part in the siege of Rochelle, unless he had a separate army, separate stores, and a separate exchequer, and he resented the straightforward eloquence which hindered him-before Chastillon--from an act of bad faith. Nor had Schomberg and Richelieu cause to love the resolute Marshal of France. More than once he had spurred Louis on to acts of insubordination, and on one occasion he had heartened the King to decline their informal visit. Moreover, he was a noble, who favoured his own order, and the Bastille was his sad, inevitable goal.

For once his "good fortune" failed him-that good fortune, in which Schomberg believed so loyally, that he sent him upon many a forlorn hope and he was Richelieu's prisoner. But he entered his dungeon with a light heart and a good courage. Not only did he decline flight: he accepted his fate with a brave resignation, which turned to sadness rather than to complaint, when grief lay too heavy a hand upon him. At last he had hung his harp upon the wall; no more might he know the pleasures, of which not even years had robbed him. Perhaps the treachery of the King irked him-of the King whom he had loyally served, and who two days since had promised that nothing should be done against his liberty. But he accepted his fate with courage, and believed devoutly that freedom was at hand. Nor did he lack the Cardinal's assurance. Day after day, year after year, he received promises of liberty, until at last he resolved to listen no more to the voice of falsehood. And no sooner was he behind the walls of the Bastille than disaster added to disaster shook his fortitude. Not only were his appointments taken from him, but presently his estates were stolen through the faithlessness of his enemies. The Château of Bassompierre was destroyed, the profit of his crops was turned to an alien channe and his nephew lost his honourable position in the army, and saw his own Château de Dammartin burned by order of the King. Nor did he escape the lesser miseries of life: the coach which was bringing him money and clothes from Nancy was held up by highwaymen, and plundered. Thus he saw himself slipping into poverty, and thus, said he, with a grim humour, "thus I kept my jubilee."

But the gloom grew only deeper, as the chance of freedom lessened "I passed the whole month of January," he wrote after some years of captivity, "without hope of liberty, and with infinite sadness." And while he lost hope, and money, and houses, and crops, he was soon to mourn the greater sadness of death. First, the Princess de Conti died,

killed it is said by the disgrace of his imprisonment, and thus he lost

Then, one after

miserable, in the

until the last

the closest friend that remained to him in the world. another his relatives died, and left him, forsaken and Bastille. So he sat in a solitude as bitter as Job's, affront was put upon his pride by an insolent gaoler. Thus, for ten years he suffered from the resentment or the caution of Richelieu, nor was it until the death of the Cardinal that he breathed the larger air of liberty. And then too late was he restored to his places of honour and profit; too late did the King smile again upon his ancient favourite. He was out of fashion; his wit appeared slow-footed to the fireflies of the Court; he brought from the Bastille a leisurely arrogance which was i understood in a busy, progressive age. But, in revenge, he might plume himself upon a strangely rotund and finished career-a career which was not only brilliant, but also was brilliantly modulated. No experience had escaped him: a youth of pleasure, a middle-life of war and diplomacy, an age of bitter imprisonment and ultimate respect-he had known them all, and had accepted each in a spirit of valiance. Moreover, the ten years' captivity had not dulled his wit, and he was ready on the instant with a dignified reproof. "How old are you?" asked the King on the Marshal's enlargement. "Fifty years, sire," was the reply. And when the King seemed incredulous, he added :— "I discard the years which were not spent in your service."

His book approaches most nearly to the Diary of our own Pepys, but it seldom attains the engaging candour of that masterpiece. Compiled when imprisonment had forced him to an unwelcome leisure, it is an effort rather of memory than of observation. It was not his happiness to fix the fleeting indiscretion by a timely phrase; rather, he is driven to the fading tablets of his mind, even for the record of his "bonnes fortunes." Morcover, while the Englishman only remembers that he is a man, Bassompierre never forgets that he is a Marshal of France. He approaches himself in full uniform, and he dares not be as intimate with his own actions as the merest stranger may be with the peccadilloes of Pepys. He does not let you glance over his shoulder as he writes; his very dignity keeps you at a distance, and reminds you (what Pepys bids you forget) that there are privacics into which curiosity should not intrude. From the point of view of style, his was incomparably the higher ambition. He was anxious to embellish his narrative with set speeches, in accordance with the artifice of Thucydides and Livy; and, while Pepys is content to be witty or scandalous in a line, he would at times sustain the dignity of his prose

for a dozen pages. But he displayed as much truth and sincerity as may be expected from a warrior and statesman; and it is not strange if, greater in all else, he fell, in candour, below the splendid genius of Samuel Pepys. "I shall make an ample discourse of my life," he declares, "without affectation or vanity . . . . and you will not find it strange if I tell all things in detail." The detail it is that makes the book a masterpiece: that he saw a comet in 1608, that the floor of the Queen's salon collapsed, save the plank whereon Her Majesty was standing, that outside Agen a cannon carried off the four arms of the four soldiers who carried the flags of Navarre, that the Lord Mayor's Show of 1626 was the finest spectacle that ever he saw-these are the details which give life and vividness to the book. And you lay it down with the pleasant assurance that, if you may not claim Bassompierre for a friend, you have lived for a week upon amiable terms with a great

man.

CHARLES WHIBLEY.

IT

T would seem at a glance that there is nothing profitable to be said about sitting down. The humorist by trade could manufacture some jests out of attitudes and movements, no doubt; his ingenuity works up less promising materials. But what is there for serious debate? Sitting down "comes natural "-like eating. Persons not hasty to grant that a thing must be fashioned by Providence for the use to which we put it may willingly allow that the thigh bones are padded in order that we may sit upon them without discomfort. Until lately, indeed, another purpose was assigned to those cushions. Our forefathers proved the manifest destiny of children to be whipped by the same anatomical arrangement; but logicians might call this a Second Cause. Anyhow, it has passed out of use. But if the operation be natural, all human creatures must sit down-and there is an end of the theory, for they do not. Reviewing, in fact, the population of the globe, it seems likely that the men and women who sit are less than ten per cent. To begin with, the millions of China and India must be excluded only the hundreds there turn the cushions to their destined use, so that more than one-half of mankind is excepted at a stroke! But that is not nearly all. Japan follows, with the lands and isles of the Far East, Asia in general, the most part of Africa, the Indian territories of America, from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn. When we look closely, it appears that only Europeans, their descendants, and those whom they have instructed, sit.

:

The custom is not universal even in Europe. At the time of the war, neither chair nor stool, rarely a divan, could be found in a Bulgar house, outside the towns; the table was only a foot high, and the family squatted round it on the floor. The Bulgars are not people to adopt a new fashion readily. Throughout the Balkan Principalities, indeed, seats are an unnecessary article of furniture for the bulk of the population; even the divan is rare in a farmhouse of Albania and Montenegro. It is assumed that Turkish influence or example

banished chairs and stools.

That is improbable in any case; but

when we observe that outside of Europe nearly all mankind squats, it becomes far more likely that these people follow the practice of their remotest ancestors. The Turk has simply arrested development at this as at other points.

Men who do not sit have two attitudes for resting; women use one of their own. Squatting "on the heels" is favoured in India and China. In this position the weight of the body falls upon the toes, and to keep the balance comfortable the arms must lie over the knees, the hands dangling. A European trussed in this manner promptly feels a pain in his calves, but he can understand that habit makes it a restful posture. In fact, our colliers use it. There is a legend current in North Staffordshire referring to the embodiment of Militia or Volunteersfor authorities differ-carly in the century. After divers eccentric

mar euvres, the officer cried: "Stand at ease!" When his order had been explained, every man squatted on his heels like an Indian coolie. There is, however, a mode of resting practised by some jungle tribes which is utterly incomprehensible. Being fatigued, these people stand on one leg and curl the foot of the other round the calf. The same extraordinary custom is seen in Africa. We ask in bewilderment, why on earth they do not lie, or at least squat? It may be hazarded as a mere conjecture, without a.'y pretence of justification, that they or their forefathers dwelt in swamps especially malarious. But the custom shows what unnatural usages men will devise before it occurs to them to sit down "like Christians."

arm.

The cross-legged attitude is general from Siam eastward through the Malay countries. In the jungle you will see a man crouch, the knees raised, the arms folded over them, and the chin resting on the Some tribes, as the Dyaks, carry a mat dangling behind as part of their ordinary costume to shield them from the damp soil. But seldom indeed will a man sit upon a log or a root, though there be plenty round. The idea does not enter his mind. More rarely still, if that be possible, will you observe him squatting. Women always crouch, upon the floor of course, with the knees bent sideways, thus resting on the outer part of one thigh: a mighty uncomfortable posture, as it seems to us!

It may be assumed, therefore, that sitting down is an acquired habit. If any savages practise it-as a convenience simply-I have neither seen nor heard of them. But we are all convinced nowadays that the

H