The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864

On the road they were occasionally subjected to serious annoyances. The report of the marvels above narrated had spread far and wide; and the populace, by hundreds, followed the carriage, hooting and abusing the sorceress.

Arrived at the French metropolis, they put up at the Hôtel de Rennes, No. 23, Rue des Deux-Écus. There, on the evening of the twelfth of February, Dr. Tanchon saw Angélique for the first time.

This gentleman soon verified, among other phenomena, the following. A chair, which he held firmly with both hands, was forced back as soon as she attempted to sit down; a middle-sized dining-table was displaced and repulsed by the touch of her dress; a large sofa, on which Dr. Tanchon was sitting, was pushed violently to the wall, as soon as the child sat down beside him. The Doctor remarked, that, when a chair was thrown back from under her, her clothes seemed attracted by it, and adhered to it, until it was repulsed beyond their reach; that the power was greater from the left hand than from the right, and that the former was warmer than the latter, and often trembled, agitated by unusual contractions; that the influence emanating from the girl was intermittent, not permanent, being usually most powerful from seven till nine o'clock in the evening, possibly influenced by the principal meal of the day, dinner, taken at six o'clock; that, if the girl was cut off from contact with the earth, either by placing her feet on a non-conductor or merely by keeping them raised from the ground, the power ceased, and she could remain seated quietly; that, during the paroxysm, if her left hand touched any object, she threw it from her as if it burned her, complaining that it pricked her, especially on the wrist; that, happening one day to touch accidentally the nape of her neck, the girl ran from him, crying out with pain; and that repeated observation assured him of the fact that there was, in the region of the cerebellum, and at the point where the superior muscles of the neck are inserted in the cranium, a point so acutely sensitive that the child would not suffer there the lightest touch; and, finally, that the girl's pulse, often irregular, usually varied from one hundred and five to one hundred and twenty beats a minute.

A curious observation made by this physician was, that, at the moment of greatest action, a cool breeze, or gaseous current, seemed to flow from her person. This he felt on his hand, as distinctly as one feels the breath during an ordinary expiration.[15 - Enquête, etc., p. 5.]

He remarked, also, that the intermittence of the child's power seemed to depend in a measure on her state of mind. She was often in fear lest some one should touch her from behind; the phenomena themselves agitated her; in spite of a month's experience, each time they occurred she drew back, as if alarmed. And all such agitations seemed to diminish her power. When she was careless, and her mind was diverted to something else, the demonstrations were always the most energetic.

From the north pole of a magnet, if it touched her finger, she received a sharp shock; while the contact of the south pole produced upon her no effect whatever. This effect was uniform; and the girl could always tell which pole touched her.

Dr. Tanchon ascertained from the mother that no indications of puberty had yet manifested themselves in her daughter's case.

Such is a summary of the facts, embodied in a report drawn up by Dr. Tanchon on the fifteenth of February. He took it with him on the evening of the sixteenth to the Academy of Sciences, and asked M. Arago if he had seen the electric girl, and if he intended to bring her case that evening to the notice of the Academy. Arago replied to both questions in the affirmative, adding,—"If you have seen her, I shall receive from you with pleasure any communication you may have to make."

Dr. Tanchon then read to him the report; and at the session of that evening, Arago presented it, stated what he himself had seen, and proposed that a committee should be appointed to examine the case. His statement was received by his audience with many expressions of incredulity; but they acceded to his suggestion by naming, from the members of the Academy, a committee of six.

It appears that Arago had had but a single opportunity, and for the brief space of less than half an hour, of witnessing the phenomena to which he referred. M. Cholet, the speculator who advanced to her parents the money necessary to bring Angélique to Paris, had taken the girl and her parents to the Observatory, where Arago then was, who, at the earnest instance of Cholet, agreed to test the child's powers at once. There were present on this occasion, besides Arago, MM. Mathieu and Laugier, and an astronomer of the Observatory, named M. Goujon.

The experiment of the chair perfectly succeeded. It was projected with great violence against the wall, while the girl was thrown on the other side. This experiment was repeated several times by Arago himself, and each time with the same result. He could not, with all his force, hinder the chair from being thrown back. Then MM. Goujon and Laugier attempted to hold it, but with as little success. Finally, M. Goujon seated himself first on half the chair, and at the moment when Angélique was taking her seat beside him the chair was thrown down.

When Angélique approached a small table, at the instant that her apron touched it, it was repulsed.

These particulars were given in all the medical journals of the day,[16 - I extract them from the "Journal des Connaissances Médico-Chirurgicales," No. 3.] as well as in the "Journal des Débats" of February 18, and the "Courrier Français" of February 19, 1846.

The minutes of the session of the Academy touch upon them in the most studiously brief and guarded manner. They say, the sitting lasted only some minutes. They admit, however, the main fact, namely, that the movements of the chair, occurring as soon as Angélique seated herself upon it, were most violent ("d'une extrême violence"). But as to the other experiment, they allege that M. Arago did not clearly perceive the movement of the table by the mere intervention of the girl's apron, though the other observers did.[17 - The words are,—"M. Arago n'a pas aperçu nettement les agitations annoncées comme étant engendrées à distance, par l'intermédiaire d'un tablier, sur un guéridon en bois: d'autres observateurs ont trouvé que les agitations étaient sensibles."] It is added, that the girl produced no effect on the magnetic needle.

Some accounts represent Arago as expressing himself much more decidedly. He may have done so, in addressing the Academy; but I find no official record of his remarks.

He did not assist at the sittings of the committee that had been appointed at his suggestion; but he signed their report, having confidence, as he declared, in their judgment, and sharing their mistrust.

That report, made on the ninth of March, is to the effect, that they witnessed no repulsive agency on a table or similar object; that they saw no effect produced by the girl's arm on a magnetic needle; that the girl did not possess the power to distinguish between the two poles of a magnet; and, finally, that the only result they obtained was sudden and violent movements of chairs on which the child was seated. They add, "Serious suspicions having arisen as to the manner in which these movements were produced, the committee decided to submit them to a strict examination, declaring, in plain terms, that they would endeavor to discover what part certain adroit and concealed manœuvres of the hands and feet had in their production. From that moment we were informed that the young girl had lost her attractive and repulsive powers, and that we should be notified when they reappeared. Many days have elapsed; no notice has been sent us; yet we learn that Mademoiselle Cottin daily exhibits her experiments in private circles." And they conclude by recommending "that the communications addressed to them in her case be considered as not received" ("comme non avenues"). In a word, they officially branded the poor girl as an impostor.

That, without any inquiry into the antecedents of the patient, without the slightest attempt to obtain from those medical men who had followed up the case from its commencement what they had observed, and that, in advance of the strict examination which it was their duty to make, they should insult the unfortunate girl by declaring that they intended to find out the tricks with which she had been attempting to deceive them,—all this is not the less lamentable because it is common among those, who sit in the high places of science.

If these Academicians had been moved by a simple love of truth, not urged by a self-complacent eagerness to display their own sagacity, they might have found a more probable explanation of the cessation, after their first session, of some of Angelique's chief powers.

Such an explanation is furnished to us by Dr. Tanchon, who was present, by invitation, at the sittings of the committee.

He informs us that, at their first sitting, held at the Jardin des Plantes, on the seventeenth of February, after the committee had witnessed, twice repeated, the violent displacement of a chair held with all his strength by one of their number, (M. Rayet,) instead of following up similar experiments and patiently waiting to observe the phenomena as they presented themselves, they proceeded at once to satisfy their own preconceptions. They brought Angélique into contact with a voltaic battery. Then they placed on the bare arm of the child a dead frog, anatomically prepared after the manner of Matteucci, that is, the skin removed, and the animal dissected so as to expose the lumbar nerves. By a galvanic current, they caused this frog to move, apparently to revive, on the girl's arm. The effect upon her may be imagined. The ignorant child, terrified out of her senses, spoke of nothing else the rest of the day, dreamed of dead frogs coming to life all night, and began to talk eagerly about it again the first thing the next morning.[18 - Enquête, etc., p. 25.] From that time her attractive and repulsive powers gradually declined.

In addition to the privilege of much accumulated learning, in addition to the advantages of varied scientific research, we must have something else, if we would advance yet farther in true knowledge. We must be imbued with a simple, faithful spirit, not presuming, not preoccupied. We must be willing to sit down at the feet of Truth, humble, patient, docile, single-hearted. We must not be wise in our own conceit; else the fool's chance is better than ours, to avoid error, and distinguish truth.

M. Cohu, a medical man of Mortagne, writing, in March, 1846, in reply to some inquiries of Dr. Tanchon, after stating that the phenomenon of the chair, repeatedly observed by himself, had been witnessed also by more than a thousand persons, adds,—"It matters not what name we may give to this; the important point is, to verify the reality of a repulsive agency, and of one that is distinctly marked; the effects it is impossible to deny. We may assign to this agency what seat we please, in the cerebellum, in the pelvis, or elsewhere; the fact is material, visible, incontestable. Here in the Province, Sir, we are not very learned, but we are often very mistrustful. In the present case we have examined, reëxamined, taken every possible precaution against deception; and the more we have seen, the deeper has been our conviction of the reality of the phenomenon. Let the Academy decide as it will. We have seen; it has not seen. We are, therefore, in a condition to decide better than it can, I do not say what cause was operating, but what effects presented themselves, under circumstances that remove even the shadow of a doubt."[19 - Enquête, etc., p. 36.]

M. Hébert, too, states a truth of great practical value, when he remarks, that, in the examination of phenomena of so fugitive and seemingly capricious a character, involving the element of vitality, and the production of which at any given moment depends not upon us, we "ought to accommodate ourselves to the nature of the fact, not insist that it should accommodate itself to us."

For myself, I do not pretend to offer any positive opinion as to what was ultimately the real state of the case. I do not assume to determine whether the attractive and repulsive phenomena, after continuing for upwards of a month, happened to be about to cease at the very time the committee began to observe them,—or whether the harsh suspicious and terror-inspiring tests of these gentlemen so wrought on the nervous system of an easily daunted and superstitious girl, that some of her abnormal powers, already on the wane, presently disappeared,—or whether the poor child, it may be at the instigation of her parents, left without the means of support,[20 - M. Cholet, the individual who, in the hope of gain, furnished the funds to bring Angélique to Paris for exhibition, as soon as he perceived that the speculation was a failure, left the girl and her parents in that city, dependent on the charity of strangers for daily support, and for the means of returning to their humble home.—Enquête, etc., p. 24.] really did at last simulate phenomena that once were real, manufacture a counterfeit of what was originally genuine. I do not take upon myself to decide between these various hypotheses. I but express my conviction, that, for the first few weeks at least, the phenomena actually occurred,—and that, had not the gentlemen of the Academy been very unfortunate or very injudicious, they could not have failed to perceive their reality. And I seek in vain some apology for the conduct of these learned Academicians, called upon to deal with a case so fraught with interest to science, when I find them, merely because they do not at once succeed in personally verifying sufficient to convince them of the existence of certain novel phenomena, not only neglecting to seek evidence elsewhere, but even rejecting that which a candid observer had placed within their reach.

This appears to have been the judgment of the medical public of Paris. The "Gazette des Hôpitaux," in its issue of March 17, 1846, protests against the committee's mode of ignoring the matter, declaring that it satisfied nobody. "Not received!" said the editor (alluding to the words of the report); "that would be very convenient, if it were only possible!"[21 - "Non avenues! ce serait commode, si c'était possible!"]

And the "Gazette Médicale" very justly remarks,—"The non-appearance of the phenomena at such or such a given moment proves nothing in itself. It is but a negative fact, and, as such, cannot disprove the positive fact of their appearance at another moment, if that be otherwise satisfactorily attested." And the "Gazette" goes on to argue, from the nature of the facts, that it is in the highest degree improbable that they should have been the result of premeditated imposture.

The course adopted by the Academy's committee is the less defensible, because, though the attractive and repulsive phenomena ceased after their first session, other phenomena, sufficiently remarkable, still continued. As late as the tenth of March, the day after the committee made their report, Angélique being then at Dr. Tanchon's house, a table touched by her apron, while her hands were behind her and her feet fifteen inches distant from it, was raised entirely from the ground, though no part of her body touched it. This was witnessed, besides Dr. Tanchon, by Dr. Charpentier-Méricourt, who had stationed himself so as to observe it from the side. He distinctly saw the table rise, with all four legs, from the floor, and he noticed that the two legs of the table farthest from the girl rose first. He declares, that, during the whole time, he perceived not the slightest movement either of her hands or her feet; and he regarded deception, under the circumstances, to be utterly impossible.[22 - Enquête, etc., p. 30.]

On the twelfth of March, in presence of five physicians, Drs. Amédée Latour, Lachaise, Deleau, Pichard, and Soulé, the same phenomenon occurred twice.

And yet again on the fourteenth, four physicians being present, the table was raised a single time, but with startling force. It was of mahogany, with two drawers, and was four feet long by two feet and a half wide. We may suppose it to have weighed some fifty or sixty pounds; so that the girl's power, in this particular, appears to have much decreased since that day, about the end of January, when M. de Farémont saw repeatedly raised from the ground a block of one hundred and fifty pounds' weight, with three men seated on it,—in all, not less than five to six hundred pounds.

By the end of March the whole of the phenomena had almost totally ceased; and it does not appear that they have ever shown themselves since that time.

Dr. Tanchon considered them electrical. M. de Farémont seems to have doubted that they were strictly so. In a letter, dated Monti-Mer, November 1, 1846, and addressed to the Marquis de Mirville, that gentleman says,—"The electrical effects I have seen produced in this case varied so much,—since under certain circumstances good conductors operated, and then again, in others, no effect was observable,—that, if one follows the ordinary laws of electrical phenomena, one finds evidence both for and against. I am well convinced, that, in the case of this child, there is some power other than electricity."[23 - Des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations Fluidiques, par le Marquis de Mirville, pp. 379, 380.]

But as my object is to state facts, rather than to moot theories, I leave this debatable ground to others, and here close a narrative, compiled with much care, of this interesting and instructive case. I was the rather disposed to examine it critically and report it in detail, because it seems to suggest valuable hints, if it does not afford some clue, as to the character of subsequent manifestations in the United States and elsewhere.

This case is not an isolated one. My limits however, prevent me from here reproducing, as I might, sundry other recent narratives more or less analogous to that of the girl Cottin. To one only shall I briefly advert: a case related in the Paris newspaper, the "Siècle," of March 4, 1846, published when all Paris was talking of Arago's statement in regard to the electric girl.

It is there given on the authority of a principal professor in one of the Royal Colleges of Paris. The case, very similar to that of Angélique Cottin, occurred in the month of December previous, in the person of a young girl, not quite fourteen years old, apprenticed to a colorist, in the Rue Descartes. The occurrences were quite as marked as those in the Cottin case. The professor, seated one day near the girl, was raised from the floor, along with the chair on which he sat. There were occasional knockings. The phenomena commenced December 2, 1845; and lasted twelve days.

LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS

THE DRAWING-ROOM.

PART II

It was at this same period of time I made the acquaintance of Monsieur Edmond About. When I met him he had just appeared as an author, and his friends everywhere declared that Voltaire's mantle had fallen on his shoulders. He had, like Voltaire, discovered instantly that mankind were divided into hammers and anvils, and he determined to be one of the hammers. He began his career by ridiculing a poetical country, Greece, whose guest he had been, and whose sovereign and ministers had received him with confidence,—repaying three years of hospitality by a satire of three hundred pages. "Greece and the Greeks" was translated into several languages. This edifying publication, which put the laughers on his side, was followed by a different sort of work, which came near producing on this budding reputation the effect of an April frost upon an almond-tree in blossom. Voltaire's heir had found no better mode of writing natural and true novels (so the scandalous chronicle said) than to copy an original correspondence, and indiscreet "detectives" of letters menaced him with publishing the whole Italian work from which he "conveyed" the best part of "Tolla." All the literary world cried, Havoc! upon the sprightly fellow laden with Italian relics. It was a critical moment in his life.

Monsieur Edmond About was introduced to me by a fascinating lady;—who can resist the charms of the other sex? I saw before me a man some eight-and-twenty years old, of a slender figure; his features were irregular, but intellectual, and he looked at people like an excessively near-sighted person who abused the advantages of being near-sighted. He wore no spectacles. His eyes were small, cold, bright, and were well wadded with such thick eyebrows and eyelashes it seemed these must absorb them. I subsequently found, in a strange American book,[24 - Elsie Venner, by Oliver Œendell (sic) Holmes.] some descriptions which may be applied to his odd expression of eye. Monsieur Edmond About's mouth was sneering and sensual, and even then affected Voltaire's sarcastic grimace. His bitter and equivocal smile put you in mind of the grinding of an epigram-mill. One could detect in his attitude, his physiognomy, and his language, that obsequious malice, that familiarity, at the same time flattering and jeering, which Voltaire turned to such good account in his commerce with the great people of his day, and which his disciple was learning to practise in his intercourse with the powerful of these times,—the parvenus and the wealthy. I was struck by the face of this college Macchiavelli: on it were written the desire of success and the longing to enjoy; the calculations of the ambitious man were allied with the maliciousness of the giddy child. Of course he overwhelmed me with compliments and flattery. He had, or thought he had, use for me. I benevolently became the defender of the poor calumniated fellow in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," just as one undertakes out of pure kindness of heart to protect the widow and the orphan. Monsieur Edmond About thanked me orally with a flood of extraordinary gratitude; but he took good care to avoid writing a word upon the subject. A letter might have laid him under engagements, and might have embarrassed him one day or another. Whereas he aimed to be both a diplomatist and a literary man. He practised the art of good writing, and the art of turning it to the best advantage.

Some months after this he brought out a piece called "Guillery," at the French Comedy. The first night it was played, there was a hail-storm of hisses. No claqueur ever remembered to have heard the like before. The charitable dramatic critics—delicate fellows, who cannot bear to see people possess talents without their permission and despite them—attacked the piece as blood-hounds the fugitive murderer. It seemed as if Monsieur Edmond About was a ruined man, who could never dare hold up his head again. He resisted the death-warrant. He had friends in influential houses. He soon found lint enough for his wounds. The next winter the town heard that Monsieur Edmond About's wounds had been well dressed and were cured, and that he was going to write in "Figaro." The amateurs of scandal began at once to reckon upon the gratification of their tastes. They were not mistaken. The moment his second contribution to "Figaro" appeared, it became evident to all that he had taken this warlike position at the advanced posts of light literature solely to shoot at those persons who had wounded his vanity. For three months he kept up such a sharp fire that every week numbered its dead. Such carnage had never been seen. Everybody was severely wounded: Jules Janin, Paulin Limayrac, Champfleury, Barbey d'Aurevilly, and a host of others. Everybody said, (a thrill of terror ran through them as they spoke,)—There is going to be one of these mornings a terrible butchery: that imprudent Edmond About will have at least ten duels on his hands. Not a bit of it! Not a bit of it! There were negotiations, embassies, explanations exchanged which explained nothing, and reparations made which repaired nothing. But there was not a shot fired. There was not a drop of blood drawn. O Lord! no! Third parties intervened, and demonstrated to the offended parties, that, when Monsieur Edmond About called them stupid boobies, humbugs, tumblers, he had no intention whatever of offending them. Good gracious! far otherwise! In fine, one day the farce was played, the curtain fell upon the well-spanked critics, and all this little company (so full of talents and chivalry!) went arm-in-arm, the insulter and the insulted, to breakfast together at Monsieur About's rooms, where, between a dozen oysters and a bottle of Sauterne, he asked his victims what they thought of some Titians he had just discovered, and which he wished to sell to the Louvre for a small fortune,—Titians which were not painted even by Mignard. The insulter and the insulted fell into each other's arms before these daubs, and they parted, each delighted with the other. These pseudo-Titians were for Monsieur About his Alcibiades's dog's-tail. He spent one every month. Literary, picturesque, romanesque, historical, agricultural, Greek, and Roman questions were never subjects to him: he considered them merely advertisements to puff the transcendent merits of Edmond About. Before he left "Figaro" he determined to show me what a grateful fellow he was. He made me the mark for all his epigrams, and I paid the price of peace with the others. I have heard, since then, that Monsieur Edmond About has made his way rapidly in the world. He is rich. He has the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. He excels in writing pamphlets. He is not afraid of the most startling truths. He writes about the Pope like a man who is not afraid of the spiritual powers, and he has demonstrated that Prince Napoleon won the Battle of the Alma and organized Algeria.

Among the numerous details of my grandeur and my decline, none exhibit in a clearer light our literary manners and customs than the history of my relations with Monsieur Louis Ulbach, the virtuous author, now, of "L'Homme aux Cinq Louis d'Or," "Suzanne Duchemin," "Monsieur et Madame Fernel," and other tales, which he hopes to see crowned by the French Academy. Monsieur Louis Ulbach at first belonged to a triumvirate which pretended to stand above the mob of democratic writers; and of a truth Monsieur Maxime du Camp and Monsieur Laurent Pichat, his two leaders, had none of those smoking-café vulgarities which have procured so many subscribers to the "Siècle" newspaper. Both poets, Laurent Pichat with remarkable loftiness, Maxime du Camp with bizarre energy, intent upon an ideal which democracy has a right to pursue, since it has not yet found it, men of the world, capable of discussing in full dress the most perplexed questions of Socialism, they accept none of those party-chains which so often bow down the noblest minds before idols made of plaster or of clay. Besides, both of them were known by admirable acts of generosity. There were in this triumvirate such dashes of aristocracy and of revolution that they were called "the Poles of literature."

Of course, when the storm burst which I had raised by my irreverent attacks on De Béranger, these gentlemen separated from their political friends, and complimented me. One of them even addressed me a letter, in which I read these words, which assuredly I would not have written: "That stupid De Béranger." There was a sort of alliance between us. Monsieur Louis Ulbach celebrated it by publishing in his magazine, "La Revue de Paris," an article in my honor, in which, after the usual reserves, and after declaring war upon my doctrines, he vowed my prose to be "fascinating," and complained of being so bewitched as to believe, at times, that he was converted to the cause of the throne and of the altar. This epithet, "fascinating," in turn fascinated me; and I thought that my prose was, like some serpent, about to fascinate all the butcher-birds and ducks of the democratic marsh. A year passed away; these fine friendships cooled: 't is the fate of these factitious tendernesses. With winter my second volume appeared, and Monsieur Louis Ulbach set to work again; but this time he found me merely "ingenious." It was a good deal more than I merited, and I would willingly have contented myself with this phrase. Unfortunately, I could not forget the austere counsel of Monsieur Louis Veuillot, and at this very epoch, Monsieur Louis Ulbach, who as a novelist could merit a great deal of praise, took it into his head to publish a thick volume of transcendental criticism, in which he attacked everything I admired and lauded everything I detested. I confess that I felt extremely embarrassed: those nice little words "fascinating" and "ingenious" stuck in my mind. Monsieur Louis Ulbach himself extricated me from my perplexity. I had insufficiently praised his last novel. He wrote a third article on my third work. Alas! the honeymoon had set. The "fascinating" prose of 1855, the "ingenious" prose of 1856, had become in 1857, in the opinion of the same judge, and in the language of the same pen, "pretentious and tiresome." This sudden change of things and epithets restored me to liberty. I walked abroad in all my strength and independence, and I dissected Monsieur Louis Ulbach's thick volume with a severity which was still tempered by the courteous forms and the dimensions of my few newspaper-columns. A year passed away. My fourth work appeared. Note that these several volumes were not different works, but a series of volumes expressing the same opinions in the very same style; in fine, they were but one work. Note, too, that Monsieur Ulbach's "Revue de Paris" and "L'Assemblée Nationale," in which I wrote, were both suppressed by the government on the same day, which established between us a fraternity of martyrdom. All this was as nothing. Louis Ulbach, this very same Louis Ulbach, was employed by a newspaper where he was sure to please by insulting me, and the very first thing he did was to give me a kick, such a kick as twenty horses covered with sleigh-bells could not give. He called me "ignoramus," and wondered what "this fellow" meant by his literary drivelling. The most curious part of the whole business is, that he did not write the article, all he did was to sign it! Four years, and a scratch given his vanity, had proved enough to produce this change!

Shall I speak to you now of Henry Murger? I wrote this chapter of my Memoirs during his life. I should have suppressed it, did I feel the least drop of bitterness mingled with the recollection of the acts of petty ingratitude of this charming writer. But my object in writing this work is less to satisfy sterile revenge than to exhibit to you a corner of literary life in Paris in the nineteenth century.

In 1850 Henry Murger published a book in which the manners and customs of people who live by their wits were painted in colors scarcely likely to fascinate healthy imaginations. He declared to the world that the novitiate of our future great authors was nothing but one incessant hunt after a half-dollar and a mutton-chop. The world was told by others that Henry Murger had learned to paint this existence by actual experience. There were, however, in his book some excellent flashes of fancy and youth; besides, the public then had grown tired of interminable adventures and novels in fifty volumes. So Henry Murger's first work, "La Vie de Bohême," was very popular; but it did not swell his purse or improve his wardrobe. He was introduced to me, and I shall never forget the low bow he made me. I was afraid for one moment that his bald head would fall between his legs. This precocious baldness gave to his delicate and sad face a singular physiognomy. He looked not so much like a young old man as like an old young man. Henry Murger's warmest desire was to write in the celebrated and influential "Revue des Deux Mondes," which we all abuse so violently when we have reason to complain of it, and which has but to make a sign to us and we instantly fall into its arms. I was then on the best terms with the "Revue des Deux Mondes." Monsieur Castil-Blaze, being from the same neighborhood with me, had obtained a place for me in the "Revue," which belonged to his son-in-law, Monsieur Buloz. I promised Henry Murger to speak a good word for him. A favorable opportunity of doing so occurred a few days afterwards.

"I do not know what is to become of us," said Monsieur Buloz to me; "our old contributors are dying, and no new ones make their appearance."

"They appear, but you refuse to see them. There is Henry Murger, for instance; he has just written an amusing book, which is the most successful of the season."

"Henry Murger! And is it you, Count Armand de Pontmartin, the literary nobleman, the aristocratic writer, who wear (as the world avers) a white cravat and white kid gloves from the time you get up, (I confess I have never seen you with them,)—is it you who propose to me to admit Henry Murger as a contributor to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,'—Henry Murger, the ringleader of people who live by their wits?"

"Why shouldn't I? We live in a day when white cravats have to be very respectful to red cravats. Besides, nothing is too strange to happen; and I would not bet you that Murger does not write in 'Le Moniteur' before I do."

"If you think I had better admit Henry Murger, I consent; but remember what I say to you: It will be the source of annoyance to you."