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"That, my Colonel," replied he, hesitating, with a sort of groan, with one hand taking his pipe from his mouth and with the other touching his cap with a military salute, "that is the plant, you know-which is so good for the gout and other maladies."

Then, letting his right arm fall to his side, with his left he replaced his pipe in its habitual place.

"Truly," resumed the Colonel, "if these gentlemen were allowed to have their way, the chambers and the courts of the citadel would become gardens, menageries, shops. Come! out of the way with this weed at once, as well as all this rubbish about it!"

Ludovic regarded in turn the plant, Charney, and the commandant; then attempted to murmur some words of justification. "Be quiet, and obey instantly," cried the Colonel.

Ludovic removed his pipe from his mouth, extinguished it, shook out the ashes, laid it upon a ledge of the wall, and prepared to execute the order. He divested himself of his coat and cap, and rubbed his hands together as if to gain courage. All at once, as if he acquired new strength from the anger of his chief, he seized and threw away the mattings of braided straw; he tore them to pieces and dispersed them about the court with a sort of rage. Next in turn came the twigs which had served. as supports for the matting; these he pulled up one after the other, broke them over his knee, and trod them under his feet. It seemed as if his old affection for Picciola had turned to hate, and that he was wreaking his vengeance upon her.

During this time Charney stood motionless, with his eyes fixed eagerly upon his plant, thus left shelterless, as if with his gaze he would still protect it.

The day had been cool and the sky cloudy. The stem had raised its head somewhat since the day before, and from the withered branches had sprung several little verdant shoots. It seemed as if Picciola were gathering all her strength to die.

What! Picciola, his Picciola! his world of reality and his world of illusions, the pivot on which turned his life, that which irradiated his thoughts-all to be annihilated! And he, poor captive, the expiation of whose crime Providence had suspended, was to be suddenly arrested in his progress towards true knowledge. How should he henceforth occupy his sad leisure? What wili fill the void in his heart? Picciola, the desert hitherto peopled by thee is to become again a desert. No more

projects, no more study, no more intoxicating dreams, no more observations to record, nothing more to love! Oh, how narrow will his prison seem! how heavy the air which he will breathe! It will be only a tomb-the tomb of Picciola! This golden branch, this sibylline bough which has had power to exorcise the evil demons with which he was possessed, will be no longer there to defend him against himself. Can he live again his old life of an incredulous philosopher face to face with his bitter thoughts? No! sooner die than enter again into that chilling night from which she has drawn him!

At this moment Charney saw a shadow pass the little grated window. It was the old man.

"Ah," said he to himself, "I have snatched from him his only blessing, I have deprived him of his daughter! Without doubt he comes to curse me, and to rejoice in my torment."

As he glanced up he could see that he was clasping the bars of the window with his feeble hands which trembled with emotion. Charney did not dare to raise his eyes to ask from the bottom of his heart pardon of the only man whose esteem he cared to possess; he feared to see on that noble countenance the justly merited expression of reproach or disdain; and when their eyes did meet, the look of tender compassion with which the poor father (forgetting his own griefs to sympathize with those of his companion in misfortune) regarded him touched the depth of his heart, and two tears, the only ones that he had ever shed, sprang from his eyes.

These tears were sweet to him, but his pride caused him to dash them quickly away. He would not be suspected of cowardly weakness by the men who surrounded him.

Of all the witnesses of this scene, the two officials alone, indifferent spectators, seemed to understand nothing of the drama which they witnessed. They looked by turns at the prisoner, the old man, the commandant, the jailer, were astonished at the lively and diverse emotions imprinted on each face, and whisperingly wondered whether some important hiding-place was not concealed underneath this plant so carefully barricaded.

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However, the fatal work proceeded. Directed by the Colonel, Ludovic attempted to throw down the supports of the rustic bench; but they resisted his efforts.

"An axe, take an axe," cried the Colonel.

Ludovic took one; it slipped from his hands. "Finish immediately!" said the Colonel.

At the first blow the seat cracked; at the third it fell to the ground. Then Ludovic bent over the plant standing alone in the midst of the débris.

The face of the Count was wan and dejected; the sweat stood in large drops upon his brow.

"Monsieur, Monsieur, why kill it? It will soon die itself," cried he at last, descending again to the character of suppliant. The Colonel looked at him, smiled ironically, and in his turn made no reply..

"Then," said Charney, with violence, "I will crush it! I will tear it up myself!"

"I forbid you to touch it!" said the commandant, with his harsh voice, extending his cane before Charney as if to place a barrier between the prisoner and his darling. Then, in obedience to an imperative order from him, Ludovic seized Picciola with his two hands, and was about to uproot it from the earth. The Count, struck dumb with grief, stood gazing at it.

At the base of the stem, near the lowest branches, where the sap still flowed, a little blossom, fresh and brilliant, was just opening. Already the others hung drooping upon their withered stems. This one alone still had life; it alone was not wounded, crushed, stifled, by the grasp of the large, rough hands of the jailer. The corolla, slightly shaded by a few leaves, was turned towards Charney. He fancied that its perfume was exhaled towards him, and, through eyes dim with gathering tears, he seemed to see it bud, expand, and die. The man and the plant exchanged a last farewell look.

If at this moment, when so many passions and interests were centred in a humble plant, strangers had suddenly entered that prison-court, where the heavens shed only a sombre and dim light, would they not have judged from the picture that met their view, these emissaries of justice with their tricolored scarfs, this military chief issuing his pitiless orders, that they were witnessing some secret and bloody execution, that Ludovic was the executioner, and Charney the criminal to whom his sentence had just been read? And is it not so? They come ! these strangers enter! Behold them!

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One is an aid-de-camp of General Menou; the other, a page of the Empress. The dust with which they are covered shows with what haste they have travelled.

They came but just in time.

At the noise which announced their entrance, Ludovic re

laxed his grasp of Picciola, raised his head, and he and Charney, both with pale faces, gazed at each other.

The aid-de-camp delivered to Colonel Morand an order from the Governor of Turin; the Colonel read it, and with a hesitating movement took two or three turns in the court-yard, striking his cane on the ground, compared the missive which he had just received with that of the day before, then at last, after raising his eyebrows again and again in token of great astonishment, he put on a semi-courteous air, approached Charney, and graciously gave into his hands the letter of the General. The prisoner read aloud what follows:

"His Majesty the Emperor and King has transmitted to me the order, Monsieur the Commandant, to inform you that he consents to the request of Monsieur Charney relative to the plant which is growing between the pavements of the prison-court. Those which incommode it must be raised. I charge you to see to the execution of this order, and to consult upon the subject with Monsieur Charney."

"Vive l'empereur!" cried Ludovic.

"Vive l'empereur!" murmured another voice which seemed to issue from the wall.

During the reading, the commandant stood leaning upon his cane; the two men of the scarfs, unable to find the key to all this, seemed confounded, and sought in their own minds some connection between these events and the conspiracy which they had imagined. The aid-de-camp and the page wondered why such haste had been necessary. At last the page, addressing himself to Charney, said, "There is a postscript from the Empress."

And Charney read on the margin:—

"I recommend Monsieur Charney to the kind care of Colonel Morand. I shall be particularly obliged to him for all that he can do to alleviate the condition of his prisoner. Signed:

"Vive l'impératrice!" cried Ludovic.

"JOSEPHINE."

Charney kissed the signature, and held the paper several minutes before his eyes.

JACQUES HENRI BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.

SAINT-PIERRE, JACQUES HENRI BERNARDIN DE, a French romancist; born at Havre, January 19, 1737; died at Eragnysur-Oise, January 21, 1814. He was graduated with honor at the College of Rouen, and entered the army as an engineer, but was dismissed for insubordination. He then went to Russia, where he was engaged as an engineer for four years. Returning to his native country, he obtained a commission as engineer for the Isle of France. After a residence there of three years he returned to Paris and devoted himself to literature, and soon became intimate with Rousseau and other distinguished writers of the time. He published "Voyage to the Isle of France" (1773); "Studies of Nature" (1784); “Paul and Virginia" (1788); "The Desires of a Solitary" (1789); "The Indian Cottage" (1790); "Harmonies of Nature" (1791). He is best known by his tale "Paul and Virginia," which has been pronounced by an eminent French critic as not only the chef d'œuvre of the author, but one of the chefs d'œuvres of any author. It has been translated into many languages. Saint-Pierre married a daughter of Pierre Didot, a Paris bookseller, and had two children, named respectively Paul and Virginia.

THE SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH.

(From "Paul and Virginia.")

"PAUL and Virginia had neither clock, nor almanac, nor books of chronology, history, or philosophy. The periods of their lives were regulated by those of the operations of nature, and their familiar conversation had a constant reference to the changes of the seasons. They knew the time of day by the shadows of the trees; the seasons, by the times when those trees bore flowers or fruit; and the years, by the number of their harvests. These soothing images diffused an inexpressible charm over their conversation. It is time to dine,' said Virginia, the shadows of the plantain trees are at their roots;' or, 'Night approaches; the tamarinds are closing

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