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from the friends of each of the poor children, and even that was extracted with difficulty, and only after considerable lapse of time. Sarah Blake, the surviving sister of the schoolmistress who died in prison, obtained her pardon, dated the 15th July, and others of them bought their peace afterwards from time to time.

"Every one of them," remarks Oldmixon, who had peculiar facilities for ascertaining the facts, "was forced to pay as much money as would have been a good portion to each, for particular pardons. This money and a great deal more was said to be for the Maids of Honour, whose agent, Brent the popish lawyer, had an under agent, one Crane of Bridgewater, and 'tis suppos'd that both of them paid themselves very bountifully out of the money which was rais'd by their means; some instances of which are within my knowledge." (Hist. of Stuarts, fol. 1730, p. 708.)

These then, as far as they are known, are the facts. If any body can add to them, we shall be obliged by a communication upon the subject. Mr. Macaulay's comment is as follows:

"Warre excused himself from taking part in a transaction so scandalous. The maids of honour then requested William Penn to act for them; and Penn accepted

the commission. Yet it should seem that a little of the pertinacious scrupulosity which he had often shewn about taking off his hat would not have been altogether out of place on this occasion.

He pro

bably silenced the remonstrances of his conscience by repeating to himself that none of the money which he extorted would go into his own pocket; that if he refused to be the agent of the ladies they would find agents less humane; that by complying he should increase his influence at the court, and that his influence at the court had already enabled him, and might still enable him, to render great services to his oppressed brethren. The maids of

honour were at last forced to content themselves with less than a third part of what they had demanded." (i. 656.)

Now, taking it for granted that the "Mr. Penne" addressed by Lord Sunderland really was William Penn the Quaker, it may be regarded as proved that the maids of honour" designed to employ" him (in conjunction with one Mr. Walden) just in the same way as they "designed to employ" Sir Francis Warre; but where is the evi

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dence which supports Mr. Macaulay's assertion that Penn " accepted the commission of the maids of honour, and that he was the person who “extorted" the money which was received on behalf of those ladies? We are not aware of any such evidence. Mr. Macaulay does not refer to any. Nobody can find any. Why then should it be presumed, without evidence, that Penn "accepted the commission" which Warre declined? Nay, why should this fact, so discreditable if true, be presumed not only without evidence, but in opposition to the only fragment of anything approaching to evidence which exists upon the subject, namely, the assertion of Oldmixon that the composition with the parents of the children was effected by Brent, the popish lawyer, and his under-agent, Crane of Bridgewater. It is possible that evidence may ultimately turn up that Penn did all that Mr. Macaulay has imputed to him, but at present,

and until some such evidence is discovered, the assertion of the right honourable historian is a mere guess, and a guess rather prompted by carelessness or prejudice than by charity.

Mr. Forster strives to throw doubt upon the identity of the "Mr. Penne" of the letter of the 13th February, 1685-6, with William Penn, the Quaker. We do not think the attempt successful. He suggests that the "Mr. Penne" may possibly have been the "G. Pen" mentioned in Pepys's diary under the date of the 4th April, 1660; or the "George Penne" who is said to have been the agent in effecting the release of Azariah Pinney, one of the pardoned convicts of the Monmouth rebellion. As to Pepys's "G. Pen," Mr. Forster has omitted to notice that the noble editor of Pepys has come ultimately, and we have no doubt accurately, to the opinion (v. 221), that the person alluded to was William Penn's father, under the title of "General Penn," which was at that time his proper designation. Our knowledge of "George Penne" is derived from Mr. Roberts (Life of Monmouth, ii. 243), who states that his information was founded upon communications received from a member of the Pinney family, but, at the same time, intimates a doubt as to whether "George Penne" is not a mistake for William Penn, the

Quaker. This doubt of Mr. Roberts's should also have been stated by Mr. Forster, and there should have been some further inquiry into this circumstance. Now that the matter has taken this turn, the fact may be very important, and should be fully in vestigated. Mr. Roberts should obtain us an explanation of it. If, as Mr. Roberts suspects, it was not a "George Penne," but our veritable friend William Penn, who interfered in the instance of Azariah Pinney, and was the agent in settling and procuring payment of his fine, the circumstance may be one pregnant with very important inferences.*

Further inquiry should also be made respecting the Mr. Walden, who was to be Penn's co-partner in the agency for the maids of honour. A Major Lionel Walden, M.P. for Huntingdon, is several times mentioned by Pepys. Brent seems to have been found by Mr. Forster acting as pardon-broker at a subsequent period, but he and Crane of Bridgewater should both be made subjects of further inquiry.

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Mr. Forster thinks that the word agent in the singular, used in the in

strument of the 11th March, 1685-6, [not 1686-7 as printed by Forster, p. 10,] leads to an inference against the employment of two persons, as Penn and Walden, but is consistent with what is stated by Oldmixon respecting the agency of one person, Brent. But Mr. Forster has omitted to notice that, although the word agent is used in that part of the document, the word agents occurs a few lines afterwards in the same sense: so that that argument falls to the ground.

On the whole, we must say that we do not think the present state of our information justifies what Mr. Macaulay has written. There is no proof, in the case of the maids of Taunton, that Penn's integrity gave way before the attacks of "female blandishments" and "the insinuating eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and courtiers." We shall be ready to consider any fresh evidence which may turn up, but, in the mean time, we hold that, in the judgment of candour and fair dealing, the memory of the great Quaker is in this case entitled to a verdict of NoT PROVEN.

B.

THE BANQUET OF THE DEAD.-FUNERAL OF FRANCIS THE FIRST.

MR. URBAN,

SOME of those who have read with curiosity and astonishment your record of the banqueting ceremonies in honour of the departure of the Empress of China, "on the dragon to be a guest on high" (Gent. Mag. for June, p. 631), may not be aware that funeral rites quite as remarkable in their way, and in many respects very similar, were celebrated at St. Cloud and in Paris, when Francis the First "sped" somewhereward "far away."

The details are given by a witness or rather by a principal actor, a Gallic Li-sang. Pierre du Chastel, Bishop of Macon, has left a long narrative of

the semi-gorgeous and semi-facetious ceremonies. This would occupy too much of your valuable space, but some notice of it may not be unacceptable to those curious in old ceremonials.

Francis died at Rambouillet on the 1st of March 1546. His body was in such a condition from the ravages of the most ignoble of diseases, that it did indeed seem "mockery" to enfold its rottenness in gold or any other glory. But notwithstanding much pains were bestowed thereon. After it had been embalmed, the royal corpse was transferred to the abbey of Haute Bruyere; and, sped thence by the prayers of the brethren, it was conveyed to St. Cloud and deposited for

*It is observable that, contrary to Lord Sunderland's usual custom, the letter of 13th February, 1685-6, commences "Mr. Penne," and not "Sir;" is there anything in this circumstance to lead to the inference that the writer knew that he was addressing a person who disavowed and disliked the customary forms of address?

GENT. MAG. VOL. XXXIV.

C

a time in the house of the Bishop of Paris. There it lay on a couch of crimson silk, while around it four dozen monks, Franciscans, Jacobins, Augustines, and Carmelites, of each fraternity a dozen, stormed heaven in the dead king's behalf, and finally won it, as was not to be doubted, by violence of prayer. In an apartment adjoining, the effigy of the monarch, a wax figure, "faicte," as Pierre du Chastel tells us, "après le vif et le naturel," was extended on a large state-bed covered with a cloth of gold, the ermine border of which hung over the three steps of the platform on which the bed was raised. The counterfeit presentment lay with joined hands. It was attired in a crimson satin shirt, over which was a blue tunic covered with silver fleursde-lis, and a royal mantle, over the length, breadth, and splendour of which the Bishop of Macon expatiates with the professional minuteness of a man whose home might be in the Rue St. Denis: " Vous êtes orfèvre, M. Josse." Suffice it to say that all the glories that could be given by gold, silk, precious stones, and countless accessories artistically disposed, were given on this occasion. The scene was grandly prepared, and over it all two herald kings-of-arms kept solemn silent watch; solemn and silent, that is, till the Li-sangs of the French court served the "imperial tea," which was done after this sort: Cardinals, prelates, lords, officers, and gentlemen took their places around the unconscious and glorified image, and for not less than eleven days the royal table service went on as though the king were really there and bodily profiting by the attention paid him. The table was royally spread at the bed side, and over the viands thereon a cardinal uttered a solemn grace without smiling. A gentleman in waiting then offered the aiguiere," which I suppose was an "aqualis" orewer, to the image of the defunct king; another presented a cup brimmed with wine; and a third gravely wiped the mimic lips and fingers when the repast had terminated. This banquet of the dead, into the numerous details of which it is impossible to enter, was enacted on a stage appropriately lighted up by funeral torches.

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It was not till the 21st of May that the body was conveyed, with tedious pomp, lengthily told by our diffuse episcopal authority, to the church of Notre Dame des Champs, in Paris. The retinue was a strange one; not only was all the greatness of France there, new booted and spurred and fresh gilded for the occasion, but beggars, grooms, and kitchen officials swelled a train, which on reaching the suburbs of the capital was graciously received by the twenty-four town criers. To the church above-named were removed the bodies of the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, two sons of Francis, who had "mounted the great dragon before their royal father. The effigies of the three were here splendidly feasted, carefully tended, and daintily wiped by the cardinals and gentlemen selected for the office. This done, the triad of couches were rolled to the church door, whither came delegates from all the districts of Paris to sprinkle them with holy water. Homage was paid, the cry of lamentation was raised, and "Strike the head! strike the head! strike the head!" was no doubt duly observed according to the French fashion of the ceremony. From Notre Dame des Champs the bodies were borne to the cathedral Notre Dame de Paris. The colleges sent their students to join the procession, and the ambassadors from the pope, from the emperor, from England, Scotland, Venice, Ferrara, and Mantua were there, "chacun d'eux conduit par un prelat à cheval," from which it is difficult to say whether the priest was in the saddle and the ambassadors on foot, or the contrary. However this may be, the procession moved to the music of the town criers, who rang their bells incessantly, giving rest to the iron tongues only when the criers themselves made announcement of the death of the king, and attributed qualities to him with such triple-piled mendacity, that if the angels heard it they must indeed have wept.

But the mendacity of the town criers was nothing to that of our friend the Bishop of Macon himself, when the latter stood a day or two after at the side of the vault (at St. Denis) into which the bodies of the King, the Dauphin, and the Duke had been let

down with attendant ceremonies that would have sadly perplexed even Mr. Farley, had that great master of stage effect ever been called upon to reproduce them. If, said the bishop, whose style Bossuet did not imitate, if literature does not give herself up to his praise she is an ungrateful hussey, villaine et ingrate." He further told his astonished hearers that their late king was remarkable for his piety and purity, a fact which they certainly could never before have even suspected, and to which the circumstances of his life, as well as of his death, gave a pitiable contradiction. Sacred books, they were told, were the delight of this roi gaillard; science was his only mistress; over the realms of knowledge he reigned supreme; art was submissive to his will, and artists could

not have lived but for his bounty; his
eloquence was golden-mouthed; his
poetry "for copiousness, grandeur of
invention, grave magnificence of style,
dignity, and majesty of measure," was
hear it, blind old man of Chios isle;
hear it, tuneful Maro
above any-
thing that could be found in Greek or
Latin! Finally, there never had been
and never would be a mortal man who
might approach him in excellence!
Thus closed the vault over Francis
the First; and the monarch lay em-
balmed in the odour of lies until, after
two centuries, his grave was violated
by a mob who had less care for dead
kings than for the gold which encircled
their mortality.
JOHN DORAN.

Earl's Court, Kensington,
June 5, 1850,

VINCENT DE PAUL.

WHETHER this age be remarkable for the number and nobleness of its saints is a question which we must leave others to determine according to the ideas which they may severally attach to the character of sainthood; but assuredly no age ever showed a deeper interest in the lives of saints. That interest may arise from literary curiosity, from sectarian prejudice, from superstitious feeling, or from that which is stronger than all these, the religious element which is at work in those who, looking affectionately to the holy ones of the past, strive to urge themselves onwards in the path of holiness. Of course a goodness whose inspiration is example cannot be of the highest kind. The divinest virtues are derived from a far more exalted source, and rather offer examples than follow them. Yet in all seasons of the world's history the majority of our race must, in virtue as in everything else, be condemned to copy, from their inability to create. We must then rejoice that in the absence, if we admit the absence, of those beautiful and valiant enthusiasms which constitute originality in virtue, the desire is so ardent on all sides to revive the memory of the blest.

It is in the spirit of this philosophy

that we would write of one of the most illustrious of French saintsVincent De Paul.

This great man was born at the hamlet of Pouy, in Guienne, on the 24th April, 1576. He was the son of poor parents, and his father, who was a small farmer, sent him solitary to the hills at an early age to herd a flock of sheep. Though this employment cut him off from the world, it had not power to exclude him from growth in Christian graces. In him pity was the leading impulse, and became the mother of other excellences. Remote from the turmoil of social existence, and spending day after day in the most lonely of occupations, he yet could not escape from occasional spectacles of human misery. It became his custom, whenever he saw any poor unfortunate creature suffering from want, to give all the food he had with him, which sometimes happened to be his entire supply for the day, and thus voluntarily to force upon himself the pangs of hunger. His father more than once chanced upon him when engaged in these noble acts of benevolence, and was so struck by the unusual sight that he resolved to have his son educated for the priesthood, though to none of his other children had he given any educa

tion at all. Vincent de Paul was nearly fifteen years of age when his father came to this resolution. He had not previously even learned to read. His industry, however, and his energetic consecration of his whole being to that path to which he seemed to have been led by the finger of God, soon enabled him to make up for lost time. Perhaps it was well for him and well for the world that his first education had been wholly in the school of nature. As the lonely shepherd, breathed on and gladdened by the free breeze, treading the wide wild heath, and gazing up to the open sky while no smoke of civilization shut out the stars, he must have acquired a knowledge of heavenly mysteries, a depth of meditation and a spirituality of vision, which he could not have obtained if placed in circumstances more artificial.

In his twenty-fifth year he was received into the priesthood. He was appointed to a rich living-that of Tilh, in the diocese of Acqs. But when about to take possession of it his appointment was contested in a court of law. His tender conscience did not allow him to dispute the point. He at once resigned his claims, piously convinced that in doing so he was fulfilling the will of God.

He had soon to undergo a much severer trial. In a journey from Provence to Guienne he had to pass by sea from Marseilles to Narbonne. During this voyage he fell into the hands of pirates, and was taken by them to Tunis. Here he passed three years in slavery, suffering the most barbarous treatment. He was sold thrice in the public market to different masters. His family did not know all this time what had become of him. The last of his masters, who was also the most cruel of the three, had renounced the Christian faith, and hated it with all the bitterness of the renegade. But the resignation and the piety of Vincent de Paul soon produced a strange revolution in the character of the cruel master. He became a Christian once more, both in belief and practice. His ferocity and all his bad passions disappeared; he treated Vincent de Paul as his friend; he chose him as his spiritual adviser. Not satisfied with offering him his liberty, he further planned the means

of himself escaping with him from Africa. They set out at night alone in a frail skiff, with no other guide over the waves but their trust in Providence, and at length reached the shores of France in safety.

Vincent de Paul's only thought was now directed to the thousands who at Algiers and Tunis were languishing in the bondage from which he had escaped. He proceeded to Avignon to represent their wrongs and sufferings to the Pope's legate, and to interest him in their behalf. In pleading their cause he was unconsciously pleading his own. Montorio the legate conceived for him the greatest regard, and took him with him to Rome. Here he spoke of him in such fervent terms of praise that the ambassadors of Henry the Fourth of France expressed a wish to see and converse with the eloquent advocate of philanthropy, and by one of them he was ultimately sent to their king with a commission of some importance. Henry had many interviews with Vincent de Paul, and entertained towards him such profound esteem as to announce his resolution of raising him to the episcopal office. This plan was frustrated by Henry's murder.

But it was not this world's goods that was the object of Vincent de Paul's desire. And, much as he may have grieved over Henry's death, it could not be because it disappointed him of rich benefices; for the next time we see him he is devoting his spiritual services, his whole energies, to lessen the physical and other woes, to cheer the hearts and comfort the souls, of the patients in an hospital; who felt towards him the greatest gratitude and love. One day the Cardinal de Bérulle went to visit the hospital. The inmates immediately raised their voices to praise and bless that angel of mercy who, seen of none but themselves and God, had been standing day by day and night by night unwearied beside their beds of agony. The Cardinal, deeply touched by this outburst of feeling, interested himself so actively for Vincent de Paul that he was created almoner of Queen Margaret de Valois, and appointed to the parish of Clichi.

Having heard some time after this gleam of prosperity that the living of

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