int-Louis, and the following Sunday after high mass I posted myself
as before at the door of the organ loft, determined not to let go of
the sphinx until I had made him speak. But here again, disappointment!
Monsieur Jacques Bricheteau's place was taken by a pupil. The same thing
happened on the three following Sundays. On the fourth, I accosted the
pupil and asked him if the master were ill.

"No, monsieur," he replied. "Monsieur Bricheteau has asked for leave of
absence. He will be absent for some time; I believe on business."

"Where, then, can I write to him?"

"I don't rightly know; but I think you had better address your letter to
his house; not far from here, quai de Bethune."

"But he has moved; didn't you know it?"

"No, indeed; where does he live now?"

This was poor luck; to ask information of a man who asked it of me when
I questioned him. As if to put be quite beside myself while I was making
these inquiries, I saw that damned dwarf in the distance evidently
laughing at me.

Happily for my patience and my curiosity, which, under the pressure of
all this opposition was growing terrible, a certain amount of light was
given me. A few days after my last discomfiture, a letter reached me
bearing the post-mark Stockholm, Sweden; which address did not surprise
me because, while in Rome, I had been honored by the friendship of
Thorwaldsen, the great Swedish sculptor, and I had often met in his
studio many of his compatriots. Probably, therefore, this letter
conveyed an order from one of them, sent through Thorwaldsen. But, on
opening the letter what was my amazement, and my emotion, in presence of
its opening words:--

Monsieur my Son,--

The letter was long. I had no patience to read it until I knew the
name I bore. I turned to the signature; again my disappointment was
complete--there was no name!

Monsieur my Son,

said my anonymous father,--

I do not regret that by your passionate insistence on knowing the
secret of your birth, you have forced the person who has watched
over you from childhood to come here to confer with me as to the
course your vehement and dangerous curiosity requires us to
pursue.

For some time past, I have entertained a thought which I bring to
maturity to-day; the execution of which could have been more
satisfactorily settled by word of mouth than it can now be by
correspondence.

Immediately after your birth, which cost your mother's life, bein