Chapter IV: Part 4

At the opening of the famous battle of Ivry: "Children, if the colours fall, rally to my white plumes, you will find them always on the road to honour and victory."

How could a man fail to be victorious, who knew how to speak thus to his captains and his troops?

This sceptical monarch wishes for Paris; he longs for it, but he must choose between his faith and the beautiful city: "Enough," he murmurs, "after all Paris is well worth a mass!" And he changes his religion, as he would have changed his coat. Is it not a fact, however, that the witticism caused a ready acceptance of the deed? "Paris is well worth a mass," raised a laugh among the choicer spirits, and there was no violent indignation over the change.

Has he not become the patron of all fathers of families, by the question put to the Spanish Ambassador, who found him playing at horses with the Dauphin: "Are you a father, M. l'Ambassadeur?"

The Spaniard replied: "Yes, sir."

"In that case," said the King, "we will go on."

But he made a conquest for all eternity of the heart of France, of the _bourgeoisie,_ and of the people, by the finest phrase that prince ever pronounced,--a real inspiration of genius, full of depth, heartiness, sharpness, and good sense.

"If God prolongs my life, I hope to see in my kingdom no peasant so poor, that he cannot put a fowl in the pot for his Sunday's dinner."

It is with words such as these, that enthusiastic and foolish crowds are flattered and governed. By a couple of clever sayings, Henry IV. has drawn his own portrait for posterity. One cannot pronounce his name, without at once having a vision of the white plumes, and of the delicious flavour of a _poule-au-pot._

Louis XIII. made no happy hits. This dull King had a dull reign.

Louis XIV. created the formula of absolute personal power: "The State is myself."

He gave the measure of royal pride in its fullest expansion: "I have almost had to wait."

He set the example of sonorous political phrases, which make alliances between two nations: "The Pyrenees exist no longer!"

All his reign is in these few phrases.

Louis XV., most corrupt of Kings, elegant and witty, has bequeathed to posterity that delightful keynote of his supreme indifference: "After me, the deluge."

If Louis XVI. had been inspired enough to perpetrate one witticism, he might possibly have saved his kingdom. With one _bon mot,_ might he not perhaps have escaped the guillotine?

Napoleon I. scattered around him by handfuls, the sayings that were suited to the hearts of his soldiers.

Napoleon III. extinguished with one brief phrase, all the future indignation of the French nation in that first promise: "The Empire is peace." The Empire is peace! superb declaration, magnificent lie! After having said that, he might declare war against the whole of Europe, without having anything to fear from his people. He had found a simple, neat, and striking formula, capable of appealing to all minds, and against which facts would be no argument.

He made war against China, Mexico, Russia, Austria, against all the world. What did it matter? There are people yet, who speak with sincere conviction of the eighteen years of tranquillity he gave to France: "The Empire is peace."

And it was also with his keen words of satire, phrases more mortal than bullets, that M. Rochefort laid the Empire low, riddling it with the arrows of his wit, cutting it to shreds and tatters.

The Maréchal MacMahon himself has left as a souvenir of his career to power: "Here I am, here I remain!" And it was by a shaft from Gambetta that he was, in his turn, knocked down: "Submission or dismissal."

With these two words, more powerful than a revolution, more formidable than the barricades, more invincible than an army, more redoubtable than all the votes, the tribune turned out the soldier, crushed his glory, and destroyed his power and prestige.

As to those who govern France at this moment, they must fall, for they are devoid of wit; they will fall, for in the day of danger, in the day of disturbance, in the inevitable moment of see-saw, they will not be capable of making France laugh, and of disarming her.

Of all these historical phrases, there are not ten really authentic. But what does it matter, so long as they are believed to have been uttered by those to whom they are attributed:

"Dans le pays des bossus
Il faut l'être
Ou le paraître,"[2]

says the popular song.

Meanwhile the commercial travellers were talking of the emancipation of women, of their rights, and of the new position in society they longed for.

Some approved, others were annoyed; the little fat man jested without ceasing, and ended the breakfast, as well as the discussion, by the following entertaining anecdote:

"Lately," said he, "there was a great meeting in England, where this question was discussed. One of the orators had been setting forth numerous arguments in favour of the women's case, and wound up with this observation:

"To conclude, gentlemen, I may observe that the difference between man and woman is after all, very small."

A powerful voice, from an enthusiastic and thoroughly convinced listener, arose from the audience, crying: "Hurrah for the small difference!"

[1] Buoy of the oily scuttle-fish!

[2]
In the country of hunchbacks
One must be so,
Or at least appear so.

SAINT-TROPEZ, _April 13th_.

As it was remarkably fine this morning, I started for the _Chartreuse de la Verne._

Two recollections draw me towards this ruin: that of the sensation of infinite solitude and the unforgettable melancholy of the deserted cloister; and also that of an old peasant couple, to whose cottage I had been taken the year before by a friend who was guiding me across this country of the Moors.

Seated in a country cart, for the road soon became impracticable for a vehicle on springs, I followed the line of the bay to its deepest point. I could see upon the opposite shore the pine woods where the _Company_ is attempting to create another winter resort. The shore indeed is exquisite, and the whole country magnificent. Then the road plunges into the mountains, and soon passes through the town of Cogolin. A little further on, I quitted it for a rough broken lane, which was scarcely more than a long rut. A river, or rather a big stream, runs by the side, and every hundred yards or so, cuts through the ravine, floods it, wanders away a little, returns, loses itself again, quits its bed and drowns the track, then falls into a ditch, strays through a field of stones, appears suddenly to calm down into wisdom, and for a while follows its due course; but seized all at once by some wild fancy, it precipitates itself again into the road, and changes it into a marsh, in which the horse sinks up to the breast-plate, and the high vehicle up to the driving seat.

There are no more houses; only from time to time, a charcoal burner's hut; the poorest live in absolute holes. Is it not almost incredible that men should inhabit holes in the ground, where they live all the year, cutting wood and burning it to extract the charcoal, eating bread and onions, drinking water, and sleeping like rabbits in their burrows, in narrow caverns hewn in the granite rocks. Lately, too, in the midst of these unexplored valleys, a hermit has been discovered, a real hermit, hidden there for these thirty years, unknown to anyone, even to the forest rangers.

The existence of this wild man, revealed by I know not whom, was, no doubt, mentioned to the driver of the diligence, who spoke of it to the post-master, who talked of it to the telegraph clerk male or female, who flew with the wonder to the editor of some little local paper, who made out of it a sensational paragraph, copied into all the country journals of Provence.

The police set to work, to hunt out the hermit, without apparently causing him any alarm, whence we may conclude that he had kept all needful papers by him. But a photographer, excited by the news, set off in his turn, wandered three days and three nights amongst the mountains, and ended by photographing some one, the real hermit some say, an impostor, others will tell you.

Last year then, the friend who first revealed to me this strangely quaint country, showed me two creatures infinitely more curious, than the poor devil who had come to hide in these impenetrable woods, a grief, a remorse, an incurable despair, or perhaps simply the mere ennui of living.

This is how he first discovered them. Wandering on horseback among these valleys, he suddenly came across a prosperous farm: vines, fields, and a farmhouse, which looked comfortable though humble.

He entered. He was received by a woman, a peasant, about seventy years old. The husband, seated under a tree, rose and came forward to bow.

"He is deaf," she said.

He was a fine old fellow of eighty, amazingly strong, upright, and handsome. They had for servants, a labourer and a farm-girl. My friend, a little surprised to meet these singular persons in the midst of a desert, enquired about them. They had been there for a long time; they were much respected, and passed for being comfortably off, that is, for peasants.

He came back several times to visit them, and little by little became the confidant of the wife. He brought her papers and books, being surprised to find that she had some ideas, or rather remains of ideas, which scarcely seemed those of her class. She was, however, neither well read, intelligent nor witty, but there seemed to be, in the depths of her memory, traces of forgotten thoughts, a slumbering recollection of a bye-gone education. One day, she asked him his name:

"I am the Count de X...," he said. Moved by the obscure vanity which is lodged deep in all souls, she replied:

"I too am noble."

Then she went on, speaking for certainly the first time in her life, of this piece of ancient history, unknown to anyone.

"I am the daughter of a colonel. My husband was a non-commissioned officer in my father's regiment. I fell in love with him, and we ran away together.

"And you came here?"

"Yes, we hid ourselves."

"And you have never seen your family since?"

"Oh no! don't you see my husband was a deserter."

"You have never written to anyone?"

"Oh no!"

"And you have never heard anyone speak of your family, of your father, or mother?"

"Oh no, mama was dead."

This woman had preserved a certain childishness, the simplicity of those who throw themselves into love, as if over a precipice.

He asked again:

"You have never told this to anyone?"

She answered: "Oh no! I can say it now, because Maurice is deaf. As long as, he could hear, I should not have dared to mention it. Besides, I have never seen anyone but the peasants since I ran away."

"At least, then, you have been happy?"

"Oh yes; very happy. I have been very happy. I have never regretted anything."

Well, I also had gone last year to visit this woman, this couple, as one goes to gaze at some miraculous relic.

I had contemplated with surprise, sadness, and even a little disgust, this woman who had followed this man, this rustic Adonis, attracted by his hussar uniform, and who had continued to see him under his peasant's rags, with the blue dolman slung over his back, sword at his side, and the high boot with clanking spur.

She had, however, become a peasant herself. In the depths of this wilderness, she had become perfectly accustomed to this life without luxuries, without charm, or delicacy of any sort, she had adapted herself to these simple manners. And she loved him still. She had become a woman of the people, in cap and coarse petticoat. Seated on a straw-bottomed chair at a wooden table, she eat a mess of cabbage, potatoes and bacon from an earthenware plate. She slept on a straw mattress beside him.

She had never thought of anything but him! She had regretted neither ornaments, nor silks, nor elegance, nor soft chairs, nor the perfumed warmth of well-curtained rooms, nor repose in a comfortable bed. She had never needed anything but him! As long as he was there, she had wanted nothing else!

She was quite young when she abandoned life, the world, and those who had brought her up and loved her. Alone with him she had come to this savage ravine. And he had been everything to her, everything that could be longed for, dreamt of, expected, ceaselessly hoped for. He had filled her life with happiness from one end to another. She could not have been happier.

Now I was going for the second time to see her again, filled with the surprise, and the vague contempt, with which she inspired me.

She lived near the Hyères road, on the opposite slope of the mountain on which stands the _Chartreuse de la Verne;_ and another carriage was awaiting me on this road, for the deep track we had followed, had now ceased and become a mere footpath, only accessible to pedestrians and mules.

I started therefore alone, on foot, and with slow steps to climb the mountains. I was in a delightful wood, a real Corsican thicket, a fairy tale wood composed of flowering creepers, aromatic plants with powerful scents, and huge magnificent trees.

The granite fragments in the track sparkled as they rolled beneath my steps, and in the openings between the branches, I saw sudden peeps of wide gloomy valleys full of verdure, winding lengthily away to the distance.

I was warm, the quick blood flowed within my flesh, I felt it coursing through my veins, burning, rapid, alert, rhythmical and alluring as a song; the vast song brutish and gay, of life in movement under the sun. I was happy, I was strong, I quickened my pace, climbed the rocks, ran, jumped, and discovered every minute a larger view, a more gigantic network of desert valleys, from whence not one single chimney sent up a wreath of smoke.

Then I reached the top, dominated by other heights, and after making some circuit, perceived on the slope of the mountain before me, a bleak ruin, a heap of dark stones, and of ancient buildings supported by lofty arcades. To reach it, it was necessary to go round a large ravine, and to cross a chestnut grove. The trees, old as the abbey itself, enormous, mutilated and dying, had survived the building. Some have fallen, no longer able to sustain the weight of years; others, beheaded, have now only a hollow trunk in which ten men could conceal themselves. And they look like a formidable army of giants, who in spite of age and thunderbolts are ready still to attempt the assault of the skies. In this fantastic wood one feels the mouldy touch of centuries, the old, old life of the rotting roots, amidst which, at the feet of these colossal stumps, nothing can grow. For amongst the grey trunks the ground is of hard stones and a blade of grass is rare.

Here are two fenced springs, or fountains, kept as drinking places for the cows.

I approach the abbey, and find myself face to face with the old buildings, the most ancient of which date back to the 12th century, while the more recent are inhabited by a family of shepherds.

In the first court, one sees by the traces of animals, that a remnant of life still haunts the spot; then after traversing crumbling and tumbling halls, like those of all ruins, one reaches the cloister, a long and low walk still under cover, surrounding a tangled square of brambles and tall grasses. In no spot in the world, have I felt such a weight of melancholy press upon my heart, as in this ancient and sinister cloister, true pacing court of monks. Certainly, the form of the arcades and the proportions of the place contribute to my emotion, to my heartache, and sadden my soul by their action on my eyes, exactly as the happy curve of some cheering bit of architecture would rejoice them. The man who built this retreat must have been possessed with a despairing heart, to have an inspiration so desolate and dreary. One would fain weep and groan within these walls, one longs to suffer, to reopen all the wounds of one's heart, to enlarge and make the very utmost of all the sorrows compressed within it.

I climbed upon a breach in the wall to see the view outside, and I understood my emotion. Nothing living around, nothing anywhere but death. Behind the abbey, a mountain ascending up to the sky, around the ruins the chestnut grove, in front a valley, and beyond that, more valleys,--pines, pines, an ocean of pines, and on the far horizon, pines still on the mountain tops.

And I left the place.

I crossed next a wood of cork trees, where, a year ago, I had experienced a shock of strong and moving surprise.

It was on a grey day of October, at the time when they strip the bark of these trees, to make corks of it. They strip them thus from the foot to the first branches, and the denuded trunk becomes red, a blood red as of a flayed limb. They have grotesque and twisted shapes; the look of maimed creatures writhing in epileptic fits, and I suddenly fancied myself transported into a forest of tormented beings, a bleeding and Dantesque forest of hell, where men had roots, where bodies deformed by torture, resembled trees, where life ebbed incessantly, in never-ending torment by these bleeding wounds, which produced upon me the tension of the nerves and faintness that sensitive people feel at the sudden sight of blood, or the unexpected shock of a man crushed, or fallen from a roof. And this emotion was so keen, this sensation so vivid, that I imagined I heard distracting cries and plaints, distant and innumerable; I touched one of these trees, to reassure my fainting spirit, and I fancied, I beheld my hand, as I drew it back, covered with blood.

To-day they are cured--till the next barking.

At length the road appears, passing near the farm which has sheltered the long happiness of the non-commissioned officer of hussars, and the Colonel's daughter.

From afar, I recognize the old man walking among the vines. So much the better; the wife will be alone in the house.

The servant was washing in front of the door.

"Your mistress is here," I said.

She replied, with a singular look, in the accent of the south:

"No, sir; since six months she is no more."

"She is dead?"

"Yes, sir."

"And of what?"

The woman hesitated, then muttered:

"She is dead--dead, I tell you."

"But of what?"

"Of a fall, then!"

"A fall! where from?"

"From the window."

I gave her a few pence.

"Tell me about it," I said.

No doubt she strongly wished to talk of it, no doubt, too, she had often repeated this history for the last six months, for she retailed it at great length, as a story well-known by heart and invariable in its repetition.

Then I learnt that for thirty years, the old deaf man had had a mistress in the neighbouring village, and that his wife having learnt this by chance from a passing carter, who spoke of it without knowing who she was, rushed panting and bewildered to the attic, and there hurled herself from the window, not perhaps with deliberate purpose, but impelled by the torture of the horrible agony caused by her discovery, which goaded her forward in an irresistible gust of passion, like a whip lashing and cutting. She had flown up the staircase, burst open the door, and without knowing, without being able to stop her headlong speed, had continued to run straight ahead and had leaped into empty space.

_He_ had known nothing of it; he did not know even now; he would never know, because he was deaf. His wife was dead, that was all. All the world must die some time or other!

I could see him at a distance giving orders by signs to his labourers.

Then I caught sight of the carriage which was waiting for me in the shade of a tree, and I returned to Saint-Tropez.

_April 14th_.

I was going to bed yesterday evening, although it was only nine o'clock, when a telegram was handed to me. A friend, one of my dearest, sent me this message: "I am at Monte-Carlo for four days, and have been telegraphing to you at every port on the coast. Come to me at once."

And behold, the wish to see him, the longing to talk, to laugh, to gossip about society, about things, about people; the longing to slander, to criticize, to blame, to judge, to chatter, was alight within me in a moment, like a conflagration. On that morning, even, I should have been furious at this recall, yet in the evening I was enchanted at it; I wished myself already there, with the great dining-room of the restaurant full of people before my eyes, and in my ears that murmur of voices in which the numbers of the roulette table dominate all other phrases, like the _Dominus vobiscum_ of the church services.

I called Bernard.

"We shall start at about four o'clock in the morning for Monaco," I said to him.

He replied philosophically:

"If it is fine, sir."

"It _will_ be fine."

"The barometer is going down, though."

"Pooh! it will go up again."

The mariner smiled an incredulous smile.

I went to bed and to sleep.

It was I who woke the men. It was dark, and a few clouds hid the sky. The barometer had gone down still more.

The two men shook their heads with a distrustful air.

I repeated:

"Pooh! it will be fine. Come, let us be off!"

Bernard said:

"When I can see the open, I know what I am about; but here, in this harbour, at the end of this gulf, one knows nothing, sir, one can see nothing; there might be a fearful sea on, without our knowing anything about it."

I replied:

"The barometer has gone down, therefore we shall not have an east wind. Now, if we have a west wind, we can put into Agay, which is only six or seven miles off." The men did not seem much reassured; however, they got ready to start.

"Shall we take the dingy on deck," asked Bernard.

"No, you will see it will be quite fine. Let it tow astern as usual."

A quarter of an hour later, we had quitted the harbour, and were running through the entrance of the gulf, to a light and intermittent breeze.

I laughed.

"Well you see, the weather is good enough."

Soon, we had passed the black and white tower built upon the Rabiou shoal, and although sheltered by Cape Camarat which runs far out into the open sea, and of which the flashing light appeared from minute to minute, the _Bel-Ami_ was already lifted forwards by long powerful slow waves; those hills of water which move on, one behind the other, without noise, without shock, without foam, menacing without fury, alarming in their very tranquillity.

One saw nothing, one only felt the ascent and descent of the yacht over the dark and silently moving waters.

Bernard said:

"There has been a gale out at sea to-night, sir; we shall be lucky if we get in without accident."

The day broke brightly over the wild crowding waves, and we all three looked anxiously seawards to see if the squall were returning.

All this time the boat was running a great pace before the wind and with the tide. Already Agay appeared on our beam, and we held counsel whether we should make for Cannes, to escape the rough weather, or for Nice, running to seaward of the isles.

Bernard would have preferred Cannes: but as the breeze did not freshen, I decided in favour of Nice.

For three hours all went well; though the poor little yacht rolled like a cork in the awful swell.

No one who is unacquainted with the open sea, that sea of mountains, moving with weighty and rapid strides, separated by valleys which change place from second to second, filled up and formed again incessantly, can guess, can imagine the mysterious, redoubtable, terrifying and superb force of the waves.

Our little dingy followed far behind us, at the extremity of forty yards of hawser, through this liquid and dancing chaos. We lost sight of it every moment, then suddenly it would reappear perched on the summit of a wave, floating along like a great white bird.

Here is Cannes in the depth of its bay, Saint-Honorat with its tower standing up among the waves, and before us the Cape d'Antibes.

The breeze freshened little by little, and the crests of the waves became flocks of sheep, those snowy sheep which move so fast, and of which the countless troop careers along without dog or shepherd under the endless sky.

Bernard said to me:

"It will be all we shall do to make Antibes."

And indeed seas began to break over us, with inexpressible and violent noise. The sharp squalls shook us, throwing us into yawning gulfs, whence as we emerged, we righted ourselves with terrible shocks.

The gaff was lowered, but at every oscillation of the yacht, the boom touched the waves and seemed ready to tear away the mast, which if it should fly away with the sail, would leave us to float alone and lost upon the wild waves.

Bernard cried out:

"The dingy, sir."

I turned to look. A huge wave filled it, rolled it over, enveloped it in foam as if it would devour it, and, breaking the hawser by which it was made fast to us, took possession of it, half sinking, drowned; a conquered prey which it will presently throw upon the rocks down there, below the headland.

The minutes seem hours. Nothing can be done, we must go on, round the point in front of us, and when we have done that, we shall be sheltered, and in safety.

At last we reach it! The sea is now calm and smooth, protected as it is by the long tongue of rocks and earth which forms the Cape of Antibes.

There is the harbour from which we started only a few days ago, although it seems to me we have been voyaging for months, and we enter just as noon is striking.

The men are radiant on finding themselves back again, though Bernard repeats at every other moment:

"Ah, sir! our poor little boat; it went to my heart, to see it go down like that!"

As for me, I took the four o'clock train, to go and dine with my friend in the principality of Monaco.

I wish I had time to write at length about this surprising state; smaller than many a village in France, but wherein one may find an absolute sovereign, bishops, an army of Jesuits and _seminarists_ more numerous than that of the ruler; an artillery, the guns of which are nearly all rifled, an etiquette more ceremonious than that of his lamented Majesty Louis XIV., principles of authority more despotic than those of William of Prussia, joined to a magnificent toleration for the vices of humanity, on which indeed, live both sovereign, bishops, Jesuits, _seminarists,_ ministers, army, magistrates, every one in short.

Hail to this great pacific monarch, who without fear of invasion or revolution, reigns peacefully over his happy little flock of subjects, in the midst of court ceremonies which preserve intact the traditions of the four reverences, the twenty-six handkissings, and all the forms used once upon a time around Great Rulers.

This monarch, moreover, is neither sanguinary nor vindictive, and when he banishes, for he does banish sometimes, the measure is put in force with the utmost delicacy.

Is a proof needful?

An obstinate player, on a day of ill luck, insulted the sovereign. A decree was issued for his expulsion.

During a whole month, he prowled around the forbidden Paradise, fearing the sword blade of the archangel, in the guise of the sabre of the policeman. One day, however, he hardened his heart, crossed the frontier, reached the very centre of the kingdom in thirty seconds, and penetrated into the precincts of the Casino. But suddenly an official stopped him:

"Are you not banished, sir?"

"Yes, sir, but I leave by the next train."

"Oh! in that case it is all right. You can go in."

And every week he came back: and each time, the same functionary asked him the same question, to which he invariably gave the same answer.

Could justice be more gentle?

Within the last few years, however, a very serious and novel case occurred within the kingdom.

This was an assassination.

A man, a native of Monaco, not one of the wandering strangers of whom one meets legions on these shores--a husband, in a moment of anger, killed his wife; killed her without rhyme or reason, without any excuse that could be accepted.

Indignation was unanimous throughout the principality.

The Supreme Court met to judge this exceptional case (a murder had never taken place before), and the wretch was with one voice, condemned to death.

The indignant sovereign ratified the sentence.

There only remained to execute the criminal. Then arose a difficulty. The country possessed neither guillotine nor executioner.

What was to be done? By the advice of the minister of Foreign affairs, the Prince opened negotiations with France to obtain the loan of a headsman and his apparatus.

Long deliberations took place in the ministry at Paris. At last they replied by sending an estimate of the cost of moving the woodwork and the practitioner. The whole amounted to sixteen thousand francs (six hundred and forty pounds).

The Monarch of Monaco reflected that the operation would cost him dear; the assassin was certainly not worth that price. Sixteen thousand francs for the head of a wretch like that! Never!

The same request was addressed to the Italian government. A King and a brother would no doubt show himself less exacting than a Republic.

The Italian government sent in a bill which amounted to twelve thousand francs, (four hundred and eighty pounds).

Twelve thousand francs! It would be necessary to impose a new tax, a tax of two francs (twenty pence) a head! This would be enough to cause serious, and hitherto unknown trouble in the State.

Then they bethought them of having the villain beheaded by a simple soldier. But the general, on being consulted, replied hesitatingly, that perhaps his men had scarcely sufficient practice to acquit themselves satisfactorily of a task, which undoubtedly demanded great experience in the handling of the sword.

Then the Prince again assembled the Supreme Court, and submitted to it this embarrassing case.

They deliberated long, without finding any practical way out of the difficulty. At last the first president proposed to commute the sentence of death, to that of lifelong imprisonment, and the measure was adopted.

But they did not possess a prison. It was necessary to fit one up, and a gaoler was appointed who took charge of the prisoner.

For six months all went well. The captive slept all day on a straw mattress in the nook arranged for him, and his guardian lazily reclined upon a chair before the door, while he watched the passers-by.

The Prince, however, is economical--extravagance is not his greatest fault--and he has accurate accounts laid before him of the smallest expenses of his State (the list of them is not a long one). They handed him, therefore, the bill of the expenses incurred in the creation of this new function, the cost of the prison, the prisoner, and the watchman. The salary of this last was a heavy burden on the budget of the Sovereign.

At first he merely made a wry face over it; but when he reflected that this might go on for ever (the prisoner was young), he requested his Minister of Justice to take measures to suppress the expense.

The minister consulted the President of the Tribunal, and the two agreed to suppress the expense of a gaoler. The prisoner, thus invited to guard himself, could not fail to escape, which would solve the question to the satisfaction of all parties.

The gaoler was therefore restored to his family, and it became the duty of a scullion from the palace kitchen, to carry to the prisoner his morning and evening meals. But the captive made no attempt to recover his liberty.

Finally, one day, as they had neglected to furnish him with food, they beheld him tranquilly appear at the palace to claim it; and from that day forward, it became his habit to come at meal-times to the palace, to eat with the servants, whose friend he became, and thus save the cook the trouble of the walk to and fro.

After breakfast, he would take a turn as far as Monte Carlo. He sometimes went into the Casino, to venture a five-franc piece on the green cloth. When he had won, he gave himself a good dinner at one of the most fashionable hotels; then he returned to his prison, carefully locking his door on the inside.

He never slept away a single night.

The situation became a little puzzling, not for the convict, but for the judges.

The court assembled afresh, and it was decided that they should invite the criminal to leave the State of Monaco.

When this decision was announced to him, he simply replied:

"You are pleased to be facetious. Well! and what would become of me in that case? I have no longer any means of subsistence. I have no longer a family. What would you have me do? I was condemned to death. You did not choose to execute me. I made no complaint. I was afterwards condemned to imprisonment for life, and placed in the hands of a gaoler. You took away my guardian. Again I made no complaint.

"Now, to-day, you want to turn me out of the country. Not if I know it. I am a prisoner, your prisoner, judged and condemned by you. I am faithfully fulfilling my sentence. I remain here."

The Supreme Court was floored. The Prince was in a terrible rage, and ordered fresh measures to be taken.

Deliberations were resumed.

Then, at last, they decided to offer to the culprit a pension of six hundred francs (twenty-four pounds), if he would leave the State and live elsewhere.

He accepted.

He has rented a little plot five minutes' walk from the kingdom of his former sovereign, and lives happily upon his property, cultivating a few vegetables, and despising all potentates.

However, the Court of Monaco has profited, though a little late, by this experience, and has made a treaty with the French Government, by which they send their convicts over to France, who keeps them out of sight, in consideration of a modest compensation.

In the judicial archives of the principality, one is shown the decree which settles the pension, by which the rascal was induced to leave the State of Monaco.

Opposite to the palace, rises the rival establishment, the Roulette. There is, however, no hatred, no hostility between them; for the one supports the other, which in return protects the first. Admirable example! unique instance of two neighbouring and powerful families living in peace in one tiny state: an example well calculated to efface the remembrance of the Capulets and the Montagues. Here, the house of the sovereign; there, the house of play; the old and the new society fraternizing to the sound of gold.

The saloons of the Casino are as readily opened to strangers, as those of the Prince are difficult of access.

I turn to the first.

A noise of money, continuous as that of the waves, a noise at once deep, light and terrible, fills the ears from the moment one enters, then fills the soul, stirs the heart, troubles the mind, and bewilders thought. Everywhere this sound, this singing, crying, calling, tempting, rending sound.

Around the tables, a motley crowd of players, the scum of every continent and of every society; mixed with princes, or future kings, women of fashion, _bourgeois,_ money lenders, disreputable women; a mixture unique in the world, of men of all races, of all castes, of all kinds, of every origin; a perfect museum of adventurers from Russia, Brazil, Chili, Italy, Spain, Germany; of old women with reticules, of disreputable young ones carrying little bags containing keys, a handkerchief, and the three last five-franc pieces which are kept for the green cloth, when the vein of luck shall chance to return.

I approached the first table, and saw ... a pale face, with lined forehead, and hard-set lip; features convulsed, with an expression of evil ... the young woman of Agay bay, the beautiful sweetheart of the sunny wood, and the moonlit bay. He, too, is there, seated before her, his hand resting on a few napoleons.

"Play on the first square," said she.

He inquired anxiously:

"All?"

"Yes, all."

He placed the coins in a little heap.

The croupier turned the wheel. The ball ran, danced, and stopped.

"Nothing further counts," jerks forth the voice, which resumes after a moment:

"Twenty-eight."

The young woman started, and in a hard, sharp tone said:

"Come away."

He rose, and without looking at her, followed her; and one felt that some dreadful thing had sprung up between them.

Some one remarked:

"Good-bye to love. They don't look as if they were of one mind to-day."

A hand taps me on the shoulder. I turn round. It is my friend.

* * * * *

I have only now to ask pardon for having thus trespassed on my reader by talking so much of myself. I had written this journal of day-dreams entirely for myself, or rather, I had taken advantage of my floating solitude, to capture the wandering ideas which are wont to traverse our minds, like birds on the wing.

But I am asked to publish these few pages, which, unconnected, deficient in composition and in art, follow one after the other without a reason, and abruptly conclude without a motive; simply because a squall of wind put an end to my voyage.

I have yielded to this request. Perhaps I am wrong.