r-stained old palace, looking down on Florence,
medieval and hazy, and across to the villa-dotted hills, he began one of
the most beautiful stories ever written, "The Personal Recollections of
Joan of Arc." He wrote in the first person, assuming the character of
Joan's secretary, Sieur Louis de Conte, who in his old age is telling the
great tale of the Maid of Orleans. It was Mark Twain's purpose, this
time, to publish anonymously. Walking the floor one day at Viviani, and
smoking vigorously, he said to Mrs. Clemens and Susy:

"I shall never be accepted seriously over my own signature. People
always want to laugh over what I write, and are disappointed if they
don't find a joke in it. This is to be a serious book. It means
more to me than anything else I have ever undertaken. I shall write
it anonymously."

So it was that the gentle Sieur de Conte took up the pen, and the tale of
Joan was begun in the ancient garden of Viviani, a setting appropriate to
its lovely form.

He wrote rapidly when once his plan was perfected and his material
arranged. The reading of his youth and manhood was now recalled, not
merely as reading, but as remembered reality. It was as if he were truly
the old Sieur de Conte, saturated with memories, pouring out the tender,
tragic tale. In six weeks he had written one hundred thousand words
--remarkable progress at any time, the more so when we consider that some
of the authorities he consulted were in a foreign tongue. He had always
more or less kept up his study of French, begun so long ago on the river,
and it stood him now in good stead. Still, it was never easy for him,
and the multitude of notes that still exist along the margin of his
French authorities show the magnitude of his work. Others of the family
went down into the city almost daily, but he stayed in the still garden
with Joan. Florence and its suburbs were full of delightful people, some
of them old friends. There were luncheons, dinners, teas, dances, and
the like always in progress, but he resisted most of these things,
preferring to remain the quaint old Sieur de Conte, following again the
banner of the Maid of Orleans marshaling her twilight armies across his
illumined page.

But the next spring, March, 1893, he was obliged to put aside the
manuscript and hurry to America again, fruitlessly, of course, for a
financial stress was on the land; the business of Webster & Co. was on
the down-grade--nothing could