XVII 



Modern Gardening, to which he added a discourse on 

 the origin of the art, &c. ; Watelet, who wrote Essai 

 sur les Jardins, and whose name has given rise to 

 some most charming lines in De Lille's poem, and 



of Marat, who •' lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar, 

 among his cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of 

 ill omen, his death-screech was again heard," thus states the death 

 of another of the murderers of the Malherbes : — " Robespierre, in 

 an unsuccessful attempt to shoot himself, had only inflicted a horri- 

 ble fracture on his under- jam. In this situation they were found 

 like wolves in their lair, foul with blood, mutilated, despairing, and 

 yet not able to die. Robespierre lay on a table in an anti-room, his 

 head supported by a deal box, and his hideous countenance half- 

 hidden by a bloody and dirty cloth bound round his shattered chin. 

 As the fatal cars passed to the guillotine, those who filled them, but 

 especially Robespierre, were overwhelmed with execrations. The 

 nature of his previous wound, from which the cloth had never been 

 removed till the executioner tore it off, added to the torture of the 

 sufferer. The shattered jaw dropped, and the wretch yelled aloud, 

 to the horror of the spectators. A mask taken from that dreadful 

 head was long exhibited in different nations of Europe, and appalled 

 the spectator by its ugliness, and the mixture of fiendish expression 

 with that of bodily agony." 



Mons. Malherbes loved to relate an answer made to him by a 

 common fellow, during his stay at Paris, when he was obliged to go 

 four times every day to the prison of the Temple, to attend the 

 king : his extreme age did not allow him to walk, and he was com- 

 pelled to take a carriage. One day, particularly, when the weather 

 was intensely severe, he perceived, on coming out of the vehicle, 

 that the driver was benumbed with cold. " My friend," said Mal- 

 herbes to him, in his naturally tender manner, " you must be pene- 

 trated by the cold, and I am really sorry to take you abroad in this 

 bitter season." — " That's nothing, M. de Malherbes ; in such a 

 cause as this, I'd travel to the world's end without complaining."' — 

 " Yes, but your poor horses could not."--" Sir," replied the honest 

 coachman, " my horses think as I do" 



c 



