Forty years of Paris

Chapter I

First glimpses of Paris — The days of the Empire — The Imperial " Smart Set " — Offenbach and Schneider — Jose Dupuis and the ladies — Louis Veuillot — Pere Hyacinthe at Notre Dame — The two Dumas — Church and State then — General de Failly's chassepots — The Empress Eugenie then and now — The Court ladies — Princess Metternich — Prosper Merimee at Compiegne — The Dryad in gauze — The Duchesse de Persigny and the living pictures — The Due de Persigny's memoirs and the Empress ....

Chapter II

Republicans and the Empire — Ollivier, Rochefort, Rouher — The Empress a matchmaker — The Victor Noir affair — In Normandy with the Germans — The Prussian deserter — In the Latin Quarter — Recollections of Renan — His view of Christianity — Taine on London — His descriptions of Somerset House, the Strand, and Trafalgar Square — Max O'Rell and Taine — Debates and discussions in the Latin Quarter . . . .10 vi FORTY YEARS OF PARIS

Chapter III Page

Royalists, Bonapartists, and Republicans— The May dates —The Due de Broglie and Marshal MacMahon— The Romance of the MacMahons— The doctor and the widow— Bismarck and the Republic— Gambetta's dinners— Madame de Paivre— The onyx staircase . 27

Chapter IV

The Grevy family — Daniel Wilson— Madame Grevy and the King of Greece— M. Wilson and M. de Blowitz — The Daily Telegraph Paris office — Newspaper work in Paris — The Morning News and Galignani's Messenger — Thackeray on Galignani's staff — His " Ballad of Bouillabaisse" 38

Chapter V

La haute politique — The Egyptian Question — The Near East — Mr. Lavino and Russia — M. de Blowitz saves France — The real importance of M, de Blowitz — His remarkable position — Bismarck and Ferry — Bits of big news — The fall of Ferry 50

Chapter VI

At the Chamber of Deputies — The Fenians in Paris — James Stephens and Eugene Davis — The " j-esources of civilisation" — The "Irish Ambassador" — Trial of Madame Clovis Hugues — Tragedy in a newspaper office — Victor Hugo's death and funeral — Pasteur and his rabbits — My meetings with Pasteur — His views on Gladstone and Parnell — My meeting with M. Clemenceau — Mrs. Crawford, Mr. Cremer, and M. Clemenceau — M. Clemenceau then and now — M. Clemenceau and M. Jaures 59

FORTY YEARS OF PARIS vii

Chapter VII

More about M. Clemenceau — A smasher of Cabinets — The numerous ministries of the Republic — Rise of General Boulanger — The present German Emperor and Boulanger — My meeting with the General — Events and episodes of the Boulangist period — Boulanger's flight and fall — His Boswell, Charles Chincholle — The king of reporters — Fictionist first, journalist after — The Opera Comique fire — Pranzini's execution — Close to the guillotine 78

Chapter VIII

President Carnot's election — Paul Deroulede and the patriots — Hatred of Ferry — M. Clemenceau's "outsider" — The " Marriage a Failure " question — My talks with Zola, Dumas, and others — Emile Zola at home — M. Sardou's anger — M. Ludovic Halevy's letter — War clouds — Rupture with Rome foreshadowed — The Floquet programme of 1888 lOO

Chapter IX

The Exhibition of 1889 — A Lord Mayor's banquet in Paris — M. Tirard, Sir James Whitehead and the City magnates from London — Mysterious disappearance of a journalist — The so-called "reptiles " of the German Press — Bismarck's double — Boulangist tentative de regonflement — The Duke of Orleans and the Gamelle — Boulanger's suicide — The British Embassy in Paris — Lord Lyons and the Republicans — The Jubilee garden party 113 viii FORTY YEARS OF PARIS

Chapter X Page

More about the British Embassy — Lord Lytton's reception — Earl Lytton as a Parisian — His religious views — His sudden death — His successors at the Embassy — Sir E. Monson at Brest and M. Gosselin at Ushant — The Drummond Castle medals — The EngHsh and American colonies in Paris — Notable English and American Residents — Count Boni de Castellane and Miss Anna Gould — The imitation Trianon — The divorce - . 126

Chapter XI

Americans in Paris — Mr. J. G. Bennett — Mr. Joseph Pulitzer — Other Americans — Sardou's " Thermidor " — Origin of the bloc — Empress Frederick in Paris — Her cold reception — Death of Prince Napoleon — The blood-stained shirt and M. Constans — Franco-Russian foregatherings — A prelate's prosecution — M. Constans and M. Laur — The ** '^otirnee des Gifles," or a political Boxing-day — Ravachol the dynamiter . . . 144

Chapter XII

Dynamite outrages — The Panama bubble-— The anti-Semitic campaign — M. Drumont and the Jews — Jewish officer killed in duel — Baron de Reinach's mysterious death — M. Clemenceau and Dr. Herz — The sick man of Bournemouth — The Clemenceau- Deroulede duel — The "Pot de Vin" ballet— The Panama cheques- Foreign Correspondents expelled— Admiral Avellan's visit — The question of Siam — Anti-Enghsh feeling — The dynamiters Henry and Vaillant .... 158

FORTY YEARS OF PARIS ix

Chapter XIII Page

Death of Marshal MacMahon and Charles Gounod — Death of Jules Ferry and H, Taine — Max Lebaudy and Liane de Pougy — The Delilahs of the Third Republic — The assassination of President Carnot — His funeral described by Clement Scott — President Casimir-Perier — Verdi at the Opera — French and Italians — M. Casimir- Perier's resignation — Death of M. Waddington . . 173

Chapter XIV

Leonide Leblanc and her rivals — Auguste Burdeau's career — Madame Alboni and her gendarme — The passing of the " reptiles " — The Madagascar Expedition — Rochefert's return from Portland Place — A famous couturier's career — Charles Worth, of Lincolnshire — His Royal and Imperial patrons — His methods of work and his prices — Death of Dumas the Second — A theatrical funeral — Max Lebaudy 's sad end — The Vampires — The romance of Armand Rosenthal . . . .189

Chapter XV

M. Meline and the Affaire — Ambroise Thomas and the Conservatoire — Cleo de Merode and the kings — M. Cernuschi the Bi-metallist — The coming of the Tsar — Dr. Dillon on the Imperial visit — The Charity Bazaar fire — A visit to Fleet Street — Opening of the Affaire — My talk with Maitre Demange, defender of Dreyfus — Madame Hadamard's tears — Maitre Demange's prediction — The " Leakages " and the bordereau, . . 205

X FORTY YEARS OF PARIS

Chapter XVI Page

Alphonse Daudet's death — His family and friends — M. Leon Daudet on France and England — Emile Zola's letter " J' accuse " — His trial — Colonel Henry's suicide — The Fashoda alarm — Lord Kitchener in Paris when Sirdar — His arrival with Baratier at the Gare de Lyon — Death of Mr. Hely Bowes — A notable journalist — The mysterious death of President Faure — His secretary's statement — Legends of " La Belle Juive " and the lady with the violets — M. Faure's personality and picturesqueness 222

CHAPTER XVn

President Loubet — M, Deroulede's attempted coup d'etat — M. Loubet at home — M. Waldeck-Rousseau's return to politics — His career at the Bar — General the Marquis de Galliffet — From carpet knight to hero — Home-coming of Dreyfus — Baffling the Press — Fort Chabrol and its defender — The French and the Boers — Paul Kruger and President Loubet — The Exhibition of 1900 — The Tsar and Tsaritsa at Compiegne — Repubhcan ladies — Madame Waldeck- Rousseau and the cake 237

CHAPTER XVHI

M. Emile Combes at work — The Humbert hoax — M. Waldeck- Rousseau and the hoax — The " biggest fraud of the century" — Maitre Labori and the Humberts — M. Jaures and M. Gohier — The expulsions of the Orders — Rising in Brittany — Death of Sir Campbell Clarke — Death of Emile Zola — His enemies and his friends — Zola's children — Some famous French journalists — Death of M. de Blowitz — The suicide of Sir Hector Macdonald — The coming of King Edward — The entente cordiale and its results . 253

FORTY YEARS OF PARIS xi

CHAPTER XIX

PAGE

King Edward in Paris — At the Hotel de Ville — Great popular and official reception — The King and Queen of Italy in Paris — Voices against the visit — Attacks on Victor Emmanuel and the Republicans who receive him — M. and Madame Jaures at the Elysee banquet — The Socialist citoyenne and her diamonds — The Republic and the Church at war — Real and pretended anti-clericals — Two famous actors, Delaunay and Got — Herman iMerivale and John Hollingshead in Paris — J. Clifford Millage, of the Chronicle — Death of Princess Mathilde — Her literary and artistic receptions — Marinoni and the Petit Journal — Death of M. Waldeck- Rousseau at Corbeil — His last cigarette — Resignation of his successor, M. Combes — Exultation of the Catholics over the defeat of the petit pere — Gabriel Syveton's career — The Patrie Frangaise and its literary and artistic supporters — Syveton's ruin and death — Return of Paul Deroulede .... 269

CHAPTER XX

The Church and State conflict — Both sides of the question — M. Viviani's speech and Professor Huxley on Christian mythology — M. Camille Pelletan and the Pope — Hatred of the Vatican in France and England — The Harlot of the Seven Hills — War against Rome begun in 1882 — What the Catholics complain of — Religion and politics 287

CHAPTER XXI

The speculations as to a schism — Ultramontanism versus Gallicanism — Inside troubles of the Church in France — The cases of the Bishops of Laval and Dijon — Effects of the Higher Criticism — Abbe Loisy's xii FORTY YEARS OF PARIS

PAGE

work— Ernest Renan, Hyacinthe Loyson, and Alfred Loisy — Attacks on Abbe Loisy's teaching — His views on the Old Testament— His " L'Evangile et I'Eghse" 304

CHAPTER XXn

Abbe Loisy on the New Testament— The Chicago god— The Jesuits and the new critic— Archbishop Mignot's views — Loisy and Renan compared — Their styles — Their arguments in Christology— Abbe Loisy's friends and foes — His condemnation by Rome . . • 3^5

CHAPTER XXni

French literary men at home and abroad — M. Anatole France and his critics — M. France and M. Lemaitre — Their special knowledge of French — M. France on his master Renan — M. Joris Karl Huysmans — His views on modern novelists — M. Maurice Barres and his books — Some vanished literary celebrities — James Darmesteter as I knew him — Darmesteter and Spinoza — " L'Esprit Juif " — Ferdinand Brunetiere and M. Buloz — Brunetiere's " Discours de Combat" — His death 328

CHAPTER XXIV

Pierre Loti at Aden — The French dramatists — The old playwrights and the new — Rise of M. Antoine — His early efforts and failures — His series of new men — Henri Becque — The " Comedie Rosse " — The men from Antoine's — Lavedan, Donnay, Brieux, Francis de Curel, Courteline — M. Capus at home — M. Brieux

FORTY YEARS OF PARIS xiii

PAGE

and his '' Avaries " — Courteline's bag of tricks — M. Paul Hervieu and the " Dedale " — M. Edmond Rostand and M. CoqueHn — The French poets — Hugo, Lamartine, Baudelaire, Verlaine — The only comic poet 344

CHAPTER XXV

Return to politics after literature — President Loubet's retirement — His new home in the Rue Dante — His successor, M. Armand Fallieres — A Republic of lawyers — Close of the Dreyfus case — M. Clemenceau, President of the Council, and General Picquart, War Minister — General de Galliffet on Picquart's rise — General Andre and his revelations — The mysteries of modern Paris — Farewell to France .... 363

List of Illustrations

ANATOLE FRANCE . » . . Frontispiece

EMPRESS EUGENIE . . . . To face page 5

MARSHAL MACMAHON . . . .,,,,31'

JULES GREVY . . . . n )i 39 "^

M. DE BLOWITZ . . . . „ „ 56

JULES FERRY . , . . ,j n 5^

LOUIS PASTEUR . . . . . „ „ ^7

JEAN JAURES . . . . m n 74

DUC DE BROGLIE . . . . „ „ 79

ARMAND FALLIERES . . . „ „ 80

GENERAL BOULANGER . . . . „ „ 87

GEORGES CLEMENCEAU ... M v lOI

ALEXANDRE DUMAS . . . • ij v I04

VICTORIEN SARDOU ... M n ^^^

DUC d'orleans , . . . „ „ 120 '

EDOUARD DRUMONT ... )5 » ^59 ^ xvi FORTY YEARS OF PARIS

JEAN CASiMiR-PERiER . . . To face page 185

HENRI ROCHEFORT . . . . „ „ I97

EMILE COMBES .... rj n 209

ALFRED DREYFUS . . . . „ „ 2l8

M. WALDECK-ROUSSEAU ... » d 24O

CAMILLE PELLETAN . . . . „ „ 257 '

PRINCESSE MATHILDE ... m i» ^7^

JULES LEMAITRE . . . . h 1) 283

PAUL DEROULEDE . . . . „ „ 285

FERDINAND BRUNETIERE . . . „ „ 297

ABBE LOISY .... jj 17 310

PIERRE LOTI . . . . • jj » 344

ALFRED CAPUS . . . • „ „ 349

EDMOND ROSTAND .... » >, 355

MAITRE DEMANGE . . . . „ „ 367

GENERAL PICQUART . . . „ „ 369

Chapter I

First glimpses of Paris — The days of the Empire — The Imperial "Smart Set" — Offenbach and Schneider — Jose Dupuis and the ladies — The other side — Louis Veuillot — Pere Hyacinthe at Notre Dame — The two Dumas — Church and State then — General De Failly's chassepots — The Empress Eugenie then and now — The Court ladies — Princess Metternich — Prosper Merimee at Compiegne — The Dryad in gauze — The Duchesse de Persigny and the living pictures — The Due de Persigny and the Empress.

ACCORDING to Benvenuto Cellini, who has been called "the Supreme Scoundrel of the Renaissance," every man, past forty years of age, who has done anything should write a record of his life. In my opinion, to write reminiscences, or to narrate one's experiences of life, one must be a great egotist, or a remarkable personage. I hope that I am not an egotist, and can assuredly lay no claim to being a person of importance in what William Morris terms " the world's great game." I am not conscious of any notable achievements such as were

2 1 accomplished by those famous in history and literature as recorders of reminiscences. What I have to do, however, is not to give a record of my whole life, a vita travagliata, like that of the renowned Renaissance artist and adventurer, to whom in this respect I may compare myself, but of my life in that most interesting of European cities which, according to an old and worn French saying, is the Paradise of women, the Purgatory of men, and the Hell of horses. My life in Paris comprised a period of twenty-five years' actual residence, but I have had experience of the place, on and off, for nearly forty years. During my residence and my previous visits I had an opportunity of keeping my finger on the pulse of the French capital, as it were. Even as a youth I had some opportunities of studying the place and its people. My first glimpse of the capital of France was obtained in a curious way. I was sent to study philosophy and theology in France with a view to entering a calling which was too good for me. At that time the Second Empire was still in existence, and I had glimpses of Imperial Paris. It is almost needless to say that it was a much livelier place then than it is to-day.

In Imperial Paris, before the great collapse, men and women who had any money seemed, as is well known, to live for luxury. The " Smart Set" of the day were, of course, at the Tuileries, and they led the way in the pursuit of pleasure. There is no need to dwell on that, for the grandeur and follies of the Offenbach and Schneider era have been only too frequently described. I must offer an apology here to that estimable man, M. Robert Mitchell, a true Bonapartist, who has objected before now to my allusions in print to his father-in-law, the famous composer of the " Grand Duchess." Whatever M. Mitchell may say, it must be stated, with all due respect to the memory of his father-in-law, that the years preceding the fall of the Second Empire were full of the influence of that composer of the merriest and most tuneful " musical comedies ' ever staged. Meilhac and Halevy, those entertaining distorters of mythology and caricaturists of small German Courts, had their part in the fun and frivolity of that period ; but it was Jacques Offenbach who was predominant, and after him ranked Hortense Schneider.

The latter is still living in a villa at Auteuil — a wrinkled relic of the past. Hortense Schneider was born in Bordeaux in the year 1835. She was married formerly to a M. de Buone. She was not only famous in Paris but also at Baden-Baden, where the dandies of the Empire gambled before the War. Jose Dupuis, who acted with Schneider in Offenbach's operettas, lives also in retirement outside Paris. He used to be as great a favourite with the women as Schneider was with the men.

In those days I had little or no opportunity of listening to Offenbach or of hearing the song of the sabre. My path was in a far different direction. I was then chiefly concerned with the great French ecclesiastical writers, and was reading diligently Bossuet, Massillon, Lacordaire, and also Montalembert. Occasionally I heard and read Louis ' Veuillot, the publican's son, who attacked the vices of the period with a caustic pen, and who, as the journalistic champion of the Catholic Church, frequently made his anti-clerical opponents wince under the whip of his scathing satire. I heard, too, a good deal then of Pere Hyacinthe, now known as M. Loyson, of whom I have more to say later on. He had, as a Carmelite friar of great eloquence, been captivating Parisians from the pulpit of Notre Dame, and his falling away was naturally as much discussed in the ecclesiastical circles in which I found myself as was that of Ernest Renan years before.

Occasionally I had in my ears vague rumours of Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, and the statesmen and generals of the Second Empire. Dumas naturally appealed to my schoolboy instincts through his romances, and during my early Bohemian wanderings in Paris, after I had cut adrift from patrons and friends, I had a wild notion that the great fictionist who wrote " Monte Cristo " and the " Three Musketeers " would give me employment on his staff, for I knew, nebulously, that he had assistants who, as I learned in later times, were called "ghosts." I never met the great French story-spinner, but I was destined, long after his death, to meet his son in peculiar circumstances, to be recorded hereafter.

My notions of political matters were crude in those days. I knew nothing about the trouble in store for France after Sadowa, and the roseate declarations of M. Rouher in the Legislative Assembly when, in answer to Thiers, who said " Le gouvernment n'a plus dallies," he added, " Ni d'ennemis," were as unknown to me as the developments of the Luxembourg question and the Mexican campaign. What I was interested in, however, was the great Italian, or rather the Vatican, question, which is uppermost to-day

The Empress EuoiNiE.

After Winterhalter.

as well as then. The Garibaldians had marched into the States of the Church, and yielding to the solicitations of the Empress, who was backed by M. Rouher, Napoleon the Third sent French troops into Italy under General de Failly, author of the famous phrase referring to the defeat of the Garibaldians at Mentana, " Les chassepots ont fait merveille." It was after this M. Rouher declared, on the opening of the legislative session of 1867-68, that the Pope had need of Rome for his independence, and that the French Government would never allow it to be taken from him. "Jamais! Jamais!" cried the majority who applauded the Minister. Times have changed since then, and to-day we see a French Government vehemently opposed to the Pope, and utterly unmindful of his influence and his position.

This Roman or Vatican policy of the Imperial Cabinet was, as is above said, due to the interference of the Empress, always a most pious Catholic. Even her bitterest enemies have admitted that in her seemingly most frivolous moments, when the Germans called her a "■ Zierpuppe,'' or ornamental doll married to a melancholy dreamer, and when, as a French historian wrote, she " passed from her fashion studio in the Tuileries to the Council of Ministers, there to interfere in State Matters of which she understood nothing," she always remained true to her religion.

I saw the Empress once in the height of her grandeur and glory, and I have seen her in these later days, a sad and pensive phantom taking furtive walks in the gardens of the Tuileries, during one of her periodical sojourns at the Hotel Continental in the Rue de Rivoli, where she is near the scenes of her former splendour. The contrast is striking — none more so. While observing her movements, marred by the debility of age, I could not help going back in memory to days when I saw her starting for Biarritz surrounded by ladies of honour, courtiers, and friends, such as Princess Metternich, wife of the Austrian Ambassador, Prince Richard Metternich, who died in March, 1895 '> Vicomtesse Aguado, whose pretty hands Winterhalter drew from in his official portraits of the Empress ; the Duchess de Persigny, and many more. Who those ladies were, friends and favourites of the Empress, I could not have known then, but I subsequently learned a good deal about them from the book of that interesting chronicler of memories of the Tuileries, Madame Carette. You have to go to Madame Carette, undoubtedly, for inner lights on the Court of the Tuileries. She gossips as only ladies can, and she must have kept a most careful diary while she was reader and maid of honour to the Empress. I am not quite sure if she relates everything that she heard and saw, but she goes very near it, leaving the worst to the scandal-mongers who have published more or less fanciful reports of the secret vices of the Court of the Tuileries. Such books abound in Paris, but I have avoided them, and having always had a strong liking for the Bonapartes, for various reasons, one of which is that I have invariably found their adherents to be most courteous and kindly persons, and far more interesting than many of the Republicans who succeeded to their places and their power, I have never been moved by the scandal-mongers, nor even by M^rim^e, who was the friend of the Empress, or

Maxime du Camp, both of whom have left on record some strange things about the Second Empire. It was Prosper M^rimee, for instance, who wrote in his " Lettres a une inconnue " that at a ball given at Compiegne there was a young lady " en nymphe Dryade avec une robe qui aurait laissee toute la gorge h decouvert si on n'y eut remedi^ par un maillot, ce qui semblait presque aussi vif que le ddcolletage de la maman dont on penetrait tout I'estomac d'un coup d'ceil." And Maxime du Camp, in his " Paris, ses organes et sa vie," wrote that in the period before the storm of 1870 one hundred and twenty thousand women composed the "arm^e de depravation, de debauche et de ruine," these persons ranging from the wretched grisette to the " grande dame qui, avant de se rendre, exige et re9oit un million en pieces d'or nouvellement frappte." These grand ladies did not want, you see, cheques or notes, but gold fresh from the Mint.

Now, it is true that there was a bad example given by the Court in those days, but I believe that the scandals have been much exaggerated. A German whom I know, and who has lived a good deal in Paris, once declared that many of the stories told of the Court ladies were apocryphal. He particularly defended Princess Metternich, who, he said, always remained a lady, a high-born aristocrat, despite the eccentricity which made her talk Paris slang and imitate the music-hall singer Theresa. It was even doubtful if she did this, but her eccentricity, according to the German writer, was pardonable, as she had an admixture of insanity in her composition. So at least appears from the following story of a living picture display. The Empress once desired that her ladies should sit around in one of the garden nooks at Compiegne arranged in a Watteau group of living pictures. The Duchesse de Persigny, a great beauty of the blonde division, objected to powder her fair hair, whereupon Princess Metternich complained to the Empress. The latter said, " Oh, let her have her own way, the poor thing. Her mother is in a madhouse." "Well," said Princess Metternich, whose name before marriage was Pauline Von Sandor, ** I have the same claim to your Majesty's consideration, as my father is also in a madhouse." The matter was compromised by the injunction of the Empress that the Duchesse de Persigny was to take part in another and a non-Watteau combination of living pictures. The husband of the fair-haired Duchess has left a most valuable volume of reminiscences.

He died at Nice in 1872, but his memoirs, prepared for publication by his friend and secretary, Comte d'Espagny, did not appear until 1896. Persigny was one of the most interesting figures of the Second Empire. He was born in 1800, was a military student at the Saumur Cavalry School, whence he passed into a Hussar regiment, and on leaving the army he went to Germany. While at Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, where he had an appointment of an amorous character with an unknown fair one, Persigny saw Louis Napoleon for the first time. The Prince was out driving, and his coachman was shouting " Vive Napoleon ! " Persigny joined the Prince's set and became devotedly attached to him. The Republicans go so far as to make Persigny the most prominent of those who helped to bring about the coup cTStat of the 2nd of December, 1851. They call him the policeman, or gendarme, of the Second Empire, as the Due de Morny was its diplomatist, and they bracket him with General Saint Arnaud and M. de Maupas. In his memoirs Persigny glides over the coup cT^tat. A little before my first visit to Paris, Persigny was in bad odour at the Tuileries. He saw the clouds gathering, opposed Rouher and the new advisers of the Emperor, and objected to the interference of the Empress in matters of State. He wrote on this delicate subject to Napoleon the Third ; the letter fell into the hands of the Empress, who at once informed Persigny that she would not attend Cabinet Councils any more. The Duke was never pardoned for his frankness.

Chapter II

Republicans and the Empire — Ollivier, Rochefort, Rouher — The Empress a matchmaker — The Victor Noir affair — In Normandy with the Germans — The Prussian deserter — In the Latin Quarter — Recollections of Renan — His view of Christianity — Taine on London — His descriptions of Somerset House, the Strand, and Trafalgar Square — Max O'Rell and Taine — Debates and discussions in the Latin Quarter.

TOWARDS the year 1869 some of the Repub- Hcans, whom I was afterwards to see and hear in the height of their popularity and success, began to make their influence felt. Emile Ollivier, the man who went to war with a " light heart," had been directed by the Emperor to form a Cabinet and to succeed M. Rouher. The events of the time brought to the front the founders of the Third Republic, such as Ldon Gambetta, Jules Grevy, Jules Ferry, and, it may well be added, Henri Rochefort. It is not widely known that M. Ollivier himself was at that period designated a renegade Republican. His father, Demosthenes Ollivier, had been a man of the mountain, and what is termed "a victim of the 2nd of December" — that is to say, of the coup d'etat of December, 1851. He himself had been associated

with Ledru Rollin, who long lived in exile in St.

John's Wood. In 1857 M. Ollivier was put forward on the Republican — or rather the Democratic — ticket, and he wrote that the Republican party supported him by reason of the devotedness of his father to the cause, and out of respect to the memory of his brother, Aristides Ollivier, who was killed in a political duel. Towards the end of 1869 M. Ollivier publicly declared that all good men should rally around the Dynasty. He cut himself adrift from his old friends of the Left Centre, and set to work to form the " Empire Liberal." This is the title of the voluminous work on which M. Ollivier was long engaged in his retirement at Saint Tropez, in the South of France, where he resides during the winter months. The venerable academician varies this historical work by writing occasional leading articles, and by defending the Empress Eugenie from the recurring attacks of Republicans who insist that the war of 1870-71 was "her war." Quite recently — in July, 1906 — there was some flutter at the French Academy when M. Thureau-Dangin wanted to award the Gobert prize to M. de la Gorsse for his history of the Second Empire. The flutter was caused by M. Ollivier, who contested M. de la Gorsse's account of the events leading up to the war of 1870, and stated that Prussia alone was responsible for that Titanic conflict. The upshot was that M. de la Gorsse did not obtain the Gobert prize, and that M. Ollivier received a raking fire from the Republican press. One of the Republican writers began by stating that the Imperial policy in the Hohenzollern affair admirably served the politique de derriere la tete of Bismarck. The French Cabinet was exacting in its demands, continued this writer, and that was simply and solely because the Empress, who had planned a marriage between the Murats and the Hohenzollerns, insisted absolutely that Prince Frederick of Hohenzollern, brother of Prince Leopold, should after his marriage with Princess Anna Murat come to live in Paris, and form part of the Court of the Tuileries. The Prince's father objected, saying that his son's place was at the Court of Prussia. We are told that the Empress then did her utmost to thwart the Prussians and the Hohenzollerns, and later on made her husband demand from King William the promise that, after the refusal of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern to take the throne of Spain, no member of the Royal Family should be put forward as a candidate for the same throne. ^