Sometimes a genuine treasure may for reasons of his own be asserted by the discoverer to have been found hundreds of miles away from the spot where it was actually dug up. It is not easy to guess how the value is enhanced by this process, but it has happened again and again. The famous collection of Boscoreale, now, thanks to the generosity of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, to be seen in the Louvre, was said to have been unearthed in the garden of the deputy Prisco, at the foot of Vesuvius. Coins with the images of Nero or Galba, and pieces of plate, bracelets, and jewels of gold, are there in abundance, and everything is of the finest and most delicate workmanship. True or false, that is certain. "The authorities of the Louvre have always believed in its authenticity, but then they also believed in the authenticity of the tiara" (that poor tiara! which is to the archæologist what Ossian is to the littérateur), "so perhaps their conviotion hardly carries the weight it might. Yet ex

The fate of the Biardot collection might serve as a warning to amateur archæologists, if warnings were ever taken by anybody. Biardot, who loved antiquities not wisely but too well, settled in Naples and proved a mine of gold-or rather of silver, for he was a poor man-to every plausible scoundrel who would bring him fibulæ, statuettes, bracelets, lamps, or anything else purporting to have been stolen from Pompeii. Like Palissy, he starved himself and his wife in order to indulge his passion, and returning, bursting with pride, to Paris, he offered his collection to the Louvre for two millions of francs. The Duc de Luynes, M. de Witte, and M. de Longperier were deputed to inspect the treasure and pronounce upon it. The objects were so numerous that it seemed as if a long day's work lay before the commissioners, but with the discovery of a helmet copied from the helmets of Bavaria, and 8 silver basrelief of the Three Graces

signed by Praxiteles in Italian, they felt that no further investigation was necessary. Nothing, however, would convince Biardot of the spurious nature of his treasure, though his disappointment was great, and after his death his widow was lucky enough to sell it en bloc for 40,000 francs. It finally (Dec. 1904) came to the hammer and fetched 4268 francs, the fact being by this time established that most of the models might roughly be dated from 1850.

To the tyro, it seems that after forging Tanagra terracottas, miniatures, engravings, statues fashioned out of marble from Pentelicus (which the Greeks never used), and a thousand other things requiring the most delicate and skilful treatment, it would be child's play to turn out supply of arms and armour. With full and justifiable confidence in the ignorance and credulity of the public, the fraudulent brotherhood have contrived to place in various museums, palaces, and abbeys of France, relics of heroic figures which might (and do) draw tears from the eyes of their worshippers. In the old Dominican Convent in the Place Saint Thomas d'Aquin (the depository up to 1871 of the collection of armour formerly in the Bastille) is the complete suit of mail bequeathed by Joan of Arc, who died in 1431, to Saint Denis, made, as is shown by the style, by the best Milanese armourers of the early sixteenth century. In the

same Musée is the armour of Godfrey de Bouillon the Crusader, decorated after the manner of Giulio Romano; the coat of mail of Bayard (engraved with the device and cipher of the Medici), and that of Roland, proceeding unmistakably also from the workshops of sixteenth century Milan. At Nantes you may admire the slender sword with which Cambronne led the Old Guard at Waterloo, and elsewhere the knife with which Jacques Clément stabbed Henri III., and the dagger that Ravaillac plunged into the side of Henri IV., besides the arquebus fired by Charles IX. from the windows of the Louvre, and the weapon which struck off the head of Mary Stuart. At Fontainebleau the warder will reel off the horrible tale of the murder of Monaldeschi in the very presence of Queen Christina of Sweden, and in order to silence any doubts that might arise, he points triumphantly to the two large

holes in the coat of mail hanging by the sword of the victim. He himself believes every word of his story, and if he did not, who will take the trouble to look up the account given by Père Lebel, an eye-witness, which expressly states that the coat of mail worn by Monaldeschi under his clothes turned the point of the sword, and that the assassins were forced to stab him in the throat. After this we may reasonably hope some day to see the Excalibur of Arthur or the Hauteclair of Oliver.

Forgers of coins and of banknotes are always with us, and a curious episode in the annals of fraud is related by Maxime du Camp. In 1832, he says, twelve forged notes for 1000 francs each were presented to be cashed. The forgery was soon recognised, and the matter was secretly investigated. It was ultimately discovered that they were made beyond the French frontier by a Duke and Field - Marshal, attached at the time to the person of an exiled sovereign. The chief agents for their circulation in Paris was a Marquis (also a Marshal), and a Prince directly descended from a family which had once reigned over part of the east of Europe. The affair was hushed up as much as possible, and the real names of the criminals became known to few.

It was in 1810 that Napoleon gave orders that statues of eight of his generals who had met their deaths in battle should be placed on the bridge of the Place de la Concorde. The names of the "Happy Few" were Espagne, Lapisse, Saint-Hilaire, Lasalle, Colbert, Hervo, Lacour, and Cervoni. The work was begun at once -Napoleon was not a person who understood the doctrine of mañana - but for some reason the statues were never set up, and "the director of the Hospital des Invalides, imitating St Vincent de Paul, gave them the hospitality he had shown to many another bit of glorious wreckage. There they remained till in

1835 Louis Philippe undertook the redecoration of Versailles

not

may Heaven preserve us from the recurrence of such a calamity!-and it occurred to some one that these statues, so long out of work, might at length be made useful. Unluckily the generals whom they represented were amongst those whose names are immortal, and even at that date their fame had almost perished." M. de Montalivet, however, was competent to solve the problem, or more literally, to cut the Gordian knot.

"The eight generals were decapitated, and new heads placed on their bodies at a small cost. Colbert was transformed into Mortier, Espagne like another Atlas supported Lannes on his shoulders, Hervo changed himself into Masséna, and Lasalle disguised himself as Jourdan. And all this for 4000 francs."

This "vieux truc" also is "toujours bon," to judge by the experience of a well-known peer living in the west of England. Some years ago he received a letter from a young sculptor, totally unknown to him, saying that he had just finished executing a bust on commission. The likeness to the sitter was not considered by the family sufficiently conspicuous, and they threw back the bust on the sculptor's hands. In the interval, however, he had chanced to see Lord

at a public meeting, and felt quite sure that with a few trifling changes the bust could be altered into a perfect portrait of him. When this

was done, would Lord

and to his astonishment and

After the battle of Arques, Henri IV. snatched a short rest in a neighbouring château, and before riding away he scratched with his diamond the following aspiration on one of the windows: "Dieu gard de mal ma mie. Ce 22 de Septembre 1589.-HENRY." "I can see this inscription now," says M. Eudel, "with the big clumsy letters forming two lines in the middle of one of the small leaded squares. Indeed I had taken a little sketch of it in my note-book, on the occasion of my first visit to the château. Two years later I happened to be in the neighbourhood, and thought I would go back and look at the inscription. To my surprise it was now in three lines, and the letters were much more uniform. What could be the meaning of this? I must ask the guide." The man being a Norman was prudent and suspicious, and it was not easy to obtain an answer, but M. Eudel's arguments at length proved irresistible, and he confessed his secret. For forty years the inscription on the window had been his pride and pleasure till, in one fatal moment of inattention on his part, an Englishman-at least he spoke English-had cut the pane of glass out of its setting, and walked away with it in his pocket. Full of consternation the man hurried to tell his master what had befallen him,

château assured him that the accident was of no consequence, and could soon be put right. And so it was! "A piece of glass of the same tone as the other panes was procured and fastened lightly in its place. The guide received orders to turn his back so as to allow visitors to read the inscription, or, if they wished, to steal it." But of course it was necessary for the man to perceive in the nick of time what was going on, and only consent to shut his eyes on the receipt of a handsome tip (the amount fixed beforehand), two-thirds of which was to go to his master. All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. And at this moment there are circulating in England, France, Germany, and America hundreds of panes of glass bearing the inscription of the Roi Galant.

One of the most interesting chapters in the book is that devoted to carving and gilding, and great is the learning M. Eudel brings to bear on the subject. We have, as he truly says, travelled far from the days when an old worker in bronze who had become blind could determine the authenticity of any object merely by touch. Since then forgeries of all kinds have been brought to such a pitch of perfection that it needs all the senses an expert possesses, and often many more, to pronounce upon the value of the articles. No longer

can we exclaim with the man in "Poeta Fit Non Nascitur ".

"The True, The Good, The Beautiful, Those are the things that pay,"

for as a matter of fact it is usually the False, the Bad, and not infrequently the Ugly, which prove most remunerative. And besides the amused indulgence accorded to these criminals by the experts and even the victims, the forgers have another and stronger safeguard. The buyers may perhaps put beyond a doubt the problematical purity of their "Russian" by "scratching' him, but then who wants the "Tartar" underneath? Again we echo with a sigh M. Eudel's remark, "A collector must know everything."

The old bronze was formed of copper and tin, with a certain fixed proportion of silver. This produced a metal so supple that it could be bent with impunity. The modern bronze is made of copper and zinc, and breaks easily. To the learned the interior of a figure tells its own tale, and before glass blow-pipes were invented the parts were soldered at a forge, which gave a somewhat patchy air to the joints. During the eighteenth century, when the art of

chasing

came to perfection, each workman fashioned his tools for himself, according to the effect he wished to produce. Nowadays the tools are all alike and machine-made, so that the result is less delicate. The gold, too, used in gilding is thinner and softer, and the tone is less mellow than of

yore. But these indications of date have of course not escaped the lynx eyes of the community of forgers. Many a gilded bronze which has been sent to a workshop to be cleaned has been returned to its owner with an entirely new golden covering, the old one having been powdered with sulphur by the craftsman and exposed to the fire. In process of time the gilding dissolved, and could be gathered from the ashes in order to decorate some recent fraud.

Old French clocks are amongst the favourite purchases of amateur collectors, and are therefore the objects of special attention to the forger. "Unique opportunities" are scattered under the feet of the tourist, from the Loire to the Cornice. Every one is glad to possess anything so light and graceful, especially when its hands may have struck the hours of many a historical event. Such a chance might never occur again: it would be a sin to let it slip! So with all the eagerness of Professor K— over his mummy, the prize is secured, and is sent to adorn the mantelpiece of some English country-house. For England, according to M. Eudel, is the happy huntingground of this branch of the forging industry.

M. Eudel himself was one summer taking the waters among the Vosges mountains, and engaged rooms in an excellent hotel, largely frequented by tourists. In the diningroom was a splendid bronze