financial success, is a problem yet to be solved. But its principles seem exceptionally good, and we wish it well.

ODDS AND ENDS:

FROM DR ROBERT CHAMBERS'S SCRAP-BOOK.

a

AN UNENVIABLE FATE.-Relations are sometimes a torture. I have heard of some terrible cases of this kind. Take the following, which I lately (1845) learned about in London. Miss Lwell-known poetess, had a silly and tyrannical mother. How difficult to believe that when the country was ringing with praises of the young lady's poem, the amiable authoress was dragged by the hair of the head by her mother to a garret, and there kept two days locked up, fed upon bread and water. Yet of this fact there can be no doubt. The tyranny of her mother obliged Miss L to go to live in a boarding-school, where it was that a distressing scandal overtook her. A quiet home, under the protection of a judicious and kind parent, would have saved her from this evil, the blight of her life. Miss L-educated a brother for the church. Of L.300 which she received for a popular novel, L.200 were spent at once in paying debts foolishly contracted by this young man to enable him to go to a curacy in the country. He had not been six months in office when he was arrested for a debt of L.72 for a fashionable fowling-piece. Miss L paid the debt, and expended some money besides in relieving him from the consequences of this folly; and all that she obtained of the proceeds of the novel for her own gratification was fifteen shillings, spent on a light dress and a few ribbons.

MARRIED OR UNMARRIED.-In a small work lately published (1843), it is asserted that if we were to make an abstract of the number of bankruptcies for the last dozen years, the majority would be found unmarried. The Athenæum, which quotes and challenges the statement, very properly points out that the directly opposite conclusion has been ascertained by statistical inquiry, not, it is true, in our own country, but in one differing from it in no great degree, namely, France. After advancing proofs of this from official documents, the Athenæum remarks: Children, a wife, or an entire family, then, figure for a great deal among the causes of debt; the married struggler with the world being manifestly borne down by the weight he thus carries. It further appears that, of 1232 debtors confined in the Paris prisons during three years, 292 were under, and 940 above, thirty years of age; or by a different examination extending over five years, that of 2566 imprisonments, 673 of the prisoners were under thirty years of age, 1433 between thirty and fifty-one, and 440 of fifty-one and upwards. This shews, according to M. Bayle-Mouillard, that it is not when a man is young, when he has relations to assist him, or bequests to enjoy, that he is most liable to arrests; difficulties come upon him at a period of life when such resources fail, and after he has, probably, made unsuccessful attempts to get on in lifewhen, with a rising family, he has no longer a dependence on anything but his own unaided labour, and that labour rendered less efficient by age and infirmity.' This also, as the Athenæum remarks, 'is a most important consideration as

regards the morality of the entire question; it refutes volumes of declamation against the criminality of the unfortunate.'

SIR WALTER SCOTT was often annoyed with letters from young men asking his opinion of their poetical productions, for it imposed on him the disagreeable duty of sending answers which could not be quite agreeable to his correspondents. On one occasion, in blending friendly advice with what might be taken as a gentle remonstrance, he said: 'SIR-Although nothing can be so rare as that high degree of poetical talent which arrests in a strong degree the attention of the public, yet nothing is more general among admirers of poetry and men of imagination than the art of putting together tolerable, and even good verses. In some cases (and I am disposed to reckon my own among the number), either from novelty of subject or style, or peculiarity of information, even this subordinate degree of talent leads to considerable literary distinction; but nothing can be more precarious than the attempt to raise one's self from obscurity, and place empty and tantalising objects in the view, diverting the poet from those which fairly and manfully followed out, seldom fail to conduct worth and industry to comfort and independence. I by no means advise you to lay aside your taste for literature; it does you credit as a man, and very possibly as a man of talents. But those powers which can make verses, are applicable to the more useful and ordinary purposes of life. Your situation is at present dependent; but there is none so low from which patience, industry, and perseverance cannot raise the possessor of those excellent qualities.' This was written from Abbotsford in 1819.

WALKING OUT.

O'ER Plewley's green and pleasant height, Across the fields towards Tabley Farm, We wander in the fading light,

Two happy lovers, arm in arm. Late thrushes in far thickets sing;

And, by unerring instinct led,
Far overhead stray widgeons wing
Morassward to their willow-bed.

A star burns in the faded west,
A ripely-red low-lying star,
And seems a watch-fire on the crest
Of some lone guardian hill afar.
Calm is the night, and soft, and sweet;
The earth is peaceful as the skies;
And from the field-flowers at our feet
Rich scents at every step arise.
Oh, joy supreme! oh, rare delight!
To realise the moment's charm
As we do, wandering here, to-night,
Infolded in Love's circling arm.

On Saturday, February 7, 1874, will be commenced a Novel, entitled

THE BEST OF HUSBANDS.
By the Author of Found Dead.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by all Booksellers.

No. 524.

PRICE 11d.

When he married the daughter of the Duc de

FORTUNE.

WHEN Louis XIII. died in 1643, he left two sons, the eldest of whom became the noted Louis XIV.; and Philippe, the other son, was created Duke of Orleans, to whom, by his brother's munificence, large possessions were assigned. Ever since that beginning, the Orleans branch of the Bourbons has been a conspicuous family in France, in fact in Europe. The remarkable thing in their history has been their enormous wealth, sometimes diminished, sometimes enlarged, but always considerable through good fortune in marriages or by royal favour. The Duc de Chartres, son of Philippe, was already rich when he succeeded his father, and received the Palais-Royal as part of his marriage dowry. As second Duke of Orleans, he became Regent during the minority of Louis XV. and in this capacity made good use of his opportunities to bring it about that from the state, instead of the family coffers, should come the dowries of the daughters of his house-Mademoiselle de Montpensier and Mademoiselle de Valois.

The son and grandson of the Regent were not public characters, but they maintained the credit of the family for the faculty of absorbing state property. In 1751, letters-patent added the countship of Soissons and the estate of Laon to the Orleans acreage; and in 1766, the demesnes of Marle, la Fere en Tardenois, Ham, and St Gobain, were asked for, and granted, to round off the countship of Vermandois, which the Orleans family were desirous of reconstructing. But Philippe Egalité was not the man to live a life of opulent and dignified retirement. In him lived again the extravagance of the founder of the House. Philippe Egalité was the only rowdy of all the House of Orleans, and his head followed the fortune which was first impaired by his prodigalities and intrigues, and then forfeited by the edict of the Revolution.

On his father's death, Philippe Egalité seems to have succeeded to property worth five million francs a year; some authorities put it higher.

centred the vast appanages of the bastards of Louis XIV. the fortunes of the two wealthiest Houses in France, and perhaps in Europe, became conjoined. With his wife, Philippe got from her father four million francs in hard cash; in the year of his marriage, Louis XV. made him the present of 100,000 francs; and in 1784 he sold to Marie Antoinette, for six millions, which were paid from the state treasury, the château of Saint-Cloud, itself originally crown, and therefore national property. In fact, nearly all the endowments of the Orleans family consisted of property bestowed one way or other by the crown.

But all this wealth melted like snow in the hands of the extravagant Philippe Egalité; and Philippe had to betake himself to the strengthening of his tottering fortunes by a great building speculation. He pulled his residence of the Palais-Royal to pieces, destroyed its privacy, levelled the garden, built the arcades of shops with which every visitor to Paris is familiar, and let houseroom and building space to the highest bidders. The Palais-Royal, in the natural course of events, became a sink of iniquity, but the operation brought Philippe money in, and helped his political influence, by affording work to artisans and labourers, who knew the hand that fed them. But spite of the financial success of this speculation, Philippe became more and more embarrassed. And then came a law, passed 21st December 1790, which suppressed the system of appanages, recalled all these back to the crown whence they had emanated, and substituted for them the payment of a fixed annual sum from the treasury. When this law was passed, the annual revenues of the family of Orleans amounted to little short of nine million francs. In two years more it was gone to the last stiver, and the head of Philippe Egalité presently followed it.

This huge revenue was made up in various ways. Over six millions consisted of appanages; nearly a million and a half came from 'properties called patrimonial;' close on 100,000 francs were the produce of properties held under mortgage; and

1,145,000 francs were yielded by 'rents and interests.' Under the law of 1790, Philippe got, in exchange for the revoked appanages, an annual sum of two and a half million francs, in addition to a million as 'traitement;' and besides, the property of the Palais-Royal was exempted from the revocation. Philippe was left still a man of stupendous income, but his financial condition was desperate, and in the first days of 1792, he was compelled to call a meeting of his creditors, and offer them a composition. In August of the same year, came the abdication of Louis XVI. ; a month later, the Republic; and presently la Terreur. Philippe Egalité, when his head fell into the sawdust, left behind him debts amounting to 74 million of francs. His property was put up to auction, and for the most part was bought by the state, which paid to his creditors (thereby virtually substituting itself for the same) a sum of 37,740,000 francs-a little over half the total amount.

The times had been hard with Louis-Philippe, the son of Egalité, when in the ranks of the emigration. He was pursued about Switzerland in the most uncomfortable and inhospitable manner. Even the monks of St Gothard, whose profession it is to shelter all wayfarers and ask no questions, declined to take in this hapless Louis-Philippe, and he was everywhere 'moved on,' as if he had been a British casual without a settlement. Even when at length he seemed to have got rest for the sole of his foot, and had set himself industriously to teach a school at Reichenau, there presently came to him the inexorable summons to move on.' The narrative of all his wanderings over the north of Europe, and afterwards in America, and of how, after much reverse, he at length dropped his anchor for a while in our own suburban Twickenham, is too familiar to require telling here.

The first days of the Restoration of 1814 saw the sagacious Louis-Philippe, his wits sharpened by adversity, back in Paris, and pledging his devotion to the newly installed Louis XVIII. Louis took very kindly to his cousin, gave him the title of Most Serene Highness, and bestowed on him all that had not been sold of his father Egalité's appanage, which had been taken possession of by the state in the Revolution time. It has been estimated that this act gave Louis-Philippe a fortune of about one hundred million of francs. Certainly, he was the luckiest, financially, of all the returned émigrés of the royal house. It has already been told how a law, not a revolutionary law, but one passed while as yet Louis XVI. reigned, had abolished the appanages, and substituted therefore annual allowances. So far as concerned the senior branch of the Bourbons, this law was put in force. The Comte d'Artois did not re-enter on the possession of his appanage, but drew instead his stipulated allowance. No appanages were constituted for his sons, the Ducs de Berry and d'Angoulême. The Duke of Orleans alone, the future citizen-king, the champion of liberal ideas, the adversary of the ancient order of things, insisted on the resuscitation of feudal rights in his favour, when the reigning family made sacrifices to conform to the law. The king was to be still more generous to the fortunate ex-schoolmaster. Clearly, there should have fallen to be deducted from the patrimonial succession of the latter the 37 millions which the state had disbursed in part payment of

Philippe Egalité's debts; but this trifle never seems to have occurred to the king's mind, and LouisPhilippe did not consider himself called upon to call his relative's attention to it. He began a comprehensive series of lawsuits against the Treasury, against the administrators of royal domains, against the purchasers of national property, and against his mother, Madame Louise de BourbonPenthièvre, Dowager-duchess of Orleans. To support his case, he obtained, by royal permission, from the national archives the whole of the titledeeds and documents having reference to the old estates of the House of Orleans, in number over seventeen hundred. The Hundred Days came in to arrest the progress of this multifarious litigation, and the documents were returned to the archives; but upon the second Restoration, Louis-Philippe got them out again, and they have never since been restored. He recommenced his lawsuits, and pushed them on considerably, to the irritation of a considerable portion of the nation. Louis XVIII. became aware that his cousin's litigations were getting the royal family a bad name in the country, and finding that, for the assertion of some rights which some old parchments appeared to carry, he had raised an action against three hundred communes of the department of La Manche, which struck at a mass of about thirty thousand proprietors, he gave him a command to drop such litigation. Louis-Philippe did not disobey his kingly cousin; he desisted from the personal prosecution of the action, and disposed of the claims to a Company, who stood in his shoes, and fought out the action.

Charles X. on succeeding to the throne had the Orleans appanage included in the law which secured the civil list, and was further good enough to bestow the title of Royal Highness on his cousin, on whom fortune was certainly smiling from ear to ear; for not long before, his mother had died, and he had inherited her property, which as reconstituted by Louis XVIII. was worth some 26 millions. That the lady died so rich, was in the face of a French law which Louis had ignored. The whole of her possessions consisted of the appanage which had belonged to her father. But by an ordonnance of Charles IX. (1566), appanages were debarred from falling to the distaff, and in default of an heir-male direct, reverted to the state. The appanages of the Duc de Penthièvre, therefore, could not legally devolve on his daughter, and consequently could not legally pass to the son of that daughter. But Louis-Philippe pleaded prescription to all the claims that were out of date; for most of those which remained valid, he compounded at the rate of twelve per cent. His friends claim that he devoted ten million francs to this filial task, a sum considerably under a year's revenue of his properties.

The revolution of 1830 tumbled stupid old Charles X. off the throne, and raised to it LouisPhilippe in the character of a 'citizen-king.' LouisPhilippe might have been a Scotchman, he was so exceedingly canny. He did not object to becoming king, but he did not relish the notion of putting all his eggs into one basket. He was not unfamiliar with revolutions, and there might overtake him also a revolution. There is an article in the French constitution which merges in the crown, brings into the state coffers, all the private property of the prince or person who succeeds to the throne.

Louis-Philippe had an objection to allow this provision to operate in his case, and he determined to alienate his private estates, and step on to the throne a naked man. Already lieutenant-general of the kingdom, he was king de facto, although not so de jure for two days after, when, on the 7th of April 1830, he executed a deed conveying to his children, with the exception of the Duc de Chartres, who would be the heir-apparent to the crown, the fee simple of the whole of his private property, retaining to himself, however, the enjoyment of his liferent.

The question is, what was the value of the property which Louis-Philippe in this way made over to his younger children? According to the schedules in the registered deed of gift, the annual rental of the landed estates was only 1,365,523 francs. But there was no manner of doubt that, for other reasons, as well as the obvious one of diminishing the amount of succession duty to be paid, the value of the estates was stated at far too low a figure. Of the Commission which was intrusted with the duty of fixing the civil list of LouisPhilippe, two members, MM. Thouvenel and Cormenin, made an investigation into the value of the private property which had formed the subject of the deed of gift, and those gentlemen set down the annual revenue accruing therefrom-of which revenue Louis-Philippe had retained the usufruct as amounting to the sum of 7,523,000 francs, which that king continued to enjoy until his dethronement in 1848, in addition to his civil list, which was fixed at thirteen million francs. In all, then, during his reign, Louis-Philippe was the recipient of funds to the amount of not less than half a milliard of francs, or one-tenth part of the indemnity paid to the Germans on account of the late

war.

The family waxed yet richer by the death of the last of the Condés. His adoption of, and stupendous legacy to the boy Duc d'Aumale, the second son of Louis-Philippe, was unquestionably the result of a mean intrigue, on which it would be unpleasant to enter. This much at least may be asserted with considerable confidence, that if the Prince of Condé's life had not terminated when it did, a few days after the ex-reigning family quitted French soil, the Count de Chambord, and not the Duc d'Aumale, would have been his heir.

The inevitable crash overtook Louis-Philippe, but his head did not follow his fortune, as had been the case with his father, Philippe Egalité. Fortune favoured him so far that he was able to pass over to England, where he found at least a pleasanter abiding-place in his old age than the American school-house which had been the refuge of his youth. One of the first acts of the revolutionary government was to sequestrate all the Orleans property. The decree which does this (February 26, 1848) is very sweeping in its terms; it applies to the belongings tant ceux de l'ex-roi, que ceux des membres de l'exfamille royale.' Later, the Orleans properties were formally declared forfeited, and confiscated for the benefit of the national treasury, by an ordonnance of the Assembly passed on the 22d January 1852, a precedent being found in the confiscation of the property of the Bonaparte family by a decree of Louis XVIII. after the first Restoration. Two exemptions were made, but they cannot be considered of great importance

19

from a financial point of view-they were the Chapelle Ferdinand at Neuilly, and the family vault at Dreux. The ordonnance added, that when this property-which, in truth, belonged to the state was reclaimed, the Orleans family still remained in the possession of a capital sum of one hundred millions of francs, which was amply sufficient to maintain the dignity of their rank in a foreign country. It is not easy to see how the framers of the ordonnance were able to arrive at a definite estimate of the amount of LouisPhilippe's salvages; but it was the universal opinion that he had made the most ample provision for the rainy day. It was understood that he possessed real estate both in Europe and America, and it was reported that he had realised heavily by investments on foreign bourses. On the other hand, there are those who say that the family went into exile comparatively needy, and had to be beholden to King Leopold of Belgium, who was son-in-law of Louis-Philippe, for an allowance towards their maintenance.

The Orleans estates having been confiscated, and restored to the state, whence, unquestionably, the larger proportion of them had originally emanated, opportunity was taken to dispose of most of them of national account. It has never been publicly stated what sums have been realised from the sale of those properties which have been disposed of, and various amounts-fifty millions, eighty millions, and one hundred millions of francs-have been named. There is reason to believe that the last figure is that most nearly correct. We may name eight of the principal estates, sold under the ordonnance of 1852: The Château d'Aumale, with Park, forest, and dependencies, situated at Chantilly. This estate was covertly purchased by the Orleans family, through the medium of Messrs Coutts and Company, and the château was inhabited during a number of years of the Empire by a Mons. Tremouille, who, since the déchéance, has vacated in favour of the real owners. The Château and Park at Le Raincy, near Paris. The Château, Park, and farm at La Ferte Vidame, near Nogent-le-Rotrou, on the road Paris-Chartres. The woods of Rousseau and Ivry, near Paris. The Park and residence of Monceaux. The Park and residence at Neuilly. The Château, Park, and forests of Bisy. The forest of Vernon, near Evreux.

Four other large estates were partly alienated, namely: The property of Amboise, a castle which had been in the possession of the French royal family from the time of Charles VII. It was inhabited by Abd-el-Kader from 1847 to 1852. A portion of the forest of Bondy. The property near Joinville, including several forests, considerably damaged by the late war. The property and works of St-Dizier, near Chalons-sur-Marne. In addition to the above, five residences, situated in Paris and elsewhere, were disposed of at various times. Had the Empire lasted a little longer, it is probable that the last acre of the great Orleans property would have come under the hammer.

When

But, as we all know, in 1870 the wheel of fortune took another spin, and next year the members of the House of Orleans were no longer exiles. the weightier matters of the state had been settled for the time, and as soon as the National Assembly had time to think of other things, a bill was introduced to its notice by the Minister of Finance of M. Thiers' government, the object of

which was the restoration to the Orleans family of such portion of the estates, which had been confiscated in 1852, as had not in the interval been sold on national account. This measure was strongly and, indeed, scurrilously opposed by the extreme Republican press; but M. Thiers appeared to consider it an act of common honesty, and he was supported by the Royalist and moderate Republican deputies. The Orleans family, it must be owned, acted throughout in the most seemly manner. It was not at their instance that the bill had been brought in; nor did they, at least openly, express any desire, one way or the other, with reference to its fate. It would be tedious to recapitulate the arguments used for and against it; it will suffice to say that the bill became law last year (1872), and the remnant of their possessions has been restored to the descendants of Philippe de France. Only two estates were handed over to them intact, having escaped the auctioneer, namely, the Château d'Eu, a property near Dieppe, which English people will remember in connection with the visit paid to Louis-Philippe by Queen Victoria in the early part of her reign; and the château and its surroundings at Dreux, the earliest home, as it is the last resting-place, of the House of Orleans. There is another small property at Lepaude, in the department of Creuse, but it is scarcely worth mentioning, as it yields no revenue. It would be impertinent to inquire closely into the revenue derived from these two 'salvage' estates, but it may be set down as being very considerable; and with their restoration into the possession of the Orleans family, ends the record of the strange vicissitudes of this colossal fortune.

THE LILY OF THE ALLEY.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER II.-WITHIN THE FOLD.

SIX months and more had elapsed. The scent that lay at Wapping had grown fainter and fainter, and at last had been lost altogether. Mrs Perks had not returned to Feathers Alley, and had not been heard of there; and the old gentleman, with many a sigh and self-reproach, had abandoned himself to utter despair.

It was a lovely, but a sweltering day in August, and the mellow sun glared down with all its might and shewed up all the hideousness of Leeds. Click-clack! click-clack! went the looms. Such is the music made by the town-bee, the busy human-bee; whilst the country-bee, the busy insect-bee, is humming gaily away in field and garden. The sun lit up in Leeds a spectacle that shewed the price men pay for victory upon the field of industry. The very air rained blacks; the road from Leeds to Bradford was the colour of a mourning garment. Everybody seemed to have a cough; it was caused by the irritation of the black particles swallowed. The maimed and the halt were to be seen in noticeable numbers; they were of all ages, and both sexes; they were those who had been wounded in the battle of industry. Here went a one-armed man; there went a child on crutches. The river was like a slush of liquid indigo, dotted over with clots of white scum; and the men who worked in it, and near it, had faces, and arms, and hands, and, so far as they were visible, bodies dyed with the stains of indigo.

But none of these, whether he or she were a cripple, or blue, or both, was observed to beg. Very different was the appearance of the only three beggars to be seen in the thoroughfare called Briggate. They were very poorly clad, but sound of limb, and clean as paint.

They consisted of a middle-aged man, a middleaged woman, and a very young child, a girl. Father, and mother, and daughter, most of the passers-by thought, if they thought at all about it.

The man had the misfortune, as it appeared from his eyes, and from a sort of certificate he wore round his neck, to be blind; but the woman, to judge from the way in which she swept every house from top to bottom with a glance, and at the same time had a sidelong look for every passenger, had eyes for two. The little girl, whether she and her companions were walking or stood still, kept her eyes almost constantly on the ground.

The child was a pretty, fairy-like little thing, and sang in a sweet voice snatches of hymns, whilst the man made a noise with a concertina, and the woman kept an Argus-like look-out for coppers. Now, the hymns that were sung were such as were familiar and grateful to thousands in Leeds, which abounds with dissenters; and many a mother, especially at the hour when the factories discharged their work-people, either summoned the little girl with a smile and a beck, or walked up to her, and in either case put money in her hand. And one who watched matters closely, might have seen the said money passed at intervals to the man and lodged in his pockets. One who watched matters closely, moreover, and who was near enough to hear what the man and the woman said confidentially, between the verses of a hymn, to the little girl, might have caught the sound of paternal and maternal admonition, couched in such terms as: 'Sing out, yer little wretch, or I'll warm yer;' or: You'll ketch it to-night, miss, and ketch it 'ot, too, if you don't look sharp.'

The warning to 'look sharp' had become necessary, because the little maid, from her habit of keeping her eyes upon the ground, had failed to see several proffers of coin and several beckoning hands.

So that her eyes were just now on the alert, and enabled her to see a vision which called a flush of vague expectation to her lovely pale face.

In the doorway of a most respectable shop stood an elderly lady. This lady was not dressed by any means in the prevailing fashion. She wore a brown straw bonnet, somewhat resembling a Quaker's; an ample brown veil was thrown back behind her head; a cap, not very unlike a widow's, fitted closely round her face; her dress was brown, and of rather common material; her white stockings were refreshingly snow-like in hue; her thick shoes were polished as if they were to be used as looking-glasses; and her ungloved hands were ringless, but fair, and soft, and plump. She had a somewhat severe aspect, the severity of which was not lessened by the spectacles she had on; but her expression was motherly withal, and her delicate face assumed quite a soft and winning smile as she beckoned to the little street-singer.

The little girl sprang forward at once, not hearing or not heeding her male companion, who, having whispered to the female, said sharply, but in a low voice: Let the lady be, and come along with us.'