were always covered with new books, magazines and several copies of her own poems and novels, including an exceedingly clever story, Louise Keller, which she had just finished. On the walls hung pictures in oil and water-colors of her own execution; on the piano were scattered, together with much classical music, some hymns, polkas and ballads of her composition. One night she acted in a comedy of her own writing, and her rendering of the part of the heroine, a witty and intriguing widow, was inimitable. Many severe critics have declared that Madame Rattazzi is, as an actress, a worthy rival of Fargeuil or Madeleine Brohan. Her manners are very fascinating—a little bit too natural to be quite French, and a little too ceremonious to be quite Italian. She would have proved an invaluable acquisition at the downfall of the tower of Babel, for she is mistress of I dare not say how many languages. As a rule, women hate her, and men do just the contrary. This is not to be wondered at, for she is very beautiful even now. Her face has the chiseled cameo features of her uncle, Napoleon I.; her eyes are deep violet, fringed with long sweeping lashes; her mouth is perfectly exquisite, and on either side of it two pretty dimples appear whenever she smiles. So many enemies has she amongst her own sex that to avenge herself for the affronts they constantly offer her she published a magazine in Florence called the Matinées Italiennes, for the purpose of showing up her female antagonists. Here is a sample: "At Nice a grand ball; Madame la Viscomtesse de B—— en grande toilette, looking for all the world like a big Nuremberg doll, with her black hair dyed an impossible straw-color, and appearing at least five years younger than she did when I first saw her make her début in society five-and-twenty years ago; and she was then a gushing maiden of twenty-one." By and by comes the hour of vengeance. Madame Rattazzi gives a ball, and not a woman will go to it. In 1870 she gave one at the Grand Hotel, to which half the town was invited. There arrived at the festal scene about five hundred men and just thirty-two women. It was funny enough. The thirty-two women besported themselves with thirty-two partners in the centre of the hall to the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of musical instruments, whilst the rest of the men stood round the hall five deep, like a deep dark fringe on a Turkish carpet. Madame Rattazzi, however, achieved a great triumph against all odds. By dint of grace, charm of manners and tact she put all her guests in the best humor. The "thirty-two" had a fine time of it, and danced to their hearts' content. The five hundred men were introduced and grouped and wined and punched until every man there swore that earth did not hold a fairer or more genial hostess. Madame Rattazzi was "supported," as the phrase goes, on this memorable occasion by Madame la Princesse, her mother, a rather formidable-looking dowager, a daughter of Lucian Bonaparte, and widow of Sir Thomas Wyse, once British consul at Athens. Her Imperial Highness Princess Letitia must have been a wonderful beauty in her youth—a stately grand being who one could easily imagine might have resembled the Roman Agrippina or empress Livia. Once the barrier of her stately manners overcome, she proved to be a talkative, affable woman of the world, with a huge experience thereof. I can see her now, dressed in a scarlet satin robe and glittering with jewels. She wore a headdress of diamonds with two long ostrich feathers in it, one of which, a white one, got out of its place and stood bolt upright, as if it was frightened, until some charitable hand laid it down. This was, I fancy, the last ball Princess Letitia ever graced, for she died a very little while afterward. Poor Rattazzi was there too. He was not a striking-looking man, but agreeable and excessively polite. He rarely talked politics—I rather suspect from the fear of compromising himself—but his conversation was was pleasant and varied. After his death Madame Rattazzi removed to Monaco, where she busied herself with editing his letters and memoirs—a task
which, it appears, the Italian government would be delighted that she should spare herself, as his papers are said to be very full of compromising matter relative to the Mentana expedition. A large sum of money was offered her to relinquish her hold on these documents, but she answered by a letter published in the Italian papers that they were left to her as a sacred trust, and that she felt herself in duty bound to make their contents public, in order to justify her husband's memory. As a curious proof of her political sagacity—unless it is to be considered a mere coincidence—I may mention that in January, 1870, she came to a masked ball at the Casino dressed as Mars, in a short skirt of red satin, a cuirass of gold, on her head a helmet, in one hand a spear, and in the other a shield, and on it was written "Roma." Did Madame Rattazzi foresee that by September of the same year there would be a war, and that as one of its results Rome would so soon become the capital of that Italy which her husband had helped to build up?[003]
From this somewhat rambling sketch the reader will readily understand that Nice is one of the great centres of society in Europe, and indeed in late years it is rather, as a place of gay reunion that it is frequented than as a resort for invalids. Since the foundation of quieter colonies at Mentone and San Remo, Nice has somewhat lost its reputation as a sanitarium, for it is rather difficult, especially for young people, to resist the temptation of its innumerable balls and round of gayeties; and these are not considered conducive to the preservation of health even amongst the healthiest. The medical men, therefore, recommend places along the neighboring coast which enjoy the same or even greater advantages of climate. That of Nice, after all that has been written about it, still seems to me one of the finest in the world. The air is exquisitely pure and clear, and has proved beneficial in many hundreds of cases of incipient consumption. But the fatal error is often made of sending hither patients in whom the disease has made considerable progress. In such cases the irritating air hastens death. I have known people brought here in the second and last stages of consumption, who have been carried off in a fortnight after their arrival, and who might have lingered on for years elsewhere. The patient who finds himself benefited should remain at Nice for at least three or four years, only varying the air in summer by a visit to some of the many pleasant places in the neighboring mountains, where the atmosphere is pure, cool and wholesome. Perhaps, it is owing in part to the brightness of the sunshine and the beauty of the scenery that soon after his arrival the health of the invalid often revives as if by enchantment. Alphonse Karr, a resident of many years, who knows every nook and corner of the place, and who has cultivated a garden in its environs as celebrated throughout the world as his own sparkling pen, says well: "Who is there so downhearted as to resist the glorious heat of the sun, the beauty of that deepest of blue seas, the loveliness of the varied trees, the tropical vegetation, the scent of the orange-flowers, the music of the brooks, the sight of the ever-changing hues of the mountains of Nizza la bella?"
R. DAVEY.
THE RASKOL, AND SECTS IN RUSSIA.
FROM THE FRENCH OF ANATOLE LEROY-BEAULIEU.
I.—ORIGIN OF THE RASKOL.
For more than two centuries Russian orthodoxy has been undermined by obscure sects, unknown to foreigners, and little known to Russians themselves. Beneath the imposing pile of the official Church have been hollowed out vast underground burrows and a labyrinth of gloomy crypts, which form a retreat for the popular beliefs and superstitions. We propose to descend into these catacombs of ignorance and fanaticism. We shall attempt to map them out, to explore their remotest nooks, and to lay hold in this, their hiding-place, of the character and aspirations of the people. Nothing could yield better means of acquaintance with the genius of the nation and the groundwork of Russian society. The Raskol, with its thousand sects, is perhaps the most original feature of Russia, and what most sharply distinguishes it from Western Europe.
Like rivers colored by the soil through which they flow, religions often change their characteristics according to the nations who practice them. The Raskol is Byzantine Christianity issuing from the Russian lower classes. In the thick and muddy waters of Muscovite sectarianism we can distinguish foreign admixtures, sometimes Protestant, sometimes Jewish, or even Mohammedan, more frequently Gnostic or pagan. The Raskol, nevertheless, remains wholly different, in principle and in tendency, from all the religions and religious movements of the world: it is original and national from the foundation up. So thoroughly Russian is it that outside of its native country it has never made a proselyte, and even within the empire has hardly any adherents excepting among the people of "Greater Russia," the most thoroughly national of all. So spontaneous has been its growth that in all its phases it is its own best interpreter, and if confined to an isolated continent, its development would have been the same. The Raskol is the most national of all the religious movements to which Christianity has given birth, and at the same time the most exclusively popular. It took its rise, not in the schools, nor in the monasteries, but in the mujik's hovel and in the shop; and it has never spread beyond its birthplace. Hence, the student of politics and the philosopher take a keener interest in ignorant heresies than is to be found in their doctrines alone. These sects of lately-liberated peasants claim an attention by no means due to their meagre theology, from their being the symptom of a mental condition and a social state for even a distant approach to which all Western Europe would be scoured in vain.