2°-» S. IX. Feb. 18. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



129 



dence of James II. and the Pretender at St. Ger- 

 main-en-Laye are preserved in the French Ar- 

 chives. The most important are locked up in 

 the Secret Archives, and are therefore inacces- 

 sible to foreigners. Miss Strickland, however, 

 gained access to them through the influence of 

 M. Guizot, and has availed herself to some ex- 

 tent of the knowledge thus acquired, in her life of 

 James's Queen, Mary Beatrice of Modena. The 

 Scottish College contained a marble cenotaph 

 erected to the memory of James II. by the Duke 

 of Perth, on which was placed a bronze-gilt urn 

 containing the king's brain. His heart was con- 

 signed to the Convent of the Visitation at Chaillot, 

 which possessed also the heart of his mother Hen- 

 riette Marie. His body was deposited in the 

 Church of the English Benedictines, in the Rue 

 du Faubourg St. Jacques, and there remained 

 unluried during the space of ninety-two years »- 

 from 1701 to 1793 — waiting the time when, ac- 

 cording to the directions of his will, it might be 

 buried with his'ancestors in Westminster Abbey ! 

 The way in which it was at, length disposed of is 

 thus described by an eye-witness, Mr. Fitz- 

 Simons, and quoted by the llev. Dr. Oliver, Col- 

 lections, p. 488. : — 



" I was a prisoner in Paris, in the Convent of the Eng- 

 lish Benedictines, in the Rue St. Jacques, during part of 

 the Revolution. In the year 1793 or 1794, the body of 

 King James II. of England was in one of the Cliapcls 

 there, where it had been deposited some time, under the 

 expectation that it would one day be sent to England for 

 interment in Westminster Abbey. It had never been 

 buried. The body was in a wooden coffin, inclosed in a 

 leaden one, and that again inclosed in a second wooden 

 one, covered with black velvet. While I was so a prisoner, 

 the sans- culottes broke open the coffin, to get at the lead, 

 to cast into bullets. The body lay exposed nearly a 

 whole da3'. It was swaddled like a mummy, bound tight 

 with garters. The sans-culottes took out the body, 

 which had been embalmed. There was a strong smell of 

 vinegar and camphor. The corpse was beautiful and 

 perfect; the hands and nails were very fine; I moved 

 and bent every finger. I never saw so tine a set of teeth 

 in my life. A young lady, a fellow-prisoner, wished 

 rnucli to have a tooth ; I tried to get one out for her, but 

 could not, they were so firmly fixed. The feet also were 

 very beautiful. The face and cheeks were just as if he 

 were alive. I rolled his eyes, and the eye-balls were 

 perfectly firm under my finger. The French and English 

 prisoners gave money to the sans-culottes for showing 

 the body. They said he was a good sans-culotte, and 

 they were going to put him into a hole, in the public 

 churchyard, like other sans-culottes; and he was car- 

 ried away, but where the body was thrown, I never 

 heard. King George IV. tried all in his power to get 

 tidings of the body, but could not. Around the chapel 

 were several wax moulds of the face hung up, made pro- 

 bably at the time of the king's death ; and the corpse was 

 very like them." 



Mr. Banks, in his Dormant and Extinct Peer- 

 ages, vol. iv. 450. quotes the Paris papers, af- 

 firming that the royal remains were discovered 

 ami transferred to the Church of St. Germain-cn- 

 Laye, conformably, as was said, to orders given 



by King George IV. to his ambassador at Paris; 

 that this interesting ceremony took place on the 

 10th Sept. 1824; and that the ambassador was 

 represented by Mr. Sheldon, a Catholic gentle- 

 man, the Bishop of Edinburgh performing the 

 ceremony. John Williams. 



Arno's Court. 



Philip Rubens (2 nd S. ix. 75, 76.) — May I 

 be allowed to remark, that the letters to Peter 

 Paul Rubens, which Cl. Hopper states " would 

 have made an important augmentation to the re- 

 cently published Rubens' Papers," could scarcely 

 have been included in a volume which professes 

 to print only the unpublished papers preserved in 

 H. M.'s State Paper Oflice. There are in that 

 volume, 'tis true, three or four exceptions ; but 

 they are letters of considerable interest, and 

 written by the great artist himself. There are, 

 doubtless, numerous papers relating to Rubens 

 distributed in many parts of the world. 



I would take this opportunity of urging upon 

 those contributors to " N. & Q." who neglect to 

 do so, the importance of giving authorities for 

 their statements, where practicable. Whenever 

 MSS. are referred to, I do think it essential that 

 readers should be enabled to verify their au- 

 thenticity as well as their accuracy. When a 

 volume of " N. & Q." is consulted for reference, 

 how much more satisfactory and valuable will that 

 reference be, if it be added where the particular 

 document may be found ; so that, if requisite, the 

 printed copy may be compared with the original, 

 or who are the authorities quoted, that they also 

 may be verified. W. Noel Sainsbury. 



Cock\de (2 Dd S. viii. 37.) — On the question 

 whether the servants of gentlemen who are non- 

 commissioned officers and privates in Volunteer 

 Rifle Corps should wear cockades, I thought that 

 a precedent might be obtained from the City 

 Light Horse Volunteers — a corps which existed 

 from the end of the last century to about the 

 time of the passing of the Reform Bill. The 

 members of it were all gentlemen, who among 

 themselves defrayed the entire expenses of the 

 corps, and no one was admitted into it who did 

 not keep a horse worth 300 guineas ; and it is sup- 

 posed to have been the finest corps of light 

 cavalry that ever existed. At the beginning of 

 the present year I met one who was for many 

 years a member of this splendid corps, now a 

 D. L. and J. P. of his county, and I asked him if 

 the servants of the non-commissioned officers and 

 privates of the City Light Horse Volunteers wore 

 cockades? He replied, "Never; no one ever 

 thought of such a thing ; indeed I am certain thoy 

 did not, and that none of my servants wore cock- 

 ades." F. A. Carrinuton. 



Osborne St. George. 



