fied. Is this enough for you? Now go, mean-spirited wretch, go imme-. diately and accuse. If, however, you fulfil my wishes, if you present yourself to me dripping with the blood of my husband, then indeed expect every thing from me; never did woman love so ardently as I then shall, and evermore you shall be the god of my heart!"

"Well," replied Mongeot," "I will prove that I adore you, and that I am capable of sacrificing my life for your sake. Be the consequences what they may, your husband shall die by my hand. But be magnanimous, grant me one condition; let me challenge him like a man of honour, not dispatch him like an assassin. I hope to vanquish him with ease. I shall thus accomplish your wishes and avoid the foul stigma of assassination. Have patience only a week longer, and I will find a proper time and place.

66

May none of the misfortunes I have predicted await you! If we should be discovered, I will endeavour to save your life, and not my own.”

The fury was not satisfied with this answer. She wrote a second letter, in which she threatened to reconcile herself with her husband, and to confess to him the whole affair. She alternately lavished reproaches and tender expressions on Mongeot; she broke with him for ever, and immediately afterwards vowed everlasting love. In a word, she employed all the arts of a devil incarnate to extinguish the last spark of remorse in the bosom of her misguided lover. In this attempt she was but too successful. Mongeot invited his master to take a walk in the garden of Luxembourgh; Lescombat acquiesced without suspicion, and was unusually cheerful and talkative. Towards night Mongeot proposed to sup at a Restaurateur's. His companion agreed to this, and it was eleven o'clock before they rose from table to return home.

On leaving the Restaurateur's they had scarcely proceeded a few hundred paces, when Mongeot, flushed with wine, seized a favourable opportunity to run Lescombat through the body with his sword. He fell, and wallowed in his blood. The murderer fled, and in going threw a pistol beside his victim. He soon met with some of the patrole, and told them that he had just killed a man who had stopped him and clapped a pistol to his breast. They took him into custody, and soon found the body of Lescombat. Mongeot adhered to his first declaration, asserting that he wanted to kill him from motives of unfounded jealousy. On this the wife was also apprehended; but as the murderer asserted her innocence, she was released on her recognizance to appear whenever she might be called upon. Instead of availing herself of her liberty to escape, she went every day to the prison to visit her husband's murderer, with whom she even ate and slept.

Mongeot was removed to the Conciergerie, where his enamorata was not suffered to visit him. This wretched woman, however, consoled herself in the arms of another for this separation. Mongeot being informed of her inconstancy, was highly irritated, and began to waver in his declaration, but without directly accusing her as an accomplice. Hereupon she was taken a second time into custody. Mongeot seemed weary of his life, and no longer denied his crime. He was sentenced to die. Shortly before his execution, he desired to speak with Madame Lescombat in the presence of the judge. This vile woman had the impudence to appear very gaily dressed, and, as it were, to scoff at the horrors which tormented him. The last thread of this unhallowed passion was now broken, and he declared to the judge that he was seduced by her alone to commit the murder. He then withdrew, and was broken on the wheel.

TERRIFIC REGISTER.

66

When Madame Lescombat was examined, she scornfully replied, " Mongeot was an unhappy fellow, who long loved me, and for whom I even felt some friendship; but his last declaration proves nothing against me, for he was no longer master of himself." She then requested a more convenient place of confinement, as she was four or five months advanced in pregnancy. This statement being, upon examination, found correct, her trial was deferred till after her delivery, and nccessary care was taken of her. She produced a boy, and six weeks afterwards was sentenced to undergo the torture, and then to be hanged. She again declared herself pregnant. Another respite, of four months and a half was granted her, and during the time she was strictly watched, nevertheless every person was allowed to see her in prison. An eye-witness, who often availed himself of this permission, described her as a handsome woman, of a fine figure, with large black eyes, a delicate To these personal, white bosom, and the most beautiful hands and arms. charms she united a mind stored with ideas derived from novels, and was very entertaining company. Even during her imprisonment she continued to read novels with great assiduity, and seemed totally indifferent to the It at length arrived, and she had no approach of her last awful moment. farther reasons for delay to urge. She was hanged in the Place de Grêve, and is said, when under the hands of the executioner, to have expressed an equivocal kind of repentance.

SINGULAR INSTANCE OF HOSPITALITY.

A French refugee, at Brussels, was surprised in that city by the French troops in their victorious entry after the battle of Fleuris. Dreading to be made a prisoner, he fled. A young girl, an entire stranger to him, who was sitting before a door, observing the terror and distraction of his air and coun"Then enter, tenance, seized him by the arm-" Stay!" she cried, "you are lost if you "And I am lost if I return," he answered. go forward," "and be saved."

here," said the generous girl, The Frenchman accepted her offer. His hostess informed him she was neice to the sexton of the neighbouring church; that it was her uncle's house into which she had received him, who would have been far from suffering her to exercise so dangerous a rite of hospitality had he been at home; and she hastened to conceal him in an outhouse, where she expected to leave him in security.

Scarcely was it dark when some French soldiers entered the same place to take up their abode for the night. Terrified at the situation of the French stranger, the girl softly followed them without being perceived, and waiting till she was sure they were asleep, she informed the refugee of his extreme danger, and desired him to follow her. Their movement awakened one of the soldiers, who, stretching out his arm, seized that of the refugee, crying out, "Who's there?" The girl dexterously placed herself between them, Fortunately she and said, "It is only I, who am come to seek forhad no occasion to say a word more: the soldier, deceived by the voice of a go his captive. She conducted the refugee into the house, and woman, let taking down the keys of the church, with a lamp in her hand she led him to that place as the securest asylum she could find. They entered a chapel which the ravages of war had despoiled of its ornaments. Behind the altar was a passage to a vault, the entrance to which was not easily to be discerned. "This narrow staircase leads to a vault, the She raised the door, and said,

repository of the ashes of an illustrious family. It is scarcely possible they will suspect any person of being concealed there. Descend, and remain there till an opportunity offers for your escape." She gave him the lamp; he descended into this melancholy abode, and she closed the door upon him. His feelings may well be imagined, when, examining this dismal place by the light of his lamp, he saw the arms of his own family, which had been of this country. He examined the tombs of his ancestors; he viewed them with reverential affection, and rested his head with emotion upon the marble that covered their ashes. The first day passed unperceived amidst these strong impressions: the second brought with it the claims of hunger, even yet more pressing than the desire of liberty; yet his benefactress came not. Every hour in its lingering passage now increased his sufferings, his terror, and despair. Sometimes he imagined the generous girl had fallen a victim to her desire of saving his life; at others he accused her of forgetting him; in either case he saw himself doomed to a death a thousand times more horrible than that from which he had escaped. At length, exhausted with fruitless efforts, with agonizing fears, and the intolerable gnawings of hunger, he sank into insensibility upon one of the graves of his ancestors.

She

The third day was far advanced, when he recovered to a languid sense of his deplorable situation. Shortly after he heard a sound-it was the voice of his benefactress, who called him from the chapel. Overwhelmed with joy as well as with weakness, he has not the power to answer-she believes him already dead, and with a mournful exclamation lets fall the door that covers entrance of the tomb. At the sound of the falling of the door the unfortunate man feels his powers return, utters a shriek of despair, and rushes with precipitation up the stairs. Happily the neice of the sexton had not left the spot-she hears the cry, lifts the door, and descends to save him. She had brought him food, and explained the causes of her long delay, assuring him that she had now taken such precautions, that in future she could not fail to administer to his daily wants. After seeing him refreshed and consoled, she quitted him; but had scarcely proceeded some steps when she heard the doors unlock, and the noise of a number of armed men entering. flew back to the vault, and motioned the refugee to silence. The persons who now filled the church were a detachment of French soldiers, who had been sent there to search for an emigrant the sexton was suspected of concealing. The sexton himself led them on. Perfectly unconscious of the danger his neice had incurred, and proud of his own innocence, he loudly encouraged their activity, and directed their researches to each remote corner of the chapel, that every spot might attest his good faith. What a situation for the two captives! The soldiers passed many times over the fatal door, led by their restless and prying conductor, and each footstep sounded to the trembling victims below as the signal of their death. The entrance of the vault, however, remained unobserved. the noise by degrees died away, and when the neice of the sexton ventured from the vault, she found the doors of the church shut, and every one gone. She again assured the refugee of her steadfast protection, and retired.

On the following day, and for many succeeding days, she regularly supplied him with provisions; and the instant a favourable moment arrived for his escape, his vigilant friend conducted him from his subterraneous abode, and instructed him in the safest means to pass unmolested. Leaving the tomb, he gained the country; and soon after rejoining his wife, her presence and affections taught him to appreciate still more highly the services of his generous benefactress.

MELANCHOLY FATE OF BLANCA RUBEA OF PADUA.

Of all the heroines recorded in history, the most extraordinary, the most intrepid, and the most beautiful, was a woman but little known out of the precincts of her native land, but whose name is to this day reverenced by her countrymen with the most ardent esteem, and a sort of games are every year celebrated at Padua to continue the remembrance of her virtues. The woman we mean was Blanca Rubea.

Blanca was the daughter of a nobleman of Padua, and was born in the year 1235; from her infancy she testified the most extraordinary degree of courage, even greater than that usually found among men. Her beauty surpassed her mental endowments, and, as she grew up, it procured her numberless suitors; but she disdained them all, declaring that it was unworthy a generous woman to marry any who owned themselves to be slaves; and professing, that while her country continued in bondage, she disdained to be abride. All her ardour, however, was unable to rouse her dispirited countrymen into a sense of their freedom; wherefore she undertook to shew them, in her own person, an example of heroic fortitude. Petrarch describes her as most patient of labour, and undergoing fatigue with most surprising constancy. Moderate in diet, but altogether abstaining from strong liquors, though, at that time, much in fashion even among the softer sex. Ever modest, but ever Haring, she utterly abjured the needle and the distaff; and, instead of these, beckled on her brazen armour, grasped her spear and target, and remained whole nights without sleeping, and whole days without taking any rest. If necessity at any time compelled her to submit to fatigue, the earth was her bed, and her shield served her for a pillow. She abandoned the society of women, and all her companions were selected from such commanders as had gained reputation in war. But though she conversed with them, yet she ever kept them at the most respectful distance, and was as much an enthusiast in guard

ing her virtue, as in the profession of arms. Such was the woman that undertook to break the bonds of her country, and vindicate their ancient freedom.

Among the number of those who at that time resided in Padua, was Baptista, a young soldier of fortune, who appeared the most forward to imitate her example; and, though a foreigner, seemed more touched with the misery of the people, than they themselves were. His valour charmed her, but his wisdom more; in short, after having, in the most solemn manner, promised to labour with her in the restoration of the city's liberties, she consented to be married to him, and their nuptials were accordingly celebrated with the utmost pomp and magnificence.

Acciolinus was at that time the tyrant of the place, and held the citizens in the most insufferable bondage; however, being obliged on a certain occasion to leave the city with his forces, Baptista, and Basianus, who was deputy governor, caused the gates to be shut, and soon after sent Acciolinus a bold defiance, and openly asserted the cause of liberty. It is impossible to express the rage and resentment of Acciolinus upon this occasion; but, moderating his passion, he pretended to be willing to accede to a treaty, and proposed to the citizens such terms as they found it their interest not to refuse.

In the mean time, however, all these negociations were but a pretence to cover his real design, for in the night he had placed in ambush, near one of the gates, a body of the most courageous of his troops, ordering them, so soon as ever the gates should be opened to admit those who were to transact the negociation, that they should rush into the city, and put all the inhabitants, without distinction, to the sword. These orders were executed with punctuality, and, unfortunately for the unhappy citizens, with too much success. A scene of slaughter ensued upon opening the gates: murders, rapes, and all the horrid cruelties of an incensed, barbarous, avaricious enemy, ensued.

In the midst of this carnage, Baptista was seen manfully fighting, with the intrepid Blanca, his wife, by his side. Their courage for a while seemed to make victory doubtful, but at last the husband, oppressed with wounds and fatigue, fell without a groan. Blanca still, however, stood over his dead corpse with a protended spear, and fought with surprising intrepidity: but what could she do against a multitude?-the citizens were almost all slain, and she an only survivor; in short, when no longer able to wield her sword, she was taken captive, and brought before Acciolinus the conqueror.

Neither fatigue nor sorrow had yet impaired her beauty; she appeared before him in all the lustre of charms, and even his savage nature was moved at her distress. He therefore gave orders that she should be attended in the most elegant manner, and mixed a look of passion with his natural severity. Soon, however, his pity was converted into love, and he strove, by all the arts of insinuation and flattery, to accomplish his designs; but he found her inexorable. He now, therefore, was resolved to try more forcible methods, and had her brought up to an apartment two stories high, where he began to execute his brutal purposes; but she, bravely running to the window, threw herself out, and fell seemingly lifeless upon the pavement.

She was at last, however, though with much difficulty, recovered from her fall; and no sooner was her former health restored, than the tyrant again renewed his base solicitations; still, however, finding that she detested him, he ordered her to be bound hand and foot, and in this manner forced from her what he had so long desired to possess.