An Irish gentleman, whose lady had absconded from him, cautioned the public against trusting her in these words:—"My wife has eloped from me without rhyme or reason, and I desire no one will trust her on my account, for I am not married to her."
The Duke of Biron heard the decree for his instant death pronounced by the Revolutionary Tribunal, 1793, with unmoved tranquillity. On returning to prison, his philosophy maintained that character of Epicurean indifference which had accompanied his happier years; he ordered some oysters and white wine. The executioner entered as he was taking this last repast. "My friend," said the duke, "I will attend you; but you must let me finish my oysters. You must require strength for the business you have to perform: you shall drink a glass of wine with me." He filled a glass for the executioner, another for the turnkey, and one for himself, and went to the place of execution, where he met death with the courage that distinguished almost all the victims of that fearful period.
A Gascon boasted in every company that he was descended from so ancient a family, that he was still paying at that very day the interest of a sum which his ancestors had borrowed to pay their expenses when they went to adore our Saviour at Bethlehem.
There is now living in Pontenovo, in Corsica, a shepherdess, who successively refused the hand of Augereau, then a corporal, and of Bernadotte, then a sergeant in that island. She little dreamt that she was declining to be a marechale of France or the queen of Sweden!
Footnote 1: [(return)]
The Bechnanas imagine that none who eat of the kidneys of the ox will have any offspring; on this account, no one, except the aged, will taste-them. Hence the contemptuous term of "kidney-eaters," synonymous with dotard.
Footnote 2: [(return)]
The warriors receive a new scar on the thigh for every enemy they kill in battle.