a very fashionable young man, who undoubtedly knew the late pontifical
zouave, for he approached him familiarly, saying, in a mocking tone and
in a French which came direct from France:

"Well! Now I have caught you, Marquis Claude-Francois de Montfanon!....
She has come, you have seen her, you have been conquered. Have your eyes
feasted upon divine Fanny Hafner? Tremble! I shall denounce you to his
Eminence, Cardinal Guerillot; and if you malign his charming catechist I
will be there to testify that I saw you hypnotized as she passed, as were
the people of Troy by Helen. And I know very positively that Helen had
not so modern a grace, so beautiful a mind, so ideal a profile, so deep a
glance, so dreamy a mouth and such a smile. Ah, how lovely she is! When
shall you call?"

"If Monsieur Julien Dorsenne," replied Montfanon, in the same mocking
tone, "does not pay more attention to his new novel than he is doing at
this moment, I pity his publisher. Come here," he added, brusquely,
dragging the young man to the angle of Rue Borgognona. "Did you see the
victoria stop at No. 13, and the divine Fanny, as you call her, alight?
. . . She has entered the shop of that old rascal, Ribalta. She will
not remain there long. She will come out, and she will drive away in her
carriage. It is a pity she will not pass by us again. We should have
had the pleasure of seeing her disappointed air. This is what she is in
search of," added he, with a gay laugh, exhibiting his purchase, "but
which she could not have were she to offer all the millions which her
honest father has stolen in Vienna. Ha, ha!" he concluded, laughing
still more heartily, "Monsieur de Montfanon rose first; this morning has
not been lost, and you, Monsieur, can see what I obtained at the
curiosity-shop of that old fellow who will not make a plaything of this
object, at least," he added, extending the book to his interlocutor, at