ness to his son, the present duke of Orleans. He delighted to hear him spoke of, and it was easy to perceive the joy he felt when the conversation turned on the eminent qualities of this prince, and on the prowess he shewed in the army.

But what must render the imemory of the duke ever dear to France, was a most extensive charity, and an enlightened zeal for the public good, and the interests of religion. The indigent of every age, sex, and condition, were certain to receive relief from him. He heard their complaints every day, in one of the halls of the convent of St. Genevieve, he sympathised with them, he alleviated their distresses; when it was not in his power to dismiss them entirely satisfied, one might see that his heart granted them what necessity obliged him to refuse. It is hardly to be imagined what sums this pious prince expended in placing children for education in colleges and nunneries, in portioning young women, endowing nuns, putting boys apprentices, or purchasing for them their freedoms, setting unfortunate tradesmen up in business again, and preventing the ruin of others, maintaining officers in the service, or granting assistance to their widows and children, restoring and supporting noblemen's families, relieving the sick, and paying surgeons for their attendance on them. The wounds of some he examined himself, and other poor men he sought himself in the chambers and garrets, attended by only one

servant.

The overflowing of the Loire, in 1733, having done considerable damage to the country of Orleans, the duke saved, by the immediate relief he afforded them, a number of

families who were perishing; he supplied them with seed for their land; in 1739 and 1740, he set no bounds to his beneficence. On being told that the austerities he practised would impair his health, he would answer with a smile, "it is so much saved for the poor," whom he termed the courtiers of the Lord; and added he would not serve his body at the expense of his soul.

His great mind embraced the needy of all countries. He relieved the poor Catholics of Berlin, and of all Silesia, as well as those of the Indies in America. He sent missionaries to the remotest parts of the world. He founded charity-schools, and communities of men and women in several places, a college at Versailles, a professorship of divinity in the Sorbonne, to explain the original text of the sacred scriptures; he rebuilt colleges and seminaries. At Orleans he established hospitals for lying-in women. He employed many skilful surgeons in the ser vice of the poor. He made great improvements in physic, agriculture, arts, and manufactures. He purchased, and made public, a variety of useful remedies. His gardens were filled with medicinal plants of all sorts, brought from the most distant climates.

Nor did his charitable offices ob

struct his progress in literature. He applied himself to the study of the writings of St. Thomas, of Estius, of the most excellent religious treatíses, of the fathers of the church, and of the best ecclesiastical writers, of the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Greek tongues, to convince himself more and more of the fundamental principles of his faith; the economy of religion had struck him to such a degree, that he was ever firm

in the faith, and often said, "that the perusal of impious treatises never excited in him the least doubt of the truth of the Christian mysteries, and that the belief of these mysteries never disturbed his mind." He also devoted some of his time to the study of history, geography, botany, chemistry, natural history, philosophy, and painting, all useful sciences; the progress he made in literature is scarcely to be credited. In the seven or eight last years of his life, he could repeat, without book, the texts of scripture, with the differences between the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Vulgate. He understood the Greek as well as the Latin fathers. He could translate, with ease, the dialogues of Plato, and other profane authors. Some, who heretofore would never believe the duke had attained so much knowledge, can now testify the truth of what we have advanced. It must be considered, that he had a quick and piercing genius, and that during the space of twenty-five years he studied many hours every day, chose the best masters in every kind of learning, and conversed with the learned of every country on such subjects as were most familiar to them. He honoured them all with his protection, encouraged them by his favours, and always preferred those whose inquiries tended to the advancement of virtue and the public good. He gave the Abbé Francis a pension, which he has continued in the codicil of his will, explaining thus the motives for so doing: being willing," says he, courage the Abbé Francis, to whom the public are under great obligations for a modern work upon the proofs of our religion. and being willing to enable him to continue

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his so useful labours, I give and bequeath to the said Abbé Francis an annuity of 1500 livres." Those who excelled in nothing but the belles lettres and in poetry, had seldom access to this prince. An enemy to praise, he feared they might again revive the taste he had for French poetry; for sometimes he had made verses, and received no small praise for them. The Abbé l'Advocate (to whom we are principally indebted for this account) tells us he has seen pieces of his composition, which, though elegant and pretty, the duke afterwards threw into the fire. Sensible of the importance of time, he took care to improve every minute. When artists or learned men waited on him, they were admitted into his presence immediately; and if he appointed them to attend a certain hour, and other business would not permit him to see them, he sent bis servant to let them know it, and save them the trouble of waiting.

Notwithstanding the immense sums which he dispersed at home and abroad, he discharged the debts of his ancestors, retrieved the exhausted finances, and considerably augmented the demesnes, of his house. Humble and modest in private life, he was splendid and magnificent in public. He went, with the utmost pomp, into Alsace, to marry the queen by proxy. He behaved with becoming dignity when colonel-general of the French infantry. Cheerful and innocent in common conversation, he was ever serious on subjects of importance. He never spoke ill of any absent person, nor would he suffer others to do it in his presence. Ever equitable, even at the expense of his own interest, he thanked a pri

vate man, whom he had furnished with money to go to law against himself, and who had gained his cause, for having saved him from the guilt of injustice.

The delight he found in piety and devotion he used thus to express: "I know by experience that sublunary grandeur and sublunary pleasure are delusive and vain, and are always infinitely below the conceptions we form of them; but, on the contrary, such happiness and such complacency may be found in devotion and piety, as the sensual mind has no idea of." His piety was real and solid. "Zeal, he would say, must be enlightened. Zeal and prudence ought ever to go hand in hand."

The duke, being once solicited by a nobleman to discard one of his officers from his service, because he was dissolute in his conduct, and would sometimes inveigh against religion, answered him with spirit: "Learn, sir, that the king ought not to deprive the state of an excellent officer, because his morals are not so good as could be wished, and he has not so great a veneration for religion as one could desire. Immorality and vice should be discouraged as much as possible, but his majesty must not, for things foreign to the service, deprive officers of their employments.'

"

His intense application to study, and his severe abstinence, at last occasioned a long and painful illness; the news of which being spread abroad, threw all France into consternation. The church of St. Genevieve was filled with people of all sorts, who offered up fervent prayers for the restoration of his health. The duke foresaw and waited for death with the greatest

fortitude and composure: he spoke of it, as of the demise of another person, to those about him and in his last will he expatiates in the most pathetic manner on his belief in the resurrection. Notwithstanding his ill health, nobody could persuade him to sleep more than he was used to do; when any one represented that it was absolutely necessary, and that he should change his straw bed for a softer one, he replied, "Physicians have no concern for the soul, they only care for the body. When a man draws near his dissolution, his zeal should increase. "Tis in the arms of selfdenial that a true Christian is to die: I have always made it a part of my penitence to sit in an uneasy posture: I am resolved to persist in it to my last moments, for I have not yet practised mortification enough." In his will he expresses himself much in the same manner. In his last moments, he was solely intent on God, nor did he cease to implore his blessing for the duke of Chartres. "I have a son (said he to the minister who attended him) whom I am going to commend to the all-perfect Being: I entreat God that his natural virtues may become Christian graces; that the qualities which gain him esteem, may be serviceable to his salvation; that his love for the king, and his love for me, may be the blossoms of that immortal charity, which the holy spirits and blessed angels enjoy."

The duke was steady to the plan he had prescribed for upwards of twenty years. He was ever anxious for the propagation of religion, and for the public good. He died on the 4th of February, 1752, aged forty-eight years and six months,

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beloved by good people of all sorts, lamented by the poor, the sick, the unhappy.

He left behind a great number of writings, the chief of which are, 1. A translation and comment on some part of the Old Testament. 2. A literal version of the Psalms, from the original Hebrew, with notes and a paraphrase. This work is the most complete, which our pious and learned prince has left; in his last illness he was employed in it, and finished it but a few days before his death; it is full of great erudition and sound criticism it contains a number of very curious and useful remarks: in one place, he proves clearly, that the Greek annotations on the Psalms, which are found in the Catena of father Cordiers, and go under the name of Theodorus of Heraclea, are of Theodorus of Mopsuest; a discovery which this learned prince first made, and which we must attribute to his deep penetration. 3. Several dissertations against the Jews, to serve as a refutation of the famous Hebrew book, entitled Kisouch Emouna. i. e. The Buckler of Faith. The duke of Orleans, not satisfied with Gousset's refutation of this book, undertook to answer it himself, but did not live to complete the design. His manuscript, though incomplete, is far superior to Gousset's. He has examined and refuted the objection of the Jews. 4. A literal translation of the Epistles of St. Paul from the Greek, with a paraphrase, annotations, and useful remarks, 5. A treatise against theatrical exhibitions. 6. A solid resolution of the large French work, entitled the Hexaples. 7 Several other treatises and cu

rious dissertations upon divers subjects. His modesty would never suffer him to publish any of his writings: he bequeathed them, with his library, to the order of Dominican Friars, and by his will, left that order full liberty to add, retrench, suppress, or even employ his writings, as materials in the composition of such works as they might undertake upon the same subjects. For the writings of St. Thomas he had a particular esteem, and this esteem he testifies, even in his last will.

One might easily fill a large volume with a detail of his royal highness's piety, his learning, his charity, and benevolence. It must be observed, however, that what is related in this account, is not collected from popular reports. The gentleman, from whom this is taken, was admitted often into his company, from the time of his retirement to his death; and had ocular proof of many things here mentioned.

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