ount and Countess Bruhl. This was a new triumph
that the count had prepared for himself; he wished his guests to see
the exclusive royal position he occupied. And no one could remain in
ignorance of this triumph, for from every part of the garden the royal
tent could be seen, being erected upon a slight eminence. It was like
a scene from fairyland. There were rushing cascades, beautiful marble
statues, arbors and bowers, in which were birds of every color from
every clime. Behind a group of trees was a lofty structure of the purest
marble, a shell, borne aloft by gigantic Tritons and mermaids, in which
there was room for fifty musicians, who were to fill the air with sweet
sounds, and never to become so loud as to weary the ear or disturb
conversation. If the tents, the rushing cascades, the rare flowers, the
many colored birds, were a beautiful sight by daylight, how much more
entrancing it would be at night, when illuminated by thousands of
brilliant lamps!

The count, having taken a last look at the arrangements and seen that
they were perfect, now retired to his rooms, and there, with the aid
of his twelve valets, he commenced his toilet. The countess had already
been in the hands of her Parisian coiffeur for some hours.

The count wore a suit of blue velvet. The price of embroidery in silver
and pearls on his coat would have furnished hundreds of wretched,
starving families with bread. His diamond shoe-buckles would almost have
sufficed to pay the army, which had gone unpaid for months. When his
toilet was finished, he entered his study to devote a few moments, at
least, to his public duties, and to read those letters which to-day's
post had brought him from all parts of the world, and which his
secretary was accustomed to place in his study at this hour. He took a
letter, broke the seal hastily, and skimming over it quickly, threw it
aside and opened another, to read anew the complaints, the prayers, the
flatteries, the assurances of love, of his correspondents. But none of
them were calculated to compel the minister's attention. He had long ago
hardened his heart against prayers and complaints; as for flattery, he
well knew that he had to pay for it with pensions, with position, with
titles, with orders, etc., etc. But it seemed as if the letters were
not all of the usual sort, for the expression of indifference which had
rested upon his countenance while reading the others, had vanished and
given place to one o