and not by what it became. Badly as it ended, it saved France from worse in its beginnings.

GAM. From worse? And what is worse than death-inlife?

DE M. Hell-on-earth: and that was the alternative régime. The "crime" of December, indeed! How like the hypocrite History, with her smug apologies for the thrice as cynical Cæsar of the ancient world! The "betrayal" of France"! And what was this France that we betrayed? A mastless, compassless vessel, hull down in a weltering sea of anarchy and rolling and plunging towards the reef of Revolution. We were right, as any men with heads and hands would have been right, to seize the helm.

GAM. What, Monsieur? like a band of mutineers and by the same methods? cutting the steersman's throat, and flinging your honest messmates in irons into the hold?

DE M. Steersman there was none; and our "honest messmates "—if so one should style that mob of greedy lawyers, garrulous journalists, and crazed ideologues—were wrangling for the wheel. Why should such knaves and imbeciles have been allowed to wreck so fine a ship?

GAM. To say nothing of the cargo. You were suspected, M. de Morny, of having thought of that.

DE M. Well, and why not? The labourer is worthy of his hire.

GAM. And the burglar of his booty, perhaps.

DE M. Ah, bah! We are men of the world, M. Gambetta and we are neither of us in the tribune. Let us talk like what we actually were on earth, and not like

what you professed to be, and what I-well--had no opportunity of simulating.

GAM. Your proposal is an insult, Monsieur. I had nothing in common with you.

DE M. Ambition, daring, promptitude, perseverance, resource, are these nothing? They belonged to both of us. Each saw the prize before him, I in '51, you in '70; each saw it before him and needing but one clutch to grasp it. A coward would have drawn back from it; a theorist would have pondered, a rhetorician would have spouted, till the golden moment of capture had gone by; but we

GAM. Stay! Add-in your case-an honest man would have turned aside from it.

DE M. Pooh! We are all honest-to ourselves: or sufficiently so at any rate to escape self-condemnation. We always mean well-nobody knows how well but ourselves; and we judge our own conduct accordingly. The Allknowing, the priests tell us, is the All-merciful, in virtue of his omniscience; and, being omniscient as to our private motives, our power of self-acquittal is naturally infinite. Other people, to be sure, we must take as we find them : and the limitation of our faculties may prevent us extending the same indulgence to them. But that is no reason why we should not exercise the blessed virtue wherever

we can.

GAM. M. de Morny was not known on earth as so ingenious a speculator—at least in the philosophical sense of the word.

DE M. Men of action, my dear M. Gambetta, are seldom allowed credit for such reflective powers as they

possess.

I was too busy making history to have time

to defend my share in it.

GAM. You would have done well, however, to have snatched a few hours now and then for the preparation of your apology. It would have saved you from much posthumous misconstruction. You forgot, perhaps, that the vulgar millions whose history was being so obligingly "made" for them had ample leisure to criticise the process, and that by the time the work was finished they would be ready to overwhelm the artist with their maledictions.

DE M. By the time the finished work was spoilt by. later hands, you mean. Again I say the Empire was sound in its beginnings; it was popular, imposing, strong. The prestige of the name of Bonaparte commended it to the historic vanity of Frenchmen; its splendours gratified their taste for luxury and their love of show. Our timid bourgeoisie drew confidence from the contemplation of its strength; our ignorant peasantry were charmed with its simplicity, and hailed it as that rarity in their lives, the intelligible.

GAM. Then, indeed, must it have been a case of corruptio optimi pessima. Do pray, M. de Morny, let us hear the names of the miscreants who perverted this blessing to something so strangely like a curse. History surely should preserve them for eternal execration.

DE M. History will trouble herself about nothing so insignificant. And, besides, the men who discredited the Empire are familiar enough to you-that is, I mean the class to which they belong.

D

GAM. To me !

DE M. Undoubtedly. Has it never occurred to you, dear M. Gambetta, that a man who seizes upon power by a coup d'état may have formed as many embarrassing connections as a man who wins his way to power by organising an unsuccessful defence of his country against an invasion. Both have to provide for their friends; and both may have very mischievous friends to provide for. You take my meaning?

GAM. Your meaning, yes; your hints, no.

DE M. That is the simplicity of innocence. Dedecus ille domus sciet ultimus. The Empire perished, my worthy M. Gambetta, of the disease which was so rapidly undermining your own reputation when fate stepped in to save you. It died of its parasites, as I always foresaw that it would when that feeble, good-natured, puzzle-witted ruler, whom the gaping crowd mistook for strong, and cruel, and astute, was left without a voice to warn and a hand to guide him.

GAM. No one could, indeed, mistake the malady of which the Empire died; but you must forgive me if I fail to trace any of its symptoms in myself.

DE M. The subject is not an agreeable one, but I must really ask you whether you were quite satisfied with the reputation of your entourage. Incorruptible yourself, we always knew you to be: the chief public man in France is conventionally so recognised for the credit of the country. He resembles in that respect the President of the United States. But like that high functionary he may have the knack of surrounding himself with persons

who do not acquire the fragrance of the rose by living near it. Can you recall no one among your intimates, dear M. Gambetta, whose name smelt somewhat less sweetly in the public nostrils than your own-no one who carried about with him just the slightest whiff of stockjobbery, the faintest flair of the doubtful army-contract?

GAM. It would have been base to desert friends in whose integrity I felt full confidence, simply because they had not been so fortunate as to escape calumny. The more they were assailed by scandal the firmer was my resolve to protect them.

DE M. A generous resolve, but an indiscreet one. But if such are your ideas, I may surely claim your sympathy for the Emperor. It was the same chivalrous trust in the purity and uprightness of his associates which proved his ruin.

GAM. Is this irony, M. de Morny, or infatuation?

DE M. Our common belief in human nature was Our undoing.

GAM. Oh, I see, it is irony.

DE M. It is this which has led an unjust and unthinking world to impute to us the corruptions which sapped the vigour of the Empire in its closing years; and, do you know, dear M. Gambetta, I cannot but fear that the same misconstructions will be placed upon your own career— that you, like us, will have to bear the burden of the sins of others.

GAM. Be easy upon that score. My own career will be the more charitably judged from the very fact that it followed and challenges comparison with yours. Your