



Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
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MATED FROM THE MORGUE

_A TALE OF THE SECOND EMPIRE_

BY

JOHN AUGUSTUS O'SHEA

AUTHOR OF

'LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,' 'AN
IRON-BOUND CITY,' 'ROMANTIC SPAIN,' 'MILITARY
MOSAICS,' ETC.

    'La Ville de Paris a son grand mât tout de bronze, sculpté de
   victoires, et pour vigie Napoléon.'--DE BALZAC.

LONDON
SPENCER BLACKETT
[Successor to J. & R. Maxwell]
MILTON HOUSE, 35, ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C.
1889
[_All rights reserved_]




APOLOGETIC.


This tale, such as it is, has one merit. It is a study of manners,
mainly made on the spot, not evolved from the shelves of the British
Museum. There is in it, at least, a crude attempt at photography, a
process in which sunlight and air have some part, and, therefore, liker
to nature than the adumbrations of the reading-room. The localities are
faithfully drawn, the persons are not dolls with stuffing of sawdust,
but human animals who might have lived--and, mayhap, did live. If the
volume does not kill an hour, the writer is murderer only in thought.




TO MY FRIEND,

COLONEL THE BARON CRAIGNISH,

EQUERRY TO

HIS HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA,

This Little Book,

IN TARDY THANK-OFFERING FOR THAT LARGE
LEG OF MUTTON.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                             PAGE

   I. A HOUSELESS DOG                                                  1

  II. A CRUSH AT THE MORGUE                                            8

 III. LE VRAI N'EST PAS TOUJOURS VRAISEMBLABLE                        20

  IV. THE SONG-BIRD'S NEST                                            30

   V. NAPOLEONIC IDEAS                                                40

  VI. THE OLD BONAPARTIST'S STORY                                     52

 VII. FRIEZECOAT AT HOME                                              65

VIII. POPPING THE QUESTION                                            75

  IX. A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE                                            85

   X. 'LA JEUNE FRANCE'                                               96

  XI. THE BONE OF CONTENTION                                         104

 XII. ORANGE BLOSSOMS                                                121

XIII. THE HONEYMOON TRIP                                             128

 XIV. VANITAS VANITATUM                                              139

  XV. THE FIFTH OF MAY, 1870                                         152




MATED FROM THE MORGUE.




CHAPTER I.

A HOUSELESS DOG.


The scene is Paris, the Imperial Paris, but not a quarter that is
fashionable, wealthy, or much frequented by the tourist. It is the wild,
slovenly, buoyant quarter of the Paris of the left bank, known as _le
Pays Latin_--the Land of Latin. The quarter of frolic and genius, of
vaulting ambition and limp money-bags, of generosity and meanness, of
truth and hypocrisy; the quarter which supplies the France of the future
with its mighty thinkers, the France of the passing with the forlorn
hopes of its revolutions, the world--and the _demi monde_ too--very
often with its most brilliant and erratic meteors.

The time is the spring of 1866. The chestnut-tree, called the Twentieth
of March, in the Champs Elysées, has shown its first blossoms. But the
weather is cold and damp in spite of these deceitful blossoms: the skies
weep, and chill winds blow sullenly along the Seine. It is just the
weather to make the blaze of a ruddy fire a cheerful sight, and the hiss
of the crackling logs a cheerful sound; but there is neither fire nor,
indeed, grate or stove wherein to put it, in the cabinet numbered 37, on
the fifth story of the Hôtel de Suez, in the Rue du Four, into which we
ask the reader to penetrate. A portmanteau, whose half-opened lid
betrays 'the poverty of the land,' lies in a corner, a shabby suit of
man's wearing apparel hangs carelessly on a chair, and a head, thickly
covered with hair, protrudes from the blankets in a little bed in a
recess, and out of the mouth in this head protrudes a Turkish pipe of
exaggerated length, and out of the same mouth at regular intervals
filters a slender thread of smoke. The lips contract and open again, and
no smoke comes. The head is elevated, the blankets thrown back, and the
shoulders and torso of the smoker appear rising gradually from the bed
till they are erect; the bowl of the Turkish pipe is regarded a moment
deprecatingly (as if the pipe could have been kept alight without
tobacco), and the lips move again, this time to soliloquy:

'Mr. Manus O'Hara, I have a great respect for your father's son: you
come of a fine proud spend-thrift old Irish family; but I tell you what,
my brilliant friend, if you don't replenish the exchequer I shall be
obliged to cut your society. You're not in a position to pay any more
visits to that interesting elderly female acquaintance of yours, your
aunt.[1] Realize your position, sir, I beg of you. You're in a most
confounded state of impecuniosity; you haven't a sou left, and I'm
afraid your pipe is finally extinguished. Then, that delightful lady in
the den of