I.

AND so it was announced in all the newspapers of Paris, that Prince Moleskine, having seen all that there was to see in the Capital of capitals, was about to return to his own country to accept a high post under Government.

The journal which first spread the tidings was the world-known and fashionable Gazette des Boulevards. Thence the news was copied into most of the London papers, one of which, in the letter of its Paris correspondent, added a few particulars which I may as well

transcribe verbatim :-

Prince Moleskine, that elegant and accomplished cavalier, with whom more than one of my lady-readers has certainly danced at the Court Balls of the Tuileries, is one of the wealthiest landowners of the Muscovite Empire. We must go back in recollection to the mirificent era of the Grand Monarque to find in France anything approaching in splendor to the estate and château of Moleskine. I, who frequently dine with the Prince at his sumptuous mansion in the Avenue des Champs Elysées, can speak, from experience, of the exquisite urbanity of my noble host, of the delicate and recherché fare of his table, and of the never-ceasing flow of affability and wit, which makes the banquets of the Hôtel Moleskine recall the dazzling feasts of Alcibiades and Lucullus. But what pen can worthily describe the ancestral domain of the Moleskines, situated on the River Kama, in the Province of Tcheremiss, and extending so far in its fertile expanse of field and pasture, wood and hill, that it would need the swiftest horseman seven days to traverse it? Ah reader mine! let those who will rejoice over the Revolution of 1793 and gloat over the downfall of the fairest nobility in Europe, but suf

fer-yes, suffer- -one whom party prejudice has never blinded, nor republican fallacies deceived, to give a short sigh of regret to those courtly times when chivalrous France-the France of Saint Denis, the lilies, the oriflamme, and the white banner--was not obliged to look abroad to behold baronial castles and princely manors. Up, shades of Robespierre and Marat! Up, rabble sans-culottes! and chuckle over your work! What are the riches of the wealthiest of your nobles, now -of a Montmorency, of a Luynes, of a Larochefoucauld-as compared with the wealth of Prince Moleskine ? Like that scion of the House of Esterhazy, who, in reply to the British nobleman who had boasted of having three thousand sheep, answered calmly: "And I, my lord, have three thousand shepherds," so likewise could Monsieur de Moleskine say to the wealthiest of France's degenerate nobles: "For every acre of land you possess, I own a village; for every cottage, a farm; for every farm, a palace!" Ah! gentlemen of the nineteenth century! Ah! citizen-bourgeois! you have fallen upon fine times, when the state and luxury that were wont to find their homes on the banks of the Seine have taken refuge on the frozen shores of the Neva! No wonder the Boyard Moleskine should be impatient to return to his own land. No wonder he should yearn to be rid of our pinchbeck civilization, with its cheap restaurants, cheap politicians, cheap coats, and cheap talents! He must feel himself stifling in this paltry, middling atmosphere of ours. Bon voyage, Prince! my

*"And this is she who's put on cross so much,
Even by them who ought to give her praise,
Giving her wrongly ill repute and blame.
But she is blessed, and she hears not this:
She, with the other primal creatures, glad
Revolves her sphere, and blessed joys herself."
Inferno, vii. 90-95 (W. M. Rossetti's
Translation).

respectful sympathies are with you; my best, most deferential wishes will follow you.

This effusion was much relished by the readers of the paper in question, who almost felt as if they knew the Boyard themselves upon hearing him alluded to so familiarly. It is not very certain, by the bye, whether the versatile correspondent just quoted had really ever sat in person at Prince Moleskine's table; but, if he had not, it is of no great consequence. A writer whose occupations take him constantly into the Grande Monde is naturally too well bred to draw any distinction between the houses where he has actually dined and those where he would like to dine. His account of the Russian Prince was read by a countless number of good-natured folk, who imbibed it all as gospel truth, and fell to wondering naïvely whether the Prince's estate was as big as Yorkshire, or as big as Yorkshire and Lancashire both together. The women opined that it must be in size and beauty something like the Principality of Wales, and, though some of them marvelled that the high-toned journalist should call Paris a city of cheap restaurants, yet they thought it quite natural that a man who had such a prodigiously fine property as the Prince should find the French capital rather small, and should be in a hurry to get home again. Amongst those of the Paris public, however, who were not indebted for their acquaintance with Russia or with Prince Moleskine to imaginative "Own Correspondents," a quite different version prevailed as to the Prince's reasons for departing. It was pretty well known in the clubs and drawing-rooms which the Prince frequented, that he was in not the slightest haste to be off-nay, that, far from contemning our pinchbeck civilization with its cheap coats, cheap talents, &c., he had the highest opinion both of the civilization and of the coats, and would gladly have remained in Paris until the end of his days, but for the awkward fact that he had run through every rouble of his money, and could no longer afford to live in our atmosphere, paltry and middling though it might be.

As for the ancestral domain of the Moleskines situated on the river Kama, in the Province of Tcheremiss, and ex

tending so wide that no horseman could cross it in seven days, the Prince himself was the first to laugh at it: "For," said he, ruefully, "it is true enough that it would take a horseman a week to ride through my estate, but the reason is, that there is not a road in the place, and that half the property is composed of quagmires. And as regards the farms and villages," added he more ruefully still, "I daresay something might be made of them in good hands, but up to the present I have never been able to persuade my tenants to pay their rents, so that I do not think I should be much the worse off without them."

"Then you mean to say you are entirely ruined, my poor Prince?" observed the young Count de Lamotte de Bourre, examining his friend compassionately through his eyeglass.

"Very nearly," answered the Prince, twirling a cigarette with melancholy composure. "Six years of Paris, London, Baden, and Homburg have run through all my stock of ready money. My agent writes to say he can't raise another kopeck, so that unless I manage to get a place out of Government, I must shut myself up on my estate, and eke out an existence on our national tstchi, or cabbage-soup."

That won't last long!" interposed the joyous Marquis de l'AumeletteSoufflée: "you will point out to your tenantry the reciprocal advantages of Quarter Day, and, when you have enlightened their understanding and eased their purses, come back to us here in better spirits and stouter than ever."

"Mercury, the God of rent, hear you!" replied Prince Moleskine piously. Though how to touch the understanding of a Russian peasant, now that our holy father the Czar has abolished the knout, I confess seems to me a mystery."

The foregoing conversation was being .held in a saloon of the Café Anglais preparatory to one of the five or six farewell suppers which Prince Moleskine intended giving to different batches of his friends before bidding adieu to France. He was not in a particularly festive mood-no Russian ever is when about to return to his native land-but he did the honors of his table with a becoming show of unconcern, and towards 2 A.M.,

when the product of Madame Clicquot's vines had been round some ten or eleven times, rallied sufficiently to take a hopeful view of his position. He had an uncle who was Cabinet Minister at St. Petersburg, a statesman of the old Russian school, strong upon protocols, and devoted to the interests of his family. He had never kept up much intimacy with this relative, whom, to tell the truth, he had always considered a bore; but he resolved that, on the next day, he would despatch him a few Mayence hams, a Strasburg pie or two, and a case of Château Lafite. These delicacies would be sure to soften the Minister's heart, and might enable him to discover some snug sinecure where his nephew would be spared the humiliation of eating cabbage-soup and the painful necessity of retrenchment. Pleased enough with himself for having imagined this plan, Prince Moleskine adjourned with his friends to the club of the Rue Royale to finish the night-or, rather, to begin the morning with a little trente et quarante at five napoleons the stake. When he returned home, precisely as the big bell of Notre Dame tolled six o'clock, he was still in a sanguine vein. He had lost three thousand francs, but this was a trifle. He remembered some fine sinecures under the Russian Government, which were worth ten or twelve thousand roubles a year, and he felt, no doubt, that his uncle would have the good taste to put him in possession of one of them.

A few hours later, however, when Prince Moleskine had slept, dreamed, got up, and breakfasted, he found himself out of sorts and despondent again. The morning's post had brought him a budget of letters from friends who had seen announced his departure in the papers, and wrote, some to condole with him and others to congratulate him on that high post under Government, which he was popularly supposed to have obtained. There were a good many tradesmen's bills, too, and these were not calculated to raise his spirits; for a man never sees so clearly how foolish a thing it is to ruin himself as when he contemplates the memoranda of his purveyors, and asks himself how much real enjoy ment he has had for his money. As the Prince desired that his exit from Paris

should be as dignified as possible-in other words, as he had no wish to go off clandestinely with the reputation of being beggared, he had appointed a fixed date for settling his debts and leaving France; and, upon consulting his almanac, he now perceived that he had only six days left him. He took up a packet of visiting-cards and sat down to write in the corner of each of them, very moodily and reluctantly, the letters P. P. C. It is incredible how sorrowfully a Russian traces these letters when he is anywhere west of the Danube. And yet in Russia, as elsewhere, small boys are taught the virtue of patriotism; and Prince Moleskine, when at school, had been made to write from copy-book texts: "Moscovia is the pearl of nations. Our Czar is the Father of his people."

Towards four o'clock, having dressed himself and filled his card-case, Prince Moleskine put a cigar into his mouth and went out on foot to take a turn down the Boulevards. The air of the Boulevards is the quintessence of that Parisian atmosphere which Russians so love, and which poor Prince Moleskine had but a week more to breathe. Besides, on this occasion he had a particular object in selecting this walk. He possessed a good many literary and artistic acquaintances whom he wished to invite to his farewell suppers; and the Boulevards are a place where every Parisian who holds a pen or a pencil may be seen on business or otherwise between four and six.

As the Prince debouched on to the Boulevard des Italiens, the pavements and cafés were teeming with bustle. It was just the hour when the evening papers come out, and when editors and journalists, delighted to have got their work over, desert the dozens of offices in the Rue du Croissant and the Rue Montmartre, and spread in thirsty hordes along the whole line of thoroughfare between the Théâtre des Variétés and the Grand Hôtel. It should be mentioned, by the way, that a wonderful amount of good-fellowship exists between French journalists, notwithstanding the spirit with which they abuse each other from the columns of their respective papers. The fact that the Feuille de Chou is at daggers drawn

with the Feuille de Radis does not prevent the writers of those interesting prints from fraternizing very amicably when they have wiped their pens. They sit cheek by jowl in the same cafés; and though the Feuille de Chou has frequently accused the Feuille de Radis of being supported out of the secretservice funds, and though the Feuille de Radis has retorted the accusation with bitter irony, yet the combatants seem to think none the worse of one another, and will often take their absinthe peacefully and like good Christians at the same table.

Prince Moleskine had not walked far when he ran almost into the arms of a small, dapper man, who was scurrying along at a racing speed with a glass in his left eye, and a large bundle of papers under his arm.

"I beg your pardon," said the latter rather testily, in the tone of one whose meaning is "Confound you!" and he was about to start off again when, catching sight of the Prince's face, his own features cleared, and he exclaimed, holding out his hand:-"Oh, it's you, Prince. How do you do? You see before you one of the most unlucky men in Christendom."

"Unlucky, my dear Monsieur Roquet!" answered the Prince, laughing. "I can hardly believe that; I always see you so cheerful. What's the matter?"

66 Ah! yes, unlucky and indignant too," continued the little man, beginning to gesticulate. "Look here!" and he drew from amidst his papers a long proof-slip covered with corrections. "I declare it's infamous," he cried, "infamous and disgusting. There's no living in such a country as this any longer. But, stay, we shall be able to talk better in a café. Come along: here are two seats vacant." And, without further ceremony, the little M. Roquet, who appeared very friendly with Prince Moleskine, pushed him towards one of the tables outside the Cafe Riche, and shouted to a waiter to bring two glasses of absinthe.

"We can talk at our ease here," he proceeded, laying down his papers, and gabbling so fast that his words appeared to jostle and run over each other in issuing from his mouth. "I've told you already it's infamous and disgusting, and

I repeat it. This is not a civilized country; we're worse off than you, Prince; Siberia's nothing to it. Ah! the brig ands, with their press laws, and fines and imprisonments, and judges sold by the pack! Thought is fettered, sir; our tongues are padlocked, our pens loaded with chain-shot! You don't believe it? You smile! Look at this, then, and see. I've never written a better article than this in my whole life. It's brilliant, caustic, witty. Oh, yes, witty: for I know my merits, and I'm not ashamed to own them. It's the wittiest thing that's been printed for this many a day; for, betwixt you and me, there's not a man in France that can hold a candle to me in irony; and yet you perceive how the simpletons have hacked it about! And who do you imagine it is who has done this? Who, should you think, has been Vandal enough to run his pen through such passages as this, and this one again, and that one there? The Censorship? Not a bit of it; there is no censorship for papers. The editor? No, for I am the editor. Who then? Why, the proprietor, Prince, my own partner, my friend-hang him! Yes, you stare! No wonder, so did I. Isn't it enough to make one go mad and tear one's hair, and howl and emigrate to the end of the earth, and found a newspaper amongst the crabs and tadpoles?"

The little man stopped to take breath, gulped down a large draught of absinthe, and then started off again like an express train, his two eyes gleaming with the brightness of a couple of lanterns, and his voice growing shrill and sharp as an engine-whistle,

But all this is just my luck, Prince. Fortune has played tricks with me ever since I was fool enough to buy an inkpot, a pen, and a ream of paper. Never yet have I met with an editor whom I could convert to my views. Every one of them, without exception, has grown scared, shied, and finally thrown me

over.

The first I wrote under was poor Griffon-he's dead now, and I'm sorry for it, for I bear no malice. Before I had been a fortnight on his paper, I got him six months' imprisonment, and the printer two. They ought both to have been uncommonly grateful, for it established the success of their business, and made the paper sell like bread in famine

time. But they weren't. When Griffon was sentenced, he said: 'If it was you who had the imprisonment, Roquet, I should see no objection; but you've got off with six days; and what with fine expenses, and fees for defence, this affair has cost the paper 20,000 francs. Try and see if you can't tone down a little.' Of course I made an effort to do what he called 'tone down,' but I couldn't manage it. He used to shred my articles into ribbons. That'll never do,' said I. I'm a Republican, and must speak plain.' 'So am I a Republican,' answered Griffon; but that's no reason why I should ram my head against a stone wall. Our press laws are too hard for us, man; you must keep clear of them. It's a suicidal plan to tilt headlong against them as you're doing.' Well, the upshot of it was, that Griffon and I parted, and I went over to a new paper that had just been founded. I remained there exactly six weeks, and then an article of mine got the paper suppressed. The proprietor and editor cursed as I've never heard men curse before or since; so that I got disgusted and sent them both a challenge. We fought with pistols. I winged the proprietor, but got winged by the editor, and we had a month's imprisonment all round for fighting. I don't believe they were true Republicans, though; I suspect they were subsidized by the police. The editor used to cut the most telling hits out of my papers, and the article that sent us into court would never have crept in at all, had he not been absent the day it appeared. After this, I went about from paper to paper, but it was everywhere the same. My style was too sharp for them. Egad! I was not the man to mince matters. If Government had a sore place anywhere, I laid my finger on it at once, and made them shriek. The Ministers hated me like pitch. They tried to buy me. They had a special and particular spy to dog me about. Ah! you don't know what are the persecutions that a man of genius has to suffer in spreading the holy light of truth! But dear Republic!" (here the little M. Roquet uncovered himself). "I bore it all for thy sake. Yes; one of these days when thou hast broken the sceptre of the usurper in thy strong fair hands; when thou hast shat

tered the throne into faggots to make fire for the poor; when the palace of the tyrant has become an asylum for the homeless sick, and the drum of the prætorian no longer beats in our streets to remind us of our slavery; then-yes, then, thou wilt remember how thy devoted child endured affliction for thee, how he loved thee, how he proclaimed thee, even in the face of the myrmidons of oppression, to be ever sacred, beautiful, and peerless!"

M. Roquet delivered this apostrophe with the same volubility as if he had learned it all out of a book. A stranger hearing him for the first time might have fancied the honest little man's absinthe was too strong for him; but the Prince, who appeared to know him well, listened with quiet attention, and made no effort to interrupt him.

"And now," went on M. Roquet, taking a new gulp out of his glass, and catching up his mangled proof again"And now you want to know what this is. Look at these erasures, Prince; look here, and look there, and tell me whether you don't think, upon your honor and conscience, that a man who could have marked out such passages must be sold to the police. The man who did it is Potiron, my partner; for I scorn now to call him my friend. Six months ago, seeing that the Government and all the editors together were in league against me, I went to Potiron, who was once a grocer, and has money, and proposed that we should found a paper together. He was to find the funds and I the talent. Said I, 'You'll be aiding in a glorious work, and you'll have tickets for all the theatres gratis; my name will soon raise the circulation to fifty thousand, and we'll share the profits.' Nothing could be fairer, and Potiron accepted. La Carmagnole came out, price three sous, and with me as editor. The first week we sold ten thousand, the next week twenty, the third week Potiron and I were in prison; but I edited the paper all the same at Sainte Pélagie, and the circulation went on rising and rising until we had reached fifty thousand, and the Government was half crazy. Well, would you believe it, Potiron was no sooner out of prison than he declared he had had enough of it? It is true we had had forty thou