Early in the reign of Louis Napoleon, a serial story called 'Tolla,' a
vivid study of social life in Rome, delighted the readers of the Revue
des Deux Mondes. When published in book form in 1855 it drew a storm of
opprobrium upon its young author, who was accused of offering as his own
creation a translation of the Italian work 'Vittoria Savorelli.' This
charge, undoubtedly unjust, he indignantly refuted. It served at least
to make his name well known. Another book, 'La Question Romaine,' a
brilliant if somewhat superficial argument against the temporal power of
pope and priests, was a philosophic employment of the same material.
Appearing in 1860, about the epoch of the French invasion of Austrian
Italy, its tone agreed with popular sentiment and it was
favorably received.

[Illustration: EDMOND ABOUT]

Edmond François Valentin About had a freakish, evasive, many-sided
personality, a nature drawn in too many directions to achieve in any one
of these the success his talents warranted. He was born in Dreuze, and
like most French boys of literary ambition, soon found his way to Paris,
where he studied at the Lycée Charlemagne. Here he won the honor prize;
and in 1851 was sent to Athens to study archaeology at the École
Française. He loved change and out-of-the-way experiences, and two
studies resulted from this trip: 'La Grèce Contemporaine,' a book of
charming philosophic description; and the delightful story 'Le Roi des
Montagnes' (The King of the Mountains). This tale of the long-limbed
German student, enveloped in the smoke from his porcelain pipe as he
recounts a series of impossible adventures,--those of himself and two
Englishwomen, captured for ransom by Hadgi Stavros, brigand king in the
Grecian mountains,--is especially characteristic of About in the