"So be it, with all our hearts!" was the general shout.

"Apropos of State prosecutions against 'Le National,'" said Louis Blanc, "that was a most exciting time when Rouen was brought by Thiers before the Court of Peers, for a libel on that most august and erudite body."

"Aye! and a most, liberal, honest and honorable conclave—the thrice-sodden and most solemn knaves and mules!" cried Rollin.

"Rouen at the bar demanded Armand Carrel for his defence," continued Louis Blanc. "To refuse was impossible, but a bitter pill must it have been to Thiers and Mignet to consent. They must have foreseen what came. Both, now in the Ministry, only four years before both had been in 'Le National'—Thiers as the colleague of Carrel, and Mignet as a collaborateur. The files of the journal were produced, and, lo! there stood paragraphs proven to have emanated from the pens of the prosecutors far more libelous and venomous on the august peers than anything Rouen had published. You all remember the scene that ensued and won't forget it soon."

"No; nor shall we soon forget that noble passage in Armand Carrel's defence," said Flocon, "in which he evoked the shade of Marshal Ney, and from the wild excitement that followed, one would suppose that it had really risen in the hall, bleeding and ghastly, and pointing to its wounds, like the ghost of Banquo, to blast his hoary, jeweled and noble assassin, who, seated on those very seats, had sentenced him to an infamous doom. Carrel was instantly stopped, but General Excelmens rose in his seat and pronounced the charge true. It was then reiterated with tremendous applause from the galleries. How Carrel escaped punishment for contempt is not known. Rouen was convicted of libel on the peers, of course; his sentence was a fine of ten thousand francs and imprisonment for two years."

"But of what words did this famous libel actually consist?" asked Ledru Rollin.

"Louis can tell you better than I," said Flocon.

"Why, the words were severe enough, no doubt," replied Louis Blanc, "but Thiers and Mignet had themselves expressed the same ideas a hundred times, though in less powerful and pointed language. The passage which seems particularly to have given offence was this, that in the eyes of eternal justice and those of posterity, as well as in the testimony of their own consciences, these renegades from the Revolution, these returned emigrants, these men of Ghent, these military and civil parvenus, these old Senators and spoiled Marshals of Bonaparte, these Procureur Generals, these new-made nobles of the Restoration, these three or four generations of Ministers sunk in public hatred and contempt, and stained with blood—all these, seasoned with a few notabilities, thrown in by the Royalty of the 7th of August, on condition they should never open their lips save to approve their master's commands—all this farrago of servilities was not competent to pronounce on the culpability of men seeking to enforce the results of the Revolution of July!"

"It was not until the commencement of 1835, I think," said Marrast, "that Ministers opened a general onslaught upon the Parisian press. 'Le Republicain' was interdicted that year. It was then, too, that the laws against public criers and newspaper hawkers were instituted. As far back as '33, however, Rodde had braved all such prohibitions by selling and with impunity, too, his own paper in the streets. In May of '35 came on the general prosecution of the press. Rollin was advocate in the defence. There were warm words between Armand Carrel and his friend Dupont, the lawyer, and there was at one time apprehension of a duel."

"The position of Armand Carrel with Thiers, his former colleague, was, at that time, a singular one," remarked Rollin. "Each seemed to be on the constant search for opportunities to exasperate the other. The editor assailed the Minister in his columns, and the Minister retaliated by an arrest. Carrel censured and ridiculed Thiers, though he respected his abilities, and Thiers feared and hated Carrel, though he admired his talents."

"It was about this time that Fieschi exploded his infernal machine at the King, was it not?" asked Flocon. "Thiers arrested Carrel then, I know."

"It was on the 28th of July of '35, at ten in the morning, on the Boulevard du Temple. This was the second attempt on the King's life, the first having been that of Bergeron, in November of '33. Carrel was arrested as an accomplice, it was pretended, for every one of these attempts has been attributed to the whole body of the Republicans, while they were utterly ignorant of them until they took place, and then bitterly denounced them. But the Government has made capital out of all these insane attempts, and against the opposition, too."

"I've heard it asserted," said Rollin, "that the Government got up some of those little exhibitions of fireworks for that very purpose. They are quite harmless, so far as the old man is concerned—wonderfully so—and Fieschi was made a perfect fool of, so ridiculously lionized was he by King, Court and Ministers. Our friend Marie was advocate for that wretched old man, Pepin, Fieschi's accomplice, more a ghost than a living creature."

"You are entirely right, friend Rollin," said Louis Blanc, "in the idea that every one of these attempts strengthens the Government and recoils on the opposition. No one should so vigilantly and vigorously watch for and suppress such attempts as we. Heaven defend the old despot from the assassin's weapon, as it seems well inclined to do, or the deed will surely be attributed to us. Every unsuccessful attempt at assassination is viewed like an unsuccessful attempt at revolt on the part of the opposition, and injures our cause accordingly. Better never to attempt than never to succeed."

"Do you think it true, Louis, as was reported," asked Marrast, "that as soon as the smoke of Fieschi's explosion swept off, and the old man found himself standing unharmed amid a heap of slain and mangled, Marshal Mortier and Colonel Rieussec being among the killed, his first exclamation was this, with, ill-concealed gratification, 'Now I shall get my appanages and the dotations for the boys.'"

"Nothing is more probable," said Louis Blanc. "That old man has but one impulse—selfishness, and but one attachment—to his family—his family, because it is his. His purse and family have for years been his sole objects of love. To aggrandize his own has been for years his sole end and aim. He parcels out the thrones and kingdoms of Europe among his children as if it were but a family estate."

"What thoughtful selfishness!" exclaimed Flocon; "and at a moment, too, when he had but just escaped an awful death, and all around him flowed the blood and lay scattered the lacerated limbs of his faithful servants, either dead or dying with groans and shrieks of most agonizing torture, and all because of himself; how disgraceful that, at such a terrible moment, his first thought should have been of the few more francs his trembling hand was striving to tear from a people by whom he had already been made the richest man in Europe, and which the occurrence of this dreadful event might serve to win for him."

"Well," said Rollin, "whether this event aided to win the appanages and dotations, and was so designed, or not, it is very sure the aforesaid appanages and dotations were secured. No wonder that such attempts succeed each other so rapidly—one every year, at the least! When was the next, Louis—that of Alibaud, I think?"

"That took place about sunset on the 25th of June, '36," was the reply. "Alibaud discharged a walking-stick-gun at the King, as he left the Tuileries, on his way to Neuilly, at the corner of the Porte Royale. That Alibaud was a mere boy, and a very interesting and intelligent boy, too; but for some mysterious cause he did not find favor with the court, as did Fieschi. He evidently attempted the assassination from conviction, from a feeling of manifest destiny. After his failure, he only wished to die, and to die at once. All who have succeeded Alibaud have been but vulgar cut-throats."

"In what year was the insurrection of Armand Barbes and Martin Bernard?" asked Flocon. "That proved most disastrous to our cause."

"That was in '39, May, I think," answered Rollin. "Barbes, Blanqui and Bernard were arraigned as leaders. Marie and myself were advocates for Barbes. Blanqui was sentenced to death and Barbes to the galleys for life. But we obtained commutation of penalty for both."

"And where is to be the end of all these things?" asked Marrast, gloomily, as he continued pacing the chamber with folded arms, his head resting on his bosom. "Are the ten years on which we have now entered to be characterized by the fruitless efforts of the past? Are the people of France again, and again, and again to strike for freedom, only to be stricken into the dust and trampled beneath the armed heel of a despot's myrmidons? Are the streets of Lyons, Paris and Marseilles again to be drenched with the life-blood of their dwellers, poured out as freely as water and as fruitlessly? Are we all again, for full ten years, to toil, strive, struggle and suffer; to be hunted down like the vilest criminals, and, like criminals, plunged into the most pestilential dungeons; to be stripped like slaves of our hard-won earnings, and to be deprived of the most humble franchises of men claiming at all to be free; to be treated with scorn and contumely, and to be debarred the exercise of those common rights, which, like air and water, belong to all; I say, brothers, are all these scenes to be repeated during the ten years on which we have now entered, as they have been witnessed during the ten years now past?"

"You speak sadly, Armand," observed Rollin.

"Not so sadly as I feel. I have listened with attention to the recapitulation of the political events of the past ten years in France; and most plainly, and as sadly as plainly, does the result prove that every movement in our cause has been as premature as it has been unsuccessful."

"May we not gather wisdom, which shall conduct us to success in the future, from the very errors and disasters of the past?" remarked Flocon.

"Alas!" despondingly replied Marrast, "what is there in our present to promise a bright future more than was in our past to promise us a bright present? Our great leaders of another generation have all left us, one after another—all have dropped into their graves. The cold marble has closed over their venerable brows, and they rest well. Yet they died and made no sign of hope. On us, young, inexperienced and rash, has devolved their task; but the mantle of their power and virtue has not, alas! descended with that task to aid in its momentous accomplishment. General Lamarque's sun went down in clouds. Midnight, deeper than Egyptian darkness, brooded over the delirious deathbed of Lafayette. Armand Carrel fell without hope; and are we wiser than they? How often, oh! how often have I listened to the words of wisdom that fell from those eloquent lips, even as a boy reverently listens to a parent—for such was Armand Carrel to me. Upon this very spot have I stood, in that very chair has he sat, that chair, which, with mingled shame and pride, I reflect is now filled by me—shame, that it is filled in a manner so unworthy of him—pride, that I should have been deemed fit, after him to fill it at all—in that very chair, I say, has his noble form reclined, when he for hours, even from night till the next day's dawn, dwelt with sorrowful eloquence upon his country's present, and looked forward with gloomy foreboding and prediction for the future. It almost seems to me that this mighty shade is with us now!"

"And why was all this despondency, my dear Armand?" remarked Louis Blanc, mildly. "Was it not because our noble and gifted friend was essentially a soldier, not a civilian, not a statesman, not a revolutionist? Had Armand Carrel gone to Algeria, he would have died—if died he had not in an unknown duel, with an unknown bravo—he would have died a Marshal of France—a Bugeaud, a Chaugarnier, a Bedeau, a Cavaignac, a Clausel, a Lamoriciere. Carrel had no faith in the masses to achieve a revolution. He never believed that they could even withstand a single charge of regular troops, much less repel and overcome it."

"Not even with barricades?" asked Rollin.

"Not even in defence of barricades," continued Louis Blanc.

"Regular troops have much to learn," added Rollin, with a significant smile. "They will see the day—aye! and we all shall see it and rejoice at its coming, despite all melancholy prognostications, when the people of Paris will dictate abdication to the king of the barricades, from the top of the barricades, the people's throne! Nor will that event tarry long!"

"I doubt it not, I doubt it not, Ledru!" exclaimed Louis Blanc, rejoiced that one of the youngest and least stable of their number appeared free from the apprehensions of one of the most influential and seemingly most reliable. "I accept the omen indicated by your enthusiasm. But I accounted for the vacillation and distrust of our lamented friend, Armand Carrel, by reverting to the fact that he relied entirely on regular troops, military skill, scientific tactics and severe subordination. Now, all of these belonged to our oppressors and none of them to us; and, inasmuch as he could not perceive that enthusiasm, passion for freedom, love of country and family, and the very wrath and rage of desperation itself sometimes not only supply the place of discipline, arms and the knowledge requisite to use them, but even enable vast masses to break down and crush beneath their heel the serried ranks of veteran troops, he could only despair at the prospects apparently before him. Besides, Armand Carrel, like all military men, was a man of action, not reflection—of execution, not contrivance—a soldier, not a conspirator. At the head of ten thousand veteran troops, he would have charged on thrice their number without discipline, with the confident assurance of sweeping them from his path as the chaff of the threshing floor is swept before the blast; but, with an undisciplined mob, as he contemptuously called the masses, he would have moved not a step. The larger the multitude, the less effective and the more impossible to manage he would have deemed it. A revolution accomplished by means of the three arms of the military service—artillery, cavalry and infantry—horse, foot and dragoons, he could readily conceive; but a revolution conducted to a successful issue only by means of pikes, axes, muskets and barricades, never, to the hour of his death, despite the victory of the Three Days, could Carrel comprehend."

"Besides," said Flocon, "it must not be forgotten that Armand Carrel, though a most devoted friend to Republicanism, was never a member of the Societe des Droits de l'Homme—was never, as we all now are—a Communist, a Socialist, a Fourierist, a friend to the laborer. No wonder he hoped so little for the people, and trusted to accomplish so little through them."

"There can be no doubt that the social principle which Republicanism is now unconsciously assuming all over France," mildly remarked Louis Blanc, "is lending to the cause incalculable strength. How terribly impressed with a conviction of the justice of the cause in which they perished must have been the unhappy insurgents of Lyons, when, with this motto on their banner: 'To live toiling or die fighting,' they marched firmly up to the cannon's mouth and fought, and, thus fighting, fell. Yet this conviction is not peculiar to the workmen of Lyons. It pervades all Paris, all France, and needs only to be roused to act with an energy which no human power can resist. Social Republican will be the type of the next revolution in France—it must be. The French people have been dazzled by the mirage of liberty ever since '89,—but it has been only a mirage. On the last three days of July, '30, the people of Paris drove out one Bourbon to enthrone another. True, 'The State is myself,' was not the despotic motto he assumed, as did one of his successors, but it was 'Me and my family,' which has proved equally selfish, if not so absolute, and far more dangerous to freedom. With Lafayette and Benjamin Constant, the Citizen King they had made, quarreled as soon as on his throne, and Lafitte and Dupont de l'Eure, his supporters, were banished from the Court. Casimir Perier was called to crush the Liberals. Armand Carrel assailed the act, and urged a republic. 'Le National' was prosecuted, and insurrections followed. Thus was the Revolution of the Three Days won by the people to be seized and enjoyed by the Bourgeoisie. The next revolution will be won by the people, too, but the people will enjoy it!"

"And how progresses our principles, Louis, among the people?" asked Marrast, who had listened attentively to every word that had been uttered.

"Never so gloriously as now, Armand, never! Never has there been such a diffusion of information upon the subject of the rights of labor as now. Pagnerre tells me every day that volumes, tracts and pamphlets on this topic disappear like magic from his shelves."

"Has not the Minister a hand in this mysterious disappearance of Communist literature?" asked Rollin. "We all know he is quite frantic on the topic of popular education."

"Oh! yes, we all understand Guizot's love for the people! His system of education promulgated in 1833 was so very beautiful that it was almost a pity it was utterly impracticable. But Guizot has very little to do with Pagnerre's book-shelves, or with Pagnerre in any way, except to prosecute him from time to time for publishing Cormenin's withering tracts designed for the Minister himself, and yet it would almost seem there was a design to exhaust the market of the publications of our friends; only the great mass of them go to the provinces and large quantities abroad. My own little brochure, 'The Organization of Work,' after having fallen stillborn from the press, died a natural death and been laid out in state for a year or two on Pagnerre's shelves, all at once is resurrected, runs through half a dozen large editions, and is translated into half a dozen languages. The same is true of Lamartine's 'Vision of the Future,' and the same of Cormenin's tracts, and of the ten thousand brochures on this same subject of Communism in all its different shades and phrases, and in every variety of size, form and style of writing and appearance. These publications are adapted to every taste and comprehension. The workman is suited as well as the savant. All this savors of magic. Even my most sanguine anticipations are surpassed by reality. There will never long lack a supply for a demand, be that demand what it may. A demand for Fourier literature has turned all the pens in Paris hard at work upon it—novelists, essayists, pamphleteers—while the Porte St. Antoine, the Porte St. Martin and all the minor theatres, where are found the masses, swarm with melodramas, farces and vaudevilles on the same subject, and none of you have forgotten the powerful play, entitled 'The Laborer of Lyons,' attributed to M. Dantes, recently produced with such success on the boards of the Francais itself."

"And who is this M. Dantes," asked Ledru Rollin, "if you will suffer me to interrupt?"

"Decidedly the most remarkable man in the French Chamber of Deputies," replied Marrast. "In powers of natural eloquence I never saw his rival."

"Nor is that all," added Louis Blanc. "Unlike most men noted as mere orators, he is a sound logician, as well as a polished rhetorician. As a political economist he has few equals. To that subject he seems to have devoted much study, while his familiarity with the political history of France and of the times generally all over Christendom seems boundless. In debate, you observe he is never at a loss for fact or argument, let the discussion take what direction it may."

"And he has celebrity also as a writer, has he not?" asked Ledru Rollin.

"The author of 'The Laborer of Lyons' must be a man of distinguished literary genius," was the reply.

"Better than all," said Flocon, "he is devoted heart and soul to the good cause."

"Such devotedness to a cause I never witnessed," said Marrast. "He puts us all to the blush. With him it appears a matter of direct individual interest. He is perfectly untiring. He is like one impelled by his fate. Love or vengeance could not force onward a man to the attainment of an object more irresistibly than he seems forced, and that, too, without the slightest apparent stain of personal interest or ambition. That man appears to me a miracle—a pure philanthropist. He strives, struggles, suffers, sacrifices, and all with the sole object of ameliorating the condition of his race."

"It is, indeed, wonderful," said Rollin, thoughtfully. "Do you know, Marrast, anything of his past history?"

"Little, if anything. Of himself he never speaks, and I can gather nothing from others. Even his constituents had known nothing of him but a few months before he became their representative in the Chamber. His popularity with them he owes to his efforts to ameliorate their condition. At his own expense he established among them a Phalanstrie, which is now in most successful operation."

"He is rich, then?" asked Flocon.

"Seemingly not, to judge from his habits of life," replied Marrast. "Not a man in the Chamber is more Republican in garb, manner, equipage or residence than he, and yet he may be rich."

"Is he married?" asked Rollin.

"He has been, I am told," said Marrast. "But we interrupt you, Louis. You were alluding to the unusual influences now at work for our cause."

"I was about speaking of the newspaper press," said Louis Blanc. "Never has there been known such a revolution in favor of Reform and Communist journals, and to none is this better known than to some of ourselves. There's Flocon's new journal, 'La Reforme,' that has leaped at once into a circulation never before achieved but by long years of toil and enterprise. The old 'National,' we need but to look around us to be sure, was never more prosperous than now, while I am free to confess that my journal, 'Le Bon Sens,' which has been a sickly child ever since its birth, has, within three months, tripled its number of readers, or, at least, its payers. The same is in the main true of 'Le Monde,' by La Croix, 'Le Journal du Peuple,' by Dubose, 'Le Courier Francais,' by Chatelain, 'La Commerce,' by Bert, 'La Minerve,' by Lemaine, 'La Presse,' by Girardin, and all the journals in Paris which diffuse true ideas upon labor and the rights of the people, be they in other respects what they may. Even the 'Charivari,' which views the old King and his Ministers as fair butts of ridicule, perceives a marked increase in its patronage since it commenced that course, which sudden popularity naturally excites it to increase of zeal in the same path. Besides all this, an army of new papers, aiming to aid the great cause, have not only sprung up of late, like mushrooms, in Paris, but all over France, and even all over Europe; and so far appear they from interfering with each other's prospects that the more there are the better they seem sustained and the more ably conducted. A swarm of new and unknown writers for the press on this great subject seems all at once to have appeared from unseen hiding-places."

"This is very strange, Louis," said Marrast, "and yet it is, doubtless, very true. I had observed what you remark myself, although I have viewed the movement less hopefully for the cause of the Republic than you."

"Depend upon it, Armand," said Louis Blanc, smiling, "that Republicanism and Socialism are identical terms, as much so as Communism and despotism are antagonistic terms."

"But how do you account for this wonderful change, this unprecedented fever for Fourierism?" asked Flocon.

"I don't pretend to account for it at all. The merits of the cause have, perhaps, begun to be properly appreciated. Unusual efforts have been made by our friends of late. Whole nations and epochs are sometimes seized with a contagious mania for peculiar species of literature, as for everything else. But I will hint to you a suspicion which I have recently entertained, namely, that, after all, the rapid sale and ready market for every species of Fourier literature is not an unerring indication of the amount of reading of such literature, or the demand that actually exists of buyers as well as readers—individual ones at least. As for the journalistic literature, that I have learned is, without doubt, gratuitously distributed, to a great extent, among the masses."

"But can the masses read the papers?" asked Marrast.

"Each family, house, neighborhood, cafe or cabaret, at any rate, has, at least one reader," said Rollin; "and all the men, women and children have ears to hear, if not power to comprehend. But some of these papers, which I have seen, come down in style to the very humblest comprehension."

"Can it be," asked Flocon, "that there is such a club as a society for the diffusion of social knowledge in Paris, after the form of that in London, instituted by Lord Henry Brougham and his Whig coadjutors, for the diffusion of general information, and so opposed by the Tories."

"If there be such an association," said Louis Blanc, "it has managed to elude all my vigilance thus far, and that of the Government, too, for Guizot can perceive, if no one else can, the inevitable effect of all this, and he has no idea that the dear people of France shall be educated by any one save himself. But, actually, there seems to me to exist too much unity of purpose and action in this enterprise for it to be the work of an association. I should rather suppose one powerful and philanthropic mind at the head of the movement, were there not two things so plainly opposed to it as to forbid the idea—the first being that there is no one man in Europe who is rich enough to expend such immense sums upon such an enterprise, if he would, and the second that there is no man who has the subject sufficiently at heart to do it, if he could."



CHAPTER XI.

"WAIT AND HOPE."

Just then a light rap was heard at the private door, which Marrast immediately hastened to open, as if in anticipation of the arrival of a friend.

A brief and rapid colloquy ensued; then M. Dantes, the Deputy from Marseilles, was introduced. He seemed acquainted with, and to be held in high regard by all present. His dress, as usual, was black, with a white cravat, and his manner and bearing had all that magnetism and dignity which so deeply impressed those he met.

"I find you in private conference, do I not, Messieurs?" asked he, glancing around with a smile. "I pray you let me not interrupt. I have called but for a moment to speak with M. Marrast respecting a measure in the Chamber, and have consented to enter only at his solicitation."

"You are right, M. Dantes," replied Marrast, "in supposing us engaged in a private conference, and upon matters of deep import, though conferences in this office can never be so private or so important as not to derive benefit from the presence and counsel of the Deputy from Marseilles."

"Most true," observed Louis Blanc; "and so far from intrusion do we view your arrival that we can but consider it most opportune that we have the privilege of referring to you a question on which, between us, especially between our friend Marrast and myself, there seems some little diversity of sentiment."

"It would, I fear," said M. Dantes, "be unpardonable arrogance in one so young as I am in the great cause of human liberty to offer counsel to you, who are all veterans, and most of you little less than martyrs to your enthusiasm. But no good citizen will shrink from the responsibility of declaring the results of his reflections on all topics which have reference to the general weal."

"We differ mainly in this," said Marrast: "Louis Blanc attributes the Republican failures of the past ten years to prematurity and want of preparation in our attempts, and contends that all those reverses may be retrieved by patience and prudence in future, while, to my mind, there is nothing to indicate for the future, from the same causes, different results than those experienced in the past."

"Concert of action," said M. Dantes, mildly, "is always an indispensable requisite in the accomplishment of every enterprise which relies for its success on association, or the combined efforts of individuals laboring for a common end; yet, with all the concert of action which can possibly be attained, the best arranged and best digested scheme in the world may be ruined by premature movement. Of this we surely have sad proof in the history of the past ten years alluded to. There is something of truth in the declaration so frequently made that the French people are not yet prepared for freedom. If this be so, then it is the duty of their friends to prepare them. It is folly to suppose that the masses should, at first, intuitively know all their rights and the best mode of vindicating them. This they must be taught; and, to this end, the press should be unceasingly at work, not only all over France, but all over Europe, in diffusing correct views upon life and labor, and political rights and powers. There should be, also, concert of action among the friends of freedom, and clubs should at once be instituted in every city, town and village in France, which should be in private and intimate correspondence with similar clubs at Paris and in all the capitals of Christendom. There should, likewise, be unity of action introduced among the masses themselves. In a city like Paris, and among a people like the French, secret signals can easily be arranged, by which, at any hour of the night, or of the day, fifty thousand laborers in their blouses might be concentrated at any point where their presence is required, and that, too, with arms in their hands furnished from secret arsenals; and thus would those pitiable slaughters of helpless insurgents, like those of sheep in the shambles, we have so often witnessed, be avoided, if nothing besides were gained. The people are ever but too ready to pour out their blood, and the most difficult and delicate task in our enterprise is, after all, to restrain them—to impress upon them the all important maxim, without which nothing great, good or enduring is achieved, those three words in which all human wisdom is contained, 'Wait and hope.'"

"And for what are we to wait and hope, for which we have not already in vain waited and hoped the past ten years?" asked Marrast.

"The true hour to strike!" was the firm answer.

"And that hour, when will it come?"

"It may come quickly, as it will come surely, soon or late! It cannot be that the Revolution of July should continue much longer to result in the solemn mockery it has. It cannot be that its friends should much longer be withheld from those by whom it was achieved, only to aggrandize one old man and his sons. It cannot be that the unmitigated and disgusting selfism of Louis Philippe, and his efforts to ally himself with every crowned head in Europe—not for the glory of France, but for his own—will much longer be overlooked or their perils masked. The appanages grasped by himself—the dotation and bridal outfit of the Duke of Orleans—the dotation sought for the Duke of Nemours, and his appointment as Regent during the minority of the Count of Paris—the Governorship of Algeria bestowed on the youthful and inexperienced Aumale, to the insult of so many brave and victorious generals—the naval supremacy, to which has been exalted the ambitious Joinville, and his union to the opulent Brazilian Princess—the effort to unite the young Montpensier with the Infanta of Spain—the environment of Paris with Bastilles, with the avowed purpose of fortifying order by turning the ordnance which should protect into enginery of destruction—an immense standing army—the notorious corruption of officials, and the audacious dabbling of Ministers in the stocks, if not the King himself, by means of information obtained by the Government telegraph, and withheld from the people, or of information manufactured by the telegraph designed to affect the Bourse—the unprecedented number of placemen occupying seats in the Chamber of Deputies, yet receiving exorbitant salaries as incumbents of civil offices, one man being often in receipt of the salaries of several offices, though performing the duties of none—the fact that Ministers have maintained majorities by unblushing bribery in elections—that hardly one man in two hundred is an elector—the profligate arts of corruption by which every able man is bought by the Court—the disgraceful censorship of the press and the drama—the enormous appropriations for the civil list, wrung out by grinding taxes from the toil and sweat of millions—the absurd assumption, yet the monstrous power, over the press and its conductors, of that conclave of hoary dotards called the Chamber of Peers—the utter and most impious disregard of the deprivation and misery of the operative and laborer, although arrayed side by side with the insolence and wealth pampered by the taxes torn from themselves—the total forgetfulness of the self-evident truth of the right of all men to labor, unrestricted by the baleful influences of the competition of capitalists—these facts, properly urged and set forth by the press, from the tribune and in the clubs, in connection with due enlightenment of the masses upon their rights as to labor and its reward and the duty of government thereupon could not fail to prepare the popular mind, all over France, and all over Europe, for reform—for revolution."

"Unquestionably," cried Louis Blanc, "such would be the effect; and it would not only prepare the people for reform, and stimulate them to obtain it, but it would make them Republicans—true Republicans—American Republicans! The Americans do not plume themselves on the title citizen, but they work; they dispute little about words, but clear their lands; they do not talk of exterminating anybody, but they cover the sea with their ships, they construct immense canals, roads and steamers without jabbering at every stroke of the spade about the rights of man. With them, labor, merit, talent and honest opulence are honored and rewarded aristocracies. Such Republicans would furnish France more Washingtons, Jeffersons and Madisons, and fewer Robespierres, Dantons and Marats!"

"There can be no doubt," remarked Flocon, "that the paramount interest in a republic is that of those who work, that the labor question is of supreme importance, that the profound problem now submitted to the industrial nations of Christendom demands satisfactory solution, and that the long-enduring and most iniquitous miseries of those who toil must cease. Reform, revolution and government which achieve not these, achieve nothing! They would be worse than useless. The measures suggested by our distinguished friend seem to me eminently calculated to attain the consummation we desire."

"A good government must and always will systematically uphold the poor, and ever interpose to protect the weak against the strong," said Louis Blanc. "The state should be tutelary for the ignorant, the poor and the suffering of every description. We must have a guardian government—a government that will accord the aid of that mighty engine, credit, not to the rich only, but also to the poor. It must interpose likewise in the matter of industry, and exclude that antagonistical principle of competition—the poisoned fount of so much virulence, violence and ruin. Our maxim is, brothers, and in this do we all concur, 'Human Solidarity,' and our motto, 'Unity, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.' All men are of one family, and once thoroughly sensible of this kindred, discord, hate and selfism will no longer be possible."

"The views advanced," said Ledru Rollin, "so far as they tend to the elevation of the masses and to popular preparation for reform, Republicanism or revolution, have my most cordial approval; but I would beg to ask how long are the people to 'wait and hope?' When is to come the hour to strike?"

"Who can tell," said M. Dantes, in his low, clear and musical tones, "at what moment the breath will come which may hurl on its errand of devastation the avalanche which the snows and suns of centuries, perchance, have been preparing for its awful mission? In the stillness of the night-time, beneath the clear blue sky of summer, or amid the ravings of the midnight tempest, its dread march is ordered, and in resistless, crushing sublimity it begins to move on to accomplish its terrible errand. Who may predict the precise moment when the earthquake shall rock, the tornado sweep, the red lightning scathe, or the lava flood desolate? And who shall tell the day or the hour when the people, in their majesty and might, shall rise to avenge their wrongs? The snow-flake falls fleecily on the mountain's top through many a long and silent night; a land green as Eden smiles over the volcano; through many a calm and sunny day the electric flame gathers in the firmament! At length, when least expected, the avalanche sweeps, the volcano bursts, the red bolt strikes. France is the victim of many wrongs. Which one of them shall prove the last drop in her cup of bitterness we know not. France is divided into many political sects, and all but one aim at revolution. Which one of all shall it be to set the ball of revolution in motion? The Legitimists, who consider the Duke of Bordeaux the rightful heir, and Louis Philippe a usurper; the Bonapartists, who think they evoke the great shade of Napoleon in the person of his unworthy descendant; or the old Republicans? As for the Conservatives, let them with Guizot at their head, uphold themselves if they can, and let the dynasties under Barrot and Thiers overthrow and succeed their factional foes. Their petty quarrels we care not for. Nor shall we, the Communists, ever suffer ourselves to be deemed the revolutionary party; but the revolution once commenced, let us throw ourselves into its torrent, and with our thorough, perfect and secret organization, we cannot fail to shape it most successfully to our own, our righteous ends. The hour when revolution may commence we cannot predict, as it is not our policy to start or precipitate it; but that hour may come quickly. It must come on the demise of Louis Philippe, which event cannot be long delayed, and it may be precipitated before. Nor will France alone be convulsed. As the news of that old man's death, on the lightning's wing, spreads over Europe, the electric wire will prove but a train passing through repeated mines, which, one after the other, will explode with awful devastation. Berlin, Vienna and St. Petersburg, the strongholds of despotism in Europe, each will totter—all but the last will fall. The press is powerless on the Russian serf. Russia will be the tyrant's last citadel. Italy will throw off the Austrian yoke and be free. Gregory XVIII. will shortly die. A wise, far-seeing and benevolent priest, named Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, born at Sinigaglia, and now a cardinal, with the title of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, will succeed to the Papal See, and Italy will be a republic; Genoa, Venice, Naples, Lombardy, Piedmont and Sardinia will be sister yet sovereign states, forming one union—the constellation of freedom, the favorite scheme of Napoleon's better days at last achieving reality. Switzerland, with her green hills and her field Morgarten, her priestly despots expelled, shall also be free. But I weary you, Messieurs."

"By no means," cried Marrast, cordially clasping M. Dantes by the hand. "I have listened in silence to your earnest exposition of the policy you suggest, and so truly do I subscribe to it that, henceforth, I am your disciple and adopt your motto, 'Wait and hope' for my own. But it is nearly two o'clock. In an hour the Chamber sits."

"And, meanwhile, Messieurs," interrupted M. Dantes, "I know not that we can better employ ourselves, after so protracted a seance, than to repair to Vefour's. This talking is hungry work, and listening and thinking, which are by far more tedious, are still more so. So to Vefour's."

"The seance 'National' is closed!" cried Ledru Rollin, laughing, as the whole company descended the gloomy stairs.



CHAPTER XII.

THE MYSTERIOUS PRIMA DONNA.

All fashionable Paris was excited over the announcement of a new prima donna, whose wonderful achievements in Italian opera had set even the exacting critics of Italy wild with enthusiasm and delight.

This great artiste was no other than the renowned Louise d'Armilly. She had never before sung in the presence of a Parisian audience, but her fame had preceded her, and it was accepted as certain that her triumph at the Academie Royale would be both instantaneous and overwhelming.

She was to assume the role of Lucrezia Borgia, in Donizetti's brilliant opera of that name, a role in which the enterprising director of the Academie Royale assured the expectant public that she possessed no equal.

For weeks every Parisian journal had been sounding her praises with unremitting zeal, and now her name was as familiar as a household word in all the high society salons, where the ladies and their gallants could talk of nothing but the approaching operatic event, while in the cafes and on the boulevards an equal degree of interest was exhibited.

Even the masses, notwithstanding the political agitation in which they were involved, had caught the prevailing excitement, and the leaders of the contending parties themselves paused amid their heated discussions to talk of Louise d'Armilly.

The career of this young and beautiful artiste had been remarkable. Her debut had been made at Brussels, about two years before, in company with her brother, M. Leon d'Armilly, and there, as well as at all the theatres of Italy, La Scala, Argentina and Valle, they had roused a perfect storm of operatic enthusiasm.

The origin of this young artiste was veiled in the deepest mystery. Rumor ascribed to her descent from one of the oldest and most respectable families of France; and domestic trials, among which was a matrimonial misadventure, no less than the arrest of an Italian Prince whom she was about to wed, on the bridal night, as an escaped galley slave, were assigned as the cause which had given her splendid powers to the stage.

At an earlier hour than usual—for Parisian fashion never fills the opera-house until the curtain falls on the second act—the Rue Lepelletier was crowded with carriages, La Pinon with fiacres, and the Grande Bateliere and the passages to the Boulevard des Italiens with persons on foot, all hastening toward that magnificent edifice, constructed within the space of a single year by Debret, to replace the building in the Rue de Richelieu ordered to be razed by the Government because of the assassination at its door of the Duke of Berri, in 1820—that magnificent structure which accommodates two thousand spectators with seats.

Among the first in the orchestra stalls were Beauchamp and Debray, whose attention was divided between the stage and the arrivals of splendidly attired elegantes in the different loges, during the overture. All the elite of Paris seemed on the qui vive.

"It will be a splendid house," observed Debray.

"The debutante, be she whom she may, should feel flattered by such an unexampled assemblage of all the ton of Paris."

Orchestra, balcony, galleries, amphitheatres, lobbies and parterre were packed; every portion of the vast edifice, in short, was thronged except a few of the loges and baignoires, into which every moment brilliant companies were entering.

"Who is that tall, dark military man, with the heavy moustache, now making his way into the Minister's box?" asked Beauchamp, after a pause.

"That man is no less a personage than the Governor of Algeria, Eugene Cavaignac, Marshal of Camp," said Debray. "He reported himself at the War Office this morning, and is the lion of the house."

"Ah!" cried the journalist; "and that is the hero of Constantine! What a frank, open countenance, and what a distingue bearing and manner!"

"You would not suppose all that man's life passed in a camp, would you?"

"His career has, I understand, been remarkable," said Beauchamp.

"Very. His father was a Conventionist of '92, a famous old fellow, who, among other terrible things laid at his door, is said to have pawned an old man's life, old Labodere, for his daughter's honor; somewhat, you remember, as Francis I. spared St. Valliar's life for the favor of the lovely Diana of Poitiers, his only child. His aged mother is yet living, a woman of strong mind, though seventy, and he does nothing without her advice. His brother Godefroi's name was notorious as that of a powerful Republican leader for years before his decease. At eighteen Eugene entered the Polytechnic School. At twenty-two he was a sub-lieutenant in the engineer corps of the second regiment. In '28 he was first lieutenant in France; in '29 he was captain; in '34 he was in Algeria; and, in '39, his cool, bold, decided but discreet conduct had made him chef de bataillon, despite the fact that he had incurred the Royal displeasure some years before by a disloyal toast at a banquet. In '40 he was lieutenant-colonel; in '41 marshal of camp, and first commander of division of Tlemeen; in '43, he was conqueror of Constantine, at the first siege of which I so nearly lost my own valuable head, and he is now Governor of Algeria, after service there of fourteen years."

"And the tall and sinewy man beside him, presenting such a contrast to Cavaignac, with his light complexion, gray hair, and sullen and not very intelligent expression?"

"Oh! that is General Bugeaud, by some deemed the real conqueror of Algeria. But he's not at all popular with the army. His manners are simple and excessively blunt. He is a perfect despot with his staff, 'tis said; yet he is quite a wag when in good-humor, and, at Ministerial dinners, can unbend and make himself as agreeable as need be wished. His voice is as harsh as a Cossack's, and in perfect contrast to that of Cavaignac, which is the richest and most musical you ever heard, yet distinct, emphatic and impressive."

"Bugeaud incurred intense odium with the opposition for his unwarranted severity as jailor of the Duchess of Berri, in '34, and his killing Dulong in a duel, because of a deserved taunt on the subject."

"Bugeaud did his duty," said the Secretary, "though a man of his nature could hardly perform such a duty with gentleness. Bugeaud is not a gentleman; he knows it, and don't try to seem one. He is only a soldier. But there comes his very particular foe; General Lamoriciere. That magnificent woman on his arm is his wife and the sister of the lady who follows, with her husband, the ex-Minister, Adolphe Thiers."

"What a contrast!" cried Beauchamp. "The tall and elegant figure of Lamoriciere, in his brilliant uniform of the Spahis, half oriental, half French, with his lovely wife, and the low, swarthy little ex-Minister in complete black, with his huge round spectacles on his nose nearly twice the size of his eyes, and a wife on his arm nearly double his stature. Why, Thiers reminds me of a Ghoul gallanting a Peri."

"And yet that same dark little ex-Minister has perhaps, in many respects the most powerful mind—at all events, the most available mind—impelled as it is by his restless ambition, in all France. Do you observe how incessantly his keen black eye flashes around the house, beneath his huge glasses?"

"He seems perfectly aware that every eye in the house is directed toward his loge. But is it true that his brother-in-law owes his rapid rise to his influence at Court?"

"By no means," replied Debray. "If there is a man in the French army who has achieved his own fortunes, that man is Lamoriciere. He went to Algeria a lieutenant, and bravely and gallantly has he attained his present brilliant position. It was he who proposed the creation of a corps of native Arab troops, like the Sepoys of British India; and he was appointed colonel of the first regiment of Spahis. Our quondam friend, Maximilian Morrel, has a command in this regiment, and is a protege of his illustrious exemplar."

"The hostility between Lamoriciere and Bugeaud arises, I suppose, from the latter's detestable disposition, his overbearing and dictatorial temper. Lamoriciere is not a man, I take it, to be the slave of any one."

"Rivalry in Africa is thought to have originated the feud," remarked Debray, "and political differences in Paris to have inflamed it. Bugeaud is a Legitimist, and Lamoriciere a Republican."

"Silence!" cried the musical connoisseurs in the orchestra. "The curtain rises."

As the curtain rose a hush of expectation reigned over the audience. The hum and bustle ceased, and silence most profound succeeded. The appearance of the fair cantatrice was the signal for such a reception as only a Parisian audience can give, and the first strains that issued from her lips assured them that their applause was not misplaced.

And surely never was the dark Duchess of Ferrara more faithfully personated than by the present artiste. This vraisemblance, which is so seldom witnessed in the opera, seemed to strike every eye. Her figure was tall and majestic, and voluptuously developed. Her air and bearing were haughty, dignified, and queen-like. Her complexion was very dark, but perfectly clear; her forehead broad and high; her brows heavy, but gracefully arched; her eyes large, black and flashing; her hair dark as night, and arranged with great simplicity in glossy bands; and her mouth large, but filled with teeth of pearl-like whiteness, contrasted by lips of coral wet with the spray. The entire outline of her face was Roman, and exhibited in its contour and lineaments even more than Roman sternness and decision; and its effect was still more heightened by a large mole at one corner of her mouth and the velvet robes in which she was appropriately costumed.

The scene between the Duchess and the Spaniard, Gubetta, was received with the utmost applause, and the pathos of that between the son and his unknown mother, which succeeded, touched the audience to tears; but when the maskers rushed in and her vizard was torn off, and her true name proclaimed, and, amid her heart-rending wailings, the curtain fell on the first act, the shouts were perfectly thunderous with enthusiasm. The role of Gennaro was performed by the brother of the cantatrice, Leon d'Armilly, a young man of twenty, of delicate and graceful figure, and as decidedly blonde as his sister was brunette. Nature seemed to have made a great mistake in sex when this brother and sister were fashioned. Indeed, it seemed hardly possible that they could be brother and sister, a remark constantly made by the audience, and the kindred announced on the bills was generally viewed as one of those convenient relationships often assumed on the stage, but having no more reality than those of the dramatis personae themselves.

"A second Pasta!" cried Chateau-Renaud, entering the stalls immediately on the descent of the curtain. "Heard you ever such a magnificent contralto?"

"Saw you ever such a magnificent bust?" asked Beauchamp.

"Were it not for a few manifest impossibilities," thoughtfully remarked Debray, "I should swear that this same angelic Louise d'Armilly was no other than a certain very beautiful, very eccentric and very talented young lady whom we all once knew as a star of Parisian fashion, and who, the last time she was in this house, sat in the same loge where now sit the African generals."

"Whom can you mean, Debray?" cried Beauchamp.

"A certain haughty young lady, who was to have married an Italian Prince, but, on the night of the bridal, in the midst of the festivities, the house being thronged with guests, and even while the contract was receiving the signatures, the Prince was arrested as an escaped galley-slave, and at his trial proved to be the illegitimate son of the bride's mother and a certain high legal functionary, the Procureur du Roi, now at Charenton, through whose burning zeal for justice the horrible discovery transpired."

"Ha!" exclaimed Chateau-Renaud. "You cannot mean Eugenie Danglars, daughter of the bankrupt baron, whom our unhappy friend Morcerf was once to have wed?"

"The very same," quietly rejoined the Secretary; "but this lady cannot be Mlle. Danglars, I say absolutely, for many sufficient reasons," he quickly added; then, as if to turn the conversation, he hastily remarked: "Ah! there are M. Dantes and M. Lamartine, as usual, together."

"M. Dantes!" exclaimed the Count, in surprise, looking around. "Impossible!"

"And yet most true," observed Beauchamp; "in the third loge from the Minister's to the right. What a wonderful resemblance there is between those men—the poet and the Deputy! One would suppose them brothers. The same tall and elegant figure, the same white and capacious brow, the same dark, blazing eye, the same raven hair, and, above all, the same most unearthly and spiritual pallor of complexion."

"No wonder M. Dantes is pale," said the Count. "Have you not heard of the occurrence of this evening in the Chamber? M. Dantes was in the midst of one of his powerful harangues against the Government, when suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he stopped—coughed violently several times, and pressed his handkerchief to his mouth; then taking a small vial from his vest pocket, he placed it to his lips, and instantaneously, as if new life had entered him, proceeded more eloquently than ever to the conclusion of his speech."

"I heard something of this," said Beauchamp.

"As he descended from the tribune his friends thronged around him, anxious about his health. He quieted their apprehensions with his peculiar smile of assurance, but I observed that his white handkerchief was spotted with blood, and he almost immediately left the Chamber."

"That man will kill himself in the cause he has espoused," remarked Debray. "See how ghastly he now looks. But so much the better for the Ministry. He is a formidable foe. Indeed, that loge contains the two most powerful opponents of the Government."

"And who are those men just entering the box?" asked Beauchamp.

"None other than the two rival astronomers of Europe," said Debray, "and yet most intimate friends. The taller and elder, the one with gray hair, a dark, sharp Bedouin countenance, and that large, wild, black eye, with a smile of mingled sarcasm and humor ever on his thin lip, is Emanuel Arago. The other, the short, robust man, with fair complexion, sandy hair, bright blue eye and vivacious expression, is Le Verrier, the most tireless star-gazer science has produced since Galileo. But hush! the curtain is up."

"Oh! it matters not," said the Count; "only Gennaro and the Spaniard appear in the second act, and I have neither eyes nor ears save for the Duchess to-night. But who are those, Beauchamp?"

"Where?"

"In the loge on the first tier, next to the Minister's and directly opposite to that of M. Dantes?"

"Ah! two officers of the Spahis and two most exquisite women!" exclaimed Debray. "They belong, doubtless, to the African party in the Minister's loge. Your lorgnette, Count. What a splendid woman!"

Hardly had the Secretary raised the glass to his eyes before he dropped it with the exclamation:

"A miracle! a miracle!"

"What?" cried both of the other young men, turning to the box at which Debray was gazing.

"Messieurs, do you remember the fair Valentine de Villefort, whose untimely and mysterious demise all the young people of Paris so much bewailed, some two or three years ago, and whose lovely remains, we, with our own eyes, saw deposited in the Saint-Meran and de Villefort vault at Pere Lachaise, one bitter cold autumn evening, and there listened most patiently and piously to a whole breviary of mournful speeches, declarative of the said Valentine's most superlative excellence?"

"Undoubtedly, we remember it well," was the reply.

"Then behold, and never dare to doubt the reappearance of the dead again to the ocular organs of humanity."

"Valentine de Villefort!" exclaimed the Count, after a careful and scrutinizing survey, "by all that's supernatural; and more exquisitely lovely than ever!"

"Then it was true, after all, the strange story we heard," said Beauchamp, "of the young lady's resurrection and marriage to Maximilian Morrel, somewhere far away in parts unknown?"

"No doubt," replied the Count, "for, if I mistake not—and I'm sure I don't mistake, now that I look more closely—that stalwart, splendid fellow, with the broad forehead, black eyes and moustache, and the order of the Legion of Honor on his breast, to set off his rich uniform of the Spahis, and on whose arm the fair apparition is leaning, is no other than Maximilian Morrel himself—the identical man who saved my worthless neck from a yataghan in Algeria."

"How dark he's grown!" said Debray.

"No more so than all these African heroes—for instance, Cavaignac and Lamoriciere."

"But what a splendid contrast there is between the young Colonel of the Spahis and his lovely bride, if such she be! He, dark as a Corsican; she, fair as an Englishwoman—he, upright as a poplar; she, drooping like a willow—his hair and eyes black as midnight, while her soft, languishing orbs are as blue as the summer sky, and her glossy ringlets as brown as a chestnut!"

"On my word," said Beauchamp, "the Count grows poetical! Morrel had better keep his beautiful wife out of the way! But have you discovered who are the other couple in the box?" he added to the Secretary, who had his lorgnette in most vigilant requisition. "Any more discoveries, Debray?"

A sigh might have been heard as the Secretary took his glass from his eye, and replied simply:

"Yes."

"And who now?" asked Chateau-Renaud. "There seems no end to discoveries to-night."

"The young man who, by his decorations, seems a chef de bataillon of the Spahis," replied Debray, "I cannot make out. But, be he whom he may, he is effectually disguised from his most intimate friends by his luxuriant beard and moustache. As for the lady—there is but one woman in the world I have ever had the good fortune to behold who could be mistaken for her."

"And that is?" said Beauchamp.

"Herself."

"And who is herself, Lucien?" asked Chateau-Renaud.

"Have you forgotten the Countess de Morcerf?"

"The Countess de Morcerf?—the wife of the general who was convicted by the peers of felony, treason and outrage in the matter of Ali Tebelen, Pacha of Yanina?" said Beauchamp.

"And who blew his brains out in despair?" added the Count.

"The same," said Debray. "She returned to Marseilles with her son Albert. You remember Albert and his strange conduct in the duel with the Count of Monte-Cristo?"

"One could hardly forget such chivalric generosity, such magnificent magnanimity and such sublime self-control as were exhibited by the young man on that occasion!" said Beauchamp. "It is to be hoped he was not equally forbearing toward the Arabs in his African campaigns, although, as his name has never been seen or heard since he entered the army, in all probability he was."

"Well, well," cried the Secretary, impatiently, "the Countess retired to Marseilles, and there she is said to have resided in utter seclusion, in company only with Morrel's beautiful wife, devoting the vast wealth of the deceased Count to philanthropic objects, having received it, as his widow, only with the understanding it should be thus bestowed."

"But the rumor was," said Beauchamp, "and indeed I was so assured by M. de Boville himself, Receiver-General of the Hospitals, at the time, that the Countess gave all the Count's fortune to the hospitals, and that he himself registered the deed of gift."

"Oh! that was only some twelve or thirteen hundred thousand francs," said Debray. "Three months after her settlement at Marseilles, in a small house in the Allees de Meillan, said to be her own by maternal inheritance, a letter came to her from Thomson and French, of Rome, stating that there was a deposit in their house, to the credit of the estate of the late Count, of the enormous sum of two millions of francs, subject to her sole control and order, as the Count's only heir, in the absence of his son."

"Two millions of francs!" cried the two young men in a breath.

"Even so, Messieurs," said Debray. "The story does sound rather oriental; but I have reason to know that it is entirely true, for I made diligent inquiry about it when last at Marseilles."

"And what took you to Marseilles, Lucien?" asked the Count significantly.

"The Ministry," replied Debray, with evident confusion, coloring deeply.

"But why does not the Countess marry again?" asked Chateau-Renaud, surveying her faultless form and face through his glass. "In the prime of life, rich, and, despite her past troubles, most exquisitely beautiful, it is strange she don't make herself and some one else happy!"

"Especially as no one could ever accuse her of having very desperately loved her dear first husband," added the journalist. "Why don't she marry, Lucien?"

"How the devil should I know!" replied the Secretary in great confusion. "You don't suppose I ever asked her the question, do you?"

"Upon my word," exclaimed the Count, laughing, "I shall begin to think you have, if you take it so warmly. But, hist! the bell! The curtain rises. We mustn't lose the third act of Donizetti's chef d'oeuvre, with such a Lucrezia, for any woman living."

But it was very evident that much of the magnificent performance of the debutante and her companion, in the thrilling scene between the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara and the young Captain Gennaro, was lost to the Secretary.

"Do you observe, Beauchamp, how strangely fascinated with the new cantatrice seems the young officer of the Spahis who accompanies the Countess?" he whispered. "Do but look. He sits like one transfixed."

"And the Countess seems transfixed also, though not by the same object," was the reply. "How excessively pale, yet how beautiful she is! That plain black dress, without ornament or jewel, and her raven hair, parted simply on her forehead, enhance her voluptuous charms infinitely more than could the most gorgeous costume. Heavens! what a happy man will he be who can call her his!"

"Amen!" said Debray, and the word seemed to rise from the very depths of his heart. "But she will never marry. Some early disappointment, even before her union with Morcerf, has withered her heart, and the terrible divorce which parted her from him, although she never loved him, will keep her single forever. Her first and only love is either dead or—worse—married to another."

"See, see, Lucien!" cried Beauchamp, hurriedly; "at whom does she gaze so intently, and yet so sadly? It cannot be Lamartine, for there sits his lovely young English wife at his side; nor can it be old Arago, nor young Le Verrier; and yet some one in that box it surely is."

"M. Dantes?" cried Debray.

"Impossible! That man seems hardly conscious that there are such beings as women. His whole soul is in affairs of state."

"His whole soul seems somewhere else just at present," exclaimed the Secretary, bitterly. "Look!"

"How dreadfully pale he is!" said Beauchamp; "and yet his eyes fairly blaze. Is it the Countess he gazes at?"

"Is it M. Dantes she gazes at?"

At that moment, amid the wild farewell of the mother to her son, upon the stage, the curtain came down, and at the same instant, M. Dantes hastily pressed his white handkerchief to his lips, and, leaning on the arms of Lamartine and Arago, hastily left the box.

"Ha! the Countess faints!" cried Debray, as the door closed on M. Dantes. "Do they know each other, then?"



CHAPTER XIII.

THE ITALIAN LOVER.

It was early in the evening succeeding the day on which M. Dantes had answered Giovanni Massetti's letter. Zuleika was seated in the vast, sumptuously-furnished salon of the magnificent Morcerf mansion, now, as the reader already knows, the residence of the famous and mysterious Deputy from Marseilles. She sat upon a superb green velvet-covered sofa, half reclining in an indolent, picturesque attitude; behind the sofa and leaning over its back stood a young Italian, a perfect model of manly beauty; his ardent black eyes were riveted on Zuleika's blushing countenance with a look of the most profound and enthusiastic adoration, while his hand held the young girl's with a gentle, loving pressure, which was returned with unmistakable warmth. The apartment was dimly lighted and huge, sombre patches of shadow lay everywhere. Zuleika and her lover were alone together; for some time they seemed too full of happiness to speak, but finally Giovanni said, in a soft, flutelike whisper, as if unwilling to break with loudly uttered words the delicious spell of his love-dream:

"Zuleika, darling Zuleika, so you did not once forget me during our long, cruel separation?"

"Never for a single instant, Giovanni," answered the young girl, the flush upon her cheek deepening as she spoke, her hand tightening about her lover's and her lovely eyes filling with a soft fire. "But I sometimes feared you had forgotten me!"

"You were always present in my mind and in my heart," replied the Italian in a tone that thrilled her through and through. Stooping, he placed his lips to her forehead and imprinted upon it a long and silent kiss; then, flushing in his turn, he added, still holding his head against hers: "From the very moment of our first meeting you have reigned in my bosom, my own, my love, the queen of my destiny and my life!"

"Oh! Giovanni, Giovanni," murmured the young girl, "I am happy, so happy!"

He kissed her again, this time upon her upturned lips that with a slight movement almost imperceptibly returned the kiss, sending his blood tingling through his veins and causing him to tremble with delight from head to foot. No longer able to restrain himself, he hastily quitted the back of the sofa, threw himself down beside her and clasping her in his arms drew her unresistingly upon his bosom. Once there she did not offer to stir, but even nestled closer to him and pillowed her head on his broad shoulder. The tumultuous beating of both their hearts was audible amid the unbroken silence that ensued. With one hand the Viscount tenderly smoothed her silken tresses, and his arm tightened around her waist as if he had determined never to release her again.

"Your father, in his letter of this morning," said Giovanni finally, "told me there was hope, that you did not look upon my addresses with aversion, and that I had his leave to pay court to you and ascertain your wishes from your own dear lips. I hastened here this evening, and M. Dantes himself bade me seek you in this salon. I came on the wings of love and found all my fondest hopes realized; that I possessed your heart as you possessed mine. Oh! tell me, Zuleika, that this is not all a dream, for it seems too delicious to be true!"

"It is reality, Giovanni, blessed reality," answered the young girl in a low voice.

"And do you really love me with all your soul?"

"With all my soul, Giovanni!"

The ardent Italian showered a flood of burning kisses upon her forehead, cheeks and lips, and she quivered like a leaf in his embrace. Then he said, with a shade of anxiety in his tone:

"And your brother Esperance, is he disposed to look upon me with approval? You know that in Rome he did not see fit to include me in the number of his friends. We had a little difference, you will remember, and ever afterwards he was cold toward me."

Zuleika shuddered as she recalled the fact that the little difference alluded to had been a violent quarrel that had nearly resulted in a duel between the two young men. She had never known the details, for both her brother and Giovanni had studiously concealed them from her; indeed, Esperance had carefully avoided all mention of the Viscount's name ever since the day they had become embroiled. Was M. Dantes aware of the trouble between his son and the youthful Italian? She did not know, but, at the same time, felt firmly persuaded that her father had fully investigated the doings, character and family of her suitor, and would not have sanctioned a renewal of his addresses to her had he not been perfectly satisfied in every respect. She, therefore, answered:

"I am altogether ignorant as to what Esperance thinks of you, and cannot say whether he still harbors resentment against you or not; but, whatever may be his opinion and feelings, rest assured that he will never interfere to cause his sister an instant of unhappiness, more especially as he knows that my father looks upon you with a favoring eye."

"But how about the coldness existing between us?"

"Does it still exist on both sides?"

"Not on mine, Zuleika, not on mine. I forgave and forgot all long ago."

"Forgave and forgot! Then Esperance must have wronged you!"

"He did, Zuleika, and with the proverbial hot blood and headlong impulses of the Roman youth I resented that wrong. But I could not remain at enmity with the brother of the girl I loved, so when I became cooler I sought him out and endeavored to apologize."

"And he accepted your apology?"

"He did not accept it, but turned on his heel and left me without a word. He evidently thought me a coward and attributed my efforts toward effecting a reconciliation to a desire to escape fighting him."

"But why did you quarrel in the first place? What was the cause of the difference between you?"

The young Italian hung his head and did not answer. Zuleika saw that he had grown deadly pale, and she felt his hand tremble nervously.

Freeing herself from his embrace, the young girl sprang to her feet and faced him.

"Giovanni," said she, firmly, "tell me the whole story of this painful affair. It is imperative that I should know it!"

"Do you doubt me, Zuleika, do you doubt me?" he asked, bitterly, and he buried his face in his hands.

"Do I doubt you, Giovanni? No. But, if you love me, tell me all the details of the trouble between my brother and yourself!"

"I cannot, I cannot, Zuleika!" he cried. "Command me to shed the last drop of blood in my veins for you and I will do it without an instant's hesitation, but I cannot tell you that terrible tale of deceit, treachery and bloodshed!"

He had arisen and was walking excitedly about the salon; his pallor had increased and he trembled in every limb.

Zuleika stood with folded arms and gazed at him; she was calm and her eyes had a look of determination the young man had never before beheld in them; it filled him with dismay. A few moments ago she had been all love and tenderness, a yielding, trusting maiden in her lover's arms; now, she resembled a beautiful Amazon bent on achieving a victory, whom nothing but unconditional surrender would satisfy.

"The story, the story," she repeated, "tell me the story!"

Her face was as white as marble and her faultless lips seemed chiseled from stone. She looked so beautiful and tempting as she stood there, her surpassing loveliness enhanced by the picturesque half-oriental, half-Parisian dress she wore, that the Viscount felt his passion for her redoubled. He flung himself at her feet and seizing the hem of her superb robe kissed it rapturously.

"Oh! Zuleika, Zuleika," he cried, utterly unable to restrain himself, "I am your slave! Place your tiny foot upon my neck and crush me where I lie! I shall expire adoring you!"

"Giovanni," replied Zuleika, greatly moved by this display of devotion, "rise and be a man!"

The Italian sprang up as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt; then he endeavored to clasp her in his arms, but she quietly repulsed him.

"Zuleika," cried he, sadly, "you do not love me; you never loved me; I have been the victim of a cruel deception!"

"If you think so," answered the young girl, quietly, "there is but one course you can pursue as a man of honor—spurn the deceiver from you and never look upon her face again!"

The young man gazed at her reproachfully.

"What have I done to turn you thus against me?" he asked, his tone suddenly becoming humble.

"What have you done? You refuse to reveal this mystery to me, which, as you yourself admit, involves deceit, treachery and bloodshed, and which, for aught I know, has set an indelible stain upon your life! I love you truly, love you with all the passion of a woman's nature, but I must know this history that I may judge whether you are worthy of my love!"

"I assure you, Zuleika, that there is no stain upon my life, that there is nothing in this history that tends in the least to dishonor me, but still I cannot speak."

"Then we must separate."

"Oh! Zuleika, Zuleika, do not be pitiless! You will drive me mad!"

The young girl touched a bell and Ali, the Nubian, appeared.

"Monsieur is about taking his departure," said she to the faithful servant. "I leave him in your hands."

And without a word of farewell to Giovanni, she swept from the salon like a queen.

The Viscount gazed after her with indescribable sadness pictured upon his handsome countenance. Then he followed Ali, put on his overcoat and hat and regretfully left the house.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE MINUTE VIALS.

Even to the Communists, with whom he had come into such close contact, M. Dantes, the Deputy from Marseilles, remained as much of a mystery as ever. Marrast, though now devotedly attached to him, admitted that he was totally unable to fathom either his designs, or his methods of accomplishing them, while Lamartine, who was in his company a large portion of the time, when questioned concerning him, replied that all he knew of M. Dantes was that he was a firm friend of the cause and an untiring worker in the interest of the weary and oppressed masses.

Debray, though he had no tangible foundation for it, could not get rid of the idea that the dangerous Deputy and the Count of Monte-Cristo were one and the same individual, but Beauchamp, with the usual incredulity of journalists, scoffed at the notion, and Chateau-Renaud derided it whenever it was mentioned in his presence.

That M. Dantes had great wealth was, however, generally admitted, though whence it was derived or in what manner it was invested no one could tell. It was now no longer a secret that he had purchased and resided in the magnificent mansion formerly owned by the Count de Morcerf, in the Rue du Helder, and this circumstance, while it vastly augmented the interest attaching to him, did not in the least detract from the enthusiasm felt for him by the working classes.

It was night. In a large chamber, richly furnished, but dimly lighted, in the mansion in the Rue du Helder, the same apartment once inhabited by the Countess de Morcerf, motionless, and seemingly lifeless, with a countenance as pale as alabaster, and as still, lay M. Dantes, the Deputy from Marseilles. Although, in the ashy pallor of the lips and brow, and the fixed, serene, almost stern aspect of the immovable face, might be read unmistakable evidence of an exhausting and dangerous constitutional shock to the system, yet none of that emaciation, over which broods the shadow of the angel of death, resulting from protracted illness, was there to be seen. The broad white forehead—the raven hair, sparsely sprinkled with silver—the round temples—the delicately penciled brow, encircling, like a sable arch, the large and almond-formed eye—the full calm lip, and the chiseled chin and nostril—all these were as perfect now as when last before the reader. The cheek was, perhaps, slightly sunken, but it could not be more pallid than when last beheld; and but for that nameless quietude—that "rapture of repose," as Lord Byron well expresses it—that placid languor which sleeps on the features, which illness always creates and which spiritualizes and intellectualizes the most common features, the invalid might be supposed to be enjoying the most quiet slumber.

Excepting the invalid, there was no one in that chamber save the faithful Ali, who moved noiselessly about, from time to time, or sat immovably upon the floor and gazed on his master's pallid face.

As the silvery tones of the chamber clock tinkled forth the third quarter after ten, the door opened, and a small, dark, thin man, with large whiskers, keen, penetrating eyes, broad, bald forehead, thinly covered with gray hair, and apparently about fifty years of age, briskly entered. It was Dr. Orfila, a name somewhat known in medical science. Approaching the bed, he placed his fingers upon the sick man's pulse, and gazed earnestly on his face for some time in silence.

"Strange!" he at length muttered; "the most powerful drugs in the most unheard-of quantities are powerless! Who, then, is this man, whose nature so differs from that of every one else? Can he so have accustomed his system to poisons, that, as with the King of Pontus, they are ineffectual to help or to harm him? His constitution must be iron! The vitality of a dozen men is in him, or he'd have been dead a month ago. Well, it's plain he's no worse, if he's no better. Drugs are useless, and he must be left to nature and his amazing constitution. This stupor, this utter death of all the faculties and senses for so long a time, is wonderful. Fever, delirium, anything but this death-like trance. It seems as if this man had been sleepless all his life before, and that now his overwrought brain and heart were compensating themselves for the toil and wakefulness of years. Could I but excite the nerves!"

For some time the physician gazed in deep thought at the pale face of the unconscious slumberer. Suddenly turning to the Nubian, he said to him:

"Ali, where does your master keep the drugs he has been for years accustomed to take?"

The Nubian stared in mute amazement, but moved not from his rug.

"Ali," said Dr. Orfila, sternly, "unless I see and know those drugs, this night your master dies."

The Nubian looked anxiously into the face of the physician, and then, as if satisfied with the scrutiny, rose, and, with noiseless steps, left the room. In a few moments he re-entered and placed in the physician's hands a small casket of ebony, exquisitely worked and studded with gems. Taking it hastily to the shaded lamp upon a table at the extremity of the chamber, he attempted to open it, but his attempts were vain. Indeed, to all appearances, it was a solid block of ebony, and its extreme heaviness, compared with its dimensions, seemed to favor the idea.

"Well?" said the doctor, returning the casket, after a close scrutiny, to the Nubian, who had followed him.

Ali took the casket, and instantly a portion of the top flew up, disclosing within the centre of the cube of ebony a cavity lined with crimson velvet, and a dazzling array of minute vials of crystal, each filled with a fluid—pink, blue, green and yellow in hue, while the contents of several were colorless. The Nubian had touched a spring concealed in the carving, and known only to his master and himself.

The physician removed the minute vials one after another from their receptacles, and held them up to the light; on each was a cipher, and on no two was the same. Most of them were quite filled with the fluid contained, but some were only half full, while one was nearly empty. Dr. Orfila looked closely at the cipher upon each vial as he removed it from the casket. He then held it to the light to determine its particular hue or shade, and sometimes withdrew the crystal stopper ground into the deep mouth, touching it cautiously and quickly to his nostril or the tip of his tongue. "Morphia, cinchonia, quinia, lobelia, belladonna, narcotina, bromine, arsenicum, strychnos colubrina, brucoea ferruginea," muttered the savant, as he examined one vial after the other and replaced it. "Brucoea ferruginea—ha! brucine! I thought as much," exclaimed he, holding up the vial, which showed, by being nearly empty, that its contents had been used more frequently than those of any of the others.

"How many drops of this is the greatest number your master has ever taken?" asked Dr. Orfila.

The Nubian, who, it will be remembered, was a mute, held up both hands with the fingers outspread, and then two other fingers of one of his hands.

"Twelve drops!" cried the astonished physician. "Impossible!"

Ali insisted on the assertion.

"And yet it must be so," the doctor added. "That would explain all."

Taking the vial and a minute crystal vessel, which he found in the casket, he hastily but carefully dropped into the latter thirteen drops. Then filling the vessel with water, he approached the patient, who still slumbered heavily on, and placed it to his lips. For an instant he seemed conscious of the wish of the physician, and with an effort the mixture was swallowed. Then he lay as still and motionless as before.

Returning the vials and the vessel to their places, Dr. Orfila closed the casket and gave it to the Nubian. He then gazed long and anxiously at the torpid slumberer, standing at the bedside and watching that marble face.

At length the clock struck eleven. Dr. Orfila started and hastily glanced at his repeater; then, turning to the Nubian, who had carried away the casket, and, having noiselessly returned, stood silently beside him, he said:

"Ali, in one hour your master will be in high fever; in two hours he will, probably, be delirious. He will then sleep soundly, and toward morning will wake, I hope, in his right mind, but terribly exhausted and profusely perspiring. At daylight I shall be here. You must not leave him for a single instant as you value his life."

The Nubian clasped his hands above his head and bent his forehead almost to the floor.

"If you think necessary, however, Ali, send for me before morning."

The physician gave one more look at his patient, pressed his fingers on his pulse, placed his palm on his forehead, and then, taking his hat and cane, left the chamber.



CHAPTER XV.

THE UNKNOWN NURSE.

When the rumor that M. Dantes had been taken seriously ill was first circulated throughout Paris, it caused excitement in every quarter of the city, filling the Communists and workmen with dismay and greatly elating their opponents.

In the midst of the excitement a strange lady, very plainly attired, but whose language and bearing gave unmistakable evidence of refinement and aristocratic associations, made her appearance one morning at the office of Dr. Orfila and humbly asked permission to nurse his distinguished patient. The physician, somewhat surprised at such a request from such a woman, immediately grew suspicious and demanded an explanation, when the lady informed him that she had known the sick man in his youth and was still deeply interested in his welfare. She refused to give her name, but solemnly assured the doctor that, should he grant her petition, M. Dantes on his recovery would be ready to thank him on bended knees.

Convinced at length that no harm was intended, the physician gave his permission and the unknown lady was duly installed as nurse. She discharged her duties with unflagging devotion and energy, satisfying even the exacting Nubian, with whom she divided the watch at the bedside of the unconscious deputy. Dr. Orfila was delighted, while Esperance and Zuleika were overjoyed.

On—on—the sleeper still slumbered on! One—two—three—four quarters after eleven tinkled in silvery numbers upon the delicate bell of the clock, yet the closed eyelids and fixed lips moved not, gave no sign; but for the light, though regular undulation of the chest, life itself might seem to have fled forever. Yet life was still there!

How strange the bond which connects vitality with consciousness—the body with the soul! And yet more strange is that phase of existence in which the one moves on without the other. The mind sometimes is all life when the body is dead, and oftener still is the body all life when the mind seems gone. Mind, too, may frequently act independently, not only of the body, as in dreams, but, also, of consciousness and of the heart; while the body, as in somnambulism, may act altogether alone.

On—on—the slumberer breathed on, but he thought not, felt not, perceived not. A revolution, an earthquake might heave around him, but the convulsive throes of man or of nature would have been as nothing to him. The brow would have remained as calm and as cold, and the cheek as pale and as still, while, in all human probability, the faithful Nubian would have sat as immovable upon his rug at the bedside of his beloved master, and have gazed upon him as untiringly with his dark and sleepless eye.

As the last quarter after eleven sounded, followed immediately by the hour of midnight, a small door beside the bed noiselessly opened, and a female figure in white silently entered the room; but not so noiselessly was the entrance effected as to escape the ear of the vigilant Ali. He glanced hurriedly around; then, as if familiar with the apparition, and anticipating its approach, he rose, and, taking his rug to the further extremity of the chamber, again laid himself down, like a faithful dog, though not now to watch.

Meanwhile the lady, quietly approaching the bed, gazed long and mournfully at the slumberer's pale yet noble visage; then, kneeling, she buried her face in her hands amid the coverings.

She was, probably, forty; yet, in the full and faultless perfection of her form—in her graceful and yielding motions—in her statuesque bust, rounded cheek and night-black hair, she would, to the casual observer, have indicated hardly the half of that age. Her figure was tall and dignified, yet mobile as a willow; her eyes were dark and luminous, and, in their profound depths, slept a world of melancholy meaning. Her hair was simply parted on a broad forehead, and was gathered in heavy masses low on the neck. Her lips were full and red, and, when parted, exhibited teeth of dazzling whiteness, while her complexion, which was very dark, was yet clear and pure as the hue of the magnolia's petal. But that face was pale, very pale, almost as colorless as that of the quiet sleeper at its side, and upon it rested an expression of love unutterable, mingled with the sadness of death.

Such was the unknown nurse, the Countess de Morcerf, as she again was an inmate of that apartment of which she had once, under circumstances how different, been mistress; such was Mercedes, the Catalane of Marseilles, again at the side of the man whom all her life she had loved, with none to gainsay or forbid!

Upon that pale and motionless countenance she gazed long and deeply, and, oh! the world of memory that passed through her mind!—the world of thought and feeling that centred in that fixed gaze! At length, clasping her hands upon her forehead, her eyes streaming with tears, she bowed her face upon the bed, from which she had just raised it, and long seemed absorbed in prayer.

Roused from this position by some movement of the slumberer, she started up and watched him.

The shaded rays of the dim and distant lamp threw a faint glimmering of light upon the pale countenance, but the quick eye of love instantaneously detected a change. A slight flush was mounting the cheek, and gentle perspiration was distilling upon the brow, while a smile played on the mouth. Suddenly, as she gazed, those pallid lips moved. Astonished, she listened.