cions being aroused, they fearched attentively, and found feveral difmembered parts of a human body. The head and face being seen by an aged woman, she instantly exclaimed, "It is poor Ann Smith, the ballad-finger."

The manner in which the deceased was cut to pieces, occafioned a countryman to obferve, that the act was pro- bably perpetrated by a butcher; and the ferocious difpofition of Thorley excited a fufpicion that he was the person, though he had affifted in the fearch for the body, and expreffed a strong deteftation at the conduct of the unknown murderer. His general character was bad, and his practice of eating raw meat, induced the countryman to imagine that Thorley might have concealed the flesh in fome barn for food. Under the influence of this idea, he fearched the cottage of the old woman in whofe cuftody the flesh had been left, and who was perhaps known as an acquaintance of the murderer, and was then, as far as she was concerned, informed of the foregoing particulars.

The scattered pieces of the body were produced; and the man seeing they were not briftly, as a fcraped pig would have been, conveyed them to a furgeon, who immediately pronounced them to belong to fome human body.

Thorley being foon afterwards apprehended, acknowledged the perpetration; and being queftioned as to the motive that influenced him to commit fuch a horrible murder, answered, that, “ having frequently heard that human flesh refembled young pig in taste, curiofity prompted him to try if it was true." During his imprisonment and trial he behaved with the greatest indifference, and at the gallows only enquired if the executioner intended to ftrip him; when receiving an answer in the negative, he displayed a flight degree of fatisfaction. His body was hung in chains on a heath near Congleton.

The witneffes on his trial remarked that he had never fhewn any marks of infanity, and feemed convinced that

VOL. I. No. 3.

R

extreme

extreme avarice was the principal inducement to the commiffion of this fingularly favage act of diabolical cruelty. He was executed on the 10th of April, 1777.

Reading.

From the Octavo Edition of King's Vale Royal.

C. H.

An Extraordinary Account of the Remarkable Trial and Ext cution of FRANCIS RAVAILLAC, for the Murder of HENRY IV. (furnamed the Great) KING OF FRANCE, A. D.

1610.

THAT enthusiasm and mifguided zeal in religion will prompt its votaries to commit the most execrable facts (of which we have too many inftances in every fect) the affaffination of Henry IV. king of France, is a flagrant proof. Francis Ravaillac, the perpetrator of that horrid deed, was an unmarried man in the thirty-fecond year of his age, born of poor parents (who were then alive) at Angoulême; where he practifed as an attorney, and kept a fchool. He had been admitted, by father Francis St. Mary Magdalen, a laybrother among the Feuillants, begging friars of the order of St. Bernard, but only wore their habit about fix weeks; they having turned him out, on account of his being dif turbed with extraordinary vifions, the common effects of a diftempered brain. Afterwards, he defired to be received among the Jefuits; but was told, they admitted none who had been of any other order.

He confeffed on his trial, that he had travelled three times to Paris (diftant above an hundred leagues) from Angoulême; and had, the last time he came, returned homewards as far as Eftampes. But, whether his not having access to the king (whom, he faid, he wanted to admonish) or his heart's failing him, the three times he had been at Paris, prevented the execution of his barbarous defign, he came back thither, fully refolved to accomplish it. His

motives

HENRY IV. KING OF FRANCE.

123

motives to this impious parricide, he confeffed, proceeded from an apprehenfion, that the king was going to make war against pope Paul V. (though Henry then was, and intended to live, in good terms with him) and to remove the papal fee from Rome to Paris; that he was too dilatory in endeavouring to bring back the Hugenots to the church of Rome; and that he had not permitted juftice to be done upon the Calvinifts, for the attempt they had made, at Christmas 1609, to murder all the Roman Catholics.

Henry, it feems, had fome prefages of his fate: for upon divers occafions, he dropt fome expreffions to the queen, the duke of Guife, the duke of Sully, the marshal Baffompierre, and others, indicating a certain inward dread of what was to befal him. And although he appeared unufually gay at the coronation of the queen; Mary de Medicis, on Thurfday the 13th of May, at St. Dennis; yet after the ceremony, his words plainly fhewed, that his mind was disturbed and when he returned thence to the Louvre, he was uneafy and restless, and inftead of fleeping, was most part of the night upon his knees in bed at prayer. When he rose on the morning of the fatal 14th of May 1610, he retired to his closet to his devotions, where he ftaid longer than ordinary; and in the forenoon, going to hear mass at the convent of Bernardins, he ftaid longer there, and was obferved to be more fervent than ufual in his devotions. After dinner, he was penfive, melancholy, and difturbed, and could not stay a minute in one place: and his words were fuitable. He laid himself twice down upon his bed, but could not compofe himself to fleep. At four of the clock, being advised by the exempt of the guard, that he would be the better of a little air, his majefty ordered his coach to be got ready, to carry him to the arsenal, to visit the duke of Sully, who was then indifpofed. He was accompanied in the coach by the duke of Epernon, who fat

on his right hand; the marshals de Lavardin and Roque laure, who fat near the right boot; the duke of Montbazon and the marquis de la Force, who fat on his left hand; and by the marquis de Mirebeau, and Du Pleffis Liancourt, first master of the horfe, who fat near the left boot, oppofite to him. As the king entered the coach, perhaps reflecting upon fome aftrological prediction of the fatality of the day, he asked the day of the month. One faid, it was the 13th; another said, it was the 14th: You are right, faid the king, you know your almanack better than he: and laughing, faid, between the 13th and 14th; and bade the coachman drive on. Unfortunately, when the fieur de Vitry, the captain of the guards, begged his majefty's permiffion, as he was going to the coach, to accompany him with the guards, he would not have them; and ordered Vitry to go and haften the preparations at the palace for the queen's public entry into Paris, which was to have been on Sunday the 16th, fo that his coach was attended only by a few gentlemen on horfeback, and fome of his footmen. The king's ordering all the curtains of the coach to be drawn up that he might fee the preparations making in the city for the queen's entry, likewife facilitated Ra vaillac's attempt.

When his majesty's coach turned into the then narrow ftreet Férronnerie, and made more fo by the little shops erected against the church-yard of St. Innocent, it was ftopped against the office of one Poutrain a notary-public, by two loaded carts. Here all the footmen, but two, took an eafier way to the end of the ftreet; and whilft one of them went to make way for the coach, the other was fastening his garter.

Ravaillac, who had been at the Louvre, when his majesty took coach, with intent to have killed him there between the two gates, but had been disappointed by finding

the