character was thought to be a caricature of
Louis Philippe, and the play was prohibited
by the government. So was Robert Macaire,
that other convict apotheosis, which is too
well known in England to need any further
mention here. M. de Balzac's Vautrin was
by him transplanted into that wonderful
series of novels aggregated by their author
under the title of the "Comédie Humaine."
The escaped, recaptured, re-escaped, again
recaptured, and at last promoted into chief of
the Police de Sureté, Vautrin runs through
half a dozen romances like Natty Bumppo in
the works of Mr. Cooper. Scarcely a
melodrama or a novel afterwards was produced
without a forçat being discovered in act the
first, occupying the exalted position of a
baron, banker or general. In act the third
he was generally detected; and, if not shot,
was sent back with ignominy to the galleys.
The " ancien forçat " became almost as
recognised a rôle as the " père noble " or the
"premier amoureux." The novel writers ran
the escaped convict almost to death. They
had him in one volume, in two volumes, in
three volumes, in series of ten of three
volumes each; in feuilletons, reviews, and
magazines. Mr. Fréderic Soulié served up
the convict with as many sauces as a good
ship's cook will adjust to one piece of beef;
but the culmination of convicts took place in
M. Eugène Sue's monstrous romance of the
"Mysteries of Paris," in which every one of
the characters either had been, or were, or
ought to have been at the galleys. To
believe these gentlemen (which, to say the
truth, very few people did), you could not
enter a drawing-room without running the
risk of your host being an escaped convict,
even if you, as a guest, did not happen to be
a forçat yourself: and there was every
probability of the gentleman decorated with the
riband of legion of honour who sat next to
you at dinner, having undergone ten years'
hard labour; or of the patent leather ankles
of your sister's partner having formerly been
encircled with a neat iron ring with leg-chain
to match.

Though the dramatists and novelists
amplified their narrations considerably, as it is
the custom of dramatists and novelists to do,
they had some foundation of truth to work
upon; for the escaped convict was, until very
recently indeed, a disagreeable reality in
France. He was frequently, too, a romantic
reality; and there are accounts on record of
the escapes of convicts and their subsequent
adventures, surpassing in romantic interest
the boldest achievements of our penny
illustrated heroes. The essential democracy of
French society—at least before the second
Empire—which allowed every man with a
good coat on his back, and with tolerable
impudence, to penetrate into the best circles;
and to attain even the highest social
positions; the perfect facilities offered—from
the abolition of the hereditary peerage— to
a man for calling himself by whatever title
he chose; the omnipotence of ready money
in consequence, and I may hint the general
corruption and Robert Macairism that
characterised the early days of the monarchy of
July, produced a general condition of
existence that really rendered it possible for the
escaped denizen of the Bagne to form
commercial partnerships of the highest respectability,
and to marry spinsters with fortunes.
They could play—and win—at the best tables,
sport for a time titles and decorations, and
mix in and impose upon the entire round of
fashionable life. Fancy Belgravia bamboozled
by a ticket-of-leave holder—Tyburnia duped
by Tyburn Jack!

TINDER FROM A CALIFORNIAN
FIRE.

THE golden attractions of California have
been sought by many Englishmen, who have
brought home various reports of them; among
others, they have been lately sought by
Mr. Frank Marryat, who has spent three
years in the country, and tried it in various
capacities. He has lived there as a shooter
of deer, a grower of onions, a builder on a
town lot, a crusher of quartz. Having so
tried it, he has failed in getting money, but
has succeeded well in getting pleasure out of
his adventures. He is a gentleman who—
having good-humour for the chief bulk of his
luggage—has wandered much about the world,
who has taken pen-and-ink notes of many
things; who has made a great number of pencil
sketches. His Californian journal and the
pictures he had painted were burnt in one
of the great fires of San Francisco. It is
from recollection of the leaves of his journal
that he now produces a cheerful, useful book:
Mountains and Molehills is its title. We
will indicate here a little of the anecdote
and information thus reduced to tinder, and
thus restored to ink and paper again.

Mr. Marryat arrived at San Francisco
while the June fire of eighteen hundred and
fifty was still burning. He was accompanied
by a young friend, Mr. Thomas, who, having
gone out to join a great mercantile house
and found the house in ruins, fell in with
Mr. Marryat's purpose of experimenting for
a few months on Californian sport by settling
somewhere among the mountains, and
subsisting by the gun. He was accompanied
also by a faithful servant, Barnes, who had
begun the world as poacher, and then settled
down as gamekeeper; by two blood hounds,
Prince and Birkham; and by a large Scotch
slot hound, whose name was Cromer. After
various experiences, this party of six awoke one
morning on the bank of Russian River to find
mules and horses stolen, all means of farther
advance cut off, and no more agreeable
alternative left than to wade through the stream,
each man with baggage on his head, and look
on the other side for a backwoodsman's hut