an army, in a magnificent uniform, surrounded by trophies. You were returning a conqueror, a hero. I stood among the millions of spectators whose acclamations greeted you. I stood there trembling, and fearing that I should be forgotten by the deified hero. But he took a gracious notice of me. He approached me. I was no longer mistress of myself, and . . . . .' The prince drew the beautiful relator to his breast, with all the ardor of his glowing passion. But she seriously repulsed him. "Not thus, Prince!" said she, in a tone that commanded respect. "Do not forget that we are no longer in the world of dreams-that you are without your army, your trophies, your conquests. If ever I could be weak, Prince, it could only be for the hero who should have cast a glory upon France. Yes, and if you were personally less an object of regard than you are, I should consider it my duty-so good a Frenchwoman am I-to crown the hero of France with my unreserved love, if he then, in the brightness of his glory, should deign to accept it."

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"You are

'Oh, you are a mischievous, cruel girl!" cried Soubise. either an arch-enthusiast, or the cunningest Penelope. You show me my happiness only behind impossibilities."

"Impossibilities ?" asked Pauline, with an air of surprise. "Have we not the war with England?"

"What then?" answered the prince; "but you know well that I am no seaman, and that the English are not to be attacked on land. Yes, if I could throw a bridge across the Channel at Calais, I should not myself ask for the reward of love till I should have planted my banner upon the Tower of London. But, lady fair, build the bridge for me!" "Why not, my gracious lord, if you command?" replied Pauline "Attack the English in Germany. Does not Hanover belong to the King of England? Why spare that?"

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Lady," replied Soubise, smiling," you are much better versed in the politics of the heart than in the politics of courts. You probably are not aware that the King of Prussia has formed an alliance with England, by which Hanover is covered."

"Covered! By whom?" asked Pauline. "By the insignificant King of Prussia? Why does not our court embrace the proffered alliance with Austria? Keep the king's hands full with Austria, and he will care very little about Hanover. Why are you yourself, Prince, opposed to the will of all France, nay, to the call of your own glory? Why are you against the alliance with Austria, and an attack upon Hanover? Ah, if you knew what Paris thinks of you!"

The prince held up his finger threateningly with an arch smile. Maiden, maiden, I am listening to the Count Staremberg from your sweet lips!"

In this strain the conversation continued for some time. The prince, in spite of himself, became intoxicated by the flatteries of VOL. VIII. NO. XXXIII-SEPTEMBER, 1840. R.

Pauline upon his future martial glories, and he saw the realization of these bright visions, which Pauline so artfully held out to him, only possible if the court should accede to the wishes of Austria for a continental war.

For several days he struggled with himself. That the command-inchief could not escape him, he felt assured, through the influence of Madame de Pompadour. Pauline had kindled his ambition. Το make him jealous of the laurels of the Duke de Richelieu and the Marechal d'Etrées, was not a very difficult task to her skilful hand. He had already half made up his mind for the alliance with Austria, when Mademoiselle de Pons in a later conversation determined him.

He now with all his art addressed himself to Madame de Pompadour. But all his skill was ineffectual to win over the mistress to the Austrian interest. In vain he essayed all the springs of female vanity, to embitter her against the King of Prussia.-"I have no great liking for that royal poet," said she," and I know very well that I am of very little consideration in his eyes. But I am no more favored by fortune with the regards of the Queen of Hungary. The one, therefore, balances the other, and the glory of our own king outweighs them both."

The prince tried in vain to imbue her with more agreeable impressions of the Empress Maria Theresa, and in vain assured her that the latter was in the habit, in her more intimate circles, of speaking of her with the most lively admiration and regard.

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No," said the marchioness, laughing, "you are too easy, dear Prince, and allow Staremberg's flatteries to pass current with you. Do not trust him. I myself will never believe that till the Empress writes it to me with her own hand."

The Prince de Soubise concealed his mortification. He felt that with the marchioness he was very far from being omnipotent. All hope would have vanished, had not the last expression of Madame de Pompadour suggested a new plan to him. "All depends on bringing into play the pride of the marchioness," said he to Pauline. "The Empress must be induced to write a friendly letter to the marchioness. That will cost her nothing. The day that Staremberg shall deliver that letter, the alliance is as good as concluded. But how to suggest that to the Austrian ambassador? No one must intimate that the suggestion comes from me."

"Leave that to me!" said Pauline. "To a girl such a whim is much more readily pardoned than to a prince. And what would I not dare for a prince like you! What not, for the thought of seeing you at the head of an army, in the midst of the first commanders of Europe! Oh, my Prince, the day that you receive the command-in-chief.... ah, you will not then cast a glance upon me!"

Soubise cast himself at the feet of the artful Pauline, with protestations of eternal faithfulness, while the latter was inexhaustible in

devices to inflame the imagination of the prince with the prospect of his future triumphs. The thought of the veil quickened all the powers of her wit.

Nicholas was immediately initiated by her into the secret. He in turn spoke to the Count Staremberg. Staremberg despatched an express to Vienna. Pauline's impatience for the veil was equalled only by that of the prince for the letter from the Empress Maria Theresa to the marchioness.

One evening, when the marchioness was entertaining company, the prince made his appearance. Madame de Pompadour was in unusual spirits. She took the prince aside, and said to him, with an engaging smile: "I fear, my Prince, we shall have to part."

"And you can tell me so with a smile of pleasure?" he replied, with surprise.

"Though I may lose the pleasure of your presence," she answered, "yet the joy will console me of seeing you in the fulfilment of your noblest aspirations. The king will doubtless shortly confer on you a marechal's baton, and the command-in-chief of one of his armies." Soubise's face beamed with speechless joy. "But how is that possible?" he replied.

"The king is disposed to accept the alliance with Austria. But the Empress has done even the impossible; I confess she is by far the noblest-minded princess of the age. You ought only to read the charming lines with which she has honored me."

"The Empress has written you?"

Hush, Prince. To-morrow you will learn more."

About midnight the same evening, a cautious tap was heard at the door of Pauline, as she had just left the company of the Oron family. It was Nicholas. He entered, beaming with delight. He thew over her the most splendid of veils. She stood before him, in the transport of the gratification of her dearest wish, like an angel in a cloud of light. She threw back the veil, and sank into the arms of her enraptured lover.

After a few days the treaty of alliance of the French court with Austria was signed. The Cardina Bernis had in vain struggled with all his eloquence against it. He could not conceive how the king, how the Marchioness de Pompadour, how the whole court, had been so suddenly converted. But he was forced to sign the treaty, unless at the sacrifice of all his influence, and perhaps even his post. He cursed with all his heart the Duke de Choiseul, whom he regarded as the author of this unfortunate and unnatural alliance. He never dreamed that the longing of a beautiful girl for a splendid veil had set at nought all the arts of diplomacy, and that one of the subordinate employés of his own office had decided the affairs of great powers.

13. DESIRE FOR RETIREMENT.

"THIS cursed alliance makes me sick!" said the cardinal, as Rosier entered the cabinet of the minister with a memorial that he

had prepared. "Throw down those papers. I am in no mood to hear them read, still less to read them myself-neither to hear nor to see. It is all a vexatious, idle struggle in this world. I would fain at last turn philosopher from very despair!"

"I should indeed like, for your Eminence's health, from the pharmacopoeia of philosophy, a dose of laughing indifference at the follies of this life," said the Councillor of State.

"I could laugh well enough," answered the cardinal, " if I did not foresee so much disgrace and disaster for France. And after all, the world will lay the whole mischief to my charge, because this political abortion appeared under my name, and was christened after

me."

'Ah, most gracious sir, with how many a father in this world do you share this common misfortune!" said Nicholas, in a tone of comic commiseration.

"If I had at least the honor of knowing the true father of this diplomatic changeling! Do help me upon his track, Rosier."

"Most gracious sir, if contrary to your expectation the changeling turns out well, and brings glory and fortune, I bet that more than one father will be found for it. You certainly know that many a city, that has first expelled a son of whom she has been ashamed, has afterwards erected statues to his greatness. And, most gracious sir, who is then the fortunate seer who in our day could cast the nativity of a child in its cradle ? Let us quietly await the issue of events."

The cardinal smiled and said: "You are indeed still a youth. I should scarcely have expected so premature a comforter. You are right. We must assume an air of victory for the desperate game. But do you then believe in full earnest, Monsieur de Rosier, that this connexion with an hereditary enemy and rival, against the alliance dictated to us by nature, will ever be called a prudent plan, even though it should eventually prove a fortunate one ?"

"Most gracious sir, nothing under the sun is wrong but misfortune. Success is always called prudent."

"My dear friend," cried the cardinal, "so says the blind multitude. But he who does not belong to it, heeds not the opinion of the blind. Men of sense will always say, it was a foolish plan, and if successful its merit will not be that of the author. Thus will history some time or other pronounce on me and this alliance."

"Oh! most gracious sir, you must not trouble yourself about the judgment of historians. These gentry measure everything by the standard of success. They therefore extol Brutus, Cæsar, and Alexander, and execrate Spartacus, Cromwell, Attila, and Cartouche.

Men of sense will at the farthest say, 'the cardinal played a bold game, but he was successful.' The more refined will say, 'you judge like fools. The cardinal was one of the great spirits who see the events of this world in quite different connexions, than you in your closets. What seems to you a hazardous game, was simple calculation that could not fail. What you regard as fortune and chance, was but the result of his energy and skill.'"

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'I will be satisfied if fortune only this once favors folly. But, my dear Rosier, I fear thistles do not bear grapes."

"Since I have had the honor to occupy a position under your Excellency on diplomatic ground, I have made two great observations that will console me under whatever can happen."

"You ought not to withhold them from me, for greatly indeed should I like to find such consolation."

"The one is, that we must not at all imagine that we are governing the world from our cabinets, but the world is governing the cabinets. From the throne to the Savoyard who scrapes the mud from our shoes, there exists an invisible chain by which all things are interlinked together without either our knowledge or will. Political events are only the fruits of unseen actions and reactions in the concatenation of society, which baffle all our own prudence. The other is, that heaven is, in politics also, the idiot's best protector. For I have seen that the most ingenious minds have made miscalculations, that the activity of the most energetic men has not eventually accomplished more than the labor of the squirrel that turns the wheel in a school-boy's cage. On the other hand, I have seen already the most absurd measures of blockheads attended with the most astonishing consequences of good fortune, and the stupidity of simpletons produce the most admirable results."

"You are right, Rosier," said the cardinal; "you make me your disciple. Fatalism is the philosophy of despair, and I am quite in the mood to turn philosopher of your school. Nevertheless, I candidly confess to you I find it very hard to digest this miserable business. I long for solitude and retirement. I want to go to the country for a few weeks, for some relaxation to my mind. The king has given me permission to go to Fontainebleau. I beg you to accompany me, Monsieur de Rosier. You will be able to philosophize undisturbed in the beautiful solitudes of the wilderness of forest and rock. I shall be glad to escape for once from this storm and struggle of court life, and to inhale the fresh and free air of the spring of nature. You will, therefore, accompany me. At the end of this week you will start with me for Fontainebleau.".

Nicholas bowed and felt too highly flattered by the kindness and favor of the cardinal, to be able to conceal his gratification at this distinction.

But Pauline did not experience the same pleasure at this announce