From The Pall Mall Gazette.

THE DEATH OF THE DUC D'ORLEANS. M. TROGNON'S "Life of Queen Marie gives the following account of Amélie " the death of the Duc d'Orléans, written by the unhappy mother herself a few days after the event:

from me....

My Chartres, my beloved son, he whose birth made all my happiness, whose infancy and growing years were all my occupation, whose youth was my pride and my consolation, and who would, as I hoped, be the prop of my old age, no longer exists! He has been taken from us, in the midst of the completest happiness and of the happiest prospect for the future, while each day he gained in virtue, in sense, in wisdom, following the footsteps of his noble and excelleut father. He was more than a son to me, he was my best friend. And God has taken him On the 2nd, Chartres and Hélène left Plombières, where the latter was to take baths. He was, after having established her there, to come back and spend a few days at Paris, before going to Saint Omer, there to take the command of a corps d'armée'intended to execute great manoeuvres on the Marne, which had been the object of all his thoughts and employments for a year past. Accordingly, on the 9th, he returned from Plombières, and came to dine with us at Neuilly, full of the elections, and talking of them with that warmth of heart and intellect which was apparent in all that he did. Next day he came, contrary to his usual custom, with an enormous bouquet, - my fête daytelling me it was given in the name of the whole family. He heard mass and breakfasted with

buildings and large mills and granaries] tate the example of our great mercantile have been half consumed, when numer- firms. We hope they may never have to ous villages have been swept clean away, listen to a more urgent or heartrending when death has been busy even among appeal than that which comes to them those who had the lakes for a refuge, we from the Western forests and prairies. can easily guess the fate of the occupants of many a solitary forest farm, although for too obvious reasons we hear as yet little or nothing of these. With the trees coming up to their very homesteads, acting like so many trains laid for the fire to run along, what chance had they for escape? We have often heard of prairie fires whose speed outstripped that of the swiftest horse; and settlers flying with their women and children had little chance with the slower advance of the remorseless forest conflagration that was hemming them in. The Detroit Post remarks that the destruction in these forest fires may prove equal to that sustained at Chicago. Already the reported loss of life from the country far exceeds that in the city, and from the very nature of things it is impossible we can as yet know the worst. We have terrible proof of the combustible condition of the country, and by the latest accounts there has been little lull in the fatal winds. Thus there is parched fuel ready in profusion, with fanners all ready to blow any chance spark into a widespreading calamity. Nor could these disasters have happened at a worse time. The crops for the most part had been stored, but not sold; the hard-won family supplies had been laid in for the long winter. Now the winter is upon the sufferers, and they are left with neither food nor shelter. Chicago, which would in other circumstances have freely opened its purse, is itself reduced for the moment to beg for charity, and the efforts of Chicago's wealthy neighbours to assist her may seriously diminish their power of being charitable elsewhere. With good reason we have almost unbounded faith in American generosity, and in no country has unmerited misfortune a better chance of being relieved. But, at best, the scattered fires in the forests will be apt to pale into comparative insignificance before the grand blaze of Chicago; and when there is so much crying misery at their doors, busy philanthropists may forget to go far afield to unknown villages beyond the range of telegraph and railway. We do not know that we in England have been over liberal in our contributions to Chicago; the sum raised has been made up in the main by munificent subscriptions from a handful of great firms. We could wish that English households would come forward and imi

us.

He sat beside me at

On the 12th he

He was so cheerful! dinner; he got up, drank my health with much clatter, and made the band play a particular Who would have said march, in honour of me. that this was the last time this dear child was to show me so much affection? On the 11th, he again remained to dinner, and spent the evening with us, much occupied all the time by his camp and the elections. arrived about four o'clock in his country suit. We conversed together about the health of Hélène which made him anxious, about Clementina's marriage which he earnestly desired, about the elections, and many other subjects, he always ending with the " refrain,' "In short, dear Majesty, we always end by agreeing upon important points." And it was very true. . . . After dinner we took a turn in the park, he, Victoire, Clémentine, Aumale, and I. Never had he been so gay, so brilliant, so affectionate

to me.

He spoke to me of his arrangements | a fragment of the true cross, and I put it into for the troops, of the time when the King was the hand of my poor child, that the saving God to go with us to Sainte Menehould, of the time might have pity on him in his passage to eterhe should spend there, of his daily occupations; nity. M. Pasquier got up and spoke in the he looked forward to giving him a representa- king's ear. Then that venerable and unfortution of the Battle of Valmy. I gave him my nate father, his face bathed in tears, knelt by arm, saying, "Come, dear prop of my old age," the side of his eldest son, and, tenderly embrac and next day he was to exist no longer! We ing him, cried, "Ah! if it were I instead of he.” had returned to the drawing-room a little late; I also drew near, and kissed him three times for a great many people came. He remained talk- myself, for Hélène, for his children. I laid ing till ten o'clock, and when going away he upon his mouth the little cross, the symbol of came to bid me good night. I gave him my our redemption, and I then placed it and left it hand and said, "You will come and see us to- on his heart. The whole family embraced him morrow before leaving." He replied "Per- by turns, then each returned to his place. haps.' On the 13th, at eleven o'clock, we were But the breathing now became irregular: it about to get into the carriage to go to the Tuil- was twice interrupted and resumed. I then eries. Following the King to the red drawing- asked that the priest might return to say the room I see Trouessart (commissioner of police) prayers for the dying. He had scarcely knelt with a terrified countenance whispering to Gen- down and made the sign of the cross when my eral Gourgaud, who makes a gesture of horror dear child drew a last and deep breath, and his and goes to speak in a low voice to the King, beautiful, good, generous, and noble soul left who cries out, "Ah! my God." Then I cry his body. . . The priest, at my request, said out, " Something has happened to one of my a "De Profundis; " the king wanted to lead me children. I will know the truth; let nothing be away, but I begged him to allow me to embrace hidden from me." The King replies, "Yes, for the last time this beloved son, the object of my dear, Chartres has had a fall coming here, my deepest tenderness. I took that dear head and he has been carried into a house at Sablon- in my hands, I kissed his cold and discoloured ville." Hearing that, I began to run like a lips, I placed the little cross upon them, then mad woman in spite of the cries of the King and carried it away, bidding a last farewell to him the remonstrances of M. de Chabannes, who whom I loved so well, whom I loved, perhaps, followed me. But any strength was not at one too well. The king led me into the next room: with my heart, and on getting as far as the I fell on his neck; we were unhappy together: farm, I was exhausted. Happily the King came our irreparable loss was common to both, and I up in the carriage with my sister, and I got in suffered as much for him as for myself. There with them. Our carriage stopped, we got out was a crowd in the little room; I wept, I talked, in haste, and went into the inn, where, in a I was beside myself. I remembered no one but small room, on a mattress stretched upon the the unhappy Marshal Gérard, the extent of ground we found Chartres, who was being bled whose misfortune I then understood. At the at that moment. The death-rattle had be- end of a few minutes they said that all was "What is that? "said the King to me. ready. The body had been placed on a stretcher I replied, "My friend, that is the death-rattle. covered with a white cloth. It was carried by For pity's sake, let some one fetch a priest, that four men of the house, and supported by two my poor child may not die like a dog.' And I gendarmes. They went out by the stable gate; went for a moment into a little room, where I there was an immense crowd outside. Two batfell on my knees and asked God from my in- talions of the 2nd and 17th Light Cavalry, who most soul if He wanted a victim to take me, and had but lately passed the gates of Tron with to spare our so dear child. . . . Dr. Pasquier him and stormed the brow of Mouzaïa, lined the arrived soon after. I said to him: "Sir, you hedge and remained with us. We all followed are a man of honour; if you think the danger ou foot the inanimate body of this beloved son, imminent, I entreat you to tell me so, that my who a few hours before came along this road child may receive extreme unction." He hung full of health, strength, happiness, and hope to his head, and said: Madame, it is time for this." embrace his parents now plunged into an imThe curé of Neuilly came in and administered mense sorrow. Thus we carried him, and laid the sacrament, while we were all on our knees him down in our dear little chapel where, four round the pallet weeping and praying. I un- days before, he had heard mass with the whole loosed from my neck a small cross, containing a family.

gun.

THOSE who err in one direction, always take | sincere. nobody having ever thought of accuscare to let you know that they are quite free ing him even of that small and wretched apfrom error in the opposite direction. A boorish proach to politeness which is sometimes favoured man thanks God very loudly that he is not in- by insincerity. Arthur Helps.

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Each prayer be granted. Then, "Alas!" said Short is the path remaining to be trod

1

From The Edinburgh Review. EUROPEAN ADVENTURERS IN INDIA.*

years, into that of Russia, and was taken prisoner by the Turks at the siege of Tenedos. Hearing after his release from some Englishmen whom he met at Smyrna that there was a great opening for military adventure in India, he proceeded thither, arriving at Madras early in 1778; where he became an officer in a regiment of the East India Company's native infantry. But conceiving himself to have been ill-used by Lord Macartney, then the Governor, in the matter of promotion, he threw up his commission and proceeded to Calcutta, being furnished with letters of

would seem to have condoned his conduct in retiring from the service), to Warren Hastings, then the Governor-General of India.

THE object of Colonel Malleson in his highly interesting and instructive "History of the French in India," was to describe the fierce struggle for mastery in which the two great nations of Western Europe were engaged on the coast of Coromandel about the middle of the last century. He therefore closed his narrative with the capture of Pondicherry_by the British forces under Coote in January 1761. The task which he had set himself was then finished, and it did not fall within the scope of his work to notice the introduction from the Governor (who soldiers of fortune (not all, indeed, French), who some twenty or thirty years afterwards entered into the service of the native princes in the north-west and centre of India, and taught them, for the first time, the value of disciplined infantry, supported by well-served artillery. For up to that period the Mahrattas, as well as the Rajpoots, placed their reliance almost solely upon the large bodies of cavalry which their system of government enabled them to bring into the field. It is our object to tell the tale how these men, or those among them who were masters of their craft, and who have been wittily called "the small change of Clive," taught the art of war to those whom they found trusting in numbers alone, and with no other requisite for conquest than a certain amount of personal valour.

Benoit de Boigne, a native of Savoy, was the first who possessed at once the discernment to see the advantages of this important change in the military system of the Mahrattas, and the influence necessary to bring it into practical operation. He had commenced his career as an officer in the Irish brigade in the service of France, from which he passed, after some

• Military Memoirs of Mr. George Thomas, who, by extraordinary talents and enterprise, rose from

an obscure situation to the rank of a general in the service of the native Powers in the north-west of In

dia.

By WILLIAM FRANCKLIN, Captain of Infantry, &c. &c. Calcutta: 1803.

2. Military Memoir of Lieut.-Col. James Skinner, C.B., for many years a distinguished officer commanding a Corps of Irregular Cavalry in the service of the H. E. I. C. By J. BAILLIE FRASER, Esq., Author of "Travels in Khorassan, Mecopo

tamia, and Kourdistan," &c. &c. London: 1851.

After some vicissitudes of fortune, not very serious, in the north-western provinces, De Boigne determined upon entering the service of one of the native Powers in that quarter, then, as always, engaged in hostilities, and finally attached himself to Madhajee Sindhia, for whom he undertook to raise and discipline two battalions of infantry, numbering 850 men in each. This object he accomplished within five months, and for three years after he joined the Mahratta army he did excellent service, and satisfied himself by experience of the soundness of his views in organizing regiments of infantry upon the model of the Sepoys whom he had seen at Madras and Calcutta. But he shortly perceived that the body under his immediate command, although it seems to have always borne the brunt of the affairs in which it was engaged, was too small to prove of essential service in deciding the issue of pitched battles, where many thousands were arrayed on either side; and he consequently urged Sindhia to allow him to organize a much larger force on the same system. But that prince, though highly intelligent, was naturally strongly prejudiced in favour of the national arm, and declined at the time De Boigne's offer. He therefore retired to Lucknow, and entered into business as a merchant, in some sort of connection with a man afterwards known as General Martine, in the service of the Newab Vizier,