aw. Her husband was drowned, and she
made still another marriage. She visited Australia, and at Melbourne she
had a fight with a strapping woman, who clawed her face until Lola
fell fainting to the ground. It is a squalid record of horse-whippings,
face-scratchings--in short, a rowdy life.

Her end was like that of Becky Sharp. In America she delivered lectures
which were written for her by a clergyman and which dealt with the art
of beauty. She had a temporary success; but soon she became quite
poor, and took to piety, professing to be a sort of piteous, penitent
Magdalen. In this role she made effective use of her beautiful dark
hair, her pallor, and her wonderful eyes. But the violence of her
disposition had wrecked her physically; and she died of paralysis in
Astoria, on Long Island, in 1861. Upon her grave in Greenwood Cemetery,
Brooklyn, there is a tablet to her memory, bearing the inscription:
"Mrs. Eliza Gilbert, born 1818, died 1861."

What can one say of a woman such as this? She had no morals, and her
manners were outrageous. The love she felt was the love of a she-wolf.
Fourteen biographies of her have been written, besides her own
autobiography, which was called The Story of a Penitent, and which tells
less about her than any of the other books. Her beauty was undeniable.
Her courage was the blended courage of the Celt, the Spaniard, and the
Moor. Yet all that one can say of her was said by the elder Dumas when
he declared that she was born to be the evil genius of every one who
cared for her. Her greatest fame comes from the fact that in less than
three years she overturned a kingdom and lost a king his throne.

LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON

The present French Republic has endured for over forty years. Within
that time it has produced just one man of extraordinary power and parts.
This was Leon Gambetta. Other men as remarkable as he were conspicuous
in French political life during the first few years of the republic;
but they belonged to an earlier generation, while Gambetta leaped
into prominence only when the empire fell, crashing down in ruin and
disaster.

It is still too early to form an accurate estimate of him as a
statesman. His friends praise him extravagantly. His enemies still
revile him bitterly. The period of his political career lasted for
little more than a decade, yet in that time it may be said that he
lived almost a life of fifty years. Only a short time ago did the Frenc