s an unfortunate habit with
Cooper. He was provoked by a Dresden schoolmaster's surprise that his
children were not black; and, again, because he could not convince an
English scholar that in Boston "to gouge" did not mean the cruel
practice "to squeeze out a man's eyes with the thumb." This English
scholar was Sir James Mackintosh.

On the return to Paris from Germany several places were tried before
finding a short distance across the Seine, No. 59 rue St. Dominique,--an
off-and-on home for three years. Here the salon was thirty feet long and
lofty--to a sailor's delight, seventeen feet; above the doors were
paintings in gilded frames; and there were four large mirrors, and vast
windows reaching to the floor. The dining-room, even larger, opened on
the garden. After this manner the doctor of the Duke of Orleans built
his home for himself--and this American tenant. The turmoil in this
city of light at once attracted him in the near view of the Revolution
of July. Having known General Lafayette since 1824, these two fine men
were brought in close touch on Cooper's second visit to Paris. In 1831
the Marquis Lafayette was the center of American life here, and
consequently he and our author were constantly and intimately thrown
together.

[Illustration: LAFAYETTE'S PARIS HOME, RUE D'ANJOU.]

Lafayette's neat, simple apartment in a hotel of some pretension was in
the rue d'Anjou. There were a large antechamber, two salons, and an
inner room, where he wrote, and finally had his bed. His town servants
were his German valet, Bastien, who served during the last visit to
America, a footman, and a coachman. Cooper wrote: "When I show myself at
the door Bastien makes a signal of assent, intimates that the general
is at dinner; but I am at once ushered into the bed-room. Here I find
Lafayette at table--so small as to be covered with a napkin, his little
white dog his only companion." It was understood that the guest had
dined, so he takes a seat in the chimney-corner, and as they talk the
dinner goes on to its finish of dates, which are shared by the visitor.
The last of these pleasant visits grew from the usual half hour to
almost two, as they chatted of the great and small and all in their fine
way. Lafayette thought Louis Philippe "the falsest man" he ever met. Of
Charles X he "spoke kindly," giving him "an exactly opposite character,"
and Marie Antoinette he believed "an injured woman."

[Illustration: GENERAL LAFAYETTE'S B