king, knitting his brows in a frown, "or else you have but ill served me." How, Sire, can you doubt my devotion? you, who are the only man in the world whom I love." "All mere talk this," replied the king, staring the Fleming in the face. "You should not have waited for this occasion to make yourself useful to me. But you want to sell your protection to me. Pasque Dieu! to me, Louis the eleventh. Is it you then that are the master, and I the slave, ha! ha! "Ah, Sire," replied the old usurer, "I wished to surprise you agreeably by the news of some communications which I have conducted with the authorities of Ghent, and I only waited for the confirmation of them by the apprentice of Oosterlinck. But what is become of him ?" Ah, Jeanne, my dearest soul! we have here in the house a bank where I have placed the thirteen hundred thousand crowns. Sure it is I, it is I that am the robber." Jeanne Hoogworst sprung up off her stool, and stood upright on her feet, as if the seat from which she had risen was of red hot iron. The shock was so violent for an old woman who had been for many years past in the habit of starving the flesh off her bones with voluntarily inflicted fasts, that she trembled through all her limbs, and felt an excruciating pain in her back. By degrees she grew pale and paler, and her face, in which it was almost impossible to distinguish the alterations that took place amidst such a multitude of wrinkles, began to be greatly agitated during the time that her brother was explaining to her the malady under which he laboured, and the strange predicament in which they were both placed. "We are going-that is Louis XI. and myself," said he, finishing his recital-" we are going to gull each other with lies, like two crafty merchants. You understand me, child, that if he should follow me he would alone possess the secret of my treasure. There is no body in the world except the king who can spy out my nightly walkings. I am not at all satisfied that the conscience of Louis, near as he is to death, could resist the temptation of thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns, so that we must prevent him stealing our precious birds out of the nest, convey all our treasures to Ghent, and-yourself alone-" Cornelius stopped suddenly short, while he seemed by his air to be weighing the heart of that sovereign who had already meditated the crime of parricide in his twenty second year; and when the goldsmith had thus, in thought, passed judgment upon Louis XI., he raised up his head with a quick motion, like a man who is anxious to escape from some dangerous object. As he made this movement, his sister, either too weak or too much excited for such a crisis, fell down stiff and motionless-she was dead. Cornelius caught the old woman, he shook her violently, while he exclaimed, "You have no business to die; by and by you will have time enough for it-Oh it is all over with her, the poor old she-ape; she never had the sense to do anything at the right time.” The miser closed her eyes and laid her down upon the floor; but then his mind reverted to all the nobler and worthier sentiments of his nature, which lay buried in the depths of his soul, and half forgetting his undiscovered treasure, Oh, "Alas, my poor old companion,” cried he, in the most piteous accent, "have I then indeed lost you-you, who knew all my ways so well. you were a real treasure to me, and there it lies: with you depart my peace of mind and my affections. Ah! if you had but known what an advantage your living even two days longer would have been to me, you would not have died, were it only to please me-my poor dear! Hey! Jeanne, thirteen hundred and seventeen thousand crowns! Ah! if that does not wake you-no-she's dead indeed!" Upon this the old man sat down, nor uttered one word more ; but two large tears gushed from his eyes and rolled down his lank and hollowed cheeks, then suffering many a deep drawn aspiration to break from him, he shut the door and returned up stairs to the king. Louis was struck at the grief displayed in the moistened features of his old friend. "What's the matter now, gossip ?" demanded he. "Alas! Sire, misfortunes never come single. My sister is dead. She is gone before me down there," said the miser, pointing to the floor with a terrifying gesture. "Ah! well, say no more about it," said Louis, who could not endure to hear any person talking of death. 66 I make you my heir, Sire. I care no longer for anything. Here are my keys-hang me if it be your pleasure take every thing-ransack the houseit is full of gold-I give it all to you." Come, come, gossip," replied Louis, half melted at the sight of this unwonted paroxysm, we shall find the treasure some fine night or other, and the sight of so much wealth will give you heart again to live. I will come to see you again some time this week." "Whenever it is your pleasure, Sire." Farewell, gossip," said Louis at length, in a hurried voice, and settling his hat upon his head. May God and the Virgin have your majesty in their holy keeping," replied the usurer in an humble and subdued tone, as he reconducted the king to the door. After the friendship which had existed for such a length of time, these two individuals felt that a barrier was now thrown up between them by distrust and avarice, although they had all along been aware of each other's sentiments on those subjects; but they both understood each other so well, each had been so familiar with the other's feelings, that the king could not fail to divine, from the tone with which Cornelius pronounced the imprudent, "Whenever it is your pleasure, Sire," the repugnance which the goldsmith would feel at a visit from him in future, as did Cornelius also recognise a declaration of war in the words "Farewell, gossip," which Louis addressed to him. Thus did Louis XI. and the miser separate, each greatly embarrassed as to the manner in which he should for the future conduct himself towards the other. The monarch was in full possession of the secret of the Fleming, but on the other hand, the latter had it in his power, by means of his extensive connections, to insure the obtaining of the most desirable acquisition which any King of France had ever effected, namely, that of the dominions belonging to the house of Burgundy, and which excited at that period the envy of all the sovereigns of Europe. The disposal of the hand of the celebrated Margaret of Burgundy depended upon the people of Ghent and Flanders, who were always about her person. The gold and influence of Cornelius could be of powerful assistance in the negociations entered upon by Desquerdes, the general to whom Louis had entrusted the command of the army encamped upon the frontier of Belgium. Thus then were these two old foxes like duellists whose powers chance had placed in exact equipoise to each other. Accordingly, whether it was that the health of Louis had become more feeble, or that Cornelius had contributed to bring Margaret into France, who did in reality arrive at Amboise in the month of July of the year 1438, to marry the Dauphin, to whom she was affianced in the castle of the Plessis, certain it is that the king did not levy the fine upon the goldsmith, no proceedings were instituted, and both one and the other continued in the half measures of an armed and suspicious friendship. Happily for the usurer, a report was rapidly circulated throughout Tours, that his sister was the perpetrator of the robberies, and that she had been secretly put to death by Tristan. Otherwise, if the true history of the matter had come to light, there is no doubt that the whole town would have risen in a mass to tear down the Malmaison before the king could possibly have been able to defend it. But if all the presumptions which history affords us, relative to the state of inaction in which Louis XI. remained, have had any foundation, the case was far different with Master Cornelius Hoogworst. The usurer passed the first few days which succeeded that fatal morning, in continual occupation. Like carnivorous animals who are shut up in a cage, he went back and forward smelling for his gold in every corner of the mansion, every crevice of which he scrutinized, and held consultation with the walls, demanding a restoration of his treasure from the trees in the garden, from the foundations and the roofs of the turrets, from earth and from heaven. Frequently would he remain for whole hours standing motionless, casting his eyes on every thing around him all the time-now plunging them into empty space, now invoking the powers of frenzy, now the spells of sorcery, he sought to catch a sight of his riches through space and every obstacle. He was continually buried in one overwhelming thought, devoured by a desire which consumed his very vitals; but his heart was still more fearfully gnawed by the never dying anguish of the war which he waged with himself, since his passion for gold was turned against itself, a species of suicide ever uncomplete, which combined at once all the tortures of life with those of death. Never was vice more effectually its own punishment than in this case; for the miser who shuts himself up unwillingly in the subterranean dungeon where his wealth is hidden, has yet left to him, like Sardanapalus, the gratification of dying in the midst of his hoards; but Cornelius, at the same time the robber and the robbed, though knowing the secret neither of the one or the other, possessed, yet did not possess, his own treasures; a torture altogether new, altogether extraordinary, yet unceasingly terrific. At other times, becoming almost forgetful of every thing, he would leave open the small gratings of the door, and then the passers-by could descry the poor old man, now nearly wasted to a skeleton, planted on his legs in the midst of his wild uncultivated garden, standing there perfectly motionless, and bending on those who examined him a fixed unchanging gaze, Vol. III. the insupportable glare of which chilled their hearts with terror. If by any chance he went into the streets of Tours, you would certainly have pronounced him to be a stranger; he neither seemed to know where he was, nor if the sun was shining, or the moon. Often would he inquire his way of the people who passed him, supposing himself to be in Ghent, and he appeared always to be in quest of his lost riches. That idea which, of all human ideas, is the most enduring, the most inseparably connected with matter; that idea by which man is represented to himself, as it were, in a fictitious existence, exterior to himself-in a word, consciousness-this demon of the mind, plunged every instant his sharp fangs into the heart of the miserable Cornelius. Then, in the midst of this punishment, fear reared herself up with all the sensations which follow in her train. In short, two men possessed his secret, that secret which he knew not himself. Louis XI. and Coyctier could at any time employ men to watch his wanderings during sleep, and thus discover the unknown abyss in which he had cast his riches, in the midst of the blood of so many innocent persons; for, in addition to his fears, remorse was ever awake within him. That he might not suffer himself, as long as he had life, to be plundered of his unknown treasure, he took, during the first days that followed his misfortune, the most rigorous precautions against sleep. Besides, his commercial connections enabled him to procure anti-narcotics of the most powerful nature. His vigils must indeed have been most frightful; he was alone, struggling with darkness, silence, remorse, fear-with all those feelings which man has best personified. In fine, this man, powerful as he was-this heart schooled and hardened by a life of politics and commerce-this character, though little noticed in the records of history, yet great and extraordinary, must of necessity have sunk beneath the horrors of that punishment which he had created for himself. Overpowered by some reflections more torturing than all those against which he had till then borne up, he cut his throat with a razor. 2 L The death of Cornelius took place much about the same time with that of Louis XI., so that the Malmaison was entirely pillaged by the populace. Some old folks of Touraine have pretended that a gentleman of the name of Bohier found the treasures of the miser, and that he made use of them to commence the buildings of Chenonceaux, of which he had purchased the seignory-a most astonishing castle, which, despite of the wealth of many kings, the taste of Diana of Poitiers, and that of her rival, Catherine of Medicis, for architecture, remains up to the present time uncompleted. Happily for Marie de Sessanage, the Sieur de Saint Vallier died, as the report goes, in his embassage; but his house did not become extinct. The Countess had, after the departure of her husband, a son, whose destiny is famous in the history of France, in the reign of Francis the First. His life was preserved by his daughter, the illegitimate great grand child of Louis the Eleventh, the celebrated Diana of Poitiers, who became the favourite mistress of Henry the Second; so that passion, indulged at the expense of principle, appeared to be hereditary in that noble family. "CHANSON Á BOIRE.” Here's to those round our bosoms entwining, Shines down o'er life's tide darkly streaming, Here's to those round our bosoms entwining, Be wound round our hearts as to-night. Here's to those we see smiling around us Here's to those we see smiling around us, Here's to those in climes distant delaying- Of the fond and the true that have died, Here's joy to the bright eyes that cheer us, IOTA. THE BORES OF MY ACQUAINTANCE.-No. II. "Sous quel astre, mon dieu! faut-il que je sois né, It is generally held to be an unerring proof of regard, for an individual to say that his absence is distressing or insupportable there is, however, a gentleman of my acquaintance, with respect to whom I can make that declaration most sincerely, and yet, at the same time, I am so far from having a regard for him, that I would rather hear of his death than of a legacy of a thousand pounds. This, Sir, is my Bore Epistolary. I could sustain a penny-post correspondence pretty well, but a series of letters from Vienua or Petersburgh to a man whose income is scarcely one hundred pounds a-year!Out of this meagre revenue I pay no less than twenty pounds annually into his Majesty's Post-office, and that for bundles of trash which even the -"Jura answer from Back to the joyous Alps With this citation I was indulged no fewer than five times in the same number of successive letters; and I am sure I do not at all exaggerate when I say that, with the Hospice of Mont St. Bernard, and its execrable monks and dogs, this scrap of Byron has cost me more than would have enabled me to have heard and seen all these wonders in person. D-n the dogs of St. Bernard! What are they to me, or I to them? What is it to me that they save a few travellers every winter from perishing in the snow? Is that a reason that I, who do not travel, must dine on rashers and eggs (a dish I abhor) four or five times a week? I shall leave you to conceive how I quaked when he announced his intention to visit Italy, and from thence prosecute his travels into Greece! I began to consider how I should look in a suit of frize. The first part of the threat was executed to the letter. He did visit Italy; and you could have Molière. New Monthly Magazine would repu diate from its pages. My correspondent is of as migratory a turn as a swallow; and in the course of a single week, I commonly receive dispatches with the post-marks of three or four different nations. There is before me at this moment a letter from Berne, consisting of three sheets of fools-cap, crossed perpendicularly with red ink, and recrossed diagonally with blue, to communicate to "his old and dear friend" the novel information that Switzerland is a mountainous country, very unlike Holland; that there is really such a place as the castle of Chillon; and that he (my kind correspondent to wit) has actually heard with his own ears-would to heaven the pillory had its rights! her misty shroud who call to her aloud." traced his progress in the gradually deteriorated appearance I made in the streets. I had a packet from Genoa, acquainting me that that city is a seaport; an epistle-" verbosa and grandis"-from Pisa, with a history of the falling tower, which I cursed in the bitterness of my heart for not having fallen upon the narrator's head; a third from Mantua, to let me into the secret that Virgil, "the poet," was born there; a fourth from Parma, all about cheese; and a fifth, sixth, and seventh, from the imperial city itself, stuffed with stanzas of Childe Harold, and larded with entire odes of Horace. The death of his brother obliged him to return in haste to England, or I have no doubt but that the Bay of Naples would have completed my ruin. Indeed the Coliseum alone brought me very near the verge of beggary. This, however, is but a specimen of his peregrinations. He makes an excursion generally every summer : and |