el, a carriage drawn by post
horses drove up; and, soon after, the master of the hotel
entering into my room, I asked him who were his new arrivals.

"'_Sono certi Inglesi_,' he answered, '_ma non saprei dire se
sono Francesi o Tedeschi_. Some English, but I cannot say
whether French or German.'"--Vol. i. p. 9.

The little town of Monaco is his next resting-place. This town, which is
now under the government of the King of Sardinia, was at one time an
independent principality; and M. Dumas gives a lively sketch of the
vicissitudes which the little state has undergone, mimicking, as it has,
the movements of great monarchies, and being capable of boasting even of
its revolution and its republic. During the reign of Louis XIV. the
territory of Monaco gave the title of prince to a certain Honore III.,
who was under the protection of the _Grand Monarque_.

"The marriage of this Prince of Monaco," says our annalist,
"was not happy. One fine morning his spouse, who was the same
beautiful and gay Duchess de Valentinois so well known in the
scandalous chronicles of that age, found herself at one step
out of the states of her lord and sovereign. She took refuge at
Paris. Desertion was not all. The prince soon learned that he
was as unfortunate as a husband can be.

"At that epoch, calamities of this description were only
laughed at; but the Prince of Monaco was, as the duchess used
to say, a strange man, and he took offence. He got information
from time to time of the successive gallants whom his wife
thought fit to honour, and he hanged them in effigy, one after
the other, in the front court of his palace. The court was soon
full, and the executions bordered on the high road;
nevertheless, the prince relented not, but continued always to
hang. The report of these executions reached Versailles; Louis
XIV. was, in his turn, displeased, and counselled the prince to
be more lenient in his punishments. He of Monaco answered that,
being a sovereign prince, he had undoubtedly the right of pit
and gallows on his own domain, and that surely he might hang as
many men of straw as he pleased.

"The affair bred so much scandal, that it was thought prudent
to send the duchess back to her husband. He, to make her
punishment the more complete, had resolved that she should, on
her return, pass before this row of executed