but no other woman in Europe will be great enough to endure you, and you will really put the men hors de combat. Thinking is an enemy to beauty, and no friend to tenderness. Men can ill brook it one in another: in women it renders them what they would fain call "scornful" (vain assumption of high prerogative!) and what you would find bestial and outrageous. As for my reputation, which I know is dear to you, I can purchase all the best writers in Europe with a snuffbox each, and all the remainder with its contents. Not a gentleman of the Academy but is enchanted by a toothpick, if I deign to send it him. A brilliant makes me Semiramis; a watch-chain, Venus; a ring, Juno. Voltaire is my friend.

Catharine. I shall be the PUCELLE of Russia. No! I had forgotten: he has treated her scandalously.

Dashkof. Does your Majesty value the flatteries of a writer who ridicules the most virtuous and glorious of his nation; who crouched before that monster of infamy, Louis XV.; and that worse monster, the king his predecessor? He reviled, with every indignity and indecency, the woman who rescued France; and who alone, of all that ever led the armies of that kingdom, made its conquerors-the English-tremble. Its monarchs and marshals cried and ran like capons, flapping their fine crests from wall to wall, and cackling at one breath defiance and surrender. The village girl drew them back into battle, and placed the heavens themselves against the enemies of Charles. She seemed supernatural: the English recruits deserted; they would not fight against God.

Catharine. Fools and bigots.

Dashkof. The whole world contained none other, excepting those who fed upon them. The Maid of Orleans was pious and sincere her life asserted it; her death confirmed it. Glory to her, Catharine, if you love glory. Detestation to him who has profaned the memory of this most holy martyr,— the guide and avenger of her king, the redeemer and saviour of her country.

Catharine. Be it so; but Voltaire buoys me up above some impertinent, troublesome qualms.

Dashkof. If Deism had been prevalent in Europe, he would have been the champion of Christianity; and, if the French had been Protestants, he would have shed tears upon the papal slipper. He buoys up no one; for he gives no one hope. He may amuse: dullness itself must be amused, indeed, by the versatility and brilliancy of his wit.

Catharine. While I was meditating on the great action I have now so happily accomplished, I sometimes thought his wit feeble. This idea, no doubt, originated from the littleness of everything in comparison with my undertaking.

Dashkof. Alas! we lose much when we lose the capacity of being delighted by men of genius, and gain little when we are forced to run to them for incredulity.

Catharine. I shall make some use of my philosopher at Ferney. I detest him as much as you do; but where will you find me another who writes so pointedly? You really, then, fancy that people care for truth? Innocent Dashkof! Believe me, there is nothing so delightful in life as to find a liar in a person of repute. Have you never heard good folks rejoicing at it? Or, rather, can you mention to me any one who has not been in raptures when he could communicate such glad tidings? The goutiest man would go on foot without a crutch to tell his friend of it at midnight; and would cross the Neva for the purpose, when he doubted whether the ice would bear him. Men, in general, are so weak in truth, that they are obliged to put their bravery under it to prop it. Why do they pride themselves, think you, on their courage, when the bravest of them is by many degrees less courageous than a mastiff bitch in the straw? It is only that they may be rogues without hearing it, and make their fortunes without rendering an account of them.

Now we chat again as we used to do. Your spirits and your enthusiasm have returned. Courage, my sweet Dashkof; do not begin to sigh again. We never can want husbands while we are young and lively. Alas! I cannot always be so. Heigho! But serfs and preferment will do: none shall refuse me at ninety,- Paphos or Tobolsk.

Have not you a song for me?

Dashkof. German or Russian?

Catharine. Neither, neither. Some frightful word might drop-might remind me-no, nothing shall remind me. French, rather: French songs are the liveliest in the world.

Is the rouge off my face?

Dashkof. It is rather in streaks and mottles; excepting just under the eyes, where it sits as it should do.

Catharine. I am heated and thirsty: I cannot imagine how. I think we have not yet taken our coffee. Was it so strong? What am I dreaming of? I could eat only a slice of melon at breakfast; my duty urged me THEN, and dinner is yet to come. Remember, I am to faint at the midst of it when the intelligence comes in, or rather when, in despite of every effort to conceal it from me, the awful truth has flashed upon my mind. Remember, too, you are to catch me, and to cry for help, and to tear those fine flaxen hairs which we laid up together on the toilet; and we are both to be as inconsolable as we can be for the life of us. Not now, child, not now. Come, sing. I know not how to fill up the interval. Two long hours yet! how stupid and tiresome! I wish all things of the sort could be done and be over in a day. They are mightily disagreeable when by nature one is not cruel. People little know my character. I have the tenderest heart upon earth. I am courageous, but I am full of weaknesses. I possess in perfection the higher part of men, and to a friend I may say it-the most amiable part of women. Ho, ho! at last you smile: now, your thoughts upon that.

Dashkof. I have heard fifty men swear it.

Catharine. They lied, the knaves! I hardly knew them by sight. We were talking of the sad necessity.-Ivan must follow next: he is heir to the throne. I have a wild, impetuous, pleasant little protégé, who shall attempt to rescue him. I will have him persuaded and incited to it, and assured of pardon on the scaffold. He can never know the trick we play him; unless his head, like a bottle of Bordeaux, ripens its contents in the sawdust. Orders are given that Ivan be dispatched at the first disturbance in the

precincts of the castle; in short, at the fire of the sentry. But not now,- another time: two such scenes together, and without some interlude, would perplex people.

I thought we spoke of singing: do not make me wait, my dearest creature! Now cannot you sing as usual, without smoothing your dove's-throat with your handkerchief, and taking off your necklace? Give it me, then ; give it me. I will hold it for you: I must play with something.

Sing, sing; I am quite impatient.

MACHIAVELLI AND GUICCIARDINI

GUICCIARDINI. It grieves me, Ser Niccolo, to learn by your letter that Fortune has been ungrateful and unjust to you. Hard is it that a statesman who hath served his country conscientiously and ably should be reduced so nearly to poverty.

Machiavelli. The hardship, my compassionate friend, lies chiefly in the necessity of entreating as a favor what I believe to be my due. Having served our Florence faithfully, I claim only a small remuneration from the Medici.

Guicciardini. Gratitude is not in the vocabulary of princes, and republics insist on every man's services, deeming him sufficiently paid for them by a place, however subordinate, in the government. You are become out of favor by writing what appears to be satirical in your "Principe." Can you deny to me, who am your trusty and hearty friend, that, in this wise and profound work, you make it appear how such high functionaries, in order to acquire and retain their power, must act occasionally with violence and dishonesty?

Machiavelli. Is it not true?

Guicciardini. And, by being true, is it not the more dangerous to him who utters and promulgates it?

Machiavelli. I desired to show my countrymen what they must expect if they prefer an absolute prince to a free republic.

Guicciardini. All desires out of the domestic circle lead to disappointment; most of them, to grief. Are we less tranquil than under the late regimen?

Machiavelli. The sleeper is more tranquil than the wide awake, and the dead even than he.

Guicciardini. It is somewhat for the generous, patriotic, and energetic to have escaped persecution. After your commentary on Livy, I feared you might, notwithstanding all your caution and prudence, take up Tacitus. Then might you, peradventure, have been accused of personalities: hemlock and hellebore and other simples, sedatives prescribed for the unruly, are to be gathered in Tuscany.

Machiavelli. Dante Alighieri, the glory of our country, dared openly to avow himself an innovator and reformer. He would have called in the Emperor of Germany to rule the whole of Italy.

Guicciardini. Were it practicable, it might have been well for us. The vilest and most ineradicable of vermin is that which generates in the skin: we can sweep away the outlying.

Machiavelli. No people can flourish where any man sets at defiance the magistrates and the laws. An appeal out of them is treason, and punishment should be summary and prompt. Beside a conclave of princes set over us by a priest, we, at present, lie ground between an upper and a nether millstone. Germany and France crush us into powder, and leave nothing but the husks. Better is it to be subject to the Emperor of Germany than to the King of France. For the German powers would encourage our commerce, through interest; the French, through jealousy, would repress it.

Guicciardini. It was impossible for the Emperor of Germany to become sovereign of Italy, as Alighieri wished and ventured to propose, unless by abolishing the temporal power of the Pope.

Machiavelli. Republican as I am, I would willingly see all Italy under one constitutional hereditary prince. At present, we have no choice between the bear and the wolf. The bear hugs to suffocation, breaks a few ribs, then, tearing out a mouthful, lies down; the wolf springs at the