on,--that "Gotzkowsky arrived in
Leipzig," [Rodenbeck, ii. 77.] and got those unfortunate Seventeen out
of ward, and the contributions settled.

And withal, at Paris, in the same hours, there went on a thing worth
noting. That January day, while Icilius was busy on the Schloss of
Hubertsburg, poor old Marechal de Belleisle,--mark him, reader!--"in the
Rue de Lille at Paris," lay sunk in putrid fever; and on the fourth day
after, "January 26th, 1761," the last of the grand old Frenchmen died.
"He had been reported dead three days before," says Barbier: "the
public wished it so; they laid the blame on him of this apparent" (let a
cautious man write it, "apparent) derangement in our affairs,"--instead
of thanking him for all he had done and suffered (loss of so much,
including reputation and an only Son) to repair and stay the same. "He
was in his 77th year. Many people say, 'We must wait three months, to
see if we shall not regret him,'"--even him! [Barbier, iv. 373; i. 154.]
So generous are Nations.

Marechal Duc de Belleisle was very wealthy: in Vernon Country, Normandy,
he had estates and chateaux to the value of about 24,000 pounds
annually. All these, having first accurately settled for his own debts,
he, in his grand old way, childless, forlorn, but loftily polite to the
last, bequeathed to the King. His splendid Paris Mansion he expressly
left "to serve in perpetuity as a residence for the Secretary of State
in the Department of War:" a magnificent Town-House it is, "HOTEL
MAGNIFIQUE, at the end of the Pont-Royal,"--which, I notice farther, is
in our time called "Hotel de CHOISEUL-PRASLIN,"--a house latterly become
horrible in men's memory, if my guess is right.

And thus vanishes, in sour dark clouds, the once great Belleisle.
Grandiose, something almost of great in him, of sublime,--alas, yes, of
too sublime; and of unfortunate beyond proportion, paying the debt of
many foregoers! He too is a notability gone out, the last of his kind.
Twenty years ago, he crossed the OEil-de-Boeuf with Papers, just setting
out to cut Teutschland in Four; and in the Rue de Lille, No. 54, with
that grandiose Enterprise drawing to its issue in universal defeat,
disgrace, discontent and preparation for the General Overturn (CULBUTE
GENERALE of 1789)) he closes his weary old eyes. Choiseul succeeds him
as War-Minister; War-Minister and Prime-Minister both in one;--and by
many arts of legerdemain, and another real spasm of effort upo