France. The version which seems to be the most probable is that he was
born in San Francisco, where as one of the early settlers, his father,
E. C. Hickey, was well known, and that early in his life, in order to
educate him, the mother took him to Europe.

There he was educated at the Jesuit College at Namur, then at Leipsic,
and later entered the Military College of St. Cyr.

James the First was one of those boys who never had the misfortune to
grow up. To the moment of his death, in all he planned you can trace the
effects of his early teachings and environment; the influences of the
great Church that nursed him, and of the city of Paris, in which he
lived. Under the Second Empire, Paris was at her maddest, baddest, and
best. To-day under the republic, without a court, with a society kept in
funds by the self-expatriated wives and daughters of our business men,
she lacks the reasons for which Baron Haussmann bedecked her and made
her beautiful. The good Loubet, the worthy Fallieres, except that they
furnish the cartoonist with subjects for ridicule, do not add to the
gayety of Paris. But when Harden-Hickey was a boy, Paris was never so
carelessly gay, so brilliant, never so overcharged with life, color, and
adventure.

In those days "the Emperor sat in his box that night," and in the box
opposite sat Cora Pearl; veterans of the campaign of Italy, of Mexico,
from the desert fights of Algiers, sipped sugar and water in front of
Tortoni's, the Cafe Durand, the Cafe Riche; the sidewalks rang with
their sabres, the boulevards were filled with the colors of the gorgeous
uniforms; all night of each night the Place Vendome shone with the
carriage lamps of the visiting pashas from Egypt, of nabobs from
India, of _rastaquoueres_ from the sister empire of Brazil; the state
carriages, with the outriders and postilions in the green and gold of
the Empress, swept through the Champs Elysees, and at the Bal Bulier,
and at Mabile the students and "grisettes" introduced the cancan. The
men of those days were Hugo, Thiers, Dumas, Daudet, Alfred de Musset;
the magnificent blackguard, the Duc de Morny, and the great, simple
Canrobert, the captain of barricades, who became a marshal of France.

Over all was the mushroom Emperor, his anterooms crowded with the
titled charlatans of Europe, his court radiant with countesses created
overnight. And it was the Emperor, with his love of theatrical display,
of gorgeous ceremonies; with his rest