The Tamworth Examiner and Working Men's Journal. — 1874-03-28 (Tamworth, Staffordshire, England)

VINCENNES BY MOONLIGHT.  Two days had elapsed since the incidents recorded In the last chapter. They were days of action. The quarrel in the "Salon pour passer le temps," as it was called in the Café de l'lnmeratrice, was a mortal one. Nothing, it was universally agreed, could efface the memory of it but that satisfaction which it was foolishly supposed to demand—an honourable vindica. tion by the deadly arbitrament of pistols. The seconds had met accordingly, and had interchanged cards, and had decide,: —a weapons, and time, and place. Monsieur Lousget—by whatever fate was such a ditchpond of a gentleman selected ?—was to be secone for the mysterious stranger, Monsieur Lascelles, an a German officer of the Landwher, the Count Von Gleichen, was to be second for Monsieur Georg* d'Alcaroy. For the right appreciation of what follows we must intrude for a moment or so into the privacy of two homes.  The Avenue Blanche is famed throughout Paris in the summer time for the richness of its foliage. A thousand trees stand like an arboreal guard of honour adown its either side. You look in through its grand opening under a perfect galaxy of leaves. All the tints of the forest are there—the daintiest green and the darkest red. And then its villas are such as you do not find in any other place in Western Paris. They are not palatial, perhaps. They do not strike you as seleated habitats of Parisian affluence, but there is a quiet unobtrusive loveliness about them, and a rich gracefulness that instantly predispose you in their favour. Perhaps they are all pretty similar in style, but if you were at liberty to select one I confidently fence you would choose the Villa Bianca. Somehow or other, it ii a great deal pleasanter, and math snore d'elite than its immediate neighbours. It may be fancy, but the trees around it seem more luxuriantand gigantic than elsewhere in the avenue, and the tessalated roof which their bare biack braiachee now form over your head seems more elegant and satisfactory. Besides all this, some highly important historical incidents are inseparably entwined with its dearest memorim That giant sycamore which appears to the unsuspecting eye so Innocently proud in its October blackness is said to have answered some of the darkest purposes of the Revolutionists in those bloody days of 48. Beatrice, too, the famous Beatrice de Cenci, is said to have sheltered once in the Villa Bianca, and the half-forgotten hollows in its panelled walls are known to have secreted more than one of France's noblemen in those awful day. when the Cap of Liberty —the Phrygian Cap—crowned the shattered bust of Freedom, crowned it stiff with the gore of the murdered, and the sweat of Belleville assassins. So that, independent of its native charms, it was of rad interest from an historical point of view. The curtains were all drawn down. The subdued 'ohness and gaslight fell open and through them in a golden gleam, and in its turn this golden gleam danced dimly and precariously on the trees without, whose, giant arms It tipped ever and again with flakes of silver Within the villa a lady was busily writing at a pearl-bestudded escritoire. The ruddy firelight, taking advantage of the low Maly gee fees, threw hundreds of phien glances on the fold. of the lady's dress and over the wahmt furniture.  As for the lady herself, about vthom you moot now know, ate was very handsome, with an eye in whose fiery tispths there lurked the scarcely-hidden elements of supernal hate. Scorn seemed to sit by habit on her thin and bloodless lips. Her every look and woal and motion appeared to you to be the dictation of 00/7111410W pride. In short, you new at once that the lady was Mae. lkirbeseaux, now Madame d'Alcarey 1 Them is • knock at the dining-room door, and Madame d'Alearoy raises her hEsa, bet only to plunge the more profoundly into the caligrapihie mysterieo the instant she diecovsre that the w is inerely a servant. I.,.The Count V00—c"...._.9.  • 01144rifi ...adt