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from the corner of the Rue Chaussée d'Antin, picked up the bullet, and walked coolly back, clapping her hands with glee!

After eating and writing for a couple of hours, I determined to go to the North of France railway terminus, and attempt to get a letter to my paper sent out. One saw strange things on the way. What, for instance, was this curious fetish-like ceremony going on in the Rue Lafayette at the corner of the Rue Lafitte? There was a wagon, a mounted Spahi as black as night, and an officer with his sword drawn. A crowd stood around, and the center of the strange scene was a blazing fire of papers. Were they burning the ledgers of the adjacent bank, or the title-deeds of the surrounding property? No. The papers of a Communist battalion it was which were being thus formally destroyed, no doubt that they should not bear witness against its members. The episode was a significant indication of the beginning of the end; nor were other tokens wanting, for English passports were being anxiously sought. At the terminus the unpleasant report was current that the Prussians had shunted at St. Denis all the trains leaving Paris, and were preventing everybody from passing their lines. There was one chance. I suborned a railway employee of acute aspect to get out of Paris by walking through the railway tunnel, and should he reach St. Denis, to give my letter to a person there whom I could trust to forward it. My emissary put the missive cheerfully in

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LECADRE.

his boot and departed, having promised to come to my hotel at 8 P. M., and to report his success or failure. I never saw him or heard of him any more.

On my way back from the Gare du Nord, I met with an experience which was near being tragical. Hearing firing in the direction of the Church of Notre Dame de Lorette, I left the Rue Lafayette for the Rue Chateaudun. When I reached the Place, in the center of which the church stands, I found myself inside an extraordinary triangle of barricades. There was a barricade across the end of the Rue St. Lazare, another across the end of the Rue Lorette, and a third between the church and in front of the Place, looking into the Rue Chateaudun. The peculiarity of the arrangement consisted in this, that each of these barricades could be either enfiladed or taken in reverse by fire directed against the others, so that the defenders were exposing themselves to fire from flank and rear, as well as from front. I took a protected position in the church porch, to watch the outcome of this curious state of things. But the officer in command happened to notice me, approached, and ordered me to pick up the musket of a man who had just been bowled over, and to take a hand in the defense of the position. I refused, urging that I was a foreigner and a neutral. He would by no means accept the excuse, and gave me the choice of the cheerful alternative of complying or being forthwith shot. I did not believe

him serious, and laughed at him; whereupon he called to four of his men to come and stick me up against the church wall, and then constitute themselves a firing-party. They had duly posted me, and were proceeding to carry out the program, when suddenly a rush of Versaillists came upon and over the Rue St. Lazare barricade, whereupon the defenders precipitately evacuated the triangle, the firing-party accompanying their comrades. I remained, not caring for the society I should accompany if I fled; but I presently came to regard my fastidiousness as folly. For several shots from Versaillist rifles came too near to be pleasant, and in a twinkling I was in Versaillist grips, and instantly charged with being a Communard. The people in the red breeches set about sticking me up against the church wall again, when fortunately I saw a superior officer, and appealed to him. I was bidden to hold up my hands. They were not particularly clean, but there were no gunpowder stains on the thumb and forefinger. Those stains were, it seemed, the brand marking the militant Communard, and my freedom from them just pulled me through. It was a "close call," but then a miss is as good as a mile.

Late in the afternoon the drift of the retreating Communists seemed to be in the direction of Montmartre, whence their guns were firing over the city at the Versaillist artillery, now on the Trocadéro. The Versaillists, for their

part, were also moving deliberately in the Montmartre direction, and before dusk had reached the Place de l'Europe at the back of the St. Lazare terminus. From this point on the north they held with their advanced forces a definite line down the Rue Tronchet to the Madeleine. They were maintaining their fire along the Boulevard Haussmann, and from their battery at the Madeleine they had shattered the Communist barricade on the Boulevard des Capucines at the head of the Rue de la Paix. The Communists were undoubtedly partly demoralized, yet they were working hard everywhere at the construction of barricades.

About 8 P. M. the firing died out everywhere, and for an interval there was a dead calm. What strange people were those Parisians! It was a lovely evening, and the scene in the narrow streets off the Rue Lafayette reminded me of the aspect of the down-town residential streets of New York on a summer Sunday evening. Men and women were placidly sitting by their street doors, gossiping easily about the events and the rumors of the day. The children played around the barricades; their mothers scarcely looked up at the far-off sound of the générale, or when the distant report of the bursting of a shell came on the soft night wind. Yet on that light wind was borne the smell of blood, and corpses were littering the pavements not three hundred yards away. Archibald Forbes.

THE WHIST-PLAYERS.

HEY play whist, the beaus in their powdered wigs and velvet coats, the ladies in their brocade petticoatsand fine stomachers. The west windows are open; a fountain plashes in the garden; the flower-beds are bordered with box, and the scent of the box comes in at the open windows.

They play whist. A beau shakes back the lace frill from his hand as he deals. A red jewel gleams on his finger. The ladies' brocades rustle; they frown softly at their cards. An hour-glass stands on a table inlaid with mother

VOL. XLIV.-107-108.

of-pearl; the sand in the hour-glass fiows silently; the pungent smell of the box comes in at the open windows.

They play whist. A lady leads from her long suit; a beau takes the trick with a king. His black eyes flash under his white wig like eternal youth.

The fountain plashes in the garden; the pungent smell of the box comes in at the open windows; the sand in the hour-glass flows as silently as the lives of the players.

They play whist. A beau leads an ace; his partner trumps. A trick is lost, but he looks at her, and smiles. A trick is lost — but love is immortal.

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Mary E. Wilkins.

THE LOTTO PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS.

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HERE is no excuse for bringing forward a new portrait of Columbus at this late day unless it has more than the mere smack of possibility about it. For there are already something like six times six Columbuses in the field, and every one brings in a separate tale, and every tale condemns Columbus for some other person. The confusion of testimony is, however, no good reason for wholly rejecting all the portraits, with the assumption that the discoverer never was drawn, carved, or painted from life. Positive and direct proof for any likeness of him cannot be adduced. The evidence, if it ever existed, has been lost in the lapse of years. But there are probabilities that seem to attach themselves to two recurrent types, and these form chains of circumstantial evidence worthy of consideration. The original of one of these types, perhaps the earliest of all the portraits, we have before us in the recently discovered picture by Lorenzo Lotto, engraved for the frontispiece of this magazine.

The history of this portrait is brief, and about as unsatisfactory as any of the other Columbuses. It is supposed to have been painted for Domenico Malipiero, the Venetian senator and historian, at the instance of his correspondent, Angelo Trevisan (Trivigiano), secretary of the Venetian ambassador to Spain, who in 1501 was in intimate communication with Christopher Columbus at Granada. Malipiero's manuscripts (and presumably this picture) are said to have passed to Senator Francesco Longo. The Gradenigos were the heirs of the Longos, and it was from them that the Cavaliere Luigi Rossi, a steward of the Duchess of Parma, purchased the picture. Just before Rossi's death the picture was sold to a person named Gandolfi, who had it somewhat repaired and restored. The badly damaged head and red cap of an Indian at the right were cut out, and the picture was made square instead of oblong. From Gandolfi it passed to Signor Antonio della Rovere of Venice, in whose house it was seen in 1891 by Captain Frank H. Mason, United States Consul-General at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and by him bought for the World's Fair at Chicago. The record cannot be traced with any certainty beyond the Gradenigos, and even if it could, it would prove no more than what the picture itself reveals. The best evidence for or against any picture is internal, not external.

It is hardly worth while arguing the antiquity of the canvas. It speaks for itself, and says unmistakably that it is old Italian-Venetian-Italian at that. The archæological methods of determining the place of a work of art are now too well known for explanation, and too accurately based to admit of much error. Neither is it worth while to go afield in search of a painter for the portrait, when the name of the very man we would naturally attribute it to is upon the canvas. The signature and date read "Laurens Lotto f, 1512." Both are genuine, though the date had been clumsily scumbled over with gray paint. It has been suggested that the signature was not the one Lotto usually signed. He had no usual signature until 1522, and even after that it varies. I have before me as I write eight facsimiles of his signature, all written differently, and yet all, in common with this signature, possessed of a certain character that shows them to have come from one hand. Had the signature on this portrait been a falsification, we may be sure it would not have varied a hair's-breadth from those on the wellknown portraits in the Brera, or that upon the St. Antoninus in SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. The variation is a proof of genuineness. But the signature is corroboration only, not proof positive.

Lorenzo Lotto was a painter who in his portraits was hardly second to Titian, and yet there remain to us few facts in his life. He was born probably about 1480, and as a painter was Venetian with some provincial earmarks about him. Of the school of Giovanni Bellini, he was a friend and fellow-worker with Palma, and after 1512 shows the influence of Giorgione and, later, of Titian. With a faculty for grasping technical features in others, Lotto brought many reminiscences of his contemporaries into his works. It has been said that he was influenced by Correggio (a mistake), by Leonardo (another mistake), by Pennacchi, Carpaccio, Cima, and half a dozen other painters. That he was a borrower there can be no doubt, and this portrait shows his characteristic borrowings. The sharp articulated drawing in both hands and face points to his master Giovanni Bellini; the angularities of drapery, especially in the right sleeve, suggest Bartolommeo Vivarini; the fullness of the cloak and figure are Palmesque; the coloring, especially in the scarlet under-coat with the white edging at the neck, is peculiarly Lottesque, and yet suggests the influence of Ferrara; while the early Venetian landscape

seen through the window is like Cima in drawing, and like the Lombards in its bluegreen coloring. These influences showing in his work were mingled with technical methods peculiar to himself. Thus he had his own method of handling light and shade, his own color delicacy, and, what is more apparent in this portrait, certain mannerisms in drawing. The theory of the late Senator Morelli, that the old Italians had a way of painting conventional features, has been sneered at by his critics, but nevertheless there is some truth in it, if not enough to establish a science. Lotto, for example, was very fond of giving his portraits a peculiar twist of the head, and a sidelong look from the eye; his ears were almost always heavy, long, and inclined toward a point, not at the top but at the bottom; his hands and fingers were never quite free from a cramped appearance; and the finger-tips were inclined toward a point with a very singular form of finger-nail. Portraiture in those days did not extend to the minute realization of every individual feature. The examination of a man's work Bellini's or Titian's, for instance-shows that he used but one formula for all hands and ears. Just so with Lotto. This portrait, compared with those in the Brera (especially the "Portrait of a Lady with a Fan," No. 253), those in the National Gallery in London, or even the sadly repainted Giorgionesque "Three Ages" in the Pitti (engraved in this magazine for April, 1892), will reveal the peculiar methods of the one man.

Those who do not care for the technical analysis of a picture, but prefer to judge by the spirit in which it is conceived and executed, may trace the identity of Lotto in that way quite as well. For, in spite of his eclecticism, Lotto had an individuality of his own, showing in a loftiness of type, an aristocratic grace of countenance, a refinement of feeling, and all through both conception and method a certain nervous quality that is almost morbid in its sensitiveness. Certainly our portrait shows these qualities, and, applying either method of recognition, the microscope of Morelli or the broader intuitive sense of Mündler or Cavalcaselle, there is only one conclusion that can be reached about it. It is a work of Lorenzo Lotto, and though it has suffered somewhat from the effects of time and repainting, it still possesses not a little of nobility. Whether it is a Columbus or not, is quite another matter. Perhaps if the reasons for thinking so are set forth, the public will be as capable a judge as the Columbus experts.

1 Critical articles upon this portrait appeared in "La Tribuna Illustra," Rome, December 7, 1890, and in the "Rivista Marittima," July and August, 1890. W. J. Stillman wrote of it as a Lotto in the "Nation,"

Of the many representations of Columbus every portrait with a ruff or a beard is excluded. Neither was worn in Columbus's time. Criticism accepts as possibilities two types of the discoverer. One is the Giovian type, best seen perhaps in the D'Orchi portrait at Como or the Yanez portrait at Madrid. The history of the supposed original is brief and uncertain. Sixty years or more after the death of Columbus, Vasari gave a list of two hundred and eighty portraits in the villa of Paolo Giovio on Lake Como, which Duke Cosimo had Cristoforo dell' Altissimo copy for his Gardaroba. In the list, with Attila, Artaxerxes, Saladin, Tamerlane, and other celebrities, whose portraits must have been purely imaginary, appears "Colombo Genovese." In 1575, engravings purporting to reproduce the portraits in the Como villa were printed, and among them one that still does service for Christopher Columbus. If the real portrait of the discoverer ever was in that collection, it must have been lost or confused with others. The Giovian type shows the face and costume of a Franciscan brother instead of a navigator. For that reason, and because it does not correspond to the written descriptions left by the contemporaries of Columbus, it has not been universally accepted.

The other type is well shown in the Ministry of Marine portrait at Madrid.2 The Lotto portrait, which we have before us, is an earlier presentation of this type-perhaps the archetype. The difference between the two men shown in the two portraits is slight indeed. It might result from two different artists viewing the same sitter, or the sitter himself seen at two different times or ages, or from the careless restorations from which both pictures have. suffered. We see such variations in the portraits of Francis I., and Napoleon I., and even in those of George Washington. This type seems to repeat itself in succeeding engravings and ideal portraits; something of it shows in the Genoa statue; so familiar is it that painters at this day employ it in historical pictures of Columbus; and even the circus people use it in their show-bills. Whether real or imaginary, it seems to be the popular conception of what the discoverer ought to be. Unfortunately there is no absolute Columbus criterion by which we may judge whether it is fact or fiction, but there are reasons for thinking it founded on fact.

It is, in the first place, the Ligurian type, the Genoese type, which the contemporaries and followers of Columbus- his son Ferdinand, Trevisan, Las Casas, Oviedo, Benzoni December 26, 1889, and I am informed that Cavalcaselle, Morelli, Böde, and a number of German experts have given a like opinion.

2 Engraved in this magazine for May, 1892.

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1. Marie Menan, condemned to death for murder and incendiarism; 2. Marguet, life imprisonment for robbery and incendiarism; 3. Louise Bonenfant, cantinière and pointeuse in the artillery of the fédérés, life imprisonment; 4. Marie Grivot, orator of the Club, life imprisonment; 5. Augustine Prevost, cantinière of the fédérés, life imprisonment; 6. Angèline, cantinière, life imprisonment for robbery and incendiarism.

further. They had a field-battery in action a little way below the Arc, which swept the Champs Elysées very thoroughly. I saw several shells explode about the Place de la Concorde, and was very glad when I had run the gantlet safely and reached the further side of the great avenue. I was making toward the Parc Monceaux, when a person I met told me that Versaillist troops, marching from the Arc along the Avenue de la Reine Hortense (now the Avenue Hoche), had come upon the Communists throwing up a barricade, and had saved them the trouble of completing it by taking it from them at the point of the bayonet. Here I very nearly got shut in, for as we talked there was a shout, and, looking eastward, I saw that a strong force of Versaillists, with artillery at their head, were marching along the Avenue Friedland toward the Boulevard Haussmann. I was just in time to dodge across their front,

Versaillists. Occupying in strong force, and with numerous artillery, certain central points, from each of which radiated several straight thoroughfares in different directions, their de sign was to cut Paris up into sections, isolating the sections one from another by sweeping with fire the bounding streets. From this position, at the Pépinière, for instance, they had complete command of the Boulevard Haussmann down to its foot at the Rue Taitbout, and of the Boulevard Malesherbes down to the Madeleine, thus securing access to the great boulevards and to the Rue Royale, by descending which could be taken in reverse the Communist barricade at its foot, facing the Place de la Concorde. Desirous of seeing anything that might be passing in other parts of the city, I made my way by devious paths in the direction of the Palais-Royal. Shells seemed to be bursting all over Paris. They

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