name; and from its being borne, on this occafion, before the king,. came in after-times to be confidered as the royal standard of France. At this time, however, every abbey had its fandard, and fome lord who was its advoyer, or protector, who commanded their tenants and men of war, whenever, according to the ftrange custom of that age, they happened to have any quarrel with their neighbours, which they were inclined to decide, as all points of controverfy were then decided, by the law of arms.

contents, cajoled others, and defeated the rest. It remained to complete his revenge to humble the king of France, and with this view he excited the emperor Henry the fifth, who quickly affembled all the power of Germany; giving out, that he would burn the city of Rheims to the ground, in refentment of the excommunication pronounced against him in the council held there. Lewis took advantage of this declaration, and fummoned all the vaffals of the crown to fend their forces to Amiens at a fhort day, when it clearly appeared how different a thing it was to attack the kingdom and the king of France; for, when Lewis put himself at the head of the army, it confifted of two hundred thousand men, and, on their beginning to march, the emperor abandoned his defign; and, difmiffing the army he had raised in Lorrain, retired into the heart of his own dominions. The king, willing to make use of fo irrefiftable a force, would have led them immediately into Normandy, in order to establish duke William, to whom he had given another wife, with a confiderable territory, on the frontiers of that duchy. His great vaffals, however, told him plainly, that they would do no fuch thing; for that they affembled to defend the territories of France from the invafion of a foreign prince, and not to extend his power by deftroying that balance which arofe from the king of England's poffeffing Normandy, which they looked upon as neceffary to their fafety. On this occafion we first hear of the oriflame, which was, properly speaking, the banner of the abbey of St. Denis, being a crimson flag fixed to a gilt lance, from whence it derived its

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The drawing together this amaz. ing force inclined, and the death of the emperor, which happened foon after, made it neceffary for, the king of England to conclude a peace, to which king Lewis was not at all averfe; fo that it was quickly fettled upon eafy and equal terms, and, which is fomewhat extraordinary, was much better obferved than any treaty between these two princes had hitherto been; and yet, under pretence of affifting their allies, these monarchs, from time to time, gave the world fufficiently to understand they were far from being reconciled. Charles earl of Flanders being affaffinated by fome discontented fubjects, Lewis entered that country with a fmall army; and, having furprifed the offenders, punished them as they deserved. After this the question was, how to difpofe of the dignity, to which there were many pretenders, and amongst them Baldwin earl of Mons, whofe grandfather had been deprived of the earldom by Robert count of Frize, and Thierry count of Alface, who was fifter's fon to that count of Frize. The king set them all aside to make way for William, the fon of Robert duke of Normandy, which

anfwered

anfwered two purposes; it gave the king a right to refume what he had bestowed upon this prince, till he could obtain for him fome eftablishment, and it put it much more in his power to fupport his claim to his father's duchy than hitherto it had ever been. Henry, on the other hand, refolving at any rate to gain the count of Anjou, married his only daughter, the empress dowager, to Geoffrey Plantagenet, the fon of that count, though a boy; and not long after the count himself, partly at the king's perfuafion, and partly from ambition, went into the Holy Land, to receive the crown of Jerufalem. Having thus fecured himfelf from all apprehenfions on that

fide, he directed his old ally, the earl of Champagne, to fupport Thierry of Alface againft his nephew count William, in which conteft, however, that young prince had the better; but, receiving a wound in the hand, a gangrene feized the arm, of which he died. This gave his competitor an opportunity to make himself mafter of Flanders; upon which the king received his homage; which prevented Henry, who waited all this time in Normandy to see what turn the war would take, from breaking openly with France. A thing which he studioutly avoided, unless fecure of fome advantage. [To be continued.]

GENTLEMEN,

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Your's, &c.

T. W.

approved dramatic pieces, and especially of one which was defervedly esteemed, called Le François à Londres, (the Frenchman at London,) had not found himself exempt from the usual fate of those who cultivate the mufes. Even that fpot, faid to be the leaft barren one of Parnaffus, the theatre, had produced to him little more than a feanty maintenance for himfeif, his wife,

and one

child. In short, misfortunes, want of œconomy perhaps, or whatever elfe might be the caufe, April, 1754.

duced to the moft deplorable extremities of want.

In this condition, finking under the indignities of his fate, he ha however, too much of that fpirit which characterizes genius, to debase himself by mean applications or mendicant letters. He had friends, whofe kindness his need of them had not exhaufted, and whom, for that very reafon, he was the more averse from troubling. But his friends were but the more inexcufable, if they knew his diftrefs, not to fave

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him the pain of an application. However, Boiffi, overcome with the irk fomeness of his circumstances, embraced a refolution of taking the fhorteft way out of the wood, that of death. And in the light in which he confidered it, as a friendly relief from further mifery, he not only perfuaded his wife to keep him company, but not to leave behind them a boy, a child of five years old, to the mercy of a world in which they had found fo little. Probably the example of Richard Smith, in much the fame fituation, an example to which Voltaire's recording it gave fuch notoriety, might have its share in the fatal determination.

This refolution now formed of dying together, there remained nothing but to fix the manner of it. The most torturous one was chofen, that of hunger, not only as the moft natural confequence of their condition, of which it might pafs for the involuntary effect, but as it faved a violence which neither Boiffi nor his wife could find in their hearts to use to one another. In that folitude then of their apartment, in which the unfortunate need fo little apprehend their being difturbed, they refolved to wait with unfhaken conftancy the arrival of their deliverer, though under the meagre grim form of famine. They began then, and efolutely proceeded on their plan of starving themselves to death, with their child. If any called, by chance, at their apartment, finding it locked, and no anfwer given, it was only concluded that no body was at home. Thus they had all the time they could wish to confummate their intention. But what can conceive or damp a true friend? They had one, it feems, of a fortune not much fuperior to their own, and whom, for

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that reafon, and for the dread of being an inconvenience to him, they had never acquainted with the extremities to which they were actually driven. This friend had been one of those who had called at their apartment, and finding it fhut up, naturally concluded, as others did, that Boiffi and his family were gone out, or perhaps removed. Upon reflection however, or from that kind of inftin&t with which the spirit of friendship abounds, he began to apprehend that fomething must be much amifs with his friend, (though he could not guess what,) that he could neither find him at home, nor gain any intelligence about him. Under this anxiety, he returned, to Boiffi's apartment; and whether any motion or noife from within betrayed his being at home, or whether his friend began to fufpect fomething of the matter, no answer being returned, he forced open the door.

Boiffi and his wife had been fo much in earnest, that it was now three days, fince they had taken any fuftenance; infomuch that they were now got fo far on in their way to their intended home, that one may fay they touched the gates of it.

The friend, entered as he was into the room where this scene of death was going forward, found them already in fuch a fituation, that they seemed infenfible of his intrufion. Boifi and his wife had no eyes but for one another, and were not fitting, but fupported from falling to the ground by two chairs, fet oppofite to each other, their hands locked together; and with their ghaftly looks, languidly dejected; in which might be read a kind of rueful compaffion for the child that hung at the mother's

knee,

knee, and feemed as if looking up to her for nourishment in its natural tenacioufnefs of life. This groupe of wretchedness did not lefs fhock than afflict the friend. Soon collecting from circumftances the meaning of all this, his firft care was not to expoftulate with Boiffi or his wife, but to engage them to receive his fuccours, in which he found no little difficulty. Their refolution had been taken in earnest; they were now got over the worst; and were in view of their port: the faintnefs which had fucceeded the almost intolerable tortures of hunger, had deadened their fenfe to them and to life. They might befides conceive a falfe fhame of not going through with what they had thus refolved; a kind of flur being too often imagined to attend a fuicide begun and not finished, as if it fuppofed a failure of firmness. The friend however took the right way to reconcile them to life, by making the child join his interceffion: the child, who could have none of the prejudices or reafons they might for not retracting, and who, though he had little life

left, had ftill enough not to be out of love with it. The inftinct however of felf-prefervation operating its ufual effect, he held up his little hands, and, in concert with the friend, entreated his parents to confent to all their relief. Nature did not plead in vain. The friend then proceeded, helplefs and unattended as they were, to procure them immediate food, with proper precaution and cordials. Nor left he them till he had feen them in a way of recovery to life, and given them all the money he had about him. And thus Boiffi, by his tender care, efcaped at Paris giving the fecond edition of the tragedy of poor Otway in London.

This ftory immediately took air; it reached the ears of Madam Pompadour, who instantly took him under her protection; fent him prefent relief, and procured the at length fortunate Boiffi the place of comptroller of the Mercure de France, of no inconfiderable income, in spite of the endeavours of her brutal brother, the Marquis de Marigny, to divert her benevolence."

GENTLEMEN,

NO duty is more incumbent on

parents than the difpofal of their children happily and advantageously in marriage. Nature, reason, and the public good require this; and where parents are remifs in the performance of this neceffary duty, fome excufe may be pleaded for fuch children as affume the right of marrying agreeable to their own inclinations. Unfortunately, the fen

timents of parents and children are generally widely different in the point of choice in marriage. The former are apt to value wealth too much; the latter, too little; these regard nothing but the perfon, those the fortune only; and both are equally in the wrong. Without love, it is impoffible the marriage ftate fhould be happy; and it is abfurd to fuppofe thofe parties ca

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pable