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retire from several parts of the city, so that he resolved to make the Fauxbourg St. Antoine the scene of his attack. On the 2nd of July, 1652, Condé was stationed with his forces in the principal street of the fauxbourg, having the town, with its gates shut against him, on the one extremity of his line, and the royal army under Turenne at the other. Mazarin and the young Louis the Fourteenth were on the height which now contain the Cemetery of Père la Chaise, spectators of the ensuing action, the young monarch being most anxious to witness the defeat of the prince who had rebelled against him. The gate of St. Antoine was immediately under the Bastile, the guns from which commanded the three roads diverging from the gate. This position, into which Condé had been induced to throw himself by a miscalculation of his opponents' movements, was such that it seemed hardly possible he could escape being cut to pieces. The contest commenced by a triple attack, made against him by divisions of the royal army, headed by three personal enemies of his. The attack from the left was defeated by the prince's valour; and he then turned his attention to the central street, where the attack was led on by Turenne in person, and a fierce encounter ensued. Turenne was afterwards asked, "Did you see Condé during the action?"-" I must have seen a dozen Condés," was the reply; "he multiplied himself." The contest on the right was no less severe: the nobles of the prince's party were nearly all slain, among the rest La Rochefoucauld, the celebrated author of the Maxims. Condé, beaten at every point, now made a circuit round the city, endeavouring to obtain an entrance at some one of the gates. He was refused entrance at all of them, except at the last and trying moment, when the gate of St. Antoine suddenly opened and admitted him, and a fire of guns from the Bastile drove the royal troops from the three roads which had been the scene of their attacks. This unexpected succour came through the aid of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, daughter of the Duke of Orleans. An attachment existed between her and Condé; and when she knew of the distressed state of the latter, she went, assisted by an enraged populace, who were irritated at seeing a rash but generous prince sacrificed to Mazarin, to the municipal officers, and assisted in obtaining from them the order for opening the gate of St. Antoine. She herself directed the firing of the guns, and is said to have applied the first match with her own hand. More than three thousand men perished in this unhappy encounter.

Of all the miseries that afflict humanity, few are more dreadful than civil war, where brother fights against brother, and father against son,-forgetting kin and country in the heat of party strife. The situation of Paris and its environs was miserable in the extreme. The armies of Turenne and of Condé alternately poured their infliction on the unoffending peasantry. It was represented to the parliament by one of the city authorities, that the excesses of the soldiers were so great, and the devastation so public, that all the houses and farms in the vicinity of Paris had been ruined and rendered totally useless. The soldiers, not content with provisions, had pillaged the furniture and farming implements, seizing the cattle, and demolishing the houses, in order to obtain the materials of which they were built. Laporte, a contemporary writer, says, "The misery of the people was distressing; and in every place through which the court passed, the poor peasants ran there for shelter, thinking themselves there in security from the outrages of the soldiery. They also conducted their starving cattle there, not daring to let them graze in the meadows. When their cattle died, they died themselves, for they had then nothing to subsist on but the charity of the court, which was but limited, each one thinking of himself first. They had no covering from the heat of the day, or the cold winds of night, but beneath sheds and awnings. When mothers died, their children died soon afterwards; and I saw, upon the Pont de Melun, where we went some time after, three dead children lying upon their dead mother. All these miseries sensibly touched the queen-regent: she even, as it was said at St. Germains, sighed over them, and said that those who had caused them would have an awful account to render to God;-forgetting that she herself was the principal cause." There is a simplicity in this narration which speaks much for its truth.

SPLENDOUR AND POMP OF LOUIS'S COURT.

At length the time arrived when Louis the Fourteenth, having gained his majority, commenced governing in his own right; an event which was looked upon with great joy

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by the people, who had been harassed by the ambition of contending parties. But he was a man little worthy of the love of his subjects. He had been educated in the school of Mazarin, and was heard to declare that he preferred Turkish despotism to European forms of government. He insulted on the justice-seat those who presumed to decide against his wishes; and he insulted the cause of morality and virtue by the unblushing and unconcerned licentiousness of his life. But still he possessed many qualities which have seldom failed to prove attractive to the French nation: he loved military renown, and conducted sieges and battles with a degree of sumptuous array that has rarely been equalled. All his court used to accompany him in his campaigns; and the latter became a sort of national show or holiday. Louis's ostentation was excessive. France had never seen a court so brilliant and costly. The language and the dresses of all at court were regulated by strict etiquette, laws which, as it has been said, "silenced the affections, stifled the natural sentiments, and induced dissimulation." The palaces of his predecessors were not magnificent enough for Louis; he enlarged them,-repaired the old ones, and built new. The expense of constructing the palace of Versailles alone, is said to have amounted to more than 1,200,000 livres, and to have occupied from 20,000 to 30,000 workmen. The most extravagant projects were formed, for embellishing Versailles. At one time the river Loire, at another the Bievre, at a third the Eure, was proposed to be conducted by artificial canals to Versailles. The lastmentioned river was to be brought from a distance of eight leagues; and superb aqueducts, almost equal to those of the Romans, were commenced. A regular camp was formed near the scene of operation, from which no one was suffered to go out, under heavy penalties; nor was any one permitted to speak of the maladies and deaths which occurred among the workmen, from the intensity of their work, and the exhalation of the soil. But a war which broke out caused these works to be abandoned, and they were never afterwards resumed, the money squandered on them being thus rendered useless. All his ministers seemed to vie with each other in pouring the incense of flattery into his ear. The provost of the merchants at Paris also lent himself to the same object, and that, too, at the public expense; for he established an annual gratuity or pension of 440 livres to the rector of the University, on condition that he would, every year on the fifteenth of May, pronounce a panegyric on Louis the Fourteenth.

REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES.

But there is a blot more serious than all these on the fame of Louis the Fourteenth: we allude to his treatment of the Protestants. The reader will remember that the Edict of Nantes, notwithstanding some subsequent changes, still guaranteed something like liberty of conscience to the Protestant inhabitants of France. The Court of Rome, constant in its project of exterminating the Protestants, watched all favourable opportunities for doing so, and availed itself of them. The confessors of Louis, who were all Jesuits, and his minister Louvois, who befriended the Jesuits on account of their accommodating religion and relaxed morals, combined together to induce Louis to revoke the Edict of Nantes, an edict which was considered a kind of Magna Charta by the Protestants. La Chaise, a Jesuit confessor to Louis, when he was on the point of death, said to the monarch—“Do not again take a Jesuit for your confessor:-ask me no questions respecting it, for I cannot answer them." The Jesuit, probably, in his last moments, spoke from a sincere feeling of what was the future interest of the king. But his words were slighted; for Louis took into that office Le Tellier, one of the most crafty and cruel of the order.

The first attempts of the Jesuits were to draw away children from their obedience to their Protestant parents, in order that they might be educated in the Catholic faith; and thus sow the seeds of discord between the various members of a family. This was at first done secretly; but in 1661 a law was made, by which boys at fourteen and girls at twelve years of age were considered capable of being converted (although it had hitherto been decreed that they were unable to judge of religious matters at this age). Children were encouraged by the Jesuits, with the aid of caresses and money, to profess Catholicism, and that once done, they were retained in it by violence. The next step was to decree that the chiidren, thus pretendedly converted, might marry without the consent of their parents, and that they should not be disinherited for so doing. Those chil

dren who, after this mock conversion, ventured to return to the faith of their fathers, were first punished by imprisonment, then by being sent to the galleys, and subsequently by confiscation of their property.

A cruel state of domestic war was constantly kept up between parents and their children; for, by two successive orders in council, parents were obliged to support their converted children, and were forced to pension or salary them, according as they grew up; thus embittering some of the most cherished feelings of the human heart; for how could a child love and respect his parents, when he was taught to hold himself superior to them? These iniquitous steps were soon followed by others. In 1664, an order was issued, discharging converted persons from all liability for their debts to Protestants. Gradually those offices which had been considered by the Edict of Nantes open to the Protestants were given to Catholics only. Priests who could be gained over from Protestantism to Catholicism were loaded with benefits; while those who adhered to their faith were by degrees oppressed in various ways; at first mean and paltry, and afterwards more serious. For twentyfive years these persecutions gradually augmented; and, in order to give some idea of their nature, we will first speak of the treatment adopted towards the Protestant clergy, and afterwards to the Protestant laity. The attacks against the liberty of the clergy proceeded somewhat in the following order:-They were first forbidden to deliberate in their synods, unless a royal judge was present. It was interdicted to them to sing psalms, except in the temple, or to bear the name of pastors. They were then denied the privilege of preaching each in more than one place, and were forbidden to wear robes. The next step was to prevent the ministers of one province from corresponding with those of another. Afterwards it was declared unlawful for them to sing psalms in their churches while a Catholic procession was passing near, or to preach while the bishop or archbishop was visiting the diocese. Another decree interdicted any increase in the number of ministers. If a Protestant pastor received a convert from Catholicism, the former was condemned to perpetual banishment. Another royal edict ordered that no minister should preach more than three years; and that he should not preach within six leagues of any church which had for any reason been destroyed. Lastly, on October 22, 1685, the Edict of Nantes was revoked, and all the Protestant ministers in France were ordered to leave it in a fortnight; any one returning being liable to sentence of death, and a reward of 5500 livres being offered to any one who should discover a Protestant priest in France.

Meanwhile the Protestant laity experienced a fill share of the bitter persecution of the court. (For most these acts were committed by the court and the Jesuits: the parliament had but little power at that time.) It was customary at that time for manufacturers and artisans to receive certain privileges and monopolies before they could pursue their avocations. About 1664 these privileges began to be denied to Protestants, by which their talents and their industry were paralyzed. The next step was to forbid justices, farmers-general, excise superintendants, &c., to give any subordinate offices to Protestants. This was followed by an ordinance decreeing that all Protestants holding legal offices should instantly yield them up. The weavers, hatters, embroiderers, and other artisans, of the Protestant religion, were forbidden to take apprentices; and Catholics were likewise forbidden to take Protestant apprentices. The next thing attacked was the privilege of Catholics and Protestants marrying together, and, afterwards, the privilege of Protestants marrying at all, under a penalty of 3000 livres. All persons of the Protestant persuasion holding any offices whatever were ordered to give them up. The booksellers and printers were next attacked by being forbidden to continue their employments, under pain of confiscation of all their goods. This was followed by a similar ediet against physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and all members of the medical profession, who, if Protestants, were forbidden to exercise their profession. The edicts then proceeded to higher ground, and expelled Protestant members of parliament from their seats. Protestant academies and schools were gradually mown down in a similar way:-first, nothing but reading, writing, and arithmetic were to be taught; then, that there should be but one school and one schoolmaster in each town; then, that the Protestant churches should be the only school-rooms; and, lastly, that the schools and colleges should be abolished altogether. Even hospitals and cemeteries did not escape this unhallowed

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persecution: the hospitals which the Protestants had es tablished in Paris were suppressed, and the furniture and funds given to the Hôtel Dieu (the principal hospital in Paris); and what was still more cruel, Catholics were forbidden to receive sick Protestants into their houses. Several attempts were made by miscreants, excited, as is supposed, by others, to destroy the Protestant cemeteries. The work of conversion (if it may be called such) proceeded all this time. The king gave up part of his revenue for the express purpose of buying converts. A regular market price was fixed, averaging about six livres per head, for those who consented to change their faith:-" the converts themselves were pleased with this golden eloquence, less learned than that of Bossuet but much more persuasive." We may readily believe that those who thus sold their religion for a trifle had no great respect for it. But it was a far different and more distressing sight to see tender infants inveigled away. We have said that fourteen years of age for boys and twelve for girls were deemed an age when they might be converted: this period was afterwards altered to seven years in each sex, and subsequently to five; so that, at five years of age, a child might be taken forcibly from its Protestant parents, placed into the hands of Catholics, and the parents obliged to pay a regular sum for its support. When a person, whether adult or child, had once consented to this sort of conversion, they were for ever after bound to the Catholic religion under dreadful penalties: if they obtained the name of relapses, they were condemned to the galleys.

The finishing stroke to this series of persecution was directed against the churches themselves. Several attempts had been made by the most brutal of the populace to fire the Protestant churches; but it was not till the Edict of Nantes was revoked that it became legal so to do. Six hundred Protestant churches were demolished, and the Protestants then repeated their prayers and sang their hymns in fields, and in holes and corners. They had neither pastors nor churches, and could only exercise their religion by stealth. Why, it may be asked," says Dulaure, in his Histoire de Paris, "why did not these unfortunates flee from an ungrateful country, a cruel government, which had for so many years heaped constantly-accumulating oppression on them? Why, when they had been robbed of their liberty, of their rights, when they had been excluded from employments, and from the exercise of their talents and industry,-when their children had been torn from them, and taught to detest their parents;-why, when strife had been excited between the members of the same family, when a despotic control over their consciences, and an absolute empire over their thoughts, had arisen,when, finally, everything that an imagination fruitful in wickedness could devise had been hurled against them,why, it may be asked, did they not escape by flight from so many outrages, persecutions, and sufferings?" The answer to this question is, that they remained in the country, bound to it by ties of home and kindred, until nature could bear no more; and then they emigrated to other countries; and it was not until more than 100,000 of the most intelligent and industrious citizens had taken refuge in foreign lands, that Louis perceived his error, and found out that the financial resources of the country were suffering through a series of acts which he had intended should only influ ence the religion of his subjects. England received an immense number of the expatriated French, chiefly silkmanufacturers; as did the north of Germany; and these two countries derived a benefit from the circumstance, only equalled by the loss which the French nation sustained.

MANNERS OF THE PARISIANS IN THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY.

It frequently happens that the manners and the tone of moral feeling among a people can be gathered from pictures painted about the period of which we are speaking. Dulaure has instanced an engraving which he thinks strikingly illustrates many of the Parisian customs and follies in the time of Louis the Fourteenth. The print represents a view of the Pont Neuf. On one part of the bridge (which contained houses) were duellists fighting in open day: some of the combatants are wounded, and lie extended on the ground; while others are fighting with fury—the passers-by looking on with indifference. At another part are numerous beggars, the women with children in their arms, and the men running, with their hats in their hands, by the doors of some splendid carriages which are passing along, soliciting alms. Further on are seen some robbers, who

SUPPLEMENT FOR JULY, 1840.

appear to have booty with them. Near the statue of Henry
the Fourth is a mountebank, surrounded with gazers; and
not far from them are men quarrelling and fighting. On
the opposite side of the way is a dentist, mounted on a
stage, exercising his avocation, surrounded by a crowd: a
woman and a child are lifting the cloak of one of the spec-
tators, and putting their hands in his pockets. Vendors of
wine and of provisions are seen at their stalls; and near
In
them is a person who has been robbed, drawing his sword
on the robber, and the watch just coming to interfere.
the middle of the street are seen soldiers, armed with hel-
mets, cuirasses, and long pikes.

There exists also a long letter, written about the same
period by a foreigner residing in France, a few extracts
from which will assist in conveying some notion of Paris
and the Parisians at the termination of the seventeenth cen-
tury:-"It is scarcely too much to say that all Paris is one
huge hotel: every where may be seen public-houses, taverns,
and hotels: kitchens are steaming at all hours, because the
The tables are abundantly sup-
people eat at all hours.
plied the Parisians drink out of small glasses, but very
frequently; and they never drink without inviting their
The common people are seldom
companions to do the same.
intoxicated, except on saints' days, when they do no work.
There are no people in the world more industrious, but
who possess so little, because they spend their all on their
back and their belly; and yet they are always content.
There are many persons who, when they go from home,
neglect to close their doors, for they scorn robbers; all their
patrimony being on their backs. The females are very
fond of cherishing little puppies, whom they treat with the
utmost tenderness: the more ugly these dogs are, the more
are they prized. The women have the privilege of going
masked whenever they please, that they may conceal them-
selves with a mask of black velvet on their faces they will
go to church (as if to conceal themselves from God) just as
The tailors
they would to a ball or to the theatre.

of Paris have more trouble to invent than to cut out; for if
a dress lasts longer than the life of a flower, it becomes out
of fashion it thus arises that there are large numbers of
dealers who live by buying and selling cast-off clothes: and
persons can, at a small expense, exchange their own dress
Politeness is more studied in France
for another.
than in any other country: persons of quality exhibit it
with much taste; citizens mingle affectation with it; and the
common people acquit themselves with some mixture of

coarseness.

ness.

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There are masters who teach the art of politeLuxury and good living might be two benefits rather than evils, if it were only the rich who lived splendidly; but emulation has made the same taste pass to others, to whom it is ruinous. It would thus seem that Paris is approaching continually towards its end, if it be true, as an ancient has said, that Excessive expense is a sure sign of a dying city. But it is probable that now, when lacqueys and cooks begin to wear scarlet and plumes, and that gold and silver are become common upon their clothes, we shall see this excessive luxury terminate, there being nothing which makes gilded robes so much despised by the rich as to see them on the persons of the low-born.

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If you ever go to Paris, take care never to go into a shop where they sell trinkets or useless things. The dealer gives you a description of all his merchandize, and talks so fast and so much, and so flatters you, that he induces you insensibly to purchase something. When you enter his shop, he begins by showing you everything that you do not want, and afterwards that which you do want, and he talks you over, so that you spend all your money in purchasing things for more than they are worth. It is by these means that he pays himself for the assiduity and the continual trouble which he takes in uselessly showing, a hundred times a day, his merchandize to those inquisitive persons who wish to see all without purchasing any. Everything may be bought at Paris, except the art of keeping a secret: the French say that that is the business of a confessor." With many of the vices incident to a great city still remaining amongst them, the Parisians have since wiped off many of those blots on their character. CONTESTS DURING THE MINORITY OF LOUIS FIFTEENTH. In the year 1715, Louis the Fourteenth sank into the grave, worn out with old age, sickness, and domestic troubles, and was succeeded by his great-grandson, under the title It happened unfortunately for of Louis the Fifteenth. France, that Louis the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth, all came to the crown during their minority,

is generally a misfortune; for in a country governed on
thus making necessary the appointment of regents. This
monarchial principles, the name, the position, and the
prerogative of a king have weight with his subjects; but a
regency is apt to be swayed by contests of an ambitious
character, frequently for those who had wished to obtain
We thus find that Mary de
the appointment of regent.
Medicis, widow of Henry the Fourth, was, with her Italian
councillors, continually embroiled during the minority of
Louis the Thirteenth; and that Anne of Austria, widow of
the last-named monarch, was, under the guidance of
Mazarin, equally involved in stormy disputes during the
minority of Louis the Fourteenth: lastly, on the death of
that monarch, the Duke of Orleans, his nephew, was
appointed regent during the minority of Louis the Fifteenth.
This last appointment was fully as much contested and
envied as the preceding. The Jesuits, by whom Louis the
Fourteenth had been surrounded nearly all his life, wished
to retain the power which they had acquired by instilling
the same despotic ideas into the young king's mind as had
influenced the mind of the old monarch; and for this
purpose they had persuaded Louis the Fourteenth, in his
last moments, to make a will by which he declared that the
Duc de Maine, one of his illegitimate sons, should be
appointed regent during the minority of Louis the Fifteenth,
since the Jesuits had influence over him. On the other
hand, the nobles of France had been greatly humbled by
Louis the Fourteenth, and, thirsting to regain their power,
ambitious prince of the blood royal, to lead them back to
they looked forward to the Duke of Orleans, an ardent and
their ancient power and prosperity: they therefore looked
with hope at the probable appointment of the duke to the
regency. On the day after the death of the old monarch,
therefore, the parliament assembled, to hear the will read,
the opposing parties looking with anxiety for the fulfilment
of their wishes. The will being read, it was found that a
council of regency was appointed, the members of which
appointed its president; but the majority of the members,
consisted of the old ministers. The Duke of Orleans was
with the Duke of Maine at their head, were in the Jesuit
interest: moreover, the latter was to have the care of the
young king's person. The parliament, who disliked the
Jesuit supremacy, without hesitation declared these provi-
sions null, broke the testament of Louis the Fourteenth ere
he was cold in his coffin, and proclaimed the Duke of
Orleans regent.

There now ensued a series of contests between the Jesuits
on the one hand, and the regent on the other, which ended
in the ascendancy of the latter; and Orleans then began to
examine into the state of the kingdom. The financial
condition of the country was very deplorable. the expensive
wars of the preceding reign, and the expulsion of the
industrious Protestants, had reduced the national exchequer
Various schemes were proposed to get
to the lowest ebb.
rid of the difficulties. One of the ministers proposed a
national bankruptcy, by which all those who had lent
money to government would lose it; but the iniquity of
such a transaction was too glaring to permit its adoption.
Instead of this, the coin was called in, and a new coinage
issued, the weight of each piece being one fifth less than
the former weight, which fifth passed into the national
treasury. After this, one of the most extraordinary schemes
that ever disturbed the brains of a nation was seized
on with avidity by all parties as a means of recruiting the na
tional treasury: this was the celebrated Mississippi scheme,
of which we shall shortly give an account in a separate
article.

REIGNS OF LOUIS THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH, AND
GRADUAL APPROACH OF THE REVOLUTION.

When Louis the Fifteenth attained an age which qualified
him for the performance of regal duties he entered on the
of the evils which follow from weakness of character. Louis
kingly power. But here commenced a striking illustration
had been educated under the care of an amiable, but mild
and weak man; and as there was a natural timidity in the
young king's character, that timidity was aggravated rather
than alleviated by a somewhat similar character in his
tutor. It has been said by an historian of France-" Diffi-
dence is the great bane of the privately educated, especially
when they are afterwards to mingle with persons not on an
equality with them. It matters not whether they descend
or ascend: Louis the Fifteenth could no more set himself
at his ease in the company of his courtiers, than an upstart
could have done in the same society. Bashfulness becomes

irresolution in one born to influence and to act; and this apparently venial quality was the chief cause of all the crimes and follies of the reign." The Regent Orleans had mingled the most licentious conduct and profligate manners with a good deal of energy and spirit in political affairs. But Louis the Fifteenth allowed his weakness of character to be worked upon by his dissolute courtiers; his bad traits were brought out; his good ones were stifled; and in process of time he became one of the most contemptible monarchs that ever sat upon an European throne. His dissolute life fully equalled that of the regent; but the latter, in addition to political affairs, occupied a portion of his time in cultivating science and the fine arts: Louis the Fifteenth, not content with shaking off the burden of politics, and transferring it to any crafty minister who was willing to accept it, occupied some of his spare time in making pastry, and soups in a kitchen which he had built for himself. This unworthy state of things was one of the causes which led to the French revolution. Right-thinking and moral men, however much they might reverence monarchy, could not shut their eyes and ears to the iniquitous proceedings of the courts of Louis the Fourteenth and Fifteenth; and a dissatisfied feeling was thereby engendered. This feeling, as frequently happens, fell heavily on one who did not deserve it; for Louis the Sixteenth, who was a mild and amiable, though not a talented monarch, was doomed to suffer for the errors of his predecessors. We shall have hereafter to mention some of the other causes that led to the revolution; but we wished on the present occasion to

say a word on the impossibility of a monarch leading an mmoral life without sowing the seeds of evil, both to himself and to his subjects.

His

There were no political events in this reign which particularly affected the city of Paris. Constant wars were being carried on against various states of Europe, sometimes to the advantage, but more frequently to the disadvantage of France. These, however, do not form any part of our present subject. On the 10th of May, 1774, Louis the Fifteenth died, his death having been accelerated by his dissolute life; and he was succeeded by his grandson, Louis the Sixteenth, then about twenty years of age. father had, unlike his grandfather, been a man of pious and moral character, and the young Louis was bred up in an abhorrence of vice and immorality. But a storm was lowering which his virtues could not dispel. He had not been one year seated on the throne before complaints and disturbances arose, which continued with but little intermission, until a brutal rabble brought him to the scaffold. The eventful history of the late years of his reign, in which the city of Paris played a conspicuous part, will form part of the subject of another Supplement, in which we shall endeavour to give a rapid glance at both the revolutions which France has since that time undergone.

The population of Paris, about the beginning of the last century, is supposed to have amounted to rather more than half a million. By the year 1760 it had reached 570,000. By the end of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth it is supposed that the population amounted to 630,000.

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HOTEL DE CLUNI.

LONDON: Published by JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND; and sold by ali Booksellers.

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OWLEDGE IT IS NOT

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Magazine.

1ST, 1840.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

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