The Jew stopped to hear no more; but uttering a loud yell, and twining his hands in his hair, rushed from the room and from the house.

THE LAUREL, THE ROSE, AND THE VINE.

THE POISONERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

BY CEORGE HOGARTH.

AMONG the assassinations committed by means of poison during the period when that crime was so prevalent throughout Europe, was that of Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans. That she thus perished seems beyond a doubt; though the cause of her murder, and its perpetrators, are involved in some degree of mystery, which cannot now be entirely cleared up. Her death, however, was attended with circumstances which afforded room for strong presumptions on the subject.

The Princess Henrietta Anne of England, was the daughter of Charles the First and his queen Henrietta Maria. She was the child of adversity from her very cradle. In the desperate fortunes of her father, when he was driven from place to place by the forces of the Parliament, his queen accompanied him in all his perils and wanderings, with heroic courage and devoted affection. Finding the time of her confinement approaching, she was forced to leave her husband, and take refuge in the loyal city of Exeter. They parted after a tender farewell, which proved to be their last. In Exeter the queen was reduced to such extremity, that, had it not been for the assistance of the Queen of France, she would have wanted the common necessaries required in her situation. On the 16th of June 1644, her daughter Henrietta was born. The Earl of Essex was advancing to Exeter at the head of a parliamentary army, and the poor queen was obliged to fly before she had recovered from her accouchement. Seventeen days afterwards, leaving her infant daughter to the care of the Countess of Morton, she found means to reach the sea-side, es caping with difficulty the vigilance of the hostile soldiers; and got on board of a small vessel, which was pursued and cannonaded to the very coast of France.

On her arrival at Paris, she was at first received with the honors due to the daughter of Henry the Fourth, and with the appearance of affection to which she was entitled from the royal family of France, her near relations. Soon afterwards the troubles of the Fronde broke out, and the popular party were besieged in Paris by the royal forces. During this time she was not only insulted by the populace, as a member of the royal family of France; but reduced to such want, that she was constrained, as she said herself, to ask charity from the parliament to enable her barely to subsist. In this melancholy situation she received the overwhelming tidings of the tragical death of her husband and, after having in some measure recovered from the shock, she retired to a convent. In this retirement she spent her time in the education of her children; her daughter Henrietta having been some time before brought to her by her faithful governess, Lady Morton. Her retreat, however, did not protect her from the fury ot the insurgent populace, and she returned for safety to her former residence in the Louvre. The young king and the royal family had been forced to retire from the capital, which in conse

quence of the civil war was suffering from dearth; and in this deserted and unprotected state, the Queen of England was reduced to such a state of destitution, that Cardinal de Retz, in paying her a visit, found her sitting in her daughter's room and the young princess in bed. "You see," said the queen, "that I am keeping Henrietta company here; for the poor child cannot get up to-day for want of a fire." "-" Posterity," says the cardinal, "will scarcely believe that the grand-daughter of Henry the Fourth, in the palace of the Louvre, could have heen in want of a faggot to warm her in the month of January!" This unhappy queen's sorrows ended only with her life. She lived to see the restoration of her son, but his conduct in various respects was a source of grief and mortification to her; and, after having resided for some time in England, she resolved to finish her days in her peaceful convent near Paris, where she died in the year 1669, at the age of fifty.

The young princess of England, brought up in great retirement, and educated in the school of adversity, gave indications of a character not often met with in the highest sphere of human life. She was remarkable for the sweetness of her temper, and the unaffected humility of her disposition. Her youthful grace and beauty, her cheerful and affable manners, and elegant accomplishments made her the ornament of the court, and recalled the remembrance of her unhappy ancestress, Mary Stuart. It is said that her mother and Anne of Austria, the mother of Louis the Fourteenth, desired that the young king should marry her, but that he objected to the arrangement, because the princees was not old enough. Soon afterwards the queen-mother proposed to the Queen of England that the princess should marry her second son, Philip Duke of Orleans. The marriage was agreed on; and, on the 31st of March 1661, the young pair were united in the chapel of the Palais Royal.

Before the marriage, the duke treated his betrothed with all man. ner of gallantry and impressement, and his attentions, says Madame de la Fayette, were wanting in nothing but love; "but," she adds, "the miracle of inspiring the heart of this prince with love was beyond the power of any woman in the world."

United to a husband of this disposition, a degree of circumspection and knowledge of the world were necessary, which the secluded educa. tion of the young duchess had not given her the means of acquiring. Gay, inexperienced, and confiding, she fell into imprudences which exposed her to suspicion, and became involved in the intrigues of the corrupt and selfish courtiers of both sexes by whom she was surround. ed, and by whom she was led into some actions which cannot be quite reconciled to the general character which is given of her by every con. temporary authority.

A young nobleman of the court, the Count de Guiche, was at this time high in the good graces of the Duke of Orleans, by whom he was introduced to the duchess, and particularly recommended to her favor and attention. The count was very handsome, remarkably elegant in his mannners and dress, and an adept in the amorous jargon which made up the polite conversation of the day. A young gallant of that time borrowed his language from the romances of Calprenede and Scuderi, and held it essential to his character, as a man of fashion, to entertain a lady with the exaggerated compliments and elaborate

conceits so abundantly supplied by those superfine productions. It was a tone of conversation similar to that which, under the name of euphuism, prevailed among the wits and courtiers of our Queen Elizabeth's days, and is ridiculed by Scott in his character of Sir Percie Shafton. The duchess took great pleasure in the society of this accomplished cavalier, while he appears to have become seriously enamored of the young and fascinating creature with whom he was permitted to enjoy such unreserved intercourse. His deportment and language, at first full of the devoted gallantry required by the manners of the age, gradually gave indications of warmer but less respectful feelings; and the state of his mind, though unperceived by the inexperienced object of his wishes, discovered itself to the more practised eyes of Mademoiselle de Montalais, one of her attendants. The count, however, found means to gain this lady's good graces; and, in place of putting her mistress on her guard against him, she favored his designs, and even undertook to prevail on the duchess to receive his letters. This she at first refused to do; but, overcome by the artful entreaties of her cunning attendant, she was persuaded, not only to receive the count's letters, but to answer them, and even carried her imprudence so far as to admit him to several private interviews.

Of one of these stolen meetings we find an account in the very curious fragments of original letters of Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, the second wife of the Duke of Orleans. "One day," says this lady, "Madame (the duchess), either for the purpose of seeing her children, or of conversing more freely with the Count de Guiche, went to the apartment of Madame de Ch. She had a valet-de

chambre called Launois, who was left on the staircase to give notice in case the duke should make his appearance. Launois suddenly ran in, saying The duke is coming down stairs, and close at hand.' The count could no longer make his escape through the antechamber, as the duke's attendants were there already. There is only one way of getting out, said Launois to the count; go near the door.' Launois then ran to meet the duke, and struck him with his head so violently on the face that he made his nose bleed. My lord,' he cried, in great apparent confusion, I humbly beg your forgiveness. I did not think you were so near, and was running as fast as I could to open the door for you.' Madame and the governess came forward in great alarm with handkerchiefs, which they applied to the duke's face, covering his eyes as well as his nose, and kept about him till the count got to the staircase. The duke thought it was Launois who

had run out of the room."

This story is awkward and suspicious enough; and yet the second Duchess of Orleans, who tells it, does not put upon it the unfavorable construction which it would bear. "I have always been much inclined," she says, "to believe poor Madame more unfortunate than culpable. She had such bad people about her!" This celebrated letter-writer is anything but averse to scandal, and far from charitable in her judgments; and it seems difficult, therefore, to discover whether she is sincere in this exculpatory phrase, or whether, like Mrs. Candor, she believed that the effect of a scandalous story is by no means done away by the addition of a good-natured expression of belief that, after all, there might be no harm in it.

This story rests on the authority of these Letters, at least we have not found it anywhere else. It may therefore be untrue or exaggerated; but the levity and imprudence of the duchess's conduct in her intercourse with the Count de Guiche appear to be undeniable. Their familiarity at last roused the suspicion and jealousy of the duke, who obtained an order from the king, exiling De Guiche to Poland; and Mademoiselle de Montalais was dismissed.

Soon after their marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Orleans had joined the court at Fontainebleau. The king was captivated by the beauty and graces of his sister-in-law, and, it has been said, repented of his precipitancy in declining the proposition of marrying her. She, on the other hand, was pleased with the attentions of a young and amiable monarch; and her intimacy with him, like that with the Count de Guiche, gave rise to a great deal of contemporary scandal. Anne of Austria, afraid of the umbrage which it might give to the queen, remonstrated with her son on the subject; and it violently irritated the jealous temper of the Duke of Orleans. Whatever feelings, however, the king may have entertained towards the duchess, they were soon dissipated by the attractions of Mademoiselle de la Valliere; and indeed there is no reason for believing that there ever was anything more between them than that confidential intercourse which was produced by mutual regard, and sanctioned by near relationship.

A great intimacy had arisen between the duchess and the Countess of Soissons, the celebrated Olimpia Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin. This woman, with the genius for intrigue which distinguished her family, wished to use Mademoiselle de la Valliere as the means of increasing her own influence with the king; and she contrived to persuade the duchess to enter into her views in this respect. Poor La Valliere, however, was a stranger to the arts and intrigues of a court, and could make no use of them either for the sake of her own advancement or that of anybody else. Provoked at this, the Countess de Soissons resolved to ruin her with the king; and it is unfortunately true that she had address enough to draw the duchess into this conspiracy. Their plan was to get La Valliere supplanted in the king's affections by another court beauty, Mademoiselle de la MotheHaudancourt, in whom, when she became the royal favorite, they hoped to find a more docile and convenient disposition. It was through the persuasion of the Count de Guiche that the duchess was induced to join in this base plot; and the Marquis de Vardes, a lover of the Countess de Soissons, assisted in carrying it on. They forged a letter to the Queen of France from her father, the King of Spain, informing her of the liaison of her husband with La Valliere. This letter had its natural effect on the mind of the queen. It was put into the king's hands; and he having spoken of it, and the annoyance it caused him, to some of the gentlemen about his person, Vardes, who was one of them, contrived to throw his suspicions on the Duchess of Navailles, a lady of austere virtue, as having given the queen's father the information which occasioned the letter. Madame de Navailles was disgraced, and the trick remained for some years undiscovered.

The Count de Guiche, on his exile, recommended the Marquis de