ask him his reasons. ‘Because it would be against rule,’” said Dreux. “This liar replied insolently and falsely,” adds Saint-Simon, “for his own registers, which are in my possession, show that the dukes were without difficulty saluted before the Parliament at the obsequies of Louis XIII., Henry IV,, etc. Their dignity requires it; the symbols of royalty carried by them require it; their seats, raised higher than those of the Parliament, prove it in the most evident manner. M. d’Uzès insisted, but Dreux continued to be offensive, and insisted on his side, appealing to his registers. As they could not then be referred to he was believed, on his more than frivolous word, by the Duke of Orleans, who had intervened, but who took a very feeble part in the laconic conversation. He cared neither for riches nor dignities. He wished to humour the Parliament, above all, at the beginning, but he was not sorry to see a new quarrel arise.” In addition to the usual distribution of alms, the Regent of Orleans associated the funeral of Louis XIV. with an exceptional act of mercy. A number of persons had been arbitrarily imprisoned on _lettres de cachet_ and otherwise, some for Jansenism and various religious and political offences; others for reasons known only to the king; others, again, for reasons known to former ministers of the king, but to no one else. The regent ordered all the captives to be set at liberty, with the exception of a few whom he knew to be guilty of serious political or criminal misdeeds. Among the prisoners liberated from the Bastille was an Italian, who had been confined for thirty-five years, and who had been arrested the day of his arrival at Paris, which he had come to see simply as a traveller. “No one ever knew why,” says Saint-Simon, “nor, like most of the others, had he ever been interrogated. It was thought to be a mistake. When his liberty was announced to him, he asked sadly of what use it was to him. He said that he had not a sou, that he knew no one at Paris, not even the name of a street nor a single person in any part of France, that his relations in Italy were probably dead, and that his property must have been divided among his heirs, considering how long he had been away from the country and that no one knew what had become of him. He asked to be allowed to remain at the Bastille for the rest of his life with board and lodging. This was granted to him, with liberty to go out when he pleased. As for the prisoners taken out of the dungeons, into which the hatred of the ministers and that of the Jesuits had thrown them, the horrible condition in which they appeared inspired dread, and rendered credible all the cruelties they related when they were in full liberty.” The story of the prisoner who declined to leave the Bastille is additionally interesting from its having been reported of another prisoner--possibly real, probably imaginary--on the occasion of the Bastille being taken by the Revolutionists in 1789.