of the night to himself, and he had little difficulty in persuading the king that lions and tigers, although evidently only used as an antithesis by Beaumarchais, applied to himself and the queen. Louis XVI. was already annoyed that a comedy, to the performance of which he had always been strenuously opposed, should have been so successful, and he wrote, according to the author of the "Souvenirs d'un Sexagénaire," M. Arnault, upon a seven of spades, without leaving the card-table, an order for Beaumarchais' arrest, and adding insult to injury, that he should be imprisoned at Saint Lazare, a place devoted to the seclusion only of depraved young people.

Such an act of despotism gave rise to a general feeling of discontent. Every one felt that his liberty was at the mercy of a personal pique. So great was the effervescence that the king was obliged to entreat Beaumarchais to come out of prison, for he insisted at first staying there till he was subjected to an open trial; and he afterwards lavished all kinds of favours upon him, to indemnify him for the injury that had been done to his reputation.

There was, however, no peace for Beaumarchais. He was destined at this very moment, when fifty-three years of age, to be thrown into controversy with a younger and even less scrupulous man than himself. Beaumarchais had taken an active part in a new speculation to supply Paris with water; Mirabeau, who was opposed to its success, wrote a pamphlet to show that the enterprise was a foolish one. Beaumarchais answered what he pleased to term the Mirabelles of the pamphleteer. Mirabeau, in a second retort, laying the question of the waters on one side, grappled his antagonist by the throat, challenged his whole career, and assailed him in the name of public order and morality. "Mirabeau, the dissolute," says Beaumarchais' biographer, "defending the cause of good manners against Beaumarchais; Mirabeau, who from his dungeon at Vincennes used to write and sell publications of the most reprehensible character, reproaching Beaumarchais for the licence of his pen; Mirabeau, the future orator, who was to invoke the Gracchi and Marius, challenging Beaumarchais for his attacks against the state, has always appeared to me as presenting a spectacle much more amusing than affecting."

In the midst of these accumulated contests Beaumarchais brought forth a successful opera, "Tarare ;" and in 1789 he commenced erecting that fragment of the Boulevards near the Bastille, which still bears his name. On the 14th of July he was destined to witness, from his own house, still in course of construction, the fall of the Bastille. The part which the author of the "Marriage of Figaro" took at the first step of the revolution, was to act as president of the district des Blancs-Manteaux, in favour of order in his own quarter, and he was soon afterwards named by the electors of his district member of the municipal body. The restless spirit of the man, however, turned even the revolution to his disadvantage. Shortly after the production of his " Mère Coupable," the last of his dramas, he embarked in a patriotic and commercial speculationthe purchasing of 60,000 muskets from the Dutch-a speculation which entailed the loss of his fortune and involved him in great difficulties. The Convention succeeded, in the midst of the negotiation, to the Legislative Assembly, and on the 1st of December, 1792, Beaumarchais was

accused of conspiracy and of a secret correspondence with Louis XVI., and the seals were for a third time placed upon his house. Luckily he himself was at the moment in Holland, and he hastened to take refuge in England. A London merchant who had advanced money in the musket speculation, finding that the adversary of Goëzman and Mirabeau was bent upon vindicating his cause in person before the Convention, and having little faith in the judicial integrity of that body, caused his creditor to be confined, for safety sake, within the rules of the Queen's Bench.

So resolute, however, was the now old man of sixty to fight his own battle, that he raised the money to pay off his debt, returned to Paris, and, adopting his old style of defence, distributed 6000 copies of a printed vindication. The author of the " Marriage of Figaro" would certainly have lost his head for his imprudence had it not so happened that the Convention was in want of muskets, and they gave him the alternative of selecting between a condemnation or a mission to Holland, at that time in open hostility with France, in search of the 60,000 muskets. Luckily for Beaumarchais, he was helped out of this dilemma by the English, who claimed the muskets, and, says his biographer, "le respect de la légalité qui distingue et honore le gouvernement anglais entre tous les gouvernements," preserved the arms in safety at Tervère. Beaumarchais was, however, not the less obliged to carry out the orders of the Convention, and during his absence he was placed on the list of emigrants, his property was confiscated, and his family imprisoned. The fall of the Convention and the rise of the Directory enabled him once more to return to his native country; but he was no longer the affluent man he had been, poverty stared him in the face, and care and anxiety combined to hasten the termination of his most eccentric and chequered life. It has been said that he committed suicide, but his biographer proves this not to have been the case. He was, as an old man, still of a bluff, sanguine temperament. His last passport had qualified him as "un bon vieillard, grand, gris, gros, gras," and he was carried off by what our neighbours call expressively une apoplexie foudroyante, on the 18th of May, 1799. The repose denied to him during life was sought equally in vain after death. He had had a bower prepared for a mausoleum in his own garden, and there his last remains were duly deposited, in accordance with strict revolutionary disregard of consecrated ground or religious rites; but that bower is now a street, and the bones of the author of the "Barber of Seville" and of the "Marriage of Figaro" were nominally transported to a cemetery-very possibly scattered to the wind.

304

A WEEK IN CONSTANTINOPLE.

BY LASCELLES WRAXALL.

Kertch, February, 1856. AFTER a very quick and agreeable passage from London, the good ship which bore me and my fortunes to the seat of war cast anchor at eight in the morning off Seraski Point, and, as you may suppose, the decks and paddle-boxes were soon crowded with spectators, anxious for the first glance of a city which will ever exercise a magic influence over our minds, despite the disillusionising to which it has recently been subjected. It was late in the month of December when we arrived, and yet the weather was as mild and warm as a September day at home. The sun shone cheerily on the gilded minarets and cupolas of Stamboul, and the waters glistened with hundreds of gaily-painted kaiks, which really walked them like things of life. The prospect from the deck of our steamer was really magnificent to the right was Scutari, rising upon the Asiatic hills in a dark setting of cypress-trees, indicating the celebrated Muhammedan cemeteries; below these, again, the enormous barracks; at the base, the charming Kadi-Koi, built on the classic soil where Chalcedon once stood. In the rear of this landscape we could distinguish the mountains of Bulgurlu and Kassi Dagh; while at their base lay slumbering the Sea of Marmora and the Princes' Islands. In front of us frowned Seraglio Point, with its countless historical reminiscences; a little to the left, again, the steep ascent through Galata and Tophaneh indicated the way to Pera and the Frankish quarter. In short, the effect of my first aspect of Constantinople will never be erased from my memory.

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It was only natural that we should feel a desire at once to subject all these wonders to a closer inspection; so, after douning our uniform and getting ourselves up to a very considerable extent, three of us hailed a kaik, and commenced our first experiences of Oriental life. It requires a very considerable amount of practice to enter these gondola-shaped boats; as they have no keel, the slightest oscillation would be apt to upset them, and hence the greatest caution is requisite, if the passenger feel no particular inclination to come to grief. However, we managed to make the traject from the ship to the Admiralty Wharf in safety, and a few moments saw us in Galata. But how fearful was the change produced by only a few minutes! At the first glance it seemed an utter impossibility even to move from the spot, so dense was the crowd, so gluey was the mud into which we were compelled to wade. The houses which, when seen from a distance, appeared to have been built by fairy hands, were in reality not worth one farthing more than those I had inspected at the miserable village of Dardanelles the previous day; the gaily-dressed and picturesque forms which the traveller sees wandering about the quays, and is disposed from a distance to regard as pachas and beys pur sang, are converted, on a closer approach, into ragged vagabonds-Turkish hammals, Greek scoundrels, and Maltese robbers. was a pity that my fair dream was so soon dispersed, and I was more than ever disposed to admire the Englishman who-so the story runs

It

was told that he must not attempt to land in Stamboul if he desired to keep up the illusion; so he hired one of the small Greek peril-boats, sailed in it for a week along the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Golden Horn, and then returned home by the next mail steamer, without having once set foot on land.

But it was of no use giving way to such unpleasant thoughts. It is true that the quay on which I stood was a rotten edifice, into which I sank ankle deep; instead of the perfume of roses, a stench of fish, cucumbers, and garlic pervaded my nostrils; but for all that I was in for it, and the only plan was to go on. Our first halting-point was. Missuri's hotel, the best in the place, and that in all conscience was bad enough; for a bottle of wretched Bass they had the impudence to charge two francs, for a mouthful of bread and cheese five more, and then the waiter was highly indignant because we declined to give anything pour le service. Of a verity, with such prices, Madame Missuri can very well afford to pay her own waiters. Strange to say, this house is always crammed with English officers, who quietly allow themselves to be cheated, thinking it beneath their dignity to expostulate. The only thing note-worthy about Pera is the view to be enjoyed from the summit of the hill; but whether that be a fair compensation for the amount of actual misery undergone in obtaining it, I should not like to decide. For my own part, I went there once, and-never went again.

As for Galata, I dare not describe it to you: this entire suburb, from the Golden Horn as far as the Tower, is, with its filthy streets, its evilsmelling fish and vegetable stalls, its old clo'men, wool-carders, Chris-. tians, Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and German tailors, nothing better than one huge Circean sty; and it is a neck-breaking job to descend the street leading down from Pera after nightfall. In fact, I never could fully realise Muhammed's notion of not allowing his followers to drink wine or spirits until I had seen this city, for I am convinced that any drunken man, unless specially guarded by that Providence which is supposed to have charge of him, would inevitably break his neck before he reached his home. On both sides of the road are miserable huts, dignified by the name of houses, whose roofs extend so far that neither sun nor moon can penetrate, and these have been converted into shops for the special object of swindling strangers. There is, however, one green spot on my memory with reference to this street, namely, the London Tavern, where you can procure a very decent glass of Bordeaux; any one clambering up from Galata requires a strengthening dose, owing to the heat, and I would advise him not to leave this house unvisited. In truth, there are so few public-houses in Constantinople which a man can visit who has any regard for his character, or any old-fashioned notions about morality, that I think this honourable exception deserves to be immortalised in the pages of Bentley.

Let us suppose ourselves safely arrived in Pera. But how shall I attempt to describe a town which is renewed every eight to ten years, owing to the devastating fires that continually occur? The careless manner the Turks go about with fire and charcoal is quite characteristic of the nation. If a fire breaks out, in the Turk's fatalist view of matters, it is God's will, and nothing can be done. In such cases he gene

rally carries off his wife and children from the haremlik, and leaves the house a prey to the flames. A short account of a fire at which I was present, in Galata, will give a good idea of the way the Bono Johnnies manage things at home. We had just finished dinner, when our attention was attracted by the firing of cannon and the appearance of lanterns on the Galata Tower, a sure sign that there was a fire somewhere. We immediately pulled on land, and found ourselves speedily in the centre of a dense mob of firemen, cavasas, and soldiers, all shouting "Janjin var" at the top of their lungs, and attempting to stop the spread of the flames with the most primitive instruments that can be conceived. They consisted of an upright brass tube, resembling a field-gun, forming the cylinder of the pumping machine. Each of these machines is borne along by at least eight firemen, on two thick poles. All shouted "Janjin var," and sought to reach the place of the fire. But then came the question, Where was water to be procured? It had to be carried up with great difficulty in tubs and bags, perhaps even purchased from the water-carriers; and so, before they had succeeded in getting one squirt into working order, the fire had converted a street into a heap of ashes. Formerly, the want of water was felt still worse, and it is even said that all sorts of scoundrels used to bring up squirts filled with oil, with which they threatened to sprinkle the neighbouring houses unless their owners consented to ransom themselves. The next morning after a fire has taken place curious gazers may be seen wandering about over an immense heap of smoking wood ashes. The Turks congregate, hundreds of "Mashallahs" and "Inshallahs" may be heard, and they puff away at their chibuks in rivalry with the cinders. The next morning, when the ashes have grown cold, you will notice on the spot a number of huts or tents being erected; the owner of the spot has taken possession of it again, and lives on in his tent till he can scrape up enough to build a new house. If he cannot do so, the spot remains empty; and so you may find at the present day whole streets desolate which were afflicted some ten or twelve years back by a fire. A curious preservation against fire may be noticed in Constantinople before the windows of the houses, namely, a pair of slippers and a bundle of onions; houses which are provided with these means of protection are generally found, however, to burn as fast as the rest.

Suppose now, my dear reader, that you accompany me to a Turkish bath;-but no, I should not like to practise such cruelty upon you; you had better stay at home, and let me describe it to you. The person

desirous of bathing enters the hamam, and finds himself in a large hall, round the walls of which a gallery runs. You then go up a flight of wooden stairs, where an hamamji takes off the clothes of the visitor, then wraps him in several large blankets, and puts a pair of massive sabots on his feet, in which he descends the stairs. As a general rule, however, the shoes reach the bottom long before the wearer. From this hall the bather is led into another, out of which a considerable degree of heat pours forth to meet him. While the first chamber is lighted by large windows in the walls and cupola, the second apartment is found to be somewhat darker. The floor is formed of very fine marble, and a fountain is usually to be noticed in the centre; round the room are cushions, on which the visitor reclines for a few moments, to prepare himself for the