what Holy Writ says our righteousness | dilapidated mouchoirs, only too thankis. "Eh? Well, madame," I ob-ful at last to get anything. June 11th, 1886. I thought this was to have been my last Sunday in Paris; but the weather has been so unsettled that we have decided to give up Normandy, as we bothr feel we are learning a great deal that will be very useful to us. If it were to be wet out of doors at Etaples we should be vexed at losing the certain advantages we have here, so we shall probably get a look at Rouen on our way home. I had an adventure the other day. Monsieur A. B. C. came to the atelier, as is his wont, last Friday, and gave a on served, "these mouchoirs are not to me; and there should be five collars, and see only three." The person who brought the linen wasn't the mistress, but an underling, with a pale, thin face and a very eager way of talking. "Oh, she would return toute suite and fetch the collars. She would bring them back in several minutes, and the handkerchiefs; were they not to mademoiselle ? Oh, she was extremely sorry; she would take them back-oh, at once." She went. After a short period she returned more voluble and eager than ever. The blanchisseuse was ill, and she had charge of the affairs, and that was how it was the collars of speech-which is also his custom mademoiselle were not there; but she the sketches. I always, during these would bring them the next morning at speeches, make a little portrait of him nine hours. That was the very last we in my sketch-book, and lately he has saw of her. Days passed on, still my asked to look at it afterwards. Now collars came not. And we determined there was a sinful little caricature of to take steps. We went and got that him in a corner of one of the pages, abandoned blanchisseuse's address from which I was always in a state of alarm Madame Laperche. We started for lest he should discover; for we have the woman's abode. We had resolved been told that he never forgives any to crush her and tear my collars and one who laughs at him. Well, last handkerchiefs from her harpy claws. Friday, as usual, he called me up, and Well, we got there. "Where is ma- asked to see his portrait; and after dame la blanchisseuse ?" I asked. Ma- looking at it, he turned over the leaves dame came forward the fat person and gazed at the other things in the with her face beaming with oily smiles. book-your portrait for one. I had "Oh, it was so very gentille of mes- got pretty hardy by this time, my sindames to call upon her. She thanked ful drawing never having been discovthem a thousand times. Would ma- ered, and stood looking on composedly, dame give herself the pain to look at when alack! he turned a page, and these mouchoirs. They were marked there it was, staring him in the face! with a C, is it not? And the linen of The head student of the atelier was madame was also marked with a C. standing by him, and knew it in a minPerfectly. Well, observe the C on this ute; and she yielded to the temptation handkerchief; and on the other behold of Satan, and pointed it out to him. -M! What more could madame re- And he looked — and then he burst out quire ?" Alas, they were the very into a great roar of laughter. There same that had first been brought, and he sat and roared, and all the others which had been kept by her all this laughed in chorus, and I felt an untime. It was useless to remonstrate. | speakable worm. Why am I impelled Indeed, what was I to do against this by the enemy of mankind to make oily fat woman, who smiled so broadly caricatures of people I shouldn't? I and chattered so fast, and lied so volubly ? My haughty courage oozed away. As for Reidie, she collapsed behind me. All the starch was out of her too; and we brought away those don't know. But he wasn't so outrageously cross as might have been expected when he did get over laughing. He looked at me with a most comical expression, as I ruefully re Evening. marked, "Je vous demande pardon, | So we looked at some other pieces for monsieur." a little while, and then Reidie took up this piece again. What did you say was the price of this?" "Thirty-five francs, madame," said that unblushing person, with a smile of conscious virtue. So we got it for that. I believe if Reidie had kept on she could have got it cheaper still. They don't care a pin about telling lies, this nation. We went and saw Miss Howard this afternoon. She was playing her piano, and she treated us to a little music. She knows a good many musical celebrities, and told us that she thinks the Abbé Liszt is like the devil in his appearance. We generally call our Sir F. L. the handsome fiend; but I think A. B. C. is more like Satan than he is. Don't you ever be afraid, my dear sir, that I shall ever marry a Frenchman. Indeed, I feel strongly disposed to agree with Miss Alice Hamilton's remark: "The Lord made the world for Englishwomen to travel about in it, and Frenchmen so ugly that Englishwomen might not fall in love with them." Miss Howard says she has been in the French Parliament once or twice, and it is such fun. She says if a man gets into the tribune to speak, you can't hear a word he says; all the members. roar, and shout and gabble to each other, and every now and then a man who sits in a seat beneath the tribune frantically rings a large bell to try to obtain silence, but it is no use; and the uproar is just deafening. Somebody is near enough to hear, for I believe the speeches get reported; but she never heard anything. And sometimes the members get furious, and rush at each other, and challenge each other to duels. Then they take a trip to Belgium to fight it out. June 20th, 1886. We had a great deal of fun the other day when we went to Versailles. It is a very pretty journey of about an hour and a half on the top of the tram. We went over the Seine and by the big factory where they make the Sèvres Reidie has bought a nice piece of tapestry to hang up in her studio. We were told of a certain little street near the Panthéon where we should find two shops, in either of which we might find tapestry; but we were told that the ladies who presided over these establishments would certainly try their best to cheat us. Therefore we chose a pouring wet afternoon, when we had been to the atelier and got a roll of canvas each. We looked as forlorn and poor as we could. A button was half off my ulster, and my gloves had holes in the finger-ends. Reidie's hat was a weather-beaten and ancient-look-china, and then up a very pretty wooded ing concern, and our demeanor gener- road with villas and cottages on each ally indicated extreme misery. We felt side. The tram took us right up to the this was the time to attack the tapestry gate of the great palace. His Majesty lady; so we went in. "Tapestry? King Louis XIV. - who was a puffedBut yes she had quantities of the up, conceited image-built this place most beautiful tapestry, which mes- because he didn't like living at his dames were most welcome to regard." other palace of Saint-Germain; for he So we regarded, and Reidie picked out could see the towers of the Abbaye de one nice bit, and asked the price. It Saint Denis from the terraces - where was fifty-five francs. "Too much," the kings of France are buried — and says Reidic. I said, "Tell her you've he said he should go there soon only got so much to spend, and see So he taxed his faithful subif it will bring her down." So Reidie jects to the tune of forty million offered her thirty for it. "Oh, she pounds, and built and decorated this never came down in her prices! She immense palace, surrounding it with hadn't charged madame more because magnificent gardens filled with statues, she was English. Oh, no! That was fountains, terraces, and lakes, and not her practice. But certainly not." lights of steps of solid marble. They enough. So. He said that marriage is a holy institution, and that good women lead their husbands and fathers and brothers and sons up to higher things; and he made a number of other very pretty compliments about the ladies, and then -as is the custom here and in Americathe people clapped, and two sweetly interesting curates came round to collect in their surplices and cassocks, and the organist played the Wedding March. I'm sure if curates in Eugland would do that they would get lots more money especially from the charming ladies of their congregation. used to call him Louis the Great-he| Hyacinthe. He left the Roman Cathwas somewhere about five feet two; olic Church because he felt that he had but by means of high red heels and a a vocation for matrimouy so he says haystack of a wig he managed to look - and that it was unscriptural for the like the sun in all his glory, at least Church to forbid the priests to marry. his courtiers gave him to understand Also he was oppressed by many abuses, that he saw, and now he preaches in a Hundreds of workmen were em-church of his own, called the Gallican ployed to make these gardens, and Apostolic Church. He is a handsome scores of them died; but this, though and a good man, and has married an felt to be annoying, was of no conse- American lady. He is also a fine oraquence really. Now, if there's one tor. He left off in the middle to mop thing I do pride myself on, it's my dis- his face and drink a little water for tinctly Parisian accent. I am under he got very excited. He uses a gesture the impression that when I speak very common with French preachers. French everybody must mistake me He spreads his arms out wide, and for a native. I also think that a French suddenly brings his hand with a rehat which I have bought must still fur-sounding clap on his stomther disguise my nationality. It was therefore doubly irritating when the guards at the door twinkled their eyes at us, and a guide said, "Will you haf a guide, ladies, to show you ze palace?" Of course we weren't going to be trotted round like two lost sheep. So we went on. At every turn Louis le Grand is smirking from the walls in his coronation robes, his clothes forming the biggest part of him. I believe in his lifetime the public were never allowed to see him without his wig on. It was handed to him through his bedcurtains on the end of a stick before he got up. There is a great deal in dress, as I have respectfully tried to prove to you when you would wear that old brown coat- which I trust ere this has been bestowed in charity on I think the Good Words article some deserving object. So I told Mary was right about the girl students not Ann I wanted to see the two Trianons. | flirting. That is, the main body of These are -a smaller palace, in the grounds, where Louis XV. lived; and a much smaller place, about the size of Harrowden Hall, that poor Marie Antoinette had built, and where she used to go and play at being a farmeress, and was driven about in a fine gilded chariot drawn by white oxen. She dressed to imitate a Dresden china shepherdess. And she used to go and make butter in the dairy, because she naturally got so tired of sitting very stiff and upright in the grand château of Versailles. To-day we have been to hear Père DEAR HOTEL SAINT-GEORGES. June 19th, 1886. them. Here and there you find distractingly pretty lasses, that all the lads run wild after. They take them sketching, they help them with their work, and clean their traps. But most of us are plain and unattractive, and do not enjoy these pleasing attentions. Besides which we are in earnest, and have plenty to do. Our model this week is a lovely fair girl with flesh "like a bowl of milk," as Carolus Duran said to-day; and we have got a back view of her down to the waist, and below that white satiu; and as work begins at eight, and goes on till twelve, we have to go to bed pretty early. | is no mistake about it. The birth of And it does take all one's energy to the lady is welcomed by rubicund gods get the tones of that back. Likewise and goddesses, bouncing about in the her hair is a ruddy gold, so you may sky. She is educated by Minerva, imagine the difficulty of it. You would while various other heavenly bodies laugh to see the girls worship stand round in attitudes and smirk. They sit all round as if he were a Then more fat divinities fly down from saint. (He paints like an old master.) heaven to show her picture to Henri, It is instructive to a thinking mind to who stands in an attitude of rapture at see the students going into respectful the sight. Then —oh, best fun of all ! convulsions at his jokes. He calls us - she is married by proxy to the envoy his children. "Ah! mon enfant," he | from France. She is very gorgeous, says, and pats one on the shoulder. fat, and stately, and is evidently trying We may call on him at his own atelier any Thursday and see his pictures that he has on hand. This teaches one a great deal. Monsieur Henner is called "the dear angel." He is a nice old man, and gives a very good lesson. The dear angel didn't come yesterday when he was due. 66 to crush the poor envoy by her majestic port. He stands there very stiff and straight, trying his best to keep a stiff upper lip and not be crushed. He has a most aggressive air, as if he were thinking "I am not going to be put out of countenance by any female." After which Marie de Medicis comes to France in a grand galley. Gods and goddesses flop about the sky, and tobacco-juicy mermaids bounce and splash around the barge. Then we see Henri as Jupiter, and Marie as Juno, smirking away as usual. Then Henri is taken up to heaven in full Roman military costume and a laurel wreath, while the Genius of France presses the sceptre and orb on Marie, who looks coy and reluctant to assume the dignity. The French nobles flock around to offer their fealty (they hated her being made regent really). And then Marie and her son, the dauphin, go in a ship with mermaids splashing around and rowing. And oh, the mermaids! To-day A. B. C. painted on a study for a long time and made it look fine. His chief insistence is that, if you get your values just, and then put in the accents of light and shade, your study does not want any more niggling. If we begin to put in any little details before we have got the broad values right, we get into hot water. He don't care how he abuses us. Why make you these little machines? Get the great light and the broad shadow, all simple — simple-simple." We have to draw all the first morning. Then set the charcoal and rub in the effect with thin color, then paint solidly. The model only sits one week, but we are to have our present one a fortnight because there is so much to do to her. We went to Saint Denis to see the We are obliged to paint life-size. I abbey where the kings of France have copied a bit of an Andrea del were buried. It is a lovely abbey. Sarto at the Louvre, and I am going to The west front is transition Norman, start a Vandyck on Tuesday. There and the doors are a wonder of ironare such lovely things there. A huge work. The recumbent statues of kings Paolo Veronese of the marriage feast and princes are very beautiful. at Cana, and all the guests are dressed Louis had many of them done in the as Venetian nobles. But there is also thirteenth century; and they are so a collection of killing jokes by Rubens. pure in their lines, and simple, and Her Majesty Queen Marie, wife of majestic. He had these monuments Henri IV., ordered this gentleman to put up to his ancestors. But those paint a series of pictures of her life, who came after also have monuments and they all hang in a gallery in the there. Some of them are mighty Louvre. Master Rubens laid his flat- structures, with heroic size statues of tering unction on with a trowel. There the king and his wife kneeling on the St. It is getting late, and I was awake at six this morning. To-morrow being Sunday, I shall be able to have a little more slumber. Most respected sir, farewell until I see you, which I hope to do some time during the week after next. From Macmillan's Magazine. LAND-TENURE IN TUSCANY. IN these days of socialism, anarchy, and almost universal agricultural depression, a sketch of the patriarchal co-operative system of farming prevailing in Tuscany may be found interesting. Old-fashioned it certainly is; the Marquis Gino Capponi, one of the most strenuous advocates of mezzeria, or half-and-half land-tenure, traces it back to the Romans. 66 Instituted," he says, "in the palmy days of the republic when the plebeians obtained civil rights, it fell into disuse on slavery becoming general." top of a canopy. The tomb is sur- Pantheon. As we came home to-night rounded by allegorical figures, and we were passed by youths singing some under the canopy there lie careful wild song in chorus. It is a quaint reproductions in marble of their part of Paris, and very old. We leave dead bodies, quite nude, with the slit Paris next Saturday, and expect to in the torso made by the embalmers. arrive at Victoria some time on Sunday They look most ghastly. Louis XII. morning. and his first wife are treated so, and Francis I. and his. The contrast between the majestic robed kneeling figures above and these stark corpses below is startling. We saw the tomb of Fredegonde too, and went down into the royal vaults and saw the coffins of Louis XV., Louis XVI., and Marie Antoinette, through a grating. Those miserable miscreants of the Terror scattered many of the bodies of former kings to the four winds. They went like devils howling to the abbey and tore the coffins out and rent them asunder. The clerestory windows here are gorgeous. The color is like a dream, and the columns are pure white still, for there is no fog and smoke to blacken them. On the town-hall outside we saw the old battle-cry of France Montjoye Saint Denys. It does seem a crime that this nation has upset its stately royal traditions ; but when you think of the awful sins of those kings, you understand. Versailles made us laugh consumedly. All the place is redolent of Louis Quatorze, Le grand monarque. He is smirking in his big wig and splendid robes wherever you go. His emblem, the sun, actually appears on the reredos of the palace chapel. "To all the glories of France," sprawls across the front of the palace. The sublime conceit of that man is one of the greatest jokes I know. Have you ever read Thackeray's "Paris Sketch Book"? I believe he has a little drawing of Louis in his robes, after a majestic picture by Rigaud in the Louvre. Then by the side of this the clothes of Louis, paper. and thirdly Louis without his clothes. Theoretically, mezzeria is the equal We are in the famous Latin quar-division between the owner of the land ter. We see lots of raffish medical and the peasant who tills it of all crops students, and hear them, too, sometimes at night. We have been to call on a fellow-studenta Highlander who lives under the shadow of the In the fourteenth century, when the castles of so many lordlings were razed and their power broken, mezzeria was almost universally adopted in Tuscany. None can deny that it is a bar to modern improvements and to high farming; but socialism has no hold on the agricultural population where it exists, and the land, not being burdened by the middleman, has hitherto supported both proprietor and peasant. Whether it will continue to do so, with the crushing taxes Italy now writhes under, does not enter into the scope of this gathered from the soil. They are partners in the business of farming; oue contributes capital, the other labor. In reality the peasant has the best of |