^"58 The Mummies at the [Dec. 



tion arose from supernatural agency, at qpce pronounced these friars to be 

 saints, who would be canonized. Accordingly relics of every kind were 

 taken aAvay ; hands, fingers, toes, nay, even lieads were subtracted and 

 placed in silver or brass shrines. The populace of the lower town, 

 hearing that the remains of a great many saints had been discovered in 

 the gardens of the Carmelites, applied in a body to Sladame Guilleminot 

 for permission to view the relics; but it was not obtained. These 

 people, however, Avere not to be disappointed. A mob of them came, one 

 Sunday afternoon, to the garden, broke open the gate, and carried off 

 different parts of the habiliments of the friars — the bodies they scarcely 

 ventured to touch. It was even asserted that several extraordinary cures 

 had been performed on the spot; and according to their accovmt the 

 era of miracles had again arrived. The ]Marquess La Tour Dupin, at 

 that time the prefect of the department, not giving any credit to these 

 miracles, and thinking possibly of the facetious epigram on the cemetery 

 of the Innocents, in Paris,* issued orders to the police to repair to the 

 vault of the White Friars. All their remains were put into hearses and 

 conveyed during the night to the public cemetery out of the Port de 

 Lovivain, and the mummies of these ascetics were interred in one deep 

 and large grave. 



Padre Ottomano ; abridged frotn the original Manuscript. 

 "I was born in the early part of the year 1643. ]\Iy mother was the 

 only child of an opulent IMoscovite merchant, named Fcedor Sciabasse, 

 who resided at Stamboul.t I have had in my possession many poetical 

 compositions in the Turkish and Arabic languages, wherein the beauty 

 of my parent is extolled in the highest terms of Oriental hyperbole; and 

 the name of Eudocia conveys with it, even to this day, an idea of extreme 

 loveliness. To use the words of her admirers — ' Her shape was that of 

 the cedar ; skin as smooth and sweet as the down of roses ; eyes like 

 those of the gazelle, expressing vild iimiditi/ ; the lips were /o?7 buds ; 

 and her teeth more white and brilliant than the lihes of the vale.' One 

 of the stanzas ran thus : — 



" 'Tis she does the virgins excel ; 

 No beauty with her can compare ; 

 Love's graces around her do dwell : 

 She's fairest where thousands are fair.":{: 



She was an extremely beautiful woman, and what corroborates the 

 fact, is, that the Sultan Ibrahim fell desperately in love with her. 

 The Grand Seignor, at the commencement of his reign, (lie had only 

 succeeded his brother, oNIorad IV., two years previously), would fre- 



* In the reign of Louis XV., some designing fiinatics pretended that miracles were daily 

 performed in the cemetery of tlie Innocents, in Paris. Great disturbances arose in conse- 

 quence of this report ; and they became at length of so alarming a nature, that the minister 

 of the police gave orders that the gates of the cemetery should be closed, and no more 

 exhibitions of miracles to take place. Some few days after, a paper containing the follow- 

 ing lines was posted against the gate : — 



" De par le Roi, de'fense a Dieu, 



De faire miracles en ce lieu." 

 t Constantinople. 



J These lines were translated verbatim by Prior (I think) from the Italian of Fondacci, 

 without acknowledgment. The latter candidly admits borrowing them from the Arabic. 



