"THE FUTURE KING OF FRANCE."
The body has not been claimed, and the police authorities have instituted an inquiry to discover his family.
The following clever and extraordinary story is told in the Paris Droit:
"A commercial traveller, whose business frequently called him from Orleans to Paris, M. Edmund D——, was accustomed to go to an hotel, with the landlord of which he was acquainted. Liking, like almost all persons of his profession, to talk and joke, he was the favorite of everybody in the hotel. A few days ago he arrived, and was received with pleasure by all, but it was observed that he was much less gay than usual. The stories that he told, instead of being interesting as formerly, were of a lugubrious character. On Thursday evening, after supper, he invited the people of the hotel to go to his chamber to take coffee, and he promised to tell them a tale full of dramatic incident. On entering the room, his guests saw on the bed, near which he seated himself, a pair of pistols. 'My story,' said he, 'has a sad dénouement, and I require the pistols to make it clearly understood.' As he had always been accustomed, in telling his tales, to indulge expressive pantomime, and to take up anything which lay handy, calculated to add to the effect, no surprise was felt at his having prepared pistols. He began by narrating the loves of a young girl and a young man. They had both, he said, promised, under the most solemn oaths, inviolable fidelity. The young man, whose profession obliged him to travel, once made a long absence. Whilst he was away, he received a legacy, and on his return hastened to place it at her feet. But on presenting himself before her he learned that, in compliance with the wishes of her family, she had just married a wealthy merchant. The young man thereupon took a terrible resolution. 'He purchased a pair of pistols, like these,' he continued, taking one in each hand, 'then he assembled his friends in his chamber, and, after some conversation, placed one under his chin, in this way, as I do, saying in a joke that it would be a real pleasure to blow out his brains. And at the same moment he pulled the trigger.' Here the man discharged the pistol, and his head was shattered to pieces. Pieces of the bone and portions of the brain fell on the horrified spectators. The unfortunate man had told his own story."
We find in the Evening Post the following notice of the citation of Mr. G. P. R. James in the courts, under the head of "Brown Linen against Law Calf:"
"Immediately previous to the sort of intermittent equinoctial which has recently prevailed, the full bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, presided over by Chief Justice Shaw, were at session at Lenox, in the county of Berkshire. Among the cases that were brought up for adjudication, was an action of trespass quare clausum fregit, brought by a farmer against a number of individuals, who in common with many others, had, at a time last winter, when the public highway was rendered impassible by ice and snow, made a temporary road over the farmer's grounds without leave or license first had and obtained. Mr. Sumner, of Barrington, the leading counsel of the county, appeared for the defence, and in enforceing his views, took occasion to read from Macaulay's late History of England, several passages to illustrate the state of land communication in that county, at the time of which he writes. From that author it appears that upon one occasion, worthy Mr. Pepys, our friend of the 'naif' diary, while travelling somewhere (we think in Lincolnshire, but have not the book before us for reference), got his 'belle voiture', as Cardinal Richelieu used to call his antediluvian vehicle, stuck in the mud so that it could not be extricated, and Mr. Sumner went on to argue, that by the common law, Mr. Pepys then was, and anybody now is, justified, in cases of necessity, in passing over private domains without becoming liable to the owner in damages. Mr. Porter, recently District Attorney, was for the plaintiff, and, in answering that part of his adversary's argument, to which we have above alluded, claimed the indulgence of the court to state, that a certain author had been quoted upon the other side, who had hardly as yet been recognized as authority in a court of justice, upon a mere law question, at least; that such being the case, he claimed the liberty to read from another writer, the late historiographer royal of Great Britain, a gentleman whose statements were certainly entitled to overrule the others in a question of that sort; and thereupon Mr. Porter commenced reading the first chapter of Mr. G. P. R. James's new novel of 'The Fate,' in which he so indignantly denounces the falsity of Macaulay's picture of the social condition of England two centuries ago. This created no little merriment, both on the bench and among the gentlemen of the robe, all admitting that it was the first time within their knowledge, that the black linen and the brown paper had usurped the place of the consecrated law calf, before an American tribunal at least."