government, and administrative changes there float over us like clouds
of heaven, without touching us in their changefulness. Thus Père S----,
though so courteous and cordial to Americans, has been long years
forgotten at Washington, whence every living servitor of the
administration that appointed him our consul here has long since passed
away forever. He was born in Pennsylvania, of German parents, nearly
eighty years ago. He received his appointment in 1837, and held it
through fourteen administrations since Van Buren, without ever returning
to America, till he faded away one little month ago and was buried in
the parish cemetery of Saint-Léonard by a Lutheran pastor brought over
for the occasion from Havre. No church-bells tolled for his death, and
the street-children did not go on their way singing, as they always do,
to the sound of funeral bells.

"_Viens, corps, ta fosse t'attend!_" for Pere S---- was a heretic,
and could not have slept in consecrated ground had he died before the
République Française removed religious restrictions from all
burial-places. All the consular corps in all the region round about
followed the old man to his long home, all our public buildings hung
their flags half-mast high, all our little world told queer stories of
the dead old man. But our own hearts grew tender with thoughts of this
life finished at fourscore years with its longing of almost half a
century unfulfilled. "Philip Nolan" we often called the old man, who
sometimes said to us, with yearning, pathetic voice,--

"I am an American; I am here only till I make my fortune. When I am rich
enough I shall go _Home_. I shall die and be buried at Home,--when
I am rich enough."

Temperament is Fate. Père S----'s temperament of Harpagon fated him to