is just coming," said he, with an extraordinary voice. I thought I saw some drops of blood on his shirt, and proceeded quickly to unbutton his coat; he had inflicted a wound two inches deep on his left breast, with a penknife. I called for help, and the maid-servant ran to fetch a surgeon; the wound proved dangerous.

This new misfortune obliged me to interfere. Hingant, a councillor of the parliament of Brittany, had refused to receive the allowance granted by the English government to French magistrates, just as I also had refused to accept the shilling a day doled out as alms to the émigrés. I wrote to M. de Barentin, and made him acquainted with my friend's condition. Hingant's relations hastened to his aid, and removed him to the country. At this very time my uncle de Bedée, sent me 120 francs; an affecting remembrance from my persecuted family; I felt as if I had before me all the gold of Peru; the mite of the prisoners of France supported the French exile.

My miseries interrupted my work; and, as I sent no more copy, the printing was suspended. Deprived of Hingant's company, I no longer kept my lodging at a guinea a month, at Baylis's. I paid for the time expired, and went elsewhere. Below the indigent émigrés, who had at first acted as patrons to me in London, there were others more needy still. There are degrees in poverty as well as in riches; one may go from the man who in winter keeps himself warm with his dog, down to him who shivers in patched rags. My friends found me a lodging better suited to my decreasing means, and installed me in a garret in Mary-le-bone Street, the small window of which opened on a burying-ground. Every night the watchman's rattle gave notice of the approach of persons engaged in stealing the bodies of the dead. I had the consolation of knowing that Hingant was out of danger.

My comrades came to visit me in my workshop. From our independence and our poverty, we might have been taken for painters seated on the ruins of Rome; we were artists in misery on the ruins of France. My figure served as a model, and my bed as a seat for my pupils. This bed consisted of a mattress and coverlid. I had no sheets; when it was cold, my coat and a chair added to my covering, kept me warm; too weak to make my bed, it remained as God had made it for

My cousin La Bouëtardais, driven out of an Irish lodginghouse, for non-payment, although he had pledged his violin for the purpose, came to seek at my humble lodging a shelter from the constable. A Bas-breton vicar lent him a mat for a bed. La Bouëtardais, as well as Hingant, was a councillor of parliament in Brittany, and yet he did not possess a pocket-handkerchief to tie round his head; but he had deserted with arms and baggage, that is, he had carried away his square cap and red cloak; and now he lay under the purple at my side. Being witty, and a good musician with a fine voice, when we failed to fall asleep, he sat up quite naked upon his mat, sung ballads, and accompanied himself on a guitar, which had only three strings. One night when the poor fellow was warbling forth Metastasio's Hymn to Venus, Scendi propizia, he was exposed to a draft, his mouth was turned, and he died, but not immediately, for I rubbed his cheeks with all my might. We were accustomed to take counsel together in our lofty chamber, to discuss politics, and to talk over all the noisy complaints of the émigrés. In the evenings we went to join the dance at the lodgings of our aunts or cousins, after their dress-making was over, or the hats finished.

London, from April till September, 1822.

SUMPTUOUS ENTERTAINMENT-END OF MY 120 FRANCS-FRESH DISTRESS-TABLE-D'HÔTE-BISHOPS-DINNER AT THE LONDON TAVERN

-CAMDEN PAPERS.

THOSE who read this part of my Memoirs will not have perceived that I have twice interrupted them; once to give a grand dinner to the Duke of York, the King's brother; and again, to give an entertainment on the anniversary of the French king's entry into Paris on his restoration, July the 8th. This entertainment cost me 40,000 francs. Peers and peeresses of the British empire, ambassadors and foreigners of distinction, filled my splendid saloons. My table glittered with magnificent glass and Sèvres china; the most recherché viands, wines, and flowers were in abundance; Portland Place was crowded with brilliant equipages; Collinet and the band of

Almack's charmed the fashionably melancholy dandies, and the dreamily elegant ladies, pensively dancing to its music. The opposition and the ministerial majority had agreed to a truce: Lady Canning chatted with Lord Londonderry, Lady Jersey with the Duke of Wellington. Monsieur, who in 1822 complimented me on my splendid entertainment, was quite unconscious in 1793, that not far from him existed a future minister, who while awaiting his coming grandeur, fasted for his sin of fidelity in his miserable garret overlooking a grave-yard. I congratulate myself now on having experienced shipwreck, tasted the hardships of war, and shared the privations of the humblest class of society, as I do on having, in my days of prosperity, met with injustice and calumny; I have profited by these lessons; life is but a child's plaything without the evils which render it of weight and importance.

I was the man of the 120 francs; but equality of fortunes not having yet been established, and provisions not having fallen in price, there was nothing to form a counterpoise to my purse, which became lighter every day. I could not reckon on any fresh assistance from my family, exposed as they were in Brittany to the double scourge of chouannerie and the reign of terror. I saw no alternative before me but the hospital or the Thames.

Some of the domestics of émigrés who could no longer maintain servants, had transformed themselves into restaurateurs to maintain their masters. Strange cheer was there at these tables-d'hôte, and strange politics! All the victories of the republic were transformed into defeats, and if any one ventured to doubt on the subject of an immediate Restoration, he was instantly cried out upon as a Jacobin. Two old bishops, who looked as if they were not far from the brink of the grave, were walking one spring-day in St. James's Park. Sir," said the one, "do you the month of June?"

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think we shall be in France in 'Why, sir," replied the other, after mature reflection, "I see nothing to prevent it."

The man of resources, Pelletier, came to dislodge me from my aërie. He had read in a Yarmouth newspaper that a society of antiquaries were going to undertake a history of Suffolk, and were in want of a Frenchman capable of deciphering the French manuscripts of the twelfth century, which were among the Camden papers. The minister, or parson, of

Beccles, was at the head of the undertaking, and it was to him that any application must be made. "Here is just what will do for you,' "said Pelletier; "be off directly; you can decipher these dusty old papers; you will continue to send copy for the Essai to Baylis, and I will make the fellow go on with the printing; you will return to London with two hundred guineas in your pocket and your work done—and then let the world go as it will!"

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I began to stammer out some objections: "Eh! diable!" interrupted he, do you mean to stay in this paradise, where I am already nearly killed with cold? If Rivarol, Champoenetz, Mirabeau-Tonneau, and myself had been so bashful, we should have made fine work in the Actes des Apôtres! Do you know that this story of Hingant and yourself makes an infernal noise? You meant to let yourselves die of hunger, did you? Ah, ah! pooh !-ah, ah !" and Pelletier, bent double, held his knees for laughing. He had just got rid of 100 copies of his newspaper to the colonies, had got paid for them, and his guineas jingled in his pocket. He forcibly carried me off, with the apoplectic La Bouëtardais, and two other tattered émigrés who happened to be in the way, to dine at the London Tavern; and there treated us with roast beef, plum-pudding, and Port wine, to our satisfaction. "Monsieur le comte," said he to my cousin, "how did you get your neck all on one side in that way?"

La Bouëtardais, half shocked, half pleased, explained it to the best of his power, and told that he had been suddenly attacked while singing the words, O bella Venere ! My poor paralytic cousin had such a dead, benumbed, miserable air while stammering out his bella Venere, that Pelletier fell back in a wild fit of laughing, and nearly overturned the table by kicking it below with both his feet.

On reflection, the advice of my countryman (a true follower and imitator of my other countryman, Le Sage) did not appear to me to be neglected. In three days, after making various inquiries, and getting myself respectably clothed by Pelletier's tailor, I set out for Beccles, with some money lent me by Deboffe, on my promise of going on with the Essai. I changed my name, unpronounceable by any Englishman, to that of Combourg, which had been borne by my brother, and which recalled to my mind the pains and pleasures of my early youth.

I alighted at the inn, and thence went to present myself to the minister of the place, and deliver to him a letter from Deboffe, who was much esteemed in the English book-trade, in which I was recommended as a savant of the first order. I was extremely well received,-saw all the gentlemen of the county, and met with two officers of the French navy, who were giving lessons in French in the neighbourhood.

London, from April till September, 1822.

MY OCCUPATIONS IN THE COUNTRY-DEATH OF MY BROTHER-MISFORTUNES OF MY FAMILY-TWO FRANCES-LETTERS FROM HINGANT.

I BEGAN to recover strength; the rides which I took in some degree restored me to health. The scenery of England, seen thus in detail, was pleasing, but rather melancholy in character-everywhere the same objects, the same views. M. de Combourg was invited to all parties. It was to study that I owed the first alleviation of my lot; Cicero was right in recommending literature as a resource to the mind in the sorrows of life. The ladies were delighted to meet a Frenchman, that they might have an opportunity of speaking French.

The misfortunes of my family, which I learned from the newspapers, and which were the cause of discovering my real name (for I could not conceal my grief), increased the interest taken in me by the society in which I moved. The public prints announced the death of M. de Malesherbes ; that of his daughter, the President de Rosambo's wife; that of his grand-daughter, the Countess de Chateaubriand, and of her husband, my brother, sacrificed together on the same scaffold, on the same day, and at the same hour. M. de Malesherbes was an object of admiration and veneration to the English; my family connexion with this champion of Louis XVI. increased the good-will of my hosts towards me.

My uncle de Bedée sent me accounts of the persecution experienced by the other members of my family. My aged and incomparable mother had been thrown into a cart in company with other victims, and carried from her retreat in Brittany to the gaols of Paris, to share the fate of the son she had so