fortune to be seated next to him, as it once happened
to me at Madame du Roure’s. While singing
the praises of his beautiful villa at Monte-Fiascone,
he frequently drew from his pocket an enormous snuff-box,
the contents of which were most liberally showered
down upon the company placed near him, and, between
two pinches, he informed us that he had formerly the
pretension of taking the very best snuff in France.
He prepared it with his own hands, and spared no pains
in the important proceeding. When he emigrated
to Rome he carried with him two jars of the precious
mixture. The future destiny of the Abbe Maury
was dependent on the pope, and he was a great snuff-taker!
“I presented myself several times (I quote his
own expressions) before his holiness, and took great
care never to omit displaying my snuff-box, which
I opened and shut several times during the interview,
making as loud a noise as possible. This was all
I dared do,—respect forbade me making any
advances toward his holiness by offering directly
a taste of the mixture of which I was so justly proud.
At length my perseverance met with its reward.
One day I managed skillfully to push the snuff-box
beneath his hand, and, in the heat of argument, he
opened it mechanically, and took a pinch of snuff
therefrom. It was an awful moment, as you may
imagine. I observed him with the greatest attention,
and immediately remarked the expression of satisfaction
and surprise which overspread his features as he stretched
forth his fingers to take another pinch. “
Donde
vi viene questo maraviglioso tobacco?” I
told him that I alone possessed the mixture, and that
I had only two jars left, or rather that I had no
more, as, of course, they now belonged to his holiness.
I am inclined to believe that this present was agreeable
to him, as it was useful to me.” After
the story the cardinal boasted to us of the extraordinary
frankness of his character. He had shown more
of this than he had intended in the tale he had been
telling.
—Souvenirs de France et d’Italie
dans les Annees 1830, 1831 et 1832.
* * * *
*
The Deutsche Reform publishes as a curiosity
a selection, though an imperfect one, from the catalogue
of the flying leaves and small cheap journals, political
and satirical, that sprung into existence after the
revolution, mostly in Berlin and Vienna; not more than
three or four of them now exist. The insect world
was a favorite source of names for the satirist, the
sting of whose production was frequently only in the
title: every week produced the Hornet,
the Wasp, the Gadfly, and their plurals,
the Wasps and the Gadflies; there was
also an Imperial Gadfly, and one Wasp’s
Nest. The necessity of enlightenment exhausted
the means of doing it through the Torch, the
Taper, the Jet of Gas, the Lamp,
the Everburning Lamp (the last flickers still