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"You scoff with infinite grace, Fatima. I have heard your wit spoken of no less than your beauty, and I see that I have heard the truth." "Ah!" she exclaimed. 66 By whom then?"

"By Dutertre." "Dutertre?"

"Yes, Raymond Dutertre, the young officer who fell over the precipice of the Kasbah. He whom you loved, Fatima."

She opened her great eyes in surprise.

"Who told you that I loved him?" she inquired, looking at me with a strange expression. "It is false ! Did he tell you so?"

"No. But I know it. This letter proves it to me-this letter, which you wrote, and which was the cause of his death, for it was to get to you that he risked himself at night upon the rocks of the Kasbah.'

"

Scarcely had I uttered the words than the young Oriental rose up abruptly, her eyes lit up with a gloomy passion. "I was sure of it!" she exclaimed. 66 Yes, when my Nubian brought me word of the accident, I said to her, 'Aïssa. It is he who has done it. The wretch!'"

"Whom do you mean, Fatima ?" I said, astonished at her do not understand you."

anger. "I "Of whom? Of Castagnac! You are the Taleb at the hospital. Well, give him poison. He is a wretch. He made me write to the officer to tell him to come here. I refused to do it. Yet this young man had sought for my acquaintance for a long time, but I knew that Castagnac owed him a grudge. When I refused, he declared he would come out of the hospital to beat me if I did not, so I wrote. Here is his letter."

I went forth from Fatima's with a heavy heart, but my resolution was soon made. Without losing a minute on the way, I ascended to the Kasbah, entered the hospital, and knocked at Castagnac's door.

"Come in! What, is it you!" he said, forcing a smile. “I did not expect you!"

For all answer I showed him the letter that he had written to Fatima. He turned pale, and, having looked at it for a second, made a movement as if to throw himself upon me.

"If you make a step towards me," I said, placing my hand upon the hilt of my sword, "I will kill you like a dog! You are a wretch. You have assassinated Dutertre. I was at the amphitheatre: heard all. Do not deny it ! Your conduct towards that woman is infamous: a French officer to lower himself to such a degree of infamy! Listen! I ought to deliver you over to justice, but your dishonour would defile us all. If an atom of heart remains within you, kill yourself! I grant you till tomorrow. To-morrow by seven, if I find you still living, I will myself take you before the commandant de place.'

Having said this, I withdrew without waiting for his reply, and went at once to give the strictest orders that Lieutenant Castagnac should not be permitted to leave the hospital under any pretext whatsoever. Since Castagnac's guilt had been rendered evident to me I had become pitiless. I felt that I must avenge Raymond. Having procured a torch, such as our spahis use in their night carousals, I shut myself up in the amphi

theatre, closing its strong doors with double bars. I took up my position at the window, inhaling the fresh breeze of the evening, and thinking over the horrible drama in which I was called to play so prominent a part, till night came on. Some hours had passed thus, and all was buried in the deepest silence, when I heard stealthy steps descending the stairThey were followed by a knock at the door. No answer. febrile hand then sought for the keyhole.

case.

"It is Castagnac," I said to myself.

66

A

Open!" exclaimed a voice from without. I was not deceived, it was him. A stout shoulder made an effort to shake the door from its hinges. I moved not, scarcely breathed. Another and a more vigorous effort was then made, but with the same want of success. Something then fell on the ground, and the footsteps receded. I had escaped assassi

nation.

But what would become of him? Once more, as if by instinct, I took up my position at the window. I had not waited long before I saw the shadow of Castagnac advancing along the foot of the wall. The hardened criminal stopped some time to look up at my window, and seeing nothing, moved on slowly with his back to the rampart. He had got over half the distance when I cast the shout of death at him: "Raymond, where are you going?"

But whether he was prepared for whatever happened, or that he had more hardihood than his victim, he did not move, but answered me with ironic laughter :

“Ah, ah! you are there, doctor; I thought so. Stop a moment, I will come back; we have a little matter to arrange together."

Then lighting my torch, and raising it over the precipice: "It is too late," I said; "look, wretch, there is your grave!" And the vast steps of the abyss, with their black shining rocks, were illuminated down to the depths of the valley. It was so terrible a vision that I involuntarily drew back myself with horror at the scene. What must it have been to him who was only separated from it by the width of a brick! His knees began to tremble, his hands sought to cling to something on the face of the wall.

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Mercy!" exclaimed the assassin, in a hoarse voice, "have mercy on me!"

I had no heart to prolong his punishment. I cast the torch forth into space. It went down slowly, balancing its flame to and fro in the darkness, lighting up rock and shrub on its way, and casting sparks on the void around. It had already become but as a luminous point in the abyss, when a shadow passed by it with the rapidity of lightning. I then knew that justice had been done.

As I reascended to my own room, my foot struck against something. I picked it up; it was my sword: Castagnac, with characteristic perfidy, had resolved to kill me with my own sword, so as to leave an opening for belief in suicide. I found, as I had anticipated, my room in utter disorder, the door had been broken open, my books and papers ransacked, he had left nothing untouched. Such an act completely dissipated whatever involuntary pity I might have felt for the fate of such a wretch.

FOOTPRINTS ON THE ROAD.*

THE series of papers, sketches, and essays which Mr. Charles Kent has put together under the fanciful heading of "Footprints on the Road,” constitute pleasant and profitable reading for the sea-side, for autumnal evenings, or for any leisure hour. A work of fiction may be more amusing and exciting, but, once perused, it is forgotten; whereas these very pleasant and instructive sketches leave a permanent impression on the mind, and furnish new materials for thinking.

Leonardo da Vinci, the artist; Pierre Béranger, the song-writer; Christopher Columbus, the navigator; Napoleon Bonaparte, the art-collector; Walter Raleigh, the adventurer; Thomas Raikes, the Bondstreet lounger; Robert Herrick, the English Anacreon; Charles Braganza, the exiled prince; Eustace Budgell, the essayist; Leigh Hunt, the town poet; Bardana Hill, the quack; Douglas Jerrold, the wit; Edmund Waller, the court poet; William Napier, the soldier-annalist; Henry Howard, the poet-knight; Eliot Warburton, the traveller; Charles Stuart, the royal fugitive; John Keats, the English Hylas; Agathocles, the Eleusinian; Arcadian Memories, the Mayers; Thomas Moore, the poet-wit; Galileo Galilei, the astronomer; W. M. Thackeray, the satiristhumorist; and, lastly, Stepping Stones, the men of letters,-present a bill of fare so various and so choice, that it would be hard if there were not something to please almost every taste.

Mr. Kent is philosophical as well as entertaining. It is one of his theories that greatness is peculiar rather to the eye than to the individual; so also there are observable, looking to the past, epochs of almost simultaneous growth of various branches of human knowledge, and the manner in which he elucidates these two propositions is especially instructive. Mr. Kent's sketches are, also, as in his poems, so life-like that one can scarcely tell whether the pen or the pencil is at work. Witness dear old Pierre Jean Béranger, "the dearest old face in the world, the simplest form, the kindliest features;" "excellent honest Mr. Thomas Raikes," the gossiper and lounger, still dear to his contemporaries; and the sketches of Leigh Hunt in his latter days; of Douglas Jerrold; and of Thackeray, in the latter of which are many curious personal revelations. Whether the reader turns to these, or to sketches and essays of older date and more ancient flavour, we can assure him he will not feel disappointed in either the character or quality of the article, and if genius were a thing of traffic, which it is not, he would at the conclusion forthwith command a new supply.

Footprints on the Road. By Charles Kent, Barrister-at-Law. Chapman and Hall.

388

THE "COURTS OF LOVE" IN PROVENCE.*

THE "Cours d'Amour," or " Courts of Love," in which ladies acted as counsel and judges of that land of Troubadours and gallantry-Provence-are better known by repute than by actual cognisance. President Rolland published the results of some researches he had made into the nature of these courts in 1787, and M. Raynouard obtained from that publication the materials for a special chapter in his "Recueil des Troubadours." There is, again, a whole manuscript book devoted to the same topic in the collection Baluze, entitled, "De Arte Amatoria et Reprobatione Amoris," the author of which was one Andrè, capilan (chaplain) to Pope Innocent III. But this work is available to very few, and most readers must feel indebted to the indefatigable chronicler of female history-M. Capefigue-for devoting one of his numerous volumes to the elucidation of the subject.

In order to do this from the beginning, he prefaces his labour with a sketch of Roman "Provincia," a region so favoured at that epoch that nowhere, perhaps, have the world-conquerors left more relics of art and beauty within the same space, than in the region which is contained between the Alps, the Cevennes, and the Mediterranean. It is to this that Provence is indebted to an earlier civilisation than any other pro

vince in France.

It is not a little strange that Christianity made rapid progress amidst this essentially Pagan civilisation, with its circuses, its theatres, and its temples; and Provence, which pullulates with legends of dragons, saints, knights, and fair ladies, actually traces back the introduction of the Gospel to the advent there of the friends of Bethany, "Lazare, le ressuscité de l'Evangile, et à ses côtés ses deux sœurs, Marthe et MarieMadeleine." Mary, the sister of Lazarus, was quite a different personage to Mary Magdalene, although the latter Mary was with Our Saviour a guest in the house of Bethany. The contrast between the two sisters, Mary and Martha, one active and bustling, the other quiet, contemplative, and affectionate, is beautifully depicted in the Gospel narrative. Allowing this to pass, Lazarus was, according to the Provençal legend, the first Bishop of Marseilles, which is about as likely as the Oriental legend that he was Bishop of Ephesus; certain it is that his bust was carried in olden times in procession through the streets of Marseilles, and cathedrals, hospitals, market-places, and streets still bear his name. Martha expelled the Tarasque or dragon of the Rhône, and a colossal wooden representative of the legendary monster was also formerly carried in procession at Tarascon in memory of the event. Magdalene, to whom we are told all was pardoned because she had loved much, withdrew, according to the legend, to weep over her sins in a grotto of the Alps of Saint Baume and Saint Pilon, and Provençal canticles and legends relate how she ascended thence to heaven. It is generally believed now-a-days by Biblical scholars that Mary Magdalene had no sins to weep for, nor

*Les Cours d'Amour, les Comtesses et Châtelaines de Provence. Par M. Capefigue.

can any one tell how the sinner, who anointed Christ in the house of Simon (Luke vii. 37), came to be identified with the faithful Mary Magdalene. A learned abbé, M. Faillon de St. Sulpice, has published two thick quarto volumes in proof of these Provençal legends, just as we have seen in our own times a pamphlet published by a learned divine in defence of the travels of the House of Loretto.

The fact that a certain monk, Cassius by name, or Cassien in Provence, sowed the seeds of the Gospel in these regions, comes more within the domains of history, and equally so the martyrdom of Victor-canonised as Saint Victor-under Diocletian. Cassien constructed a fortified monastery, which he named after the martyred Roman tribune, and soon after that the temple of Diana, at Marseilles, became a cathedral; the temple of Jupiter, near the grotto of Magdalene, became the church of St. Maximin, and the cloisters of St. Trophime rose over the Elysian fields of Arles. Above all Apt, where was founded a cathedral consecrated to St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, became renowned for the pilgrimages made to its shrine by wives anxious to become mothers; and Anne of Austria deposited a golden crown on its altars when Louis XIV. was born, on her return from her pilgrimage thither.

The Latin spoken in the academies of Arles, Nîmes, Aix, and Marseilles, is said to have been very pure; the Gauls had their poets and orators, who rivalled with those of Rome, but the people spoke a dialect in which many Greek, Hebrew, and even Phenician words were mixed up. This was especially the case at Marseilles, originally a Phocean colony. The Provençal, which has been supposed by some to have been the mother of the modern Spanish and Italian, sprang from an admixture of this dialect with the Gothic, and dates as far back as the tenth century. The language of Provence and Languedoc is used in an old chronicle of the invasion of Gaul by the Normans. The richness and abundance of this favoured dialect caused it to be preferred for poetic purposes, and Barbarossa penned verses in a language which was not precisely his own. William IX., Count of Poitiers, born in 1070, and who died in 1122, wrote in the same language, and he is looked upon as the first of the Troubadours. Provençal nationality was a good deal tempered by the wars of Charlemagne with the Moors, but it was not extinguished, witness the "Four Sons Aymon." Provence had on its own side to defend itself against the Moors, who ascended the Rhône. The legends of Marseilles relate that the maids of Marseilles disfigured themselves by cutting off their noses to avoid the yoke of the Saracens, and bas-reliefs of Denazarados (without noses) are still to be seen in many churches, but archæologists are sometimes puzzled to say whether the mutilation is intentional or has not simply occurred to the marble. At all events the primitive language and nationality of Provence went on organising itself under its marquises (gardes des marches) and its counts, and this primitive nationality was marked with the seal of that great characteristic of the country-the heroism of love. The sweet chronicle of "la belle Maguelone" and Pierre de Provence, records how love found admission into the heart of the beautiful Maguelone, and how many combats Peter had to fight, how much heroism and perseverance it cost him, to win so precious a gem.

The hero of Southern poetry was Gerard de Provence, whose real

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