Dec. 8. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



453 



haltz, or hals, the neck, and bergen, to cover. — Thomson's 

 Essay on the Magna Charta, p. 217.] 



"TAe Paradise of Coquettes." — What is the 

 name of the author of The Paradise of Coquettes, 

 a poem in nine parts, London, 1814? It is criti- 

 cised in the Quarterly Review, vol. xii., pp. 159 — 

 180. Antiquarius. 



[This poem is by Thomas Brown, M.D., late Professor 

 of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. A 

 second edition was published at Edinburgh in 1818. The 

 author died in 1820.] 



ISit^Uti, 



THE MABTINIERE COLLEGE, AT CALCUTTA. 



(Vol. xii., p. 266.) 



The most ready reply to your correspondent, 

 C. B. Davis, M.A., Oxon, would be to furnish 

 him, through the useful and valuable pages of 

 " N. & Q.," with some information of the founder, 

 and with such abstracts from his will as may lead 

 him to the results he is anxious to obtain. Not 

 being sufficiently acquainted with the " standard 

 of doctrine for the regulation of the religious 

 teaching" in the said college, I cannot respond to 

 his inquiries on that point. I shall confine my 

 observations to the origin and history of the in- 

 stitution, with such traits of its founder as may 

 be not only necessary, but interesting, and worthy 

 of some brief record. 



General Claude Martin, the founder of this and 

 more than one other institution of a similar kind, 

 was a native of Lyons, born in the year 1735, of 

 humble parents. His father was a " Jardiniere," 

 Laving had two sons by his first wife. Claude 

 was the second son. He left his father's house 

 under the censure of his step-mother, and enlisted 

 in the French service as a common soldier. It 

 may not be out of place here to mention, that he 

 sought aid from a wealthy wax-chandler, a rela- 

 tion, to assist him in leaving Lyons. With such 

 assistance, he liberated his father, then under dif- 

 ficulties in Paris. This individual was named 

 "Pierre Charenton;" so reduced afterwards by 

 the Revolution, as to claim and receive a portion 

 of the bounty bequeathed by the General to his 

 poorer relatives. He quitted his native country 

 in its service for the Isle of France, from thence 

 he entered the English service at Calcutta ; died 

 holding the rank of Major-General in the Com- 

 pany's service. Successful in his profession as an 

 engineer, afterwards as a merchant and cultivator, 

 more particularly of indigo, he amassed a large 

 fortune; and died Sept., 1800, at the age of 

 sixty-five, having suffered for years from stone. 

 He invented a file to relieve himself, which may be 

 said to have been the first rude instrument in the 

 practice of lithotrity. 



No. 3 19. J 



After bequeathing large legacies to the children 

 of his offended step-mother, he founded the insti- 

 tution in question. 



In elucidation of these foundations, I have ven- 

 tured to give abstracts of his will, which is some- 

 what lengthened and curious in detail. 



Offering his " most exalted praise and most 

 respectful thanks to the Almighty Creator for his 

 most kind clemency, he beseeches his pardon for 

 the sins he may have committed, if his creature 

 can commit any, and for any neglect in not having 

 worshipped him," he gives freedom to his slaves, 

 and more particularly to his women ; bequeathing 

 to the younger ones such annuities as shall fur- 

 nish them with comfort, and even luxuries ; im- 

 ploring, at the same time, that — 



" God may give them their reward ; they are innocent 

 of any guilt — I am culpable of the sin, if they have com- 

 mitted any by having partook my bed ; they owed com- 

 pliance to my command as their duties; having every 

 reason to be well satisfied of their services: for these 

 reasons, my sincere wish is to give them their proper 

 rewards in this world." 



Anxious for the settlement of his girls, he pro- 

 poses they should marry husbands of their own 

 religion ; which he accomplishes, excepting in the 

 case of Boulone. He says : 



" I have renewed to the girl Boulone to marry her, but 

 she still persisted that she would live with me ; accord- 

 ingly I keep her, and as she has always been extremely 

 attached to me, 1 have endeavoured to make her as happy 

 as I had it in my power ; and I may say, to her credit, 

 that since we lived together, since the year 1775, 1 have 

 every reason to praise her conduct, character of chastity, 

 and modest}'." 



He amply provides for her, her sisters, and his 

 other female and male servants ; with large dis- 

 tributions to his relatives, &c. 



He, by the 24th article in his will, says : 



" I give and bequeath the sum of two hundred thousand 

 sicca rupees to the town of Calcutta, for to be put at 

 interest in government paper, or the most secure mode 

 possible ; and this principal and interest to be put under 

 the protection of government, or the supreme court, that 

 they may devise an institution the most necessary for the 

 public good of the town of Calcutta, or establishing a 

 school for to educate a certain number of children of any 

 sex to a certain age ; and to have them put 'prentice to 

 some profession when at the conclusion of their school, 

 and to have them married when at age ; and I also wish 

 that every year premiums of a few rupees, or other thing, 

 and a medal, be given as to the most deserving or vir- 

 tuous boy or girl, or both, to such as have come out of 

 that school, or that are still in it, and this to be done on 

 the same day in the month I died; that day those 

 are to be married, and to have a sermon preached at 

 the church to the boy and girl of the shool ; afterward 

 a public dinner for the whole, and a toast to be 

 drink'd in memorandum of the fondator. This insti- 

 tution is to bear the title of 'La Martinifere,' and to 

 have an inscription either on stones or marble, in large 

 character, to be fixed on any part of the school; on 

 it wrote, instituted by Major-General Martin, borne the 

 — January, 1735, at Lyon, who died, &c. . . . And, as I 

 am little able to make any arrangement for such an in- 



