I now ask the reader's permission to lay this second certificate before him; if he have the bad taste to prefer our prose to that of the secretary to the mayoralty of Villers-Cotterets, let him thrash the matter out with this gentleman of Corbeil.[1] _Certificate of Birth from, the Registers of the Town of Villers-Cotterets._ "In the year 1792, first of the French Republic, on the 28th of the month of November, at eight o'clock at night, after the publication of banns put up at the main door of the Town Hall, on Sunday the 18th of the present month, and affixed there ever since that date for the purpose of proclaiming the intended marriage between citizen _Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie_, aged thirty years and eight months, colonel in the hussars du Midi, born at la Guinodée, Trou-Jérémie, America, _son of the late Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie_, formerly commissary of artillery, who died at Saint-Germain en Laye, June 1786, and of the late Marie-Cessette Dumas, who died at la Guinodée, near Trou-Jérémie, America, in 1772; his father and mother, of the one part; "And citizen Marie-Louise-Élisabeth Labouret, eldest daughter of citizen Claude Labouret, commandant of the National Guard of Villers-Cotterets and proprietor of the hôtel de _l'Écu_, and of Marie-Joseph Prévot, her father and mother, of the other part; "The said domiciled persons, namely, the future husband in barracks at Amiens and the future wife in this town; their _birth certificates_ having also been inspected and naught being found wrong therein; I, Alexandre-Auguste-Nicolas Longpré, public and municipal officer of this commune, the undersigned, having received the declaration of marriage of the aforesaid parties, have pronounced in the name of the law that they are united in marriage. This act has taken place in the presence of citizens: Louis-Brigitte-Auguste Espagne, lieutenant-colonel of the 7th regiment of hussars stationed at Cambrai, a native of Audi, in the department of Gers; "Jean-Jacques-Étienne de Béze, lieutenant in the same regiment of hussars, native of Clamercy, department of la Nièvre; "Jean-Michel Deviolaine, registrar of the corporation and a leading citizen of this town, all three friends of the husband; "Françoise-Élisabeth Retou, _mother-in-law_ of the husband, widow of the late Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, dwelling at Saint-Germain en Laye. "Present, the father and mother of the bride, all of age, who, together with the contracting parties, have signed their hands to this deed in our presence: "_Signed at the registry_: