THE Bastille had fallen! All over France, and from France all over the world, fled the thrilling news, like the "giant beard of flame which carried the tidings of the fall of Ilion. From city to city, from land to land, the astounding fact leaped like a meteor, boding terror to many, but filling the hearts of others with the wildest hopes. It was down, that colossal iniquity: it had fallen before the fury of the mob. Would its fall appease or inflame the victors would they stop there ?

While these thoughts, and the thousand shapes of terror and of hope to which these thoughts gave birth, were variously agitating men's minds, a group of peasants were listening to an old soldier, as he read aloud the account of the great event from one of the newspapers of the day. The scene was the noble park of Chateauneuf in Touraine, where the ancient family of Chateauneuf had for centuries kept up an almost regal splendour, although the prodigality of the father of the present Count had left the family estate inextricably involved. We shall hear more of the Chateauneufs by-and-by; our present purpose is with that group of peasants assembled beneath the branching shade of an ancestral oak, listening to the old soldier as he laboriously spells his way through the narrative, every syllable of which falls on greedy ears. They had come to dance there; for it was Sunday evening, and the villagers made a pleasant summer holiday of dance and flirtation, often honoured by the presence of" the family." They awaited the arrival of their "orchestra," which consisted of a cornemuse played by the village cobbler, who was humpbacked, and was thought to be a genius; and while they were gabbling and gesticulating the endless nothings of conversation, a young

man, whose aspect was not exactly that of the gentry, nor yet of the small bourgeoisie, came among them, with rapid steps and face lighted up, as if agitated by some celestial vision. He answered their respectful greetings by drawing his nostrils tighter, but never opening his lips, and thrusting a newspaper hurriedly and emphatically into the hands of Sergeant Roussel, with his finger pointing to a particular passage, hurried past, and was lost in the avenue of trees before any one spoke a word.

“What can have come to M. Victor!" said pretty little Nicotte, the milkmaid, still farther turning up her little turned-up nose. "He knows Ma'mselle will be here at the dance, and yet he won't stay. What is there in that thing he gave you ?" Nicotte, who of course could not read, had a certain awe of books, and thought they were all Latin; but newspapers inspired her with little respect, so she called them things.

Sergeant Roussel, a weather-beaten but sturdy old soldier, happened to be a scholar—that is, he could, with considerable labour, read an easy book, an accomplishment which gained him even more respect than his vigorous arm. He glanced at the paper, and the very words, "The Bastille has fallen!" made him speechless for a while. He read the words over and over before he could persuade himself of their truth, and when he communicated the fact to the curious bystanders, it was received by them with a sort of stupefaction. They eagerly begged him to read all about it, which he was doing with great earnestness at the moment we chose for the opening of this history.

He finished, but the hearers, who had held their breath, and now once more breathed somewhat freely, still remained in a state of semi-incredu

lous stupor. They could not comprehend the fact, and yet it seemed overwhelming in its consequences. Το hear that the people had danced all night on the ground where the Bastille once stood, was to them a sort of sacrilege. A few incoherent ejaculations broke from them, but for the most part they were silent.

The arrival of Goulard the barber was quite a relief to them, and twenty voices saluted the little man with

Goulard, hast heard it? Is it

true-is it possible?”

Goulard was a small man, with an ostentatious nose, which he blew like a trumpet. Indeed, most of his functions were performed with emphasis he ate with noise, drank with gurgles, walked with importance, talked loudly, laughed loudly, and spat-oh! it was a scene to see him cracher! What Frenchmen in spitting are to all other men, Goulard was to all Frenchmen: he seemed to despise the universe as he did it! Small though he was in stature, he had "great sentiments," as he constantly assured his audience. His soul loved the great and grandiose. His very profession was not miserably restricted within the confines of his village: he was barber to France and the Universe.

Goulard was somewhat of a republican. The "great sentiments" of fraternity and equality naturally belonged to his great soul. He shaved men of liberal sentiments at a lower charge than others. He drew the imperfect tooth of Rousseau's admirers with more sympathy than he could bestow on less exalted minds. The news from Paris had so enchanted him that he absolutely refused payment for the chin he had just scraped (and cut considerably, but that was excusable after such news), because he said the reign of brotherhood had begun. When, therefore, he joined our group in the park, he was in high spirits. He walked with more majesty, and threw out his chest more imposingly, as if asserting the Dignity of Man.

"Yes, down it is, the infamous !" he exclaimed. "That is what I call liberty-true liberty!" and he made an attitude.

"Then you will moderate the expression of your sneaking rascally sentiments in my presence.

66

Do you mean to say, Sergeant, that you're sorry the Bastille is down?"

"Of course he is," interposed Nicotte; "so is every one, except those squinting rascals who expected to be clapped in there."

Goulard had what he euphuistically called "a certain grace" in his manner of viewing objects; and this grace his enemies maliciously called a squint. Nicotte was not one of his enemies; indeed, Goulard used to declare, "She is my weakness-that woman is my fate;" and he loved her so implicitly that Nicotte, returning his passion with but a mild warmth, was too much flattered by it to feel indifferent to him. Yet she plagued him sadly. That was her delight, the little witch. Perhaps, also, it was the source of her power over him the more she wounded his vanity, the more eagerly he desired to gain her approbation. would make an aristocrat of me," he used to say, "if a soul like mine could apostatise."

"She

"Suppose," said Nicotte, turning to Roussel, our good seigneur should be alarmed, and emigrate like the others, what would become of us?"

"Timorous milkmaid!" exclaimed Goulard, with an air which he meant to look profound, "do you fancy the emigration will affect France? The world will go on quite well without nobles."

"I tell you what, Goulard," she rejoined, "you are too clever to be healthy-much! You are one of those who, if my cows were taken

from me, would say, 'It's of no consequence, Nicotte-none. Milk the bull!'"

A loud shout of laughter from the bystanders welcomed this sally, which was quite to their taste. Goulard tried to parry the effect by observing that all women were aris

tocrats.

"And most men are jackasses," retorted the triumphant milkmaid. This mot produced a more prolonged shout than the former. It was the kind of wit which brought tears of delight into the eyes of those not highly cultivated listeners.

The arrival of the humpbacked cobbler with his cornemuse put an end to the discussion. They began serious preparations for the dance. Goulard in vain begged Nicotte to be his partner in the bourrée. She obstinately refused. He was a republican. It was no use to tell her about great sentiments. A republican was a man who, because his bread was buttered on one side, cried to have it treacled on the other. For her part, she couldn't keep patience with such absurdities. Whereupon the little man took a mighty resolution. He ceased to ask her. She was beginning to relent. She had half promised, in her own mind, to consent, if he asked her again; but instead of asking her, he carried off that odious little intriguing thing, Fanchon, who, as everybody knew, was the greatest coquette in the village. Nicotte could have cried her eyes out.

Gay and hearty was the dance, vigorous and earnest the exertion of the dancers. No one thought of the Bastille. Little vanities, little pleasures, little hopes, and little schemes

of great importance to them-banished the great political event entirely from all minds. Goulard chuckled, and applauded his stratagem. Nicotte felt vicious. The silent sky, reddened with sunset, was darkened at the horizon by huge masses of sullen cloud. Still the cornemuse seemed untiring.

The notes of the cornemuse, faint in the distance, reached the ears of Victor Marras, pacing up and down the avenue of elms, giving free

course to the impetuous rush of ideas which sprang up in his mind as he thought of the great news. He knew what those notes were; he knew that perhaps she would come to look on, and perhaps join in the festal gaieties of her peasants; he knew that there he might see her, speak to her, perhaps dance with her; yet he made no movement towards the spot. The truth is, he was afraid to trust himself in her presence, excited as he was. The long secret of his life could not, he knew, be withheld from her if they met now. And now it would be madness to risk his happiness when the events with which the time was big must soon bring them nearer to each other. At present they were still separated by that broad gulf which kept the nobles from the people. She was of an ancient house; he was the son of a poor lawyer, who had died, leaving barely enough to support his widow and child. Alliance between them was clearly impossible-rank, fortune, prejudice, all separated them. But Victor, while he saw the obstacles, saw a chance of their removal. Rank, at least, would soon cease to be an obstacle. The Count de Chateauneuf had none of the prejudices of his race or caste. He read Rousseau, and discussed the "Rights of Man" with great temperateness. He admired Victor, and had been kind to him. Why should he refuse him on the score of rank, if rank itself ceased to become the thing it was, and men learned to look more for worth than parchments?

Such was the theme on which his active brain played variations as he paced the avenue under the soft light of the setting sun. He was young enough to be perfectly sincere in these hopes. He was so absorbed in them that he did not hear the rustling against the leaves, or the light footfall which brought Adrienne de Chateauneuf right on the path in which he stood, only a few paces in advance of him.

"How grave we are!" said a merry voice.

He looked up. His heart beat. A giddiness, which quickly passed away, was succeeded by a strange

feeling, half dread, half pleasure, as he took the outstretched hand, and muttered something quite unintelligible.

"You started as if you had been conspiring," she said, laughingly, shaking back her auburn tresses, and looking him in the face with an air of comic interrogation. "Were you?" "I was."

"There's a confession!"

"And so do you-and so does every honest heart in France. There are times when every man who thinks is a conspirator. He sees the miseries which distort the beauty of life; he thinks of better things and happier days; and when the right moment arrives, his thoughts translate themselves into acts-the dreamer becomes an agitator."

There was an air of enthusiasm, a little theatrical perhaps, but only keen observers would have noticed that, and a certain fervour of conviction in Victor's manner, which was very captivating to the young girl who had often heard him talk in this strain, and who had the sort of sympathy with it which men comfortably housed have with descriptions of houseless misery: it touches the sentiments, and does not alter the comfort. Adrienne had the prejudices of her caste, but they were not very strong; and she had heard her father and Victor discuss the questions, which in those days were discussed with fashionable freedom, till, without giving up her pride of birth, she had learned to look on republicanism as poetical. Victor, poor fellow, entirely mistook the nature and extent of her sympathy; and had it not been for a certain undefinable something in her manner-a certain shield of wit, caprice, and pride, with which she guarded herself from his familiarities, he would long ago have declared his passion.

"You have heard the great news?" she asked, as she walked beside him across the park towards the sunset, upon which her eyes were fixed.

"I have. I cannot shake the burden from my mind. My thoughts are heavy with forebodings. The fall of the Bastille is little in itself, but as a symbol it is immense. It is the people

VOL. LXXIX.-NO. CCCCLXXXVII.

treading the great scene. A prison the less is nothing; this is the symbol of despotism vanishing before the roused spirit of a nation! That despotism has lasted too long. It is grey, decrepit now. Man has been subordinate to titles. But the day has dawned wherein an energetic soul will once more be the patent of nobility. Men, low born but daringhearted, will now find their sphere.'

Her gaze was still upon the sunset. On what were her thoughts fixed?

"Look at my case," he continued. "My education has been such as nobles seldom have, or profit by, and yet. I am a miserable lawyer, with scarcely a client. My boyhood has been passed in communion with the greatest intellects the world has yet seen; my aspirations have been fostered, my faculties developed. I feel within me great powers. I feel I could play a part in the State. It cannot be misguided self-love, for I am not vain. I know myself; I have scrutinised my powers and pretensions. Truth is my only ambition; virtue my pole-star. And yet I stand upon the threshold of life, and look forth upon the world. to find no career open to me in the present state of society."

"Why do you not go to Paris, and try your fortune there?"

"Because love keeps me here," he impetuously answered.

She turned her gaze upon him. Was it anger, was it surprise, was it inquiry which gave that peculiar look to her eyes, and made him repent his precipitate avowal?

She did not speak. Her look had been rapid, and was now once more fixed on the far distance. "You did not perhaps know that I loved some one," he said hesi