It was premature of the Marine to shout and
swagger before lie was fairly out of the wood.
A storm was brewing which he little expected.

Honorade Venelle, his real wife, had
prudently kept quiet during the lawsuit, having,
doubtless, been led to expect that, when once it
was gained, her silence would be handsomely
recompensed. It is probable that the Marine,
puffed up with a victory which he regarded as
final, sent adrift the former companion of his
joys. She, however, although she might have
winked at his infidelity had it been softened
by the promised salve, had no notion of losing
at once her money-reward and her husband.
Possibly the Rollands and the Tardivis got
wind of her anger, and turned it to their own
account; for at the very same time that they
took the only step now open to them—an
appeal to the Privy Council to reverse the
sentence—Honorade accused the traitor of bigamy.
That done, she disappeared—her wisest plan;
for the Court of Aix, smitten on the cheek by
her claim to be the new De Caille's wife, im-
plying that he and Pierre Mège were one and
he same, ordered her to be arrested and put in
prison.

The king's Privy Council had not, like the
present Court of Cassation in Prance, a
definite power and jurisdiction. Favour availed
more with it than justice. In this case it was
considerably influenced by a diplomatic
incident occasioned by the contemptuous disregard
with which the Tribunal of Toulon and the
Court of Aix had treated legal documents duly
authenticated in Switzerland. The result ar-
rived at, after long argumentation, on the 17th
of March, 1712, was, summarily, that the
soldier of marines was not Isaac le Brun de
Castellane; that he was forbidden henceforth to
assume that title and quality, or to trouble the
said Le Gouches and Tardivis in the possession
and enjoyment of the goods left by the said
Scipion le Brun and Judith le Gouche, under
pain of a fine of one thousand livres; that the
said Pierre Mège, called in the suit the soldier
of marines, be taken bodily and conducted to
the prisons of the Conciergerie du Palais, to
be heard and interrogated concerning the facts
touching the crime of bigamy.

Poor Magdelaine Serry, the victim of her
parent's greed, sent in a demurrer to this
decree, supported by the arguments of able
counsel; but it availed her nothing, except to
delay Mège's trial for bigamy. He was greatly
surprised at being caught in that way, for he
fancied himself safe from all attacks, except those
which concerned his imposture. And he cheated
justice, after all, by dying in prison before
sentence could be pronounced upon him.

Gayot de Pitaval, who followed and reported
the long lawsuit, if not clearly and concisely, at
least with good sense, had occasion to visit
Mège in prison. He had with him there a
long conversation, the details of which,
unfortunately, he has not given, He contents
himself with simply stating that he twisted himself
into a hundred shapes, in order to get at the
bottom of the rogue; but that the latter, more
slippery than an eel, avoided every admission
that could compromise himself. "All that I
could discover," he adds, "was that he was
gifted with extraordinary cunning, hiding itself
under apparent stupidity."

A detailed description of Mège's person,
drawn up by medical and surgical experts, to
ascertain what resemblance he might have to
any of the De Caille family, does not convey
the impression that either Honorade or
Mademoiselle Serry need have been inconsolable
for his loss:

Puny frame, weakly constitution, lean and
thin; shrill voice; effeminate expression of
countenance; dull white, colourless, and pallid
skin; Socratic nose; thin lips, the lower one
protruding; pointed chin; very scanty beard;
watery lacklustre eyes, approaching nearer to
olive-green than to any other colour; besides
sundry other corporeal peculiarities much too
curious to mention.

What was most strange, and what must have
been most displeasing to behold, was that one half
of his face (and, indeed, of his person generally)
was dissimilar to the other half; one nostril
was larger than the other; one cheek-bone
(both high) higher than the other; one eyebrow
garnished with twice as many hairs as the other.

FAREWELL SERIES OF READINGS

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END OF THE NINETEENTH VOLUME.