upon the Count de Montgommeri, and that
the real criminals were one Vincent, alias
Belestre ,and the Abbé Gagnard, almoner to
the count. It was added that a woman
named La Comble could give important
evidence.

Here was a terrible revelation! The penitent
prosecutor had become horror-struck at
the possibility of having been the means of
subjecting an innocent man to so terrible a
fate. He ordered a certain Degrais, (the
same who was employed to persuade the
poisoner, Madame Brinvilliers, to leave the
convent, where she had taken refuge), to
make inquiries into the life and habits of the
party now accused. The result was that
Peter Vincent, or Belestre, the first-named,
was discovered to be the son of a poor
tanner at Mans. He had enlisted as a
soldier, under the name of Belestre, and
had risen to the rank of sergeant; but had
been tried and condemned to the galleys
for his share in the assassination of a
miller. This was his first offence. His
later exploits had been confined to
burglary and highway robbery. After being
very poor for a long time, and a vagabond
besides, he had finished by purchasing an
estate in the neighbourhood of Mans, for
which he had paul ten thousand livres. As
to the Abbé Gaguard, his father was gaoler
to the prison in Mans, and the son had
nothing to live upon when he first came
to Paris, except the masses he said at the
Saint Esprit. When he entered the household
of the Count de Montgommeri in quality
of almoner, he was in the most abject
poverty; but, three months after he quitted
him, he lived in something like opulence.
He had never been suspected of any especial
crime; but he was intimate with
Belestre. He was moreover perfectly acquainted
with everything that passed in the count's
household; and, above all, he knew that the
count had received a large sum of money in
the month of June, sixteen hundred and
eighty-seven, and he also knew where it was
kept.

They were both arrested.  The woman La
Comble, alias Cartant, Belestre's mistress,
gave evidence which was corroborated by a
crowd of other witnesses; and it was clearly
proved that Belestre had committed the
robbery by means of false keys, and with the
assistance of Gagnard.  Belestre endured the
torture without confessing anything; but
Gagnard had less fortitude and confessed
his crime.  He said, too,  that he was so much
alarmed when the lieutenant-criminel was
examining the premises, that had he asked
him the smallest question he should have
comfessed everything.  A comfortable hearing
for that officer!

The gibbet relieved the world of these
two scoundrels. Nothing then remained to
be done, except to make amends to the
victim of judicial error.  Letters of revision
were obtained.  Parliament pronounced a
decree on the seventeenth of June, sixteen
hundred and ninety-three, which rehabilitated
the memory of d'Anglade, justified the wife,
and rescinded her sentence, condemned the
Count de Montgommeri to make restitution of
the money that had been adjudged to him as
reparation for the robbery, and to pay all
expenses besides. A collection was made in
the court for the benefit of the daughter of
M. and Madme. d'Anglade, which amounted
to above a hundred thousand livres.

But all this did not bring back poor M.
d'Auglade to life again.

A CITY WEED.

We may not trample on thee, simple weed,
    So bravely springing in the stony way;
The sturdy growth of some far-wafted seed,
    Thus flourishing upon a grain of clay.
No gaudy colours flaunt around thy stem,
    No grateful scent thy hardy foliage yields,
But, rudely set, thou shinest like a gem,
    In hues reflected from the distant fields.

Thou drawest nurture from the dewy skies;
    Thou findest food upon the subtle air;
And sometimes may the sun rejoice thine eyes
    (For thou hast eyes) down in this sombre lair.
And thou art beautiful! so firmly set
    Within the ragged crevice of a stone;
So strong, so resolute, so hopeful, yet
    So surely perishable, and alone.

So shouldst thou stand, thou brave and simple heart,
    As firmly planted on thy foot of ground;
As strong, as resolute to play thy part,
    Though stony dangers hem thee closely round.
Perchance, brave weed, did we thy nature know,
    Rare balms and subtle virtues in thee lie;
Yet thy best fortune is, unharm'd to grow.
    Unknown to ripen, shed thy seed, and die.

A LADIES' WAREHOUSE.

OLD Queen Charlotte, the benignant
patron of literature, never allowed Madame
D'Arblay (who had the inestimable privilege
of mixing the Queen's snuff and putting on
the Queen's gowns because she had written
a clever novel), or any of her humbler
servants to wear silk. According to her
rule, they might not

                      Walk in silk attire.

As for the veil, the parasol, and the edged
pocket-handkerchief, in which our single-
handed maid Betty rejoices during her Sunday
out, such vanities, had they been possible,
would have been set down as so many signs
of Jacobinism, Robespierrism; fearful,
revolutionary, incendiary,

The notion of a sumptuary law, after the
model prescribed by that fearful bore, Mentor,
in Telemachus, is still in favour with a good
many well-to-do people; but they are beaten
by the cheapness of machinery, which has
swept away a crowd of prejudices and flooded