where he died before his trial was at an end, and narrowly escaped posthumous condemnation. At last his memory was cleared by a decision of the Chamber of Justice, and his perjured accusers were brought before the Grands-Jours. M. Talon, the public prosecutor, pressed for the perpetual banishment of Madame de Vieuxpont and the confiscation of all her property. She was even in fear of capital punishment, and her countenance brightened greatly when the decision of the court, condemning her to three years' exile and a fine of two thousand livres, was intimated to her. She was a lady of violent character, and had lived on very bad terms with her husband, in whose death some hinted her agency; but this, Fléchier charitably remarks, was perhaps a mere calumny, invented in retaliation of those wherewith she had assailed other persons. It is distinctly stated, however, that she went so far as to challenge her husband to fight a duel; and when he declined a combat in all respects so singular, her mother wounded him with a pistol-shot,--an advertisement, the Abbé quietly remarks, never to fall out with one's mother-in-law. Then we have the story of a handsome village maiden, who might have pleased the most fastidious courtiers as well as the bumpkins of Mirefleurs. She was besieged by admirers, from amongst whom she selected one whom she loved with great fidelity. And after her marriage, one of her former suitors risking a daring attempt upon her virtue, she mustered the courage of Lucretia, to protect herself from the evil designs of a modern Tarquin. Finding tears and entreaties unavailing, and as the sole means of preserving her honour, she seized a halbert that stood in a corner of the chamber, and inflicted a deadly wound on her insolent pursuer. "She pierced," says Fléchier, in his flowery style, and not in the very best taste, "the wretch's heart that burned for her; two or three ardent sighs escaped it, and he expired." The testimony of the neighbours, whom she called in, and her reputation for virtue, absolved her in the eyes of her judges. But when the Grands-Jours came, the relatives of the deceased revived the case; and that tribunal--upon what grounds it is difficult to say--condemned the woman and her family to a heavy fine. There seems to have been scanty justice. At the present day in France, the verdict of justifiable homicide does not preclude a civil action for damages; but these would now hardly be granted by any French court in such a case as the above. The justice of the Grands-Jours was evidently of a very loose description. They had not to dread the revision of a higher court, or the lash of newspaper satire; the king would not trouble himself much about them, so long as they duly scourged the tyrannical counts and barons who impoverished the country and caused discontent amongst the peasantry; and thus, unfettered by any of the usual checks, the bench of gentlemen in square caps, loose cloaks, flowing