MORE OLD PAPERS.

AMONG the many fascinating persons thrown up from obscurity by the volcanic upheaval of the Great Revo- lution, few yield in charm to Antoine Quentin Fouquier, the Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal Whether it was his friend and patron Danton or a friendless servant-girl, Vergniaud or some trembling peasant denounced as a Contre- revolutionmaire, he always impartially demanded the death- penalty. Few of his victims escaped the scaffold. His death- warrants were ready-printed forms which only needed filling in. That fixing the place and hour of the execution of Marie Antoin- ette is quite evidently written with all the nonchalance with which one might scribble an order for stores. It is fair to say that he refused bribes. Friends and enemies fared alike. With- out a trace of eloquence, he knew the detail of his business, and hunted to death the poor wretches before the Tribunal with the malignant pertinacity of a stoat after a rabbit. I have a letter of his written on pale-blue paper in July, 1794—near the end of his joyous tenure of office. It is addressed to the Juge de Paix of Lagny (Seine et Marne), and refers to Jean Guillot dit l'arche- algae, a suspected Conire-ndrodutionnaire from that Commune. He has been arrested in Paris, and Fouquier asks for evidence from the local authorities. This seems rather a superfluous proceeding, and it is hardly doubtful what was Guillot's fate. Fouquier writes a good hand, and before 1789 was a small attorney, like so many of the miscreants with whom he was asso- ciated. After Thermidor he was imprisoned on the motion of Frdron, whose hands were almost as deeply imbrued in blood as his own, and in May of the following year made his last appear. ance on the same scaffold to which he had consigned so many innocent men and women. Freron, whom I have just mentioned, wrote a small, very clear hand, evidently that of an educated man. A letter of his in my possession is dated October 6th, 1792, and is written to Merlin de Thionville. It is on behalf of Citizen Thyerin, who is imprisoned at the Benedictins Anglais and desires his liberty. Having regard to the events in the Paris prisons during the previous month, one can well believe that M. Thyerin desired his liberty very much indeed. He was fortunate to be still alive to desire anything at all.

Here is an interesting letter from the late Mr. A. W. Kinglake to my father on the death of Mr. A. Hayward (February 2nd, 1884) :—

" Our friend Hayward passed away very tranquilly this morning at 8 o'clock. His illness began on the 30th of October and from that time until about 10 days ago he suffered a good deal of uneasiness, but nO actual pain, and of late, the uneasiness has not been great. In mind he has been tranquil and until the last few days perfectly clear. No clergyman invaded his peace and though Mrs. Gladstone went to his bedside and said some- thing gently of her prayers for him and of Gladstone's prayers also, nothing passed that tended in the slightest degree to disturb his calm. One evening during his illness, but before the time when he took to his bed Hayward said and-emphatically repeated: ' We know nothing.' Then after a pause he added : There is Something Great.' The devotion and kindness shown towards him during his illness has been something quite extraordinary and in all his immediate surroundings he has been most fortunate. To say that he had been ministered to day and night by angels would be an understatement for he has had three devoted young women (so much better than angels) attending to his every wish ; and his sister—a good affectionate soul—had been with him for some time."

It is rather a curious thing that nearly all the Napoleonic Mar- shals wrote clearly and expressed themselves like educated men, although, in general, they can have had little schooling and were almost allof humble origin. Therein one atriking exception. Mar- mont, the Duke of Ragusa, by birth a noble, wrote a hand so illegible that I have hitherto failed to read in its entirety the only letter of his that I possess. It is about a journey in Croatia, but what he did there I have never been able to decipher. If his orders to the French Divisional Commanders at Salamanca were in his own handwriting, Wellington's victory is not sur- prising.

Of the following interesting minutes by Philip IL and his celebrated secretary, Antonio Perez, I only possess a copy. They are in the very little-known Valencia, de Don Juan archives at Madrid, and belong to Don Guillermo de Osma. I believe that I was almost the first person to examiae them. It is, of

comae, well known that Rny Gomez, Prince of Eboli, was for many years the favourite of Philip II.. I give, side by side, the translations of these minutes :—

Menu Regid. in Antonio Perez's writing.

" The death of Ruy Gomez affected me greatly and I am glad that he behaved as he did until he expired and as you have reported. I always be. keyed that it would be so. He is now where he need not envy us and where he will know better what is passing in the world." "Ruy Gomez died to-night at S after in every way behav- ing as a Christian gentleman should do. Up to the moment when he expired he listened to all that is necessary to sal. nation with the same good judgment and knowledge as he showed when in health. On the death of her husband his wife took the habit of the Car. melites and to-night left for the nunnery of Pastrana after showing such great bravery and strange resolution that I have thought fit to report it. your Majesty knows better than any one what Y.M. loses in Ruy Gomez and for that reason as one who regarded him as a father and as Y.M.'s servant I felt and still feel his death as I, in duty bound, should."

No one who has not seen Philip's handwriting can form any conception of its extraordinary character. There is no doubt that there was a strong taint of madness in his blood, and cer-

tainly his writing is not that of a normal person. As regards the minutes, the Princess did indeed become a Carmelite nun, but behaved so badly at Pastrana that St. Teresa, her Superior,

came expressly from Avila and unceremoniously ejected her. She was subsequently implicated in the mysterious Perez case and died in prison. It is difficult to understand why Philip and Antonio Perez should have quarrelled over her. She was plain, and had lost an eye in her youth through a fencing accident. In the only extant portrait of her she wears a large black patch.

Perhaps no two men ever so little resembled each other either in mind or body as Philip II. and Ernest Renan. Here is an

interesting letter from the latter to my father (1871) ;—

"Quel regret j'ai dprouv6 il y a deux ou trois jours enrecevant votro lettre dates de Genes Nous faisons en ce moment un petit voyage d'Italie, ma femme et moi pour noes ddtacher un peu des tristes preoccupations dont il est si diffieile de as distraire Paris et figurez-vous qua nous dtions fustement a Genes le jours ou vous nous eeriviez. Quel malheur qua le sort ne nous sit pea fait rencontrer ! Comma j'aurais airno a recevoir vos impressions d'Athenes l Hales mss impressions de Paris, vous pouvez les diviner puisque-vous avez patasé par eel albergo di dolor. Le mal de men pauvre pays me parait de plus en plus profond et les medecins qui se chacgent do as cure avec tart d'assurance me semblent faits comme les empiriques qui eroient gudrir un malade gangrene en appliquant un remade aux symp- tames de cheque jour. Se ne crois pas qua de rdformes serieuses soloist poasibles sans la monarchic; male la monarchic ne pourra se retablir qua par quelqu'un qui -releverait l'honneur national et oat honneur national ne peutetre releve qua si lion entre dans la voie de sdrieuses reformes ; si bien qu'il y a la un eerele vicieux.evident. Tout eat possible ; main de toutes les hypotheses qua j'entrevois il n'y a anomie de bonne. L'hypo- these d'une republique mediocre, incolore, fondue avec un orleanisme inoffensif et peu exigent aerait peutetre eelle qui aurait le plus de chances ; male un tel itat de ehoses serait bien faible contra lea ferments bonapartistes caches au fond de la conscience du paysan et centre les pronunciarnientos militairea Je m'arrete; car voila plus de quinze joins qua j'ai quad: Is Frame at quinze jours par le temps qui court equivalent a dee amides. . . ."

Writing, as he did, from Venice, the year of the Commune, can one wonder that even Renan was depressed ? Would that he could have lived to see France raised to a pinnacle of moral

grandeur whiob makes the opnquests of Conde and Turenneseem