ced from his inner shop--where it had been lying among the
walking-sticks and umbrellas--a real demon of a sword, adorned with
fleurs-de-lys, a genuine royal relic. It was the sword of
Philippe-Auguste as worn by an actor at the _Odeon_ when _Agnes de
Meranie_ was being performed in 1846. Guinardon held it point downwards,
as though it were a cross, clasping his hands piously on the cross-bar.
He looked as loyal as the sword itself.

"Have her for your exhibition," said he. "The damsel is well worth it.
Bouvines is her name."

"If I find a buyer for it," said Monsieur Le True de Ruffec, twirling
his enormous moustachios, "I suppose you will allow me a little
commission?"

Some days later, Pere Guinardon was mysteriously displaying a picture to
the Comte Desmaisons and Monsieur Blancmesnil. It was a newly discovered
work of El Greco, an amazingly fine example of the Master's later style.
It represented a Saint Francis of Assisi standing erect upon Mont
Alverno. He was mounting heavenward like a column of smoke, and was
plunging into the regions of the clouds a monstrously narrow head that
the distance rendered smaller still. In fine it was a real, very real,
nay, too real El Greco. The two collectors were attentively
scrutinizing the work, while Pere Guinardon was belauding the depth of
the shadows and the sublimity of the expression. He was raising his arms
aloft to convey an idea of the greatness of Theotocopuli, who derived
from Tintoretto, whom, however, he surpassed in loftiness by a hundred
cubits.

"He was chaste and pure and strong; a mystic, a visionary."

Comte Desmaisons declared that El Greco was his favourite painter. In
his inmost heart Blancmesnil was not so entirely struck with it.

The door opened, and Monsieur Gaetan quite unexpectedly appeared on the
scene.

He gave a glance at the Saint Francis, and said:

"Bless my soul!"

Monsieur Blancmesnil, anxious to improve his knowledge, asked him what
he thought of this artist who was now so much in vogue. Gaetan replied,
glibly enough, that he did not regard El Greco as the eccentric, the
madman that people used to take him for. It was rather his opinion that
a defect of vision from which Theotocopuli suffered compelled him to
deform his figures.

"Being afflicted with astigmatism and strabismus," Gaetan went on, "he
painted the things he saw exactly as he used to see them."

Comte Desmaisons was not readily disposed to accept so natural an
ex