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Madame Bergerin thought that the fellow was either jesting with her or that he was stark, raving crazy.

'I do not visit financiers, literary men, or politicians. I go to see whomever I please, my old friends, the people I am used to dealing with, and I have no intention of giving you a list of them. Do you understand?'

'Oh! Madame!' Balthazar bowed elaborately, although a gleam of displeasure appeared in his eyes. 'When I was with M. Fleurfontaine, we used to go once a week to call upon the President of the Council, twice a week to call upon the Minister, and at least once to

an Academician; and every morning we called upon some distinguished actress. Madame will doubtless understand that, after such illustrious associates, I should prefer to abandon my profession rather than to sink in the social scale. I regret that Madame is not of this class; but Madame will understand that a chauffeur of my standing must maintain his professional dignity.'

Balthazar accompanied these last words with a more profound bow than ever. Then, his back straight, his head high, he turned to the door, and descended the stairway majestically, demonstrating his dignity at every step.

THE NEW BOSWELL

BY R. M. FREEMAN

From The Westminster Gazette, June 11
(LIBERAL WEEKLY)

I WAS with Dr. Johnson to-day when Mr. Charles James Fox waited on him as the bearer of a somewhat sensational invitation, in which I also was included. This was nothing else than that we should both dine with Mr. Fox on the next Thursday, to meet Napoleon Bonaparte, with whom, said our would-be host, he was very desirous to bring Dr. Johnson acquainted.

are usurpers and usurpers. There is the unmitigated scoundrel who usurps upon a legitimate king and steals his crown; for whom no condemnation can be too severe. And there is the rather meritorious person who usurps upon a republic and converts it into a monarchy. Now this, Sir, is what Bonaparte did. He did not oust the Bourbons. He merely ousted the republic which had

When he was gone, Johnson turned already ousted the Bourbons. And, Sir, to me and said:

'Sir, I observed a certain astonishment in your face when you heard me accept Mr. Fox's invitation. Pray, why was that, Sir?'

I told him I had feared that his royalist principles would not have permitted him to sit at table with a notorious usurper.

since any monarchy, even the worst, is more consonant with God's will than a republic, this usurpation of Bonaparte's may rather be accounted unto him for righteousness.'

Pursuing the same theme, he added:

'Moreover, Sir, you are to observe that Bonaparte never committed the 'Why, as to that, Sir,' said he, 'there impiety of calling himself by the divine

ly instituted title of King, but only by that of Emperor, which is not, in any sense, of divine origin. Sir, the man who makes himself an Emperor is guilty, at worst, of a political offense. But the man who makes himself a King adds sacrilege to usurpation. Sir, he blasphemes his Creator.'

By way of further illustrating this admirable distinction between the sacred character of the Royal and the purely secular character of the Imperial office, he said:

'Victoria, Sir, was Queen of Great Britain by the grace of God, but she became Empress of India by the grace of Lord Beaconsfield.'

In support of his general thesis of the divine status of Kings as compared with the merely human status of Emperors, he made the following striking reflection upon the outcome of the recent great terrestrial upheaval, ‘In which,' said he, all the Emperors in Europe have gone down, but all the Kings still continue to occupy their thrones. Now this, Sir, is surely pretty good evidence of the Almighty's respect to the one, and his disrespect to the other. The Emperors, Sir, were nothing to Him; but the Kings were his own anointed, as He has shewn by his intervening to defend them in this very signal manner.'

Presently, he added, with a smile: 'Even poor dear Tino has been restored to his throne. But had he been Emperor of Greece, he should assuredly still be kicking his heels in Switzerland.'

Upon our arrival at Mr. Fox's on the following Thursday, we found a small but choice company assembled in honor of the great Frenchman, to whom we were all, in due course, presented by our genial host. When my turn came, I could scarcely refrain from acquainting him of a certain link between us in the circumstance of my once having been widely known as 'Corsica Boswell,' in

allusion to my popular book about that island. And, indeed, I should, I believe, have done so but for Mr. Fox's somewhat unaccountable haste in bringing up Dr. Goldsmith for presentation.

It was, of course, almost inevitable that the latter should (as the vulgar say) 'put his foot in it,' and this he did, sure enough, by remarking:

'It so happens, your Majesty, that, in the course of completing my English History, I have just written a description of the battle of Waterloo.'

I shivered at the gaucherie of this singularly ill-timed observation. However, the great man to whom it was addressed discovered no signs of offense, but merely inquired:

'An accurate description, I hope, Monsieur?'

GOLDSMITH (with his usual eager selfconceit). Absolutely accurate, Your Majesty.

NAPOLEON. - Then monsieur is to be congratulated upon a feat which neither the Duke of Wellington nor I myself could have accomplished.

This afforded Johnson an opportunity of intervening in support of the Emperor's dictum, which he did with extraordinary felicity.

Subsequently, at dinner, the same. topic came up again for discussion. Johnson said:

'If the historians should limit themselves to recording only ascertained facts, the history of the world would all go into one small octavo volume.'

MR. FOX (slyly). - How many pages would you allow Herodotus in such a volume, Sir?

JOHNSON (smiling). - About half a page, I believe, Sir.

Fox. - And Thucydides?

JOHNSON. Not above two pages, Sir. We should begin, of course, by eliminating all the speeches.

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JOHNSON. Sir, he who should believe all that the newspapers tell him should entertain a number of very strange beliefs.

Fox. - Whom do you consider to have been the most truthful of the historians, Sir?

JOHNSON. On the whole, I think, I should award the palm of veracity to the Hume. man

Fox. Surely, Sir, he was something less than truthful in his representations, or, rather, misrepresentations, of the Roundheads.

JOHNSON. Sir, so far as Hume was unveracious about the Roundheads, he was unveracious in their favor. He could not bring himself to tell all the truth about them, because he was a decent writer. He would not print what was unfit for publication.

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BOSWELL. Well, Sir, if Hume is the most truthful historian, who, in your opinion, is the most untruthful?

JOHNSON. Sir, I should, I think, divide the palm of mendacity between Macaulay and Plutarch-Macaulay in respect of the doings of his historical characters; Plutarch in respect of their sayings. Macaulay, Sir, invented actions to satisfy his Whig theories; Plutarch, words to satisfy his sense of dramatic propriety. (Turning to Napoleon) Had Plutarch been living and writing on earth, after your day, instead of before it, I dare swear he had found any number of pretty concoctions to put into your mouth, Sir.

NAPOLEON. - No prettier ones, perhaps, Monsieur, than some with which I am already credited.

JOHNSON. It should be instructive, Sir, if you could give us a list of all these historical sayings of yours, which you did not utter.

undertaking such a labor of Hercules, The Emperor excused himself from as he termed it, but was obliging enough to mention a few examples. I remember that 'Providence is on the side of the

big battalions,' 'With a handful of English I could conquer the world'; and "Those terrible Greys,' were among them.

Johnson took occasion of the lastmentioned saying to indulge in his customary sport at the expense of my countrymen.

"This, Sir,' said he, smiling at me. across the table, 'shall surely have been the invention of a Scotchman, all that nation having a most inventive turn of mind, and have indeed invented almost everything from the steam-engine to

Ossian.'

MR. FOX.-I have heard it said that a Scotchman invented you, Sir.

JOHNSON. Why, no, Sir. It was Mrs. Piozzi, an Englishwoman, who tried her inventive hand on me, and she made but a poor business of it. Boswell has, in the main, represented me very

truthfully. Sir (addressing Napoleon), it is a pity you had not a Boswell to depict you with a like fidelity.

NAPOLEON. Nay, Monsieur. It is Nay, Monsieur. It is not all of us who can, like yourself, afford always to live under the scrutinizing eye of a minutely candid recorder. There were times during the retreat from Russia, for example - when, had when, had I had such a man with me noting everything down, I do not know what I should have done.

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should have found him totally unamenable to submersibility. Sir, he should have emerged, dripping but pertinacious, to pursue you to Paris, and there (laughing uproariously) to announce himself in all the public places as 'Beresina Boswell.'

Although this was going a little far, I had too much sense to feel offended by it, seeing that he only meant wit. Moreover, all was compensated, when, presently, I had the flattering intelligence from him of the great Frenchman's having frankly lamented that I had not applied my penetratingly biographical gift to writing the lives of other public men, of whom he had particularly specified Field-Marshal Prince Blücher, and Sir H. Lowe, sometime Governor of St. Helena.

THE LEIPZIG TRIALS

BY A BRITISH OBSERVER

From The Observer, June 12 (LONDON MODERATE SUNDAY PAPER)

THE British public has naturally taken a great deal of interest in the War Criminals' trials that have been held in Leipzig. The war is not yet so far behind as to enable us to be indifferent to the trials of men who inflicted innumerable brutalities upon our defenseless soldiers in German prison camps. But it was not possible for the press at home to give more than slender accounts of the Leipzig proceedings, and hence the judgment of the British public has been influenced more by the leniency of the penalties than by the merits of the trials. This should not be so. The trials were far more important than the sentences. In my opinion, it

is very desirable that our public should form a fair judgment of the Leipzig trials.

I was present at the trials from beginning to end, and, happily, could follow the proceedings in German, so my impressions are at first hand. I am not going to write on what may be termed the political aspects of the trials. I will merely give my impressions of the Court as a tribunal of justice.

Under the Continental criminal procedure, everything depends upon the personality of the President of the Court. He has read the witnesses' statements before the trial opens, he questions the accused, he calls and interro

gates the witnesses in any order he wishes. Upon Dr. Schmidt, the President of the Senate of the Imperial German Courts, lay, therefore, a task of unprecedented difficulty. The German Jingo party and press were denouncing the whole proceedings. The keenest national sentiments were naturally aroused by these trials. The military adviser, General Franzecky, was unashamed in his approval of brutal treatment toward our prisoners. Dr. Schmidt thanks to the Continental system, had it thus in his power to become a national hero, with Germany's turbulent elements of the old régime. On the other hand, he could have pleased the German revolutionaries by savage attacks upon the German military system. What did he, in fact, do?

Fair play is a British characteristic, and I should be sorry to see the British public allowing its natural indignation about the submarine trial to warp its judgment of the man upon whom lay the burden, in these difficult circumstances, of holding the scales of justice evenly amid the rival statements of British ex-prisoners and their German warders.

When I first saw Dr. Schmidt, a few minutes before the first trial, I confess that I was not optimistic. The face is severe. The manner of his reception of the British was very formal and a little stiff. But an hour had not passed in Court before one saw the real man. The cloak of German formality and stiffness had disappeared when the judge donned his crimson robes.

The first accused was Heinen, a rugged, unintelligent bully, who was never born to rule anybody, whose sole idea of maintaining discipline was to threaten and to strike. The first British witness was Parry - genial, goodnatured, and cute, just an ordinary Englishman. After Parry's evidence, the President asked the accused whether

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The British witnesses were giving their evidence without fear or favor. They spoke frankly, both of the little that was good and of the much that was cruel, in their treatment. In a few instances they had been corroborated by German sentries who had also suffered similar brutality. Dr. Schmidt was convinced.

It was no cowardice or willingness to please the English that prompted the German judges there were seven in all

to convict the three men accused of brutal conduct in prison camps. It was merely the fact that the legal mind seeks justice though the Heavens fall. The stories of our British witnesses, plain, blunt men as they were, had rung true. Our ex-soldiers had convinced Dr. Schmidt and his colleagues that the exbullies, two of whom now whimpered like school-girls in what seemed to their puffed-out pride the humiliation of these proceedings, were lying when they denied the charges. The German accused were defended by able counsel and by the military adviser. The British witnesses merely had the moral support of silent, though vigilant, British counsel who took no active part in the proceedings. Yet facts are facts, honest evidence is honest evidence, and the judicial mind is the judicial mind, what ever the nationality or the cause. That is why these Germans were convicted. The fact that they were convicted by

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