He attempted to obtain a seat in the Assembly, but was not elected. The long imprisonment had not only affected his health but also his intelligence. He published a work entitled the “Age of Reason”--a violent attack upon Christianity, which aroused a sensation in England, and evoked much energetic refutation of its teaching. It made Paine a vast number of enemies in the United States, and he rendered the situation still more impossible by publishing in 1797 a letter, full of bitterness and ill-nature, criticising the character and administration of Washington. He did not leave France until the autumn of 1802, when he returned to America, where he found he had lost the consideration and respect which he formerly enjoyed in the United States. His last years were spent in loneliness and neglect. He was thought by his enemies to be avaricious, dirty and careless of his appearance, and to indulge in intemperate habits. He died, almost forgotten, in New York in 1809, aged seventy-one, and was buried upon his farm at New Rochelle. In 1837 Cobbett transported the remains to England, where they were reverently received by the Radicals and Chartists of the day. PIUS VI., GIOVANNI ANGELO, COUNT DE BRASCHI. Born, December 27, 1717; died at Valence, August 29, 1799. He was the only child of Count More Aurelius Braschi, the head of one of the oldest families in the Romagna. To his parents’ grief he insisted upon taking holy orders, and was appointed secretary to his maternal uncle, Cardinal Ruffio, Legate at Ferrara. Later Braschi became auditor to the Bishoprics of Ostia and Velletri; while in the latter city, in 1744, when there was an encounter between the Austrians and Neapolitans (the latter commanded by King Charles III. of Spain, then King of Naples), Braschi was able by his presence of mind to save the Neapolitan archives. This circumstance brought him to the notice of the King of Naples, who promised him his protection: shortly afterwards he successfully conducted a mission from the Pope to the King of Naples, and was appointed _Camariere Segreto_ and Canon of St. Peter’s. In 1758 he became a Prelate, and Treasurer-General of the Apostolic Chamber. Clement XIV. created him a Cardinal in 1773, and in 1775 he was elected Pope, under the title of Pius VI. His reign inaugurated an era of reform; he issued many rules and regulations as to the dress and general conduct of the clergy, which at the time, owing to the indifference and weakness of his immediate predecessor’s administration, left much to be desired.