D'Artagnan glanced at the paper, and in a sudden burst of

wrath crumpled it in his hand.

"What is the matter?" asked the prince.

"Read it, monseigneur," answered the musketeer.

And Philippe read these words, written hastily by the King himself:

"M. D'Artagnan will conduct the prisoner to the Îles SainteMarguerite. He will see that his face is covered with an iron

mask, which must never be lifted on pain of death."

"It is just," said Philippe; "I am ready."

"Aramis was right," whispered Fouquet to D'Artagnan, "this is as good a king as the other."

"Better," replied D'Artagnan; "he only needed you and me.”

A TRICK IS PLAYED ON HENRY III. BY AID OF CHICOT

THE

From The Lady of Monsoreau >

HE King and Chicot remained quiet and silent for the next ten minutes. Then suddenly the King sat up, and the noise he made roused Chicot, who was just dropping off to

sleep.

The two looked at each other with sparkling eyes. "What is it?" asked Chicot in a low voice.

"Do you hear that sighing sound?" replied the King in a lower voice still. "Listen!"

After a

As he spoke, one of the wax candles in the hand of the golden satyr went out; then a second, then a third. moment, the fourth went out also.

"Oh, oh!” cried Chicot, "that is more than a sighing sound." But he had hardly uttered the last word when in its turn the lamp was extinguished, and the room was in darkness, save for the flickering glow of the dying embers.

"Look out!" exclaimed Chicot, jumping up.

"He is going to speak," said the King, shrinking back into his bed.

"Then listen and let us hear what he says," replied Chicot, and at the same instant a voice which sounded at once both piercing and hollow, proceeded from the space between the bed and the wall.

"Hardened sinner, are you there?»

"Yes, yes, Lord," gasped Henri with chattering teeth.

"Dear me!" remarked Chicot, "that is a very hoarse voice to have come from heaven! I feel dreadfully frightened; but never mind!"

"Do you hear me? » asked the voice.

"Yes, Lord," stammered Henri; "and I bow before your anger."

"Do you think you are carrying out my will by performing all the mummeries you have taken part in to-day, while your heart is full of the things of this world?"

"Well said!" cried Chicot; "you touched him there!"

The King's hands shook as he clasped them, and Chicot went up to him.

"Well," murmured Henri, "are you convinced now?" "Wait a bit," answered Chicot.

"What do you want more?"

"Hush! listen to me. Creep softly out of bed, and let me take your place."

"Why?"

"Because then the anger of the Lord will fall first upon me.” "And do you think I shall escape?

"We will try, anyway;" and with affectionate persistence he pushed the King out of bed, and took his place.

"Now, Henri," he said, "go and lie on my sofa, and leave all to me."

Henri obeyed; he began to understand Chicot's plan.

"You are silent," continued the voice, "which proves that your heart is hardened.”

“Oh, pardon, pardon, Lord!" exclaimed Chicot, imitating the King's nasal twang. Then, stretching himself out of bed, he whispered to the King, "It is very odd, but the heavenly voice does not seem to know that it is Chicot who is speaking."

"Oh!" replied Henri, "what do you suppose is the meaning of that?"

"Don't be in a hurry; plenty of strange things will happen. yet!"

"Miserable creature that you are!" went on the voice.

"Yes, Lord, yes!" answered Chicot. "I am a horrible sinner, hardened in crime."

"Then confess your sins, and repent."

"I acknowledge," said Chicot, "that I dealt wickedly by my cousin Condé, whose wife I betrayed; and I repent bitterly."

"What is that you are saying?" cried the King. "There is no good in mentioning that. It has all been forgotten long ago."

"Oh, has it?" replied Chicot; "then we will pass on to something else."

"Answer," said the voice.

"I acknowledge," said the false Henri, "that I behaved like a thief toward the Poles, who had elected me their king, in stealing away to France one fine night, carrying with me all the crown jewels; and I repent bitterly."

"Idiot!" exclaimed Henri, "what are you talking about now? Nobody remembers anything about that."

"Let me alone," answered Chicot, "I must go on pretending to be the King."

"Speak," said the voice.

"I acknowledge," continued Chicot, "that I snatched the throne from my brother D'Alençon, who was the rightful heir, since I had formally renounced my claims when I was elected King of Poland; I repent bitterly."

"Rascal!" cried the King.

"There is yet something more," said the voice.

"I acknowledge to have plotted with my excellent mother, Catherine de' Medicis, to hunt from France my brother-in-law the King of Navarre, after first destroying all his friends, and my sister Queen Marguerite, after first destroying all her lovers; and I repent bitterly."

"Scoundrel! Cease!" muttered the King, his teeth clenched in anger.

Sire, it is no use trying to hide what Providence knows as well as we do."

"There is a crime unconfessed that has nothing to do with politics," said the voice.

“Ah, now we are getting to it," observed Chicot dolefully; "it is about my conduct, I suppose ? »

"It is," answered the voice.

"I cannot deny," continued Chicot, always speaking in the name of the King, "that I am very effeminate, very lazy; a hopeless trifler, an incorrigible hypocrite."

"It is true," said the voice.

"I have behaved ill to all women, to my own wife in particular; and such a good wife too."

"A man should love his wife as himself, and above all the world," cried the voice angrily.

"Oh dear!" wailed Chicot in despairing tones; "then I certainly have sinned terribly."

"And by your example you have caused others to sin." "That is true, sadly true."

"You very nearly sent that poor Saint-Luc to perdition." "Bah!" said Chicot, "are you sure I did not send him there quite?"

"No; but such a fate may befall both of you if you do not let him go back to his family at break of day."

"Dear me!" said Chicot to the King, "the voice seems to take a great interest in the house of Cossé."

"If you disobey me, you will suffer the same torments as Sardanapalus, Nabuchodnosor, and the Marshal De Retz."

Henry III. gave a loud groan; at this threat he became more frightened than ever.

"I am lost," he ejaculated wildly; "I am lost. That voice from on high will be my death-warrant."

5001

W

ALEXANDRE DUMAS, JUNIOR

(1824-1895)

BY FRANCISQUE SARCEY

E SHALL not say much about the life of Alexandre Dumas the younger. The history of a great writer is the history of his works. He was born in Paris, on July 27th, 1824. His name on the register of births appears as "Alexandre, son of Marie Catherine Lebay, seamstress." He was not acknowledged by his father until he had reached his sixth year, March 7th, 1830. I emphasize this particular because it had great influence on the bent of his genius. During all his life Dumas was haunted by a desire of rehabilitating illegitimate children, of creating a reaction against their treatment by the Civil Code and the prejudice which makes of them something little better than outcasts in society.

"When seven years old," he himself says, "I entered as a boarder the school of Monsieur Vauthier, on Rue Montagne Saint-Geneviève. Thence I passed, about two years later, to the Saint-Victor School; the principal was Monsieur Goubaux, a friend of my father, with whom he collaborated under the nom de plume of Dinaux. This school, which numbered two hundred and fifty boarding pupils, and with the rather strange habits which I tried to depict in The Clémenceau Case,' occupied all the ground covered to-day by the Casino de Paris and the 'Pôle-Nord' establishment. When about fifteen I left the Saint-Victor School for Monsieur Hénon's school, which was situated in the Rue de Courcelles and has now disappeared. It is in the Collège Bourbon (now the Lycée Condorcet) that I received all my instruction, as the pupils of the two schools where I lived attended the college classes. I never belonged to any of the higher State schools, I have not even the degree of bachelor."

At the end of his years of study he returned to his father. He did not stay there more than six months. The rather tumultuous life which he saw in the house disturbed his proud mind, already filled

with serious yearnings.

"You have debts," his father said to him. and you will pay them."

"Do as I do: work,

Such was indeed the young man's intention. His first work was a one-act play in verse, 'The Queen's Jewel,' which no one, assuredly,