countries; a woman as stainless as our saints, yet as merciful as our religion! I see the shadow of a doubt on your brow, but you will find such women in France still; not often in our books, but whenever you meet a true French gentleman, you will perceive that such women exist, and that he has known them.

"Well, the presence of Mme. de Parangon became a torture at once and a fascination to our unhappy Nicholas. Gaudet lifted to his lips the cup of Circe. He began to haunt the vulgar village orgies. You remember de Musset's La Coupe et les Lévres ?"

"I answered,

"Ah! malheur à celui qui laisse la débauche Planter le premier clou sous sa mamelle gauche;

Le cœur d'un homme vierge est un vase profond;

Lorsque la premiére eau qu'on y verse est impure

La mer y passerait sans laver la souillure, Car l'abime est immense, et la tache est au fond!'

"Yes!" Paul resumed, sadly, "the Circe of the Palais Royal breathed contagion over the half of France. The influences of Mme. Parangon, sweet as those of the Pleiades, were rained down in vain upon Restif. He began to wear the bold air, to throw himself into the coarse attitudes, to speak with the husky, vinous voice, of vulgar debauchees. He wrote verses in the style of Lafare and Chaulieu to Aglae and Marianne, to Delphine and to Rose. Little by little he broke the heart of Mme. Parangon, and so depraved himself, that long afterwards, looking back on these days, he wrote, but for my love of work, I should have become a ruffian at nineteen.'

"Well, one day Mme. Parangon died; Gaudet d'Arras went away; Nicholas must seek his fortune at Paris. Before he went, Parangon, who knew that Nicholas had addressed his wife, and was coarse enough to suspect her (she then lying in her grave), avenged himself by leading Nicholas into a marriage with one of the worst and most notorious girls in the town. This Agnes soon ran away with one of her cousins, but not till the miserable union had completed the moral perversion of Nicholas.

"I shall not follow Restif through all his Parisian history. I have dwelt specially on his youth, that I might illus

trate to you the fatal influence of the spirit of that last age upon a genius born for poetry and truth.

"Yet if you are not tired, I should like to relate to you an episode or two of that strange career, which paints the manners of those times far better than solemn histories."

"By all means, " I answered; "we are not very near Paris yet, and I will light another cigar."

'In 1757, Nicholas used to be seen every night at the Comédie Française, where his graceful and vigorous form, his black, expressive eyes, his stronglymarked features, and rich brown complexion, his air of mingled audacity and refinement, his costume always elegant, though simple, made him a noticeable figure in the parterre. He was pursu

ing his trade as a printer, but spent a large part of his gains at the theatre, of which he was as fond as Goethe. Moreover he had conceived a dreamy ideal passion for 'la belle Gucant,' who was then winning all suffrages. A born poet is a man born to eternal illusions; and Nicholas for a year had been feeding his fancy on the sight of this divinity of the stage. He had never spoken to her. She was his Jeannette of Paris. Ah! how different from the fair young vision of his boyhood, and yet a dream of Arcadia in the island of Circe!

"He used to follow her out to her sedan-chair every night, and saw with joy that she always entered it alone. He used to walk by her windows, and watch her shadow on the curtains, as he had walked by the poplars of La Fontaine Froide, and kissed the stones of the church of Sacy.

"One night, on leaving the theatre, Mlle. Guéant, instead of taking her chair, put her arm through that of another actress, and hurried off some distance down the street, to a carriage, into which she got, and rode rapidly away. The heart of Nicholas burned with jealousy. He ran after the carriage in a kind of frenzy, and, getting out of breath, jumped up behind. The coach stopped at last, in the then splendid quarter of the Temple. Nicholas was at the door in an instant, and then, for the first time, reflected,

"What business have I here?' "Get out first, Junie!' said Mlle. Guéant's sweet, deep voice.

As Junie descended, Nicholas re

cognized a danseuse whom he had met before, and held out his hand.

"You of the party!' cried Junie. Are you a prince then, or a poet; for we have no others here?'

"I am a prince of the house of the Emperor Pertinax,' answered Nicholas solemnly; but where are we?'

"At the Hotel de Hollande, where the Venetian ambassador gives a fête; but your arm, man, your arm!'

"Nicholas mechanically obeyed, and they followed Mlle. Guéant up the brilliant stairway into the splendid salon. There were many women there, Voltaire's Camargo, the too famous Guimard, Arnold, Levasseur. The supper was exquisite; and when it was over, each guest, in turn, was called upon. This one sang, that one danced, Grécourt recited a tale, Piron a reckless poem; one of the actresses turned at last to Nicholas, and la belle Guéant fixed her eyes upon him. He hesitated. Will you give us something, monsieur?' said Mlle. Guéant, with a smile. He is a little prince,' cried Junie, he is good for nothing, does nothing. He is a descendant of the Emperor Pert-Pert'-Nicolas blushed to the eyes.-'Pertinax! that's it!' said Junie. The Venetian ambassador frowned. He was strong in genealogies. He, a Mocenigo of the Libro d'Oro, had no faith in princes of Imperial Roman blood. Nicholas saw that he was in danger. He rose and began to recite his genealogy; how Helvius, son of Pertinax, hidden in the Apennines, had wedded Didia Juliana, the persecuted daughter of the Emperor Didius! A coquettish abbé shook his head dubiously. Nicholas overwhelmed him with quotations, and recited the marriage contract of his ancestors. Then he went on from Pertinax to Pertinax, down to the sixtieth of the name, who translated his patronymic into the French Restif. Of all this long story he made a cutting brilliant satire on genealogies in general; so well he told it, and so captivated all his hearers, that they urged him to go on and tell his own history. That, you know, was the age of confessions. Nicholas made his rapidly, passionately, with a kind of fiery simplicity, which moved that frivolous company, and lit a spark of youth again in those worn-out hearts.

"As he ended, la belle Guéant, with

a voice full of emotion, exclaimed, 'Is all that possible? Can one really love so ?'

666 Yes, madame,' answered Nicholas, it is as true as the genealogy of the Pertinaxes. As to the person I loved, she was so like you that nothing could console me for the loss of her, but my admiration of you!'

"A storm of applause followed. Restif was pronounced a finer poet than Rousseau, a more touching romancer than Prévost.

"From that moment the poor workman had entered the magic circle of the splendid pollutions of his age.

"The supper ended in a style not then uncommon.

"At a signal all the lights were put out, and a sort of blind-man's buff began in the dark. Nicholas, standing confounded, by his chair, suddenly felt a soft hand trembling in his. The voice of la Guéant spoke in the darkness, • Will you find my carriage for me?'

"As they descended the stairs, they heard the laugh of Junie in the distance.

66

"Yes," answered Paul, "romance enough of a certain kind, but I am with Danton for prose and decency. Restif had enough of your romance," he continued. "He was twice romantically married. Once, just after his hateful Agnes was good enough to die; he was sitting in the Luxembourg garden, and the talk of two ladies near by him attracted his attention. Restif was as curious, you must know, as Condamine, who stole a trifle in Smyrna, that he might experience the bastinado, and so he listened with all his ears, when he found that these ladies were discussing matters of business. They were foreigners, and the younger one must infallibly lose all her fortune in a lawsuit, if she could not become a Frenchwoman by marriage within twenty-four hours. Here was a case for a knighterrant ! Restif to the rescue! He

stepped up to the distressed damsel, offered his services, was accepted, and they were married the next day!

"Of course the bride soon decamped, and carried with her all the savings of poor Restif, and everything he possessed but the clothes on his back!

"After this marriage, he lived for years a wild life of feverish adventure.

"His soul was full of instincts early perverted-never utterly destroyed. He panted to be something and to do something.

Beaumarchais had introduced him somewhat into the world; his ambition as a writer was kindled; he resolved to teach his age by painting himself and his life; he became the most terrible realist of literature. Inflamed by the example of Rousseau, he thirsted to reform mankind; and infected, as he was, with the materialism of the times, he believed that life was only to be understood through experience; that nobody could know what pitch was without touching it; that one ought to try everything, exhaust everything, and so reach the perfection of wisdom by draining the world."

"Oh! impossible," Paul replied; "you cannot have comprehended the man, if you say so. Why, his books are the very seething scum of the philosophy of the encyclopedists. He tore off every veil from himself; his novels, his social theories, his political pamphlets are all so many Confessions of Restif.' You think Rousseau cynical, but Rousseau is reserved in comparison with Restif. 'People,' he says, in his famous Paysan perverti (a book that ran through fortytwo editions in England alone!) 'think fables instructive. Well, I am a great fabulist, teaching others at my own expense. I am all animals! sometimes a cunning fox; sometimes a slow, obstinate donkey; sometimes a fierce, bold lion; sometimes a cowardly, hungry wolf!' I spare you the eagle, the goat, and the hare-the details of the spell of Circe! There is nothing good nor bad in itself; let us find out the use of everything, and so make the world more comfortable-there is the sum of Restif's philosophy. Do you mean to say that anything like this doctrine prevails in your young, patriotic, religious America?"

"Prevails? no!" I answered, "nor precisely that doctrine. But I am not sure that our materialism is less dangerous for being more specious than Restif's was. In the time of Restif you had in France a world of the aristocracy, who worshiped pleasure, and who believed Restif's creed without sharing his philanthropy. In America, now, we have a world of busy men, who worship success, and whose creed is even more desolate. They don't care whether there be anything good or bad; as some one has neatly summed it up, their faith is simply this: there's nothing new, there's nothing true, and it don't much signify! It is the sad side of our life that we haven't even our romance; that we are not so much vicious as apathetic; so that sometimes one is really at a loss to know why people should take the trouble to live."

"At least, if this be so," Paul answered, "you are spared the madness of misdirected philosophy; the inflammation of disorderly thought such as preceded our terrible revolution."

"No," I replied; "amid our busy world we have another world of passionate materialistic thinkers. Everything is questioned, everything is denied. We have men who insist upon experiencing everything; who insist that all the moral law is discoverable in the nerves; that this life was meant to be complete. Have we not our 'spiritualists, who tell us that all the unseen world is literally a lackeydom for the convenience of this; our students of nature. who are, after all, the mere slaves of impulse?"

Heaven help you, then," Paul replied, "for you have mighty convulsions before you!"

"What finally became of Restif?" I asked, after a pause.

"He lived on into the Revolution. His works multiplied with his years. It was his habit to traverse Paris day and night; sometimes he wandered through the most brilliant quarters-sometimes through the foulest. But wherever he stumbled on an adventure, he pursued it; the life, the passions, the miseries, the crimes of Paris, were his constant study. His 'romances' were so numerous that, in the disorder of his brain, he came at last to believe that he had a wife in every street of the city, and to fancy himself the father of every child he met. Whatever happened to him

he instantly committed to print; there is not a scene of his hundred novels which is not a picture from life. And what pictures! Once he pursued a lady in a black satin cloak, with green slippers, up into one of the gamblinghouses of the Quays. He never saw her face; and when he tried to make some inquiries at the gambling-house, he was told that his life depended on his silence. Years afterward, while descending the Rhine, he saw a lovely young girl in the company of two ladies, and overhearing their conversation, found that the child was the lifelong disappointment of a prince of the house of Courtenay, who had sent his wife, the daughter of the Duc de Richelieu, in search of an heir, fourteen years before! There were circumstances in the tale which poured a sudden light upon Restif's memory of the green slippers. And yet, we hear people declaim against Rousseau for leaving his children at the Foundling Hospital, as if he were the one unnatural being of his age!"

Restif called himself a reformer. He published his romances as fast as we now print in the newspapers. In six years he wrote eighty-five volumes! They all had one object to persuade men that property was the root of all mischief."

"He anticipated St. Simon, then, and Proudhon?" I said.

"If you choose to put together, as people always do, men who are as much alike as Voltaire and Rousseau," Paul replied, with a smile. "He was a Socialist, certainly, in a vague, fiery fashion. But the revolution disturbed and distressed him.

He mourned, terribly, over the death of Mirabeau, of whom he has left us the most vivid sketches, and Cubirères draws a melancholy picture of Restif as he saw him, towards the end of his life, silent and moody, and not answering when he was spoken to. He was no longer the Restif of those fine festivals which Grimod de la Reynière used to give, where no one was admitted who would not promise to drink eleven cups of coffee, and where, after a series of electrical experiments, dinner was announced by a herald in his tabaret, and served in silver, on a round table lighted with three hundred and

sixty-six lamps; while lovely servingmaids, in Roman robes, presented their long tresses to the guests, for napkins!

"Weary and worn out, at last, Restif, about the year 1794, went back to Courgis, where he had first learned Latin and love. The republicans had laid waste the church; but the poplars of La Fontaine Froide were still standing. Where was Jeannette Rousseau ?

"Restif walked up to the old house. An old woman sits spinning in the doorway. It is Jeannette; the same bright eye lights up the withered roses of her cheeks; the old grace lingers about the lines of her bowed and trembling form!

66

Then, you don't think Restif very engaging, with all his romance,'" said Paul. But, in his old age, the French nation voted him two thousand francs, 'for his services to morality!' and the Academy would have received him, but for his want of taste!"

"And here!" he cried, as a furious ringing of bells broke in upon his talk, "here we are, at the Embarcadere, and this is Paris. Restif is at rest now. Is the spell of Circe broken?"