_Noted by John Locke_.
At Lyons, "they showed us, upon the top of the hill, a church, now
dedicated to the Virgin, which was formerly a temple of Venus; near it
dwelt Thomas a Becket, when banished from England.... About half a
league from St. Vallier, we saw a house, a little out of the way, where
they say Pilate lived in banishment. We met with the owner, who seemed
to doubt the truth of the story; but told us there was mosaic work very
ancient in one of the floors." At Montpelier, "I walked, and found them
gathering of olives--a black fruit, the bigness of an acorn, with which
the trees were thickly hung. All the highways are filled with gamesters
at mall, so that walkers are in some danger of knocks.... Parasols, a
pretty sort of cover for women riding in the sun, made of straw,
something like the fashion of tin covers for dishes.... Monsieur Renaie
a gentleman of the town, in whose house Sir J. Rushworth lay, about four
years ago, sacrificed a child to the devil--a child of a servant of his
own, upon a design to get the devil to be his friend, and help him to
get some money. Several murders committed here since I came, and more
attempted; one by a brother on his sister, in the house where I lay."
[This species of crime is therefore not so new in France as recent cases
have induced the philosophical to imagine.]
"At Toulouse saw the charteraux, very large and fine; saw the relics at
St. Sernin, where they have the greatest store of them that I have met
with; besides others, there are six apostles, and the head of the
seventh; viz. two Jameses, Philip, Simon, Jude, Barnahas, and the head
of Barthelmy. We were told of the wonders these and other relics had
done being carried in procession, but more especially the head of St.
Edward, one of our Kings of England, which, carried in procession,
delivered the town from a plague some years since....
"At Paris, the bills of mortality usually amount to 19 or 20,000; and
they count in the town about 500,000 souls, 50,000 more than in London,
where the bills are less. Quære, whether the Quakers, Anabaptists, and
Jews, that die in London, are reckoned in the bills of mortality."--
_Lord King's Life._
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