is a florin (1s. 8d.), and at thirty and forty, two florins-a rule also violated; for that coin is always rejected as degradingly small. At roulette the highest stake allowed is six Louis for the numbers and 4,000 francs for the other departments; for rouge et noir, 6,000 francs. On the whole, taking these regulations into consideration, I would say that they were framed in a spirit ungenerously hostile to King Benazet, and almost suspicious of that potentate. Strange to say, it was difficult to get a glimpse of this secret and mysterious power. King Benazet kept himself shrouded, like a veiled prophet. Surely it would be supposed that such a monarch would be digito monstrari ad nauseam―he would be the lion; and yet I can see the feeling towards him is hostile. I was almost shocked when on asking a lady who sold cartes de visite down in the pretty little alley, which may be called Baden Vanity Fair"-she replied pertly, and with a curl of her lip, in disparagement, "C'est n'est pas un grand homme ça. I respectfully dissent from that view. What a deal there is in a name. At home there are people who, in their coarse way, would call this illustrious man the keeper of a hell. Here this keeper of a hell, if it must be so, has a lovely palace of a villathe Villa Benazet. Here this keeper of a hell gives parties, the most delightful soirees and balls, to choice artistic guests. To him comes on a visit Viardot Garcia, the incomparable, and gives bits of "Orfeo" to delighted audiences. To him comes the Italian artists on furlough-to play at his opera house, it is said, Franco, and in return are entertained sumptuously. He is not so bad, this hell-keeper, after all. In alliance with him is King Girardin, late of The Presse, whose Villa Girardin is pointed out to all strangers. He has reunions toowitty, artistic, brilliant. In short, it is a gay kingdom, and we must not look this gift horse-the Arabian they call Benazet-too closely in the mouth. The offices of piety are not neglected at this little depôt of dice and cards. High up, on the side of the hill, with its porch actually appearing to be on the roofs of the houses below, is the cathedral; and here of a Sunday, as we pass by, we can hear a rich, old organ, trumpeting, swelling, rising, and falling, within. Hither do the honest Baden agricultural men and women repair-rough, rude, figures, racing if farming-earrings in the men's earsutterly uninfected by the polite plague raging below;-most honest, faithful, sturdy, and devout children of labour, whom I see reading their prayers earnestly from books. A quaint, old electoral sort of interior, with the tombs, grand-ducal, scattered all about, in corners and nooks; each conceived in the oldfashioned, windy flamboyancy-the luxuriance of gilt scroll-work and flowing drapery, which is not unwelcome to the eye. This little Cathedral, too, being built in a misty, rambling way, gives an artful idea of greater height and space in the recesses and galleries, from one of which our profane fiddlers and drummers, who have been busy the night before furnishing wicked music from their green alcove on the Prado, are now joining melodiously in one of Hummel's best masses. These men are the very Swiss of musicians-as the latter had their swords ready always for "argent," so do the former proffer their bows and fiddles with the strictest impartiality. Church, gambling rooms, theatre, and ball-it is all one to them. Money is king here. Baden Sundays are very gay festivals, especially when it is a festival Sunday. For then flock in from all points, the strangest, wildest, and most motley miscellany that can be conceived. The opera chooses its best piece, and its best men and women. The orchestra scrape less mechanically, and much as though the director had inserted a key somewhere under the shoulderblade of each performer, and wound him up with half a dozen turns. Whitecoated Austrian officers, with storkshaped legs, and spectacles on, move about in pairs, saluting everybody with laborious and overdone salaams. There are Prussian officers meandering in pairs also, whose flat epaulettes look so old-fashioned, and who salute the Austrians when they meet. It is the reign of universal salaams. Little cadets are only too happy to have the opportunity, and assert their quality by saluting officers, policemen-every body that is salutable. The music is exquisite if it be a Prussian band, and if they are playing that wonderful musical entanglement, called the "Tannhäuser Overture," that mass of sweets and sours-of melody and discord-of method and extravagance, which divides all Germany as though it were a political faith. Something of this party spirit is to be seen on this very night; for a knot of men gathers round the kiosk in a knot, and when the overture is done, burst into a laboured applause very much akin to that of the Claque. Some of these gala nights at times end disastrously. Huge vaporous clouds, charged with waterspouts, are always lying in wait over the Baden lieges, and burst upon them without a second's warning. One soft Sunday night, about ten, the walks are crowded. The dresses are gay, and the music is just finishing. Café is in full work. Suddenly a few warning drops, heavy as molten lead, give a short notice. The crowd is scattered in an instant. Some have swooped down upon a few cabs waiting at the gate; some, blessed in umbrellas, rush home frantically under that shelter. Such panic, such rout, such scudding with a reckless regard to the decencies of fashion, cannot be conceived. But some, too late for the cabs, too improvident to have thought of umbrellas, retire to dry land and huddle together under the yellow porch of King Roulette. They seem like mariners upon an island, and they look out ruefully upon the smooth promenade, fast filling into an ocean. The rain is descending in broad flat sheets. It falls on the ground with a loud dull palpable swish, that makes all feel rueful at heart. Far as the eye can see the horizon is cleared of human beings, save, perhaps, of one luckless wretch seen flying for his life. The shipwrecked ones, huddled together on the island, look out more and more dismally, and see no hope. These happy hunting grounds are enclosed within gates and railings, with avenues and walks, which the wheel of cab or carriage is not permitted to mark. Such assistance therefore as takes the shape of cabs may be seen afar off out in the heavy rain, like boats that may not come in close to shore. The water between is by this time like a shining pond, and the shipwrecked ones huddle together yet more closely upon their island. It is the most dismal prospect in the world. An hour passes away; King Roulette's palace is shut up. Lamps all about the garden are put out one by one. We should be all in sheer darkness on our island, but for the charity of the Administration, who kindly allow a lamp or two to remain under the porch. other hour and no relief. There was something almost ludicrous in our distress. At times, some one or two, chafed to desperation by the delay, and seeing no hope, would make a desperate plunge, in the hope of reaching the boats; and bending down his head, would plunge recklessly into the wet. He was seen buffeting, as it were, with the terrific rain; but before being pulled on board, discovered too late, that he might, for all practical purposes, have swam all the way home. Another hour! Things began to look desperate. An It was not absolutely until past one in the morning that the rains began to abate a little, when there set in a desperate sauve qui peut. A King for an Hour, 592, 630. A Neglected Biography; Life of the "Un- Autobiographical MS., A Passage from an, 564. Baden Vanity Fair.__I., The Fair; II., The Company; III., The Players; IV., The Play; V., Rouge Gagne, 702. Biographies and Personal Sketches of Leonidas Polk, the Southern SoldierBishop; Generals Lee, Longstreet, "Stonewall" Jackson, and Beauregard; of President Davis, 112 and 214. Of General Garibaldi and Cavour, 483. Of Charles Knight, 456. Of Wilks and Dogget, Irish Actors, 310 and 513. Of George Sand and Alphonse Karr, 494 and 321. Of Dr. Dodd, 257 and 385. Of Lord Lyndhurst, 123. Of Paul Feval, 226. Biography, Felon; Review of "Prison Ma tron's" "Memoirs of Jane Cameron," 440. Bishops' Incomes-Are they too high in Ireland? 377. Caprera, Interior of Garibaldi's House described, 485, 486. Cavour, Victor Emmanuel, and Garibaldi, remarkable interview between, previous to the French War in Lombardy, 487. Centuries-Two Half Centuries of the Light Literature of France, 243. Century, Half a, of Literary Recollections, 456. Clubs, The, of Dublin, 12. Comedy, The Old Italian, 67. Confederacy, Etchings of the, 214. Congregationalism" fatal to the Irish Church, 363, 379. Constitutional Principles, Garibaldi's constant adherence to, 483. Convent and Monastic Schools, Irish, Grants to, 603-619. Corsica, Story of Theodore of, Part the First, 592; Part the Second, 630. Court of Frederic William-Third Excursion in the Grand Tour, 197. Court of Saxony, The, 549. Critics, The Pulpit and its, 77. Customs, Curious, of the Danish People, 344. Cymric Literature in the Middle Ages, 303. Dante, Notes on, 504. Demoniac Ideals in Poetry, 29. 79. Estimates, The, for 1864-5, for Irish National Education, and how constructed, 608. Etchings of the Southern American Confederacy, 214. FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF IRELAND, The :Mananan, Son of Lir; King Cormac's Trials; Cliona of Munster; Finvar, the Fairy King of Connaught; The Pooka of Murroe; The Banshee of the O'Briens; The Black Cattle of Durzy Island; The Silkie Wife; The Avenging Wave; the The Fairy-Cure; The Fairy-stricken Servant; The recovered Bride; The Love Philtre page 640. Falstaff's Wake; a Dramatic Sketch, by Female Felon Biography, 440. 483. George Sand, Madame, Early Opinions of, 494. Grand Tour, The; Fourth Excursion.-The Grape and the Star, The, A Poem, 338. Ideals in Poetry, Demoniac, 29. In Church: A Poem, 470. Irish Church: Her "Reformers" and her Foes, 363. Irish, Magic of the Ancient, 148. Irish Magic in the days of Cormac, 424. Irish Literature-The Last Sighs of a Celtic Storm, 94. Italian Comedy, The Old; or, Harlequin and Scaramouch, 67. King for an Hour, A, 592; Second Partconclusion, 630. Lansdowne, Marquis of: strong Speech in favour of the Irish Church, 365. Legends, Curious Danish, 344. Léon Gozlan-A Word about his Life and Writings, 673. Life of Laurence Sterne, Fitzgerald's, reviewed, 328. LITERATURE-French, 321; Cymric, in Middle Ages, 303; Scottish and Irish, 94. |