scheme as insensé; but the venality of Barras is now so notorious that a different view may be taken. One Melville of Boston likewise offered to effect peace for £15,000,000, telling Malmesbury that he arranged peace between Portugal and France by giving the Directory ten or twelve millions. The treaty, however, was not ratified by Portugal. As for Potter, he ultimately returned to England, and died in 1817. He was very clever at mental arithmetic.
On the 22nd June 1792, François Bernet, vicar of Sainte-Marguérite, Paris, and chaplain of a section of the National Guards, waited on the Assembly with his wife, Lydia Kirkham, and three children, the youngest an infant in arms. Lydia, of English extraction but born in France, was first the wife of Thomas Lovesuch, a mercer and cap-maker at Popincourt, who fell one night into a sandpit, and died from the effects of the fall. The two elder children were his. Bernet had been twelve years a priest, but had previously been a soldier, and had written against priestly celibacy. Addressing the Assembly, he spoke of his affection for his wife, and said he had been rebuked by the Vicar-General, the Archbishop's deputy, for his marriage, but had replied that nothing would have been said if he had taken a housekeeper. He asked for the repayment of 330 francs which as chaplain he had expended in holding services. "I have married," he said, "this
