and announced to him that he should receive his appointment that same evening. Dinner was then served, Sigismund proved most agreeable company, possessing a great fund of wit, and neglecting no opportunity that offered the least pretext of a compliment to the president, so that on retiring, the latter was enchanted with his young friend. As to Bellerman, it was impossible for him ever after to get an audience of the president, and after thirty fruitless visits, he resolved to return to his native village.

As soon as the general was informed of the appointment of his nephew: "I knew," said he, "that the president would refuse me nothing." He wrote to him, however,

to thank him, at the same time sending him a capital haunch of venison. Next day the two gentlemen were to be seen riding together on horseback. Sigismund, however, took care to sit awkwardly for the first few days, so as to flatter the vanity of the president by taking lessons from him, who finally succeeded in making an excellent cavalier of Sigismund. As to the latter's opinion of the means of his success, it remained a mystery. History has thrown no light upon the subject. Probably Rose deluded the president with vain hopes, and stipulated for Sigismund's appointment. The appointment was fortunately a patent one, and out of the president's power to withdraw.

S.

WHEN Liszt made his first appearance in Paris, rather more than three years since, he was not much liked, the jealousies of musical men in that metropolis requiring the most pre-eminent talent to permit them to acknowledge merit in a stranger. Since that time he has traversed Hungary, Prussia, Bohemia, and Germany, and his progress was perfectly triumphal. The Hungarians presented him with an honorary sabre. On his late return to Paris, the wits, naturally leaguing with the established musical celebrités, ridiculed Liszt in every possible shape; and the Hungarian sabre d'honneur was the first object of their derision. Amongst the cruellest jokes perpetrated upon this sabre, it was asserted that the Hungarians presented it, doubtless, to indicate to Liszt how desirous they were to see any other instrument in his hands but the pianoforte! They also styled him "chef des commis-voyageurs pour la musique." The proverb says (observes one of these malins esprits) that travel forms youth. Liszt is a living proof of the truth of this saying. Before his departure, he broke a pianoforte every four-and-twenty hours. The notable progress which

he made during his tour, absolutely doubled his strength at his instrument; for now he pulverises two pianos a-day! Liszt having been precisely six-and-thirty months absent from Paris, a parody was got up about him on the song

"Bonheur de se revoir

Après trois ans d'absence!" Much of this hostility was attributable to the jealousy of Herz, who, living in Paris en grand seigneur, could not endure a rival near his throne, and whose salons were closed to Liszt, though open to the great bulk of the musical talent of Paris. Alluding to Liszt's penuriousness, a vice in which he resembles Rossini, a mock parade was made by some of the caricature feuilletonists of all his acts of generosity. each village (said they) through which he passed, he left imperishable traces of his beneficence. In one, he founded an hospital; in another, he gave a splendid dowry to twenty unmarried females; in a third, a gratuitous performance for the benefit of the surrounding poor population; and in a fourth, he left, as a precious relic, a tuning-fork, of which he breaks sixteen per day!

In

THE origin of this equivoque, which is usually employed to signify a maladroit sailor, is as follows:The Duke of Orleans, afterwards known as Citoyen Egalité, was placed in early life in command of a squadron under D'Orvilliers, it being intended that he should succeed his father-in-law, the Duc de Penthievre, as Grand Admiral of France. At the battle of Ushant, by some unaccountable blunder, he permitted the rear of the British fleet to escape, although it was completely in his power. His enemies charged him with cowardice. Instead of being hailed as Grand Admiral, he was at his return appointed colonel of hussars, upon which ludicrous occurrence, the equivoque "horse. marine" was put in circulation by the Parisian wits, and has since attained an European currency. Marie Antoinette evinced considerable mirth upon this occasion, turning the unfortunate Duke into ridicule at every turn. The singular appointment, together with this beautiful queen's sarcastic talent, was unquestionably one cause, and a very pregnant one, of the hatred which the Duke conceived for his royal brother, Louis XVI. and his consort. His pride never forgave the ridicule which was thus thrown on him; and here is another illustration of the truth of the Hon. Mrs. Norton's saying, that we never should wilfully offend a human being, since we know not when it may be in his power to injure us in turn.

The proud Austrian beauty, than whom never lighted on this orb a more delightful vision," little dreamt of the deadly enemy whom her mirthful but somewhat malicious wit was arming against her own and her royal husband's life. Many years afterwards, when the royal family were beset at Versailles, the Duke was seen upon the staircase, at the head of the infuriated mob, pointing out to them the way to the room in which the queen's body-guard were stationed, and from which a short passage led into her majesty's apartment. The horse-marine" was

VOL. I.

rankling in his bosom. "The rebe prince," observes Gifford, "experienced the treatment which he deserved; the royal family beheld him with silent contempt; but some of their noble attendants cast on him looks of indignation, that would have roused the spirit of any other man in France, except himself and Mirabeau." This is unjust to the latter, who was by no means deficient in spirit, as he was unsurpassed in eloquence and statesmanlike qualities.

The queen escaped upon this occasion, through a fortunate mistake of one door for another. But the insult rankled still in the heart of Egalité, and his hatred could only be quenched in blood.

When, imitating the conduct of the British parliament with reference to Charles I., the National Assembly put Louis XVI. upon trial for his life, that whole Assembly shuddered to hear Egalité record his vote for the death of his royal brother and beautiful sister-in-law. His vengeance was consummated in their blood.

After registering this vote of evermemorable turpitude, the horsemarine" retired to his home, the despised even of the Jacobins, with whom his fortunes were now so deeply mixed up, that he was compelled to support them or perish. When at length he experienced that reward which he so richly merited, he displayed great resolution-greater, indeed, in his last moments, than might have been reasonably anticipated from his previous life. The irresolute weakness, or positive cowardice, which obtained for him that sobriquet which he so much detested, here forsook him altogether, and the "horse-marine" was calm amid the universal execrations which saluted him at his last appearance in public.

On the 6th of November, 1793, he was brought to the scaffold; and, when the people hissed and cursed him as he passed to death, he simply shrugged his shoulders, and cried out, "They will applaud me yet!" Posterity has falsified his dying prophecy.

L L

IT is not in royal circles and in noble mansions that the materials of thrilling romance are exclusively deposited. The natural disposition of mankind to look upwards-the common spring of our reverence for the Deity, as well as for exalted human greatness, has taught the writers of romance to choose the more elevated scenes of life for the creation of the most durable and pervading interest. But the lower regions of life have also their peculiar attraction in the eyes of the true poet and genuine painter; and high-born damsels have wept at reading, and men distinguished in the senate and the field, acknowledging the claims of kindred humanity, have heard with sympathy,

"The short but simple annals of the poor." The middle paths of life have also their romance. Not even the inveterate and soul-crushing pursuit of gain can wholly extinguish feeling; and hearts will still be found to throb with tender or violent emotion, even amidst the clink of money-bags; for the tides of human passion, like those of the mighty ocean, will continue to flow to all time; and though Mammon may blunt, he cannot wholly deaden, the master-power of Love.

Edward Walton was a rich banker of Bristol. Young and handsome, and of an ardent temperament, in spite of all his wealth he never knew real happiness. Of a dark and suspicious character, of strong passions, excessive in his love as in his hatred, he was a man whose existence hung upon slender threads. A breath might ruffle it for ever. Like the moon's sphere, it had a dark and a shadowy side; and it depended upon circumstances altogether extrinsic, whether it shone forth brightly and cheerfully, or ended in total eclipse.

Mr. Walton was but recently married to a second cousin of his, the daughter of an Englishman long engaged in extensive banking transactions at Nantes. In a worldly point of view, this was an excellent match.

Eliza Somerton was a charming woman, as well as a wealthy heiress; but Eliza was beloved by a young Vendean, named Henri de Cormon, the son of a French nobleman of the ancient school, full of aristocratic prejudices. Eliza had loved him in turn. Brought up from infancy at Nantes, her sympathies and manners were entirely French; and Henri, one of the noblest and bravest youths of La Vendée, had but little difficulty in winning her heart. But his father, a rigid old courtier, was inexorable; it was not in his nature to stoop to a plebeian connexion, even in consideration of a large accession of wealth; and the proposition of marriage was peremptorily broken off. This crude negotiation was speedily succeeded by an arrangement between the Nantes banker and the elder Mr. Walton, who were in constant correspondence, for the union of the hopes of their respective houses. A mystery hung over the career of the latter. His character precisely resembled that of his son. He was sombre and suspicious to an extreme. He had been deceived, some years before, by his wife, who had disappeared, no one knew how; and, though suspicions were darkly hinted as to the circumstance, Walton's great wealth, together with the loose mode in which coroners discharged their functions in the last century, prevented it from becoming the subject of judicial inquiry. Young Walton resided for two months at Nantes, in the house of Miss Somerton's father, subsequently to the marriage, which was celebrated shortly after his arrival. During that interval he heard but little of De Cormon; yet even that little was enough to awaken dark thoughts in the breast of a man of his temperament. It was as a hell to him to suspect that she had ever loved another; and it was no small consolation to him to learn that De Cormon had been slain in an encounter between the troops and the peasantry, which took place about that period in La Vendée. The troubles of that ill