It is unfortunate that it is the duty of the humblest historian to push aside the glamour that tradition and the writers of romance weave around a man and to show him as he is, and the traditional story of the Bishop of Moulins is not the only illusion which has been dispelled in the course of our investigations. The Bishop of Moulins has been, by traditions authoritatively reproduced in print, gradually elevated to the position of a saint who voluntarily relinquished his high office in France, and sacrificed its emoluments _in order that he might minister to his fellow countrymen in captivity_. In his little romance, {180b} the late Rev. Arthur Brown says, p. 44: “And the Chaplain was none other than the Bishop of Moulins. _He had voluntarily come to England out of pure compassion for his imprisoned countrymen_, _and with true missionary zeal was giving himself up to their spiritual welfare_. He was a venerable-looking man, much respected by the prisoners generally. _It was a noble act of self-sacrifice_.” In a romance it is quite legitimate to adopt a name for an imaginary character, and to endow the fictitious individual with virtues which the real owner of the name did not possess, but Mr. Brown emphatically declares this passage to be _history_, and not fiction, by a footnote, of which the first sentence is, “This is fact, not fiction.” The note continues: “It would be interesting to know the history of this good man after the prisoners were discharged in 1814. One thing is certain, that he must ever have enjoyed a feast of memory to his dying day, in having been a shepherd and bishop of souls to these poor prisoners.” The late Rev. G. N. Godwin, in the series of papers on “Norman Cross and its French Prisoners,” published in the _Peterborough Advertiser_ in February and March 1906, says: “The Depot had a noble Chaplain in the Bishop of Moulins, who voluntarily came over from France, and lived at his own charge and upon remittances from France, in the High Street, Stilton, near the Bell Inn. (The house which is now shored up. {181}) He walked up every day to Norman Cross, and acted very charitably to the prisoners, doing his utmost to stop their frequent duels. It is to be hoped that _ere long more will be known of this worthy prelate_.”