es to quell the endless jealousies and
quarrels for precedence between courtiers and diplomatists of contending
pretensions. Under this rule no rank was recognized, each person being
allowed at banquet, fete, or other public ceremony only such place as he
had been ingenious or fortunate enough to obtain.

Any one wishing to form an idea of the confusion that ensued, of the
intrigues and expedients resorted to, not only in procuring prominent
places, but also in ensuring the integrity of the Pele Mele, should
glance over the amusing memoirs of M. de Segur.

The aspiring nobles and ambassadors, harassed by this constant
preoccupation, had little time or inclination left for any serious
pursuit, since, to take a moment's repose or an hour's breathing space
was to risk falling behind in the endless and aimless race. Strange as
it may appear, the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more to
chance or intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, instead
of lessening the value of the prizes for which all were striving, seemed
only to enhance them in the eyes of the competitors.

Success was the unique standard by which they gauged their fellows. Those
who succeeded revelled in the adulation of their friends, but when any
one failed, the fickle crowd passed him by to bow at more fortunate feet.

No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a perpetual
Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we have been
sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough to
keep--a constant competition, a daily steeplechase, favorable to daring
spirits and personal initiative but with the defect of keeping frail
humanity ever on the qui vive.

Philosophers tell us, that we should seek happiness only in the calm of
our own minds, not allowing external conditions or the opinions of others
to influence our ways. This lofty detachment from environment is
achieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers themselves (who may be
said to have invented the art of "posing") were generally as vain as
peacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with the verdict of their
contemporaries and their position as regards posterity.

Man is born gregarious and remains all his life a herding animal. As one
keen observer has written, "So great is man's horror of being alone that
he will seek the society of those he neither likes nor respects sooner
than be left to his own." The laws and conventions that