Trade, and the demand for labour, had fallen off to an alarming degree, and money was rapidly disappearing; for no one would display riches, and indulge in luxuries, when his so doing might render him an object of persecution. So loud a cry was therefore raised against the chamber that, after having been twelve months in existence, it was suppressed. By the subsequent reversal of most of its sentences, and by a declaration, that no measure of a similar kind should again be resorted to, a severe but just censure was in fact passed upon the defunct tribunal, and upon the whole transaction. From tyranny in the gross we must now turn our attention again to tyranny in the detail. Oriental despotism, in its most capricious mood, could not have inflicted punishment more ridiculously and unjustly than the French government inflicted it upon the celebrated Freret. This eminent individual, who was born at Paris in 1688, was remarkable for his precocious talents and multifarious learning. Chronology, geography, mythology, history, and the laws, customs, and literature of ancient and modern nations, were all thoroughly known to him, he was not ignorant of the abstruse sciences, and his knowledge, instead of being a chaotic mass, was well arranged, systematically linked together, and readily available. An authoritative tone, and some ruggedness of manner, were the only defects imputed to him; but they were merely superficial, and did not prevent him from being kind, charitable, and a sincere and constant friend. He died at the age of sixty-one, his constitution, which was naturally strong, being worn out by incessant study. The edition of his works, in twenty volumes, is incomplete. Several irreligious productions have been calumniously attributed to him. It was a “Memoir on the Origin of the French” which was the cause of his being sent to the Bastile in 1705, and the Abbé de Vertot is asserted to have been the person to whom he owed his imprisonment. His offence was, that the origin which he assigned to his countrymen was an affront to the national dignity. It is said that, after having been closely interrogated at the Bastile, he begged leave to ask a single question, “Why am I here?” To this the reply was, “You have a great deal of curiosity.” When he was at length released, one of the magistrates sneeringly said to him, “Let France, and the French, and modern subjects, alone; antiquity offers such a wide field for your labours.” It is probable that no Turkish cadi, in the fifteenth century, ever uttered a speech of such insolent stupidity as is ascribed, three centuries later, to this magistrate of a polished nation.