who, it is said, resolved to effect his ruin. He was accordingly accused, amongst other charges, of having written two anonymous letters to one of the secretaries of state, which contained insults upon the king and his ministers; and likewise of having entered into a conspiracy against the regal authority. Although several persons, accustomed to examine handwritings, asserted the letters to have been written by La Chalotais, the incorrect style and spelling which characterised them render this very improbable. The accused himself energetically denied this charge; and although then imprisoned in the citadel of St Malo, where he was deprived of pen and ink, he nevertheless contrived to compose in his defence three eloquent memorials, and even to have them widely circulated. These memorials were written on scraps of paper which he had found wrapped round his sugar and chocolate, with a pen made from a toothpick, and ink composed of soot, sugar, vinegar, and water. Such was the excitement these memorials created over all France, that although La Chalotais was now in the Bastile, government did not venture to proceed with his trial; but though released from his prison, he was banished to the town of Saintes, and was not allowed to resume his seat in parliament till after the death of Louis XV. During the reign of Louis XVI. less abuses existed; but even the monarch could not always restrain the tyranny of his ministers; of this one striking instance will suffice. The king, wishing to learn the state of public opinion on different points of government, privately instructed Blaizot the bookseller to forward to him, with great secrecy, all the political pamphlets written for or against the state. The Baron de Breteuil, one of Louis XVI.'s ministers, found this out, and had the audacity to cause Blaizot to be thrown into the Bastile by means of a lettre de cachet. Surprised at not receiving his accustomed supply of books, Louis made inquiries, and learned the truth of the case. Blaizot was immediately released, and the Baron de Breteuil severely reprimanded. This shows how inefficient the will of the monarch was in most cases, and how fearful a degree of tyranny was exercised under his name. But the moment was come when this could no longer endure : the Revolution was at hand. The taking of the Bastile in 1789-a memorable epoch in French history-was the first prelude to this important event. THE TAKING OF THE BASTILE. On the 12th of July 1789 it became known in Paris that Necker, the popular minister, had been exiled, and replaced by men obnoxious to the people. The capital was immediately in a flame, and a severe contest took place between the Parisians and the German military on the Place Louis XV. The crowd, though at first driven back, soon rallied, and being assisted by the French guards, was victorious. During the whole of the night Paris was in a state of unusual ferment; and it being reported that on the evening of the 14th the capital was to be attacked on seven different points, preparations were made by the people to resist to the utmost. The position of the Bastile, commanding as it did a considerable portion of the city, was a great impediment to the operations of the insurgents. M. de Launay, the governor of the Bastile, had received instructions to defend himself to the last extremity he was amply provided with arms and ammunition, but he had not provisions for more than twenty-four hours. The people at first only wished to secure his neutrality, and M. Thuriot was sent to prevail upon him to remove the cannon from the towers. M. de Launay replied that, without the king's orders, he could not venture to do this, but that he would withdraw them from the embrasures. Thuriot, who was allowed to inspect the summit of the fortress, vainly endeavoured to persuade the soldiers to surrender: they firmly refused, but promised not to be the first to fire. But though at first peaceable, the disposition of the people soon assumed a threatening aspect: from every quarter of Paris, and especially from the populous suburb of St Antoine, numerous throngs of armed men poured forth in the direction of the Bastile, shouting as they went, "Down with the troops! Down with the Bastile! We will have the Bastile!" The first attack was made upon the guard-house: two of the volunteers having ascended the roof, broke the chains of the great drawbridge with their axes. The assailants followed into the court, advancing towards the second bridge, and firing on the garrison; but they were repelled, and forced to seek for shelter they, however, kept up a brisk and incessant discharge of musketry. The committee having intercepted a despatch intended for the governor, and informing him that succour was at hand, sent another deputation, in order to prevail upon him to admit the Parisian militia. The deputation having reached the outer court, was invited to enter by some of the officers; but intimidated by the carnage of which this court still bore the traces, or mistaking the meaning of the officers, it retired without having delivered its message. The people immediately recommenced firing, and the soldiers in the Bastile answered with deadly effect. The besiegers attempted to set fire to the outer buildings with three wagon-loads of straw, but only succeeded in impeding their own progress. They were obliged to remove the straw, and in doing this received a discharge of grape-shot from the only cannon fired by the besieged during the whole of the contest. At this moment the French guards arrived with four pieces of cannon, in order to take part in the attack. The besieged, who were aware of this reinforcement, were now very much discouraged, and required the governor to capitulate. M. de Launay refused; and suspecting, doubtless, the fate which awaited him, he seized a lighted match in order to set fire to the powder magazine. He would thus have destroyed not only the Bastile itself, but a large portion of the neighbourhood. Two non-commissioned officers fortunately opposed him, and compelled him with their bayonets to leave the spot. It was now resolved by the garrison to surrender: the invalids beat a parley on the drum, and a white flag was hoisted on one of the towers. In spite of these signs, which they perhaps did not perceive, the besiegers continued their fire; but noticing at length the silence of their antagonists, they advanced towards the last drawbridge of the Bastile, and summoned the garrison within to lower it. A Swiss officer having looked out through a loophole, demanded that his comrades should be allowed to leave the fortress with the honours of war. This was refused. He then declared that, provided their lives were safe, they would submit. This assurance having been repeatedly given, the governor gave the key of the bridge, and the conquerors entered in triumph. No sooner, however, was the Bastile in their possession, than they began to massacre the soldiers. A young girl whom they found in a fainting fit, and supposed to be the governor's daughter, they were on the point of throwing into the flames, when she was saved by the interference of a Parisian volunteer. De Launay was forthwith taken to the town-hall, and after receiving innumerable stabs and wounds from his barbarous captors, he was put to death on the way, and his head, severed from the trunk, carried about in triumph. Five of his officers shared the same fate. Eighty-two of the besiegers were killed in the attack, seventyfive, of whom fifteen subsequently died, were wounded, and thirteen crippled. Only seven prisoners were found in the Bastile—a fact which amply proves how much the number of lettres de cachet had decreased towards the end of Louis XVI.'s reign. Of those prisoners, four had been confined for forging bills to an enormous amount; one, the Count of Solange, had been imprisoned at his father's request for his dissipated conduct; and two, whose names were now forgotten, and unknown to the jailors themselves, were insane! Not long after its capture, the Bastile was demolished by order of the local authorities, and a grand ball given on the place where it had formerly stood. As long as the Revolution lasted, the anniversary of the day on which it had been taken (14th of July 1789) was a festival throughout all France; and since the accession to the throne of Louis-Philippe in 1830, the handsome column of July has been erected on the spot formerly occupied by the bastion. At the foot of this column were transferred, a few years ago, the remains of those patriotic citizens who, in the revolution of the three days of July, had fallen in the cause of freedom. PEARLS AND PEARL-FISHERIES. EW, if any, of our readers can be unacquainted with the appearance of the substance which we denominate pearl-a substance which, in its most perfect forms, has ever been held in the highest estimation as an ornament. Commercially, it occurs in two states: in drops or pellets, less or more spherical, from the size of a coriander seed to that of a boy's marble, called pearls; and in small plates or slips of variable thickness, called mother-ofpearl. The former are used in the manufacture of necklaces and head-dresses, or set as jewels in rings, earrings, bracelets, and other articles of personal ornament; the latter is employed in inlaying cabinet-work, in forming knife-handles and buttons, and in the construction of a vast variety of toys and fancy articles. These substances, lustrous and beautiful as they come from the hand of the artist-whether set as a stud on a common shoe, or as a jewel in the crown of royalty-have one and the same origin; are, in fact, the production of ordinary shellfish, the congeners of our vulgar mussels and oysters. It is the object of the following pages to illustrate the formation and natural history of pearls, the modes of obtaining them in various quarters of the world, the manner of preparing them for use, the value which has been set upon celebrated specimens in ancient and modern times, and generally to afford such information respecting them as may at once prove interesting and instructive. ORIGIN AND FORMATION OF PEARLS. If the reader will take the trouble to examine the inside of certain shells-as those of the fresh-water mussel, the pinna, the pearl oyster-or the staircase-shell of the curiosity dealer, he will find their inside coated with a smooth substance of a white, bluish, or yellowish-white colour, and of an opalescent, or rather iridescent lustre. This substance, known to the learned as "nacre," is, in reality, pearl; constituting mother-of-pearl when the shell is sufficiently large and thick to afford a workable plate after the rough outside surface has been ground away. Frequently attached to this nacreous lining are tuberculated pellets, of a form more or less approaching a perfect sphere, of greater hardness and lustre than the nacre to which they are attached, and altogether of greater beauty and attraction. Sometimes these pellets are free and detached within the muscular or fleshy part of the shellfish, in which case they are still more beautiful and perfect in form. These lustrous spherules constitute the No. 167, 1 "pearls" of the jeweller; so called, it is said, on account of their form, from the Latin word spherula; and mother-of-pearl derives its designation as being the source or mother from which the true pearl springs. Substances so unlike the composition of the shells in which they are found, must naturally give rise to speculations respecting their origin; and thus we find in times ere science had determined their real nature, various amusing hypotheses to account for their existence. Pliny, the celebrated Roman naturalist, gravely tells us that the oyster which produces pearls does so from feeding upon heavenly dew, or as Drummond translates him— "With open shells in seas, on heavenly dew A shining oyster lusciously doth feed; Shows, when conceived, if skies look dark or blue." 66 Our own early writers entertained the same notion; and Boethius, speaking of the pearl-mussel of the Scottish rivers, remarks, that "these mussels, early in the morning, when the sky is clear and temperate, open their mouths a little above the water, and most greedily swallow the dew of heaven; and after the measure and quantity of the dew which they swallow, they conceive and breed the pearl. These mussels," he continues, are so exceedingly quick of touch and hearing, that, however faint the noise that may be made on the bank beside them, or however small the stone that may be thrown into the water, they sink at once to the bottom, knowing well in what estimation the fruit of their womb is to all people." In the East, the belief is equally common that these precious gems are "Rain from the sky, Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.' But alas for poesy and romance; the science of chemistrywhich has, with its sledge-hammer of matter-of-fact, converted the all-glorious diamond into vulgar charcoal-has also pronounced the precious pearl to be composed of "concentric layers of membrane and carbonate of lime!" Admitting its composition, the question still remains as to the cause of a substance so dissimilar in appearance to the shell in which it exists, and why it should be present in some shells, and absent in others. Many naturalists have maintained that pearls are the product of disease, or "a distemper in the creature that produces them." This is not the case, however. Pearls may be properly said to be the calcareous secretion of certain animals of the class Mollusca,* which inhabit chiefly bivalve shells-as * In all animals of the class Mollusca, the body itself is of a soft consistence, as its name imports, and is enclosed in an elastic skin, lined with muscular fibres, which is termed the mantle. It is from the surface of this |