Butler, in his Feminine Monarchie, narrates the following curious story: “_Paulus Jovius_ affirmeth that in _Muscovia_, there are found in the woods & wildernesses great lakes of honey, which the Bees have forsaken, in the hollow truncks of marvelous huge trees. In so much that hony & waxe are the most certaine commodities of that countrie. Where, by that occasion, he setteth down the storie reported by _Demetrius_ a _Muscovite_ ambassador sent to Rome. A neighbor of mine (saith he) searching in the woods for hony slipt downe into a great hollow tree, and there sunk into a lake of hony vp to his brest: where when he had stucke faste two daies calling and crying out in vaine for helpe, because no bodie in the meane while came nigh that solitarie place; at length when he was out of all hope of life, hee was strangely delivered by the means of a great beare: which coming thither about the same businesse that he did, and smelling the hony stirred with his striving, clambered vp to the top of the tree, & thence began to let himselfe downe backward into it. The man bethinking himself, and knowing the worst was but death, which in that place he was sure of, beclipt the beare fast with both his hands aboit the loines, and withall made an outcry as lowd as he could. The beare being thus sodainely affrighted, what with the handling, & what with the noise, made vp againe withal speed possible: the man held, & the beare pulled, vntil with main force he had drawne _Dun out of the mire_: & then being let go, away he trots _more afeard than hurt_, leaving the smeered swaine in a joyful feare.”[675] By the Chinese writers, the composition of the characters for the Bee, Ant, and Mosquito, respectively, denote the awl insect, the _righteous_ insect, and the _lettered_ insect; referring thereby to the sting of the first, the orderly marching and subordination of the second, and the letter-like markings on the wings of the last.[676] In May, 1653, the remains of Childeric, King of the Franks, who died A.D. 481, and was buried at Tournay, were discovered; and among the medals, coins, and books, which were found in his tomb, were also found above three hundred figures of, as Chiflet says, Bees, all of gold. Some of these figures were toads, crescents, lilies, spear-heads, and such like, but Chiflet, after much labor and research, was fully convinced they were Bees; and, more than that, determines them to be the source whence the _Fleur de lis_ in the Arms of France were afterward derived. Montfaucon, however, did not hesitate to say they were nothing more than ornaments of the horse-furniture.[677] Napoleon I. and II. are said to have had their imperial robes embroidered with golden Bees, as claiming official descent from Carolus Magnus, who is said to have worn them on his coat of arms.[678]