The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-11 00:00:00

CHANGES OF FORTUNE.

Madame Chaumont, a widow who had come to Paris about
a lawsuit, load already gained a hundred millions by her
speculations in this street. She was surrounded by Mis-
sissippians, with all of whom she appeared to be dealing.
Not far from the lucky Madame Chaumont stood the
Prince do Conti, who was now as regularly to be seen in the
Rue Qaincampoix as any other jobber. At this moment
the prince was selling shares to a stout, well-looking man,
whose countenance, though he could not recal it, was
familiar to Evelyn. This stout personage was no other
ban Law's ci-d event coachman, Hippolyte.
The next person to attract Evelyn's notice was M. Chirac,
the Regent's principal physician, a man ordinarily
of grave exterior and extremely dignified deportment,
but he now appeared to be id a state of great excitement
and was gesticulating furiously to M. Chambery, a specu-
,
later with whom he was dealing. Like Madame Chaumont,
Chambery was a singular instance of the caprice of fortune.
A. poor Savoyard, he gained a bare livelihood by acting as
a commissioner, but since the commencement of the system
he had contrived to amass forty millions, and at this par-
ticular junction he was endeavouring to purchase an office
in the royal household.
Close to Chambery, and now availing himself of the broad
ornoplate of Martial to jot down his calculations, was
Vincent Leblanc, another speculator, who had profited to
the extent of many millions by the System. The two per-
sons with whom Leblanc was now transacting business were
no other than Montesquieu and Fontenelle. These two
celebrated men were kept in countenance by a pair of the
ripest scholars of the day—namely, the Abbe Terrason and
M. de la Mothe. *
A striking feature in the crowd was the number of richly-
dressed persons, and these were by no means people of the
highest rank, for those who made money invariably ex-
pended it in costly stuffs, and clothed themselves in em-
broidered velvets and silks, and even in cloth of gold, wear-
ing buttons of solid gold and silver. This extravagance
was carried to such a point that all the warehouses in the
Rue St. Honoro were emptied of their stores of silks,
velvets, tissues, lace, and embroidery, and it was found
necessary to check the over-indulgence in rich stuffs by a
sumptuary law.
Here is a glimpse, of law at the moment of enc.

Napoleon of the Gambling World," the third

[lime closes :
" Ci-git oat ECOSSaIS CeinTB
Ce calculateur sane egal
Qui, par les regles de I'aig6bre
A mis la France a l'hopital,"

The Adventures of a Man of Family. By Lord
William Lennox. 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.
As David Copperfield, in recounting the actual
experiences of his memorable career, begins at the
beginning, " I am born," so does the hero of Lord
William Lennox's new novel give us an accurate
history of his earliest adventures. The fall, true,
and particular accounts of the Christening festivi-
ties, and the tirade of compliments showered,
according to custom, upon the " lovely baby," are
amusing, as are alto the records cf the school-boy
misdeeds of the youthful hero. The " Man of
Family" does not do much justice to his early
education in his after career. His adventures are
full of vicissitude and his love affairs
betray coßsiderable instability of sentiment.
We shall not, however, betray the mysteries of the
plot. Some of the most interesting chapters of this
work are those in which the author, by the mouth
of his hero, describes to us some of the scenes at
home and abroad evidently familiar to himself. In
his travels in France, for example, Mr. Carleton is
struck by the