"It was indeed in sad, troublous case that I found the man who, when eight years of age, had had a long conversation with Louis XVI., whom the Czar Alexander had fed with bonbons, whom the Princess of Kyritz had held on her lap, to whom the King of Bavaria had read his poems, who had smoked from the same pipe with German princes, whom the Pope had apotheosised, and whom Napoleon had never loved! This last fact troubled the wretched man even on his deathbed—I should say in his death-cradle—and he wept over the tragic destiny of the great Emperor who had never loved him, but who had ended his life in such lamentable circumstances at St. Helena—'Even as I now die,' he added, 'rejected, neglected by all kings and princes, a mere mockery of former glory.'
"Though I could not quite understand how a dwarf who dies among giants could compare himself with a giant who dies among dwarfs, still the words of poor Turlutu and his neglected state in his dying hour moved me. I could not refrain from expressing my amazement that Mademoiselle Laurence, who had now become so grand, did not trouble herself about him. I had hardly mentioned her name when the dwarf was seized with agonising cramps, and wailed with white lips, 'Ungrateful child! She whom I brought up, and would have even made my wife, whom I
