

“ Thank you, mon ami, no. Perhaps later, if
I have time, after we break up, to pay my re-
spects to madame.”

The porter smiled, bowed, and retired, mut-
tering, “ Nom dun petit bonhomme — il ny a rien
de tel que les belles manieres.”

Left alone, Lebeau leaned his elbow on tlie
table, resting his chin on his hand, and gazing
into the dim space — for it was now, indeed,
night, and little light came through the grimy
panes of the one window left unclosed by shut-
ters. He w’as musing deeply. This man was,
in much, an enigma to himself. Was he seek-
ing to unriddle it? A strange compound of
contradictory elements. In his stormy youth
there had been lightning-like flashes of good in-
stincts, of irregular honor, of inconsistent gen-
erosity— a puissant wild nature — with strong
passions of love and of hate, without fear, but
not without shame. In other forms of society
that love of applause which had made him seek
and exult in the notoriety which he mistook for
fame might have settled down into some solid
and useful ambition. He might have become
great in the world’s eye, for at the service of his
desires there were no ordinary talents. Though
I too true a Parisian to be a severe student, still,
on the whole, he had acquired much general in-

THE PARISIANS.

formation, partly from books, partly from varied
commerce with mankind. He had the gift, both
by tongue and by pen, of expressing himself with
force and warmth — time and necessity had im-
proved that gift. Coveting, during his brief
career of fashion, the distinctions which neces-
sitate lavish expenditure, he had been the most
reckless of spendthrifts, but the neediness which
follows waste had never destroyed his original
sense of personal honor. Certainly Victor de
Mauleon was not, at the date of his fall, a man
to whom the thought of accepting, much less of
stealing, the jewels of a woman who loved him,
could have occurred as a possible question of
casuistry between honor and temptation. Nor
could that sort of question have, throughout the
sternest trials or the humblest callings to which
his after-life had been subjected, forced admis-
sion into his brain. He w’as one of those men,
perhaps the most terrible though unconscious
criminals, who are the offsprings produced by in-
tellectual power and egotistical ambition. If
you had ottered to Victor de Mauleon the crown
of the Csesars on condition of his doing one of
those base things which “ a gentleman” can not
do — pick a pocket, cheat at cards — Victor de
Mauleon would have refused the crown. He
W'ould not have refused on account of any law s
of morality affecting the foundations of the social
system, but from the pride of his own personal-
ity. “ I, Victor de Mauleon ! I pick a pocket !
I cheat at cards ! I !” But when something in-
calculably worse for the interests of society than
picking a pocket or cheating at cards was con-
cerned— when, for the sake either of private am-
bition, or political experiment hitherto untested,
and therefore very doubtful, the peace and order
and happiness of millions might be exposed to
the release of the most savage passions — rushing
on revolutionary madness or civil massacre — then
this French dare-devil would have been just as
unscrupulous as any English philosopher whom
a metropolitan borough might elect as its repre-
sentative. The system of the empire was in
the way of Victor de Mauleon — in the way of
his private ambition, in the way of his political
dogmas — and therefore it must be destroyed, no
matter what nor whom it crushed beneath its
ruins. He was one of those plotters of revolu-
tions not uncommon in democracies, ancient and
modern, who invoke popular agencies with the
less scruple because they have a supreme con-
tempt for the populace. A man with mental
pow'ers equal to De Mauleon’s, and w ho sincere-
ly loves the people and respects the grandeur of
aspiration with w'hich, in the great upheaving of
their masses, they so often contrast the irration-
al credulities of their ignorance and the blind
fury of their wrath, is always exceedingly loath
to pass the terrible gulf that divides reform from
i-evolution. He knows how rarely it happens
that genuine liberty is not disarmed in the pas-
sage, and what sutferings must be undergone by
those who live by their labor during the dismal
intervals between the sudden destruction of one
form of society and the gradual settlement of
another. Such a man, how'ever, has no type in
a Victor de Maule'on. The circumstances of his
life had placed this strong nature at w'ar with so-
ciety, and corrupted into misanthropy affections
that had once been ardent. That misanthropy
made his ambition more intense, because it in-

creased his scorn for the human instruments it
employed.

Victor de Mauleon knew that, however inno-
cent of the charges that had so long darkened
his name, and however — thanks to his rank, his
manners, his savoir vivre, the aid of Louvier’s
countenance, and the support of his own high-
born connections — he might restore himself to
his rightful grade in private life, the higher prizes
in public life w’ould scarcely be within reach, to
a man of his antecedents and stinted means, in
the existent form and conditions of established
political order. Perforce, the aristocrat must
make himself democratic if he would become a
political chief. Could he assist in turning up-
side down the actual state of things, he trusted
to his individual force of character to find him-
self among the uppermost in the general houle-
versevient. And in the first stage of popular
revolution the mob has no greater darling than
the noble who deserts his order, though in the
second stage it may guillotine him at the denun-
ciation of his cobbler. A mind so sanguine and
so audacious as that of Victor de Mauleon never
thinks of the second step if it sees a way to the
first.

CHAPTER VI.

The room was in complete darkness, save
w'here a ray from a gas-lamp at the mouth of
the court came aslant through the window, when
Citizen Le Roux re-entered, closed the w indow,
lighted two of the sconces, and drew forth from
a drawer in the table implements of wn-iting,
which he placed thereon noiselessly, as if he
feared to disturb ISl. Lebeau, w hose head, buried
in his hands, rested on the table. He seemed
in a profound sleep. At last the porter gently
touched the arm of the slumberer, and whis-
pered in his ear, “ It is on the stroke of ten,
citizen ; they will be here in a minute or so. ”
Lebeau lifted his head drow’sily.

“Eh,” said he — “ what?”

“You have been asleep.”

“I suppose so, for I have been dreaming.
Ha! I hear the door-bell. I am wide awake
now.”

The porter left him, and in a few minutes
conducted into the salon two men wrapped in
cloaks, despite the warmth of the summer night.
Lebeau shook hands with them silently, and not
less silently they laid aside their cloaks and seat-
ed themselves. Both these men appeared to be-
long to the upper section of the middle class.
One, strongly built, with a keen expression of
countenance, was a surgeon considered able in
his profession, but with limited practice, owing
to a current suspicion against his honor in con-
nection with a forged will. The other, tall,
meagre, w-ith long grizzled hair and a wild, un-
settled look about the eyes, was a man of sci-
ence ; had written works well esteemed upon
mathematics and electricity; also against the
existence of any other creative power than that
which he called “nebulosity,” and defined to be
the combination of heat and moisture. The
surgeon was about the age of forty, the atheist
a few years older. In another minute or so a
knock was heard against the w'all. One of the
men rose and touched a spring in the panel.

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ONK OF THK MEN ROSE ANT) TOUOHEI) A SPRING IN THE PANEL, WHICH THEN FLEW BACK, AND SHOWED AN OPENING UPON A
NARROW STAIR, BY WHICH, ONE AFTER THE OTHER, ENTERED THREE OTHER MEMBERS OP THE SOCIETY,”

THE PARISIANS.

which then flew back, and showed an opening
upon a narrow stair, by which, one after the
other, entered three other members of the so-
ciety. Evidently there was more than one mode
of ingress and exit.

The three new-comers were not Frenchmen —
one might see that at a glance ; probably they had
reasons for greater precaution than those who
entered by the front-door. One, a tall, power-
fully built man, with fair hair and beard, dressed
with a certain pretension to elegance — faded
threadbare elegance — exhibiting no appearance
of linen, was a Pole. One, a slight, bald man,
very dark and sallow, was an Italian, The
third, who seemed like an ouvrier in his holiday
clothes, was a Belgian.

Lebeau greeted them all with an equal court-
esy, and each with an equal silence took his seat
at the table.

Lebeau glanced at the clock. “ Confreres,"
he said, “our number, as fixed for this stance,
still needs two to be complete, and doubtless
they will arrive in a few minutes. Till they
come w^e can but talk upon trifles. Permit me
to offer you my cigar-case.” And so saying, he
who professed to be no smoker handed his next
neighbor, who w'as the Pole, a large cigar-case
amply furnished ; and the Pole, helping himself
to two cigars, handed the case to the man next
him, tw'o only declining the luxury, the Italian
and the Belgian. But the Pole was the only
man w^ho took two cigars.

Steps w'ere now heard on the stairs, the door
opened, and Citizen Le Roux ushered in, one
after the other, two men, this time unmistaka-
bly French — to an experienced eye unmistakably
Parisians : the one a young beardless man, who
seemed almost boyish, with a beautiful face and
a stinted, meagre frame ; the other a stalwart
man of about eight-and-twenty, dressed partly
as an ouvrier, not in his Sunday clothes, rather
affecting the blouse — not that he wore that an-
tique garment, but that he was- in rough cos-
tume, unbrushed and stained, with thick shoes
and coarse stockings, and a workman’s cap.
But of all who gathered round the table at
which M. Lebeau presided, he had the most dis-
tinguished exterior. A virile honest exterior, a
massive open forehead, intelligent eyes, a hand-
some clear-cut incisive profile, and solid jaw.
The expression of the face was stern, but not
mean — an expression which might have become
an ancient baron as well as a modern workman
— in it plenty of haughtiness and of will, and
still more of self-esteem.

'"^Confreres," said Lebeau, rising, and every
eye turned to him, “ our number for the present
seance is complete. To business. Since we last
met our cause has advanced with rapid and not
with noiseless stride. I need not tell you that
Louis Bonaparte has virtually abnegated Les
id^es NopoUoniennes — a fatal mistake for him,
a glorious advance for us. The liberty of the
press must very shortly be achieved, and with it
personal government must end. When the au-
tocrat once is compelled to go by the advice of
his ministers, look for sudden changes. His
ministers will be but weather-cocks, turned hith-
er and thither according as the wind chops at
Paris; and Paris is the temple of the winds.
The new revolution is almost at hand.” (Mur-
murs of applause.) “It would move the laugh-

ter of the Tuileries and its ministers, of the
Bourse and of its gamblers, of every dainty salon
of this silken city of would-be philosophers and
wits, if they were told that here within this
mouldering baraque, eight men, so little blessed
by fortune, so little known to fame as ourselves,
met to concert the fall of an empire. The gov-
ernment would not deem us important enough
to notice our existence.”

“ I know not that,” interrupted the Pole.

“ Ah, pardon,” resumed the orator ; “I should
have confined my remark to the Jive of us who
are French. I did injustice to the illustrious an-
tecedents of our foreign allies. I know that you,
Thaddeus Loubisky — that you, I^eonardo Raselli
— have been too eminent for hands hostile to ty-
rants not to be marked with a black cross in the
books of the police. I know that you, Jan Van-
derstegen, if hitherto unscarred by those w'ounds
in defense of freedom which despots and cowards
would fain miscall the brands of the felon, still
owe it to your special fraternity to keep your
movements rigidly concealed. The tyrant would
suppress the International Society, and forbids
it the liberty of congress. To you three is grant-
ed the secret entrance to our council-hall. But
we Frenchmen are as yet safe in our supposed
insignificance. Conjreres, permit me to impress
on you the causes why, insignificant as we seem,
we are really formidable. In the first place, we
are few : the great mistake in most secret asso-
ciations has been to admit many councilors ; and
disunion enters wherever many tongues can wran-
gle. In the next place, though so few in coun-
cil, we are legion when the time comes for ac-
tion, because we are representative men, each
of his own section, and each section is capable
of an indefinite expansion.

“You, valiant Pole — you, politic Italian —
enjoy the confidence of thousands now latent
in un watched homes and harmless callings, but
who, when you lift a finger, will, like the buried
di'agon’s teeth, spring up into armed men. You,
Jan Vanderstegen, the trusted delegate from
Verviers, that swarming camp of wronged la-
bor in its revolt from the iniquities of capital —
you, when the hour arrives, can touch the wire
that flashes the telegram ‘ Arise’ through all the
lands in which workmen combine against their
oppressors.

“Of us five Frenchmen let me speak more
modestly. You — sage and scholar — Felix Ru-
vigny, honored alike for the profundity of your
science and the probity of your manners, in-
duced to join us by your abhorrence of priest-
craft and superstition — you have a wide connec-
tion among all the enlightened reasoners who
would emancipate the mind of man from the
trammels of Church-born fable — and when the
hour arrives in which it is safe to say, Delenda
est Roma,' yo\x know where to find the pens that
are more victorious than swords against a Church
and a Creed. You” (turning to the surgeon) —
“you, Gaspard le Noy, whom a vile calumny
has robbed of the throne in your profession, so
justly due to your skill — you, nobly scorning the
rich and great, have devoted yourself to tend
and heal the humble and the penniless, so that
you have won the popular title of the ‘ M^decin
des Pauvres' — when the time comes w-herein sol-
diers shall fly before the sans-cidottes, and the
mob shall begin the work which they who move

100

THE PARISIANS.

mobs will complete, the clients of Gaspard le
Noy will be the avengers of his wrongs.

“You, Armand Monnier, simple oui^rier, but
of illustrious parentage, for your grandsire was
the beloved friend of the virtuous Robespierre,
your father perished a hero and a martyr in the
massacre of the coup (f^tat — you, cultured in the
eloquence of Robespierre himself, and in the
])ersuasive philosophy of Robespierre’s teacher,
Rousseau — you, the idolized orator of the Red
Republicans — you will be indeed a chief of daunt-
less bands when the trumpet sounds for battle.
Young publicist and poet, Gustave Rameau — I
care not which you are at present, I know what
you Avill be soon — you need nothing for the de-
velopment of your powers over the many but an
organ for their manifestation. Of that anon. 1
now descend into the bathos of egotism. I am
compelled lastly to speak of myself. It was at
Marseilles and Lyons, as you already know, that
I first conceived the jdan of this representative
association. For years before I had been in fa-
miliar intercourse with the Mends of freedom —
that is, with the foes of the empire. They are
not all poor. Some few are rich and generous.

I do not say these rich and few concur in the
ultimate objects of the poor and many. But
they concur in the first object, the demolition
of that which exists — the empire. In the course
of my special calling of negotiator or agent in
the towns of the Midi, I formed friendships with
some of these prosperous malcontents. And out
of these friendships I conceived the idea which
is embodied in this council.

“According to that conception, while the
council may communicate as it will with all so-
cieties, secret or open, having revolution for their
object, the council refuses to merge itself in any
other confederation : it stands aloof and inde-
pendent; it declines to admit into its code any
special articles of faith in a future beyond the
bounds to which it limits its design and its force.
That design unites us ; to go beyond would di-
vide. We all agree to destroy the Napoleonic
dynasty ; none of us might agree as to what we
should place in its stead. AU of us here present
might say, ‘ A republic.’ Ay, but of what kind ?
Vanderstegen would have it socialistic; Mon-
nier goes further, and would have it communist-
ic, on the principles of Fourier; Le Noy ad-
heres to the policy of Dan ton , and would com-
mence the republic by a reign of terror; our
Italian ally abhors the notion of general massa-
cre, and advocates individual assassination. Ru-
vigny would annihilate the worship of a Deity ;
Monnier holds, with Voltaire and Robespierre,
that ‘ if there were no Deity^ it would be neces-
sary to Man to create one.’ we could not

agree upon any plan for the new edifice, and
therefore we refuse to discuss one till the plow-
share has gone over the ruins of the old. But
I have another and more practical reason for
keeping our council distinct from all societies
with professed objects beyond that of demoli-
tion. We need a certain command of money.
It is I who bring to you that, and — how? Not
from my OAvn resources ; they but suffice to sup-
])ort mj^self. Not by contributions from ouvriers,
who, as you well know, will subscribe only for
their own ends in the victory of workmen over
masters. I bring money to you from the coffers
of the rich malcontents. Their politics are not

those of most present ; their politics are what
they term moderate. Some are, indeed, for a
republic, but for a republic strong in defense of
order, in support of property ; others — and they
are the more numerous and the more rich — for
a constitutional monarchy, and, if possible, for
the abridgment of universal suffrage, which, in
their eyes, tends only to anarchy in the towns
and arbitrary rule under priestly influence in the
rural districts. They would not subscribe a sou
if they thought it went to further the designs
whether of Ruvigny the atheist, or of Monnier,
who would enlist the Deity of Rousseau on the
side of the drapeau rouge — not a sou if they knew
I had the honor to boast such confreres as I see
around me. They subscribe, as we concert, for
the fall of Bonaparte. The policy I adopt I
borrow from the policy of the English Liber-
als. In England, potent millionnaires, high-born
dukes, devoted Churchmen, belonging to the
Liberal party, accept the services of men who
look forward to measures which would ruin
capital, eradicate aristocracy, and destroy the
Church, provided these men combine with them
in some immediate step onward against the To-
ries. They have a proverb which I thus adapt
to French localities : If a train passes Fontaine-
bleau on its way to Marseilles, why should I not
take it to Fontainebleau because other passen-
gers are going on to JMarseilles ?

Confreres, it seems to me the moment has
come when we may venture some of the fund
placed at my disposal to other purposes than
those to which it has been hitherto devoted. I
propose, therefore, to set up a journal under the
auspices of Gustave Rameau as editor-in-chief —
a journal which, if he listen to my advice, will
create no small sensation. It will begin with a
tone of impartiality : it will refrain from all vio-
lence of invective ; it will have wit ; it will have
sentiment and eloquence; it will win its way
into the salons and cafes of educated men ; and
then — and then — when it does change from pol-
ished satire into fierce denunciation, and sides
with the blouses, its effect will be startling and
terrific. Of this I will say more to Citizen Ra-
meau in private. To you I need not enlarge
upon the fact that, at Paris, a combination of
men, though immeasurably superior to us in
status or influence, without a journal at com-
mand, is nowhere ; with such a journal, written
not to alarm but to seduce fluctuating opinions,
a combination of men immeasurably inferior to
us may be any where.

‘ ‘ Confreres, this affair settled, I proceed to
distribute among you sums of which each who
receives will render me an account, except our
valued confrere the Pole. All that we can sub-
scribe to the cause of humanity a representative
of Poland requires for himself.” (A suppressed
laugh among all but the Pole, who looked round ■
with a grave, imposing air, as much as to say,jl
“What is there to laugh at? — a simple truth.”}*

M. Lebeau then presented to each of his co«-b
freres a sealed envelope, containing, no doubt,*
a bank-note, and perhaps also private instruc-
tions as to its disposal. It was one of his rules .
to make the amount of any sum granted to an in- J
dividual member of the society from the fund at
his disposal a confidential secret between him-
self and the recipient. Thus jealousy was avoid-
ed if the sums were unequal ; and unequal they ■

THE PARISIANS.

101

generally were. In the present instance the two
largest sums were given to the Medecin des Pau-
vres and to the delegate from Verviers. Both
were, no doubt, to be distributed among “ the
poor,” at the discretion of the trustee appointed.

Whatever rules with regard to the distribution
of money M. Lebeau laid down were acquiesced
in without demur, for the money was found ex-
clusively by himself, and furnished without the
pale of the Secret Council, of which he had made
himself founder and dictator. Some other busi-
ness was then discussed, sealed reports from
each member were handed to the president, who
placed them unopened in his pocket, and re-
sumed :

“ Con freres, our stance is now concluded. The
period for our next meeting must remain indefi-
nite, for I myself shall leave Paris as soon as I
have set on foot the journal, on the details of
which I will confer with Citizen Rameau. I am
not satisfied with the progress made by the two
traveling missionaries who complete our Council
of Ten ; and though I do not question their zeal,
I think my experience may guide it if I take a
journey to the towns of Bordeaux and Marseilles,
where they now are. But should circumstances
demanding concert or action arise, you may be
sure that I will either summon a meeting or
transmit instructions to such of our members as
may be most usefully employed. For the pres-
ent, confreres, you are relieved. Remain only
you, dear young author.”

CHAPTER Vir.

Left alone with Gustave Rameau, the presi-
dent of the Secret Council remained silently mus-
ing for some moments ; but his countenance was
no longer moody and overcast — his nostrils were
dilated, as in triumph — there was a half smile of
pride on his lips. Rameau watched him curious-
ly and admiringly. The young man had the im-
pressionable, excitable temperament common to
Parisian genius — especially when it nourishes it-
self on absinthe. He enjoyed the romance of be-
longing to a secret society ; he was acute enough
to recognize the sagacity by which this small con-
clave was kept out of those crazed combinations
for impracticable theories more likely to lead ad-
venturers to the Tarpeian Rock than to the Capi-
tol, while yet those crazed combinations might, in
some critical moment, become strong instruments
in the hands of practical ambition. Lebeau fas-
cinated him, and took colossal proportions in his
intoxicated vision — vision indeed intoxicated at
this moment, for before it floated the realized
image of his aspirations — a journal of which he
was to be the editor-in-chief — in which his po-
etry, his prose, should occupy space as large as
he pleased — through which his name, hitherto
scarce known beyond a literary clique, would re-
sound in sa/on and club and cafe, and become a
familiar music on the lips of fashion. And he
owed this to the man seated there — a prodigious
man !

’‘‘‘Cher poUe," said Lebeau, breaking silence,

“ it gives me no mean pleasure to think I am
opening a career to one whose talents fit him j
for those goals on which they who reach write
names that posterity shall read. Struck with

certain articles of yours in the journal made
celebrated by the wit and gayety of Savarin, I
took pains privately to inquire into your birth,
your history, connections, antecedents. All con-
firmed my first impression, that you were exact-
ly the writer I wish to secure to our cause. I
therefore sought you in your rooms, unintro-
duced and a stranger, in order to express my
admiration of your compositions. Bref, we soon
became friends ; and after comparing minds I
admitted you, at your request, into this Secret
Council. Now, in proposing to you the conduct
of the journal I would establish, for which I am
prepared to find all necessary funds, I am com-
pelled to make imperative conditions. Nomi-
nally you will be editor-in-chief : that station, if
the journal succeeds, will secure you position and
fortune ; if it fail, you fail with it. But we will
not speak of failure; I must have.it succeed.
Our interest, then, is the same. Before that in-
terest all puerile vanities fade away. Nominal-
ly, I say, you are editor-in-chief ; but all the real
work of editing will at first be done by others. ”

“Ah !”exclaimed Rameau,aghast and stunned.
Lebeau resumed :

“To establish the journal I propose needs
more than the genius of youth ; it needs the
tact and experience of mature years.”

Rameau sank back on his cluiir with a sullen
sneer on his pale lips. Decidedly Lebeau was
not so great a man as he had thought.

“A certain portion of the journal,” continued
Lebeau, “will be exclusively appropriated to
your pen.”

Rameau’s lip lost the sneer.

“But your pen must be therein restricted to
compositions of pure fancy, disporting in a world
that does not exist ; or, if on graver themes con-
nected with the beings of the world that does ex-
ist, the subjects will be dictated to you and re-
vised. Yet even in the higher departments of a
journal intended to make way at its first start,
we need the aid not, indeed, of men that write
better than you, but of men whose fame is estab-
lished— whose writings, good or bad, tlie public
run to read, and will find good even if they are
bad. You must consign one column to the play-
ful comments and witticisms of Savarin.”

“ Savarin ? But he has a journal of his own.
He will not, as an author, condescend to write
in one just set up by me. And as a politician,
he as certainly will not aid in an ultra-democratic
revolution. If he care for politics at all, he is a
constitutionalist, an Orleanist. ”

‘‘‘‘Enfant! as an author Savarin will conde-
scend to contribute to your journal, firstly, be-
cause it in no way attempts to interfere with his
own ; secondly — I can tell you a secret — Sava-
rin’s journal no longer suffices for his existence ;
he has sold more than two-thirds of its property ;
he is in debt, and his creditor is urgent ; and to-
morrow you will offer Savann 30,000 francs for
one column from his pen, and signed by his name,
for two months from the day the journal starts.
He will accept, partly because the sum will clear
off the debt that hampers him, partly because he
will take care that the amount becomes known ;
and that will help him to command higher terms
for the sale of the remaining shares in the jour-
nal he now edits, for the new book which you
told me he intended to write, and for the new
journal which he will be sure to set up as soon

102

THE PARISIANS.

as he has disposed of the old one. You say that,
as a politician, Savarin, an Orleanist, will not aid
in an ultra-democratic revolution. Who asks
him to do so ? Did I not imply at the meeting
that we commence our journal with politics the
mildest ? Though revolutions are not made with
rose-water, it is rose-water that nourishes their
roots. The polite cynicism of authors, read by
those who float on the surface of society, prepares
the w'ay for the social ferment in its deeps. Had
there been no Voltaire, there would have been no
Camille Desmoulins. Had there been no Dide-
rot, there would have been no Marat. We start
as polite cynics. Of all cynics Savarin is the po-
litest. But when I bid high for him, it is his
clique that I bid for. Without his clique he is but
a wit ; with his clique, a power. Partly out of
that clique, partly out of a circle beyond it,
which Savarin can more or less influence, I se-
lect ten. Here is the list of them ; study it.
Entre nous, I esteem their writings as little as I
do artificial flies ; but they are the artificial flies
at which, in this particular season of the year, the
public rise. You must procure at least five of
the ten ; and I leave you carte blanche as to the
terms. Savarin gained, the best of them will be
proud of being his associates. Observe, none of
these messieurs of brilliant imagination are to
write political articles ; those will be furnished
to you anonymously, and inserted without eras-
ure or omission. When you have secured Sava-
rin, and five at least of the collahorateurs in the
list, w'rite to me at my office. I give you four
days to do' this ; and the day the journal starts
you enter into the income of 1.5,000 francs a year,
with a rise in salary proportioned to profits. Are
you contented with the terms ?”

“ Of course 1 am ; but supposing I do not gain
the aid of Savarin, or five at least of the list you
give, which I see at a glance contains names the
most a la mode in this kind of writing, more than
one of them of high social rank, whom it is diffi-
cult for me even to approach — if, I say, I fail ?”

“What! with a carte blanche of terms? fie!
Are you a Parisian ? Well, to answer you frank-
ly, if you fail in so easy a task you are not the
man to edit our journal, and I shall find another.
Allez, courage! Take my advice; see Savarin
the first thing to-morrow morning. Of course
my name and calling you will keep a profound
secret from him as from all. Say as mysterious-
ly as you can that parties you are forbidden to
name instruct you to treat with M. Savarin, and
offer him the terms I have specified, the 30,000
francs paid to him in advance the moment he
signs the simple memorandum of agreement.
The more mysterious you are, the more you will
impose — that is, wherever you offer money and
don’t ask for it.”

Here Lebeau took up his hat, and with a court-
eous nod of adieu, lightly descended the gloomy
stairs.

CHAPTER VIII.

At night, after this final interview with Le-
beau, Graham took leave for good of his lodg-
ings in Montmartre, and returned to his apart-
ment in the Rue d’Anjou. He spent several
hours of the next morning in answering numer-
ous letters accumulated during his absence.

Late in the afternoon he had an interview with
M. Renard, who, as at that season of the year
he was not overbusied with other affairs, engaged
to obtain leave to place his services at Graham’s
command during the time requisite for inquiries
at Aix, and to be in readiness to start the next
day. Graham then went forth to pay one or
two farewell visits, and these over, bent his way
through the Champs Elysees toward Isaura’s
villa, when he suddenly encountered Rochebri-
ant on horseback. The Marquis courteously
dismounted, committing his horse to the care of
the groom, and linking his arm in Graham’s, ex-
pressed his pleasure at seeing him again ; then,
with some visible hesitation and embarrassment,
he turned the conversation toward the political
aspect of France.

“There was,” he said, “much in certain
words of yours when we last walked together in
this very path that sank deeply into my mind at
the time, and over which I have of late still
more earnestly reflected. You spoke of the du-
ties a Frenchman ow'ed to France, and the ‘im-
policy’ of remaining aloof from all public em-
ployment on the part of those attached to the
Legitimist cause.”

“ True, it can not be the policy of any party
to forget that between the irrevocable past and
the uncertain future there intervenes the action
of the present time.”

“ Should you, as an impartial by-stander, con-
sider it dishonorable in me if I entered the mili-
tary service under the ruling sovereign ?”

“Certainly not, if your country needed you.”

“ And it may, may it not? I hear vague ru-
mors of coming war in almost every salon I fre-
quent. There has been gunpowder in the at-
mosphere we breathe ever since the battle of Sa-
dowa. What think you of German arrogance
and ambition ? Will they suffer the swords of
France to rust in their scabbards ?”

“ My dear Marquis, I should incline to put the
question otherwise. Will the jealous amour pro-
pre of France permit the swords of Germany to
remain sheathed ? But in either case no politi-
cian can see without grave apprehension two na-
tions so warlike, close to each other, divided by
a border-land that one covets and the other will
not yield, each armed to the teeth ; the one re-
solved to brook no rival, the other equally deter-
mined to resist all aggression. And therefore,
as you say, war is in the atmosphere ; and we
may also hear, in the clouds that give no sign
of dispersion, the growl of the gathering thun-
der. War may come aiiy day ; and if France
be not at once the victor — ”

“France not at once the victor!” interrupted
Alain, passionately; “and against a Prussian!
Permit me to say no Frenchman can believe
that.”

“Let no man despise a foe,” said Graham,
smiling half sadly. “ However, I must not in-
cur the danger of wounding your national sus-
ceptibilities. To return to the point you raise.
If France needed the aid of her best and bravest,
a true descendant of Henri Quatre ought to blush
for his ancient noblesse were a Rochebriant to
say, ‘ But I don’t like the color of the flag.’ ”

“Thank you,” said Alain, simply; “that is
enough.” There was a pause, the young men
walking on slowly, arm in arm. And then
there flashed across Graham’s mind the recollec-

THE PARISIANS.

103

tion of talk on another subject in that very path.
Here he had spoken to Alain in deprecation
of any possible alliance with Isaura Cicogna, the
destined actress and public singer. His cheek
flushed ; his heart smote him. What ! had he
spoken slightingly of her — of her? What — if
she became his own wife ? What ! had he him-
self failed in the respect which he would demand
as her right from the loftiest of his high-born
kindred ? What, too, would this man, of fairer
youth than himself, think of that disparaging
counsel, when he heard that the monitor had
won the prize from which he had warned anoth-
er? Would it not seem that he had but spoken
in the mean cunning dictated by the fear of a
worthier rival? Stung by these thoughts, he
arrested his steps, and, looking the Marquis full
in the face, said, “You remind me of one sub-
ject in our talk many weeks since ; it is my duty
to remind you of another. At that time you,
and, speaking frankly, I myself, acknowledged
the charm in the face of a young Italian lady. I
told you then that, on learning she was intended
for the stage, the charm for me had vanished.
I said, bluntly, that it should vanish perhaps still
more utterly for a noble of your illustrious name;
you remember ?”

“Yes,” answered Alain, hesitatingly, and
with a look of surprise.

“I wish now to retract all I said thereon.
Mademoiselle Cicogna is not bent on the pro-
fession for which she was educated. She would
willingly renounce all idea of entering it. The
only counter- weight which, viewed whether by
my reason or my prejudices, could be placed
in the opposite scale to that of the excellences
which might make any man proud to win her, is
withdrawn. I have become acquainted with her
since the date of our conversation. Hers is a
mind which harmonizes with the loveliness of
her face. In one word, Marquis, I should deem
myself honored, as well as blessed, by such a
bride. It was due to her that I should say this ;
it was due also to you, in case you retain the
impression I sought in ignorance to efface. And
I am bound, as a gentleman, to obey this two-
fold duty, even though in so doing I bring upon
myself the affliction of a candidate for the hand
to which I would fain myself aspire — a candi-
date with pretensions in every way far superior
to my own. ”

An older or a more cynical man than Alain de
Rochebriant might well have found something
suspicious in a confession thus singularly volun-
teered ; but the Marquis was himself so loyal
that he had no doubt of the loyalty of Graham.

“I reply to you,” he said, “ with a frankness
which finds an example in your own. The first
fair face which attracted my flmcy since my ar-
rival at Paris was that of the Italian demoiselle
of whom you speak in terms of such respect. I
do think if I had then been thrown into her so-
ciety, and found her to be such as you no doubt
truthfully describe, that fancy might have be-
come a very grave emotion. I was then so poor,
so friendless, so despondent. Your words of
warning impressed me at the time, but less dura-
bly than you might suppose ; for that very night,
as I sat in my solitary attic, I said to myself :

‘ Why should I shrink, with an obsolete old-world
prejudice, from what my forefathers would have
termed a mesalliance ? What is the value of
H

my birthright now ? None — worse than none.
It excludes me from all careers ; my name is but
a load that weighs me down. Why should I
make that name a curse as well as a burden?
Nothing is left to me but that which is permitted
to all men — wedded and holy love. Could I win
to my heart the smile of a woman who brings me
that dower, the home of my fathers would lose
its gloom.’ And therefore, if at that time I had
become familiarly acquainted with her wlp had
thus attracted my eye and engaged my thoughts,
she might have become my destiny ; but now!”

“But now?”

“Things have changed. I am no longer
poor, friendless, solitary. I have entered the
world of my equals as a Rochebriant ; I have
made myself responsible for the dignity of my
name. 1 could not give that name to one, how-
ever peerless in herself, of whom the world would
say, ‘ But for her marriage she would have been
a singer on the stage 1 ’ I will own more : the
fancy I conceived for the first fair face other
fair faces have dispelled. At this moment, how-
ever, I have no thought of marriage ; and having
known the anguish of struggle, the privations of
poverty, I would ask no woman to share the haz-
ard of my return to them. You might present me,
then, safely to this beautiful Italian — certain,
indeed, that I should be her admirer, equally
certain that I could not become your rival. ”

There was something in this speech that jarred
upon Graham’s sensitive pride. But, on the
whole, he felt relieved, both in honor and in
heart. After a few more words the two young
men shook hands and parted. Alain remounted
his horse. The day W'as now declining. Graham
hailed a vacant fiacre^ and directed the driver to
Isaura’s villa.

CHAPTER IX.

ISAURA.

The sun was sinking slowly as Isaura sat at
her window, gazing dreamily on the rose-hued
clouds that made the western border-land be-
tween earth and heaven. On the table before
her lay a few sheets of MS. hastily written, not
yet reperused. That restless mind of hers had
left its trace on the MS.

It is characteristic, perhaps, of the different
genius of the sexes that woman takes to written
composition more impulsively, more intuitively,
than man — letter-writing to him a task-work, is to
her a recreation. Between the age of sixteen and
the date of marriage six well-educated, clever girls
out of ten keep a journal ; not one well-educated
man in ten thousand does. So, without serious
and settled intention of becoming an author, how
naturally a girl of ardent feeling and vivid fancy
seeks in poetry or romance a confessional — an
outpouring of thought anti sentiment, which are
mysteries to herself till she has given them
words — and which, frankly revealed on the page,
she would not, perhaps could not, utter orally to
a living ear.

During the last few days the desire to create
in the realm of fable beings constructed by her
own breath, spiritualized by her own soul, had
grown irresistibly upon this fair child of song.
In fact, when Graham’s words had decided the
renunciation of her destined career, her instinct-

104

THE PARISIANS.

ive yearnings for the utterance of those senti-
ments or thoughts which can only find expres-
sion in some form of art, denied the one vent,
irresistibly impelled her to the other. And in
this impulse she was confirmed by the thought
tliat here at least there was nothing which her
English friend could disapprove — none of the
perils that beset the actress. Here it seemed as
if, could she but succeed, her fame would be
grateful to the pride of all who loved her. Here
was a career ennobled by many a woman, and
side by side in rivalry with renowned men. To
her it seemed that, could she in this achieve an
honored name, that name took its place at once
amidst the higher ranks of the social Avorld, and
in itself brought a priceless dowry and a starry
crown. It was, however, not till after the visit
to Enghien that this ambition took practical life
and form.

One evening after her return to Paris, by an
effort so involuntary that it seemed to her no ef-
fort, she had commenced a tale — without plan,
without method — without knowing in one page
what would fill the next. Her slight fingers
hurried on as if, like the pretended spirit mani-
festations, impelled by an invisible agency with-
out the pale of the world. She was intoxicated
by the mere joy of inventing ideal images. In
her own special art an elaborate artist, here she
had no thought of art ; if ait was in her work,
it sprang unconsciously from the harmony be-
tween herself and her subject — as it is, perhaps,
with the early soarings of the genuine lyric poets,
in contrast to the dramatic. For the true lyric
poet is intensely personal, intensely subjective.
It is himself that he expresses — that he rejire-
sents — and he almost ceases to be lyrical when
he seeks to go out of his own existence into that
of others with whom he has no sympathy, no
rapport. This tale was vivid with genius as yet
untutored — genius in its morning freshness, full
of beauties, full of faults. Isaura distinguished
not the faults from the beauties. She felt only
a vague persuasion that there was a something
higher and brighter — a something more true to
her own idiosyncrasy — than could be achieved
by the art that “sings other people's words to
other people’s music.” From the work thus
commenced she had now paused. And it seem-
ed to her fancies that between her inner self and
the scene without, whether in the skies and air
and sunset, or in the abodes of men stretching
far and near, till lost amidst the roofs and domes
of the great city, she had fixed and riveted the
link of a sympathy hitherto fluctuating, unsub-
stantial, evanescent, undefined. Absorbed in her
reverie, she did not notice the deepening of the
short twilight till the servant entering drew the
curtains between her and the w’orld without, and
placed the lamp on the table beside her. Then
she turned away with, a restless sigh, her eyes
fell on the MS., but the charm of it was gone.
A sentiment of distrust in its worth had crept
into her thoughts, unconsciously to herself, and
the page open before her at an uncompleted sen-
tence seemed unwelcome and wearisome as a
copy-book is to a child condemned to relinquish
a fairy tale half told, and apply himself to a task
half done. She fell again into a reverie, when,
starting as from a dream, she heard herself ad-
dressed by name, and turning round, saw Savarin
and Gustave Rameau in the room.

“ We are come, signorina,” said Savarin, “ to
announce to you a piece of news, and to hazard
a petition. The news is this : my young friend
here has found a Maecenas who has the good
taste so to admire his lucubrations under the
nom de plume of Alphonse de Valcour as to vol-
unteer the expenses for starting a new journal,
of which Gustave Rameau is to be editor-in-
chief; and I have promised to assist him as con-
tributor for the first two months. I have given
him notes of introduction to certain other feu-
illetonistes and critics whom he has on his list.
But all ])ut together would not serve to float the
journal like a short roman from Madame de
Grantmesnil. Knowing your intimacy with that
eminent artist, I venture to back Rameau’s sup-
plication that you would exert your influence on
Ids behalf. As to the honoraires, she has but to
name them.”

“ Carte i/awc/ic,” cried Rameau, eagerly.

“You know Eulalie too well, M. Savarin,”
answered Isaura, with a smile half reproachful,
“to suppose that she is a mercenary in letters,
and sells her services to the best bidder.”

“Bah, helle enfant!” said Savarin, with his
gay light laugh. “ Business is business, and
books as well as razors are made to sell. But,
of course, a proper prospectus of the journal
must accompany your request to write in it.
Meanwhile Rameau will explain to you, as he
has done to me, that the journal in question is
designed for circulation among readers of haute
classe: it is to be pleasant and airy, full of bons
mots and anecdote; witty, but not ill-natured.
Politics to be liberal, of course, but of elegant
admixture — Champagne and seltzer-water. In
fact, however, I suspect that the politics will be
a very inconsiderable feature in this organ of
fine arts and manners ; some amateur scribbler
in the ‘ beau monde' will supply them. For the
rest, if my introductory letters are successful,
Madame de Grantmesnil will not be in bad
company.”

“You will write to Madame de Grantmesnil ?”
asked Rameau, pleadingly.

“ Certainly I will, as soon — ” (

“As soon as you have the prospectus, and the
names of the collaborateurs” interrupted Rameau.
“I hope to send you these in a very few days.”

While Rameau was thus speaking Savarin had
seated himself by the table, and his eye mechan-
ically resting on the open MS., lighted by chance
upon a sentence — an aphorism — embodying a
very delicate sentiment in very felicitous diction.
One of those choice condensations of thought,
suggesting so much more than is said, which are
never found in mediocre writers, and, rare even
in the best, come upon us like truths seized by
surprise.

Parbleu !” exclaimed-Savarin, in the impulse
of genuine admiration, “but this is beautiful;
wliat is more, it is original ;” and he read the
words aloud. Blushing with shame and resent-
ment, Isaura turned and hastily placed her hand
on the MS.

“ Pardon,” said Savarin, humbly ; “I confess
my sin, but it was so unpremeditated that it
does not merit a severe penance. Do not look
at me so reproachfully. We all know that young
ladies keep commonplace-books in which they
enter passages that strike them in the works
they read. And you have but shown an exqui-

THE PARISIANS.

105

site taste in selecting this gem. Eo tell me
where you found it. Is it somewhere in Lamar-
tine?”

‘‘ No,” answered Isaura, half inaudibly, and
with an effort to withdraw the paper. Savarin
gently detained her hand, and looking earnestly
into her tell-tale face, divined her secret.

“It is your own, signorina! Accept the
congratulations of a very practiced and some-
what fastidious critic. If the rest of what you
write resembles this sentence, contribute to Ra-
meau’s journal, and I answer for its success.”

Rameau approached, half incredulous, half
envious.

“ My dear child,” resumed Savarin, drawing
away the MS. from Isaura’s coy, reluctant clasp,
‘ ‘ do permit me to cast a glance over these pa-
pers. For what I yet know, there may be here
more promise of fame than even you could gain
as a singer.”

The electric chord in Isaura’s heart was touch-
ed. Who can not conceive what the young
writer feels, especially the young woman-writer,
when hearing the first cheery note of praise from
the lips of a writer of established fame ?

“Nay, this can not be worth your reading,”
said Isaura, falteringly; “I have never written
any thing of the kind before, and this is a riddle
to me. I know not,” she added, with a sweet
low laugh, “ why I began, nor how I should end
it.”

*‘So much the better,” said Savarin ; and he
took, the MS. , withdrew to a recess by the fur-
ther window, and seated himself there, reading
silently and quickly, but now and then with a
brief pause of reflection.

Rameau placed himself beside Isaura on the
divan, and began talking with her earnestly —
earnestly, for it was about himself and his as-
piring hopes. Isaura, on the other hand, more
woman-like than author-like, ashamed even to
seem absorbed in herself and her hopes, and
with her back turned, in the instinct of that
shame, against the reader of her MS. — Isaura
listened and sought to mterest herself solely in
the young fellow-author. Seeking to do so, she
succeeded genuinely, for ready sympathy was a
prevalent characteristic of her nature.

“Oh,” said Rameau, “I am at the turning-
point of my life. Ever since boyhood I have
been haunted with the words of Andre Chenier
on the morning he was led to the scaffold : ‘ And
yet there was something here,’ striking his fore-
head. Yes, I, poor, low-born, launching my-
self headlong in the chase of a name ; I, under-
rated, uncomprehended, indebted even for a
hearing to the patronage of an amiable trifler
like Savarin, ranked by petty rivals in a grade
below themselves — I now see before me, sudden-
ly, abruptly presented, the expanding gates into
fame and fortune. Assist me, you !”

“But how?” said Isaura, already forgetting
her MS. ; and certainly Rameau did not refer to
that.

“ Hoav !” echoed Rameau. “ How ! But do
you not see — or, at least, do you not conjecture
— this journal of which Savarin speaks contains
my present and my future ? Present independ-
ence, opening to fortune and renown. Ay — and
who shall say ? — renown beyond that of the mere
writer. Behind the gaudy scaffolding of this
rickety empire a new social edifice unperceived

arises ; and in that edifice the halls of state shall
be given to the men who help obscurely to build
it — to men like me.” Here, drawing her hand
into his own, fixing on her the most imploring
gaze of his dark persuasive eyes, and utterly un-
conscious of bathos in his adjuration, he added,
“ Plead for me with your whole mind and heart ;
use your uttermost influence with the illustrious
writer, whose pen can assure the fates of my
journal.”

Here the door suddenly opened, and following
the servant, who announced unintelligibly his
name, there entered Graham Vane.

CHAPTER X.

The Englishman halted at the threshold.
His eye, passing rapidly over the figure of Sava-
rin reading in the window niche, rested upon
Rameau and Isaura seated on the same divan,
he with her hand clasped in both his own, and
bending his face toward hers so closely that a
loose tress of her hair seemed to touch his fore-
head.

The Englishman halted, and no revolution
which changes the habitudes and forms of states
was ever so sudden as that which passed without
a word in the depths of his unconjectured heart.
The heart has no histoiy which philosophers can
recognize. An ordinary political observer, con-
templating the condition of a nation, may very
safely tell us what effects must follow the causes
patent to his eyes. But the wisest and most
far-seeing sage, looking at a man at one o’clock,
can not tell us what revulsions of his whole being
may be made ere the clock strike two.

As Isaura rose to greet her visitor Savarin
came from the window niche, the MS. in his
hand.

“ Son of perfidious Albion,” said Savarin, gay-
ly, ‘ ‘ we feared you had deserted the French al-
liance. Welcome back to Paris, and the entente
cordiale."

“ Would I could stay to enjoy such welcome.
But I must again quit Paris.”

“ Soon to return, n'est ce past Paris is an
irresistible magnet to les beaux esprits. Apro-
pos of beaux esprits, be sure to leave orders with
your bookseller, if you have one, to enter your
name as subscriber to a new' journal.”

“ Certainly, if M. Savarin recommends it.”

“He recommends it as a matter of course ; he
wnites in it,” said Rameau.

“A sufficient guarantee for its excellence.
What is the name of the journal ?”

“Not yet thought of,” ausw'ered Savarin.
“Babes must be born before they are christen-
ed ; but it will be instruction enough to your
bookseller to order the new journal to be edited
by Gustave Rameau.”

Bowing ceremoniously to the editor in pros-
pect, Graham said, half ironically, “ May I hope
that in the department of criticism you will not
be too hard upon poor Tasso ?”

“ Never fear ; the signorina, who adores Tas-
so, w'ill take him under her special protection,”
said Savarin, interrupting Rameau’s sullen and
embarrassed reply.

Graham’s brow slightly contracted. “ Made-
moiselle,” he said, “is then to be united in the

106

THE PARISIANS.

conduct of this journal with M. Gustave Ra-
meau ?”

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Isaura, somewhat
frightened at the idea.

“But I hope,” said Savarin, “that the sign-
orina may become a contributor too important
for an editor to offend by insulting her favorites,
Tasso included. Rameau and I came hither to
entreat her influence with her intimate and il-
lustrious friend, Madame de Grantmesnil, to in-
sure the success of our undertaking by sanction-
ing the announcement of her name as a contrib-
utor.”

“ Upon social questions — such as the laws of
marriage ?” said Graham, with a sarcastic smile,
which concealed the quiver of his lip and the
pain in his voice.

“Nay,” answered Savarin, “our journal will
be too sportive, I hope, for matters so profound.
We would rather have Madame de Grantmes-
nil’s aid in some short roman^ which will charm
the fancy of all and offend the opinions of none.
But since I came into the room I care less for
the signorina’s influence with the great author-
ess ;” and he glanced significantly at the MS.

“How so?” asked Graham, his eye following
the glance.

“ If the writer of this MS. will conclude what
she has begun, we shall be independent of Ma-
dame de Grantmesnil.”

“Fie !” cried Isaura, impulsively, her face and
neck bathed in blushes — “ fie 1 such words are a
mockery. ”

Graham gazed at her intently, and then turned
his eyes on Savarin. He guessed aright the
truth. “ Mademoiselle, then, is an author ? In
the style of her friend Madame de Grantmes-
nil?”

“Bah!” said Savarin; “I should indeed be
guilty of mockery if I paid the signorina so
false a compliment as to say that in a first effort
she attained to the style of one of the most fin-
ished sovereigns of language that has ever swayed
the literature of France. When I say, ‘ Give us
this tale completed, and I shall be consoled if
the journal does not gain the aid of Madame de
Grantmesnil, ’ I mean that in these pages there
is that nameless charm of freshness and novelty
which compensates for many faults never commit-
ted by a practiced pen like Madame de Grantmes-
nil’s. My dear young lady, go on with this story
— finish it. When finished, do not disdain any
suggestions I may offer in the way of correction.
And I will venture to predict to you so brilliant
a career as author, that you will not regret should
you resign for that career the bravos you could
command as actress and singer.” The English-
man pressed his hand convulsively to his heart,
as if smitten by a sudden spasm. But as his
eyes rested on Isaura’s face, which had become
radiant with the enthusiastic delight of genius
when the path it would select opens before it as
if by a flash from heaven, whatever of jealous ir-
ritation, whatever of selfish pain he might before
have felt, was gone, merged in a sentiment of
unutterable sadness and compassion. Practical
man as he was, he knew so well all the dangers,
all the snares, all the sorrows, all the scandals
menacing name and fame, that in the world of
Paris must beset the fatherless girl who, not less
in authorship than on the stage, leaves the safe-
guard of private life forever behind her — who

becomes a prey to the tongues of the public. At
Paris, how slender is the line that divides the au-
thoress from the BoMmienne ! He sank into
his chair silently, and passed his hand over his
eyes, as if to shut out a vision of the future.

Isaura in her excitement did not notice the ef-
fect on her English visitor. She could not have
divined such an effect as possible. On the con-
trary, even subordinate to her joy at the thought
that she had not mistaken the instincts which
led her to a nobler vocation than that of the
singer, that the cage-bar was opened, and space
bathed in sunshine was inviting the new-felt
wings — subordinate even to that joy was a joy
more wholly, more simply, woman’s. “If,”
thought she in this joy — “if this be true, my
proud ambition is realized; all disparities of
worth and fortune are annulled between me
and him to whom I would bring no shame of
mesaUia7ice Poor dreamer! poor child!

“You will let me see what you have written,”
said Rameau, somewhat imperiously, in the sharp
voice habitual to him, and which pierced Gra-
ham’s ear like a splinter of glass.

“ No — not now ; when finished.”

“ You will finish it ?”

“Oh yes; how can I help it after such en-
couragement?” She held out her hand to Sa-
varin, who kissed it gallantly then her eyes in-
tuitively sought Graham’s. By that time he had
recovered his self-possession : he met her look
tranquilly and with a smile ; but the smile chilled
her — she knew not why.

The conversation then passed upon books and
authors of the day, and was chiefly supported by
the satirical pleasantries of Savarin, who was in
high good spirits.

Graham, who, as we know, had come with the
hope of seeing Isaura alone, and with the inten-
tion of uttering words which, however guarded,
might yet in absence serve as links of union,
now no longer coveted that interview, no longer
meditated those words. He soon rose to depart.

“Will you dine with me to-morrow?” asked
Savarin. “Perhaps I may induce the signorina
and Rameau to offer you the temptation of meet-
ing them.”

“By to-morrow I shall be leagues away.”

Isaura’s heart sank. This time the MS. was
fairly forgotten.

“You never said you were going so soon,”
cried Savarin. “ When do you come back, vile
deserter ?”

“I can not even guess. Monsieur Rameau,
count me among your subscribers. Mademoi-
selle, my best regards to Signora Venosta.
When I see. you again, no doubt you will have
become famous.”

Isaura here could not control herself. She rose
impulsively, and approached him, holding out her
hand, and attempting a smile.

“ But not famous in the way that you warned
me from,” she said, in whispered tones. “You
are friends with me still ?” It was like the pite-
ous wail of a child seeking to make it up with
one who wants to quarrel, the child knows not
why.

Graham was moved, but what could he say?
Could he have the right to warn her from this
profession also, forbid all desires, all roads of
fame to this brilliant aspirant ? Even a declared
and accepted lover might well have deemed that

THE PARISIANS.

that would be to ask too much. He replied,
“ Yes, always a friend, if you could ever need
one.” Her hand slid from his, and she turned
away, w’ounded to the quick.

“Have you your coup€ at the door?” asked
Savarin.

“Simply a fiacre.'"

“And are going back at once to Paris?”

“Yes.”

“Will vou kindly drop me in the Rue de
Rivoli?”

‘ ‘ Charmed to be of use. ”

CHAPTER XI.

As the fiacre bore to Paris Savarin and Gra-
ham, the former said, “I can not conceive what
rich simpleton could entertain so high an opin-
ion of Gustave Rameau as to select a man so
young, and of reputation, though promising, so
undecided, for an enterprise which requires such
a degree of tact and judgment as the conduct of
a new journal, and a journal, too, which is to
address itself to the beau monde. However, it is
not for me to criticise a selection which brings a
godsend to myself.”

“To yourself? You jest; you have a journal
of your own. It can only be through an excess
of good nature that you lend your name and pen
to the service of M. Gustave Rameau.”

“My good nature does not go to that extent.
It is Rameau who confers a service upon me.
Peste ! moil cher, we French authors have not the
rents of you rich English milords. And though I
am the most economical of our tribe, yet that jour-
nal of mine has failed me of late ; and this morn-
ing I did not exactly see how I was to repay a
sum I had been obliged to borrow of a money-
lender— for I am too proud to borrow of friends,
and too sagacious to borrow of publishers — when
in walks ce cher petit Gustave with an offer for
a few trifles toward starting this new-born jour-
nal, which makes a new man of me. Now I am
in the undertaking, my amour propre and my
reputation are concerned in its success, and I
shall take care that collahorateurs of whose com-
pany I am not ashamed are in the same boat.
But that charming girl, Isaura ! What an enig-
ma the gift of the pen is ! No one can ever
guess who has it until tried.”

“The young lady’s MS., then, really merits
the praise you bestowed on it ?”

“Much more praise, though a great deal of
blame, which I did not bestow. For in a first
Avork faults insure success as much as beauties.
Any thing better than tame correctness. Yes,
her first Avork, to judge by Avhat is Avritten, must
make a hit — a great hit. And that will decide
her career — a singer, an actress, may retire, oft-
en does Avhen she marries an author. But once
an author, always an author.”

“Ah ! is it so ? If you had a beloA^ed daugh-
ter, Savarin, Avould you encourage her to be an
author ?”

“Frankly, no — principally because in that
case the chances are that she would marry an
author ; and French authors, at least in the im-
aginative school, make very uncomfortable hus-
bands. ”

“ Ah ! you think the signorina Avill marry one

107

of those uncomfortable husbands — M. Rameau,
perhaps ?”

“ Rameau ! Hein ! nothing more likely.
That beautiful face of his has its fascination.
And to tell you the truth, my Avife, who is a
striking illustration of the truth that what woman
Avills Heaven wills, is bent upon that improve-
ment in Gustave’s moral life Avhich she thinks a
union with Mademoiselle Cicogna Avould achieve.
At all events, the fair Italian Avould have in
Rameau a husband who would not suffer her to
bury her talents under a bushel. If she suc-
ceeds as a Avriter (by succeeding I mean making
money), he will see that her ink-bottle is never
empty ; and if she don’t succeed as a writer, he
Avill take care that the world shall gain an actress
or a singer. For Gustave Rameau has a great
taste for luxury and shoAv; and Avhatever his
Avife can make, I Avill venture to say that he will
manage to spend.”

“ I thought you had an esteem and regard for
Mademoiselle Cicogna. It is madame, your
wife, I suppose, Avho- has a grudge against
her?”

“ On the contrary, my Avife idolizes her.”

“Savages sacrifice to their idols the things
they deem of value. Civilized Parisians sacri-
fice their idols themselves — and to a thing that
is Avorthless.”

“ Rameau is not Avorthless ; he has beauty
and youth and talent. My Avife thinks more
highly of him than I do ; but I must respect a
man who has found admirers so sincere as to set
him up in a journal, and give him carte blanche
for terms to contributors. I knpAv of no man in
Paris more A'aluable to me. His Avorth to me
this morning is 30,000 francs. I OAvn I do not
think him likely to be a very safe husband ; but
then French female authors and artists seldom
take any husbands except upon short leases.
There are no vulgar connubial prejudices in the
pure atmosphere of art. Women of genius, like
Madame de Grantmesnil, and perhaps like our
charming young friend, resemble canary-birds —
to sing their best you must separate them from
their mates.”

The Englishman suppressed a groan, and
turned the conversation.

When he had set down his lively companion.
Vane dismissed his fiacre, and Avalked to his
lodgings musingly.

“ No,” he said, inly ; “ I must wrench myself
from the very memory of that haunting face —
the friend and pupil of Madame de Grantmesnil,
the associate of Gustave Rameau, the rival of
Julie Caumartin, the aspirant to that pure at-
mosphere of art in Avhich there are no vulgar
connubial prejudices ! Could I — Avhether I be
rich or poor — see in her the ideal of an English
Avife ? As it is — as it is — with this mystery
Avhicli oppresses me, Avhich, till solved, leaves
my OAvn career insoluble — as it is, how fortunate
that I did not find her alone — did not utter the
Avords that Avould fain have leaped from my heart
— did not say, ‘I may not be the rich man I
seem, but in tLat case I shall be yet more ambi-
tious, because struggle and labor are the sinews
of ambition ! Should I be rich, Avill you adorn
my station ? should I be poor, Avill you enrich
poverty Avith your smile ? And can you, in either
case, forego — really, painlessly forego, as you
led me to hope — the pride in your own art ?’ JMy

108

THE PARISIANS.

ambition were killed did I many an actress, a
singer. Better that than the hungerer after ex-
citements which are never allayed, the struggler
in a career which admits of no retirement — the
woman to whom marriage is no goal — who re-

mains to the last the property of the public, and
glories to dwell in a house of glass into which
eveiy by-stander has a right to jieer. Is this the
ideal of an Englishman’s wife and home ? No,
no ! — woe is me, no !”

BOOK

CHAPTEK I.

A FEW weeks after the date of the preceding
chapter a gay party of men were assembled at
supper in one of the private salons of the Maison
Dorie. The supper was given by Frederic Le-
mercier, and the guests w’ere, though in vari-
ous ways, more or less distinguished. Rank
and fashion were not unworthily represented by
Alain de Rochebriant and Enguerrand de Van-
demar, by whose supremacy as ‘ ‘ lion” Frederic
still felt rather humbled, though Alain had con-
trived to bring them familiarly together. Art,
Literature, and the Bourse had also their repre-
sentatives— in Henri Bernard, a rising young
portrait-painter, whom the Emperor honored
with his patronage, the Vicomte de Breze, and
M. Savarin. Science was not altogether for-
gotten, but contributed its agreeable delegate in
the person of the eminent physician to whom we
have been before introduced — Dr. Bacourt. Doc-
tors in Paris are not so serious as they mostly are
in London ; and Bacourt, a pleasant philosopher
of the school of Aristippus, was no unfrequent
nor ungenial guest at any banquet in which the
Graces relaxed their zones. Martial glory was
also represented at that social gathering by a
warrior, bronzed and decorated, lately arrived
from Algiers, on which arid soil he had achieved
many laurels and the rank of Colonel. Finance
contributed Duplessis. Well it might ; for Du-
plessis had just assisted the host to a splendid
coup at the Bourse. .

“Ah, cher M. Savarin,” says Enguerrand de
Vandemar, whose patrician blood is so pure from
revolutionary taint that he is always instinctively
polite, “ what a masterpiece in its way is that
little paper of yours in the Sens Commune upon
the connection between the national character
and the national diet, so genuinely witty! — for
v/it is but truth made amusing.”

“ You flatter me,” replied Savarin, modestly ;
“ but I own I do think there is a smattering of
philosophy in that trifle. Perhaps, however, the
character of a people depends more on its drinks
than its food. The wines of Italy— heady, ir-
ritable, ruinous to the digestion — contribute to
the character which belongs to active brains and
disordered livers. The Italians conceive great
plans, but they can not digest them. The En-
glish common people drink beer, and the beerish
character is stolid, rude, but stubborn and en-
during. The English middle class imbibe port
and sherry ; and with these strong potations their
ideas become obfuscated. Their character has
no liveliness ; amusement is not one of their
wants ; they sit at home after dinner and doze
away the fumes of their beverage in the dullness
of domesticity. If the English aristocracy is
more vivacious and cosmopolitan, it is thanks to

SIXTH.

the wines of France, which it is the mode "with
them to prefer ; but still, like all plagiarists, they
are imitators, not inventors — they borrow our
wines and copy our manners. The Germans — ”

“Insolent barbarians!” growled the French
Colonel, twirling his mustache; “if the Emper-
or were not in his dotage, their Sadowa would
ere this have cost them their Rhine.”

“The Germans, ” resumed Savarin, unheeding
the interruption, “ drink acrid wines, varied with
beer, to which last their commonalty owes a
g'Masi-resemblance in stupidity and endurance to
the English masses. Acrid wines rot the teeth :
Germans are afflicted with toothache from in-
fancy. All people subject to toothache are sen-
timental. Goethe was a martyr to toothache.
Werther was written in one of those parnx\ sms
which predispose genius to suicide. But the
German character is not all toothache ; beer and
tobacco step in to the relief of Rhenish acridities,
blend philosophy with sentiment, and give that
patience in detail which distinguishes their pro-
fessors and their generals. Besides, the German
wines in themselves have other qualities than
that of acridity. Taken with sauerkraut and
stewed prunes, they produce fumes of self-con-
ceit. A German has little of French vanity ; he
has German self-esteem. He extends the esteem
of self to those around him ; his home, his village,
his city, his country — all belong to him. It is a
duty he owes to himself to defend them. Give
him his pipe and his sabre — and, M. le Colonel,
believe me, you will never take the Rhine from
him.”

“ P-r-r, ” cried the Colonel ; ‘ ‘ but we have had
the Rhine.”

“ We did not keep it. And I should not say
I had a franc-piece if I borrowed it from your
purse and had to give it back the next day.”

Here there arose a very general hubbub of
voices, all raised against M. Savarin. Enguer-
rand, like a man of good ton, hastened to change
the conversation.

' “Let us leave these poor Avretches to their
sour wines and toothaches. We drinkers of the
Champagne, all our own, have only pity for the
rest of the human race. This new journal, Le
Sens Conmiun, has a strange title, M. Savarin.”

“ Yes ; Le Sens Commun is not common in
Paris, Avhere we all have too much genius for a
thing so vulgar.”

“ Pray,” said the young painter, “ tell me
what you mean by the title, Le Sens Commun.
It is mysterious.”

“True,” said Savarin; “ it may mean the
Sensus communis of the Latins, or the Good
Sense of the English. The Latin phrase signi-
fies the sense of the common intei’est ; the En-
glish phrase, the sense which persons of under-
I standing have in common. I suppose the in-

THE PARISIANS. 109

ventor of our title meant the latter significa-
tion.”

“ And who was the inventor ?” asked Bacourt.

“ That is a secret which I do net know my-
self,” answered Savarin.

“1 guess,” said Enguerrand, “that it must
be the same person who writes the political lead-
ers. They are most remarkable ; for they are
so unlike the articles in other journals, whether
those journals be the best or the worst. For my
own part, I trouble my head very little about
politics, and shrug my shoulders at essays which
reduce the government of flesh and blood into
mathematical problems. But these articles seem
to be written by a man of the world, and, as a
man of the world myself, I read them.”

“ But,” said the Vicomte de Bre'ze, tvho
piqued himself on the polish of his style, “ they
are certainly not the composition of any eminent
writer. No eloquence, no sentiment; though I
ought not to speak disparagingly of a fellow-
contributor.”

“All that may be very true,” said Savarin,
“ but M. Enguerrand is right. The papers are
evidently the work of a man of the world, and
it is for that reason that they have startled the
public, and established the success of Le Sens
Covimun. But wait a week or two longer,
messieurs, and then tell me what you think of
a new roman by a new writer, which we shall
announce in our impression to-morrow. I shall
be disappointed, indeed, if that does not charm
you. No lack of eloquence and sentiment there. ”

“ I am rather tired of eloquence and senti-
ment,” said Enguerrand. “Your editor, Gus-
tave Rameau, sickens me of them wuth his ‘ Star-
lit Meditations in the Streets of Paris,’ morbid
imitations of Heine’s enigmatical ‘ Evening
Songs.’ Your journal would be perfect if you
could suppress the editor.”

Suppress Gustave Rameau !” cried Bernard,
the painter ; “I adore his poems, full of heart
for poor suffering humanity.”

“ Suffering humanity so far as it is packed up
in himself,” said the physician, dryly, “ and a
great deal of the suffering is bile. But a propos
of your new journal, Savarin, there is a para-
graph in it to-day which excites my curiosity.
It says that the Vicomte de Mauleon has arrived
in Paris, after many years of foreign travel ; and
then, referring modestly enough to the reputa-
tion for talent which he had acquired in early
youth, proceeds to indulge in a prophecy of the
future political career of a man who, if he have
a grain of sens commun^ must think that the less
said about him the better. I remember him
well ; a terrible mauvais sujet, but superbly hand-
some. There was a shocking story about the jew-
els of a foreign duchess, tvhich obliged him to
leave Paris.”

“ But,” said Savarin, “ the paragraph you re-
fer to hints that that story is a groundless cal-
umny, and that the true reason for De Mauleon’s
voluntary self-exile was a very common one
among young Parisians — he had lavished away
his fortune. He returns when, either by heri-
tage or his own exertion?;, he has secured else-
where a competence.”

“Nevertheless, I can not think that society
will receive him,” said Bacourt. “When he
left Paris, there was one joyous sigh of relief
among all men who wished to avoid duels, and

keep their wives out of temptation. Society
may welcome back a lost sheep, but not a rein-
vigorated wolf.”

“ I beg your pardon, mon cher," said Enguer-
rand; “society has already opened its fold to
this poor ill-treated wolf. Two days ago Lou-
vier summoned to his house the surviving rela-
tions or connections of De Mauleon — among
whom are the Marquis de Rochebriant, the
Counts De Passy, De Beauvilliers, De Chavigny,
rny father, and of course his two sons — and sub-
mitted to us the proofs which completely clear
the Vicomte de Mauleon of ev’en a suspicion of
fraud or dishonor in the atfair of the jewels.
The proofs include the written attestation of the
Duke himself, and letters from that nobleman
after De Mauleon’s disappearance from Paris,
expressive of great esteem, and, indeed, of
great admiration, for the Vicomte’s sense of
honor and generosity of character. The result
of this family council was, that we all went in
a body to call on De Mauleon. And he dined
with my father that same day. You know
enough of the Count de Vandemar, and, I may
add, of my mother, to be sure that they are
both, in their several ways, too regardful of
social conventions to lend their countenance
even to a relation without well weighing the
pros and cojis. And as for Raoul, Bayard him-
self could not be a greater stickler on the point
of honor.”

This declaration was followed by a silence that
had the character of stupor.

At last Duplessis said, “But what has Lou-
vier to do in this galere ? Louvier is no relation
of that well-born vaurien. "Why should he sum-
mon your family council ?”

“Louvier excused his interference on the
ground of early and intimate friendship with De
Mauleon, who, he said, came to consult him on
arriving at Paris, and who felt too proud or too
timid to address relations with wdiom he had
long dropped all intercourse. An intermediary
was required, and Louvier volunteered to take
that part on himself; nothing more natural, nor
more simple. — By-the-way, Alain, you dine with
Louvier to-morrow, do you not? — a dinner in
honor of our rehabilitated kinsman. I and
Raoul go.”

“ Yes, I shall be charmed to meet again a
man who, whatever might be his errrors in
youth, on which,” added Alain, slightly coloring,
“it certainly does not become me to be severe,
must have suffered the most poignant anguish a
man of honor can undergo — viz., honor suspect-
ed— and who now, whether by years or sorrow,
is so changed that I can not recognize a like-
ness to the character I have just heard given to
him as mauvais sujet and vaiirien."

“ Bravo !” cried Enguerrand ; “ all honor to
courage — and at Paris it requires great courage
to defend the absent.”

“Nay,” answered Alain, in alow voice. “The
qentilhomme who will not defend another gentil-
liomme traduced would, as a soldier, betray a cit-
adel and desert a flag.”

“You say M. de Maulecm is changed,” said
De Breze' ; *^“yes, he must be growing old. No
trace left of his good looks ?”

“ Pardon me,” said Enguerrand, “ he is hien
conserve, and has still a very handsome head and
an imposing presence. But one can not help

110

THE PARISIANS.

doubting whether he deserved the formidable repu-
tation he acquired in youth ; his manner is so sin-
gularly mild and gentle, his conversation so win-
ningly modest, so void of pretense, and his mode
of life is as simple as that of a Spanish hidalgo.”

“He does not, then, affect the role of Monte
Christo,” said Duplessis, “ and buy himself into
notice like that hero of romance?”

‘ ‘ Certainly not ; he says very frankly that he
has but a very small income, but more than
enough for his wants — richer than in his youth ;
for he has learned content. We may dismiss the
hint in Le Sens Commun about his future political
career ; at least he evinces no such ambition.”

“ How could he as a Legitimist?” said Alain,
bitterly. ‘ ‘ What department would elect him ?”

“ But is he a Legitimist ?” asked De Breze.

“I take it for granted that he must be that,”
answered Alain, haughtily, “ for he is a De
Mauleon. ”

“ His father was as good a De Mauleon as
himself, I presume,” rejoined De Breze, dryly ;
‘ ‘ and he enjoyed a place at the Court of Louis
Philippe, which a Legitimist would scarcely ac-
cept. Victor did not, I fancy, trouble his head
about politics at all, at the time I remember
him ; but to judge by his chief associates, and
the notice he received from the Princes of the
House of Orleans, I should guess that he had no
predilections in favor of Henri V.”

“ I should regret to think so,” said Alain, yet
more haughtily, “ since the De Mauleons ac-
knowledge the head of their house in the repre-
sentative of the Rochebriants. ”

“ At all events,” said Duplessis, “M. de Mau-
le'on appears to be a philosopher of rare stamp.
A Parisian who has known riches and is con-
tented to be poor is a phenomenon I should
like to study.”

“ You have that chance to-morrow evening,
M. Duplessis,” said Enguerrand.

“What! at M, Louvier’s dinner? Nay, I
have no other acquaintance Avith M. Louvier
than that of the Bourse, and the acquaintance
is not cordial.”

“I did not mean M. Louvier’s dinner, but at
the Duchesse de Tarascon’s ball You, as one
of her special favorites, will doubtless honor her
reunion.”

“Yes ; I have promised my daughter to go to
the ball. But tlie Duchesse is Imperialist. M.
de Mauleon seems to be either a Legitimist, ac-
cording to M. le Marquis, or an Orleanist, ac-
cording to our friend De Breze.”

“What of that? Can there be a more loyal
Bourbonite than De Rochebriant ? — and he goes
to the ball. It is given out of the season, in cele-
bration of a family marriage. And the Duchesse
de Tarascon is connected Avith Alain, and there-
fore Avith De Mauleon, though but distantly.

“Ah! excuse my ignorance of genealogy.”

“As if the genealogy of noble names Avere
not the history of France,” muttered Alain, in-
dignantly.

CHAPTER 11.

Yes, the Sens Commun Avas a success ; it had
made a sensation at starting ; the sensation was
on the increase. It is difficult for an English-
man to comprehend the full influence of a suc-

cessful journal at Paris ; the station — political
literary, social — Avhich it confers on the contrib-
utors Avho effect the success. M. Lebeau had
shoAvn much more sagacity in selecting Gustave
Rameau for the nominal* editor than Savarin sup-
posed or my reader might detect. In the first
place, GustaA'e himself, Avith all his defects of
information and solidity of intellect, Avas not
Avithout real genius ; and a sort of genius that,
Avhen kept in restraint, and its field confined to
sentiment or sarcasm, Avas in unison Avith the
temper of the day : in the second place, it Avas
only through Gustave that Lebeau could ha\’e got
at Savarin ; and the names Avhich that brilliant
writer had secured at the outset Avould haAX suf-
ficed to draAV attention to the earliest numbers of
the Sens Commun, despite a title Avhich did not
seem alluring. But these names alone could
not have sufficed to circulate the neAv journal to
the extent it had already leached. This Avas
due to the curiosity excited by leading articles
of a style neAv to the Parisian public, and of
which the authorship defied conjecture. They
were signed Pierre Firmin — supposed to be a nom
de plume, as that name Avas utterly unknoAvn in
the Avorld of letters. They aftected the tone of
an impartial observer; they neither espoused
nor attacked any particular party; they laid
doAvn no abstract doctrines of government. But
somehoAV or other, in language terse yet famil-
iar, sometimes careless yet never vulgar, they
expressed a prevailing sentiment of uneasy dis-
content, a foreboding of some destined change
in things established, without defining the nature
of such change, AA’ithout saying Avhether it Avould
be for good or for evil. In his criticisms upon
individuals the Avriter was guarded and moderate
— the keenest-eyed censor of the press could not
have found a pretext for interference Avith ex-
pressions of opinions so polite. Of the Emperor
these articles spoke little, but that little Avas not
disrespectful; yet, day after day, the articles con-
tributed to sap the empire. All malcontents of
every shade comprehended, as by a secret of
freemasonry, that in this journal they had an
ally. Against religion not a Avord Avas uttered,
yet the enemies of religion bought that journal ;
still, the friends of religion bought it too, for
those articles treated Avith irony the philosophers
on paper Avho thought that their contradictory
crotchets could fuse themselves into any single
Utopia, or that any social edifice, hurriedly run
up by the crazy few, could become a permanent
habitation for the turbulent many, Avithout the
clamps of a creed.

The tone of these articles alAA'ays correspond-
ed Avith the title of the journal — Common-sense.
It Avas to common-sense that it appealed — ap-
pealed in the utterance of a man Avho disdained
the subtle theories, the A'ehement declamation,
the credulous beliefs, or the inflated bombast
which constitute so large a portion of the Paris-
ian press. The articles rather resembled certain
organs of the English press, Avhich profess to be
blinded by no enthusiasm for any body or any
thing, which find their sale in that sympathy
with ill nature to which Huet ascribes the popu-
larity of Tacitus, and, always quietly undermin-
ing institutions Avith a covert sneer, neA'er pretend
to a spirit of imagination so at variance Avith com-
mon-sense as a conjecture hoAv the institutions
should be rebuilt or replaced.

THE PARISIANS.

Well, somehow or other the journal, as I was
• saying, hit tlie taste of the Parisian public. It
intimated, with the easy grace of an unpremedi-
tated agreeable talker, that French society in all
its classes was rotten, and each class was 'willing
to believe that all the others were rotten, and
agreed that unless the others were reformed,
there was something very unsound in itself.

The ball at the Duchesse de Tarascon’s was a
btilliant event. The summer was far advanced ;
many of the Parisian holiday-makers had return-
ed to the capital, but the season had not com-
menced, and a ball at that time of year was a
very unwonted event. But there was a special oc-
casion for this fete — a marriage between a niece
of the Duchesse and the son of a great oiBcial in
high favor at the Imperial Court.

The dinner at Louvier’s broke up early, and the
music for the second waltz was sounding when
Enguerrand, Alain, and the Vicomte de Mau-
leon ascended the stairs. Raoul did not accom-
pany them ; he went very rarely to any balls —
never to one given by an Imperialist, however
nearly related to him the Imperialist might be.
But, in the sweet indulgence of his good nature,
he had no blame for those who did go — not for
Enguerrand, still less, of course, for Alain.

Something, too, might well here be said as to
his feelings toward Victor de Mauleon. He had
joined in the family acquittal of that kinsman as
to the grave charge of the jewels ; the proofs of
innocence thereon seemed to him unequivocal and
decisive, therefore he had called on the Vicomte
and acquiesced in all formal civilities shown to
him. But, such acts of justice to a fellow-^en-
tilhomme and a kinsman duly performed, he de-
sired to see as little as possible of the Vicomte
de Mauleon. He reasoned thus : “Of every
charge which society made against this man he
is guiltless. But of all the claims to admiration
which society accorded to him, before it errone-
ously condemned, there are none which make me
covet his friendship, or suffice to dispel doubts as
to what he may be when society once more re-
ceives him. And the man is so captivating that
I should dread his influence over myself did I see
much of him.”

Raoul kept his reasonings to himself, for he
had that sort of charity which indisposes an ami-
able man to be severe on by-gone offenses. In
tlie eyes of Enguerrand and Alain, and such
young votaries of the mode as they could in-
fluence, Victor de Mauleon assumed almost he-
roic proportions. In the affair which had in-
flicted on him a calumny so odious it was clear
that he had acted with chivalrous delicacy of
honor. And the turbulence and recklessness of
his earlier years, redeemed as they were, in the
traditions of his contemporaries, by courage and
generosity, were not offenses to which young
Frenchmen are inclined to be harsh. All ques-
tion as to the mode in which his life might hare
been passed during his long absence from the
capital was merged in the respect due to the
only facts known, and these were clearly proved
in his pieces justificatives. First, That he had
served under another name in the ranks of the
army in Algiers ; had distinguished himself
there for signal valor, and received, with pro-
motion, the decoration of the cross. His real
name was known only to his colonel, and on
quitting the service the colonel placed in his

111

hands a letter of warm eulogy on his conduct,
and identifying him as Victor de Mauleon. Sec-
ondly, That in California he had saved a wealthy
family from midnight murder, fighting single-
handed against and overmastering three ruf-
fians, and declining all other reward from those
he had preserved than a written attestation of
their ^ gratitude. In all countries valor ranks
high in the list of virtues ; in no country does it
so absolve from vices as it does in France.

But as yet Victor de Mauleon’s vindication
was only known by a few, and those belonging
to the gayer circles of life. How he might be
judged by the sober middle class, which consti-
tutes the most important section of public opin-
ion to a candidate for political trusts and distinc-
tions, w’as another question.

The Duchesse stood at the door to receive
her visitors. Duplessis was seated near the en-
trance, by the side of a distinguished member
of the Imperial Government, with whom he was
carrying on a whispered conversation. The
eye of the financier, however, turned toward the
doorway as Alain and Enguerrand entered, and,
passing over their familiar faces, fixed itself at-
tentively on that of a much older man -whom
Enguerrand w'as presenting to the Duchesse,
and in whom Duplessis rightly divined the Vi-
comte de Mauleon. Certainly if no one could
have recognized M. Lebeau in the stately per-
sonage who had visited Louvier, still less could
one who had lieard of the wild feats of the roi
des viveurs in his youth reconcile belief in such
tales with the quiet modesty of mien which dis-
tinguished the cavalier now replying, with bend-
ed head and subdued accents, to the courteous
welcome of the brilliant hostess. But for such
difference in attributes between the past and the
present De Mauleon, Duplessis had been pre-
pared by the convei'sation at the Maison Doree.
And now, as the Vicomte, yielding his place by
the Duchesse to some new-comer, glided on, and',
leaning against a column, contemplated the gay
scene before him with that expression of counte-
nance, half sarcastic, half mournful, with which
men regard, after long estrangement, the scenes
of departed joys, Duplessis felt that no change
in that man had impaired the force of charac-
ter which had made him the hero of reckless
coevals. Though wearing no beard, not even
a mustache, there was something emphatically
masculine in the contour of the close-shaven
cheek and resolute jaw, in a forehead broad at
the temples, and protuberant in those organs
over the eyebrows which are said to be sig-
nificant of quick perception and ready action ;
in the lips, when in repose compressed, perhaps
somewhat stem in their expression, but pliant
and mobile wlien speaking, and wonderfully fas-
cinating when they smiled. Altogether, about
this Victor de Mauleon there was a nameless
distinction, apart from that of conventional ele-
gance. You would have said, “That is a man
of some marked individuality, an eminence of
some kind in himself.” You would not be sur-
prised to hear that he was a party leader, a skill-
ed diplomatist, a daring soldier, an adventurous
traveler, but you would not guess him to be a
student, an author, an artist.

While Duplessis thus observed the Vicomte de
Mauleon, all the while seeming to lend an atten-
tive ear to the whispered voice of the minister

112

THE PARISIANS.

by his side, Ahiin passed on into the ball-room.
He ^Yas fresh enough to feel the exhilaration of
the dance. Enguerrand (who had sundved that
excitement, and who habitually deserted any as-
sembly at an early hour for the cigar and whist
of his club) had made his way to De Mauleon,
and there stationed himself. The lion of one
generation has always a mixed feeling of curios-
ity and respect for the lion of a generation before
him, and the young Vandemar had conceived a
strong and almost an affectionate interest in this
discrowned king of that realm in fashion which,
once lost, is never to be regained ; for it is only
Youth that can hold its sceptre and command
its subjects.

“In this crowd, Vicomte,” said Enguerrand,
“ there must be many old acquaintances of
yours ?”

“Perhaps so; but as yet I have only seen
new faces.”

As he thus spoke, a middle-aged man, deco-
rated with the grand cross of the Legion and
half a dozen foreign orders, lending his arm to
a lady of the same age radiant in diamonds,
passed by toward the ball-room, and in some
sudden swerve' of his person, occasioned by a
pause of his companion to adjust her train, he
accidentally brushed against De Mauleon, whom
he had not before noticed. Turning round to
apologize for his awkwardness, he encountered
the full gaze of the Vicomte, started, changed
countenance, and hurried on his companion.

“Do you not recognize his Excellency ?” said
Enguerrand, smiling. “His can not be a new
face to you.”

“ Is it the Baron de Lacy ?” asked De Mauleon.

“The Baron de Lacy, now Count d’Epinay,

embassador at the Court of , and, if report

speak true, likely soon to exchange that post for
the portefeuille of minister.”

“ He has got on in life since I saw him last,
the little Baron. He was then my devoted imi-
tator, and I was not proud of the imitation.”

“ He has got on by always clinging to the
skirts of some one stronger than himself — to
yours, I dare say, when, being a, parvenu despite
his usurped title of Baron, he aspired to the en-
tree into clubs and salons. The entree thus ob-
tained, the rest followed easily : he became a ynil-
lionnaire through a wife’s dot, and an embassa-
dor through the wife’s lovei', who is a power in
the state.”

“ But he must have substance in himself.
Empty bags can not be made to stand upright.
Ah ! unless t mistake, I see some one I knew
better. Yon pale thin man, also with the grand
cross — surely that is Alfred Hennequin. . Is he,
too, a decorated Imperialist ? I left him a so-
cialistic Republican. ”

“ But, I presume, even then an eloquent avo-
cat. He got into the Chamber, spoke well, de-
fended the coup d'etat. He has just been made

Prefet of the great department of the , a

popular appointment. He bears a high charac-
ter. Pray renew your acquaintance Avith him ;
he is coming this way. ”

“Will so grave a dignitary renew acquaint-
ance with me? I doubt it.”

But as De Mauleon said this he moved from
the column and advanced toward the Prefet.
Enguerrand followed him, and saAv the Vicomte
extend his hand to his old acquaintance. The

Prefet stared, and said, with frigid courtesy,
“Pardon me — some mistake.”

“Allow me, M. Hennequin,” said Enguer-
rand, interposing, and wishing good-naturedly
to save De Mauleon the awkwardness of intro-
ducing himself— “ allow me to reintroduce you
to my kinsman, whom the lapse of years may
well excuse you for forgetting, the Vicomte de
Mauleon.”

Still the Prefet did not accept the hand. He
bowed with formal ceremoin", said, “ I Avas not
aAvare that M. le Vicomte had returned to Par-
is,” and, moving to the doorAA’ay, made his saluta-
tion to the hostess and disappeared.

“ The insolent!” muttered Enguerrand.

“ Hush !” said De Mauleon, quietly ; “I can
fight no more duels — especially Avith a Prefet.
But I OAvn I am Aveak enough to feel hurt at
such a reception from Hennequin, for he OAved
me some obligations — small, perhaps, but still
they Avere such as might have made me select
him, rather than Louvier, as the vindicator of
my name, had I knoAvn him to be so high
placed. But a man who has raised himself
into an authority may Avell be excused for for-
getting a friend Avhose character needs defense.
I forgiA'e him.”

There Avas something pathetic in the Vicomte’s
tone Avhich touched Enguerrand’s AA'arm if light
heart. But De Mauleon did not allow him time
to answer. He Avent on quickly through an
opening in the gay croAvd, Avhich immediately
closed behind him, and Enguerrand saw him no
more that evening.

Duplessis ere this had quitted his seat by the
minister, draAvn thence by a young and very
pretty girl resigned to his charge by a cavalier
Avith Avhom she had been dancing. She Avas tlm
only daughter of Duplessis, and he valued her
eA'en more than the millions he had made at the
Bourse. “The Princess,” she said, “ has been
sAvept off in the train of some German Royalty ;
so, petit pere, I must impose mj'self on thee.”

The Princess, a Russian of high rank, aa'us
the chaperon that eAcning of Mademoiselle Va-
lerie Duplessis.

“And I suppose I must take thee back into
the ball-room, ’’said the financier, smiling proud-
ly, “ and find thee partners.”

“I don’t AA'ant your aid for that, monsieur;
except this quadrille, my list is pretty Avell filled
up.”

“And I hope the partners Avill be pleasant.
Let me knoAv Avho they are,” he Avhispered, as
they threaded their Avay into the ball-room.

The girl glanced at her tablet,

“Well, the first on the list is milord some-
body, Avith an unpronounceable English name.”

“Beau caA’alier?”

“No ; ugly, old too — thirty at least.”

Duplessis felt relieved. He did not wish his
daughter to fall in love Avith an Englishman.

“ And the next?”

“ The next,” she said, hesitatingly, and he ob-
served that a soft blush accompanied the hesita-
tion.

“ Yes, the next. Not English too ?”

“ Oh no ; the Marquis de Rochebriant.”

“ Ah ! Avho presented him to thee ?”

“Thy friend, petit pere, M. de Breze.’’

Duplessis again glanced at his daughter’s face;
it Avas bent over her bouquet.

THE PARISIANS.

113

“ Is he ugly also?”

“Ugly?” exclaimed the girl, indignantly;
‘ ‘ why, he is — ” She checked herself and turned
away her head.

Diiplessis became thoughtful. He was glad
that he had accompanied his child into the ball-
room ; he would stay there and keep watch on
her, and Rochebriant also.

Up to that moment he had felt a dislike to
Rochebriant. That young noble’s too obvious
pride of race had nettled him, not the less that
the financier himself was vain of his ancestry.
Perhaps he still disliked Alain, but the dislike
was now accompanied with a certain, not hostile,
interest ; and if he became connected with the
race, the pride in it might grow contagious.

They had not been long in the ball-room be-
fore Alain came up to claim his promised part-
ner. In saluting Duplessis, his manner was the
same as usual — not more cordial, not less cere-
moniously distant. A man so able as the finan-
cier can not be without quick knowledge of the
human heart.

“If disposed to fall in love with Valerie,”
thought Duplessis, “ he would have taken more
pains to please her father. Well, thank Heaven,
there are better matches to be found for her than
a noble without fortune, and a Legitimist with-
out career.”

In fact, Alain felt no more for Valerie than
for any other pretty girl in the room. In talk-
ing with the Vicomte de Breze in the intervals
of the dance, he had made some passing remark
on her beauty; De Breze had said, “ Yes, she is
charming ; I will present you ;” and hastened to
do so before Rochebriant even learned her name.
So introduced, he could but invite her to give
him her first disengaged dance ; and when that
w'as fixed, he had retired, without entering into
conversation.

Now, as they took their places in the quadrille,
he felt that eftbrt of speech had become a duty,
if not a pleasure, and, of course, he began with
the first commonplace which presented itself to
his mind.

“Do you not think it a very pleasant ball,
mademoiselle ?”

“Yes,” dropped, in almost inaudible reply,
from Valerie’s rosy lips.

“And not overcrowded, as most balls are.”

Valerie’s lips again moved, but this time quite
inaudibly.

The obligations of the figure now caused a
pause. Alain racked his brains, and began
again :

“They tell me that the last season was more
than usually gay ; of that I can not judge, for it
was well-nigh over when I came to Paris for the
first time.”

Valerie looked up with a more animated ex-
pression than her child-like face had yet shown,
and said, this time distinctly, “This is my first
ball. Monsieur le Marquis.”

“ One has only to look at mademoiselle to di-
vine that fimt,” replied Alain, gallantly.

Again the conversation was interrupted by
the dance, but the ice between the two was now
broken. And when the quadrille was concluded,
and Rochebriant led the fair Valerie back to her
father’s side, she felt as if she had been listen-
ing to the music of tlie spheres, and that the
music had now suddenly stopped. Alain, alas

for her ! was under no such pleasing illusion.
Her talk had seemed to him artless indeed, but
vei’y insipid, compared with the brilliant conver-
sation of the wedded Parisiennes with whom he
more habitually danced ; and it was with rather
a sensation of relief that he made his parting
bow, and receded into the crowd of by-standers.

Meanwhile De Mauleon had quitted the as-
semblage, walking slowly through the deserted
streets toward his apartment. The civilities he
had met at Louvier’s dinner-party, and the
marked distinction paid to him by kinsmen of
rank and position so unequivocal as Alain and
Enguerrand, had softened his mood and cheered
his spirits. He had begun to question hirhself
whether a fair opening to his political ambition
was really forbidden to him under the existent
order of things, whether it necessitated the em-
ployment of such dangerous tools as those to
which anger and despair had reconciled his in-
tellect. But the pointed way in which he had
been shunned or slighted by the two men who
belonged to political life — to men who in youth
had looked up to himself, and whose dazzling
career of honors was identified with the impe-
rial system — reanimated his fiercer passions and
his more perilous designs. The frigid accost of
Hennequin more especially galled him ; it wound-
ed not only his pride, but his heart ; it had the
venom of ingratitude, and it is the peculiar priv-
ilege of ingratitude to wound hearts that have
learned to harden themselves to the hate or con-
tempt of men to whom no services have been ren-
dered. In some private affair concerning his
property De Mauleon had had occasion to con-
sult Hennequin, then a rising young avocat.
Out of that consultation a friendship had sprung
up, despite the differing habits and social grades
of the two men. One day, calling on Hennequin,
he found him in a state of great nervous excite-
ment. The avocat had received a public insult
in the salon of a noble, to whom De Mauleon
had introduced him, from a man who pretended
to the hand of a young lady to whom Hennequin
was attached, and, indeed, almost affianced. The
man was a notorious spadassin — a duelist little
less renowned for skill in all weapons than De
Mauleon himself. The affair had been such
that Hennequin’s friends assured him he had no
choice but to challenge this bravo. Hennequin,
brave enough at the bar, was no hero before
sword-point or pistol. He was utterly ignorant
of the use of either weapon ; his death in the
encounter with an antagonist so formidable seem-
ed to him certain, and life was so precious ; an
honorable and distinguished career opening be-
fore him, maiTiage with the woman he loved :
still he had the Frenchman’s point of honor.
He had been told that he must fight ; well, then,
he must. He asked De Mauleon to be one of
his seconds, and in asking him, sank in his chair,
covered his face with his hands, and burst into
tears.

“Wait till to-morrow,” said De Mauleon;
“ take no step till then. Meanwhile you are in
my hands, and I answer for your honor.”

On leaving Hennequin, Victor sought the s/>a-
dassin at the club of which they were both mem-
bers, and contrived, without reference to Hen-
nequin, to pick a quaiTel with him. A challenge
ensued ; a duel witli swords took place the next
morning. De Mauleon disarmed and wounded

lit

THE PAKISIANS.

his antagonist, not gravely, but sufficiently to
terminate the encounter. He assisted to convey
the wounded man to his apartment, and planted
himself by his bedside, as if he were a friend.

“ Why on earth did you fasten a quarrel on
me?” asked the spadassin; “and why, having
done so, did you spare my life? — for your sword
was at my heart when you shifted its point, and
pierced my shoulder.”

“I will tell you, and in so doing beg you to
accept my friendship hereafter, on one condition.
In the course of the day write or dictate a few
civil words of apology to M. Hennequin. Ma
fox ! every one will praise you for a generosity
so becoming in a man who has given such proofs
of courage and skill to an avocat who has never
handled a sword nor fired a pistol.”

That same day De Mauleon remitted to Hen-
nequin an apology for heated words freely re-
tracted, which satisfied all his friends. For the
service thus rendered by De Mauldon Henne-
quin declared himself everlastingly indebted. In
fact, he entirely owed to that friend his life, his
marriage, his honor, his career.

“And now,” thought De Mauleon — “now,
when he could so easily requite me — now he will
not even take my hand. Is human nature itself
at war with me ?”

CHAPTER III.

Nothing could be simpler than the apartment
of the Vicomte de Mauleon, in the second story
of a quiet old-fashioned street. It had been fur-
nished at small cost out of his savings. Yet, on
the whole, it evinced the good taste of a man
who had once been among the exquisites of the
polite world.

You felt that you were in the apartment of a
gentleman, and a gentleman of somewhat severe
tastes, and of sober matured years. He was sit-
ting the next morning in the room which he used as
a private study. Along the walls were arranged
dwarf book-cases, as yet occupied by few books,
most of them books of reference, pthers cheap
editions of the French classics in prose — no po-
ets, no romance-writers — with a few Latin au-
thors also in prose — Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus.
He was engaged at his desk writing — a book
with its leaves open before him, Paid Louis
Courier^ that model of political irony and mas-
culine style of composition. There was a ring
at his door-bell. The Vicomte kept no servant.
He rose and answered the summons. He re-
coiled a few paces on recognizing his visitor in
M. Hennequin.

The Prefet this time did not withdraw his
hand ; he extended it, but it was with a certain
awkwardness and timidity.

“I thought it my duty to call on you, Vi-
comte, thus early, having already seen M. En-
guerrand de Vandemar. He has shown me the
copies of the pieces which were inspected by your
distinguished kinsmen, and which completely
clear you of the charge that, grant me your par-
don when I say, seemed to me still to remain
unanswered when I had the honor to meet you
last night.”

‘ ‘ It appeal's to me, M. Hennequin, that you,
as an avocat so eminent, might have convinced
yourself very readily of that fact. ”

“M. le Vicomte, I was in Switzerland with
my wife at the time of the unfortunate affair in
which you were involved. ”

“But when you returned to Paris you might
perhaps have deigned to make inquiries so af-
fecting the honor of one you had called a friend,
and for whom you had professed” — De Mauleon
paused ; he disdained to add — “ an eternal grati-
tude.”

Hennequin colored slightly, but replied with
self-possession :

“I certainly did inquire. I did hear that
the charge against you with regard to the ab-
straction of the jewels was withdrawn — that you
were therefore acquitted by law ; but I heard also
that society did not acquit you, and that, finding
this, you had quitted France. Pardon me again,
no one would listen to me when I attempted to
speak on your behalf. But now that so many
years have elapsed, that the story is imperfectly
remembered — that relations so high placed re-
ceive you so cordially — now I rejoice to think that
you will have no difficulty in regaining a social
position never really lost, but for a time resigned.”

“ I am duly sensible of the friendly joy you
express. I was reading the other day in a lively
author some pleasant remarks on the effeets of
medisance or calumny upon our impressionable
Parisian public, ‘ If, ’ says the writer, * I found
myself accused of having put the two towers of
Notre Dame into my waistcoat pocket, I should
not dream of defending myself ; I should take
to flight. And,’ adds the writer, ‘if my best
friend were under the same accusation, I should
be so afraid of being considered his accomplice
that I should put my best friend outside the
door.’ Perhaps, M. Hennequin, I was seized
with the first alarm. Why should I blame you
if seized with the second? Happily, this good
city of Paris has its reactions. And you can
now offer me your hand. Paris has by this
time discovered that the two towers of Notre
Dame are not in my pocket.”

There was a pause. De Mauleon had reset-
tled himself at his desk, bending over his papers,
and his manner seemed to imply that he consid-
ered the conversation at an end.

But a pang of ^ame, of remorse, of tender
remembrance, shot across the heart of the dec-
orous, worldly, self-seeking man, who owed all
that he now was to the ci-devant vaunen before
him. Again he stretched forth his hand, and this
time grasped De Mauleon’s warmly. ‘ ‘ Forgive
me,” he said, feelingly and hoarsely; “forgive
me. I was to blame. By character, and per-
haps by the necessities of my career, I am over-
timid to public opinion, public scandal — forgive
me. Say if in any thing now I can requite,
though but slightly, the service I owe you.”

De Mauleon looked steadily at the Prifet, and
said, slowly, “Would you serve me in turn?
Are you sincere ?”

The Prefet hesitated a moment, then answer-
ed, firmly, “ Yes.”

“Well, then, what I ask of you is a frank
opinion — not as a lawyer, not as Prefet, but as
a man who knows the present state of French
society. Give that opinion without respect to
my feelings one way or other. Let it emanate
solely from your practiced judgment.”

“ Be it so,” said Hennequin, wondering what
was to come.

THE PAllISIANS.

De Mauleon resumed :

“As you may remember, during my former
career I had no political ambition. I did not
meddle with politics. In the troubled times that
immediately succeeded the fall of Louis Philippe
I was but an epicurean looker-on. Grant that,
so far as admission to the salons are concerned, I
shall encounter no difficulty in regaining position.
But as regards the Chamber, public life, a po-
litical career — can I have my fair opening under
the empire ? You pause. Answer as you have
promised, frankly.”

“ The difficulties in the way of a political ca-
reer would be very great.”

“Insuperable ?”

“I fear so. Of course, in my capacity of
Pre/et, I have no small influence in my depart-
ment in support of a government candidate.
But I do not think that the Imperial Govern-
ment could, at this time especially, in which it
must be very cautious in selecting its candidates,
be induced to recommend you. The affair of
the jewels would be raked up — your vindication
disputed, denied — the fact that for so many
years you have acquiesced in that charge with-
out taking steps to refute it — your antecedents,
even apart from that charge — your present want
of property (M. Enguerrand tells me your in-
come is but moderate) — the absence of all pre-
vious repute in public life. No ; relinquish the
idea of political contest — it would expose you to
inevitable mortifications, to a failure that would
even jeopardize the admission to the sa/ows which
you are now gaining. You could not be a gov-
ernment candidate.”

‘ ‘ Granted. I have no desire to be one ; but an
opposition candidate, one of the Liberal party ?”

“As an Imperialist,” said Hennequin, smiling
gravely, “and holding the office I do, it would
not become me to encourage a candidate against
the Emperor’s government. But speaking with
the frankness you solicit, I should say that your
chances there are infinitely worse. The oppo-
sition are in a pitiful minority — the most emi-
nent of the Liberals can scarcely gain seats for
themselves ; great local popularity or property,
high established repute for established patriot-
ism, or proved talents of oratory and statesman-
ship, are essential qualifications for a seat in
the opposition, and even these do not suffice for
a third of the persons who possess them. Be
again what you were before, the hero of salons
remote from the turbulent vulgarity of politics. ”

“ I am answered. Thank you once more.
The service I rendered you once is requited
now. ”

“ No, indeed — no ; but will you dine with me
quietly to-day, and allow me to present to you
my wife and two children, born since we part-
ed? I say to-day, for to-morrow I return to
my Prefecture.'^

“I am infinitely obliged by your invitation,
but to-day I dine with the Count de Beauvilliers
to meet some of the Corps Diplomatique. I
must make good my place in the salons, since
you so clearly show me that I have no chance
of one in the Legislature — unless — ”

“ Unless what ?”

“Unless there happen one of those revolu-
tions in which the scum comes uppermost.”

“ No fear of that. The subterranean bar-
racks and railway have ended forever the rise

115

of the scum — the reign of the canaille and its
barricades.”

“ Adieu, my dear Hennequin. My respectful
hommages a madame."

After that day the writings of Pierre Eirmin
in Le Sens Commun, though still keeping within
the pale of the law, became more decidedly hos-
tile to the imperial system, still without com-
mitting their author to any definite programme
of the sort of government that should succeed it.

CHAPTER IV. ■

The weeks glided on. Isaura’s MS. had
passed into print ; it came out in the Prench
fashion of feuilletons — a small detachment at a
time. A previous flourish of trumpets by Sa-
varin and the clique at his command insured
it attention, if not from the general public, at
least from critical and literary coteries. Be-
fore the fourth installment appeared it had out-
grown the patronage of the coteries; it seized
hold of the public. It was not in the last school
in fashion ; incidents were not crowded and
violent — they were few and simple, rather ap-
pertaining to an elder school, in which poetry
of sentiment and grace of diction prevailed.
That veiy resemblance to old favorites gave it
the attraction of novelty. In a word, it excited
a pleased admiration, and great curiosity was
felt as to the authorship. When it oozed out
that it was by the young lady whose future suc-
cess in the musical world had been so sanguinely
predicted by all who had heard her sing, the in-
terest wonderfully increased. Petitions to be
introduced to her acquaintance were showered
upon Savarin : before she scarcely realized her
dawning fame she was drawn from her quiet
home and retired habits ; she was fetee and
courted in the literary circle of which Savarin
was a chief. That circle touched, on one side,
Bohemia ; on the other, that realm of politer
fashion which, in eveiy intellectual metropolis,
but especially in Paris, seeks to gain borrowed
light from luminaries in art and letters. But
the very admiration she obtained somewhat de-
pressed, somewhat troubled her ; after all, it did
not differ from that which was at her command
as a singer.

On the one hand, she shrank instinctively from
the caresses of female authors and the familiar
greetings of male authors, who frankly lived in
philosophical disdain of the conventions respect-
ed by sober, decorous mortals. On the other
hand, in the civilities of those who, while they
courted a rising celebrity, still held their habitu-
al existence apart from the artistic world, there
was a certain air of condescension, of patronage
toward the young stranger with no other pro-
tector but Signora Venosta, the ci-devant public
singer, and who had made her debut in a jour-
nal edited by M. Gustave Rameau, which, how-
ever disguised by exaggerated terms of praise,
wounded her pride of woman in flattering her
vanity as author. Among this latter set were
wealthy, high-born men, who addressed her as
woman — as woman beautiful and young — with
words of gallantry that implied love, but certain-
ly no thought of marriage : many of the most
ardent were, indeed, married already. But once

IIG

THE PARISIANS.

launched into the thick of Parisian hospitalities,
it was difficult to draw back. The Venosta wept
at the thought of missing some lively soiree, and
Savarin laughed at her shrinking fastidiousness
as that of a child’s ignorance of the w’orld. But
still she had her mornings to herself ; and in
those mornings, devoted to the continuance of
her work (for the commencement was in print
before a third was completed), she forgot the
commonplace world that received her in the
evenings. Insensibly to herself the tone of this
work had changed as it proceeded. It had be-
gun seriously, indeed, but in the seriousness there
was a certain latent joy. It might be the joy
of having found vent of utterance ; it might be
rather a joy still more latent, inspired by the re-
membrance of Graham’s words and looks, and
by the thought that she had renounced all idea
of the professional career which he had evident-
ly disapproved. Life then seemed to her a bright
possession. We have seen that she had begun
her roman without planning how it should end.
She had, however, then meant it to end, some-
liow or other, happily. Now the lustre had gone
from life — the tone of the work was saddened —
it foreboded a tragic close. But for the general
reader it became, with every chapter, still more
interesting ; the poor child had a singularly mu-
sical gift of style — a music which lent itself natu-
rally to pathos. Every very young writer knows
how his work, if one of feeling, will color itself
from the views of some truth in his innermost
self ; and in proportion as it does so, how his ab-
sorption in the work increases, till it becomes
part and parcel of his own mind and heart. The
presence of a hidden sorrow may change the fate
of the beings he has created, and guide to the
grave those whom, in a happier vein, he would
have united at the altar. It is not till a later
stage of experience and art that the writer es-
capes from the influences of his individual per-
sonality, and lives in existences that take no col-
orings from his own. Genius usually must pass
through the subjective process before it gains the
objectho. Even a Shakspeare represents him-
self in the Sonnets before no trace of himself is
visible in a FalstafF or a Lear.

No news of the Englishman — not a word.
Isaura could not but feel that in his words, his
looks, that day in her own garden, and those
yet happier days at Enghien, there had been
more than friendship : there had been love — love
enough to justify her own pride in whispering to
herself, “And I love too.” But then that last
parting ! — how changed he was — how cold ! She
conjectured that jealousy of Rameau might, in
some degree, account for the coldness when he
first entered the room, but surely not when he
left; surely not when she had overpassed the
reserve of her sex, and implied by signs rarely
misconstrued b}" those who love that he had no
cause for jealousy of another. Yet he had gone
—parted with her pointedly as a friend, a mere
friend. How foolish she had been to think this
rich, ambitious foreigner could ever have meant
to be more ! In the occupation of her work she
thought to banish his image; but in that work
the image was never absent ; there were passages
in which she pleadingly addressed it, and then
would cease abruptly, stifled by passionate tears.
Still she fancied that the work would reunite
them ; that in its pages he would hear her voice

and comprehend her heart. And thus all praise
of the work became very, very dear to her.

At last, after many weeks, Savarin heard from
Graham. The letter was dated Aix-la-Cha-
pelle, at which the Englishman said he might yet
be some time detained. In the letter Graham
spoke chiefly of the new journal : in polite com-
pliment of Savarin’s own effusions ; in mixed
praise and condemnation of the political and so-
cial articles signed Pierre Firmin — praise of their
intellectual power, condemnation of their mor-
al cynicism. “ The writer,” he said, “ reminds
me of a passage in which Montesquieu compares
the heathen philosophers to those plants which
the earth produces in places that have never
seen the heavens. The soil of his experience
does not grow a single belief ; and as no com-
munity can exist without a belief of some kind,
so a politician without belief can but help to de-
stroy ; he can not reconstruct. Such writers cor-
rupt a society ; they do not reform a system. ”
He closed his letter with a reference to Isaura :
“ Do, in your reply, my dear Savarin, tell me
something about your friends Signora Venosta
and the signorina, whose work, so far as yet
published, I liave read with admiring astonish-
ment at the power of a female writer so young to
rival the veteran practitioners of fiction in the
creation of interest in imaginaiy characters, and
in sentiments which, if they appear somewhat
overromantic and exaggerated, still touch very
fine chords in human nature not awakened in our
trite every-day existence. I presume that the
beauty of the roman has been duly appreciated
by a public so refined as the Parisian, and that
the name of the author is generally known. No
doubt she is now much the rage of the literary
circles, and her career as a writer may be con-
sidered fixed. Pray present my congratulations
to the signorina when you see her.”

Savarin had been in receipt of this letter some
days before he called on Isaura, and carelessly
showed it to her. She took it to the window to
read, in order to conceal the trembling of her
hands. In a few minutes she returned it silently.

“Those Englishmen,” said Savarin, “have
not the art of compliment. I am by no means
flattered by what he says of my trifles, and I
dare say you are still less pleased with this chilly
praise of your charming tale ; but the man means
to be civil.”

“ Certainly,” said Isaura, smiling faintly.

“ Only think of Rameau,” resumed Savarin ;

‘ ‘ on the strength of his salary in the Sens Com-
mun, and on the chateaux en Espagne which he
constructs thereon — he has already furnished an
apartment in the Chaussee d’Antin, and talks
of setting up a coup^ in order to maintain the
dignity of letters when he goes to dine wdth the
duchesses who are some day or other to invite
him. Yet I admire his self-confidence, though
I laugh at it. A man gets on by a spring in
his owm mechanism, and he should always keep
it wound up. Rameau will makb a figure. I
used to pity him. I begin to respect ; nothing
succeeds like success. But I see I am spoiling
your morning. Au revoir, mon enfant."

Left alone, Isaura brooded in a sort of mourn-
ful wonderment over the words referring to her-
self in Graham's letter. Read though but once,
she knew them by heart. What! did he con-
sider those characters she had represented as

THE PARISIANS.

wholly imaginary? In one— the most promi-
nent, the most attractive — could he detect no
likeness to himself ? What ! did he consider
so “overromantic and exaggerated,” sentiments
which couched appeals from her heart to his ?
Alas ! in matters of sentiment it is the misfortune
of us men that even the most refined of us often
grate upon some sentiment in a woman, though
she may not be romantic— not romantic at all,
us people go — some sentiment which she thought
must be so obvious, if we cared a straw about
her, and which, though we prize her above the
Indies, is, by our dim, horn-eyed, masculine vis-
ion, undiscernible. It may be something in it-
self the airiest of trifles : the anniversary of a day
in which the first kiss was interchanged, nay, of
a violet gathered, a misunderstanding cleared
up ; and of that anniversary we remember no
more than we do of our bells and coral. But
she — she remembers it ; it is no bells and coral
to her. Of course much is to be said in excuse
of man, brute though he be. Consider the mul-
tiplicity of his occupations, the practical nature
of his cares. But granting the validity of all
such excuse, there is in man an original obtuse-
ness of fibre as regards sentiment in compari-
son with the delicacy of woman’s. It comes,
perhaps, from the same hardness of constitu-
tion which forbids us the luxury of ready tears.
Thus it is very difficult for the wisest man to
understand thoroughly a woman. Goethe says
somewhere that the highest genius in man must
have much of the woman in it. If this be true,
the highest genius alone in man can comprehend
and explain the nature of woman ; because it is
not remote from him, but an integral part of his
masculine self. I am not sure, however, that
it necessitates the highest genius, but rather a
special idiosyncrasy in genius which the highest
may or may not have. I think Sophocles a high-
er genius than Euripides ; but Euripides has
that idiosyncrasy, and Sophocles not. I doubt
whether women would accept Goethe as their in-
terpreter with the same readiness with w'hich they
would accept Schiller. Shakspeare, no doubt,
excels all poets in the comprehension of women,
in his sympathy with them in the woman part
of his nature which Goethe ascribes to the high-
est genius; but, putting aside that “monster,”
I do not remember any English poet whom we
should consider conspicuously eminent in that
lore, unless it be the prose poet, nowadays gen-
erally underrated and little read, who w'rote the
letters of Clarissa Harlowe. I say all this in
vindication of Graham Vane, if, though a very
clever man in his way, and by no means unin-
structed in human nature, he had utterly failed
in comprehending the mysteries which to this
poor woman-child seemed to need no key for
one who really loved her. But we have said
somewhere before in this book that music speaks
in a language which can not explain itself ex-
cept in music. So speaks, in the human heart,
much which is akin to music. Fiction (that is,
poetry, whether in form of rhyme or prose)
speaks thus pretty often. A reader must be
more commonplace than, I trust, my gentle
readers are, if he suppose that when Isaura sym-
bolized the real hero of her thoughts in the fa-
bled hero of her romance, she depicted him as
one of whom the world could say, “That is Gra-
ham Vane.” I doubt if even a male poet would

117

so vulgarize any woman whom he thoroughly
reverenced and loved. She is too sacred to him
to be thus unveiled to the public stare ; as the
sweetest of all ancient love-poets says well —

“ Qui sapit in tacito gaudeat ilia sinu."

But a girl, a girl in her first untold timid love,
to let the world know, “ that is the man I love
and would die for !” — if such a girl be, she has
no touch of the true woman-genius, and cer-
tainly she and Isaura have nothing in common.
Well, then, in Isaura^s invented hero, though
she saw the archetypal form of Graham Vane
— saw him as in her young, vague, romantic
dreams, idealized, beautified, transfigured — he
would have been the vainest of men if he had
seen therein the reflection of himself. On the
contraiy, he said, in the spirit of that jealousy
to which he was too prone, “Alas! this, then,
is some ideal, already seen perhaps, compared
to which how commonplace am 1!” and thus
persuading himself, no wonder that the senti-
ments surrounding this unrecognized archetype
appeared to him overromantic. His taste ac-
knowledged the beauty of form which clothed
them ; his heart envied the ideal that inspired
them. But they seemed so remote from him;
they put the dream-land of the writer farther
and farther from his work-day real life.

In this frame of mind, then, he had written to
Savarin, and the answer he received hardened
it still more. Savarin had replied, as was his
laudable wont in correspondence, the very day
he received Graham’s letter, and therefore be-
fore he had even seen Isaura. In his reply he
spoke much of the success her w'ork had ob-
tained ; of the invitations showered upon her,
and the sensation she caused in the salons; of
her future career, with hope that she might even
rival Madame de Grantmesnil some day, when
her ideas became emboldened by maturer expe-
rience, and a closer study of that model of elo-
quent style — saying that the young editor was ev-
idently becoming enamored of his fair contribu-.
tor ; and that Madame Savarin had ventured the
prediction that the signorina’s roman would end
in the death of the heroine and the marriage of
the writer.

CHAPTER V.

And still the weeks glided on : autumii suc-
ceeded to summer, the winter to autumn ; the
season of Paris was at its height. The won-
drous Capital seemed to repay its imperial em-
bellisher by the splendor and the joy of its fetes.
But the smiles on the face of Paris Avere hyp-
ocritical and hollow. The empire itself had
passed out of fiishion. Grave men and impar-
tial observers felt anxious. Napoleon had re-
nounced les idees NapoUoniennes. He was pass-
ing into the category of constitutional sover-
eigns, and reigning, not by his old undivided
prestige, but by the grace of party. The press
was free to circulate complaints as to the past
and demands as to the future, beneath which the
present reeled — ominous of earthquake. People
asked themselves if it were possible that the em-
pire could coexist with forms of government not
imperial, yet not genuinely constitutional, with
a majority daily yielding to a minority. The

118

THE PARISIANS.

basis of universal suffrage was sapped. About
this time the articles in the Sens Cominun, signed
Pierre Pirmin, were creating not only considera-
ble sensation, but marked effect on opinion ; and
the sale of the journal was immense.

Necessarily the repute and the position of
Gustave Rameau, as the avowed editor of this
potent journal, rose with its success. Nor only
his repute and position; bank-notes of consid-
erable value were transmitted to him by the
publisher, with the brief statement that they
were sent by the sole proprietor of the paper as
the editor’s friir share of profit. The proprietor
was never named, but Rameau took it for grant-
ed that it was M. Lebeau. M. Lebeau he had
never seen since the day he had brought him
the list of contributors, and was then referred
to the publisher, whom he supposed M. Lebeau
had secured, and received the first quarter of
his salary in advance. The salary was a trifle
compared to the extra profits thus generously
volunteered. He called at Lebeau’s office, and
saw only the clerk, who said that his chef was
abroad.

Prosperity produced a marked change for the
better, if not in the substance of Rameau’s char-
acter, at least in his manners and social converse.
He no longer exhibited that restless envy of ri-
vals, which is the most repulsive symptom of
vanity diseased. He pardoned Isaura her suc-
cess ; nay, he was even pleased at it. The na-
ture of her work did not clash with his own kind
of writing. It was so thoroughly woman-like
that one could not compare it to a man’s. More-
over, that success had contributed largely to the
profits by which he had benefited, and to his re-
nown as editor of the journal which accorded
place to this new-found genius. But there was
a deeper and more potent cause for sympathy
with the success of his fair young contributor.
He had imperceptibly glided into love with her
— a love very different from that with which poor
Julie Caumartin flattered herself she had inspired
the young poet. Isaura was one of those wom-
en for whom, even in natures the least chivalric,
love — however ardent — can not fail to be accom-
panied with a certain reverence — the reverence
with which the ancient knighthood, in its love
for women, honored the ideal purity of woman-
hood itself. Till then Rameau had ne^■er re-
vered any one.

Oil her side, brought so frequently into com-
munication with the young conductor of the
journal in which she wrote, Isaura entertained
for him a friendly, almost sister-like affection.

I do not think that, even if she had never
known the Englishman, she would have really
become in love with Rameau, despite the pic-
turesque beauty of his countenance, and the con-
geniality of literary pursuits ; but perhaps she
might have fancied herself in love with him.
And till one, whether man or woman, has
known real love, fancy is readily mistaken for
it. But little as she had seen of Graham, and
that little not in itself wholly favorable to him,
she knew in her heart of hearts that his image
would never be replaced by one equally dear.
Perhdps in those qualities that placed him in
opposition to her she felt his attractions. The
poetical in woman exaggerates the worth of the
practical in man. Still for Rameau her exqui-
sitely kind and sympathizing nature conceived

one of those sentiments which in woman are al-
most angel-like. We have seen in her letters
to Madame de Grantmesnil that from the first
he inspired her with a compassionate interest ;
then the compassion was checked by her percep-
tion of his more unamiable and envious attri-
butes. But now those attributes, if still exist-
ent, had ceased to be apparent to her, and the
compassion became unalloyed. Indeed, it was
thus so far increased that it was impossible for
any friendly observer to look at the beautiful
face of this youth, prematurely wasted and worn,
without the kindliness of pity. His prosperity
had brightened and sweetened the expression of
that face, but it had not effaced the vestiges of
decay ; rather perhaps deepened them, for the
duties of his post necessitated a regular labor, to
which he had been unaccustomed, and the reg-
ular labor necessitated, or seemed to him to ne-
cessitate, an increase of fatal stimulants. He
imbibed absinthe with every thing he drank, and
to absinthe he united opium. This, of course,
Isaura knew not, any more than she knew of
his liaison with the “ Ondine” of his muse ; she
saw only the increasing delicacy of his face and
form, contrasted by his increased geniality and
liveliness of spirits, and the contrast saddened
her. Intellectually, too, she felt for him com-
passion. She recognized and respected in him
the yearnings of a genius too weak to perform
a tithe of what, in the arrogance of youth, it
promised to its ambition. She saw, too, those
struggles between a higher and a lower self, to
which a weak degree of genius, united with a
strong degree of arrogance, is so often subject-
ed. Perhaps she overestimated the degree of
genius, and what, if rightly guided, it could do;
but she did, in the desire of her own heavenlier
instinct, aspire to guide it heavenward. And
as if she were twenty years older than himself,
she obeyed that desire in remonstrating and
warning and urging, and the young man took
all these “preachments” with a pleased submis-
sive patience. Such, as the new year dawned
upon the grave of the old one, was the position
between these two. And nothing more was
heard from Graham Vane.

■

CHAPTER VI.

It has now become due to Graham Vane, and
to his place in the estimation of my readers, to
explain somewhat more distinctly the nature of
the quest in prosecution of which he had sought
the aid of the Parisian police, and, under an as-
sumed name, made the acquaintance of M. Le-
beau.

The best way of discharging this duty will
perhaps be to place before the reader the con-
tents of the letter which passed under Graham’s
eyes on the day in which the heart of the writer
ceased to beat.

“ Confidential.

To he opened immediately after my deaths and
before the perusal of my will.

‘ ‘ Richard King.

“To Graham Vane, Esq.

“My dear Graham, — By the direction on
the envelope of this letter, ‘ Before the perusal

119

THE PARISIANS.

of my will,’ I have wished to save you from the
disappointment you would naturally experience
if you learned my bequest without being prevised
of the conditions which I am about to impose
upon your honor. You will see ere you con-
clude this letter that you are the only man living
to whom I could intrust the secret it contains
and the task it enjoins.

“You are aware that I was not born to the
fortune that passed to me by the death of a dis-
tant relation, who had, in my earlier youth, chil-
dren of his own. I was an only son, left an or-
phan at the age of sixteen with a very slender
pittance. My guardians designed me for the
medical profession. I began my studies at
Edinburgh, and was sent to Paris to complete
them. It so chanced that there I lodged in the
same house with an artist named Auguste Du-
val, who, failing to gain his livelihood as a paint-
er, in what — for his style was ambitious — is
termed the Historical School, had accepted the
humbler calling, of a drawing-master. He had
practiced in that branch of the profession for sev-
eral years at Tours, having a good clientele among
English families settled there. This clientele^ as
■ he frankly confessed, he had lost from some ir-
regularities of conduct. He was not a bad man,
but of convivial temper, and easily led into temp-
tation. He had removed to Paris a few months
licfore I made his acquaintance. He obtained a
few pupils, and often lost them as soon as gained.
He was unpunctual and addicted to drink. But
he had a small pension, accorded to him, he was
wont to say mysteriously, by some high-born
kinsfolk, too proud to own connection with a
ilrawing-master, and on the condition that he
hhould never name them. He never did name
them to me, and I do not know to this day
%vhether the story of this noble relationship was
true or false. A pension, however, he did re-
ceive quarterly from some person or other, and
it was an unhappy provision for him. It tended
to make him an idler in his proper calling, and
whenever he received the payment he spent it in
debauch, to the neglect, while it lasted, of his
pupils. This man had residing with him a young
daughter, singularly beautiful. You may divine
the rest. I fell in love with her — a love deep-
ened by the compassion with which she inspired
me. Her father left her so frequently that, liv-
ing on the same floor, we saw much of each oth-
er. Parent and child were often in great need —
lacking even fuel or food. Of course I assisted
them to the utmost of my scanty means. Much
as I was fascinated by Louise Duval, I was not
blind to great defects in her character. She was
capricious, vain, aware of her beauty, and sighing
for the pleasures or the gauds beyond her reach.
I knew that she did not love me — there was little,
indeed, to captivate her fancy in a poor, thread-
bare medical student — and yet I fondly imagined
that my own persevering devotion would at length
win her affections. 1 spoke to her father more
than once of my hope some day to make Louise
ray wife. This hope, I must frankly acknowl-
edge, he never encouraged. On the contrary,
he treated it with scorn — ‘his child with her
beauty would look much higher’ — but he con-
tinued all the same to accept my assistance, and
to sanction my visits. At length my slender purse
w'as pretty well exhausted, and the luckless draw-
ing-master was so harassed with petty debts that
I

farther credit became impossible. At this time
I happened to hear from a fellow-student that
his sister, who was the principal of a Ladies’
School in Cheltenham, had commissioned him to
look out for a first-rate teacher of drawing, with
whom her elder pupils could converse in Erench,
but who should be sufficiently acquainted with
English to make his instructions intelligible to
the young. The salary was liberal, the school
large and of high repute, and his appointment to
it would open to an able teacher no inconsider-
able connection among private families. I com-
municated this intelligence to Duval. He caught
at it eagerly. He had learned at Tours to speak
English fluently, and as his professional skill was
of high order, and he was popular with several
eminent artists, he obtained certificates as to his
talents, which my fellow-student forwarded to
England with specimens of Duval’s drawings.
In a few days the offer of an engagement ar-
rived, was accepted, and Duval and his daugh-
j ter set out for Cheltenham. At the eve of
their departure Louise, profoundly dejected at
the prospect of banishment to a foreign country,
and placing no trust in her father's reform to
steady habits, evinced a tenderness for me hith-
erto new — she vept bitterly. She allowed me
to believe that her tears flowed at the thought
of parting with me, and even besought me to ac-
company them to Cheltenham — if only for a few
days. You may suppose how delightedly I com-
plied with the request. Duval had been about
a week at the watering-place, and was discharging
the duties he had undertaken with such unwont-
ed steadiness and regularity that I began sorrow-
fully to feel I had no longer an excuse for not
returning to my studies at Paris, when the poor
teacher was seized with a fit of paralysis. He
lost the power of movement, and his mind was
affected. The medical attendant called in said
that he might linger thus for some time, but that,
even if he recovered his intellect, which was more
than doubtful, he would never be able to resume
his profession. I could not leave Louise in cir-
cumstances so distressing — 1 remained. The
little money Duval had brought with him from
Paris was now exhausted, and when the day on
which he had been in the habit of receiving his
quarter’s pension came round, Louise was unable
even to conjecture how it was to be applied for.
It seems he had always gone for it in person, but
to whom he went was a secret which he had
never divulged. And at this critical juncture his
mind was too enfeebled even to comprehend us
when we inquired. I had already drawn from
the small capital on the interest of w'hieh I had
maintained myself ; I now drew out most of the
remainder. But this was a resource that could
not last long. Nor could I, without seriously
compromising Louise’s character, be constantly
in the house with a girl so young, and whose sole
legitimate protector was thus afflicted. There
seemed but one alternative to that of abandoning
her altogether — viz., to make her my wife, to
conclude the studies necessary to obtain my di-
ploma, and purchase some partnership in a small
country practice with the scanty surplus that
might be left of my capital. I placed this option
before Louise timidly, for I could not bear the
thought of forcing her inclinations. She seemed
much moved by what she called ray generosity :
she consented — we were married. I was, as you

120

THE PARISIANS.

may conceive, wholly ignorant of French law.
AVe were married according to the English cere-
mony and the Protestant ritual. Shortly after
our marriage we all three returned to Paris, tak-
ing an apartment in a quarter remote from that
in which we had before lodged, in order to avoid
any harassment to which such small creditors
as Duval had left behind him might subject us.
I resumed my studies with redoubled energy, and
Louise was necessarily left much alone with her
poor father in the daytime. The defects in her
character became more and more visible. She
reproached me for the solitude to which I con-
demned her ; our poverty galled her ; she had
no kind greeting for me when 1 returned at even-
ing, wearied out. Before marriage she had not
loved me — after marriage, alas! I fear she hated.
We had been returned to Paris some months
when poor Duval died ; he had never recovered
his faculties, nor had we ever learned from whom
his pension had been received. Very soon aft-
er her father’s death I observed a singular change
in the humor and manner of Louise. She was
no longer peevish, irascible, reproachful, but tac-
iturn and thoughtful. She seemed to mo un-
der the influence of some suppressed excitement :
her cheeks flushed and her eyes abstracted. At
length one evening when I returned I found her
gone. She did not come back that night nor the
next day. It was impossible for me to conjec-
ture what had become of her. She had no
friends, so far as I knew — no one had visited at
our squalid apartment. The poor house in which
we lodged had no concierge whom I could ques-
tion, but the ground-floor was occupied by a
small tobacconist’s shop, and the woman at the
counter told me that for some days before my
wife’s disappearance she had observed her pass
the shop window in going out in the afternoon
and returning toward the evening. Two terrible
conjectures beset me : either in her walks she
had met some admirer, with whom she had fled,
or, unable to bear the companionship and poverty
of a union which she had begun to loathe, she had
gone forth to drown herself in the Seine. On the
tliird day from her flight I received the letter I
inclose. Possibly the handwriting may serve
you as a guide in the mission I intrust to you.

“ ‘ Monsieur, — You have deceived me vilely
— taking advantage of my inexperienced youth
and friendless position to decoy me into an ille-
gal marriage. My only consolation under my ca-
lamity and disgrace is that I am at least free from
a detested bond. You will not see me again — it
is idle to attempt to do so. I have obtained ref-
uge with relations whom I have been fortunate
enough to discover, and to whom I intrust my
fate. And even if you could learn the shelter I
have sought, and have the audacity to molest
me, you would but subject yourself to the chas-
tisement you so richly deserve.

“‘Louise Duval.’

“ At the perusal of this cold-hearted, ungrate-
ful letter, the love I had felt for this woman — al-
ready much shaken by her wayward and per-
verse temper — vanished from my heart, never to
return. But, as an honest man, my conscience
was terribly stung. Could it be possible that I
had unknowingly deceived her — that our mar-
riage was not legal ?

“When I recovered from the stun which was
the first effect of her letter, I sought the opinion
of an avoui in the neighborhood, named Sartiges,
and, to my dismay, 1 learned that while I, mar-
rying according to the customs of my own coun-
try, was legally bound to Louise in England, and
could not marry another, the marriage was in all
ways illegal for her — being without the consent
of her relations while she was under age, without
the ceremonials of the Roman Catholic Church,
to which, though I never heard any profession
of religious belief from her or her father, it might
fairly be presumed that she belonged, and, above
' all, without the form of civil contract which is in-
I dispensable to the legal marriage of a French
I subject.

I “The avoiic said that l;lie marriage, therefore,

I in itself was null, and that Louise could, without
incurring legal penalties for bigamy, marry again
in France according to the French laws; but
I that under the circumstances it was probable that
her next of kin would apply on her behalf to the
proper court for the formal annulment of the mar-
I riage, which would be the most effectual mode of
j saving her from any molestation on my pai t, and
remove all possible question hereafter’ as to her
] single state and absolute right to remarry. I
I had better remain quiet, and wait for intimation
i of furtlier proceedings. 1 knew not what else to
do, and necessarily submitted.

“From this wretched listlessness of mind, al-
ternated now by vehement resentment against
Louise, now by the reproach of my own sense
j of honor, in leaving that honor in so question-
! able a point of view, I was arroused by a letter
from the distant kinsman by whom hitherto I
j had been go neglected. In the previous year he
had lost one of his two children : the other was
I just dead : no nearer relation now surviving stood
j between me and my chance of inheritance from
him. He wrote word of his domestic affliction
with a manly sorrow which touched me, said
that his health was failing, and begged me, as
soon as possible, to come and visit him in Scot-
land. I went, and continued to reside with him
till his death, some months afterward. By his
w’ill 1 succeeded to his ample fortune on condition
of taking his name.

“As soon as the affairs connected wdth thL
inheritance permitted, I returned to Paris, and
again saw M. Sartiges. 1 had never heard from
Louise, nor from any one connected with her, since
the letter you have read. No steps had been tak-
en to annul the marriage, and sufficient time had
elapsed to render it improbable that such steps
would be taken now. But if no such steps were
taken, however free from the marriage - bond
Louise might be, it clearly remained binding on
myself.

“At my request M. Sartiges took the most
vigorous measures that occurred to him to ascer-
tain where Louise was, and what and who was
the relation with w'hom she asserted she had found
refuge. The police were employed ; advertise-
ments were issued, concealing names, but suffi-
ciently clear to be intelligible to Louise, if they
came under her eye, and to the effect that if any
informality in our marriage existed, she W'as im-
plored for her own sake to remove it by a sec-
ond ceremonial — answer to be addressed to the
avouL No answer came; the police had hither-
I to failed of discovering her, but were sanguine

THE PARISIANS.

121

of success, when a few weeks after these adver-
tisements a packet reached JM. Sartiges, inclosing
the certificates annexed to this letter, of the death
of Louise Duval at Munich. The certificates,
as you will see, are to appearance officially at-
tested and unquestionably genuine. So they
Avere considei'ed by M. Sartiges as well as by
myself. Here then all inquiry ceased — the po-
lice were dismissed. I was free. By little and
little I overcame the painful impressions which
my ill-starred union and the announcement of I
Louise's early death bequeathed. Rich, and of
active mind, I learned to dismiss the trials of my
youth as a gloomy dream. I entered into pub-
lic life ; I made myself a creditable position ;
became acquainted with your aunt ; we were
wedded, and the beauty of her nature embellished
mine. Alas, alas ! two years after our marriage
— nearly five years after I had received the cer-
tificates of Louise’s death — I and your aunt made
a summer excursion into the country of the
Rhine ; on our return we rested at Aix-la-Cha-
pelle. One day while there I was walking alone
ill the environs of the town, when, on the road,
a little girl, seemingly about five years old, in
chase of a butteiHy, stumbled and fell just before
my feet ; I took her up, and as she was crying
more from the shock of the fall than any actual
hurt, I was still trying my best to comfort her,
Avhen a lady some paces behind her came up,
and in taking the child from my arms as I was
bending over her, thanked me in a voice that
made my heart stand still ; I looked up, and be-
held Louise.

“ It was not till I had convulsively clasped her
hand and uttered her name that she recognized
me. I was, no doubt, the more altered of the
two — prosperity and happiness had left little
trace of the needy, care-worn, threadbare student.
But if she were the last to recognize, she was
the first to recover self-possession. The expres-
sion of her face became hard and set. I can
not pretend to repeat with any verbal accuracy
the brief converse that took place between us,
as she placed the child on the grass bank beside

that I scarcely struggled under it; only, as she
turned to leave me, I suddenly recollected that
the child, when taken from my arms, had called
her ^Maman^' and, judging by the apparent age
of the child, it must have been born but a few
months after Louise had left me — that it must
be mine. And so, in my dreary woe, I faltered
out, ‘ But what of your infant ? Surely that has
on me a claim that you relinquish for yourself.
\ou were not unfaithful to me while you deem-
ed you were my wife?’

“‘Heavens! can you insult me by such a
doubt. No!’ she cried out, impulsively and
haughtily. ‘ But as I was not legally your
wife, the child is not legally yours ; it is mine,
and only mine. Nevertheless, if you wish to
claim it — ’ Here she paused as in doubt. I saw
at once that she was prepared to resign to me
the child if I had urged her to do so. I must
own, Avith a pang of remorse, that I recoiled
from such a proposal. What could I do Avith
the child ? Hoav explain to my Avife the cause
of my interest in it ? If only a natural child of
mine, I should have shrunk from owning to Jan-
et a youthful error. But, as it Avas — the child
by a former marriage — the former Avife still Ha'-
ing — my blood ran cold Avith dread. And if I
did take the child — invent Avhat story I might as
to its parentage, should I not expose myself, ex-
pose Janet, to terrible constant danger? The
mother’s natural affection might urge her at any
time to seek tidings of the child, and in so doing
she might easily discover my neiv name, and,
perhaps years hence, establish on me her OAvn
claim.

“No, I could not risk such perils. I replied,
sullenly, ‘ You say rightly ; the child is yours —
only yours.’ I Avas about to add an otter of pe-
I cuniary proA'ision for it, but Louise had already
I turned scornfully toAvard the bank on Avhich
I she had left the infant. I saw her snatch from
I the child’s hand some wild floAvers the poor
I thing had been gathering ; and hoAv often have
I I thought of the rude way in which she did it —
j not as a mother Avho loves her child. Just then
the path, bade her stay there quietly, and Avalk- 1 other passengers ajipeared on the road— tAvo of
ed on Avith me some paces as if she did not Avish j them I knew— an English couple very intimate

the child to hear Avhat Avas said.

“The purport of Avhat passed Avas to this ef-
fect : She refused to explain the certificates of
her death further than that, becoming aAvare of
Avhat she called the ‘ persecution’ of the adA'er-
tisements issued and inquiries instituted, she had
caused those documents to be sent to the ad-
dress given in the advertisement, in order to
terminate all further molestation. But hoAV
they could have been obtained, or by Avhat art
so ingeniously forged as to deceive the acute-
ness of a practiced laAvyer, I knoAV not to this
day. She declared, indeed, that she Avas noAv
happy, in easy circumstances, and that if I Avish-
ed to" make some reparation for the Avrong I had
done her, it Avould be to leave her in peace ; and
in case — Avhich Avas not likely — Ave ever met
again, to regard and treat her as a stranger ;
that she, on her part, neA'er would molest me,
and that the certified death of Louise Duval left
me as free to marry again as she considered her-
self to be.

“ My mind was so confused, so beivildered,
Avhile she thus talked, that I did not attempt to
interrupt her. The bloAv had so crushed me

Avith Lady Janet and myself. They stopped to
accost me, Avhile Louise passed by Avith the in-
fant tOAvard the tOAvn. I turned in the opposite
direction, and strove to collect my thoughts.
Terrible as was the discovery thus suddenly
made, it was evident that Louise had as strong
an interest as myself to conceal it. Tliere Avas
little chance that it Avould ever be divulged.
Her dress and that of the child Avere those of
persons in the richer classes of life. After all,
doubtless, the child needed not pecuniary assist-
ance from me, and Avas surely best off under the
mother’s care. Thus I sought to comfort and
to delude myself.

“ The next day Janet and I left Aix-la-Cha-
pelle, and returned to England. But it Avas im-
possible for me to banish the dreadful thought
that Janet Avas not legally my wife ; that could
she even guess the secret lodged in my breast
she Avould be lost to me forever, even though
she died of the separation (you knoAv well hoAv
tenderly she loved me). My nature undei'Avent
a silent revolution. I had previously cherished
the ambition common to most men in public life
— the ambition for fame, foi* place, for poAvei.

122

THE PARISIANS.

That ambition left me ; I shrunk from the
thought of becoming too well known, lest Louise
or her connections, as yet ignorant of my new
name, might more easily learn what the world
knew — viz., that I had previously borne anoth-
er name — the name of her husband — and find-
ing me wealthy and honored, might hereafter be
tempted to claim for herself or her daughter the
ties she abjured for both while she deemed me
poor and despised. But partly my conscience,
partly the influence of the angel by my side, com-
pelled me to seek whatever means of doing good
to others position and circumstances placed at my
disposal. I was alarmed when even such quiet
exercise of mind and fortune acquired a sort of
celebrity. How painfully I shrunk from it!
The world attributed my dread of publicity to
unaffected modesty. The world praised me,
and I knew myself an impostor. But the years
stole on. I heard no more of Louise or her
child, and my fears gradually subsided. Yet I
was consoled when the two children born to me
by Janet died in their infancy. Had they lived,
who can tell whether something might not have
transpired to prove them illegitimate ?

“ I must hasten on. At last came the great
and crushing calamity of my life : I lost the
woman who was my all in all. At least she was
spared the discovery that would have deprived
me of the right of tending her death-bed, and
leaving within her tomb a place vacant for my-
self.

“ But after the first agonies that followed her
loss, the conscience I had so long sought to
tranquillize became terribly reproachful. Louise
had forfeited all right to my consideration, but
my guiltless child had not done so. Did it live
still ? If so, was it not the heir to my fortunes
— the only child left to me ? True, I have the
absolute right to dispose of my wealth : it is not
in land ; it is not entailed ; but was not the
daughter I had forsaken morally the first claim-
ant? Was no reparation due to her? You re-
member that my physician ordei ed me, some lit-
tle time after your aunt’s death, to seek a tem-
porary change of scene. I obeyed, and went
away no one knew whither. Well, I repaired
to Paris ; there I sought M. Sartiges, the avoue.
I found he had been long dead. I discovered
his executors, and inquired if any papers or cor-
respondence between Richard Macdonald and
himself many years ago were in existence. All
such documents, with others not returned to cor-
respondents at his decease, had been burned by
his desire. No possible clew to the whereabouts
of Louise, should any have been gained since I
last saw her, was left. What then to do I knew
not. I did not dare to make inquiries through
strangers, which, if discovering my child, might
also bring to light a marriage that would have
dishonored the memory of my lost saint. I re-
turned to England feeling that my days were
numbered. It is to you that I transmit the task
of those researches which I could not institute.
I bequeath to you, with the exception of trifling
legacies and donations to public charities, the
whole of my fortune. But you will understand
by this letter that it is to be held on a trust which
I can not specify in my will. I could not, with-
out dishonoring the venerated name of your aunt,
indicate as the heiress of my wealth a child by a
wife living at the time I married Janet. I can

not form any words for such a devise which
would not arouse gos.sip and suspicion, and fur-
nish ultimately a clew to the discovery I would
shun. I calculate that, after all deductions, the
sum that will devolve to you will be about two
hundred and twenty thousand pounds. That
which I mean to be absolutely and at once
yours is the comparatively trifling legacy of
£20,000. If Louise’s child be not living, or
if you find full reason to suppose that, despite
appearances, the child is not mine, the whole
of my fortune lapses to you ; but should Lou-
ise be surviving and need pecuniary aid, you
will contrive that she may have such an annu-
ity as you may deem fitting, without learning
whence it come. You perceive that it is your
object if possible, even more than mine, to pre-
seiwe free from slur the name and memory of
her who was to you a second mother. All ends
we desire would be accomplished could you, on
discovering my lost child, feel that, without con-
straining your inclinations, you could make her
your wife. tShe would then naturally share with
you my fortune, and all claims of justice and
duty would be quietly appeased. She would
now be of age suitable to yours. When I saw
her at Aix she gave promise of inheriting no
small share of her mother’s beauty. If Louise’s
assurance of her easy circumstances were true,
her daughter has possibly been educated and
reared with tenderness and care. You have al-
ready assured me that you have no prior attach-
ment. But if, on discovering this child, you
find her already married, or one whom you
could not love nor esteem, I leave it implicit-
ly to your honor and judgment to determine
what share of the £200,000 left in your hands
should be consigned to her. She may have been
corrupted by her mother’s principles. She may
— heaven forbid ! — have fallen into evil courses,
and wealth would be misspent in her hands. In
that case a competence sufficing to save her from
further degradation, from the temptations of pov-
erty, would be all that I desire you to devote
from my wealth. On the contrary, you may
find in her one who, in all respects, ought to be
my chief inheritor. All this I leave, in full con-
fidence, to you, as being, of all the men I know,
the one who unites the highest sense of honor
with the largest share of practical sense and
knowledge of life. The main difficulty, what-
ever this lost girl may derive from my substance,
will be in devising some means to convey it to
her, so that neither she nor those around her
may trace the bequest to' me. She can never be
acknowledged as my child — never! Your rev-
erence for the beloved dead forbids that. This
difficulty your clear strong sense must overcome ;
mine is blinded by the shades of death. You
too will deliberately consider hotv to institute
the inquiries after mother and child so as not to
betray our secret. This will require great cau-
tion. You will probably commence at Paris,
through the agency of the police, to whom you
will be very guarded in your communications.
It is most unfortunate that I have no miniature
of Louise, and that any description of her must
be so vague that it may not serve to discover
her ; but such as it is, it may prevent your mis-
taking for her some other of her name. Louise
was above the common height, and looked taller
than she was, with the peculiar combination of

123

THE PARISIANS.

very dark hair, very fair complexion, and light
gray eyes. She would now be somewhere under
the age of forty. She was not without accom-
plishments, derived from the companionship with
her father. She spoke English fluently ; she
drew with taste, and even with talent. You
will see the prudence of conflning research at
flrst to Louise, rather than to the child who is
ttie principal object of it ; for it is not till you
can ascertain what has become of her that you
can trust the accuracy of any information re-
specting the daughter, whom I assume, perhaps
after all erroneously, to be mine. Though Louise
talked with such levity of holding herself free to
marry, the birth of her child might be sufficient
injury to her reputation to become a serious ob-
stacle to such second nuptials, not having taken
formal steps to annul her marriage with myself.
If not thus remarried, there would be no reason
why she should not resume her maiden name of
Duval, as she did in the signature of her letter to
me— finding that I had ceased to molest her by
the inquiries to elude which she had invented the
false statement of her death. It seems probable,
therefore, that she is residing somewhere in Paris,
and in the name of Duval. Of course the bur-
den of uncertainty as to your future can not be
left to oppress you for an indefinite length of time.
If at the end, say, of two years, your researches
have wholly failed, consider three-fourths of my
Avhole fortune to have passed to you, and put by
the fourth to accumulate, should the child after-
w'ard be discovered, and satisfy your judgment as
to her claims on me as her father. Should she
not, it will be a reserve fund for your own chil-
dren. But oh, if my child could be found in time !
and oh, if she be all that could win your heart,
and be the wife you would select from free choice !
I can say no more. Pity me, and judge leniently
of Janet’s husband. R. K.”

The key to Graham’s conduct is now given :
the deep sorrow that took him to the tomb of
the aunt he so revered, and whose honored mem-
ory was subjected to so great a risk ; the slight-
ness of change in his expenditure and mode of
life, after an inheritance supposed to be so am-
ple ; the abnegation of his political ambition ;
the subject of his inquiries, and the cautious .re-
serve imposed upon them ; above all, the posi-
tion toward Isaura in which he was so cruelly
placed.

Certainly, his first thought in revolving the
conditions of his trust had been that of marriage
with this lost child of Richard King’s, should
she be discovered single, disengaged, and not re-
pulsive to his inclinations. Tacitly he subscribed
to the reasons for this course alleged by the de-
ceased. It was the simplest and readiest plan
of uniting justice to the rightful inheritor with
care for a secret important to the honor of his
aunt, of Richard King himself — his benefactor
— of the illustrious house from which Lady Jan-
et had sprung. Perhaps, too, the considera-
tion that by this course a fortune so useful to
his career was secured was not without influ-
ence on the mind of a man naturally ambitious.
But on that consideration he forbade himself to
dwell. He put it away from him as a sin. Yet
to marriage with any one else until his mission
was fulfilled, and the uncertainty as to the ex-
tent of his fortune was dispelled, there interposed

grave practical obstacles. How could he honestly
present himself to a girl and to her parents in the
light of a rich man, when in reality he might be
but a poor man ? How could he refer to any law-
yer the conditions which rendered impossible any
settlement that touched a shilling of the large
sum which at any day he might have to trans-
fer to another ? Still, when once fully con-
scious how deep was the love with which Isaura
had inspired him, the idea of wedlock with the
daughter of Richard King, if she yet lived and
was single, became inadmissible. The orphan
condition of the young Italian smoothed away
the obstacles to proposals of marriage which
would have embarrassed his addresses to girls
of his own rank, and with parents who would
have demanded settlements. And if he had
found Isaura alone on that day on which he had
seen her last, he would doubtless have yielded to
the voice of his heart, avowed his love, wooed
her own, and committed both to the tie of be-
trothal. We have seen how rudely such yearn-
ings of his heart were repelled on that last inter-
view. His English prejudices were so deeply
rooted that, even if he had been wholly free from
the trust bequeathed to him, he would have re-
coiled from marriage with a girl w'ho, in the ar-
dor for notoriety, could link herself with such as-
sociates as Gustave Rameau, by habits a Bo-
hemian, and by principles a Socialist.

In flying from Paris he embraced the resolve
to banish all thought of wedding Isaura, and de-
vote himself sternly to the task which had so
sacred a claim upon him. Not that he could
endure the idea of marrying another, even if the
lost heiress should be all that his heart could
have worshiped, had that heart been his own
to give ; but he was impatient of the burden heap-
ed on him — of the fortune which might not be
his, of the uncertainty which paralyzed all his
ambitious schemes for the future.

Yet strive as he would — and no man could
strive more resolutely — he could not succeed in
banishing the image of Isaura. It was with him
always ; and with it a sense of irreparable loss, of
a terrible void, of a pining anguish.

And the success of his inquiries at Aix-la-Cha-
pelle, while sufficient to detain him in the place,
was so slight, and advanced by such slow de-
grees, that it furnished no continued occupation
to his restless mind. M. Renard was acute and
painstaking. But it was no easy matter to ob.*
tain any trace of a Parisian visitor to so popular
a Spa so many years ago. The name Duval,
too, was so common, that at Aix, as we have seen
at Paris, time was wasted in the chase of a Du-
val who proved not to be the lost Louise. At
last M. Renard chanced on a house in which, in
the year 1849, two ladies from Paris had lodged
for three weeks. One was Madame Duval, the
other Madame Marigny. They were both young,
both very handsome, and much of the same height
and coloring. But Madame Marigny was the
handsomer of the two. Madame Duval frequent-
ed the gaming tables, and was apparently of very
lively temper. Madame Marigny lived very qui-
etly, rarely or never stirred out, and seemed in
delicate health. She, however, quitted the apart-
ment somewhat abruptly, and, to the best of the
lodging-house keeper’s recollection, took rooms
in the country near Aix — she could not remem-
ber where. About two months after the depart-

124

THE PARISIANS.

ure of Madame Marigny, Madame Duval also
left Aix, and in company with a French gentle-
man who had visited her much of late — a hand-
some' man of striking appearance. The lodging-
house keeper did not know what or who he was.
She rememl)ered that he used to be announced
to Madame Duval by the name of M. Achille.
Madame Duval had never been seen again by
the lodging-house keeper after she had left. But
Madame Marigny she had once seen, nearly five
years after she had quitted the lodgings — seen
her by chance at the railway station, recognized
her at once, and accosted her, offering her the
old apartment. Madame Marigny had, howev-
er, briefly replied that she was only at Aix for a
few hours, and should quit it the same day.

The inquiry now turned toward Madame Ma-
rigny. The date in which the lodging-house keep-
er had last seen her coincided with the year in
which Richard King had met Louise. Possibly,
therefore, she might have accompanied the latter
to Aix at that time, and could, if found, give in-
formation as to her subsequent history and pres-
ent whereabouts.

After a tedious search throughout all the en-
virons of Aix, Graham himself came, by the mer-
est accident, upon the vestiges of Louise’s friend.
He had been wandering alone in the country
round Aix, when a violent thunder-storm drove
him to ask shelter in the house of a small farm-
er, situated in a field, a little off the by-way
which he had taken. While waiting for the ces-
sation of the storm, and drying his clothes by the
fire in a room that adjoined the kitchen, he en-
tered into conversation with the farmer’s wife, a
jdeasant, well-mannered person, and made some
complimentary observation on a small sketch of
the house in water-colors that hung upon the
wall. “ Ah,'’ said the farmer’s wife, “ that was
done by a French lady who lodged here many
years ago. She drew very prettily, poor thing.”

‘ ‘ A lady who lodged here many years ago —
how many?”

“Well, I guess somewhere about twenty.”

“ Ah, indeed ! Was it a Madame Marigny ?”

“ Bon Dieu! That was indeed her name. Did
you know her ? I should be so glad to hear she
is well and — I hope — happy. ”

“I do not know where she is now, and am
making inquiries to ascertain. Pray help me.
How long did Madame Marigny lodge with you ?”

“I think pretty well two months; yes, two
months. She left a month after her confinement. ”

“ She was confined here ?”

“Yes. When she first came I had no idea
that she was enceinte. She had a pretty figure,
and no one would have guessed it, in the way she
wore her shawl. Indeed, I only began to sus-
pect it a few days before it happened, and that
was so suddenly that all was happily over before
we could send for the accoucheur."

“ And the child lived ? A girl or a boy ?”

“A girl — the prettiest baby.”

“Did she take the child with her when she
went?”

“ No ; it was put out to nurse with a niece of
my husband's who was confined about the same
time. Madame paid liberally in advance, and
continued to send money half yearly, till she
came herself and took away the little girl.”

“ When was that ? — a little less than five years
after she had left it ?”

“ Why, you know all about it, monsieur; yes,
not quite five years after. She did not come to
see me, which I thought unkind, but she sent
me, through my niece-in-law, a real gold watch
and a shawl. Poor dear lady — for lady she was
all over — with proud ways, and would not bear
to be questioned. But I am sure she was none
of your French light ones, but an honest wife
like myself, though she never said so.”

“ And have you no idea where she was all the
five years she was away, or where she Avent aft-
er reclaiming her child ?”

“No, indeed, monsieur.”

“ But her remittances for the infant must have
been made by letters, and the letters would have
had postmarks?”

“Well, I dare say, I am no scholar myself.
But suppose you see Marie Hubert — that is my
niece-in-law ; perhaps she has kept the envelopes.”

“ Where does Madame Hubert live ?”

“ It is just a league off’ by the short path ; you
can’t miss the way. Her husband has a bit of
land of his own, but he is also a carrier — ‘ Max
Hubert, carrier,’ written over the door, just op-
posite the first church you get to. The rain has
ceased, but it may be too fiir for you to-day.”

“ Not a bit of it. Many thanks.”

“But if you find out the dear lady and see
her, do tell her how pleased I should be to hear
! good news of her and the little one.”
j Graham strode on under the clearing skies to
I the house indicated. He found Madame Hu-
bert at home, and ready to answer all ques-
jtions; but, alas! she had not the envelopes.
Madame- Marigny, on removing the child, had
asked for all the envelopes or letters, and car-
ried them away with her. Madame Hubert, who
was as little of a scholar as her aunt-in-law was,
had never paid much attention to the postmarks
on the envelopes, and the only one that she did
, remember was the first, that contained a bank-
note, and that postmark was “ Vienna.”

“ But did not Madame Marigny’s letters ever
give you an address to which to Avrite Avith news
of her child ?”

“I don't think she cared much for her child,
monsieur. She kissed it very coldly Avhen she
came to take it aAvay. I told the poor infant
that that Avas her own mamma, and madame said,
‘Yes, you may call me maman,’ in a tone of voice
which — Avell, not at all like that of a mother. She
brought Avith her a little bag Avhich contained
some fine clothes for the child, and Avas very im-
patient till the child had got them on.”

“ Are you quite sure it was the same lady Avho
left the cliild ?”

“ Oh, there is no doubt of that. She was
certainly tres belle, but I did not fancy her as
aunt did. She carried her head very high, and
looked rather scornful. However, I must say
she behaved very generously.”

“Still you have not ansAvered my question
Avhether her letters contained no address.”

“ She neA'er Avrote more than tAvo letters. One
' inclosing the first remittance was but a few lines,
saying that if the child Avas Avell and thriving, I
need not write ; but if it died or became danger-
ously ill, I might at any time Avrite a line to Ma-
dame M , Poffte Restante, Vietina. She Avas

traA'eling about, but the letter Avonld be sure to
reach her sooner or later. The only other letter
i I had Avas to apprise me that she Avas coming to

THE PARISIANS. 125

remove the child, and might be expected in three
days after the receipt of her letter.”

“And all the other communications from her
Avere merely remittances in blank envelopes ?”

“ExactlVso.”

Graham, finding he could learn no more, took
his departure. On his way home, meditating
the new idea that his adventure that day suggest-
ed, he resolved to proceed at once, accompanied
by M. Renard, to Munich, and there learn what
particulars could be yet ascertained respecting
those certificates of the death of Louise Duval,
to Avhich (sharing Richard King’s very natural
belief that they had been very skillfully forged)
he had hitherto attached no importance.

CHAPTER VII.

No satisfactory result attended the inquiries
made at Munich, save, indeed, this certainty — the
certificates attesting the decease of some person
calling herself Louise Duval had not been forged.
They were indubitably genuine. A lady bearing
that name had arrived at one of the principal
hotels late in the evening, and had there taken
handsome rooms. She was attended by no serv-
ant, but accompanied by a gentleman, who, how-
ever, left the hotel as soon as he had seen her
lodged to her satisfaction. The books of the hotel
still retained the entry of her name — Madame
Duval, Frangaise rentiere. On comparing the
handwriting of this entry with the letter from
Richard King’s first wife, Graham found it differ ;
but then it was not certain, though probable, that
the entry had been written by the alleged Madame
Duval herself. She was visited the next day by
the same gentleman who had accompanied her on
arriving. He dined and spent the evening with
her. But no one at the hotel could remember
what was the gentleman’s name, nor even if he
were announced by any name. He never called
again. Two days afterward Madame Duval was
taken ill ; a doctor was sent for, and attended
tier till her death. This doctor was easily found.
He remembered the case perfectly — congestion
of the lungs, apparently caused by cold caught
on her journey. Fatal symptoms rapidly mani-
fested themselves, and she died on the third day
from the seizure. She was a young and hand-
some woman. He had asked her during her
short illness if he should not write to her friends
— if there were no one she would wish to be
sent for. She replied that there was only one
friend, to Avhom she had already written, and
who would arrive in a day or two. And on in-
quiring, it appeared that she had written such a
letter, and taken it herself to the post on the.
morning of the day she Avas taken ill.

She had in her purse not a large sum, but mon-
ey enough to cover all her expenses, including
those of her funeral, Avhich, according to the laAv
in force at the place, followed very quickly on
her decease. The arrival of the friend to Avhom
she had Avritten being expected, her effects Avere,
in the mean Avhile, sealed up. The day after
her death a letter arrived for her, Avhich Avas
opened. It Avas evidently Avritten by a man,
and ap})arently by a lover. It expressed an im-
passioned regret that the writer Avas unaA’oidably
prevented returning to Munich so soon as he had

hoped, but trusted to see his dear bouton de rose
in the course of the following week ; it Avas only
signed Achille, and gave no address. Two or
three days after a lady, also young and hand-
some, arriA’ed at the hotel, and inquired for Ma-
dame Duval. She was greatly shocked at hear-
ing of her decease. When sufficiently recovered
to bear being questioned as to Madame Duval’s
relations and position, she appeared confused ;
said, after much pressing, that she Avas no rela-
tion to the deceased ; that she belieA-ed Madame
Duval had no relation Avith Avhoin she Avas on
friendly terms, at least she had never heard her
speak of any ; and that her own acquaintance
with the deceased, though cordial, Avas A'ery re-
cent. She could or Avould not give any cleAv to
the Avriter of the letter signed Achille, and she
herself quitted Munich that evening, leaving the
impression that Madame Duval had been one
of those ladies Avho, in adopting a course of life
at variance Avith conventional regulations, are
repudiated by their relations, and probably drop
even their rightful names.

Achille never appeared ; but a feAv days after
a lawyer at Munich received a letter from anoth-
er at Vienna requesting^ in compliance Avith a cli-
ent’s instructions, the formal certificates of Louise
DuA-al’s death. These Avere sent as directed, and
nothing more about the ill-fated woman was
heard of After the expiration of the time re-
quired by laAv the seals were removed from the
effects, which consisted of two malles and a dress-
ing-case. But they only contained the articles
appertaining to a lady’s Avardrobe or toilet. No
letters — not even another note from Achille — no
cleAv, in short, to the family or antecedents of
the deceased. What then had become of these
effects no one at the hotel could give a clear or
satisfactory account. It AV’as said by the mistress
of the hotel, rather sullenly, that they had, she
supposed, been sold by her predecessor, and by or-
der of the authorities, for the benefit of the poor.

If the lady avIio had represented herself as
Louise Duval’s acquaintance had giv’en her OAvn
name, Avhich doubtless she did, no one recollect-
ed it. It AA'as not entered in the books of the
hotel, for she had not lodged there ; nor did it
appear that she had alloAved time for formal ex-
amination by the ciA'il authorities. In fact, it Avas
clear that poor Louise DuA'al had been consider-
ed as an adA'enturess by the hotel-keeper and the
medical attendant at Munich ; and her death
had excited so little interest that it Avas strange
that eA-^en so many particulars respecting it could
be gleaned.

After a prolonged but fruitless stay at Munich,
Graham and M. Renard repaired to Vienna;
there, at least, Madame Marigny had given an
address, and there she might be heard of

At Vienna, hoAvever, no research aA’ailed to
discover a trace of any such person, and in de-
spair Graham returned to England in the Janu-
ary of 1870. and left the further prosecution of
his inquiries to M. Renard, Avho, though obliged
to transfer himself to Paris for a time, promised
that he Avould leave no stone unturned for the
discovery of Madame Marigny; and Graham
trusted \o that assurance Avhen M. Renard, re-
jecting half of the large gratuity offered him,
added, “./e suis Franpaise; this Avith me has
ceased to be an affair of money ; it has become
an affair that involves my amour projjreF

126

THE PARISIANS.

CHAPTER VIII.

If Graham Vane had been before caressed
and courted for himself, he was more than ever
appreciated by polite society, now that he added
the positive repute of wealth to that of a prom-
ising intellect. Fine ladies said that Graham
Vane was a match for any girl. Eminent poli-
ticians listened to him with a more attentive re-
spect, and invited him to selector dinner-parties.
His cousin the duke urged him to announce his
candidature for the county, and purchase back, at
least, the old Stanwi-schloss. But Graham ob-
stinately refused to entertain either proposal,
continued to live as economically as before in his
old apartments, and bore with an astonishing
meekness of resignation the unsolicited load of
fashion heaped upon his shoulders. At heart
he was restless and unhappy. The mission be-
queathed to him by Richard King haunted his
thoughts like a spectre not to be exorcised. Was
his whole life to be passed in the weary sustain-
ment of an imposture which in itself was gall and
wormwood to a nature constitutionally frank and
open ? Was he forever to appear a rich man and
live as a poor one? Was he till his death-bed
to be deemed a sordid miser whenever he refused
a just claim on his supposed wealth, and to feel
his ambition excluded from the objects it ear-
nestly coveted, and which he was to appear too
much of an Epicurean philosopher to prize ?

More torturing than all else to the man’s in-
nermost heart was the consciousness that he had
not conquered, could not conquer, the yearning
love with which Isaura had inspired him, and
yet that against such love all his reasonings, all
his prejudices, more stubbornly than ever were
combined. In the French newspapers which he
had glanced over while engaged in his research-
es in Germany — nay, in German critical journals
themselves — he had seen so many notices of the
young author — highly eulogistic, it is true, but
which to his peculiar notions were more offen-
sive than if they had been sufficiently condemna-
tory of her work to discourage her from its repe-

tition— motives which seemed to him tlie supreme
impertinences which no man likes exhibited to-
ward the w'oman to whom he would render the
chivalrous homage of respect. Evidently this
girl had become as much public property as if
she had gone on the stage. Minute details of
her personal appearance — of the dimples on her
cheek — of the whiteness of her arms — of her pe-
culiar way of dressing her hair — anecdotes of her
from childhood (of course invented, but how could
Graham know that?) — of the reasons why she had
adopted the profession of author instead of that
of the singer — of the sensation she had created
in certain salons (to Graham, who knew Paris
so well, salons in which he would not have liked
his wife to appear) — of the compliments paid to
her by grands seigneurs noted for their liaisons
with bailet-dancers, or by authors whose genius
soared far beyond the Jiamtnantia mcenia of a
world confined by respect for one’s neighbors’
landmarks — all this, which belongs to ground
of personal gossip untouched by English critics
of female writers — ground especially favored by
Continental and, I am grieved to say, by Ameri-
can journalists — all this, all this was to the sensi-
tive Englishman much what the minute invento-
ry of Egeria’s charms would have been to Numa
Pompilius. The nymph, hallowed to him by se-
cret devotion, was vulgarized by the noisy hands
of the mob, and by the popular voices, which
said, “We know more about Egeria than you
do.” And when he returned to England, and
met with old friends familiar to Parisian life, w ho
said, “ Of course you have read the Cicogna’s
roman. What do you think of it? Very fine
writing, I dare say, but above me. I go in for
L.es Mysteres de Paris or Monte Christo. But I
even find George Sand a bore” — then as a critic
Graham Vane fired up, extolled the roman he
would have given his ears for Isaura never to
have written, but retired from the contest mut-
tering only, “ How' can I — I, Graham Vane —
how can I be such an idiot — how can I in every
hour of the twenty-four sigh to myself, ‘What
are other women to me? — Isaura, Isaura!’”

BOOK SEVENTH.

CHAPTER I.

It is the first week in the month of May, 1870.
Celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of
Paris. Gustave Rameau has gained the position
for which he sighed. The journal he edits has
increased its hold on the public, and his share of
the profits has been liberally augmented by the
secret proprietor. Rameau is acknow-ledged as
a power in literary circles. And as critics be-
longing to tbe same clique praise each other in
Paris, whatever they may do in communities
more rigidly virtuous, his poetry has been de-
clared by authorities in the press to be superior
to that of Alfred de Musset in vigor, to that of
Victor Hugo in refinement — neither of which
assertions would much, perhaps, shock a culti-
vated understanding.

It is true that it (Gustave’s poetry) has not
gained a wide audience among the public. But

with regard to poetry nowadays, there are plen-
ty of persons who say as Dr. Johnson said of
the verse of Spratt, “I would rather praise it
than read.”

At all events, Ramean was courted in gay and
brilliant circles, and, following the general ex-
ample of French litterateurs in. fashion, lived
well up to the income he received, had a de-
lightful bachelor’s apartment, furnished with ar-
tistic effect, spent largely on the adornment of
his person, kept a coupe, and entertained profuse-
ly at the Cafe Anglais and the Maison Doree.
A reputation that inspired a graver and more
unquiet interest had been created by the Vi-
comte de Mauleon. Recent articles in the Sens
Commun, written under the name of Pierre Fir-
min, on the discussions on the vexed question of
the Plebiscite had given umbrage to the govern-
ment, and Rameau had received an intimation
that he, as editor, w’as responsible for the com-

127

THE PAKISIANS.

positions of the contributors to the journal he
edited, and that though, so long as Pierre
Firmin had kept his caustic spirit within proper
bounds, the government had winked at the eva-
sion of the law which required every political
article in a journal to be signed by the real name
of its author, it could do so no longer. “ Pierre
Firmin” was apparently a nom de plume ; if not,
his identity must be proved, or Kameau would
pay the penalty which his contributor seemed
bent on incurring.

Kameau, much alarmed for the journal, that
might be suspended, and for himself, who might be
imprisoned, conveyed this information through
the publisher to his correspondent Pierre Fir-
min, and received the next day an article signed
Victor de Mauleon, in which the writer pro-
claimed himself to be one and the same with
Pierre Firmin, and, taking a yet bolder tone
than he had before assumed, dared the govern-
ment to attempt legal measures against him.
The government was prudent enough to disre-
gard that haughty bravado, but Victor de Mau-
leon rose at once into political importance. He
had already in his real name and his quiet way
established a popular and respectable place in
Parisian society. But if this revelation created
him enemies whom he had not before provoked,
he was now sufficiently acquitted, by tacit con-
sent, of the sins formerly laid to his charge, to
disdain the assaults of party wrath. His old
reputation for personal courage and skill in
sword and pistol served, indeed, to protect him
from such charges as a Parisian journalist does
not reply to with his pen. If he created some
enemies, he created many more friends, or, at
least, partisans and admirers. He only needed
fine and imprisonment to become a popular hero.

A few days after he had thus proclaimed him-
self, Victor de Mauleon, who had before kept
aloof from Rameau, and from salons at which be
was likely to meet that distinguished minslrel,
solicited his personal acquaintance, and asked
him to breakfast.

Rameau joyfully went. He had a very nat-
ural curiosity to see the contributor whose arti-
cles had so mainly insured the sale of the Sens
Comniun.

In the dark-haired, keen-eyed, well-dressed,
middle-aged man, with commanding port and
courtly address, he failed to recognize any re-
semblance to the flaxen-wigged, long-coated, be-
spectacled, shambling sexagenarian whom he
had known as Lebeau. Only now and then a
tone of voice struck him as familiar, but he
could not recollect where he had heard the voice
it resembled. The thought of Lebeau did not
occur to him ; if it had occurred it would only
have struck him as a chance coincidence. Ra-
meau, like most egotists, was rather a dull ob-
server of men. His genius was not objective.

“ I trust. Monsieur Rameau,” said the Vi-
comte, as he and his guest were seated at the
breakfast-table, “that you are not dissatisfied
! with the remuneration your eminent services in
the journal have received.”

“The proprietor, whoever he be, has behaved
most liberally,” answered Rameau.

“I take that compliment to myself, cher con-
frere, for though the expenses of starting the
Sens Cotnmun and the caution money lodged
were found by a friend of mine, that was as a

loan, which I have long since repaid, and the
property in the journal is now exclusively mine.
I have to thank you not only for your own brill-
iant contributions, but for those of the eol-
leagues you secured. Monsieur Savarin’s piqu-
ant criticisms were most valuable to us at
starting. I regret to have lost his aid. But as
he has set up a new journal of his own, even he.
has not wit enough to spare for another. Apro-
pos of our contributors, I shall ask you to present
me to the fair author of The Artist's Daugh-
ter. I am of too prosaic a nature to appreciate
justly the merits of a roman ; but I have heard
warm praise of this story from the young — they
are the best judges of that kind of literature ;
and I can at least understand the worth of a
contributor who trebled the sale of our journal.
It is a misfortune to us, indeed, that her work is
completed, but I trust that the sum sent to her
through our publisher suffices to tempt her to fa-
vor us with another roman in series.”

“Mademoiselle Cicogna,” said Rameau, with
a somewhat sharper intonation of his sharp
voice, “has accepted for the republication of
her roman in a separate form terms which attest
the worth of her genius, and has had offers
from other journals for a serial tale of even
higher amount than the sum so generously sent
to her through your publisher.”

“ Has she accepted them, Monsieur Rameau ?
If so, tant pis pour vous. Pardon me, I mean
that your salary suffers in proportion as the Sens
Commun declines in sale.”

“She has not accepted them. I advised her
not to do so until she could compare them with
those offered by the proprietor of the Sens Com-
mun."

“ And your advice guides her ? Ah ! cher con-
frere, you are a happy man — you have influence
over this young aspirant to the fame of a De
Stael or a George Sand. ”

“I flatter myself that I have some,” answered
Rameau, smiling loftily as he helped himself to
another tumbler of Volney wine — excellent, but
rather heady !

“ So much the better. I leave you free to
arrange terms with Mademoiselle Cicogna, high-
er than she can obtain elsewhere, and kindly
contrive my own personal introduction to her —
you have breakfasted already ? — permit me to
offer you a eigar — excuse me if I do not bear
you company — I seldom smoke ; never of a morn-
ing. Now to business, and the state of France.
Take that easy-chair ; seat youi self comfortably.
So ! Listen ! If ever Mephistopheles revisit the
earth, how he will laugh at Universal Suffrage
and Vote by Ballot in an old country like France,
as things to be admired by educated men, and
adopted by friends of genuine freedom!”

“ I don’t understand you,” said Rameau.

“In this respect, at least, let me hope that I
can furnish you with understanding.

“ The Emperor has resorted to a Plebiscite —
viz., a Vote by Ballot and Universal SuflVage —
as to certain popular changes which circum-
stances compel him to substitute for his former
personal rule. Is there a single intelligent Lib-
eral who is not against that Plebiscite ? — is there
any such who does not know that the appeal of
the Emperor to Universal Suffrage and Vote by
Ballot must result in a triumph over all the va-
riations of free thought, by the unity which be-

128

THE PARISIANS.

longs to Order, represented through an able man
at the head of the state ? The multitude never
comprehend principles ; principles are complex
ideas ; they comprehend a simple idea, and tiie
simplest idea is, a Name that rids their action of
all responsibility to thought.’

“ Well, in Prance there are principles supera-
bundant which you can pit against the principle
of imperial rule. But tliere is not one Name
you can pit against Napoleon 111 ; therefore I
steer our little bark in the teeth of the popular
gale when 1 denounce the Plebiscite, and Ae !
Sens Conmun will necessarily fall in sale — it is |
beginning to fall already. We shall have the ;
educated men with us, the rest against. In every
country, even in China, where all ai’e highly ed-
ucated, a few must be yet more highly educated
than the many. Monsieur Rameau, I desire to
overthrow the empire : in order to do that, it is
not enough to have on my side the educated men,

I must have the canaille — the canaille of Paris
and of the manufacturing towns. But I use the
canaille for my purpose — 1 don’t mean to en-
throne it. You comprehend ? — the canaille qui-
escent is simply mud at the bottom of a stream ;
the canaille agitated is mud at the surface.
But no man capable of three ideas builds the j
palaces and senates of civilized society out of
mud, be it at the top or the bottom of an ocean.
Clan either you or I desire that the destinies of
Prance shall be swayed by coxcombical artisans
who think themselves superior to every man who
writes grammar, and whose idea of a Common-
wealth is the confiscation of private- proi)erty ?”

Rameau, thoroughly puzzled by this discourse,
bow'ed his head, and replied, whisperingly, “Pro-
ceed. You are against the empire, yet against
the populace ! What are you for? Not, surely,
the Legitimists ? Are you Republican, Orlean-
ist, or what ?”

“Your questions are very pertinent,” answer-
ed the Vicomte, courteously, “and my answer
.shall be very frank. 1 am against absolute rule,
whether under a Bonaparte or a Bourbon. I
am for a free state, whether under a constitu-
tional, hereditary sovereign like the English or
Belgian, or whether. Republican in name, it be
less democratic than Constitutional Monarchy in
practice, like the American. But as a man in-
terested in the fate of Le Sens Commun, 1 hold
in profound disdain all crotchets for revolutioniz-
ing the elements of Human Nature. Enough of
this abstract talk. To the point. You are of
course aw-are of the violent meetings held by the
Socialists, nominally against the Plebiscite, real- j
ly against the Emperor himself?”

“ Yes, I know' at least that the working class
are extremely discontented ; the numerous strikes
last month were not on a mere question of w'ages
— they were against the existing forms of soci-
ety. And the articles by Pierre Pirmin which
brought me into collision with the government,
seemed to differ from what you now say. They
approve those strikes ; they appeared to sympa-
thize with the revolutionary meetings at Belle-
ville and Montmartre.”

“ Of course ! we use coarse tools for destroy-
ing; we cast them aside for finer ones when we
want to reconstruct.

“ I attended one of those meetings last night.
See, 1 have a ])ass for all such assemblies, signed
by some dolt w'ho can not even spell the name

he assumes — ‘ Pom-de-Tair. ’ A commissary of
police sits yawning at the end of the orchestra,
his secretary by his side, wdiile the orators stam-
mer out fragments af would-be thunder-bolts.
Commissary of police yawns more wearily than
before ; secretary disdains to use his pen, seizes
his penknife and pares his nails. Up rises a
wild-haired, weak-limbed silhouette of a man,
and affecting a solemnity of mien which might
have become the virtuous Guizot, moves this res-
olution : ‘The Prench people condemn Charles
Louis Napoleon III. to the penalty of perpetual
hard labor.’ Then up rises the commissary of
police, and says, quietly, ‘ I declare this meeting
at an end.’

“ Sensation among the audience — they gestic-
ulate— they screech — they bellow — the commis-
sary puts on his great-coat — the secretary gives
a last touch to his nails and pockets his pen-
knife— the audience disperse — the silhouette of
a man effaces itself — all is over.”

“You describe the scene most wittily,” said Ra-
meau, laughing, but the laugh was constrained.
A would-be cynic himself, there was a something
grave and earnest in the real cynic that awed him.

“What conclusion do you draw' from such a
scene, cher poete ?" asked De Mauleon, fixing his
keen quiet eyes on Rameau.

“ What conclusions ? Well, that — that — ”

“Yes, continue.”

“ That the audience were sadly degenerated
from the time w'hen Mirabeau said to a Master of
the Ceremonies, ‘ We are here by the power of
the Prench people, and nothing but the point of
the bayonet shall expel u.s.’ ”

“Spoken like a poet, a Piench poet. I sup-
pose you admire M. Victor Hugo. Conceding
that he would have employed a more soun<iing
phraseology, comprising more absolute ignorance
of men, times, and manners in unintelligible met-
aphor and melodramatic braggadocio, your an-
swer might have been his ; but pardon me if I
add, it would not be that of Covwwn-Sense."

“ Monsieur le Vicomte might rebuke me more
politely,” said Rameau, coloring high.

“ Accept my apologies ; I did not mean to re-
buke, but to instruct. The times are not those
of 1789. And Nature, ever repeating herself in
the production of coxcombs and blockheads,
never repeats herself in the production of Mir-
abeaus. The empire is doomed — doomed, be-
cause it is hostile to the free play of intellect.
Any government that gives absolute preponder-
ance to tbe many is hostile to intellect, for intel-
lect is necessarily confined to the few.

“Intellect is the most revengeful of all the
elements of society. It cares not w'hat the ma-
terials through which it insinuates or forces its
way to its seat.

“ I accept the aid of Pom-de- Pair. I do not
demean myself to the extent of writing articles
that may favor the principles of Pom-de-Tair,
signed in the name of Victor de Mauleon or of
Pierre Eirmin.

“I will beg you, my dear editor, to obtain
clever, smart writers who know nothing about
Socialists and Internationalists, who therefore
will not commit Le Sens Commnn by advocating
the doctrines of those idiots, but w'ho w'ill flatter
the vanity of the canaille — vaguely — write any
stuff they please about the renow'u of Paris, ‘ the
1 eye of the v/orld,’ ‘ the sun of the European sys-

120

THE PARISIANS.

’tern,’ etc., of the artisans of Paris as supplying
soul to that eye and fuel to that sun — any blague
of that sort — genre Victor Hugo. But nothing
definite against life and property, nothing tliat
may not be considered hereafter as the harmless
extravagance of a poetic enthusiasm. You might
write such articles yourself.' In fine, I want to
excite the multitude, and yet not to commit our
journal to the contempt of the few.

“Nothing is to be admitted that may bring
the law upon us except it be signed by my name.
There may be a moment in which it would be
desirable for somebody to be sent to prison — in
that case, 1 allow no substitute. I go myself.

“ Now you have my most secret thoughts. I
intrust them to your judgment with entire con-
fidence. Monsieur Lebeau gave you a high char-
acter, which you have hitherto deserved. By-
the-way, have you seen any thing lately of that
hotirgeois conspirator ?”

“ No ; his professed business of letter- writer or
agent is transferred to a clerk, who says M. Le-
beau is abroad.”

‘ ‘ Ah ! I don’t think that is true. I fancy I saw
him the other evening gliding along the lanes of
Belleville. He is too ca^n firmed a conspirator to
be long out of Paris ; no place like Paris for
seething brains.”

“Have you known M. Lebeau long?” asked
Rameau.

“ Ay, many years. We are both Norman by
birth, as you may perceive by something broad
in our accent.”

“ Ha I I knew your voice was familiar to me ;
certainly it does remind me of Lebeau’s.”

“ Normans are like each other in many things
besides voice and accent — obstinacy, for instance,
in clinging to ideas once formed; this makes
them good friends and steadfast enemies. I w’ould
advise no man to make an enemy of Lebeau.

Au revoir, cher confrere. Do not forget to
present me to Mademoiselle Cicogna.”

CHAPTER IL

On leaving De Mauleon and regaining his
coupe Rameau felt at once bewildered and hum-
bled, for he was not prepared for the tone of care-
less superiority which the Vicomte assumed over
him. He had expected to be much com})liment-
ed, and he comprehended vaguely that he had
been somewhat snubbed. He was not only irri-
tated— he was bewildered, for De Mauleon’s po-
litical disquisitions did not leave any clear or def-
inite idea on his mind as to the principles which,
as editor of the Sens Cominun, he was to see ad-
equately represented and carried out. In truth,
Rameau was one of those numerous Parisian pol-
iticians who have read little and reflected less on
the government of men and states. Envy is said
bv a great French writer to be the vice of democ-
racies. Envy certainly had made Rameau a
democrat. He could talk and write glibly enough
upon the themes of equality and fraternity, and
was so far an ultra democrat that he thought
moderation the sign of a mediocre understanding.

De Mauleon’s talk, therefore, terribly per-
plexed him. Jt was unlike any thing he had
heard before. Its revolutionary professions ac-
companied with so much scorn for the multitude,

and the things the multitude desired, were Greek
to him. He was not shocked by the cynicism
which placed wisdom in using the passions of
mankind as tools for the interests of an individ-
ual ; but he did not understand the frankness of
its avowal.

Nevertheless the man had dominated over and
subdued him. Pie recognized the power of his
contributor without clearly analyzing its nature —
a power made up of large experience of life, of
cold examination of doctrines that heated others
— of patrician calm — of intellectual sneer — of
collected confidence in self.

Bosides, Rameau felt, with a nervous misgiv-
ing, that in this man, who so boldly proclaimed
his contempt for the instruments he used, he had
found a master. De Mauleon, then, was sole
proprietor of the journal from which Rameau
drew his resources, might at any time dismiss
him, might at any time involve the journal in
penalties which, even if Rameau could escape in
his official capacity as editor, still might stop the
Sens Commun, and with it Rameau’s luxurious
subsistence.

Altogether the visit to De Mauleon had been
any thing but a pleasant one. He sought, as the
carriage rolled on, to turn his thoughts to more
agreeable subjects, and the image of Isaiira rose
before him. To do him justice, he had learned
to love this girl as well as his nature would per-
mit : he loved her with the whole strength of his
imagination, and though his heart was somewhat
cold, his imagination was very ardent. He loved
her also with the whole strength of his A^anity,
and vanity was even a more preponderate, organ
of his system than imagination. To carry oft’ as
his prize one who had already achieved celebrity,
whose beauty and fascination of manner were
yet more acknowledged than her genius, would
certainly be a glorious triumph.

Every Parisian of Rameau’s stamp looks for-
ward in marriage to a brilliant salon. What sa-
lon more brilliant than that which he and Isaura
united coidd command ? He had long conquered
his early impulse of envy at Isaura’s success — in
fact, that success had become associated with bis
own, and had contributed greatly to his enrich-
ment. So that to other motives of love he might
add the prudential one of interest. Rameau
well knew that his own vein of composition,
however lauded by the cliques, and however un-
rivaled in his own eyes, was not one that brings
much profit in the market. He compared him-
self to those poets who are too far in advance of
their time to be quite as sure of bread-and-cheese
as they are of immortal fame.

But" he regarded Isaura’s genius as of a lower
order, and a thing in itself very marketable.
Marry her, and the bread-and-cheese were so
certain that he might elaborate as slowly as he
pleased the verses destined to immortal fame.
Then he should be independent of inferior creat-
ures like Victor de Mauleon. But while Ra-
meau convinced himself that he was i)assionately
in love with Lsaura, he could not satisfy himself
that she was in love with him.

Though during the past year they had seen
each other constantly, and their literary occupa-
tions had produced many sympathies between
them — though he had intimated that many of his
most eloquent love-poems were inspired by her —
though he had asserted in prose, very pretty prose

130

THE TARISIANS.

too, that she was all that youthful poets dream
of, yet she had hitherto treated such declarations
with a playful laugh, accepting them as elegant
compliments inspired by Parisian gallantry, and
he felt an angry and sore foreboding that if he
were to insist too seriously on the earnestness of
their import, and ask her plainly to be his wife,
her refusal would be certain, and his visits to her
house might be interdicted.

Still Isaura was unmarried — still she had re-
fused offers of marriage from men higher placed
than himself — still he divined no one whom she
could prefer. And as he now leaned back in his
coup€ he muttered to himself, “Oh, if I could
but get rid of that little demon Julie, I would
devote myself so completely to winning Isaura’s
heart that I must succeed ! — but how to get rid
of Julie? She so adores me, and is so bead-
strong ! She is capable of going to Isaura — show-
ing my letters — making such a scene !”

Here he checked the carriage at a cafe on the
Boulevard, descended, imbibed two glasses of
absinthe, and then feeling much emboldened, re-
mounted his coupe, and directed the driver to
Isaura’s apartment.

CHAPTER HI.

Y Es, celebrities are of i-apid growth in the sa-
lons of Paris. Par more solid than that of Ra-
meau, far more brilliant than that of De Mau-
leon, was the celebrity which Isaura had now ac-
quired. She had been unable to retain the pretty

suburban villa at A . The owner wanted to

alter and enlarge it for his own residence, and she
had been persuaded by Signora Venosta, who
was always sighing for fresh salons to conquer,
to remove (toward the close of the previous year)
to apartments in the centre of the Parisian beau
monde. Without formally professing to receive,
on one evening in the week her salon was open
to those who had eagerly sought her acquaintance
— comprising many stars in the world of fashion
as well as those in the world of art and letters.
And as she had now wholly abandoned the idea
of the profession for which her voice had been cul-
tivated, she no longer shrunk from the exercise
of her surpassing gift of song for the delight of
private friends. Her physician had withdrawn
the interdict on such exercise.

His skill, aided by the rich vitality of her con-
stitution, had triumphed over all tendencies to
the malady for which he had been consulted.
To hear Isaura Cicogna sing in her own house
was a privilege sought and prized by many who
never read a word of her literary compositions.
A good critic of a book is rare, but good judges
of a voice are numberless. Adding this attrac-
tion of song to her youth, her beauty, her frank
powers of converse — an innocent sweetness of
manner free from all conventional affectation —
and to the fresh novelty of a genius which in-
spired the young with enthusiasm and beguiled
the old to indulgence, it was no wonder that
Isaura became a celebrity at Paris.

Perhaps it was a wonder that her head was
not turned by the adulation that surrounded
her. But I believe, be it said with diffidence,
that a woman of mind so superior that the mind ,
never pretends to efface the heart is less intox- ;

icated with flattery than a man equally exposed
to it.

It is the strength of her heart that keeps her
head sober. Isaura had never yet overcome her
first romance of love ; as yet, amidst all her tri-
umphs, there was not a day in which her thoughts
did not wistfully, mournfully, fly back to those
blessed moments in which she felt her cheek col-
or before a look, her heart beat at the sound of
a footfall. Perhaps if there had been the cus-
tomary finis to this young romance — the lover’s
deliberate renunciation, his formal farewell^ — the
girl’s pride would, ere this, have conquered her
affection — possibly — who knows ? — replaced it.

But, reader, be you male or female, have you
ever known this sore trial of affection and pride,
that from some cause or other, to you myste-
rious, the dear intercourse to which you had ac-
customed the secret life of your life abruptly
ceases ; you know that a something has come be-
tween you and the beloved which. you can not
distinguish, can not measure, can not guess, and
therefore can not surmount; and you say to your-
self at the dead of solitary night, “ Oh for an ex-
planation ! Oh for one meeting more ! All might
be so easily set right ; or if not, I should know
the worst, and, knowing it, could conquer!”

This trial was Isaura’s. There had been no ex-
planation, no last farewell between her and Gra-
ham. She divined — no woman lightly makes a
mistake there — that he loved her. She knew that
this dread something had intervened between her
and him when he took leave of her before others
so many months ago ; that this dread something
still continued. What was it? She was certain
that it would vanish, could they but once meet
again, and not before others. Oh for such a
meeting !

She could not herself destroy hope. She could
not marry another. She would have no heart to
give to another while he was free, while in doubt
if his heart was still her own. And thus her pride
did not help her to conquer her affection.

Of Graham Vane she heard occasionally. He
had ceased to correspond with Savarin ; but
among those who most frequented her salon were
the Morleys. Americans so well educated and
so well placed as the Morleys knew something
about every Englishman of the social station of
Graham Vane. Isaura learned from them that
Graham, after a tour on the Continent, had re-
turned to England at the commencement of the
year, had been invited to stand for Parliament,
had refused, that his name was in the list pub-
lished by the Morning Post of the elite whose
arrivals in London or whose presence at dinner-
tables is recorded as an event. That the Athe-
noeuni had mentioned a rumor that Graham Vane
was the author of a political pamphlet which,
published anonymously, had made no inconsid-
erable sensation. Isaura sent to England for
that pamphlet : the subject was somewhat dry,
and the style, though clear and vigorous, was
scarcely of the elo(|uence which wins the admira-
tion of women ; and yet she learned every word
of it by heart.

We know how little she dreamed that the ce-
lebrity which she hailed as an approach to him
was daily making her more remote. The sweet
labors she undertook for that celebrity continued
I to be sweetened yet more by secret association
; with the absent one. How many of the passages

THE PARISIANS.

131

most admired could never have been written had
he been never known !

And she blessed those labors the more that
they upheld her from the absolute feebleness of
sickened reverie, beguiled her from the gnawing
torture of unsatisfied conjecture. She did com-
ply with Madame de Grantmesnil’s command —
did pass from the dusty beaten road of life into
green fields and along flowery river-banks, and
did enjoy that ideal by- world.

But still the one image which reigned over her
human heart moved beside her in the gardens of
fairy-land.

CHAPTER IV.

Is AURA was seated in her pretty salon, with the
Venosta, M. Savarin,.the Morleys, and the finan-
cier Louvier, when Rameau was announced.

“ Ha !” cried Savarin, “ we were just discuss-
ing a matter which nearly concerns you, cher
poete. I have not seen you since the announce-
ment that Pierre Firmin is no other than Victor
de Mauleon. Ma foi, that worthy seems likely to
be as dangerous with his pen as he was once with
his sword. The article in which he revealed
himself makes a sharp lunge on the government.
Take care of yourself. When hawks and night-
ingales fly together the hawk may escape, and
the nightingale complain of the barbarity of kings,
in a cage: ‘Flebiliter gemens Infelix avis.’”

“He is not fit to conduct a journal,” replied
Rameau, magniloquently, “ who will not brave
a danger for his body in defense of the right to
infinity for his thought.”

“ Bravo,” said Mrs. Morley, clapping her
pretty hands. ‘ ‘ That speech reminds me of
home. The French are very much like the Amer-
icans in their style of oratory.”

“So,” said Louvier, “my old friend the Vi-
comte has come out as a writer, a politician, a
philosopher ; I feel hurt that he kept this secret
from me despite our intimacy. I suppose you
knew it from the first, M. Rameau ?”

“No; I was as much taken by surprise as the
rest of the world. You have long known M. de
Mauleon ?”

“ Yes, I may say we began life together — that
is, much at the same time.”

“ What is he like in appearance ?” asked Mrs.
Morley.

“ The ladies thought him very handsome when
he was young,” replied Louvier. “ He is still a
fine-looking man, about my height.”

“I should like to know him!” cried Mrs.
Morley, “ if only to tease that husband of mine.
He refuses me the dearest of woman’s rights— I
can’t make him jealous.”

“ You may have the opportunity of knowing
tliis ci-devant Lovelace very soon,” said Rameau,
“ for he has begged me to present him to Made-
moiselle Cicogna, and I will ask her permission
to do so on Thursday evening when she receives.”

Isaura, who had hitherto attended very list-
lessly to the conversation, bowed assent. “ Any
friend of yours will be welcome. But I own the
articles signed in the name of Pierre Firmin do
not prepossess me in favor of their author.”

“ Why so ?” asked Louvier. “ Surely you are
not an Imperialist ?”

“Nay, I do not pretend to be a politician at

all, but there is something in the writing of Pierre
Firmin that pains and chills me.”

“Yet the secret of its popularity,” said Sava-
rin, “ is that it says what every one says — only
better.”

“ I see now that it is exactly that which dis-
pleases me ; it is the Paris talk condensed into
epigram : the graver it is, the less it elevates ;
the lighter it is, the more it saddens.”

“ That is meant to hit me,” said Savarin, with
his sunny laugh, “me whom you call cynical.”

“ No, dear M. Savarin, for above all your cyn-
icism is genuine gayety, and below it solid kind-
ness. You have that which I do not find in M.
de Mauleon’s writing, nor often in the talk of
the salons — you have youthfulness.”

“ Youthfulness at sixty — flatterer !”

“ Genius does not count its years by the al-
manac,” said Mrs. Morley. “ I know what Isau-
ra means — she is quite right; there is a breath
of winter in M. de Mauleon’s style, and an odor
of fallen leaves. Not that his diction wants vig-
or; on the contrary, it is crisp with hoar-frost.
But the sentiments conveyed by the diction are
those of a nature sere and withered. And it is
in this combination of brisk words and decayed
feelings that his writing represents the talk and
mind of Pai-is. He and Paiis are always fault-
finding : fault-finding is the attribute of old age.”

Colonel Morley looked round with pride, as
much as to say, “ Clever talker, my wife.”

Savarin understood that look, and replied to it
courteously. “ Madame has a gift of expression
which Emile de Girardin can scarcely surpass.
But when she blames us for fault-finding, can
she expect the fiiends of liberty to praise the
present style of things ?”

“ I should be obliged to the friends of liberty,”
said the Colonel, dryly, “to tell me how that
state of things is to be mended. I find no en-
thusiasm for the Orleanists, none for a republic ;
people sneer at religion ; no belief in a cause, no
adherence to an opinion. But the worst of it is
that, like all people who are blasts, the Parisians
are eager for strange excitement, and ready to
listen to any oracle who promises a relief from
indifferentism. Tins it is which makes the Press
more dangerous in Fi'ance than it is in any other
country. Elsewhere the Press sometimes leads,
sometimes follows, public opinion. Here there
is no public opinion to consult, and instead ot
opinion the Press represents passion.”

“My dear Colonel Morley,” said Savarin, “ I
hear you very, often say that a Frenchman can
not understand America. Permit me to observe
that an American can not understand France —
or at least Paris. — Apropos of Paris, that is a
large speculation of yours, Louvier, in the new
suburb. ”

“ And a very sound one ; I advise you to in-
vest in it. I can secure you at present five per
cent, on the rental; that is nothing; the houses
will be worth double when the ‘ Rue de Louvier’
is completed.”

“Alas! I have no money; my new journal
absorbs all my capital.”

“ Shall I transfer the moneys I hold for you,
signorina ; and add to them whatever you may
have made by your delightful roman^ as yet lying
idle, to this investment? I can not say more in
its favor than this; I have embarked a very
large portion of my capital in the Rue de Lou-

132

THE PARISIANS.

vier, and I flatter myself that I am not one of
tliose men who persuade tlieir friends to do a
foolish thing by setting them the example.”

“ Whatever your advice on such a subject,”
said Isaura, graciously, “it is sure to be as wise
as it is kind.”

“You consent, then?”

“ Certainly.”

Here the Venosta, who had been listening with
great attention to Louvier’s commendation of this
investment, drew him aside, and whispered in his
ear, “ I suppose, M. Louvier, that one can’t put
a little money — a very little money — poco-poco-
pocolino, into your street.”

“ Into my street ! Ah, I understand — into the
speculation of tlie Rue de Louvier — certainly you
can ! Arrangements are made on purpose to suit
the convenience of the smallest capitalists — from
500 francs upward.”

“And you feel quite sure that we shall dou-
ble our money when the street is completed ? I
should not like to have my brains in my heels.” *

“More than double it, I hope — long before
the street is completed. ”

“I have saved a little money — very little. I
have no relations, and I mean to leave it all to
the signorina; and if it could be doubled, why,
there would be twice as much to leave her. ”

“ So there would,” said Louvier. “ Y'ou can’t
do better than put it all into the Rue de liOuvier.
I will send you the necessary papers to-nrorrow,
when I send hers to the signorina.”

Louvier here turned to address himself to Col-
onel Morley, but finding that degenerate son of
America indisposed to get cent per cent, for his
money when ottered by a Parisian, he very soon
took his leave. The other visitors followed his
example, except Rameau, who was left alone
with the Venosta and Isaura. The former had
no liking for Rameau, who showed her none of
the attentions her innocent vanity demanded,
and she soon took herself off to her own room to
calculate the amount of her savings, and dream
of the Rue de Louvier and “golden joys.”

Rameau, approaching his chair to Isaura’s, then
commenced conversation, dryly enough, upon pe-
cuniary matters ; acquitting himself of the mis-
sion w'ith which De Mauleon had charged him,
the request for a new work from her pen for the
Sens Commun^ and the terms that ought to be
asked for compliance. The young lady-author
shrank from this talk. Her private income,
though modest, sufficed for her wants, and she
felt a sensitive shame in the sale of her thoughts
and fancies.

Putting hurriedly aside the mercantile aspect
of the question, she said that she had no other
work in her mind at present — that whatever her
vein of invention might be, it flowed at its own
will and could not be commanded.

“ Nay,” said Rameau, “ this is not true. We
fancy, in our hours of indolence, that we must
wait for inspiration, but once force ourselves to
work, and ideas spring forth at the wave of the
pen. You may believe me here. I speak from
experience — 1, compelled to work, and in modes
not to my taste : I do my task I know not how.
1 rub the lamp, ‘ the genius comes.’ ”

“ I have read in some English author that

• “ Avere il cer cello nella calcagna" — viz., to act with-
out prudent reflection. , . '

motive power is necessary to continued labor:
you have motive power, I have none.”

“ I do not quite understand you.”

“I mean that a strong ruling motive is re-
quired to persist in any regular course of action
that needs effort : the motive with the majority
of men is the need of subsistence ; with a large
number (as in trades or professions), not actu-
ally want, but a desire of gain, and perhaps of
distinction in their calling : the desire of profes-
sional distinction expands into the longings for
more comprehensive ttime, more exalted honors,
with the few who become great writers, soldiers,
statesmen, orators.”

“ And do you mean to say you have no such
motive ?”

“ None in the sting of want, none in the desire
of gain.”

“ But fame ?”

“ Alas ! I thought so once. I kno\v not now
— I begin to doubt if fame should be sought by
women ?” This was said very dejectedly.

“Tut, dearest signorina, what gadfly has
stung you ? Your doubt is a weakness unwor-
thy of your intellect; aiid even were it not,

I genius is destiny, and will be obeyed : you must
write, despite yourself, and your writing must
bring fame, whether you wish it or not.”

Isaura was silent, her head drooped on her
breast — there were tears in her downcast eyes.

Rameau took her hand, which she yielded to
him passively, and clasping it in both his own,
he rushed on impulsively.

“ Oh, I know what these misgivings are when
we feel ourselves solitary, unloved : how often
have they been mine ! But how different would
labor be if shared and sympathized with by a con-
genial mind, by a heart that beats in unison with
one’s own !”

Isaura’s breast heaved beneath her robe; she
sighed softly.

“And then how sweet the fame of which the
one we love is proud — how trifling becopies the
pang of some malignant depreciation, which a
word from the beloved one can soothe ! Oh, sign-
orina, oh, Isaura, are we not made for each oth-
er ? Kindred pursuit.s, hopes, and fears in com-
mon; the same race to run, the same goal to
win ? I need a moti- e stronger than I have yet
known for the persevering energy that insures
success : supply to me that motive. Let me
think that whatever I win in the strife of the
world is a tribute to Isaura. No, do not seek to
withdraw this hand ; let me claim it as mine for
life. I love you as man never loved before — do
not reject my love. ”

They say the woman who hesitates is lost.
Isaura hesitated, but was not yet lost. The
words she listened to moved her deeply. Otters
of marriage she had already received — one from
a rich middle-aged noble, a devoted musical vir-
tuoso ; one from a young avocat fresli from the
provinces, and somewhat calculating on her dot ;
one from a timid but enthusiastic admirer of her
genius and her beauty, himself rich, handsome,
of good birth, but with shy manners and falter-
ing tongue.

But these had made their proposals with the
formal respect habitual to French decorum in
matrimonial proposals. Words so eloquently im-
passioned as Gustave Rameau’s had never before
thrilled her ears. Yes, she was deeply moved;

133

THE PARISIANS.

and yet, by that very emotion, she knew that it I
was not to the love of this wooer that her heart
responded.

There is a circumstance in the history of court-
ship familiar to the experience of many women,
that while the suitor is pleading his cause, his
language may touch every fibre in the heart of
his listener, yet substitute, as it were, another
presence for his own. She may he saying to her-
self, “Oh that another had said those words!”
and be dreaming of the other, while she hears
the one.

Thus it was now with Isaura, and not till Ra-
meau’s voice had ceased did that dream pass
away, and with a slight shiver she turned her face
toward the wooer, sadly and pityingly.

“It can not be,” she said, in a low whisper;

“ I were not worthy of your love could I accept
it. Forget that you have so spoken ; let me still
be a friend admiring your genius, interested in
your career. I can not be more. Forgive me
if I unconsciously led you to think I could, I am
so grieved to pain you.”

“Am I to understand,” said Rameau, coldly,
for his amour propre was resentful, “ that the
proposals of another have been more fortunate
than mine?” Aiid he named the youngest and
comeliest of those whom she had rejected.

“ Certainly not,” said Isaura.

Rameau rose and went to the window, turning
his face from her. In reality, he was striving to
collect his thoughts and decide on the course it
were most prudent for him now to pursue. The
fumes of the absinthe which had, despite his pre-
vious forebodings, emboldened him to hazard his
avowal, had now subsided into the languid re-
action which is generally consecpient on that
treacherous stimulus, a reaction not unfavorable
to passionless reflection. He knew that if he
said he could not conquer his love, he would
still cling to hope, and trust to perseverance
and time, he should compel Isaura to forbid his
visits, and break off their familiar intercourse.
This would be fatal to the chance of yet winning
her, and would also be of serious disadvantage
to his more worldly interests. Her literary aid
might become essential to the journal on which
his fortunes depended, and, at all events, in her
conversation, in her encouragement, in her sym-
pathy with the pains and joys of his career, lie
felt a support, a comfort, nay, an inspiration.
For the spontaneous gush of her fresh thoughts
and fancies served to recruit his own jaded ideas,
and enlarge his own stinted range of invention.
No, he could not commit himself to the risk of
banishment from Isaura.

And mingled with meaner motives for discre-
tion, there was one of which he was but vaguely
conscious, purer and nobler. In the society of
this girl, in whom whatever was strong and high
in mental organization became so sweetened into
feminine grace by gentleness of temper and kind-
liness of disposition, Rameau felt himself a bet-
ter man. The virgin-like dignity with which
she moved, so untainted by a breath of scandal,
amidst salons in which the envy of virtues doubt-
ed sought to bring innocence itself into doubt,
warmed into a genuine reverence the cynicism
of his professed creed.

While with her, while under her chastening in-
fluence, he was sensible of a poetry infused with-
in him far more true to the (kimcenic than all he

I had elaborated into verse. In these moments he
was ashamed of the vices he had courted as dis-
tractions. He imagined that, with her all his
own, it would be easy to reform.

No ; to withdraw wholly from Isaura was to
renounce his sole chance of redemption.

While these thoughts, which it takes so long
to detail, passed rapidly through his brain, he
felt a soft touch on his arm, and turning his
face slowly, encountered the tender, compassion-
ate eyes of Isaura.

“Be consoled, dear friend,” she said, with a
smile, half cheering, half mournful. “ Perhaps
for all true artists the solitary lot is the best.”

“I will try to think so,” answered Rameau;
“ and meanwhile I thank you with a full heart
for the sweetness with which you have checked
my presumption — the presumption shall not he
rejieated. Gratefully I accept the friendship you
deign to tender me. You bid me forget the
words I uttered. Promise in turn that you will
forget them — or at least consider them withdrawn.
You will receive me still as friend?”

• “As friend, surely; yes. Do we not both
need friends ?” She held out her hand as she
spoke ; he bent over it, kissed it with respect,
and the interview thus closed.

CHAPTER V.

It was late in the evening of that day when a
man who had the appearance of a decent bour-
geois, in the lower grades of that comprehensive
class, entered one of the streets in the Faubourg
Montmartre, tenanted chiefly by artisans. He
paused at the open doorway of a tall narrow
house, and drew back as he heard footsteps de-
scending a very gloomy staircase.

The light from a gas-lamp on the street fell full
on the face of the person thus quitting the house
— the face of a young and handsome man, dressed
with the quiet elegance which betokened one of
higher rank or fashion than that neighborhood
was habituated to find among its visitors. The
first comer retreated promptly into the shade,
and, as by sudden impulse, drew his hat low
down over his eyes.

The other man did not, however, observe him,
went his way with quick step along the street, and
entered another house some yards distant.

“What can that pious Bourbonite do here?’
muttered the first comer. “Can he be a con-
spirator? Diable! ’tis as dark as Erebus ot.
that staircase.”

Taking cautious hold of the baluster, the man
now ascended the stairs.' On the landing of the
first floor there was a gas-lamp which threw up-
ward a faint ray that finally died at the third
story. But at that third story the man’s journey
ended ; he pulled a bell at the door to the right,
and in another moment or so the door was open-
ed by a young woman of twenty-eight or thirty
dressed very simply, but with a certain neatness
not often seen in the wives of artisans iti the
Faubourg Montmartre. Her face, wliich, though
pale and delicate, retained much of the beauty of
vouth, became clouded as she recognized the vis-
itor ; evidently the visit was not welcome to her.

“Monsieur Lebeau again!” she exclaimed,
shrinking back.

134

THE PARISIANS.

“ At your semce, chere dame. The goodman
is of course at home ? Ah, I catch sight of him
and sliding by the woman, M. Lebeau passed the
narrow lobby in which she stood, through the
open door conducting into the room in which
Armand Monnier was seated, his chin propped
on his hand, his elbow resting on a table, looking
abstractedly into space. In a comer of the room
two small children were playing languidly with
a set of bone tablets inscribed with the letters of
the alphabet. But whatever the children were
doing with the alphabet, they were certainly not
learning to read from it.

The room was of fair size and height, and by
no means barely or shabbily furnished. There
was a pretty clock on the mantel-piece. On the
wall were hung designs for the decoration of
apartments, and shelves on which were ranged a
few books.

The window was open, and on the sill were
placed flower-pots ; you could scent the odor
they wafted into the room.

Altogether it was an apartment suited to a
skilled artisan earning high wages. From the»
room we are now in branched on one side a
small but commodious kitchen ; on the other side,
on which the door was screened by a portiere,
with a border prettily worked by female hands —
some years ago, for it was faded now — was a
bedroom, communicating with one of less size
in which the children slept. We do not enter
those additional rooms, but it may be well here
to mention them as indications of the comforta-
ble state of an intelligent, skilled artisan of Paris,
who thinks he can better that state by some rev-
olution which may ruin his employer.

Monnier started up at the entrance of Lebeau,
and his face showed that he did not share the
dislike to the visit which that of the female part-
ner of his life had evinced. On the contrary,
his smile was cordial, and there was a hearty
ring in the voice which cried out,

“ I am glad to see you. Something to do, eh ?”

“Always ready to work for liberty, mon brave. ”

“ I hope so. What’s in the wind now ?”

“ Oh, Armand, be prudent — be prudent,” cried
the woman, piteously. “ Do not lead him into
further mischief. Monsieur Lebeau.” As she fal-
tered forth the last words, she bowed her head
over the two little ones, and her voice died in sobs.

“Monnier,” said Lebeau, gravely, “ madame
is right. I ought not to lead you into further
mischief. There are three in the room who have
better claims on you than — ”

‘ ‘ The cause of the millions,” interrupted Mon-
nier.

“No.”

lie approached the woman, and took up one
of the children very tenderly, stroking back its
curls and kissing the face, which, if before sur-
]>rised and saddened by the mother’s sob, now
smiled gayly under the father’s kiss.

“Canst thou doubt, my Ileloise,” said the ar-
tisan, mildly, “ that, whatever I do, thou and
these are not uppermost in my thoughts ? I act
for thine interest and theirs — the world as it ex-
ists is the foe of you three. The world I would
replace it by will be more friendly.”

The poor woman made no reply, but as he
drew her toward him, she leaned her head upon
his breast and wept quietly. Monnier led her
thus from the room, whispering words of sooth-

ing. The childien followed the parents into the
adjoining chamber. In a few minutes Monnier
returned, shutting the door behind him and draw-
ing the portiere close.

“You will excuse me, citizen, and my poor
wife — wife she is to me and to all who visit here,
though the law says she is not.”

“I respect madame the more for her dislike
to myself,” said Lebeau, with a somewhat mel-
ancholy smile.

“ Not dislike to you personally, citizen, but
dislike to the business which she connects with
your visits, and she is more than usually agitated
on that subject this evening, because, just before
you came, another visitor had produced a great
effect on her feelings — poor dear Ileloise. ”

“Indeed! How?”

“Well, I was employed in the winter in re-
decorating the salon and boudoir of Madame de
Vandemar ; her son, M. Raoul, took great in-
terest in superintending the details. He would
sometimes talk to me very civilly, not only on my
work, but on other matters. It seems that ma-
dame now wants something done to the salle-a-
manger, and asked old Gerard — my late master,
you know — to send me. Of course he said that
was impossible — for, though I was satisfied with
my own wages, I had induced his other men to
strike, and was one of the ringleaders in the re-
cent strike of artisans in general, a dangerous
man, and he would have nothing more to do with
me. So M. Raoul came to see and talk with me
— scarce gone before you rang at the bell — you
might have almost met him on the stairs.”

“ I saw a beau monsieur come out of the house.
And so his talk has affected madame.”

“ Very much ; it was quite brother-like. He
is one of the religious set, and they always get
at the weak side of the soft sex.”

“ Ay,” said Lebeau, thoughtfully, “ if religion
were banished from the laws of men, it would
still find a refuge in the hearts of women. But
Raoul de Vandemar did not presume to preach
to madame upon the sin of loving you and your
children ?”

“I should like to have heard him preach to
her,” cried Monnier, fiercely. “No; he only
tried to reason with me about matters he could
not understand.”

“ Strikes ?”

“Well, not exactly strikes — ^he did not con-
tend that we workmen had not full right to com-
bine and to strike for obtaining fairer money’s
worth for our work ; but he tried to persuade
me that where, as in my case, it was not a mat-
ter of wages, but of political principle — of war
against capitalists — I could but injure myself and
mislead others. He wanted to reconcile me to
old Gerard, or to let him find me employment
elsewhere ; and when I told him that my honor
forbade me to make terms for myself till those
with whom I was joined were satisfied, he said,

‘ But if this lasts much longer, your children
will not look so rosy ;’ then poor Heloise began
to wring her hands and cry, and he took me
aside and wanted to press mqney on me as a
loan. He spoke so kindly that I could not be
angry ; but when he found I would take noth-
ing, he asked me about some families in the
street of whom he had a list, and who, he was
informed, were in great distress. That is true;
I am feeding some of them myself out of my sav-

!1'

THE POOE WO.VAN MADE NO EKPLV, BTTT A6 HE DREW HER TOWARD HIM, SUE LEANED HER

HEAD Ul’ON HIS BREAST, AND WEPT QUIETLY.

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135

THE PARISIANS.

ings. You see, this young monsieur belongs to
a society of men, many as young as he is, which
visits the poor and dispenses charity. I did not
feel I had a right to refuse aid for others, and I
told him where his money would be best spent.
I suppose he went there when he left me.”

“I know the society you mean, that of St.
Fran9ois de Sales. It comprises some of the
most ancient of that old noblesse to which the
ouvriers in the great Revolution were so remorse-
less.”

“We ouvriers are wiser now ; we see that in
assailing them, we gave ourselves worse tyrants
in the new aristocracy of the capitalists. Our
quarrel now is that of artisans against employers. ”

“ Of course I am aware of that. But to leave
general politics, tell me frankly. How has the
strike affected you as yet ? — I mean in purse.
Can you stand its pressure? If not, you are
above the false pride of not taking help from me,
a fellow-conspirator, though you were justified
in refusing it when offered by Raoul de Vande-
mar, the servant of the Church.”

“Pardon, I refuse aid from any one, except
for the common cause. But do not fear for me ;
I am not pinched as yet. I have had high wages
for some years, and since I and Heloise came to-
gether I have not wasted a sou out-of-doors, ex-
cept in the way of public duty, such as making
converts at the Jean Jacques and elsewhere : a
glass of beer and a pipe don’t cost much. And
Heloise is such a housewife, so thrifty, scolds me
if I buy her a ribbon, poor love ! No wonder that
I would pull down a society that dares to scoff
at her — dares to say she is not my wife, and her
children are base-born. No, I have some savings
left yet. War to society, war to the knife !”

“Monnier,” said Lebeau, in a voice that
evinced emotion, “ listen to me : I have received
injuries from society which, when they were fresh,
half maddened me — that is twenty years ago. I
would then have thrown myself into any plot
against society that proffered revenge; but so-
ciety, my friend, is a wall of very strong masonry,
as it now stands ; it may be sapped in the course
of a thousand years, but stormed in a day — no.
You dash your head against it — you scatter your
brains, and you dislodge a stone. Society smiles
in scorn, effaces the stain, and replaces the stone.
I no longer war against society. I do war against
a system in that society which is hostile to me —
systems in France are easily overthrown. I say
this because I want to use you, and I do not
want to deceive#”

“ Deceive me, bah ! You are an honest man,”
cried Monnier; and he seized Lebeau’s hand,
and shook it with warmth and vigor. “ But for
you I should have been a mere grumbler. No
doubt I should have cried out where the shoe
pinched, and railed against law's that vex me ;
but from the moment you first talked to me I
became a new' man. You taught me to act.
as Rousseau and Madame de Grantmesnil had
taught me to think and to feel. There is my
brother, a grumbler too, but professes to have a
wiser head than mine. He is always warning
me against you, against joining a strike, against
doing any thing to endanger my skin. I always
went by his advice till you taught me that it is
well enough for women to talk and complain ;
men should dare and do.”

“Nevertheless,” said Lebeau, “your brother

is a safer counselor to a pere de famille than I.
I repeat what I have so often said before: I de-
sire, and I resolve, that the empire of M. Bona-
parte shall be overthrown. I see many concur-
rent circumstances to render that desire and re-
solve of practicable fulfillment. You desire and
resolve the same thing. Up to that point we can
work together. I have encouraged your action
only so far as it served my design ; but I separate
from you the moment you would ask me to aid
your design in the hazard of experiments which
the world has never yet favored, and, trust me,
Monnier, the world never will favor.”

“That remains to be seen,” said Monnier,
with compressed, obstinate lips. “Forgive me,
but you are not young; you belong to an old
school.”

“ Poor young man !” said Lebeau, readjusting
his spectacles, “I recognize in you the genius
of Paris, be the genius good or evil. Paris is
never w'arned by experience. Be it so. I w'ant
you so much, your enthusiasm is so fiery, that I
can concede no more to the mere sentiment
which makes me say to myself, ‘ It is a shame
to use this great-hearted, wrong-headed creatui'e
for my personal ends.’ I come at once to the
point — that is, the matter on which I seek you
this evening. At my suggestion, you have been
a ringleader in strikes which have terribly shak-
en the imperial system, more than its ministers
deem. Now I want a man like you to assist in
a bold demonstration against the imperial resort
to a rural priest-ridden suffrage, on the part of
the enlightened working class of Paris.”

“Good!” said Monnier.

“In a day or two the result of the Plebiscite
will be know'n. The result of universal suffrage
will be enormously in favor of the desire ex-
pressed by one man.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Monnier, stoutly.

‘ ‘ France can not be so hoodw inked by the priests. ”

“Take what I say for granted,” resumed Le-
beau, calmly. “ On the 8th of this month we
shall know the amount of the majority — some
millions of French votes. I w'ant Paris to sep-
arate itself from France, and declare against those
blundering millions. I w ant an emeute, or rather
a menacing demonstration — not a premature rev-
olution, mind. You must avoid bloodshed.”

“ It is easy to say that beforehand ; but when
a crowd of men once meets in the streets of
Paris—”

“It can do much by meeting, and cherishing
resentment if the meeting be dispersed by an
armed force, which it would be waste of life to
resist. ”

“We shall see when the time comes,” said
Monnier, with a fierce gleam in his bold eyes.

“I tell you, all that is required at this moment
is an evident protest of the artisans of Paris
against the votes of the ‘ rurals’ of France. Do
you comprehend me ?”

“I think so; if not, I obey. What we ou-
vriers want is w'hat w'e have not got — a head to
dictate action to us.”

“See to this, then. Rouse the men you can
command. I will take care that you have plen-
tiful aid from foreigners. We may trust to the
confreres of our council to enlist Poles and Ital-
ians ; Gaspard Le Noy will turn out the volun-
teer rioters at his command. Let the 4meuie be
within, say, a week after the vote of the Plebis-

136 THE PARISIANS.

cite is taken. You will need that time to pre-
pare. ”

“Be contented — it shall be done.”

“Good-night, then.” Lebeau leisurely took
up his hat and drew on his gloves ; then, as if
struck by a sudden thought, he turned briskly on
the artisan and said, in quick, blunt tones,

“Armand Monnier, explain to me why it is
that you, a Parisian artisan, the type of a class
the most insubordinate, the most self-conceited,
that exists on the face of earth, take without
question, with so docile a submission, the orders
of a man who plainly tells you he does not sym-
pathize in your ultimate objects, of whom you
really know very little, and whose views you can-
didly own you think are those of an old and ob-
solete school of political reasoners. ”

“ You puzzle me to explain,” said Monnier,
with an ingenuous laugh, that brightened up feat-
ures stern and hard, though comely when in re-
pose. “Partly because you ave so straightfor-
ward, and do not talk blague ; partly because I
don’t think the class I belong to would stir an
inch unless we had a leader of another class —
and you give vie at least that leader. Again, you
go to that first stage which we all agree to take,
and — Well, do you want me to explain more ?”

“Yes.”

“ Eh bien ! you have warned me, like an hon-
est man ; like an honest man, I warn you. That
first step we take together. I want to go a step
further. You retreat; you say, ‘No.’ 1 reply,
you are committed ; that further step you must
take, or I cry, *‘Traitre! — a la lanterned You
talk of ‘superior experience:’ bah! what does
experience really tell you ? Do you suppose that
Louis Egalite, when he began to plot against
Louis XVIII., meant to vote for his kinsman’s
execution by the guillotine? Do you suppose
that Robespierre, when he commenced his ca-
reer as the foe of capital punishment, foresaw
that he should be the Minister of the Reign of
Terror ? Not a bit of it. Each was committed
by his use of those he designed for his tools. So
must you be — or you perish.”

Lebeau, leaning against the door, heard the
frank avowal he had courted without betraying
a change of countenance. But when Armand
Monnier had done, a slight movement of his lips
showed emotion. Was it of fear or disdain ?

“ Monnier,” he said, gently, “ I am so much
obliged to you. for the manly speech you have
made. The scruples which my conscience had
before entertained are dispelled. I dreaded lest
I, a declared wolf, might seduce into peril an in-
nocent sheep. I see I have to deal with a wolf
of younger vigor and sharper fangs than myself ;
so much the better; obey my orders now; leave
it to time to say whether I obey yours later.
Au revoir."

CHAPTER VI.

Isaura’s apartment, on the following Thurs-
day evening, was more filled than usual. Be-
sides her habitual devotees in the artistic or lit-
erary world, there were diplomatists and depu-
ties commixed with many fair chiefs of la jeu-
nesse doree ; among the latter the brilliant En-
guerrand de Vandemar, who, deeming the ac-
quaintance of every celebrity essential to his own

celebrity, in either Carthage, the beau monde^
or the demi-monde^ had, two Thursdays before,
made Louvier attend her soiree and present him.
Louvier, though gathering to his own salons au-
thors and artists, very rarely favored their rooms
with his presence; he did not adorn Isaura’s
party that evening. But Duplessis was there, in
compensation. It had chanced that Valerie had
met Isaura at some house in the past w'inter, and
conceived an enthusiastic affection for her : since
then Valerie came very often to see her, and
made a point of dragging with her to Isaura’s
Thursday reunions her obedient father. Soirees,
musical or literary, were not much in his line ;
but he had no pleasure like that of pleasing his
spoiled child. Our old friend Frederic Lemercier
was also one of Isaura’s guests that night. He
had become more and more intimate with Du-
plessis, and Duplessis had introduced him to the
fair Valerie as “ unjeune homme plein de moyens,
qui ira loin.''

Savarin was there of course, and brought with
him an English gentleman of the name of Bevil,
as well known at Paris as in London — invited
every where — popular eveiy where — one of those
welcome contributors to the luxuries of civilized
society who trade in gossip, sparing no pains to
get the pick of it, and exchanging it liberally
sometimes for a haunch of venison, sometimes
for a cup of tea. His gossip not being adulter-
ated with malice was in high repute for genuine
worth.

If Bevil said, “This storyisafact,”younomore
thought of doubting him than you would doubt
Rothschild if he said, “This is Lafitte of ’48.”

Mr. Bevil was at present on a very short stay
at Paris, and, naturally wishing to make the
most of his time, he did not tarry beside Sava-
rin, but, after being introduced to Isaura, flitted
here and there through the assembly.

“Apis Matinee-
More modoque —

Grata carpentis thyma.”

The bee proffers honey, but bears a sting.

The room was at its fullest when Gustave
Rameau entered, accompanied by Monsieur de
Mauleon.

Isaura was agreeably surprised by the impres-
sion made on her by the Vicomte’s appearance
and manner. His writings, and such as she had
heard of his earlier repute, had prepared her to
see a man decidedly old, of withered aspect, and
sardonic smile — aggressive in demeanor — for-
ward or contemptuous in his v^y politeness — a
Mephistopheles ingrafted on the stem of a Don
Juan. She was startled by the sight of one who,
despite his forty-eight years — and at Paris a man
is generally older at forty-eight than he is else-
where— seemed in the zenith of ripened man-
hood— startled yet more by the singular modesty
of a deportment too thoroughly high-bred not to
be quietly simple — startled most by a melancholy
expression in eyes tha*t could be at times soft,
though always so keen, and in the grave pathet-
ic smile which seemed to disarm censure of past
faults in saying, “I have known sorrows.”

He did not follow up his introduction to his
young hostess by any of the insipid phrases of
compliment to which she was accustomed, but,
after expressing in grateful terms his thanks for
the honor she had permitted Rameau to confer
on him, he moved aside, as if he had no right to

THE PARISIANS.

137

detain her from other guests more worthy her
■notice, toward the doorway, taking his place by
Enguerrand amidst a group of men of whom
Duplessis was the central figure.

At that time — the first week in May, 1870 —
all who were then in Paris will remember there
were two subjects uppermost in the mouths of
men : first, the Plebiscite ; secondly, the con-
spiracy to murder the Emperor— which the dis-
atfected considered to be a mere fable, a pretense
got up in time to serve the Plebiscite and prop
the empire.

Upon this latter subject Duplessis had been
expressing himself with unwonted animation. A
loyal and earnest Imperialist, it was only with
effort that he could repress his scorn of that
meanest sort of gossip which is fond of ascribing
petty motives to eminent men.

To him nothing could be more clearly evident
than the reality of this conspiracy, and he had
no tolerance for the malignant absurdity of main-
taining that the Emperor or his ministers could
be silly and wicked enough to accuse seventy-
two persons of a crime which the police had been
instructed to invent.

As De Mauleon approached, the financier
brought his speech to an abrupt close. He knew
in the Vicomte de Mauleon the writer of articles
which had endangered the government, and aim-
ed no pointless shafts against its imperial head.

“My cousin,” said Enguerrand, gayly, as he
exchanged a cordial shake of the hand with Vic-
tor, “ I congratulate you on the fame of journal-
ist, into which you have vaulted, armed cap-a-
pie, like a knight of old into his saddle ; but I
don’t sympathize with the means you have taken
to arrive at that renown. I am not myself an
Imperialist — a Vandemar can be scarcely that.
But if I am compelled to be on board a ship, I
don’t wish to take out its planks and let in an
ocean, when all offered to me instead is a crazy
tub and a rotten rope.”

“ Ties bien,” said Duplessis, in parliamentary
tone and phrase.

“But,” said De Mauleon, with his calm smile,
“ would you like the captain of the ship, when
the sky darkened and the sea rose, to ask the
common sailors ‘ whether they approved his con-
duct on altering his course or shortening his sail ?’
Better trust to a crazy tub and a rotten rope
than to a ship in which the captain consults a
Plebiscite.”

“ Monsieur,” said Duplessis, “ your metaphor
is ill chosen — no metaphor, indeed, is needed.
The head of the state was chosen by the voice
of the people, and, when required to change the
form of administration which the people had
sanctioned, and inclined to do so from motives
the most patriotic and liberal, he is bound again
to consult the people from whom he holds his
power. It is not, however, of the Plebiscite we
were conversing so much as of the atrocious con-
spiracy of assassins — so happily discovered in
time. I presume that Monsieur de Mauleon must
share the indignation which true Frenchmen of
every party must feel against a combination unit-
ed by the purpose of murder.”

The Vicomte bowed, as in assent.

“ But do you believe,” asked a Liberal Depute,
“ that such a combination existed, except in the
visions of the police or the cabinet of a min-
ister?”

Duplessis looked keenly at De iMauldon while
this question was put to him. Belief or disbe-
lief in the conspiracy was with him, and with
many, the test by which a sanguinary revolution-
ist was distinguished from an honest politician.

“Ma foi,” answered De Mauleon, shrugging
his shoulders, “ I have only one belief left ; but
that is boundless. I believe in the folly of man-
kind in general, and of Frenchmen in particular.
That seventy-two men should plot the assassina-
tion of a sovereign on whose life interests so
numerous and so watchful depend, and imagine
they could keep a secret which any drunkard
among them would blab out, any tatterdemal-
ion would sell, is a hetise so gross that I think
it highly probable. But pardon me if I look
upon the politics of Paris much as I do upon its
mud — one must pass through it when one walks
in the street. One changes one’s shoes before
entering the salon. — A word with you, Enguer-
rand;” and taking his kinsman’s arm, he drew
him aside from the circle. “ What has become
of your brother? I see nothing of him now.”

“Oh, Raoul,” answered Enguerrand, throwing
himself on a couch in a recess, and making room
for De Mauleon beside him. “ Raoul is devoting
himself to the distressed ouvriers who have chosen
to withdraw from work. When he fails to pei-
suade them to return, he forces food and fuel on
their wives and children. My good mother en-
courages him in this costly undertaking, and no
one but you who believe in the infinity of human
folly would credit me when I tell you that his el-
oquence has drawn from me all the argent de
poche I get from our shop. As for himself, he
has sold his horses, and even grudges a cab fare,
saying, ^J'hat is a meal for a family.’ Ah! if
he had but gone into the Church, what a saint
would have deserved canonization !”

“ Do not lament ; he will probably have what
is a better claim than mere saintship on Heaven
— martyrdom,” said De Mauleon, with a ‘smile
in which sarcasm disappeared in melancholy.
‘ ‘ Poor Raoul ! And what of my other cousin, the
beau Marquis ? Several months ago his Legiti-
mist faith seemed vacillating — he talked to me
very fairly about the duties a Frenchman owed
to France, and hinted that he should place his
sword at tlie command of Napoleon III. I have
not yet heard of him as a soldat de France — I
hear a great deal of him as a viveur de Paris."

“ Don’t you know why his desire for a mili-
tarv career was frost-bitten ?”

“No! Why?”

“ Alain came from Bretagne profoundly, igno-
rant of most things known to a gamin of Paris.
When he conscientiously overcame the scruples
natural to one of his name, and told the Duchess
de Tarascon that he was ready to fight under the
flag of France, whatever its color, he had a vague
reminiscence of ancestral Rochebriants earning
early laurels at the head of their regiments. At
all events, he assumed as a matter of course that
he, in the first rank as gentilhomme, would enter
the army, if as a sous-Ueutenant, still as gentil-
homme. But when told that, as he had been
at no Military College, he could only enter the
ranks as a private soldier — herd with private
soldiers — for at least two years before, passing
through the grade of corporal, his birth, educa-
tion, habits of life, could, with great favor, raise
him to the station of a sous-Ueutenant, you may

138

THE PARISIANS.

conceive that the martial ardor of a Rochebriant
was somewhat cooled.”

“If he knew what the dormitory of French
privates is, and how difficult a man well-edu-
cated, well brought up, finds it, first, to endure
the coarsest ribaldry and the loudest blasphemy,
and then, having endured and been compelled to
share them, ever enforce obedience and disci-
pline as a superior among those with whom just
before he was an equal, his ardor would not have
been merely cooled — it would have been changed
into despair for the armies of France, if here-
after they are met by those whose officers have
been trained to be officers from the outset, and
have imbibed from their cradle an education not
taught to the boy pedants from school — the two-
fold education how with courtesy to command,
how with dignity to obey. To return to Roche-
briant, such salons as 1 frequent are somewhat
formal — as befits ray grave years and my modest
income ; 1 may add, now that you know my vo-
cation, befits me also as a man who seeks rath-
er to be instructed than amused. In those sa-
lons, I did, last year, sometimes, however, meet
Rochebriant — as I sometimes still meet you ;
but of late he has deserted such sober reunions,
and I hear with pain that he is drifting among
those rocks against which my own youth was
shipwrecked. Is the report true ?”

“ I fear,” said Enguerrand, reluctantly, “ that
at least the report is not unfounded. And my
conscience accuses me of having been to blame
in the first instance. You see, when Alain made
terms with Louvier by which he obtained a very
fair income, if prudently managed, I naturally
wished that a man of so many claims to social
distinction, and who represents the oldest branch
of my family, should take his right place in our
world of Paris. I gladly, therefore, presented
him to the houses and the men most a la mode
— advised him as to the sort of establishment, in
apartments, horses, etc., which it appeared to
me that he might reasonably afford — I mean
such as, with his means, I should have prescribed
to myself — ”

“Ah! I understand. But you, dear Enguer-
rand, are a born Parisian, every inch of you ;
and a born Parisian is, whatever be thought to
the contrary, the best manager in the world. He
alone achieves the difficult art of uniting thrift
with show. It is your provincial who comes to
Paris, in the freshness of undimmed youth, who
sows his whole life on its barren streets. I guess
the rest : Alain is ruined. ”

Enguerrand, who certainly was so far a born
Parisian that, with all his shrewdness and savoir
faire, he had a wonderfully sympathetic heart,
very easily moved, one way or the other — En-
guerrand winced at his elder kinsman’s words,
complimentarily reproachful, and said, in un-
wonted tones of humility, “ Cousin, you are cru-
el, but you are in the right. I did not calculate
sufficiently on the chances of Alain’s head be-
ing turned. Hear my excuse. He seemed to me
so much more thoughtful than most at our age
are, so much more stately and proud — well, also
so much more pure, so impressed with the re-
sponsibilities of station, so bent on retaining the
old lands in Bretagne — by habit and rearing so
simple and self-denying-^.liha^.,I took it for
granted he was proof agftiusf stronger tempta-
tions than those which a''|j^ht na^ire like my

own puts aside with a laugh. And at first I had
no reason to think myself deceived, when, some
months ago, I heard that he was getting into
debt, losing at play, paying court to female vam-
pires, who drain the life-blood of those on whom
they fasten their fatal lips. Oh, then I spoke to
him earnestly !”

“And in vain?”

“ In vain. A certain Chevalier de Finisterre,
whom you may have heard of — ”

“ Certainly, and met ; a friend of Louvier’s — ”

“The same man — has obtained over him an
influence which so far subdues mine that he al-'
most challenged me when I told him his friend
was a scamp. In fine, though Alain and I have
not actually quarreled, we pass each other with,

‘ Bonjour, mon ami.' "

“ Hum ! My dear Enguerrand, you have done
all you could. Flies will be flies, and spiders
spiders, till the earth is destroyed by a comet.
Nay, I met a distinguished naturalist in America
who maintained that we shall find flies and spi-
ders in the next world.”

“You have been in America? Ah, true, I re-
member, California!”

“Where have I not been? Tush! music —
shall I hear our fair hostess sing ?”

“I am afraid not to night, because Madame

S is to favor us, and the signorina makes

it a rule not to sing at her own house when pro-
fessional artists do. You must hear the Cicogna
quietly some day ; such a voice — nothing like it.”

Madame S , who, since she had learned

that there was no cause to apprehend that Isaura
might become her professional rival, conceived
for her a wonderful affection, and willingly con-
tributed her magnificent gifts of song to the
charms of Isaura’s salon, now began a fragment
from I Puritani, which held the audience as si-
lent as the ghosts listening to Sappho ; and when
it was over, several of the guests slipped away,
especially those who disliked music, and feared
Madame S might begin again. Enguer-

rand was not one of such soulless recreants, but
he had many other places to go to. Besides,
Madame S was no novelty to him.

De Mauleon now approached Isaura, who was
seated next to Valerie, and after well-merited

eulogium on Madame S ’s performance, slid

into some critical comparisons between that sing-
er and those of a former generation, which in-
terested Isaura, and evinced to her quick per-
ceptions that kind of love for music which has
been refined by more knowledge of the art than
is common to mere amateurs.

“You have studied music. Monsieur de Mau-
leon,” she said. “ Do you not perform yourself?”

“ I — no. But music has always had a fatal at-
traction for me. I ascribe half the errors of my
life to that temperament which makes me too fas-
cinated by harmonies — too revolted by discords.”

“I should have thought such a temperament
would have led from errors — are not errors dis-
cords ?”

“To the inner sense, yes; but to the outer
sense not always. Virtues are often harsh to
the ear — errors very sweet-voiced. The sirens
did not sing out of tune. Better to stop one’s ears
than glide on Scylla or be merged intoCharybdis.”

“ Monsieur,” cried Valerie, with a pretty hrus-
querie which became her well, “you talk like a
Vandal.” '

THE PARISIANS.

“It is, I think, by Mademoiselle Duplessis that
I have the honor to be rebuked. Is monsieur
your father very susceptible to music ?”

“Well, I can not say that he cares much for
it. But then his mind is so practical — ”

“And his life so successful. No Scvlla, no
Charybdis for him. However, mademoiselle, I
am not quite the Vandal you suppose. I do not
say that susceptibility to the intluence of music
may not be safe, nay, healthful, to others — it
was not so to me in my youth. It can do me
no harm now.”

Here Duplessis came up, and whispered his
daughter “it was time to leave ; they had prom-
ised the Duchesse de Tarascon to assist at the
soiree she gave that night.” Valerie took her
father’s arm with a brightening smile and a
heightened color. Alain de Rochebriant might
probably be at the Duchesse’s.

“ Are you not going also to the Hotel de Ta-
rascon, M. de Mauleon ?” asked Duplessis.

“ No ; I was never there but once. The Du-
chesse is an Imperialist, at once devoted and
acute, and no doubt very soon divined my lack
of faith in her idols.”

Duplessis frowned, and hastily led Valerie
away.

In a few minutes the room was comparatively
deserted. De Mauleon, however, lingered by the
side of Isaura till all the other guests were gone.
Even then he lingered still, and renewed the in-
terrupted conversation with her, the Venosta
joining therein ; and so agreeable did he make
himself to her Italian tastes by a sort of bitter-
sweet wisdom like that of her native proverbs
— comprising much knowledge of mankind on
the unflattering side of humanity in that form
of pleasantry which has a latent sentiment of
pathos — that the Venosta exclaimed,

“Surely you must have been brought up in
Florence ! ”

There was that in De Mauleon’s talk hostile
to all which we call romance that excited the im-
agination of Isaura, and compelled her instinct-
ive love for whatever is more sweet, more beau-
tiful, more ennobling on the many sides of human
life, to oppose what she deemed the paradoxes
of a man who had taught himself to belie even
his own nature. She became eloquent, and her
countenance, which in ordinary moments owed
much of its beauty to an expression of medita-
tive gentleness, was now lighted up by the en-
ergy of earnest conviction — the enthusiasm of an
impassioned zeal.

Gradually De Mauleon relaxed his share in
the dialogue, and listened to her, rapt and dream-
ingly, as in his fiery youth he had listened to the
songs of the sirens. No siren Isaura ! She was
defending her own cause, though unconsciously
— defending the vocation of art as the embellish-
er of external nature, and more than embellish-
er of the nature which dwells, crude but plastic,
in the soul of man ; indeed, therein the creator
of a new nature, strengthened, expanded, and
brightened in proportion as it accumulates the
ideas that tend beyond the boundaries of the vis-
ible and material nature, which is finite, for-
ever seeking in the unseen and the spiritual the
goals in the infinite which it is their instinct to
divine. “ That which you contemptuously call
romance,” said Isaura, “is not essential only to
poets and artists. The most real side of every

life, from the earliest dawn of mind in the in-
fant, is the romantic. When the child is weav-
ing flower chains, chasing butterflies, or sitting
apart and dreaming what it will do in the future,
is not that the child’s real life, and yet is it not
also the romantic ?”

‘ But there comes a time when we weave no
flower chains, and chase no butterflies.”

Is it so ? Still on one side of life flowers
and butterflies may be found to the last ; and at
least to the last are there no dreams of the fu-
ture? Have you no such dreams at this moment?
And without the romance of such dreams, would
there be any reality to human life which could
distinguish it from the life of the weed that rots
on Lethe?”

“ Alas, mademoiselle,” said De Mauleon, ris-
ing to take leave, “your argument must rest
without answer ; I would not, if 1 could, confute
the beautiful belief that belongs to youth, fusing
into one rainbow all the tints that can color the
world. But the Signora Venosta will acknowl-
edge the truth of an old saying, expressed in ev-
ery civilized language, but best, perhaps, in that
of tlie Florentine — ‘You might as well physic
the dead as instruct the old, ’ ”

“ But you are not old,” said the Venosta, with
Florentine politeness — “you ! not a gray hair.”

“’Tis not by the gray of the hair that one
knows the age of the heart,” answered De Mau-
leon, in another paraphrase of Italian proverb,
and he was gone.

As he walked homeward, through deserted
streets, Victor de Mauleon thought to himself,
“Poor girl, how I pity her ! Married to a Gus-
tave Rameau — married to any man — nothing in
the nature of man, be he the best and the clev-
erest, can ever realize the dream of a girl who is
pure and has genius. Ah, is not the converse
true? What girl, the best and the cleverest,
comes up to the ideal of even a commonplace
man — if he ever dreamed of an ideal!” Then
he paused, and in a moment or so afterward
his thought knew such questionings no more.
It turned upon personalities, on stratagems and
plots, on ambition. The man had more than
his share of that peculiar susceptibility which is
one of the characteristics of his countrymen —
susceptibility to immediate impulse — susceptibil-
ity to fleeting impressions. It was a key to
many mysteries in his character when he owned
his subjection to the influence of music, and in
music recognized not the seraph’s harp, but the
siren’s song. If you could have permanently
fixed Victor de Mauleon in one of the good mo-
ments of his life even now — some moment of ex-
quisite kindness, of superb generosity, of daunt-
less courage — you would have secured a very rare
specimen of noble humanity. .But so to fix him
was impossible.

That impulse of the moment vanished the mo-
ment after, swept aside by the force of his very
talents — talents concentrated by his intense sense
or individuality — sense of wrongs or of rights —
interests or objects personal to himself. He ex-
tended the royal saying, c'est rnoi,” to

words far more grandiloquent — “The universe,
’tis I.” The Venosta would have understood
him and smiled apprpvingly, if he had said, with
a good-humored IfiOgh. “ I dead, the world is
dead !” Thafe^is an Italian prevei-hj and means ,
much the sanofe tiring. ^

140

THE PARISIANS.

BOOK EIGHTH.

CHAPTER I.

On the 8th of May the vote of the Plebiscite
was recorded — between seven and eight millions
of Frenchmen in support of the imperial pro-
gramme— in plain words, of the Emperor him-
self— against a minority of 1,500,000. But
among the 1,500,000 were the old throne-shak-
ers— those who compose and those who lead the
mob of Paris. On the 14th, as Rameau was
about to quit the editorial bureau of his printing-
office, a note was brought in to him, which
strongly excited his nervous system. It con-
tained a request to see him forthwith, signed by
those two distinguished foreign members of the
Secret Council of Ten, Thaddeus Loubisky and
Leonardo Raselli.

The meetings of that Council had been so long
suspended that Rameau had almost forgotten its
existence. He gave orders to admit the con-
spirators. The two men entered — the Pole, tall,
stal u-art, and with .nartial stride j the Italian,
small, emaciated, with skulking, noiseless, cat-
like step — both looking wondrous threadbare,
and in that state called “ shabby genteel,” which
belongs to the man who can not work for his
livelihood, and assumes a superiority over the
man who can. Their outward appearance was
in notable discord with that of the poet-politician
— he all new in the last fashions of Parisian ele-
gance, and redolent of Parisian prosperity and
extrait de Mousseline!

“ Confrere," said the Pole, seating himself on
the edge of the table, while the Italian leaned
against the mantel-piece, and glanced round the
room with furtive eye, as if to detect its inner-
most secrets, or decide where safest to drop a
lucifer match for its conflagration — confrere "
said the Pole, “ your country needs you — ”

“ Rather the cause of all countries,” interposed
the Italian, softly — “Humanity.”

“Please to explain yourselves. But stay ; w'ait
a moment,” said Rameau; and rising, he went
to the door, opened it, looked forth, ascertained
that tlie coast was clear, then reclosed the door
as cautiously as a prudent man closes his pocket
whenever shabby-genteel visitors appeal to him
in the cause of his country, still more if they ap-
peal in that of Humanity.

“ Confrere" said the Pole, this day a move-
ment is to be made — a demonstration on behalf
of your country — ”

“ Of Humanity,” again softly interposed the
Italian.

“ Attend and share it,” said the Pole.

“ Pardon me,” said Rameau, “I do not know
what you mean. I am now the editor of a jour-
nal in which the proprietor does not countenance
violence ; and if you come to me as a member
of the Council, you must be aware that I should
obey no orders but that of itS president, whom I
have not seen for nearly a year ; indeed, I know
not if the Council still exists.”

“The Council exists, and with it the obliga-
tions if imposes,” replied Thaddeus. “Pam-
pered with luxury” — here the Pole raised his
voice — “ do you dare to reject the voice of Pov-
erty and Freedom ?”

“ Hush, dear but too vehement confrere,"
murmured the bland Italian; “permit me to
dispel the reasonable doubts of our confrere "
and he took out of his breast pocket a paper,
which he presented to Rameau. On it were
written these words :

“This evening. May 14. Demonstration. —
Faubourg du Temple. — Watch events, under or-
ders of A. M. Bid the youngest member take
that first opportunity to test nerves and discre-
tion. He is not to act, but to observe.”

No name was appended to this instruction,
but a cipher intelligible to all members of the
Council as significant of its president, Jean Le-
beau.

“ If I eiT not,” said the Italian, “ Citizen
Rameau is our youngest confrere"

Rameau paused. The penalties for disobedi-
ence to an order of the President of the Council
were too formidable to be disregarded. There
could be no doubt that, though his name was
not mentioned, he, Rameau, was accurately des-
ignated the youngest member of the Council.
Still, however he might have owed his present
position to the recommendation of Lebeau, there
was nothing in the conversation of M. de Mau-
leon which would warrant participation in a
popular emeute by the editor of a journal belong-
ing to that mocker of the mob. Ah ! but — and
here again he glanced over the paper — he was
asked “not to act, but to observe.” To observe
was the duty of a journalist. He might go to
the demonstration as De Mauleon confessed he
had gone to the Communist Club — a philosopli-
ical spectator.

“You do not disobey this order?” said the
Pole, crossing his arms.

“ I shall certainly go into the Faubourg du
Temple this evening,” answered Rameau, dryly.
“ I have business that way.”

Bon!" said the Pole. “I did not think
you would fail us, though you do edit a journal
which says not a word on the duties that bind
the French people to the resuscitation of Po-
land.”

“ And is not pronounced in decided accents
upon the cause of the human race,” put in the
Italian, whispering.

“1 do not write the political articles in Le
Sens Commun" answered Rameau; “and I
suppose that our president is satisfied with them,
since he recommended me to the preference of
the person who does. Have you more to say?
Pardon me, my time is precious, for it does not
belong to me.”

“ Eno !” said the Italian ; “ we will detain you
no longer.” Here, with bow and smile, he glided
toward the door.

“ Confrere," muttered the Pole, lingering,
“you must have become very rich ! Do not for-
get the wrongs of Poland — I am their Represent-
ative— I — speaking in that character, not as my-
self individually — I have not breakfasted ! ”

Rameau, too thoroughly Parisian not to be as
lavish of his own money as he was envious of an-
other’s, slipped some pieces of gold into the Pole’s
hand. The Pole’s bosom heaved with manly emo-
tion. “ These pieces bear the effigies of the tyrant

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SUDDENLY, AT THE ANGLE OF A STEEKT, UTS OOAOIIMAN WAS STOPPED— A EOUGH-LOOKTNG MAN APPEALED AT THE DOOE — ‘‘DE-
SCEND, MON PETIT BOURGEOIS.” BEHIND THE ROUGH-LOORINO MAN WERE MENACING FACES.

THE PARISIANS.

— I accept them as redeemed from disgrace by
their uses to Freedom.”

“ Share them with Siguor Raselli in the name
of the same cause,” whispered Rameau, with '
smile he might have plagiarized from De Mau-
leon.

The Italian, whose ear was inured to whis-
pers, heard and turned round as he stood at the
threshold.

“No, confrere of France — no, confrere of Po-
land— I am Italian. All ways to take the life of
an enemy are honorable — no way is honorable
which begs money from a friend, ”

An hour or so later Rameau was driven in his
comfortable coupe to the Faubourg du Temple.

Suddenly, at the angle of a street, his coach-
man was stopped — a rough-looking man appeared
at the door — Descend^ vion petit bourgeois.”
Behind the rough-looking man were menacing
faces.

Rameau was not physically a coward — very few
Frenchmen are, still fewer Parisians ; and still
fewer, no matter what their birth-place, the men
whom we call vain — the men who overmuch covet
distinction, and overmuch dread reproach.

“ Why should I descend at your summons ?”
said Rameau, haughtily. Bah ! Coachman,
drive on !”

The rough-looking man opened the door, and
silently extended a hand to Rameau, saying, gen-
tly, ‘ ‘ Take my advice, vion bourgeois. Get out
— we want your carriage. It is a day of barri-
cades— every little helps, even your coupe I”

While this man spoke, others gesticulated ;
some shrieked out, “He is an employer; he
thinks he can drive over the employed !” Some
leader of the crowd — a Parisian crowd always has
a classical leader, who has never read the classics —
thundered forth, “ Tarquin’s car !” ‘ ‘ Down with
Tarquin!” Therewith came a yell, “A la lan-
terne — Tarquin !”

We Anglo-Saxons, of the old country or the
new, are not familiarized to the dread roar of a
populace delighted to have a Roman authority
for tearing us to pieces ; still Ameiicans know
what is Lynch-law. Rameau was in danger of
Lynch-law, when suddenly a face not unknown
to* him interposed between himself and the rough-
looking man.

“Ha!” cried this new-comer. “My young
confrere, Gustave Rameau, welcome ! Citizens,
make way. I answ'er for this patriot — I, Armand
Monnier. He comes to help us. Is this the way
vou receive him ?” Then in low voice to Rameau,
*“ Come out. Give your coup€ to the barricade.
What matters such rubbish ? Trust to me — I
expected you. Hist! — Lebeau bids me see that
you are safe.”

Rameau then, seeking to drape himself in maj-
esty— as the aristocrats of journalism in a city
wherein no other aristocracy is recognized natu-
rally and commendably do w'hen ignorance com-
bined with physical strength asserts itself to be a
power beside which the power of knowledge is
what a learned poodle is to a tiger — Rameau
then descended from his coup^, and said to this
Titan of labor, as a French marquis might have
said to his valet, and as w'hen the French marquis
has become a ghost of the ])ast the man who keeps
a coup€ says to the man w'ho mends his wheels,
“ Honest fellow, I trust you.”

Monnier led the journalist through the mob to

141

the rear of the barricade hastily constructed.
Here were assembled very motley groups.

The majoiity being ragged boys, the gamins
of Paris, commingled with several women of no
'•eputable appearance, some dingily, some gaudi-
ii^ appareled, the crowd did not appear as if
the ’ vsiness in hand was a very serious one.
Amidst Ills, of voices the sound of laughter
rose predominant, jests and bons mots flew from
lip to lip. The astonishing good humor of the
Parisians was not yet excited into the ferocity
that grows out of it by a street contest. It was
less like a popular €meute than a gathering of
school-boys, bent not less on fun than on mischief.
But still amidst this gayer crowd were sinister,
lowering faces ; the fiercest were not those of the
very poor, but rather of artisans who, to judge by
their dress, seemed well off — of men belonging to
•yet higher grades. Rameau distinguished among
these the Medecin des Pauvres, the philosophical
atheist, sundry young long-haired artists, middle-
aged writers for the Republican press, in close
neighborhood with ruffians of villainous aspect,
who might have been newly returned from the
galleys. None were regularly armed, still re-
volvers and muskets and long knives were by no
means unfrequently interspersed among the riot-
ers. The whole scene was to Rameau a confused
panorama, and the dissonant tumult of yells and
laughter, of menace and joke, began rapidly to
act on his impressionable neiwes. He felt that
which is the prevalent character of a Parisian
riot — the intoxication of an impulsive sympathy.
Coming there as a reluctant spectator, if action
commenced, he would have been borne readily
into the thick of the action — he could not have
helped it ; already he grew impatient of the sus-
pense of strife. Monnier having deposited him
safely with his back to a wall, at the corner of a
street handy for flight, if flight became expedient,
had left him for several minutes, having business
elsewhere. Suddenly the whisper of the Italian
stole into his ear — ‘ ‘ These men are fools. This is
not the way to do business — this does not hurt the
Robber of Nice — Garibald’s Nice. They should
have left it to me.”

“ What would you do ?”

“ I have invented a new machine,” whispered
the Friend of Humanity ; “it would remove all
at one blow — lion and lioness, whelp and jackals —
and then the Revolution if you will! — not this pal-
try tumult. The cause of the human race is be-
ing frittered awky. I am disgusted with Lebeau.
Thrones are not overturned by gamins.”

Before Rameau could answer, Monnier rejoin-
ed him. The artisan’s face was overcast — his
lips compressed, yet quivering with indignation.
“ Brother, ” he said to Rameau, ‘ ‘ to-day the cause
is betrayed” — (the word trahi was just then com-
ing into vogue at Paris) — “ the blouses I counted
on are recreant. I have just learned that all is
quiet in the other Quartiers where the rising was
to have been simultaneous with this. We are in
a guet-apens — the soldiers will be down on us in a
few minutes — hark ! don’t you hear the distant
tramp ? Nothing for us but to die like men. Our
blood will be avenged later. Here!” and he
thrust a revolver into Rameau’s hand. Then,
with a lusty voice that rang through the crowd, he
shouted, “ Vive lepeuple!” The rioters caught
and re-echoed the cry, mingled with other cries,
“ Vive la Republique! Vive le drapeau rouge !”

142

THE PARISIANS.

The shouts were yet at their full when a strong
hand grasped Monnier’s arm, and a clear, deep
but low voice thrilled through his ear — “Obey!
— I warned you. No fight to-day. Time not ripe.
All that is needed is done — do not undo it. Hist !
the Sergens de Ville are force enough to disperse
the swarm of those gnats. Behind the Sergens
come soldiers who will not fraternize. Lose not
one life to-day. The morrow when we shall
need every man — nay, every gamin — will dawn
soon. Answer not. Obey!” The same strong
hand, quitting its hold on Monnier, then seized
Rameau by the wrist, and the same deep voice
said, “Come with me.” Rameau, turning in
amaze, not unmixed with anger, saw beside him
a tall man with sombrero hat pressed close over
his head, and in the blouse of a laborer, but
through such disguise he recognized the pale gray
whiskers and green spectacles of Lebeau. He
yielded passively to the grasp that led him away
down the deserted street at the angle.

At the further end of that street, however,
was heard the steady thud of hoofs.

“ The soldiers are taking the mob at its rear,”
said Lebeau, calmly; “we have not a moment
to lose — this way;” and he plunged into a dis-
mal court, then into a labyrinth of lanes, follow-
ed mechanically by Rameau. They issued at
last on the Boulevards, in which the usual loun-
gers were quietly sauntering, wholly unconscious
of the riot elsewhere. “Now take that fiacre
and go home ; write down your impressions of
what you have seen, and take your MS. to M.
de Mauleon.” Lebeau here quitted him.

Meanwhile all happened as Lebeau had pre-
dicted. The Sergens de Ville showed them-
selves in front of the barricades ; a small troop
of mounted soldiers appeared in the rear. The
mob greeted the first with yells and a shower of
stones ; at the sight of the last they fled in all di-
rections ; and the Sergens de Ville^ calmly scal-
ing the barricades, carried off in triumph, as
prisoners of war, four gamins, three women, and
one Irishman, loudly protesting innocence, and
shrieking, “Murther!” So ended that first in-
glorious rise against the Plebiscite and the em-
pire, on the 14th of May, 1870.

FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MADAME DE
GRANTMBSNIL.

“ Saturday, May 21, 1870.

“I am still, dearest Eulalie, under the ex-
citement of impressions wholly hew to me. I
have this day witnessed one of those scenes
which take us out of our private life, not into
the world of fiction, but of history, in which we
live as in the life of a nation. You know how
intimate I have become with Valerie Duplessis.
She is in herself so charming in her combination
of petulant willfulness and guileless ncdvete that
she might sit as a model for one of your exqui-
site heroines. Her father, who is in great fa-
vor at court, had tickets for the Salle des Etats
of the Louvre to-day — when, as the journals will
tell you, the results of the PUbiscite were formal-
ly announced to the Emperor — and I accompa-
nied him and Valerie. I felt, on enteringthe hall,
as if I had been living for months in an atmos-
phere of false rumors, for those I chiefly meet
in the circles of artists and men of letters, and
the wits and fidneurs who haunt such circles,
are nearly all hostile to the Emperor. They

agree, at least, in asserting the decline of his
popularity, the failure of his intellectual powers
— in predicting his downfall, deriding the notion
of a successor in his son. Well, I know not how
to reconcile these statements with the spectacle
I have beheld to-day.

“In the chorus of acclamation amidst w'hich
the Emperor entered the hall it seemed as if one
heard the voice of the France he had just ap-
I pealed to. If the Fates are really weaving woe
j and shame in his woof, it is in hues which, to
mortal eyes, seem brilliant with glory and joy.

“You will read the address of the President
of the Corps Legislatif. I wonder how it Avill
strike you. I own fairly that me it wholly car-
ried away. At each sentiment I murmured to
myself, ‘ Is not this true ? and, if true, are
France and human nature ungrateful ?’

“‘It is now,’ said the president, ‘eighteen
years since France, wearied with confusion and
anxious for security, confiding in your genius
and the Napoleonic dynasty, placed in your
hands, together with the Imperial Crown, the
authority which the public necessity demanded.’
Then the address proceeded to enumerate the
blessings that ensued — social order speedily re-
stored— the welfare of all classes of society pro-
moted— advances in commerce and manufactures
to an extent hitherto unknown. Is not this true ?
and if so, are you, noble daughter of France, un-
grateful ?

“Then came words which touched me deep-
ly— me, who, knowing nothing of politics, still
feel the link that unites Art to Freedom. ‘ But
from the first your Majesty has looked forward
to the time when this concentration of power
would no longer correspond to the aspirations
of a tranquil and reassured country, and fore-
seeing the progress of modern society, you pro-
claimed that “Liberty must be the crowning of
the edifice.’” Passing then over the previous
gradual advances in popular goveinment, the
president came to the ‘ present self-abnegation,
unprecedented in history,’ and to the vindication
of that Plebiscite which I have heard so assailed
— viz.. Fidelity to the great principle upon which
the throne was founded required that so impor-
tant a modification of a power bestowed by the
people should not be made without the partici-
pation of the people themselves. Then, enumer-
ating the millions who had welcomed the new
form of government, the president paused a sec-
ond or two, as if with suppressed emotion, and
every one present held his breath, till, in a deep-
er voice, through which there ran a quiver that
thrilled through the hall, he concluded with,

‘ France is with you ; Fiance places the cause
of liberty under the protection of your dynasty
and the great bodies of the state.’ Is France
with him ? I know not ; but if the malcontents
of France had been in the hall at that moment,
I believe they would have felt the power of that
wonderful sympathy which compels all the hearts
in great audiences to beat in accord, and would
have answered, ‘It is true.’

“All eyes now fixed on the Emperor, and I
noticed few eyes which were not moist with tears.
You know that calm, unrevealing face of his — a
face which sometimes disappoints expectation.
But there is that in it .which I have seen in
no other, but which I can imagine to have been
common to the Romans of old, the dignity that

THE PARISIANS.

143

arises from self-control — an expression which
seems removed from the elation of joy, the de-
pression of sorrow — not unbecoming to one who
has known great vicissitudes of Fortune, and is
prepared alike for her frowns or her smiles.

“ 1 had looked at that face while M. Schneider
was reading the address — it moved not a muscle ;
it might have been a face of marble : even when
at moments the words were drowned in applause,

, and the Empress, striving at equal composure,
still allowed us to see a movement of her eyelids
— a tremble on her lips. The boy at his right,
heir to his dynasty, had his looks fixed on the
president, as if eagerly swallowing each word in
the address, save once or twice, when he looked
round the hall curiously, and with a smile, as a
mere child might look. He struck me as a mere
child. Next to the Prince was one of those
countenances which, once seen, are never to be
forgotten — the true Napoleonic type, brooding,
thoughtful, ominous, beautiful, but not with the
serene energy that characterizes the head of the
first Napoleon when Emperor, and wholly with-
out the restless eagerness for action which is
stamped in the lean outline of Napoleon when
First Consul. No ; in Prince Napoleon thei'e is
the beauty to which, as woman, I could never
give my heart — were I man, the intellect that
would not command my trust. But, neverthe-
less, in beauty it is signal, and in that beauty the
expression of intellect is predominant.

“Oh, dear Eulalie, how I am digressing!
The Emperor spoke — and believe me, Eulalie,
Avhatever the journals or your compatriots may
insinuate, there is in that man no signs of de-
clining intellect or failing health. I care not
what may be his years, but that man is in mind
and in health as young as Caesar when he crossed
the Rubicon.

“The old cling to the past — they do not go
forward to the future. There was no going back
in that speech of the Emperor. There was
something grand and something young in the
modesty with which he put aside all references
to that which his empire had done in the past,
and said, with a simple earnestness of manner
which I can not adequately describe :

“ ‘We must more than ever look fearlessly
forward to the future. Who can be opposed to
the progressive march of a regime founded by a
great people in the midst of political disturbance,
and which now is fortified by liberty ?’

“As he closed, the walls of that vast hall
seemed to rock with an applause that must have
been heard on the other side of the Seine.

“ ‘ Vive V Empereur !'

“ ‘ Vive V Imperatrice V

“ ‘ Vive le Prince Imperial!' And the last
crv was yet more prolonged than the others, as
if to affirm the dynasty.

“Certainly I can imagine no court in the old
days of chivahy more splendid than the audience
in that grand hall of the Eouvre. To the right
of the throne all the embassadors of the civilized
world in the blaze of their rich costumes a:nd
manifold orders. In the gallery at the left, yet
more behind, the dresses and jewels of the dames
d'lionneur and of the great officers of state. And
when the Empress rose to depart, certainly my
fancy can not picture a more queen-like image,
or one that seemed more in unison with the rep-
resentation of royal pomp and power. The very

dress, of a color which would have been fatal to
the beauty of most women equally fair — a deep
golden color (Valerie profanely called it buff)
— seemed so to suit the splendor of the ceremony
and the day ; it seemed as if that stately foi'm
stood in the midst of a sunlight reflected from
itself. Day seemed darkened when that sun-
light passed away.

“I fear you will think I have suddenly grown
servile to the gauds and shows of mere royalty.

I ask myself if that be so — I think not. Surely
it is a higher sense of greatness which has been
impressed on me by the pageant of to-day: I
feel as if there were brought vividly before me
the majesty of France, through the representa-
tion of the ruler she has crowned.

“I feel also as if there, in that hall, I found
a refuge from all the warring contests in which
no two seem to me in agreement as to the sort
of government to be established in place of the
present. The ‘Liberty’ clamored for by one
would cut the throat of the ‘ Liberty’ worshiped
by another.

“I see a thousand phantom forms of Liber-
ty, but only one living symbol of Order — that
which spoke from a throne to-day.”

Isaura left her letter uncompleted. On the
following Monday she was present at a crowded
soiree given by M. Louvier. Among the guests
were some of the most eminent leaders of the
Opposition, including that vivacious master of

sharp sayings, M. F , whom Savarin entitled

‘ ‘ the French Sheridan.” If laws could be framed
in epigrams, he would be also the French Solon.

There, too, was Victor de Mauleon, regarded
by the Republican party with equal admiration
and distrust. i For the distrust he himself pleas-
antly accounted in talk with Savarin.

‘ ‘ How can I expect to be trusted ? I rep-
resent ‘Common-Sense.’ Every Parisian likes
Common-Sense in print, and cries, ‘Je suis trahi,'
when Common-Sense is to be put into action.”

A group of admiring listeners had collected
round one (perhaps the most, brilliant) of those
oratorical lawyers by whom, in France, the re-
spect for all law has been so often talked away.
He was speaking of the Saturday’s ceremonial
with eloquent indignation. It was a mockery to
France to talk of her placing Liberty under the
protection of the empire.

There was a flagrant token of the military
force under which civil freedom was held in the
very dress of the Emperor and his insignificant
son : the first in the uniform of a General of Di-
vision ; the second, forsooth, in that of a Sous-
Lieutenant. Then other liberal chiefs chimed
in. “The army,” said one, “was an absurd
expense; it must be put down.” “The world
was grown too civilized for war,” said another.
“The Empress was priest-ridden,” said a third.
“Churches might be tolerated — Voltaire built
a church, but a church simply to the God of Na-
ture, not of priestcraft.” And so on.

Isaura, whom any sneer at religion pained and
revolted, here turned away from the orators to
whom she had before been listening with earnest
attention, and her eyes fell on the countenance
of De Mauleon, who was seated opposite. The
countenance startled her, its expression was so
angrily scornful. That expression, however, van-
ished at once as De Mauleon’s eye met her own.

144

THE PARISIANS.

and drawing his chair near to her, he said, smil-
ing, “Your look tells me that I almost fright-
ened you by the ill-bred fiankness with which
my face must have betrayed my anger at hear-
ing such imbecile twaddle from men who aspire
to govern our turbulent France. You remem-
ber that after Lisbon was destroyed by an earth-
quake a quack advertised ‘pills against earth-
quakes. ’ These messieurs are not so cunning as
the quack ; he did not name the ingredients of
his pills.”

“But, M. de Mauleon,” saidlsaura, “if you,
being opposed to the empire, think so ill of the
wisdom of those who would destroy it, are you
prepared with remedies for earthquakes more ef-
ticacious than their pills ?”

“I reply as a famous English statesman,
when in opposition, replied to a somewhat sim-
ilar question, ‘I don’t prescribe till I’m called
in.’”

“To judge by the seven millions and a half
whose votes were announced on Saturday, and
by the enthusiasm with which the Emperor was
greeted, there is too little fear of an earthquake
for a good trade to the pills of these messieurs,
or for fair play to the remedies you will not dis-
close till called in.”

“ Ah, mademoiselle, playful wit from lips not
formed for politics makes me forget all about
emperors and earthquakes. Pardon that com-
monplace compliment. Remember I am a
Frenchman, and can not help being frivolous.”

“You rebuke my presumption too gently.
True, I ought not to intrude political subjects on
one like you — I understand so little about them
— but this is my excuse, I so desire to know
more.”

M. de Mauleon paused, and looked at her
earnestly with a kindly, half-compassionate look,
wholly free from the impertinence of gallantry.
“Young poetess,” he said, softly, “you care for
politics ! Happy indeed is he — and whether he
succeed or fail in his ambition abroad, proud
should he be of an ambition crowned at home —
he who has made you desire to know more of
politics !”

The girl felt the blood surge to her temples.
How could she have been so self-confessed !
She made no reply, nor did M. de Mauleon seem
to expect one. With that rare delicacy of high-
breeding which appears in France to belong to a
former generation he changed his tone, and went
on as if there had been no interruption to the
question her words implied :

“You think the empire secure — that it is
menaced by no earthquake ? You deceive your-
self. The Emperor began with a fatal mistake,
but a mistake it needs many years to discover.
He disdained the slow natural process of adjust-
ment between demand and supply — employer
and workmen. He desired — no ignoble ambi-
tion— to make Paris the wonder of the world,
the eternal monument of his reign. In so doing
he sought to create artificial modes of content
for revolutionary workmen. Never has any
ruler had such tender heed of manual labor to
the disparagement of intellectual culture. Paris
is embellished ; Paris is the wonder of the world.
Other great towns have followed its example;
they too have their rows of palaces and tem-
ples. Well, the time comes when the magician
can no longer give work to the spirits he raises ;

then they must fall on him and rend : out of the
very houses he built for the better habitation of
workmen will flock the malcontents who cry,
‘Down with the empire!’ On the 21st day
of May you witnessed the pompous ceremony
which announces to the empire a vast majority
of votes that will be utterly useless to it, except
as food for gunpowder in the times that are at
hand. Seven days before, on the 14th of May,
there was a riot in the Faubourg du Temple — ,
easily put down — you scarcely hear of it. 'I’liat
riot was not the less necessary to those who
would warn the empire that it is mortal. True,
the riot disperses ; but it is unpunished : riot un-
punished is a revolution begun. The earthquake
is nearer than you think; and for that earth-
quake what are the pills yon quacks advertise?
They prate of an age too enlightened for war ;
they would mutilate the army — nay, disband it
if they could — with Prussia next door to France.
Prussia, desiring, not unreasonably, to take that
place in the world which France now holds, will
never challenge France — if she did she would be
too much in the wrong to find a second; Prussia,
knowing that she has to do with the vainest, the
most conceited, the rashest antagonist that ever
flourished a rapier into the face of a spadassin —
Prussia will make France challenge her.

“And how do ces messieurs deal with the
French army ? Do they dare say to the minis-
ters, ‘ Reform it ?’ Do they dare say, ‘ Prefer
for men whose first duty it is to obey — discipline
to equality ; insist on the distinction between
the otiicer and the private, and never confound
it; Prussian officers are well-educated gentle-
men— see that yours are ?’ Oh no ! they are
democrats too stanch not to fraternize with an
armed mob ; they content themselves with grudg-
ing an extra sou to the Commissariat, and wink-
ing at the millions fraudulently pocketed by some
‘ Liberal contractor.’ Dieti des dieux ! France
to be beaten, not as at Waterloo by hosts com-
bined, but in fair duel by a single foe ! Oh, the
shame ! the shame ! But as the French army
is now organized, beaten she must be, if she
meets the march of the German.”

“You appall me with your sinister predic-
tions,” said Isaura; “but, happily, there is no
sign of war. M. Duplessis, who is in the confi-
dence of the Emperor, told us only the other
day that Napoleon, on learning the result of the
Ple'biscite, said, ‘ The foreign journalists who
have been insisting that the empire can not co-
exist with free institutions will no longer hint
that it can be safely assailed from without. ’ And
more than ever Imay say, L' Empire cest lapaizV

Monsieur de Mauleon shrugged his shoulders.

“ The old story — Troy and the wooden horse.”

“Tell me, M. de Mauleon, why do you, who
so despise the Opposition, join with it in oppos-
ing the empire ?”

“Mademoiselle, the empire opposes me.
While it lasts I can not be even a Depute ; when
it is gone — Heaven knows what I may be, per-
haps Dictator — one thing you may rely upon,
that I would, if not Dictator myself, support any
man who was better fitted for that task.”

“Better fitted to destroy the liberty which he
pretended to fight for!”

“Not exactly so,” replied M. de Mauleon,
imperturbably. “Better fitted to establish a
good government in lieu of the bad one he had

THE PARISIANS.

fought against, and the much worse governments
that would seek to turn France into a mad-house,
and make the maddest of the inmates the mad-
doctor.” He turned away, and here their con-
versation ended.

But it so impressed Isaura that the same night
she concluded her letter to Madame de Grant-
mesnil by giving a sketch of its substance, pref-
aced by an ingenuous confession that she felt
less sanguine confidence in the importance of the
applauses which had greeted the Emperor at the
Saturday’s ceremonial, and ending thus: “lean
but confusedly transcribe the words of this sin-
gular man, and can give you no notion of the
manner and the voice which made them elo-
quent. Tell me, can there be any truth in his
gloomy predictions ? I try not to think so, but
they seem to rest over that brilliant hall of the
Louvre like an ominous thunder-cloud.”

CHAPTER II.

The Marquis de Rochebriant was seated in
his pleasant apartment, glancing carelessly at
the envelopes of many notes and letters lying
yet unopened on his breakfast-table. He had
risen late at noon, for he had not gone to bed
till dawn. The night had been spent at his
club — over the card-table — by no means to the
pecuniary advantage of the Marquis. The read-
er will have learned through the conversation
recorded in a former chapter between De Mau-
leon and Enguerrand de Vandemar that the aus-
tere Seigneur Breton had become a fast Viveur
of Paris. He had long since spent the remnant
of Louvier’s premium of £1000, and he owed a
year’s interest. For this last there was an ex-
cuse— M. Collot, the contractor, to whom he had
been advised to sell the yearly fall of his forest
trees, had removed the trees, but had never paid
a sou beyond the preliminary deposit ; so that the
revenue, out of which the mortgagee should be
paid his interest, was not forth- coming. Alain
had instructed M. Hebert to press the contract-
or ; the contractor had replied that if not press-
ed he could soon settle all claims, if pressed he
must declare himself bankrupt. The Chevalier
de Finisterre had laughed at the alarm which
Alain conceived when he first found himself in
the condition of debtor for a sum he could not
pay — creditor for a sum he could not recover.

‘‘‘‘Bagatelle!" said the Chevalier. “Tschu!
Collot, if you give him time, is as safe as the
Bank of France, and’Louvier knows it. Louvier
will not trouble you — Louvier, the best fellow in
the world. I’ll call on him and explain matters.”

It is to be presumed that the Chevalier did so
explain, for though both at the first, and quite
recently at the second default of payment, Alain
received letters from M. Louvier’s professional
agent as reminders of interest due, and as re-
quests for its payment, the Chevalier assured
him that these applications were formalities of
convention — that Louvier, in fact, knew nothing
about them; and when dining with the great
financier himself, and cordially welcomed and
called “Mon cher" Alain had taken him aside
and commenced explanation and excuse, Lou-
vier had cut him short. ‘‘‘‘ Peste! don’t mention
such trifles. There is such a thing as business —

145

that concerns my agent ; such a thing as friend-
ship— that concerns me. Allez!"

Thus M. de Rochebriant, confiding in debtor
and in creditor, had suffered twelve months to
glide by without much heed of either, and more
than lived up to an income amply sufficient, in-
deed, for the wants of an ordinary bachelor, but
needing more careful thrift than could well be
expected from the head of one of the most illus-
trious houses in France, cast so voung into the
vortex of the most expensive capital in the world.

The poor Marquis glided into the grooves that
slant downward, much as the French Marquis of
tradition was wont to slide ; not that he appeared
to live extravagantly, but he needed all he had
for his pocket-money, and had lost that dread of
being in debt which he had brought up from the
purer atmosphere of Bretagne.

But there were some debts which, of course,
a Rochebriant must pay — debts of honor — and
Alain had on the previous night incurred such a
debt, and must pay it that day. He had been
strongly tempted, when the debt rose to the figure
it had attained, to risk a change of luck ; bur
whatever his imprudence, he was incapable of
dishonesty. If the luck did not change, and he
lost more, he would be without means to meet
his obligations. As the debt now stood, he cal-
culated that he could just discharge it by the sale
of his coup€ and horses. It is no wonder he left
his letters unopened, however charming they
might be ; he was quite sure they would contain
no check which would enable him to pay his debt
and retain his equipage.

The door opened, and the valet announced M.
le Chevalier de Finisterre — a man with smooth
countenance and air distingue^ a pleasant voice
and perpetual smile.

“Well, moncAer,” cried the Chevalier, “I hope
that you recovered the favor of Fortune before
you quitted her green-table last night. When I
left she seemed very cross with you.”

“And so continued to the end,” answered
Alain, with well-simulated gayety — much too hon
gentilhomme to betray rage or anguish for pecun-
iary loss.

“After all,” said De Finisterre, lighting his
cigarette, “ the uncertain goddess could not do
you much harm ; the stakes were small, and your
adversary, the Prince, never goes double or quits.”

“Nor I either. ‘ Small, ’ however, is a word
of relative import ; the stakes might be small to
you, to me large. Entre nous, cher ami, I am at
the end of my purse, and I have only this conso-
lation— I am cured of play ; not that I leave the
complaint — the complaint leaves me ; it can no
more feed on me than a fever can feed on a
skeleton.”

“Are you serious?”

“As serious as a mourner who has just buried
his all.”

“ His all ? Tut, with such an estate as Roche-
briant!”

For the first time in that talk Alain’s counte-
nance became overcast.

“And how long will Rochebriant be mine?
You know that I hold it at the mercy of the
mortgagee, whose interest has not been paid, and
who could, if he so pleased, issue notice, take pro-
ceedings— that — ”

“Peste!" interrupted De Finisterre; “Lou-
vier take proceedings ! Louvier, the best fellow

146

THE PARISIANS.

in the world ! But don’t I see his handwriting
on that envelope? No doubt an invitation to
dinner.”

Alain took up the letter thus singled forth from
a miscellany of epistles, some in female handwrit-
ings, unsealed but ingeniously twisted into Gor-
dian knots ; some also in female handwritings,
carefully sealed ; others in ill-looking envelopes,
addressed in bold, legible, clerk-like caligraphy.
Taken altogether, these epistles had a character
in common ; they betokened the correspondence
of a “ viveur" — regarded from the female side as
young, handsome, well-born ; on the male side as
a viveur who had forgotten to pay his hosier and
tailor.

Louvier wrote a small, not very intelligible,
but very masculine hand, as most men who think
cautiously and act promptly do write. The let-
ter ran thus :

'•'Cher petit Marqids” (at that commencement
Alain haughtily raised his head and bit his lips).

‘ ‘ Cher petit Marquis, — It is an age since I have
seen you. No doubt my humble soirees are too
dull for a beau seigneur so courted. I forgive
you. Would I were a beau seigneur at your
age ! Alas ! I am only a commonplace man of
business, growing old, too aloft from the world
in which I dwell. You can scarcely be aware
that I have embarked a great part of my capital
in building speculations. There is a Rue de
Louvier that runs its drains right through my
purse. I am obliged to call in the moneys due
to me. My agent informs me that I am just
7000 louis short of the total I need — all other
debts being paid in — and that there is a trifle
more than 7000 louis owed to me as interest on
my hypotheque on Rochebriant : kindly pay into
his hands before the end of this week that sum.
You have been too lenient to Collot, who must
owe you more than that. Send agent to him.
DesoM to trouble you, and am au desespoir to
think that my own pressing necessities compel
me to urge you to take so much trouble. Mais
que faire ? The Rue de Louvier stops the way,
and I must leave it to my agent to clear it.

“Accept all my excuses, with the assurance
of my sentiments the most cordial.

“Paul Louvier.”

Alain tossed the letter to De Finisterre.
“Read that from the best fellow in the world.”

The Chevalier laid down his cigarette and read.
“ Diable !" he said, when he returned the letter
and resumed the cigarette — '•‘‘Diable! Louvier
must be much pressed for money, or he would
not have written in this strain. What does it
matter ? Collot owes you more than 7000 louis.
Let your lawyer get them, and go to sleep with
both ears on your pillow.”

“Ah ! you think Collot can pay if he will?”

“ foi! did not M. Gandrin tell you that
M. Collot \vas safe to buy your wood at more
money than any one else would give ?”

“ Certainly,” said Alain, comforted. “ Gan-
drin left that impression on my mind. I will
set him on‘ the man. All will come right, I dare
say ; but if it does not come right, what would
Louvier do ?”

“Louvier do?” answered Finisterre, reflect-
ively. “ Weil, do you ask my opinion and ad-
vice ?”

“Earnestly, I ask.”

“ Honestly, then, I answer. I am a little on
the Bourse myself — most Parisians are. Lou-
vier has made a gigantic speculation in this new
street, and with so many other irons in the fire
he must want all the money he can get at. I
dare say that if you do not pay him what you
owe, he must leave it to his agent to take steps
for announcing the sale of Rochebriant. But he
detests scandal ; he hates the notion of being se-
vere ; rather than that, in spite of his difficulties,
he will buy Rochebriant of you at a better price
than it can command at public sale. Sell it to
him. Appeal to him to act generously, and you
will flatter him. You will get more than the old
place is worth. Invest the surplus — live as you
have done, or better — and marry an heiress.
Morbleu! a Marquis de Rochebriant, if he were
sixty years old, would rank high in the matri-
monial market. The more the democrats have
sought to impoverish titles and laugh down his-
torical names, the more do rich democrat fathers-
in-law seek to decorate their daughters with titles
and give their grandchildren the heritage of his-
torical names. You look shocked, pauvre ami.
Let us hope, then, that Collot will pay. Set
your dog — I mean your lawyer — at him ; seize
him by the throat!”

Before Alain had recovered from the stately
silence with which he had heard this very prac-
tical counsel the valet again appeared, and ush-
ered in M. Frederic Lemercier.

There was no cordial acquaintance between
the visitors. Lemercier was chafed at finding
himself supplanted in Alain’s intimate compan-
ionship by so new a friend, and De Finisterre
affected to regard Lemercier as a would-be ex-
quisite of low birth and bad taste. Alain, too,
was a little discomposed at the sight of Lemer-
cier, remembering the wise cautions which that
old college friend had wasted on him at the com-
mencement of his Paiisian career, and smitten
with vain remorse that the cautions had been so
arrogantly slighted.

It was with some timidity that he extended
his hand to Frederic, and he was surprised as
well as moved by the more than usual warmth
with which it was grasped by the friend he had
long neglected. Such affectionate greeting was
scarcely in keeping with the pride which charac-
terized Frederic Lemercier.

“J/a foi!" said the Chevalier, glancing to-
ward the clock, “ how time flies ! I had no idea
it was so late. I must leave you now, my dear
Rochebriant. Perhaps we shall meet at the club
later — I dine there to day. Au plaisir, M. Le-
mercier.”

CHAPTER III.

When the door had closed on the Cheva-
lier, Frederic’s countenance became very grave.
Drawing his chair near to Alain, he said : “We
have not seen much of each other lately — nay,
no excuses ; I am well aware that it could scarce-
ly be otherwise. Paris has grown so large and
so subdivided into sets that the best friends be-
longing to different sets become as divided as if
the Atlantic flowed between them. I come to-
day in consequence of something I have just
heard from Duplessis. Tell me, have you got

THE PARISIANS.

147

the money for the wood you sold to M. Collot a
year ago ?”

“ No,” said Alain, falteringl3\

“Good Heavens! none of it?”

“ Only the deposit of ten per cent., which, of
course, I spent, for it formed the greater })art of
my income. \Vhat of Collot? Is he really un-
safe?”

“ He is ruined, and has fled the country. His
flight was the talk of the Bourse this morning.
Duplessis told me of it.”

Alain’s face paled. “ How is Louvier to be
paid? Read that letter!”

Lemercier rapidlj^ scanned his eye over the
contents of Louvier’s letter.

“It is true, then, that you owe this man a
year’s interest — more than 7000 louis?”

“Somewhat more — yes. But that is not the
first care that troubles me — Rochebriant may be
lost, but with it not my honor. I owe the Rus-
sian Prince 300 louis, lost to him last night at
ecarte. I must find a purchaser for my coupe
and horses ; they cost me 600 louis last year —
do you know any one who will give me three?”

“Pooh! I will give you six; your alezan
alone is worth half the money!”

“ My dear Frederic, I will not sell them to you
on any account. But you have so many friends — ”

“ Who would give their soul to say, ‘ I bought
these horses of Rochebriant.’ Of course I do.
Ha ! young Rameau — you are acquainted with
him ?”

“ Rameau ! I never heard of him !”

“ Vanity of vanities, then what is fame ! Ra-
meau is the editor of Le Sens Conimun. You
read that journal I”

“Yes, it has clever articles, and I remember
how I was absorbed in the eloquent roman which
appeared in it.”

“Ah! by the Signora Cicogna, with whom I
think you were somewhat smitten last year.”

“ La^t year — was I ? How a year can alter a
man ! But my debt to the Prince. What has
Le Sens Commun to do with my horses ?”

“I met Rameau at Savarin’s the other even-
ing. He was making himself out a hero and a
martyr ; his coup^ had been taken from him to
assist in a barricade in that senseless emeute ten
days ago ; the coupe got smashed, the horses
disappeared. He will buy one of your horses
and coupe'. Leave it to me ! I know where to
dispose of the other two horses. At what hour
do you want the money ?”

“ Before I go to dinner at the club !”

“You shall have it within two hours; hut
you must not dine at the club to-day. I have a
note from Duplessis to invite you to dine with
him to-day ! ”

“ Duplessis ! I know so little of him !”

“You should know him better. He is the
only man who can give you sound advice as to
this difficulty with Louvier, and he will give it
the more carefully and zealously because he has
that enmity to Louvier which one rival financier
has to another. I dine with him too. We shall
find an occasion to consult him quietly ; he speaks
of you most kindly. What a lovely girl his daugh-
ter is!”

“I dare say. Ah! I wish I had been less
absurdly fastidious. I wish 1 had entered the
army as a private soldier six months ago ; ^ I
should have been a corporal by this time ! Still

it is not too late. When Rochebriant is gone, I
can yet say with the Mousquetaire in the intHo-
drarne, ‘ I am rich — I have my honor and my
sword ! ’ ”

“Nonsense! Rochebriant shall be saved;
meanwhile I hasten to Rameau. Au revoir., at
the Hotel Duplessis — seven o’clock.”

Lemercier went, and in less than two hours
sent the Marquis bank-notes for 600 louis, re-
questing an order for the delivery of the horses
and carriage.

That order written and signed, Alain hastened
to acquit himself of his debt of honor, and con-
templating his probable ruin with a lighter heart,
presented himself at the Hotel Duplessis.

Duplessis made no, pretensions to vie with the
magnificent existence of Louvier. His house,
though agreeably situated and flatteringly styled
the Hotel Duplessis, was of moderate size, very
unostentatiously furnished ; nor was it accus-
tomed to receive the brilliant motley crowds
which assembled in the salons of the elder finan-
cier.

Before that year, indeed, Duplessis had con-
fined such entertainments as he gave to quiet
men of business, or a few of the more devoted
and loyal partisans of the imperial dynasty ; but
since Valerie came to live with him he had ex-
tended his hospitalities to wider and livelier cir-
cles, including some celebrities in the world of
art and letters as well as of fashion. Of the par-
ty assembled that evening at dinner were Isaura,
with the Signora Venosta, one of the imperial
ministers, the Colonel whom Alain had already
met at Lemercier’s supper, D^putds (ardent Im-
perialists), and the Duchesse de Tarascon ; these,
with Alain and Frederic, made up the party.
I'he conversation was not particulaidy gay.
Duplessis himself, though an exceedingly well-
read and able man, had not the genial accom-
jdishments of a brilliant host. Constitutionally
grave and habitually taciturn — though there were
moments in which he was roused out of his
wonted self into eloquence or wit — he seemed
to-day absorbed in some engrossing train of
thought. The minister, the Deputes., and the
Duchesse de Tarascon talked politics^ and ridi-
culed the trumpery emeute of the 14th; exulted
in the success of the Fle'biscite ; and admitting,
with indignation, the growing strength of Prus-
sia— and with scarcely less indignation, hut more
contempt, censuring the selfish egotism of En-
gland in disregarding the due equilibrium of the
European balance of power — hinted at the ne-
cessity of annexing Belgium as a set-off’ against
the results of Sadowa.

Alain found himself seated next to Isaura — to
the woman who had so captivated his eye and
fancy on his first arrival in Paris.

Remembering his last conversation with Gra-
ham nearly a year ago, he felt some curiosity to
ascertain whetlier the rich Englishman had pro-
posed to her, and if so, been refused or accepted.

The first words that passed between them were
trite enough, but after a little pause in the talk,
Alain said :

“ I think mademoiselle and myself have an
acquaintance in common — Monsieur Vane, a
distinguished Englishman. Do you know if he
be in Paris at present ? I have not seen him for
many months.”

“ I believe he is in London : at least Colonel

THE PARISIANS.

Mnrley met, the other day, a friend of his who
said so.”

Though Isaura strove to speak in a tone of in-
difterence, Alain’s ear detected a ring of pain in
her voice; and watching her countenance, he
was impressed with a saddened change in its
expression. He was touched, and his curiosity
was mingled with a gentler interest as he said,
“ When I last saw M. Vane I should have judged
him to be too much under the spell of an enchant-
ress to remain long without the pale of the circle
she draws around her.”

Isaura turned her face quickly toward the
speaker, and her lips moved, but she said noth-
ing audibly.

“ Can there have been quarrel or misunder-
standing?” thought Alain;' and after that ques-
tion his heart asked itself, “Supposing Isaura
were free, her affections disengaged, could he
wish to woo and to win her ?” and his heart an-
swered, “ Eighteen months ago thou wert nearer
to her than now. Thou wert removed from her
forever when thou didst accept the world as a
barrier between you ; then, poor as thou wert,
thou wouldst have preferred her to riches. Thou
wert then sensible only of the ingenuous impulses
of youth ; but the moment thou saidst, ‘ I am
Rochebriant, and having once owned the claims
of birth and station, I can not renounce them
for love,’ Isaura became but a dream. Now
that ruin stares thee in the face — now tliat thou
must grapple with the sternest difficulties of ad-
verse fate — thou hast lost the poetry of senti-
ment which could alone give to that dream the
colors and the form of human life.” ’ He could
not again think of that fair creature as a prize
that he might even dare to covet. And as he
met her inquiring eyes, and saw her quivering
lip, he felt instinctively that Graham was dear
to her, and that the tender interest with which
she inspired himself was untroubled by one pang
of jealousy. He resumed :

“ Yes, the last time I saw the Englishman he
spoke with such respectful homage of one lady,
whose hand he would deem it the highest reward
of ambition to secure, that I can not but feel deep
compassion for him if that ambition has been
foiled ; and thus only do I account for his ab-
sence from Paris.”

“You are an intimate friend of Mr. Vane’s ?”

“No, indeed, I have not that honor; our ac-
quaintance is but slight, but it impressed me
with the idea of a man of vigorous intellect,
frank temper, and perfect honor. ”

Isaura’s face brightened with the joy we feel
when we hear the praise of those we love.

At this moment Duplessis, who had been ob-
serving the Italian and the young Marquis, for
the first time during dinner, broke silence.

Mademoiselle^" said, addi’essing Isaura
across the table, “I hope I have not been cor-
rectly informed that your literary triumph has^
induced you to forego the career in which all
the best judges concur that your successes would
be no less brilliant ; surely one art does not ex-
clude another.”

Elated by Alain’s report of Graham’s words,*
by the conviction that these words applied, to
herself, and by the thought that her renunciation
of the stage removed a barrier between them,
Isaura answered, with a sort of enthusiasm :

“I know not, M. Duplessis, if one art ex-

cludes another — if there be desire to excel in
each. But I have long I6st all desire to excel
in the art you refer to, and resigned ail idea of
the career in which it opens.”

“So M. Vane told me,” said Alain, in a whis-
per.

“ When ?”

“Last year, on the day that he spoke in
terms of admiration so merited of the lady
whom M. Duplessis has just had the honor to
address.”

All this while Valdrie, who was seated at the
further end of the table beside the minister, who
had taken her in to dinner, had been watching,
with eyes the anxious tearful sorrow of which
none but her father had noticed, the low-voiced
confidence between Alain and the friend whom
till that day she had so enthusiastically loved.
Hitherto she had been answering in monosylla-
bles all attempts of the great man to draw her
into conversation ; but now, observing how Isau-
ra blushed and looked down, that strange fac-
ulty in women which we men call dissimulation,
and which in them is truthfulness to their own
nature, enabled her to carry oft' the sharpest an-
guish she had ever experienced by a sudden
burst of levity of spirit. She caught up some
commonplace the minister had adapted to what
he considered the poverty of her understanding
with a quickness of satire which startled that
grave man, and he gazed at her astonislied. U{)
to that moment he had secretly admired her as
a girl well brought up — as girls fresh from a
French convent are supposed to be ; now, hear-
ing her brilliaTit rejoinder to his stupid observa-
tion, he said, inly, “Z>ame/ the low birth of a
financier’s daughter shows itself.”

But, being a clever man himself, her retort
put him on his mettle, and he became, to his
own amazement, brilliant himself. With that
matchless quickness which belongs to Parisians,
the guests around him seized the new esprit de
conversation which had been evoked between
the statesman and the child-like girl beside him ;
and as they caught up the ball, lightly flung
among them, they thought within themselves
how much more sparkling the financier’s pretty,
lively daughter was than that dark-eyed young
muse, of whom all the journalists of Paris were
writing in a chorus of welcome and applause,
and who seemed not to have a word to say
worth listening to, excepting to the handsome
young Marquis, whom, no doubt, she wished to
fascinate.

Valerie fairly outshone Isaura in intellect and
in wit; and neither Valerie nor Isaura cared, to
the valub of a bean straw, about that distinction.
Each was thinking only of the prize which the
humblest peasant women have in common with
the most brilliantly accomplished of their sex —
the heart of a man beloved.

CHAPTER IV.

On the Continent generally, as we all know,
men do not sit drinking wine together after the
ladies retire. So when the signal was given, all
the guests adjourned to the salon, and Alain
quitted Isaura to gain the ear of the Duchesse de
Tarascon.

THE PARISIANS.

149

‘‘ It is long — at least long for Paris life,” said
the Marquis, “since my first visit to you, in
company with Enguerrand de Vandemar." Much
that you then said rested on my mind, disturb-
ing the prejudices I took from Bretagne.”

“ 1 am proud to hear it, my kinsman.”

“You know that I would have taken military
service under the Emperor but for the regula-
tion which would have compelled me to enter
the ranks as a private soldier.”

“ 1 sympathize with that scruple ; but you are
aware that the Emperor himself could not have
ventured to make an exception even in vour fa-
vor. ”

“Certainly not. I repent me of my pride;
perhaps I may enlist still in some regiment sent
to Algiers.”

“ No ; there are other ways in which a Roche-
briant can serve a throne. There will be an of-
fice at court vacant soon, which would not mis-
become your birth.”

“Pardon me — a soldier serves his country, a
courtier owns a master ; and I can not take the
livery of the himperor, though I could wear the
uniform of Prance.”

“Your distinction is childish, my kinsman,”
said the Duchesse, impetuously. “You talk as
if the Emperor had an interest apart from the
nation. I tell you that he has not a corner of
his heart — not even one reserved for his son and
his dynasty — in which the thought of Prance
does not predominate.”

“I do not presume, Madame la Duchesse^ to
question the truth of what you say ; but I have
no reason to suppose that the same thought does
not predominate in the heart of the Bourbon.
The Bourbon would be the first to say to me,

‘ If Prance needs your sword against her foes,
let it not rest in the scabbard.’ But would the
Bourbon say, ‘ The place of a Rochebriant is
among the Valetaille of the Corsican’s suc-
cessor ?’ ”

“ Alas for poor France !” said the Duchesse ;
“and alas for men like you, my proud cousin,
if the Corsican’s successors or successor be — ”

“ Heniy V. ?” interrupted Alain, with a
brightening eye.

“Dreamer! No! Some descendant of the
mob-kings who gave Bourbons and nobles to
the guillotine."

While the Duchesse and Alain were thus con-
versing, Isaura had seated herself by Valerie,
and, unconscious of the offense she had given,
addressed her in those pretty caressing terms
with which young lady friends are wont to com-
pliment each other; but Valerie answered curt-
ly or sarcastically, and turned aside to converse
with the minister. A few minutes more and the
party began to break up. Lemercier, however,
detained Alain, whispering, “Duplessis will see
us on your business so soon as the other guests
have gone. ”

CHAPTER V.

“Monsieur le Marquis,” said Duplessis,
when the salon was cleared of all but himself
and the two friends, “Lemercier has confided
to me the state of your affairs in connection with
M. Louvier, and flatters me by thinking my ad-
vice may be of some service ; if so, command me.”

“I shall most gratefully accept your advice,”
answered Alain, “ but I fear my condition defies
even your ability and skill.”

“Permit me to hope not, and to ask a few
necessary questions. M. Louvier has constituted
himself your sole mortgagee ; to what amount, at
what interest, and from what annual proceeds is
the interest paid ?”

Herewith Alain gave details already furnish-
ed to the reader. Duplessis listened, and noted
down the replies.

“ I see it all,” he said, when Alain had finish-
ed. “ M. Louvier had predetermined to possess
himself of your estate : he makes himself sole
mortgagee at a rate of interest so low that I tell
you fairly, at the pi esent value of money, I doubt
if you could find any capitalist who would ac-
cept the transfer of the mortgage at the same
rate. This is not like Louvier, unless he had an
object to gain ; and that object is your land.
The revenue from your estate is derived chiefly
from wood, out of which the interest due to Lou-
vier is to be j)aid. M. Gandrin, in a skillfully
guarded letter, encourages you to sell the wood
from your forests to a man who offers you sever-
al thousand francs more than it could command
from customary buyers. I say nothing against
M. Gandrin ; but every man who knows Paris as
1 do knows that M. Louvier can put, ahd has
put, a great deal of money into M. Gandrin’s
pocket, 'i’he purchaser of your wood does not
pay more than his deposit, and has just left the
country insolvent. Your purchaser, M. Collot,
was an adventurous speculator ; he would have
bought any thing at any pnce, provided he had
time to pay ; if his speculations had been lucky,
he would have paid. M. Louvier knew, as I
knew, that M. Collot was a gambler, and the
chances were that he would not pay. M. Lou-
vier allows a year's interest on his hypotheque to
become due — notice thereof duly given to you by
his agent — now you come under the operation of
the law. Of course you know what the law is ? ’

“Not exactly,” answered Alain, feeling frost-
bitten by the congealing words of his counselor ;
“ but I take it for granted that if I can not pay
the interest of a sum borrowed on my property,
that property itself is forfeited.”

“ No, not quite that — the law is mild. If the
interest, which should be paid half yearly, remains
unpaid at the end of a year, the mortgagee has a
right to be impatient, has he not ?”

“Certainly he has.”

“Well, then, on fait un commandement tendant
a saisie immohiliere — viz., the mortgagee gives a
notice that the property shall be put up for sale.
Then it is put up for sale, and in most cases the
mortgagee buys it in. Here, certainly, no com-
petitors in the mere business way would vie with
Louvier; the mortgage at three and a half per
cent, covers more than the estate is apparently
worth. Ah ! but stop, M. le Marquis ; the no-
tice is not yet served ; the whole process would
take six months from the day it is served to the
taking possession after the sale ; in the mean
while, if you pay the interest due, the action
drops. Courage^ M. le Marquis ! Hope yet, if
you condescend to call me friend.”

“And me,” ciied Lemercier; “I will sell
out of my railway shares to-morrow — see to it
Duplessis — enough to pay off the damnable inter-
est. See to it, mon ami."

150

THE PARISIANS.

“Agree to that, M. le Marquis, and you are
safe for another year,” said Duplessis, folding
up the paper on which he iiad made his notes,
but fixing on Alain quiet eyes half concealed
under drooping lids.

“Agree to that!” cried Rochebriant, rising —
“agree to allow even my worst enemy to pay
for me moneys I could never hope to repay —
agree to allow the oldest and most confiding of
my friends to do so — M. Duplessis, never! If
I carried the porter’s knot of an Auvergnat, I
should still remain gentiUwvivie and Breton."

Duplessis, habitually the dryest of men, rose
with a moistened eye and flushing cheek. “ Mon-
sieur le Marquis, vouchsafe me the honor to
shake hands with you. I, too, am by descent
gentilhomme^ by profession a speculator on the
Bourse. In both capacities I approve the sen-
timent you have uttered. Certainly if our friend
Frederic lent you 7000 louis or so this year, it
would be impossible for you even to foresee the
year in wliich you could repay it; but,” here
Duplessis paused a minute, and then lowering
the tone of his voice, which had been somewhat
vehement and enthusiastic, into that of a collo-
quial good fellowship, equally rare to the meas-
ured reserve of the financier, he asked, with a
lively twinkle of his gray ej'e, “did you never
hear, Marquis, of a little encounter between me.
and M. Louvier?”

“Encounter at arms — does Louvier fight?”
asked Alain, innocently.

“In his own way he is always fighting; but
I speak metaphorically. You see this small 1
house of mine — so pinched in by the houses
next to it tliat I can neither get space for a
ball-room for Valerie, nor a dining-room for
more than a friendly party like that which has
honored me to-day. Eh bien! I bought this
house a few years ago, meaning to buy the one
next to it, and throw the two into one. I went
to the proprietor of the next house, who, as I
knew, wished to sell. ‘ Aha !’ he thought, ‘ this
is the rich Monsieur Duplessis ;’ and he asked
me 2000 louis more than the house was worth.
We men of business can not bear to be too much
cheated — a little cheating we submit to, much
cheating raises our gall. Bref — this was on
Monday. I offered the man one thousand louis
above the fair price, and gave him till Thursday
to decide. Somehow or other Louvier hears of
this. ‘Hillo!’ says Louvier; ‘hei'e is a finan-
cier who desires a hotel to vie with mine!’ He
goes on Wednesday to my next-door neighbor.
‘Friend, you want to sell your house. I want
to buy — the price?’ The proprietor, who does
not know him by sight, says, ‘It is as good as
sold. M. Duplessis and I shall agree.’ ‘Bah! j
What sum did you ask M. Duplessis?’ He
names the sum — 2000 louis more than he can
get elsewhere. ‘ But M. Duplessis will give me
the sum.’ ‘You asked too little. I will give
you three thousand. A fig for M. Duplessis !

1 am Monsieur Louvier.’ So when I call on
Thursday the house is sold. I reconciled my-
self easily enough to the loss of space for a lar-
ger dining-room ; but though Valerie was then
a child at a convent, I was sadly disconcerted by
the thought that I could have no salle de hal
ready for her when she came to reside with me.
Well, I sa}' to myself, patience ; L owe M. Lou-
vier a good turn ; my time to pay him off will

come. It does come, and ver;^ soon. M. Lou-
vier buys an estate near Baris — builds a superb
villa. Close to his property is a rising forest
ground for sale. He goes to tlie proprietor. ISays
the jjroprietor to himself, ‘The great Louvier
wants this,’ and adds five thousand louis to its
market price. Louvier, like myself, can’t bear
to be cheated egregiously. Louvier offers 2000
louis more than the man could fairly get, and
leaves him till Saturday to consider. I hear of
this — speculators hear of every thing. On Fri-
day night I go to the man and I give him 6000
louis, where he had asked 5000. Fancy Lou-
vier’s face the next day ! But there my revenge
only begins,” continued Duplessis, chuckling in-
wardly. “My forest looks down on the villa he
is building. I only wait till his villa is built, in
order to send to my architect and say, ‘ Build me
a villa at least twice as grand as M. Louvier’s,
then clear away the forest trees, so that every
morning he may see my jjalace dwarfing into
insignificance his own.’”

“Bravo!” cried Lemercier, clapping his hands.
Lemercier had the spirit of party, and felt for
Duplessis against Louvier much as in England
Whig feels against Tory, or vice versa.

“Perhaps now,” resumed Duplessis, more so-
berly— “perhaps now, M. le Marquis, you may
understand why I humiliate you by no sense of
obligation if I say that M. Louvier shall not be
the Seigneur de Rochebriant if I can help it.
Give me a line of introduction to 3mur Breton
lawyer and to mademoiselle your aunt. Let me
have your letters early to-morrow\ I will take
the afternoon train. 1 know not how many days
I may be absent, but I shall not return till I
have carefully examined the nature and condi-
tions of your property. If I see my way to save
your estate, and give a viauvais quart d'heure to
Louvier, so much the better for you, M. le Mar-
quis ; if I can not, I will say, frankly’, ‘ Make the
best terms j’ou can with your cieditor.’”

“Nothing can be more delicately generous
than the way you put it,” said Alain ; “but
pardon me if I say that the pleasantry with
which you narrate your grudge against M. Lou-
vier does not answer its purpose in diminishing
my sense of obligation.” So, linking his arm
in Lemerqier’s, Alain made his bow and with-
drew.

When his guests had gone, Duplessis remain-
ed seated in meditation — apparently pleasant
meditation, for he smiled while indulging it ; he
then passed through the recejjtion-rooms to one
at the far end, appropriated to Valerie as a bou-
doir or morning-room, adjoining her bed-cham-
j ber ; he knocked gently at the door, and all re-
j maining silent within, he opened it noiselessly
and entered, Valerie was reclining on the sofa
near the window, her head drooping, her hands
clasped on her knees. Duplessis neared her with
tender, stealthy steps, passed his arm round her,
and drew her head toward his bosom. “Child !”
he murmured, “ my child ! my only one !”

At that soft loving voice, Valerie flung her
arms round him, and wept aloud like an infant
in trouble. He seated himself beside her, and
wisely suffered her to weep on till her passion
had exhausted itself ; he then said, half fondly,
half chidingly: “Have you forgotten our con-
versation only three days ago? Have you for-
gotten that I then drew forth the secret of your ,

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THE PARISIANS.

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heart ? Have you forgotten what I promised
you in return for your confidence ? And a prom-
ise to you have I ever yet broken ?”

“Father! father! I am so wretched, and so
ashamed of myself for being wretched! For-
give me. No, I do not forget your promise, but
who can promise to dispose of the heart of an-
other ? — and that heart will never be mine. But
bear with me a little; I shall soon recover.”

“Valerie, when I made you the promise you
now think I can not keep, I spoke only from
that conviction of power to promote the happi-
ness of a child which nature implants in the
heart of parents; and it may be also from the
experience of my own strength of will, since
that which I have willed I have always won.
Now I speak on yet surer ground. Before the
year is out you shall be the beloved wife of
Alain de Rochebriant. Dry your tears and
smile on me, Valerie. If you will not see in
me mother and father both, I have double love
for you, motherless child of her who shared the
poverty of my youth, and did not live to enjoy
the wealth which I hold as a trust for that heir
to mine all which she left me.”

As this man thus spoke you would scarcely

have recognized in him the cold saturnine Du-
plessis, his countenance became so beautified by
the one soft feeling which care and contest, am-
bition and money-seeking, had left unaltered in
his heart. Perhaps there is no country in which
the love of parent and child, especially of father
and daughter, is so strong as it is in France ;
even in the most arid soil, among the avaricious,
even among the profligate, it forces itself into
flower. Other loves fade away in the heart of
the true Frenchman, that parent love blooms to
the last.

Valerie felt the presence of that love as a di-
vine protecting guardianship. She sank on her
knees and covered his hand with grateful kisses.

“ Do not torture yourself, my child, with
jealous fears of the fair Italian. Her lot and
Alain de Rochebriant’s can never unite; and
w hatever you may think of their whispered con-
verse, Alain’s heart, at this moment, is too filled
with anxious troubles to leave one spot in it ac-
cessible even to a frivolous gallantry. It is for
us to remove these troubles ; and then, when he
turns his eyes toward you, it will be with the
gaze of one w'ho beholds his happiness. You do
not weep now, Valerie!”

BOOK NINTH.

CHAPTER I.

On w'aking some morning, have you ever felt,
reader, as if a change for the brighter in the
world, without and within you, had suddenly
come to pass — some new glory has been given to
the sunshine, some fresh balm to the air — you
feel younger and happier and lighter in the very
beat of your heart — you almost fancy you hear
the chime of some spiritual music far off, as if
in the deeps of heaven ? You are not at first
conscious how, or wherefore, this change has
been brought about. Is it the effect of a dream
in the gone sleep that has made this morning so
different from mornings that have dawned be-
fore? And while vaguely asking yourself that
question you become aware that the cause is no
mere illusion, that it has its substance in words
spoken by living lips, in things that belong to
the w'ork-day world.

It was thus that Isaura woke the morning aft-
ter the conversation with Alain de Rochebriant,
and as certain words, then spoken, echoed back
on her ear, she knew w'hy she was so happy, why
the world was so changed.

In those words she heard the voice of Graham
Vane — no, she had not deceived herself — she
was loved ! she was loved ! What mattered that
long cold interval of absence ? She had not for-
gotten— she could not believe that absence had
brought forgetfulness. There are moments when
we insist on judging another’s heart by our own.
All would be explained some day — all would
come right.

How lovely was the face that reflected itself
in the glass as she stood before it smoothing
back her long hair, murmuring sweet snatches
of Italian love-song, and blushing with sweeter
love-thoughts as she sang ! All that had passed

in that year so critical to her outer life — the au-
thorship, the fame, the public career, the popular
praise — vanished from her mind as a vapor that
rolls from the face of a lake to which the sun-
light restores the smile of a brightened heaven.

She was more the girl now than she had ever
been since the day on which she sat reading Tas-
so on the craggy shore of Sorrento.

Singing still as she passed from her chamber,
and entering the sitting-room, which fronted the
east, and seemed bathed in the sunbeams of deep-
ening May, she took her bird from its cage, and
stopped her song to cover it with kisses, 'which
perhaps yearned for vent somewhere.

Later in the day she went out to visit Vale-
rie. Recalling the altered manner of her young
friend, her sweet nature became troubled. She
divined that Valerie had conceived some jealous
pain, which she longed to heal ; she could not
bear the thought of leaving any one that day un-
happy. Ignorant before of the girl’s feelings to-
ward Alain, she now partly guessed them — one
woman who loves in secret is clairvoyante as to
such secrets in another.

Valerie received her visitor with a coldness
she did not attempt to disguise. Not seeming to
notice this, Isaura commenced the conversation
with frank mention of Rochebnant. “I have
to thank you so much, dear Valerie, for a pleas-
ure you could not anticipate — that of talking
about an absent friend, and hearing the praise he
deserved from one so capable of appreciating ex-
cellence as M, de Rochebriant appears to be.”

“You were talking to M. de Rochebriant of
an absent friend — ah ! you seemed indeed very
much interested in the conversation — ”

“ Do not wonder at that, Valerie; and do not
grudge me the happiest moments I have known
for months.”

152

THE PARISIANS.

“In talking with M. de Rochebriant! No
doubt, Mademoiselle Cicogna, you found him
very charming.”

To her surprise and indignation, Valerie here
felt the arm of Isaura tenderly entwining her
waist, and her face drawn toward Isaui-a’s sister-
ly kiss.

“ Listen to me, naughty child — listen and be-
lieve. M. de Rochebriant can never be charm-
ing to me — never touch a chord in my heart or
my fancy, except as friend to another, or — kiss
me in your turn, Valerie — as suitor to yourself.”

Valerie here drew back her pretty child-like
head, gazed keenly a moment into Isaura’seyes,
felt convinced by the limpid candor of their un-
mistakable honesty, and flinging herself on her
friend’s bosom, kissed her passionately, and burst
into tears.

The complete reconciliation between the two
girls was thus peacefully etfected ; and then Isau-
ra had to listen, at no small length, to the confi-
dences poured into her ears by Valerie, who was
fortunately too engrossed by her own hopes and
doubts to exact confidences in return. Vale-
rie’s was one of those impulsive, eager natures
that long for a confidante. Not so Isaura's.
Only when Valerie had unburdened her heart,
and been soothed and caressed into happy trust
in the future, did she recall Isaura’s explanato-
ry words, and said, archly, “ And your absent
friend? Tell me about him. Is he as hand-
some as Alain ?”

“ Nay,” said Isaura, rising to take up the man-
tle and hat she had laid aside on entering, “they
say that the color of a flower is in our vision, not
in the leaves.” Then, with a grave melancholy
in the look she fixed upon Valerie, she added :
“ Rather than distrust of me should occasion you
pain, I have pained myself in making clear to
you the reason why I felt interest in M. de Roche-
briant’s conversation. In turn, I ask of you a
fiwor — do not on this point question me farther.
There are some things in our past which influ-
ence the present, but to which we dare not as-
.sign a future — on which we can not talk to an-
other. What soothsayer can tell us if the dream
of a yesterday will be renewed on the night of a
morrow? All is said — we trust one another,
dearest. ”

CHAPTER II.

That evening the Morleys looked in at Isau-
ra’s on their way to a crowded assembly at the
house of one of those rich Americans who were
then outvying the English residents at Paris in
the good graces of Parisian society. I think the
Americans get on better with the French than
the English do — I mean the higher class of
Americans. They spend more money; their
men speak French better ; the women are bet-
ter dressed, and, as a general rule, have read
more largely, and converse more frankly.

Mrs. iVIorley’s affection for Isaura had increased
during the last few months. As so notable an
advocate of the ascendency of her sex, she felt |
a sort of grateful pride in the accomplishments
and growing renown of so youthful a member
of the oppressed sisterhood. But, apart from
that sentiment, she had conceived a tender moth-
er-like interest for the girl who stood in the

world so utterly devoid of family ties, so desti -
tute of that household guardianship and protec-
tion which, with all her assertion of the strength
and dignity of woman, and all her opinions as
to woman’s right of absolute emancipation from
the conventions fabricated by the selfishness of
man, Mrs. Morley was too sensible not to val-
ue for the individual, though she deemed it not
needed for the mass. Her great desire was that
Isaura should marry well, and soon. American
women usually marry so young that it seemed to
Mrs. Morley an anomaly in social life that one
so gifted in mind and person as Isaura should
already have passed the age in which the belles
of the great Republic are enthroned as wives and
consecrated as mothers.

We have seen that in the past year she had
selected from our unworthy but necessary sex
Graham Vane as a suitable spouse to her young
friend. She had divined the state of his heart
— she had more than suspicions of the state of
Isaura’s. She was exceedingly perplexed and
exceedingly chafed at the Englishman’s strange
disregard to his happiness and her own projects.
She had counted, all this past winter, on his re-
turn to Paris ; and she became convinced that
some misunderstanding, possibly some lovers’
quarrel, was the cause of his protracted absence,
and a cause that, if ascertained, could be re-
moved. A good opportunity now presented it-
self— Colonel Morley was going to London the
next day. He had business there which would
detain him at least a week. He would see Gra-
ham ; and as she considered hei’ husband the
shrewdest and wisest person in the world — I
mean of the male sex — she had no doubt of his
being able to turn Graham’s mind thoroughly in-
side out, and ascertain his exact feelings, views,
and intentions. If the Englishman, thus assay-
ed, were found of base metal, then, at least, Mrs.
Morley would be free to cast him altogether
aside, and coin for the uses of the matrimonial
market some nobler effigy in purer gold.

“ My dear child,” said Mrs. Morley, in low
voice, nestling herself close to Isaura, while the
Colonel, duly instructed, drew off the Venosta,
“ have you heard any thing lately of our pleasant
friend Mr. Vane?”

You can guess with what artful design Mrs.
Morley put that question point-blank, fixing
keen eyes on Isaura while she put it. She saw
the heightened color, the quivering lip, of the
girl thus abruptly appealed to, and she said, inly,
“I was right — she loves him!”

“I heard of Mr. Vane last night — accident-
ally.”

“Is he coming to Paris soon ?”

“Not that I know of. How charmingly that
wreath becomes you ! It suits the ear-rings so
well too. ”

“ Frank chose it ; he has good taste for a man.

I trust him with my commissions to Hunt and
Roskell’s, but I limit him as to price, he is so ex-
ti-avagant — men are, when they make presents.
They seem to think we value things according
to their cost. They would gorge us with jewels,

I and let us starve for want of a smile. Not that
Frank is so bad as the rest of them. But a pro-
pos of Mr. Vane — Frank will be sure to see him,
and scold him well for deserting us all. I should
not be surprised if he brought the deserter back
with him, for I send a little note by Frank, in-

153

THE PARISIANS.

viting him to pay us a visit. We have spare
rooms in our apartments.”

Isaura’s heart heaved beneath her robe, but
she replied in a tone of astonisliing indifference :
“I believe this is the height of the London sea-
son, and Mr. Vane would probably be too en-
gaged to profit even by an invitation so tempting.”

“iVbiis verrons. How pleased he will be to
hear of your triumphs ! He admired you so
much before you were famous — what will be his
admiration now ! Men are so vain — they care
for us so much more when people praise us. But,
till we have put the creatures in their proper
place, we must take them for what they are.”

Here the Venosta, with whom the poor Col-
onel had exhausted all the arts at his command
for chaining her attention, could be no longer
withheld from approaching Mrs. Morley, and
venting her admiration of that lady’s wreath,
ear-rings, robes, flounces. This dazzling appa-
rition had on her the effect which a candle has
on a moth' — she fluttered round it, and longed to
absorb herself in its blaze. But the wreath es-
pecially fascinated her — a wreath which no pru-
dent lady with colorings less pure, and features
less exquisitely delicate than the pretty champi-
on of the rights of woman, could have fancied
on her own brows without a shudder. But the
Venosta in such matters was not prudent. “It
can’t be, dear,” she cried, piteously, extending
her arms toward Isaura. ‘ ‘ I must have one ex-
actly like. Who made it ? Cara signora^ give
me the address.”

“Ask the Colonel, dear madame ; he chose
and brought it;” and Mrs. Morley glanced signif-
icantly at her well-tutored Frank.

“ Madame,” said the Colonel, speaking in En-
glish, which he usually did with the Venosta,
who valued herself on knowing that language,
and was flattered to be addressed in it, while
he amused himself by introducing into its forms
the dainty Americanisms with which he puzzled
the Britisher — he might well puzzle the Floren-
tine— “Madame, I am too anxious for the ap-
pearance of my wife to submit to the test of a
rival screamer like yourself in the same apparel.
With all the homage due to a sex of which I am
enthused dreadful, I decline to designate the
florist from whom I purchased Mrs. Morley s
head fixings.”

“Wicked man!” cried the Venosta, shaking
her Anger at him coquettishly. “ You are jeal-
ous ! Fie ! a man should never be jealous of a
woman’s rivalry with woman and then, with a
cynicism that might have become a gray-beard,
she added, “but of his own sex every man should
be jealous — though of his dearest friend. Isn’t
‘ it so, Qolonello ?"

The Colonel looked puzzled, bowed, and made
no reply.

“That only shows,” said Mrs. Morley, rising,
“what villains the Colonel has the misfortune to
call friends and fellow-men.”

“ I fear it is time to go,” said Frank, glan-
cing at the clock.

In theory the most rebellious, in practice the
most obedient of wives, Mrs. Morley here kissed
Isaura, resettled her crinoline, and shaking hands
with the Venosta, retreated to the door.

“I shall have the wreath yet,” cried the Ve-
nosta, impishly. “Xa speranza e femmina" (hope
is female).

“Alas!” said Isaura, half mournfully, half
smiling — “ alas ! do you not remember what the
poet replied when asked what disease was most
mortal ? — the hectic fever caught from the chill
of hope.’”

CHAPTER III.

Graham Vane was musing very gloomily in
his solitary apartment one morning, when his
servant announced Colonel Morley.

He received his visitor with more than the
cordiality with which every English polirician
receives an American citizen. Graham liked
the Colonel too well for what he was in himself
to need any national title to his esteem. After
some preliminary questions and answers as to
the health of Mrs. Morley, the length of the Col-
onel’s stay in London, what day he could dine
with Graham at Richmond or Gravesend, the
Colonel took up the ball. “We have been reck-
oning to see you at Paris, Sir, for the last six
months.”

“I am very much flattered to hear that you
have thought of me at all ; but I am not aware
of having warranted the expectation you so kind-
ly express.”

“ I guess you must have said something to my
wife which led her to do more than expect — to
reckon on your return. And, by-the-way, Sir, I
am charged to deliver to you this note from her,
and to back the request it contains that you will
avail yourself of the ofter. Without summariz-
ing the points, I do so.”

Graham glanced over the note addressed to
him :

“Dear Mr. Vane, — Do you forget how beau-
tiful the environs of Paris are in May and June?
how charming it was last year at the lake of
Enghien ? how gay were our little dinners out-
of-doors in the garden arbors, with the Savarins
and the fair Italian, and her incomparably amus-
ing chaperon? Frank has my orders to bring
you back to renew those happy days, while the
birds are in their first song, and the leaves are
in their youngest green. I have prepared your
rooms chez nous — a chamber that looks out on
the Champs Elysees, and a quiet cabinet de tra-
vail at the back, in which you can read, write,
or sulk undisturbed. Come, and we will again
visit Enghien and Montmorency. Don’t talk
of engagements. If man proposes, woman dis-
poses. Hesitate not — gbey. Your sincere little
friend, Lizzy.”

“My dear Morley,” said Graham, with emo-
tion, “I can not find words to thank your wife
sufficiently for an invitation so graciously con-
veyed. Alas! I can not accept it.”

“ Why ?” asked the Colonel, dryly.

“I have too much to do in London.”

“Is that the true reason, or am I to suspi-
cion that there is any thing. Sir, which makes
you dislike a visit to Paris ?”

The Americans enjoy the reputation of being
the frankest putters of questions whom liberty of
speech has yet educated into les recherches de la
verit^^ and certainly Colonel Morley in this in-
stance did not impair the national reputation.

Graham Vane’s brow slightly contracted, and

154

THE PARISIANS.

he bit his Up as if stung hy a sudden pang ; but
after a moment’s pause he answered, with a good-
humored smile,

“ No man who has taste enough to admire the
most l)eautiful city, and appreciate the charms
of the most brilliant society in the world, can
dislike Paris.”

“My dear Sir, I did not ask if you disliked
Paris, but if there were any thing that made you
dislike coming back to it on a visit.”

“ What a notion ! and w'hat a cross-examiner
you would have made if you had been called to
the bar ! Surely, my dear friend, you can under-
stand that when a man has in one place business
which he can not neglect, he may decline going
to another place, whatever pleasure it would give
him to do so. By-the-way, there is a great ball
at one of the Ministers’ to-night ; you should go
there, and I will point out to you all those En-
glish notabilities in whom Americans naturally
take interest. I will call for you at eleven

o’clock. Lord , who is a connection of

mine, would be charmed to know you.”

Morley hesitated ; but when Graham said,
“ How your wife will scold you if you lose such
an opportunity of telling her whether the Duch-
ess of M is as beautiful as report says, and

whether Gladstone or Disraeli seems to your
j)hrenological science to have the finer head!”
the Colonel gave in, and it was settled that Gra-
ham should call for him at the Langham Hotel.

That matter arranged, Graham probably hoped
that his inquisitive visitor would take leave for
the present, but the Colonel evinced no such in-
tention. On the contrary, settling himself more
at ease in his arm-chair, he said, “ If I remem-
ber aright, you do not object to the odor of to-
bacco ?”

Graham rose and presented to his visitor a ci-
gar-box which he took from the mantel-piece.

The Colonel shook his head, and withdrew
from his breast pocket a leather case, from which
he extracted a gigantic regalia ; this he lighted
from a gold match-box in the shape of a locket
attached to his watch-chain, and took two or
three preliminary puffs, with his head thrown
back and his eyes meditatively intent upon the
ceiling.

We know already that strange whim of the
Colonel’s (than whom, if he pleased, no man
could speak purer English as spoken by the Brit-
isher) to assert the dignity of the American citi-
zen by copious use of expressions and phrases
familiar to the lips of the governing class of the
great Republic — delicacies of speech which he
would have carefully shunned in the polite gir-
cles of the Fifth Avenue, in New York. Now
the Colonel was much too experienced a man of
the world not to be aware that the commission
with which his Lizzy had charged him was an
exceedingly delicate one ; and it occurred to his
mother-wit that the best way to acquit himself
of it, so as to avoid the risk of giving or of re-
ceiving serious affront, woiild be to push that
whim of his into more than wonted exaggera-
tion. Thus he could more decidedly and brief-
ly come to the point ; and should he, in doing
so, appear too meddlesome, rather provoke a
laugh than a frown — retiring from the ground
with the honors due to a humorist. Accordingly,
in his deepest nasal intonation, and withdrawing
his eyes from the ceiling, he began :

“You have not asked. Sir, after the signori-
na, or, as we popularly call her. Mademoiselle
Cicogna ?”

“ Have I not? I hope she is quite well, and
her lively companion. Signora Venosta.”

“ They are not sick. Sir ; or at least were not
so last night when my wife and I had the pleas-
ure to see them. Of course you have read Made-
moiselle Cicogna’s book — a bright performance.
Sir, age considered.”

“ Certainly, I have read the book ; it is full of
unqtiestionable genius. Is Mademoiselle writ-
ing another? But of course she is.”

“ I am not aware of the fact. Sir. It may be
predicated ; such a mind can not remain inact-
ive ; and I know from M. Savarin and that ris-
ing young man Gustave Rameau, that the pub-
lishers bid high for her brains considerable. Two
translations have already appeared in our coun-
try. Her fame. Sir, will be world-wide. She
may he another George Sand, or at least an-
other Eulalie Grantmesnil.”

Graham’s cheek became as white as the pa-
per I write on. He inclined his head as in as-
sent, but without a word. The Colonel contin-
ued :

“We ought to be very proud of her acquaint-
ance, Sir. I think you detected her gifts while
they were yet unconjectured. My wife says so.
You must be giatified to remember that, Sir —
clear grit. Sir, and no mistake.”

“ I certainly more than once have said to
Mrs. Morley that I esteemed Mademoiselle’s
powers so highly that I hoped she would never
become a stage singer and actress. But this
M. Rameau ? You say he is a rising man. It
struck me when at Paris that he was one of
those charlatans, with a great deal of conceit and
very little information, Avho are always found in
scores on the ultra- Liberal side of politics ; pos-
sibly I was mistaken.”

“He is the responsible editor of Ze Sens
Commun, in which talented periodical Made-
moiselle Cicogna’s book was first raised.”

“Of course I know that; a journal which, so
far as I have looked into its political or social
articles, certainly written by a cleverer and an
older man than M. Rameau, is for unsettling all
things and settling nothing. We have writers
of that kind among ourselves — I have no sym-
pathy with them. To me it seems that when a
man says, ‘Off with your head,’ he ought to let
us know what other head he would put on our
shoulders, and by what process the change of
heads shall be effected. Honestly speaking, if
you and your charming wife are intimate friends
and admirers of Mademoiselle Cicogna, I think
you could not do her a greater service thqn that
of detaching her from all connection with men like
M. Rameau, and joui'nals like Le Sens Commun”

The Colonel here withdrew his cigar from his
lips, lowered his head to a level with Graham’s,
and relaxing into an arch, significant smile,
said : “ Start to Paris, and dissuade her your-
self. Start — go ahead — don’t be shy — don’t see-
saw on the beam of speculation. You will have
more influence with that young female than we
can boast.”

Never was England in greater danger of quar-
rel with America than at that moment ; but
Graham curbed his first wrathful impulse, and jwfi
replied, coldly,

THE PARISIANS.

15.*}

“ It seems to me, Colonel, that you, though
very unconsciously, derogate from the respect
due to Mademoiselle Cicogna. That the coun-
sel of a married couple like yourself and Mrs.
Morley should be freely given to and duly heed-
ed by a girl deprived of her natural advisers in
parents is a reasonable and honorable supposi-
tion ; but to imply that the most influential ad-
viser of a young lady so situated is a young sin-
gle man, in no way related to her, appears to
me a dereliction of that regard, to the dignity
of her sex which is the chivalrous characteristic
of your countrymen — and to Mademoiselle Ci-
cogna herself, a surmise which she would be jus-
tified in resenting as an impertinence.”

“I deny both allegations,” replied the Col-
onel, serenely. “ I maintain that a single man
whips all connubial creation when it comes to
gallantizing a single young woman ; and that
no young lady would be justified in resenting as
impertinence my friendly suggestion to the sin-
gle man so deserving of her consideration as I
estimate you to be to solicit the right to advise
her for life. And that’s a caution.”

Hei'e the Colonel resumed his regalia, and
again gazed intent on the ceiling. .

“ Advise her for life ! You mean, I presume,
as a candidate for her hand.”

“ You don’t Turkey now. Well, I guess you
are not wide of the mark there. Sir.”

“ You do me infinite honor, but I do not pre-
sume so far.”

“ So, so — not as yet. Before a man who is
not without gumption runs himself for Congress
he likes to calculate how the votes will run.
Well, Sir, suppose we are in caucus, and let us
discuss the chances of the election with closed
doors. ”

Graham could not help smiling at the persist-
ent officiousness of his visitor, but his smile was
a very sad one.

“ Pray change the subject, my dear Colonel
Morley — it is not a pleasant one to me ; and as
regards Mademoiselle Cicogna, can you think it
would not shock her to suppose that her name
was dragged into the discussions you would pro-
voke, even with closed doors ?”

“Sir,” replied the Colonel, imperturbably,
“ since the doors are closed, there is no one, un-
less it be a spirit-listener under the table, who
can wire to Mademoiselle Cicogna the substance
of debate. And, for my part, I do not believe
in spiritual manifestations. Fact is that I have
the most amicable sentiments toward both par-
ties, and if there is a misunderstanding which is
opposed to the union of the States, I wish to re-
move it while yet in time. Now let us suppose
that you decline to be a candidate ; there are
plenty of others who will run ; and as an elector
must choose one representative or other, so a
gal must choose one husband or other. And
then you only repent when it is too late. It is
a great thing to be first in the field. Let us ap-
proximate to the point ; the chances seem good.
Will you run ? Yes or No ?”

“I repeat. Colonel Morley, that I entertain
no such presumption.”

The Colonel here, rising, extended his hand,
which Graham shook with constrained cordial-
ity, and then leisurely walked to the door ; there
he paused, as if struck by a new thought, and
said, gravely, in his natural tone of voice, “You

have nothing to say, Sir, against the young lady’s
character and honor ?”

“I! — Heavens, no! Colonel Morley, such a
question insults me.”

The Colonel resumed his deepest nasal bass ;
“It is only, then, because you don’t fancy her
now so much as you did last year — fact, you are
soured on her and fly off the handle. Such
things do happen. The same thing has hap-
pened to myself. Sir. In my days of celibacy
there was a gal at Saratoga whom I gallantized",
and whom, while I was at Saratoga, I thought
Heaven had made to be Mrs. Morley. I was
on the very point of telling her so, when I was
suddenly called off to Philadelphia ; and at Phil-
adelphia, Sir, I found that Heaven had made an-
other Mrs. Morley. I state this fact, Sir, though
I seldom talk of my own affairs, even when will-
ing to tender my advice in the affairs of anoth-
er, in order to prove that I do not intend to cen-
sure you if Heaven has served you in the same
manner. Sir, a man may go blind for one gal
when he is not yet dry behind the ears, and then,
when his eyes are skinned, go in for one better.
All things mortal meet with a change, as my sis-
ter’s little boy said when, at the age of eight, he
quitted the Methodies and turned Shaker. Three])
and argue as we may, you and I are both mortals
—more’s the pity. Good-morning, Sir” (glan-
cing at the clock, which proclaimed the hour of
3 p.M.) — “I err — good-evening.”

By the post that day the Colonel transmitted
a condensed and laconic report of his conversa-
tion with Graham Vane. 1 can state its sub-
stance in yet fewer words. He wrote word that
Graham positively declined the invitation to Par-
is ; that he had then, agreeably to Idzzy’s in-
structions, ventilated the Englishman, in the most
delicate terms, as to his intentions with regard
to Isaura, and that no intentions at all existed.
The sooner all thoughts of him were relinquish-
ed, and a new suitor on the ground, the better it
would be for the young lady’s happiness in the
only state in which happiness should be, if not
found, at least sought, whether by maid or man.

Mrs. Morley was extremely put out by this un-
toward result of the diplomacy she had intrusted
to the Colonel ; and when, the next day, came
a very courteous letter from Graham, thanking
her gratefully for the kindness of her invitation,
and expressing his regret, briefly though cordial-
ly, at his inability to profit by it, without the most
distant allusion to the subject which the Colonel
had brought on the tapis, or even requesting his
compliments to the Signoras Venosta and Ci-
cogna, she was more than put out, more than
resentful — she was deeply grieved. Being, how-
ever, one of those gallant heroes of womankind
who do not give in at the first defeat, she be-
gan to doubt whether Frank had not rather over-
strained the delicacy which he said he had put
into his “soundings.” He ought to have been
more explicit. Meanwhile she resolved to call
on Isaura, and, without mentioning Graham’s
refusal of her invitation, endeavor to ascertain
whether the attachment which she felt persuaded
the girl secretly cherished for this recalcitrant
Englishman were something more than the first
romantic fancy — whether it were sufficiently
deep to justify farther effort on Mrs. Morley’s
part to bring it to a prosperous issue.

She found Isaura at home and alone ; and, to

156

THE PARISIANS.

do her justice, she exhibited wonderful tact in
the fiiltillment of the task she had set herself.
Forming her judgment by manner and look — not
words — she returned home convinced that she
ought to seize the opportunity afforded to her by
Graham’s letter. It was one to which she might
very naturally reply, and in that reply she might
convey the object at her heart more felicitously
than the Colonel had done. “The cleverest man
is,” she said to herself, “stupid compared to an
ordinary woman in the real business of life, which
does not consist of fighting and money-making.”

Now there was one point she had ascertained
by words in her visit to Isaura — a point on wliich
all might depend. She had asked Isaura when
and where she had seen Graham last ; and when
Isaura had given her that information, and she
learned it was on the eventful day on which
Isaura gave her consent to the publication of her
MS., if approved by Savarin, in the journal to
be set up by the handsome-faced young author,
she leaped to the conclusion that Graham had
been seized with no unnatural jealousy, and was
still under the illusive glamoury of that green-
eyed fiend. She was confirmed in this notion,
not altogether an unsound one, when, asking with
apparent carelessness, “And in that last inter-
view did you see any change in Mr. Vane’s man-
ner, especially when he took leave ?”

Isaura turned away pale, and involuntaiily
clasping her hands — as women do when they
would suppress pain — replied, in a low manner,
“ His manner was changed.’’

Accordingly, Mrs. Morley sat down and wrote
the following letter :

“ Dear Mr. Vane, — I am very angry indeed
with you for refusing my invitation — I had so
counted on you — and I don’t believe a word of
your excuse. Engagements ! To balls and din-
ners, I suppose, as if you were not much too
clever to care about these silly attempts to enjoy
solitude in crowds. And as to what you men call
business, you have no right to have any business
at all. You are not in commerce; you are not
in Parliament ; you told me yourself that you
had no great landed estates to give you trouble ;
you are rich, without any necessity to take pains
to remain rich or to become richer ; you have
no business in the world except to please your-
self ; and when you will not come to Paris to see
one of your truest friends — which I certainly am
— it simply means that no matter how such a
visit would please me, it does not please yourself.

I call that abominably rude and ungrateful.

“But I am not writing merely to scold you.

I have something else on my mind, and it must
come out. Certainly, when you were at Paris
last year, you did admire, above all other young
ladies, Isaura Cicogna. And I honored 3mu for
doing so. I know no young lady to be called her
equal. Well, if you admired her then, what
would you do now if you met her ? Then she
was but a girl — very brilliant, very charming, it
is true, but undeveloped, untested. ‘ Now she is
a woman, a princess among women, but retain-
ing all that is most lovable in a girl ; so courted,
yet so simple — so gifted, yet so innocent. Her
liead is not a bit turned by all the flattery that
surrounds her. Come and judge for yourself. I
still hold the door of the rooms destined to you
open for repentance.

“My dear Mr. Vane, do not think me a silly
match-making little woman when I write to you
thus, a cceur ouvert.

“I like you so much that I would fain secure
to you the rarest prize which life is ever likely to
offer to your ambition. Where can you hope
to find another Isaura? Among the stateliest
daughters of 3’our English dukes, where is there
one whom a proud man would be more proud to
show to the world, saying, ‘ She is mine!’ where
one more distinguished — I will not sa^' by mere
beauty — there she might be eclipsed — but by
sweetness and dignity combined — in aspect,
manner, every movement, every smile ?

“ And you, who are yourself so clever, so well
read — you who would be so lonely with a wife who
was not your companion, with whom you could
not converse on equal terms of intellect — my dear
friend, where could you find a companion in whom
you would not miss the poet-soul of Isaura ? Of
course I should not dare to obtrude all these ques-
tionings on your innermost reflections, if I had not
some idea, right or wrong, that since the days
when at Enghien and Montmorency, seeing you
and Isaura side by side, I whispered to Frank,

‘ So should those two be through life,’ some cloud
has passed between your eyes and the future on
which the}' gazed. Can not that cloud be dis-
pelled ? Were you so unjust to 3'ourself as to be
jealous of a rival, perhaps of a Gustave Rameau ?

I write to you frankly — answer me frankly ; and
if you answer, ‘ Mrs. Morley, I don’t know what
you mean ; I admired Mademoiselle Cicogna as
I might admire any other pretty, accomplished
girl, but it is really nothing to me whether she
marries Gustave Rameau or any one else’ — why,
then, burn this letter — forget that it has been
written ; and may you never know the pang of
remorseful sigh, if, in the days to come, you see
her — whose name in that case I should pro-
fane did I repeat it — the comrade of another
man’s mind, the half of another man’s heart,
the pride and delight of another man’s blissful
home.”

' CHAPTER IV.

There is somewhere in Lord Lytton’s writ-
ings— writings so numerous that I may be par-
doned if I can not remember where — a critical
definition of the difference between dramatic
and narrative art of story, instanced by that
marvelous passage in the loftiest of Sir Walter
Scott’s works, in which all the anguish of Ra-
venswood on the night before he has to meet
Lucy’s brother in mortal combat is convolved
without the spoken words required in tragedy.
It is only to be conjectured by the tramp of his
heavy boots to and fro all the night long in his
solitary chamber, heard below by the faithful
Caleb. The drama could not have allowed that
treatment ; the drama must have put into words,
as “soliloquy,” agonies which the non-dramatic
narrator knows that no soliloquy can describe.
Humbly do I imitate, then, the great master of
narrative in declining to put into words the con-
flict between love and reason that tortured the
heart of Graham Vane when dropping noise-
lessly the letter I have just transcribed. He'
covered his face with his hands and remained —
I know not how long — in the same position.

THE PARISIANS.

157

his head bowed, not a sound escaping from his
lips.

He did not stir from his rooms that day; and
had there been a Caleb’s faithful ear to listen,
his tread, too, might have been heard all that
sleepless niglit passing to and fro, but pausing
oft, along his solitary doors.

Possibly love would have borne down all op-
posing reasonings, doubts, and prejudices, but
for incidents that occurred the following even-
ing. On that evening Graham dined en famille
with his cousins the Altons. After dinner the
Duke produced the design for a cenotaph in-
scribed to the memory of his aunt. Lady Janet
King, which he proposed to place in the family
chapel at Alton.

“ I know,” said the Duke, kindly, “ you would
wish the old house from which she sprang to
preserve some such record of her who loved you
as her son ; and even putting you out of the
question, it gratifies me to attest the claim of
our family to a daughter wlio continues to be
famous for her goodness, and made the good-
ness so lovable that envy forgave it for being
famous. It was a pang to me when poor Rich-
ard King decided on placing her tomb among
strangers; but in conceding his rights as to her
resting-place, I retain mine to her name, ‘ Nos-
tris liberis virtutis exemplar.'"'

Graham wrung his cousin’s hand — he could
not speak, choked by suppressed tears.

The Duchess, who loved and honored Lady
Janet almost as much as did her husband, fairly
sobbed aloud. She had, indeed, reason for grate-
ful memories of the deceased: there had been
some obstacles to her marriage with the man
who had won her heart, arising from political
differences and family feuds between their par-
ents, which the gentle mediation of Lady Janet
had smoothed away. And never did union
founded on mutual and ardent love more belie
the assertions of the great Bichat (esteemed by
Dr. Buckle the finest intellect which practical
philosophy has exhibited since Aristotle), that
“Love is a sort of fever which does not last
beyond two years,” than that between these ec-
centric specimens of a class denounced as frivo-
lous and heartless by philosophers, English a!nd
French, who have certainly never heard of Bi-
chat.

When the emotion the Duke had exhibitod
was calmed down, his wife pushed toward Gra-
ham a sheet of paper, inscribed with the epitaph
composed by his hand. “ Is it not beautiful,”
she said, falteringl}- — “ not a word too much nor
too little ?”

Graham read the inscription slowly, and with
very dimmed eyes. It deserved the praise be-
stowed on it; for the Duke, though a shy and
awkward speaker, was an incisive and graceful
Avriter.

Yet, in his innermost self, Graham shivered
when he read that epitaph, it expressed so em-
phatically the reverential nature of the love
which Lady Janet had inspired — the genial in-
fluences which the holiness of a character so act-
ive in doing good had diffused around it. It
brought vividly before Graham that image of
perfect spotless womanhood. And a voice with-
in him asked, “Would that cenotaph be placed
amidst the monuments of an illustrious lineage if
the secret known to thee could transpire ? What

though the lost one were really as unsullied by
sin as the world deems, would the name now
treasured as an heir-loom not be a memory of
gall and a sound of shame?”

He remained so silent after putting down the
inscription that the Duke said, modestly, “ My
dear Graham, I see that you do not like what I
have written. Your pen is much more prac-
ticed than mine. If I did not ask you to com-
pose the epitaph, it was because I thought it
would please you more in coming, as a spon-
taneous tribute due to her, from the representa-
tive of her family. But will you correct my
sketch, or give me another according to your
own ideas ?”

“I see not a word to alter,” said Graham:
“forgive me if my silence wronged my emotion ;
the truest eloquence is that which holds us too
mute for applause.”

“I knew you would like it. Leopold is al-
ways so disposed to underrate himself,” said the
Duchess, whose hand was resting fondly on her
husband’s shoulder. “ Epitaphs are so difficult
to write — especially epitaphs on women of whom
in life the least said the better. Janet was the
only woman I ever knew whom one could praise
in safety.”

“ Well expressed,” said the Duke, smiling;
“and I wish you would make that safety clear
to some lady friends of yours, to whom it might
serve as a lesson. Proof against every breath
of scandal herself, Janet King never uttered and
never encouraged one ill-natured word against
another. But I am afraid, my dear fellow, that
I must leave you to a tete-a-tete with Eleanor.
You know that I must be at the House this even-
ing— I only paired till half past nine.”

“I will walk down to the House with you, if
you are going on foot.”

“No,” said the Duchess; “you must resign
yourself to me for at least half an hour. . I was
looking over your aunt’s letters to-day, and I
found one which I wish to show you ; it is all
about yourself, and written within the last few
months of her life.” Here she put her arm into
Graham’s, and led him into her own private
drawing-room, which, though others might call
it a boudoir, she dignified by the name of her
study. The Duke I'emained for some minutes
thoughtfully leaning his arm on the mantel-piece.
It was no unimportant debate in the Lords that
night, and on a subject in which he took great
interest, and the details of which he had thor-
oughly mastered. He had been requested to
speak, if only a few \vords, for his high charac-
ter and his reputation for good sense gave weight
to the mere utterance of his opinion. But though
no one had more moral courage in action, the
Duke had a terror at the very thought of ad-
dressing an audience which made him despise
him.self.

“ Ah !” he muttered, “if Graham Vane Avere
but in Parliament, I could trust him to say ex-
actly what I would rather be swallowed up by
an earthquake than stand up and say for myself.
But now he has got money, he seems to think of
nothing but saving it. ”

158

THE PAKISIANS.

CHAPTER V.

The letter from Lady Janet, which the Duch-
ess took from the desk and placed in Graham’s
hand, was in strange coincidence with the sub-
ject that for the last twenty -four hours had
absorbed his thoughts and tortured his heart.
Speaking of him in terms of affectionate eulogy,
the writer proceeded to confide her earnest wish
that he should not longer delay that change in
life which, concentrating so much that is vague
in the desires and aspirations of man, leaves his
heart and his mind, made serene by the content-
ment of home, free for the steadfast consolida-
tion of their warmth and their light upon the en-
nobling duties that unite the individual to his
race.

‘ ‘ There is no one, ” wrote Lady Janet, ‘ ‘ whose
character and career a felicitous choice in mar-
riage can have greater influence over tlian this
dear adopted son of mine. I do not fear that
in any case he will be liable to the errors of his
brilliant father. His early reverse of fortune
here seems to me one of those blessings which
Heaven conceals in the form of affliction. For
in youth, the genial freshness of his gay animal
spirits, a native generosity mingled with desire
of display and thirst for applause, made me
somewhat alarmed for his future. But though
he still retains these attributes of character, they
are no longer predominant ; they are modified
and chastened. He has learned prudence. But
what I now fear most for him is that which he
does not show in the world, which neither Leo-
pold nor you seem to detect — it is an exceeding
sensitiveness of pride. I know not how else to
describe it. It is so interwoven with the high-
est qualities that I sometimes dread injury to
them could it be torn away from the faultier ones
which it supports.

“It is interwoven with that lofty independence
of spirit which has made him refuse openings the
most alluring to his ambition ; it communicates
a touching grandeur to his self-denying thrift ;
it makes him so tenacious of his word once given,
so cautious before he gives it. Public life to him
is essential ; without it he would be incomplete ;
and yet I sigh to think that whatever success he
may achieve in it will be attended with propor-
tionate pain. Calumny goes side by .side with
fame, and courting fame as a man, he is as thin-
skinned to calumny as a woman.

“ The wife for Graham should have qualities
not, taken individually, uncommon in English
wives, but in combination somewhat rare.

“ She must have mind enough to appreciate
his — not to clash with it. She must be fitted
with sympathies to be his dearest companion,
his confidante in the hopes and fears which the
slightest want of sympathy would make him keep
ever afterward pent within his breast. In her-
self worthy of distinction, she must merge all
distinction in his. You have met in the world
men who, marrying professed beauties or pro-
fessed literary geniuses, are spoken of as the hus-
band of the beautiful Mrs. A , or of the

clever Mrs. B . Can you fancy Graham

Vane in the reflected light of one of those hus-
bands ? I trembled last year when I thought
he was attracted by a face which the artists
raved about, and again by a tongue which
dropped hons mots that went the round of the

clubs. I was relieved when, sounding him, he
said, laughingly, ‘No, dear aunt, I should be one
sore from head to foot if I married a wife that
was talked about for any thing but goodness.’

“No — Graham Vane will have pains sharp
enough if he live to be talked about himself!
But that tenderest half of himself, the bearer of
the name he would make, and for the dignity of
which he alone would be responsible — if that
were the town-talk, he would curse the hour he
gave any one the right to take on herself his
man’s burden of calumny and fame. I know
not which I should pity the most,. Graham Vane
or his wife.

“Do you understand me, dearest Eleanor?
No doubt you do so far that you comprehend
that the women whom men most admire are not
the women we, as women ourselves, would wish
our sons or brothers to marry. But perhaps you
do not comprehend my cause of fear, which is
this — for in such matters men do not see as we
women do — Graham abhors, in the girls of our
time, frivolity and insipidity. Very rightly, you
will sa}'. True, but then he is too likely to be
allured by contrasts. I have seen him attracted
by the very girls we recoil from more than we
do from those we allow to be frivolous and in-
sipid. I accused him of admiration for a cer-
tain young lady whom you call ‘odious,’ and
whom the slang that has come into vogue calls
‘fast;’ and I was not satisfied with his answer
— ‘ Certainly I admire her; she is not a doll —
j she has ideas.’ I would rather of the two see
Graham married to what men call a doll than to
a girl with ideas which are distasteful to women.”

Lady Janet then went on to question the
Duchess about a Miss Asterisk, with whom this
'tale will have nothing to do, but who, from the
little which Lady Janet had seen of her, might
possess all the requisites that fastidious corre-
spondent would exact for the wife of her adopted
son.

This Miss Asterisk had been introduced into
the London world by the Duchess. The Duch-
ess had replied to Lady Janet that if earth
could be ransacked, a more suitable wife for
Graham Vane than Miss Asterisk could not be
found. She was well born — an heiress ; the es-
tates she inherited were in the county of

(viz., the county in which the ancestors of D’Al-
tons and Vanes had for centuries established
their whereabouts). Miss Asterisk was pretty
enough to please any man’s eye, but not with
the beauty of which artists rave ; well-informed
enough to he companion to a well-informed man,
but certainly not witty enough to supply bons
mots to the clubs. Miss Asterisk was one of
those women of whom a husband might be proud,
yet with whom a husband would feel safe from
being talked about.

And in submitting the letter we have read to
Graham’s eye, the Duchess had the cause of
Miss Asterisk pointedly in view. Miss Asterisk
had confided to her friend that, of all men she
had seen, Mr. Graham Vane was the one she
would feel the least inclined to refuse.

So when Graham Vane returned the letter to
the Duchess, simjfly saying, “ How well my dear
aunt divined what is weakest in me !” the Duch-
ess replied, quickly, “ Miss Asterisk dines here
to-morrow ; pray come ; you would like her if
you knew more of her.”

THE PARISIANS.

159

“ To-morrow I am engaged — an American
friend of mine dines with me ; but ’tis no mat-
ter, for I shall never feel more for Miss Asterisk
than I feel for Mont Blanc.”

CHAPTER VI.

On leaving his cousin’s house Graham walked
on, he scarce knew or cared whither, the image
of the beloved dead so forcibly recalled the so-
lemnity of the mission with which he had been
intrusted, and which hitherto he had failed to
fulfill. What if the only mode by which he
could, without causing questions and suspicions
that might result in dragging to day the terrible
nature of the trust he held, enrich the daughter
of Richard King, repair all wrong hitherto done
to her, and guard the sanctity of Lady Janet’s
home, should be in that union which Richard
King had commended to him while his heart was
yet free?

In such a case, would not gratitude to the
dead, duty to the living, make that union imper-
ative at whatever sacrifice of happiness to him-
self? The two years to which Richard King had
limited the suspense of research were not yet ex-
pired. Then, too, that letter of Lady Janet’s
— so tenderly anxious for his future, so clear-
sighted as to the elements of his own character
in its strength or its infirmities — combined with
graver causes to withhold his heart from its
yearning impulse, and — no, not steel it against
Isaura, but forbid it to realize, in the fair creat-
ure and creator of romance, his ideal of the wom-
an to whom an earnest, sagacious, aspiring man
commits all the destinies involved in the serene
dignity of his hearth. He could not but own that
this gifted author — this eager seeker after fame
— this brilliant and bold competitor with men on
their own stormy battle-ground — was the very
person from whom Lady Janet would have warn-
ed away his choice. She (Isaura) merge her own
distinctions in a husband’s ! — she leave exclu-
sively to him the burden of fame and calumny !
— she shun “to be talked about!” — she who
could feel her life to be a success or a failure, ac-
cording to the extent and the loudness of the talk
which it courted !

ysnfile these thoughts racked his mind, a kind-
ly hand was laid on his arm, and a cheery voice
accosted him. “ Well met, my dear Vane ! I
see we are bound to the same place. There will
be a good gathering to-night. ”

“ What do you mean, Bevil ? I am going no-
where, except to my own quiet rooms.”

“Pooh ! Come in here at least for a few min-
utes;” and Bevil drew him up to the door-step
of a house close by, where, on certain evenings,
a well-known club drew together men who sel-
dom meet so familiarly elsewhere — men of all
callings — a club especially fiivored by wits, au-
thors, and the flaneurs of polite society.

Graham shook his head, about to refuse, when
Bevil added, “ I have just come from Paris, and
can give you the last news, literary, political,
and social. By-the-way, I saw Savarin the oth-
er night at the Cicogna’s — he introduced me
there.” Graham winced ; he was spelled by the
music of a name, and followed his acquaintance
into the crowded room, and after returning many

greetings and nods, withdrew into a remote cor-
ner, and motioned Bevil to a seat beside him.

“ So you met Savarin ? Where, did you say ?”

“ At the house of the new lady author — I hate
the word authoress — Mademoiselle Cicogna ! Of
course vou have read her book ?”

“Yes.”

“Pull of fine things, is it not? — though some-
what high-flown and sentimental. However,
nothing succeeds like success. No book has
been more talked about at Paris; the only thing
more talked about is the lady author herself. ”

“ Indeed ! — and how ?”

“ She doesn’t look twenty, a mere girl — of
that kind of beauty which so arrests the eye that
you pass by other faces to gaze on it, and the
dullest stranger would ask, ‘Who and what is
she?’ A girl, I say, like that — who lives as in-
dependently as if she were a middle-aged widow,
receives every week (she has her Thursdays),
with no other chaperon than an old ci-devant
Italian singing-woman, dressed like a guy — must
set Parisian tongues into play, even if she had
not written the crack book of the season.”

“Mademoiselle Cicogna receives on Thurs-
days— no harm in that ; and if she have no oth-
er chaperon than the Italian lady you mention,
it is because Mademoiselle Cicogna is an orphan;
and having a fortune, such as it is, of her own,
I do not see why she should not live as independ-
ently as many an unmarried woman in London
placed under similar circumstances. I suppose
she receives chiefly persons in the literary or
artistic world ; and if they are all as respectal)le
as the Savarins, I do not think ill nature itself
could find fault with her social circle.”

“Ah ! you know the Cicogna, I presume. I
am sure I did not wish to say any thing that
could offend her best friends, only I do think it
is a pity she is not married, poor girl !”

“ Mademoiselle Cicogna, accomplished, beau-
tiful, of good birth (the Cicognas rank among
the oldest of Lombard families), is not likely to
want offers.”

“Offers of marriage — h’m — well, I dare say,
from authors and artists. You know Paris bet-
ter even than I do, but I don’t suppose authors
and artists there make the most desirable hus-
bands ; and I scarcely know a marriage in Prance
between a man author and lady author Avhich
does not end in the deadliest of all animosities
— that of wounded amour propre. Perhaps the
man admires his own genius too much to do
proper homage to his wife’s.”

“ But the choice of Mademoiselle Cicogna
need not be restricted to the pale of authorship
— doubtless she has many admirers beyond that
quarrelsome border-land. ”

“Certainly — countless adorers. Enguerrand
de Vandemar — you know that diamond of dan-
dies?”

“ Perfectly. Is he an admirer?”

“ Cela va sans dire — he told me that though
she was not the handsomest woman in Paris, all
other women looked less handsome since he had
seen her. But of course Prench lady-killers
like Enguerrand, when it comes to marriage,
leave it to their parents to choose tlieir wives and
arrange the ternis of the contract. Talking of
lady-killers, I beheld amidst the throng at Made-
! moiselle Cicogna’s the ci-devant Lovelace whom
' I remember some twenty-three years ago as the

160

THE PAKISIANS.

darling of wives and the terror of husbands —
Victor de Mauleon.”

“ Victor de Mauleon at Mademoiselle Cico-
gna’s ! What ! is that man restored to society ?”

“Ah ! yon are thinking of the ugly old story
about the jewels — oh yes, he has got over that ; all
his grand relations, the Vandemars, Beauvilliers,
Rochebriant, and others took him by the hand
when he reappeared at Paris last year ; and though
I believe he is still avoided by many, he is court-
ed by still more^ — and avoided, I fancy, rather
from political than social causes. The Imperi-
alist set, of course, execrate and proscribe him.
You know he is the writer of those biting arti-
cles signed ‘ Pierre Firmin’ in the Sens Commun ;
and 1 am told he is the proprietor of that very
clever journal, which has become a power.”

“So, so — that is the journal in which Made-
moiselle Cicogna’s roman first appeared. So, so
— Victor de Mauleon one of her associates, her
counselor and friend — ah !”

“ No, I didn’t say that ; on the contrary, he
was presented to her for the first time the even-
ing I was at the house. I saw that young silk-
haired coxcomb, Gustave Rameau, introduce
liihi to her. You don’t perhaps know Rameau,
editor of the Sens Commun — writes poems and
criticisms. They say he is a Red Republican, but
De Maule'on keeps truculent French politics sub-
dued, if not suppressed, in his cynical journal.
Somebody told me that the Cicogna is very much
in love with Rameau ; certainly he has a hand-
some face of his own, and that is the reason wh}'^
she was so rude to the Russian Prince X .”

“ How, rude ? Did the Prince propose to her ?”

“Propose! you forget — he is married. Don’t
you know the Princess ? Still there are other
kinds of proposals than those of marriage which
a rich Russian prince may venture to make to
a pretty novelist brought up for the stage.”

“Bevil!” cried Graham, grasping the man’s
arm fiercely, “how dare yon ?”

“My dear boy,” said Bevil, very much as-
tonished,^ “ 1 really did not know that your in-
terest in the young lady was so great. If I have
wounded you in relating a mere on dit picked
up at the Jockey Club, I beg you a thousand
pardons. I dare say there was not a word of
truth in it.”

“ Not a word of truth, you may be sure, if the
on dit was injurious to Mademoiselle Cicogna.
It is true I har)e a strong interest in her ; any
man— any gentleman — would have such interest
in a girl so brilliant and seemingly so friendless.
It shames one of human nature to think that the
reward which the world makes to those who ele-
vate its platitudes, brighten its dullness, delight
its leisure, is — Slander ! I have had the honor
to make the acquaintance of this lady before she
became a ‘celebrity,’ and I have never met in
my paths through life a purer heart or a nobler
nature. What is the wretched on dit you con-
descend to circulate ? Permit me to add,

“‘He who repeats a slander shares the crime.’”

“ Upon my honor, my dear Vane,” said Bevil,*
seriously (he did not want for spirit), “I hardly
know you this evening. It is not because duel-
ing is out of fashion that a man should allow
himself to speak in a tone that gives offense to
another who intended none; and if dueling is
out of fashion in England, it is still possible in

France. Kntre nous\ I would rather cross the
Channel with you than submit to language that
conveys unmerited insult.”

Graham’s cheek, before ashen pale, flushed
into dark red. “I understand you,” he said,
quietly, “and will be at Boulogne to-morrow.”

“ Graham Vane,” replied Bevil, with much
dignity, “you and I have known each other a
great many years, and neither of us has cause
to question the courage of the other; but I am
much older than yourself — permit me to take the
melancholy advantage of seniority. A duel be-
tween us in consequence of careless words said
about a lady in no way connected with either
would be a cruel injury to her ; a duel on grounds
so slight would little injure me — a man about
town, who would not sit an hour in the House
of Commons if you paid him a thousand pounds
a minute. But you, Graham Vane — you whose
destiny it is to canvass electors and make laws —
would it not be an injury to you to be questioned
at the hustings wh}' you broke the law, and why
you sought another man’s life? Come, come!
shake hands, and consider all that seconds, if
we chose them, would exact, is said, every af-
front on either side retracted, every apology on
either side made.”

“ Bevil, you disarm and conquer me. I spoke
like a hot-headed fool ; forget it — forgive. But
— but — I can listen calmly now — what is that
on ditf'

“ One that thoroughly bears out your own
very manly upholding of the poor young orphan,
whose name I shall never again mention with-
out such respect as would satisfy her most sensi-
tive champion. It was said that the Prince
X boasted that before a week was out Made-

moiselle Cicogna should appear in his carriage
at the Bois de Boulogne, and wear at the opera
diamonds he had sent to her ; that this boast
was enforced by a wageiq and the terms of the
wager compelled the Prince to confess the means
he had taken to succeed, and produce the evi-
I dence that he had lost or won. According to
I this on dit, the Prince had written to Made-
j moiselle Cicogna, and the letter had been accom-
[ panied by a parure that cost him half a million
of francs ; that the diamonds had been sent back,
with a few words of such scorn as a queen might
address to an upstart lackey. But, my dear
Vane, it is a mournful position for a girl to re-
ceive such offers ; and you must agree with me
! in wishing she were safely married, even to Mon-
I sieur Ramedu, coxcomb though he be. Let us
hope that they will be an exception to French
authors, male and female, in general, and live
] like turtle-doves.”

CHAPTER VII.

A FEW days after the date of the last chapter
Colonel Morley returned to Paris. He had dined
with Graham at Greenwich, had met him after-
ward in society, and paid him a farewell visit on
the day before the Colonel’s departure; but the
name of Isaura Cicogna had not again been ut-
tered by either. Morley was surprised that his
wife did not question him minutely as to the
mode in which he had executed her delicate
commission, and the manner as well as words

THE PARISIANS.

with which Graham had replied to his “ventila-
tions.” But his Lizzy cut him short when he
began his recital.

“I don’t want to hear any thing more about
the man. He has thrown away a prize richer
than his ambition will ever gain, even if it gain-
ed him a throne.”

“That it can’t gain him in the old country.
The people are loyal to the present dynasty,
whatever you may be told to the contrary.”

“Don’t be so horribly literal, Frank; that
subject is done with. How was the Duchess of
M dressed ?”

But when the Colonel had retired to what the
French call the cabinet de travail — and which
he more accurately termed his “smoke den” —
and there indulged in the cigar which, despite his
American citizenship, was forbidden in the draw-
ing-room of the tyrant who ruled his life, Mrs.
Morley took from her desk a letter received
three days before, and brooded over it intently,
studying every word. When she had thus re-
perused it, her tears fell upon the page. “ Poor
Isaura !” she muttered — “ poor Isaura ! I know
she loves him — and how deeply a nature like
hers can love ! But I must break it to her. If
I did not, she would remain nursing a vain
dream, and refuse every chance of real happiness
for the sake of nursing it.” Then she mechan-
ically folded up the letter — I need not say it w'as
from Graham Vane — restored it to the desk, and
remained musing till the Colonel looked in at
the door and said, peremptorily, “Very late —
come to bed.”

The next day Madame Savariii called on
Isaura.

“ Chere enfant,'' said she, “I have bad news
for you. Poor Gustave is very ill — an attack
of the lungs and fever ; you know how delicate
he is.”

“ I am sincerely grieved,” said Isaura, in ear-
nest, tender tones ; “ it must be a very sudden
attack : he was here last Thursday.”

“The malady only declared itself yesterday
morning, but surely you must have observed how
ill he has been looking for several days past. It
pained me to see him.”

“I did not notice any change in him,” said
Isaura, somewhat conscience-stricken. Wrapped
in her own happy thoughts, she w'ould not have
noticed change in faces yet more familiar to her
than that of her young admirer.

“ Isaura,” said Madame Savarin, “I suspect
there are moral causes for our friend’s failing
health. Why should I disguise my meaning?
You know well how madly he is in love with
you ; and have you denied him hope ?”

“I like M. Rameau as a friend; I admire
him — at times I pity him.”

“Pity is akin to love.”

“I doubt the truth of that saying, at all
events as you apply it now. I could not love
M. Rameau ; I never gave him cause to think I
could.”

‘ ‘ I wish for both your sakes that you could
make me a different answ’er; for his sake, be-
cause, knowing his faults and failings, I am per-
suaded that they would vanish in a companion-
ship so pure, so elevating as yours : you could
make him not only so much happier but so
much better a man. Hush ! let me go on ; let
me come to yourself — I say for your sake I wish
M

IGl

it. Your pursuits, your ambition, are akin to
his ; you should not marry one who could not
sympathize w’ith you in these. If you did, he
might either restrict the exercise of your genius
or be chafed at its display. The only authoress
I ever knew whose married lot was serenely hap-
py to the last was the greatest of English poet-
esses married to a great I^nglish poet. You
can not, you ought not, to devote yourself to the
splendid career to which your genius irresistibly
impels you without that counsel, that support,
that protection which a husband alone can give.
My dear child, as the wife- myself of a man of
letters, and familiarized to all the gossip, all the
scandal, to which they who give their names to
the public are exposed, I declare that if I had a
daughter -who inherited Savarin’s talents, and
was ambitious of attaining to his renown, I
would rather shut her up in a convent than let
her publish a book that was in every one’s hands
until she had sheltered her name under that of
a husband ; and if I say this of my child with a
father so Avise in the Avorld’s ways, and so popu-
larly respected as my honhomme, what must I
feel to be essential to your safety, poor stranger
in our land ! poor solitary orphan ! with no
other advice or guardian than, the singing mis-
tress whom you touchingly call ‘ Madre !' I see
how I distress and pain you — I can not help it.
Listen. The other evening Savarin came back
from his favorite cafe in a state of excitement
that made me think he came to announce a rev-
olution. It was about you ; he stormed, he wept
— actually Avept — my philosophical laughing Sa-
varin. He had j ust heard of that atrocious wager
made by a Russian barbarian. EA'cry one praised
you for the contempt Avith Avhich you had treat-
ed the saA-age’s insolence. But that you should
haA'e been submitted to such an insult without
one male friend Avho had the right to resent and
chastise it — you can not think how Savarin Avas
chafed and galled. You knoAv hoAv he admires,
but you can not guess hoAv he reveres you ; and
since then he says to me every day ; ‘ That girl
must not remain single. Better marry any man
who has a heart to defend a Avife’s honor and
the nerve to fire a pistol. Every Frenchman has
those qualifications !’ ”

Here Isaura could no longer restrain her emo-
tions ; she burst into sobs so vehement, so con-
vulsh'e, that Madame SaA’^arin became alarmed ;
but Avhen she attempted to embrace and soothe
her, Isaura recoiled Avith a visible shudder, and
gasping out, “Cruel, cruel!” turned to the door,
and rushed to her OAvn room.

A feAv minutes afterAvard a maid entered the
salon Avith a message to Madame Savarin that
mademoiselle Avas so unAA^ell that she must beg
madame to excuse her return to the salon.

Later in the day Mrs. Morley called, but Isau-
ra Avould not see her.

MeanAvhile poor Rameau Avas stretched on his
sick-bed, and in sharp struggle betAV’een life and
death. It is difficult to disentangle, one by one,
all the threads in a nature so complex as Ra-
meau’s ; but if Ave may hazard a conjecture, the
grief of disappointed loA^e Avas not the immedi-
ate cause of his illness, and yet it had much to
do Avith it. The goad of Isaura’s refusal had
driA'en him into seeking distraction in excesses
Avhich a stronger frame could have courted Avith
impunity. The man Avas thoroughly Parisian in

162

THE PARISIANS.

many things, but especially in impatience of any
trouble. Did love trouble him — love could be
drowned in absinthe ; and too much absinthe
may be a more immediate cause of congested
lungs than the love which the absinthe had lulled
to sleep.

His bedside was not watched by hirelings.
When first taken thus ill — too ill to attend to liis
editorial duties— information was conveyed to
the publisher of the Sens Cotnmun, and in conse-
quence of that infonnation Victor de Mauleon
came to see the sick man. By his bed he found
Savarin, who had called, as it were, by chance,
and seen the doctor, who had said, “ It is grave.
He must be well nursed.”

Savarin whispered to De Mauleon, “Shall
we call in a professional nurse, or a scenr de
charity ?"

De Mauleon replied, also in whisper, “ Some-
body told me that the man had a mother.”

It W'as true — Savarin had forgotten it. Ra-
meau never mentioned his parents — he was not
proud of them. They belonged to a lower class
of bourgeoisie^ retired shop-keepers, and a Red
Republican is sworn to hate of the bourgeoisie,
high or low ; while a beautiful young author
pushing his way into the Chaussee D’Antin does
not proclaim to the world that his parents had
sold hosiery in the Rue St. Denis.

Nevertheless Savarin knew that Rameau had
such parents still living, and took the hint. Two
hours afterward Rameau was leaning his burning
forehead on his mother’s breast.

The next morning the doctor said to the moth-
er, “ You are worth ten of me. If you can stay
liere we shall pull him through.”

“ Stay here ! — my own boy !” cried, indignant-
ly, the poor mother.

♦

CHAPTER VIII.

The day which had inflicted on Isaura so
keen an anguish was marked by a great trial in
the life of Alain de Rochebriant.

In the morning he received the notice of “
c.ommandement tendant a saisie irnmobiliere,” on
the part of his creditor, M. Louvier; in plain
Phiglish, an announcement that his property at
Rochebriant would be put up to public sale on a
certain day, in case all debts due to the mortga-
gee were not paid before. An hour afterward
came a note from Duplessis stating that “he
had returned from Bretagne on the previous
evening, and would be very happy to see the
Marquis de Rochebriant before two o’clock, if
not inconvenient to call.”

Alain put the “ couimandemenf' into his pock-
et, and repaired to the Hotel Duplessis.

The financier received him with very cordial
civility. Then he began : “I am happy to say
I left your excellent aunt in very good health.
She honored the letter of introduction to her
which I owe to your politeness with the most
amiable hospitalities ; she insisted on my re-
moving from the auberge at which I first put up
and becoming a guest under your venerable
roof-tree — a most agreeable lady, and a most
interesting chateau.''

“I fear your accommodation was in striking
contrast to your comforts at Paris ; my chateau

is only interesting to an antiquarian enamored
of ruins. ”

‘ ‘ Pardon me, ‘ ruins’ is an exaggerated ex-
pression. I do not say that the chateau does not
want some repairs, but they would not be cost-
ly ; the outer walls are strong enough to def\'
time for centuries to come, and a few internal
decorations and some modern additions of fur-
niture would make the old manoir a home fit for
a prince. I have been oAcr the whole estate,
too, with the worthy M. Hebert — a superb prop-
erty!”

“ Which M. Louvier appears to appreciate,”
said Alain, with a somewhat melancholy smile,
extending to Duplessis the menacing notice.

Duplessis glanced at it, and said, dryly, “ M.
Louvier knows what he is about. But I think
we had better put an immediate stop to formali-
ties which must be painful to a creditor so be-
nevolent. I do not presume to offer to pay the
interest due on the security you can give for the
repayment. If you refused that offer fiom so
old a friend as Lemercier, of course you could
not accept it from me. I make another propos-
al, to which you can scarcely object. I do not
like to give my scheming rival on the Bourse the
triumph of so profoundly planned a speculation.
Aid me to defeat him. Let me take the mort-
gage on myself, and l)ecome sole mortgagee —
hush ! — on this condition, that there should be
an entire union of interests between us two ;
that I should be at liberty to make the improve-
ments I desire, and when the improvements be
made, there should be a fair arrangement as to
the proportion of profits due to me as mortgagee
and improver, to you as original owner. Attend,
my dear IMarquis — I am speaking as a mere man
of business. I see my way to adding more than
a third — I might even say a half — to tlie present
revenues of Rochebriant. The woods have been
sadly neglected ; drainage alone would add great-
ly to their produce. Your orchards might be
rendered magnificent supplies to Baris with bet-
ter cultivation. Lastly, I would devote to build-
ing purposes or to market-gardens all the lands

round the two towns of and . I think I

can lay my hands on suitable speculators for these
last experiments. In a word, though the mar-
ket value of Rochebriant, as it now stands, would
not be equivalent to the debt on it, in five or
six years it could be made worth — well, I will
not say how much — but we shall be both well
satisfied with the result. Meanwhile, if you al-
low me to find purchasers for your timber, and
if you will not suffer the Chevalier de Binisterre
to regulate your expenses, you need have no fear
that the interest due to me will not be regularly
paid, even though I shall be compelled, for the
first year or two at least, to ask a higher rate of
interest than Louvier exacted — say a quarter per
cent, more; and in suggesting that, you will
comprehend that this is now a matter of business
between us, and not of friendship. ”

Alain turned his head aside to conceal his
emotion, and then with the quiek, affectionate
impulse of the genuine French nature, threw
himself on the financier’s breast and kissed him
on both cheeks.

“ You save me ! you save the home and tombs
of my ancestors I Thank you I can not ; but I
believe in God — I. pray — I will pray for you as
for a father ! And if ever,” he hurried on, in bro- ,

THE PARISIANS.

IGo

ken words, “ I am mean enough to squander on
idle luxuries one franc that I should save for the
debt due to you, chide me as a father would chide
a graceless son. ”

Moved as Alain was, Duplessis was moved yet
more deeply. “ What father would not be proud
of such a son? Ah, if I had such a one!” he
said, softly. Then, quickly recovering his wont-
ed composure, he added, with the sardonic smile
which often chilled his friends and alarmed his
foes, “Monsieur Louvier is about to pass that
which I ventured to promise him, a ‘ mauvais
quart dheure.' Lend me that coinmandement
tendant a saisie. I must be off to my avou6
with instructions. If you have no better en-
gagement, pray dine with me to-day, and accom-
pany Valerie and myself to the opera.”

I need not say that Alain accepted the invita-
tion. How happy Valerie was that evening!

CHAPTER IX.

The next day Duplessis w'as surprised by a
visit from M. Louvier — that magnate of million-
naires had never before set foot in the house of
his younger and less famous rival.

The burly man entered the room with a face
much flushed, and with more than his usual mix-
ture of jovial brusquerie and opulent swagger.

“ Startled to see me, I dare say,” began Lou-
vier, as soon as the door was closed. “I have
this morning received a communication from
your agent containing a check for the interest
due to me from M. Rochebriant, and a formal
notice of your intention to pay off the principal
on behalf of that popinjay prodigal. Though
we two have not hitherto been the best friends
in the w^orld, I thought it fair to a man in your
station to come to you direct and say, ‘ Cher con-
frere^ w'hat swindler has bubbled you ? You don’t
know the real condition of this Breton property,
or you would never so throw away your millions.
The property is not vrorth the mortgage I have
on it by 30,000 louis.’ ”

“ Then, M. Louvier, 3'ou will be 30,000 louis
the richer if I take the mortgage off your hands.”

*' ‘ I can afford the loss — no offense — better than
you can ; and I may have fltncies which I don’t
mind paying for, but which can not influence an-
other. See, I have brought Avitli me the exact
schedule of all details respecting this property.
You need not question their accuracy : they have
been arranged by the Marquis’s own agents, M.
Gandrin and M. Hebert. They contain, you
will perceive, every possible item of revenue,
down to an apple-tree. Now look at that, and
tell me if you are justified in lending such a sum
on such a property. ”

“Thank you very much for an interest in my
affairs that I scarcely ventured to expect M.
Louvier to entertain; but I see that I have a
duplicate of this paper, furnished to me very hon-
estly by M. Hebert himself. Besides, I too
have fancies which I don’t mind paying for, and
among them may be a fancy for the lands of
Rochebriant.”

“Look you, Duplessis, when a man like me
asks a favor, j'ou may be sure that he has the
power to repay it. Let me have my whim here,
and ask any thing you like from me in return !”

sold not to oblige you, but this has become
not only a whim of mine, but a matter of honor ;
and honor, you know, my dear M. Louvier, is
the first principle of sound finance. I have my-
self, after careful inspection of the Rochebriant
property, volunteered to its owner to advance the
money to pay off your hypotheqne; and what
would be said on the Bourse if Lucien Duplessis
failed in an obligation ?”

“I think I can guess what will one day be
said of Lucien Duplessis if he make an irrevo-
cable enemy of Paul Louvier. Corbleu! mon
cher, a man of thrice your cai)ital, who watched
every speculation of yours with a hostile e^-e,
might some beau jour make even you a bank-
rupt!”

“Forewarned, forearmed !” replied Duplessis,
imperturbably. “ ^ Fas est ab hoste docerV — I
mean, ‘It is right to be taught by an enemy;’
and I never remember the day when you were
otherwise, and yet I am not a bankrupt, though
I receive j'ou in a house which, thanks to you,
is so modest in point of size!”

“ Bah ! that was a mistake of mine — and, ha !
ha ! you had your revenge there — that forest ! ”

“Well, as a peace-offering, I will give you up
the forest, and content m3" ambition as a landed
proprietor with .this bad speculation of Roche-
briant !”

“Confound the forest ! I don’t care for it now.
I can sell my place for more than it has cost me
to one of your imperial favorites. Build a palace
in 3"our forest. Let me have Rochebriant, and
name your terms.”

“A thousand pardons! but I have alreadv"
had the honor to inform 3'Ou that I have con-
tracted an obligation which does not allow me to
listen to terms.”

As a serpent that, after all crawlings and wind-
ings, rears itself on end, Louvier rose, crest
erect —

“So, then, it is finished. I came here dis-
posed to offer peace. You refuse, and declare
war. ”

“ Not at all; I do not declare war; I accept
it if forced on me. ”

“ Is that 3’our last word, M. Duplessis?”

“Monsieur Louvier, it is.”

“ ZIow/oMr

And Louvier strode to the door. Here he
paused. “Take a day to consider.”

“ Not a moment.”

“Your servant, monsieur — your very humble
servant.” Louvier vanished.

Duplessis leaned his large thoughtful forehead
on his thin nervous hand. “This loan will
pinch me,” he muttered. “ I must be very wary
now with such a foe. Well, why should I care
to be rich? Valerie’s dot, Vale'rie’s happiness,
are secured.”

CHAPTER X.

IMadame Savarin wrote a very kind and very
apologetic letter to Isaura, but no answer was
returned to it. Madame Savarin did not ven-
ture to communicate to her husband the sub-
stance of a conversation which had ended so
painfully. He had, in theory, a delicacy of tact
which, if he did not alwav's exhibit it in practice,
made him a very severe critic of its deficiency in

1G4

THE PARISIANS.

others. Therefore, unconscious of the offense
given, he made a point of calling at Isaura’s
apartments, and leaving word with her servant
that “ he was sure she would be pleased to hear
M. Rameau was somewhat better, though still in
danger.”

It was not till the third day after her interview
with Madame Savarin that Isaura left her own
room. She did so to receive Mrs. Morley.

The foir American was shocked to see the
change in Isaura’s countenance. She was very
pale, and with that indescribable appearance of
exhaustion which betrays continued want of
sleep ; her soft eyes were dim, the play of her
lips was gone, her light step weary and languid.

“My poor darling!” cried Mrs. Morley, em-
bracing her, “you have indeed been ill ! What
is the matter? Who attends you?”

“I need no physician; it was but a passing
cold — the air of Paris is very trying. Never
mind me, dear. What is the last news ?”

Therewith Mrs. Morley ran glibly through the
principal topics of the hour — the breach threat-
ened between M. Ollivier and his former Liber-
al partisans ; the tone unexpectedly taken by M.
de Girardin ; the speculations as to the result of
the trial of the alleged conspirators against the
Emperor’s life, which was fixed to take place
toward the end of that month of June — all mat-
ters of no slight importance to the interests of
an empire. Sunk deep into the recesses of her
fauteuil, Isaura seemed to listen quietly, till,
when a pause came, she said, in cold, clear tones,

“And Mr. Graham Vane — he has refused
your invitation ?”

“ I am sorry to say he has — he is so engaged
in London.”

“I knew he had refused,” said Isaura, with a
low bitter laugh.

“ How ? Who told you ?”

“ My own good sense told me. One may have
good sense, though one is a poor scribbler.”

“ Don’t talk in that way ; it is beneath you to
angle for compliments. ”

“ Compliments ! ah ! And so Mr. Vane has
refused to come to Paris. Never mind ; he will
come next year. I shall not be in Paris then.
Did Colonel Morley see Mr. Vane?”

“ Oh yes ; two or three times.”

“ He is well ?”

“Quite well, I believe — at least Prank did
not say to the contrary ; but, from what I hear,
he is not the person I took him for. Many peo-
ple told Frank that he is much changed since
he came into his fortune — is grown very stingy,
quite miserly, indeed ; declines even a seat in
Parliament because of the expense. It is as-
tonishing how money does spoil a man.”

“He had come into his fortune when he was
here. Money had not spoiled him then.”

Isaura paused, pressing her hands tightly to-
gether ; then she suddenly rose to her feet, the
color on her cheek mantling and receding rapid-
ly, and fixing on her startled visitor eyes no lon-
ger dim, but with something half fierce, half im-
ploring in the passion of their gaze, said, “ Your
husband spoke of me to Mr. Vane: I know he
did. What did Mr. Vane answer? Do not
evade my question. The truth I the truth ! I
only ask the truth I”

“Give me your hand. Sit here beside me,
dearest child.”

“Child! — no, I am a woman! — weak as a
woman, but strong as a woman too ! The
truth !”

Mrs. Morley had come prepared to carry out
the resolution she had formed and “break” to
Isaura “ the truth,” that which the girl now de-
manded. But then she had meant to break the
truth in her own gentle, gradual way. Thus
suddenly called upon, her courage failed her.
She burst into tears. Isaura gazed at her dry-
eyed.

“ Your tears answer me. Mr. Vane has heard
that I have been insulted. A man like him does
not stoop to love for a woman who has known an
insult. I do not blame him ; I honor him the
more — he is right. ”

“No — no — no! — you insulted! Who dared
to insult you ?” (Mrs. Morley had never heard
the story about the Russian Prince.) “Mr. Vane
spoke to Frank, and writes of you to me as of
one whom it is impossible not to admire, to re-
spect ; but — I can not say it — you will have the
truth — there, read and judge for yourself. ” And
Mrs. Morley drew forth and thrust into Isaura’s
hands the letter she had concealed from her
husband. The letter was not very long ; it be-
gan with expressions of warm gratitude to Mrs.
Morley, not for her invitation only, but for the
interest she had conceived in his happiness. It
then went on thus :

“I join with my whole heart in all that you
say, with such eloquent justice, of the mental
and personal gifts so bounteously lavished by na-
ture on the young lady whom you name.

“No one can feel more sensible than I of the
charm of so exquisite a loveliness ; no one can
more sincerely join in the belief that the praise
which greets the commencement of her career is
but the whisper of the praise that will cheer its
progress with louder and louder plaudits.

“ He only would be worthy of her hand who,
if not equal to herself in genius, would feel raised
into partnership with it by sympathy with its ob-
jects and joy in its triumphs. For myself, the
same pain with which I should have learned she
had adopted the profession which she original-
ly contemplated saddened and stung me when,
choosing a career that confers a renown yet
more lasting than the stage, she no less left
behind her the peaceful immunities of private
life. Were I even free to consult only my own
heart in the choice of the one sole partner of my
destinies (which I can not at present honestly
say that I am, though I had expected to be so
ere this, when I last saw you at Paris) ; could I
even hope — which I have no right to do — that I
could chain to myself any private portion of
thoughts which now flow into the large channels
by which poets enrich the blood of the world —
still (I say it in self-reproach — it may be the fault
of my English rearing — it may rather be the fault
of an egotism peculiar to myself) — still I doubt
if I could render happy any woman whose world
could not be narrowed to the Home that she
adorned and blessed.

“And yet not even the jealous tyranny of
man’s love could dare to say to natures like hers
of whom we speak, ‘ Limit to the household
glory of one the light which genius has placed in
its firmament for the use and enjoyment of all.’ ”

“I thank you so much,” said Isaura, calmly;
“suspense makes a woman so weak — certainly

THE PARISIANS.

so strong.” Mechanically she smoothed and re-
folded the letter — mechanically, but with slow,
lingering hands — then she extended it to her
friend, smiling.

“Nay, will you not keep it yourself?” said
Mrs. Morley. “The more you examine the
narrow'-minded prejudices, the English arrogant
7«an’s jealous dread of superiority — nay, of equal-
ity— in the woman he can only value as he does
his house or his horse, because she is his exclu-
sive property, the more you will be rejoiced to
find yourself free for a more w’orthy choice.
Keep the letter ; read it till you feel for the writer
forgiveness and disdain.”

Isaura took back the letter, and leaned her
cheek on her hand, looking dreamily into space.
It was some moments before she replied, and
her words then had no reference to Mrs. Mot-
ley’s consolatory exhortation.

“He was so pleased when he learned that I
renounced the career on which I had set my am-
bition. I thought he would have been so pleased
when I sought in another career to raise myself
nearer to his level. I see now how sadly I was
mistaken. All that perplexed me before in him
is explained. I did not guess how foolishly I
had deceived myself till three days ago — then I
did guess it ; and it was that guess which tor-
tured me so terribly that I could not keep my
heart to myself when I saw you to-day ; in spite
of all womanly pride, it would force its way —
to the truth. Hush ! 1 must tell you w'hat was
said to me by another friend of mine — a good
friend, a wise and kind one. Yet I was so an-
giy when she said it that I thought I could never
see her more.”

“ My sweet darling ! who was this friend, and
what did she say to you ?”

“The friend was Madame Savarin.”

“No w’oman loves you more except myself;
and she said — ”

“That she -would have suffered no daughter
of hers to commit her name to the talk of the
w'orld as I have done — be exposed to the risk
of insult as I have been — until she had the shel-
ter and protection denied to me. And I having
thus overleaped the bound that a prudent moth-
er would prescribe tc her child, have become
one whose hand men do not seek, unless they
themselves take the same roads to notoriety.
Do you not think she was right?”

“ Not as you so morbidly put it, silly girl — cer-
tainly not right. But I do wish that 3*011 had
the shelter and protection which Madame Sa-
varin meant to express ; I do wish that you
were happily married to one very different from
Mr. Vane — one -who would be more proud of
vour genius than of 3'our beauty — one who
would sa}', ‘ !My name, safer far in its enduring
nobility than those that depend on titles and
lands — which are held on the tenure of the pop-
ular breath — must be honored by posterit}*, for
She has deigned to make it hers. No democrat-
ic revolution can disennoble vie.''

“ Ay, a}’-, you believe that men will be found
to think with complacency that they owe to a
wife a name that they could not achieve for them-
selves. Bossibly there are such men. Where ?
— among those that are already united by 63'mpa-
thies in the same callings, the same labors, the
same hopes and fears, with the women who have
left behind them the privacies of home. Ma-

les

dame de Grantmesnil was wrong. Artists should
wed with artists. True — true I”

Here she passed her hand over her forehead—^
it was a pretty way of hers when seeking to con-
centrate thought — and was silent a moment or so.

“Did you ever feel, ’’she then asked, dream-
ily, “ that there are moments in life when a dark
curtain seems to fall over one’s past that a day
before was so clear, so blended with the present ?
One can not any longer look behind ; the gaze
is attracted onward, and a track of fire flashes
upon the future — the future which yesterday was
invisible. There is a line by some English poet
— Mr. Vane once quoted it, not to me, but to
M. Savarin, and in illustration of his argument —
that the most complicated recesses of thought
are best reached by the simplest forms of ex-
pression. I said to myself, ‘I will study that
truth if ever I take to literature as I have taken
to song;’ and — 3*es — it was that evening that
the ambition fatal to woman fixed on me its re-
lentless fangs — at Enghien — we were on the lake
— the sun was setting.”

“But you do not tell me the line that so im-
pressed you,” said Mrs. Morle3*, with the wom-
an’s kindly tact.

“The line — which line? Oh, I remember ;
the line was this —

‘I see as from a tower the end of all.’

And now — kiss me, dearest — never a word again
to me about this conversation : never a word
about Mr. Vane — the dark curtain has fallen on
the4)ast.”

CHAPTER XI.

Men and women are much more like each
other in certain large elements of character than
is generally supposed, but it is that very resem-
blance which makes their differences the more
incomprehensible to each other; just as in poli-
tics, theology, or that most disputatious of all
things disputable, metaphysics, the nearer the
reasoners approach each other in points that to
an uncritical by-stander seem the most impor-
tant, the more sure they are to start off in oppo-
site directions upon reaching the speck of a pin-
prick.

Now there are certain grand meeting-places
between man and woman — the grandest of all is
on the ground of love, and yet here also is the
great field of quarrel. And here the teller of a
tale such as mine ought, if he is sufficiently wise
to be humble, to know that it is almost profana-
tion if, as man, he presumes to enter the pener
tralia of a woman’s innermost heart, and repeat,
as a man would repeat, all the vibrations of
sound which the heart of a woman sends forth
undistinguishable even to her own ear.

I know Isaura as intimately as if I had rocked
her in her cradle, played with her in her child-
hood, educated and trained her in her youth;
and yet I can no more tell you faithfully what
passed in her mind during the forty-eight hours
that intervened "between her conversation with
that American lady and her reappearance in
some commonplace drawing-room than I can
tell you what the Man in the Moon might feel
if the sun that his world reflected were blotted
out of creation.

166

THE PARISIANS.

I can only say that when she reappeared in
that commonplace drawing-room world, there
was a change in her face not very perceptible
to the ordinary observer. If any thing, to his
eye she was handsomer — the eye was brighter —
the complexion (always lustrous — though some-
what pale, the limpid paleness that suits so well
with dark hair) was yet more lustrous — it was
flushed into delicate rose hues — hues that still
better suit with dark hair. What, then, was
the change, and change not for the better ? The
lips, once so pensively sweet, had grown hard ;
on the brow that had seemed to laugh when the
lips did there was no longer sympathy between
brow and lip ; there was scarcely seen a fine
thread-like line that in a few years would be a
furrow on the space between the eyes ; the voice
was not so tenderly soft ; the step was haugh-
tier. What all such change denoted it is for a
Avoman to decide — 1 can only guess. In the
mean while Mademoiselle Cicogna had sent her
servant daily to inquire after M. Rameau. That,
I think, she Avould have done under any circum-
stances. Meanwhile, too, she had called on Ma-
dame Savarin — made it up with her — sealed the
reconciliation by a cold kiss. That, too, under
any circumstances, I think, she would haA’e done
— under some circumstances the kiss might have
been less cold.

There was one thing unwonted in her habits.
I mention it, though it is only a Avoman Avho
can say if it means any thing Avorth noticing.

For six days she had left a letter from Ma-
dame de Grantmesnil unansAvered. With ^la-
dame de Grantmesnil Avas connected the Avliole
of her innermost life — from the day when the
lonely, desolate child had seen, beyond the dusty
thoroughfares of life, gleams of the faery-land in
poetry and art — onward through her restless,
dreamy, aspiring youth — onward — onward — till
noAv, through all that constitutes the glorious re-
ality that Ave call romance.

Never before had she left for two days unan-
swered letters Avhich Avere to her as Sibylline
leaves to some unquiet neophyte yearning for
solutions to enigmas suggested Avhether by the
world without or by the soul Avithin. For six
days Madame de Grantmesnil’s letter remained
unanswered, unread, neglected, thrust out of
sight,; just as Avhen some imperious necessity
compels us to grapple Avith a Avorld that is, Ave
cast aside the romance Avhich, in our holiday
hours, had beguiled us to a Avorld Avith Avhich
Ave have interests and sympathies no more.

CHAPTER XII.

Gustave recoA-ered, but slowly. The physi-
cian pronounced him out of all immediate dan-
ger, but said frankly to him, and someAvhat more
guardedly to his parents, “ There is ample cause
to beAvare.” “Look you, my young friend,” he
added to Rameau, “mere brain-Avork seldom
kills a man once accustomed to it, like you ; but
heart-Avork and stomach-work and nerve-work,
added to brain-Avork, may soon consign to the

coffin a frame ten times more robust than vours.

Write as much as you Avill — that is your voca-
tion ; but it is not your vocation to drink ab-
sinthe— to preside at orgies in the Maison Do-

ree. Regulate yourself, and not after the fashion
of the fabulous Hon Juan. Mai ry — live soberly
and quietly — and you may survive the grand-
children of viveurs. Go on as you have done,
and before the year is out you are in Pere la
Chaise.''

Rameau listened languidly, but Avith a pro-
found conviction that the physician thoroughly
understood his case.

Lying helpless on his bed, he had no desire
for orgies at the Maison Doree; Avith parched
lips thirsty for innocent tisane of lime blossoms,
the thought of absinthe AA^as as odious to him as
the liquid fire of Phlegethon. If CA'er sinner be-
came suddenly convinced that there was a good
deal to be said in favor of a moral life, that sin-
ner, at the moment I speak of, Avas Gustave Ra-
meau. Certainly a moral life — “ Domus et pla-
cens uxor.," Avere essential to the poet Avho, as-
piring to immortal glory, was condemned to the
ailments of a A’ery perishable frame.

“Ah!” he murmured, plaintively, to himself,
“that girl Isaura can have no true sympathy
with genius ! It is no ordinary man that she
Avill kill in me !”

And so murmuring, he fell asleep. When he
Avoke and found his head pilloAved on his moth-
er’s breast, it Avas much as a sensitive, delicate
man may Avake after having drunk too much the
night before. Repentant, mournful, maudlin, he
began to Aveep, and in the course of his Aveeping
he confided to his mother the secret of his heart.

Isaura had refused him — that refusal had made
him desperate.

‘ ‘ Ah I with Isaura hoAv changed Avould be his
habits ! hoAv pure ! hoAv healthful !” His moth-
er listened fondly, and did her best to comfort
him and cheer his drooping spirits.

She told him of Isaura’s messages of inquiry
duly tAvice a day. Rameau, Avho kncAv more
about Avomen in general, and Isaura in particu-
lar, than his mother conjectured, shook his head
mournfully. “She could not do less,” he said.

“ Has no one offered to do more?” He thought
of Julie Avhen he asked that. Madame Rameau
hesitated.

These poor Parisians I it is the mode to preach
against them ; and before my book closes I shall
have to preach — no, not to preach, but to imply
— plenty of faults to consider and amend. Mean-
Avhile I try my best to take them, as the philoso-
phy of life tells us to take other people, for Avhat
they are.

1 do not think the domestic relations of the
Pai'isian bourgeoisie are as bad as they are said
to be in French novels. Madame Rameau is not
an uncommon type of her class. She had been
when she first married singularly handsome —
it Avas from her that GustaA’e inherited his beau-
ty ; and her husband was a A^ery ordinary type
of the French shop-keeper — very plain, by no
means intellectual, but gay, good-humored, de*
votedly attached to his Avife, and with implicit
trust in her conjugal virtue. Never Avas trust
better placed. There Avas not a happier nor a
more fiiithful couple in the quartier in Avhich they
resided. Madame Rameau hesitated Avhen her
boy, thinking of Julie, asked if no one had done
more than send to inquire after liim as Isaura
had done.

After that hesitating pause sfte said, “Yes —
a young lady calling herself Mademoiselle Julie

167

THE PAKISIANS.

Cauniartin wished to install herself here as yonr
nurse. When I said, ‘But I am his mother —
he needs no other nurses,’ she would have retreat-
ed, and looked ashamed — poor thing! I don’t
blame her if she loved my son. But, my son, I
say this — if you love her, don’t talk to me about
that Mademoiselle Cicogna; and if you love
Mademoiselle Cicogna, why, then, your father
will take care that the poor girl who loved you
— not knowing that you loved another — is not
left to the temptation of penury.”

Rameau’s pale lips withered into a phantom-
like sneer. Julie ! the resplendent Julie ! — true,
only a ballet-dancer, but whose equipage in the
Bois had once been the envy of duchesses — Ju-
lie! who had sacrificed fortune for his sake —
who, freed from him, could have millionnaires
again at her feet — Julie! to be saved from pen-
ury, as a shop-keeper would save an erring nurse-
maid— Julie! the irrepressible Julie! who had
written to him, the day before his illness, in a
pen dipped, not in ink, but in blood from a vein
she had opened in her arm : “ Traitor ! — I have
not seen yon for three days. Dost thou dare to
love another ? If so — I care not how thou at-
tempt to conceal it — woe to her ! Ingrat ! woe
to thee ! Love is not love, unless, when betrayed
by love, it apj)enls to death. Answer me quick —
quick. Julie.”

Poor Gustave thought of that letter and groan-
ed. Certainly his mother rvas right — he ought
to get rid of Julie; but he did not clearly see
how' Julie was to be got rid of. He replied to
Madame Rameau, peevishly, “Don’t trouble your
head about Mademoiselle Caumartin ; she is in
no want of money. Of course, if I could hope
for Isaura — but, alas ! I dare not hope. Give me
my tisane."

When the doctor called next day he looked
grave, and, drawing Madame Rameau into the
next room, he said, “We are not getting on so
well as I had hoped ; the fever is gone, but there
is much to apprehend from the debility left l)e-
hind. His spirits are sadly depressed.” Then
added the doctor, pleasantly, and with that won-
derful insight into our complex humanity in
wdiich physicians excel poets, and in which Pa-
risian physicians are hot excelled by any physi-
cians in the world, “Can’t you think of any bit
of good new'S — that ‘M. Thiers raves about your
son's last poem’ — that ‘it is a question among
the Academicians between him and Jules Janin’

— or that ‘the beautiful Duchesse de has

been placed in a lunatic asylum because she has
gone mad for love of a certain young Red Re-
publican whose name begins with R.’ — can’t you
think of any bit of similar good news? If you
can, it will be a tonic to the relaxed state of your
^Qnvhoy' s amour propre, compared to which all the
drugs in the Pharmacopoeia are moonshine and
water; and meanwhile be sure to remove him
to your own house, and out of the reach of his
giddy young friends, as soon as you possibly
can.”

When that great authority thus left his pa-
tient’s case in the hands of the mother, she said,
“ The boy shall be saved.”

CHAPTER XIII.

Is AUK A was seated beside the Venosta — tc
whom, of late, she seemed to cling with greater
fondness than ever — working at some piece of
embroidery — a labor from which she had been
estranged for years ; but now she had taken
writing, reading, music, into passionate disgust.
Isaura was thus seated, silently intent upon her
W'ork, and the Venosta in full talk, when the
servant announced Madame Rameau.

The name startled both ; the Venosta had
never heard that the poet had a mother living,
and immediately jumped to the conclusion that
Madame Rameau must be a wife he had hither-
to kept unrevealed. And when a woman, still
very handsome, with a countenance grave and
sad, entered the salon, the Venosta murmured,
“The husband’s perfidy reveals itself on a wife’s
face,” and took out her handkerchief in prepara-
tion for sympathizing tears.

“ Mademoiselle,” said the visitor, halting, with
eyes fixed on Isaura, “pardon my intrusion —
my son has the honor to be known to you. Ev-
ery one who knows him must share in my sorrow
— so young — so promising, and in such danger
— my poor boy !” Madame Rameau stopped ab-
ruptly. Her tears forced their way — she turned
aside to conceal them.

In her twofold condition of being — woman-
hood and genius — Isaura was too largely en-
dow'ed with that quickness of sympathy which
distinguishes woman from man, and genius from
talent, not to be wondrously susceptible to pity.

Already she had wound her arm round the
grieving mother — already drawn her to the seat
from which she herself had risen — and bending
over her had said some words — true, convention-
al enough in themselves, but cooed forth in a
voice the softest I ever expect to hear, save in
dreams, on this side of the grave.

Madame Rameau swept her hand over her
eyes, glanced round the room, and noticing the
Venosta in dressing-robe and slippers, staring
Avith those Italian eyes, in seeming so quietly
innocent, in reality so searchingly shrewd, she
Avhispered, pleadingly, “May I speak to you a
few minutes alone?” This was not a request
that Isaura could refuse, though she Avas embar-
rassed and troubled by the surmise of Madame
Rameau’s object in asking it; accordingly she
led her visitor into the adjoining room, and mak-
ing an apologetic sign to the Venosta, closed the
door.

CHAPTER XIV.

When they Avere alone, Madame Rameau took
Isaura’s hand in both her OAvn, and, gazing
Avistfully into her face, said, “No Avonder you
are so loA'ed — yours is the beauty that sinks into
the heart and rests there. I prize my boy more,
noAv that I haA-e seen you. But oh, made-
moiselle ! pardon me — do not AvithdraAv your
hand — pardon the mother who comes from the
sick-bed of her only son and asks if you Avill as-
sist to saA^e him! A Avord from you is life or
death to him !”

“ Nay, nay, do not speak thus, madame ; your
son knoAvs hoAV much I value, hoAv sincerely I re-
turn, his friendship ; but — but” — she paused a

THE PAEISIANS.

168

moment, and continued, sadly and with tearful
eyes, “ 1 have no heart to give to him — to any
one.”

“ I do not — I would not if I dared — ask what
it would be violence to yourself to promise. I
do not ask you to bid me return to my son and
say, ‘ Hope and recover;’ but let me take some
healing message from your lips. If I understand
your words rightly, I at least may say that you
do not give to another the hopes you deny to
him?”

“ So far you understand me rightly, madame.
It has been said that romance-writers give away
so much of their hearts to heroes or heroines of
their own creation that they leave nothing worth
the giving to human beings like themselves.
Perhaps it is so ; yet, madame,” added Isaura,
with a smile of exquisite sweetness in its melan-
choly, “ I have heart enough left to feel for you.”

Madame Kameau was touched. “Ah, made-
moiselle, I do not believe in the saying you have
quoted. But I must not abuse your goodness
by pressing further upon you subjects from which
you shrink. Only one word more : you know
that my husband and I are but quiet trades-folk,
not in the society, nor aspiring to it, to which my
son’s talents have raised himself ; yet dare I ask
that you will not close here the acquaintance
that I have obtruded on you ? — dare I ask that
I may now and then call on you — that now' and
then I may see you at my own home ? Believe
that I would not here ask any thing which your
own mother would disapprove if she overlooked
disparities of station. Humble as our home is,
slander never passed its threshold.”

“Ah, madame, I and the Signora Venosta,
whom in our Italian tongue I call mother, can
but feel honored and grateful wdienever it pleases
you to receive visits from us.”

‘ ‘ It would be a base return for such gracious
compliance with my request if I concealed from
you the reason why I pray Heaven to bless you
for that answ^er. The physician says that it may
be long before my son is sufficiently convales-
cent to dispense with a mother’s care, and re-
sume his former life and occupation in the great
w'orld. It is every thing for us if we can coax
him into coming under our otvn roof-tree. This
is difficult to do. It is natural for a young man
launched into the w’orld to like his own chez lui.
Then what will happen to Gustave ? He, lone-
ly and heart-stricken, will ask friends, young as
himself, but far stronger, to come and cheer him,
or he will seek to distract his thoughts by the
overwork of his brain : in either case he is
doomed. But I have stronger motives yet to fix
him a w'hile at our hearth. This is just the mo-
ment, once lost never to be regained, tvhen sooth-
ing companionship, gentle reproachless advice,
can fix him lastingly in the habits and modes of
life which will banish all fears of his future from
the hearts of his parents. You at least honor
him with friendship, with kindly interest — you
at least would desire to wean him from all that a
friend may disapprove or lament — a creature
whom Providence meant to be good, and perhaps
great. If I say to him, ‘ It will be long before
you can go out and see your friends, but at my
house your friends shall come and see you —
among them Signora Venosta and Mademoiselle
Cicogna will now and then drop in’ — my victory
is gained, and my son is saved.”

“Madame,” said Isaura, half sobbing, “what
a blessing to have a mother like you ! Love so,
noble ennobles those who hear its voice. Tell
your son how ardently I wish him to be well and
to fulfill more than the promise of his genius ;
tell him also this — how I envy him his mother.”

CHAPTER XV.

It needs no length of words to inform thee, my
intelligent reader, be thou man or w'oman — but
more especially woman — of the consequences fol-
lowing each other, as wave follows v/ave in a
tide, that resulted from the interview with which
my last chapter closed. Gustave is removed to
his parents’ house. He remains for weeks con-
fined within-doors, or, on sunny days, taken an
hour or so in his own carriage, drawn by the
horse bought from Rochebriant, into by-roads
remote from the fashionable world. Isaura vis-
its his mother, liking, respecting, influenced by
her more and more : in those visits she sits beside
the sofa on which Rameau reclines. Gradually,
gently — more and more by his mother’s lijjs — is
impressed on her the belief that it is in her pow-
er to save a human life, and to animate his ca-
reer toward those goals which are never based
wholly upon earth in the earnest eyes of genius,
or perhaps in the yet more upward vision of
pure-souled believing woman.

And Gustave himself, as he passes through the
slow stages of convalescence, seems so gratefully
to ascribe to her every step in his progress —
seems so gently softened in character — seems so
refined from the. old affectations — so ennobled
above the old cynicism — and, above all, so need-
ing her presence, so sunless without it, that —
well, need I finish the sentence ? The reader
will complete what I leave unsaid.

Enough that one day Isaura returned home
from a visit at Madame Rameau’s with the knowl-
edge that her hand was pledged — her future life
disposed of — and that, escaping from the Venos-
ta, whom she so fondly, and in her hunger for a
mother’s love, called Madre, the girl shut her-
self up in her own room with locked doors.

Ah, poor child ! ah, sweet-voiced Isaura !
whose delicate image I feel myself too rude ajid
too hard to transfer to this page in the purity of its
outlines and the blended softnesses of its hues !
— thou, who when saying things serious in the
words men use, saidst them with a seriousness
so charming, and with looks so ferninine ! — thou,
of whom no man I ever knew was quite worthy!
— ah ! poor, simple, miserable girl, as I see thee
noAv in the solitude of that w'hite-curtained vir-
ginal room ! Hast thou, then, merged at last
thy peculiar star into the cluster of all these com-
monplace girls whose lips have said “Ay,” when
their hearts said “No?” — thou, O brilliant Isau-
ra 1 thou, O poor motherless child !

She had sunk into her chair — her own favor-
ite chair — the covering of it had been embroid-
ered by Madame de Grantmesnil, and bestow'ed
on her as a birthday present last year — the year
in which she had first learned what it is to love
— the year in which she had first learned w'hat
it is to strive for fame. And somehow unit-
ing, as many young people do, love and fame in
dreams of the future, that silken seat had been

THE PARISIANS.

1G9

to her as the Tripod of Delphi was to the
Pythian : she had taken to it, as it were intui-
tively, in all those hours, whether of joy or sor-
row, wdien youth seeks to prophesy, and does but
dream.

There she sat now, in a sort of stupor — a sort
of dreary bewilderment — the illusion of the Pyth-
ian gone — desire of dream and of prophecy alike
extinct — pressing her hands together, and mut-
tering to herself, “ What has happened? What
have I done?”

Three hours later you would not Have recog-
nized the same face that you see now. For then
the bravery, the honor, the loyalty of the girl’s'
nature had asserted their command. Her promise
had been given to one man — it could not be re-
called. Thought itself of any other man must
be banished. On her hearth lay ashes and tin-

der— the last remains of every treasured note
from Graham Vane ; of the hoarded newspaper
extracts that contained his name ; of the dry
treatise he had published, and which had made
the lovely romance-writer first desire “ to know
something about politics.” Ay, if the treatise
had been upon fox-hunting, she would have de-
sired “to know something about that !” Above
all, yet distinguishable from the rest — as the
sparks still upon stem and leaf here and there
faintly glowed and twinkled — the withered flow-
ers which recorded that happy hour in the arbor,
and the walks of the forsaken garden — the hour
in which she had so blissfully pledged herself to
renounce that career in art wherein fiime would
have been secured, but which would not have
united Fame with Love — in dreams evermore
over now.

BOOK TENTH.

CHAPTER I.

GiLtVHAM Vane heard nothing for months from
M. Renard, when one morning he received the
letter I translate : .

“Monsieur, — I am happy to inform you that
I have at last obtained one piece of information
which may lead to a more important discovery'.
When we parted after our fruitless research in
Vienna, we had both concurred in the persuasion
that, for some reason known only to the two la-
dies themselves, Madame Marigny and Madame
Duval had exchanged names — that it was Ma-
dame Marigny who had deceased in the name of
IMadame Duval, and IMadame Duval who sur-
vived in that of Marigny’.

“It was clear to me that the h&au monsieur
who had visited the false Duval must have been
cognizant of this exchange of name, and that if
his name and whereabouts could be ascertained,
he, in all probability, would know what had be-
come of the lady who is the object of our re-
search ; and after the lapse of so many years he
would probably have very slight motive to pre-
serve that concealment of facts which might, no.
doubt, have been convenient at the time. The
lover of the soi-disant Mademoiselle Duval Avas
by such accounts as we could gain a man of some
rank — very possibly a married man ; and the li-
aison, in short, was one of those which, ivhile they
last, necessitate precautions and secrecy.

“Therefore, dismissing all attempts at further
trace of the missing lady, I resolved to return to
Vienna as soon as the business that recalled me
to Paris was concluded, and devote myself ex-
clusively to the search after the amorous and
mysterious monsieur.

“I’did not state this determination to you,
because, possibly, I might be in error — or, if not
in error, at least too sanguine in my expectations
— and it is best to avoid disappointing an honor-
able client.

“ One thing was clear, that at the time of the
soi-disant Duval’s decease the beau monsieur was
at Vienna.

“It appeared also tolerably clear that when

the lady friend of the deceased quitted Munich
so privately, it was to Vienna she repaired, and
from Vienna comes the letter demanding the cer-
•tificates of Madame Duval’s death. Pardon me
if I remind you of all these circumstances, no
doubt fresh in your recollection. I repeat them
in order to justify the conclusions to Avhich they
led me.

“ 1 could not, however, get permission to ab-
sent myself from Paris for the time I might re-
quire till the end of last April. I had mean-
while sought all private means of ascertaining
what Frenchmen of rank and station were in that
capital in the autumn of 1849. Among the list
of the very few such messieurs I fixed upon one
as the most likely to be the most mysterious
Achille, Achille was, indeed, his nom de hap-
teine.

“A man of intrigue — a bonnes fortunes — of '
lavish expenditure withal ; very tenacious of his
dignity, and avoiding any petty scandals by which
it might be lowered ; just the man who, in some
passing affiiir of gallantry with a lady of doubt-
ful repute, would never have signed his titular
designation to a letter, and would have kept him-
self as much incognito as he could. But this
man was dead — had been dead some years. He
had not died at Vienna. Never visited that cap-
ital for some years before his death. He was
then, and had long been, the ami de la maison
of one of those grandes dames of whose intimacy
grands seigneurs are' not ashamed. They parade
there the bonnes fortunes they conceal elseAvhere.
Monsieur and the grande dame were at Baden
when the former died. Now, monsieur, a Don
Juan of that stamp is pretty sure always to have
a confidential Lcporello. If 1 could find Lepo-
rello alive I might learn the secrets not to be ex-
acted from a Don Juan defunct. I ascertained,
in truth, both at Vienna, to which I first repaired
in order to verify the renseignements 1 had ob-
tained at Paris, and at Baden, to which I then
bent my way, that this brilliant noble had a fa-
vorite A’alet who had lii’ed Avith him from his
youth — an Italian Avho had contrived in the
course of his service to lay by savings enough to
set up a hotel someAvhere in Italy, supposed to

170

THE PARISIANS.

be Pisa. To Pisa I repaired, but the man had
left some years ; his liotel had not prospered ;
he had left in debt. No one could say what had
become of him. At last, after a long and tedious
research, I found him installed as manager of a
small hotel at Genoa — a pleasant fellow enough ;
and after friendly intercourse with him (of course
I lodged at his hotel), I easily led him to talk of
his earlier life and adventures, and especially of
his former master, of whose splendid career in
the army of ‘ La Belle Diesse' he was not a little
proud. It was not very easy to get him to the
particular subject in question. In fact, the af-
fair with the poor false Duval had been so brief
and undistinguished an episode in his master’s
life that it was not without a strain of memory
that he reached it.

“By little and little, however, in the course
of two or three evenings, and by the aid of many
flasks of Orviette or bottles of Lacrima (wines,
monsieur, that I do not commend to any one
who desires to keep his stomach sound and his
secrets safe), I gathered these particulars :

“Our Don Juan, since the loss of a wife in
the first year of marriage, had rarely visited Par-
is, where he had a domicile — his ancestral hotel
tliere he had sold.

“But happening to visit that capital of Eu-
rope a few months before we come to our dates
at Aix-la-Chapelle, he made acquaintance with
Madame Marigny, a natural daughter of high-
placed parents, by whom, of course, she had nev-
er been acknowledged, but who had contrived
that site should receive a good education at a
convent; and on leaving it also contrived that
an old soldier of fortune — which means an officer
without fortune — who had served in Algiers with
some distinction, should offer her his hand, and
add the modest dot they assigned her to his yet
more modest income. They contrived also that
she should understand the offer must be accept-
e<l. Thus Mademoiselle ‘ Quelque Chose' became
Madame Marigny, and she, on her part, con-
trived that a year or so later she should be left a
widow. After her marriage, of course, the par-
ents washed their hands of her. They had done
their duty. At the time Don Juan made this
lady’s acquaintance nothing could be said .against
her character ; but the milliners and butchers had
begun to imply that they would rather have her
money than trust to her character. Don Juan
fell in love with her, and satisfied the immedi-
ate claims of milliner and butcher, and when
they quitted Paris it was agreed that they should
meet later at Aix-la-Chapelle. But when he re-
sorted to th.at sultry and, to my mind, unallur-
ing spa, he was surprised by a line from her say-
ing that she had changed her name of Marigny
for that of Duval.

“ ‘I recollect,’ said Leporello, ‘that two days
afterward my master said to me, “ Caution and
secrecy. Don’t mention my name at the house
to which I may send you with any note for Ma-
dame Duval. I don’t announce my name when I
call. Za petite Marigny has exchanged her name
for that of Louise Duval ; and I find that there is
a Louise Duval here, her friend, who is niece to
a relation of my own, and a terrible relation to
([uarrel with — a dead shot and unrivaled swords-
man— Victor de Mauleon.” My m.aster was
brave enough, but he enjoyed life, and he did not
think la petite Marigny worth being killed for.’

“Leporello remembered very little of what
followed. All he did remember is that Don
Juan, when at Vienna, said to him one morning,
looking less g.ay than usual, ‘It is finished with
la petite Marigny — she is no more.’ Then he
ordered his bath, wrote a note, and said, with
tears in his eyes, ‘ Take this to Mademoiselle
Celeste; not to be compared to la petite Ma-
rign}’-; but /a Celeste is still alive.’ Ah,
monsieur ! if only any man in France could be as
proud of his ruler as that Italian was of my coun-
tryman I Alas ! we Frenchmen are all Tnade to
command — or at least we think ourselves so —
and we are insulted by one who says to us,
‘Serve and obey.’ Nowadays, in France, we
find all Don Juans and no Leporellos.

“ After strenuous exertions upon my part to
recall to Leporello’s mind the important question
whether he had ever seen the true Duval, pass-
ing under the nanie of IMarigny — whether she
had not presented herself to his master at Vien-
na or elsewhere — he rubbed his forehead, and
drew from it these reminiscences :

“ ‘ On the day that his Excellency’ (Leporello
generally so styled his master — ‘ Excellency,’
as you are aware, is the title an Italian w’ould
give to Satan if taking his wages) ‘ told me that
la petite Marigny was no more he had received
previously a lady veiled and mantled, whom I
did not recognize as 'any one I had seen before,
but I noticed her way of Carrying herself — haugh-
tily^— her head thrown back ; and I thought to
myself, that lady is one of his qrandes dames.
She did call again two or three times, never an-
nouncing her name; then she did not re-appear.
She might be Madame Duval — I can’t say.’

“‘But did you never hear his Excellency
speak of the real Duval after that time ?’

“ ‘No — non mi ricordo — I don't remember.’

“‘Nor of some living Madame Marigny,
though the real one was dead ?’

“‘Stop — I do recollect; not that he ever
named such a person to me, but that I have
posted letters for him to a Madame Marigny —
oh yes — even years after the said petite IMarigny
was dead ; and once I did venture to s.ay, “ Par-
don me, Eccellenza, but m.ay I ask if that poor
lady is really dead, since I haA'e to prepay this
letter to her?” “ Oh !” said he, “ Madame Ma-
rigny ! Of course the one you know is dead,
but there are others of the same name ; this
lady is of my family. Indeed, her house, though
noble in itself, recognizes the representative of
mine as its head, and I am too hon prince not to
acknowledge and serve any one who branches
out of my own tree.” ’

“A day after this last conversation on the
subject Leporello said to me, ‘My friend, you
certainly have some interest in ascertaining what
became of the lady who took the name of Ma-
(f state this frankly, monsieur, to show
how difficult even for one so prudent as I am to
beat about a bush long but what you let people
know the sort of bird you are in search of).

“‘Well,’ said I, ‘she does interest me. I
knew something of that Victor de Mauleon,
whom his Excellency did not wish to quarrel
with, and it would be a kindly act to her rela-
tion if one could learn what became of Louise
Duv.al’

“ ‘ I can put you on the way of learning all
that his Excellency was likely to have known

THE PARISIANS.

of her through correspondence. I have often
heard him quote, with praise, a saying so clever
that it might have been Italian, ‘ ‘ Never write,
never burn” — that is, never commit yourself by
a letter — keep all letters that could put others
in your power. All the letters he received were
carefully kept and labeled. I sent them to his
son in four large trunks. His son, no doubt,
has them still.’

“Now, however, I have exhausted my budget.
I arrived at Paris last night. I strongly advise
you to come hither at once, if you still desire to
prosecute your search.

“You, monsieur, can do what I could not
venture to do; you can ask the son of Don Juan
if amidst the correspondence of his father, which
he may have preserved, there be any signed Ma-
rigny or Duval — any, in short, which can throw
light on this very obscure complication of cir-
cumstances. A grand seigneur would naturally
be more complaisant to a man of your station
than he would be to an agent of police. Don
Juan’s son, inheriting his father’s title, is Mon-
sieur le Marquis de Rochebriant. And permit
me to add that at this moment, as the journals
doubtless inform you, all Paris resounds with
the rumor of coming war, and Monsieur de
Rochebriant, who is, as I have ascertained, now
in Paris, it may be difficult to find any where
on earth a month or two hence. I have the hon-
or, with profound consideration, etc., etc.,

“1. Renard.”

The day after the receipt of this letter Graham
Vane was in Paris.

♦

CHAPTER II.

Among things indescribable is that which is
called “Agitation” in Paris — “ Agitation” with-
out riot or violence — showing itself by no disor-
derly act, no turbulent outburst. Perhaps the
cafes are more crowded ; passengers in the
streets stop each other more often, and converse
in small knots and groups ; yet, on the whole,
there is little externally to show how loudly the
heart of Paris is beating. A traveler may be
passing through quiet landscapes, unconscious
that a great battle is going on some miles off,
but if he Avill stop and put his ear to the ground
he will recognize, by a certain indescribable vi-
bration, the voice of the cannon.

But at Paris an acute observer need not stop
and put his ear to the ground ; he feels within
himself a vibration — a mysterious inward sym-
pathy Avhich communicates to the individual a
conscious thrill — when the passions of the mul-
titude are stirred, no matter how silently.

Tortoni’s cafe was thronged when Duplessis and
Frederic Lemercier entered it. It was in vain
to order breakfast ; no table was vacant either
Avithin the rooms or under the aAvnings without.

But they could not retreat so quickly as they
had entered. On catching sight of the financier
seA'eral men rose and gathered round him, eager-
ly questioning :

“What do you think, Duplessis? Will any
insult to France put a drop of warm blood into
the frigid veins of that miserable Ollivier?”

“It is not yet clear that France has been in-

171

suited, messieurs,” replied Duplessis, phlegmat-
ically.

“Bah ! Not insulted ! The very nomination
of a Hohenzollern to the croAvn of Spaiii Avas an
insult. What would you haA’e more ?”

“I tell you Avhat it is, Duplessis,” said the
Vicomte de Breze, whose habitual light good
temper seemed exchanged for insolent SAvagger —
“1 tell you Avhat it is : your friend, the Emper-
or, has no more courage than a chicken. He is
grown old and infirm and lazy ; he knoAVS that
lie can’t even mount on horseback. But if, be-
fore this day week, he has not declared war on
the Prussians, he Avill be lucky if he can get off
as quietly as poor Louis Philippe did under
shelter of his umbrella, and ticketed ‘Schmidt.’
Or could you not, M. Duplessis, send him back
to London in a bill of exchange ?”

“For a man of your literary repute, M. le Vi-
comte,” said Duplessis, “you indulge in a strange
profusion of metaphors. But, pardon me, I came
here to breakfast, and I can not remain to quar-
rel. Come, Lemercier, let us take our chance
of a cutlet at the Trois Frhes.”

“Fox! Fox!” cried Lemercier, whistling to a
poodle that had folloAved him into the cafe, and,
frightened by the sudden movement and loud
voices of the habitues, had taken refuge under
the table.

“ Your dog is poltron,'^ said De Breze ; “ call
him Nap.”

At this stroke of humor there Avas a general
laugh, in the midst of which Duplessis escaped,
and Frederic, having discoA'ered and caught his
dog, folloAved with that animal tenderly clasped
in his arms.

“I Avould not lose Fox for a great deal,” said
Lemercier, Avith effusion ; “a pledge of love and
fidelity from an English lady the most distin-
guished. The lady left me — the dog remains.”

Duplessis smiled grimly. “ What a thorough-
bred Parisian you are, my dear Frederic. I be-
lieve if the trump of the last angel Avere sound-
ing, the Parisians Avould be divided into tAvo sets :
one Avould be singing the Marseillaise, and pa-
rading the red flag ; the other would be shrugging
their shoulders, and saying, ‘ Bah ! as if le Bon
Dieu Avould have the bad taste to injure Paris —
the Seat of the Graces, the School of the Arts,
the Fountain of Reason, the Eye of the World ;’
and so be found by the destroying angel caressing
poodles and making hons mots about les femmes ”

“And quite right too,” said Lemercier, com-
placently. “What other people in the Avorld
could retain lightness of heart under circum-
stances so unpleasant? But Avhy do you take
things so solemnly ? Of course there Avill be Avar
— idle noAv to talk of explanations and excuses.
When a Frenchman says, ‘I am insulted,’ he is
not going to be told that he is not insulted. He
means fighting and not apologizing. But Avhat
if there be AA’ar ? Our brave soldiers beat the
Prussians — take the Rhine — return to Paris co\'-
ered Avith laurels — a ncAV Boulevard de Berlin
eclipses the Boulevard Sebastopol. By-the-AA’^ay,
Duplessis, a Boulevard de Berlin Avill be a good
speculation — better than the Rue de Louvier,
Ah ! is not that my English friend, Grarm-
Varn ?” Here quitting the arm of Duplessis, Le-
mercier stopped a gentleman who Avas about to
pass him unnoticing. Bonjour, mon ami, how
long have you been at Paris?”

172

THE PARISIANS.

“I only arrived last evening,” answered Gra-
ham, “and my stay may be so short that it is a
piece of good luck, my dear Lemercier, to meet
with you, and exchange a cordial shake of the
hand. ”

“We are just going to breakfast at the Trois
Frh'cs — Duplessis and I. Pray join us.”

“With great pleasure. — Ah! Monsieur Du-
plessis, I shall be glad to hear from you that
the Emperor will be firm enougli to check the
advances of that martial fever which, to judge
by the persons I meet, seems to threaten de-
lirium.”

Duplessis looked very keenly at Graham’s face
as he replied, slowly: “The English, at least,
ought to know that when the Emperor by his
last reforms resigned his personal authority for
constitutional monarchy, it ceased to be a ques-
tion whether he could or could not be firm in
matters that belonged to the Cabinet and the
Chambers. I presume that if Monsieur Glad-
stone advised Queen Victoria to declare war upon
the Emperor of Russia, backed by a vast major-
ity in Parliament, you would think me very ig-
norant of constitutional monarchy and Parlia-
mentary government if I said, ‘ I hope Queen
Victoria will resist that martial fever.’ ”

“You rebuke me very fairly, M. Duplessis, if
you can show me that the two cases are analo-
gous ; but we do not understand in England
that, despite his last reforms, the Emperor has
so abnegated his individual ascendency that his
will, clearly and resolutely expressed, would not
prevail in his Council and silence opposition in
the Chambers. Is it so ? I ask for information. ”

The three men were walking on toward the
Palais Royal side by side while this conversa-
tion proceeded.

“That all depends,” replied Duplessis, “upon
what may be the incisease of popular excitement
at Paris. If it slackens, the Emperor, no doubt,
could turn to wise account that favorable pause
in the fever. But if it continues to swell, and
Paris cries, ‘ War,’ in a voice as loud as it cried
to Louis Philippe, 'Revolution,’ do you think
that the Emperor could impose on his ministers
the wisdom of peace ? His ministers would be
too terrified by the clamor to undertake the re-
sponsibility of opposing it — they would resign.
Where is the Emperor to find another Cabinet ?
— a peace Cabinet ? What and who are the ora-
tors for peace ? What a handful ! Who ? Gam-
betta, Jules Favre, avowed Republicans. Would
they even accept the post of ministers to Louis
Napoleon ? If they did, would not their first
step be the abolition of the empire? Napoleon
is, therefore, so far a constitutional monarch in
the same sense as Queen Victoria that the pop-
ular will in the country (and in France in such
matters Paris is the country) controls the Cham-
bers,. controls the Cabinet ; and against the Cab-
inet the Emperor could not contend. I say noth-
ing of the army — a power in France unknown
to you in England, which would certainly fra-
ternize with no peace party. If war is pro-
claimed, let England blame it if she will — she
can’t lament it more than I should — but let En-
gland blame the nation; let her blame, if she
please, the form of the government which rests
upon popular suffrage, but do not let her blame
our sovereign more than the French would blame
her own, if compelled by the conditions on which

she holds her crown to sign a declaration of
war which vast majorities in a Parliament just
elected, and a council of ministers whom she
could not practically replace, enforced upon her
will.”

“ Your observations, M. Duplessis, impress
me strongly, and add to the deep anxieties with
which, in common with all my countrymen, I re-
gard the menacing aspect of the present hour.
Let us hope the best. Our government, I know,
is exerting itself to the utmost verge of its pow-
er to remove every just ground of offense that
the unfortunate nomination of a German prince
to the Spanish throne could not fail to have given
to French statesmen.”

“ I am glad you concede that such a nomina-
tion was a just ground of offense,” said Lemer-
cier, rather bitterly, “for I have met English-
men who asserted that France had no right to re-
sent any choice of a sovereign that Spain might
make.”

“ Englishmen in general are not very reflective
politicians in foreign affairs,” said Graham ; “ but
those who are must see that France could not,
without alarm the most justifiable, contemplate a
cordon of hostile states being drawn around her
on all sides — Germany, in itself so formidable
since the field of Sadowa, on the east ; a German
prince in the southwest ; the not improbable al-
liance between Prussia and the Italian kingdom,
already so alienated from the France to which it
owed so much. If England would be uneasy
were a great maritime power possessed of Ant-
werp, how much more uneasy might France just-
ly be if Prussia could add the armies of Spain to
those of Germany, and launch them both upon
France ? But that cause of alarm is over — the
Hohenzollern is withdrawn. Let us hope for the
best.”

The three men had now seated themselves at
a table in the Trois Freres, and Lemercier vol-
unteered the task of inspecting the menu and or-
dering the repast, still keeping guard on Fox.

“ Observe that man,” said Duplessis, pointing
toward a gentleman who had just entered ; “ the
other day he was the popular hero — now, in the
excitement of threatened \var, he is permitted to
order his hiftech uncongratulated, uncaressed.
Such is fame at Paris !— here to-day and gone to-
morrow.”

“ How did the man become famous?”

“ He is a painter, and refused a decoration —
the only French painter who ever did.”

“And why refuse ?”

“Because he is more stared at as the man
who refused than he would have been as the man
who accepted. If ever the Red Republicans have
their day, those among them most certain of hu-
man condemnation will be the coxcombs who
have gone mad from the desire of human ap-
plause. ”

“You are a profound philosopher, M. Du-
plessis.”

“I hope not : I have an especial contempt for
philosophers. Pardon me a moment — I see a
man to whom I would say a word or two.”

Duplessis crossed over to another table to
speak to a middle-aged man of somewhat re-
markable countenance, with the red ribbon in his
button-hole, in whom Graham recognized an ex-
minister of the Emperor, differing from most of
those at that day in his Cabinet, in the reputa-

THE PARISIANS.

tion of being loyal to his master and courageous
against a mob.

Left thus alone with Lemeroier, Graham said :

‘ ‘ Pray tell me where I can find your friend the
Marquis de Rochebriant. I called at his apart-
ment this morning, and I was told that he had
gone on some visit into the country, taking his
valet, and the concierge could not give me his
address. I thought myself so lucky on meeting
with you who are sure to know.”

“No, I do not; it is some days since I saw
Alain. But Duplessis will be sure to know.”
Here the finaneier rejoined them.

Mon cher^ Grarm-Varn wants to know for
W'hat Sabine shades Rochebriant has deserted the
^fumuvi opes strepitumque' of the capital.”

“Ah ! the Marquis is a friend of yours, mon-
sieur ?”

“I can scarcely boast that honor, but he is an
acquaintance whom I should be very glad to see
again.”

“At this moment he is at the Duchesse de
Tarascon’s country house near Fontainebleau : I
had a hurried line from him two days ago stating
that he was going there on her urgent invitation.
But he may return to-morrow ; at all events, he
dines with me on the 8th, and I shall be charmed
if you will do me the honor to meet him at my
house.”

“It is an invitation too agreeable to refuse,
and I thank you very much for it.”

Nothing worth recording passed further in con-
versation between Graham and the two French-
men. He left them smoking their cigars in the
garden, and walked homeward by the Rue di
Rivoli. As he was passing beside the Magasin
du Louvre he stopped and made way for a lady
crossing quickly out of the shop toward her car-
riage at the door. Glancing at him with a slight
inclination of her head, in acknowledgment of his
courtesy, the lady recognized his features.

“Ah, Mr. Vane!” she cried, almost joyfully,
“you are, then, at Paris, though you have not
come to see me.”

“ I only arrived last night, dear Mrs. Morley,”
said Graham, rather embarrassed, “and only on
some matters of business which unexpectedly
summoned me. My stay will probably be very
short.”

“ In that case let me rob you of a few minutes
— no, not rob you even of them ; I can take you
wherever you want to go, and as my carriage
moves more quickly than you do on foot, I shall
save you the minutes instead of robbing you of
them.”

“You are most kind, but I was only going to
my hotel, which is close by.”

‘ ‘ Then you have no excuse for not taking a short
drive with me in the Champs Ely sees. Come.”

Thus bidden, Graham could not civilly dis-
obey. He handed the fair American into her
carriage, and seated himself by her side.

CHAPTER III.

“ Mil. Vane, I feel as if I had many apologies
to make for the interest in your life which my
letter to you so indiscreetly betrayed.”

“Oh, Mrs. Morley! you can not guess how
deeply that interest touched me. ”

173

“I should not have presumed so far,” contin-
ued Mrs. Morley, unheeding the interruption,
“if I had not been altogether in error as to the
nature of your sentiments in a certain quarter.
In this you must blame my American rearing.
With us there are many flirtations between boys
and girls which come to nothing; but when in
my country a man like you meets with a woman
like Mademoiselle Cicogna there can not be flir-
tation. His attentions, his looks, his manner,
reveal to the eyes of those who care enough for
him to watch, one of two things — either he cold-
ly admires and esteems, ox he loves with his whole
heart and soul, a woman worthy to inspire such
a love. Well, I did watch, and I was absurdly
mistaken. I imagined that I saw love, and re-
joiced for the sake of both of you to think so.
I know that in all countries, our own as well as
yours, love is so morbidly sensitive and jealous
that it is always apt to invent imaginary foes to
itself. Esteem and admiration never do that.
I thought that some misunderstanding, easily re-
moved by the intervention of a third person,
might have imj)eded the impulse of two hearts
toward each other, and so I "wrote. I had as-
sumed that you loved — I am humbled to the last
degree — you only admired and esteemed.”

“ Your irony is very keen, Mrs. Morley, and
to you it may seem very just. ”

“Don’t call me Mrs. Morley in that haughty
tone of voice. Can’t you talk to me as you would
talk to a friend? You only esteemed and ad-
mired— there is an end of it.”

“ No, there is not an end of it,” cried Graham,
giving way -to an impetuosity of passion which
rarely, indeed, before another escaped his self-
control; “the end of it to me is a life out of
which is ever stricken such love as I could feel
for woman. To me true lore can only come
once. It came with my first look on that fatal
face ; it has never left me in thought by day, in
dreams by night. The end of it to me is fare-
well to all such happiness as the one love of a life
can promise ; but — ”

“But what?” asked Mrs. Morley, softly, and
very much moved by the passionate earnestness
of Graham’s voice and words.

“But,” he continued, with a forced smile,
“ we Englishmen are trained to the resistance
of absolute authority ; we can not submit all the
elements that make up our being to the sway of
a single despot. Love is the painter of exist-
ence ; it should not be its sculptor.”

“I don’t understand the metaphor.”

‘ ‘ Love colors our life ; it should not chisel its
form.”

“My dear Mr. Vane, that is very cleverly
said, but the human heart is too large and too
restless to be quietly packed up in an aphorism.
Do you mean to tell me that if you found you
had destroyed Isaura Cicogna’s happiness as well
as resigned your own, that thought would not
somewhat deform the very shape you would give
to your life ? Is it color alone that your life
would lose ?”

“Ah, Mrs. Morley, do not lower your friend
into an ordinary girl in whom idleness exagger-
ates the strength of any fancy over which it
dreamily broods. Isaura Cicogna has her oc-
cupations— her genius — her fame — her career.
Honestly speaking, I think that in these she will
find a happiness that no quiet hearth could be-

174

THE PARISIANS.

stow. I will say no more. I feel persuaded that
were we two united I could not make her happy.
With the irresistible impulse that urges the gen-
ius of the writer tow’ard its vent in public sym-
pathy and applause, she would chafe if I said,
‘Be content to be wholly mine.’ And if I said
it not, and felt I had no right to say it, and al-
lowed the full scope to her natural ambition,
what then? She would chafe yet more to find
that I had no fellowship in her aims and ends —
that where I should feel pride I felt humilia-
tion. It would be so ; I can not help it; ’tis my
nature.” ^

“So be it, then. When next year, perhaps,
you visit Paris, you will be safe IVom my officious
interference — Isaura will be the wife of another.”

Graham pressed his hand to his heart w ith the
sudden movement of one who feels there an
agonizing spasm. His cheeks, his very lips, w'ere
bloodless.

“I told you,” he said, bitterly, “that your
fears of my influence over the happiness of one
so gifted, and so strong in such gifts, were ground-
less ; you allow that I should be A’ery soon for-
gotten ?”

“I allow no such thing; I w'ish I could. But
do )'Ou know so little of a w^oman’s heart (and in
matters of heart I never yet heard that genius
had a talisman against emotion) — do you know
so little of a w'oman’s heart as not to know that
the very moment in which she may accept a mar-
riage the least fitted to render her happy is that
in which she lost all hope of happiness in an-
other ?”

“ Is it indeed so ? ’ murmured Graham. “ A}',
I can conceive it.”

“And have you so little comprehension of the
necessities which that fame, that career to which
you allow’ she is impelled by the instincts of gen-
ius, impose on this girl, young, beautiful, father-
less, motherless ? No matter how pure her life,
can she guard it from the slander of envious
tongues ? Will not all her truest friends — w'ould
not you, if 3"ou w'ere her brother — press upon her
by all the arguments that have most w’eight w-ith
the woman who asserts independence in her modes
of life, and yet is wise enough to know that the
world can only judge of virtue by its shadow —
reputation — not to dispense with the protection
which a husband can alone secure ? And that
is w'hy I w arn you, if it be j'et time, that in re-
signing 3’our ow'n happiness j’ou may destroy
Isaura’s. She will wed another, but she will not
be happy. What a chimera of dread your ego-
tism as man conjures up ! Oh, forsooth ! the
qualities that charm and delight a w’orld are to
unfit a woman to be helpmate to a man. Fie on
)’Ou ! — fie !”

Whatever answer Graham might have made to
these impassioned reproaches w'as here checked.

Tw'o men on horseback stopped the carriage.
One was Enguerrand de Vandemar, the other
was the Algerine Colonel whom we met at the
supper given at the Maison Dorde by Frederic
Lemercier.

‘‘‘‘Pardon, Madame I^Iorley,” said Enguer-
rand; “but there are symptoms of a mob epi-
demic a little further up ; the fever began at
Belleville, and is threatening the health of the
Champs Elysees. Don’t be alarmed — it may be
nothing, though it may be much. In Paris one
can never calculate an hour beforehand the exact

progress of a politico-epidemic fever. At pres-
ent I sav’, ‘ Bah ! a pack of ragged boys, gamins
de Paris but my friend the Colonel, twisting
his moustache en sourient amerement, sa3’s, ‘It is
the indignation of Paris at the apathy of the gov-
ernment under insult to the honor of France;’
and Heaven only know’s how rapidly French ga-
mins grow into giants when colonels talk about the
indignation of Paris and the honor of France!”

“But wdiat has happened?” asked Mrs. Mor-.
Ie3’, turning to the Colonel.

.“Madame,” replied the warrior, “it is ru-
mored that the King of Prussia has turned his
back upon the embassador of France, and that
the pchin who is for peace at any price — M. 01-
livier — will say to-morrow in the Chamber that
France submits to a slap in the face.”

“Please, Monsieur de Vandemar, to tell my
coachman to drive home,” said Mrs. Morle3\

The carriage turned and went homew’ard.
The Colonel lifted his hat, and rode back to see
what the gamins w'ere about. Enguerrand, w’ho
had no interest in the gamins, and w’ho looked
on the Colonel as a bore, rode by the side of the
carriage.

“Is there any thing serious in this?” asked
Mrs. Morley.

“At this moment, nothing. What it may be
this hour to-morrow I can not sa\’. Ah, Mon-
sieur Vane, honjotir — I did not recognize you
at first. Once, in a visit at the chateau of one
of your distinguished countr3’men, I saw tw’o
game-cocks turned out facing each other: they
needed no pretext for quarreling — neither do
France and Prussia; no matter wdiicli game-
cock gave the first offense, the tw’o game-cocks
must have it out. All that Ollivier can do, if
he be wise, is to see that the French cock has
his steel spurs as long as the Prussian’s. But
this I do say, that if Ollivier attempts to put the
French cock back into its bag, the empire is
gone in forty-eight hours. That to me is a trifle
— I care nothing for the empire ; but that which
is not a trifle is anarchy and chaos. Better war
and the empire than peace and Jules Favre.
But let us seize the present hour, Mr. Vane;
whatever happens to-morrow', shall v^e dine to-
gether to-day? Name your restaurant?”

“I am so grieved, ” answ’ered Graham, rous-
ing himself — “I am here only on business, and
engaged all the evening.”

“ What a wonderful thing is this life of ours !”
said Enguerrand. “The destin3’ of France at
this moment hangs on a thread. I, a French-
man, say to an English friend, ‘ Let us dine — a
cutlet to-day and a fig for to-morrow;’ and mv
English friend, distinguished native of a coun-
try with which w’e have the closest alliance, tells
me that in this crisis of France he has business
to attend to! My father is quite right; he ac-
cepts the Voltairean philosoph3', and cries, Vi-
vent les indifferents !"

“My dear M. de Vandemar,” said Graham,
“ in every countiy 3-011 will find the same thing.
All individuals massed together constitute^pub-
lic life. Each individual has a life of his own,
the claims and the habits and the needs of
w’hich do not suppress his sympathies W’ith pub-
lic life, but imperioush’ overrule them. Mrs.
Morley, permit me to pull the check-string; I
get out here.”

“I like that man,” said Enguerrand, as he

THE PARISIANS.

175

continued to ride by the fair American; “in
language and esprit he is so French.”

“I used to like him better than you can,”
answered Mrs. Morley; “but in prejudice and
stupidity he is so English. As it seems you are
disengaged, come and partake, pot au feu^ with
Frank and me.”

“Charmed to do so,” answered the cleverest
and best bred of all Parisian beaux garfons,
“ but forgive me if I quit you soon. This poor
France ! Eutre nous, I am very uneasy about
the Parisian fever. I must run away after din-
ner to clubs and cafes to learn the last bulletins.”

“We have nothing like that French Legiti-
mist in the States,” said the fair American to
herself, “unless we should ever be so silly as to
make Legitimists of the ruined gentlemen of the
South.”

Meanwhile Graham Vane went slowly back
to his apartment. No false excuse had he made
to Enguerrand : this evening was devoted to M.
llenard, who told him little he had not known
before ; but his private life overruled his public,
and all that night he, professed politician, thought
sleeplessly, not over the crisis to France, which
might alter the conditions of Europe, but the talk
on his private life of that intermeddling American
woman.

CHAPTER IV.

The next day, Wednesday, July 6, com-
menced one of those eras in the world’s history
in which private life would vainly boast that it
overrules Life Public. How many private lives
tioes such a terrible time influence, absorb, dark-
en with sorrow, crush into graves ?

It was the day when the Due de Gramont ut-
tered the fatal speech which determined the die
between peace and war. No one not at Paris
on that day can conceive the popular enthusiasm
with which that speech was hailed — the greater
because the warlike tone of it was not antici-
pated— because there had been a rumor amidst
circles the best informed that a speech of pacific
moderation was to be the result of the Imperial
Council. Rapturous indeed were the applauses
■with which the sentences that breathed haughty
defiance were hailed by the Assembly. The la-
dies in the tribune rose with one accord, waving
their handkerchiefs. Tall, stalwart, dark, with
Roman features and lofty presence, the Minister
of France seemed to say with Catiline in the
fine tragedy, “Lo! where I stand I am war!”

Paris had been hungering for some hero of
the hour — the Due de Gramont became at once
raised to that eminence.

All the journals, save the very few which
were friendly to peace because hostile to the
Emperor, resounded with praise not only of the
speech, but of the speaker. It is with a melan-
choly sense of amusement that one recalls now
to mind those organs of public opinion — with
what romantic fondness they dwelt on the per-
sonal graces of the man who had at last given
voice to the chivalry of France — “The charm-
ing gravity of his countenance — the mysterious
expression of his eye!”

As the crowd poured from the Chambers,
Victor de Mauleon and Savarin, who had been
among the listeners, encountered.

“No chance for my friends the Orleanists
now,” said Savarin. “You who mock at all
parties are, I suppose, at heart for the Republic-
an— small chance, too, for that.”

“I do not agree with you. Violent impulses
have quick reactions.”

“But what reaction could shake the Emperor
after he returns a conqueror, bringing in his
pocket the left bank of the Rhine?”

“None — when he does that. Will he do it?
Does he himself think he will do it ? I doubt — ”

“ Doubt the French army against the Prus-
sian ?”

“Against the German people united — yes,
very much.”

“But war will disunite the German people.
Bavaria will surely assist us — Hanover will rise
against the spoliator — Austria at our first success-
es must shake oft'her present enforced neutrality?”

“You have not been in Germany, and I have.
What yesterday was a Prussian army to-mor-
row will be a German population, far exceed-
ing our own in numbers, in hardihood of body,
in cultivated intellect, in military discipline.
But talk of something else. How is my ex-
editor— poor Gustave Rameau ?”

“ Still very weak, but on the mend. Y'ou may
have him back in his office soon.”

“Impossible! even in his sick-bed his vanity
was more vigorous than ever. He issued a war-
song, which has gone the rounds of the war jour-
nals, signed by his own name. He must have
known very well that the name of such a Tyrtseus
can not reappear as the editor of Le Sens Com-
mun; that in launching his little fire-brand he
burned all vessels that could waft him back to
the port he had quitted. But I dare say he has
done well for his own interests ; I doubt if Le
Sens Commun can much longer hold its ground
in the midst of the prevalent lunacy.”

“ What ! it has lost its subscribers ? Gone off
in sale already, since it declared for peace ?”

“ Of course it has; and after the article which,
if I live over to-night, will appear to-morrow, I
should wonder if it sell enough to cover the cost
of the print and paper.”

“Martyr to principle ! I revere, but I do not
envy thee.”

“Martyrdom is not my ambition. If Louis
Napoleon be defeated, what then ? Perhaps he
may be the martyr; and the Favres and Gam-
bettas may roast their own eggs on the gridiron
they heat for his Majesty.”

Here an English gentleman, who was the very
able correspondent to a very eminent journal,
and in that capacity had made acquaintance with
De Mauleon, joined the two Frenchmen. Sava-
rin, however, after an exchange of salutations,
went his way.

“May I "ask a frank answer to a somewhat
rude question, M. le Vicomte?” said the En-
glishman. “Suppose that the Imperial Govern-
ment had to-day given in their adhesion to the
peace party, how long would it have been before
their orators in the Chamber and their organs
in the jn-ess would have said that ITance was
governed by poltronsf"

“ Probably for most of the twenty-four hours.
But there are a few who are honest in their con-
victions ; of that few I am one.”

“ And would have supported the Emperor and
his government ?”

17G

THE PARISIANS.

“No, monsieur — I do not say that.”

“Then the Emperor would have turned many
friends into enemies, and no enemies into friends.”

“ Monsieur, you in England know that a par-
ty in opposition is not propitiated when the par-
ty in power steals its measures. Ha! — pardon
me — who is that gentleman, evidently your coun-
tryman, whom I see yonder talking to the sec- '
retary of your Embassy ?”

“He — Mr. Vane — Graham Vane. Do you
not know him? He has been much in Paris —
attached to our Embassy formerl}’^ ; a clever man
— much is expected from him.”

“ Ah ! I think I have seen him before, but am
not quite sure. Did you say Vane? I once
knew a Monsieur Vane, a distinguished Parlia-
mentary orator.”

“That gentleman is his son. Would you like
to be introduced to him?”

“Not to day; I am in some hurry.” Here
Victor lifted his hat in parting salutation, and, as
he walked away, cast at Graham another glance,
keen and scrutinizing. “I have seen that man
before,” he muttered. “Where? — when? Can
it be only a family likeness to the father? No,
the features are different; the profile is — ha!
— Mr. Lamb. Mr. Lamb — but why call himself
by that name ? — why disguised ? — what can he
have to do with poor Louise? Bah ! — these are
not questions I can think of now. This war
— this war. Can it yet be prevented? How it
will prostrate all the plans my ambition so care-
fully schemed ! Oh ! — at least, if I were but in
the Chambre. Perhaps I yet may be before the
war is ended. The Clavignys have great inter-
est in their department.”

CHAPTER V.

^ Graham had left a note with Rochebriant’s
concierge requesting an interview on the Mar-
quis’s return to Paris, and on the evening after
the day just commemorated he received a line
saying that Alain had come back, and would be
at home at nine o’clock, Graham found him-
self in the Breton’s apartment punctually at the
hour indicated.

Alain was in high spirits ; he burst at once
into enthusiastic exclamations on the virtual an-
nouncement of war.

“ Congratulate me, mon cher!" he cried ; “the
news was a joyous surprise to me. Only so re-
cently as yesterday morning I was under the
gloomy apprehension that the Imperial Cabinet
Avould continue to back Ollivier’s craven declara-
tion ‘ that France had not been affronted !’ The
Duchesse de Tarascon, at whose campagne I was
a guest, is (as you doubtless know) very much
in the confidence of the Tuileries. On the first
signs of war I wrote to her, saying, that what-
ever the objections of my pride to enter tlie army
as a private in time of peace, such objections
ceased on the moment when all distinctions of
France must vanish in the eyes of sons eager to
defend her banners. The Duchesse in reply
begged me to come to her campagne, and talk
over the matter. I went. She then said that
if war should break out, it was the intention to
organize the mobiles, and officer them with men
of birth and education, irrespective of previous

military service, and in that case I might count
on my epaulets. But only two nights ago she
received a letter — I know not, of course, from
whom — evidently from some high authority —
that induced her to think the moderation of the
council would avert the w_,ar, and leave the swords
of the mobiles in their sheaths. I suspect the
decision of yesterday must have been a very
sudden one. Le cher Gramont ! See what it
is to have a well-born man in a sovereign’s coun-
cils.”

“ If war must come, I at least wish all renown
to yourself. But — ”

“Oh, spare your ^buts;' England is always
too full of them where her own interests do not
appeal to her. She had no ‘ buts’ for war in In-
dia or a march into Abyssinia.”

Alain spoke petulantly ; at that moment the
French were very much irritated by the monitory
tone of the English journals. Graham prudent-
ly avoided the chance of rousing the Avrath of
a young hero yearning for his epaulets.

“I am English enough,” said he, with good-
humored courtesy, “to care for English inter-
ests ; and England has no interest abroad dear-
er to her than the welfare and dignity of France.
And now let me tell you why I presumed on an
acquaintance less intimate than 1 could desire to
solicit this interview on a matter which concerns
myself, and in which you could perhaps render
me a considerable service.”

“If I can, count it rendered; moA'e to this
sofa ; join me in a cigar, and let us talk at ease
comme de vieux amis, whose fathers or brothers
might have fought side by side in the Crimea.”
Graham removed to the sofa beside Rochebriant,
and after one or two whiffs, laid aside the cigar
and began :

“ Among the correspondence which monsieur
your father has left are there any letters of no
distant date signed Marigny — Madame Mari-
gny ? Pardon me, I should state my motive in
putting this question. I am intrusted with a
charge the fulfillment of Avhich may prove to
the benefit of this lady or her child ; such fulfill-
ment is a task imposed upon my honor. But all
the researches to discover this lady which I ha^ e
instituted stop at a certain date, Avith this infor-
mation— viz,, that she corresponded occasional-
ly Avith the late Marquis de Rochebriant; that
he habitually preserved the letters of his corre-
spondents ; and that these letters Avere severally
transmitted to you at his decease.”

Alain’s face had taken a very grave expression
Avhile Graham spoke, and he noAv replied, with a
mixture of haughtiness and embarrassment :

“The boxes containing the letters my father
received and preserved Avere sent to me, as you
say — the larger portion of them Avere from ladies
— sorted and labeled, so that in glancing at any
letter in each packet I could judge of the gener-
al tenor of those in the same packet Avithout the
necessity of reading them. All packets of that
kind. Monsieur Vane, I burned. I do not re-
member any letters signed ‘Marigny.’”

“I perfectly understand, my dear Marquis,
that you Avould destroy all letters Avhich your fa-
ther himself Avould have destroyed if his last ill-
ness had been sufficiently prolonged. But I do
not think the letters I mean Avbuld have come
under that classification ; probably they were
short, and on matters of business relating to

THE PARISIANS.

some third person— some person, for instance,
of the name of Louise, or of Duval !”

“ Stop ! let me think. I have a vague remem-
brance of one or two letters which rather per-
plexed me ; they were labeled, ‘ Louise D .

Mem. : to make further inquiries as to the fate
of her uncle. ’ ”

‘ ‘ Marquis, these are the letters I seek. Thank
Heaven, you have not destroyed them!”

“No ; there was no reason why I should de-
stroy, though I really can not state precisely any
reason why I kept them. I have a very vague
recollection of their existence.”

“I entreat you to allow me at least to glance
at the handwriting, and compare it with that of
a letter I have about me ; and if the several
handwritings correspond, I would ask you to let
me have the address, which, according to your
father’s memorandum, will be found in the letters
you have preserved.”

“ To compliance with such a request I not
only can not demur, but perhaps it may free me
from some responsibility which I might have
thought the letters devolved upon my executor-
ship. I am sure they did not concern the honor
of any woman of any family, for in that case I
must have burned them.”

“ Ah, Marquis, shake hands there! In such
concord between man and man there is more
entente cordiale between England and Prance
than there was at Sebastopol. Now let me com-
pare the handwritings.”

“The box that contained the letters is not
liere ; I left it at Rochebriant ; I will telegraph
to my aunt to send it ; the day after to-morrow
it will no doubt arrive. Breakfast with me that
day — say at one o’clock — and after breakfast the
bo‘x!”

“ How can I thank you?”

“Thank me! but you said your honor was
concerned in your request — requests affecting
honor between men comme il faut is a ceremony,
of course, like a bow between them. One bows,
the other returns the bow — no thanks on either
side. Now that we have done with that matter,
let me say that I thought your wish for our in-
terview originated in a very different cause.”

“What could that be ?”

“Nay, do you not recollect that last talk be-
tween us, when with such loyalty y'ou spoke to
me about Mademoiselle Cicogna, and. supposing
that there might be rivalship between us, re-
tracted all that you might have before said to
warn me against fostering the sentiment with
which she had inspired me, even at the first
slight glance of a face which can not be lightly
forgotten by those who have once seen it ?”

“ I recollect perfectly every word of that talk.
Marquis,” answered Graham, calmly, but with
his hand concealed within his vest and pressed
tightly to his heart. The warning of Mrs. Mor-
ley flashed upon him. “Was this the man to
seize the prize he had put aside — this man, youn-
ger than himself — handsomer than himself —
higher in rank ?” “I recollect that talk. Mar-
quis ! Well, what then ?” '

“ In my self-conceit, I supposed that you might
have heard how much I admired Mademoiselle
Cicogna — how, having not long since met her at
the house of Duplessis (who, by-the-way, writes
me word that I shall meet you chez Jui to-mor-
row), I have since sought her society wherever

177

there was a chance to find it. You may have
heard, at our club or elsewhere, how I adore
her genius — how, I say, that nothing so Breton
— that is, so pure and so lofty — has appeared
and won readers since the days of Chateaubri-
and— and you, knowing that les absens ont tou-
jo2irs tort, come to me and ask Monsieur de
Rochebriant, Are we rivals ? I expected a chal-
lenge. You relieve my mind. You abandon the
field to me?”

At the first I warned the reader how improved
from his old mauvaise lionte a year or so of Paris
lite would make our beau Marquis. How a year
or two of London life, with its horsey slang and
its fast girls of tlie period, would have vulgarized
an English Rochebriant!

Graham gnawed his lips and replied, quietly,
“I do not challenge! Am I to congratulate
you?”

“No; that brilliant victory is not for me. I^
thought that was made clear in the conversation
I have referred to. But if you have. done me the
honor to be jealous, I am exceedingly flattered.
Speaking seriously, if I admired Mademoiselle
Cicogna when you and 1 last met, the admira-
tion is increased by the respect with which I re-
gard a character so simply noble. How many
women older than she would have been spoiled
by the adulation that has followed her literary
success? — how few women so young, placed in
a position so critical, having the courage to lead
a life so independent, would have maintained the
dignity of their character free from a single in-
discretion? I speak not from my own knowl-
edge, but from the report of all who would be
pleased enough to censure if they could find a
cause. Good society is the paradise of mau-
vaises langues."

Graham caught Alain’s hand and pressed it,
but made no answer.

The young Marquis continued:

“You will pardon me for speaking thus free-
ly in the way that I would wish any friend to
speak of the demoiselle who might become my
wife. I owe you mudh, not only for the loyalty
with which you addressed me in reference to this
young lady, but for words affecting my own po-
sition in France, which sunk deep into my mind
— saved me from deeming myself a poscrit in my
own land — filled me with a manly ambition, not
stifled amidst the thick of many effeminate follies
— and, in fact, led me to the cai-eer which is about
to open before me, and in which my ancestors
have left me no undistinguished examples. ’ Let
us speak, then, a cceur ouvert, as one friend to
another. Has there been any misunderstanding
between you and Mademoiselle Cicogna which
has delayed your return to Paris? If so, is it
over now ?”

“There has been no such misunderstanding.”

“Do you doubt whether the sentiments you
expressed in regard to her, when we met last year,
are returned ?”

“I have no right to conjecture her sentiments.
You mistake altogether.”

“ I do not believe that I am dunce enough
to mistake your feelings toward mademoiselle —
they may be read in your face at this moment.
Of course I do not presume to hazard a conjecture
as to those of mademoiselle toward yourself. But
wlien I met her not long since at the house of
Duplessis, with whose daughter she is intimate.

178

THE PiVKISIANS.

I chanced to speak to her of you ; and if I may
judge by looks and manner, I chose no displeas-
ing theme. You turn away. I offend you?”

“Offend — no, indeed; but on this subject I
am not prepared to converse. 1 came to Fajis
on matters of business much complicated, and
which ought to absorb my attention. I can not
longer trespass on your evening. The day aft-
er to-morrow, then, I will be with you at one
o’clock.”

“Yes; I hope then to have the letters you
wish to consult ; and, meanwhile, we meet to-
morrow at the Hotel Duplessis.”

CHAPTER VI.

Graham had scarcely quitted Alain, and the
young Marquis was about to saunter forth to his
club, when Duplessis was announced.

These two men had naturally seen much of
each other since Duplessis had returned from
Bretagne and delivered Alain from the gripe of
Louvier. Scarcely a day had passed but what
Alain had been summoned to enter into the
financier’s plans for the aggrandizement of the
Rochebriant estates, and deliberately made to feel
that he had become a partner in speculations
which, thanks to the capital and the abilities Du-
plessis brought to bear, seemed likely to result in
the ultimate freedom of his property from all
burdens, and the restoration of his inheritance to
a splendor correspondent with the dignity of his
rank.

On the plea that his mornings were chiefly de-
voted to professional business, Duplessis arranged
that these consultations should take place in the
evenings. From those consultations Valerie was
not banished ; Duplessis took her into the coun-
cil as a matter of course. “ Valerie,” said the
financier to Alain, “though so young, has a very
clear head for business, and she is so interested
in all that interests myself that even where I do
not take her opinion, I at 14ast feel my own made
livelier and brighter by her sympathy.”

So the girl was in the habit of taking her work
or her book into the cabinet de travail, and nev-
er obtruding a suggestion unasked, still, when
appealed to, speaking with a modest good sense
which justified her father’s confidence and praise;
and apropos of her book, she iiad taken Chateau-
briand into peculiar favor. Alain had respect-
fully presented to her beautifully bound copies
of Atala and Le G€nie du Christianisnie. It is
astonishing, indeed, how he had already con-
trived to regulate her tastes in literature. The
charms of those quiet family evenings had stolen
into the young Breton’s heart.

He yearned for none of the giiyer reunions in
which he had before sought for a pleasure that
his nature had not found, for amidst the amuse-
ments of Paris Alain remained intensely Bret-
on— viz., formed eminently for the simple joys
of domestic life, associating the sacred hearth-
stone with the antique religion of his fathers,
gathering round it all the images of pure and
noble affections which the romance of a poetic
temperament had evoked from the solitude which
had surrounded a melancholy boyhood — an un-
contaminated youth.

Duplessis entered abruptly, and 'ivith a coun-

tenance much disturbed from its wonted satur-
nine composure.

“ Marquis, what is this I have just heard from
the Duchesse de Tarascon ? Can it be? You
ask military service in this ill-omened war? —
you ?”

“My dear and best friend,” said Alain, very
much startled, “ I should have thought that you,
of all men in the world, would have most ap-
! proved of my request — you, so devoted an Im-
! perialist — you, indignant that the representative
of one of those families which the first Na})oleon
so eagerly and so vainly courted should ask for
the grade of sous-lieutenant in the armies of Na-
poleon the Third — you, who of all men know
how ruined are the fortunes of a Rochebriant —
you feel surprised that he clings to the noblest
heritage his ancestors have left to him — their
sword ! I do not understand you.”

“Marquis,” said Duplessis, seating himself,
and regarding Alain with a look in which were
blended the sort of admiration and the sort of
contempt with which a practical man of the
world, who, having himself gone through certain
credulous follies, has learned to despise the fol-
lies, but retains a reminiscence of sympathy with
the fools they bewitch — “Marquis, pardon me;
you talk finely, but you do not talk common-
sense. I should be extremely pleased if your
Legitimist scruples had allowed you to solicit, or
rather to accept, a civil appointment not unsuit-
ed to your rank, under the ablest sovereign, as
a civilian, to whom France can look for ration-
al liberty combined with established order. Such
openings to a suitable career you have rejected ;
but who on earth could expect you, never trained
to military service, to draw a -sword hitherto sa-
cred to the Bourbons on behalf of a cause which
the madness, I do not say of France, but of Par-
is, has enforced on a sovereign against whom
you would fight to-morrow if you had a chance
of placing the descendant of Henry IV. on his
throne ?”

“I am not about to fight for any sovereign,
but for my country against the fqj'eigner.”

“ An excellent answer if the foreigner had in-
vaded your country ; but it seems that your coun-
try is going to invade the foreigner — a very diL
fefent thing. Chut! all this is discussion most
painful to me. I feel for the Emperor a person-
al loyalty,, and for the hazards he is about to en-
counter a prophetic dread, as an ancestor of
yours might have felt for Francis I. could he
have foreseen Pavia. Let us talk of ourselves
and the effect the war should have upon our in-
dividual action. You are aware, of course, that
though M. Louvier has had notice of our inten-
tion to pay off his mortgage, that intention can
not be carried into effect for six months ; if the
money be not then forth-coming, his hold on
Rochebriant remains unshaken. The sum is
large. ”

“Alas! yes.”

“The war must greatly disturb the money-
market, affect many speculative adventures and
operations when at the very moment credit may
be most needed. It is absolutely necessary that
I should be daily at my post on the Bourse, and
hourly watch the ebb and flow of events. Under
these circumstances, I had counted — permit me
to count still — on your presence in Bretagne.
We have already begun negotiations on a some-

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THE PAKISIANS.

179

what extensive scale, whether as regards the im-
provement o! forests and orchards, or the plans
for building allotments, as soon as the lands are
free for disposal. For all these the eye of a mas-
ter is required. I entreat yon, then, to take up
your residence at Rochebriant.”

“My dear friend, this is but a kindly and deli-
cate mode of relieving me from the dangers of
war. I have, as you must be conscious, no prac-
tical knowledge of business. He'bert can be im-
plicitly trusted, and will carry out your views
with a zeal equal, to mine, and with infinitely
more ability.”

“ Marquis, pray neither to Hercules nor to He-
bert ; if you wish to get your own cart out of the
ruts, put your own shoulder to the wheel.”

Alain colored high, unaccustomed to be so
bluntly addressed, but he replied, with a kind of
dignified meekness :

“I shall ever remain grateful for what you
have done, and wish to do, for me. But, assum-
ing that you suppose rightly, the estates of Roche-
briant would, in your hands, become a profitable
investment, and more than redeem the mortgage,
and the sum you have paid Louvier on my ac-
count, let it pass to you irrespectively of me. I
shall console myself in the knowledge that the
old place will be restored, and those who honored
its old owners prosper in hands so strong, guided
by a heart so generous.”

Duplessis was deeply affected by these simple
words ; they seized him on the tenderest side of
his character — for his heart was generous, and
no one except his lost wife and his loving child
had ever before discovered it to be so. Has it
ever happened to you, reader, to be appreciated
on the one point of the good or great that is in
you — on which secretly you value yourself most
— but for which nobody, not admitted into your
heart of hearts, has given you credit? If that
had happened to you, judge what Duplessis felt
when tiie fittest representative of that divine chiv-
alry which, if sometimes deficient in head, owes
all that exalts it to riches of heart, spoke thus to
the professional money-maker, whose qualities of
head were so acknowledged that a compliment
to them wonld be a hollow impertinence, and
whose qualities of heart had never yet received a
compliment!

Duplessis started from his seat and embraced
Alain, murmuring, “Listen to me. I love you
— I never had a son — be mine — Rochebriant shall
be my daughter’s dot."

Alain returned the embrace, and then recoil-
ing. said :

“Father, your first desire must be honor for
vour son. You have guessed my secret — I have
learned to love Valerie. Seeing her out in the
world, she seemed like other girls, fair and com-
monplace ; seeing her at your house, I have said
to myself, ‘ There is the one girl fairer than all
others in my eyes, and the one individual to
whom all other girls are commonplace.’”

“ Is that true ? — is it ?”

“ True ! — does a gentilhomrne ever lie ? And
out of that love for her has grown this immova-
ble desire to be something worthy of her — some-
thing that may lift me from the vulgar platform
of men who owe all to ancestors, nothing to them-
selves. Do you suppose for one moment that I,
saved from ruin and penury by Valerie’s father,
could be base enough to say to her, * In return

be Madame la Marquise de Rochebriant ?’ Do
you suppose that I, whom yoy would love and
respect as son, could come to you and say, ‘ I
am oppressed by your favors, I am crippled wdth
debts — give me your millions and we are quits ?’
No, Duplessis ! You, so well descended your-
self— so superior as man among men that you
would have won name and position had you been
born the son of a shoe-black — you would eternal-
ly despise the noble who, in days when all that
we Bretons deem holy in noblesse are subject-
ed to ridicule and contempt, should vilely forget
the only motto which the scutcheons of all gentil-
hommes have in common, '‘Noblesse oblige.'' War,
with all its perils and all its grandeur — war lifts
on high the banners of France — war, in which
every ancestor of mine whom I care to recall ag-
grandized the name that descends to me. Let
me, then, do as those before me have done ; let
me prove that I am worth something in myself,
and then you and I are equals ; and I can say
with no humbled crest, ‘Your benefits are ac-
cepted.’ The man who has fought not ignobly
for France may aspire to the hand of her daugli-
ter. Give me Valerie; as to her dot^ be it so,
Rochebriant — it will pass to her children.”

“Alain ! Alain ! my friend ! my son I — but if
you fall ! ”

“ Vale'rie will give you a nobler son.”

Duplessis moved away, sighing heavily ; but he
said no more in deprecation of Alain's martial
resolves.

A Frenchman, however practical, however
worldly, however philosophical he may be, who
does not sympathize with the follies of honor —
who does not concede indulgence to the hot blood
of youth when he says, “My country is insulted
and her banner is unfurled,” may certainly be a
man of excellent common-sense ; but if such men
had been in the majority, Gaul would never hav'e
been France — Gaul would have been a province
of Germany.

And as Duplessis walked horaew’ard, he, the
calmest and most far-seeing of all authorities on
the Bourse, the man who, excepting only De
Mauleon, most decidedly deemed the cause of
the war a blunder, and most forebodingly antici-
pated its issues, caught the prevalent enthusi-
asm. Every wheie he was stopped by cordial
hands, everywhere met by congratulating smiles.
“ How right you have been, Duplessis, when you
have laughed at those who have said, ‘ The Em-
peror is ill, decrepit, done up !’ ”

“ Viire r Empereur ! at last we shall be face to
face with those insojent Prussians!”

Before he arrived at his home, passing along
the Boulevards, greeted by all the groups en-
joying the cool night air before the cafe's, Du-
plessis had caught the w^ar epidemic.

Entering his hotel, he went at once to Valerie’s
chamber. “Sleep well to-night, child: Alain
has told me that he adores thee, and if he will
go to the war, it is that he may lay his laurels at
thy feet. Bless thee, my child! thou couldst
not have made a nobler choice.”

Whether after these words Valerie slept well
or not ’tis not for me to say, but if she did sleep,
I venture to guess that her dreams were rose-
colored.

180

THE TARISIANS.

CHAPTER VII.

All the earlier part of that next day Graham
Vane remained in-doors — a lovely day at Paris,
that 8th of July, and with that summer day
all hearts which at Paris were in unison. Dis-
content was charmed into enthusiasm — Belle-
ville and Montmartre forgot the visions of Com-
munism and Socialism, and other isms not to be
realized except in some undiscovered Atlantis !

The Emperor was the idol of the day — the
names of Jules Favre and Gambetta were by-
words of scorn. Even Armand Monnier, still out
of work, beginning to feel the pinch of want, and
fierce for any revolution that might turn topsy-
turvy the conditions of labor — even Annand Mon-
nier was found among groups that were laying
itnmortelles at the foot of the column in the Place
Vendome, and heard to say to a fellow-malcon-
tent, with eyes uplifted to the statue of the first
Napoleon, “Do you not feel at this moment that
no Frenchman can be long angry with the little
cor])oral ? He denied La Liberte^ but he gave
La Gloire."

Heeding not the stir of the world without,
Graham was compelling into one resolve the
doubts and scruples which had so long warred
against the heart which they ravaged, but could
not wholly subdue.

The conversations with jVIrs. Morley and
Rochebriant had placed in a light in which he
had not before regarded it the image of Isaura.
He had reasoned from the starting-point of his
love for her, and had sought to convince himself
that against that love it was his duty to strive.

But now a new question was addressed to his
conscience as well as to his heart. What though
he had never formally declared to her his affec-
tion— never, in open words, wooed her as his
own — never even hinted to her the hopes of a
union which at one time he had fondly enter-
tained— still it was true that his love had been
too transparent not to be detected by her, and
not to have led her on to return it ?

Certainly he had, as we know, divined that he
was not indifferent to her ; at Enghien, a year
ago, that he had gained her esteem, and perhaps
interested her fancy.

We know also how he had tried to persuade
himself that the artistic temperament, especially
when developed in women, is too elastic to sutler
the things of real life to have lasting influence
over hapj)iness or sorrow ; that in the pursuits
in which her thought and imagination found em-
ploy, in the excitement they sustained, and the
fame to which they conduced, Isaura would be
readily consoled for a momentary pang of disap-
pointed affection; and that a man so alien as
himself, both by nature and by habit, from the
artistic world was the very last person who
could maintain deep and permanent impression
on her actual life or her ideal dreams. But what
if. as he gathered from the words of the fair
American — what if, in all these assumptions, he

was wholly mistaken ? What if, in previously
revealing his own heart, he had decoyed hers —
what if, by a desertion she had no right to antic-
ipate, he had blighted her future? What if this
brilliant child of genius could love as warmly, as
deeply, as enduringly as any simple village girl
to whom there is no poetry except love ? If this
were so, what became the first claim on his hon-
or, his conscience, his duty ?

The force which but a few days ago his reason-
ings had given to the arguments that forbade
him to think of Isaura became weaker and
weaker as now in an altered ’mood of reflection
he resummoned and reweighed them.

All those prejudices — which had seemed to him
such rational common-sense truths when trans-
lated from his own mind into the words of Lady
Janet’s letter — was not Mrs. Morley right in de-
nouncing them as the crotchets of an insolent
egotism ? Was it not rather to the favor than to
the disparagement of Isaura, regarded even in
the man’s narrow-minded view of woman’s dig-
nity, that this orphan girl could, with character
so unscathed, pass through the trying ordeal of
the public babble, the public gaze — command
alike the esteem of a woman so pure as Mrs.
Morley, the reverence of a man so chivalrously
sensitive to honor as Alain de Rochebriant ?

Musing thus, Graham’s countenance at last
brightened — a glorious joy entered into and pos-
sessed him. He felt as a man Avho had burst
asunder the swathes and trammels which had
kept him galled and miserable with the sense of
captivity, and from which some wizard spell that
took strength from his own superstition had for-
bidden to struggle.

He was free I — and that freedom was rapture !
Yes, his resolve was taken. •

The day was now far advanced. He should
have just time before the dinner with Duplessis

to drive to A , where he still supposed Isaura

resided. How, as his Jiacre rolled along the
well-remembered road — how completely he lived
in that world of romance of which he denied
himself to be a denizen !

Arrived at the little villa, he found it occupied
only by workmen — it was under repair. No one
could tell him to what residence the ladies who
occ upied it the last year had removed.

“I shall learn from Mrs. Morley,” thought
Graham, and at her house he called in going
back ; but Mrs. Morley was not at home. He had
only just, time, after regaining his apartment, to
change his dress for the dinner to Avhich he was
invited. As it was, he arrived late, and while
apologizing to his host for his want of punctual-
ity, his tongue faltered. At the farther end of
the room he saw a face, paler and thinner than
when he had seen it last — a face across which a
something of grief had gone.

The servant announced that “ dinner was
served.”

“ Mr. Vane,” said Duplessis, “will you take
in to dinner Mademoiselle Cicogna ?”

THE PARISIANS.

181

BOOK ELEVENTH.

CHAPTER I.

Among the frets and checks to the course that
“ never did run smooth” there is one which is
sufficiently frequent, for many a reader will re-
member the irritation it caused him. You have
counted on a meeting with the beloved one un-
witnessed by others, an interchange of confes-
sions and vows Avhich others may not hear. You
have arranged almost the words in which your
innermost heart is to be expressed ; pictured to
yourself the very looks by which those words
will have their sweetest reply. The scene you
have thus imagined appears to you vivid and
distinct, as if foreshown in a magic glass. And
suddenly, after long absence, xhe meeting takes
place in the midst of a common companionship:
nothing that you wished to say can be said.
The scene you pictured is painted out by the
irony of Chance, and groups and backgrounds
of which you had never dreamed start forth
from the disappointing canvas. Happy if that
be all! But sometimes, by a strange subtle
intuition, you feel that the person herself is
changed ; and sympathetic with that change, a
terrible chill comes over your own heart.

Before Graham had taken his seat at the ta-
ble beside Isaura he felt that she was changed
to him. He felt it by her very touch as their
hands met at the first greeting — by the tone of
her voice in the few words that passed between
them — by the absence of all glow in the smile
which had once lit up her face, as a burst of
sunshine lights up a day in spring, and gives a
richer gladness of color to all its blooms. Once
seated side by side, they remained for some mo-
ments silent. Indeed, it \vould have been rather
difficult for any thing less than the wonderful
intelligence of lovers between whom no wall can
prevent the stolen interchange of tokens, to have
ventured private talk of their own amidst the
excited converse which seemed all eyes, all
tongues, all ears, admitting no one present to
abstract himself from the common emotion. En-
glishmen do not recognize the old classic law
which limited the number of guests where ban-
quets are meant to be pleasant to that of the
Nine Muses. They invite guests so numerous,
and so shy of launching talk across the table,
that you may talk to the person next to you not
less secure from listeners than you would be in
talking with the stranger whom you met at a
well in the Sahara. It is not so, except on state
occasions, at Paris. Difficult there to retire into
solitude with your next neighbor. The guests
collected by Duplessis completed with himself
the number of the Sacred Nine — the host, Va-
lerie, Rochebriant, Graham, Isaura, Signora Ve-
nosta. La Duchesse de Tarascon, the wealthy

and high-born Imperialist, Prince , and, last

and least, one who shall be nameless.

I have read somewhere, perhaps in one of the
books which American superstition dedicates to
the mysteries of Spiritualism, how a gifted seer,
technically styled medium, sees at the opera a
box which to other eyes appears untenanted and
empty, but to him is full of ghosts, well dressed
in costume ,de regle^ gazing on the boards and

listening to the music. Like such ghosts are
certain beings whom I call Lookers-on. Though
still living, they have no share in the life they
survey. They come as from another w’orld to
hear and to see what is passing in ours. In
ours they lived once, but that troubled, sort of
life they have survived. Still, we amuse them
as stage-players and puppets amuse ourselves.
One of these Lookers-on completed the party at
the house of Duplessis.

How lively, how animated the talk w'as at the
financier’s pleasant table that day, the 8th of
J uly ! The excitement of the coming war made
itself loud in every Gallic voice, and kindled
in every Gallic eye. Appeals at every second
minute were made, sometimes courteous, some-
times sarcastic, to the Englishman — promising
son of an eminent statesman, and native of a
country in which France is always coveting an
ally, and always suspecting an enemy. Certain-
ly Graham could not have found a less propi-
tious moment for asking Isaura if she really
were changed. And certainly the honor of
Great Britain was never less ably represented
(that is saying a great deal) than it was on this
occasion by the young man reared to diplomacy
and aspiring to Parliamentary distinction. He
answered all questions with a constrained voice
and an insipid smile — all questions pointedly ad-
dressed to him as to what demonstrations of ad-
miring sympathy with the gallantry of France
might be expected from the English govern-
ment and people; what his acquaintance with
the German races led him to suppose would be
the effect on the southern states of the first de-
feat of the Prussians ; whether the man called
Moltke was not a mere strategist on paper, a
crotchety pedant ; whether, if Belgium became
so enamored of the glories of France as to so-
licit fusion with her people, England would have
a right to offer any objection, etc., etc. I do
not think that during that festival Graham once
thought one-millionth so much about the fates
of Prussia and France as he did think, “ Why is
that girl so changed to me? Merciful Heaven!
is she lost to my life ?”

By training, by habit, even by passion, the
man was a genuine politician, cosmopolitan as
well as patriotic, accustomed to consider what
effect every vibration in that balance of Euro-
pean power, which no deep thinker can despise,
must have on the destinies of civilized humanity,
and on those of the nation to which he belongs.
But are there not moments in life when the hu-
man heart suddenly narrows the circumference
to which its emotions are extended? As the
ebb of a tide, it retreats from the shores it had
covered on its flow, drawing on with contracted
waves the treasure-trove it has selected to hoard
amidst its deeps.

CHAPTER 11.

On quitting the dining-room the Duchesse de
Tarascon said to her host, on whose arm she was
leaning, “ Of course you and I must go with the

182

THE PARISIANS.

stream. But is not all the fine talk that has
passed to-day at your table, and in which we too
have joined, a sort of hypocrisy ? I may say
this to you ; I would say it to no other.”

“And I say to you, Madame la Duchesse,
that which I would say to no other. Thinking
over it as I sit alone, I find myself making a
‘ terrible hazard but when I go abroad and be-
come infected by the general enthusiasm, I pluck
up gayety of spirit, and whisper to myself, ‘ True,,
but it may be an enormous gain.’ To get the
left bank of the Rhine is a trifle ; but to check
in our next neighbor a growth which a few years
hence would overtop us — that is no ti ifle. And
be the gain worth the hazard or not, could the
Emperor, could any government likely to hold
its own for a week, have declined to take the
chance of the die ?”

The Duchesse mused a moment, and mean-
while the two seated themselves on a divan in
the corner of the salon. Then she said, very
slowly :

“No government that held its tenure on pop-
ular suffrage could have done so. But if the
Emperor had retained the personal authority
which once allowed the intellect of one man to
control and direct the passions of many, I think
the war would have been averted. I have rea-
son to know that the Emperor gave his em-
])hatic support to the least bellicose members
of the council, and that Gramont’s speech did
not contain the passage that precipitates hostili-
ties when the council in which it was framed
broke up. These fatal words were forced upon
him by the temper in which the ministers found
the Chamber, and the reports of the popular ex-
citement which could not be resisted without
imminent danger of revolution. It is Paris
that has forced the war on the Emperor. But
enough of this subject. What must be must;
and, as you say, the gain may be greater than
the hazard. I come to something else you whis-
pered to me before we went in to dinner — a sort
of complaint which wounds me sensibly. You
say I have assisted to a choice of danger, and
possibly of death, a very distant connection of
mine, who might have been a very near connec-
tion of yours. You mean Alain de Rochebri-
ant?”

“Yes; I accept him as a suitor for the hand
of my only daughter.”

“ I am so glad, not for your sake so much as
for his. No one can know him well without ap-
preciating in him the finest qualities of the finest
order of the French noble ; but having known
your pretty Valerie so long, my congratulations
are for the man who can win her. Meanwhile
hear my explanation : when I promised Alain
any interest I can command for the grade of of-
ficer in a regiment of Mobiles, I knew not that
he had formed, or was likely to form, ties or
duties to keep him at home. I withdraw my
promise.”

“No, Duchesse, fulfill it. I should be disloy-
al indeed if I robbed a sovereign under whose
tranquil and prosperous reign 1 have acquired,
with no dishonor, the fortune which Order prof-
fers to Commerce, of one gallant defender in the
hour of need. And, speaking frankly, if Alain
were really my son, I think I am Frenchman
enough to remember that France is my mother.”

“Say no more, my friend — say no more,”

cried the Duchesse, with the warm blood of the
heart rushing through all the delicate coatings
of pearl powder. “If every Frenchman felt as
you do ; if in this Paris of ours all hostilities
of class may merge in the one thought of the
common country ; if in French hearts there yet
thrill the same sentiment as that which, in the
terrible days when all other ties were rent asun-
der, revered France as mother, and rallied her
sons to her aid against the confederacy of Eu-
rope— why, then, we need not grow pale with
dismay at the sight of a Prussian needle-gun.
Hist! look yonder. Is not that a tableau of
Youth in Arcady? Worlds rage around, and
Love, unconcerned, whispers to Love!” The
Duchesse here pointed to a corner of the adjoin-
ing room in which Alain and Valerie sat apart,
he w'hispering into her ear, her cheek downcast,
and, even seen at that distance, brightened by
the delicate tendei’tiess of its blushes.

CHAPTER III.

But in that small assembly there were two who
did not attract the notice of Duplessis, or of the
Lady of the Imperial Court. While the Piince

and the placid Looker-on were engaged at a

contest of ecarte, with the lively Venosta, for the'
gallery, interposing criticisms and admonitions,
Isaura was listlessly turning over a collection of
photographs strewed on a table that stood near
to an open window in the remoter angle of the
room, communicating with a long and wide bal-
cony filled partially with flowers, and overlook-
ing the Champs Elysees, softly lit up by the in-
numerable summer stars. Suddenly a whisper,
the command of which she could not resist,
thrilled through her ear, and sent the blood rush-
ing back to her heart.

“ Do you remember that evening at Enghien ?
how I said that our imagination could not carry
us beyond the question whether we two should be
gazing together that night twelvemonths on that
star which each of us had singled out from the
hosts of heaven ? That was the 8th of July. It
is the 8th of J uly once more. Come and seek for
our chosen star. Come. I have something to
say which say I must. Come.”

Mechanically, as it were — mechanically, as
they tell us the Somnambulist obeys the Mes-
merizer — Isaura obeyed that summons. In a
kind of dreamy submission she followed his steps,
and found herself on the balcony, flowers around
her and stars above, by the side of the man who
had been to her that being ever surrounded by
flowers and lighted by stars — the ideal of Ro-
mance to the heart of virgin Woman.

“ Isaura,” said the Englishman, softly. At the
sound of her own name for the first time heard
from those lips every nerve in her frame quiv-
ered. “Isaura, I have tried to live without you.
I can not. You are all in all to me. Without
you it seems to me as if earth had no flowers,
and even heaven had withdrawn its stars. Are
there differences between us ; differences of taste,
of sentiments, of habits, of thought? Only let
me hope that you can love me a tenth part so
much as I love you, and such differences cease
to be discord. Love harmonizes all sounds, blends
all colors into its own divine oneness of heart -and

THE PAKISIANS.

183

soul. Look up ! Is not the star which this time
last year invited our gaze above, is it not still
there ? Does it not still invite our ga^e ? Isau-
ra, speak!”

“ Hush, hush, hush !” The girl could say no
more, but she recoiled from his side.

The recoil did not wound him. There was no
hate in it. He advanced ; he caught her hand,
and continued, in one of those voices which be-
came so musical in summer nights under starry
skies :

“ Isaura, there is one name w^hich I can never
utter without a reverence due to the religion which
binds earth to heaven — a name which to man
should be the symbol of life cheered and beauti-
fied, exalted, hallowed. That name is ‘ wife. ’
Will you take that name from me ?”

And still Isaura made no reply. She stood
mute and cold and rigid as a statue of marble.
At length, as if consciousness had been arrested
and was struggling back, she sighed heavily, and
pressed her hands slowly over her forehead.

“Mockery, mockery!” she said then, with a
smile half bitter, half plaintive, on her colorless
lips. “Did you wait to ask me that question
till you knew what my answer must be ? 1 have
pledged the name of wife to another.”

“ No, no ; you say that to rebuke, to punish
me. Unsay it! unsay it!”

Isaura beheld the anguish of his face with be-
wildered ej^es. “ How can my words pain you ?”
she said, drearily. “Did you not write that 1
had unfitted myself to be wife to you ?”

“I?”

“ That I had left behind me the peaceful im-
munities of private life ? I felt you were so right !
Yes ! I am affianced to one who thinks that in
spite of that misfortune — ”

“Stop, I command you — stop ! You saw my
letter to Mrs. Morley. I have not had one mo-
ment free from torture and remorse since I wrote
it. But whatever in that letter you might justly
resent — ”

“ I did not resent — ”

Graham heard not the interruption, but hur-
ried on. “ You would forgive could you read
my heart. No matter. Every sentiment in
that letter, except those which conveyed admi-
ration, I retract. Be mine, and instead of pre-
suming to check in you the irresistible impulse
of genius to the first place in the head or the
heart of the world, I will teach myself to encour-
age, to share, to exult in it. Do you know what
a ditference there is between the absent one and
the present one — between the distant image
against whom our doubts, our fears, our sus-
picions raise up hosts of imaginary giants, bar-
riers of visionary walls, and the beloved face be-
fore the sight of which the hosts are fled, the
walls are vanished ? Isaura, we meet again.
You know now from ray own lips that I love you.
I think your lips will not deny that you love me.
You say that you are affianced to another. Tell
the man frankly, honestly, that you mistook your
heart. It is not yours to give. Save yourself,
save him, from a union in which there can be no
happiness.”

“It is too late,” said Isaura, with hollow
tones, but with no trace of vacillating weakness
on her brow and lips. “ Did I say now to that
other one, ‘ I break the faith that I pledged to
you,’ I should kill him, body and soul. Slight

thing though I be, to him I am all in all ; to you,
Mr. Vane, to you a memory — the memory of one
whom a year, perhaps a month hence, you will
rejoice to think you have escaped.”

She passed from him — passed away from the
flowers and the starlight ; and when Graham —
recovering from the stun of her crushing words,
and with the haughty mien and step of the man
who goes forth from the ruin of his hopes, lean-,
ing for support upon his pride — when Graham
re-entered the room all the guests had departed
save only Alain, who was still exchanging whis-
pered words with Valerie.

CHAPTER IV.

The next day, at the hour appointed, Graham
entered Alain’s apartment. “I am glad to tell
you,” said the Marquis, gayly, “that the box
has arrived, and we will very soon examine its
contents. Breakfast claims precedence.” Dur-
ing the meal Alain was in gay spirits, and did
not at first notice the gloomy countenance and
abstracted mood of his guest. At length, sur-
prised at. the dull response to his lively sallies on
the part of a man generally so pleasant in the
frankness of his speech, and the cordial ring of
his sympathetic laugh, it occurred to him that
the change in Graham must be ascribed to some-
thing that had gone wrong in the meeting with
Isaura the evening before ; and remembering the
curtness with which Graham had implied disin-
clination to converse about the fair Italian, he
felt perplexed how to reconcile the impulse of his
good nature with the discretion imposed on his
good-breeding. At all events, a compliment to
the lady whom Graham had so admired could do
no harm.

“ How well Mademoiselle Cicogna looked last
night !”

“Did she? It seemed to me that in health
at least she did not look very well. Have you
heard what day M. Thiers will speak on the
war ?”

“Thiers? No. Who cares about Thiers?
Thank Heaven, his day is past ! I don’t know
any unmarried woman in Paris, not even Vale-
rie— I mean Mademoiselle Duplessis — who has
so exquisite a taste in dress as Mademoiselle
Cicogna. Generally speaking, the taste of a fe-
male author is atrocious.”

“Really — I did not observe her dress. I am
no critic on subjects so dainty as the dress of la-
dies, or the tastes of female authors.”

“Pardon me,” said the beau Marquis, grave-.
Iv. “As to dress, I think that is so essential a
thing in the mind of woman that no man who
cares about women ought to disdain critical study
of it. In woman refinement of character is nev-
er found in vulgarity of dress. I have only ob-
served that truth since I came up from Bre-
tagne. ”

“ I presume, my dear Marquis, that you may
have read in Bretagne books which very few not
being professed scholars have ever read at Paris ;
and possibly you may remember that Horace
ascribes the most exquisite refinement in dress,
denoted by the untranslatable words ‘ simplex
munditiis,' to a lady who was not less distin-
guished by the ease and rapidity with which she

184

THE PARISIANS.

could change her affection. Of course that allu-
sion does not apply to Mademoiselle Cicogna ;
but there are many other exquisitely dressed la-
dies at Paris of whom an ill-fated admirer

‘ fidem

Mutatosque deos debit.’

Now, with your permission, we will adjourn to
the box of letters. ”

The box being produced and unlocked, Alain
looked with conscientious care at its contents
before he passed over to Graham’s inspection a
few epistles, in which the Englishman immedi-
ately detected the same handwriting as that of
the letter from Louise which Richard King had
bequeathed to him.

They were arranged and numbered chrono-
logically.

Letter I.

“ Dear M. le Marquis, — How can I thank
you sufficiently for obtaining and remitting to
me those certificates? You are too aware of
the unhappy episode in my life not to know how
inestimable is the service you render me. I am
saved all further molestation from the man who
had indeed no right over my freedom, but whose
persecution might compel me to the scandal and
disgrace of an appeal to the law for protection,
and the avowal of the illegal marriage into which
I was duped. I would rather be torn limb from
limb by wild horses, like the queen in the his-
tory books, than dishonor myself and the ances-
try which I may at least claim on the mother’s
side by proclaiming that I had lived with that
low Englishman as his wife, when I was only —

0 Heavens ! I can not conclude the sentence.

“No, M. le Marquis, I am in no want of the

pecuniary aid you so generously wish to press
on me. Though I know not where to address
my poor dear uncle — though I doubt, even if I
did, whether I could venture to confide to him
the secret known only to yourself as to the name

1 now bear — and if he hear of me at all he must
believe me dead — yet I have enough left of the
money he last remitted to me for present sup-
port: and when that fails, I think, what with
my knowledge of English and such other slen-
der accomplishments as I possess, I could main-
tain myself as a teacher or governess in some
German family. At all events, I will write to
you again soon, and I entreat you to let me
know all you can learn about my uncle. I feel
so grateful to you for your just disbelief of the
horrible calumny which must be so intolerably
galling to a man so proud, and, whatever his
errors, so incapable of a baseness.

“Direct to me Poste restante^ Augsburg.

“Yours, with all consideration,

(( »

Letter II.

(Seven months after the date of Letter I.)

“ Augsbueg.

“Dear M. le Marquis, — I thank you for
your kind little note informing me of tlie pains
you have taken, as yet with no result, to ascer-
tain what has become of my unfortunate uncle.
My life since I last wrote has been a very quiet
one. I have been teaching among a few fami-
lies here, and among my pupils are two little

girls of very high birth. They have taken so
great a fancy to me tliat their mother has just
asked me to come and reside at their house as
governess. What wonderfully kind hearts those
Germans have, so simple, so truthful! They
raise no troublesome questions — accept my own
story implicitly.” (Here follow a few common-
place sentences about the German character,
and a postscript.) “I go into my new home
next week. When you hear more of my uncle,
direct to me at the Countess von Rudesheim,
Schloss N M , near Berlin. ”

“Rudesheim!” Could this be the relation,
possibly the wife, of the Count von Rudesheim
with whom Graham had formed acquaintance last
year ?

Letter III.

(Between three and four years after the date of
, the last.)

“You startle me indeed, dear M. le Marquis.
My uncle said to have been recognized in Al-
geria, under another name, a soldier in the Al-
gerine army ? My dear, proud, luxurious uncle !
Ah, I can not believe it any more than you do :
but I long eagerly for such further news as you
can learn of him. For myself, I shall perhaps
surprise you when I say I am about to be mar-
ried. Nothing can exceed the amiable kindness
I have received from the Rudesheims since I
have been in their house. For the last year
especially I have been treated on equal terms as
one of the family. Among the habitual visitors
at the house is a gentleman of noble birth, but
not of rank too high, nor of fortune too great, to
make a marriage with the French widowed gov-
erness a mesalliance. I am sure that he loves
me sincerely ; and he is the only man I ever met
whose love I have cared to win. We are to be
married in the course of the year. Of course he
is ignorant of my painful history, and will never

learn it. And, after all, Louise D is dead.

In the home to which I am about to remove
there is no probability that the wretched En-
glishman can ever cross my path. My secret is
as safe with you as in the grave that holds her

whom in the name of Louise D you once

loved. Henceforth I shall trouble you no more
with my letters ; but if you hear any thing de-
cisively authentic of my uncle’s fate, write to me
a line at any time, directed as before to Madame
M , inclosed to the Countess von Rudesheim.

“And accept, for all the kindness you have
ever shown me, as to one whom you did not dis-
dain to call a kinswoman, the assurance of my
undying gratitude. In the alliance she now
makes your kinswoman does not discredit the
name through which she is connected with the
yet loftier line of Rocheb riant.”

To this letter the late Marquis had appended in
pencil : “Of course a Rochebriant never denies
the claim of a kinswoman, even though a draw-
ing-master’s daughter. Beautiful creature, Lou-
ise, but a termagant ! I could not love Venus if
she were a termagant. L.’s head turned by the
unlucky discovery that her mother was noble.
In one form or other every woman has the same
disease — vanity. Name of her intended not men-
'tioned — easily found out.”

THE PARISIANS.

185

The next letter was dated May 7, 1859, on
black-edged paper, and contained but these lines:

“I was much comforted by your kind visit
yesterday, dear Marquis. My affliction has been
heavy. But for the last two years my poor hus-
band’s conduct has rendered my life unhappy,
and I am recovering the shock of his sudden
death. It is true that I and the children are
left very ill provided for ; but I can not accept
your generous offer of aid. Have no fear as to
my future fate. Adieu, my dear Marquis ! This
will reach you just before you start for Naples.
Bon voyaged

There was no address on this note — no post-
mark on the envelope — evidently sent by hand.

The last note, dated 1801, March 20, was
briefer than its predecessor. -

“I have taken your advice, dear Marquis,
and, overcoming all scruples, I have accepted his
kind offer, on the condition that I am never to
be taken to England. I had no option in this
marriage. I can now own to you that my pov-
erty had become urgent.

“ Yours, with inalienable gratitude,

£& »

Tliis last note, too, was without postmark,
and as evidently sent by hand.

“There are no other letters, then, from this
writer?” asked Graham; “and no further clew
as to her existence?”

“ None that I have discovered ; and I see now
why I have preserved these letters. There is
nothing in their contents not creditable to my
poor father. They show how capable he was of
good-natured, disinterested kindness toward even
a distant relation of whom he could certainly not
have been proud, judging not only by his own
penciled note, or by the writer’s condition as a
governess, but by her loose sentiments as to the
marriage tie. I have not the slightest idea who
she could be. I never at least heard of one con-
nected, however distantly, with my family whom
I could identify with the writer of these letters.”

“I may hold them a short time in my posses-
sion ?”

“Pardon me a preliminary question. If I
may venture to form a conjecture, the object of
your search must be connected with your coun-
tryman, whom the lady politely calls the ‘ wretch-
ed Englishman but I own I should not like to
lend, through these letters, a pretense to any
steps that may lead to a scandal in which my fa-
ther’s name or that of any member of my family
could be mixed up.”

“ Marquis, it is to prevent the possibility of all
scandal that I ask you to trust these letters to
my discretion.”

“ B'oi de gentilhommef'

“ Foi de gentilhomme V'

“Take them. When and where shall we
meet again ?”

“Soon, I trust; but I must leave Paris this
evening. I am bound to Berlin in quest of this
Countess von Rudesheirn : and I fear that in a
very few days intercourse between France and the
German frontier will be closed upon travelers. ”

After a few more words not worth recording,
the two young men shook hands and parted.

CHAPTER V.

It was with an interest languid and listless in-
deed, compared with that which he would have
felt a day before, that Graham mused over the
remarkable advances toward the discovery of
Louise Duval which were made in the letters he
had perused. She had married, then, first a for-
eigner whom she spoke of as noble, and whose
name and residence could be easily found through
the Countess von Rudesheirn. The marriage did
not seem to have been a happy one. Left a wid-
ow in reduced circumstances, she had married
again, evidently without affection. She was liv-
ing so late as 1861, and she had children living
in 1859. Was the child referred to by Richard
King one of them ?

The tone and style of the letters served to
throw some light on the character of the writer :
they evinced pride, stubborn self-will, and una-
miable hardness of nature ; but her rejection of
all pecuniary aid from a man like the late Mar-
quis de Rocliebriant betokened a certain dignity
of sentiment. She was evidently, whatever her
strange ideas about her first marriage with Rich-
ard King, no vulgar woman of gallantry ; and
there must have been some sort of charm about
her to have excited a friendly interest in a kins-
man so remote, and a man of pleasure so selfish,
as her high-born correspondent.

But what now, so far as concerned his own
happiness, was the hope, the probable certainty,
of a speedy fulfillment of the trust bequeathed to
him? Whether the result, in the death of the
mother, and more especially of the child, left
him rich, or, if the last survived, reduced his
fortune to a modest independence, Isaura was
equally lost to him, and fortune became value-
less. But his first emotions on recovering from
the shock of hearing from Isaura’s lips that she
was irrevocably affianced to another were not
those of self-reproach. They were those of in-
tense bitterness against her who, if really so
much attached to him as he had been led to
hope, could within so brief a time reconcile her
heart to marriage with another. This bitterness
was no doubt unjust ; but I believe it to be nat-
ural to men of a nature so proud and of affec-
tions so intense as Graham’s, under similar de-
feats of hope. Resentment is the first impulse
in a man loving with the whole ardor of his soijl,
rejected, no matter why or wherefore, by the
woman by whom he had cause to believe he him-
self was beloved ; and though Graham’s stand-
ard of honor was certainly the reverse of low,
yet man does not view honor in the same light
as woman does, when involved in analogous dif-
ficulties of position. Graham conscientiously
thought that if Isaura so loved him as to render
distasteful an engagement to another which could
only very recently have been contracted, it would
be more honorable frankly so to tell the accepted
suitor than to leave him in ignorance that her
heart was estranged. But these engagements
are very solemn things with girls like Isaura,
and hers was no ordinary obligation of woman-
honor. Had the accepted one been superior in
rank — fortune — all that flatters the ambition of
woman in the choice of marriage ; had he been
resolute and strong and self-dependent amidst
the trials and perils of life — then possibly the
woman’s honor might find excuse in escaping the

186

THE PARISIANS.

penalties of its pledge. But the poor, ailing, in-
firm, morbid boy-j)oet, who looked to her as his
saving angel in body, in mind and soul — to say
to him, “ Give me back my freedom,” would be
to abandon him to death and to sin. But Gra-
ham could not of course divine why what he as
a man thought right was to Isaura as woman
impossible: and he returned to his old preju-
diced notion that there is no real depth and ar-
dor of affection for human lovers in the poetess
whose mind and heart are devoted to the crea-
tion of imaginary heroes. Absorbed in reverie,
he took his way slowly and with downcast looks
toward the British Embassy, at which it was
well to ascertain whether the impending war yet
necessitated special passports for Germany.

“ Bonjour^ cher ami,'' said a pleasant voice;
“and how long have you been at Paris?”

“Oh, my dear M. Savarin! charmed to see
you looking so well ! Madame well too, I trust ?
My kindest regards to her. I have been in Par-
is but a day or two, and I leave this evening.”

“So soon? The war frightens you away, I
suppose. Which way are you going now ?”

“To the British Embassy.”

“ Well, I will go with you so far — it is in my
own direction. I have to call at tlie charming
Italian’s with pongratulalions — on news I only
heard this morning.”

“You mean Mademoiselle Cicogna — and the
news that demands congratulations — her ap-
proaching marriage ! ”

“itfora Dieul when could you have heard of
that ?”

“ Last night, at the house of M. Duplessis.”

“ Parhleu ! I shall scold her well for cojifid-
ing to her new friend Valerie the secret she kept
from her old friends, my wife and myself.”

“ By-the-way,” said Graham, with a tone of
admirably feigned indifference, “ who is the
happy man ? That part of the secret I did not
hear. ”

“Can’t you guess?”

“No.”

“ Gustave Rameau.”

“ Ah !” Graham almost shrieked, so sharp and
shrill was his cry. “Ah! I ought indeed to
have guessed that !”

“ Madame Savarin, I fancy, helped to make
up the marriage. I hope it may turn out well ;
certainly it will be his salvation. May it be for
her happiness !”

“No doubt of that! Two poets — born for
each other, I dare say. Adieu, my dear Sava-
rin ! Here we are at the Embassy.”

CHAPTER VI.

That evening Graham found himself in the
coupe of the express train to Strasburg. He
had sent to engage the whole coupe to himself,
but that was impossible. One place was be-
spoken as far as C , after which Graham

might prosecute his journey alone on paying for
the three places.

When he took his seat another man was in
the further corner, whom he scarcely noticed.
'I'he train shot rapidly on for some leagues.
Profound silence in the coup^, save at moments
those heavy impatient sighs that come from the

very depth of the heart, nnd of which he who
sighs is unconscious, burst from the Englishman's
lips, and drew on him the observant side glance
of his fellow-traveler.

At length the fellow-traveler said, in very good
English, though with French accent, “Would
you object. Sir, to my lighting my little carriage
lantern ? I am in the habit of reading in the
night train, and the wretched lamp they give us
does not permit that. But if you wish to sleep,
and my lantern would prevent you doing so, con-
sider my request unasked.”

“You are most courteous. Sir. Pray light
your lantern. That will not interfere with my
sleep. ”

As Graham thus answered, far away from the
place and the moment as his thoughts were, it
yet faintly struck him that he had heard that voice
before.

The man produced a small lantern, which he
attached to the window-sill, and drew forth from
a small leathern bag sundry newspapers and
pamphlets. Graham flung himself back, and in
a minute or so again came his sigh. “Allow
me to offer you those evening journals ; you may
not have had time to read them before starting,”
said the fellow-traveler, leaning forward, and ex-
tending the newspapers with one hand, w’hile
with the other he lifted his lantern. Graham
turned, and the faces of the two men w'ere close
to each other — Graham with his traveling-cap
drawn over his brows, the other with head un-
covered.

“ Monsieur Lebeau !”

“ Bon soir, Mr. Lamb !”

Again silence for a moment or so. Monsieur
Lebeau then broke it :

“I think, Mr. Lamb, that in better society
than that of the Eauboui’g Montniartre you are
known under another name.”

Graham had no heart then for the stage-play
of a part, and answered, with quiet haughtiness,
“Possibly. And what name?”

“Graham Vane. And, Sir,” continued Le-
beau, with a haughtiness equally quiet, but some-
what more menacing, “since we two gentlemen
find ourselves thus close, do I ask too much if I
inquire why you condescended to seek my ac-
quaintance in disguise?”

“ Monsieur le Vicomte de Mauleon, when you
talk of disguise, is it too much to inquire why
my acquaintance was accepted by Monsieur Le-
beau ?”

“Ha! Then you confess that it was Victor
de Mauleon whom 3’ou sought when you first
visited the Cafe Jean Jacques ?"

“ Frankly I confess it.”

Monsieur Lebeau drew himself back, and
seemed to reflect.

“I see! Solely for the purpose of learning
whether Victor de Mauleon could give you an}^
information about Louise Duval. Is it so ?”

“ Monsieur le Vicomte, you say truly.”

Again M. Lebeau paused as if in reflection ;
and Graham, in that state of mind when a man
who may most despise and detest the practice of
dueling, may \’et feel a thrill of delight if some
homicide would be good enough to put him out
of his misery, flung aside his cap, lifted his broad,
frank forehead, and stamped his boot impatient-
ly, as if to provoke a quarrel.

M. Lebeau lowered his spectacles, and with

THE PARISIANS.

187

those calm, keen, searching eyes of his gazed at
the Englishman.

“ It strikes me,” he said, with a smile, the
fascination of which not even those faded whis-
kers could disguise — “ it strikes me that there
are two ways in which gentlemen such as you
and I are can converse : firstly, with reservation
and guard against each other ; secondly,, with
perfect openness. Perhaps of the two I have
more need of reservation and wary guard against
any stranger than you have. Allow me to pro-
pose the alternative — perfect openness. What
say you ?” and he extended his hand.

“Perfect openness,” answered Graham, soft-
ened into sudden liking for this once terrible
swordsman, and shaking, as an Englishman
shakes, the hand held out to him in peace by
the man from whom he had anticipated quarrel.

“Permit me now, before you address any
questions to me, to put one to you. How did
you learn that Victor de Mauleon was identical
with Jean Lebeau ?”

“ I heard that from an agent of the police.”

“Ah!”

“ Whom I consulted as to the means of ascer-
taining whether Louise Duval was alive — if so,
where she could be found.”

“ I thank you very much for your information.
I had no notion that the police of Paris had di-
vined the original alias of poor Monsieur Le-
beau, though something occurred at Lyons which
made me suspect it. Strange that the govern-
ment, knowing through the police that Victor de
Mauleon, a writer they had no reason to favor,
had been in so humble a position, should never,
even in their official journals, have thought it
prudent to say so I But, now I think of it, what
if they had? They could prove nothing against
Jean Lebeau. They could but say, ‘Jean Le-
beau is suspected to be too warm a lover of lib-
erty, too earnest a friend of the people, and Jean
Lebeau is the editor of Le Sens Conimun.' Why,
that assertion would have made Victor de Mau-
leon the hero of the Reds, the last thing a pru-
dent government could desire. I thank you cor-
dially for your frank reply. Now what question
would you put to me ?”

“ In one word, all you can tell me about Lou-
ise Duval.”

“You shall have it. I had heard vaguely in
my young days that a half-sister of mine by my
father’s first marriage with Mademoiselle de
Beauvilliers had — when in advanced middle life
he married a second time — conceived a dislike
for her step-mother ; and, being of age, with an
independent fortune of her own, had quitted the
house, taken up her residence witli an elderly
female relative, and there had contracted a mar-
riage with a man who gave her lessons in draw-
ing. After that marriage, which my father in
vain tried to prevent, my sister was renounced
by her family. That was all I knew till, after I
came into my inheritance by the death of both
my parents, I learned from my father’s confiden-
tial lawyer that the drawing-master, M. Duval,
had soon dissipated his wife’s fortune, become a
widower with one child — a girl — and fallen into
great distress. He came to my father, begging for
pecuniary aid. My father, though by no means
rich, consented to allow him a yearly pension,
on condition that he never revealed to his child
her connection with our family. The man agreed

to the condition, and called at my father’s law-
yer quarterly for his annuity. But the lawyer
informed me that this deduction from my income
had ceased, that M. Duval had not for* a year
called or sent for the sum due to him, and that
he must therefore be dead. One day my valet
informed me that a young lady wished to see
me — in those days young ladies very often called
on me. I desired her to be shown in. There
entered a young creature, almost of my own age,
who, to my amazement, saluted me as uncle.
J'his was the child of my half-sister. Her fa-
ther had been dead several months, fulfilling very
faithfully the condition on which he had held his
pension, and the girl never dreaming of the claims
that, if wise, poor child, she ought not to have
cared for — viz., to that obsolete, useless pauper
birthright, a branch on the family tree of a French
noble. But in pinch of circumstance, and from
female curiosity, hunting among the papers her
father had left for some clew to the reasons for
the pension he had received, she found letters
from her mother, letters from my father, which
indisputably proved that she was grandchild to
the feu Vicomte de Mauleon, and niece to my-
self. Her story as told to me was very pitiable.
Conceiving herself to be nothing higher in birth
than daughter to this drawing- master, at his
death, poor, penniless orphan that she was, she
had accepted the hand of an English student of
medicine whom she did not care for. Miserable
with this man, on finding by the documents I re-
fer to that she was my niece, she came to me for
comfort and counsel. What counsel could I or
any man give to her but to make the best of
what had happened, and live with her husband ?
But then she started another question. It seems
that she had been talking with some one — I think
her landlady — or some other woman with whom
she had made acquaintance. Was she legally mar-
ried to this man ? Had he not entrapped her
ignorance into a false marriage ? This became
a grave question, and I sent at once to my law-
yer. On hearing the circumstances, he at once
declared that the marriage was not legal, accord-
ing to the laws of France. But, doubtless, her
English soi-disant husband was not cognizant of
the French law, and a legal marriage could with
his assent be at once solemnized. Monsieur
Vane, I can not find words to convey to you the
joy that poor girl showed in her face and in her
words when she learned that she was not bound
ta pass her life with that man as his wife. It
was in vain to talk and reason with her. Then
arose the other question, scarcely less important.
True, the marriage was not legal, but would it
not be better on all accounts to take steps to
have it formally annulled, thus freeing her from
the harassment of any claim the Englishman
might advance, and enabling her to establish the
facts in a right position, not injurious to her hon-
or in the eyes of any future suitor to her hand ?
She would not hear of such a proposal. She de-
clared that she could not bring to the family she
pined to re-enter the scandal of disgrace. To al-
low that she had made such a mesalliance would
be bad enough in itself ; but to proclaim to the
world that, though nominally the wife, she had,
in fact, been only the mistress of this medical
student — she would rather throw herself into the
Seine. All she desired was to find some refuge®
some hiding-place for a time, whence she could

188

THE PARISIANS.

write to the man, informing him that he had no j
lawful hold on her. Doubtless he would not 1
seek then to molest her. He would return to his |
own country, and be effaced from her life. And j
then, her story unknown, she might form a more
suitable alliance. Fiery young creature though
she was — true De Maule'on in being so fiery —
she interested me strongly I should say that
she was wonderfully handsome ; and though im-
perfectly educated, and brought up in circum-
stances so lowly, there was nothing common
about her — a certain ye ne sais quoi of stateliness
and race. At all events, she did with me what
she wished. I agreed to aid her desire of a ref-
uge and hiding-place. Of course I could not
lodge her in my own apartment, but I induced
a female relation of her'- mother’s, an old lady
living at Versailles, to receive her, stating her
birth, but of course concealing her illegal mar-
riage.

“ From time to time I went to see her. But
one day I found this restless, bright-plurnaged
bird flown. Among the ladies who visited at
her relative’s house was a certain Madame Ma-
rigny, a very pretty young widow. Madame
Marigny and Louise formed a sudden and inti-
mate friendship. The widow was moving from
Versailles into an apartment at Paris, and invited
Louise to share it. She had consented. I was
not pleased at this ; for the widow was too young,
and too much of a coquette, to be a safe compan-
ion to Louise. But, though professing much
gratitude and great regard for me, I had no pow'-
er of controlling the poor girl’s actions. Her
nominal husband, meanwhile, had left France,
and nothing more was heard or known of him. I
saw that the best thing that could possibly be-
fall Louise was marriage with some one rich
enough to gratify her taste for luxury and pomp ;
and that if such a marriage offered itself she
might be induced to free it from all possible
embarrassment by procuring the annulment of
tlie former, from which she had hitherto shrunk
in such revolt. This opportunity presented it-
self. A man already rich, and in a career that
promised to make him infinitely richer, an asso-
ciate of mine in those days when I was rapidly
squandering the remnant of my inheritance —
this man saw her at the opera in company with
Madame Marigny, fell violently in love with her,
and ascertaining her relation.ship to me, besought
an introduction. I was delighted to give it ; and,
to say the truth, I was tlien so reduced to the
bottom of my casket, I felt that it was becoming
impossible for me to continue the aid I had hith-
erto given to Louise — and what then would be-
come of her ? I thought it fair to tell Louvier — ”

“ Louvier — the financier?”

“Ah, that was a slip of the tongue, but no
matter; there is no reason for concealing his
name. I thought it right, I say, to tell Louvier
confidentially the history of the unfortunate il-
legal marriage. It did not damp his ardor. He
wooed her to the best of his power, but she evi-
dently took him into great dislike. One day she
sent for me in much excitement, showed me some
advertisements in the French journals which,
though not naming her, evidently pointed at her,
and must have been dictated by her soi-disant
husband. The advertisements might certainly
^ad to her discovery if she remained in Paris.
She entreated my consent to remove elsewhere.

j Madame Marigny had her own reason for leav-
1 ing Paris, and would accompany her. I supplied
I her with the necessary means, and a day or two
j afterward she and her friend departed, as I un-
derstood, for Brussels. I received no letter from
her ; and my own affairs so seriously preoccu-
pied me that poor Louise might have passed al-
together out of my thoughts had it not been for
the suitor she had left in despair behind. Lou-
vier besought me to ascertain her address ; but
I could give him no other clew to it than that
she said she was going to Brussels, but sliould
soon remove to some quiet village. It was not
for a long time — I can’t remember how long — it
might be several weeks, perhaps two or three
months — that I received a short note from her,
stating that she waited for a small remittance,
the last she w'ould accept from me, as she was
resolved, so soon as her health would permit, to
find means to -maintain herself — and telling me
to direct to her, Poste restante, Aix-la-Chapelle.
I sent her the sum she asked, perhaps a little
more, but with a confession reluctantly wrung
from me that I was a ruined man ; and I urged
her to think very seriously before she refused the
competence and position which a union with M.
Louvier would insure.

‘ ‘ This last consideration so pressed on me that
when Louvier called on me, I think that day or
the next, I gave him Louise’s note, and told him
that if he were still as much in love with lier as
ever, les absens ont toujours tort, and he had
better go to Aix-la-Chapelle and find her out ;
that he had my hearty approval of his wooing
and consent to his marriage, though I still urged
the wisdom and fairness, if she would take the
preliminary step — which, after all, the French
lawS- frees as much as possible from pain and scan-
dal— of annulling the irregular marriage into
which her child-like youth had been decoyed.

“Louvier left me for Aix-la-Chapelle. The
very next day came that cruel affliction which
made me a prey to the most intolerable calum-
ny, which robbed me of every friend, which sent
me forth from my native country penniless, and
resolved to be nameless — until — until — well, un-
til my hour could come again — every dog, if not
hanged, has its day. When that affliction befell
me I quitted France — heard no more of Louvier
nor of Louise ; indeed, no letter addressed to me
at Paris would have reached — ”

The man paused here, evidently with painful
emotion. He resumed in the quiet matter-of-
fact way in w'hich he had commenced his nar-
rative :

“ Louise had altogether faded out of my re-
membrance'until your question revived it. As it
happened, the question came at the moment
when I meditated resuming my real name and
social position. In so doing I sliould, of course,
come in contact with my old acquaintance Lou-
vier, and the name of Louise was necessarily
associated with his. I called on him, and made
myself known. The slight information I gave
you as to my niece was gleaned from him. I
may now say more. It appears that when he
arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle he found that Louise
Duval had left it a day or two previously, and,
according to scandal, had been for some time
courted by a wealthy and noble lover, whom she
had gone to Munich to meet. Louvier believed
this tale, quitted Aix-Ia-Chapelle indignantly.

THE PARISIANS.

189

and never heard more of her. The probability
is, M. Vane, that she must have been long dead.
But if living still, I feel quite sure that she will
communicate with me some day or otlier. Now
that I have re-appeared in Paris in my own name
— entered into a career that, for good or for evil,
must ere long bring my name very noisily before
the public — Louise can not fail to hear of my ex-
istence and my whereabouts ; and, unless I am
utterly mistaken as to her character, she will as-
suredly inform me of her own. Oblige me with
your address, and in that case I will let you
know. Of course I take for granted the assur-
ance you gave me last year, that you only desire
to discover her in order to render her some bene-
fit, not to injure or molest her?”

“Certainly. To that assurance I pledge my
honor. Any letter with which you may favor
me had better be directed to my London ad-
dress; here is my card. But, M. le Vicomte,
there is one point on which pray pardon me if I
question you still. Had you no suspicion that
there w'as one reason why this lady might have
quitted Paris so hastily, and have so shrunk
from the thought of a marriage so advantageous,
in a worldly point of view, as that with M. Lou-
vier — namely, that she anticipated the proba-
bility of becoming the mother of a child by the
man whom she refused to acknowledge as a hus-
band ?”

“ That idea did not strike me until you asked
me if she had a child. Should your conjecture
be correct, it would obviously increase her repug-
nance to apply for the annulment of her illegal
marriage. But if Louise is still living and comes
across me, I do not doubt that, the motives for
concealment no longer operating, she will confide
to me the truth. Since we have been talking to-
gether thus frankly, I suppose I may fairly ask
whether I do not guess correctly in supposing
that this soi-disant husband, whose name I for-
get— Mac — something, perhaps Scotch — I think
she said he was Ecossais — is dead, and has left
by will some legacy to Louise and any child she
may have borne to him ?”

“Not exactly so. The man, as you say, is
dead ; but he bequeathed no legacy to the lady
who did not hold herself married to him. But
there are those connected with him who, know-
ing the history, think that some compensation is
due for the wrong so unconsciously done to her,
and yet more to any issue of a marriage not
meant to be irregular or illegal. Permit me now
to explain why I sought you in another guise and
name than my own. I could scarcely place in
M. Lebeau the confidence which I now unreserv-
edly place in the Vicomte de Mauleon. ”

“ Cela va sans dire. You believed, then, that
calumny about the jewels. You do not believe it
now?”

“Now! my amazement is that any one who
had known you could believe it.”

“Oh, how often, and with tears of rage, in
my exile — my wanderings — have I asked that
question of myself! That rage has ceased ; and
I liave but one feeling left for that credulous,
fickle Paris, of which one day I was the idol,
the next the by- word. Well, a man sometimes
plays chess more skillfully for having been long
a mere by-stander. He understands better how
to move and when to sacrifice the pieces. Pol-
itics, M. Vane, is the only exciting game left to

me at my years. At yours there is still that of
love. How time flies ! we are nearing the sta-
tion at which I descend. I have kinsfolk of my
mother's in these districts. They are not Im-
perialists ; they are said to be powerful in the
department. But before I apply to them in
my own name, I think it prudent that M. Le-
beau should quietly ascertain what is their real
strength, and what would be the prospects of
success if Victor de Mauleon offered himself as
Depute at the next election. Wish him joy,
M. Vane! If he succeed, you will hear of him
some day crowned in the Capitol, or hurled from
the Tarpeian rock.”

Here the train stopped. The fitlse Lebeau
gathered up his papers, re-adjusted his spectacles
and his bag, descended lightly, and, pressing
Graham’s hand as he paused at the door, said,
“ Be sure I will not forget yonr address if I have
any thing to say. Bon voyage!"

♦

CHAPTER VII.

Graham continued his journey to Strasbnrg.
On arriving there he felt very unwell. Strong
though his frame was, the anguish and self-strug-
gle tlirough which he had passed since the day
he had received in London Mrs. Morley’s letter,
till that on which he had finally resolved on his
course of conduct at Paris, and the shock which
had annihilated his hopes in Isaura’s rejection,
had combined to exhaust his endurance, and
fever had already commenced when he took his
place in the coupe. If there be a thing which a
man should not do when his system is under-
mined, and his pulse between ninety and one
hundred, it is to travel all night by a railway ex-
press. Nevertheless, as the Englishman’s will
was yet stronger than his frame, he would not
give himself more than an hour’s rest, and again
started for Berlin. Long before he got to Ber-
lin the will failed him as well as the frame. He
was lifted out of the carriage, taken to a hotel
in a small German town, and six hours after-
ward he was delirious. It was fortunate for him
that under such circumstances plenty of money
and Scott’s circular notes for some hundreds
were found in his pocket-book, so that he did
not fail to receive attentive nursing and skillful
medical treatment. There, for the present, I
must leave him— leave him for how long ? But
any village apothecary could say that fever such
as his must run its course. He was still in bed,
and very dimly — and that but at times-^con-
scious, when the German armies were gathering
round the pen-fold of Sedan.

»■'

CHAPTER VIII.

When the news of the disastrous day at Se-
dan reached Paris, the first effect was that of
timid consternation. There were a few cries of
Decheance! fewer still of Vive la Repuhlique !
among the motley crowds ; but they were faint,
and chiefly by ragged gamins. A small body
repaired to Trochu and offered him the sceptre,
which he politely declined. A more important
and respectable body — for it comprised the ma-

190

THE PARISIANS.

jority of the Corps L^gislatif — urged Palikao
to accept the temporary dictatorship, which the
War Minister declined with equal politeness. In
both these overtures it was clear that the impulse
of the proposers was toward any form of govern-
ment rather than republican. The sergens de
ville were sufficient that day to put down riot.
They did make a charge on a mob, which imme-
diately ran away.

The morning of that day the Council of Ten
were summoned by Lebeau — ininvs only Ra-
meau, who was still too unwell to attend, and
the Belgian, not then at Paris ; but their place
was supplied by the two traveling members,
who had been absent from the meeting before re-
corded. These were conspirators better known
in history than those I have before described;
])rofessional conspirators — personages who from
tl^ir youth upward had done little else but con-
spire. Following the discreet plan pursued else-
where throughout this humble work, I give their
names other than they bore. One, a very swarthy
and ill-favored man, between forty and fifty, I
call Paul Grimm — by origin a German, but by
rearing and character French ; from the hair on
his head, staring up rough and ragged as a bram-
ble-bush, to the soles of small narrow feet, shod
with dainty care, he was a personal coxcomb,
and spent all he could spare on his dress. A
clever man, not ill-educated — a vehement and
effective speaker at a club. Vanity and an
amorous temperament had made him a cohspir-
ator, since he fancied he interested the ladies
more in that capacity than any other. His com-
panion, Edgar Ferrier, would have been a jour-
nalist, only hitherto his opinions had found no
readers ; the opinions were those of Marat. He
rejoiced in thinking that his hour for glory, so
long deferred, had now arrived. He was thor-
oughly sincere : his father and grandfather had
died in a mad-house. Both these men, insigni^-
cant in ordinary times, were likely to become of
terrible importance in the crisis of a revolution.
They both had great power with the elements
that form a Parisian mob. The instructions
given to these members of the council by Le-
beau were brief : they were summed up in the
one word, Decheance. The formidable nature of
a council apparently so meanly constituted be-
came strikingly evident at that moment, because
it was so small in number, while each one of
these could put in movement a large section of
the populace ; secondly, because, unlike a revo-
lutionary club or a numerous association, no
time was wasted in idle speeches, and all were
under the orders of one man of clear head and
resolute purpose ; and thirdly, and above all, be-
cause one man supplied the treasury, and money
for an object desired was liberally given and
promptly at hand. The meeting did not last
ten minutes, and about two hours afterward its
effects were visible. From Montmartre and
Belleville and Montretout poured streams of
ouvriers, with whom Armand Monnier was a
chief, and the Medecin des Pauvres an oracle.
Grimm and Ferrier headed other detachments
that startled the well-dressed idlers on the Bou-
levards. The stalwart figure of the Pole was
seen on the Place de la Concorde, tow'ering
amidst other refugees, amidst which glided the
Italian champion of humanity. The cry of De-
cheance became louder. But as yet there were

only few cries of Vive la Repuhlique — such a cry
was not on the orders issued by Lebeau. At
midnight the crowd round the hall of the Corps
Legislatif is large : cries of La Decheance loud
— a few cries, very feeble, of Vive la Repuhlique!

What followed on the 4th — the marvelous au-
dacity with which half a dozen lawyers belong-
ing to a pitiful minority in a Chamber elected by
universal suffrage walked into the Hotel de Ville,
and said, “The republic is established, and we
are its government” — history has told too recent-
ly for me to narrate. On the evening of the 5th
the Council of Ten met again : the Pole ; the
Italian radiant; Grimm and Ferrier much ex-
cited and rather drunk ; the Medecin des Pau-
vres thoughtful ; and Armand Monnier gloomy.
A rumor has spread that General Trochu, in ac-
cepting the charge imposed on him, has exacted
from the government the solemn assurance of re-
spect for God, and for the rights of Family and
Property. The atheist is very indignant at the
assent of the government to the first proposition ;
Monnier equally indignant at the assent to the
second and third. What has that honest ouvrier
conspired for — what has he suffered for — of
late nearly starved for — but to marry another
man’s wdfe, getting rid of his own, and to legal-
ize a participation in the property of his employ-
er ? And now he is no better off than before.
“There must be another revolution,” he wdiis-
pers to the atheist.

“ Certainly,” w'hispers back the atheist ; “he
who desires to better this w'orld must destroy all
belief in another.”

The conclave was assembled when Lebeau en-
tered by tlie private door. He took his place at
the head of the the table, and, fixing on the
group eyes that emitted a cold gleam through
the spectacles, thus spoke :

“Messieurs, or Citoyens, w'hich ye will — I no
longer call ye confreres — you have disobeyed or
blundered my instructions. On such an occa-
sion disobedience and blunder are crimes equally
heinous. ”

Angry murmurs.

“ Silence! Do not add mutiny to your other
offenses. My instructions were simple and short.
Aid in the abolition of the empire. Do not aid
in any senseless cry for a republic or any other
form of government. Leave that to the Legis-
lature. What have you done ? You swelled the
crowd that invaded the Cor])s Legislatif. You,
Dombinsky, not even a Frenchman, dare to
mount the president’s rostrum, and brawl forth
your senseless jargon. You, Edgar Ferrier,
from whom I expected better, ascend the trib-
une, and invite the ruffians in the crowd to
march to the prisons and release the convicts ;
and all of you swell the mob at the Hotel de
Ville, and inaugurate the reign of folly by crea-
tirig an oligarchy of lawyers to resist the march
of triumphal armies. Messieurs, I have done
with you. You are summoned for the last time :
the council is dissolved.”

With these words Lebeau put on his hat, and
turned to depart. But the Pole, who was seated
near him, sprang to his feet, exclaiming, “Trai-
tor, thou shalt not escape ! Comrades, he wants
to sell us !”

“ 1 have a right to sell you, at least, for I bought
you, and a very bad bargain I made,” said Le-
beau, in a tone of withering sarcasm.

THE PARISIANS.

“Liar!” cried the Pole, 'and seized Lebeau
by the left hand, while with the right he drew
forth a revolver. Perrier and Grimm, shouting,
“ A has le ren^gat !” would have rushed forward
in support of the Pole, but Monnier thrust him-
self between them and their intended victim,
crying, with a voice that dominated their yell.

Back ! — we are not assassins.” Before he had
finished the sentence the Pole was on his knees.
With a vigor which no one could have expect-
ed from the seeming sexagenarian, Lebeau had
caught the right arm of his assailant, and twisted
it back so mercilessly as almost to dislocate elbow
and shoulder joint. One barrel of the revolver
discharged itself harmlessly against the opposite
wall, and the pistol itself then fell from the un-
nerved hand of the would-be assassin ; and what
with the pain and the sudden shock, the stalwart
Dombinsky fell in the altitude of a suppliant at
the feet of his unlooked-for vanquisher.

Lebeau released his hold, possessed himself of
the pistol, pointing the barrels toward Edgar
Perrier, who stood with mouth agape and lifted
arm arrested, and said, quietly, “ Monsieur, have
the goodness to open that window.” Perrier me-
chanically obeyed. “Now, hireling,” continued
Lebeau, addressing the vanquished Pole, “choose
between the door and the window.” “Go, my
friend,” whispered the Italian. The Pole did not
utter a word ; but rising nimbly, atid rubbing his
arm, stalked to the door. There he paused a
moment, and said, “I retire overpowered by
numbers,” and vanished.

“ Messieurs,” resumed Lebeau, calmly, “Ire-
peat that the council is dissolved. In fact, its
object is fulfilled more abruptly than any of us
foresaw, and by means which I at least had been
too long out of Paris to divine as possible. I
now see that eveiy aberration of reason is possible
to the Parisians. The object that united us was
the fall of the empire. As I have always frank-
ly told you, with that object achieved, separation
commences. Each of us has his own crotchet,
which differs from the other man’s. Pursue
yours as you will — I pursue mine — ^you will find
Jean Lebeau no more in Paris : il ^efface. Au
plaisir^ mais pas au revoir.’'

He retreated to the masked door and disap-
peared.

Marc le Roux, the porter, or custos, of that
ruinous council hall, alarmed at the explosion of
the pistol, had hurried into the room, and now
stood unheeded by the door, with mouth agape,
while Lebeau thus curtly dissolved the assembly.
But when the president vanished through the se-
cret doorway, Le Roux also retreated. Hastily
descending the stairs, he made as quickly as his
legs could carry him for the mouth of the alley
in the rear of the house, through which he knew
that Lebeau must pass. He arrived, panting
and breathless, in time to catch hold of the ex-
president’s arm. “Pardon, citizen,” stammered
he ; “but do I understand that you have sent the
Council of Ten to the devil ?”

“ I ? Certainly not, my good Marc ; I dis-
miss them to go where they like. If tliey prefer
the direction you name, it is their own choice. I
decline to accompany them, and I advise you not
to do so.”

“But, citizen, have you considered what is to
become of madame? Is she to be turned out
of the lodge ? Are my wages to stop, and ma-

191

dame to be left without a crust to put into her
soup ?”

“Not so bad as that; I have just paid the
rent of the haraque for three months in advance,
and there is your quarter’s pay in advance also.
My kind regards to madame, and tell her to keep
your skin safe from the schemes of these luna-
tics.” Thrusting some pieces of gold into the
hands of the porter, Lebeau nodded his adieu,
and hastened along his way.

Absorbed in his own reflections, he did not
turn to look behind. But if he had, he could
not have detected the dark form of the porter
creeping in the deep shadow of the streets with
distant but watchful footsteps.

CHAPTER IX.

The conspirators, when left by their president,
dispersed in deep, not noisy, resentment. They
were, indeed, too stunned for loud demonstration ;
and belonging to different grades of life, and en-
tertaining different opinions, their confidence in
each other seemed lost, now that the chief who
had brought and kept them together was with-
drawn from their union. The Italian and the
atheist slank away, whispering to each other.
Grimm reproached Perrier for deserting Dom-
binsky and obeying Lebeau. Perrier accused
Grimm of his German origin, and hinted at de-
nouncing him as a Prussian spy. Gaspard le Noy
linked his arm in Monnier’s ; and when they had
gained the dark street without, leading into a
labyrinth of desolate lanes, the M^decin des Pau-
vres said to the mechanic, “You are a brave
fellow, Monnier. Lebeau owes you a good turn.
But for your cry, ‘We are not assassins,’ the
Pole might not have been left without suppoit.
No atmosphere is so infectious as that in which
w’e breathe the same air of revenge : when . the
violence of one man puts into action the anger or
suspicion of others, they become like a pack of
hounds, which follow the spring of the first hound,
whether on the wdld boar or their own master.
Even I, who am by no means hot-headed, had
my hand on my case-knife, when the word ‘ as-
sassin’ rebuked and disarmed me.”

“ Nevertheless,” said Monnier, gloomily, “I
half repent the impulse w^hich made me interfere
to save that man. Better he should die than
live to betray the cause we allowed him to lead.”

“Nay, mon ami^ speaking candidly, we must
confess that he never from the first pretended to
advocate the cause for which you conspired. On
the contrary, he always said that with the fall of
the empire our union would cease, and each be-
come free to choose his own way toward his own
after-objects.”

“ Yes,” answered Armand, reluctantly; “he
said that to me privately, with still greater plain-
ness than he said it to the council. But I an-
swered as plainly.”

“How?”

“ I told him that the man who takes the first
step in a revolution, and persuades others to go
along with him, can not in safety stand still or
retreat when the next step is to be taken. It is
‘ en avant' or ‘ a /a lanterned So it shall be with
him. Shall a fellow-being avail himself of the
power over my mind which he derives from su-

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perior education or experience — break into wild
fragments my life, heretofore tranquil, orderly,
happy — make use of any opinions, which were
then but harmless desires, to serve his own pur-
pose, which was hostile to the opinions he roused
into action — say to me, ‘ Give yourself up to de-
stroy the first obstacle in the way of securing a
form of society which your inclinations prefer,’
and then, that first obstacle destroyed, cry, ‘Halt!
I go with you no further ; I will not help you to
piece together the life I have induced you to
shatter ; I will not aid you to substitute for the
society that pained you the society that would
please; I leave you, struggling, bewildered, mad-
dened, in the midst of chaos within and without
you ?’ Shall a fellow-being do this, and vanish
with a mocking cry, ‘ Tool ! I have had enough
of thee ; I cast thee aside as worthless lumber ?’
Ah ! let him beware ! The tool is of iron, and
can be shaped to edge and point.”

The passion with which this rough eloquence
was uttered, and the fierce sinister expression
that had come over a countenance habitually
open and manly, even when grave and stern,
alarmed and startled Le Noy. “ Pooh, my
friend!” he said, rather falteringly, “you are
too excited now to think justly. Go home and
kiss your children. Never do any thing that
may make them shrink from their father. And
as to Lebeau, try and forget him. He says he
shall disappear from Paris. I believe him. It
is clear to me that the man is not what he seem-
ed to us. No man of sixty could by so easy a
sleight of hand have brought that giant Pole to
his knee. If Lebeau re-appear, it will be in some
other form. Did you notice that in the moment-
ary struggle his flaxen wig got disturbed, and be-
neath it I saw a dark curl? I suspect that the
man is not only younger .than he seemed, but of
higher rank — a conspirator against one throne,
)>erhaps, in order to be minister under another.
There are such men.”

Before Monnier, who seemed struck by these
conjectures, collected his thoughts to answer, a
tall man in the dress of a sous-lieutenant stopped
under a dim gas-lamp, and catching sight of the
artisan’s face, seized him by the hand, exclaim-
ing, “ Armand, mon ft ere ! well met ; strange
times, eh ? Come and discuss them at the Cafe
de Lyon yonder over a bowl of punch. I’ll stand
treat.”

“Agreed, dear Charles.”

“And if this monsieur is a friend of yours,
perhaps he will join us.”

“ You are too obliging, monsieur,” answered
Le Noy, not ill pleased to get rid of his excited
companion; “but it has been a busy day with
me, and I am only fit for bed. Be abstinent of
the punch, Armand. You are feverish already.
Good-night, messieurs.”

The Caf^ de Lyon^ in vogue among the Na-
tional Guard of the quartier^ was but a few yards
off, and the brothers turned toward it arm in
arm. “Who is the friend?” asked Charles;
“I don’t remember to have seen him with thee
before. ”

‘ ‘ He belongs to the medical craft — a good pa-
triot and a kind man — attends the poor gratui-
tously. Yes, Charles, these are strange times ;
what dost thou think will come of them ?”

They had now entered the cafe; and Charles
had ordered the punch and seated himself at a

vacant table before he replied. “What will
come of these times ? I will tell thee. Nation-
al deliverence and regeneration through the as-
cendency of the National Guard.”

“Eh? I don’t take,” said Armand, bewil-
dered.

“ Probably not, ’’answered Charles, with an air
of compassionate conceit; “thou art a dream-
er, but I am a politician.” He tapped his fore-
head significantly. “ At this custom-house ideas
are examined before they are passed.”

Armand gazed at his brother wistfully, and
with a deference he rarely manifested toward any
one who disputed his own claims to superior in-
telligence. Charles was a few years older than
Monnier ; he w'as of lai'ger build ; he had shag-
gy, lowering eyebrows, along obstinate upper lip,
the face of a man who was accustomed to lay
down the law. Inordinate self-esteem often gives
that character to a physiognomy otherwise com-
monplace. Charles passed for a deep thinker in
his own set, which was a very ditferent set from
Armand’s — not among w'orkmen, but small shop-
keepers. He had risen in life to a grade beyond
Armand’s ; he had always looked to the main
chance ; married the widow of a hosier and glover
much older than himself, and in her right was a
very respectable tradesman, comfortably w'ell otf ;
a Liberal, of course, but a Liberal bourgeois,
equally against those above him and those below.
Needless to add that he had no sympathy with
his brother’s socialistic opinions. Still he loved
that brother as well as he could love any one ex-
cept himself. And Armand, who was very af-
fectionate, and with whom family ties were very
strong, returned that love w’ith ample interest;
and though so fiercely at war with the class to
which Charles belonged, was secretly proud of
having a brother who was of that class. So in
England I have known the most violent antag-
onist of the landed aristocracy — himself a cob-
bler— who interrupts a discourse on the crimes
of the aristocracy by saying, “ Though I myself
descend from a county family.”

In an evil day Charles Monnier, enrolled in the
National Guard, had received promotion in that
patriotic corps. From that date he began to neg-
lect his shop, to criticise military matters, and
to think that if merit had fair play he should be
a Cincinnatus or a Washington — he had not de-
cided which.

“Yes,” resumed Charles, ladling out the
punch, “thou hast wit enough to perceive that
our generals are imbeciles or traitors ; that gredin
Bonaparte has sold the army for ten millions of
francs to Bismarck, and I have no doubt that
WimpfFen has his share of the bargain. M ‘Ma-
hon was wounded conveniently, and has his own
terms for it. The regular army is nowhere.
Thou wilt see — thou wilt see — they will not stop
the march of the Prussians. Trochu will be
obliged to come to the National Guard. Then
we shall say, ‘General, give us our terms, and
go to sleep.’ I shall be summoned to the coun-
cil of war. I have my plan. I explain it — ’tis
accepted — it succeeds. I am placed in supreme
command — the Prussians are chased back to their
sour-krout. And I — well — I don't like to boast,
but thou’lt see — thou’lt see — what will happen.”

“And thy plan, Charles — thou hast formed it
already ?”

‘ ‘ Ay, ay — the really military genius is prompt,

THE PARISIANS.

193

mon petit Armand — a flash of the brain. Hark
ye! Let the Vandals come to Paris and invest
it. Whatever their numbers on paper, I don’t
care a button ; they can only have a few thou-
sands at any given point in the vast circumfer-
ence of the capital. Any fool must grant that —
thou must grant it, eh ?”

“ It seems just.”

“Of course. Well, then, we proceed by sor-
ties of 200,000 men, repeated every other day,
and in twelve days the Prussians are in full
flight.* The country rises on their flight — tliey
are cut to pieces. I depose Trochu — the Na-
tional Guard elects the savior of France. I
have a place in my eye for thee. Thou art su-
perb as a decorator — thou shalt be Minister des
Beaux Arts. But keep clear of the canaille.
No more strikes then — thou wilt be an employer
— respect thy future order.”

Armand smiled mournfully. Though of in-
tellect which, had it been disciplined, was far
superior to his brother’s, it was so estranged
from practical opinions, so warped, so heated,
so flawed and cracked in parts, that he did not
see the ridicule of Charles’s braggadocio. Charles
had succeeded in life, Armand had failed ; and
Armand believed in the worldly wisdom of the
elder born. But he was far too sincere for any
bribe to tempt him to forsake his creed and be-
tray his opinions. And he knew that it must be
a very different revolution from that which his
brother contemplated that could allow him to
marry another man’s wife, and his “order” to
confiscate other people’s property.

“ Don’t talk of strikes, Charles. What is done
is done. I was led into heading a strike, not on
my own account, for I was well paid and well off,
but for the sake of my fellow-workmen. I may
regret now what I did, for the sake of Marie and
the little ones. But it is an affair of honor, and
I can not withdraw from the cause till my order,
as thou nainest my class, has its rights.”

“ Bah ! thou wilt think better of it when thou
art an employer. Thou hast suffered enough
already. Remember that I warned thee against
that old fellow in spectacles whom I met once at
thy house. I told thee he would lead thee into
mischief, and then leave thee to get out of it. I
saw through him. I haA'e a head! Fa.'”

“Thou wert a true prophet — he has duped
me. But in moving me he has set others in
movement; and I suspect he will find he has
duped himself. Time will show.”

Here the brothers were joined by some loun-
gers belonging to the National Guard. The talk
became general, the potations large. Toward
daybreak Armand reeled home, drunk for the
first time in his life. He was one of those whom
drink makes violent. Marie had been sitting up
for him, alarmed at his lengthened absence. But
when she would have thrown herself on his breast,
her pale face and her passionate sobs enraged

* Charles Monnier seems to have indiscreetly blabbed
out his “ idea,” for it was plagiarized afterward at a
meeting of the National Guard in the Salle de la
Bourse by Citizen Rochebrune (slain 19th January,
1871, in the affair of Montretout). The plan, which he
developed nearly in the same words as Charles Mon-
nier, was received with lively applause ; and at the
close of his speech it was proposed to name at once
Citizen Rochebrune General of the National Guard,
an honor which, unhappily for his country, the citizen
had the modesty to decline.

him. He flung her aside roughly. From that
night the man’s nature was changed. If, as a
physiognomist has said, each man has in him a
portion of the wild beast, which is suppressed by
mild civilizing circumstances, and comes upper-
most when self-control is lost, the nature of many
an honest workman, humane and tender-hearted
as the best of us, commenced a change into the
wild beast, that raged through the civil war of
the Communists, on the day when half a dozen
Incapables, with no more claim to represent the
people of Paris than half a dozen monkeys would
have, were allowed to elect themselves to supreme
power, and in the very fact of that election re-
leased all the elements of passion, and destroyed
all the bulwarks of order.

CHAPTER X.

No man perhaps had more earnestly sought
and more passionately striven for the fall of the
empire than Victor de Mauleon, and perhaps
no man was more dissatisfied and disappointed
by the immediate consequences of that fall. In
first conspiring against the empire, he had natu-
rally enough, in common with all the more in-
telligent enemies of the dynasty, presumed that
its fate would be worked out by the normal ef-
fect of civil causes — the alienation of the edu-
cated classes, the discontent of the artisans, the
eloquence of the press and of popular meetings,
strengthened in proportion as the Emperor had
been compelled to relax the former checks upon
the license of either. And De Mauleon had no
less naturally concluded that there would be time
given for the preparation of a legitimate and ra-
tional form of government to succeed that which
was destroyed. For, as has been hinted or im-
plied, this remarkable man was not merely an in-
stigator of revolution through the secret coun-
cil, and the turbulent agencies set in movement
through the lower strata of society — he was also
in confidential communication with men emi-
nent for wealth, station, and political repute,
from whom he obtained the funds necessary for
the darker purposes of conspiracy, into the elabo-
ration of which they did not inquire; and these
men, though belonging like himself to the Liber-
al party, were no hot-blooded democrats. Most
of them were in favor of constitutional monarchy ;
all of them for forms of government very dif-
ferent from any republic in which socialists or
communists could find themselves uppermost.
Among these politicians were persons ambitious
and able, who in scheming for the fall of the
empire had been prepared to undertake the task
of conducting to ends compatible with modern
civilization the revolution they were willing to
allow a mob at Paris to commence. The open-
ing of the war necessarily suspended their de-
signs. How completely the events of the 4th
September mocked the calculations of their ablest
minds, and paralyzed the action of their most
energetic spirits, will appear in the conversation
I am about to record. It takes place between
Victor de Mauleon and the personage to whom
he had addressed the letter written on the night
before the interview with Louvier, in which Vic-
tor had announced his intention of re-appearing
in Paris in his proper name and rank. I shall

194

THE PARISIANS.

designate this correspondent as vaguely as possi-
ble; let me call him the Incognito. He may
yet play so considerable a part in the history of
France as a potent representative of the political
philosophy of De Tocqueville — that is, of liberal
principles incompatible with the absolute power
either of a sovereign or a populace, and resolute-
ly opposed to experiments on the foundations of
civilized society — that it would be unfair to him-
self and his partisans if, in a work like this, a word
were said that could lead malignant conjecture to
his identity with any special chief of the opinions
of which I here present him only as a type.

The Incognito, entering Victor’s apartment:

“My dear friend, even if I had not received
your telegram, I should have hastened hither on
the news of this astounding revolution. It is
only in Paris that such a tragedy could be fol-
lowed by such a farce. You were on the spot —
a spectator. Explain it if you can.”

De Mauleon. “ I was more than a spectator ;
I was an actor. Hiss me — I deseiwe it. When
the terrible news from Sedan reached Paris, in
the midst of the general stun and bewilderment
I noticed a hesitating timidity among all those
who had wares in their shops and a good coat on
their backs. They feared that to proclaim the
empire defunct would be to install the Red Re-
public with all its paroxysms of impulsive rage
and all its theories of wholesale confiscation.
But since it was impossible for the object we
had in view to let slip the occasion of deposing
the dynasty which stood in its way, it was neces-
sary to lose no time in using the revolutionary
part of the populace for that purpose. I assist-
ed in doing so ;• my excuse is this : that in a time
of crisis a man of action must go straight to his
immediate object, and in so doing employ the
instruments at his command. I made, however,
one error in judgment which admits of no ex-
cuse. I relied on all I had heard, and all I had
observed, of the character of Trochu, and I was
deceived, in common, I believe, with all his ad-
mirers, and three parts of the educated classes
of Paris.”

Incognito. ‘ ‘ I should have been equally de-
ceived ! Trochu’s conduct is a riddle that I
doubt if he himself can ever solve. He was
master of the position ; he had the military force
in his hands if he combined with Palikao, which,
whatever the jealousies between the two, it was his
absolute duty to do. He had a great prestige — ”

De Mauleon. “And for the moment a still
greater popularity. His ipse dixit could have
determined the wavering and confused spirits of
the population. I was prepared for his abandon-
ment of the Emperor — even of the Empress and
the Regency. But how could I imagine that he,
the man of moderate politics, of Orleanistic lean-
ings, the clever writer, the fine talker, the chiv-
alrous soldier, the religious Breton, could aban-
don every thing that was legal, every thing that
could save France against the enemy, and Paris
against civil discord ; that he would connive at
the annihilation of the Senate, of the popular
Assembly, of eveiy form of government that
could be recognized as legitimate at home or
abroad, accept service under men whose doc-
trines were opposed to all his antecedents, all
his professed opinions, and inaugurate a chaos
under the name of a republic ! ”

Incognito. “How, indeed! How suppose

that the National Assembly, just elected by a
majority of seven millions and half, could be
hurried into a conjuring box, and re-appear as
the travesty of a Venetian oligarchy, composed
of half a dozen of its most unpopular members !
The sole excuse for Trochu is that he deemed
all other considerations insignificant compared
with the defense of Paris, and the united action
of the nation against the invaders. But if that
were his honest desire in siding with this mon-
strous usurpation of power, he did every thing
by which the desire could be frustrated. Had
there been any provisional body composed of
men known and esteemed, elected by the Cham-
bers, supported by Trochu and the troops at his
back, there would have been a rallying-point for
the patriotism of the provinces ; and in the wise
suspense of any constitution to succeed that gov-
ernment until the enemy were chased from the
field, all partisans — Imperialists, Legitimists, Or-
leanists. Republicans — would have equally ad-
journed their diflPerences. But a democratic
republic, , proclaimed by a Parisian mob for a
nation in which sincere democratic Republicans
are a handful, in contempt of an Assembly chos-
en by the country at large, headed by men in
whom the provinces have no trust, and for whom
their ovm representatives are violently cashiered
— can you conceive such a combination of wet
blankets supplied by the irony of fate for the ex-
tinction of every spark of ardor in the popula-
tion from which armies are to be gathered in
haste, at the beck of usurpers they distrust and
despise ? Paris has excelled itself in folly. Hun-
gering for peace, it proclaims a government which
has no legal power to treat for it. Shrieking out
for allies among the monarchies, it annihilates
the hope of obtaining them ; its sole chance of
escape from siege, famine, and bombardment is
in the immediate and impassioned sympathy of
the provinces ; and it revives all the grudges
which the provinces have long sullenly felt against
the domineering pretensions of the capital, and
invokes the rural populations, which comprise the
pith and sinew of armies, in the name of men
whom I verily believe they detest still more than
they do the Prussians. Victor, it is enough to
make one despair of his country! All beyond
the hour seems anarchy and ruin.”

‘ ‘ Not so ! ” exclaimed De Mauleon. “ Every\
thing comes to him who knows how to wait, t
The empire is destroyed; the usurpation that
follows it has no roots. It will but serve to ex-
pedite the establishment of such a condition as
we have meditated and planned — a constitution
adapted to our age and our people, not based
wholly on untried experiments, taking the best
from nations that do not allow Freedom and Or-
der to be the sport of any popular breeze. From
the American republic we must borrow the only
safeguards against the fickleness of the universal
suffrage which, though it was madness to concede
in any ancient community, once conceded can
not be safely abolished — viz., the salutary law that
no article of the Constitution once settled can
be altered without the consent of two-thirds of
the legislative body. By this law we insure per-
manence, and that concomitant love for institu-
tions which is engendered by time and custom.
Secondly, the formation of a Senate on such prin-
ciples as may secure to it in all times of danger
a confidence and respect which counteract in

THE PARISIANS.

195

public opinion the rashness and heat of the pop-
ular Assembly. On what principles that Senate
should be formed, with what functions invested,
what share of the executive — especially in for-
eign affairs, declarations of war, or treaties of
peace — should be accorded to it, will no doubt
need the most deliberate care of the ablest minds.
But a Senate I thus sketch has alone rescued
America from the rashness of counsel incident to
a democratic Chamber ; and it is still more es-
sential to France, with still more favorable ele-
ments for its creation. From England we must
borrow the great principle that has alone saved
her from revolution — that the head of the state
can do no wrong. He leads no armies, he pre-
sides over no Cabinet. All responsibility rests
with his advisers ; and where we upset a dynasty,
England changes an administration. Whether
the head of the state should have the title of
sovereign or president, whether he be hereditary
or elected, is a question of minor importance im-
possible now to determine, but I heartily concur
with you that hereditary, monarchy is infinitely
better adapted to the habits of Frenchmen, to
their love of show and of honors — and infinitely
more preservative from all the dangers which
result from constant elections to such a dignity,
with parties so heated, and pretenders to the rank
so numerous — than any system by which a popu-
lar demagogue or a successful general may have
power to destroy the institutions he is elected to
guard. On these fundamental doctrines for the
regeneration of France I think we are agreed.
And I believe when the moment arrives to pro-
mulgate them, through an expounder of weight
like yourself, they will rapidly commend them-
selves to the intellect of France. For they be-
long to common-sense ; and in the ultimate prev-
alence of common-sense I have a faith which I
refuse to mediaevalists who would restore the right
divine ; and still more to fanatical quacks, who
imagine that the worship of the Deity, the ties
of family, and the rights of property are errors
at variance with the progress of society. Qui
vivera, verra.''

Incognito. “ In the outlines of the policy you
so ably enunciate I heartily concur. But if
France is, I will not say to be regenerated, but
to have fair play among the nations of Europe,
I add one or two items to the programme.
France must be saved from Paris not by subter-
ranean barracks and trains, the impotence of
which we see to-day with a general in command
of the military force, but by conceding to France
its proportionate share of the pow’er now mo-
nopolized by Paris. All this system of central-
ization, equally tyrannical and corrupt, must be
eradicated. Talk of examples from America, of
which I know' little — from England, of wdiich I
know much — what can we more advantageously
borrow from England than that diffusion of all
her moral and social power which forbids the
congestion of blood in one vital part ? Decen-
tralize ! decentralize ! decentralize ! will be my
incessant cry, if ever the time comes when my
cry will be heard, France can never be a genu-
ine France until Paris has no more influence over
the destinies of France than London has over
those of England. But on this theme I could go
on till midnight. Now' to the immediate point :
what do you advise me to do in this crisis, and
what do you propose to do yourself?”

De Mauleon put his hand to his brow, and re-
mained a few moments silent and thoughtful.
At last he looked up with that decided expres-
sion of face w'hich was not the least among his
many attributes for influence over those with
whom he came into contact.

“For you, on whom so much of the future
depends, my advice is brief — have nothing to do
with the present. All who join this present
mockery of a government will share the fall that
attends it — a fall from which one or two of their
body may possibly recover by casting blame on
their confreres — you never could. But it is not
for you to oppose that government with an ene-
my on its march to Paris. You are not a soldier ;
military command is not in your role. The is-
sue of events is uncertain ; but whatever it be,
the men in power can not conduct a prosperous
war nor obtain an honorable peace. Hereafter
you may be the Deus ex macfiind. No person-
age of that rank and w'ith that mission appears
till the end of the play : w'e are only in the first
act. Leave Paris at once, and abstain from all
action.”

Incognito (dejectedly'). “I can not deny the
soundness of your advice, though in accepting it
I feel unutterably saddened. Still you, the calm-
est and shrewdest observer among my friends,
think there is cause for hope, not despair. Vic-
tor, I have more than most men to make life
pleasant, but I would lay dowm life at this mo-
ment with you. You know me well enough to
be sure that I utter no melodramatic fiction
when I say that I love ray country as a young
man loves the ideal of his dreams — with my
whole mind and heart and soul ! — and the thought
that I can not now aid her in the hour of her
mortal trial is — is — ”

The man’s voice broke down, and he turned
aside, veiling his face with a hand that trembled.

De Mauleon. “Courage! — patience! All
Frenchmen have the first ; set them an example
they much need in the second. I, too, love my
country, though I owe to it little enough, Heaven
knows. I suppose love of country is inherent in
all who are not Internationalists. They profess
only to love humanity, by which, if they mean
any thing practical, they mean a rise in wages. ”

Incognito (rousing himself and with a half
smile). “Always cynical, Victor — always belying
yourself. But now that you have advised my
course, what will be your own ? Accompany me,
and wait for better times.”

“ No, noble friend ; our positions are differ-
ent. Yours is made — mine yet to make. But
for this war I think I could have secured a seat
in the Chamber. As I wrote you, I found that
my kinsfolk were of much influence in their de-
partment, and that my restitution to my social
grade, and the repute I had made as an Orlean-
ist, inclined them to forget my youthful errors
and to assist my career. But the Chamber ceases
to exist. My journal I shall drop. I can not
support the government ; it is not a moment to
oppose it. My prudent course is silence.”

Incognito. “ But is not your journal essential
to your support ?”

De Mauleon. “Fortunately not. Its prof-
its enabled me to lay by for the rainy day that
has come ; and having re-imbursed you and all
friends the sums necessary to start it, I stand
clear of all debt, and for my slender wants a

196

THE PAEISIANS.

rich mnn. If I continued the jounial I should
be beggared, for there would be no readers to
Common-Sense in this interval of lunacy. Never-
theless, during this interval I trust to other ways
for winning a name that will open my rightful
path of ambition whenever we again have a legis-
lature in which Common-Sense can be heard.”

Incognito. “But how win that name, si-
lenced as a writer ?”

De Madleon. “ You forget that I have fought
in Algeria. In a few days Paris will be in a state
of siege; and then — and then,” he added, and
very quietly dilated on the renown of a patriot
or the grave of a soldier.

“I envy you the chance of either,” said the
Incognito ; and after a few more brief words he
departed, his hat drawn over his brows, and en-
tering a hired carriage which he had left at the
comer of the quiet street, was consigned to the
Station du , just in time for the next train.

CHAPTER XI.

Victor dressed and went out. The streets
were crowded. Workmen were every where
employed in the childish operation of removing
all insignia, and obliterating all names, that show-
ed where an empire had existed. One greasy
citizen, mounted on a ladder, was effacing the
words “ Boulevard Haussman,” and substituting
for Haussman “Victor Hugo.”

Suddenly De Mauleon came on a group of
blouses, interspersed with women holding babies
and ragged boys holding stones, collected round
a well-dressed slender man, at whom they were
hooting and gesticulating, with menaces of do-
ing something much worse. By an easy effort
of his strong frame the Vicomte pushed his way
through the tormentors, and gave his arm to
their intended victim.

“Monsieur, allow me to walk home with you.”

Tlierewith the shrieks and shouts and ges-
ticulations increased. “Another impertinent!
Another traitor! Drown him! Drown them
both ! To the Seine ! To the Seine ! ” A burly
fellow rushed forward, and the rest made a plun-
ging push. The outstretched arm of De Mauleon
kept the ringleader at bay. ‘ ‘ Mes enfans^ ” cried
Victor, with a calm clear voice, “1 am not an
Imperialist. Many of you have read the articles
signed Pierre Firmin, written against the tyrant
Bonaparte when he was at the height of his pow-
er. 1 am Pierre Firmin — make way for me.”
Probably not one in the crowd had ever read a
word written by Pierre Firaiin, nor even heard
of the name. But they did not like to own ig-
norance; and that burly fellow did not like to
encounter that arm of iron which touched his
throat. So he cried out, “Oh! if you are the
great Piei re Firmin, that alters the case. Make
way for the patriot Pierre!” “ But,” shrieked
a virago, thrusting her baby into De Mauleon ’s
face, “ the other is the Imperialist, the capital-
ist, the vile Duplessis. At least we will have
him.” De Mauleon suddenly snatched the baby
from her, and said, with imperturbable good tem-
per, “Exchange of prisoners ! I resign the man,
and I keep the baby.”

No one who does not know the humors of a
Parisian mob can comprehend the suddenness

of popular change, or the magical mastery over
crowds, which is effected by quiet courage and a
ready joke. The group was appeased at once.
Even the virago laughed ; and when De Mau-
leon restored the infant to her arms, with a gold
piece thrust into its tiny clasp, she eyed the gold,
and cried, “God bless you, citizen!” The two
gentlemen made their way safely now.

“ M. de Mauleon,” said Duplessis, “I know
not how to thank you. Without your season-
able aid I should have been in great danger of
life; and — would you believe it? — the woman
who denounced and set the mob on me was one
of the objects of a charity v/hich I weekly dis-
pense to the poor.”

“ Of course I believe that. At the Red clubs
no crime is more denounced than that of charity.

It is the ‘ fraud against Egalite' — a vile trick of
the capitalist to save to himself the millions he
ought to share with all by giving a soti to one.
Meanwhile take my advice, M. Duplessis, and
quit Paris with your young daughter. This is
no place for rich Imperialists at present.”

“ I perceived that befbre to-day’s adventure. I
distrust the looks of my very servants, and shall
depart with Valerie this evening for Bretagne.”

“ Ah ! I heard from Louvier that you propose
to pay off his mortgage on Rochebriant, and
make yourself sole proprietor of my young kins-
man’s property.”

“I trust you only believe half what you hear.

I mean to save Rochebriant from Louvier, and
consign it, free of charge, to your kinsman, as
the dot of his bride, my daughter.”

“I rejoice to learn such good news for the
head of my house. But Alain himself — is he
not with the prisoners of war?”

“ No, thank Heaven. He w’ent forth an offi-
cer of a regiment of Parisian Mobiles — went full ^
of sanguine confidence ; he came back with his
regiment in mournful despondency. The undis-
cipline of his. regiment, of the Parisian Mobiles
generally, appears incredible. Their insolent dis-
obedience to their officers, their ribald scoffs at
their general — oh, it is sickening to speak of it !
Alain distinguished himself by repressing a mu-
tiny, and is honored by a signal compliment from
the commander in a letter of recommendation to
Palikao. But Palikao is nobody now. Alain
has already been sent into Bretagne, commission-
ed to assist in organizing a corps of Mobiles in
his neighborhood. Trochu, as you know, is a
Breton. Alain is confident of the good conduct
of the Bretons. What will Louvier do ? He is
an arch Republican. Is he pleased now he has
got what he wanted ?”

“I suppose he is pleased, for he is terribly
frightened. Fright is one of the great enjoy-
ments of a Parisian. Good-day. Your path to
your hotel is clear now. Remember me kindly
to Alain.”

De Mauleon continued his way through streets
sometimes deserted, sometimes thronged. At
the commencement of the Rue de Florentin he
encountered the brothers Vandemar walking arm
in arm.

“ Ha,De Mauleon !” cried Enguerrand ; “what
is the last minute’s news ?”

“ I can’t guess. Nobody knows at Paris how
soon one folly swallows up another. Saturn here
is always devouring one or other of his children.”

“They say that Vinoy, after a most masterly

PE MAin-EON SUDDENLY SNATCHED THE DAHY FEOM IIEB, AND SAID, WITH IMPERTURISABLE GOOD TEMPER, “EX-
CHANGE OF PRISONERS ! I RESIGN THE MAN, AND I KEEP THE BABY."

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THE PARISIANS.

197

retreat, is almost at our gates with eighty thou-
sand men.”

“And this day twelvemonth we may know
what he does with them.”

Here Raoul, who seemed absorbed in gloomy
reflections, halted before the hotel in which the
Comtesse di Rimini lodged, and with a nod to
his brother, and a polite, if not cordial, salutation
to Victor, entered the porte cochere.

“ Your brother seems out of spirits — a pleas-
ing contrast to the uproarious mirth with which
Parisians welcome the advance of calamity.”

“ Raoul, as you know, is deeply religious.
He regards the defeat we have sustained, and
the peril that threatens us, as the beginning of a
divine chastisement, justly incurred by our sins
— I mean the sins of Paris. lu vain my father
reminds him of Voltaire s story, in which the
ship goes down with a fripon on board. In or-
der to punish the fripon the honest folks are
drowned. ”

“ Is your father going to remain on board the
ship, and share the fate of the other honest folks ?”

“Pas si bete. He is off to Dieppe for sea-
bathing. He says that Paris has grown so dirty
since the 4th September that it is only fit for
the feet of the Unwashed. He wished my moth-
er to accompany him; but she replies, ‘No;
there are already too many wounded not to need
plenty of nurses.’ She is assisting to inaugurate
a society of ladies in aid of the Soeurs de Char-
it€. Like Raoul, she is devout, but she has not
his superstitions. Still his superstitions are the
natural reaction of a singularly earnest and pure
nature from the frivolity and corruption which,
when kneaded well up together with a slice of
sarcasm, Paris calls philosophy.”

“And what, my dear Enguerrand, do you
propose to do ?”

“That depends on whether we are really be-
sieged. If so, of course I become a soldier.”

“I hope not a National Guard ?”

“ I care not in what name I fight, so that I
fight for France. ”

As Enguerrand said these simple words his
whole countenance seemed changed. The crest
rose ; the eyes sparkled ; the fair and delicate
beauty which had made him the darling of wom-
en^— the joyous sweetness of expression and dain-
ty grace of high-breeding which made him the
most popular companion to men — were exalted
in a masculine nobleness of aspect, from which a
painter might have taken hints for a study of the
young Achilles separated forever from effemi-
nate companionship at the sight of the weapons
of war. De Mauleon gazed on him admiringly.
We have seen that he shared the sentiments ut-
tered— had resolved on the same course of ac-
tion. But it was with the tempered warmth of
a man who seeks to divest his thoughts and his
purpose of the ardor of romance, and who, in
serving his country, calculates on the gains to his
own ambition. Nevertheless he admired in En-
guerrand the image of his own impulsive and
fiery youth.

“And you, I presume,” resumed Enguerrand,
“will fight too, but rather with pen than with
sword. ”

“Pens will now only be dipped in red ink,
and common-sense never writes in that color;
as for the sword, I have passed the age of forty-
five, at which military service halts. But if

some experience in active service, some knowl-
edge of the art by which soldiers are disciplined
and led, will be deemed sufficient title to a post
of command, however modest the grade be, I
shall not be wanting among the defenders of
Paris.”

“My brave dear Vicomte, if you are past the
age to serve, you are in the ripest age to com-
mand ; and with the testimonials and the cross
you won in Algeria, your application for employ-
ment will be received with gratitude by any gen-
eral so able as Trochu.”

“I don’t know whether I shall apply to Trochu.
I would rather be elected to command even by
the Mobiles or the National Guard, of whom I
have just spoken disparagingly ; and no doubt
both corps will soon claim and win the right to
choose their officers. But if elected, no matter
by whom, I shall make a preliminary condition :
the men under me shall train and drill and
obey — soldiers of a very different kind from the
youthful Pekins nourished on absinthe and self-
conceit, and applauding that Bombastes Furioso,
M. Hugo, when he assures the enemy that Paris
will draw an idea ‘from its scabbard. But here
comes Savarin. Bonjour, my dear poet.”

“ Don’t say good day. An evil day for jour-
nalists and writers who do not out-Herod Blan-
qui and Pyat. I know not how I shall get bread-
and-cheese. My poor suburban villa is to be
pulled down by way of securing Paris ; my jour-
nal will be suppressed by way of establishing the
liberty of the press. It ventured to suggest that
the people of France should have some choice in
the form of their government.”

“That was very indiscreet, my poor Savarin,”
said Victor ; “I wonder your printing-office has
not been pulled down. We are now at the mo-
ment when wise men hold their tongues. ”

“ Perhaps so, M. de Mauleon. It might have
been wiser for all of us, you as well as myself, if
we had not allowed our tongues to be so free be-
fore this moment arrived. We live to learn ;
and if we ever have what may be called a pass-
able government again, in which we may say
pretty much what we like, there is one thing I
will not do — I will not undermine that govern-
ment without seeing a very clear way to the gov-
ernment that is to follow it. What say you,
Pierre Firmin ?”

“Frankly, I say that I deseiwe your rebuke,”
answered De Mauleon, thoughtfully. “But of
course you are going to take or send Madame
Savarin out of Paris ?”

“ Certainly. We have made a very pleasant
party for our hegira this evening — among others
the Morleys. Morley is terribly disgusted. A
Red Republican slapped him on the shoulder and
said, ‘ American, we have a republic as well as
you.’ ‘Pretty much you know about republics,’
growled Morley ; ‘ a French republic is as much
like ours as a baboon is. like a man. ’ On which
the Red roused the mob, who dragged the Amer-
ican off to the nearest station of the National
Guard, where he was accused of being a Prus-
sian spy. With some difficulty, and lots of brag
about the sanctity of the Stars and Stripes, he
escaped with a reprimand, and caution how to
behave himself in future. So he quits a city in
which there no longer exists freedom of speech.
My wife hoped to induce Mademoiselle Cicogna
to accompany us ; I grieve to say she refuses.

198

THE PARISIANS.

You know she is engaged in marriage to Gustave
Rameau ; and his mother dreads the effect that
these Red clubs and his own vanity may have
upon liis excitable temperament if the influence
of Mademoiselle Cicogna be withdrawn.”

“ How could a creature so exquisite as Isaura
Cicogna ever find fascination in Gustave Ra-
meau!” exclaimed Enguerrand.

“ A woman like her,” answered De Mauleon,
“always finds a fascination in self-sacrifice.”

“I think you divine the truth,” said Savarin,
rather mournfully. “ But I must bid you good-
by. May we live to shake hands r^unis sous des
vieilleurs auspices. ”

Here Savarin hurried off, and the other two
men strolled into the Champs Elysees, which
were crowded with loungers, gay and careless,
as if there had been no disaster at Sedan, no
overthrow of an empire, no enemy on its road to
Paris.

In fact, the Parisians, at once the most incred-
ulous and the most credulous of all populations,
believed that the Prussians would never be so
impertinent as to come in sight of the gates.
Something would occur to stop them ! The King
had declared he did not make war on French-
men, but on the Emperor : the Emperor gone, the
war was over. A democratic republic was in-
stituted. A horrible thing in its way, it is true ;
but how could the Pandour tyrant brave the in-
fection of democratic doctrines among his own
barbarian armies ? Were not placards, addressed
to our “German brethren,” posted upon the
walls of Paris, exhorting the Pandours to fra-
ternize with their fellow-creatures ? Was not
Victor Hugo going to publish “a letter to the
German people? Had not Jules Favre gracious-
ly offeied peace, with the assurance that France
would not cede a stone of her fortresses — an inch
of her territory ? She would pardon the invad-
ers, and not march upon Berlin !” To all these,
and many more such incontestable proofs, that
the idea of a siege was moonshine, did Enguer-
rand and Victor listen as they joined group after
group of their fellow-countrymen : nor did Paris
cease to harbor such pleasing illusions, amusing
itself with piously laying crowns at the foot of
the statue of Strasburg, swearing “they would
be worthy of their Alsacian brethren,” till on the
19th of September the last telegram was received,
and Paris was cut off from the rest of the world
by the iron line of the Prussian invaders. “ Tran-
quil and terrible,” says Victor Hugo, “she awaits
the invasion ! A volcano needs no assistance. ”

■ —

CHAPTER XII.

We left Graham Vane slowly recovering from
the attack of fever which had arrested his jour-
ney to Berlin in quest of the Count von Rude-
sheim. He was, however, saved the prosecution
of that journey, and his direction turned back to
France, by a German newspaper, which informed
him that the King of Prussia was at Rheims, and
that the Count von Rudesheim was among the
eminent personages gathered there around their
sovereign. In conversing the same day with the
kindly doctor who attended him, Graham ascer-
tained that this German noble held a high com-
mand in the German armies, and bore a no less

distinguished reputation as a wise political coun-
selor than he had earned as a military chief. As
soon as he was able to travel, and indeed before
the good doctor sanctioned his departure, Gra-
ham took his way to Rheims, uncertain, how-
ever, whether the Count would still be found
there. I spare the details of his journey, inter-
esting as they were. On reaching the famous
and, in the eyes of the Legitimists, the sacred
city, the Englishman had no difficulty in ascer-
taining the house, not far from the cathedral, in
which the Count von Rudesheim had taken his
temporary abode. Walking toward it from the
small hotel in which he had been lucky enough to
find a room disengaged — slowly, for he was still
feeble — he was struck by the quiet conduct of the
German soldiery, and, save in their appearance,
the peaceful aspect of the streets. Indeed, there
was an air of festive gayety about the place, as
in an English town in which some popular regi-
ment is quartered. The German soldiers throng-
ed the shops, buying largely ; lounged into the
cafes ; here and there attempted flirtations with,
the qrisettes, who laughed at their French and
blushed at their compliments ; and in their good-
humored, somewhat bashful cheeriness, there was
no trace of the insolence of conquest.

But as Graham neared the precincts of the
cathedral his ear caught a grave and solemn mu-
sic, which he at first supposed to come from with-
in the building. But as he paused and looked
round he saw a group of the German military,
on whose stalwart forms and fair, manly, ear-
nest faces the setting sun cast its calm, lingering
rays. They were chanting, in voices not loud
but deep, Luthers majestic hymn. Nun danket
alle Gott. The chant awed even the ragged
beggar boys who had followed the Englishman,
as they followed any stranger, would have fol-
lowed King William himself, whining for alms.
“What a type of the difference between the two
nations !” thought Graham ; “ the Marseillaise,
and Luther’s Hymn !” While thus meditating
and listening, a man in a general’s uniform came
slowly out of the cathedral, with his hands clasped
behind his back, and his head bent slightly down-
ward. He, too, paused on hearing the hymn ;
then unclasped his hand and beckoned to one of
the officers, to whom, approaching, he whispered
a word or two, and passed on toward the Episco-
pal palace. The hymn hushed, and the singers
quietly dispersed. Graham divined rightly that
the general had thought a hymn thanking the
God of battles might wound the feelings of the
inhabitants of the vanquished city — not, howev-
er, that any of them were likely to understand
the language in which the thanks were uttered.
Graham followed the measured steps of the gen-
eral, whose hands were again clasped behind his
back — the musing habit of Von Moltke, as it had
been of Napoleon the First.

Continuing his way, the Englishman soon
reached the house in which the Count von Rude-
sheim was lodged, and sending in his card, was
admitted at once through an anteroom, in which
sat two young men, subaltern officers, apparent-
ly employed in draughting maps, into the pres-
ence of the Count.

“Pardon me,” said Graham, after the first
conventional salutation, “if I interrupt you for
a moment or so in the midst of events so grave,
on a matter that must seem to you very trivial.”

THE PARISIANS.

199

“ Nay,” answered the Count, “ there is noth-
ing so trivial in this world but what there will
be some one to whom it will be important. Say
how I can serve you.”

“I think, M. le Comte, that you once received
in your household, as teacher or governess, a
French lady, Madame Marigny.”

“ Yes, I remember her well — a very handsome
woman. My wife and daughter took great in-
terest in her. Slie was married out of my house.”

“ Exactly. And to whom ?”

“ An Italian of good birth, who was then em-
ployed by the Austrian government in some mi-
nor post, and subsequently promoted to a better
one in the Italian dominion, which then belonged
to the house of Hapsburg, after which we lost
sight of him and his wife.”

“An Italian ! What was his name ?”

“Ludovico Cicogna.”

“Cicogna!” exclaimed Graham, turning very
pale. “Are you sure that was the name?”

“ Certainly. He was a cadet of a very noble
house, and disowned by relations too patriotic to
forgive him for accepting employment under the
Austrian government.”

“ Can you not give me the address of the place
in Italy to which he was transferred on leaving
Austria?”

“No; hut if the information be necessary to
vou, it can be obtained easily at Milan, where
the h^ad of the family resides, or, indeed, in Vi-
enna, through any ministerial bureau.”

“ Pardon me one or two questions more. Had
Madame Marigny any children by a former hus-
band ?”

“ Not that I know of : I never heard so. Sign-
or Cicogna was a widower, and had, if I remem-
ber right, children by his first wife, who was also
a Frenchwoman. Before he obtained office in
Austria he resided, I believe, in France. I do
not remember how many children he had by his
first wife. I never saw them. Our acquaint-
ance began at the baths of Toplitz, where he saw
and fell violently in love with Madame Marigny.
After their marriage they went to his post, which
was somewhere, I think, in the Tyrol. We saw
no more of them ; but my wife and daughter
kept up a correspondence with the Signora Ci-
cogna for a short time. It ceased altogether
when she removed into Italy.”

“You do not even know if the signora is still
living?”

“No.”

“Her husband, I am told, is dead.”

“Indeed! I am concerned to hear it. A
good-looking, lively, clever man. I fear he must
have lost all income when the Austrian domin-
ions passed to the house of Savoy.”

“Many thanks for your information. I can
detain you no longer,” said Graham, rising.

“Nay, I am not very busy at this moment;
but I fear we Germans have plenty of work on
our hands.”

“ I had hoped that, now the French Emperor,
against whom your King made war, was set aside,
his Prussian majesty would make peace with the
French people.”

“Most willingly would he do so if the French
people would let him. But it must be through
a French government legally chosen by the peo-
ple. And they have chosen none ! A mob at
Paris sets up a provisional administration, that

commences by declaring that it will not give up
‘ an inch of its territory nor a stone of its for-
tresses.’ No terms of .peace can be made with
such men holding such talk.” After a few words
more over the state of public affairs — in which
Graham expressed the English side of affairs,
which was all for generosity to the vanquished,
and the Count argued much more ably on the
German, which was all for security against the
aggressions of a people that would not admit it-
self to be vanquished — the short interview closed.

As Graham at night pursued his journey to
Vienna, there came into his mind Isaura’s song
of the Ne.apolitan fisherman. Had he, too, been
blind to the image on the rock ? Was it possible
that all the while he had been resisting the im-
pulse of his heart, until the discharge of the mis-
sion intrusted to him freed his choice and decid-
ed his fortunes, the very person of whom he was
in search had been before him, then to be forever
won, lost to him now forever? Could Isaiira Ci-
cogna be the child of Louise Duval by Richard
King ? She could not have been her child by Ci-
cogna: the dates forbade that hypothesis. Isauva
must have been five years old when Louise mar-
ried the Italian.

Arrived at Milan, Graham quickly ascertained
that the po.st to which Ludovico Cicogna had
been removed was in Verona, and that he had
there died eight years ago. Nothing was to be
learned as to his family or his circumstances at
the time of his death. The people of whose his-
tory we know the least are the relations we re-
fuse to acknowledge. Graham continued his
journey to Verona. There he found on inquiry
that the Cicognas had occupied an apartment in
a house which stood at the outskirts of the town,
and had been since pulled down to make way for
some public improvements. But his closest in-
quiries could gain him no satisfactory answers to
the all-important questions as to Ludovico Ci-
cogna’s family. His political alienation from the
Italian cause, which was nowhere more ardently
espoused than at Verona, had rendered him very
unpopular. He visited at no Italian houses.
Such society as he had was confined to the Austri-
an military within the Quadrilateral or at Venice,
to which city he made frequent excursions : was
said to lead there a free and gay life, very displeas-
ing to the signora, whom he left in Verona. She
was but little seen, and faintly remembered as
A^ery handsome and proud -looking. Yet there
were children — a girl, and a boy several years
younger than the girl ; but whether she was the
child of the signora- by a former marriage, or
whether the signora was only the child’s step-
mother, no one could say. The usual clew in
such doubtful matters, obtainable through serv-
ants, Avas here missing. The Cicognas had only
kept two servants, and both Avere Austrian sub-
jects, Avho had long left the country — their A'ery
names forgotten.

Graham now called to mind the Englishman,
Selby, for Avhom Isaura had such grateful affec-
tion, as supplying to her the place of her father.
This must have been the Englishman Avhora
Louise Duval had married after Cicogna’s death.
It would be no difficult task, surely, to ascertain
where he had resided. Easy enough to ascertain
all that Graham Avanted to know from Isaura
herself, if a letter could reach her. But, as he
! knew by the journals, Baris Avas noAv invested —

200

THE PARISIANS.

cut off from all communication with the world
beyond. Too irritable, anxious, and impatient
to "wait for the close of the siege, though he nev-
er suspected it could last so long as it did, he
hastened to Venice, and there learned through
the British consul that the late Mr. Selby was
a learned antiquarian, an accomplished general
scholar, a fanatico in music, a man of gentle
temper, though reserved manners ; had at one
time lived much at Venice : after his marriage
with the Signora Cicogna he had taken up his
abode near Florence. To Florence Graham now
went. He found the villa on the skirts of Fiesole
at which Mr. Selby had resided. The peasant
who had officiated as gardener and share-holder
in the profits of vines and figs was still, with his
wife, living on the place. Both man and wife
remembered the Inglese well ; spoke of him with
great affection, of his vvife with great dislike.
They said her manners were very haughty, her
temper very violent ; that she led the Inglese a
very unhappy life ; that there were a girl and a
boy, both hers by a former marriage ; but when
closely questioned whether they were sure that
the girl was the signora’s child by the former
husband, or whether she was not the child of that
husband by a former wife, they could not tell ;
they could only say that both were called by the
same name — Cicogna ; that the boy was the sign-
ora’s favorite — that, indeed, she seemed wrapped
up in him ; that he died of a rapid decline a few
months after Mr. Selby had hired the place, and
that shortly after his death the signora left the
place and never returned to it ; that it was little
more than a year that she had lived with her
husband before this final separation took place.
The girl remained with Mr. Selby, who cherish-
ed and loved her as his own child. Her Chris-
tian name was Isaura, the boy’s Luigi. A few
years later Mr. Selby left the villa and went to
Naples, where they heard he had died. They
could give no information as to what had be-
come of his wife. Since the death of her boy
that lady had become very much changed — her
spirits quite broken, no longer violent. She
would sit alone and weep bitterly. The only
person out of her family she would receive was
the priest; till the boy’s death she had never
seen the priest, nor been known to attend divine
service.

“ Was the priest living?”

‘ ‘ Oh no ; he had been dead two years. A
most excellent man — a saint,” said the peasant’s
wife.

“ Good priests are like good women,” said the
peasant, dryly ; “ there are plenty of them, but
they are all under-grouftd.”

On which remark the wife tried to box his
ears. The contadino had become a freethinker
since the accession of the house of Savoy. His
w'ife remained a good Catholic.

Said the peasant, as, escaping from his wife, he
walked into the high-road with Graham, “My
belief, Eccelenza^ is that the priest did all the
mischief.”

“ What mischief?”

“Persuaded the signora to leave her husband.
The Inglese was not a Catholic. I heard the
priest call him a heretic. And the Padre^ who,
though not so bad as some of his cloth, was a
meddling bigot, thought it perhaps best for her |
soul that it should part company with a heretic’s 1

person. I can’t say for sure, but I think that
was it. The Padre seemed to triumph when the
signora was gone.”

Graham mused. The peasant’s supposition
was not improbable. A woman such as Louise
Duval appeared to be — of vehement passions and
ill-regulated mind — was just one of those who,
in a moment of great sorrow, and estranged from
the ordinary household ailections, feel, though
but imperfectly, the necessity of a religion, and,
ever in extremes, pass at once from indifferent-
ism into superstition.

Arrived at Naples, Graham heard little of Sel-
by except as a literary recluse, whose only dis-
traction from books was the operatic stage. But
he heard much of Isaura ; of the kindness which
Madame de Grantmesnil had shown to her,
when left by Selby’s death alone in the world ;
of the interest which the friendship and the
warm eulogies of one so eminent as the great
French writer had created for Isaura in the ar-
tistic circles ; of the intense sensation her appear-
ance, her voice, her universal genius, had made
in that society, and the brilliant hopes of her sub-
sequent career on the stage the cognoscenti had
formed. No one knew any thing of her mother ;
no one entertained a doubt that Isaura was by
birth a Cicogna. Graham could not learn the
present whereabouts of Madame de Grantmes-
nil. She had long left Naples, and had been
last heard of at Genoa ; was supposed to have
returned to France a little before the war. In
France she had no fixed residence.

The simplest mode of ascertaining authentic
information whether Isaura was the daughter of
Ludovico Cicogna by his first wife — namely, by
registration of her birth — failed him, because,
as Von Rudesheim had said, his first wife was a
FVenchwoman. The children had been born
somewhere in France — no one could even guess
where. No one had ever seen the first wife,
who had never appeared in Italy, nor had even
heard what was her maiden name.

Graham, meanwhile, was not aware that Isau-
ra was still in the besieged city, whether or not
already married to Gustave Rameau ; so large a
number of the women had quitted Paris before
the siege began that he had reason to hope she
was among them. He heard through an Ameri-
can that the Morleys had gone to England be-
fore the Prussian investment; perhaps Isaura
had gone with them. He wrote to Mrs. Morley,
inclosing his letter to the minister of the United
States at the court of St. James, and while still
at Naples received her answer. It was short and
malignantly bitter. “Both myself and Madame
Savarin, backed by Signora Yenosta, earnestly
entreated Mademoiselle Cicogna to quit Paris,
to accompany us to England. Her devotion to
her affianced husband would not permit her to
listen to us. It is only an Englishman who
could suppose Isfiura Cicogna to be one of those
women who do not insist on sharing the perils
of those they love. You ask whether she was
the daughter of Ludovico Cicogna by his former
marriage, or of his second wife by him. I can
not answer. I don’t even know whether Signor
Cicogna ever had a former wife. Isaura Cicogna
never spoke to me of her parents. Permit me
to ask what business is it of yours now ? Is it
I the English pride that makes you wish to learn
i whether on both sides she is of noble family ?

THE PARISIANS.

201

How can that discovery alter your relations to-
ward the affianced bride of another ?”

On receipt of this letter Graham quitted Na-
ples, and shortly afterward found himself at Ver-
sailles. He obtained permission to establish him-
self there, though the English were by no means
popular. Thus near to Isaura, thus sternly sep-
arated from her, Graham awaited the close of the
siege. Few among those at., Versailles believed
that the Parisians would endure it much longer.
Surely they would capitulate before the bombard-
ment, which the Germans themselves disliked to
contemplate as a last resource, could commence.

In his own mind Graham was convinced that
Isaura was the child of Richard King. It seem-
ed to him probable that Louise Duval, unable to
assign any real name to the daughter of the mar-
riage she disowned — neither the name borne by
the repudiated husband, nor her own maiden
name — \vould, on taking her daughter to her new
home, have induced Cicogna to give the child
his name ; or that after Cicogna’s death she .her-
self had so designated the girl. A dispassion-
ate confidant, could Graham have admitted any
confidant whatever, might have suggested the
more equal probability that Isaura was Cico-
gna’s daughter by his former espousal. But
then what could have become of Richard King’s
child ? To part with the future in his hands,
to relinquish all the ambitious dreams which be-
longed to it, cost Graham Vane no pang; but
he writhed with indignant grief when he thought
that the wealth of Richard King’s heiress was
to pass to the hands of Gustave Rameau — that
this was to be the end of his researches — this
the result of the sacrifice his sense of honor im-
posed on him. And now that there was the
probability that he must convey to Isaura this
large inheritance, the practical difficulty of in-
venting some reason for such a donation, which
he had, while at a distance, made light of, be-
came seriously apparent. HOw could he say to
Isaura that he had £200,000 in trust for her,
without naming any one so devising it? Still
more, how constitute himself her guardian, so
as to secure it to herself, independently of her
husband ? Perhaps Isaura was too infatuated
with Rameau, or too romantically unselfish, to
permit the fortune so mysteriously conveyed be-
ing exclusively appropriated to herself. And if
she were already married to Rameau, and if he
were armed with the right to inquire into the
source of this fortune, how exposed to the risks
of disclosure would become the secret Graham
sought to conceal! Such a secret affecting the
memory of the sacred dead, affixing a shame on
the scutcheon of the living, in the irreverent
hands of a Gustave Rameau — it was too dread-
ful to contemplate such a hazard. And yet, if
Isaura were the missing heiress, could Graham
Vane admit any excuse for basely withholding
from her, for coolly retaining to himself, the
wealth for which he was responsible ? Yet, tor-
turing as w'ere these communings with himself,
they were mild in their torture compared to the
ever-growing anguish of the thought that in any
case the only woman he had ever loved — ever
could love — who might but for his own scruples
and prejudices have been the partner of his life
— was perhaps now actually the wife of another ;
and, as such, in what terrible danger! Famine
within the walls of the doomed city : without, the

engines of death waiting for a signal. So near
to her, and yet so far ! So willing to die for her,
if for her he could not live : and with all his de-
votion, all his intellect, all his wealth, so power-
less!

CHAPTER XIII.

It is now the middle of November — a Sun-
day. The day has been mild, and is drawing
toward its close. The Pai-isians have been en-
joying the sunshine. Under the leafless trees
in the public gardens and the Champs Elyse'es
children have been at play. On the Boulevards
the old elegance of gayety is succeeded by a
livelier animation. Itinerant musicians gather
round them ragged groups. Fortune-tellers are
in great request, especially among the once brill-
iant Laises and Thaises, now looking more shab-
by, to whom they predict the speedy restoration
of Nabobs and Russians, and golden joys. Yon-
der Punch is achieving a victory over the Evil
One, who wears the Prussian spiked helmet, and
whose face has been recently beautified into a
resemblance to Bismarck. Punch draws to his
show a laughing audience of Mohlots and recruits
to the new companies of the National Guard.
Members of the once formidable police, now
threadbare and hunger-pinched, stand side by
side with unfortunate beggars and sinister-look-
ing patriots who have served their time in the
jails or galleys.

Uniforms of all variety are conspicuous — the
only evidence visible of an enemy at the Walls.
But the aspects of the wearers of warlike accou-
trements are dehonnaire and smiling, as of revel-
ers on a holiday of peace. Among these defend-
ers of their country, at the door of a crowded
cafe, stands Frederic Lemercier, superb in the
costume, brand-new, of a National Guard — his
dog Fox tranquilly reposing on its haunches,
with eyes fixed upon its fellow-dog philosophic-
ally musing on the edge of Punch’s show, w'hose
master is engaged in the conquest of the Bis-
marck fiend.

“ Lemercier,” cried the Vicomte de Breze,
approaching the cafe, “I scarcely recognize you
in that martial guise. You look magrdfiquc —
the galons become you. Peste! an officer al-
ready ?”

“ The National Guard and Mobiles are per-
mitted to choose their own officers, as you are
aware. I have been elected, but to subaltern
grade, by the warlike patriots of my department.
Enguerrand de Vandemar is elected a captain
of the Mobiles in his, and Victor de Mauleon is
appointed to the command of a battalion of the
National Guard. But I soar above jealousy at
such a moment —

“‘Eorae a choisi mon bras; je n’examine rien.’”

“You have no right to be jealous. De Mau-
leon has had experience and won distinction in
actual service, and from all I hear is doing won-
ders with his men — has got them not only to
keep but to love drill. I heard no less an au-
thority than General V say that if all the

officers of the National Guard were like De
Mauleon, that body would give an example of
discipline to the line.”

“ I say nothing as to the promotion of a real

202

THE PAKISIANS.

soldier like the Vicomte — but a Parisian dandy
like Engueriand de Vandemar!”

“You forget that Enguerrand received a mil-
itary education — an advantage denied to you.”

“ What does that matter? Who cares for ed-
ucation nowadays? Besides, have I not been
training ever since the 4th of September, to say
nothing of the hard work on the ramparts ?”

Parlez moi de cela: it is indeed hard work
on the ramparts. Infandum dolorem quorum
pars magna fui. Take the day duty. What
with rising at seven o’clock, and being drilled
between a middle-aged and corpulent grocer on
one side and a meagre beardless barber’s appren-
tice on the other ; what with going to the bas-
tions at eleven, and seeing half one’s companions
drunk before twelve ; what with trying to keep
their fists off one’s face when one politely asks
them not to call one’s general a traitor or a pol-
troon— the work of the ramparts would be in-
supportable, if I did not take a pack of cards
with me, and enjoy a quiet rubber Avith three
other heroes in some sequestered corner. As for
night-work, nothing short of the itidomitable for-
titude of a Parisian could sustain it; the tents
made expressly not to be water-proof, like the
groves of the Muses —

‘per

Quos et aquae subeant et aurae.’

A fellow-companion of mine tucks himself up on
my rug, and pillows his head on my knapsack.
I remonstrate — he swears — the other heroes
wake up and threaten to thrash us both ; and
just when peace is made, and one hopes for a
wink of sleep, a detachment of spectators, chiefly
gamins, coming to see that all is safe in the
camp, strike up the Marseillaise. Ah, the world
will ring to the end of time with the sublime at-
titude of Paris in the face of the Vandal invad-
ers, especially when it learns that the very shoes
we stand in are made of card-board. In vain
we complain. The contractor for shoes is a
stanch Republican, and jobs by right divine.
May I ask if you have dined yet ?”

“Heavens! — no; it is too early. But I am
excessively hungry. I had only a quarter of
jugged cat for breakfast, and the brute was
tough. In reply to your question, may I put
another — Did you lay in plenty of stoi es ?”

“Stores? — no; I am a bachelor, and rely on
the stores of my married friends.”

“ Poor De Breze ! I sympathize with you, for
I am in the same boat, and dinner invitations
have become monstrous rare.”

“Oh, but you are^ so confoundedly rich!
What to you are forty francs for a rabbit, or
eighty francs for a turkey ?”

“Well, I suppose I am rich, but I have no
money, and the ungrateful restaurants will not
give me credit. They don’t believe in better
days.”

“ How can you want money?”

“Very naturally. I had invested my capital
famously — the best speculations — partly in house
rents, partly in company shares; and houses pay
no rents, and nobody will buy company shares.
I had 1000 napoleons on hand, it is true, when
Duplessis left Paris — much more, I thought,
than I could possibly need, for I never believed
in the siege. But during the first few weeks I
played at whist with bad luck, and since then so
many old friends have borrowed of me that I

doubt if I have 200 francs left. I have dispatch-
ed four letters to Duplessis by pigeon and bal-
loon, entreating him to send me 25,000 francs
by some trusty fellow who will pierce the Prus-
sian lines. I have had two answers — first, that
he will find a man ; second, that the man is
found and on his way. Trust to that man, my
dear friend, and meanwhile lend me 200 francs.”

“ Mon cher, desole to refuse ; but I was about
to ask you to share your 200 francs with me who
live chiefly by my pen ; and that resource is cut
ofi*. Still, ilfaut vivre — one must dine.”

“ That is a fact, and we will dine together
to-day at my expense, limited liability, though —
eight francs a head.”

“ Generous monsieur, I accept. Meanwhile
let us take a turn toward the Madeleine.”

The two Parisians quit the cafe, and proceed
up the Boulevard. On their, way they encounter
Savarin.

“ Why,” said De Breze, “ I thought you had
left Paris Avith madame.”

“ So 1 did, and deposited her safely Avith the
Motleys at Boulogne. These kind Americans
Avere going to England, and they took her with
them. But I quit Paris ! 1 ! No : 1 am old ;
I am groAving obese. I have ahvays been short-
sighted. I can neither Avield a sword nor handle
a musket. But Paris needs defenders ; and ev-
ery moment I Avas away from her I sighed to
myself, ‘ II faut etre la !' I returned before the
Vandals had possessed themselves of our rail-
ways, the convoi overcroAvded Avith men like my-
self, Avho had removed their Avives and families ;
and Avhen Ave asked each other Avhy Ave Avent
back, every ansAver Avas the same, ‘ II faut etre
Id.' — No, poor child, no — I have nothing to give
you.”

These last Avords Avere addressed to a Avoman,
young and handsome, Avith a dress that a feAV
Aveeks ago might have been admired for taste
and elegance by the lady leaders of the ton, but
Avas noAv darned and dirty and draggled.

“ Monsieur, I did not stop you to ask for alms.
You do not seem to remember me, M. SaA^aiin.”

“But I do,” said Lemercier; “surely I ad-
dress Mademoiselle J idie Canmartin ?”

“Ah, excuse me, le petit Frederic,” said Ju-
lie, Avith a sickly attempt at coquettish sprightli-
ness ; “I had no eyes except for M. Savarin.”

“ And Avhy only for me, my poor child ?” ask-
ed the kind-hearted author.

“Hush!” She drew him aside. “Because
you can give me neAA's of that monster Gustave.
It is not true, it can not be true, that he is go-
ing to be married ?”

“ Nay, surel}^ mademoiselle, all connection be-
tAveen you and young Rameau has ceased for
months — ceased from the date of that illness in
July which nearly carried him oft’.”

“I resigned him to the care of his mother,”
said the girl; “but Avhen he no longer needs a
mother, he belongs to me. Oh, consider, M.
SaA’arin, for his sake I refused the most splendid
offers! When he sought me, I had my coup^
opera -box, my cachemires, my jeAvels. The
Russians — the English — vied for my smiles.
But I loved the man. I never loved before ; I
shall nev^er love again ; and after the sacrifices I
have made for him, nothing shall induce me to
give him iip. Tell me, I entreat, my dear M.
Savarin, where he is hiding. He has left the

THE PARISIANS.

203

parental roof, and they refused there to give me
his address.”

“ My poor girl, don’t be mechante. It is quite
true that Gustave Rameau is engaged to be
married; and any attempt of yours to create
scandal — ”

“Monsieur,” interrupted Julie, vehemently,
“ don’t talk to me about scandal! The man is
mine, and no one else shall have him. His
address ?”

“Mademoiselle,” cried Savarin, angrily, “find
it out for yourself.” Then, repentant of rude-
ness to one so young and desolate, he added, in
mild expostulatory accents, “Come, come, via
belle enfant, be reasonable ; Gustave is no loss.
He is reduced to poverty.”

“ So much the better. When he was well otF,
I never cost him more than a supper at the
Maison Doree; and if he is poor, he shall marry
me, and I will support him I”

“You!— and how ?”

“ By my profession when peace comes ; and
meanwhile I have ofters from a caf6 to recite
warlike songs. Ah ! you shake your head in-
credulously. The ballet-dancer recite verses?
Yes ! he taught me to recite his own Soyez bon
pour nioi. M. Savarin, do say where I can find
nion honime.'^

“No.”

“ That is your last word ?”

“It is.”

The girl drew her thin shawl round her and
hurried oft'. Savarin rejoined his friends. “ Is
that the way you console yourself for the absence
of madame ?” asked De Bi eze, dryly.

‘ ‘ Eie ! ” cried Savarin, indignantly ; ‘ ‘ such bad
jokes are ill-timed. What strange mixtures of
good and bad, of noble and base, every stratum
of Paris life contains ! There is that poor girl,
in one way contemptible, no doubt, and yet in
another way she has an element of grandeur.
On the whole, at Paris, the women, with all
their faults, are of finer mould than the men.”

“French gallantry has always admitted that
truth, ’’said Lemercier. “Fox, Fox, Fox !” Ut-
tering this cry, he darted forward after the dog,
who had strayed a few yards to salute another
dog led by a string, and caught the animal in
his arms. “Pardon me,” he exclaimed, return-
ing to his friends, “but there are so many snares
for dogs at present. They are just coming into
fashion for roasts, and Fox is so plump.”

“I thought,” said Savarin, “that it was re-
solved at all the sporting clubs that, be the pinch
of famine ever so keen, the friend of man should
not be eaten.”

“That was while the beef lasted; but since
we have to come to cats, who shall predict im-
munity to dogs ? Quid intacturn ne-faste liqui-
rnusf Nothing is sacred from the hand of ra-
pine.”

The church of the Madeleine now stood be-
fore them. Moblots were playing pitch-and-toss
on its steps.

“I don’t wish you to accompany me, mes-
sieurs,” said Lemercier, apologetically, “ but I
am going to enter the church.”

“ To pray ?” asked De Breze, in profound as-
tonishment.

“Not exactly; but I want to speak to my
friend Rochebriant, and I know I shall find him
there. ”

“Praying?” again asked De Breze.

“Yes.”

“That is curious — a young Parisian exquisite
at prayer — that is worth seeing. Let us enter
too, Savarin.”

They enter the church. It is filled, and
even the skeptical De Breze is impressed and
awed by the sight. An intense fervor pervades
the congregation. The majority, it is true, are
women, many of them in deep mourning, and
many of their faces mourning deeper than the
dress. Every where may be seen gushing tears,
and every where faintly heard the sound of sti-
fled sighs. Besides the women were men of all
ages — young, middle-aged, old, with heads bowed
and hands clasped, pale, grave, and earnest. Most
of them were evidently of a superior grade in life
— nobles, and the higher bourgeoisie : few of the
ouvrier class, very few, and these were of an ear-
lier generation. I except soldiers, of whom there
were many, from the provincial Mobiles, chiefly
Bretons ; you knew the Breton soldiers by the
little cross worn on their kepis.

Among them Lemercier at once distinguished
the noble countenance of Alain de Rochebriant.
De Breze and Savarin looked at each other with
solemn eyes. I know not when either had last
been within a church ; perhaps both were startled
to find that religion still existed in Paris — and
largely exist it does, though little seen on the
surface of society, little to be estimated by the
articles of journals and the report of foreigners.
Unhappily, those among whom it exists are not
the ruling class — are of the classes that are dom-
inated over and obscured in every country the
moment the populace becomes master. And at
that moment the journals chiefly read were war-
ring more against the Deity than the Prussians
— were denouncing soldiers who attended mass.
“The Gospel certainly makes a bad soldier,”
writes the patriot Pyat.

Lemercier knelt down quietly. The other
two men crept noiselessly out, and stood waiting
for him on the steps, watching the Moblots (Pa-
risian Moblots) at play.

“ I should not wait for the roturier if he had
not promised me a rotif said the Vicomte de
Bi eze, with a pitiful attempt at the patrician wit
of the ancien regime.

Savarin shrugged his shoulders. ‘ ‘ I am not
included in the invitation,” said he, “and there-
fore free to depart. I must go and look up a
former confrere who was an enthusiastic Red
Republican, and I fear does not get so much to
eat since he has no longer an Emperor to abuse.”

So Savarin went away. A few minutes after-
ward Lemercier emerged from the church with
Alain.

CHAPTER XIV.

“I KNEW I should find you in the Madeleine,”
said Lemercier, “and I wished much to know
when you had news from Duplessis. He and
your fair fiancee are, with your aunt, still staying
at Rochebriant ?”

“Certainly. A pigeon arrived this morning
with a few lines. All well there, ”

“And Duplessis thinks, despite the war, that
he shall be able, when the time comes, to pay
Louvier the mortgage sum ?”

204

THE PARISIANS.

“ He never doubts that. His credit in London
is so good. But of course all works of improve-
ment are stopped. ”

“ Pray, did he mention me ? — any thing about
the messenger who was to pierce the Prussian
lines ?”

“ What ! has the man not arrived ? It is two
weeks since he left, ”

“The Uhlans have no doubt shot him — the
assassins — and drunk up my 25,000 francs — the
thieves.”

“ I hope not. But, in case of delay, Duples-
sis tells me I am to remit to you 2000 francs for
your present wants. I will send them to you
this evening.”

“ How the deuce do you possess such a sum ?”

“I came from Brittany with a purse well filled.
Of course I could 'have no scruples in accepting
money from my destined father-in-law.”

‘ ‘ And you can spare this sum ?”

“ Certainly. The state now provides for me ;
I am in command of a Breton company. ”

“True. Come and dine with me and De
Breze.”

“Alas! I can not. I have to see both the
Vandemars before I return to the camp for the
night. And now — hush — come this way,” draw-
ing Frederic further from De Breze. “ I have
famous news for you. A sortie on a grand scale
is imminent ; in a few days we may hope for it. ”

“ I have heard that so often that I am incred-
ulous.”

“ Take it as a fact now.”

“What! Trochu has at last matured his
plan ?”

“He has changed its original design, which
was to cut through the Prussian lines to Rouen,
occupying there the richest country for supplies,
guarding the left bank of the Seine, and a wa-
ter-course to convoy them to Paris. The inci-
dents of war prevented that ; he has a better plan
now. The victory of the Army of the Loire at
Orleans opens a new enterprise. We shall cut
our way through the Prussians, join that army,
and with united forces fall on the enemy at the
rear. Keep this a secret as yet, but rejoice with
me that we shall prove to the invaders what men
who fight for their native soil can do under the
protection of Heaven.”

“Fox, Fox, mon cheri^’’' said Lemercier, as he
walked toward the Caf€ Riche with De Breze,
“thou shalt have a. festin de Balthazar under
the protection of Heaven.”

CHAPTER XV.

On leaving Lemercier and De Brezd, Savarin
regained the Boulevard, and pausing every now
and then to exchange a few words with ac-
quaintances— the acquaintances of the genial
author were numerous — turned into the quartier
Chaussee d’Antin, and gaining a small neat
house, with a richly ornamented facade, mount-
ed very clean, well-kept stairs to a third story.
On one of the doors on the landing-place was
nailed a card, inscribed, “Gustave Rameau,
homme de lettres.” Certainly it is not usual in
Paris thus to afficher one’s self as “a man of
letters.” But Genius scorns what is usual. Had
not Victor Hugo left in the hotel books on the

Rhine his designation, homme de lettresf' Did
not the heir to one of the loftiest houses in the
peerage of England, and who was also a first-
rate amateur in painting, inscribe on his studio,

when in Italy, , “ artiste Such examples,

no doubt, were familiar to Gustave Rameau, and
'‘'■homme de lettres' was on the scrap of paste-
board nailed to his door.

Savarin rang; the door opened, and Gustave
appeared. The poet was, of course, picturesque-
ly attired. In his day of fashion he had worn
within-doors a very pretty fanciful costume, de-
signed after portraits of the young Raphael ; that
costume he had preserved — he wore it now. It
looked very threadbare, and the pourpoint very
soiled. But the beauty of the poet’s face had
sumved the lustre of the garments. True, thanks
to absinthe, the cheeks had become somew'hat
puffy and bloated. Gray was distinctly visible
in the long ebon tresses. But still the beauty of
the face was of that rare type w'hich a Thorwald-
sen or a Gibson seeking a model for a Narcissus
w'ould have longed to fix into marble.

Gustave received his former chief with a cer-
tain air of resei'ved dignity; led him into his
chamber, only divided by a curtain from his ac-
commodation forwashing and slumber, and placed
him in an arm-chair beside a drowsy fire — fuel
had already become very dear.

“ Gustave,” said Savarin, “are you in a mood
favorable to a little serious talk ?”

“ Serious talk from M. Savarin is a novelty
too great not to command my profoundest in-
terest.”

“ Thank you — and to begin : I w^ho know the
world and mankind advise you, who do not, nev-
er to meet a man who wishes to do you a kind-
ness wdth an ungracious sarcasm. Irony is a
weapon I ought to be skilled in, but weapons are
used against enemies, and it is only a tyro who
flourishes his rapier in the face of his friends.”

“I was not aware that M. Savarin still per-
mitted me to regard him as a friend. ”

“Because I discharged the duties of friend —
remonstrated, advised, and warned. However,
let by-gones be by-gones. I entreated you not to
quit the safe shelter of the paternal roof. You
in.sisted on doing so. I entreated you not to send
to one of the most ferocious of the Red, or, rath-
er, the Communistic, journals articles veiy elo-
quent, no doubt, but which would most seriously
injure you in the eyes of quiet, orderly people,
and compromise your future literary career, for
the sake of a temporary flash in the pan during
a very evanescent period of revolutionary excite-
ment. You scorned my adjurations, but at all
events you had the grace not to append your true
name to those truculent effusions. In literature,
if literature revive in France, we two are hence-
forth separated. But I do not forego the friend-
ly interest I took in you in the days w'hen you
were so continually in my house. My wife, who
liked you so cordially, implored me to look after
you during her absence from Paris, and, enjin,
mon pauvre garfon, it w'ould grieve me veiy much
if, when she comes back, I had to say to her,
‘Gustave Rameau has thrown away the chance
of redemption and of happiness which you deem-
ed was secure to him.’ A Vceil 7nalade, la lumi-
&re nuit.”

So saying, he held out his hand kindly.

Gustave, who was far from deficient in affec-

THE PARISIANS.

£05

tionate or tender impulses, took the hand respect-
fully, and pressed it warmly.

“Forgive me if 1 have been ungracious, M.
Savarin, and vouchsafe to hear my explanation.”

“Willingly, mon gargon.''

“When 1 became convalescent, well enough
to leave my father’s house, there were circum-
stances which compelled me to do so. A young
man accustomed to the life of a gargon can’t be
always tied to his mother’s apron-strings.”

“Especially if the apron-pocket does not con-
tain a bottle of absinthe,” said Savarin, dryly.
“ You may well color and try to look angry ; but
I know that the doctor strictly forbade the use
of that deadly liqueur, and enjoined your mother
to keep strict watch on your liability to its temp-
tations. And hence one cause of your ennui un-
der the paternal roof. But if there you could
not imbibe absinthe, you were privileged to en-
joy a much diviner intoxication. There you
could have the foretaste of domestic bliss — the so-
ciety of the girl you loved, and who was pledged
to become your wife. Speak frankly. Did not
that society itself begin to be wearisome ?”

“No,” cried Gustave, eagerly, “it was not
wearisome, but — ”

“ Yes, but—”

“ But it could not be all-sufficing to a soul of
fire like mine.”

“ Hem !” murmured Savarin — “ a soul of fire !
This is very interesting; pray go on.”

“ The calm, cold, sister-like affection of a child-
ish, undeveloped nature, which knew no passion
except for art, and was really so little emanci-
pated from the nursery as to take for serious truth
all the old myths of religion — such companionship
may be very soothing and pleasant when one is ly-
ing on one’s sofa, and must live by rule ; but when j
one regains the vigor of youth and health — ”

“Do not pause,” said Savarin, gazing with
more compassion than envy on that melancholy
impersonation of youth and health. “When
one regains that vigor of which 1 myself have no !
recollection, what happens?”

“The thirst for excitement, the goads of am-
bition, the irresistible claims which the world
urges upon genius, return.”

“And that genius, finding itself at the north
pole amidst Cimmerian darkness in the atmos-
phere of a childish intellect — in other words, the
society of a pure-minded virgin, who, though a
good romance-writer, writes nothing but what a
virgin may read, and, thougli a bel esprit, says
lier prayers and goes to church — then genius —
well, pardon my ignorance — what does genius
do ?”

“ Oh, M. Savarin, M. Savarin ! don’t let us talk
any more. There is no sympathy between us.

I can not bear that bloodless, mocking, cynical
mode of dealing with grand emotions, which be-
longs to the generation of the Doctrinaires. I
am not a Thiers or a Guizot.”

“ Good Heavens! who ever accused 3^011 of be-
ing either ? I did not mean to be cynical. Ma-
demoiselle Cicogna has often said I am, but I did
; not think you would. Pardon me. I quite agree
; with the philosopher who asserted that the wis-
dom of the past was an imposture, that the mean-
est intellect now living is wiser than the great-
: est intellect which is buried in P^re la Chaise;

!' because the dwarf who follows the giant, when |
1 perched on the shoulders of the giant, sees far- 1
' P

ther than the giant ever could. Allez. I go
in for your generation. I abandon Guizot and
Thiers. Do condescend and explain to my dull
understanding, as the inferior mortal of a former
age, what are the grand emotions which impel a
soul of fire in your wiser generation. The thirst
ot excitement — what excitement? The goads of
ambition — whaf ambition ?”

“ A new social s\'stem is struggling from the
dissolving elements of the old one, as, in the fables
of priestcraft, the soul frees itself from the bod}'
which has become ripe for the grave. Of that
new system I aspire to be a champion — a leader.
Behold the excitement that allures me, the ambi-
tion that goads !”

“ Thank you,” said Savarin, meekly ; “lam
answered. I recognize the dwarf perched on
the back of the giant. Quitting these lofty
themes, I venture to address to }"ou now one
simple matter-of-fact question — How about Ma-
demoiselle Cicogna? Do you think you can in-
duce her to transplant herself to the new social
system, which I presume will abolish, among oth-
er obsolete myths, the institution of marriage ?”

‘ ‘ M. Savarin, your question offends me. The-
oretically I am opposed to the existing supersti-
tions that encumber the very simple principle b}'
which may be united two persons so long as they
desire the union, and separated so soon as the
union becomes distasteful to either. But I am
perfectl}" aware that such theories would revolt
a young lady like Mademoiselle Cicogna. I
have never even named them to her, and our en-
gagement holds good.”

“Engagement of marriage? No period for
the ceremony fixed ?”

“That is not my fault. I urged it on Isaura
with all earnestness before I left my father's
house.”

“That was long after the siege had begun.
Listen to me, Gustave. No persuasion of mine,
or my wife’s, or Mrs. Morley’s could induce
Isaura to quit Paris while it was yet time. She
said, very simply, that, having pledged her troth
and hand to you, it would be treason to honor and
dut}' if she should allow any considerations for
herself to be even discussed so long as you needed
her presence. You were then still suff'ering, and,
though convalescent, not without danger of a re-
lapse. And your mother said to her — I heard
the words — ‘ ’Tis not for his bodily health I
could dare to ask you to stay, when every man
who can afford it is sending away his wife, sis-
ters, daughters. As for that, I should suffice to
tend him ; but if you go, I resign all hope for
the health of his mind and his soul.’ I think
at Paris there may be female poets and artists
whom that sort of argument would not have
much influenced. But it so happens that Isaura
is not a Parisienne. She believes in those old
myths which you think fatal to svmpathies with
yourself ; and those old myths also lead her to
believe that where a woman has promised she
will devote her life to a man, she can not for-
sake him when told by his mother that she is
necessary to the health of his mind and his soul.
Stav. Before you interrupt me let me finish
what I have to say. It appears that, so soon as
your bodil}' health was improved, you felt that
your mind and your soul could take care of them-
selves ; and certainly it seems to me that Isaura
Cicogna is no longer of the smallest use to eitlier.”

20G

THE PARISIANS.

Rameau was evidently much disconcerted by
this speech. He saw what Savarin was driving
at — the renunciation of all bond between Isaura
and himself. He was not prepared for such re-
nunciation. He still felt for the Italian as much
of love as he could feel for any woman who did
not kneel at his feet, as at those of Apollo con-
descending to the homage of Arcadian maids.
Rut, on the one hand, he felt that many circum-
stances had occurred since the disaster at Sedan
to render Isaura a very much less desirable par-
tie than she had been when he had first wrung
from her the pledge of bethrothal. In the palmy
times of a government in which literature and
art commanded station and insured fortune Isau-
ra, whether as authoress or singer, was a brilliant
marriage for Gustave Rameau. She had also
then an assured and competent, if modest, in-
come. But when times change, people change
with them. As the income for the moment (and
Heaven only can say how long that moment
might last), Isaura’s income had disappeared.
It will be recollected that Louvier had invested
her whole fortune in the houses to be built in
the street called after his name. No houses, even
when built, paid any rent now. Louvier had
quitted Paris, and Isaura could only be subsist-
ing upon such small sum she might have had in
hand before the siege commenced. All career
in such literature and art as Isaura adorned was
at a dead stop. Now, to do Rameau justice, he
was by no means an avaricious or mercenary man.
But he yearned for modes of life to which mon-
ey was essential. He liked his “ comforts and
his comforts included the luxuries of elegance
and show— comforts not to be attained by mar-
riage with Isaura under existing circumstances.

Nevertheless it is quite true that he had urged
her to marry him at once before he had quitted
his father’s house; and her modest shrinking
from such proposal, however excellent the rea-
sons for delay in the national calamities of the
time, as well as the poverty which the calamity
threatened, had greatly wounded his amour pro-
pre. He had always felt that her affection for
him was not love; and though he could recon-
cile himself to that conviction when many solid
advantages were attached to the prize of her love,
and when he was ill and penitent and maudlin,
and the calm affection of a saint seemed to him
infinitely preferable to the vehement passion of a
sinner — yet when Isaura was only Isaura by her-
self— Isaura minus all the et ccetera which had
])reviously been taken into account — the want
of adoration for himself very much lessened her
value.

Still, though he acquiesced in the delayed ful-
fillment of the engagement with Isaura, he had
no thought of withdrawing from the engagement
itself, and after a slight pause he replied : “You
do me great injustice if you suppose that the oc-
cupations to which I devote myself render me
less sensible to the merits of Mademoiselle Cico-
gna, or less eager for our union. On the cen-
traiy, I will confide to you — as a man of the
world — one main reason why I quitted my fa-
ther’s house, and why I desire to keep my pres-
ent address a secret. Mademoiselle Caumar-
tin conceived for me a passion — a caprice —
which was very flattering for a time, but which
latterly became very troublesome. Figure to
yourself — she daily came to our house while I

was lying ill, and with the greatest difficulty my
mother got her out of it. That was not all. |<he
pestered me with letters containing all sorts of
threats — nay, actually kept watch at the house ;
and one day when I entered the carriage with my
mother and Signora Venosta for a drive in the
Bois (meaning to call for Isaura by the way), she
darted to the carriage door, caught my hand,
and would have made a scene if the coachman
had given her leave to do so. Luckily he had
the tact to whip on his horses, and we escaped.
I had some little difficulty in convincing the
Signora Venosta that the girl was crazed. But
I felt the danger I incurred of her coming upon
me some moment when in company with Isaura,
and so I left my father’s house; and naturally
wishing to steer clear of this vehement little de-
mon till I am safely married, I keep my ad-
dress a secret from all who are likely to tell her
of it.”

“Y'ou do wisely if you are really afraid of
her, and can not trust your nerves to say to her
plainly, ‘ I am engaged to be married ; all is at
an end between us. Do not force me to employ
the police to protect myself from unwelcome
importunities.’ ”

“Honestly speaking, I doubt if I have the
nerve to do that, and I doubt still more if it
would be of any avail. It is very ennuyant to
be so passionately loved ; but, que voulez votis ?
It is my fate.”

“ Poor martyr ! I condole with you : and to
say truth, it was chiefly to warn you of Made-
moiselle Caumartin's pertinacity that I called this
evening.”

Here Savarin related the particulars of his
rencontre Julie, and concluded by saying:
“I suppose I must take your word of honor that
you will firmly resist all temptation to renew a
connection which would be so incompatible with
the respect due to yowv fiancee f Fatherless and
protectorless as Isaura is, I feel bound to act as
a virtual guardian to one in whom my wife takes
so deep an interest, and to whom, as she thinks,
she had some hand in bringing about your en-
gagement : she is committed to no small respon-
sibilities, Do not allow poor Julie, whom 1 sin-
cerely pity, to force on me the unpleasant duty
of warning your fiancee of the dangers to which
she might be subjected by marriage with an
Adonis whose fate it is to be so profoundly be-
loved by the sex in general, and ballet nymphs
in particular.’’

“There is no chance of so disagreeable a duty
being incumbent on you, M. Savarin, Of course,
what 1 myself have told you in confidence is sa-
cred.”

“ Certainly. There are things in the life of a
garQon before marriage which would be an af-
front to the modesty of his fiancee to communi-
cate and discuss. But then those things must
belong exclusively to the past, .and cast no shad-
ow over the future. I will not interrupt you
further. No doubt you have work for the night
before you. Do the Red journalists for whom
you write p.ay enough to support you in these
terribly dear times ?”

“ Scarcely. But I look forward to wealth and
fame in the future. And you ?”

“I just escape starvation. If the siege last
much longer, it is not of the gout I shall die.
Good-night to you.”

THE PARISIANS.

207

CHAPTER XVI.

IsAURA had, as we have seen, been hitherto
saved by the siege and its consequences from the
fulfillment of her engagement to Gustave Ra-
meau ; and since he had quitted his father’s
house she had not only seen less of him, but a
certain chill crept into his converse in the visits
he paid to her. The compassionate feeling his
illness had excited, confirmed by the unwonted
gentleness of his mood, and the short-lived re-
morse with w'hich he spoke of his past faults and
follies, necessarily faded away in proportion as
he regained that kind of febrile strength which
was his normal state of health, and with it the
arrogant self-assertion which was ingrained in
his character. But it was now more than ever
that she became aware of the antagonism be-
tween all that constituted his inner life and her
own. It was not that he volunteered in her pres-
ence the express utterance of those opinions, so-
cial or religious, which he addressed to the pub-
lic in the truculent journal to which, under a nom
deplume^ he was the most inflammatory contrib-
utor. Whether it was that he shrank from in-
sulting the ears of the pure virgin whom he had
wooed as wife with avowals of his disdain of
marriage bonds, or perhaps from shocking yet
more her womanly hnmanity and her religious
faith by cries for the blood of anti-Republican
traitors and the downfall of Christian altars ; or
whether he yet clung, though with relapsing af-
fection, to the hold which her promise had im-
])osed on him, and felt that that hold would be
forever gone, and that she would recoil from his
side in terror and dismay, if she once learned
tliat the man who had implored her to be his
saving angel from the comparatively mild errors
of youth had so belied his assurance, so mocked
her credulity, as deliberately to enter into active
warfare against all that he knew her sentiments
regarded as noble and her conscience received
as divine — despite the suppression of avowed
doctrine on his part, the total want of sympathy
between these antagonistic natures made itself
felt by both — more promptly felt by Isaura. If
Gustave did not frankly announce to her in that
terrible time (when all that a little later broke
out on the side of the Communists was more or
less forcing ominous way to the lips of those who
talked with confidence to each other, whether
to approve or to condemn) the associates with
Avhom he was leagued, the path to which he had
committed his career — still for her instincts for
genuine Art — which for its development needs
the serenity of peace, which for its ideal needs
dreams that soar into the Infinite — Gustave had
only the scornful sneer of the man who identifies
with his ambition the violent upset of all that
civilization has established in this world, and the
blank negation of all that patient hope and he-
roic aspiration which humanity carries on into
the next.

On his side Gustave Rameau, who was not
without certain fine and delicate attributes in a
complicated nature over which the personal van-
ity and the mobile temperament of the Parisian
reigned supreme, chafed at the restraints im-
posed on him. No matter what a man’s doc-
trines may be — however abominable you and I
may deem them — man desires to find in the
dearest fellowship he can establish that sym-

pathy in the woman his choice singles out from
her sex — deference to his opinions, sympathy
with his objects, as man. So, too, Gustave’s
sense of honor — and according to his own Pa-
risian code that sense was keen — became exqui-
sitely stung by the thought that he was compelled
to play the part of a mean dissimulator to the
girl for whose opinions he had the profoundest
contempt. How could these two, betrothed to
each other, not feel, though without coming to
open dissension, that between them had flowed
the inlet of water by which they had been riven
asunder ? What man, if he can imagine him-
self a Gustave Rameau, can blame the revolu-
tionist absorbed in ambitious projects for turn-
ing the pyramid of society topsy-turvy, if he
shrank more and more from the companionship
of a betrothed with whom he could not venture
to exchange three words without caution and re-
serve ? And what woman can blame an Isaura
if she felt a sensation of relief at the very neglect
of the affianced whom she had compassionated
and could never love ?

Possibly the reader may best judge of the
state of Isaura’s mind at this time by a few brief
extracts from an imperfect fragmentary jour-
nal, in which, amidst saddened and lonely hours,
she held converse with herself.

“ One day, at Enghien, I listened silently to a
conversation between INI. Savarin and the En-
glishman, who sought to explain the conception
of duty in which the German poet has given such
noble utterance to the thoughts of the German
philosopher — viz., that moral aspiration has the
same goal as the artistic — the attainment to the
calm delight wherein the pain of effbrt disappears
in the content of achievement. Thus in life, as
in art, it is through discipline that we arrive at
freedom, and duty only completes itself when all
motives, all actions, are attuned into one harmo-
nious whole, and it is not striven for as duty, but
enjoyed as happiness. M, Savarin treated this
theory with the mockery with which the French
wit is ever apt to treat what it terms German
mysticism. According to him, duty must al-
ways be a hard and difficult struggle ; and he
said, laughingly, ‘Whenever a man says, “I
have done my duty,” it is with a long face and
a mournful sigh.’

“Ah, how devoutly I listened to the English-
man ! hQ,w harshly the Frenchman’s irony jarred
upon my ears ! And yet now, in the duty that
life imposes on me, to fulfill which I strain every
power vouchsafed to my nature, and seek to
crush down every impulse that rebels, where is
the promised calm, where any approacli to the
content of achievement ? Contemplating the
way before me, the Beautiful even of Art has
vanished. I see but cloud and desert. Can this
which I assume to be duty really be so? Ah,
is it not sin even to ask my heart that question ?

♦ * ♦ ♦ * ♦

‘ ‘ Madame Rameau is very angry with her son
for his neglect both of his parents and of me. I
have had to take his part against her. I would
not have him lose their love. Poor Gustave!
But when Madame Rameau suddenly said to-
day, ‘ I erred in seeking the union between thee
and Gustave. Retract thy promise ; in doing so
thou wilt be justified’ — oh, the strange joy that
flashed upon me as she spoke ! Am I justified ?

208

THE PARISIANS.

Am I? Oh, if that Englishman had never cross-
ed my path ! Oh, if 1 had never loved ! or if in
the last time we met he had not asked for my
love, and confessed his own ! Then, I think, I
could honestly reconcile my conscience with my
longings, and say to Gustave, ‘ We do not suit
each other; be we both released!’ But now —
is it that Gustave is really changed from what
he was, when in despondence at my own lot, and
in pitying belief that I might brighten and exalt
his, 1 plighted my troth to him? or is it not
rather that the choice I thus voluntarily made
became so intolerable a thought the moment 1
knew I was beloved and sought by another, and
from that moment I lost the strength I had be-
fore— strength to silence the voice at my own
heart? What! is it the image of that other one
which is persuading me to be false — to exag-
gerate the failings, to be blind to the merits, of
him who lias a right to say, ‘ I am what I was
when thou didst pledge thyself to take me for
better or for worse ?’

“Gustave has been here aftei' an absence of
several days. He was not alone. The good
Abbe Vertpre and Madame de Vandemar, with
lier son, M. Raoul, Avere present. They had
come on matters connected with our ambulance.
'L'liey do not know of my engagement to Gus-
tave; and seeing him in the uniform of a Na-
tional Guard, the Abbe courteously addressed
to him some questions as to the possibility of
checking the terrible increase of the vice of in-
toxication, so alien till of late to the habits of
the Parisians, and becoming fatal to discipline
and bodily endurance — could the number of the
cantines on the ramparts be more limited? Gus-
tave answered, with mdeness and bitter sarcasm,
‘ Before priests could be critics in military mat-
ters they must undertake militaiy service them-
selves. ’

“ The Abbe replied, with unalterable good hu-
mor, ‘ But in order to criticise the effects of
drunkenness, must one get drunk one’s self?’
Gustave was put out, and retired into a corner
of the room, keeping sullen silence till my other
visitors left.

“ Then, before I could myself express the pain
his words and manner had given me, he said, ab-
l uptly, ‘ I wonder how you can tolerate the tar-
fuferie which may arouse on the comic stage,
but in the tragedy of these times is revolting.’
'riiis speech roused my anger, and the conversa-
tion that ensued was the gravest that had ever
passed between us.

“If Gustave were of stronger nature and more
concentrated will, I believe that the only feelings
I should have for him would be antipathy and
dread. But it is his very weaknesses and in-
consistencies that secure to him a certain ten-
derness of interest. I think he could never be
judged without great indulgence by women ;
there is in him so much of the child — wayward,
irritating at one moment, and the next penitent,
affectionate. One feels as if persistence in evil
were impossible to one so delicate both in mind
and form. That peculiar order of genius to
which he belongs seems as if it ought to be so
estranged from all directions, violent or coarse.
AVhen in poetry he seeks to utter some audacious
and defying sentiment, the substance melts away
in daintiness of expression, in soft, lute -like

strains of slender music. And when he has
stung, angered, revolted my heart the most,
suddenly he subsides into such pathetic gentle-
ness, such tearful remorse, that I feel as if re-
sentment to one so helpless, desertion of one
who must fall without the support of a friendly
hand, were a selfish cruelty. It seems to me
as if I were dragged toward a precipice by a sick-
ly child clinging to my robe.

“But in this last conversation Avith him his
language in regard to subjects I hold most sa-
cred drcAv forth from me words Avhich startled
him, and Avhich may avail to saA'e him from that
Avorst insanity of human minds — the mimicry of
the Titans Avho Avould have dethroned a God to
restore a Chaos. I told him frankly that I had
only promised to share his fate on my faith in
his assurance of my poAver to guide it heaven-
Avard, and that if the opinions he announced
Avere seriously entertained, and put forth in de-
fiance of. heaven itself, we Avere separated for-
ever. I told him hoAv earnestly, in the calami-
ties of the time, my OAvn soul had sought to take
refuge in thoughts and hopes beyond the earth,
and hoAv deeply many a sentiment that in former
days passed by me Avith a smile in the light talk
of the salons noAv shocked me as an outrage on
the reverence Avhich the mortal child OAves to the
Divine Father. I OAvned to him hoAv much of
comfort, of sustainment, of thought and aspira-
tion, elevated beyond the sphere of Art in Avhich
I had hitherto sought the purest air, the loftiest
goal, I owed to intercourse with minds like that
of the Abbe de Vertpre, and hoAv painfully 1
felt, as if I Avere guilty of ingratitude, when he
compelled me to listen to insults on those Avhom
1 recognized as benefactors.

“ I Avished to speak sternly ; but it is my great
misfortune, my prevalent Aveakness, that I can
not be stern Avhen I ought to be. It is with me
in life as in art. I never could on the stage
haA-e taken the part of a Norma or a Medea. If
I attempt in fiction a character which deserves
condemnation, I am untrue to poetic justice. I
can not condemn and execute; 1 can but com-
passionate and pardon the creature I myself have
created. I aa'us never in the real Avorld stern but
to one ; and then, alas ! it AA-as because I loA-ed
Avhere I could no longer love Avith honor, and I,
knoAving my Aveakness, had terror lest I should
yield.

“So Gustave did not comprehend from my
voice, my manner, hoAv gravely I Avas in earnest.
But, himself softened, affected to tears, he con-
fessed his OAvn faults — ceased to argue in order to
praise; and — and — uttering protestations seem-
ingly the most sincere, he left me bound to him
still — bound to him still. Woe is me !”

It is true that Isaura had come more directly
under the influence of religion than she had been
in the earlier dates of this narrative. There is a
time in the lives of most of us, and especially in
the liA'es of women, Avhen, despondent of all joy
in an earthly future, and tortured by conflicts be-
tAveen inclination and duty, Ave transfer all the
passion and fervor of our troubled souls to enthu-
siastic yearnings for the Divine Love — seeking to
rebaptize ourselves in the fountain of its mercy,
taking thence the only hopes that can cheer, the
only strength that can sustain us. Such a time
had come to Isaura. Formerly she had escaped

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209

from the griefs of the work-day world int6 the
garden-land of Art. Now Art had grown un-
welcome to her, almost hateful. Gone was the
spell from the garden-land ; its flowers were fad-
ed, its paths were stony, its sunshine had van-
ished in mist and rain. There are two voices
of Nature in the soul of the genuine artist —
tliat is, of him who, because he can create,
comprehends the necessity of the great Creator,
'fiiose voices are never both silent. When one
is hushed, the other becomes distinctly audible.
The one speaks to him of Art, the other of Re-
ligion.

At that period several societies for the relief
and tendance of the wounded had been formed
by the women of Paris — the earliest, if I mis-
take not, by ladies of the highest rank — among
whom were the Comtesse de Vandemar and the
Contessa di Rimini — though it necessarily in-
cluded others of station less elevated. To this
society, at the request of Alain de Rochebriant
and of Enguerrand, Isaura had eagerly attached
lierself. It occupied much of her time ; and in
connection with it she was brought much into
sympathetic acquaintance with Raoul de Van-
demar, the most zealous and active member of
that society of St. Francois de Sales, to which
belonged other young nobles of the Legitimist
creed. The passion of Raoul’s life was the re-
lief of human suflering. In him was personified
the ideal of Christian charity. I think all, or
most of us, have known what it is to pass under
the influence of a nature that is so far akin to
ours that it desires to become something better
and higlier than it is — that desire being para-
mount in ourselves — but seeks to be that some-
thing in ways not akin to, but remote from, the
ways in which we seek it. When this contact
happens, either one nature, by the mere force
of will, subjugates and absorbs the other, or
both, while preserving their own individuality,
apart and independent, enrich themselves by mu-
tual interchange ; and the asperities which differ-
ences of taste and sentiment in detail might oth-
erwise provoke melt in the sympathy which unites
spirits striving with equal earnestness to rise near-
er to the unseen and unattainable Source, which
they equally recognize as Divine,

Perhaps, had these two persons met a year
ago in the ordinary intercourse of the world,
neither would have detected the sympathy of
which I speak. Raoul was not without the prej-
udice against artists and writers of romance that
are shared by many who cherish the persuasion
that all is vanity which does not concentrate im-
agination and intellect in the destinies of the soul
liereafter, and Isaura might have excited his
compassion, certainly not his reverence ; while
to her his views on all that seeks to render the
actual life attractive and embellished, through
the accomplishments of Muse and Grace, would
have seemed the narrow-minded asceticism of a
bigot. But now, amidst the direful calamities
of the time, the beauty of both natures became
visible to each. To the eyes of Isaura tender-
ness became predominant in the monastic self-
denial of Raoul. To the eyes of Raoul devotion
became predominant in the gentle thoughtfulness
of Isaura. Their intercourse was in ambulance
and hospital — in care for the wounded, in prayer
for the dying. Ah ! it is easy to declaim against
the frivolities and vices of Parisian society as it

appears on the surface ; and in revolutionary
times it is the very worst of Paris that ascends
in scum to the top. But descend below the sur-
face, even in that demoralizing suspense of order,
and nowhere on earth might the angel have be-
held the image of humanity more amply vindi-
cating its claim to the heritage of heaven.

CHAPTER XVII.

The warning announcement of some great ef-
fort on the part of the besieged which Alain had
given to Lemercier was soon to be fulfilled.

For some days the principal thoroughfares
were ominously lined with military convois. The
loungers on the Boulevards stopped to gaze on
the long defiles of troops and cannon, commis-
sariat conveyances, and — saddening accompani-
ments ! — the vehicles of various ambulances for
the removal of the wounded. Witli what glee the
loungers said to each other, Enjin!" Among
all the troops that Paris sent forth none were so
popular as those which Paris had not nurtured —
the sailors. From the moment they arrived the
sailors had been the pets of the capital. They
soon proved themselves the most notable con-
trast to that force which Paris herself had pro-
duced— the National Guard. Their frames were
hardy, their habits active, their discipline per-
fect, their manners mild and polite. “Oh, if all
our troops were like these ! ” was the common
exclamation of the Parisians.

At last burst forth upon Paris the proclama-
tions of General Trochu and General Ducrot ;
the first brief, calm, and Breton -like, ending
with “Putting our trust in God, March on
for our country!” the second more detailed,
more candidly stating obstacles and difficulties,
but fiery with eloquent enthusiasm, not unsup-
ported by military statistics, in the 400 cannon,
two-thirds of which were of the largest calibre,
that no material object could resist ; more than
150,000 soldiers, all well armed, well equipped,
abundantly provided with munitions, and all
(.7’eu ai T espoir) animated by an irresistible ar-
dor. “For me,” concludes the general, “I am
resolved. I swear before you, before the whole
nation, that I will not re-enter Paris except as
dead or victorious. ”

At these proclamations who then at Paris does
not recall the burst of enthusiasm that stirred the
surface ? Trochu became once more popular ;
even the Communistic or atheistic journals re-
frained from complaining that he attended mass,
and invited his countrymen to trust in a God.
Ducrot was more than popular — he was adored.

The several companies in which De Mauleon
and Enguerrand served departed toward their
post early on the same morning, that of the 28th,
All the previous night, while Enguerrand was
buried in profound slumber, Raoul remained in
his brother’s room ; sometimes on his knees be-
fore the ivory crucifix, which had been their
mother’s last birthday gift to her youngest son —
sometimes seated beside the bed in profound and
devout meditation. At daybreak Madame de
Vandemar stole into the chamber. Unconscious
of his brother’s watch, he had asked her to wake
him in good time, for the young man was a sound
sleeper. Shading the candle she bore with one

210

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hand, with the other she drew aside the curtain,
and looked at Enguerrand’s calm, fair face, its
lips parted in the liappy smile which seemed to
carry joy with it wherever its sunshine played.
Her tears fell noiselessly on her darling’s cheek ;
she then knelt down and prayed for strength.
As she rose she felt Raoul’s arm around her;
they looked at eacli other in silence ; then she
bowed her head, and wakened Enguerrand with
her lips. “Pas de querelle, vies aviis," he mur-
mured, opening his sweet blue eyes drowsily.
“Ah, it was a dream! I thought Jules and
Emile” (two young friends of his) “were worry-
ing each other ; and you know, dear Raoul, that
I am the most officious of peace-makers. Time
to rise, is it? No peace-making to-day. Kiss
me again, mother, and say, ‘ Bless thee.’ ”

“Bless thee, bless thee, my child,” cried the
mother, wrapjjing her arms passionately round
him, and in tones choked with sobs.

“Now leave me, war/iaw,” said Enguerrand,
resorting to the infantine ordinary name, which
he had not used for years. — “ Raoul, stay and
help me to dress. I must be tres beau to-day.
— I shall join thee at breakfast, mavian. Early
for such repast, but Vappeiit vient en mangeant.
Mind the coffee is hot.”

Enguerrand, always careful of each detail of
dress, was especially so that morning, and espe-
cialK gay, humming the old air, Partant pour la
Syrie. But his gayety was checked when Raoul,
taking from his breast a holy talisman, which he
habitually wore there, suspended it with loving
hands round his brother’s neck. It was a small
crystal set in Byzantine filigree ; imbedded in it
was a small splinter of wood, said, by pious tra-
dition, to be a relic of the Divine Cross. It had
been for centuries in the family of the Contessa di
Rimini, and was given by lier to Raoul, the only
gift she had ever made him, as an emblem of the
sinless ])urity of the affection that united those
two souls in the bonds of the beautiful belief.

“ She bade me transfer it to thee to-day, my
brother,” said Raoul, simply ; ‘ ‘ and now without
a pang I can gird on thee thy soldier’s sword.”

Enguerrand clasped his brother in his arms,
and kissed. him with passionate fervor. “Oh,
Raoul, how I love thee I how good thou hast
ever been to me ! how many sins thou hast saved
me from ! how indulgent thou hast been to those
from which thou couldst not save 1 Think on
that, my brother, in case we do not meet again
on earth.”

“ Hush, hush, Enguerrand I No gloomy fore-
bodings now ! Come — come hither, ray half of
life, my sunny half of life !” And uttering these
words, he led Enguerrand toward the crucifix,
and there, in deep and more solemn voice, said,
“Let us pray.” So the brothers knelt side by
side, and Raoul prayed aloud as only such souls
can pray.

When they descended into the salon where
breakfast was set out, they found assembled sev-
eral of their relations, and some of Enguerrand’s
young friends not engaged in the sortie. One
or two of the latter, indeed, were disabled from
fighting by wounds in former fields ; they left
their sick-beds to bid him good-by. Unspeaka-
ble was the affection this genial nature inspired
in all who came into the circle of its winning
magic ; and when, tearing himself from them,
he descended the stair, and passed with light

step' through the porte cochere, there was a crowd
around the house — so widely had his popularity
spread among even the lower classes, from which
the Mobiles in his regiment were chiefly com-
posed. He departed to the place of rendezvous
amidst a chorus of exhilarating cheers.

Not thus lovingly tended on, not thus cordial-
ly greeted, was that equal idol of a former gen-
eration, Victor de Mauleon. No pious friend
prayed beside his couch, no loving kiss waked
him from his slumbers. At the gray of the No-
vember dawn he rose from a sleep which had no
smiling dreams, with that mysterious instinct of
punctual will which can not even go to sleeji
without fixing beforehand the exact moment in
which sleep shall end.* He, too, like Enguer-
rand, dressed himself with care — unlike Enguer-
rand, with care strictly soldier-like. Then, see-
ing he had some little time yet before him, he
rapidly revisited pigeon-holes and drawers, in
which might be found by prying eyes any thing
he would deny to their curiosity. All that he
found of this sort were some letters in female
handwriting, tied together with faded ribbon, rel-
ics of early days, and treasured throughout later
vicissitudes ; letters from the English girl to
whom he had briefly referred in his confession
to Louvier — the only girl he had ever wooed as
his wife. She was the only daughter of high-
born Roman Catholics, residing at the time of
his youth in Paris. Reluctantly they had as-
sented to his proposals ; joyfully they had re-
tracted their assent when his affairs had become
so involved ; yet possibly the motive that led him
to his most ruinous excesses — the gambling of the
turf — had been caused by the wild hope of a na-
ture, then fatally sanguine, to retrieve the fortune
that might suffice to satisfy the parents. But
during his permitted courtship the lovers had
corresponded. Her letters were full of warm,
if innocent, tenderness — till came the last cold
farewell. The family had long ago returned to
England ; he concluded, of course, that she had
married anotlier.

Near to these letters lay the papers which had
served to vindicate his honor in that old affair,
in which the unsought love of another had brought
on him shame and affliction. As his eye fell on
the last, he muttered to himself: “I kept tlies^
to clear niy repute. Can I keep those, when, if
found, they might compromise the repute of her
who might have been my wife had 1 been worthy
of her? She is doubtless now another’s; or,
if dead — honor never dies.” He pressed his lips
to the letters with a passionate, lingering, mourn-
ful kiss; then raking up the ashes of yester-
day’s fire, and rekindling them, he placed thereon
those leaves of a melancholy romance in his past,
and watched them slowly, reluctantly smoulder
away into tinder. Then he opened a drawer in
which lay the only paper of a political character
which he had preserved. All that related to
plots or conspiracies in which his agency had
committed others it was his habit to destroy as
soon as received. For the sole document thus
treasured he alone was responsible ; it was an
outline of his ideal for the future constitution of
France, accompanied with elaborate arguments,
the hea<ls of which his conversation with the In-
cognito made known to the reader. Of the
soundness of tliis political programme, whatever
its meiits or faults (a question on which I pre-

THE PARISIANS.

211

sume no judgment), he had an intense convic-
tion. He glanced rapidly over its contents, did
not alter a word, sealed it up in an envelope, in-
scribed, “ My Legacy to my Countrymen. ” The
papers refuting a calumny relating solely to him-
self he carried into the battle-field, ])laced next
to his heart — significant of a Frenchman’s love
of honor in this world — as the relic placed round
the neck of Enguerrand by his pious brother was
emblematic of the Christian hope of mercy in the
next.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The streets swarmed with the populace gaz-
ing on the troops as they passed to their destina-
tion. Among those of the Mobiles who especially
caught the eye were two companies in which En-
guerrand de Vandemar and Victor de Mauleon
commanded. In the first were many young men
of good family, or in the higher ranks of the
hourgeoisie,^\\o\\n to numerous lookers-on ; there
was something inspiriting in their gay aspects,
and in the easy carelessness of their march.
Mixed with this company, however, and form-
ing of course the bulk of it, were those avIio be-
longed to* the lower classes of the population ;
and though they too might seem gay to an or-
dinaiy observer, the gayety was forced. Many
of them were evidently not quite sober; and
there was a disorderly want of soldiership in
their mien and armament which inspired distrust
among such vieux moustaches as, too old for oth-
er service than that of the ramparts, mixed here
and there among the crowd.

But when De Mauleon’s company passed, the
vieux moustaches impulsively touched each oth-
er. They recognized the march of well-drilled
men, the countenances grave and severe, the
eyes not looking on this side and that for admira-
tion, the step regularly timed, and conspicuous
among these men the tall stature and calm front
of the leader.

“These fellows will fight well,” growled a
vieux moustache. “ Where did they fish out their
leader ?”

“ Don’t you know ?” said a bourgeois. “ Vic-
tor de Mauleon. He won the cross in Algeria
for bravery. I recollect him when I was very
young ; the very devil for women and fight-
ing.”

“I wish there were more such devils for fight-
ing and fewer for women,” growled again le
vieux moustache

One incessant roar of cannon all the night of
the 29th. The populace had learned the names
of the French cannons, and fancied they could
distinguish the several sounds of their thunder.
“There spits ‘Josephine!’” shouts an invalid
sailor. “There howls our own ‘Populace!’”*
cries a Red Republican from Belleville. “ There
sings ‘Le Chatiment!’” laughed Gustave Ra-
meau, who was now become an enthusiastic ad-
mirer of the Victor Hugo he had before affected
to despise. And all the while, mingled with the
roar of the cannon, came, fiir and near, from the
streets, from the ramparts, the gusts of song —
song sometimes heroic, sometimes obscene, more

* The “ Populace” had been contributed to the artil-
lery, sou d sou, by the working class.

often carelessly joyous. The news of General
Vinoy’s success during the early part of the day
had been damped by the evening report of Du-
crot’s delay in crossing the swollen Marne. But
the spirits of the Parisians rallied from a moment-
ary depression on the excitement at night of that
concert of martial music.

During that night, close under the guns of the
double redoubt of Gravelle and La Faisanderie,
eight pontoon - bridges were thrown over the
Marne ; and at daybreak the first column of the
third army under Blanchard and Renoult crossed
with all their artillery, and, covered by the fire
of the double redoubts, of the forts of Vincennes,
Nogent, Rossney, and the batteries of Mont Av-
ron, had an hour before noon carried the village
of Champigny, and the first echelon of the im-
portant plateau of Villiers, and were already
commencing the work of intrenchment, when,
rallying from the amaze of a defeat, the Ger-
man forces burst upon them, sustained by fresh
batteries. The Prussian pieces of artillery estab-
lished at Chennevieres and at Neuilly opened fire
with deadly execution ; while a numerous infan-
try, descending from the intrenchments of Vil-
liers, charged upon the troops under Renoult.
Among the French in that strife were Enguer-
rand and the Mobiles of which he was in com-
mand. Dismayed by the unexpected fire, these
Mobiles gave way, as indeed did many of the line.
Enguerrand rushed forward to the front — “On,
mes enfans, on ! What will our mothers and
wives say of us if we fly ? Vive la France !
On !” Among those of the better class in that
company there rose a shout of applause, but it
found no sympathy among the rest. They wa-
vered ; they turned. “ Will you suffer me to go
on alone, countrymen ?” cried Enguerrand ; and
alone he rushed on toward the Prussian line —
rushed, and fell, mortally wounded by a musket-
ball. “Revenge! revenge!” shouted some of
the foremost ; “ Revenge !” shouted those in the
rear ; and, so shouting, turned on their heels and
fled. But ere they could disperse they encount-
ered the march, steadfast though rapid, of the
troop led by Victor de Mauleon. “ Poltroons!”
he thundered, with the sonorous depth of his
strong voice, “halt and turn, or my men shall
fire on you as deserters.”

“ Fd, citoyen," said one fugitive, an officer —
populary elected, because he was the loudest
brawler in the club of the Salle Favre — we have
seen him before — Charles, the brother of Ar-
mand Monnier — “ men can’t fight when they de-
spise their generals. It is our generals who are
poltroons and fools both.”

‘ ‘ Carry my answer to the ghosts of cowards ! ”
cried De Mauleon, and shot the man dead.

His followers, startled and cowed by the deed,
and the voice and the look of the death-giver,
halted. The officers, who had at first yielded to
the panic of their men, took fresh courage, and
finally led the bulk of the troop back to their post

enlev^s a la haiionette," to use the phrase of a
candid historian of that day.

Day, on the whole, not inglorious to France.
It was the first, if it was the last, really impor-
tant success of the besieged. They remained
masters of the ground, the Prussians leaving to
them the wounded and the dead.

That night what crowds thronged from Paris
to the top of the Montmartre heights, from the

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observatory on which the celebrated inventor
Bazin had lighted up, with some magical elec-
tric machine, all the plain of Gennevilliers, from
Mont Valerien to the Fort de la Briche ! The
si)lendor of the blaze wrapped the great city ;
distinctly above the roofs of the houses soared
the Dome des Invalides, the spires of Notre
Dame, the giant turrets of the Tuileries — and
died away on resting on the infames scapulas
Acroceraunia, the “ thunder crags” of the heights
occupied by the invading army.

Lemercier, De Breze, and the elder Rameau —
who, despite his peaceful habits and gray hairs,
insisted on joining in the aid of la patrie — w'ere
among the National Guards attached to the Fort
de la Briche and the neighboring eminence, and
they met in conversation.

“What a victory we have had!” said the old
Rameau.

“ Rather mortifying to your son, M. Rameau,”,
said Lemercier.

“Mortifying to my son. Sir! — the victory of
his countrymen ! What do you mean ?”

“I had the honor to hear M. Gustave the oth-
er night at the club de la Vengeance.”

“ Bon Dieu! do you frequent those tragic re-
unions ?” asked De Breze.

“They are not at all tragic : they are the only |
comedies left us, as one must amuse one’s self
somewhere, and the club de la Vengeance is the
prettiest thing of the sort going. I quite under-
stand why it should fascinate a poet like your
son, M. Rameau. It is held in a salle de cafe
chantant — style Louis Quinze — decorated with a
pastoral scene from Watteau. I and my dog
Fox drop in. We hear your sou haranguing.
In what poetical sentences he despaired of the
republic! The government (he called them les
charlatans de V Hotel de Ville) were imbeciles.
They pretended to inaugurate a revolution, and
did not employ the most obvious of revolutionary
means. There Fox and I pricked up our ears :
what were those means ? Your son proceeded to
explain : ‘All mankind were to be appealed to
against individual interests. The commerce of
luxury was to be abolished : clearly luxury was
not at the command of all mankind. Cafes and
theatres were to be closed forever — all mankind
could not go to cafes and theatres. It was idle
to expect the masses to combine for any thing in
which the masses had not an interest in common.
The masses had no interest in any property that
did not belong to the masses. Programmes of
the society to be founded, called the Ligue Cos-
mopolite jD^mocratique, should be sent at once
into all the states of the civilized world — how?
by balloons. Money corrupts the world as now*
composed ; but the money at the command of
the masses could buy all the monarchs and court-
iers and priests of the universe.’ At that senti-
ment, vehemently delivered, the applauses w-ere
frantic, and Fox in his excitement began to bark.
At the sound of his bark one man cried out,
‘That’s a Prussian!’ another, ‘Dowm with the
spy !’ another, ‘ There’s an aristo present — he
keeps alive a dog which would be a week’s meal
for a family !’ I snatch up Fox at the last cry,
and clasp him to a bosom protected by the uni-
form of the National Guard.

“When the hubbub had subsided, your son,
M, Rameau, proceeded, quitting mankind in gen-
eral, and arriving at the question in particular

most interesting to his audience — the mobiliza-
tion of the National Guard ; that is, the call upon
men who like talking and hate fighting to talk
less and fight more. ‘ It was the sheerest tyr-
anny to select a certain number of free citizens
to be butchered. If the fight w'as for the mass,
there ought to be la levee en masse. If one did
not compel every body to fight, why should any
body fight ?’ Here the applause again became
vehement, and Fox again became indiscreet. 1
subdued Fox’s bark into a squeak by pulling his
ears. ‘ What !’ cries your poet-son, ‘ la levee en
masse gives us fifteen millions of soldiers, with
which we could crush not Prussia alone, but the
Avhole of Europe.’ (Immense sensation.) ‘Let
us, then, resolve that the charlatans of the Hotel
de Ville are incapable of delivering us from the
Prussians ; that they are deposed ; that the Ligtie
of the Democratie Cosmopolite is installed ; that
meanwhile the Commune shall be voted the pro-
visional government, and shall order the Prus-
sians to retire within three days from the soil of
Paris.’

“ Pardon me thi§ long description my dear
M. Rameau ; but I trust I have satisfactorily
explained why victory obtained in the teeth of
his eloquent opinions, if gratifying to him as a
Frenchman, must be mortifying to him as a pol-
itician.”

The old Rameau sighed, hung his head, and
crept away.

While, amidst this holiday illumination, the
Parisians enjoyed the panorama before them, the
Freres Chretiens the attendants of the various
ambulances were moving along the battle-plains ;
the first in their large-brimmed hats and sable
garbs, the last in strange motley costume, many
of them in glittering uniform — all alike in their
serene indifference to danger, often pausing to
pick up among the dead their own brethren who
had been slaughtered in the midst of their task.
Now and then they came on sinister forms appar-
ently engaged in the same duty of tending the
wounded and dead, but in truth murderous plun-
derers, to whom the dead and the dying were
equal harvests. Did the wounded man attempt
to resist the foul hands searching for their spoil,
they added another wound more immediately
mortal, grinning as they completed on the dead
the robbery they had commenced on the dying.

Raoul de Vandemar had been all the earlier
part of the day with the assistants of the ambu-
lance over which he presided, attached to the
battalions of the National Guard in a quarter re-
mote from that in which his brother had fought
and fallen. When those troops, later in the day,
were driven from the Montmedy plateau, which
they had at first carried, Raoul repassed toward
the plateau at Villiers, on which the dead lay
thickest. On the way he heard a vague report
of the panic which had dispersed the Mobiles of
whom Enguerrand was in command, and of En-
guerrand’s vain attempt to inspirit them. But
his fate was not known.

There, at midnight, Raoul is still searching
among the ghastly heaps and pools of blood,
lighted from afar by the blaze from the observa-
tory of Montmartre, and more near at hand by
the bivouac fires extended along the banks to the
left of the Marne, while every where about the
field flitted the lanterns of the Freres Chretiens.
Suddenly, in the dimness of a spot cast into shad-

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HE SPKAI^G FORWARD AND SEIZED A 1IIDEOD8-LOOKINO ITROIIIN, 60AR0EEY TWELVE YEARS OLD, WHO HELD IN ONE HAND A
SMALL CRYSTAL LOOKET, SET IN FILIGREE GOLD, TORN FROM THE SOLDIER’S BREAST, AND LIFTED HIGH IN THE OTHER A I.ONG
CASE-KNIFE.

THE PAlilSIANS.

o\v by an incompleted earth-work, he observed a
small sinister figure perched on the breast of some
wounded soldier, evidently not to succor. He
sprang forward and seized a hideous-looking ur-
chin, scarcely twelve years old, who held in one
hand a small crystal locket, set in filigree gold,
torn from the soldier’s breast, and lifted high in
the other a long case-knife. At a glance Raoul
recognized the holy relic he had given to Enguei*-
rand, and, flinging the precocious murderer to be
seized by his assistants, he cast himself beside
his brother. Enguerrand still breathed, and his
languid eyes brightened as he knew the dear fa-
miliar face. He tried to speak, but his voice
failed, and he shook his head sadly, but still
with a faint smile on his lips. They lifted him

213

tenderly, and placed him on a litter. The move-
ment, gentle as it was, brought back pain, and
with the pain strength to mutter, “ My mother —
I would see her once more.”

As at daybreak the loungers on Montmartre
and the ramparts descended into the streets —
most windows in which were open, as they had
been all night, with anxious female faces peering
palely down — they saw the conveyances of the
ambulances coming dismally along, and many an
eye turned wistfully toward the litter on which
lay the idol of the pleasure-loving Paris, with the
dark, bare-headed figure walking beside it — on-
ward, onward, till it reached the Hotel de Van-
demar, and a woman’s cry was heard at the en-
trance— the mother’s cry — “My son! my son!”

BOOK TWELF.TH.

CHAPTER I.

The last book closed with the success of the
Parisian sortie on the 30th of November, to be
followed by the terrible engagements, no less
honorable to French valor, on the 2d of Decem-
ber. There was the sanguine belief that deliver-
ance was at hand; that Trochu would break
through the circle of iron, and effect that junc-
tion with the army of Aurelles de Paladine which
would compel the Germans to raise the invest-
ment— belief rudely shaken by Ducrot’s procla-
mation of the 4th, to explain the recrossing of
the Marne, and the abandonment of the positions
conquered, but not altogether dispelled till Von
Moltke’s letter to Trochu, on the 5th, announ-
cing the defeat of the Army of the Loire and the
recapture of Orleans. Even then the Parisians
did not lose hope of succor ; and even after the
desperate and fruitless sortie against Le Bour-
get, on the 21st, it was not without witticisms
on defeat and predictions of triumph that Winter
and Famine settled sullenly on the city. '

Our narrative re-opens with the last period of
the siege.

It was during these dreadful days that if the
vilest and the most hideous aspects of the Pa-
risian population showed themselves at the worst,
so all its loveliest, its noblest, its holiest char-
acteristics— unnoticed by ordinary observers in
the prosperous days of the capital — became con-
spicuously prominent. The higher classes, in-
cluding the remnant of the old noblesse, had dur-
ing the whole siege exhibited qualities in notable
contrast to those assigned them by the enemies
of aristocracy. Their sons had been foremost
among those soldiers who never calumniated a
leader, never fled before a foe ; their women had
been among the most zealous and the most ten-
der nurses of the ambulances they had founded
and served ; their houses had been freely opened,
whether to the families exiled from the suburbs,
or in supplement to the liospitals. The amount
of relief they aflbrded unostentatiously, out of
means that shared the general failure of accus-
tomed resource, when the famine commenced,
would be scarcely credible if stated. Admirable,
too, were the fortitude and resignation of the
genuine Parisian bourgeoisie — the thrifty trades-

folk and small rentiers — that class in which, to
judge of its timidity when opposed to a mob,
courage is not the most conspicuous virtue. Cour-
age became so now — courage to bear hourly in-
creasing privation, and to suppress every mur-
mur of suffering that would discredit their patri-
otism, and invoke ‘ ‘ peace at any price. ” It was
on this class that the calamities of the siege now
pressed the most heavily. The stagnation of
trade, and the stoppage of the rents, in which
they had invested their savings, reduced many
of them to actual want. Those only of their
number who obtained the pay of one and a half
francs a day as National Guards could be sure
to escape from starvation. But this pay had al-
ready begun to demoralize the receivers. Scanty
for supply of food, it was ample for supply of
drink. And drunkenness, hitherto rare in that
rank of the Parisians, became a prevalent vice,
aggravated in the case of a National Guard when
it wholly unfitted him for the duties he under-
took, especially such National Guards as were
raised from the most turbulent democracy of the
working class.

But of that population there were two sec-
tions in which the most beautiful elements of
our human nature were most touchingly manifest
— the women and the priesthood, including in
the latter denomination all the various brother-
hoods and societies which religion formed and
inspired.

It was on the 27th of December that Frederic
Lemercier stood gazing wistfully on a military
report affixed to a blank wall, which stated that
“the enemy, worn out by a resistance of over
one hundred days,” had commenced the bom-
bardment. Poor Frederic was sadly altered;
he had escaped the Prussian guns, but not the
Parisian winter — the severest known for twenty
years. He was one of the many frozen at their
posts — brought back to the ambulance with Fox
in his bosom trying to keep him warm. He had
only lately been sent forth as convalescent — am-
bulances were too crowded to retain a patient
longer than absolutely needful — and had been
hunger-pinched and frost- pinched ever since.
The luxurious Frederic had still, somewhere or
other, a capital yielding above three thousand a
year, and of which he could not now realize a

214

THE PARISIANS.

franc, the title-deeds to various investments be-
ing in the liands of Diiplessis — the most trust-
worthy of friends, the most upright of men, but
who was in Bretagne, and could not be got at.
And the time had come at Paris when you could
not get trust for a pound of horse-flesh, or a daily
supply of fuel. And Frederic Lemercier, who had
long since spent the 2000 francs borrowed from
Alain (not ignobly, but somewhat ostentatiously,
in feasting any acquaintance who wanted a feast),
and who had sold to any one who could afford
to speculate on such dainty luxuries, clocks,
bronzes, amber- mouthed pipes — all that had
made the envied garniture of his bachelor’s apart-
ment— Frederic Lemercier was, so far as the
task of keeping body and soul together, worse
off’ than any English pauper who can apply to
the Union. Of course he might have claimed
his half-pay of thirty sous as a National Guard.
But he little knows the true Parisian who im-
agines a seigneur of the Chaussee d’Andn, the
oracle of those with whom he lived,'and one who
knew life so well that he had preached prudence
to a seigneur of the fabourg like Alain de Roche-
briant, stooping to apply for the wages of thirty
sous. Rations were only obtained by the won-
derful patience of women, who liad children to
whom they were both saints and martyrs. The
hours, the weary hours, one had to wait before
one could get one’s place on tlie line for the dis-
tribution of that atrocious black bread defeated
men — defeated most wives if only for husbands
— were defied only by mothers and daughters.
Literally speaking, Lemercier was starving. Alain
had been badly wounded in the sortie of the 21st,
and was laid up in an ambulance. Even if he
could have been got at, he had probably nothing
left to bestow upon Lemercier.

Lemercier gazed on the announcement of the
bombardment — and the Parisian gayety, which
some French historian of the siege calls douce
}>k{losophie, lingering on him still, he said, audi-
bly, turning round to any stranger who heard :
“Happiest of mortals that we are! Under the
present government we are never warned of any
thing disagreeable that can happen ; we are only
told of it when it has happened, and then as
rather pleasant than otherwise. I get up. I
meet a civil gendarme. ‘What is that firing?
which of our provincial armies is taking Prussia
in the rear?’ ‘Monsieur,’ says the gendarme,
‘it is the Prussian Krupp guns.’ I look at the
proclamations, and my fears vanish — my heart is
relieved. I read that the bombardment is a sure
sign that the enemy is worn out.”

Some of the men grouped round Frederic
ducked their heads in terror ; others, who knew
that the thunder- bolt launched from the plateau
of Avron would not fall on the pavements of
Paris, laughed and joked. But in front, with
no sign of terror, no sound of laughter, stretched,
moving inch by inch, the female procession to-
ward the bakery in which the morsel of bread
for their infants was doled out.

“Hist, mon ami,” said a deep voice beside
Lemercier. “Look at those women, and do
not wound their ears by a jest.”

Lemercier, olFended by thal rebuke, though
too susceptible to good emotions not to recognize
its justice, tried with feeble fingers to turn up
his moustache, and to turn a defiant crest upon
the rebuker. He was rather startled to see the

tall martial form at his side, and to recognize
Victor de Mauleon. “ Don’t you think, M. Le-
mercier,” resumed the Vicomte, half sadly, “ that
these women are worthy of better husbands and
sons than are commonly found among the sol-
diers whose uniform we wear ?”

“The National Guard I You ought not to
sneer at them, Vicomte — you whose troop cover-
ed itself with glory on the great days of Villiers
and Champigny — you in whose praise even the
grumblers of Paris became eloquent, and in
whom a future Marshal of France is foretold.”

‘ ‘ But, alas ! more than half of my poor troop
was left on the battle-field, or is now wrestling
for mangled remains of life in the ambulances.
And the new recruits with which I took the field
on the 21st are not likely to cover themselves
with glory, or insure to their commander the
baton of a marshal.”

“ Ay, I heard when I was in the hospital that
you had publicly shamed some of these recruits,
and declared that you would rather resign than
lead them again to battle.”

“True; and at this moment, for so doing, I
am the man most hated by the- rabble who sup-
plied those recruits.”

The men, while thus conversing, had moved
slowly on, and were now in front of a large cafe,
from the interior of which came the sound of
loud bravos and clappings of hands. Lemer-
cier’s curiosity was excited. “ For what can be
that applause?” he said. “Let us look in and
see.”

The room was thronged. In the distance, on
a small raised platform, stood a girl dressed in
faded theatrical finery, making her obeisance to
the crowd.

‘ ‘ Heavens I ” exclaimed F rederic ; ‘ ‘ can I trust
my eyes ? Surely that is the once superb Julie :
has she been dancing here ?”

One of the loungers, evidently belonging to
the same world as Lemercier, overheard the,
question, and answered, politely, “No, mon-
sieur : she has been reciting verses, and really
declaims very well, considering it is not her vo-
cation. She has given us extracts from Victor
Hugo and De Musset, and crowned all with a
patriotic hymn by Gustave Rameau — her old
lover, if gossip be true.”

Meanwhile De Mauleon, who at first had
glanced over the scene with his usual air of calm
and cold indifference, became suddenly struck
by the girl’s beautiful fiice, and gazed on it with
a look of startled surprise.

“Who and what did you say that poor fair
creature is, M. Lemercier?”

“She is a Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin, and
was a very popular coryphee. She has hereditary
right to be a good dancer as the daughter of a
once more fomous ornament of the ballet, la
belle Leonie — whom you must have seen in your
young days.”

“ Of course. Leonie — she manied a M. Sur-
ville, a silly bourgeois gentilhomme, who earned
the hatred of Paris by taking her off the stage.
So that is her daughter ! 1 see no likeness to

her mother — much handsomer. Why does she
call herself Caumartin ?”

“Oh,” said Frederic, “a melancholy but trite
story. Leonie was left a widow, and died in
want. What could the poor young daughter
do? She found a rich protector who had influ-

THE PARISIANS.

215

ence to get her an appointment in the ballet :
and there she did as most girls so circumstanced
do — appeared under an assumed name, which
she has since kept.”

“I understand,! said Victor, compassionately.
“Poor thing! she has quitted the platform, and
is coming this way, evidently to speak to you.
1 saw her eyes brighten as she caught sight of
your face.”

Lemercier attempted a languid air of modest
self-complacency as tlie girl now approached
him. “jBoujoar, M. Frederic ! Ah, vion Dieu !
how thin you have grown ! You have been
ill?”

“The hardships of a military life, mademoi-
selle. Ah, for the beaux jours and the peace we
insisted on destroying under the empire which
we destroyed for listening to us I But you thrive
well, I trust. I have seen you better dressed,
but never in greater beauty.”

The girl blushed as she replied, “ Do you real-
ly think as you speak ?”

“ I could not speak more sincerely if I lived in
the legendary House of Glass.”

The girl clutched his arm, and said, in sup-
pressed tones, “ Where is Gustave?”

“ Gustave Rameau ? I have no idea. Do you
never see him now ?”

“ Never — perhaps I never shall see him again ;
but w'hen you do meet him, say that Julie owes
to him her livelihood. An honest livelihood,
monsieur. He taught her to love verses — told
her how to recite them. I am engaged at this
cafe — you will find me here the same hour every
day, in case — in case — You are good and kind,
and will come and tell me that Gustave is well
and happy even if he forgets me. Au revoir.
Stop; you do not look, my poor Frederic, as if
— as if — Pardon me. Monsieur Lemercier, is
there any thing I can do ? . Will you condescend
to borrow from me? I am in funds.”

, Lemercier at that ofier was nearl}'^ moved to
tears. Famished though he was, he could not,
however, have touched that girl’s earnings.

“ You are an angel of goodness, mademoiselle!
Ah, how I envy Gustave Rameau ! No, I don’t
want aid. I am always a — rentier f

Bien! and if you see Gustave you will not
forget?”

“ Rely on me. — Come away,” he said to De
Mauleon. “I don’t w'ant to hear that girl re-
peat the sort of bombast the poets indite nowa-
days. It is fustian ; and that girl may have a
brain of feather, but she has a heart of gold.”

“True,” said Victor, as they regained the
street. “ I overheard what she said to you.
What an incomprehensible thing is a woman !
how more incomprehensible still is a woman’s
love ! Ah, pardon me. I must leave you ; I
see in the procession a poor woman known to me
in better days.”

De Mauleon w'alked toward the woman he
spoke of — one of the long procession to the
bakeiy — a child clinging to her robe. A pale
grief- worn w'oman, still young, but with the wea-
riness of age on her face, and the shadow of
death on her child’s.

“I think I see Madame Monnier,” said De
Mauleon, softly.

She turned and looked at him drearily. A
year ago she would have blushed if addressed by
a stranger in a name not lawfully hers.

“ Well,” she said, in hollow accents broken by
cough ; “ I don’t know you, monsieur.”

“Poor woman,” he resumed, walking beside
her as she moved slowly on, while the eyes of
other Avomen in the procession stared at him
hungrily. “ And your child looks ill, too. Is it
your youngest ?”

“My only one! The others are in Pere la
Chaise. There are but few children alive in my
street now. God has been very merciful, and
taken them to Himself.”

De Mauleon recalled the scene of a neat, com-
fortable apartment, and the healthful, happy chil-
dren at play on the floor. The mortality among
the little ones, especially in the quartier occupied
by the working classes, had of late been terrible.
The want of food, of fuel, the intense severity
of the weather, had swept them off' as by a pesti-
lence.

“ And Monnier — what of him ? No doubt he
is a National Guard, and has his pay.”

The w’oman made no answer, but hung down
her head. She was stifling a sob. Till then her
eyes seemed to have exhausted the last source of
tears.

“He lives still?” continued Victor, pityingly;
“ he is not wounded?”

“ No ; he is well — in health, thank you kind-
ly, monsieur.”

“But his pay is not enough to help you, and
of course he can get no work. Excuse me if I
stopped you. It is because I owed Armand
Monnier a little debt for work, and I am ashamed
to say that it quite escaped my memory in these
terrible events. Allow me, madam e, to pay it to
you ;” and he thrust his purse into her hand. “ I
think this contains about the sum I owed ; if
more or less, we will settle the difference later.
Take care of yourself.”

He was turning away, when the woman caught
hold of him.

“ Stay, monsieur. IMay Heaven bless you ! —
but — but — tell me what name I am to give to Ar-
mand. I can’t think of any one who owed him
money. It must have been before that dreadful
strike, the beginning of all our woes. Ah, if it
were allowed to curse any one, I fear my last
breath would not be a prayer.”

“You would curse the strike, or the master
who did not forgive Armand’s share in it ?”

“No, no — the cruel man who talked him into
it — into all that has changed the best workman,
the kindest heart — the — the — ” Again her voice
died in sobs.

‘ ‘ And who was that man ?” asked De Mau-
leon, falteringly.

“ His name w'as Lebeau. If you were a poor
man, I should say, ‘Shun him.’ ”

“ I have heard of the name you mention ; but
if we mean the same person, Monnier can not
have met him lately. He has not been in Paris
since the siege.”

“I suppose not, the coward! He ruined us
— us who were so happy before ; and then, as
Armand says, cast us away as instruments he
had done with. But — but if you do know him,
and do see him again, tell him — tell him not to
complete his wrong — not to bring murder on Ar-
mand’s soul. For Armand isn’t what he was —
and has become — oh, so violent ! I dare not take
this money without saying who gave it. He
would not take money as alms from an aristo-

21G

THE PAKISIANS.

crat. Hush ! he beat me foi' taking money from
the good Monsieur Kaoul de Vandemar — my
poor Armand beat me !”

De Mauleon shuddered. “Say that it is from
a customer whose rooms he decorated in his spare
hours on his own account before the strike — Mon-
sieur Here he uttered indistinctly some

unpronounceable name, and hurried off, soon lost
as the streets grew darker. Amidst groups of a
higher order of men — military men, nobles, ci-
devant deputies — among such ones his name
stood very higli. Not only his bravery in the
recent sorties had been signal, but a strong be-
lief in his military talents had ])ecome prevalent ;
and conjoined with the name he had before es-
tablished as a political writer, and the remem-
brance of the vigor and sagacity with which he
had opposed the war, he seemed certain, when
peace and order became re-established, of a brill-
iant position and career in a future administra-
tion : not less because he had steadfastly kept
aloof from the existing government, which it was
rumored, rightly or erroneously, that he had been
solicited to join, and from every combination of
the various democratic or discontented factions.

Quitting these more distinguished associates,
he took his way alone toward the ramparts. The
day was closing ; the thunders of the cannon
were dying down.

He passed by a wine-shop round which -were
gathered many of the worst specimens of the
Mohlots and National Guards, mostly drunk,
and loudly talking, in vehement abuse of gener-
als and officers and commissariat. By one of
the men, as he came under the glare of a petro-
leum lamp (there was gas no longer in the dis-
mal city), he was recognized as the commander
who had dared to insist on discipline, and dis-
grace honest patriots who claimed to themselves
the sole option between fight and flight. The
man was one of those patriots — one of the new
recruits whom Victor had shamed and dismiss-
ed for mutiny and cowardice. He made a drunk-
en plunge at his former chief, shouting, “A has
Varisto! Comrades, this is the coquin De Mau-
leon who is paid by the Prussians for getting us
killed : a la lanterne !” ‘‘'‘Ala lanterne /” stam-

mered and hiccuped others of the group ; but
they did not stir to execute their threat. Dim-
ly seen as the stern face and sinewy foi*m of the
threatened man was by their drowsied eyes, the
name of De Mauleon, the man without fear of
a foe, and without ruth for a mutineer, sufficed
to protect him from outrage ; and with a slight
movement of his arm that sent his denouncer
reeling against a lamp-post, De Mauleon passed
on — when another man, in the uniform of a Na-
tional Guard, bounded from the door of the tav-
ern, ciwing, with a loud voice, “Who said De
Mauleon? — let me look at him.” And Victor,
who had strode on with slow lion-like steps, cleav-
ing the crowd, turned, and saw before him in the
gleaming light a face in which the bold, frank,
intelligent aspect of former days was lost in a
wild, reckless, savage expression — the face of
Armand Monnier.

“Ha! are you really Victor de Mauleon?”
asked Monnier, not fiercely, but under his breath
— in that sort of stage whisper w'hich is the nat-
tural utterance of excited men under the mingled
influence of potent drink and hoarded rage.

“Certainly ; I am Victor de Mauleon.”

“And you were in command of the com-

pany of the National Guard on the 30th of No-
vember at Champigny and Villiers ?”

“ I was.”

“And you shot with your ^wn hand an offi-
cer belonging to another company who refused
to join yours ?”

‘ ‘ I shot a cowardly soldier who ran aw^ay from
the enemy, and seemed a ringleader of other run-
aways ; and in so doing, I saved from dishonor
the best part of his comrades.”

“The man was no coward. He was an en-
lightened Frenchman, and worth fifty of such
aristas as you ; and he knew better than his of-
ficers that he was to be led to an idle slaughter.
Idle — I say idle. What was France the better,
how was Paris the safer, for the senseless butch-
ery of that day? You mutinied against a wiser
general than Saint Trochu when you murdered
that mutineer.”

“Armand Monnier, you are not quite sober
to-night, or I would argue with you that ques-
tion. But you, no doubt, are brave. How' and
why do you take the part of a runaway ?”

‘ ‘ How and why ? He was my brother, and
you own you murdered him : my brother — the
sagest head in Paris. If I had listened to him, 1
should not be — bah I — no matter now what I am.”

“ I could not know he was your brother ; but
if he had been mine I would have done the same.”

Here Victor’s lip quivered, for Monnier griped
him by the arm, and looked him in the face with
wild stony eyes.

“I recollect that voice! Yet — yet — you say
you are a noble, a Vicomte — Victor de Mau-
le'on! and you shot my brother!”

Here he passed his left hand rapidly over his
forehead. The fumes of wine still clouded his
mind, but rays of intelligence broke through the
cloud. Suddenly he said, in a loud and calm
and natural voice,

“ M. le Vicomte, you accost me as Armand
Monnier. Pray, how do you know my name?”

‘ '• How should I not know it ? I have looked
into the meetings of the ‘ clubs rouges. ’ I have
heard you speak, and naturally asked your name.
Bonsoir, M. Monnier ! When you reflect in cool-
er moments, you will see that if patriots ex-
cuse Brutus for first dishonoring and then exe-
cuting his own son, an officer charged to defend
his country may be surely pardoned for slaying
a runaway to whom he was no relation, when in
slaying he saved the man’s name and kindred
from dishonor, unless, indeed, you insist on tell-
ing the world why he was slain.”

“ I know your voice — I know it. Every sound
becomes clearer to my ear. And if — ”

But while Monnier thus spoke, De Maule'on
had hastened on. Monnier looked round, saw
him gone, but did not pursue. He was just in-
toxicated enough to know that his footsteps were
not steady, and he turned back to the wine-shop
and asked surlily for more wine.

Could you have seen him then as he leaned,
swinging himself to and fro, against the wall —
had you known the man two years ago, you
would have been a brute if you felt disgust.
You could only have felt that profound compas-
sion with which we gaze on a great royalty fall-
en. For the grandest of all royalties is that
which takes its crown from Nature, needing no
accident of birth. And Nature made the mind

THE PARISIANS.

217

of Armand Monnier king-like ; endowed it with
lofty scorn of meanness and falsehood and dishon-
or, with Avarmth and tenderness of heart which
had glow enough to spare from ties of kindred
and hearth and home to extend to those distant
circles of humanity over which royal natures
would fain extend the shadow of their sceptre.

How had the royalty of the man’s nature fall-
en thus ? Royalty rarely falls from its own con-
stitutional faults. It falls when, ceasing to be
royal, it becomes subservient to bad advisers.
And what bad advisers, ahvays appealing to his
better qualities and so enlisting his worser, had
discrowned this mechanic?

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,”

says the old-fashioned poet. “Not so,” says
the modern philosopher; “a little knowdedge is
safer than no knowledge.” Possibly, as all in-
dividuals and all communities must go through
the stage of a little knowledge before they can
arrive at that of much knowledge, the philoso-
pher’s assertion may be right in the long-run,
and applied to humankind in general. But there
is a period, as there is a class, in which a lit-
tle knowledge tends to terrible demoralization.
And Armand Monnier lived in that period and
Avas one of that class. The little knoAvledge that
his mind, impulsRe and ardent, had picked up
out of books that Avarred Avith the great founda-
tions of existing society had originated in ill ad-
vices. A man stored Avith much knoAvledge Avould
never have let Madame de Grantmesnil’s denun-
ciations of marriage rites, or Louis Blanc’s vin-
dication of Robespierre as the representative of
the Avorking against the middle class, influence
his practical life. He Avould have assessed such
opinions at their real Avorth, and, AvhateA’er that
Avorth might seem to him, would not to such
opinions haA^e committed the conduct of his life.
Opinion is not fateful: conduct is. A little
knoAvledge crazes an earnest, warm-blooded,
poAverful creature like Armand Monnier into a
fanatic. He takes an opinion Avhich pleases him
as a rcA’elation from the gods ; that opinion
shapes his conduct; that conduct is his fate.
Woe to the philosopher Avho serenely flings be-
fore the little knoAvledge of the artisan dogmas
as harmless as the Atlantis of Plato, if only to be
discussed by philosophers, and deadly as the
torches of Ate, if seized as articles of a creed by
fanatics! But thrice Avoe to the artisan Avho
makes himself the zealot of the Dogma !

Poor Armand acts on the opinions he adopts ;
proves his contempt for the marriage state by liv-
ing Avith the Avife of another ; resents, as natures
so inherently manly must do, the Society that A'is-
its on her his defiance of its laAvs ; throAvs him-
self, head-foremost, against that Society altogeth-
er ; necessarily joins all Avho have other reasons
for hostility to Society ; he himself having every
inducement not to join indiscriminate strikes —
high wages, a liberal employer, ample savings,
the certainty of soon becoming employer himself.
No ; that is not enough to the fanatic : he per-
sists on being dupe and victim. He, this great
king of labor, croAvned by Nature, and cursed
Avith that degree of little knoAvledge Avhich does
not comprehend how much more is required be-
fore a school-boy Avould admit it to be knoAvledge
at all — he rushes into the maddest of all specula-
tions— that of the artisan Avith little knowledge

and enorm.ous faith — that Avhich intrusts the safe-
ty and repose and dignity of life to some ambi-
tious adventurer, Avho uses his Avarm heart for
the adventurer’s frigid purpose, much as the laAv-
yer-government of September used the Commu-
nists— much as, in every revolution of France, a
Bertrand had used a Raton — much as, till the
sound of the last trumpet, men very much Avorse
than Victor de Mauleon Avill use men very much
better than Armand Monnier, if the Armand
Monniers disdain the modesty of an Isaac Ncav-
ton on hearing that a theorem to Avhich he had
given all the strength of his patient intellect Avas
disputed. “ It may be so ;” meaning, I suppose,
that it requires a large amount of experience as-
certained before a man of much knoAvledge be-
comes that which a man of little knoAvledge is at
a jump — the fanatic of an experiment untried.

-♦

CHAPTER II.

ScAKCELT had De Mauleon quitted Lemercier
before the latter Avas joined by two loungers scarce*
Ia”^ less famished than himself — Savarin and De
Breze. Like himself, too, both had been suffer-
ers from illness, though not of a nature to be
consigned to a hospital. All manner of diseases
then had combined to form the pestilence which
filled the streets with unregarded hearses — bron-
chitis, pneumonia, small-pox, a strange sort of
spurious dysentery much more speedily fatal than
the genuine. The three men, a year before so
sleek, looked Kke ghosts under the withering sky ;
yet all three retained embers of the native Paris-
ian humor, Avhich their very breath on meeting
sufficed to kindle up into jubilant sparks or rapid
flashes.

“There are tAVO consolations,” said Savarin,
as the friends strolled, or rather crawled, toward
the Boulevards — “two consolations for the gour-
viet and for the proprietor in these days of trial
for the gourmand, because the price of truffles is
come doAAm.”

“Truffles!” gasped De Breze, Avith AA^atering
mouth; “impossible! They are gone Avith the
age of gold.”

“ Not so. I speak on the best authority — my
laundress ; for she attends the succursale in the
Rue de Chateaudun ; and if the poor Avoman,
being, luckily for me, a childless Avidow, gets a
morsel she can spare, she sells it to me.”

“ Sells it! ” feebly exclaimed Lemercier. “Croe-
sus ! you haA’e money, then, and can buy?”

“ Sells it — on credit ! I am to pension her for
life if I live to have money again. Don’t inter-
rupt me. This honest Avoman goes this morning
to the succursale. I promise myself a delicious
hifteck of horse. She gains the succursale., and
the employe informs her that there is nothing left
in his store except — truffles. A glut of those in
the market alloAvs him to offer her a bargain —
seven francs la boite. Send me seven francs, De
Breze, and you shall sliare the banquet.”

De Breze shook his head expressiA^ely.

“But,” resumed Savarin, “though credit ex-
ists no more except Avith my laundress, upon
terms of Avhicli the usury is necessarily propor-
tioned to the risk, yet, as I had the honor before
to obseiwe, there is comfort for the proprietor.
The instinct of property is imperishable.”

218

THE PARISIANS.

“Not in the house where I lodge,” said Le-
mei'cier. “ Two soldiers were billeted there ;
and during my stay in the ambulance they enter
my rooms and cart away all of the little furniture
left there, except a bed and a table. Brought
before a court-martial, they defend themselves
by saying, ‘The rooms were abandoned.’ The
excuse was held valid. They were let off with
a reprimand, and a promise to restore what was
not already disposed of. They have restored me
another table and four chairs.”

“Nevertheless they had the instinct of prop-
erty, though erroneously developed, otherwise
they would not have deemed any excuse for their
act necessary. Now for my instance of the in-
herent tenacity of that instinct. A worthy citi-
zen in want of fuel sees a door in a garden wall,
and naturally carries off the door. He is appre-
hended by a gendarme who sees the act. ‘ Vo-
leur,' he cries to the gendarme, ‘do you want to
rob me of my property ?’ ‘ That door your prop-

erty ? I saw you take it away.’ ‘ You confess,’
cries the citizen, triumphantly — ‘you confess that
it is my property ; for you saw me appropriate it.’
'I'hus you see how imperishable is the instinct of
property. No sooner does it disappear as yours
than it re-appears as mine.”

“1 would laugh if I could,” said Lemercier,
“but such a convulsion would be fatal. Dleii
des dieux, how empty I am !” He reeled as he
spoke, and clung to De Bre'ze for support. De
Breze had the reputation of being the most self-
ish of men. But at that moment, when a gen-
erous man might be excused for being selfish'
enough to desire to keep the little that he had
for his own reprieve from starvation, this egotist
became superb. “Eriends,” he cried, with en-
thusiasm, “I have something yet in my pocket :
we will dine, all three of us.”

“Dine!” faltered Lemercier. “Dine! I have
not dined since I left the hospital. I breakfast-
ed yesterday — on two mice upon toast. Dainty,
but not nutritious. And 1 shared them with
Fox.”

‘ ‘ Fox ! Fox lives still, then ?” cried De Breze,
startled.

“ In a sort of a way he does. But one mouse
since yesterday morning is not much ; and he
can’t expect that every day.”

“ Why don’t you take him out ?” asked Sava-
rin. “ Give him a chance of picking up a bone
somewhere. ”

“ I dare not. He would be picked up himself.
Dogs are getting very valuable : they sell for fifty
francs apiece. — Come, De Breze, where are we
to dine ?”

“ I and Savarin can dine at the London Tav-
ern upon rat pate or jugged cat. But it would
be impertinence to invite a satrap like yourself,
who has a tvhole dog in his larder — a dish of fif-
ty francs — a dish for a king. Adieu, my dear
Frederic. Allans, Savarin.”

“ I feasted you on better meats than dog when
I could afford it,” said Frederic, plaintively ;
“and the first time you invite me you retract
the invitation. Be it so. Bon ajypetit."

Bah !" said De Breze, catching Frederic’s
arm as he turned to depart. “ Of course I was
but jesting. Only another day, when my pock-
ets will be emptv, do think what an excellent
thing a roasted dog is, and make up your mind
while Fox has still some little flesh on his bones.”

“Flesh!” said Savarin, detaining them.
“Look! See how right Voltaire was in say-
ing, ‘ Amusement is the first necessity of civil-
ized man.’ Pans can do without bread: Paris
still retains Polichinello.”

He pointed to the puppet-show, round which
a crowd, not of children alone, but of men —
middle-aged and old — were collected, while sous
were dropped into the tin handed round by a
squalid boy.

“And, man arni,” whispered De Breze to Le-
mercier, with the voice of a tempting fiend, “ ob-
serve how Punch is without his dog.”

It was true. The dog was gone — its place
supplied by a melancholy emaciated cat.

Frederic crawled toward the squalid boy.
“What has become of Punch’s dog?”

“ We ate him last Sunday. Next Sunday we
shall have the cat in a pie,” said the urchin, with
a sensual smack of the lips.

“Oh, Fox! Fox!” murmured Frederic, as
the three men went slowl}" down through the
darkening gti'eets — the roar of the Prussian guns
heard afar, while distinct and near rang the laugh
of the idlers round the Punch without a dog.

CHAPTER III.

While De Breze and his friends w'ere feast-
ing at the Cafe Anglais, and faring better than
the host had promised — for the bill of fare com-
prised such luxuries as ass, mule, pease, fried
potatoes, and Champagne (Champagne in some
mysterious way was inexhaustible during the
time of famine) — a very different group had as-
sembled in the rooms of Isaura Cicogna. She
and the Venosta had hitherto escaped the ex-
treme destitution to which many richer persons
had been I'educed. It is true that Isaura’s for-
tune, placed in the hands of the absent Louvier,
and invested in the new street that was to have
been, brought no return. It was true that in
that street the Venosta, dreaming of cent, per
cent., had invested all her savings. But the
Venosta, at the first announcement of war, had
insisted on retaining in hand a small sum from
the amount Isaura had received from her “ ro-
man," that might suffice for current expenses,
and with yet more acute foresight had laid in
stores of provisions and fuel immediately after
the probability of a siege became apparent. But
even the provident mind of the Venosta had nev-
er foreseen that the siege would endure so long,
or that the prices of all articles of necessity would
rise so high. And meanwhile all resources —
money, fuel, provisions — had been largely drawn
upon by the charity and benevolence of Isaura,
without much remonstrance on the part of the
Venosta, whose nature was very accessible to
pity. Unfortunately, too, of late money and pro-
visions had failed to Monsieur and Madame Ra-
meau, their income consisting partly of rents,
no longer paid, and the profits of a sleeping part-
nership in the old shop, from which custom had
departed; so that they came to share the fire-
side and meals at the rooms of their son’s fian-
cee with little scruple, because utterly unaware
that the money retained and the provisions stored
by the Venosta were now nearly exhausted.

The patriotic ardor Avhich had first induced

THE PARISIANS.

219

the elder Rameau to volunteer his services as a
National Guard had been ere this cooled if not
suppressed, first by the hardships of the duty,
and then by the disorderly conduct of his asso-
ciates, and their ribald talk and obscene songs.
He was much beyond the age at which he could
be registered. His son was, howevei*, compelled
to become his substitute, though from his sickly
health and delicate frame attached to that por-
tion of the National Guard which took no part
in actual engagements, and was supposed to do
work on the ramparts and maintain order in the
city.

In that duty, so opposed to his tastes and hab-
its, Gustave signalized himself as one of the loud-
est declaimers against the imbecility of the gov-
ernment, and in the demand for immediate and
energetic action, no matter at what loss of life,
on the part of all — except the heroic force to
which he himself was attached. Still, despite
his military labors, Gustave found leisure to con-
tribute to Red journals, and his contributions
paid him tolerably well. To do him justice, his
parents concealed from him the extent of their
destitution, they, on their part, not aware that
he was so able to assist them, rather fearing that
he himself had nothing else for support but his
scanty pay as a National Guard. In fact, of
late the parents and son had seen little of each
other. M. Rameau, though a Liberal politician,
was Liberal as a tradesman, not as a Red Re-
publican or a Socialist. And, though little heed-
ing his son’s theories while the empire secured
him from the practical effect of them, he was
now as sincerely frightened at the chance of the
Communists becoming rampant as most of the
Parisian tradesmen were. Madame Rameau, on
her side, though she had the dislike to aristo-
crats which was prevalent with her class, was a
stanch Roman Catholic, and, seeing in the dis-
asters that had befallen her country the punish-
ment justly incurred by its sins, could not but be
shocked by the opinions of Gustave, though she
little knew that he was the author of certain ar-
ticles in certain journals in which these opinions
were proclaimed with a vehemence far exceeding
that which they assumed in his conversation.
She had spoken to him with warm anger, mixed
with passionate tears, on his irreligious princi-
ples ; and from that moment Gustave shunned
to give her another opportunity of insulting his
pride and depreciating his wisdom.

Partly to avoid meeting his parents, partly
because he recoiled almost as much from the
ennui of meeting the other visitors at her apart-
ments— the Paris ladies associated with her in
the ambulance, Raoul de Vandemar, whom he
especially hated, and the Abbe Vertpre, who had
recently come into intimate friendship with both
the Italian ladies — his visits to Isaura had be-
come exceedingly rare. He made his incessant
military duties the pretext for absenting himself ;
and now, on this evening, there were gathered
round Isaura’s hearth — on which burned almost
the last of the hoarded fuel — the Venosta, the
two Rameaus, the Abbe Vertpre, who was at-
tached as confessor to the society of which Isaura
was so zealous a member. The old priest and
the young poetess had become dear friends..
There is in the nature of a woman (and especial-
ly of a woman at once so gifted and so child-like
as Isaura, combining an innate tendency toward

faith with a restless inquisitiveness of intellect,
which is always suggesting query or doubt) a
craving for something afar from the sphere of her
sorrow, which can only be obtained through that
“bridal of the earth and sky” which we call re-
ligion. And hence, to natures like Isaura’s, that
link between the woman and the priest, which
the philosophy of France has never been able t(»
dissever,

“ It is growing late,” said Madame Rameau ;
“I am beginning to feel uneasy. Our dear
Isaura is not yet returned.”

“You need be under no apprehension,” said
the Abbe'. “ The ladies attached to the ambu-
lance of which she is so tender and zealous a sis-
ter incur no risk. There are always brave men
related to the sick and wounded who see to the-
safe return of the women. My poor Raoul vis-
its that ambulance daily. His kinsman, M. de
Rochebriant, is there among the wounded.”

“ Not seriously hurt, I hope?” said the Venos-
ta; “not disfigured? He was so handsome.
It is only the ugly warrior whom a scar oh the
face improves.”

“Don’t be alarmed, signora; the Prussian
guns spared his face. His wounds in themselves
were not dangerous, but he lost a good deal of
blood. Raoul and the Christian Brothers found
him insensible among a heap of the slain.”

“ M. de Vandemar seems to have very soon
recovered the shock of his poor brother’s death, ”
said Madame Rameau. “There is very little
heart in an aristocrat.”

The Abbe’s mild brow contracted. “Have
more charity, my daughter. It is because Ra-
oul’s sorrow for his lost brother is so deep and so
holy that he devotes himself more than ever to
the service of the Father which is in heaven.
He said, a day or two after the burial, when
plans for a monument to Enguerrand were sub-
mitted to him, ‘ May my prayer be vouchsafed,
and my life be a memorial of him more accept-
able to his gentle spirit than monuments of bronze
or marble. May 1 be divinely guided and sus-
tained in my desire to do such good acts as he
would have done had he been spared longer to
earth. And whenever tempted to weary, may my
conscience whisper. Betray not the trust left to
thee by thy brother, lest thou be not reunited to
him at last.’ ”

“ Pardon me, pardon !” murmured Madame
Rameau, humbly, while the Venosta burst into
tears.

The Abbe, though a most sincere and earnest
ecclesiastic, was a cheery and genial man of the
world ; and in order to relieve Madame Rameau
from the painful self-reproach he had before ex-
cited, he turned the conversation. “I must be-
ware, however, ” he said, with his pleasant laugh,
“as to the company in which I interfere in fam-
ily questions, and especially in w'hich I defend
my poor Raoul from any charge brought against
him. For some good friend this day sent me a
terrible organ of Communistic philosophy, in
which we humble priests are very roughly han-
dled, and I myself am specially singled out by
name as a pestilent intermeddler in the affairs
of private households. I am said to set the
women against the brave men who are friends
of the people, and am cautioned by very trucu-
lent threats to cease from such villainous prac-
tices.” And here, wdth a dry humor that turned

220

THE PARISIANS.

into ridicule what would otherwise have excited
disgust and indignation among his listeners, he
read aloud passages replete with the sort of false
eloquence which was then the vogue among the
Red journals. In these passages not only the
Abbe was pointed out for popular execration,
but Raoul de Vandemar, though not expressly
named, was clearly indicated as a pupil of the
Abbe s, the type of a lay Jesuit.

The Venosta alone did not share in the con-
temptuous laughter with which the inflated style
of these diatribes inspired the Rameaus, Her
simple Italian mind was horror-stricken by lan-
guage which the Abbe treated with ridicule.

“Ah!” said M. Rameau, “I guess the au-
thor— that fire-brand Felix Pyat.”

“ No,” answered the Abbe ; “ the writer signs
himself by the name of a more learned atheist —
Diderot le jeune. ”

Here the door opened, and Raoul entered, ac-
companying Isaura. A change had come over
the face of the young Vandemar since his broth-
er's death. The lines about the mouth had
deepejied ; the cheeks had lost their rounded
contour and grown somewhat hollow ; but the
expression was as serene as ever, perhaps even
less pensively melancholy. His whole aspect was
that of a man who has sorrowed, but been sup-
ported in sorrow ; perhaps it was more sweet —
certainly it was more lofty.

And, as if there were in the atmosphere of his
presence sometliing that communicated the like-
ness of his own soul to others, since Isaura had
been brought into his companionship, her own
lovely face had caught the expression that pre-
vailed in his — that, too, had become more sweet
— that, too, had become more lofty.

The friendship that had grown up between
these two young mourners was of a very rare na-
ture. It had in it no sentiment that could ever
warm into the passion of human love. Indeed,
had Isaura’s heart been free to give away, love
for Raoul de Vandemar would have seemed to
her a profanation. He was never more priestly
than when he was most tender. And the ten-
derness of Raoul toward her was that of some
saint-like nature toward the acolyte whom it at-
tracted upward. He had once, just before En-
guerrand’s death, spoken to Isaura with a touch-
ing candor as to his own predilection for a
monastic life. “The worldly avocations that
o])en useful and honorable careers for others
have no charm for me. I care not for riches,
nor power, nor honors, nor fame. The austerities
of the conventual life have no terror for me ; on
the contrary, they have a charm, for with them
are abstraction from earth and meditation on
heaven. In earlier years I might, like other
men, have cherished dreams of human love, and
felicity in married life, but for the sort of vener-
ation with which I regarded one to whom I owe
— humanly speaking — whatever of good there
may be in me. Just when first taking my place
among the society of young men who banish
from their life all thought of another, I came
under the influence of a woman who taught me
to see that holiness was beauty. She gradually
associated me with her acts of benevolence, and
from her I learned to love God too well not to
be indulgent to his creatures. I know not wheth-
er the attachment 1 felt to her could have been
inspired in one who had not from childhood

conceived a romance, not perhaps justified by
history, for the ideal images of chivalry. My
feeling for her at first was that of the pure and
poetic homage which a young knight was permit'
ted, sans reproche, to render to some fair queen
or chatelaine^ whose colors he wore in the lists,
whose spotless repute he would have periled his
life to defend. But soon even that sentiment,
pure as it was, became chastened from all breath
of earthly love in proportion as the admiration re-
fined itself into reverence. She has often urged
me to marry, but I have no bride on this earth.
I do but want to see Enguerrand happily mar-
ried, and then I quit the world for the cloister. ”

But after Enguerrand’s death Raoul resigned
all idea of the convent. That evening, as he at-
tended to their homes Isaura and the other ladies
attached to the ambulance, he said, in answer to
inquiries about his mother, “She is resigned and
calm ; I have promised her I will not, while she
lives, bury her other son : I renounce my dreams
of the monastery.”

Raoul did not remain many minutes at Isau-
ra’s. The Abbe accompanied him on his way
home. “I have a request to make to you,”
said the former; “you know, of course, your
distant cousin the Vicomte de Mauleon ?”

“Yes. Not so well as I ought, for Enguer-
rand liked him.”

“Well enough, at all events, to call on him
with a request which I am commissioned to
make, but it might come better from you as a
kinsman. I am a stranger to him, and I know
not whether a man of that sort would not regard
as an officious intermeddling any communication
made to him by a priest. The matter, however,

is a very simple one. At the convent of

there is a poor nun who is, I fear, dying. She
has an intense desire to see M. de Mauleon, -whom
she declares to be.her uncle, and her only surviv-
ing relative. The laws of the convent are not too
austere to prevent the interview she seeks in such
a case. I should add that I am not acquainted
with her previous history. I am not the con-
fessor of the sisterhood ; he, poor man, was bad-
ly wounded by a chance ball a few days ago
when attached to an ambulance on the ramparts.
As soon as the surgeon w'ould allow him to see
any one he sent for me, and bade me go to the
nun I speak of — Sister Ursula. It seems that
he had informed her that M. de Mauleon was at
Paris, and had promised to ascertain his address.
His wound had prevented his doing so, but he
trusted to me to procure the information. I am
well acquainted with the Superieure of the con-
vent, and I flatter myself that she holds me in
esteem. I had therefore no difficulty to obtain
her permission to see this poor nun, which I did
this evening. She implored me for the peace of
her soul to lose no time in finding out M. de
Mauleon’s address, and entreating him to visit
her. Lest he should demur, I was to give him
the name by which he. had knowm her in the
world — Louise Duval. Of course I obeyed.
The address of a man who has so distinguished
himself in this unhappy siege I very easily ob-
tained, and repaired at once to M. de Mauleon’s
apartment. I there learned that he was from
home, and it was uncertain whether he would
not spend the night on the ramparts.”

“I will not fail to see him early in the morning.”
said Raoul, “and execute your commission.” .

THE PARISIANS.

221

CHAPTER IV.

De Mauleon w;is somewhat surprised by
Raoul’s visit the next morning. He had no
great liking for a kinsman whose politely distant
reserve toward him, in contrast to poor Enguer-
ratid’s genial heartiness, had much wounded his
sensitive self-respect ; nor could he comprehend
tlie religious scruples which forbade Raoul to
take a soldier’s share in the battle-field, though
in seeking there to save the lives of others so
fearlessly hazarding his own life.

“ Pardon,” said Raoul, with his sweet mourn-
ful smile, “the unseasonable hour at which I
disturb you. But your duties on the ramparts
and mine in the hospital begin earh", and I have
promised the Abbe Vertpre to communicate a
message of a nature which perhaps you may
deem pressing. ” He proceeded at once to repeat
what the Abbe had communicated to him the
night before relative to the illness and the re-
quest of the nun.

“Louise Duval!” exclaimed the Vicomte —
“discovered at last, and a religieuse! Ah! I
now understand why she never sought me out
when I re-appeared at Paris. Tidings of that
sort do not penetrate the walls of a convent. I
am greatly obliged to you, M. de Vandemar, for
the trouble you have so kindly taken. This
poor nun is related to me, and I will at once
obey the summons. But this convent des — I
am ashamed to say I know not where it is. A
long way off, I suppose ?”

“Allow me to be your guide,” said Raoul;
“ I should take it as a favor to be allowed to see
a little more of a man whom my lost brother
held in such esteem.”

Victor was touched by this conciliatory speech ;
and in a few minutes more the two men- were on
their way to the convent on the other side of the
Seine.

Victor commenced the conversation by a warm
and heart-felt tribute to Enguerrand’s character
and memory. “ I never,” he said, “ knew a na-
ture more rich in the most endearing qualities
of youth ; so gentle, so high-spirited, rendering
every virtue more attractive, and redeeming such
few faults or foibles as youth so situated and so
tempted can not wholly escape, with an urbanity
not conventional, not artificial, but reflected from
the frankness of a genial temper and the tender-
ness of a generous heart. Be comforted for his
loss, my kinsman. A brave death was the prop-
er crown of that beautiful life.”

Raoul made no answer, but pressed gratefully
the arm now linked within his own. The com-
panions walked on in silence, Victor’s mind set-
tling on the visit he was about to make to the
niece so long mysteriously lost, and now so un-
expectedly found. Louise had inspired him with
a certain interest from her beauty and force of
character, but never with any warm affection.
He felt relieved to find that her life had found
its clo.se in the sanctuary of the convent. He
had never divested himself of a certain fear, in-
spired by Louvier’s statement, that she might live
to bring scandal and disgrace on the name he had
with so much difficulty, and after so lengthened
an anguish, partially cleared in his own person.

Raoul left De Mauleon at the gate of the con-
vent, and took his way toward the hospitals
where he visited, and the poor whom he relieved.

Victor was conducted silently into the con-
vent parloir, and after waiting there several
minutes the door opened, and the Superieure
entered. As she advanced tow'ard him, with
stately step and solemn visage, De Mauleon re-
coiled, and uttered a half- suppressed exclama-
tion that partook both of amaze and awe. Could
it be possible? Was this majestic woman, with
the grave, impassible aspect, once the ardent girl
whose tender letters he had cherished through
stormy years, and only burned on the night before
the most perilous of his battle-fields ? This the
one, the sole one, whom in his younger dreams
he had seen as his destined wife? It was so —
it was. Doubt vanished when he heard her
voice ; and yet how different every tone, every
accent, from those of the low, soft, thrilling mu-
sic that had breathed in the voice of old!

‘ ‘ M. de Mauleon, ” said the Superieure, calmly,
“I grieve to sadden you by very mournful intel-
ligence. Yesterday evening, when the Abbe un-
dertook to convey to you the request of our Sis-
ter Ursula, although she was beyond mortal hope
of recovery — as otherwise you will conceive that
I could not have relaxed the rules of this house
so as to sanction your visit — there was no ap-
prehension of immediate danger. It was be-
lieved that her sufferings would be prolonged for
some days. I saw her late last night before re-
tiring to my cell, and she seemed even stronger
than she had been for the last week. A sister
remained at Avatch in her cell. Toward morn-
ing she fell into apparently quiet sleep, and in
that sleep she passed away.” The Superieure
here crossed herself, and murmured pious words
in Latin.

“Dead! my poor niece!” said Victor, feel-
ingly, roused from his stun at the first siglit of
the Superieure by her measured tones, and the
melancholy information she so composedly con-
veyed to him. “ I can not, then, even learn why
she so wished to see me once more — or what she
might have requested at my hands !”

“Pardon, M. le Vicomte. Such sorroAvful
consolation I have resolved to afford you, not
without scruples of conscience, but not without
sanction of the excellent Abbe Vertpre, whom 1
summoned early this morning to decide my du-
ties in the sacred office I hold. As soon as Sis-
ter Ursula heard of your return to Paris she ob-
tained my permission to address to you a letter,
subjected, when finished, to my perusal and sanc-
tion. She felt that she had much on her mind
which her feeble state might forbid her to make
known to you in conversation with sufficient full-
ness ; and as she could only have seen you in
presence of one of the sisters, she imagined that
there would also be less restraint in a written
communication. In fine, her request was that,
when you called, I might first place this letter
in your hands, and allow you time to read it,
before being admitted to her presence, when a
few words, conveying your promise to attend
to the wishes with which you would then be ac-
quainted, would suffice for an interview in her
exhausted condition. Do I make myself under-
stood?”

“Certainly, madame — and the letter?”

“ She had concluded last evening ; and when
I took leave of her later in the night, she placed
it in my hands fOr approval. M. le Vicomte, it
pains me to say that there is much in the tone

222

THE PARISIANS.

of that letter which I grieve for and condemn.
And it was my intention to point this out to our
sister at morning, and tell her that passages must
be alteied before I could give to you the letter.
Her sudden decease deprived me of this oppor-
tunity. I could not, of course, alter or erase a
line — a word. My only option was to suppress
the letter altogether, or give it you intact. The
Abbe thinks that, on the whole, my duty does
not forbid the dictate of my own impulse — my
own feelings ; and I now place this letter in your
hands.”

I)e Mauleon took a packet, unsealed, from
the thin white fingers of the Superieure, and,
as he bent to receive it, lifted toward her eyes
eloquent with a sorrowful, humble pathos, in
which it was impossible for the heart of a wom-
an who had loved not to see a reference to the
past which the lips did not dare to utter.

A faint, scarce perceptible blush stole over the
marble cheek of the nun ; but, with an exqui-
site delicacy, in which survived the woman while
reigned the nun, she replied to the appeal :

“M. Victor de Mauleon, before, having thus
met, we part forever, permit a poor religieuseiXo
say with what joy — a joy rendered happier be-
cause it was tearful — I have learned through the
Abbe Vertpre that the honor which, as between
man and man, no one who had once known you
could ever doubt, you have lived to vindicate
from calumny.”

“Ah ! you have heard that — at last, at last !”

“ I repeat — of the honor thus deferred I never
doubted.” The Superieure hurried on : “Great-
er joy it has been to me to hear from the same
venerable source that, while found bravest among
the defenders of your country, you are clear from
all alliance with the assailants of your God. Con-
tinue so, continue so, Victor de Mauleon.”

She retreated to the door, and then turned to-
ward him with a look in which all the marble
had melted away, adding, with words more form-
ally nun-like, yet unmistakably woman-like, than
those which had gone before, “ That to the last
you may be true to God is a prayer never by me
omitted.” .

She spoke, and vanished.

In a kind of dim and dream-like bewilderment
Victor de Mauleon found himself without the
walls of the convent. Mechanically, as a man
does when the routine of his life is presented to
him, from the first Minister of State to the poor
clown at a suburban theatre, doomed to appear
at their posts, to prose on a Beer Bill or gi-in
through a horse-collar, though their hearts are
bleeding at every pore with some household or
secret affliction — mechanically De Mauleon went
his way toward the ramparts at a section of
which he daily drilled his raw recruits. Pro-
verbial for his severity toward those who offend-
ed, for the cordiality of his praise of those who
pleased his soldierly judgment, no change of his
demeanor was visible that morning, save that
he might be somewhat milder to the one, some-
what less hearty to the other. This routine duty
done, he passed slowly toward a more deserted,
because a more exposed, part of the defenses,
and seated himself on the frozen sward alone.
The cannon thundered around him. He heard
unconsciously : from time to time an ohus hissed
and splintered close at his feet : he saw with ab-
stracted eye. His soul was with the past ; and.

brooding over all that in the past lay buried,
there came over bim a conviction of the vanity
of the human earth-bounded objects for which
we burn or freeze far more absolute than had
grown out of the worldly cynicism connected
with his worldly ambition. The sight of that
face, associated with the one pure romance of
his reckless youth, the face of one so estranged,
so serenely aloft from all memories of youth, of
romance, of passion, smote him in the midst of
the new hopes of the new career, as the look on
the skull of the woman he had so loved and so
mourned, when disburied from her grave, smote
the brilliant noble who became the stern reform-^'
er of La Trappe. And while thus gloomily med-
itating, the letter of the poor Louise Duval was
forgotten. She whose existence had so troubled
and crossed and partly marred the lives of oth-
ers— she, scarcely dead, and already forgotten
by her nearest of kin. Well — had she not for-
gotten, put wholly out of her mind, all that w’as
due to those much nearer to her than is an un-
cle to a niece?

The short, bitter, sunless day was advancing
toward its decline before Victor roused himself
w'ith a quick, impatient start from his reverie,
and took forth the letter from the dead nun.

It began with expressions of gratitude, of joy
at the thought that she should see him again be-
fore she died, thank him for his past kindness,
and receive, she trusted, his assurance that he
would attend to her last remorseful injunctions.

I pass over much that followed in the explanation
of events in her life sufficiently known to the read-
er. She stated as the strongest reason why she
had refused the hand of Louvier her knowledge
that she should in due time become a mother —
a fact concealed from Victor, secure that he would
then urge her not to annul her informal marriage,
but rather insist on the ceremonies that would
render it valid. She touched briefly on her con-
fidential intimacy with Madame Marigny, the
exchange of name and papers, her confinement
in the neighborhood of Aix, the child left to the
care of the niu'se, the journey to Munich to find
the false Louise Duval was no more. The doc-
uments obtained through the agent of her easy-
tempered kinsman, the late Marquis de Roche-
briant, and her subsequent domestication in the
house of the Von Rudesheims — all this it is need-
less to do more here than briefly recapitulate.
The letter then went on :

“ While thus kindly treated by the family with
whom nominally a governess, I was on the terms
of a friend with Signor Ludovico Cicogna, an Ital-
ian of noble birth. He was the only man I ever
cared for. I loved him with frail human passion.
I could not tell him my true history. I could not
tell him that I had a child : such intelligence
would have made him renounce me at once. He
had a daughter, still but an infant, by a former
marriage, then brought up in France. He wish-
ed to take her to his house, and his second wife to
supply the place of her mother. What was I to
do with theVhild I had left near Aix ? While
doubtful and distracted, I read an advertisement
in the journals to the effect that a French lady,
then staying in Coblentz, wished to adopt a fe-
male child not exceeding the age of six — the
child to be wholly resigned to her by the parents,
she undertaking to rear and provide for it as her
own. I resolved to go to Coblentz at once. I

223

THE PARISIANS.

did so. I saw this lady. She seemed in afflu-
ent circumstances, yet young, but a confirmed
invalid, confined the greater part of the day to
her sofa by some malady of the spine. She told
me very frankly her story. She had been a pro-
fessional dancer on the stage, had married re-
spectably, quitted the stage, become a widow,
and shortly afterward been seized with the com-
])laint that would probably for life keep her a se-
cluded prisoner in her room. Thus afflicted, and
without tie, interest, or object in the world, she
conceived the idea of adopting a child that she
might bring up to tend and cherish her as a daugh-
ter. In this the imperative condition was that
the child should never be resought by the parents.
She was pleased by my manner and appearance :
she did not wish her adopted daughter to be the
child of peasants. She asked me for no refer-
ences— made no inquiries. She said cordially
that she wished for no knowledge that, through
any indiscretion of her own, communicated to
the child, might lead her to seek the discovery
of her real parents. In fine, I left Coblentz on
the understanding that I was to bring the infant,
and if it pleased Madame Surville, the agreement
was concluded.

“1 then repaired to Aix. I saw the child.
Alas ! unnatural mother that I was, the sight
only more vividly brought before me the sense
of my own perilous position, ^et the child was
lovely ! a likeness of myself, but lovelier far, for
it was a pure, innocent, gentle loveliness. And
they told her to call me '‘Maman.' Oh, did I
not relent when I heard that name ? No ; it
jarred on my ear as a word of reproach and
shame. In walking with the infant toward the
railway station, imagine my dismay when sud-
denly I met the man who had been taught to be-
lieve me dead. I soon discovered that his dis-
may was equal to my own — that I had nothing
to fear from his desire to claim me. It did oc-
cur to me for a moment to resign his child to
him. But when he shrank reluctantly from
a half suggestion to that effect, my pride was
wounded, my conscience absolved. And, after
all, it might be unsafe to my future to leave with
him any motive for retracing me. I left him
hastily. I have never seen nor heard of him
more. I took the child to Coblentz. Madame
Surville was charmed with its prettiness and prat-
tle— charmed still more when I rebuked the poor
infant for calling me ‘ilfaimn,’ and said, ‘Thy
real mother is here.’ Freed from my trouble, I
returned to the kind German roof I had quitted,
and shortly after became the wife of Ludovico
Cicogna.

‘ ‘ My punishment soon began. His was a light,
fickle, pleasure-hunting nature. He soon grew
weary of me. My very love made me unamiable
to him. I became irritable, jealous, exacting.
His daughter, who now came to live with us, was
another subject of discord. I knew that he loved
her better than me. I became a harsh step-moth-
er; and Ludovico’s reproaches, vehemently made,
nursed all my angriest passions. But a son of |
this new marriage was born to myself. My pret^
tv Luigi ! how my heart became wrapped up in
him ! Nursing him, I forgot resentment against
his father. Well, poor Cicogna fell ill and died.

I mourned him sincerely ; but my boy was left.
Poverty then fell on me— poverty extreme. Ci-
cogna’s sole income was derived fi*om a post ifi

the Austrian dominion in Italy, and ceased with
it. He received a small pension in compensation ;
that died with him.

“ At this time an Englishman, with whom Lu-
dovico had made acquaintance in Venice, and
who visited often at our house in Verona, offer-
ed me his hand. He had taken an extraordinary
liking to Isaura, Cicogna’s daughter by his first
marriage. But I think his proposal was dictated
partly by compassion for me, and more by affec-
tion for her. For the sake of my boy Luigi I
married him. He was a good man, of retired
learned habits witn which I had no sympathy.
His companionship overwhelmed me with ennui.
But I bore it patiently for Luigi’s sake. God
saw that my heart was as much as ever estranged
from Him, and he took away my all on earth —
my boy. Then in my desolation I turned to our
Hol}^ Church for comfort. I found a friend in
the priest, my confessor. I was startled to leai n
from him how guilty I had been — was still.
Pushing to an extreme the doctrines of the
Church, he would not allow that my first mar-
riage, though null by law, was void in the eyes of
Heaven. Was not the death of the child I so
cherished a penalty due to pay sin toward the
child I had abandoned ?

“These thoughts pressed on me night and
day. With the consent and approval of the
good priest, I determined to quit the roof of M.
iSelby, and to devote myself to the discovery of
my forsaken Julie.

“ I had a painful interview with M. Selby. I
announced my ‘intention to separate from him.
I alleged as a reason my conscientious repug-
nance to live with a professed heretic — an enemy
to our Holy Church. When M. Selby found
that he could not shake ray resolution, he lent
himself to it with the forbearance and generosity
which he had always exhibited. On our mar-
riage he had settled on me five thousand pounds,
to be absolutely mine in the event of his death.
He now proposed to concede to me the interest
on that capital during his life, and he undertook
the charge of my step-daughter Isaura, and se-
cured to her all the rest he had to leave — such
landed property as he possessed in England pass-
ing to a distant relative.

“ So we parted, not with hostility — tears were
shed on both sides. I set out for Coblentz.
Madame Surville had long since quitted that
town, devoting some years to the round of vari-
ous mineral spas in vain hope of cure. Not
without some difficulty I traced her to her last
residence in the neighborhood of Paris, but she
was then no more — her death accelerated by the
shock occasioned by the loss of her whole for-
tune, which she had been induced to place in
one of the numerous fraudulent companies by
which so many have been ruined. Julie, who
was with her at the time of her death, had dis-
appeared shortly after it — none could tell me
whither ; but from such hints as I could gather,
the poor child, thus left destitute, had been be-
trayed into sinful courses.

“Probably I might yet by searching inquiry
have found her out ; you will say it was my duty
at least to institute such inquiry. No doubt ;
I now remorsefully feel that it was. I did not
think so at the time. The Italian priest had
given me a few letters of introduction to French
ladies with whom, when they had sojourned at

224:

THE PARISIANS.

Florence, he had made acquaintance. These
ladies were very strict devotees, formal observ-
ers of those decorums by which devotion pro-
claims itself to the world. They had received
me not only with kindness, but with marked re-
spect. They chose to exalt into the noblest self-
sacrifice the act of my leaving M, Selby’s house.
Exaggerating the simple cause assigned to it in
the priest’s letter, they represented me as quit-
ting a luxurious home and an idolizing husband
rather than continue intimate intercourse with
the enemy of my religion. This new sort of
flattery intoxicated me with its fumes. I re-
coiled from the tliought of shattering the pedes-
tal to which I had found myself elevated. What
if I should discover my daughter in one fi'om the
touch of whose robe these holy women would
recoil as from the rags of a leper ! No ; it
would be impossible for me to own her — impos-
sible for me to give her the shelter of my roof.
Nay, if discovered to hold any commune with
such an outcast, no explanation, no excuse short
of the actual truth, would avail with these aus-
tere judges of human error. And the actual
truth would be yet deeper disgrace. I reasoned
away my conscience. If I looked for example
in the circles in which I had obtained reveren-
tial place, I could find no instance in which a
girl who had fallen from virtue was not repu-
diated by her nearest relatives. Nay, when I
thought of my own mother, had not her father
refused to see her, to acknowledge her child,
for no other offense than that of a vmalliance
which wounded the family pride ? That pride,
alas! was in my blood — my sole inheritance
from the family I sprang from.

“ Thus it went on, till I had grave symptoms
of a disease which rendered the duration of my
life uncertain. My conscience awoke and tor-
tured me. I resolved to take the veil. Vanity
and pride again ! My resolution was applauded
by those whose opinion had so swayed my mind
and my conduct. Before I retired into the con-
vent from which I write I made legal provision
as to the bulk of the fortune which, by the death
of M. Selby, has become absolutely at my dis-
posal. One thousand pounds amply sufficed for
dotation to the convent : the other four thousand
pounds are given in trust to the eminent notary,

M. Nadaud, Rue . On applying to him, you

will find that the sum, with the accumulated in-
terest, is bequeathed to you — a tribute of grati-
tude for the assistance you afforded me in the
time of your own need, and the kindness with
which you acknowledged our relationship and
commiserated my misfortunes.

“ But oh, my uncle, find out — a man can do
so with a facility not accorded to a woman — what
has become of this poor .Julie, and devote what
you may deem light and just of the sum thus be-
queathed to place her above want and temptation.
In doing so, I know you will respect my name :
I would not have it dishonor you, indeed.

“I have been employed in writing this long
letter since the day I heard you were in Paris.
It has exhausted the feeble remnants of my
strength. It will be given to you before the in-
terview I at once dread and long for, and in that
inteiwiew you will not rebuke me. Will you,
my kind uncle ? No, you will only soothe and
pity !

“ Would that I were worthy to pray for oth-

ers, that I might add, ‘ May the Saints have you
in their keeping, and lead you to faith in the
Holy Church, which has power to absolve from
sins those who repent as I do.’ ”

The letter dropped from Victor’s hand. He
took it up, smoothed it mechanically, and witli
a dim, abstracted, bewildered, pitiful wonder.
Well might the Superieure have hesitated to al-
low confessions, betraying a mind .so little regu-
lated by genuine religious faith, to pass into oth-
er hands. Evidently it was the paramount duty
of rescuing from want or from sin the writer’s
forsaken child that had overborne all other con-
siderations in the mind of the Woman and the
Priest she consulted.

Throughout that letter what a strange perver-
sion of understanding ! what a half-unconscious
confusion of wrong and right! the duty marked
out so obvious and so neglected — even the relig-
ious sentiment awakened by the conscience so
dfviding itself from the moral instinct ! the dread
of being thought less religious by obscure com-
parative strangers stronger than the moral ob-
ligation to discover and reclaim the child for
whose errors, if she had erred, the mother who
so selfishly forsook her was alone responsible !
even at the last, at the approach of death, the
love for a name she had never made a self-
sacrifice to preserve unstained, and that con-
cluding exhortation — that reliance on a repent-
ance in which there was so qualified a repara-
tion !

More would Victor de Mauleon have wonder-
ed had he knowm those points of similarity in
character, and in the nature of their final be-
quests, between Louise Duval and the husband
she had deserted. By one of those singular co-
incidences which, if this work be judged by the
ordinary rules presented to the ordinary novel-
reader, a critic would not unjustly impute to de-
fective invention in the author, the provision for
this child, deprived of its natural parents during
their lives, is left to the discretion and honor of
trustees, accompanied, on the part of the con.se-
crated Louise and “the blameless King,” with
the injunction of respect to their worldly reputa-
tions— two parents so opposite in condition, in
creed, in disposition, yet assimilating in that
point of individual character in which it touches
the wide vague circle of human opinion. For
this, indeed, the excuses of Richard King are
strong, inasmuch as the secrecy he sought was
for the sake not of his own memory, but that
of her whom the world knew only as his honor-
ed wi/e. The conduct of Louise admits no such
excuse ; she dies as she had lived — an Egoist.
But, whatever the motives of the parents, what
is the fate of the deserted child ? What revenge
does the worldly opinion which the parents
would escape for themselves inflict on the inno-
cent infant to whom the bulk of their w'orldly
possessions is to be clandestinely conveyed?
Would all the gold of Ophir be compensation
enough for her?

Slowly De Mauleon roused himself, and tum-
ped from the solitary place where he had been
seated to a more crowded part of the ramparts.
He passed a group of young Moblots^ with flow-
ers wreathed round their gun-barrels. ‘ ‘ I f,” said
one of them, gayly, “Paris wants bread, it never
wants flowers.” His companions laughed mer-
rily, and burst out into a scunile song in ridi-

THE B0T7NP ONLY FOE A MOMENT DBOWNED TUB SONQ^ BUT THE 8t>L[NTEE8 8TBUOK A MAN IN A OOARSE, BAOUEl* DBEbM \Vui> 11A1>

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THE PARISIANS.

cule of St. Trochu. Just then an obus fell a few
yards before the group. The sound only for a
moment drowned the song, but the splinters
struck a man in a coarse, ragged dress, who had
stopped to listen to the singers. At his sharp
cry, two men hastened to his side : one was Vic-
tor de Mauleon ; the other was a surgeon, who
quitted another group of idlers — National Guards
— attracted by the shriek that summoned his pro-
fessional aid. The poor man was terribly wound-
ed. The surgeon, glancing at De Mauleon,
shrugged his shoulders, and muttered, “Past
help!” The sufferer turned his haggard eyes
on the Vicomte, and gasped out, “ M. de Mau-
leon?”

“That is my name,” answered Victor, sur-
prised, and not immediately recognizing the
sufferer.

“ Hist, Jean Lebeau ! look at me — you recol-
lect me now — Marc le Roux, concierge to the
secret council. Ay, I found out who you were
long ago — followed you home from the last
meeting you broke up. But I did not betray
you, or you would have been murdered long
since. Beware of the old set — beware of — of — ”
Here his voice broke off into shrill exclamations
of pain. Curbing his last agonies with a power-
ful effort, he faltered forth, “You owe me a serv-
ice— see to the little one at home — she is starv-
ing.” The death-rd/e came on; in a few mo-
ments he was no more.

Victor gave orders for the removal of the
corpse, and hurried away. The surgeon, who
had changed countenance when he overheard
the name in which the dying man had address-
ed De Mauleon, gazed silently after De Mau-
leon’s retreating form, and then, also quitting
the dead, rejoined the group he had quitted.
Some of those who composed it acquired evil re-
nown later in the war of thq Communists, and
came to disastrous ends : among that number
the Pole, Dombinsky, nnd other members of the
secret council. The Italian, Raselli, was there
too, but, subtler than his French confreres, he
divined the fate of the Communists, and glided
from it — safe now in his native land, destined
there, no doubt, to the funereal honors and last-
ing renown -which Italy bestows on the dust of
her sons who have advocated assassination out
of love for the human race.

Amidst this group, too, was a National Guard,
strayed from his proper post, and stretched on
the frozen ground, and, early though the hour,
in the profound sleep of intoxication.

“So,” said Dombinsky, “you have found your
errand in vain. Citizen le Noy ; another victim
to the imbecility of our generals. ”

“And partly one of us,” replied the Medecin
des Pauvres. “You remember poor Le Roux,
who kept the old baraque where the Council of
Ten used to meet? Yonder he lies.”

“Don’t talk of the Council of Ten. What
fools and dupes we werd made by that vieux
qr€din, Jean Lebeau ! How I wish I could meet
him again !”

Gaspard le Noy smiled sarcastically. “So
much the worse for you if you did. A muscu-
lar and a ruthless fellow is that Jean Lebeau!”
Therewith he turned to the drunken sleeper, and
woke him up with a shake and a kick.

“ Armand — Armand Monnier, I say, rise — rub
your eyes ! What if you are called to your post ?

220

What if you are shamed as a deserter and a
coward ?”

Armand turned, rose with an effort from the
recumbent to the sitting posture, and stared diz-
zily in the face of the Medecin des Pauvres.

“ I was dreaming that I had caught by the
throat,” said Armand, wildly, “the aristo who
shot my brother; and lo! there were two men,
Victor de Mauleon and Jean Lebeau.”

“ Ah ! there is something in dreams,” said the
surgeon. “Once in a thousand times a dream
comes true.”

CHAPTER V.

The time now came when all provision of food
or of fuel failed the modest household of Isau-
ra ; and there was not only herself and the Ve-
nosta to feed and warm — there were the servants
whom they had brought from Italy, and had not
the heart now to dismiss to the certainty of fam-
ine. True, one of the three, the man, had re-
turned to his native land before the commence-
ment of the siege ; but the two women had re-
mained. They supported themselves now as
they could on the meagre rations accorded by
the government. Still Isaura attended the am-
bulance to which she was attached. From the
ladies associated with her she could readily have
obtained ample supplies; but they had no con-
ception of her real state of destitution ; and there
was a false pride generally prevalent among the
respectable classes, which Isaura shared, that
concealed distress lest alms should be proffered.

The destitution of the household had been
carefully concealed from the parents of Gustave
Rameau until, one day, Madame Rameau, en-
tering at the hour at which she generally, and
her husband sometimes, came for a place by the
fireside and a seat at the board, found on the
one only ashes, on the other a ration of the black
nauseous compound which had become the sub-
stitute for bread.

Isaura was absent on her duties at the ambu-
I lance hospital — purposely absent, for she shrank
from the bitter task of making clear to the friends
of her betrothed the impossibility of continuing
the aid to their support which their son had neg-
lected to contribute, and still more from the
comment which she knew they would make on
his conduct in absenting himself so wholly of
late, and in the time of such tiial and pressure,
both from them and from herself. Truly, she
rejoiced at that absence so far as it affected her-
self. Every hour of the day she silently asked
her conscience whether she were not now ab-
solved from a promise won from her only by an
assurance that she had power to influence for
good the life that now voluntarily separated it-
self from her own. As she had never loved Gus-
tave, so she felt no resentment at the indifference
his conduct manifested. On the contrary, she
hailed it as a sign that the annulment of their
betrothal would be as welcome to him as to her-
self. And if so, she could restore to him the
sort of compassionate friendship she had learned
to cherish in the hour of his illness and repent-
ance. She had resolved to seize the first op-
portunity he afforded to her of speaking to him
with frank and truthful plainness. But, mean-
I while, her gentle nature recoiled from the cou;

226

THE PARISIANS.

fession of her resolve to appeal to Gustave him-
self for the rupture of their engagement.

Thus the Venosta alone received Madame Ra-
meau ; and while that lady was still gazing round
her vvith an emotion too deep for immediate ut-
terance, her husband entered, with an expression
of face new to him — the look of a man who has
been stung to anger, and who has braced his
mind to some stern determination. This alter-
ed countenance of the good-tempered bourgeois
was -not, however, noticed by the two women.
The Venosta did not even raise her eyes to it
as, Avith humbled accents, she said, “Pardon,
dear monsieur, pardon, madame, our want of
hospitality; it is not our hearts that fail. We
kept our state from you as long as we could.
Now it speaks for itself : ‘ La fame e una hratta
festin. ’ ”

“Oh, madame! and oh, my poor Isaura!”
cried Madame Rameau, bursting into tears.
“ So we have been all this time a burden on you
— aided to bring such Avant oh you ! Hoav can
Ave ever be forgiven? And my son — to leave
us thus — not even fo tell us Avhere to find him!”

“Do not degrade us, my wife,” said M. Ra-
meau, Avith unexpected dignity, “by a word to
imply that Ave would stoop to sue for support to
our ungrateful child. No, Ave Avill not starve !
I am strong enough still to find food for you. I
Avill apply for restoration to the National Guard.
They have augmented the pay to married men ;
it is noAv nearly two francs and a half a day to a
j)ere de famille, and on that pay we all can at
least live. Courage, my Avife ! I will go at once
for employment. Many men older than I am
are at Avork on the ramparts, and Avill march to
the battle on the next sortie. ”

“It shall not be so!” exclaimed Madame
Rameau, vehemently, and Avinding her arm
round her husband’s neck. “ I loved my son
better than thee once — more the shame to me.
Noav I Avould rather lose tAventy such sons than
])eril thy life, my Jacques ! — Madame,” she con-
tinued, turning to the Venosta, “thou Avert
Aviser than I. Thou Avert ever opposed to the
union betAveen thy young friend and my son. I
felt sore Avith thee for it — a mother is so selfish
Avhen she puts herself in the place of her child.
I thought that only through marriage with one
so pure, so noble, so holy, Gustave could be
saA'ed from sin and evil. I am deceived. A man
so heartless to his parents, so neglectful of his
affianced, is not to be redeemed. I brought
about this betrothal : tell Isaura that I release
her from it. I haA^e Avatched her closely since
she Avas entrapped into it. I know hoAv misera-
ble the thought of it has made her, though, in
her sublime devotion to her plighted word, she
sought to conceal from me the real state of her
heart. If the betrothal brings such sorrow, Avhat
AA'ould the union do! Tell her this from me.
Come, Jacques, come aAvay !”

“ Stay, madame I” exclaimed the Venosta, her
excitable nature much affected by this honest
outburst of feeling. “It is true that I did op-
pose, so far as I could, my poor Piccolo’s en-
gagement Avith M. GustaA’e. But I dare not do
your bidding. Isaura Avould not listen to me.
And let us be just : M. Gustave may be able
satisfactorily to explain his seeming indifference
and neglect. His health is always very delicate ;
perhaps he may be again dangerously ill. He

serves in the National Guard ; perhaps — ” She
paused, but the mother conjectured the word left
unsaid, and, clasping' her hands, cried out, in an-
guish, “Perhaps dead! — and Ave have Avronged
him ! Oh, Jacques, Jacques ! how shall Ave
find out — hoAV discover our boy ? Who can tell
us Avhere to search — at the hospital, or in the
cemeteries ?” At the last Avord she dropped into
a seat, and her Avhole frame shook Avith her sobs.

Jacques approached her tenderly, and kneel-
ing by her side, said :

“ No, 7n’amie, comfort thyself, if it be indeed
a comfort to learn that thy son is alive and Avell.
For my part, I knoAv not if I would not rather
he had died in his innocent childhood. I haA^e
seen him — spoken to him. I knoAv Avhere he is
to be found.”

“You do, and concealed it from me? Oh,
Jacques!”

“Listen to me, Avife, and you too, madame;
for what I have to say should be made known to
Mademoiselle Cicogna. Some time since, on
the night of the famous sortie, when at my post
on the ramparts, I was told that Gustave had
joined himself to the most violent of the Red
Republicans, and had uttered at the Club de la
Vengeance sentiments of Avhich I will only say
that I, his father, and a Frenchman, hung my
head with shame Avhen they Avere repeated to me.
I resolved to go to the club myself. I did. I
heard him speak — heard him denounce Christian-
ity as the instrument of tyrants.”

“ Ah !” cried the tAVO Avomen, Avith a simulta-
neous shudder.

“When the assembly broke up I Avaylaid him
at the door. I spoke to him seriously. 1 told him
what anguish such announcement of blasphemous
opinions avouW inflict on his pious mother. I told
him I should deem it rny duty to inform Made-
moiselle Cicogna, and Avarn her against the union
on Avhich he had told us his heart Avas bent He
appeared sincerely moved by what I said, im-
plored me to keep silence toAvard his mother
and his betrothed, and promised, on that con-
dition, to relinquish at once Avhat he called ‘ his
career as an orator,’ and appear no more at such
execrable clubs. On this understanding I held
my tongue. Why, Avith such other causes of
grief and suffering, should I tell thee, poor wife,
of a sin that I hoped thy son had repented and
would not repeat ? And Gustave kept his word.
He has never, so far as I know, attended, at least
spoken, at the Red clubs since that evening.”

“Thank Heaven so far, ” murmured Madame
Rameau.

‘ ‘ So far, yes ; but hear more. A little time
after I thus met him he changed his lodging,
and did not confide to us his new address, giA’ing
as a reason to us that he Avished to av’oid all clew
to his discovery by that pertinacious Mademoi-
selle Julie.”

Rameau had here sunk his voice into a Avhis-
per, intended only for his wife, but the ear of the
Venosta Avas fine enough to catch the sound, and
she repeated, “ Mademoiselle Julie ! Santa Ma-
ria ! Avho is she ?”

“ Oh,” said M. Rameau, Avith a shrug of his
shoulders, and with true Parisian sang-froid as
to such matters of morality, “a trifle not Avorth
considering. Of course a good-looking gar^on
like Gustave must have his little affairs of the
heart before he settles for life. Unluckily,

THE PARISIANS.

227

among those of Gustave was one with a violent-
tempered girl who persecuted him wlien he
left her, and he naturally wished to avoid all
chance of a silly scandal, if only out of respect to
the dignity of his fiancee. But I found that
was not the true motive, or at least the only one,
for concealment. Prepare yourself, my poor
wife. Thou hast heard of these terrible journals
which the decheance has let loose upon us. Our
unhappy boy is the principal writer of one of the
worst of them, under the name of ‘Diderot le
Jeune.’”

“ What !” cried the Venosta. “That mon-
ster ! The good Abbe Vertpre was telling us of
the writings with that name attached to them.
The Abbe himself is denounced by mime as one
of those -meddling priests who are to be con-
strained to serve as soldiers, or pointed out to the
vengeance of the canaille. Isaura's fiancee a
blasphemer!”

“ Hush, hush !” said Madame Rameau, rising,
very pale -but self-collected. “How do you
know this, Jacques ?”

“ From the lips of Gustave himself. I heard
first of it yesterday from one of the young repro-
bates with whom he used to be familiar, and who
even complimented me on the rising fame of my
son, and praised the eloquence of his article that
day. But I would not believe him. I bought
the journal — here it is ; saw the name and ad-
dress of the printer — went this morning to the
office — was there told that ‘Diderot le Jeune’
was within revising the press — stationed myself
by the street-door, and when Gustave came out
I seized his arm and asked him to say Yes or
No if he was the author of this infamous article —
this, which I now hold in my hand. He owned
the authorship with pride ; talked wildly of the
great man he was — of the great things he was to
do ; said that, in hitherto concealing his true
name, he had done all he could to defer tO'the
bigoted prejudices of his parents and his fiancee;
and that if genius, like fire, would find its way
out, he could not help it ; that a time was rapid-
ly coming when his opinions would be upper-
most that since October the Communists were
gaining ascendency, and only waited the end of
the siege to put down the present government,
and with it all hypocrisies and shams, religious
or social. My wife, he was rude to me, insult-
ing ; but he had been drinking — that made him
incautious ; and he continued to walk by my side
toward his own lodging, on reaching which he
ironically invited me to enter, saying, ‘ I should
meet there men who would soon argue me out
of my obsolete notions.’ You may go to him,
wife, now, if you please. I will not, nor will I
take from him a crust of bread. I came hither
determined to tell the young lady all this, if I
found her at home. I should be a dishonored
man if I suffered her to be cheated into misery.
There, Madame Venosta, there! Take that
journal, show it to mademoiselle, and report to
her all I have said. ”

M. Rameau, habitually the mildest of men,
Iiad, in talking, worked himself up into positive
fury.

His wife, calmer but more deeply affected,
made a piteous sign to the Venosta not to say
more, and, without other salutation or adieu,
took her husband’s arm, and led him from the
house.

CHAPTER VI.

Obtaining from her husband Gustave’s ad-
dress, Madame Rameau hastened to her son’s
apartment alone through the darkling streets.
The house in which he lodged was in a different
quarter from that in which Isaura had visited him.
Then the street selected was still in the centre
of the beau monde — now it was within the pre-
cincts of that section of the many-faced capital
in which the bean monde was held in detestation
or scorn ; still the house had certain pretensions,
boasting a court-yard and a porter’s lodge. Ma-
dame Rameau, instructed to mount au second,
found the door ajar, and, entering, perceived on
the table of the little salon the remains of a feast
which, however untempting it might have been
in happier times, contrasted strongly the meagre
fare of which Gustave’s parentshad deemed them-
selves fortunate to partake at the board of his
betrothed — remnants of those viands which offer-
ed to the inquisitive epicure an experiment in
food much too costly for the popular stomach —
dainty morsels of elephant, hippopotamus, and
wolf, interspersed with half-emptied bottles of
varied and high-priced wines. Passing these
evidences of unseasonable extravagance with a
mute sentiment of anger and disgust, Madame
Rameau penetrated into a small cabinet, the door
of which was also ajai\ and saw her son stretch-
ed on his bed, half dressed, breathing heavily in
the sleep which follows intoxication. She did
not attempt to disturb him. She placed herself
quietly by his side, gazing mournfully on the face
which she had once so proudly contemplated,
now haggard and faded — still strangely beautiful,
though it was the beauty of ruin.

From time to time he stirred uneasily, and
muttered broken words, in which fragments of
his own delicately worded verse were incoher-
ently mixed up with ribald slang, addressed to
imaginary companions. In his dreams he was
evidently living over again his late revel, with
episodical diversions into the poet -world, of
which he was rather a vagrant nomad than a
settled cultivator. Then she would silently
bathe his feverish temples with the perfumed
water she found on his dressing-table. And so
she watched, till, in the middle of the night, he
woke up, and recovered the possession of his
reason with a quickness that surprised Madame
Rameau. He was, indeed, one of those men in
whom excess of drink, when slept off, is suc-
ceeded by extreme mildness, the effect of nerv-
ous exhaustion, and by a dejected repentance,
which, to his mother, seemed a propitious lucid-
ity of the moral sense.

Certainly, on seeing her, he threw himself on
her breast, and began to shed tears. Madame
Rameau had not the heart to reproach him
sternly. But by gentle degrees she made him
comprehend the pain he had given to his father,
and the destitution in which he had deserted his
parents and his affianced. In his present mood
Gustave was deeply affected by these representa-
tions. He excused himself feebly by dwelling
on the excitement of the times, the preoccupa-
tion of his mind, the example of his companions;
but with his excuses he mingled passionate ex-
pressions of remorse, and before daybreak moth-
er and son were completely reconciled. Then
he fell into a tranquil sleep ; and Madame Ra-

228

THE PARISIANS.

meau, quite worn out, slept also, in the chair be-
side him, her arm around his neck. He awoke
before she did, at a late hour in the morning,
and, stealing from her arm, went to his escritoire^
and took forth what money he found there, half
of which he poured into her lap, kissing her till
she awoke.

“Mother,” he said, “henceforth I will work
for thee and my father. Take this trifle now ;
the rest I reserve for Isaura.”

“Joy! I have found my boy again. But
Isaura — I fear that she will not take thy money,
and all thought of her must also be abandoned, ”

Gustave had already turned to his looking-
glass, and Avas arranging with care his dark
ringlets : his personal vanity — his remorse ap-
peased by this pecuniary oblation — had revived.

“No,” he said, gayly, “I don’t think I shall
abandon her ; and it is not likely, when she sees
and hears me, that she can wish to abandon me !
Now let us breakfast, and then I will go at once
to her.”

In the mean while Isaura, on her return to her
apartment at the wintry night-fall, found a cart
stationed at the door, and the Venosta on the
threshold superintending the removal of various
articles of furniture — indeed, all such articles as
were not absolutely required.

“Oh, PiccolaJ” she said, with an attempt at
cheerfulness, “I did not expect thee back so
soon. Hush! I have made a famous bargain.
I have found a broker to buy these things, which
we don’t want just at present, and can replace
by new and prettier things Avhen the siege is OA’er
and we get our money. The broker pays down
on the nail, and thou wilt not go to bed without
supper. There are no ills which are not more
supportabne after food.”

Isaura smiled faintly, kissed the Venosta’s
cheek, and ascended with weary steps to the
sitting-room. There she seated herself quietly,
looking with abstracted eyes round the bare dis-
mantled space by the light of the single candle.

When the Venosta re-entered she was follow-
ed by the servants, bringing in a daintier meal
than they had known for days — a genuine rab-
bit, potatoes, marrons glaces, a bottle of wine,
and a pannier of wood. The fire was soon
lighted, the Venosta plying the belloAvs. It was
not till this banquet, of which Isaura, faint as
she was, scarcely partook, had been remitted to
the two Italian \yomen-servants, and another log
been thrown on the hearth, that the Venosta
opened the subject Avhich was pressing on her
heart. She did this with a joyous smile, taking
both Isaura’s hands in her own and stroking
them fondly.

“ My child, I have such good news for thee !
Thou hast escaped — thou art free !” And then
she related all that M. Rameau had said, and
finished by producing the copy of Gustave’s un-
hallowed journal.

When she had read the latter, which she did
with compressed lips and varying color, the girl
fell on her knees — not to thank Heaven that she
would now escape a union from which her soul
so recoiled, not that she was indeed free — but to
pray, with tears rolling down her cheeks, that
God would yet save to Himself, and to good ends,
the soul that she had failed to bring to Him. All
previous irritation against GustaA’^e Avas gone —
all had melted into an ineffable compassion.

CHAPTER VII.

When, a little before noon, Gustave Avas ad-
mitted by the servant into Isaura’s salon, its
desolate condition, stripped of all its pretty fem-
inine elegancies, struck him Avith a sense of dis-
comfort to himself which superseded any more
remorseful sentiment. The day was intensely
cold ; the single log on the hearth did not burn ;
there were only tAvo or three chairs in the room ;
eA'en the carpet, which had been of gayly colored
Aubusson, was gone. His teeth chattered, and
he only replied by a dreary nod to the serv'ant,
who informed him that Madame Venosta Avas
gone out, and mademoiselle had not yet quitted
her OAvn room.

If there be a thing which a true Parisian of
Rameau’s stamp associates with love of woman,
it is a certain sort of elegant surroundings — a
pretty boudoir, a cheery hearth, an easy fauteuiL
In the absence of such attributes, '"'‘fugit retro
Venus." If the Englishman inA^ented the word
comfort, it is the Parisian who most thoroughly
comprehends the thing: and he resents the loss
of it in any house where he has been accustomed
to look for it as a personal AATong to his feelings.

Left for some minutes alone, Gustave occupied
himself Avith kindling the log, and muttering,
“Par tous les diables, quel chien de rhurne je
vais attraper He turned as he heard the rus-
tle of a robe and a light slow' step. Isaura stood
before him. Her aspect startled him. He had
come prepared to expect grave displeasure and a
frigid reception. But the expression of Isaura’s
face w as more kindly, more gentle, more tender,
than he had seen it since the day she had accept-
ed his suit.

Knowing from his mother what his father had
said to his prejudice, he thought within himself,
“After all, the poor girl loA'es me better than 1
thought. She is sensible and enlightened ; she
can not pretend to dictate an opinion to a man
like me.”

He approached with a complacent, self-assured
mien, and took her hand, Avhich she yielded to
him quietly, leading her to one of the feAv remain-
ing chairs, and seating himself beside her.

“ Dear Isaura,” he said, talking rapidly all the
Avhile he performed this ceremony, “I need not
assure you of my utter ignorance of the state to
which the imbecility of our gOA'ernment, and the
coAvardice, or rather the treachery, of our gener-
als, has reduced you. I only heard of it late last
night from my mother. I hasten to claim my
right to share Avith you the humble resources
w'hich I have saved by the intellectual labors that
have absorbed all such moments as my military
drudgeries left to the talents w'hich, even at such
a moment, paralyzing minds less energetic, have
sustained me.” And therewith he poured several
pieces of gold and silver on the table beside her
chair.

“GustaA’e,” then said Isaura, “I am well
pleased that you thus proA’^e that I w'as not mis-
taken Avhen I thought and said that, despite all
appearances, all erroi's, your heart w’as good.
Oh, do but follow' its true impulses, and — ”

“ Its impulses lead me ever to thy feet,” inter-
rupted Gustave, Avith a fervor Avhich sounded
somewhat theatrical and holloAv.

The girl smiled, not bitterly, not mockingly ;
but Gustave did not like the smile.

THE PARISIANS.

229

“ Poor Gustave,” she said, with a melancholy
pathos in her soft voice, “do you not understand
that the time has come when such commonplace
compliments ill suit our altered positions to each 1
other ? Nay, listen to me patiently ; and let not
my words in this last interview pain you to recall.
If either of us be to blame in the engagement
hiistily contracted, it is I. Gustave, when you,
exaggerating in your imagination the nature of
your sentiments for me, said with such earnest-
ness that on my consent to our union depended
your health, your life, your career ; that if I with-
held that consent you were lost, and in despair
would seek distraction from thought in all from
which your friends, your mother, the duties im-
posed upon Genius for the good of Man to the
ends of God, should withhold and save you —
when you said all this, and I believed it, I felt as
if Heaven commanded me not to desert the soul
which appealed to me in the crisis of its struggle
and peril. Gustave, I repent ; I was to blame. ”

“ How to blame?”

“I overrated my power over your heart: I
overrated still more, perhaps, my power over my
own. ”

“Ah, your own! I understand now. You
did not love me?”

“ I never said that I loved you in the sense in
which you use the word. I told you that the
love which you have described in your verse, and
which,” she added, falteringly, with heightened
color and with hands tightly clasped, “I have
conceived possible in my dreams, it was not
mine to give. You declared you were satisfied
with such affection as I could bestow. Hush!
let me go on. You said that affection would
increase, would become love, in proportion as I
knew you more. It has not done so. Nay, it
passed away, even before, in this time of trial
and grief, I became aware how different from the
love you professed was the neglect which needs
no excuse, for it did not pain me.”

“You are cruel indeed, mademoiselle.”

“No, indeed, I am kind. I wish you to feel
no pang at our parting. Truly I had resolved,
when the siege terminated, and the time to speak
frankly of our engagement came, to tell you that
I shrank from the thought of a union between
us; and that it was for the happiness of both
that our promises should be mutually canceled.
The moment has come sooner than I thought.
Even had I loved you, Gustave, as deeply as — as
well as the beings of Romance love, I would not
dare to wed one who calls upon mortals to deny
God, demolish his altars, treat his worship as a
crime. No; I would sooner die of a broken
heart that I might the sooner be one of those
souls privileged to pray the Divine Intercessor
for merciful light on those beloved and left dark
on earth.”

“Isaura!” exclaimed Gustave, his mobile tem-
perament impressed, not by the words of Isaura,
hut by the passionate earnestness with which they
were uttered, and by the exquisite spiritual beau-
ty which her face took from the combined sweet-
ness and fervor of its devout expression — “Isau-
ra, I merit your censure, your sentence of con-
demnation ; but do not ask me to give back your
plighted troth. I have not the strength to do so.
More than ever, more than when first pledged
to me, I need the aid, the companionship of my
guardian angel. You were that to me once;

abandon me not now. In these terrible times
of revolution excitable natures catch madness
from each other. A writer in the heat of his
I passion says much that he does not mean to be
literally taken, which in cooler moments he re-
pents and retracts. Consider, too, the pressure
of want, of hunger. It is the opinions that you
so condemn which alone at this moment supply
bread to the writer. But say you will yet par-
don me — yet give me trial if I offend no more —
if I withdraw my aid to any attacks on your
views, your religion — if I say, ‘ Thy God shall be
my God, and thy people shall be my people.’ ”

“Alas!” said Isaura, softly, “ask thyself if
those be words^ which I can believe again.
Hush!” she continued, checking his answer, with
a more kindling countenance and more impas-
sioned voice. “Are they, after all, the words
that man should address to woman? Is it on
the strength of Woman that Man should rely ?
Is it to her that he should say, ‘ Dictate my
opinions on all that belongs to the Mind of man ;
change the doctrines that I have thoughtfully
formed and honestly advocate ; teach me how to
act on earth ; clear all my doubts as to my hopes
of heaven ?’ No, Gustave ; in this task man nev-
er should repose on woman. Thou art honest at
this moment, my poor friend ; but could I believe
thee to-day, thou wouldst laugh to-morrow at
what woman can be made to believe.”

Stung to the quick by the truth of Isaura’s
accusation, Gustave exclaimed with vehemence,
“All that thou sayest is false, and thou knowest
it. The influence of woman on man for good or
for evil defies reasoning. It does mould his deeds
on earth ; it does either make or mar all that fu-
ture which lies between his life and his grave-
stone, and of whatsoever may lie beyond the
grave. Give me up now, and thou art responsible
for me, for all I do, it may be against all that
thou deemest holy. Keep thy troth yet a while,
and test me. If I come to thee showing how I
could have injured, and how for thy dear sake I
have spared, nay, aided, all that thou dost believe
and reverence, then wilt thou dare to say, ‘Go
thy ways alone — I forsake thee!”’

Isaura turned aside her face, but she held out
her hand — it was as cold as death. He knew
that she had so far yielded, and his vanity exult-
ed : he smiled in secret triumph as he pressed his
kiss on that icy hand, and was gone.

“ This is duty — it must be duty,” said Isaura
to herself. “But where is the buoyant delight
that belongs to a duty achieved ? where ? oh,
where ?” And then she stole, with drooping head
and heavy step, into her own room, fell on her
knees, and prayed.

CHAPTER VIII.

In vain persons, be they male or female, there
is a complacent self-satisfaction in any moment-
ary personal success, however little that success
may conduce to — nay, however much it may
militate against — the objects to which their vani-
ty itself devotes its more permanent desires. A

vain woman may be very anxious to win A ,

the magnificent, as a partner for life, and yet feel
a certain triumph when a glance of her eye has

made an evening’s conquest of the pitiful B ,

although by that achievement she incurs the im-

230

THE PARISIANS.

minent hazard of losing A altogether. So,

when Gustave Rameau quitted Isaura, his first
feeling was that of triumph. His eloquence had
subdued her will ; she had not finally discarded
him. But as he wandered abstractedly in the
biting air, his self-complacency was succeeded by
mortification and discontent. He felt that he had
committed himself to promises which he was by
no means prepared to keep. True, the promises
were vague in words ; but in substance they
were perfectly clear — “ to spare, nay, to aid, all
that Isaura esteemed and reverenced.” How
was this possible to him? How could he sud-
denly change the whole character of his writ-
ings ? how become the defendei; of marriage and
property, of Church and religion ? how pro-
claim himself so utter an apostate ? If he did,
how become a leader of the fresh revolution ? how
escape being its victim ? Cease to write alto-
gether? But then how live? His pen was his
sole subsistence, save thirty sous a day as a Na-
tional Guard — thirty sous a day to him who, in
order to be Sybarite in tastes, was Spartan in
doctrine. Nothing better just at that moment
than Spartan doctrine, “Live on black broth, and
fight the enemy.” And the journalists in vogue
so thrived upon that patriotic sentiment, that
they were the last persons compelled to drink the
broth or to fight the enemy.

“ Those women are such idiots when they
meddle in politics,” grumbled between his teeth
the enthusiastic advocate of Woman’s Rights on
all matters of love. “And,” he continued, solil-
oquizing, “it is not as if the girl had any large
or decent dot ; it is not as if she said, ‘ In return
for the sacrifice of your popularity, your pros-
pects, your opinions, I give you not only a devoted
heart, but an excellent table and a capital fire
and plenty of pocket-money.’ Sac7'e bleu! when
I think of that frozen salon, and possibly the leg
of a mouse for dinner, and a virtuous homily by
way of grace, the prospect is not alluring ; and
the girl herself is not so pretty as she was — grown
very thin. Sur mon dme., I think she asks too
much — far more than she is worth. No, no ; I
had better have accepted her dismissal. Elle
n'est pas digne de moi."

Just as he arrived at that conclusion, Gustave
Rameau felt the touch of a light, a soft, a warm,
yet a fii-m hand, on his arm. He turned, and
beheld the face of the woman whom, tin-ough
so many dreary weeks, he had sought to shun —
the face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as
Savarin had seen her, looking pinched and wan,
with faded robes, nor, as w'hen met in the cafe
by Lemercier, in the faded fobes of a theatre.
Julie never looked more beautiful, more radiant,
than she did now ; and there was a wonderful
heartfelt fondness in her voice when she cried,
“J/on homme! mon hornme! seul homme au
monde a mon coeur Gustave, cheri adore ! I have
found thee — at last — at last!” Gustave gazed
upon her, stupefied. Involuntarily his eye glanced
from the freshness of bloom in her face, which
the intense cold of the atmosphere only seemed
to heighten into purer health, to her dress, which
was new and handsome — black — he did not know
that it was mourning — the cloak trimmed with
costly sables. Certainly it was no mendicant for
alms who thus reminded the shivering Adonis of
the claims of a pristine Venus. He stammered
out her name, “Julie !” and then he stopped.

“ Oui, ta Julie! Petit ingrat ! how I have
sought for thee! how I have hungered for the
sight of thee ! That monster Savarin ! he would
not give me any news of thee. That is ages
ago. But at least Frederic Lemercier, whom I
saw since, promised to remind thee that I lived
still. He did not do so, or I should have seen
thee — n'est ce pas ?"

‘ ‘ Certainly, certainly — only — chere amie —
you know that — that — as I before announced to
thee, I — I — was engaged in marriage — and —
and—”

“But are you married ?”

“No, no. Hark! Take care — is not that
the hiss of an obus 9"

“ What then ? Let it come ! Would it might
slay us both while my hand is in thine !”

“Ah!” muttered Gustave, inwardly, “what a
difference! This is love! No preaching here!
Elle est plus digne de moi que V autre. ”

“No,” he said, aloud, “I am not married.
Marriage is at best a pitiful ceremony. But if
you wished for news of me, surely you must have
heard of my effect as an orator not despised in
the Salle Favre. Since, I have withdrawn from
that arena. But as a journalist I flatter myself
that I have had a beau succes."

“Doubtless, doubtless, my Gustave, my Poet!
Wherever thou art, thou must be first among
men. But, alas ! it is ray fault — my misfortune.
I have not been in the midst of a world that per-
haps rings of thy name.”

“Not my name. Prudence compelled me to
conceal that. Still, Genius pierces under any
name. You might have discovered me under
my nom de plume."

“Pardon me — I was always bete. But, oh,
for so many weeks I was so poor — so destitute !

I could go nowhere, except — don’t be ashamed
of me — except — ”

“Yes? Goon.”

“ Except where I could get some money. At
first to dance — you remember my bolero. Then
I got a better engagement. Do you not remem-
ber that you taught me to recite verses ? Had it
been for myself alone, I might have been con-
tented to starve. Without thee, what was life?
But thou wilt recollect Madeleine, the old bonne
who lived with me. Well, she had attended and
cherished me since I was so high — lived with my
mother. Mother ! no ; it seems that Madame
Surville was not my mother after all. But, of
course, I could not let my old Madeleine starve ;
and therefore, with a heart heavy as lead, I danced
and declaimed. ]\Iy heart was not so heavy when
I recited thy songs.”

“My songs! Pauvre ange!" exclaimed the
Poet.

“And then, too, I thought, ‘Ah! this dread-
ful siege ! He, too, may be poor — he may know
want and hunger ;’ and so all I could save from
Madeleine I put into a box for thee, in case thou
shouldst come back to me some day. Mon
homme, how could I go to the Salle Favre ?
How could I read journals, Gustave ? But thou
art not married, Gustave ? Parole d'honneur ?"

''^Parole d'honneur! What does that mat-
ter ?”

“Every thing! Ah! I am not so mechante,
so mauvaise tite, as I was some months ago. If
thou wert married, I should say, ‘Blessed and
sacred be thy wife! Forget me.’ But as it is.

THE PARISIANS.

231

one word more. Dost thou love the young lady,
whoever she he ? or does she love thee so well
that it would be sin in thee to talk trifles to
Julie ? Speak as honestly as if thou wert not a
poet.”

“Honestly, she never said she loved me. I
never thought she did. But, you see, I was
very ill, and my parents and friends and my
physician said that it was right for me to arrange
my life, and marry, and so forth. And the girl
had money, and was a good match. In short,
the thing was settled. But oh, Julie, she never
learned my songs by heart! She did not love
as thou didst, and still dost. And — all ! well —
now that we meet again — now that I look in
thy face — now that I hear thy voice — No, I do
not love her as I loved, and might yet love, thee.
But — but — ”

“Well, but? oh, I guess. Thou seest me
well dressed, no longer dancing and declaiming
at cafes; and thou thinkest that Julie has dis-
graced herself? she is unfaithful ?”

Gustave had not anticipated that frankness,
nor was the idea which it expressed uppermost
in his mind when he said, “but, but — ” There
were many huts^ all very confused, struggling
through his mind as he spoke. However, he
answered as a Parisian skeptic, not ill-bred,
naturally would answer —

“ My dear friend, my dear child” (the Paris-
ian is very fond of the word child, or enfant^ in
addressing a woman), “I have never seen thee
so beautiful as thou art now; and when thou
tellest me that thou art no longer poor, and the
proof of what thou sayest is visible in the furs
which, alas ! I can not give thee, what am I to
think ?”

“ Oh, mon homme, mon homme! thou art very
spirituel^ and that is why I loved thee. I am
very bete^ and that is excuse enough for thee if
thou couldst not love me. But canst thou look
me in the face and not know that my eyes could
not meet thine as they do, if I had been faith-
less to thee even in a thought, when I so boldly
touched thine arm? Viens chez moi, come and
let me explain all. Only — only let me repeat,
if another has rights over thee which forbid thee
to come, say so kindly, and I will never trouble
thee again.”

Gustave had been hitherto walking slowly by
the side of Julie, amidst the distant boom of the
besiegers’ cannon, while the short day began to
close; and along the dreary Boulevards saun-
tered idlers turning to look at the young, beauti-
ful, well-dressed woman who seemed in such con-
trast to the capital whose former luxuries the
“Ondine” of imperial Paris represented. He
now offered his arm to Julie; and, quickening
his pace, said, “There istio reason why I should
refuse to attend thee home, and listen to the
explanations thou dost generously condescend to
volunteer.”

CHAPTER IX.

“Ah, indeed! what a difference — what a dif-
ference!” said Gustave to himself when he en-
tered Julie’s apartment. In her palmier days,
when he had first made her acquaintance, the
apartment no doubt had been infinitely more
splendid, more abundant in silks and fringes and

flowers and knickknacks ; but never had it
seemed so cheery and comfortable and home-like
as now. What a contrast to Isaura’s disman-
tled chilly salon! She drew him toward the
hearth, on which, blazing though it was, she
piled fresh billets, seated him in the easiest of
easy-chairs, knelt beside him, and cliafed his
numbed hands in hers ; and as her bright eyes
fixed tenderly on his, she looked so young and
so innocent! You would not then have called
her the “Ondine of Paris.”

But when, a little while after, revived by the
genial warmth and moved by the charm of her
beauty, Gustave passed his arm round her neck
and sought to draw her on his lap, she slid from
his embi’ace, shaking her head gently, and seated
herself, with a pretty air of ceremonious deco-
rum, at a little distance.

Gustave looked at her amazed.

“ Causons,” said she, gravely ; “thou wouldst
know why I am so well dressed, so comfortably
lodged, and I am longing to explain to thee all.
Some days ago I had just finished my perform-
ance at the Cafe , and was putting on my

shawl, when a tall monsieur, fort bel homme^
with the air of a grand seigneur^ entered the
cafe, and, approaching me politely, said, ‘ I think
I have the honor to address Mademoiselle Julie
Caumartin?’ ‘That is my name,’ I said, sur-
prised ; and, looking at him more intently, I rec-
ognized his face. He had come into the cafe a
few days before with thine . old acquaintance
Frederic Lemercier, and stood by when I asked
Frederic to give me news of thee. ‘ Mademoi-
selle,’ he continued, with a serious melancholy
smile, ‘ I shall startle you when I say that I am
appointed to act as your guardian by the last
request of your mother. ’ ‘ Of Madame Surville ?’
‘ Madame Surville adopted you, but was not
your mother. We can not talk at ease here.
Allow me to request that you will accompany

me to Monsieur N , the avouL It is not

very far from this ; and by the way I will tell
you some news that may sadden, and some news
that may rejoice.’

“There was an earnestness in the voice and
look of this monsieur that impressed me. He
did not offer me his arm ; but I walked by his
side in the direction he chose. As we walked
he told me in very few words that my mother
had been separated from her husband, and for
certain family reasons had found it so difficult to
rear and provide for me herself that she had ac-
cepted the oflPer of Madame Surville to adopt me
as her own child. While he spoke, there came
dimly back to me the remembrance of a lady
who had taken me from my first home, when I
had been, as I understood, at nurse, and left me
with poor dear Madame Surville, saying, ‘This
is henceforth your mamma.’ I never again saw
that lady. It seems that many years afterward
my true mother desired to regain me. Madame
Surville was then dead. She failed to trace me
out, owing., alas ! to my own faults and change
of name. She then entered a nunnery, but, be-
fore doing so, assigned a sum of 100,000 francs
to this gentleman, who was distantly connected
with her, with full power to him to take it to
himself, or give it to my use, should he discover
me, at his discretion. ‘ I ask you,’ continued the

monsieur, ‘ to go with me to Monsieur N ’s,

because the sum is still in his hands. He will

232

THE PAKISIANS.

confirm my statement. All that I have now to
say is this: If you accept my guardianship, if
you obey implicitly my advice, I shall consider
the interest of this sum which has accumulated

since deposited with M. N due to you ; and

the capital will be your dot on marriage, if the
marriage be with my consent.’ ”

Gustave had listened very attentively, and with-
out interruption, till now, when he looked up,
and said, with his customary sneer, “Did your
monsieur, ybr^ bel homme you say, inform you of
the value of the advice, rather of the commands,
ypu were implicitly to obey ?”

“Yes,” answered Julie, “not then, but later.

Let me go on. We arrived at M. N ’s, an

elderly, grave man. He said that all he knew
was that he held the money in trust for the mon-
sieur with me, to be given to him, with the ac-
cumulation of interest, on the death of the lady
who had deposited it. If that monsieur had in-
structions how to dispose of the money, they were
not known to him. All he had to do was to
transfer it absolutely to him on the proper cer-
tificate of the lady’s death. So you see, Gus-
tave, that the monsieur could have kept all from
me if he had liked.”

“Your monsieur is very generous. Perhaps
you will now tell me his name.”

“ No ; he forbids me to do it yet.”

“And he took this apartment for you, and
gave you the money to buy that smart dress and
these furs. Bah! mon enfant, why try to de-
ceive me? Do I not know my Paris? A jfort
bel homme does not make himself guardian to a
fort belle file so young and fair as Mademoi-
selle Julie Caumartin without certain considera-
tions which shall be nameless, like himself.”

Julie’s eyes flashed. “Ah, Gustave ! ah, mon-
sieur !” she said, half angrily, half plaintively, “I
see that my guardian knew you better than I did.
Never mind ; I will not reproach. Thou hast the
right to despise me.”

“Pardon! I did not mean to offend thee,”
said Gustave, somewhat disconcerted. “But
own that thy story is strange; and this guard-
ian, who knows me better than thou — does he
know me at all ? Didst thou speak to him of
me ?”

“How could I help it? He says that this
terrible war, in which he takes an active part,
makes his life uncertain from day to day. He
wished to complete the trust bequeathed to him
by seeing me safe in the love of Bome worthy
man who” — she paused for a moment with an
expression of compressed anguish, and then hur-
ried on — “who would recognize what was good
in me — would never reproach me for — for — the
past. I then said that my heart was thine : I
could never marry any one but thee.”

“Marry me,” faltered Gustave. “Marry!”

“And,” continued the girl, not heeding his
interruption, “he said thou wert not the hus-
band he would choose for me ; that thou wert
not — no, I can not wound thee by repeating
what he said unkindly, unjustly. He bade me
think of thee no more. I said again, that is im-
possible.”

“But,” resumed Rameau, with an affected
laugh, “why think of any tiling so formidable
as mai’riage ? Thou lovest me, and — ” He ap-
jiroached again, seeking to embrace her. She re-
coiled. “ No, Gustave, no. I have sworn — sworn

solemnly by the memory of my lost mother, that
I will never sin again. I will never be to thee
other than thy friend — or thy wife.”

Before Gustave could reply to these words,
which took him wholly by surprise, there was a
ring at the outer door, and the old bonne ush-
ered in Victor de Mauleon. He halted at the
threshold, and his brow contracted.

“ So you have already broken faith with me,
mademoiselle ?”

“ No, monsieur, I have not broken faith,” cried
Julie, passionately. “I told you that I •w’ould
not seek to find out Monsieur Rameau. I did
not seek, but I met bim unexpectedly. I owed
to him an explanation. I invited him here to
give that explanation. Without it, what would
he have thought of me? Now he may go, and
I will never admit him again without your sanc-
tion.”

The Vicomte turned his stem look upon Gus-
tave, who though, as we know, not wanting in
personal courage, felt cowed by his false posi-
tion ; and his eye fell, quailed before De Mau-
leon’s gaze.

“Leave us for a few minutes alone, made-
moiselle,” said the Vicomte. “Nay, Julie,” he
added, in softened tones, “ fear nothing. I, too,
owe explanation — friendly explanation — to M.
Rameau.”

With his habitual courtesy toward women, he
extended his hand to Julie, and led her from the
room. Then, closing the door, he seated him-
self, and made a sign to Gustave to do the same.

“Monsieur,” said De Mauleon, “excuse me
if I detain you. A very few words will suffice
for our present inter\’iew. I take it for granted
that mademoiselle has told you that she is no
child of Madame Surville’s ; that her own moth-
er bequeathed her to my protection and guard-
ianship, with a modest fortune which is at my
disposal to give or withhold. The little I have
seen already of mademoiselle impresses me with
sincere interest in her fate. I look with com-
passion on what she may have been in the past ;
I anticipate with hope what she may be in the
future. I do not ask you to see her in either
with my eyes. I say frankly that it is my in-
tention, and I may add my resolve, that the
ward thus left to my charge shall be henceforth
safe from the temptations that have seduced her
poverty, her inexperience, her vanity if you will,
but have not yet corrupted her heart. Bref I
must request you to give me your word of honor
that you will hold no further communication with
her. I can allow no sinister influence to stand
between her fate and honor.”

“You speak well and nobly, M. le Vicomte,”
said Rameau, “ and I give the promise you ex-
act.” He added, feelingly, “ It is true, her heart
has never been coiTupted. That is good, affec-
tionate, unselfish as a child’s. J^ai Vhonneur de
vous saltier, M. le Vicomte.”

He bowed with a dignity unusual to him, and
tears were in his eyes as he passed by De Mauleon
and gained the anteroom. There a side door
suddenly opened, and Julie’s face, anxious, eager,
looked forth. v.

Gustave paused. “Adieu, mademoiselle!
Though we may never meet again — though our
fates divide us — believe me that I shall ever cher-
ish your memory — and — ”

The girl interrupted him, impulsively seizing

THE PARISIANS.

his arm, and looking him in the face with a wild,
fixed stare.

“Hush! dost thou mean to say that we are
parted — parted forever ?”

“Alas!” said Gustave, “what option is be-
fore us ? Your guardian rightly forbids my vis-
its ; and even were I free to oiler you my hand,
you yourself say that I am not a suitor he would
approve. ”

Julie turned her eyes toward De Mauleon,
who, following Gustave into the anteroom, stood
silent and impassive, leaning against the wall.

He now understood and replied to the pathetic
appeal in the girl’s eyes.

“My young ward,” he said, “M. Rameau ex-
presses himself with propriety and truth. Suifer
him to depart. He belongs to the former life;
reconcile yourself to the new.”

He advanced to take her hand, making a sign
to Gustave to depart. But as he approached Ju-
lie, she uttered a weak, piteous wail, and fell at
his feet senseless. De Mauleon raised and car-
ried her into her room, where he left her to the
care of the old bonne. On re-entering the ante-
room, he found Gustave still lingering by the
outer door.

“You will pardon me, monsieur,” he said to
the Vicomte, “ but in fact I feel so uneasy, so un-
happy. Has she-r? You see, ypu see that there
is danger to her health, perhaps to her reason, in
so abrupt a separation, so cruel a rupture between
us. Let me call again, or I may not have strength
to keep my promise.”

De Mauleon remained a few minutes musing.
Then he said, in a whisper, “ Come back into the
salon. Let us talk frankly.”

—

CHAPTER X.

“ “M. Rameau,” said De Mauleon, when the

two men had reseated themselves in the sa/on,
“ I will honestly say that my desire is to rid my-
self as soon as I can of the trust of guardian to
this youi>g lady. Playing as I do with fortune,
my only stake against her favors is my life. I
feel as if it were my duty to see that made-
moiselle is not left alone and friendless in the
world at my decease. I have in my mind for
her a husband that I think in every way suitable :
a handsome and brave young fellow in my battal-
ion, of respectable birth, without any living rela-
tions to consult as to his choise. I have reason
to believe that if Julie married him, she need
never fear a reproach as to her antecedents. Her
dot would suffice to enable him to realize his own
wish of a country town in Normandy. And in
that station, Paris and its temptations w’ould soon
pass from the poor child’s thoughts, as an evil
dream. But I can not dispose of her hand without
her own consent ; and if she is to be reasoned out
of her fancy for you, I have no time to devote to
the task. I come to the point. You are not the
man I would choose for her husband. But, ev-
idently, you are the man she would choose. Are
you disposed to marry her ? You hesitate, very
naturally ; I have no right to demand an imme-
diate answer to a question so serious. Perhaps
you will think over it, and let me know in a day
or two? I take it for granted that if you w^ere,
as I lieard, engaged before the siege to marry the
Signora Cicogna, that engagement is annulled ?”
R

233

“Why take it for granted?” asked Gustave,
pei-plexed.

“ Simply because I find you here. Nay, spare
explanations and excuses. I quite understand
that you were invited to come. But a man sol-
emnly betrothed to a demoiselle like the Signora
Cicogna, in a time of such dire calamity and
peril, could scarcely allow himself to be tempted
to accept the invitation of one so beautiful, and
so warmly attached to him as is Mademoiselle
J ulie, and, on witnessing the passionate strength
of that attachment, say that he can not keep a
promise not to repeat his visits. But if I mis-
take, and you are still betrothed to the signorina,
of course all discussion is at an end.”

Gustave hung his head in some shame, and in
much bewildered doubt.

The practiced observer of men’s characters,
and of shifting phases of mind, glanced at the
poor poet’s perturbed countenance with a half-
sniile of disdain.

“It is for you to judge how far the very love
to you so ingenuously evinced by my ward — how
far the reasons against marriage with one whose
antecedents expose her to reproach — should in-
fluence one of your advanced opinions upon social
ties. Such reasons do*- not appear to have with
artists the same weight they have with the bour-
geoisie. I have but to add that the husband of
Julie will receive with her hand a dot of nearly
120,000 francs; and I have reason to believe
that that fortune will be increased — how much, I
can not guess — when the cessation of the siege
will allow communication with ‘England. One
word more. I should wish to rank the husband
of my ward in the number of my friends. If he
did not oppose the political opinions with which
I identify my own career, I should be pleased to
make any rise in the world achieved by me assist
to the raising of himself. But my opinions, as
during the time we were brought together you
were made aware, are those of a practical man
of the world, and have nothing in common
with Communists, Socialists, Internationalists, or
whatever sect would place the aged societies of
Europe in Medea’s caldron of youth. At a mo-
ment like the present, fanatics and dreamers so
abound that the number of such sinners will ne-
cessitate a general amnesty when order is re-
stored. What a poet so young as you may have
written or said at such a time will be readily for-
gotten and forgiven a year or two hence, provided
he does not put his notions into violent action.
But if you choose to persevere in the views you
now advocate, so be it. They will not make
poor Julie less a believer in your wisdom and
genius. Only they will separate you from me,
and a day may come when I should have the
painful duty of ordering you to be shot — DU me-
liora. Think over all I have thus frankly said.
Give me your answer within forty-eight hours,
and meanwhile hold no communication with my
ward. I have the honor to wish ypu good-day.”

♦

CHAPTER XI.

The short grim day was closing when Gustave,
quitting Julie’s apartment, again found himself
in the streets. His thoughts were troubled and
confused. He was the more affected by Julie’s

234

THE PARISIANS.

impassioned love for him by the contrast with |
Isaura’s words and manrter in their recent inter- i
view. His own ancient fancy for the “Ondine
of Paris” became revived by the difficulties be-
tween their ancient intercourse which her unex-
pected scruples and De Mauleon’s guardianship
interposed. A witty writer thus defines une
passion, une caprice injlamme par des obsta-
cles.'' In the ordinary times of peace, Gustave,
handsome, aspiring to reputable position in the
beau monde, would not have admitted any con-
siderations to compromise his station by marriage
with a figurante. But now the wild political
doctrines he had embraced separated his ambi-
tion from that beau monde, and combined it with
ascendency over the revolutionists of the popu-
lace— a direction which he must abandon if he
continued his suit to Isaura. Then, too, the
immediate possession of Julie’s dot was not with-
out temptation to a man who was so fond of his
personal comforts, and who did not see where to
turn for a dinner, if, obedient to Isaura’s “prej-
udices,” he abandoned his profits as a writer in
the revolutionary press. The inducements for
withdrawal from the cause he had espoused, held
out to him with so haughty a coldness by De
Mauleon, were not wholly without force, though
they irritated his self-esteem. He was dimly
aware of the Vicomte’s masculine talents for pub-
lic life ; and the high reputation he had already
acquired among military authorities, and even
among experienced and thoughtful civilians, had
weight upon Gustave’s impressionable tempera-
ment. But though De Mauleon’s implied advice
here coincided in much with the tacit compact
he had made with Isaura, it alienated him more
from Isaura herself, for Isaura did not bring to
him the fortune which would enable him to sus-
pend his lucubrations, watch the turn of events,
-and live at ease in the mean while ; and the dot
to be received with De Mauleon’s ward had those
advantages.

While thus meditating, Gustave turned into
one of the cantines still open, to brighten his in-
tellect with a petit verre, and there he found the
two colleagues in the extinct Council of Ten,
'Paul Grimm and Edgar Ferrier. With the last
of these revolutionists Gustave had become inti-
mately li€. They wrote in the same journal, and
he willingly accepted a distraction from his self-
conflict which Edgar offered him in a dinner at
the Gafe Riche, which still offered its hospitali-
ties at no exorbitant price. At this repast, as
the drink circulated, Gustave waxed confiden-
tial. He longed, poor youth, for an adviser.
Could be many a girl who had been a ballet
dancer, and who had come into an unexpected
heritage? tu fou d'en douter?" cried Ed-

gar. “What a sublime occasion to manifest
thy scorn of the miserable banalites of the bour-
geoifde! It will but increase thy moral power
over the people. And then think of the money.
What an aid to the cause! What a capital for
the launch! — journal all thine own! Besides,
when our principles triumph — as triumph they
must — what would be marriage but a brief and
futile ceremony, to be broken the moment thou
hast cause to complain of thy wife or chafe at
the bond? Only get the dot into thine own
hands. L' amour passe — reste la cassette."

Though there was enough of good in the son
of Madame Rameau to revolt at the precise

I words in which the counsel was given, still, as
1 the fumes of the punch yet more addled his
brains, the counsel itself was acceptable ; and in
that sort of maddened fury which intoxication
produces in some excitable temperaments, as
Gustave reeled home that night leaning on the
arm of stouter Edgar Ferrier, he insisted on go-
ing out of his way to pass the house in which
Isaura lived, and, pausing under her window,
gasped out some verses of a wild song, then
much in vogue among the votaries of Felix Pyat,
in which every thing that existent society deems
sacred was reviled in the grossest ribaldry.
Happily Isaura’s ear heard it not. The girl was
kneeling by her bedside absorbed in prayer.

CHAPTER XII.

Three days after the evening thus spent by
Gustave Rameau Isaura was startled by a visit
from M. de Mauleon. She had not seen him
since the commencement of the siege, and she
did not recognize him at first glance in his mili-
tary uniform.

“I trust you will pardon my intrusion, mad-
emoiselle,” he said, in the low sweet voice habit-
ual to him in his gentler moods, “but I thought
it became me to announce to you the decease of
one who, I fear, did not discharge with much
kindness the duties her connection with you im-
posed. Your father’s second wife, afterward
Madame Selby, is no more. She died some
days since in a convent to which she had re-
tired.”

Isaura had no cause to mourn the dead, but
she felt a shock in the suddenness of this infor-
mation ; and in that sweet spirit of womanly
compassion which entered so largely into her
character, and made a part of her genius itself,
she murmured tearfully, “The poor Signora!
Why could I not have been with her in illness ?
She might then have learned to love me. And
she died in a convent, you say. Ah, her religion
was then sincere! Her end was peaceful?”

“ Let us not doubt that, mademoiselle. Cer-
tainly she lived to regret any former errors, and
her last thought was directed toward such atone-
ment as might be in her power. And it is that
desire of atonement which now strangely mixes
me up, mademoiselle, in your destinies. In that
desire for atonement, she left to my charge, as a
kinsman, distant indeed, but still, perhaps, the
nearest with whom she was personally acquaint-
ed— a young ward. In accepting that trust, I
find myself strangely compelled to hazard the
risk of offending you. ”

“Offending me? How? Pray speak openly.”

“In so doing, I must utter the name of Gus-
tave Rameau.”

Isaura turned pale and recoiled, but she did
not speak.

“Did he inform me rightly that, in the last
interview with him three days ago, you expressed
a strong desire that the engagement between him
and yourself should cease; and that you only,
and with reluctance, suspended your rejection of
the suit he had pressed on you, in consequence
of his entreaties, and of certain assurances as to
the changed direction of the talents of which we
will assume that he is possessed

THE PARISIANS.

235

“Well, well, monsieur,” exclaimed Isaura, her
whole face brightening; “and you come on the
part of Gustave Rameau to say that on reflection
he does not hold me to our engagement — that in
honor and in conscience I am free ?”

“I see,” answered De Mauleon, smiling, “ that
I am pardoned already. It would not pain you
if such were my instructions in the embassy I
undertake ?”

“Pain me? No. But — ”

‘ ‘ But what ?”

“ Must he persist in a course which will break
his mother’s heart, and make his father deplore
the hour that he was born ? Have you influence
over him, M. de Mauleon ? If so, will you not
exert it for his good ?”

“You interest yourself still in his fate, made-
moiselle ?”

“How can I do otherwise? Did I not con-
sent to share it when my heart shrank from the
thought of our union ? And now when, if I un-
derstand you rightly, I am free, I can not but
think of what was best in him.”

“Alas! mademoiselle, he is but one of many
— a spoiled child of that Circe, imperial Paris.
Every where I look around I see but corruption.
It was hidden by the halo which corruption itself
engenders. The halo is gone, the corruption is
visible. Where is the old Erench manhood?
Banished from the heart, it comes out only at the
tongue. Were our deeds like our words, Prussia
would beg on her knee to be a province of France.
Gustave is the fit poet for this generation. Van-
ity— desire to be known for something, no mat-
ter what, no matter by whom — that is the Pa-
risian’s leading motive power; orator, soldier,
poet, all alike. Utterers of fine phrases ; de-
spising knowledge and toil and discipline; rail-
ing against the Germans as barbarians, against
their generals as traitors; against God for not
taking their part. What can be done to weld
this mass of hollow bubbles into the solid form
of a nation — the nation it affects to be ? What
generation can be born out of the unmanly race,
inebriate with brag and absinthe? Forgive me
this tirade; I have been reviewing the battalion
I command. As for Gustave Rameau, if we
survive the siege, and see once more a govern-
ment that can enforce order, and a public that
will refuse renown for balderdash, I should not
be surprised if Gustave Rameau were among the
prettiest imitators of Lamartine’s early Medita-
tions. Had he been born under Louis XIV. how
loyal he would have been ! What sacred trage-
dies in the style of Athalie he would have writ-
ten, in the hope of an audience at Versailles ! But
I detain you from the letter I was charged to de-
liver to you. I have done so purposely, that I
might convince myself that you welcome that
release which your too delicate sense of honor
shrank too long from demanding.”

Here he took forth and placed a letter in Isau-
ra’s hand ; and, as if to allow her to read it un-
observed, retired to the window recess.

Isaura glanced over the letter. It ran thus :

“ I feel that it was only to your compassion
that I owed your consent to my suit. Could I
have doubted that before, your words when we
last met sufficed to convince me. In my selfish
pain at the moment, I committed a great wrong.
I would have held you bound to a promise from
which you desired to be free. Grant me pardon

for that, and for all the faults by which I have
offended you. In canceling our engagement,
let me hope that I may rejoice in your friendship,
your remembrance of me, some gentle and Jcind-
ly thought. My life may henceforth pass out of
contact with yours; but you will ever dwell in
my heart, an image pure and holy as the saints
in whom you may well believe — they are of your
own kindred.”

“May I convey to Gustave Rameau any ver-
bal reply to his letter ?” asked De Mauleon, turn-
ing as she replaced the letter on the table.

“Only my wishes for his welfare. It might
wound him if I added, my gratitude for the gen-
erous manner in which he has interpreted my
heart, and acceded to its desire.”

“Mademoiselle, accept my congratulations.
My condolences are for the poor girl left to my
guardianship. Unhappily she loves this man;
and there are reasons why I can not withhold
my consent to her union with him, should he de-
mand it, now that, in the letter remitted to you,
he has accepted your dismissal. If I can keep
him out of all the follies and all the evils into
which he suffers his vanity to mislead his reason,
I will do so ; would I might say, only in compli-
ance with your compassionate injunctions. But
henceforth the infatuation of my ward compels
me to take some interest in his career. Adieu,
mademoiselle ! I have no fear for your happi-
ness now.”

Left alone, Isaura stood as one transfigured.
All the bloom of her youth seemed suddenly re-
stored. Round her red lips the dimples opened,
countless mirrors of one happy smile. “I am
free, I am free,” she murmured; “joy, joy!”
and she passed from the room to seek the Venos-
ta, singing clear, singing loud, as a bird that es-
capes from the cage and warbles to the heaven it
regains the blissful tale of its release.

CHAPTER XIII.

In proportion to the nearer roar of the be-
siegers’ cannon, and the sharper gripe of famine
within the walls, the Parisians seemed to increase
their scorn for the skill of the enemy, and their
faith in the sanctity of the capital. All false
news was believed as truth ; all truthful news
abhorred as falsehood. Listen to the groups
round the cafes. “The Prussian funds have
fallen three per cent, at Berlin,” says a thread-
bare ghost of the Bourse (he had been a clerk
of Louvier’s). “Ay,” cries a National Guard,
“read extracts from La Liberte. The barbari-
ans are in despair. Nancy is threatened, Belford
freed. Bourbaki is invading Baden. Our fleets
are pointing their cannon upon Hamburg. Their
country endangered, their retreat cut off, the sole
hope of Bismarck and his trembling legions is to
find a refuge in Paris. The increasing fury of
the bombardment is a proof of their despair.”

“In that case,” whispered Savarin to De
Bi eze, “ suppose we send a flag of truce to Ver-
sailles with a message from Trochu that, on dis-
gorging their conquests, ceding the left bank of
Rhine, and paying the expenses of the war, Paris,
ever magnanimous to the vanquished, will allow
the Prussians to retire.”

“The Prussians! Retire!” cried Edgar Fer-

236

THE PARISIANS.

rier, catching the last word and glancing fierce- [
ly at Savarin. “What Prussian spy have we
among us? Not one of the barbarians shall es- |
capQ. We have but to dismiss the traitors who
have usurped the government, proclaim the Com-
mune and the rights of labor, and we give birth
to a Hercules that even in its cradle can strangle
the vipers, ”

Edgar Ferrier was the sole member of his po-
litical party among the group which he thus ad-
dressed ; but such was the teri'or which the Com-
munists already began to inspire among the bour-
geoisie that no one volunteered a reply. Savarin
linked his arm in De Breze’s, and prudently drew
him off*.

“I suspect,” said the former, “that we shall
soon have worse calamities to endure than the
Prussian obus and the black loaf. The Commu-
nists will have their day.”

“ I shall be in my grave before then,” said De
Breze, in hollow accents. “It is twenty-four
hours since I spent my last fifty sous on the pur-
chase of a rat, and I burned the legs of my bedstead
for the fuel by which that quadruped was roasted.”

nous, my poor friend, I am much in
the same condition,” said Savarin, with a ghast-
ly attempt at his old pleasant laugh. “ See how
I am shrunken ! My wife would be unfaithful
to the Savarin of her dreams if she accepted a
kiss from the slender gallant you behold in me.
But I thought you were in the National Guard,
and therefore had not to vanish into air.”

“I was a National Guard, but I could not
stand the hardships ; and being above the age,

I obtained my exemption. As to pay, I was
then too proud to claim my wage of one franc
twenty-five centimes. I should not be too proud
now. Ah, blessed be heaven ! here comes Le- .
mercier; he owes me a dinner — he shall pay it.
Bon jour, my dear Frederic! How handsome
you look in your kepi. Your uniform is brilliant-
ly fresh from the soil of powder. What a con-
trast to the tatterdemalions of the Line ! ”

“I fear,” said Lemercier, ruefully, “that my
costume will not look so well a day or two hence.

I have just had news that will no doubt seem
very glorious — in the newspapers. But then
newspapers are not subjected to cannon-balls.”

“What do you mean?” answered De Breze.

“I met, as I emerged from my apartment a
few minutes ago, that fire-eater, Victor de Mau-
leon, who always contrives to know what passes
at head-quarters. He told me that preparations
are being made for a great sortie. Most proba-
bly the announcement will appear in a proclama-
tion to-morrow, and our troops march forth to-
morrow night. The National Guard (fools and
asses who have been yelling out for decisive ac-
tion) are to have their wish, and to be placed in
the van of battle — among the foremost the bat-
talion in which I am enrolled. Should this be
our last meeting on earth, say that Frederic
Lemercier has finished his part in life with eclat.''

“ Gallant friend,” said De Breze, feebly seizing
him by the arm, “ if it be true that thy mortal j
career is menaced, die as thou hast lived. An ;
honest man leaves no debt unpaid. Thou owest
me a dinner.” j

“Alas! ask of me what is possible. I will i
give thee three, however, if I survive and regain !
my rentes. But to-day I have not even a mouse i
to share with Fox.” !

“ Fox lives, then ?” cried De Breze, with spark-
ling, hungry eyes.

“Yes. *At present he is making the experi-
ment how long an animal can live without food.”

“Have mercy upon him, poor beast! Ter-
minate his pangs by a noble death. Let him
save thy friends and thyself from staiwing. For
myself alone I do not plead ; I am but an ama-
teur in polite literature. But Savarin, the illus-
trious Savarin — in criticism the French Longinus
— in poetry the ‘Parisian Horace — in social life
the genius of gayety in pantaloons — contemplate
his attenuated frame! Shall he perish for want
of food while thou hast such superfluity in thy
larder? I appeal to thy heart, thy conscience,
thy patriotism. What in the eyes of France are
a thousand Foxes compared to a single Savarin ?”

“At this moment,” sighed Savarin, “I could
swallow any thing, however nauseous, even thy
flattery, De Breze. But, my friend Frederic,
thou goest into battle — what will become of Fox
if thou fall ? Will he not be devoured by stran-
gers. Surely it were a sweeter thought to his
faithful heart to furnish a repast to thy friends ?
— his virtues acknowledged, his memory blessed! ”

“Thou dost look very lean, my poor Savarin !
And how hospitable thou wert when yet plump !”
said Frederic, pathetically. “And certainly,
if I live. Fox will starve ; if I am slain. Fox will
be eaten. Yet, poor Fox, dear Fox, who lay on
my breast when I was frost-bitten ! No ; I have
not the heart to order him to the spit for you.
Urge it not.”

“ I will save thee that pang,” cried De Breze.
“We are close by thy rooms. Excuse me for
a moment. I will run in and instruct thy
bonne."

So saying, he sprang forward with an elasticity
of step which no one could have anticipated from
his previous languor. Frederic would have fol-
lowed, but Savarin clung to him, whimpering,
“Stay; I shall fall like an empty sack, without
the support of thine arm, young hero. Pooh !
of course De Breze is only joking — a pleasant
joke. Hist ! a secret : he has moneys, and
means to give us once more a dinner at his own
cost, pretending that we dine on thy dog. He
was planning this when thou earnest up. Let
him have his joke, and we shall have a festin de
Balthazar."

“Hein!” said Frederic, doubtfully; “thou
art sure he has no designs upon Fox ?”

“Certainly not, except in regaling us. Don-
key is not bad, but it is fourteen francs a pound.
A pullet is excellent, but it is thirty francs.
Trust to De Breze ; we shall have donkey and
pullet, and Fox shall feast upon the remains.”

Before Frederic could reply, the two men
were jostled and swept on by a sudden rush of a
noisy crowd in their rear. They could but dis-
tinguish the words — Glorious news — victory —
Faidherbe — Chanzy. But these words were suf-
ficient to induce them to join willingly in the
rush. They forgot their hunger; they forgot
Fox. As they were hurried on, they learned
that there was a report of a complete defeat of
the Prussians by Faidherbe near Amiens— of a
still more decided one on the Loire by Chanz}'.
These generals, w'ith armies flushed with triumph,
were pressing on toward Paris to accelerate the
destruction of the hated Germans. How the
report arose no one exactly knew. All believed

THE PARISIANS.

237

it. and were making their way to the Hotel de
Ville to hear it formally confirmed. I

Alas ! before they got there they were met by i
another crowd returning, dejected but angry, j
No such news had reached the Government.
Chanzy and Faidherbe were no doubt fighting
bravely, with every probability of success, but —

The Parisian imagination required no more.
“We should always be defeating the enemy,”
said Savarin, “if there were not always a hut;''
and his audience, who, had he so expressed him-
self ten minutes before, would have torn him to
pieces, now applauded the epigram; and with
execrations on Trochu, mingled with many a
peal of painful sarcastic laughter, vociferated and
dispersed.

As the two friends sauntered back toward the
part of the Boulevards on which De Breze had
parted company with them, Savarin quitted Le-
mercier suddenly, and crossed the street to accost
a small party of two ladies and two men who
were on their way to the Madeleine. While he
was exchanging a few words with them, a young
couple, arm in arm, passed by Lemercier — the
man in the uniform of the National Guard — uni-
form as unsullied as Frederic’s, but with as little
of a military air as can well be conceived. His
gait was slouching; his head bent downward.
He did not seem to listen to his companion, who
was talking with quickness and vivacity, her fair
face radiant with smiles. Lemercier looked aft-
er them as they passed by. “/Swr mon ame^"
muttered Frederic to himself, “ surely that is la
helle Julie, and she has got back her truant poet
at last!”

While Lemercier thus soliloquized, Gustave,
still looking down, was led across the street by
his fair companion, and into the midst of the lit-
tle group with whom Savarin had paused to speak.
Accidentally brushing against Savarin himself,
he raised his eyes with a start, about to mutter
some conventional apology, when Julie felt the
arm on which she leaned tremble nervously. Be-
fore him stood Isaura, the Countess de Vandemar
by her side ; her two other companions, Raoul
and the Abbe Vertpre, a step or two behind.

Gustave uncovered, bowed low, and stood mute
and still for a moment, paralyzed by surprise and
the chill of a painful shame.

Julie’s watchful eyes, following his, fixed them-
selves on the same face. On the instant she di-
vined the truth. She beheld her to whom she
had owed months of jealous agony, and over
whom, poor child, she thought she had achieved
a triumph. But the girl’s heart was so instinct-
ively good that the sense of triumph was merged
in a sense of compassion. Her rival had lost
Gustave. To Julie the loss of Gustave was the
loss of all that makes life worth having. On her
part, Isaura was moved not only by the beauty
of Julie’s countenance, but still more by the child-
like ingenuousness of its expression.

So, for the first time in their lives, met the
child and the stepchild of Louise Duval. Each
so deserted, each so left alone and inexperienced
amidst the perils of the world, with fates so differ-
ent, typifying orders of Womanhood so opposed.
Isaura was na«irally the first to break the silence
that weighed like a sensible load on all present.

She advanced toward Rameau, with sincere
kindness in her look and tone.

“Accept my congratulations,” she said, with

a grave smile. “ Your mother infonned me last
evening of your nuptials. Without doubt I see
Madame Gustave Rameau ; ” and she extended
her hand toward Julie. The poorOndine shrank
back for a moment, blushing up to her temples.
It was the first hand which a woman of spotless
character had extended to her since she had lost
the protection of Madame Surville. She touched
it timidly, humbly, then drew her bridegroom
on ; and with head more downcast than Gustave,
passed through the group without a word.

She did not speak to Gustave till they were
out of sight and hearing of those they had left.
Then, pressing his arm passionately, she said,
“And that is the demoiselle thou hast resigned
for me ! Do not deny it. I am so glad to have
seen her ; it has done me so much good. How
it has deepened, purified my love for thee! I
have but one return to make; but that is my
whole life. Thou shalt never have cause to
blame me — never — never ! ”

Savarin looked very grave and thoughtful
when he rejoined Lemercier.

“Can I believe my eyes?” said Frederic.
“Surely that was Julie Caumartin leaning on
Gustave Rameau’s arm ! And had he the assur-
ance, so accompanied, to salute Madame de Van-
demar, and Mademoiselle Cicogna, to whom T
understood he was affianced? Nay, did I not
see mademoiselle shake hands with the Ondine ?
or am I under one of the illusions which famine
is said to engender in the brain ?”

“ I have not strength now to answer all these
interrogatives. I have a story to tell ; but I
keep it for dinner. Let us hasten to thy apart-
ment. De Breze is doubtless there waiting us.”

CHAPTER XIV.

Unprescibnt of the perils that awaited him,
absorbed in the sense of existing discomfort, cold,
and hunger. Fox lifted his mournful visage from
his master’s dressing-gown, in which he had en-
coiled his shivering frame, on the entrance of De
Breze and the concierge of the house in which
Lemercier had his apartment. Recognizing the
Vicomte as one of his master’s acquaintances, he
checked the first impulse that prompted him to
essay a feeble bark, and permitted himself, with a
petulant whine, to be extracted from his covering,
and held in the arms of the murderous visitor.

des dieuxV' ejaculated De Breze, “ how
light the poor beast has become!” Here he
pinched the sides and thighs of the victim.
“Still,” he said, “there is some flesh yet on
these bones. You may grill the paws, fricasser
the shoulders, and roast the rest. The rdgnons
and the head accept for yourself as a perquisite.”
Here he transferred Fox to the arms of the con-
cierge^ adding, “FtVe au hesogne, mon and."

“Yes, monsieur. I must be quick about it
while my wife is absent. She has a faiblesse for
the brute. He must be on the spit before she
returns.”

“Be it so ; and on the table in an hour — five
o’clock precisely. I am famished.”

The concierge disappeared with Fox. De
Breze then amused himself by searching into
Frederic’s cupboards and buffets, from which he
produced a cloth and utensils necessary for the

238

THE PARISIANS.

repast. These he arranged with great neatness,
and awaited in patience the moment of participa-
tion in the feast.

The hour of five had struck before Savarin and
Frederic entered the salon; and at their sight
De Breze dashed to the staircase and called out
to the concierge to serve th^ dinner.

Frederic, though unconscious of the Thyestean
nature of the banquet, still looked round for the
dog ; and, not perceiving him, began to call out,
“Fox! Fox! where hast thou hidden thyself?”

“ Tranquilize yourself,” said De Breze. “Do
not suppose that I have not ”*

* The hand that wrote thus far has left unwritten
the last scene of the tragedy of poor Fox. In the deep
where Prospero has dropped his wand are now irrev-
ocably buried the humor and the pathos of this cyn-
ophagous banquet. One detail of it, however, which
the author imparted to his son, may here be faintly in-
dicated. Let the sympathizing reader recognize all
that is dramatic in the conflict between hunger and
aflTection ; let him recall to mind the lachrymose lov-
ing-kindness of his own post-prandial emotions after
blissfully breaking some fast, less mercilessly prolong-
ed, we will hope, than that of these besieged banquet-
ers; and then, though unaided by the fancy which
conceived so quaint a situation, he may perhaps imag-
ine what tearful tenderness would fill the eyes of the
kind-hearted Frederic, as they contemplate the well-
icked bones of his sacrificed favorite on the platter
efore him; which he pushes away, sighing, “Ah,
poor Fox ! how he would have enjoyed those bones !”

The chapter immediately following this one also re-
mains unfinished. It was not intended to close the
narrative thus left uncompleted ; but of those many
and so various works which have not unworthily as-
sociated with almost every department of literature
the name of a single English writer, it is Chapter the
Last. Had the author lived to finish it, he would doubt-
less have added to his Iliad of the Siege of Paris its
most epic episode, by here describing the mighty com-
bat between those two princes of the Parisian Bourse,
the magnanimous Duplessis and the redoubtable Lou-
vier. Among the few other pages of the book which
have been left unwritten, we must also reckon with
regret some page descriptive of the reconciliation be-
tween Graham vane and Isaura Cicogna ; but, fortu-
nately for the satisfaction of every reader who may
have followed thus far the fortunes of The Paris-
ians, all that our curiosity is chiefly interested to learn
has been recorded in the Envoi, which was written be-
fore the completion of the novel. t
We know not, indeed, what has become of these two
Parisian types of a Beauty not of Holiness, the poor
vain Poet of the Pave, and the good-hearted Oudiue
of the Gutter. It is obvious, from the absence of all
allusion to them in Lemercier’s letter to Vaue, that
they had passed out of the narrative before that letter
was written. We must suppose the catastrophe of
their fates to have been described, in some preceding
chapter, by the author himself ; who would assuredly
not have left M. Gustave Rameau in permanent pos-
session of his ill-merited and ill-ministered fortune.
That French representative of the appropriately popu-
lar poetry of modern ideas, which prefers “the roses
and raptures of vice” to “the lilies and languors of
virtue,” can not have been irredeemably reconciled by
the sweet savors of the domestic pot-au-feu, even when
spiced with pungent whiffs of repudiated disreputa-
bility, to any selfish betrayal of the cause of universal
social emancipation from the personal proprieties.
If poor Julie Caumartin has perished in the siege of
Paris, with all the grace of her self-wrought redemp-
tion still upon her, we shall doubtless deem her fate a
happier one than any she could have found in pro-
longed existence as Madame Rameau ; and a certain
modicum of this world’s good things will, in that case,
have been rescued for worthier employment by Gra-
ham Vane. To that assurance nothing but Lemercier’s
description of the fate of Victor de Mauleon (which
will be found in the Envoi) need be added for the satis-
faction of our sense of poetic justice : and if, on the
mimic stage, from which they now disappear, all these
puppets have rightly played their parts in the drama
of an empire’s fall, each will have helped “to point a
moral” as well as to “adorn a tale.” Valete etplau-
dite !—L.

t See also Prefatory Note, p, 5.

CHAPTER THE LAST.

Among the refugees which the convoi from
Versailles disgorged on the Paris station were
two men, who, in pushing through the crowd,
came suddenly face to face with each other.

“Aha ! Bon jour, M. Duplessis, ” said a burly
voice.

Bon jour, M. Louvier,” replied Duplessis.

“How long have you left Bretagne?”

“On the day that the news of the armistice
reached it, in order to be able to enter Paris the
first day its gates were open. And you — where
have you been?”

“ In London.”

“Ah! in London!” said Duplessis, paling.
“I knew I had an enemy there.”

“Enemy! I? Bah! my dear monsieur.
What makes you think me your enemy ?”

“I remember your threats.”

“A propos of Rochebriant. By -the -way,
when would it be convenient to you and the dear
Marquis to let me into prompt possession of that
property? You can no longer pretend to buy it
as a dot for Mademoiselle Valerie.”

“ I know not that yet. It is true that all the
financial operations attempted by my agent in
London have failed. But I may recover myself
yet, now that I re-enter Paris. In the mean
time, we have still six months before us ; for, as
you will find — if you know it not already — the
interest due to you has been lodged with Messrs.

of , and you can not foreclose, even if

the law did not take into consideration the na-
tional calamities as between debtor and creditor.

“ Quite true. But if you can not buy the
property it must pass into my hands in a very
short time. And you and the Marquis had bet-
ter come to an amicable arrangement with me.
A propos, I read in the Times newspaper that
Alain was among the wounded in the sortie of
December.”

“ Yes ; we learned that through a pigeon-post.
We were afraid ”

L’ENVOI.

The intelligent reader will perceive that the
story I relate is virtually closed with the preced-
ing chapter ; though I rejoice to think that what
may be called its plot does not find its denoue-
ment amidst the crimes and the frenzy of the
Guerre des Communeaux. Fit subjects these,
indeed, for the social annalist in times to come.
When crimes that outrage humanity have their
motive or their excuse in principles that demand
the demolition of all upon which the civilization
of Europe has its basis — worship, property, and
marriage — in order to reconstruct a new civili-
zation adapted to a new humanity, it is scarcely
possible for the serenest contemporary to keep his
mind in that state of abstract reasoning with
which Philosophy deduces from some past evil
some existent good. For my part, I believe that
throughout the whole known history of mankind,
even in epochs when reason is most misled and
conscience most perverted, there runs visible,
though fine and thread-like, the chain of destiny,
which has its roots in the throne ^f an All-wise
and an All-good ; that in the wildest illusions
by which multitudes are frenzied there may be
detected gleams of prophetic truths ; that in the
fiercest crimes which, like the disease of an epi-

THE PARISIANS.

239

demic, characterize a peculiar epoch under ab-
normal circumstances, there might be found in-
stincts or aspirations toward some social vir-
tues to be realized ages afterward by happier
generations, all tending to save man from despair
of the future, were the whole society to unite
for the joyless hour of his race in the abjura-
tion of soul and the denial of God, because all
irresistibly establishing that yearning toward
an unseen future which is the leading attribute
of soul, evincing the government of a divine
Thought which evolves out of the discords of one
age the harmonies of another, and, in tl^e world
within us as in the world without, enforces upon
every unclouded reason the distinction between
Providence and Chance.

The account subjoined may suffice to say all
that rests to be said of those individuals in whose
fate, apart from the events or personages that
belong to graver history, the reader of this work
may have conceived an interest, It is translated
from the letter of Frederic Lemercier to Graham
Vane, dated J une — , a month after the defeat of
the Communists.

“Dear and distinguished Englishman, whose
name I honor but fail to pronounce, accept my
cordial thanks for your interests in such remains
of Frederic Lemercier as yet survive the ravages
of famine. Equality, Brotherhood, Petroleum,
and the Rights of Labor. I did not desert my
Paris when M. Thiers, ^parmula non bene relictd,'
led his sagacious friends and his valiant troops
to the groves of Versailles, and confided to us
unarmed citizens the preservation of order and
property from the insurgents whom he left in
possession of our forts and cannon. I felt spell-
bound by the interest of the simstre melodrame,
with its quick succession of scenic effects and the
metropolis of the world for its stage. Taught
by experience, I did not aspire to be an actor;
and even as a spectator7 I took care neither to
hiss nor applaud. Imitating your happy En-
gland, I observed a strict neutrality ; and, safe
myself from danger, left nay best friends to the
care of the gods.

“As to political questions, I dare not commit
myself to a conjecture. At this rouge et noir
table, all I can say is, that whichever card turns
up, it is either a red or a black one. One game-
ster gains for the moment by the loss of the oth-
er ; the table eventually ruins both.

“ No one believes that the present form of
government can last; every one differs as to that
which can. Raoul de Vandemar is immovably
convinced of the restoration of the Bourbons.
Savarin is meditating a new journal devoted to
the cause of the Count of Paris. De Breze and
the old Count de Passy, having in turn espoused
and opposed every previous form of government,
naturally go in for a perfectly novel experiment,
and are for constitutional dictatorship under the
Due d’Aumale, which he is to hold at his own
pleasure, and ultimately resign to his nephew the
Count, under the mild title of a constitutional
king — that is, if it ever suits the pleasure of a
dictator to depose himself. To me this seems
the wildest of notions. If the Due’s administra-
tion were successful, the French would insist on
keeping it ; and if the uncle we e unsuccessful,
the nephew would not have a chance. Duplessis
retains his faith in the Imperial dynasty, and
that Imperialist party is much stronger than it

appears on the surface. So many of the bour-
geoisie recall with a sigh eighteen years of pros-
perous trade ; so many of the military officers, so
many of the civil officials, identify their career
with the Napoleonic favor ; and so many of the
Priesthood, abhorring the Republic, always li-
able to pass into the hands of those who assail
religion, unwilling to admit the claim of the
Orleanists, are at heart for the Empire.

“ But I wi tell you one secret. I and all the
quiet folks like me (we are more numerous than
any one violent faction) are willing to accept any
form of government by which we have the best
chance of keeping our coats on our backs. Li-
berie, Egalite, Fraternite are gone quite out of

fashion ; and Mademoiselle has abandoned

her great chant of the Marseillaise, and is draw-
ing tears from enlightened audiences by her pa-
thetic delivery of ‘O Richard! O mon roi !'

“Now about the other friends of whom you
ask for news.

“Wonders will never cease. Louvier and
Duplessis are no longer deadly rivals. They
have become sworn friends, and are meditating
a great speculation in common, to commence as
soon as the Prussian debt is paid off. Victor de
Mauleon brought about this reconciliation in a
single interview during the brief interregnum be-
tween the Peace and the Guerre des Conimu-
neaux. You know how sternly Louvier was bent
upon seizing Alain de Rochebriant’s estates.
Can you conceive the true cause? Can you
imagine it possible that a hardened money-maker
like Louvier should ever allow himself to be
actuated, one way or the other, by the romance
of a sentimental wrong ? Yet so it was. It
seems that many years ago he was desperately
in love with a girl who disappeared from his life,
and whom he believed to have been seduced by
the late Marquis de Rochebriant. It was in re-
venge for this supposed crime that he had made
himself the pi-incipal mortgagee of the late Mar-
quis ; and, visiting the sins of the father on the
son, had, under the infernal disguise of friendly
interest, made himself sole mortgagee to Alain,
upon terms apparently the mo'st generous. The
demon soon showed his griffe, and was about
to foreclose, when Duplessis came to Alain’s re-
lief ; and Rocliebriant was to be Valerie’s dot on
her marriage with Alain. The Prussian war,
of course, suspended all such plans, pecuniary
and matrimonial. Duplessis, whose resources
were terribly crippled by the war, attempted
operations in London with a view of raising the
sum necessary to pay off the mortgage ; found
himself strangely frustrated and baffled. Lou-
vier was in London, and defeated his rival’s
agent in every speculation'. It became impossi-
ble for Duplessis to redeem the mortgage. The
two men came to Paris with the Peace. Louvier
determined both to seize the Breton lands and
to complete the ruin of Duplessis ; when he
learned from De Mauleon that he had spent half
his life in a baseless illusion — that Alain’s fa-
ther was innocent of the crime for which his son
was to suffer; and Victor, with that strange
power over men’s minds which was so peculiar
to him, talked Louvier into mercy if not into re-
pentance. In short, the mortgage is to be paid
off by installments at the convenience of Duples-
sis. Alain’s marriage with Valerie is to take
place in a few weeks. The fournisseurs are al-

240

THE PARISIANS.

ready gone to fit up the old chateau for the bride,
and Louvier is invited to the wedding.

“I have all this story from Alain, and from
Huplessis himself. I tell the tale as ’twas told
to me, with all the gloss of sentiment upon its
woof. But between ourselves, I am too Pansiari
not to be skeptical as to the unalloyed amiabili-
ty of sudden conversions. ?^nd I suspect that
Louvier was no longer in a condition to indulge
in the unprofitable whim of turning rural seign-
eur. He had sunk large sums and incurred
great liabilities in the new street to be called aft-
er his name; and that street has been twice
ravaged, first by the Prussian siege, and next by
the Guerre des Communeaux, and I can detect
many reasons why Louvier should deem it pru-
dent not only to withdraw from the Rochebriant
seizure, and make sure of peacefully recovering
the capital lent on it, but establishing joint in-
terest and quasi partnership with a financier so
brilliant and successful as Armand Duplessis has
hitherto been.

“Alain himself is not quite recovered from his
wound, and is now at Rochebriant, nursed by his
aunt and Valerie. I have promised to visit him
next week. Raoul de Vandemar is still at Paris
with his mother, saying there is no place where
one Christian man can be of such service. The
old count declines to come back, saying there is no
place where a philosopher can be in such danger.

“I reserve as my last communication, in re-
ply to your questions, that which is the gravest.
You say that you saw in the public journals brief
notice of the assassination of Victor de Mauleon ;
and you ask for such authentic particulars as I
can give of that event, and of the motives of the
assassin.

“I need not, of course, tell you how bravely
the poor Vicomte behaved throughout the siege ,
but he made many enemies among the worst
members of the National Guard by the severity
of his discipline ; and had he been caught by the
mob the same day as Clement Thomas, who
committed the same offense, would have certain-
ly shared the fate of that general. Though
elected a depute, he remained at Paris a few days
after Thiers & Co. left it, in the hope of persuad-
ing the party of Order, including then no small
portion of the National Guards, to take prompt
and vigorous measures to defend the city against
the Communists. Indignant at their pusilla-
nimity, he then escaped to Versailles. There he
more than confirmed the high reputation he had
acquired during the siege, and impressed the
ablest public men with the belief that he was
destined to take a very leading part in the strife
of party. When the Versailles troops entered
Paris, he was, of course, among them in com-
* mand of a battalion.

“ He escaped safe through that horrible war
of barricades, though no man more courted dan-
ger. He inspired his men with his own courage.
It was not till the revolt was quenched, on the
evening of the 28th May, that he met his death.
The Versailles soldiers, naturally exasperated,
were very prompt in seizing and shooting at
once every passenger who looked like a foe.
Some men under De Mauleon had seized upon
one of these victims, and were hurrying him into
the next street for execution, when, catching
sight of the Vicomte, he screamed out, ‘ Lebeau,
save me!’

“At that cry De Mauleon rushed forward, ar-
rested his soldiers, cried, ‘ This man is innocent
— a harmless physician. I answer for him.’
As he thus spoke, a wounded Communist, lying
in the gutter amidst a heap of the slain, dragged
himself up, reeled toward De Mauleon, plunged a
knife between his shoulders, and dropped down
dead.

“The Vicomte was carried into a neighboring
house, from all the windows of which the tricolor
was suspended ; and the Medecin whom he had
just saved from summary execution examined
and dressed his wound. The Vicomte lingered
for more than an hour, but expired in the effort
to utter some words, the sense of which those
about him endeavored in vain to seize.

“ It was from the Medecin that the name of
the assassin and the motive for the crime were
ascertained. The miscreant was a Red Repub-
lican and Socialist named Armand Monnier.
He had been a very skillful workman, and earn-
ing, as such, high wages. But he thought fit to
become an active revolutionary politician, first
led into schemes for upsetting the world by the
existing laws of marriage, which had inflicted on
him one woman who ran away from him, but,
being still legally his wife, forbade him to marry
another woman with whom he lived, and to
whom he seems to have been passionately at-
tached.

“These schemes, however, he did not put into
any positive practice till he fell in with a certain
Jean Lebeau, who exercised great influence over
him, and by whom he was admitted into one of
the secret revolutionary societies which had for
their object the overthrow of the Empire. Aft-
er that time his head became turned. The fall
of the Empire put an end to the society he had
joined: Lebeau dissolved it. During the siege
Monnier was a sort of leader among the ouvriers ;
but as it advanced and famine commenced, he
contracted the habit of intoxication. His chil-
dren died of cold and hunger. The woman he
lived with followed them to the grave. Then he
seems to have become a ferocious madman, and
to have been implicated in the worst crimes of
the Communists. He cherished a wild desire
of revenge against this Jean Leheau, to whom
he attributed all his calamities, and by whom, he
said, his brother had been shot in the sortie of
December.

“Here comes the strange part of the story.
This Jean Lebeau is alleged to have been one
and the same person with Victor de Mauleon.
The Medecin I have named, and who is well
known in Belleville and Montmartre as the Me-
decin des Pauvres, confesses that he tjelonged to
the secret society organized by Lebeau ; that the
disguise the Vicomte assumed was so complete
that he should not have recognized his identity
with the conspirator but for an accident. Dur-
ing the latter time of the bombardment, he, the
Medecin des Pauvres, was on the eastern ram-
parts, and his attention was suddenly called to a
man mortally wounded by the splinter of a shell.
While examining the nature of the wound, De
Mauleon, who was also on the ramparts, came
to the spot. The dying man said, ‘M. le Vi-
comte, you owe me a service. My name is Marc
le Roux. I was on the police before the war.
When M. de Mauleon reassumed his station,
and was making himself obnoxious to the Em-^

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H'V

GKAUAM VAl^E AND I8AUJJA AT 80ERENTO.

THE PAKISIANS.

peror, I might have denounced him as Jean Le-
beau, the conspirator. I did not. The siege
has reduced me to want. I have a child at home
— a pet. Don’t let her starve.’ *I will see to
her,’ said the Vicomte. Before we could get
the man into the ambulance cart he expired.

“ The Medecin who told this story I had the
curiosity to see myself, and cross-question. I
Own I believe his statement. Whether De Mau-
leon did or did not conspire against a fallen dy-
nasty, to which he owed no allegiance, can little
if at all injure the reputation he has left behind
of a very remarkable man — of great courage and
great ability — who might have had a splendid
career if he had survived. But, as Savarin says
truly, the first bodies which the car of revolution
crushes down are those which first harness them-
selves to it.

“Among De Mauleon’s papers is the pro-
gramme of a constitution fitted for France. How
it got into Savarin’s hands I know not. De
Mauleon left no will, and no relations came for-
ward to claim his papers. I asked Savarin to
give me the heads of the plan, which he did.
They are as follows :

“ ‘The American Republic is the sole one worth
studying, for it has lasted. The causes of its du-
ration are in the checks to democratic fickleness
and disorder. 1st. No law affecting the Consti-
tution can be altered without the consent of two-
thirds of Congress. 2d. To counteract the im-
pulses natural to a popular Assembly chosen by
universal suffrage, the greater legislative powers,
especially in foreign affairs, are vested in the Sen-
ate, which has even executive as well as legisla-
tive functions. 3d. The chief of the State, hav-
ing elected his government, can maintain it in-
dependent of hostile majorities in either Assem-
bly.

“ ‘ These three principles of safety to form the
basis of any new constitution for France.

“‘For France it is essential that the chief
magistrate, under whatever title he assume, should
be as irresponsible as an English sovereign.
Therefore he should not preside at his councils ;
he should not lead his armies. The day for per-
sonal government is gone, even in Prussia. The
safety for order in a State is, that when things
go wrong, the Ministry changes, the State re-
mains the same. In Europe, Republican insti-
tutions are safer where the chief magistrate is
hereditary than w’here elective.’

“Savarin says these axioms are carried out
at length, and argued with great ability.

“ I am very grateful for your proffered hospi-
talities in England. Some day I shall accept
them — viz., whenever I decide on domestic life,
and the calm of the conjugal foyer. I have a
penchant for an English Mees, and am not ex-
acting as to the dot. Thirty thousand livres ster-
ling would satisfy me — a trifle, I believe, to you
rich islanders.

“Meanwhile, I am naturally compelled to
make up for the miseries of that horrible siege.
Certain moralizing journals tell us that, sobered
by misfortunes, the Parisians are going to turn
over a new leaf, become studious and reflective,
despise pleasure and luxury, and live like Ger-
man professors. Don’t believe a word of it. My
conviction is that, whatever may be said as to
our frivolity, extravagance, etc., under the Em-
pire, we shall be just the same under any form
of government — the bravest, the most timid, the
most ferocious, the kindest-hearted, the most ir-
rational, the most intelligent, the most contra-
dictory, the most consistent people whom Jove,
taking counsel of Venus and the Graces, Mars
and the Furies, ever created for the delight and
terror of the world — in a word, the Parisians.

“ Votre tout devoue,

“Frederic Lemercier. ”

It is a lovely noon on the bay of Sorrento, to-
ward the close of the autumn of 1871, upon the
part of the craggy shore, to the left of the town,
on which her first perusal of the loveliest poem
in which the romance of Christian heroism has
ever combined elevation of thought with silvery
delicacies of speech, had charmed her childhood,
reclined the young bride of Graham Vane.
They were in the first month of their marriage.
Isaura had not yet recovered from the effects of
all that had preyed upon her life, from the hour
in which she had deemed that in her pursuit
of fame she had lost the love that had colored
her genius and inspired her dreams, to that in
which

The physicians consulted agreed in insisting
on her passing the winter in a southern climate ;
and after their wedding, which took place in
Florence, they thus came to SoiTento.

As Isaura is seated on the small smoothed
rocklet, Graham reclines at her feet, his face up-
turned to hers with an inexpressible wistful anx-
iety in his impassioned tenderness. “You are
sure you feel better and stronger since we have
been here?”

THE END.

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