The unhappy Prince de Ligne had immediately sent to Bel Œil the necessary instructions for his son’s last wishes to be fulfilled, but the victory of Jemappes, which ceded the whole of Belgium to the French, prevented the de Ligne family from returning to Bel Œil, now in the hands of the enemy. Prince Charles’s wishes were contained in a will written shortly before his death. We shall see that he instinctively felt he would fall a victim in the course of this war. Perhaps, indeed, weary of life, he sought death, for he seemed to brave it; at all events the deepest melancholy overshadows the following pages:-- PRINCE CHARLES DE LIGNE’S WILL. “As I shall most probably be killed, if not in this war at least in some other, I wish my body to be recovered and my funeral to be conducted with all the honours of war, and with the greatest pomp--military, of course. “I wish my body to be carried to Bel Œil, after having been embalmed, so as not to incommode any one, for I desire to be laid with my good ancestors, who from father to son have all been honest men. “I desire that my heart be wrapped up separately in a handkerchief which shall have belonged to her I love, and which I beg her to give for that purpose. As she has always possessed my heart during my lifetime, I wish it, after my death, to be as happy as a heart can be in the absence of the beloved one, that is to say, in company with something that has been her’s. I beg her to embroider on the first corner of the handkerchief _Alona_; on the second _Tendresse delicieuse_; on the third _Indissoluble_; and on the fourth the 21st September 1787, and the date of my death. “I.--The whole of my collection of engravings, my collection of original drawings, and in general all the contents of my portfolios, are to be sold to the best purchaser. One will have to see in what country the sale will be most advantageous, whether in Paris, Vienna, London, or Amsterdam.