od
that it was cancelled when, in a community founded upon equality and
fraternity, he raised another edifice to crown it, a sort of working
model as an example to the world, but _limited_. And down went
democracy without a sound.

This working model was a superior community which was established at
the Breton home of the Countess de Vassart, a large stone house in the
hamlet of Paradise, in Morbihan.

An intimation from the Tuileries interrupted a meeting of the council
at the house in Paradise; an arrest was threatened--that of Professor
Reclus--and the indignant young Countess was requested to retire to
her chateau of La Trappe. She obeyed, but invited her guests to
accompany her. Among those who accepted was Buckhurst.

About this time the government began to take a serious interest in
John Buckhurst. On the secret staff of the Imperial Military Police
were always certain foreigners--among others, myself and a young man
named James Speed; and Colonel Jarras had already decided to employ us
in watching Buckhurst, when war came on France like a bolt from the
blue, giving the men of the Secret Service all they could attend to.

In the shameful indecision and confusion attending the first few days
after the declaration of war against Prussia, Buckhurst slipped
through our fingers, and I, for one, did not expect to hear of him
again. But I did not begin to know John Buckhurst, for, within three
days after he had avoided an encounter with us, Buckhurst was believed
to have committed one of the most celebrated crimes of the century.

The secret history of that unhappy war will never be fully written.
Prince Bismarck has let the only remaining cat out of the bag; the
other cats are dead. Nor will all the strange secrets of the Tuileries
ever be brought to light, fortunately.

Still, at this time, there is no reason why it should not be generally
known that the crown jewels of France were menaced from the very first
by a conspiracy so alarming and apparently so irresistible that the
Emperor himself believed, even in the beginning of the fatal campaign,
that it might be necessary to send the crown jewels of France to the
Bank of England for safety.

On the 19th of July, the day that war was declared, certain of the
crown jewels, kept temporarily at the palace of the Tuileries, were
sent under heavy guards to the Bank of France. Every precaution was
taken; yet the great diamond crucifix of Louis XI. was missing when
t