In Father Pregnani the joke culminates. Who is he? The French authorities themselves, in the very act of introducing and commending him to Colbert, have not the slightest idea. He is apparently the invention of King Charles ! Says Monsignor Barnes: "The presence of James Stuart in London is apparently being 'covered up' at Charles's request, although the French authorities are still left entirely ignorant who it is for whom they are doing this kindly office, even to the extent of hoodwinking their own ambassador in London." The Abbé Pregnani, says Monsignor Barnes, was James Stuart.

Whoever he was, the incognisable Abbé made a mess of it. The French began to suspect him, and Lionne suggested his recall. Since Lionne, Colbert, and Louis himself were utterly in the dark concerning Pregnani's identity, their anxiety as to what he was or might be doing in London was not altogether unreasonable; and Monsignor Barnes throws out a hint that he was playing an intriguer's part at Court, and disclosing French secrets of State. His return to France is at last somewhat peremptorily ordered. Early in July, accordingly, he sets out for Calais; and then, like James Stuart at Rome in the previous December, he vanishes from the scene. Nothing more is ever heard of the Abbé Pregnani. What then has happened?

"In this total absence of real evidence "—this,

unfortunately, is, from first to last, the situation in which the author finds himself-" a hypothesis is the only resource that is open to us." The hypothesis is that Pregnani, setting foot again on French soil, is straightway arrested by order of Louis XIV, and whirled away to the dungeon of Pignerol, where, in the keeping of the celebrated Saint-Mars, he becomes forthwith the Man in the Iron Mask. Is the hypothesis good?

Monsignor Barnes's whole case, it will be seen, is comprised in a series of pure suppositions. He has no choice but to assume every point he seeks to prove. There is nothing whatever to show that the Abbé Pregnani was James Stuart. We fancy, indeed, that the part of the "mock astrologer," compelled to "tip" horses for Monmouth at Newmarket, and to cool his heels at Colbert's, would have been worse than distasteful to the studious and retiring prince. Later it is essential to the système Barnes to show Pregnani or Stuart in the character of a dangerous intriguer, a revealer of the secrets (whatever they may have been) of the French King. Now, were this system sound in all other places, it would here, we are convinced, so far as James Stuart is concerned, fall hopelessly to pieces. The Abbé Pregnani, if he ever existed, may or may not have been a schemer. Prince James Stuart assuredly was none. For this was the one Stuart who, in Lord Acton's words, 'preferred the cloister to the steps of his father's

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throne "; and, in every action we behold him in, he is sincere, simple, single-hearted, and the quintessence of discretion. Then, if Pregnani is Charles's son, why does Charles so meekly send him back to France at the bidding of Lionne? And why, lastly, when the son-his eldestreturns no more, melts, as it were, in the European vague, does not the father clamour to the skies for him? The least honest of English kings was not an unnatural father. Must he not have raised in all Europe a pother that would sooner or later disturb the ear of Louis? And Louis, not exactly the omnipotent, discovering that he had "run in " to Pignerol, no vulgar plotter against himself, but a straightforward and devout young Catholic prince, some twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, the eldest son of his friend and cousin of England—what could he do but return Prince James to his father with apologies? Monsignor Barnes's reference to missing letters that were possibly destroyed by Louis does not quite satisfy us. If Charles had suddenly and unaccountably lost his eldest son, letters from him about his son must surely have gone to every Court in Europe. The son need not, and probably would not, have been named; but it was imperative on Charles's part to make the inquisition; and, had he done so, it is difficult to believe that the archives of Europe contain not a single record on the subject.

On its merits, Monsignor Barnes's case is unacceptable. It is seldom possible; never remotely probable. It leaves the argument for Mattioli unhurt in the essentials; and our belief remains unshaken that the Italian adventurer still holds the field.

THE MAN WHO SLEPT ON DYNAMITE

THERE was feasting in the kitchens of the Winter Palace. The Czar was at his estate of Livadia, and his servants were junketing with their friends in St. Petersburg. Every night they sang and danced and tippled there; the whole subterranean region was like the interior of a vast caravanserai.

The lights, the swirl, and the noise were bewildering to a fair man with blue eyes and a blonde beard, who sat by himself and looked on at the rout. A pretty, roguish maid with gold ornaments in her head-dress, carrying a great jug of wine, stopped as she was passing him. "And so glum !" said she. Here, have some of this, or would you like vodka? Why don't you dance?"

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"I-I'm only just learning."

"Well, I shall have to bring you on a little, I suppose. Tell me your name. You don't quite look like one of us."

"I am Stepane Khaltourine. I'm one of the joiners engaged on the new job in the Palace."