ssie." His father, she goes on to say, had left him
an inheritance of great value in the shape of mines, the products of
which he sold to the government on very profitable terms. His enormous
wealth enabled him to obtain the hand of a Miss Strogonov, the daughter
of one of the most ancient families of the land. Their union was an
harmonious one, and they left two sons, "of whom one," concludes our
author, "lives most of the time at Paris, and, like his father, is very
fond of art."

Madame Le Brun's friend was Nicolai Demidoff (1774-1828), one of the
least distinguished members of his family, who have been the
mining-kings of Russia for two centuries. The contemporary of Peter the
Great was ennobled by him (without receiving a title), and in the patent
it was decreed that the family should be for ever free from military and
other service, "that they may devote themselves to the discovery of
metals." Nicolai's son Anatoli was born in Moscow March 24, 1813: he
was sent to Paris to be educated, and remained there till his eighteenth
year, studying at various institutions, including the law-school and the
Ecole Polytechniqne. Shortly after his return his father died, and he
came into possession of an enormous property, which he immediately began
to spend, lavishly, but generously. In St. Petersburg he bought and
furnished a large building to serve as a charitable institution. From
its kitchen two hundred thousand meals are given yearly to the poor, and
in it one hundred and fifty orphans are housed and fed, one hundred and
fifty girls are trained to be capable servants, and forty impoverished
gentlewomen find a home. When the cholera raged in the same city not
long afterward he not only established a hospital, but is said to have
devoted himself personally to the care of the sick. In the furtherance
of science and art he was still more munificent. He founded the Demidoff
prizes, which annually distribute nearly four thousand dollars to the
authors of the most useful works published during the year, while from
his mines in Siberia eight young men went forth yearly to acquire a
thorough technical education at his expense. In 1837, urged by the great
need of coal felt by the Russian industrial classes, he began a three
years' exploration of the Black Sea country, accompanied by a staff of
six professors, who produced a detailed report, not only of the
coal-deposits, but also of the zoology, botany and geology of the region
tra