Among many good stories of Thiers, this is told. A prize had been offered by the Academy of Aix for the best eulogium on Vauvenargues. Thiers, then quite a boy, sent a M. S. It was deemed excellent; but the author being suspected, and no other candidate deserving the palm, the committee, rather than award it to a Jacobin, postponed their decision for a year. At the expiration of this time our youth’s article again made its appearance, but, meanwhile, a production had arrived from Paris which was thought far better. The judges were rejoiced. They were no longer under the cruel necessity of giving the first honor to a Jacobin—but felt bound to present him with the second. The name of the Parisian victor was unsealed. It was that of Thiers—Monsieur Tonson come again. He had been at great pains to mystify the committee; (other committees of the same kind more frequently reverse affairs and mystify the public) the M. S. had been copied in a strange hand, and been sent from Aix to Paris and from Paris to Aix. Thus our little friend obtained both the main prize and the _accessit_. An anecdote somewhat similar is related of Victor Hugo. In 1817, the Academy offered a premium for the best poem on the advantages of study. Hugo entered the lists. His piece was considered worthiest, but was rejected because a falsehood was supposed to be implied in the concluding lines, which ran thus:— Moi qui, toujours fuyant les cités et les cours, De trois lustres à peine ai vu finir le cours. The Academy would not believe that any one under twenty-five years of age had written so fine a poem, and, supposing a mystification designed, thought to punish the author by refusing him the prize. Informed of the facts, Hugo hastened to show the certificate of his birth to the reporter, M. Raynouard; but it was too late—the premium had been awarded. Of Laffitte many remarkable incidents are narrated evincing the noble liberality of his disposition. In the notice of Berryer it is said that, a letter being addressed by the Duchess of Berry to the legitimists of Paris, to inform them of her arrival, it was accompanied by a long note in cypher, the key of which she had forgotten to give. “The penetrating mind of Berryer,” says our biographer, “soon discovered it. It was this phrase substituted for the twenty-four letters of the alphabet—_Le gouvernement provisoire_.”