“We owe to the kindness of SHEM’S Express Company, which has charge of the line between the front door of the State Department and the back door of the Tuileries kitchen, the advance sheets of a new novel by VICTUS HAUTGOUT, which bears the striking title, _Les Fortunés_, and which consists of five parts--ABRAHAM, ISAAC, JACOB, JUDAH, and BENJAMIN. Of course, the discerning reader will not suppose for a moment that there is any connection between _Les Fortunés_ and _Les Misérables_; between the chaste style of HAUTGOUT and the extravaganzas of HUGO; whose works, in former days, were not considered fit reading for an Anglo-Saxon public, whose latest and most corrupt fiction owes its success (let us hope) rather to the dearth of new literature than to the vitiated taste of the Southern people. How great the difference between the two authors is, can best be appreciated by comparing the description of the _gamin_ in _Marius_, with the following extracts from HAUTGOUT’S portraiture of the BLOCKADE-RUNNER:-- “Yankeedom has a bird, and the crocodile has a bird. The crocodile’s bird is called the Trochilus. Yankeedom’s bird is called the blockade-runner. Yankeedom is the crocodile. The blockade-runner is the Trochilus. “Couple these two ideas--Yankeedom and the crocodile. They are worth the coupling. The crocodile is asleep. He does not sleep on both ears; he sleeps with one eye open; his jaws are also open. Rows of teeth appear, sharped, fanged, pointed, murderous, carnivorous, omnivorous. Some of the teeth are wanting: say a dozen. Who knocked those teeth out? A demon. What demon? Or perhaps an angel. What angel? The angel is secession: the demon is rebellion. ORMUZD and AHRIMAN: BALDUR and LOKI: the DEVIL and ST. DUNSTAN. So we go. “The Trochilus picks the crocodile’s teeth. Does the crocodile object? Not he. He likes to have his teeth picked. It is good for his health. It promotes his digestion. It is, on the whole, a sanitary measure. ‘Feed yourself,’ he says, ‘my good Trochilus, on the broken meats which lie between my grinders. Feed your little ones at home. I shan’t snap you up unless I get very hungry. There are Confederates enough. Why should I eat _you_?’