For some time all went on well between them. The husband was kind and generous to his wife, and the wife showed every sign of unfeigned attachment to her husband. This state of comfort, however, was highly displeasing to Marie's greedy parents, who were not permitted to share the good things of Rapally's house. Under the influence of their vexation, they left no means untried to set the reunited married couple at variance. At length they succeeded. Marie was again alienated from her husband; so much so, that she sought a separation; to obtain which, she brought seven grounds of complaint against him. The six first were, as the court held, frivolous. The seventh was of a more serious nature. It was this. She one day asked Rapally for money to discharge certain household expenses; but, although the request was couched in the mildest terms, he refused it with much angry language: nay, more-he proceeded to violence; he dashed her (so she stated) to the ground, and trod upon her so long and violently, that she several times spat blood. All this took place before witnesses.

Well nigh dead from such usage, Marie, when able to get away, called a coach and went to a surgeon in the Place de Greve. On descending from the vehicle, she began uttering the most

piercing cries, so that a great crowd collected, to whom she explained the frightful treatment received from her husband. The surgeon chanced to be out; but, upon returning, wished to bleed his patient. This, however, she thought proper to postpone; and getting into her carriage, proceeded to the commissary's, and drew up a long complaint against her husband. She then visited the house of a friend, a M. Labrosse, in the Rue de Prouvaires, where a surgeon was called in, who wrote out a statement of her condition. According to his report, he had found three contusions, two upon the arms, and a third close to the breast, which might have proceeded from blows. The magistrate, unsatisfied with this, ordered a second examination, when the result was couched in much the same words; all the medical men however, agreeing that they could see no marks of such violence as could have caused spitting of blood.

Nevertheless, Marie launched into a suit for a separation, and a separate maintenance. In this her evidence was deficient, and she signally failed. Pursuant to the judgment of the court, the alleged cruelties were not maintainable, the marriage was pronounced indissoluble, and the wife was ordered to return to her husband. Home again, no doubt, she went. But here

ends all further recorded knowledge of this intricate and incessant litigation; throughout, indeed, a strange matrimonial history, and a complete enigma.

THE BANDITTI OF THE LOWER AND MIDDLE RHINE AT THE END OF THE LAST CENTURY.

INTRODUCTION.

The following narratives, in illustration of the character, organization, and enterprise of those extraordinary confederacies--the Rhine banditti, are compiled from the public acts of the period, and from the relation of individuals conversant with the scenes described. They will, it is presumed, be found to possess all the interest derivable from the union of subtle contrivance with bold execution,-of audacity of outrage with refinement of cruelty. Not a few of these adventures present attributes of the wild and wonderful.

Many persons yet living remember the sensation caused by the report of some new act of plunder and violence perpetrated by one or other of these marauding hordes, and the terror excited through every class of the community when the astounding details which generally seemed to lend

to the last exploit a character of atrocity peculiar to itself, were made known through official documents, and circulated in popular publications without number. To this day, the circle assembled at the village inn, or round the family fireside, listens with hushed and trembling attention to the adventures of the student Damian Hessel, or to those of the robber chief Fetzer; his Tower on the Rhine, still called Fetzer Tower; his wonderful leap from the windmill; and his quasi-heroic death by the guillotine. So rapid was the succession of transactions of this nature ;-with such consummate address had the perpetrators known how to baffle all the contrivances of police, that nocturnal attacks by armed bands came to be regarded as occurrences beyond human control, and almost as necessary evils to which every family must be subjected in its turn. Happy indeed were they who could boast an entire immunity from inflictions so general and so terrible. The subject concerned every man's private affairs so much more nearly than the great political events which then agitated the continent, that the escape of Fetzer, or an outbreak of one of the large bands, was able to excite a more lively interest than a victory of the Austrians, or the passage of a French corps d'armée across the

Rhine.

The circumstances which contributed to favour