MY MEMOIRS

BY

ALEXANDRE DUMAS

TRANSLATED BY

E. M. WALLER

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

ANDREW LANG

VOL. II

1822 TO 1825

WITH A FRONTISPIECE

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1907

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CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

An unpublished chapter from the Diable boiteux—History of Samud and the beautiful Doña Lorenza 1

CHAPTER II

The good my flouting at the hands of the two Parisians had done me—The young girls of Villers-Cotterets—My three friends—First love affairs 13

CHAPTER III

Adolphe de Leuven—His family—Unpublished details concerning the death of Gustavus III.—The Count de Ribbing—The shoemakers of the château de Villers-Hellon 24

CHAPTER IV

Adolphe's quatrain—The water-hen and King William—Lunch in the wood—The irritant powder, the frogs and the cock—The doctor's spectre—De Leuven, Hippolyte Leroy and I are exiled from the drawing-room—Unfortunate result of a geographical error—M. Paroisse 34

CHAPTER V

Amédée de la Ponce—He teaches me what work is—M. Arnault and his two sons—A journey by diligence—A gentleman fights me with cough lozenges and I fight him with my fists—I learn the danger from which I escaped 48

CHAPTER VI

First dramatic impressions—The Hamlet of Ducis—The Bourbons en 1815—Quotations from it 57

CHAPTER VII

The events of 1814 again—Marmont, Duc de Raguse, Maubreuil and Roux-Laborie at M. de Talleyrand's—The Journal des Débats and the Journal de Paris—Lyrics of the Bonapartists and enthusiasm of the Bourbons—End of the Maubreuil affair—Plot against the life of the Emperor—The Queen of Westphalia is robbed of her money and jewels 63

CHAPTER VIII

Account of the proceedings relative to the abstraction of the jewels of the Queen of Westphalia by the Sieur de Maubreuil—Chamber of the Court of Appeal—The sitting of 17 April, 1817 88

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

The last shot of Waterloo—Temper of the provinces in 1817, 1818 and 1819—The Messéniennes—The Vêpres siciliennes—Louis IX.—Appreciation of these two tragedies—A phrase of Terence—My claim to a similar sentiment—Three o'clock in the morning—The course of love-making—Valeat res ludrica 96

CHAPTER II

Return of Adolphe de Leuven—He shows me a corner of the artistic and literary world—The death of Holbein and the death of Orcagna—Entrance into the green-rooms—Bürger's Lénore—First thoughts of my vocation 103

CHAPTER III

The Cerberus of the rue de Largny—I tame it—The ambush—Madame Lebègue—A confession 109

CHAPTER IV

De Leuven makes me his collaborator—The Major de Strasbourg—My first couplet-Chauvin—The Dîner d'amis—The Abencérages 117

CHAPTER V

Unrecorded stories concerning the assassination of the Duc de Berry. 123

CHAPTER VI

Carbonarism 132

CHAPTER VII

My hopes—Disappointment—M. Deviolaine is appointed forest-ranger to the Duc d'Orléans—His coldness towards me—Half promises—First cloud on my love-affairs—I go to spend three months with my brother-in-law at Dreux—The news waiting for me on my return—Muphti—Walls and hedges—The summer-house—Tennis—Why I gave up playing it—The wedding party in the wood 147

CHAPTER VIII

I leave Villers-Cotterets to be second or third clerk at Crespy—M. Lefèvre—His character—My journeys to Villers-Cotterets—The Pélerinage d'Ermenonville—Athénaïs—New matter sent to Adolphe—An uncontrollable desire to pay a visit to Paris—How this desire was accomplished—The journey—Hôtel des Vieux-Augustins—Adolphe—Sylla—Talma 155

CHAPTER IX

The theatre ticket—The Café du Roi—Auguste Lafarge—Théaulon—Rochefort—Ferdinand Langlé—People who dine and people who don't—Canaris—First sight of Talma—Appreciation of Mars and Rachel—Why Talma has no successor—Sylla and the Censorship—Talma's box—A cab-drive after midnight—The return to Crespy—M. Lefèvre explains that a machine, in order to work well, needs all its wheels—I hand in my resignation as his third clerk 166

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

I return to my mother's—The excuse I give concerning my return—The calfs lights—Pyramus and Cartouche—The intelligence of the fox more developed than that of the dog—Death of Cartouche—Pyramus's various gluttonous habits 184

CHAPTER II

Hope in Laffitte—A false hope—New projects—M. Lecomier—How and on what conditions I clothe myself anew—Bamps, tailor, 12 rue du Helder—Bamps at Villers-Cotterets—I visit our estate along with him—Pyramus follows a butcher lad—An Englishman who loved gluttonous dogs—I sell Pyramus—My first hundred francs—The use to which they are put—Bamps departs for Paris—Open credit 191

CHAPTER III

My mother is obliged to sell her land and her house—The residu—The Piranèses—An architect at twelve hundred francs salary—I discount my first bill—Gondon—How I was nearly killed at his house—The fifty francs—Cartier—The game of billiards—How six hundred small glasses of absinthe equalled twelve journeys to Paris 204

CHAPTER IV

How I obtain a recommendation to General Foy—M. Danré of Vouty advises my mother to let me go to Paris—My good-byes—Laffitte and Perregaux—The three things which Maître Mennesson asks me not to forget—The Abbé Grégoire's advice and the discussion with him—I leave Villers-Cotterets 213

CHAPTER V

I find Adolphe again—The pastoral drama—First steps—The Duc de Bellune—General Sébastiani—His secretaries and his snuff-boxes—The fourth floor, small door to the left—The general who painted battles 223

CHAPTER VI

Régulus—Talma and the play—General Foy—The letter of recommendation and the interview—The Duc de Bellune's reply—I obtain a place as temporary clerk with M. le Duc d'Orléans—Journey to Villers-Cotterets to tell my mother the good news—No. 9—I gain a prize in a lottery 234

CHAPTER VII

I find lodgings—Hiraux's son—Journals and journalists in 1823—By being saved the expense of a dinner I am enabled to go to the play at the Porte-Saint-Martin—My entry into the pit—Sensation caused by my hair—I am turned out—How I am obliged to pay for three places in order to have one—A polite gentleman who reads Elzevirs 251

CHAPTER VIII

My neighbour—His portrait—The Pastissier françois—A course in bibliomania—Madame Méchin and the governor of Soissons—Cannons and Elzevirs 263

CHAPTER IX

Prologue of the Vampire—The style offends my neighbour's ear—First act—Idealogy—The rotifer—What the animal is—Its conformation, its life, its death and its resurrection 272

CHAPTER X

Second act of the Vampire—Analysis—My neighbour again objects—He has seen a vampire—Where and how—A statement which records the existence of vampires—Nero—Why he established the race of hired applauders—My neighbour leaves the orchestra 284

CHAPTER XI

A parenthesis—Hariadan Barberousse at Villers-Cotterets—I play the rôle of Don Ramire as an amateur—My costume—The third act of the Vampire—My friend the bibliomaniac whistles at the most critical moment—He is expelled from the theatre—Madame Allan-Dorval—Her family and her childhood—Philippe—His death and his funeral 295

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

My beginning at the office—Ernest Basset—Lassagne—M. Oudard—I see M. Deviolaine—M. le Chevalier de Broval—His portrait—Folded letters and oblong letters—How I acquire a splendid reputation for sealing letters—I learn who was my neighbour the bibliomaniac and whistler 307

CHAPTER II

Illustrious contemporaries—The sentence written on my foundation stone—My reply—I settle down in the place des Italiens—M. de Leuven's table—M. Louis-Bonaparte's witty saying—Lassagne gives me my first lesson in literature and history 323

CHAPTER III

Adolphe reads a play at the Gymnase—M. Dormeuil—Kenilworth Castle—M. Warez and Soulié—Mademoiselle Lévesque—The Arnault family—The Feuille—Marius à Minturnes—Danton's epigram—The reversed passport—Three fables—Germanicus —Inscriptions and epigrams—Ramponneau—The young man and the tilbury—Extra ecclesiam nulla est salus—Madame Arnault 334

CHAPTER IV

Frédéric Soulié, his character, his talent—Choruses of the various plays, sung as prologues and epilogues—Transformation of the vaudeville—The Gymnase and M. Scribe—The Folie de Waterloo 349

CHAPTER V

The Duc d'Orléans—My first interview with him—Maria-Stella-Chiappini—Her attempts to gain rank—Her history—The statement of the Duc d'Orléans—Judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court of Faenza—Rectification of Maria-Stella's certificate of birth 360

CHAPTER VI

The "year of trials"—The case of Potier and the director of the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin—Trial and condemnation of Magallon—The anonymous journalist—Beaumarchais sent to Saint-Lazare—A few words on censorships in general—Trial of Benjamin Constant—Trial of M. de Jouy—A few words concerning the author of Sylla—Three letters extracted from the Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin—Louis XVIII. as author 375

CHAPTER VII

The house in the rue Chaillot—Four poets and a doctor—Corneille and the Censorship—Things M. Faucher does not know—Things the President of the Republic ought to know 389

BOOK V

CHAPTER I

Chronology of the drama—Mademoiselle Georges Weymer—Mademoiselle Raucourt—Legouvé and his works—Marie-Joseph Chénier—His letter to the company of the Comédie-Française—Young boys perfectionnés—Ducis—His work 398

CHAPTER II

Bonaparte's attempts at discovering poets—Luce de Lancival—Baour-Lormian—Lebrun-Pindare—Lucien Bonaparte, the author—Début of Mademoiselle Georges—The Abbé Geoffroy's critique—Prince Zappia—Hermione at Saint-Cloud 407

CHAPTER III

Imperial literature—The Jeunesse de Henri IV—Mercier and Alexandre Duval—The Templiers and their author—César Delrieu—Perpignan—Mademoiselle Georges' rupture with the Théâtre-Français—Her flight to Russia—The galaxy of kings—The tragédienne acts as ambassador 420

CHAPTER IV

The Comédie-Française at Dresden—Georges returns to the Théâtre-Français—The Deux Gendres—Mahomet II.—Tippo-Saëb—1814—Fontainebleau—The allied armies enter Paris—Lilies—Return from the isle of Elba—Violets—Asparagus stalks—Georges returns to Paris 430

CHAPTER V

The drawbacks to theatres which have the monopoly of a great actor—Lafond takes the rôle of Pierre de Portugal upon Talma declining it—Lafond—His school—His sayings—Mademoiselle Duchesnois—Her failings and her abilities-Pierre de Portugal succeeds 438

CHAPTER VI

General Riégo—His attempted insurrection—His escape and flight—He is betrayed by the brothers Lara—His trial—His execution 445

CHAPTER VII

The inn of the Tête-Noire—Auguste Ballet—Castaing—His trial—His attitude towards the audience and his words to the jury—His execution 452

CHAPTER VIII

Casimir Delavigne—An appreciation of the man and of the poet—The origin of the hatred of the old school of literature for the new—Some reflections upon Marino Faliero and the Enfants d'Édouard—Why Casimir Delavigne was more a comedy writer than a tragic poet—Where he found the ideas for his chief plays 465

CHAPTER IX

Talma in the École des Vieillards—One of his letters—Origin of his name and of his family—Tamerlan at the pension Verdier—Talma's début—Dugazon's advice—More advice from Shakespeare—Opinions of the critics of the day upon the débutant—Talma's passion for his art 480

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THE MEMOIRS OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS

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BOOK I

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CHAPTER I

An unpublished chapter from the Diable boiteux—History of Samud and the beautiful Doña Lorenza

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About a fortnight after that wonderful night, during which I had experienced such new and unknown emotions, I was busy in Maître Mennesson's office,—as Niguet was absent seeing after a marriage settlement at Pisseleu, and Ronsin had gone to collect debts at Haramont,—sadly engrossing a copy of a deed of sale, when M. Lebègue, a colleague of my patron, entered the office and, after gazing at me with an amused expression on his face, went into the next room, which was the private office, and took a seat by the side of Maître Mennesson. The cause of my sadness shall be discovered presently.

Maître Mennesson's door, which separated the two offices, I was generally left open, so that he could answer our questions, save when a client closed it to discuss private matters with him; and when this door was left open, we could hear in our office everything that was said in M. Mennesson's room, as he could hear in his office all that went on in ours.

This M. Lebègue, some months before, had married one of M. Deviolaine's daughters by his first marriage: her name was Éléonore. The eldest daughter, Léontine, had been married to a tax collector named Cornu some time before her sister's wedding. The singularity of the name had not prevented the marriage from coming off. The sharp-tongued young girl feared to be jeered at in her turn, and the wittier she became, the more she dreaded even the appearance of being ridiculous. But Cornu was such a good-natured, honest-hearted fellow, everybody was so used to the name, which had been borne by several families in Villers-Cotterets, he was so used to it himself, he responded so naïvely and triumphantly to the remarks of his fiancée, that the matter was settled.

When she was married to him she made up her mind to raise the unfortunate name which fate had given her above even the suspicion of any banter naturally connected with it: she was the most chaste of wives, the tenderest of mothers I have ever known, and her husband, a happy man himself, made her happy too.

But it was not so with her sister, Madame Lebègue, who was three or four years younger, prettier, and far more of a flirt than she was. Her flirtations were innocent enough, I have no doubt, but they were as a rule looked upon maliciously by the gossips of the little town—a matter to which Madame Lebègue in her innocence paid little heed; concerning which, in her indifference to such calumnies, she simply teased her husband. He was a stout, rotund fellow, pockmarked, rather ugly, with a somewhat common-looking face, but a good fellow at heart—although I have been told since that he ruined himself, not from having lent at too low interest, but from an entirely opposite reason. I am wholly ignorant as to the truth of this accusation: I take it to be a calumny similar to the more pleasing and certainly more human accusation levelled against the wife.

It was this man who had just come in, who sat down by M. Mennesson and who was at that moment holding a whispered conversation with him, interspersed with guffaws of laughter. Thanks to the extremely delicate hearing with which I was gifted by nature, and which I had cultivated during hunting, I thought I could distinguish my own name; but I supposed I had not heard correctly, not flattering myself that two such grave personages could be doing me the honour of talking about me. Unluckily for my pride,—and I have indicated to what a pitch this feeling was developed in me, a height that would have been absurd if it had not been painful,—unluckily for my pride, then, I was not kept long in doubt that the discussion was about me.

I have said that M. Mennesson was very fond of a joke and very witty; wherever he could find a joke he would fasten upon it, no matter whether it happened to concern a woman's virtue or a man's reputation. When the frenzy of joking seized him he gave himself up to it unreservedly, heart and soul. Finding nothing, probably, on this day, better to chew, he set upon me; the pasture was poor, but it was far better to crack my sorry bones than to chew at nothing or gulp only the air. After several of those whispered remarks, then, and bursts of stifled laughter, which had disturbed my equanimity, M. Mennesson raised his voice.

"My dear friend," he said, "it is a chapter out of the Diable boiteux re-discovered and still unpublished, which I mean to have printed the next time I go to Paris, to complete Lesage's work."

"Ah! tell it me," Lebègue replied; "I will tell it to my wife, who will pass it on to her sisters, who will tell it to everybody; then our publication will be disposed of in advance."

M. Mennesson began:—

"There was once upon a time at Salamanca a scholar who was descended from a race of Arabs and who was called Samud.[1] He was still so young that if anyone had pulled his nose, milk would most certainly have come out: this did not prevent him from being absurd enough to fancy himself a man; perhaps also—for, to be fair, we must say all there is to say—this ridiculous fancy would not have entered his head had not that happened which we are about to relate."

It may be imagined that I was listening attentively. I had recognised from the very first words that I was undoubtedly the person in question, and I wondered uneasily where the story was going to lead after this beginning—a beginning which, so far as I was concerned, I found more impertinent than graphic.

M. Mennesson went on, and I listened with my ears open, my pen idle in my hand.

"On the day of the feast of Whitsuntide in the year ... I cannot say the exact date of the year, but, any way, it was on the day of the feast of Whitsuntide, which is also the town's feast-time, two beautiful senoras arrived from Madrid and put up at the house of a worthy canon who was the uncle of one of these ladies. It chanced that this canon was the same with whom Samud had learnt the bit of Latin he knew, and as the two lovely Madrid ladies wanted a cavalier who would not put their virtue to the blush, the canon cast his eyes on his pupil, and requested him to place both his arms at the disposal of the new arrivals, to show them the park of Salamanca, which is very wide, very beautiful, and belongs to the Duke of Rodelnas.[2] I will not dwell on the adventures of the first day, beyond just briefly touching upon two events: the first was the meeting between our scholar and an elegant senor from Madrid, who was noticed at once by the Sefiora Lorenza, with whom our scholar was walking arm in arm, dressed, as people of the provinces often are, about a decade behind the fashions of the capital. This young gallant was called Audim. The second was a most serious accident, which happened to the scholar's breeches, just when, in order to give the fair Lorenza a proof of his agility, he had leaped across a ditch fourteen feet wide."

It can be imagined what I suffered as I listened to this secondhand recital of my lovelorn tribulations, which, according to his method of procedure, would not stop short at the two misadventures of the first day. M. Mennesson continued:—

"The beautiful Lorenza was specially impressed by the young gallant's get-up. In complete contrast to the scholar, who was muffled up in a Gothic costume borrowed from the wardrobe of his ancestors, Señor Audim was dressed in the latest fashion, in tight-fitting breeches, ending in charming little heart-shaped shoes, and a dark-coloured doublet turned out by one of the best tailors in Madrid. The scholar had not been unconscious of the particular notice his companion had paid to the handsome Audim's attire, and as it began to dawn on him what influence a coat of a certain cut or trousers of a special shade of colour might have upon a woman, he decided during the night following the fête to please Lorenza no matter at what price, and to have a suit made exactly like the one worn by the young man who seemed destined by fate to become his rival. The most vital part of the costume, and moreover the most expensive, was in the matter of the boots. So he turned his attention to them first of all. On the opposite side of the square where Samud's mother lived, a square called the place de la Fontaine, was the best boot-maker in the town: he had always shod the scholar, but hitherto he had only made shoes for him, the lad's tender years not having put the idea into anyone's head, not even into his own, that he could wear any other covering for his feet than shoes or sandals without risking a too close resemblance to Perrault's venerable Puss in Boots. Great therefore was M. Landereau's[3] surprise when his customer came and boldly asked the price of a pair of boots. He stared at Samud.

'A pair of boots?' he asked. 'For whom?'

'Why, for myself,' the scholar proudly replied.

'Has your mother given you leave to order boots?' 'Yes.'

"The bootmaker shook his head dubiously: he knew Samud's mother was not well off and that it would be foolish of her to allow such extravagance in her son.

'Boots are dear,' he said.

'That does not matter. How much are they?'

'They would cost you exactly four dollars.'

'Good.... Take my measure.'

'I have told you I can do nothing without leave from your mother.'

'I will see you have it.'

"Returning home, the scholar ventured to ask for a pair of boots. The request struck Samud's mother as so extraordinary that she made him repeat his inquiry twice. It was all the more strange as it was the first time the scholar had troubled about his dress. When he was ten they had the greatest difficulty in the world to get him to give up a long pinafore of figured cotton, which he considered far more comfortable than all the breeches and all the doublets on earth; then, from the age of ten to the age of fifteen, he had worn with indifference any garments his mother had thought good to put him in, always preferring dirty and old ones to clean and new, because in them he was allowed to go out in all weathers and to roll about in all kinds of places. So the demand for a pair of boots seemed to his poor mother altogether most unprecedented, and she was alarmed for her son's reason.

'A pair of boots!' she repeated. 'What will you wear them with?'

'A pair of tight-fitting breeches, mother.'

'A pair of tight-fitting breeches! But you must know your legs are as spindle-shaped as a cock's.'

"'Excuse me, mother,' the schoolboy replied, with some show of logic; 'if I have good enough calves to wear short breeches, they are good enough to wear tight-fitting breeches.'

"The mother admired her son's wit, and, half conquered by the repartee, she said,'We might perhaps manage to find the tight-fitting trousers in the clothes-press; but the boots ... where will you find the boots?'

'Why, at Landereau's!'

'But boots would be expensive, my child,' said the poor lady, sighing,'and you know we are not rich.'

'Bah! mamma, Landereau will allow you credit.'

'It is all very fine taking credit, my boy; you know one has to pay some day, and that the longer one puts off paying the more it costs.'

'Oh, mother, please do let me!'

'How much will the boots cost?'

'Four dollars, mother.'

'That is six months' school-money at the rate good Canon Gregorio charges me.'

'You can pay for it in four months' time, mother,' the schoolboy pleaded.

'Still ... tell me what advantage you think this pair of boots and the tight-fitting trousers will bring you?'

'I shall be able to please Doña Lorenza, the canon's niece.' 'How is that?'

'She raves over boots and tight-fitting trousers ... it seems they are the very latest thing in Madrid.'

'But what does it matter to you what the niece of Don Gregorio raves or does not rave over, I want to know?'

'It matters a great deal to me, mother.'

'Why?'

"The schoolboy looked supremely foolish.

'Because I am paying her attentions,' he said."

This dialogue was word for word what had passed between my mother and myself after I returned from Landereau's shop, so I grew hot with anger.

"At the words Because I am paying her attentions," continued the narrator, "Samud's mother was overcome with intense astonishment: her son, whom she still pictured as running about the streets in his long print pinafore, or renewing his baptismal vows taper in hand; her son paying attentions to the beautiful Doña Lorenza!—why, it was one of those absurd things she had never even imagined. And her son, seeing she was unconvinced, drew his hand out of his breast pocket and showed her a bracelet of hair with a mosaic clasp. But he took care to keep it to himself that he had taken this bracelet from Doña Lorenza; she had not given it him, and she was very much distressed at not knowing what had become of it."

Although this account was not very creditable to my honesty, it was dreadfully accurate. I had had that bracelet in my possession for three days; during those three days I had, if not exactly shown it, at least let it be seen by several people, and, among others, by my mother and my cousins the Deviolaines, before whom I posed as a gallant youth; but at length I had been moved by Laure's distress, as she had thought it lost. I gave it back to her, humbly confessing my fault; she forgave me, in consideration, no doubt, of her delight in recovering her trinket, but she would not have let me off so easily had she known my indiscretions.

So the perspiration which had beaded my brow at the beginning of the story, ran down over my face in big drops; yet wishing to learn how far M. Mennesson had been coached in the matter of my sentimental escapades, I had the courage to stay where I was—or rather, I had not the strength to fly. M. Mennesson went on:—

"At this juncture Samud's mother raised her hands and eyes to heaven, and as the poor woman never could refuse her son, she said to him, with a sigh—

'Very well, be it so; if a pair of boots will make you happy, go and order the boots.'

"The schoolboy leapt at one bound from his house to the bootmaker's; he arranged the price at three and a half dollars, to be paid for in four months' time. Next they paid a visit to the clothes-press: they extracted a pair of bright blue trousers striped with gold; they sold the gold lace to a goldsmith for a dollar and a half, which dollar and a half were given to the scholar for pocket-money, his mother guessing that his budding love affairs would naturally bring extra expenses in their train. They decided that the suit he had worn at his first communion should be altered to a more up-to-date cut, on fashionable lines.

"While all these preparations for courtship were going on, the schoolboy continued, in the phrase he had used to his mother, to pay attentions to the beautiful Doña Lorenza; but although he was brave in words and very clever in theory behind her back, he was extremely timid in practice and very awkward when actually before her face. While apparently filled with impatience to be near her, he dreaded nothing so much as being left alone with her; at such times he would lose his wits completely, become dumb instead of talkative, and be still when he should have been active: the most favourable opportunities were given him, and he let them escape. In vain did the impatient lady from Madrid give him to understand that he was wasting time, and that time wasted is never regained; he agreed with her from the very depths of his soul; he was furious with himself every night when he returned home, and in going over the opportunities of the day he vowed not to let these opportunities slip by on the morrow if they occurred again. Then he would read a chapter of Faublas to warm his blood: he would sleep on it, and dream dreams in which he would be astonishingly bold. When day broke, he would vow to himself to carry out his dreams of the previous night. Then, while he was waiting for the boots and the tight-fitting suit, which were being fashioned with a truly provincial slowness, he returned to his short breeches, his bombazin vest, his bottle-blue coat, and resumed his fruitless walk in the forest. He looked with a melancholy eye on the mossy carpet under their feet, not even venturing to suggest to his companion that they should sit down upon it; he gazed sadly on the beautiful green heights above them, under which she delighted to hide herself with him. He would get as far as trembling and sighing, even to pressing her hand, but these were the extreme limits of his boldness. Once only did he kiss the hand of Doña Lorenza,—on the night before he was to introduce himself to her in his suit of conquest,—but it cost him such a tremendous effort to perform this bold act that he felt quite ill after its accomplishment.

"It was on this day that the lovely Doña Lorenza arrived at the conclusion that she must give up all hope of seeing the boy develop into a man, and without saying a word to her clumsy admirer, she took a decisive step. They parted as usual after having spent the evening playing at those innocent games which Madame de Longueville detested so greatly. The next day, as we have said, was to be the vital one. The tailor and the bootmaker kept their word. The young people usually met between noon and one o'clock, and then went for a walk: Senora Vittoria with a young bachelor, from whom I have gathered most of my information; and the schoolboy with Senora Lorenza. Unluckily, the tight-fitting trousers were so tight that they had to have a piece put in at the calf of the leg: this addition took time, and Samud was not quite ready before one o'clock. He knew he was late; he flew hurriedly along to Canon Gregorio's house, where the daily rendezvous took place. His new toilette produced an excellent effect as he passed through the streets: people ran to their doors; they leant out of their windows, and he bowed to them, saying to himself—

'Yes, it is all right, it is I! What is there wonderful in this, pray? Did you think no one else could have boots, tight-fitting trousers and a fashionably collared coat like M. Audim? You are much deceived if you thought anything of the kind!'

"And he went on his way, holding his head higher and higher, persuaded he was nearing a sensational triumph. But, as we have said, the unlucky alteration at the calves had made him nearly an hour late, and when the scholar reached the canon's house both the senoras had gone out! This was but a slight misfortune: the schoolboy had been brought up in the forest of Salamanca, as Osmin in the seraglio of Bajazet, and he knew its every turn and twist. He was therefore just going to rush out in pursuit of the lady of his thoughts, when the canon's sister handed him a letter which Doña Lorenza had left for him when she went out. Samud never doubted that this letter would enjoin upon him to hurry on with all diligence. And it was the first he had received: he felt the honour most keenly; he kissed the letter tenderly, broke the seal, and with panting breath and bounding heart he read the following:—

'MY DEAR BOY,—I have been blaming myself during the past fortnight for imposing upon your good-nature by letting you fulfil the obligation you had most injudiciously promised my uncle in undertaking to be my cavalier. In spite of your efforts to hide the boredom that an occupation beyond your years caused you, I have seen that I have much interfered with your usual habits, and I blame myself for it. Go back to your young playmates, who are waiting for you to play at prisoners' base and quoits. Let your mind be quite at ease on my account; for I have accepted M. Audim's services for the short time longer I remain with my uncle. Please accept my best thanks, my dear child, for your kindness, and believe me, yours very gratefully, LORENZA.'

"If a thunderbolt had fallen at our schoolboy's feet he could not have been more crushed than he was on receiving this letter. On the first reading he realised nothing beyond the shock; he re-read it two or three times, and felt the smart. Then it dawned on him that, since he had taken no pains to prove to the lovely Lorenza that he was not a child, it now remained to him to prove that he was a man, by provoking Audim to fight a Dud with him; and forthwith, upon my word, our outraged schoolboy sent this letter to his rival:—

"'SIR,—I need not tell you upon what provocation I wish to meet you in any of the forest avenues, accompanied by two seconds: you know as well as I do. As you may pretend that you have not insulted me and that it is I who have provoked you, I leave the choice of weapons to you.—I have the honour to remain,' etc.

"'P.S.—-As you will probably not return home till late to-night, I will not demand my answer this evening, but I wish to receive it as early as possible to-morrow morning.'

"Next morning, on waking, he received a birch rod with Don Audim's card. That was the weapon selected by his rival."

The reader can judge the effect the conclusion of this story had upon me. Alas! it was an exact account of all that had happened to me. Thus had terminated my first love affair, and so had ended my first duel! I uttered a shriek of rage, and dashing out of the office, I ran home to my mother, who cried out aloud when she saw the state I was in.

Ten minutes later I was lying in a well-warmed bed and Doctor Lécosse had been sent for: he pronounced that I was in for brain fever, but as it was taken in time it would not have any serious consequences. I purposely prolonged my convalescence, be it known, so as not to go out until the two Parisians had left Villers-Cotterets. I have never seen either of them since.

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CHAPTER II

The good my flouting at the hands of the two Parisians had done me—The young girls of Villers-Cotterets—My three friends—First love affairs

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Still, like François I. after the battle of Pavia, I had not lost everything by my defeat. First there remained to me my boots and my tight-fitting trousers, those two dearly coveted articles, which became the envy and admiration of those young companions upon whom the lovely Laure had so cruelly thrown me. Besides, in the fortnight spent in the company of those two smart girls, I had learnt the first lesson that only the society of women can give. This lesson had taught me to realise the need for that care of my personal appearance which had hitherto never presented itself to my mind as a thing to be daily attended to. Beneath the ridiculous if vanity in changing my mode of dress, underneath the unlucky attempt that I, a poor country lad, had made to attain to the elegant style of a Parisian, there appeared the first dawnings of true elegance—that is to say, of neatness.

I had rather good hands, my nails were well shaped, my teeth were large but white, and my feet were singularly small considering my size. I had been ignorant of all these possessions until they had been pointed out to me by the two Parisian girls, who gave me advice as to how I could enhance the value of my natural gifts. And I continued to follow their advice for my own personal satisfaction, after at first following it to please them, to such purpose that by the time they left I had really stepped across the boundary which separated childhood from youth. The crossing had certainly been a rough one, and I had accomplished it with tears in my eyes, coquetry holding one of my hands and chagrin the other. Then—as jaded travellers, when they enter a fresh country, suck bitter fruits, which, however much they set the teeth on edge, leave behind them an irresistible desire to suck other fruits,—when my lips had touched the apple of Eve that men call love, I yearned to make another attempt, even though it should be more painful than the first, and so far as its young girls were concerned, few towns could boast themselves as well favoured as Villers-Cotterets. Never was there such a large park as ours, not even at Versailles; no lawns were greener, not even those at Brighton; nor were any studded with more exquisite flowers than the park of Villers-Cotterets, with its lawns and flower-beds. Three very distinct classes disputed among themselves for the crown of beauty—the aristocracy, the middle classes, and a third class for which I cannot find a name, a pleasant intermediary between the middle class and the people, which belongs to neither, and to which class the dressmakers, seamstresses, and women-shopkeepers of a town belong.

The first class was represented by the Collard family, to whom I have already alluded in connection with my childhood. Of the three madcap young girls who roamed the forest of Villers-Cotterets as free as the butterflies and swallows, two had become wives: one, Caroline, had married the Baron Capelle; the other, Hermine, had married the Baron de Martens; Louise, the third, who was but fifteen, was the most captivating little maiden imaginable. Their mother—whose birth and history as the daughter of Madame de Genlis and the Duc d'Orléans I have related—and her three children were the aristocratic centre round which the young men and maidens of the neighbouring castles revolved; and among the former of these were some of the best blood in the country—the Montbretons, the Courvals, and the Mornays. None of these families lived in Villers-Cotterets itself: they lived in the castles around. Only on great occasions did the hives swarm and then we saw these golden-winged bees flying about the streets of the town and down the avenues of the park.

The second class was represented by the Deviolaine family. Two out of the five daughters of M. Deviolaine were married, as I have said—namely, Léontine and Éléonore; three remained, Cécile, Augustine and Louise. Cécile was twenty years of age, Augustine sixteen; Louise was still a mere child. Cécile had preserved her whimsical and capricious spirits, the same mocking and animated features; her actions were more masculine than feminine; her complexion was tanned by the sun, as she never took the trouble to protect herself from its rays. Augustine, on the contrary, had a skin as white as milk, large tranquil blue eyes, dark chestnut hair, forming an admirable framework round her face, sloping shoulders charmingly moulded, and a figure that was not too slender; unlike her sister Cécile, she was gracefully feminine in all her ways. Raphael would have been puzzled to choose between her and Louise Collard for a model for his Madonna, and like the Greek sculptor, he would have selected beautiful points from them both to reach that perfect standard to which Art everywhere attains when it surpasses Nature.

The other young girls of the middle class grouped themselves round the Deviolaine family. The two Troisvallet girls, Henriette and Clementine: Clementine, dark with beautiful black hair, strangely attractive eyes, a Roman complexion, of the type of Velletri or Subiaco, and a head like one of Augustine Carrachi's. Henriette was tall, fair, rosy, slender, gracious, and as pliant in her gentle youthfulness as a rose, as a blade of corn, as a willow tree: she had that type of face which is half sad, half merry; the transition between angel and woman, showing all the common needs of earth, yet full of heavenly aspirations too. Then the two charming girls Sophie and Pélagie Perrot; Louise Moreau, a sweet young girl, who has since become the admirable mother of a family; Éléonore Picot, of whom I have spoken—an excellent woman, saddened by the death of her brother Stanislas, and the shameful charge that had weighed for a short time upon her brother Auguste. Then there were others, too, whose names I have forgotten, but whose fresh faces still appear in my mind's eye like the phantoms of a dream or like the apparitions which glide out of German streams or are reflected in the lochs of Scotland as they pursue their nocturnal rounds.

Lastly, after the middle classes, came, as I have said, the group of young girls which I cannot class in the social hierarchy, but which held the same place in that small world of ours shut in by the green girdle of its beautiful forest, that lilies of the valley, Easter daisies, cornflowers, hyacinths and pompon roses hold among flowers. Oh! but it was a pretty sight to see them on Sunday, in their summer dresses, with pink and blue sashes, their tiny bonnets trimmed by their own hands and put on in a hundred varieties of coquettish ways—for in those days not one of them dare wear a hat; it was a delight to see them free of all constraint, ignorant of any etiquette, playing, racing, lacing and interlacing their charming round bare arms in long chains. What exquisite creatures they were! What delightful young things! It is of little interest to my readers, I am well aware, to know their names; but I knew them, I loved them, I spent my earliest years among them, those gentle opening days in the morning of life; I wish to tell their names, I wish to paint their portraits, I wish to describe their different charms, and then I hope they will pardon my indiscretions for my very indiscretions' sake.

I must mention first and foremost two charmingly romantic and coquettish damsels—Joséphine and Manette Thierry: Joséphine dark, rosy, with an ample figure and regular features, a perfect creature, whose beautiful teeth completed a ravishing whole. Manette, a dessert apple, a girl who was always singing to make herself heard, always laughing to show off her teeth, ever running to let her feet, her ankles, even the calves of her legs, be seen; Virgil's Galatea, whose very name she was ignorant of, flying to be pursued, hiding so as to be seen before she hid.

What has become of them? I have seen them since, looking very miserable: one was at Versailles, the other in Paris—the fallen, faded fruits of that rosary on which I spelled out the first phrases of love. They were the daughters of an old tailor, and lived close to the church, which was only separated from them by the town hall. Louise Brézette lived nearly opposite them; I have already mentioned her. She was the niece of my dancing-master; a sturdy flower of fifteen, whom I had in my mind while I wrote my fictitious history of that Tulipe noire, the masterpiece of horticulture vainly sought after, vainly pursued, vainly expected by Dutch amateur gardeners. The hair of beautiful Madame Ronconi, which inspired one of Théophile Gautier's most wonderful articles, and which made coal look grey and the wings of a crow pale, when placed side by side with it, was not more black, more blue, more shiny than Louise Brézette's hair when it reflected the sun's rays from its dark and sombre depths as from the heart of polished metal. Oh! what a lovely blooming brunette she was, with her flesh as firm and bright as a nectarine's; her pearly teeth lighting up her face from under the faint ebony down on her coral lips! One could feel life and love bubbling up beneath, needing only the first passion to make everything burst forth into flame! This luxuriant young girl was religious, and, as such an organisation as hers must love something, she loved God.

If you took a few steps towards the square, a little farther up the rue de Soissons, bearing to the left, there was a door and a window, comprising the whole frontage of a tiny house. In the window hung hats, collars, bonnets, lace, gloves, mittens, ribbons—the whole arsenal, in short, of womanly vanity; behind the door floated certain curtains, intended to prevent inquisitive glances from looking into the shop, but which, whether by some strange mischance, or from the obstinacy of the rod upon which they slid, or from the caprices of the wind, always left on one side or the other some impertinent aperture through which the passer-by could see into the shop and at the same time allowed those inside the shop to see out into the street. Above this door and this window the following inscription was painted in large letters:—

Mesdemoiselles Rigolot, Milliners

Truly those who stopped in front of the opening which I have indicated, and who managed to cast a glance inside the shop, did not lose their time nor regret their pains. What we mean by this has no sort of connection with the two proprietors of the establishment, who were both old maids, having long since passed their fortieth year, and, I presume, having lost all pretension to inspire any other sentiment than respect.

No, what we have in view concerns two of the most adorable faces you can imagine, placed side by side as though to set one another off: one was a blonde, and the other a brunette. The brunette was Albine Hardi; the blonde was Adèle Dalvin. The brown head,—do you know the lovely Marie Duplessis, that charming courtesan full of queenly grace, upon whom my son wrote his romance la Dame aux camélias?—well, she was Albine. If you do not know her, I will describe Albine to you. She was a young girl of seventeen, with a dead brown complexion, large brown velvety eyes, and eyebrows so black that they seemed as though they had been drawn with a pencil, the curve was so firm and so regular. She was a duchess, she was a queen; better still than either, if you will, she was after the fashion of a nymph of Diana's train: slight, slender, straight and finely built, a huntress whom it would have been a splendid sight to see with a plumed helmet on her head, an Amazon flying before the wind, leading a troop of clamorous pikemen, guiding a baying hound. Upon the stage her appearance would have been magnificent, almost supernatural. In ordinary life, people were tempted to think her too beautiful, and for some time nobody dared to make love to her, it seemed so likely that their love would be wasted and that she would not make any response to it. The other, Adèle, was fair and pink-complexioned. I have never seen prettier golden hair, sweeter eyes, a more winning smile; she was more inclined to be gay than melancholy, short rather than tall, plump rather than thin: she was something like one of Murillo's cherubs who kiss the feet of his Virgins—half veiled in clouds; she was neither a Watteau shepherdess, nor one of Greuze's peasant girls, but something between the two. One felt it would be a sweet and easy thing to love her, although it might not be so easy to be loved by her. Her father and her mother were worthy old farmer folk, thoroughly honest but vulgar, and it was all the more surprising that so fresh and sweet-scented a flower should have sprung from such a stock. But this is always the case when folks are young: it is youth that lends distinction, as it is spring which lends freshness to the rose.

Round these young people whom I have just described, smiled and pouted a bevy of young girls, the smallest being mere infants, whom I have since seen succeed the youthful generation in which I lived. I have sought in vain to find in these later children the virtues I found in those who preceded them.

Until the arrival of the two strangers in Villers-Cotterets I had not even noticed the springtide crown of stars and flowers to which all ranks of society contribute. When the two strangers had left, the bandage that had sealed my eyes fell off, and I could say not merely "I see" but "I live." I found myself placed by my years exactly between the children who still played at prisoners' base and at quoits—as the abba's niece had aptly put it—and youths beginning to turn into men. Instead of returning to the former, as my beautiful Parisian had advised me, I attached myself to the latter, and drew myself up to my full height to prove my sixteen years. And when anyone asked my age, I told them I was seventeen.

The three youths with whom I was most intimate were, first, Fourcade, director of the school of self-improvement, sent from Paris to Villers-Cotterets; he was my vis-à-vis in my début as a dancing man. He was a thoroughly well-bred, well-educated young fellow, son of a man very honourably known in foreign affairs; his father had lived in the East for many years and had been Consul at Salonica. His affections were fixed upon Joséphine Thierry, and he spent with her all the time he could spare from his teaching. My second companion was Saunier; he had been a fellow-pupil with me under the Abbé Grégoire; he was second clerk of M. Perrot the lawyer; his father and grandfather were blacksmiths, and in the idle period of my early youth I spent a large portion of my time in their forge, notching their files and making fireworks out of iron filings. Saunier divided his leisure-time between two passions—one, which I verily believe came before the other, was for the clarionette; the other was for Manette Thierry. The third of my intimate friends was called Chollet; he served as a link, in the matter of age, between Fourcade and Saunier. He lived with one of my cousins, called Roussy, the father of the child of whom I had been godfather, when nine months old, along with Augustine Deviolaine. He was studying the cultivation of forest-land. I know nothing about his relations; they were probably wealthy, for whenever I called on him there were five-franc pieces scattered about on the mantelpiece and two or three gold pieces always shone out ostentatiously from the midst of them, dazzling my eyes and impressing me profoundly with his riches. But my admiration was entirely devoid of envy—I have never envied either a man's money or his possessions. I know not whether this arose from pride or from simpleness of mind. I might have taken for my motto Video nec invideo. Chollet had had no education at all, but he was not wanting in a certain natural quick-wittedness, and he was a fine-looking young fellow, his magnificent eyes and splendid teeth redeeming an otherwise common-looking face, pitted with smallpox. He did his best to make Louise Brézette change her love for the Creator into love for the creature.

These were my three most intimate friends. The upshot was, that when it became necessary for me in my turn to make a choice, although I had been brought up half with M. Deviolaine's family and half with M. Collard's, it was neither in aristocratic society nor in middle-class circles, which would have made fun of me, that I sought my initiation in the delightful mystery of life we call falling in love, but in that society to which my three friends almost exclusively addressed themselves. And I had no difficulty in understanding their preference. I do not hesitate to state fully and freely that they were very wise in their choice. There was but one step to take to follow in their path. I needed only someone upon whom to fasten my affections: the wish to love was not wanting. Every one of the young girls I have mentioned had some love affair on hand of a more or less serious character. They all enjoyed most delightful liberty, the result no doubt of the confidence their parents placed in their good sense; but for some reason or other we had quite an English custom in Villers-Cotterets—a free and easy association between young people of both sexes, which I have never seen in any other French town; a liberty all the more surprising, since all the parents of these maidens were perfectly respectable people and had a profound conviction in the depths of their hearts that all the barques launched upon the flood of the Tender Passion were decked with white sails and crowned with orange blossoms. And what was more singular still, it was true in the case of the majority of the ten or twelve couples of lovers which formed our circle.

I waited patiently for one of these knots to be untied or severed. While I waited, I went to every party and took part in all the walks and all the dances; it was an excellent apprenticeship, which familiarised me beforehand with that monster whom Psyche touched without seeing and whom I, on the contrary, had seen but not touched. Chance favoured me, after six weeks or two months of playing second fiddle. One of these engagements was hardly made before it was broken: a farmer's son, named Richou, wished to marry his neighbour, Adèle Dalvin. The parents of the young man, who were better off than those of the young girl, opposed these budding loves, and the fair one was released.

I had learnt much during those six weeks by watching others; besides, this time, I was not entangled with a sarcastic and exacting Parisian girl, who knew the world so much better than I did. No, my love affair was with a young girl more shy than myself, who mistook my pretended courage for genuine, and who, like the frog in the fable that jumped in the pond when a frightened hare passed by it, was good enough to fear me and to prove to me that it was possible to come across someone even more timid than myself. It can be seen how such a change in the position of things gave me assurance. The rôles were now completely reversed. This time I was the attacking party and someone else was on the defensive, and this someone was making such an obstinate resistance that I soon realised my attack was useless and that I should only succeed in breaking down the serious resistance offered me after, maybe, a long and patient wooing: the citadel was not to be stormed. Then began for me those first days, the reflection of which has lasted throughout the whole of my life: that delicious struggle of love, which asks unceasingly and is not discouraged by an eternity of refusal; the obtaining of favour after favour, each of which, when gained, fills the soul with ecstasy; the early fleeting dawn of life which hovers above the earth, shaking down handfuls of flowers upon the heads of mortals, and then, under the influence of the rising sun, adds consciousness to its joy and is soon enveloped in the ardent heat of passion.

Indeed, it was a happy time for me. In the morning, when I awoke, my mother's smile greeted me and her lingering kisses hung on my lips; from nine to four o'clock came my work—work, it is true, which would have been tiresome if I had been obliged to understand what I wrote, but which was easy and welcome, for while my hands and eyes were copying, my mind was free to commune with my own happy thoughts; then, from four till eight o'clock, I was with my mother; and after eight, joy, love, life, hope, happiness!

At eight in summer evenings, at six in winter, our young friends, also free when I was, came to join us at some convenient meeting-place; held out their faces or their cheeks to be kissed, pressed our hands, without taking pains, out of mistaken coquetry or hypocritical make-belief, to conceal their delight at meeting us once more; then, if it were summertime, and fine weather, the park invited us with its mossy sward, its dusky avenues, the breeze trembling among the leaves, and on moonlight nights there were wide spaces of alternate light and darkness; at these times a solitary passer-by could have seen five or six couples walking, at duly specified distances, to ensure isolation without loneliness, heads inclined towards one another, hands clasped in hands, talking in low tones, modulating their words to sweet intonations, or preserving a dangerous silence; for during such silences the eyes often spoke what the lips did not dare to utter. If it were winter or bad weather, we all met at Louise Brézette's: her mother and her aunt nearly always withdrew to the back room, giving up to us the two front ones, which we seized upon for ourselves; then, lit by a single lamp in the third room, near which Louise's mother would sew while her aunt read the Imitation of Christ or The Perfect Christian we chatted, squeezed against one another, generally two on one chair, repeating the same story we had said the night before, but finding what we had to say ever new.

At ten o'clock our soirées broke up. Each boy took his particular girl home. When they reached the house door, she granted her cavalier another half-hour, sometimes an hour, as sweet to her as to him, as they sat together on the bench outside the door, or stood in the garden path which led to the maternal parlour, from the interior of which from time to time a grumbling voice might be heard calling—a voice that was answered ten times before being obeyed, "I am coming, mamma." On Sundays we met at three o'clock, after vespers; and we walked, danced, waltzed, not going home until midnight.

Then there were fêtes in the neighbouring villages, less grand, less aristocratic, less fashionable, certainly, than those of Villers-Cotterets, to which we went in happy bands, and from which we returned in silent separate pairs.

It was at one of these fêtes that I met a young man a year younger than myself. I must ask permission to speak of him fully, for he had an immense influence over my life.

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CHAPTER III

Adolphe de Leuven—His family—Unpublished details concerning the death of Gustavus III.—The Count de Ribbing—The shoemakers of the château de Villers-Hellon

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I first met Leuven at a fête in the beautiful village of Corey, a league's distance from Villers-Cotterets—a village buried in the centre of great woods, like a nest among high branches. I had left my companions for an instant in the course of the dance, and I had gone to some distance to pay a visit to an old friend of my father, a farmer, whose farm was nearly a quarter of a league from the village. I took a pretty path at the foot of a hill to get there, hedged on both sides by hawthorn in full blossom, and studded with daisies, their golden centres fringed by pink-tipped petals.

Suddenly, at a bend in the path, I saw three people coming towards me, in a ray of sunlight which bathed them in light; two were well known to me, but the third was a complete stranger. The two I knew were Caroline Collard, who, as previously related, had become Baroness Capelle. The other was her daughter, Marie Capelle, then only three years old, who to her misfortune was to become Madame Lafarge. The third person, the stranger, looked at first sight like a German student; he was a youth of between sixteen and seventeen, and was dressed in a grey jacket, an oilskin cap, a waistcoat of chamois leather and bright blue trousers, almost as tight-fitting as mine, but with this difference, that while my topboots covered up my breeches, his, on the contrary, were covered up by his trousers. This young man was tall, dark and gaunt, his black hair cut as short as bristles; he had good eyes and a strikingly defined nose; his teeth were as white as pearls, and he had a carelessly aristocratic bearing; he was the Viscount Adolphe Ribbing de Leuven, future author of Vert-Vert and of Postilion de Long-jumeau son of Count Adolphe-Louis Ribbing de Leuven, one of the three Swedish noblemen who were inculpated in the murder of Gustavus III., King of Sweden.

These Counts Ribbing de Leuven were of an old and noble family, used to carrying on royal intrigues and to treat on equal terms with the powerful ones of earth. It was a Ribbing who rose in 1520 against the tyrant Christiern who had caused his two children to be murdered. There was a sad and melancholy legend in the family, connected with the beheading of these two children, the one aged twelve and the other only three. The executioner had cut off the head of the eldest and had seized hold of the second to execute him too, when the poor mite said in childish accents, "Oh, please do not soil my collar as you have soiled my brother Axel's, for mamma would scold me." The executioner had two children of his own just the same ages as these. Moved by the words, he flung down his sword and ran off, overwhelmed with remorse. Christiern sent soldiers after him and he was killed.

Adolphe's father, with whom I have since become very friendly and who loves me like a father, was then a man of fifty; extremely distinguished in appearance, with a charming nature, although perhaps a little too sarcastic, and of indomitable courage. He had been educated at the Military School in Berlin, and had come to France when quite young as a captain in one of Louis XVI.'s foreign mercenary regiments—those regiments which did him far more harm than any good their loyal services rendered him. He had been presented to Marie-Antoinette by the Count de Fersen and, under the patronage of that illustrious favourite, the queen gave him a most favourable reception. He remembered poor. Marie-Antoinette with most respectful veneration, and thirty years after her death I often heard him speak of her with a voice full of tears. He was recalled to Sweden towards the close of the year 1791. He was betrothed to one of his cousins, whom he worshipped, and, intending to marry her on his return, he learnt on his arrival at Stockholm that, by the order of King Gustave III., her hand had been disposed of and she was the wife of the Count d'Essen. In his first transport of despair, Count Ribbing provoked a quarrel with her husband. A duel ensued, and the Count d'Essen fell with a sword-wound through his chest which kept him chained for six months to his bed.

Sweden was greatly disturbed at this period: the king insisted upon enforcing his Diet to accept the deed of union and of security, and at Geft the coup d'état took place which invested the king with sole power in the making of peace and war. A tremendous strife had been waged for a long period between the regal power and the nobility. Though the king was married in 1766 to Sophie-Madeleine of Denmark, he had no heir to his crown even in 1776. And the Swedish nobility attributed the queen's sterility to the same cause as that of Louise de Vaudemont, Henri III.'s wife. As in the case of the last of the house of Valois, Gustavus had his favourites, and their familiarity with him led to their making the most extraordinary suggestions to their prince. After a time, the courtiers made up their minds to remonstrate with the king about the queen's barrenness and to tell him he ought to try to remedy this deficiency by every means in his power. Gustavus promised to see what could be done in the matter. Then, so folks said, a curious thing happened. The evening of the day on which he had pledged his word to the Swedish lords, he took his equerry Monck to the queen's chamber and, in the presence of the confused and blushing queen, he explained to the equerry the service he required of him; then he withdrew and shut the door of the royal chamber upon the pair. Some time later the queen's pregnancy was proclaimed, and she gave birth to a prince, who after his father's death reigned under the title of Gustavus IV., until the Swedish Parliament proclaimed his deposition in 1809. I knew his son very well in Italy, where he travelled under the name of the Count de Wasa.

In 1770, Gustavus III., then twenty-four years of age, came to France as the Count de Haga. He had an interview with a kind of sorceress who predicted future events in her hypnotic trances; she had scarcely touched his hand before she told him to beware of the year 1792, as he would incur danger of death from firearms during the course of it. Gustavus was a brave man; he had often exposed himself to danger. He several times repeated the prediction laughingly, but it never troubled him.

Inconsequence of the Diet of 1792, by which the nobles had lost the rest of their privileges, there arose a conspiracy. The principal ringleaders were Ankarström, Count de Ribbing, Count de Horn, Baron d'Erenswaerd and Colonel Lilienhorn. Ankarström and Ribbing had private reasons for hatred against the king, besides the general grievances which embittered the aristocracy against the sovereign. Through the king's intervention Ankarström had lost a lawsuit which had deprived him of half his fortune. Count de Ribbing, as we have seen, owed a grudge against the king for a far more grievous loss than that of a lawsuit, namely, the loss of his lady-love. In the case of the other nobles the projected murder of Gustavus was simply an incident in the life of a clan. They decided to perpetrate the murder at a masked ball, which was to take place in the Opera House, on the night of 15 and 16 March 1792. On the night before, the king received an anonymous letter, warning him of the plot and telling him that he was to be assassinated on the following night.

"Ah yes," said Gustavus, "the very same thing was predicted twenty-two years ago to the Count de Haga; but he put no more faith in the prophecy than the King of Sweden does to-day;" and, shrugging his shoulders, he crumpled the note between his hands and threw it into the fireplace. Nevertheless, people averred that Gustavus went disguised on the night of the 14-15 to consult the famous sibyl Arfredson, who confirmed the French somnambulist's prediction and the warning contained in the anonymous letter, telling him he would be murdered before three days had gone by. Whether from actual courage or from incredulity, Gustavus would not change any of his previously arranged plans nor take any precaution: at eleven o'clock that night he went to the masked ball. Lots had been drawn the night before to settle which of the conspirators should kill the king, and Gustavus was so greatly detested by his nobles that each one was eager to have the dangerous honour of firing the fatal shot. The lot was drawn by Ankarström.

It is said that one of the conspirators offered to give him all the wealth he then possessed, as well as all that which he was to inherit at a future date, if he would change places with him; but Ankarström refused. When the time came, Ankarström suddenly bethought him that he might mistake one of the nobles for the king, as several of them were dressed in similar costumes. But the Count de Horn reassured him. "Fire boldly," said he, "at the one to whom I shall say, 'Good-day, handsome masquerader.' He will be the king."

At two in the morning Gustavus was strolling about, leaning on the arm of the Count d'Essen, whom he had married to de Ribbing's fiancée, when the Count de Horn approached him and said, "Good-day, handsome masquerader."

The next moment a dull report was heard, and Gustavus tottered, crying out—

"I am killed!"

Except those who were round about the king no one had perceived what had happened. The pistol was concealed in a muff; the report had been drowned amidst the buzz of conversation and the strains of the orchestra, and the smoke remained buried in the muff. But at the king's exclamation, and on seeing him fall back fainting in the arms of d'Essen, everyone ran up; in the commotion that followed it was quite easy for Ankarström to put himself at a distance from the king and even to leave the hall; but in his flight he dropped one of his pistols. The pistol was picked up, hot and still smoking. Next day every gun-seller in Stockholm was questioned, and one of them recognised the pistol as one he had sold to Ankarström. An hour later, Ankarström was arrested at his own house, and a special commission was appointed to try him. He confessed to, but gloried in, his crime. As to his accomplices, he declined under any conditions whatever to reveal their names. The trial dragged on slowly; it was hoped against hope that Ankarström would give away the conspirators; finally, on 29 April 1792, forty-four days after the murder, he was condemned. The sentence was that he was to be beaten with rods for three days, then beheaded. In spite of the length and the ignominy of the punishment, Ankarström remained firm to the very end. While being taken in the cart to his execution, he looked with perfect equanimity upon the thousands of spectators who thronged round the scaffold. When he mounted the scaffold he asked for a few minutes in which to make his peace with God. It was granted him. He knelt down, prayed and then gave himself up to the executioners. He was not quite thirty-three years of age.

Ribbing, who had been arrested at the same time as Ankarström, was but twenty-one: it was intended to condemn him to death like Ankarström, and the Duke of Sudermania, regent over the kingdom during the minority of Gustavus IV., was urging forward the trial, when a mystic, a disciple of Swedenborg, sought him out and told him that the master had appeared to him, and had declared that not only was Ribbing innocent, but that every hair which fell from his head would cost a day of the life of the Duke of Sudermania. The duke, a Swedenborgian himself, was terrified at this warning, and Ribbing, instead of sharing Ankarström's fate, was condemned to perpetual exile. And as less could not be done for the Count de Horn and for Lilienhorn than was done in the case of Ribbing, they both obtained the same favour. The confiscation of their property followed upon the sentence of exile. Fortunately, in the case of the Count de Ribbing, the confiscation of property could not be put into execution until after the death of his mother: she enjoyed the property in her own right, during her lifetime, and she was still quite young.

The count left for France, where the Revolution was then at its height, and he arrived in time to witness the events of 2 and 3 September and 21 January. His adoration for the queen made him loud in his denunciation of the events of those dreadful days. He was arrested and, although already a regicide, was on the point of being delivered up to the revolutionary tribunal as too sympathetic with royal misfortunes, when Chaumette set him free, gave him a passport and helped him to escape from Paris. The count then went to Switzerland; he was so young and so good-looking that he went by the name of "the beautiful regicide." He was introduced to Madame de Staël, who took him much into her confidence. The letters (some two or three hundred) which the Count de Ribbing received from Madame de Staël during the lifetime of the illustrious authoress of Corinne, proved that this friendship was not of a temporary nature. Madame de Staël was surrounded by a circle of friends, several of whom already knew the Count de Ribbing. This little court was half political and half literary; its chief purpose at that time was to rescue, hide and protect emigrants against the persecutions of the magistrates in the Swiss cantons whose hands were continually being forced by the demands of the Revolutionary Government of Paris.

After 9 thermidor, the Count de Ribbing could return to France, where he bought three or four châteaux and two or three abbeys at a very low price. Among these châteaux were Villers-Hellon, Brunoy and Quincy. The count had acquired all these properties simply on the recommendations either of friends or of his solicitor. Villers-Hellon was, among others, quite unknown to him. One day he made up his mind to pay a visit to the lovely estate people had praised so much. Unluckily, the time was ill-chosen for seeing all its charms: the communal authorities of Villers-Hellon had handed over the château to an association of shoemakers who made shoes for the army, consequently the worthy disciples of St. Crépin had taken possession of the domain, had set up their workrooms in the salons and in the bedrooms and, the better to communicate with one another, they had made openings through the ceilings. When they had any oral communication to make, they made it by means of these peep-holes without having to leave their seats; if they had to come up or downstairs to see one another, they put ladders through these holes and so saved the turns and twists of the proper staircase. One can imagine how greatly such tenants would detract from the appearance of the château the count had just bought. The sights, and above all the smells, about the place so disgusted him that he fled precipitately back to Paris. Some days later he recounted his misadventure in his own witty way to M. Collard, then connected with the commissariat department of the army. M. Collard was more accustomed to the value of material goods than the noble exile, and he then and there offered to take over his purchase. M. de Ribbing consented, and Villers-Hellon became from that moment the property of M. Collard. Happily, the Count de Ribbing had still two or three other châteaux where he could reside instead of in the one he had just sold. He chose Brunoy, which later he gave up to his friend Talma, as he had Villers-Hellon to his friend Collard, and then he established himself in the château of Quincy.

During the whole of Napoleon's reign the Count de Ribbing lived very quietly, spending his winters in Paris and his summers in the country, devoting himself to agriculture and to fishing in his ponds, in which, once, he caught such an enormous pike that when it was put in the scales with Adolphe at the other end, the pike was actually the heavier. Napoleon offered M. de Ribbing military positions more than once—offers which he I declined, on account of the Conqueror's love of invasion, fearing he might one day be compelled to carry arms against Sweden.

On the second return of the Bourbons to power, their revenge for past political events pursued M. de Ribbing to his private retreat. He was obliged to exile himself again, crossed the frontier, and under an assumed name went to live in Brussels with his wife and son. But the incognito of the Count de Ribbing was soon to betray him under circumstances that will give some idea of his character. In Brussels, the count found himself at the same table with some foreign officers who, inflated with pride at the victory of Waterloo, abused France and Frenchmen right and left. One colonel, who was covered with decorations, especially distinguished himself by his exaggerated attacks. The conversation was carried on in German, but as the Count de Ribbing had been brought up in Berlin, German was almost like his mother tongue; he did not therefore lose a single word of the conversation, although he pretended he was not taking any notice. Suddenly he rose, and, advancing with his usual coolness to the colonel, he slapped him right and left across the face, accompanying the blows with a statement of his name and titles, and then he quietly returned to his seat. Cauchois-Lemaire, then only a young man, was at the same table, so was the poet Arnault, who was already an old man; both, at great risk to themselves, offered their services to the Count de Ribbing as seconds. Happily these services were not required: the colonel would not fight.

The roll of the Thirty Eight enriched Brussels at the expense of France,—Arnault, Excelmans, Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angély, Cambacérès, Harel, Cauchois-Lemaire were all exiled. M. de Ribbing attached himself to them, and, with them, founded le Nain Jaune—a journal that soon earned itself a European reputation.

Following upon an article published by the count in this journal, the Prussian Government demanded that the author of it should be handed over to them. This meant nothing less than imprisonment for life in a castle—Prussia is still, as one knows, the land of castles, and it has long been the land of imprisonments. However, King William left the Count de Ribbing the choice of being delivered over to Prussia or to France—somewhat after the fashion of the cook who gives a fowl its choice between being boiled or roasted. M. de Ribbing chose France. He was taken prisoner, flung into a post-chaise with his son, and driven to the borders of Condé. There he looked about him, to discover from which of his old friends he could ask hospitality. The nearest happened to be M. Collard, so he took his way towards Villers-Hellon.

It need hardly be said that he was received with open arms. He had been living but three days in that lovely place—changed so greatly since the days of the bootmakers that it was almost beyond recognition—when I met his son, Adolphe de Leuven, with Madame Capelle on his arm, and holding little Marie by the hand.

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CHAPTER IV

Adolphe's quatrain—The water-hen and King William—Lunch in the wood—The irritant powder, the frogs and the cock—The doctor's spectre—De Leuven, Hippolyte Leroy and I are exiled from the drawing-room—Unfortunate result of a geographical error—M. Paroisse

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I had not come across any members of the Collard family for a long time. Madame Capelle I adored, as she took pity on my youthfulness when people made fun of my peculiarities—peculiarities which I will not hide from myself I possessed to a certain extent. She introduced me to de Leuven as a young friend of hers and asked me to lunch with them next day in the forest to improve our acquaintance; it was also arranged that, following upon the lunch, I should spend two or three days at the château of Villers-Hellon. Of course I accepted the invitation. The fête of Corey was on the way, with its delightful entertainments of dancing and merriment. I can think of nothing more delightful than returning home, at ten or eleven o'clock at night, under the dense moving vault of the tall trees: in the solemn stillness of the night it seemed like some ancient Elysium, with mute shades walking under in the darkness; for the shades that pace our terrestrial Elysiums speak so low, so very low, that we swear they are dumb. I had been obliged to return to Villers-Cotterets to take back Adèle, and to make her understand, without hurting her feelings, how important it was that I should maintain friendly intercourse with the Collard family. She was such an excellent, good-hearted, straightforward girl, that she soon understood, and although feeling a little jealous at lending me to that group of aristocratic and beautiful young girls, who were fine enough to inspire jealousy in the heart of a princess, she gave me up for three days.

I set off at nine next morning to reach the arranged meeting-place by ten o'clock. Everybody had spent the night at Corey, at M. Leroy's house, and I also should have done the same had I not been urgently recalled to Villers-Cotterets by the necessity above stated. But what was a distance like that? I had strong legs and boots which could defy those of Tom Thumb's giant himself. In less than three-quarters of an hour, I caught sight of the first houses in the village, and the pond as it lay quiet and shining like a mirror at the foot of the valley. Adolphe de Leuven was walking on its banks. I did not expect that anyone would be up at the farm so early, and I joined Adolphe. He had a pencil and tablets in his hand, and he who was usually so phlegmatic was gesticulating in such a fashion that I should have trembled for his reason, had I not imagined he was practising a fencing exercise. When he saw me he stopped and blushed slightly.

"What are you doing there?" I asked.

"Why, I am composing poetry," he said, with some confusion. I looked him in the face as though I could hardly believe my ears.

"Poetry!... do you really write poetry?"

"Why, yes, sometimes," he answered, laughing.

"To whom are you writing verses?"

"To Louise."

"What! Louise Collard?"

"Yes."

"Well, I never!"

The notion of composing poetry to Louise Collard, charming though she was, had never come into my head. Louise seemed to me still the same pretty child in short frocks with lace-trimmed drawers—nothing more.

"Ah! so you are making verses to Louise, are you: what for?" I went on.

"You know she is going to be married."

"Louise? No, I did not know that. To whom?"

"To a Russian. Therefore the marriage must be prevented." "Prevented?"

"Yes; such a delightful girl must not be allowed to leave France."

"True, true; I shall be very sorry if she leaves France. I am very fond of her; aren't you?"

"I? I have only known her three days."

"It would be a good thing to hinder her from leaving France; but how shall we do it?"

"I have written my verses; you write some too."

"I!"

"Yes, you. You have been brought up with her, and it will please her."

"But I do not know how to write poetry. I have never done anything but crambo with the Abbé Grégoire and he always told me I did badly."

"Oh, nonsense! when you are in love it comes of itself."

"But I am in love and it hasn't come; so let me see your verses."

"Oh, it is just a quatrain."

"Well, let me see it."

Adolphe drew his tablets forth and read me these four lines:—

"Pourquoi dans la froide Ibérie,
Louise, ensevelir de si charmants attraits?
Les Russes, en quittant notre belle patrie,
Nous juraient cependant une éternelle paix!"

I stood astounded. This was real poetry—poetry after the style of Demoustier. So a poet stood before me: I felt as though I ought to bow down before him.

"How do you like my quatrain?" asked de Leuven.

"Heavens! it is beautiful."

"Good!"

"And you are going to give it to Louise?"

"Oh no; I dare not do that. I shall write it in her album without saying anything to her, and when she turns over the leaves she will come across my lines."

"Bravo!"

"Now what shall you do?"

"What about?"

"About this marriage."

"Oh, well, as I am quite unable to make a quatrain as good as yours, I shall say to her, 'Are you really going to marry a Russian, my poor Louise? I tell you, you are making a great mistake.'"

"I do not fancy that will have so much effect as my quatrain," said Adolphe.

"Neither do I; but what else can I do? One can only use one's own weapons. Now, if the Russian would meet me in a pistol Dud, I am quite sure he would never marry Louise!"

"You are a sportsman, then?"

"Rather. How could you imagine one would not be, surrounded by such a forest? Oh, stop! there is a water-hen!"

I pointed it out to him with my finger, flushing it with my stick as it swam among the reeds of the pond.

"Shoo!"

"Is that a water-hen?"

"Of course it is. Where do you come from not to know a water-hen?"

"I come from Brussels."

"I thought you were a Parisian."

"I was indeed born in Paris; but in 1815 we left Paris, and we lived in Brussels until three years ago, when my father and I were compelled to leave."

"Who compelled you to go?"

"Why, William!"

"Who is William?"

"William? He is King of the Netherlands. Didn't you know that the King of the Netherlands was called William?"

"Not I."

"Well, then, it oughtn't to seem so odd to you now that I do not know a water-hen."

Indeed, as it appeared, we were both ignorant on some points; and my ignorance was more culpable than de Leuven's.

He grew another cubit taller in my estimation. Not only was he a poet, but he was of sufficient importance in the world for this King William to be uneasy about him and his father, to the extent of banishing them both from his realms.

"And now you are living at Villers-Hellon?" said I.

"Yes. M. Collard is an old friend of my father."

"How long shall you live here?"

"As long as the Bourbons will allow us to remain in France."

"Ah! then you have fallen out with the Bourbons too?"

"We have quarrelled with most kings," said Adolphe, with a laugh.

This phrase, uttered with magnificent indifference, quite finished me off. Luckily, at that moment, our fair companions appeared on the threshold of the farm, a bevy of pink and white damsels. Two or three chars-à-bancs were in readiness to take them to the appointed place. The gentlemen were to go on foot. The rendezvous was barely a quarter of a league's distance from the village. A long table of thirty covers was laid under a leafy canopy, ten paces off a limpid, clear purling spring called the Fontaine-aux-Princes. All these young folks, maidens, mothers, children, seemed like so many woodland flowers opening to the sweet-breathed breeze: some pale, that sought for shade and solitude; others of brilliant hues, seeking light and stir and the sunshine of admiration.

Oh! those glorious woods, those shady depths, the haunts of my cherished moods of solitude, I have revisited you since; but no shade glides now beneath your green vaults and in your dark alleys.... What have you done with all that delightful world which vanished with my youth? Why have not other generations come in their turn, pale or rosy, lively or careless, noisy or silent like ours? Has that ephemeral efflorescence disappeared for ever? Is it really wanting, or is it that my eyes have lost the power of seeing?

We returned that night to Villers-Hellon. Everything was so beautifully arranged in that luxurious little château that each of us had a separate room and bed, and sometimes there were as many as thirty or forty of us there.

I have related what nocturnal persecutions poor Hiraux was made a victim of when he came to see us at les Fossés. It was now our turn to undergo the like. Our rooms were prepared beforehand for the pantomime that followed. The family doctor, Manceau, was the stage manager. He had replaced an old doctor from Soissons named M. Paroisse. I will explain presently why this change took place. The assistant stage managers were Louise, Cécile and Augustine. The appointed victims were Hippolyte Leroy, de Leuven and myself. Hippolyte Leroy was at this period a young man of between twenty-five and twenty-six. He was a cousin of M. Leroy de Corey. He had been one of the body-guard, and was now Secretary to the Inspection at Villers-Cotterets. Later, he became my cousin, by his marriage with Augustine Deviolaine. Our three rooms communicated with one another. We retired to our rooms about half-past twelve. De Leuven was the first to get into bed. He had scarcely lain down before he began to complain of a most intolerable tickling: his bed was sprinkled with the stuff charlatans sell which they call scratching powder. Those unacquainted with this powder should recall the famous scene in Robert Macaire, where the two heroes of the book find a trunk, and in that trunk a quantity of tiny packets, containing some unknown substance, whose property was revealed when they touched it. In about five minutes' time Adolphe de Leuven began to scratch himself like both Robert Macaire and Bertrand put together. We offered de Leuven our sincere sympathy. We advised him to rub it off as best he could, to wrap himself in his bed-curtain and to sleep on a couch. Then we went to our own beds, quite convinced that we should find them like Adolphe's. But we searched them in vain: they seemed perfectly free from any preparation of the like nature. We lay down. In five minutes' time Hippolyte Leroy uttered a sharp cry. In stretching himself, he felt a piece of string at the foot of the bed; he pulled this thread, and in doing so, he untied a bag full of frogs. The frogs, gaining their liberty, hastened to disport themselves about the bed, and it was the contact of his human flesh with their animal hide which produced Hippolyte's yell above mentioned. He flung off the bed-clothes and leapt out of bed. The frogs leaped out after him. He had been given good measure; there were quite two dozen of them.

I was beginning to think I was the only one spared, when I thought I heard a great stirring inside a cupboard against which the head of my bed had been put. I looked at the lock. It was keyless. However, I felt no doubt that some sort of animal was shut up in that cupboard. Only, what sort of an animal was it? I was not kept long in suspense: as one o'clock struck a cock crowed at the head of my bed, and renewed his crowing every hour till day came. I did not deny Christ, like St. Peter, but I confess I took His name in vain. We fell asleep by seven o'clock,—de Leuven in spite of his itching powder, Hippolyte Leroy in spite of his frogs, and I in spite of my cock,—when Manceau entered our rooms and woke us by telling us that as he had heard in roundabout ways we had spent a bad night, he had come to offer us his professional services: Manceau denounced his own handiwork!

We had slept so badly, through that horrible night, that, with terrible imprecations, we had consigned our persecutor, whoever he might be, to the infernal regions. Manceau, as I have said, denounced himself: expiation must follow the crime; our sworn oath must be fulfilled. At a sign, de Leuven shut the door: I fell upon Manceau, Hippolyte gagged him; we stripped him naked, we wrapped him in a sheet off Adolphe's bed, we tied him up like a sausage, we took him down a disused staircase and we deposited him in the most unfrequented part of the park, in the very middle of the little river, at a place where he could stand, but where, entangled as he was, he ran great risk of losing his foothold at the first step he took. We then quietly returned to our beds, and resumed our interrupted sleep.

We went down to the morning meal at ten o'clock. Our arrival was eagerly expected. Everybody burst out laughing when we came within view. The young ladies each played a part: some pretended to scratch, others imitated in a low voice the croaking of frogs, and others simulated the crowing of a cock. We were quite imperturbable: we merely asked carelessly where Manceau was. Nobody had seen him. We sat down to table. The fowl was tough, Cécile remarked; one would have said it was an old cock which had crowed all the night. Augustine asked where the frogs were that she had seen, she said, in the kitchen the night before. Had they been moved?... Were the frogs lost?... The frogs must be found again. Louise asked Adolphe if he was not attacked by a contagious affection; for since he had offered her his arm to lead her into the dining-room, her skin had felt fearfully irritable.

"If Manceau were here," I said to Louise, "you could ask him for a prescription to allay it."

"But, joking apart, where is Manceau?" asked Madame Collard.

Silence again, as at the first inquiry. Matters were becoming serious, and folks began to be uneasy about the dear doctor: it was not his custom to absent himself at meal-times. They sent to ask the porter if Manceau had gone out to attend some sick person in the village. The porter had not seen Manceau.

"I believe he is drowned!" I said.... "Poor fellow!"

"Why should he be?" asked Madame Collard.

"Because yesterday evening he proposed a bathing party to us; but we slept so well we missed meeting him in his room as arranged. As we did not turn up, he must have gone alone to bathe."

"Oh, good gracious!" exclaimed Madame Collard, "the poor doctor! he cannot swim."

A chorus of lamentations went up from the ladies at these words, by the side of which the wailing of the Israelites in exile was a trifle. It was settled that Manceau should be searched for immediately after the meal was over.

"Good!" said de Leuven in a whisper to me,—"I will take the opportunity while everybody is out to write my verses in Louise's album."

"And I," I replied, "I will stand sentinel at the door to prevent your being disturbed."

Everything happened as had been arranged. The whole beehive of the castle swarmed into the garden. The older men—M. de Leuven the father, M. Collard, M. Méchin—stayed in the drawing-room to read the newspapers. Hippolyte played billiards with Maurice. De Leuven and I went upstairs to Louise's room, which was next to M. Collard's, and whilst I watched on the landing, he wrote his four lines in the album.

He had scarcely finished the last, when we heard loud shouts, and upon going to look out of the window, we saw Louise and Augustine running towards the castle. Cécile, who was braver, had remained stoutly where she was, and had looked towards the river with more curiosity than alarm.

"Bravo!" said I to Adolphe, "Manceau has made his appearance."

We quickly went down.

"A ghost! a ghost!" cried Louise and Augustine; "there is a ghost in the river!"