as too weak, for the victim began
to shriek before she gave up the ghost. Detection seemed imminent, so
Narcisse, in whom the quality of discretion was evidently predominant,
bolted at once and got out of the country. But the facts were absolutely
clear. The victim lived long enough to depose that Mademoiselle Sidonie
attacked her with the wood chopper, while Narcisse watched the door.
The advocate of Narcisse did his work like a man. He shed the regulation
measure of tears; he drew graphic pictures of the innocent youth of
Narcisse, of his rise to eminence, and of his filial piety as evidenced
by the frequent despatch of money and comestibles to his venerable
mother, who was still living near Bourges. Once a year, too, this
incomparable artist found time to renew his youth by a sojourn in the
simple cottage which saw his birth, and by embracing the giver of
his life. Was it possible that a man who treated one woman with such
devotion and reverence could take the life of another? He adduced
various and picturesque reasons to show that such an event must be
impossible, but the jury took the opposite view. Some one had to be
guillotined, and the intelligent jury decided that Paris could spare
Narcisse better than it could spare Mademoiselle Sidonie. I fear the
fact that he had deigned to sell his services to a brutal islander may
have helped them to come to this conclusion, but there were other and
more weighty reasons. Of the supreme excellence of Narcisse as an
artist the jury knew nothing, so they let him go hang--or worse--but
of Mademoiselle Sidonie they knew a good deal, and their knowledge, I
believe, is shared by certain English visitors to Paris. She is one of
the attractions of the Fantasies d'Arcadie, and her latest song, Bonjour
Coco, is sung and whistled in every capital of Europe; so the jury,
thrusting aside as mere pedantry the evidence of facts, set to work to
find some verdict which would not eclipse the gaiety of La Ville Lumiere
by cutting short the career of Mademoiselle Sidonie. The art of the chef
appealed to only a few, and he dies a mute, but by no means inglorious
martyr: the art of the chanteuse appeals to the million, the voice of
the many carries the day, and Narcisse must die."

"It is a revolting story," said Mrs. Gradinger, "and one possible only
in a corrupted and corrupting society. It is wonderful, as Sir John
remarks, how the conquering streams of tendency manifest themselves
even in an