leon's good taste, that he had never lived at Versailles; or, if he went thither, that he had contented himself with putting up at one of the Trianons: because Versailles was so identified with the memory of another great man, Louis Quatorze, that he felt it to be presumptuous to put his fame and that of the Grand Monarque in unnecessary contrast, by inhabiting the palace which is the finest monument to the latter's praise. This remark was immediately applied invidiously to Louis Philippe, who although spending a vast quantity of his own private fortune upon the repairs which are actually requisite for the immortal structure, has not succeeded in increasing his popularity by the sacrifice. One object, however, is attained by it, viz. the employment of a vast body of workmen, who otherwise might be troublesome in Paris.

Baron Molé next came in for his share of witticism, being also one of the most likely men to be appointed to form a new administration; and it was said, "Que cé ministère seul serait assez ferme sur ses pieds, qui aurait pour son fondement, un bon et brave Molé (mollet).”

A great deal of amusement was caused at the expense of poor M. Lafitte, the ex-minister, whose

affairs as a banker had lately become so notoriously deranged. At a recent ballot for the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, it had been found that his name was written on one of the billets M. J. Faillitte, instead of M. J. Lafitte, in allusion to his commercial misfortunes.

A great many other calembourgs were cited in the course of the evening, as

"De vingt-quatre soldats le capitaine je suis,

Sans moi Paris serait pris”—

which was discovered by Miss Barbara to mean the letter A; and she remarked at the same time, that taking away the letter L would, in the same way, make London, undone.

Napoléon après la bataille de Leipsic"-demanded the little witty man, who had been talking to Madame La Motte-" Napoléon après la bataille de Leipsic, pourquoi ressemble-t-il à l'homme dans la lune ?"

Parcequ'il se trouvait dans les plus grands desastres (le plus grand des astres)"-answered the Spaniard who had acted the bull-fight.

"Why did the French nation submit so tamely to Napoleon's tyranny?" asked Mrs. Mac-Rubber.

Parceque l'arbre de la liberté était flétri, et il n'en restait que l'écorce (le Corse)."

"And why is it that one can never get a wild duck for supper at the bal de l'opéra?" said Fletcher, thinking of la belle Olympe.

66

Parcequ'on laisse les cannes à la porte,” replied Miss Barbara Scraggs.

"And have you no question to propose, or no witticism to relate?" asked the lady of the house, approaching the silent and melancholy Boivin.

"No new witticism," replied the dying republican; "but it was not a bad joke which Danton made, on his way to the scaffold, to the poet, Fabre d'Eglantine, who seemed somewhat cast down at his approaching execution:- Courage, camarade! suivons notre métier! nous allons faire des vers.'

So pensive a smile wreathed the ashy lip of the young and enthusiastic student as he spoke, that a visible interest was excited for him in the whole of the party present; but he hastened to quit the assembly as soon as he found himself an object of remark; and hastening home, through the pale moonlight, to his dark and dismal little cottage, he threw himself on his comfortless pallet, while his old mother, knowing that he had been to a

party in the house of an Englishwoman, told him, that she did not in the least pity him for his sufferings, his illness, or his misfortunes, for he had most deservedly brought them all upon himself through associating with those "sacrés chiens d'Anglais."

CHAPTER II.

"IL faut étudier les plaisirs de Paris," says the inimitable Balzac; yes, étudier is the word and the author of Père Goriot himself never made a truer or more sensible observation. The pleasures of Paris are not to be learnt in a day. The diversions of Tivoli-the dances in the Champs Elysées-the dinners at the Café de Paris and the Trois Frèresthe cheap and intellectual recreations of the Opèra Comique and the Vaudevilles-even for once in a way the lowlived buffooneries of Musard, or of the Café des Aveugles itself—each afford a peculiar and characteristic subject for study of their own. Το learn the character of a nation it is necessary to mix deeply in its popular amusements. After the unsuccessful attempt of the republicans on the event of Lamarque's funeral, the government, while it appointed courts-martial, in direct defiance of the spirit of the