house's cemetery wall, returned to Paris, and gave to Colonel Dentzel the twelve thousand dollars he had saved. The execution of the four sergeants took place the 21st September, 1822. Before they started for the scaffold, the Procureur-General and the President of the Court of Assizes asked them in an agitated voice if they would not endeavor to excite the royal clemency by making revelations. They replied unanimously they had no revelations to make. Again pressed to save themselves by revealing what they knew, they made the same reply. But during the march which led them to the scaffold, these four young men, full of sang-froid and of courage, looked around from the hurdles, endeavoring to find in some point of the horizon, or among the crowd that surrounded them, the rescuers that were promised them. None came; no attempt was made to save them. Raoulx was executed first, then Goubin, then Rommier, and last of all Bories. They all died crying Vive la Liberté ! inhabitants of Villefranche, in the department of the Aveyron, Bovies's residence, resolved to conceal his death from his parents. He often wrote to them; when he ceased to write to them, they said that he had been sent to the colonies, and they recommended the same discretion to the soldiers who came thither on leave of absence. For several years no one betrayed this secret. They would have bitterly reproached themselves, as for a crime, had they afflicted the honorable old people, esteemed by the whole population. The four sergeants of Rochelle are buried in the cemetery of Mount Parnasse; we still freshly remember that when we were in Paris, their graves continue a favorite object of pilgrimage, and that every All Saints' Day pious hands cover them with flowers and with funeral wreaths.

The

M. Veron gives us some new details of the arrests of Marshal Ney and Colonel Labédoyère and the romantic escape of M. de La Valette. So far from being arrested by M. Decares, Marshal Ney was arrested by the Royal Volunteers of Aurillac, the 5th August, 1815, in the Château de Bessonnis, near Aurillac (Auvergne). This chateau belonged to M. de Cantaloubre, a relation of the Marshal; and Ney owed his arrest solely to his own imprudence. When Marshal Ney quitted Paris for some secure retreat, he took with him a sabre remarkable for its beauty and richness, given to him by VOL. V.-11

Napoleon, who had worn it in Egypt; this sabre had attracted the attention of M. de Cantaloubre and of his friends; the sabre was left one day on the sofa in the drawing-room; it excited a good deal of conversation in Aurillac, from its splendor, and its having belonged to Napoleon. Suspicions were soon hazarded that the guest who recently had reached the Château de Bessonnis was a fugitive Bonapartist, and the relation known to exist between Marshal Ney and the lord of the château, suggested to some one that the unknown guest of the chateau was none other than the marshal. This surmise acquired the certainty gossip proverbially gives its themes; the news spread like wildfire, and the loyal Royal Volunteers of the village felt they could not exhibit in a stronger light their zeal and their fidelity than by arresting one of the most illustrious imperial marshals whom the ordinance of the 24th July stigmatized as a traitor to the king. This whole movement was voluntary. A brother of M. de Cantaloubre, the postmaster in Aurillac, and himself a relation of the marshal, was informed of the designs of the Royal Volunteers; he hastened to the chateau to inform his brother and the marshal. In his haste, and the obscurity of the night, he fell into a ditch and broke his leg, so that, far from continuing his route, he could not rise from the ground. The marshal could not be warned, but there was a last resource; the Royal Volunteers did not know him personally, and when, at daybreak, they reached the chateau, chance led that it was to Marshal Ney himself they asked the question, "Where is Marshal Ney?" Flight was still possible. "You ask for Marshal Ney," said he to them; come with me, I will show him to you." He carried them into his room. "I am Marshal Ney." He surrendered himself to them without resistance; they carried him to Aurillac, and then sent him to Paris, where he arrived on the 19th of August, 1815, the day Labédoyère was shot. While they were on the road to Paris, the marshal and the gendarmes who guarded him had stopped in an inn by the wayside for refreshment; while they were resting, some forty old soldiers who had served under the marshal, and now discharged, were on their way home passed by the inn. They recognized their old chief, and exchanged with him significant glances, which gave him to understand that they could deliver him.

The gendarmes themselves seemed disposed to yield easily before these superior numbers. They waited only a gesture of the marshal, but he was too confident of his acquittal to wish an escape. Our readers know that he was tried by the Chamber of Peers, 161 Peers (an unusual number) being present, they were unanimously of opinion that he was guilty: 139 voted for his death, and 22 voted for his transportation. He

was shot.

The arrest of Labédoyère was due to his own inexcusable imprudence. He had received warning of the contents of the royal ordinance, and he had left Paris for the environs of Clermont in the department of the Puy de Dome; his flight was protected by passports, which Fouché had delivered blank, knowing very well for whom they were intended. Every one thought he entertained the wise plan of going to Switzerland, and from thence to England: nothing was easier than the voyage from Clermont to the Swiss frontier; but what does the colonel? He returns to Paris, and selecting of all vehicles in the world, the public diligence, to accomplish his journey; among the passengers was an officer of the gendarmerie, who recognized him. When the diligence reached the Barrière de Fontainebleau (the name of one of the gates of Paris), and while the octroi officers were making their usual searches, the officer of the gendarmerie took a hack and hastened to the Prefecture of Police. The Prefect of Police was absent; he communicated his secret to the Commissary of Police on duty; the latter went to the diligence office, and found the coach had arrived, and that the colonel had already gone; but the police obtained the number of the hack he had taken, and they soon ascertained that he had gone to a house in the Faubourg Poissonnière. They asked the porter of the house what had become of the traveller who had arrived an hour before. He replied that he was still with the person who lived on the Entresol. They went up stairs and arrested him. All this was over when the Prefect of Police returned to his office. That day Fouché gave a grand ball in honor of his marriage with Mademoiselle de Castellane; he had invited all of his friends of the Faubourg St. Germain to it, and scarcely one of them had failed to come. It was during this ball, and in the midst of dances, Fouché heard of Labédoyère's arrest; it

gave him the greatest pain. A new conspiracy had just been discovered in Paris, and the government concluded that the colonel had come up to take a part in it. Labédoyère was scarcely thirty years old; he was a handsome young man, a brilliant and promising officer. When he joined Napoleon after the return from Elba, it was because his regiment had forced him away with them. His punishment would have been comparatively light, but for the unfortunate coincidence of the plot discovered the eve of his arrival in Paris. He had ardent friends in all parties; most of the members of his family were royalists. They resolved to contrive an escape from jail; an obstinate fatality averted this plan, even after the jailer had been gained: everything was ready, even six thousand dollars, the sum required to remove the last difficulties, had been procured, when the person who conducted the plan of evasion (a lady) talked about it to an officier de paix, who she believed was in the secret, but who knew nothing about it; he made a noise about it; the unfortunate lady was arrested and sent to jail, where she was immediately examined; she nobly avowed her whole scheme, and the depth of her affection for Labédoyère. She was released the day after he was shot. He resigned his life with the greatest courage.

The

The Count de Valette was more fortunate. His arrest, too, was due entirely to his own negligence. He had several times been warned of the danger which menaced him; he took no notice of these friendly admonitions. police officer who arrested him, called in the morning to tell him he should arrest him at night. Still he did not fly! At six o'clock in the evening, as he was about sitting down to dinner, he was arrested in his house in the Rue de Grenelle. His wife was a tall and a spare woman; he was very short, and very fat. Tried before the Court of Assizes, he was condemned to death. He appealed to another Court-the sentence was confirmed. He craved the royal mercy: M. de La Valette inspired a great deal of interest-he had a great many and warm friends. The crime imputed to him was not of especial gravity, but the party then in the majority in both Chambers demanded his blood with an inflexible cruelty. The king, always disposed to leniency, urged that before this vehement hostility, he was not in a vo

sition to hearken to the dictates of his heart, and that if the blood of M. de La Valette was spared, it would cause torrents of blood to flow, for his pardon would cause the overthrow of the Ministry, and it would be replaced by men belonging to the powerful majority, who, once in office, would pursue other victims with relentless cruelty. M. Decares (then Minister of Police) thought that if the Duchess d'Angoulême could be induced to intercede with the king for the pardon of M. de La Valette, the king's fears would be dissipated. The king approved the plan, and thought it excellent. M. Decares engaged the Duke de Richelieu to win the Duchess d'Angoulême's consent. The duke spoke to her eloquently and warmly, and at the last he touched her heart; she promised to intercede, provided her friends did not object to it. The method of obtaining the pardon was formed by M. Decares and Marshal Marinont, who was a devoted friend of M. de La Valette; it was agreed that Madame de La Valette would fall at the king's feet, and that at the same time she should invoke Madame's (the Duchess d'Angoulême) pity; when Madame joining her prayers to those of the petitioner, the king would grant their request. The Duke de Richelieu had been authorized to say so much to Madame in the name of the king. the friends Madame consulted, dissuaded her from exerting any influence in the matter, and the next day (which was the day appointed by M. Decares and Marshal Marmont for this scene) the strictest orders were given that no women should be allowed to enter the Salle des Maréchaux in the Tuileries. When Marmont (who knew nothing of this order) came there with Madame de La Valette on his arm, the garde du corps on duty said: "Madame, my orders are that no ladies shall be admitted." Marmont replied: "Are you ordered too to keep me out?" "No, Marshal." "Then I

But

shall go in," and he entered, forcing Madame de La Valette in with him. At the sight of her, the Duchess d'Angoulême became very much embarrassed; her countenance showed a lively interest, but her eyes met her friends' glances, and she dared not give way to her heart. She has often expressed her regret since, that she did not listen to the impulse of her natural generosity. The king, seeing that he was not sustained, received the petition and made an evasive reply. The execution was fixed for the next day. This same day, Madame de La Valette went to see her husband in a porter's chair, accompanied by her daughter, a child of fourteen years old, and an old governess. The husband and wife dined together in a separate apartment, where the countess took her husband's clothes, and gave him hers. As if to make the difficulties of the evasion greater than they were at best, a stupid servant was so imprudent as to say to the porters, they would have a heavier load when they returned, but that they would not have far to go, and "you will get twentyfive Louis d'or." "Then we are to bring back M. de La Valette?" said one of the porters; this man went away, but he kept the secret; his place was supplied by a charcoal-seller, who happened to be there. Three women soon appeared, and crossed the jailer's room; one of them seemed overwhelmed with griefshe covered her face with her handkerchief and sobbed bitterly. The jailer, touched, aided her out, and without daring to raise her veil. He went into the prisoner's chamber, where he found no one but Madame de La Valette: "Oh! Madame," exclaimed he, "you have undone me! you have deceived me!" When Louis XVIII. heard of it, he said: "Madaine de La Valette has done her duty." M. de La Valette remained concealed in Paris until the 21st January, 1816.