A Cat of Culture.

A TRULY remarkable story of sagacity is told of an old Cambridge (Mass.) cat; although where, in all America, would we expect to find cultured cats if not in that historic town? This cat rejoices in the seemingly appropriate name of John Harvard. When John was a kitten, famed for his beauty and good temper, the family adored him not only for his mental and moral qualities, but for his proud, historic name; but when one day John Harvard presented his owners with a litter of kittens, it was seriously thought that John must be disposed of. Steps were being taken to that effect. when one day John left her litter of kittens, came up from the cellar in hot haste, and rushed into the kitchen. She began to mew piteously and attracted the attention of the cook and the family by running to the cellar door, but when it was opened for her she refused to descend; finally she induced one member of the family to go down with her. When they got downstairs, a wooden barrel close beside the box where her kittens were lying was discovered to be in a blaze; a few minutes more and the house would have been on fire. John Harvard, despite the weakness of her sex, had vindicated the honor of her name, and since then she has lived on the fat of the land. (Lothrop. $1.50.)From Winslow's "Concerning Cats."

A Continental Cavalier. MR. KIMBALL SCRIBNER'S latest work is one of his best efforts. It is a clean, wholesome and truly entertaining story of a most romantic character.

The Marquis Lafayette was but one of the many gentlemen of France who drew sword for the cause of the American colonies against the mother country; but the names of many passed with the generation in which they lived. Henri de Marc, a chevalier

of France, was, perchance, one of these. Born under the silver lilies and despatched to America by his king, duty led him to General Washington's headquarters at Tappan in time to witness the execution, as a spy, of the unfortunate Major Andre. Following close upon his arrival in America he is called upon to draw arms in behalf of the heroine of this tale, and, it was, perhaps, the influence of the colonial maid which brought about the changing of the livery of King Louis to the buff and blue.

Following the drift of the latter years of the war, the scene shifts to the swamps and mountain fastnesses of the south; the battleground of Marion's men, Tarleton's legions and the struggle between the forces of General Greene and Lord Cornwallis, which ended with the laying down of the British arms at Yorktown. (Abbey Press. $1.)

Copyright, 1900, by Lothrop Pub. Co.

Memoirs of the Baroness de Courtot.

In an attic of my father's house, in the neighborhood of Halberstadt, there stood, among other out-of-date and disused furniture, an ancient carved oak chest. It had belonged to my mother's grandmother, and

on its lid was carved the name:

Sophie Hedwig von Alvensleben, verwittwete (widowed) von Bulow-GrossSchwechten, geb. (nee)

von Rauchhaupt auf Hohenthurm u. Landin 1692.

That was the mother of my great-grandfather; the oak chest might therefore well command our veneration as a family heirloom. On the rare occasions when we children were permitted a peep into this chest, there was no end to our wonder and delight, for the spirit of a strange and by-gone world seemed to breathe from it and the marvellous things that lay therein. It was a very reliquary in our childish eyes. Then very carefully, with those dear slender hands of hers, our mother would lift the things out, one by

From "Memoirs of the Baroness de Courtot."

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one-curiously fashioned gowns, trimmed with real old point, dainty little ivory fans, potpourri boxes and reticules, embroidered pompadour bags, with their varied store of tiny scissors, tabatières for Spanish snuff, and the like. Besides all this, there were ladies' poetry albums, illuminated prayer-books, costumes and fashion plates-in short, the chest was a treasure-house of bewildering delights, each of its fair owners, as it was handed down from one generation to the other, having stored away in it what seemed of special value in her eyes. On the death of my beloved mother, this treasure passed into my hands. It was a frequent and never-failing delight to me to turn over its contents, and one day, quite at the bottom, under a quantity of old documents, I chanced upon a thick packet of letters tied together with a blue ribbon and having on the outside wrapper the inscription:

Cecile's Letters. 1801 and 1802.

There were seventeen in all, some of them many pages long, written in French on stout according to our present ideas, coarsepaper, dropping to decay, torn in parts, and the writing half obliterated with age. I be

gan to decipher them, and discovered that they were letters from the Baroness Cecile de Courtot, one time dame d'atour to the Princess de Lamballe, to my great-grandmother, Frau Anna Gottliebe Luise Wilhelmine von Alvensleben, née Frelin von Loë, of Overdiek. But this was not my only treasure-trove. Besides many other letters dating from the beginning of the century, I found a red velvet book bearing on its Cover the inscription "My Album." In this book my great-grandmother, following the fashion of her day, had made a varied collection of things that had struck her fancy. Here I found somewhat overladen effusions of the poets of the time, her impressions on this or the other subject, and accounts of the various important days of her life. By degrees the contents of the book assumed the character of a "diary," as we should call it nowadays, though in reality it is more than that, for it includes conversations and descriptions of persons interesting to her, records important events that happened to them, and a multitude of other attractive matter not connected with herself. (Preface.)

Such are the varied and strongly flavored materials out of which Moritz von Kaisenberg has compiled this most fresh, animated, and readable volume. The first twelve chapters are historical and biographical, portraying the figures, and their experience, of a German family with intimate French connections, a century ago, based upon the contents of the little red "Album" aforesaid. The seventeen chapters that follow reprint, word for word, the 'seventeen letters" from Cecile that

were tied up with the blue ribbon. The effect of the whole is to afford a graphic picture of a domestic interior in Germany, and more particularly in Paris, at the time of the

Revolution and after.

It is an absorbing story, and in some ways a fascinating one, which Cecile has to tell. There are vivid descriptions of life in Paris in the time of the First Consul. The Place de la Concorde, the Bastile, the Tuileries, and Malmaison, are all in sight, and there are interviews with Napoleon and Josephine. Talleyrand, Murat, and Madame De Stael, and others who stand in the strongest light of history. In these pages one lives over again, as if on the spot, the days of Paris at the last junction of two centuries. More striking than any history can possibly be are these unstudied records of an eyewitness, and more entertaining than any fiction these pictures drawn from real life of the men and women whom events made famous and of the actions and incidents by which they are remembered. Taking the scene, the time, the personages, and the origin of this book altogether, it is a contribution to the shelf of historical reminiscences of exceptional interest. (Holt. $2.)-Boston Literary World.

The Mausoleum of Napoleon in the
Invalides.

A LOFTY dome, supported by massive piers perforated with narrow arched passages and faced with Corinthian columns and pilasters, a marble floor of extraordinary richness and beauty everywhere, all around the base of the dome a stair of six marble steps descending to the circular space under it, and in the midst of this space a great opening or well, with a diameter of more than seventy feet, and a marble parapet, breast-high, for the safety of the visitors who look down into it,-such is the first impression of the interior.

Not only do people invariably look down, but they generally gaze for a long time, as if they expected something to occur; yet a more unchanging spectacle could not be imagined. In the middle there is a great sarcophagus of polished red Russian granite, and twelve colossal statues stand under the parapet, all turning their grave, impassible faces towards the centre. They are twelve Victories whose names have resounded through the world, and in the spaces between them are sheaves of standards taken in battle, and in the red sarcophagus lies the body of Napoleon.

The idea of this arrangement is due to the

architect Visconti, who had to solve the problem how to arrange a tomb of such overwhelming importance without hiding the architecture of so noble an interior as this. His solution was admirably successful. The arrangement does not interfere in the slightest degree with the architecture of the edifice, which would have been half hidden by a colossal tomb on its own floor; while we have only to look over the parapet to be impressed with

the grandeur and poetic suitableness of the plan. With our custom of burial we are all in the habit of looking down into a grave before it is filled up, and the impressiveness of Napoleon's tomb is greatly enhanced by our downward gaze. We feel that, notwithstanding all this magnificence, we are still looking down into a grave, -a large grave with a

Courtesy of Lothrop Pub. Co. ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.

sarcophagus in it instead of a coffin, but a grave nevertheless. The serious grandeur, the stately order of this arrangement seems to close appropriately the most extraordinary career in history; and yet it is impossible to look upon the sarcophagus without the most discouraging reflections. The most splendid tomb in Europe is the tomb of the most selfish, the most culpably ambitious, the most cynically unscrupulous of men; and the sorrowful reflection is that if he had been honorable, unselfish, unwilling to injure others, he would have died in comparative or total obscurity, and these prodigious, posthumous honors would never have been bestowed upon his memory. (Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.50.)From Esther Singleton's "Paris as Seen and Described by Famous Writers." (Philip Gilbert Hamilton.

An Interview with "Bobs." WITH the usual American persistency and straightforwardness the American Consul cut through the red tape that would have delayed his action and secured a second and speedy interview with the commander-in-chief.

Five minutes later Ned was summoned into Lord Roberts' presence.

"So you are tired of us, lad, and want to get home, eh?" the general said. "I thought you were in for the war."

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But my friend is dead, sir," Ned replied, "and somehow I've been thinking my place as an American is in our own service, rather than under another flag."

"Others of us have lost friends, too, my

boy," Lord Roberts replied, thinking perhaps of his own gallant son, struck down in those early days of the war, in the bloody battle at Colenso; "and still we stick to our duty. But your case is different, I admit. I have the story of your wanderings in mind; I know your courage here, too, and I see that, under your love of adventure, there lives, also, a spirit of loyalty to your own. You are not really one of the sons of the Empire, although I think we might almost call you a grandson, eh? I am glad to grant the request of your Consul and relieve you from duty, though I do it with regret. If you remain I'll give you a place in my special scouts that your American Burnham is organizing for me. We've got to place more reliance on those eyes of the army in this land of hill and valley. Will you consider my offer?" Ned wavered.

"You are very kind, my lord," he replied at length." But I really believe my duty is at home. I have never been discharged from our service, you know, and it seems to me I'm rather forgetting my Americanism. Am I not right, sir, to decide as I do?"

"I must believe you are, my lad," Lord Roberts replied. "Well, you've done the Queen good service. In her name I thank you. Be as loyal to your own government and as reliable a soldier to your own flag as you have been to ours and I have no doubt you will find that the time has not been misspent that you passed in helping to assert the supremacy and rights of England in this unnecessary, cruel, but just and righteous war."

And the hero of Kandahar and Paardeberg. the resistless conqueror of the Vaal, relaxed discipline so far as to shake hands with the American lad in friendly farewell, and to dismiss him from his presence with a hearty "God bless you!" (Lothrop. $1.25.)From Brooks' "With Lawton and Roberts."