soner among the Spaniards, stabbed by order of Contreras, commissary-general.

Of the five brothers Joyeuse, Anne and Claude were killed shamefully at the battle of Coutras; Georges was found in his bed dead of apoplexy on the eve of his marriage; Antoine drowned himself in the river Tarn after the fight of Villeneuve; Henri, a peer and marshal of France, died a monk.

The principal party leaders in the Revolution of 1793 had almost the same fate; the most of them had an end as violent as the party leaders in the time of the League. Robespierre, SaintJust, Couthon, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and the deputies of La Gironde, guillotined; lastly, the infamous Marat stabbed in his bath by Charlotte Cordai.

CXLIV.

CATHERINE II. AND HER BANKER.

They read in the Memoirs of the Count of Ségur the following anecdote:

In a country where obedience is passive and remonstrance forbidden, the prince or the most just and wise master must tremble for the consequences of a thoughtless will, or of an order given with haste. There is a proof of it which will perhaps appear a little foolish; but

it is a case which happened under the reign of Catherine the Second.

A very rich foreigner, named Sunderland, was banker to the court, and naturalised in Russia; he enjoyed great favour with the empress.

One morning they informed him that his house was surrounded by guards, and that the superintendent of police asked to speak to him. This officer, named Reliew, enters with a dismayed air. "Mr. Sunderland," said he, "I see myself, with true grief, charged by my gracious sovereign to execute an order the severity of which frightens me, distresses me; and I do not know by what fault, or by what offence, you have raised to this point the resentment of her majesty."

"I, sir!" replies the banker, "I am as ignorant of it as you are; my surprise exceeds yours. But, in short, what is this order?"

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Sir," replies the officer, "in truth, courage fails me to make it known to you."

"What! should I have lost the confidence of the empress?"

"If it was only that, you would not see me so disconsolate. Confidence can return, an

office can be restored.”

"Well! do they wish to send me back into my country?"

"That would be a vexation; but with your wealth, one is well everywhere.”

"Ah!" cries Sunderland, trembling, "are they going to exile me to Siberia?"

"Alas! one can return from it."

"Good heaven! would they wish me to undergo the knout?"

"This torture is frightful, but it does not kill."

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'What!" says the banker, "is my life in danger? The empress, so good, so considerate, who was speaking to me with so much kindness two days ago, she would wish......but I cannot believe it. Ah! pray, finish; death would be less cruel than this unbearable suspense."

"Well, my dear sir," says at last the police officer, with a lamentable voice, "my gracious sovereign has given me the order to have you stuffed."

"Stuffed!" cries Sunderland, looking fixedly at his interrogator. "But you have lost your reason, or the empress has lost hers: in short, you would not have received such an order without feeling the barbarity and extravagance of it."

"Alas! my poor friend, I have done what, ordinarily, we never dare to attempt; I have shown my surprise, my grief. I was going to hazard humble remonstrances, but my august sovereign, with an irritated tone reproaching me for my hesitation, commanded me to go out and to execute immediately the order which

G

she had given me, adding these words, which are still ringing in my ears: Go, and do not forget that your duty is to discharge, without murmuring, the commissions with which I deign to charge you.'

It would be impossible to depict the astonishment, the anger, the trembling, the despair of the poor banker. After having allowed some time a free vent to the outburst of his grief, the superintendent of police says to him that he gives him a quarter of an hour to put his affairs in order.

Then Sunderland begs him, entreats him, urges him a long time in vain, to allow him to write a note to the empress to implore her pity The officer, overcome by his supplications, yields trembling to his prayers, takes charge of his note, goes out, and, not daring to go to the palace, repairs hastily to the house of Count Bruce. The latter thinks that the police officer has become mad; he tells him to follow him to the palace, and hastens without delay to the empress.

Introduced to this princess, he exposes the fact to her. Catherine, on hearing this strange recital, cries: "Just Heaven! what horror! Indeed, Reliew has lost his reason. Count, go, run, and order this madman to go immediately and free my poor banker from his foolish terrors, and to set him at liberty.”

The count goes out, executes the order, returns, and finds, with surprise, Catherine in bursts of laughter.

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"I see now," said she, "the cause of a scene as burlesque as inconceivable. I had for several years a pretty dog, of which I was very fond, and gave him the name of Sunderland, because it was that of an Englishman who had made me a present of it. This dog has just died; I ordered Reliew to have him stuffed, and as he hesitated, I got into a rage at him, thinking that by a foolish vanity he believed such a commission below his dignity. There is the solution of this ridiculous enigma."

CXLV.

A TUTOR WANTED.

A fashionable carriage stopped at my door; a man descended from it and entered my house.

"Sir," said he to me on entering, "I beg of you to assist me in the choice of a tutor."

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Willingly, sir."

"The one whom I wish to find for my son must be very clever, for he is to teach him Latin and Greek. Without Greek, sir, antiquity is concealed from us."