happy."

Here Master Riponneau would give a mighty stamp upon the floor.

"If I were only as this M. Donen, who occupies the entire second floor of our house, what a different use I should make of his fortune from what he does! But what matters it? He is happy in his own way, since, being able to live every where, he confines himself to his own rooms; whilst with me, I must deprive myself of every thing. Besides, had he no fortune, he would have glory, consideration. Thunder and lightning, how happy he is!"

Riponneau would would accompany this passage of his griefs with a clattering of the feet perfectly terrific.

happiness and content were there, had not sion, a certain Monsieur and Madame de a low forehead and a thick shock of black Crivelin. They are rich-all smile on thatch, so stiff and so strong that it could them; the world flatters them-they are be likened only to the bristles of a hairbrush, imparted to his physiognomy a mean and envious appearance, denoting more of pig-headed obstinacy than of firmness or intelligence. Mark Anthony was a clerk in the office of the Minister of Finance, with a salary of about 1800 francs a-year; and with this sum he was obliged to content himself, though he was far from being content. Employed in the Budget of the State, he had learned all the illusions, and in his position as clerk in a government office, the constant association with men of influence and wealth, and the sight of that ever-flowing tide of money which rolled unceasingly through his hands, succeeded in completely disgusting him with his own situation in the world. Mark Anthony, as Then would come fresh exclamations; I have said before, received a salary of first upon the hosier who occupied the shop about 1800 francs a-year; he had no other on the right; then upon the confectioner resources for increasing his income to look on the left, and upon all the lodgers in the forward to; so that each expense he was house, one after the other; for, with the obliged at any time to incur was invariably exception of our friend Riponneau and one foreseen, calculated, and arranged before- or two others, the house was tenanted by hand. Thus, by dint of strict sobriety and persons of wealth and consideration. Lacoccasionally "supping small," he was en- queys, dogs, and horses, swarmed in the abled to appear at all times tolerably well court-yard; from the kitchens exhaled the dressed; and, by dint of great circumspec- most appetizing fumes. On the staircases, tion in his movements, he maintained his when descending in the morning to procoats in a state of decent preservation, cure the milk for his breakfast, Mark Anwhen, upon the shoulders of a gesticulator, thony would encounter a host of pretty they would long since have been worn com- chambermaids in snowy aprons, perfumed pletely threadbare. Riponneau never per- from the essences of their mistresses' toimitted himself the slightest movement of lets. Then he would run up against the arm or limb out of the bounds of the strict- jolly red-faced cooks hurrying on their difest moderation, or even to draw a breath of greater magnitude than its fellows, until disencumbered of every garment liable to be damaged by a too great freedom of action. But it must be said that, during these moments, he amply indemnified himself for his previous six or eight hours' confinement; and it was by a piece of pantomime, both elaborate and extraordinary, that he would in general accompany the following excla

mations:

"To have but a miserable 1800 francs, and to feel within one's self the germs of every noble thought."

ferent missions. His boots, blackened with great difficulty by his own hands, paled before the mirror-like brilliancy of the varnished shoes even of the valets-de-chambre. The happiness of the master insulted him through the servant.

Then, in the evening would come the delicious strains of the concerts, the murmurs of the balls, and the sounds of dancing feet; and sometimes, through an open window, would peep a beautiful head, fair or dark, crowned with a garland of flowers-a light and graceful figure, radiant in the folds of the many-colored silk, or veiled in the mazy vapors of muslin; at one time, the gentle languor of unoccupied happiness; at another, the ardent fever of pleasure. All these things surrounded Mark Anthony "Ah!" Mark Anthony would continue, with a burning atmosphere of desires, in to be poor, and to see in front of one the midst of which he incessantly gravitatthere, on the first floor of that noble man-ed-opening his chest to this balmy air, his

These germs of every noble thought, be be it stated, properly speaking, as consisting in a desire for all the luxurious pleasures of the world.

"Eh!" said Mark Anthony.

lips to these divine phantoms-unable to bor, for her sake, for the sake of that poor seize any thing, grasping at emptiness, em-girl, do not study your characters quite so bracing shadows, and finally reaching those loudly." transports of impotent rage under the influence of which he would stamp the floor with "Besides, continued the neighbor, in the his feet, beat the walls of his little apart-same gentle tone, "I have seen Talma, and ment with violent blows of his clenched believe me, my dear sir, that it was not by fists, and perform sundry other interesting means of fierce gesticulations and loud cries pantomimic acts of an equally edifying and that he produced his greatest effects. Look curious description. here, in Manlius, for instance, he but raised his finger thus, and looked half round while he repeated these two verses: C'est moi qui, prevanant leur attente frivole

Renversai les Gaulois du haut du Capitole.'

And the applause throughout the entire house was always deafening. Believe me, monsieur, good declamation.. "But, monsieur," interrupted Ripon

One evening, when the exasperation of our friend Riponneau had reached a fearfully turbulent height, he heard a gentle. knock at the door of his apartment, and almost immediately there entered the room a man of about sixty years of age, enveloped in the folds of a robe-de-chambre of wadded India silk drawn in round the waist by a heavy silken cord. The features of this unexpected guest were expressive and in-neau, "I am not a comedian." tellectual. Under a forehead, the height of which was in appearance increased by the baldness of the entire of the fore and upper parts of the head, there sparkled a pair of vividly bright grey eyes, through which pierced a glance of hidden raillery; while, as if in compensation for their too sarcastic expression, the entire of the lower portion of the face, and especially the mouth, around which played a gentle and melancholy smile, were of almost feminine grace and beauty.

"Ah, bah!" said the old neighbor, "you are then an avocat ?"

"My neighbor," said he to Riponneau, in a low and musical tone of voice, "every one is master of his own apartment. I have not been present at the taking of the Bastile, nor assisted at the revolution of July, not to recognize this great political principle. But all liberty has its bounds, otherwise it encroaches on that of others. You have the liberty of crying out, but in a certain degree only, for I have the liberty of sleeping; and if your liberty infringes on mine, it becomes tyranny, and mine slavery, which is contrary to the principles of the two revolutions of which I have just now spoken to you."

Mark Anthony felt a strong desire to get into a passion, but his neighbor did not give him time, and continued as follows:

"Besides, it is not for myself that I complain; I live willingly in silence or in up, roar; but I speak to you on the part of your little neighbor, Mademoiselle Juana, the seamstress, whom I saw come in this evening looking so pale and ill, and her eyes red with tears and the fatigue of work. The poor child is gone to bed, hoping to sleep, as she has told me. Well, my dear neigh-I

"No, no," replied Riponneau. "You are too young for a deputy. What are you, then, if I may ask without being thought impertinent?"

Mark Anthony hesitated for a moment, and at length replied:

"I am poor, monsieur; the happiness of the rich afflicts me, and I amuse myself in my own way."

The neighbor regarded Riponneau with an expression of interest; there was perceptible on the features of the old man a struggle between sarcasm and benevolence. Benevolence carried the day. He took a chair, and, with that air of mild authority which is the prerogative of old age and experience, he said to Riponneau :

"Ah! you are poor, and consequently unhappy. Let us have a few moments' conversation together, neighbor. You know that liberality is even found amongst the poor, and I who am happy should like to bestow upon you a little of that of which you stand in need. I desire to share some of my happiness with you."

"And how, might I ask, neighbor, can you manage that? for, if I am not mistaken, you live alone."

"Yes."

"You work from morning till night."
"Yes."

"You rarely stir out."
"Rarely."

"In what, then, consists your happiness? and what could you give me?"

"Nothing; but yet I should consider that had done much for you could I but re

"A good action-nothing but a good ac-1 of 500 persons is seldom in order; the tion-forgotten for these last fifteen years, doors having been taken off their hinges and and which has all at once presented itself removed for the convenience of the danto them under the form of a hideous, yel-cers, left the apartments open to all eyes. low, dissipated looking rascal, a low thief, M. and Madame de Crivelin had kept but who has rubbed off the dirt of his tatters their own bedchamber and that of their upon the silk damask of those gilded sofas which an hour previously had sustained the light forms of the young and beautiful dan

cers."

"I don't understand you."

daughter secluded from the general invasion. It was now broad daylight; Madame de Crivelin was in the hands of her femme de chamber, when her husband came to beg that she would retire to her daughter's bedroom for a few moments, and let him have their chamber for an interview of the greatest importance.

"Listen to me, then. This man, clad in a dirty suit of cast-off livery, had remained all night in the antechamber. Amongst the crowd of servants he had escaped the observation of the domestics of the house; but as the saloons began to thin, and the antechambers also in consequence, they began to remark his presence there, and look-to some more seasonable hour?' ed on him, it must be said, with a very suspicious eye; but the rogue was by no means disconcerted with this demonstration, and only stretched himself out more at his ease on the benches. At length came the moment when the last guests had taken their depar ture, and our ragged friend still remained at his post. They ended by asking him whom he was waiting for.

"Ah,' said she laughing, 'I would lay a wager now that it is M. de Formont who pursues you. But I suppose lovers don't require any sleep. Cannot you put him off

"I am waiting for my master, M. Eugene Ligny."

666

There is no such person here,' they replied.

"I tell you that he is here; ask your master, he'll soon find him.'

"The domestics grew angry, our ragged friend loud; and M. de Crivelin appeared at the door of the antechamber to inquire the cause of the disturbance.

"It is this man, sir,' replied the valet de chamber, who refuses to leave the house on the pretence that he is waiting for his master.'

"And what is his master's name?' "The person I seek,' said the unknown lacquey, is named Eugene Ligny, and I shall not stir a peg until I have spoken to

him.'

"Scarcely had he pronounced these words, when M. de Crivelin started back as if he had received a dagger in his heart; he turned deadly pale, and fixed his eyes with an expression of mute terror on the countenance of his strange visitor; then, with difficulty concealing his emotion, he gave orders to his domestics to retire, and invited the man to follow him.

"Petty annoyances generally come in the train of great catastrophes. A house in which one has just given a ball to upwards VOL. VIII. No. IV.

72

"No, it is not that, it is--for mercysake retire until I come for you.'

"But what is the matter, then?' cried Madame de Crivelin; 'you are pale-illwhat is it?'

"Nothing, my love, nothing; but I beg of you to leave us.'

"Madame de Crivelin retired, but carried with her a feeling of uneasiness and anxiety which she in vain endeavored to control, and which soon gained also upon her daughter; for Adéle was not yet asleep,. and seeing her mother enter her room pale and anxious, she questioned her, and began to tremble in her turn. Here, then, were these two poor women enclosed in the narrowest corner of their splendid apartments, anxiously awaiting the issue of a conference as singular as it was unexpected, and at the bare idea of which only M. de Crivelin had been so visibly agitated. With whom was it? What did he say ? And what powerful argument had been made use of to induce him to give a similar interview at such an unseasonable hour? Adéle fancied that some terrible accident must have happened to her lover; Madame de Crivelin lost herself in a labyrinth of confused and impossible suppositions.

"During this time, let us see what was passing in the bedroom, in which M. de Crivelin was closeted with the dirty servant.

"You have recognised me then, Eugène?' said the stranger.

"You here!' said M. de Crivelin. 'You living!'

"When you believed me dead, that's pleasant, is'nt it? What would you have? it's all right. Order me a glass of wine

and a slice of ham, and you'll soon see if I am a ghost or not.'

"Come, come, Jules, it is not for this that you are come here; speak, speak then, unhappy man.'

"I'll tell you what it is; for these last six hours, I have been waiting in your antechamber - 1 am dying of hunger and thirst-I want to eat and drink.'

"What is all this about?'

"I want to eat and drink, I tell you. Come, go and get me something yourself, if you are afraid of your domestics soiling their hands by serving me.'

"Crivelin left the room without replying. He returned in a few moments with a plate, which he placed before his strange guest.

666

Now,' he said to him, 'speak, what would you have?'

"Jules sat down to his supper, and while eating, spoke as follows:

sure my flight, I had deposited on the banks of the river a letter, in which I stated that I was unable to survive my shame; and a month afterwards you received the news of my death. At that very time your daughter died at Ancona, and you made the usual declaration of it to the authorities, under the name which you then bore. You then continued your journey, allowing all the strangers whom you encountered on your way, to consider the child which accompanied you, as your daughter. You yourself, charmed with her grace, her beauty, and her affection for you-you, I say, called her your daughter; traveling slowly, dreading the moment when you should be obliged to tell your wife that her child was dead.Then, a sudden thought came into your mind. Your wife, led by her brother, M. de Crivelin, to the death-bed of her mother, had quitted Adéle three months after her birth, at that age when the features of children change so perceptibly with almost every succeeding month. Could not Marie, "You see, Jules, your mad career has the daughter of Jules Marsilly, dead as you terminated as I foretold. From disorder thought, replace in a mother's eyes, the lost you have passed to faults, from faults to Adéle? Your wife fell ill in her turn; the crime; and now, a disgraceful condemna- news of her daughter's death might prove tion hangs over your head. Since you have fatal to her; you decided upon deceiving been enabled to effect your escape from her; Marie Marsilly became Adéle Lig prison, profit by your liberty, and fly, but fly alone. Drag not with you an innocent child, who has but just entered the world, into that wandering existence which you must hasten to conceal in a far distant land. Leave me your daughter. When the vengeance of the law overtook you, misfortune overtook me also: my daughter is dying. If God preserves her, yours will be to her a sister; if it pleases the Almighty to deprive us of her, your Marie shall take her place. I send you some money, sufficient to enable you in another country, to regain the position you have lost in this.'

"Listen to me, Eugène; you remember a letter you wrote to me seventeen years ago-here it is.' The epistle ran thus :

"That's your writing, Eugène, is it not?'

"It is.'

'Eight days later,' continued this man, 'you departed, carrying with you the two children into Italy, both aged then about two years; you were on your way to rejoin your wife, who had been obliged to quit you in order to receive the last adieu and pardon of her mother, who died at Naples.You had married her against the wishes of her relatives, and this noble family had forbidden your presence at the reconciliation. Your mother-in-law being dead, you rejoined your wife. As to me, the better to as

ny.'

"Since you know so well the sentiments which dictated my conduct,' said M. de Crivelin, can you blame me?'

"I blame nothing,' replied the drunkard, 'I merely recount facts.'

"He drank a couple of glasses of wine, and proceeded as follows:

"Your ruse succeeded beautifully, it succeeded even beyond your hopes; not only was your wife delighted with her charming little daughter, but her uncle, M. de Crivelin, who could never pardon you for having become his brother-in-law, became dotingly fond of the child, and eight years afterwards, left her his entire fortune, naming you her guardian, on condition that you added his name to your own. And this is why you re-entered France under the name of Eugène Ligny de Crivelin.'

"But I have never deceived any one; I have never denied my name.'

"You are incapable of doing so. Only by degrees you dropped the name of Ligny, and called yourself de Crivelin; and, as I had seldom heard mention made of this name in my youth, I should never have suspected that the wealthy M. de Crivelin was my old college chum, Eugène Ligny, had