astronomer Messieur, the colleague of Bailly in the French Academy. 
Messieur appeared to have added to the fii’st volume an engraved 
portrait of his friend, along with the address to the citizens of Paris, 
published by Bailly in defence of his administration as Mayor of 
Paris, in the year 1790, on the eve of the outbreak of the great 
French Pevolution. Bailly, who had filled the office of First 
President of the National Assembly of France, was called as a 
witness for the prosecution against Marie Antoinette when arraigned 
before the Pevolutionary tribunal. What he deposed was in favour 
of the accused. This sealed his doom; he was arraigned before 
the same judges shortly afterwards, and perished by the guillotine. 
Of Delambre’s works it was sufficient to quote the judgment of a 
high authority: ‘‘Delambre is the most searching of critics, the 
most severe of judges, and the least national of historians.” 
May 4. —The Pev. J. Keyeick exhibited an ampulla from the 
Society’s Collection, with the head of Thomas-a-Becket, (canonized 
as St. Thomas of Canterbury) and read some remarks on mediaeval 
pilgrimages and the signacula or tokens which the pilgrims brought 
away from the shidnes visited by them. The token in question 
exhibits the head of the Archbishop on one side with the words 
“ Optimus aegrorum medicus fit Thoma bonorum,” indicating that 
the pilgrim had derived benefit in sickness Pom a prayer or vow 
addressed to the holy martyr. The ampulla, being made of a 
flexible metal, could be closed by pressure, so as to contain a fluid 
—in this case perhaj^s the blood of the Archbishop, which down to 
the verge of the Peformation continued to be dispensed to the 
pilgrims who visited his shrine. Chaucer did not complete his 
Canterbury Tales, but a writer who undertook their continuation 
describes them on their return as fui’nishing themselves with 
tokens of their visit. These they wore on the homeward journey, 
fixed on various parts of their di’ess. Another common form of the 
Canterbury token was a bell, ‘^Campana Thomae;” which the 
pilgrims fixed to the end of their staves, and jangled as they went 
along the road. A token found in the Seine, and figured in M. 
Forgeais’ “ Enseignes des Pelerinages,” exhibits on the reverse 
the four knights attacking Becket, Fitziu’se, who leads them, 
pointing liis sword at the Archbishop’s breast. It is a remarkable 
circumstance that both in England and in France so many of these 
signacula, of all varieties, have been found in the bed of rivers. 
All those figured in M. Forgeais’ work were obtained from the 
