The Baron de Monthyon was a French lawyer, greatly devoted to all that could do good to his fellow creatures. Little of his personal history is known; but what made his name celebrated was the endowments that he left by his will at his death, in 1820. The following is a translation of certain clauses in his will:–
"12. I bequeath the sum of 10,000 francs to provide an annual prize for whosoever shall discover any mode of rendering any mechanical art less unhealthy.
"13. A like sum of 10,000 francs as an annual prize for whosoever shall invent any means of perfecting medical science or surgical art.
"14. A like sum of 10,000 francs for an annual prize to the poor French person, who, in the course of the year, shall have performed the most virtuous action.
"15. A like sum of 10,000 francs for the French person who shall have composed and published in France the book most beneficial to morals. "
The two former prizes to be distributed by the Academy of Sciences; the two latter by the French Academy.
Besides these, there were large legacies to hospitals. All the prizes, we believe, continue to be given; but it is with the "Prize of Virtue", as it is called, that we are concerned. The French Academy, which is a society of all the most distinguished literary personages in France, has the office of bestowing this prize, which may either be given entire, or divided into lesser portions among a number of claimants, at the option of the Academy. The recommendation for such a prize must be sent up by the authorities of the town or village where it has taken place, and must contain a full account of the action itself, attested by witnesses, and likewise of the life of the person recommended, going back at least two years, and countersigned by all the chief persons in the place. Those to whom the prize is adjudged must appear in person, or by an authorized proxy, at the meeting of the Academy, where a discourse upon virtue in general is delivered by one of the members, and the meritorious deeds to which the prize is awarded are described in detail.
We are not sure that it suits our English tastes to have "golden deeds" thus paid for in gold; and we are quite sure that most English folks capable of such actions would much rather hide themselves than hear their praises trumpeted forth by an Academician. Nevertheless, there is something noble in M. de Monthyon's intention; and as almost all the "virtuous actions" were done perfectly irrespective of the prize, we cannot but be grateful for having had them brought to our knowledge.
Faithful servants, peasant women devoted to charity, and heroic preservers of life, are the chief objects selected by the Academy, with here and there an instance of extraordinary exertions of filial piety; as, for instance, Jeanne Parelle, to whom a prize was given in 1835.
She was one of the eight children of a labourer at Coulange, near Montrésor, and was born in 1786. She was in service when, in 1812, her mother became paralytic, and she came home and thenceforth devoted herself to the care of her parents. A few years after, her father had a sort of fit, in which his teeth were closely locked together, but his mouth filled with blood, and he would have been choked but for Jeanne's readiness in forcing them apart with her hands, at the cost of being severely bitten. The attack came on every night, and as regularly did Jeanne expose her hands to the dreadful bites of her unconscious father, until sometimes the flesh was torn almost to the bone, and yet she cheerfully went about her work all day, endeavouring to prevent her father from perceiving her injuries. This lasted ten years, during which time the poor people only once consulted a doctor, who could do nothing for them. The poor old man grew blind, sold his little house, and at last died, leaving his wife deaf, blind, unable to move from her chair, or to do anything but tell her beads. Jeanne spun, made hay, and tended her with the utmost care and cheerfulness; but, at length, the mother and daughter accepted an invitation from an elder married sister to come to Blois. They moved accordingly; but the sister was unable to do much for them, and they were obliged to hire a room, where they were supported by Jeanne's exertions, together with an allowance from the Bureau de Charité of three loaves and three pounds of meat in a month.
Of Jeanne's patience and sweetness with the poor old childish woman, the following testimony was given:–One festival-day, Mère Parelle wished to go to church, and Jeanne, now a hard-working woman of forty-five, made no difficulties, but petted and caressed her, promising that she should go; and on a hot August day she was seen with a great arm-chair on one arm, and her mother on the other. She dragged the old woman three steps, then set her down in the chair to rest; then lifted her up, led her a little farther, and put the chair down again. They were three-quarters of an hour in going the distance Jeanne would have walked in five minutes; and after the return was effected, Jeanne was full of delight. "Well, dearest, did you say your prayers well? Are you glad? You are not tired!" And this laborious journey was cheerfully renewed on the old woman's least wish. Sometimes Jeanne was advised to send her to the hospital, the last refuge of poverty in France, analogous to a workhouse.
"It breaks my heart when they say so," she said.
"But, Jeanne, your mother would be well cared for."
"I know that; I do not say so from contempt for the hospital. She would be taken care of. But tenderness, who would give her that?" And another time she added, "God leaves us our parents, that we may take care of them. If I forsook my poor patient, I should deserve that God should forsake me."
Jeanne and her mother lived on a ground floor, and many persons thus had the opportunity of observing that her tenderness never relaxed. She herself lived on the inferior bread provided by the charity, with a few turnips and potatoes, whilst she kept her mother on white bread, and, if possible, procured butter, cheese, and milk for her. Once when the curate had sent her a pie, which had been scarcely touched, her friends were surprised to see how long it lasted. "Yes, I make the most of it for my mother; I cut off nice little bits for her at her meals, it gives them a relish."
"Do not you eat it, then!"
"It would be a great pity for me to eat it, and nibble away her share, poor thing–it is her treat, and she has so few pleasures, poor sufferer!–neither hearing, nor seeing, and always in pain."
In a great frost, when it was bitterly cold, she was found trying to cover her mother with an old worn-out pelisse, and looking quite melancholy, so a good thick woollen wrapper was sent to her. On the next visit the old woman was found tied up in it, with strings over her shoulders, and the daughter beaming with delight. "Bless those who have warmed my mother," she said; "God will warm them in paradise." A pair of old warm flannel sleeves were given her for herself, but she was seen again with bare arms in the extreme cold. "Did not the sleeves fit you?" "Oh, I picked them to pieces. My mother bad pains in her knees, so I sewed the flannel on to her under-petticoat; it is warm, you see; she likes it, poor thing." And there the pieces were, laid out neatly so as to thicken the petticoat. Amid all her infirmities the delicate neatness and fresh cleanliness of the Mère Parelle were a continual wonder. One of the visiting ladies said, "Really your mother looks quite fresh and bright;" and the good daughter smiled, looking like a young mother complimented upon her child's beauty. "You think her so?" she said. "Ah, poor thing! she is fresher than I am, for she does not drudge so much;" and then with a sigh, "Ah, if she could but hear me!" For the poor sufferer had at last grown so entirely deaf, that she did not hear her daughter at all, and was constantly calling Jeanne without knowing that she was answered. For two months in the winter the daughter had never gone to bed, and though her own health began to suffer, she never complained. For five-and-twenty years, when the prize was given in 1830, had Jeanne Parelle been the unwearied nurse and bread-winner of first two, then one parent. It seems a small thing that man should attempt to reward such exertions, yet, on the other hand, there is something touching in this hard-handed, untaught, toiling, moiling elderly charwoman being chosen out to receive honour due by the first men in intellect and position in her country, and all for the simple, homely virtues of humble life.
Madame Vigier, a bourgeoise of Aurillac, originally in easy circumstances, and at one time rich, was left a widow with four sons, and gradually fell into a state of extreme distress. Two kind gentlemen, M. Sers, the Préfet of Cantal, and M. Azémard, curate of Nôtre Dame, were interested in the family, and three of the sons were placed in good situations, but the youngest, Jean, being a particularly clever, promising boy, they wished him to receive a superior education; and finding themselves unable both to keep him at school, and support his mother, they decided on sending Madame Vigier to the hospital. Jean was at this time nine and a half years old, and, at his boarding-school, scarcely knew of his mother's condition. Intending to break the matter to him, the curate invited him to his house for a holiday, and he came in his best clothes, but just as he had arrived M. Azémard was called away for a few minutes, and telling the boy not to meddle with his breviary, he went downstairs.
Little Jean was naughty boy enough to be incited to meddle by the prohibition itself! As he took up the breviary, out fell a paper. It was an order for the hospital, and his mother's name was on it! The first thing the boy did was to run downstairs, and back to the school, there to change his clothes for his everyday ones. When he reappeared, the curate said, "Ah! poor child, curiosity led you astray, but the fault has brought its own punishment, and you have been hiding yourself to cry over it."
"No, Monsieur le Curé, I have not been crying. I know it all. My mother shall not go to the hospital, she would die of vexation. I will not return to school. I will stay with her. I will support her."
The curate, though struck with his manner, tried to reason him out of his resolution, and took him to several friends, who represented to him that by finishing his education, he would enable himself, by and by, to provide far better for his mother than if he broke it off at once; but his one idea was to save her from the hospital, and he was not to be persuaded. He consulted his brothers, who were making their way in the world, and begged them to assist him in maintaining her; then when they refused, he asked them at least to lend him a small sum, promising to repay them. Still they refused, and all that was left for him to do, was to sell his clothes and a watch that the prefect had given him as a reward for some success at school. With this capital, the little fellow set up as a hawker of cakes and children's toys, and succeeded in earning enough to support his mother. At the time his name was brought forward for a "prix de vertu" he had been nineteen years solely devoted to her, refusing every offer that would separate him from her, and making her happy by his attentions. He was at that time porter at an inn at Aurillac, a situation which must have been a great contrast with those which he might have obtained but for his love of his mother.
It may be said, however, that to show "piety at home" is the very first and most natural of duties. Let us pass on, then, to see what devoted affection has done where the tie was only that of servant to master.
The faithful statesman of the great Henri IV, the Duc de Sully, was amply rewarded by his grateful master, and left a princely estate to his family, but after a few generations the male line became extinct, and the heiress, named Maximilienne de Bethune, after her great ancestor, carried the property into the house of Aubespine.
Bad management, together with the reverses of the Revolution, gradually destroyed the riches of this family, and at last the Marquis d'Aubespine was obliged to sell the castle of Villebon, with all the memorials of the great Sully, and the only estate that remained to him. Out of the price, he could only save enough from his creditors to purchase for himself an annuity of 6000 francs, another of 2400 francs for his son, and a third of 400 for Alexandre Martin, a servant who had lived with him thirty-five years, and had been educated at his expense. Soon after the poor old Marquis died, and the creditors immediately came down upon Martin, and seized his annuity. There was no redress, and Martin returned to his native village of Champrond-en-Gatinais, and took up the trade of a carpenter, which he had learnt at the Marquis's expense before becoming his servant. On the 16th of June, 1830, his cottage door opened, and there stood his old master's son, the Comte d'Aubespine, with his three little motherless children, Angelique, five years old, Josephine, four, and Louis little more than a year. The Count said that his affairs obliged him to leave France for a short time, and he had no one to whom to entrust his little ones but to good Alexandre. The charge was willingly accepted as an honour, though the carpenter knew the family secrets too well to wonder that nothing was said about paying their expenses, and perhaps he also guessed that this short absence was only to last for the Count's life.
At any rate, he accepted the children. He had three of his own, of whom the eldest was able to work. She and her mother earned twenty-four sous a day, and he earned thirty, and upon this the little Count and his sisters were maintained, as far as possible, according to their rank. At their meals they were seated at the cottage table, and waited on as respectfully by Martin, as if they had been at the grand salon in the château, and he their footman. He never sat down with them, but kept them distinct in all ways from his own children, who ate scanty brown bread with him, that the little guests might eat white; wore their coarse clothes to rags, that the young d'Aubespines might be dressed neatly; and slept on the floor, while the little nobles had comfortable beds. There were no murmurs; all came naturally out of the grateful loyalty of the family towards their master's grandchildren. No more was heard of the father till his death, six years after. The news of this event excited the attention of the neighbourhood, and it became known that the last descendants of Sully were growing up in the cottage of a poor carpenter, and owing their education to the curate of the parish. Some ladies at Chartres offered to take charge of the two little girls, and though the parting was most painful, Martin was glad to enable them to be brought up as ladies. As to the boy, the first help that came for his education was from a charitable foundation, endowed by his great ancestor, at Nogent de Rotrou, and thus the only portion of the wealth of Sully that ever reached his young descendant, was that which had been laid up in the true treasure-house of charity. Afterwards a scholarship was presented to him by Louis Philippe at the College of Henri IV, and in 1838 he and Alexandre Martin were both present at a meeting of the Academy, when a discourse was made by M. Salvandi, part of which deserves to be recorded.
"Martin, your task is over. You have deserved well from all good men. You have shown our age a sight only too rare–gratitude, fidelity, respect. The Academy awards to your virtue a prize of 3000 francs. And you, Louis d'Aubespine, since you are present at this solemnity, may it make a deep and lasting impression on your young heart. You are entering life, as persons are now and then forced to appear at a later age, with all eyes on you. Learn that the first of earthly blessings is to be honoured by one's country, and pray the God who has watched over your infancy to enable you to win that blessing that depends on ourselves, and that no event can rob us of. One day you will be told that illustrious blood flows in your veins, but never forget that you must trace your line as far back as to Sully, before you can find a name worthy to stand beside that of Martin. Grow up then to show yourself worthy of the memory of your ancestor, the devotion of your benefactor, and the patronage of the King!"
A maid-servant, called Rose Pasquer, at Nantes, during the worst years of the Revolution, entirely maintained her master and mistress after they had been ruined by the loss of their estates in St. Domingo. She was eighty years in the service of the same family, and received a prize in her hundredth year, in 1856.
Another woman, named Madeleine Blanchet, who lost her husband at the end of the first year of her marriage, was taken into the service of an old lady at Buzançais, called Madame Chambert, who put out the widow's baby to nurse, and was very kind to her. In this house, Madeleine had been for nine years, when, in the winter of 1852, there was a tremendous riot in the town, on account of the high price of bread. For some time beforehand, reports had been flying about that the Red Republicans intended to rise against all persons of property, whom they called bourgeois, and there was a story that an old man had said, "I have seen two Revolutions already, at the third I shall fix my scythe crosswise, and then woe to the bourgeois." These rumours filled the town with alarm, and certain rich persons were known to be marked out for the fury of the mob, and among them were Madame Chambert and her son. On the night before the affray, their servants received a warning that if they tried to defend their master and mistress, they would be killed; but there were at least two who disregarded the threat, a man-servant named Bourgeau and Madeleine Blanchet.
On the morning of the 14th of January was heard that sound of dread–the tocsin. The Republicans were already collected, and began by sacking a great manufactory, and then falling upon the various obnoxious establishments in the town, becoming more savage with every success. There was no resistance; the citizens shut themselves up in their houses, without attempting to unite to defend themselves, and in a short time the whole town was at the mercy of the insurgents. After many acts of plunder and cruelty had taken place, the raging populace came to M. Chambert's house, and speedily breaking in, a man named Venin led the way into the drawing-room, where M. Chambert was trying to encourage his aged mother, and the two servants were with them. Madeleine was so much terrified that she fainted away, upon hearing Venin speak insolently to her master; Bourgeau went up to him and knocked him down; but as others of the furious mob came rushing in, Bourgeau's courage forsook him, and he fled. His master had fetched his gun, and shot Venin, who had risen for another attack; but this was the signal for the whole rage of the multitude to be directed against him, and he too fled, only to be followed by the savage populace, who hunted him from room to room, even to the next house, where he fell under a multitude of blows, crying out, "Mercy, friends!" "You have no friends," answered a voice from the crowd, the last sound that met the ears of the dying man.
Madeleine had, in the meantime, recovered from her swoon, recalled by the shrieks and sobs of her poor old mistress, mingled with the oaths, imprecations, and abusive threats of the murderous crowd. She saw the room thronged with these wild figures, their blouses stained with wine and blood, weapons of all sorts in their hands, triumphant fury in their faces. Her first endeavour, on regaining her senses, was to push through them to the side of the old lady, whom they had not yet personally attacked, and whose terror seemed for the moment lessened by the sight of her maid's kindly face. Then, as there was no certainty that even age and womanhood would long be a protection, Madeleine tried to remove her, and supporting her with one arm, she made her way with the other, struggling on through blows, pushes, and trampling feet, till she had rather carried than led Madame Chambert into the court; but here was the greatest danger of all. Seeing the lady escaping, the mob outside fell upon her, blows were aimed at the two defenceless women, and the mistress fell down, while the ruffians rushed at them with cries of "Death! death!"–the same shouts with which they had hunted the son.
"Go–go, my poor girl!" faintly murmured Madame Chambert. "I must die here! Go away!"
No, indeed! Madeleine knelt over her, calling out, "You shall not kill my mistress till you have killed me!"
A man brandished a Cutlass over her, and several frantic women struck her, even whilst, with outstretched arms, she parried all the strokes at her mistress, all the time appealing to their better feelings, and showing them the cowardly barbarity of thus wreaking their vengeance on a helpless old woman. Her words, and still more her self-devotion; touched two of the men, whose human hearts returned to them sufficiently to make them assist her in withstanding the ferocity of the rest. They helped her to lift up Madame Chambert, and guarded her on her way to a friend's house, where a hiding place was found for the mistress. But the maid would not stay there; she recollected her mistress's property, and hurried back into the midst of the mob to save all she could, seizing on the plate and other valuables whenever she saw them–sometimes snatching them out of the hands of the plunderers, or pouncing on their heaps of spoil–and then, whenever she had rescued anything, depositing it in the friendly house, and then going back for another prize. She continued to go and come for several hours, until all that she had not been able to save had been entirely destroyed. All this she considered as the simplest duty, and mere fulfilment of her trust as a servant.
When order was restored, and the rioters were tried for their atrocities, she was called in as a witness, and asked what she had seen. She replied shortly and clearly, but said not a word of herself.
"But," said the President, "witnesses tell us that you covered your mistress with your own body, and saved her from the blows of the murderers. Is it true?"
"Yes, sir," she answered, quietly.
"You were heard to declare, that they should kill you before they should kill your mistress. Is it true?"
"Yes, sir," again she said; and that was all–not a sentence of self-exaltation, or of the false modesty of self-depreciation, passed her lips.
"If," said the President, after hearing all the evidence, "there had been only twenty men at Buzançais with the heart of that woman, none of the disasters we deplore would have taken place."
And yet Madeleine had begun by fainting; thus showing how little sensibility of nerves has to do with that true moral courage whose source is in the soul alone–as the Academician said who had the pleasant task of relating her exploits, when, at the next meeting of the Academy, she received a gold medal, and an extra prize of 5000 francs.
Almost at the same time there came to light an act of generosity, of the most unusual description, on the part of a servant, and not even towards her own master. Fanny Muller, a young girl in one of the semi-German departments of France, was betrothed to Jean Pierre Wat, a youth in her native village, before they parted, in order to go into service, and save enough to marry upon. Fanny became a maid at an hotel at Paris, and was there much esteemed for the modesty and propriety of her conduct. In 1830, an Italian officer came to the inn–an elderly man, exiled from his country for political causes, arid suffering acutely from a frightful wound received sixteen years previously, when he was serving under Napoleon I. Every day Fanny was called in to assist the surgeon in dressing the wound, and her tender heart made her a kindly nurse, until the poor soldier had exhausted all his means, and the landlord was about to turn him out in a state of utter destitution. Shocked at his condition, Fanny offered him her savings out of her wages of thirty-five francs a month, with which he took a lodging, and there tried to maintain herself by giving music lessons. He was joined by his son, a young boy, but soon after fell so ill again, that he could no longer give lessons. Fanny came again to the rescue; and when her little hoard was exhausted, she borrowed. Just then her betrothed, Wat, came to Paris, with his savings of 2000 francs, and claimed her promise. She told him all, and–wonderful to relate–he was a like-minded man; he freely gave his little fortune into her hands to pay the debt, and, putting off the marriage, he further assisted her in supporting the invalid and the boy. At last, after fifteen years of this patient generosity, the poor old officer died of the effects of the amputation of the injured limb; and the clergyman of the district, knowing the circumstances, recommended the betrothed pair for the Monthyon prize, as a dowry that might at length enable them to enjoy the happiness that they had so generously deferred.
Hosts of other deeds of pure charity and beneficence among the poorest of the poor have come to light among the records of these prizes. Here is a memorial sent in 1823 by the curate of the parish of St. Jean and St. François, at Paris:–
The wife of Jacquemin, a water-carrier, living at No. 17, Rue de Quatre Fils, au Marais, father of three children, one aged five years, dumb and infirm, only earning from thirty-five to forty sous a day, came, some days ago, to ask help for a helpless, indigent woman, maimed of two fingers, and incapable of gaining a livelihood.
"Where does the woman live?" I asked.
"With us."
"How long has she been with you?"
"Ten months: this is the eleventh."
"What does she pay you by the day or month?"
"Nothing."
"What! nothing?"
"Not as much as you could put in your eye."
"Has she relief?"
"Yes; and so have I. I get bread for my children. Since she has been with us, I weaken the porridge, and she eats it with us."
"You have no means of helping others, unless she has promised to make it up to you."
"She never promised me anything but her prayers."
"Does not your husband complain?"
"My husband is a man of few words. He says nothing; he is so kind."
"Does he not go to the public-house?"
"Never; he works himself to death for his children."
"Ten months is a long time."
"She was out in the street, and begged me to shelter her for two or three days; and Jacquemin and I could never have the heart to turn her out. He says, besides, that one must do as one would be done by."
"But, my good woman, what is your lodging?"
"Two rooms."
"What is your rent?"
"It was a hundred and twenty francs; but it has been raised twenty, which makes it eight sous a day."
"I think you should be asking charity for yourself."
"I have already told you, M. le Curé, that I have bread for my children. I ask for nothing for myself. Thank God, as long as my husband and I can work, I should be ashamed to beg for ourselves!"
"Well, good woman, here are ten francs for–"
"Oh, how happy poor Madame Petrel will be!"
Tears of joy came into this charitable woman's eyes. I had meant the ten francs for herself; but I did not undeceive her–the mistake was such an honour to her.
"Go and tell the widow Petrel, who owes you so much, to get two petitions drawn up; one for the Grand Almoner, the other for the Prefect, for a place in the hospital. I will present them."
And the widow was placed in the hospital, while the good Jacquemins received a prize.
There was a more heroic touch in the story of Madeleine Saunier, who was born in 1802, at St. Etienne de Varenne, in the department of the Rhone. This girl had, even when a child, sent out to watch cattle in the fields, been in the habit of sharing the meals she carried out with her with the poor, only begging them to keep the secret. The privations she imposed on herself had a serious effect on her health and growth; but still, when she grew up, her whole soul was fixed on charity; and though she had to work for her own support, she still contrived to effect marvels for others.
A poor blind widow, with an idiot daughter, lived a mile and a half from her cottage; but for fifteen years Madeleine never failed to walk to them, to feed them, set their house in order, and cheer them up to wait for her coming the next day. About as far off in another direction was a poor girl in such a horrible state of leprosy, that–shocking to relate–her own family had abandoned her, and for eighteen months she lay in an outhouse, where no one came near her but Madeleine Saunier, who came twice a day to give her the little nourishment she could take, and to dress her frightful wounds; and at last she died in the arms of this her only friend.
In 1840, Madeleine was nearly drowned in trying to cross a swelling torrent that lay between her and one of her daily pensioners, and when she was blamed for the rashness, she only said, "I could not help it; I could not go yesterday, I was obliged to go to-day."
In the course of a cold winter, Madeleine was nursing a dying woman named Mancel, who lived on the hillside, in a hovel more like a wild beast's den than the home of a human creature. Towards the end of a long night, Madeleine had lighted a few green sticks to endeavour to lessen the intense cold, when the miserable door, which was only closed by a stone on the floor, was pushed aside, and through the smoke, against the snow, the dark outline of a wolf was seen, ready to leap into the room. All Madeleine could do was to spring to the door, and hold it fast, pulling up everything she could to keep it shut, as the beast bounded against it, while she shouted and called in all the tones she could assume, in hopes that the wolf would fancy the garrison more numerous. Whether he were thus deceived or not, he was hungry enough to besiege her till her strength was nearly exhausted, and then took himself off at daylight.
A few hours after, the sick woman died, but Madeleine could not bear to leave the poor corpse to the mercy of the wolf, and going to the nearest cottage implored permission to place it there till the burial could take place. Then again, over the snow into the wolf-haunted solitude, back she went; she took the body on her shoulders, and, bending under her burthen, she safely brought it to the cottage, where she fell on her knees, and thanked God for her safety. The next day, the wolf's footsteps on the snow showed that he had spent the night in prowling round the hut, and that its frail defence had not excluded him from entering it.
France, with all its faults, has always been distinguished for the pure, disinterested honour it shows to high merit for its own sake, and Madeleine had already received a testimony of respect from good Queen Amélie, before the Monthyon prize was decreed to her.
One of the prizes was given to Étienne Lucas, a little boy of six and a half, who saw a child of two fall into the river Eure. He knew the danger, for one of his sisters had lately been drowned; but running to the spot, he waded about fifteen paces in the stream, caught the little one, and drew him to the bank, keeping his head carefully above water. But the bank was too steep for the little fellow to climb, and he could only stand screaming till a man came and lifted out both. A gold medal was given to him and a scholarship at an educational establishment. Indeed, the rescuers from water, from fire, and all the accidents to which human life is liable, would be too many to attempt to record, and having described a few, we must leave our readers to seek the rest for themselves in that roll of golden deeds, the records of the Prix de Vertu.
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