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badly wounded in the face; but this, like most other accidents among our gay neighbours, became the subject of a joke.

"As I was speaking to them, the queen came from Moissac, where she had been during the siege. The king sent the constable to receive her, and remained speaking with me. When she came in, she asked the constable who was that frightful man talking to the king: he told her that it was a lord of that country, named the Count de Curton. She said, 'Jesus, how ugly he is!' The constable said to the king, as he approached the queen, sire, present M. de Bassompierre to the queen, and tell her that he is the Count de Curton,' which he did. I kissed her robe; after which the constable presented me to the Princess de Conti, and other ladies, whom I saluted; and I heard them say, that is a strange looking man, and very dirty; he does right to stop in the country.' At this, I could not help laughing, and from my laugh and my teeth they knew me, and had great pity upon me; and still more after dinner, when there was an alarm, and they saw us set out to fight."

The examination of a part of this work has led us on to so unexpected a length, that we find ourselves compelled to defer the rest till our next number. We shall there notice not only the remaining volumes of the memoirs, but the two volumes of Ambassades, which are even less known. The journal of the embassy to England was published in 1819, in an English dress. We shall also endeavour to fill up the outline of the manners of his age, by a review of several memoirs and other works, which contain an infinity of curious and amusing details; among these Brantome is, perhaps, the richest. There are, however, others of less celebrity, and, therefore, less likely to be read, which deserve "that they should not all die;" and we shall endeavour to give them such a chance for immortality as the pages of the Retrospective can bestow.

The Memoirs were first published at Cologne, in two volumes, in 1665. The last and best edition is that of Amsterdam, 4 vols., 1723. In the publication of this work, a great deal of the most interesting matter was, for various reasons, omitted. This was afterwards collected by the President Henault, and, being found among his papers, was published in a separate volume, in 1803. It contains some things already published in the former work. The author of the preface to the Cologne edition of 1665, says, "Monsieur de Bassompierre wrote these memoirs without any order, but full of such admirable things which he had remarked in his embassies, that it is to be wished he had left them in the state in which they were, and in which they still remain in the hands of a prelate, who is his son by Mademoiselle d'Entragues." "There is ample and satisfactory evidence of their authenticity.

END OF PART II. VOL. XIII.

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