whose name has become a by-word in France for buffoonery and broad humor. The biographies of such men would make interesting reading for the student of history. But Dame Clio has eyes only for tremendous battles, diplomatic intrigues, the doings of royalty and great folk. The little world of everyday life, that busy ant hill where the human comedy is so ardently played, is beneath her notice. The life and adventures of quacksalvers, minor poets, wandering jugglers, faugh!—that is asking too much of the Muse of History. Says Guizot: “History has no room for all those who throng about her gates without succeeding in getting in and leaving traces of their stay.” But occasionally a man or woman rises from the dregs of the people and compels recognition; and, sad to relate, nine times out of ten, through the commission of crimes. Have we not Cagliostro and Madame de la Motte, thorough-paced scoundrels and charlatans, but, nevertheless, very delightful folk, who have added a tinge of romance to history? I for one, with Thackeray, confess a weakness for the tittle-tattle of court gossip and backstairs diplomacy. Behind the scenes with Louis XV and XVI, Frederick the Great and Catherine II is far more entertaining than the battles of the period. Casanova gives one a better picture of eighteenth century morals and manners than any of the great historians of the time. History is the dry bones of an epoch; the memoir writers are the Ezekiels who behold the bones clothed with flesh and thrilling with life-blood. [Illustration: THE TABARIN.] Wandering one morning across the old Pont Neuf, all these thoughts came to my mind. Once again, as in the days of long {344} ago, I saw, in my imagination, the bridge crowded with people. There came to me the faint rustling of silk skirts, the clatter of high-heeled shoes upon the paving stones. Boom! boom! goes the drum. I hear the strident voice of Montdor shouting out his wares, and the unctuous notes of the comical Tabarin uttering a _bon mot_. V. Trewey is the inventor of many clever card sleights and passes; for example, a color change executed by taking cards from the back of the pack with the fork of the thumb and forefinger and placing them on the front. The origin of this clever sleight is not generally known. I have seen him throw cards from the stage of the Alhambra Theatre, London, to the topmost gallery. This is a tremendous feat, as the Alhambra is one of the largest theatres in the world. He possesses the peculiar talent of writing in reverse, necessitating the use of a mirror in order to read it. The artistic sentiment was born in him. It seems to be a family characteristic. Rosa Bordas, the celebrated French _chanteuse patriotique_, is his cousin-german. A writer in _L’Echo des Jeunes_ thus apostrophises him in verse: “Dans le monde artistique ou son étoile brille, Trewey ne peut que resortir, Vraiment, cela tient de famille, Vu que bon sang ne peut mentir.”