“Samara, II, ix.  In the centre of the town, in the Hotel —­, a band of armed swindlers attacked a German engineer named Braun and demanded money.  On his refusal one of the robbers stabbed Braun with a knife.  The robbers, taking the money which was on him, amounting to 500 roubles, got away.  Braun called for assistance, but died of his wounds in the night.  It appears that he had met the swindlers at a restaurant.”

“Since I have been in Russia,” Jameson added, “I have often thought that I knew what language it was that was talked behind the door that night in the inn at Salzheim, but now I know it was Russian.”

JEAN FRANCOIS

Jean Francois was a vagabond by nature, a balladmonger by profession.  Like many poets in many times, he found that the business of writing verse was more amusing than lucrative; and he was constrained to supplement the earnings of his pen and his guitar by other and more profitable work.  He had run away from what had been his home at the age of seven (he was a foundling, and his adopted father was a shoe-maker), without having learnt a trade.  When the necessity arose he decided to supplement the art of balladmongering by that of stealing.  He was skilful in both arts:  he wrote verse, sang ballads, picked pockets (in the city), and stole horses (in the country) with equal facility and success.  Some of his verse has reached posterity, for instance the “Ballads du Paradis Peint,” which he wrote on white vellum, and illustrated himself with illuminations in red, blue and gold, for the Dauphin.  It ends thus in the English version of a Balliol scholar:—­

     Prince, do not let your nose, your Royal nose,
     Your large Imperial nose get out of joint;
     Forbear to criticise my perfect prose—­
     Painting on vellum is my weakest point.

Again, the ballade of which the “Envoi” runs:—­

     Prince, when you light your pipe with radium spills,
     Especially invented for the King—­
     Remember this, the worst of human ills: 
     Life without matches is a dismal thing,

is, in reality, only a feeble adaptation of his “Priez pour feu le vrai tresor de vie.”

But although Jean Francois was not unknown during his lifetime, and although, as his verse testifies, he knew his name would live among those of the enduring poets after his death, his life was one of rough hardship, brief pleasures, long anxieties, and constant uncertainty.  Sometimes for a few days at a time he would live in riotous luxury, but these rare epochs would immediately be succeeded by periods of want bordering on starvation.  Besides which he was nearly always in peril of his life; the shadow of the gallows darkened his merriment, and the thought of the wheel made bitter his joy.  Yet in spite of this hazardous and harassing life, in spite of the sharp and sudden transitions in his