with uncommon ardour, by the road to
heaven, hunting their fortunes."

But, I have not the least intention of tracing
the history of the family of Caumont-Laforce,
wishing only to say why the Parisians were
interested about the green gate, and to record
a story which is illustrative of the condition
of the French, and instructive respecting the
phenomena of crime. The present Count
de Caumont-Laforce is a gallant soldier
who distinguished himself at the siege of
Antwerp, and in the streets of Paris, in June,
eighteen hundred and forty-eight. Though his
father, the duke, is a Bourbonist, he lends his
name to the dynasty of the Bonapartes, and
receives annually thirty thousand francs as a
member of the senate. The countess was
the niece of the wife of Marshal Gerard, and
was related, through Madame de Genlis, to the
Orleans family. She used to speak of Louis
Philippe as " My cousin the king," and of
Clementine, the queen of the Belgians, as
"my sister."

Ever since the downfall of Louis Philippe,
the eternal war between the bad rich and the
bad poor of France has been carried on, by
niggardliness on the one side, and by bad
blood upon the other. The Orleanists and
Bourbonists have fought the Republic and
the Empire, by making the poor poorer, by
spending as little as possible in the form
of wages, and by extorting as much as
possible in the form of revenue. This policy
became an absolute insanity of avarice in
the Countess de Caumont-Laforce.

The marriage of the Count and Countess was
a union of riches and titles, and was extremely
unhappy. She was a woman of a middling
height, with flashing dark eyes, who, under
a noble air, with a mien of insolence tempered
by refinement, and a deportment and
conversation displaying an intelligent mind
—had a soul ineffably sordid. When her
husband dined out, her two children and
their English governess would have had
no dinner, if he had not given them money
to buy something at the shops. Her son,
when a little boy, would scream in the
streets when his mother took his franc from
him. No servant could live with her. Ten
or a dozen years ago, her husband was
obliged to separate from her, with his children.
He tried three times to deprive her of
the management of her affairs, as a lunatic;
but her powerful relatives—whose pride
would not admit the existence of insanity
among them, and her own plausible tongue—
persuaded the tribunals she was the
injured wife of a covetous husband. Deprived
of the restraining influence of her husband,
she lived alone in her mansion, amidst
unimaginable dust and disorder; splendour
and squalor. She slept in a bed which was
never made, and bought her food for a
few coppers in the shops. Her chimney-
piece clocks were never wound up, and
were placed upon the floors; her porcelain
ware was piled upon the beds; and
her pictures were turned against the walls.
She did not spend, it has been calculated by
one who knew her well, twenty pounds a-year
upon herself. Her chief expense was the
keep of three horses, rarely used. Whatever
little cooking she did, she did in her boudoir;
and all the harness of her horses was kept in
her drawing-room. No sober groom who
knew her reputation would have taken her
place, as she scolded, and cheated, and
changed her grooms continually. When she
did ride out, the Countess and her groom
were a show which delighted the eyes of the
boys of the neighbourhood, with a living
companion picture to Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza, each one feeling—

    And when again she rides abroad
    May I be there to see.

Encountering her husband upon one of
these occasions, she followed him, loaded
him with abuse, and threatened him with
her whip, the whole length of the Champs
Elysées.

The Countess had a family mansion in
Belgium, which was kept like her Paris hôtel.
When she travelled from Paris to Brussels,
she went by the third-class carriages through
France, and by the first through Belgium;
changing her carriage, because when she went
on a visit to the queen, a court carriage was
waiting for her. Once, when the court was
at their country residence at Laeken, an incident
occurred which shall be described in her
own words. " You see, I went down to see my
sister, Clementine, when they were at Laeken,
because I had something to say to her. I
took with me my little wicker market-basket,
in which I kept my keys; for there are
thieves, you know, in Belgium, as well as in
France. Well, on descending at the palace,
I left my cloak in the vestibule, because, you
see, it was all patched; and I left my little
basket hidden behind a curtain, in one of the
ante-rooms. Just as I had done speaking
with the queen, who should come in but the
king, who insisted upon giving me his arm to
my carriage. The honour was no doubt very
great, but it was very disagreeable, as I had
hidden my little market-basket behind a
curtain, and left my old patched cloak in
the vestibule. Luckily, although the king
knows French very well, he does not understand
Flemish. So I told a little page, in
Flemish, to go and fetch my little market-
basket from behind the curtain; and he
went and brought it. The day was very
cold; so when we came into the vestibule,
the king asked for my cloak, and the lackeys,
all laughing at its patches, gave it to the
king, who put it upon my shoulders. Really
the honour was very great, you know, but it
was very disagreeable, you see, on account of
my little basket and my old patched cloak."

The Countess de Caumont-Laforce ought
to have been surrounded with friends who
would have told her she was, according to the