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FAIR FANARIOTE.


In consequence of the numerous revolutions that have accompanied the
fall of the Greek empire in Byzantium, most of the inhabitants of
Fanari, near Constantinople, boast of being descendants of the dethroned
imperial families; a circumstance which is probable enough, and which
nobody takes the trouble to dispute, any more than the alleged nobility
of the Castilian peasantry, or the absurd genealogies of certain great
families.

In a retired street in Pera, (one of the suburbs of Constantinople,) a
descendant of the Cantacuzenes followed the humble calling of a butcher;
but, in spite of industry and activity, he had great difficulty in
earning a sufficiency to pay his way, and maintain his wife and his only
daughter, Sophia. The latter had just entered her fourteenth year, and
her growing beauty was the admiration of the whole neighbourhood.

Fate, or, if you please so to call it, Providence, ordained that the
poor butcher should suffer repeated losses, which reduced him to a
condition bordering on beggary. His wife unfolded her distressed
circumstances to a Greek, one of her relations, who was Dragoman to the
French embassy, and who, in his turn, related the story to the Marquess
de Vauban, the ambassador. This nobleman became interested for the
unfortunate family, and especially for Sophia, whom the officious
Dragoman described as being likely to fall into the snares that were