Note 300 — BOOK X[262]

General François Alexandre Frédéric Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1747-1827) and a peer of France, had been a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1789. He was at the head of a number of charitable institutions, founder of the first savings-bank in France and other benevolent schemes, and extremely popular. He died on the 27th of March 1827, and his funeral coincided with the agitation produced by the Press Law and was marked by painful incidents. The pupils of the Châlons School of Arts and Crafts wanted themselves to carry the coffin, in spite of the prohibition of the police, and a scuffle ensued between the students and the soldiers of the military escort to which, as a general officer, the duke was entitled. In the midst of the riot, the coffin fell into the mud, and the peer's insignia, which lay upon it, were trodden under foot.—B.