I think it is from this interesting book, which throws much light upon many of the intricate passages of the history of the times, that I derived my information. It is in all respects a work worth consulting.
S.W. SINGER.
REMAINS OF JAMES II.
(Vol. ii., p. 243.).
The following passage is transcribed from a communication relative to the Scotch College at Paris, made by the Rev. H. Longueville Jones to the Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, 1841, vol. vii. p. 33.:—
"The king left his brains to this college; and, it used to be said, other parts, but this is more doubtful, to the Irish and English colleges at Paris. His heart was bequeathed to the Dames de St. Marie at Chaillot, and his entrails were buried at St. Germain-en-Laye, where a handsome monument has been erected to his memory by order of George IV.; but the body itself was interred in the monastery of English Benedictine Monks that once existed in the Rue du Faubourg St. Jacques, close to the Val de Grace. In this latter house, previous to the Revolution, the following simple inscription marked where the monarch's body lay:—
"'CI GIST JACQUES II. ROI DE LA GRANDE BRETAGNE.'"
A monument to the king still exists in the chapel of the Scotch College (which is now leased to a private school), and the inscription, in Latin, written by James, Duke of Perth, is printed in the same volume of Collectanea, p. 35., followed by all the other inscriptions to James's adherents now remaining in that chapel.
In a subsequent communication respecting the Irish College at Paris, made by the same gentleman, and printed in the same volume, at p. 113. are these remarks:—
"It is not uninteresting to add, that the body of James II. was brought to this college after the destruction of the English Benedictine Monastery adjoining the Val de Grace; and remained for some years in a temporary tomb in one of the lecture halls, then used as the chapel. It was afterwards removed; by whose authority, and to what place, is not exactly known: but it is considered not improbable that it was transported to the church of St. Germain-en-Laye, and there buried under the monument erected by George IV. Some additional light will probably be thrown on this subject, in a work on the Stuarts now in course of compilation."
Has this work since appeared?