"The trouble is that my father has been dead for several years." "What! He has not just now been nominated mayor of La Porta?" "No, Mr. Prefect, it was I." He was only twenty-five years old. Two years later, being elected Councillor General of his canton, he united the two functions, giving to his fellow citizens an example of precocious administrative ability and a keen appreciation of the interests of his constituents. Local politics, however, "does not feed its men" as the proverb says, especially when like M. Paoli, the politician is thoroughly disinterested. The Paoli family had long been engaged in the oil trade, but the business which once brought in a comfortable livelihood had been declining, having been carried on with less perseverance and attention than formerly. Young Paoli perceived that he must not count upon the family business to make his fortune; in fact, politics were swallowing up his modest revenue. He, therefore, resolved to alter his plan of life, to leave the island where he had achieved a precocious popularity, where he was esteemed and beloved. His friends in Paris proposed to obtain for him an under-prefecture, but he preferred a simple post of Police Magistrate at 1800 francs, to the great scandal of his family, who considered him to have lowered himself on entering the police service. "Let me alone," replied M. Paoli, "I feel that my future is at stake, and that I shall be safer in being inconspicuous." And, in fact, when, four years later, the Empire fell, it was due to the modesty of M. Paoli's position that he was not involved in the fall. At the time he was police commissary in the railway station at Modena on the Italian frontier, and he had the tact to make himself so useful to the new Prefect that although he by no means paid court to the new government, like so many others, the latter was glad to confirm him in his functions. The Modena station was an important outpost of observation and inspection on the great European highway, princes incognito, statesmen on their travels, Italian anarchists leaving their country on some mysterious mission--all passed that way. Not one of them escaped M. Paoli's vigilant eye. This humble position afforded him the opportunity to show his great qualifications of perspicacity and tact. He was sent to Nice, and other cosmopolitan centres, where all classes and peoples meet and mingle; before long he was called to Paris. It was at this juncture, and thanks to Queen Victoria, that his mission as "Guardian of Kings" became clear. The French Republic was at that time by no means "persona grata" at foreign courts. The daughter of the Commune of 1871, her cap still vaguely besmirched, her acts problematical, they were all afraid of her, hardly daring to receive or to visit her. And yet some line of conduct must be adopted: it was not possible always to keep under ban the lovely land of France.