ew Testament into poetry, figures on the list of benefices, and
well nourished with fat prebendaryships, seats itself on an episcopal
throne, or a chair of the Academy, founded by one of its children.

It was in the transition period between the sixteenth and eighteenth
centuries that appeared those two lofty geniuses, whom each of the
nations amongst which they lived opposed to one another in their
struggles of literary rivalry. Moliere and Shakespeare, those
illustrious Bohemians, whose fate was too nearly akin.

The most celebrated names of the literature of the eighteenth century
are also to be found in the archives of Bohemia, which, amongst the
glorious ones of this epoch, can cite Jean Jacques Rousseau and
d'Alembert, the foundling of the porch of Notre Dame, and amongst the
obscure, Malfilatre and Gilbert, two overrated reputations, for the
inspiration of the one was but a faint reflection of the weak lyricism
of Jean Baptiste Rousseau, and the inspiration of the other but the
blending of proud impotence with a hatred which had not even the excuse
of initiative and sincerity, since it was only the paid instrument of
party rancour.

We close with this epoch this brief summary of Bohemia in different
ages, a prolegomena besprinkled with illustrious names that we have
purposely placed at the beginning of this work, to put the reader on his
guard against any misapplication he might fall into on encountering the
title of Bohemians; long bestowed upon classes from which those whose
manners and language we have striven to depict hold it an honor to
differ.

Today, as of old, every man who enters on an artistic career, without
any other means of livelihood than his art itself, will be forced to
walk in the paths of Bohemia. The greater number of our contemporaries
who display the noblest blazonry of art have been Bohemians, and amidst
their calm and prosperous glory they often recall, perhaps with regret,
the time when, climbing the verdant slope of youth, they had no other
fortune in the sunshine of their twenty years than courage, which is the
virtue of the young, and hope, which is the wealth of the poor.

For the uneasy reader, for the timorous citizen, for all those for whom
an "i" can never be too plainly dotted in definition, we repeat as an
axiom: "Bohemia is a stage in artistic life; it is the preface to the
Academy, the Hotel Dieu, or the Morgue."

We will add that Bohemia only exists and is only possibl