When the dukes insisted on receiving the title of monseigneur from the class of gentlemen, the presidents of the parliaments required the same from advocates and proctors. A certain president actually refused to be bled, because his surgeon asked-" In which arm will you be bled, monsieur?"-An old counsellor treated this matter somewhat more gaily. A pleader was saying to him-" monseigneur, monsieur your secretary He stopped him short:"You have uttered three blunders," says he, "in as many words. I am not monseigneur; my secretary is not monsieur; he is my clerk."

To put an end to this grand conflict of vanity, it will eventually be found necessary to give the title of monseigneur to every individual in the nation; as women, who were formerly content with mademoiselle, are now to be called madame. In Spain, when a mendicant meets a brother beggar, he thus accosts him: "Has your courtesy taken chocolate?"—This politeness of language elevates the mind, and keeps up the dignity of the species. Cæsar and Pompey were called in the senate, Cæsar and Pompey. But these men knew nothing of life. They ended their letters with vale-adieu. We, who possess more exalted notions, were, sixty years ago, "affectionate servants;" then, very humble and obedient;" and now, we "have the honour to be" so. I really grieve for our posterity: they will find it extremely difficult to add to these very beautiful formulas. The duke d'Epernon, the first of Gascons in pride, though far from being the first of statesmen, wrote, on his death-bed, to cardinal Richelieu, and ended his letter with-"Your very humble and very obedient."-Recollecting, however,

very

At present, those princes never answer any letters in which the titles of monseigneur and highness are not given them; unless, indeed, they have occasion for the services of the writers and the nobility refuse to give them either, unless they experience a similar necessity. When a gentleman possessing any share of vanity has to transact business with them, he permits them to use as many titles as they like, but never fails to protest against these titles to his notary. Vanity has two vessels, like Jupiter; but the good one is often very empty.

that the cardinal had used only the phrase "very affectionate," he dispatched an express to bring back the letter (for it had been actually sent off) began it anew, signed " very affectionate," and died in the bed of

honour.

We have made many of these observations elsewhere. It is well, however, to repeat them, were it only to correct some pompous peacocks, who would strut away their lives in contemptibly displaying their plumes and their pride.

CERTAIN-CERTAINTY.

I AM certain; I have friends; my fortune is secure ; my relations will never abandon me; I shall have justice done me; my work is good; it will be well received; what is owing to me will be paid me; my friend will be faithful, he has sworn it; the minister will advance me he has, by the way, promised it;all these are words which a man who has lived a short time in the world erases from his dictionary.

When the judges condemned L'Anglade, Le Brun, Calas, Sirven, Martin, Montbailli, and so many others, since acknowledged to have been innocent, they were certain, or they ought to have been certain, that all these unhappy men were guilty; yet they were deceived.

There are two ways of being deceived; by false judgment and self-blindness-that of erring like a man of genius, and that of deciding like a fool.

The judges deceived themselves like men of genius in the affair of L'Anglade: they were blinded by dazzling appearances, and did not sufficiently examine the probabilities on the other side. Their wisdom made them believe it certain that L'Anglade had committed a theft, which he certainly had not committed; and on this miserable uncertain certainty of the human mind, a gentleman was put to the ordinary and extraordinary question; subsequently thrown, without succour, into a dungeon, and condemned to the gallies,

where he died. His wife was shut up in another dungeon, with her daughter, aged seven years, who afterwards married a counsellor of the same parliament which had condemned her father to the gallies, and her mother to banishment.*

It is clear that the judges would not have pronounced this sentence, had they been really certain. However, even at the time this sentence was passed, several persons knew that the theft had been committed by a priest named Gagnat, associated with a highwayman; and the innocence of L'Anglade was not recognised till after his death.

They were in the same manner certain, when, by a sentence in the first instance, they condemned to the wheel the innocent Le Brún, who, by an arrêt pronounced on his appeal, was broken on the rack, and died under the torture.

The examples of Calas and Sirven are well known that of Martin is less so. He was an honest agriculturist, near Bar, in Lorraine. A villain stole his dress, and in this dress murdered a traveller whom he knew to have money, and whose route he had watched. Martin was accused; his dress deposed against him: the judges regarded this evidence as a certainty. Not the past conduct of the prisoner, a numerous family whom he had brought up virtuously, neither the little money found on him, nor the extreme probability of his innocence-nothing could save him. The subaltern judge made a merit of his rigour. He condemned the innocent victim to be broken on the wheel; and, by an unhappy fatality, the sentence was executed to the full extent. The senior Martin is broken alive, calling God to witness his innocence to his last breath: his family is dispersed, his little property is confiscated, and scarcely are his broken members exposed

* The horrible case of Mons. L'Anglade, in which a nobleman of the ancient regime of France is exhibited in the most contemptible and atrocious light, is related in the Causes Célèbres; and in the little work by Charlotte Smith, which is a selection from it, entitled "The Romance of real Life."-T,

on the great road, when the assassin who had committed the murder and theft is put in prison for another crime, and confessed on the rack, to which he was condemned in his turn, that he only was guilty of the crime for which Martin had suffered torture and death.

Montbailli, who slept with his wife, was accused with having, in concert with her, killed his mother, who had evidently died of apoplexy. The council of Arras condemned Montbailli to expire on the rack, and his wife to be burnt. Their innocence was discovered, but not till Montbailli had been tortured.

Let us cease advertence to these melancholy adventures, which make us groan at the human condition; but let us continue to lament the pretended certainty of judges, when they pass such sentences.

There is no certainty, except when it is physically or morally impossible that the thing can be otherwise. What is a strict demonstration necessary to enable us to assert, that the surface of a sphere is equal to four times the area of its great circle;-and is not one required to warrant taking away the life of a citizen by a disgraceful punishment?

If such is the misfortune of humanity that judges must be contented with extreme probabilities, they should at least consult the age, the rank, the conduct of the accused the interest which he could have in committing the crime, and the interest of his enemies to destroy him. Every judge should say to himself,-Will not posterity, will not entire Europe condemn my sentence? Shall I sleep tranquilly with my hands tainted with innocent blood?

Let us pass from this horrible picture. to other examples of a certainty, which leads directly to error.

Why art thou loaded with chains, fanatical and unhappy Santon? Why hast thou added a large iron ring on thy miserable scourge? It is because I am certain of being one day placed in the first heaven, by the side of our great prophet. Alas, my friend, come with me to the neighbourhood of Mount Athos, and thou wilt

see three thousand mendicants, who are as certain that thou wilt go to the gulf which is under the narrow bridge, as that they will all go to the first heaven!

Stop, miserable Malabar widow, believe not the fool who persuades thee that thou shalt be re-united to thy husband, in all the delights of another world, if thou burnest thyself on his funeral pile !-No, I persist in burning myself, because I am certain of living in felicity with my husband: my brahmin told me so.

Let us attend to less frightful certainties, and which have a little more appearance of truth.

What is the age of your friend Christopher? Twentyeight years. I have seen his marriage contract, and his baptismal register: I knew him in his infancy; he is twenty-eight-I am certain of it.

Scarcely have I heard the answer of this man, so sure of what he said, and of twenty others who confirmed the same thing, when I learn that for secret reasons, and by a singular circumstance, the baptismal register of Christopher has been antedated. Those to whom I had spoken as yet know nothing of it, yet they have still the same certainty of that which is not.

If you had asked the whole earth, before the time of Copernicus, Has the sun risen? has it set to-day? All men would have answered, We are quite certain of it. They were certain, and they were in error.

Witchcraft, divinations, and possessions, were for a long time the most certain things in the world, in the eyes of society. What an innumerable crowd of people who have seen all these fine things, and who have been certain of them! At present, this certainty is a little shaken.

A young man who is beginning to study geometry, comes to me; he is only at the definition of triangles. Are you not certain, said I to him, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles? He answered, that not only was he not certain of it, but that he had not the slightest idea of the proposition. I demonstrated it to him. He then became very certain of it, and will remain so all his life.