fell from his horse, and pitched against a door, which flew open.  The report of this assassination reached the king’s ears just as he was stepping into bed.  He put on a great coat and his shoes, and repaired to the place where he was informed his constable had been killed.  He found him in a baker’s shop, wallowing in his blood.  After his wounds were examined, “Constable, (said he to him), nothing was or ever will he so severely punished”.  It was given out that Clisson made his will the next day, and there was a mighty outcry about the sum of 1,700,000 livres, which it amounted to.  It should be observed, that during twenty-five years that he was in the service of France, he had sought for and beaten the English every where; that he gained the famous battle of Robeck, and chastised the Flemish; that he enjoyed for twelve years the salary and appointments of Constable; and that, moreover, his landed estate, (which included many castles inherited from his ancestors, in Bretagne and Poitou,) was very considerable.”]

During the Vendean war, the royalists had been driven out of Clisson by the republicans, under the command of a ferocious jacobin.  The town was pillaged and burnt before they quitted it.  Twenty-seven females had, during the battle, concealed themselves among the ruins:  when information of it was given to the troops, who had already quitted the place, they were ordered to return, and the whole of these unhappy women were thrown alive into a well, where they perished!!!  It has since been filled up, and the lonely tree, just mentioned, now records the bloody and inhuman deed.

In the account of Clisson, by a late French author, no notice is taken of this circumstance.  He merely observes, when mentioning the destruction of the place, after the de la Roche-Jaquelin had quitted it, “Les Rives ombragees de la Sevres, si seduisante par ses belles cascades et l’ensemble de ce paysage poetique, feroient de cette contree un sejour delicieux, si de tristes debris, qui heureusement disparoissent tous les jours, ne rappelaient encore le souvenir affligeant de nos discordes civiles.  Les armees Revolutionnaires qui combattirent les Vendeens, en 1793 et en 1794, employerent inutilement pour les reduire le fer et le feu; la flamme atteignit les villes, les villages, les metairies, et jusqu’aux humbles chaumieres; et, dans ce vaste et epouvantable incendie, Clisson ne put echapper a une ruine complete.  Jamais peut-etre cette petite ville ne se seroit entierement reedifie, sans une circonstance particuliere qui contribua puissamment a la faire renoitre de ces cendres”.

In the town of Clisson was born the celebrated Barin de la Galissonniere, Admiral of France, who fought the well-known action off Mahon, in the month of June, 1756, with Admiral Byng, who, in consequence of his conduct on that occasion, was brought to a court martial and shot.  The French writers make the following absurd remark, as to the cause of his fate:  “Les Anglais, furieux d’avoir ete vaincus par un Amiral Francois, firent fusiller l’Amiral Byng”.  It is now well known that he was sacrificed to an unprincipled ministerial faction.