, and the priest was smuggled into the king's room by the Duchess and
Chiffinch.[98] Now the letters are a verbal acrostic of _Pere Mansuete a
Cordelier Friar_, and a syllabic acrostic of _PortsMouth and ChifFinch_.
This is a singular coincidence. Macaulay adopted the first interpretation,
preferring it to the second, which I brought before him as the conjecture
of a near relative of my own. But Mansuete is not mentioned in his
narrative: it may well be doubted whether the writer of a broadside for
English readers would use _Pere_ instead of _Father_. And the person who
really "reminded" the Duke of "the duty he owed to his brother," was the
Duchess and not Mansuete. But my affair is only with the coincidence.

But there are coincidences which are really connected without the
connection being known to those who find in them matter of astonishment.
Presentiments furnish marked cases: sometimes there is no mystery to those
who have the clue. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (vol. 80, part 2, p. 33)
we read, the subject being presentiment of death, as follows: "In 1778, to
come nearer the recollection of {51} survivors, at the taking of
Pondicherry, Captain John Fletcher, Captain De Morgan, and Lieutenant
Bosanquet, each distinctly foretold his own death on the morning of his
fate." I have no doubt of all three; and I knew it of my grandfather long
before I read the above passage. He saw that the battery he commanded was
unduly exposed: I think by the sap running through the fort when produced.
He represented this to the engineer officers, and to the
commander-in-chief; the engineers denied the truth of the statement, the
commander believed them, my grandfather quietly observed that he must make
his will, and the French fulfilled his prediction. His will bore date the
day of his death; and I always thought it more remarkable than the
fulfilment of the prophecy that a soldier should not consider any danger
short of one like the above, sufficient reason to make his will. I suppose
the other officers were similarly posted. I am told that military men very
often defer making their wills until just before an action: but to face the
ordinary risks intestate, and to wait until speedy death must be the all
but certain consequence of a stupid mistake, is carrying the principle very
far. In the matter of coincidences there are, as in other cases, two
wonderful extremes with every intermediate degree. At one end we have the
confident peop