THE TEARS OF OYSTERS.

Glancing round this anatomical workshop (the oyster), we find, amongst other things, some preparations shewing the nature of pearls.  Examine them, and we find that there are dark and dingy pearls, just as there are handsome and ugly men; the dark pearl being found on the dark shell of the fish, the white brilliant one upon the smooth inside shell.  Going further in the search, we find that the smooth, glittering lining, upon which the fish moves, is known as the nacre, and that it is produced by a portion of the animal called the mantle; and, for explanation’s sake, we may add that gourmands practically know the mantle as the beard of the oyster.  When living in its glossy house, should any foreign substance find its way through the shell to disturb the smoothness so essential to its ease, the fish coats the offending substance with nacre, and a pearl is thus formed.  The pearl is, in fact, a little globe of the smooth, glossy substance yielded by the oyster’s beard; yielded ordinarily to smooth the narrow home to which his nature binds him, but yielded in round drops, real pearly tears, if he is hurt.  When a beauty glides among a throng of her admirers, her hair clustering with pearls, she little thinks that her ornaments are products of pain and diseased action, endured by the most unpoetical of shell-fish.—­Leisure Hours.

‘ROBESPIERRE.’

In our recent notice of Robespierre, it was mentioned that, at the period of his capture in the Hotel de Ville, he was shot in the jaw by a pistol fired by one of the gendarmes.  Various correspondents point to the discrepancy between this account and that given by Thiers, and some other authorities, who represent that Robespierre fired the pistol himself, in the attempt to commit self-destruction.  In our account of the affair, we have preferred holding to Larmartine (History of the Girondists), not only in consequence of his being the latest and most graphic authority on the subject, but because his statement seems to be verified by the appearance of the half-signed document which it was our fortune to see in Paris in 1849.

The following is Lamartine’s statement:—­’The door soon yielded to the blows given by the soldiers with the but-end of their muskets, amid the cries of “Down with the tyrant!” “Which is he?” inquired the soldiers; but Leonard Bourdon durst not meet the look of his fallen enemy.  Standing a little behind the men, and hidden by the body of a gendarme, named Meda; with his right hand he seized the arm of the gendarme who held a pistol, and pointing with his left hand to the person to be aimed at, he directed the muzzle of the weapon towards Robespierre, exclaiming:  “That is the man.”  The man fired, and the head of Robespierre dropped on the table, deluging with blood the proclamation he had not finished signing.’  Next morning, adds this authority, Leonard Bourdon ’presented the gendarme who had fired at Robespierre to the notice of the Convention.’  Further:  on Robespierre being searched while he lay on the table, a brace of loaded pistols were found in his pocket.  ’These pistols, shut up in their cases still loaded, abundantly testify that Robespierre did not shoot himself.’  Accepting these as the true particulars of the incident, Robespierre cannot properly be charged with an attempt at suicide.