15 JUNE 1878, Page 3

A curious suicide has taken place at Windsor. Count Aubriet

de Pevy, who drowned himself there in the Thames on Wednes- day, left a document, to be placed " at the disposal of any inquest and the Press," in which be states that the sudden death of his wife, " who was only twenty-eight, handsome, beloved by all, in France and here," had broken his heart, and that be agreed, with Montaigne, that he had nothing to complain of, since though there was but one way of coming into the world, there were a hundred of getting out of it, of which he chose the cleanest,— death by water. He hoped to find his wife in the more ethereal body in which he expected at once to find himself. This body " has our shape and form, is like us, but more beautiful, less or more, according to what we are worth." This life he regarded as " but a kind of experimental hell, where bad and good are mixed in

disorder." He believed in an immediate judgment after death, and in the subjection of the wicked then to very severe laws, thought door was always left open for their repentance. For himself, he held himself " safe,—not saved, which is ridiculous," and not the less safe apparently for taking the time of his exit from this "experimental hell" into his own hands. But one would have liked to ask him—who believed apparently in a real judgment, and subjection to spiritual authority—why people were ever placed in an " experimental hell," if they were to leave it as soon as they were tired of it. The authority who placed them there must surely be as competent to decide the time of exit as the time of entrance.