Within ten years England has made two little gifts to our language.
The _Incroyable_, the _Merveilleux_, the _Elegant_, the three
successes of the _petit-maitre_ of discreditable etymology, have made
way for the "dandy" and the "lion." The _lion_ is not the parent of
the _lionne_. The _lionne_ is due to the famous song by Alfred de
Musset:

Avez vous vu dans Barcelone
. . . . . .
C'est ma maitresse et ma lionne.

There has been a fusion--or, if you prefer it, a confusion--of the two
words and the leading ideas. When an absurdity can amuse Paris, which
devours as many masterpieces as absurdities, the provinces can hardly
be deprived of them. So, as soon as the _lion_ paraded Paris with his
mane, his beard and moustaches, his waistcoats and his eyeglass,
maintained in its place, without the help of his hands, by the
contraction of his cheek, and eye-socket, the chief towns of some
departments had their sub-lions, who protested by the smartness of
their trouser-straps against the untidiness of their fellow-townsmen.

Thus, in 1834, Besancon could boast of a _lion_, in the person of
Monsieur Amedee-Sylvain de Soulas, spelt Souleyas at the time of the
Spanish occupation. Amedee de Soulas is perhaps the only man in
Besancon descended from a Spanish family. Spain sent men to manage her
business in the Comte, but very few Spaniards settled there. The
Soulas remained in consequence of their connection with Cardinal
Granvelle. Young Monsieur de Soulas was always talking of leaving
Besancon, a dull town, church-going, and not literary, a military
centre and garrison town, of which the manners and customs and