tify the police, who, until
applied to by you, have had no object in watching her movements. The
proof that the police are mistaken is the exactitude of the information
that they have given you. It is too much like the depositions of
witnesses in a criminal trial, who say: "Two years ago, at thirty-three
minutes and five seconds after nine o'clock in the evening, I met, in
the dark, a slender man, whose features I could not distinguish, who
wore olive-green pantaloons, with a brownish tinge." I am very much
afraid that your expedition into Burgundy will be of none avail, and
that, haggard-eyed and morose, you will drop in upon a quiet family
utterly amazed at your domiciliary visit.

My dear Prince, endeavor to recollect that you are not in India; the
manners of the Sunda Isles do not prevail here, and I feared from your
letter some desperate act which would put you in the power of your
friends, the police. In Europe we have professors of aesthetics,
Sanscrit, Slavonic, dancing and fencing, but professors of jealousy are
not authorized. There is no chair in the College of France for wild
beasts; lessons expressed in roarings and in blows from savage paws do
very well for the fabulous tiger city of Java legends. If you are
jealous, try to deprive your rival of the railroad grant which he was
about to obtain, or ruin him in his electoral college by spreading the
report that, in his youth, he had written a volume of sonnets. This is
constitutional revenge which will not bring you before the bar of
justice. The courts now-a-days are so tricky that they might give you
some trouble even for suppressing such an insipid fop as Leon de
Varezes. Tigers, whatever you may say, are bad instructors. With regard
to tigers, we only tolerate cats, and then they must have velvet paws.

These counsels of moderation addressed to you, I have profited by
myself, for, in another way, I have reached a fine degree of
exasperation. You suspect, of course, that Louise Guerin is at the
bottom of it, for a woman is always at the bottom of every man's
madness. She is the leaven that ferments all our worst passions.

Madame Taverneau set out for Rouen; I went to see Louise, my heart full
of joy and hope. I found her alone, and at first thought that the
evening would be decisive, for she blushed high on seeing me. But who
the deuce can count upon women! I left her the evening before, sweet,
gentle and confiding; I found her cold, stern, repelling an