Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. | Page 6

Vreat.
This strange mode is not altogether confined to the most illiterate
portion of the people. My query is, Does this peculiarity obtain in any
other portion of Scotland?
A. R. X.
Paisley.
Original Letter.--The following letter, written by the French general at
Guadaloupe, when it was taken in 1810, to his conqueror, is an
exquisite specimen of something more than that national politeness
which does not desert a Frenchman even in misfortune. I possess the
original:
Au quartier général du Parc, le 6 Février, 1810.
A son Excellence
Le Général Beckwith, Commandant en chef les forces de sa Majesté
Britannique aux isles du Vent.
Monsieur le Général,

J'ai été prévenu que Votre Excellence se proposait de venir au Parc
demain dans la matinée. J'ose espérer qu'elle voudra bien me faire
l'honneur d'accepter le diner que lui offre un Général malheureux et
vaincu, mais qu'il présente de tout coeur.
Daignez, Monsieur le Général, agréer l'assurance de la haute
considération avec laquelle
J'ai l'honneur d'être, de votre Excellence, Le très-obéissant serviteur,
EMOUF.
EDWARD FOSS.
Erroneous Forms of Speech.--Since you allow your correspondents to
correct such words as teetotal, I hope you will allow me to call the
attention of your agricultural readers to the corruption in the word
mangold, as they now write it. The word is in German mangel wurzel,
root of scarcity. It is wrong to use even such a name as this, in my
opinion, while we have the English name beet, which has the additional
advantage of being derived from the botanical name Beta. But if a new
name must be used, let it, at any rate, be the pure German mangel, and
not the mongrel mangold. Indeed, those who spell the word in the latter
way, ought in common consistency to write reddishes, sparrowgrass,
and cowcumbers for radishes, asparagus, and cucumbers.
E. G. R.
* * * * *
QUERIES.
EUSTACHE DE SAINT PIERRE.
(Vol. vii., p. 10.)
MR. KING'S inquiry reminds me of two Queries on the same subject
which I sent you as far back as the end of 1851, or beginning of 1852.
Those Queries have not appeared in "N. & Q.," and I was led to

suppose, either that you had laid them aside for some future occasion,
or had found something objectionable in the form in which they were
presented. The following is a literal copy.
"There are two circumstances connected with this event (the surrender
of Calais), respecting which I am desirous of obtaining information.
The first has reference to the individuals who offered themselves as
victims to appease the exasperation of Edward III., after the obstinate
siege of {330} that town in 1347. They are represented as six of the
principal citizens; Eustache de Saint Pierre was at their head, and the
names of three others have come down to us, as Jean d'Aire, Jacques de
Wissant, and Pierre de Wissant. Who were the other two?
"The second point relates to the character of that occurrence. Some
historians are of opinion that the devotedness of Saint Pierre and his
associates was prompted by the most exalted sentiments of patriotism;
while others assert that it was all a 'sham,' that Saint-Pierre was secretly
attached to the cause of the English monarch, and that he was
subsequently employed by him in some confidential negociations. To
which of these opinions should the historical inquirer give his assent?"
I may add, in reply to MR. KING, that "the light thrown on the subject,
through M. de Bréquigny's labours," has been noticed in the Biographie
Universelle, sub voce Saint-Pierre (Eustache de); and it was the
remarks in that work that first drew my attention to it. The
circumstances disclosed by Bréquigny are also commented upon by
Lévesque in his La France sous les Valois.
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia.
* * * * *
PASSAGE IN COLERIDGE.
De Quincy, in his "Suspiria de Profundis," Blackwood's Magazine,
June, 1845, p. 748., speaking of the spectre of the Brocken, and of the

conditions under which that striking phenomenon is manifested,
observes that
"Coleridge ascended the Brocken on the Whitsunday of 1799 with a
party of English students from Goettingen, but failed to see the
phantom; afterwards in England (and under the same three conditions)
he saw a much rarer phenomenon, which he described in the following
eight lines. I give them from a corrected copy. The apostrophe in the
beginning must be understood as addressed to an ideal conception:
"'And art thou nothing? Such thou art as when The woodman winding
westward up the glen At wintry dawn, when o'er the sheep-track's maze
The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, Sees full before him,
gliding without tread, An image with a glory round its head: This shade
he worships for its golden hues, And makes (not knowing) that which