speech, few of his hearers were unmoved, but all were unconvinced. The most curious part of his defence is yet to be mentioned. If he did not spare his sovereign, it is not to be supposed that he would spare La Fin. Whenever he mentioned him he could not restrain his fury, but gave vent to a flood of abuse. Coining, and an unnatural regard for Renazé, were among the numerous crimes which he imputed to him. Strange that he did not perceive the folly of thus vituperating a man, whom he had so recently recognized as his honourable and worthy friend, and whose sins, if they really existed, he must then have known! But this was not all. For his vindication he mainly trusted to one plea—that he had not been a free agent, that he was under the irresistible influence of La Fin, who was a sorcerer, and had dealings with the devil. He averred, seriously, that La Fin was in the habit of breathing on him, biting his ear, and kissing his left eye, and calling him his master, his lord, his prince, and his king; that whenever his eye was kissed he felt a tendency to do evil; that the magician also enchanted him by making him drink charmed waters; and that he showed him waxen images which moved and spoke, and one of which pronounced, in Latin, the words “impious king, thou shalt perish!” “If by magic he could give voice to an inanimate body,” said he, “is it wonderful that he should have such power over me as to bend my will to an entire conformity with his own?” Deceived by the compassion which some of his judges had manifested, Biron cherished the flattering hope of an acquittal. His spirits were so elated by this idea, that he amused himself with repeating to his guards various portions of his defence, and mimicking the gestures and speeches which he supposed the chancellor to have made in the course of the subsequent proceedings. His vanity, too, contributed to buoy him up. He ran over, in conversation, the list of French commanders, found some defect in each of them, and thence concluded that, as his military talents were obviously indispensable to the state, his life was secure. The termination of that life was, nevertheless, rapidly approaching. By an unanimous vote, on the day after his appearance at their bar, the parliament pronounced Biron guilty of high treason, and condemned him to lose his head on the Grêve. The place of execution was changed by the king to the interior of the Bastile, at the request, it was said, of the criminal’s friends; but partly, perhaps, in the fear that a popular commotion might occur, and partly because a report was spread, that some of his domestics intended to throw a sword to him on the scaffold, that he might at least have the chance of dying an honourable death. It was wise not to run the risk of encountering his despair.