though in chains, you behave to us as if we were your prisoners."

The Sultan having sent one of his generals to the king, to demand a very considerable sum of money for his ransom; his majesty replied, "Return and tell your master, that a king of France is not to be redeemed with money; I will give him the sum he asks for my subjects that are taken prisoners; and I will deliver up to hun the city of Damietta for my own person." And such were the terms on which the liberation of the King of France and his subjects was afterwards effected.

JOHN, KING OF FRANCE.

"This prince," says an old French chronicler very strongly, "vendit sa propre chair en l'encam," sold his own flesh by auction; for in order to ease his subjects from some taxes he was obliged to impose upon them to pay his own ransom, when taken prisoner by Edward the Black Prince, and confined in the Tower of London, he gave his daughter Isabella in marriage to Galeas Visconti, Duke of Milan, for a considerable sum of money. This alliance, though beneath the royal race of France, did honor to the sovereign, from the excellence of the motive, and could not disgrace the princess, as she became the fortunate instrument of contributing to the ease and happiness of her country.

John had left in England two of his sons as hostages for the payment of his ransom. One of them, the Duke of Anjou, tired of his confinement in the Tower of London, escaped to France. His father, more honorable, proposed instantly to take his place; and when the principal officers of his court remonstrated against his taking this chivalrous but dangerous measure, he told them, "Why—I myself was permitted to come out of the same prison in which my son was, in consequence of the treaty of Bretagne, which he has violated by his flight. I hold myself not a free man at present. I fly to my prison. I am engaged to do it by my word; and if honor were banished from all the world besides, it should have an asylum in the breast of kings.

The magnanimous John accordingly proceeded to England, and became a second time a prisoner in the tower of London; where he died in 1384.

CAMPANELLA.

This celebrated Dominican Friar of Naples, distinguished himself in his youth in a public disputation with an old professor of his order. Irritated at having been foiled by a youth, the vindictive priest accused Campanella of treason and heresy; in consequence of which he was imprisoned twentyseven years, and put to the rack seven times, for twentyfour hours each time. By the power of abstraction, which his mind possessed, he bore the tortures inflicted upon him with the greatest fortitude. At length he was delivered from his confinement on the solicitation of Pope Urban VIII, in 1624; when he went to

When Francis, after having performed prodigies of valor and of personal courage, and after having two horses killed under him, was taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, he was conducted captive to the celebrated convent of Carthusian Friars, at Pavia. He sent to his mother, Louisa of Savoy, Regent of France in his absence, the melancholy news of his captivity, conceived in these dignified and expressive terms: "Tout est perdu, Madame, hormis l'honneur.”

From Pavia, Francis was conducted to Madrid, where he was closely confined, and treated with great indignity, contrary to the advice given to Charles the Fifth by one of his counsellors, the Bishop of Osma, who advised his sovereign to present Francis with his liberty, with no other condition annexed to it than that of becoming his ally; urging that it would be an act of generosity worthy of so great a monarch.

Francis suffered extremely from his imprisonment, and would most probably have died from it, had not his sister, the Queen of Navarre, visited him in his wretched and solitary state. So much did this behavior endear his sister to him, that he always called her, "son âme," "sa mignon;" and notwithstanding his over strict and bigoted attachment to the Church of Rome, he permitted her to become a protestant, without interfering with her religious opinions.

When Francis was at length released from his imprisonment, and after he had crossed in a boat the small river Fontarabia, which divides Spain from France, he mounted a fleet Arabian courser that was brought him, and drawing his sword, cried out, in a tone of transport and exultation, "I am still a king!”

OFFENDING A KING.

The publisher of a Leyden Gazette, who had printed a satire on Louis XIV. was secretly seized in Holland, brought away from thence, and shut up in a cage at St. Michael, a convent and prison on a neck of land on the coast of lower Normandy. This cage was about nine feet long, six broad, and eight high; not of iron, but of strong bars of wood. It stood in the middle of a room, and as the prisoner could not possibly escape, it was evidently intended for punishment rather than security. On some of the bars were figures and landscapes, which are said to have been cut by this unhappy man with his nails. After many years confinement, he died a victim of the cruelty of Louis le Grand!

BREAKING PRISON.

The prisoners in the same St. Michael, which was the scene of the preceding tragedy, once consulted John Knox, as to the lawfulness of at

tempting to escape, by breaking their prison; which was opposed by some of their number, lest their escape should subject their brethren who remained in confinement to a more severe treatment. He returned for answer, that such fears were not a sufficient reason for relinquishing the design, and that they might with a safe conscience effect their escape, provided it could be done "without the blood of any shed or spilt. To the shedding of any mau's blood for their freedom he would never consent."

VICTIM OF ETIQUETTE.

In

The preposterous degree of etiquette for which the Court of Spain has always been remarkable, proved the ruin of one of the most illustrious of Spaniards, in the person of the Duke of Ossuna. He was Viceroy of Naples, and greatly renowned for his talents, as a soldier and a statesman. consequence of some calumnious reports, he was called to court, to give an account of his administration; and on presenting himself to the king, being troubled with the gout, and of short stature, he carried, for matter of convenience, his sword in his hand. His majesty it seems did not like this sword in hand style of approaching him, and turning his back on Ossuna, left the room without speaking. The duke, probably unconscious of the cause of the king's displeasure, was much incensed at this treatment, and was overheard to mutter, "This comes of serving boys." The words being reported to his majesty, an order was given for Ossuna's arrest. He was committed prisoner to a monastery, not far from Madrid; and there he continued till his beard reached his girdle. Growing then very ill, he was permitted to go to his house at Madrid, where he died about the year 1622.

FILIAL PIETY.

Valerius Maximus relates, that a woman of distinction having been condemned to be strangled, was delivered to the triumvir, who caused her to be carried to prison in order to be put to death. The jailer who was ordered to execute her, was struck with compunction, and could not resolve to kill her. He chose however to let her die with hunger; but meanwhile suffered her daughter to visit her in prison, taking care that she brought her nothing to eat. Many days passed over in this manner, when the jailer, at length surprised that the prisoner lived so long without food, and suspecting the daughter, took means of secretly observing their interviews. He then discovered that the affectionate daughter had all the while been nourishing her mother with her own milk. Amazed at so tender, and at the same time so ingenious an artifice, he related it to the triumvir, and the triumvir to the prætor, who thought the fact merited stating in the assembly of the people. This produced the happiest effects; the criminal was pardoned, and a decree passed, that the mother and the daughter should be maintained for the remainder of their lives at the expense of the public, and

that a temple, sacred to filial piety, should be erected near the prison.

CHOICE OF CLOVIS.

Erchionalde, Mayor of the Palace in the reign of Clovis II., bought from some pirates a girl of exquisite beauty, named Bandour, or Baltide, whom he afterwards presented to his sovereign. The monarch was so transported with her charms, that he thought he could not better grace his throne than by raising her to share it along with him. History does the fortunate fair one the justice to inform us, that while on the throne, she never forgot having been a slave, and that after the death of Clovis, having taken the veil, her mind became wholly purified from any passion for grandeur, and she appeared almost to forget that she had once been a queen.

FORTUNE WELL TOLD.

A young lady, a native of Martinique, and a Creole, was on her voyage to France, with the design of being educated there, when the merchant vessel on board of which she was a passenger, was captured by an Algerine cruiser, and taken into Algiers. The fair captive was at first overwhelmed with affliction at the prospect of captivity before her; but as passion gave way to meditation, it came to her recollection that an old negress had predicted that she would one day become one of the princesses in the world! "Ah !" exclaimed she, for superstition was in this instance but the handmaid of inclination, "it is doubtless so, I am to be a princess. Well, I must not quarrel with fortune. Who knows what may come out of this?" So strong did this prepossession grow upon the young lady, that ere she reached the Barbary shore, she was as much a fatalist in point of resignation, as any devotee of Islamism could possibly be. The French consul at Algiers immediately offered to ransom his countrywoman; but no; the fair Creole would not be ransomed, for fear of offending fortune, by resorting to so vulgar a way of recovering her liberty. So to the Seraglio of the Dey of Algiers the lady went; and strange indeed to tell, from his highness' seraglio, she was sent as a present to the Grand Seignior, who was so struck with her beauty and manners, (for in both she was excelling), that he elevated her to the dignity of his favorite Sultana! Such was the singular rise of the late Sultana Valide, who died in 1818, and was the mother of the present Grand Seignior.

GENEROUS CONQUERORS

When the celebrated dramatist, Cumberland, was once on a voyage to Lisbon in the Milford, she engaged and captured a French frigate; on which occasion he wrote the well-known song, ""T was up the wind three leagues and more," &c.

The sailors were delighted with the song; but such was the honorable respect which they had for a brave enemy, that nothing could induce them to sing it aloud as long as their prisoners were

on board; subsequently, a Milford man would sing nothing else.

RICHARD II.

When Henry of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV. landed in England, his first object was to seize on the person of Richard II. This was effected by the treachery of the Earl of Northumberland, who, like Judas, perjured himself on the body of our Lord, and betrayed his sovereign. Richard was carried prisoner to Flint, where he abandoned himself to those reflections which his melancholy situation inspired. The unfortunate king rose after a sleepless night, heard mass, and ascended the tower to watch the arrival of his opponent. At length he saw the army, amounting to eighty thousand men, winding along the beach, till it reached the castle, and surrounded it from sea to sea. He shuddered and wept, but was roused from his reflections by a summons to dinner. The Earl of Salisbury, the bishop, and the two knights, Sir Stephen Scroop and Sir William Feriby, sat with him at the same table, by his order; for since they were all companions in misfortune, he would allow no distinction among them. While he was eating, unknown persons entered the hall, insulting him with sarcasms and threats; as soon as he rose, he was summoned into the court to receive the Duke of Lancaster. Henry came forward in complete armor, with the exception of his helmet. soon as he saw the king, he bent his knee, and advancing a few paces, repeated his obeisance, "Fair cousin of Lancaster," said Richard, uncovering himself, "you are right welcome." "My lord, answered the duke, "I am come before my time, but I will show you the reason. Your people complain, that for the space of twenty, or two and twenty years, you have ruled them rigorously; but if it please God, I will help you to govern better." The king replied,

As

"Fair cousin, since it pleaseth you, it pleaseth me well." Henry then addressed himself to the bishop and the knights, but refused to notice the earl. The king's horses were immediately ordered; and two lean and miserable animals were brought out, on which Richard and Salisbury mounted, and amidst the sound of trumpets and shouts of triumph, followed the duke into Chester.

The unfortunate Richard was afterwards conveyed to the Tower, where he was compelled to resign his crown; and lastly he was removed to Pontefract Castle, where he terminated his life, though in what way seems still doubtful. It was said, that from the moment in which he heard of the execution of his brothers, the Earls of Kent and Huntingdon, he had obstinately refused to take any nourishment. But the report obtained little credit; and though the king repeatedly asserted his innocence, both natives and foreigners refused to believe that the man whose ambition had seized the crown, could feel any scruple in taking the life of his rival. The general belief was, that Richard had been starved to death by the orders of Henry, and that he lingered fifteen

days before he expired. According to another account (mentioned by a contemporary), Sir Robert Exton, with seven assassins, arrived at Pontefract on the eighth day after Henry had left Windsor. When Richard saw them enter his cell, aware of their design, he darted into the midst of them, wrested a battle-axe from one of the number, and laid several dead at his feet But Exton gave him a stroke on the back of the head, which brought him to the floor, and with a second stroke deprived him of life. In whatever manner he died, Henry's agents concealed the truth with such fidelity, that it could never be discovered.

THE IRON MASK.

Although conjecture has long been exhausted, as to the identity of the person in the Iron Mask, yet the fact of such a prisoner having been confined, and dying in the Bastile, as first made public by Voltaire, has since been abundantly confirmed in all its leading points. The Journal of M. de Jonca, who was many years Lieutenant du Roi at the Bastile, gives an account of the prisoner being removed from the island of St Marguerite on M. de Saint Mars being appointed Governor of the Bastile. He says the prison. er always wore a mask of black velvet, a circumstance confirmed by several writers, although he has been called the Iron Mask; and that he died in the Bastile, and was buried on the 20th of November, 1703, in the burying place of Saint Paul. In the register of this parish there is the following entry:

"In the year 1703, on the 19th day of Novem ber, Marchiali, aged fortyfive years, or there abouts, died at the Bastile. His body was in terred in the burying-place of this parish of St. Paul, on the 20th of the said month, in the presence of Monsieur de Rosarges, Mayor of the Bastile, and Monsieur Reilh, the surgeon, who accordingly sign this."

Father Grisset, in his "Traité de Preuves qui servent pour établir la Verité de l'Histoire," says nothing can exceed the dependence that may be placed on the journal of M. de Jonca. He adds, that a great many circumstances relating to this prisoner were known to the officers and servants at the Bastile, when Monsieur de Launay was appointed mayor there; that M. de Launay told him he was informed by them, that immediately after the prisoner's death, his ap parel, linen, clothes, mattresses, and, in short, everything that had been used by him, were burnt; that the walls of his room were scraped, and the floor taken up; all evidently from the apprehension that he might have found means of writing something that would have discovered who he was; and that Monsieur d'Argenson, who often came to the Bastile when lieutenant-general of the police, hearing that the garrison still spoke of this prisoner, asked one day what was said about him, and after hearing some of the conjec, tures observed, "they will never know."

It is related by others, that beside the precau tions mentioned by M. de Launay, the glass was

strange, the historians of that time seem to have been unacquainted with it.

cian, he was obliged, under pain of death, constantly to wear his mask; but when he was alone, he sometimes amused himself with pulling out the hairs of his beard with fine steel pincers." He adds, "Several persons have informed me that, when M. de Saint Mars went to take possession of the government of the Bastile, whither he was to conduct the prisoner, they heard the latter say to him, Has the king any intention against my life?' and de Saint Mars reply, No, PRINCE, your life is in safety; you must only allow yourself to be conducted.""

One Dubisson, who was confined at Saint Marguerite, says, that "he was lodged with other persons in the room immediately above that where the prisoner with the mask was; that they found means of speaking to him by the vents of their chimneys; and that, having one day pressed him to tell who he was, he refused, saying, that if he did, it would not only cost him his own life, but the lives of those to whom the secret might be revealed."

M. de Saint Mars, in his way from Saint Marguerite to the Bastile, halted with the prisoner at his house at Palteau. The house was afterwards bought by a person who took its name, and who, in a letter to M. Freron, on this sui ject, says,

"In 1698, M. de Saint Mars was removed from his government of Saint Marguerite to that of the Bastile. In going to this new government, he stopped with his prisoner at Palteau. The prisoner was in a litter that went before that of M. de Saint Mars, and was accompanied by several men on horseback. Some peasants that I examined, who went to pay their compliments to their master, said, that while he was at table with his prisoner, the latter sat with his back towards the window that looked into the court; that they did not observe, therefore, whether he ate with his mask on, but saw very distinctly that M. de Saint Mars, who sat opposite to him, had a pair of pistols lying by his plate. They were attended at dinner only by a valet-de-chambre."

But Voltaire is the most circumstantial: in his "Age of Louis XIV." he says;

"Some months, after the death of Cardinal Mazarine, in 1661, there happened an event of which there is no example, and what is no less

"There was sent, with the greatest secrecy, to the castle on the island of Marguerite, in the sea of Provence, an unknown prisoner, rather above the middle size, young, and of a graceful figure. On the road he wore a mask, with steel springs, that enabled him to eat without taking it off. Those who conducted him had orders to kill him if he made any attempt to discover himself. He remained there until the Governor of Pignerol, an officer of confidence, named Saint Mars, being appointed governor of the Bastile, in 1690, brought him from thence to the Bastile, always covered with a mask. The Marquis de Louvois, who went and saw him at Saint Mar

An

kind of attention that marks respect. He was lodged at the Bastile as well as that castle would admit. Nothing was refused him that he desired. His chief taste was for lace and linen, remarkably fine. He played on the guitar. His table was the best that could be provided, and the governor seldom sat down in his presence. old physician of the Bastile, who had often attended him when he was indisposed, said that he never saw his face, though he had frequently examined his tongue and parts of his body; that he was admirably well made, that his skin was rather brown, that he had something interesting in the sound of his voice, that he never complained, or let drop anything by which it might be guessed who he was.

"This unknown person died in 1703, and was buried in the night, at the burying ground of the parish of St. Paul. What increases our astonishment is, that when he was sent to Saint Marguerite, no person of importance in Europe was missing. Yet this prisoner certainly was a person of importance. See what happened soon after his arrival there. The governor put the dishes on the table himself; retired and locked the door. One day the prisoner wrote something with his knife on a silver plate, and threw it out at a window towards a boat that was drawn on shore near the bottom of the tower. A fisherman to whom the boat belonged, took up the plate and brought it to the governor, who, with evident astonishment, asked the man if he had read what was written on the plate, or if any other person had seen it. He said he could not read; that he had just found it, and that no one else had seen it. He was, however, confined until the governor was certain that he could not read, and that no other had seen the plate. He then dismissed him, saying, "It is lucky for you that you cannot read."

The Abbe Papon relates, "that a young lad, a barber, having seen one day something white floating on the water, took it up: it was a fine shirt, written almost all over. He carried it to M. de Saint Mars, who having looked at some parts of the writing, asked the lad, with an appearance of anxiety, if he had not had the curi. osity to read it. He assured him repeatedly that he had not; but two days afterwards the boy was found dead in his bed."

M. de la Borde informs us, that M. Linguet, in the course of his inquiries, found, that when the Iron Mask went to mass, he had the most express orders not to speak or show himself; that the invalids were commanded to fire on him if he disobeyed; that their arms were loaded with balls; and he therefore took great care to conceal himself, and to be silent.

Among the various conjectures respecting the Iron Mask, one writer supposes him to have been the Duke of Beaufort, second son of Cæsar, Duke of Vendome; but he was killed by the Turks in 1669. Another suspects him to have been the Count de Vermandois, natural son of Louis XIV. who died publicly with the army in 1683. A third says it was the Duke of Monmouth, of whose death, however, English history gives a very satisfactory account. A fourth says it was a minister of the Duke of Mantua; but the respect paid to the prisoner is sufficient to refute such an opinion.

Others have said the Iron Mask was the son of Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII. and that his father was the Duke of Buckingham, who was ambassador in France in 1625; but there is no ground whatever for the assertion. A more prevalent opinion is, that he was the twinbrother of Louis XIV. born some hours after him; and that the king, their father, fearing that the pretensions of a twin-brother might one day be employed to renew those civil wars with which France had so often been afflicted, cautiously concealed his birth, and sent him away to be brought up privately.

HERO OF THE BASTILE.

In the year 1785, a person of rank and fashion in Paris became enamored of a beautiful young girl, the daughter of a respectable tradesman; who refusing to encourage the nobleman's passion, was soon after thrown into the Bastile. The lover of the girl, the son of a wealthy citizen, and who was to have been married to her in a few days, dreading the like fate, made his escape to Constantinople, to serve as a volunteer under the Grand Seignior, leaving his intended bride secreted with a female friend. On the revolution breaking out, the young man returned to Paris, and, equally stimulated by love and liberty, was the very grenadier who first mounted the breach made in the Bastile, from the dungeons of which he had the happiness of rescuing the father of his future bride.

ROMAN SLAVE.

It was the custom in Rome, when a slave made an unsuccessful attempt to regain his liberty, or was even suspected of such a design, to mark him on the forehead with a red-hot iron. How capriciously and unjustly this infamous mark was impressed, is feelingly shown by the story of Restio. This man being proscribed, and a reward offered for his head by the triumvirs Octavianus, Anthony, and Lepidus, he concealed himself from the fury of the tyrants. A slave,

whom he had marked with the hot iron, havmg found out the place of his retreat, conducted him to a cave, and there supplied him for some time with what he earned by his daily labor. At length a company of soldiers coming that way, and approaching the cave, the faithful slave, alarmed at the danger his master was in, followed them close, and falling on a poor peasant, killed him in their presence, and cutting off his head, cried out, "I am now revenged on my master for the marks with which he has branded me." The soldiers seeing the infamous mark on his forehead, and not doubting that he had killed Restio, snatched the head out of his hand, and returned with it in all haste to the triumvirs. They were no sooner gone than the slave conveyed his master to the sea-side, where they had the good fortune to find one of Sextus Pompeius' vessels, which transported them to Sicily

PRISONER FOR SIXTYONE YEARS.

A. M. Dussault, who had given some cause of offence to Cardinal Richelieu, was consigned to the dungeons of the Bastile on the 20th November, 1631. After he had been immured here about eleven years, the unfortunate prisoner received intelligence that his persecutor was on the point of death. He thought that this was a moment when an appeal to his heart and conscience might not be made in vain. He sat down accordingly, and wrote him the following impressive letter:

"Bastile, 1st December, 1642. "TO CARDINAL RICHELIEU.

"This is a time, my lord, when a man ceases to be cruel and unjust; and it is when his approaching dissolution forces him to descend into the gloomy recesses of his conscience, to weep for the troubles, sorrows, and misfortunes, he has caused to his fellow creatures. I say fellow creatures; for now you must be sensible of what you never would be convinced or persuaded of, that the Supreme and Excellent Creator from above, has made us all after the same model; and that his intention was, that men should not be distinguished from one another but by their virtues. You know, my lord, that for these eleven years past, you made me suffer a thousand deaths in this Bastile, where even felons, and the most disloyal of his majesty's subjects, would deserve pity and compassion; much more I, then, my lord, whom you make perish by inches, for hav. ing disobeyed an order of yours that would have doomed my soul to everlasting torments, and made me appear in the presence of Almighty God, our tremendous Judge, with hands stained with blood. Ah! were you to hear the plaints, sighs, and groans, I incessantly heave from the dungeon you have condemned me to, I am sure you would forthwith restore me to liberty. I earnestly conjure you, my lord, to do it, in the name of that Eternal God, who is to judge you as well as myself; take pity on my cruel sufferings and sorrow; and if you wish to be merciful before you die, give immediate orders for my chains to be broken; for when once in the power