Another Englishman came to me at Paris in 1724; he was ill, and promised me that he would kill himself if he was not cured by July 20. He accordingly gave me his epitaph in these words: "_Valet curia!_" "Farewell care!" and gave me twenty-five louis to get a small monument erected to him at the end of the Faubourg St. Martin. I returned him his money on July 20, and kept his epitaph. In my own time the last prince of the house of Courtenai, when very old, and the last branch of Lorraine-Harcourt, when very young, destroyed themselves almost without its being heard of. These occurrences cause a terrible uproar the first day, but when the property of the deceased has been divided they are no longer talked of. The following most remarkable of all suicides has just occurred at Lyons, in June, 1770: A young man well known, who was handsome, well made, clever, and amiable, fell in love with a young woman whom her parents would not give to him. So far we have nothing more than the opening scene of a comedy, the astonishing tragedy is to follow. The lover broke a blood-vessel and the surgeons informed him there was no remedy. His mistress engaged to meet him, with two pistols and two daggers in order that, if the pistols missed the daggers might the next moment pierce their hearts. They embraced each other for the last time: rose-colored ribbons were tied to the triggers of the pistols; the lover holding the ribbon of his mistress's pistol, while she held the ribbon of his. Both fired at a signal given, and both fell at the same instant. Of this fact the whole city of Lyons is witness. Pætus and Arria, you set the example, but you were condemned by a tyrant, while love alone immolated these two victims. _Laws Against Suicide._ Has any law, civil or religious, ever forbidden a man to kill himself, on pain of being hanged after death, or on pain of being damned? It is true that Virgil has said: _Proximo, deinde tenent mæsti loca, qui sibi lethum_ _Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi_ _Projecere animas. Quam vellent æthere in alto_ _Nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores!_ _Fata obstant, tristique palus inamabilis unda_ _Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet._ --ÆNEIS, lib. vi. v. 434 et seq. The next in place, and punishment, are they Who prodigally throw their souls away-- Fools, who repining at their wretched state, And loathing anxious life, suborn their fate; With late repentance now they would retrieve The bodies they forsook, and wish to live; Their pains and poverty desire to bear, To view the light of heaven and breathe the vital air;-- But fate forbids, the Stygian floods oppose, And, with nine circling streams, the captive souls inclose. --DRYDEN.