couple of miles wide behind, so
that the coast is not seen till you come close to it. In spite of many
lighthouses and buoys, wrecks are frequent. A mysterious one occurred
last February: the lighthouse watchman showed us the spot--a reef just
below the lighthouse about two hundred yards from the shore.

It was at noon--there was a heavy sea, but not a gale. He saw a large
ship steer full on the reef. She struck, fell over on one side till her
yards were in the water, righted herself, fell over on the other, parted
in the middle, and broke up. It did not take five minutes, but during
those five minutes there was the appearance of a violent struggle on
board, and several shots were fired. From the papers which were washed
ashore it appeared that she was from New York, bound for Havre, with a
large cargo and eighty-seven passengers, principally returning emigrants.
No passenger escaped, and only two of the crew: one was an Italian
speaking no French, from whom they could get nothing; the other was an
Englishman from Cardiff, speaking French, but almost obstinately
uncommunicative. He said that he was below when the ship struck, that the
captain had locked the passengers in the cabin, and that he knew nothing
of the causes which had led the ship to go out of her course to run on
this rock.

The captain may have been drunk or mad. Or there may have been a mutiny
on board, and those who got possession of the ship may have driven her on
the coast, supposing that they could beach her, and ignorant of the
interposed reefs, which, as I have said, are not betrayed by breakers.

Our informant accounted for the loss of all, except two persons, by the
heavy sea, the sharp reefs, and the blows received by those who tried to
swim from the floating cargo. The two who escaped were much bruised.

A man and woman were found tied to one another and tied to a spar. They
seemed to have been killed by blows received from the rocks or from the
floating wreck.

In the evening Ampere read to us the 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' His reading
is equal to any acting. It kept us all, for the first two acts, which are
the most comic, in one constant roar of laughter.

'The modern _nouveau riche,_ said Beaumont, 'has little resemblance to M.
Jourdain. He talks of his horses and his carriages, builds a great hotel,
and buys pictures. I have a neighbour of this kind; he drives
four-in-hand over the bad roads of La Sarthe, visits with one carriage
one da