PREFACE. The discovery of the "Great West," or the valleys of the Mississippi and the Lakes, is a portion of our history hitherto very obscure. Those magnificent regions were revealed to the world through a series of daring enterprises, of which the motives and even the incidents have been but partially and superficially known. The chief actor in them wrote much, but printed nothing; and the... more...

INTRODUCTION I This volume is neither a diary nor a narrative. To have given it either of these forms, each of which has its obvious advantages, would have extended it beyond all reasonable limits. It is simply a selection from my very full memoranda of a series of visits paid to different parts of France during the year 1889. These visits would never have been made, had not my previous acquaintance... more...

CHAPTER I. CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. Louis XVIII. in 1815 returned to his throne, borne on the shoulders of foreign soldiers, after the fight at Waterloo. The allied armies had a second time entered France to make her pass under the saws and harrows of humiliation. Paris was gay, for money was spent freely by the invading strangers. Sacrifices on the altar of the Emperor were over; enthusiasm... more...

THE LETTER. It was a very sunny June day, and a girl was pacing up and down a sheltered path in an old-fashioned garden. She walked slowly along the narrow graveled walk, now and then glancing at the carefully trimmed flowers of an elaborate ribbon border at her right, and stopping for an instant to note the promise of fruit on some well-laden peach and pear-trees. The hot sun was pouring down almost... more...

CHAPTER ITHE ADVENTURE IN THE COULIE The report of a bird gun made the single rider in sight upon the short-grassed plain pull in her pinto and gaze westerly toward the setting sun, now going down in a field of golden glory. The pinto stood like a statue, and its rider seemed a part of the steed, so well did she sit in her saddle. She gazed steadily under her hand–gazed and listened. Finally, she... more...

CHAPTER I In another minute the Kaiser Wilhelm would push off from her pier in Hoboken. The last bell had rung, the last uniformed officer and white-jacketed steward had scurried up the gangway. The pier was massed with people who had come to bid their friends good-by. They were all Germans, and there had been unlimited embracing and kissing and sobs of "Ach! mein lieber Sckatz!" and "Gott... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE HEART OF PARIS I maintain that my master, Maurice, Count of Saxe, Marshal-general of France, Duke of Courland and Semigallia, Knight of the Most Noble Order of Merit, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the White Eagle, Knight of St. Louis, Knight of St. Stanislaus, and of many other noble Orders—I maintain him, I say, to be the greatest man, the bravest man, the finest man, the... more...

CHAPTER I THE CASTOR AND POLLUX OF ELIZABETHAN DRAMA "Among those of our dramatists who either were contemporaries of Shakespeare or came after him, it would be impossible to name more than three to whom the predilection or the literary judgment of any period of our national life has attempted to assign an equal rank by his side. In the Argo of the Elizabethan drama—as it presents itself to the... more...

The State of Gaul, before it was reduced into a Province by the Romans. My Design being to give an Account of the Laws and Ordinances of our Francogallia, as far as it may tend to the Service of our Commonwealth, in its present Circumstances; I think it proper, in the first place, to set forth the State of Gaul, before it was reduced into the Form of a Province by the Romans: For what Cæsar, Polybius,... more...

CHAPTER I. A NOVEL BATTLE. "Pull him along, Carlos! Pull him along!" shouted a young gentleman about sixteen years of age, as he danced about on the back porch of his uncle's house, in a state of great excitement; "why don't you pull him along?" "He'll come, after awhile," replied the person addressed; "but he is very wild and obstinate." The boy on the... more...