After these preliminaries he bequeaths 16 livres to each of the Convents of the Capuchins, the Augustinians, and the Clares of Chambéry, that they may celebrate masses for the repose of his soul.
He bequeaths his patrimony to his father, praying him to be content therewith as gratitude renders it his duty to dispose of his other possessions in favor of his benefactors.
He leaves 100 livres to the Sieur Jacques Barillot of Geneva; he appoints as his heir Madame Françoise-Louise de la Tour Comtesse de Warens, to whom he declares it his wish to pay over and above this, the sum of 2000 livres to cover the expenses of his board during ten years. Finally he recognizes a debt of 700 livres in favor of the Sieur Charbonnel, a tradesman of Chambéry, for goods delivered and money lent.
The will is signed by Claude Morel (procureur au sénat), Antoine Bonne des Echelles, Jacques Gros de Vanzy, Antoine Bouvard, Pierre Catagnole and Pierre Cordonnier. The seventh witness, Antoine Forraz de Bissy, is declared “illitéré.” This act was registered 22d of July, 1737, in fol. 662 of the second book of the year 1737.
According to all appearance this will was not engrossed, and Rousseau, whose life was so checkered, and who so often changed his domicile, probably forgot all about it, and about the accident which occasioned it, when he drew up his Confessions.
The Journal de Savoie, under date 7th of April, 1820, supplies some curious particulars as to the minutes of the above-named notary, Rivoire, among which were found a power of attorney to Jacques Barillot by Rousseau, to withdraw at Geneva the rights of his mother Suzanne Bernard. This document is dated 12th of July, 1737, and registered on the 15th of the same month.
Rousseau, born at Geneva, 28th of June, 1712, died at Ermenonville, 2d of July, 1778.
Will of Lord St. Leonards
The necessity that there should be some better fashion for the safe keeping of wills, during the lifetime of testators, than at present exists, is, perhaps, more vividly portrayed in the case of the late Lord St. Leonards than in any other on record. In this case we have the loss of the will, not only, of one of the astutest of lawyers, the most orthodox of conveyancers, but of a man who had made it his chief pleasure and study during the last four years of his life to provide for the disposition of his worldly wealth, when his Creator should summon away his spirit from earth, and return his mortal frame to the dust from which He had made it. Moreover, the testator is no less a person than the very ingenious conveyancer, Lord Chancellor of England, and author himself of that famous “Handy-book,” in which men are exhorted in the most convincing manner to make due and thorough disposition of their earthly possessions. Here, during the years he had been engaged in making his will, the greatest care was evinced for the preservation of the precious document, as it was not only kept locked up in a box, but during his Lordship’s illness the Honorable Miss Charlotte Sugden, his daughter, took charge of the box and retained it in her custody until her father should be able to leave his room, when it was replaced by her in its ordinary position, and where it remained until his last illness, when she again took charge of it, and in whose custody it continued until his Lordship’s death in January, 1875. After the solemn ceremony of the funeral this well-cared-for box was opened, but, alas! the will was not there. How this strange circumstance occurred no one has been able to furnish any information; but the loss gave rise to litigation of the most serious character in the Court of Probate. The triumph gained in that court by Miss Sugden in establishing a will, carrying out the wishes of her father, on the simple basis of her recollection of the contents of the lost document, is as wondrous an achievement as any one well could imagine, and testifies to the grave respect with which her evidence must have been regarded by the searching judgment and scrutinizing eye of the learned judge.
Notwithstanding all this, the loss of the will has not escaped the attendance of great and grievous evils, unnecessary to be related.