No sooner said, than done. They went and dined with the élite of the Montmartre, returned to sleep at midnight and on the next morning at nine o'clock, after having armed himself with a pick-axe, a spade, a shovel and some boasting-chisels, they took the road for the pretty Meudon woods, where they met the Prince of Poets, accompanied by his little friend, quite happy over the pleasant days he had spent in the City-prison. In the clearing, the Bird of Benin set to work. In a few hours he had dug a trench of about a meter and a half in breadth and two in depth. Then they had lunch on the grass. The afternoon was devoted by the Bird of Benin to sculpturing the interior of the monument to Croniamantal. On the following day, the sculptor came back with workingmen who fixed up an armed cement wall, six inches broad on top, and eighteen inches broad at the base, so that the empty space had the form of Croniamantal, and the hole was full of his spectre. * * * On the next day, the Bird of Benin, Tristouse, the Prince of Poets and his little friend came back to the statue which was heaped up with earth which they had gathered here and there, and at nightfall they planted a fine laurel tree, while Tristouse Ballerinette danced and sang: _No one loves thee thou art lying Palantila Mila Mima When he was lover to the queen He was king while she was queen_ _'Tis true, 'tis true that I love him Croniamantal way down in the pit Can that be right Let us gather the sweet marjoram At night._ THE END NOTES [Footnote 1: The French language at the end of the nineteenth century had reached a certain fixation, chiefly through the influence of Mallarmé, whose literary artifice was consternating. Apollinaire, a bizarre scholar, and yet a "lord of language," was more of a freebooter. Many of his exoticisms came from the market-place or from other tongues. Their sources were fair and false. But at bottom, there is the sincere desire to free modern literature from romantic sentiment, and artifice, to use words as directly and freely as in conversation.] [Footnote 2: Here Apollinaire's frivolous playing with the language can scarcely be rendered. The original runs: "...en me réfugiant dans _mon_ ou _ma_ 'bedroom' _du_ ou _de la_ 'family house' ou j'étais descendue."] [Footnote 3: Among these towns we may cite, Naples, Adrianople, Constantinople, Neauphle le-Chateau, Grenoble, Pultawa, Pouilly-en-Auxois, Pouilly-les-Fours, Nauplie, Seoul, Melbourne, Oran, Nazareth, Ermenonville, Nogent-sur-Marne, etc.] [Footnote 4: Wilhelm de Kostrowitzki was baptized in Rome, September 29, 1880, at the _Sacrosancta Patriarcalis Basilica Santa Mariae Maioris._ His father is said to have been a high prelate of the Catholic Church.] [Footnote 5: "Let the seven countries and four continents dispute the honor of his birthplace"--Mme de Kostrowitzka (who had never opened but one of his books, and found that "idiotic") exclaimed one day: