This fact stands recorded in the registers of
the police.

' Nothing was heard for some days; but,
having been invited by Mademoiselle
Dumesnil* to join a little evening party at her
house near the Barriére blanche, I got into a
hackney-coach at eleven o'clock with my
maid. It was clear moonlight as we passed
along the Boulevards, which were then beginning
to be studded with houses. While we
were looking at the half-finished buildings, my
maid said, " Was it not in this neighbourhood
that M. de S—— died?" "From what I
have heard," I answered, " I think it should
be there "—pointing with my finger to a house
before us. From that house came the same
gunshot that I had heard before. It seemed
to traverse our carriage, and the coachman
set off at full speed, thinking we were attacked
by robbers. We arrived at Mademoiselle
Dumesnil's in a state of the utmost terror; a
feeling I did not get rid of for a long time.'

* The celebrated tragedian.

[Mademoiselle Clairon gives some further
details similar to the above, and adds that the
noises finally ceased in about two years and a
half. After this, intending to change her
residence, she put up a bill on the house she
was leaving; and many people made the
pretext of looking at the apartments an excuse
for gratifying their curiosity   to see, in her
every-day guise, the great tragedian of the
Théâtre Français.]

' One day I was told that an old lady desired
to see my rooms. Having always had a great
respect for the aged, I went down to receive
her. An unaccountable emotion seized me on
seeing her, and I perceived that she was moved
in a similar manner. I begged her to sit down,
and we were both silent for some time. At
length she spoke, and, after some preparation,
came to the subject of her visit.

' " I was, mademoiselle, the best friend of
M. de S——, and the only friend whom he
would see during the last year of his life. We
spoke of you incessantly; I urging him to
forget you,—he protesting that he would love
you beyond the tomb. Your eyes which are
full of tears allow me to ask you why you
made him so wretched; and how, with such
a mind and such feelings as yours, you could
refuse him the consolation of once more seeing
and speaking to you? "

' " We cannot," I answered, " command our
sentiments. M. de S—— had merit and
estimable qualities; but his gloomy, bitter, and
overbearing temper made me equally afraid
of his company, his friendship, and his love.
To make him happy, I must have renounced
all intercourse with society, and even the
exercise of my talents. I was poor and proud;
I desire, and hope I shall ever desire, to owe
nothing to any one but myself. My friendship
for him prompted me to use every endeavour
to lead him to more just and reasonable
sentiments: failing in this, and persuaded
that his obstinacy proceeded less from the
excess of his passion than from the violence of
his character, I took the firm resolution to
separate from him entirely. I refused to see
him in his last moments, because the sight
would have rent my heart ; because I feared
to appear too barbarous if I remained
inflexible, and to make myself wretched if I
yielded. Such, madame, are the motives of
my conduct,—motives for which, I think, no
one can blame me."

' " It would indeed," said the lady, " be
unjust to condemn you. My poor friend himself
in his reasonable moments acknowledged all
that he owed you. But his passion and his
malady overcame him, and your refusal to see
him hastened his last moments. He was
counting the minutes, when at half-past ten,
his servant came to tell him that decidedly you
would not come. After a moment's silence, he
took me by the hand with a frightful
expression of despair. ' Barbarous woman! '
he cried; ' but she will gain nothing by her
cruelty. As I have followed her in life, I
shall follow her in death! ' I endeavoured to
calm him;—he was dead."

' I need scarcely tell you, my dear friend,
what effect these last words had upon me.
Their analogy to all my apparitions filled me
with terror, but time and reflection calmed
my feelings. The consideration that I was
neither the better nor the worse for all that
had happened to me, have led me to ascribe
it all to chance. I do not, indeed, know what
chance is; but it cannot be denied that the
something which goes by that name has a
great influence on all that passes in the world.

' Such is my story; do with it what you
will. If you intend to make it public, I beg
you to suppress the initial letter of the name,
and the name of the province.'

This last injunction was not, as we see ,
strictly complied with; but, at the distance
of half a century, the suppression of a name
was probably of little consequence.

There is no reason to doubt the entire
truth of Mademoiselle Clairon's narrative.
The incidents which she relates made such a
deep and enduring impression on her mind,
that it remained uneffaced during the whole
course of her brilliant career, and, almost at
the close of a long life spent in the bustle and
business of the world, inspired her with
solemn and religious thoughts. Those
incidents can scarcely be ascribed to delusions of
her imagination; for she had a strong and
cultivated mind, not likely to be influenced
by superstitious credulity; and besides, the
mysterious sounds were heard by others as
well as herself, and had become the subject
of general conversation in Paris. The
suspicion of a trick or conspiracy never seems
to have occurred to her, though such a
supposition is the only way in which the
circumstances can be explained; and we are
convinced that this explanation, though not quite