Chapter IV: Part 4

This kind of business, as it was carried on for a number of years, frequently gave rise to accidents, or mistakes, of rather a ludicrous kind. Young men who had letters to carry to the house of St. Lazare, the contents of which they did not mistrust, would often undesignedly charge other persons to carry the same for them, either on account of their going to that part of the town, or for some other reason of a like kind: and the unfortunate bearer, who suspected no harm, had no sooner delivered the dangerous letter with which he had suffered himself to be entrusted, than he was collared, and rewarded for his good-nature by a severe and unexpected flagellation.

Ladies, it is likewise said, who had been forsaken, or otherwise ungenteelly used by their admirers, when every other means of revenge failed, would also recur to the ministry of the fathers of St. Lazare. Either by making interest with other persons, or using some artfully-contrived scheme, the provoked fair one endeavoured to have the gentleman who caused her grief, inveigled into the house of the seminary: at the same time she took care to have a letter to recommend him, sent there from some unknown quarter, with proper fees in it; for that was a point that must not be neglected: and when the gentleman came afterwards to speak with the fathers, he was no sooner found by them, either from the nature of the business he said he came upon, or other marks, to be the person mentioned in the letter they had before received, than they showed him into an adjoining room, where this treacherous and deceitful lover was immediately seized, mastered, and everything in short was performed that was requisite to procure ample satisfaction to the fair injured lady.

It is also said (for a number of stories are related on that subject, and the Seminary of St. Lazare was become for a while an object of terror to all Paris) that schemes of the most abusive kind were in latter times carried on, through the connivance which the fathers began to show at the knavery of certain persons; and this indeed seems to be a well-ascertained part of the story. Abuses of the same kind as those which once prevailed in mad-houses established in this country, were at last practised in the seminary. Men possessed of estates which some near relations wanted to enjoy, or whom it was the interest of other persons to keep for a while out of the way, were inveigled into the House of Lazare, where they were detained, and large sums paid monthly for their board.

FINIS.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

33 ... Memini quæ plagosum mibi ... Memini quæ plagosum mihi
parvo parvo

85 "Itinerarium Cambriæ," wrote by "Itinerarium Cambriæ," written
Sylvester Geraldus, by Sylvester Geraldus,

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Added table of Contents. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.