50 MEMOIRS OF 



Teutobochus, in the reign of Louis XIII., which occasioned 

 a number of famous disputes, in which the actors were 

 much more anxious to abuse each other than to establish 

 the truth. One of them, however, named Riolan, for a 

 person who had never seen the skeleton of an elephant, 

 showed, with considerable skill, that these bones probably 

 belonged to such an animal. It would appear, as far as the 

 fact can be now ascertained, that on the llth of January, 

 1613, some bones were found in a sand pit, near the castle 

 of Chaumont, or Langon, between the towns of Montri- 

 caut, Serre, and Antoine. Part of them were broken by 

 the workmen ; but a surgeon of Beaurepaire. named Ma- 

 zurier, showed those which remained whole for money, in 

 Paris, and several other places, and in order to excite further 

 curiosity, he circulated a pamphlet, in which he asserted that 

 they had been found in a sepulchre, thirty feet long, on 

 which had been inscribed, < Teutobochus Rex.' It is well 

 known that this was the name of the King of the Cimbri 

 who fought against Marius ; and, to further this supposi- 

 tion, y M. Mazurier added, that fifty medals were found in 

 the same place, bearing the effigy of this Roman consul, 

 and the initials of his name. The surgeon, however, wag 

 accused of having employed a Jesuit, named Tournon, to 

 write this pamphlet, and who forged the history of the 

 sepulchre and the inscription. The pretended medals bore 

 Gothic instead of Roman letters, and it seems that Mazurier 

 never justified himself from these accusations of imposture/' 

 The bones were afterwards all recognised as belonging to 

 elephants ; but, notwithstanding this detection, there was 

 no end to the stories about giants, and each country possess- 

 ed its own marvellous tale. The city of Lucerne took for 

 supporters to its coat of arms pretended giants found in 

 1577, near that place, and close by the cloister of Rcyclen, 

 in a hole, which was accidently formed by the tearing up 

 of a large oak by the roots, in a heavy gale of wind. The 

 Council of Lucerne sent them to Felix Plater, a physician 

 at Bale, who had a drawing made of a human skeleton, 

 the size which he thought these bones indicated. It mea- 

 sured nineteen feet, and was sent, with the bones, back to 

 Lucerne, where the drawing is still preserved. It, and the 

 bones still in existence, were recently inspected by M. Blu- 



