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friend. They had no mutual secrets-none. But we have all secret thoughts, which the breath of life has never fanned, and could they be exceptions?

"What manner of man was this?" inquired the Duke of Germain, who assisted him to dress, while Pierre bound up the wound of Torticolis.

The domestic described him minutely.

"Humph! a cut-throat thief enough. As soon as breakfast is over, put in the horses; then ride ahead without waiting for us. When you reach Paris, give information to the lieutenant of the police. Tell M. Ducrosne that I will give fifty thousand livres for the Countess' jewels, and as many for her papers."

It was the best plan. In those days the police served as go-betweens for thieves and their victims. The change has not been for the better.

dirty, with windows mended by paper, and tenanted by old-clothes-men, the houses project into the middle of the street on one side, being supported by huge square wooden pillars, black, begrimed, and soiled by the air of ages. Their duration had not added to their respectability; like the noblesse, they were rotten at the core. The pavement, at the time of which we speak, was broken and disjointed; while the front of the shops, where piles of old rags were displayed under the specious name of second-hand clothes, exhibited all the hideous features which appertained to one of the old quarters of Paris, in those days of utter disregard in relation to the comforts of the poor, the indigent, the humble. Death, which in other places is conquered by the power of life, stalked in Paris by the side of the new-born child, and for every babe that came into the world, there perished one to make him

In a few hours after, the whole party were on their place. Not a soul was added to the population, though road to Paris.

twenty thousand annually drew their first breath in the

Charles Clement accompanied the Duke, his daughter, pestilent and crowded atmosphere of a metropolis, which and Miranda.

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Jean Torticolis followed on foot. After a brief colloquy, in which, without mentioning names, he told his history, Charles Clement had engaged him as a servant. With the young republican, his chief recommendation was his having been oppressed.

The hangman accompanied his friend, not at all displeased to return to Paris, that centre of civilization-that soul of the world, as it is called over the water, where lived, and had their being, more knaves, rogues, and -; but plain-spoken English has gone out with Smollet and Fielding. We do not speak now, we insinuate.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST SCENE.

Paris was seething, hissing, but not yet boiling. The elections were over, and everywhere men of liberal tendencies had been returned by the Tiers-Etats. The world was now anxiously inquiring what it would dothis assembly of the nation's representatives. There was want, there was misery, there was oppression, there were grinding and opprobrious laws-if legality can thus be insulted. There was incredulity on the one hand, bigotry on the other; there was hope in the people's heart, selfishness in the middle classes, hate in the upper ranks. Already the rotten fabric of aristocracy trembled, for the light of truth was breaking in upon it. Too long had one favoured portion of the nation been masters-the turn of others now, and they knew it. But they met not the revolution boldly, and seizing the helm guided it-they ran away, or conspired in holes and corners. The emigration of the great, of the rich, such is the secret of subsequent anarchy. The chivalrous French nobility struck their colours and fled.

At no great distance from the Palais-Royal, and leading from the Rue St. Honore to the Fromagerie, is a street known by the name of the Tonnelerie, which belongs to it ever since the year 1300, when Guillot in his "Dits des Rues de Paris" says

"Droit et avant sui ma trace Jusques en la Tonnelerie." In this locality, where, at No. 3, in 1640, was born Moliere, we must now transport ourselves. Antiquated,

boasted so many splendid monuments of its ancient race of kings, and not one to the benefactors of the people.* Horrible prisons, dark and gloomy quarters, narrow lanes, like slits in a wall, where no sun nor light ever penetrated; high-priced provisions, and high duties for all that entered the city walls; uncleansed gutters, unlightened streets; everything which could brutalise both mind and body. Such was the state of things in Paris when the storm began to blow; all hurrying on the catastrophe, and furnishing ready, reckless, and blind tools for the selfish, unprincipled, and bad men, who degraded and stained a revolution in its outburst-natural, hearty, wholesome and just.

In this street, and in a house which lay midway between the great and little Friperie, in a large room, almost bare of furniture, save a truckle-bed, a table, and a few chairs, sat a man, deeply engaged in the luxurious employment of drinking a carafe of brandy, and of smoking as black and ill-looking a pipe as could be found, even in that unwholesome establishment. If the walls of the room were dingy and repellent, with their plaster falling inwards-if the ceiling was clouded, the floor absolutey filthy-the whole was in excellent keeping with the occupant of the chamber. Not more than forty, there was yet in his puffed red cheeks, carrotty hair, bald crown, and unwashed visage-in his keen grey eyes, thin hands, and paunchy shape-in his shabby black hat, and coarse shoes--in his unshaven chin-a sublime whole, which spoke an age of crime or misfortune, or both. Those compressed lips and dilated nostrils, with eye fixed hardly or fiercely on the ceiling, showed that he was contemplating some object of deep interest. Whatever it was, however, it did not abate the perseverance with which he sent forth clouds of tobacco smoke, in the examination of which, as they rose upwards to the sky, he might, by a casual spectator, have been supposed engaged.

Suddenly the faint tinkle of a bell was heard, once, and then a heavy tread was distinguished on the stairs. The man continued to smoke as impassably as if he had not heard anything.

*For several years before the revolution there were 20,000 annual births and deaths, 7,000 of the births ille

gitimate. In 1794, the deaths had decreased to 17,000, while marriage had increased, and the number of illegiti mate children had diminished to 3,000.

"M. Brown," said a voice through a small loophole in equally well; "then, why does he not without the Statesthe door.

"Come in," still without moving.

The man entered, and stood almost meekly before the dirty personage, whom he addressed by the name of Brown. In a plain suit of grey, with clean hands, clean face, clean shoes, he looked a marked contrast to the smoker, but not less with himself a few days previously, for under the garb of a sober domestic were the little piercing eyes and the crick-neck of Torticolis.

"Take a pipe and a seat," said the other, without moving.

Torticolis looked irresolute and half indignant. "Paul," exclaimed M. Brown, quietly, "you did not hear me. Take a pipe and a seat."

The erick-neck started as if he had seen the gallows of the Grève before him, but he did as ordered.

"You have been warmly recommended to me," said the man, taking up a paper from the table before him, but still continuing to smoke.

"Hum," half growled the other.

"By my worthy, by our mutual friend, Duchesne," continued Brown, eyeing the other with a horrid leer, which made him shudder.

General? But that is not the question. Your master loves Adela de Ravilliere?""

"I believe so."

"And she loves him," added Brown.

"I believe so," again dryly observed Jean. "To complete the romance, there is an impediment," chuckled the spy.

"An impediment?" cried Jean, anxiously-he already loved his master.

"A serious impediment, one which cannot be got over," added Brown.

The bell tinkled again; this time sharply. "Ah!" exclaimed the spy, jumping to his feet, and laying down his pipe.

"Shall I go?" inquired Torticolis, rising.

"By no means," cried M. Brown, "but enter here, and remain still until I call you. You will find a bottle of brandy, drink it."

With these words Torticolis was pushed through what seemed a cupboard, but which was in reality a door into another apartment.

For an instant the crick-neck remained perfectly lost in astonishment. He was in a chamber, half boudoir, half

"For what purpose?" said Torticolis, almost impa- bed-room, that appeared to belong rather to some Madame tiently.

"Your name is now?" added his questioner, preparing to write his reply.

"Jean Torticolis is my name," he answered briefly. "You are in the service of"

"Monsieur Charles Clement. But why these ques

tions?"

"Monsieur Torticolis," replied the other, "I am the secret agent of his majesty's police."

"Oh!" said the domestic curiously, and with another aint shudder.

"And your friend," continued the other.

"Ah."

"You wish to recover your wife?" threw out the other (M. Brown) carelessly.

"Man or devil!" cried Torticolis, with an indescribable look, "how know you all this?"

Dubarry than to the dirty police spy. In an alcove was a bed elegantly and tastefully laid out, while mirrors, sofas, velvet chairs, the unheard-of luxury of a carpet, little knick-knackeries more suited to a woman than a man, a magnificent clock of Sevre China, with curtains to deaden the light, all added to the puzzled senses of Jean. On a chair was a complete suit of clothes, of the most

irreproachable character, which appeared to be those of M. Brown. On pegs hung a number of suits of all kinds, suited to peer or peasant, but all of one size-that of M. Brown.

On a table in the middle of the room were the remains

of a supper, at which two persons had been present, but not a sign was there of the second personage. Numerous untouched bottles were on the sideboard, and to these Jean was advancing, when he suddenly paused as if a ser

"And to be revenged on a certain aristocrat," said M. pent had stung him. Brown, rubbing his hands.

"You are right," replied Torti, sombrely; "show me him, and I am your slave."

"Ah! I thought we should understand one another, and I am quite willing to assist you, if you satisfy me." "I will do my best," said Torticolis, whose face was radiant with hope, for he hated, and revenge was at hand. "Your master has inherited a portion hitherto unjustly withheld from him by his mother's relations."

"I believe so."

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"Monsieur Brown! Monsieur Brown!" said a voice, which made the crick-neck's heart leap.

It was that of the trooper of the Dernier Sou. "Your servant, Count," replied the spy.

"It is he; but Count, that is surely a mistake," muttered Jean, who, the wine now quite forgotten, was listening with all his ears through the door.

"Well," continued the new arrival, throwing himself on a chair, any news?"

"

"Plenty," replied the other, "the Court is allowing the people to get a-head."

"I know it, and this must be stopped."

"There is only one means," said the spy, coldly, “and I doubt your using it."

"What is it?" inquired the other.

"Win over the middle classes," replied Brown. "Willingly, but how?" asked the soldier.

"Concede some of your privileges, join with them heartily on the meeting of the States, divide the taxes fairly, let the nobles bear their part, the clergy theirs.” "I grant you the church," said the other,

having no

interest in that venerable establishment, but for the rest, impossible."

"I know it; you have held too long your place to give up willingly," said the spy, with an expression of face impossible to be rendered or understood; "you have held it too long."

"But what then?" inquired the soldier.

"You must frighten the middle classes, you must separate them from the people."

"Whom call you the people?" said the puzzled trooper. "The labouring classes, the porters, the hawkers, the little tradespeople, the beggars, the unemployed, all who work without employing others.”

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"I observed so," replied the soldier, who was devourAnd you think this canaille worth troubling our ing his rage at not being able to chastise the insolence of heads about." the policeman.

"This canaille," said the spy, with lowering eye, "is hungry."

"Let them eat," sneered the soldier.

"To eat they must have wages-to have wages they must have work-to have work, there must be trade, commerce, credit-to have trade, commerce, credit, there must be a steady government; now we have none of all this." "You are a politician?" said the soldier.

"I am a police spy, and know everything," replied the other, with perfect self-confidence. "Now this people have their writers, their talkers, their plotters; and if the Etats-Generaux don't please them, and give them work and food, they will act."

"We must fill Paris with troops."

"You must have the consent and good-will of the middle classes."

"And how, pestiferous talker, can this be gained?” Frighten them, and they will consent to anything." 66 Well," said the trooper, "of all this anon. The Abbé Roy and the Prince de Lambesc will be here presently, The Court is alarmed." incognito, to confer with us.

"The king?" inquired Brown, raising his head.
"Bah! his majesty sticks to his blacksmith's shop,

and comes out upon state occasions."

"You mean the Austrian, then, Monsieur, and the

Count D'Artois?"

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They are the rulers."

"A notorious intriguer and rogue," continued Brown, with perfect sang-froid.

Again the bell tinkled, this time with greater violence even than before.

"Our company," said the trooper, carelessly, and seating himself, for hitherto he had been standing.

"I am your most humble servant," exclaimed M. Brown, as two men entered, the one in the rich costume of the Colonel of the Royal-Allemands, the other in the garb of a priest.

"Well met, Count," said the Prince; "have you come to an understanding."

"Not at all, replied the soldier, "I leave that for you." De Lambesc bit his lip, and took a chair, in which he was imitated by the Abbé.

"But what progress have you made?" inquired the Colonel.

The soldier explained what had passed upon the point.

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But what does this canaille want?" said the poor Prince, really puzzled; for what could such people possibly desire?

"They want equality of rights," replied the spy. "Peste! nothing more?" laughed the Colonel; "and if we don't agree to so reasonable a wish?”

"There is talk-not loudly, but in corners as yet-of a republic."

"And what is that?" inquired the dragoon, elevating

"They are," replied the spy, dryly; "the more is the his eyebrows, and using his tooth-pick-he had just dined pity."

"As for that, it is none of my business; and now that

I have sounded you, let us talk on my affairs, ere they

come."

"I am ready, Count," said Brown.

in the Falais-Royal.

"I refer you to the Abbé, Monsieur le Prince," said the spy, with a reverence.

"An atrocious system, which Montesquier, Voltaire, Rousseau, and that gang, have devised," replied the

Torticolis listened, his ear against the door; what priest, with an expression of horror, "in which there is a would he not have given to have seen.

"Well, and what says Duerosne?" inquired the soldier. "That you can have thirty thousand livres for the diamonds, and the same sum for the papers."

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Sapristie the lieutenant is generous. less than a hundred thousand for the two will satisfy me." "That is exactly what he gets," replied the spy, dryly. "And he thinks to pocket forty thousand. I will treat with them myself."

government without king or aristocracy.”

"The devil!" cried De Lambesc; "but in France this is absurd; a monarchy of fifteen centuries, a powerful nobility, a-a▬▬▬▬▬▬

"Nothing else, Monsieur le Prince," said the spy, smiling; "the tradespeople, the merchants, the middle classes, all save the petite noblesse of the robe, are against you."

"So it is said at court," exclaimed the prince, haugh

"There is a slight objection to it," quietly answered tily; "but we have the army, and this herd of the middle Brown.

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"What?" inquired the Count, haughtily.

"The Châtelet," said the spy, looking at his empty

fire-place.

"You would betray me?”

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"Unless middle classes and people united to rule, as in America."

"This comes of Lafayette playing the Quixote," sneered the prince. "But will the Paris bourgeois

unite with the mob ?"

“Abbé, you are invaluable," said the Royal-Allemand, with a smile; "your devotion shall be known at Versailles. For my part, anything to keep down all this canaille. But the police is sharp-Ducrosne will know all this in half an hour."

"He must have high orders to let things take their course," replied the Abbé; "but the soldiers must come in at the end-it will make them popular."

This is settled then," said De Lambesc, rising. "But I must have some dozen or two aids, to assist me in rousing the mob-the Fabourg St. Antoine is large." "And peopled like a bee-hive," said the spy;

set moving, 't will be hard to stop."

" once

"I leave the details to you and M. Brown," continued the Royal-Allemand; "here are twenty thousand livres in an order on the treasury. Come, Count, will you to

"To gain their objects, as in the time of the fronde of the opera? I have promised to meet La Volage." Mazarin; the canaille will do the work."

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"As I observed to Monsieur, just now, they must be frightened; the two classes must be placed in antagonism." "How?"

"The mob must be roused to some violent act-they must commit some depredations, some burnings; they must pillage some shops?"

"But how is this to be managed ?"

"Willingly, prince;" and the two soldiers went out, after plotting one of those infernal schemes which set the mob going, and taught them their power for evil.

"Monsieur the Abbé," said the spy, as soon as the other conspirators had left them, "you have a personal spite against this Reveillon. He lent you money when you were in distress."

"M. Brown,” replied the priest, with lowering eye, "sufficient he is my enemy. More, he is a Rousseauite, talks Contrat Social by the yard, receives the enemies of the holy Catholic church at his table"

"That is to say, like so many others in the Faubourg, who are industrious and prosperous, he is a Protestant." "A heretic-"

"Bah!" said the spy, laughing; "no bigotry from you to me."

"You are strangely familiar even with princes," an

"Nothing easier," said the spy, with a scarcely repressed sneer; "the people are ignorant, and easily deceived. They are hungry-persuade them that the gro-swered the Abbé, with a growl, "and I must not complain." cers charge too high for sugar, the bakers for bread, that certain masters keep down wages, that there are forestallers, monopolists; in a word, set labour against capital, its right hand."

"Can this be done?"

"As long, Monsieur le Prince, as there is ignorance

and hunger."

"But certain parties must be chosen; we must not go to work blindly."

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"It would be little use,” said the spy, relighting his pipe. "But my co-operators?" inquired the other, rising. "At five to-morrow be at the cabaret, Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine, known as the Tour du Bastille-at five-I will join you."

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'Certainly not," said the Abbé Roy, with the look of before everything.' Then meekly folding his hands across his breast, this a cat about to jump upon its prey. mild son of the church went out. Scarcely had he closed "Have you any one to recommend as a victim?" in- the door behind him, than the spy rose. quired the prince.

"Your highness, I have heard of a certain elector, a friend of the pamphleteers, a man who wanted to have Mirabeau deputy for Paris, a certain Reveillon."

His step was stealthy and light: he was advancing towards the partition which led towards his inner apartment.

Suddenly throwing it open, he looked in. At a distance which rendered listening impossible sat Torticolis with two empty bottles before him, and a third just com

“The best master in the Faubourg St. Antoine," said menced, evidently in that happy condition when man, the spy, dryly.

"That will never do, then," observed the prince. "Nothing more easy," said the priest, warmly, his eye kindling as he spoke. "He is an atheist, a liberal, a friend to the working classes; their ruining such a man would rouse the whole bourgeoisie against the mob."

"But you propose a difficult task," exclaimed the prince. "I propose nothing which I am not ready to execute," answered Roy, with a savage leer. "I will myself go among the people, persuade them he is conspiring a general lowering of wages, and spread the feeling that the TiersEtats, which represents the masters, is all for themselves."

with justice, is doubtful whether he is an animal about to be led to the block, or a rational being in a state of temporary hallucination.

"Torti," said the spy, paternally, pretty free."

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"Glad to see you, preux che-che-eh, what wants this dirty fellow in my-my-boudoir ?" replied the crick-neck, acting his part admirably. The two bottles had been emptied out of the window.

"Jean," "exclaimed the spy, laughing, and pushing him out at the same time, go home, go to bed, and

return to-morrow at four."

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"Agreed," replied Torticolis, who floundered down stairs like a whale, nor walked uprightly until at some considerable distance from the house."

(To be continued.)

SCOTTISH RIVERS.-No. II.

THE TWEED AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.-Continued.

BY SIR THOMAS DICK LAUDER.

But looking, as we did yesterday, from a considerable height all over the well-enclosed and fertile Lothians, where not a square inch of ground appeared to have been left uncultivated, we could not help feeling, in defiance of all historical record and daily discovered facts, that it was extremely difficult to imagine this now so polished surface of a country in a state of so great roughness and wildness as to furnish shelter and harbourage for such animals. Then, if, notwithstanding these appearances, the Lothians could do this, what might not the naturally more wild mountains and glens of the Border afford? and, therefore, how much must Teviotdale and the vale of the Jed, and their neighbouring elevations, have swarmed with these noble antlered creatures?

HAVING by chance cast our eyes over the latter | occurred to the deer for a long series of years. part of our last paragraph, and then assumed an almost mathematically horizontal line, in order the better to indulge in some little reflection upon it, with our toes, our nose, and our black-lead pencil, all pointed directly towards the heavens, like the top-gallant-masts of some trim frigate, a curious thought struck us, which may, we think, lead to vast discoveries, both scientific and literary. Why may not the pointed pencil, directed vertically against the heavens, have the effect of attracting thence a minute portion of that electrical matter with which the clouds are charged, so as to be productive of something like a galvanic stream, to vivify and stimulate the dull brain that fills the skull, lying on the pillow directly beneath, to so great an extent that it shall emit bright and lively coruscations, that otherwise never could have been elicited from it? We are quite willing to allow that we have been somewhat surprised at our own occasional moments of brilliancy, and we hope we are at least too honest to attribute these to anything else but the true scientific cause.

The course of the Teviot is longer than that of any of the other tributaries of the Tweed. It is, moreover, an extremely beautiful stream, and it is fed by a number of smaller ones, the more important of which we shall notice in the progress of our description. It has its source at Teviot Stone, on the heights dividing Roxburghshire from Dumfriesshire, and it runs down through its own dale to join the Tweed above Kelso, giving to the district the name of Teviotdale, or, much more commonly with the careless vulgar, Tividale. That part of it which extends from Hawick upwards embraces a portion of the great line of road to Carlisle, which is afterwards carried through Langholm and Longtown, passing Johnny Armstrong's picturesque tower of Gilnockie, and through a range of scenery, which, partaking partly both of the wildness of that of Scotland, and the richness of that of England, is hardly to be surpassed for beauty by that of any part of either of the two countries.

It happened to us, yesterday, that in the course of a visit to an old friend of ours, an extensive farmer in this our county of East Lothian, he showed us some enormous horns, which must have been borne by a species of deer much larger than our red deer now existing in the Highlands. They were dug up from a low bottom in one of his fields, in the course of draining a swamp of so treacherous a nature, that all sorts of cattle venturing into it were sure to be sucked down, buried up, and suffocated; proving that the accumulation of the bones and horns of deer which were found here must have taken place from a succession of similar accidents which had occasionally

VOL. XIV,-CLXVII.

In later times, when the animal man had multiplied considerably, so as to fill these valleys with a pretty tolerable sprinkling of population, and when human passions, unrestrained, began to act and to produce wondrous scenes, tragedies, and deadly conflicts, Teviotdale must have had its own share of them. And, again, when aggressive force began to be less applied between neighbours reciprocally than directed against the common enemy of England, few of the passes between the two countries afforded so easy an access from one to the other, for predatory purposes. It would appear, however, that, for some time at least, it was more used by the English for carrying raids into Teviotdale, and Scotland generally, than by the Scots for harrying England.

In the reign of James the First, the one-half of the lands of Branxholm belonged to Sir Thomas Inglis, who appears to have been a peaceable man, but little fitted for the times in which he lived. This gentleman happening to meet with Sir William Scott of Buccleuch, the chief of the name, who then possessed the estate of Murdieston, in Lanarkshire, which at this moment belongs to Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, Inglis expressed himself in strong terms of envy for the quiet repose which the proprietor of a low country property, such as Scott's, far from the immediate Border, must enjoy, whilst he at Branxholm could hardly dare to lie down to sleep, or if he did, he must do so in his boots and shirt of mail, so as to be at all times ready to resist the English marauders who came to clear his byres of their inmates. "What say you to an exchange of our two estates?" demanded Scott, abruptly. "I like that dry hill country much better than this stretch of wet clay." "If you are really serious," said Inglis, "I, for my part, have not the least objection." To the bargain they went then, and the result was, that, in a very short time, Sir Thomas Inglis, to his great satisfaction, saw him

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