name—the name of De Caille's eldest son being
Isaac de Rougon, and not Andre
d'Entrevergues; that he did not know his father's
proper name or titles, nor his dead brother's,
nor his mother's; nor his sister's age, height,
complexion, or name; nor the name of the
street, or number of the family house at
Manosque, in Provence, where he was born and
had lived up to quite intelligent boyhood; nor
the name of the house at Lausanne; nor any
circumstance whatever connected with the
family: in short, he seems to us, on reading
the report, to have been the most clumsy and
transparent of humbugs and adventurers. But
he explained away all these discrepancies and
appearances, and so cleverly too, that he got the
parliament of Provence and above four hundred
of the most respectable people of Manosque on
his side. The parliament declared him the
rightful heir of the heretic De Caille, and, on his
public baptism into the bosom of Holy Church,
formally installed him into the De Caille possessions,
hitherto held by the Rollands and the
Tardivis.

But M. Rolland was a lawyer and a man of
spirit. He carried the thing to Paris, where
heads were clearer and wits sharper than in the
provinces; and one of his first successful moves
was to hunt up Honorade Venelle, whom he
counted on as his best ally. For Pierre Mêge,
or Isaac de Rougon—he had learnt his own
name by this time—had married a pretty girl of
Manosque, sister to one Serri who had secretly
helped him through the process; and M.
Rolland knew that no Honorade Venelle in the
world could see that bit of chicanery without
protest. And M. Rolland reasoned rightly.
In spite of the one hundred and thirty ocular
witnesses, and the three hundred by hearsay—
who testified to the identity of Pierre Mêge
with the dead Isaac de Rougon—truth,
Honorade's indignant denunciations, baptismal and
mortuary documents, and a thousand little
ugly corners left unsmoothed, and gaps unfilled
in Pierre's evidence, set the matter on a new
basis. The Paris parliament undid the work
which the Provencal had built up. The
Tardivis and the Rollands were reinstated; the poor
little Serri girl was decreed to be nor maid, nor
wife, nor widow, while to the loud-voiced, red-
faced Honorade were assigned all the honours
of matrimony and matronhood; Pierre Mêge
was adjudged thief, perjurer, bigamist, and
impostor, dispossessed of his ill-gotten wealth, and
finally sent off to prison, where he was to be
seen for many years after—a shy, sullen, stupid
fellow, who would never say or confess to
anything, and who hid an immense deal of craft
under the appearance of profound stupidity.
The chief points of identity between him and
Isaac de Rougon had been in certain accidental
marks, specially a mark round the left ear,
which was by no means common. For the
young De Caille had been born with one ear
fastened to his head, and the surgeon had
released it by cutting it through. Strangely
enough, Pierre Mege had precisely the same kind
of cicatrice round his left ear, beside other
personal signs not usually found so exactly
alike in two different men. A few things, too,
on his adversaries' side seem to indicate fear
of his cause, such as M. Rolland's suppression
of certain facts that might seem to tell against
his case, his proved subornation of witnesses,
and the ill-refuted charge of his attempt to
poison the persistent claimant.

There was another very curious story of Count
Beneventa's servant, who was claimed by a
certain man as his brother, joint-heir with himself
of their dead father's property. But though
the offer was tempting and the opportunity rare,
the man was not to be persuaded out of his
identity, and refused the brother, and the
mother, and even the dead father's goods, and
stood by his true and real self, "to the admiration
of all beholders." After all, it must be
one of the most disagreeable things in the
world to have a second self—another "William
Wilson" stalking through life as one's shadow.
It is bad enough to have to bear the
consequences of one's own follies and misdeeds: if
those follies and misdeeds were multiplied by
two, the burden upon some of us would be I
heavier than we could possibly support.

                  NEW WORK
By SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.
                 NEXT WEEK
Will be continued (to be completed in six months)
           A STRANGE STORY,
                   BY THE
AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL," "RIENZI," &c. &c.

       Now ready, in 3 vols. post 8vo,
             FOURTH EDITION of
          GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
           BY CHARLES DICKENS.
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

On the 27th of September will be published, price 5s. 6d.,
                          bound in cloth,
                     THE FIFTH VOLUME
                                OF
                  ALL THE YEAR ROUND.
Containing from Nos. 101 to 126, both inclusive.
The preceding Volumes are always to be had.