Among the persons lately deceased who are worthy of mention is Madame de Sermetzy, who died at her country seat, near the French city of Lyons, at the age of eighty-one years. Had circumstances favored the development of her genius, she would have acquired a name among the sculptors of the time. She left behind her a number of works in terra cotta. A Psyche of life-size is said to be full of expression and grace; a Plato is remarkable for anatomical correctness and manly force. Both are in the Academy at St. Pierre. She also modelled a Sappho, a Lesbia, and some dozen busts. Of smaller works, statuettes and groups, she has left some two hundred in terra cotta, among them a St Augustine, said to be admirable for expression and nobleness. The churches constantly received from her gifts of beautiful angels and madonnas. A few years before her death she modelled a madonna of the size of life, which is one of her best works. Want of means alone prevented her from executing her productions in marble. She was also familiar with the literature, not only of her own nation, but of the Latin, Spanish, Italian, and English languages, which she spoke with fluency and correctness, a rare accomplishment for a French woman. During the Empire and the Restoration she was intimate with Madame Recamier and Madame de Staël, and for penetration and readiness of mind and charm of manners was not unworthy to be named with these remarkable women.
Marshal Dode de la Bruniere, one of the soldiers of Napoleon, who raised him to the rank of Lieutenant-General, and employed him in many important services, died at Paris on the 28th February, aged seventy-seven. He served in the campaign of Egypt as a lieutenant of engineers. After the siege of Saragossa he was made a colonel. He participated in all the great battles of the empire, and was finally made a peer of France and a marshal by Louis Philippe, after having directed the construction of the gigantic fortifications around Paris. He was a frank, affable, and kind-hearted man.
M. Maillau, one of the most productive of Paris dramatists, died in that city March, twelfth, aged forty-five. He was born in Guadaloupe, and began life in France as a lawyer, but soon abandoned that profession to write for the stage. He wrote a large number of dramas, some of which were very successful. The last one, called La Révolution Française, has run a hundred and fifty nights, and is still performing. He was an excellent fellow, and nobody's enemy but his own.
Dr. Henry de Breslau, senior of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Munich, died lately. He was second medical officer on the staff of Napoleon, under Larrey, and followed the French army in the Russian campaign. He was made prisoner on the field of Waterloo. France, Bavaria, Saxony, Greece, and Portugal, had recognized his scientific eminence by severally enrolling his name among their orders of chivalry.
Commissioner Lin, whose seizure and destruction of the opium in 1839 led to the war with China, died suddenly on the eighteenth of November last, while on his way to the insurrectionary district of Quan-si.