rotting religion, I felt as if I were following a funeral,
and, as we mounted and mounted, entangled in
a train of dusty carriages and curveting horses
of pure Arab and Turcoman origin, Windybank,
who had just been triumphant with his somewhat
confused sums in compound addition, got
warmed by his coffee, and became communicative.
He told me a story relating to Monsieur
Valencini, dragoman to the Kamtschatkan
Embassy, very illustrative of Turkish jealousy and
the flower-beds of beauties we had lately been
viewing:

It was about a year ago, it seemed from
the story, that a jolting silver-studded teleki,
gay and gilt, and brimful of veiled Seraglio
beauties, came bumping and tumbling along
a crowded street of Pera, not very far from
the Dutch Embassy. The ladies were
attended by the usual grooms on foot, a negress
duenna, and a mounted black eunuch of rather
fierce temper, very new and zealous in
discharging the onerous labours of his guardianship.
The carriage bounced and trundled along,
now nearly killing a Greek priest, now threatening
with death a Roman Catholic Sister of
Mercy, now scraping a French perfumer's doorpost,
now crushing a vagrant melon at a Greek
fruiterer's door, or disturbing a butcher-boy
who with a horse-tail brush was flapping the flies
from a newly killed kid, opposite an
open-windowed café, where English sailors were
dividing a pillow-case full of Syrian (jibili) tobacco, with
many well-intended expletives. On waggled the
carriage, the ladies staring at everything, and
ogling and whispering as much as they dared, the
grooms clearing the way insolently, the eunuch
frowning and clattering his long sabre, as violent
and cynical a misanthrope as you could meet
on a summer's day. As they passed a sweetmeat
shop near the theatre, a newly-arrived Frenchman
held out a handful of red and white " tens
and thousands," and smirked some ill-timed
compliments: at which the eunuch clutched his
sword-hilt, rolled his eyes till they became all
white and yellow, and beat the horses on, faster
out of the infidel's way. At this unlucky crisis,
who should step out of a barber's shop and
appear on the scene, but poor, ill-fated, innocent
M. Valencini, who, seeing a Turkish carriage
jerking fast towards him, drew himself up close
against the wall, to prevent being driven over.
So little room, however, had he, that unavoidably
his face, as the carriage passed, approached near
the window. The angry eunuch, looking round,
and seeing a second Frank, as he thought, trying
to speak to his charge, began to think that the
Mussulman religion was being defiled, the
Koran spat on, and generally that the end of the
world was come; so he at once drew his sabre,
and rushed at poor Valencini, who, with great
presence of mind, seized his hand and managed
to wrest the sabre out of it; thereupon the
eunuch prayed for mercy, and entreated, as did
several of the bystanders, that the noble Frank
would return his weapon, and let him ride on
with the ladies of the hareem. Suspecting no
harm, Valencini generously gave the black his
sword: upon which the villain instantly flashed
it in the air, and pursued Valencini, who ran down
the street alarmed, being now perfectly defenceless.
Valencini's body was half in a shop when
the eunuch came up, and, missing his enemy's
head, slashed him across the loins, and then
sullenly followed the carriage containing the ladies.
Had that sweeping blow fallen on the poor
unoffending man's head, he would have fallen lifeless.
As it was, his brother came by soon after;
the dangerous wound was bound up; and
Valencini in due time recovered.

"But, Windybank," said I, "do you forget
how the great Kamtschatkan ambassador himself
was horsewhipped by a Turkish coachman who
had jostled against the driver of the potentate's
carriage?"

           WOMAN IN FRANCE.

THE Bird, The Insect, and Love by Michelet,
were much too clever and telling books—
became much too notorious—not to be followed
by a successor in due course of time, if their
author only retained the strength to hold a pen.
Happily, his hand is not paralysed, and the
sequel to L' Amour has been given to the
world under the title of La Femme, or Woman,
which is equally idealist, anatomical, fantastical,
and generally unpresentable with its
predecessor. However questionable as to its views
and theories, La Femme is a sad and a true
book in regard to certain facts—as every
one acquainted with France must admit with
regret. It lays bare the causes of the facts,
that the population of La Belle France is
diminishing in numbers and decreasing in
stature. Whether M. Michelet's lucubration
will do much good, or induce any efforts
to remedy the evils, is very doubtful;
possibly, it may prove more instructive to "the
stranger" than to the French themselves; who
are apt to consider everything belonging to
them models to imitate, rather than as
examples to avoid. It is by the faults of others,
more frequently than by their own, that wise
people are taught to straighten whatever may be
awry in their conduct. Besides, a moral teacher,
like a prophet, is apt to be lightly esteemed at
home. Still, it is good that this bundle of
verities, speculations, and whimsies, should have been
put together by a Frenchman; for, if any foreign
visitor, or resident, had ventured to print a like
libellus, there would have arisen forthwith, from
the Gallic press, a unanimous chorus to the
strain of "calumny, prejudice, envy, and
detraction."

No one but Michelet would dare to proclaim
what he calls the capital fact of the times;
namely, that in France, by a singular concourse
of social, religious, and economical circumstances,
man lives separated from woman; and that more
and more. They are not only journeying on two
distinct and parallel roads; they resemble a
couple of travellers who have started from the
same station, one with all the steam on, the other
at a parliamentary pace, and on divergent