mon; one that he brought back with him from his travels, together with
albums, mnemonics, and Kant's Philosophy. It is a taste for autograph
letters. It is well known that the English, who are always ready to
confound what is rare with what is really admirable, are very successful
in their curiosities of this kind. They collect them at a great expense,
and employ skilful engravers to reproduce fac-similes for second-rate
amateurs, whose whole fortune would not suffice for the acquisition of the
originals.

Last week I came upon my friend the autographist, just as he was receiving
a note of Boileau, of only four lines, in which he regrets that he cannot
dine the next day with a Mr. Le Vasseur. This note, written in the most
simple style, contained no anecdote, nor curious fact, and was only
remarkable for a fault in its orthography. So that all the respect I have
for our great critic did not prevent me from testifying some surprise,
when I saw my friend pay ten Louis for a paper rag of no value at all.

'I understand your astonishment,' he said; 'but to complete a collection,
no matter of what kind, one must make sacrifices;' and at the same time he
placed his precious paper in a _carton_, labelled '_Age of Louis XIV._'
'You see,' he continued, pointing to a part of his library where several
similar cartons were arranged, 'you see the result of my collections for
some years. I have sixty thousand francs' worth of autographs in that
corner.'

'For which you cannot get ten from the grocer at the next corner, who is
probably the only person to whom the rubbish would be of any use.'

'Vandal!' he exclaimed, with a mixture of indignation and contempt; 'you
talk like a man whom posterity will never mention. Look at the names you
have insulted! Look at this letter from Montaigne to Boetius, so illegible
that it has never been printed; look at that billet of Henry IV. to the
Duchesse de Verneuil; and that Sonnet of Malherbe, written entirely by
Bacon's own hand; that letter from Madame de Maintenon to Father Le
Tellier; that order from the Prince the night before the battle of
Senef--'

'Even if I were wishing,' I answered, 'to share your veneration for some
of these relics which excite so many historical recollections, I should
not laugh the less at the zeal with which you preserve all that waste
paper, which has nothing to recommend it. For instance, what is this
letter worth which I have just taken up? It is signed by a M