discarded all the machinery of the author, and introduced him personally to the reader in the character of an autobiographer.  We have not scrupled to make explanations and additions wherever we thought them necessary, without resorting to the artifice of notes or of quotation-marks.  We repeat, that we have taken a great many liberties with the author; but we have made no statement, advanced no fact, indulged no reflection, which is not to be found in the work referred to, or in some trustworthy authority.  And now we leave him the door without another observation.

I am Count Armand de Pontmartin.  I was born of noble parents at Aix, in Provence, in 1820.  I was educated at Paris, but the first twelve years after I left college were passed on my estate in the enjoyment of an income of three thousand dollars a year.  Belonging to a Legitimist family, my principles forbade my serving the Orleans dynasty, and I should scarcely have known how to satisfy that thirst for activity which fevers youth, had I not for years burned with the ambition to acquire literary fame.  Circumstances conspired to thwart these literary schemes, and it was not until I had reached my thirtieth year that I came to Paris with a heart full of emotion and hope, a trunk full of manuscripts, and some friends’ addresses on my memorandum-book.  Before I had been a week in town they had introduced me to three or four editors of newspapers or reviews, and to several publishers and theatrical managers.  In less than a fortnight I breakfasted alone at Cafe Bignon with one of my favorite authors, the celebrated novelist, Monsieur Jules Sandeau.[D] I was confounded with astonishment and gratitude that he should allow me to sit at the same table and eat with him.  I felt embarrassed to know where to find viands meet to offer him, and beverages not unworthy to pass his lips.  There were in his works so many souls exiled from heaven, so many tearful smiles, so many melancholy glances constantly turned towards the infinite horizon, that it seemed to me something like sacrilege to offer to the creator of this noble and charming world a dish of rosbif aux pommes and a turbot a la Hollandaise and a claret wine.  I could have invented for him some of those Oriental delicacies made by sultans during harem’s heavy hours; rose-leaves kneaded with snow-water, dreams or perfumes disguised as sweetmeats, or citron and myrtle-flowers dew-diamonded in golden beakers.  Of a truth, the personal appearance of my poetical guest did give something of a shock to the ideal I had formed.  Many and many a time I had pictured him to myself tall and thin and pale, with large black eyes raised heavenwards, and hair curling naturally on a forehead shadowed by melancholy!  In reality, Monsieur Jules Sandeau is a good stout fellow, with broad, stalwart shoulders, a tendency to premature obesity, small, bright, gentle, acute eyes, a head as bald as my knee, rather thick lips, and a rubicund complexion; he has