OLD Professor La Bruyère had been a much-esteemed friend of ours in America. He was a fine old French gentleman, and a scholar of varied culture. During his exile he had ever been reserved on points relating to his personal history, and none of us had ever been inquisitive enough to injure the feelings of one who was so polished a gentleman and so jovial a companion by attempting to penetrate his reserve. It was only known that he had been unfortunate in his political career. We had met him several times in the streets of Paris since the investment of the city, and each time he had urged us, with all his warmth of manner, to come out and see a lonely old man at Passy, who hadn't any friends in the world. So one bright afternoon Frank and I took it into our heads to go and pay him a visit.

The professor was sitting in his old arm-chair out. side the door of his cottage, enjoying the sunshine of the day and the solace of his long-stemmed pipe. There was a settled calm on his jocund countenance and a quiet content in his light blue eye. He was now an old man, with partially bald head and a beard streaked with gray; but he looked the very picture of comfort and serenity as he sat there, absorbed in a kind of dreamy contemplation of the quickly-dissolving rings of smoke, which, curling through his gray moustaches, rose circling in the air.

"Messieurs, very happy --- very happy indeed to see you; come in!" and the professor reddened with pleasure as he rose up to greet us; but the next moment his shaggy eye-brows contracted and an expression of pain shot across his features.

"Pfui, that cursed rheumatism---pardon, messieurs! I'm growing old you see, and the ills of old age will come on. Well, well, I'm glad to see you (never mind the chair! ) --- come in, come in!" And with the courteous hospitality of an old French marquis, he led us into his apartment, and went ransacking his cupboard to give us cheer.

It was a pretty little room. The walls were covered with pencil and crayon sketches and water-colors of his own design, and a few choice oil-paintings of living artists. Here and there was a rare bronze or perhaps a statuette. Around the mirror were photographs of favorite pupils, tastily grouped in twos and threes. In one corner was a guitar, a broken flute, and a pile of music; in another, a fishing rod, shot-gun, pouches, nets, and canes. The table was strewn with paper, inkstands, curious weights, paints, crayons, tobacco-pipes, and ashes; and above the table the professor had constructed an ingenious book-case where was displayed his small and select stock of literary lore. From the old pressed sofa in the corner to the curtained alcove behind which gleamed the white coverlet of the professor's couch, there was a bachelor-like air of comfort and elegance.

"You like that painting, ah! It is a gem of a sea scene in its way, is it not? Your excellent Monsieur Hart gave it to me for some slight service of mine. That was after I left the state of New York. You see, Monsieur Frank "---

But he had found the wine now, and his reminiscences of the civil war, which we feared were about to be rehearsed again, subsided into a mutter about the "old woman and slavery."

"Now Monsieur Louis, for you I have this little thimble-full of Paxarète; it is very sweet, and is fabricated at Xeres in Spain,---very choice, too, I do assure you. N'est ce pas bon? Eh bien, it is necessary to sip it slowly, drop by drop, to catch the divine flavor of it, and now Monsieur Frank, you must content yourself with this glass of Sauterne. (The glass is finely cut, you see). You like not the Bordeaux, and positively I have nothing else in my cellar. As for the professor --- hum! he thinks he will take a little of the sherry---your English sherry is adulterated, Monsieur Frank --- with a little of the mixed in, and that is good, too --- but not so good as the Lacrimae Christi that comes from the vineyards of Vésuve."

While chatting in his pleasant, Frenchy way, the professor had handed us each our portion with a grave bow. It was like being entertained by a king, or better. He had launched on his favorite topic of wines, and it was edifying to listen to his eloquent descriptions of the sunny vineyards of southern France. Pretty soon, however, he took up his pipe again, which he had laid aside in the heat of lively recollections, refilled, and relit it, and retreated to his comfortable arm-chair, sinking down smilingly between its well-padded arms, while we seated ourselves near by.

"But of all the cheap pleasures that garnish my nest,
There's one that I love and cherish the best.
For the finest of couches that's padded with hair
I never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair."

Those were the lines we read fancifully engraved n the back of the chair.

"Ha, ha! well, 'pon my soul, where on earth did you pick up that doggerel, Professor ?" laughed Frank.

"Eh, doggerel! It is from ze Thackeray; I will show you, no? Well, I love him: he is like our Beranger, and he is full of humor and drollery---no ! I mean sarcasm. I do not understand him sometimes --- but it is all the same, He is true Englishman."

And so from talking of the poets of France and England we wandered off on the unfortunate topic of the political relations between the two countries; unfortunate because it was one which the professor felt deeply and personally as a good republican. To make the matter worse, I ventured to suggest that the real position of Great Britain was not yet so defined as many thought, but before the sentence was ended Frank caught the word from my mouth, and, in his bold, dashing way, went off on a mad tilt against all Englishmen and English ideas of justice, and closed with a tremendous shock on the wrongs of France.

While he was speaking a wonderful change came over the old man. The mildness and gentleness of his face had vanished, and now it was white and colorless, now red with indignant anger. The blue eyes grew hard and stony, his moustaches curled fiercely under the nervous fingers, and his whole frame trembled with suppressed rage. The man was in one of his ungovernable passions.

"Stop! what do you know of the wrongs of poor France---you, a stranger and with English blood in your veins? Tell me---have you suffered yourself; have you been imprisoned? Has your property been confiscated? Have you been in exile? Have you no heart? then, why do you put this devil in my heart? look!" and he grasped the cottage-door with his powerful hand, and slammed it back on its hinges with a force that made the walls tremble, and at the same time pointing to two woodcuts, one of Napoleon and the other of Bismarck, now from oft repeated expectoration stained and spotted with spittle, continued in a hard, bitter tone : --

"There are the authors of our misery --- bah! (Here he spat contemptuously on Napoleon's nose). Who is Bismarck? All the world knows. Who is Napoleon III? Ah, you do not know. Tenot says he was born in the Tuilleries: that is a lie. Victor Hugo says he was born in a hovel. No; I will tell you; he was born in a lottery-hall. He was a child of mystery from the beginning, and has been a creature of chance all his life. What was it that raised him to the throne of France? ma foi, I know not. An ill-jointed, dreamy, contemptible stripling, with his mother's weakness and his father's dullness, he swung off on the tail of his uncle's comet, and so came flaring into the world. What had he done? He was in the insurrection in Italy. O oui! and in '36 he made his attempt on Strasburg. There too, was the affair of Boulogne, with the invading army of harlots and adventurers. What blunders all the way through! Do you see any genius in this man? He was a fool. Louis Philippe understood him; he locked him up in Havre. There he learned to be knave. He was in New York afterward; what did he do? nobody knows. He was in London, too, and what was he there? I will tell you; a wretched constable. Do you not believe it? Look here ---' Louis Charles Buonaparte * * * * qualified and sworn as special constable for the parish church of St. Clement Denis.' But what is that? He became prince president, is it not so? And then! Then forgery, bribery, corruption, violence, and blood---blood---blood! And the coup d'état was over, and that night of the 4th of December Louis Napoleon sat in his cabinet noir at the Elysée smoking his cigarette---emperor of the French !"

Exhausted by the violence of his emotions, the old man sank back into his chair, from which he had risen in his frenzied harangue, and sat for a long time in silence and with bowed head. We had never seen him so strangely agitated before, and we dared not break in upon his mood. It was long ere he spoke again, and when he did, it was in an entirely different tone of voice, and yet it seemed a continuation of his former train of thought, uttered musingly at first.

"Ah, that winter of '53! People said it was a gay season; yes, there were carnivals, and balls, and fêtes and hunts, and operas, rolling round in Parisian pirouette---but I saw the grinning skull behind them all. The Bourgeosie thought sure the golden age had come, and stood in its door rubbing its hands and chuckling over the rapid influx of wealthy strangers, and the peasants ! Dull Jacques from the provinces was there dreaming of free trade and abundant harvests. Bon Dieu! how could he know that liberty of traffic was not liberty of speech and franchise? All the foreign powers had sanctioned the new dynasty, except Russia ---and Russia! Why, monsieur the French minister felt himself insulted by the Muscovite envoy, and was indignant that the autocrat of the Russias should presume to address His Imperial Majesty Napoleon III in the haughty and ceremonious terms of "Mon Amie" in place of the usual formula ---"Mon Frère," 'and Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him!' Paris was the same as now. O oui! The boulevards, the Champs Elysées, the gardens of the Tuilleries were just as thronged. They came flocking from the baths of Germany and the gaming-tables of Hamburg to salute the new emperor, Napoleon III. Bah! the world is the same all around. But some things have changed, and that is always sad, you know. The old Rotonde, and the Valour, and the Trois Frères are deserted now; you should have seen them once. The gardens and fountains of the Palais Royal ---there where wit and scandal went hand in hand and hommes blasés and grisettes used to meet---where are they? Helas! never more shall these old arches ring with fun and frolic, and Valvassor, and Sainville, and pretty Madame Schnivaneck are gone, too. Valvassor! yes, he was inimitable. But there was another --- Rachel. Ah, messieurs, that little black-eyed creature called many a bravo from this parched throat and many a tear from these dim eyes, and she is gone. Pooh! what am I talking about? Mille pardons --- you see I forget myself; I do not know what I say."

He ceased, and bustled round again to find his tobacco-pouch. All his bienseance had returned again, and he was the same congenial old gentleman as at the first. But the twilight was coming on apace, and we felt obliged to say that our time of taking leave of him had arrived. Before going, however, I happened to refer to Josephine in connection with her flowers, and the allusion called forth another pleasant reminiscence of the professor's.

"Josephine --- ah, yes! Josephine at the Tuilleries --- there was grace, loveliness, and vivacity; Josephine among the poor peasantry of Rueil---there was sympathy and charity; Josephine in the bosom of her family --- there was true womanhood, if there ever was any such thing. Josephine cherished flowers---yes, there is her garden at Malmaison. And she loved --- great God how that woman loved! She would leave her flowers, she would sacrifice Hortense---she sacrificed herself--- for Napoleon. How else could she have assented to that ill-assorted marriage between King Louis and Hortense? The king of Holland-heavy, drowsy, inactive; Hortense beautiful, witty, fashionable. What a match! But ---pardon, let me not detain you any longer; I see that you are anxious to go. Forgive the tattle of an old man."

We laughingly protested against his suspicions, and urged him to continue, it seemed to give him so much pleasure; but the old man was firm, and could not be moved from his determination. So we begged for a song in the way of a farewell. The request pleased him, and catching up the guitar, he thrummed for a minute on the strings, and then sang in a mellow tenor, marvellous for a man of his age, the exquisite song of Beranger.

"Adieu, charmant pays de France
Que je dois tant chérir!
Berceau de mon heureuse enfance,
Adieu ! te quitter c'est mourir."

We had noticed on leaving the professor's a faint pink glow in the southern sky, but had attributed it to nothing more than a change in the weather or temperature. As we walked on, however, under the stars, the glow spread and deepened, and there shot up fitfully into the blue ether dim volumes of smoke, until, almost before we were conscious of it, the whole southern heavens were enwrapped in the red glare of fire. The tower of Notre Dame stood out in clear, black, pencilled outlines against the sky; the dome of the Invalides was all ablaze, and gleaming like some gigantic, brazen helmet in mid-air; all Paris was bathed in the far-reaching tints of the flames. What was it? where was it? we shouted to flying citizens, and no answer came back to us. Hurrying on, we passed the Porte Maillot, and in a few minutes, stood at the barricade in the avenue de l'Emperatrice just below the barrier d'Etoile. There a noisy crowd was gathered, and cries of "St. Cloud --- St. Cloud!" passed from mouth to mouth like electric shocks along a wire. The report was subsequently confirmed; the old chateau was in flames.

We hastened on again to the Place de la Concorde, in hopes of getting a view of the conflagration from the roof of one of the buildings there. But the doors were closed, and we were turning away in disappointment, when there came up from the Rue de Rivoli the mingled sounds of many voices and tramping feet. As the tumultuous mass came nearer, the lamps shone on the beardless faces of thousands of rough looking lads and brown bloused artisans, sweeping along the streets with frantic enthusiasm and fierce eagerness depicted in their looks and gestures. At first a mere chaos of discordant screeching, without sense and without rhythm, arose from the surging multitude; then as the van of the mob approached, was heard the wild, stern air of the Marseillaise. They call this a hymn---this martial air of Rouget de Lisle's, inspired by wine and improvised on his clavicord, as he went staggering through the streets of Strasbourg on a cold winter night in '92. It is a hymn of terror; burdened with glory and patriotism, it has as often led to crime as to victory. The vast significance of the song throbs in the music, and the words themselves are harmless. No historian can catch as vividly as this. chant breathes the spirit of the reign of terror; it seems the spontaneous outburst of the universal heart of Paris.

"What's all this?" Frank, asked of a National guard beside him, pointing to the mixed procession.

"Ce sont les pupilles de la république," he replied sarcastically.

They passed, shouting and screaming, one strophe here, another there, and soon their cries and tumult were lost to the hearing, and the streets quiet and undisturbed as before. Walking home, we thought once more of the lonely old man at Passy, whose life had been so exact a type of his country's history. Ever with his fine tastes and high ideal of beauty and right, he had been aspiring toward the higher, and ever the effort seemed to bring him lower. Is it true that revolutions --- and what are these petty manifestations of the multitude and the struggles of individual hearts, but revolutions ? -- is it true that they are the expression of a universal longing for better things ? If so, and it is the kindlier view after all, let us judge this people more leniently. Mrs. Browning has a fine line to the Florentines, which might be equally well applied to the French -

"A noble people who, being greatly vexed,
In act, in aspiration keep undaunted."

ONE night Frank and I were detailed to keep watch in one of the tents. It was a still, starlit evening, and the moon sailed high and full in the clear blue of the heavens. A peaceful quiet reigned over the camp; the gentlemen-volunteers had departed long ago, and only the echoing memory of their songs lingered; here and there a light glanced to and fro for a minute, and then sank again into gloom. In the stillness of the night and with the moonbeams striking in a flood of mellow mist on the tented field, the camp looked like some mystic, white-pavilioned city of an eastern fairy-tale.

Within the barrack a single lamp burned, and its glimmering rays were cast on the long rows of brown-quilted couches, and fell athwart the burned face of some sleeper, or a brawny arm thrust without the coverlet. Every shoe and sack and chair was in its proper place : order and neatness were conspicuous in all the arrangements. The deep breathing of the men was the only sound to disturb the quiet. An hour ago it had been different. Lights streamed from every partition-pole, and eager shouts of cinq! --neuf! --- quinze! --- le diable! --- c'est à moi! --keno!---rang through the ward. They were playing at the strangely fascinating game of keno, which is the special delight of the French soldiers of the line and guard. In the midst of the excitement, the canvas-door of the barrack had been parted, and the shrill alto of Madame Bernois announced "Le Major!" and instantly every red nightcap and every blue képi had been doffed, and, as they turned again to their game, a murmuring echo of "le major" had gone round from mouth to mouth.

Very pleasant it was to see ---the grateful respect of these poor soldiers. They had nothing else to return for services done, so they simply offered the incense of their large-hearted love and gratitude. This was particularly true of the brave Bretons. Into the eyes of these stalwart, bearded men big tears would start as they said good-bye to the friends who had cared for them so long. Now there was Doucet who---

"Dreamer !" thundered a voice close beside me, " where's that nigger of yours?"

I had been dozing. It was only the doctor come to make his nightly round, and he had but whispered in my ear.

"Sam !" I exclaimed, starting up conscience-stricken and ashamed. "Why, he's over there by Diderot."

Advancing a ways, by the light of the lamp, we saw the darkie kneeling near the bed, his head buried in his arms and to all appearance zealously engaged in his evening devotions. Before I could divine his purpose, the doctor strode a pace, grasped the kneeler by the collar, and shook him on his feet in a twinkle.

"Eh---what -who"---blurted the poor fellow, rolling round his eyes in the endeavor to collect his drowsy wits.

"Sam," said the doctor, "what does this mean?"

"Eh! I were jes es saying my prayers, sah;" the demure innocence that peered out of the large whites of those eyes!

"Look here, Sam."

"Yes sah."

"Are you asleep now?"

No, sah."

"Are you drunk ?"

"No, sah !"

"The poor fellow over there's dying, --- go!"

The darkie went away grinning to his post, and the doctor, saying he would be back within a half-hour to see the dying man and giving directions for his care, passed on quietly through the tent, and we were left alone again.

Cosson --- that was the man's name --- was unconscious now, and moaned and talked incoherently; his face was palid and his breathing thick and heavy; but there was to an inexperienced eye no sign of death about face or limb. So I returned to my post and waited. Waiting for death ! you don't want it to come and yet sit waiting for it to come. It is something like that strange inconsistency of desire that leads us to mourn that life is so short, but to wish many a weary minute over --- those priceless drops that go to fill the cup of existence. The scenes we had gone through may have hardened or accustomed us to forms and thoughts of death; at any rate I felt no fear, though in its very presence, perhaps. After all the doctor might be mistaken; he never yet had been, to be sure, but then it hardly seemed possible that one who was warm with the pulsating blood of life, whose heart but yesterday was throbbing with hope and feeling, should pass away so very suddenly. He was such a fine fellow, too, and could God take him away from the earth where he was needed so much? I looked at my watch. If the doctor was coming---

"Quick, quick, Massa Frank; he's gwine." It was the voice of the negro, but husky with emotion.

We hastened immediately to the bedside, and stooped down to examine the body. Yes; he had gone, and his journey was ended.

As in the case of hundreds of others, nothing was known to us of his life-history. He had been a zouave, and had served in Rome, Syria, and Algeria---that was all we knew. His strong, square features were of the dusky hue of the chasseur d'Afrique, and his beard long and bushy; large, gray eyes peered out from under the shaggy brows and shone with a warm friendliness of expression. He had drawn us to him by his contemptuous indifference to pain, and his kindly joviality of manner, and how his comrades would miss him! Everyone knew the fragrance and fashion of his tightly-rolled cigarettes, and his hearty laugh had often cheered the whole ward. But he was gone now. In his last strong agony he had clutched the blanket, and now held it fast in his closed fist. He was a man of large and muscular frame, and as he lay there in the dim la lamplight, one could not help thinking of Tennyson's fine picture of the warrior Geraint :---

"And bared the knotted column of his throat,
The massive square of his heroic breast,
And arms on which the standing muscles sloped
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone.
Running too vehemently to break upon it."

He had been struck off in his manhood, and none knew who he was or whence he came. Perhaps few cared to know; he was but one of a great army ---a grain of sand on the sea-shore. The strange thing that had so inexplicably come into being and which had animated the livid face and warmed the glazed eye a few seconds ago, had as inexplicably gone out of being---gone out to meet its Maker.

An hour glided by. The doctor had come and gone, and left us alone once more. Two or three times we passed out into the deep quiet of the night, and looking up into the stars, talked together of the present and dreamed of the future. It was in returning from one of these stolen moments of relaxation that we found Madame Bernois in the entrance of the tent.

"How's Cosson ?" she asked.

"Dead!"

"Pauvre enfant! I was afraid so; and Diderot?

"Quiet now."

"Bon? he's one of my pets, you know! he calls me ma tante," and so saying she passed on into the darkness at the other end of the tent

"I wonder what that woman's come over here for," growled Frank.

"To see the Ancient Mariner, I presume." He isn't one of her patients."

" No; but she takes considerable interest in him."

" The Ancient Mariner was one of the pets of the camp. He was so called because he had the glittering eye and skinny hand of that strange man of Coleridge's tale; there was a wild flightiness in all his actions, and when he talked, his eyes shone with a mingled frenzy and kind of frightened stare. Ungainly in form and of a moody and reckless disposition, he had fought like a very demon on the battle-field, and received no less than nine wounds in different parts of his body. Most men might have died of these complicated injuries, but the mariner was very unlike the majority of men; he was one of those fierce, restless, plucky natures, which, seem to have some inner monitor that, like Barnaby Rudge's raven, keep croaking---"Never say die! " He clung to life with the marvellous tenacity of animal instinct, and yet without a single fear of death that men in his position are frequently led to express. He was a Mobile, and like most of the Mobiles, a pleasant lad, honest, ignorant, hard-handed and impulsive.

Beside him lay a wounded National Guard. He is a sleek, respectable, money-making merchant from the Rue Vivienne, and has his shop and family to care for. He thinks it well enough, for a while at least, to sport round in a natty uniform, to repair in the morning to the Palais Royal or the Champs de Mars to drill with his company, to manifest at the statue of Strasbourg with bouquets, speeches, and huzzas, and perhaps to sleep in the barracks over night with only a blanket and a couvre à pied. But you know one gets tired by and by even with playing at soldier. Besides, business is at a standstill; he has already lost considerably, and the quarter rents are coming in soon. He is, in every sense of the word, a moderate: his sentiments are diametrically opposed to guerre à l'outrance. He cannot very well mount guard at the outposts, for who would protect his hearth and home? He is in favor of sorties en masse, perhaps, but then, you see, how is it possible for him,,, to be forward in action, when his first and chief duties are those of a father and a husband. He would rather throw down his arms, and surrender, than have the Prussians invade Paris with fire and sword.

To this man---the contemptible outgrowth of a contemptible system---the Mobile is really not related.

"Mark his condition and the event; then tell me
If this might be a brother."

They both speak the same language, and are classed under the one exceedingly convenient class of Celt; but they differ from each other, as the Wall street broker differs from the Hudson river valley farmer. The one has been brought up amid this gilded system of espionnage and corruption; the other, in the wholesome atmosphere of the vintage, under the watchful eye of his curé. One has, by the sharp practices of: trade, become shrewd, politic, and artful; the other carries with him the guilelessness, the sobriety, the simple-mindedness of his provincial life. In war, one is hardy, faithful, orderly; the other delicate-handed, unstable, reluctant to labor. The National Guard and the Mobile are indeed types of the city and the Province, and, by the way, it is as unreasonable to judge the French people by the Parisians as it is to judge a provincial by a citizen.

"Hark!" Frank had jumped up and was peering into the farther end of the tent. H

At the same instant, we heard suppressed whispers, soon a sounding kiss --- a smart slap --- a curse --- a laugh --- and through the gloom a man's form rushed past us.

"The she-devil !" he muttered aloud.

"Who was it?" asked Frank excitedly.

"I couldn't tell; he passed too quickly."

"Didn't Warnock say he was going to watch with Lebord at that end of the tent, to-night?"

"Yes," I was obliged to say.

"It's very strange."

"What am strange?" spoke out a familiar voice at our elbow.

"Why, Madame Bernois," Frank answered, for it was she, "what was all that hubbub about, a little while ago?"

"Eh ! --- I catched him --- yah, yah! Massa Warnock, he will try to kiss me, and I --- las! I hit him such a box on the ear --- did you hear him ?" and slapping her hands together in great glee, Madame was gone like a flash.

"Lou," begun Frank, after a long interval of silence, during which we had been lying down to catch a little sleep, "was that Zouave --- Cosson ---married?"

I had to confess my ignorance, and he sank again into silence. What could he be thinking of? helping the widow in her bereavement? It would be just like him; he was supplying his poorer neighbors with bouillon gratuitously now. He hadn't the patience to sit and read of an afternoon to a bed-ridden, wounded man; but then he would stake five francs on a game of écarté and lose it on purpose.

"Lou!"

"Well?" I answered quickly, hoping to get at the object of his question.

"We are very near to God here."

Now Frank was never troubled with religious fears at, all, so I said with some surprise, and thinking now of the death of Cosson.

"We are indeed."

"And to the devil," he added.

WHATEVER mystery there had been in last night's proceedings, it was cleared away the next morning, with entire satisfaction to all parties concerned. It was a mere piece of pleasantry on the part of Warnock, and had met with rather a stinging rebuke from the irascible Madame, who, however, apologized for it in her blunt way when she happened upon the offender in the morning. So, despite the civil sneers and innuendoes of certain prim old ladies the camp, Madame still retained friends and favor at court, and mutual understanding and good humor were completely restored

Breakfast was scarcely over the next day, when she was observed crossing from her dominions to the ambulance. She came tripping daintily over the muddy places, her head thrown loftily back, her dark, oval face shining, and her pearly teeth glistening between the full red lips. Ah, Monsieur May, thou painter of portraits, is she not a queen in her way, this quadroon? Men say she was comely before the variola left its pock-marks in her skin, and even now, though inclining to corpulency, her form is of the exquisite mould of southern beauty. She passed over, entered the gate, and was going by the entrance of one of the tents when the well-known burden of a street song, accompanied by the clatter of a pair of heels, came to her ears : --

sang the solo in a high key.

"Oui," replied a chorus of voices.

"Mais pas un Socialist" continued the voice.

"Non," croaked the chorus, with considerable emphasis on the negative.

" Hey --- what's all this?" demanded Madame firing up, as she stepped into view, and threw around her glance of offended majesty, withering the group of infirmiers that sat there plucking sea-weed and stuffing mattrasses.

"Madame," began Alphonse, who appeared to be the maestro of the orchestra, and had evidently been capering about the boards to beat time to the music. But he got no further.

" Allez vite! and get to your work," was the stern command; and the dancer slunk away wincing under her look.

Satisfied with this exhibition of her authority, the quadroon went on with a lighter step and more queenly mien, directing her footsteps toward the kitchen. In the doorway stood Cantatrice, and the very presence of the two boded mischief of some kind. For once upon a time, after that the former chef de cuisine had been dismissed on a charge of petty larceny in camp, Madame had been placed, pro tem., at the head of the department, and for a while had ruled her army of tins and kettles and bare-armed attendants most royally and well. She was an excellent cook, and every inducement was held out to her from head-quarters to retain the position; but one day, after a series of provoking annoyances, arising from the malicious influence and scheming of certain outsiders, aliens to Israel, the persecuted woman came rushing into the Pharmacy, where the doctor and several aids sat in converse, and with wrathful eyes and outstretched hands, exclaimed in her broken English, the words quivering on her lips in the excess of her rage: ---"How you tink it looks --- eh? Tink dis chile goes over dar in de --- de cuisine any more? Non, non, non! Don't catch dis chile dar again. Why you laugh---hey? Don't you see it ruin my hands so I can no play de piano? Wat you tink on dit when dey see driving on de avenue ? Eh bien, voila la femme qui --- who cooked for de ambulance Américaine. Dis chile cook for de ambulance no longer - dar!" which meant, stripped of its sophistry, partly that Madame was tired of playing chef and wanted something else to do, but chiefly that she wanted to escape the nest of hornets, where she was vexed and thwarted by Cantatrice, Mrs. Cass, Jasienski the Pole, and others, of the same brood. Nevertheless, having once swayed the sceptre, Madame had now and then taken occasion to demonstrate to the camp that, despite her abdication, she still held no little share of the imperium in the culinary department; and hence her clan-like raids upon the larder were rather more frequent than even the regnant chef, good natured as he was, could brook with impunity.

It was with the air, then, of a former mistress, that she approached the kitchen entrance.

"Well, what do you want here?" asked Cantatrice in French, confronting the quadroon with a most provoking smile.

"Mademoiselle, is the chef within?" she said, restraining the ire that was so sure to break in flashes from her eyes, if it came at all.

"Qui sait?" with a slight shrug of the pretty shoulders, and a silvery laugh.

"Tu sais bien," was the quick retort.

The singer winced a bit at this insolent familiarity, then broke out into one of her tantalizing laughs, hard and ringing as metal.

"Does Madame want to see the chef particularly?" she said.

"Does Mademoiselle want a box on the ear---hey?"

"Madame is facetious."

"Mademoiselle is insolent."

"Oh, you saucy wench! to come over here among decent people and---"

"Mademoiselle's mouth is too large for her head."

"Tra-la-la, merci; it can serve its purposes well enough."

"If they're the Devil's---yes !"

"Mais, Madame wishes to see the chef?"

"Eh bien ?"

"Ask Monsieur Warnock where he is."

"And not Monsieur Jasiaski?" was the spiteful retort.

"Pauvre enfant! I will have you on my last bead to-night," and with a pealing laugh, Cantatrice retired.

Madame passed into the kitchen, but was thence attracted to the dining room by the sounds of a voice which she had good reason to know. It was just at the close of the morning meal, and the gentlemen of the staff were still seated about the table, and at present listening to the Pole, who stood in the center of the room, waving a piece of paper, and talking loudly. He was commonly a mild, well conducted personage, but this morning his soul was stirred with the glory of triumph, and he seemed inflated proportionately.

"Zere is it not very good? fifty-one kilos --- ze bon is for fifty-one kilos, messieurs. I got it by a coup d'etat of my own. It is a good morning's work, n'est ce pas?"

Indeed Jasienski was jubilant. As purveyor to the hospital he had proved himself useful in procuring by personal solicitation of the public such necessaries as coffee, sugar, chocolate and wine; but to obtain an order for any large amount of beef required the honor being in the same ratio. Now in this, as in other matters, the Pole and Rienzi the Italian often came in conflict, and the rivalry between them was bitter and unceasing. On the morning in question, Jasienski had succeeded in drawing an order for fifty-one kilos, and had returned to display it to the assembled ambulance, particularly, perhaps, for the benefit of the Italian, who was sitting quietly apart, with an expression on his countenance impossible to define. He was observed, too, to be restive and uneasy as the Polish gentleman went on with his talk.

"Zis is all, then," he concluded, triumphantly, looking askance at his dark-eyed rival, "and Mademoiselle may go and get ze meat directly. It is no leettle matère to get fifty-one kilos of fresh beef."

" Tenez !" cried the Italian rising all of a sudden, and addressing the other, "let me see your bon."

" No, monsieur, I cannot," he replied withdrawing a step or two.

"Diavolo! --- I don't believe it's good, Monsieur Pole."

"Does monsieur doubt my word?"

"Let me see it then."

"I will not."

"It must be stale horse-meat --- assuredly, it is horse-meat."

"No, no --- I tell you no; messieurs, do not trust his insinuation."

"Sacr-r r-r- -"

"Monsieur, the curé is in the room."

"Peste! what is fifty-one kilos, any way ?"

"Can Monsieur get fifty-one kilos ?"

"Ha-ha!"

"Can Monsieur get more than fifty-one kilos? repeated the irate Pole emphatically."

"Per Bacco!" the other exclaimed, leaning over the table with flaming eyes, his very hands trembling with the eagerness of passion, as he pulled out of his breast-pocket a piece of crumpled paper, and shook it exultingly in the Pole's face. "Voila-voila mon ami - a bon for one hundred and twenty kilos."

"One hundred and twenty kilos!" shrieked the bewildered purveyor.

"One hundred and twenty kilos," was the answer.

" 'Tis false."

"Parbleu!"

"It's a forgery."

"Eh!"

By this time quite a crowd had collected in the doorways, and even the chef with his attendants had abandoned the pots and boilers to witness the squabble. Seeing this, and fearful that it might result more seriously than at first anticipated, the Dominie interfered, and attempted to arrest the progress of the quarrel which it bid fair to become. While yet the reverend gentleman was engaged in his difficult task of arbitration, Madame, who had heretofore kept unnoticed in the shade, watching for her opportunity, glided softly out of the room, entered the deserted kitchen, ransacked the closets, and finally decamped with a paper of Leibic and a few pounds of beef.

A few minutes afterward she stood in the stately hail of the chevalier's maison.

"Jacques --- Eugénie --- Théophile?" cried her majesty shrilling.

A white cap appeared above the stairway, and ---

"Madame?" said the head cook of the household. Then Jacques, the fratteur, came, and finally the "bonne," hobbling along in her sabots.

" Théophile," commanded madame rapidly in French, "take this beef, and have it well done ---well done- do you understand. And you, Eugénie, bring down some more sheets and pillow-cases ---don't touch those cases on your life---and here are the keys---go!" and as the two departed on their separate errands, "now, Jacques, where are the confitures you promised me? Come, no lying, sir."

"Madame," replied the little withered man, with a preliminary shrug, "it was impossible for me to do anything."

" Coquin !"

"Non, Madame, pardonnez moi---" with a comical screw of the shrivelled lips, "I could not really."

" Why? --- tell me the why, misérable," exclaimed his angered mistress.

The 'Major' was there---"

"Go and tell the 'Major' himself what you want, ignorant. Did you suppose I sent you to steal ?"

" Eh bien! that was just what I thought," he said under his breath, gazing after the vanishing form of his mistress, with a sly wink of one eye.

A strange compound of shrewdness and ignorance, of humor and dullness, is Maître Jacques, the old peasant man of the Haute Garonne. His pinched, sallow, wizened face --- with its firm mouth, double chin, knotted throat and twinkling gray eyes, is a study for the artist. Despite his shoulder-stoop and wrinkled skin, his sinews and muscles are yet tough and elastic, for he is of the long-lived and well-preserved race. His occupation is to polish floors, which he has followed, like his father and his father's father before him, from his youth upward, and never dreams of changing or rising from a profession which like that of chiffonier, is hereditary in the family. After waxing the oaken boards, he jumps upon his polisher and by a peculiar twist and forward movement of the body, propels it onward, and so over and over until the surface is shining like the mirrors of the Maison Dorée. But to return.

Half an hour later, Madame was in her own ward, bending over the attenuated form of a boy not over sixteen years of age. On the bed lay a tray containing a dish of Leibic, a plate of beef; and a desert of coffee and confitures. Young François had been struck in the hip by a fragment of shell while peeping through an aperture at the fortifications, and being brought to the maison, Madame had made him her special charge. It was an inexplicable mystery to us how she came to be so attached to the poor lad. Day and night she watched over him; his sufferings seemed to become by her intense sympathy her own sufferings. She fed him, and dressed his wounds, with her own hands, and none else but the Major was permitted to touch him. For the boy's sake, she would scold the servants, and deceive the aids, plunder the lockers, and even go so far as to confront Mrs. Cass's righteous wrath. But all her care, her watching, her tenderness, proved unavailing

One cold night in January, poor little François was released from his pain and suffering, and all the night long, the devoted woman kept her vigil, grief-stricken and alone, with the cold corpse.

It was in the cool of the summer mornings, long after the siege, and but a few weeks after the commune, that Madame told me the story of her life.

She was the natural child of a mulatto girl and a New Orleans smuggler. Her mother had been kidnapped from her home in Louisiana, conveyed to France, brought back again fortuitously, made the wager of a desperate gambling game, and thus finally bartered into slavery to satisfy a master's whim. Her father, whom she unwittingly represented to be a bold, reckless, unprincipled ruffian, was by profession a seaman, and was in the habit of making voyages to the Mexican coasts, purchasing contraband goods, and smuggling them through the custom house, to be sold at auction in the streets of New Orleans. Helen---that was the name of the offspring of this ill-starred liaison --- could not, according to the statutes of the New Orleans slave-law, be separated from her mother until she had reached the age of ten, and consequently, when sold by her quondam master, mother and child were sold together. They were bought by a Mr Percy, for the sum of one thousand and eight hundred dollars.

It was in this gentleman's house that the child's troubles seem to have begun. On one occasion she was ordered to scour the table-knives; on her mistress's return, she had succeeded only in burnishing the blades and rendering the rust-spots more indelible Incensed at the girl's ignorance, and perhaps, further irritated by the sharpness of her tongue, though Madame would not acknowledge that, Mrs. Percy caught up one of the knives, and threw it with considerable force at the white face of the trembling culprit. It left a gash, the marks of which she carried through life. It was not a new kind of treatment to the child, and still bleeding, and wild with pain, she rushed screaming into the street. There was little help for her; she was forced to return to the house, and the daily routine of abuse and rebuff, which was the slave's inevitable portion in not a few of these southern families.

Her connection with the Percy's, however, was severed soon afterward. She had requested of the mistress of the house permission to go out, and, though refused the liberty, persisted in the demand; a violent scene ensued; the woman was angered at the child's obstinacy; in a fit of passion, she seized in her grasp the long, black, glossy locks, and, despite the most desperate resistance, clipped them off handful by handful, with a relentless cruelty that was characteristic of just such a woman as Madame described her to be. On hearing her tale, her father went directly to Mr. Percy's bank, accused him of maltreatment of his child, menaced him with the power of the law, and ultimately frightened him into a bargain, by which Helen was sold to her parent for eight hundred dollars. But she was still in servitude.

Nothing will better illustrate several sides of this remarkable woman's character than the following anecdote, which she related with a candor and appearance of truthfulness hard to question. A woman of bad reputation --- a poor unfortunate --- was wounded in the streets, and nobody would take her in. Helen happening to be by, and seeing the destitute condition of the woman, had her carried to her mother's dwelling, and there, day by day, watched over and cared for her. Strongly opposed to her bringing home and nursing one of so disreputable a character, and finding her own expostulations unavailing, her mother at length prevailed on the parish priest to interfere.

"What!" said Helen, in her bold, impulsive way, in reply to the solemn reproof of the churchman, "turn her out into the street! Is that your humanity---your Christianity? Who's your master, Monsieur le Curé? Shame on you! Show me where the woman can be cared for, and I will have her taken there, but turn her out into the street! shame on you !--No, I don't want your counsel." She spoke in French,. and no doubt well, as she always did when roused and indignant. She has been heard to rebuke a gentleman, her elder and superior, with an eloquence that, though rude and disjointed, was impressive at the time. It was supremely ludicrous when you reflected on the circumstances afterward.

She was still almost a child when she became engaged to a young Englishman, who lived opposite her mother's in New Orleans. There is little doubt he married the girl for her beauty; nothing else, as far as one can see, would have overbalanced so completely the common prejudices of blood and color. And in the bloom of her youth she was undoubtedly a beautiful girl. Even at the time we knew her, the clear-cut, regular features, the oval, smiling face, the wavy, black hair the dark, rich hue, and finely-developed form, showed signs of an alluring womanhood. She obtained her freedom, was married, and, in a few years --- deserted. The husband sailed to Europe, taking one child with him, and leaving a boy behind with the mother. The French law of marriage did not hold outside of France and New Orleans. Madame Bernois went to Paris.

At Paris Madame found employment of a peculiar nature. It will be remembered that long before the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon had in his employ a large detective force, and few, even of the friends of the empire, knew who these secret agents were, so perfectly was the system organized. In every public office, in every private household, it is said that there was at least one suborned spy. There is reason to believe that Madame Bernois was enrolled on the books of this secret service. Very few would have guessed that that dark, stylish little lady, who rode out to the Bois every afternoon in her phaeton, with a little boy richly attired by her side, was an emissary of the Emperor and a seamstress of the Princess Mathilde. Still less would the idea have occurred to you, could you have attended one of her reunions in the Boulevard des Italiens. With untiring perseverance and resolution, Madame had taught herself to write a fair hand and to play passably on the piano; she was naturally a ready and vivacious talker, and what with her iron strength of will, her ready apprehension, and quick insight into character, and shrewd way of guessing at things, contrived to please and amuse the class of people who frequented her salon, politicians, third-rate artists, and newspaper reporters.

There is a story she used to tell in connection with the imperial family which I give in outline, though not able to vouch for its truth. The Princess Mathilde had several trunks of plate and jewelry in England, which she desired very much to have transported into France, and with as much secrecy as possible. Madame Bernois was chosen for the enterprise. She was, as I have said, needlewoman to the princess, and in France, this implies a closer relation than that of mistress and maid in America. It might be due to her fidelity as a serving woman, as well as to her cunning and artfulness, that she was selected for so important a trust; at any rate Madame was sent, and within a marvellously short time, the trunks of treasure were safe in the Tuilleries, and not a breath of suspicion raised. She had brought them across the channel, one by one, each time in a different disguise, and each time on a different line of boats. One can hardly give credence to this tale it sounds too much like fiction; and yet it is not much above the par of some of Madame's exploits during the Commune, which are known to have been performed.

It is certain, however that this remarkable woman was, at sometime and in some capacity, associated intimately with those in power. The Archbishop recognized her when he met her in the wards of the hospital. Trochu shook hands with her. Sarrazin seemed to know her well, and Ricord nodded to her as he passed by. She was acquainted with nearly all of the editors who visited the camp. These, in themselves trifles, in Paris are big with significance. It will be noticed that with the overthrow of the Empire, Madame's fortunes declined; and looking at this portion of her history, one comes all of a sudden to the undercurrent of that great hidden life of Paris, about which we know so little. Yet she still had access to the Palace and Corps Législatif. For instance, we were desirous, before leaving Paris, of procuring some pieces of the imperial plate, as mementos of the fallen dynasty, and to whom should we apply but Madame Bernois? And she got what we wanted; two or three huge servers of fine Sèvres china with the golden crown in the centre, three or four finely-cut tumblers bearing the crown, a pitcher with red decoration, one with gilt edging and crown, and another, magenta decoration, with L. P., surmounted by the Bourbon crown. It is not easy to see how she could have secured this ware outside of the Tuilleries.

She was indeed a most extraordinary woman; the most opposite and conflicting elements seemed to meet in her character, and one seldom knew when to trust, and when to distrust her. Some would at once, without much forethought or deliberation, have pronounced her a bold, bad woman, but the judgment would have been uncharitable as it was unjust. To the wounded she was as tender and careful as a sister of mercy; she treated her own bright-eyed little son with the harshness of fabled step-mothers. Scanning her conduct on the outside, one might suppose it to be shaped mainly by selfishness of aim and interest; but there were times when you could look into her heart, and say for certain, it were not so. She would spend days by the side of friends taken with the smallpox, and covertly carry provisions to those in need. Her motives were as evidently controlled by prejudice and partiality as by personal interest. She did indeed bow and cringe to a few superiors, and probably she had her reasons for it, but she made distinctions on the grounds of like and dislike all the same. She liked and hated with equal intensity --- the outgrowth of a warm, impulsive, unrestrained nature. Toward certain ladies who had opposed her entrance to the Ambulance, on the pretext of color, she nourished a grudge as lasting as life; her friends were the recipients of a thousand little acts of kindness and regard. To gain any end she had in view, it mattered not to what extent of . lying and deception she was carried. Her ingenuousness, her bluntness of speech, her boldness and frankness of carriage, were only masks to a crafty and artful brain. From her bitter life-experience, she had learned to penetrate almost unerringly into the hearts and intents of men, and to conceal her own designs in turn. Her resoluteness and energy were truly wonderful, and for the development of these qualities of mind, all her life seems to have been a school. Her fearlessness of opinion and promptitude in action carried her triumphantly over every obstacle, whatever its difficulty and magnitude. A woman, in whom there was something of good and a good deal of evil---a woman, who, with education and moral restraints, would perhaps have made a Madame de Stäel politically --- a woman destined to remain the lower walks of life, a spy, and petty intriguer.