444
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. iv. DEO. 2, 1911.
honour, and a committee, consisting of M.
de la Curne, the Abbe Barthelemy, Dupuy
(secretary), M. de Breginguy, M. Auquetel,
and M. Keralio, laboured unremittingly to
find the key to the mystic inscription. Each
member produced a different explanation.
The Academicians, being baffled, consulted M. de Gebelin, author of ' Le Monde Primi- tif ' ; but he refused his assistance. Mean- while the Bellevue Roman stone became the one engrossing topic of Paris. The inscrip- tion was copied upon hand-screens, chimney ornaments, ladies' albums, &c., and entire evenings were spent in deciphering the " all-defying enigma," as it was termed. At length the old beadle of Montmartre said h-3 could solve it, if the Academy gave him a, prize.
A friend introduced the beadle to an Academician, who ridiculed his story, as did another to whom he brought him ; but, persisting, he was invited to meet the com- mittee.
He then explained that this stone con- tained a direction to the people who used to bring asses with baskets for lime, having been engraved by a stonecutter to serve as a g.iide which path to take. It reads : " Ici le chemin des anes" ! all in capitals. A talented lady, writing from Paris, said, " It kept us in constant laughter for nearly a fortnight." It rivals Dickens's story ; truth is stranger than fiction. For the full account see ' The Storm and its Portents,' by Dr. T. L. Phipson, 1878, from p. 29 of which the following facsimile of the stone is copied :
II
E M
I N
I) K
A NE S
L. M. R.
[Dickens's account of the stone which deceived the learned has been compared with Scott's in ' The Antiquary ' of another which received an elaborate Roman interpretation it did not de- serve. But MR. W. A. CLOUSTON at 7 S. xi. 383 quoted from The Weekly Miscellany of Instruction and Entertainment for 1791 the story of a stone with a supposed Roman inscription which was said to have been dug up near Aberdeen " some years " previously. Was the Aberdeen incident earlier or later than the Bellevue discovery ? The question is of interest, and ought to be capable of proof from the records of the Academic des Inscriptions. Did Dr. Phipson verify the details of his account ? It is curious that MR.
W. H. HELM at 10 S. yii. 489 cited from M. C.
Virmaitre's book ' Paris Oubli6 ' this story of
" le chemin des anes " ; but the date of the
discovery at Montmartre was given as 1799, or
eight years later than MR. CLOUSTON'S extract
from The Weekly Miscellany. Two well-known
French writers of the nineteenth centiiry have
also used the anecdote, viz., Eugene Labiche and
Edmond About. See 7 S. xii. 18.]
" SCOTLAND FOR EVER ! "
THE SCOT IN AMERICA.
THE inaugural address of the session of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, delivered by his Excellency the Hon. Whitelaw Reid, on November 1st, on 'The Scot in America and the Ulster Scot,' is of such historic interest that it is worthy of note in ' N. & Q.' Mr. Reid said that both Puritan and Cavalier in the New World had had generous recognition, and it was full time to show appreciation for the pioneer work of the Scot and the Ulster Scot. "The Puritans did not seek a land of religious freedom, nor did they make one. They tried Quakers for heresy, bored holes in thsir tongues with hot irons, and if, after this, any confiding Quaker trusted himself again to th.3 liberal institutions of the colony, they hanged him. They tried old women for witchcraft and hanged them."
The honour of leading the struggle for freedom of speech and of the American press is due, Mr. Reid stated, "to a Scot, Andrew Hamilton, who went in 1695 from Edinburgh to America and rose to be
Attorney-General of Pennsylvania He defended
a New York printer in a trial for libel on the Royal Governor, which was construed as lihel on the King. Hamilton secured an acquittal, and with it the freedom of speech and of the press, ever since enjoyed in America sometimes, perhaps, over-enjoyed."
" The flame of Independence " Mr. Reid also accords to a Scot. " Neither Puritan nor Cavalier kindled the flame for In- dependence." In 1759 Patrick Henry, another Scot, maintained the indisputable right of Virginia to make laws for herself, arraigned the King for annulling a salutary ordinance in the sole interest of a favoured class, and said, " By such acts a king, instead of being the father of his people, degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to obedience." The Court exclaimed " Treason ! " but the jury brought in its verdict against Patrick Henry's clients for one penny, "and thus," said Mr. Reid, *' 'the fire in Virginia ' began." Henry's mother was a cousin of the historian Robertson and of the mother of Lord Brougham. " At
