he Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Millin had brought up from boyhood, and rescued from poverty and
obscurity, a lad of the name of _Mention_. This lad lived with him
many years, in the capacity of a valet and private secretary. In his
second and last voyage to Italy, Millin declined taking him with him,
but left him at home, in his house, with a salary of fifty francs per
month. Five months after his departure, in February, 1812, a great
quantity of smoke was seen issuing from the windows of Millin's
apartments. Several people rushed into the room. They found the
drawings and loose papers taken from the portfolios, rolled up
lightly, and the room on fire at the four corners! A lighted candle
was placed in the middle of the room. Suspicion immediately fell upon
Mention. They ran to his bed chamber: found the door fastened: burst
it open--and saw the wretched valet weltering in his blood ... yet
holding, in his-right hand, the razor with which he had cut his
throat! He was entirely dead. Millin's collection of Letters from his
numerous Correspondents perished in the flames.

This accident, which also deprived Millin of a fund of valuable
materials that he was preparing for a _Dictionary of the Fine Arts_,
and for a _Recueil de Pieces gravees Inedites_--might have also had an
infinitely more fatal tendency: as it occurred _within_ the walls
which contain the ROYAL LIBRARY! Millin received the news of this
misfortune, in Italy, with uncommon fortitude and resignation. But
this second voyage, as has been already intimated, (see p. 260)
hastened his dissolution. He planned and executed infinitely too much;
and never thoroughly recovered the consequent state of exhaustion of
body and mind. As he found his end approaching, he is reported to have
said--"I should like to have lived longer, in order to have done more
good--but God's will be done! I have lived fifty-nine years, the
happiest of men--and should I not be ungrateful towards Providence, if
I complained of its decrees?!" And when still nearer his latter
moments--he exclaimed: "I have always lived, and I die, a Frenchman:
hating no one: complaining only of those who retard the cause of
reason and truth. I have never, intentionally, hurt a single creature.
If I have injured any one, I ask pardon of him for the error of my
understanding." He die