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Bourgogne, who by this time was losing not only his spirits but his health.

The adventures of the two friends as they traversed the vast forest which lies to the east of the Beresina, are perhaps the most original and most interesting part of the book. Space, alas ! forbids us to recount here the thrilling narrative : how they skirmished for the best part of a day with a squad of Cossacks, and had not the worst of it, killing several of their opponents and capturing a horse; how, safely hidden themselves, they watched a convoy of prisoners go past under the escort of Tartars and Kalmucks, armed with spears and bows, commanded, fortunately for the prisoners themselves, by a French officer, one of the many émigrés in the Russian service; how Picart, under somewhat. Zolaesque'circumstances, overheard one evening the conversation of two village gossips, and how, following the women's tracks in the snow, they reached a farmhouse inhabited by some Poles, who washed them, dressed their wounds, and gave them a good night's lodging ; how some Germans tried to carry off their horse and roast him, but only got their heads punched by the energetic Picart ; how, finally, they regained the route after three days' wandering, and saw the head of the column go by, composed of generals and officers, all who remained of the 'Sacred Battalion’ formed but a day or two before, the Emperor following on foot with the marshals, a sight which caused two great tears to roll down Picart's cheeks, adding their burden to the icicles that hung from his moustaches—for all this readers must be referred to the book itself.

The scenes at the passage of the Beresina have been often enough described, but Bourgogne's account yields to none in horror. What he brings into especial prominence is the lack of organisation, which allowed the bridge to remain, as we have said, almost deserted for many hours, and so become disastrously crowded at the last moment by a panic-stricken throng flying from the Russian cannon-balls.

From the Beresina to Wilna, the misery was, if possible, greater than what had preceded. Dante has been credited with a lively imagination in the invention of horrors; but there were realities in those days which his ghastliest conceptions do not surpass.

Ice formed in my nose,' says Bourgogne; my lips were glued together; the cold drew tears from my eyes, which froze till I was unable to see.' The torments assigned by the poet to those who set men at variance, were inflicted by a weapon

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as keen as the demon's sword, and mutilated stumps, from which the hands and feet had dropped, were as common as in the ninth pit of Malebolge. Unluckily, the fortune of war does not always allot the penalties with the same regard to the law of retribution as poetic justice is able to arrange for. While the brave men to whose devotion and incredible exertions he owed his personal immunity from the sufferings which they endured almost without a murmur were left behind to perish, the arch-sower of strife was hastening away as fast as a well-appointed sledge could bear him. On December 5, Napoleon launched from Malodetchno the famous twenty-ninth bulletin, announcing the wreck of the army and his own personal safety; and made the best of his way in pursuit of it to Paris, administering a parting snub to one of his most faithful henchmen: 'I am quite aware that you are of no use,' he said to Berthier, who was with tears entreating to be allowed to share his flight, “but people believe in you, and you must stay.''

Yet what one can only call the infatuation of the soldier condoned even this. After Malet's conspiracy' (which had been successfully crushed weeks before), ‘his presence was necessary in France, if only to organise a fresh army. The few who ventured to raise their voices against the desertion by its chief of a wrecked army still pursued by an untiring foe, were set down as 'agents of England, coming among the army to preach defection. Truly there are few problems in history so hard to solve as the secret of the fascination exercised by Napoleon over the mass of the soldiers. An army that could forgive the Russian campaign, one would say could forgive anything; but the strange thing is that to Bourgogne and his comrades, with rare exceptions, it never seems to have occurred that there was anything to be forgiven in the insane enterprise with its useless waste of valiant men. The reader of their simple narratives, not having the glamour in his eyes, may be excused if he takes a different view.

A. J. BUTLER. This is narrated by Marshal Castellane, who was at the Imperial headquarters at the time.

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MAKING MONEY.

I.

TANTIFER'S HOUSE.

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ALTHOUGH Mr. Howard Tantifer was merely on the fringe of my acquaintance, it interested me to hear of his approaching marriage.

'I cannot imagine,' said Lady Browne, 'what Maud Winstanley can see in the man. She hasn't any money, it is true, and is not much to look at, and is getting on, but still she is a lady—of a suburban kind—while that Tantifer is not a gentleman of

any

kind.' 'Not having money herself,' I suggested mildly, 'perhaps she appreciates its attractiveness in others.'

• Who says that Tantifer has money ?'

"I am not his banker. Let us content ourselves with admitting that he gives the impression of owning a competence. Mr. Tantifer lives in a good house of his own, his establishment is comfortable, and he has no obtrusive debts. How do I know? Have not tradesmen tongues? What more than a competence could a lady-of a suburban kind-expect?'

' How does he get his money, Mr. Gatepath ?' inquired my lady darkly.

I said that as he did no work outside his laboratory, except occasionally to make pretty silver ornaments for his friends, his income must be derived from investments.

• What investments ?'

I remarked with some dryness that it was not customary, nor indeed expedient, to demand from one's acquaintances a list of their securities.

Lady Browne's face flamed. She is the senior partner in a Sheffield provision store, and knows that I know the detested truth.

When I left Lady Browne's house the afternoon was far advanced, and the time unsuitable for further calls. Nevertheless I presently found myself outside Mr. Tantifer's gate. I am commonly indifferent to the affairs of my neighbours, yet something of mystery in my lady's manner stimulated me into curiosity regarding Mr. Tantifer. Besides, the reputed bride, Miss Maud Winstanley, was my old friend.

He enjoyed a good house. A comfortable warm detached house of which the bricks were clothed with a decent plaster. There had once been a moderate garden, but the laboratory which Tantifer had erected at the back of his residence crowded out the flower-beds. I estimated the rent at eighty pounds a year-I was standing in the Surrey suburb of Dulwich-and the price of the long leasehold at about 1,4001. After surveying the front of the villa for a few moments I strolled through the side entrance into the garden. Tantifer bad constructed a laboratory of fine scientific ugliness. The naked yellow bricks were unplastered, and the small windows were fully twelve feet from the ground.

When I rang the front door bell the maidservant stated that Mr. Tantifer was engaged in his laboratory.

Oh,' I replied easily; 'I am a friend. I will go in and speak to him.'

She stepped aside smiling. I walked down the passage to where I judged the laboratory entrance would be, and stopped in wonder before the door of a strong room. It was exactly the kind of door one finds in the cellars of a bank, warranted fire and burglar proof, by Messrs. Chubb. That's the laboratory,' observed the maid ; no one goes in

; but the master, not even to clean up. Master sweeps it out himself, and throws the dust out of the window.'

She raised the mouthpiece of a speaking-tube with the object of establishing a communication with ‘Master,' but I stopped her hand.

No,' I said, 'I will not disturb Mr. Tantifer.'

Outside on the doorstep I encountered Maud Winstanley. She responded to my congratulations civilly enough, but could hardly be said to reveal much innocent enthusiasm or maidenly shyness. The young lady was pretty evidently bored, at least by congratulations.

Then I went home and carefully noted my curious experience, from which precaution the reader derives the foregoing exact description.

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II.

TANTIFER'S WIFE.

The marriage took place in due course, and for nearly a year I saw little of the Tantifers, although I heard a great deal about them. My ears were, indeed, opened by expectation. It seemed to me that a wife on one side of a steel door, and a husband on the other, ought to develop some details of interest. The first news of trouble did not, therefore, come to me as a surprise. Wives have not been tolerant of secret closets—whether called studies, laboratories, or by the other deceptive titles adopted by wicked men -since the days of Bluebeard. Nevertheless, Bluebeards--in the secretive, if not the matrimonial sense-continue to exist, and I set down Howard Tantifer as one of them. The first rumours of matrimonial disturbances did not surprise me, but when they gathered precision and took a concrete shape I was not a little astonished. The suburbs have grave defects; the residents ape the fashionable world in many irritating ways, but they do not often emulate its extravagance. I should not have believed, had the evidence been less overwhelming, that a girl like Maud Winstanley, brought up to regard one thousand pounds a year as wealth, would, in a few months of married life, have developed a purposeless rage for dress, diamonds, costly prints, and old china.

My authority was Mrs. Winstanley, the girl's mother. Not the least hateful of this woman's qualities was her exceptional truthfulness. It is better to tell many lies than once to blurt out the kind of truth which ought to be buried. Mrs. Winstanley told us in her own drawing-room that Maud was ruining her husband, and the mother's air of half-frightened admiration disgusted me more than did the daughter's inexplicable folly. I had no reason to suppose that Tantifer was in any sense rich. His house and his manner of life were those of a man with five or six hundred a year, an income which provides little margin for feminine extravagance.

In the early summer, nearly a year after the wedding, I met Mrs. Tantifer in tbe street. A few months before she had been a young and fairly pretty girl—Lady Browne is not accurate in her descriptions of young women—now she was old, and ill, and

ly. The change was pitiful. My disturbed feelings must have

d my face.

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