Senate, informed of these events," says Polybius, "immediately ordered the consul Quintus Opimius to take a sufficient army and proceed to chastise the insoleut barbarians. He led his forces against the city where the deputies of the Roman people had been insulted, took it by assault, reduced the inhabitants to slavery, and sent the authors of the insults in' chains to Rome; and then proceeded not only to ravage the country of the Oxibians, but of the Deceates, Suelteri, and other neighboring tribes."

Ilere too, on the adjacent plain of Laval, two hundred years later, and when all Liguria had become a Roman possession, is said to have occurred the great wager of battle between Otho and Vitellius for the imperial throne. Whether it was on the plain of Laval, at the foot of the Esterels, or on the eastern side of the Cap La Garoupe near the river Var, about which the Archæolo gists dispute, makes no difference to us, since from our look-out both plains are equally visible.

But that great fabric, built out of the spoliations of the nations by brute force and human cunning, known in history as the Roman Empire, in due time went the way of all other creations of mere human selfishness and rapine, overthrown and self-consumed by force of the very principle of its own creation; and there appeared here at Cannes, about the middle of the fifth century of our era, an ambassador of another Power representing utterly antagonistic principles. The legend says, he called himself Andronic, and was believed to be the son of the Mussulman King of Hungary, Andrioc, converted to Christianity by a miracle and the instructions of St. Capraise, who in baptizing him gave him the name of Honorat. St. Hilaire, who was his disciple, and who preached his funeral sermon, says he was a man great by his Christian virtues as well as by his learning and wisdom. He removed to Cannes from a grotto in the Esterel mountains still known as St. Beaume, driven from his hermitage by the too great multitude of his venerators. At this epoch the neighboring islands of St. Marguerite and St.

Honorat were entirely desert. St. Hilaire says, "they were infested with by such a multitude of venemous serpents, and such was the desolation and fearful aspect of the place that, not even the most courageous dared to set foot upon them. But when St. Honorat approached them, these troops of serpents retired before him. He built here, on the island which now bears his name, a monastery which in the sixth century was the most celebrated of the Christian world. He and the Abbots of St. Honorat subsequently became the feudal lords not only of these Islands, but of Cannes and all the surrounding country. In this monastery were educated many of the most renowned bishops and saints of the early Church, and amongst the rest St. Patrick. Hence doubtless his skill at expelling reptiles, which enabled him, according to the legend, to drive them out of Ireland. At all events, if you will take the trouble to visit the ruins of the old church, which is said to occupy the very ground of St. Honorat's monastery, you may see a piece of broken frieze upon which is sculptured the figures of a man and two snakes; and the goodnatured young monk who shows them to you, will give you the assurance that it signifies St. Patrick chasing the serpents out of the Emerald Isle.

But the history of Cannes and of les Isles de Lerin, authentic and legendary for whoever has the taste, is enough to furnish a whole winter's entertainment. And for this purpose one may consult an interesting little volume of Monsieur A. L. SARDAU, entitled "Notice Historique sur Cannes et les Isles de Lerin,” or the two large quartos of Monsieur l'Abbe ALLIEZ, or both.

From our mountain look-out, even with the naked eye, one can see very distinctly the outlines of the strong fortress built by Cardinal Richelieu, on the northwestern shore of the Island of St. Marguerite. That was during the latter part of the Thirty Years' war, about 1632. After having been taken by the Spaniards and retaken by the French, it was remodelled and repaired by the famous engineer Vauban, and after the revoca

tion of the edict of Nantes its dungeons became the prison of many distinguished Protestants, guilty of not wishing to belie their consciences and abjure their faith.

It was into one of the bombproofs of this fortress that, on the 30th day of April, 1687, a man was introduced by Monsieur de SAINT MARS. He had conducted him from Pignerol in Piedmont, then a province of France, where he had been incarcerated since 1662. This prisoner wore upon his face, night and day, a mask of black velvet fastened upon bands of copper, and so constructed as to permit of the free use of the mouth. The furniture of his prison was of the most sumptuous description. The ves

sels of his toilette and of his table were of silver, and Saint Mars, who served him with his food, never presumed to sit in his presence. The order was to kill him the moment he uncovered his face.

The fame of this prisoner has gone through all the countries of the world, as "THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK."

One day the prisoner wrote upon a silver plate with the point of his knife, and threw it out of his window towards a fisherman's boat that lay just under the wall of his prison. The fisherman picked it up and carried it to the governor of the fortress, St. Mars. He took it, greatly astonished, and asking the fisherman if he had read what was written upon it; and upon his replying that he did not know how to read, he had him held in custody until he had the most positive proof of that fact, and that the plate had been seen by no one else; he then dismissed him, saying, "You are a fortunate fellow in not knowing how to read." Immediately after this occurrence the governor had fastened into the thick walls (about twelve feet thick), outside of the one window of his prison, a triple network of strong iron bars. They are still to be seen there, half consumed by rust.

No demand of the prisoner, possible to supply, was refused him. He had the greatest fondness, amounting to a kind of mania, for the finest linen and laces. The fact is well known that,

at the request of Madame de Saint Mars, Madame le Bret, her intimate friend, busied herself at Paris in choosing the finest linens and most beautiful laces, which were sent to him in his prison.

One day a frater saw something white floating on the water, under the window of his prison. He crept around the foot of the wall, and drew it up, and carried it to St. Mars. It was very tightly folded up. St. Mars unfolded it, and found it to be a fine linen shirt, upon which the prisoner had written from end to end. With an air of great concern, he asked the frater if he had had the curiosity to read what was written upon the shirt. The latter protested many times that he had read nothing. Nevertheless, two days after he was found dead in his bed.

At another time he demanded that they should bring a woman to live with him in his prison. A woman of Mongins was found willing, for the price offered, which was a fortune for her poor children. But when she was about entering the door of the prison, she was told she was never to come out, or see again her children, or to have any relation with any other human being. She refused to be shut up with a prisoner whose acquaintance cost so dear.

At one time the arrogant minister of Louis XIV., the infamous Duke du Louvois, came to see the prisoner, and it was observed that he stood up in his presence, and spoke to him with great respect and humility.

In September, 1698, the prisoner was transferred, still under the conduct of St. Mars, to the Bastile, in Paris, where, as one may still read in the journal of Monsieur du Jonca, the king's lieutenant of the Bastile, "he died suddenly, on the 19th of November, 1703, at four o'clock P. M." "Surprised by death," says the lieutenant, "he was not. able to receive the sacraments, but our almoner exhorted him a moment before he died." In the night after his decease, they buried him in the cemetery of the parish of St. Paul's, under the name of Marchiali, aged about 49 years. On

the morrow of his interment, a person bribed the grave-digger to uncover the body, thinking to get a view of the unmasked face, as the faces of the dead are usually unmasked. They found, in the place of the head, a large stone.

"The old surgeon of the Bastile," says Voltaire, "told me that he had often seen the tongue of this unknown, but never his face: he was a person admirably well made, with a slightly brown skin, and a most engaging voice. He never complained of his condition."

When the people of Paris took the Bastile, in July, 1789, upon examining its register, it was found that the leaf corresponding to the year 1698, the year of his entrance there, had been cut out.

And who was "THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK?" Many volumes have been filled with conjectures, in which the names of men of many countries and various conditions, and some women, too, have figured-the Duke of Beaufort, for instance, surnamed "King of the Halles," who was the natural son of Cæsar de Vendôme, the natural son of Henry IV., by Gabrielle d'Estrées. But, at the defence of Candie, in 1669, the Turks took this King of the Halles, cut off his head and sent it to Constantinople. The Duke of Monmouth was another. But well-authenticated state records prove that the blessed King James had him publicly executed in the city of London, in 1685.

Mathioli, secretary of the Duke of Mantua, was another. And an old physician of Cannes, who was called to visit him professionally, in his prison at St. Marguerite, declared that "The Man in the Iron Mask was a woman; that he knew it by the feeling of his pulse.

Whoever he was, it is quite evident that that old fox, Cardinal Richelieu, and the powers he served himself with, did not wish to have his face seen. Nor did he deem it expedient to conceal it at once and forever in the grave; it served him better to keep it as a menace for his enemies.

In "an addition of the editor" to the works of Voltaire, published in 1771,

and, consequently, while he, Voltaire, was still living, and which “addition" the learned bibliographer, Beuchot, ascribes to Voltaire himself, it is written: "The Man in the Iron Mask was, without doubt, the son of Anne of Austria, and consequently the brother of Louis XIV., but not the son of Louis XIII., her husband,"

Whoever would know the whole argument may consult the said "addition of the editor" in the published works of Voltaire, or by a shorter cut may read in a letter of Benjamin Franklin, written while he was ambassador at the court of Versailles, to John Jay, as follows:

Yesterday I had a conversation with the Duke de Richelieu. He seems favorably disposed towards our cause. I flattered him very much in speaking of the administration of his glorious relative, the Cardinal de Richelieu. I took advantage of this occasion to ask him if he was ignorant as to who the Man in the Iron Mask was, since it was quite evident that he must have been born during the administration of the cardinal. My interlocutor at first took an air of great mystery; then, telling me that the matter in question was a secret of state, he revealed to me what follows, and which, without fear, I confide to you.

The Iron Mask was a child of Anne of Aus

tria, and probably the Duke of Buckingham was his father. The queen, having no one in whom she dared confide, threw herself into the arms of her enemy, the cardinal, who arranged every thing, so as to hide the affair from the king. It was this event which determined Richelieu to bring the king and the queen together-the latter, up to this time, having been considered barren; thence the birth of Louis XIV. and of Monsieur.

The

illegitimate child, at first confided to Madame Motteville, was, after the death of Richelieu, taken away from her by Mazarin, who, from the age of sixteen years until his death, kept him shut up in prison. The resemblance of the captive to Louis XIV. was astonishing; and thence the mask they made him wear. They wished to avoid political complications

as well as to hide the weakness of Anne of Austria.

The story runs that Louis XIV. only knew of the existence of this elder brother from Cardinal Mazarin at the hour of his death, and that when near his own end he confided the secret to the Regent d'Orleans, from whose daughter, Mlle. de Vallois, afterwards Duchess of Mode

na, the Duke de Richelieu obtained it at a period when he was her lover.

But our space here will not suffice for further entertainment over the chronicles of Cannes and its islands of St. Honorat and St. Marguerite. Nor are these by any means more interesting than those of the other old cities of the Mediterranean coast before us. Take, for instance, that old town of Antibes, Antipolis, Phocian colony of Marseilles, some hundreds of years before Christ. You might fill a volume with its lore. If you chance to go there, by the side of one of its old churches you may find two Roman towers, and upon a stone built into the wall of one of them the following inscription:

DOM.

PVERI SEPTEN-
TRIONIS AN XII

QVI ANTIPOLI

IN THEATRO BIDVO

PLACVIT ET SALTAVIT

"To the shades of the child Septentrionus, aged 12 years, who appeared two days at the theatre of Antibes and danced and pleased."

"Evidently," says Michelet, "one of the slaves, bred up to be let out at a great price to the purveyors to the public spectacles of the Romans, and who perished a victim to the barbarism of Roman tastes." "I know nothing more tragic in its brevity than this inscription, nothing that makes one feel more sensibly the hardness of the Roman World." "Appeared two days at the theatre of Antibes, danced and pleased.' Not a regret! only the expression of a destiny fulfilled." The singularity is that they should have set up the inscription. But the Romans often built tombs for their broken toys. Nero built a monument to the manes of a crystal

late to you a page from M. Thiers' Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire:

"At a given signal, and to the booming of cannon, the tricolor was given to the wind on board all the vessels. Each soldier took his tricolored cockade, and lowering the ships' boats, made for the shore.

At five o'clock the debarcation was finished. The eleven hundred men, with four pieces of cannon and their baggage, were safely landed and had established their bivouac in an olive orchard, near the road leading from Antibes to Cannes. At first the inhabitants, sexing several vessels full of men firing cannon, believed that it was an attack of pirates on their little fleet of fishing boats, and were greatly frightened. But soon, better informed, moved by curiosity they ran together in crowds, but pronounced neither for nor against the movement, for the populations of the coast were not in general in favor of the Empire, which had cost fifteen years of maritime warfare. Napoleon sent Cambronne with an advanced guard to Cannes to order supplies and buy horses, and as he wished to attract and not to drive from him the people, he ordered every thing to be paid for in cash.

"Towards evening, in pursuance of an order he had given to stop all travellers passing on the road, they conducted to his bivouac the Prince of Monaco, who, like so many others at that time, had gone over to the Restoration. caused him to be set at liberty immediately, and receiving him gayly, asked him which way he travelled.

He

"I am going home,' said the Prince. "And I also,' said Napoleon, and wishing his fellow-sovereign of Monaco a good voyage, dismissed him."

And at midnight, following Cambronne, who had preceded him with a detachment of a hundred men, he set out upon that remarkable journey, which did indeed conduct him to his last home on that far-off Island of St. Helena.

From the little granite pillar that marks the spot where Napoleon I., with his heart so full of a wild arrogance and hope, passed the night of March 1st, 1815, to our old chateau, it is but a walk

of a few minutes, and yet ten to one, if we go by the main road, we shall be met, even away here on these remote mountain sides, by one of the most hateful forms of the existing state of things in France. It consists of two big, moustached gens d'armes, on horseback, who, with swords by their sides and great bear-skin caps on their heads, ride with pompous leisure, through the country, with an air of assured and imperturbable mastership, the exact counterpart of that which keeps its imperial watch over the ruins of human freedom in the capital of the Empire. But as we pass them, the jocund waves of the sea leap into the embraces of the verdant sunny shores, with a shout of derisive laughter, and the hateful vision of Imperialism with all its blinding glare vanishes into thin air, and,

Like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leaves not a rack behind.

It may be, that to many people these shores of the Golfe de Jouan, with all the aroma of their lore as well as of their orange-blossoms and violets, may seem very far-fetched-and not worth the cost of the journey necessary to reach them. But as I am about finishing this too long and rambling account, a letter comes to me from a friend in Paris, bearing date the very last of May, and telling me that a New York gentleman who has just returned from the Golfe de Jouan, declares that the "spring is still more beautiful there, than the winter; that the flower-harvest is at its prime; the peasants spread over all the country gather the orange-blossoms and other flowers, singing in chorus from morning till night the songs of the country-of the Old Troubadours." "He ceases not to repeat," says my letter, "that it is truly a FAIRY-LAND."

EDMOND ABOUT, in that quaint conceit of his, "The Man with the Broken Ear,"* resuscitates the mummy of a Colonel of the first Napoleon's army, and, with an art peculiar to himself, shows us what impression the present Empire would make upon a man who had lived and participated in that Empire which it professes to imitate. The likeness is hardly recognizable, as may be supposed. There is a double, and a very marked, contrast between the two: instead of martial glory, the second Empire has been almost without interruption a peace-seeking power; and instead of interior misery, the torpor of trade, and the frightful exhaustion which France exhibited during the earlier Bonapartist régime, there has been, during the later one, an almost constant and a visibly increasing prosperity. There is no doubt that, when the present Empire arose, the French people,

Recently translated with spirit for American readers by Henry Holt, Esq., and published by Leypoldt & Holt.

wearied with Bourbon bigotry, contemptuous of Orleanist formalism, and disgusted with Republican utopianism, looked forward with enthusiasm to a reproduction of the splendid era of Napoleon Bonaparte. The new Emperor himself encouraged that feeling; and the neighboring nations of Europe looked with great misgiving upon his success. He would, he said, complete the imperial edifice which Napoleon I. had left half finished, and which the Restoration and the two Revolutions had only half hidden, not destroyed. France should once more be the leader and the guide of European civilization; the treaties of 1815 should be destroyed; there would now be something for France to do, well worthy of her genius. To extend her dominion to the Rhine, the German Ocean, and the Alps; to render her defences impregnable; to dictate peace and war, treaties and concessions, to other nations-these were said to be the alpha and the omega of the New Gospel of Napoleonism. All