and though at times his reason would seem to return free and unclouded, suddenly a dark curtain would appear to drop over the light of his intellect, and he would mutter the words, "Silence! silence à la mort!" and speak not again for several hours after.'

The Vicomte de Berlemont, from whom I heard this sad story, was himself a member of the court-martial on the occasion. For the rest, I visited Paris about a fortnight after I heard it, and determining to solve my doubts on a subject of such interest I paid an early visit to Charenton. On examining the registry of the institution, I found the name of 'Gustave Guillaume Aubuisson, native of Dijon, aged thirty-two. Admitted at Charenton the 31st of October, 1813. Incurable.' And on another page was the single line, 'Aubuisson escaped from Charenton, June 16, 1815. Supposed to have been seen at Waterloo on the 18th.'

One more fact remains to be mentioned in this sad story. The old tower still stands, bleak and desolate, on the mountains of the Vesdre; but it is now uninhabited save by the sheep that seek shelter within its gloomy walls, and herd in that spacious chimney. There is another change, too, but so slight as scarcely to be noticed: a little mound of earth, grass-grown and covered with thistles, marks the spot where 'Lazare the shepherd' takes his last rest. It is a lone and dreary spot, and the sighing night-winds as they move over the barren heath seem to utter his last consigne, and his requiem-'Silence! silence à la mort!'

CHAPTER XIX

THE TOP OF A DILIGENCE

'SUMMA diligentia,' as we used to translate it at school, 'on the top of the diligence,' I wagged along towards the

Rhine. A weary and a lonely way it is; indeed, I half believe a frontier is ever thus-a kind of natural barrier to ambition on either side, where both parties stop short and say, 'Well, there's no temptation there, anyhow!'

Reader, hast ever travelled in the banquette of a diligence? I will not ask you, fair lady; for how could you ever mount to that Olympus of trunks, carpet-bags, and hat-boxes; but my whiskered friend with the cheroot yonder, what says he? Never look angry, man-there was no offence in my question; better men than either of us have done it.

First, if the weather be fine, the view is a glorious thing; you are not limited, like your friends in the coupé, to the sight of the conductor's gaiters, or the leather disc of the postillion's 'continuations.' No; your eye ranges away at either side over those undulating plains which the Continent presents, unbroken by fence or hedgerowone stretch of vast cornfields, great waving woods, interminable tracts of yellowish pasture-land, with here and there a village spire, or the pointed roof of some château rising above the trees. A yellow-earthy byroad traverses the plain, on which a heavy waggon plods along, the eight huge horses, stepping as free as though no weight restrained them; their bells are tinkling in the clear air, and the merry chant of the waggoner chimes in pleasantly with them. It is somewhat hard to fancy how the land is ever tilled; you meet few villages; scarcely a house is in sight-yet there are the fragrant fields; the yellow gold of harvest tints the earth, and the industry of man is seen on every side. It is peaceful, it is grand, too, from its very extent; but it is not homelike. No; our own happy land alone possesses that attribute. It is the country of the hearth and home. The traveller in France or Germany catches no glances as he goes of the rural life of the proprietors of the soil. A pale white château, seemingly uninhabited, stands in some formal lawn, where the hot sun darts down his rays unbroken, and the very fountain

seems to hiss with heat. No signs of life are seen about; all is still and calm, as though the moon were shedding her yellow lustre over the scene. Oh how I long for the merry schoolboy's laugh, the clatter of the pony's canter, the watch-dog's bark, the squire breathing the morning air amid his woods, that tell of England! How I fancy a peep into that large drawing-room, whose windows open to the greensward, letting in a view of distant mountains and far-receding foreground, through an atmosphere heavy with the rose and the honeysuckle! Lovely as is the scene, with foliage tinted in every hue, from the light sprayey hazel to the dull pine or the dark copper beechhow I prefer to look within where they are met who call this 'home!' And what a paradise is such a home!But I must think no more of these things. I am a lone and solitary man; my happiness is cast in a different mould, nor shall I mar it by longings which never can be realised.

While I sat thus musing, my companion of the banquette, of whom I had hitherto seen nothing but a blue-cloth cloak and a travelling-cap, came 'slap down' on me with a snort that choked him, and aroused me.

'I ask your pardon, sir,' said he in a voice that betrayed Middlesex most culpably. Je suis—that is, j'ai——'

'Never mind, sir; English will answer every purpose,' cried I. You have had a sound sleep of it.'

'Yes, Heaven be praised! I get over a journey as well as most men. Where are we now-do you happen to know?'

'That old castle yonder, I suspect, is the Alten Burg,' said I, taking out my guidebook and directory. The Alten Burg was built in the year 1384, by Carl Ludwig Graf von Löwenstein, and is not without its historic associations--'

Damn its historic associations!' said my companion, with an energy that made me start. 'I wish the devil and his imps had carried away all such trumpery, or kept them to torture people in their own hot climate, and left

us free here. I ask pardon, sir! I beseech you to forgive my warmth; you would if you knew the cause, I'm certain.'

I began to suspect as much myself, and that my neighbour being insane, was in no wise responsible for his opinions; when he resumed

'Most men are made miserable by present calamities; some feel apprehensions for the future; but no one ever suffered so much from either as I do from the past. No, sir,' continued he, raising his voice, 'I have been made unhappy from those sweet souvenirs of departed greatness which guidebook people and tourists gloat over. The very thought of antiquity makes me shudder; the name of Charlemagne gives me the lumbago; and I'd run a mile from a conversation about Charles the Bold or Philip van Artevelde. I see what's passing in your mind; but you're all wrong. I'm not deranged, not a bit of it; though, faith, I might be, without any shame or disgrace.'

The caprices of men, of Englishmen in particular, had long ceased to surprise me; each day disclosed some new eccentricity or other. In the very last hotel I had left there was a Member of Parliament planning a new route to the Rhine, avoiding Cologne, because in the coffee-room of the Grossen Rheinberg' there was a double door that everybody banged when he went in or out, and so discomposed the honourable and learned gentleman that he was laid up for three weeks with a fit of gout, brought on by pure passion at the inconvenience.

I had not long to wait for the explanation in this case. My companion appeared to think he owed it to himself to 'show cause' why he was not to be accounted a lunatic; and after giving me briefly to understand that his means enabled him to retire from active pursuits and enjoy his ease, he went on to recount that he had come abroad to pass the remainder of his days in peace and tranquillity. But I shall let him tell his own story in his own words.

On the eighth day after my arrival at Brussels, I told my wife to pack up; for as Mr. Thysens the lawyer, who

promised to write before that time, had not done so, we had nothing to wait for. We had seen Waterloo, visited the Musée, skated about in listed slippers through the Palais d'Orange, dined at Dubos's, ate ice at Velloni's, bought half the old lace in the Rue de la Madelaine, and almost caught an ague in the Allée Verte. This was certainly pleasure enough for one week; so I ordered my bill, and prepared "to evacuate Flanders." Lord help us, what beings we are! Had I gone down to the railroad by the Boulevards and not by the Montagne de la Cour, what miseries might I not have been spared! Mr. Thysens's clerk met me, just as I emerged from the Place Royale, with a letter in his hand. I took it, opened, and read:—

"Sir, I have just completed the purchase of the beautiful Château of Vanderstradentendonk, with all its gardens, orchards, pheasantries, piscinæ, prairies, and forest rights, which are now your property. Accept my most respectful congratulations upon your acquisition of this magnificent seat of ancient grandeur, rendered doubly precious by its having been once the favourite residence and château of the great Van Dyck."

'Here followed a long encomium upon Rubens and his school, which I did not half relish, knowing it was charged to me in my account; the whole winding up with a pressing recommendation to hasten down at once to take possession, and enjoy the partridge shooting, then in great abundance.

'My wife was in ecstasy to be the Frow Vanderstradentendonk, with a fish-pond before the door, and twelve gods and goddesses in lead around it. To have a brace of asthmatic peacocks on a terrace, and a dropsical swan on an island, were strong fascinations-not to speak of the straight avenues leading nowhere, and the winds of heaven blowing everywhere; a house with a hundred and thirty windows and half as many doors, none of which would shut close; a garden, with no fruit but crab-apples; and