_Daily Mail._--'There is no reading in the world so good as the State Trials, which are at once stranger than truth, and truer than fiction. History will tell us of Raleigh's prowess and Russell's treachery, but in the pages of the State Trials we are confronted not with abstract vices or virtues, but with Raleigh and Russell themselves. In the two slim volumes we have more incident and character than a whole library of fiction can afford. There is not one trial in the book that has not an interest of its own. All the details are realised with a singular energy and precision. There is not a single trial that does not give a living picture of a past age, and we recommend Mr. Stephen's selection with all possible cordiality.' _DUCKWORTH and CO._ 3 HENRIETTA STREET COVENT GARDEN, W.C. FOOTNOTES: [1] As the king's eldest brother was called. [2] At present 12 Rue Charles V. The house is now occupied by the nursing sisterhood of the Bon-Secours. [3] [The then law courts of Paris.] [4] [The supreme judicial tribunal of France.] [5] [The criminal court.] [6] [The assassin of Henry of Navarre.] [7] ['into a sea profound Where flowed earth's metals in a molten mass, Would tinge and dye the whole in sunbright gold.'] [8] [In the original, a play on the double meaning of _argent_--'silver' and 'money.'] [9] [Second wife of 'Monsieur,' the king's brother.] [10] ['To share with Jupiter is no whit dishonouring.'] [11] [Madame de Montespan.] [12] Written in collaboration with Professor Paul Brouardel, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, and Doctor Paul le Gendre, physician to the Tenon infirmary. [13] The report of Chamberlain, the English physician, says distinctly that it was oil. 'The lower bowel was full of a bilious humour, with oil floating upon it' (Mrs. Everett-Green's _Lives of the Princesses of England_, vi. 589). This observation is important because Littré's opinion has been disputed by Dr. Legué. 'Littré maintains that the physicians noticed the presence of oil; but that is because he strains an equivocal phrase in the report of the autopsy--"full to its utmost capacity of a sanious, putrid, yellowish, watery substance, _fat like oil_." Frankly, is this not giving to the text a signification which never entered into the mind of the physicians?' (_Médecins et Empoisonneurs_, pp. 255, 256.) Neither Dr. Legué nor Littré, however, knew the English reports published by Mrs. Everett-Green. [14] _Legends of the Bastille_, p. 146. [15] [Boileau.] [16] [Two of the most famous actresses of the time.] [17] [The theatre so called.] [18] In a copy of the _Devineresse_ in the Arsenal Library. There are others, a little different, in the large folio collection of almanacs in the print department of the National Library. * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: exceded that of Exili=> exceeded that of Exili {pg 10}