wear it. This medal was, in the hands of wags, the source of endless gibes, which Karr's reputation for bravery maintained, it is true, within the bounds of propriety, but which was never exhausted. There was no precedent for that famous medal, and I was reading something about it, only yesterday, in some newspaper rag or other. One day, at a great dinner at which I was present together with a host of people wearing decorations--not just ordinary medals but the Cross of the Légion d'honneur, which, at the present day, is distributed and conferred in a totally different manner from all the medals in the world--those jokes at Karr's expense, who was also one of the guests, broke out afresh. Karr, with his cool and habitual phlegm, called the waiter and asked for a pen, ink and paper. He cut the paper into as many round pieces as there were decorated guests at the table, wrote on each piece the reason for which the wearer had been decorated and passed each slip to its proper quarter. It completely silenced his scoffers. Karr was born in Germany, in December 1808, and has only become a naturalised Frenchman since 1848. His father was one of the five or six German musicians who evolved the piano from the harpsichord. Three of his uncles died as captains in the French service. He was, besides, a nephew of Baron Heurteloup, and a cousin of Habeneck. In those days he wrote no political articles for the _Figaro._ He has more than once told me, in all seriousness, that he saw the Revolution of July, and even that of February, without knowing what they were about. But, later, he studied the subject of I revolutions very deeply; for, in 1848, he wrote on the subject-- "Plus cela change, plus c'est la même chose!" ("The more things change, the more do they remain the same!") In 1829 he was an assistant professor in the Collège Bourbon and took to writing poetry, some of which he sent to the _Figaro._ Bohain opened all the letters received. Now Bohain was one of those plain-spoken men who openly professed a lofty scorn for poetry. His reply to Karr was-- "MY DEAR SIR,--Your lines are charming; but send me prose. I would rather be hanged than put a single line of poetry in my paper!"