make us shudder.  His own tremendous Revolution furnishes him with names before which Lucifer must hide his diminished head; and from this vast repertory of all that is horrid and grotesque—­more horrid on account of its grotesqueness—­the feuilletonists, or short story-tellers, are not indisposed to draw.  We back Danton any day against Old Nick.  And how infinitely better the effect of introducing a true villain in plain clothes, relying for his power only on the known and undeniable atrocity of his character, than all the pale-faced, hollow-eyed denizens of the lower pit, concealing their cloven feet in polished-leather Wellington boots, and their tails in a fashionable surtout.  We shall translate a short story of Balzac, which will illustrate these remarks, only begging the reader to fancy to himself how different the denouement would have been in the hands of a German; how demons, instead of surgeons and attorneys, would have disclosed themselves at the end of the story, how blue the candles would have burned; and what an awful smell of brimstone would have been perceptible when they disappeared.  It is called the Two Dreams, and, we think, is a sketch of great power.

* * * * *

Bodard de St James, treasurer of the navy in 1786, was the best known, and most talked of, of all the financiers in Paris.  He had built his celebrated Folly at Neuilly, and his wife had bought an ornament of feathers for the canopy of her bed, the enormous price of which had put it beyond the power of the Queen.  Bodard possessed the magnificent hotel in the Place Vendome which the collector of taxes, Dange, had been forced to leave.  Madame de St James was ambitious, and would only have people of rank about her—­a weakness almost universal in persons of her class.  The humble members of the lower house had no charms for her.  She wished to see in her saloons the nobles and dignitaries of the land who had, at least, the grand entrees at Versailles.  To say that many cordons bleus visited the fair financier would be absurd; but it is certain she had managed to gain the notice of several of the Rohan family, as came out very clearly in the celebrated process of the necklace.

One evening, I think it was the 2d of August 1786, I was surprised to encounter in her drawing-room two individuals, whose appearance did not entitle them to the acquaintance of a person so exclusive as the Treasurer’s wife.  She came to me in an embrasure of the window where I had taken my seat.

“Tell me,” I said, with a look towards one of the strangers, “who in the world is that?  How does such a being find his way here?”

“He is a charming person, I assure you.”

“Oh—­you see him through the spectacles of love!” I said, and smiled.

“You are not mistaken,” she replied, smiling also.  “He is horribly ugly, no doubt, but he has rendered me the greatest service a man can do to woman.”