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doubt, with the kind intent of helping to divert our thoughts from the trying parting close at hand. As usual in such cases, it was poor work pretending to be occupied with anything but the one absorbing topic; so towards eleven o'clock our guest took leave, and I asked to be allowed to escort her home, as I had often done before-the soft, brilliant, southern nights tempting her to walk to and from her house, followed by a footman, and escorted by one or other of the few men of our coterie. At the gate of the Governor's Palace (now the French Préfecture) we parted. But few words had passed between us by the way-those commonplace remarks in which we all seek refuge when anxious or heavy at heart-but her voice was low and earnest, and as I looked into her face, after bending over the small, ungloved hand, the light in her eyes seemed softer to me than ever, although somewhat dimmed-by the shadow, was it, of her blacklace hood? One more gentle pressure, a hastily murmured farewell, and she had vanished in the sombre gateway. I was left alone in the little moonlit square, a faint scent of verbena lingering with me, and that melody of Schubert haunting me vexingly as I stood. A very charming woman was "Madame la Gouvernante."

On the morrow I was rumbling north in the diligence. The partings were over; my final glimpse of my brother was somewhere beyond the Var, whither he had ridden, poor boy, to see the

last of me. I was off alone into the unknown world, stored, no doubt, with excellent precepts and bright examples of rectitude and virtue, but, I much fear, ill prepared for the battle of life by a home which had been all kindness and indulgence.

CHAPTER V

MY FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND

OUR road lay by Lyons and Moulins to Bourges, where we found the newly-opened railway to Paris. Whether I was too absorbed by the sadness of leaving home, or whether the fatigue of the journey dulled my senses, certain it is that it left no impression on me, and I can call to mind no single incident of it. On reaching Paris I found a room ready for me in my sister's apartment at the Avenue de Marigny. I stopped here, I think, two or three days, and spent most of my time with the Polignacs. One day there at dinner, I remember having a lively altercation with the eldest of my cousins, Alphonse. The events of the preceding February were fresh in my mind, and I expressed to him in strong-and no doubt youthfully indiscreet-language my surprise at his conduct in entering the Palace of the Tuileries with the triumphant mob, and sitting down to a piano in one of the rooms to play the Marsellaise for the benefit of the scum of the Faubourgs. I urged, with some truth and probably no little priggishness, that a man who bore his name should never have lowered himself so far as to join in these saturnalia of the dregs of the populace, and that

although he might well in his heart rejoice at the fall of an usurper and a personal enemy, so to speak, of his father, his principles ought logically to make all revolutions hateful, instead of welcome, to him. Of course there was a general "row," my excellent aunt soundly rating me for daring thus to speak to her favourite son. I recollect, however, that Jules de Polignac (since dead), a nephew of the late prince,' who was present, and of riper age than we disputants, sided with me, and allowed that there was force in my arguments. I must add here of Alphonse de Polignac, with whom I was but seldom thrown after this time, that although he had made a foolish exhibition of himself in February, he afterwards greatly distinguished himself during the terrible June days, when he stormed the Pantheon at the head of a battalion of Mobiles. He subsequently went into the Artillery, and served with much credit on Marshal Pélissier's staff at the siege of Sebastopol, dying very shortly after his marriage to Mdlle. Mirès, at the early age of thirtyseven. He was a man of great and versatile talents, though in some respects of an eccentric turn of mind a mathematician of the first order, an excellent linguist, and the author of a remarkable French translation of Faust. An Ihm ist viel verloren gegangen, a German would say. He left a charming daughter, married to the Vicomte d'Oilliamson,

1 Son of Comte Melchior de Polignac, a younger brother of the prince.

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As

a cadet of the French branch of the Scotch Williamson family, who descend from an ancestor who came to France as far back as the days of Charles VIII., and served in the Scottish bodyguard of that king. Another poor fellow who fell heroically in that same deadly conflict in June deserves a passing tribute from me here, Léon de St. Clair, a son of my Aunt Caroline's husband by a previous marriage. boys, we had known and liked him much, although he was our senior by several years. He was a young man of very pleasing manners and exemplary conduct-in every way a great contrast to his half-brother, Ferdinand. Serving as lieutenant in an infantry regiment of the garrison of Paris, he was killed when gallantly leading on his men against one of the formidable barricades of the Rue Mouffetard.

Oddly enough, the rest of my journey to England has also left a blank in my memory, except my arrival in London, the first impressions of which I can recall most vividly. The foggy atmosphere; the strange look of the houses and buildings-so unlike those to which I had been accustomed in Paris or at Nice; the huge omnibuses and wonderful hansom cabs; the earnest, active stream of life; the curious mixture of order and uproar; the grim and stalwart police; the sprinkling of scarlet coats, whose deeds of prowess I had been brought up to admire (my worthy uncle was a sturdy John Bull, and cordially detested the French foes of his fighting days), and