eries of paroxysms of rage; but nothing crushed him. In hearing
of the death of Napoleon, he swore that he would eat the heart of
England; the slow agony of the pale and interesting heir of the Empire
inspired him with a passion to tear the vitals out of Austria. When the
drama was over, and the curtain fell on Schoenbrunn, he dashed away his
tears and said, "It is well. I have lived in a moment a man's entire
life. Now show me the map of France!"

Leon began to turn over the leaves of an atlas, while M. Renault
attempted to continue narrating to the colonel the history of the
Restoration, and of the monarchy of 1830. But Fougas's interest was in
other things.

"What do I care," said he, "if a couple of hundred babblers of deputies
put one king in place of another? Kings! I've seen enough of them in the
dirt. If the Empire had lasted ten years longer, I could have had a king
for a bootblack."

When the atlas was placed before him, he at once cried out with profound
disdain, "That France?" But soon two tears of pitying affection,
escaping from his eyes, swelled the rivers Ardeche and Gironde. He
kissed the map and said, with an emotion which communicated itself to
nearly all those who were present:--

"Forgive me, poor old love, for insulting your misfortunes. Those
scoundrels whom we always whipped have profited by my sleep to pare down
your frontiers; but little or great, rich or poor, you are my mother,
and I love you as a faithful son! Here is Corsica, where the giant of
our age was born; here is Toulouse, where I first saw the light; here is
Nancy, where I felt my heart awakened--where, perhaps, she whom I call
my Aegle waits for me still! France! Thou hast a temple in my soul; this
arm is thine; thou shalt find me ever ready to shed my blood to the last
drop in defending or avenging thee!"

ACCADIAN-BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LITERATURE

BY CRAWFORD H. TOY

Recent discoveries have carried the beginnings of civilization farther
and farther back into the remote past. Scholars are not agreed as to
what region can lay claim to the greatest literary antiquity. The oldest
historical records are found in Egypt and Babylonia, and each of these
lands has its advocates, who claim for it priority in culture. The data
now at our command are not sufficient for the decision of this question.
It may be doubted whether any one spot on the globe will ever be shown
to have precedence in time over all others,--whether, t