Enjoy for myself, and I suppose one will turn up at last. Your psalm with the instrumental accompaniment and your wedding-chorus I received here, haven't I thanked you for them yet? It seems to me as if I had, and if I am let-mistaken I must tell you again how much pleasure you gave me with the latter, and what happy days are recalled by every note of the former. Your abridged Fernando Overture I received at Leipsic, and I think of giving it at the beginning of the Subscription Concerts; I shall write you all about it, and send it to you directly afterwards (at the beginning of November perhaps, if that is soon enough?) by Härtel and Ricordi. I shall add a couple of new things of my own; I wonder what sort of impression they will make upon you in Italy.

THE COURTIER OF MISFORTUNE: A BONAPARTIST STORY. 227 able for the piano comes into my head, and | Bands of workmen, who ought to have even if there are no regular passages in it, why been at drill, strolled by rows of twenty should I be afraid of writing it down? Then, arm-in-arm along the carriage-ways, bawla very important branch of pianoforte music ing vinously, "Vive la République! Vive which I am particularly fond of - Trios, Trochu ! Quartets and other things with accompaniA bas Badinguet!" Policement, is quite forgotten now, and I greatly men were invisible. Women and peasfeel the want of something new in that line. ants pushing hand-carts laden with furniI should like to do a little towards this. It ture before them streamed in from the was with this idea that I lately wrote the So- country districts round Paris, and seemed nata for Violin, and the one for Cello, and I am to be on the look-out for lodgings. Newsthinking next of writing a couple of Trios. I papers found a brisk sale, boys screamed have got a Symphony in B flat in hand now, the Marseillaise, and tradesmen, with and mean to get it finished soon. I only hope scared faces, were climbing ladders to that we shall not have too many foreign vir- unhook Imperial escutcheons, and paint tuosi at Leipsic this winter, and that I shall not have too many honours to enjoy, which out the words "Purveyor to their Majesmeans, concerts to conduct. So Herr F. has ties," in which but a day ago they had gone all the way to Milan. Brr, he is enough gloried. to spoil the warm climate. Yes, you see, I The cab drove quickly, but at the bothave to digest such creatures, and am in Leip- tom of the Rue de Valois had to stop, for sic, instead of at Cadenabbia, where I once the Place du Palais Roval was full of was, opposite your present lodging. When I people. The cuirassier got out, paid the am writing to you at the lake of Como, I feel driver, and endeavoured to hurry unobthe greatest longing to see that paradise again, served through the crowd, which was and who knows what I may do in the next rather a curious than an excited one. years! But you will first have to be here with He did somehow force himself a passage your oratorio, which is best of all. Do you through the mobs surging towards the know that my sister Fanny will perhaps see you soon? She intends going to Italy with Hôtel de Ville on the one hand, towards her husband and child, and only returning the Tuileries Gardens on the other; and next year. When I know more definitely when he reached the sentry mounting about her journey I will tell you, so that she guard somewhat nervously at the Carmay not miss you, as Franck did. Now good-rousel gate, opened his cloak to show the bye, write to me soon to Leipsic, just such an-despatch-bag slung over his tunic, and other splendid letter. Once more, thanks. Remember me to your mother. Farewell,

farewell.

Your FELIX.

From The Cornhill Magazine. THE COURTIER OF MISFORTUNE: A BONAPARTIST STORY.

III.

ON the 4th September, 1870, towards one o'clock in the afternoon, an officer in a cuirassier uniform got out of a train on the platform of the Northern Station, jumped into the first cab he could findit happened to be an open one-and told the coachman, in a fevered voice, to drive him to the Tuileries. His uniform was soiled and torn; there was mud on his boots up to the knees, his head was bound up in bandages clotted with blood, and his haggard face bore a week's unshaved beard. A mob pressing outside the station for news, recognized him for an officer, no doubt from Sedan, and gave him a ringing cheer, but he bent his head and made no response. The city bore nothing of the mourning aspect he had expected. The cafés were full and noisy.

The immense yard, adorned with a triwas allowed to pass in without question. umphal arch reared to celebrate past victories over a people now conquerors in their turn, was almost deserted; but at broken intervals men, for the most part in civilian dress, shuffled panic-stricken across the yard and entered the palace. The cuirassier followed them, climbed the staircase, where no usher or footman stood to ask intruders their business, brushed past a terrified group of ladies, who were coming down the stairs with travelling-bags in their hands, and asked for the aide-de-camp on duty. He was directed to go down a passage to the right, did so, and remitted his despatchbag. Then with the receipt crushed between his fingers, wandered about unheeded amid startled figures running or rushing down the corridors, till he found himself in the room where some three months before he had received a kindness from an Emperor, then in the full pomp and grandeur of his power.

All the last friends of the fallen court were there, but not so much high dignitaries for these took care of themselves -nor Jobuses-they are never to be seen in such moments - as younger men

and modest functionaries, whose fealty | to defend the Empress against yonder had not perhaps been always appreciated curs?" in brighter days, but came out true and pure now in this hour of adversity. The appearance of the officer and his travelstained clothes caused a sensation, and a move was made towards him. A few recognized him despite his bandage, which, now his kepi was off, gave him the look of being turbaned, and they said, "It's Colonel Courpreux, who rode next M'Mahon in the charge of the cuirassiers at Reischoffen, and was promoted on the field." They gathered round him eagerly, and inquired of him if he had news:

"You were at Sedan, Colonel; is all really lost?" and it was a gloomy thing to hear these men ask this about a country and a sovereign they loved.

"Yes, all's lost," groaned Courpreux, "but the honour of the Emperor, who has been betrayed, and that of our War Office, who had no honour to lose."

"How did the Emperor bear it ?" "Simply, like a man. He was never greater than when he drove through the town with an expression on his face that might have touched the very stones, and gave up his sword to save his army., People will say here that he should have died, but anybody has the courage to die. The courage is to live, and to endure all this," - and he pointed with his hand to the Tuileries Gardens, at the end of which a mob was to be seen approaching with gesticulations and waving of flags.

A silence replied to this question, and one young man alone stepped out with a revolver. The rest had come unarmed. They were faithful to the point of risking death, but not of courting it. Cœurpreux glanced from one to another, as if he could not believe his eyes. Then a great sob escaped him, and he turned with brimming eyes to watch the sea which advanced slowly, and the thin line of soldiers in the private garden below, who would be the only dyke against it. "Our place is with those men there," he said to the young man who was armed; "let us go to them; we shall at least die in good company."

A few of the bystanders winced — in particular, two priests, who would not have grudged their blood, though it was not their duty to shed any. Several moved to follow Courpreux; but at this moment a door was opened, and the Empress appeared with one of her ladies-inwaiting, Count Palikao, an aide-de-camp, and one or two other advisers. She was dressed in black, was calm and resigned, and, hearing that firearms had been exhibited, sent to request as a last favour to her that no resistance should be offered. Her Majesty was then told that one of the gentlemen who wished to defend her was Colonel Cœurpreux, and she prayed her aide-de-camp to summon him. M. Courpreux arrived with the Count Palikao, the Prime Minister, tears still welling over his eyes - though passed rapidly through the room, and it was no fault of his, for he struggled disappeared into a chamber where the hard enough to keep them in- and posEmpress was known to be; and all gath-sibly as he stood before her, with his ered round the windows. The mob were drawing nearer, and the quays could be seen covered with people who had been to the Corps Législatif, where M. Gambetta had been haranguing the multitude, and exhorting it to clamour for the Emperor's deposition. Chevalier Nigra, the Italian Ambassador, entered with a breezy aspect as if nothing particular were happening, and a chaplain asked him if there were any hope. 'Hope of what?" answered M. Nigra, cheerfully, and went the way of M. de Palikao, but with a careless, swinging stride, for all this was no great concern of his. Cœurpreux leaned in a window-recess moaning, but as he perceived that the mob swelled and advanced each second like a rising tide, he drew a revolver, and cast-ing France of a life like yours, Colonel, ing a keen look about him, said: at a time when brave men are more than ever needed. Still, again I thank you."

66

66

Gentlemen, I hope we are all prepared

head bowed and his knees shaking, the Empress recognized the man who had been painted to her by the Jobuses and Cris as a factious subject.

"Colonel, you found your way through the enemy's lines to bring me a letter from the Emperor," she said, in a soft, sad voice. "I thank you, and wish it were still in my power to reward your devotion."

66

"Madam," murmured Cœurpreux, in words of which each syllable sprang vibrating from his heart, you can give me the only reward I covet by allowing me to lay down my life for you."

"No, not a drop of French blood must be shed for me," she answered quietly, nor would I forgive myself for depriv

66

And she extended her hand to him with a grateful smile. He dropped on one knee and pressed it to his lips reverentially.

he strode down the Rue de Rivoli, not caring much whom he elbowed, it was twenty minutes past three, and the tricolour flag which had been waving eighteen years on the late Imperial palace was hauled down. Two petit crevés, or swells of the small French sort, watched this historical occurrence from a corner of the Place des Pyramides, and one, removing his eyeglass the better to see, said to the other: "There go twenty years of jollity." "Yes," sighed the other, "and only to think I used to be fool enough to vote for the opposition just for the fun of the thing." The pair of noble hearts sighed, and went their ways. Cœurpreux shrugged his shoulders, and followed.

At this juncture Prince Metternich and M. de Lesseps approached quickly. They spoke a few words, but their looks said more than they uttered. The Empress glanced towards the gardens where the crowd had by this time become a host, whose shouts broke loud and imperatively through the stillness of this room filled with expectant courtiers. Her lips quivered faintly for a single instant, and the pallor of her face deepened just enough to show that it was pain, not fear, she felt. Then she turned with queenly selfpossession, and made to the loyal few who remained her grandest curtseythat of the state galas now gone and for- One of the most comforting features of gotten amidst other ruins; this was the French revolutions is, as we have hinted, signal that all was over: the Empire had that although thrones go crash and kings fallen; the Empress retired, and the go where they can, the Cris and Jobuses friends of the eleventh hour were free to bend their respected heads like reeds, go and see to themselves, their goods and let the whole whirlwind sweep above and their chattels. They scampered without uprooting them. The signboard downstairs, putting their best feet fore- and landlord of the Inn are changed, but most, and the palace became a show to cooks and waiters are the same, and inthe rabble, who presently flooded in, asmuch as the public depend rather on their mouths agape, and filled it from the cooks and waiters for comfort and floor to attic with their savoury majesty. good attendance than upon the landlord Cœurpreux had heard a few of the and the signboard, this may serve to exwords which Prince Metternich had let plain why the collapse of many thrones fall, and he went and stood near the gate affects less in the general weal than the of the Louvre opposite the Church of St. displacement of a single Jobus might do. Germain l'Auxerrois, where a cab was Anyhow, when Courpreux came to report waiting. In a few minutes the veiled himself at the War Office, he found there forms of two ladies glided out, and Coeur- the set of clerks who had just been rollpreux, though he could not be seen be- ing the army into the chasm, filling up hind the angle where he had sheltered printed papers that were to roll other himself, bared his head as they passed. armies the same way, with their habitual He watched to see that no one recog- serenity. It was Sunday and they had nized or molested the Lady whom M. de no need to work; but never mind that; Lesseps handed into the fly, and his gaze they were always ready to devote themfollowed this vehicle as it turned and dis- selves to their country's good, especially appeared with its blinds down, and the on a Revolution Sunday, when, if absent, Italian ambassador on the box beside the their places might be filled up by other coachman. It would have fared ill, then, folk. Nothing was altered, save that in with any partisan of equality who should the room of the little big clerk, who had have stood in the horse's way or offered received Courpreux before, a bust of the a rude word to the Empress, whom this Emperor had disappeared in favour of a unconscious hack was drawing into exile, photograph of General Trochu, and the for Cœurpreux was in that mind when to small clerk informed his visitor that he have faced a whole horde of the popu- had foreseen all along how it would end, lace with his solitary sword and revolver, and that if his - the clerk's advice had and to have bitterly flung in their teeth been taken, matters would have turned their base treason and cowardice, would out very differently. He supposed Colhave been a grim pleasure. But nobody onel Courpreux would be asked to form afforded him that satisfaction. The fly and command a regiment during the jogging along unremarked mingled with siege, but he could give him no orders other flys; and Cœurpreux emerging for the present. He only ventured to from his concealment, went with an ach-' warn him (and looked very immaculate ing heart about business of his own. As in so doing) that he must now moderate

the Bonapartist zeal for which he had been unfavourably conspicuous. The Empire had disgraced itself, and no Frenchman worthy of the name could feel any sympathy for so odious a régime : "Odious a régime!" echoed Courpreux, as the blood mounted to his face. "And who made it odious but you and your likes? Ah, sir clerk, try and give me and others as little of your advice as possible, and the better it will be for us all. When I think that the earth once swallowed up a pair called Dathan and Abiram, and when I see you sitting alive there with that heap of papers, I am inclined to wonder whether we are footing the same globe. Heaven help me!" and he went out slamming the door, and shaking the dust off his feet. The Jobus-clerk, naturally much disgusted, preserved an attitude full of dignity, and on the first opportunity informed General Trochu that a certain Courpreux was in all likelihood a Bonapartist conspirator, and might with advantage be despatched to outposts where the shells fell thickest. The General promised to make a note of the matter, and eventually did.

"The army? oh, no- I leave that to Bayards like you," sniggered M. de Cri, as if vastly tickled by the notion. "No, I'm off to my prefectship, which has just been confirmed to me by Gambetta; and I may tell you in confidence, that I managed this thing very slyly. Foreseeing, you know, after the first defeat of you gentlemen, how the wind would soon blow, I came up to Paris on the quiet, and entered into relations with all this crew, Favre, Simon, Gambetta. I promised that if there was a republican rising, I would abet them, and play my department into their hands, which of course was all chaff, for if the rising hadn't been successful here I shouldn't have been such a ninny as to start pranks out there, but they took it in. They counted me as one of theirs, and here am I off as a prefect of the Republic to the town where yesterday I was a prefect of the Empire-and I hope for promotion soon. Sic itur ad astra — hee, hee!"

"And what will Mdme. de Cri think of this sudden conversion?" asked Cœurpreux with more contempt in his voice than would have served to wither up any other ten men not being hereditary placehunters.

-

But Cœurpreux's 4th September trials were not over yet. On his way from the War Office back into the noisier parts of "Oh, my wife; it's she who advised Paris, where he hoped to learn for cer- me to do it all. Dux fœmina facit — tain who were definitely the new rulers hee! hee! You see we've no private of his country a point on which, in fortune, and if I'd lost my place I don't common with other men who accept new well know what I could have done, for I Governments like wind and rain, as they have saved little a man who expects to come, he was still doubtful he crossed be Cabinet Minister and will be able a Victoria carrying M. Nepos Lémargeux then to rig the money-market and clear Desfonds de Cri, an umbrella, and a car- | what sums he pleases, doesn't go in for pet-bag. M. de Cri checked the driver, cheese-paring economies, you know; so and waved the umbrella to attract Coeur-my wife said to me, 'Make the best of preux's attention. This chivalrous pre- our national disasters: it's an ill wind fect had put away the rosette which used blows nobody good; ' and, as you perceive, to grace his button-hole, and which of that is true enough, for there are plenty yore he had grovelled so patiently to of folk will be housed well to-night who earn, and he had so arranged things that were not much to look at yesterday." the title of a republican newspaper Cœurpreux turned cruelly sick at heart. peeped over the edge of his breast pock-On et, herald of his new-born convictions. In this guise he stretched forth his hand to Cœurpreux out of the cab in the midst of the Rue Royale, and gabbled:

66

Congratulate me, Commandant at least, no, you're Colonel now ulate me, I'm off."

an ordinary trimmer he would not have wasted a breath of scorn — nor so much as a shrug―disdaining such vermin as a sportsman does rats; but that Violette's husband should be a man of this class, and that he should have inocu- congrat-lated with his sordid principles a woman who had been true and pure before she "Where to the army?" and the had been sold to him in bondage, was a Colonel wondered whether mayhap this pang indeed. Yet Courpreux had the person had been stricken with honesty comfort of believing that M. de Cri lied in his declining years, and impelled to do ignobly, and that Violette had never something in defence of the country that consented to the impudent barter of conhad been such an unchanging and untir-science which her husband laid to her ing milch-cow to him.

charge. But in this he was mistaken.