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invitation, and the young men were soon rapidly borne along the Champs Elysées. As briefly as he could Alain described the state of his affairs, the nature of his mortgages, and the result of his interview with M. Gandrin.

nation, who would be sure to inform counsels of the Count de Vandemar! against him. They work best in summer, Hope, though vaguely, entered into his not caring for the heat, which is so far heart. Willingly he accepted Frederic's unfortunate for the explorations that Englishmen in Palestine are not generally in their best working trim during the hot weather. In winter they become very miserable creatures, and cannot understand how working can keep them warm. Their idea, derived from some wiseacre among themselves, of the object of the explorations was, that the Franks were dropping all round the walls of the Sanctuary small deposits of gunpowder, which in time would grow to be large ones, and that when these should have sufficiently expanded, say in twenty years or so, the explorers would return with some machine and blow the whole place up.

*

Here we must leave the exploration of the Holy City for the present, earnestly hoping that Captain Warren and Sergeant Birtles, or some Engineers of equal energy, may ere long be able to give us much more information. We had purposed to follow our notice of the work by some account of the survey of the Sea of Galilee; but we have found so much to say that we have outrun our space, and must await another opportunity to speak of that water so familiar in name to us, and of the undying region about its

coasts.

In addition, we presume, to the search for treasure.

From Blackwood's Magazine.

THE PARISIANS.

BY LORD LYTTON.
CHAPTER IV.

THE next day, towards the afternoon, Frederic Lemercier, somewhat breathless from the rapidity at which he had ascended to so high an eminence, burst into Alain's chamber.

I

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

Frederic listened attentively. "Then Gandrin has given you as yet no answer?"

"None: but I have a note from him this morning asking me to call to-morrow."

"After you have seen him, decide on nothing if he makes you any offer get back your abstract, or a copy of it, and confide it to me. Gandrin ought to help you; he transacts affairs in a large way. Belle clientèle among the millionaires. But his clients expect fabulous profits, and so does he. As for your principal mortgagee, Louvier, you know of course who he is.'

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"No, except that M. Hébert told me that he was very rich."

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

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

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

"A shop- I am mistaken, then. Who are they?"

"Raoul and Enguerrand, sons of that mocker of man the Count de Vandemar." "And they keep a shop! you are jesting."

"A shop at which you may buy gloves and perfumes, Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin. Of course they don't serve at the counter; they only invest their pocket money in the speculation, and in so doing treble at least their pocket money, buy their horses, and keep their grooms."

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

knew it!"

"Yes, very much shocked if he were supposed to know it. But he is too wise a father not to give his sons limited allowances and unlimited liberty, especially the liberty to add to the allowances as To the young Marquis, the gaiety, the they please. Look again at them; no heartiness of his college friend were a better riders and more affectionate brothcordial. How different from the dryers since the date of Castor and Pollux.

Their tastes, indeed, differ: Raoul is re-, friends, whom he joined for a few minligious and moral, melancholy and digni- utes.

fied; Enguerrand is a lion of the first Alain, left alone, looked down into the water, élégant to the tips of his nails. hall. He thought himself in some stormy These demigods are nevertheless very scene of the First Revolution. An Engmild to mortals. Though Enguerrand is lish contested election in the marketthe best pistol-shot in Paris, and Raoul place of a borough when the candidates the best fencer, the first is so good-tem- are running close on each other, the repered that you would be a brute to quar-sult doubtful, passions excited, the whole rel with him; the last so true a Catholic, borough in civil war, is peaceful comthat if you quarrelled with him you need pared to the scene at the Bourse. fear not his sword. He would not die in the committal of what the Church holds a mortal sin."

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

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

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"But partners in a shop!"

"No."

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

Bulls and bears screaming, bawling, gesticulating, as if one were about to strangle the other; the whole, to an uninitiated eye, a confusion, a Babel, which it seems absolutely impossible to reconcile to the notion of quiet mercantile transactions, the purchase and sale of shares and stocks. As Alain gazed bewildered, he felt himself gently touched, and, looking round, saw the Englishman.

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

"Is your Bourse in London like this?" "Bah! when a minister himself, like "I cannot tell you; at our Exchange the late M. de M, kept a shop, and the general public are not admitted; the added the profits of bon-bons to his reve-privileged priests of that temple sacrifice nue, you may form some idea of the spirit their victims in closed penetralia, beyond of the age. If young nobles are not gen- which the sounds made in the operation erally sleeping partners in shops, still do not travel to ears profane. But had they are more or less adventurers in com- we an Exchange like this open to all the merce. The Bourse is the profession of world, and placed, not in a region of our those who have no other possession. metropolis unknown to fashion, but in You have visited the Bourse?" some elegant square in St. James's or at Hyde Park Corner, I suspect that our national character would soon undergo a great change, and that all our idlers and sporting-men would make their books there every day, instead of waiting long months in ennui for the Doncaster and the Derby. At present we have but few men on the turf; we should then have few men not on Exchange, especially if we adopt your law, and can contrive to be traders without risk of becoming bankrupts. Napoleon I. called us a shopkeeping nation. Napoleon III. has taught France to excel us in everything, and certainly he has made Paris a shopkeeping city."

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

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

The coupé stops at the Bourse, our friends mount the steps, glide through the pillars, deposit their canes at a place "And the Emperor has done wisely, at destined to guard them, and the Marquis least for the time," continued the Engfollows Frederic up a flight of stairs till lishman, with a more thoughtful accent. he gains the open gallery round a vast" He has found vent thus for that very hall below. Such a din! such a clam- dangerous class in Paris society to our! disputatious, wrangling, wrathful. which the subdivision of property gave

Here Lemercier distinguished some birth-viz., the crowd of well-born, dar

ing young men without fortune and with- to any one with whom she would fall in out profession. He has opened the love. That would disenchant me. Take Bourse and said, 'There, I give you em- the Marquis by all means." ployment, resource, an avenir.' He has Meanwhile Alain, again looking down, cleared the byways into commerce and saw just under him, close by one of the trade, and opened new avenues of wealth pillars, Lucien Duplessis. He was standto the noblesse, whom the great Revolu- ing apart from the thronga small space tion so unwisely beggared. What other cleared round himself and two men way to rebuild a noblesse in France, and who had the air of gentlemen of the beau give it a chance of power because an ac-monde with whom he was conferring. cess to fortune? But to how many sides Duplessis, thus seen, was not like the of your national character has the Bourse Duplessis at the restaurant. It would of Paris magnetic attraction? You be difficult to explain what the change Frenchmen are so brave that you could not be happy without facing danger, so covetous of distinction that you would pine yourselves away without a dash, coûte que coûte, at celebrity and a red ribbon. Danger! look below at that arena- there it is; danger daily, hourly. But there also is celebrity; win at the Bourse, as of old in a tournment, and paladins smile on you, and ladies give you their scarves, or, what is much the same, they allow you to buy their cachemires. Win at the Bourse-what follows? the Chamber, the Senate, the Cross, the Minister's portefeuille. I might rejoice in all this for the sake of Europe could it last, and did it not bring the consequences that follow the demoralization which attends it. The Bourse and the Crédit Mobilier keep Paris quiet at least as quiet as it can be. These are the secrets of this reign of splendour; these the two lions couchants on which rests the throne of the Imperial reconstructor."

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

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

was, but it forcibly struck Alain: the air was more dignified, the expression keener; there was a look of conscious power and command about the man even at that distance; the intense, concentrated intelligence of his eye, his firm lip, his marked features, his projecting, massive brow,—would have impressed a very ordinary observer. In fact, the man was here in his native element- in the field in which his intellect gloried, commanded, and had signalized itself by successive triumphs. Just thus may be the change in the great orator whom you deemed insignificant in a drawing-room, when you see his crest rise above a reverential audience; or the great soldier, who was not distinguishable from the subaltern in a peaceful club, could you see him issuing the order to his aides-decamp amidst the smoke and roar of the battle-field.

“Ah, Marquis!" said Graham Vane, "are you gazing at Duplessis? He is the modern genius of Paris. He is at once the Cousin, the Guizot, and the Victor Hugo of speculation. Philosophy – Eloquence - audacious Romance; -all Literature now is swallowed up in the sublime epic of Agiotage, and Duplessis is the poet of the Empire."

"Well said, M. Grarm Varn," cried Frederic, forgetting his recent lesson in English names. "Alain underrates that great man. How could an Englishman "I have not forgotten; it is not half-appreciate him so well?” past two yet; you said three. Soyez tranquille; I drive thither from the Bourse with Rochebriant."

"Is it necessary to take with you that very good-looking Marquis?"

"I thought you said you were not jealous, because not yet in love. However, if Rochebriant occasions you the pang which your humble servant failed to inflict, I will take care that he do not see the lady.”

"No," said the Englishman; "on consideration, I should be very much obliged

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

CHAPTER V.

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

"I cannot think of it yet; I am stunned. It seems to me as if I had been at a Sabbat, of which the wizards were

agents de change, but not less bent upon raising Satan."

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

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

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

"Crowds are thus attracted to Paris, resolved to venture a small capital in the hope of a large one; they live on that capital, not on their income, as gamesters do. There is an idea among us that it is necessary to seem rich in order to become rich. Thus there is a general extravagance and profusion. English milords marvel at our splendour. Those who, while spending their capital as their income, fail in their schemes of fortune, after one, two, three, or four years-vanish. What becomes of them, I know no more than I do what becomes of the old moons. Their place is immediately supplied by new candidates. Paris is thus kept perennially sumptuous and splendid by the gold it engulfs. But then some men succeed-succeed prodigiously, preternaturally; they make colossal fortunes, which are magnificently expended. They set an example of show and pomp, which is of course the more contagious because so many men say, 'The other day those millionaires were as poor as we are; they never economized; why should we?' Paris is thus doubly enriched-by the

fortunes it swallows up, and by the fortunes it casts up; the last being always reproductive, and the first never lost except to the individuals."

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

"Young men, especially if young gentlemen, love pleasure; and pleasure in this city is very dear. This explains why so many young men frequent the Bourse. In the old gaming tables now suppressed, young men were the majority; in the days of your chivalrous forefathers it was the young nobles, not the old, who would stake their very mantles and swords on a cast of the die. And naturally enough, mon cher; for is not youth the season of hope, and is not hope the goddess of gaming, whether at rouge et noir or the Bourse?

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

now

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

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

CHAPTER VI.

"I BELIEVE," said Lemercier, as the coupé rolled through the lively alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, "that Paris is built on a loadstone, and that every Frenchman with some iron globules in his blood is irresistibly attracted towards it. The English never seem to feel for London the passionate devotion that we feel for Paris. On the contrary, the London middle class, the commercialists, the shopkeepers, the clerks, even the superior artisans compelled to do their business in the capital, seem always scheming and pining to have their home out of it, though but in a suburb."

arrest the eye and linger long on the remembrance.

There are certain "beauty-women" as there are certain "beauty-men," in whose features one detects no fault-who are the show figures of any assembly in which they appear-but who, somehow or other, inspire no sentiment and excite no interest; they lack some expression, whether of mind, or of soul, or of heart, without which the most beautiful face is but a beautiful picture. This lady was not one of those "beauty-women." Her features taken singly were by no means perfect, nor were they set off by any brilliancy of colouring. But the countenance aroused and impressed the imagination with a belief that there was come history attached to it which you longed to learn. The hair, simply parted "If it be dull and hideous, no wonder over a forehead unusually spacious and the people who are compelled to do busi-high for a woman, was of lustrous darkness in it seek the pleasures of home out ness; the eyes, of a deep violet blue, of it." were shaded with long lashes.

"You have been in London, Frederic?" "Of course; it is the mode to visit that dull and hideous metropolis."

"It is very droll that though the mid- Their expression was soft and mourndle class entirely govern the melancholyful, but unobservant. She did not noAlbion, it is the only country in Europe | tice Alain and Lemercier as the two men in which the middle class seem to have slowly passed her. She seemed abstractno amusements; nay, they legislate ed, gazing into space as one absorbed in against amusement. They have no lei- thought or reverie. Her complexion was sure-day but Sunday; and on that day clear and pale, and apparently betokened they close all their theatres, even their delicate health. museums and picture-galleries. What Lemercier seated himself on a bench amusements there may be in England are beside the path, and invited Alain to do for the higher classes and the lowest." the same. "She will return this way "What are the amusements of the low-soon," said the Parisian, "and we can est class?"

"Getting drunk." "Nothing else?"

observe her more attentively and more respectfully thus seated than if we were on foot; meanwhile, what do you think of her? Is she French—is she Italian ? can she be English?"

ion?"

"Yes. I was taken at night under protection of a policeman to some cabarets, where I found crowds of that class which "I should have guessed Italian, judgis the stratum below the working class;ing by the darkness of the hair and the lads who sweep crossings and hold outline of the features; but do Italians horses, mendicants, and, I was told, have so delicate a fairness of complexthieves, girls whom a servant-maid would not speak to-very merry - dancing quadrilles and waltzes, and regaling them selves on sausages the happiest-looking folks I found in all London - and, I must say, conducting themselves very decently."

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

CHAPTER VII.

THE lady in the pearl-coloured dress! Certainly it was a face that might well

"Very rarely; and I should guess her to be French judging by the intelligence of her expression, the simple neatness of her dress, and by that nameless refinement of air in which a Parisienne excels all the descendants of Eve-if it were not for her eyes. I never saw a Frenchwoman with eyes of that peculiar shade of blue; and if a Frenchwoman had such eyes, I flatter myself she would have scarcely allowed us to pass without making some use of them."

"Do you think she is married?" asked Alain.

"I hope so- - for a girl of her age, if comme il faut, can scarcely walk alone in

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