ealed to the Parliament, and, by continuing the case till after the
death of the Abbe and the Duke, succeeded in obtaining a reversal of the
decision, and the declaration that the claimant was an impostor. Stung
with disappointment at the blighting of his hopes, young Theodore
enlisted in the army, and was slain in his first battle.

The Abbe de l'Epee died at Paris on the 23d of December, 1789, in the
seventy-eighth year of his age. Had he been spared two years longer, he
would have seen his school, the object of his fond cares, adopted by the
government, and decreed a national support. But though this act, and the
accompanying vote, which declared that it was "done in honor of Charles
Michel de l'Epee, _a man who deserved well of his country_," were
creditable to the National Assembly, and the people whom it represented,
yet we cannot but remember the troublous times that followed,--times in
which no public service, no private goodness, neither the veneration
due to age, the delicacy of womanhood, nor the winsome helplessness
of infancy, was any protection against the insensate vengeance of a
maddened people; and remembering this, we cannot regret that he whose
life had been so peaceful was laid in a quiet grave ere the coming of
the tempest.

It is but justice, however, to the French people to say, that no name
in their history is heard with more veneration, or with more profound
demonstrations of love and gratitude, than that of the Abbe de l'Epee.
In 1843, the citizens of Versailles, his birth-place, erected a bronze
statue in his honor; and the highest dignitaries of the state, amid the
acclamations of assembled thousands, eulogized his memory. In 1855, the
centennial anniversary of the establishment of his school for deaf-mutes
was celebrated at Paris, and was attended by delegations from most of
the Deaf and Dumb Institutions of Europe.

But sixty-eight years have elapsed since the death of this noble
philanthropist, and, already, more than two hundred institutions for the
deaf and dumb have been established, on the system projected by him and
improved by his successors; and tens of thousands of mutes throughout
Christendom, in consequence of his generous and self-denying zeal, have
been trained for usefulness in this life, and many of them, we hope,
prepared for a blissful hereafter. To all these the name of the Abbe de
l'Epee has been one cherished in their heart of hearts; and, through
all the future, where