upon, and Suzanne was censured for encouraging it. One friend (not in holy orders, it may be supposed) took it upon himself to write her a remonstrance, telling her that when church was over she should "drive them out with a broom, or keep out of the way herself." Interference with a girl who was living at home with her father and mother savors strongly of provincialism and Presbyterianism, but it must be confessed that M. and Mme. Churchod did not take the best care of their daughter. Some of her secular admirers sent her verses which might have scandalized a Paris fine lady. This country parson's daughter at sixteen received very well turned madrigals, which alternately praised her charms and deplored her rigor. It is unlikely that she showed her parents these effesions, although she made no secret of her correspondence or about any of her proceedings. However rigorous, Suzanne in her teens was no prude, probably because of her very innocence. Many years later, Mme. Necker, the paragon of married women and mothers, whose primness was a source of both amusement and annoyance to her visitors, alluded to those delightful days with some shame at her girlish freedom and flightiness; she confessed that she had had no notion of propriety -"my simplicity prevented my understanding it, and my head was turned by flattery.'

The young men only did their share in spoiling Suzanne. Before she was fairly grown up she was reported a sort of local prodigy, and set up like a little goddess in the centre of the horizon beyond which her imagination did not reach. Suzanne Churchod's first appearance in Lausanne caused a sensation which the inhabitants and strangers living there at the time well remembered many long years afterward. Lausanne for a hundred and fifty years at least has made its boast of a learned and literary society which can hold its own against that of any city in Europe. Its claims have been recognized, in so far that it has been for a century and a half the chosen resort of distinguished men of various nations. It is enough to mention Voltaire, who there appeared in his own tragedies before an audience whom he pronounced to be "as good judges as

there were in Europe;" Gibbon, who, after paying it several long visits, settled there to finish his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;" Mickiewicz, the Polish poet, who at one time had a chair in the Academy; Sainte-Beuve, who there delivered the course of lectures on Port Royal which constitute. six volumes of his published works. Notwithstanding all this literature they keep a little behind the times. M. d'Haussonville says wittily that in 1757 they had lost the hour of day, and the town-clock still marked the time of the Hotel Rambouillet. Even during SainteBeuve's sojourn there (1837-8) there was a lingering taste for literary travesties and nicknames; the young people carried on their flirtations and loveaffairs under cover of his lectures, and the damsels gave their swains the names of defunct young Jansenists of the seventeenth century.

In Suzanne Churchod's heyday free.. thinking was coming into fashion throughout the polite world. Religion was an active force among the worthy Swiss. Their morals were pure, their manners were simple, their pleasures were innocent, their tastes were rather pedantic. The Academy, or as we should say College or University, of Lausanne, gave an intellectual bias to the whole society, in which, notwithstanding the preponderance of grave and learned professors and divinity students, young people enjoyed an importance and independence unknown elsewhere. On summer evenings the citizens had the friendly habit of resorting to the open square near the castle, and the fine old Gothic cathedral in the heart of the academic quarter of the town, where the sons and daughters of the old feudal families (in spite of aristocratic distinctions kept up to this hour in that ancient republic) mingled with those of the middle class to talk and dance and sing under the chestnut-trees. There were dancing assemblies, picnics, and clubs or societies on the model of the Italian literary associations. Suzanne Churchod was brought by her parents into this privileged circle, where she was said to excel all the young girls in beauty and all the young men in knowledge. Here the black-coated ranks of her clerical admirers were bro

ken by the students of the Academy, and beaux of the gay set, and she was acknowledged at once as queen of their balls. A society was founded in her honor, called the Academy of the Springs, from a spring in a neighboring valley where the members often held their sessions; it was organized on the basis of the courts of love of the days of chivalry, but the members took their names from Mlle. Scudéry's romances of" Clélie" and "Le grand Cyrus." Suzanne was made president (we may be sure she was not called chair-woman) under the name of Thémire. Every young man, or knight of the Academy of the Springs, as he was termed, was required to wear the colors of the young lady who pleased him best, the lady to reciprocate the compliment-that is, if she reciprocated the preference we may hope. When a member wished to change his or her colors, the reasons had to be assigned in full session, and the Academy decided upon their validity. Every candidate was required to give a truthful portrait of him or herself, person, mind, and character, and to contribute in turn an original production, either in pose or verse, the reading and discussion whereof was the chief business of the meeting. There were also regular debates on stated topics-as, for instance, Does mystery in itself enhance the pleasure of love, and can friendship of the same sort exist between a man and a woman as between two men and two women ?" Arcadian days, which dwelt long in the memory of those who had any part in them! Far into this century the spot was still shown in the little valley near the spring where the youthful academicians gathered in fine weather, and the throne of turf from which their lovely president ruled the proceedings.

Suzanne's triumphs, like those of other conquerors, would have been incomplete without the warning voice which bade her remember that she was but human. An older friend, again of the other sex, undertook the part of monitor, and informed her that she showed her desire to please men too plainly, and even although they all believe that to be woman's chief concern, they do not like it to be made too evident; warning her that she would repel instead of captivating them by her manner, etc., etc. Any

attractive young lady can finish the sermon from memory. Suzanne honestly admitted that she liked the praise of men better than any other sort, and in spite of her unblushing conduct the offended sex did not cease to shower upon her French and Latin verses, declarations of love, and offers of marriage. Although the young coquette confesses that her head was turned by adulation, her heart was apparently untouched until she was nearly twenty. About the time that she was proclaimed queen of wit and beauty, there arrived at Lausanne a young Englishman, who attracted more attention than was generally bestowed upon strangers of his age. After giving promise of achievement by his precocious though desultory taste for letters, he had been dismissed from Oxford for joining the Roman Catholic Church. His father, a Tory M..P, in easy circumstances, sent him to be cured of his errors under the care of a Swiss Protestant minister, M. Pavillard-a change in his mode of life which came very hard at first. This was Edward Gibbon, not yet the fat-faced personage who confronts the title-page of the " Decline and Fall," but a slim, studious youth, who appeared in the estimable society of Lausanne with the twofold distinction of his errors and his reform. He was gradually admitted to their.select diversions, and soon made fast friends among them. His foreign birth, his natural place in a wider sphere, his intense application to learning after a brief outburst of dissipation in company with some idle young fellows of his own nation, his speedy reconversion under the influence of his wise and venerable tutor and the Protestant atmosphere of the town, combined to make him a little lion in the intelligent circle to which he was introduced. He heard on all sides of the charms and talents of Mlle. Churchod, and had a great curiosity to see her before they met. When the fated day came he wrote in his diary: "I have seen Mlle. Churchod-Omnia vincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori."

This was in June, 1757, when they were both twenty; he was her senior only by a few months. Suzanne has left a picture of him as he first appeared to her blue eyes, which is engaging enough: "He has handsome hair, a pretty hand,

and the bearing of a person of condition. His face is so singular, so full of cleverness, that I know none which resembles it. He has so much expression that one constantly finds something new in it. His gestures are so appropriate that they add much to his words. In short, he has one of those extraordinary physiognomies which one never tires of studying, depicting, and following." Gibbon in his memoirs gives a still more flattering description of the young girl. His account of the events which ensued is brief and dry, but he implies that at first, although his suit was not discouraged, he was much the more enamored of the two. The affectation of seeming worse than one is had not come into vogue. Gibbon had to the full the decent desire of putting his best foot forward which belonged to his respectable class and times. He took no pride in making himself out a Lovelace to this village beauty, but left it to be inferred that he, and not she, was the honorable victim of the affair. But there are many ways in which a man may ruin a young girl, and that Gibbon did not destroy Suzanne Churchod's happiness for life is due to the vigor of her intellect and character. After making her acquaintance he improved his opportunities to the utmost, obtained permission to visit her at her home, which he did several times during the course of that summer and autumn, once staying as long as a week. An interchange of letters soon began. His at first betrayed more vanity and wish to dazzle his fair correspondent than sentiment. Like other lovers, real and feigned, he counts the sand since the glass was turned on his banishment, and tells her that it is hundred and twenty-one hours eighteen minutes and thirty-three seconds since Crassy disappeared in the clouds.” the next, it is a week since he has seen her, "and to say that it seems like a century would be true but hackneyed." He professes himself unwilling to use the language of ordinary lovers, and thus to forfeit the epithets of original and unique" which she has bestowed upon him; yet how shall he convey a notion of the tedium of existence since they parted? He then relates how he once passed three weeks in a stupid countryhouse with a cross old crone who

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talked to him about Gog and Magog, Antichrist, and her private interpretation of the Apocalypse, with no books and no neighbors, except an old invalid who described all his ailments, and two country gentlemen who had ruined themselves by lawsuits, and believed that their only hope for better days lay in the division of Germany; but one being a Prussian and the other an Austrian, they could not agree about the conditions. Well!" he cries, "those three weeks did not seem half so long as the time I have been absent from you." After all, this is not an excess of ardor. He pays her elaborate compliments at the expense of every other woman in the world, and tells her of a picture he has seen in a studio and taken for a portrait of her, but the painter assured him that it was a fancy piece, his ideal of female loveliness, which he had sought for in vain all over the world; Gibbon relates this adventure only to exalt the graces of Mlle. Churchod's mind and character above those of her person. This artificial and labored tone continues throughout the correspondence on his side; it was the tone of the time, but neither in love-letters nor in the ludicrous poetry which he addresses to her in defiance of the rules of French syntax and prosody, is there one touch of true tenderness or a single spark of real passion. Gibbon's French verses are curiosities of literature, as he wrote French prose with remarkable correctness and fluency. length he began to write as an accepted suitor, yet he did not depart from the conventional form in which he professed himself to be "with the utmost esteem and affection, her very humble servant."

At

There are no letters of Suzanne's belonging to the early stages of the correspondence. Gibbon's rejoinders prove that she usually wrote in a bantering strain. From the beginning of her engagement she kept copies of her letters -a strange precaution; but although she had perfect confidence in his attachment, misgivings as to the result of the connection beset her from the first. The warmth and depth of her feelings pervade her letters to him, yet she wrote with a dignity and self-restraint which showed how fast she matured under the influence of love. But already the fear of objections on his father's part, and

her determination not to resist them, were openly expressed. arose from this source.

Clouds soon Suzanne made it a condition of her acceptance that her lover must make his home in Switzerland as long as her parents should live. To this Gibbon at first joyfully subscribed, but before long he began to complain of it. On a little journey to Fribourg he wrote her a letter in which he was ungenerous and uncandid enough to hint that, as she saw so many obstacles on both sides, perhaps an avowal of indifference from him would be a welcome release to her. With many reproaches for this supposed coldness and protestations of his own devotion, he admits his fears that the condition she has affixed to their marriage cannot fail to wound his father both in his parental affection and in his ambition; still he, Edward, does not despair of reconciling him to it; he goes on to retail with insufferable egotism and cumbrous complication of suppositions, the arguments with which he will soften his father's resistance, his own absence of ambition, indifference to worldly honors, philosophical superiority to wealth; he will remind his father that knowledge has been his only passion until love awoke in his heart. It was a letter to dispel a girl's illusions. Suzanne replied with much controlled emotion; she reiterated that she could not allow her lover to disobey or even to distress his fatherthe love she bears her own parents is her measure for what he owes to his; but she will not justify herself against his insinuation of her wishing for an avowal of indifference on his part. "I never supposed for a moment you could imagine such a thing; it was too far from my heart to enter my thoughts."

Gibbon's account in his memoirs one is led to suppose that the rupture of his engagement took place shortly after his return to England, and ended all communication between himself and Mlle. Churchod: "I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that without his consent was destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle I yielded to my fate; I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son; my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself; and my love subsided in friendship and esteem. The deliberate misrepresentation of the course of events is proved by the date of the aforesaid letter, August 1762, when they had been affianced for nearly five years. In it he repeats the final conversation between himself and his father, which the older man closed by saying: "Marry your foreigner-you are independent. But remember that you are a son and a citizen." Whereupon his son retired to his chamber, and remained there two hours. "I will not endeavor to describe my condition to you. came forth to tell my father that I would sacrifice the happiness of my life to him." The epistle concludes with the obligatory protestations of his own misery, and prayers for the lady's happiness, and an entreaty that she will not altogether forget him.

I

Her forebodings were verified. Gibbon's stay at Lausanne was drawing to a close when they first met, and in the spring of 1758, about six months after their engagement, he went home to England. He wrote twice to her on the journey, letters which seem to have gone astray; then followed a languishing correspondence, a present of his first work, Essai sur l'Etude de la Littérature, which was written in French; finally a letter announcing his father's relentless opposition to their marriage, and his own mournful acquiescence in it. From

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a sickening change. The young woman's courage did not forsake her, but the serene and even temper for which she had been praised, and for which she was remarked in after times, gave way under the trials and suspense of her lot. Her intercourse with her mother became troubled; who knows with what compaints and regrets for better days the poor woman, whose life had been full of reverses, may have irritated and embittered her daughter's laborious and anxious existence ?-with what taunts for her fidelity to a faithless lover when there were eager suitors who would restore them to comfort and consideration? That painful phase is known only by the daughter's bitter self-reproaches after she lost her mother, and even into middle age. It is likely that Suzanne exaggerated her shortcomings as she exaggerated everything, for all the letters of condolence which she received on Madame Churchod's death, early in the year 1763, laid stress on the consolation which the sense of her duteousness and devotion must afford her.

And now the poor girl was alone in the world-father, mother, home, and lover gone-earning her bitter bread by uncongenial drudgery; an object of charity where she had been a goodess; still admired and courted, yet with nothing before her except the dismal perspective of the life of a daily governess, or a marriage without love. Sentimental and romantic, with feelings which had been roused by a real passion, any alternative seemed better to her than the last. Gibbon's letter of August 1762 would doubtless, with the aid of time, have ended the struggle, but for his unexpected return to Switzerland about six months afterward, soon after Madame Churchod's death. So strange a step under the circumstances, coupled with the expressions of attachment and unhappiness with which he concluded his farewell, naturally rekindled Suzanne's hopes. She was at Geneva when he reached Lausanne, but there is no mention of their meeting either in the records of Coppet or in his account of this visit in his memoirs, although he descants on the welcome and pleasures he found at his old abode. There is no reason to think that he wrote to her or sought her out, but his return gave force to his pe

tition for remembrance; and Suzanne, with the faith of a love which had strengthened while he was forgetting, ascribed it to fidelity. Unable to endure her agitation and uncertainty, she wrote to him in the following passionate and pathetic terms: "Sir, I blush for the step I am about to take. I would fain hide it from you; I would hide it from myself. Great God! can an innocent heart abase itself to such depths? What humiliation ! I have had more terrible sorrows, but none which I have felt so poignantly. But I owe the effort to my peace of mind; if I lose this opportunity, there is no more peace for me. For five years I have sacrificed everything to a chimera; but at last, romantic though I am, I begin to perceive my mistake. I beg you on my knees to undeceive my infatuated heart; sign an avowal of your complete indifference to me, and my soul will accept its destiny-certainty will bring the calm which I crave. She adjured him to answer her sincerely, and not to trifle with her repose, as she had too long persuaded herself that what were perhaps symptoms of coolness on his part were proofs of delicacy and disinterestedness. She implored him with a sort of frenzy never to betray the appeal even to her most intimate friend. My horror of such a punishment is the gauge of my fault, and, as it is, I feel that I am committing an outrage on my modesty, my past conduct, and my present feelings." These are the accents of Corinne and Delphine.

Gibbon was gentleman enough to return the letter; it remains among the archives of Coppet, with its address, its black seal, the token of her recent loss and loneliness, and her own superscription, in English: "A thinking soul is punishment enough, and every thought draws blood." His reply must have wounded her love and pride too cruelly; it was not kept. Even at this day, when the tears have been so long dried, the pulses so long stilled, when, as SainteBeuve says in another case, it cannot matter much whether her love was crossed or successful, one is forced to regret that Mlle. Churchod should have made any rejoinder. She wrote again the same week, goaded by two emotions, which breathe through every sentence