It is a curious fact, by the way, that but for the fidelity of the French clergy before 1789, in carrying out the work imposed upon them by the ordinance of Louis XIV., and commended in the ordinance of the Bishop of Arras in 1740, two of the most conspicuous actors in the grotesquely horrible drama of the French Revolution would have starved to death in the streets of Arras, or grown up there in vagabondage. The clergy of St.-Vaast in the diocese of Arras found, in 1768, two wretched urchins thrown upon the world by an unnatural father. One of these, Maximilian Isidore de Robespierre, was born in 1758; the other, Augustus Bai Joseph de Robespierre, in 1764. The good priests picked them up, cared for them, and put them in the way of getting a good education, which they turned to such purpose that both of them eventually came to the guillotine in the flower of their years, and amid the cordially contemptuous execrations of decent people all over the world. One of the most accomplished public men in Massachusetts told me years ago, that he was stopped on his way to school one morning in 1794, by a friend of the family, who bade him run back at once and tell his father the news had come from Europe that 'the head of Robert Spear had been cut off.' 'Make haste,' said this gentleman, 'and your papa will give you a silver dollar, he will be so glad to hear it!' It was rather instructive to think of the 'sea-green incorruptible' and his idiotic 'Feast of the Supreme Being' on that beautiful clay of Pentecost, in the charming rural commune of St.-Quentin, the peace and happiness of which was for a time so cruelly broken up by his atrocities and follies a hundred years ago. The fine old church, near by my host's residence, has been restored with great taste and good sense. It was crowded at early mass with the farmers and their families, many of the men wearing their blouses, but all well-to-do, for this region is one of the richest and best cultivated districts of Northern France. The service was celebrated with much simplicity, but with no lack of due ceremony; the singing was excellent; and the priest's homily, a brief and very good discourse on the spirit of Christian charity, was listened to with great attention. The pretty custom prevails here, as in Normandy, of handing about in the congregation, at a certain point in the service, a basket of bread. Two gravely courteous old peasants presented the baskets in turn to all the people. The service over, the farmers stood and chatted together in groups in the churchyard and about the porch, and I heard much talk of the outlook for the crops, of the price of cattle, and of certain properties which had recently changed hands. Of politics next to nothing.