e at once banished the traitor Von Hompesch
from the island, and perhaps it was necessary in order to save his life,
which the native population did not hesitate to threaten openly. He
retired to Trieste, after receiving a princely fortune from France. This
was in 1799. His death occurred in 1805, at Montpellier, in the
sixty-second year of his age. He is dismissed from history, disgraced
and forgotten.

The successor of this unknightly leader of the order was the Emperor
Paul I., of Russia, who was chosen as a _dernier ressort_. He was
solemnly inaugurated, but was never more than nominally Grand Master.
His election to the office was so manifestly an incongruous act, that it
remained unrecognized. When the French established themselves in Malta,
a number of the Knights took refuge in St. Petersburg, and there elected
the emperor to the post even before Von Hompesch had formally resigned
the office. Paul made several vain attempts to reestablish the Knights,
inviting the nobility of Christendom to enlist in the ranks of the
ancient order. Success did not follow his efforts to this end.

The Knights were seen no more in Malta, though up to the arrival of the
French they had been sovereign in the islands for two hundred and
sixty-eight years. Twenty-eight successive Grand Masters had presided
over them here, from L'Isle Adam to Von Hompesch.

The new masters of Malta made themselves odious to the people of the
island by their reckless pillage and rapine, so that the French name has
ever been held in abhorrence by them. The soldiery invaded the sanctuary
of domestic life, and the honor of maid or mother was recklessly
sacrificed by brute force to their vile appetite. We have referred in
these pages to the faldetta, which is worn by the women of Malta. There
is a legend relating to this article of dress which occurs to us in this
connection. It is to the effect that after Valletta was seized by the
French troops, the women registered a solemn vow that, in memory of the
brutal treatment they had received at the hands of the licentious
soldiery, they and their descendants should for the period of one
hundred years dress in black, whenever they appeared upon the streets,
and that all should wear a distinctive hood, which is called the "hood
of shame."

The local customs of the Maltese were outraged, and the legal code
interfered with, by the French. Among other acts they abolished all
titles, altered the laws affecting th