"Que le titre de Duc de Brunoy ait été donné réellement par Louis XVIII. à Lord Wellington, c'est croyable. Le roi pouvait créer ce duché en sa faveur, sans blesser aucune susceptibilité militaire. Mais que ce prince politique ait pu nommer Maréchal de France un général étranger, auquel il préférait donner le cordon du Saint-Esprit, plutôt que la simple croix de la Légion-d'Honneur, qu'on cherche en vain dans la liste des Ordres dont Lord Wellington fut décoré, c'est plus difficile à croire, à moins que cette nomination n'ait eu lieu avec des reserves et des conditions de secret, qui auraient fort peu satisfait celui qu'on supposait, sans doute, ambitieux d'un pareil honneur, puisque on le lui offrait. Le nombre des Maréchaux fut limité et non augmenté sous la Restoration. Louis XVIII. crea une Maréchale, il est vrai;--Si Lord Wellington fut nommé Maréchal, ce titre, restreint à une qualification honorifique, comme celle de la veuve de Moreau, ne put jamais lui conférer aucun rang dans l'armée Française. Je somme ici le roi d'armes Jarretière de vouloir bien produire le diplôme du noble duc."
No man ever stood less in need of foreign orders than the Duke of Wellington; and no man ever { 284} had so many of them conferred upon him. As he was the last to assume a title that did not belong to him, so he would have been the first to repudiate any such pretension, if put forward by others on his behalf. Allow me therefore to ask, Would it be inconsistent with what is due to the memory of the great Duke, or with our sense of national honour, to undertake the task of clearing up the doubts thus thrown out respecting his claim to the title of Maréchal de France? I believe these doubts have been repeated in other French journals, and that no reply has yet been made to them by the English press.
_Prophecy in Hoveden._--I should be extremely obliged if any one of your numerous readers would give me the following information. In the account given by Hoveden (p. 678. of the Frankfort edition of Sir H. Savile's _Scriptores post Bedam_) of the proceedings during the stay of Richard I. at Messina, that author says:
"Then was fulfilled the prophecy which was found written in ancient characters on tablets of stone, near a vill of the King of England, which is called 'Here,' and which King Henry gave to William Fitz-Stephen. Here the said William built a new house on a pinnacle, on which he placed the figure of a stag, which is supposed to have been done that the said prophecy might be fulfilled, which was to the following effect: