Did Jeanne d'Albret de Navarre, mother of Henry IV., after the death of Antoine, marry a gentleman named Guyon, who was killed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew? Had she a son by him, who preached at Bordeaux? These facts are detailed at great length in the "Remarks on Bayle's Answers to the Questions of a Provincial," folio, page 689. Was Margaret of Valois, wife to Henry IV., brought to bed of two children secretly after her marriage? We might fill volumes with inquiries like these. But how much pains should we be taking to discover things of no use to mankind! Let us rather seek cures for the scrofula, the gout, the stone, the gravel, and a thousand other chronic or acute diseases. Let us seek remedies for the distempers of the mind, no less terrible and no less mortal. Let us labor to bring the arts to perfection, and to lessen the miseries of the human race; and let us not waste our time over the _anas_, the _anecdotes_, and _curious stories_ of our day, the collections of pretended bons mots, etc. I read in a book lately published that Louis XIV. exempted all new-married men from the _taille_ for five years. I have not found this fact in any collection of edicts, nor in any memoir of that time. I read in the same book that the king of Prussia has fifty livres given to every girl with child. There is, in truth, no better way of laying out money, nor of encouraging propagation, but I do not believe that this royal munificence is true; at least I have never witnessed it. An anecdote of greater antiquity has just fallen under my eye, and appears to me to be a very strange one. It is said in a chronological history of Italy that the great Arian, Theodoric--he who is represented to have been so wise--had amongst his ministers a Catholic, for whom he had a great liking, and who proved worthy of all his confidence. This minister thought he should rise still higher in his master's favor by embracing Arianism; but Theodoric had him immediately beheaded, saying: _"If a man is not faithful to God, how can he be faithful to me, who am but a man?"_ The compiler remarks that "this trait does great honor to Theodoric's manner of thinking with respect to religion."