which he replied that he was assuredly himself,--that is to say, the
son of the late Leonie Gazonal, wife of Comte Fernand Didas y Lora.

During the summer of 1841 cousin Sylvestre Gazonal went to inform the
illustrious unknown family of Lora that their little Leon had not gone
to the Rio de la Plata, as they supposed, but was now one of the
greatest geniuses of the French school of painting; a fact the family
did not believe. The eldest son, Don Juan de Lora assured his cousin
Gazonal that he was certainly the dupe of some Parisian wag.

Now the said Gazonal was intending to go to Paris to prosecute a
lawsuit which the prefect of the Eastern Pyrenees had arbitrarily
removed from the usual jurisdiction, transferring it to that of the
Council of State. The worthy provincial determined to investigate this
act, and to ask his Parisian cousin the reason of such high-handed
measures. It thus happened that Monsieur Gazonal came to Paris, took
shabby lodgings in the rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, and was amazed to
see the palace of his cousin in the rue de Berlin. Being told that the
painter was then travelling in Italy, he renounced, for the time
being, the intention of asking his advice, and doubted if he should
ever find his maternal relationship acknowledged by so great a man.

During the years 1843 and 1844 Gazonal attended to his lawsuit. This
suit concerned a question as to the current and level of a stream of
water and the necessity of removing a dam, in which dispute the
administration, instigated by the abutters on the river banks, had
meddled. The removal of the dam threatened the existence of Gazonal's
manufactory. In 1845, Gazonal considered his cause as wholly lost; the
secretary of the Master of Petitions, charged with the duty of drawing
up the report, had confided to him that the said report would