but, horror of horrors! that head, that skeleton skull, moved, as those who opened the coffin stood to gaze on its revolting contents, and rolled to and fro by itself!  Dismay seized the spectators, who were about to rush in disorder from the spot, when one more courageous than the rest, laying hold of the skull, shook it violently for some moments, when, from one of the eye-sockets dangled the tail of a rat!  The cause of the strange sounds heard by Morel and others, connected with the church of St. Genevieve, was now obvious; the voracious animal had entered when lean and small, into the head of the deceased marquess, by the eye, but after revelling upon the brain of the unfortunate defunct for some time, had increased to a size which rendered its exit by the same passage impossible, and its efforts at extrication from horrible thraldom, caused the rattling of the disjoined head in the coffin.  It was proposed to saw asunder the skull, in order to free the creature, and the advice of Albert Morel, that the operation should be performed by one of the medical fraternity, who might be glad to witness the fact of a rat being imprisoned in a human head, was cheerfully taken.  Some, however, objected to its being done, without application for leave having been first made to the Comtesse de Villeroi, as one to whom the proprietorship of her deceased husband’s remains naturally and solely appertained, and who might feel it as a cruel insult towards herself, and a sacrilegious violation of the grave of her first lord, the consigning without her knowledge and permission, any part of his body to the hands of a surgeon.  “Tush!” quoth old Morel, “all nonsense that! for if one may believe what has long been town-talk, ’tis little that madame will care for her dead husband now she has a living one who pleases her better than ever he could do, poor man!” The sexton’s arguments were conclusive, and it was agreed at last, that the skull should be carried to Monsieur Nicolais, the celebrated surgeon, who had unavailingly attempted by bleeding, to recover the late marquess from the apoplexy which carried him off.

A large and brilliant party had assembled at the chateau de Vermont, the residence of the gay and opulent Comte de Villeroi and his lady, to celebrate the christening of their first born, when in the midst of a splendid banquet, an alarm was given that the house was surrounded by police and gens d’armes, who required in the king’s name a surrender of the persons of the Comte and Comtesse de Villeroi, they standing attainted of foul and treasonable murder!  The confusion and dismay which seized all parties upon this terrible catastrophe, it is impossible to describe; but it suffices to state, that the Comte de Villeroi was impeached for, and fully committed for trial on the charge of having feloniously aided and abetted Victorine de Villeroi, (late Montespan,) in wilfully and maliciously causing the death of her late liege husband, Herbert de Montespan, by thrusting a long