fri

Nov. 1860.]

THE REGISTER.

NOVEMBER 1, 1860.

NOTICE.

FORBES, R.N.; "A Residence in Jutland, the Danish Isles,
and Copenhagen," by Mr. HORACE MARRYAT; a "Personal
Narrative of Two Years' Imprisonment in Burmah, 1824.
1826," by Mr. HENRY GOUGER; "The Private Diary of
General Sir ROBERT WILSON during his Missions and Em-
ployment in Spain, Sicily, Turkey, Russia, Poland, Germany,
"Ancient Law: its Connexion with the
etc., 1812-1814;"
Early History of Society, and its Relation to Modern Ideas,"
by Mr. H. SUMNER MAINE; "Sunday: its Origin, History,
and Present Obligations," by the Rev. J. A. HESSEY, D.C.L.,

While adding to the REGISTER 2 department devoted to the publication of Works of the Imagination,-a feature not included in its original plan,-the conductors beg to announce that they are making arrangements for securing the absolute completeness of this journal as a "Register of Facts and Occurrences Relating to Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts." Narrative articles, record-being the Bampton Lectures for 1860; and the longing all that shall have taken place during the month preceding announced "New Edition" of "The Life and Works of their date in connexion with the various departments of science, Alexander Pope;" embodying the "three hundred unpublished and the various branches of the arts, will constitute a prominent letters" which have been so much talked-and writtenMessrs. BLACKWOOD and SONS announce an "Autobiog feature of each subsequent number of the REGISTER, while the about. "Literary Intelligence" department will in future be much fuller, and the general literary and scientific articles much briefer and raphy of the Rev. Dr. ALEXANDER CARLYLE, Minister of

more numerous than in the present number.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

THE following is a pretty complete list of the more important
of the new books announced by the magnates of the book-
selling world for publication during the season we are just
entering upon.

Messrs. LONGMAN and Co. will publish the "Autobiog-
raphy, Letters, and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi
(THRALE), author of ' Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson,'" edited by
Mr. A. HAYWARD, Q.C.; a "Narrative of the Canadian Red
River, and Assinniboine and Sascatchewan Exploring Expedi-
tions," by Mr. HENRY YOULE HIND, M.A., F.R.G.S.,
Professor of Chemistry and Geology in Trinity College,
Toronto; the first volume of a "Constitutional History of Eng-
land, since the Accession of George the Third, 1760-1860,"
by Mr. THOMAS ERSKINE MAY, Barrister-at-Law, and Clerk-
Assistant of the House of Commons; "Half-hour Lectures
on the History and Practice of the Fine and Ornamental
Arts," by Mr. WILLIAM B. SCOTT, Head-Master of the
Government School of Design, Newcastle; and author of
"Memoirs of DAVID SCOTT, R.S.A.;" "The Chase of the
Wild Red Deer in the Counties of Devon and Somerset," by
Mr. CHARLES PALK COLLYNS; "Political Ballads of the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," collected and
annotated by Mr. W. WALKER WILKINS; a poem, entitled
"First and Last;" "My Life, and what shall I do with It?
A Question for young Gentlewomen. By an Old Maid;"
"The Life and Professional Services of Sir JAMES M'GRIGOR,
Bart., late Director-General of the Army Medical Depart-
ment," being an autobiography; and a "Second Series of
Useful Information for Engineers," by Mr. WILLIAM FAIR-
BAIRN, F.R.S., President of the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Manchester.

66

Mr. MURRAY has in preparation a "Life of the Right Hon. WILLIAM PITT, with extracts from Unpublished Correspondence and MSS. Papers," by Earl STANHOPE; "The Diary and Correspondence of CHARLES ABBOTT, Lord COLCHESTER, Speaker of the House of Commons, 1802-1817," edited by his Son; "The Debates on the Grand Remonstrance, 1641, with an Introductory Essay on English Freedom under Plantagenent and Tudor Sovereigns," by Mr. JOHN FORSTER; "The Personal History of Lord BACON, from Unpublished Letters and Documents," by Mr. W. HEPWORTH DIXON, the biographer of BLAKE and PENN, and the editor of the "The Horse and his Rider," by Sir FRANCIS B. Athenæum ; Essays on Religious and Literary Subjects," being HEAD; a collection of contributions to the Quarterly Review by the late Rev. J. J. BLUNT, D.D.; "Antique Gems: their Origin, Use, and Value, as Illustrative of Ancient History and Art," by the Rev. C. W. KING; "The Origin and History of by Mr. F. W. FARRAR, author of "Eric;" a Language,' "History of the United Netherlands, from the Death of WILLIAM the SILENT to the Death of OLDEN BARNEVELD, embracing a detailed account of the Spanish Armada," by Mr. J. LOTHROP MOTLEY, author of the "History of the Dutch Republics;" "The Great Sahara; or, Wanderings South of the Atlas Mountains ;" by H. B. TRISTAM, M.A.; "Iceland: its Volcanoes, Geysers, and Glaciers," being an account of an a suminer excursion by Commander C. S. exploration on

Inveresk, containing Memorials of the Men and Events of his
Time;" an authorized translation of "The Monks of the
"WELLINGTON'S
West," by the Count de MONTALEMBERT ;
Lady Lee's Widow-
Career; a Military and Political Summary," by Captain
EDWARD BRUCE HAMLEY, author of "
sketch in Outline of the World's Life System," by Mr.
hood;" "The Past and Present Life of the Globe, being a
DAVID PAGE, F.G.S., author of "Text-Books on Geology;"
a new library edition of Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON'S "History
of Europe," in eleven volumes, demy 8vo; "English Puri.
tanism and its Leaders: CROMWELL, MILTON, BAXTER, and
BUNYAN," by JOHN TULLOCH, D.D., author of "Leaders of
the Reformation;" "The Punjab and Delhi in 1857, being a
Narrative of the Measures by which the Punjab was saved
and Delhi recovered during the Indian Mutiny," by the Rev.
J. CAVE-BROWN, Chaplain of the Punjab Movable Column;
and "The Book of Farm Buildings, their Arrangement and
Construction," by Mr. HENRY STEPHENS, F.R.S.E., and
Mr. R. Scott Burn.

Messrs. CHAPMAN and HALL'S announcements include the
third and concluding volume of Mr. THOMAS MACKNIGHT'S
"History of the Life and Times of EDMUND BURKE;" a
66
and Across
volume on "The Philosophy of Progress in Human Affairs,"
"My
by Mr. HENRY JAMES SLACK; "The Philosophy and History
of Civilization," by Mr. ALEXANDER ALISON;
the Straits," by Mrs. ANNE MEREDITH, authoress of "
Home in Tasmania."

Messrs. BELL and DALDY announce "Sea Kings and Naval Heroes: a Book for Boys," by Mr. J. G. EDGAR, illustrated by KEENE and JOHNSON; a new volume of poems by Miss ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER, the daughter of BARRY CORNWALL; "The Manse of Mastland," translated from the English Ladies in the Seventeenth Century," by the author Dutch, by Mr. THOMAS KEIGHLY; "The Home Life of of "Magdalen Strafford;" and "The Life and Times of Aoneo Paleario; or, a History of the Italian Reformers in the Sixteenth Century," by Mr. M. YOUNG.

Messrs. SMITH, ELDER, and Co. announce "On the Conduct of Life," by Mr. RALPH WALDO EMERSON; "Lavinia," by the author of "Dr. Antonio" and "Lorenzo Benoni ;" a volume of "Fairy Tales" by HOLME LEE; the concluding volumes of Mr. WILLIAM C. HAZLITT's "History of the VeneEgypt in its Biblical Relations," by the Rev. J. FOULKES tian Republic: her Rise, her Greatness, and her Civilization;" JONES; "SHAKSPEARE and his Birthplace," by Mr. JOHN R. WISE; and "Turkish Life and Character," by Mr. WALTER THORNBURY.

Messrs. RICHARD GRIFFIN and Co. have in preparation "A Dictionary of Contemporary Biography: a ReferenceBook to the Peerage of Rank, Worth, and Intellect, contain" "A Treatise on the British Constitution," by ing the Lives of above One Thousand Eminent Living PerYoung Benjamin Franklin: a sonages; HENRY LORD BROUGHAM; Book for Boys," by MR. HENRY MAYHEW, author of "The Peasant Boy Philosopher;" the concluding portion of "A "A Life of WILLIAM COBBETT, Social, Manual of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy," by the Rev. F. D. MAURICE; Literary, and Political, partly Autobiographical, and continued by his Son, JAMES PAUL COBBETT, Barrister;" "The Complete Works of WILLIAM HOGARTH, comprising 150 Fine

THE PRIMA DONNA'S REVENGE.

A ROMANCE IN SIX CHAPTERS.

BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA,

AUTHOR OF "TWICE ROUND THE CLOCK," "A JOURNEY DUE NORTH," THE "HOGARTH PAPERS," ETC. ETC.

CHAPTER I.

THE MARQUIS OF SWINESTALE'S BOUNTY.

throwing and the other a paper mill. The introduction of the factory element, however, brought neither smoke, profligacy, intemperance, discontent, nor strikes for wages to CidreFontaines. The machinery of the mills was very primitive. The hours of work were few. Rouen and not Paris was the metropolis of the villagers. No great capitalists, native or foreign, had come down to amass gigantic fortunes for themselves by grinding the faces of the poor; and Colin the silkPRAY bear this in mind: that I don't for one moment gua- throwster and Jacqueline the rag-sorter lived happily and rantee the truth of this story. I believe in it myself, word cheerfully enough on very small wages. MM. Dubois and for word, and every word of it; but there are some people so Riflard, proprietors of the respective mills, were glad enough incredulous that they refuse to put faith even in a gentleman to realize a decent competence; paid the fines of their workfloating in the air across a drawing-room window, and who people when the garde chasse summoned them before the with his ethereal toe may salute them on the cheek. To such mayor of the arrondissement for poaching, and otherwise conI say, Don't believe the story; it isn't meant for you. I ducted themselves in a pleasant, hospitable, and neighbourly write for those who have faith in wonderful things. Not manner. There was no lord of the manor resident. The necessarily supernatural ones. I may almost remark with whilom seigneur of the village had, for reasons hereafter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, that I have, in my own person, be mentioned, long since left the neighbourhood; and the old seen too many ghosts to place any reliance in spiritual appari- Chateau de Luz, the abode for ages of the counts of that ilk, tions. The wonderful things I mean are those which are was occupied by-but I am premature. done round about us every day, and which we in our commonplace imaginations decline to give credence to, because, forsooth, they lack probability. Now and again comes a little police case, or a trial at law, or a coroner's inquest, to confute the sceptics, and prove at once, for the five hundred thousandth time, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. It has been remarked by a philosopher, whose sayings I am proud to rescue from oblivion, that pigs might fly, only they are exceedingly unlikely birds to do so. In a like spirit I confess that the human beings of whom I am about to discourse were, perhaps, the most unlikely persons in the world to act in the manner I shall ascribe to them; but they might have so acted, and their actions were possible without being probable. The success of Garibaldi in Sicily was barely possible, but was it at all probable? The defence set up by the wretch Youngman was just within the bounds of possibility, but, judged by the laws of probability, it was absurd and untenable. So no more on that part of the subject. If you require any documentary evidence to bear out the events which will be narrated in six brief chapters, you are welcome to such as I possess; but I should advise you not to look the gift horse in the mouth, and if the Prima Donna's Revenge should happen, as I honestly trust it will, to please you, to join in the spirit of the old Italian saw, and admit Si non è vero, è ben trovato.

I have said that Cidre-Fontaines could boast of some remote connexion with this country; not, it must be admitted, in external appearance. It had no stocks, cage, pound, or whipping-post, like an old English village; no post-office, national school, or agricultural labourer's institute," like a modern English one. In what follows was the bond of union between the Normandy Hameau and Britain the superb. It had a church, a delightful Gothic church, rich in sculpture and tracery, and rose windows and carved mullions, and flying buttresses, which dated from the days of Charles VII., when, according to the ecclesiastical legends of the place, it had been erected on the ruins of an edifice built in the early Norman style, destroyed by the ruthless English in their retreat after being vanquished by Joan of Arc. However this may be, the church of Cidre-Fontaines, although small in size,-a very toy cathedral,-was an exquisite example of ornamented Gothic; and curiously enough, the tombs in its chancel were evidently of far earlier date than Charles VII.'s masons could have wotted of. For they were after the manner of our own Norman king's tomb at Fontevrault, and of the grim monument to St. Barbon, bishop of Etampes, A.D. 1150, which frowns behind the altar of the church there. The tombs in the chancel of St. Luc-desFontaines were those indeed of a famous knightly Norman family, whose earliest preux chevaliers had done battle for that Duke Robert, called in the title to M. Meyerbeer's opera by a very ugly name. These were an older, a much older family than the De Luz, who had not come to Cidre-Fontaines before the time of Louis XI.; and their cognomen in the old Norman time was Craintrien,-Fear Nothing. Hugo de Craintrien, whose father had fought so doughtily for Robert le Diable, came to England with that Duke William whom we Saxons, with a rueful kind of pride, must admit to have been indeed the Conqueror. After the battle of Hastings, Hugo de Craintrien got a comfortable paragraph or two for himself from the pages of Domesday Book, and became rich in English lands and beeves. His successors, however, preserved their connexion with their native province until late in the reign of Edward III., when they finally settled in England. The last Craintrien, who was buried in the little Somewhere in the province of Normandy-it may be that old church of St. Luc, was slain at the battle of Poictiers; it was in the department of the Seine et Oise or of the Seine and his recumbent effigy, his visor up, his surcoat on, his et Marne; at all events, the department was governed by the shield and sword by his side, his knightly belt round his prefect of the Seine et Something: but, for reasons personal, loins, his knightly spurs on his heels, and his mailed palms I intend to be exceedingly vague as to all matters topo- reverently joined, with many a brave armoried bearing sculpgraphical, both on this and on the other side of the Alps-tured on the sarcophagus beneath, was added to the stately somewhere in Normandy then,-not, certainly, a hundred miles line of tombs and monumental brasses to departed Craintriens from Rouen, and not fifty from Caen,-there existed, twenty who had fallen in wars with the French kings, or in the years since, a village called Cidre-Fontaines. It was not in crusades against Paynim dogs in the Holy Land. At the the least like an English village, albeit it had held for ages final expulsion of the English from France, the church of St. some distant connexion with perfidious Albion; but it was Luc was, as I have stated, almost wholly demolished by the nevertheless one of the prettiest and most sequestered little exasperated soldiers of the vanquished party, and rebuilt in a hamlets that human eyes ever beheld. Cidre-Fontaines was more florid style. At the Great Revolution it is almost on the Seine, at least it was situated on one of the little silver needless to say that the pretty little church at Cidre-Fonstreamlets or back waters of that famous river, and entertained taines was, like almost every other ecclesiastical edifice in two brawling little water-wheels, for all the world like those France, shamefully maltreated. A Jacobin club was held you see at the Opera Comique, whereof one moved a silk-in the church, and the committee smoked pipes in the

"Prima Donna" should perhaps be "Prime Donne," and in the plural number, for this happens to be a tale of the vengeance taken by two women, both of whom had adopted the profession of vocalist, and who had both attained eminence in that vocation. We will take, however, one prima donna and one revenge at a time; and for the inauguration of my purpose it is necessary that I should go back just twenty years from this present autumn, eighteen hundred and sixty. Turn to your old almanacks, then. Carry out the couleur locale by ordering your hairdresser to dye your gray tresses brown; imagine Queen Victoria to be in the third year of her reign, and, comely matron as she is now, scarcely, then, a mother. Throw a dart at Time for once, and make him recede to eighteen hundred and forty.

chancel. The rich church plate went to the mint. The bells happened to be a gentleman of education and refinement, were pulled down, and the monumental brasses wrenched who solaced his somewhat dreary leisure in a little French up, and sent to the national melting-pot, to be converted provincial town by reading up matters connected with into cannon and gros sous. All the stained glass windows heraldry, genealogy, and the like. He was delighted to give were smashed. The confessional became a manger for the the kindly curé of Cidre-Fontaines all the information in his republican commissary's horse, but still the tombs of the old power. Craintrien family of Normandy, certainly, he knew knights of Craintrien, although sadly hacked and hewed about, all about them. Here they were in Lodge, in Burke, in remained. Napoleon, as you know, restored all things Debrett, in Sir Harris Nicholas. Hugo de Craintrien made clerical to due and proper order. He shut up the Pope, it is feoffee of the manor of Swinestale, Notts, for his services to true, but he opened the churches and allowed the priests to the Conqueror at Hastings. Boulger de Cranjan,—the name say mass and hear confession; and so long as they did not had begun slightly to alter,-was one of the barons who meddle with politics and duly intoned the Salvum fac Imperato- would have signed Magna Charta had he not been laid up rem Napoleonem at matins and vespers, his Imperial Majesty with quartan ague in a forester's hut at Slough. Lord did not interfere with the clergy to any appreciable degree. Cranyon of Swinestale, beheaded by Henry VIII., title extinct Under the Restoration the pretty little church flourished ex- by attainder. His daughter and co-heiress, Margaret,ceedingly, and the last Countess de Luz, who lived at the châ-known as "Termagaunte Pegge," - married Sir William teau, gave a handsomely chased ciborium and an embroidered Sillikins of Salop, who was permitted by Queen Eliza alb for the use of the fabrique. In 1830, it occurred to beth to assume the name and arms of Cranyon, but could sundry red-hot patriots from Caen, to mark their hatred of not extort the concession of the dormant peerage from the superstition, and their admiration of the principles of liberty, tough old Eliza. Sir Filberry Cranyon killed at Edgehill equality, and fraternity, by stealing the ciborium, stripping on the king's side. At the restoration of Charles II. the half the lead from the roof of the church, and smashing attainder reversed, and Sir Filberry's son Huckleberry called the few coloured panes that remained of the once magni- to the House of Lords as Viscount Cranyon of Swinestale. ficently emblazoned rose window, which during the next nine The next lord managed to rat just in time from King years remained in a woeful condition, the fractures being James to King William at the Revolution. Present holder mended with common glass, oiled paper, and even rags of the title and estates Hugh Huckleberry de Craintrienstuffed into the apertures and protected with rude wirework. ancestral Norman name restored by licence from his late At the commencement of 1810 the good and zealous curé of Majesty George IV.,-Marquis of Swinestale, Earl of the parish, l'Abbé Guillemot as he was ordinarily called, Cranyon, Baron Cranyon of Swinestale, Lord Lieutenant of although I doubt if he could claim more than a right of Boarshire, K.C.B., D.C.L., colonel of the Boarshire yeocourtesy to the abbatial title, felt that this unseemly state of manry cavalry,-" and a most amiable, estimable nobleman things could no longer with decency endure. In vain he of princely fortune," added the British vice-consul at Caen. memorialized the minister of public worship. In vain he "C'est mon affaire;" that will do for me, said l'Abbé put all the female devotees in the neighbourhood under con- Guillemot to himself. tribution. These good ladies were willing enough to hem pocket-handkerchiefs for l'Abbé Guillemot, to keep him in snuff and preserved apricots, and even at Easter or the new year to subscribe for the purpose of presenting him with a new cassock and shovel hat; but they were not rich enough to fill the windows of St. Luc-des-Fontaines with stained glass, to replace the torn up marble pavement, or to keep the roof watertight. Suddenly l'Abbé Guillemot bethought him of those battered tombs of the chevaliers de Craintrien, which even time and the Jacobins of '92 had been unable wholly to destroy. He happened one day to be at Caen, where he had just made an unsuccessful appeal to the rich Madame de Montfichet for funds wherewith to restore his beloved little church. Madame de Montfichet received him with great kindness, and entertained him with a succulent lunch,-it was a flesh day, of jambon de Bayonne, brioche, and cider, but expressed her regret that the last ten thousand francs of which she had to dispose that year were promised to the dean and chapter of Caen for the renovation of the great cast portail of the cathedral. "And the dean and chapter are rich as Rothschild," murmured the Abbé Guillemot. They were not very wealthy, it is true; but they had a great deal more money than he, poor man, and that was quite enough. The disappointed incumbent of St. Luc-des-Fontaines was returning sorrowfully enough to the inn whence the diligence started for his parish, when the sight of a little picture-book about Robert Duke of Normandy,-I think he was called by his uglier title, in a toy-shop window put him in remembrance of the English belongings of the knights of Craintrien. As an orthodox churchman, l'Abbé Guillemot was bound to repudiate the alleged dealings of the wicked Robert with the Principle of Evil; yet, as a true-born son of La Normandie, the pretty, honest, cheerful province, if its natives would not be quite so fond of litigation!--he had a furtive liking for, and a sneaking belief in, the legend of the Demon Duke and the spectral nuns. He looked long at the picture-book,-a glaring little collection of coarse cartoons it was,--and began to ponder whether any of the descendants of that Craintrien who bore shield and sword for Duke Robert remained in England. "I will go ask the Britannic vice-consul," he said. L'Abbé Guillemot was lucky enough to have a slight acquaintance with the functionary to whom was confided the interests of England's majesty at Caen. The vice-consul, on his side,

He went back to Cidre-Fontaines and indited a tremendously long letter, full of the best French and the longest Latin quotations he could muster,-it was many years since he had left the seminaire at Rouen, and both French and Latin were growing somewhat rusty,-to the most noble Seigneur Anglais, the Lord Marquis de Swinestale. I think he called the British nobleman "Sir" Swinestale in his original rough draught which was corrected by the viceconsul. The abbé exposed the lamentable condition of the noble Gothic monument at Cidre-Fontaines,—he did not say anything about its size,-in terms as pathetic as they were eloquent. He introduced compliments to the noble race of Craintrien and their English descendants with an adroitness of which Rochefoucault would have been proud. He called upon the Lord Marquis of Swinestale, by his illustrious name, by the memory of his heroic ancestors, not to allow the cradle of his race to crumble into desolation and decay. He implored him to come to Cidre-Fontaines, or, if his duties near the person and throne of his young and amiable sovereign prevented him from making the journey in person, to send one of his intendants in order that an English eye-witness (temoin oculaire) might judge of the mournful state of the cenotaphs of the first chevaliers de Craintrien. And, finally, with assurances of the most distinguished consideration, the abbé subscribed himself the most humble, devoted, and, by anticipation, grateful servitor of the Lord Marquis of Swinestale, Guillaume Guillemot. This elaborate epistle the curé of St. Luc submitted to the vice-consul at Caen, who, after suggesting a few alterations, added to the fair copy of the letter an official document corroborating the truth of the statement, and vouching for the respectability of the writer. Many weeks elapsed before any reply was received; but at length, just as the abbé was beginning to give up all hopes of seeing his windows mended and his roof repaired, the vice-consul came post haste to CidreFontaines with an autograph letter from Lord Swinestale, written in very bad French, thanking him for the very great interest he had been pleased to manifest in the early relics of the Craintrien family, and informing him that he had given carte blanche to his agents at Paris to honour any orders signed conjointly by the Abbé Guillemot and her Britannic Majesty's consul at Caen for funds wherewith to carry on the entire renovation of the church of St. Luc-des-Fontaines, all

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exactly resembling two ripe Normandy pippins, who, with
her finger in her mouth, was staring with all her eyes at the
good-looking stranger; asked, in tolerable French, the way to
the abode of M. le Curé.

He was soon directed, and even furnished with a guide, for
the villagers of Cidre-Fontaines, seldom seeing strangers, and
foreigners well nigh never, are kindly and hospitable towards
It was before the days
them. They have not, at least they had not in 1840, learnt
to swindle and insult travellers.
of railways. As the new arrival strode vigorously towards
the Abbé Guillemot's parsonage, preceded by a diminutive
cicerone in the shape of an urchin in sabots and a blouse, the
postilion, who was in raptures at the liberality of tho pour-
boire bestowed upon him, proceeded at once to dévote it to
its legitimate purpose by drinking the health of the late
occupant of the impériale, in which he was joined, nothing
loath, by the conducteur.
"A brave boy that," said the postilion; "he gave me forty
sous.'

the arrangements of which were to be confided to those
gentlemen. His lordship concluded by saying that the state
of his health alone prevented him from coming to superintend
the restoration of the church, but that he would take care to
send a competent person well acquainted with medieval art
to confer with the French architect who undertook the task,
and that he hoped before his death to be able to visit the
resting-place of so many valiant Craintriens of by-gone times.
It need scarcely be said that the Abbé Guillemot nearly
went beside himself with exultation at the contents of this
letter. The vice-consul was almost alarmed at taking advan-
tage of his lordship's offer of a pecuniary carte blanche, and
for fear lest the enthusiastic curé should propose to pave the
whole of the church with porphyry and cover the outside
with gold leaf, after the manner of the gingerbread kings and
queens at a fair, he made a private suggestion to Lord
Swinestale that the whole work should be covered by an
expenditure of fifteen thousand francs, or six hundred pounds.
His lordship replied, after a good deal of delay, but in the
most munificently off-handed manner, that he really didn't
care, that he hadn't done much good in his life, and thought
he might do a little before he died; but that if the vice-
consul thought the thing could be done for six hundred
pounds, well and good. If they spent the money before the
church was finished, they might draw for as much more as
they liked. The fact was that his lordship was very old, very
indolent, and very good natured, and that he pleased himself
with the thought that some of these days he might cause
himself to be conveyed by easy stages to Cidre-Fontaines,
and see the old tombs of his forefathers.

"A true son of Albion," echoed the conducteur, "free with his money as his native ocean is with its foam. To me also he gave a forty sous piece, and a cannikin of cider into the bargain."

"Ah! he is English then," interposed the comely matron who officiated as hostess at the inn of the Three Red Pigeons. "How know you that, compère Trochu ?" "Did I not see his passport at Caen ?" answered the con"He came right through by the diligence from ducteur, thus addressed as Trochu, with a look of official dignity. Paris, and in the coupé too. He must have bags of gold. Besides," he continued, "is there any mistaking an Englishman, wheresoever you may find him? I would discover your Rosbif were I to meet him in the middle of the great desert."

The worthy conducteur had never been nearer Paris than Rouen in his life, and knew about as much of the great name," "the desert as he did of the Great Mogul, but the phrase he had used gave him importance, and he knew it. "If you saw his passport you must know his hostess continued eagerly. "I wonder whether he will come back after he has seen M. le Curé, and order dinner at the Three Red Pigeons. He might sleep here, even. My niece Jacqueline would be but too happy to give the best white chamber up to him. Quel honneur! But his name, his name, my good Trochu."

It turned out, subsequently, that our honest abbé's notion of a carte blanche was to spend about two thousand five hundred francs in touching up the church; and when the consul told him that he might go as far as fifteen thousand without overstepping the patience of his patron beyond the sea, he went into fresh paroxysms of delight. A skilful architect and a modeller were sent for from Paris; a famous gentilhomme verrier at Rouen, fired with emulation at the generosity of the English lord, promised to supply stained glass enough for the great rose window at cost price, and to glaze the remainder in plain white for nothing. So the church was shut up for a time, and given over to the artists and workmen, and the Abbé Guillemot said mass in a confusion, "I temporary chapel in M. Dubois' factory, consecrated for the nonce by the lord archbishop of the diocese, who did not "Ma foi," replied the conducteur in some con It was one of those diables much relish the notion of a humble village church being so sumptuously repaired by a heretic nobleman, thinking that can't remember his name. he would have done much better in presenting a set of golden d'appellations Anglaises which dislocate your jaw to pro"They are all the nounce. All I know, Madame Bontemps, is, that he is an censers to Monseigneur's own cathedral. same, these milors Anglais," said the lord archbishop to his Englishman, and that so far from his being likely to take up chief penitent, Madame de Montfichet; "all the same: bêtes his abode at your hostelry, he will much more probably be Now the truth is that both the conductor and the posticomme les boucles de mes souliers,-stupid as my shoe-entertained at the residence of M. le Curé.” But as the Abbé Guillemot had taken the prebuckles." caution to obtain the consent of the minister of public wor- lion had seen the stranger's passport at Caen, having carefully ship and of public works, and of the prefect of the depart-looked over the shoulder of the gendarme who inspected it, ment to his work, Monseigneur the archbishop was fain to prior to the departure of the diligence for Cidre-Fontaines; bite his lips, smile his archiepiscopal smile, the which he but as the conducteur could only read print, and the traveller's always smiled when he meant mischief, and say in public name for so short a distance was not entered in his way bill, that ce Lor Swintail," who imagined himself to be de- and as the postilion could not read at all, neither probably scended from the "vieille souche des gentilhommes Nor- would have profited much by the inspection of the passport came from London viâ Paris, was an English subject, and a mands," had done, for an Englishman, a remarkably hand- had not the gendarme himself told them that the traveller n duly entangled in some thing. person of the highest importance.

.

It was in the spring of 1840 that the repairs in the church of St. Luc-des-Fontaines commenced, superintended almost night and day by the indomitable Abbé Guillemot. One fine afternoon towards the close of a remarkbly fine September, as the diligence from Caen passed as usual through CidreFontaines, there alighted from the impériale thereof at the door of the auberge des Trois Pigeons Rouges a remarkably good-looking young fellow, with a sun-burnt face, clear blue eyes, and a long, tawny moustache, and dressed in a loose travelling suit of light colour, who, having as a preliminary measure, ordered for himself and the conducteur a foaming measure of cider; disposed himself, and with much alacrity, of a sufficient portion thereof; given the postilion his pourboire; lit a very large cigar, which he produced from a neat needleworked case; and patted on the head a little girl with cheeks

The fresh relay of horses having been their rope harness, after the expenditure of sundry expletives and abusive epithets to those dumb animals, the lumbering old diligence went clattering along the narrow, powdery road, bordered on either side by apple trees, leading from Cidre-Fontaines to Yvetot. For my pretty Normandy village was not far from that more famous hamlet erst the seat of royalty of the immortal King of Yvetot, whose throne was a donkey's back, and whose crown was a cotton nightcap.

The diligence, however, had not been gone ten minutes, before all the habitués of the estaminet of the Three Red Pigeons had been aware of the fact that M. le Curé was at person of the highest consideration." that moment conferring with a handsome stranger, an Englishman, and a