Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations
History
Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations
Curiosities and wonders; Encyclopedias and dictionaries; Folklore
Lifting up the body of the works on the hinges by which they are
attached, they are found to be wonderfully entire. There is no date,
but the maker's name, with the place of manufacture, "Moyse, Blois,"
are distinctly engraven. Blois was the place where it is believed
watches were first made, and this suggests the probability of the
opinion that the watch was expressly ordered by Queen Mary at Blois,
when she went there with her husband, the Dauphin, previous to his
death. The watch appears to have been originally constructed with
catgut, instead of the chain which it now has, which must have been
a more modern addition. It is now in perfect order, and performs
wonderfully well, though it requires to be wound up within twenty-six
hours to keep it going with tolerable accuracy. A large silver bell, of
very musical sound, fills the entire hollow of the skull, and receives
the works within it when the watch is shut; a small hammer set in
motion by a separate escapement, strikes the hours on it.
This very curious relic must have been intended to occupy a stationary
place on a _prie-dieu_, or small altar in a private oratory, for its
weight is much too great to have admitted of its having been carried in
any way attached to the person.
A MONSTER.
It is almost incredible that such a monster, as the one we are about
to describe should have been allowed to continue his wicked career for
some years, in a civilized country like France, little more than a
hundred years ago, but the following paragraph is copied from a Paris
journal of that period--1755, January the 17th--and there is every
reason to believe that it is strictly correct. "What was his fate we
do not know, but can hardly doubt.--The Marquis de Plumartin, whose
execrable crimes are known over all France, has at last been taken
in his castle, by 300 men of the King's Own regiment of foot, and
carried to Poitiers, loaded with irons. The king is going to appoint
a commission to try him. This monster turned away his wife some years
ago, and became the terror of Poitou. Neither woman nor man durst
appear in the neighbourhood. Having one day lost a cause in one of the
king's courts, he caused the usher and his man, who came to intimate
the sentence to him, to be burnt alive. Some days after, having drawn
six of his creditors into his castle, where he had shut himself up with
several of his crew, he ordered some of his people to drag them into
a pond, tied to the tails of horses, and afterwards fastened them to
a stake near a great fire, where three expired, and the other three
died a few days after. Thirty of the Marshalsea guards, who were sent
to apprehend him, having beset his castle, he barricaded the doors
and fired on them from the garret window, killing the commanding
officer and five others. After which he left the kingdom, but absurdly
imagining that his crimes were forgot, he lately returned."
PERSEVERANCE REWARDED BY FORTUNE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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