Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/409

 9*8. XL MAY 23, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

401

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAT S3, 190S.

CONTENTS. -No. 282.

NOTES : Place of Execution of the Due d'Enghien, 401 Oriel College, 402 Manioc: its Etymology "Bay "= Embankment Perkins of Christ's Pett, 403 Bird of the Soufriere ' Wellington and his Lieutenants' Rainolds or Reynolds, 404 Southey and Mitchell Cely Family " Arciere "Byron and Moore Traherne Clifford's Inn, 405 " Advertise," 40i.

QUERIES : Craig and Hope-Gillygate at York Madras Chaplains Dedication to the Queen of England Moham- med's Coffin in Mid-Air Bibliography of Equatorial Africa Foster, 406 -"The beautiful city of Prague" Norman Settlers in England Blenkinsop Kennedy Bowes Family Houghton Family McMichael -" Temple Shakespeare" Field of C<>ckenhoe Izard Pope and Massacre of St.. Bartholomew, 407 Dudley of Wiltshire Prynne's ' Life of Laud 'English Accentuation Brest- senus, 408.

REPLIES : Verses ascribed to Longfellow, &c. The Magi, 408 Pope self-condemned for Heresy -' Poetry of Wither ' " Dognoper" Maize, its Native Country Synagoga : Chronista, 409 Antiquity of Businesses Robin Hood Vallee's ' Bibliographic des Bibliographies ' Schulze, Organ-builder, 410 " Bagman "=Commercial Traveller Notter Family Pen reth Maori Legend Characters in Fiction "Owl-light," 411 Good Friday in 1602 "Delivered from the galling yoke," &c. Opticians' Signs, 412 Christmas Carols Picture in Berlin Arsenal, 414 Mistakes in Printed Registers Hallowe'en Practice "Peeler" Writing and Language of the Huns Latin Riddle of Leo XIII., 415 Payne Kelynack ' Celebrities and I 'Shakespeare's Geogrphy, 416 " Goes "=P.r- tions of Liquor Thackeray and 'Vanity Fair 'Crawford Hell-in-Harness " Surizian,"417 Stuart and Dereham Dublin Parish Registers Witnessing by Signs Car- lyle's ' Past and Present,' 418.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Payne-Gallwey's 'The Crossbow' Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondents.

PLACE OF EXECUTION OF THE

DUG D'ENGHIEN.

AMONG the many crimes of Napoleon I. none created such a powerful impression in this country as the judicial murder of the young Due d'Enghien, who was cap- tured at Ettenheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden, and, after a mock trial before a hastily convened council of war, was con- demned to death, and was shot in the moat of the fortress of Vincennes in the early morning of 21 March, 1804. Some mistakes have been made as to the actual place where the duke met his death, and as many of the documents in connexion with the case dis- appeared from the archives during the Second Empire these mistakes are not easily rectified ; but sufficient proofs exist of the place where the body was buried, and these are sum- marized in a paper by M. Yvan d'Assof in Nos. 92-93 of L'Ami des Monuments, con- ducted by M. Charles Normand. The paper is accompanied by a plan of the fortress of Vincennes, showing the route taken by the duke to the place of execution, and the spot where he fell and was buried, together with

a photograph of the Pavilion de la Re\ne in the moat, beneath which the execution took place. The exact spot of the execution was in the south moat of the chateau, in the angle formed by the western face of the Tour de la Reine and the curtain wall. The execution took place at three o'clock in the morning, while it was yet dark, and the firing party, consisting of sixteen gendarmes, were provided with a lantern in order to carry out their melancholy task. The body of the duke was hurriedly thrust into a grave in the moat which had been dug beforehand, and the spot was soon overgrown with vege- tation and forgotten. On the restoration of Louis XVIII. the place of the Due d'Enghien's burial was naturally a subject of interest, and measures were taken by the Government to give the body of the duke a suitable in- terment, to provide a monument over his remains, and to place a memorial to mark the place of his execution.

On 20 March, 1816, the eve of the anniver- sary of the death of the duke, a commission appointed for that purpose, having first made the necessary inquiries, proceeded to Vin- cennes and excavated the ground in the moat in front of the tower of the Pavilion de la Reine at the south-east angle of the fortress. After an hour and a half's work a boot was dug up containing the bones of the right foot, and after that the bones of the right leg. The position of these bones led to the discovery of the rest of the remains of the body, which had been thrown brutally into the grave, as it rested on the stomach, the hands being crossed upon the breast, and the legs in a cramped position. The skull was fractured at the base, apparently by a blow from a stone. The flesh had entirely dis- appeared and only the bones remained, which were carefully collected and placed in a leaden coffin, which was enclosed in an oaken casket covered with velvet and ornamented with fleurs-de-lis in silver.

Besides the boots, which were in a good state of preservation, there were found a ring, a gold chain which the duke wore round bis neck, eighty ducats in gold, the remains of a cap, and some hair.

The body, after resting for some time in a room in the fort, which was converted into a mortuary chamber, was interred with great pomp in the Sainte Chapelle of Vincennes, and a monument was erected by the sculptor Deseine in 1821. This monument, which was first placed in the choir, was removed in 1852 to the north sacristy, where it is at present. A red granite column on a black marble base was erected in the moat, to