The Sun. — 1848-02-02 (London, England)

VII., and Lord of the Castle of Champtoi6, situated on the banks of the Loire, between Angers and Nantes, which is called "Le Chateau de Barbe Bleu" to the present day. Gilles de Retz professed openly to be one of the most religious of men, and had the service conducted in the chapel of his castle with all the splendour and forms used in cathedrals, but secretly he indulged in the most debauched excesses. Every day young maidens were taken by force from the cottages of their parents, and carried to the castle, from whence none of them were ever known to return. Broken in fortune, he turned alchemist, and according to the superstitions of the period, he was said to have entered into a compact with Satan, and to have stipulated with the Prince of Darkness to pay for his instruction in the forbidden art, by a tributary sacrifice of Christian children. Dr. Taylor is of opinion that Gilles was in reality the dupe of his own superstitions, and like the Goomsoors and Thugs of India ke believed in the efficacy of human sacrifices. A Florentine mountebank named Prelati was his assistant or his instructor in these horrible mysteries, and the cries of the tortured children were frequently heard proceeding from the secret chamber of the castle, the approach to which was forbidden to any of the domestics under pain of death. Gilles was at length arrested, the skeletons of forty children were found in his castle; and he was executed on the 23d October, 1440, "a date," says the historian, "about which there can be no doubt, for all the people of Anjou and Maine, by common consent, whipped their children on that morning, so as to impress the precise date on their memory." Another prototype of Blue Beard is found in Coniorre, Count of Cornouailles, who lived in the country of Vannes, in Brittany, who married seven wives, and murdered them as they were on the point of becoming mothers, and whose guilt was revealed miraculously by the corpse of his last wife. Burgundy sets up a third claimant in the person of the Count of Saulx, who shut up his wife in a den of bears, who, however, caressed her as if they had been lap-dogs. Her brothers hearing of her treatment, attacked the castle of the Count, and killed him just as he had raised his sword to murder their sister. We have some pleasing " Road-sketches of the Inns of France," by J. Marvel, and some pleasant " Reminiscences of Geneva and its Neighbourhood," by Miss Costello. Mr. Warren continues the narrative of his " Adventures on the Amazon," and Cooper gives us another chapter of " Captain Spike." Spike is dying in the hospital at Key West, attended by Rose Budd and Jack Tier, the latter of whom turns out to be a woman, and the wife of Spike, whom he had deserted twenty years before, and who, disguised as a sailor, and assuming the name of Jack Tier, had wandered over the world in search of him. " What Tom Pringle did with a Hundred Pound Note," is the title of a Boz-like sketch of the doings of a clerk of an old house in the City. What Tom Pringle did we shall not tell you, reader, for we would not for the world deprive you of the pleasure of reading the paper and guessing as you proceed as to what may be the intentions of Tom Pringle anent the said 1001. note. It is quaintly illustrated by Leech. The lovers of romance will he delighted with the " Heiress of Budowa," and the lovers of horrors with " The Old Man and his Guests ;" while the laughers at the petty miseries of human life will find ample focal for merriment in the " Difficulties in a Tour to Wiesbaden." There is something to suit all tastes in Bentley this month.