less it be on the assumption that the Paris journalists, even
the foremost of whom he treats on the footing of equality,
consider him "good copy." Only as late as a few years ago, he
made a considerable sensation in the Paris press by appearing
at one of M. Carnot's receptions in evening dress, redolent of
benzine, "because the dress had been lying _perdu_ for so many
years." It was he who started the famous "taverne du bagne," on
the Boulevard Rochechouart, to which "all Paris" flocked.
Previous to this, he had been the lessee of the Bouffes du
Nord, at which theatre he brought out Louise Michel's "Nadine."
Though by no means an educated man, he can, on occasions,
behave himself very well, and truth compels me to state that he
is very good-natured and obliging. One day, on the occasion of
an important murder trial, I failed to see Commandant Lunel at
the Palais de Justice, and was turning away disconsolately,
when, at a sign from M. Lisbonne, the sergeant of the Gardes de
Paris, who had refused to admit me on the presentation of my
card, relented. That same afternoon, at the mere expression of
his wish, the manager of the Jardin de Paris, which had just
been opened, presented me with a season ticket, or, to speak
correctly, placed my name on the permanent free list. In short,
I could mention a score of instances of a similar nature; all
tending to show that M. Maxime Lisbonne's "participation in the
events of the Commune" has had the effect of investing him with
a kind of social halo.--EDITOR.]

On another occasion I saw the famous General Dombrowski, and the no less
famous Colonel or General la Cecilia. I only exchanged a few words with
the former, but I sat talking for a whole evening to the latter. He was
a short, spare, fidgety man, strongly pitted with small-pox, with a few
straggling hairs on the upper lip and chin. He was terribly
near-sighted, and wore a pair of thick spectacles. Nervous and restless
to a degree, but a voice of remarkable sweetness. His English was
faultless, with scarcely any accent, and I was told that he spoke every
European language and several Oriental ones with the same accuracy. He
was the only Frenchman who could converse with Dombrowski and the other
Poles in their native la