* * * * * There is more caricature in this than M. Reybaud generally permits himself. The reading of the despatch from the communist pioneers was followed by a collection, whose announcement nearly cleared the room, and whose result was pitifully small, the enthusiasm of the assembly having expired upon the road from the lips to the pocket. Jérome departed in disgust. He was scarcely better pleased at the next club he visited, whose orator harped perpetually upon one string, whence it was impossible to detach him. "Let us associate all men's capital, labour, and talent," said he emphatically. "It is the salvation and reconciliation of all interests." Jérome, who had always disliked "those sententious aphorisms which resemble pompous signs before empty shops," could not forbear an interruption, and requested the speaker to explain his words. But it was impossible to drag the socialist from his formula. His reply was a repetition of the same nonsense in other words. "Do what I would, I could not detach him from these common-place and pompous generalities. A controversy ensued, and I tried to bring it round to the boreal crown and the cardinal aromas. He refused to follow; and at last, finding himself hard pressed, he made me the offer of a ministry of progress. If there had been no door, I certainly should have jumped out of window." After a visit to Louis Blanc at the Luxembourg, Paturot repaired to the national workshops, whose administration occupied the park and pavilions of Monceaux. "The following problem being given:--How to realise the least possible work with the greatest possible number of workmen; "And supposing it is desired to discover the institution, existing or to exist, which shall most completely fulfil the end proposed; "The solution will necessarily be-- THE NATIONAL WORKSHOP. "Never perhaps did a fact of this nature present itself, especially with such proportions. Before us, it had occurred to no one to confound alms with work. Nobody ever thought of cloaking alms with the appearance of a useless labour. In a few individual cases of misery, this way of concealing the donor's hand may leave some illusion to him who receives; but the assistance afforded by the public treasury to an entire army, to a hundred thousand men, admits of no doubt as to its nature. It is nothing more or less than English pauperism in the rudimental state."